Rachel's Mommy Blog: December 2009

Friday, December 18, 2009

12/12/09 - Baby Days

Bethany is growing like a weed, now in size 3 diapers. She wriggles and squirms on her little play mat, and it won’t be long before she’s able to roll over. She loves to watch her big sisters playing, and rewards them with big gummy smiles whenever they show her attention.

She’s developed an affinity for sucking her thumb. I try to nurse her whenever she does it, to make sure she’s not hungry. But it turns out, sometimes she just wants to suck her thumb just for the comfort of it. Occasionally she’ll get her whole hand in her mouth, and then I hear a gagging sound and have to go rescue her from choking herself. She hasn’t yet figured out that her fingers are the problem and how to take them out of her mouth.

Big Preschooler

Eva is fascinated by the fact that she used to be a baby. She repeatedly asks to look at her baby pictures or slideshows on the computer. She’ll see me nursing on the couch and say, “Mommy! Remember when I was a baby and you would hold me and I would smile at you?” Or when I’m giving Bethany a bath in the baby tub, she’ll come up and say, “Mommy, remember when you would give me a bath when I was a little baby and I could fit in there? But now I’m a big girl!”

She loves to practice her letters and numbers on a little dry-erase board, and is getting better at it every day. I can’t believe how much my little girl is growing up already, and she’s only 4 ½!

Eva’s also recently crossed the final potty-training hurdle: using the big toilet without a step-stool or the padded toddler seat insert. She’s so proud of herself now that she can perch all by herself. Public toilets are still a challenge, though.

Finding Work

After four months of job hunting, Dave finally decided to accept a job as Executive Director at an assisted living facility just down the road from us. It's the same job that he did before, except that it pays less, the health benefits are more expensive, and he won't have a marketing director to help him bring in more business. Basically, it’s more work for less pay. The previous director told Dave he quit because he got sick of "working long days, 6 days a week". Yikes! But hey, it's a job!

Truthfully, I think Dave would have preferred a Maintenance Director position if it paid as much. He’s really enjoyed doing projects around the house during the past few months, and doing odd jobs at a friend’s farm. If he could support the family as a handyman, he’d probably choose that instead.

Still, he enjoys working with seniors, he’s familiar with the job, and he’s grateful to be working again. We have several friends who aren’t as fortunate right now – who are struggling to keep their homes, and one even struggling for the funds to keep their adoption going. I can’t imagine having to worry about something like that. My only challenge at the moment is learning to adjust to being a busy SAHM of 3 while Dave goes back to working long hours.

Thanksgiving

We drove down to visit Grandma and Grandpa Stone for Thanksgiving. It about 6 hours to get there, since we had to pull over several times to nurse and change diapers. Still, Bethany slept most of the way and the girls were happy with their portable DVD player. Towards the end of the trip Bethany got fussy, so I gave her a pacifier for the first time (I really don’t like to use them, but I make a rare exception when I can’t take her out of the car seat to comfort her). It kept her occupied for about a half hour, before the inevitable protestation that she wasn’t getting any milk from it. Luckily, by that time we had just pulled into the driveway.

We stayed in the little guest house that Grandma and Grandpa had set up for Uncle Tim and his family when they were on furlough from China. Grandpa had gotten Aunt Barocha and Uncle Caleb a Wii for Christmas, and decided to break it out early for the kids to play with. Eva and Amanda had a blast playing baseball, frisbee, fencing, and pretending to row canoes with the little Wii controllers.

Christmas Time

We’re running a little behind this Christmas (if anyone gets their card before the 25^th it’ll be a miracle), but the house is decorated and we’re eagerly awaiting the big day. Every morning David reads a part of the Christmas story from an Advent calendar that has a tiny booklet for each day of December. At church they’ve been making little ornaments of the baby Jesus and an adorable “birth announcement” from Mary and Joseph as crafts. The girls are so proud of their little creations.

I decided to try making gluten-free Christmas cookies so the girls could decorate them. The first batch didn’t turn out very well. I made it with an all-purpose GF flour mix from Bob’s Red Mill, but after the first bite I figured out why it tasted so awful. The first ingredient in the mix? Garbanzo bean flour. Yuck! For the second batch I chose a GF yellow cake mix from Pamela’s Products, and that came out much better. Her flour mixes are made with rice flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, and other less offensive flavors. They came out really well, and the girls had a great time decorating them with colored icing and sprinkles.

We pulled out the traditional Christmas videos, but this year the girls are enamored with an obscure Disney cartoon called “Small One”. It’s about a boy who can no longer to keep his beloved donkey, so he brings it to Jerusalem to sell. After a series of adventures, they meet Joseph, who offers to buy the donkey and give him a good home. Small One, of course, becomes the donkey who carries Mary to Bethlehem, where she has the baby Jesus.

Amanda would watch it a dozen time a day if we’d let her. She always points and says, “Look, Mommy! Look at the horsey! Where’s the horsey going?” She brings out her stuffed horsey and gently combs his hair while humming the “Small One” tune. It’s amazing how impressionable they are at this age, and how everything they see has the potential to fire the imagination and make a huge impact on them.