...she will be crawling in the next week. Where does the time go? She will be 6 months old in 6 days. It seems like time went by slower with Abhi, I couldn't wait for each new development and milestone. With Fiona, it's like "What? She's sitting up? She's not old enough for that yet! And now she's trying to crawl?! What's up with that?!"
I'm not ready for her to speed through all these milestones. Abhi was the same way - one week sitting up, the next crawling, the next pulling up, and she was taking her first steps by 9 months. But, on the other hand, it will be fun watching her explore and be able to entertain herself.
It's so much fun to watch the 2 of them interact. Abhi makes Fiona giggle and Fiona makes Abhi giggle. Fiona loves to watch Abhi play and Abhi loves giving Fiona hugs and kisses. We will see how it goes once Fiona is getting into all of Abhi's toys. We are trying to teach Abhi how to share and I think we are making some progress there.
Now if we can just get Abhi to stop having screaming tantrums anytime she doesn't get her way, I will be much more relaxed! It seems like any little thing will set her off. The other night it was because Jim tried to move her rocking horse into her room. Then when she protested, he put it back where it was and she had a total meltdown. That is just one example of many episodes. She seems to be having at least one tantrum every day this past week. It is frustrating and exhausting and I have no idea how to handle it (I think the neighbors upstairs are getting tired of it too). Any tips on dealing with a 2 yr. old's tantrums will be very much appreciated.
We got our taxes done and should be getting our return this week. Then I can order my new camera, yay!! I am planning to get either the Canon Powershot S2 or S3, depending on what the best deal I can find is. I can't wait!
I really feel bad for Britney Spears. I feel she is suffering from a lot of things - a very public divorce, stress from having 2 babies, loneliness, addiction, probably some postpartum depression just to name a few. I came across this excellent editorial that really made me think. It is long, but it explains how she probably got to where she is now. Read it here.
Tracey over at Picture This asked her readers to post more self portraits, so here are some of my favorites. The last picture on Monday's post is one that I took while Abhi and I were playing around on the bed.
This one was taken when Abhi was around 6 months old. I seem to get the best pictures when we are laying on the bed and I hold the camera up above us while taking the picture.
This next picture was taken at the same time as the one on Monday's post. I love the lighting of these pictures. The afternoon sun was coming in through the window next to the bed. I got some really cute pictures of Abhi where the sun was illuminating her.
The next one is a photo I took of Fiona and myself when she was about a week old. I just love snuggly, sleepy babies!
That's all for now! I need to get some more like this of Fiona and some of the 3 of us. I am planning to buy a new camera when we get our tax return, so I am pretty excited! The camera I have is pretty limited on adjustments. I hope I will be taking much better pictures in about a month!
Abhi got her very first princess dress yesterday. Her babysitter's daughter got it for her and she was wearing it when I went to pick her and Fiona yesterday. She greeted me with a very loud "Look Mommy! I'm a PRINCESS!" Isn't she cute? I am sure she is going to want to wear it all the time now. It is still a little big, so she has plenty of time to grow into it.
In other news, we are going to visit my parents this weekend. Abhi has been asking about them for a while, but my mom was in Tanzania for a couple of weeks, so this weekend will be the first chance we have had in a while. It will be fun I think. I always enjoy seeing my parents. I appreciate them so much more now that I am a parent. My mom has turned into a regular world traveler since my dad retired and I finished with school. This was her 3rd trip to Africa. She has also gone to Peru, the Bahamas, Hawaii a couple of times, and Alaska a few times. She is a great photographer and always has really cool pictures from her trips. She usually gives me a CD with all of the pictures, so I will try to remember to post a few here when I get back.
I don't have any recent pictures from this past week (well I think I do, but Jim has hidden the camera somewhere and I can't find it) so I thought I would post a past favorite picture (or 2 or 3 since Tracey posted more than one on her blog Picture This.
These 2 are of Abhi last Easter weekend. I was visiting my parents in Victoria. We went outside and I laid down on the ground and took pictures of Abhi as she played around me. The pictures came out really neat.
This picture was taken a day or two before Fiona was born. I love it for so many reasons.
That's it for today!
Oh! One more thing.....
Fiona is officially sitting up now! I will try to get some pictures tonight. It won't be long before she is crawling!
I often dream about the house I grew up in. We lived in that house for 10 years. We moved to West Virginia when I was 2 and moved back to Texas when I was 12. I have moved around a lot in my life, but this is the place I revisit in my dreams several times a week.
We lived on the side of a mountain overlooking Elk River Valley. It was beautiful there. Lush forest surrounded our house. There were endless places to explore, animals to watch, and trails to hike or horseback ride on.
No other children lived in my neighborhood and my sister was 8 years older than me. It's not so much a difference now that we are both adults, but we were worlds apart then. So, I was pretty much on my own playing most of the time. I didn't know any different, so it didn't really bother me. I always related better to adults when I was a kid. The only time I was ever around other children was at school, and I felt really different from them. I was much more comfortable talking to my teachers. I didn't have many friends and many of the "popular" kids picked on me. This has followed me into adulthood and most of the time have a lot of social anxiety around people the same age as me.
I loved spending time outdoors. I spent hours playing in my mother's garden, it was so beautiful and I loved looking for the Impatience flower seed pods and pop them open. I always imagined fairies living there and kept an eye out for them.
The view outside my bedroom window was incredible. I loved seeing the changes from season to season. You could see pretty far in the winter when all the leaves had fallen off the trees.
I couldn't wait for the first snowfall every winter. I was young enough then that the cold didn't really bother me and I was too little to have many winter chores like shoveling the sidewalks. My sister and I would have snowball fights, sled down the hill in the front yard, and eat icicles.
When my parents told me that we were moving back to Texas where I was born, I had mixed feelings. I didn't want to leave my mountain, my house, my secret places, but I was excited about going to a new school where no one knew me. It would be a fresh start and maybe I would have more friends. We went back to Texas every summer to visit my grandparents, so I knew what it was like there. We moved there just after I started 7th grade and it totally changed my life. I did make a lot of friends. We moved to neighborhood that had other kids my age to play with. I have lived in Texas now for 17 years and my experiences here have shaped my life. I went to college, I met my husband, my children were born, but some small part of me is still that little girl who used to run wild in the mountains of West Virginia.
I thought I would do a post about the things I love, so here it goes (in no particular order).
* Abhi's giggles * Fiona's gummy smile * Watching American Idol with Jim * Long, hot bubble baths all by myself * The smell of my pillow * A really good book, preferably very long and involved with a twist of the supernatural and part of a series (any suggestions are welcome....I need something new) * Red Bull * Homemade chocolate chip cookies and milk * Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream with Hershey's chocolate sauce * Shopping at Target * Cuddling with Abhi on the couch * Breastfeeding Fiona and watching her put her hand over her face or play with her foot * When I pick Abhi up from the babysitter and she says "Mommy!" and jumps in my arms and gives me a big hug * Reading blogs * Johnny Depp * Going to the park on a beautiful sunny day * Watching a really good movie * Current TV shows: Lost, American Idol, Grey's Anatomy, * Past TV show: Friends, Alias, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City * Jim's arms around me * Conversations with my mother * Listening to my Dad's stories * Playing cards with my family * Making new friends * Learning new things * Nag Champa incense * A clean house
Ok! Whew! That took a while and I am sure I will think of more after I post this, but I really need some breakfast and a cup of coffee.
Here's my best shot from last week for Picture This....
Doesn't Fiona look like a gigantic baby next to Abhi? I think Abhi is going to be very petite like Jim's mom and Fiona will be taller like my mom and sister.
I have decided to make Friday the official "Funny Video of the Week" day. So, for the first (well I guess second if you count last week) is: Toddler Climbs Refrigerator
This kid is good! From what my mom tells me, I used to climb stuff when I was a kid - bookshelves, fences, trees, etc. I can already tell Abhi is going to be the same way, so this may be in my not too distant future.....
When I was pregnant with Abhi I gained a total of 40 pounds. I lost all but 10 pounds of that before I got pregnant with Fiona. I was comfortable with the extra 10 pounds, so I wasn't worried about losing it. While pregnant with Fiona I gained 35 pounds. After Fiona was born (the next day) I weighed myself out of curiosity and I had lost 20 pounds just giving birth (8 pound baby, 8 pound placenta, and 4 pounds of "other stuff"). So that left me around 15-20 pounds to lose to get down to a weight I was comfortable with.
I have never really been focused too much on my weight. Even now, I think our bathroom scale is under the cabinet buried under a bunch of stuff and I have no idea what I weigh. My highly scientific way of telling if I have lost any weight is to try on a pair of pants that fit before I was pregnant and see how much closer I am to fitting into them again.
I don't really care what I weigh, but my gripe at the moment is that I am in some kind of weird in-between size of pants. Size 10 pants are too big and make my ass look huge, and the size 8 pants fit ok in the ass, but I can't button them. I tried looking for some size 9 pants, which in theory should work, right? But no. Size 9 is a junior size, so all I could find were super low rise pants that show off my ass-crack to the world and still didn't fit right. So not lovely or comfortable.
Today, I was fed up with ill-fitting, saggy pants and put on my size 8 jeans. They are zipped up and unbuttoned, with a belt to keep everything in place (and my ass looks great, by the way).
I may never fit into size 6 pants again, but I will keep them around just in case. I am tossing all the pants that are too big and when I get paid again, I am going shopping for more pants that fit, even if I have to wear them unbuttoned for a while. Which probably means I should also get some belts.
...she will be crawling in the next week. Where does the time go? She will be 6 months old in 6 days. It seems like time went by slower with Abhi, I couldn't wait for each new development and milestone. With Fiona, it's like "What? She's sitting up? She's not old enough for that yet! And now she's trying to crawl?! What's up with that?!" 
