Eleanor the Elaborate

I see so many of my friends posting updates on their little ones and I thought surely there is enough to say about my youngest to devote a whole blog post to her. My aim is in 5 years we can look back and see how she was almost the death of me. Or maybe, when I am tempted to romanticize these years to other, younger moms, I will be able to look back and check: yep, it was doosie. In all seriousness, I couldn't tell you what my other children were up to at her age so this is a good place to document such things.

Eleanor is 19 months and is FULL of personality. All of our kids are really. I don't know where they get it from. Their father and mother are such dull people. This girl's personality cup is overflowing.

Her most recent pratices:

1. When she wants a particular person in the house to give her their full undivided attention. She calls their name very loud. If they don't answer, she calls again even louder with a touch of a scream. Third time, she just SCREAMS. Being the 4th, the poor child is fighting desperately to get noticed and she is very good at it.

2. She is OBSESSED with Spiderman. I mean loses her mind when confronted with his image. Idol worship, basically.

She found him in the store the other day. Eeek! Michael and I are not in the habit of buying our kids toys when it's not Christmas or a birthday. I let her take him around to keep the peace and took pictures to send her daddy. He promptly called me wondering how in the world I would wrangle it out of her hands. I did what any mother would do- I took her to the bakery section and distracted her with cookies while I stole Spiderman.

3. Here in the Shea household, we don't teach our kids things like how old they are or their colors. Michael teaches them important things like how to make faces in the mirror. They have the rest of their life for that other stuff, right?

4. Eleanor has recently taken to taking off her diaper after she finishes using it for it intended purposes. This makes for interesting days for her mommy. For instance, yesterday, I saw her walking around bare bottomed and found the diaper with what appeared to be just #1. I put on a clean diaper and went about my day. Later in the day, I found some stray #2s hanging out around the playroom. This prompted a night full of cleaning and bed changing for her mommy. Not that there was anything in the beds, but it makes me feel better.

5. Here recently, I have been spending very little time in the kitchen. Can you guess why? Eleanor loves to stand on stools and steal food. This turns out to be a great way to keep mommy on a diet. I should put a listing on Craiglist: I have a child that will slash you calorie intake in half. She will come stand in your kitchen and wreck havoc for $20/hour. It's called the Eleanor diet.

6. I just want to document that her nickname is Nee-nor. I also want to document that my husband apparently pulled it out of thin air. I wish there were a cute story to accompany the name.

7. At 19 months, these are the words she can say: STOP, NOOOO, OUCH, HOT(what she says when she doesn't want to eat her food despite it's temperature), PIDERMAN, MERMAY( Little Mermaid is another one of her faves) and many more. These are just her favorites and yes, they are all screamed.

8. Motor skill wise, Eleanor is at peak performance. She is climbing up and down the stairs unabated because she can now open and close the gate. This is very frightening for her mommy. She climbs up the slide in our backyard. Soon, she will be climbing around the outside like her siblings. She runs. She climbs on her brothers dresser to jump on his bed. Am I giving you a heart attack yet? She gives me ones almost everyday.

I know God has great things in store for this child. She certainly will not entertain being overlooked. How I dreamed of the day God would give me a wallflower. He had better plans. Her family  loves her to death and she will probably turn out pretty rotten, if not already, as a result.

A Visit

 We loaded up the minivan with four kids, one Grami, a box of Cheez-its and a bevy of kid quieting suckers and headed down to Auburn, AL.

We went down for an aerospace wedding. Two of Michael's former classmates reconnected post college and got married this past weekend. I am so thankful for this great group of friends who made class a little less boring and studying a little more fun.

 The memories are so sweet of this quaint town on the plains. Although the college memories are wonderful, the ones that really tug on my heartstrings are those of our young family. Michael and I left our families in Memphis, TN and cleaved with each other in Auburn's married student housing. We paid $340 for rent and it included utilities AND cable. Our senses also paid greatly with the new neighbors love of burying eggs and eating them rotten and gigantic roaches pooping on all of our clothes. Up until that point, I did not know roach feces had a distinct smell, now the synapses have made the connection and upon the smell, I am immediately taken back to that cinder block apartment. Sound wonderful? Those were wonderful times. Honestly, I do not think Michael and I half cared about the living conditions as long as we were together.

Our old apartment is now the practice field for the band, but this is the exact type of structure we lived in.

Pouty Preteen

Once we had our sweet little Emma, momma decided we had to find a new dig. Enter 650 North Ross Apt. D 11.

Sweet toddler

Two rooms of our four room apartment

At $450 a month we had to pay for our own utilities and cable, but we could swing it because by now my awesome husband had landed a job as a Graduated Teaching Assistant (otherwise known as GTA) for a large sum of $700 a month and free school! "That's half of your rent!", you say. When I was a senior in high school, Michael joined the Air National Guard. He was on track to becoming a pilot, but decided it was not the life for him. This landed us another $230/month for a weekends worth of work. We also activated the Montgomery GI bill which brought us from the day we got married until the day we graduated exactly. Cha Ching, that was another $600! I think often about that decision he made and God laying on his heart to join, but then years later to lay it on his heart that it was not a career path to pursue. It was over half of our meager provisions during that time of our life and I am so thankful that God saw ahead and provided for us in this way. Our acting budget for the first couple of years? $1500 a month and we were content.

My laundry room. I would walk across the courtyard to the laundry mat with Emma and a pocketful of change in tow.

Little Emma and my days were filled of going to the park, meeting with daddy at Toomer's for lunch, story time at the library, cooking A LOT for daddy, crafts at home, coloring with chalk, mommy and baby swimming lessons, meeting our favorite friend, Leah, for shaved ice or lunch at Jimmy John's and living a waltz of a life with one child at home. Now, we are living at the tempo of a 160 beats per minute heart pumping dance song. Seasons of life...

So happy I made her sit in her old swing

Michael walking Emma through how they used to chase squirrels.

As with all seasons of life, you can make your lists of "I won't be happy until" and believe me I would get stuck in the ruts of doing this. I won't be happy until: we make more money, my tub is not yellow and my tile is not brown, my day consists of more than entertaining a toddler, we are not living above drug dealers, when are out of a town full of skinny college girls in their game day outfits and I am walking around with a post baby belly, etc... But then God would take captive those thankless thoughts and replace them with my "I am so blessed" list: I am blessed with provisions despite mistakes, an energetic and enthusiastic toddler with whom I had the privilege of spending my days , a hard working husband who held together a GTA position, graduate school and a family of four, getting to raise my daughters in a wonderful college town, etc...

Easter egg hunt on Samford lawn.

I am thankful for Easter pictures on Samford lawn.

I am thankful for Christmas fest ivies on Samford lawn.

I am thankful Emma got to see as many Tiger walks as her little heart desired.

I am thankful we got to see Toomer's rolled ALL THE TIME!

The Auburn baby is holding the baby who is wearing her (Emma's) cheerleading uniform pictured above.