Gwen's 9 Months Old!

This Memorial Day Gwen turned 9 months old. We took her to her 9 month check up today at her pediatrician's office. She's right on target: 29 inches tall, 21.5 pounds. That puts her in the 95% for height and 90% for weight. The doctor remarked that she's not at risk for childhood obesity because her percentages are bigger for height then weight. It's not time to break out the donuts though. For a more realistic idea of how big she is, she's wearing 18-month-old clothes and size 4 diapers. That probably means something to you recent parents out there.

Doctor Harris called her "remarkably social." We have no idea where she gets that from since both Mommy and Daddy tend to be on the shy side. Gwen flirted constantly with the nurses and doctor even though he had predicted that she'd develop stranger anxiety by now. He said that she might be the one in a million baby that never gets it. We'll see because right now we can't take her anywhere without her stopping people by making eye contact and grinning at them. We were at Jonathan's school for 15 minutes today and it happened three times.

Now With Pictures

Gwen and I went swimming. It was her very first time and she had a blast. She was all dressed up in her swmming suit and cute hat. She hates the hat but the water distracted her from ripping the hat off.

In the kiddie pool at our condos. It's 10 feet by 10 feet and only 1 1/2 ft deep. It has a seat that runs around inside it so that's only 4 inches deep. It was hard to keep her from trying to crawl out of the kiddie pool and into the regular pool.

I put her in her little floatie and she loved it. She could stand on the bottom and walk around the pool. It was hard for her to forget to crawl though.

That evening we took the car to Jonathan at Maverik and had a picnic on the lawn. Gwen stole my hamburger bun and ate that instead of what I had packed for her. Then we walked home - about 40 minutes. It was a nice day but we sure were worn out by the end.

A few weeks ago Jonathan got a new suit for church and hopefully job interviews in a few years. It was much needed since he had lost a couple sizes and his other suit was too big. Isn't he cute? Can't you see him teaching history in that?

I bought this cute skirt outfit for Gwen a couple weeks ago. It's now too small for her. This is the one and only time she got to wear it.

On Sunday we went with Grandpa Buckholts up to my sister Heidi's house for dinner. Gwen had fun playing with her two-year-old cousin Samantha.

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, I'm starting to be able to wrap my head around the car thing. Something inside it's transmission blew up and broke so they'd have to replace the entire transmission to fix it. I do trust these guys that looked at it, they fixed a big transmission leak a couple months ago and warned us that it might have more problems because it was entirely out of transmission fluid for who knows how long. Apparently it was long enough to lead to this current problem. Ugh.

At least the weather's nice right now - nice enough for Jonathan to ride his bike to work if he absolutely has to. My mom's in Italy right now (lucky) but I'm sure she wouldn't mind too much if she had to come to our place to watch Gwen on the two weekends this month when we need her.

What all this means: I'm not as super stressed as I was last night. Thanks to all who have given advice and called me. You've really helped me out.

Anyway . . .

This post it about what fun things I have planned for this weekend. Nothing much! Our condo's pool opens up so I'm planning on taking Gwen swimming for the first time ever. I hope to do some grocery shopping as well. Jonathan's out of school on Monday so we might go visit some dead people and pay our respects. I don't know though because it will be hard to keep Gwen from crawling all over the cemetary and I don't think people would appreciate her eating their flowers. Jonathan does have to work all weekend and since he'll have the one and only car now I'll be housebound with the baby and the dog from 3-11 on all three days. I can think of worse things. At least I should be able to catch up on all the sleep I've missed these last two days. Oh, and watch hours of West Wing and Brisco County Jr.

When it Rains . . . Right?

The last few days have been just terrible!

It all started on Tuesday night when I was at work. Jonathan called me telling me that the Buick had broke down on him and Gwen when they were out cruising around. Why they were out cruising around with the price of gas what it is these days is another matter entirely. Luckily for us, his brother and sister-in-law Sam and Diane (thanks a million, you guys are the bestest!) helped to push the car home with their car. We had it towed to the mechanic's the next morning and today they call with the estimate: $2700. The car is worth less than $1500 which is what we payed for it in September. So our only real option is to scrap it or donate it because it's not worth fixing at this point.

We NEED two cars. What with both of us working, Jonathan's school everyday, and having to cart Gwen to the sitter's when we work colliding shifts. We can't afford two nice cars. Right now we can't afford even another crappy car. We spent a huge chunk of our savings on that car. I don't know what we're going to do.

Another big realization is that we can't afford to pay as we go for Jonathan's school anymore. We just can't afford to pay over $2000 every 4 months. I don't want him to slow down at school because I really want him to get done so I can work during the day. Tonight I'm researching student loans and financial aid. It's been a huge blessing that I've done 6 years of school without any debt. I just don't see how to keep that up right now. At least we've been taught that debt incurred for school is "good debt". It's not like we'd be getting loans so that we can get a boat or *sigh* a better car or two. It's so that Jonathan can be a better husband and dad and provide for his family by getting a better job so his wife can stay home more with the kids.

It's all so overwhelming right now. I know that I need to have faith about this and that things will work out. These are righteous desires and Heavenly Father will bless us. It's just hard, you know?

Mama is NOT a Swear Word

Gwen's favorite swear word these days is "mama". It's her word for "I'm tired and need a nap, RIGHT NOW!" and "my mouth hurts, make it stop." and "I won't eat these veggies, you can't make me." It's sad to hear her cry "mamamamamama" in pitiful tones as she tugs on your pantlegs to be picked up and cuddled. It's annoying to hear her mumble "mamamamama" as she pulverizes her carrots then sweeps them off her tray. I suppose that I should be glad that she's using my "name" at all, but I wish it wasn't her term for anything she doesn't like. To make things worse, her happy phrase is "dada". When she learned to climb up on the landing yesterday she happily proclaimed "dadadadada". When she's motoring toward some forbidden object like the dog's food, it's "dadadada" that bubbles from her smiling face. It's not fair. Mama is not a swear word, Gwen.

Gwen's First Stomach Bug

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, Gwen got her first stomach bug this week. It started Wednesday morning when she woke up at 6:00 because she had vomited all over her crib. I took her into our bed and tried to snuggle her back to sleep. Then she vomited all over our bed and me. That's when I realized that this was going to be a long day.

It was.

While I cleaned up the beds and myself, Jonathan cleaned up the baby and left her in only her diaper because, I mean really, what's the point of clothes when you'd be changing them every five minutes? Jonathan was still really tired - he's been having a tough time sleeping lately and was up until 2:00 am. I let him go back to sleep and took Gwen downstairs. She was acting fine at this point and would crawl a little and play for about five minutes before starting to dry-heave. Poor little thing would cry and whimper and look at me like "make it stop, Mommy." I've never felt so helpless. With all my medical training I still couldn't do anything to make it stop. I knew that it had to run it's course and that it would just take time, but how do you convey that to an eight-month-old? I just held her and rocked her and told her it'd be okay. She snuggled into my arms and fell asleep. The rest of the morning we all snuggled in bed (now covered in towels with plenty of burp rags handy)as Gwen slept for about 15 minutes at a time between episodes. It was really wearing her out and I was really hoping that it would end soon.

Jonathan had called my dad earlier in the morning to see if he could come over and give her a blessing but he was at work. I asked Jonathan to give her a Father's Blessing instead since he had to leave for school and I couldn't think of any other Elders nearby. Jonathan gave her a sweet, comforting blessing and it was amazing; immediately there was a change in Gwen. She wanted to wiggle out of my arms and go play. It makes me cry thinking about it. The rest of the day she was so much better. I really have a testimony of the power of the priesthood and I am so thankful that I have it in my home. I am so grateful that I have a husband who holds the priesthood. At a time where I felt so helpless and all my worldly knowledge and experience couldn't help my baby, my husband and our combined faith could.

My First Mother's Day

Today was my first real Mother's Day. Unfortunately, it wasn't very eventful considering that I had worked a graveyard the night before until 7:30 am and then was on-call for night. Being on call means that I have to be ready to go into work if they need me within an hour of getting their phone call. Well, since I'd worked the night before I knew that my chances of getting called in were excellent.

Anywho . . . I got home from work and Jonathan and Gwen met me at the door wishing me a Happy Mother's Day. I opened my presents: two Big Dog t-shirts and a DVD of Avatar:the Last Airbender. Then we all got ready for church. We actually got to church early for the first time in forever. The pew we sat on was surrounded by little kids. Gwen was in heaven - she loves kids. After Sacrament Meeting we all went home and took a nap together. When Gwen woke up a couple hours later, Jonathan took her downstairs and kept her quiet so I could get more sleep. At 2:00 we sent Jonathan off to work and Gwen and I settled down for another nap. All in all, I got about 4.5 hours of sleep which is good for me these days. After getting up we packed up and went over to Mom's for dinner. That's when I got the call that they were going to need me at work. Like I said, no real surprise there. I had to eat quickly and leave my little girl and the family fun to come take care of an incontinent, crazy old man. That was my day.

At least I'm getting paid time and a half plus a $16 bonus for having to work tonight. No one else here is.

An Afternoon at the Park

This afternoon I got to take Gwen to the little play park area in our townhouse community. Some of the moms in my ward called me and invited me. I was so grateful to be invited because I had been wanting to get out with other moms but didn't know how to go about it. Gwen never makes it through church all the way to Relief Society so I don't get to go.

Anyway, it was especially fun because the little girl, Sarah, who was born 4 days after Gwen was there. We got to see how different they are. Sarah will sit quietly and play by herself. Gwen, after she got over the amazement of watching all the other little kids, was pushing over the other babies and then climbing on them or crawling over to the adults and biting them. It's her new favorite game at home to treat mom, dad, and the dog like jungle gyms and teething rings. Sarah is still letting her mom spoon-feed her, whereas Gwen refuses to let me near her with a spoon. She even had to get the fruit that I had cut up for her out of the container by herself. She's so independent.

Oh, So Cute!

A couple weeks ago Gwen and I went up to Red Butte Gardens and met Laura, Chris, Noah, Heidi, and Samantha there for some great pictures. Here's a collage that Laura put together. She really has a great eye for catching awesome photos and has developed some skill with PhotoShop - not that my photographic little girl needs any touching up in her pictures.

Earlier that day Jonathan, Gwen and I had gone downtown to the Japanese Festival. It was a really hot day and I had only had two hours of sleep. We only lasted a couple hours at the festival but it was neat. Next year, I hope to be able to stay longer or go in the evening to see more of the performances. We did pick out a cute little red Japanese outfit for Gwen - it's what she's wearing in the pictures. She looks great in it.

My Happy Place

So, I was sitting here thinking about my day before coming to work tonight. This morning Gwen woke us up early around 5:00. Now, we had stayed up late - Jonathan didn't get home from work until nearly midnight, so we weren't keen on the idea of be up and at 'em at that early hour. I gathered up the baby, changed her diaper (she hates being changed these days, mostly because there's no way to change her when she's sitting or crawling and she hates to lay down) and brought her into bed with us. She fell back asleep until almost 8:00 am. That was a much better time to be alive. We all had breakfast and sat around watching an old anime show while Gwen crawled around the living room finding ways to get into trouble. By about 9:45 she was getting grumpy and needed a nap. We all headed back to bed together with Gwen sandwiched between us. It was one of those times where you feel . . . I don't know how to explain it exactly - content, comfortable, loved, complete - all those things all at once. You know how you hear people say "go to your happy place"? That's my happy place.

I Wanna Blog

Since I've always lacked the ability to start trends I will continue in my true fashion and follow them. Everyone else has a blog and now I do too. Some warnings about this blog:

• It will be updated when I'm at work because I believe what I have to say is so very amazing that I should be paid for it. (actually, I only have internet access at work)



• Most of my entries will focus on my baby because she is the focus of my life and really one of the only things I think about.



• This blog will not always be comprehensible because I work graveyard shift and most entries will be composed between midnight and five in the morning. Those are the slow times at my work.

So, if you're still interested then enjoy.

This Is Gwen

Adorable? Yes. She's seven months old in that picture. She was learning to crawl - it took her two months to perfect it before one day last week she just took off. I think she had to make sure that she knew how to sit up again once she was down on her tummy before she'd commit to locomoting. That picture says a lot about her attitude these days. She's pretty easy going but very independent.

She's also very out-going and happy most of the time. She thinks her dad is the funniest person ever. Her favorite toy is her dog Boot. She's absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to me. She inspires me to be a better person. I am head-over-heels in love with her.