Chris's Day to Shine

Chris had his six month check-up this morning. All's well physically- we confirmed again he's a BIG boy

2 feet 4.5 inches = 99%ile

19lbs. 3oz = 80%ile

I've reported recently that he can sit on his own and babbles a lot. He also has 2 bottom teeth and will probably cut the top two in January if I had to guess. The teeth and the sitting surprised and impressed the pediatrician as he's early for both.

He babbles, as I mentioned, and mom teased me last night if his "dadadada"'s count as his first word or if I'm waiting for "mamamamama" before it counts. ha. ha. :P No, I'm not counting it as he clearly has no idea what he's saying, he's just making noise. Cute but just noise nonetheless.

Nicole was a great baby, or so I thought. Truly though, Christopher IS a great baby. He only cries when he's tired or hungry and when you lay him down he falls alseep on his own. Obviously he's a good eater. :) So far he's had avacado, blackberry, rice cereal, carrots, & banana. We'll be trying yellow squash for the first time tonight. He's also a wonderful cuddler much to my joy.

I'm SO in love with this baby! Maybe because psychologically I know he's the last baby we [intend to] have. Maybe because he's just so easy to take care of that I'm appreciative he fits so well into our busy life schedule. Maybe because I'm more comfortable being a parent and can enjoy the ride more than I did the first time with a 6-month old. Maybe because he still clearly prefers me to anyone else and it makes me swell with loving him back. But WOW, even more than his sister at this age Chris consumes my heart.

Bragging about Nicole Today, Chris Tomorrow

I get these weekly updates from BabyCenter.com that I've found very useful. I got this one about Nicole and out loud said "what?!"

Let's Get Verbal
At 30 months, your child can name a few body parts, some colors, or even a friend or two. Her memory and speaking ability work in tandem. If she says "dog sleep" you might say "yes, Spot is asleep on the doggy bed". She can't imitate your complex language patterns yet, but her brain is absorbing them. Every time you repeat her words or expand on them you're helping her memory practice.

OK, I know every mother thinks her child is brilliant but if this is all Nicole is "supposed" to be able to do then WOW, my kid is smart.

Allow me to brag:

• Nicole knows every body part, even obscure ones like "heel" or "armpit" and has for 8+ months.
• She knows all major colors (pink, purple, gray, brown, black, etc.)
• We routinely talk about other kidS in her class and what they did or wore that day.
• She always speaks in complete sentences, often with adjectives.
• She sings multiple verses of songs unprompted and unaided by Jim or I
• She changes the inflection of her voice given her mood or intention. For example she'll sternly tell Jim "don't eat my cookie" if she has to leave it unattended.

What she doesn't yet know that becomes obvious the more she interacts with Chris is the pronoun "his". She's got "hers" down pat but mis-uses "him". For example, "Chris dropped him toy." Our approach is to repeat the exact sentence she just said but use "his" instead and really stress it.

One thing she has gotten down that I'm proud of is relationships. If I ask her about who her cousins are she can rattle off several. She knows who my brothers are, who her dad's mom is, etc. She's not perfect in her answers 100% but normally will hit about 9/10 of them.

Breastfeeding

Mom and Dad kept Nicole while we went out of town for my company Christmas party. Nicole was Mom's shadow all weekend and followed her upstairs to get dressed. Before my mom put her shirt on Nicole touched her bra and asked, "You have Grandma milk?"

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Yeah, I know this is personal but it's my blog so I'm allowed to be personal.

I really don't like pumping. I especially don't like pumping at work.

At home I see it as something functional - gathering back-supply for Chris most often. It's not something I really want Jim to watch, not because I'm embarrassed but because I don't want him to think of my breasts in a milk-producing way. I want him to only associate my breasts with sex (how's that for blunt?).

I don't like pumping at work because I have to lock the door and pull the shades and all my co-workers automatically know what I'm doing. Again, I'm not embarrassed but I worry THEY are embarrassed. Further, I do feel guilty about the 20 minute, 2-times a day break I have to take to accommodate it.

Last, pumping in general isn't fun. I don't have hands to really do anything. I can't type and to read anything online I have to do this balancing act to free up a hand to scroll my mouse.

Love my kid. Love the nutrition he gets from breast milk. SOOOOOOO looking forward to a Christmas break of no pumping.

Starting in the new year Chris will move to a eating schedule that only includes nursing when I'm doing it, not milk from a bottle. I'm already excited and I don't feel guilty about moving him to a permanent formula injection into his diet.

• He'll be 6 months old tomorrow which was my base goal for breastfeeding.
• I think formula is just fine
• I'll still be feeding him 4X/day
• He eats 5-6 oz at a time and I can't always collect that much pumping
• He's eating baby food (avocado, blackberry, banana, & rice cereal so far)

Hooray for vacation and all the many and different ways it'll release stress.

In the Christmas Spirit

Last night we took the kids and my mom out on a Christmas adventure. We first stopped at our church for the live nativity. Nicole had no fear of the animals and, in fact, was very eager to let the goats eat cornmeal out of her hand.

After that the next stop was to a private residence near my grade school. My mom's bank customer put out 160,000 lights (all very tastefully done I might add) and the wife and next door neighbor dress up as Santa and Mrs. Claus and stand in the driveway for an hour and a half EVERY night for the children to wave to/visit. While Nicole did see Santa in the mall she was very shy and would only give him high-five and whisper that she wanted a "purple backpack" (like Dora). Here she was all about Santa and let him hold her and gave kisses.

I love people who are so nice and do things just because.

I know, I know...

The end of the year has me installing 2 phone systems a week which means late nights and days too full to blog. Makes me sad [too].


Some highlights since the last post which was, not coincidentally also a highlight post.


1) Chris can sit up now. His being able to do it on his own was a gradual process that was mostly me making him sit with his legs in a diamond until finally he could balance and sit straight. Sometimes he still topples but it's mostly from reaching for something and not being able to stay upright at the same time.



2) Christmas music, my favorite of all, is in full swing. I refuse to listen to anything else. I have preset 1 tuned to 98.5 and preset 2 on 99.9. If anything other than a classic that I like comes on I switch to the other station. Nicole likes the I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas song and doesn't understand why I can't play it again like i do Ice Ice Baby.



3) I tried to make cookies with Nicole like Laura did with Ella but my recipe sucked and cut-outs weren't possible without extending Nic's bedtime another half hour which I wasn't willing to do. They taste okay and she did have fun decorating them (and then sneaking the toppings off when I'm "not looking"). I put a big black X over the recipe in the cookbook with a comment to the side expressing that these cookies should never again be made.



4) Mike and Lindsay agreed to be Chris's Godparents. Which we're soooo happy about! he'll be Christened on 1/10/10 and so far it appears there will be a good turnout of both sides of our family.



5) Happy Birthday, Jim! The big 3-3. Jim wanted a hand-made card from Nicole which she colored and had help writing her name on the back. We shared some ice cream once he got home from his exam. I think he did particularly well with gifts this year (a wireless router for us to play Wii with distant friends, shooting range gift pass, under-the-cabinet lights, bullets, a skillet for cooking bacon, etc.). He was very touched with all the Facebook wishes he got too.




6) I sent the "present of the year" as crowned by my father this weekend. I was quite proud of it and hope that the recipient likes it too regardless if it ever gets used. Appreciating the sentiment is enough in this case. :)




7) We're #1 in bowling due to Jen's remarkable 160's game and my bowling 95 pins over average in my series! Now if we can just hang on to our lead through April....

Catching Up

I'm working on-site on a big project so blogging hasn't been possible lately. Fortunately my at-home arrival has gone back from 10 on Monday to 6 yesterday and today. :)

Some things have been happening amongst the chaos though....

Big sister Nicole starts the dressing up of her little brother early by trying to turn him into a purple flower.

1) Chris got his first tooth on 11/23/09 which happened to be his 5 month marker. It's his bottom left and i suspect that the bottom right isn't far behind. My suspicians are two fold - 1) his gums are swollen and hard and 2) he's been and continues to blow out of his clothes on a daily basis. These teeth are costing us a fortune in laundry.....

2) Thanksgiving was nice as was my grandparents
60th wedding anniversary party. Lots of family all crammed into one weekend but there was lots to celebrate.

3) Chris rolls but I have only seen it once. I find him on his stomach in bed or when I walk back into the room after stiring the pot but I can rarely catch him doing it. Strangely this doesn't upset me....

4) Chris can hold his own bottle but I've never seen this either. Apparently he's been doing it at daycare for a few weeks and did it for Jim on Monday. I'm always nursing him so this skill doesn't really come into play when I've got him.

5) Nicole and I made some Thanksgiving crafts and gave them to family and her school teachers (who seemed to especially love them). She liked making the hand-printed turkeys so much we made a batch both Monday and Tuesday before the holiday.

6) We started feeding Chris solid food last Friday. Here's how it went:

Since we've been practicing and he's sort of got the hang of it.... he eats a tablespoon of rice cereal each night for dinner. Trick is getting his thumb out of his mouth long enough to get the food in but, I will say, the thumb-sucking does help ensure that the cereal goes down....

Oh, we had our family picture taken too:

Babysitting Adventures

We babysat Ryann on Saturday while Mike and Lindsay went on a date. After playing with toys Jim got the girls watching YouTube while I fed Chris.

They marched to "The Ants go Marching" and rolled on the floor to "Roll Over"


By special request they got grooving to "Ice Ice Baby":

After the cousins settled down with some pre-bedtime fruit snacks.

Nicole wanted to sleep with Ryann and, though it has never worked out before, I gave in. They fell asleep right away - apparently too tired to keep each other up.

This is the picture I took of them when Lindsay and Mike came to pick Ry up.

Weekend of 11/20/09

Jenny graciously let me tag along with her and her friends to go see New Moon (the next in the Twilight series) yesterday. I just re-watched Twilight in preparation for this and disliked it even more for the first time. As a result of being re-disappointed it made me even more happy that New Moon was so good. The screenplay was true to the book, the director made good theatrical decisions and the acting was up to par. I was especially impressed with Taylor Lautner’s acting for his age/experience. There were some laugh-out-loud funny parts, only one really cheesey seen and just one part section that I felt for those who hadn't read the book(s) because it went too fast and didn't probably have enough detail for those not in the know the way you are when you read a book. Overall rating: A-

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Two other New Moon points- I'm only slightly embarrassed that I'm falling in love with Taylor Lautner’s body like every other woman in America. But holy crap, how can you not?! The embarrassed part stems from his age (which, when you’re only 17 it’s “more than just a number”) and that I normally don’t get all ga-ga over any celebrity. I have no physical draw to Robert Pattinson at all. Especially when he’s all pasty white like he is in these movies.

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I teased Mandy (Jen’s friend who saw the movie with us and was quite descriptive of her intentions for both actors if they were ever in her company much to my amusement) that there’s certain to be a porn version of New Moon that will eventually release. I can count the number of porn shows I’ve ever seen on two fingers but this one I would not only seek out, I’d have a girls night in party to watch it.

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Jenny is letting me borrow her Anita Blake vampire series which I'm currently in book 13 (?) of. This morning Nicole climbed in bed while I was feeding Chris and reading it.

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"Mommy, this your book?” she asked picking it up.

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“Yes, Nicole, that’s my book.”

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“What’s it about?”

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At this point I was SHOCKED that she asked me that question- whenever she shows that she grasps concepts (not just nouns and verbs) I get amazed. I was even more overwhelmed by the fact that there was pretty much nothing about the book’s plot that I could describe to a 2-year old. This series is classified as “horror” and is some of the most sexual and violent work I’ve ever read in my life. My answer ended up being “Friends going on an adventure.”

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After she flipped through it, closed it and announced “The end,” I asked how she liked it.

“Very good. Ocean book is better.”

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We babysat Ryann on Saturday – I’ll post some video up when I get home. : )

Parenting Lessons

Several of my friends had kids before we did. As such I was around them and their children subconsciously taking in parenting tips that now I find myself pulling out with Nicole. Some of my favorites:

"Use your words"- Anjali to Alex when he'd get so upset he resorted to whining and crying. This one is my absolute favorite and most commonly used. I use it so much that Nicole says it to other children in her class that get upset and aren't coherent and now the teachers say it.

"Good choices good results, bad choices bad results"- I don't remember where this one came from but the concept is too early for Nicole. I said it a lot at her other daycare to kids who were bad or to remind the sitter to hold firm on her punishment decisions for naughty children.

"I'm going to count to three and then...."- this one got used on me as a child but the ... was always to get spanked. Normally for Nicole it's a time-out. The Cetti's really reinforced this upon me when we were talking about parenting one time so I started using it more since. I work very hard to count one, pause, count two, remind her of the consequence and then say three. I ALWAYS follow through at "3" with what I threatened to do. She sort of recognizes this and frequently stops at 1 or 2 but sometimes she likes to push the limits a bit and finds herself on the step or getting her bottom spanked.

Lindsay works with Ryann to try to find something positive about everyone, even if it's small things - "doesn't that lady have nice hair", "look at her pretty polished fingernails" or whatever. I don't remember the context of why she does that but I like that she does.

Another mom I had dinner with at a party always used the word "naughty" instead of bad when referring to her kids actions. Her logic was that her kids aren't bad (as in bad people) and she doesn't want them to think that they are. They might be, however, naughty at times but that's distinctly different in her mind. While I can buy into the concept I haven't gotten into the habit yet....

5 Year Anniversary

On Friday Jim and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. Wahoo! Go us! For our "wood" anniversary Jim booked us in the Aztec room at the WildWOOD Inn in Florence, KY.

The Bed

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The mirror over the bed

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The TV and Sitting Area

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The Spa

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After checking in we got dressed and went to dinner at the Revolving restaurant in NKY for some filet mignon and reminiscing.

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Jim and I at dinner at the Riverview 360 restaurant

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The city view from our table

After dinner we walked around the Florence Mall for some Christmas ideas. Very relaxing, hand-holding stroll.

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When we got back to the hotel we snuggled in to watch New In Town which I give a C- to (BUMMER). I looked forward to the end of the movie for more than one reason.... ; )

Neither of us slept well but we both liked breakfast at Frisch's and seeing the kids at my parents around 11am.

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All in all a WONDERFUL anniversary - perhaps our best yet!

Chris's Nursery

It dawned on me the other day that I never posted pictures of Chris's nursery - rude after so much outside help from my blog readers! Here you go!

His dresser is on the wall next to the hamper. The lighting/flash was such that I didn't get a real great shot of it...

I hand-painted the dinosaur on the wall (matches his comforter) as well as all the letters. You might remember the curtains from when this was Nicole's room - the flowers came down and dinosaurs went up!

If I ever get around to it I'll paint the other two dinosaurs from the quilt pictured above on the wall to the left. The dinosaur at the bottom left corner of the quilt is the one featured in the picture above on the wall.

Nicole's Education

Before Chris was born Jim and I decided we wanted to move Nicole from the home-based babysitter she was going to to a more pre-school-like daycare. Like every other parent on the planet we think our daughter is really bright and [obviously] want to nurture this as much as possible.

I have to say that I am thrilled with where she's going (TLC Academy) and what she's learning. It used to be that Nicole would learn what we taught her - ABC's, counting, songs, etc. Now she knows things that I know I didn't teach her- she asks to sing songs I've never heard of, she knows 3 planets by name, etc.

Yesterday's report said she's studying the following:

Language Arts - Dd

Science - Dinosaurs

Art/Dramatic Play - Fall Leaves

Geography - Spain

Math - 5

Yeah, it's almost 2X as much as what we were paying but it's worth it.

All this aside, we still really push Nicole at home to learn new things. I realized last week that she has all the fundamental tools to play a basic version of Uno - she knows her colors and her numbers. My first attempt at teaching her had her too distracted with how cool shuffleing was- we didn't get any further than her trying to shuffle all the cards. Last night we pulled them out and had her sort all the cards into piles - black, red, yellow, green, and blue. She was very happy to sort. Afterwards Jim used the cards like flash cards to test her on her letters/numbers/colors.

Jim thinks that after doing this for another week we'll be able to actually try playing the game again less the word cards.

Halloween 2009

Halloween was a success - Nicole got the phrase "trick or treat" down and she definitely got the hang of "when the bowl comes out I get candy". She got a bit shy and normally always whispered her "thank you"'s but she often did it without me prompting so I'll take it.

Here's us prepping the pumpkin:

This was my first time scraping (versus just straight carving) and while I appreciate the potential, it was MESSY. Fortunately Jim was eager to get it cleaned up.

And the pumpkin glowing:

Chris didn't go out this year - it was a bit too cold. He'll head out next year. I'm already thinking of what they can be that compliments each other - you know like Dorothy and a scarecrow or a cheerleader and a football player. Something like that.

Nicole used a borrowed costume this year and went as a ladybug.

We way over-bought candy and had about 30 trick-or-treaters. As the neighborhood grows we'll obviously get more but as it stands we have 4 completey unopened bags of candy + the leftovers from the first three bags. Geesh!

Jim & Karen circa 2002

Normal, Everyday Thursday Night

Nothing special about this Thursday. Putting up pictures/video because I often like to read about people's everyday life- you know, who they are "normally".

16.9lbs. as recorded at the doctor's office on Thursday. This means he's over 2X his birthweight and he's not even 4 months old yet (standard saying is 2X at 6 mo, 3X at a year). He wears 9mo PJs!

Bath time for 2 kiddies. Nicole styled her own hair in the reflection of the water knob (under the wash cloth to her right). Snazzy, eh?

Evening snack - pomogranate can get kinda messy if they squirt so we haven't gotten pajamas on quite yet. This is pretty typical interaction between the two of them.

Past 3 days

On my way to work today I watched a school bus doing their emergency evacuation drill. You know the one where all the kids jump out of the back of the bus? I remember in gradeschool always getting a little nervous about that leap even though there were 8th grade boys on the ground to help me down.

Chris has croup again. He went to the doctor yesterday and got another steroid treatment. He also has the first beginnings of an ear infection though the doctor recommended I wait to give him the amoxicillin she prescribed until he seems bothered by it.

On Sunday we bowled (4/4!! and now in 1st place!) and when we got back to my mom's we were surprised to find Ryann there as well. Ryann is now fully potty-trained so when she said she needed to go Nicole claimed she did too and followed her to the bathroom. After BOTH girls did their thing Nicole told Ry she needed "some paper". That helpful little cousin of hers not only got her TP but wiped her too! When Nicole got down Ryann went to pull up her panties (we're letting Nicole wear princess panties on OVER her diaper/pull-up in an effort to build excitement) for her. Mom offered to help but Ryann sternly told her "no, I help Ni-cole" and she did- underwear and pants too. It was laugh out loud funny. If you ask Nicole now "how did Ryann help you?" she answers "Ry Ry pulled my pants up!" I hope Chris and his cousin-to-be get along so well!

Attending Aubreigh and Noah's baptisms this weekend reminds me that I need to start planning Chris's.....

Friends

We don't have to change friends if

we understand friends change.

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I got an email from my aunt this morning with this statement in it. I see it as a positive quality about myself that I have friends from several different time periods in my life. Alissa and I met in dance class when I was 3 years old; we still talk and see one another somewhat regurally. Jessica and I met in first grade and have been on-going friends since. I visited her in the hospital a week ago!

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Mark and I met when I was 13 at the swim club we both belonged to; we made it through those "finding yourself" years through today when he moved into my neighborhood. I even wrote my college admission essay about him.

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I have a long list of friends from High School - the girls and I get together for lunch several times a year formally in addition to our 1-on-1 hanging out. Most of the guys are at minimum Facebook friends that I keep track of their status or people still active in my life like Sean Murphy who just attended my birthday party.

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College formed some of my strongest friendships as I think living/partying/laughing/crying/experiencing together tends to do when you're away from your family and form new "families" with your friends.

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Once I met Jim I inherited a whole new set of adult friends- people he'd met once he moved to Cincinnati like Dale, Tom, David, Anjali, Jamie, etc. as well as his childhood friends from Spencerville. Though they were his friends first I think I'm correct in saying that they're full-out my friends too.

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Good news for me is that I'm still making friends in my adult life though I find that the common link is work - Annie was a former manager of mine, Chuck a networking partner, my co-workers all attended my wedding not because I should invite them but because I wanted to.

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Probably my newest friends are the teachers at Nicole and Chris's daycare. Since I'm there 3-5 days a week and talking with them, learning about their lives, and them about mine I feel (and I assume they do too) that we're more than just teacher-client. This friendship I value because it's deepened my comfort and trust for them as caregivers to my kids.

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Bringing this full circle, I think that a lot of these people are still friends because even though they've changed, we often change together. We start dating and let that relationship take priority for a while - but as the friend we understand why because we've been there too. We cancel plans because work ran late but the other person gets it because they've had to cancel before too. We go for weeks without talking (I mean talking talking, not online talking) but don't take it personally because we all recognize that day-to-day life gets in the way and it's nothing personal.

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The friends that have "slipped" I think are mostly a result life moving on and in a direction that no longer makes cultivating/maintaing that relationship a priority. Let's be honest, some people we honestly don't care about that much (in comparison to other things/people) at the time so losing them in the future isn't really a loss. This is what leads me to ignore Facebook friend requests. Other friends move in directions that the effort isn't worth following mostly because you don't care about/agree with the new path or because your path is diverging too. I have an ex who I think of sometimes and wonder what he's up to. He's on the West coast and last I knew still living the single life of partying, working too many hours, etc. versus my path of Midwestern married with kids. We don't have much in common other than our memories I suspect. My thoughts of him are curiosity-based because I once knew him, not because I want to know him.

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This was long. Not sure it really has a point other than just documenting thoughts on "paper". I guess that's good sometimes too...

Life Update

I'm growing my hair [for Jim] and it's at that annoying point where I am constantly flipping it out of my collar. ugh- annoying.

Photos and Videos of the Kids

Chuck sent me an email saying that he and Kristi like to see photos and videos. They might just be polite in saying so but even if they are can't say I mind showing off the little ones....

Using the new stool great-grandpa wolf made

Apple Daze festival - listening to a little blue grass music

WaHoo! Moonwalk!



Enjoying an obligatory apple fritter at the Apple Daze festival

Flying is fun!

Happy Birthday Serenade

Mid-Week Report

I like McDonald's. I like board games. Naturally, therefore, I like when McDonald's has Monopoly. What I like more than anything though is saving money so given the choice yesterday in the drive through of a 10 piece chicken nugget that would have given me two game pieces or getting my normal order, I chose to save $.60.

Yesterday Jim was trying to remind Nicole that her "Sleepy Bear" (lovey) is only for night time and is not to come downstairs during the day or evening. She sternly looked at him and said "Leave my Sleepy Bear alone!" It's so hard to take her seriously when her stern is so cute and I'm so proud that she's using complete sentences.

Chris has a new passion in life and that's playing "airplane". I worry in the back of my mind that I'm putting too much pressure on his ribs when I hold him over my head but the kid laughs hysterically when I do it, especially when I lower him down to my face for a kiss.

We got DVR on Saturday (way behind the curve on this one I know) and started recording shows for both kids and us (Dora, The Wiggles & iCarly for Nicole, So You Think You Can Dance, The Office and Shark Tank for Jim and I). Nicole watched Dora the other day and was ECSTATIC that it was on at 6pm. Last night we put on Shark Tank via DVR and actually watched through the first set of commercials before it dawned on me we can fast forward through all of them.

10.5 lbs to my pre-Chris weight. All of my size 10 and most of my size 8 pants are fitting me again. I'm still an inch away from any of my size 6's closing though.... When I look at my profile in the mirror I don't think I look too bad but the linea nigra (line of darkened pigment on my stomach) hasn't faded yet at all. Looking on babycenter.com produced these tips to getting rid of it but noted that breastfeeding prolongs the fading. ugh.

Weekend of 10/2/09

Saturday night was my self-thrown 30th birthday party and I had so much fun. We went roller skating at the rink near my house which was a total throw-back to my grade school skating-party days. I heard over and over that my guests were telling their friends of their weekend plans and getting "that's so cool" responses. Made me happy to have at least a fun-sounding party. Here's the website to the pictures: http://karens30thbirthdayparty.shutterfly.com/

On Sunday we won all 4 games of bowling which puts us in second place, I think. Go us!

I'm always curious about "weird news", especially crazy animal actions/proportions/discoveries. Anyway, on CNN today there was a health "most embarrassing" stories section that made me chuckle. They're all female oriented but, since I am a woman, I can appreciate the story.

Potty Training

Nicole first started saying that she went “poo poo” at about the 18 month point. That had me excited – I pulled out the potty chair, encouraged and praised but got very little result actually in the potty. I don’t think her old sitter did much for her to make progress but she wasn’t even two yet so I didn’t worry.

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Now, in traditional daycare, she goes with her class to the bathroom every two hours. Most of the time she’s wet when she gets there but in the last several days she’s gone 4/5 trips. Wednesday she went twice at my moms after informing them she had to go. Apparently we need to work on getting her to "hold it" longer. How the heck do you do that?!

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Last night at JC Penney (we were getting Chris’s 3 mo pictures taken) she told me but it was too long of a trip to the bathroom to be successful by the time we got there. 15 minutes later she told me again but I had to put her off as I was in the middle of selecting pictures. Good thing she still wears diapers/pull-ups so even when getting there in time isn’t possible it’s not a huge mess.

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It’s a weird thing – I'm excited she’s fully in the throes of potty-training but man is it inconvenient at times… Sometimes I think I'm not helping the situation when I have to put her off like last night. I bought her princess panties but they didn’t have any plastic bloomers to put over them and I'm not willing to sacrifice my furniture to any accidents so they haven’t come out of the package yet.

Rocking Out

Last night Jim and I went to a winery to have dinner and hear one of his buddies play in a band. The drummer in Tim (the friend)’s band had a high school age son who also had a band and they headlined for his dad. I thought the three-piece rock band the son was in was really good and lead me to tell Jim that when the time came it would be cool if Nicole and/or Chris could jam out like that.

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I don’t think Jim would be embarrassed (too bad) for me to publically say that keeping a rhythm isn’t one of his strong suits. Admittedly I dance best to something choreographed or if I’ve had a glass of wine or three. Neither of us play and instrument though we both would like to. Our kids will be forced to learn piano (at least) because we think there are multiple benefits to playing. Our singing voices are best left to in the car or reciting nursery rhymes at bedtime. Nicole's too little to tell whether her willingness to belt out Itsy Bitsy Spider will lead her anywhere.

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But can they learn to be truly musical people when their parents lack the gene? Jim and I both appreciate music, but that’s not the same as being talented.

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At the end of the kids’ set I reiterated to Jim that the kids should be in a band.

“They’ll play piano,” he reminded me.

“Piano isn’t really a band-type instrument, dear,” I responded.

“Well, they can be in a classical band.”

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Ah…. A classical band.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my somethingorother birthday – I'm turning 30 on the 30^th. 30 doesn’t really bother me because 1) I haven’t dwelt on it much, 2) being in your thirties means you need to be a responsible adult and with two kids I'm that by default, and 3) I'm the last one in my group of friends (who graduated the same year) to turn 30 so many a brave soul has gone before me and still looks fabulous.

Birthday Humor

The best card I got so far is from Chuck and Kristi – the outside said “You know 30 in roman numerals is XXX? Need I say more?” And on the inside Chuck wrote “… be sure to include Jim in your XXX plans!” ha!

A little TMI

Last night Jim teased that it was his last chance to fool around with a 20-something. I reminded him that he’ll only get one 30-something in his life too.

Philosophical Karen

Some things I’ve learned in the last 30 years:

• When everything’s going your way don’t spoil it by waiting for/worrying about the other shoe dropping.
• Even though loving completely sometimes hurt like a bitch, it was absolutely worth doing.
• I'm nosey, I can’t help it. But, I can keep a secret so I think it’s okay…
• I think I missed a good opportunity to be more independent after college.
• Worrying is a waste of time and accomplishes nothing but making you feel worse about the situation.
• In 1999 a person said to me “you’re so beautiful” with such sincerity that I not only believed that he truly felt so but that one comment has fueled me for the 10 years since.
• To some extent I will always be a pleaser.
• The things that have brought me the most success in life are, in order: my self confidence, my outgoing personality, and my ability to care, & my intelligence.
• I’ll never be able to help everybody but I could do more than I'm doing now.
• It might be wrong, but knowing that someone is envious of me motivates me to do even better.
• I enjoy the moment more when I'm not working to remember every detail while it’s happening and just live it.
• I will be a lifelong reader.
• Someone will always be better than me but that’s okay.
• Dwelling on the past does not help me live in the present.
• The greatest compliment that I have ever received was to be the person my friend turned to when they needed someone.
• There’s a lot of the world I want to see and it makes me sad that I’ll never get to some of the places I want to because of other people making it too dangerous to visit.
• It is my ambition that my children look to me with the same degree that I respect and admiration that I have for my mother.

Weekend of 9/25/09

I had one of the best weekends in a long time. Friday night the kids went to Aunt Lindsay’s so Jim and I could go birthday partying with friends. Since November 2006 I’ve been pregnant or nursing all but three months so I haven’t had the chance to fully “let my hair down” and I was itchy to do so and connect with my neighbors/make new friends. We hit up a local Thai place and then went to a bar that was walking distance from the restaurant that seemed to specialize in shots. Of course we had to participate! While this wasn’t Jim’s scene at all, I had a great time buying rounds, talking, and enjoying the live band. We got home from picking up the kids around 2:00am and just my first round of pumping and dumping was (Lisa, this is really to impress you) 11oz. Round two at 7am was another 7oz. The 7oz. alone is a record for me. Clearly lots of fluid intake = lots of fluid output. Know what, it didn’t even phase me to pour it down the drain I had such a good time. Further, I was smart and drank lots of water before bed so I didn’t have a hangover at all!

Picture taken by Derf - magazine of all things cool in Cincinnati- Jim snagged this from their website.

Saturday Jim helped Mike move furniture for a few hours and the kids and I had lots of downtime to hang out and eat ice cream which always puts at least Nicole and I in a good mood. That night we got the movie Push and after Nicole and Chris went to bed we watched the first half and turned in around 11pm. Chris slept through the night without eating for the fourth straight night which was enough for me to stamp him as officially and permanently without a mid-night feeding from here out.

Sunday, after sleeping in until 9am (glory!) we took the kids to the Apple Daze festival in Lebanon. We ate amazing apple fritters, listened to a band, let Nicole jump in the moonwalk and ride a pony in a circle. It was a fun time and, in my opinion, a very quintessential “autumn” thing to do. After dinner and putting the kids to bed we finished Push (rating = D) and headed upstairs to read (him – Dante’s Divine Comedy, me- People magazine).

Looking forward to another good time on Saturday!!! I'm already planning appetizers/desserts/drinks!

Life in on the West Side

• Nicole got a letter home from school saying that they want to move her up to the next class. This makes me very happy because she’s only been there about 6 weeks and the class they’re moving her to is slotted for 2.5-3 year-olds (so she’s moving about 3 months early). Ms. Megan told Jim that she is definitely ready to move up because she knows ½ of her alphabet by sight amongst other things. I'm also happy that when she moves she'll have 3 boys and 3 girls with her in the new class (she's in a group of all girls right now). Yesterday in school she got a smiley face eraser because she knew the numbers 1-9 by sight, out of order. Ms. Jami her Science teacher told me that she correctly identified a globe by telling her “Earth. That’s where we live.” “Earth” sounds more like “Earf” so it’s even cuter. This made Jami and I happy that she’s retaining what she’s learning and not just being talked to.
• She's still heavily into her Ice Ice Baby and Beth phase in the car. At home the current craze seems to be the second verse of Frère Jacques that goes "Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Brother John. Brother John. Morning Bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing. Ding Dang Dong. Ding Dang Dong." She also likes Jim to change the speed that he sings in from extreemly fast to slow and drawn out. Hearing her sing in fast forward is funny.
• Chris was really coughy this weekend and it lead to an official croup diagnosis on Monday at the pediatrician. He’s been better but still not cured all week. Jim made me smile when he told me Monday night that if he was sick he’d want to be with his mom so he thought Chris should sleep with us until he’s better. Love the softer side of my husband. : ) Chris did sleep through the night last night (8 straight hours) which was both surprising and fabulous.
• At the doctor they weighed him and he's 15lbs. 1 oz. Holy Cow.
• On Friday Lindsay is watching the kids so we can go out for my neighbor’s birthday in a limo. Everything seems more special when you’re riding in a limo, don’t you think? Pumping and dumping will be a pain and a half but I was happy we were included and don’t want to be blacklisted for turning down too many invitations.
• My toenails aren’t painted and look incredibly naked.

September Kid Update

Nicole has picked up a few things lately that I've noticed. I think it's very cool when she understands concepts versus things. For example, she says we "better" do this or that she "only" needs that. She's also using more prepositions which is sometimes funny to hear her be so specific about what she wants.

Nic can count to 15 but inevitably the number after fifteen is "thirty-teen".

Contrary to her cousin Ryann who has an amazing head of hair, at 27 months Nicole can finally manage to have pigtails put in. She was quite happy with them and wore them about 3X to school since.

I discovered that Chris is ticklish now - watch a cute video below!

The kids took their first bath together the other night. It was a success except for the quick education not to pull on Chris's "boy parts". Her response was basically "if I can't he can't" which came out "Then Chris no touch girl parts". Sounded like a fair deal to me.

I went to a jewelry part last night. A friend of ours who had a baby 14 months ago asked how big Chris was and was in awe to hear the answer. "Carrin at her year check-up was only 17 pounds and he's over 14 pounds at 2 1/2 months?!" yeah... big babies....

Chris slept in his own bed all night last night and only got up to eat once! New trend, new trend, new trend...

Bowling starts tomorrow! Yeah for our new team member Jen O.!

Excelling in Excel

I've been learning lots on Excel formulas lately between a project I'm on and Jim in an Excel-based finance class. I now know how to

• Paste Special (Values & Formats)
• Concantenate
• Change Rows into Columns and vice versa

Now, if I could grasp the concept of Pivot Tables....

Reflections on my other half

I have had several conversations with people regarding soul mates over the years. Tom P. introduced me to a theory that has stuck with me since he explained it. I did some research this morning and can’t find the origin (though many sites/people reference the concept no one seems to want to cite it) but I’ll explain it in general here.

The idea is that there is really just one soul that encompasses male and female (yin and yang, etc.). This soul is split into two halves and each part spends eternity trying to find its other half and make a perfect union. Literally a soul mate. Some things I read online refer to this as “twin flames”.

As you can tell, this theory is somewhat predicated on the concept of reincarnation which is a whole other blog post. Several things I read commented that your soul mate may not be a romantic relationship but could manifest itself in a mother-son, best friend, etc. type of arrangement. Some theorists even think that a person might not be able to handle their twin flame- that the connection might be too overwhelming to deal with given the current state of your existence (again, remember that this is connected with reincarnation and the current state of your karma) and it might be best to avoid your soul mate, at least for a time, and work with them later in your existence.

In the book I'm reading, Obsidian Butterfly, one character told the other that he felt she was his soul mate in that they have kindred spirits and a like-mindedness so strong that it’s both comfortable and competitive. There is no romantic feeling in the relationship at all. “Knowing” these characters I tend to agree with the assessment.

In general I tend to shy away from the idea that I have a true soul mate. Perhaps this is because I’ve not met the person and therefore haven’t found a “cosmic”–level connectedness with anyone. There are a lot of people that I obviously feel/have felt very strongly about but no one that I could genuinely say that I couldn't live without.

Some readers might frown that I say this (that there isn’t anyone I couldn’t live without) when my husband reads my blog. He and I have discussed before and he feels the same way I do so I'm pretty sure I'm not insulting him when I state I could live without him (in fact, we agree that since we could live without one another makes us respect our relationship more – we don’t want to live without the other if possible).

Some people might be critical of “settling” for “less” than your soul mate as a marriage partner. Even though I don’t view Jim as my soul mate, I certainly don’t regret marrying him (one of the best decisions of my whole life) or think I settled. My soul mate might be across the globe in Indonesia this life – if I spent my life looking for them I might miss out on living. I’d certainly miss out on the specific children I do have (and I do think they’re my children for a reason).

Though I don’t think that I have found a true soul mate, there are some people who I suspect might have. Dave and Carole Polley might just prove this 1 split soul theory true. Seeing them together is to see one spirit (by “spirit” I mean energy). Could you call that spirit a soul? I could buy that.

More than anything there’s often a person I feel is perhaps a soul mate of sort for a particular period in my life. Someone who impacted me or supported me emotionally/spiritually/intellectually and helped me grow as a person. To sit and try to list these people could be done almost with a year category assigned. For example, Mike C. would be that person for 1997. Lisa E. would be that person for 1998, etc. Fortunately for me most of these people/souls are still in my life and positively touching it, stronger at times and more passive in others.

This is a long post and I think I was definitive enough in my assessment of the subject given my current knowledge. If/when something changes I’ll let you know.

This was a weekend of visiting people - we saw my parents every day, went to my aunt/uncle's for my grandmother's 82nd birthday, Jim's cousins came in on Sunday and we saw greenhouse workers in nurseries all around town.

We bought $200 worth of plants, trees, and shrubs at Lowes and a nearby nursery. I got a major headache after all the running around so I didn't have the energy to actually plant them. Jim might take a half day off work tomorrow to make progress on this front. We might need to rent the sod-cutter again.....

Nicole is often the epitome of "sweet little girl" but when something frustrates her watch out, you're approaching Tantrum City at 80MPH. She's unfortunately in a screaming phase when something doesn't go her way. There are a few things that really drive me crazy - throwing food, high-pitched whining, and drooling. All of the above get 1 warning and then a time out. Yesterday I was hitting the limit of my patience. This cartoon about sums it up:

Last week and this weekend I spent some time doing clothes transitioning which, while time consuming, is never a chore. I pulled out one of my under-the-bed storage bins full of autumn clothes and tried on things for fit before I hung them. I separated the outgrown clothes Chris is borrowing from the ones he owns and pulled out his 6-9 month clothes for winter. Nicole is short on winter clothes so I didn't take the time to set hers out yet. I'll be buying new-to-her stuff at the mother's sale this weekend. Jim wears about the same clothes all year so he doesn't get the joy of re-discovering his wardrobe 2X/year.

Still no deck furniture but the grill is looking spiffy though unused.