4 months...

Dear Clare,

This has been my favorite month thus far! Every day you're moving more and more away from newborn and more and more into fun baby. It's been such a busy month for us too! Let's recap shall we....

You moved to a new house in a new city, which means you official have a room!!!!! YAYAYAY!!! Ok maybe mama and dada are more excited about the crib and closet situation than you are, but it's nice to finally have a place for everything.

I believe you've started teething. You have horrible cranky moments that are usually followed by lots of drool and lots of num num numing on things. You've also hit the EVERYTHING IN THE MOUTH NOW stage. Your favorite things are things that crinkle, like wipes bags and granola bar wrappers.

You also love your toys and are starting to need to be 'entertained.' It's so fun to see how excited you get for new things, and kinda fun to see you get upset when I have to take something away from you. You know that you're 4 months and not 3 years old, right? You don't have to have tantrums yet ;-)

We've moved you out of our bed and into your crib. Sleep at night is still very "fluid," but you're doing it and you're in your crib so that's awesome.

I said I was going to wait until 6 months to start you on solids, but you realllllllyyyyy like to eat. And I can't eat anything without you trying to grab for it and stick it in your mouth. I think you may have already gotten some of dada's sweet potato fries the other night. So we may start earlier. Considering you still aren't taking a bottle this may help with that though.

You're rolling over from back to belly like a pro. And you can even sit unassisted for a little bit at a time. You haven't quite figured out that when you're sitting you can't just fling yourself backwards in a fit of excitement.

You still absolutely adore your brother. I wish I got those same smiles that you give him. And you started laughing, but only for Damian. It's the best little laugh though and the combination of both of you laughing makes my heart swell.

While I'm still the mama and thus the "love of your life," it's become quite obvious over the past few weeks that your daddy has your heart though. You start to get cranky around 5 in the evening, but the second he walks in the door you're all smiles and happy to be in his arms. He calls you his 4 am buddy, and I think he secretly loves that time with you. You've got him wrapped already. Good job!

That's about all the excitement for now. Keep doing what your doing little girl!

Love you more than ever,

Mama

Also, if you missed the pictures I finally added to her other letters here those are
month 1
month 2
month 3

Sweet Sweet Baby Sleep

Dear world,

Let me apologize to you. I've judged you, and I am sorry.

I once thought I knew all there was about babies. Because I had one. But now...

Now I have two.

And I realize that nothing I have done has made them the way they are, they just are the way they are and it's my job to make sure they don't die basically. Basically.

I say all this mostly based on sleep--more specifically sleep training and baby sleeping and all that jazz. If you've ever wanted to cause yourself anxiety you should look up articles about infant/baby/toddler/people sleep. It's insanity. And everyone is right. And you are likely wrong.

Damian sleeping story had the following chapters-- The First Two Weeks Are Horrible Hell followed by Oh Wait, It's Just Liver Failure followed by A Newborn With A Feeding Tube Seems To Sleep All Night followed by Cry It Out FTW. I really had to do very little after I convinced him he could sleep in his crib and not my arms.

However, if there was one thing in the world I swore I would NEVER, and I mean NEVER, do (even after all those Never Say Never posts) it was co-sleep. Babies don't belong in beds.

And then I had Clare.

My foot is still in my mouth.

Yep. Still.

Anywayyayayyyy. Baby girl loves to snuggle and I love to sleep and I have a 3 year old version of the Energizer Bunny so really that's just how it was going down because everyone was winning. But now we've moved and baby girl has a room, and well... I don't really want to nurse allllll night long anymore. And I could tell she was functioning better without me some.

Lap nap. Sure.

Car nap. Why not?!

"But I looooveeee your memory foam mattress topper. And this tube of bugs!"

So we've begun to transition her. And it's all started with her swing.

I decided to start by trying to put her down at night in her swing instead of holding her while watching TV. It seemed to be working! So then we started to move the swing upstairs and let her sleep there until she woke up (usually around 1 am) and then sticking her in the bed with me.

Then I stuck the swing in the crib. Baby steps. Baby steps. And then I started nursing her back to sleep and putting her back in her swing until about 5 which is apparently "time to wake up" time. No Clare, no it is not.

And now... now she is sleeping in her crib sans swing. She still wakes up anywhere from every 2-4 hours but Nate and I have it worked out so that I get the 7:30 pm to 2:30 am shift and he gets the "after that until 5am" shift. He goes to bed early than me, so it actually works out well. After about 2:30 I start sobbing with her, whereas he somehow can function and walk marathons with her in the kitchen.

It's really weird not having her hanging out with me all evening. And all night. I'm starting to feel a little more me like, which is nice. I don't regret letting her sleep in the bed with us. I got to sleep and this transitioning hasn't been awful minus the two days of basically no sleep before Nate and I decided to tag team it and I was trying to figure out greige. And if anything it's taught me a valuable lesson....

I don't know anything. And everyone is just winging it.

7 Quick Takes

1.

 Is anyone else a little depressed the Olympics are about to be over? I have no clue what I'm going to watch now. I guess I might have to actually get something done now in the evening. Orrrr just watch more Doctor Who again.

Source

2.

 The past few days have been so sunny and warm and I'm finally melting. Yesterday the kiddos and I had a picnic in our backyard, and dare I say it, but there was a moment I was actually hot.

In February.

 Remember last week when there was ice..... 

Also, the rain/humidity did a number on the kids' hair today. Damian's 5 inch fro shrank instantly after our jog (no. I don't want to talk about it.)

And Clare's "undecided" hair had distinctive curls. 

3. 

Have I ever mentioned my love of succulents?? If not, then let me start here... I love them. Mostly because they are filed under the "Plants of STEEEEEEL" (as D would say) section of Home Depot (nope still can't go back to Lowe's yet. The shame lives on.) and that makes them very hard to kill. And yet I want to plant a vegetable garden. Thank God for grocery stores....

4. 

This is the price I pay for 30 minutes of silence. 

He seems to be in his Blue Period right now. Picasso would be proud. 

(Anyone want to tell me how he figured out how to add filters to his pictures...)

5. 

The house is starting to feel a bit more like a house and a little less like a storage unit. I had to clean our bathroom today, meaning the counter was actually visible so I found that to be promising. There are still a ton of boxes in the dining room, FROG, and garage. However, we Nate did find this gem in the attic. 

#IDontEvenKnow

6. 

Got my driver's license yesterday. So I'm officially a citizen of the great S.C. again. 

7. 

I dunno... I don't really have a seventh thing to talk about. I'm getting my hair cut on Tuesday for the first time in a year? See... that's the best I could come up with. When I start talking about my hair I know it's time to just sign off. Say good bye. Cut my loses. "And all those good bye things." 10 points to the person who knows the Disney movie reference. (Thanks Damian...)  Also. I'll leave you with this. 

I found it hilarious. No? Just me? 

Le sigh.

Have a fab weekend everyone!

"Greige" or The Painting Failure

This is the saga of painting the living room. Buckle up, settle in, grab some popcorn, and continue on. It's a long one, and it's about pain paint. A nail biter I know.

There's one thing I've wanted to do since we signed away our life and bought this house--paint. Of course there are a ton of things I want to do, but painting is so easy and relatively inexpensive in comparison to demo-ing bathrooms and such... Within a relatively short amount of time I had all the paint colors for the entire house picked out in my head. I wanted a color scheme, and flow, and all that jazz. Our house doesn't have an open floor plan so I wanted the colors to help with that and not make each room feel even more sectioned off. Anywayayayayyyy....

Our living room is on the smaller side so I wanted to stick to a light color. Grey is really popular right now, and don't get me wrong, I love me a good grey, but I wanted something a little lighter. A little more beige. Something known as "greige." Problem is, I had all these colors in my head, but my head doesn't know paint chip names. Thus began the search to put a name to these mind colors.

Did you know greige is apparently very hard to find? Ok ok ok. It's not that hard, but it is when you have this exact color in your mind and you can't find it no matter how many paint samples you put on the wall. I told Nate I wanted something light, but not white. Kinda like the color white is when it has shadows on it. He just gave me a blank stare and said "Good luck with that." Followed by "Take a picture of the Paint Man's face when you tell him that."

After a few paint samples on our wall, we found "the one" and off we went to buy our gallon (along with a beautiful grey for the bottom half of he hallway--we have a chair rail... I'm digressing. We're talking about the griege here.) Since I love to paint, the second we got home I start slapping that lovely subtle greige on the wall.

Hmm....

This is kinda white.

I like white? Maybe it just needs another coat.

Another coat later...

Ok this is not subtle anything. This is just blatantly white.

And now my eyes are blinded by the brightness of it.

See aren't your eyes bleeding too a bit??

Really these pictures aren't doing the paint's radiance justice. 

Nate doesn't think the paint got tinted like it should have, but I can't exactly go back to Lowe's and say "Hey, I know there's less than half a gallon left in here because I painted my entire room--twice--but I think you messed up." Also, what am I going to say... this paint (called Woodland Bedroom White) is white?! 

Now before you get all judgy and say "Mary Helen... what were you thinking??" I will tell you what I was thinking. The paint did not look this white on the paint chip nor on the wall when we did the sample. So maybe something was wrong with the paint. I dunno. We will never know. However, it has to go. We can't keep the lights on at night because the walls scream at us with whiteness. 

What happened next should probably be left off the blog because as the bestie said, I was one paint sample away from her calling Intervention and sending me to get some help. 

No... that's not all of them.

I had to switch to Home Depot because I know the Lowe's Paint Man was starting to worry about me as well. Even Clare was giving me the "Mom, just pick a color already" look every time she woke up and found herself in the paint section yet again.

At one point the mosaic of wall colors was driving me to try my hand at mixing my own paint. Nate stopped me and said that I had to just pick one. I decided to try the one that kept catching my eye, and I used it to paint over all the other paint trials on the walls. The more I painted, the more I realized that my greige did exist and it was called Stonewashed by Behr. 

I went and got myself a gallon today. And as I type I'm watching the hubby put it on the wall (he's a painting expert.) 

I'm in love.

With him and the paint, of course.

Once the room is "finished", I'll do a before and after.

Home Tour

Here it is, the new house!

A few things before we start...

1. I don't have a future in videography. Oh well...
2. I'm in my pajamas, the kid is running around, the baby is on hip, and the house looks like a hurricane full of boxes and socks (looking at you Tibs) came through it. So if you get motion sickness that's why.
3. And for bonus points, try to find the moment I clearly don't know left from right.





There are so many things I want to do to the house, but I'll save the To Do list for Nate later.

The Do's and Don't's of Moving with Small Children

Don't.

No really. Just don't. 

Ok that might be a bit over dramatic. It's definitely doable in a you'd-chop-your-arm-off-if-it-were-stuck-under-a-rock-and-it-was-your-only-chance-of-survival kind of way. So I thought I'd share a bit of our process with you. And no, I still don't have pictures loaded of the house, but how about a video tour tomorrow?! Dealzzz (as Damian would say)???

DO adjust your expectations of time and apply the "add a zero rule." So for example, if you think it's going to only take you 20 hours to pack, add a zero, and prepare for 200 hours of box filling fun. Or if you think it's only going to take you a day to paint a room, add a zero an accept it will probably take 10 days and 100 trips to Lowes. I can't imagine why I might have gotten the wrong paint sample...

DON'T be shy about using Mr. TV to babysit the littles. I figure Damian's brain may be a bit more mushy by the end of this move but that's a lot better than having a box fall on him. Or packing him in a box because he refused to stop unpacking them. Or because he wants to "help" paint the carpet.

DO get help. If someone wants to help you, take it. And no I don't just mean from a marriage counselor. (I kid of course!) Sending Damian to the grandparents helps get rid of that darn zero rule. 

DON'T forget to take pictures. Nate really wanted us to do a video walk-through of the house before it was empty. I was opposed only because I didn't want the last recorded memories of our house to be when it was in such a state of disarray. But in the end I'm glad we did it! So much has happened in this house and I want to remember it.

DO hire someone. We went ahead and built in the cost of movers into the savings for home purchasing. We ended up not having movers load our truck (long story that will be funny...one day...I hope...) But we did for unloading the truck. Movers are a whole lot easier. Trust me. (Not that our free-of-charge movers aka in-laws weren't great, but I'm going to assume that they would've enjoyed us having movers too. :-) )

Basically that's how we are surviving--well that and some craft brews and bottles of wine.

.

Photo dump

While we continue to wait to close on the house I thought I would share some pictures of the littles from my phone.