Everywhere I turn there are children buying school supplies

This fall marks the first fall since I was six that I didn't go back to school. Okay, I didn't go back to school last fall, but that doesn't count because I was oblivious to anything but my due date that was staring me in the face. So this is the first fall that counts, and I didn't realize how sad I would feel. I just keep seeing the signs for school supplies, and back to school clothes, and moms with kids checking off lists in Target, and I just keep feeling that small sad feeling in the pit of my stomach. What I wish is that I could pack Ada up with my bag of books and take her right into the classroom with me, just like when I was pregnant, but of course, that's not possible. And, for me, it's not possible for me to go without her, so I just have to live with the sad feeling. I love the start of a new school year--so much possibility. A clean slate. New goals. I loved that I had a job where I always got a second chance. Now fall and back to school will always mark another year of Ada's life. Okay, not really fall, but since back to school now happens in August, it is the same time as Ada's birth. It makes me want to try once more to find a job where I can teach online. Not tutor, teach. I know what I will find, that I don't have enough experience, but hey, it's worth another shot. Anyway, it's just one of those days where I am wishing I could live a double life, have the best of both worlds, and I needed to share with someone.

Latest Ada Antics

Well my little monkey has just picked up another new trick to keep me on my toes. She can take her pants and diaper off, and she likes to do just that. Which, of course, is not an option. She can't run around diaperless. Scott and I watched today as she pulled one diaper tab open, stepped out of the diaper, and proceeded to continue doing what she was doing before as if it was completely normal to walk around pantsless. Oh dear.

She also added many more bruises today because we went to the pool with some moms from church, and she insisted on crawling all around the concrete rather than playing in the water. Last time she loved the water, and had so much fun splashing and playing. Not today. The water was surprisingly cold, and I guess that's what turned her off. So instead she opted to crawl all over the hot concrete, and her knees are very red and skinned. It doesn't seem to bother her, though.

Her nights are returning to normal with no waking up, and as a result, the morning nap has returned after all. I guess we are just in a transition phase, and the nap schedule will simply depend on the previous night's events. I am soaking up the morning naps, though, because I continue to stay tired all of the time. Though I know the cause this week--I am staying up way too late.

The new Dave Ramsey plan takes effect tomorrow as we embrace the envelope system. Cash it is, and once we have spent the cash in a particular envelope, that is the end of that budget category. Scott is payed weekly, so our monthly budget is broken into weekly segments. I am trying to stay positive and excited about this new money "adventure" we are on. Again, it feels just like a diet, I want the results without the work.

Updates

I feel like I have been away for so long. In reality I think it has only been a few days, but there are so many things I want to record.

As I type this I am sitting at my desktop, which means, yea, the computer is fixed. Finally I can get back to tutoring. This leads me to my first update. I am in the process of possibly joining a different tutoring company, tutor.com, which I think I will be happier with. My fingerprints for esylvan have still not gone through, and I continue to work maybe two hours a week. Plus, it is not the most convenient job because I have to be in an area where there is no background noise. With tutor.com, there will only be typing, no actual talking, so I could be in the room with Scott and Ada while I work. Plus there are no fingerprints required, so hopefully I will get more hours. And the last reason why I think I will like tutor.com more is because I would be working with students who have questions about literature and writing--my favs. With esylvan, I was working with elementary students helping them with reading and math, not really what I went to school to do, and it was sometimes comical to see me try to help students with math. I have no training in teaching math!! I don't know all the math lingo involved with multiplying triple digit numbers and things of that nature. So that is update number one--a new job may be in the works.

Update number two, Ada is walking all over the place. With the walking comes many falls and, therefore, many bruises. Bless her heart, she is so accident prone these days. She is fearless, and this results in lots of tears after she knocks her head into yet another wall, bed post, floor, etc. But she is really taking off. I have also devised a makeshift playroom in our otherwise empty dining room. I have blocked all entrances with furniture, and thrown all of Ada's toys into the room. I can put her in there, and there is nothing dangerous or breakable that she can get to. It makes it easier for me to do things like clean the kitchen or dry my hair. She doesn't stay in there for very long without me before she gets fussy, but it does buy me some time to get things done. Whatever works, right?

As for her sleeping, we are sort of back at square one. All the traveling and company over the last couple of weeks messed us up, and she has woken up in the middle of the night for the last several nights. Sunday night we let her cry for an hour before we caved and gave her a bottle. Last night was even worse. We were so tired, we gave in immediately. We have got to go to bed earlier so that we can actually stick to the plan and not give her a bottle. The other sleep update is that she is officially down to one nap a day. I have tried to hold on to that morning nap, but it is just not happening, but she is taking a longer more consistent afternoon nap as a result, so the new schedule does have its perks.

As I type this, Ada is in her room crying at the top of her lungs because she doesn't want to go to bed. She is usually fairly easy to put down, but tonight she is putting up quite the fight. It is after eight, though, so there is no giving in to those cries. It's never fun to listen to your child cry, no matter how much you know you're doing what's best!!

And last update--Scott and I have jumped on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon. We are fairly excited about this, though it means the already tight budget just got even tighter. Our first step in the Dave Ramsey plan is to save an emergency fund, so we have begun to save. Our plan is to deposit money in the account any time we want to go out for dinner instead of eat in or buy a new outfit, or whatever situation arises. We are trying to have fun with it, and we know that in the end, we will be so glad we did this. We are kicking ourselves that we didn't do this plan back when we had my paycheck. It would make gathering the emergency fund so much easier. The final step in the plan is paying off the house, so it looks like this is a lifestyle, not a one time thing. I feel like we just started this really strict diet, and I am wanting to lose weight within a week--not going to happen!! So, I will keep you posted on all the fun ways we are saving money.

Finally I will be back tomorrow with fun pictures from the week with Ann and her kids. We had so much fun hanging out, playing at the Atlanta children's museum, and just enjoying the company.

She keeps me on my toes

This is another early morning post, but I am happy to report that we slept until 7 am today!! Granted I gave in and gave her a bottle at 4:30 am, but I needed more sleep, and I knew a bottle was the only thing that would make that happen. I will crack down on letting her cry it out again once we get back home. Anyway, I had to post this as soon as it happened because it is so crazy.

This morning, about 15 minutes ago, I was finished feeding Ada breakfast, and I walked over to the sink to get a wet paper towel to clean her off. She was safely strapped into the highchair, or so I thought. In the 20 seconds it took me to wet the paper towel and turn back around, Ada had climbed out of the highchair, and was on all fours on top of a table that is beside the highchair. I ran over there and grabbed her, and I looked at the chair thinking that I must have forgotten to buckle her in. Oh no, the buckle was still intact; she had just somehow managed to squeeze out of the buckle. Oh that girl. She is so active, it's crazy.

And because I need to catch up so badly, some more photos I took this morning.

Finally I can post some pictures

I am definitely blogging at 7:00 am, mainly because Ada and I have been awake since 5 am, so why not, right?

I have no idea why she woke so early this morning. At 5 I tried to rock her and put her back down, but she was making lots of noise again at 5:30 am, and I am currently sharing a room at my parents' house with my sister, Sarah, so I decided to forgo letting Ada "cry-it-out," and let Sarah sleep a little later than 5:30. Scott and I were in town this weekend, and he headed back to Atlanta yesterday. I will be riding back with Ann and her kiddos on Wednesday. So, a fun-filled week for me. While here, I will also get to visit with my childhood friend, Joy Baldwin Finch, and her brand new baby boy, Brennan. I think he may be about 2 months old?

It was a fun 4th. We were able to see Scott's parents and sister on Friday morning for a very short visit. We will hopefully be seeing them for a longer visit in August. We celebrated the fourth by eating my dad's yummy grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and my mom's potato salad. Plus, Ann made a pretzel salad, which I love. Then on Saturday, my mom baby-sat Ada, and Scott and I spent the day in Huntsville. We soak up any date time because we don't really have a baby-sitter in McDonough. We ate at Laredo's at the Bridgestreet shopping center. It is "gourmet" Mexican, and if you haven't picked up on it yet, Scott and I LOVE Mexican food. It was a wonderful lunch, the highlight being the homemade, super fresh guacamole.

And to top off a fun day, we met several friends for dinner and hanging out--The Turnbulls, The Owens, and the Paynes. Such fun to have some adult conversation and hang out time, knowing that Ada was safe and sound with my parents. She really attached herself to my mom this trip, and at times even preferred her over me.

And now, some much needed pictures. Many of these have already appeared on my mom's blog, but I have to post them. They were taken with my mom's camera.

Ada with her aunt Sarah.

My mom's sister, Mary Ann, Ada, and Luke. Ada is constantly trying to take things from Luke, and Luke doesn't like it!! Notice the look on his face.

And playing peacefully side by side.

Ada's new favorite past time. Getting into the cabinets and pulling everything out.

Sleep Update

Things are really looking up in the sleep department. For almost two weeks now, I think, Ada has been sleeping all night!! As in, we put her down at 7:30 pm and she wakes up at 6:30 am. Every once in a while we hear her around 11pm, but she settles herself back down. I can't believe it worked so quickly. The two nights that we had to let her cry it out were horrible!!! But I am so glad it only took two nights. The weird thing is, I still feel very tired all the time. I continue to take two naps a day along with her. I have started taking a vitamin in hopes that my energy level would increase. Which, by the way, once she started sleeping through the night, the nap situation worked itself out. She is now going back down for a nap at 8:30 am and again at 2ish. And that is how I am sometimes getting two naps a day. I also think if I become more consistent with exercise I might have more energy. I am so affected by things like diet and exercise. I always have been. And I really can't eat any simple carbs without it affecting my energy level. I maybe have just slacked off and need to start paying more attention to what I am eating. So the new plan is vitamins, protein and complex carbs, and consistent exercise. Anyway...just wanted to update since I blogged about our sleep problems for so long. Thanks for all the advice on letting her cry it out!

And one more first, Ada held and drank from her bottle all by herself tonight. I have been trying to get her to do this for a long time, but she has never understood that she has to tilt the bottle up to get anything out of it. Tonight she was sitting in her highchair eating cheerios and drinking pear juice (she's still having bathroom issues--bless her heart, it's always something), and she took the bottle from me. Next thing I knew, she had the bottle tilted up, and she was drinking as if she had been doing it since day one. She's getting to be such a big girl:( But it's so much fun to watch all her little developments.

A Day of Firsts

It's official, at around 10:30 this morning, Ada took two steps. I was so excited!! She has been standing on her own for longer periods of time lately, and I have tried to encourage to walk, but usually she squats or lunges forward into a crawl. Today, she took two real steps before squatting into a crawl. She did it twice more throughout the day, but she never took more than two steps at a time. She is getting more confident about letting go of things as she "cruises" around the room, so I suspect that before we know it little Ada will be toddling all over the place.

Now, I felt like the event was worth celebrating, so we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, and Ada had her first kid's meal. Scott and I had coupons, so the location was decided for us, but I was so excited to get her her first real kid's meal. And she ate a grand total of one chicken nugget broken into tiny pieces and a few bites of fry. Plus she couldn't figure out how to suck the apple juice out of the juice box, so maybe it's still too early for the kid's meal. I guess I was just an over eager first time mom. But, ya'll, the "prize" in the kid's meal was so great--a little hard book with a great moral--being friends with people who are different from us. And it even had little discussion questions in the back. So cute. I just love Chick-fil-a!!

So, a big day for little Ada!