Lessons in Motherhood

Ready to open presents, Mom!

Oh boy…Time to open!!!

Stickers are a big hit

Nothing like a little PlayDoh fun before nap

“I wish my fever would end”

What a fun day! Hailey woke up at 6:00am begging to go downstairs to see if Santa came. I was able to hold her off until about 6:45, but then we HAD to go see what Santa had brought. I had my camera all ready for a major gasp when she saw all of the gifts, but she wasn’t too impressed at first. Then, we started opening and her story changed. She was into it. Every gift had to be opened and unboxed and explored. By far, her favorite phrase was “open this.” She must have said that in a variety of ways, tones, and inflections every time a new gift was unwrapped.

After our nap (yes, Mommy needed one too!), we went over to our Uncle Frank and Aunt Michelle’s house for more gift unwrapping and some family time. Hailey was so fortunate in all of the wonderful gifts that she received, and of course, all of the attention that she received. Unfortunately, she’s had a terrible fever since Monday. So, the evening ended with her laying on the couch in a feverish stupor. Poor thing!

First things first, when we come to Buffalo we have to have pizza from Niagara Falls. Why drive all the way to Niagara Falls? Because that is where La Hacienda is. How can the best pizza place in the universe have a Spanish name? Who knows! They also have Spanish decor. Our theory is that the owner was too lazy to change it when he bought the place. Which brings me to the owner – Aldo. Aldo looks exactly like you would think a native Italian pizza place owner would look, complete with tall white chef’s hat. La Hacienda is a cash-only establishment and is closed if Aldo can’t be there…’nough said. Anyway, I’m not going to ever do justice to the beauty that is La Hacienda pizza by just describing it. So, we took some pictures this time. Let me just say that eating this pizza is always one of the highlights of our trips to Buffalo. We crave it for weeks leading up to our trip and usually for several weeks after we get home. Oh the goodness!

I purchased my daughter the most ridiculous pair of princess sneakers that you’ve ever seen for Christmas. Not only do they have 3 princesses on them, but they also have glittery parts, silver shiny parts, and pink parts on them. Oh, and they light up! Ridiculous. She loves them, of course. And, yes, she did put them on herself in these pictures so they are on the wrong feet.

I know I should be writing about the joys of Christmas and the wonders of experiencing this magical holiday with a wide-eyed little girl, but frankly I’m a bit cranky today. Consider this my official “honeymoon is over” entry. Yes, this pregnancy is now at the stage where I’d like a divorce please. How many more weeks do I have???

I was diagnosed with my first varicose vein yesterday. It’s not in a place that’s highly visible, but is in a place where it’s constantly throbbing. Also, the heartburn has kicked in. Not the once in a while heartburn though…we’re talking after every meal type heartburn. I’ve purchased three bottles of Pepcid in the past 48 hours. Granted, I haven’t eaten all the Pepcids yet, I just needed one bottle for my desk, one for my purse, one for the bedroom, and one for the dining room. You never can be too careful.

“Santa doesn’t bring presents to little girls who whine.”

“Santa doesn’t bring presents to naughty girls.”

“Santa will bring your presents to Buffalo this year.”

I catch Luke saying these thing to Hailey from time to time. It bothers me a little even though I know that these are things that have been said to our children for decades. I guess I’m just not bought in to the whole Santa thing so I’m blaming him for these statements, even though I may have uttered them myself.

Come to think of it, I just hope that someday Hailey is smart enough to turn to us and say “then, why did Santa bring me presents last year when I bit my sister?” or “how does Santa cover the whole globe in one night, and why don’t we use his transportation technology to get from place to place instead of airplanes which appear to be much less efficient?” That would just be perfect.

Just returned from our 28-week visit to the doctor and thought that maybe Baby Sophia deserved her own blog entry. From all accounts, she’s doing very well in there. Yesterday, she had the hiccups for the first time ever. Her heartbeat was as strong as ever at the doctor today, but she was breech. No need to worry though, plenty of time and room for her to turn herself around like a good little girl. My belly measurements are just fine, and I lost 2lbs since last time, which is not a big deal considering my ridiculous gain a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I have low iron, which is making me unbelievably tired. No problem…that is easily fixed with yet another vitamin!

Other than that, all is well. I have to start going to the doctor every 2 weeks now. They are beginning to talk about birth plans and preregistering at the hospital and birthing classes. Am I ready for this already? I’m just trying to make it through the holidays!!! Luckily, we don’t need much since we have all of our stuff from Hailey. We have a few major items that I’ll need to research endlessly and eventually purchase, but other than that there’s much less stress this time around (well, if you don’t count the stress from Hailey’s school transition…more on that later).

Oh yeah…Sophia Catherine…that’s her name.

Hailey started her new school on Wednesday. As I expected, drop offs in the morning have been extremely difficult and often require the teacher to pry her out of my arms while she cries and screams. I know that after we are gone, she settles down and seems to enjoy the rest of her day. Yesterday, she got a little sad when other Mommies started picking up her classmates. Luckily, I arrived just after she burst into tears and was able to spend a long time with her in the classroom.

I expected this difficulty during drop-off in the morning, but I didn’t expect the separation anxiety to carry over so strongly at home. For the past few nights, beginning when she was sick, she’s woken up multiple times during the night and cried for Mommy. For the first few nights, one of us would go in and comfort her, give her water, or whatever she wanted. Unfortunately, I have a really hard time going back to sleep after each outburst because I just can’t get comfortable. So, I was quickly becoming really sleep deprived. Last night we finally decided that we had to just let her cry it out. If we continued to go in there, then she would continue to cry out for us even though she didn’t really need anything. If I moved her into our bed, which was our first instinct, then where do we draw the line and when do we move her back to her bed? I guess I am trying to justify our actions because I feel like a bad Mommy, but I really believe that sticking as closely to her routine as possible is the best remedy over the long haul.

Hailey has been home sick for the past two days with her Daddy. His company has a “take as many days as you need but get your work done policy;” mine does not. So, he is the dedicated caregiver for now. I’m trying to save every possible day for my maternity leave.

Anyway, yesterday I was IMing Luke to ask him how Hailey was when she woke up. His response made me laugh outloud… “A little fever and nonstop talking.” Yeah. Nonstop talking is not so much a symptom of the cold as it is a symptom of having a little girl in the house. It really is nonstop. Sometimes she won’t stop to eat. It’s just constant chatter, questions, answers, gibberish, more questions, remarks about things that happened days ago, commentary on the state of the weather outside, reminders of the last boo boo she had, reminders of who caused said boo boo, demands to go potty, discussions of what happens on the potty, etc, etc. You get the picture. It just goes on and on.

It can be quite exhausting to deal with someone who lacks any internal dialogue because I always want her to know that we’re listening to her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s quite adorable, and I know that there will be a day when she decides not to talk to us anymore. I’m sure that will be worse. So for now, I’ll enjoy each little conversation that we have even if it’s the eighteenth time today that we’ve talked about the fact that it’s raining.

Grandpa G always does a great job of capturing Hailey and all of her “looks.” Click here to see his collection of Thanksgiving pictures.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a delicious turkey, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, corn bread stuffing, etc, etc. It was quite a feast. I made the whole thing myself and learned some valuable lessons, like don’t put too much heavy whipping cream in your mashed potatoes lest they try to become whipped cream and end up with a consistency resembling Elmer’s Glue! Other than that, everything turned out very well including the turkey which was both moist and flavorful.

Hailey learned how to play her first board game, Candy Land, while wearing her Tinkerbell costume. I think she’s got a way to go before she actually understands the rules. At this point, the gingerbread characters seem to move around the board with reckless abandon. It is good for practicing her colors though.

Today, we enjoyed a fun visit to the Georgia Aquarium. Now, I need a nap!