9 Months

 I feel like 9 months is rounding the last corner to one year.  Amazing how fast it goes.

It was hard to get a good picture of Alice the day she turned 9 months because of a certain little habit she has . . .

Thankfully she doesn't suck on her upper lip now as often as she was.  She does love to smack her lips together though over and over especially if someone will do it back to her.  She's tried some new foods this month and is eating a few more table food as we let her.  Her favorite things right now are strawberries and Ritz crackers. She has her two bottom teeth so far. 

She's very good at army crawling but refuses to do the real thing.  She can get on all fours and rock, but she's been doing that more than a month.  She's so fast army crawling I'm sure she thinks there's no point in changing what ain't broke.  Alice is an expert at getting into tight corners and not being able to get back out without help. 

She used to be a pretty quiet and happy baby wherever she was.  Unfortunately, that's starting to change.  She no longer likes being stuck behind a gate when everyone else is having fun on the other side and she'll scream and cry til you either let her out or go sit with her.  Thankfully she's finally sleeping a bit better.  She's still up once a night between 4-5 AM to nurse and goes back to sleep.  She's still in our room, too.  (Long boring story.)  She's the noisiest person at the dinner table if you haven't figured out what she wants you to feed her, so 90% of the time she's screaming or growling at us.  It is my least favorite part of the day with her for sure.  She loves to be outside, watch her siblings be silly, and play peek-a-boo.  She snuggles when she's tired, kicks her feet wildly when she's happy, and eats my shoulder as she hugs me when I pick her up.  I love my sweet Alice May. 

The Shirt I Hate and Why I Keep It

I have lots of shirts in my closet I don't like.  Some were bought for cheap on clearance just because it was something to wear, some are things I once liked but no longer do yet I don't get rid of them.  There is one shirt in particular I would really love to get rid of. 

I bought this for a dollar years ago at Old Navy after Mother's Day.  It says "Best Mom Ever."  Not only is it the wrong size and probably one of the most unflattering shirts ever, it also fills me with guilt because I know I am far, far from the best mom ever. 

So why do I keep it? 

I mentioned a few months ago to Dan that there were clothes in my closet I really didn't want such as this one.  Matty overheard and said, "Aw!  Why?!  I love that shirt!"  "You do?" I asked.  He told me he loved it because I AM the best mom ever.  I bit my tongue from telling him all the ways I am NOT a good mom.  He'll figure that out on his own someday anyway.  To him, I AM the best mom.  I'm his only mom, and that makes me the best.

There are times I'm talking too loudly (read "yelling") at my kids about how frustrated they're making me after they've been arguing with me all night and I say somethings stupid like "You kids aren't listening to me!  I'm just going to run away and you can get a new mom and maybe you'll listen to her better!"  Immediately there are sincere protests of how they don't want that and they love me.  I think, Really?  I'm yelling at you and you still love me? Why?! 

Or I'll be, once again, "talking loudly" to them and everyone's grumpy.  Then I'll look down at Alice on the floor.  She'll be staring at me smiling.  "Loud talking" doesn't phase her because I'm her mom and I took a moment to look at her, therefore I'm deserving of one of her beautiful happy smiles. 

I'm really hard on myself as a mom.  There are things I know I do well, but there are many more things I'm not good at or fall short in that it's hard not to focus on those.  This shirt now reminds me that even though I don't always feel great about my mothering, to my kids I AM the best mom ever.  I need to accept their love even when I don't feel deserving of it.  I keep this shirt for that reminder and to make my kids happy because they love it.

Maybe if I can find a more flattering shirt that says the same thing, Matty will let me get rid of this one . . .

Mommy Tetris

As a kid I used to LOVE the game Tetris.  I've always been pretty good at spacial reasoning and can pack a car right up there with my Dad's natural talent for it.  I can think of my next move while I'm putting the current brick in place.

Little did I know, someday I'd be playing Mommy Tetris day after day after day . . .

It looks something like this:

Oh I could've done a much better job labeling this and making it all cute, but you know what?  Blogging didn't even make it on a brick in there so obviously I have time for none of that Pinterest perfection business!  Some other bricks in my life not listed here are simple things like taking a shower, getting to pee, potty training, meal planning, kid homework, communicating to teachers, praying, scripture reading, temple attendance, brushing hair, journal writing. . . you get the idea. 

Here's a more literal view of my Mommy Tetris game.  I give you my playroom closet, one giant game of Tetris and Jenga all rolled into one!

I feel like everyday I'm given a stack of funky-shaped bricks and have to make them all fit together with the time I have for that day.  24 hours.  Same as everyone else.  Only I have WAY more bricks than fit in the amount of space I've been given.  As I'm changing a diaper or making a sandwich, I have to be thinking about who needs my attention next or things fall behind.  And things always fall behind.  Usually the first things that get knocked out of the running are things like getting to take a shower, go to the bathroom, or spend any sort of quality time with my husband.  And just like the real game, if I can't fit things in a space when they're given to me, nothing seems to work out just right anymore.  Bricks fall faster and faster as the day goes on and I just try to keep my leaning tower at bay until I can start a new game all over again the next day. 

Sometimes my bricks get stacked too high, I lose the game that day, and things usually end in tears and some sort of indulgence involving massive amounts of chocolate. 

Mommy Tetris is downright exhausting.

Saying Goodbye

In February we said goodbye to a dear, well-worn and falling apart friend.

Yes, the day came that we FINALLY sold our Jeep.  Dan got that car the year before we started dating/got married.  He fell in love with it the first time he saw it.  We drove on our first date in it, talked of marriage, read each others patriarchal blessings, drove away on our honeymoon with it covered in oreos and hotdogs, made a million trips back and forth from Idaho and Utah on horrible snow-covered roads, brought our first baby home from the hospital, had it towed a million times, and a thousand other memories involving it.  Some great, some not-so-great.

We've been trying to sell it since last May-ish but weren't very valiant in our efforts and consequently had no luck.  Finally Dan talked to our mechanic in who said they'd let us park it there with a For Sale sign and they'd give our info to anyone interested.  We got a few bites that way, but nothing turned out.  It wasn't there a couple weeks when mid-December we got a call from them telling us there had been an accident.  An old lady had backed into it going way too fast.  They thought it wasn't more then a dent, but soon learned it misaligned the whole driver's side and you could no longer open the door.  The lady's insurance got in touch with us, and we soon learned the car was totaled.  Crazily enough, the amount they were going to pay us was a little MORE than we were asking to sell it for PLUS they told us a mechanic at the shop wanted to buy it from us!  WHAT A BLESSING it was to be hit! 

The kids wanted to say goodbye to the car so we took them with us when we signed the title over to the mechanic after all the insurance stuff was worked out. 

 
We discovered Matty had written this in the snow next to it.  They were sad to see it go.

The mechanic might just use the car for parts, he hadn't decided yet.  It made us sad to think that someone else won't get to use the car that has given us so many memories, but we've decided to view our car as an "organ donor."  What a noble car we had.  :)

As an end note, I decided to tally up all our repairs on the Jeep since we've moved to Utah.  In the last nearly 9 years it was approximately $6,200 in repairs.  It may have been paid for but that car always cost us both money and stress!