365 Days of Everything Georgia: November 2010

With age comes independence. With independence, obviously comes the ability to throw really, REALLY big tantrums.

Georgia and I have been on a roll lately. As she starts to notice the signs that we'll be leaving the house soon - daycare for her and work for me - she screams and cries and rolls around on the ground and throws an all out fit. It's a sight to behold, let me tell you. How do kids learn this stuff?

I guess between the screams and kicks and cries and scratches, I can at least tell myself she does this because she doesn't want me to go to work. It might have to become my new chant.

November 15, 2010 - Not Many of These Left

Today was warm enough to take Georgia to the playground. It's November 15th... in Nebraska. This warm of a day is unheard of! There was still snow under the slides from the few inches that fell the other day, yet today we barely needed a jacket.

Notice I said "barely." Georgia still had to be bundled up.

Warm, maybe, but she still got to wear her new boots.

November 14, 2010 - You're Sticking That Thing Where?

Georgia spiked a fever today - 103.1!!! That's the highest temperature I've ever taken from her. Scared me enough to call the on-call nurse who told me not to worry unless it reaches 105. 105?!?! Are you serious?

She also told us to keep monitoring Georgia's temperature.

So here's my picture of the day. 'Nuf said.

November 13, 2010 - Georgia's Not the Only Lucky 13

Before we get to that number 13, today was our first snow of the season (yipee), and the first time Georgia has really "seen" snow. Sure, she saw it last year, but she was three and four months old. Now she can actually take notice of it.

Even if it was just a few inches this first time around.

So the 13. Not only is Georgia's birthday on the 13th, but so is mine. Today I added another year to my age, but what a year it's been!

And my husband and daughter served me breakfast in bed then had this beautiful cake for me before I had to go off to work.

And have I mentioned Georgia likes chocolate?

I think she was tickled she cleaned the plate... or maybe that she was allowed to eat off a plate instead of her high chair tray.

Oh but Georgia, just because the cake was on the plate, doesn't mean the plate will taste like chocolate too!

November 12, 2010 - The Presents Are Here!!

Almost one month to the day after Georgia's first birthday, her birthday presents have finally arrived. It's like a birthday all over again. Since her birthday was back home in Georgia, and we live in Nebraska, we were only able to bring a few presents home with us on the plane. The rest had to be shipped here.

After the boxes were opened, Georgia went straight to one of her favorite gifts... her rocking chair from her Papa (my dad).

But we need to work on her use of the rocking chair...

Now she's got it... sit don't stand. She won't remember it for long though.

November 11, 2010 - Real Kid Food

OK, so Georgia has been eating plenty of "kid" foods for months now, but today she had two that just scream "kid" to me. It's just so sweet to see, my little girl is... a little girl!

There was cherry jello:

And baby Goldfish:

And mommy liked sharing in these nostalgic foods right along with Georgia. Mmmm, jiggly jello!

November 10, 2010 - Pretty in Pink... But We Don't Want This!

We can now add another medication to the growing list Georgia has had to take since birth. It's the smallest amount of medicine so far and the most expensive. For about 20+ drops... $60!!

Georgia has pink eye. Where she got it, we have no clue. We can only assume daycare. Poor little dear... just look at her beautiful eyes.

November 9, 2010 - It's Growing, It's Really, Really Growing!

I thought she'd be bald forever, like someone I know. ::points finger at self::

But folks, Georgia's hair is growing!!! Cue the doves and fireworks and champagne.

Just look:

November 8, 2010 - Who Says the Dishwasher's Trash?

Soooo... I heard this noise the other day. I couldn't figure out what in the heck it was. The sound led me downstairs and low and behold, water was dripping from the ceiling. Joy.

It took a while and then finally a call to the plumber to figure out our dishwasher upstairs was leaking whenever it ran. Joy.

The plumber said since the dishwasher was 10 years old, it was probably better to replace it than try to have an appliance person fix it, if they could even find the parts to begin with. Joy.

Today, our new dishwasher was delivered. They took our old piece of *&@! with them, but left the bottom rack because someone had forgotten it was full of dirty dishes. Joy.

Well, Georgia found joy in that bottom rack. Once I unloaded, she decided it was her new walker.

Then she decided she was a dish and belonged in the dishwasher rack.

The rack, however, did not agree.

November 7, 2010 - Pudding, Call Her Pudding.

Georgia was not having a good day today... All day long. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it's those one year molars, damn them. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't smile, she wouldn't stop fussing. It's been one of those days.

I could only get her to eat one thing.

Pudding.

Today, she can have as much pudding as she can eat.

November 6, 2010 - Loving the Music

Daddy loves to play music for Georgia... and Georgia loves to listen.

They are so precious. I fall in love with them every time.

November 5, 2010 - Will Work for Cheerios

While my back was turned, guess who snatched the box of Cheerios?

Here's your hint, it's now an empty box of Cheerios.

This amount of Cheerios, spread across my kitchen floor, could only mean one thing. We had to call in the vacuum cleaners. The walking, barking vacuum cleaners.

Mmmmm... will work for Cheerios!

November 4, 2010 - My Baby's a Genius!!!

She was sooooo proud to show off her new talent today. She did it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (OK you get the point) again.

My little lovely can put the circle shape into the circle hole!

We're still working on her patience though. When she can't fit the circle in right away, she screams at it. But she doesn't give up and eventually gets it... over and over and over again. :)

If you look closely, you can tell she's smiling here. She's so proud of herself, and so am I.

November 3, 2010 - The Stash

I just realized, I never showed off the stash! It's quite impressive for a first timer, especially after only a 1/2 hour.

Check out Georgia's Halloween candy stash:

That's the good.

The bad?

You're looking at two or three extra pounds for mommy's waistline.

November 2, 2010 - The Five Hour Fish

RIP Finkleton.

I don't know what happened. One moment Finkleton was swimming happily in his new home, eating his new fish food. The next moment... OK, five hours later... he was belly up and taking a trip to that big tank in the sky. A trip which, as we all know, requires a trip down the toilet first.

Five hours, are you serious? So much for Georgia's first pet fish. Maybe we'll just pretend this one didn't happen.

Bye-bye Finkleton.

November 1, 2010 - Time for a Pet!

On a visit to Wal-Mart the other day, Georgia took great interest in the fish inside the fish tanks. She laughed and smiled and pointed. So I decided it was time for Georgia's first pet fish.

So today we headed to the pet store. We already had a small tank, so all we needed was a fish. We looked through the tanks and found the right little guy.

Meet Finkleton!!!! (Um yeah, my husband picked the name)

October 31, 2010 - Our Flower Among Goblins

It's Halloween!!! Although it's not Georgia's first Halloween, it is the first she'll actually participate in. Last year she was only a couple of weeks old... and a pumpkin.

This year though, our little lovely is blooming.

At my husband's request, he and I dressed up for Halloween as well. I didn't want it to be random, so we complemented Georgia. He was a gardener and I was a bee.

This is the three of us at our first candy stop:

Oh but we didn't stop with just one house. There was more candy to be had in this neighborhood!

Georgia went right for a "100 Grand" candy bar, and by the time we stopped at the next house, she had bitten through the wrapper.

A few more houses down, she picked up another candy bar for her empty hand. So she was double-fisting the candy bars. As we stopped at yet another house, my little lovely showed her true colors. Without an empty hand to grab yet another piece of candy, she stuck the "100 Grand" between her teeth and went for a third candy bar.

Oh Georgia!

This is what she looked like by the time we got home.

Chocolaty and happy - but those two words just go together, don't they? Trick-or-treat!!!

Georgia's Birth Story

The timing of Georgia's birth, in a way, came out of a journey to death. I'd like to think with every death comes new life, and for me, Georgia is that life. She is my saving grace and has kept me breathing when my lungs were screaming to stop, screaming to drown in my own self-pity.

My husband and I decided to try for Georgia just a few months after our walk down the aisle. You see, my mom had been diagnosed with incurable Ovarian Cancer, so I wanted a baby soon. I wanted a baby while there was still time to have my mother there as I brought a new being into the world, to see my mother hold her granddaughter, to ask my mom which of my baby features my daughter bore, to lean on my mother when I had those "new mom" questions and for so many other moments I had played out in my thoughts over and over again through the years.

My husband and I were thrilled to soon find out our little Georgia was growing inside of me, rounding out my belly day by day, pushing tiny feet into my sides, entertaining us with a neverending chorus of hiccups. We went to the doctor's appointments, the baby classes, took the hospital tour and had everything ready for the day we brought our darling home in Omaha, Nebraska.

It's funny though, life seems to fight our planning and always chooses its own course - and so it did. When my belly was just shy of 38 weeks round, the day came. After a 52-year-long life, which was as bright as they come, my mother faded away. She died on Sunday, October 11, 2009.

Early Monday morning, with my doctor's permission, my husband and I got on a plane to fly home to Georgia for my mom's funeral. We got off the plane in Atlanta around 3 p.m. Twelve hours later, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, I was sleeping at my parents' house. As I lay in the home where my mom had been just days before, that journey toward life took a leap. My water broke and the contractions started coming within minutes. We were more than a thousand miles away from our doctor, our hospital and our house.

So off to the local hospital we went in the dark of night, my husband driving my mom's SUV and not having a clue where he was going. I had to give him directions between contractions. We arrived at the hospital and didn't even know what entrance to go to. We found locked doors twice before finding the right entrance, and yeah, I floundered up to both locked doors!

We checked in and by the time we got to a room, I turned around and there were my sister, brother and cousin in the room with my husband and I and my other sister and father were on the way. We had thought we'd be delivering in Omaha with just my husband and I and the calming classical CD's I'd burned. I guess my mom had other ideas.

So there we were, in the hospital where two years earlier they had cut cancer from my mother, in the hospital where my two nieces were born, in the hospital where my delivery nurse had also been my sister's bridesmaid - there surrounded by those who love me most and the memory of one who just couldn't stay long enough to make it. I delivered Georgia Katherine at 10:46 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs. and 8 ounces.

We left the hospital on Wednesday with a borrowed car seat, a bag full of borrowed baby clothes, a lot of flowers and hearts bursting with every emotion you can possibly imagine. We arrived at my parents' house to a borrowed crib, borrowed baby supplies and relatives arriving in town with funeral clothes and baby gifts packed in their suitcases. On Friday, my daughter and I looked down on my mother in her casket, and on Saturday we buried her. It's the only time my daughter every saw her grandmother.

My mother fought hard to live long enough to meet her granddaughter and in the end, she missed the date by two days. But life doesn't stop, and it's the beauty of my daughter's life that keeps me smiling. And oh how her life makes me smile. I like to believe whenever I'm holding my daughter and she's starring off into the distance, over my shoulder, that she's seeing my mom - a guardian angel for both of us - and that they are already the best of friends.

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November 18, 2010

November 17, 2010

November 16, 2010 - Not-So-Fabulous Fits

November 15, 2010 - Not Many of These Left

November 14, 2010 - You're Sticking That Thing Where?

November 13, 2010 - Georgia's Not the Only Lucky 13

November 12, 2010 - The Presents Are Here!!

November 11, 2010 - Real Kid Food

November 10, 2010 - Pretty in Pink... But We Don't Want This!

November 9, 2010 - It's Growing, It's Really, Really Growing!

November 8, 2010 - Who Says the Dishwasher's Trash?

November 7, 2010 - Pudding, Call Her Pudding.

November 6, 2010 - Loving the Music

November 5, 2010 - Will Work for Cheerios

November 4, 2010 - My Baby's a Genius!!!

November 3, 2010 - The Stash

November 2, 2010 - The Five Hour Fish

November 1, 2010 - Time for a Pet!

October 31, 2010 - Our Flower Among Goblins

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