Ruby is cute

Man oh man, is she cute.

Just this bubble.
She feels deep. And mostly she feels happy.
She can get disappointed. And that makes her throw the stereotyped head thrown back, body on floor tantrum.
But that usually just happens a couple times a day when she gets told she can't eat my phone (or something like that.)

She's learning SO much right now.
She seems so much older to me right now, than I remember thinking Jasmine was at this age.
Probably because I'm more willing to admit she is as old as she is. But also probably also is kinda older because she has an older sister to teach her all sorts of stuff I didn't think Jasmine was ready for (being a first time mom, not knowing how smart kids are.)

She is definitely more into talking than Jasmine was.
She knows SO many words already.

I can't even think of them all.
And she tries to say so many more words than she actually has. Sometimes she gets time. Sometimes I can just guess them.
Here's a list of the ones I can think of off hand:

• Ni' ni'
• Mom & Momma
• Dada
• Nanana (Banana)
• Nanananaana (Granana-- My mom)
• She calls her pacifier "Dat"
• Ball
• Duice (Juice)
• Byebye
• Up (Which is said on repeat very vigorously)
• She says her name -- for the sake of this blog I'll pretend her Name is Ruby Gem, so she would say something like "Ra Ba Ja"
• Hot
• Boomboom
• uhhohh
• braba (Brown Bear -- the current fav toy)
• eee--ee (eat-eat)
• I think she's been trying to say Jasmine, but I'm not sure

At night time she loves to talk to me.  I take her in her room and sit in the rocking chair and nurse her. Then I sing Jesus loves me on repeat while she gets sleepy. (She knows the song from me signing it to Jasmine while I was pregnant. She doesn't like me to sing other songs, they make her wake up instead of get sleepy.) But lately she's been trying to chat with me. I think its because its really her only one on one time with me. She likes to just start saying ANY word she can think of and see if she gets a response from me. At first I usually try to ignore her so I can get her to sleep. But she always breaks me. I end up laughing and laughing with her. She LOVES to laugh. She loves to laugh with me. And I can't help myself. I totally see her getting away with stuff once she's older because she figures out how to make me laugh. (I'm gonna have to watch myself.) She loves me to give her kisses and nosey nuzzies. We have a good time together in the near dark before bed. Some of that time is me spending wishing I could get her down faster, because soon after I need to get her sister down, and I so would like some of my own time. But then she goes and makes me laugh again, and I forget that for a few more minutes.

She is obsessed with Baths and just seeing the bathtub, or hearing the water running, she starts trying to pull her shirt off. (Which is just her yanking on it and yelling "eeehhhhh aahhhheehh.")

She loves Jasmine.

Jasmine usually sleeps in til 8 or 8:30. Ruby likes to wake up around 6:30. Usually around 7:00 I have to start keeping her from knocking (aka pounding) on Jasmines door and yelling.

Jasmine is kinda hard for Ruby to play with right now because they aren't at the same stage and Jasmine just thinks Ruby is stealing everything (cause well, she kinda is.) But all that doesn't stop Ruby from really just cheering Jasmine up sometimes.

There will be moments where they will both just start cracking each other up. That might just be my favorite thing in the world. Especially when they do that in the car. 

She LOVES her daddy. She is such a daddy's girl. Jasmine still was sort of ambivalent towards Blake at this stage. But Ruby has been obsessed with her daddy from day one. 

I remember one night I was trying to get her to sleep and he got home from work late. She was almost alseep in my arms, but she heard his voice as he greeted Jasmine and Ruby sat straight up in my arms and yelled at the top of her lungs "DAAAAAAAA---DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA." I just laughed and set her down -- there was no sleeping at that moment. And she RAN down the hallway to him.

She is just so much cuteness. She's easy to get along with.

Dear Lydia,

When your kids are grown up and you are sitting on Facebook (or whatever there is in the future) or talking in person, to a stressed out new mom. Please remember this letter to yourself (written by you, currently a stressed out new mom.)

Dear Lydia,
DO NOT be the lady who says: "It goes by so fast." "I miss those days." "They grow up and leave you." "Just wait until they are teenagers." "If you think this is hard..."

Just say something nice.
Like "It gets easier."
"You will sleep someday, I promise."
"Its amazing to watch them grow up."


If you absolutely cannot help yourself from getting nostalgic, try to say it without the bittersweet edge of pain.
Something like, "I know its hard now, but I look back on those days with such joy. You'll get through them and they will so deeply enrich you."


I find nothing encouraging in hearing "It goes by so fast." "They grow up and leave you." bla bla bla.
It just piles HEAPS of guilty on top of my-haven't-slept-well-in years-(literally-years) head. It sounds like "Suck it up because this is as good as it gets. And you are missing it."


Also, on a related note:

Dear me right now,
I'm going to pretend I can look back in time and talk to you from a place where I actually get sleep without worrying I'll just get reawakened, and I can get some alone time, where I can spend 10 mins without people crawling on my body. I'm going to pretend that I actually know what I think I might just know.
Here goes:

Dear 30 year old Lydia,
I think you are doing great.
And you are right. You are not a small-person person. (We both know you love your own small-people to the ends of the universe despite the facts. But we also know that's not what I'm talking about.) You like babies. And you really like bigger kids who have logical means to converse with. But small people are definitely not your cup of tea.
And that's ok.
You are your kids cup of tea. And so even on the days where you are just pressing through with only the steam of your coffee in your way to hungry breastfeeding gut, they think you are going on so much more.  (Thats why they ask so much of you. They have no idea you are struggling. To them you are championing.)
You are doing fine.
When you get through this, you are gonna wish you didn't worry so much about if they watched too much TV, or didn't round out their diet enough, or had enough specified learning time with you. You are gonna wish you took more pictures. And wrote more poems. You are gonna wish pressed the baby's breath with the ways you like to remember. You are gonna wish you really lived.
You aren't gonna be mad if really living didn't look the same for you as it did for your peers. (When have you ever really been like your peers, anyway?) You are gonna be pleased that you made it work.
And oh how you made it work. Despite all the things you never saw coming, you just rolled with the punches. Yeah you whined sometimes. Yeah you cried. Yeah you ached. But you rolled all the same. And I am impressed. Standing back here and seeing where you were and where you go. You did good, kid.

Gown women with grown children can look back on their babies as babies with such love because they can see the grown up in the baby. And they just want to be able to hug their kids all day long again. But They really don't want to stay up all night. Just ask women who see movies about grandmas having kids the same time as their daughter (Father of the Bride the sequel) most moms will say, "I just wanna be a grandma right now. I want to send them home with mom at the end of the day." Its hard work momming small people. I think that's part of why God lets them grow up. So moms don't just burn right out of existence.
Its ok if you like that your kids grow -- guess what -- they will if you like it or not -- so you might as well like it! :)

Thats all for now --
because, actually, its still really 30 year old me writing -- and my girls are literally running around naked.

So hey -- older me -- just remember -- spread happy thoughts, not wistful ones. Wistful ones don't help anyone be happy, just worried. Happy thoughts help make happy thoughts!

Lydia out.

Jasmine is Cute

Jasmine has asked us if our next house can be blue.
I told her, "we'll see! We'll see what house God has for us." (I don't actually like most blue for houses, so I have my fingers crossed for no blue, but...we'll see!)
She's taken that as a yes.
So yesterday she was telling me about how she sneezed alot and had so much kleenex garbage. Then she looked up at me in all seriousness and said, "Mom...at our blue house, can I have a garabage in my room?...A real garbage? So I can throw things away."
Somehow I found this the cutest thing in the world. And I told her yes.
She responded with a deeply grateful, "THANK YOU, Mommy."


We are finally working on potty training.
She's been into Strawberry Shortcake.
She peed in the potty, just this little bit. It was making a triangle shape, so she yelled in sheer delight, "MOM! It's a strawberry shape!!"
Then every time after that, when she peed, she would pout that it wasn't a strawberry anymore.

{She's doing very good with potty training by the way. She was doing horrible, until I removed her diaper, panties, and pants. To which is responded by crying for a half hour about how she wants her diaper or panties, because now poop is just going to fall on the floor. Eventually after this cry fest (which she spent running up and down our hallway) I got her to sit on the potty and she peed in it for the first time. After that she's peed every time in the potty. We haven't gotten to poop yet because of poor timing for what we have going on in our schedule. But I think we'll get it soon. I'm stickin with the no pants thing until she gets a poop in there. Then we might go into big girl panties -- If she can assure me she doesn't think they are for going potty in anymore.}

Thank you God, for Blake.

I need your help to say it better to him more often.
But he is so perfect for me it is ridiculous.
I don't know another person who could listen to me explode in pain, rabbit running every which way, tripping back over the same roots in that forest, just to make sure they really got said, then run another trail -- wait, wait and wait on me. And then, Bam. Just karate chop the best wisdom I could never come up with (or believe without his voice behind it) right smack dab into the heart of where I really am without that silly rabbit.
In the past couple weeks, he has nailed it, like nailed it more directly than I've ever had anyone nail anything, in such a surpassing way I just have nothing more than to stop and say, "yeah." (And I don't like to just stop and agree. I like to argue it out.)
He has impressed me with those moments more than I know how to say.

And he is so good with the girls.
I never imagined a dad who loves so freely, so quickly, so unprompted, so untethered to his own self. He is both an amazing father, but also such a beautiful picture of you to me through his actions.

And he puts a purposed effort into saying good things to me.
I need your help to return that back to him.
My eyes roam for "more" and for "make it better" -- I forget to find the beauty where its at.
Help me, I want to love him better, like he loves me better.

I knew when we were dating, that I could trust him. I felt it.
But I had no idea just how deeply that would run.
To what extent he would stand steady and support me in my weaknesses. The ones I'd rather hide. The ones I'd keep from him if I could, but I get too weary too -- those ones are the ones where he shows me how fantastically beautiful his heart is. He never flinches. He just smooths warm salve on, and helps hold me so you can heal me.