18 Months!

I completely forgot to mention that Miss Emily is 18 months today! We’ve had her now for 9 months. Incredible how fast time flies!  She’ll have her well visit in a few weeks with the doctor and we’ll get her weight and height then. I feel certain she’s put on a little weight, because she feels heavier to me now. But to be fair, she is also clearly taller.  She is able to reach things she couldn’t have gotten into before. (which makes my job harder!)   She’s busting out of most of her 12 month outfits now too. Which is a shame, because some of them are soo soo cute. Luckily, I shopped like a mad woman the first year I was waiting for her, so I have tons and tons of more cute clothes to put her in!!

 

 

Dentist Drama

So I had to go back to the dentist yesterday. Ugh. Have I mentioned how much I dislike the dentist? Not a fan. It’s just weird to me that we pay people to stick their hands into our mouths. Creepy!   Well anyways, this time, my dentist wised up and gave me a prescription for some valium. I think mostly he does it for his sake; it has to be infinitely harder to work on my teeth when I’m shaking like a leaf!! So I popped my pills and had Tony take me to the office yesterday afternoon. The pills worked GOOD.  Really good!! When I got to the office I announced that I felt silly to pretty much the entire office staff! HA HA HA. They were all laughing at me, but I was laughing too, so it was all good.  The good news is that he was able to replace my filling (yuck) and I only have a few tiny bruises on my hands from squeezing them together so tight. Much much better than last time.  And hopefully, that will be the last time I have to have more than a routine cleaning done!!

 

The bad news is that by the time we got home, I was barely keeping myself awake. Tony put me to bed around 6. I was too goofy to even spell my name last night, much less upload pictures. But I should be able to do it tonight.   Emily was not happy that she didn’t get to spend much time with mommy last night. She cried and cried when Tony put her down.  So he went in there to calm her down and she crawled to the far side of the crib to get away from him. I had to go in and sit with her on the futon for 20 mins before she would calm down enough to sleep.  She likes Tony a lot, she just needed a Mommy fix I guess.  I don’t want her to get used to that though.  We need her to know that Mom OR Dad are good at the comforting thing.  She’s never really done that before. So we’ll have to keep an eye out on it. 

 

 

This N That

OOOh it’s Monday. Grrr. 

 

For the record, I’m sleeping better here lately.  I talked with my cardiologist office last week and they recommended that I change the timing of my blood pressure pills. I’ve moved up taking them by about an hour and a half, and boom! I’m sleeping most of the night now. Weird, right?   But I’m much MUCH happier now that I’m sleeping like an almost normal person.

 

Our shower this weekend was FABULOUS!!  We had a huge turnout and it was so much fun.  I’ll put up pictures tonight. The food was awesome and everyone was really happy to be there. It made us feel so loved. Plus, we got a ton of goodies. My friends are so generous!!

 

Emily knows when we have a strange girl in the house that means that Mommy & Daddy are leaving for the night. She is NOT happy with us when she sees a baby sitter.  She screams and wails like we are pulling her skin off with pliers. She is a total drama queen!   But the little booger doesn’t know that we always call to check on her and every single person we’ve had sit for her says that 3-5 mins after we leave she is completely fine. She just does it for show! To make Mommy feel better.  It works, trust me.   I feel like such a villain leaving her when she is that unhappy, even though I know that she is going to be fine and wherever I’m going would not be appropriate to have her tag along.

 

I met with the music director at church yesterday. I’ve officially picked out all the songs for the wedding mass, and I’ve booked the pianist, the cantor and a violinist. OOOH AHHH.  I’m such a goofy girl. When the music director played little bits of the songs for me to pick from, whenever she played one and I got all teary eyed, I knew I had picked a winner.  It’s hard work to be a girl!!   

 

I get married two months from TODAY! Can you believe it?

 

 

 

 

Happy Friday!

It’s time to do the happy Friday dance! YAY!! YIPPEE!!!  DANCIN’ DANCIN’! 

 

This weekend will be good, but busy. Tomorrow some good friends of my parents are having a wedding shower for me and Tony! YAY!  It will be on the lake and a big cookout. It will be a lot of fun and we are both really looking forward to it.  And then on Sunday, I’m meeting with the music director at church to pick out all the music for the wedding ceremony. OOOOH AHHHH.  It will be good to check that off my gianormous list of “THINGS TO DO”.   

 

So busy busy busy bees this weekend. If only it were 5 already, so we could start the fun stuff!

 

 

 

BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLIN!!

 

My big boy nephew turns 3 today!  What a big day for him! I seriously can’t believe that he is 3 already. It seems just yesterday that we were all anxiously waiting his arrival at the hospital.  Such a handsome guy. Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of him, because these days, he’s a blur in most photos. He’s a GO GO GO kinda kid! 

 

Happy Birthday Colin. Aunt Shannon & Uncle Tony love you!

 

 

It's a Small World After All

So T & I took Emily to the pool tonight after work. She loves the water, and we love how relaxing it is.  We're there and playing in the water, and who shows up but another mom with a Chinese baby.  So we give her a bit of time and then go over to say hello. Turns out, they live like 2 blocks from us.  Her little girl is about a year older than Emily. And guess what? She's from Chongqing too. And not just Chongqing, but Fengdu, and the SAME ORPHANAGE.  Holy smokes!  Emily's orphanage was very small, and in a very tiny town. It's almost unbelievable to think that literally around the corner from us, is a Chinese sister.  I can't get over it. From the same province is one thing, but from the same orphanage?!? What are the chances of that? I bet you have better odds winning the lottery.    Needless to say, we were both blown away.   To think that both our families traveled thousands and thousands of miles away to the same place for the same reason. It's just amazing.  

I really hope we get to be friends. It would totally rock for Emily to have a neighbor friend to talk to about all the adoption stuff when they get older. And it's nice for us too, to maybe have grownup friends that "get" the adoption stuff. We wouldn't be different with them. I'm trying not to get too excited, but let's just say, I'm keeping my fingers crossed they aren't weirdos. HA HA

Photo Deluge

OK, so I've been a total slacker and haven't posted a picture of Emily in weeks and weeks. But that doesn't mean I wasn't TAKING pictures!! I took a ton. So here you go, a glimpse into our lives the last month or so! 

OK, You're 18 months now, get to work! 

We have enough toys that it looks like Babies R Us blew up in our living room, and what does she play with? The swifter. sheesh. 

Modeling my new hair cut. I look like a boy! BOO! 

Really?!? 

Playing at Grandpa's & Grammy's house...

Mom's 60th Birthday

Her big surprise...a limo ride to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse!! 

Me & Dad, roaring at dinner.  We had such a good time that night.  The limo kicked butt! 

OK, this has to be one of my favorite photos ever.  She was running to me and laughing, getting caught for a big hug.  I can FEEL my happiness looking at this picture.  This is what I waited 3 years for. 

Cody Ryan, my handsome nephew!! Isn't he gorgeous?!?

My fur baby, Rascal, who seriously misses our alone time. Poor guy. Emily loves to pat him, but it's just not the same.  He looks so bereft in this pic. Poor puppy.   It would make you think I never love on him anymore, but that's so not true!! 

She loves to wear Mommy's shoes. So cute! 

With her new big girl Dora table. 

With Grandpa. She loves to take his glasses off! 

I love her smile!

Me & my girl

8-8-08

 

So tonight the Olympics start in Beijing. Very exciting stuff. I’m looking forward to watching the opening ceremonies tonight at home. When we were in Bejing in Dec we did see them building the big stadium. Personally, I thought it looked pretty ugly, but it was a very dreary day there and I was tired beyond all belief when we saw it.  I’m not sure I get the whole “bird’s nest” concept. Mostly, it just looks like a bunch of sticks from the front.  From the air, however, it looks a lot better.

 

While I am looking forward to watching the Olympics, I’m surprised at how many negative things I’m hearing about Emily’s homeland. I understand that although I spent the last 3-4 years reading up on China and trying to understand a completely different culture, the rest of the world did not.  But still, it’s really made me aware of just how much the average American has some nasty thoughts about China and it’s people. I should have been prepared for the just plain racism that’s out there, but I wasn’t. I’m not.  My little world with my girl and my family is so full of love and understanding. I really haven’t encountered people who were just ugly to us. I’ve encountered plenty of STUPID people, but not really mean people. But these days, I turn on the radio and it’s like perfectly acceptable to use a “chinese accent” to be funny, or to say negative things about their government.  Which, I realize, is what makes America such a great place. It’s just, I don’t know, hurtful, that sooo many people think that China is full of evil communists just waiting to kill us all and take over the world. That’s not what I saw of felt when I was there.  Sure it was different. But I didn’t feel antagonism by the people. They didn’t hate me on site. I didn’t see it in their curious stares at us. We drew a lot of attention, but it wasn’t hateful.    It makes me afraid for Emily.  I want to keep her from all the ugly things out there. How can I do that?   I can’t possibly, and that makes me sad. And a little angry.  

 

It just makes me wonder about her future and how I can possibly prepare her for this, when I can’t even get my own mind around it yet.  Thankfully, she is too young to hear all the hoopla right now.  But come next Olympics, she’ll know. I have a precious few years to get ready. I better get on it.

 

 

 

Babysitters

We’ve left Emily with only a few babysitters since we got her. Mostly, we leave her with family members: my parents, Tony’s sister Lisa. But every once in awhile we need to leave her with someone like on a Wednesday night to go to do something. With the wedding coming closer and closer, we have all sorts of meetings to go to that it real is not conducive to bring a small child to. – I understand now why they want you to wait to have kids until your married- it’s very VERY difficult to plan a wedding with a toddler present.  We brought her with us to one of our meetings with the priest and she did her best to destroy his office. It was funny in retrospect, but at the time I was mortified. Luckily, the priest was super understanding, and, like everyone else, completely enchanted by her. Still, we didn’t get much accomplished with her there. 

 

So that brings me to today’s rambling post. I made a list of all the times that I know about in the next 4 weeks where we will need a babysitter. Do you know how many I came up with?  SEVEN.  Seven times we’ll need a sitter between now and Sept 6. Can you even believe that? My child is going to think we’ve abandoned her. And the sad part is, that I know we are going to need more sitters in Sept and Oct leading up to the wedding.  UGH!  I’ll be broke from paying all these sitters, and I hate leaving her that much.

 

Tell me I’m not a bad person for needing someone to watch her while we do this wedding crap.

 

Stress

Thanks for all of your concerns about my health. To answer the question from Michelle, I’m 33. Hardly old enough for peri-menopause, but I suppose it’s a possibility. For the rest of the world, it would seem I’m stressed out.  And I suppose I could give that some credit. If you listed all my major life activities of late, trying to sell my house (STILL) and getting married in 2 months, you would think that I would be a big old ball of stress and anxiety.  But I’m not. Really.  Compared to last year when I was doing both of those things AND waiting and waiting and waiting for Emily, I’m practically serene.  I love Tony. Planning the wedding is more of a pain in the butt than stressful. It’s annoying. It’s aggravating. But I’m not getting all worked up about what color the flowers are or if I’ll fit in my wedding dress. (I will - I bought the right size) I want the wedding to be nice, and I’m making calls and junk, but I’m not crying or in hysterics about any of it.  I realize there is a time line, but I also realize I’d much rather spend my time with my family now, than plan a big stupid wedding I won’t remember half of anyway. I’m a lazy bride. I admit it.

 

So, could it be stress? Sure. But it just doesn’t seem…enough of a reason for me.  I slept a little better this weekend (not much but a bit) Last night I think I actually slept 6 hours in a row! OOOH AHHH.  My sister thinks it could be the mattress, and that is a thought.  It does seem I can’t get comfortable.  But maybe that is too simplistic. So I’ll keep an eye on it.  If I can go another couple weeks like this, I’ll see the doctor.  

Sleep

I’m sure you would think from the title of this post that I would be talking about Emily’s sleep issues. I’m not, I’m going to talk about mine.

For the last month maybe, I have been sleeping horribly. I fall asleep just fine. But I wake up every 2 hours all night long.  And every time I wake up, I have to go to the bathroom, which really wakes me up, or I don’t move, but I still lie awake for at least 20-30 mins before I fall back asleep.  As it happens, the last time I wake up before the alarm goes off is around 520-6am, so when the alarm finally DOES go off at 645, I feel like I’ve only been asleep for an hour. It’s horrible. I’m sleeping, but it’s like naps all night long. I feel tired a lot. And in the morning, I have to be up and moving around for 2 hours or so before I really feel like I’m awake. Which, when you think about it is probably dangerous since during that time I’m driving Emily to school and me to work.

 

So people, what do you think? Does this constitue as insomnia? I took some over the counter sleep pills last night to see if it made a difference and it really didn’t. I still woke up at least 3 times. I don’t think I stayed awake as long as I normally do, but I still wake up constantly.  And this morning, I’m more sluggish than ever. Ugh.

 

And to make it more interesting for you to figure out, I don’t have drink caffeine at all. No cafinated sodas, no coffee, no teas, nothing.  I take a medication to raise my blood pressure and the combo of caffeine with that is extremely unpleasant. So I just don’t have it anymore.  So it can’t be that keeping me up, and I can’t look to that to wake me up in the morning. Isn’t this fun? It’s like you all get to be House!! Figure me out people!