Perspective and Maggie

I have been so very amazed lately at the little girl my baby has become! How in the world did the worlds sweetest baby girl turn into the most beautiful little toddler? She speaks - non stop - and runs and builds and destroys and counts and sings and tries to jump and rolls and has a sense of humor?!! A sense of humor?! She is hilarious! And everyone who has seen her can attest to how amazingly stunning she is. I'm not even bragging or trying to be prideful, but she is just a gorgeous child! (Must be good genes from her daddy!). She can count to 11 most days, and can identify most of the letters of the alphabet. She repeats everything.

She amazes me with the memory she has. She loves to talk to Poppy and Grammy on Skype/FaceTime. And even though she barely actually dances at dance class, she talks about it all week. She kisses her brother at least a dozen times a day. She likes to sing the same songs over and over again, like "My God is So Big!" and "Jesus Loves Me" and "Patty Cake" and "The B-I-B-L-E" and "Mr. Sun" and others. The other day she started to sing "Amazing Grace how sweet the noise..." all by herself and I could have cried; it was the sweetest thing!

She comes up to Robert and I all the time and compliments us, it's so funny! "Daddy, I like your shirt." And once she said, "Mommy, I like your pee-pee!" Because honestly, what mother pees in private! She loves her friends and talks about them all the time. She remembers little details about them, or things they said once and it is remarkable. She loves to read books, and has "memorized" several of our favorites. We have fabulous tea (water) parties. Honestly, one of her favorite things is water - drinking it, pouring it, dumping it, stirring it... She loves to "sit on counter" when I am cooking. The other day she drew a curved line on the ground outside with chalk, and she said, "Look Mommy, a rainbow!" I admired it and then she said, "a promise! Jesus!" (She was remembering Noah and God's faithful promise to never flood the earth again! Well maybe not all of that, but at least something!)

It is my favorite thing in the world when she she comes up to us and asks for kisses or a "big hug!" Whenever she is told to apologize to Charlie she says, "sorry Charlie...I forgive you." She's learning, haha! She is just all around an awesome kid - so much energy, so much joy, so much fun, so much imagination, and all with a little side of crazy!

Now before you go and think she's perfect - HA! Along with all these amazingly wonderful things about my darling little girl, she has a king-sized attitude and can turn up the drama at a moments notice. It does my heart good as a mama to record all of the fabulous things I adore about her. It is so easy for me to forget those things and focus on the daily grind of discipline...and all of the hard parts of mommyhood. The times when she is driving me up a wall and will not obey to save her life, the times when the house is a disaster and then she dumps her food all over the floor, the whining like nails on a chalkboard and the attitudes - Yikes! Yet...compared to all the previous paragraphs of pure joy, well, it doesn't seem as overwhelming.

Being a mommy is truly the most amazing thing. I didn't know I could love my babies so much. I also didn't know how much I'd want to run away from the house screaming at times, haha! God is so good to give me such awesome babies and to call me to be a mother. So, mommies, when you're having a rough morning, or week ;), take a second to remember just one thing you LOVE about your little one, say thank you to The Lord, smile, and clean up the crayon off your counter joyfully as unto The Lord.

Perspective and Maggie

I have been so very amazed lately at the little girl my baby has become! How in the world did the worlds sweetest baby girl turn into the most beautiful little toddler? She speaks - non stop - and runs and builds and destroys and counts and sings and tries to jump and rolls and has a sense of humor?!! A sense of humor?! She is hilarious! And everyone who has seen her can attest to how amazingly stunning she is. I'm not even bragging or trying to be prideful, but she is just a gorgeous child! (Must be good genes from her daddy!). She can count to 11 most days, and can identify most of the letters of the alphabet. She repeats everything.

She amazes me with the memory she has. She loves to talk to Poppy and Grammy on Skype/FaceTime. And even though she barely actually dances at dance class, she talks about it all week. She kisses her brother at least a dozen times a day. She likes to sing the same songs over and over again, like "My God is So Big!" and "Jesus Loves Me" and "Patty Cake" and "The B-I-B-L-E" and "Mr. Sun" and others. The other day she started to sing "Amazing Grace how sweet the noise..." all by herself and I could have cried; it was the sweetest thing!

She comes up to Robert and I all the time and compliments us, it's so funny! "Daddy, I like your shirt." And once she said, "Mommy, I like your pee-pee!" Because honestly, what mother pees in private! She loves her friends and talks about them all the time. She remembers little details about them, or things they said once and it is remarkable. She loves to read books, and has "memorized" several of our favorites. We have fabulous tea (water) parties. Honestly, one of her favorite things is water - drinking it, pouring it, dumping it, stirring it... She loves to "sit on counter" when I am cooking. The other day she drew a curved line on the ground outside with chalk, and she said, "Look Mommy, a rainbow!" I admired it and then she said, "a promise! Jesus!" (She was remembering Noah and God's faithful promise to never flood the earth again! Well maybe not all of that, but at least something!)

It is my favorite thing in the world when she she comes up to us and asks for kisses or a "big hug!" Whenever she is told to apologize to Charlie she says, "sorry Charlie...I forgive you." She's learning, haha! She is just all around an awesome kid - so much energy, so much joy, so much fun, so much imagination, and all with a little side of crazy!

Now before you go and think she's perfect - HA! Along with all these amazingly wonderful things about my darling little girl, she has a king-sized attitude and can turn up the drama at a moments notice. It does my heart good as a mama to record all of the fabulous things I adore about her. It is so easy for me to forget those things and focus on the daily grind of discipline...and all of the hard parts of mommyhood. The times when she is driving me up a wall and will not obey to save her life, the times when the house is a disaster and then she dumps her food all over the floor, the whining like nails on a chalkboard and the attitudes - Yikes! Yet...compared to all the previous paragraphs of pure joy, well, it doesn't seem as overwhelming.

Being a mommy is truly the most amazing thing. I didn't know I could love my babies so much. I also didn't know how much I'd want to run away from the house screaming at times, haha! God is so good to give me such awesome babies and to call me to be a mother. So, mommies, when you're having a rough morning, or week ;), take a second to remember just one thing you LOVE about your little one, say thank you to The Lord, smile, and clean up the crayon off your counter joyfully as unto The Lord.

Welcome to the World My Baby Boy: Charles Haddon Wauhop

I wanted to write all of this down so I never forget it. Charlie is nearing 10 weeks now and that seems kind of unbelievable. Only kind of, though, because it seems at the same time as though he has always been a part of our family! And if you're a mom, you totally understand that!

So...
my baby boy came fast! I woke up on June 21 - a day before my due date - at about 6:45am feeling a contraction, but honestly I didn't really think it was anything. But I felt another about 5 minutes later. I told Robert and we were really hoping that this might be it since I was so done with being pregnant and had been walking around for over a week at 4cm! Just in case I would spend the next few days in the hospital I thought I should hop in the shower. Well, with just a few minutes into my shower I suddenly felt like dying. I yelled out to Robert, "This is it!" And boy, was it! He got Maggie up and we started texting a few friends to see if they could pick up Maggie from the hospital. I was out of the shower and into the car in a few minutes. The three minute car ride felt unbearable. I crawled into the hospital, Robert had Maggie in tow. I rode up the elevator to the 4th floor...by this time I was physically yelling out every 2 minutes. They immediately got me into a room and I was begging for an epidural. Yikes! I've never felt pain like that before; it was insane. Anyway, I needed fluids and IVs and all of that jazz. They checked me when I got into the bed and I was already 7cm dilated! The nurse told me to let her know if I was feeling pressure, because she thought I'd be ready to push soon. I wasn't about to push without an epidural, though. I was yelling and crying and people were telling me to breathe and relax! HA! Right. Finally (after about 30 minutes) I was ready for my epidural - praise Jesus!! The nurse checked me again, right away. I was 10cm and Charlie was ready to come out.

Well, my lovely doctor came in right about then and asked me if I thought I might be able to hold my baby in until noon (it was about 9:30 at this point). Ok. Well I was feeling awesome, flying high, by this time. I was all for taking a nap before I needed to push out my baby. The Lord had other plans. My blood pressure got very low and Charlie's heart rate was dropping a little. I wore an oxygen mask for about an hour, but things weren't really improving. They decided to go ahead and let me push. With my Maggie pushing was a two hour ordeal. This time, there was barely time to break the bed down. Five minutes and two pushes later the most beautiful baby boy arrived. Seven pounds, fourteen ounces, screaming his precious, perfect, little head off!

My sweet baby boy laid on my chest and we were in love. Still are! We had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. During those 48 hours I got to watch my baby girl become a big sister. I will say that she didn't thrive in her new position within the confines of our our hospital, haha, but she sure did love that new baby! And Robert, of course, was/is the worlds greatest dad! We couldn't take our eyes off of the sweet boy that just joined our family! The Lord is so kind and we are immensely blessed. We brought our boy home, and voila - Wauhop, family of four!

The Potty Chronicle: Day One: The End

Even the night before "Maggie's potty day" I had a great amount of nervous and expectant anticipation...only to be multiplied that morning as we put on her first (of many) pairs of big girl panties. She has been telling me she has to pee-pee on the potty for at least a month. This girl seemed all about the potty.

We started by trying to train "Bear" to go potty...Maggie was not into that. She was much more interested in the medicine dropper that "Bear" was using to go potty than in anything else, haha. And when "Bear" had an accident and I told her, nicely, "No, no, bear! Don't pee-pee on the floor, pee-pee on the potty!" Well, Maggie started to cry for Bear. It was hilarious and sweet! But, we gave up on that pretty fast. I thought I'd just focus on potty training the actual child instead of trying to get her into the animal thing. (She wasn't into any of the "key" elements of this method of training, haha.)

She woke up with a super runny nose and wasn't really interested in eating or drinking which definitely hindered the process. It was over an hour before she had to go potty, on the chair or on the floor. But when her pee-pee decided to make its debut, it was on the floor! It was a trail of pee-pee that she walked and slipped nervously around, and then started to cry! Well, then within the next 45 minutes she pee-peed on the floor 3 more times. We were flying through princess panties! We were sitting on the potty like every 5 or 10 minutes, but she was not feeling it. I had to sing round after round of Old MacDonald and The Itsy Bitsy Spider to get her to stay put! And then before I knew it, it was nap time! Praise The Lord. We were 0 and 4, and preggo mommy needed a break!

When she woke up (early of course), I reluctantly put another pair of panties on the girl. Well, by now she was starting to get it, miraculously!! She went on the potty 3 times in a row. I think she started making herself go once she realized the "reward" aspect of the training. Each time she went on the potty she got 3 peanut butter M and Ms and 2 stickers! Totally worth it. Anyway, even though she was having success and I could see things clicking, both of us were still stressed out! She kept getting off of the potty while she was still going pee-pee, so we were still flying through underwear. And I could tell Mags was tired of the whole thing. She had a few more accidents and a few more successes, the end of the day was coming, and then she just broke down. And then...I CAVED!

So, long story longer...my little girl will not be potty trained before her sweet brother is born and I will be a mom with 2 in diapers, and I'm ok with that! I talked to a few of my most trusted and beloved mommy and they really encouraged me to enjoy these last few weeks with just me and the Mags... Honestly, she was totally getting it and would have been "potty trained" for sure by the end of the week. But I wasn't ready - physically or emotionally, haha. Not because I don't want her to grow up; it's way more lame reasons that that. I don't want to deal with accidents and emotional break downs and nursing and using the potty at Kroger and all of that. I want to take my little girl on walks these last few weeks, and go to the aquarium, and the pool, and not worry about dry pants and asking her if she has to go to the potty every 30 minutes. That sounds selfish...it was certainly humbling, though, to realize this stuff, especially after I made such a big deal about it. But, the Lord is good! And Mags and I are going to have a blast these next few weeks while we wait for Charlie! So thankful to be her momma and for all of these opportunities for my sanctification (at least after the fact, haha)!

Blog What?!

My, o my...blogging. Where has the time gone?

So, quick update on the Wauhop life:

1. We live in Atlanta - and by Atlanta I mean "The City of Homes," Newnan, GA - and we are really loving it. We do miss CA and our friends, but who wouldn't? But Robert is loving that his job is studying and preaching and meeting with students and parents. And we are making some new, fun friends, praise the Lord!! Two of whom are having little boys this spring/summer, too!!

2. Speaking of little boys, ours - Charles Haddon (Charlie!!) - is due exactly 10 weeks from today! Can't wait!! But also have so very much to do before he arrives :)

3. Our sweet little girl is 17 months old! Wowzer!! She is the funniest girl! Maggie is my little adventurer! She is non-stop and such a chatter box!! Here are some moments from our silly world:
- she loves water and is constantly saying "water water!" Lame one to start with...but it's cute.
- currently she is obsessed with babies. Everywhere we see a stroller or high chair, a child under five, and especially an actual baby - o my! "Baby!" "mommy, baby!!" She is going to love being a big sister!
- she says "HI" to every single person we see as we are out and about.
- another obsession is the potty! O my goodness, she loves the pee pee potty...and we are going to try to potty train in a few weeks! Wow?! We will see!?
- she constantly wants to have her "boo boos" kissed.
- she loves animals and the sounds they make.
- she says "Ew" all the time, too, haha. It's both funny and annoying. She picks up things off of the floor or points out zits on our face and says..."ew." Weird diva child?
- she repeats everything.
- and there are a million other things she says and does every day that are just priceless! But of course I'm her mom...
Goodness, I'm in love with this child. She is a handful and a half and I am so ready for a vacation pretty much every other day. But I wouldn't trade being her mommy for the world!

4. I just saw a commercial on tv for mederma that was filmed on Honolulu in Montrose! No way.

5. We bought a house! And it's awesome. Pics to come :)

6. Other stuff. The Lord is good. He's awesome! He provides and He is faithful and kind and sovereign and He loves me! What a blessing.

Well, that's all for now I guess. Hope to be more regular at this thing, but we will see!