by Laura Fleetwood | Aug 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
About a month ago, my Mom & Dad were over to watch Audrey and my Dad says, “by the way, I just bought a sailboat this week.” Say what?!? My Dad has never captained a sailboat in his life. In fact, I think he has only been on one or two his entire life and that was solely as a passenger. My initial reaction was one of skepticism and disbelief, but once I got over the initial shock I was really impressed that he had the guts to go out and do something like this for himself.
My Dad is the kind of guy who never splurges on himself. He doesn’t give a hoot about material things or about what others think of him. I think he’s only purchased 1 or 2 new cars in his life, never spent money on golf or other expensive hobbies, always put his “girls” first and himself last. About 20 years ago, he left a well-paying job as a school administrator with a promising career path to lead a more simple life in a more simple town and ended up being a very inspirational figure in many childrens’ lives as a 7th grade teacher and basketball coach. A rewarding career, but certainly not in monetary terms. This was his chance to fullfill a dream he’s always had and I applaud him for going for it!
Here’s a picture of The Sierra, his 25 foot sail boat docked at Carlyle Lake.
Audrey and I went to see Gramp’s boat for the first time last weekend. Sailing is an extremely complex activity that requires several people’s skill. Just looking at all of the ropes and pulleys was enough to scare me off. Everyone is still learning the ropes, literally, so we just motored out and motored back. It’s a beautiful lake and a beautiful boat. I look forward to many sunny days aboard The Sierra and can’t wait for Audrey and Anna to enjoy learning to sail with Nana and Gramps. But most of all, it’s fun to see my Dad so excited about something. I haven’t seen him look so youthful or content in a long time. Way to go, Dad! May you sail off into many beautiful sunsets! You deserve it!
by Laura Fleetwood | Aug 17, 2006 | Uncategorized
Our ultrasound appointment was exactly 2 weeks ago on August 2nd – right at 20 weeks. The first half of my pregnancy seemed to fly by this time. I remember with Audrey that it seemed to take FOREVER for the much-anticipated ultrasound date to finally arrive. This time it felt like I blinked and it was here. Justin and I took Audrey with us and tried to prepare her as much as possible for what was about to happen. We had been talking about the baby in Mommy’s belly for a few weeks, but those conversations went so well that Audrey thinks she has a baby in her belly, too. We explained that we were going to see the baby on a TV when Mommy went to the doctor and that it wouldn’t hurt Mommy. Audrey is very concerned these days about booboos or hurts of any kind- in fact, obsessed is a better word – so, it was important for her to know that Mommy was ok.
After a painful 20 minutes of hanging out in the waiting room with a FULL bladder, the ultrasound technician called us in. I didn’t really have a hunch this time whether it was a boy or a girl, so I was itching to find out. After showing us the heart chambers, brain sections and every other amazing thing that you can see on an ultrasound, the technician FINALLY asked if we wanted to find out the sex of the baby. Why do they wait until the end of the exam to tell you, anyway? I had been looking the entire time to see if I could tell. By the lack of seeing anything hanging around, my guess was that it was a girl – I was right! Justin’s first words were “we won’t have to buy anything” and mine were “Audrey will have a sister!” Audrey was much too concerned about Mommy not being “hurt” to really pay much attention at all – bless her little heart.
Here are the amazing pictures of our little Anna Marie. According to all of the blood tests and the ultrasound, she is a perfectly healthy little girl just growing and waiting to make her way into our loving arms! Due date is still December 17th.
Profile View
Front View
We love you, Anna!
by Laura Fleetwood | Aug 17, 2006 | Uncategorized
I know I have not been keeping up with this blog as I intended. I got out of the groove and haven’t made it a priority as I should. There’s so much to write about and I’m so behind that it’s almost too overwhelming to know where to start. My goal is to do one post a day for the next week to at least get caught up on the biggies: our vacation to Michigan, Audrey’s 2nd birthday, seeing Anna Marie for the first time on her ultrasound, Dad’s new sailboat, Justin’s new job, home improvements, pregnancy updates, fun Audrey stories (see why I’m so overwhelmed?!?!)
Anyway, I have now officialy placed my goal in print, so I will follow through. After I get caught up, I plan to post a minimum of once a week – hopefully more. I’d like to post every day, but let’s be realistic here. Audrey doesn’t let me on the computer without “helping,” so naptime or post-bedtime are my only options. Frankly, all I want to do then is sleep! I’m trying to get over a nasty cold, so that doesn’t help at all. I’m hoping a blog blitz will get me back into the routine of writing because I really do enjoy it and I know many family & friends appreciate the Audrey/Anna updates. Enjoy the new Pixy Mom header and check back soon for more posts!
by Laura Fleetwood | May 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
I feel like I’m slowly emerging from the fog that has been my life for the past 6 weeks. It’s hard to explain what it’s like for me to exist in early pregnancy. The best way I can describe it is suffering from the morning after a night of binge-drinking only you didn’t get to have the fun of the party and you never get to that point where the fog lifts and you can see clearly again. Don’t get me wrong, it IS all worth it in the end but these past few weeks have really put me to the test.
When I visited the Hearts at Home conference with Dana a few months ago, a few of the speakers talked about the “medicinal grace” that brought them out of their respective depressions. At the time I cast a skeptical eye on these testimonials that seemed to put such a positive light on anti-depressive medication. I’ve always been one to say “suck-it-up” and at least try to pull yourself out of it before jumping on the medicinal bandwagon. Plus, to equate medicinal remedies to God’s Grace of salvation seems a bit extreme. However, after these past few weeks I must say that I have a bit more understanding of what it must be like to suffer from depression. I still think anti-depression medicine is probably way over-perscribed, but if it keeps someone from feeling like I have for the past several weeks then maybe it’s not all that bad.
There were a few weeks when I couldn’t even bear to drag myself from bed. I kept telling myself it was because of the hormones, the all-day-sickness and the fatigue (which it was) but this time around there was something else at play, too. There were honestly days when I thought to myself, “I can’t do this and I don’t want to do this.” I didn’t want to go on with any of my roles in life, I just wanted to stay in my cocoon of a bed and shut away the rest of my life. Fortunately, I’m an achiever and responsibility is also my middle name. So, the nagging thoughts of what would happen if I didn’t get my butt out of bed prevented me from taking any extreme measures, but I SURE WANTED TO! When you’re in that state of mind, it’s impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s hard to make anyone understand. I’m just glad that my experience was due to early pregancy and not a more persistent state…for anyone out there who can’t get past the fog, talk to someone and don’t let them tell you it’s all in your head or that you’ll get over it soon. Depression is a real sickness and should be treated as such. Maybe with medicine, maybe not, but certainly with a doctor involved!
I think I’m over the worst of it now. I still gag at the drop of a hat, but at least the all-day nausea is gone and now the worst of it is from about 4pm to bed time. I’m at 11 weeks, YIPPEE! So hopefully even that will be gone in the next few weeks. Here’s a SHOUT OUT to all you moms who have experienced the blahs of early pregancy! You’re all Saints in my book!
by Laura Fleetwood | Apr 17, 2006 | Uncategorized
Well, the chaos I just wrote about is soon to be stepped up a notch! A week ago, I found out that I’m pregnant with baby #2. Audrey broke the news to Justin. When he got home from work, she was wearing a white onesie with the words “Big Sister” written in magic marker. He didn’t catch on immediately, but with a little prompting from me it finally hit home!
Even though it’s been a week, I still don’t think the reality has really hit me, yet. Audrey will be 28 months old when the baby is born. Am I ready to handle a two-year-old and a newborn? Only one way to tell…
My most immediate concern is whether or not the 24-hour-a-day puke-my-guts-out-for-the-first-2-months sickness will rear it’s ugly face again. So far, so good, but it’s still early. Everyone says each pregnancy is completely different, so I’m holding out hope. We told our parents this weekend at all of the respective Easter celebrations. Needless to say, the grandparents and aunties are overjoyed. Judging from the outpouring of Easter presents Audrey received, there’s plenty more love and spoiling to be showered on another little one!
Audrey is going to be a wonderful big sister. Justin is already a wonderful dad. I can’t wait to see the plans God has in store for our growing family!
by Laura Fleetwood | Apr 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
A few weeks ago, Audrey started saying a word that sounded like a mix between “hoppy” and “happy.” I had the darndest time figuring out what it meant until one day I was taking all of the stuffed animals out of her basket. I picked up the bunny and she immediately shouted “Hoppy! Hoppy!” Mystery solved! We still don’t know if she calls them “hoppies” because they hop or because the Easter bunnies at Angie’s house are “happy.” Regardless, thus began the latest obsession.
Everywhere we go, there are “hoppies.” In Target, they are hanging from the ceiling, lining the shelves and even on the clothing. In Audrey’s world, this is like Christmas! Being tired of singing Old McDonald, In a Cabin By the Woods, and the Ittsy Bitsy Spider, I thought I would take advantage of this newest obsession by teaching Audrey Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I figured… it’s a cute song, it’s about Easter AND about bunnies! No brainer! Sure, Laura, great idea. Now we sing the hoppy song endlessly for fear of a breakdown. No sooner do you finish it, then the little hoppy lover squeals, “hoppy, hoppy” as she jumps her fingers up and down in an effort to make a bunny hop. It’s actually very cute the first 10 times. After that, it’s enough to frustrate even the most laid-back person you know.
Anyway, for the culmination of this obsession, we thought it would be a GREAT idea for Audrey to go sit on the Easter Hoppy’s lap for a picture. We talked about it all morning and she was so excited to go visit the big hoppy! I really thought that with her love for bunnies, this would be a great treat. Wrong, again, mom.
She was facinated with the giant hoppy for, oh, about 30 seconds before we attempted to remove her clutching arms and clinging legs from Justin’s body long enough to put her on the Easter Bunny’s lap. The only saving grace was that she got an Easter egg with chocolate in it. As chocolate tends to do, that yummy treat was enough to erase any traumatic memories, so the Easter Hoppy is once again a dearly beloved friend. Long live the hoppies!
by Laura Fleetwood | Apr 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
We narrowly escaped a catastrophe last weekend. Audrey is at that stage where she is starting to be sneaky, even if she doesn’t know it, yet. I was pulling out of our garage in the Blazer on my way to run some errands when Justin opened the door and beckoned me to pull back in. He had put the stroller in the Blazer and wanted me to take the car so he could take Audrey to the indoor playground at the Mills later that morning.
Unbeknown to both of us, during the short amount of time Justin was standing at the open door, Audrey had walked right by him down the garage steps. Justin shut the door, I pulled into the garage, got out of the Blazer and headed to the car. Suddenly I heard loud crying, too loud to be coming from the house. My heart stopped. I ran over by the door and saw Audrey lying on the cold garage floor. She must have tripped over something – thank God! If she hadn’t tripped and cried out, I never would have known she was in there and, God-forbid, could have backed right out of the garage and never seen her.
Before having a child, I never quite understood how freak accidents happen. You hear stories about a parent running over their child in the driveway and you wonder how they could be so careless. Frankly, it’s amazing things like that don’t happen more often. You turn your back and…boom. Audrey’s guardian angel was looking over her that day.
The worries I had when Audrey was an infant seem like a piece of cake to me now. One of my good friends once told me the following: “Little kids, little worries. Big kids, BIG worries!” How true that now seems! The worst part is that Audrey is not really that big…just think what we have to look forward to!
by Laura Fleetwood | Apr 4, 2006 | Uncategorized
by Laura Fleetwood | Apr 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
Since Justin is out with the guys tonight, I decided that Audrey and I would treat ourselves to a girls dinner out. I was driving around, trying to decide where we should eat, when I pulled into the Olive Garden parking lot. Immediately, Audrey excitedly shouted “Bapes! Bapes!” If you didn’t know, “bapes” (grapes) are Audrey’s current favorite food in the entire world. There was no doubt I had picked the right place.
by Laura Fleetwood | Mar 29, 2006 | Anxiety, Uncategorized
It’s such a strange feeling to see your own strengths and weaknesses revealing themselves in your child. As Audrey grows more and more into her own little personality, I can see the great similarities to mine and it takes everything I have to stop myself from wanting to “fix” everything I don’t like about myself by somehow steering her down a different path. I know that’s impossible, but it’s a temptation nonetheless.
I’ve come a long way this past year in accepting my unique brand of neurosis. We all have one, you know, the idiosyncrasies that give others a reason to complain and ourselves a reason to make excuses about what we do, think, and say. I’m working on an entire post about that, but the gist of it is that I’m a people-pleasing, type A achiever. I’m neurotic about tackling new challenges, making things perfect, and not making waves with anyone or anything. A strange mix, I know, but it is what it is.
Since Audrey was born, this need do do more, do it perfectly, and have everyone like me in the process really started raising some red flags for me in the way that I focus those tendancies. The scary thing is that I see some of the same tendencies in Audrey, too. She realy worries about doing things “the right way” and she gets really hung up on things that seem to be wrong. When she sees a picture of a unicorn, she litterally worries for 30 minutes about the horn on its head. “Uh Oh,” she says as she looks like she’s ready to cry. Distracting her is to no avail. On a lovely walk through Creve Coeur park, she couldn’t even enjoy the beautiful scenery because she was so worried about all of the trees that had fallen down.
I want Audrey to enjoy being a kid. To be able to live in a fantasy world of her own making without worrying about whether things are the way they are supposed to be. There’s plenty of time for the weight of reality, that’s not something a 1 1/2 year old or any child should be worrying about. Talk about a wake-up call.
I want to remember how to play as only a child can. Where there’s no end in mind, only what you feel like doing in that moment. I want to remember what it’s like to enjoy a moment without an agenda of a million thoughts running through my head about what I need to be doing. To move just for the sake of moving. I want to remember what it’s like to lay on the ground, look up at the sky and see angels in the clouds. To hear wispers in the wind or feel the touch of a muse on my cheek. I’m tired of being so busy doing, that I’m missing the divine that is occuring all around me and causing my daughter to do the same.
The chaos of my life really struck me one Sunday a few weeks ago during a particularly moving sermon my pastor was giving on the book Making Room for Life. It was 4 week sermon series based on this book by Randy Frazee. The basis of the book is that we are all so busy trying to do all of the things that we think are important that we really aren’t making room for anything that is truly important.
During that sermon, I had a flash back to one particularly hectic week where it seemed Justin and I were running in completely opposite directions with schedules that barely allowed us to say hello to each other. When one of us got home, the other would rush off to leave. At one point, Justin walked in the door as I was playing with Audrey. Audrey took one look at Justin coming home, turned to me, and said “Bye!” It was her expectation that it was now my turn to leave. That’s not the kind of family life I had planned.
The chaos in our lives was confirmed last week when our vet told me that our cat, Mocha, is neurotic. Apparently she has a problem dealing with stress. The other animals, busy toddler and lack of attention is causing her to have stomach problems and even pull her hair out. You know it’s pretty bad when the vet says he can prescribe anti-anxiety pills for your cat.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, though. I’m glad I’m figuring this stuff out at 29 versus 49. I’m learning to say “no” to things. I’m challenging myself to see the world through Audrey’s eyes where following the ant on the ground takes much greater priority than washing the dishes. I’m trying to focus my achiever tendancies on my family rather than external activities. I’m trying to make each moment count, for we don’t know when it will be our last. And most of all, I’m praying that I don’t let life get in the way of my relationships with my family, my friends and my Redeemer.
Here’s to the simple things in life! The things that matter most and cost the least.
by Laura Fleetwood | Mar 21, 2006 | Uncategorized
How can something as innocent as the word “No” be so darn cute and so annoying at the same time? Over the past week or so, Audrey has latched on to this lovely word and is using it with a vengeance. Where it ranges on the cute meter depends on her countenance and attitude when she uses it. “No” can be anything from a sly, I-know- better-don’t-try-to-pull-one-over-on-me to an affirmation of something dangerous to a down and out defiant, hands on the hip declaration of a toddler revolt.
I couldn’t help myself – I created to give you insight into this phase of Audrey’s toddlerhood. The entire footage was taken in the span of a day. TURN YOUR VOLUME UP, enjoy and laugh since it’s not YOU!
by Laura Fleetwood | Mar 20, 2006 | Uncategorized
Justin’s cousin, Dana, author of Mamalogues, invited me to attend the Hearts at Home national conference in Bloomington, IL with her this past Saturday. Hearts at Home is an organization for Christian mothers that is interested in having Dana present at future conferences. Because they were wooing Dana, we were official “VIPs” with our own personal guide, admission to the VIP room and even assigned seating with the conference speakers. I was very impressed.
This was a conference for moms, by moms. Women’s touches were everywhere. The Illinois State Bone Student Center was transformed into a Hearts at Home extravaganza. Every detail was perfectly planned and executed from the cute signs with quotes from kids on the backs of the bathroom stall doors, to the greenery that turned the men’s bathroom urinals into porcelin planters, down to the matching circles that adorned everything imaginable including, the conference bags, signage, nametags, and even the kleenex boxes. It was so apparent that they made every effort to make each of the 6500 moms present feel special and valued.
HAHÂ 
I gleaned so many golden nuggets about how to be the mom and wife I am meant to be. Many ideas for future posts! The speakers, especially Lysa Terkeurst, were funny, touching, insipirational and very realistic about what it takes to be a Christian mom in today’s world. I left feeling filled-up with ideas, emotion, and thankfulness for the blessing of being Justin’s wife and Audrey’s mom. Sure, it’s not easy, but one look around that room filled with 6500 other Christian moms made me realize that I’m not meant to do it alone. Not only with the help and support of my family and friends, but with trust in knowing that Audrey is God’s child more than she is mine. He chose me to be her mom for a reason and my new prayer is that He will help me daily to fill the gaps in my own ability with His grace, wisdom and love.
