On motherhood and graduation

Another month, another blog post! A lot has happened this past month. We sold our house, I graduated and my family came out, we all went to Myrtle Beach for a few days, celebrated my second mother's day, we moved to Billings, and Nate started his new job. Wow! Graduation, although a rainy mess, was a great occasion. I was so thankful most of my family and Nate's Dad were able to make it. After graduation, my family and I went down to Myrtle Beach for a few days. Enjoy the pictures!

Graduation Day!

The Meuniers at graduation

The Wingerters at graduation

Sam soaking up some rays

Emma enjoying the beach

Maddie and Emma on the beach

Dad in the ocean

Happy grandparents

The graduation speaker was Barbara Kingsolver and she was great. She is one of my favorite authors. I own most of her books (which are great!) and am excited to read her newest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Her speech was mostly about the importance of being good stewards of the environment and being the best "you". Then we had the school of nursing ceremony, which was thankfully inside and dry. The speaker was Diane Mason who is an accomplished nursing leader. She was admittedly a little intense, but her speech was good and spoke about the importance of nurses being on the front lines of changing the way healthcare is delivered in the US. Both speeches made me realize I've always been a "change the world" kind of person. There are so many things I want to get involved in to improve care, especially in the elderly population. I plan on joining and being actively involved in nursing organizations such as the American Nurses Association and American Geriatrics Society.
However, I'm very concerned about how to find balance between changing the world and being a good mother and wife. Emma if you're reading this in a few years and feel that Mommy does too much, just touch my arm and smile. Or better yet laugh, your laughter will always bring me back.

Look what I can do!!!

Emma in nutshell (look at me I'm trapped in a nutshell!):

Big Smile

• Waves hi and bye, sometimes (and cutest) with both hands at the same time


• Can give big, slobbery kisses


• Demonstrates how big she is when asked by lifting her arms way above her head


• Points at everything that interests here and says "ohhhhh" like it's the most interesting object in the world


• Her vocabulary is not the greatest yet but includes ma ma, da da, is (for kiss), do or og (for dog)


• Can also say uh-oh and sometimes says it before she drops something on the floor. Way to go, understanding that cause/effect thing!


• Is becoming much more interested in books. At first she did not like to sit and listen to stories. Maybe it's my voice she doesn't appreciate because she doesn't seem to react much to the word "no" either.


• Crawls like a pro, but is not quite walking yet. Will cruise around the living room holding onto the furniture, but the minute something is the least bit out of reach, she's down on the floor. She doesn't even attempt to balance on her own. She has started using her walking toy lately with some success as seen in the videos, so hopefully (or wearily given how much of a troublemaker she seems to be!!!) she will start walking soon







• Recent stats include a weight of 19 lbs (35% for weight) and 29 in (50% for height). Although she's a little small, the doctor does not seem too concerned. Besides, have you seen her father?!


• Eats nearly everything. Does not seem too keen on peaches or mango, but that's about it. Can drink out of a normal cup, a straw, and of course her trusty salty "pup" cafe sippy cup from Hilton Head.




Is dinner over?!




• Loves to go through her drawers or her dirty clothes basket or the newly folded laundry and throw everything on the floor and then put each piece back in the basket. I know Mom, I wonder where she gets it from. At least I tried my clothes on first!


• Has thrown her first official trantrum when I took her out of her highchair because her precious yogurt was gone, which was the only thing she would eat for dinner that night. It was also the first time I realized she could say da da because as I stood watching her with my hands on my hips, she kept wailing out for him. And so it begins.


• Emma has seven teeth. Four on top and three on the bottom. She just had a new one sprout through on the bottom to make 3 and has another one on the bottomw trying to poke through so her teething likely explains the behavior in the comment above.


• Loves being outside! In fact, we have to watch her if she's on the ground when the door's open because she'll make a bee-line for the wild blue yonder. To my dismay, she loves crawling down the driveway even though the rough concrete seems very irritating to her skin. Doesn't seem to enjoy the grass much but that's probably due to the fact there's a severe drought here and we have strict watering restrictions so the grass feels more like straw.




Peek a boo!




• Has the most wonderful smile and heart warming laugh that you have ever heard and loves to share it with people. She is amazingly friendly!

News galore

Our top story tonight....Emma is now one year old! I can't believe how quickly this year went by. The old cliche really is true: we can't imagine our lives without her. We do remember sleeping in on the weekends and having date nights, but now we have family weekends and Emma comes along on our date nights. Here are some pictures from the big day (her birthday is April 7th. I know I'm a horrible blogger!) We went swimming (which Emma loves!) then had lasagna and cake at home. LaVonne (Nate's Mom) was here for the big occasion and my Mom, Aunt Maddie and Uncle Sam cheered on via the webcam.

Pretty birthday girl in her birthday dress

Fun in the pool

Emma's first homemade birthday cake! Maybe next year's will be a fun train or clown like Gramma Mary used to make.

Enjoying her cake Reading her birthday cards Opening lots of presents. She got lots of clothes with Elmo on them, her newest friend. She was rather tired by this time, hence the binky. Playing with her new drum

Stay tuned for updates on her developments.

In other news....I recently accepted a job as a nurse practitioner in Billings, Montana. So yet again the Meunier family is moving across the country. Our anticipated moving date in May 17. We sold our house here within 2 weeks. We have not found a house in Billings yet, but I don't think that will be a problem. I am very excited to be moving closer to family. It will be nice for Emma to be closer to her extended family and have the kind of childhood like I did - surrounded by family. The drive to get there might not be fun (four days in the car!) but hopefully we'll be able to see some friends and family along the way.

This just in...Nate has registered for an online certificate program through NC State for computer science. This certificate program is like a pre-master's program, providing all the prerequisite classes to get into the master's program. His classes start May 19th. He also just purchased a Mac laptop to use of his classes, so he's been busy playing with his new toy.

So needless to say, we've been busy (and hot!) down here.

Easter Friday

Since Miranda has to work on the weekends and has to make up time in her clinicals, Friday is pretty much the only day when we get to spend the whole day together, so we decided to do our easter on Friday instead of Sunday this year (Emma didn't seem to notice). We got her a very cute dress to celebrate her very first easter, and although it didn't say "baby's first easter" on it like her christmas outfit did, we liked it just the same.

Pretty easter dress!

Somehow, the Easter bunny found out that we were having easter early because not only did he bring candy, daddy's favorite food, but he brought Emma three presents instead of just one! And even though she got three presents, she seemed more interested in all the candy in the baskets!

Emma with her presents

Eying the easter baskets!

Once we removed the baskets FILLED with candy, Emma was interested in her presents. When she finally opened them, she found:

A HAT

Why do they always put these on me!

A SWIMSUIT

For grandma and gradpa's pool this summer!

AND A DOG!

I wonder if dogs like Peeps?

Nana Meunier sent some bunny ears, and although she didn't like having them on, just like the hat, we managed to keep her still long enough to get a picture of her with them.

That's the cutest bunny I've ever seen!

So Easter Friday was a great day for the Meunier family in Durham, and especially for Emma once she found out how much she really likes chocolate!

This stuff is messy!!

Happy (late) st. pat's day!

I'm a little behind on my posts and so much has been going on lately allowing for lots of good photo ops. Although we really didn't do much to celebrate the day, Emma was in the spirit! I didn't even wear green and got slack for it from my patients. Luckily it was just verbal slack and no pinching! Hope those of you who love to celebrate the holiday (Wingerter boys) enjoyed it with some green beer. It's maybe the one day of the year you can celebrate Butte, Montana! Sorry Bill and Jeanine.

Not the camera again Mom!

When Irish eyes are smiling

In other news, I just finished one of the best books I've ever read. It's by Dr. David Snowdon and is titled: Aging with Grace - What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives. Although this is research, it reads like a novel and I couldn't put it down. He discuss the complex disease of Alzheimers in a really straightforward and understandable way. Plus, it's about nuns. Who doesn't love nuns - except maybe Uncle Bill.

teething time

This video was taken a few weeks ago. Emma seems to have survived her latest teething stage. She had four of her top teeth come in at once. She was a little cranky but really not bad considering she probably had a constant tooth ache. She really wouldn't let us do much to help like giving her teethers or massaging her gums, but she did seem to get relief sucking on her washcloths during her bath. We tried to give her a wet washcloth outside of the bathtub, but alas, only bathtime washcloths would do. The video displays her cleanly teething practice.

the narcoleptic

Emma has interesting nap time habits. She seems to sleep fine during the night, so I'm not too concerned with her naps during the day, I just kind of let her sleep when she's tired. We don't have scheduled nap time. Lately, I've found her suddenly very tired and seemingly instantaneously falling asleep. Here are two examples.

Fell asleep on the floor playing

Fell asleep eating in her highchair










As long as she continues to fall asleep at bedtime (which we do now schedule) and sleep through the night (she often doesn't get up until about 9:30 ), I'm pretty content with her sporadic day time sleeping habits!