Enchantingly Ludicrous

school year starts

2010-09-06T09:45:00.000-06:00

Josephine loves "school". Her day-care is at a Christian elementary school and she is the only 2 year old there, the rest of the kids are kindergartners that are there the other half of their half-day. You wouldn't know she was so much younger than the rest by looking at her though, she is tall, and maybe some of the other kids are a little short. She goes three days a week and stays with my mom two days. I had no idea she's like going so much, on the days she stays home she asks if maybe we can just go to my school right now? The school gets out early on Fridays and many of the older kids hang out in the day-care/after school care then. Josephine doesn't like big kids, only little kids.
I really am enjoying picking her up in the afternoons and watching her try to explain the art project she's done that day.
Something she may have learned at school (or maybe on TV?) is hide-and-seek. There is something about summer ending that makes being outside the most important thing in the whole world and we have played about six million games of hide-and-seek.

Love

2010-08-22T22:48:00.000-06:00

Mama: I love you
Josephine: I love you too
Mama: Do you know what that means? I love you?
Josephine: Yeah.
Mama: What does "I love you" mean?
Josephine: It means "I'm so happy"
Mama: Yes, yes it does... I'm so happy I have you.
Josephine: I love you too mama.

ouch

2010-08-20T10:45:00.000-06:00

Josephine has slipped stepping out of the bathtub before, she has stumbled off the step stool that is by the toilet. Josephine has fallen down the carpeted stairs a handful of times and has tripped and skinned her knee so often that it's odd if she doesn't have a scab on one or the other.
The other day my dad and I took Josephine to the elementary school down the road to go on the Swings and Slides Right Now! She is very brave on the swings, always wanting to go faster, but this time she got a little cocky.
She was slowing down, I sat on the sing beside her and soon she felt safe enough to let go with one hand and try to reach over to me. As soon as I noticed what she was doing I started to tell her to please hold on with both hands but in typical disaster slow-motion I didn't get the words out before seeing her papa move like he was going to give her a big push. All I could get out was NOOOOO! as I leaped off only fast enough to trip and skid under my swing as Josephine did a full back flip landing face first in the wood chips.
I immediately pictured a bloody face covered in splinters. Would this be her first emergency room visit? Have you ever see a lanky two year old flip off a swing like a trapeze artist, a bad trapeze artist, and skid to a stop on her face like Wile E. Coyote?
Her face is fine, I picked the pieces of wood out of her hair and socks and told her she could push papa off the swing now, it's only fair. Watching papa fall off the swing is pretty hilarious it turns out.
My right shin, the one I landed on trying to scramble off the swing in time to save my baby, is full of splinters and scratches... so there's that.

joey bologna

2010-08-19T11:24:00.000-06:00

Josephine starts daycare Monday. She's scared to go to "school" and I'm sad she is scared. She picked out a new lunch box yesterday.

Joey calls all juice apple juice unless it's the carton in the fridge that my sister buys for herself, that one is called pineapple juice.
She likes to tell you exactly when she'd like to do something. Later. Right Now. Usually, Right Now!
The sleeping in her own bed thing is slow going but I'm OK with that.
We went to an aviary last weekend and it was better than Disney World for Josephine. She would like to go back there Right Now!
Other magically wonderful places she'd like to go to Right Now!:

The "swings and slides" at the playground of the new elementary school down the road.
The grocery store
Outside to play baseball
Down stairs to watch Mickey Mouse
The garage to get some "apple" juice (usually the V8 fusion juices)
The beach

I've been writing my Life List. Please write one too and share it with me, I'd love to be inspired by the things you want to do. I'm putting my up in a tab that you can click on if you wish.

to sleep

2010-08-03T09:02:00.000-06:00

Remember when I spent a night in Denver a month back? I went out with my girlfriend that night and when we got back to the hotel I saw Josephine was sleeping in the giant comfortable bed with my parents and the teeny tiny lumpy pull-out couch was all set up for my friend and I. I decided that I'd let Josephine stay in her luxurious sleeping arrangements rather than have her kick me and my friend in the head all night. That night was the first night she has ever slept without me in bed with her.
Sure, she's fallen asleep with other people before, she's even woken up with my sister a couple of times when I had an early morning class one semester, but she had never spent the entire night without pressing her head on my shoulder for a snuggle and then flipping around and rabbit kicking me in the gut or back of the head.
Josephine has her own bed, a beautiful wooden bed that my grandfather made for me when I was that little. She naps in her own bed wonderfully but when I bring up spending the night in her own bed she gets sad and I love my snuggles.
Last night the idea of earning a treat was enough to try sleeping in her own bed all night. She made it to 5:30.
I got much less sleep because I was constantly checking to see if her door was open or if she was wondering around confused and tired. Also, I missed my snuggles.

training

2010-08-01T09:04:00.000-06:00

Want to start running again after a looooooooong time away?
Try running with a jogging stroller up and down the hills of your neighborhood.
Give up and just walk as fast as you can while still answering all the important questions from the extra 28lbs you are pushing around. What's that? Where are we going? Who's that guy?
Finally, after the sun has gone down enough that it is no longer a million degrees outside, find a babysitter and leave the stroller in the garage, bring only your ipod.
Run! It's so easy now!

I'm not ready to call it yet but it's not looking good for Utah.

2010-07-05T10:25:00.000-06:00

I debated bringing books to read on this road trip. I usually don't get around to reading much in the car, but this is a nearly 10 hour each way drive and surely I'll have time. I ended up shoving a couple of books in the back seat and of course never cracked them open. No matter how long of a drive it is, if it's through these mountains every moment I'm looking out the window I feel like I'm missing something awesome. And I am. I feel so lucky to be living in this part of the country.
All weekend Colorado was teasing me about Utah. Colorado, a lovely state for sure, started by showing me how she is just as aesthetically pleasing as Utah. It's true, the Rockies are amazing, but I had to remind Colorado that I've driven through her eastern half, her kinda boring looks like Nebraska half. So what Colorado? I have awesome hiking trails in my back yard too and I don't do any winter sports anymore so I don't care about your ski hills.
We stayed our first night in Denver where I know some awesome people that I got to meet up with. Colorado was all look at me, filled with your friends already, don't you love me more than Utah now?
I'm not sure why Colorado has this grudge against Utah.
Anyway yes, Colorado you have a point, but I have friends in Utah that I'd miss if I was in Colorado so again it's a draw.
My friends and I got a beer at Chipotle and sat on their patio to catch up. We didn't order any food because it was late and we'd already eaten, and then Chipotle closed before we had finished but didn't care than we stayed. Colorado gave me a knowing look. Utah law says you can't order alcohol without ordering food first unless you are at a bar. I'm sure there are some nice bars in the state, but the ones I've seen in Ogden don't look like my style. OK Friday night gives one point to Colorado but only one because how hard is it to order an appetizer right?
The next day was my aunts birthday party and it was lovely. Josephine charmed everyone with her stories and dancing and fell in love with one of her older cousins by the end of the night.
Finally, Sunday we headed for home by driving though the tiny town of Leadville because we had lived there 15 years ago and it's always fun to travel through time. We had lunch in the cute town of Basalt and the people that owned the cafe we stopped at had a three year old boy, Jack, that was their PR person. He sat with us while we waited for our food and played with Josephine, it was cute. Colorado gave me a wink.
We got back home around 8:30 last night, got some tacos and drove around to look for a place to watch the fireworks. We eventually found the leftover signs the city put out yesterday to keep people out of the cemetery because it's a fireworks drop zone. OK, Utah, minus 100 points for you. Independence day cannot be shared with the more important Sunday holiday, church.
I don't have the means to pick up and move right now, but if I did...

sometimes i want a fast-forward button

2010-07-01T00:19:00.000-06:00

I get it, really, Joey is learning something important.
Her brain is so busy working on whatever it's working on that she is having a hard time remembering words and paying attention when I'm talking.
It is frustrating for me to have to repeat everything a million times and then watch to see if she is actually doing what I asked her to do...but it must be one hundred times worse for her to spend 10 seconds trying to remember that it's called a fork right after I handed one to her and said "here's your fork".

also, her answer to "what's for dinner?"

2010-06-29T23:58:00.000-06:00

When something happens here that would typically get a "dang!" or "what the hell?" Josephine says "Cheese and Crackers!"
It's pretty awesome.

the birds don't hate her

2010-06-28T08:52:00.000-06:00

So here's my problem. I plan on posting here but I have pictures that go along with the post I have in mind and I am only getting worse at finding my camera's cord and uploading the pictures to my computer...so then I don't post anything thinking I'll get to it soon but obviously I don't. I'm gonna try something new, something crazy, something you've never seen before, I'm gonna post when I have something to say and leave the picture uploading to Flickr when I get around it. WOW! I am a blogging genius!

We are back from Yellowstone and no one got mauled by a bison or scalded by a geyser. Success! Josephine played nicely with her cousins she met for the first time which was fantastic. I made tote bags for everyone, well, I screen printed on pre-made bags, and filled them with cowboy hats, cowboy boot shaped can coozies, and jerky. We ordered M&Ms with my grandmother's face on them and I made fortune cookies and stuffed them with Wyoming fun facts. The cookies were yummy, not pretty, but still worth making.

I got my last haircut with "my" stylist because she is moving and even though I loved it I took the scissors to it a few days ago and while it's not fabulous it's not bad either...

Josephine has been growing ridiculously fast lately. Physically, she's been mostly napping and eating for about a week, but mentally she seems to be putting so much together in her head that she hadn't done before. Unfortunately she is also repeating all the awful things she's heard in the past two years that everyone thought she was ignoring... I want to go back in time and glue everyone's mouth shut. It's odd to hear here say "dang it!" which isn't bad, but she's called me a jerk, said she hates me and also that the birds hate her...The jerk one was easy to figure out where she got it (sister) and I've probably said it in front of her too, but the hate one really threw me for a loop. I never say I hate things and I'm especially careful to never say I hate any person. Hearing someone say they hate another person makes me super uncomfortable. My heart broke for a little bit with that one.

While I'm on the topic of annoying things my 2 year old does...She is obsessed with driving... I made a car out of a cardboard box but that was only good enough for about a day. Every day, all day, for the past few weeks Joey asks, begs, demands that I let her "drive" which means sitting in the driver's seat in whatever car is in the garage and pretending to go to the beach or on a hiking trip. I don't know how to type out how annoying it is because I know right now it sounds pretty tame but oh my gosh she won't shut up!

Joey, my parents and I are driving to Colorado this weekend for my great aunt's 90th birthday. Wish me luck.

at this rate, the end of the world might come before i post again...

2010-05-21T00:01:00.000-06:00

You know how there have been a lot of bad earthquakes lately, a tsunami, and then that volcano in Iceland that just wont quit? Yeah, so if you wanted to think of this as like a natural disaster opening ceremonies then you would look down the line and see the the grand finale is the eruption of Yellowstone. How you seen the movie 2012?
Guess where we are hosting a family reunion this summer? YELLOWSTONE! Let's hope that if mother nature is going to provide a fireworks show that it's when we are there to see it! (or we have all boarded the ship that's moving us to the moon, not like we could survive it even if we are back home).
.

I made homemade pop-tarts the other day, some with boysenberry jam and some with nutella, delicious.
And since I'm thinking about food, let me give you the best tomato soup recipe ever. Like, ever. I don't like chunks of cooked tomato in my chili or marinara sauce and I think the cream of tomato soups in a can are only OK but this soup totally changed all my ideas of what tomato soup can be. Please try it.

Slice several garlic cloves but not too small, I like being able to bite into my garlic, you will too. Cook the garlic in a little oil for a few minutes.
Peel and dice 8-10 plumb tomatoes (I think I ended up using Roma because we had plenty already and the grocery I went to doesn't have plumb tomatoes)
Simmer tomatoes (and garlic) in a good quality stock until they start to break down. Like 15-20 minutes.
In each bowl place a slice of day-old crusty french bread...or buy a baguette the day of and toast it because who buys bread and leaves it out all day? Your cat will jump up on the counter after you've gone to bed and get her cat germs all over it. Gross.
Crack an egg over each piece of bread.
This is when you are supposed to ladle the soup over the egg and put the bowl in the oven for 5 min at 400 but when I did that the first time I ended up microwaving the bowls for a few seconds because the egg whites didn't cook enough and everyone was grossed out. Sooooooooo, I put the egg and bread in the oven first so that I could watch them better, until the whites have just set, and then ladle the soup over them.
Top with chopped parsley.
I have some parsley growing in my little garden. I mean, I have a parsley MONSTER growing. I planted some last year and didn't even expect it to grow because that was the soil that Josephine decided to "help" me with and scooped it up and plopped it into the basil pot... I scooped it out, the parsley flourished, the basil never grew. This year the parsley came back pretty early, it's gone through some snow and freezing nights but it has persevered. The last time I went to cut some I decided to cut it back before it took over the rest of my herbs and I cut through stalks that were as big around as a quarter. Yeesh.
Anyway, the leftover soup is great alone too but the bread really makes it so toss in some croutons or something, because you at the rest of the baguette loaf before the dishes were even cleared from the table.

A Love Story

2010-04-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

Josephine totally loves me, I know, but lately there has been a new leading lady in her life.
Billie Jean, named for the Michael Jackson song, not the tennis player, is my brother's pit bull puppy and Josephine's BFF.
My brother got the puppy as the result of a recent break-up so he didn't have any plan as to what to do with her when he leaves for work so we are watching her until he figures something else out. He's brought her over several times before when he came for Sunday dinner and every time Josephine's heart nearly exploded with joy.
The days Billie is not here Josephine pretends to call her on my old cell phones all day.

These pictures are all from a few weeks ago but the love is still the same.

Snowball fight!

She's trying to roll her over.

Josephine's hair can get pretty out-of-control.

i have some dessert and update my shit-list

2010-03-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

Lots to catch up on eh? Let's get this going.

Remember the Superbowl? Way back then...well, I have no comment on the game. We had it on and my dad watched it but the rest of us just went on with our day like any other sunday. Just before the game started we were all in the kitchen when someone walked in the front door. Usually when someone lets themselves in it's my brother visiting or maybe my sister parked in the driveway instead of the garage. Out of habit someone yelled "YAY" when we heard the door open but when the guest walked around the corner we saw it was an old man. An old man that we've never seen before. But he had wine so we welcomed him. It tookabout 5 seconds for him to notice he was in the wrong house. Oops. It's ok though, we had plenty of beer in the fridge.

I made the most delicious cupcakes a long while ago. S'more cupcakes. I ate most of them myself, like two or three a day. I couldn't help it! They were easy too, here is the recipe I used: KAPOW! Just spend 5 minutes on that blog's archives and then go find your apron. You will be a hero.

The weather is warming up but every once in a while we still have a cool day and a morning of new snow to remind us that we live in the Rockies. One morning about a week or so ago we had one of those cooler snow-dusting days. Late morning Josephine stripped out of her pajamas and diaper and was being a typical toddler, relishing the freedom of being naked in her own house. She loves that she knows how to open the back sliding-glass door to let the dog and cat in and out. Such a good helper.
Now, a few years ago this house had a semi-private back yard. But in the last two years where there used to be trees there are now houses. Houses so close that when the trees in our yard are bare (as they are now) you can see everything that goes on in the other houses if the blinds are up. We can hear everything that goes on when they are in thier back yard because it is no different than if they were in our yard.
This is going somewhere, I promise.
One of these newly super-close neighbors hadn't been home all winter, or so I thought. I hadn't seen or heard anything from that house since last summer when we heard them moving in, with two little kids running around. We never got the chance to meet them.
So back to naked Josephine. After stripping down she opens the back door to let the cat out. I call to her to hurry up and close the door since it's so cold out. She is two. She steps out onto the porch and shakes her butt. I grabbed my camera and get a 20 sec video of her assuring me it isn't cold out and then jumping back into the house because her toes are cold. There was no snow on the porch. She never took more than one step away from the house. The door never closed behind her. I'd show you the video to prove that she wasn't out there more than 30 seconds tops but, she's naked and this is the internet...so, no. I tell you all this because about 4 hours later the cops stop by to let me know a concerned neighbor called to report a naked baby in the back yard. He tells me it was the mystery neighbor house that I thought was empty.
So many things wrong with this.
Why didn't they come over themselves if they thought Joey had let herself out without my knowing?
They must have told the police that she was safely back in the house or else it wouldn't have taken 4 hours for them to come check-up on me.
I still haven't see any movement from that house, I guess I can't be 100% certain that the cop pointed to the right house. Or maybe they just don't like playing outside.
I am mostly calmed down from that day now, but I was quite upset for the rest of the day and the next day even.
I know that I'm a good mom. I don't doubt that. I HATE that I am no longer comfortable playing with Josephine in our own backyard.

Playing with the panorama function on my camera.

Josephine, as I mentioned before, askes to watch a movie when she wakes up. I usually allow it if we have nothing going on, I get about a half hour of uninterupted time to plan, do homework, clean, or whatever before she's bored with it. Usually she wants Robots, Tinkerbell, or Cars, but I got her to start asking for Cry Baby on some mornings. Small victories.
I'm sending Josephine to Disney on Ice this week. With her aunt and her nana, not her mama...I am missing 'baby's first ice show' but I am getting a evening to myself. Fair trade.

She's got a honey+olive oil hair treatment in.

She knows how to relax

finding my marbles

2010-02-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

NOT A BABY

Still just two, but oh what a much more pleasant two than just weeks ago. She entered two with a crash and continued her Hulk Smash attitude for weeks, scaring the crap out of her mother.

How was I supposed to survive months of this? Would it end, ever? Would she transition from tantrums over M&M's to tantrums over homework? And then curfew? Then coming home from college? Would she ever shut up?

Then we had a day of quiet. It stood out so much that my mind bounced back and forth between enjoying the peaceful happy day and scrambling to figure out how this happened so that it could be repeated.

Now she regularly says (and signs) “thank you” without prompting, as well as “pease” and “you’re helcome”.

She pretends to be a robot for about half the day. It probably has nothing to do with the fact she wants to (and usually gets to) watch Robots every morning. She also wants at least one random episode of Blue’s Clues which is followed by a request for a specific episode of Yo Gabba Gabba. Yes, I let her watch them. She doesn’t actually sit through all of it.

She’s been a kick butt sleeper at night lately too. Took her long enough, but she’s finally there. After months of trying to get her to take a normal nap at a normal time she just up and started to tell me that she is “seepy, mama” at the same time every afternoon and takes my hand to lead me to the bedroom. She still doesn’t always stay napping long enough.

I’ve heard 2 year olds with better verbal skills than Josephine’s, but I’ve also heard worse. She is definitely catching on to new words and sounds at super speed now though. Kinda freaky. The best is that on one of her Yo Gabba Gabba episodes the “cool trick” is a beat-box demonstration by Rahzel and she tries to make the sounds along with him. She’s getting good.

So, she is pretty radical as of late, I hope it lasts.

HOMEMADE

I made some homemade ketchup a while back and it was really good. Except I don’t eat ketchup normally anyway so I spent the next few weeks making food that I could use ketchup with, I ate a lot of french-fries and burgers . No one else liked it much which was a bummer but whatever. It didn’t taste like normal store-bought ketchup but I thought it was better (and healthier!)

Last night I made yogurt. When I announced that I was going to attempt this, my family all made a stink face and asked if that was even safe, they think I’m trying to poison them. Whatever, it’s not difficult but I suspect it takes a few attempts to get it to the taste and texture you personally want. So far mine is a good taste but I’d like it to be thicker so I’m trying to drain it a little this morning. I’m still considering it a success.

Next up is homemade mayonnaise. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long while now but I guess I was putting it off thinking I shouldn’t be eating mayo anyway. Whatever, I eat lots of mayonnaise and I like it, so there.

now what

2010-01-27T21:02:00.004-07:00

Got a coupon in the mail for some Touch of Gray hair dye today. Yeah, the stuff for men...
What is the Universe trying to tell me?
I found another grey hair tonight also.
I can tell that both hairs started to be grey about 3-4 weeks ago. What happened in my life about a month ago? Oh yeah, I became a mother to a two year old.
Coincidence?

I blame Josephine

2010-01-26T23:26:00.003-07:00

I used to silently mock the women who freaked at a few grey (gray?) hairs.
I mean, get over it.
Probably because I thought I had a good 5-10 years before I'd start finding them on my head.
I'm 26 and I found my first grey hair.
I'm mostly uncomfortable that I was so uncomfortable when I found it.

2 years

2010-01-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

*oops, forgot that I had this saved and hadn't published it yet...*

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Josephine, Jojo, Joey,

Several days ago you had your second birthday. Turning two was pretty fun for you, you practiced holding up two fingers for weeks leading up to the day and you answer "2" to any question where an amount is appropriate.

How old are you? TWO!

How much is it going to snow today? TWO!

Do you want some more rice? TWO!

You are finally old enough to understand how to open up presents and even fake excitement when it's just socks. Actually you are probably genuinely excited to get socks. Your birthday this year was a car theme. I didn't plan on that ahead of time but every time we'd walk through the toy aisles you'd loose your mind trying to reach for all the cars and trucks. I told your aunts and your Nana that if they weren't sure which gifts to give you for your birthday and which to save for Christmas that they should give any car or truck gift on your birthday. Then you saw a few minutes of the Cars movie on TV one day and proceeded to loose your mind all over again for the next week asking to watch it again but we didn't own it and it wasn't on TV anymore. So you got the Cars movie, and a million different kinds of cars and trucks as well as other nice non-car things for your birthday. I even molded candy into shapes of cars on pretzel sticks for you. Blue candy, your favorite color.

I made a dump cake for your birthday, with mixed berries. Last year I made a berry pie but didn't let you have any because you were in a white dress, this year you just plain didn't like the cake. Sorry.

Christmas, two(!) days later was just as fantastic for you. I'm really really impressed at how well you did during your three day party. Opening presents, saying thank you, and you didn't have a melt down at all which is awesome since you melt into the floor pretty regularly these days.

Sorry but it's true baby, you are like the wicked witch and sometimes when I talk to you my words are like water. I tell you it's bed time and the next thing I know I'm standing in a puddle, and it's screaming at me. You cannot have as much chocolate as you can hold in your lap, you may have one piece. Boom, splash, screaming puddle.

This year was pretty awesome.

You are getting good at posing for pictures. (duck face)

You perfected the somersault.

You have become a much better eater, trying more things, eating more at meal times, and using a fork like a pro. (Scrambled eggs in an ice cube tray?)

We took lots of walks this summer. You were finally brave enough to sit in the swings and then absolutely refused to get back out. You were nearly passed on from exhaustion and heat but if I stopped pushing you all of your energy would come back and your head would spin and other kids at the playground would suddenly burst into flames. You like the swings.

We were outside a lot this year but nothing is as fun for you as playing in the snow.

I even built a sledding hill in the back yard for you. You LOVE it. Is loving snow something all kids do?

You finally met a big chunk of your extended family this year and refused to acknowledge any of them. For the last year and a half you have ignored all strangers by clinging to me as tight as you can and then looking off into the distance like What? I don't see anyone? Do you hear someone? Oh let's look at this blade of grass for a minute.

You also danced your butt off this year. I don't have a suitable video of you dancing to share here but you have to believe me, you are a dancing maniac. Every commercial with a catchy jingle must be re-wound ten times (thank goodness for DVR's) and you regularly ask for us to put on a music channel and dance with you. Your dance moves are incomparable. They are probably my most favorite memory of your second year, your fancy dance moves.

Finally, you decided you'd like to use the potty this year. Mostly. I had just bought a huge supply of flushable diaper liners and ordered a travel potty that I was going to give you for your birthday but before it even arrived you were wearing undies all day and sitting on the big potty. You refused to sit on the potty with the small seat adapter thingy once it came...whatever. You still have accidents when I forget that you are still just two years old and I have to ask you to sit on the potty a few times a day. You have so much fun playing that there is no time to stop and pee.

Your favorite food is Papa's dirty rice and Costco's rotisserie chicken. Your favorite color is blue; I have to prove to you that your clothes have blue on them or you won't get dressed. You sing Yo Gabba Gabba songs all day. Someone taught you to say shut-up and you say that more than any other word, though I don't think you know what you are saying really. Your aunt Sarah tries to teach you a bad habit every day ( when asked what you are doing you answer "nothing", on Sarah's prompting you tell me I am crazy or stinky, and if I'm not carefully watching, your aunt will tell you to go ahead and wipe your hands on your shirt...)

Mostly though, you have been the most powerful motivation for me to work hard and be a better person. You have made me laugh so hard I cried on many occasions and love so hard that I cried on even more.

half a thought

2009-12-22T13:59:00.004-07:00

Josephine's birthday is tomorrow.
So I'll be working on the long mushy post in the next few days, with pictures!
until then......
I cooked a lot of my Christmas gifts this year, I haven't done that before. I made meatballs and tomato sauce, candied nuts, truffles, and herbed oils and vinegars. Everything turned out really well. Mostly. Sorry to those of you that got the nuts because I had never done that before and I tried several different recipes and last night I finally found the perfect one...so you got the "good enough" version and my family here got the "oh my freaking goodness" version.
Two nights ago I decided to make some of the recipes from the Hanukkah section of the website I use and it was absolutely the best dinner I've ever had. Kugle, matzo ball soup, latkes...mmmmm. Have you ever had kugle? I was skeptical but I ended up hogging all the left-overs. Except I did share with Josephine, she insisted on eating it with chopsticks, I wish I had a picture. I'll be making matzo ball soup again tomorrow night since Jose like it so much (and so did the rest of us).
I have a hair person now. I've gone back to the same girl 4 times now and have my next appointment already scheduled. This is kind of a big deal for me, I've been to a million other stylist in town and hated every one of them. Well, no, not hated, but I've never cared enough to schedule my next cut right away. I feel fancy. Also, I have super short hair now.
Going to see Avatar in about half an hour. In 3D. I've never sat through a whole 3D movie as far as I can remember. I saw a 3D nature film at a museum last year but it was kinda boring so I didn't have my glasses on the whole time. And I think I took some kids I babysat for to a 3D under the sea movie but they weren't the best behaved kids and half the movie was spent telling them to sit down and shut it.
I know I sat down because I had a story for you but now I'm drawing a blank- oh well.

oh right, I have a blog

2009-11-27T21:28:00.010-07:00

You'd think having someone else link to me in their fantastic blog would get be to post something new already... gah, it's like I can only be one thing at a time. Or maybe two things. But that's it.

I can be a toddler wrangler and a student...but not both and a blogger! Who do I look like? Someone who has their act together?

Anyway, I've been given an award.

So there's that.

Several years ago I spent one year at a small private conservative baptist college in Minnesota. I'm much too liberal now for you to ever believe that I chose to attend that school...but I did..and I met some of the most ridiculous people there. But, I also met a few really amazing women. One young lady in my dorm was Jillian and she was so fun and cool that she really didn't belong at that school either. I met most of her friends as she was more-or-less a local and I had only been in the city about a year, and I soon call many of them my friends as well. Jillian had some really great friends, like, I was flattered that she liked me because she obviously had good taste in friends.

Jillian doesn't have a blog. But! One of her friends that I got to know, Jill, does!! Lucky us! Jill is one of those people that even if you only spend a few hours with her you don't forget her when you leave. I never had to say, "oh that one girl, what was her name?" I'm glad she has a blog.

So...I'm supposed to lay out 10 honest things about myself now- here goes-

1. Candy Cane Hershey kisses will be the death of me. Of if not death, they'll put me back into my maternity pants by the new year.

2. My daughter has just potty trained herself- in about a week. Don't hate me. She's even had dry nights the last two nights, as well as dry naps the last three days. I planned on getting her a potty for her 2nd birthday (in one month!!!) but that's out the window now. It converts to a travel potty so it's not a loss. I lucked out on this one, I know.

3. The best thing in the whole world first thing in the morning is hot coffee with a little cream. I am super picky about my morning routine and it can really set the tone for my whole day (and yours if we cross paths). I need to have a hot cup of coffee first, maybe while I'm checking some blogs and watching the news, then I can have some breakfast. If my breakfast is cold I can have another cup of coffee, if it's hot I have to have something cold to drink. I cannot have a hot drink and hot food at the same meal, especially breakfast.

4. I dressed Josephine up as Bessie Colman for Halloween. Never heard of her? Yeah, well, Josephine isn't two yet so she gets no say in her Halloween costume yet. Anyway, click over to read about her, she was the first African-American to have a pilots license. I have my grandfather's old flight cap that he wore in WWII and beyond so it was pretty neat to see my baby in it.

5. Josephine can say a lot of words but "Josephine" isn't one of them. She started calling herself Jojo and every one else picked it right up as well. Tonight I proposed to her that she go by Joey. It's been long enough since Dawson's creek has been on the air right? So anyway, she tries to say Joey and says JoLo. Nice, but maybe she should wait for a record deal before taking that one. Then JoLo turns to Jello, so most of tonight I've called her Jello. Mmmmmm.

6. I am not a huge fan of Thanksgiving, or most holidays I guess, but anyway, Thanksgiving, right. I don't really like turkey, or stuffing, or anything with mushrooms, or those Pillsbury crescent rolls. And I can't convince anyone to stray from the "traditional". I try to contribute one dish to dinner so that I know I'll have at least one thing I like on my plate, this year I made this. You need to click over to that recipe, it was FABULOUS. Even better this morning for breakfast (after my coffee of course).

7. I squealed, out loud, like I was 15, when I saw the commercial for Scrubs coming back on Tuesday.

8. All I want for Christmas is to go swimming with Josephine. We had so much fun this summer at the pool.

9. Some of my fuzziest memories are from when I was in Jr High and High School. Like, entire holidays, vacations, even years are missing. I never did drugs so that's not to blame...

10. Number 8 is a lie, I also want a whole day of no obligations, including no toddler (except for select moments) so that I can spend all day playing Mario Kart, drinking diet Big K, and eating the tin of Christmas cookies from Costco in my pajamas.

I'm not giving this award to anyone. The people who I would've given it to just got it from someone else and most of the blogs I read are by people that would never read my blog...I should change that.

You know what I've been meaning to ask? What the hell are the Roots doing on Jimmy Fallon?

mess, snow, and poop

2009-10-27T06:02:00.003-06:00

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
yeah.
I haven't allowed myself much time to write lately. I've had time to complete homework (barely) and time to change diapers, and even time to take a few pictures (but not upload them). When I have a moment to either write or curl up in a ball on the couch and watch Ghost Whisperer, I've been choosing the latter.
My bedroom is on the main level of the house so when guest visit, guests who cannot go up and down stairs, guests like my grandmother, I have to move down stairs and give my room up as the guest bedroom. It's one thing to clean a room so that someone can peek into it or crash one night in it, it's a whole other thing to clean it up so someone can stay in it for a week...I'm in trouble. I am not neat. My grandmother arrives this afternoon.
I'm not dirty, some people are dirty, I'm not one of them. I don't have dishes or food wrappers laying around, I wash my clothes regularly etc. I don't unpack (stuff, I unpack dirty clothes right away) when I get home or put all my clean clothes in the closet right away though. I have piles of papers and half finished projects on every surface. I know where everything is of course, but it looks like a mess to anyone else...
I'm picking out colors to paint the walls in what will eventually be Josephine's room. Orange. I'll probably do most of the painting and decorating over winter break and it's going to be AWESOME!
It's snowing right now. It's snowed a little already this fall, but nothing worth talking about. This is looking like it'll stay for a while.
Josephine's birthday is 2 months...then I will have a 2 year old.
a few nights ago I was getting her ready for bed and she was fighting getting a new diaper on so I let her have a bare ass for a bit while I put some things away (I was putting things away, clothes even!). She came up to me and pointed to her butt and said her word for poop. Oh, crap, where is it?! There are clothes all over my floor and she's telling me she just pooped someone in here! I scooped her up and asked her where is it a few times while tip-toeing around. I checked her out, no "evidence" on her that she pooped and then it came to me. I leaped for the toilet and as I put her on the seat I asked her if she had to go poop. "Yes", or more like "Yesh" and as soon as her skin hit the porcelain it happened... my 22 month old pooped in the potty!!!!!!!
She was a little nervous but soon figured out that I was excited for her and she got excited too. We skipped to the living room to tell every one and stopped to get a sucker out of the Halloween basket on the way. We jumped and pumped our fists in the air, we sang Whoo Hoo with big smiles, I turned to see her slip and land hard on her bare bum and then crack her head on a wooden stool.
She's put in a good effort to go on the potty again a few times but so far nothing, also she is not interested in peeing on there. I hadn't even planned on actively potty training for a few more months anyway. She's getting a potty for her birthday (shh) but she hasn't quite mastered pulling her own pants down.
There is a lady in two of my classes that is just nuts. At first I thought she was just sarcastic and a little dramatic. She made every one laugh as she got worked up over different assignments and predicted her fantastic failures...then the drama kept increasing and the sarcasm faded out. She seems to genuinely believe that every professor should bend over for her every desire, like accept late work with out penalty and maybe get a new text book because she doesn't like this one and that assignment is too difficult it should be extra credit instead. At first I thought I was the only one who saw the crazy because everyone else still seemed charmed by her but then I got an eye roll last night. Yes! someone on my side! It's awkward to be the only one who doesn't like someone in the room, you start to think you are going crazy.
Apparently I've chosen to blog instead of shower before my class this morning...

A ball?

2009-09-10T14:00:00.002-06:00

Foul moods are contagious aren't they? I don't know who started it, but there are a few SERIOUSLY FOUL moods in this house lately. It's like when you moved into your first dorm room and prayed your roommate(s) wouldn't be too difficult to get along with...I am living with my nightmare roommates and there are 4 of them, and they are family (Josephine doesn't count, she's still reasonably pleasant) I can't get away from them!
************
This summer has been the summer of bubbles. Josephine can almost say bubbles, it sounds more like bubbas, and she has asked to go outside and blow bubbas almost every day for the last two months. We've also learned how to blow bubbles in water as well, we've had fun learning how to
"swim".
**************
My sister made me go to a AAA baseball game with her last weekend; she knows a player on the visiting team from high school or whatever. I didn't expect Josephine to last through a whole game that didn't start until 7pm, but she LOVED IT. She had her own seat and for most of the game she watched more intently than any TV show she's ever seen. She clapped and cheered with the crowd, participated in the wave, and when the players ran off the field at the end of the innings she would look up at me and say "more? more?" then she would motion throwing while saying "a ball?".
***********
She loves throwing things, which sucks when the thing is something breakable or hard and she is aiming at your face. She has good aim. When we go visit our friends who have two very energetic dogs she has the best time throwing their toys down the yard for them. Days and days after visiting them she will ask me "a ball?", complete with hand motions, every time we get in the car.
***********
The other day there was a football game on TV. It was the most important football game in the world (because to my father, every Auburn football game is the most important football game in the world) and Josephine woke up from her nap about 20 min into it and preceded to watch the hell out of that game.
************
Some of the people who called to wish me a happy birthday asked me what Josephine had gotten me. I said she had gotten me some poopy diapers? She didn't spit her food on the floor? (she actually probably did, I don't remember, it happens about once a day, she's gross) BUT! She did give me something great later that night. She was dancing around and being silly for her audience and then she bent over and did a perfect somersault. She cannot do one when my camera is on though, sorry.

2009-08-28T16:13:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm most likely bring Josephine to the wedding with me, mostly because everyone here refuses to change a diaper properly...it's ridiculous.

A great thing about being a parent: your kid is "the best" at something at some point. Maybe she was late to walk, or he was slow to roll over and maybe your child is behind in a million things that all the books say she should be doing, but there is at least one thing at one time that makes all the other mothers look on with envy.

Josephine is currently gifted in song. She is taking her sweet ass time talking, but sing a song once and she will remember the tune a week later and hum it to you on request. I've mentioned before how she will find a beat anywhere and move to it (the beeping of the security alarm at the store), but I'm really impressed with her singing.

Before she ever even made a noise other than a burp out of that pretty mouth I had decided that I was going to decorate her room in a musical theme...I'm prophetic, duh.

I can't go anywhere without someone commenting on Josephine's hair- It's so beautiful! I've even been asked a few times if her hair is naturally curly...really? You think I curl a baby's hair?

Her father is black, that's where the curl comes from. Funny thing, the top and sides of her hair is soft and smooth, while the back of her head is coarse and usually snarly...like the top is from me and the back is from him.

I've tried everything to get the back of her head a little less snarly and frizzy. Mostly I've been successful at making it look greasy. The winner is the conditioner I bought for myself because it matches my shampoo: Samy Pure. She has soft curls for most of the day when I use it, it's magical.
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I have classes on two different campuses this semester. One is five minutes down the street, the other is 20min into the next town. Through road construction. It's a little bit of a hassel, but my classes are going to be really great I can tell.

late night ramble

2009-08-21T22:41:00.004-06:00

Sometimes Josephine puts something over her face, a hat that is too big or a sweater I've left out, and then she spins and walks around the living room until she crashes into the coffee table. I have no idea how she figured out to do this, but she thinks it is HILARIOUS. Sometimes I do too.

We've been extra whiny over here lately, extra cry-e and scream-y too. One particularly bad day had me putting Josephine on my bed a few times so she could have some time alone to calm down and selfish mama could watch Revolutionary Road in peace since Netflix sent it over a week ago(did not like it, but kinda liked, but not really, would not watch again). Anywho, Josephine finally figured out that she doesn't have to stay on the bed. She knows how to get down, but she never does...until now. Now she gets out immediately if she is awake. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Plus side: she doesn't cry for me to come get her anymore after a nap or in the morning, she just gets up and walks out to the living room. Negative side: no more quiet time on the bed when she is awake, and this hasn't happened yet, but what if I'm down stairs when she wakes up from a nap and she panics?

School starts Monday. I have a pretty full schedule, mostly night classes and one 7:30am class. I've conned my sister into watching Josephine those mornings...sucker.
I'm flying to Minnesota again in October to be in my best friend's wedding. I don't know if I'm going to take Josephine though...I'm very conflicted and if you want to chime in with some advice I'd love to hear it.

So, if I take the baby then I'd probably rent a car and car seat which would be a little more money than taking a shuttle from the airport but not much. I would have to pawn her off on someone while I stand up in the wedding (she HATES strangers) and I couldn't stay out too late at the reception because I'd have to go back to the hotel with a tired baby...also I'd have to stay pretty sober in that case.

If I don't bring her along my milk will likely (possibly?) dry up and she will have a few days (3-4) with no mama and no nursing for the first time in her short little life. The thought of climbing into bed without her makes me tear up a bit, but maybe it would be good for her to have to fall asleep without me there? I don't like the idea of forcing her to wean, but then again I *might* be able to pick up where I left off when I get home.

**she just woke up and walked out here...I think I like that she doesn't just sit in bed and cry for me.**

Does it sound like I'm deciding between being buzzed in a taxi vs. taking care of my daughter? Gah! It's just that the logistics of traveling with a baby are more complicated than without one...and how I enjoy the wedding reception will be different depending on whether or not I have a baby on my hip...and papa thinks everyone will be just fine if I leave Josephine with him and grandma...and I'll shut up now.

Change the subject already-

We've been swimming at a fantastic aquatic center in town lately. Josephine loves it and I do too. It is built with toddlers in mind, lots of shallow water and a few sprinklers and slides. There are things for bigger kids to play on too, but the best part is how much space is designed for babies. The aquatic center closes around labor day and thinking about how soon that is makes me a little sad.
I am going to try very hard to make sure that we get at least one more swim in this season and I'll hopefully remember my camera.

maybe she thought i needed a shower?

2009-08-11T12:01:00.003-06:00

I slept on a towel again last night. Or, I suppose, really it was this morning that I had to lay a towel down in my bed. Hadn't had to do that since the great poop shoot party of 2008.
Thank the baby-poop gods that this time was much more sanitary than sleeping on poop.
Around 5 this morning Josephine got up and found the cup of water I have on the desk at the end of my bed. She wanted to give my a drink. She's really sweet, always always finding something to give to whomever else is in the room.
So, I had a cold glass of water poured down my front and all over my mattress at 5am. Then Josephine rolled around for about an hour asking for more water and a maybe a piece of candy from grandma's candy bowl...

1.5 I love you

2009-08-05T22:00:00.000-06:00

Josephine is a year and a half old. She's been a year and a half for two months now and she will be a year and a half until about October when she will be almost two.

Things I love about a year and a half:

She sings along at church and to her favorite commercial. No matter what is going on she will stop dead in her tracks to sing along to this song. (that isn't the commercial but it is the song that has hypnotized her)
99.9% of fussy moods can be stopped with either a book or a walk outside.
She shifts her weight and lifts a cheek to fart and then laughs.
At any time of the day she'll be humming the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
For a brief moment I got her to call grandma "caca".
Except for the Move episode of Yo Gabba Gabba (and the commercial I mentioned earlier), she couldn't care less about the TV.
If I ask her to get a diaper she will bring me out one, take off her wet one, lay out the dry one and lay down with her butt in the right place so all I have to do is fasten it.
If we watch anything on TV with a studio audience that laughs she will laugh along with them (Daily Show, America's Funniest Videos). If we watch something a second time and we laughed at a particular scene the first time, she will laugh at that scene the next time. (OK she likes TV a little if we are all watching and laughing)
She loves the pool. She walks around in the 1.5 ft deep water and squats so that it comes up to her chin and then jumps as high as she can. When she get splashed in the face or trips and goes under she turns her face to me and I wipe her eyes and give them each a kiss and she is back to playing.
When I ask her to "stand over there so I can take your picture" sometimes she does.

yesterday was fun

2009-07-26T08:22:00.003-06:00

Our little local airport is mostly used for private leer jets and skydiving clubs but there are two restaurants there that are worth driving out to the middle of nowhere. After perusing the farmer's market we we out to breakfast at a deli there at the airport and it was fabulous. We all agreed that they made the perfect hash browns.
Later we drove up into the mountains to a friends house for a potluck/picnic. One of the other guests was a photographer that had eyes for Josephine (she is pretty gorgeous). He was taking candid shots throughout the party and later pulled me aside and took some fantastic mother-daughter portrait shots. I was sweaty and my hair was goofy but they still turned out pretty great- I'll share them when I get my copies.
Finally we drove a little way up to the ski resort that was close by to listen to Juice Newton. The music was wonderful and fun but even better was the fact that we were sitting on a steep kill and Josephine isn't too good at stopping herself when she starts walking down it. She had a blast diving and tumbling and bouncing around from me to my parents to my sister to the ground and back again. There was a freakishly fantastic sunset behind us at the concert and everyone around us was laughing and dancing and trying to keep their little kids from falling down the mountain.
I realized that I have never been away from home with Josephine for that long without it being an actual over-night trip. When we travel over-night I pack disposable diapers so that no one in the car/hotel has to deal with me saving her stinky cloth diapers in a bag for hours or days. The longest trips I've taken with Josephine and only used cloth diapers are shopping trips that require maybe one diaper change and it's usually only me in the car anyhow. Yesterday I found myself praying that she had finished her pooping that morning so that I would only have to store her wet diapers in the car. She's been eating a little more fruit than usual lately, grapes and blueberries mostly, so her stink is pretty impressive...you know, in case you were wondering...
Speaking of Juice and fruit, sort of, we have a Jack Lalanne Juicer now. My grandmother says she went through a period where she couldn't help herself from buying a few things from infomercials and ended up with this juicer sitting on her counter. She never used it so I asked her to send it to us. It's kind of a hassle as you'd expect. Cleaning it takes more time than making the juice and most of the time eating the fruit is more satisfying than drinking the little bit of juice that comes out of it. Still, it's fun if you get bored and want to pretend to be a health nut for an hour and I like that I can "juice" a chunk of ginger.

a look into the past

2009-07-16T08:56:00.001-06:00

Thanks for all the comments on my hair, I obviously had nothing else on my mind all week seeing as how I've left those pictures up at the top of the page for so long...

So you remember how back in May I flew to Alabama? Then I disappeared for two months? Well I think it's about time we talk about it a bit, get it out in the open you know?

It wasn't a vacation because a vacation implies relaxation and Josephine would NOT let me relax. She wouldn't let me do anything.

Mama: Let me put you down for a second so I can open your juice.

Josephine: AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH The floor is lava. Don't abandon me, I thought you loved me!

Mama: Yeah! It's bath time, we get to splash in bubbles!

Jose: (who usually loves baths) AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH No No No, This is not OK, NOT OK!

Mama: Hey we get to go see Sarah, let's all get buckled up for a minute.

Jose: AAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH gag sputter, Why are you doing this to me? This is not my car seat, I don't trust this contraption! Get Me Out Of Here Now!

Mama: Oh look it's your aunt/uncle/cousin, can you wave Hi? I won't put you down I promise, just look at them for a second.

Jose: Must. Resist. Eye. Contact. Ignore. All. Attempts. To. Hug. If I don't move, they will leave.

Mama: Let's get a snack from our house! Just right in here, in the kitchen, where we've been all week.

Jose: We Do Not Live Here. This Is Not Our House. I Want To Go HOME. TO MY HOME. AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mama: Time to get back on the airplane!

Jose: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

END.

So I had a little freaky Koala attached to my hip the whole trip, but it was still nice to see everyone and get a little sun.

Bo Jackson was the commencement speaker.

I was the only one affected by the chiggers? mosquitoes? I never saw what bit me but my legs, feet and hands were covered in itchy red bites and I was the only one.

The house we stayed in was very nice and right next to my Aunt and Uncle's house. We could wake up and walk out the back door 100yds and hop on a jet ski or kayak or lounge on the dock.

There were a lot of cockroaches.

Unfortunately the house we stayed in was undergoing a little remodeling so it was difficult to find a room that had both a mirror and working lights. The bathroom I used had neither. I did my make-up and hair at the kitchen table where the windows allowed enough light to use my little compact mirror. You know what happens when you don't get a good look at yourself for over a week? You get home and look in your own bathroom mirror and see that your eyebrows have gone crazy and how did that happen in one week What The Hell?

So, I cleaned myself up when I got home, then got to work. I was a week behind in my summer classes already and one of them was only 7 weeks long. A condensed class isn't any less work, it's the same amount of work with deadlines and due dates that come up much faster than in a regular semester. That's where I was in June, typing and reading and typing and reading and trying to keep up with my other classes as well and trying to entertain Josephine. I have helpers that will watch the baby when I ask, but I have to ask every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and none of them can figure out how to change a diaper...and only remember to feed her 50% of the time.

So now I have a bit more of a relaxing summer ahead. My newly graduated sister is living here now which makes the house a little crowded. I got the dress that I'm wearing in my friends wedding...so I'm feeling guilty about every bite of ice cream and handful of potato chips I eat...though I haven't stopped eating them...

turns out my naked forehead was holding me back

2009-07-09T13:51:00.002-06:00

Pretty good for a home job, eh? I've paid for enough crappy haircuts that I felt confident I could give myself one. It's not any worse than some of the ones i've gotten at the mall... Sometimes I feel like Trixie from Speed Racer.

Vegas Vacation

2009-07-06T10:21:00.007-06:00

what could be more exciting than a spur-of-the-moment trip to Las Vegas? How about when that trip is with your parents and your 1.5 year old daughter? WOO HOO!

When we arrived in town it was 117 degrees.

So as we were checking in to our room at Treasure Island and we have a great view of the whole strip- perfect for watching the fireworks in air-conditioning- the lady behind the desk informs us that Las Vegas is "tightening its belt" and not doing the fireworks show it usually does. Oh.

At dinner we hear that maybe one or two hotels will be doing their own show, but not any of the ones on the strip...bummer.

When the sun went down we all looked out the window and watched some small private fireworks go off around the city, not exactly what we came for. Tiny poofs in the distance, not worth sitting by the window for. What's on TV?

While everyone else was gambling, Josephine and I got ready for bed. I was washing my face when I heard the BOOM BOOM POP BOOM...I grabbed the baby and ran to the window. With soap still on my face and a nervous baby on my lap I got to watch a decent fireworks show after all.

Josephine was a trooper- poor girl had to sit in the car for hours and then be carried around the hot city and all she wanted to do was run and play. We jumped on the bed.

Sunday morning we got to the pool as soon as it opened at 8am to beat the crowds. I figured most would be sleeping in and too hungover to make it to the pool that early, I was right. I did see one couple though, with drinks in their hands, staggering and yelling through the casino at that early hour, dressed-up, obviously hadn't been to bed yet.

Overall we all had a good time.

This morning Josephine slept in until 10:30

she bangs, she bangs

2009-07-04T07:14:00.002-06:00

Did you ever try giving yourself a haircut as a kid? I don't remember ever doing it myself, I think it was because I always wanted long hair would even cry my eyes out over a trim. I saw a lady on Sesame Street that had hair down to her knees and that's what I wanted.
I know lots of people though that have tried giving themselves bangs only to end up lopping off too much.
Last night I was searching for ways to style my hair when I made the decision that maybe I could do with some bangs...so I cut my hair and...it looks great! I did good guys! I'll take a picture later, I think it makes my face look thinner even...
Later last night we were all talking about where we should go to watch the fireworks tonight when we decided that Las Vegas would be a good place. So we're off to Vegas with good hair.

Marvelous Girl

2009-07-02T09:24:00.003-06:00

Here's a little update on Josephine: She's become a cross between the Hulk and Wolverine...

Lately she's been getting upset when someone has the nerve to walk into the kitchen in the middle of playing with her. I guess she's afraid that we've gotten bored with her? Or we're going to make her eat something? She hates eating, by the way, it's such a waste of time. Anyway, here's an example of the Hulk: she had found an old comb somewhere, (grandma never throws anything away) the kind of comb you get on picture day in elementary school. A little red comb, she was playing with it all day and then her playmate Martha got up to put a glass in the sink. Hulk Mad! She made one annoying "uggghhh" and the comb was in 4 pieces. This scene has since played out with popsicle sticks in place of the comb as well... yikes!

So, she doesn't like to stop what she is doing to eat, but she'll happily pop a few grapes or strawberries in her mouth while we have a tea party. (yeah yeah, choke-ables...) So, she has never choked or even gagged on anything as far as I know in her 1.5 years but she is determined to change that I guess. Scene: she is sitting on the counter while I hull strawberries and give her the occasional slice to eat. She sees me dipping my berries in sugar and she mimics me nicely. She puts a strawberry in the sugar and takes a bite, repeat. Oh what a big girl. Then she picks up the biggest strawberry in the package, dips it, and puts the whole thing in her mouth. When I reach towards her face to yank it out (she can't even close her lips) she turns into Wolverine. Claws slash at my hands and face at lightening speed and by the time I realize what has happened she has chewed the berry and swallowed most of it with only a tiny bit of juice on her chin. This has happened similarly with putting more than one grape in her mouth or suddenly putting the last five pieces of cheese in her cheeks. She cannot be trusted.

i can type!

2009-05-30T13:59:00.001-06:00

I will see you in July... I miss you already

quickly

2009-05-05T08:23:00.003-06:00

I'll likely be running around like crazy* today and tomorrow so I won't be blogging until after I return in a little over a week- I might be sending twitters from my phone though if you care to check that out.
-*I almost typed "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" but that wouldn't be accurate, there is going to be much more blood here.

awkward

2009-05-04T12:54:00.003-06:00

So far we are still go for our Alabama invasion. In three days.
Summer classes start Monday so I'll be enjoying my vacation by reading text books so that I don't fall behind- Yes!
I am not losing my mind. I am completely calm.
I got out of the shower this morning and heard a knock on one of my bedroom windows...I thought It was bird...Then I saw the silouhette of a ladder behind the blinds.
I remembered we had an open appointment with a window washer. Thank goodness I still had that robe hanging in the bathroom!

now she loves pointing out the airplanes

2009-04-28T08:54:00.003-06:00

Ever feel like your brain has thrown it's hands up in the air with a big sigh and said "No more!"? Can you imagine what my body has been doing if my brain is that melodramatic?
There has been some spontaneous collapses on the couch, and possibly the floor, and I spent one whole afternoon just planning out my outfits for the week we'll be in Alabama.
The school semester is ending, I have a final exam today. The material isn't difficult, but finding time to read it is. Last week Josephine had suddenly developed a fear of loud noises, cars/lawn mowers/jets, and would koala-cling to me every few minutes. We live close to an air force base and jets fly over ALL THE TIME*. She is better now. I don't know what that was all about.
*It's not that bad, they change their coarse every few weeks so it isn't every day, except for last week...
Do you spring clean? I'm not so much a seasonal cleaner, I'm more of a holiday and vacation cleaner. I cleaned the crap out of our rooms right before Christmas and Jose's birthday, and now I am sorting/purging/re-organizing like mad because I can't stop thinking about our upcoming trip. I have to take inventory of Josephine's summer clothes twice a day, you know, to keep the earth from screeching to a halt. If I don't always know where her favorite books and toys are then I might forget to pack one and certainly fire will rain from the sky and destroy us all.
So I'm doing this for the good of humanity you understand?

volume: turn it up

2009-04-15T16:43:00.003-06:00

in an email from a friend I was asked to put up more videos of this monster, specifically ones of her talking.

Look at me being so compliant!

What now?

where's josephine?

2009-04-15T16:41:00.003-06:00

where's josephine?
Originally uploaded by wi77ow

If you have to ask, you don't want to know.
I had five blissful minutes of quiet and OF COURSE it was because she was getting into trouble...DUH

digging story #2:
Easter was great, a sunny oasis in a week of rain and snow. We hunted eggs (for grandma's sake) and she played along quite well considering her age. The weather was glorious enough that I went shopping for seeds and sprouts to start my herb garden. I had started some seeds in the house a few days earlier...and right before I could transplant them to the yard I turned to see Josephine scooping the contents of one planter into another. So will we get basil? parsley? a freaky delicious hybrid?

a rose by any other name blah blah blah

2009-04-09T14:38:00.003-06:00

Today is Name Yourself Day
What would you change your name to if you could, for just a day?
I always liked my name, but that didn't stop me from re-naming myself when my friends and I would play school or house or whatever the hell when we were in grade school.
Names I remember using:

Kelly- at the time I knew more males than females named Kelly but I knew it could be a girl name too...
Mikayla- I have a cousin with this name so I knew it was a real name (I was obsessed with what could be a real name and what was "made up"...I never would've believed someone would name their baby Banjo or Apple). None of my friends had heard the name before so it made me a little special.
Madeline- from the story books and cartoons. you know, that french girl with the nun.
My last name was always Strawberry- I had heard of Darryl Strawberry and I knew he was a good baseball player. That was it, I didn't follow baseball or know anything about him otherwise, I just liked his name.

Today I am Chantilly Sarsaparilla McGillacutty (that is the correct spelling of "sasparilla", who knew?)

So, today you can pick a new name. Make a name tag. Confuse someone.

a downer and an upper

2009-03-28T18:16:00.005-06:00

Today: I went with my dad to SLC to browse some salvage yards for a few things. At first I was thinking how this could be really fun if I had the time and resources to fix up cars; the hunt for the missing piece, like a real-life Where's Waldo.
I loved those books.
It didn't take long to get depressed though, seeing car after car with deployed airbags, smashed windshields, dented roofs...you can't help but imagine what might have happened to cause that damage. Who was hurt? God, I hope there wasn't children in the back seat.
We didn't find what we were looking for, but on the way from one yard to another I spotted an African restaurant and made sure we stopped there on the way home.
It seemed very authentic, though I've never been to Africa so I can't be positive, but there wasn't any silverware. I am sure it was very delicious and I'm glad we found it.

do I get a medal?

2009-03-23T16:16:00.004-06:00

I'm having one of those days where I want to hurl things across the room every time something small doesn't go my way. Pen out of ink? It's lodged in the drywall. Stub my toe on a chair? Chair is in pieces on the lawn.
It may have something to do with the lack of sleep, the snow I woke up to this morning, or that my back is killing me.
I'm not alone though, all week this house has been filled with sighs and eye rolls, everyone thinking they are the only sane person left in this house of crazies.
Yes I would like some cheese with this whine...but even more, I'd like some wine with this whine.
Josephine is 15 months old today. In the last week she has managed to get the worst diaper rash in history, then get better practically overnight. (teething rash, I think) She fell while dancing outside and has a scraped up knee, and she did something or another and has a long gash on her shin (well not as bad as a gash, but worse than a scratch, a gatch? a scrash?). Then, she was bent over, playing with her new shoes and lost balance. She did a face plant on the cement patio and had a scrape from her forehead down to her nose. I say "had" because the last of those scabs came off this morning in the shower. Just in time too, I felt weird showing up at the pediatrician's office with my mangled baby. (she also has a black fingernail from smashing it in a cubbard a few weeks ago)
I don't supervise.
I took the stair blocking gate down last week too...so far so good.

here we go again.

2009-03-16T14:28:00.003-06:00

I'm taking my baby on another airplane.
You know what that means? It means that mentally making packing lists and various other travel check lists has been the dominating brain activity.
I can't help it, we aren't leaving until May but the tickets were bought a few weeks ago and already I have made 4 million lists just concerning the diaper bag. I know what toys to bring on the plane but once a week I step out of the shower and realize I've forgotten to wash my hair.
This time we won't be traveling alone (phew), my parents and sister will be there. I don't know if I could handle this extremely mobile baby+bags+general traveling anxiety all by myself.
We are going to see my little sister graduate...from college...she's one of those weird people who spent 4 years at the same school, with the same major, and is acting all grown-up now. Blah Blah Blah.
She's going to be an Auburn University alumni, (just like her parents, and most of her aunts and uncles, but not her big sister) so we are going to be in Alabama, where we have much family, so we are sticking around for about a week afterward.
I'm super excited to swim with Josephine in the lake at my aunt and uncle's place. So excited that I've gone to three different store already looking for a swim suit for Josephine.
-I've also gone suit shopping for myself, I don't want to talk about it.
Don't be surprised if there are 10 more posts just like this one between now and the second week of May...it really is all I can think about.

Dear vegetarians, think about taking a day off for this

2009-03-12T11:57:00.006-06:00

One of the ways I earn my keep around here is to do the grocery shopping for the whole family as well as prepare dinner Mon-Fri. I really enjoy cooking for someone other than myself (Josephine doesn't count, all she wants to eat are scrambled eggs) and I try really hard to make an interesting meal each night. Every once in a while I find time to make a little something extra like a pie or banana bread. Last night I made magically delicious cupcakes. No, there was no weed involved, and no Lucky Charms either... are you ready for this?

Dark Chocolate+Coffee+Bacon Cupcake!!!!!!!

It's like breakfast and dessert in one cute package. I'm giving you this recipe because I love you, but be careful, you will have a hard time not passing out face first into the whole batch.

(The recipe I followed said it was for 24 cupcakes, so I split the batter 24 ways. They all overflowed in the oven, I really could have made 30ish.)

Cook a package of bacon, extra crispy, crumble and set aside.

Mix dry ingredients in big bowl and create a well:

2cup flour
3/4cup unsweetened cocoa
2cup sugar
2tea baking soda
1tea baking powder
1/2tea sea salt

Pour wet ingredients into well and stir until just combined:

2eggs
1cup cold strong coffee
1cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Stir in 3/4 bacon crumbles

375degrees, 20-25min
Frost and top with remaining bacon.

part two

2009-03-10T16:07:00.004-06:00

Josephine really really really loves causing chaos, order is for babies.
She watches you stack up blocks and can hardly wait for the last tier before she winds up and Godzilla's your structure, squealing with delight.
She lines up the shoes kicked off by the door, backs up, and runs full speed with her arms swinging wildly, knocking them all around like a human bowling ball.
She "helps" with the laundry by waiting for at least three diapers to be in a stack before grabbing each one and slinging it behind her.
You don't even want to know what happens to her dinner.
Josephine is very loving and thoughtful.
When she decides to leave the living room to explore the hallway or to follow grandma to her room she always stops before rounding the corner to say "later" and blow a kiss to all of us still on the couch.
She always signs "more please" when she wants a sip of your juice or another bite of food.
She makes the sign for "please" on my chest instead of her own if she wants to nurse.
When asked to be gentle she will lightly pat my cheeks. If I'm lucky she'll then put both hands behind my head and pull me in for a super hug.
In the morning she'll sit up and reach for me to pick her up, when I do she always has her head a little down so that it wastes no time getting to my shoulder. Good morning hugs are the best kind.

Josephine Update

2009-03-09T11:15:00.004-06:00

Things have been pretty wild here lately. Josephine is one of the most rambunctious babies I've ever met. She is incredibly trusting of her mama, to the point where she'll back flip off the couch into my lap without any prompting...or even checking that I'm still there to catch her. She's happy to spend all evening running full speed into the couch, and then into me, and then into the dog. She loves showing off how she can balance on a box and jump off all by herself, and it's even more fun when she doesn't land on her feet!
You'd never know all of this if I didn't tell you, she is still awfully shy around strangers. Even more so around men (excluding papa) no matter how many times she's met them.
I started bringing her to the nursery at church a few weeks ago but I always staid in there with her. Slowly she spent more and more time exploring the toys and less time crawling up my leg. Last Sunday I dropped her off and left to join my family in the sanctuary. When I came in at the end of service she was playing nicely on the floor, looked up at me and burst into tears. I was told she only cried for a minute while I was gone; I guess when I came back in she remembered that Oh Yeah, Mama Left Me and she was not happy. It was real sobbing, tears, clinging to my neck like a little koala... She wouldn't let me put her down for the rest of the afternoon.
On one hand, I want her to start being more comfortable with new situations and not having me around 24/7 so that I can take more classes and work more hours while leaving her with a friend/babysitter. On the other hand, My Baby! Oh don't cry Baby! I'm so sorry, I'll never leave you Again!
I love watching Josephine try on new hats...I don't mean dress up, though that's fun too. I mean, one moment she my little book worm and the next she a scientist exploring the wonders of nature (and every night she's an Olympic gymnast). Sometimes she will "read" to herself, but usually she brings a book over and thrusts it in your lap. She recognizes cat and meows at the picture, she know dog and pets the page. She floats her hand through the air at air plane, and gives a big sniff and a satisfying ahhhh when she turns the page to flower. She knows which page has the Pat-a-cake rhyme on it and makes sure that is the one you are reading. My favorite though, is that she knows all the parts to 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, complete with falling down and then holding her head like she's hurt...
Even though today it's snowing like it's winter or something, yesterday was warm and sunny and mostly green outside. We were tromping around the yard and enjoying the sun when she put on her scientist hat. I was pretty much only making sure she wasn't running out into the street and keeping her from eating any dog poop, she was pretty much ignoring me. I saw her pick up a piece of wood from the garden and place in on the front step. A few minutes later she was inspecting a leaf and ran up the driveway to place it next to the wood chip. I asked her if she was starting a collection, she replied eh. Next was a single blade of grass that seemed to be chosen quite deliberately out of the millions in front of her.
Most nights she still wakes up a few times. It's pretty annoying, yeah, but sometimes it's kinda funny. She doesn't lie there and cry, she stands up and falls on top of me, mutiple times. Last night was really sweet though, she stood up and plopped onto my chest but didn't make it over because of a pillow in her way. She wriggled around for a few second and finally settled herself back to sleep, curled up like a kitten on my chest. She staid there for several minutes before rolling back to the mattress. Best several minutes I've had in a long time.

Lately

2009-03-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

Nothing motivates you to exercise like full length mirrors and measuring tape.

I have a dress fitting coming up for a friend's wedding.

I haven't lost the last bit of baby weight that I need to lose.

Wii Fit is not enough and I am already eating the best that I can right now (I could eat better, but then I'd crack and eat an entire cheesecake in one night…so for now I'm doing the best I can).

I bought an exercise video.

I got mad at everyone eating the food I make but never helping me clean up so I declared that no one was allowed to eat anything I cook.

I still wanted to cook though, and I had just made a banana cream pie and banana bread.

So I ate the whole pie by myself.

I started sharing my food again.

I bruised my heel.

Josephine wakes up furious 5-6 times a night. Seriously, she is pissed.

I am exhausted.

Me Me Me Me Me

2009-02-19T11:03:00.001-07:00

I might be one of the last people to do this. It's been floating around Facebook for weeks and has trickled into the blogosphere. Here are 23 things about me (I edited off the last two because there were kinda inside jokes with some Facebook friends):

I like the idea of everyone getting their 15 minutes. For the longest time though, I couldn't shake the idea that mine would come from being diagnosed with some rare disease (boo). More recently, however, I picture myself making some fantastic discovery, like a fossil or giant diamond.
One summer I thought I broke my thumb after smashing it into a plastic gun while Kelly Theiler and I were making a music video in my yard.
I'd like to go on record as saying that 99% of all of the bad decisions I made in high school were Kelly Schaffer's fault. But damn if she didn't make high school fun.
7^th and 8^th grade were so miserable that in 12 years when Josephine is there, if she asks to be home schooled I am totally taking her seriously.
I am a sucker for a museum, especially natural history museums.
I took a sleep aid every night for over 4 years before I got pregnant. I don't need them anymore.
I've lived in 6 states, (not counting Nevada even though I had a Nevada driver's license), and the place I'm in now is by far my favorite.
I lose my shit in crowded places.
I am currently enrolled in my 4^th university.
There are some "girl" things that I never understood but pretended to anyway. Like needing to have a good cry? I hate crying, I try to avoid things that make me cry.
One of my favorite lazy-day activities is watching old home movies.
Picky eaters are super annoying.
14 years ago some friends and I built a giant snow turtle in a snow sculpting competition and we won…something place, I don't remember, but we got a trophy to share. I must have had it last because I just found it in a box of my stuff in the garage. (I threw it away guys, sorry.) Josephine and I mad a smaller version in the back yard the other day.
I have fond memories of dancing in Sara Williams' drive way when we were 10 years old. We danced to Kris Kross, Tag Team, and Sir Mix-a-Lot. Whoomp there it is!
The first rated R movie I saw was Stephen King's IT when I was 7 or 8. It's about a scary clown that kills a bunch of people. It's pretty amazing I don't have a clown phobia today.
One night in high school someone knocked on my bedroom window in the middle of the night and scared the shit out of me. My blinds were down and I just lay still until I thought the coast was clear. I still have no idea who that was.
A lot of this being a parent business is actually exactly how I thought it would be.
I probably still know the words to every Ace of Base song. When I was 7,8,9 the cool place to have a birthday party was at the Breckenridge Recreation Center (the Breck Rec) where we'd swim and eat pizza until we dropped. The car ride there was long enough to listen to every song on the Ace of Base tape twice.
It doesn't matter how many hours of History channel or Discovery channel I watch. That information never comes up in trivia games!
90% of my book shelf is full of ½ read books.
Speed scares me. Riding on 4-wheelers and ski boats are fun, but not so fast please.
Can you tell I'm running out of stuff to say? I'm for keeping the topic on me just as much as the next narcissist but this is a little much.
Hmmm…23 is a pretty good number, Josephine was born on the 23^rd, I was 23 years old when I became pregnant and moved across the country, I've eaten 23 potato chips today, I pulled 23 muscles yesterday trying to maneuver the snow blower through the driveway.

Poetry

2009-02-13T15:10:00.002-07:00

ScrambledJill provided this link to a Heretical Rhyme Generator and it's more than awesome.
Here is my poem for today:

She's pooped her pants again

But then again, don't they all?

for the pool will remove the stain

As she started to rub against the wall

I think it's perfect.

mountain weather

2009-02-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

Monday Josephine and I played outside. In the rain. On green grass. Seriously. (Check out my Flickr page for some movies.)

Tuesday morning we woke to some serious snow.

Here she is pulling on a vine that is woven through the oak trees.

The oak trees had a lot of snow on them

We both thought it was pretty funny.

is it just me or does her poop smell worse when she has a cold?

2009-02-04T22:19:00.003-07:00

I just wrote a loooooong rant about Thank-You notes. Seriously, it was several paragraphs. Feel free to send me one for deleting that post. You are welcome.

I can't seem to get my thoughts out in a way that makes sense lately... I've also deleted a long post on the things Josephine has been doing lately but it turned into a list of things she had done today and not really what I was going for. I wanted to tell you that she often asks me to help her get her shoes on. She has a pair that squeaks with each step that she likes best, but any pair will usually do. And I wanted to tie in how she chases the dog around the house. The dog, Akila, is scared of everything. Josephine has figured this out and yesterday chased her around first with a lawn mower toy that I had to take away, then a roll of wrapping paper, then a dinosaur plate she used for lunch...she thinks she is funny (she is). I wanted to let you all know that Josephine can open anything now. Pantry door? check. Can of baking powder? check. Tube of butt cream? check. Infant Tylenol bottle with child safety top? check. Safe with three combination locks? OK no, but that might be the only thing.

We are right now on the tail end of the longest snot fest in the history of snot fests. Jose started her cold symptoms over a week ago and still hasn't shaken that awful snoring that comes with a stuffy nose. Needless to say she has been an absolute gem lately.

I'm all caught up in my class now. yeah for me.

but she still finds things to put in her mouth

2009-01-27T11:45:00.006-07:00

What's that? You say you are impressed with the cleanliness of my floors? Every floor, I know! The carpets, the hard wood, the tile, it's all so clean. Well, thank you, would you like to know my secret? Sometimes the only thing that will get Josephine to shut up already is to get out the vacuum, swiffer, or carpet cleaner and have at it. So even though this hardly used room could easily go a few days with out a vacuum, every last little speck of fuzz is sucked up while the baby chases me around and charges the hoover in her own freaky game of chicken.
...........
I read a lot of blogs. Every once in a while I read an entry that bothers me or is annoying and I feel compelled to respond to it here, as if all of you who read this have been reading the same websites. But that's not a good idea, really. So if I can't find something else to write about, if that entry is stuck in my head, I have to step back from the computer a few days. That's where I've been. Hiding. And yet, I still can't help but make a comment anyway. (what is wrong with me) I've read in a few places about people who made sure their kids didn't watch the presidential inauguration at school. When these kids grow up their memory of this historic day, this day that the first black president was inaugurated, was that they had to sit in a separate room from their classmates because their parents didn't vote for him. Boo! Yeah I said it, Boo! It just irked me a bit. I think January 20, 2009 should be a day that you always remember where you were, regardless of whether or not you considered it a good or bad day. (It was a good day for me!) If you felt 1/20/2009 wasn't any more special a day than any other, oh well. Oh well oh well oh well, but keeping your kids from it? ah, why can't I shut up about this already? Why can't everyone think the way I tell them to think?
.......
Friday I went to tour a LDS Temple. If you know anything about the Mormon religion then you know how important the temples are to the LDS church. Not just anyone can go in once it's been dedicated. But! after one is built the church opens it up to the public for a short time, which is what is going on now about an hour south of us. If you know me well enough you know that I am always up for learning more about your religion so I was pretty pumped to be able to do this. I could go on and on about the things I disagree with in the Mormon religion, but there are many things that are wonderful as well and I don't want to turn this post into an argument for or against any faith. I will say this though, the temple smelled slightly like a hospital, and maybe it was just me, but a little like formaldehyde. It was at the same time, plainer and fancier than I expected. ( I know, What?!) Just trust me.
.........
Tonight I'm going to watch Ed Asner in a reenactment of the Scopes Monkey trial. I guess I'll have to fill you in on that later though.
........
Back in November I applied to a local college. December, after I had allowed plenty of time for my trascripts to be mailed I tried contacting the admission office to ask what the hold up could be. After a million (seriously one million) attempts to contact them I finally found out that they needed one more piece of paper that they were waiting for even though they never asked me to send it! Fast forward to last week, I am finally officially admitted even though the semester started three weeks ago. I find one professor who is willing to let me join her class late, I get up at the ass crack of dawn to meet with her, succeed at buying my text book after 2 tries, and get to reading. It's an online class and when I tried to log on Sunday to start my massive catch-up of assignments I was greeted with a message saying it's all down for maitenence for 5 days! So there, when I'm not vacuuming, I'm reading.
.......
I leave you with a parenting dilema like no other:
The baby is asleep, finally, on your lap. She is a little sick and currently a light sleeper so any atempt to move her would certainly wake her up. You know she has poop in her diaper, and enough pee that it's leaking on your leg.
I normally wouldn't let her sleep in poopy pants but this is the first moment she hasn't yelled at me in what feels like years...ok it's been just this morning (and last night) that she's been cranky.
The decision may be made for me because I have to pee.

My Big Girl

2009-01-15T17:06:00.005-07:00

Josephine just put a potato chip the size of a checker piece in her mouth. She looked at me and turned to run away like she does whenever she puts anything in her mouth that I haven't given her myself. I grabbed her arm, she gave me a whiny noise, and then crunch.
She couldn't believe that this "checker piece" had crumbled so easily in her mouth. There was a look of shock, then she joined me in laughing so hard that pieces of greasy potato flew out of her mouth.

A few nights ago I tossed Josephine onto my bed and handed her the TV remote to play with like I always do when we get ready for bed. I turned to step into the bathroom, taking out my hair clips and turning the lights off. When I turned back she was already three steps away from the bed and running full speed towards me. I scooped her up as fast as I could and explained to her that she wasn't big enough yet to be getting off the bed all by herself. She is still a baby! She's gotten off of the couch by herself plenty of times, but my bed is much higher and I had never seen her even attempt to get down from it alone. I was happy to see her first step, slightly bummed to pack away all her itty-bitty newborn clothes, but this really hit me hard. As silly as it sounds, this was too big for her. I'm running out of baby time and closing in on toddler.

i can breath

2009-01-13T18:01:00.006-07:00

I am pleased to announce that MarioKart therapy works! I feel much better today after winning a few trophies.
Have you seen the movie Burn After Reading? For some reason I was under the impression that it was going to be a comedy...it was just creepy, and kind of sad.
You know what's cute? The way Josephine plays along with me on the Wii Fit. She stomps her feet and tries to lift one leg in the air when I do the Yoga. Then when I'm skiing and there is a chime to signal I've made it through a gate successfully, she mimics a beep noise from wherever she is in the room. Beep beep beep beep.
So I just found out that my dad knows about this blog and has informed my extended family about it- Hi guys!
There hasn't been anything scandalous on here (right?) but still, I'm gonna be a little shy for a few posts until I forget who is reading.
I have a few pictures on my camera that need to be uploaded...that'll come later when Josephine takes an actual nap (HA)!
One last thing- do you know how freaking excited I am that Scrubs is back on?
Very.
I am very freaking excited.

math problem

2009-01-12T16:39:00.003-07:00

I
am
dieing...
A cold+a rambunctious toddler+phone calls that need to be made+college admission office workers that don't care about doing their jobs+ICan'tBreath+MyHeadIsSpinning=my death.
the end.
I think some MarioKart might help me to feel better.

belated new year...

2009-01-06T19:11:00.004-07:00

my thoughts on New Year resolutions:
As a woman, when I automatically think of making a New Year resolution I think of losing weight. Personally I never thought I needed to lose weight (until now) so leaping into a diet has never been an issue for me. I don't think I've ever made a New Year resolution actually. If you can think of something that you need to change about yourself you should do it, right then. Why wait for January 1st?
That being said, here are my resolutions:

Live as if this is my do-over. If me 10 years from now got to come back to 2009 and have a do-over, what would I do differently? This means choosing to play with Josephine over starting the laundry, even if it means spending the day in my PJ's because nothing else is clean (oh what a sacrifice!). It means not stepping on the scale everyday or pinching my belly fat and instead being thankful I'm healthy enough to chase my daughter around the house. It means trying that much harder to understand and/or ignore the crazy in my family and enjoy the time I have with them now.
Continue learning more and more about healthy living.
Fill up the recipe book I've started. I put together a blank book ( I'll show you later) and I write in a recipe after it turns out to be a big success in this house. I don't add ones that are boring or obvious, only the special ones.
Get better at talking on the phone.
Sleep 6 hours straight. Just once. Come on Josephine!

I think 2009 is gonna be good.
I'm thankful for a lot of things 2008 brought and remembering those things is just as important, if not more, than making new resolutions.
What was so great about your 2008?

Month 12

2008-12-31T15:29:00.002-07:00

birthday pie
Originally uploaded by wi77ow

12 months

Nicknames: Scooter, Turkey legs, Stinky McGillicutty,
Favorite foods: avocado, yogurt, scrambled eggs, cheese, chocolate, cheerios, boob, superfood juice
Favorite tricks: dancing, walking backwards, spin in circles, singing, undoing diapers, pretending to read, pretending to talk on the phone
Thoroughly uninterested in: television, small chairs
Unfortunate common occurrence: tripping
Worst habit: never sleeping for longer than 3 hours at a time
Best habits: kissing, babbling on and on
Favorite places to be: by the door someone just came in so you can play with the snow from their boots, lying down by the coffee table so you can peek at us through the legs, on my hip.

Josephine, this has been the fastest year of my life. I’m at a loss as to how I’m supposed to sum up this past month in this letter, let alone your first year. I do have one thing going for me this morning though, you actually have given me three nights in a row with 5 straight hours of wonderful sleep.

Your aunt Sarah came home from school a week ago and to all of our surprise you reached for her immediately and never looked back. Even though you hadn’t seen her in almost 5 months, you must remember her because you will not allow strangers to touch you. You still are cautious around your uncle Josh and he comes over about once a week.

This isn’t your first winter, but it’s the first winter you might be able to enjoy. I searched and searched for a snowsuit that was waterproof and didn’t have feet so you could use your own boots, and oh yeah, one that would fit a one year old and wasn’t $100+. I guess most babies your size aren’t allowed to walk in the snow? I don’t know but I finally found one and it’s a little big, but it does the job and you think the snow is awesome. You were born in a snowstorm, maybe that says something.

So you are a whole year old now baby. I didn’t throw you a grand birthday party with balloons and streamers, and I didn’t make a cake and take pictures of you smearing it on your face. You’ve had cake before and you were wearing a white dress so you only got a few toddler snacks while the rest of us had a berry pie I made instead. It was a nice day in the end, we sang, opened presents and for dinner we went to a friend’s house where you had the best time feeding their dog every last one of your cheerios. Unfortunately the day started a little rough because you got your 12 month immunizations in addition to a super fun iron test and flu shot. Then! There was a super awesome snow storm the night before and the roads were so bad that the 2 mile drive from the clinic to our house took about 30 minutes. We got stuck in the middle of the road several times and I had to maneuver and spin the tires this way and that while all these SUVs drove past and you screamed the whole time. Happy Birthday!

This month has been a little extra stressful for me. I am trying to sign up for some classes which means that I would have to leave you with someone else for part of the day. Even though you are a charmer and everyone wants to play with you, you are very anxious around strangers. I’ve left you with your aunts, grandma and papa a few times and you do fine for a short amount of time but even though I appreciate a break now and then, I hate walking out the door without you.

When I’m not freaking out about how many hours I have to be away from you, I’m freaking out about how you just dove head first into the coffee table again. (I bought you a pretty, retro icepack for your birthday.) You try everyday to break your personal speed record by picking up something you know you shouldn’t have and sprinting to the next room. Sometimes the coffee table, couch, dog, or a rogue shoe gets in your path and all 22 lbs bounces and rolls across the room. Fortunately, you usually think it’s pretty funny.

No matter what stresses have come this year, I would take them all times 10 if I had to because the joy you bring me trumps them all.

(video of 13 pictures: first one is Josephine 3 days old and every one after was taken on the 23rd of each month)

Check-In

2008-12-22T15:47:00.003-07:00

I'm sure the three people that still read this blog are just as busy as I am right now and haven't even noticed my lack of posting...
Josephine's birthday is tomorrow, then the whole Christmas Eve/Christmas Day extravaganza, and hopefully before Feburary I'll have some pictures and re-caps up for all to enjoy.
My sister that goes to school in Alabama is home and Josephine took to her immediatly, replacing Martha with her as her favorite for the first few days. We were all surprised since she is still nervous around my brother and his girlfriend even though they come over for dinner every Sunday.
I had pictures up several weeks ago with Josephine in the snow. That snow melted right away and we had plenty of sunny warm days since then. Until now. The yard is a winter wonderland, the stroller is retired for the season, and taking the dog out to poop in someone elses yard is a dreaded chore.
ok, I don't let her poop in someone elses yard, but I try to keep her from doing it in our yard because then I have to shovel it up. No one is at risk of walking in her non-yard poop, FYI.
stop talking about dog poop.
ok.

some stuff

2008-12-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

I use "smell ya later" as my preferred salutation.
I believe bananas are the only fruit that should ever be pared with chocolate.
My favorite song is Love of My Life- Erykah Badu (link is to the video that frankly leaves a lot to be desired)
I was told to read books and magazines while I was pregnant because once Josephine arrives I won't have time for those luxuries. The truth is, I have time to thumb through a magazine once in a while...I just can't find one that hasn't been shredded and chewed beyond recognition.
This morning Josephine went down for her nap in my arms and just as I was thinking about putting her in her bed she threw up a festive mix of milk and cookies. As soon as I changed her shirt she was fine and took a few minutes to play with some toys and then went back to sleep. I can't get the smell of stomach acid and arrowroot cookie off my hands.
In 10 days my baby will be a whole year old.
My body will re-experience emotions from the past. That's not unusual, I know. The triggers are common ones like smells and certain songs, but I've noticed I also re-live emotions as the seasons change. This past summer I spent many days re-experiencing the stresses of the summer before for no reason other than that I could suddenly remember them so vividly. Upon the fist real snowfall of this winter I was suddenly taken right back to the snowstorm Josephine was born in. I felt the anxiety of knowing I was going to have a baby soon and the stress of being in so much pain and just wanting to enjoy my new daughter. I think my body remembers the bad days much stronger than the good ones.
I realized that I have a geeky crush on Bobby Flay after I had a dream that one of my friends married him and I was quite jealous.
Josephine has figured out how to drink from a straw and it's the only way I can get her to drink anything other than water or Odwalla Superfood juice.
Now that my hair has grown out a little bit I have no idea what to do with it.
My computer died a few days ago. I revived it but everything was lost...i don't even recognize her anymore. Anyway, the thing I'm missing the most is the billions of links that were in my favorites folder. Now I'll never know about all that cool stuff I was going to get back to. (I don't keep my pictures on my computer, so, phew!)

cast iron crown

2008-12-01T21:51:00.003-07:00

There are two styles of cornbread.
Southern style and New England style.
The former has more of a corn flavor, a grittier texture, and a crispier crust than the latter. If you ask a yankee to make some cornbread for you you'll get a sweeter and softer bread, almost a corn cake. If you search for cornbread recipes on the Internet you'll mostly get the northern version; I think it's because if you have a good southern recipe you keep it a secret, possibly only sharing on your death bed.
My dad has been on a mission to make good southern style cornbread for several months now and has been failing miserably. I mixed up a couple of batches and even though he didn't think it was a competition, I won.
The first batch was a fail because I forgot to add the salt.
By the third batch I had made the best southern cornbread you can possibly make in a glass pan. That's the thing, authentic southern style cornbread is baked in a cast iron pan...which I don't have...glass is the next best thing.
I know you are dying for me to reveal my recipe...
I'll say this, on a scale of just add milk to childhood memory my bread lands pretty solidly on we could make this when grandma visits.

11 months

2008-11-29T18:59:00.002-07:00

elf
Originally uploaded by wi77ow

Dear Josephine, dear dear Miss Josephine,
I am so tired.
The end.

Ok, no, I can write more, but seriously baby, Mama is tired.

When a woman is pregnant her body does some amazing things to prepare for her baby’s arrival. It stretches in ways you wouldn’t believe, it nourishes and protects the growing baby, and it prepares to produce milk when the baby arrives. There is one other little know miracle that the mother’s body performs while gestating though, her brain starts melting. It’s true, a part of the mother’s brain turns into a puddle that sloshes around for a while before leaking out of the tear ducts the next time she watches a commercial with a happy ending. It’s the part that remembers the difficult and horrible times of labor and also parenthood.

If a mother’s brain could remember how painful labor is she would never have more children, but a few weeks or months postpartum and she is looking back at labor like it was a stubbed toe. If a mother could recall every exhausting 2am, 3am, 3:30am, 4am…waking, and every tantrum at the grocery, and every hours long crying session then I think there would be a babies category on EBay.

This brain melting is so very important though, for survival and for sanity. Luckily the part of the brain that remembers the good times swells to fill the space of the puddle. I know that I’ve wanted nothing more than for you to please sleep one more hour, but when we get ready to go to bed the next night I’m not dreading waking up seven times, I’m looking forward to the morning when you’ll pull my face to yours and give me kisses to wake me up. That’s your new thing, kissing, you kiss everyone and everything. Even right now you are sitting on my lap as I type this and you are leaning back every few seconds to give me a kiss. I like this new game. A lot. It might not be the best idea to put your mouth on everything during cold season, but it’s awfully cute. You kiss the dog, your toys, even papa’s scruffy face, and when there’s nothing right near by you sometimes stop in your tracks, bend down, and kiss the carpet. I will really miss this when you stop.

When we get ready to run errands in town I’m not worried that you’ll throw another tantrum when I don’t let you run free and clean off the shelves at Target (even though you probably will). Instead, I smile thinking about how you love to sing as loud as you can while sitting in the cart and everyone in the store stops to tell me what a wonderful baby I have. They don’t even know how wonderful you really are.

There have been days when I would have given my right arm if I could get a babysitter for one hour. I just want to spend a little uninterrupted time organizing computer files or picking up our room without you following behind undoing everything I set straight. One day I got my “wish” and even got to keep my arm. Grandma watched you while I went to see the new James Bond movie. I spent most of the movie thinking about you and absolutely not relaxing. You may be exhausting but you are also so delightful and I miss you every moment you aren’t around.
You are quite rambunctious now. I have spent time with babies before and usually the boys are wilder than the girls. You break that stereotype, shatter it, you are only getting bandages and icepacks for Christmas. You really like to spin until you fall over, which is pretty funny to watch. Sometimes you don’t even bother to spin, you just belly flop right where you are standing. Then other times you try to run as fast as you can through the living room and crash into the couch or a pillow on the floor. You are really good on your feet but you still manage to trip every once in a while and knock your head on the coffee table.

You LOVE dancing to any and every beat. There are the obvious times to dance like when you push the buttons on one of your noisy toys or when mama is watching that Beyonce video again, and the less obvious, like the beat of the security alarm at the mall, which you’ve rocked out to in the shopping cart many times.

You can’t stay still for very long, nor do you even want to. You even walk around when you have a book open and are “reading” the page with the cat and dog on it over and over.
But it’s at night when you really show off your inability to slow down. Even in your sleep you keep going and going. I’ve witnessed you laugh and smile in your sleep for months now, but recently you’ve also lifted your head to give the air a kiss before lying back down. It was precious, as was the time you reached out one hand very deliberately, pinch two fingers together and bring them to your mouth. You were dreaming about having a snack and you gave a big smile “eating” your treat. It’s terribly cute how you dream, but oh how I wish you would just sleep through the night. Like I said before, I’m so veryzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

read while eating pea soup, or chocolate sauce, or butterscotch pudding

2008-11-16T16:54:00.004-07:00

Several times as an infant she surprised me by peeing all over as soon as I pulled the old diaper off. Everyone in the house who is not a mother has been thoroughly grossed out by stray streams. That seemed mostly in the past now that she no longer has to relieve herself every 20 minutes.
There have been a handful of times that she's walked out of the bathroom, sans diaper, and created a puddle on my bedroom floor while I started a bath. That's not a big deal, her urine doesn't smell bad and it isn't difficult to clean up.
Once, when she was still small enough to lay in her baby tub, she pooped and had to take a bath after her bath.
Then there was this morning. Everyone was running late getting ready for church which is unusual as my mother is typically dressed and reading the paper before I get out of the shower. Normally I can dress Josephine and toss her in the living room with grandma while I finish fixing my hair and face, but this morning I didn't have that option.
I started the shower, pulled off her pajamas and night time diaper and set her down while I undressed. She walked into my bedroom and back. She held up her arms, asking to be picked up. As I bent down to scoop her up I noticed something didn't smell right. I looked into my room and because it'd only been a few seconds I only looked a few feet into the room. No puddle. In that same moment I had pulled her up nearly to my chest and then I saw it. Her legs, back side, and one hand were covered in that tell-tale mustard brown slime. Poop.
I quickly tossed her into the shower and walked further into my bedroom. She had made it further in than I thought, she had rounded the corner and when I did as well I saw it. She must have been holding it in a while.
I scooped as much as I could up with a wash clothe and jumped in the shower. When I got out I tried to clean it up some more but I had only a few minutes to get ready. I was having a hard time keeping Josephine occupied and out of the mess while trying to clip the hair out of my face and put on a little mascara.
My room smells like pet stain remover.

Yes we can

2008-11-06T12:31:00.004-07:00

Dear Josephine,

I'm not sure how to start this; I want to present you with an eloquently written letter but I'm also finding it hard not to type OH MY GOSH I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!LAKJDFLAKSADFSFJSFJ!!!!! over and over and just call it a day. You will always know a world where an African American can be the President of the United States and it's no big deal.

I can't help but think about the few similarities between you and Barack Obama. Like so very many other children out there who, until now, had no real reason to believe that America would have enough confidence in them to elect them as President, you have a white mother, an absent black father, and more love and devotion from your grandparents and me than you know what to do with. You could be our president 40 years from now! or really anything, an-y-thing. Now, don't misunderstand, I did not vote for Barack Obama because he is black, I voted for him because I believe he is going to be the the kind of President we need. I'm happy he won and I'm happy the outward, as well as the veiled racism in this country didn't win.

Unfortunately, even with this amazing step forward the same day held some terrible steps back as well and in all reality you will know a world where not all people are treated equally.

I hope that when you are older and you read this you are baffled at the idea of anyone being discounted because of the color of their skin, their sex, religion or lifestyle, or because of how they grew up. I hope that you are only known as Josephine.

You won't remember November 4th 2008 but hopefully your life will be filled with equally momentous days. Days where civil rights trump self-righteous attitudes and days where there is not tolerance, but acceptance and love.

If You Care

2008-11-04T16:53:00.002-07:00

If you care about democracy, you'll print out this sticker and hand it out at polling sites.

i voted

2008-11-04T10:01:00.003-07:00

Utah is so red that no candidate bothers to campaign here. Utah is the reddest state in the world. Most houses around here have signs in their yard but only for the local elections, I've seen one McCain sign and maybe 5 Obama signs. I'm pretty sure that as long as you don't have a Obama sign in your yard you are assumed to be a McCain/Palin supporter. That's how red it is here. The first Obama sign in our yard was broken and stolen so we replaced it and after a few days this one was obviously kicked/stomped/punched/something but it was at least left in the yard and I managed to rig it back up. I've seen that the one neighbor with an Obama sign has also had to replace theirs and move it higher in the yard away from the sidewalk.

I know McCain will win Utah but I'm looking forward to see how purple we can get it this year. Also, we have had beautiful weather lately, warm and sunny, but today it is snowing. I hope it doesn't stop people from getting out to the polls. Oh! and you know about those flyers and phone calls telling people that they can vote after the 4th or that college students will lose financial aid if they vote at their school rather than their home state? yeah I thought that most people have figured out the truth but just last night someone had a bet with my brother that the polls were open until the 7th. She had received an email. Oh My Gosh people, today is the last day to vote and you will not get in trouble if you go, I promise!

Some Super Duper Exciting News!

2008-11-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

I can't help myself. I start growing my hair out and then the next time I have a babysitter I make an appointment to chop it all off. To be fair, my last cut was kinda yucky and growing it out was more stress than any natural occurrence should be. And this cut? I love it. I've seen a new stylist the last 4-5 times I've gotten my hair cut because I was so unimpressed with the results that I was willing to take my chances with someone new rather than remember their name, but this time I will remember that EMILY cut my hair and she did awesome.

Now, where have I been? Well, I've been busy entertaining company for one. My grandmother has come to meet Josephine and hang out for a week. Here is four generations of CRAZY:

This has been the fastest fall I've ever seen. That bush in the picture is the only thing that is still colorful in our yard. Just about all the leaves on the oaks have fallen already and it seemed to happen all at once. (boo)

Josephine is much more comfortable around my grandma now than she was the first few days she was here. For three days I had 20+ lbs hanging on me 24 hours a day as she was terrified a stranger might look at her or *gasp* talk to her. By Halloween night I was ready to drop her in the pillowcase of the next trick-or-treater.

Speaking of Halloween... I hadn't planed on dressing up Josephine originally. I'm not a fan of the holiday myself and there was no way I was going to spend precious time and money on a costume she'd probably want to rip off anyway. But Martha ragged on me for days about how cute it would be and eventually I caved. I pulled together some things from our closets and dressed Josephine as St Joan of Arc...I guess I was the English.

Joan here had a marvelous time emptying the candy bowl all afternoon.

In other news, the night before Halloween my sister and her boyfriend, my father and I went to a local haunted house. That is really haunted (if you believe in that stuff). It was in an old Psych ward and interesting because it was interactive, they encouraged you to talk to the scaries. At the end was a maze with movable walls and spooky people that would MOVE THEM while we were still wandering around and so it took a while to find our way out. I hadn't been to a haunted house since I was in Jr. High. There are a lot of high quality ones around here but I figured they wouldn't let a big fat pregnant person in for fear they would scare the baby out of me so I didn't hit up any last year.

Sunday was a fun day as well. We all, except for my mother, went to SLC to see Body Worlds. (They don't allow pictures) I thought it would be kinda creepy but it wasn't at all. All I could see was how easy it is to pull a muscle doing mundane things and by the end my next was all twitchy. It was quiet in there, barely any whispering, only the sound of a heart beat playing over the speakers. I feel smarter having been through the exhibit. I'd be happy to give you a consultation on your cholesterol levels if you like.

We had a nice lunch out where Josephine entertained everyone in the restaurant like she always does. This time she was doing tricks with a straw and a spoon, you should really try to catch that show.

When we got home the old ladies of the house and I went to an antique show/sale. I snagged a super ring there called a poison ring. Pretty isn't it?

Yeah I didn't think about it until later that night but it's kinda like a good place to store some coke...but don't worry I'll only keep an emergency Cheerio in there, or maybe a picture or something.

Today I voted.

Now that we're all caught up on my week I'm sure you can finally sleep at night. I can't though, oh no, Josephine wouldn't allow that, but that's old news.

10 months

2008-10-24T21:57:00.002-06:00

I'm undecided.
No, not on the upcoming election, but on how I feel about 10 months. The highs and lows of this month have been so extreme and so many that perhaps what I need to do is make a comparison list. Here it goes:

THINGS I DISLIKED ABOUT 10 MONTHS

You have stopped sleeping for longer than 4 hours max at night. Why would you do that? 4 hours? And that's on a good night! You wake up doing this horrible whinny noise and I lay still hoping you'll put yourself back to sleep, but oh that would be too easy. Instead, you sit up, find my face and grab hold of my nose with your razor sharp talons. Sometimes I give in right then, but other times I'm feeling a little more masochistic and I pretend to still be asleep. That's when you start kicking your little hammer heels into my ribs, face, throat, etc. I'm so tired.
Everything tastes better off the floor! Also, everything looks better over there! Everything I give you to eat gets tossed to the floor and when the last piece of banana is finally off the table you want out of your highchair so you can walk around eating pieces of dirt and trash off the ground. Then you find anything I have placed on the coffee table, stacked on the ground, put away in your toy box, etc, and you toss it behind you. Thank you, but please leave the decorating to the grown-ups for now.
For about 50% of your day you are very unhappy about your physical position in the universe. The whining to be picked up and then the immediate clawing to be put back down is driving me a little bonkers. It would be less annoying if when I put you back down you'd go play, but you don't, you cry to be picked up again, then claw my face, cry, claw, cry, claw....Oh My Gosh What?

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT 10 MONTHS

You've started singing along when I sing silly songs to you. Even cuter, you sing along in church. Every Sunday another lady turns to us after service to comment on how precious you are, how well behaved, and how cute it was that you knew to sing when we sang.
While I'm on the subject of mimicking, you know how to hold a phone to your ear and say hello. You don't stop there though and that's the best part, you will hold anything to your ear and walk in a circle around the room babbling on and on and on. I've seen you pull one sock off, hold to the side of your head, and for at least a full minute you walked around talking and laughing before you noticed I was watching you. What are you talking about? Who are you calling? Who are you mimicking? Goodness knows I never answer my phone.
When you aren't clinging and crying and clawing you do pretty well entertaining yourself. Often you just walk around the house stopping to examine this or that, answer a call on your hair brush, and then when I can no longer hear you stomping around I know exactly where you are. You have a club house under the dinning room table and you are happy to sit there for long stretches of time. I love catching you under there, it's adorable, but I have to wonder, are you planning something? Should I be concerned about some kind of baby overtaking?
There's this thing you do with your tongue now that's pretty funny. I guess it's because you have those two teeth on the bottom that you are still getting used to. You know it's funny when you poke your tongue out and you do it when we're playing to get a laugh out of me. You know all the tricks to get me to smile and laugh, like starting a game of peek-a-boo or running towards me only to turn at the last minute and crash into a pillow. I love playing with you.
You know how to cuddle and give kisses now. I can ask for a kiss from you and I LOVE that. You kiss the dog, you try to kiss the cat, and you give your mama kisses. That right there might be worth double points.

Ok, so it looks like the pros outweigh the cons for 10 months. 11 months, are you paying attention? It was a close race, but I guess 10 months was pretty good, I'm not surprised.

do my bidding

2008-10-24T00:03:00.003-06:00

ATTENTION READERS!
I invite you to please write Josephine a note. It can be a comment to this post, an email (madmartigan77 [at] gmail . com) or a genuine letter. I am going to assemble a time capsule for her birthday and I'd like to put in these notes and letters so she can read them 20+ years from now. I thought about how I wished I had saved the newspaper from the day she was born, but for the first month of her life at least I was pretty out of it, this is my chance.
I trust you won't write about how her mother was such a tool in Jr High, and how she may have had some embarrassing crushes in High school, or that one time she may have had a little too much fun at the bar...
Thank you and good night.

she does have shoes, though

2008-10-22T13:32:00.008-06:00

Last saturday I tricked my family into taking the train to Salt Lake City so we could visit the planetarium. I've been wanting to go for a while and everytime I take the dog for a walk at night and look up at the stars I ask my dad if maybe this weekend we could go on a family field trip?

The train is a great deal for commuters who buy passes, but one round-trip ticket isn't saving you money. It is much more pleasent of a trip though as long as you weren't sitting within earshot of my family. Josephine and I sat quietly and looked out the window. My sister and parents had loud "discussions" about topics too embarrassing to write here.

Do you like my shirt?

I felt a little silly wearing it around town, but I also think it's pretty funny.

Anyway, the planetarium was fun and much less embarrassing than the train ride.

There is a station that allows you to "give the weather report". It seems that I have confused meteorologist with lady from The Price is Right.

There is also a neat set-up of a Moon and a Mars landscape that Josephine thought was fabulous. I couldn't coax her off of Mars and had to scoop her up as she wriggled and squirmed trying to get back to the red planet. There go my threats to send Josephine to live on the moon if she doesn't shape up.

We had a nice lunch and then had to book it back to the station to catch the next train home instead of spending a leisurely Saturday in the city, shopping and exploring, because someone hadn't seen her boyfriend yet today and Oh my gosh the travesty of spending a morning with your family while your boyfriend is back at home, all alone, WE HAVE TO GET ON THE NEXT TRAIN!

It was a warm and sunny weekend, perfect for running around in a t-shirt and bare feet.

you can just skip over this one

2008-10-18T22:36:00.003-06:00

Can I just be a blubbering, gushy, stars in my eyes mother for one minute? Maybe it's the beauty of the changing colors of fall (probably), the fact that I'm already thinking about Josephine's first birthday (maybe), or maybe it's the long island ice tea I'm finishing (nah). I feel like I just realized that I'm a mother. It's not as if I didn't know it before, or that I didn't love it already. I just had that feeling of awe, that feeling of being enormously blessed and challenged. I remember all the grief I've given my parents and I know Josephine will give me as much trouble, but I don't care about that now. I mean, have you seen that gorgeous face? Have you heard that beautiful laugh? I am so in love.

white death

2008-10-12T21:58:00.004-06:00

So last night it snowed. And snowed and snowed and snowed. Last year around this time it snowed some then quickly warmed up again until the super snow storm that kicked off a looooooong snowy winter. That super snow storm just happened to be the same night I was gutted on an operating table and met my daughter for the first time.
One night I sat Josephine on the counter while I scooped some rock hard ice cream into a bowl. She reached her fingers into the tub and poked the cold dessert, looked up at me and squealed with delight. Putting her fingers in the snow was a little like that.
She really enjoyed stomping on the snow. Her "boots" (slippers) have good enough traction, but they are a tiny bit big so she had a little trouble walking in them.
You can't tell from these pictures but this hat is absolutely gorgeous on her. I'll try to get a better close-up another day.
Right now I'm sorry we didn't roll in the grass more. The dog though, she loves the snow.

something else

2008-10-09T22:48:00.003-06:00

CLICK ME if you dare.
Now, I don't agree with all the language describing the videos. Not all Republicans are ignorant or stupid, also, many Democrats are plenty stupid themselves...however, most of the people talking in these videos do not display much intelligence at all. It's pretty scary to think about all the people who have decided to support a specific candidate because they are in fact ignorant to the lies being spread around...Yeesh.

the artist

2008-10-07T21:24:00.006-06:00

\I've been thinking about how people "trick" you into liking them, or at least, thinking they are something different than what they really are. I think these people fall into two catagories: those who know they are fooling you, and those who really believe it themselves.

The former includes people who are good at sales. That woman who makes you believe she really thinks you look great in that color and she'd never lie to you, she's your friend, so you end up getting pink highlights and you just wanted to buy some shampoo, she is in that catagory.

The latter is filled with celebrities and other ego-maniacs that really do believe they are that hot or that smart, and their confidence can sometimes convince the observer, if even for a moment. FOR EXAMPLE: Lately I've been playing Prince non-stop in the car. (don't judge me) Josephine is almost always chill when we drive around town so it isn't much different than if I were driving around by myself...listening to Prince. Anyway after about 2 songs I start to think that this Prince guy? he's pretty sexy. Prince, kinda makes me want to date again, then I remember that I actually know what he looks like and it's not what I picture when I listen to his music. Right. Not knocking anyone who thinks he's hot, just not my cup of tea.

must.post.on.blog.

2008-10-04T20:26:00.005-06:00

It turns out that sometimes I'm not too bad at this blogging thing. But sometimes? I've got nothing.

Would you like to see a video or maybe some pictures? Because that's about all I have to offer right now. Allow me to present my cutie-patootie for your entertainment.

Here is a picture of Josephine's bath time "Mohawk", her hair is just too curly to get the soapy spikes of my youth. Someday.

On a less adorable note, I am going to start a slow progression into a macrobiotic diet/lifestyle. I've started reading this book and so far I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. I'll let you know how it works out, how I feel, or if I end up forgetting all about it in a week.

that's it.
as you were

9 Months

2008-09-26T15:52:00.002-06:00

falling
Originally uploaded by wi77ow

Hello Baby,
You turned 9 months old a few days ago and you probably want to know why I’m so late in writing this letter. Well, we’ve been sick. Snotty, sneezy, fever, achy, crying, sick. A few days would go by and I’d think we were pretty much better, all we’d need is one more night of semi-decent sleep, then the next morning I would wake up dead and it’s really hard to take care of a baby when you are dead, much less write a monthly letter. Yesterday morning we were finally feeling well enough that the thought of going to the grocery didn’t make me cry, but first we had a visit with your doctor so those mean nurses could poke you in the legs again (sorry, I hate it more than you do) and the rest of the day was pretty much shot. The only way I managed to get this typed out today was because I happened to wake up a little early and you, well, didn’t. You were so sleepy this morning that in the shower I noticed you weren’t playing with your toys and your head was bobbing a little and when I looked I saw you had actually fallen asleep sitting up.
Sick or not you have become quite feisty in your old age. You love demonstrating how smart you are by showing you know exactly where you are not allowed to go and then you go there. You aren’t allowed on the dog bed that sits at the end of the couch, and you know this. Several times a day you walk or crawl towards the bed and will stop six inches in front of it and stare at me. You are waiting for me to notice that you will not in fact bend to my oppressive will and follow my “rules”. Ha! Your wild spirit cannot be tamed! Anyway, I’ll tell you to stop and you screech back something, I get up to physically move you and you reach over and defiantly slap one hand on the bed right before I scoop you up and plop you some place else. That’s not the end of it though, oh no, no matter where I put you down you make a bee line straight back towards the bed, laughing the whole time. Rinse and repeat.
Wait, did you notice that new word I used up there? I typed out that you walk to the dog bed. Yep, you are walking. Thankfully, so far you are still content to be carried around places that are less familiar, like church or the grocery, but here at the house you love walking back and forth like no big deal, you’ve been doing this all along.
When you aren’t showing off your fine motor skills you have been working hard on fine tuning your verbal abilities. Specifically, you are working hard at screeching so loudly that the windows actually rattle. Our new neighbors are probably wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into living next door to a family that whips their cats around by their tails for sport. Little do they know that horrible noise is not a flying cat, but it’s my daughter, trying to grab a dirty spoon out of the open dishwasher.
My favorite trick of yours though, and probably the main reason I have decided to keep you, is that you know exactly when to laugh and even though it’s usually a fake forced laugh, it’s the hardiest fake laugh I have ever heard. You watch two people having a conversation and when one person pauses to chuckle or even just smile you bust out laughing like you just heard the best joke ever. Every night your Papa and I watch The Daily Show, Colbert Report and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Even though you are usually busy trying to empty a tissue box or pull the ears off the cat, you take a few breaks to look up at the TV screen and laugh, then you look over at papa and laugh, showing him you totally got that joke too.
Josephine, you were in my belly for 9 months and now you’ve spent 9 months out in the world. The latter has been way more fun than the former, not because pregnancy sucks, but because you rock.

read read read

2008-09-16T22:08:00.003-06:00

This is a pretty short article about survivors. You should really read it.
My favorite quote: "They survived because they're humble"
Here is another short article with a very happy ending. You should probably read it.

you are welcome.

allow me to make you dizzy, one minute at a time.

2008-09-11T16:43:00.003-06:00

here's my little teapot:

wanna see something gross?

2008-09-09T16:04:00.005-06:00

There's something wrong with my eye isn't there. I knew it. Gah! it hurts, it's swollen and I don't know what it is! I just woke up to this...could I have gotten into a fist fight in my sleep? Did I win? Man, I hope so.

I know what you're thinking, maybe it's a sty. Maybe, but I looked up the symptoms and I don't have any bumps or scratchy feelings, no tearing or light sensitivity, just a red swollen eye that kinda hurts.

So I don't know...I might lose an eye, I might be exaggerating, we'll see how it goes.

Moving on to something less yucky: Josephine has walked across the living room a couple of times. She still usually crashes after a four or five steps but she's moving along quite well for having such little legs. I'll have a video up soon but right now I don't have the external hard drive that I keep all my pictures and videos on handy.

(Someone is standing next to me right now making weird faces and noises as the smell of poopy diaper fills the room...that's my cue to move on from this blogging dealeo and go wipe some butt)

till we meet again--

it's my party and i'll gorge if i want to

2008-09-02T17:41:00.002-06:00

Originally uploaded by wi77ow

Well, I am officially too old to act the way I do.
Not much is going on around here, even on this great day of celebration...I ate half a pan of cinnamon rolls today, and I think someone is bringing home Famous Dave's for dinner.
Josephine has two teeth coming in and she's pretty pissed about it.
...Namaste

news break

2008-08-29T09:19:00.003-06:00

I won't write much about politics on this blog, there are people out there who can do that much better than I can. However, I would just like to express in writing how freaking excited I am about this presidential election! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
HISTORY PEOPLE, HISTORY!
I watched a lot of the DNC and every night it brought tears to my eyes.
I remember a few months ago feeling very torn between Clinton and Obama. I really really wanted the best candidate to be a woman, so much so that I didn't know who I wanted to win the nomination...I think Obama is the best candidate, I do, I just want a woman too you know?
I also love that we have such a fantastic election as the first election in Josephine's lifetime. My daughter, who is half black, has nearly always lived in a world where it is absolutely possible, and not just in theory, to have a president of the United States who is not a white man.
Ok, this is about all the politics I can stand to write about this morning...and it's about time I shower...

Look what I can do!

2008-08-25T13:01:00.004-06:00

I made a new baby-wearing device. It's pretty huh?

Kind of a crappy picture, but hopefully you can get an idea of what's going on here.

And no sewing machine!

In other life-changing news: We have Comcast digital cable which offers PPV options as well as several free movies. I found out that the Exercise TV is also free. Sooooo that means I have been trying out the yoga and Pilate's and other exercise "classes" in my living room. Convenient! Free!

If you've never tried yoga, you probably should give it a shot. I've heard of people who get addicted to the feel-goodness you have after a yoga session, to the point that they are complete assholes if they miss a day...So don't do that, but maybe try it once or twice.

Can you believe it's the end of August already? Schools are starting up...the first few tinges of golds and oranges are showing up at the top of the mountains...pretty soon I'm going to have to get Josephine dressed everyday instead of letting her run around naked.

8 Months

2008-08-23T10:29:00.000-06:00

Josephine,

This month has been packed with firsts that I hope to never forget. I have a perpetual calendar that I write things on, like your first word, mama, and the first time you took a few steps before crashing into my lap. Next year when those dates come back around, I'll see that July 30th 2008 you got up on both knees to crawl for real instead of the army scoot you've been perfecting. I'll document all of your milestones for sure, but this month there was so much more that I want to remember besides.

I don't want to forget how we share a piece of chocolate sometimes in the afternoon. I put a square of whatever chocolate grandma has around the house in my lips and you try to bite the corner that sticks out. My little baby bird has to give her mama a kiss if she wants to have a taste. I have no idea how you still manage to get chocolate all over your face, a candy goatee framing that perfect smile of yours.

I want to always hang on to the nights that you would get a second wind. You would practice your hollering all day and with your pipes all warmed up you'd play a very loud game of come catch me Papa. A game that has you yell and scream and laugh until Papa crawls over and you try to scamper away but you only manage to tumble over onto a pillow. Then you laugh even louder and send Papa hiding behind the pillow and the game turns into the loudest game of peek-a-boo in history.

You are very good at playing with everyone. You know when you are supposed to laugh even though you don't get the joke and you can always get any one's attention back on you if we dare take a minute to talk to someone else in the room. You also know how to tear your diaper off if I don't put it on backwards. You tear one side half way open, look to see if I have seen what you've done, then finish the job as fast as you can.

I know this won't last forever, but I wish it would: I love when you stare at me when you are sitting in the shopping cart and when I look into your eyes you give me the most genuine smile one person has ever given another. You smile like you know how much I love you. You smile like you have to show all the love in the world in one facial expression.

Here's something I don't have a picture of, my most special time with you in the morning: I bring you in the shower with me now. I hold you in my arms for the first minute and let you hold your hand in the stream of water, then set you down with some toys while I wash my hair. You do just fine in there, then I stop the drain and let you splash in the bath while I towel off. If I don't set you down fast enough though, you fall asleep, just conk right out without warning on my shoulder. It's hard to describe the special feeling of having your tiny wet body snuggled up to me, your arms wrapped as far around my neck as they can reach.

the biggest dorm room i have ever seen

2008-08-19T10:03:00.006-06:00

Friday, us ladies (grandma, Martha, Josephine and I) went to the zoo! hooray for caged animals!

The big draw exhibit they have right now is an albino alligator, The Ghost of the Bayou. This picture was taken right after Martha dangled Josephine's toes over the alligator pit, just for fun. Ok, that didn't happen, the gator is behind glass, but you should have seen how that baby-eater was eye balling us.

It was a nice day that wore the baby out.

Saturday and Sunday I spent my free time fighting with or avoiding Martha because she was a little anxious about going off to college and leaving her boyfriend behind. Apparently she deals with anxiety by tearing heads off...but it's ok, moving out for the first time is pretty scary.

Monday afternoon we loaded up the cars, (Martha is the only one of us that got a car to take to school), we picked up the boyfriend and drove up to the place Martha will call home for at least this next semester, and hopefully the next four years.

Her new digs are pretty sweet as far as dorm rooms go. She has a double room, but no room-mate! So, she has an extra desk and wardrobe and space and privacy! Look at the view! And the super safe window that only opens about 4 inches and has bars covering those 4 inches just in case.

Hey! Are you one of those people that claims to never get car sick? Really? I challenge you to sit in the back seat of our Pathfinder while my mom drives. It was a nice straight and smooth highway that felt like an off road adventure.

I need to go off on a tangent for a moment, stay with me. Back when I was newly pregnant and realized that I needed to move out here to Utah I wasn't sure how I'd get here with all my stuff. For a while I thought I would have to fly out here and that meant I'd mail the things I couldn't pack and toss everything I could live without. I started to slowly clean out my apartment and one night in a fit of pregnant hormones I threw away my sewing machine. Soon after, I decided to drive out here instead and that meant I could pack a lot of stuff in the car...the sewing machine would've fit fine...but it was too late.

Well, I'm currently making something fabulous, but it's taking a really long time to sew by hand, one nap at a time. The car ride gave me almost two solid hours of sewing time while Josephine was sleeping in her car seat and my mother was driving like she was cross-eyed. I didn't throw up but I did sew my thumb to my thigh. I am not finished yet, but I'm a hell of a lot closer, and the blood came right out...

Anyway, I guess if I wasn't here my parents would officially be rid of all their kids...I like to think I'm keeping my mother from having a empty nest meltdown.

it could be a phase- or it could mean i need to activate the microchip

2008-08-14T09:30:00.006-06:00

It seems my daughter is a tumbler and a runner.
She turns with a squeal and tries to crawl away when anyone enters the room. She will start to crawl out of the room, stop and look back at me, and if I flinch she will squeal and pick up speed.
Her favorite game right now is to stand up on the couch when I'm sitting next to her on my computer and purposely fall backward. She really loves it when someone suddenly looks her way and she can combine the running away with the launching backward into the cushions.
I do not look forward to shopping with her when she can really run away from me...I think there is an extra dog leash around here somewhere...

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

2008-08-11T17:48:00.000-06:00

Because I know you have all be wondering...here are a few of my favorite things: The bathroom and kitchen edition

1] Philosophy skin care products. Specifically the Purity wash and On a Clear Day H2O2 cream. My skin went bonkers after Josephine was born and I tried a few different products including a few months of a birth control pill that all just made things worse. I finally gave in and bought the Philosophy products after months of reading rave reviews and now? I feel pretty, oh so pretty... If your skin care routine isn't working out for you, I recommend you look into Philosophy.

2] I bought these sun dried tomatoes to put on a pizza and the rest of the week I put them on sandwiches, in salads, on more pizzas...mmm...they are so delicious. I could probably eat them straight from the jar.

3] The other day I wandered to the yogurt section, as I am wont to do, and found these:

(The name should've made it obvious that they were going to be good.)

They come in delicious and unique flavors, but best of all there are no weird ingredients, all natural. When I sit down to eat I like to have something that I can share with Josephine, she eats a lot more if we eat together, and I feel good about sharing these with her instead of the super sugary and artificial color loaded yogurts.

4] I love getting new lotion. I don't love strong smelling lotions, sugary sweet smelling lotions, or expensive lotions. I've been pretty loyal to the Aveeno brand, but when I saw that Suave made a cheaper Aveeno knock-off I had to give it a shot. And I love this lotion. You will love it too. It has the perfect consistency, no weird smell, and that nice low price of Suave.

5] Like I said, I'm a fan of Aveeno. I love the baby lotions and washes, the sunblock, the shaving cream etc. but most of all I love the sunless tanner. I've tried a million kinds of sunless tanners and they are all the same, stinky and orange. Oh but the Aveeno has the very mildest of stinks...I mean no sunless tanner is totally odorless, but this one is very close. Very close. And, at least on my skin, it isn't orange at all.

This is what we do all day...

a few things to look at:

2008-08-02T23:14:00.003-06:00

Adding this to the places I need to visit before I die.
I should probably get my order in soon.
Just what I need to make dinner extra special.

Our actual dog acts more like a cat anyway

2008-07-30T21:57:00.004-06:00

Reason #2 why my daughter resembles a puppy:

She chases the vacuum cleaner. Some babies are lulled to sleep by the noise, some are terrified by the machine, mine? She scoots around behind it, laughing as I zoom past her.

who's hungry?

2008-07-30T14:38:00.000-06:00

November 1998 I stopped eating meat after being totally grossed out by deer carcases proudly displayed on every car hood in town.

October 2001 I have been in college for a month and the cafeteria has few vegetarian options. I'm hungry and too poor to get my own groceries so I start eating the tuna. I continue to eat seafood but still avoid all other meats for the next several years.

April 2007 I take a pregnancy test, it's positive, I resolved to give in to any food cravings for the next 9 months. 1st up: fried chicken. I've been eating all foods ever since (except celery and mushrooms, yuck).

I've been considering going back to vegetarian side for a while now, I even planned on going vegan for a few weeks just as a sort of cleansing diet. My dad keeps making good food though, like ribs in our new smoker grill, and most nights it's just him and I that sit down to eat dinner.

My solution is that when I cook dinner I will try to make a (mostly) vegetarian meal and see if I can make meat a 'once-in-a-while' food.

Last night I made some pizzas. I made one that didn't turn out too well and so we won't talk about that one, but I made another one that was DELICIOUS.

Separate the sides of pita bread so that you have two thin round pieces. Pile on goat cheese, roasted red peppers, and sun dried tomatoes. Bake at 400 for 15ish min and finally toss on some diced up basil. Mmmmmmmmmm. Drizzle some balsamic vinegar over it just before you eat.

I had leftover ingredients and stuffed them all in the pita pockets and put it under the broiler for a few min for lunch today.

The night before I made this:

These zucchini "crab" cakes that were yummy. (There isn't really any crab in them)

Chiles Rellenos (stuffed poblano peppers):

Scorch the outside of the peppers with an open flame from your gas stove or put them under the broiler until they are black and blistered all over then stick them in a plastic bag to let them "sweat" for a while.

Cook up what you plan on stuffing them with. I cooked together onion, cactus, eggplant, tomatoes, and corn until the onion was soft.

Now you can take off the skin of the peppers...but be careful! Wear gloves if you have any cuts and make sure all the babies are being cared for by someone else far away from the kitchen sink. Run the peppers under cold water as you slide the skin off and wash your hands often so you don't accidentally rub your eyes or pick up your baby with fire fingers. (This dish isn't really spicy at all after you finish, I promise)

Cut a slit in the peppers and cut out the guts (that's the spicy part, watch it go down the disposal)

Stuff the peppers with your filling, add cheese too if you want, and "sew" them back together with toothpicks.

Whip three egg whites together (for four-five peppers) until fluffy and then mix in the yolks. Dust the peppers with flour and cover them with the egg mixture and then set them in some hot oil and fry those suckers till they are golden.

Put any left over stuffing on your plate as a bed for your chiles rellenos and top with any remaining cheese.

These are fricken awesome.

Finally the pretty little things inthe middle of the picture:

Blackberry Cornbread Tartlets with Ricotta Cream via Vegetarian Times:

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal + 1/2 cup unbleached (white) flour* (I used whole wheat) + 3Tbs sugar +1 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt in a bowl.

1/2 cup milk whisked with 1 large egg, fold into dry mixture.

Add 2 Tbs melted unsalted butter and 1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels.

Bake the corn muffins at 375 for 14ish minutes.

Whisk 1 cup ricotta cheese + 1/4 cup sugar + 1.5 tsp vanilla extract + 1/2 tsp orange zest.

After the cornbread has sufficiently cooled, cut off the tops to make a flat surface and plop some cream on each and top with blackberries. I used frozen berries, but if you use fresh ones you should toss them with a little sugar and a pinch of salt ahead of time and let them rest so they'll be juicier.
Now if you made it to the end of this post you get a little treat...

Month 7

2008-07-26T15:17:00.000-06:00

Everywhere I take you, Josephine, people stop me to tell me how beautiful my baby is. They comment on how much hair you have, pull on your tiny toes and then ask me how old you are. Do you know what I have to say now? I have to say 7 MONTHS. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I would have written this earlier but I've been having too much fun playing with you lately, and I hesitate to write this but, Finally. Not that you aren't always a totally fun baby, but this past month has been a little rough for your mother's nerves. The separation anxiety paired with increased mobility left me with about 15 sec to myself everyday. 15 seconds is not enough time to go to the bathroom by myself, FYI.
This month you and I went on an airplane, four airplanes actually, and we survived. My best friend Kelly, her fiance, and their daughter Paris finally got to meet you. I haven't seen them since you were in my belly and Paris was soooo confused about why I ate a baby. How else could there be a baby in my belly?
You and Paris were BFFs almost immediately. There were so many moments that the two of you were quieltly playing and unaware that I was watching from the kitchen and I just died from the picture-perfectness of it all. The sappy fantasy that two young girlfriends have that one day they will have babies that will be best friends...for a week that fantasy came true. Those moments made all the crying on the plane and pooping in the airport totally worth it.
When we got home you waited a few days before you had your first real fever. I'm pretty proud of myself with how I reacted to you being a sicky baby. I wasn't the nerotic first time parent, I was the cool and composed rational parent that shushed the crazy family that asked if I was taking you in to the doctor's. You were fine, you are fine, but that's it honey, you aren't allowed to get sick again this decade.
You know what? I don't know if I have much else to say about this month. The more I gush about how cute and smart and fun you are, the more I sound like every mom with every baby. And I'm not every mom, and you aren't every baby, and I don't want to sound like we are. At least not in these letters to you. So this is all I can put out there this month, Josephine. I love you so much.

oh yeah

2008-07-22T22:39:00.002-06:00

I'll probably be giving little updates about my MN trip from time to time because I'll suddenly remember something funny or interesting (to me) and I'll just have to share!

SO, remember the $7 shoes I got to go with my brown dress? Well, I wore them around my house before I left so that I could get a feel for any trouble spots and apply padding to appropriate areas. So far they were feeling pretty good. I'm not much of a high heel girl but these felt like I could keep them on for most of the night.
When I put them on the day of the wedding I suddenly needed bandaids on all my toes just to walk down the stairs to the car. But I didn't put any bandaids on because I thought I'd just re-adjust them in the car and baby=suck brains out. (Josephine is my excuse for most things, she owes me, my section scar still hurts) Anyway my feet hurt so bad that I carried my shoes around for most of the night, keeping them on only for the ceremony and for a brief walk outside between dinner and dance. I left them there. I had to. Walking to the bathroom for one last diaper change before we left my feet cramped up. Like when you are swimming and your toes suddenly point in unnatural directions...yeah, so I'm wiping baby but on a bench in a bathroom and my toes are pointing every way possible and OUCH! See ya later cheapo shoes.

sidetrack/trip

2008-07-20T11:08:00.009-06:00

Josephine is sicky

she had a slight fever last night and it's a little higher this morning...so I'll see what i can do while she's napping but I'm not promising anything too entertaining.

The first flight out to Denver was a little of what I was dreading, Josephine started off happy and got fussy when I couldn't walk around with her to help her fall asleep. She did finally fall asleep and no one seemed too pissed that they were sitting by a baby. On the second flight she fell asleep almost immediately and since I was able to bring her car seat on the plane, I stuck her in there and was able to take a short nap myself.

*If you show your cute baby to the guy behind the counter, throw in a look of slight desperation, the ticket guy will make sure you are sitting next to an empty seat, even if it's the only one on the plane.

Josephine was great for most of the time in MN. She really only fussed when I put her in the car. Also, her hair was super curly in the MN humidity, very cute.

It didn't take very long for her to warm up to my friend Kelly, maybe because she and I don't look entirely dissimilar, and Josephine just LOVED Kelly's 4 year old daughter. For a 4 y/o only child, she did spectacular with Josephine around. She played peek-a-boo for as long as Jose would pay attention, she layed out a blanket with baby safe toys on it and was super excited to show us the display, she was quiet when Josephine napped and only casually suggested that maybe we can walk someplace instead of drive, because the baby always cries in the car.

We went swimming almost everyday and Josephine loved it. One afternoon we spent some time in a bridal shop that had gone out of business. The bank was selling everything 1/2 off and so the four of us, along with another girlfriend that was visiting that day, tore around the shop looking at some potential bridesmaids dresses for Kelly's upcoming wedding, as well as the gawdy and silly dresses that we would've bought just for dress up purposes if they were a little cheaper.

The reason I picked this particular week to visit MN was because a very dear friend of mine was getting married. I could go on and on about how great she is but I won't, you'll just have to trust me that she's pretty awesome. Josephine conveniently took a break from being an anxious clingy little monkey and wanted to say hi to everyone there. It was so great to see her make googly eyes back at all the people I haven't seen since I was in my first trimester. It was a good night.

I guess I was a little cocky about how easy it was to travel out with Josephine and I didn't prepare as well for the trip home. First I forgot to pack our swim suits and a few little things that Kelly had given us because I just set them down instead of putting them in my suitcase immediately. Because I'm a mom and babies suck your brains out.

Anyway, my return flight was super early and while getting us dressed and ready I didn't get a blanket back into the diaper bag. The blanket I use to cover up while nursing. I didn't notice until I was in my seat and she was grabbing at my shirt. Luckily I had a bandanna that I hadn't removed from the diaper bag that I could use.

Let me back up, on the ride to the airport Josephine pooped. Not a big deal except that I couldn't change her right away because we were tight for time and there was a serious line ahead of me to check in. She was sitting in the Bjorn and seemed happy so I didn't worry about the diaper situation. We got through security and I booked it to a bathroom, took her out of the Bjorn and saw that poop had seeped out of the diaper and was all up her back...so much for the cute outfit...The lady sharing the changing station with me was all Oh my, mah baby peeeeeeeeed through all her clothes! Now I have to change her whole outfit! Do you have any spare wipes? Hey look, it's just pee, look at my baby, half her body is smeared in mustard yellow poop, and no I think I'm going to need all of these wipes just to clean up her back before I even attempt to clean her butt, and look at her poopy feet! it's everywhere!

*she ignored me and my poopy situation, and I did give her a butt wipe.

Then Josephine slept through both flights even though I couldn't bring the car seat on board.

The end.

(I'll put pictures up on Flickr soon.)

give me a minute

2008-07-19T11:42:00.002-06:00

ok
I have uploaded all my pictures from my camera but I have yet to edit them.
I will work on writing about my trip tonight (it was super!) but right now I'm going to try to get some laundry put away and then go outside and enjoy this beautiful summer day.
I'll be back

it builds character

2008-07-08T09:43:00.001-06:00

I was starting a post with whatever, y'all can suck it, thanks for nothing, then a friend posted some shoe ideas after all...but I already found shoes. $7 from payless, and they look like they cost $7 but I'm ok with that.

so, Operation Lose My Shit is officially underway. I have half my suitcase packed, disposable diapers purchased for the trip, and nightmares about being seated next to some cranky drama queen that thinks breastfeeding is gross and wants to educate me on the benefits of Benadryl or other sedation techniques.

I mentioned the Wonder Weeks book before and you know what it says? It says that the most common week for a baby's separation anxiety to peek is week 29. Guess what week she started yesterday? If she would've been born on her due date then week 29 would start this coming Friday. Either way, it's just in time for the wedding I'm attending on Saturday. Here's hoping she doesn't fit the mold this time.

I am really excited though. I leave tomorrow morning and I'm not going to be doing any computer stuff while I'm there so I look forward to sharing how everything went when I get home again the following Wednesday.

Give me a few days, if you don't hear from me assume I got in a fight on the plane and TSA has me locked up in a back closet.

find me some shoes!

2008-06-29T09:26:00.005-06:00

The way she tosses and turns in her sleep and ends up in all sorts of twisted and contorted positions, you'd think she'd been in this world a lot longer than she has. You'd think she would have something to be troubled about.

(Maybe she's been paying attention to the nightly news and I just didn't realize.)

6 months is a typical time for babies to get a touch of separation anxiety. Josephine's been smacked with it, though, I'm the one that feels punched in the face by it. She pretty much freaks out if anyone tries to hold her for more than a few minutes, or even talks to her if they are a stranger. I am so glad I have this book: Wonder Weeks. It lays out the developmental spurts (and accompanying fussy/clingy/no sleepy spurts) so that you know you aren't going crazy, it's just a phase...and now I know exactly what she's learning each time, so when she wakes up for the 100th time and screams in my ear I can just remind myself that she is learning something new, so it's OK.

I need help finding shoes for this dress. I don't know what style would work. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment. I only have one week to get something that'll work!

(The dress ends above my knees- I can't wear any heels especially high or pointy)

6 months

2008-06-23T15:56:00.000-06:00

She wakes up a few times in the night, technically it's morning, but she's the only one that wants to be up. Usually sometime between 3 and 5 am I look over to her tossing and turning in her bed and her head pops up as she whips around to look at me as if she sensed I was now awake. I'm greeted by a giant smile on her face and a small giggle, she's ready to play. I shush her, nurse her, and if she isn't asleep after that, I let her lay in the crook of my arm as she half sings, half cries, herself to sleep again.

8am, the sun is shining through the windows and with her eyes still squeezed tightly shut she starts grunting and thrashing, she's hungry. I nurse her and she is sound asleep again, breakfast in bed, she has no idea how good she has it.

I get up for the day, pour a cup of coffee and while my computer is starting up I walk back into the bedroom to find her looking around on her back. When she sees me she kicks and squeals and starts a song that I call her good-morning song, a series of Oohs and Aahs interrupted by a giggle here and there. I lay down next to her until she finishes, she grabs at my face to acknowledge my presence but avoids looking at me until the song is done.

She sits next to me on the couch while I start my coffee and within a few minutes she's reclining into my side, my arm around her, watching the news with me and singing out to the ceiling. Sometimes she takes a brake from exercising her vocal cords to try an fit her feet in her mouth.

When she starts to get restless I sit her on the floor and, after a quick scan of the room, she crawls strait toward the pile of magazines by the coffee table, most of them wrinkled and puckered from previous mouthings.

After lunch I can see in her face that she is ready for a nap but she has other ideas. She is tired of all the toys I offer and cries real tears when I set her down. To calm her I sing a song that always brings a smile to her face:

Oh I wish I was a little bar of soap (bar of soap)

I'd go slidey slidey slidey, Over Josephine's body

Oh I wish I was a little bar of soap (bar of soap!)

I tickle her when I sing "slidey slidey slidey" and she's not upset anymore, but still tired. I hold her close with one hand and prop open a book with the other and read out loud until she is asleep on my shoulder.

It's late in the afternoon but still too early to start worrying about dinner so we go explore the back yard. I sit her in a shady spot on the grass; the grass has never bothered her bare feet and legs. I lay down next to her in the sun and watch her fumble with a toy fish and a oak leaf she picked up, she is more interested in the leaf. Tomorrow I'll put some warm water in her pool and let her splash her energy out. She likes splashing and trying to catch the toys that go floating by, but the real reason I lather her in sunscreen, warm up the water, and lay out towels to sit on is so her grandmother can watch her "swim".

Earlier in the day I sat in the rocking chair with her in my lap. I was reading to her, hoping she'd fall asleep, but she was much more interested in trying to eat the book, then her feet. I sat quietly for a few minutes just looking at the back of her little brown fuzzy head, that head that is so soft and comforting when it nuzzles my shoulder and fits so perfectly under my chin it's as if it is a part of me rather than belonging to a separate being. I imagined brushing her hair back into a ponytail in preparation for her first day of school, and combing out the tangles after a bath, braiding it so it wouldn't be ratty in the morning. Maybe she'll want to keep it short when she's older, maybe it'll be curly, maybe she'll scream that I'm pulling too hard, and maybe she'll sit on my lap like this for years to come. I hope she does.

She falls asleep around 8pm but will wake up in about an hour so that I can change her into her night-time diaper, then she'll want to play and eat and finally fall back asleep in my lap as we watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report with Papa. She'll wake up around 3 again, and when she does I'll let her lay in the crook of my arm, her warm face on my skin, until she has fallen back to sleep.

just ignore the the mumbling crazy lady

2008-06-19T17:02:00.007-06:00

I'm serious when I said that the only thing on my mind is that I'm flying cross country with Josephine in July.

I've started a packing list that I keep open on my computer in case I need to add something to it really quick. When I go shopping I find myself on the look out for something that will make this trip easier, some miracle product I've never heard of but could totally be on the sale rack.

I've gone back and forth over the pros and cons of checking my car seat at the counter versus lugging it through the airport and leaving it at the gate. (I'm going to lug it through the airport, I think, probably.) And every time Josephine wakes up in the middle of the night and actually starts to fuss I think, is she going to wake up our hosts? I told them she isn't a crier at night! Josephine, You will not make your mother into a liar!

Then there are the moments sprinkled though out the day where I use up all my energy, and the energy of whoever else is in the room, just trying to keep my shit together because How The Hell Am I Supposed To Entertain A 6 Month Old Baby On An Airplane?

She can crawl now you know. Did you know? Well, she knows, and she will not want to just sit on my lap when there is so much floor to lick, and all those shoes! she needs to drool on some of those!

I should probably just get over it huh? Crazy lady should just relax...

(Attn: Kelly, at the airport, I'll be the one with my hair sticking out, bloodshot eyes, more spit-up than clean spots on my clothes, and a screaming baby strapped to my chest. You can't miss me!)

I really am excited though- almost exactly a year since I left Minnesota, it'll be a nice vacation, plus I'm going to a wedding!

In other news, dude, did you hear? Josephine can crawl now. So wild.

Some cool stuff:

Neat huh? and stylish! Link

Also, click here and watch the short video about this reverse graffiti artist. It's pretty radical.

Finally, for those of you with kids, not babies, kids. What do you think about giving them a placebo when they are complaining about some ailment but you don't really believe them? It'd probably work a lot of the time, I think. Why not just fill an old medicine bottle with tic tacs or something instead? I might keep this idea filed away for later.

celebrate those worthy of celebrating

2008-06-15T21:51:00.001-06:00

Happy father's day...to all the fathers that are there for their children.

who's idea was this?

2008-06-13T10:21:00.004-06:00

So I've been trying to come up with something half-way entertaining to write about here but every time I sit down to write there is only one thing on my mind.
I'm flying to Minnesota in July, with Josephine, and I'm nervous. Scared. Shitless.
I mean, what am I thinking, traveling with a baby by myself? I can barely manage to get through security and to my gate when it's just me and now I have to do it all with A BABY.
I chose a flight with a longer layover than I'd like if it were just me (3 hours), so we have time to re-group, stretch out, pee, eat, and change diapers before the next leg (and we don't have to sprint if our first leg is delayed a little bit). The layover is in Denver, I've had long layovers there before and it's a nice airport to be stuck in, as far as airports go.
I know that it is entirely possible that the whole trip will be far better than I could imagine. But it is also entirely possible that it will be far worse than I could imagine.
All I've been doing since I bought the damn ticket is reading travel tips on parenting websites and blogs. Occasionally getting up to pee and grab a Diet Coke (damn you, addicting carbonated beverages!)
The only time my mind briefly wanders from packing lists, travel tips, and just trying not to lose my shit three weeks before what may or may not be a difficult situation, is when I start freaking out about trying to look decent in my current state of being a Flabby McChunk.
Damn those celebrities that return to their size 2 a month postpartum! I can't do that! (not that I was a size 2 to begin with)
You know what Josephine has started doing? No, not getting Diet Cokes for mama, she has started spitting up every other time I pick her up. Newborns spit up, older babies mostly grow out of it, Josephine has decided to projectile vomit on my pile of clean laundry.
If anyone on the plane gives me a dirty look I'll just turn Josephine to face them and give her a little jiggle and BLAAAA.

the excitement

2008-06-10T12:56:00.007-06:00

I got some gift cards to the local mall for Christmas. I was saving them for when I lost a little weight, thinking I would have lost more than this by now, so that I could have a few nice things to wear in the time between only-sweats and pre-pregnancy clothes.
Yesterday I decided that I could no longer get away with squeezing into my too tight jeans or wearing sweats everywhere and roped my sister into accompanying me to the mall (to tag-team entertaining the baby).
Success! I found two (2!) pairs of pants.
When we were heading home I noticed some nice fellow mall goer saw how boring our all black car was and thoughtfully spruced it up with a splash of ketchup all over the drivers side door.
Josephine had fallen asleep and I didn't need to start dinner for at least another 30 min so we headed out for the car wash. We didn't get far. I mean, well, we made it home and all but we didn't make it to the car wash.
There's a fancy smancy fountain that is in front of a fancy smancy cemetery and traffic at a red light backed up so that we were stopped right in front of the fancy smancy water display. The car behind us however, was not stopped. Until it hit us.
And then we hit the car in front of us.
Josephine SCREAMED and my heart stopped. I was dead.
I pulled the car over and jumped out around to the back seat and I don't know what I was expecting, I don't want to think about it now, but I yanked her out of her seat and held her so close until she calmed down. That's when I remembered there were other people in the accident and I looked up to see who was talking, asking if we were ok, if we were wearing seat belts, is the baby ok? Everyone involved is ok. Even the cars are pretty much ok. The lady that hit us said she was distracted, looking at the nice new fancy fountain over there!
We sat around on the grass while the cop wrote everything up and were braiding each other's hair by the time everything was said and done.
And my heart has started beating again.
Now to deal with the stinkin' insurance people.

Josephine's first book signing!

2008-06-05T21:40:00.003-06:00

So about two years ago, spring break of 2006 actually, I was in a bad place emotionally and it didn't help that I was living in Minnesota and the snow was so high I couldn't see out my windows and I was pretty much stuck in my apartment all week with little to do. I read a news story about a girl meeting up with someone she met on MySpace and getting hurt (I had internet, but not a TV) and I decided to look into what Myspace actually was because I really had no idea. I eventually figured it out and then quickly learned that all my siblings and half my friends all had accounts and I was clueless.
In the process of learning about this new corner of the internet I stumbled on these things called "blogs". I had previously been clueless about these things as well, but oh what a discovery! It was like an oasis in the desert; I had something to fill my time until school started again!
The first blog I found was Dooce and I enjoyed the few posts that I read so much that I went back through the archives and read everything from the beginning, almost five years worth of back posts. Heather, the author, has been writing letters to her daughter every month for 52 months(!) and is the reason I write Josephine a letter each month. I don't know if I'll keep it up as long as she has, but I need to give her the credit for the great idea.
She put together a book recently, Things I Learned About my Dad (In Therapy) with essays from many writers that I have followed through their respective blogs over the years. I haven't read the book yet, I just bought it tonight, but I'm certainly looking forward to it. Tonight I drove down to Salt Lake City, to a little bookstore in the middle of town, so that I could have Heather sign a copy of her book for me. And she totally made googly eyes at Josephine which made me happy. She is an amazing writer, she pays the bills for her whole family of three through the ads on her blog for crying out loud. She is funny, clever, honest, and quite candid about real life struggles such as depression. I am very excited that I got to meet her, even if it was only for 5 seconds while she scribbled her name in a book.

covet

2008-06-04T20:55:00.004-06:00

Things I think are pretty radical:

This ring from here. It's a little (OK a lot) more than I'd like to spend on myself for a piece of jewelry that isn't a wedding ring, but I think it is so pretty.

I love the new trend of unique and stylish wallpaper and wall stickers. Ferm has a few wholesalers in the U.S. but unfortunately none near me. There website is a blast to look through though.

Bilk is another great wall decor site I've found. There are so many great designs that I cannot pick a favorite. I love the simple graphics, the whimsical characters, oh all of it! The Threadless Shop might be my favorite part- (I love the Threadless t-shirt shop as well). I cannot wait for Josephine to move out of my room so that I can start decorating a space just for her. Well, I'm looking forward to decorating, but I'm not sure when I'll actually be emotionally ready for Josephine to sleep anywhere other than right next to my bed or in my arms. Sappy sappy blah blah blah.

Finally, The Land of Nod has some really beautiful artwork. I particularly like this painting:

But it is a little pricey for me.

home and head intact!

2008-06-03T15:39:00.004-06:00

We got in last night around 8ish and Josephine was so excited to be home that she squealed and quivered and ran her feet in circles for a good two hours before finally crashing out for the night. She did way better than I thought she would in the car and slept better than I thought she would in the hotels.

If you've never been to Yellowstone I highly recommend that you make plans to go there. The hot springs and geysers are incredible to see, a little stinky, but pretty amazing (and dangerous, this was supposed to be a stop for us the second day there but it was closed).

And of course we saw Old Faithful and the famouse Old Faithful Inn.

Then there are the animals! I didn't get pictures of all the animals we saw because some were just too far away, and some were just too boring to stop for I guess... We saw bison and their babies, black bears, fox, deer, elk, moose, pelicans (really! pelicans in Wyoming!), more bison, a stink bug in our hotel bathroom, marmots, and a bunch of boring birds.

The bison were everywhere! They stopped traffic several times and then I saw a sign at the beginning of a short trail that led around some geysers and hot springs that warned of bison charging and goring hikers. We started walking the loop and around the first corner we saw some bison very very close to the trail and a ranger asking us to go around the other direction and hopefully they'll have moved on by the time we get back to that point. My mom and sisters decided they'd rather wait in the car. So my dad and I come around to the spot on the trail again where the bison were and they have only moved about a foot away. My heart is beating a little faster. Dad takes my camera and I start down the trail. When I get close to the bison he yells my name so I'd turn around and then the bison stops eating grass and looks right at me with a snort. I immediatly turn forward again and keep moving so he only got a shot of my backside. And I may have peed a little.

All in all it was one of the best family vacations I can remember. Very little bickering, much laughter, and I only had to crack the window twice because of someone's farts in the car. That last fact is probably the most surprising to me.