Doctor, Doctor, Give me the news

Messing with Autumn's morning routine can set my whole day up for disaster. We have a way of doing things. We wake up, change our diaper, put our lotion on, let the dogs out, have our breakfast, then go to the living room and play while My Little Pony plays in the background, then we go down for a nap around 9:30ish.

 Autumn watching My Little Pony

  Well today we had our 18 month doctors appointment and that just threw a wrench into our routine.
Autumn is not a big fan of waiting in the waiting room at the doctors office. Most of us adults sit there annoyed tapping our feet thinking "really I am one of your first appointments scheduled and you are already 15 minutes behind when I showed up 10 minutes early". Autumn showed her displeasure by making sure everyone there knew she existed. I brought the stroller thinking this usually keeps her from wanting to run around. All the stroller did was make her wiggle and scream, and provide just one more thing for me to keep track of :). Nothing was making her happy. Elmo, she was over him in like a minute. Her purple leap frog phone, over that too. My phone, which usually works, that just made her more angry? "Okay everyone is staring at you mom" What to do? What to do? I got it!Put My Little Pony on you tube with my smart phone. And the beast is tamed. While all this is going on, a girl, who had to be in her early 20s, waiting for internal medicine turned to her partner and goes "see this is why I don't have children". Okay if you say something like this and my one ear hears you, you obviously said it loud enough because you want me to hear it. Thanks random girl, that was so sweet of you to express your opinion :) My child normally is not a angry monster but just like every person, she hates waiting at the doctors office and this is her way to express her displeasure. I won't lie, I was embarrassed because I know people quietly judge you in the corner when your toddler acts out. My kid normally does not act like that but all kids do this and it is normal behavior. I would be worried if my toddler didn't act out at times.

 Autumn waiting at the doctors office for her first set of shots November 2011

 On the way home after the shots November 2011

Once as we got back to the room, Autumn was just acting shy and very clingy to mom. It is quite amusing because my kid is always talking. So to see her quiet is strange. Anyone who knows Fred and I would assume that our child would be a talkative one, and they are dead on, she is. Our height is now 32" which is 61% and weight 23 lbs 15 oz which is 45%. She is growing in the right direction. Our eczema does look better according to the doctor. The doctor was laughing when I told her Autumn was scaring people in the waiting room. She just reminded me this is the beginning of that age, welcome.  She also told me to remember to congratulate her and praise her for her positive behaviors because they hear "no" so much at this age. Then we left and Autumn was a angel when it came to leaving and getting home. Waving bye the whole way to the car. After a rough morning I decided I wanted a breakfast burrito from McDonalds on the way home. I ordered 2 just in case Autumn wanted one. This was one of those occasions that the food didn't go to waste.

You deserved it baby. Sorry mom threw a wrench in your day.

Afterwards Autumn was more than happy to hug Norman, the sock monkey, and take her nap.

Now I have a photo to share from when I was cooking dinner the other day that just made me laugh. I knew she was being way too quiet.

Haha Autumn, too bad they don't have kennels for you to play in the waiting room at the doctors office, lol.

Lucky for Us

There are moments in life when I sit back and realize "I have said the word no at least 100 times today".   Some may read this and laugh because they too have done this and have had this thought before, or they are just realizing "crap I do say no that often". It has just become a part of daily life. The thing is I feel if I say no too frequent it loses its significance. Then I just become that broken record that someone will remake into a song on you tube or something. While sitting back and reminiscing about raising a toddler there are a few moves my daughter does and while talking to other mom's it is amusing because their toddler does these moves as well.

Give me your phone mom!

Limp Noodle- When you are pulling your child away from something or taking them away from somewhere they are not supposed to be, the child raises their arms straight up in the air and shifts all their weight to their butt and starts wiggling to get out of your grip.
Stiff Ninja (appropriately titled by my friend Lindsay)-When trying to leave and putting your child in the car seat, the child straightens up and does the best stiff as a board pose making it impossible for you to put them in the car seat.
Rolling Pin-When you are trying to pick up your child off the floor and they roll to avoid your grip
Mischievous Elf- When you say no. Your child stares at you and points at what you are saying no about. The child then smiles wider squints their eyes and continues to move closer to the object. You say no again and that smile gets even larger and the child gets even closer.

We had a couple of events this week where Autumn was not the youngest child there. Back in October my friends, Summer and Matt, visited us with their son, Callum, who is exactly one year older than Autumn. I remember Callum pushing Autumn aside to get to the toys and running into her playhouse and trying to push her out. This did not bother me but my friend Summer apologized for her son. At that time I did not understand why she was apologizing to me. Now I get it because my kid is now the one that pushes smaller kids. I don't want her to push other children and I know it is just the age she is at, but as the parent I sit there and think in my head "oh my gosh what should I be doing" "I need to say no I can't just let her do that" "what is the correct action when dealing with a 18 month old that she will understand" "I hope my friends don't think I am a terrible mom because my kid is acting like a bully" See now I understand why my friend apologized to me. I didn't think twice when Callum was pushing Autumn around, but now that Autumn is pushing others around, discipline is all that comes to my head and I feel guilty for her behavior. Let me tell ya, while trying to stop Autumn from pushing another child and taking her away from that awesome toy she was trying to get, the limp noodle move comes into action.
We did have fun though playing with others and Autumn passed out from exhaustion each time. This week was filled with nice warm weather and terrible cold weather. Unfortunately the cold weather happened over the weekend and we didn't get to make it to the St. Patrick's Day parade. We went last year and had a blast but hey there is always next year.

Rojas family at the parade 2012

St. Patrick's Day 2013 in the kitchen

We did have a family event planned for St. Patrick's Day to celebrate Aunt Jessica's Birthday. Jessica is Fred's middle sister.

Autumn and Auntie Jessica

Now taking a family picture is a lot harder at times than it used to be.

We may not of made it to the parade but we had a fun day regardless. I even colored Autumn's apple juice green to celebrate. This year it is crazy that Easter is only 2 weeks after St. Patrick's Day. I made a board to display Autumn's cards awhile back. I don't know what it is, but I feel bad throwing away cards. Therefore I am always trying to think of new crafty ways to display them.

This was a old tack board that we had hanging out in the office closet. The board originally was a dark brown color that would not match anything in our home. I decided to paint it pink and give it that personal touch.

The "Lovin my Nibz" board is not only to display cards, I also like to cut out shapes and have Fred and I write personal messages to Autumn for the holidays. Now my Grandma Lastovica was huge on cards. She always sent a card. After my grandma passed away the day after Autumn's first birthday, I kept staring at the first birthday card she sent and realizing that would be the last one. Well I save cards, so I have a card from Autumn's Great Grandma for almost every holiday. The bunny card on the top right is from Grandma Lastovica. Something as simple as a card can bring back memories and just make you smile. The board has given us a place to display these.

Autumn receiving her St. Patrick's Day card from Grandpa Bender at our weekly Chipotle visit. She hugged her card and kept pointing and laughing at the dog. This is the card that is located on the bottom left of the board.

 Rocking out our tiara and playing with the dog food bowls. I don't understand what is so cool about dog bowls but apparently they are amazing to Autumn.

 Rocking out our shades like mom does in the car.

 We got to rock out with our red wagon. It was about 87 degrees during this walk. St. Patrick's Day was two days later and the temperature was in the 30s. Crazy Kansas weather!

 Practicing with our Easter basket.

 Being silly. Hi Mom!

I may feel like I say no a lot, but I know it just comes with the fact that I have a toddler now. There are going to be many more days to come when I may say no even more than a hundred times. No one has ever said it is easy to raise a child. Manners don't come naturally. As a mom I will get better as time goes on about disciplining in public. Sharing is a new concept to Autumn just as how to react to her misbehaving is a new concept to me. We will learn and get through this together. As for now I am just going to accept the word no as being a new addition to my frequently used vocabulary :)

Hope everyone had a Happy, and safe, St. Patrick's Day!

Spring It Forward

Daylight saving used to be a time when I would celebrate by drinking at the bars, enjoying that extra hour and giggling with excitement that Taco Bell would be open a hour longer. When we would lose the hour, I would be upset that the bars would close earlier, but would prepare myself by having a place to go hang out with friends afterwards and have some Panchos or other food item open 24/7.  Daylight savings has now become that evil monster that messes with my beautifully timed sleep schedule that I have worked so hard to achieve. Boo to you daylight savings.
This year I started planning for daylight savings in advance. I did this by slowly creeping Autumn's bedtime forward from 8pm to 7pm. I don't know about other kids but my kid wakes up at the same time every morning regardless of how early or late you put her to bed. Therefore moving it forward to 7pm did not effect the time she woke up. It gave Fred and I another hour of adult alone time. The week before the dreadful spring forward the sun started rising earlier. I even got to see it on my way to work which is nice to see. Autumn being the sun riser she is started waking up at 6:30am. Way to early!

 Autumn is a very interesting sleeper. I put up her bumpers when she was one because she digs her head into the corners. And she likes to use them to rest her legs on.

 Norman the sock monkey (baptism present from Lindsay and Brandon Fletcher) sleeps with her every night and naps with her.

 Well we sprung forward and are now back to going to bed at 8pm and waking up at 7:30am. The world makes sense again besides our nap schedule but give it a few weeks and it should be all good. Now as the sun stays up later I know she will too. There is no way of making the suns schedule make sense to a toddler. So for now I will embrace this fact and enjoy my few hours of adult alone time.  

 Some mornings the gang just has to join us for breakfast.

Come on guys. It is bedtime!

One thing that springing forwards means is, it is closer to being able to go outside! Autumn and I need to get out of this house some days. I can not wait for our morning trips to the park to return and getting to walk the trails. My mom and I went to Toys R Us this week and bought a Radio Flyer wagon. I was scared this would not fit in the focus so I needed my mother's SUV to help get it home. This is Autumn's thank you for being such a good little helper on mommy and daddy's tax return present :). Another reason Autumn and I need to get outside is because a family member of ours has started putting on some weight. 

I took this photo the other day and realized Jack might need to be getting some more exercise. I think Autumn enjoys feeding him a bit too much :)
In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day mom made some more Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey's Cream Cheese Icing. The Rojas clan and The Heath clan are getting together for dinner and baking is my specialty. I just need to work on coming up with my own recipes. Here is a link though for these cupcakes this is my second time making them and they are fabulous.  http://www.the-baker-chick.com/2012/03/13/chocolate-guiniess-cupcakes-with-baileys-cream-cheese-frosting/

Yummy!

Time to Move on to the Next Size

When I first had Autumn I remember having those sleepless nights and feeling like time was not passing by fast. Everyone kept making remarks of "enjoy this time now because it goes too fast". And me being the cynical person I am would think "can this please go by fast so I can get more than 2 hours of sleep. Oh and sleep without a baby in my arms, please" Now I look back and I understand all of those remarks. I miss my baby sleeping in my arms. Don't get me wrong I don't miss the sleepless nights, or the inability for her not to sleep unless in my arms or room, but it did go by super fast.

This is when Autumn was 10 weeks and I was 4 weeks post op. I was still unable to walk with her, which was really hard, but I could sit down and have others hand her to me :)

 Autumn turns 18 months in a couple weeks. Today I spent some time packing away toys that we no longer use and clothes. Now clothes are my soft spot. I find myself all teary eyed every time I pack away a cute little outfit and realize Autumn will never fit in that again.
I started summer clothes shopping back in ....January or December. Won't lie it has been awhile. This summer will be my last season of buying baby clothes cause it is 2T, 3T, and so on after this. There will be no other babies for me, even though I get baby fever, I know I can't put that much risk on my life. I have a healthy girl and a husband that need me here. Sometimes I feel like we could play Russian Roulette with my residual tumor, but then reality sinks in on how lucky I am for how well everything turned out, and it is not worth gambling. So today I made room for our 24 month clothes.
 This girl has so many outfits some we didn't even get to wear once. I love the little dresses for babies they are too cute. But during the crawling stage they were just not practical. Poor girl got angry every time because she would try to crawl and the dress would limit her mobility. And before crawling the dress would hike up when people held her and passed her from person to person. Therefore onesies with built in tutus and rompers were Autumn's favorite. The dresses do make amazing photos though and those last a lifetime.

 Mother's Day 2012

Perfect example of Autumn trying to crawl in the dress.

So while packing away these clothes it always seems to remind me of how fast time has gone by. And how she will never be that newborn waking me up at 4 am ever again. Now she can wake me up, but not nearly as frequent. It is different now because I know what she wants. When she was a newborn, things were new not only to her, but also to Fred and I. I remember the "what do you want stop crying baby moments". Now I know what she wants, and it is usually a iPhone that she can't have :)
We had some firsts these last couple of weeks and the big one was getting to play in the snow. A big one for me was the fact that Autumn agreed to try fresh strawberries and blueberries.

 Fred shoveled a square path in the driveway so Autumn had a walkway to use.

 Autumn staring at dad right after she dropped her snowball

 How high the snow was on the sides of our driveway.

 Little giggle monster.

 Autumn wanted a piece of the shoveling action.

Now being the "I know too much Respiratory Therapist mom", I would not let us stay outside too long. We are not getting pneumonia in the house. Ain't nobody got time for that!

The dress situation has changed now that we can walk; it is comfy for her and cute. We started taking some photos for Easter time to use in our gifts we give to grandparents. Let me tell you, it is a lot harder to take a photo of a toddler that is always on the move, so I take what I can get. Here are a few of them.

I have a feeling this year the Easter Egg Hunt is going to be super fun. So lets bring out those 24 month clothes :)