Noodle turns 6 months!

We've made it half a year, folks, and that's no small feat.

I should have named this girl "Light" because that's what she is wherever she goes. Her whole face smiles.

She's in that wonderful, fleeting stage where Phil and I are her favorite people and she kicks and squeals and smiles and laughs every time she sees us, even if it's four in the morning. That is a serious mood-booster.

She absolutely loves her brother and looks around for him if she hears him in another room and wants him to give her all kinds of attention. She likes to be around people, but can chill by herself for a while, and she's still sensitive, but toughening up a little, thanks to a certain rambunctious brother of hers. She's close to sitting up on her own, loves stroller and car rides, prefers to be outside, and has the most irresistible cheeks and thighs you've ever seen. Oh. My. Goodness.

While I've had my fair share of cry-praying face-down on the floor of her room while she battles reflux and we both battle sleep deprivation, I'm starting to see the light (no pun intended) at the end of the sleep-issues tunnel. Last night, for the first time in two months, I slept longer than 4 hours at a time. It was glorious!

I'm holding her long these days, taking in the sweet, squishy goodness of her, and praying for many, many more months and years in each other's arms.

Three Things Thursday

Thing One: Noodle is 5 months old!
This girl has my heart, y'all. She's smiley, sensitive, content, and squealy.  She's rolling over and has started solids this week, pounding down food like it ain't no thang. Here she is with her lovey, Hops:

Thing Two: I'm just plain old!
Last night I went to a play at my alma mater, and for the first time really felt the time warp my mom always talked about: how you feel like you lived there yesterday and an eternity ago all at the same time.  Like I belonged and I really, really didn't.

Exhibit A:
I belonged: the play was in a building where I had lots of classes, so I knew my way around.
I really didn't belong: the play started at 9:00 p.m. (my current bedtime).

But it was pretty great to be out past my bedtime, to throw caution (and sleep) to the wind and do something for myself with friends without kids. I drove home at 11:00 p.m. and actually thought about going to do something else...because I could. Two hours on a college campus and I was already thinking I could just go do something at 11:00 p.m. Ha. But I didn't. I drove home and went to bed because my little alarm clocks like to rise and shine before the sun. Totally worth it, though.

Thing Three: This recipe is new! And yummy!

Rachel Ray's Chicken-and-Spinach Tortilla Bake. This is my new add-it-to-the-regular-rotation recipe. It's easy. It's quick. It's healthy (mostly). It's delicious. And it's easy to double and freeze half for a busy night in the future. Win-win-win-win-win. I've had the recipe for years, but I came across it the other week and realized I'd never made it; we've eaten it twice since. My tweaks:

• I used shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese because I didn't have pepper jack 
• I used an 8X8 pan, so I could only fit two layers of ingredients instead of three
• To make the recipe even simpler, I either boiled chicken breasts or used rotisserie chicken 
• For kid-friendly veggies, I chopped the spinach instead of leaving the leaves whole

Thing bonus: Stomach bug update

Despite our best efforts, the stomach bug did find Phil and me. So glad that week of my life is over. Whew.

Holy Sickness, Batman! A Tale of Sickness, Survival, and Complete Exhaustion

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What's that you say? You haven't heard from me in a while? Yeah. About that.

But first, a pressing question: why oh why does the stomach bug always seem to hit in the middle of the night? Not cool.

Monday night's episode I wasn't expecting. After two late, fairly sleepless nights over the weekend (for good reasons like out-of-town company and a nice dinner out with family) and losing an hour of sleep because of the time change, I was ready to get in bed early and sleep my dark circles away. But at one in the morning, Noodle started with the stomach bug. Infant stomach bugs are much cleaner than toddler ones, but they're scarier too. Like I had to give the girl Pedialyte every five minutes for two hours and if she didn't pee I was going to have to take her to the ER. That kind of scary. That was a fun two hours, let me tell you. And did I mention Phil was on call that day? Good times. But that sweet girl was as good-natured as ever:

I should have known last night's episode was coming. After all, Moo did put Noodle's Pedialyte syringe in his mouth right after I told him not to touch it. Awesome sauce. To my credit, it was during that two hours of Pedialyte...every five minutes...with a toddler running around. We were outside, Noodle on a blanket in the grass, and I'd just put her syringe down after giving her a dose when Mr. You-Can't-Tell-Me-What-To-Do shows up and pops that sucker right in his mouth to pretend he's drinking medicine too. I can't totally blame him. Enter some serious denial on my part: Maybe her bug isn't contagious. Maybe she's over it already. Maybe he's immune to this. Maybe those sick germs didn't just pass from one mouth to another even though I just saw it with my own eyes. Fingers, toes, and hair crossed.

Ha.

11:45 last night: Moo gets it. We rock and read and sing and pray and sort of sleep in the chair in his room while taking breaks to hug the trashcan. Over two hours pass. And maybe--maybe--we think, he's done. And he is. We all sleep. It's after 2:00 a.m., but at 3:45 I'm up with Noodle because after two days of not eating much, she's finally hungry. Understandable, but I'm feeling like a zombie in some sort of evil alternate universe where time and sleep don't exist. She goes back to sleep, but at 6:45, she's up for the day because she's slept a good 12 hours and is ready to squeal and play. What I would give to be an infant again, I think.

This morning, I felt sick and couldn't tell if it was just the five nights in a row of almost no sleep or if I was getting what they had. I didn't even have the brain power to pray. The bags under my eyes were, as my cousin says, so big they could hold my keys. (Side note: I'm a total sucker for southern sayings like that.)

It's a good thing I married the man I did. That man was up in the night washing sheets and sitting with us when he could have been sleeping. He sent me back to bed once Noodle went down for her morning nap and I slept for THREE HOURS while he took care of Moo, who was acting mostly like himself and keeping down liquids like a champ.

So far, Phil and I have been spared. It would be some sort of miracle if I didn't get this thing, but I'm thinking lots of irrational positive thoughts like: I'm an adult, so maybe it'll affect me differently or not at all. If I haven't gotten it by now, I probably won't get it. And my favorite: I've had the stomach bug less than ten times in my life; I pretty much have a belly of steel. We shall see. I'll spare you the details of the blocked milk duct and sinus infection I've been battling this week.

There are some silver linings in these dark clouds. After all, my New Year's Word is HOPE. Phil is on "vacation" Wednesday through Friday this week to study for his boards. Poor guy won't get much studying done today, but it sure is nice to have his schedule flexible right now. I was going to take the kids to Chattanooga this week so we'd be out of his hair, but I'm glad we didn't or we'd be spreading sickness there. I also have some rockstar friends who brought me caffeine and Pedialyte when Phil was on call (thank you Jessica and Kara) and the BEST pediatrician on the planet; I'll probably never be able to move away from this city because she's so great.

So here I am blogging during nap time so I can feel like I'm doing something a little bit normal.

I'm waving the white flag.
Spring, come on already.
Sickness, leave us alone, pretty please.
And disinfectant, laundry detergent, and modern medicine, thank you.
What did people do back in the day? I think about that a lot.

Three Things Thursday

*Disclaimer: I know it's not Thursday, but most of this was written on Thursday, so it counts. :)

Thing One: easy feta-veggie quiche

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This quiche is all kinds of awesome and perfect for those little bits of veggies you have left behind in your veggie drawer that aren't quite enough for anything. The great thing about this recipe is that you can change out whatever veggies you have on hand for the ones it calls for. I would recommend a deep dish pie crust and a little extra salt and pepper, but other than that, this recipe is delicious as is! Add some red peppers to all your greens and it's really pretty!

Thing Two: Nosefrida Snotsucker

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Y'all. This is going to sound like just about the grossest thing you've ever heard, but IT WORKS. Nothing gets baby/toddler (adult?) boogers out better. Straight from Sweden, land of neutrality and booger-sucking. I promise zero snot gets even close to your mouth, but even if it did, there's a spongey blocker, so it's all clean.  But yes, you actually suck snot out of your kid's nose by sucking in air through a tube. Totally gross. Totally works. I was a complete skeptic and now I want to buy one for all my mommy friends. Worth the money, and it's on Amazon Prime, so what's not to love?

Thing Three: Noodle is 3 months old!
She has my heart. You know that deep, wordless wonder? We have that, she and I. She's laid back, cuddly, patient, long-suffering (think: Moo gives her cars to play with all day long and sometimes throws her balls expecting her to catch them), lovely, expressive, and sensitive but has a voice. Here's her with her lovey, Hops:

WOAH my goodness.

It's like I've been running a 10-minute mile for the past two years, on fairly flat terrain. And now. Y'all, I'm out of shape. Now it's the same race, but someone just told me that I need to run it faster and do all kinds of crazy hills and I. Feel. Winded.

BUT. It's a good kind of winded. The pushing-yourself-beyond-what-you-think-you-can-do kind of good. The I'm-stronger-than-I-think kind of good. The this-is-so-very-worth-it kind of good.

That's what having two kids under two has been like for me. I've decided a few things in the last couple of weeks, the first being that I will probably write only in bullet points from here on out since that's about all I have time for, so here are a few thoughts from the first three weeks with two under two:

• Someone will need me 99% of the day. Someone will be crying 50% of the day. I will change an average of 15 diapers a day. I will average 5 hours of sleep a day...interrupted. It will all be fine. Really. God gives what we need for each moment, and it's enough.
• I either going to gain a bunch of weight from eating convenience food on the go all day, or lose a lot of weight because after feeding all the chicks, this mama bird might not have time to feed herself. Hopefully, it's neither of those scenarios, but you get the idea: time to eat is limited, distracted, and almost always coupled with at least one other task.
• Speaking of multi-tasking, it IS possible to nurse, feed a toddler, and feed yourself at the same time. Booyah.
• I've stopped washing my hair every day. Do the math: faster shower = more time to sleep. No-brainer. The old me would say that was gross, even though I know all the salon people out there say it's actually better for your hair to wash it less often. I liked the smell and feel of clean hair every day. But dry shampoo is awesome. And fast.
  
• Speaking of sleep, Noodle is actually a great sleeper, but she's still a newborn, so my sleep is clearly interrupted and brief. But I've started seeing all 24 hours of the day as viable time to sleep, which has made being up at weird times more bearable. Up from 1-2 a.m.? No problem. I can go to bed at 7:30 p.m. if I want to. My goal is to get at least 5 hours of sleep cumulatively in a 24-hour period. While it's not optimal sleep, it's what I've determined is functional for me. So far, I'm meeting my goal every day, and usually exceeding it a little.

On to the good stuff that doesn't need a bullet point: I LOVE MY KIDS. I love the plural of that word "kids." I love watching them together. I love that God has entrusted them to me and that we will know the goodbadugly about each other because we are family and that we'll still love each other anyway. 

A friend recently described her life with her three boys as "full," not busy, and I love that. My life is full. Full of life and challenges and joys and laughter and problem-solving and wiping tears and butts and planning and exhaustion and sheer over-the-moon amazement that this full, full life has been given to me. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm grateful. I can make all the funny/whiny comments I want about life with littles, but really I'm just thankful, and those other things are just the stuff of a full life.  

Moo brought Noodle a stick of her very own. :)