Cookie and Me

I know it has been over a month since I last posted...no good excuses.  I'm still learning about "how to blog" and sometimes I just don't really even know what I want to write about.  Other times, I have so many ideas that I can't decide.

And often, I'm just too exhausted at the end of the day to write anything at all.  I am 35 weeks pregnant now (read: huge, uncomfortable, and cranky), and once the kids are in bed all I want to do is watch a movie or catch up on my blogs.  Anyway, that aside, I have decided that for the next few days I am going to write something about each day.  My hubby and two oldest kids are gone for the next week and a half, so I am getting some fabulous one-on-one time with my youngest daughter.  And, because I have no memory/brain cells, I have vowed to record our daily adventures here on the blog.  Just in case anyone else cares.

Yesterday we started our day by going to Bible study at church.  This summer we are doing it every other week for six weeks, and I am so glad.  The past couple of summers we haven't done one at all, and I really miss it.  I find that I need the accountability to stay in the Scriptures on a regular basis.  I have been so crazy lately (yes, blaming it on my baby again) that the only thing that keeps me grounded is Jesus.  Wait, what am I saying?  It doesn't matter if I'm pregnant or not, He is always the only one who can really keep me grounded.  So anyway, that was a really nice time of fellowship and sharing and learning about how to pray God's Word.  (We're doing Beth Moore's study called Living Free.)  One more thing about my Bible study ladies--they are so great!  Just months after we moved here, when I was expecting my third baby, they threw me a baby shower!  And they're doing it again!  For my fourth baby!  I can't believe it.  They are just too wonderful.  But, I digress...

After Bible study, we rushed home and grabbed our swimsuits, towels, swim diapers (only for Cookie) and sunscreen, filled up the gas tank, and headed out of town to a pool about forty minutes away.  Yes, we do have a pool in our little town, but the one we went to yesterday has more attractions.  A couple of waterslides, a giant tower that spews cold water over all the moms, and a baby pool with one of those mushrooms that my kids hate.  About six or seven of us made the trip.  It was a fun afternoon once I figured out that Cookie does NOT like to be in her swim tube.  I have this really neat little floaty thing that has a sunshade and everything, but she hated it.  She just wanted to be able to run around and do her own thing in the water.  Out of all my kids, she loves the pool the most!

Once I figured that I was sufficiently toasted and she was sufficiently worn out, I bribed her out of the pool with the promise of ice cream.  It worked, too.  She might only be 20 months old, but she knows a good thing when it's presented to her.  ("I-keem!")  So we drove to Sonic and enjoyed a milkshake in the backseat of the van.  Next up was Wal-Mart (exciting, I know...) because they have some things there that our store doesn't carry.  Now we were really tired and really ready to come home.

She fell asleep on the way, but that didn't deter me once we got to town.  I still went over and watered plants for a friend who is out of town (and wouldn't you know it, we got rain last night so I didn't even need to bother), attempted to check out some movies at the library (they turned out to be closed early on Friday nights), and finally just decided we needed to crash at home.  By this time, she was screaming-but once we re-hydrated with some Gatorade, life was good.  From there on out, it was pretty much just bath, supper, books, and bed.  She surprised me by staying awake longer in her crib than I thought she would.  I took a shower and watched a good old movie, Father of the Bride.  Of course, because I am crazy and hormonal, I cried through many parts of it.  But I also laughed at many parts.  Steve Martin can almost always make me laugh.

Today we began our day by cuddling in bed, until she asked for a drink so many times that I felt guilty staying there any longer.  ("Gink! Gink!")  During breakfast I checked out the ads for garage sales, and we were off.  We hit our local coffee shop for an iced latte and browsed the book store.  I went to one yard sale, saw absolutely nothing, and decided to message a friend to see if there was anything else good out there (she had been out earlier).  There wasn't anything worth driving around for, so we went to Wal-Mart (don't judge me, I never go two days in a row...it just happened) to get Cookie some sunglasses of her own.  She had major glasses envy before the other two left on their trip and I thought it would be fun to get her some.  Five frozen meals, a gallon of milk, two boxes of cereal, one dress, one box of hair ties ("Bows! Bows!"), one package of 2T/3T undies, several paint chips, and one pair of toddler sunglasses later, we were out the door.  I really wanted to get a good movie to watch tonight, so we hit the library for a few minutes and finally made it back home before lunch.  I even had time to clean the playroom before noon.

One great thing about being pregnant is when the nesting instinct takes hold.  I have just been waiting and waiting for this to happen...and it finally has. :)  I think it is a combination of nesting and only having one child to run around after, but I got a lot done today.  I started at the front of my house and just cleaned room by room.  First I would pick up and put away everything that was laying around.  If it went into another room, I took it into that room and put it away...and went RIGHT BACK to the room I was working on.  It might sound funny, but this is hard for me to do.  I see things in that room that need to be put away, and I have to consciously make myself ignore them and wait until I'm on that room to put them away.  So after everything was put away, I would dust the room (even the doors/trim!), and then vacuum.  I also did some picture hanging in my son's room because we had just put his bed up on a loft and there were a couple of things that had to be re-arranged.  I also hung up new house numbers on the front of our house.  I'm pretty handy with a power drill, if I may say so myself.  I worked all through Cookie's nap and then for about another hour after she was up.  In that time I finished the front porch, the play room, the living room, dining room, bathroom, hallway, and my son's room.  I also got the girls' room all picked up, but haven't done any dusting or vacuuming in there yet.  Monday I will tackle the kitchen and our bedroom.  And down the stairs to the basement bathroom.  Ugh.  The greatest thing about cleaning with only one child here is that my house is still clean at the end of the day!  Although...there might be a few pizza crumbs on my couch now. 

I decided a frozen pizza sounded great for supper (I know, I'm so gourmet), so we had that and watched some Andy Griffith on Netflix.  I bought the kind that comes with frozen cookie dough too, and we enjoyed some fresh cookies after the pizza.  It was a night of very healthy eating around here.

We were just sitting down to read some books before bed when the tornado siren went off.  We spent the next hour or so in the basement (I'm a chicken) listening to the radio, sending texts, and checking facebook to see what was happening "out there."  We got some baseball-sized hail (thankfully no broken windows this time!) but no tornadoes touched down here.  God is so good to protect us.  I was thankful when we were able to come back upstairs.  Little Cookie was just worn out and went to bed without a sound.

Now I've spent a LOOOONG time writing a blog post that is super long and probably boring, but someday, years from now, I will come back and read it and remember what I did on this day with my little girl.  My philosophy for the next few days is to be productive, but to savor the moments.  I am balancing that with not over-doing it.  I don't really want to go into labor yet, especially not with my husband hours away. 

I am looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight, a refreshing morning at church, and a fun afternoon with my sweet Cookie tomorrow.  Maybe we'll go see Cars 2...just because we can.