Dual Posting

So...I've discovered that I can't post Vimeo clips on WP, only Google Video (boo!!) and YouTube (BOOO!!!) so I'm posting this clip here instead. She's totally walking!




Baby Steps from jennas mommy and Vimeo.

Moved to a secure location...

I did it! I actually did it!

I've moved my whole blogging life to a new home. Since a big point to the whole relocation is more privacy, I'm not posting the new website here. You can email me for the new location: lightheartedmom@gmail.com.

Child's play

Jenna is sitting in her pack n play (the "cage" as we call it in our family) very quietly "reading" to herself. She's very carefully turning the pages of The Little Fur Family over and over again, laughing and giggling at the pictures. It's so adorable and it's amazing to me how she has become familiar with the stories I've been reading to her since she was a few days old. The minute she opens the book, it's clear she knows what it is - her little face totally lights up. This was one of my favorite stories as a little kid (I remember my dad reading it to me) and it's so neat that she loves it too. It's also incredible to reflect on how even as a newborn she was absorbing information like this!

Just a reflection...

July 10th, 2004

Three years ago, on a very windy hill in Sonoma County...

Girlie products

A few months back, my hubbie treated me to a full body scrub at a spa in Bodega Bay (can you say AMAZING?! It was such a nice experience) and the woman who did the treatment (she used this really yummy scrub made with Cabernet grape seeds) recommended I look for a vitamin C serum since I have some skin issues. I've been on the look-out for one ever since, but I am simply not in the market for a $50 jar of goop. I finally found on at the local Vitamin/Health Food store! Kiss My Face has a line of products called "Obsessively Organic" and I bought a sample pack of their new skincare regime. I've been using it for a week and it's wonderful! I use the cleansing bar Shea Soy, the Balance Act toner, C The Change serum and the Underage moisturizer. My husband asked me if I was pregnant the other day because my skin is starting to look so radiant (I'm not pregnant). ;-) I usually have a problem with really dull skin and these products have made a real difference. I love the toner especially because it doesn't have alcohol in it (which dries my skin!) and all the products contain mostly organic ingredients. Ooh and the jojoba mint facial scrub is so yummy (don't eat it). :-) The products are still a little pricey ($13-$20), but not nearly as expensive as many non-organic products I've found.

The sample pack also came with their Sugar Reef Organic Body Scrub. Usually I find sugar scrubs a little too abrasive for my skin but this one is perfect. The oils in the scrub made my skin so soft!

You can buy everything online at Kiss My Face, but I found that my health food store was priced about $1 cheaper (go figure) than the online store.

Reading Material

Maybe some of you go through this, but I've felt the last couple months like my mental faculties are slipping dramatically. When I was in high school and college and studying all the time, I felt like I was mentally sharp and my mind was active all the time. It feels like I've let some cobwebs settle in parts of my brain, which is frustrating. To mend the problem, I've renewed my efforts to read at least a few chapters a day. I'm reading two books right now. One is Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul. The only other R.C. Sproul book I've read is Chosen by God (the standard beginner's guide to predestination). This book (Knowing Scripture) is a down to earth guide on how to study/interpret the Bible. I'm only a few chapters in, but I have been convicted about many things already. For instance - he talks about the sensuous Christian (scandalous word, I know): "The sensuous Christian is one who lives by his feelings rather than through his understanding of the Word of God. The sensuous Christian cannot be moved to service, prayer or study unless he "feels like it." His Christian life is only as effective as the intensity of present feelings. [...]The sensuous Christian doesn't need to study the Word of God because he already knows the will of God by his feelings. He doesn't want to know God, he wants to experience Him." I am guilty of this far too often and I see it all around me, especially in San Francisco where many "churches" focus so much on an emotional experience that they often preach and worship a god who is entirely contrary to the God of the Bible.

I'm also reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali fled from her Somali family in Kenya to escape a forced marriage. She describes her childhood (moving around between Somalia, Ethopia, Kenya and Saudi Arabia; growing up with strict Muslim values) and how she came to reject Islam. Some parts of the book are very painful to read (including parts relating to a common practice in many Muslim countries - female circumcision). Ali ends up getting refugee status (and later citizenship) in Holland where she earns her Masters degree and gets elected to Parliament. Most people are probably vaguely familiar with her because of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004. The film that made him a target for Muslims (Submission) was written by Ali. The sad thing about Ali's story is that she rejects Islam and becomes an atheist. I have yet to find a book by a Muslim woman who rejects Islam for Christianity. If any of you know a book like this, I would love to read it! I greatly appreciate Infidel because it points out a problem that is happening all over the Western world. Multiculturalism is blinding people to how dangerous extremist Islam is in a society. It's ripping many European countries apart at the seams and she documents that in Holland very well.

What is everyone reading these days?

Historic = Me updating le blog

Stef's fun new mommy-blog has inspired me to try and be more regular about updating my own.
I've added some new links (by the way - Blogger beta is evil), some favorite sites and my blogging friends (my "daily reads"). I've been trying to redo my layout, but again, Blogger beta is evil and I'm having trouble with the templates. I keep giving up and reverting back to the old ones which I know how to edit manually (thank goodness for HTML 101 in college). :-) I may end up switching the whole operation over to Wordpress - something I've been threatening to do for ages. Since this used to be my political soapbox blog (pre-baby), I haven't wanted to post real family information (ie - pictures of my husband, who really DOES exist, our last name, etc) lest potential employers Google him and find out he's married to one of those right-wing nutjobs. A new blog would maybe give me a little more freedom in that aspect. One of these days...
We spent last weekend up at the ranch with my husband's family. Every year all the families that have cabins up there have a big 4th of July barbecue. We haven't been since before we were married (at least four years ago). For those of you who don't know - "the ranch" is my husband's family's cabin up in Sonoma county. It's actually a land co-op with about 12 cabins on it and lots of great outdoors for exploring. There's a creek that used to have a big swimming hole (until the enviromental nazis came along and got the area to ban swimming holes since they didn't approve of the dam); DH spent a lot of time there as a kid. We also got married there way up on the mountain. We try to go up every chance we have. It's so relaxing to be out there in the country - even when it's so! hot! :-) Anyway, we had a great time. DH got to see a lot of his old childhood friends, who are now mostly grown and married with kids. Jenna loved it up there too, especially wading in the creek and driving with daddy.
Jenna has four, almost five teeth and is clamoring more and more for grown-up food. It's making nursing more of a challenge, something I wanted to do for at least one year (yay! we made it!), but hopefully longer. She's being really nice so far and not biting (even though her attention span is pretty bad). She even knows the sign for "eat" and is usually pretty polite about asking for it; at least the first time. We'll see how long the arrangement lasts. I don't think either of us are ready to go through a miserable weaning process yet.
Two weeks ago Sunday, we celebrated her 1st birthday with my side of the family at our favorite Japanese restaurant in SF. My older sister sent her this gift (A Brio stacking clown) that nearly made me cry when I saw it - I know, that's odd. I played with one almost exactly like it when I was a baby and there's something very neat about a company that's making the same toys now that they were 23 years ago. Jenna LOVES this toy! It's supposed to be for kids 18+ months, but she's already learned (thanks to Daddy's patience) how to stack them herself on the wooden spool. It's really amazing to watch her pick things up.
I have a couple other things I'm going to post - mostly just general stuff about things I'm doing. But I do have one last question. My biggest struggle with being a stay at home mom is keeping house. I never guessed it would be this much of a challenge for me and I am aware that I am lacking in time management skills (something I've battled for years). However, it seems like I can never get a handle on the housework. Between caring for Jenna and cooking and doing basic things (like washing the dishes - we don't have a dishwasher), I feel like I never get to the real housework. I've finally made a ginormous weekly chart with all the things I know I need to do to keep the house clean. I've been working to stick with this chart for the last couple days and I know it's going to take awhile for me to get a rhythm. I want to know - how to you ladies, especially with more than one baby, keep up with the housework? Any tips? Also, do you naturally enjoy cleaning/housework or is it something you see as just a chore? I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Happy Monday!

Shoes

So...yesterday between Dr appointments (mine then hers, we're both dandy), we wandered over to Stride Rite because it's so totally payback time for all the painful hours of shoe-shopping my mom did with me when I was a hard-to-fit kid. Since Jenna's almost walking we figured it would be good to get her a pair of shoes because she doesn't own a pair that fit (the size 2's for her baptism fit for like, 5 minutes and the 3w crib shoes my mom bought her also don't fit any more). It's about time our child stopped looking like a poor shoe-less orphan (in a $700 stroller...but no one knows that) every time we take her out.

So we went to Stride Rite. Where the nice lady informed us that she wears a 3 1/2w-4w and would probably need to come in every 2-3 months for resizing (me editorializing mentally: "Oh, ok. Here's my credit card. And here's a few extra limbs I have lying around while we're at it."). We bought her an uber-cute pair of Mary Jane's that cost more than most shoes I've purchased in the last two years (except for my Clarks, but I've worn those for two years! I think they've paid off!).
I'm having visions of weepy shoe-shopping trips in my future with this kid. I remember those trips with my mom. She totally has my feet. Siblings have been mean to me all my life because of my feet and my wonderful in-laws couldn't resist making a few jabs at me because of my sad foot-height ratio (big feet, short girl). I really hope one of my (future?) daughters gets my mother-in-laws gene for petite feet. Thank goodness Payless Shoesource offers kids shoes in wide width.

Happy Birthday Baby

Hard to believe it's been a whole year since this little bundle came into the world. With all the love I felt for her the moment she came into this world, I am surprised on an almost daily-basis at how deeply I am devoted to and in love with this child of mine. We celebrated a little this weekend during a last-minute getaway to the Northern California Coast (our favorite spots) and then with a stop at Grandma's ranch (where we got married almost 3 years ago). Grandma J is on a good track to completely spoiling Jenna with all the birthday cards and gifts but probably her most favorite was the little floaty-innertube-ish toy. We tried it out in the swimming hole at the ranch and it was an immediate hit. She also had her first taste of cake, also a big hit (child after my own heart, loves her sugar). Grandma J is going to be out of town so we were really happy to be able to celebrate with her before she leaves. Jenna is really lucky to have such a wonderful grandmother. I was going to post a one-year retrospective video, like I did at six months, but I haven't finished it (okay fine, it's barely started)...This last year has been full of big challenges and adjustments and hopefully some serious spiritual growth and mostly overwhelming love. It doesn't get much better than this. :-)

Updates

I haven't really felt the need to blog these days. Daddy (husband) is on a nice long vacation and Jenna and I have been gobbling up every minute we can get with him, since work has been so busy these last few months. I'm also trying to find more joy in home life and home making and spend less time on the Internets.
That said, I figured I should probably update since I'm the mother of an almost one-year-old baby who's no longer acting like a baby! Jenna is standing on her own now, not quite ready to walk, she's very talkative and has added several words to her vocabulary including "dog" (which is actually more like "gog"). She's finally using the ONE sign we've been trying to teach her since she was 6 months old for "eat." She acts more and more like a toddler every day. She's so independent and curious and she imitates so much! I can't believe she's going to be a year old in less than a month. It's flown by so quickly and I'm almost sad thinking about how fast she's living behind her little baby ways and moving on to newer and bigger things. I love this age that she's at right now but I do miss my snuggly little cuddle bug.