Day 50: Her Girl

Sabine and I have a line that we say - I ask, "Who's my girl?" and she says, "Me!" Now Sabine's got a girl of her own. I ask her, "Who's your girl?" And she answers with a coy smile, "Honey..." This refers to Baby Honey, so named by Jacob when he was Sabine's age. He would sit and rock the doll while repeating, "Honey, honey..." to sooth her. So when I asked Jacob what her name should be, he said Honey, of course. And yes I know when it's used as a term of endearment, it's usually spelled hunny. But honey, as in the sweet golden nectar, just fits better.

Sabine doesn't talk as much, actually, I should say she doesn't have as many words and her speech isn't as developed as the 'norm' for her age, but really, she doesn't stop 'talking'. She just started saying Honey a couple weeks ago, and she's been saying Baby for a long time now, it's one of her favorites. The words come out more like this though, "Bebe Honny," so it's just the cutest thing to hear her say it.

Anyway, this photo is from a lazy morning the other day. We were still in or around the bed, and I think Sabine must have been asking to nurse. I'm trying to limit the nursing these days so I probably suggested that maybe Sabine nurse Baby Honey instead. After requesting her Boppy, she did just that. She actually sat there for quite a long time, very peaceful and quiet. I recognize that vacant look in her eyes from my own many, many hours of nursing wee little ones. She's returned to that activity each day since and it's rapidly becoming a favorite around here.

I actually think it's quiet healthy for a two year old to have an activity where they can sit and be still like that, lost in a pretend world; something they can use to reign their crazy toddler energy in with. I think it useful tool to have in learning self-regulation. Sabine is not the first child to nurse Baby Honey. Jacob actually started the tradition and logged many hours breastfeeding Baby Honey, as well as other stuffed animals. And who knows what happened before then because she was given to me as a gift way back when I was Jacob's age.

It's Facebook's Fault

I miss my little blog and I'm constantly telling myself that today will be the day I catch up. There's just so many things I want to post about, I don't know where to start, and it feels hopeless anyway because there's never enough time. I don't entirely know how it happened that I've been so inattentive to blogging, but I do know that Facebook is mostly responsible.

I've been on Facebook for a couple years, with waxing and waning interest, but I guess our relationship (mine and Facebook's) turned serious when Jacob and I started playing Farmville. I thought it would be a cute game for us to play together, because farming is his thing and maybe it would teach him problem solving skills and some other life concepts, numbers and spelling and whatnot, motivate him to learn to read, etc. It did do all that, and it might sound cheesey, but since I was sitting down with him to play and we were talking about it together I think he was learning things. I don't think it's so much what kind of tools you use to teach your kids, as much as it is you sit down with them and spend that time together talking it over.

I also used Farmville as a bribe to get Jacob to get dressed in the morning, get ready for bed, help me with certain tasks, but then he just memorized how to log on himself and started playing without me at times. He'd always get caught and warned not to do that again, etc, etc, but he'd always do it again. The weeks went by and it became an obsession. So I've phased out our crops and weaned us off this week. We're going to be taking a break from it for a while. It's feels liberating. I'm going to have to start hiding the computer from him though.

Anyway, being on Farmville meant I was logged onto Facebook at least a couple times a day, and so naturally I started posting more and more on facebook. It's like an abbreviated form of blog posts and is an outlet for me when time is sparse and I don't have time to blog. A lot of the things I would have ended up blogging just ended up as a status post on Facebook, and helped alleviate whatever stress was building up from not being able to get my thoughts out - but not all of it. And there's far more people I'm in contact with on Facebook than will ever read my blog. It's just a better way to keep up.

In no particular order, here is some stuff that happened over the last couple months in status posts copied from Facebook:

is teaching Jacob how to play Uno. Oh my God for the 80th time, no, you can't put a that RED 5 on that BLUE 8. I seriously underestimated the difficulty a five year would have with this concept!!! Holy crap, nooooo that Draw 2 can't go on that GREEN 6!!!!!!!

Ran the half marathon this morning. 1:56:30's. I'm happy with that and I don't think I ever want to do it again....

Just got home from the movies...Saw The Time Traveler's Wife. You definitely have to have read the book to follow the movie.

BIG DAY today. Zach met the president, shook his hand, told him his name and got his picture taken with him! AND I was on national television breastfeeding!

To mark the official start of homeschooling, Jacob and I just made frosting (science and math), but with nothing to eat it on, we're just having it spread on bread!

Sabine took two 10 minute naps today. That's it.

I am celebrating the last birthday of my 20's in my home, alone, cleaning like a madwoman. Believe it or not, this is an often sought-after fantasy of mine!

is trying to get Zach to sit still and look at people of walmart. I can't get enough of this!!!

ran the 5k today and Jacob ran his first kids' run. He also won the Wii they had up for raffle! It seems luck follows wherever he goes.

This one is a post from Zach: Happy 5th Anniversary...We are still alive...and so are the kids! Looking forward to today and the weekend...

Just finished reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting book.

Jacob and I couldn't stop watching the puke scene today from The Office wedding episode....hilarious!

Well there you have it, Facebook. Now that our relationship is out in the open, I have to break it off. Well, not completely, but I think we need to see other people and I need to visit other internet playgrounds for a while. Get some perspective. Some 'me' time. Don't worry, I'll still be visiting. Just a lot less. Well, at least a little less. I still care about you, but it's just that my blog is more of a long-term relationship, and we're a little more serious than you and I can ever be.

Just so I remember when he's older...

Often times I can't recall the when my kids stopped doing a certain behavior. Some of these things I'm relieved to find out have stopped, but others I really miss. Tonight Jacob has spent a long time with Smitty and Pilchard, feeding them, dressing them for bed and carrying them around as he's gone about the house. Right now I looked over to see him peacefully rocking in the chair with a quilt over his lap and a couple of pointy blue ears sticking out from the blanket.

"Are you nursing Pilchard?" I asked.

He shook his head yes. This is one of those childhood moments I wish I could bottle.

17 ounces

133 to go.

I'm donating breastmilk to this milk bank that reformulates it into HMF, a product that is given to premature infants in the NICU. When I first read about this particular milk bank, part of the deal was that they provide you with a dual electric pump so you can provide them with the much-needed milk. You send the milk, in stock piles of at least 150 ounces, via Fed Ex.

Now that I'm mostly through the screening process, I went back to read up more about it and I couldn't find the part where they talk about the free pump they send you. When I questioned the woman on the phone the next day she told me that they'd actually just changed the rule on that. You must now first send 150 ounces of milk to them as a show of good faith and then they'll send you a pump. The woman explained that they had too many experiences with people applying to the bank, then getting the free pump and never being heard from again - a combination of that and the current economy, forced the new rule.

So that means I'm stuck pumping with the rinky dink hand-held that I purchases for $40 5 1/2 years ago in an emergency when Jacob was 4 days old. Do you know how long that might take a person?

Anyway, I'm going to do it anyway, because once I get a thought in my head, it's hard to get rid of it. So unless I luck out and find a used electric pump to borrow, my goal is to pump the 150 ounces by the end of April. This goal was established back on Tuesday. I think I figured if I could get 10 ounces a day with the little pump then that would make 150 by then end of the month. We'll see.

But that's why I'm posting here...It's my little challenge.