Blah

I have the blah feeling I get when I spend all day long inside my apartment not doing anything. Kameryn started throwing up last night and did with every subsequent bottle we gave her until this morning. I had to call Dr. Allie to find out what she wanted me to do, and Kami has been enjoying Grape Pedialyte since then. I hate it when Kami is sick, and I know how relieved I will be when she can talk to me and tell me how she feels. I would much rather listen to complaining then not know if she's close to vomiting or if she's feeling better.
I hope things are better tomorrow, that way this weekend won't be totally shot. And Kim is in town, I hope I can sit and talk with her and wallow in our friendship without worrying about Kami the whole time.

Peace

So, today was lousy overall. This morning was filled with a lot of crying, tonight filled with people coming in and out of the apartment trying to help us with the leak from upstairs which turned into a lot of wet carpet. And in between was work.
The one good thing that happened today was that when we found that the leak had gotten as bad as it did, I went upstairs to give the neighbors a heads-up. These are the same neighbors who wrote the nasty note, but I figured it was the right thing to do. No one answered their door, so I ended up writing them a short note, saying something like "Our ceiling is leaking, we think it's coming from your place. They had to turn off your water. We'll get it fixed as soon as we can. Just wanted to let you know."
And once they got it, they came downstairs and knocked on the door to thank me, and to let me know that the landlord told them to use their water as little as possible, and they would, but to let them know if it was becoming a problem. It's true that the guy did all the talking and his wife said nothing and glared the whole time, which makes me think he made her come, but even so, I forgive them. I don't know why I let myself get all worked up. When I'm face to face with the people I'm upset with, it's not hard to remember that we're all just doing the best we can.
So, in a way, the apartment flooding turned into a good thing.

Love Letter. Month 14

That's right! I'm actually doing this a day early instead of three days late! The truth is that since my post last month wasn't very long, and since we went on vacation and I've got a million pictures now I've been waiting to post this month for a long time. And now, here it is. I think this will be a long one with a bunch of pictures and so much mushy lovey dovey talk that we may lose even our faithful readers before the end, but I'm doing it anyway. Mostly because I'm your mom, and bragging about you comes so easy.The first thing that I have to admit is that we've gotten even further into the part of your life I know nothing about. It may seem strange, but when I thought about having a baby I could imagine the first year or so, and I taught myself the milestones at the certain ages and I would have some sense about what was coming next. Now, I have no idea. Jay has looked to me to know what's normal and what's not, and if something surprises him he will check to see if I'm surprised, too, or if I knew it was coming all along. Now, we're to the point that he looks to me, and I have to shrug. I don't know what's coming next, I'm not sure what the "norm" is for kids your age, and the simple truth is that there are a lot of perks to having it this way. I get to completely wrap myself in your achievements more than I did before, instead of checking it off my list and waiting for the next one. Now, everything you learn and every way you grow gets to be unique.You've gotten even more fun this last month. You're so good at walking that tonight you got down and started crawling and it threw me for a loop, it seemed like it had been so long since I had seen it. At the beginning of the month you learned another solid word, one that you have put to use well since figuring it out. You say "Ba" meaning bottle, you just dropped off the second "Ba" because only having to say it once seemed more practical. Once while we were on our trip sleeping in the trailer, you woke up in the middle of the night and when I looked over you said, "Ba" in a way that was slightly panicked, slightly pleading, and as soon as I gave it to you you settled down and went right to sleep. I mention it because it was one of the first times that you've verbally been able to tell me what you want, and it was so stange but also so endearing. I can't believe how fast you're growing.I was worried about how you would handle our trip, especially all the time in the car, but for the most part you were patient and happy. After we got there you were so happy to walk around with all of us and also to explore things like pinecones and you would point at birds as they went by. I hope there's some part of it that you remember, but even if you don't it was more fun than it would've been without you. You kept all of us on our toes. If I could guess, I would say that your favorite part was when we went to a chuck-wagon dinner one night and listened to the Fort Hayes Wranglers afterward. I was afraid you would be put off by how loud the music was, but you LOVED IT. We have a video of you dancing, and the whole time you were laughing and clapping. And not clapping because everyone else was, though you did that too, you were clapping because you loved it so much. That was the best part.Your Dad told me today that he can't wait for you to be an older sister, he thinks you'll be a natural. Sometimes I disagree. You like to have things your way, and you're not too keen on sharing yet. The thing that makes me think he's right is how you are with Isaac. Even still you love to play with him and kiss him. You get so excited that you squeal anytime you see him. I've also seen how concerned you get when he's over and he's crying. I wait for you to get jealous when I'm holding him and not you, but most of the time I'm pleasantly surprised by how you handle it. He really is your best friend.You love to have fun and you love to laugh. One of my favorite things is when something will happen that strikes you as funny, something unintentional, and you will burst out laughing. We'll do things over and over to hear it. What I've noticed this last month is that you do the same thing. Anythime you do something that we laugh at, you do it over and over and laugh harder each time while watching us laugh. I love being with you, special times when we're sitting on the bed or something, and you and I will make each other laugh. You love to play and we play together a lot, and my heart delights in it every time.Your second tooth came through on our trip. As it grows it's obvious that they're crooked, but I love it. The other morning we saw that you have a third tooth coming through on top, your top left. They still bother you, but thankfully not as badly as the first one. Your getting better at eating, and you like to use them to bite pieces off of what we give you. Now we need to work on the swallowing part, because most of the time you still suck on it until it's soft and spit it out.As you get older you just get more and more beautiful. We still are consistantly stopped by people who tell us how cute you are, or just want to talk to you. People wave at you all the time. Lately when they talk to you you cuddle up with whoever is holding you, pretending to be shy, but we know you really like it because if they look away after you do that, you're full attention is on getting them to look at you again. I'm still astounded by what a beautiful girl you are, and I love your eyes. You have such beautiful eyes.

You're also astounding me with how smart you are. The other night we were sitting on the bed and you heard a dog barking outside the window, and you started to copy him. And we'd say "Yeah, Kami, good job, that's the dog you hear." Today we were in the Hallmark store and they were selling dog stuffed animals. They were big, almost as big as a real dog, and you loved it. You'd come up to it and pet it which would make you laugh, and then you started doing the same barking imitation you had done the other night. I don't know if that's normal for a kid your age or not, but I was taken aback and so proud of you!I love you so much. I love to be with you, and I love to play with you. I'm so lucky because there are so many times when you and I are together that you'll put your head up against mine, or hug me so tight, or kiss me, or put our noses together and just hold the position. We cuddle for awhile and it honestly breaks my heart. It's the best feeling. Being a mom, even with it's frustrations, is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I know how lucky I am to have such an amazing daughter and husband. I love coming home to both of you.

You are so easy to love.

Figuring It Out

So it's 12:37 and Kameryn just BARELY fell asleep. It was rough tonight, she was cuddly and tired, but also just energetic enough that she couldn't find a comfy spot, and even if she did, she couldn't hold still. That turned into her being tired and frustrated, wanting to lay in her soft crib but also wanting me to hold her. And then she started crying. The "I'm so frustrated and I can't fall asleep but I'm so tired" cry. I know it, because I've been there. And the times I remember from when she was a newborn are still burned into my brain in a way that makes me doubt I'll ever mistake that cry when I hear it.

I guess I'm blogging about it for a couple reasons. The first is quite simply to be proud of the fact that even though I wanted to just break down and bring her into bed with me, I didn't. That's really good for me because I'm a total sucker, especially nights like tonight when I'm tired too and I just want to get it over with.

The second reason is because I realized something this week that I'm also glad I'm sticking to: I found out, the hard way, that I don't sleep well when Kameryn sleeps with us. I'm afraid of her falling off the bed, and the ONLY spots she's comfortable in are the ones with her heading hanging off the side off the bed. Which makes sleeping lousy, at best, since I'm worried about her.
The other problem is that she likes to sleep sideways. Instead of cuddling with my baby like I used to, I have her feet in my side. Needless to say, I wake up almost as tired as when we went to sleep.

I've decided that I need her to sleep in her crib because we both sleep better that way. When we sleep better, we have more fun during the day. It's harder, but also a no brainer when I think about it this way.

I also have gotten a lot more comfortable with being with Kameryn while she falls asleep instead of letting her cry it out. I think the safer she feels, the faster she falls asleep. Since we're almost learning the crib thing over again, I'm cutting myself some slack and I figure that she'll get back to the place where I could put her down and walk away and it was okay. It works better for me to do it calmly and not force her into it. The stress level in the house is about 40 notches lower.

And lastly, I'm okay with doing it slow, and doing what's comfortable for us and not letting how other people do it dictate how we need to do it. Kami is like me in that way, she does things at her own pace, and I'm okay with that. I like the thought of her and I working together and finding what works for us more than I like feeling like I need to follow the book.

More Pictures of South Dakota

These are a couple pictures of a lake in our campground. Jay took the first one and I took the second one.

This other picture is of the Badlands, which are a lot like Bryce Canyon. South Dakota is so flat and green and beautiful, and then you get to the Bandlands that go on for miles and miles which are rocky and full of cliffs. It's so easy to understand why the first people who had to cross them gave them their name.

Two Quick Stories

Story Number One is entitled, "Don't Do That."
I was at work the other day and a mom and her daughter came in. Mom is being seen to check her meds, she's 26 years old, pretty and has brought her daughter and son. The daughter is also being seen for a follow up on her ADD. I don't particularly like these patients because Mom always seems to get after her daughter in ways that don't seem quite fair, and she laveshes her son with love and attention she doesn't show her daughter. I check her daughter in fully, getting all her vitals an updating her meds, and then I turn to Mom. I put the pulse oximeter on her finger and walk around to put the thermometer in her ear. When I slip it in, she turns her head and playfully tries to bite me. Um, what? And then she dissolves into hysterical laughter.

Story Number Two is entitled, "You Can Quote Me on This:"
The other night Kami, Jay and I went for a walk around our block. We started walking around a church parking lot, and Kami would get brave enough that she would let go of our hands and walk by herself. She kept finding pinecones on the pavement, and she would pick them us and hand them to us. She likes doing that lately because she likes hearing us say "Thank you." I think the first time was by mistake, but Kami kicked one of the pinecones while she was walking by. She walked up to it again, and we thought she'd want to pick it up, but instead she kept kicking it. Sometimes she would miss, but she would always turn around and kick it again. So if, when she groes up, she becomes a famous soccar player and people come to interview me and ask when I knew she would be world famous, I can way, "When she was 13 months old."

Kami's Favorite Part

She's almost a pro even walking with shoes on!

Also, I wrote her 13 month love letter before we left and saved it. I published it this morning and it's before my last blog, if anyone wants to read it.

Our First Family Vacation

And just when you've almost decided to stop checking this blog because there's never anything new, I return! I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged, I'm almost embarassed. I did go out of town for a week, but the time before and after that I have no excuse for.

So, for our first family vacation we went with my in-laws to South Dakota. We all drove in the same truck and stayed in the same trailer. I was dreading that part of it, but for the most part it wasn't so bad. The worst part was something I wasn't anticipating: Kameryn gets VERY carsick. That's a small problem when we're driving for almost two days straight both there and back. We got it all figured out, though, and overall we had a really good time.

Anytime I told anyone that I was going to South Dakota, the answer was almost always, "Why, do you have family there?" Come on, people. There was so much to see in South Dakota that we didn't even get to see it all, and we filled our days FULL of sightseeing. That would be one of my only regrets, that we didn't just spend time relaxing on our trip. However, we did get to see THIS:I've seen pictures of it before, but seeing it in person is so exciting and awe-inspiring. It almost seems surreal, there's so many rocky mountains (ha!) in South Dakota, and then you drive up to this one and seeing it is so impressive. As I've been downloading the pictures off of our camera I find that I have so many pictures of Mount Rushmore, and I think it's because I wanted to be sure I got it. Almost anytime I looked up at it I took another picture. I have all sorts of stories and more pictures about the trip, I think I'll be posting about it for awhile.

In the meantime, I found that I actually wasn't as bothered by the drive as I usually am. Since it's still early June almost everything was still green and without the mountains I'm almost amazed by how BIG the sky and clouds seem. Here are some pictures I took on the way out there, and if you want to get an accurate feel of this trip, you should know that we were listening to Johnny Cash about 60% of the time, and when we weren't actually listening to it, at least one of us was singing it, even with other music in.

Love Letter, Month 13

(I started this blog before I left, and I didn't publish it hoping to add to it, but it's been so long that I figured this will do for now.)

It might sound weird, but sometimes I have to remind myself that you're still so little. There are other times that I'm accutely aware that you're just over a year old. You have so much personality and you can communicate so well that sometimes you seem 13 months going on 7 years old. As you get older and learn more, I've found that the more work you are and the more fun you are seem to balance each other out most times, and even though you're getting to the point that you throw fits when we take things away from you or you don't get what you want, it's also fun to see you walk and hear your expanding vocabulary.Our biggest news from the last month is that YOU LEARNED TO WALK!!! You took a few steps that first day, and you've been practicing and concentrating so hard on it ever since then. Now you can walk a good distance and a good speed without falling down. You still have your feet pretty far apart, it's obvious that you're new at it, but every day you're getting better. And you LOVE to learn. You love walking with us holding your hands or your fingers, as soon as you have a couple hands reassuring you, you practically run around. It's fun to see something that seems so simple make you so proud.You're learning to say more and more and to speak fairly clearly, and sometimes I wonder what the words you've learned to say mean about us as parents. This month you've learned to yell, "BOO!" Your dad and me always run around the house with you, one of us hiding and the other jumping out to scare the other two, so I know where you got it from and that you have a lot of fun with it. The other night Aunt Chelsee was over and you would crawl around the coffee table until you could see her and shout "Boo!" She would act like it scared her, and you would laugh and crawl around the coffee table to do it again.

Your other addition is "Belly" and you can say "Button" with it, but not with the same clarity. You surprised us one night when you stuck your finger in your dad's belly button and proudly declared "Belly!" And you've done it a lot since then, wanting to lift up shirts to find belly buttons and the quickly put them back down again.

I love you, baby girl. I especially love how you make everything more fun. Yesterday we were sitting on the couch and you came over and put your head on my shoulder. It was such a simple gesture, but it meant a lot to me. I'm so proud of you, and so happy with who you are and who you're becoming.

Giving Cake to a Baby

Though I completely intended to, I never ended up posting about Kameryn's party of her birthday, and slowly I've been using the pictures we took during those times for other things. Because I'm impatient.

Her birthday party was a total success, even though when we got to Muller Park that night there was a baseball game going on, so there was no where to park. I had to come from work, and I got there a little bit early but not much, and when I got there it was Jay and his parents and Kami. And that was all. I knew other people were coming, but I couldn't help but wonder what we would do with all the food if no one else showed up.

It turned out that wasn't a problem we had. My mom came with Allison and Chelsee, Danae Gary and Isaac came, even though Gary was supposed to be working and had to switch shifts to make it, Alan and Nolana and their kids all came, even though Alan was supposed to be at a conference in Las Vegas which was a good surprise, and then my dad came and brought my Grandma Hanna, who came even though she'd had her foot operated on. And it turned out the food went well, and the problem was it started getting dark before we were done partying and taking pictures.

The part I was really excited about was Kami with her first birthday cake. We got one for her that was all her own, and I knew she wouldn't know what to do with it in terms of blowing out the candle, but I wanted her to enjoy eating it. I wasn't disappointed.

She started out a little bit dainty with it, notice the two finger pincher grasp. But as time went on, and with a little help from Jay, she started to dig in.

And before long she decided that this was too good to leave sitting on the table, and she tried to pick it up and get it as close to her mouth as possible, which led to this:

Luckilly we still had presents to open after dinner, which was enough of a distraction that Kami didn't get too upset about the cake. She got some really cool presents, including books and clothes, new stuffed animals and a handmade rocking chair from her Ertmann Grandparents, and a stitched pillow from my mom that says, "Grandma Loves Kameryn." She got spoiled, and it meant a lot to me how thoughtful everyone was with her birthday.

Her actual birthday was like Christmas morning for me, I was so excited to spend the day with her doing fun things. I was ready to party. She was a bit more casual about things:

We decided since she had so much fun at the zoo, we were going to take her to Tracy Aviary to see the birds. Chelsee wanted to come with us, and we talked Geoff into it by telling him about the "awesome bird show." The bird show turned out to be a bit of a flop, and most disappointing, Kameryn was completely UNinterested in the birds. Yeah yeah, whatever, she wanted to WALK. She wanted us to hold her hand so she could walk around, and THAT WAS ALL.

The part that ended up being the most fun for her, I think, was getting ice cream. Her own scoop of chocolate ice cream, which we let her eat herself, mess notwithstanding.

(Proof that at one point her shirt was clean.)

Every instinct Geoffrey has was telling him we should stop her, it was hard for him to watch the ice cream chaos going on right in front of us. But we let her do it all her way, and spent the time cleaning up afterwards. The main thing I learned from her birthday was that it's a good idea to keep it simple. I tend to over-do things, and this was definatly no exception. We had the most fun when I was able to sit back and let her be.

I think she'll be proud of how her first birthday turned out. I am.

The First of Many...

Kami has a set way of doing things. When she's introduced to something new, she usually studies it from many different angles, tastes it, and most recently, puts it on her head. This happens most often with food. At a Chinese restaraunt she put Won Tons on her head. While I was making Rice Krispie treats we gave her a marshmellow, which went on her head AFTER she got it nice and sticky. And this is what happened when we gave her carrots.
I have no doubt there will be more where this came from.

CREEPY

Last Saturday both Kami and Jay fell asleep in the afternoon, so I got some time to myself, which I spent looking at things on the Internet. There's a show that Jay listens to at night at work called Coast to Coast, which is basically the opposite of NPR; they talk about conspiracy theories and supernatural goings-on and such. On the website they have pictures that people have sent in of ghosts and UFOs and things, and I was getting a kick out of looking at them. So I happen upon a picture that someone has sent in from Salt Lake, and it freaked me out a little bit. It was this:

I couldn't really believe it since it was something so odd and I hadn't ever heard about it before. The next night I was out with Jay and Chelsee and Geoff, and I was telling Chelsee about it. She said she didn't completely believe that it was there because pictures are so easily manipulated, so we set out to find it. We found a site on the Internet that gave directions, thankfully, because it's in the Salt Lake Cemetery and we wouldn't have ever found it otherwise. And we drove almost directly to it, and the picture above is one that I took. It is, in fact, there.
I'm completely embarrassed by how scared I was driving into the cemetery. A bird cawed right outside my window that was rolled down, and I jumped so high it made Jay jump also. Chelsee and Geoffrey were totally making fun of me. And then, to make matters worse, I woke up in the middle of the night afterwards and was thinking about it. I was so scared I couldn't get back to sleep until I brought Kami into bed with me. She had been crying, I didn't actually go wake her up, but I'll admit I was grateful to have her with me.
I was more scared of the cemetery than I was of the gravestone; I find them so creepy that I think I might want to be cremated after I die. What I would like better is to not die at all, that's my first choice, and so being around it freaked me out.
ANYWAY, I'm posting about it because I'm wondering if anyone else has heard any stories or urban legends about this grave, or if it really is overlooked. I would imagine it would be one of the popular "ghost stories" you hear about in high school and go visit on Friday nights, but I didn't know anything about it. Anyone?

Fun at Grandma's House

Kameryn got a huge kick out of the fact that you could hit ANYWHERE and it would still make noise.

The best part of this was that Kameryn would try to dial the phone and then babble like she was talking, but her tone would go from serious to really high, as if the person on the other end was telling her something REALLY exciting. Then she threw her head back and started laughing. With any luck she won't inherit my "insessant talking on the phone while growing up" gene, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.