I’m not sure how many green thumbs read my blog, but I think I have a couple, so I thought I would post some updates on our garden! I went out in my jammie pants and rubber boots (because I’m cool like that) and took some pictures of everything.

Our carrots look great and lush so far! We’ve never had especially successful carrots. The one year that they grew well-ish, they had zero flavor. No good. What we learned: The tape seeds don’t produce the flavor or the real thing!

Our cucumbers are probably the lamest thing in our garden. Not sure if they’ll produce or not.

Beans!!! They’re flowering and getting little mini beans on them already! Can’t wait for fresh green bean casserole!!!

Corn and sunflowers are growing sooo well! They also took a bit of a beating with all of the wind last night, but as far as I can tell, no stalks are broken.

Potatoes!!! These are beautiful and budding and I’m so looking forward to fresh potatoes 🙂

My one and only peony plant even produced, but the two flowers got the crap kicked out of them by the storm last night. Plus, my only beef with peonies is the amount of ants they bring into my house 🙁 Bummer. So I kind of missed them this year, but there’s always next year. I should plant more…

The other big new progress in our house is that little Miss Laela is ready to move!

Time to move her crib down again!

Yesterday we saw her first tiny little shuffle towards a toy, and got really excited. Well, all has changed. She crawls. Not perfectly, of course. She falls over onto her head a lot, and spends more time on her hands and feet instead of hands and knees. But hey, polar bears do it and they’re cute! I couldn’t get it on video, but this is something anyway.

She’s pretty proud of herself, and Dekker is actually excited by it! I once lived in fear of the day that she would crawl, and touch him, and he would cry and cry. But now, he will lay on the floor with his face in her face, begging her to touch him head. Its going to be sooo great! For those of you who are expecting your first, don’t let people tell you it will be miserable when your kids can move around on their own! It is incredible and exciting and frankly, I think it helps with the kids independence to a degree! Sure, you’ll potentially have to baby proof a bit more, but you’ll learn that quick. Its sooo exciting to see this happening, and knowing how soon after walking will come!

Thats the end for tonight. Brady and I are in dire need of a date night, so we’re going to go make popcorn and drinks and find  movie to cuddle up and watch downstairs. Hope you all have a great Friday night!

The kids and I spent the day with my mom, playing on swings and enjoying some good company. Once we finally dragged them inside for lunch, we offered Dekker grilled cheese (aka GOLD) for lunch. He said “uuuh…no. Detter wants ham.” Whose kid is this?! By some miracle, my mom had ham in the fridge, so while she and I devoured grilled cheese and fruit and veggies and chips for lunch, Dekker ate ham. And fruit and veggies and chips as well. Whats lunch without all the goodies?? Laela ate blueberries, bread, cheese, and watermelon!!

Because the kids slept in way longer than usual (unmoving at 8:30am!) and were revved up from being in a new environment, I napped them both at 2:00. Its not an uncommon time at all, but Laela hadn’t napped at all in the morning. She slept until after 4:15 and then got up and ate and played a bit. But she was pretty touchy and bushed. Dekker started to wake up right around supper time, so when he got up, we opted to put Laela back down for a shorty nap. But she cried and cried. So that didn’t happen. You know when you’re overtired that you can’t sleep? Ya, she does too.

After supper (Laela tried pancakes for her first time!) we played toys, practiced music for church, and enjoyed some incredible thunder and lightening! It shook that house, and some of them went on and on, rattling my legs against the chair. The initial crash would startle Dekker, but he would recover pretty quickly, and either run to one of us, smiling away, or go to a window to check everything out. It was pouring and dark and loud and exciting. He seemed to actually enjoy the new weather!

The drive home was kind of nerve wracking, to be honest. I’m not scared of storms, but driving through them is a bit different. However, Dekker was a total peach for the drive. He asked for a toy right off the bat, and while I was madly digging for it in the diaper bag, he goes “Oh! I find it!” and he holds it up for me to see. After that, all he wanted was some music on, and he was content to watch the train driving along the highway, listen to the rain, and see the lightening. Laela slept. Luckily, she’s still pretty grumpy so I’m thinking she’ll go down well. And it is sooo time!

Let’s just pray that we all keep power tonight, and even better, than this rain somehow helps rid us of all this smoke!

I felt way better today than yesterday, and I’m pretty sure it really helped to have Jerilee out visiting. The last time I saw her was on Canada Day, and that was just to watch our kids while Brady and I went out on a date, so we didn’t even hang out! This was a much needed day, and I was just too distracted to be sick!

We caught up on everything, and Dekker convinced his aunty to play ball with him a couple of times. He was sad to go for nap time, yet he wasn’t upset when Laela wailed her face off and slept for less than twenty minutes. I gave up and went in to get her. She was all cuddled up, laying on her side, chewing a blanket, but bawling. Her morning nap was shorter than usual too. She was sooo tired, but crying consistently. So I fed her and she drank her milk, but it didn’t comfort her for long. We tried to nap her while we ate supper, and it lasted maybe ten minutes. She was so sad for most of the day, and I’m not sure why. I’m thinking teeth, but I don’t see any white or bumps, so who knows.

Laela did finally join us at the supper table and had her first mashed potato experience. And she loved it!! I know people say not to start with fruit, but I did with both. Dekker eats great, and Laela loves potatoes and broccoli and all kinds of things. I’m really not worried.

After supper was a bit whiny too, but we stayed upstairs and played music and the kids perked up a bit, but it was definitely an early bedtime kind of day. Laela will be down in a few minutes when she’s done drinking, and Deks is already tucked away. Hopefully there are no tearful outbursts in the next half hour, or through the night. I think we all need a full nights sleep!

It was a bit of an iffy day at home for the three of us. I slept much better than last night, which helped, but both kids were just whining up a storm. Dekker can get upset over little things, but I can usually talk him off the ledge pretty quick. But today, I’d calmed him down and he’d be fine, and the next second he’d whip a toy at the wall or something crazy like that. Not like him. Laela normally plays beautifully on her own. Sitting, laying down, sitting, laying down, and rolling from destination to destination, getting her hands on all the toys she shouldn’t. But today, I’d set her down on the floor, and she would look up at me with this brutal look of abandonment, and bawl like her world was ending.

I can handle two fussy kids just fine on a normal day, but today, I felt sick too. Maybe we all ate something funny? Was there a full moon? I don’t know, but I was pretty useless as well. It was probably the first day in many many days that I napped while they napped. I only got maybe ten minutes before one of those lovely recorded messages called my house saying I won points or a vacation or some other crap, but then I probably got another twenty after. And Laela woke up pretty quick after that. When I ducked in to get her, Dekker usually watches me, but doesn’t get up. I’ll say goodnight and he’ll respond back with the same. But today, he sat straight up and said “Hi mommy” instead. I asked if he wanted to sleep a bit more, and he considered it for a second. “Uuuh…no. No sint you.” And that was that.

Poor Brady came home to his three grumpy bears and handled it well. He made he and Dekker eggs and toast (never fight-worthy) and some cheesy mashed potatoes for me. He played the kids guitar in the living room while I chatted with my mom on the phone, and we tucked everyone in a half hour early. I’m sooo looking forward to a soak and hopefully I can find a delicious snack that will sit nicely in my tummy.

I felt so backed up after yesterdays post. Through comments on here, or on Facebook, or in private messages, I was supported and encouraged by many of you. I feel incredibly supported, and like I could really put it all out there. Thanks guys. Thedailyhailey lives on 😉

I woke up at 4:15 this morning and didn’t fall back to sleep until maybe 6:30. Not my best night, but when I did wake up, it was to the sounds of my kids. I checked the monitor, and found them playing peekaboo through Laela’s crib bars. They played happily together, squealing away, while I dragged myself out of bed, put on some clothes, and clipped my hair back. Upon entering their room, I was greeted by Dekker’s cheery “Hiiiii guuuuuys” which is apparently something I say a lot. I changed them and asked how they slept. Dekker said Laela slept good but that he had dreams. I asked what about and he looked at me coyly before saying “Detter dreamed flosted flates!” So we had frosted flakes for breakfast 🙂

Laela is getting close and closer to crawling everyday, and I cannot WAIT for it to come to that! People love to say how bad things get once a baby can move around on their own, but I’m on my second one, and I know the relief that came from it, so you don’t have to say that stuff to me. I’m really anticipating it, and I know she is too.

The kids were a bit grumpier than usual, so they napped long and were a bit whiny when they were awake. I think we all felt a bit off or overtired today. Hopefully tomorrow is better.

 

Ok, so completely unrelated to anything, remember Dekkers second birthday? It was sooo much fun, but super casual. Just a large group of people sweating outside, eating ice cream. But we really loved it. Now, Dekker will turn three in like six weeks ish and I haven’t even thought about what to do!! His birthday is on August 21, and Laelas is on September 30. I was thinking of combining but the weather is less predictable in September right? What if we did ice cream again. Would that be fun? Or just the easy way out? It was just a Sunday afternoon thing that people came to after lunch. Does anyone have any opinion in the matter? Combining or not so much, same thing or totally different angle, etc. What would yoooooouuu do?? (Seriously, go reread that birthday posts, even just for the pictures. What a fabulous day!)

I wanted to take todays post to explain what happened at the end of the day yesterday. I had typed out my whole post and was in the process of loading the pictures. I had fifteen I wanted to post. I know, waaay too many, but my kids are that cute. Four of them loaded and the other eleven glitched. They said something on them about an error and they couldn’t be completed. I was kind of annoyed, as I had wasted quite a bit of time waiting for them to finish up, but c’est la vie. I figured it was all just overloaded so I selected two to reload. They glitched. Over and over again. I went to the page to try once again, and saw in small, light grey writing, text explaining that I had 0% of my space left.

I knew I would eventually run out of space. My blog was a completely free page until I put some money into it to purchase the domain name “thedailyhailey.” I was just very surprised that I received no warning. Granted, that fine print has probably been updating since I started blogging two years ago, but I didn’t know about. I mean, if I get lots of views in a short period of time, like for instance, when I put out Laela’s birth story and lots of you guys read it immediately, wordpress notified me that I was getting a high traffic of viewers. While its nice to know, its not really information I can do anything with. This would have been much more useful: “Hi Hailey! Just FYI, you only have 500MBs of space left. Might want to consider upgrading!” Something like that, right? But nope. I had to dig for it.

So being me, not the most tech savvy person alive, I went into my media page and started deleting pictures. I figured I’d make room. However, I had to go one by one, and it took forever. I deleted about thirty before googling how to go about this much quicker. As I’m sure lots of you have predicted, I quickly learned that the pictures I deleted are now gone off of my public posts forever. I cried. I was very upset in the moment, and still am, to be honest. BUT I am also thankful that I only deleted as many as I did. And I think I deleted pictures off of posts that I had already saved. So WHEW! But aaawww at the same time.

Once I found this out, I ran outside to Brady, blubbering about my lost photos and how I couldn’t even finish the post I was working on and what would I do?!?! Mildly irrational behaviour at best. He hugged me and let me have my moment. Then we talked about what it would cost to upgrade my space. I could go from my allotted 3 GBs to 10 GBs for $20, which isn’t bad. But in all honesty, I struggled with the purchase of the domain name, and now with the upgrade, because this blog doesn’t serve a real purpose. No one reads it to learn anything, or to be inspired, or to discover anything new. Its only purpose is basically so I can have a journal that somehow works better for me than writing on paper. Why do I have to pay for it?! Ugh.

I know, I was overthinking it, and $20 per year for several years worth of space isn’t unreasonable. But I felt so ripped off to not get any time to think about it before having to make the decision. Instead, I had to decide on the spot, or not post. So I bought into it, gave them their $20, and finished my post. I almost immediately received an email from wordpress showing me my purchase, and giving me a receipt. It was ended with “Thank you for using wordpress, a better way to blog.”

My ass, wordpress. My ass.

Be prepared for a potentially annoyingly long photo post. Would people be happier if the photos were smaller and side by side so you could go through them quicker? Or maybe the posts are slow to load when there are so many. I don’t know. Any issues out there?

I was pretty happy with how today played out, for the most part. Our morning was low key, as per usual. We played downstairs and watched a movie. Laela napped, and we drank coffee. Really laid back. When the little miss did wake up, we got her up and fed, and headed outside. We spent the next two hours photographing our kids playing with bubbles, trucks, tractors, the wagon, and checking out the garden.

I obviously don’t have pictures of everything, as I was covered in bubbles myself. But it was wonderful to get out and play in the sun. We brought the kids in at 2:00 for a nap, and they were out right away. A little bit of fresh air sure does the body good! However, the littlest goober slept for one hour and that was it. She usually wakes up and plays and talks in her crib for a bit, but she rolled for only a minute or two before she burst into tears. I went to get her and she cuddled in bed with me and watched baking videos on YouTube for a bit.

We had perogies and wings for supper, which Dekker slept through. Once he woke up, Brady sat at the table with the kids and I baked cupcakes. Ok, no, it wasn’t a big accomplishment, as baking usually is for me. They were just from a cake mix. BUT!, I figured I could either make shortcut cupcakes, or no cupcakes, and I think my husband will agree that box cupcakes are considerably tastier than no cupcakes. So I ended up with 19 slightly overfilled white cupcakes.

 

However, lucky me, they baked up beautifully! I iced them just basic buttercream as well, and in all honesty, they were pretty ugly, haha! Here’s the one pretty one 🙂

Again, there could be worse things than ugly icing on a cupcake. No cupcake.

What did turn out to be worse than ugly cupcakes was bathing the kids afterwards. Laela doesn’t like baths much, but she’s a lot easier to maneuver. Brady has had the job of bathing Dekker for quite a while, and now I remember why. I am at such a loss. I’ll spare you the details, but when I finally dragged Dekker out of that bathroom, we were both soaked head to toe, furious with each other, and in tears or very, very close. I have no idea what the next bath will look like, but we had a very serious talk afterwards and some of it seemed to sit well anyway. One thing that was different this time, though, was that in between his shrieks, the few times I calmed him for those few seconds, he would say “Detter scared.” He has never so clearly verbalized that to me, so that was a great step! But I can’t get out of him what part he’s so scared of, or why. I suppose that will come out more as his communication skills improve.

After baths, we played in the living room and Brady played some guitar. It was relaxed and quiet and that was good. The kids are now tucked away, and Bradys outside trying to finish up mowing the yard. He’ll either finish, or run out of gas and leave a weird, ugly patch in the lawn. We’ll know soon!

 

*** Sigh. WordPress just threw me for a loop! $20 later, I can finally finish this post!

This morning, Laela woke up at 7:15 and bawled her little face off. For about two minutes or less. And she was back out. Dekker slept until 8:00 before waking up on his own. I watched him on the monitor for a few minutes, while he sat up, fell back over, did all the cute face rubbing that he does, and all that good stuff. Finally, when he was awake enough, he began talking and giggling and stood up to check on Laela. The second he saw she was asleep, he was quiet, and lay back down. Amazing, right?? It didn’t last too long at all before she woke up and they were both wiiide awake and ready for the day. To put it in Dekker’s words, they were “happy to be done sleeping.” That they were.

** I want to make this post about sleeping, but I have to say that I gave Laela Cheerios for the first time today and she can eat them without gagging!! She’s still clumsy and ends up losing pieces, but thats because she pushes the Cheerio up to the front where her eight sharp little teeth reside, and she actually chomps up and down over and over until she bites it in half! She gums up what stays in her mouth and eats it easily, but often the second half falls out. But either way, yay Laela!!!

Ok, back to the day and the kids naps. I considered keeping Laela up and making the kids nap somewhere between 11-12 together, but she was getting really, really vocal and high pitched, which is her telltale sign that she’s getting tired. So I put her down and she slept solid until noon. Thats when I woke her.

I know. I hate waking my kids. But if she goes later than noon, there is almost no chance they’ll go down together at their regular 2:00 time. So I woke her and fed her downstairs like always. What was awesome about today is that she is really enjoying her new ability to sit up from laying down, and she practiced it over and over and over. The whole time she was up and not eating, she was plunking down on her tummy, and then pushing herself back up. And it tired her out!! At 2:00, they were both ready, I thought.

Dekker fell asleep immediately, while Laela continued to practice her skill for the next half hour. I went up and lay her back down and she went to sleep right away. Laela slept until 4:00, and Dekker didn’t even stir when I went in to retrieve her. He didn’t lull until just before 5:00. It was a GREAT sleep day!

Now, its the evening, and the kids are pretty ready, I’d say. Deks is tucked in and Laela is just finishing her bottle. Soon enough, they’ll both be quiet. Brady is going to quickly rototill the garden, but then its snack and bath time. I love these few hours before bed.

We saw Dr Guselle for the first time in forever today, for Laela’s nine month check. It got bumped a while ago so my doctor could undergo some carpal tunnel surgery, but she is back at ’em and it was great to see her. She always takes as much time as we need, and I never feel like I didn’t get to ask all of my questions.

My mom offered to take Dekker for a few hours while we were in the city, which was actually completely wonderful. As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes he’s a bit of a handful when we’re out and he gets nervous or uncomfortable. So this way, we could all sit through Laela’s appointment peacefully, and Dekker could have a blast with grandma all to himself!

Laela had her six month shots a little late, around seven months, and she has gained a full two pounds since then, so thats great! On her growth chart, she started in the 85%, moved down to the 50%, and is comfortably back up in the 85%! I’m not too worried about the specific numbers, but its great to see that she’s really thriving. She asked about solid foods and we told her about how Laela would cry and cry and fight and wail and just hated it, so we left her alone for a couple of months, and now she wants it bad! Dr. Guselle said that sounded great, and to just keep following her cues. Its really nice to be on the second kid and to have my doctor say that she fully trusts our judgement.

The little Miss checked out perfectly everywhere. Heart and lungs, ears, throat, hips, tummy, everything is in good shape. She didn’t check Laela’s eyes because we went to Dr. Rubab so recently. I told her about Laela’s decent astigmatism and that if it doesn’t improve a lot by February, she’ll likely have glasses. She kind of made a “merp merp” face, and said “Well, that would be ok too. At least you’re familiar with it.” She’s right. It would be fine. A bit sad, but ok 🙂

Once the appointment was over, Brady and I hit up a drive thru (in our separate vehicles, since he had come from work, lol) and grabbed a bit of lunch to eat on our way to pick Dekker up.

That boy had sooo much fun, and told us all about everything he had done, but luckily, he was also tired, so going home didn’t devastate him too much. What a great day for everyone involved 🙂

Last minute question, guys, and maybe a dumb one. Does “merp merp” translate to everyone, or is it just in my head? I don’t know else to describe that feeling, haha! I have yet to find the appropriate emoticon either. Does it make sense??

When we got pregnant with Laela, I got heckled a lot about how much Dekker sleeps, and “just you wait, this one won’t sleep at all!” Jokes are fine, but it happened often. What I took from all the razzing, mostly, was that it would be great to get my kids to nap at the same time. That equalled sanity.

Of course, it didn’t happen right off the bat. It took time. But eventually, probably once Laela was six months or older, they started taking their afternoon nap together. They still do, but its not foolproof, and I’d love to hear from seasoned moms of two or more, or anyone with experience.:

The kids go to bed around 8:00pm, and wake up between 7:30 and 8:00am. Dekker on his own would likely still prefer to sleep til 10:00 but he likes Laela, and he gets so excited when she’s up. So they’re both up. And thats fine. Laela goes down for her first (and much needed) nap at 10:00, or shortly before, and often sleeps til noon. Then they got down together at 2:00. Laela lasts sometimes until 4:00 (if she falls asleep right away, which doesn’t happen anymore) whereas Dekker is good in there until after 5:00. Thats a bit late, and can make bedtime harder on him. Dekker’s ideal nap would likely begin at noon, and got until 3:00. And Laela’s ideal time for her second nap would be closer to 3:00. To recap our ideal situation…

Laela: 10:00 – 12:00
Dekker: 12:00 – 3:00
Laela: 3:00 – 5:00

Perfect!!! But do you see my dilemma? I feel like my kids would function beautifully with this schedule, yet I hear so often about how those few kid-free hours are a life saver. And I can vouch! I love that brief period of quiet time I get most days, to either accomplish things, or to put my feet up. Yet how do you arrange a tandem nap when they’re so different in age, and clearly on different schedules? Can someone propose a different timeline for me?

Just how important are those 2-3 hours of peace and quiet?