As many of you know, Carter and Shelby (our cats) are very much a part of our family. Over the past three weeks, Carter (a three year old male) has been suffering from feline lower urinary disease and then a series of very painful complications.

To make a very long and sad story short, Tim and I had to make the excrutiatingly difficult decision last night to have him put to sleep. We have a wonderfully compassionate veterinarian who cried with us as we held Carter and cuddled him for the last time. Here are some of my favorite pictures of our wild, friendly, mischevious Carter bug.

We've got him buried in the backyard with a small, pink flower and a ribbon marking his little grave. He was a wonderful cat and we will miss him very, very much.

So as most of you know, Tim and I bought a new house in April. From then until June we ripped up and replaced almost all the flooring, painted about every surface, replaced most of the lights and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. We moved in towards the end of June and though it's still a huge work in progress, here are some of our accomplishments so far:

Living room:



Master Bedroom:

Upstairs hallway:

Laurel's bedroom:

Guest bedroom:

Upstairs landing:


Dining room: (I don't think I took a before picture).
Notice, there are no pictures of bathrooms or the kitchen, so like I said, we've still got a long way to go. But in the next picture you'll see a couple of the reasons we are loving our new location:
And just because it's so friggin' adorable:

Before I was pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. Obviously breastmilk is nutritionally the best food for baby, but the bonding was also very important to me. The first six weeks (as chronicled in earlier blog entries) was hellacious, but I was determined and we soldiered through it.

The next few months were quite blissful as we found our groove and perfected the best nursing positions (including a mastery of nursing while lying down - YAY!) That nursing position even required my La Leche League leader to lie in the floor to demonstrate the method. When I returned to work at 9 weeks postpartum I became "attached" to my breastpump, which I continued to use at least twice a day to ensure Laurel had my milk even while we were separated.

As Laurel went through growth spurts, mastered new skills, sprouted new teeth and reached lots of other milestones, our nursing relationship matured. We learned how to discreetly nurse in public (something that took me a long time to be comfortable with).

Now that Laurel is gradually moving closer to two years of age, nursing has given us a new set of challenges. Some people who were vocally supportive of breastfeeding for the first months now seem a little reticent to voice their opinions. Luckily I've not experienced any open hostility, but I am a little more reserved about public nursing nowadays.

Gymnastics are also quite a barrier to peaceful nursing. I often come away from a breastfeeding session with messed up hair, scratches on my face and an appearance of general dishevelment. However, nursing is still a great bonding time for us, and I love when I get home from work and Laurel runs up to me asking for "nomies." Though there are definitely some days when I feel touched out by her asking to nurse five times in a one hour period. And Laurel still nurses to sleep each night and often rolls over to me during the night for some milk.

I've tried not to set any kind of predetermined weaning schedule (not even night weaning, though some mornings it looks VERY appealing!) Honestly though, the fact that Laurel is very rarely sick is a huge reason for me to stick with it at least through this winter's cold/flu season. For now we are just takings things one day at a time until 2 (and beyond).

As Laurel is reaching an age of greater independence, it becomes more and more difficult to not spend 90% of the day saying "no" and "don't climb on that" and "take that out of your mouth." While she's never been a high needs child, Laurel has asserted herself strongly in lots of different ways since her birth.

When I foolishly attempted to put her in a crib, she let me know that was not acceptable. When I tried to spoon feed her baby food purees, she adamantly refused. Riding in the seat in a grocery cart for an entire shopping trip rarely happens. Each of these things is just one individual way she lets her daddy and me know her preference.

Before parenthood, I wouldn't have described myself as controlling and I would have easily said that I wanted to allow my child to make her own decisions and have her own opinions. However, in the day-to-day grind, that becomes more and more difficult. Most of the time when I correct her it is because she is about to do something that could result in her getting hurt or something she needs to learn to do (like brushing her teeth or taking her vitamins.) The "easy" way is usually just forcing her to do what I want, the way I want it done (which can often result in crying and fighting.)

But I don't want my daughter to think that I don't value her opinions or her feelings, and by shoving a toothbrush in her mouth, I don't feel like I'm respecting her. So the alternative is to sit with her and brush my teeth while giving her a toothbrush of her own. She will usually only put the brush into her mouth for a second or two before demanding that it be put under the faucet again. Occasionally she will let me guide the toothbrush across her teeth during this process. The repeated game of toothbrush in mouth, toothbrush under faucet takes a LONG time, but there are no tears and she's less resistant to having her teeth brushed the next time.

Bedtime is oftentimes a struggle, and as her father and I joke, if you don't get her to sleep in her 15-minute window of opportunity, she gets a two hour long second wind and it's bye-bye bedtime. We try our best to have her bath done, teeth brushed, pajamas and nighttime diaper on before that time strikes (and it's a little different time each night). But with both of us working full-time out of the home and generally not finishing dinner until 7 p.m., it doesn't always happen. Laurel has no control over when she gets a bath or when her pajamas are put on. The responsibility belongs to us to make sure those things are done in a timely manner so that she can go to sleep when her body needs to.

I'm nowhere near having all the answers, and I fail much more than I succeed, but I think most parents would agree that raising a child is a constant game of trial. An error and a mistake today can be corrected tomorrow. (Or that's what I keep telling myself.)

How much our sweet girl has changed in the past almost 16 months. Here's a look at some of my favorite pictures of our sleeping angel.

In the past month, things have been very busy as I finished an election at work, and Tim and I have spent every spare moment renovating our new home (with lots of help from our parents!) I hope to share some before and after photos with you soon, but until then, here are some pictures of our sweet girl.

Here's Laurel and Nanny on our new back deck.
Laurel loves running around on the deck!

And here's the drama queen striking a pose :)

We had a whole week of Easter fun this year. It started out with an egg hunt and a church fellowship dinner on Palm Sunday and ended with a birthday party and church on Easter Sunday. Here we are in all our Easter finery (doesn't Laurel look like an adorable little bowl of neopolitan ice cream!) Laurel's friend K celebrated her 2nd birthday party with an Easter egg hunt and an outdoor party. The weather was gorgeous and the kids loved the egg hunt! (K is the red-headed cutie with the pretty pink pom-poms in her hair to the left of Laurel).

Here's our precious girl at her very first egg hunt! She got the hang of it right away. In fact, her new favorite thing is to carry her Easter basket around the house "hunting" for everything that will fit in the basket. Daddy had as much fun during the hunt as Laurel!

And here she is with mommy (the first hunt was a little chilly and rainy.)