GOODBYE 2014

Happy New Year!  (...even if it is a week late.)

Jon took off two weeks (!!!!!) for the holidays and Monday was his first day back to the salt mines.  We are definitely missing him around the house all day.  Violet's new thing is saying "Hi, Dada!" to everything, which is a constant reminder that he's there while we're here.  [insert sad face]

"Violet, do you want more?"
"Hi, Dada!"

"Look, there's Neil!"
"Hi, Dada!"

With the turning of every page in a book..."Hi, Dada!"

When giving me, HER MOTHER, a hug..."Hi, Dada!"

When saying hello or goodbye to anyone, "Hi, Dada!"

Violet also appears to be going through another Wonder Week  (hip, hip, hooray!).  Wonder Week 65 is right on time!  After weeks of blissfully easy bedtime, Violet is suddenly disinterested in going to bed again.  Violet, the horse is dead, put the stick down!  I might remind y'all that sleep deprivation is a torture technique used on suspected terrorists.  On a positive note though, Wonder Week 65 is nothing like the apocalyptic experience Wonder Week 55 was.

Well, in honor of the passing of 2014, I thought I'd share some sweet photos from last year of our once itty, bitty, little, baby girl.

 

My, how she's grown!

As for myself, I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions, but this year I'm gonna jump on that bandwagon.  I've resolved to read a book a month.  As a former high school English teacher, you'd think I read all the time, but I always feel like there's something else I should be doing---laundry, dishes, the list goes on...  However, if I'm going to be completely honest with myself, too often I could be reading and instead I am a lazy bag of Funyun farts.  So, my first book is The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson.  Wish me luck!

WONDER WEEK 55

If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say we're going through a "wonder week," consider yourself lucky.  If you do know, then have sympathy on us and our sleep deprived sanity.

So Violet's brain is having some major development going on right now, which also means she has been more like a grumpy old man than the sweet little angel baby she usually is.  She's been needier, constantly wanting to be held.  If I try to put her down she pulls her legs up, refusing to stand.  She's been throwing little temper tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants.  And she's been an insomniac the past three days.  Last night she was up until past midnight acting wilder than a meth head hillbilly who just won the lottery.

At the end of this wonder week (which could actually last up to 6 weeks--ugh), Violet will have some new abilities.  I know it's not nearly as mind blowing for everyone else, but it's pretty exciting for me to see her realize she's capable of doing new things.  Some of the new things she's already doing are: mimicking our sounds and actions, pointing at things she wants, putting things back into baskets and drawers instead of just pulling them out and throwing them wildly, and perhaps the most frightening of them all---she's figured out how to climb.  She's not quite tall enough to actually climb on furniture yet, but she has been literally climbing up the baby gates using her toes like a monkey would.  She's also been sharing her most coveted possessions--her pacifiers--which she sweetly offers me when I come into her room to get her after her nap and in the morning.

Here's a little video of Violet "reading" a book that we can't stop watching because she is just so stinking cute.  Seriously.

So if you find yourself Googling rhetorical questions like, "What is wrong with my baby?"  Or "Why won't my child sleep?!!!!" then you are very likely experiencing your own wonder week.  If you survived it without pulling your hair out, I wanna know how.