Lately

I just wanted to highlight some things that have been going on lately in bullet point form, cause I feel like that's how my brain wants to work right now....

• Grace is walking like a champ! She primarily walks now and is getting faster and faster. She's also mastered the standing-up-pivot-without-falling move, which I think is pretty great. A big thing with her and walking, has been her lack of faith in herself. I think she's been physically able to walk for a long time, but she'd always just bail out and fall cause it seemed safer to her. So good job Grace for a lot less bailing! Ha ha
• We rearranged our house a little bit....meaning we moved our HUGE, GINORMOUS (seriously, it's big) recliner from Grace's room out into the living room. We gave our old recliner to Jeff's sista who is getting married, so we had a vacancy. The one that used to be in Grace's room was our "rocker" of sorts. Soooo many hours of feeding and rocking that sweet little bubba to sleep. Oh man....now I'm gonna cry. She's a big girl now though, and just goes straight to bed/naps/sleep with no rocking required. And we are trying to eliminate her bedtime bottle, so there's that. 
• Speaking of bottles (once our survivor, now our enemy) Grace has successfully drunken milk out of a sippy for BOTH meals so far today! Whooooop whooooop! Good vibes, people....gooooood vibes...
• We got family pictures taken recently! They make me happy and laugh at the same time, ha ha ha. I'll always remember them in a way that shows Grace's current personality to the tee. Grace is seriously the happiest girl, but her happiness is very much on her own terms. If she doesn't get to do what she wants to do, there will be flailing. And that's kind of what happened with this photo shoot. I think she was seriously confused why we were staring at a big black thing (camera) and being told to smile. She didn't understand why we couldn't just play with the sticks and dirt that were so accessible on the ground. For that reason, she wasn't smiling much in the group pictures. I still think she's the cutest though, smile or not! She's such an independent, strong willed girl. She always has been! Those are weird things to label a baby as, but really....Grace has always been that way. Not to quote Lady Gaga or anything.....but that baby was very much born to be her own person. She loves being in charge and exploring the world at her own pace. Sometimes that pace is hyper speed, sometimes it's like a snail, but she knows what she wants, and she wants it just like she wants it! :)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   This is the "why can't we just play with sticks" face
  
  
  
  
   When she gets to do what she wants to do, she's as happy as a clam! I'm pretty that's a typical toddler thing, ha ha. 
  
   This was a cool chair carved out a tree that we found on the trail!
  
   "Oooo!" She's a very curious baby!
  
   I love this guy! I don't know what I'd do without him!
  
  
  
  
• Cutie cutie cute!

• We are getting ready for school to start again and I'm dreading it and looking forward to it all at once! Our lives are going to be CRAZY again. I hope I can handle it. Jeff's only going to be working 30 hours a week so he can actually....ya know....focus on his master's degree (granted he did get A's last semester...so who are we kidding? He's a superhero.). I think it'll be weird for him, cause he's always worked full-time. Always. Like...always. 30 hours is still a lot though. It'll be good. It'll be weird. It'll still be hard. Wooo.....I'm nervous, ha ha. 
• Along with that, Jeff graduates in T-4 months! And then we have to grow up. I can guarantee I'll have lots of blog thoughts about that in the future...stay tuned. 
• I love good deals. I'm not like....CRAZY I will sacrifice my baby's nap time (cause that's gold....true gold) for a good deal, but heck...I want stuff cheap, and I want it nice. Is that so hard? Yes. Yes, it's very hard. BUT, I got very lucky and found an amazing deal for a double stroller on KSL! (No this isn't a pregnancy announcement...) I've been going on walks with Gracie almost everyday and I wanted to continue that after my nephew joins us again for the school year. Grace wakes up for the day at 8:30 (lately 9:00 actually), and my nephew comes around 7:30 in the morning. If you calculate that, you can see that I'm not going to get a walk in before he comes. I'm not waking my daughter up early for a walk, cause like I said before....sleep is gold. Total gold. So...I wanted to find a double stroller. If you go look at KSL or anywhere second hand all double strollers are in the $30-$100 range, depending on condition and who knows what other factors. Double strollers aren't cheap! By some miracle I found one for $10 and it looked pretty good from the pictures. I sent the listing to Jeff and he called me asking if it was a joke, ha ha. It was kind of unbelievable, cause it looked too good to be true. Well, my friends....it was NOT to good to be true, cause Jeff went and picked it up for me and it's in great condition! I'm going to wash it once and it'll be like brand new. I think the people who were getting rid of it didn't really need the money, because Jeff said they lived in a rather nice house. Yaaaaay for nice, rich people! 
  
• I feel like I've been such a Debbie Diabetes Downer on this blog lately. Which might not totally be my fault, cause diabetes actually IS the definition of "downer", but still. I hope people don't think I'm a whiny freak. With that being said, I have more things to say about diabetes....hooray! (You thought you were getting out of this blog post T1D free, huh?) 

         Something weird that has happened since I've started taking insulin has been that my hair is always falling out! We looked it up and that's normal. It's not in a "I'm going to look like a cancer patient in a matter of weeks" kind of falling out though. I'm not going bald. I am just shedding like a crazy Pembroke Welsh Corgi in the summer.

Like this...

It's annoying in most parts of life. I'm not a fan of constantly plucking hair off of myself...and large amounts of hair so I actually have to go throw it away and I can't just let it fall to the ground to never be found again in my carpet. In a weird way it's kind of nice, because my hair is SO thick, much thicker than you'd think...and with all this natural (I don't think it's natural) thinning it's actually made my hair very manageable. Go figure...

My blood sugar had been going low multiple times a day this last week so I called my doctor to see if I could decrease my insulin. 

Poor Jeff has to live with me...

The way that works is I have to call his office and talk to the nurse...then she talks to the doctor...then the nurse calls me back with the report. My doctor actually called me back personally to talk about it today though. He's such a nice guy! 

When you first get diagnosed with T1D it's kind of overwhelming, because you have a whole team of doctors who are in charge of you. I'm still not used to that....I've ever only had one doctor who kind of saw me never...so to have a whole "team"....it's overwhelming. 

There's my family doctor (who is the one I talked to today), my endocrinologist (diabetes doctor), dietitian/diabetes educator (who may be the nicest lady ever), and my OB who really only needs to know about things if I'm pregnant (which the double stroller bullet will give you the answer to that). 

My family doctor always makes me feel like I'm not in this alone and that I'm actually doing a good job, which I'm really grateful for. I'm grateful that I have a doctor who really cares. It makes this new medical experience so much easier. 

Okay....enough with that diabetes bullet...

• Jeff's sister is getting married this Saturday! She's the last sibling to get married, which is exciting. I am so lucky to have married into the family that I did, they are fabulous people!
• We went to a an actual big pool on Monday night with Jeff's family and it was really fun! Grace LOOOOVED it! She had the funnest time floating around and being in the water. She had only ever been to splash pads up until then, so being in a big pool was different and fun for her. 
• Yesterday Jeff and I went to Lagoon! We hadn't been for like two years, so it was fun to go again. Parts of both Jeff's family and my family were there at the same time, so it was fun going back and forth and being with both families. Jeff's oldest brother and his family are visiting for the wedding so we got to go on lots of rides with our nephews and have lots of fun with them! They are really good kids. My mom and Dave along with my brother and his wife and daughter were there too. My niece was FEARLESS! Oh my goodness, I have never seen a 2 year old so brave on so many big rides! It was cracking me up how much fun she was having. It makes me excited to see Grace do things like that in a couple years.

Taken to the Bottle

Grace is totally an only child.

Even more than that, she is definitely a FIRST child.

There are so many things that I just end up face palming, cause I say to myself: "just let her do it! Just let her be grown up enough to eat that food! To sleep with a blanket! To only use a sippy cup!"

Grace recently started sleeping with her minky.

When I say recently I mean: Last week.

Up until now she's never slept with any blanket of any kind. It was always just her in the crib and nothing else.

PARANOID PARENT ALERT!

Now that she gets a blanket she's IN LOVE with naptime! Bedtime! Sleep anytime!

Me: "Do you want to take a nap?"
Grace: *frantically starts looking for blankie*

You think I'm joking, come hang out at my house.

She was always a good great sleeper before, but she would usually cry when we'd put her down for naps. She'd fall asleep within 1-2 mintues, but there was usually a little struggle. Now, she welcomes naptime like it's the best time of the day.

I should have given her a blanket a long time ago.

Paranoia.

Another thing that we've been bad about is giving her hard food to eat. This may have a lot to do with the fact that she has no filter when it comes to food so she ends up choking on things when she's not sure how to pace herself.

But still....we should be brave enough to just give her whatever at this point. And we do....usually.....

We're working on it, okay?

PARANOID PARENT ALERT!

The last thing, mostly, is more on Grace than it is on me.

She's loves her bottle.

I'm having a hard time getting the guts to transition her over.

She drinks water fine out of the sippy cups and actually likes drinking from them, IF it's water. But if it's milk you might as well have proclaimed that WWIII is about to begin.

She'll only drink milk out of bottles.

I know I need to be brave and just transition her. I know this.....

It's just a lot easier said than done.

Other fun updates about our baby:

-She's walking a lot more now! When she's calm she'll actually primarily walk and not crawl. If she thinks you're leaving her in the room by herself she'll sprint crawl after you so she can keep up.

-She's started doing this smile that makes me laugh so hard! It looks like a little evil smile, but really it's just her smiling as big as she can! Ha ha ha ha. She does it all the time and it's pretty funny. She turns her head a little and scrunches her eyes a bunch like in the picture below. Sorry the picture isn't the best quality, but it's the best one I have of that smile.

-She wants to play outside all day. Lately we've been going out 2-3 times a day. She's very proud that she can climb on the picnic table by herself. We watched some quail in our backyard the other day for a long time and she was fascinated by them. I think we need to go to the zoo.

-She's become really cuddly. She's never been this way. She LOVES laying in mom and dad's bed with us in the morning. She'll actually lay down in the blankets (cause she's allowed blankets now *face palm*) which she never has done before. She's always wanted to be up and seeing what's going on. It's kind of weird that I feel like cuddling makes her seem grown up....but it does.

She's the cutest!

Patiently Getting Things Thrown At My Head

Today I woke up an hour earlier than normal to a crying baby.

And then that baby was brought to me by her daddy and cried in my bed till her bottle arrived.

Once she got her bottle she passed out next to me and repeatedly kicked my face for the next half hour or so.

She made sure to let me know she was done with her bottle too by throwing it at my head when it was empty.

After we got up and going she decided to chuck her bowl full of oatmeal across the kitchen as soon as I placed it on her highchair.

We read some books for awhile and she wanted to turn the pages faster than I could read.

The rest of the morning was spent following me.

Now, after our walk, she's sleeping and I'm just sitting here thinking about how much I love that baby.

Attitude, tantrums, and grumpiness included....

I love that baby.

I think it's very obvious to anyone who follows me on social media...they know how much I love that baby!

Social media is an interesting thing.

It's allowed people to share things about their lives that they wouldn't normally just walk up to an acquaintance and share with them.

A big trend that I see shared on Facebook/instagram/blogs is infertility.

I can't help but wonder if my posts about my baby make those people sad.

Or jealous....mad....upset.

I think it's okay to be those things at times.

I have some friends who have tried to have children for 5+ years now, which makes my measly 1 year to get pregnant with Grace look wimpy.

But I know the feeling of logging on to social media and seeing everything that you wish you had plastered in front of you, and wishing it would just happen.

I'm a big fan of the 'everything happens when it's supposed to' thing though.

And now as my heart longs for certain things (like normalcy, maybe, ha) I have to remember that faith = patience.

That was the hardest thing for me to learn when we were trying to get pregnant with Grace that faith concurs all. I had always considered myself a faithful person, but it wasn't till I realized that faith requires action that I actually changed and started having real faith.

And I think that change can take away a lot of the upset feelings when we're impatient about our current situations, whatever they may be.

I know my life goes in cycles and I'm always having to remember to have patience and faith.

It will all work out!

"Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His. We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable."

 -Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Reading...

Writing...

Rithme... Math.

I never really liked the first or last. I've always liked writing, though!

But you'd never know that from reading this blog. This blog probably makes you think I hate writing.

I don't know why I'm trying to be sarcastic in this context, people can't tell sarcasm over social media.

Anyways....

Moving on...

I've never been a reader.

I was never the kid that had their nose in books or even talked about books.

As I've become an adult, a tutor for small children learning to read, and really just an educator for the young in general I've realized something about myself....

I never learned how to read correctly.

I'm a visual learner.

I have to seeeeeeeee things. Secondarily, I need to feel things, experience things.

Words on an off-white background were never my thing. In fact, it kind of always made me dizzy and I had to really focus to understand what I was reading.

The reason I say I don't think I ever really learned the right way to read, is because I tricked all of my teachers and just memorized words.

So when it came to sounding things out, I really struggled.

I absolutely dreaded being called on to read in front of the class.

And although I usually didn't mess up, there was always the fear that a word I hadn't memorized would be in the text and I'd look stupid. Sounding things out, especially on the fly, wasn't in my skill set.

People would talk about "long e" and "short e" sounds and I'd pretend like that was a thing when in my head I'm thinking: "Wait what....E makes two sounds?"

So yeah, reading...

Obviously I'm literate and can sound out words just fine now, but I think the fact that I learned to read through memorization made reading a chore and set me up to dislike it.

More recently I've actually found books that spark my interest enough to read them all the way through, though!

In the past month or so I've read four books that I've loved each for their own reasons, so I thought I'd share in case anyone is looking for good books to read.

I definitely don't read a book unless it's suggested by someone I know. And I guess I probably have to actually trust that person's opinion too. :)

First, Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.

I've read this book a couple times and it's soooooooo good. It's from the perspective of an elementary school girl who has cerebral palsy, is confined to a wheelchair, and can't talk. She's a really smart girl, but nobody in her world thinks she is, because of her inability to speak. This book is so personal for me, because I've worked with many children in that place. Oh man, it makes me cry thinking about them and their potential! And that's exactly what this book is about - that cute girl's potential and how she shows it to her parents, therapists, teachers, friends. I could go on and on about the importance of the message in this book, because I'll forever be an advocate of people with special needs. I love that book.

Next, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai.

Newbery Award winner! Cha ching! That tells you it's good, right off the bat! It's about a young girl from Vietnam who becomes a refugee in America with her family. It's written in verse, so it's actually a really fast read too. The story breaks your heart, reading all the things this girl and her family have to go through. It's based on the author's real life too. One of the biggest parts that impacted me was reading about how she struggled in school in America, because she didn't know English. I've worked with many English as a second language students in the past and I know that can be a huge challenge for kids who come here from other countries.

Third, Love Lucas, by Chantele Sedgwick.

I may be biased, cause this one was written by my former harp teacher! This is her third published book and I've loved all of them! (Again, totally not biased...) This book is about a teenage girl who loses her brother to cancer and it goes through her grief and depression trying to move on with her life. Although I can't relate to those things, I was still hooked to the book! There were a couple of really good one liners that I'm having a hard time finding again....I might just have to re-read it so I can highlight them. They were just inspiring thoughts about life and although I've never been in that sad of a place, those thoughts still spoke to me. Gooood book!

Last, The Other Side of the Stars, by Katherine King

This is the most recent one I've read and I totally fell in love with this book! If you like romantic (but clean) history type books, then this book is fantastic! It's about post WWII, but there are a lot of flashbacks to the war too. An arranged marriage happens with some Germans who come to America to escape the war, so it goes through their journey of falling in love. There are some good twists that I wasn't expecting! And it had really good writing about WWII in Germany that made me cry and be so grateful for what I have! I love feel good, but tear jerking books. This was one of those books that when I got done reading the last page, I immediately wanted to start reading the first page again!