Six months already

Mesa went in for her 6 month well-baby check-up at the beginning of the month. (It's taken me so long to post this that she is only a few days shy of 7 months--unbelievable). She is growing a lot -- I know, because she is getting super heavy to pack around. It's no wonder my hips are always out of wack, when they are always cocked one way or the other with almost 20 lbs latched to them. I take that back, not latched, more like balanced, because for some reason my children don't know how to hold onto ME, I'm always holding onto THEM. So anyway, here are some stats:

Weight: 18.5 lbs  (90th percentile)

Height: 27-3/4 in  (95th percentile)

Head: Sorry, didn't catch what she said.

I was trying to entertain Rain at the moment.

This little girl is just as loveable as the first one. Mesa is actually probably more laid back than Rain was. Mesa likes to chill with Daddy and she is very forgiving of Rain who tries to love and take care of her, but does a good job of mauling and squishing, sprinkled with hugs and kisses. Rain even occasionally shares her binky with Mesa. Pure sister love, that's all I can say.

Mesa LOVES to eat graham crackers. She has an obsession with food. She eats at least two HUGE bowls of cereal with applesauce or a pack of baby food--and screams when it's gone. At in the middle of there she eats pieces of bread, mom, bananas, graham crackers, mom, and anything else she can get her little chubby fingers on. She is getting more precise at grabbing things between her finger and thumb.

She has kept me up at night a lot lately but hopefully those stubborn teeth will poke through and we will once more see a little less of each other during the wee hours of the night. Last night was a major improvement since she had very little sleep throughout the day and was exhausted. But I still love her to pieces and her little giggles make it all worth it.  

Humility

Being sick is one of the many humbling experiences during this mortal experience. I am so lethargic and unproductive that it frustrates me. All the household things start slipping and I find that I lean on the crutch of movies to pass the time with as few disturbances as possible. I feel even worse because I feel like I am wasting my life when I am sick. It's at that point that I begin promising myself, and the Lord, that I will be SOOO much more productive with my time, if I could only get over this current ailment. I also find myself cheering myself on when I get something done while I'm sick. Then it's one less thing I will have to do when I get better.


The second thing that brings humility is not getting a full night's rest. Mesa has been waking up 3 or 4 times a night and lately even 5 or 6 times. She could be teething, although for as long as it's been going on, I would have expected to see at least a little tiny tooth . . . but NOTHING. She got some vaccinations last week, but she seems to be over that. The final option is that she has the cold that my whole family got. Despite my best efforts in trying to sanitize and keep her from getting it, I was defeated. With the whole stuffy nose business, she can't take a binky very well because she can't breath. When I am so exhausted and she wakes up, I groan, thinking how tired I am. I go to her crib and look down, seeing those bright eyes staring at me in the darkness when I wish that they were closed. I wrap her up again and start rocking her, trying to keep from dropping her as I half-doze walking up and down the hall. It's humbling.

If my day goes by, and I've only emptied the dishwasher and maybe done one load of laundry, I try to find excuses like "the girls are sick and more fussy," or "if only I had got a good night's sleep, I would've had the energy to get more done." But if I look at the big picture and assume that I only have to be productive on days that EVERYONE in house is in perfect health, and I got a full night's rest the night before, then there will be a lot of unproductiveness in my life. The hard part is to still work through those days getting as much as done as I can, with as much of a smile and cheerful attitude that I can muster, knowing that I tried my best and that the Lord expects nothing more.

Watering the Deer . . . I mean, Cows

It's been really dry in our area and all the cows on the cattle permits are running out of water. There hasn't been any rain to fill the catchments and storage tanks, so my parents have to haul water EVERYDAY, and sometimes twice a day to water their cows. However, not only is the water running out for the cows, it is also running our for the mule deer population on the Buckskin.

Rain was content to stay in the back of the truck for about three minutes.

Then she wanted to be closer. 

So as my parents haul water, it is not uncommon to see the deer coming in to lick the water off the water trailer, or mill among the cows trying to get a drink. The water was so scarce, the cows were even chasing the deer off of it.

 Can you spot the deer?

One afternoon my two girls and I went on an adventure with "PacaMa" to haul water. We bounced and jostled over the dirt road as the water trailer sloshed and shoved behind us. We finally reached our destination, and sure enough, there were the cows, and the deer, waiting for us.

Rain enjoyed watching the cows, and I had to keep pulling her back as she was intent on running up and petting their faces--probably more like poking their eyes and tugging at their ears, which is her favorite anatomy lesson she likes to recite with any animal, creature, creepy crawly, etc that comes within her reach.

After filling up the water troughs, we sat back and watched the cows get their fill and the deer coming in to get their share.

 We also found a carcass of a deer that had been butchered out since this was all during the deer hunts. While most little girls pick bouquets of flowers, my little girl enjoys bouquets of deer legs. She loved to pet it softly and tickle its toes.  

(Don't ask me where she gets this since I am usually there in the middle of it trying to catch that "hopper" for her, or show her the lizard before it runs away, or the rattlesnake that "Paca" killed.)

Both the girls were pretty good troopers throughout the whole adventure. 

 

Green pumpkins

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween. I would much rather play games as a family than try and think of a costume and brave the trick-or-treating crowds. But as a Mommy, I thought I should at least try to get in the Halloween spirit for Rain.

So, I bought pumpkins--around the first week of October. I was bound and determined to carve pumpkins. I bought a big one and a little one. I brought them home and set them on my counter. "Look Rain, PUMPKINS!" So big and orange. Well, days passed and between chasing cows, building corrals, cutting cedar posts, and life in general, they sat on my counter--faceless--yet I could feel their eyes boring into me every time I walked past them, or pushed them this way or that way to make room on the counter for food, playdoh, or coloring books. The day I would plan to carve them, would be the night that Shane didn't get home until after the girls were in bed.

Halloween loomed nearer and I noticed a strange phenomenon. My pumpkins were turning GREEN! . . . and not from mold. How could a pumpkin that was bright orange when I bought it, grow chronologically backwards and turn unripe, I wondered. Now my pumpkins didn't have faces, nor were they even the right color. 

Well, October 30th dawned, and I told Shane we were carving pumpkins that night, with or without him. Daddy made a special effort to be home and we carved our green pumpkin. Rain enjoyed playing with her "cumpin," and the candle inside was an extra cool idea for her. So for Halloween we had a carved green pumpkin face, roasted seeds, and went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat. Rain was a little camo girl on behalf of Uncle Joe who is in the Marines boot camp.

One of the first costumes she saw at the Trunk or Treat was a gorilla who tried to give her a piece of candy. It petrified her and for days after, all she could repeat was "scary monkey" over and over. Several days later, I unthinkingly checked out Tarzan from the library. Probably not the best timing. Maybe she'll enjoy it better another time.