Dear Nora - 9 months old (A few days late)

Sweet Nora Girl,

Typing these to you has begun to prove way more difficult since your recent obsession with the lap top now means your fingers are eager to type along with me!!

Wasn't I just typing your letter for 8 months? Boy how the days are flying by! You have filled this month with new adventures and continued to fill our lives with love and laughter. You finally cut your bottom tooth which you were working so hard on for a week or so. You love to give us big gummy grins and now its so cute to see that little white tip peeking through.I anticipate it will not be long before there are more white tips joining it, with all the drooling you are doing.

You have mastered pulling yourself up to standing on the furniture and are starting to cruise around now. Your favourite game is to pull everything off the coffee table and drop it on the floor.

You also love to dance. When you hear music your little knees start bobbing and your hands start to clap.

You have become quite skilled at climbing the stairs thanks to your Grandpa's encouragement and he even had you going backwards down them the other day! It will still be a while before we let you do either way by yourself but its fun to see you so proud of yourself.

You started swimming lessons this month and have loved it. Bathtime is still the best time of the day for you so extra, extended time in the water is a real treat. You let the instructor take you and float on your back, kicking your legs and getting water in your face without a second thought. You are a little fish like your daddy and so brave!

You love to feed yourself and your favourite thing to much is pear slices and roasted sweet potato and you are also a big fan of goat cheese. However, there is not much you won't try and over all you are a great little eater. According to the doctor at your 9 month well visit you should now be eating three meals and two snacks along with your nursing through the day/night. I feel as a second child I have often missed meal times for you to this point, but now we are on a mission to get you fed! I know you are eager to eat so I want to be better at setting a schedule for you like we had for your brother. Get ready girlie, this will mean getting your naps on some kind of predictable schedule too. Just remember that we love you.

Your sense of humor is coming out more and more as you play games; pulling blankets over your face and pulling them down again, clapping toys together, chasing your brother around to name a few. You laugh and make sure we are all watching and then give us that gummy smile we all love so much.

You are in the 93rd percentile for height and 63rd for weight and you have been wearing 12 month clothes for a few weeks already. You are so tall. Just like me. I hope we can keep up with those legs of yours and I promise never to force you into ill-fitting tights. I hated those!

You are quick to let us know your opinion and not quiet about sharing how you feel. You shout and yell when you have finished eating and want out of the high chair. I sense that patience may be something we have to foster in you, sweet one. I also hope you will pick up a few signs so that telling us you are "all done" or want "more" don't have to be do dramatic :)

I love you so much and am so enjoying watching you learn and grow, you are amazing and such a gift.

I love you, Bubba-goo

Mama x

Yuck and laughing

When you are a mummy, being sick changes. No more snuggling in bed all day drinking tea and watching crappy tv while you doze in and out and rest your way back to health. No, when you are sick and a mummy life carries on as normal every for the fact you are more aware of your proximity to the bathroom.

This afternoon, I started to feel a little off. Nothing major, just a little chilly but I chalked it up to the fact that Seattle had had a sudden drop in temps the past few days so it's just been colder. However, as the afternoon rolled on the chills became more uncomfortable and my stomach felt off too. Oh no, I thought, this could be bad...

As I took a pretty fast decline to yucky Ville our living situation and my in laws once again proved to be a saving grace.

At around 5 pm, I just had to lie down and close my eyes. Just for 5 minutes (it turned into 25) but I knew I could stand up for one more minute and I knew is need get make it th Hough bedtime with hit it. my in laws feed the kids dinner which at that moment I couldn't stand to be near, and got them bathed and ready for bed. HUGE gift.

As I felt the grossness descendingand gathering stream and before I rested, I switched over the diaper load to the dryer, hung the diaper shells to dry overnight, put in a second load that I made a mental note to throw in the dryer later (just in case I'm not up to full steam by tomorrow, everyone will have diapers, clothes and pajamas for tomorrow) then I sorted out jammies, nighttime diapers and milk for the kiddos so I could then collapse in the couch without moving for a while. [Sidenote: I'm pretty sure that's just how mum's cope with sickness, we get everyone else sorted and then let ourselves actually feel sick!]

Nora was having a tough time settling because she's teething and she just wants to chew on me all.night.long. However, with Jeremy gone Levi had been more emotional and needy the past few days and with me being absent from some of the bed time routine I knew he may need me to settle him so I said I'd be in once Nora was sleeping. He was fine with reading stories with grandpa until then but he was waiting for me and I knew it.

So at almost 830 pm, way past bedtime, I finally managed to settle her and take over.

Levi rolled over and in the smallest voice said, "Here's a Lovey for you mummy, he night make you "seel" better". He gave me his prized possession, and my heart melted a little. He continued by saying, "I'll just have kitty for myself, he's so soft. Mummy "seel" him. Kitty doesn't have a penis, he just has a tail"

Um, what?!!

Cue me trying not to move us out of this sleepy moment by laughing loudly but making the bed shake by suppressing it! Holy smokes!

I just love this boy and his curiosity for the world. Even though I feel like junk, I'm so thankful to have family who can help and so very thankful that I have kiddos that love me enough to power through with me on my rough days, forgive me my failures and make me laugh, hysterically all the time.

Hoping these yucky feelings are short-lived and that I keep any germs to myself.

Monday, Monday

It's been a while since I posted. Not much has happened, and yet so much has at the same time.

We found a house, put in an offer, ended up going back and forth and ultimately just didn't feel a peace to move forward. The house had a lot of the things we wanted but not everything and something was holding us back from signing on the dotted line.

The house had been on the market for months, and it just day there again shirt we had kind of walked away but not really. Having it on the back burner was exhausting and stressful, I needed to move on, draw the line and open my mind to something new. So I put out a fleece for God; that the house would go pending or be taken off the market before the weekend. If it was still there we would bite the bullet and say, yes.

The next day it went pending.

So we are back at square one. No prospects. Heading into a new season of the year, the holidays are just around the corner and the year is flying by. I confess, as much as I'm thankful that God answered, I'm also finding it hard not to be disappointed that we seem so far from our end point again. I trust that God had a different place in mind and that once we find it we will know why but it's a choice every day to find that trust and choose to move out of my pity party, and on to the possibilities that lay ahead.

The day to day has started to find it's own rhythm too. We are adjusting to life here on the east side :) We commute to some activities and some playdates close to where we used to live and hope to again soon, but it's about 40 minutes in the car and with naps to coordinate it doesn't really make sense for us to do it more than a couple of days a week so we pick our outings wisely.

We are embracing activities in our new community; story/song times at the local library, swim lessons at a local pool, the neighborhood playgrounds with new local friends, to name a few.

It's less than ideal. I see the children feeling unsettled, and all of us sleeping in one room is certainly not a situation which results in good sleep consistently for anyone, but we are making the most of it.

Kids are amazing. Resilient. Even in the temporary nature of this situation they are growing and changing every day. Nora's cutting teeth, learning to clap, standing by herself and finding her voice. Levi is growing in his understanding of the world, testing boundaries, building towers, loving all things trucks, and never walking when he can run.

Life goes on as we wait. Good is good all the time.