weigh-in

i've lost another 2.9 pounds, which means 24.9 left to reach my goal and about 26 weeks. i haven't been great about exercising lately, between my parents being here (they sleep in the basement and i don't think they'd enjoy being awakened by the elliptical above them) and the bad nights we've been having (to work out, i have to get up before emmy, and i've been turning off my alarm clock quite a bit lately). but i've been better about what i eat, and the enormous pile of leftover Christmas cookies is now mostly down to things i don't like, so that'll make it even easier hopefully!
yesterday i saw seven jeans at sam's club (what?!) for a really good price. it reminded me that before i got married, i had decided that if i hit my goal weight, i'd reward myself with a really fancy pair of jeans (my current standard is gap outlet on sale; i don't usually spend more than $30 on a pair). looks like i'm reinstituting that! if only i knew what size i'd be at my goal weight, so i could go ahead and buy them and look at them while i work out:)

New game

Today was quite a bit better. Last night little bean was up for two 45-minute intervals, which wasn't terrible compared to what she's been doing. Then she took an almost 2 hour nap, which seemed to help even more. This afternoon I came up with a great new game for her- I call it Cheerio treasure hunt, and it keeps her occupied quite a while. Probably won't work as well when she's a really proficient walker, but oh well. Basically I threw a bunch of Cheerios on the floor, all spread out, and she went around picking them up and eating them. I had just cleaned the floor, so it was safe:P It was especially good for her because she's been having trouble bending down and then standing back up. She's going to have some rocking thighs now. Cody pointed out that it's a little like something you would do with a pet, but she had fun and she was just so darn cute!

Again?

Yep, we've had another couple of bad nights in a row, which as usual means emmy has also been cranky all day, which makes me cranky too. I got so mad today- I was really hoping she'd take a good nap and it got ruined. Someone from Santana energy or something like that called and woke her up. They called twice in the span of just over an hour, and the second time must have been at a vulnerable time in her sleep cycle. The second time I answered and asked them to take me off their list. The lady asked, "are you on the national do not call list?" YES. Which means you shouldn't be calling me and waking my cranky toddler, who continued to be cranky the rest of te day. Hopefully someday soon my sweet, happy, good sleeping baby will will return. On a happy note, she gobbled a TON of green beans at dinner tonight- all the ones I had made for her plus more than half of my own portion (I replaced them by eating he asparagus she was supposed to have and didn't.)

parent visit

my parents left today after being here a week. it was a pretty good visit, although i would have changed a couple of things about it. first of all, emmy had her 15 month dr visit with shots last tuesday, and she hasn't been herself since. i don't know if it was a reaction to the shots (although i doubt it because it lasted so long), a bug she picked up, or a tooth, or something else, but she's been cranky and not eating well, in addition to the episode i wrote about last time. then there was the fact that we were supposed to be celebrating Christmas with them while they were here, but for various reasons they still had most of their shopping to do, so every day they were out shopping for a couple of hours (they're BIG TIME comparison shoppers). it seemed like they couldn't quite time it right with naptime, so they missed out on a lot of emmy time. and when they were home, my dad spent a lot of his time in the basement trying to keep their dog quiet (they always bring her, but she's really aggressive with other animals, so we insist she stay in the basement, but she has severe separation anxiety and barks or whines a lot of the time). so while they were here for a week, i feel like we barely saw them, and especially that they didn't have any good time with emerson.
she seems to be feeling better today; she finally ate well and played normally rather than just having me hold her all the time. hopefully she sleeps well tonight, last night she had a 2.5-3 hour awake time again:(

Baby's first public puke

Yep, tonight we had a milestone for Emmy- we were at a Mexican restaurant with my parents, and everyone had just about finished eating when she started projectile vomiting. She hadn't eaten much all day or at dinner, but the dinner she did eat was a pouch of spinach/peas, so it was his nasty green color too. The poor little nugget had no idea what was going on and must have been so scared! The staff was all really nice and helpful, which we definitely appreciated. I'm not sure what could have caused it, because she hasn't seemed sick otherwise, unless it was just a delayed reaction to the shots she had Tuesday. What I do know is everything I've heard about mom adrenaline taking over when your kid is sick or hurt is true- she had puke all over her, but I didn't think twice about picking her up and holding her. The gross factor of the whole situation didn't sink in until the car ride home, when I started to smell it (thankfully we weren't far from home). The good thing at least is that after the incident she was super happy and pleasant, so she must have been feeling better!

lessons from stevie

steven curtis chapman, that is. yesterday while i was writing my post, i was thinking of his song "his strength is perfect," which is a take on 2 corinthians 12:9. "his strength is perfect, when our strength is gone/ he'll carry us when we can't carry on..." old school stevie wisdom. then yesterday afternoon, after emmy's nap, the vaccines she got in the morning started to bother her and she became really clingy and cranky and you could just tell she wasn't feeling well. so i turned on some music and sort of danced around with her, which she's liked since she was a teeny baby. a couple of times, i tried to stop and get her interested in a toy or something, partly because my arms were tired and partly because i was getting bored. each time, she'd cling tighter, whine a little, and wiggle as if to say, "keep dancing me, mama!" and so i did. at one point, i started to get really annoyed...and then the song changed, and out of the over 5500 songs i have on my ipod, which i just had playing on shuffle all, stevie's song "cinderella" played- "i will dance with cinderella/while she is here in my arms/cause i know something the prince never knew...all too soon, the clock will strike midnight/and she'll be gone." point well received. i sang the whole song to her at the top of my lungs, and held her a little tighter, and was completely renewed. you see, one day, my sweet little girl that loves to be held by mommy, sometimes a little too much, will be a devilish teenager who is embarrassed by me and does whatever she can to spite me. one day she will move out of our home and begin her own life, and if she's anything like me it will be far away from her parents. one day even sooner, she will decide she has far too many interesting things to do to spend any time in mommy's arms. and these things aren't even going down the road stevie himself went down, when his little girl left him to go home to Jesus. so yes, i will dance with cinderella, and at least for the day, i will remember to choose to enjoy it while i still can.

update

my last post was a little heavy, so i wanted to update and let my audience know that we are hanging in there. emerson has thankfully been sleeping better since i last posted, which makes everything else better too:) in case any of you are in a similar situation with your little ones, i wanted to share this article, which my brother-in-law sent after reading my last post. very encouraging (and timely)!
my parents arrived last night for a visit, so i don't know how much i'll be on here in the next week or so. so far emmy is enjoying her granddaddy and grandmama, and of course they're enjoying her, too! her favorite things to do with them so far are to show them her toys one by one and to have them hold her and walk her around as she points which way to go (a bad habit her other grandparents started:).

misery

you may have noticed that the title and address of this blog is "domestic bliss and misery," because, let's face it, it's not all bliss. in fact, lately it's been almost completely misery. now, just a quick disclaimer: i am about to whine and complain. this is just to vent. i love my family more than words can express, and i haven't forgotten how incredibly blessed i am. nor am i foolish enough to think that my problems, compared to the problems others are facing, are even remotely problematic. that being said...
my child will not sleep. last night was the 6th night so far this year (note that that's out of a total of 13) in which she's been awake for a solid 2-3 hour stretch in the middle of the night. it was also the 3rd of these nights in a ROW. on each of these 6 nights, the only thing that will soothe her is to nurse, which means even on weekend nights daddy can't help out. she nurses way past the point where the milk is gone, and then still every time i go back in to comfort her, she points to the boppy and signs more. if i say no, she screams bloody murder until i finally give up. therefore, i am exhausted and in pain by the time she ever does go back to sleep, and an exhausted liz is not something anyone wants to deal with. last night involved the throwing of a cup and kneeling on the floor sobbing-- both on my part, not emmy's. and not only are the nights bad, the days are sucky, too- we're both tired, which means emmy throws more tantrums and whines most of the time, and my patience is worn thin because of how tired i am. so then by the time she goes down for a nap, i'm desperate for one, too...only with the length of nap she's been taking lately, by the time i do some bare minimum clean up and then lay down, she's awake before i can get any actual chores done. so my house is a mess, my to-do list is growing incredibly long, and my patience is growing even thinner.
i don't know what i can do to fix the situation, either. i've tried putting her to bed earlier. i've tried sending cody in so she knows she's not getting any more milk. i've tried firmly but lovingly saying no. i've tried meanly saying no (not that this would help, it just gets harder to be nice by the time i've been up with her for 3 hours). i've given her teething tablets in case it's a tooth thing. i've cuddled with her more during the day in case she is doing it for the extra time with me. at this point, the only other option i can think of is to wean her entirely, which i am not ready to do.
ok, i'm done whining for now. she's in bed a little early tonight, and cody's at church, so i have a chance to get one or two things checked off that to-do list, hopefully. thanks for reading, and if you're willing, say a little prayer for our family and a return to normalcy:)

catch-22

i spend a fair amount of my time, especially during emmy's evening cranky period, longing for a break from her...and when i'm given that opportunity, all i can think about is how much i miss her!! today i had a couple of nice breaks- this morning during MOPS and this evening when we went out with some friends and their daughter babysat. as much as i adore the friends we were with, and although i was having a really good time, it was all i could do not to watch the clock and scarf down my food so i could get home to my baby! absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder:)

weight check-in

weighed myself this morning...since the 1st, i've already lost 3 pounds! 27.8 to my goal, which i want to hit by august 1.

garage sale toys= not always a win.

sometime over the summer, my neighbors across the street had a garage sale, at which i found these fisher price blocks that we got a great deal on. when we came home, my mother-in-law, who was visiting at the time, was looking around online for stuff about the blocks, and discovered there was this big cube thing that you can store them in/play plinko with them/etc...but all she could find was on ebay, for like $50. forget it. so later that day, we decide to take a walk over to the sub next to us, which was having a sub sale, and right around the corner from my house, at another garage sale, julie spotted one of the cube things! the lady wanted 10, i talked her into 8- much better than 50! BUT.... you get what you pay for, i guess.
you see, this thing is possessed. one day, after emmy had been playing with it in her room, it randomly started playing music while this disc on top spun, which is louder than the music itself. i know for a fact that emmy didn't do it, because...she was in her crib, about to nap! thankfully, she hadn't fallen asleep yet, and i was able to go in and shut it off! since then, i have tried to be careful to turn it off whenever emmy's not using it. until the other day. something was going on, i don't remember what, but it would have been a teeny bit inconvenient to turn it off right away, so i left it, thinking to myself "i should really turn that off, maybe i'll remember later." fast forward to that night. or rather, 3:18 the next morning. we're all sleeping peacefully when a strange noise wakes me up. takes me a minute to realize i'm hearing that darn toy over the monitor. i jump up and sneak in there to turn it off, because emmy hasn't made any noise like she's noticed it. sure enough, when i get in there, she's fast asleep, although i don't know how. i'm all excited, thinking i dodged a bullet, and i head back to bed. just as i start to fall asleep, 10 or 20 minutes later, there's em. why in the world it took her that long to react, i don't know, but needless to say i regretted not turning the thing off to begin with.
i think i need to store it somewhere besides her bedroom...

a lesson in forgiveness

first of all, i want to say thanks to those of you who have told me you're reading! just know, you're encouraging me to do more...which could be a good thing or a bad one!
this morning, i got schooled in forgiveness and unconditional love, and not for the first time. emmy and i went to meijer to do some grocery shopping, and she has apparently hit the phase where she's impossible to grocery shop with. she wanted to hold anything she saw, and whined until i gave it to her. then i made the mistake of taking my cell phone out to call a friend to see if i needed to pick something up for our small group tonight. i called her house first, where her son told me she had gone to the doctor. i tried her cell in case she was en route and got voicemail. i was about to text her (note: i don't have a texting plan and was only doing this because it was urgent), but my little peanut was wailing because she wanted to hold the phone. so i gave in (a theme in my life as a mother) and let her play with it the rest of the time we were shopping. unfortunately, sometime while i was at the self-checkout, she dropped it. i couldn't see it on the floor, so i pulled the cart over after i'd finished to search everything and make sure i didn't leave it behind. it took lots of frantic searching on my part, during which emmy was whining and crying and making me more frantic, but finally i found it and we moved on. she proceeded to cry the whole way to the car, which i couldn't remember where i had parked, and then scream as i buckled her into her car seat. thankfully, a little after we got moving, she calmed down. my gas gauge was in the red, and i have a play date across town first thing tomorrow morning, so i wanted to fill up really quickly. i get things situated at the pump, still fuming and almost crying about the whole meijer situation, and i peek into the back window to see how emmy is. she lights up with the biggest smile, and we proceed to play peekaboo the whole time the gas is pumping.
let me tell you, while that smile warmed my heart, it also brought a feeling of guilt. the baby i had been ready to yell at i was so frustrated (and i'm not a yeller) had totally forgotten her discomfort and her anger with me for making her grocery shop with me. things like this happen more often than i care to admit, where she and i get upset at each other, and then she turns to me for comfort from that hurt, or gets over it quickly and goes back to playing with me. i know it won't be like this forever, but at least for now, i am thankful for my daughter's unconditional love and forgiveness; for what it shows me about how God must feel for us, for the growth it shows i need in these areas, and for the way her return to joy brings me back, too.

current projects

typically, a new year means setting all kinds of goals that we're gung-ho about accomplishing, then giving up before we get very far. am i right? so here's what's going on for me:
-the classic lose weight resolution. i totally gained 8 pounds between halloween and new year's, and while i had lost the baby weight a while ago, i still wanted to lose another 20-25 beyond that. which puts me around 30 to go from where i am.
-organization. recently found a site with a 52 week organization challenge, and it would be nice if i could get through at least some of the tasks. planning on starting this week.
-playroom. after a Christmas that brought lots of big, hard to store toys for my little one, we decided to turn a spare bedroom into a playroom for her. this weekend we bought some shelving units, and i'm looking forward to getting stuff arranged in there. and not having to look at it all in the main living space anymore.
-most importantly, and hopefully one that i won't give up on: knowing and loving God more. i want to live in such a way that brings him all the glory and that shows my family and friends, and especially my daughter, the love of Christ.
so here's to 2012!

the kick-off

i'm probably kidding myself to think 1-that i'll actually have/take the time to ever update this and 2-that anyone will actually read it, but hey, who knows?
my intention, as evidenced by the title, is to chronicle both the ups and downs of my life as a stay-at-home wife and mom, which i've discovered is a lot more rewarding and a lot more challenging than i could have ever imagined.
after a couple of really rough nights that led into rough days (a poorly-rested emmy is a cranky emmy- she gets that from me), this weekend has been a lot of fun. i have just been marvelling at her cuteness and funniness rather than trying to manage tantrums, which has been much nicer.
cody is at a big cadillac unveiling tonight, which means lots of extra time for me to catch up on tv and internet stuff. and apparently start a new blog.