Morning Glory

Pre-Baby: Awake at 5:30 exercise, inclusive of yoga, healthy breakfast, herbal tea, pack healthy lunch for the week, lovely shower, dress in re-chosen the night before clothing and off to work to arrive (always) early to accomplish many preparatory tasks for the day/week/month ahead.

During-Baby: Awake...all the time, exercise was made a priority after 6 months or so but became obsessive due to the "catch up" factor coupled with the remaining "baby weight", got to the point that I ran for the first time since that presidential challenge in high school (note that I did not air quote ran so as to denote that I really did do it), showers seemed like a luxury and one that I didn't really need anyway (I was just going to get dirty again) and if I showered while she was awake, she would just scream, and if I showered when she was asleep, she would just wake up...better to be dirty if you ask me, breakfast and lunch tried to be healthy and during the fittest mama challenge when I learned more about balancing proteins and carbs and fats, it really was healthy, and I could never be late for the job because "the boss" would have my head and it was a 24/7 gig anyway, so how can you be late for that?

Post-Baby: Cecelia is officially entering toddler-hood, or is smack-dab in the middle of it depending on who you ask. Around 13 months, after she stopped falling asleep in-arms and really started sleeping... At night, naps, all of it miraculous and glorious and 12 hours- oh my! But with sleep there are other challenges. For one, since I was catching up on a year plus of no more than three hours of consecutive sleep a night, my body ate up 8-10 hours easy... I found that I just wanted more in the mornings. At first, Cece slept til 5, 5:30, then 6:30 and now, over winter break she's made it until 7:30! So, recently I could not make a peepity peep or else she would wake up instantly, so some mornings I would wake up and just stay trapped in bed like a mummy, not moving a muscle for fear. Then, when she does wake from her slumber, she wants to nurse for at least a half hour. Which is great. Except for when she slept til 6:30, woke up, and nursed for a half hour, that put us at 7 and I had to be out the door at 7:15. So, exercise, showering, eating a healthy breakfast, and packing a healthy lunch, along with making a healthy cup of tea, putting on a well coordinated pre-chosen, laundered outfit, and, in this weather, warming up the car ALL went out the window. Add to that our bathrooms gettng redone and there is a real recipe for disaster.

But, it is a new year. And last week, I got u Bette Cece, exercised, ate a healthy breakfast, made and drank tea, AND (you'll all be glad to hear this) got a shower, and she didn't wake up. Tricky thing with a 7:30 wake up is that leaves no time for an AM nursing on school days. We'll see what she does tomorrow morning. I like to think I follow her cues. She certainly is a great communicator these days!

Resolution(s)

So, I kind of have a LOT of resolutions for 2011. Oh yeah, Happy New Year! I almost forgot :/. Where was I? Right - resolutions... Lots of them. Included among my resolutions is better blogging, and like Lucy who we all love, I feel that I have some 'splainin' to do! I promised that I was going to try to blog more, like every day- and that clearly did not happen. Here's the deal - confession time - when I do something, I don't want to just do it, I want to do it well. So, when it comes to blogging, I want to include relevant pictures, embed videos and polls and widgets and icons and write well and accurately capture moments for the collective memory. So, since I could not achieve that perfect snapshot over the past few months, I did nothing instead. And that is really not an acceptable alternative. So, how do I plan to address this? By utilizing the tools I have at my fingertips, I.e. The magical iPhone. Surprisingly though, there is NOT an app for that. I am on the Internet via the phone, and that'll do. Downsides, I am not yet proficient, nor is my phone fast enough, to add photos, so it may still be awhile before the visual appeal of this blog returns, but rest assured, pictures ARE being taken and one day you MAY (note that is not a will because I no longer make promises) see them. Also, the autocorrect function on the phones keypad may leave us with some less than desirable phrase-ology. One thing I have noticed is that the phone simply will not allow the use of it's without the apostrophe even when used in the appropriate context. I will do my best to proofread all submissions, but if something sounds funny, just blame the phone. With all this said, I realize that I have a good bit of catching up to do and I WILL try to do so, but give it time.

With all that said, there are a few other resolutions, but rather than allowing the whole world to hold me accountable for those, I'll keep a few things to myself.

Happy 2011 - we are on our way to Hershey at the moment. Imagine our family sailing into the New Year on literal rivers of chocolate.

Sad to Say

that I'm a bad blogger...plain and simple.  Bad, bad, bad.  Good bloggers update their blog on something closer to a daily basis.  Bad bloggers update their blogs on a bi-monthly basis!!  How can that be?  Well, I know a few reasons.

1) Lack of home internet.
        (a) which consequently means I'm being an attentive mother to my young child instead of trying to    
              squeeze in some computer time...which is good.

* tried to add picture here...but speed of library internet literally prevented me from doing so...the library is going to close instead :(

2) Cuh-razy new job title at work. (Which is also a good thing but has kept me might busy in my time away from said young child)

3) Enough excuses.

I've maintained this blog relatively well and with relative accuracy to the facts during Cece's first year and I don't intend to let it all fall to shambles now.  In the new year (and even before that, I think I'll start now) I'm going to carve out a few minutes in the morning by getting in a smidge earlier at work to update the blog world...and hopefully with a picture or video here or there as well.  I promise...to the best of my ability/accessibility, etc.!

Starting...now.

Whirling Dervish

Cecelia is quite the whirling dervish...or tornado depending on who you ask.  Cece's aunt referred to her as a walking tornado this past week.  She got to spend a solid week observing Cece's quirky behavior as she and Cece's cousins were visiting.  Cecelia simply doesn't stop moving.  She'll squat to take a break.  But she rarely sits and stops to play with one thing.  She's always on the go and emptying drawers where'er she goes.  She also noted that Cece likes to abandon her drinking cup entirely when she is done drinking.  While she takes the time to pick up spilled snack and cleans quite well, her cup seems to be something she could...live without.  Cecelia is also a bit...demanding...and...bossy.  Her cousins experienced this first hand this past week.  At one point, her older cousin asked why she was screaming (her way of communicating most things) and from the start decided it was just much easier to give her what she wanted.  He took to this quite well.  Her other cousin, however, disagreed (as I would also).  Cecelia decided that she would like his truck.  That moment stuck in his mind the rest of the week.  I'm just hoping he's not scarred for life by this encounter.  For the rest of the week, when Cecelia entered the same air space that he was occupying he would get very upset and either leave and go to a different room, or otherwise indicate that he had NOT forgotten the truck transgression.  And, no, he was not going to get over it.  I'm just hoping that Cecelia has learned a few more manners before her next encounter with her cousins so that, hopefully, she will not have any more faux pas such as this one.

Almost Famous

I've been away for far too long...and hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of blogging, but in the meantime, here's a peek at a day in the life of Jeff and Cece.  Enjoy!

Age: 14 Months

Picture Taken September 14th.  And yes, this was the best/only we could do.  We'll see how October goes, but this may be the end of monthly pictures...

Danger Zone

Cecelia likes to live dangerously and keep us on our toes.  While she's become quite proficient at walking and even dares to tread on both sand and grass now (look out!), she has recently begun some new daredevil moves. 

 

 She started climbing up on the recliner which is an achievement of physics calculations I don't understand but she still manages to pull it off nonetheless.  Like stairs, getting up is the easy part.  Coming back down is a smidge more difficult.  She has safely navigated herself down on her belly and gently placed her feet on the floor.  Unless she's in the mood to give Jeff or I a heart attack by leaning forward and feigning that she is about to dive head first.  But I digress.  

So, she'd been doing this for a few days when, one day, Jeff went to use the facilities and returned to the living room to find Cecelia sitting on the couch and when he entered the room, laughing at him.  Mischief!  Now, again, this is all well and good until she realizes that it would be really fun to climb on the back of the couch and teeter there at the top of the stairs.  We may need to create a different feng shui for our living space, though I'm not sure moving the couch elsewhere is the answer as that would leave the bars exposed for squeezing her head through.  And if I know my daughter, that's JUST what she would do next.  

So, fingers crossed she doesn't take up an interest in base jumping in the next few days.  Then there's the spiral stair case.  Some of you may recall she learned to climb stairs on that very set.  Then we deftly blocked it off with a storage container of toys.  Most recently a tub with mega blocks was sitting on one side and the storage container on the other.  The same day Cecelia was found sitting upon the couch, she also decided to move that tub out of the way (it's not terribly heavy) and ascend the stairs.  At which point her father replaced her at the bottom of the stairs and put the tub back in place.  Followed by her doing the same thing again (are you seeing a pattern here?).  Next, daddy-o moved the much heavier container of toys to block the stairs.  After some lugging, Cecelia gave up on moving the container and, instead, decided to climb up into the toy container, step on and wade through the toys to get to the other side, place both feet on the bottom step and continue on her merry way.  


Trouble.  Big trouble.  But, she is quite the problem solver.


See what Dooce has to say on the topic of daredevil children as she writes about her daughter who is one month older than Cece.