12 Month Collage

I took pictures every month with the same background with the same toys for an entire year. In other words, I am a successful mother. I even wrote in my journal every month about everything new Amelia was doing. I'm a hero. Of course, I didn't post all those things on my blog like I was going to try to do, but, oh well. 

This exercise was surprisingly difficult for me. I'm not a photographer. I have no skill when it comes to composing a beautiful picture. So why do I love the collage above so much? Because every picture contains my favorite tiny human. And while the above pictures are decent, most of the pictures looked more like...

Oh well.

What I love about the progression of pictures is being able to see how much she has changed. I feel like her features changed a lot in the first 3-4 months and since then she's just gotten bigger. You can also tell that she started crawling around nine months because that's when her face started to thin out (though I think it's filling back in since she eats like crazy.) Since her features have been pretty settled for the past several months, I have started imagining what she will look like as she gets older, which is a lot of fun. What she'll look like as a three year old, or her first day of school, or when she graduates from high school. I have a feeling that she will look like her Aunt Abby when she grows up, and that would please me to no end.

Happy Stress

I've been thinking a lot lately about a conversation I had with my mom when I was newly married. I was trying to explain to her that I was enjoying all the bliss that came with being a newlywed, but that I was also feeling stressed and rundown. I felt guilty about it. I felt like I shouldn't feel the stress because we were so happy. I thought that there must be something terribly wrong with me. My mom, who has an uncanny knack for understanding how I feel, told me that the happiest things can also be stretching and growing experiences that leave you exhausted. She explained that being married was hard, and being stressed didn't mean I wasn't happy, and being happy didn't mean I wasn't stressed. The two feelings can, and often do, go together.

The last few months have been full of this emotion I call "happy-stress." I was excited to move. I am happy to be here. I think this was absolutely the right choice. And I may or may not have a smallish bald spot from tearing my hair out. (Just kidding about the bald spot, but really, the stress. Agh.)

The best method of entertaining Amelia while packing: putting her and a toy in a box.

There are so many things about moving that are hectic. Add a one year old and it gets even more fun. One of the best moments was four days before we moved. We took a much needed break from packing and went out for sushi with some of our best friends/cousins. Amelia spilled ice water all over herself (on purpose, she loves playing in water) right before we left. We stripped her down to her diaper and put on the extra onesie that we had in the diaper bag. Unfortunately, there was no extra pair of pants, so Brad had to zip her legs into his coat. (It was probably around 10 degrees outside.) And in all the craziness of leaving, we lost her pacifier. 

Cue all the parents groaning. 

Yup. Bad.

We were able to get her to sleep without it, but I knew she wouldn't stay asleep so Brad ran to Walmart to buy another one. And then they were out of her favorite kind. (This is where the background music of my life starts getting even more ominous.) Brad just decided to buy a random kind and came home.

Around 2 a.m., Amelia woke up. I offered her the new pacifier. She put in her mouth, gave it a trial suck, pulled it out, and threw it all the way across the room. Eventually, I convinced her to go back to sleep and crossed my fingers. It didn't work. She kept waking up.

Finally, at around 4:30 a.m. I went to the other Walmart in town to see if they had the right kind. They didn't. They had something that was close-ish, so I said good enough. (Thankfully it did work.) While I was there, I decided to grab more boxes from their recycling bin (Yes, this is how we got all of our boxes for the move.) Because it was a balmy 1 degree outside, by the time I was done my hands ached with the cold. I muttered "Arizona, Arizona, Arizona" all the way home to comfort myself.

My beautiful 4 a.m. Walmart trip outfit: tennis shoes, polka dot pajama pants, plaid coat, and a crazed expression. 

The most stressful part of the move was finding a place to live. The weekend before we moved, we found cheap flights through Allegiant (which meant not getting to sit by each other, and passing Amelia back and forth which was challenging since Brad sat a couple rows back and across the aisle from me. So fun.)We stayed with my Aunt Meredith and Uncle Norm, and Lauren babysat while we looked at as many apartments as we could fit in a single Saturday (Yay for wonderful family members!) We found an apartment that we really liked and a small house that we kind of liked, and kind of hated everything else. We applied for the apartment, but 24 hours later they let us know that someone had applied just minutes before us. So we applied for the house. And waited, and waited, and waited for them to get back to us. Monday at noon (we needed to move in that Saturday), we decided we had to move on. We got online to see if there were any new listings, and lo and behold, there was a house that was exactly like the other house (in the same cluster style development, same floor plan, etc.). We called, applied, ran to the bank for a cashier's check, ran to the post office to get it there as soon as possible, and it worked. And it ended up being the best option of all three. But I learned a really important thing through this process. I really hate not knowing where I'm going to live in a week.

Baby's first flight, and Mamma's first flight in 15 years.

Everything else really has gone well. Brad's parents drove our car down and entertained Amelia while Brad and I drove the moving truck. And Amelia behaved! (Or so they told me. Bless them, they are saints.) Starting in St. George on the first day of two days of driving, she has been to a park nearly every day since leaving the arctic weather of Logan, UT, and I think that has really helped her adjust.

Even with everything going so well, my happy stress has been alive and well. It feels weird to not be near family. It feels weird to figure out the layout of a new grocery store. It feels weird to go to church and hardly know anybody. (Though seeing my mother-in-law's cousin and one of my best friends from college in our ward that first Sunday was a surprise that was oh so good for my soul.) I just feel a little exhausted by it all. I'm ready for some boring.

I feel like #bringontheboring should be a thing. Introverts and homebodies unite!

Miss Independent

It took me about thirty seconds to realize I had given birth to a baby that already had a personality. The last few months of my pregnancy, Brad and I had narrowed down our name choices down to two, and were struggling to narrow it down to one. I shouldn't have worried. She was clearly too sassy for one of the choices. Amelia (though a sweet-sounding name) seemed much better equipped to hold the personality our little girl so clearly had. Because she had a rough start to life, the doctor warned us she might be sleepy for a day or so, but not so. She was awake, aware, and taking everything in from the get go.

Thirteen months later and I have not changed my mind about her personality. She likes to know what's going on around her. Before she could hold her head up, she much preferred to be in a bouncy chair than on the floor because she could see better. Now she insists on sitting in her high chair while I cook so she can see exactly what I am doing.

She also firmly believes that she can do anything, and loves to imitate what we do. She loves to scrub the floors, rock her babies, read to her babies, feed herself, etc. Anything she sees me do, she wants to do, too.

She has always preferred to feed herself, but lately she has become insistent that she can hold the bowl and maneuver the spoon on her own. Eventually she gives up and eats the soup or applesauce with her hands, but she refuses any help. Emphatically.

She also prefers to walk herself, thank you very much. And go down the slide herself. And eat the woodchips herself... She's getting very good at whining to tell me that I am helping way too much. Gosh, I hate that sound. Toddlerhood is shaping up to be a mixed bag of fun and super annoying. (Any advice on stopping temper tantrums?)

She is a little sassy. But she is also extremely nurturing. Lately she's been turning everything into a baby, from a spoon to the remote to her toys. She hugs it close, rocks back and forth, and sings. It's basically the cutest thing of my life.

And of course, her other favorite thing to do is read books. Her current favorite is Chuckling Ducklings. We read it approximately 8-10 times a day. I'm only mildly sick of it. So far.

And that is the update on what life is like with our baby girl in February 2016. Thanks for reading!