Tonight, James put her to bed, and she was not into it. 20 minutes later she was still screaming, so I went in to see if she was alright. She had somehow managed to turn out her nightlight, so it was completely dark in there! Then by the time I got the light back in place, I sat down next to her and (perfect timing) she started vomitting :( Poor thing had cried herself sick! Luckily, I caught what was about to happen, and I caught and contained all the mess. So after a quick and quiet jammie change, we snuggled and read a few books to calm her back down.
Now, I'm in the living room, listening to her cry mommy, mommy... it's so hard! But the cries are getting more mellow and the moans are getting groggy, so hopefully she's nearing the end.
Watching your little one grow up on you is as equally moving as it is heart wrenching. I want her to need me, and so it's so easy to declare, 'her cries are because she needs her mommy!' but really, she's old enough now that she can attempt mini-manipulation {since mommy came last time I cried myself sick, let's see if she'll come back}. I have to allow her to grow up and teach herself to fall asleep without my presence. I'd say in general I've been pretty okay with her growing older - it sure is great she can use so many words to talk to me now, and she understands consequences, can help me with little chores, plays hilarious games with me, and just this week, she started asking me to play guitar for her while she sings and plays at the piano - it fills me up overflowing!
But I also long for the days when I could snuggle with her for hours - when she was little and completely content with me meeting her every need. Now she says, 'mommy, no hand' when I want to hold her hand walking through the park. Or, 'no buckle' when she wants to snap herself into her highchair/stroller/carseat (which I check, of course!).
Ahh.... she's quiet now. Thank you God for the gifts of life and love (and peaceful evenings!).
I've determined that my problem is not sugar in itself - it's chocolate. I, quite simply, cannot function without it. 
I just made this crayon roll for H! I'm not a seamstress {yet!} but thanks to soulemama and her book The_Creative_Family I was able to trust myself in making this simple yet fabulous piece!
So it's not magic or anything, just reminding my boring living room that I love patterns and color. I've been playing around with the idea of making new covers for some of the throw pillows (I know it's easy to buy new pillows, but I just need to honor James' hard work by sticking to a budget - plus, it's dentist time for me again, and I'll need the $). So anyhow, here's one way to visually remind myself who I am, and what I appreciate :)
These are wee wonderful dolls, a downloadable PDF pattern you can purchase for $15 here . They are so freaking adorable, and I really really want to get the patterns and make some for H. The file includes patterns for 3 different dolls, 4 outfits for them, and a pair of shoes. You can make them however you want - with the same eye and hair color of their little owners, with adorable dresses you'd wear yourself (if you had a 6" waist). I think they're great. You can see different ones people have made here.
With James being the manager of our condo complex, he is often putting up postings in entryways for the other residents to read. When we asked the board if we could take the old updates and print the new updates on the backside, they decided they'd rather have new crisp sheets of paper each time. Well, I guess that's for a professional aesthetic, so instead we buy the 80-100% recycled printer paper when we can.
