We have a floater!

Now, normally this title when referencing an infant, would refer to an unfortunate bath incident...but not this time! Delanah has graduated from the first stage of ISR...my girl can float! She was going through the scenarios today like they were nothing! I was so comfortable that her instructor and I were sharing "war stories" about mozzie bites :p Delanah loves floating! As soon as she was allowed to float, there were smiles, raspberry blowing, splashing, she's just too funny! Cindy, her instructor, commented on how social Delanah is; she has to see who is coming and going. I am SO proud of her!!!!! We will go back in Feb/March to start round #2 of lessons; this time it will will float, swim, float...woo-hoo! After her lesson, as she was supposed to be relaxing poolside, she scooted towards the edge of the pool and was trying to put her hand in, she wanted to play some more! Yes, we are creating a water baby :)
This morning Delanah and I, along with 18 other babies and moms, went to a baby sign language seminar/introductory class. It was such fun! It was so loud! One baby would start babbling and then all would join in. At one point all the moms were singing and signing a song and it was amazing, at almost the same time, all the babies got quiet! Too funny. I was feeling a little self conscious though...all the other babies, even the ones younger than Delanah, were crawling all over the place, and some were even walking! Delanah is not doing any of that. Another mom commented that she was quite the observer, and she is. She sat, very quietly, for about 15min just studying all the other babies and then she began interacting with the babies near her and towards the end of the 45min class she even launched herself onto her stomach to get a ball she had her eye on...my little sweet pea :) I know she will walk and crawl in her own time. And I am pretty sure she eats better than the other babies there, can float better and even uses a little toilet now! So many things to be proud of.
One more new skill she learned today...during afternoon nap she managed to get her diaper off! Little toot! Guess I am going to have to repair the velcro ASAP...unless I want an unfortunate nap session in the near future :)

Rough day

Oh the woes from yesterday spilled over into today as well. Delanah woke this morning with the wettest diaper I have ever scene (or felt)! It soaked into her diaper and pajamas as well! That's one heck of a wet diaper! So I stripped her down, put a new diaper on and took her in with me to nurse. I was too tired/lazy to put new pajamas on her so I left her in bed with me to cuddle with for warmth. I was rudely awoken this morning by someone, who had pushed me to the edge of the bed, pulling my hair and snapping my sleeper bra straps...nice... We were so off today! Naps were late, and then I had to wake her from the am nap in order to meet Kim at the dog park on time. Could I have let her sleep? Yes, but I really needed some adult conversation! The dog park was fun and at least Bay got some good play time in :) Home for lunch and then afternoon nap and then I spaced....
I completely forgot about swimming tonight! We should leave a little before 5pm, and a few minutes before 5 I realized that we were very late. We got there with about 30sec to spare and Delanah was not doing well. We cut the lesson time down to 5min and agreed to have her rest a lot tomorrow to have a better lesson. Tomorrow she goes in with jeans, onesie, socks, shoes and winter coat!!! Eeek! Better to practice in a safe environment that try it out in an emergency. Oh, she also woke with a nice scratch between her eyes this morning. Awesome.
Delanah is tired, but refusing to fall asleep tonight. I hate to let her fuss it out, but it's just going to take longer if I head up there again. Hmmm...maybe I should go up there.
I hate when Dave is gone. I am exhausted, I feel like I am chasing my own tail and there is no one here to stop me. I don't know how single moms do it...this sucks and is really hard.

Anti-climatic

So I have been having a lot of fear of late...fear that somehow when delivering Delanah, much of my knowledge, and grasp of the English language, somehow escaped. Recently I have met a fabulous group of moms and they can relate to the whole "mommy brain" thing, so it is either a phenomenon that only occurred with the births of our children, or it's a lot more common than people mention. So last Wednesday Delanah and I went to another Dollar Day Kindermusik class. This time people showed up! I woke late and we got there a tad late, but still had so much fun! We had been sitting there for just a few minutes when the mom next to me turns to me and says "Your daughter is gorgeous". Now I think Delanah is beautiful, I mean I'm her mom, that's my job! We get so many compliments where ever we go though...it's kind of nice, but I hope it doesn't go to our heads!
Back to my anti-climatic day...after Kindermusik, since we were in the neighborhood, we went to deliver my key to my old clinic. Okay, so a year after the fact may be a little late, but at least I did it! Not like they knew a key was missing either! Went by my old, old clinic and it's now a martial arts studio...wonder if they kept that 1970's stove....Got to my old clinic and got to see my former coworkers. Now here's the kicker...as soon as I walked in it's like all my fears disappeared. I felt an overwhelming sense that I could do it, I could walk in that clinic tomorrow and feel competent to work on a patient. Ahhh...sweet feeling! Now here's the kicker...I felt I could treat patients, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember 1/2 my former coworkers names!

Why do I even bother?

Trying to sleep? Here it is, almost 2am, again, and I am awake...again. I am exhausted! Delanah is getting up earlier than she was before, I have tons of things to do and get done, I am exhausted by dinner time, and yet here I am, awake again. This majorly sucks! I really need to stop planning things for the weekend. Tomorrow I have to get a shirt for me for pics Sunday, try to get my nails painted, clean up the house, finish laundry, meet the godparents for an afternoon play date, get to church for 5pm service, try to groom for pics Sunday, oh yeah, and be a mom too! Tonight Dave came home...yay! Delanah and I were outside to meet him and saw him waiting at the intersection for the light, we turned and were walking up the street to greet him when we ran into Irene, the neighborhood "gossip". She's a nice lady, but knows way too much about everyone and likes to share the juicy bits about people...I know more about people than I really wanted to! Anyhoos, she's a talker and we were chatting when Dave passed us by and pulled into our little parking area. I heard him gun the engine, like he always does when reversing into his space, and didn't think anything of it. Irene could see him over my shoulder and said the car was in the middle of the road. Apparently our car has died. When the light turned green at the aforementioned intersection, the car wouldn't move out of 1st gear! The car died in the complex, but started enough for him to back into the space, but man did it sound horrible! So he thinks either the clutch line or the gear box....they both sound expensive to me.

Oye! Just when I was getting used to the idea of having someone come in to do the deep cleaning in the house! I see know way of us affording both at the moment. Man!!! So that on top of everything I have to get done tomorrow is running through my mind at the moment....hmmmm...I think I know why I am not sleeping! Suck!!!!

9 months old!!!!

As of last Friday, my little sweet pea is 9 months old!!!! Amazing how quickly these last few months have flown by! This past week was also Shark Week on Discovery Channel...Dave and I were reminiscing about what our thoughts were during Shark Week last year...we were so afraid of the unknown! We were also running around trying to choose our wood floors, paint the nursery....everything that needed to be done before Delanah arrived. My how things have changed! Now we are focused on the fact that our little girl can "motor boat" her lips, clap her hands and is starting to be more consistent with waving "hi" and "bye"! Still no moving around, which I must admit I have been enjoying, but every day I am seeing more and more signs that she is going to be on the move soon!
Dave, Delanah and I went out this weekend looking for a TV stand. Okay, we have been using this $25 wooden shelving unit as a TV stand since we were married...I bought it for college!!! Hey, it's worked! Before Delanah was born I went looking for a "proper" TV stand/entertainment center and could not find one I liked. Well, it doesn't help that I am so darn cheap! Dave has finally convinced me that we need to spend more than what we spent on our current stand and with this in mind I fell in love with one! Dave liked it too and we came home and measured and we think it will be perfect in here. I also found a cute dinette set that would be a better fit in our kitchen, but I can only spend so much at one time, so we'll wait on that one :)
With Delanah looking like she's wanting to move, we're going to need to start baby proofing big time! Anchoring things to the walls, covering the outlets, getting those baby gates put up finally...oh the fun, the fun :) I am sure I am going to have a heart attack when I see the prices on everything, but I will just tighten the belt a bit in other areas. I know it's been bothering Dave lately, me wanting to tighten the belt on things, but I can't help it! It's my nature to want to save! There is a lot of guilt as well...I am no longer contributing to the household income, but as the primary shopper, I tend to spend most of it. I am hitting the coupons like crazy, not running things when we don't have to, looking for deals on everything. I don't know if it's a pride thing with Dave, but my wanting to save money doesn't mean he's not providing for us, we're much better off than many two income families, it's just my way of contributing to the house.
Oh, one more thing...last week I had a "little" meltdown. Dave was gone for the week so I was a single parent, who way over schedules herself. It was a busy day, I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep that week, I had a full day and was completely overwhelmed. Dave broached the subject again about getting a company in here to help with some of the cleaning. I still feel guilty about that, like I should be able to get all of that done, but I just can't. I am playing phone tag with a company at the moment and hope to connect with her tomorrow and I hope I get a better quote than what I did last year this time! It would just be nice to have someone come in once a month to do the deep cleaning for me. I've never been very good at that and with a little one now, I am even worse. I wish I was a super mom and could do everything I needed to do around the house and have time to clean and shop and play with Delanah and have some "me" time, but I'm not and I am learning to be okay with that.

She floats!

So day 1, week 2 of ISR lessons, and Delanah was floating by herself today!!! My big girl! Cindy, our instructor, seemed quite pleased and I was just in awe. Here is a not even 9 month old baby, and she was able to take herself from vertical to float, without assistance!!!!! This is the most amazing program and I am going to tell as many moms and dads about it as possible. It is SO important for kids to know how to float, you never know when a water accident may happen! We have a new lesson time this week and when we got there I saw another baby! His lesson was already over, but I was beginning to wonder if Delanah was the youngest student....and here before we got started I thought we were waiting too long!
Tomorrow G-pa is coming up to watch Delanah in action. I need to make sure she gets her afternoon nap in this time. today we were late getting up, late in morning nap and she fell asleep on the way there and woke up tired and grumpy and just complained through the entire lesson. She was doing so well last week! After the lesson we stopped at the grocery store to get what we needed for the week...we were both so tired! I am LOVING her cart cover! We had been shopping for one here and couldn't find one less than $30 (and those were the ugly ones) but when we were in Calgary I found one I loved and it was cheap! Woo-hoo! Delanah absolutely adores riding in the cart...smiles and giggles all around! We raced down one aisle and she really enjoyed that :) So we got what we needed, came home, stripped her down for dinner and had our chicken and veggies. She seemed to really want to play with her sippy cup for the most part. She has learned how to get water out of it (not by drinking) and drenched not only her tray, but her bib as well...ahhhh...my talented little girl :) Bath time was early and short and she was soon in bed. I seriously need to get myself to bed as well.
Oooh, so I have really been working on the "milk" sign for her and tonight when she was nursing she was doing it! Could have been a fluke, we'll have to see, but I'd like to think she's just that smart!

Another week alone...

So Dave is gone for another week, all alone.......maybe I'll finally get some of the things done around here that I've been meaning to do. We really do miss it when he's gone, but is it wrong to look forward to the week as well? Okay, that came out wrong. It's just that when all I have to worry about is Delanah and I, well, we do things on a different schedule. I don't feel like I need to worry about getting all the chores done before he gets home, or have a nice dinner planned, or laundry folded, etc...we are on "Mommy and Delanah" time for the next week. This means that most things get done when they get done, but without the guilt! I tend to get more things done when home alone anyway...I don't know why. I think I like the idea that he's going to come home and see a difference in the way the house looks.
My goals for this week....donate the schwak of items we have meant for Goodwill (I am a serious pack rat sometimes, but I'm slowly chipping away at things), wipe down and prep for storage all of the baby items we no longer use....this task has been hard for me. My little girl is too big for her bouncer! We don't use her swing anymore, and now that we have the UPPA and BOB, we don't use her Graco stroller anymore either. If only I had known earlier how awesome the BOB was...I don't think we would have gotten the Graco in the first place. We are keeping it around though for baby #2, and possibly 3, 4, 5...oh who knows how many little Schelbach's we'll eventually be blessed with! I think with those two chores I am going to have a lot of room open up, and Bay will finally get to reach her toys again :)
Oh there are the other things I want to get done as well, finally get everything in place in our room, prep the master bath...but in order to get everything done I would miss out on play time with Delanah and that's just not something I am willing to do....so the chores drag on.... I am hoping to get back on a good sleeping schedule again as well. Delanah is on a great schedule, if only I could get myself on a proper time clock! Last night, or this morning rather, I was up until about 3am...don't know why...sigh....