Happy New Year!

Life Update for 12/28/08

So, Christmas has come and gone. I remember more of what Nicole got (bath crayons, a puzzle, TONS of clothes, a real goldfish she named “Bubble”) than what I got actually. I suppose that’s how it’ll be for a while now. That’s not all bad. :)

We celebrated Jenny and Kelly’s birthday on Friday night. We’re all turning 30 but as I have a late birthday (September) I get to be at the end of the pack making the leap. That’s not all bad either. We had Graeter’s ice cream and I loved every bite. Made a mental note to stop in more frequently even if a single scoop is 2/3 the cost of a half gallon at the grocery store.

Jim’s side’s Christmas at our house was a bust for the most part. One aunt and uncle cancelled that morning because their oldest and his wife were in labor. Jim’s mom and stepfather got their load re-routed and didn’t make it a priority to come north anyway so they didn’t show. A boyfriend didn’t make the trip so that left just four visitors and us. Not all that exciting, unfortunately.

Nicole is HUGE into two things this week: 1) riding in her new Radio Flyer wagon and sitting at the computer and typing on the keyboard (not a problem as it’s not attached to an actual computer as it’s still in the shop). Lots of cute pictures but no computer to download them to!

As of today I’m over 1/3 done being pregnant (14 weeks). Not really showing yet but still very tired. Being pregnant is different this time as I’m obviously aware that I’m pregnant all the time but I am so busy with life, work, Nicole, etc. that I go for long stretches where I forget. That’ll be different when the baby starts moving and I can feel it though. I need to go back two years ago and re-read my Nicole postings. I have a doctor appointment next Friday that the whole family will attend and I think we’ll find out the gender in February!

still alive!

I’m off this and next week (2 weeks!!) for the Christmas and New Year holidays. This is the third year I’ve done it and will be sad to see the tradition end next year when my vacation time is eaten up by maternity leave.

Some notes on what we’ve been up to:
1) our computer has a virus that is quite persistent and required us to actually take it into a shop for repair. As a result, I’ve not had access to the internet to read/post. I’m using Jim’s work computer now

2) We are errand crazy around here. We’re gone for hours a day for last minute Christmas shopping, new drivers licenses, etc. Nicole is so used to going that she grabs my hand to go bye-bye if we’ve been home too long.

3) We’re watching Weeds on DVD thanks to Lisa and Kendall. First season was only so-so but the second is shaping up okay. We’re really looking forward to Heroes which is our next series to watch.

4) Tonight we head to Mom and Dad’s and tomorrow everyone comes here. Mom’s having turkey and we’re having roast beef which was much more expensive than I thought it would have been. I’ll be roasting my first turkey ever when we host Jim’s family on Saturday. I baked a blueberry buckle this afternoon and already started on the baby jello molds (in red and green of course!) for dinner. I’m really really really hoping they set right. I’m nervous- they’re what I’m counting on the “that looks great!” for.

It's Raining Clothes!

I put a onesie on Nicole today that had a turtleneck top and was clearly too short to be snapped and be comfortable (y0u could see it stretching). So, into the outgrown pile it went. I wondered though what other winter treasures were in boxes in the basement that are 24mo. in size that might fit so we took an adventure downstairs, brought a full bag and box upstairs, and started the sorting process again.

Holy crap did we find a lot of stuff.

Thanks to hand-me-downs she's gotten, Nicole's wardrobe just got injected with 4 new pairs of jeans, 2 jammies, about two dozen shirts, 2 pairs of tights, 3 dresses, 6 SUPER cute sweaters, and a pink Bengals sweatshirt.... And that's just what I remember!

While I was in a clothes sorting mood I fetched all my "outgrown" clothes (clothes I shrunk out of when my thyroid went wack-o) that now might be perfect for my not-yet-materity-clothes worthy body. I'm growing at a smaller pace with baby #2 which isn't all bad as most of the things that came out of the bags are still pretty stylish and I predict I'll get another 2-4 weeks out of them at this rate.

I know it's dumb but I'm really excited for us both to model our new outfits. It's like shopping without spending- what a feeling!

Parenting Advice

I hear over and over “don’t read parenting advice” but I like to be well-rounded and be exposed to ideas that are different than my own experience or intuition so I get a weekly email newsletter that I trust. This week it covered two topics that I cocked an eyebrow at: hitting and punishment. Here’s what it said:

Some children surprise with another kind of force — hitting, especially when they're frustrated. The most likely target: you. It's counter-intuitive, but this is actually a sign of trust. A 17-month-old child knows that you're a safe person to show just how upset and frustrated he can get.

Jim and I talked about this last night – Nicole has a bad habit of getting frustrated at Jim and hitting him (often in the face). She rarely hits me though and I’ve only seen her hit other kids 2-3 times ever.

I have a 1 offence tolerance for this activity. The first time she does it she gets a stern look and a firm reminder that “we do not hit”. The second time now results in a 1 minute trip to the time out step (as I have a hard time reasoning the spanking (hitting) as punishment for hitting). She knows what that step means and won’t dare get off of it though she whines the whole time. When she’s done we make her tell Daddy sorry and give him a hug (which she always does).

The kicker with this that we don’t quite understand is that even if Jim follows these steps it doesn’t mean as much. In fact, he’s noticed that there are times that she hits him and then immediately looks to see if I saw her do it. We both consistently follow the same punishment routine but it “sticks” more with me. Is it my tone? My seriousness? My refusal to even crack a smile as I watch her howl with frustration? The fact that I'm her primary caregiver and she doesn’t want to disappoint me? Not sure…

You may also notice that your child occasionally but very deliberately disobeys your orders. You say, "Please stay away from that vase," and your toddler looks right at you, reaches out, and touches the vase, or plucks a flower from it. You know he got your message, so rather than let the defiance become a big deal, experts say to simply ignore it whenever possible. In fact, it's important to try to avoid a confrontation with every little issue.

This advice doesn’t fully gel with me and I’ll admit I'm still learning as I go so maybe I'm wrong. If she does some things, like yell, that I don’t like, I can ignore her. My logic is that I don’t want to validate that her negative action deserves attention. I think this is what the babycenter.com people are getting at here too. However, when it comes to deliberate disobeying, especially on something that I want her to learn (ie you’re not to touch other people’s delicate items in their house, or you don’t put your finger into light sockets, etc.) I think she needs an actual response, not just to be ignored. I'm focusing on their last line “every little issue”- I don’t do this, I only make a stink of “important” issues (see above examples). Not sure if this is “right” or “wrong”.

AMY – I’d appreciate your weigh in here specifically!

Maybe Viki knows....

There is a finite number of [good] Christmas songs that they play on the radio so of course you hear many versions of the same song in a day. As you can imagine, some renditions are [much] better than others. Sometimes I think, “now why did you put your own dumb spin on that perfectly good classic?” but I’ll admit maybe I'm just old fashioned, especially when it comes to Christmas.

This previous thought lead me to think maybe that idiot with his own version finished recording it and said “damn, that’s how it was meant to be written!”

Which makes me wonder: Does every artist think that their adaptation of a song is the best? Can they listen to the radio and all the other versions and admit that in comparison, their attempt really did miss the mark? Or is every singer deep down biased to their own voice and their own “twist”?

Hea-ven

Someone in my office brought in these store-bought cookies that are absolutely amazing. I do not normally like peppermint but these little suckers are chocolate chip with periodic white chips that have tiny peppermint candy balls that add just enough to give the whole cookie a special taste. A Christmas-y twist on an old classic. Thank God the kitchen is like a 3 minute walk one way now or I’d be back getting another about every 15 minutes.

Weekend of 12/12/08

We’re back to a hectic schedule but it’s going okay, keeps things interesting.

Monday night: closed on the lot behind us and watched intently for Max’s picture to arrive
Tuesday night: Jim’s Christmas party in BFE
Wednesday night: off!
Thursday night: visit with Max, Lisa & Kendall! :)
Friday night: out with friends to dinner and arcade
Saturday: taught, annual Christmas party (my contribution was a 21-potato mashed potato bowl – geesh is that a lot of peeling!)
Sunday: errands, cleaning, bowling

Highlight of the weekend (this shows how lame I am. Also, forewarning that this might be TMI): Nicole pooped in the potty! It was on Sunday morning and she started making “that” face. I asked her if she was going “poo poo” (which I do every time I notice she is as I want her to be aware of it) and she responded “I poo poo”. I then asked if she wanted to go to the potty and she shook her head yes. So, off we went. I hadn’t pulled out the kid potty yet so she had to get held on the big one which she wasn’t totally sure about. However, she did squeeze one out and I took her off to show her the fruits of her labor. She got excited and wanted to touch it (ewww!) which I obviously didn’t let her do. Problem was, I was excited and quit paying attention and looked down to see she had peed a nice puddle on the hardwood floor. Oh well. It’s a start! She’s only 17 months old (as of Thursday) so I suspect this is the first step in a several month journey. Hooray – perhaps I'm not so crazy in expecting to have two in diapers for a short stint!

Happy 32nd Birthday, Jim! :) I love you!

Probably overreacting but...

Every time I see a house with the black light-looking lights (psychedelic?) I think to myself, “those people must sell pot”. I envision the decorations as kind of a “red light” of sorts.

Christmas and Mom Status get me again...

Can't help it when happy stories about little girls, their dads, and Christmas come along... the eyes have no choice but to well up!

blowing off the dust

Jim is mean and is making me clean out some of my “stuff”. “Stuff” includes the boxes of pictures from HS forward, old report cards, mementos from retreats I went on, etc. I, of course, feel no need to part with these things in general but apparently we need more space (uh, don’t we live in a 3700 sq. foot house?!) so I started rummaging through the boxes he brought up.

After some thoughtful consideration I agreed to get rid of all items related to teaching high school English (what my degree is in that I never actually did beyond student teaching). Jim’s right, I think/hope, if I ever do this it’ll be years from now and the things I created when I was 21 probably won’t be as good as the new stuff I’d come up with.

I also, *gasp*, threw away several dozen pictures. Some were duplicates, some were just bad shots, some were of things best for Nicole not to find one day. I did find an entire envelope of triplicates of Sarah W’s wedding that I'm going to give her doubles of.

I pitched some short stories I wrote but kept a notebook filled with poetry and essays. Some of it was actually pretty good.

I also decided to keep, for better or worse, three letters from people I once dated. One was an ex-boyfriend that made me roll my eyes (at myself- did I really buy into his CRAP?) after reading his card, another was an ex-boyfriend that just had very sweet things to say that made me smile, and another was from a guy I went out with that really “time stamped” the period of my life (he was talking about things like “if you’re hesitant about dating me because of what the Dayton crowd might say…” – good lord, I hope I was smart enough at the time to write back that I could care less what others say) and it made me laugh at my youth. (can my UD girls guess who these guys are??)

I'm only 2 boxes in and have three to go. Who knows what other treasures will turn up. I'm certain I’ll find autographed HS playbills and the like buried in there somewhere……

Weekend of 12/5/08

The weekend was a good one. Nicole did two particularly cute things I’d like to record. I'm finding that the cute things she does now fall more into a category of her being such a little person but [trying to] do big kid/grown up things.

1) My mother (and father) gave her St. Nick presents last week – an Elmo pop-up book and a Christmas calendar with one piece of chocolate hiding behind a pull tab for each day of December. She’s been giving me one of those calendars for as long as I remember. So, each day I’ve let Nicole have a little piece of candy. This is HUGE for her because she gets sweets like twice a month (we’re mean, I know) and before this calendar she didn’t even know what the word “candy” was. Anyway, it didn’t take long for her to catch on to what was happening. Friday (the 5th) I sat down with her in my lap with the board and we looked at the picture and searched for the flap that said 5 on it. Once we found it and she got her chocolate she happily ran away to suck on it. After dinner she drug me back to the counter where the calendar was and pointed, grunted, and danced. I explained to her that she already had a candy for the day and she “only gets one candy per day”. Her response, clear as a bell, “one more”.

2) Saturday night we had dinner at a Mexican joint where they bring you chips and salsa to munch on before your meal arrives. Nicole had a cup and was sitting in the booth next to me. I let her suck on a dry chip while Jim and I munched. We were talking so I didn’t pay attention that she was paying attention to us so I was startled when she suddenly stood up on the bench. She took her chip, leaned across the table and dipped it into the salsa bowl like we did. From there on, every bit she took got a dip before she ate it.


GOOD LUCK TO LISA AND KENDALL THIS MORNING! YOU’RE IN MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS! See all the cute things you get to look forward to?!

Enjoying a day off work

I have made HUGE Christmas shopping strides. I finished up Nicole (I think…) today with my purchases of a magna doodle, farm animal puzzle (wooden with the plastic knobs to hold the pieces by), and bath crayons. She already has some elephant slippers, an outfit and books waiting for her too…. I also got Grandma’s tea kettle & mom’s perfume. Forgot to look for Jim’s ___, but I have time.

I got irritated at the lady at Hobby Lobby who insisted I needed 100% cotton material for my sewing project. That’s not what I wanted but figured she knew best. I should have called mom who told me what I had initially picked out would have worked fine. So, I went back out to my favorite fabric store (that I should have gone to in the first place….) and bought what I wanted. I even got the little tag that says “Specially Handmade by Karen” on it to attach to the finished product. :)

This morning was rough - I had 2 hours of B-A-D cramps to the point that I couldn't move from the couch (being vertical was too painful) and actually called the doctor to come in for a check-up. Of course by the time I got there at 10:30 I was perfectly fine. BLEH. This good visit negated the need for my previously scheduled second visit on 12-15-08 where Jim and I were going to hear the heartbeat for the first time. I felt really guilty as it was happening because he wasn't there, but I got to hear the heartbeat by myself today - 160/min.

Official!

I’d done it before of course but, for the first time ever, I wasn’t nervous. I was actually… excited. I even went to the extent of recording a 45 second video of it happening on my camera and took several pictures of the finished product to make sure I had the right lighting and as little glare as possible. The photo needed to be clear enough for the card I was making. Fortunately, the shot came out okay.

The outside of my card read “10, 9, 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1…” and when Jim opened it up it said: “ready or not HERE I COME” with the double-lined pregnancy test pic taped to the left. Yeah, he was pretty surprised. Just stared at it for a bit then looked at me with wide eyes.

:)

So there you have it – the new news in the family! We’re officially due on 6/28/09 (I'm 10.5 weeks along) and we go to hear the heartbeat for the first time on Jim’s birthday, 12/15.

I feel, in order, tired, hungry and cold all of the time. Physically I’m really good 95% of the time and the other 5% I'm a little car sick, have stomach cramping, or feel a bit lightheaded. I’ll take it though- nothing to complain about!

Learning the hard way

Thanksgiving was good – we went to my aunt and uncle’s who had the house all done up for Christmas. Much of the partying was done in the basement where the TV and game room reside. And, where the “kid” Christmas tree is (you know the one with the homemade ornaments). Nicole hadn’t seen a tree before and kept wanting to touch the ornaments which I did not want her to do. Here’s what went down:

First time she touched I told her “no, you don’t touch the tree”.

Second time she took an ornament off I hung it back on the tree, held her hand firmly at her side and repeated she was not to touch the tree.

Third time she went for it I smacked her hand, sat her in my lap and told her “No, Nicole, you are not to touch Christmas trees.”

The second she stood up that little girl touched and ornament again just to spite me. A more audible smack on her hand ensued this time and brought actual tears and a few sobs. My grandmother moaned that I “hurt her feelings”. She has to learn though. It only lasted a few minutes and ended with me hugging her and reassuring her that she’s loved. (awww.)


Since then I put our tree up. It’s like there’s an invisible force field around the base of it. Nic won’t get within 5’ of the thing.

They put their tree up at the sitters and were quite impressed she hasn’t gone for it. Clearly she can be taught! Even if it cost a few tears.