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.