Rosie at 6 months

I can't believe we're already to 6 months! This is going so fast. I sometimes feel like I am still getting to know Rosie. Here are some new/updated points of interest in the life of Rosie:
- Rosie can roll! Front to back, back to front, either direction - she's a pro! When she's in the mood, I can put her down in the middle of the living room, come back in two minutes, and find her anywhere in the room from practically under the couch to under the desk to trying to slide across the tile to the kitchen.
- Rosie can sit! This isn't new but she's a pro at this too. She rarely falls backward anymore, and if she tips to either side, she just gets her arms out from under her and starts rolling, no fuss.
- Rosie loves to bounce. L.O.V.E.S. to bounce. She spends a decent chunk of her day in her bouncy seat in the kitchen so I can make or clean up our meals.
- Rosie talks! She's moved from just making noise to saying "Ma" (sometimes "Mama"!), "Ba," "Da," etc. She loves to chat it up, squeal and shriek, and generally hear herself "talk."
- Rosie loves being tickled, teased (peek-a-boo is a favorite), and sung to. She absolutely lights up when she sees someone she recognizes - I think we've got an extrovert on our hands. She also gets so happy and excited when someone smiles/makes faces at her that she just can't stand it, she has to squirm and laugh and look away. It's pretty cute.
- Rosie has gone back to waking up twice a night AGAIN after sleeping through the night (again). Ask me how I feel about that. Go on. I dare you.
- Rosie has almost settled on a 2-3 naps a day schedule that I can mostly plan on. She also puts herself to sleep like a champ. This makes me very happy.
- Rosie expresses displeasure by blowing out her lips (think of a "brrrrr" sound). She screams when she's really mad about something (which is infrequent), but just being generally bored or unhappy just produces that "brrrrr"ing sound. It's kind of funny.
- Rosie doesn't eat much sometimes because she gets so very distracted by, well, everything. She always makes up for it later but it can sure be annoying in the moment.
- Rosie is perfecting her swiping skills. Anything that comes within range gets swiped at and she succeeds in her goal at least 50% of the time (100% if you aren't paying attention).
- Rosie spends most of her days on the floor or in one of her bouncers/seats with at least one toy in her hands and/or mouth at any given moment. The rest of her time is spent napping (lovely) or being held, something I wish I could do a little more of. The hour or two when she's awake and Georgie's asleep is when we really get to play, read, and sing together. I wish I knew how to plan my time with two kids a little better so that they both get some good one-on-one time with me. Especially on the days when I have work deadlines, I sometimes get to the end of the day and feel like I didn't really even see them. Mothering is a constant exercise in balance, isn't it? Six months seems like it should be enough time to figure all this out, but no matter how much progress I make, there is still some learning and relearning and relearning again to do. Thank goodness for Rosie's smiles to make me feel like I'm doing something right!

And now for some picture cuteness:

Eat the sign!!! Must have something in my mouth!!!

Don't worry, she threw up all over this outfit four minutes later.

I get tired of going through four outfits a day so Rosie usually ends up hanging out in the pantry in just her diaper. Lucky girl.

Not a great photo but it just made me laugh: Rosie leaning on Georgie, chewing on a blanket, while Georgie holds her juice and blanket and gets mad that Rosie is in her space. Pretty typical scene, right there. Add a picture of Georgie begging me to put Rosie in the crib two minutes earlier and another of Georgie pushing Rosie over two minutes later and I'd say their relationship is summed up nicely.

Working with a God of miracles, part 2

NOTE: After writing that last post, I wanted to clarify that I know our situation is not unique. I know dozens of people who are or have been in similar situations with school and work and kids, and I don't want to make it sound like I think our situation is more dire than anyone else's. And we know that there isn't a fast pass - we just have to buckle down and take it a semester at a time and make it work, because that's what you do. But at least while we were in the planning stage, the "making it work" part was very stressfully up in the air, and we felt like it would be foolhardy and reckless to go ahead without being able to support ourselves and just hope for the best. 

So, picking up where I left off - Tim gave me the priesthood blessing on a Friday. That very next Tuesday, I got a phone call from an unknown number. I let it go to voice mail as I was about to put the girls down for naps. When I checked my messages later, I listened to a message from someone from an art company who said they were looking for some writing and editing help. He explained a little about who they were and what they needed, but as I listened, all I could think was, "Wait, what?" The company name wasn't familiar and I was racking my memory to see if this was one of the random Craigslist jobs I'd applied for recently. I had no idea who this was or how he had my information until at the end of message, he said, "I got your contact information from a Craigslist ad from a few years ago." Then it hit me. This was a job I vaguely remembered applying for four years ago, the last time I was job hunting. FOUR YEARS. I couldn't believe it. Four years ago, I applied for a job, never heard back, and then at the precise moment I needed it, they just called me up out of the blue to basically offer me a job. What the what???

I called him back. He asked if I was interested in some work. I tried to express my enthusiasm and availability without gushing. He cautioned that it wasn't on location, it would be part-time and all from home. I tried not to laugh or cry when I told him that was EXACTLY what I was looking for. He said he had a project that needed some immediate attention. I said I can start tomorrow. We set up a time for me to go into the office for an official "interview" (basically just to talk terms - he asked me what my rates were and I tried hard not to say "A million hundred dollars!") and the next day I started clocking work hours. Can you say miracle? I couldn't believe it. I still can't. It was just...wow. WOW. Wow. Talk about "knock and it shall be opened unto you." It felt like the door had opened before I'd even finished knocking!

Right around that same time, I got in touch with a friend that I go way back with but hadn't talked to since graduating from BYU. In addition to general catching up, she mentioned that she worked for a company that used freelance writers to produce educational materials and would I be interested? I said yes! It took a few weeks to get through the editing tests and sample assignments but as of now, I've already been paid for my first few assignments and have more coming. Can you say miracle? I couldn't believe the amazing timing - what a gift.

Sometime during all those weeks, I'd randomly seen an ad for an online proofreading/editing service site - Scribendi.com. I decided to see if they used contracted (freelance) editors and decided to apply, what the heck. Again, it took weeks (and a BEASTLY editing test) to hear back and I'd almost given up on them twice when I got the email: I was hired. I am still in the process of figuring out how to make this one work with my schedule and and I am still pretty intimidated by this job - it's a professional service so the standards are high and the requirements are many - but still. A third job. One that will provide me with a pretty steady stream of work when the other jobs are slow. Can you say miracle? Oh, and one of the best parts? The night before I got the "you're hired" email, I had finished all of the freelance work I'd been assigned so far and I told Tim, "We need to start praying that some more work comes up by next week." Or, you know, the next morning. MIRACLE.

My three jobs are just a few of all the blessings we've already seen on this journey. We still don't quite know how this is all going to work, especially as we get deeper into the semester and especially since we keep running into snags with Tim's schedule, but we know we are being taken care of. And in the meantime, I have work to do. Finding a way to fit it into my schedule on a regular basis is going to take some time and patience (and require a regular nap schedule *coughRosiecough*), but I am oh so very grateful for this opportunity. And I am incredibly humbled to see the hand of the Lord in my life, answering my prayers and giving me exactly what I need exactly when I need it.

We are working with a God of miracles. I don't know why this particular challenge is being filled with miracles while other challenges haven't (at least not in the same way). I don't know why we're seeing the Lord's hand so clearly and directly while other people in similar situations are not. I worry on an every-other-week basis that something harder is just around the corner and these blessings are the Lord's way of preparing us for it. And I am sure that at some point, the miracles are going to be less dramatic, more subtle, and only obvious over long periods of time. But maybe that's one of the miracles, too: right now, we get to see and appreciate the blessings as they come. Maybe this is preparing us for the future by giving us a sure footing on which to start the journey, so that when we're tired of worrying and our faith that things will work out has started to wear thin, we'll have something to fall back on. So in advance of those times, and for anyone else to needs to hear it:

We are working with a God of miracles.

Working with a God of miracles, part 1

Behind the bare bones facts of what we're up to (school, work, kids, life) is a story that is still developing, but I want to start sharing it. Sometimes I need to reread my own life story, especially the parts that shape my character, and this is one of those times in the making. So more for myself than anyone else, here's the scoop.

For the last couple of years, Tim has been taking just one or two classes each semester. This was partially for his sanity and partially out of necessity so he could work full-time. It was an okay system, but after needing to take every other semester off for one reason or another (baby! and baby again!), it meant that in 2 1/2 years at UVU, he'd completed barely more than a single full-time semester's worth of classes. No bueno.

At the same time, while Tim's enjoyed working at Novell, it's not a job that's going anywhere and it's not a career. He's been looking for a new job off and on for almost a year and the career-level, salaried jobs all require a completed degree, which is years and years away. Again, no bueno.

So back in May, Tim and I started talking about him taking more classes. We figured that if he took 3 classes per semester (9 credits), he could be done in 2 1/2 years. It would be hard to have him work full-time and keep up with 9 credits of computer science classes, and it would be a sacrifice for me to have him less available, but, we figured, it would be worth it in the long run.

Then in June, Tim found out that in order to keep his job as an intern at Novell, he needed to be going to school full-time, as in at least 12 credits per semester. Yikes. On the one hand, we were happy to have that extra push to get him through school even faster (only 2 years!). On the other hand, full-time school meant he'd have to work fewer than 40 hours per week to keep up with the homework. 

Cue the panic. Since losing my job in March, our finances have been stretched impossibly thin. Like, you know when you stretch a piece of chewed gum and holes appear in the middle, but it's still technically on strand of gum? Yeah, like that. We had holes in our monthly budget that we just couldn't cover without taking from savings, and after a few months, that was getting a bit thin too. So even without the school factor, it was clear that I needed to find work again.

I can't tell you how much anxiety this gave me. I really enjoyed not having to worry about work while we adjusted to having two kids - it made a tremendous difference in my postpartum experience (with Georgie, I tried to jump back into work way too quickly) and two kids gave me plenty to do as it was. But even if Tim found a higher-paying job, we needed a cushion for the month-to-month, and it just didn't make sense for me to not use my marketable skill set to help.

But here's the trick: I needed to be able to work from home. We couldn't afford any kind of daycare situation, plus, you know, I had a newborn, so it had to be something part-time that I could do during naps and at night. We started praying for the right opportunity to present itself and in July, I started looking. I checked KSL and Craigslist regularly, created a LinkedIn profile, got back on LDS Jobs, etc. etc. etc. It had been four years since I'd been job hunting and I felt completely out of shape, professionally speaking. I got super discouraged and/or overwhelmed every other day. (It didn't help that this was also the time of Rosie's worst sleeping stretch. Exhaustion = over emotional.)

I asked Tim for a priesthood blessing. He felt like he needed one, too, so first, he got a blessing from one of his brothers. It was amazing and perfect and addressed things in a more specific way than I'd even heard in a blessing before. We were blown away and came away feeling very known by the Lord. And the message we took from that experience was that Tim needed to focus on getting through school quickly, which was a nice bit of reassurance. A few days later, I was melting down again about everything (I'm a bad mom! I can't fit work into my life! I'm not qualified and I'll never find a job! The house is a mess! I'm failing, failing, failing!) and Tim was able to give me a blessing. 

I don't want to over share what was meant to be a personal, sacred experience, but I also want to be a witness of the Lord's hand in our lives. So. I will say that it was probably the most powerful blessing I've ever received. The only thing that compares is the blessing Tim gave me the night before Georgie was born in terms of the depth of the promises and the intensity of the spirit. Basically, this blessing was full of loving reassurance, specific directions and guidance, and the promise of miracles. As we talked about it later, Tim and I both felt that the Lord was taking us by the hands and saying, "Walk with me. This is going to be hard, but I'm going to strengthen you so you can bear your burdens. You will not only get through this, but come out of it better and stronger. Just trust me." We had been asking over and over to understand the "how": how are we going to support ourselves, how will we meet all our responsibilities, how will I find the right job, how will Tim manage to balance all his priorities, how will our family stay connected. And it felt very very difficult to move forward without being able to answer those "hows." But that blessing, more than anything else to that point, very firmly told us to stop trying to see the "how" and to just walk by faith through the darkness - "one step enough for me." And the best part is that it was such a clear and distinct reassurance that it wasn't hard to take a deep breath, square our shoulders, say "Okay," and mean it.

Stayed tuned for part 2...

Missing my dad

I have tennis elbow in my right arm. After six weeks of fairly consistent hurting, I finally went to a doctor to see what he thought and yup, tennis elbow. It doesn't hurt all the time, but the ache is always there. It gets painful when I fully extend or twist my arm and when I pick things up with that hand using mostly my forearm. It often catches me off-guard when I grasp a pillow and try to lift it, and find myself struggling to complete the task. It's frustrating, but there's not a whole lot to do about it except let it heal.

Next week marks ten months since my dad passed away, and tennis elbow feels like just the right metaphor for what my grief is like right now. It doesn't hurt all the time, but the ache is always there. It gets painful when I let my emotions fully extend or twist my memories and when something reminds me of my dad. The pain often catches me off-guard when I suddenly, achingly remember with my whole heart that he's gone, and then I find myself struggling to stop the tears all over again. Sometimes it's random; other times, predictable. And there's not a whole lot to do about it except be sad and let it heal a little at a time.

It's easy to bury the sad under layers of practicality - nap schedules, feeding times, packing a diaper bag, making a shopping list, budgeting money, finding time to work, sleepless nights, exhausted days, and doing it all over again, and again, and again. But under it all, I miss my dad pretty terribly.

This weekend we celebrated (commemorated? marked? recognized?) what would have been my parents' 29th anniversary and my dad's 55th birthday. I felt the weight of these dates all week long, on top of all the regular stress of everything. It's been a rough week, to say the least, and frankly, I am not ready to start another week yet. Grief is exhausting, even in a months-later, diluted-over-time form. As I think about the next few months, I anticipate more of these heavy weeks as we approach some weighty milestones and hard holidays. I keep thinking back to where we were a year ago, so blissfully unaware of what was just about to come. I am so very aware of life's fragility right now, which I believe can be a good thing if it prods us to be more open to the present, but currently I'm just terrified of all the "what ifs" of the future based on the heartache of the past. 

I'm starting to ramble, but I needed to say that losing someone hurts, even ten months later. Because it's not just ten months of moving forward; it's also ten months of moments that you would have spent together, the conversations over dinner, the laughter, the tears, the reassurance, the encouragement, the love. And this weekend, it was the anniversary and the birthday celebrated without my dad. It's hard and exhausting, and sometimes overwhelmingly sad. And then it all becomes part of the normal again, and you keep going, until something reminds you that you are aching inside.

I miss you, Dad. So much. 

Life lately - all the haps'

See, the problem is I am busy with a lot of things, so I don't blog. But then I realize that I am not keeping up with all the changes in our lives and I really need to write them down somewhere. So then I write these huge long blog posts that no one but me needs to read, and then I try to condense it all down, and then I never post it. So. In an effort to avoid the vortex of doom I work myself into, here's a start.

August was CRAZY. It felt like we were going going gone all month long. It was our last month before Tim started up with school again, so I/we wanted to pack in as much fun as possible. We did a bunch of fun family things like going to the Bean Museum (Georgie LOVES the "a-mals"), going to the aquarium with my family (Georgie loves fishies), going to the Springville splash pad one last time (Georgie loves the water), and going to the MOA to see the movie costumes exhibit (I completely swooned over the clothes; Georgie tolerated it). We also started the month off with a two-day Herrick family vacation (no naps for two days=torture for babies and mamas), and then sadly ended the month with the passing of Tim's Grammy and a trip to California (for Tim) for the funeral. Plus we squeezed in my 28th birthday, a girls' night, a date night for Tim and me before school started, our niece's birthday party, and my cousin Jacob's wedding. Oh, and the girls and I got super sick the week before school started. Whew! We were racing summer to its finish.

And then school started on the 25th, and we haven't seen Tim since. I kid, I kid...but seriously. School and that whole situation gets its own post but suffice it to say that he is working (probably down to 20 hours a week once the homework ramps up) and taking 5 classes (15 credits) this semester, all in the evenings, so our face time with him is pretty much limited to weekends. Twice a week he comes home in time for bedtime and twice a week he misses bedtime altogether, and he is generally gone all the day so...yeah...we don't see much of him during the week. But this is just how it goes, right? At least we have the weekends at all?

[On a related note, I've been racking my brain to come up with activities Georgie and I can do together and activities Georgie can do on her own that will keep her entertained while I make dinner. I'd love any feedback or suggestions - I have some ideas but I don't think there's such a thing as too many at this point! So far we have a day where I do a lot of music-related stuff (we pull out my keyboard, turn on music and dance, sing songs, etc.) and a day for artsy stuff (coloring with markers and paint in addition to the usual crayons and pencils), but I still need things she can do that don't require constant monitoring on my part.]

In all my "spare" time, I am working a little. I recently acquired three freelance writing/editing jobs , and though they are all extremely part-time , it's really nice (and also necessary) to be bringing in a little money again. The story of getting those jobs is actually part of the other post, but it's been a huge blessing while keeping me very busy.

And then all day, every day, are my girls. Georgie is almost 2 and talking. She amazes me every other day with what she is internalizing, remembering, noticing, and expressing. She also uses her resourcefulness to take all the patience I am able muster on a daily basis and do a Mexican hat dance on it. So, in other words, she's almost 2. I just wrote about Rosie but she's just wonderfully happy and growing and hitting milestones left and right. I forgot how much fun 5 months old can be!

And now for the photo dump in no particular order:

Finally got a picture of both them looking at the camera AND smiling! It's a dream come true for me!

From our Herrick Family Vacation - Tim's mom with all the cousins (except Baby Charlotte who was born three weeks later).

Georgie at the aquarium

The aquarium completely wore her out. She doesn't normally sleep in the car but it happened three or four times this month with all the busyness we packed in.

Splash pad time!

Even Rosie enjoyed getting in the water (for the most part).

At our girls' night, we finally got a picture of our three babes, all born within six weeks of each other.

My cousin Anna, who was in town for her brother Jacob's wedding. I miss her! I am crossing my fingers she and her husband get to move to Utah once he's done with med school next year.