Making butter

Last week my friend Kristen took Madelyn to our Summer Fun class while I went to a class and while she definitely had her hands full (she has a 10 month old), Madelyn had a great time and I didn't want her to miss the activity that day. I really wish I could have been there because based on these pictures I know just how much Madelyn was LOVING milking a "cow" and it would have cracked me up.

Here's Farmer Tassy and Bessie Cow...

You want me to do what with what??!

Um...OK, but I think I'll just touch this part up here.

After squeezing out the milk (heavy whipping cream) they shook it up in baby food jars and made butter! I don't have pictures of this part, but I'm sure Madelyn was on board with it! Madelyn brought me a piece of bagle with some of her homemade butter on it...it was so special! Thank you Kristen for taking care of my little dumpling and allowing her to milk a cow.

List...

1. Chris' dad visited for the past 9 days and left yesterday morning before Madelyn got out of bed. After our LINKS class we came home, took a nap and as soon as she woke up she walked around looking for "Papaw" and kept saying "Papaw, where?"
2. On Sunday night we decided to do an impromptu bowling trip. I was getting the camera ready to take a picture and Madelyn found a ball that she could pick up and took off! With as much as she loves balls I should have known she would have a blast. The orange ball is a 6 pounder.

3. Apparently it is slavery if I make my daughter hold the hose to fill up her own pool, so she found a better option. I never would have even thought the hose would stay that way!

4. Since I weaned Madelyn she is a whole different girl sleep wise. She requires a 2-3 hour nap at 12:30 every day and she sleeps for 11 hours at night. Before weaning she was an hour napper and it was flexible and she was sleeping 9-10 hours a day. WTC?

5. Potty training is coming and I am scared...but already making plans for that $30+ a month in diaper $$!

6. We don't have any visitors for the first time in a few weeks...who wants to come visit?

7. What was this chick thinking? She obviously planned to come to the beach because she had on a swimsuit, so it's obviously not an impromptu dip in the ocean...so why the leggings and shorts and shirt and bathing suit? I don't get it.

8. Today I went to our local wallymarket and I swear people were so rude! I was just kind of walking around checking out the newly arranged store and doing some price comparision (I don't get out of Fallbrook or off base much) and first there was a lady pushed so close up on me that I couldn't back up to go down an aisle I missed, she was literally on my heels. Then there was an associate that was following so close that when I stopped to pick up some wipes she plowed into my back! She apologized but followed it with "I didn't know you were going to stop." Umm...I'm in your store shopping...hopefully I stop to buy some stuff so you can keep your job!

9. Ending on nine just for Jessica, it is her favorite number after all...

Happy Fifth of July!

We had a great Fourth of July, we stayed home and did some low key family fun. First I made Madelyn fill up her own pool

Then I forced her to gnaw on a corn cob.

Then we strapped daddy up to the wagon and made him pull her to the park above our house to look at fireworks.

She was miserable

Then the show started!

There were jelly fish...

and weird heart shaped monsters
Some green mist...

and Fraggle poms!

It was way past bed time and all just a little too exciting for one little pumpkin...

OK, so she wasn't actually asleep, but she did ride all the way home this way popping her head up randomly. All in all we had a great time!

Way behind...

So, I'm way behind on blogging since I've barely blogged my parents visit and now my father in law is visiting now too. I'm kind of in a writing funk so there we go. Here are a bunch of pictures that I think highlight their trip pretty well...

Dad did things he isn't proud of... :)

We saw really stinky rocks...Wait, there's a reason that big rock stunk so badly?

We went to some wineries...

Mom had a REALLY good time...

We ate a lot of really good food. Kinda like this goat but it wasn't grass off the ground, more like fresh caught seafood, fresh guacamole, steaks, fried shrimp, and anything else that didn't eat us first.

We saw a couple changes of command.

But mostly we just did our best not to get pissed on. :)

The end of an era...

I knew I wanted to breastfeed my child(ren) from the moment I ever thought of having a child. It was the one thing I was sure of as a parent. After I had Madelyn there were some complications and I really had to fight to keep up my milk supply while she was on formula exclusively for 3 days, but I did it. I fought, I drank Mother's Milk tea, ate oatmeal and finally produced enough for my baby.

Somedays nursing her was our calm in the crazy. We've always been on the go and with moving and meeting new people I knew that whenever she and I would sit and she would nurse that she could look in my eyes and know that our love and bond had never and would never change. It was special. I would rub her little feet and touch her little face as she reached up to my face and rubbed my chest. It was our time. It was something that nobody else could have.

At 12 months I toyed with the idea of weaning her but with more moving in our future I just couldn't take away that constant comfort. I know that it comforted me as much as it did her, some days after missing Chris or a particularly rough day between her and I, the entire stress would melt away as I looked into those beautiful eyes and knew that she was at peace nursing at my breast in pure unadulturated satisfaction.

I never thought that I would be nursing her at 20 months. I always joked that when she was old enough to walk up and ask for it I'd stop. Then she walked up and asked for it and I couldn't deny her. At 17 months she got a horrible stomach virus and stopped eating. The only thing she would do is nurse. I don't know what we would have done during that time if I hadn't continued to nurse, it was her comfort with the side effect of nurishment.

On Monday night I nursed my baby for the last time. I didn't really plan on it being the last time but I think we both knew. She looked into my eyes for longer than usual and stroked my face and stomach and she dozed and drank and looked like nothing else in the world existed in that moment except for her and I. It was beautiful and special.

I honestly don't know that either of us was ready for the transition. I know I wasn't. I didn't want to give it up, but I had to. I have to take medicine that really shouldn't go to her so in order to take care of myself I had to wean.

Last night I put her to bed without nursing and together we held one another and cried ourselves to sleep.

Beach baby...

There once was a baby named Madelyn. She hated getting her hands and her feet dirty, she'd look at the sand and crave the water but the feeling of the sand between her toes gave her the shivers. I would take her to the beach and we would carry her or have to put tennis shoes on her feet just so she would walk and play.

One afternoon two weeks ago I took her to the beach. I forced her to sit in the sand and we put hands full of sand into a small bucket where she promptly wiped her hands clean on my skirt between hands full.

Then my parents came to visit and we ventured onto the beach for a walk after a yummy seafood dinner at Fish House VeraCruz and something clicked. We couldn't keep her walking because she wanted to sit in the sand and let it run through her little fingers.
On Friday we ventured down to the harbor and subsequently the beach. Mom bought Madelyn a little set of beach toys and boy did that little girl go to town with the sand! I took off her skirt so it wouldn't be covered and soon realized that the shirt should go too...and then things took a turn for the worse. What had started as a sandy diaper, feet and hands suddenly turned into sandy EVERYTHING! Sand in her belly button, in her ears, inbetween each little piggy, behind her ears...sand was everywhere!

Luckily I had towels and a change of clothes for her in the car so I hosed her down as best I could. I am very happy to say that I now have a beach baby and we will be spending much more time there building sandcastles and dipping our toes in the water.

Wow...

My parents left today after an 8 day vacation and I have been a teary emotional wreck. I don't know why it's hitting me so hard. I think it's because there are no immediate plans in the future to look forward to. This past week was so wonderful. We got to show my parents what we love about CA and I think they fell in love with it too. Madelyn loved having her Nana and Grandaddy here and greeted them every morning with smiles and hugs and kisses.

Our week was filled with love, fun, food, wine, laughter, and champagne...not neccessarily in that order, but there was a considerable amount of laughter after the wine.

I have a ton of pictures and a ton of stories about ginormous aloe plants, mice, and boomosity ratings but those will have to wait because I apparently need to go cry a little more before going to sleep without a goodnight kiss from my parents, like all 30 year old women do.

NO, I'm not pregnant, hormonal possibly, but not pregnant.