Changes...

Sophie and I have some big changes coming up. First off, we are moving next month. I've decided to move in with a friend of mine and his girlfriend so that I can finally save money rather than trying to make it paycheck to paycheck. Thankfully she's known this friend since was a baby rather than just getting a random roommate that she's never met. I'm excited to be living in a house with a yard again. I'm hoping by next year we will be moving into our own place with our own yard, but the next few months should be pretty fun.

On top of the move we are also house-sitting for a friend. That will actually be kind of nice because we will have a place to stay that isn't full of boxes and packing tape. I'm sure our dog Rose will appreciate it. Our rabbit Gandalf passed away a couple weeks ago so he will not be making the move with us. He was a great pet, and I miss him terribly. It took Sophie about a week to notice that he was gone though. I used to give him free reign of the apartment so I suppose she just assumed he was hiding out for a while when she saw that his cage was empty. As of right now I won't be attempting to replace him considering the fact that I bought him for Sophie and he became more my pet than hers. This is also how I ended up with Rose. I though for sure she would love having a dog but they get along about as well as my older sister and I did as children ( TERRIBLY).

I will hopefully be making some career changes soon too. Not to jinx anything but I have an interview tomorrow at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo in the education department. We will see how that goes. Even if I do get the job I'll still be at the daycare a couple days a week which is nice because as much as this place drives me nuts I'm not ready to leave.

Sophie met Joey finally too. She first met him at Rock the Plaza a few weeks ago. That went okay because at first she was very shy but when we left she gave him a flower and a hug. The following weekend we all went to the zoo and that was a disaster because she decided to be super weird at first by licking her notebook in front of him and then growling a bunch in the car (fairly normal Sophie behavior but not exactly what I was hoping for) and then she was super grumpy the whole way through the zoo. The only thing that made her happy was that she decided she was going to hold his hand and then she did fairly well with the rest of the trip through "Indonesia" and "Australia".

I'm still planning on keeping my dating and family life mostly separate but we'll be spending time together now and then. This weekend we're looking at a possible trip to the drive in, but who knows what we will get into. Hopefully she doesn't growl at him again.

Back to the Stone Age

 I sold my TV. There are no televisions in my apartment as of Saturday. My TV is gone, my entertainment center is gone, and my living room is looking rather bare. No, I'm not crazy.

I announced on Facebook last week that I had decided to get rid of my television. I had a huge 52 or 53 inch flat screen. It was pretty nice. However, because of my schedule, I rarely used it. It would just sit there, off, and I felt like it was staring at me. I also feel like most living rooms have become a shrine to these huge televisions that everyone just sits in front of and they feel obligated to have it on at all times. I've been trying to cut down on Sophie's use of technology (especially since her father felt that a Kindle Fire was an age appropriate gift for a 3 year old). An average day in our house looks like this: Work from 7 am to 3pm, I pick up Sophie and we take a nap, and then it's time to cook dinner/pick up the house/bath time/bed time. In the hours between our afternoon siesta and bedtime I let Sophie have about an hour of Netflix and then she plays and reads while I do what I need to. We usually try to fit in a walk or a trip to the park as well. Ever since she got her Kindle she would ask for me to turn on the television and then get her Kindle and watch something else on that as well, or play her games. Now, if you ask me, a 3 year old does not need two tv shows at once and she doesn't need to play games on a tablet while watching TV either.

Ever since I told everyone of my plan to replace my televsion with a large bookcase (two smooshed together if I can't find the right one) I've gotten a TON of criticism. It is blowing everyone's minds that I don't want a television in my home. My only question to them is: You do realize that children lived without television for thousands of years right? I think she'll make it. I'm not saying it's permanent, I just think that it's the best thing for us right now, and I'm excited. Maybe it will inspire other people to stop using their TV to raise their children as well. Our home has been filled with books and music for a long time now, but I'm really happy with how my apartment is going to look once I get it set up the way I want.

Terrible... 3's?

I'm trying to decide at what point a parent has to stop blaming their child's age for their grumpiness. Sophie is usually a pretty even tempered kid (with a side of stubborn) but lately she's been pretty willfull. I'm not sure if it's just that she's had a lot going on lately, or she's not feeling well, but it's only been for the past week or so. Hopefully it passes. She's so well behaved that I'm not equipped to deal with her mood swings. My coworkers says that she and I fight like a married couple. That's probably true. Last weekend we were bickering back and forth all day. She kept telling me no, I wasn't having the attitude, she would break down and throw a fit, I would send her to time out.... Over and over and over. Finally that night we laid down in bed and she just started crying and said "I'm sorry I was bad. I love you." Of course I started crying because I felt guilty and had to apologize for losing my temper more than usual. Sadly, Sunday was a repeat of Saturday complete with the tearful apologies at bedtime.

I tried to keep us busy. It wasn't too hard because I worked last weekend so between trips to the daycare we also went to Buskerfest to see some street performers. That didn't pan out so well because everything was at street level and there were tons of people, but we did get to have some pretty good food with some awesome friends. Sunday we spent more time with those awesome friends at the zoo, but between Sophie's stubbornness and my best friend's twins testing their limits we had a handful going on.

Sophie and Brooke, who she decided is now her "cousin"

Aside from the grumpiness Sophie has been very cuddly and helpful lately. I have been having lower back spasms which are incredibly painful and sometimes leave me unable to do much. The other night when my back locked up at bedtime (they are at their worst when I first lay down) she was trying her best to roll my over so she could rub my back for me. It mostly resulted in her poking my sides but it really is the thought that counts. She's even been asking me how my back is periodically. That might not seem like a big deal but 3 year olds aren't exactly known for their empathy so I appreciate the thought.

Maybe she's grumpy because I've been forcing her to eat better lately. I did give her spinach and avocado in the same day, which is probably the healthiest she's eaten in her entire life. I guess to a carb lover that's pretty close to torture.

Cosleeping

Cosleeping is the hardest habit to break. Sophie's been doing great since we decided to cut TV out of bedtime. We have a movie/dinner/showertime routine down pretty well and she goes to sleep on her own just fine. The hard part is that she keeps waking up around 1 am and asking to sleep with me. Sleep is literally my biggest weakness. I love to sleep. I could sleep 24 hours a day if I had the opportunity. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, getting her back to sleep usually involves her crying herself to sleep. She's pretty stubborn and hard to calm down when she's tired. So, most of the time, I just say yes. She waddles into my room dragging her blankie and crawls into bed. What makes it so much harder is that she's been much more cuddly as of late and I just can't pass that up.

My favorite part of cosleeping is that it just feels so natural. I woke up the other night and we were both laying on our backs. My left arm was extended towards her and she had her legs across my arm. I was cradling her foot. She had her torso turned towards me and one hand was cupped around my ear. Nothing is better than waking up like that. I know I really need to crack down on our sleeping habits because she's 3 and a half now, but it's just so hard when I don't have her every single day and our nights matter just as much as our days.

So, my question is... Should I feel bad about this? It's not an every night thing, but it does happen a couple nights out of the week. Especially since every other week I only have her for two nights.

Zoo date last weekend

I spent most of my weekend with this lovely lady

Your kid is weird.

It's amazing how often I hear that. People tell me that Sophie is strange all the time. Probably because I share her weirdness on Facebook and Twitter. I can't make up some of the stuff she says. I'm pretty sure it's my fault. I'm almost positive. Just last night we got home for the evening and she asked me to play with her. I collapsed on the couch and told her to let me rest for a minute since I had just gotten of work. She said "Ok mommy, that's fine." and then proceeded to sing a song that involved some jibberish. I did catch the tail end of the lyrics which consisted of saying "I'm not going to let you rest" over and over. So that was nice.

She loves to talk to people, but is learning the hard way that she shouldn't talk about people. Especially out loud. In the grocery store. Asking where their friends are and then saying they probably don't have any. Or that she can't point at a fairly young (albeit bald) gentleman and say "He looks like my grandpa!".

She thinks she can speak Spanish if she talks into a Dora the Explorer microphone. She once compared me to a mermaid in order to explain why she couldn't sit next to me on the couch. She growls at people and tells me when my hair looks bad. She insists that when my boyfriend buys me flowers he should also buy some for her because "he knows her name, so that means he knows who she is" (even though they haven't met yet). She claims that when she is older I have to be brave because the doctor is going to put her back into my belly so that she can be a baby again and never grow up.

Oh, and she told my boss that if a baby gets sick you put a necklace on it and carry it to the hospital by its neck. So. That happened. Please tell me I'm not the only person in the world with an awesome little weirdo? I will say that life with her is almost never boring. Like I said, it's probably my fault. I encourage her to be weird and tell her it's much better to be intelligent and different than it is to be normal.

West Virginia hills

Last Friday Sophia and I took off to West Virginia for a week. My mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer and needed a hysterectomy so of course I wanted to be there for moral support and to help with recovery for a couple of days. The drive down went well, Sophie happily ignored her 9 o clock bedtime and bombarded me with questions for the first couple hours of the trip and then she passed out.

We spent the first few days just enjoying family time with my two sister, niece, and parents. I only go home once or twice a year and usually for only 2 or 3 days so it was nice to get some quality time with them. However, I will admit that my older sister and I quickly remembered why we could never share a room as teenagers. Sophie got along with her 2 year old cousin Ana very well, and was attached to my mother's hip from the second we walked through the door.

 

From left to right: Sophie, Kayla (baby sister), Anna (niece), me (getting lusciously tan), and Kari (bff for 17 years)

My mom's surgery went really well but the recovery was harder than I thought it would be. It was awful seeing her in so much pain. I am an extremely empathetic person to the point that seeing others hurting physically or emotionally brings me physical pain. Every time my mom cried I cried with her. I felt like such a failure as a daughter because instead of supporting her I was blubbering like a baby. Thankfully it didn't take her long to get through the worst of it because the next couple of days had her up and walking around fairly easily.

One of my favorite parts of this trip was that this is the longest time I have spent with Sophie since she was about a year old. Usually I work just about every day and the schedule she has with her dad is that we switch every 2-3 days. This means that I only see her a couple days in a row after work. I got her all to myself for 6 whole days. I really hate to admit that I haven't had my own daughter for 6 days in a row for over a year, but that's how it is.

Mini rant: Rarely can I complain about Sophie's schedule without someone looking at me like I'm an idiot. Especially my family. No one can seem to wrap their head around the fact that Sophie needs her mother AND her father. I can't imagine going more than a week without seeing her, and I know he can't either. Some people seem to think that he's not important in her life at all. Just because I personally can't stand him doesn't mean that she should be kept away because I want more time with her. If a kid's dad is willing to stick around and wants an active role in her life then people should be throwing a parade these days rather than acting like I'm a bad mother because I only have her 50% of the time.

End rant.

Sophie and her cousin Ana

Anyway, the trip went well and my mom is on a full road to recovery. The doctor will be calling her in the next couple weeks to let her know whether or not they need to start chemo. I'm crossing my fingers that the test results come out well and that this surgery will be the end of it. I can't wait to be back home in September, but for now I'm so glad to be in Fort Wayne again.

One last thing. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but my daughter refers to me as "banana". Sometimes, "goo goo banana". I don't know why, you would have to ask her. However, she felt it was appropriate to refer to my best friend (who is of mixed descent) as "Coco banana". Should I correct her? Because frankly we both thought it was hilarious.

My mini me

Does anyone else have a super super small kid? Sophie and I were walking up the stairs to our apartment last night when I realized that she was wearing a dress that she had worn last summer. She wasn't wearing it as a shirt either (which I've been known to do on occasion if I really like a dress she has outgrown). It fit perfectly.

We've been given hand-me-downs from my niece. Her summer wardrobe from last year will be Sophie's wardrobe this year. Did I mention that Ana is not even two while Sophie is 3 and a half? She still wears 24 month sized pants! It drives me crazy.

I'm not sure if she's just going to be super tiny for the rest of her life or what. Her dad and I are like the same height so I'm slightly tall for a girl and he's kind of short for a guy. We're both average sized as far as weight goes. I have no idea where she inherited this itty bitty gene. Part of me wonders if it's because she was born a little early (although I was technically full term) or if it's because I had an extremely stressful and complicated pregnancy. I also worry that it's because she never eats. Literally. This child is the most picky eater I have ever met. Of course, her babysitter says that Sophie eats whatever she gives her. Not at my house. I once made lasagna and the first night she cried herself to sleep sitting up at the table so she wouldn't have to eat it. The second night, she cried for 45 minutes before she finally gave in and tasted it. Although she claimed to like it she took about 3 bites and said she was full.

The worst part about having a picky eater/child that eats like a bird is that parents have a couple instincts and the strongest is to make sure their children eat. It is infuriating to the point of me wanting to pull out my hair sometimes when she simply refuses to eat anything all day or barely picks at the food that I give her. Sometimes I daydream about her eating a huge meal. That would be lovely.