a moment.

I went out for a run this evening. I waited for the sun to go down because the heat down here is almost unbearable.  It was a nice change from my morning runs pushing the baby stroller.  Tonight's run provided opportunity for some thinking.  And I had a moment.  The kind of moment where you think "is this really my life? How can I be so blessed?"

Actually the big moment came while I was reflecting on all of the little moments that made up our day today - Andy taking Olivia downstairs early this morning so I could get a little more sleep.  Making it to church (for the first time in a long while) and having the opportunity to sit in the pew holding Andy's hand while we prayed.  Hearing that Olivia had a great time playing in the nursery.  Enjoying lunch as a family at a cute little cafe downtown.  Olivia never fussing one bit - she simply sat in her highchair eating and making faces at us.  Sitting in the rocking chair, before putting Olivia to bed, with her snuggled on my lap while Andy sat across from us on the stool reading bedtime stories. Olivia going to bed without a peep for the third night in a row (without nursing!). Coming across an email that I had typed to my girlfriends explaining the day Andy proposed to me, as well as seeing the pictures of him on bended knee.  What an unexpected find in my email box!  It provided such a 'moment' because Andy and I read it together and let the email take us back to those feelings of fresh love and anticipation for the future.  Now we are in that future together and  my heart loves him and our life together even more than I thought possible. 

And now my heart is so full of thanks that I can't keep from smiling, and that is such a great state of mind to be in.  Looks like my run tonight was about much more than exercise!

p.s. I hear Andy pulling into the garage....he went out to get me ice cream!  Ahhh, now this will be a moment for sure!

I love my...

....blanket!

It doesn't matter if she riding her Mickey bus....

...or randomly snuggling on the floor...

...or playing around in her pj's...

....or trying to toddle away from the camera.

She just simply loves her muslin blankets!! (any of them, even though this post only reflects the red one. In reality she has 6 of them! ;)

Twelfth month recap.

Wow, this month flew by!  I feel we just celebrated her birthday and now she is already 13 months old! Time does fly when you are having fun!

Weight: 22 lbs

Height: ???

Napping: A morning and an afternoon nap.  She still cries and screams at times while falling asleep, but not always.  They are lasting anywhere from 40 minutes to 1.5 hours. Snuggles up with her blanket while sleeping and it is absolutely adorable! 

Night: Well, I had a moment in this department, and by "a moment" I mean that I decided that I would no longer go into her room if she cried out at night.  Soooo, she sleeps through the night (12 hours), but she still does cry out sometimes.  I take a peak at the monitor, but I ignore her and do not go in unless it is morning time.  Sometimes she cries out once or twice in the night (for anywhere from a few minutes to 30) and other nights she doesn't make a peep.  The buck had to stop somewhere and it happened in the twelfth month....

relaxing with her feet in the toy box while watching Mickey Mouse

Food: Olivia is a great eater.  She feeds completely feeds herself except for yogurt and oatmeal.  She doesn't over stuff her mouth like some toddlers, so I am thankful for that.  Some of her favorite foods right now include: scrambled eggs, turkey hot dogs, blueberries, strawberries, yogurt, and cheese.  She has decided that she no longer likes toast (weird - she used to love it!) and has become preferential with things that she wants.  For example, if she sees me start to make her a hot dog she will stop eating whatever is on her tray (even if she was shoveling it in!), throw her hands out, and fuss/scream until it is ready.  She loves to have her own utensils and dip it into the yogurt or cereal, which creates a mess but is great for her motor skills.

Nursing: Twice a day (morning and night).  She drinks whole milk throughout the day to supplement the missed nursings.  However, she is a milk snob and will only drink organic whole milk :)  She gets this honestly from me, so I cannot complain!

Skills: WALKS everywhere with impressive balance for just beginning (for my own record keeping this happened at 12 1/2 months).  Her falls are few and far between these days and she handles any surface (i.e., grass, gravel, cement) and can maneuver the steps into the house all by herself.   Squats from standing to pick up toys and stands back up without support.  Brushes her own teeth.  Climbs on and off of her riding toys.  Handles stairs (both up and down) independently.

Language: I still love this category best!
Receptive:  points to her belly, feet, and head when asked "where is your xxx?", follows simple verbal commands such as "go to your highchair so you can eat" or "put the book away", can correctly get her fish and her duck during bath time when asked, points to her head when we ask "where does a hat go" and to her feet when we ask "where do you put your shoes?"
Expressive: says 'that' and points to everything!, hasn't added many new words this month, but has increased her accuracy with her vocabulary (i.e., will point to a cat in a book and say 'cat' or to the dog and say 'da'), her favorite words are 'hi', 'hat', and 'that', signs 'please' and 'all done' appropriately.  Repeats simple words/phrases with the correct vocal pattern and syllable structure (e.g., car ride, outside, snack time)

Fun Facts:  wears size 3 diapers, size 4 shoes and size 12-18 month clothes, loves hats and wearing things around her neck, wants to eat anything that we are eating, likes riding in the car now that she is facing forward, still dances whenever she hears music or we say "do you year music?", will bring me her shoes, indicate she wants them on, and then walk to the door and point outside, gets very excited anytime we see other children, will put her hand to her mouth to blow a kiss but can't get the "launch" part down yet, loves to bring us our shoes and then carry them back to the back room again, loves to point at birds and airplanes flying in the sky, still throws a fit through most diaper changes, picks up the remote and points it to the TV when she wants to watch a DVD, "snuggles with Daddy" by laying her head on his chest when he asks her to, gives high fives, will flip the pages of a book and babble like she is reading it, her favorite books right now include Brown Bear Brown Bear, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and lift-the-flap books, prefers mommy most all of the time, loves on her baby by hugging her, is a happy smiling girl most all of the time (but she does have her moments;)!   It has been a fun twelfth month!

hat day round 2

A new day,

and a new hat!

 Olivia got this hat while we were out yesterday, too!

She loves it just as much as the other one.

And as far as the beads go....

let me just say that you never know when some of your college bar paraphernalia will come in handy!

This look says "enough with the pictures! Can't you see I'm trying to make a call here!"

hat day.

We dedicated this afternoon to hats. 









  




 Actually hat day occurs most every day at our house.

It is her favorite word and just one of her favorite things in general.

However, today was an extra special hat day...

...because Olivia got a new hat while we were out shopping for picture frames.

It was only a dollar...

...and she wore it from the time we picked it up at the store until it was time for bed.

Back on Planet Mom

Remember this?  That was nearly four months ago and I am just now getting around to writing out chapter two!  Many of you expressed interest in this book, so I am going to stay true to my commitment to finish out the book.  I read and worked through this chapter several months ago, but have been hesitant to blog about it.  Why?  Well, it can be a little personal because it is the chapter that deals with the toughest post-baby relationship change for me.  What is this relationship you wonder?

"Who are you again?  Oh yeah, the guy I married!"
How becoming a mom changes a marriage....
We have always known we wanted kids.  In fact, we talked about it when we were early in our dating relationship.  Andy said, "I only want one child" and I replied with "Well, if you believe passionately about that then I am not the person you should be dating because I want several children".  Right then and there (on perhaps our third-ish date) we entered the world of compromise as it relates to children.  He agreed to more than one, and I agreed that more than three was probably too many.  So, here we are five years later learning to parent our first child.  And let me just put this out there, it can be difficult!  I believe our relationship has changed more over this past year than all of our pre-baby years combined. 

"Would you say parenthood has made you feel closer to your husband or more distant?"
This question shook me a bit.  The easy answer (and the one that the I would prefer the world to think) is that I feel closer to Andy.   However, the answer isn't that clear cut.  There have been times that I have felt as close to him as I believe possible.  Such as experiencing the birth together and spending the first few days together at home focusing on nothing but her and our new family.  Through those times I felt like we were one person.  A solid front that nothing could come between.  However, the dirty truth isn't that simple because there are times where I have felt totally isolated in this parenting adventure.

The distance came when I began to feel resentment because I was the only one who could feed or calm Olivia down.  I felt isolated during the 8-10 nursings a day and that took a toll.  My entire existence was based on when she needed to eat and I began to feel trapped. He could come and go as he pleased, never having to consider how long he was able to be gone.  Now this was not Andy's fault; however, I needed to push the blame somewhere.  I mean it couldn't be that I was feeling this resentment due to my own control issues.  Nah, that couldn't be possible. Or could it?  Well, it absolutely was the case!  Sure our baby girl preferred her mother and has refused a bottle her entire life, but that didn't mean that Andy wasn't pulling his weight.  Perhaps the isolation and resentment was actually self-inflicted. This has taken a long time to realize and that may be why I delayed on analyzing this chapter.  We are I am a work in progress and I wanted to write this when I had some perspective on the issue.  My parenting control issues could fill up an entirely different post ;)

Also, the chapter talks a lot about quality time and how that impacts a healthy marriage.  We have worked on that by keeping Olivia with an early bedtime and trying to get out together every once in awhile.  It doesn't happen as often as it should, but we are trying.  I am also trying to push the "is this all there is?" question out of my mind whenever it comes around.  I struggle with the idea that things should always be "exciting" or "fun", but that isn't always the case in a marriage.  This quote from Children Change a Marriage  by Morgan & Kuykendall  brought it home for me....

"The fact is, just as marriages naturally grow and change as we go through transitions in life, so does the way we experience and express our love for each other.  The romantic passion of new love eventually grows into the stage of comfortable love, which grows into the stage of deeply committed love.  And in between are inevitable times of numb love or dull love or quiet love."

I am accepting the idea that we don't need our marriages to always be exciting, fun, and romantic.  The truth is that parenthood is hard, stressful, and scary at times, which can weigh on your marriage.  However, I am learning to find comfort in the comfortable, dull, and quiet love, too.  Because really it is how you handle those times that shows the strength of marriage.  And the truth is that I have more fun being 'numb, dull, or quiet' with Andy than I ever could being 'romantic and passionate' with anyone else.

How has parenthood changed your relationship with your spouse?  I am interested to know!

Next up....how becoming a mom changes your relationship with your family of origin.

pants on your neck.

Well, we all know "Pants on the Ground" made famous by 'the General' on American Idol.  This has become a bit of a theme song around our house.  For some reason, we sing all sorts of silly things to that tune, and we think we are funny each time we do it.   Ridiculous?  yes.  Worth sharing with y'all?  probably not. 

However, Olivia created her own version of this song (well, I sort of created it for her, but she was the muse behind my work, so I give her all the credit;)......she loves to go through her laundry basket and find her pajama pants.  She then proceeds to place each pair around her neck and walk around like that (until we take them off or she has to go down for nap).  So every time she does this silly task, which is most every day, I can't help but sing "pants on your neck, pants on your neck, looking like a fooool with your pants on your neck"!   Perhaps I should get out a little more... 

These pictures are from my Blackberry, thus the fuzziness. 

what's for dinner?

Olivia is guest appearing on Top Chef next week.  You can see it on Bravo, so set your DVR's now!

the little cook. from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

a fun weekend and a walking girl.

We have been enjoying a long weekend together and have had such a great time with friends.  We have been to the beach, a pool party, and a cook-out all in the last three days.  Fun times, indeed!  Today Baby Girl was all dressed up in her red, white, and blue thanks to Grandma!

Olivia and her sweet friend Sarah enjoyed time together at the cook-out today.  They have both started walking in this past week, so I am not sure how I captured a shot of them sitting!

Our family at the pool on Saturday.  There was a jump castle, slides, music from a DJ, water races, yummy food, and lots of fun with friends!  Olivia had a ball playing around in the water.  A funny story - she was sitting in front of me on the steps so I couldn't see her face.  I kept hearing a child scream and so I would look around to see who it was.  Each and every time it happened I couldn't see anyone screaming around us so I would peak around at her face, and it was her!  She was enjoying herself and letting everyone know about it! ha.

Trying to escape in just her diaper and sporting a mo hawk from the sunscreen! 

Olivia has also decided that walking is much more fun that crawling and, as of today, it has become her choice method of locomotion.  She has been walking here and there for a few weeks now, but has now started to walk longer distances and is becoming more steady on her feet.  Here she is walking around in the grass this afternoon. 

Walking on July 4th from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

June catch-up.

Thanks to my sister's camera, I have a few more pictures from Olivia's birthday party that I want to share.  It was such a special day and turned out just as I had hoped!

I also have a few pictures from when family was visiting that I hadn't posted.  I'm too lazy for commentary tonight (and anxious to go watch last nights Friday Night Lights episode!), so you will have to create your own picture dialogue ;)  It was such a fabulous time together.  Enjoy all of the baby smiles!