So Frustrating

Bella did not sleep last night.  We have no idea why.  She wasn't upset or in pain, just talking and talking and talking away until the wee hours of the morning.  At some point around 2am, we finally just turned the monitor off so we could get better sleep.  And she did fall asleep eventually, but we don't know when.
Of course I had a doctors appointment early this morning, so neither I nor Bella could sleep in.  I woke her at the last minute, threw clothes on her and put her directly into the car seat and off we went.  I figured she might be  in a bad mood, but she was actually in a pretty good mood and ate her breakfast as we were in the doctors office.
So I thought I would push my luck.  You see I have three different grocery stores I wanted to stop into this week.  Normally we do not take Bella to the grocery store by ourselves, but I didn't have any large items to get, so I thought we could at least get one knocked off, since it was on our way home.  So we stopped at the store, and back into her kidkart Bella went.  She actually did really good in the store.  She was talking the whole time.  I gave her one of her yogurts to hold onto on her tray (yogurt is of course her favorite and I'm pretty sure she knows what the containers look like when we get them out of the fridge to make her meal), so she actually had her hand on the yogurt container the whole time, which made me laugh.  I on the other hand had things under her cart, on her tray, and a really heavy basket I was carrying around.  Good thing they had drive up to pick all the groceries up.
Since that trip went so well, and we were going to be passing one more of the stores on our way home, I thought I would push my luck even more.  This store I only needed 3 items, so I grabbed Bella and put her in a regular grocery cart (these items were going to be a little heavier).  Apparently at this point Bella had her fill of grocery stores, and would not support herself in the slightest.  I was trying my best to support her, keep her straight, and grab the things I needed.  By the time we made it to pay, I could barely get the items on the checkout counter.  Then the best part came when I was trying to dig out a coupon and my credit card to pay. I had to let go of Bella to accomplish this, and she immediately fell over and conked her head good on the counter.  I think the checkout guy was about to call me in for child abuse at this point.
And I was very frustrated with her.  I know she was probably tired from not sleeping last night, but sometimes it's so frustrating that she won't do the things she is capable of.  She has gone in the front of grocery carts before.  She isn't completely stable, but she does well enough that as long as your trip is 30 minutes or less, she will support herself with a little correction from me periodically.  It isn't the prettiest sight, but it works in a pinch.  But today you would have thought she was a rag doll.  And for some reason to her bumping her head (she probably did it a total of 6 times, the last at the checkout being the worst) was better than using a little bit of muscle to help stabilize herself.
It times like these you wonder if she will ever actually make progress and stick with it.

Holiday Traditions

How do you spend your holidays?  This past weekend was Easter.  Easter for me is filled with memories of Easter Egg Hunts, whether a formal one in a park or an informal one at home with siblings and cousins, decorating Easter eggs and the hope that I would get a chocolate bunny in my basket that was solid and not hollow.  And let's not forget a holiday that pretty much guaranteed you would get a new dress to wear to church.
I love the holidays and the different traditions each one brings.  You find as you get older they just don't hold the same meaning they once did, and that's when you pass on the traditions to your children.
So what great thing did we do this Easter weekend, what great tradition did we participate in.  Nothing.  And I feel horrible about it.  We did do Easter morning church and dinner with family.  But we couldn't come up with an activity that would celebrate the holiday that Bella could participate in.  I sometimes feel that I am cheating my daughter out of the holidays.  All days are the same for Bella, the only difference is the changing of seasons.
Or at least that is how I feel it is for her sometimes.

It's a blinding mistake

So we started painting the nursery this weekend.  I am going with my yellow and gray color scheme and had picked out a nice pretty, but yet bold yellow color (no pale yellow for me).  We got one coat up on the walls and it pretty much reminded us of this:

Not quite the look I was going for.  Jesse even joked that Bella couldn't go in nursery.  I had a puzzled look on my face and asked why.  To which was replied, "It would be too bright for her".  Ha Ha Ha!

I took the remaining paint back to the store to see if they could add something to take down the loudness.  I was informed that yellow is a very hard color to correct.  They basically told me I would need to add a half gallon of white to soften it.  We had some white paint at home, so I took it back and needless to say we did just that.  After adding a half a gallon of white to the previous yellow color, it's still bold and pretty, but doesn't make you want to put your sunglasses on.

So to learn from my mistake, never paint a yellow on the walls without first buying one of those color samples, because you never know how it's going to turn out.

Who knew yellow was so difficult.

The rain

I'm not a big fan of the rain when it comes to Bella.  I really can't remember if I have talked about this before, but trying to get her cart and her out of the vehicle while holding an umbrella in the pouring rain is pretty much impossible.  So every morning when I get up and see it's raining or about to rain, I dread having to take Bella to school.  Maybe Bella and I need to purchase one of those umbrella hat contraptions to help us!  Okay not really, I just don't quite think I would be brave enough to wear one.

While it was cloudy out this morning I took advantage of the flash on the camera and took some pictures of the new living room curtains I made. (I can't seem to find a always flash option on my camera).

Now we just need to pick out artwork for the walls.  I have a huge problem when picking out artwork, I can never decide on what I want.  The cheap pieces seem too small and well....cheap, and the other end of the spectrum can go up to the hundreds and thousands of dollars.  I am way too fickle to invest in that kind of artwork.  So most of my walls are bare, and will stay that way, until I think I can find that perfect (and reasonably priced) piece.

Bella's artwork

Art plays a big part of preschool, and art for Bella is usually not a fun time.  I believe it has something to do with the fact she can not grasp items for long, and she does not want anyone to make her arm or hands move.  So most of her artwork, is usually Bella trying to move her hand, arm away from whatever is being done.

Bella also occasionally has homework.  We had to make a house for this project.  I helped Bella to marker her house.  With this project she actually did a little bit on her own (granted most of her marks were on the tray and her hand, not the paper).  Another thing with artwork, is Bella will not look down at the paper, or project.  I know at school they sometimes have an easel like contraption that fits on her tray, so it is at eye level and not down.

Well just this past week, Bella's teachers were very excited to report to us that Bella not only made some independent marks on her paper, she actually picked up the crayon on her own and made marks on the paper.  This is a pretty big accomplishment for Bella.  We have noticed she will grab things from the ground and hold on for awhile (sometimes up to two minutes).  In the past with her toys if you didn't hold it in front of her face, she wouldn't touch it or pick it up.  We will have to see if we can expand on this skill.  I guess it shows us that no matter how small the victories, Bella is still doing new things and learning new skills.

Lots of work getting done around here

We had a fairly productive week around our house.  Bella was actually sick at the beginning of the week, but has managed this cold pretty well.  We are still getting up in the night with coughing (over a week later), but it hasn't been as rough as in the past.

I also received the new fabric for the nursery to make curtains.  I decided that before I tackled that project, I should probably attempt the living room curtains, since I have had that fabric sitting in the dinning room for 9 months.  I must admit the sheer size of the curtains had me a little afraid.  It only took me a couple of days and I managed to get them done.  We even got them hung in record time, but of course I haven't managed to take a picture in the daylight yet.

But the major project was the weekend landscaping project.  Jesse's parents came down to help with the yard and watching Bella.  Jesse got to rent a skid steer and took his revenge on the yard, as seen in the pictures below.

Actually what you are seeing in the pictures was not supposed to happen.  The yard was a little wet when we started, and being that we didn't have much choice (the equipment was already delivered) we just had to get the work done.  Now we are busy watering the grass seeds we had to plant in the damaged yard.  I'll be posting the before and after pictures of the actual landscaping project on our house blog soon.  But I was proud of all the work we accomplished:  regrading the soil against the house, building a retaining wall, pulling out old bushes, planting new flowering bushes, putting down landscaping paper, adding 6 tons of river rock, and edging the landscaping areas.  It was a long two days.  And thanks again to grandpa and grandma K, we couldn't have done it without you.

Bella the Saleswomen

This weekend was our neighborhood garage sale.  On Saturday morning we joined the neighbors and put out some stuff we had packed away in storage for years.  Surprisingly we sold most of it, and Bella seemed to enjoy being outside on the nice day people watching.  It might have helped that Bella bought a beanbag from the neighbors and was comfortably lounging the whole time.