Crayon on the walls.

The doorframes.

The doors.

More walls.

The carpet.

The couch.

More walls.

The piano bench.

The hope chest.

Someone pass me some cereal. Oy, Nathalie!

On rough days, this is what I remember

We've been a little off-kilter lately. With Nathalie's late nights and Emily in that weird nap-no nap stage we've all been a little tired and cranky. But a good 2 hour Sunday nap solves that! Also, a Family Home Evening with ice cream people in the middle of the week helps a bunch too.

Matt's ice cream was mint chocolate chip and strawberry. Weird combination.

The girls got faces on their ice cream. I was the only one who didn't! Of course, that's because I got a hot fudge milkshake. Delish.

Nathalie advice and pictures

Nathalie is definitely entering the twos. Not really tantrums yet, but clingy and defiant at the same time. The worst of her right now is that she won't go to bed. Take tonight for example. We got into bed late, because we took late naps because of a crazy morning. So at 9pm I turned out the light.

From 9:15 to 9:45, Nathalie talked, called out "Mama/Mommy/Michelle" (yeah, that's her new thing) or sang-- LOUDLY. Finally at 9:45 I took Emily out of the room and put her in my room. Emily is still singing quietly. It's 10:00pm.

Nathalie called out "Emmy, where are you?" until about 5 minutes ago. Now she's quiet.


So what do I do? Emily is a great sleeper. She still takes naps, but she will easily sleep 12 hours a night and go to bed at 8:30. I've tried putting Nathalie to bed earlier, but she just talks longer. I've tried getting her up from her nap earlier, but then she's just cranky. (She usually wakes up by herself around 3:15, after about 2 hours). No amount of outdoor activity seems to help.

Emily is in a really wonderful stage. I'm loving her age.

I'm getting worried because Emily and Nathalie share a room, so this cuts into Emily's sleep. And since Matt and I don't really plan on moving unless we feel really inspired to, the baby will ultimately share that room too come fall.

Nathalie only needs about 10 hours of sleep. So she'll be up before Emily in the morning.

And by the way, don't you LOVE this picture?! Nathalie adores this skirt and dresses up in pairs of old shoes. She is such a little girl.

Sad conversation today

My conversation with a child.

Child: My mommy is in jail.
Me: Because she had drugs.
Child: Yeah, because she had drugs. There were drugs in our house.

The child was 3 yrs old, younger than Emily.

Why is it that wonderful people can't have children, and people who don't deserve children have them? I'm beyond grateful to have my beautiful daughters and cherish them, most of the time. I do everything I can to protect them from the evils of the world. I know that they will encounter these things once they're in school, but I can make home a haven for them. Apparently some people don't feel that way.

Making and doing

Remember when I wore out my sewing machine? Well, we finally got a new one. The to-be-fixed pile and project list was becoming overwhelming. I chipped in the money I'd been saving and Matt chipped in a few extra hours at work. Worth it? You betcha.
My favorite feature of the sewing machine so far is the serging stitch. Complete with a serging foot, it doesn't actually cut the fabric like a serger, but it creates a tight stitch to prevent fraying-- better than a zigzag stitch. Seriously, we use the serging stitch nearly every time we do a project.

Also I love the fact that it sews easily through 8 layers of fabric. That was a requirement and I tested it on 5 layers of denim before I bought it. Heaven!!

One of the goals that Matt and I have in terms of parenting is to develop a love of learning and reading in our children. And I think we're doing pretty well! (Sometimes it's nice to actually feel like you're succeeding at being a parent.)
Both girls love to read. Emily memorizes books within a couple of days and after that she is usually willing to "read" to Nathalie.


In fact, I put a limit on how much I will read to them in a day. Isn't reading great?

One of the goals that Matt and I have in terms of parenting is to develop a love of learning and reading in our children. And I think we're doing pretty well! (Sometimes it's nice to actually feel like you're succeeding at being a parent)

Hearts To You

Why, yes, I do resort to bribery

So we were sick. Emily got hit the worst of us. And when Emily gets sick, she doesn't eat or drink. It doesn't matter if it's not the stomach flu; if Emily gets upset, she doesn't eat. If she stubs her toe, she doesn't eat. If she has a bad day, she doesn't eat. Normally I don't care if she skips a meal, but she skipped a couple of days and I noticed that since nothing was going in, nothing was coming out (if you get my drift). Beside the obvious problem of dehydration, Emily also tends to get sick to the stomach if she doesn't eat for a long period of time.

So I bit the bullet and bought ice cream and chocolate milk. I know, I know! It's bad for you, it has high fructose corn syrup, lots of yucky preservatives....but Emily wasn't eating and I needed to make her eat something. They definitely helped. She didn't eat or drink a lot, but she ate enough.

Nathalie thought it was awesome that I bought ice cream. Although she isn't a fan that I mix chocolate milk and regular milk together. Have you tasted straight chocolate milk? It's too much!

Bring it on!

Nesting has kicked in. For some women this means a happy time. For me, it means I stay awake at night thinking, "I must get up right now and scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush and I must move all the furniture and vacuum behind everything and I must go through every single drawer every single closet every single tote every single box in the garage and get rid of everything I own so our house doesn't become too cluttered and I must clean out every closet and I must make 27 loaves of bread and I must vacuum between all the cracks in the kitchen floor and I must buy 25 lbs of meat this week and put it all into small containers labeled with the meal and recipe and then keep it in the freezer and I must organize every paper and shelf we own and I must get every single project I've ever wanted to get done, done, and I must wipe down every toy, pencil, pen, comb, brush, handle with sanitizing wipes and I have to do it RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT OR I'M GOING TO GO CRAZY!"

Then Matt usually tells me, "Michelle, the baby won't care if the house is totally clean. I'll help you get ready but I'm NOT scrubbing the baseboards with a toothbrush."

Then I usually fall asleep.

Here's the thing: I was in denial with Nathalie's pregnancy. I struggled with depression during her pregnancy which turned into full-fledged PPD afterwards. The only preparation I did was some spring cleaning and it made the recovery and ensuing PPD a lot harder.

This pregnancy is different and a whole lot happier. So I'm not going to fight this nesting instinct. I'll let my OCD cleaning self take over (mostly, at least. I'm not going to scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush, but I will use a rag) and when I need to clean or nest, I'm going to do it.

And I didn't buy 25 lbs of meat at the store today. I bought 17 bags of frozen veggies instead. (But in my defense, we use those bags a lot and they had a great sale!)

A Grumpy Kind of Weekend

We've had the Sick this weekend. Runny nose, achy joints, stuffed up ears, yucky sneezes, congested coughs, fevers...we've got it bad. And we've all been grouchy. Except for Matt, the lucky dog, who worked this weekend. Good for him, bad for us. Here are pictures to make me feel better about the grouchy mom I was this weekend. I'll be a better mom tomorrow.
Emily after naps. She is really so beautiful.

Nathalie after naps. I love her big big eyes.

Emily and Matt napping together...holding hands!!! Matt doesn't know I took this and he never checks this blog, so don't tell him!

Nathalie is really cute. Except when she's a pill.

Emily sweeping the snow off our car. It was hilarious.

Several of you have asked why we chose the Flip diaper over other diapers. Simply put, it's really economical. The Flip diaper is a "hybrid" diaper--meaning you can put both cloth diapers in it or a biodegradable disposable insert (I believe it's flushable). We would never use the biodegradable inserts--they're more expensive than Pampers. There are several other hybrid diapers out there-- gDiapers, GroVia, Best Bottoms, etc... But the Flip system offered a couple perks Matt and I liked. They are made by Cotton Babies, which is a reputable company. The diapers come in one size. This is economical because you just snap down the diapers to fit a smaller baby or undo the diapers to fit a baby Nathalie's size. Since Matt and I are doing this to be more economical and self-sufficient, this made sense to us. We have to buy fewer diapers and they'll fit more babies.

Also, since the insert isn't attached to the diaper, like in All-In-One diapers (go to this website for a great explanation of different types, their pros and cons), Matt and I can make our own inserts from leftover fabric. This will be substantially cheaper than buying all our inserts and it gives us something to do with all our leftover t-shirts and flannel.

The Flip diapers also fit great. I seem to have chubby babies and some of the other diapers I tried left red marks on their legs or waistband. The Flips haven't leaked for us so far (except today when we didn't change her before her nap) but they're not leaving big red marks. (And I like the colors.)

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If you're interested in maybe reading some things about cloth, I'd recommend this site, allaboutclothdiapers.com. There's a lot of information out there and it can be a bit overwhelming.