I'm trying not to let the fact that I'm going back to work in one week get me down or let it spoil the time I have left to be home with my children. I've really enjoyed the 12 weeks off with my children. I could get use to this! I do understand that just because you are a stay home mom, doesn't mean your house is clean all the time. LOL!
So much to report about Rachel in just a couple of weeks time. She is cruising now! Yes, our little girl is full blown crawling now. She is so funny too. She reminds me of that baby doll that crawls and wiggles her butt as it's crawling. She went from belly flopping every few crawls, to crawling across the room without a hitch. She is also pulling herself up on things. She started off pulling herself to her knees, but while we were at the beach this past week, she has mastered pulling herself up completely. Dave finally had to put the gate at the top of our stairs and Rachel loves to pull herself up to her knees and shaking it. She likes the rattling noise it makes.
Rachel has hit so many milestones lately. She is even eating table food now. Her first meal was macaroni and cheese and she devoured it. I couldn't shovel it in fast enough. She would yell at me in between each bite. She loves fruit too, especially mandarin oranges. She sucks on them before chewing them up and swallowing. Rachel got her sixth tooth in last week. It's a top one on the right next to her top front teeth. She is drooling constantly and she is always chewing on her fingers. She loves when I get in her mouth and massage her gums. She has had some rough days where nothing makes her feel good. I think it is the teething. I ended giving her tylenol one night to help her sleep.
Last Sunday I had a visit from my friend, Tina, and her two girl's. I can't even tell you how wonderful it was to see them. Tina moved a little over two hours from me shortly after her first daughter was born to be closer to her parents which was over 3 years ago. I think we saw each other twice within the first year, but I hadn't seen her since. Her girl's are beautiful! My other friend, Mikell, stopped by too and it was just like old times. The three years between visits just melted away. We picked up right where we left off 3+ years ago. Friendships seem to work that way. I want to make a better effort to stay in touch. Hopefully we will get together in October. Tina invited me to scrapbook for the day in October, so we are going to try and make a weekend out of it. Hopefully the plans fall in place. The little town she moved to is adorable and I would love to see if for myself.
We just got back from the beach yesterday. It was a good week for the most part. A vacation to me is where you don't have to cook and clean. But unfortunately, finances didn't allow us that luxury. It was funny to see Rachel in the sand and Jake playing in the waves. I remember when I wasn't afraid to play in the ocean. I don't like that I can't see to the bottom. I'm petrified of jellyfish, although we didn't see any at all. The water was absolutely freezing, but the kids didn't seem to mind. Rachel loves the water and she was splashing away. Jake dug a moat and Rachel was playing in it, and the next thing I knew, she fell in head first. It was a comical scene and surprisingly she didn't cry. The first day on the beach, we only had a little pink bucket and shovel. It was so funny seeing Jake with this tiny little pink bucket. We made a note to buy Jake a bigger bucket and shovel when we went out the next day. 10 year olds don't want to play with little pink buckets!
I don't remember the sea gulls beings so aggressive. You can't eat anything that is out in the open or they will practically attack you! There were times where I thought the things were going to take my head off. You also had to watch for flying poop. It was quite scary! Rachel was extremely intrigued by these flying nuisances.
Rachel grabbed quite a bit of attention from board walkers. I'm not sure if it's because she is so darn cute or it's because she is with a white family and obviously adopted. She did put on quite a show with the way she danced when she heard music or when she would do a double-hand wave to those that walked by us. She looked so cute in her over-sized hat too. All the comments that were made were very nice and everyone loved her fat cheeks. We saw lots of white families with Asian children, so it's very common these days. So I'm not sure why we get so many stares. Our last day there, Jake and I went to the beach while Rachel napped and we sat right next to another family with an older Asian daughter who looked to be about 5 years old. I saw the little girl go towards the ocean, so I walked over to talk to the family and guess what? They were another Living Hope family and we met at the Living Hope Reunion in June. We really do live in a small world. The family actually stayed right across the street from us. There daughter was 5 years old and she was beautiful. We met another family who had a 13 year old daughter adopted from China. I love connecting with other adoptive families.
Rachel's personality is really blooming. She has quite a temper on her when things don't go her way. We really got to see it while we were at the beach this week. Since she is really crawling and pulling herself up on things, we really have to keep an extra eye on her. The shore house we stayed at was not child-proof. We would remove her from an unsafe situation and she would thrash her body and scream bloody murder! I would take her and lay her in the middle of the floor and let her have her little tantrum. I was not feeding into that behavior. The other thing she is doing is pinching and boy does it hurt. I would firmly say no no and move her hand and she would go right back to doing it again! OMG, she is stubborn one. I finally had to take her and firmly sit her in her stroller telling her no no! The lip would come out and she would wail! After a minute or two, I picked her up and she did it again to me! Can you believe this little stinker! LOL. I'm hoping this is not a sign of what the future holds! LOL. I'm also seeing her funny side too. She likes to tease! If she's sitting in her highchair eating cheerios or anything for that matter, she would hold her hand over the side pretending that she was going to drop whatever it is on the floor and look at me devilishly. I would say, "don't you drop it" and she would put it in her mouth and laugh. She also likes to feed me but then pulls the cheerio away shaking her head no and quickly puts it in her mouth. She cracks herself up! I crack up at her too! She is our little comedian!
We came back from the beach somewhat early yesterday because Jake had his first football practice from 6:00 PM until 8:30 PM last night. The coaches worked them hard. It will probably get worse when they have to wear their equipment which he picked up this morning. Think Jake is a sweater now! We have to work on Jake loosing a few pounds since the team he's on is a 120 lbs. He can only weigh 128 lbs with pads and he weighs a little more than that. I'm sure with practices 4 nights a week, he will loose a few pounds.
Not sure if the kid's ate bad chicken yesterday when we stopped for lunch on the way home, but they both got sick last night. Rachel got sick as soon as I finished bathing her and Jake got sick in his bed around 11:30 last night. Other than a few trips to the bathroom for Jake, they seem to be okay today. I was told that there is a stomach bug going around. Hopefully it doesn't go any further than it has.
The other day I got some bad news. My mom had a mole removed from her arm and it came back as stage 3 melanoma skin cancer. She will be meeting with a surgeon to find out what is next. Please pray that she will be healed and that she won't have to go through chemotherapy or radiation. Apparently she's had this mole for quite some time and finally after my dad hounded her, she got it checked. It's a shame she didn't have it checked sooner. I just ask that you please keep my mom in your prayers.
Well, that's pretty much what's going on our household. I need to savor the next week, because I go back to work! I'm really going to miss staying home. I hope you enjoy the photos!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment