Fun stuff

It has been quite a week for change here in the Shinn household. Lots of excitement and the promise of spring in the air to wrap it all up in a big, beautiful bow!

After a failed attempt at potty training back in November, we decided to let it go and just mention it to her from time to time, rather than frustrate her to the point of creating a negative feeling towards the whole process – we always try to keep the poop conversation fun around this house and we certainly didn’t want to ruin that! So, a few weeks ago when the big snow blizzard hit, we were happily trapped at home together for the week. I don’t really remember what spurred it, but Cecilia mentioned her potty and decided to go in it. So we jumped into full potty training mode, once again. We managed to find a package of M&Ms left over from Christmas and gathered up the random pull ups that were left from the first effort and hadn’t made it on baby doll bottoms yet. The entire blizzard we spent talking about poop and pee (which if you know us well, you know this isn’t really all that different from a normal day) and dispensing “prizes” when the deed was done. We had one really good day in there, but for the most part it was more accidents than not. When we finally shoveled our way out and Cecilia started going back to Memaw’s house and Nana’s, she seemed to really lose interest in it. She was just too busy to stop and go potty. So we kept at it, but didn’t make a big deal of it. This past Thursday Mom sent her home wearing panties and four days later she has only had a total of three or four accidents! It suddenly has just seemed to click for her and she can now tell me she needs to go and hold it if she needs to. She has even gone in a public restroom; while I was holding her about a foot above the toilet...I’m not sure I could have even done that! She is now a fulltime panty wearer, with the exception of night time. I am so proud of her, obviously this is what you expect to happen...but I still can’t believe it has! Her achievement has been more exciting to me than any achievement I have ever had personally...it is amazing how your child’s emotions and triumphs and failures somehow feel like your own. Tomorrow she will go to my Mom’s, so we’ll see if she can continue her good streak when she’s not at home...I hope, I hope, I hope!!

The next change is really just a continuation of the potty training story. Yesterday while Cecilia was in her crib for naptime she felt the urge – I am ashamed to say that she did try to call me and told me she needed to go potty and I ignored her thinking it was a ploy to get out of napping. It wasn’t. When her call became a whimper and then a cry, I went in to find that she had stripped down and tossed her clothes over the edge and used a corner of her crib as a toilet and then used the sheet as her toilet paper. There she sat, completely humiliated and upset that she was sitting in the middle of quite a mess with poop on her feet and a few other places. I felt so bad, I had never thought about how confusing it might be to tell her not to potty in her panties and then slap a pull up or diaper on her for naptime. So, we decided we would bring in her toddler bed and give it a shot. We haven’t taken her crib apart yet...just in case this doesn’t work out. I had to lay down with her last night, but once she was asleep she slept the night through. Today, she laid right down for her nap and hasn’t got up from it once. It is amazing to me that I am the mother of a child in a toddler bed. I realized that we have never taken pictures of her nursery. So I am going to document her sweet, little nursery today...before we disassemble the crib and pack away her changing pad and it becomes a toddler room. I’ve decided to celebrate all her success over the past few days by ordering her some over priced Curious George panties I saw online...I could think of nothing that would make her happier!

The other excitement for our family is a recent change in my job. I am still with the Corps, but have transferred to the Power House side. What this means, is that Ryan and I are now working in the same building and can even ride to work together. I am now able to work four ten hour days a week and take Mondays off. So, after almost two years of my whining about how Ryan gets to stay home every Friday with Cecilia...I get my day, too! I can’t tell you how exciting this is to me. Cecilia is now only away from home three days a week and Ryan and I being able to drop her off and pick her up together has been so fun! It is such a nice start to the day (although Ryan is concerned that I’m talking a little too much for that early in the morning) and such a fun start to our evening. Once again, I feel overwhelmed with gratefulness at how blessed my little family has been over the years. Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around the blessings I’ve been given and the love and happiness that fills my life. I don’t know why I have been blessed this way, but I do know that I live every day reminding myself to never take these things for granted...these blessings are exactly why I feel I am able to enjoy such a blissful and easeful life.

I know I may seem a little over the top to some people – these are just small, daily parts of life that I’m getting so excited about. But truly, this is how I want to live - taking each moment and holding it in the palm of my hand, realizing how sacred and momentous they all really are...if we choose to let them be. Bad things happen to me, too – but I try to throw those out with everything else not worth holding on to. So now I’m dreaming of more amazing events to come...the planting of our garden, the sound of a lawn mower on a sunny day, Cecilia zooming around endlessly on her four-wheeler (outside where I don’t have to help her turn around every ten seconds), bike riding, Ryan saddling up Ozzie for Cecilia, blowing up her pool, cookouts with friends and family, and noticing what new bushes have blossomed as we drive down the lane.

Cecilia in her box house we made during the blizzard

Found Cecilia in her underwear tucking her babies in to bed

She came up with this outfit all on her own and wore it ALL day

Lingering Lullabyes

I will eventually put up a post of all our 2010 Christmas adventures…but today I just want to talk about my sweet, baby girl. Daily, I am watching her move from that baby stage to a full fledged toddler. It is the most bittersweet thing I’ve ever experienced. It seems that everyday is more fun than the last, and yet there are moments when I miss her “itty-bittyness” and wish time would just stop moving so fast!

At almost 21 months, Cecilia is talking up a storm, she has just really started putting sentences together in the past two weeks. The first one I heard her say was the day after Christmas, when I had the stomach flu. Cecilia had been very good to play with Daddy and let me rest, but later in the day she was starting to get frustrated that I wouldn’t get out of bed. She got excited when I jumped up and ran to the bathroom, but then really upset when I closed the door behind me. She started knocking on the door and saying, “Mama! Mama? Knock, knock! Mama?” This went on for awhile before she started getting louder and started throwing herself against the door – finally her irritation came to a crescendo, and she yelled out very clearly, “Watcha doin in there, Mama?!” Without a doubt that is the first time I’ve ever laughed while my head was over a toilet bowl!

One morning last week she was very upset when I went to work , I left her sobbing and reaching for me and it was, of course, very heartbreaking. But Mom said it didn’t last long and she was distracted by other things. A little while later she saw Mom look out the window and she said, “Mama said bye-bye Ceci”. She has also been asking about people when they aren’t there, like she is starting to realize that there is a world beyond exactly where she is at that time and place. Ryan went to get her out of bed one Friday morning after I had left for work and she said, “Hi Dada! Mama sleeping?”

She also talks a lot about her friends and her cousins. She will list off all of their names when we are in the car over and over and I often hear her in her playroom making phone calls to them, “Hewwo (Hello) Parper (Parker)” and so on until she names them all. She was even making phone calls to Parker’s dad, Jason, the other day!

She has continued her love of Curious George and now has two stuffed “Georgies” that she keeps a pretty close tab on. She loves to watch George and when we let her, she gets so excited she can hardly contain herself. She has been walking around the house lately holding George’s hand and saying, “ornery George, ornery George” and then kissing him emphatically, “MMMUUUAAAH”! Ryan and I have realized that we’ve been picking up her mannerisms…and have to laugh when we go to give a kiss and automatically say “MMUUAAH!”

She has also started replacing “Mama” with “Mom”. It’s a little sad to think she is already outgrowing the “Mama” stage. I thought I would be “Mama” for years and then it would graduate to “Mommy”, but she has skipped “Mommy” all together! I have to admit, it is just as sweet as “Mama”. She usually calls me “Mama” when she is trying to get out of trouble or when she’s loving on me…but during the normal course of the day, she has a sassy, new, little voice she uses for, “Mom, Mom, hey Mom!” I try to get her to say it over and over, because it sounds so hilarious to me!

She is very, very social and loves to talk to people – she knows no strangers.  As soon as we walk into Wal-Mart she starts greeting people and if they ignore her, she just gets louder and more persistent! I love watching her make people smile and feel so honored that I get to be the one pushing around this amazing, little bundle of energy and joy! At one such visit to Wal-Mart, an old man with a long, white beard saw her talking to someone so he came up and said hi to her. She turned and her mouth just dropped open. Finally, she started saying, “Ho ho ho, Ho ho ho!” I finally realized why she was staring at him in disbelief, she thought he was Santa! When I told the man, he smiled and quickly said in a loud, deep voice, “well, I am Santa Claus!” and broke into character. Such a sweet moment, we couldn’t stop laughing when we left.

Over the weekend she managed to scribble with a blue ink pen all over our computer monitor, climb on top of the table and empty the salt shaker out on it, figured out how to open the door to the basement stairs and took a tumble down them, decided a good way to let me know she was done eating was to throw her fork to one side and her bowl of food to the other…and then say, “Oh No! Mess!”, started saying, “oh, dross (gross)!” whenever I change her diaper and various other toddler style antics. I am finding more and more that I really need Ryan to be good at being stern and using a good “dad voice”, because I can’t seem to keep a straight face…ever! No matter how rotten she’s being, it all strikes me as hilarious and adorable and it is all I can do to get on to her. I’m pretty sure she knows who she’s got wrapped around her finger and I’m pretty sure it’s not a good thing…but, I keep reassuring myself with my Grandma Yoder’s words, “oh, you can’t spoil a good baby!” (although, I’m pretty sure that’s not what she meant at all). Cecilia knows she’s cute and when she gets caught she automatically wrinkles her nose and smiles this really ridiculous smile and says, “sowwy, Mama” or in the case of the computer screen it was, “sowwy ‘bout the puter, daddy”.

There is no doubt we will have our hands full with this one, but I’m okay with that – I love every bit of her - the good, the bad, and the ugly!  She is, undoubtedly, more fabulous than I ever could have imagined. I hope I can always remember these moments and never forget the joy she is filling me and Ryan’s world with.

These precious days of baby powder and lullabyes are quickly passing by, so I will cherish the little glimpses she still gives me every now and then. Saturday night, riding home in the dark, her tired, little hand reached out to mine and she said, "hold you, mama. Sing me." She held my hands tightly and I sang her our favorite song. Her eyelids closed and I felt her relax...but she never let go of my hands.

Here's To Friendship

Twenty-eight years ago today a very special friend of mine came into this world. Our friendship is a jewel in my life story and I felt today was a perfect time to honor her. Terrill and I were friends from birth; we grew up together and shared a big part of our childhoods together. When we were fourteen Terrill moved away, and our lives started to go different directions. I am not proud to say that I didn’t keep in touch with her, but I’m sure in the bigger picture of life there was a reason for things working out how they did. I’m not positive, but I would say the last time we saw each other we were about sixteen. I moved to the East Coast when I turned eighteen and didn’t move back home until I was almost twenty-four. Within months of my moving back home Terrill and her husband moved back to the area, as well. I was so nervous to see her and just knew that we would be completely different and not like each other at all. Finally, one night my husband (who was just my boyfriend at that time) and I went to have dinner with them. Within the first hour we were there I became completely at ease. We had plenty in common and we immediately connected! I am quite sure I rambled all the way home that night, so excited to have found my old friend - not right where I left her… but in an even better place. Over the past few years we have continued to grow closer, she was even there for the birth of my daughter - and to still love me after that speaks volumes! J She has brought so much laughter and fun to my life. She is an honest, loving, and extremely entertaining friend and I just don't know what I would do if our paths hadn't met again! So here’s to old and new memories! Love you, Terrill – I hope you have an incredible year!!

Current Mood: Euphoric and Grateful

I have always been a bit fanatical about Christmas. There is so much I love about it – the smells, the shopping, the music, the surprises, the decorations, the family and friends! Despite growing up, it has never lost its magic for me.  But when I had Cecilia it took my excitement to a whole new level! Last year was absolutely the most perfect Christmas I ever could have imagined. We spent Christmas Eve, just the three of us at home. We played hard and then read Cecilia, “The Night before Christmas” before tucking her in for the night. Ryan and I enjoyed a delicious dinner together and watched “Elf” while we helped Santa deliver his goods. Cecilia, who normally slept straight through the night, must have been as excited as we were because right around midnight she woke up. We were still up and so I brought her out to the living room and tried to rock her back to sleep. She was so happy and awake though, and she immediately spied the gifts under the tree. We let her at one of them and she made the classic, “Oh, I can’t believe this!” face. It was the perfect reaction, which we never expected to get from her at only eight months! A few hours later, Cecilia woke up again and when I got up to get her I discovered snowflakes were falling to the ground. I sat and held my sweet baby watching those perfect, sparkling, flakes as they danced down to their soft bed below. My heart filled completely with awe that this perfect, storybook moment was happening to me. Our Christmas continued on as idyllic as that moment, like I had stepped inside a box of Christmas book illustrations and could actually see the glow of the fireplace that graces every respectable Christmas picture.

That perfect season of joy will always be precious to me. And I am looking forward to another one in just a few short weeks! Cecilia has started to understand little bits and pieces of Christmas over the past few days. She doesn’t care that much about the big tree in our living room, but she adores her own little, pink tree. She cradles her baby Jesus, whom she calls, “Jeez” and just yesterday stopped calling Joseph, “George” and now calls him, “Papa”. She sings “Ho,ho,ho,ho,ho,ho” when she sees Santa  and clicks her tongue when I ask her what reindeer do. She LOVES to dance to Christmas music and we never, ever get tired of watching her! She is also shockingly gentle around the Christmas tree and will just barely touch the branches and say, “Pretty”.

I would imagine that no one looks at my life and thinks…”Wow! She has it all!” But I’m here to tell you…I really do, folks. I wouldn’t swap my life with anyone. With everyday that I give thanks – the blessings keep on coming. I thank God for the reason we celebrate each December and for the many other gifts he continues to give me and my family.

Take One...

Here is my attempt at blogging. I've always loved reading them and it always seemed fun, but I never got around to doing it...finally, my cousin Michelle convinced me that I should do it to help store all the memories I am making with my little family. So I've decided to give it a shot...we'll see how long it last!