I feel like I have so much going on right now that it is impossible to split it up into smaller posts, so I’m going to lump it all together.  I think I am catching up now though, and I hope to keep you all updated AS things happening so that I can tell you about it.

I have been trying to spend as much time as possible with Cyprus as a newborn baby.  We parents only get so few moments in life when we have newborns in the house.  It is such a blessing to have a baby that wants nothing more than to snuggle mom or dad all day long.  Cyprus is especially snugglyas a baby.  He has little to complain about in this life.  I have been experimenting with a lot of different diapering options because he is a firehose peeing baby.  As a result of that, he has soaked through to his clothes a few times.  I was not putting any clothes on to make it easier when changing diapers, but I discovered the other day that he will sleep pretty much all but an hour or two a day if he is wrapped up and kept warm.  He doesn’t necessarily like to be swaddled, he just likes to be warm.   I have been putting pajamas on him pretty much all the time even though the weather has been back into the 90s here.  I get bonus points if I put him in the Moby wrap.  He will sleep until I decide I am tired of carrying him around, which is always in the magnitude of hours.  The lovely thing about the Moby wrap is that it is VERY comfortable, and it allows me to do pretty much anything I could do while I was pregnant.  The only downsides are that it gets REALLY warm to wear him in a wrap in 90 degree weather and his legs almost always end up in the crease where I bend over so I have to be careful when I bend over.  I am glad I have discovered this method of coping with having a newborn around for now because Daphne wants a lot of attention right now and Jared has gone out of town for business.

Cyprus is really one of the great loves of my life.  There is nothing better than being looked at by my son while he coos and gahs at me.  I discovered that when he is awake that he wants to spend the entire time standing up or “talking”.  Both are totally OK with me.  It really melts me over and over again.

I am having good luck with sleeping.  Cyprus has always really had the hang of sleeping at night.  He falls asleep at about 8pm and sleeps straight through to 3-4 am.  After that, he stays in bed with me mostly sleeping, after a few minutes of nursing.  I have to pat him on the back here and there, but nothing to drag me out of bed and keep me sleep deprived (most of the time).  When I wake up in the morning at around 6:30, he wakes up, nurses and then goes back to sleep until I take him in the shower with me.  It is a system that works very well with me, and I very much look forward to a sleeping baby in bed next to me.

Daphne is really starting to grow as a big sister.  She is quite rough, and I am working on how to communicate to her that leaning on the baby or sitting on him is not good for him.  She gets so excited that she wants to hug him, kiss him or hold him that she just can’t control her body, and it ends up on him.  For a long time, she would just scream when she didn’t get what she wanted.  I found that very frustrating, but I quickly discovered that most of the grumpiness that I was experiencing  from her was a result of her last 4 baby molars coming in all at the same time.  Now that they have all broken through, she is a lot more sweet and grown up.  I wonder how related the “terrible two” steretype is to the growth of two-year-old-molars.

Don’t get me wrong, she does still scream when she doesn’t get what she wants, but Jared and I tell her to “turn it off”, which she can do.  She either does it or she gets to go throw the fit in another room.  She is really great at turning it off all the way and just asking what she wants.  I am surprised that she even says “please” and “thank you” most of the time as well.  I love her more and more, and I am looking forward to having lots more adventures with her.  The better she can communicate the more I realize that she is a REALLY smart little girl.

I have taken advantage of the fact that we haven’t been going out much to teach Daphne new things.  She knows her shapes and colors.  She can also count to 13 and tell her left from her right.  These are incredible achievements for a girl that is not yet 2 and a half.  We also go to the library and get little books about certain things, and she really has learned a lot about them.  She knows about cooking and skateboarding, marching bands and clowns, sports and seasons.  I am amazed at how much information she can get after being told it only once or twice.  I have been trying to teach her new words every day, and she learns them quickly and then uses them in everyday.  Just today, we were practicing “float” and “sink” in the pool.  She got the concept quickly, and she squealked with delight when she told me the toy was sinking to the bottom of the pool!

I really can’t take either of the kids anywhere without getting sighs of “OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH.”  EVERYONE wants to admire Daphne and her beautiful blonde hair and her hand-made bubble skirts.  I don’t blame them for doting.  Recently, we went to a wedding with a bunch of friends.  Daphne was the flower girl in the wedding, and for 48 hours, I heard nothing more than how wonderful and smart my little girl is.  It actually helped me raise my affinity enough for her to pull out of being grumpy with her for playing with and hurting the baby.  I realized how lucky I am as a mom.  I am savoring having a newborn baby because it is so special, but Daphne is in an equally special time.  She is living in the time of her life when she can just soak up as much information as is given to her on a daily basis.  She is learning so much, and I enjoy seeing her apply little things she learns in her life.

Daphne has an incredible imagination, and when I am dealing with other things, she can sit down and play.  She likes to play mom to her babies, so she is always changing a diaper or putting them in a sling.  She will also take her toy cell phone and call all kinds of different people and have long conversations with them.

One thing that stands out about Daphne is that she LOVES music.  I never sang to her before.  After going to storytime almost every week in the winter, it became apparent that that was a mistake.  She LOVED every song that we sang at storytime, and she would ask me to sing them all the time.  After I got tired of them, I found other kids songs to sing.  We eventually moved on to Abba music and some Country music.  Now, she can hear a song for the first time and sing along with it the 2nd time.  She loves all music, but especially loves to hear me sing.  I hope to nurture this quality as time passes.

I am so proud of my kids for so many reasons.

I am starting to feel better, so we are getting out more.  I have been playing with the rabbits.  We have a butcher appointment next week, which should make things a lot more sane around here.  I have also been selling rabbits left and right.  I adore all the angora rabbits, and they even all have names, I will update with photos soon.

We have some excitement this past week with some hornets.  It is definitely the season when they come out.  Jared and the kids went out in the garage one day and found a swarm.  After a LOT of investigation, it turns out they had eaten into and through the wall of the garage and had built a nest in the wall.  They were eating at the studs, and there wer MANY of them.  My warrior husband went out and heroically got rid of them.  He did come back in with a terrible bite.  I appreciate having a man who fixes toilets and gets rid of bugs.  Thanks, Jared.

I have been making many small things for the kids, but I’ll update in later craft postings with photos.

I am having a hard time keeping the house clean because people have been coming and going, and my projects NEVER seem to end.  Our friends finally came to their senses and decided to move back to Oregon after a stint in New England.  I am SO glad to have Melissa back.  They had a baby in their absence, and I am glad to have another young kid in my life.  Daphne is still trying to figure out how to play with a baby 14 months younger than her, but it is working out.  I am learning that I need to choose older playmates carefully because Daphne mimicks what they do to the T.

I picked blueberries this year, and I am glad to have a reserve in the freezer.  They are getting consumed quickly though, so it might be a good idea to go out and get another 10 pounds or so.

We offically have less than $10,000 dollars in debt.  It has been a long hard road paying for school and education and medical bills and other things, but we are finally at a point in life where we can get ahead and never have to borrow money EVER again.  Thank you Dave Ramsey.

Jared is in Washington DC for this week, so my sister is taking vacation to come visit.  She will play with the baby for a while, take us to the state fair and do some other fun things before we all head over to Eastern Oregon for a week or two.  It is all very exciting.  I will update with more photos and updates soon.  I hope this will keep you up to date for now.

I am a lucky mama.  I love getting up every day to play with my kids.  Even if the house is dirty and I spend the whole day yelling at one thing or another, I still wouldn’t change my job for the world.