Jumping Daisy

>What is it about babies and the love of really repetitive boring books? I enjoy reading to the girls, and Thea is LOVING books lately. She is constantly bringing me books to read to her, and I think it’s great! She is learning lots of animals and can make lots of animal sounds. My favorite is when she sees a duck, she sticks her hands in her arm pits and flaps her wings when she quacks…SO CUTE!

Anyway, there are times when it is difficult to stop everything and sit down to read a book, but I have learned that there are benefits to the lame books that Thea loves most…her sister can “read” them to her! How sweet is this?!

>Last night I was driving home from the hospital when it was nearly 11:00 at night. In the car, alone is not an experience I often get, but as I made my way through the country on the curvy road I appreciated being alone with my thoughts. I couldn’t help but think about how fragile life is. Cory was left behind at the hospital, spending the night as a precaution on the cardiology floor. I drove down the street, watching the moonlight reflect on the wet pavement and feeling the cool, wet fall breeze through my open window. A beautiful quiet night. I thought about my friend Cindy, who had just left the hospital with a brand new baby girl, and of my brother Clay and Rebekah, who had lost Rebekah’s sister unexpectedly last week. Just like that, life will never be the same. Every moment that goes by, someone is losing their sister. Someone is gaining a daughter, someone’s heart stops beating, and another is miraculously restored.
I pulled into North Liberty across town from my final destination and I turned up the radio to distract myself from my own thoughts. The first thing I hear, “I wanna free fall out into nothing /Oh I’m gonna leave this world for a while /

And I’m free
Free falling
Falling

I turned up the volume and I sang it at the top of my lungs through the tears forming in my eyes. I found my mantra for the day. You can either worry the whole way down about what the landing might feel like, or you can close your eyes, take a deep breath and enjoy the wind in your face.

>I saw this posted on Facebook and I thought it was a neat idea. Some of these really resonated with me, and I have a few of my own I would add…

Picture me holding up a sign with this written on it:

“Its no longer about you. At all.”
“Enjoy control of the TV and car radio, that won’t last.”
“Prepare for a world where every day is full of terrible possibilities.”

I could think of several other more encouraging things to say to childless me, but I figured I might as well prep for the worst, the good stuff can be a pleasant surprise.

>I feel like it is two steps forward and three steps back with the house. We are very happy so far, but the progress has been slow, and the latest set back was this weekend with the insulation. We upgraded the insulation in the house from the typical bats of fiberglass to a blown in insulation that adds additional R-value. When we checked the house out on Friday, we saw that the insulation upgrade wasn’t completed. So after all of the drywall was up on Sunday night, most if it had to come down on Monday to switch out the insulation. We are on track to have the house done by October 11th, and we will be working in some time to paint bedrooms next weekend. Though the painters will paint any color you want, it costs extra and we are cheap, so we are doing our “custom” colors on our own!

Pink for Thea, purple for Leila, and blue/gree for Cory and I.

Here are some pictures of the latest progress…our GREEN siding is almost done! 🙂

>Today is Leila’s first “extra” day of preschool. Normally (Until October anyway) the girls both spend Tuesday and Thursday at Love-A-Lot, Mondays with Grandma Lori and Wednesday and Friday with me. Now that Leila is in the State preschool program, she needs to be at school an extra half day a week and so Wednesday mornings in September are just for Thea and I. So far this morning I have already given in on my attempt to wean and we have spent a couple of hours cuddling in the recliner and reading books. Heaven on earth, nothing beats a nice long cuddle with a sweet baby. What I need is a memory machine to store this away so when I am spending my Wednesday mornings sitting at my desk at work, I can remember the way she smelled, and her squishy soft skin and that beautiful dimpled smile. *sigh*

>Today we drove by our house after work, like we do on most days, and our new neighbor happened to be coming home at the the same time. We had already met her husband because he is actually one of the contractors that we have been working with. This was the first time that I had ever seen the wife. I had one of those moments where you are too caught up thinking about the possibilities to really concentrate on the now, and not saying something totally stupid to this person you are making a first impression with. I don’t even remember what I said to her, I just remember that she looked very normal and very much like the kind of woman that I would choose to be friends with, which of course made me nervous. This lady is going to have to listen to me yell at my kids for as long as she lives next door.

I was picturing us walking across each other’s yards to chat, and maybe having a real live friend that lives within 20 miles of me and isn’t related. The possibilities are endless, and now that I have built up a potential friendship with a normal seeming neighbor, I can only hope I haven’t set myself up for disappointment. I really hope she likes beer and football. I really hope I didn’t come off as a total loser.

Thing 2.

This evening after dinner Cory was sitting in the recliner and he said to Leila, “get your shoes on, I want to show you something!” From where he was sitting he could see out the deck door, so I figured he must have spied an interesting animal or piece of machinery that he wanted to let Leila check out, but I wasn’t sure. Leila got her shoes on and they were out the door together. I had to know what was up so I picked up Thea and we walked out to the deck. I stood her up on the plastic patio chair so that she could just peak over the wood rail and we stood there as we watched Leila and Cory, walking hand in hand through the grass outside of our building. I gave Cory a look of confusion and he said, “We are going to see how tall the corn is.”
Cory and Leila talk in the car quite often about the things that we see on our drives. Here in Iowa, corn is a frequent site. As we have watched the corn grow all spring and summer long we have discussed how tall it has gotten and today Leila got to see up close and personal that the corn is taller than DADDY! and that is tall.
Cory reminds me from time to time when he does something out of the ordinary with the girls that you never know what they might remember, so you should do your best to consider the memories you may not even know you are making. I wonder if they made a memory tonight? Who knows, but I will enjoy remembering the view with little Thea, chocolate-y slobber running down her chin after her chocolate chip cookie dessert. She was watching her daddy with big sister on his shoulders, walking in the grass below us. Leila waved at Thea, and Thea returned the wave, on tip toes to keep her sister in sight for as long as possible. The corn just keeps on growing around here, and so do these big girls!

>A family member recently said to me, “You guys sure come up with some interesting names!”

I responded with a smile. Though the word interesting could be taken as an insult, it didn’t bother me. It’s true, I guess. Naming children is a very hard job. Leila herself asks me from time to time why I named her Leila. The truth is that we found the name in a baby book, and we loved it immediately. I was very close to delivery when we happened across the name, and if we hadn’t found it, Leila could very well be a Natalie.

The night that Leila was born we had a a nurse and my OB doctor in the room with us quite a bit. They had asked us what we were going to name our baby and we told them that if we had a boy, we really didn’t know yet what his name would be, but if it was a girl, it would be Leila. When she made her grand entrance in the middle of the night the doctor and nurse announced her arrival with, “It’s Leila!” instead of the traditional “It’s a girl!” That is our Leila, her presence was strong from the moment she entered the world, and when I held her in my arms and looked down at her beautiful dark hair and brown eyes I knew that we were right, as Leila’s name is an Arabic/Persian name that means two things. Dark haired beauty, and born at night. Both of which fit our new princess. We capped off our dark beauty with a middle name that means strength and nobility. I can’t imagine anything more fitting!

Naming a second child is an even more challenging proposition. Leila’s name was right the moment we found it, and it was validated to us the moment she was born. There was no doubt. When our little Thea was born we found ourselves in a familiar position. If it was a boy we had a name that we loved all picked out. If it was a girl…we were going to have some work ahead of us. Cory and I debated names for months. I searched the social security website for baby names that were popular in the late 1800, and ealy 1900’s. I did not want something that was made up or new, but I also didn’t want anything that was common or ordinary. One thing was for sure though, her middle name would be Dalene, for my grandma.
The truth is, if not for the fact that Cory watched me experience natural childbirth, and had to listen to me cry that I felt like I might die at any moment, Thea’s name may have been Maya or Tessa. I wanted Thea. Thea is a Greek name, and it means “gift of God.” I don’t think a name meaning could be much nicer than that…and in combination with Dalene, I have always kind of thought of Thea as my gift from heaven…my baby that Grandma Dalene knew before I did.

So when I hear that I have interesting name choices, I happen to feel a sense of pride in our choices. Interesting is just what I was going for. Lots of thought went into the decisions to name or girls, and I am very satisfied. It is just too bad we never got to use our boy name.

>When I started working part time after Thea was born I knew it would be a temporary arrangement. This fall, on my own accord, I set the date. October 4th.
It would work out perfectly…Leila could have a year of full day pre-school before going off to kindergarten. Thea would be weaned in the spring of 2010 and I could have a summer to enjoy hanging out with my daughters without having to deal with nursing in public and the constant hormone high that makes me a crazy person. We would be moved into our new house, and I could slowly ramp up my work effort.

Thea still isn’t weaned, because I can’t bring myself to turn her down when she cries and whines “mama, mama.” So I am still a crazy person on a hormone high from Hades. Our house is now delayed to the middle of October. So I will be working full time, and yet not have earned any vacation time yet to use to settle in. My work load is…well, lets just say that it won’t be hard to fill my days come October.
The only thing that is going as planned is daycare, and we pay them a whole lot to go as planned.

I always knew this would come, and there are a lot of reasons why it is the right move, but I am bracing myself for the fall out. I don’t know what I will do without my relaxing days at home with the girls watching PBS, reading books, catching up on laundry and housework. My opportunity to take the girls out and see friends and hang out at the library or the children’s museum.

Dear Lord, how will I ever catch up on housework?

Work will get easier, in the sense that I will be able to meet expectations a bit easier, not that it will get easier for me to want to be there. Everything else. Everything is about to get a lot harder, and I brace myself, and try not to cry.

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