Stellar Mommy Moments abound!!

I have noticed that the reader count on this blog goes way up when "stellar mommy moment" is mentioned in the title... like you're all just sitting around, waiting for me to screw up again!!  You people are sick! :)  

But seriously though... there is something about reading about other people's misfortunes (especially when they have a sense of humour about it) that makes us feel better about ourselves.  Or maybe it makes us feel like we may be normal after all, and all this terribly embarrassing, potentially child endangering, sometimes puke-worthy, behaviour doesn't just happen to us!  It's happening all around, you just have to talk to the right people... the ones who are willing to admit they're human, not super-human parents! 

Unfortunate things happen quite often in this house... usually they involve Gracie falling on her face, or nearly eating something that should be nowhere near a mouth, or walking into things that aren't put away where they belong.  It seems the last couple of weeks I've had my share of "moments," although none of them have been nearly fatal, and most I was able to pass off as Gracie being clumsy.  Like when I accidently stuck my foot out just as Gracie was walking in front of me, and she ended up falling over it and hitting her head on the side of the couch... I just said, "whoops, Gracie did you fall down?"  And she said, "yeah."  See, she had no idea that was my fault! :)  And the other morning, I asked her if she wanted some cheese, and she got really excited and started running into the kitchen.  At the same time, I opened the fridge door, and she ran smack into it, face-first, and fell backwards onto her butt.  That was totally, 100% my fault.  But I just said, "whoops, Gracie did you fall down again?"  And she said, "yeah."  There have been a few times where I've hurt her enough to make her cry (I stepped on her foot once) and I feel really bad, and I get on the floor and hug her until she feels okay.  Then I say, "oh little girl, mommy's really sorry!"  And Gracie, being the well-trained 1 1/2 year old that she is, thinks I'm asking her to apologize, and says "so-see" and gives me a kiss - her usual apology routine.  So even when I try to blame myself and make up for it, she takes responsibility anyway!  Oh well, better she does that more often than not enough! :)  This is a lovely age... where I can do things to injure my child (not intentionally, obviously!) and she doesn't understand that it wasn't her own fault she fell down.  That last sentence right there... that makes me a stellar mom! :)  Obviously, I feel guilty on the inside... and I know eventually she's going to catch on that she's not that clumsy, that her mother has something to do with it too!  :)

Speaking of stellar mommy moments... I had a realization last week that I have a "moment" at least every other day or so, but I have yet to see a stellar daddy moment.  So either he's keeping them a secret from me, or he's much better at this parenting thing than I am!  I have to be more observant in the future... I want to catch him in a moment!!  Maybe it'll make me feel more normal and less guilty about all the minor head injuries I seem to be causing my little girl! :)  In the meantime though, all of you who are waiting for the next moment to appear in my blogs, just keep reading... I'm sure they wont be far between!  I hope they make you all feel a little better about your own moments, and help you realize that being a perfect parent isn't possible... and I hope you are enjoying them... not making a list to send to Family and Children's Services! :)   

Time Flies!

You know... with the impending arrival of Baby Ford #2, sometimes it's hard not to get caught up in the fact that "Oh my God, we're having a second baby.  Which means that my first baby isn't a baby anymore!"  I love watching Gracie grow up... nothing makes me happier than when she learns new words, or new skills... she is constantly amazing us!  But oh my word, does it all have to happen so fast??

The last couple of weeks have seen major language developments in Gracie, and the number of words and the way she communicates now is unbelievable!  She now has words for flower, fly, water, help, push, toothpaste, flush (don't ask!), more please, thank you, sorry, bug, dirt, and so many more others.  Last night when we were skyping with Grampy and Nanny, she even took a stab at "Grampy."  He shall be henceforth known as "Guppa."  Or, at least until she learns more sounds and gets something a little closer to Grampy! :)

Last week I realized that the mop of hair growing out of the side of her head (and only the side of her head) would probably look pretty cute up in pigtails.  So I tried it out yesterday, and she looked oh so grown up!

So much different than the little baby I brought home from the hospital  16 months ago!

*sigh*  Where does the time go?!?    I know that before I can even get my mind wrapped around it, this little girl will probably be starting school... or going on her first date... or graduating!  I'm so glad that technology allows me to capture all the memories, all the thoughts, and moments that I never want to forget... because time passes us by in the blink of an eye!  And yet... I cannot wait to meet this new little baby, to watch her and her sister grow up to be friends, to experience all of her "firsts."  I believe in living life in the moment, so you don't miss anything.  But sometimes, I can't help but wish there was a pause button!  

It's Mothers' Day... kinda!

It's Mothers' Day in the Ford household!  Yes, it's Saturday... and yes, it's a week late.  But last Sunday just wasn't convenient for us!  So this morning Daddy got up with Gracie, while Mommy "slept in."  Really, sleeping in meant I laid here, smelling breakfast cooking and listening to Gracie say "what's that?" over, and over, and over, and over, again!  Before we went to bed last night, I made up the pancake batter (I make my pancakes from scratch, it's my only real motherly accomplishment!), so it was all ready for Danny and Gracie to cook up this morning.  I also made sure the camera was charged, and told Danny I wanted pictures of Gracie "helping" with breakfast.  I know this isn't technically her first Mothers' Day, but she's much more helpful this year than she was last year, and I wanted to be sure to get it on camera, since I was stuck relaxing in bed while it was all going on.  Getting Gracie's picture isn't as easy as it used to be, since she is constantly on the move, and moves right before the camera button goes "click."  But I know Danny was putting in the effort, because I kept hearing this tiny little voice say "cheeeeese!"

Daddy's little helper

Stirring the batter

Making a lovely mess! :)

I don't know how difficult it was to get Gracie to help out with the actual breakfast part, because over the last week or so, our little girl has become a bit of a diva.  Gracie will literally fall on her face and jump right back up, despite the fact that she now has road-rash from chin to noggin (yes, that happened) with barely so much as an "ooooch."  But get a little dirt on that girl's hand... oh my!  She stops at least 20 times a day to make sure somebody cleans her feet off, and out of nowhere now we often hear "dirt, dirt, dirt, diiiiiiirrt, DIRRRRRRT" only to find that Gracie has a hair on her finger, or a little speck of something from the floor.  Now, we vacuum our floors (or, really, the Roomba does it for us) all the time.  But it doesn't matter... she will find the one piece of dirt left behind and get it stuck on her hand.  Cooking isn't always a clean job, but I'm hoping since the batter was pre-mixed, it wasn't too traumatic for her! :)

The finished product!

Family Photo!

After breakfast, we decided to get out and enjoy the sunshine, so we packed up some snacks and sunscreen and sunhats, and headed for Annapolis.  I lived down there (in Upper Clements, actually) until I was almost 6, and there's just something about the place that always makes me want to go back.  Especially on a beautifully sunny day.  We went to Fort Anne and rolled down some of the hills, walked along the boardwalk, and explored some of the little shops.

We were back in time for lunch and nap time, and we actually all laid down for a little snooze.  Of course, since Gracie slept for an entire 10 minutes on the drive home, she refused to sleep this afternoon.  And we spent 1 1/2 hours listening to her yell, "Mama? Mama? Dada? Dada? Nana? Nana? Poppa? Poppa?" over and over again, louder and louder!  Afterwards, we headed into New Minas for a sushi-buffet supper (I learned my lesson last time... Gracie can eat, order more food!), had yogurt pops for dessert, and got Gracie to bed.

Now Danny and I are snuggling up to watch a movie... When Harry Met Sally, which we've  never seen.  I'm going to try to get a Mothers' Day massage out of Danny, but I think I may be out of luck, since I woke him up at 4:30 this morning to rub the Charlie horses out of my legs.  I didn't mean to wake him up, but apparently the cursing , flailing, and heavy breathing is hard to sleep through. :)

So today was a fantastic Mothers' Day for me... job well done, Daddy!  I can't wait to see what next year will bring.  It's hard to believe Danny will be out there making pancakes with two little girls, instead of just one! 

Visitors from a foreign land... and Gracie's cocaine habit.

Well it's been a very eventful week around the Ford household.  Nan and Pop Ford arrived last Saturday for a week-long visit. Danny took them to the airport on Saturday morning, and they headed back to Fogo Island, Newfoundland.  For those of you who don't know where that is... well, that's okay, I didn't know either until I met Danny... but go ahead and Google it sometime!  And if you ever get the chance to visit, it's definitely worth it!

Nan and Pop arrived just in time on Saturday for the second installment of our 3D ultrasound so they started off their day seeing both granddaughters.  The ultrasound went well, although we discovered that Baby #2 is breech... and quite comfortable it seems.  She does some flailing back and forth, but doesn't seem to have much of an inclination to head towards the light!  I've also been warned that this baby is not going to be little either (*sigh*) and should rival Gracie's nearly 9 lbs.  Which means if the little girl doesn't flip soon, it may be very difficult to encourage her to when time is running out.  So we'll see where this takes us! :)

On Sunday Pop and Danny put together Gracie's swingset, an Easter present from Grampy and Nanny Fillmore.  She loves it!  She will sit, literally, for an hour in the swing... just swinging.  She gets very upset when you try to take her out before she's ready, and will just swing, and swing, and swing.  She is already an avid outdoorsman, and starts her morning by opening her blind and yelling "hiiiiiii" to her swingset, and ends it by closing her blind and yelling "byyyyyyyye!"

Gracie in her swing

We went to the zoo on Monday, and Gracie finally got to hear the monkeys in action.  She wasn't impressed.  She loved the little monkeys who danced and played and knocked each other around the cage, but the big monkeys who scream at the top of their lungs "eeeeeeeeee-ooooooooo" were not her favourites.  They were just too noisy for her.  She still loves the goats, and the llamas are a big hit, since she actually gets to touch them.  The ducks and birds seem to be her favourite for now though. She loooooves birds!  She also loved when an airplane flew above us, and would wave and yell "hi" to whoever was inside it.

We kept busy all week doing all sorts of fun things with Nan and Pop, and Gracie was quite sad to see them go on Saturday.  She walked around most of Saturday yelling "Nana? Poppa?" and occasionally if she thinks she hears something in the basement, she'll yell for them again.

Nan Ford and Gracie

Yesterday was business as usual, and although it was Mothers' Day, we have decided to postpone our celebration to next Sunday.  Yesterday was the last day for my Sunday School program, so Gracie and I were out the door bright and early (no, no breakfast in bed for me) and Danny had to work.  When we got finished at church, Gracie went to bed, and Danny, who was home by now, had assignments to be worked on that were due.  So I spent the afternoon cleaning and tidying up the house and doing laundry.  I took a frozen pizza out for supper (Margarhita pizza from Costco, um, yummmmmy!) and Danny gave me a lovely card, a new gym bag, and a new Precious Moments figurine.  But he felt bad that I hadn't had the traditional Mothers' Day events (breakfast in bed, a no-clean day, and dinner out), so we decided to celebrate next weekend, when our lives should be (hahaha) a little less hectic.  I did use the Mothers' Day excuse to make him watch a chick flick with me, and we went to bed at 8:30 and watched The Vow.

That was Mothers' Day in a nutshell.  The part I left out would be what happened between the time Gracie woke up from her afternoon nap and supper.  I was on the phone with my cousin and was just about to let her go to get supper out of the oven, when I made the comment to her "hmmm, Gracie is really quiet, that's never a good thing.  I bet she's into something she shouldn't be."  So we said our goodbyes, and I asked Danny what Gracie was up to.  He called her name a couple of times, but no answer.  We were just about to chase her down when she came out of our bedroom... seemingly in one piece, and nothing too dangerous-looking having happened.  She did have my container of powder that I got a few years ago from Fantasia (this stuff is fantastic, by the way), and before Danny could jump off the couch, she dropped it on the floor, upside down.  She immediately went "uh-oh" and started to pick it up.  It was EVERYWHERE!!  She was quite upset, but we don't cry over spilled powder, so she decided to help dad clean it up instead.  When I looked over, she was licking it off the floor - it's raspberry flavoured, did I mention that??  Dad got the biggest pile cleaned up and Gracie continued to lick her hands and slide them through what was left of the powder so she could eat some more.  While Danny was wiping up the last of it, Gracie was sucking powder off her toes.  So I grabbed a camera.  Of course.  I mean, the floor was mostly clean, so why not let her enjoy it!  Here she is, my little raspberry-flavoured cocaine addict! :)

Momma... watch your mouth! (Another stellar moment)

Gracie is always learning new things... right now she's learning how to give real kisses... she used to give kisses with her mouth wide open, saying "ahhhhhhhh" when she wanted one.  Now we say "pucker up, Gracie."  She's getting much better at it!

Pucker up, Gracie!

There's a good pucker-up kiss!

On Saturday, we had our second ultrasound at 3D Miracles... and little Baby Ford is already showing her stubborn side (obviously a Ford!).  She had her foot in her face during the whole ultrasound, although we were lucky enough to get good pictures anyway... she's also breech!  I read that by 30 weeks only around 18% of babies are still in the breech position... that's my girl, she's special! :)   Hopefully she'll turn on her own in the next few weeks.  Although, I must say, she seems pretty comfortable with her head in my ribs.  I think it's cause she can hear everything better up here, and she's a curious little baby!  

Here are a few of her new pictures...

With her eyes open... having a little peak around.

Thinking happy thoughts!

Gracie is getting much better at saying her little sister's name... we have to be very careful not to let her say it too often around people, or else she's going to give it away!  That's because Gracie's vocabulary has been growing by the day.  She's been doing double syllables for a while, but always two syllables the same (ma-ma, da-da, etc.).  Recently she has started double syllables with different sounds... uh-oh, so-see (sorry), and a few others too.  She now says thank you, and excuse me, although they sound much different than when you or I say them!  Excuse me is actually "see-me." 

This morning we were driving to drop Gracie off at daycare, since Mom and Dad and Nana and Pop were on their way to Halifax for the day.  There's lots of construction going on right now on the road leading to Nancy's house, and there are two huge bumps in the road that only get worse with each passing day.  This morning when we went hit the bump, momma's baby bump bounced so hard it nearly took her breath away, and I said "Jesus!"  Actually, it was more like "Jeeesus."  I continued my conversation with Nan Ford, only to hear Danny say from the front seat "Sammy, do you hear that?"  So I stopped talking long enough to hear Gracie beside me saying "Cheesus... Cheeeesus"  Ooops!!  Well... that's a stellar mommy moment right there, if I've ever seen one!  I guess it's finally time to start watching my mouth!  Cause it would be a real shame if the only thing this little girl inherits from me is my potty mouth!  :)

Chaos... adventure... it's almost the same thing!

Changes are coming... there is the obvious one, the one that gets bigger and bigger as each day goes by, but there are also all the little changes going on in our lives right now.  Living in the middle of the chaos that has been our lives for the past two weeks, it certainly doesn't feel like little changes! 

We've torn out most of the garden in the front lawn and replaced it with grass.  It was just way too much work to get it looking pretty every year, and when we eventually sell the house I'm sure it would have been a deterrant to anybody but the most advanced gardener.  We still have a nice bit of garden left, but it's manageable!  Of course right now the front lawn looks not so pretty, but once the green stuff starts growing in it'll be fantastic! :)

We've also replaced the bathroom.  New toilet, new flooring, new paint, new countertops, new sink.  The only thing we didn't replace was the tub.  That was a big job, handled solely by Danny, and it looks fantastic!  Nothing freshens up a home like a brand spanking new room!

Our downstairs office has been dismantled and is currently being turned into Gracie's new room.  This was, and still is, a ginormous task.  The office was already cluttered past capacity... and all that crap had to go somewhere, since we have no empty rooms waiting for crap to be placed in it!  A lot of the crap went to the garbage, where it should have been years ago!  The office desk, computer, and filing cabinet got shuffled into the one remaining spare room.  The music stuff (amps, mics, and a crapload of music books) is behind the door in our bedroom - not exactly convenient, but at least it's neat, tidy, and fits!  Danny's gym equipment is going to be stored in the shed, and the books and miscellaneous crap that wasn't thrown out is currently in boxes, waiting to be sorted.  The office used to be a hideous blue and yellow.  After being emptied out, I spent nearly 3 hours scrubbing walls and vacuuming cobwebs.  Then this week, I painted the ceiling, mudded the walls, and started painting real colours last night.  The room is going to be purple and yellow - mostly neutral, with a splash of colour.  Being military, we always have to think "what if we get posted," and try to picture the house from outsiders' points of view!  I'm hoping tonight to do the second coat of purple, and start on the yellow.  By the weekend, the painting should be finished and Danny can put the new flooring down.  Then the fun part begins, decorating!   I'm quite excited to turn this into a room that isn't a nursery, but an actual room for a little girl to play in and love.  I have a million ideas running around inside my head, so hopefully I can pull out the right ones and make it functional and pretty!

We also bought a new car.  I don't know how that happened... except that we got a pamphlet in the mail asking us if our car was still the right fit for us, and if not, to take this $1,000 coupon to our dealership, and get a new one, without any penalties for ending the contract early.  So I called the dealership, we went in, test drove a car, did a little negotiating, and somehow ended up with a brand new Chevy Orlando for about the same as we were paying for the Vibe.  It's a 7-seater, but it not a van, or an SUV.  It's what they call a "compact 7-seater."  Kinda like the Mazda 5, except a little more head room.  It's not actually that much bigger than our Vibe was, and there's room now for family to travel with us, instead of always taking 2 cars.  And when the family isn't around, Charlie has extra leg room in the cargo area!  She hasn't travelled in it yet... this cargo area is carpeted, and the Vibe wasn't, so we have to find something to put down and protect it before we let her hairy butt in the car!

Well, all of that doesn't sound too chaotic... but trust me, while you're in the midst of it, with a very active (and sometimes petulant) toddler, two full-time jobs, and a (slightly) hormonal pregnant lady, some days have seemed never ending!  The worst is the mess that gets created in the midst of the chaos - dishes not done one night because painting is more important quickly add up to one embarrassing kitchen!  So I've now added scrubbing and cleaning to my daily to-do list, in an effort to stay on top of it.  The good thing is, once it's all finished and cleaned up, the house will have been almost completely redone from top to bottom, and it'll feel so new and fresh and homey.  We just have to get through the next few weeks without killing each other. 

Oh yes... the in-laws arrive on Saturday for a week.  It'll be great to have the company, not so great for the chaos! :)  Stay tuned...