Sleepless nights... and that's okay!

I'm not sure if it is a growth spurt or what, but right now at night we are hitting the trying time of being a parent. 

She wants to be with us, which is fine, but she always doesn't want to go to sleep.  She fights and cries and claws her way up. 

Last night the only way she would settle was laying on my husband's chest/head.  Which, I'm sure, was not very comfortable for him. 

But he accepted it, because it was what she needed.

At 2 am we were downstairs eating goldfish crackers.  None of us were super happy about it, well maybe she was... but we did it.  Because it was what she needed. 

When we finally climbed back into bed, we were kicked all night by a restless 23 month old child. 

We weren't happy about that, and we both are really tired today, but we accepted it.  Because it was what she needed.

Incase you haven't kept up with the theme of this post, she needed what she needed.  Being parents isn't all glamor and glory. 

Sometimes it's sleepless nights well after the infant years.

Sometimes it's dealing with 2 am snack call.

Sometimes it's realizing that she is gonna be the little line of the capital H, with her feet in your rib cage. 

And that's okay. 

It will only last a season, and the seasons are flying by quickly. 

So last night, we slept very little.  But our daughter got everything she needed.

And that is worth every bit of it. 

Doing better (home edition)

So I always seem to think I'm doing great, then I look around and see so many ways I can do better.  My child is happy, but my home is a mess.

We moved a year ago in May.  Yet, we still have boxes.  Lots of boxes.  Everywhere.  We have an entire room we haven't even pretended to look at for the last year.  We have a garage that is still filled enough with boxes that we can only fit one car in there. 

It's ridiculous.  Positively ridiculous! 

So now I make a solemn vow to do better.  I'm publically putting my goal out there.  With the caveat that I do have an almost 2 year old, so let's be honest about expectations vs reality. 

Goals:

Set up the first floor office.

This is just one corner..

I long for a space to write that isn't my living room couch.  Though the couch is comfy, it really doesn't lead to proper posture or any way to write without a kiddo on my back. 

This space is meant to be set up as a multi use and function room.  It will be the home office, with a computer desk and the computers set up in here.  As well as our filing cabinet to take hold paperwork and hopefully our shiny new printer. 

It will also house our workout equipment and my craft area.  And possibly my husband's work area if he chooses to bring it in the house instead of having it out in the garage.  It's multi functional, which means it will be one of the hardest rooms to set up. 

Set up the media room upstairs.

Night time picture, but right now it's a toy yard.

We have a beautiful loft area we plan to use as a media room long term.  Short term it is currently a toy storage area, which works great right now!  But it does have loads of boxes that need to be dealt with.  My first round goal is to get storage units to store the movies and games we currently have, to get rid of all the moving boxes finally.  And to get some type of order for her toys that are up there.  They are fine to be there, but they don't need to be scattered everywhere.

Long term goals for this room won't be met in the time frame I'm working with here.  Those include putting up a projector and turning this area into our game room and multimedia room for movie nights with friends.  That is more 10 year plan! 

Set up the master bedroom finally.

It's a mess right now, but it's so bare.

So our bedroom has taken a back seat to everything else since we moved in.  We did have to buy a new bed, which is super cute and I love for our current needs.  But other than that, nothing has been done.  And it's bothering me.  I have such big plans for this room, plans that aren't unreasonable in the short term, but it takes time and effort.  None of which I'm currently putting in to anything. 

I would love to get this room reorganized and include a small reading nook by the window.  That is my dream.  To be able to sit next to the window in the morning and read a book.  Any book.  I realize this is a pipe dream with small children, but long term it's not unreasonable. 

So those are my three goals I'm putting out there for the next year of living here.  Sure, three goals sounds like a piece of cake, but the next year holds so much for our family that these goals are not even guaranteed to get done.  But I think if we work together and work hard, we can do it! 

At least I hope we can...

The table

As I work on the house, I find myself focusing on one aspect of a room and everything around that one item. 

I have acquired that one item for downstairs for the kiddo.

This table.

I bought this table from a friend for ten dollars.  How is that for a steal! 

Anyway, this table now resides under the bar island in my kitchen.  That bar area will probably never have bar stools, so why not put her table there? 

It is perfect.

And now the fun begins. 

I am creating, in my head right now, the landscape around it!  There will be a small shelf to hold her plate, cup, silver wear, and some fruit and snacks that can sit out.  I am so excited to offer this to her now!

There will also be a smaller shelving unit a bit away to hold table work.  She actually has a table now to do table work!  I am so excited.

So yes, the fun begins for her kitchen space.  She has the table, so what comes next.

Well that lasted 10 minutes...

Let me set the stage.

We are working on sod for our front lawn.  We both needed to work to get the soil turned and broken up so we can actually lay the new sod and it take.  This is quite a feat when you have an almost 2 year old who is a runner.  And by runner I mean runner in the street because she enjoys playing chicken with cars.

So I came up with a great idea!  We'll set her up at the end of the driveway with her rice bin and a new toy she loves!  It was perfect.

PERFECT I tell you.

There you go.  Everything she could want for an hour of peace. 

An hour was all we needed.

I just needed to help as much as I could.  We weren't wanting all day. 

So you can see, she's all set up.  We set out to get our tasks done as quickly as possible.  The rice bin can only hold her attention for so long. 

Yeah.. that so long was 10 minutes. 

10 freaking minutes.

So, what else is a parent to do? 

Hand her the fucking kindle.  That's what. 

A little Moana never hurt anyone. 

And when that got old?  Up on my back she went for a quick nap.  At least she still falls asleep in the carrier. 

But we got everything done.  That's what counts right?  Right????

Favorite Parenting quotes

We all have our way of being a parent.  I just want to share a few of my favorite quotes about raising children.  I will preface this by saying I haven't gone through each of the people these quotes come from with a fine tooth comb.  I am not advocating their entire parenting styles or their philosophies.  I am merely saying I like this one quote, and this one quote only!  Also, I have collected these graphics from around the internet.  If one of these is your intellectual property, please let me know and I will either take it down or attribute it appropriately.  I did not have this blog post in mind when I saved most of these, so I didn't jot down who created them. 

And the most important one to me, right now in my life:

Honoring my daughter

I put out a request on our facebook page asking for suggestions for blog posts people wanted to see.  A friend requested this:

Personally, I'd love to read about how you try and integrate [pacific island] culture into baby girl's life. [...] I'm wondering what else you've done and/or are planning to do to teach her about her heritage

Interesting topic question.  And very loaded.   I have sat with this question since it was asked.  Why?  Because I needed to think if I was really doing everything I could and have enough information to talk about. 

I think I do.  And I think we are doing a great job. 

I figure I will attempt to talk about this, but this may become a two part blog.

I also want to make it perfectly clear that while I am willing to talk about how we incorporate aspects of my daughter's culture into her lives, we are still learning.  We are not perfect.  Nothing is perfect about how we do any of this. 

So first thing first, we are learning her language.  The key to connecting with your culture is knowing your language.  So I've been working on learning it since we matched with her (birth)mom.  I'm old, so it's a slower process for me.  But everything I know I use with her, constantly and without hesitation.  I speak to her as much as humanly possible in her language so she hears it and can learn it. 

Traditional clothing on her first birthday.

The second thing we are doing is keeping an open communication with her (birth)parents.  We send pictures and converse as often as they feel comfortable.  Having this link will hopefully give her some sense of knowing her entire story. 

We also incorporate big days from her islands into our every day life.  Small celebrations we also try to bring to our home, so she knows what they are and why they are important.

Her first birthday was also celebrated in the style of what it would have been if she were born on the Islands.  We had traditional food and dancing.  We dressed her traditionally and several people who came gave traditional gifts!  It was amazing and wonderful and we were so happy to extend this celebration to her. 

As for what we are planning... I haven't really formulated any big plans.  We plan to connect with others from the Islands as she gets older.  We also plan to take her celebrations of her culture that we recently found out happen! 

We want to just expose her as much as we can, so she knows her roots and her story.  We hope we are doing enough, but we can always do more.  And we will.  Always. 

Any excuse to dress up

So if it's not glaringly obvious, we are not a religious family.  That said, I never miss a chance to dress little miss up in cute outfits!  So Easter came around and despite having no where to go, I got to dress her up and do her hair.  She loved it!  She's all about pretty dresses already. 

Is this dress not beautiful?  It was a gift to her and honestly she's never had, and never will have, a reason to wear it in the real world.  We put it on her solely for pictures! 

Her hair is also on point.  And no, I could not tie a bow, so she got a cute knot. 

I love this picture.  She is trying to run away from me here... so I'm holding the bottom of her dress.  She eventually turned around and went "PAPA LET GO!!!".  I almost fell over I was laughing so hard. 

It was also with this pretty dress that I realized we have no dress shoes for the kid.  I mean, she doesn't need them, but it was humorous to me that in the end, we had zero dressy shoes.  All well!

Hope you enjoyed our Easter fashion show!

Wild child

I am currently reading a book about letting children get out in nature and explore.  It caught my attention in a discussion and so far it's lived up to my expectations. 

Which basically is to say, the book says to get outside, it's good for you.  And that's about it. 

Which is disappointing.  A little.  But on the plus side, it reminds me of letting my child get out and explore everything!  And that dirt won't hurt her.

So currently we go to the park.  A lot.  And hang out outside just for the hell of it with neighbors.  And we've started planning camping trips, which I think will be the ultimate get outside and explore!

I think she likes it.

I swear she was yelling "FREEDOM"

as she ran...

The need to slow down

Working on new materials sent by the

awesome grandparents!

Since moving, we have had a super busy life.  We have play dates at least twice a week, every weekend is taken up with doing family things, and recently we've been hanging out with friends on a 3rd day of the week. 

Baby girl has a social life many people dream of having!

But with that social life comes the inability to have a routine of any kind.  When you live an hour away from most things, you learn to make do and hope she sleeps in the car to and from events. 

Look at the cast iron getting all pretty!

Lately though, I've been feeling this need to slow down.  To just stay home more.  To relax.  This need has really had me a bit messed up.  Because while *I* have this need, the kiddo has other needs.  The need to get out of the house before she goes stir crazy is at the top of the list. 

So we compromise. 




She gets out of the house almost every single day, but I get every couple Friday's to do nothing. 

And it works.

Today for instance, we hung out in our jammies until almost 4pm.  I had some cast iron I needed to strip and reseason and she had some toys she needed to stare at and play with.  It was a glorious day of just relaxing and resting.  Granted, she took only a miniscule nap, but that's another story all together!

Rest days are probably my favorite.  As an introvert, I enjoy being at home.  I enjoy the resting, the relaxing, the having no social expectations, and especially the staying in jammies all day!  And I think I have made these rest days still stimulating enough for the kid!  Hopefully. 

No clue.  She was just sitting there staring.