Family Living: Abbott Style

I feel bad for first born children. I think it is pretty much the status quo across the board.  First time parents are kind of clueless.  No matter how much time parents have spent with babies, nothing prepares them for a child of their own.  Nothing. So naturally, a lot of mistakes are made  learning opportunities are to be had.  By the time the second child comes around, parents are old pros (or so I hear). When I first had Haley I had a nasty habit of not putting her down for like the first week.  In fact, I am pretty sure she was attached to her "bottle" for a week straight ( I was nursing if you catch my drift).  After nearly loosing my mind, I went to the other extreme.  They say you can't spoil newborns, but they do get use to your closeness and warmth for napping and such--so it probably is a good idea to let them get use to sleeping solo a bit.  I never rocked her to sleep and always laid her down for the night w...

I did a little math today. I roughly estimate that I spend about 63 hours with Haley each week.  This is after she sleeps 12 hours a night and takes a few naps a day.  I also subtracted the times I have her in Y-care so I can work out and such.   Ian roughly spends 31 hours a week with Haley.  That is subtracting his work schedule, plus her sleep, etc.  Which looking at it, that is a pretty good chunk of time.  His work schedule is such that he is working part of the time she is sleeping--so he has gained a few hours on most working dads. But still...after all my calculations I still came to the same solution.... 63>31  ....  But somehow..... " Are you done taking picture yet "---Clearly annoyed " Mom, did you not hear dad----the picture taking, is annoying" 63 Breanna >31 Ian     = 98% Ian > 2% Breanna It just doesn't make sense.  I would like to speak with whoever is in charge.   When I r...

If you're reading this via email because you are one of my email subscribers--you really should come check out my home page. Just a reminder: FamilylivingAbbottStyle.Blogspot.com I have been working, for now hours, to completely re-design my blog page.  It looks fairly simple-but I did a lot of behind the scenes stuff with the CSS and HTML junk, in my opinion, that turned out nicely.  There are some things I would to like change (like the post divider and signature), but have just lost the patience at the moment.  A lot of what I did was real basic stuff, but after toying around with my blog for some time I am starting to wonder if I should have went to college for something along these lines.  I am a nerd and actually enjoy doing that sort of thing. On other news, after great debate, I think I am deciding to pick up substitute teaching again a few days a month (maybe 2-3 days a month).  I am quitting working the tanning salon and gearing ...

I have come to know something as fact.  I am better at most things after a single glass of wine. The other night, I headed down to my domain to do some sewing.  I became easily frustrated and ended up going to bed. So last night, I decided to try it again, but this time with my single glass of wine.  I have a tendency to be a total perfectionist, and I see that it is starting to blend over into my sewing life.  Not good, because I am far from perfect at sewing.  In fact, I am sure I am probably pretty terrible at it. I often half-ass things.  And sewing isn't really something you can fake.  That is my first lesson.  I thought I could skip a few steps for hemming, and it turned out horrible.  So I relaxed, turned up some rock music and just did the dang thing. I have decided to allow myself to not be a neat freak in this single room.  It is nice to go make a mess and not worry about cleaning it up.  If I am in the middle...

Please excuse this terrible template you are seeing...I had the bright idea to build my own template from scratch using html and css and all that fun stuff and it ended up being a disaster.  So I intend to redecorate.  And if you are reading this via email like many of you are--just disregard this message because it doesn't pertain to you.

Things I needed to accomplish this evening: -Fold laundry Things I've done instead of what I needed to do: -Baked cookies despite the fact that I stepped on the scale this morning to find 3 lbs. I thought I lost.  (Gasp) -Made mess of kitchen that now needs cleaning post-cookie baking -Ate 4 cookies.  One for each lb I gained and one for good luck. -Laughed while Haley pulled out all the baby wipes from the baby wipe thingy holder. -Poked my arm multiple times even though it hurts from my Tdap vaccination -Picked at a pimple on my face even though I knew better (and wrote new instead of knew..sheesh) -Played with Haley -Gave Haley a ridiculous amount of smooches for being so darned cute. -Got Haley to babble something that resembled "I Love You" Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe, just maybe-I can get a post up this evening: As I walked into the child play area at the YMCA, I just couldn't help but smile.  The crying toddler I walked away from just an hour before was playing so nicely with two other girls that she didn't even notice me walking in.  Being a girl myself, I have come to know and understand only one fact about female relationships, girls in three-- means trouble. Three girls all about the same age sat side-by-side-by-side.  Haley in the middle.  All three were sitting in front of the window, passing toys from one another.  By pass, I mean, Haley would snatch the toys away from the other two and decide who got to play with what.  This stopped me in my tracks and I saw my future.  Even though none of the girls can use their words, I could tell by body language what was going on between these girls.  Perhaps, it was Haley's noticeably bigger size.  But Haley was being a bit of a bossy thi...