The Third Prayer

Baby girl’s 7th tooth popped through over the weekend!  Number seven came in right next to number one and two on the bottom.  Now we just need number eight to pop through and then nine, 10, 11, 12, and the next and the next.  But #7 has been the hardest so far for our baby girl.  Which makes me think that there are a couple more coming through at the same time which has made the pain so much worse.

I keep forgetting to mention this but Mary Rene loves to wave to Jesus at church.  Above our alter is the Resurrection Christ, instead of Christ on the Crucifix.  He is larger than life and Mary Rene gets really excited and just stares at him and waves hi over and over again.  So cute.

Another thing I keep forgetting to mention, Mary Rene has been saying the word ’sit’ for the past two weeks.  Sophie B. likes to pace back and forth in the front room and I’m constantly pointing my finger at her and with a very stern voice telling her to sit.  My good little imitator will point her finger and with all attitude she tells Sophie to sit.  Wanna see it?  (She also says “bye bye” at the end.)

Did you like that video?  Well here’s another.  This was my first attempt at getting her to say ’sit’ but as you will see she was too distracted.

Mary Rene is becoming a one nap a day girl.  Before she used to nap for 30-45 minutes at 10 a.m. and then nap again for 1.5 hours around 2 p.m.  Now she is taking one nap, somewhere between 11:30-1 p.m. that last for 2-2.5 hours.  I love the longer naps!  Love, love, love them.  But right now we haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact time of this nap.  Yesterday she decided to take her short 45 minute morning nap but then didn’t want an afternoon nap.  Which in the end meant she was in bed by 6:45 p.m.  It will all work itself out eventually.

Speaking of sleeping, when baby girl is teething she is hard to get to sleep.  A couple times last week, it took a little over and hour to get her relaxed and asleep.  I had it up to my head in stress so Frank & I decided that we were going to start making her put herself to sleep.  We don’t want to do the Cry It Out Method so we have made up our own variation of it.  Sunday night, I nursed and rocked her like usual.  When she didn’t fall asleep, I laid her in the crib and she instantly shot up and started to cry.  We let her cry for five minutes and then Frank went in and reassured her.  He came back out, she cried again, five minutes later Frank went back in.  That happened again and this time I went in, nursed her and set her back in the crib.  This time she whined for about 30 seconds and then rustled around until she feel asleep.  Sweet!  On Monday night, she was so tired that she feel asleep nursing.  We plan on trying this every night until she eventually either falls asleep nursing or puts herself to sleep when we put her in the crib.

That plan sounded all great until…Monday night.  I was hanging out with some gals from my La Leche League group and I mentioned Mary Rene’s sleeping situation.  I casually mentioned how she eventually ends up in our bed anyways and I wanted to take the frame off our bed and lay the box spring and mattress on the floor.  That way she can get in and out of the bed by herself and we don’t have to worry about her falling.  I thought that sounded too ridiculous so we weren’t going to do it.  I found out that night that two of the gals did the same thing to their beds!  Oh I felt so much better-I wasn’t alone.   When I went home that night I mentioned it to Frank and he still wasn’t 100% on board.

Until…this morning.  On the news there is a huge recall on Delta baby cribs.  Guess who has a Delta baby crib?

I went right in her room and lifted the mattress in the air as a reminder to not let her sleep in there tonight.  I checked the Delta website and our crib is not on the recall list because the locking system is different.

However, we have been experiencing trouble with our locking system and some nights we can’t get the left side to stay connected.  We didn’t think much of it since she ends up in our bed anyways but now…I’m second guessing the locking system.  Our crib might eventually end up on the recall list.  Frank said we could just lay her mattress on the floor in her room, then we will put a baby gate up in the hallway so she won’t have access to the rest of the house.  Hopefully if she wakes up she will walk right to our room and climb into bed with us.  Hey, this might actually be the best thing for us!  Now we don’t have to wake up and carry her to our bed!  Sweet!  We just have to hope the plan works!  She ends up in our bed halfway through the night already…

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Monday morning around 8 a.m. I got a call from my good friend Laura’s husband.  Laura had her baby 45 minutes prior to his call!  Congratulations Laura!  And boy, is baby Cole a cutie.  I was able to make it up to the hospital and see him and he just took my breath away.

Boy has some cheeks don’t ya say?  He looks a lot like his big brother, Caden.

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Yesterday I made it over to my friend Emily’s house and I had the pleasure of meeting my amazingly, beautiful, Goddaughter, Beatrice.

Wow!  Like Emily said on her blog, she is perfect in every way.  And Beatrice, she looks a lot like her big sister, Ella.

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Last week my friend Jenn gave birth to her second son, Jaxson.  I went to visit but both kids were napping so I just left a gift at the door.  Sunday I get to meet my friend Katie’s newborn son.  Yesterday my friend Alexis gave birth to her first baby!  Do you feel the baby fever?

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Tuesday while I was on my morning run I noticed that two teenage boys were  pulling on another teenager’s jacket and kicking the person in the back of their legs.  When I got closer I noticed it was a girl.  I stopped in front of her and asked if she was okay.  She said yes and the boys backed off.  It really did appear that they were just teasing her and I happened on the situation.  But I still decided to warn the lady that was walking past me about the situation.  The next morning, one of the bully boys and the girl stopped me and asked if they could pet my dog.  They started asking a lot of questions about Sophie and were both talking about their dogs.  Yesterday they ignored me when I ran by.  I don’t really know what to think about these kids but I’m glad I said something.

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When I returned back to work after having Mary Rene, I was on a 10 month trial to see how working part-time was working for the company and myself.  My boss and I were supposed to reeveulate the situation at 10 months.  When she was in town (she is located in Overland Park, Kansas) in July she mentioned coming back in August to discuss my full-time return to work.  I reminded her that my 10 month trial would be up in October, not August.  She said she would wait until then to discuss it.  She was scheduled to come in town in October but she never came. Yesterday she called and said we had something important to discuss.  I got a lump in my throat and was prepared to lay out the facts and fight to stay part-time.  But instead, she asked for me to take on another project.  I agreed.  So for now, I’m still part-time and hope to stay for as long as I can. 

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Something is wrong with Mary Rene and we don’t know what it is.  She doesn’t have a fever or a cough so we don’t think she is getting sick.  How do we know something is wrong?  Besides the obvious fact that she is extremely crabby and scream crying, she has not nursed in over 24 hours now.  This leads us to believe that she has some serious teething going on.  I just hope those teeth come through soon so we can get back on schedule.  I really don’t think she is self weaning because there are too many other teething syptoms going on with this.  Needless to say I had to pull the pump back out.  Fun.

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Mary Rene found a new toy.

Hey, she knows what the real purpose of the toy is…

Sophie doesn’t like the toy so much…

About two weeks ago, Frank told me to start buying lottery tickets when I went grocery shopping.  Hey, you can’t win unless you play.  So I started to play.  I even signed up for Publisher’s Clearing House and I am doing their online lottery game.  Frank and I are having fun talking about what we would do if we won.  On our stay-in date nights we can sit on the couch for a good hour or so just talking about what we would do and where we would go.  Winning the lottery makes for great conversations.

Yesterday morning after my run with Sophie, I took a shower and started to go in our bedroom to grab my clothes.  Mary Rene and Frank were cuddled together sleeping so good that I decided to wait to get dressed.  I hung out in the kitchen, wearing my pink fluffy bathrobe as I checked work emails. 

It was time to wake Frank up so I headed back to the bedroom.  But when I walked in the room I looked down at the two of them and they took my breath away.  I stood there for about 30 seconds just staring at them both as they breathed in and out.

At that moment I realized, I already won the lottery.  I got the winning ticket three years and three months ago when I married Frank.  I got the winning ticket 13 months and 3 weeks ago when Mary Rene was born.  And every morning when I wake up with the two of them at my side, it is another winning ticket day. 

Many people say that the best day of their lives is their wedding day or the day their child/ren was/were born.  But for me, the best day of my life is today.  And tomorrow, the best day will be that day.  Because each day is another day that I am blessed to be the wife of an amazing husband and a mother of an incredible daugther.  Each day is another opportunity for me to love and be loved.  Each morning I win the lottery.

No amount of money can ever complete me like my family already does.

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When people used to ask how many kids I wanted I always used to say four or five.  I really wanted to have a big family and couldn’t think of any other way to show my love for Frank.  But after having Mary Rene, I changed my mind.  I don’t want Mary Rene to be an only child but I honestly can’t imagine how my heart can love another child as much as I love her.  I always hear that when you have a second child your heart doesn’t divide but it grows.  I can’t even begin to imagine loving another baby as much as I love her, but I guess, only time will tell.  For now I will watch as my friends do it.  My friend, Emily, gave birth to her second daughter, a beautiful baby girl, Beatrice Louise, on Monday.  CONGRATULATIONS!  One of her last post was about how she was reading “Goodnight Moon” to her daughter Ella and she realized at that moment it might be their last moment alone together.  It was a touching post because my heart ached for her but at the same time my heart was aching for myself.  If God so blesses me, someday I will have that same feeling as I am reading to Mary Rene.  I’m looking forward to learning from Emily and how this heart of hers is growing and growing each and everyday.

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Monday evening I stayed up and I sewed three taggie blankets and then I decided to make a baby cube for Beatrice.  About five months ago I was at a baby shower and I saw these cloth baby cubes sitting on the food table.  I realized how easy it would be to sew them and decided I would give it a try.  Apparently I forgot about that internal conversation until now.  I took some yellow fleece and cut out the letter “B” and then I cut a satin heart and sewed both to different pieces of fabric. 

I had a little of the St. Louis Cardinals fleece left and was able to make a square of the cube from it.

Now my cube has some St. Louis flavor.  I meant to add tags to some of the sides so it would be a taggie cube, but as you can see, I forgot.  The cube is much bigger than I anticipated and it isn’t as square as I would like but hey, it is my first cube.  Four days after completing it, I was on one of my new favorite websites, Make It and Love It and I noticed that she did this same project back in March.  Ugh.  Now I feel like a cheat.  Although I must say, mine has more flavor since I added the fleece “B” and the satin heart.

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About two months ago, Frank and I made the decision to take a break from being Eucharist Ministers.  We were scheduled every other month for the noon Mass but some weeks it would be really hard to commit to that Mass time because of Mary Rene’s nap schedule.  I called Richard, the Eucharist Minister coordinator, to tell him to remove us from the schedule for a couple months.  I was happy to get his voicemail because I hated to disappoint him over the phone.  A week went by and I never heard from him.  And then I got the call.  He had passed away, at his home, and was found four days later.  It turns out that I probably called when he had already passed away.  My heart sank in grief for him and his family.  But even more, my heart yearned to be a minister again.  So on Sunday, Frank and I started ministering again but now we have switched to the 9 a.m.  Mass.  Mary Rene usually takes her first nap at 10 a.m. so this works out perfect. 

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I have finished my first official week of not pumping.  On Tuesday I was able to take my co-worker, Laurie, out to lunch for her birthday.  Yesterday, I was able to get a new battery installed in my Jeep and run into Kohl’s and Best Buy for some errands.  It was like old times all over again.  I can now say, I don’t miss pumping.

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I don’t want to jinx myself by saying this but, I have been doing an awesome job of getting up every morning and running.  I still have to be quiet and try to trick Sophie…most of the times I fail.  My running friends are gearing up for a half marathon in March.  They have asked me to join and I highly doubt I will be ready.  But, I might be ready to do the 10K the day before the race. 

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Tomorrow is supposed to be really nice outside and this may just be the last nice day for awhile.  What is something fun that Frank, Mary Rene and I can do outside?  I was thinking Grant’s Farm.  Frank wants to go apple picking.  Any suggestions?

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Mary Rene has learned how to get on and off the couch all by herself.  I must say, she is very gracious and careful when she does it.  The only problem is she likes to pester Sophie all day long.

I say pester because she likes to stick her finger in Sophie’s eye.

What does Sophie do?  Absolutely nothing.  Good dog.

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Tuesday was such a beautiful day that Mary Rene played outside when I got home from work.  She was having so much fun walking back in forth from the front yard to the back yard.  She thinks it is so cool that she can open and close the gate.  Adorable.  Mr. Meyer (by the way, it is Meyer not Meyers.  my bad!) saw us out playing and he came over to join in the fun.  Mary Rene grabbed his finger and she walked him to the backyard to show him her playhouse.  Such a show off.  She is so darn proud of her playhouse that she wants to show it to the whole neighborhood.

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Later that night, Frank and I pulled out the china and used it for our stay-in date.  Did you use your china this week? 

Katie H., go get your momma’s china and start using it!

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Speaking of our date, Frank gave me a standing ovation for the dinner I cooked!  Oh my goodness I felt like Martha Stewart and all.  When he heard the ingredients I was going to use he tried getting me to make something else.  But I surprised him-again.  I think this is going to become my “new mom” dish.  So good, so healthy, so yummy.

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I just wanted to say that I love the Fall season and I’m so sad that is is nearly over. 

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The last few weeks everyone kept asking us what Mary Rene was going to be for Halloween.  We thought we had plenty of time to figure it out but…well, holidays and events have a way of sneaking up on you.  So last week, on a whim, I decided to sew Mary Rene’s costume.  My mom and I went to the store and I bought a princess pattern.  I decided to go with a princess because (1) Mary Rene is a princess (2) I have a crown and wand from her birthday cake and (3) I already have half the costume since part of it is a tutu.  I took her pink tutu from her birthday and added blue tulle so now it is a multi-colored tutu.  Then I took all the extra material from the dress Mary Rene wore in my sister’s wedding to make the top of the costume.  I added some white satin that my mom gave me, pink ribbon from Mary Rene’s tutu and some blue ribbon I bought at the store.  All together, her costume only cost $7.  Wanna see it?  You’ll have to wait until Halloween!

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After teasing you about showing the Halloween costume I realized I haven’t added one single photo to this post.  How boring of me.  I haven’t taken any pictures the last few days with my camera so a picture from my cell phone will have to do.  Excuse the quality.

Yesterday I walked in the kitchen for a brief second (okay, maybe seven seconds) and when I walked back in the room Mary Rene was standing up on her chair looking out the window.  She is such a little daredevil and has no sense of fear.  (See how close her little foot is to the edge…ready to fall off.)  When she turned around and saw me she started laughing and did a little dance.  By this point I was freaking out because if she danced a little harder she would have fallen off the chair.  I helped her get down carefully but it only a took a matter of minutes before she climbed up the chair again.

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I got my butt out of bed and ran three mornings in a row this week.  Oh I’m feeling so much better.  I decided that I will start running Monday through Thursday, sleep in with Mary Rene on Fridays, and rest on the weekend.  Sophie B. is really enjoying her runs.  When she hears my alarm go off she gets really excited and whimpers and pants until we get out the door.  She is so loud, with her long toe nails scraping the floor, that I’m always afraid she will wake Frank and Mary Rene.  So I’m a total dork and I started sleeping in my running underwear, pants and socks.  (Yes I wear special underwear and special socks for running.)  When my alarm goes off I stay in bed for a couple minutes to trick Sophie B.  I take off my sleeping bra and t-shirt and once Sophie B thinks I am “hitting snooze” I quietly sneak into the bathroom.  Okay, here is where I get even more ridiculous.  I sneak in the bathroom and put my contacts in and wait.  As soon as the heat starts running (it is loud) I start to pee and at the same time I quickly put on my sports bra, running shirt (wick material!) and my running shoes.  Now all I have to do is flush and wash my hands.  As soon as I flush Sophie B. is up and prancing back and forth.  I quickly leave the bathroom, go to the back door and put on her leash and start the run.  So far she hasn’t woken anybody up.  So far I’m a real dork.

One of the first neighbors I meet when I bought my house in 2003 were Mr. & Mrs. Meyers.  They live across the street and up two houses.  When I meet them they said they had lived in their house since it was first built in the 50s.  WOW!  They knew everything that there was to know about the neighborhood.  Since they both were retired, they were like the watchdogs of our neighborhood.  Mr. Meyers knew my dad’s truck and would always tell me when my dad stopped by while I was at work.  I’m very grateful for observant neighbors.

The day after Mary Rene was born, Mrs. Meyers passed away.  I didn’t find out about it until a week later when my sister was walking Sophie and one of the other neighbors told her.  I spend those first several months in the house to keep Mary Rene out of the cold weather and away from sick people.  It wasn’t until around March or April that I finally got a chance to talk to Mr. Meyers.  He was still really upset about his wife’s passing and his eyes would fill up when he spoke about her.

When spring came and the weather was warmer, I made a point to stop by Mr. Meyers’ house on a regular basis.  He usually would be sitting on his porch around 5 p.m. and around that same time I would open the door in anticipation for Frank’s arrival.  If I saw Mr. Meyers on his porch, Mary Rene and I would go hang out with him for awhile.  Sometimes he would invite us in and Mary Rene would crawl on his floor and sometimes we would just sit on the front porch until Frank got home.

Mary Rene and I continued to do this over the summer and Mr. Meyers got to watch her grow and move from crawling to crusing to walking.  There were several occasions when Mr. Meyers would be out on his morning walk when Mary Rene and I would be walking.  We would cross pathes and I would turn his way and finish walking with him.  We had some good conversations on those walks and I could tell he hated to see the walk end.

Most of the time he would talk about his wife.  Everytime he talked about her, he would get emotional and come close to crying, and sometimes he did.  I’ll never forgot when Frank and I were both in his backyard talking to him over the summer.  He looked at us both and said, “Don’t take any moment for granted, you never know when they will end.”  Frank and I were really touched by the comment and we knew he was sincere because it was very obvious that he missed his wife-the love of his wife.  They were married 60 years, maybe 61, before Mrs. Meyers passed away.  They really did live a lifetime together.

Now that it is starting to get cold outside we don’t see Mr. Meyers as much anymore.  I’ve been feeling the urge to bundle Mary Rene and myself up and just knock on his door and say hello.  I’m sure he could really use the company.

This Friday, my little angel will be 13 months.  Didn’t we just celebrate her first birthday last weekend?  Where is all the time going? 

Baby girl has been walking for two months now and she is still giving me a run for my money.  She likes to pick up a toy, carry it to the other side of the room, drop it, go get another toy, take it to the other side of the room, drop it, repeat until all toys are out of the toy chest and scattered around the room.  I am either picking up toys or chasing her all day.  By 10 a.m. I am already tired and ready for her morning nap so I can relax a little! 

Since I am getting my cardio workout in by chasing her I decided to bring up my exercise ball and do crunches and push-ups while Mary Rene was playing.  Well, that didn’t work out the way I thought it would.  Mary Rene thinks the ball is for her.

She likes it when I bounce on the top of the ball and put her in my lap.  Oh little does she know I am getting a workout in while she is going for a bouncy ride.

She was really tired after her hard workout with the ball.

 If you are wondering, yes I will be buying more leg warmers in different colors.  And yes, she wears them pretty much everyday when we are at home.  It is so much easier then putting pants on and off all day.  Besides, it looks like a cute workout outfit for the pictures above!

Mary Rene gets really jealous when I am holding other babies or kids.  Right away she wants me to hold her and love on her instead.  Last night I was sitting on the couch with Sophie and I started kissing and hugging her.  Mary Rene immediately stopped playing and walked over and tried coming between Sophie and me.  Then I decided to sit on Frank’s lap and hug and kiss him.  Again she immediately stopped playing and tried coming between us.  So adorable.

Whenever we ask Mary Rene to give us a kiss, we always say, “give mommy a kissy” or “give daddy a kissy.”  Last night, Frank asked her to give Violet a kissy and she kissed Violet but also made the kissy noise (you know the noise.)  It was so cute.  She then made the kissy noise when she kissed daddy and then again when she kissed Sophie.  She melts my heart.

(I decided to change the format of my Tuesday Mary Rene updates since she is past her first year.  Now I will do my updates with Beautiful Chaos!  Head to her website to see more!)

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Mary Rene loves her puppy dog, Sophie.  When I give her a cracker or cheese she likes to walk over to Sophie’s couch and share her food.  She tries so hard to climb up the couch by herself but she is too short.  So now she will hike her leg up, and then look at me and say “oggie up” which means “doggie up.”  Which really means, “Mommy pick me up so I can sit by my doggie.”  When I get her up on the couch she likes to pet hit Sophie and then she gives her a hug.  So adorable.

Mary Rene likes to give you this incredibly cute pouty face when she doesn’t get her way.  I wish I could capture it on camera because it is absolutely precious.  But not so precious is her fake diva cry.  When she doesn’t get her way she does this super fake cry in an attempt for me to give in.  Well, I don’t.  Now I put my hands over my face and do my own fake cry.  She starts laughing and walks up and gives me a hug.  She completely forgets about what she was fake crying about-I’m so good. 

Mary Rene is either teething or has a cold.  I like to think it is teething because she is drooling along with the runny nose.  She has been super crabby and easily agitated the last couple days.  Sunday night she was up from 1:30 a.m. until 3 a.m.  We tried everything to keep her in bed but she was so upset.  On Monday I couldn’t get her to nurse!  I was really freaking out because I thought (a) she is self-weaning or (b) she is really sick.  Luckily I had some frozen milk at the house so I gave her a sippy cup of milk.  I had to drive to my office to pick up my pump and express my milk so I wouldn’t get engorged.  Finally around 2 p.m. she nursed and since then she is back to being a happy nurser.  Monday night she was so congested that she woke up again around 1:30 a.m.  This time I propped a bunch of pillows up on the couch and I held her in my arms in an upright position to help with the nose.  I held her like this for about 40 minutes until it sounded like her nose was cleared and she was sound asleep.  (I’m bringing the humidifier upstairs tonight.)  I moved her to our bedroom and Frank and I propped all our pillows up and the three of us snuggled together.  For part of the night she was snuggled against me but then she swung her arm over and snuggled with Frank.  She slept the remainder of the night and woke up much better.  Although when I dropped her off at my mother-in-law’s house her nose was running again.  I really think it is teething and I’m praying that the tooth/teeth popped through while I was at work.

Frank and I haven’t been getting much sleep the last two nights and we are very exhausted.  You would think our bodies would be used to the lack of sleep since we did it for so many weeks in the beginning…well…now we have gotten accustomed to our eight hours of sleep and we are really struggling with the new sleeping arrangements.  We know it will pass but gosh we are tired.

My parents used to feed our dogs pizza and all the leftover food and those dogs were fat.  So I decided I would not give Sophie any table scraps, what-so-ever.  Not that I want my dog on a diet but I want her to be healthy and fit.  Since I did such a good job of not giving her scraps, when she got some she would get really sick.  It took me nearly two years to finally convince Frank to stop giving Sophie some of the food he didn’t eat.  I think my constant talk out poopy diarrhea in the basement finally made him stop.  But now that I finally have Frank on the same page, I have another person I need to convince.

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So I went to the doctor last week to find out what happened to me a couple weeks ago.  I explained everything that happened and my doctor things I have Benign paroxysmal position vertigo (BPPV).  (Katie-you win!!!) She thinks that my sudden movements triggered me to get sick and it just lasted a longer time then usual.  She said this is actually pretty common and many people suffer with this.  I do get motion sickness easy so it would make sense that I have a vertigo issue.  She was a bit concerned about my excessive weight loss so to be safe she had a bunch of blood drawn to run further test.  The results came back and everything was negative.  So I am has health as can be.  I just need to stop moving so quickly.

Back to the weight issue.  A year before I got pregnant I weighed 140 pounds.  That was my typical weight.  About six months before I got pregnant I went on Weight Watchers and lost 10 pounds.  I wanted to get back to my driver’s license weight and getting rid of the extra 10 pounds really helped with my running.  I ran a full marathon three weeks before conception.  At conception I weighed 130 pounds and the week I delivered Mary Rene I weighed 162 pounds.   Now I weigh 123 pounds.  Frank was concerned about my weigh lose but I thought I was fine.  For starters, Mary Rene still nurses every three hours and nursing is a workout!  Secondly, Mary Rene is a very active baby and she keeps me on my toes all day long.  There is no time to sit and relax.  Seriously, no time.  Finally, I’m not working out anymore (time?) so I’ve lost a lot of muscle.  My legs used to be very muscular and now they are just legs.  So I think I am good in the weight department.

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My friend Katie’s dad (thank you Katie!!!) came over this week and completed all the new electric work for our new wall in the basement.  He installed four outlets and he converted our lights to switches instead of those medal pulleys.  Next step is drywall.  I got a coupon in the mail this week for carpet and I am thinking about buying that carpet that comes in squares.  Mary Rene’s playroom and my office are just around the corner.

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One of the most annoying sounds in the world is Sophie’s toenails walking across the wood floors.  She is a skiddish dog and paces the floor all night and sometimes her nails wake up Mary Rene.  There have been many, many, many nights that I came close to screaming at her to stop it, stop it, stop it  (I can hear and feel myself saying it right now!!!) Oh it is so annoying.  But then a couple weeks ago I looked down at those nails and realized, “damn those things are long.”  And then I realized the last time I got them cut was two weeks before Mary Rene was born! Ouch!  And since I am not running with Sophie anymore, she is not giving herself a manicure against the concrete.  Bad mommy, bad mommy.  Well, I realized that a few weeks ago and STILL didn’t get them cut…until yesterday.  When they were done cutting her nails I looked down and they didn’t look any different.  They still looked long to me and I could hear them tap, tap, tapping against the floor.  As soon as we got home Mary Rene was ready for a nap but I knew that Sophie would be too excited to sit and then she would be pacing and wake Mary Rene.  But…the nails didn’t tap, tap, tap on the floor.  They actually are short enough that you can’t hear it anymore!  Oh I am so extremely happy.  Now I just have to either (a) start running again or (b) continue to get them trimmed.

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Mary Rene was sitting in this position the other day.  It reminded me of my cheerleader days.  Now I’m wondering if she will be a dancer or cheerleader someday?

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I have been reading books to Mary Rene as part of the summer reading program at the library.  Last week we went to the library and picked up her first prize which was a yellow ball.  I only had to read three more books for her to complete the program and get her final prize.  This week I completed the books and was ready to go get her prize but I lost my reading program sheet.  Do you think the library has an honor system and they will still give me a prize?  Regardless, Mary Rene loves books.

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St. Louis World Breastfeeding Week starts Sunday!  Unfortunately I can only attend two of the events but I am looking forward to it!

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I liked these pictures so much that I wanted to share.  So you get two photo slides in one post.  Happy Weekend!