We went to a charity event tonight for the Special Olympics. Nothing fancy, very low-key, at a bar actually! It was a lot of fun. The baby showed off her dancing skills. Actually, scratch that. She didn't. Now, girl can DANCE. She has this pretty awesome move where she raises one hand above her head and just spins and spins. Cutting edge stuff, people.

But for whatever reason, tonight she just stood there. I even put on my white girl moves and attempted to dance while holding her on my hip. My hips that have no rhythm whatsoever. All I managed to get out of her was a nice nod. That's her signature move. The arm-raise-and-spin is just the icing on the cake. The head nod is where it's AT. She gets a serious look on her face and just...nods. So while spinny dance move did not come out tonight, The Nod did, and it pleases me to no end. I love that nod.

She also invented a new game on the way home from day care that had me laughing so hard I was afraid I would wreck.

She started just making odd noises. Screeches, guttural growls, squeaks, you name it. She would make a noise and then I would make some equally weird noise back at her. She would then think for a moment, and then try to outdo my noise. At least, I think that's what was happening. For all I know she was paying no attention to me (she is still rear-facing so I can't see her). But on MY end, we were playing a game, and the absurdity of it made me laugh and laugh. I just thought, "Boy, she is definitely my daughter because she is soo strange!" Now that I'm typing it up and thinking about it, though, I think the "she was paying no attention to me" thing might be true. But in my mind it was a fun game. Let's leave it at that.

About the rear facing thing. She is still facing the rear because babies are now supposed to do that until they're two. However, I am always like "IS SHE CHOKING BACK THERE?" Even though no gagging noises are coming my way. Or "DID SHE MANAGE TO GRAB SOMETHING AND IS NOW EATING IT?!" What she could grab, I don't know. So now I get my phone at stop lights, hover it above her, and take pictures so I can see what she is doing. Most of the time it takes me five or so tries because I CAN'T SEE HER (obviously, that's why I'm taking the pictures in the first place), so I have random pictures of her feet or the back door handle and stuff.

Anyway, someone caught me taking pictures of her the other day. I was really embarrassed. They laughed it off, and I still don't know if it was a "Haha, what a cute motherly thing she is doing!" laugh, or a "What a loser!" laugh.

Does anyone else try to take pictures of their kids to see what they're up to back there?!

Sleeping through the night (or at least two hours??)`

As I write this, the baby stirs in her room, even though I just got up with her around 10 minutes ago. Before that, I had gotten up with her for an hour.

Why? Because the baby is addicted to milk.

Yes, at 17+ months, my baby is still nursing. A lot. And frankly I'm tired of people that I don't really know commenting about how weird that is and how she needs to stop. Yeah, maybe she does. I know for my sanity I sure wish she'd stop needing it in the middle of the night. But why does a stranger, or acquaintance, get to pass judgement on me? It's not like she's five years old and attending kindergarten and having chats at the lunch table about how delicious mom's milk is.

But I digress. The baby continues to stir, even as I type this (I'm an exceptionally fast typer, and it's only been about 2 minutes since I started this post). I refuse to let her cry it out. I read the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution," and that failed, too. Ugh I wish I could just let her lay in there and cry sometimes. I know it works for others, but I personally CANNOT do it. I don't want my girl to cry. Especially when I know I can go end her "suffering" in 20 seconds by just letting her have some milkies.

Anyhow, it's been far too long since this blog has been updated. My curse. I always have good intentions of starting blogs but it never quite works out. I blame this strictly on the iPad. I do most of my Internetting from it, you see. And although I am in love with my iPad, it's kind of difficult to type out long blog entries from it, so my poor newbie blog withers and wanes.

I will try to do a better job at this. I know I can.

Halfway through the school year. I wish I would win the lottery already so I could quit my job and do stuff like craft all day.

Goals for this year: update this blog more often. Get trendier and more fashionable (where are all of these amazing thrift stores that this cute bloggers are finding these awesome clothes at?!). Eat healthier. Exercise more. Get bikini body before bikini season. That's related to the previous two. Craft more. Learn to sew. Make my house look cute.

I CAN DO THIS.