My Baby is Ten!

I cannot believe that my little Lily is ten years old today!  It is funny because when she was a toddler, she seemed so grown up that when I look back on her life, I realize how young she really was when things happened in her life.  She was around 18 months old when she was correctly naming letters of the alphabet.  I remember being at the park with her and we were spinning the squares of the tic-tac-toe game most parks have.  She spun it to "X" and said, "X!"  It actually sounded like "KS" which is how an X sounds.  I looked at her and thought maybe it was some fluke. So I spun it to an "O" and she said, "O."  I was shocked.  Over the next following days, she would grab the alphabet refrigerator magnets and show me the letters and name them.  I got so excited over this that poor Rebekah (who was only 3) would run to the fridge, pull off a magnet and name the letters.  However, Rebekah didn't know her letters and named them wrong.  I couldn't break her heart so I just smiled and said, "Yeah. Good job."  (Thankfully, that never hindered Rebekah when she really learned her letters.)

Lily just seemed so grown up from such a young age.  Even when she as born she seemed older because she had so much hair.  I am not kidding, she was half monkey.

She was a very happy baby.  As she got older, when she was tired, it was bedtime.  She wanted to go to bed early (usually around 7) and would sleep until 5 or 6 in the morning.  I joke she gets this from my dad who is a morning person.  She loved sleeping in her crib and as she got older and could talk, when she wanted to be put down, she would grab her silky (soft piece of fabric she loved) and say, "nite nite."  

Her vocabulary was quite large for such a young thing.  Around the same time she was correctly naming letters, around 18 months old, I was potty training her sister.  Lily didn't want to be left out, so she asked to be put on the toilet.  I was amazed that she actually pooped in the toilet! I thought I was going to be lucky and have two kids potty trained at the same time.  Well, Lily wanted none of it.  After she pooped, she got off the toilet, looked in and saw what she did, looked up and me and said, "Ew! That's disgusting!"  And wanted nothing to do with the toilet.

Lily was a daddy's girl through and through.  I used to joke that she only wanted me for nursing and just waited until daddy got home.  As soon as Adam was home, Lily was connected to him at the hip.  She went everywhere with him.  I truly believed her little spirit was aware that she was not going to have him for very long.  Lily was only 2 1/2 years old when Adam died.  I remember trying to figure out how I was going to explain to a toddler that she couldn't see her daddy anymore.  I don't know how either one of us got through that difficult time in life, but I know prayers got us through most of it.  And I really believe that his spirit was around her to help comfort her in the transition.

When she was 3 1/2 we moved to Cedar City.  She still wasn't potty trained all the way.  I noticed that after Adam's death, she reverted a ton.  Her knowledge of letters, her vocabulary, and just everything went backwards.  I know moving didn't help either.  Thankfully, she adjusted pretty well and was soon potty trained.  What a relief! ☺

I got remarried just before she turned 4.  She immediately fell in love with Bill.  She still loves to sit in his lap and cuddle.  I am so grateful to have found another wonderful man and one who loves children.  

And now, today, Lily turns ten. I watched her and she ran off to catch the school bus this morning and smiled as I thought back through the last ten years and am overjoyed to be her mother.  She has taught me so much.  I never thought I would learn so much from having children. 

Happy Birthday, Lily!!

On Mother's Day...

I was thinking about some things about my mom today that have helped me become the person I am today. Today I am thinking about my love of cooking. My mother was very supportive of my desire to always make stuff in the kitchen.

Even though we never really had a lot of money when I was growing up, she still bought stuff to bake with. I remember experimenting with cooking at a young age. When I was about 9 years old, I remember grabbing stuff in the cupboard and mixing it all together into a concoction of goop. I remember reading the labels of stuff I was adding and smelling them. I will never forget the first (and last) swig of my goop. It was awful. I remember only two things I put into it: paprika and nutmeg.

Around this same time in my life, I remember being in the kitchen trying to make myself a cup of chocolate milk. We usually had the powder mix. So one day, I was craving some chocolate milk and reached up into the cupboard, found what I thought was the mix, and scooped heaps of chocolaty powder into my milk. I stirred and stirred. Little clumps of powder wouldn't mix and that was my favorite part of drinking it. Bottoms up! Hacking cough and spews of what was not chocolate milk mix but baking cocoa was all over the kitchen. I will never, ever make that mistake again.

Those last two experiences happened when we lived in Marina, CA at the first house. When we were in the second house, I had an unforgettable experience. I got home from school, starving. One of my favorite things to eat then was scrambled eggs. I left the light in the kitchen off and heated up butter in the frying pan. I cracked three eggs into the pan, salted and peppered them, and stirred until done. It smelled a little funny, but I was hungry and didn't care. I scooped it out onto my plate, grabbed a fork, and went to watch TV. After getting all comfy on the couch, looked down to eat my eggs and noticed there were little black things cooking into my eggs. On closer inspection, I realized they weren't pepper specks but ants. That's right, ANTS! It has been over 20 years and I still don't look at scrambled eggs the same way.

When I was 15, I was living with my aunt and uncle for a few months. I loved to make cookies for them. I made a variety of kinds, but the two that stand out the most in my mind: the sand ball cookies and the potato chip cookies. The sand ball cookies are like Russian Tea Cake cookies and don't spread out. My cousins teased me because they thought it was supposed to look like regular cookies. So I decided I would get back at them by making a bizarre cookie without telling them what was in it before they ate them. They liked the cookies and so I told them the secret ingredient. :)

When I was 16ish, I was living in Lake Elsinore. I remember making a white layer cake with kiwi and frosted it with white frosting. I loved it. My mom, not so much. I didn't know that she was allergic to kiwis - at least it makes her tongue itch.

I started experimenting with making stuff lower fat as I got closer to age 18. I have always loved crumb cakes or coffee cakes. So I made one that was fat-free. Ohhhh man, sooo good. If you want the recipe, let me know and I will post it.

Now that I am a mom, I have had to improvise dinners. I learned from my mom how to throw things together that will taste well. I have a love of cooking that I learned from my mother. I love her very much.

Thank you mom. MORE MORE MORE! :)

Things I Never Thought I Would Say Before I Became a Mother (or Wife)

I am copying an idea my friend, Jana, came up with on her blog. I am going to constantly keep adding to these as I remember more, so stay tuned:
(updated with newest at the top)

"Bill, don't bite Nathan!"

"Bill, is that Jell-o on your shoe?"

"Lily, your butt is not a sponge!"

"Put down the pig!"

"Get off Ronald and lets go!"

"Look at me. Do I look like a shopping cart?"

"Don't milk your father's nipple." (long story LOL)

"No, you can't have a cat, even if you keep it in a box in your room."

"Don't fart in your brother's face!"

"Rebekah, you don't have nuts."

"Don't eat the margarine!"

"Who clogged the toilet?"

"You can have a cookie for breakfast tomorrow."