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A mother’s love
Current mood:I was rocking Maddie to sleep last night and she was wrapped around me with her head on my chest and I felt so overwhelmed with love for her I thought my heart was going to explode. There aren't enough words to explain what I feel for my baby girl. It's a love that is immeasurable. Sitting there rocking her my thoughts drifted off to my own mother. I haven't thought about her in a really long time.....really since I was still pregnant. If I have this much love for my almost 1 year old how must she have felt for me? How impossible it must have felt to give up a 4 year old. I put myself in the situation (in my mind) and tried to fathom giving Maddie up right now after just a year. This baby that I carried in my belly for 9 months, this perfect baby that I went through the worst pain I have ever endured to bring into this world, my child who I have watched grow and learn to talk and walk and who melts my heart on a daily basis....Maddie. There's just no way! There is no way that I can even imagine giving her away.
sad
For most of my life I have thought of my mother from the perspective of a child, she abandoned me, she didn't want me, she was irresponsible.....I wanted to punnish her somehow. Maybe by being a success (in comparrison to her) I would show her!! Not that she would ever see me as an adult, but I felt inside of me.....I'm better, I made good choices, I didn't get pregnant at 14, I didn't go from home to home staying on people's couches, I didn't put my kid in foster care, I didn't have to give a child up for adoption......I'm better.....I'm a sucess. I remember my 15th birthday, I mentally had a celebration because I had passed her.....I wasn't irresponsible, I hadn't gotten myself pregnant, I was better than her!
How different the view is on this side of motherhood. I still feel like she acted irresponsibly in her life, but really who doesn't? Her consequenses were just a lot more severe than the ones I lived through for my bad choices in life. I can't imagine being a child (14) and finding out there is a baby on the way. How much easier would it have been for her to have an abortion? Her life would have continued on the same as it was, but instead of taking the easy way out, she chose to carry me in her belly, and go through labor and do her damndest to keep me. How scary life must have been with an infant and no place to live. Imagine a 14 year old trying to juggle a baby and employment with no husband, no home, no support. It must have been so hard.....harder than anything I have been though. I can imagine how empty she must have felt during the times that I was in foster care, missing her baby but maybe also feeling the smallest bit of relief way down deep inside because it was just too hard trying to keep me. And the ultimate decision to give me up for adoption......I wonder how much she cried coming to that decision? How do you say goodbye to a child that you have raised for 4 years? How do you tell her that you aren't going to see her again? How do you explain that? How? How does your life not end? Having a baby of my own and understanding the love a mother has for her child, I can see the sacrafice that my own mother made. I can see how painful that must have been for her......just thinking about it has me sobbing. After last night, I feel like I see my mother in a whole new light. That I have let go all of the resentment that I had been carrying for all of these years. Because no matter how much hurt I may have felt, I know that it pales in comparrison to what she had to go through giving me away.
I'm so grateful that I don't have to deal with a situation like that....with a decision like that. I am so blessed that I get to stay home every day with my daughter and watch her grown up. I get to teach her and learn from her and every morning I get to see her smiling face and I get to kiss her chubby cheeks all throughout the day. I am so blessed!
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Big-ness
Current mood:This is a big weekend for me! Dan is getting off work early today and loading up the car and heading out to Charlotte to visit his parents. The big-ness is that he is taking Maddie with him, and I am staying home. Thats right folks.....for the first time in over a year I have an entire weekend to myself! I have mixed emotions about this event, I am over the moon with excietment about sleeping in and lying around and reading and taking a bath and paitning my toes and going to bed late without any regrets the next morning, but I am also a little bit sad and nervous about not seeing Maddie all weekend! Even when we have a terrible day, I still love hugging and kissing and snuggling my baby and I don't know how it is going to feel for the first time ever not to do that for 48 hours. I really think that I am going to miss her to death! I'll miss Dan too by the way, but I'm used to being apart from him for periods of time.....not Maddie! I'm going try my best not to think about missing her, and really enjoy my time off! I don't know when I will have an opportunity to have alone time again and I want to enjoy it to the best of my ability! So, if you call my house or cell phone this weekend and I don't answer, it's probably because I am soaking in the tub, or better yet taking a nice long nap! Enjoy your weekend......I know I will!
excited -
A day in the life
Current mood:It's been a little while since I have blogged. Life as usual has been busy. Maddie is dealing with a bit of a cold.....or at least some kind of illness, she has a runny nose and has been coughing a bit but she also has the runs (sorry if that was TMI) and a little bit of a fever. I'm not quite sure what the matter is, but she has been a little irritable and clingy and that makes blogging time, or any other personal time pretty nonexistant.
awake
She is walking up a strom. She does not crawl anymore. Such a big girl. I can't believe how fast she has mastered walking. She still falls a lot, but her balance is so much better and she can handle the differences in floors better.....like the change from carpet to hard wood and back again. She isn't really getting into things much more than she was when she was crawling which makes me happy, but that seems to be a big question that people ask now that she is a walker. I have been letting her walk a lot more when we go to the store and she has learned the game of run away from Mama which most of the time I enjoy, but it does get old when I am in a hurry! She walk/runs away from me and I chase/walk after her saying Mama's gonna get you, and she squeals with laughter until I scoop her up and spin her around......and then we do it all over again! Fun game, I highly reccomend it!
We have boo boos a plenty with a walkin' gal. Yesterday Maddie was playing with a bowl that she got out of the cabinet herself and fell down and somehow managed to bit her tounge......there was SO much blood it really freaked Dan and I out. She has two little teeth sized puncture holes in her tounge now and although it seems to be healing just fine, it was a huge scare and made me really sad that I couldn't protect her from that. It also worries me of what the boo boos are to come. I have a feeling it just gets worse, (I've been told MANY stories that include my darling husband and bloody limbs) and that I am in store for some big scares in the lifetime of my children.
We have become a multi-lingual family. Maddie is doing so great at sign language which forces Dan and I to continue learning new words that we can teach her. She has about 10-15 signs now. She knows book, juice, milk, ball, light, eat, cracker, paci, dog and we worked on rain today because we had a huge rain storm. It is truly amazing how fast babies pick sign language up, and how wonderful it is that we can communicate with her. She can let us know when she is interested in something, and that opens so many doors for us to teach her new signs, and talk with her about what her interests are. I am so glad that we decided to go the sign language route.....we were a little skeptical about it, but my sister in law Angela helped to convince of how useful it is, so thank you to her!!! Plus it is absolutely adorable to watch Maddie use her little hands to communicate! Can you think of anything cuter? I didn't think so! lol.
I am super excited because we have discovered the LIBRARY!! I have never really lived in one place long enough to take advantage of the public library, but a friend of ours reccomended the Smithfield library and I must say that it is a really good one! They have story time for kids 2 and under every Friday that we are going to start attending regularly and they have a HUGE kids section that has little table and chairs, and a club house and they even have board books that you can check out for the very little ones. They have other programs for older kids everyday of the week, but I didn't really look into those since we aren't in that age catergory yet, but that is fantastic for when Maddie gets older. I am an avid reader and used to buy my books off half.com used and cheap, but now I can just check them out cause the library has a new release section with great selection and I don't have to spend any money on books now. I am currently on my third novel this week. Hooray for the library!
Maddie's birthday is sneaking up on us. September 12th! I can't believe that we have almost made it to a year. Time has gone by so quickly. We are planning on having a birthday party at our house on Sept. 8th which is the Saturday before the big day. I am excited to have friends and family over, but also a little nervous because we have never had that many people over before. And I'm only talking like 20 people. To me though, that is a lot! We are going to have to do some serious cleaning up!! And there is going to be a lot of food preparation. My mom will be flying in for the birthday so at least I will have help with Maddie watching, and food prep, and my MIL is in charge of the cake and will hopefully bring a fantastic Costco cake which is my favorite......err......I mean Maddie's favorite! lol. It should be a good time, and I am really looking forward to having everyone that we love the most all together at our house to celebrate my baby's first birthday. *wipes tear away* I really can't believe that she is going to be a year old. Time goes by too quickly. She has become such a big girl. It really makes me realize that I need to cherish each and everyday and try and savor every little thing, cause tomorrow she will be different.
I guess that's it for now. I always have things that I want to blog about during the day, but by the time I get a free minute usually after Maddie goes to bed, I don't have the energy. Oh, we did get new home phones which we are jazzed about!! We even have a new outgoing message which is too cute, so give us a call to hear it and tell us something nice about your day!
Ciao
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Best Buddies
Current mood:Maddie and Henry have become the best of buddies. When Henry is in the house, him and Maddie are stuck together like glue. I have no idea what the attraction is for either of them, but they seriously enjoy hanging out together. They will go into the laundry room and I'll check in on them and they are just sitting there, Maddie talking to Henry and pointing things out to him in the room, and Henry just sitting there being a good sport. Their most favorite thing to do is sit under our dining room table. They don't really do anything, but they can sit under there together for huge periods of time. Maddie will sit next ot Henry, then stand up next to Henry, then walk over to one of the chairs and bang on it, and then walk back over to Henry and sit back next to him. I had always hoped that my baby would have a good relationship with our dogs, and so far so good. It is so cute and endearing to watch them together. I was a little worried about Tyson because for about 2 months he was not behaving very well around Maddie, he would sometimes growl at her, and anytime she got near he would bolt to another room.....I seriously thought we were going to have to get rid of him, but in the last couple of weeks he has made a total turn around. He lets Maddie basically sit on him if she wants.....he is still a little skittish and doesn't like fast movements, but I honestly think that he has accepted her as part of the pack....either that or he has learned that pretty much anywhere Maddie goes there is bound to be a trail of food that follows, and if he's lucky he can snatch up any leftovers!. I am so happy that Maddie and any future children will get to grow up with such awesome dogs. They won't have that fear of dogs that children who aren't brought up with them have, and I really like that until Maddie has a sibbling, she has a built in playmate with Henry!
grateful
Playing under the table:
Playing in the laundry room:
Tyson eyeing up some dropped raisins: -
My daughter is the BEST!
Current mood:I can't believe what a difference a few weeks can make. Maddie is such a big girl. Not only is she walking....pretty much all the time now, but she is also talking more, and learning sign language! She can say Mama and Dada, good, no, oh no, dog and she can almost say Henry (one of our dogs) She knows how to sign "more" and "all done" and there are a few more signs on their way. It's so crazy to see how much she has learned in the past couple of weeks.....she is growing up so fast! We took her to Blockbuster the other day and she walked around the whole store laughing. I'm not quite sure what was so funny, but she just laughs.....all the time! It's also amazing to see what she is able to understand. I'll ask her where Mama's feet are and she will look down at my feet and then reach down and grab them. If you ask her where her ball is, or her bus, she scans the room and walks over to get it. I read somewhere that babies can understand a lot more than we give them credit for, and it's really true. She may not be able to express exactly what she wants yet, or be able to answer me back, but she totally knows what is up. It's funny with the sign language....now that she knows how to tell me all done, she signs it all the time. I lay her down to change her diaper (which she pretty much hates) and she signs all done over and over. Dan was playing with her on our bed the other day and she got bored and signed all done. She is such a genius! lol. She is also a social butterfly. She loves EVERYONE especially kids and she will find the only kid in a restaurant or store and wave at them, and if she is walking, she will approach them to say hi. I'm sure that everyone who has kids think that theirs is the best, but I really feel like mine is.....the best in the whole world. How did we ever get so lucky? Below is a video I took of her laughing. I was coughing and for whatever reason it cracked her up. Such a funny girl. Enjoy!chipper
Check out this video: Laugh a minute
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Maddie’s new furniture
Current mood:We got a pair of little kid chairs from Dan's grandmother almost a year ago. They are at least 23 years old and have numerous layers of paint on them.....we know because we have been stripping and sanding them for the past couple days. I finally got them primed and soon I will be painting them and sometime in the near future, they will be done and hopefully my daughter will enjoy having chairs just her size. To go along with the chairs, Dan has been working on making a little table. Maddie has been helping.....well, rather getting in the way and messing around with tools, but it has been a fun family project to work on and I am so excited to get both the chairs and the table done cause I know they are going to be super cute and I can just imagine Maddie coloring, or playing play-doh at her special table! I'll post pics once the project is complete so you can ooh and ahh over our craftsmanship!happy
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Here comes trouble
Current mood:Maddie has turned into an explorer recently. She has discovered kitchen cabinets, Mama's purse and pretty much every other nook and cranny of our house. For the most part I don't mnd that she is getting into things although from minute to minute there are a number of messes that I get to discover and clean up. I chalk it up to her learning about the world around her and discovering what all is in our house and what she can and can not play with. There aren't really very many off limit things but I wonder sometimes if letting her get into whatever she wants to (within limit....there are always things that she can't touch or play with.....knives for example) is going to cause problem in the future like if we go to someone else's house and they have more no touch items. I guess these types of decisions are part of parenting. Trying to do what is best for your little one and hoping that they will turn out okay because of, or sometimes in spite of your parenting. Here are some fun pics of Maddie's adventures.content
Yes, that is a tampon.
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Baby steps
Current mood:It is a magical time in the Schultz residence. We have a toddling little girl among us. Yep, thats right, Maddie is walking. She has been taking one or two steps for a little while now, but yesterday she started toddling around the house. Of course she falls a LOT, and still crawls because at this point it is faster, but she is walking. We even got it on video yesterday! I'm really excited that our big girl is able to get around on her legs because in so many ways it makes life a little easier. When we take her to the pool, often times she crawls into the water and is quickly in deeper than she should be, and the park will be a lot more fun with a child that can walk around. Dan and I made a bet about when she was going to walk, and neither of us won because we thought it would be a little later than 10 and a half months. It really is so hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly and we now have a upwardly mobile child. It seems like only yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital and had a little budnle who would just lie on her back. Such a big growing baby! In 6 weeks or so, she is going to be a whole year old and we get to have her very first birthday party. So much fun. I think that we are really going to enjoy having a toddler around the house!
ecstatic
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
August 2007
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