Charlotte

Birds

IMG_9999Okay, I’m always trying to make some kind of special moment with the kids. Before I became a parent, I was the best parent. Like, I was AWESOME. My kids never talked back. They went to sleep promptly at their bedtime. We played educational games. We never watched TV. And, we only ever ate the healthiest of food.

Imaginary kids are so easy.

Now that we all see where I’m headed with this post, I shall give you the latest and greatest of my “precious moments” parenting….

Apparently this is like bird birthing season because we have two nests at our house right now and I see another at the neighbors. Well, the one in the backyard was conveniently built on top of the fireplace exhaust (is that even what it’s called? BEATS ME. I’m from Florida). But, whatever it is, it gets hot when the fireplace is on. So, to avoid accidental scrambled eggs, we’ve been diligent to make sure that loose-hands-Charlotte isn’t allowed near the fireplace switch.
OKAY, TRUTH POLICE! Charlotte flipped the switch on once. But, John {believes} he caught it pretty quick.

Each time we’ve gone in the backyard, we check on the nest. It has been my “I’m rocking this parenting thing. I’m all, check out this nature. Check out life. Let’s observe and learn and cherish this together“.

Why do I think these things?

The girls have been super into it. {okay, okay, other than the very initial discovery and we tried to lift Ella up to look at the nest and she screamed as those we were lifting her up into her demise}.

IMG_0094Several days ago, the eggs hatched. We’ve loved checking on them every day and seeing their little balls of fluff hanging out in their nest. Then, it happened…

So, the girls asked to play in the backyard. Since Jed has been born, they’ve gone out to play in our fenced in backyard on their own. I open the window and they can come in and out the door {okay, okay, not a million times and I may say things like “IN. or. OUT.?!”}. But, it’s been a good little set up lately while I nurse Jed or get dinner ready. So, I’m nursing Jed and looking out the windows at them while they play. Ella whizzes by and swings the door open…
{panting heavily} “MOM!! The bird was flying and walking and hopping and…. The bird fell. We hit the bird”

WHAT?!

I immediately stop feeding Jed (yeah, he was thrilled). I lay him on the ground (again, thrilled) and go running outside. At this point, Charlotte runs up. I ask them to take me to the bird. Way on the other end of the yard, I approach a bird on the ground with its wings flailed out and…

UNDERNEATH A TENNIS RACKET

Like a little bird prison. I immediately yell tell Charlotte to remove the tennis racket. I notice the bird is still breathing just fine and just staring around. I start frantically answering for the story.

IMG_0153I start to surmise that the bird was minding its own business, fell, and Charlotte put it in bird prison. I then begin to grasp that the bird prison was an effort to catch the bird and they began to say they wanted to hold it.
Well, I’m panicking now.

HAVE WE PARALYZED THIS BIRD?!

What is my logical next step? Call John. You know, because he’s totally sympathetic to the needs of me and this bird.
His responses were things like:

“Ohmygosh, first thing is to have the kids wash their hands so they don’t get bird germs.”

“It’s just a bird. If it dies, it dies”

Next thing I know, I’m screaming talking at the girls to go inside and wash their hands (because of bird germs?). And, don’t touch Jed. Then, I kept John on the phone while I knelt down by the bird to try and figure out how I can scoop it up to get it back in the nest.

I get down next to it and start to whisper sweet nothings while trying to gather my nerve. Turns out, the bird was a liar and wanted nothing to do with our family moments anymore. Guys, that bird done hopped up and flew away while squawking for backup. Next thing I know, birds are squawking from trees and everyone has been alerted to kill me. The second that bird jumped up I screamed the name of Jesus twice. Cue John bursting out laughing

“Are you screaming for Jesus to help you with the bird??”

Uhhhhh, YES, I am. It is telling its Mama bird to come peck my eyes out.

I realized that it was one of the baby birds and it was obviously just now learning to fly. Just the day before, the birds were in the nest and now all of them were out of the nest. I realized that the girls had nothing to do with the bird falling. They were trying to use the tennis racket to hold the bird and analyze it closer. They were somehow gentle with the racket and no injury to the bird. But, I mean, here’s the deal, if something insane (rather than precious) is gonna go down, it’s gonna go down with us.

Excuse me, I’ve gotta go see if it’s time to put the front porch birds into bird prison yet…

{Linking up with A Little R&R Wednesdays!}

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Gummy Crisis

You know those days when you wake up and you’re all “I’VE GOT THIS”? I woke up that way last Tuesday. I had grand plans of finally cleaning the messy house, doing laundry, and organizing old clothes to sell at the upcoming consignment sale.

Ever since Jed joined the scene, we’re a little bit of a circus in the mornings. I’ve come to realize that sitcoms showing a family as being a circus aren’t over-exaggerating. So, after throwing some breakfast at Ella and hurriedly getting her dressed, it was time for her to rush out the door with Daddy for school. As she walked out, I grabbed the container of gummy vitamins and threw one at her because, well, school germs. (She later told me she put the gummy in her pocket and waited to eat it at school to show everyone her vitamin. We’re special.) After throwing a vitamin at her, I threw one at Charlotte because, well, germs.

Next, Ella was at preschool. John was at work. Jed was napping. Charlotte ate breakfast and was glued to an episode of Sofia the First. I had my coffee and was ready to do. this. thang.

Up first, getting the consignment sale clothes. My plan was a super quick trip upstairs to grab the stuff to organize and back down. Once I got up there, I realized the laundry basket I was going to use was full of clean, folded clothes that I never put away. Oops.

Well, Charlotte is quiet downstairs watching TV, I can put it away real quick…

I put the clean clothes away and then grabbed the consignment sale clothes. As I was walking down the stairs, I noticed how quiet it was in my house.

Lookie here, I am going to get all of my list down today! It’s not even 9:00am and I am owning this day!

Guys, if you have a Charlotte, NEVER THINK THESE THINGS. Instead (as I thought I had already learned by now) you need to be thinking:

HIGH ALERT: whhhhy is it quiet?! I should investigate immediately!

So, I mosey into the living room with my laundry basket full of old clothes and Charlotte is no longer glued to the TV. I first run to the kitchen because she likes to steal harmless things like an apple from the fridge. Nope, no apples.

Cue Charlotte on the kitchen floor with the brand new container of gummy vitamins and she’s chomping away like she’s hit the 3 year old jackpot. I yank the container away and start screaming. Not at her, but, at the air. The air around the house wanted to hear me screaming.

I start pacing the house screaming at the air.

“OH. MY. GOSH.!!! What do I do?!? OH. MY. GOSH.!!!”

Somehow there weren’t cuss words flying out of mouth. I can only assume the Holy Spirit took over.

So, instead of analyzing the victim, I’m pacing the house. Screaming. And, holding the gummy container in one hand and my phone in the other. Charlotte is now crying. Not because she was hurting in any way. But, let’s face it, she was probably convinced her mother has officially gone off the deep end. It couldn’t have possibly been all of the screaming at the air.

So, guys, I just stared at my phone. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain was, “Call poison control”. But, when you are running around screaming, it’s hard to form the thought coherently to actually know what to do with your phone. I did what any logical person would do, call their spouse and ask what to do.

First call: straight to voicemail.
My response? More screaming. Because that’s an effective solution.

Second call: ringing and ringing. Which, leads to me screaming things like,
“PICK UP THE PHONE!” Because, again, helpful.

He picks up. I scream/blurt something about Charlotte eating half of the container of gummy vitamins and I have no clue what to do. He seemed a little taken off guard because how do you respond when your wife is hysterically yelling in the phone and the three year old is crying her eyes out in the background?

I mutter something about poison control (bingo! I remembered the name!) and John proceeds to try and search the number on his phone with me on the line. His phone started acting up and he starts mumbling about it not working right.

Um, you guys, he might as well have screamed something about it being impossible to help me. Because, next, I yelled,

“Well, you’re not helping!! I’ve gotta go figure this out!!!”

*click*

Oh my gosh, I yelled and hung up on my husband. For all that is good and holy, I didn’t. even. remember. I did that until later that afternoon. Thank the good Lord that he’s still willing to be married to me.

So, after hanging up on my husband, I finally have the sense to Google “poison control”. Guys, I know what you’re thinking… It was such a hard task, but I did it. No need to applaud my deeply difficult and heroic move.

I dial the number. And, by dial the number, I mean just press my finger to the first Google search result. I know, you’re impressed by all of my hard work. It’s okay. There will come a day when, just maybe, your skills can outrank mine.

As the phone rings, I finally sit down and ask Charlotte to sit in my lap. She’s gone down now to a whimper type of cry. As she sits in my lap, I’ve now reached the next level in my crazy, the tears. I sit there crying, instead of screaming, and think of what a loser I am for leaving the gummies out. Now the call is answered and I’m trying to speak coherently to a stranger.

He asked me a few questions, which included
“How many did she eat?”

About that…

“Well, this package is 180 and it was new. About half is gone….” I said while imagining him flipping through his rolodex for Child Protective Services.

“90?”

Even the sweet poison control guy had “what in the world?! 90 gummy vitamins?!” twinge to his voice. Yeah, well, go big or go home in this family…

After a few calculations, he came back on to say that she would have to eat 218 of these vitamins to reach the low level of toxicity. And, since Charlotte only ate 90, she should be fine. I had to hold my laughter. As soon as I hung up, I started laughing.

Let’s do a quick recap of all the emotions… accomplishment, terror, screaming, anger, crying, and then LAUGHTER. Oh my word. Out of control. In case you’re keeping track of my to-do list for that day, ain’t none of it got done. I might as well have run a marathon in those 5-10 minutes of the gummy saga. And, just for good measure, I didn’t get to any of that list for days.

So, folks, for those of us that leave gummy vitamins open and on the counter, those that accidentally leave the baby gate open and the 17mo old falls down a flight of stairs, those that forget to hide the magical Christmas elf when you told the kids that it flew back to the North Pole weeks ago, those that tell their 4 year old they’re never going to eat lunch again because they stole cheese from the fridge for the 50th time, and those that have done one billion other things wrong…

This is FOR US!!

We may not be winning at this whole parenthood thing, but we sure are having a laugh while surviving it!

Ella Update and Baby Update!!

Two rather fun milestones shared a day today!! First, is that sweet baby Ella is ELEVEN months old today! Bahhh! One more month until the big one year…so excited! And, the second fun thing of today is that we got to hear baby’s heartbeat for the first time…yay!

Ella Tidbits:

–We really think she gets sweeter every day! She still has her fiery/strong-willed streak in her, but she has calmed down a whooole lot the last few months. She giggles and smiles and gives kisses now. I just love that little laugh!

–She is loving her some finger foods! Anything soft, mushy, and dairy-free will be eaten up in a snap! We’ve actually had to resort back to breaking up her puffs and making even smaller pieces of food than before. Girlfriend likes her food and thinks it’s a challenge to shove as much food in her mouth at once as possible. Therefore, after she choked and changed color a couple of times, I decided I would much rather break everything into the smallest pieces for the rest of her life than be a freakazoid that she’s going to choke. She has since started to slow down a bit, so maybe we’ll try whole puffs and bigger pieces again…maybe :o)

–No crawling! But, for the first time in her life, she is actually seeming like she might be interested. She’s been putting herself on her tummy a lot lately (which has NEVER happened before). She’s pumping and sometimes seems like she’s about to crawl. But, then she either stops or rolls over, haha. But, regardless, she’s been getting around by scooting on her bottom which is hi-lar-i-ous. I’ve always thought she’d skip crawling altogether, but she may just give it a go!

–She’s still rather hairless. But, her hair is definitely still dark and her eyes are most definitely bright blue. She also has a little curl to her hair during bathtime. Of course, that makes me so happy!

–Little Miss talks and talks and talks. I really think she believes she is talking in full sentences and telling us stories. She will babble on and on and on. Her most frequent words are: dada, mama, and baba (maybe for the baby brother or sister she will have in February?! Can I get a what, what??)

–Still taking 2 naps a day (thank you, Jesus! Sickly mama needs her morning nap still, hehe). And, sleeps 11-12hours a night. She’s a great sleeper and still loves her crib. We don’t take it granted for a second!

–She is SO girly. Her noises, her squeals, her tone, the way she crosses her legs, the way she holds her hands, etc. She is just the girliest baby I have ever met! You take the pink away from her, and the hairbows and simply by her voice and mannerisms, you would KNOW she’s a girl. And, can I tell you something? I totally love it!!

Now for some Baby Phillips tidbits:

–This pregnancy has been completely different than my one with Ella. The biggest difference being my sickness level. This first trimester has been what I would assume most women mean to be “bad morning sickness”. I throw up, I’ve lost 2 pounds, smells make me cringe, and all around just feel nauseous 24/7. I have begun to realize that my sickness level with Ella was just flatout not normal. The doctor’s weren’t kidding, I really did have hyperemesis and it was terrible. With her, I had already lost 10 pounds at this point, not two! With her, I couldn’t get food, drink or stomach bile to stay down. Already I am feeling the sickness escape me (not 100%, but definitely getting there!) and with her, I was able to at least function again around 18 weeks. But, I was sick the entire. time. with her! I was very nervous about being sick for another 9 months, since I just went through that. But, it looks like the Lord may just spare me from that this time around!

–With Ella I was definitely a salt craver, but this time around, I don’t seem to be biased toward either, haha! Time will tell which taste I crave more (especially since I am slowly getting to the point where I can eat again!)

–Today we heard the heartbeat for the first time and it was more difficult on me than I anticipated. If you remember, that’s how we discovered we had lost our first baby. Since I didn’t know what to expect that first time around, it didn’t seem a big deal to me that the doctor kept looking and looking and couldn’t find it. Then, couldn’t on the portable ultrasound and ultimately nothing on the big ultrasound. I didn’t think anything bad was going on until that big ultrasound (because our first ultrasound was just fine). There have been a lot of similarities of this pregnancy with our first baby and that’s been hard on me. Then, today came and the doctor had to search for our precious baby’s heartbeat. The look on the doctor’s face wasn’t very reassuring. I felt my whole body go weak and my brain hit overdrive. With the first baby, I had begun feeling much better but just assumed it was because the first trimester was ending. I have also thought the same thing this time around. So, when it took a minute to find the heartbeat, I was immediately back on the table, in my old doctor’s office, in Orlando. But, this time, I wasn’t naive and thinking everything was fine. Rather, this time, my mind ran right to the worst place in a split second. But, thankfully, he did find the heartbeat and everything was perfect. Nice and strong at 158 bpm.

It’s been a strange day for me so far. Joyful for the life that God is growing within, but sorrowful over what happened almost two years ago now. It’s amazing how something similar can take you back so quickly. I’m also sorrowful because hearing Ella’s heartbeat for the first time and now this precious baby’s were more of relief in the moment rather than abundant joy. But, I was just telling a dear friend today that I think one of the reasons that the Lord allowed us to lose our first baby was to teach me to cherish every single moment of my future children. And, that is what I am choosing to do today.

I will cherish the fact that my daughter is 11 months old and I love her more than I ever thought imaginable. I will also cherish that the Lord is allowing me to experience pregnancy one more time and Lord-willing, have another precious baby to cause my cup to runneth over even more!

Another Baby!

Little Miss is about to become a Big Miss! That’s right, we are expecting another Phillips baby :o) Ella and our little peanut will be 17 months apart (oh. my. word.) and we couldn’t be more excited! More details to come, but we had our first ultrasound yesterday. And, everything looks absolutely perfect! We fell in love with the peanut pretty stinkin’ quick and come February, the Phillips house is going to be a little bit cuh-razy. And, weeeee love it!