Category: Kitchen Kaos

Tatum has the ability to take a frown and turn it upside down IN ME! Honestly, it has been a memorable summer. I must reflect:

• Tutoring Olivia (with Tater on my lap) on Reading and Writing
• Tatum in the morning: I sneak in and play Peek a Boo
• Getting Coti up with Tatum. She gets so excited!
• Tatum waits patiently for her food while Coti goes outside
• Swimming Lessons every Saturday with Tatum
• Scrabble with Mom nightly
• Tatum discovering her tongue
• Hanging out with Mom and enjoying our relationship
• Completely re-writing the POWERFUL PEN (Tesseract’s Literary Handbook)
• Church and laughing with Tatum (she makes it through the service!)
• GCU and enjoying teaching the class. Monica’s appreciation
• Reading as many novels as I can (with Tatum next to me) (and LOVING Fault in Our Stars)
• Adapting to mom’s house and being OK with a bit of chaos
• Sesame Street at 1:30 everyday with Tatum and Coti
• Spending time with friends: Denise, Nancy, Karen, Melissa, Susan, Bob, Marilyn and Tacy (with Tater Tot on my lap 🙂 )
• Tutoring Gabe on EGUMPP
• Researching MORE Grammar programs (Is there a magic bullet?)
• Delving into the Book of Isaiah Podcast
• Circle K with Tatum: Michelle and Jean being President of Tater’s Fan Club
• My new 2011 CRV (for Tatum’s sake of course)
• Baby Bjorning (carrier) with Tatum wherever we go (Safeway, Fry’s, Walmart, Circle K, Discount Tire, Brake Masters, Paradise Bakery etc…) She loves it! (and she smiles at everyone.
• That one glass of wine after Tatum goes down.
• Sneaking in to Tatum’s room to peak at her sleeping. She’s so cute on her tummy all wrapped up in her blanket.
• Finding the perfect toys for Tatum: cups, cubes, blocks, stuffed toys, rings, books, squeakies, mirrors, alphabet toys (Thank you Jocelyn for the AMAZING cube set!)
• Getting sleep! Almost 8 hours a night.
• Old Navy Tank tops. I lived in these. No frills clothing
• Exercising every day while Tatum naps! 9am-10am. Yahoo!
• Going to two movies! Despicable Me 2 and Now You See Me. (worth every penny!)
• Being still. Hanging out with Tatum in her room all day, and being OK with not accomplishing anything.
• Going into school twice a week for two hours while Tatum goes to Temple Chai. ( a nice little break for both of us)
• Tatum making me laugh hysterically while she tries to catch and throw a ball.
• Tatum and me playing with Coti!

AND SO MUCH MORE!!

I will miss this summer.

 

Summertime! We are one month into our grand vacation of pleasurable memories. Finally, we have settled into a routine. It looks a little bit like this:

As I enter her room around 7am, her coos are followed by flapping of her arms, as she sees me say, “Good Morning, Tater!!!” This s is followed by a “The prettiest little girl in the whole wide world; she’s the tot of my dreams she’s my Tot…” song. Thank goodness she doesn’t know I cannot sing yet. I have a fan.

What will she wear? She grabs it from her basket since she seems to want to grab everything she can. If it is not pink or flowery, the “theys” will say, “Oh…what a cute little boy!” Well, perhaps it is that she has no hair.

Breakfast! Rice, multigrain, or oatmeal with pureed pears, apples, or nanners. Can I grab that too? This is a constant theme.

Upon me giving in to her taking the spoon to suck, we read the devotions. Too bad Charles Spurgeon does not have a Baby Einstein version of his work. This was today: ”Wait awhile, and that weary head shall wear the crown of glory, and that hand of labour shall grasp the palm-branch of victory. Lament not thy troubles, but rather rejoice that ere long thou wilt be where “there shall be neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”  In other words, have joy despite your circumstances. See? I can do this.

We then retire to her house for a game of catch. Her right (and left!) hook are powerful.  Major Leagues…. Here she comes!

Sometimes, we meet a friend for coffee which is another battle of grabbing and more grabbing of straws, napkins, my coffee(!), water bottle, etc, and I become the “pick-up artiest”. Here today, we met Bob, her twin.

Wal-Mart or some shopping palace is next, and she gets to see all the sights. Learning about low prices is just what she needs to learn right now (ha-ha)

Upon her 1:00 bottle and some puréed beans, peas, sweet taters or squash we revisit Sesame Street Old School. Again…I repeat, OLD SCHOOL> Elmo will not be coming to our house anytime soon or ever.

As she plays in her house in her room, I work in there with her. She finally takes a nap (We hope)

only to enjoy her 4:00 bottle. Home stretch to 6:30/7 for bath and more fruit and veggies. What a day! Her 10 Little Lady bugs await to be discussed. Quack, buzz, tweet, and ribbit and of course the turtle, ladybug, caterpillar noises which I produce become the thrill of evening. Little does she know that a ladybug does not purr. (Or do they)

 

What a day. May angels surround her crib and may God bless her little crab butt dreams.

 

We got it!
Sesame Street, Old School…1969-1974. Supposedly at 4 months, I watched the PREMIERE of Sesame Street. Sooooo, mom ordered it on Amazon and Tater is watching right now as I write this.

“On my way to where the air is clean…Can you tell me how to get..how to get to Sesame Street…”

Crazy, I remember these scenes! Man, this is bringing back memories. I think Big Bird has very few feathers in the first shows; he’s more poofy now!? Also, Bert and Ernie are taking baths and it’s no big deal. Now? It would be weird! It seemed very innocent. The sets are incredibly simplistic, but sans the techno-garb and the stimulating lights, it works so much more effectively. It’s slower and less opulent. She won’t ever get ADD with the slowness and purely unadulterated scenes. Nowadays, one would say this is “boring” and perhaps lifeless, but back then? They didn’t have the issues of constant need for stimulation. Things did not light up when you touched them. Every button did not make a noise!

Mealtime is no longer a cryfest. Poor thing. The first 9 days of introducing solid food into her system was heckish! Eating rice, oatmeal or multigrain cereal sans sweetener definitely would make me want to eat my fingers instead as well! But alas, she is enjoying her pears, bananas and apples with her cereal now. Delish!
At lunchtime, we have added veggies! WOOHOO! The fav? Drumroll….Yep, like mommy like daughter: squash and sweet taters…(aptly named!)

Now, if she could only keep the food IN the mouth. This plastic bib is garish, but what’s a mom to do…a wash after every feeding? Apparently yes 🙂

At least she is still enjoying her bottles! Here she is with my dear friend Susan.

While I tutor Olivia, she watches Taters. Well, at least she was. Now, Tatum has developed this “attachment thingy” so she now has to sit on my lap the whole time. Who is in charge again? Ehhem? 🙂Yep, Mom…  You are (wink wink.)

Proof?
She looks for the way around the rule, but still keeps it. Case in point….. When she was a WEEEE tot, she loved her binky. Then, she graduated to her fingers. However, in church yesterday, I resurrected the binky from her bag. She put it in her mouth since that is what she does with everything lately. BUT, she did not put it in her mouth the way it was intended to be used. Instead, she decided to try all the sides, then chose to chew the other end.

Tatum is no ordinary gal, and I sure love that about her! 🙂