Almost 2!?!?!?!

So, here we are, nearing Rory's SECOND birthday!! For real??? What happened? I remember bringing home this tiny ball of absolute perfection wrapped up in her super cute green velour outfit!!! She weighed in at 8 lbs 4 ounces. Now . . . (gasp) . . . she weighs in at probably 30+ pounds!!! She is 36 or so inches tall!!! Boy is she big! She's started this new trend lately . . . probably about a month ago . . . where when we (she and I) are at home, she always has to be in my arms. If not, she'll lay on my feet and grasp hold for dear life screaming "I wanna hold you Mommy! I wanna hold you!" Cute? Yes! Exhausting? Quadruple yes!!! While at home, Rory wants to be 100% with Mommy (or as she says, Mom-A). I joke with her and ask if she'd like to go back in my belly for a few months. As a baby, she was SUPER independant!! She still is rather independant in that she has to do everything herself and says "my doit, Momm-A, my doit!", but as far as being and playing by herself, no way!

She is unbelievably smart! A few WEEKS ago, she was sitting next to me on the couch at our house (Daddy also was present but inattentive), and she said "two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine". What less-than-two-year-old does that??? My genius less-than-two-year-old. That's who! She can and does say everything anyone else does. I try to keep my sailor's mouth clean and PG, and as of yet, she's not said anything four-letter or close. Thank GOD! My new thing is to shout, "Good Lord!" Good? Bad? I don't know, but if she repeats that, it's better than the other options. She recently showed me that she could fit ALL of the shapes from her shapesorter into the container. Huh?!? I play with Rory A LOT! A LOT, A LOT! She has NEVER been able to do that before, but then one day, she and I are playing and she just all of a sudden had mastered the shape sorter. She's so dramatic about it too. HAHAHA! She'll take, say the circle, put it on top of where, say the square, would go and looks at me, oh so questionably yet knowingly, and says "NOOOOOOOO" (like, if you thought it went here, look who's the DA), then smiles and puts it through the right shape. I love it! She loves to stand atop of a surface, typically a "bucket" (actually a stool), and dance, twirl, jump, anything to show off, like it's a stage. My little performer! I'm SO proud. Julliard, here we come!

For her birthday, we have plans to do a Dora party. I bought cute little Dora plates and napkins and tablecloths and the sort. I bought her a cute pair of Dora earrings. She's only ever had the one pair of earrings from when she got her ears peirced, so this will be her second set. Kind of exciting! We also bought her the second Precious Moments princess birthday train. My plan is to make that gift a tradition, as my grandmother did for me. Next year, though I hope takes a while to get here, the third princess is Aurora, so guess what the birthday theme is likely to be??? I LOVE IT! As the big part of her birthday, however, we are building her a swingset. I say we, but yeah, Aaron will do all the work. :) We've already bought the coolest swing ever. It's a tire swing shaped as a horse that you ride. It should last for years and years and be cool for years and years. Kind of a "where in the world did you find this" kind of thing. I hope she'll love it for a long time. I'm requesting that no one bring toys!! Only clothes or Lowe's gift cards or something else. Anything else. She has a lot of toys, in fact probably too many, because her Mommy is a bit insan-o when it comes to Christmas and went a little crazy this year and last year too. So. . . no more toys until next Christmas. Maw-maw and Paw-Paw are supposed to be getting the slide. Daddy says it will have a playhouse area. I hope it works out and looks nice and is super fun! I'm excited.

I have big plans for this year. First, I'm trying to wean Rory. Yikes! This is going to be a feat! A huge feat! I've, for the most part, completely cut out daytime "boos". She typically fights with me about it once a day, but as long as I can deter her with something else (a snack, a "bop", ice, poppy-sicle, or anything), then we can make it until "nightnight boos". Nightnight boos, however, are going to be impossible to cut out. Furthermore, morning boos will be darn right impossible! She looks, oh so, forward to nightnight boos. I attempt to let her nurse for 10-20 minutes then just hug me and go to sleep, but so far, that ain't happenin'. No way! I've told her that boos were empty. That worked once. The end. The next time, she screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, then Daddy came in and said, "Mommy, give it a rest. I don't think it's happening tonight. Let 'er at 'em!" Thus, attempting, but definite feat. I do hope to have her weaned by April though, and today is January 19th. Boy, oh, boy! Will it happen? We'll see!

My next plan. . . get her to sleep in "Rory's bed". Yet another HUGE feat! She won't even nap in Rory's bed. She won't even stand and watch TV in Rory's bed without screaming in intervals between being interested in what's on TV. She HATES, FEARS, DESPISES Rory's bed. So, now what? I'm considering moving Rory's bed into Mommy's room. Maybe that will help some??? I don't know, but right now, it's not even an option. Maybe by April too?? Totally doubt it, but that's the plan.

Next in line . . . perhaps another baby. I'm definitely considering. I'm a bit hesitant at this point though because I have a two year old. On top of that . . . a newborn? By the time he/she would be here, though, Rory would be three. Still a bit young though maybe. I haven't quite decided and am a bit on the fence. I want to be able to be just as much there for Baby #2 as I am for Rory. At the same time, I want to be able to continue being there for Rory as I have been all along. I may wait until Rory is in Kindergarten, that way while Rory is at school, Baby #2 is all mine and I'm all his/hers. Sounds good in theory, but we'll see. That would make Rory almost six and Baby #2 newborn. Makes sense. Rory could and would be helpful. Wouldn't need or probably want as much Mommy time. But. . . we'll see.

This summer, Aaron and I are going to take Rory back to the North Carolina Zoo! We had so much fun there when we drove back from the beach this past June. Rory was only 16 months old and loved it. Now being 28-30 months old, she'll probably explode with excitement.

Today is Day 1 of my already nearly 3.5 years of employment at The Greenbrier Clinic of my now HAVING to work 40 hours a week. If I don't (and I typically don't), then I can't keep our medical insurance!!! Hells of incentive, but yikes! My goal is to get here at 7:45 AM every morning and leave at 4:45 PM every evening, giving myself a little leeway (spelling?) just in case. So I work nine hours Monday through Thursday and only have to work four on Friday or get overtime at. . . $18.75 per hour!!! Sounds good to me!

Aaron just recently started his new job with DISH Network. So far, I love his job. His first paycheck was $1400! That's for two weeks! If he brings home $1400 every two weeks and I manage to bring home (subtracting the cost for insurance) $750 every two weeks, giving us $2150 every two weeks, what will we ever do?? We should have American Express, Chase, John W. Eye, and the stupid four-wheeler paid off by May. So, by May, our bills will be 450$ house, 380$ truck, 150$ insurance, 150$ electric, 60$ frontier, 60$ DISH, 160$ cellphone, $45 sewer, $600 gas (or $300 if Aaron is a remote technician by then), and $100 for those other stupid autowithdrawal things (partly medical bills/partly Aaron's insurance or OnStar). That equals $2150-1850 per month!!! What we make in two weeks will pay everything. The next two weeks' pay would be groceries and spending money! For real??? Will that actually happen??? Then what happens if we get raises?? Richdom??? Are we there? Man, that would be too cool if we were. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's starting to look really nice! Maybe Rory could go to Harvard or Yale!!! Ergo, my next concern.

Where will Rory go to school??? Two thoughts. On the western end of the county, she would have smaller classes and be one of the cool kids for sure! She'd have awesome self-esteem, make good grades, and be involved in sports (as that's all the western end offers). The teachers are kind of dumb though, so that's concerning. They didn't push me AT ALL when I went to school here. On the eastern end of the county, she would have much better technology, be one of the cool kids but also part of the crowd, probably have a lot of peer pressure, make good grades, and be offered a LOT more opportunity as far as arts and extracurricular things. I just don't know!!! I guess will come to that when we come to that but YEESH, I'm not going to like it.

Well, as I sit here at work for the past 3+ hours doing nothing but blogging, I guess I should start wrapping it up and pretending to be doing something. My job is such pie. They demand that I work 40 hours to keep insurance but don't have anything for me to do. Doesn't make much sense, but okay. You want to pay me more? I'll take it.

Until tomorrow and the next day and the next day, good day!

Signing off!

Mommy Kate