Proof that I might have gone a little OCD when Ella was on the way

I went into the office looking for just one document. You know how it goes. Three hours and more than a bag full of trash later, I still haven't found what I originally set out to find, but I have happened across some gems in all the clutter.

And I just had to share. Because that's what I do. I'm a Sharer.

I had to smile at Myself From a Year Ago because very little of this was ever implemented. Especially since Chris was laid off two months before Ella was born. Like most things, we made do with what we had and found sales where we could, and I realized again that such details and decorations just don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

We did end up using the navy blue infant carseat that the boys had used, and it didn't kill us. A little self-conscious, I put accents of pink in it most of the time. Maybe one person said something about a "cute little boy" that whole time Ella was in it. I did find a new pink cover on Ebay, but by that time, she only had a few months left in that carseat anyway.

In addition to this list, I spent hours online searching for the perfect bedding set that used light blue in a girly way, and finding nothing pre-made even spent time picking out fabrics as if I'd ever sew such a complex set myself. After all that effort, I found a girly nursery set with blue in it (as well as pink, yellow, green, and purple) for $30 at the consignment sale. Then, I purchased two pink crib sheets on sale for $4 each at Target. You know what? Ellie hasn't complained about the lack of a stylishly coordinated nursery even once. She does have a very nice furniture set in there, and that is more than enough.

Oh, and that grey kitty with the pink nose? Cooper found it sitting in Ellie's crib before she was born and claimed it for his own, which solved the problem of trying to bring grey into the mix.

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May induce spontaneous smiles

I think we have the beginnings of some curly hair here. That makes me excited. Oh, and yes, there are seven (almost eight) teeth in that smile. She only had three a month and a half ago. Busy. Busy. And perhaps a little fussy. I happened across a picture of 15-month-old Jackson earlier today and realized that eight was the number of teeth he had at that age, so she's a little ahead of the curve at (almost) 10 months.

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Children's Books Tuesday: I Spy Little Bunnies

Rhymes by Jean Marzollo

Photographs by Walter Wick

I got this book out to take pictures of it in order to do this post, and Cooper came from nowhere and immediately started interacting with it.

Which illustrates why I'm posting it. My kids love this book!

I believe it is one in a series of I Spy books, but I specifically like this book for youngers because the pictures are not overloaded with images to look at as some of the others are, and it includes the exact picture that you are supposed to find with the words that describe it. Now that Cooper is older we take turns finding things. The boys are so tickled with themselves every time they spot the correct item. We usually end up trying to find way more than just the two or three things the pages suggest, and I like being able to spend so much time in a book together. Not too many other books hold their interest from cover to cover right now. If you read it straight through, which we rarely have done because we look for so many other things, it has a nice and simple rhyme scheme to it.

Have a book to share? Want to see some other book ideas? Head on over to Sue's bloghop.

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Memory card Monday--Halloween edition

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In which I have palpitations

. . . because I have too many unfinished, unorganized thoughts floating through my pea brain on whatever topic this is and can't get it onto the computer screen fast enough. Orrrrrrrr, it could be the roughly 6.4 gallons of Dr. Pepper I've had in the last 24 hours while trying to make it through the night shift last night. Take your pick.

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I feel like I'm on a precipice most of the time, about to dive headlong into some new and hopefully wonderful phase in life. It's at once exhilarating and exhausting. Change is my only constant. Redefined my only definition.

I had kinda hoped I'd be done with all of this by now, to be honest.

And having kids really ups the ante in my quest for self-discovery. It makes me want to establish myself as profoundly This or essentially That, so that these little people can have the unmoving foundation on which to build their own sense of self.

It's a lot of pressure, and mostly self-ascribed. In no particular order, I want my children (who we all know are an extension of myself) to be well-adjusted, polite, happy, well-behaved, cool-but-not-too-cool, educated, capable, high-functioning, contributing members of society. If they are not one or more of these things at the beginning of adulthood, I must admit I will feel as thought I personally failed them.

Yikes!

This is where I make the realization of my lack of faith in God's ability and desire to mold them into the people He would have them be. That He is infinitely more involved and engaged in their refining process than I. That He loves them first and best. That He will not forsake them, nor leave the acquisition of their person-ness solely in my fallible hands. That He, not I, is their best cheerleader. That I am but one instrument in His limitless repertoire. That He is in the business of bringing things to completion.

And this is where I breathe.

I have a tendency to pray more often for immediate and transient things, and I either forget or lose focus or become overwhelmed by the lifelong types of prayer requests. You know, the requests that are not answered this week or even this year, so my immediate-gratification-loving self quickly loses interest. Rest assured, I'm working on it.

When I think about my passions in parenting and what my legacy will be for my children, I can think of no more noble a thing than that I should petition God on my children's behalves (is that a word? the plural of behalf? hm. I think I'm just gonna go for it.) all the rest of my days. When they think back on the relationship we've had and our experiences together, I want them to be able to say, "Sure, Mom made some mistakes along the way, but I know that she loved me and I know that she prayed for me."

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Winging it in the kitchen

I'm not exactly a by-the-book kind of girl when it comes to cooking. Because I want to use what we have on hand and not spend hours upon hours measuring things by the fourths of teaspoons, I like to ad lib in the kitchen. And I don't know why it hasn't blown up in my face thus far, but usually my "concoctions" turn out really well or are at the very least edible.

Within the last few weeks, I've come up with two chicken dishes that were really tasty. I'm gonna share them on here so that if nothing else I have easy access to them. Let me know if you try them and/or if you make any improvements on them, as these are merely suggestions (as you'll be able to tell by the approximate measurements and my memory does not fully serve me when trying to recall that first recipe anyway). While I understand that the guy from America's Test Kitchen describes cooking as "an exacting science," and while I don't ad lib those things that really should be made following the recipe to the letter, I think we should feel confident to experiment in our kitchens and see what happens.

These dishes are similar in construct, but the tastes are varied enough that you could serve them close together and not hear too much grumbling from the peanut gallery.

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Ranch Chicken and Tater Bake

2-3 potatoes, thinly sliced into circles with skins on
approx. 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast fillets
1 bunch green onions, chopped
approx. 1/4 cup butter
roughly 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1-2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
2 cups plain bread crumbs
oregano?
8 oz.+ ranch dressing
at least 1/4 cup Durkee's french fried onions
Salt and pepper to taste

Marinate chicken in ranch dressing for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly coat the bottom of a 2 qt. casserole dish with cooking spray. Line the dish with layers of sliced potatoes, lightly salting each layer as you go. After at least three or four layers of potatoes, sprinkle cheese evenly over the top, covering the potatoes entirely. Cut butter into equal pats and distribute in four corners. Spread chopped green onions over cheese. Add pepper to taste.

Mix bread crumbs, garlic, salt and pepper (and I think I put some oregano in here) in a bowl, then roll chicken in bread crumb mixture to coat. Place coated chicken in a single layer over the cheesy potato layers in the casserole dish. Top with french fried onions.

Cover and bake at 400 degrees for at least 40 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 10 minutes to brown the chicken. (Cook time will vary depending on thickness of your chicken breast and your oven. For best results, use a meat thermometer. Poultry should reach an internal temp of 160 degrees.)

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Toasty Provolone Chicken

3-4 slices of bread, toasted
8 slices provolone cheese
8 strips bacon, uncooked
approx. 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast fillets
1 bunch green onion, chopped
approx. 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. This dish is all about layers. In a 2 qt. casserole dish, cover the bottom with the toasted bread, then four slices of provolone, then bacon, then chicken, and then the mushrooms, green onions and salt & pepper, and finally four more slices of provolone. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for thirty minutes. (Again, I recommend checking for doneness with a meat thermometer.)

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One final note, I mentioned a while back that I'd made my own dishwasher detergent from a recipe I found online. It costs about 65 cents per 100 loads, so it is cost effective for sure. I don't think it always works as well at getting the grime off as the store bought stuff though, to be honest with you. And I recommend using white vinegar in the rinse aid receptacle to reduce the amount of white powder residue that it causes. Here's the link if you want to give it a try. http://frugallygreen.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-make-your-own-dishwasher.html

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Just one of those nights

Someone thinks rather highly of himself around here.

This picture was just a small part of the ridiculousness that made up my night last night.

Let me begin by telling you that Ellie was up at 11:15, 2:25 and 4:44. I did not feed her that last time, and instead only changed her diaper. I think it's reasonable to think that she could sleep through the night at this age, so TWICE between midnight and six is--in this momma's opinion--a bit much. Had she continued to cry after the diaper change, I would have probably caved and fed her. Again. After having just fed her two hours previous. But, thankfully she went back to sleep. Until I got her up to take Jackson to school at 8 a.m. See? She CAN do it, she just hasn't had to do so very often.

In addition to Ella's frequent awakenings, Cooper cried out in fear at 4:30; he was able to be calmed down rather easily, so I was back in bed though still awake (and somewhat perturbed) by the time E's 4:44 interruption rolled around. I may have been gritting my teeth a little as I talked to her about how I had just fed her so she needed to go back to sleep. It makes perfect sense to middle-of-the-night-Megan to try to reason with a 3/4ths-year-old about her schedule.

Later, when the alarm clock rang out 45 minutes before I had planned to get up for the day because one of my boys had screwed with it without my knowledge yesterday, waking me for the forth time (stupidly, I didn't go to bed until after ella's 11:15 feeding) in my short night, I did not hesitate to turn it off and throw it across the room all in one surprisingly coordinated motion. Fortunately, I use a travel alarm clock, so the walls were relatively unscathed in the ordeal.

Now for those keeping track of the score at home, Megan-1 and Alarm clock-0, you realize what my sleep-deprived self earlier this morning did not--I now had no alarm set to get me up at the Megan-approved (albeit still begrudgingly so as I am by no means a morning person) time of 7:15. My younger kids are often awake by then anyway, so I'm usually up because of them. UNLESS they have been awake in the night, and then they unabashedly sleep through the proper wake-up time. And Jackson could probably sleep until noon every day of the week, if given the chance, so he was no help either.

It wasn't until 7:43 that I sat bolt upright in bed, uttered a "crap" to no one in particular, and began the get-ready-for-school routine. Which for today, for added fun, included a dinosaur costume.

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Now for something completely different

A post about my kids. Shocking, I know.

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Four months. That's how long it has been since my daughter had a seizure. That makes me wanna do a happy dance. Jiggity jig. That's the easy answer to the question about how Ella is doing. If you want to focus on things like development or long-term prognosis it requires no less than ten minutes of your time and an internet connection to better assist me in diagramming the brain (just ask Sara who asked about Ellie last night--thanks, my friend, for wanting to understand the full picture). I jest. Mostly.

It's complicated though. I have adopted the phrase, "she's doing great, considering. . ." and then I trail off. Because we have been to the brink and know how devastating infantile spasms can be, but it's hard to paint that picture for anyone else who is removed from the situation. I really don't want to be overly dramatic or doomy and gloomy about it. But without showing people just how catastrophic IS can be, they don't have context for understanding how well Ellie is really doing.

Even so, I've learned that other folks just want the cliff's notes version, and that's okay too; sometimes it's enough just to say, "Yep, she's doing great--4 months without seizures. Thank you for praying." and leave it at that.

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Cooper went to the dentist for the first time today. He did really well, and I am completely proud of him. I know that I'm not objective in the least when it comes to my kids, but I kinda think he makes a really good impression on other people--like his zeal for life rubs off on them and brightens their day. I could be wrong (and again COMPLETELY biased), but I think people remember interacting with him. I just love watching him work the room; it's something to behold, that's for sure.

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Jackson continues to be a little sponge, soaking up as much information as possible. His thirst for knowledge is unquenchable (is that a word? i typed it and now i'm all unsure about it). He asks about God and the world and how babies get into mommies' tummies (yeah, pretty much asked about sex the other day) and so many other things and has this amazing empathy for others all of a sudden. Like he can understand that other people experience things differently than he does and that their lives are separate from his. I don't have a sophisticated enough vocabulary to explain it unfortunately, but it's like a switch came on and he can take ideas and run with them to predict future occurrences. He asks a. lot. of questions, but they are such intelligent ones that I am really enjoying the conversations that come from answering them. So neat to see the world through his eyes. I really hope I can continue to choose to answer them honestly and not grow fatigued by the sheer frequently and quantity of them.

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Let's try not to psycho-analyze my choice to put the following news to the bottom of a lengthy post about my kids too much, but I would be remiss if I did not mention that today is our eighth wedding anniversary. God has been faithful to us, and we are so blessed. I love you, Chris! Thanks for walking through this life with me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

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