Forgive me, my emotions are going crazy today. So this may not be the most cohesive post you’ve ever read.
First of all, my baby is transitioning to a toddler. He didn’t make a slow transition, more like a quick “OMG, I’m a year old, I’M A TODDLER” leap. Today is the second day in a row that he’s put himself to sleep for his nap. Yesterday I went in just as he was falling asleep and the floor creaking woke him up, but today he put himself all the way to sleep all by himself. Any mother should be thrilled, right? I should be dancing for joy that he put himself to sleep with no fuss, no problems, just went from playing in his crib to passed out in five minutes. But instead I’m sitting here considering taking him out and rocking him just because I want to. I LOVE rocking babies. This is not limited to Mitchell. Rocking babies is just about the best thing in the entire world. When I worked in the daycare, I used to love rocking babies, especially at the end of the day when I usually only had one little girl left and she and I would just rock until her dad came to pick her up. But Mitchell seems to think he’s beyond rocking.
He had a fever Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a cold, but it was enough to make him a very angry baby. Friday night I almost took him to the ER because he screamed anytime he moved. I thought for sure he had an ear infection. Saturday he was grumpy when we met Grandma for her birthday, but then cheered up when he got to run around and play with the rockers. He was just not the happiest baby Sunday through Tuesday, and I was freaking out a bit, thinking my super cheery baby decided that the toddler stage was the grumpy stage, but luckily yesterday he snapped out of it and he’s happy again.
He may be happy, but I’m a basket of emotions. My parents divorced when I was really little, so it’s really no big deal (you can’t miss what you never had, right?). The result was that I had two childhood homes. My dad has lived in the same house since I was born. It’s definitely home. My mom moved to the house she and my step-dad built when I was six. So almost all of my childhood memories are wrapped up in these two places. Well, my mom’s house was sold and will be finalized at the end of the month. This has been MUCH more difficult for me than I ever believed it would be. I just can’t explain it. I’m a very sentimental person and tend to hoard anything that has a memory attached to it, so losing my childhood home is like losing my childhood. To make matters worse, nobody is living there right now, so when I went home to see it, it looked abandoned.
So, if you don’t want to see pictures that probably don’t mean anything to you, skip to the end. Adorable pictures of a baby toddler will be awaiting you.
This is it. The old house. One time, some Mormons came to our house and Tom the Turkey trapped them on this front porch. For the record, I was just as scared of that bird as they were. You didn’t approach Tom without some sort of weapon, usually a baseball bat we kept by the door just for that purpose.
- These are/used to be our chicken coops. For some reason, one of my most useful skills as a child was catching chickens. Only now am I thinking twice about catching all those chickens, just to butcher them.
This is where the burn pile used to be. I have way too many memories associated with that burn pile. Let’s just say there’s a bit of a pyromaniac side to me.
There used to be hedges in the corner of our yard. I trimmed out the middle of them and used it as my hide-from-life place. I even had a swing in there.
This used to be a giant swing set, complete with slide. The slide was bolted to the top by three bolts, one of which was conveniently located directly in the middle of the slide, so every swimsuit I or my sisters ever owned had a nice long rip right in the butt.
Baby and daddy, waiting for mommy to quit being ridiculous and trying to photograph all her memories.
This used to be a cow or pig pen, depending on the year. One time, a pig got out and I decided that the most logical way to get it back in the pen was to rope it and drag it back. Except that it was a giant pig and I was probably about 80 pounds at that point (ah, high school). I got it roped, then it took off running, dragging me along behind for what felt like ten minutes but was probably a few seconds.
This is the path into the tree line behind our house. I’m not surprised in the slightest that this path is still worn down, as it was traveled multiple times per day by all us girls for many, many years.
This is a giant tree in the tree line behind our house. I climbed it. Many times. Even though I was explicitly told not to climb trees. Many times.
The field behind our house.
There used to be a row of hay bails on the other side of the tree line behind our house. Did you know there are approximately 5831485629 games you can play on hay bails? And we played all of them. Thank goodness I never had hay fever back then. There were usually two rows, so we would play house and each person got a set of bails as their house. Or we would play human ping pong against the side of a bail that was, for some reason, always set apart from the others. It’s like they wanted us to jump off the bails against its side.
More field.
- A hedge apple. My sisters and I used to play dodge ball with them. Seriously.
Brooke got my room in the basement when I moved out, so we repainted it and decided the closet needed some graffiti.
Brooke’s freshman Spanish class project. I think it was her freshman year, anyway. Not the point. The point is, it says, “Miranda es muy baja.” 🙂
The storage room. The shelves used to be filled with boxes, and my sisters and I would climb up and hide behind them or hide behind them on the floor. In the event of burglars, my plan was always to hide myself and my sisters among the boxes until the burglars left, so I considered playing hide and seek to be practice for us.
This is the very top of the closet in my first room, before I got moved to the basement. I used to climb the shelves and then curl up in the very top. Sometimes I would read a book, sometimes I would just lay there. I would always get mad when the bulb got too hot and I had to climb all the way back down to turn it off. For some reason, I always loved hiding or just hanging out in closets.
This is a tough one. Kelsey’s bulletin board.
You still with me? Goodness gracious, why? Well, as your reward, cute baby:
The Magnificent Ms 