It's The Little Things

Last Sunday I was putting Sawyer down for a nap. I had a bottle in one hand and I was browsing through my phone in the other hand. Sawyer was looking up and me and she took her hand and reached down and pushed the hand with my phone down, like, "Focus, Mom!" I laughed about it and went on with my day.
Tonight I was putting Sawyer to bed and it was the same scene, only this time she reached down and grabbed my thumb. I immediately dropped my phone and spent the rest of the time examining her face as she fell asleep holding my hand.
I love those moments. When it's just her and me. She's falling asleep in my arms, the safest place she could be. We sit there in the dark and listen to the ocean waves coming from her sleep sheep, and in that moment, everything is absolute perfection.
As I was looking at her I was thinking of a poem I heard once that talks about how you never know when the last time will be the last time. We've already experienced some lasts. She used to make this face all the time that we called Sawyer Face that she doesn't make anymore. She used to finish eating and streeeeetch and she doesn't do that anymore. I know I have many more nights ahead just like tonight, but before I know it, there will be a last time. Tonight nothing else existed but her and me.

The Last Time

From the moment you hold your baby in your arms,

you will never be the same.

You might long for the person you were before,

When you had freedom and time,

And nothing in particular to worry about.

You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,

And days will run into days that are exactly the same,

Full of feeding and burping,

Whining and fighting,

Naps, or lack of naps. It might seem like a never-ending cycle.

But don't forget...

There is a last time for everything.

There will come a time when you will feed your baby

for the very last time.

They will fall asleep on you after a long day

And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child

One day you will carry them on your hip,

then set them down,

And never pick them up that way again.

You will scrub their hair in the bath one night

And from that day on they will want to bathe alone.

They will hold your hand to cross the road,

The never reach for it again.

They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,

And it will be the last night you ever wake for this.

One afternoon you will sing 'the wheels on the bus'

and do all the actions,

Then you'll never sing that song again.

They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate,

the next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone.

You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your

last dirty face.

They will one day run to you with arms raised,

for the very last time.

The thing is, you won't even know it's the last time

until there are no more times, and even then,

it will take you a while to realise.

So while you are living in these times,

remember there are only so many of them and

when they are gone,

you will yearn for just one more day of them

For one last time.

Author unknown

Chapter 3: Meeting His Family

One thing that was hard for me, while we were dating, was the fact that I felt like Matt wasn't seeing the real me. Everything we did in Arizona was on his turf. I had some friends there, yes, but no one in Arizona had any depth on the person I was or WHY I was the person I was.
I feel like that is an important part in dating; seeing the person around their people. That's when you get to see who they really are.
I remember meeting Matt's best friend Ben and his wife Breann. We met them at Ikea and just walked around the store for a while. It wasn't anything spectacular, and I was intimidated by them so I'm sure I was pretty quiet. Not too long after that we all went to a movie. I remember Matt went to the bathroom and when he left Ben leaned over to me and said, "By the way, you're our favorite" While Breann nodded in agreement. He then said, "Matt has brought around some real riff raff" I was so happy that they liked me. It is so important to be liked by your man's people.

One thing I loved about dating Matt was, he always seemed so confident in where he stood with me. We never had any DTR (determine the relationship) or anything like that. We never had to sit down and discuss where this was headed. He just had the mind set of, "I want this to progress, so I'll progress and if she doesn't want to then I'll know"
I remember we went to Grimaldi's and there was a guy there that was an architect on the project Matt was working on. He took me over to him and said, "This is my girlfriend Julia". I remembered being so caught off guard but I loved that. I just thought, "Oh... ok so I'm his girlfriend now." and that was that.

November 16, Saturday:
Matt was doing a mountain bike race with his brother Craig. It was 12 hour relay so he'd be gone all day. He invited me to meet him there and hang out when he wasn't racing. I was excited but nervous because that meant meeting his brother.
Matt and I had both talked about what meeting the family means. Matt and I are both the youngest in our families. We both dated a lot and we were both "old" for being single in the LDS world. Introducing people to the family meant getting their hopes up, and eventually having to answer a lot of questions about why they aren't coming around anymore. I remember talking to my mom about a new guy once. At the end of the conversation she says, "What was his name again?" I said, "It really doesn't matter. By the next time I see you he likely won't be the one I'm talking about anymore"
I knew Matt looked up to Craig a lot so I was excited that he wanted me to meet him.

I had been rowing all day so I wasn't able to get to the trail until that night. When I got there, Matt was racing. I saw a guy that looked alarmingly like Matt and knew that had to be Craig, but being the introvert I am I just stood out of view for a while until I saw Matt cross the finish line. I walked up and Matt introduced us. That was his last ride in the relay so we got to spend the rest of the time just hanging out with Craig and the other racers. It was a lot of fun and I felt really comfortable around them. The only downside was, we were hanging out in a Winnebago with about 6 guys who'd been mountain biking all day. Stinky.
That night we went back to my apartment and Matt told me that Craig really liked me. He then said, "I'm excited for the rest of my family to meet you"
I knew Matt had dinner with his family on the third Sunday of every Month. That happened to be the next day. I said, "You have dinner with your family tomorrow right?" He said, "Yeah" I said, "Well... I'd like to go." He said, "You want to come to my family dinner?" I said, "Yeah I would." He said, "Ok"
Looking back, I don't remember being nervous at all. I knew he had a BIG family (being the youngest of 9) but I had a big family. I knew how my family was in these situations, and I felt like, I could handle what they threw at me.
I honestly don't remember the initial walk through the door or anything, but I do remember when everyone got their food I was sitting at the counter with a plate and all of the sudden I was surrounded by sisters (I think it was Alison, Heather, Cindy and Aubri and a few of the older neices) They were asking me about my life and my family. About my work and my hobbies. About how Matt and I met and how long we'd been dating. They were so interested in me. They kept asking me if I was overwhelmed or if this was too much to take in, but I just told them it wasn't. It felt just like my family dinners at home. I could see it in their eyes. The hope. The "is this the one?" I wondered the same things.

We had to leave early because I was singing in a fireside that night. I remember when we left his mom gave him a hug and I could see she whispered something in his ear. If I'm not mistaken she was telling him, "I really like her"

I was glad I met his family then because Thanksgiving was soon after and I got to spend that with them as well. Being my first Thanksgiving in Arizona and away from my family, I was really glad to be able to spend it with his family.

This was taken the day after Thanksgiving.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

5 Months Old

Another month has come and gone. They are going so fast these days. I can't believe Sawyer is almost half a year old!

This month she has MASTERED rolling over. She only really struggles when she's up against a wall. She's not an ambi-roller and if she tries to roll towards the wall or the edge of the couch she gets rather frustrated. It's pretty dang cute to watch her try though.

She has also found her feet and apparently they are rather tasty. As soon as she is laid on her back her feet are up in the air and in her mouth. Makes diaper changes really fun (if she's not eating her feet, she's trying to roll over. Babies are hard to wrestle)

We also started her on solid foods. I don't know if you can call them solid, they look pretty mushy to me. So far she's had, bananas, mango puree, and some other fruit combinations. She didn't seem to like them too much. Probably a combination of learning how to eat and liking what she's eating. I held off on the mixed veggies and stuff, because that just sounds so gross to me, but, as it turns out, she LOVES them. The mixed veggies are the first ones that she has actually finished.
Feeding her is also a battle. She REALLY wants to help me with the spoon. It's so fun to watch her try new things.

She has a pretty good sleep schedule. We're still working on getting her naps back (4 month sleep regression is real my friends) but thankfully her night sleeping has been awesome. She typically goes to bed by 7 and wakes up between 6 and 7. I never know when she's going to nap or how long. They'll either be 25 minutes or 3 hours.  I was talking to my sister this month and telling her, "It's amazing how much you can get done when your baby could wake up any minute."
 I have to stay in her room with her as she falls asleep because if she's not tired yet she'll play in her crib and roll to her back and then she won't be able to fall asleep. (She doesn't know that if she just rolled back over she'd be fine) So I sit next to her crib, out of site, and wait. Once she starts laying her head down I know I can leave, but if she's propped up, I wait. My favorite thing is going into her room after a nap, or in the morning. She'll be just cooing away and I walk in, she's normally on her back in the corner of the crib, holding her feet or playing with one of her stuffed animals. She sees me and she gets so excited. AH I love that I'm her mom.

In the last couple of weeks she has started pushing herself up on her hands and knees and she'll do the rocking thingy. I am quite familiar with this motion after watching my nieces and nephews. Crawling is right around the corner.

She is a hand sucker too. If she's really tired and about to fall asleep she'll suck her thumb, if she's awake it's THE WHOLE HAND. I'm not kidding, it's pretty amazing.

She is a pretty happy baby. It's pretty easy to get her to smile. I just watch her all day in amazement.

Every month I seem to love her more. I look back on the other months and KNOW I loved her then, but did I love her THIS MUCH??

Likes:
Peek-a-boo
When mom sings to her
Baths (LOVES)
Eating
Everything in her mouth
Being on Mom and Dad's bed, she loves to watch me get ready or fold laundry and ESPECIALLY loves watching me brush my teeth, it's so fascinating to her. Honestly if she's fussy, I can put her on our bed and she's usually entertained for a while.
Being outside (but she does NOT like the sun in her face, so it's hard to take her out very often. Over-cast days are the best.

Dislikes:
When I make a bottle in front of her (she gets hangry like no one's business) if she sees a bottle she needs to eat RIGHT THEN. Yesterday I fed her and when it was gone she cried and cried, then she calmed down, then she saw the empty bottle and started crying again. I couldn't help but laugh. It just takes her a minute or two to realize that she's not hungry anymore.
Being put down to bed. She usually falls asleep pretty fast, but when I put her in her crib she gets real upset for a minute.
She's starting to get a little stranger danger.
Crowded, chaotic restaurants (learned that the hard way)

 This was the beginning of the month. She'll go up on her hands now too

 Feeding herself like a boss. (She doesn't do this much, just holds my hands mainly)

 Typical stance

 I mean... come on with the cuteness.

 This hurts me just to look at her, but mmmmm feets

 Seriously, she tries to eat everything

 Our little cheerleader. I will be out of my element if that comes true.

My 5 month old baby!