Not Me! Monday

Ahh... Monday! I just love this brand new hassel-free week looming before me. Last week, on the other hand, the one I've already lived through, yeah that one... that one had a lot of things that did not happen in it. (But, I am in good company.)

First & foremost; at this present moment, I do not have an open wound on the inside of my lip. It most certainly did not come from leaving the toothbrush in my mouth while reaching up to do my hair which led to my hand shanking the toothbrush into my lip which got a hole in it from my very sharp tooth. Secondly, I absolutely do not have an identical open wound right next to the other one! I did not inflict this wound upon myself in THE EXACT SAME MANNER! This FOR SURE did not happen THE VERY NEXT DAY! This did NOT happen because I would not tell such humiliating stories on my very own blog. Nope. Not me!

While at Cold Stone buying a gift card, I did not ask the check out lady for a gummy bear for my daughter because there was a tub of them right next to the register. I also did not make sure I asked her for this tiny piece of free merchandise AFTER I had already paid and had my credit card safely back in my wallet just so she wouldn't try to charge me. Who thinks of that!? Not me! I was not very confused when she walked all the way down the counter to the OTHER tub of gummy bears & came back with an ice cream dish mounded with those tiny pieces of free merchandise. I also most certainly did not thank her profusely & hand all of them to Jaycee. Jaycee did not devour all of the gummy bears that I did not feed her in her carseat (minus 3 which she did not sweetly hand up to me) in about 5 minutes.

I did not get stopped in the parking lot of the grocery store by a nice man wondering if I was Katelyn Schroeder because he had just given the service desk a credit card with that name on it. No. Not me!
I did not lock the keys in my car after church on Wednesday night. No way. Not me!
I did not get all loaded up & over to Sam's Club with the express purpose of printing out pictures there & discover that the CD of prints was still in my computer. It also did not follow that my recently retrieved CD did not work & we came home from 2 trips to Sam's utterly defeated. Nope. Not me!

I did not put too-small shoes on my child knowing full well that her heels were already red from them just to keep her happy. That would be giving in to the demands of a toddler & I do not do that. No, no, definitely not me! The next time we went out, I did not put too-large shoes on my child knowing full well that she might have a little harder time walking in them. I also did not laugh out loud at her when she had to stop & stand with her legs wobbling back & forth while her toes were in, but her heels were out. The look on her face was not absolutely hilarious & the way she confusedly looked up at me and said "shoes? shoes?" did not make me about lose it. That would be laughing at my child's struggles & I do not do that. Absolutely Not Me!

So, what did you NOT do last week?

Profoundly Seth

Profoundly Seth is one of the blogs I stalk. It really has touched me & spoken into my life as a mom in a lot of ways. This amazing Christ-centered family is raising money for their deaf son's surgery to receive cochlear implants via an organization called "Rhyan's Hope" so that he will be able to hear. They are also raising money for an organization called "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" which offers captured memories to families whose newborns die. Their son before Seth died tragically right before he was born for reasons still unknown. Their fundraiser is called "Profound Pictures" because they will also be giving away a camera package. The day it ends would have been his second birthday. I would like to use up a tiny little space on my blog (not read my many, I know, but still) to get the word out about this family.

Have a great day everybody, I may be back for another "Not Me! Monday"

Not Me Monday

This is a blog carnival I am participating in because it's fun. Here, on Mondays we get to divulge all of the things we did not do in the past week. We rejoice in our clean slate & the brand new mistake-less week ahead of us & get to entertain our blog readers. Head on over to MckMama's site for some more UNconfessions.

I did not spend an inordinate amount of time last week looking for Arawen's one and only pacifier. I am not a one-pacifier mom because my child's attachment to that little plug is growing & I would not risk the hours of distress this could cause her if I happened to not be able to find it. I did not, knowing full well the growing attachment, totally procrastinate going to Target & buying more. Target is definitely NOT just 2 miles from my house.

I did not let Jaycee get into 3 decks of cards at once. Our floor was not covered in playing cards after she was done. This most certainly did not happen almost every day this past week with my full knowledge. It also is NOT happening right now, as I type my "Not Me Monday."

I did not get out to run errands with my 2 girls in tow for the first time since Arawen was born. Arawen is definitely not 10 weeks old today. The errands I ran did NOT take me all day and I did NOT forget to bring A's one-and-only pacifier! I did not feed Jaycee solely granola bars and a free cookie from Schnucks for lunch that day. Jaycee did not drop said cookie on the ground. While we were getting everything together, out of the van, and into a cart, a fellow shopper did not sit in the parking lot waiting for us to get out of the adjacent parking space. I did NOT stand there & wait for her to park, watching to make sure she didn't run over the cookie. I also most certainly did NOT wait for her to get out & walk into the store, look surreptitiously around, & proceed to quickly pick up the cookie, blow it off & give it back to Jaycee!!! THAT would be gross.

At our last stop to Target, I did not discover that, although visiting public restrooms is one of J's favorite things to do, she had pooped her pants. I did not, after like a second of deliberation, decide she could live with it. We did NOT spend our whole Target trip with a putrid aroma hanging over us. THAT also would be gross.

While giving Jaycee a bath, I did not leave her there to play with the bathroom door open so I could still hear her. After playing for a little bit, my child did not get herself out of the tub & walk up to me dripping wet with blood pouring from her finger. When I ran over and asked what had happened, she did not stare at me sweetly & repeat perfectly, "Happen." I did NOT discover to my horror that I had left my razor within her reach!! I absolutely, positively did NOT promptly receive the "Worst Mom of the Year" award!!! Jaycee did not walk around proudly displaying her bandaid without so much as a whimper. I am not kind of afraid at how hard we are going to have to discipline a child with such a high pain tolerance.

Well, this has not been super fun, & maybe even slightly therapeutic for me. I did not read over this and laugh really hard. I also did not update my blog last week just so I could do this today. I am not done already.

My annual post :)

Ok, playing 8-month catch-up: After we announced that we were having a second baby like this:

(Look close, it says "BIG SISTER.")

at Jaycee & Timmy's first birthday party,

we went on vacation to beautiful California.
At the end of the trip, our daughter ended up in the ditch of "Scenic Route 1" along the Pacific coast. Yeah, we'll probably always call it "Carsick Route 1." If I ever lack for post inspiration I'll tell this story. It's a good one.
In August Jaycee had her surgery: she recovered like a champ and we give God all the glory for her big belly! :) She gained 7 pounds in 4 months and is now in the 60th percentile for weight instead of not even being on the charts! Praise God!
Jaycee learned to drive a big rig with her daddy this fall.

We dressed up as Whos from Dr. Seuss for Halloween.

Then we went & helped Jordan celebrate his huge kill! Jaycee warmed up to him pretty fast. Good thing, because his head now graces our living room wall. (the deer's, not Jordan's)

After she touched him,

she clapped for herself. We're really into cheering yourself on in this family.

All THREE of us girls continued to grow...

Then Christmas came around... it didn't take long for Jaycee to catch on to the whole tearing off the paper as fast as you can thing.

Eleven days later Arawen Joy Schroeder was born. January 5, 2009. Thank You Jesus for our second healthy little girl! Welcome to the world, baby girl. You are loved!

This is the very first picture of Arawen ever... very very cropped.

She weighed 7 lb. 12 oz. (as you can see)So happy to have her out!

Grandma T. enjoying her minutes old granddaughter.

Jaycee & Arawen meet. You better get used to each other, girlies!Now, we're a family of 4! I can hardly believe it.

As you can see, this is a very general overview of the last 8 months. We did other things in between. But we spent a LOT of time here

and here!

!Surprise!

Coming soon in January '09, another little Schro baby.



Jaycee is a big sister! kind of.

Jaycee is most excited about not being the only one that gets called random things, and having someone she can tell what to do, also known as bossing, also know as- being a big sister :)
Jordan and Katelyn are most excited about welcoming another brand new baby into our home to love, smother with kisses, and bring up for the glory of God.

"Crinkler"

"Come here, Crinkler, time to get you cleaned up."

While this may seem like an odd phrase, it is frequently heard in our household. Yes, our daughter has incurred several nicknames during her short lifetime, one of the first and more appropriately dubbed being 'Crinkler'. This began way back when she was a newborn and while I would nurse her and read my Bible, she'd habitually reach back with her hand and methodically squeeze and unsqueeze the pages. Jordan recognized the trait and said, "Jaycee, you're just a Crinkler." She's been 'Crinkler' ever since. She literally has to be messing around with something all the time, if she happens to be found toyless in her carseat (inevitably because she 'crinkled' them all onto the floor), she crinkles her sun shade, her buckle, her headband, her shirt, or if all else fails, she can often be found twining her fingers in and out and slapping her hands together. It's chronic. When we put her in bed, accompanied with disappointed cries, even though she's so tired, she comforts herself by immediately reaching for the nearest blanket or toy and crinkles it. Her favorite, though is anything satin- she just rubs her hands up and down forlornly on the smoothness of her blanket until she falls asleep. It's cute, but it always causes me a little introspection as I watch this in my daughter. I here confess that my daughter gets it honestly from her mother;
I am a Crinkler.
While I don't bear the nickname, I fit into the category and now realize that my lifetime of rolling the sheets and rubbing them on my face when in bed, and jingling the keys, and shaking my leg whenever sitting, and countless other unconscious habits have been passed on to my daughter.

So, Crinkler she is, and while the nickname may not stick (I'm imagining a teenager loudly protesting at the ludicrousness of "Crinkler, time to eat"); she'll always remain a Crinkler, heretofore destined to worry her friends into slapping her legs still in church, annoy her husband as he's forced to hold conversations in the car over the sound of jangling keys, and pass on the genetic trait to her children.

But on to Jaycee's other nicknames: Crinkler goes pretty far back but not as far back as 'Sennacherib'. Yep, folks, I'm married to a chronic can't-call-anything-or-anyone-by-the-right-name man of my dreams. She (although we didn't know the gender yet) was dubbed Sennacherib in my womb by her affectionate father. He also tossed around the name 'option' of Kadesh Barnea, which is a desert near ancient Palestine. This is what happens when your husband is reading through the Old Testament during your pregnancy. While 'Sennacherib' can be heard on rare occasions in our household, Kadesh seems to hold its own. Just last night before picking her up I heard: "C'mere Kadesh". Now, I'm not at all opposed to nicknames and have come up with some for our daughter on my own, one of the first being "Beso", the spanish word for 'kiss'. But I think that sprung from "Jaycee Baycee", or just "Baycee" which got shortened to 'Beso', and is appropriate b/c she gets smothered in kisses and now knows how to give them back. Shortly after I began calling her 'Jaycee Baycee', Jordan piped in with 'Spacey Jaycee' which I immediately squelched b/c it sounds kind of mean. See, we do have some limits on this obsessive nicknaming. As her personality and life progressed, she continued to accumulate nicknames. Currently these are the most frequent:

Jayce- we knew this would probably happen and discussed it when choosing her name. We like it though and I think it's especially cute when her young aunts and uncles call her this

Jaycer

Jaycercise- this started the day after our sister-in-law was telling us about her Jazzercise workouts, classic, I know

Gucci

Schnikey or Schnikeys

Baby- b/c of the lack of originality or weirdnes, you guessed it, I call her this most frequently

Louise- when she's in trouble usually, and often used as a pseudo-middle name. I even sway to this usage; one time correcting her in front of our friends when she threw food off her tray saying "Jaycee Louise" in that parental tone of 'you're in trouble'. Jordan thoroughly endorses this usage saying, "We don't need to ruin her middle name by just using it when she's in trouble." her middle name is most obviously too precious to stain it with a disapproving tone. her middle name is Jordan

Girly- her A. KaraLea and U. David call her this the most, and she is pretty girly

Gumba- read "goom-bah"

Little Buddy- only used by her father, actually most of these are, but I never call her this, b/c in my family "Dolly" was for the girls and "Buddy" for the boys, especially my brother Caleb, whose widely used nickname is 'Buddy'. it sounds a bit masculine to me.

Dolly- that being said, I do call her this often

Dolly Llama- this nickname was born shortly after the Tibetan leader (correctly spelled Dalai Lama) was all over the news, and yes, it came from me, but I'm proud of that b/c the large percentage comes from Jordan

Diva- she only gets called this when she's sporting the 'my way or the highway' attitude, which thankfully isn't very often

Loco Grande- while it is Spanish, I did not dub her this, it was you-know-who

Goofball

Fish - usually accompanied with the article "a". "You're a fish" is often heard when she eats a lot. why? I don't know, go ask the nickname master.

Princess- but of course :)

Gucci has actually started looking at us weird when we call her 'Jaycee'. It's like she doesn't know what to do with it. She's so used to being called anything but... I don't even think she knows it's her real name.

No, I'm kidding, but truly, with all those other wonderful options, it's a wonder the word "Jaycee" ever gets spoken in our house. We don't need anymore over here, in fact the things Jordan and I get called is a subject for an altogether separate post, but feel free to tell me the nicknames that can be heard in your home. (G version, of course)

Mother's Day, crawling, and pianos

I had an awesome Mother's Day! A really great Mother's Day, my first; well not really, but my first with a child outside of my womb. We spent Sat. night at my parent's, so we got to be with Mom T. in the morning, and during church. There was a wedding in Washington, which I always love going to b/c it brings back all those happy thoughts and memories, and just makes us rejoice for the blessing of our marriage. Later we spent the afternoon and evening with Mom S., and the whole Schroeder family, had a nice time relaxing and playing with all the kiddos. What a happy day, God is so good to us!
For my gifts, Jordan and Jaycee went shopping together on Fri. night and gave me a Beth Moore Bible study, sunglasses and these gorgeous flip-flops- they did a phenomenal job. But more than that, I'm just overwhelmed at his blessings, the love of my husband and baby, and how much I just love being a mom.
Well, for an update on Jaycee, we're going in for weight checks every other week and this last time, she had gained 12 oz. in two weeks! Praising Jesus for miracles always! She's just a busy little girl, her crawling skills are improving daily, she's so proud of the fact that she can go into the bathroom, open the cupboard where my hairspray and makeup is, get into all of that and make a royal mess. She loves it. Her latest skill though, is playing the piano, yes, she's a genius, not quite pounding out Bach or Mozart, but we're working on it. The other night, I was in the kitchen making supper and the whole time, she sat on that bench and just plunked and pushed buttons happily, I wasn't too worried about her falling off, b/c I was right there keeping an eye on her, and every time she got close to the edge, she'd just re-center herself. Actually, this is the trick I'm most amazed at, she has a pretty good sense of balance, and can adjust herself if she feels her body start to go forward. Her personality is blooming, and it's so fun getting to know her for herself, and training her to listen to our voices, and hear her little voice tell us what she thinks, I love all of her ins and outs, discovering her likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, she's such a part of us, but in the same breath, such an individual masterpiece of God's. I've been reveling in His glorious design and plan for all of us, and being so humbled at getting a glipse of His Father heart through being a mom.
So- to all of you mothers: Happy Mother's Day! May you be strengthened and blessed as you raise the most precious commodities on the planet; and thanks for all you do, and all you are!