her very own blog

saturday morning...a visual

the roo in her room after just waking up.

i was quickly forgotten...

 

...then remembered...

...then forgotten again.

enter a just-woke-up big brother...

awwww.

somebody's not quite all the way awake yet ;o)

again...awwww.

hey p...what are you doing?

...just being her adorable self ;o)

half a year? no way!

it blows my mind that i'm the mom (leaving the technicalities behind) of a 15 year old & an 8 year old & now a 6 month old. watching the big kids grow up was hard. especially thinking that was it. then...surprise! the roo came along & now i *know* this is it & it's bittersweet watching her first year go by so swiftly.

some randoms i've jotted down across the past little bit:

• i can no longer rock her to sleep in the monkey chair (who am i kidding...she's not the rock to sleep kinda girl, really...she's more high maintance than that!) anyway...the monkeys on the fabric excite her so much she just has to find one & scratch it. she loves to scratch things. all things. even me.
• she likes the sound of rush limbaugh's voice...seriously. she does.
• the only thing more exciting than a cell phone or remote control is the church hymnal
• speaking of church. pailyn is sweet during the service, until it quiets during a prayer...she doesn't like quiet, i guess...because that's when she decides to talk & usually in her 'outside' voice!
• speaking of church hymnals...story time with my girl is a challenge. between sitting in the monkey chair and holding a book in front of her, not much story telling gets told! my solution? i swiped my old little golden book of nursery rhymes from nana's house & re-familiarized myself with some favorites...now i 'read' by memory :o)
• when doing computer work, p hangs out in her pack-n-play (my office is a little tight these days!) or her swing, but when she tires of that i let her hang with me in my lap. she's all about wanting to 'help' me out until i brilliantly stuck a large post it to the desk in front of her. trying to pull it off & eat it easily occupies her for long clumps of time!
• she waves hello, very excitedly to her daddy every time she sees him. so cute!
• her favorite food is easily bananas, as is evident each time she get half way through another food item and begins fussing while chanting 'nnaanaa! nnaanaa!' over & over until she gets a bite of banana :o) so..i guess banana is her first word. i'm not stretching, people. i talk to the roo constantly describing my every step during the day, (any fly on the wall might label me as 'off'), but she listens & while feeding her bananas i repeat over & over 'do you love your banana?' 'have a bite of banana!'
• she prefers most foods cold. i keep her next meal in the fridge, lol. and her food goes in the ice chest for ballgames ;o) the first few bites take her breath away!
• the pallet no longer contains her...she is all over the place. she isn't a proper crawler, although we've seen that she is able to crawl correctly, but she chooses to fall to her belly & scoot using her arms an legs like an army man pulling himself across the jungle ground. (nice analogy, i know.)
• she has begun watching me leave a room and fussing as i walk away. i peek back in & she smiles...a few times of this & she is fine with being in another room without me.
• i'm putting her to bed at 10:30ish each night and after a brief fit, she'll settle down & go to sleep. she hasn't notslept straight through the night in months! :o) she'll wake up between 9 and 11am ready to play and have a bottle. i know i am blessed to have a good sleeper...especially after experiencing the opposite for the first few months of her little life! a side note to all expecting mommies: don't let anyone tell you not to hold your baby too much, or even not to co-sleep at first if that's what works for you. your sweet baby spent 9 months inside you...i wasn't comfortable not having bennett right there with me all the time...i wanted to hold him. i had(and wanted) to hold pailyn to get any peace. both slept with me the first 2 months & then it was really an easy transition to the crib :o)
• she is moving into 3-6 month sized clothing...meaning i've had to shop for a few more summer ditties as her 0-3 becomes a bit snug ;o)
• while composing this post (interrupted by a couple phone calls regarding tomorrow's ball tournament-meaning i've been sitting her for a long time) the roo has been in the den with her daddy & big brother...i just checked on her & she is giving bennett's john deere tractor a spit bath. she's entertained herself for nearly an hour :o)

 

my little girl...i know i'm partial...but you're darn cute!

her first real outing

was a fun one! it was more a planned adventure for nana and bennett that we sort of invited ourselves on, but i needed a break from landsource and photography for the day and pailyn was game for the ride ;o) nana took us to the children's museum in new orleans & it was fabulous!

i have to say i think the big brother looks like his momma in this picture! except maybe he has more hair than i do, lol! i don't care what anyone says or thinks (mom!) i *love* his hair. he had a ball in the grocery store! and can i just say...if i had access to this as a child, i would seriously want to move in!

i did a little grocery shopping myself so my dude could check me out. note him realizing one of my purchases as he scanned it, lol.

sadly my kids have no idea what this tree is. i recall staying at mrs. susan barryhills during the summer and hating *hating* nap time (i never could sleep! ...hmm that may be where the roo gets it from.) and being so ready to one of the older kids who got to stay up and watch mr. rodger's neighborhood. how funny is that?!

remember mr. owl? and the trolley?

the huge bubble was very cool! we met a friend of nana's there that lives near NO and her little boy will had fun showing bennett around...it wasn't his first trip :o)

the roo was fabulous and enjoyed her outing. i enjoyed it too! it will be fun to take her back when she is old enough to enjoy pushing that grocery cart!
 

her first real outing

was a fun one! it was more a planned adventure for nana and bennett that we sort of invited ourselves on, but i needed a break from landsource and photography for the day and pailyn was game for the ride ;o) nana took us to the children's museum in new orleans & it was fabulous!

i have to say i think the big brother looks like his momma in this picture! except maybe he has more hair than i do, lol! i don't care what anyone says or thinks (mom!) i *love* his hair. he had a ball in the grocery store! and can i just say...if i had access to this as a child, i would seriously want to move in!

i did a little grocery shopping myself so my dude could check me out. note him realizing one of my purchases as he scanned it, lol.

sadly my kids have no idea what this tree is. i recall staying at mrs. susan barryhills during the summer and hating *hating* nap time (i never could sleep! ...hmm that may be where the roo gets it from.) and being so ready to one of the older kids who got to stay up and watch mr. rodger's neighborhood. how funny is that?!

remember mr. owl? and the trolley?

the huge bubble was very cool! we met a friend of nana's there that lives near NO and her little boy will had fun showing bennett around...it wasn't his first trip :o)

the roo was fabulous and enjoyed her outing. i enjoyed it too! it will be fun to take her back when she is old enough to enjoy pushing that grocery cart!
 

all little girls get a shiner @ 6 months, right?

...right! actually, i'm sure not.

but...the misses p. ...princess let me do what i want; i'm not too little to pull up on things in which my head doesn't even clear. aka: the roo is sporting her first shiner! while getting her splash, splash on in the sink last night (ahem, night before last since it's technically tomorrow where i sit at the computer at 1am) this momma noticed the shading of a bruise developing.

there it is below her right eye (left in the picture). for the record, the bump occurred in the den under daddy's supervision ;o) honestly...the roo rules the roost & she was using the big brother's lego box as a ladder, if you will, in climbing herself from sitting near the coffee table to pulling up on said coffee table (in which her head doesn't even clear!) ...she may or may not have clobbered her face against it a few times before being redirected toward bathtime.

an extra, unrelated tidbit. the big sister's fastpitch game got called off just as we entered hattiesburg this day (tuesday, aug 18th), so we made the most of the drive & took pailyn on her first trip to target. exciting, i know!

wondering what she's so darn excited about? oh...we were just reminiscing about the fact that monday the roo heard from her best girl sarah palin. seriously. more on that soon. a momma's gotta get some rest!

i'm in trouble!

i'm headed to bed after a long night, but wanted to get this bloged before it gets lost in all the intended posts i have jotted down on post it notes near my computer.

if you follow 'her very own blog' or know the roo at all, you know she's a pro-sleep-fighter! she enjoys being up late & sleeping in, no matter what altercations i make to her 'schedule' (and i use that word very loosely).

i quit fighting her months ago & began just snuggling with her for a bit after her last bottle & then laying her down in her crib & letting her scream bloody murder fuss & whine until she tires herself out. this process has grown shorter over time & many times i can lay her down wide eyed, turn the lights out & she'll scoot around a bit (she's never in the same place i lay her for more than a minute!) holler a few times & then pop her paci in and give it up.

tonight when i laid her down and left the room, she was especially loud. (the roo & i have been under the weather for the past two days...she's doing quite well if she feels anything like i do...hope she doesn't) i figured she just wasn't feeling herself & went to check on her. i expected to help her out by inserting her paci & tucking her blankie in her arm.

i walked in to find this:

 

man! just when i get something figured out & working she goes and learns a new trick! ;o) at what point do babies pull up in their cribs? the big brother fought sleep too, but not like the roo & this was never an issue.

look at the tear. of course, when i come near & she thinks she's going to get picked up, she turns the sad off. just.like.that. stinker!

i'm bracing myself. i've pretty much come to the conclusion & am preparing myself for my pailyn to be the child who climbs out of her crib before she should be able to. (ben never even tried.) it's just so funny to see p doing all this stuff 'cause she's such a shrimp...i mean her head doesn't even clear the side rail of her bed, lol.

she's going to be in trouble when she scales the crib wall & realizes it's a lot farther down to the ground on the other side! sigh. i'm in trouble, no doubt.

she swims with her daddy

and i had a blast watching! this hasn't been much of a summer for daddy...he's been super busy growing our new business!

we know the hard work will soon pay off:o) landsource is a concept that her daddy & i dreamed up nearly 10 years ago. we developed it, but didn't exactly know how or what to do with it. ...well when chuck saw the writing on the wall in the real estate industry we got busy!

after her daddy has spent the day on the road working, i can see how much it means to him to come home & have a huge bubbly grin flashed at him from his littlest girl! i find myself smiling just writing this. it's amazing to watch them exchange big expressive smiles.

eeek...back to what i was saying...for the first time this summer, their daddy spent some time with his little people in the pool. bennett got some one-on-one while the roo finished up a nap & then she joined the guys for some rays & waves!

i make it a point to always dunk her when we 'swim' ...a little blow in the face & under she goes...i've flooded her face with water since she got here; it worked with bennett & has worked with her too...she just loves the water! today was no different...chuck put her under & up she came with wide eyes!

i caught her just before a sneeze...lol...i love it!

she is such a splasher :o) my sweet water baby!

(taken saturday, july 11th)