I'm home! I'm home! I'm home!

So, John was so very proud of all the new tricks that Emmy learned while I was gone. This one happened to be one of his favorites. She likes to now crawl up the back of the couch and watch the dogs in the back yard. She will wave at them through the window. It's quite comical. In the video, when she is standing, that is not on the seat part of the couch but rather on the back of the couch. Tonight we are going to start practicing the "bottoms down" method of sitting properly on furniture but it was really cute.

I knew that she didn't wear anything but a diaper from the time she woke up Sunday morning until I got home last night. And the only reason for that is we had to go get something for dinner and I couldn't just put her in the car seat in a diaper. She got a little fussy about 8 and John looks at me with every ounce of sincerity in his body and says, "do you think it's the clothes that are bothering her?" I am absolutely sure that it was exactly that.

I'm gone

I am packing up and on my way out the door for my trip. Please keep me in your thoughts while I am gone. I know that John is a fantastic father and will do a wonderful job taking care of Emmy while I am gone but I still worry. He should have a mother or a mother in law to call while I am gone!! But he doesn't and I have to go. Fingers crossed that I can keep my mind on what I need to accomplish while I am working and that I won't be too distracted to be able to contribute.

Guilt

I can't imagine all the things that I will have guilt over during Emmy's life. Right now, I feel guilty that I have lead her to the Hogs. I know the heartbreak and torture that comes with being a Razorback fan and I hate that I have done this to her already in her short life.

I will be leaving Sunday to attend my company’s strategic planning session. We have been going for the last few years to a resort outside of Hot Springs, Mountain Harbor. It’s a fabulous place but we really put in long hours so we don’t get the chance to take advantage of the neat amenities. But, it’s really a lovely view as we sit at our table working until 10pm. This will be my first time away from Emmy overnight and of course, I am nervous. John is going to take off work next week since he has to be at work at 7am and getting her to the sitter would have been a nightmare. I was afraid to make too many changes to her routine and throw her off kilter since I am sure she will be a little out of sorts not seeing me. But, maybe not, she might thrive in her new set up. Who knows???

I got this little dress for her before she even arrived and she wore it this week finally. CEO stands for Chief Executive Offspring. Ha, ha. I got Lucas a blue hat with the same logo thinking we would have a great picture of them together—we’ve yet to do that of course. So, picture the ottoman as a lectern and can’t you just see her leading her own strategic planning session one day?

Cooper Young Festival

Every year, our historic district has a festival that brings thousands of people into our tiny neighborhood. On Friday night, there is four mile race that winds through all the streets. We always put out the eight foot inflatable Razorback and sit out front and cheer for the runners.
This year, Daddy and Linda came to the festival with us and Emmy was just precious. All day, people pointed and talked about the adorable baby we had.
Todd and Beth brought David to the festival too. He and Emmy had the same due date but he actually showed up on time.
We ran into my cousin Harrison there. Harrison's grandmother is my Aunt Ruby, Grandma Ruth's sister.
And then the girl was exhausted.

MiMi

People often ask me if I feel comfortable with the person keeping Emmy during the day when we work. I cannot say it more emphatically that I totally trust Missy and I have not ever felt the need to call during the middle of the day just to check on her. (Unless she is sick.) I know that Missy is taking great care of her and if she needs me, she will call. Besides, if I started that calling junk, I would not stop. I know me.

And then, there's this: She's a Razorback fan. How could I not feel good about leaving her somewhere that has a playroom with these two framed prints... the '94 championship team and the Southwestern Conference family portrait???

Of course, Emmy has on Razorback stuff for today so here she and MiMi are in their pink razorback gear.

Seven months old

How quickly seven months have slipped by us. Emmy is a crawling machine now and is already pulling up to standing. She can't stand on her own yet of course but she pulls up and moves her feet like she is ready to take off walking. Every day is just amazing. That smile. That smile makes all the crummy things seem just a little better. Almost like she is laughing at the crummy stuff with me. Then I have to wonder what is crummy to begin with anyway.


Tonight we went to visit Sol again before he went home to Wynne. He, of course, was just precious and Emmy was pretty excited to see him. Here she is flapping her arms with joy!

Tara and Lucas went with us to visit Sol, Neall and Becca. They are doing wonderfully and we are so happy to have Sol!

Then we went to eat at Moe's. Lucas and Emmy had fun and sat like little puppies begging for food from AunTee. By the time we got home, she was pretty thrilled to see Dadoo so that she could curl up and conk out. It's been a pretty fabulous seven months.

And then there was Sol

Solomon Clark

8 pounds 9 ounces

20 inches

September 12, 2007

We sure do wait around here a lot

As the days got closer to Emmy’s arrival, I envisioned myself sitting in my hospital bed with a little sleeping angel writing a post about how seeing her only made me love my mom that much more. I was going to go into all this detail about how the love for her just swept over me and my life was instantly changed forever and how that I now understood that pained look in your eyes when you realized you were going to die. It was a look of just sadness. The night before we went to the hospital for your surgery, you cried, “but what about my grandbabies?” and I told you that you would meet them, that it was going to be okay. Well, the hospital didn’t have wireless internet and the little angel didn’t sleep much so the post didn’t get written. I didn’t have that feeling of just instant motherhood that flooded into every ounce of my being and pushing me into this great new direction of life. I felt remarkably like I did the day before but there was this really, really, really beautiful baby and I was amazed that she was mine. The first few weeks, maybe even months, I worried that it would never kick in like it should. I had read that some women didn’t get the automatic motherhood feeling and bond, after all, this is a lifetime relationship you are going to have with this person and it may take a while to really form. I tried not to worry but I got scared when I saw my husband go from this wild and crazy dude into the most amazing father. He had it. I saw it the day we were in the hospital with her, he had it and he loved her so much that it scared him. I could see that on his face every time he looked at her or talked about her. One day I woke up and it was there though. I don’t think it was an all of sudden revelation I had about her, but more like a gradual effect. And now I literally ache to hold her sometimes.

And today we wait again and I wonder what I am going to think when I see my precious nephew, Solomon. I think of how I am going to see so much of you in him and hope that I can help him know you in his own very special way. The excitement and joy of knowing that sweet Sol is on the way (today! whether he likes it or not!) makes me think of you even more than usual.

I know that I wasn’t lying to you when I said that you would meet your grandbabies; I know that you played with each of them and got them ready to come to Neall and I. You told Sol and Emmy all about us and what to do to endear us to them from the beginning. You told them both how Neall does that quirky little thing to his ear and taught them how to do it too. Emmy does it when she is sitting and Sol did it in his ultrasound video. You just had to play with them for just a while before they got to meet us and we can’t wait to meet Solomon today. And the look in your eyes... Well, that look is engrained in my memory forever and now I understand that it was a pain that you won't see these things, a fear that we won't love you, a worry that we won't be okay and to all of them... you are here, we love you and we are wonderful.

Fun Saturday night

I finally managed to rent a steam cleaner to take care of our living and dining rooms carpet. It was quite embaresing to see what all came up! I did the dining room first and finally got started on the living room around 8pm. Then the power went out. Until 3am. We sat on the front porch for a while and then finally conked out on the living room floor. It is hard enough feeling your way around a dark house but then all of our furniture was piled up in the dining room! Somehow I managed to get the Pack-n-Play out and onto the porch. Fun stuff!

Rub a dub dub

Emmy hates taking a bath--just hates it. Last night, I decided to try her in the bath seat in our bathtub instead of her bathtub and while she didn't love it, she didn't scream for the entire time either. It was almost... relaxing! Then, after she fell asleep we put her into her bed, where she slept all night! She did wake up once but by the time I got in there, she was already back to sleep. I ended up staying awake for another hour or so, I guess I am so used to my sleeping intervals that I don't know what to do with myself.

Elmo and the girl

The video isn't the best ever, but you can see that she gets a little excited with Elmo.

The lake

A coworker of John's invited us down to his family house on Moon Lake for the holiday weekend. We went on Saturday and spent the night and had a great time.

Here Emmy says, "you guys stay here, I am going to find a TV to watch the replays of the Appalachian State and Michigan game".

This Old House

I often say that we cannot move from Memphis unless we move our house with us. I know that could imply that I have a lot of stuff, which I do, but mainly it's just that we love our house so much. It has a basement! A full basement! With lots of stuff in it! I sometimes think that when our house was built, a young Moses was frolicking around the neighborhood. So, when they put the tile in the kitchen, Moses was about to enter high school. So, they just went ahead and put in that same tile that is in every high school cafeteria in America. I am sure it is great tile if you have a janitor with a buffer that comes by once a week but in a kitchen, not so great.

I have bought stripper and worked on this floor, I have scrubbed on my hands and knees with a Brillo pad, but it always still looks dirty. I want to put ceramic tile down, but then there is the stove and the cabinets are built around the stove. So, when it goes out, which with my luck, should happen next week, I will have to totally remodel the kitchen anyway so there is no point putting ceramic tile down now only to have to get it up later. Because I cannot deal with that floor anymore (seriously, when everyone was here for Daddy's birthday, I just shut the kitchen door and said it was off limits), I went the peel 'em and stick 'em route. I have tried this before and it looked awful but Tara did it in her kitchen and it looks great. So, we I got the exact same tile and we I put it down starting Saturday. The key is to buy the most expensive one and to get the darkest color out there. I might never mop again as this floor is looking fabulous. Emmy was very helpful.

First, I took all the stuff off the floor in the pantry and in the midst of this, was when I screamed, "get in the car, we are going to Home Depot!" and started the project. After I finished, I realized that I could not put all that stuff back in the pantry so I decided to just clean it out. I woke up around 330 Friday morning not able to go back to sleep so I figured that was a great time to start. Among the random things I found in the pantry so far:

4 crock pots. Four. I don't cook but I make a mean Rotel.

A sickle, yes a sickle (it was here when we bought the house, honest!), a sledgehammer, and a key to turn off the water at the meter. A box of grout, two orange extensions cords and a drill that John swears I never gave him.

A tub of soap. And a ziplock bag of guitar picks. This is when I thought it would be brilliant to make little soaps with guitar picks inside them for all of our friends for Christmas a few years ago. Who doesn't just put that stuff in the pantry???

Rock salt, lots of rock salt. And about ten packages of ice cream mix. Sunday we made strawberry ice cream and a gallon of vanilla.And now the pantry is neat and amazingly, there is food in there. Who would have thought???

Some light weekend reading

Here we go with step one of studying for the CPA Exam.

Bonding

Emmy and Rudy had a long talk last night. It almost looks like they were discussing how dirty our carpet is.

What a cute little boy!

This morning, Emmy and I had to run in Wal-Mart to get formula for Missy's. I figured now was the perfect time to try her out sitting in the shopping cart instead of putting her infant car seat in the buggy. She seemed to love it but she did hold on tightly the whole time just in case. When we left, this woman walked by and said, "oh what a pretty little boy!" Boy! Boy! This is exactly why the girl wears nothing but pink; I test the waters in blue one time and this is what we get.

Beware... they are mobile

Emmy is officially crawling and Lucas is trying to stand. Heaven help the Taras.

The Girls

Gabby has always been so very special to me and I hope she will forever let me be a part of her life. I always tell her about how we went out to eat when she was only a week old and I am sure she rolls her eyes at me now that she is so grown up and entering the 3rd grade. But, seeing her grow up has just blown me away. Last night, Emmy and I stopped by and the girls (with Gabby's sister Grace) played but little brother Coen was a little under the weather. Gabby looks at me and says, "Ms. Tara, I just can't believe you are a MOM". Yeah, me either kiddo.

Beating the Heat

Poor Tiny Tot had her shots yesterday and today her babysitter called to let me know the girl had fever. I called the doctor's office and they said if the fever stayed below 104 to not worry. 104! 104!!! If it goes to 104, we are going straight to the ER. So, the girl is stripped down and has a cool, wet cloth on her head trying to get her fever down from the 102 degrees where it was earlier today. I really, really miss Momma on days like this. I need her on days like this...