The Baby Bear and her Aunt 'Shell'

I found this picture of my baby sister Michelle. Look how much our baby looks like her! Shocking really. We have lost most of our family pictures in an unfortunate accident so baby photos are rare and I'm still hunting for mine. But I was so surprised to see how much Cora looks like her aunt. Also in the photo is me on the left and my sister Shiloh on the right. (Michelle is the baby, of course).
and just for reference, and because I can't get enough of her...

As my friend says when she sees cuteness...'Squeee!"

I have to practically stalk this child with a camera to catch these, but I managed to, on my phone camera! I could just eat this baby with a spoon! So here they are, her first captured smiles for your cheering up and baby deliciousness.

Take action mamas!

Did you know that soon the government is going to ban the reselling of children's clothes and toys? Yeah. No craigslist, no ebay, no thrift stores unless you can prove that they've been tested for lead and pthalates.

Speak up cheap mamas! Here's a link to read more: babycheapskate

All you crafters and etsy gurus, this applies to you and your hand-mades. Congress passed this in the wake of all the lead contaminated toys from other countries, but didn't take into account how it would affect small business people. Here's a place to protest!

Read more about it here too.

Cora smiled!

I'm still trying to capture it, but I just couldn't resist telling you all!

Caffeine induced insomnia

1am
The husband snores
I can hear it through the baby monitor
It's chilly and dark down here
with the ones I love upstairs
fast asleep
But sleep is elusive
for mamas who drink
caffeine at 11 pm
The baby will be up soon
hungry
and fussy
I'll feed her
then we'll snuggle down
in our bed
and try to sleep until
dawn

Questions for the day

Why do I feel like a bad mother if I let my baby girl fuss (not cry) herself to sleep if she's not IN MY ARMS?

Why does the heater make my skin chapped?

Why did I need to sleep 15 of the last 24 hours?

Why am I so hungry if I'm not nursing?

Tell those checker blocks!

Being the clever mama that I am (wink wink), I went to Photoshop and made my own graphics for Cora to look at and taped them to her changing table. (If you want them, I'll email you the pdf files!) This is her, telling them all about it! Isn't she the best? Diaper changes are sooo fun now!

As for the tag, I once tried to talk Matt into letting me put the word "squidoo" on a Scrabble board, because it's just such a fun word that it SHOULD be real (and I suck at scrabble and can only make up words that should be real, rather than actual real words). Somehow it weaseled its way into our vocabulary and since Cora is just such a little doot, the squidoo part just got attached. So more often than not, Squidoot or Squidoo or Doot, or just Squid. Not the most girly nickname but fun to say and I love our Squidoo!

Update: Apparently baby brain has gotten the better of me and I forgot I already posted this photo. So here's another to make you happy!

This cute outfit made possible by Great Aunt Jennie and Great Uncle Larry - Thanks!

I can't resolve, so I surrender. Happy New Year!

I was talking with my hubby today after some sweet cuddle time and I brought up the topic of New Years resolutions. He wasn't doing any because what is the point and why say you are going to start something just because the calendar says a different year. Hmm. I understand, but I still like to do them, at least in my head. Then no one will know I've given them up by say...mid February. Then as I pondered, I realized that I've never kept resolutions. I'm just crap at them!

If everything I've been learning lately is true, then here are my thoughts for the new year. I'll list the things I would like to do, but can't because of my stubbornness, my addiction to sugar and french fries, my unwillingness to take direction or counsel, my ignorance, my weaknesses, my physical limitations, my upbringing, fears, or my bad habits. These are the things I've resolved to do, again and again, and never have.

Get down to a healthy body weight
Get out of debt
Write every day
Practice my guitar every day
Treat Matt with kindness every day
Cultivate friendships by being intentional with people

These are great goals, but for reasons listed above, I've never accomplished them or done the daily ones for more than say...two weeks. Now what if I spend the next year surrendering these things over to God, asking him to change me (because I do a bang up job of changing myself, right?) and make me into the woman he created me to be? I wonder what January 2010 will look like? I'll let you know.

While my Squidoo gently sleeps

Yes, Cora has many names. Toad (for the faces she makes), Squid, Squidoo, Squeaker, Angel baby, Squirt, Tiny, Gorgeous, Grumpy...we call her so many things. Right now she is sleeping and I have a moment to breathe!

The days pass in a haze of about 12 hours. It's all I can manage to stay awake for in a stretch. And they often run from noon to midnight. I'm trying to change that. To get back on a human schedule. I do so like structure. I never knew how much until I had a babe. My horribly unstructured mind needs something to provide it with edges to bump up against.

In the quiet moments when the Squidoo is asleep, I'm not doing laundry or dishes. No, I am reading and watching Netflix movies. The house is not too far this side of chaos and so I'm not feeling guilty about that. The days are cold(ish) and sunny and soon I will form a plan to reclaim some semblance of physical health, but for now, it's movies, books, fig newtons and short walks in the winter sun.

This week's films were:
Into the Wild - somehow this movie annoyed me that he finally figured out that life was about relationships and then he died, because he was too stubborn to take some survival training before he walked out 'into the wild.' The gypsy life has always had a draw to me, but I never wanted to do it alone.
Outsourced - I more watched this for my Sister in Law and it was slightly amusing, but had great footage of India.
Definitly, Maybe - a prime example of how most of the romantic comedies from Netflix are crap I wouldn't pay to see in the theatre, but looked mildly amusing so I add them to my queue. Not one I'd recommend.

Books I'm still in the middle of:
The Shack. I don't want to talk about this book yet, but I am reading it.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Matt reads to me and Cora at night and we just started book 4. I figure she won't be old enough to read these for some time and is too young to know what he is saying yet!

Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year with neighbors and friends while our wee sprog kept us company and refused to sleep! There's so much to think about for this coming year. So much I'd like to do, see, and learn. I haven't even begun to get still and think but I will be carving out some time this coming week to do just that. My dear friend Tara Leigh twittered this earlier today and I found it so fitting: "My only resolution for 2009 is to put my hope in God and not give way to fear." Fear is the thing that waits outside the door for me. Whispering doubt through the cracks and I can choose to stand and listen or to put my trust in something else. Someone else.

Matt (oh let's face it, you all know our names) is job hunting and I am mothering our tiny girl. It's a cloistered life right now. The state of the economy has only reached a small finger in to touch us financially for now, but as I flipped through the New York Times year in pictures, I am reminded how big the world is and how much we are still in need of someone to save us from ourselves. I can't find that in presidents, or a fat investment portfolio. I can't find it it relationships, although they bring me joy. I can't find it in politics, or a job, or being a famous songwriter. Call me ignorant, call me naive, call me backward, or religious, but it seems my only hope in this swirling chaos of a planet is to put my trust in someone bigger than myself. Without that trust, I am back listening to the whispers of fear that threaten to engulf my very sanity. I'll be thinking on that as I ponder this new year. May yours be filled with joy.