Well, I'm back from my vacation in Sammamish! It's fun to go out and see my family, but at the same time it's wonderful to be back home. I have my own bed, my own food, my own neighborhood, my own schedule ... Carmen loved staying up late partying with her uber-exciting aunts and uncles. She also loved sleeping in and napping right before dinner. We're still slowly adjusting her schedule back to normal. ;)
I really appreciated Elder Cook's talk in Conference on Saturday morning. I have to wait until the transcriptions come out online before I can do a lot of analysis on the talk, but I loved how he talked about how valuable mothers are and acknowledged all kinds of mothers (those who work, those who stay at home, and those who are single, etc) and praised them. I felt appreciated and loved, even though motherhood tends to be undervalued (read: unpaid!!) I liked how he talked about telling a nonmember about women serving in the Church and she said, "The last thing women need is another unpaid job."
I've loved and valued work and education so much in my life that it's sometimes hard for me to keep things in perspective. When Carmen was a baby, I had a hard time feeling like I was much more than an unpaid robot. She'd lay there (and cry most of the time ... she was very colicky) and my job was to simply be there and hold and comfort her and feed and change her until ... I don't know. Until she needed something else. I felt like I had very little to offer her different from what anyone could offer her.
Now, however, life is great! Ever since she started noticing the world and crawling and walking and wanted to know things, I feel like I've been able to do a lot and I'm thrilled to be a mom! (So things got much better after 5 or 6 months, then after a year, then after 15 months, then after 18 months, and now she's turning 2 next month! WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TIME?!) She is so expressive and loves to talk and we share such sweet moments together.
It's been wonderful to watch Sadie every morning. I love watching her learn and grow, too. Today, she told me how she can count by 5's and 10's to 100. She told me she doesn't know how to read yet, but I told her at least she knows how to spell her name and loves to look at books together so at least that's a start. She told me the other day that her mom gave her permission to get her ears pierced when she asked, but has decided she doesn't want to get her ears pierced because it will be painful. She and Carmen are learning how to get along together and I get to practice more of my teaching and mediating skills.
I'm enjoying the book Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. It talks about empathizing with your children and helping them learn to address and deal with their strong emotions instead of dismissing or demeaning them. It requires a lot of intimacy with and attention to your child, so ... I guess I feel really thankful I have the opportunity to stay at home and develop that kind of a relationship with my children without having other major distractions in my life. There is nothing else I'm doing that is more important than teaching my children to be the best they can be! (And yet, I find room and time to do so much and my life is full!)
A few Carmenisms:
Carmen put a sticker onto a piece of paper then tried to pull it off.
"Stuck!!" she complained, surprised.
A few months ago, we got a free broken key from a locksmith. It's got buttons on it. Carmen found it in the toy basket and started pushing the buttons. "Beep, beep!" she said (because that's the noise cars make when you lock and unlock them.) She walked over to the window and looked outside, to see if any of the cars were reacting to her key. "Papa's key." she said. (Grandpa has a key like that to his Honda Pilot.) This is proof that Carmen loves Grandpa Brad and pays attention to him.
Sometimes, Carmen blows her nose with toilet paper, but more often than not, she rips it up into tiny pieces and sticks the pieces up her nose. Then I hear her snort and sniff for a few minutes and she goes, "Stuck! STUUUUCCKKK!!!"
(PS. I remove the toilet paper with tweezers to make the extraction process as excruciating and obnoxious as possible.)
Last night, our friends blessed their baby, Phoebe. Carmen loves babies and has been picking up names really well this past month. While we were getting into the car, she sat in the back seat talking to herself about how excited she was to go see "Baby Pee-Pee." She also learned our friend Sterling's first name: "Durling." IT'S ADORABLE.
I guess while I'm talking about names, I'll have you know she calls Marissa "Sissa", gets ridiculously excited about our friend Ray (and can say his name no problem), and loves her friend Braxton who is 6 months older than she is. She calls him "Bobby". One time we were playing at Braxton's house and the conversation went something like this:
Braxton: Carmen, I am not Bobby. I'm Braxton.
Carmen: Bobby!
Braxton: No, Braxton!
Carmen: Brrrrrrrrrrrr-obby!
Me: *lol*
I love hearing Carmen talk to herself. She walks around the house and plays with her toy kitchen or her tool set and talks about what she's going to cook or fix. She carries her babies around and changes their diapers and puts medicine on their ouchies. (She's got a sad history of diaper rashes and so she is quite familiar with Bordeaux's Butt Paste.) When I was a kid, I'd put my stuffed animals in time-out and spank them for trying to leave. Carmen kisses her babies and gives them medicine. Hmm.
She's cute!!
ReplyDelete