We will update the blog much more frequently this summer so check back soon!

• Week 1: Ladybug had an awful stomach bug - and I mean awful.  I had a cold, which I’d had since mid-December, and would not seem to leave me no matter what I did.  Nobody was getting enough sleep.
• Week 2: Things started to improve with the illnesses.
• Week 3: I came down with shingles!  It took me forever to figure out that something was really wrong and perhaps I should actually visit the doctor.  Not that they could do anything for shingles - you just have to wait it out.
• Week 4: Ladybug came down with hand, foot, and mouth disease!   Ugh.  Thankfully she only had it in her mouth, not the hands and feet as well.  But it hurt her to eat, so again we struggled with keeping her weight up (after the stomach bug, I mean, where she lost about a pound).  Turns out it’s a lot like strep or tonsillitis, in the sense that she got to eat a lot of smoothies and things like that.
• And now….. for the grand finale: after recovering from HFM, Ladybug comes down with CHICKEN POX!  Yep.  She is currently covered head to toe in little red spots.  Most likely, she caught it from me through my shingles.  I knew she would have it one day, but I had hoped she would be a bit older, so she would understand the importance of not scratching and things like that.  She is a pretty miserable little thing right now.  She’s not sleeping well, either, because of the itching, I imagine (which means, of course, none of us are sleeping well).  We are headed for an oatmeal bath right after this.

So, there’s the latest health news from the Fox home.  Oh, there IS a bit more I could add, which includes some good news: I finally found a good health care provider here in town to help with my thyroid issues.  She tested me for a few other things that she suspected, and it turns out I have a lot of other junk going on, too - which sounds like bad news, but to me, it was a relief because now I am finally able to get some treatment.  The problems include things like severe iron-deficiency, adrenal deficiency, estrogen/progesterone levels that are wacked out, and candida overgrowth (yeast) in my intestines.  All of these things are contributors to the great sense of fatigue I have been living with for months and months now  - which is also a relief, to know that it’s not just becasue I am the mother of a toddler.  :)  So, we are addressing those issues and hopefully I will be feeling better soon.

I celebrated my 32nd birthday at the end of the month, although the actual day was rather anti-climactic; I even had to cancel my birthday party because I was too tired, having been up most of the night before with Ladybug and her HFM disease.  However, that weekend my parents came in to celebrate with us and that was fun - my dad made one of his famous shrimp dinners with fresh Gulf shrimp he brought with him, and the next morning they took Ladybug when she woke up so we could sleep in!  They are starting to do that everytime they come to visit and it’s heavenly.  And then my sweet Fox took me to the opera the other night, which was really wonderful!  I hadn’t been in years, and Fox and I both really enjoyed it.

He is in full swing with his semester and I would even venture to say he is busier than ever.  He is preparing to apply to 23 firms in the Netherlands for his summer internship!    Makes me tired thinking about it.  But it’s exciting, too.  We look forward to seeing what will happen!

Perhaps, after reading about the past month, you will forgive me for still not having any new pictures up on Flickr!  :)  But it is still a goal, and hopefully by next month’s update I will have some new pictures for you.  Ladybug’s hair will go in pigtails now, which is pretty stinkin’ adorable, so I have to at least show her off for you.

Thanks for reading and for caring!

As far as the rest of her goes, she is developing in language sooo quickly, it’s amazing.  She communicates with us easily now, which makes life quite a bit easier than having to guess what she is trying to say.  For example, she tells us when she’s hungry and what she wants to snack on.  It’s pretty amazing.  And she continues to crack us up.  One thing that she does is pretend to be a dog barking - she’ll say, “Bow wow!” in a little growly voice,  then she’ll look at us with her huge, innocent eyes that hide a grin of glee behind them, and say, “Doggy?”  As if she’s saying, “Did you hear that dog?”  And we’re not supposed to know it was actually she who said “bow-wow.”  It’s so fun to play along with her.

Fox finished his semester with good grades and has been enjoying the time off.  The BEST news is that he met with his advisor and he will get to graduate in December 09 after all!!!!   HURRAY!   The advisor moved a few things around, changed his catalogue year, and voila, we are set for December 19, 2009!  There IS a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s even closer than I thought.  We’re SOOOOO happy.  The other exciting news is that Fox is pursuing an internship in the Netherlands this summer for two months, and of course Ladybug and I would join him.  We will keep you posted on how that’s going. He has (or, WE have) decided that he will continue working at the church where he started as the graphic designer in February.  The job was supposed to end about right now, but they offered him an extension and a raise, and we felt like it’s where he is supposed to be for now, so we accepted.  It’s stil hard to be there, but there have been good things, too, which really helps.

I attended the women’s retreat at our church in November and that was amazing for me.  It was my first time away from Ladybug overnight, and I boo-hooed when we left, of course, but the weekend was so refreshing and I am very glad I went.  I have a great group of women there who really love me, and it was wonderful to spend time with them there, as well as to hear from the Lord.

My Musikgarten classes start up again January 21, Lord willing (I need more students to register!).  I have been glad to have a break, but it will be fun to get going again.  I really enjoy it.

Again, we are way behind on posting pictures on Flickr, but I’ll try to get on top of that soon.

Ladybug is, well, where to begin?  She is now almost 16 months old.  She has 14 teeth and two more on the way!  Pretty soon she’ll be done!  She runs, not walks.  She is pretty fearless.  She loves the playground and interacting with other kids.  She is talking so much!  For awhile I tried to count her words, but quickly lost track.  The best part is the way her amazing little personality continues to emerge.  She has the greatest smile, and knows exactly how to get us to crack up, chase her, or make us really mad!  One really funny thing she does is when other adults are laughing at something, she will look at us all and then crack up, too.  I guess she wants to feel like she’s part of the group!  She also loves to dance or even just move to the beat of music in the car.  It’s pretty adorable.  At the end of September, we dedicated her in church, and a lot of our family was there, plus a few close friends.  It was a special day.

I’ve been teaching my Musikgarten classes and I think they are going well.  I really enjoy it, which I was pleased to discover.  I have just four students, plus Ladybug, so it’s a nice little class to start with.  I’m going to be doing some more recruiting and marketing soon for the spring semester, so I’m hoping to have a few more students then.

I’ve been wrestling with the news that Fox is not going to be able to graduate when we had originally thought, which was Dec 09.  Now, it looks like it will be May 2010.  This may not sound like a big deal, but it was a really big deal to me - his graduation is the light at the end of my tunnel….. I was already starting to count the days, plan the party, etc…  (I know, it was a bit premature).   So, that news took some adjusting.  But I think I’ve accepted it now.

In October, my sister and her husband came in town from Minneapolis, and my parents came in, too.  We were celebrating my dad’s 60th birthday.  We had such a great time!  It was AWESOME to spend time with my sister - she came in by herself a few days early - and we had a really good time.  It is so hard for me to have her so far away, especially now with Ladybug on the scene.  I miss her so much!

Last week we were all sick - ALL of us!  It’s so hard to care for a baby when you’re sick, too.  It’s even harder when your hubby is sick, as well!  My awesome mom came in town to clean our house, make us Jello and buy us Gatorade, and take care of Ladybug so Fox and I could rest.  It worked!  It’s amazing how much faster your body can recover when it can rest.  Thanks, Momma!  We missed Halloween completely.  Oh, well, it’s not such a loss, huh?

We are working on getting some new pics on our Flickr page.  Check back soon!

First of all, we survived summer school.  Whew, and praise the Lord!  It was pretty awful, to be honest - especially the second summer session.  Fox worked everyday from 6:30-10:30am, then drove an hour’s commute to a mid-day class, then either went back to work after class or stayed after class to work on homework.  It was a screenprinting class, so he couldn’t exactly do his homework at home.  Some days he never saw Ladybug at all, and I never felt more like a single parent than I did the past two months.  It was definitely the hardest stretch of his classes so far, for all of us (not the actual classwork, just the toll it took).  But it’s over now!  Yeehaw!  :)  And we are trying to resume normal life.  Ah, who am I kidding?   What’s normal?  Anyway, we have a three week break before his fall semester starts up and we are going to make the most of it.

Ladybug is now thirteen months old and cracking us up more everyday.  She walks everywhere, loves to play outside and get dirty, is getting really vocal with her babbling and adding more words all the time.  It is one of the most fun phases so far.  Unfortunately, she is also teething her first molars and I think it must be really painful; she has never had such a rough time before.  She has stopped sleeping again, and I think that has a lot to do with it.  So, I’m a pretty exhausted momma these days.  We pray for those molars to come in SOON!

In July I (along with Ladybug) traveled to Dallas to spend three days in teacher training for an early childhood music program called Musikgarten. This is the same program that Ladybug and I were part of this past spring.  Now I will be teaching a class for babies and one for toddlers, beginning in September.  I am very excited about it; it is an excellent curriculum that is developed by experts in child development as well as highly skilled musicians, and it focuses on the development of the whole child.  I hope I enjoy teaching it!  If anyone wants more info about my classes, here’s my business website.

That about covers things for now.  I’ll be back in September with another update…hopefully we’ll have two molars to report (and a lot more sleep!).

One of the ways that we have dealt with this - one of the UN-healthy ways - is by turning to the internet for some vegging-out entertainment.  The end of the day comes, Ladybug’s finally in bed asleep, and all we want to do is collapse on the couch with something mindless.  We don’t have a TV, so what do we do?  We surf the net.  On two separate laptops.

We’ve realized how many things this is keeping us from doing.  For me, reading books, sewing, creating things, pursuing music, working on the garden, organizing, writing, and keeping up with friendships are all things that I set aside regularly in favor of the mind-numbing amusement I find online.  Fox has his own list.  But the one most important thing on both of our lists is our marriage - our relationship with each other.  Not that we’ve neglected it, exactly - it’s just not as good as it could be, as we want it to be.  And it’s harder now than before Ladybug came along - a lot harder.  Extra effort is needed, not extra zoning-out.

We’ve decided to take some drastic measures.  We’re going to get rid of one of our laptops.  That way, if Fox is using it for school in the evening, I will be doing something else, hopefully from that list above.  If he needs to take it to school, I will check and reply to email in the evenings when he gets home.  If not, I’ll have it all day, and he’ll check when he gets home.  Then we’ll pursue other things, together or separately, but other, worthwhile things.

I have also decided to stop blogging.  This has been a hard decision but I think it is the right one.  I wanted to blog for a number of reasons, but they aren’t working out like I hoped they would.  For one, I wanted a creative outlet.  I had fun designing my blog, but the writing itself just doesn’t work for me online.  I think I need to write by hand, in a journal, for my creativity to flow.  My mind goes blank when I sit down at a computer to write.  I end up writing silly stuff.

For two, I wanted to stay in touch with friends around the world.  What I found was that when I connected with friends this way, the communication often became too much for me to keep up with.  I am not even good at finding time and energy to maintain friendships with people right here in town, much less deepen those friendships!  And while I am already blessed with many deep friendships with people who live in other places, I need to communicate with them at a little bit slower pace.  I am an introvert - an overwhelmed, tired, busy introvert - and I just can’t handle all the relationships, all at once, that blogging brings.

And then there was the temptation to be a “power blogger.”  I am a driven person (at least, I used to be… I THINK I still am?…when I’m not so tired…)  and I like to stand out, to be the best, to receive praise.  A friend once told me that I want to be unique and special, but that I’m not - I’m just a normal person like everybody else.  She wasn’t trying to be cruel; she was being honest.  God has been dealing with me about that for awhile now, but blogging made it harder.  I wanted tons of readers, but I don’t have the time or energy that I need to put in to make that happen.  And that has nothing to do with why I started to blog in the first place!  Argh!  (Insert pirate accent there.  It’s fun.)  So, yes - temptation.

Anyway - there you have it.  I will leave this blog up indefinitely, and maybe I’ll update it now and then with family news and tidbits that friends might like to hear about.  I don’t know - we’ll see.  I’m looking forward to doing other things, though.  Thanks for being a reader, whoever you may be.   I appreciate it!

You came into the world 9 days past your due date, and took your time about it.  I thought you would be born on 7-7-07, since I went into labor at 5 am on that day!  But twenty-four hours later, you finally showed up.  I was immediately struck by how beautiful you were.  Big blue eyes, a perfect little nose, rosebud lips, and two deep dimples that showed up whenever you cried.  You were never purple and squishy like some new babies; you skipped that stage and went straight for gorgeous.  You’re still beautiful; I can rarely go out without at least one person stopping to comment on my beautiful baby.

The first six months with you were the hardest time of my life.  They were pretty hard for you, too.  Reflux got a hold of you at just two weeks, and my sweet, smiley baby disappeared.  You cried all the time; you were in so much pain.  It made me incredibly sad and I felt so helpless.  We gave you medicine every twelve hours, and every time you hated it.  It had a strong peppermint flavor; I wonder how you will feel about peppermint when you’re older!  The medicine helped, but it didn’t help enough.  You nursed constantly, since it hurt you to eat.  We were attached at the hip.  Sometimes I wondered if we’d make it!

But then, miraculously, your reflux disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived!  Right before Christmas, you again transformed into a different baby - but this time, you were so happy!  I couldn’t believe it.  I finally had the happiest baby on the block!  We stopped your medication and the reflux didn’t come back.   You started sleeping a little better, and your awake time became so much fun.

Since then, you have just continued to grow and change so quickly, my girl.  You were crawling and then pulling up and cruising, and now you’re walking all over the world.  You love to laugh with us.  You love to get us to chase you and tickle you, and we love to do it.  You have the sweetest, most sensitive little heart; you cry when others are crying and you laugh when they’re laughing.  I love that about you.  You’re the most observant, curious little babe I’ve ever seen in my life; you certainly don’t miss a thing!  You’re also starting to talk a little bit; you love to say “uh-oh” and “cheese” and “da-da” and “mama.” You don’t want me to feed you anymore from a spoon; you want to feed yourself with finger foods.  And you’re just starting to understand that clothes go on our bodies; it’s hilarious to watch you pick up random pieces of clothes from my laundry pile and try to put them on your head!

Right when you were born, a wise mama at church told me that the days are long but the years are short.  She was so right.  Sometimes, during those long days, I wonder if I’m being the best mommy to you that I can be.  But this past year has gone by so quickly, and watching you grow and change and develop has been the most exciting, rewarding thing I’ve ever done - even when I’m exhausted because we’ve been up half the night teething!

I love you so much, my little Ladybug.  You are more precious to me than I could ever express.  I can’t wait to see what the coming year holds for you.  Thanks for being my girl.

Love, your mama

This recipe will make about 3-4 quarts, depending how long you let it simmer.  You can use one quart that day, and freeze the rest for later.  I freeze mine in 1-quart mason jars.  The recipe uses a whole chicken, so you also end up with delicious meat that you can use for enchiladas (a personal fave), tortilla soup, chicken salad - whatever.  Make sure you use the best quality chicken you can get - local pastured chicken is best.  I use the recipe found in Nourishing Traditions.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken (or 2-3 pounds of bony parts)
• 4 quarts water
• 2 TB apple cider vinegar
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 carrots, coarsely chopped
• 3 celery sticks, coarsely chopped
• 1 bunch parsley

Basically, you throw it all into a big pot, except for the parsley.  Let it sit there for about 30 minutes and then bring it to a boil.  If anything rises to the top, skim it off.  Then reduce heat, cover, and simmer anywhere from 6 to 24 hours.  The longer you simmer it, the more flavorful and nutrient-rich it will be.  About 10 minutes before you’re finished simmering, add the parsley.

When finished, let it cool slightly and you can take out the meat and use it, freeze it, or whatever.  Strain the broth through a mesh strainer into containers that will seal and remain airtight.  If you plan on freezing it, remember to leave about an inch of room at the top.  You can stick it into the fridge once it’s at room temp, and let the fat congeal and rise to the top in order to skim it off, but you don’t have to.  Voila!  Home-made chicken stock, complete with healing properties and free of added scariness.  Economical, too.  I try to make sure I always have at least one quart in my freezer at all times.  I gave it to my baby straight up when she had a cold and she got better pretty quickly.  I love to make soup with it, though.  It’s also great for cooking rice and cous-cous instead of water.  Eventually, my goal is to make this every week, since I am doing more and more of my cooking from scratch.

Smacznego!  (That’s like the Polish version of “Bon appetit!”)