I’m spread out on the couch with my wool blanket and laptop, just hanging out with Natalie. She woke up at 6:30 this morning and I fed her but she deviated from her usual pattern of going back to sleep. She is wide awake! So we’re just sitting here, hangin’ out. At this age, 3 months, she is starting to get a bit more entertaining. She loves her rocking chair, and the toys that hang over the top of it. She’ll sit there for hours (just kidding) and smile and coo. She’s getting very talkative. Just a moment ago she discovered the toy in the middle has a handle, and if you pull the handle, it plays a song. I remember when Luke found that same toy, in that same chair. It was one of the early milestones we remember the best.

Luke is just getting out of bed. We took the child-proof cover off his doorknob so he can come out of his room sans parental assistance. That’s nice. We had the cover on ever since he switched to the big boy bed because he just. would. not. stay in bed. But now he gives us no trouble. The luster wore off so it’s not a big deal to stay in bed. The boy is becoming more and more independent. He’s potty trained – all around. Number Two was a bit more of a challenge but all in all he has exceeded my expectations of the whole process. It’s cute, he runs to the bathroom when he has to go and insists that we shut the door, he can do it himself! Of course we insist on supervising. It’s a special treat watching your kid poop on the potty.

Natalie is over here making lots of happy noise and Luke just asked me “what is she talking about?” I have no idea Son, but I’m sure it’s worth hearing.

Luke and I will be going bowling later today. A woman in the area puts on a bowl-a-thon every year to benefit children with special needs. Her son passed away five years ago, at age five, and she does the benefit in memory of him. I love a good cause and I think Luke will have a blast. He has a toy set of bowling pins here at home that he loves playing with. Seeing a whole bowling alley with lanes and pins and balls and special shoes and oh my, it’s just going to blow his mind. A friend of mine will be bringing her nephew, who is just 6 months older than Luke. Bowling is fun, but bowling with friends is even better!

Ahh, we are just really enjoying life right now. We have our stressors to be sure, but when the day is done we know we are blessed. God has been walking with us every step of the way. And how can you not love life when you have these two beautiful kids staring back at you?

I moved desks at work. Oh, how I love a change of scenery. I used to rearrange furniture at home every once in awhile, just to get a rejuvenating boost. Now, not so much now that our tv is planted to the wall. So now I have to just be happy with the occasional desk rearranging at my 9 to 5.

Look at me, I’m blogging about moving my desk. It’s safe to say my blog here has become very dull and uninspired. Time is an issue. I don’t have time to just sit around and write about stuff. The irony is that now I have plenty more to write about, but when I sit down to write I can’t remember for the life of me what I wanted to write about. I constantly want to write about the funny things Luke says, but can’t recall them when I want to. What does he say lately? What am I forgetting? Am I really getting that old already?

Here are some of my favorite Luke sayings:

“I wuvver” = I love you
“I want sumping up dare!” – I want something up there, in the cupboard. Aka: fruit snacks
“I sleep dood” – I slept good. Meaning he’s ready to get out of bed and play!
“Do you hear me? I wuvver!” – he said this to me in the car last Saturday.

I’ve been making dinner lately, thanks to e-mealz.com, and my rule is that Luke must at least try one bite of everything. After he takes a bite of something new I ask him, “do you like it?” He always nods his head yes, but very often when I ask him if he wants more, he’ll shake his head no.

It’s real cute when he’s trying to get a word out but he can’t enunciate it correctly. He’s a stickler for doing things right, so he’ll stutter until he gets it right.

He’s potty training. He’s got the #1 down, but we’re still working on #2. He knows where it’s supposed to go, and you knows you’re not supposed to eat it (ask him, he’ll tell you), but he just seems to prefer to go in his pants at this point. Poor Dad is sick of cleaning out underpants.

Natalie is unremarkable in that she eats well, sleeps well, and is good and healthy. She has started smiling a lot more, but we’re still not great at catching it on camera. She coos too, but we don’t have that on camera either. I think stardom is not in her future, but Luke might have a shot. Natalie is going to be the scientist who finds the cure for MS, and Luke will do all the publicity and fund raising. He’s definitely skilled at making a case.

Life is definitely more busy now that I’m back to work but I’m relishing the structure. I just have to be a bit more intentional about budgeting my time.  I’m still home for dinner every night and I am able to spend some good quality time with the ones I love the most. I am one happy woman.

Natalie discovered her thumb today. I just think it’s the cutest thing ever. Luke is a thumb sucker. He only sucks his thumb when he’s tired, and it’s almost always accompanied by his blanket. Natalie is not even three months old yet. I don’t think Luke started sucking his thumb that early, but I really don’t remember. I just know I loved that he could suck his thumb for comfort as a baby. It’s way easier than having to worry about a pacifier. It’s always handy! So if Natalie wants to be a thumb sucker too, I’m all for it!

I haven’t blogged nearly enough about my daughter Natalie. You can’t blame me really, I’ve had a lot going on with my health that has really distracted me. Not from Natalie, but from being sure to write about her.

But today I had a moment that I want to remember. It was an ordinary moment, but memorable in a way. I was just sitting here on the couch feeding Natalie, staring at her as I usually do. But then I locked eyes with hers and I had a mental glimpse of what she might look like as an older girl. And in that moment I fell completely, head over heels in love with her. Better late than never, right? She’s two months old. I’m not saying I didn’t love her before, but I just hadn’t made that certain connection.

It’s the eyes. She smiles first with her eyes, and then her lips. She has such beautiful, big, blue eyes. Ironically, every time we try to catch those beautiful eyes on film, she gives us something like this:

Something tells me this girl is going to have a sense of humor. She’s gonna have to if she’s going to survive living in this family!

Today was my first day back to work after maternity leave. It went very well. Better than expected. I’m not sure what I expected exactly, but I definitely thought it would be harder. Mostly because I have had such a wonderful time bonding with Luke and I wasn’t looking forward to leaving him all day. I am extremely thankful he gets to stay home with his daddy, but I was just sad that I would miss out on all those laughs. He’s such a great kid. Two and a half is a great age. It was hard to be away all day at work today but Luke squealed with joy when I came home. That just makes it all worth it.

But here’s the thing. He’s adorable as all get-out, but he’s also I think much smarter than we realize. In the days leading up to my return to work he kept coming up to me and telling me he missed me. “I miss you, Momma. I wuvver Momma (aka I love you)”. And if that isn’t enough to break your heart, he also likes to ask if I’m okay, or if I’ve fallen, or offer to help me walk. That’s the part that really hurts to hear. I don’t want him worrying about his momma or feeling like he needs to help me. It kind of brings the realization that MS doesn’t just affect me. It affects the whole family. And I start to wonder what it’s going to be like for the kids to grow up with a mom who has physical struggles and disabilities. Will they get teased at school because their mom walks like a drunk? Will they be constantly worrying about Momma falling? Will they be sad when Momma can’t even play a simple game of tag or kickball? I never really asked these questions before because I figured they wouldn’t come into play until the kids are much older, but already it seems to be affecting Luke. And that makes me very sad. It warms my heart that he cares and that he senses when something is wrong, but it makes me sad because I don’t want him to try to carry any of my burden. I mean, come on. He’s not even three years old. It’s just not right.

It’s the last day of the year and this is how I’m spending it:

Crocheting an afghan for my adorable son while my beautiful daughter snoozes on my lap. I’m surrounded by my family and I wouldn’t trade it for all the ice cream in the world. What a great way to ring in the new year. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be heading to bed an hour before the ball drops.

I’ve done enough reflecting on the past year. In 2009 I was introduced to MS but on the glorious flip side I was also introduced to my brand new baby girl. For now I’m just praying that 2010 brings nothing but blessings. Lord knows we’ve had enough excitement

My goal was to get Natalie sleeping through the night before I go back to work, which is in two weeks. She is 6 weeks old now. I thought that to get her sleeping through the night by 8 weeks of age would be realistic but also kind of wishful thinking in a way. But guess what? She’s sleeping pretty darn good already! She takes naps during the day with ease, and at night she is sleeping longer and longer stretches. She had been going five hours between feedings for several nights in a row, and then on Friday she woke up after only 3 1/2 hours. Knowing she could go longer, I did what I had done with Luke when he was around that age. I calmed her down and put her back in the crib instead of feeding her. Lo and behold, she fell right asleep and didn’t wake up for another three hours! I was thrilled, overjoyed, giddy with glee. I know you are too, but just wait. It gets even better. The next night we fed her at 9 pm at the family Christmas party, drove home, then put her to bed promptly. The girl didn’t wake up until 5 am! Last night we fed her at 9:30 and she slept until 5:30 this morning. That’s eight hours between feedings and in my book that’s called sleeping through the night. I can totally handle 5 am. In fact, I love 5 am. Five a.m is my friend. It’s quiet, peaceful, dark. I know 2 a.m. is just the same, but it’s really not the same. It’s different. It’s eerie and tired and miserable. Two a.m. can shove it for all I care.

I’m not real big on celebrations and decorating but since I want my kids to grow up with happy Christmas traditions like I did, I understand that might involve actually putting up a tree.

And some lights.

And ornaments, of course.

We were all having a really great time until someone (not naming names, but he/she is blonde, blue-eyed, and of very small stature) spilled over Momma’s beer.  Behind the couch. We’re not sure if said person actually drank any of it. If he/she did, it wasn’t much because he/she resumed hanging ornaments with no trouble at all. The same cannot be said of Momma. She had a little trouble maneuvering around the tree and had to “catch” her balance on several occasions (I swear it wasn’t the beer… the MS made me do it).

And then the finishing touch – the angel on the top!

Luke did a great job hanging ornaments but Natalie was no help at all, unless you count sitting around looking pretty. If that counts, she scored a perfect 10!

My son does a great deal of his talking at the dinner table. As a result, we do a lot of our laughing there too. The other day he was eating a roll with butter on it – bread and butter, people – and he took one bite and said, “This is AMAzing!”

Then today he stacked up his cubes of cheese like blocks, and after placing the last piece on the top, exclaimed “It’s perfect. Perfect cheese!”

So he’s passionate about his food! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I’ve always kind of bragged about my son being such a great sleeper. He’s two and a half and he’s been a great sleeper from the very beginning. Now that I have a newborn again, I was on a search for help with sleeping babies. And then it hit me! When Luke was a newborn I read The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg, at the suggestion of a neighbor. That book was what saved me, and what allowed me to return to work after seven weeks and be lucid enough to be effective. I can’t believe I had forgotten all about it! I found some excerpts from the book via a google search and as I read them it all came back to me. So last night I vowed to start working the E.A.S.Y. method right away. And you know what? It’s given me renewed hope. I’ve been so unbelievably exhausted and Mike and I have had to work out some crazy shifts to ensure that we both get enough sleep, but with this new plan I’m extremely hopeful.

Here it is in a nutshell: baby Eats, baby has Activity time, baby Sleeps, then it’s Your time. E.A.S.Y. It involves two feedings in the evening that are two hours apart instead of three, called cluster feedings. After that second cluster feed you skip the Activity time and go straight to Sleep. Also it stresses that when you put the baby down for a nap, you just swaddle her up tight and lay her down awake in the crib. If you were correct in interpreting her cues and she’s really tired, she’ll manage to go asleep on her own. I’ve been following this method all day and it’s been so wonderful already. It’s just nice to have a plan, you know? I know we’ll have a little trouble in the evening as she’s getting used to this (she’s usually wide awake in the late evening, hence our problem) but I know it can work if we stick with it. Hey, it worked for Luke!