Learning to Adapt

this weekend was kinda nuts - i had 2 thirty-one parties, we went up to my parents and were there most of the weekend, and we went to a big birthday party on saturday night... so many different things going on, i was sure that aria was just going to have a melt down. but she didn't. she slept great. she ate great. she posed and smiled and played great. i was so proud of her :) the only traumatic moment we experienced was during the surprise party everyone stood up and clapped and scared the junk out of her lol. which was kinda fine with me, because she then held on to me and didn't let go for a few minutes.... and after her being passed from person to person, it was kinda nice to have my baby back in my arms for a little bit. she did try to eat everyone's pizza and also manage to get her hand in josh's pop glass briefly. all in all, she is learning to adapt to circumstances that change in her life. which is a huge step. and i'm so proud of her :)

Prayers and Bows

A few days ago I mentioned several families I knew going through the tragedy of losing their babies. Here's the link to a blog I follow who is authored by the parents of one of Heaven's newest angels. Baby Maddie passed away a week ago today, and her family buried her yesterday. Please keep these wonderful parents in your prayers as they go through the most difficult tragedy.

They have also asked that moms put bows on their daughters in honor of little Maddie, and send them pictures - what a sweet way of remembering their baby.

http://kandjstaats.blogspot.com/

Things that make me smile...

• aria talking and giving wet kisses to her dolls and stuffed animals
• aria dancing with her little music players
• when aria "passes gas" and baby powder *poofs* out her diaper
• aria's smile when i come in to get her up from a nap
• the way aria stares at us and moves her mouth with us when we're eating dinner
• aria trying to put something in her mouth that will never fit/never move close enough to her mouth to actually be inserted therein
• when aria gets her foot stuck in her play rings and, instead of pulling it off, just crawls around with 40 rings behind her
• they way her hair sticks up after a bath
• getting good-night hugs and kisses from my angel
• aria's jabber-talk/sing to herself in the morning
• watching aria play with her daddy and give him kisses on his nose (and steal his glasses)
• seeing aria do something all by herself for the first time (ie - putting her paci in, holding her bottle, picking up her dropped toy)
• waking up every morning knowing i have the greatest blessing in the world sleeping one room over :)

post-bath hair :)

Tragedy and Thanksgiving

Recently, I've heard of several tragedies of parents losing their babies - 3 in the past 5 days, actually. This breaks my heart - I cannot imagine the pain and hurt that they are going through. While some parents knew their precious angel was sick, others had no idea and were shocked by the passing of their babies. While we know these little ones are in heaven now, it's still so very painful for those who are going through this horrible loss. I've been praying all day for these 3 families all day, and encourage you do to that same.

All this tragic news has considerably deepened my love and thanksgiving for my baby girl. Every time I heard of yet another child passing, I went and held Aria and told her how much I loved her. She may not understand all my blabberings and why I'm crying when playing with her, but I can't help thinking about how God has blessed me with the most beautiful baby girl who has completely changed my life for the better - I can't imagine life without her. Some days, when Aria has spit up all over the carpet, blown out a couple diapers and hasn't stopped crying all day (kinda sounds like today actually...) I feel anything but blessed and thankful, but there are parents right now who would give anything to be able to change their baby's diaper again. Today, make sure you thank God for your kids - even if they dumped a 5 lb. bag of flour all over the kitchen floor...

Crawling Videos and Pictures

New Discoveries

well, this week was the first time aria crawled all by herself and in a straight line. she's been "scooching" since she was born (seriously, 3 days old) and in the past month, she's been moving a lot around the living room, but always in circles, never actually in a straight line. this past saturday, she crawled. in a straight line. right to my feet, which she's currently fascinated with. she's also incredibly proud of herself upon this new accomplishment, and always makes sure we're watching her when she decides to go mobile. attention addict.

she's also sitting up completely on her own now, until she gets so happy, waves her arms and throws herself off balance.

she's falling in love with music even more now - which is all right by me! mimi and grandpa got her a stereo system for valentine's day, and we've been playing music for her, and she's absolutely fascinated by it. she loves the blue glow of the stereo and the pretty music that comes from it. she's starting to dance to music on a regular basis, and also does a little dance whenever she gets excited - pretty adorable, i'm not gonna lie.

she's still  infatuated with "adult food" even now that she can eat real food - pizza esp. is far more interesting than pureed carrots, apparently. i can't even drink a pepsi in front of her, because she sees the blue can and knows it's something she wants and can't have and squeals at the top of her lungs lol. we've been keeping her distracted by giving her a stick of celery to chew on while we're eating dinner, but her occasional inability to actually get it in her mouth, while hilariously funny to watch, is frustrating enough that she can chuck it across the room....and then get sad that it's not in her hand anymore lol.

so many different little things that show how big she's getting...makes me sad, yet tickles me at the same time. she does the most adorable things (ie - climbing over josh's shoulder to get to his cell phone sitting behind him) but it just shows me how big she's getting. in a few days, she'll be 7 months. crazy. seems just like last week when we were bringing her home from the hospital. on the other hand, it seems like she's always been here...

tempus fugit. diligo vita. 

Valentine's Day

so, i know i'm super late, but i was sick with the flu all last week and wasn't writing on the blog.

this year was obviously aria's first valentine's day and, unlike my husband, i like to celebrate every holiday with aria, regardless if she'll remember it or not. josh's brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law bought aria the cutest little outfit for valentine's day, and so she was all decked in hearts and red and pink. more importantly, we spent the whole day playing, being silly and just spending lots of time together. valentine's day is all about love, and even if aria had no idea it was a hallmark-holiday i was still going to show her extra love - it's not like it's that hard! :)

before i became a mom, i had NO idea how much i would love my daughter. i mean, you know you're going to love you child, i just had no idea how incredible it would feel to hold her for the first time, to snuggle with her at night or to play with her and listen to her jabber on and on to her stuffed animals. it really is an indescribable love. and whether valentine's day is an industry-created holiday or not, what's so wrong with celebrating the loved ones in your life? having a special day to say "i love you" is kind of like having a thanksgiving day to me - we should always be thankful, just like we should always show love to those around us, but it's a good reminder to have a day once a year to remind us how important it really is.

On Her Knees

aria is trying to hard to stand up on her own, but just hasn't figured out that she has to push herself up with both legs. right now, she's just pushing up one leg at a time, which means she ends up tumbling over on her bum. when she falls, we say "boom! boom!" and apparently the sound of those words makes her laugh, because whenever we say it she just laughs and laughs - it doesn't matter that she just fell.

she's also scooting all over the place and yesterday tried to crawl into our cabinet drawer that she had opened when i looked away for, like, 2 seconds. she's also attempted to climb out of her play saucer to retrieve her paci, pull herself out of her swing and lunge out of our arms in a valiant effort to nab the remote control (one of her current obsessions.)

other recent obsessions? well, let's see... our fake wood doors - every time i walk by one when holding her she reaches out to touch the doors. she won't stop grabbing my lips or glasses when i'm feeding her and her favorite toy today was when i gave her one of my old Thirty-One catalogs to play with (must be the pretty colors...) oh, and she's still in love with seeing herself in the mirror...go figure.

i'm not thinking it'll be too much longer before she's standing up on her own and trying to walk, at which point we'll have lots of "boom! boom!"s...

Congratulations, Shannon!

You won the Thirty-One Giveaway!!! If you email me your info, I will ship you your FREE all-in-one Organizer in St. Andrew's Hole-In-One! :)

For everyone else who entered and didn't win, you can still receive 10% off your order until March 14th! Thank you everyone for entering! I hope you will consider Thirty-One the next time you're in the market for some organizational tools or maybe that new purse! :)

While it's still fresh...

I had to write down this story really quick while i could still see it vividly in my mind...

aria usually takes her shorter naps in her swing, and she knows when she gets put in the swing, it's nap time. usually she fights this - hard. but today, after i set her down and turned to get her blanket, she had already pulled the tray down and had her hands over her eyes, as if to say "i'm ready for sleepy time!" it was so adorable, and i didn't want to forget it.... :) after all this blog is mostly for me to use as a journal so i can keep track of how fast time is flying by ...

little toes sticking out from under her blanket during nap time at grandma's.

Peas are Yummy.

i had to keep telling myself that as i was feeding aria lunch today... until today, her reaction to peas has been less than positive, but after adding some formula and rice cereal to her peas, she seemed to appreciate them more... it was just i that had to refrain from gagging while i was feeding her, the smell of formula i have become accustomed to and the smell of peas i can tolerate, but the 2 combined was just almost more than i could handle. but she ate with such enthusiasm that my disgust was overtaken with joy that she was finally enjoying a green veggie! celebrate! until now, the only things we've been able to get her to eat are squash and sweet potatoes. i'm not even going near fruits yet, because with her genetic sweet-tooth history, we'd never get her to eat anything substantial if we brought in any form of sugar at this point.

last night, during the super bowl, aria was getting so annoyed with everyone eating and not sharing with her, she nearly swiped grandpa's cracker with cheese right right from his fingers! she leaned over so far and fast to gt to it, she pretty much fell out of my mom's lap! we all had a good laugh, but realized we needed to do something about this "food jealousy" issue... we gave her a stick of celery to chew on. many people recommend celery for infants while they're teething because it feels good on their gums, but aria was mostly confused by it - we've never encouraged her to put anything solid in her mouth before besides her bottle and paci, so the fact we were encouraging the celery probably made it less fun for her. but her face was EXTREMELY entertaining for us. i'm pretty sure she was NOT expecting it to taste like that, but she put it back in her mouth several times. hopefully, we'll have a veggie eater here soon! :)

what was your kid's first real food?

Aria after her first meal of squash!

Profitable Playtime

usually when kids think of "playtime" the last thing they're thinking about it how much they're learning, but depending on how you play and with what toys you use, they could be learning more then than when you're actually trying to teach them something. now in reality, there are very few things we can actually "teach" aria right now with the "sit down and listen" method. besides the age factor, she's also a little too distracted to expect her to focus on something we're trying to show her. thus...playtime has been our biggest ally when it comes to teaching her things about this world.

the easiest way to entertain aria at this point is to have a toy that plays music and/or has flashy lights. her current favorites are a singing alien with a light-up face and her baby einstein music player - the colorful lights make her smile every time! teaching her "cause/effect" with toys like these is simple because she can easily push the button to make them light up and sing. we've also been doing rhythm with these toys as well, by moving her arms/legs or the toy itself in time to the music - the music player's light actually light up in rhythm to the music, so that helps. and then there's the mere fact that we're introducing her to so much music that's also a benefit of these toys.

other toys that kids love that have great learning benefits are blocks and rings, talking toys (the more words they hear at this age, the better) and any other toy that teaches the "cause/effect" lesson (spinning toys for example.) if your child is like mine, trying to demonstrate something is usually a futile attempt unless you combine something fun (the more lights the better! :) ) with it... tickling her belly and going step by step while changing their diapers sounds simple, but it's a great way of bonding with your baby and teaching them words. their smile also makes diaper changing time more bearable for you too :)

Attachment and Anxiety Attacks

there's nothing like the feeling you get when your baby finally reaches his/her arms out for you to hold them, or when you recognize that - for the first time - they get excited to see you. it's just an incredible feeling, and aria has started doing just that. just smiles and waves her arms when we walk in the room, her face lights up when we pick her up from church nursery, and when she wants to be held, she's started lifting her arms for you to pick her up. love love love it.

but then there's the downside...the crying and panic that sets in when we leave or even just walk out of the room. it's even worse when it's josh leaving, which is unfortunate, considering he works outside the house.... and let's not even discuss bed-time. as was mentioned in a previous post, bed-time has recently become a challenge in our household... trying to teach her to comfort herself is an important part of growing up, but due to her previous acid/tummy issues, i'm afraid of leaving her to herself if she's actually in pain...right now, i'm thinking it's just the fact that she doesn't want to go to bed.

right now i'm just struggling with the issues of being unable to leave the room without having a screaming child. i know kids are clingy when they're teething, but there are SO many reasons not to hold your child 24/7.

so.... how did you teach your kids to comfort themselves/entertain themselves once they entered the "attachment" phase? input?

For the Love of Motherhood

*i have been morphed into a jungle gym
*i have stayed up entire nights
*i have had my shoulders, fingers and even my nose chewed on
*my daily wardrobe has transformed into sweat pants and tank tops
*i come in contact with formula more than i do with "real people food"
*i sing songs like "eensy weensy spider" and "london bridges" more so than "un bel di" and "song to the moon"
*"make-up days" are sundays, and occasionally friday nights
*my favorite time of day is bed time
*getting "tisses" from aria makes my day
*i usually have wet spots on my clothes from spit up and drool
*my voice has been used to imitate elephants, lions, dolls and a singing alien doll
*i make up words to songs i don't know, but aria loves when i sing silly songs to her so much, it's worth it
*i spend more time on the phone with my mom than anyone else; she is also highest on my "most texted to" list
*getting 6 hours of sleep at a time is a blessing

and i wouldn't trade my life with ANYONE for the world.

Fellow Blogger Thirty-One Giveaway!

My friend, Becky, is doing another Thirty-One giveaway to go along with her "take your own lunch" campaign! Check her blog and giveaway out as well!

Purposeful Homemaking Bring Your Own lunch Giveaway!

Shots and Snuggles

yesterday, aria had a dr's appointment, which is quite normal for children her age; however, i had not mentally and emotionally prepared myself for the shots she was going to get. see, aria getting shots is much more traumatic for me than it is for her. i have heard it's like this for many other moms as well. see, after a few hours of sleeping it off and tylenol to get her fever down, aria has forgotten all about those shots, except for the annoying bandaids on her legs. i still have the memories of having to hold her down while she's screaming in pain. (i'm incredibly sad just thinking about it.) and while the thought of allowing my child to go through such pain, while i stand there and watch makes me feel like a bad mommy, i know that i'm actually being a good mommy by giving her these vaccines, so that she won't get sick later on. i still feel horrible about the tears, but she - remarkably enough - doesn't hate me for it. in fact, as soon as i pick her up, she holds on to me for dear life and doesn't let go, which - as i have mentioned in a previous post - is quite uncommon for her.

when we got home, we spent lots of time snuggling and i massaged her legs while she whimpered herself to sleep. 3 hours later, she woke up happy and energetic, just like the aria we all know and love :) but a remarkable thing happened - at least, remarkable for me. when i went to pick her up after playing, she reached out her little arms as if to say, "hold me please! i love you!" and that just made my little heart happy. it was the first time she had done anything like that - raising her little arms to show me that she loved me...*happy sigh* i know some babies are quite affectionate from the get-go, but aria really isn't that way; she'd much rather roll around on the floor with her giraffe than snuggle in our arms, but that makes me appreciate those little moments so much more.

sorry this post has been so rambling and - to some of you - pointless, but i never said EVERY post would be incredible interesting :) these are just the things i want to record to remember later on - the little moments that warm my heart and make the looooooooong nights all worth it :)

"Decently and In Order" Giveaway

recently, as many of you know, i became a consultant for thirty-one gifts for the main purpose for making money. we only had 1 car and we desperately needed a second, and who couldn't use a little extra income right now? what i didn't plan on was it helping my life operate more smoothly and to gain space in our little apartment.

it's no secret that even kids who don't yet stand have more belongings than their parents...aria seriously has more furniture in the living room than we do, no joke. the toys scattered everywhere, the clothes (clean and dirty,) diaper changing areas and of course, during this time of year, all the blankets, hats and coats that are necessary to keep them warm. before 31, i'll admit that i was NOT the most organized ever...and keeping up with aria's stuff was basically a lost cause. now i have utility bins and totes to keep everything separate, and while the house is still far from perfect, i always know where to go with her mittens and hats (square bin in the front closet,) clean clothes (large utility tote next to the lazy boy in her room) and all her travel stuff including extra diapers(cinch bag hanging at the front door.) having this kind of simple organization has saved tons of time when trying to run out the door or getting ready in the morning. it's also incredibly useful when babysitters are over, because they're not searching all over trying to find a clean onesie or an extra bottle.

how do you keep your kids' stuff organized? do you? what's your biggest organizational tip/timesaver?

now, here's the giveaway portion: visit the link below - it'll be the new spring/summer catalog for 31; comment below on your favorite organizational product and what you'd use it for in your home and in a week, there will be a random drawing for an organizational product from 31.

You can also find me on Facebook:
Thirty-One Gifts by Kara Wardell on Facebook

Catalog Link: Thirty-One Spring/Summer Catalog

Share with your friends as well, please! :)

Additional Info - Edited 2/5/11 - Everyone who enters and doesn't win still earns 10% off their order, so it's easier for you to get organized with Thirty-One! :)

Operation Anger Management

so aria has started screaming. lots. and out of anger. if she doesn't get what she wants, she screams. especially at "going to bed" time... if we set her down and she doesn't feel like it, it's just constant high-pitched screaming...which we can tolerate for a while in order to teach her that screaming is not the answer, but after a while you either go deaf or insane so... here's the question.

when did you start disciplining your kids for anger issues (or any other issues a 6 month old may have - i can't currently think of any.) ? did you go with a stern "no!" or a slap on the leg? i'm not thinking a slap on the butt is going to work through the diaper lol :P what are you suggestions?