In Pursuit of Balance

Tradition of Culture

2011-09-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Today was the Celebration of Cultures Parade at Primrose. Claire's class represented Scotland. Look at that face! She kills me. This is a girl who will hide her face between my knees, but if you tell her you're about to take a pic, will jump in front of the camera just long enough to CHEESE and then right back to hiding.

It wasn't so very long ago that another Sipka made quite an impression at the Parade of Cultures. There have been a couple of other parades and countries between these two, but for some reason, Greek Charlie and Scottish Claire stand out. Could they possibly share DNA?

Looking up

2010-11-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

More than a month has passed since my last update. I just read my last post and- whoa. What a difference a month makes!!

It didn't take me three weeks to feel like my job change was the right move. I think I felt certain of that the first day or two. The people are wonderful. The flexibility is back. The work feels necessary, not my dream work but not so bad. And it's comfortable. I already knew the job, just have been learning the new processes. Most importantly, I feel that my peers and I are treated with respect.

It's amazing how much better and more manageable life feels now- maybe I was more affected by my toxic work environment than I thought. I have been able to spend a couple of hours at Charlie's school each week. It almost felt like cheating at first - my last boss had no patience for work / life balance. But since my new group - and let me add, every other group in my 13 year history at that company - supports flexibility, I tend to work harder- to want to please them. An hour here or there in Charlie's school really makes me feel more connected to him and what is going on, as he isn't big on telling us about his day! So, yay! Here is a pic of Charlie with his friends at school when I volunteered in the pumpkin centers:

Otherwise- all is well. Charlie played his last soccer game today. Never fear, he starts indoor soccer next month. He got his first report card and is doing awesome! We are so proud of him!

I am teaching yoga again... Brick House Yoga on the square in downtown McKinney. It's a great studio in a great location with the BEST instructors (heehee) so it is fun to be in on the beginnings of a new yoga community.

Claire is doing great! She loves Abby (our lab) and just wants to hug her all the time. Too cute! She walks around saying "Abby Abby Abby."

Joe did another triathlon today - I think that makes 8 this year! Go Joe!!

That's it for now!

Riff Raff

2010-10-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

Last night I moved heaven and earth and was able to go to a yoga class. Well, not exactly moved heaven and earth... I just texted my reliable babysitter and was set. But still! A yoga class midweek while Joe is traveling is a treat!!

So after I got home, Charlie was still up and wanted a bedtime story. Poor kid. I am the worst storyteller. I can never think of anything and I always halfway fall asleep and wake up mid-story and no clue where it was going. I just start talking and the story comes out and he doesn't seem to care if it's stupid. Anyway, I told him a story about what happened at yoga.

Right before class, I was in the hall talking to the teacher and a friend, and a teenage guy comes up and says - does yoga start at 7? We said yes, and he goes, "We will BE THERE." OK. So class starts, and about 5 minutes later, the guy walks in with two friends. This was an Ashtanga class - no music, very quiet, and they are thumping around making comments and falling out of poses and giggling etc. At first it was kinda funny, but it started to bug me after a while. How could I focus with these idiots directly in front of me? And of COURSE I fell out of a balance pose in front of them. Normally I wouldn't care, as nobody is really paying attention to anyone else as they are all into their own practice. But when teenage guys are there I fall. Why does that happen?

It's just like when I take Abby for a walk and she waits until we get directly in front of a group of 10 year old boys and takes a poop. Then I have to pick it up in front of them. HORRIFYING!!

Anyway, so I was getting irritated at these kids for ruining my hard-earned yoga time, and finally I guess they realized yoga wasn't for them so they left. After they left, the teacher made this comment. "Oh, to be young and carefree again!" And I realized how true that statement was! When I was their age I would have done the exact same thing. And laughed about it afterwards. It's not their fault I had to arrange a babysitter for this one hour of yoga and they have all the time in the world to hang out at Lifetime. I had my time, and I will have it again (someday?? please maybe!!). I thought it was so great, how she turned that mindset around so quickly.

Charlie was asleep by the end of that boring story.

In other news... well I don't feel like I can comment here much about my job. People get fired for things they put on the internet about their employers. But this is my journal, and I do go back from time to time and revisit feelings and memories from the past, and it would leave out a lot of what's going on in my life if I don't say anything at all... so I will choose my words carefully and hope for the best!! Suffice it to say, I have not been happy in my job for a long time. Like, ever. There have been times that I didn't mind what I was doing. And where I work, we have a good amount of flexibility, depending on your manager - which makes it all worthwhile. So what if my job is boring, if I am able to earn a living and still take my kids to school and stay involved in their lives and take time off from time to time to deal with family stuff? So a few things have changed in recent months. One, my direct management has changed, and is now of the type that does not allow much flexibility. I feel like I am being babysat like never before, and I have been here 13 years. Also, the expectation has grown to include weekends and evenings and asking permission to do things that I always had the freedom to do in the past. Previously, I could leave early anytime to spend more time with the kids, and then work from home in the evening to keep up with my work. All of that is gone now. Add in that my husband travels frequently for long periods of time. Now, I KNOW other moms do it all. But I have never been terribly career-driven. And at this point in my life, my priority is family.

So for the short term, I applied for and was offered (and accepted) another job in the same department, different manager, different type of job. I have done this job before so it should be an easy transition. The kicker is, this job was a job grade down. I am so OK with this. It sounds so normal telling everyday people, but at work maybe people think I am a loser. But I want an under-the-radar job, one that I have confidence that I can do well, and with more flexibility so that I am able to spend more time with the kids AND not be stressed out all the time.

For the long term, I am trying to figure out what I want to do. I can't stay in defense finance forever. I get no satisfaction from it at all. Given a flexible job with reasonable workload, I can do another few years. But I don't want to be stuck here forever just because it's where I've always been. So many options go through my mind, and I can't figure out how to narrow it down. I can say that I do not want to be in the business world... that is just not my style. Maybe a teacher, or healthcare in some capacity, a librarian, a counselor... so I am trying to figure out what to do now so that in a few years, with both kids in school, I can start over doing something else. Teaching seems like a good option - although all my teacher friends say not to do it. But maybe a couple of years of teaching followed by some other pursuit in education? The thing is for me, looking at a field like education, there are so many interesting career paths. Whereas in finance, ughhhh, I can't see moving on and enjoying it at all.

Maybe I should be a college career counselor. If I could, I would go back in time, shake my finance-major self by the shoulders and say, "what the hell are you thinking? Do you realize by majoring in this, you will have to do it for the rest of your life?" I seriously don't think I ever thought it through at the time. I hated every finance class I took. I think there should be a requirement for every college student to sit in with a counselor and discuss actual jobs.

If anybody has any great ideas let me know. Meanwhile I am hoping for divine inspiration.

A Day at the Beach

2010-09-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

We went to Florida last weekend for the wedding of our nephew, Michael. We booked a hotel room on the beach hoping that we would get an hour here and there of beach time between the wedding / family events - luckily, we ended up having plenty of time on the beach along with fabulous weather! The key is looooow expectations - this was a wedding weekend during hurricane season. If we had planned it to be a beach vacation we would have been caught in a tropical storm for sure.

I keep accidentally hitting the camera funny and ending up with a setting where all my photos are blurry - and I can't figure out how to steal them from others on facebook - so I sadly have no pics right now of the wedding or my handsome men in their tuxes (Joe was a groomsman and Charlie the ringbearer). Trust when I tell you they were HAUTE!!! I did get a shot of Claire with Joe's grandma. We are trying to get Great Grandma to spend Christmas with us... she is such a sweet lady and we have so much fun with her (drinking wine and playing cards)!

This was Claire's first beach trip. By this age Charlie had been at least twice. I think the waves made her a little nervous at first but after a while she loved it!

Charlie is his mama's child too - LOVES the beach any time of day. Make that both his parents' child. Joe and I love the beach and dream of living there someday.

This was our first time meeting our new baby nephew, Luke. This kid has a LOT of hair and he is still at that portable stage. Tony (Joe's brother) and Emily are doing great - so much more relaxed and natural parents than Joe and I were!

Hanging out on the beach is a lot of work.

Hmmmm

2010-09-23T09:39:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while because... well that's not entirely true. I have blogged several times, but never posted. I can't seem to finish a post so I save it, and go back and look at it later, and it gets on my nerves. I am getting on my own nerves, so how must you feel? I am just letting it go today- a word salad, if you will.

Things are good, just busy busy. School, work, kids, family, soccer, tball, Joe pursuing his hobbies (obsessive exercise and workaholism), me pursuing my hobbies (yoga and alcoholism) and the occasional short night's sleep.

Guilt is an area in which I excel - I drop the ball BIG TIME in several categories. In the extended family category - major guilt center - and let it be known that I NEVER forget a birthday. I buy cards well in advance, leave them on the counter, and then forget about them until the day after the birthday, at which point I can't bear for the person to think that we FORGOT soooo I don't mail the card (which by then has lost its envelope) and then I'm so embarrassed about being so late and not being more organized and then I just think, maybe they will forgot that they thought I forgot. I DID NOT FORGET. I just forgot to stamp and send, that's all.

Balls dropped also: household maintenance. Many a time I have found myself thinking,after Claire wipes spaghetti all over the floor, that I can just wipe quickly the visible parts and not really mop because the cleaners come on Wednesday, only to realize that it is, indeed, Thursday. Our front flower beds are suffering from what I refer to as loving neglect. The backyard is a wanton jungle with such potential it inspires me, yet I can walk right by the same weed every day for a month before I finally put the baby down and pull the damn weed out. Someday we will get on top of this place and it will become the palace that I see in my head.

Since we're not busy enough I am considering pursuing a 500-hr RYT (yoga teaching certification). How does this make sense? I haven't taught yoga since Claire was born - there is absolutely no time I can commit to this. Thank goodness Shannon is letting me help her out with the 200 hour training - I assist her and sub for a few hours here and there for Purple Lotus . I LOVE IT!! That keeps me in the loop although I do hope someday to be able to commit to a regular class again.. I do love teaching and I miss it so much!!

The kids are doing awesome. Charlie loves his school, his class and his sports... we just took team pics for the Cardinals Tball team:

Claire is a beautiful, wonderful terror on two legs. She is getting more vocal about her likes and dislikes, and really enjoys opening cabinets, especially those with household cleaners and glassware. Someday we will install those cabinet locks that have been in the drawer since Charlie was a baby. Her other favorite activity is pointing and showing you her belly button. Here she is being a big girl:

We're off this weekend to our nephew's wedding in FL. Charlie and Joe will both be in tuxes and are in the wedding. Claire has a gorgeous dress, so the pressure is on for me to find something to wear that is A) equally fancy and B) childproof as I will be toting Miss Claire around. Thinking the strapless is a bad idea.

I will post wedding pics (Charlie as ringbearer) and hopefully some beach pics next week!!

Rituals

2010-09-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

It's funny how family rituals get started. I always imagined long, lazy days after school with my kids, baking chocolate chip cookies together and then they would play quietly while I assembled a casserole that we would all eat together at 5:30 PM when my husband got home from work. Ha!!! It's more like this:

5PM: pick kids up from Primrose. Everyone has an issue - Claire is hungry and / or wet and / or tired. Charlie is whining because he wants a friend to come over - really? After a full day, 8 AM - 5 PM, with kids your age, you STILL need someone to play with? And I start developing the shakes as the wine has not yet entered my system. I should go home and throw back a shot before I pick them up. Priorities!! I heat up some chicken nuggets or spaghetti for the kids, find out Joe won't be home in time for dinner, add some nuggets or spaghetti for myself, and then start the bathtime battle. Far from the cozy image above!

But when it comes to bedtime, the ritual we started when Charlie was a newborn has taken strong hold, at least for Charlie! Since the day or two after he was born, we did the much-advised routine: bath, bottle, book, bed. He was about two before I had the nerve to occasionally omit the bath - for fear of upsetting the natural order. And to be honest, Charlie isn't, and never was, a great sleeper. But as mediocre as it was, it could always get worse! So bath, bottle, book bed it was forever, until we ixnayed the daily bath, and then the bottle. Then the sippy cup. Now, book bed.

It used to be 3 books. Charlie got to choose, and I would cringe and pray that he wouldn't find the annoying books that I hid under his bed. Right before Claire was born, I changed it to two books. Then very recently, we suddenly started reading chapter books. Books with no or very few pictures - my childhood books that my mom gave me when they moved. They are actually entertaining - and yes, maybe a little inappropriate as they say words like "stupid." I was a child of the 80s after all - things weren't quite so PC yet. Anyway, we read them together and we laugh together. Imagine our delight when I read the following sentence: "Nothing is easy for Joe - he's stupid." What a mother-son bonding moment that was!!

So far we have read Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Chocolate Fever, and next up is Henry and the Paper Route. All the Beverly Cleary books are on my library list, and How to Eat Fried Worms, and I'm sure a bunch that I will remember when I see them. We are having a great time reading them together and I hope Charlie will be avid like I am once he can read on his own.

Now, about poor Claire... she gets no book. We need to work on this - but it's just too easy the way it is. That girl loves to go to bed and any rocking / snuggling that we do is for mine or Joe's benefit only. But I do need to work on this as I have a cozy image of us snuggling up reading Beazus and Ramona someday!! Now on to the chocolate chip cookies...

Moving On

2010-08-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of kindergarten... it went really well! It was a bit chaotic in the house as we are used to having the kids to Primrose around 8:30 and now, school starts AT 8 AM so he has to be there by 7:50. Most days Joe will walk him which means leaving about 7:35. Of course with it being first day all the kids' parents were in the building, and we were both there along with Claire, but most days Joe will just drop him of at the front door and off he will go. It was very cute - he seemed maybe a little nervous, but the teachers kept the momentum going and we did a quick kiss, a photo and that was it.

I wondered if I was the only heartless mom, as I wasn't even a little misty eyed. Even my fellow working moms were a little teary and I was not. So I called my mom and she said she never cried either. That's just not our style. When things are happy, I don't cry... and kindergarten is happy! I have great memories of school and I know he will too. I can't wait to hear all about his day (if he will tell me which is highly unlikely)!

The end of an era - well, sort of I guess but not really

2010-08-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Lately, if you are the parent of a 5 year old or spend any amount of time with one, you have most likely heard this: "I can't believe it's time for kindergarten!" I have said it myself many times. About a year ago, I posted about Charlie starting soccer, and becoming more independent and growing up and how it seems like things were suddenly on fast-forward. But over the past year, we have known this was coming, and to be honest, even if I have said it, I don't really find it so hard to believe anymore. We have had 5 1/2 years to get used to this idea, and although I know this is a momentous occasion and a huge event in his life and I do think there will be some tears (mine) on Monday morning, I don't really find it so shocking.

My shock came when he walked into the hospital room the day Claire was born, and was suddenly Enormous. It was that quick. He became a big kid in the 3 hours it took me to have Claire, and he has been in the refining process ever since. So Kindergarten: a big day, photos to be taken, a huge life change for us all, to be sure. But not hard to believe.

It is a popular mom thing to be nervous right now, but I am not really worried about him. I think he will be shy in the beginning, like he always is, but he is a trooper. He makes friends easily, he tends to behave everywhere except at home, and when he saw a picture of his teacher online, he said "hubba hubba" so I think he'll be OK.

Friday is his last day at Primrose, which would be super momentous except that -after a long and drawn out emotional struggle with finding afterschool care - he will be going to Primrose for after-school care. I resisted this, as my vision of childhood is colored by my own - my mom was home, all my friends' moms were home, and we were free to come and go as long as homework was done and we were home in time for dinner. So I tried to arrange to work part time, which didn't work out. I scoped out nannies and interviewed some and tossed around ideas and finally figured out what he wants - to be with friends. Friends aren't prowling the 'hood like they did in 1980s Meadows, TX. He's not sick of kids at 3 PM - he is barely ready to leave when I get him at 5. So, Primrose it is, which is easier for us too.

I keep learning that as a working mom, I tend to overcompensate. I assume that what's easiest for me is not necessarily what is best for him. In this case, it's a win-win. Of course, I would love to be there in the afternoons - but I haven't found a way to make that work yet. And I don't even know for sure whether he would even like that. I guess this will be something we will always struggle with, but in the meantime, he's happy with the Primrose plan and super excited to get to see his friends after school, especially those that aren't going to his elementary school.

Tonight is Meet the Teacher night. It will be so fun to get his school supplies ready and see his desk and classroom, and see if we know any kids in his class. And this weekend we have so much to do - including getting a back-to-school haircut and a vaccination that he isn't aware of yet (ugh). So we are a little nervous, but mostly excited! Kindergarten, here we come!

Fine, I'll call it Toobing

2010-07-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

Just got back from our yearly family pilgrimage to my parents' house, aka The River. We try to go more often in some combination - me and Charlie, the kids and me and my mom, etc... but we try very hard to make at least one longish trip with all 4 of us. We missed Dad this year as he is in Cairo on business... so Charlie and I will be making one more trip out before he starts kindergarten. Here are some of my favorite pics.

These are all at the "river beach" - aka a wide, warm, shallow area of the river with its own little beachy area that was Mom's recent discovery. There is a tree with a ropeswing, shallow beachy play area, and a small rapids for toobing.

This next one cracks me up: trying to get the perfect shot of all 3 smiling was never gonna happen. Two out of three ain't bad - and plus, Charlie had just seen the most terrifying dragonfly ever.

The dam (Canyon Lake) is one of our favorite spots as there is a running path along the top - very scenic - you can see the lake on one side and the river and valley on the other. Joe and I used to run together there but now I hang out like a bum with the kids in the water and he joins us after he sweats it out.

From Mom and Dad's backyard we can jump right in the river and go toobing / kayaking. Mom's and my favorite pastime is hanging out on our little island.

I even got to join the Boobs in Toobs this year. This sign made me laugh...

And here are the boobs themselves - they have this down to a science.

When you get sick of lakes and rivers, there's always a pool.

We had a blast and can't wait to go back in a couple of weeks!!

Kid Videos 1

2010-07-10T06:58:00.000-07:00

May 14

2010-05-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

This has always been a significant day in my life. In 1914, my grandmother, Ruby, was born. Of course, I wasn't around at the time, but over the course of my life she was an important force. Tutu, as all the grandkids called her, was so special to me. She was elegance and class to the extreme. She died on Halloween 2003, just a few months short of her 90th birthday.

Just a few months later, in early 2004, Joe and I found out we would not have a baby without help, and we started the IVF process. At the end of the first cycle, we were told to come back in 10 days for a pregnancy test at the clinic. The day of that test, when we found out that we were having our first baby, was May 14, 2004. Of course, the next few months and years flew by, with Charlie's birth in Jan 2005 and his first through third years.

Then in July 2008, we found out the doctors had been wrong. Miraculously, we had a baby on the way, with no help and no planning and no real desire to have another baby. The due date was May 18, 2009.

I hoped the entire time that the baby would be born on May 14. I didn't think I would make it that far, as Charlie was 10 days early and the second baby is typically earlier and faster than the first. Still, I thought, wouldn't that be cool?

We didn't know with either child what gender it would be. I thought for sure it was another boy. But when I woke up at 3 AM on May 14, 2009, I knew very quickly that I was in labor. And as my labor with Charlie was super short - about 5 hours from check-in to baby - I just knew that baby would be born that day, May 14. When I called my mom that morning and told her I was in labor, her first words were: "It's a great day to have a baby." And a May 14 baby, I knew, a Tutu's birthday baby - it would be a girl. This I knew, there was no doubt in my mind. A gift from Tutu.

Of course she was a girl, my sweet baby Claire Ruby, without a doubt the happiest surprise I have ever had or ever will have in my life. And May 14, along with January 11, are the two most significant dates in our little family calendar.

I keep this blog for a journal, so that I can remember the moments in our lives that pass by too quickly. And maybe someday my kids will read it. So on May 14, my message to my daughter is this: I love you, Claire, more than I could ever possibly express. You make me whole, and you have made our family complete. I love you, as we all love you, for your sweet personality, your easy smile, your happy giggles and your fat little belly. You and your brother bring me joy that brings tears to my eyes and a skip in my heartbeat. There is not a thing in the world that I won't do for you. Happy birthday, sweet girl!

Birthday Eve

2010-05-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Claire turns one year old. ONE. Twelve months. It is unimaginable that we have had a whole year with her already, but it seems like in a way she has always been with us. But instead of thinking about that - I am planning her birthday party.

I think the rule of thumb goes like this: for kids' parties, you invite the same number of children as the child's age. Ie., for a 3 year old, invite 3 friends, and so forth. This does not work for us. We are very social and have lots of friends and many of those friends are more like family to us, as none of us has biological family living nearby. I can't imagine not celebrating the milestones of these people, and especially the children of these people, nor can I imagine not including them at a party for our kids, so we have invited about 50 people over for a one year old's birthday party.

Maybe that is crazy. But in my opinion, 1 year olds have no clue that they are 1 or what a birthday is, etc. The party is a celebration for all of us, even if the guest of honor is asleep through the whole thing. We'll toast her as she goes to bed. Same goes for age 2, and then starting about age 3, she will have opinions and we can make some cuts to the guest list accordingly if she wants to have an all-girl's tea party or whatever. But 1 and 2 - they belong to us. Our baby girl has brought us so much happiness, what's not to celebrate!!!

So back to the planning... we originally planned a backyard BBQ for 3 PM. Then Charlie's soccer games all got rained out, and they were rescheduled and of course the last game was scheduled for party day, at 3:30. The LAST game, after he has missed other games due to rain and travel etc. So we pushed her party back to 5 PM. Now it looks like it will be raining anyway so I guess if there is a rained-out backyard BBQ it may as well start at 5 PM!!!

I am a fan of the low-maintenance party. We have very little actual work to do for the prep - aside from the normal cleaning up / mowing / decorating. All of the food is pre-made or being picked up, already cooked, on Saturday. I learned from my experience with Charlie's birthday party that despite my best intentions, I am no Martha Stewart, and it's better to buy a dang cake than try to do anything myself. Our friends and family like to eat well, drink well, and otherwise are just happy to be together.

Tomorrow I am taking cupcakes to Claire's class at school, so they will have a little birthday party for her too. Let the games begin!!

Numbered

2010-05-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

I signed Charlie up for kindergarten today. I know this is such a cliche, and he hasn't even walked in the door yet, but it really was kind of an emotional moment for me. How can this be? How can that little guy be now 5 years old and officially in the school system?

Time really does fly. Nothing makes it as obvious as having kids. We used to say things like, "We want to go to Tahiti, but probably can't make it till next July." This is an exaggeration as we have no plans to go to Tahiti although a girl can dream! But now, next July isn't just the next chance we have to do something, or a few more months to save up some cash. It is another year in our kids' lives, and things will look totally different when that time rolls around. Next year - Claire will be walking and talking and who knows, maybe beginning to potty train. Before you know it, I will be signing her up for kindergarten, and I know I will be bawling when I do.

Things change so quickly in kids' lives, and although the biggest changes seem to happen early - from squawling newborns to walking, babbling toddlers within a year - the smaller shifts have seemed bigger to me, and have been later. From age 4 to 5, when the personality just explodes... it is strange to remember just last year, bringing a newborn baby home and stressing over how our 4 year old would react. Now he just seems so BIG. So above that kind of drama, so into his own life and not the baby things that we used to worry about just months ago. Gradually, I have stopped supervising his bath, and started taking my own at the same time. I don't remember an aha moment where I said, "I have time for a bubble bath now!" I just one day realized that my routine had changed, and he is doing more for himself and requiring less of me.

I have to admit, there is nobody in the world more fascinating to me than Charlie at age 5. He drives me crazy less and makes me think more. He asks questions and makes casual comments that stop me in my tracks. He plays independently for hours, but sometimes he will beg me to play him in Wii bowling... and often beats me. When I check on him in his bed at night, I want to curl up next to him and breathe in his little boy smell... but I have to be careful that he doesn't wake up and tell me to go away. Of course, he wouldn't. He is still enough of a little boy that he would probably tell me to stay. At age 5, he is this wonderful, delicate balance between child and kid. He is small enough to still want his mommy to lay down with him, but big enough that in his waking hours, he would rather be off doing something else.

Someone asked me today, why does it tear us moms up when our kids go to kindergarten? And now that I'm writing this, I understand why. It's not just that they're growing up. It's that we are realizing that these days are numbered.

Wow.... 9 months

2010-04-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

How did that happen?

I could say there was nothing going on the last 9 months, or that too much was going on and I was too busy to blog, but it doesn't really matter... so many fun things have been going on and are still coming up that I need to blog or else I will completely forget they happened so let's move on, shall we?

Recap of the last 9 months, in no particular order other than what comes to my mind first:

The last blog post was posted the day of Charlie's first soccer practice. He is now in his second season with the Vipers, and he is having so much fun with it!! He is also doing a soccer clinic on Monday nights. We are so lucky, he has the best coach and a great team that we hope stays together a long time. The team is neither the best nor the worst; Charlie as a player is the same - not the best, not the worst. He makes goals, but he also goofs off; he enjoys it, and that's what matters. I am starting to see that too much of anything wears on him (as it does anyone) - with soccer practice Fri and Sun, games Sat, and clinic Mondays - he is getting soccer'ed out.

January 11 Charlie turned 5 years old. Unbelievable!! He had a swim party at the same rec center that he had his 4th birthday party. Here is the Sipka crew celebrating.

We celebrated Claire's first Christmas at home with my parents... a couple of pics of the kids: (side note: this is why I need to blog. I have forgotten all of the details).

Claire started swim lessons in April with the same instructor that taught Charlie. This is survival swim: http://www.infantaquatics.com/ and she was going to test out last week but got sick. Hope to reschedule this for a couple of weeks. The action shot below was taken during her first lesson; isn't this cool? It's amazing how babies have a natural instinct for swimming; it is believed that some of this instinct disappears if not nurtured at an early age. Water wings and inner tubes, etc teach kids that it is normal to be upright (vertical) in the water, so in order to teach an older kid how to swim, you first have to teach them how to be horizontal. So by teaching babies to flip onto their backs and float, they not only can rescue themselves if they fall in, but they will also learn basic swimming more quickly. It sounds like I drank the Kool-Aid, but in all honesty, I don't know if it's true or not! Charlie didn't take this until he was 3 so this is our first experience with infant swimming. We shall see!! It better freaking work as it has cost us an arm and a leg and is a total pain in the ass!!

This pic is not so much impressive as it is cute:

February was cold, March was cold, lots of things happened but since I wasn't blogging I can't even remember them. Seemed like a lot of snow - at one point Lynn and I took the boys sledding:

Claire was not a fan:

Easter: As we have for the past several years we had the fabulous Knopp / Masucci Easter dinner. Again, this deserves its own blog post but I have forgotten most details aside from lots of deliciousness and a gift from Mamasooch to Claire (pic to be added when I can figure out how to get it from my phone)!! Meanwhile here are some pics from the Primrose Easter Egg Hunt.

On the "old" friends front: Charlie's "guy" friends are still Blake, Zane, and Matthew. We don't get to see any of them as much as we would like due to school / work / social schedules, but those are always fun and we are great friends with all the parents as well.

This year Charlie has gotten close to his new little "wife" Reese. We have all gotten close to her family this past year which is really cool since they have kids both Claire's and Charlie's age with another in between. The parents are pretty cool too with the exception of Kelly, the mom, who is a horrible martini-and-shopaholic; anyone knows I cannot stand either of those activities. Lord knows how Ron puts up with her.

Bad news on the friends front: our awesome neighbors the Schneiders are breaking our hearts by moving away. I can't even think about this without getting a lump in my throat... I have had friends move away before, but this is the first time I'm seeing it happen to Charlie. We had so many plans for the future as the boys grew up together. Not to mention a great friendship between myself and the mom... Boohoo but we plan to visit as they are going to sunny Phoenix and as Blake tells us, he is going to find a house with a diving board. Bonus!!

It's hard to believe that just a year ago, our baby Claire wasn't even with us yet. So much has changed.. Charlie has turned into a big kid before our very eyes. He is the sweetest older brother, aside from pulling Claire's arm too hard and randomly screaming NIN NIN NIN in her ear. He does love her so much - she is the first person he wants to see in the morning, and he insists on me dropping him off first at school so he can show her off to his friends. That said: she is getting more mobile, and he is into Legos, so she is starting to piss him off a little.

So that just about catches us up... I will try to post at least once a week from now on!! There are so many things coming up... Claire's first birthday May 14... her baptism May 16... summer... Charlie starting kindergarten... etc etc and I don't want to forget about any more details!!

ST LUCIA?!! How could I forget that? in November, We went on a 5-night anniversary trip with 3 other couples: Knopp, Berge, and Talley. It was the most fun I remember having in a long time - and the kids were home safe with Nini. It was truly paradise!!

The Vipers!!!

2009-08-20T10:10:00.001-07:00

Charlie and Zane before their first soccer practice:

Trey helping tie the cleats:

The beginning.. and choking up over nothing!!

2009-08-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

The past weekend was a really fun one. Note one thing in common with all of our activities:

Fri PM: bday party for Charlie's classmate
Sat AM: Charlie's basketball skills performance (pics below of Charlie with his Coach, and showing off his mad b-ball skills).
Sat PM: buy Charlie's soccer gear
Sun AM: pool party for Alexa's 7th birthday
Sun PM: Charlie's first soccer practice

OK, Alexa was around for 3 years before Charlie was and we would have been invited to her party anyway but still! It applies that the whole weekend revolved around our 4 year-old's social calendar. And I have to say... we loved it!! I sense that this is just the beginning of years of crazy schedules and fun kid activities.

The soccer team is sooo cute. We lucked out on the roster - we figured Charlie and Blake would be on the same team since they live across the street. And we hoped that Zane would be too but we didn't expect it - they live 1.7 miles from us (not that we're counting). That sounds close but really - there are several neighborhoods and hundreds of families in between us! So we are so happy that all three boys are VIPERS!!! I forgot my camera so I will have to post pics after the better mom (Lisa Knopp) sends them to me.

I also had a moment when I went to buy Alexa's present. We went to Justice, which is THE IT place for young girls. I think it's Limited Too? Anyway, Charlie and I went to pick out a gift, and that place was crazy busy. It's a whole world that I haven't yet been exposed to - lots of sequins, peace signs, and Hello Kitty. As the mother of a boy, I never really felt the urge to do a lot of girly things - never felt like I was missing out by not having a girl. I used to even think it was great that I never had to deal with girls and princesses and all that crap. But yesterday in Justice (yes, I do wait until the last minute), I was sooo happy that I get to experience it too. It's like a whole world opened up to me that was closed off before. Not so much because my life would be incomplete without Hannah Montana, but because I'm excited to think about what I liked as a little girl and I can live that again through her.

The smallest moments make me catch my breath these days. Claire reminds me of baby Charlie, and having her as a sort of "foil" amplifies how quickly Charlie is growing up. When Alexa was opening her presents and Charlie gave her the one we bought her, and said "Alexa, this one is from me," I don't know why but I got a lump in my throat. Maybe I'm seeing him more now as an individual, with his own relationships, and not just an extension of me or of Joe and me. Every experience that he has - it's not just my experience the way his baby steps were. This is the foundation of a childhood and experiences that he will actually remember. None of this is new, but it's on my mind lately as I can't help but compare back to his baby days.

Note: my boy is still as sweet as ever and my girl has perfect comic timing. When the Vipers took a water break on the sidelines, Charlie made a beeline for his sister and kissed her on the foot before running back on the field to do more drills. Then she pooped the biggest explosion ever that required the help of me, Alexa, Alexa's cousin Sydney AND Lisa's mom Judy to clean up. Here they are relaxing while I cooked dinner - ah that was 20 minutes of peace (better called the eye of the hurricane). Are they cute or what?!

The heart wants what it wants (credit Woody Allen)

2009-08-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

Joe and I are not car people. I like a nice car, but it's not a priority. It's not something I would be unable to resist, like plane tickets or a new swimsuit. I have no self control in the mall and when I haven't been to the beach in a while I get fidgety. But cars - meh. If it's dependable, and comfortable, and not ugly, I'm good. Luckily Joe feels the same way because that would be a problem, if one of us wanted to spend lots of money on cars and the other didn't care about them.

But then there's the Jeep Wrangler. I have been in love with them since before I could drive. Not a fancy upbrand - no Hummer or Land Rover for me. I love the old, beat up, muddy, top-off Wrangler. Every time I see one I feel the need to point it out, and I feel a catch in my throat and I just want for a few minutes to change places with that lucky, lucky person behind the wheel. I don't need the leather interior or even power windows in a Jeep. We went to Hawaii a few years ago, and we started off on Oahu and then Kauai, and we rented whatever was cheap. The beach was great and all, but something was missing. When we got to Maui, we rented a Jeep. It was old and beat up and the second we got on the highway, we knew what our trip had been missing. I kid you not - the Jeep MADE that trip. It rained - it had no top - we didn't care. It was a Jeep!! We felt like we were part of the scene, not looking at the scene. We were Jeep people.

Well now after 13 loyal, trouble-free years, my beloved Acura Integra Foxy Mama is on her last leg. Bless her little car heart, she never had a problem that wasn't our fault. There was the incident a couple of years ago where Joe left the sunroof open and then there was a torrential downpour ... and she lost her radio and CD player. To replace would have required an overhaul to the electrical system, we passed. Then there was the hail damage. Neither of us felt the desire to deal with the repairs from that so we let it go too. Now, the suspension (shocks?) are out and I kid you not, a leaf in the road has become a major speedbump requiring much preparation. Now the brakes appear to be on the way out and seriously. The little lady should be retired with some dignity. And now with the 4 door version available, and improved safety ratings especially with all the optional airbags, it isn't even really a DUMB choice. They get reasonable gas mileage. And, we still have the Pilot for our main family car.

So Jeep dealer here we come! Now we fully know that driving a Jeep on the freeways of Dallas is not going to compare to the Hana Highway, and we don't expect it to. But tooling around in the "hills" of McKinney, or better yet, in the Hill Country where my parents live, just may be a bit more fun. The Jeep people are coming out to play!!

The Borings

2009-07-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

I turned 35 a couple of weeks ago, and although it pains me that I very clearly remember when my own mother turned 35 - an age I am sure I thought meant "middle aged" at the time - it hasn't really bothered me. Sure, I wonder who the Gossip Girls are. And I don't get the appeal of the Jonas Brothers or Zac Efron or Vanessa Hugdens.. names I see in People magazine but they all look like babies to me. But old? Nah. Jennifer Aniston is a rockin' 40. My generation includes Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez... OK gotta think of a non-Jennifer here - how's Cate Blanchett? Halle Berry and Cindy Crawford are OLDER than me and look how smoking hot they are.

Then today, I left work as usual a little early on Friday and took my time getting around to picking up the kids around 4 - feeling a teeny bit guilty for leaving them at daycare while I putzed around first. I saw Charlie on the playground, before he saw me. It was Western Day so he was wearing shorts and cowboy boots, sitting at the bottom of the slide, so cute. He saw me too, and he looked so sad. Oh man, I thought, just in time. Here is mommy, ready to find out what's wrong, to take him for a snowcone and make his entire day happy again. As I got closer to him, though, a strange thing happened - he started crying - louder and louder and louder. Then he ran away. "I don't want to go!" he cried, nearly hyperventilating with his sobs. Those are about the only words I understood, as he was running the opposite direction. What? You don't want to come home? To go get snowcones with mommy? Here I was, "springing" him from the prison of his school, and he didn't want to leave?

Turns out he was just super tired. Western Day involved much activity - pictures with a pony (real or not, I still don't know). A BBQ lunch, which Joe attended; much hoopla - the extravaganza of wearing cowboy clothes all day. After a two-hour evening nap (and as a result, it's 10 PM and I still hear him bumping around upstairs), he was in a much better mood. So I asked him. Why did he cry when I came to get him?

"Because I didn't want to go home. Home is Boring. I want to be with my friends."

And I felt a flashback, back to being a kid and thinking the same thing. Home? Without friends? Home with mom and dad? How boring!! But yet it seems like just yesterday that I was his first choice to hang out with. A milkshake or a snowcone was enough to make his day. Less than a year ago, I took him over to Blake's to hang out while Blake's mom and I went running... Charlie cried the whole time. Even being around kids his age wasn't enough to make up for the fact that I wasn't with him. And now? Boring. He would rather be at school.

This week a former coworker died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 34 years old. Healthy by all appearances, just suddenly gone. It really made me think - not about being old, really, but the fragility of life and how important it is to be where you are instead of looking forward to the next thing, or back to the past.

It's amazing how quickly things change when kids are little. You are everything to them for so long, and they are so needy and demanding and you just want a break from being so necessary all the time. Then a few short years go by, and you want them to need you more than they do. I remember feeling so buried under the mountain of need when Charlie was a baby and now he doesn't need me enough. And here is Claire, in the nick of time, just when I have come to appreciate being necessary. Thank God for her and for this lesson in appreciating the Now. I'm sorry I learned it late, but I am listening now!!

Tidbits

2009-07-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

I keep wanting to update my blog but I can't really think of what to say that would be interesting to anyone besides me and maybe my mom. But the idea of this blog is a place to record what is going on, so if it's boring, sorry!! I won't take offense if nobody reads this, it's basically a journal so feel free to exit anytime!

Claire continues to be an absolute joy. She is such a sweet, easygoing baby. Joe and I are in loooove with her. She sleeps like a champ, eats like a champ and is getting those wrinkly fat thighs that I knew any daughter of mine would have. She hasn't lost much more of her hair recently - so I really have no idea what this child is going to look like. She is sooo cute though. She goes to a babysitter's during the week and we have been happy with it so far - Delonda has a lot of experience with babies, we have friends whose kids have gone there for several years and that goes a long way as far as our comfort level with her. Delonda suddenly had surgery yesterday, so Claire is at Primrose with Charlie while Delonda recovers over the next couple of weeks. Primrose is fabulous!! We love it!! BUT it is very expensive. So we hope to move Claire back to Delonda's soon. As far as development - well, aside from the fat rolls, Claire can hold her head up very well and can spend some time in the Bumbo seat. I think she likes it but she would always prefer to be held!! She is starting to get a little flat spot on the back of her head, so I'm trying to emphasize her tummy time and Bumbo time, but at her age it's really hard since what she does best in is the bouncy seat and the swing. She eats A LOT. She is already outgrowing her 0-3 months clothes and well into the 3-6 month sizes. At this point I wouldn't buy her anything less than 6 months.

Charlie was sooo cute yesterday -- we had told him since Claire was at his school, he needs to make sure she's OK. The teachers told us he visited the baby room two or three times and asked a bunch of questions: "Are you burping her enough? When did you change her diaper?" etc. Such a good big brother, taking care of his sister!! He has adjusted pretty well to having a baby in the house. But he has been very whiny lately which I'm sure is driven a lot by the change in his life. Poor guy. It must be scary to have your world shaken up so completely. But whatever causes it, whining is annoying as hell, so he gets on our nerves a lot lately. Again -- poor guy.

Charlie came home so excited yesterday - in his TOTs (Teams of Tomorrow - basketball skills) class, they are preparing for a show they are putting on for parents Aug 15. They got a special wristband to wear on their right (!) hand and a special TOTs basketball. Then in September he starts soccer!! We are really excited about that - and all the cleats, shin guards, etc that go along with it... he is going to look so cute!! He is also an amazing swimmer. Underwater, backstroke, freestyle (aka "Big Arms") - he can do it all and thank goodness he loves it, because we are a water-lovin' family so he really had no choice!! We swim almost every day after work and on the weekends. Claire has been in the water a few times but since she can't really hold herself up very long we haven't even tried to put her in a float. It will be a month or so before she could do that and summer will be over before we know it. She'll take survival swim lessons over the winter (beginning around 6 months) so next summer will be so much fun with both kids in the water!!

Joe hasn't traveled much lately which has made life sooo much easier. He will go to Asia in August for 2 weeks but I'm trying not to think about that. While he's gone, the kids and I are going to attempt a visit to the river to hang with my mom and dad - I may take Charlie on a short tube ride and we can go to the lake and pool with both kids so it will be a good break.

I'm the one traveling this week! I am going to El Segundo for work on Thursday. Since the workshop I'm attending is 8:30-3:30 I'm planning an out-and-back trip, all in one day. That makes for a long day but I want to get home to my babies. The only complicating factor is my pumping schedule. WARNING - maybe TMI. I pump exclusively for Claire, and that has been working out great. She gets maybe 1 bottle of formula a day so I'm happy to be doing this for her. We have a mother's room at work with wireless internet so I run down there three times a day and it really works out very well. I'm trying to figure out now what to do with all that travel and airport time - there are mother's rooms where I'm going, but with the 3-hour flight and travel to and from the airport, I will need to pump somewhere and I'm hoping to find a better solution than a public bathroom!! We'll see... it's only one day so I'm sure it will work out fine.

Guess that's it for now!!

Nesting.... in reverse?

2009-07-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

Since I'm going back to work in a few days, I thought it would be a good idea to get the items needed for some quick throw-together meals and attempt the Organized Kitchen. If you know anything about my habits, having an organized kitchen, and a meal plan and all that has to do with feeding these demanding little people - well, I struggle, shall we say? I love food, as far as eating it goes. I don't even hate preparing it. I just lose all sense of creativity when it comes to thinking of meals in advance. If I eat at someone else's house, and the meal is great, I have every intention of getting the recipe and making it for my family. I request the recipe. I print it out and put it in my purse along with every other scrap of paper I collect. Then on the weekend, I head to the grocery store and something happens... I forget everything. I can't think of a single meal outside my trifecta (king ranch casserole, pepper steak, spaghetti). Then every night I stand in the kitchen thinking, hmmm. What was I planning to make tonight? And then I think, well, who really cares what you eat - thirty minutes from now, won't we be just as full from Dinobites and mac and cheese as anything else?

But suddenly, I am all into food. Creating it, planning for it, shopping for it. Exhibit A: I baked banana bread and blueberry muffins, inside the house, from scratch, on a sunny 4th of July afternoon which I normally reserve for margaritas and my floating throne in the pool. Exhibit B: my sudden obsession with the We! Network (wtf??) show - Amazing Wedding Cakes. I LOVE this show. And today I went to Wal Mart with a list of two weeks' worth of meal ideas and it wasn't even the most horrible experience of my life. I didn't walk in the door cussing Joe for his relentless desire to feed our children. I simply walked in, cleared out the freezer of food (if I can't remember how old Charlie was when I bought the French Toast Sticks, chances are they needed to go), and organized.

Maybe this is due to my desire to prepare for the upcoming transition back to work... or maybe, it is the natural nesting instinct that didn't get to happen in my last weeks of pregnancy. If you remember, first I was incapacitated due to my elegant fall (37 weeks pregnant) down the stairs on Easter. Next, we were forced out of our house (38 weeks) for a week due to a flood. Then we dealt with flood #2 (on Claire's birthday, yep our house was flooding unbeknownst to us while I was in labor with her). Yes, there was some major home renovation going on for a while there - but there was nothing natural about that nesting! That was not folding and refolding onesies or whipping up casseroles to take out later. That was: dear GOD please let us get these fans out of our house, a floor installed, a toilet back in place instead of the sewage hole in our master bath - before this baby is born.

So we have a freezer and pantry full of Essentials. A list of meals for the next couple of weeks. Blueberry muffins and banana bread "for healthy on-the-go breakfasts!" I hardly recognize myself. I wonder how long this will last?

Countdown

2009-07-01T21:06:00.001-07:00

My last day of work, before going on maternity leave, was April 17. I go back to work next Wednesday. Each day until then is "the last" - i.e., tomorrow is my last Thursday. This weekend is the last weekend, etc. So much has happened in the last 3 months!!! One sprained ankle and recovery; one flood and extended hotel stay / home repairs / all related stress; one childbirth; another flood and home repairs / related stress; newborn haze; sibling adapting; should I go on?

Up until this past week I was NOT ready to return to work. I was enjoying my time home, getting in a groove with my little girl. The past few days, I have started to warm up to the idea. It's not that I love being home, or love being at work - both are good, and it would be nice to have a little of each. Being home would be nice, although challenging in its own ways. But work is not a bad place. The money and benefits are important, but I have a good job and good friends there and they are just not having fun without me - ask Angie. Ha!! I will miss having free time - well, the free time Claire lets me have without being attached to her, which is not much. I have learned to do many things with my elbow and pick up many things with my toes. But I will miss it, and I will miss her, and being able to lunch and drink wine with lunch and shop with Sooch. :)

So back to work I go, now a mother of two. It still feels so weird to think that. It is 11 PM, Joe is out of town, and my children (plural!) are upstairs sleeping. My daughter and my son. Life is so crazy, and so wonderful and I am so blessed. And now I am going to bed!!!

Finally earning his keep

2009-06-30T14:45:00.001-07:00

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.... right??!!

2009-06-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I know I am the worst blogger ever. It's just that things are so baby baby baby around here, and come on. Who wants to hear all about that? Plus if you talk to me very often you are hearing it anyway. Things are good, great, wonderful. I go back to work in a week and a half. As always my feelings are conflicted - I am excited to go see all my work friends and get back in the swing of things, and to start establishing some sort of routine - but in addition to missing Claire, I am really going to miss all this free time I have now! Yeah it's all free time worked around the needs of a baby - but it's way more than I will have when I'm at work trying to get my hours in every day!! Plus getting the two kids to two separate daycares and being expected to use my brain... all I know is, this transition is going to require lots and lots of wine.

So in a nutshell - things are good. Baby is fabulous, love love love her to pieces. Sometimes I'll look at her and think I could just cry, I love her so much. Charlie is doing great. Joe and I are just beside ourselves with our adorable, wonderful children. I may not blog very often but check in now and then, you just never know when I may get a bee in my bonnet to update!!

Here are some pics in case you haven't seen them!!

Two Weeks

2009-05-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Claire is two weeks old today!!

We went in for her 2-week checkup today. Both Joe and I were anxious to see what she weighs - the goal is for them to regain back to their birth weight within 2 weeks. Joe, the Italian grandmother embodied in a 35 year old man's body, loves nothing more than to see his children eat, which is what Claire seems to do, constantly. As in, should she be eating so much? Are we overfeeding her??

Anyway, Claire is up almost an entire pound!! She's now 7 lbs 3.5 oz. She also gained an inch in height, so she is currently tall and thin. I hope that holds true for her modeling future.

She had her heel pricked for the Baylor expanded screen and I am taking her to the hospital for the State screen in a few minutes. Poor girl, two heel pricks on her birthday. But then we will stop at Target for a toy afterward. :)

Quick Update

2009-05-26T17:22:00.001-07:00

Updated to add pictures!!

Charlie and Claire crashed out on the couch after a Memorial Day pool party (this was 6:30 PM and Charlie slept through until 8 AM!)...

Charlie holding his baby sister:

Things are going well. Charlie is adjusting, we are seeing bits of the old Charlie peek through day by day. Claire is doing what newborns do - eating, crying, pooping, sleeping. When we're lucky she goes right back to sleep after eating. When she doesn't, we have flashbacks of Baby Charlie and start to panic. She is spending more time awake each day - today, I saw entirely too much of here adorable eyeballs. As second timers now, we know that being awake too much during the day can backfire at night, and aside from gently coaxing her to sleep when we know she needs it, we are letting her do whatever her body seems to tell us she needs. I laugh at us trying to keep our one-month old Baby Charlie awake until 10 pm as advised by a nurse.... no wonder the poor kid cried all the time!! Hindsight is definitely 20/20!!

So the other thing that I was noticing today, as I looked longingly out the window at the pool and floating chair but whilst holding a baby who would only sleep in my arms, is that I am far less anxious. I mean, last time I thought maternity leave would be a great vacation. This time, I pretty much expected it to suck, so I am OK with it being boring and holding the baby all day and not putting makeup on. It's OK. I don't enjoy it, really, that's just the truth of who I am - I don't really enjoy the newborn stage much at all - but since I knew that going in, I'm OK with it.

On the feeding front, ughhhh. Nursing was not a huge success. I developed mastitis, which made my milk supply drop way down, so had to nurse and THEN pump 8x a day which if you do the math, is all the free time there is. And what am I supposed to do with my older kid if I'm tied up either nursing or pumping for his baby sister all day and night? So then I cut back on nursing, upped the pumping, and bottle feeding led to Claire hates nursing now and I am like, FINE. Whatever. But I can't stress about it too much. I am pumping like a maniac, and taking fenugreek and lecithin and tomorrow will pick up an Rx for Domperidone, all measures which are intended to boost milk supply. But I am not going to go insane about this - I already feel like I'm chained to a pump - that's enough for me!! Hopefully this cocktail of meds and pumping will boost supply enough that I can cut down on the number of times a day I hook up to the ol' milk factory.

Speaking of which... time is up. Gotta go!!

Seconds

2009-05-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

On April 13, after a great Easter dinner, I fell down the stairs (nine months pregnant and with Joe out of town) and sprained my ankle.

On April 22, I walked into my house to discover a 4-inch flood on our entire first floor. We were out of our house for 5 days while it dried out, and again when the floors were replaced.

I thought these events were tragic. I cursed our luck.

On May 14, I went into labor in the early morning and at 9:35 am, met my daughter, Claire Ruby Sipka, named after my late grandmother Tutu, who shares her birthday. Claire's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck SIX times. There was also a true knot in the cord. The doctor and nurses were shaken and honestly, shocked that she survived the birth.

Later that day, we discovered another (unrelated) flood on the second floor of our house. At that moment, I couldn't help but laugh. Tragedy looks completely different when you consider how her birth could have turned out, and how close we came to not getting to see this every day:

For good measure, here is her big brother, somewhere around his second or third day. They are spitting images of one another!!

So anyway, this little girl grabbed my heart right away. It's no secret that I struggled with the transition to motherhood last time, and that we hadn't planned on having another child. I adore Charlie beyond all reason, but that postpartum time was hard for me. I thought I was so glad to be done with the baby stuff and ready to move on to Big Kids. But it's as if God knew that something was missing, so he created this little girl, and let me tell you, I am enjoying every moment of her. For the last few days I have been floating in air and I am so glad I get to have this experience again, but the right way this time.

The hardest part is Charlie - making sure he doesn't feel displaced or less special when the people around him are celebrating his baby sister. He is doing well overall, but there are moments that make my heart ache for him. Yes it's natural, people have second children all the time, but as textbook as it may be, he is my baby and my most special guy and I feel for him. I am trying to take time out each day to do something alone with him, or with just Joe and him without Claire, and I don't know how long that can go on as we resume Real Life but I will do my best to ease the transition for him.

Here is the proud big brother, my baby:

Thoughts on Birth

2009-05-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah, I know, I haven't posted in a while. It's the hands - they hurt!!! So this will be short.

OK, on birth.

Charlie was a couple weeks early. I had expected, with a firstborn, to be late and so was very surprised that he came early and quickly. It was such an easy, no-fuss affair, really. So I expected the same of this baby, especially being the second one!! It will come early, and be fast, like Charlie. So I took all 4 weeks off (pre due-date) that my company offers, expecting that I would get a week or two.

And here we are, a week away, and according to my dr yesterday, no progress in the last 2 weeks. Hmmmm. A month out with Charlie, I was fully effaced. Not dilated, but he was low, and all I needed to do was dilate which I did quickly (from a 1.5cm at check-in to a 9 just two or three hours later). Now I am 0% effaced and 1 cm and this babe is still relatively high.

My dr had offered to induce a week early (39 weeks). I could go in anytime and be induced, she says. But induction scares the bejesus out of me. For every one story I hear about an easy experience, I hear 10 stories about 20-hour-long, painful labors with 2-3 hours of pushing. Which reminds me, induction is making something happen that is not ready to happen. Unless there's a medical reason for it, or pregnancy has become intolerable, it seems that baby is not ready, isn't that why it takes so long for so many people? And maybe those that have the blessedly quick induced labors just timed it exactly right? The risk of 24 hours of induced labor and then a C-section = nightmare. Why chance that? Isn't it better to be pregnant a few more days than recover from that?

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand wanting to induce. Or wanting to schedule a C-section. And obviously any medical reason would make me rethink it. But remember I'm coming from a first birth that spoiled me. If I wait it out, maybe I will have that again.

Of course, it's only Wednesday. Check with me on Friday and see if I still agree with myself.

Just Bobbin' Around, and pics

2009-04-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

Early last week I was nesting. Everything in the house was ready - or close to ready - for the babe. Then the flood kicked us out of our house for 5 days and turned the house itself into a shambles.

We're back home, things are almost normal. We have no floors in our playroom and dining room, so it's ugly in there, but new floors are being installed next week so we are getting back on track. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera to take pics of the apocalypse that I walked into last Wednesday - but I do have pics of the aftermath. They just do not do it justice - imagine walking around with 200 mph winds. And the noise - can't take a picture of that - just imagine.

Meanwhile, my doctor recommended swimming in order to reduce the swelling that is causing my carpal tunnel. I don't want to really exercise because I don't want this baby thinking it's OK to come out yet - so I went to the gym yesterday and just bobbed around for half an hour. I had a magazine and a kickboard and just puttered and tried to look busy. I did a few half-ass breast stroke laps with the kickboard, then took a break to read Marie Claire, and on and on for half an hour. I'm sure people wondered what the heck the whale was doing in the pool, it is an indoor pool, who reads a magazine while standing in an indoor pool and everyone around was swimming laps or taking an aqua class? Well it worked - my hands didn't wake me up during the night - so I'm going to try and bob around as much as possible for the rest of this pregnancy. Hope I don't catch swine flu. It's worth the risk - it feels sooo good to be in the water!!

On a happy note, here are a couple of cuties (Charlie "Spiderman" and his bud Nick "Batman"):

Don't ever say, Now What??

2009-04-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been out of touch. Suffice it to say it has been a busy week around here. Between sprained ankles, travel schedules, and the Flood of 2009- we have been in a hotel for going on 5 nights now - when it comes down to having time to update the ol' blog, my carpal tunnel kicks in and I lose motivation altogether. My hands are the size of baseball mits, no lie.

So tomorrow is 37 weeks and I really hope we will be back in our (floorless) house again. Will update as soon as I can (with pics!!! hold on to your hats for that).

Meanwhile, PRAY, light candles, send messages to the universe - whatever it is that you do - just let's all please tell this baby DO NOT COME EARLY.

TTFN...

Now What?

2009-04-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

I am officially on Maternity Leave. Hooray!! This is the calm before the storm - the time to relax, put the feet up, and stock up on sleep in anticipation of baby coming. Baby is due in 4 weeks, but I expect only two weeks. Charlie was early and my hunch is that this baby will be too.

So, on day one, notable (and not-so-notable) events included:

-7:30 wakeup call from Charlie
-Making pancakes for Charlie / Joe
-Charlie to school at 9 AM
-Wait for plumber to come fix garbage disposal
-Reading "Midwives" (for lack of anything else) outside in sun for 30 minutes
-Going to Babies R Us with Joe and power shopping for missing items
-Assembling Diaper Champ, wipes warmer, monitor, tummytime playmat, and activity mat
-Washing 3 loads of laundry including not-so-gender neutral "coming home" selections (note to Joe: dinosaurs are not gender neutral)
-Checking work email 100 times
-Responding to work email 100 times

For the next few days I have mini-commitments: dr appt tomorrow, hair appt Wed - but I am really, really going to try to do more of the relaxing in the sun (minus terrifying death-in-childbirth book) and stocking up on sleep and less of obsessive working and nesting!!!

Home

2009-04-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

It's so weird. I am a Cancer. We are homebodies. I love being home - at night, watching TV, going to bed early. I DREAM of days at home, while I'm at work, I think of ways to get home sooner. But.

I have been working from home for two days now... because my foot feels better but I can't get around at all... and I don't know - it just feels weird. Is it because I have been working full-time in an office for basically 12 years now? I just feel off. Weekends are normal, because everyone is at home. But weekdays - it seems there is so much going on, and I am not in it.

At work, I have friends. I go to the bathroom with a posse. When it's time for lunch, there are plenty of people to choose from to come with me. When I need a break, we go for a walk around the building. We look out the windows, we say, "What a gorgeous day, wish I could be outside." Then we go back to our desks and work and work and watch the clock till 5 PM. It's a gorgeous day, and I'm at home, working. I could be working outside, I guess. Charlie is at school, which he loves. And it's good for him. So, aside from the foot - woohoo! Free time!!

This would be different if it was summertime. I could float all day, no problem. But what to do with myself? Well, work. I have to work. But being home makes it seem like I'm wasting a beautiful day. And being outside with a book feels like cheating, because I need to work.

Weird.

Indulge Me

2009-04-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

I try not to whine a lot. Maybe to some I do more than others, but I really don't think I whine allllll that much.

But.

Joe left yesterday for a week. I'm 9 months pregnant. I just got Charlie to bed, and on my way down I slid down the last few stairs and twisted the hell out of my ankle. I mean PAIN. It took several startled, shocking, panting minutes before I could get up and hobble to the couch and reach for the laptop to google what to do. Heat? Ice? I hobble to the freezer, make my ice pack, and hobble back to elevate and ice for 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off. As long as it takes until the swelling goes down. OK, how will I know when THAT happens? Have you seen my cankles lately? I had two bites of ham today and this body of mine retaliated by swelling up like a blowfish. Ahhhh, I can just imagine the carpal tunnel spasms I will be waking up with tonight!! So back to the ankle - I guess I can compare to the other foot but even without a sprain, both ankles resemble the trunk of the red oak in our front yard.

Meanwhile. Scarlett (the white cat) is in Charlie's room, meowing to be set free - upstairs. Sam (the black cat) standing by his food bowl, meowing to be fed. Abby (the yellow dog) outside, doing her best annoying bark but then just standing there when I hobble my heavy, throbbing, pitiful self to the door to let her in. She just stands there, wanting me to chase her. I hobble to the pantry for a Milk Bone, back to the door to offer it to her, and shoot her my best "oh my GOD please have mercy on me just this one time please I BEG YOU" expression. She just stares at me, unmoved. I shut the door and hobble back to the couch and then... WOOF. Repeat every 5 minutes.

The only thing that could make this worse (aside from, God forbid, going into labor right now) is Charlie waking up. And there are two distinct things that can wake him up: 1) the cat in his room, all the way upstairs. And 2) the dog at the door, under his window, barking incessantly. One of these must be solved.... so I'm trying to work up the nerve to attempt the stairs.

Oh. I forgot. There is also the every-five-minutes need to pee. If I ignore this request, my uterus immediately ups the ante with crippling Braxton-Hicks contractions. At this rate, my ice - and - elevate ratio will be 1 minute on, 15 minutes off.

The good news is, I'm off to bed. The bad news is, I have to sleep with my foot elevated - but can't sleep on my back, per pregnancy law. So that will be tricky. And the two wrist splints add an extra layer of comfort. Factor in the demanding WOOF every 5 minutes from the piece of shit dog and it's a party!!!!

SOB. I am deleting this post tomorrow.

Braggity Yogity

2009-04-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

I was driving to work this morning, listening to my favorite morning show, and somehow the topic of yoga came up. The female DJ wanted to try it, and of course, the male DJs just started going off. It was hysterical, I was laughing so hard that the security guard at my building started laughing when he saw me pull up.

Basically the guys were OM-ing and chanting and saying funny things about the poses. And one of the DJs was going off on the names of the postures, and how the teacher should just tell you what to do with your body parts, instead of spouting out names and being all "braggity yogity." I was laughing, and I am on the other side of this fence - but I know exactly what he's talking about!

If you're new to yoga, you have most likely been to a series of yoga classes in a fitness center - where in the same room, earlier that day, would have been kickboxing and cardio training. There's not a lot of yoga snobbery in those classes; that is fitness yoga, and perfectly wonderful for introducing you to yoga.

But if you have practiced for a while, and are ready to move on to deeper postures and a more personalized class, where the teacher knows your name and spends time with you - it's time to move to a dedicated yoga studio. It will change your approach to yoga entirely when you find the instructor and studio that is right for you - but you have to experiment to find the right combination. It's like finding a church - there's a feeling when you walk in, an energy that impacts you - you feel like you belong, or like you don't. On this journey, chances are, you will encounter the Yoga Snobs.

You never know where you will find them. They can intimidate you, make you feel like an impostor, make you rethink this whole "yoga" thing that you were enjoying so much. But it is worth it to find your place. In a good yoga studio, you are welcomed no matter your level of practice, and invited to modify and take breaks. If you are in a Snobby studio, the instructor will practically insist you try every posture, you will feel the need to compete with the yogi next to you, you will feel self-conscious about what you're wearing and how deep your lunges are.

A snobby studio can make you feel left out no matter which way you go - maybe you suddenly notice like your yoga pants are too shoddy, because the yogis around you are decked out in Lululemon with Manduka mats and fancy water bottles. Or, maybe it's the opposite - you stand out in your fancy new yoga clothes because everyone else is so earthy and unwashed. It can go either way - you can't predict, which is why you have to go in as yourself, and if that doesn't work, you keep looking.

In the yoga studio that is right for you, you fit right in. If you wear a cute new tank, your fellow yogis may comment on it - but they don't care if you wear an old one either. You don't have to force anything to feel right, to fit in. You respect your body and your limits - knowing that one day, you may feel great in a posture, and the next day, you need to take more breaks. The instructor may assist you - but in a way to help you, to get you deeper into a posture that you can go on your own, or to bring about relief so that you feel a release in a part of your body that may be tight (lower back, anyone?).

So back to the radio this morning.... those guys are right. There ARE yoga snobs, both teachers and students, that brag about the postures they can achieve or how they look or how little they care about how they look. When you have found the right place, you'll know it - because you won't be thinking about it. You'll be turning your attention inward, as you're supposed to do. You'll be taking breaks and modifying when you need to. You will learn to take it less seriously - if the teacher calls out a pose in sanskrit that you never heard of, you feel ok looking up and saying, "Huh?" If you are in search of a deeper, better practice - just keep looking.

Alonely

2009-03-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

Soon, and I can't say when because I don't want to be murdered in my own home, but sometime between now and several weeks from now, Joe is taking Charlie to Florida without me. This started out as a visit to the grandparents- Joe grew up in St Pete, home of lovely white beaches and blue water. Then the idea of Disney was thrown in - it's about 2 hrs away - and a day was added on and it became a Trip to Disneyworld.

Anyone I mention this trip to says, "Don't you want to go?"

Call me crazy. But I am super excited about this. First of all, I am 33 weeks pregnant and getting more pregnant every day. I am long past the desire to sit on a cramped airplane and waddle down the aisle 20 times to pee. Flight attendants would prefer that my water not break on their aircraft. Not to mention trying to balance my weeble-wobble belly while on my swollen feet all day at Disneyworld. But Joe has vacation to burn, and Charlie hasn't seen his grandparents in a while, and neither of them have seen Joe' s grandparents in a long while. So there are a lot of people there to see, people that will be happy to pay a lot of attention to Charlie and love on him. And Disneyworld? Come on!! How could I not be happy for my 4 yr old to experience that? What am I going to do, say don't take him since I'm not going to be there? To me, that's selfish. They're going to have a blast, and I'm happy for them, and I have zero concerns about Charlie's safety and welfare when he's with Joe. I am concerned that Charlie will be annoyed at Joe for constantly trying to feed him, but that's Joe's Italian heritage, it can't be denied, and hey I'm not there - it's their problem. Plus, I get Charlie to myself a lot. Joe doesn't, and it's good for them to have a bond, an experience that has nothing to do with me.

So what am I going to do? I am used to being away from Joe. I have been away from Charlie before, on business and vacations, and while it is always a little weird, this will be a new kind of weird since I will be in my OWN house. ALONE. Living my normal routine - getting ready for work. Walking the dog. Going to bed. All without having another person to deal with, for FOUR DAYS. The freedom makes me giddy. I know after a couple of days, I will be missing Charlie like anything. But I know this may never, ever happen again - at least until both kids are in college and I am too old and feeble to know - and one day, not too many weeks from now, there will be a squalling newborn and a regressing preschooler demanding my attention while most likely Joe will be overseas working and I will cry, cry cry for the solitude of these 4 days. So hell yeah, I'm excited. And yes I would like to see Charlie's face at Disneyworld. But I will someday, I'm sure. We will be back to Florida sometime when I'm not about to pop. And I'm not going to take that experience away from him simply because I'm not going.

I'm going to a yoga workshop for half of one day - and hopefully out to dinner with my yogi friends, a fabulous group of ladies that I hardly ever see these days. Maybe a movie and dinner with Ericka. A workout or yoga class just about every day. Walking the dog, going to bed late, waking up when I wake up, cereal for dinner, getting my own self and nobody else ready for work.

I really love my boy, I love having him around me. He's the best thing that ever happened to me. But it's good and healthy for everyone to have some time, and I'm excited!!!

Belly Shots

2009-03-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Quick entry here just to share some pics that Ericka O'Malley took of my belly and lil' ole family this weekend. Ericka is an amazing photographer!! Here is a sneak preview:

A Good Girl

2009-03-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Poor Abby.

She will be 9 years old in just over a week. Her life started out so fantastic - we were very into running, had no kids, she was our baby. For most of her life, she got a run 3 or 4 days a week and got at least one good walk every day. At 5 AM, before hitting the gym for our workouts, we would take Abby for a walk. She was a Priority.

Then came Charlie. For a long time, she didn't suffer terribly. Joe still usually walks her in the morning, and then in the evenings one of us would walk her while the other got baby Charlie ready for bed. In the summer, when it was nice, baby Charlie would get in the stroller and off we would go for our evening constitutional.

Then, Joe's travel schedule got busier. Morning walk: thing of the past. Evening walk: sometimes, if Charlie feels like going for a walk (bike ride), although he usually wants to play in the yard if it's nice or inside if it's not. So very often, there is no walk for a week or so. Abby is not happy about this and she lets me know by being contrary. Example: going outside to pee when I get home from work, and not coming back inside ever. Why this is unacceptable: barking at 3 AM, that's why. Also, standing at the door barking while I'm trying to relax or get Charlie to bed, then when I open the door, backing away. She wants me to chase her. You know it's out of control when your 4-yr old knows to stand just outside the back door in a crouch, arms spread wide, so that I can chase her around the pool and into Charlie the Blocker so together we can corral her into the house.

Last weekend, Joe and I were attempting the ol' block and steer. Joe went outside to try and get her solo (HA! fool, it can't be done) and I went to shut the door behind him. I saw her turning the corner toward the door, ready to be blocked, but I was unprepared. I heard Joe cry for help: "Lisa!!" and saw him rounding the corner but without a blocker in place, she cruised right on by. So they ran on, around the pool again. I glanced out the door and saw a rerun: Abby prancing by, delight in her eyes, and Joe rounding the corner crying for help: "Lisa!" Unfortunately I had no shoes on and it was COLD and rainy so I had to go get my shoes. The whole time I was doubled over in laughter at the folly of it all. Eventually, Abby tired of this game.

When God closes a door, He opens a window, so she came up with another fun game. Her latest trick involves slipping out the front door or garage door. This is much more fun as she can't easily be blocked and steered. It is especially fun around 8:30 on weekday mornings, when kids are on their bikes headed for school, and I am running late for work. The only Abby-collection method that has worked in this case: backing out the car, driving to the dog, and opening the back door. She jumps in, thinking we're going for a ride. HA! A ride to the garage. Fun for all!!

Hmph.

Green Day

2009-03-17T11:55:00.001-07:00

I don't have a picture to show you because I am really the worst mom in the world when it comes to taking pics... but imagine, if you will, a 4 year-old with a mop of blonde hair, an impish smile and major, major excitement about any holiday. Now imagine this child being told that if he doesn't wear green today, his friends will pinch him. Joy! Delight!! I have never seen him dress so fast unless it was a costume. Green from head to toe: green T-shirt, green track pants, even made sure there was green on his underwear. He had a dr appt this AM so we stopped for donuts first and yep, we had some green donuts. All of this, to Charlie, is for Patrick's Day. And Charlie knows two Patricks: the Patrick who married my cousin Sally and has real, actual swords, but as Charlie pointed out, the last time he saw this Patrick he was not four yet; and Patrick, Spongebob's sidekick. He doesn't seem confused at all. I think he thinks we are celebrating all Patricks today, so, OK. Happy Patricks' Day, all Patricks!!

The dr appt: pediatric cardiologist, to make sure the heart murmur that our usual pediatrician heard is normal. They did an EKG and an ultrasound, and thank goodness, the results were all normal.

In other news, if I knew someone who had just recently gotten a positive pregnancy test, I couldn't tell you, so I won't.

Happy Green Day!!

Objets d'art

2009-03-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

Every time Joe goes overseas he brings back lots of stuff. For Charlie, it's usually some kind of toys and costumes. When he goes to Europe I usually get chocolate. We have all kinds of sake sets, vases, figurines, etc all over the house from trips to Asia.

Friday night Charlie broke something that I'm surprised, frankly, it took him this long to break. The victim:

Here's the back; I just think it's funny:

As you can tell I Krazy-glued this guy back together as best I could. It's funny though, because it was one of those things that I didn't think much about until it got broken. Most of the time, something breaks, I trash it. No biggie. But this guy... there is a story behind him.

Joe was in Japan when we found out I was pregnant this last time. Actually, I found out while he was in mid-flight. It was a shock, to say the very least. And when Joe came home, he gave this little guy to Charlie and said "Charlie, this is what mommy is going to look like in a few months." RUDE, right? But funny. This is how we are - we kid. So here I am, bigger than ever, and my little fat man got broken so of course I had to do whatever I could to salvage him. Charlie was very sorry, he said he "threw the fat man too hard but it was an accident." He fails to understand that he was not to play with it at all, so throwing it lightly would not have been better.

This time, my gifts were very pretty: the hair clip below,

and these gorgeous chopsticks which I don't know what to do with but put in the china cabinet and admire. If I had enough hair I would use them in a fancy updo:

And the cracked fat man, well, he sits back in his place. Defiantly.

Yoga on Main St, Frisco - aka, A Shameless Plug

2009-03-04T07:21:00.001-08:00

Last year, the week of Valentine's Day, I taught my first ever yoga class. I remember exactly how nervous I was - and how excited. As part of my training for RYT 200, I had to complete a certain # of practice teaching hours, as well as donate 10 hours of "karma" yoga. So I approached the managers of the corporate fitness center where I work, and they agreed to let me teach 10 sessions for free. They even marketed the classes. I had an aerobics studio where I could dim the lights, and the gym provided mats, blocks and straps.

I wrote out a detailed class and created a playlist that matched it. The turnout was great. People wanted yoga!! Most classes had a core group of regulars, but there was usually at least one new face, which was great. After 10 classes, the gym asked me to continue on a paid basis and I was thrilled. So now it's been a year. I still love teaching yoga. I love my students, and I have long since abandoned the pre-planned class. I'm not nervous, and I create the class on the fly. It's fun.

Then late last year, my friend from training, the fabulous Selena, approached me and some other teachers about teaching at her new studio to be opening early this year. But I can't do two classes a week, with my work commitments, Joe's travel schedule and Charlie's pesky need for adult supervision. But I found that teaching where I work does somewhat limit my growth as a teacher. It's hard to lose the corporate attitude when you're still on-site. Maybe an outsider could come in without that baggage, but after a long day at work, the quarter-mile trek to the gym isn't far enough for me to drop it. And as a result, some of the elements of my teaching are getting stagnant.

So as great as it has been, I am moving on, and I hope if you're in the area you will come find me!! Monday nights, 6 PM. Or try any of the other classes (all of the instructors there are first-class, I can tell you with no bias whatsoever)! The first class is free!!! And the studio ROCKS!! It's gorgeous!! Salena did a great job and the whole place is as green as can be.

Here's a schedule. Have fun and I hope to see you there!!

Yoga on Main St

Short

2009-02-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

It was a hard week.

Joe is still gone. I don't feel good. I don't know why, maybe it's the fact that I've been eating crap and staying up too late? And nearly 30 weeks pregnant? Could have something to do with it. Also, this was first workweek (aka financial close), a notoriously horrifying week full of deadlines that you can't do anything to prepare for, for a few days life really sucks and I question why, oh why didn't I pursue that medical degree instead? If I'm going to be stressed, could the work at least be satisfying?

So it was a hard week to be a working mom. I didn't have enough time with Charlie. When I did, I was half-distracted on my laptop trying to get some things knocked off the list for the next day. We usually have better balance. Work is not usually as busy, Joe is usually around to help and entertain us. If every week was like this, I couldn't do it. I don't know how the superachieving working moms do it - the guilt is a bear, let me tell you.

I don't know if Charlie notices or cares, honestly. He's more into his friends than me right now anyway. We went to the Knopps' for dinner and Charlie was invited to sleep over with Zane. Normally, the idea of a sleepover is heavenly. A great night's sleep? Sign me up!! I know Charlie would be fine over there. Zane is more like a cousin than a friend, I'm totally comfortable with him being there. But I couldn't deal with any more absence this week. I talked them into coming over here instead. And here they are, upstairs, fast asleep, good little boys that they are. And here I am, dimwit, at 11:30 on the computer instead of in bed catching up on that sleep.

On that note, I'm outta here. I have a new magazine and I'm hitting the sack.

All the single ladies...

2009-02-24T13:14:00.001-08:00

Joe is out of town now so it's just me, Charlie, the dog, the cats, my job, the yoga class I teach, Charlie's school, swim lessons, trash day, dr appts, and the carpet cleaners.

I mean, it's just us, with a lot and a lot of stuff to do.

Single moms - you are amazing. I hope you know that we know that. Joe is a wonderful husband and pulls his weight and all that. Sure, I do more of the childcare and the dropping off / picking up. He works more hours. But overall, we share, so when he is gone, it reaaaaaalllly sucks. Mornings, in particular, are a beating. I usually do mornings even when he's here but a) he does 1-2 a week and b) all the extra stuff is not on me as well. The ideal looks like this:

6:15 alarm: I get up, wash face / moisturize, wet hair, drink coffee, have quiet newspaper time (a must)
6:45ish: I start really getting ready (makeup, hair, clothes)
7:00: Charlie up, goes pee and gets dressed
7:15: Charlie and I sit at table and eat breakfast together
7:35: brush teeth, wash face
7:45: out the door
8:15: arrive at work

Here is the reality:

6:15: I get up / wash face/ moisturize / wet hair / drink coffee /read paper for very long time
7:00: Start hair / makeup. Should get Charlie up but is nice to be able to focus and not fetch drinks, etc
7:20: wake Charlie up. He is annoyed and pulls covers up, GO AWAY.
7:40: Charlie finally up. Gets dressed, but wants to put on pajamas (he took them off sometime before falling asleep so wakes up naked)
7:45: Charlie sitting on couch in pajamas with donut or Saltines and chocolate milk (only thing he is willing to eat)
8:00: Bring down clothes and force Charlie to let me get him dressed or I'm turning off the TV.
8:05: Charlie wants eggs. How can I not let him have protein after saltines or donut?
8:25: Agree he can skip toothbrushing if he will get shoes on and get in the car NOW.
8:30: Remember dog is outside, stir crazy from lack of morning walk, and will bark all day plus back fence is about to fall down. Redirect Charlie to help me capture horribly behaved dog.
8:35: Give up on dog.
8:36: Remember it is trash / recycle day. Roll cans to curb.
8:45: Arrive at Charlie's school.
9:00: Arrive at work. Exhale.

What? Where?

2009-02-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

One of the many joys of pregnancy and motherhood is the complete loss of brain function. Some say the baby eats your brain, and there may very well be some phsyiological proof of this because I am living in a freaking cloud, man.

I have sooooo much to do. I now go to the OB every 2 weeks. I have to do the diabetes test tomorrow. You know, where you drink orange syrup and wait around for an hour and then they take your blood. Charlie had to get bloodwork this week too; he assures me that it doesn't hurt, but he is a liar because he screamed the whole time. I don't blame him. THREE vials of blood from my baby!!! And not even a spiderman bandaid?!

Anyway, so diabetes test, and when I was pregnant with Charlie I failed the first test and got to enjoy the three-hour version. Wherein you drink orange syrup, wait around for an hour, they take your blood, you wait around another hour, they take your blood again, and so on. So I am trying to stay away from sugar today (not good at this) because I don't want to fail this one and dammit, my body KNOWS how to handle sugar. We have an understanding about sugar.

Also, I am teaching yoga on Monday nights again (yay), and Joe is leaving town soon, and while he's gone I have signed up to read at Charlie's school and he has a dentist appt and a pediatric cardiologist appt (no worries) and I have a hair appt and I agreed to teach a free yoga class at Lululemon, Charlie has swim lessons on Friday nights, I work full time by the way, next week is financial close (my busy time) and oh my gosh. I would be completely stressed if I wasn't so clueless.

So the other day, I was in the cafeteria, chatting with my friend and I put my tupperware in the microwave and kept chatting. My boss came up, I wasn't really paying attention but I saw her, my food was done so I got it out and as we walked back to our desks we ran into my boss. Again. At the upstairs microwaves. She was staring at my tupperware.

"It was YOU!" she accused, pointing at my food.

???

"I was heating up my food, went to get a drink and came back, and someone had shoved their food in front of mine and started the microwave again!"

Yes, ladies and gents. Of all the people in all the world, I shoved my boss's food behind mine and proceeded to overcook it. And this was after I had walked out of the cafe without paying for my salad and then when I went back to pay for it, I left it on the counter.

Did I tell you about the one where I instant messaged my friend about my boss? And made some comment that was very clearly about our boss:

"She gave us X and Y but not Z? What the F%^& does she expect me to tie to?"

but I didn't send it to my friend at all? Sent it to my boss. Yeahhhh.

So I am NOT all there. My head is in a fog, almost all the time.

The end.

Valentine Schmalentine

2009-02-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

It's Valentine's night, and I'm sitting on the couch between two four year old boys, watching Wolverine and eating popcorn as fast as I can shovel it in. Joe is at the gym, then going to meet some visiting European coworkers for a drink afterwards. And I will be honest... I am pretty dang happy right now. Joe is a rockin' husband all year long, Valentine's Day be damned.

I don't know what got into us this weekend. It was a double-sleepover weekend. Last night, Blake and Charlie had swim lessons, and when they got home the boys asked if he could stay over. His parents said OK too. So we went through the bubble bath, toothbrushing, reading books nighttime routine.... then Blake came out of the bedroom.

"I miss my brother."

I tried to talk him out of it. We called his parents, and they put his brother on the phone, they said goodnight and Blake was good to go. Then a little while later, the door cracked open.

"Miss Lisa? I miss my brother."

So over his mom came to get him (from across the street), and asked if Charlie wanted to go home with them. "Yay yay yay!" So Charlie spent the night at Blake's. Fun Fun. I have to admit, it was really odd to be in our own house all night without Charlie. But he did great. And how cute is that, that Blake missed his brother so much? What a sweet relationship they have.

Then tonight, Zane was over playing. Well, what the heck. Just stay over. So that gets us here, now - on the couch, both wanting to snuggle with me (awe, what girl doesn't love having two boys fighting over her?), both boys are yawning and soon will be heading to bed.

I have such great memories of sleepovers as a kid. I'm sure I was older than 4. But I had a great friend across the street, Kerry. We slept over a lot. And then as an older kid - and a teenager - it was practically every weekend, sleeping over or having someone sleep over. So yeah, I will go in the bedroom from time to time and tell the boys to hush. And I will probably threaten that the friend will have to go home. But I am a little jealous of them, the joy they feel and the illicit excitement of staying up later than usual and getting away with playing just a little longer. And I will use my stern voice, and I will mean business!! But when I shut the door behind me, I will hide my little smile, knowing they have hidden a toy under the covers and they think they got away with it.

Update! Funny thing just happened. Zane is TIRED. A few minutes ago he asked to go to bed, that's how tired he is. Charlie is tired, but not ready to go yet, just a few more minutes till the show is over he says. So both boys are tired and fragile. There is 1 (one) Batman blanket, large. They are to be sharing it on the couch but Zane wants it to himself. So Zane ran into the playroom and threw himself facedown on the beanbag chair. I wish I had a picture! But it's mean to take pictures of crying children. So of course, this is not my child, I have no reason not to spoil him, so I said sure, you can have the Batman blanket to yourself. So happily he runs back to the couch, Charlie starts fake crying that HE wants the Batman blanket. Of course he never cares what blanket he uses, he is just doing this because Zane wants it. So Charlie up and runs into the playroom and throws himself facedown on the beanbag chair with the most pitiful fake cry ever. What a copycat! And what a bunch of bunk. These boys are tired. They are going to bed now.

Product Reviews #1

2009-02-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

Hello, my name is Lisa, and I am a product junkie. My weaknesses lean mostly towards hair products and skin care (especially eye creams). But a good writeup on just about any product in InStyle or Allure magazine can catch my eye. It is extremely rare for me to be loyal to any product - even if it's working OK, what if another brand worked BETTER? And no, CVS doesn't have much appeal - I am most susceptible in Nordstrom, Sephora, Saks. So it can be a dangerous addiction but then, how could I resist something that could change my life, even if it's overpriced?? Plus, all those stores have great return policies. I don't feel at all bad about returning something that was overpriced AND doesn't work.

So not only as a public service, but as a self-protecting mechanism (I don't want to accidentally try the same pitiful product twice), from time to time I will chronicle my experiences with new products here. First up: Liquid Keratin, Armani Face Fabric Foundation, and DiorShow mascara.

Liquid Keratin Price: $70 for kit (2-3 uses per kit, each use lasts 6 weeks) Premise: a gentle, at-home version of the usual salon-based Keratin straightening treatments. This product is not a hair straightener - it promises to eliminate frizz and loosen curls.
Why I wanted to try: I was so excited about this. I have curly hair, but the curls are not uniform and tend toward poofy and frizzy. I don't necessarily want straight hair - I want to keep the texture of curls, but looser. The reviews on the web raved about this so I was super excited that it would work. You wash, spray with treatment, let treatment sit for a while (10 or 30 min I think), then blow dry and flat iron at high heat. Don't get hair wet for 48 hours. Then, next time you wash and air dry, you are supposed to see the results.
Results: my hair looked exactly the same as before the treatment. AND, I had to wear my hair stick straight for two days, which I don't love to do, AND it kinda stinks a little. So I had stinky, straight hair for nothing. The only good thing is, there is no damaging agent in this product - so I didn't harm my hair by trying it.
Outcome: Stupid stuff. It's going back to Ulta ASAP.

Armani Face Fabric Foundation Price: $45
Why I wanted to try: I didn't really. I was just at Saks, waiting for Ally to buy her stuff, killing time, and next thing I know I see my 6 months pregnant, post-3 hour flight face in a mirror and when the saleswoman approached me, how could I convincingly tell her I didn't need a thing?? I looked wretched.
Results: fabulous. This is the smoothest, blendiest, softest foundation I have ever tried. A tiny bit goes a loooong way. I absolutely love putting it on, the way it feels on, and the way my skin looks with it on. My skin feels smooth and poreless. I will definitely buy this again and at this price, why not?

Dior Show Mascara $24
Why I wanted to try: this product has been in all the fashion magazines for a couple of years now and always shown as a celebrity favorite. Hey, if Mary-Kate and Ashley swear by it, it must be good, right? But I have super skimpy lashes, so I didn't think anything would work, and I am not spending $24 on mascara. Well, I guess I would, of course, I am a junkie. But I hadn't fallen for it yet. I got a free sample at Saks after I bought the fab Armani foundation.
Result: suck. Mascara is mascara. My first instinct was right - nothing will help if your lashes are already skimpy. I have my eye on Revitalash, the glaucoma treatment-turned-lash grower that is pending FDA approval. But this was nothing. Plus it has this ginormous brush. What the heck? How am I supposed to get every little lash using a mascara brush designed for the Incredible Hulk? Don't waste your $; try L'Oreal Voluminous. It's not perfect either but it works better than this at 1/4 the price.

DC

2009-02-10T08:18:00.001-08:00

I had a great, albeit short, trip to DC. Spent an afternoon / evening / morning with Ally. We shopped a little, ate a little, and worked out a little. Lauren is sooo sweet. She's 3 now and I was surprised that she remembered me as much as she did - although she did confuse me with Aunt Ashley. As Ally and I told her, we're not really sisters, it just feels like it.

Then I went to see Liz - ahem, Chris, Amanda, and baby Liz. Oh. My. God. She is the sweetest little baby!! I am horrible at taking pictures - I forget the camera, or leave it upstairs, or the batteries die, or whatever. But mainly I just loved watching her, holding her, bonding with her. She is a happy baby. And why shouldn't she be, her parents rock! They are great with her, very laid-back and natural. I'm taking notes. I did not see one emotional breakdown and I was there for almost 3 days!

Liz is so warm and snuggly, and I think she likes me too. Here she is in her jumpy / bouncy thing for the first time:

Here she is in the Bumbo seat for the first time, looking exactly like her daddy:

So yeah, she is pretty dang cute, I would have brought her home but my suitcase was full. So full, in fact, that I couldn't get it in the overhead bin without taking some stuff out and putting it in an American Airlines bag. Yes, I was the pregnant woman heaving a huge suitcase and holding up the line. So sue me. My upper body strength isn't what it used to be and it would have been nice to have some help with that. Bunch o' jerks.

While I was there I made mental lists of stuff we need to get for the new baby. We have a lot leftover from Charlie but stuff seems to be way cooler and more fun now. Kristyn gave us Matthew's Bumbo seat, yay! Things I think we still need: monitor, Graco snap n' go, bouncer ie., like the above. Borrowing a pump from a friend (pump 'n style) or the one my company subsidizes and Bridget likes (PJs comfort). What else? What are the must-have baby items of 2009?

OH MY GOSH. Forgot to add this! Must have baby-related item for 2009, purchased for me by my sis-in-law, who evidently knows me well:

Seriously. Why didn't I think of this??

Charlie's New Room and Hiking Pics

2009-02-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

Saturday was gorgeous, in the 70s and sunny. We spent a while hiking at Eisenhower State Park (near Lake Texoma) - it's really pretty there with good trails for short hikes which are good when you have short hikers. We took an extra shorty with us, Morgan. Some pics:

Last weekend when Tony was here, the guys moved Charlie across the hall, into his new digs. I love it! The room is so much bigger than his old room. Sorry about the dark, I am not the best photog out there!!! Turns out we don't even need a new chair.

Sooooo, they also brought down Charlie's old crib and now it's sitting in Charlie's old room, unassembled, and it is starting even now to look like a baby room again. Sigh... I am starting to get really excited about this baby. Even though it means I may not sleep for another year or two. The pregnancy hormones, they are a magical thing.

25 Random Things

2009-01-26T08:13:00.001-08:00

Several of my Facebook friends tagged me for 25 Random Things. They're hard to write, but fun to read, so here goes. Feel free to send me yours!!!

1. I can’t eat meat that is in the shape that the animal was when alive (i.e., shrimp, turkey leg, lobster tail).
2. I believe that there is a huge difference between spirituality and religion. I am spiritual, but not religious.
3. I learned far more about myself in the process of becoming a mother than I did spending the previous 30 years devoted to myself.
4. I love the beach and everything to do with it (sunscreen, sand, grilled fish, cold beer, fruity drinks).
5. I am an avid reader. I feel a little panicky when I don’t have anything planned to read next.
6. Every morning, I drink coffee and read the newspaper. I read the obituaries to try to find out why the young people died.
7.I have control issues.
8. I feel the need to brush my teeth after eating almost anything – I can’t stand the leftover taste of food in my mouth.
9. I need 9 hours of sleep a night or I am a total bitch.
10. Yoga changed my life. It started out as a fun workout, but it is so much more. It keeps my head and heart on track and helps me to appreciate my life on a whole new level.
11. My mother is one of my best friends. She is really the best mom ever and just such a great lady; I wish I had known this 20 years ago when I was giving her hell.
12. I was born on a naval base in Kauai, Hawaii. Even though we moved away within a year, I consider myself a native Hawaiian!!
13. I love my 1996 Acura Integra (Foxy Mama). I hope she lasts us another 3 years!!
14. I like lemonade and water and tea but I haaaate lemon in my ice water or iced tea.
15. I like to have dessert every night (and a big one – brownie and ice cream, cookies, cake).
16. I swam on the swim team all through elementary school and then in high school. In high school, I was only an alternate (aka barely made the cut).
17. My son is the funniest person on the planet.
18. After getting together with friends, I often obsess over whether I talked too much and was obnoxious.
19. When I saw the movie 8 Seconds (with Luke Perry as Lane Frost), I wanted to marry a bullrider more than anything in the world.
20. My longest-lasting celebrity crush was (is) John Corbett, especially during his second stint as Aidan Shaw on SATC.
21. My favorite activity is floating in my pool with a magazine.
22. My husband is my favorite travel companion. We want to see the world!! But not the stinky places.
23. After seeing the world we want to retire on a beach.
24. A really great salad is just as appealing to me as a steak and loaded baked potato.
25. The older I get, the less I care what other people do - but the more I feel they should have the right to do whatever they want.

Real Housewives??

2009-01-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

I am several seasons (years?) behind the curve here. But one day I accidentally watched Real Housewives: Orange County and immediately was hooked. It's not quite a train wreck. The women are nice enough and all, and in general they don't do anything really wrong. They party a lot, so what. They wear expensive clothes and show their cleavage a lot, so what. They are all beautiful, and someone has to do their makeup for them, because nobody shows up at lunch on a weekday with their makeup just so. But it's just a show. It's entertaining.

But I wouldn't really want to hang out with them.

For one, the pressure! I couldn't handle the constant judging, the one-upping, the "I have this you have that." The race to see who can get the best table at the trendy new restaurant first. I like to buy clothes, sure, but not as a competitive sport. Once you enter that spiral, it seems that it will never end. You buy a vacation home in one hotspot, but you can't relax and enjoy it for long because soon it will be outdated and you will need to move on to the next hotspot before everyone else knows about it. Give me a beachhouse and I'm good - I don't care if it's a hotspot or not!

Then the wasted energy spent on looks. The wives' personalities are all different, but in general, the goal is to look younger and hotter than everyone else. Who really, in real life, cares that much? Why waste so much energy trying to look 17 when you're 45? Not only is it pointless (the one wife that talks the most about being obsessed with youth actually looks the oldest and most haggard, in my opinion) - but what a waste of time! Just be your most beautiful at whatever age you are and do something else with your time.

I most strongly identify with Vicki, the klutzy workaholic. Vicki is portrayed as a weirdo, a control freak, obsessed with making a buck. Maybe she is extreme - she does have her laptop with her everywhere she goes - but finding work more riveting than daily facials doesn't make you weird. I finally accepted the shocking truth that working brings me fulfillment, so I see where she is coming from. I think my husband would LOVE it if I was as obsessed with making a buck as Vicki is!

The stay at home moms don't get any better treatment. I know stay at home moms. They aren't as clueless and spoiled as their counterparts on TV portray them. They don't shop all day every day and have professional chefs cook their friends 8-course meals and then complain that they work their asses off. More likely they're shuttling kids to and from school and activities, volunteering in their schools, grocery shopping, and squeezing in a workout if they get a chance for some sanity time. The SAHMs on TV come off surfacey and spoiled, but it's all a fantasy. The stay at home moms I know have made financial sacrifices to stay home and it's a luxury to go out to lunch, or shop, or get a pedicure - it's not a given every day of their lives.

Anyway, I am addicted, but not because I want their lives. Well, maybe I want ONE day in the life. One day a month would be nice! But for a lifetime - I'd rather chitchat with my friends about the real things in life - our kids, trips we want to take, changes we want to make to our houses - all knowing that we all can't do it all that day. The reality is that a lot of the joy in life is in the dreaming, not just the doing; our priorities will shift and change and we don't have to try to keep up with anyone else.

Baby Dumb

2009-01-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

When we had Charlie I was so incredibly clueless. My mom too - bless her heart, she had not been around babies since my brother and I were born some 30-odd years ago. Joe has a right-here-right now attitude, meaning, you do what you do to get by right now. My mom and I were obsessed with what was the "right" thing to do to establish good sleeping / eating patterns for later. So when Joe went back to work, my mom and I would sit there all day with this newborn, surrounded by all the books my friends and the internet recommended: Babywise, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, the Baby Whisperer, Happiest Baby on the Block. We called the triage nurse at the pediatrician's office and asked some really stupid questions (aka, "my six day old seems to have days and nights mixed up. What should I do?" Scarily - there was an answer - and it DID NOT WORK). I can tell you with absolute certainty that none of these resources and nothing helped except time.

So now I have been there, done that. I'm more relaxed. I think my expectations now are more in line with reality - no I will not be getting 10 hours of sleep a night at one week old. No books, thank you - will wing it and follow my gut this time!

Well then. A couple of nights ago, I had to move books out of the bookcase so Joe could move the bookcase for the painter and I ran across a book that has been mentioned a lot lately. Babywise. I had never really read any of these books - I flipped through 4 years ago desperately looking for an answer to my sleep "problem" - and I had nothing to read that night so I thought why not, let me actually sit down and read and digest this concept.

So for the last few nights I have been reading it, and all is well, but I'm still waiting for the part that actually tells me what to DO. There's the part that says, make sure your baby isn't hungry before feeding it. There's the part that says, it's OK for babies to cry a little. There's the part that says, don't conclude each feeding with sleeptime. All of this seems well and good, who would argue with any of that? But what do I DO? What is it telling me? And why is it that this book seems to be so controversial? Some people have told me, "You gotta do Babywise!" Others have said, "It's horrible!" I don't know? What exactly IS it? How do you "do" Babywise (or any other infant care theory)? And how can it be so great or so horrible when I can't even figure out what it is?

So for all you lurkers who read this blog and never comment, but then tell me later that you read it, I am officially asking for your comments this time. Or you can email me if you want because this does seem to be a topic that makes people crazy. Just explain the Baby Wise theory, or the Happiest Baby theory, or the Sleep Whisperer theory. Or explain your theory and why it works. I (and the psychiatrist I have lined up just in case I go insane basketcase again) thank you!!!

1982

2009-01-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

One of my Facebook friends from elementary school posted this photo on her Facebook page. It's so fun! Can you find me?

I'm bottom row, third from the right. I told you I was a natural blonde!!! Right above me is my Ally. She looks exactly the same - her skin has always been so tight there will never be a wrinkle found on her - but she doesn't usually go for pigtails anymore. Isn't she the cutest thing ever? And what about me - cute huh? Oh man, this kinda makes me want a little girl! I had the most fun childhood ever. And this photo just captures it all - me, Ally, swimming and sunshine. And the rest of the Meadows, Texas bunch - all crazy kids roaming free all summer long. That pool was nothing special. It was big, but it was just a rectangle; there was a low dive that we ignored, and a high dive that kids fell off of and broke their arms. Those kids were told to be more careful - nobody considered removing the high dive! There was no sprayground, no waterslide, no beach entrance, no toys. It was just a pool. And we loved it!!

What a Man

2009-01-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty great day for me. All three of us woke up around 8am , the guys went out and got doughnuts for them and a Benny's Breakfast Sandwich for me, and I had my daily cup of half-caf while they were gone. Then we set out on separate errands: I was going to have the Pilot maintenance done, go to the grocery store, and the gym if there was time. They were going to Joe's work, get Foxy Mama's tires rotated and balanced, and get Charlie's haircut. We would meet somewhere for a quick lunch, and then I was headed to Nordstrom for a special Laura Mercier spa day!!!

Well! It got even better because the Pilot maintenance would have taken 3 hours so I quickly said um.... no, to that. Went to the gym and the grocery store. Came back, met Joe and Charlie for haircut and McDonald's, and then to the mall. All in all - a great day.

I give props to my fantabulous husband, who I usually just complain about not letting me buy stuff, but who, if you have been paying attention, had Charlie all day long and did a lot of non-fun things while most of what I was doing ended up being fun things. When I came home from my spa makeover, he even had an extra kid over here, and they were doing things like magic tricks with balloons and static electricity. Meanwhile, he had washed and put away several loads of laundry. The amazing thing about this - it's not even unusual. He is just that kind of a guy.
So I offered to pour Joe a glass of wine and run him a bubble bath, but he opted for the guy version which is going to the gym and out for a beer with the guys.

I won the lottery with this guy.

Champagne Tastes

2009-01-08T06:35:00.000-08:00

So we're in the process of moving Charlie into the guest room. In my opinion, it's the best bedroom in the house - it faces the backyard instead of fronting the street like the rest of the rooms. It's bigger than his current room. And it has a bay window. We've never done much with it being a guest room and all, but it has potential, so it's really an upgrade for him.

Sooooooo, of course this all started with very little in terms of investment needed. Charlie has a bed and dresser and bookcase, they would just move with him, and we are reusing his crib and bedding, so we just need a new bookcase and dresser for the baby, a couple of minor changes for his new room (new lamp, curtains, etc) and we're all set. I had been eyeing these for quite a while:

and I was kinda thinking about getting a set, either 2 to stack like shown, or one under each window... but it seemed so pricey... and then... what about a window seat? Like this:

Ours would be white to match the trim and I would want drawers instead of the top lifting up - oh and a cushion for the top. What a great idea!! What a way to use that space and really capture the essence of the bay window and the view of the pool and backyard (and neighbor's pool and backyard, Ha!)!! How hard could that be to build? Just some wood, a couple of drawers... Joe just laughs. He thinks I am just determined to find a way to spend all of our money and never be satisfied. But that's not it! It is just soooo perfect!! I dreamed it, I envisioned it - I could make it happen! I can just see Charlie, curled up on his windowseat on a rainy day, reading a book or studying in his cozy little space.

So I called our beloved carpenter and got an estimate and then just about fell out of my chair. Evidently it is a lot of wood. And a lot of angles or some such. He offered to come out and remeasure but I seriously doubt my measurements were off by THAT much. I don't have the energy to call around and get more estimates and anyway, damn. At least it was so much that it is out of the question. The stacking bins seem like a bargain now!

Sometimes it really sucks, being such a visionary.

Birthdays and Babies

2009-01-03T20:52:00.000-08:00

Lots of important things going on and I'm tired so I am going to have to resort to bullets.

Charlie will be 4 years old next Sunday. FOUR. It is unbelievable to me, in two opposite ways. It feels like he has grown into this big, independent kid so fast - and also the opposite, only four short years ago he wasn't even around. I can't imagine not hearing that little voice every day. In other news, he never.stops.talking. I mean, ever. We celebrated with friends and our neighbors whose son Blake is exactly a week older than Charlie and the boys are good friends. Aren't they cute??

I have popped. I am enormous and unwieldy. But, I feel really good overall so yay!!

Our good friends had their first baby this week and he just may be the cutest thing ever. As you may know, I am not the most nurturing mother hen around. The idea of newborns really can make me gag and that is not a comforting attitude when you're halfway through a pregnancy. But happily, something seems to have shifted in me that has made more room for our new baby because being around our friend's baby makes me just want to snuggle and rock and kiss and change diapers and all that newborn stuff that usually makes me want to scream and run the other direction. Bridget, if you are reading this between diaper changes and nursing, know that sweet little Dantes is working his spell on me right now!! That "how will I love a new child as much" fear also seems to have run its course - I just feel a sense of calm and excitement now for our new bundle. I guess I know it will suck in the beginning, but maybe, just maybe, I will enjoy it more this time knowing that it only gets better.

Photo ops that didn't happen: New Year's and Charlie's visit with us to the sonogram. I would have loved to have pics of both of these fun things (the baby actually "waved" to us and Charlie got a kick out of that) but I just can't seem to handle both participating in an event and documenting it. I wish I could but it always seems like there is one split second to take a photo and if I stop to take a photo, I'll miss it.

Big concern right now: Monday morning. ???? How is this going to go? We have had about two weeks of staying up late / sleeping in and tomorrow is IT. Back to reality Monday A.M. I'll be happy to see my friends but 8:30??? How??

Background on the poll: Charlie is moving into the former guest room so the baby can have his room (his new room will be bigger so it's an upgrade). ONE of us thinks that we can keep the rocker / glider in the baby room and ONE of us thinks Charlie should get to keep it in his room and get a new one for the baby room. Casual side note, I just rocked him in that very chair tonight. Yes, for the first time in a while but behold the power of the glider / rocker!! Casual side note from the other parent: "Charlie is almost five." Let's clarify: Charlie will be four in a week, I do not call that almost five. Now, armed with facts, vote your conscience.

OK, I take it back... partially

2008-12-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

OK, OK. I admit it... Christmas was pretty darn awesome. Weather aside (and Christmas Day was mild here, thank goodness after a week of frrreeeeezzing cold), it was a blast. There is nothing like an excited, happy almost-4-year-old child on Christmas morning. Bonus: my parents and friends here to share the holiday with us. Take away the frenzied Christmas shopping, the cold weather, hectic travel plans and ill-fated cookie baking,and you have yourself a pretty great holiday. Some highlights:

Leaving treats for Santa and the reindeer:

Charlie and all his loot:

And with my parents, the givers of his favorite overall gift (red Ironman):

Baby Sipka even got his/her first gift (Halo Sleepsack) - evidently these are really great. I don't think we tried them with Charlie so it will be fun to see if the new baby likes them. We have our next (and final??) sonogram on Monday and we will probably take Charlie with us. Woohoo!!!

Hope you are having a happy holiday weekend!!

Eh, Christmas

2008-12-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

Is Christmas your favorite time of the year?

Nice people, warm and cozy people say it is. They LOVE the Christmas spirit!! Oh, snow and hot chocolate, baking cookies, how nice!!! I mean, really, it does sound nice. And it's certainly not horrible or anything, I'm not saying it is a BAD time. It's just not my fave. Yes, I like friends and family getting together - holidays are a great excuse to bring a group together and that is always fun. And it is fun to see Charlie get excited about gifts and Santa Claus. But Charlie gets excited about lots of things. A free cookie from the bakery at the grocery store makes him happy. When he sees a toy he thinks he would like, he always says, "can I get that someday?" and then he forgets all about it. If he got the toy, he would be happy - but he probably won't think about it again.

But ick. It's cold out. Cold and wet, not snowy, and we're kinda stuck inside. Allergies always start kicking my butt this time of year, when the weather goes ballistic. It gets dark early. And I suffer from (self diagnosed) ADD. I can't sit still inside, watching movies all day long. I can't stand baking. Every year I get caught up in the spirit, and roll out the dough and break out the cookie cutters, just to end up up pissed off and Joe and Charlie say, "we like the break and bake cookies with Christmas trees printed on them, why did you bother with all that crap?"

I think the solution is to move to Australia, where it's summer this time of year, so we could have a Christmas in the warm sunshine. The ideal Christmas day for me: breakfast, followed by floating in the pool with the family and a frosty beverage. I guess a few token presents for the kids but as an aside, not the center of the celebration. A nice, early dinner (Joe's famous filet mignon and a Greek salad sounds good) followed by an early bedtime for the kids and maybe a DVD for us. Perfect!!

Parlez-vous Francais??

2008-12-18T19:12:00.000-08:00

Ola! This will be a quick update as I have been up since 3:30 am and am about to keel over.

In summary: Mexico in December = highly recommended!!! Temps in the low 80s - with the ocean breezes never got hot enough to actually "need" to get in the ocean (but couldn't resist playing in the waves anyway). I did feel twinges of guilt when I called home and Mom informed me that the streets had iced over and it didn't get over 30 one day. But just twinge. She let me know that Charlie behaved wonderfully the whole time and it was good for them to have the alone time together too.

Also recommended: Mexico sans kiddos!! Joe and I had a great time. It was really nice to just completely relax, do exactly what we felt like doing which was lay out all day long and eat whenever we felt like it and not cook or clean anything. Believe it or not, my workaholic husband really CAN relax. The trick is just to get him away from it all - the house, the office, etc and despite a little upfront whining, he really gets into the swing of things. We have fun together, always have, and it's great to get to just focus on us now and then.

By the third night we were really missing Charlie but you know what? That is a good thing. Sometimes the day-to-day drudgery of work, parenting, just the business of living a life makes it all so rote, so unexciting. But by night three I was physically craving my little boy. It was a good break.

I would say we came back refreshed, closer than ever, and ready to get back into the swing of things, and all that is true except for one detail: because Joe had to travel to CA today for work, we had to catch the red-eye back this morning. That's right, folks. We were the only sober people awake at 4 AM in Cancun. The operator at the hotel, when a wakeup call was requested: "4 AM? WHY?" The shuttle driver: "What? Are you sure? Am I picking you up from a club??" So yes I'm beat and on the first day back from a wonderful, relaxing trip!! But it could be worse. I could be in CA on business (sorry Joe). I have to remember, it's our jobs that enable these trips, so can't complain too loudly when they interfere with the ideal plans.

So the title of the post refers to a phenomenon that I notice when I am in Mexico or otherwise trying to speak Spanish. Growing up in Texas one picks up quite a bit of Spanish. Most normal students take Spanish in high school but oh noooo, not me. Waaaay too conventional for me!! I took French. I went on to take a few semesters of French in college. I have only been to France twice. I have been to Mexico now 5 times.

Aside: The first 2 trips were in high school and college (over - gulp - 15 years ago). The other 3 trips have been in the last 20 months; see what having kids does to your passport?? It just naturally happens - trips become a matter of fast / cheap / easy. And the Mexican Caribbean is really, truly beautiful. And it just so happens, a 2 hr direct flight from here. I'm not trying to give it a bad rap... just saying that's why I'm not getting new stamps in my passport. OK?

So obviously, I have much more need for Spanish in my real life. I practice all the key phrases in my head. But when I am in Mexico, a funny thing happens - the Spanish goes out the window and I'm suddenly practically fluent in French!!! I hate the Ugly American stereotype, I really really do, especially because I think it is well-founded. When you're in another country, do you ever notice other Americans and get embarrassed for us? We speak too loudly, are too pushy, just assume that every last citizen of every country in the world should speak English. I think it's just polite, even if we all know that everyone in the world speaks English, to at least attempt to speak the native tongue when you are the visitor. It would reassure me to think, well, I'm not reinforcing the Ugly American stereotype - I'm posing as a French person therefore reinforcing the Rude French Stereotype. But see, clearly my French is only that good in my head, since no matter what I say, the response comes back in English.

Bon soir, mes amis.

Mr & Mrs Scrooge

2008-12-11T07:55:00.001-08:00

It's so funny to me how different people are when it comes to celebrating and gift giving and receiving. Not right vs wrong - different, as in just not the same.

My friend Kristyn was over the other night and we were talking about Christmas presents. She had done some shopping for her husband, and she saw some boxes of gifts that he had ordered for her. Very sweet, very traditional and normal. I haven't been over there in a couple of weeks but I imagine under their tree, there are lots of wrapped gifts. Things she thought of for her husband and her son, maybe other family members, several months ago and ordered in plenty of time for the holidays. Their whole house just oozes Christmas charm. It's very sweet, very warm and I wish someone would come do that to my house.

At our house, we have a half-assembled fake Christmas tree shoved into the corner of the dining room. Under it are some brown-wrapped boxes from my in-laws. I can't get that damn tree put together. I don't even want to. I want to throw it in the trash and start over, and I'm going to Garden Ridge tomorrow to find a decent cheap tree that can get us by the holidays. I have ordered Charlie one gift, it just arrived yesterday and is in plain brown wrapping in the hallway. I think maybe tomorrow night Joe and I will run to Target and get a few more toys that Charlie has mentioned. Joe and I don't really exchange gifts - he is a horrible gift receiver, and as I will honestly admit, I buy myself whatever I really want anyway so why put a gift tag on it and say it's a present from Joe when we both know it's really from me to me?

This is not limited to Christmas. Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. As usual, he got me a card and a candy bar (Toblerone). I didn't get him anything but on the way home tonight I'll get him the same (card and Symphony bar! Gotta make it special). I guess you could say this trip to Mexico is a joint anniversary / Christmas gift, but honestly it's not. We would either go on a trip or not go on a trip, we don't do it to mark any particular occasion. We're having a baby in May and want to get a little break so we're going now, not because it's our anniversary. Birthdays are a little different, because it's really only that one person's special day - so we will do a low-key present and dinner out or something.

I don't know if we're weird or not. My mom and dad always gave each other surprise gifts, and in the first few years of our marriage I think I wanted something similar, that special moment where the husband gives the wife something that makes her weep with joy. But I don't think that is us. I have control issues in some ways, and this is one - he better not spend a lot of money on something that I don't have a say in. And forget expensive jewelry, I can't be trusted to not lose it and I really don't want the pressure. I have a diamond engagement ring and my grandmother's pearls, so I'm all set.

I guess it all comes down to that - if OUR money is going to be spent on me, I want to make the decision on how to spend it. As for homemade, touching gifts - those don't just come about because a holiday demands it. One of my favorite gifts was for my first Mother's Day, when Joe dipped Charlie's 4-month-old hand in fingerpaint and framed it in a sweet picture frame. I don't expect him (or me) to think of something like that every holiday and would it be so special if he or I was expecting it? Wouldn't it just be like, what fancy thing can I do with a picture of Charlie this year?

***************************************************************************
In Charlie news:

This AM I dropped him off at school and as he was getting out of the car, one of my gloves was sticking out of my pocket. I don't bother with gloves for him - the walk to school is about 1/2 a second. He wanted to wear them though, so he did, and as we got into his classroom I was engulfed in a throng of preschoolers showing me what was up with them. Bandaids, lego creations, a new blanket. After admiring all of these exciting items I noticed that Charlie was zipping up my gloves into his backpack.

Me: "Charlie, can I wear those gloves now? You're inside for the day."
Charlie: "No, I put them away."
Me: "They're just going to be in your backpack all day, and I have to walk to and from my car into my building, a 5-minute walk, probably 4 times today."
Charlie: "You have pockets. Bye mom, I'm very busy."

Lies, Sweet Little Lies

2008-12-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

The truth will set you free. That's the saying, and for the most part, I believe it. If you tell the truth, life is just so much easier. But sometimes - well, the little white lie is just better for everyone.

Example of a time to tell the truth: in a dressing room, when your friend is trying on a dress that makes her look fat.

Example of a time to tell a white lie: friend, wearing same dress, is about to walk down the aisle on her wedding day.

What does this all have to do with anything? Answer: Joe and I are going to Mexico on Monday. A quick, 3 night getaway, which was originally going to be Hawaii next Dec for our 10th anniversary WITH Charlie who would then be age 5 and therefore acceptable to take on an 8-hour flight. New baby coming in May changed our plans, so forget the kid, we need the break.

So, we're going to Mexico, and we're really excited and we have not yet mentioned this to Charlie. I am not a big fan of the drawn-out torture. He will be mad that we are leaving him, so why not wait until right before we go to tell him, instead of telling him weeks in advance allowing him to plot an illness that would keep us home? So here we are, just a few days away from this trip, and it's probably time to mention it at least casually, but he is Big now and he can put stuff together. It's not just that we're leaving him - we're going to Mexico. Without HIM. Charlie has been to Mexico, and if you ask him where he wants to go if he could go anywhere he will tell you Mexico, even though he came down with strep when he was there and was pretty miserable the whole time. But he knows it is a great place and possibly the best place in the world (he may think this, but I assure you I know it is wrong - the best place in the world is Hawaii, or possibly Greece, but as he isn't quite 4 we haven't willingly put ourselves through the torture of an expensive, LONG vacation with him yet - but it is his impression anyway). So how much does he need to know, exactly?

Joe said, we have to tell him, we're going to come back with sombreros and maracas and he will know anyway and be pissed. I say no, he has a sombrero and maracas, no need to buy more, all he will care about is that we are home and no longer away and why not just tell him we're going on a trip for work? And does a 4 year old get pissed about stuff like that after the fact? Does it make sense that I don't want to torture the poor kid?

Tick tock tick tock...

In Case I Don't Have a Girl... and Thanksgiving Recap

2008-12-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! Charlie stayed home from school Wednesday from what I thought was a tummy bug, which later turned out to be strep throat. No big deal, our plans were flexible so we moved dinner out to Friday and all was well. Saturday AM we had breakfast with Santa at The Zone (a bounce house / party place) with the Hales. As usual Charlie didn't eat much but the upside is, he didn't puke while bouncing after breakfast.

Saturday afternoon was the inspiration for the post title. I took Charlie with me to the mall while Joe watched Gator football. I know... what was I thinking? Charlie and I have gone through many phases of shopping together. When he was tiny and slept all the time and it was February, I couldn't think of much to do during the day besides take him to the mall. It was a win-win, because the mall during the day is notoriously child-heavy, and this particular mall might as well have a "strollers required for attendance" sign. He slept while I shopped, strolled, and enjoyed being in civilization.

The lone naysayer in this arrangement: the receiver of the bills, the voice of reason, the yin to my yang... JOE. There must be some way to entertain yourselves, he said, that doesn't require us to go into massive debt. I didn't believe this until Suze Orman said it on Oprah, but I guess he was right, but the situation righted itself around the age of one when suddenly, Charlie didn't want to be in the stroller for long. He wanted to RUN. He wanted to fling himself into the throngs of kidnappers and touch every filthy toilet seat and trash can he could find. Suddenly it was NO FUN AT ALL to go to the mall with Charlie. If I needed to go shopping for any reason, Joe thought it was great fun to invite Charlie to join me, which would always shorten the trip by at least 400%.

Well then Saturday came along. We had been cooped up inside, too cold to play outside, he was finally over his strep, and I just needed one pair of maternity jeans and a swimsuit for Mexico. Charlie was fighting his need for a nap and I thought maybe a trip in the car would do the trick. I dusted off the stroller, prayed, and we were off. And... it was wonderful. He didn't nap, but he DID stay in the stroller for the most part. He got bored in the dressing room, but was OK once I told him we could shop for him next. At Motherhood, the Kmart of maternity fashions, he felt free to comment on my selections, particularly on the clearance-price maternity swimsuit: "Don't get that mommy, it is too big! I don't like you in that." I got some other decent pieces at not-bad prices. Then we got to baby Gap, and he was in heaven. We dug up an armload of overpriced vintage superhero shirts and then:

"Mommy, where is the dressing room?"

"Charlie, I don't think they have a dressing room at baby Gap."

"Why don't you ask that lady."

Turns out, there IS a dressing room, next door at Gap Kids. Charlie marched on in with his superhero shirts and tried every piece on. "This fits perfectly, mommy!" I tried to negotiate down the number of shirts. "But I want ALL of them." And true, he needed them, most of his current shirts bare his midriff. But MAN. What a clotheshorse!!!

So off we went next, to Mimi, where I shouldn't go because truly, maternity clothes are such a racket! And this is absolutely, positively my last pregnancy so who in their right mind would spend that kind of money on clothes for one season? Not to mention, a swimsuit, which I will wear for one TRIP? But of course there was just the ONE, and I shouldn't have tried it on at all but I did and then Charlie pipes in: "Wow, Mommy, I LIKE THAT! That is sooo cute!" I asked if I should get it. "YES!"

I think we've entered a new era in shopping together. And I don't think Joe is happy about it.

Thankful

2008-11-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

With Thanksgiving Day just a couple of days away, it seems appropriate to count my blessings. I know it's cheesy and trite but every so often the holiday spirit catches up with us and I guess that is me right now! I am grateful for so many things:

- A wonderful, adorable, precocious little boy who thinks I am the best person in the world.
- A little mini-Sipka growing bigger and stronger every day, and for the Zofran that helps when said baby makes me feel like puking.
- A funny, adorable, loyal, and dependable husband who works hard, values his family above all else and makes me laugh every day (stop stealing my pillow from under my head, Joe!!)
- Mexico in less than a month!!!
- The best parents in the world, period.
- A beautiful dog that I adore but drives me nuts with her wanting to be outside and bark.
- Great brother and sister in law and precious new 5 week-old niece, Liz.
- Supportive in-laws.
- A job at a stable company and a boss who supports my part-time schedule so I can have more family time and, most importantly, SANITY time
- My yoga practice which helps with the sanity part.
- My yoga friends that I have gotten to know this year.
- Friends and extended family to spend the holidays with.
- Children of those friends that I get to watch grow up.
- The healthy arrival less than a week ago! of Hannah Hope Hughes and her release from the NICU and into her home.
- Lasagna, garlic bread, and salad tomorrow at Joe's Bistro.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Yeah, Dave...

2008-11-19T10:02:00.000-08:00

On Friday night I attended a workshop led by David Romanelli. Dave is a popular CA-based yoga instructor and studio owner, and he has a pretty cool life. He travels around, teaching and leading workshops. He's not your typical granola yoga instructor - he's a regular guy's guy, who got into yoga for money. Haha. I think a lot of yoga instructors will tell you, sorry, no money here! It is truly a labor of love. But Dave bought studios as an investment, and only later got caught up in the "yoga" side of the business venture. Dave's nickname is "Yeah, Dave" - from his buddies, who got tired of hearing his existential questions, and just started responding, "Yeah, Dave."

So anyway, I liked Dave. How could I NOT like a guy who leads a workshop called Yoga & Wine? My two favorite things, together in one place, oh heaven. One thing I really liked about him was his down-to-earthness. The stereotypical yoga instructor is extremely well developed psychologically and spiritually, and I used to feel like a fraud. Like a humongous person with long arms (sorry Ally) just hovering around these frail, wispy people that could do crazy things with their bodies. That proved false when I enrolled in teacher training and saw lots of yoga-loving, but normal, women like me. If you know me well you know that I don't lean much to the ethereal side. I tend to be cynical and realistic. I cringe in savasana when instructors say that dreaded line, "there is no place to be, nothing to achieve"... Without fail, just when I am settling into a nice savasana, I hear those words, and the anxious personality in me wants to scream, "YES THERE IS! I need to get to the grocery store, take a shower, make a pasta dish for Charlie's school function, take the car in for a tuneup.... THANKS A LOT for reminding me!" When I first started teaching, I tried mightily to say those words, or something similar. They didn't sound real coming out of my mouth. One thing I have learned to appreciate though is that there is no one way to teach, and people resonate to different styles, and mine is more frank. Where the typical yoga instructor floats, I thud. That's just me, and I responded well to Dave's joking during class, to his teaching style in general.

So Dave's workshop this weekend was based on the Good Life. Yoga + Wine, Yoga + Chocolate, Yoga + Laughter. The point: you can and should make the space to enjoy your life, every single day. My husband and Linda Applin will tell you I am highly spoiled and live Dave's philosophy to a great extent but actually it's still a struggle for me. You can eat chocolate and drink wine - in moderation - mindfully, with gratitude, every day. I would love to spend every single day on the beach with a margarita, but I can't, and I can't go through life going through the motions of being a mother / wife / employee with only the idea of a future vacation in mind. There must be something every day that has no other purpose but to make you feel happy to be alive. During the workweek, for me, it's a hot bath or (not so much these days) a glass of wine while Charlie watches his nighttime shows. A yoga class is a real treat, and if I can find the time and money for a massage or pedicure periodically, even better. But the point is - something, every single day, that brings you joy, and it doesn't need to cost a lot of money or time but it certainly is OK if it does. Have that starbucks on the way to work if you want it. $4 a day for your sanity - it's a bargain.

So... Yeah, Dave. I'm with you!

Sleepover

2008-11-14T12:15:00.001-08:00

Last night Charlie had his first sleepover.

This is something Charlie has been asking me for recently, but we figured it was a year or two off... he's not even 4 yet! But I found myself on the phone with my friend and neighbor, Lynn, last night, and one thing led to another and I invited Blake to stay over since Lynn was out of town and her husband was going to be out late. It was very impromptu, but it made sense - if Blake didn't do well, he could go home anytime - they live right across the street. No biggie.

So Blake came over in his jammies, and Charlie had already had jammies on, and I settled them in to watch a movie with some hot chocolate. And all in all they were very, very good!! They played for a while, and I let them stay up later than usual. Then we went up, brushed teeth, went pee and I read them a couple of books. Set up their sleeping bags on the floor in Charlie's room (he has a twin bed) and that was it.

They got up a couple of times, and then they moved into Nini's room - the guest room - with its big bed. I went in a few times and told them to pipe down and close their eyes, and by and large - they did so much better than I expected they would. By the time Joe came home they were asleep (maybe because Joe is soooo clever with his time management, or he is charmed, I'm not sure). I kept waiting for that moment when Blake would wake up crying to go home... never happened! They slept all night and came in my room at 7:30, asking to go down and watch cartoons.

So I'm really proud of the boys, and really glad to know that in a pinch, and as they get older, they can do this again and it isn't a huge beating for the parents. And I'm so glad that we have these wonderful neighbors who have become our friends. It makes me reminisce about my childhood friend Kerry Fletcher, who lived right across the street, and for so many years, we were connected at the hip - always at one house or another. I didn't think Charlie would have that; what stars have to align for kids exactly one week apart to live right across the street from one another?

I'm really grateful for all of our friends, and for all of Charlie's close friends - Matthew, Zane, Blake, Morgan, and Brynna. Joe and I try hard to be lots of fun for Charlie, but I know that sometimes kids just want to be with their friends - as Charlie says, "I want to play with someone MY size."

Tonight, Charlie starts his maintenance swim lessons - the miracle swim teacher who taught him to swim in just a few days is now offering weekly lessons all winter long! I will be at a Yoga + Wine workshop (I signed up before finding out I am pg, and my OB/GYN gave me the go-ahead), so Charlie will be carpooling with Blake. I'm so excited about this because I was worried that his swimming skills may atrophy over the winter but instead, he will be learning strokes! Go Charlie!!

Tomorrow, Joe and I have a date planned! Dinner out, our neighborhood sitter will be Charlie. So it will be a great weekend.

Hope you all have a great weekend too!

Gender Neutral

2008-11-13T08:44:00.001-08:00

I went home from work yesterday at 10:30 AM with the pukes.

The morning actually started off fine, but by the time I got to work I had puked several times in the car. Where I work we get PTO days, not sick days, and I like to hoard my PTO. You never know when someone will ask you to join them in Hawaii for two weeks, so you gotta have the PTO ready! So I went on in to work, whereupon more puking ensued - at my desk, in the mother's room, in the bathroom. Then I gave up and went home to spend the day on the couch, sipping ginger ale, calling my mom and puking.

To my friends this episode indicates a girl baby. To me, who knows? The myth is: girl = morning sickness; boy = big butt. And maybe it's true. I was never sick with Charlie, I have been more sick with this one (although not nearly as bad as some horror stories I've heard), and if it is a girl then I am just adding to the proof that the myth has merit. But I could have had a tummy bug for a day, or I could have been reacting to the questionable milk in my morning coffee. FULL caffeine coffee too, people! SUE ME! So who knows what caused it.

If you ask Charlie what this new baby is going to be, it's a boy, and its name is Roscoe P. Coltrain. If you ask me, it's a boy. If you ask Joe, he's hoping it's a boy, because girls cost a lot of money and do bad things and make dads worry a lot more.

It's funny how people just assume there is always a preference for one of each gender and that since I have a boy, I must really want a girl. Or they hope, for me, that it's a girl. People say it all the time: "I hope it's a girl!" Or, "You have a boy, right? I bet you want a baby girl!" That is I guess the ultimate ideal, that way you experience both in your lifetime. I get that. But I truly have never felt one way or the other. I like having a boy, in fact, if I got an exact clone of Charlie, I would be over the moon. So I feel no need for "different" except in the case of sleep; if I got another Charlie I would demand that it be a better sleeper. I don't see girl clothes and go nuts about how fun it would be to dress up a girl, but then again, I don't go crazy over boy clothes either. Maybe that's because I have no say in what Charlie wears - Spiderman T shirt every day - so I don't look at the Crewcuts catalog longingly because I know that's a battle that is just not worth getting into. I do have some fears about having a girl, because it is unknown, and they are known for being more demanding, and I already have a ton of boy stuff so it sure would be easier to have a boy. But if I had a girl, well, wow! That opens up a whole side of life that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise.

I can talk myself in or out of either one, but I guess it doesn't really matter. That decision has been made - it was made a long time ago, and was out of our hands. But it's really fun to wonder!!!

Race Relations

2008-11-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

Charlie: "My hair is blonde."

Me: "Yes, it is."

Charlie: "RJ's skin is brown."

Me: "Yes, it is."

Charlie: "What color is RJ?"

Me: "RJ is black."

Charlie: "Connor is black too. And Bryce is black."

Me: "Yes, that's right."

Charlie: "But not Sophia. Sophia's skin is blonde. And Claire's skin is blonde and Tyler's blonde too."

Me: "Yep."

Charlie: "But we are all friends."

Me: "Isn't that great? Everyone is different and you are all friends."

Charlie: "Abby is blonde and she is my sister. And Scarlett is blonde and she is my sister too and Sam is black and he is my brother."

Me: "There you go."

Charlie: "We are blonde and Sam is black and we are a family."

*******************************************************************************

Charlie comes into my bedroom this morning hold two pairs of underwear.

"Mom, do you like Spiderman underwear or Batman underwear?"

"Um, Batman."

"Why, mommy?"

"Because I am tired of Spiderman."

Charlie's face crumples like a paper sack. "But Spiderman is my favorite superhero!!!!! Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Pick him now, mommy!"

"I pick Spiderman underwear."

Happy face. "Why, mommy?"
***************************************************************************

It's Election Day - Hold Your Breath

2008-11-04T08:17:00.001-08:00

The big news in Charlie's school: it's Election Day.

The candidates: Billy the Duck and Percy the Rooster. I can't remember which goes with which but the platforms they are running on: Crazy Hair Day or Pajama Day.

Charlie is in the Pajama Day camp. He has not wavered from this, even though he has the perfect hair for Crazy Hair Day, but there are no conclusive studies on the Bradley effect in preschool elections.

We should know tomorrow, unless there is a dangling chad situation in the 4 yr old classroom.

Stay tuned...

Edited to add: Pajama Day won!!!! It is tomorrow and Charlie is soooo happy.

No Politics, Just Pumpkin Pics

2008-11-01T20:42:00.001-07:00

It's been a fun week before Halloween.... starting last Sunday at the pumpkin patch with Matthew:

And Halloween night, before trick or treating, with Morgan and Maci.

He had a blast!!!

Pukey

2008-10-28T07:47:00.001-07:00

Most of you who read this blog already know I'm pregnant. Those who didn't: surprise! And to summarize, since I have been vocal about these subjects in the past: no, it was not planned; yes we did IVF to get Charlie; yes we are shocked.

I was 11 weeks yesterday. This pregnancy could not possibly be more different than the last one. Not only because it was a total fluke, but because I am siiiiiiiiiiiick. I was sick with Charlie for about one week and it was just a little of the hangoverish feeling, not so bad plus I was so excited because after going through infertility, a little sick was reassuring. I didn't feel or look any different, so the slight nausea was proof that I was still pregnant. That was about 6 or 7 weeks along.

I was puke-sick for about 2 weeks around the same time this go-round, but then it went away and was replaced with crushing exhaustion for about a week. Last week it seemed like I was turning a corner - nausea was over, tiredness becoming reasonable - then suddenly, yesterday - nauseous all day. Morning sickness returning? Or could it be the flu shot I got yesterday?

Then today, I'm at my desk talking to an engineer about some capital issues, which is pukey enough as it is, when suddenly I felt it start to happen. My head got really hot. My stomach was churning. Poor guy was droning on and on but I couldn't hear him through my panic. I rushed him out, then puked in the trash can. Composed myself, bolted for the bathroom, praying I would make it and just barely did. Ahhhh, relief. But nothing better than being post-throw up, sweaty, and at work. And by the time I got back to my desk, nauseous again.

They say this is usually over after the first trimester. That is six days, and I'm counting.

One Week and One Day

2008-10-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

My baby niece came into the world eight days ago. It is about time I introduce her to the world wide web. Internets, meet Elizabeth Ann, or as Charlie calls her, Baby Liz:

The very tired man in the picture is her father, my brother. Look at all her hair!!! And her wee little legs and her butt in the air. I can't wait to get my hands on her!!!

Baby Liz, I promise you that even though you live ALL the way in Washington, DC, we will have some FUN times together. I will buy you lots of girl stuff and take you on fun vacations, feed you junk and generally be your favorite aunt ever - all in the spirit of MY favorite aunt Jane, who made everything fun.

We love you!!!

Memo to John McCain: I already have an OB/GYN, but thanks

2008-10-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

Sir, with all due respect: please stay out of my uterus.

The debates last night finally hit one of my hot buttons.

Full disclosure: I have one child conceived via IVF. From that experience (and the infertility journey that led to it), I made many, many friends who have not had the typical family planning experience. Most of us in this little sorority did not say, hey let's try for a baby, conceive, wish it was a boy/girl, get exactly what we wanted, and do it all again 2 years later. No, most of us tried and tried, and saw many doctors and endured many tests, and the gender question became ridiculous - just give me a baby, preferably healthy, please. Some of us, not me, thank goodness - conceived multiple times, to lose that child at some stage during the pregnancy or even, horribly, soon after birth.

I have two friends who delivered their babies early due to HELLP syndrome, a sudden condition that can come without warning, and threatens the mother's life if the baby is not delivered immediately. The deliveries themselves were life-threatening as well. One of these babies was close to term - the other was not, was born right on the cusp of viability.

Edited to add:

How could I have forgotten Alexa, over at Flotsam?? For her story, click the link. The elements: pregnant with twins, one dead at 22 weeks (pre-viability). Surviving players whose lives are suddenly at risk and in the hands of the government: the existing 22 week old twin and the mother. It is another example of how in waiting for the "life of the mother" to come to risk, all three of them could have ended up dead. For no reason whatsoever. These stories are not that rare.

All of this goes to say - I take pregnancy and birth seriously. I went to great lengths to have a child. You can't say that I think unborn life is not precious. So the pro-life argument that abortion is murder, and that pro-choice voters are "PRO-Abortion," is not only inaccurate, it is insulting. Yes, all children are precious, but so too are the mothers who bear them, and they should have the right to decide, in consultation with their doctor, what happens to the contents of their uterus in ultimately the biggest decision of their lives.

The discussion in the debates last night started with how the candidates would choose Supreme Court Justices should seats open during his Presidency. Barack Obama said he sees Roe v Wade as hanging in the balance of these nominations. This scares me, and should scare all of us who value life and children and mothers. And more disturbingly, if you saw the debates - you saw how openly annoyed John McCain was with Obama's viewpoints on this topic. The man can't keep his cool for anything, how will he negotiate with world leaders when he disagrees with their ideology (which he will??). But the worst, most crucial moment, and the one that nailed my vote for Obama - was the air quotes McCain used to surround "health of the mother."

Is McCain so suspicious of women and their intentions that he thinks we will all run into our OBs, crying "I have a headache, abort my child?" Do the air quotes indicate that he dismisses mental health issues, and if so, I am chilled to the bone if we have a leader that is headed in that direction. I think that I know my life, my situation, and my health more than any political leader and the decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is mine to make. Pro-life voters, I am happy for you that you are 1000% certain that you would never want to terminate a pregnancy. But you should not make that decision for me or for anyone else. It all comes down to choice, and if we move in a direction that takes us away from choice, it is terrifying to think where we are headed.

Once we start down the slippery slope where our life choices are taken from us, it's not a far slide down to more areas that shouldn't be mandated by government. Reproductive treatment being one hot button for me - I have seen legislation that mandated these treatments should be reserved "deserving" couples. Who determines "deserving?" Thank goodness these measures were never passed but the point is, government is overstepping its bounds even getting involved here. To follow this line of thought, should we assume that only fertile, married Christian couples are entitled to become parents?

Look, late-term abortions are tragic. But for every woman who chooses to have one for her own convenience, there are thousands of women who have them for real, solid, heartbreaking reasons: the child's life is in danger, the mother's life is in danger, the child's life is not in danger but defects have been discovered in that child that render its life to be a fate worse than death. Maybe neither mother nor child's life is in danger, but complications in having this child could render the mother paralyzed or unable to care for her existing children - does that mother not have the right to decide what is best for her family? These decisions belong in the doctor's office, not in the lawbooks. Gray areas, people - not "babykillers" vs "baby lovers."

I am so happy for the people I know who, facing unplanned pregnancies, had the support networks in place to rally around them and raise these children with love. Those are the happy stories. I am thrilled when I hear these stories. But they aren't the only stories. These families had a choice. Other women who have less support, are financially strapped, have no health care, have health issues, a failing marriage, whatever the reason - these women should have a choice too.

This issue, like so many other political issues in this election, is a moral issue. It is not the place of government to decide.

Ericka Rocks Da Camera

2008-10-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

Here is just a little taste of our photo shoot Sat AM. Ericka did a great job and we are so happy with our photos!!! More to come...

Good News

2008-10-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

This will be quick but I wanted to share the BEST thing that happened this weekend, in my opinion : OJ Simpson's guilty verdict.

It's not my place to judge or hate or wish evil upon someone else but damn, does OJ tempt me to buy a voodoo doll and set some chicken bones a'boilin. The murders were just the tip of the iceberg. But after his ridiculous aquittal - his smirk, his taunting of the victim's families, and then his mocking them while he spends his happy days on the golf course - simply maddening. More disgusting - he still has FANS. Beautiful, stupid women fighting for his attention. A cold blooded murderer, walking among us, living a life more luxurious and comfortable than most of our population.

Then he pulls an idiotic stunt in a Las Vegas hotel room. If I committed a murder in the heat of the moment - I have not, but let's just SAY I did - and I got away with it, I would say, "Shew, I better lay low the rest of my life!" Not, "let me get a bunch of my goon friends together and rob and kidnap some people." How freaking brazen was he? Untouchable. Or so he thought.

We don't know yet what he will get - 5 years, life in prison. I hope for life, but even 5 years is more than I ever expected to see him serve. Even with 5 years, he would be nearly 70 by the time he got out. And 5 years in prison means no golf courses, no steak dinners with the wine flowing with a beautiful woman across the table from him.

So I am not a judge, or God, and it's not my job and shouldn't be my concern to see him suffer during his time on Earth. But it feels good, people!!!!

The Greek God of Spiderman

2008-10-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Charlie's school had their annual International Festival last Friday. This basically consists of a parade in front of the school in the morning, followed by a late-afternoon show and a sampling of cuisines brought in by the parents. The show was really not fun. It was a DJ with about 5 instruments, playing music on the playground, and Charlie requires the use of all the instruments himself, so if you are doing the math, you have figured out that there are far more kids than there are instruments. Somehow, though, without pushing or bossing around in any way, Charlie got to play all the instruments. We watched from a few feet away, just to see how this would play out - and the kid has some kind of magical spell. Kids would just stop, see him looking at them, and practically beg him to take the instruments out of their hands. Here is Charlie after securing the lollipop banging instrument from poor Drew:

Be honest. Does Drew not look like he is so happy to have given up his instrument for Charlie? He's all, "take a picture with me and Charlie!" And Charlie's all, whatever sucka, I am going to play with this for two seconds and then go check out what Sophia wants to "share" with me.

Notice the Spiderman shirt. OMG Spiderman. He is the TALK around our house. If I never, ever heard the word Spiderman again I would be very happy (and also shocked). A typical conversation with Charlie:

Scene - dinner table, 6 PM.

Me: "Charlie, how was your day?"

Charlie: "Can you buy me the black spiderman costume?"

Me: "I heard you had 3 timeouts today. What were you doing that you were in timeout?"

Charlie: "I was playing Spiderman with RJ."

Me: "3 timeouts in one day is unacceptable. Do you promise you will listen to your teachers and play nicely with your friends tomorrow?"

Charlie: "Yes, mommy." Pause. "What's Spiderman's last name?"

Scene - 4 AM. My bedroom.

Joe / Me: "Charlie, WHAT are you doing here?"

Charlie: "Can you buy me the black spiderman costume?"

Joe / Me: "NO. Go to sleep."

Charlie: "I will WEB you."

Try sleeping with webs on you!! Not easy!!!

Water, Water Everywhere

2008-09-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Charlie decided about three weeks ago that he was finished with Pullups. They are for babies, and he is a grownup, he says. Then Joe went out of town, and Charlie not only wet the bed every night, but he had accidents at school too. I know, regression, etc. His way of dealing with his frustration over his dad being gone. I get WHY. What I don't know is what to DO about it. Joe is back in town, and things have settled down a bit, but now it's more like 65/35 (wet / dry). The dry times are celebrated greatly. The wet times - we try not to say much, but man. That is a LOT of peepee sheets.

I imagine in a normal household, where whichever parents live there are there 99% of the time, there is some back and forth in this transition. But in our zany life, I mean we are wild and wacky kids! - Joe is back and forth between Dallas and Korea, Taiwan, Tokyo, San Jose, and Arkansas (don't ask - guy trip) constantly. Which I think upsets the progress that we make, and we have to recover.

Aside from insisting that Joe quit his semi-satisfying, sufficiently paying job (in an economic downturn, no less), the options seem to be these:

A) back to Pull-Ups (note: even as he marinates in his own urine, Charlie manages to become highly offended at this option)

B) status quo - Lisa earn a PhD in laundry management

C) restrict fluid after 7 PM???

OK this option C is the source of my concern. Sounds so easy, and yeah we stopped letting him take a cup of diluted juice to bed. But when he is watching TV before bed, and says, "I'm thirsty," what do I do? And when we are reading books at bedtime, and he says "I'm thirsty," what can I do besides let him drink a couple of sips?

I have been thirsty my whole life. I always have to have water with me. If I don't have water for an extended period of time (30 minutes?) I swear I can feel my innards shriveling up and cracking into dusty flakes. When I was a kid, I was sure that I was diabetic. My mom took me to Polly Ryon to test my urine (I was sure I was diabetic, but not sure enough to allow blood tests). My poor mom, I really wanted SOME kind of disease or injury my entire childhood. But diabetes was ruled out and I remain just a thirsty person. Joe is the same way. So, when my 3 year old tells me he's thirsty, and he comes from two parents who are forever thirsty, what can we do? And what does this mean for our potty training technique?

We have him go potty before settling in for books / bed, and usually again right before bed. He often gets up once soon after bedtime to go again (but I suspect this is not so much "I have to go potty" as it is "If they see me leave my room I better come up with something." There is lots of peeing going on.

What to do? Is it right to insist he go back to Pullups - although that seems like a big no-no anyway? Is it normal to wash sheets on a nearly daily basis for months on end?

Little Boys

2008-09-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post - not much to report other than that we had a great weekend. Friday night we went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Plano - our first time and sooo cool! Charlie and his buddy Matthew played, ran around in circles, and generally ignored the hot air balloons. Proving once again that kids his age don't need toys, they need wide open spaces to run around.

Love this one; I can see Charlie 40 years from now, with a beer tailgating A&M football games:

Joe got back from Korea Sat AM. We were both verrry low energy, so we called in the backup team: another kid. Zane came over and the boys basically babysat each other. Sure Joe set up a tent for them to watch TV, and the bouncy house for wrestling, but overall - omg people with twins are on to something.

K thats it. Have a great one!

Home improvements and revisiting the terrible two's

2008-09-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Several things to report.

1) I have done a few small home improvements. YAY! The big fun one is yet to come... big deal around the Sipka house - BUILT IN entertainment center! WOOOHOO! But for now, I'm feathering my nest.

-a. Replaced entryway table with long-coveted bench / coatrack combo. I can't figure out how to rotate the picture of the furniture by itself, so here is a picture of the new and improved hallway region. Please ignore the styrofoam "sword" that is not to be thrown away per Charlie Hitler's orders.

-b. Next, added a memory wall / photo gallery going up the stairs. Joe has not approved this and thinks it's something to do when you're 80 but we need to show off our cute pics and I think it looks good. It looks great in person but in the photo, looks like I need to add more.

-c. Had guest room repainted. No pics of this until the room is complete :)

In other news... maybe it's because Joe has been away but Charlie is definitely regressing the past few days. He has been whiny, fussy, pooping in his pants (sorry if you're reading this later, Charlie, and embarrassed - karma is a B****) and my great idea of a "dinner date" last night ended with me hauling him out of Panera, wriggling and crying (him) and sweating (me). I of course adopted the expression I wore on my face for the year 2007 - I think something along the lines of, "no big deal, this isn't happening, I am not here." Whew it's been a while. He is still awful cute, although you can see the devil in him if you look very hard:

Have a great week.

Big

2008-09-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

Last night Charlie slept in underwear all night, and stayed dry, for the third night in a row. As fate would have it, I had just bought a new package of Pullups so if all continues in this direction, I wasted $12. This is a good problem to have - much better than the opposite problem which would involve a late-night trip to CVS or digging through beach bags for maybe one extra swim diaper that could get us through the night.

So of course I'm happy about this transition. Who wouldn't be? Don't we all, as parents, look forward to the end of diapers? And sure Charlie has been potty trained for over a year to the outside eye - at friends' houses, at preschool, etc. But kids do a funny thing as they grow up. They want to be big, but sometimes it's too much. They get home, to the safety of mom and dad, and they have been holding their shit (literally in this case) together for so long, and they need to just fall apart and be little again. So every night, a Pullup. And every morning, it was wet. I thought I was going to need to put some effort into a transition - but then he just decided that was it. Boom.

This got me thinking about all the other transitions he's gone through and how, just like that, he's stepping away from babyhood every day. He rejected the stroller for his own wheels at age 2, but he was still in diapers. Gave up diapers around 2 1/2, but he still had his pacifier. He gave up his pacifier at 3 (I KNOW! gasp), but he was still in Pullups at night. He - like all kids - still has transitions ahead of him. Ditching the training wheels. First night sleeping at a friends' house. Playing on a real soccer team. But these are the transitions of children, not of babies.

I know this isn't news. He'll be 4 in January, after all. Certainly not a baby in anyone's mind but mine and Joe's. But the years go faster than we can keep up.

What does this mean? Hell if I know. I'm just rambling. I have felt at so many stages of Charlie's life that the stage he is in is the best one. If you knew me in his newborn days, no. I did not think that then. But with every development I thought, man, this is so much better! This is truly an example of God's genius: send them out like little needy assholes, and then make it a little easier just a little bit at a time. Then laugh at us for thinking every little stage is so amazing. Just like a sip of water in the desert - if it came easily, it wouldn't taste as glorious (I would guess this, but not know it personally, because I would pack bottled water in the desert).

So would I want to go back, well, hell no. I am onto the diabolical plan now. I wouldn't be excited unless the baby came out walking, talking, and wiping its own butt. But yes, I am a little nostalgic for the little Charlie that was, for the mom that thought it was sooo much easier once her baby could sit up.

Before too long, the transitions will involve him pulling farther away from me, and that just won't do at all.

Dentists, and Yoga (what else??)

2008-09-09T06:41:00.001-07:00

Back from DC, it was a great trip as always. Amanda looks adorable and is all baby. Ally is fabulous as always and the bulk of the trip was of the theme Fun Girl Stuff: yoga, afternoon tea, wine, shopping. Lauren is nearly 3 and soo grown up, with the sweetest voice ever. We bonded. I woke up Sunday morning though with a weight in my chest, missing my boy so much. I had fun, but I was ready to get home and see him.

Back home to reality... and an exciting adventure yesterday: Charlie's first dentist visit. This could have gone in any direction, but we chose the trickery method, aka reverse psychology. This is an advanced skill, an all or nothing proposition. It went something like this at the breakfast table:

Charlie: "I'm done."

Me: "Charlie, if you eat all your eggs, maybe we can talk about going to the dentist today." Joe and I hold our breath, avoiding eye contact. We had prepped him about the cool up- and- down chair at the dentist office, and how they have movies there, but we didn't know if the connection was still there. I felt my heart beat faster, a slight clamminess in my palms.

Charlie: "Oh!" Ate eggs. "Can I go to the dentist now?"

Me: "Well, no, the dentist is still eating his breakfast too. You have to eat all your lunch too, and take a nice nap, and THEN maybe you can go."

Joe and I allowed ourselves a mental high-five, but avoided eye contact and changed the subject. It can't be TOO big a deal - kids can smell fear. And then they have the power.

So it went fine, they brushed, flossed, counted, vitamin'ed, and Xrayed. I was told to change a couple of his habits - reduce sippy cups or take out the valves, and eliminate the diluted juice he has between meals. Good advice, really - we have been trying to get him to drink more plain water, but haven't enforced it much. Sometimes you just need to pay a professional to get serious about stuff.

Note to Charlie: I'm so proud of you, honey. You did good. But promise you won't tell the dentist that we got Tootsie Rolls on the way home.

*************************************************************************************

Back to DC for a minute. Ally and I took two yoga classes there. One was OK, but a little slow, on the easy side - probably just right for me that day but definitely not as challenging as my usual classes. The next day, we went to a new studio that was on the far extreme of the challenging scale. It was HOT. I always enjoy hot yoga and prefer a heated room but this was Africa Hot, plus there were about 50 people packed into the room, so all that body heat and the rain / humidity from outside amped it up about 15 degrees. Add to that, the Yoga Nazi. "Don't drink water!" "No wiping your sweat!" "Eyes forward!" (which I later found out was directed to Ally who kept getting busted looking at the clock). It was fabulous. Sure, I missed the mind/body emphasis and loving kindness offered by my usual instructors. My yoga practice really took off under an instructor, the beloved Shannon, whose emphasis was on permission to listen to your body, and that is the way I like to teach. Push your students to their limits, but be their guide, let them own their practice. But it was fun to experience both types of yoga in new places, with new instructors, and it really goes to show how broad the yoga experience can be. It truly is for Every Body. It's great to walk into a studio where the teacher knows you. But sometimes it's nice to get jolted out of your comfort zone and explore just the phsyicality of the practice - to be anonymous.

Heated

2008-09-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I am heading to Washington, DC, one of my favorite cities, and not just because one time I had S'mores at an outside table. It is also the home of my best friend Ally, the Mature and No Nonsense Attorney, and my brother and sister in law who are expecting their first baby just next month!! I plan on spending much time talking directly into a belly button. Baby needs to know Auntie Lisa's voice, for that would make the future baby-smuggling-into-the- suitcase less traumatic.

Ally and I have been thick as thieves since we were 9 years old. We talk either several times a day or not for weeks, but never have to catch up. Catchup is a friendship killer, in my opinion. Let's either stay in touch, or agree that if we don't, when we talk there is no catching up required. I dread calling people I haven't talked to in a while for that few minutes of "well, we have been... um..." I can't summarize the last 6 months in 5 minutes, so let's just agree to carry on from here. If I haven't called you in forever, the reason why, is I don't want to catch up. Call me and tell me something about tomorrow or next week and we're good to go!

Ally and I have never once had a fight, and believe me, we have disagreed plenty. Especially when she wore a green and black striped Limited top with green and black polka dot ballet flats. She went Chi Omega and I went Delta Zeta where I knew I would get more experience with the Other Education, aka real world skills, aka alchohol management. I would totally have married her if we were lesbians. However, our Republican candidate and his VP pick would not allow that. Sorry, it's the DC trip speaking. What is a trip to our nation's capital without a healthy political debate?

OK, my viewpoint in a nutshell. I used to like John McCain. I saw him as a moderate Republican, which was a good choice for me. My views slant slightly to the left, but let's be honest. I work for a defense contractor. I live in Texas. My brother works for a Republican member of Congress. So I'm torn. My heart and my head go in opposite directions. McCain, the renegade, the rebel, the moderate - he was a great compromise.

Fast forward to the present. There has been a shift to the right, which I expected. I get that. It bugged me, but we all knew it would happen. And I started to waver. This VP pick though.... it just sent me over the edge. Two main things. One, I don't like her politics. Where McCain was a moderate, an "acceptable" Republican candidate, there is no moderate here. No gay marriage, anti-abortion, no stem cell research. I disagree with that, that, and that. Don't love the idea of Creationism in schools. Freedom of religion - this basic Constitutional right demands separation of church and state. How can we claim that people are free to practice religion, if we are then going to teach the government's choice of religion to our public school students? Creationism - yes, teach it, by all means. In Sunday School. At private schools which are selected by parents. Not in the public school classroom.

Two, I wonder what the motivation was in choosing her. Is she really the most qualified candidate? Or was she chosen because she is a woman? Is she bait for the Hilary voters?
Those two people have nothing in common except their gender. It's insulting. Joe Lieberman would have been my choice, but I guess he would have been too moderate. I don't know if John McCain really picked her, I can't see it. If he did, he's not who I thought he was. If he didn't, he is already bending over too much for his party.

I'm not saying I love the alternative. Obama doesn't have as much experience as I would like, but at least I feel more comfortable with his politics. The Republican ticket is now a no go for me - the views make me woozy, and the "female voters" thing makes me angry.

Thoughts?

High School

2008-08-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Do you know about Facebook?

I am probably one of the last to get into this thing but I thought it was for the Abercrombie-wearing set. But my best friend Ally, the Mature and Sophisticated No-Nonsense Attorney, called me yesterday and said, I'm sorry to do this to you, Larry (she has called me Larry since 7th grade), but you have to try it and this thing is more addictive than crystal meth. I logged on, registered and filtered for my high school graduating class - and suddenly felt like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. Faces and names I haven't thought about in years - suddenly right there! Just click - add them as a friend - and I was off and running. By this morning I had received several messages from old classmates. I also searched for classmates from Texas A&M and other random people I have worked with, known, and lost contact with over the years. And there is something really gratifying about seeing everyone *gulp* 16 years after graduating - and seeing how the playing field has leveled out. That guy that everyone thought was such a nerd? Well, look how cute he is, and what a sweet little family he has. (No, Ozzie, I'm not talking about you!) I love it. It really makes you think, high school is so... high school. I had fun, but it was just high school.

So, anyway. It's fun and I recommend it, and add me as a friend if you get on Facebook.

It did get me thinking. I don't feel like I've been out of high school for 16 years and college for 12 years. I don't have issues with getting older - better than the alternative! - but I just don't feel like I thought someone in their mid-30s would feel. At work, I still feel like one of the new hires, just 10 years later. The old ladies that have been here forever - do they still feel like that? I'm sure my mom does not feel 60. Hell, she just bought a new kayak. I think this is the one:

Side note: my mom and I are absolutely OBSESSED with being in water. We love it. I was on swim team at age 5, spent every summer day in the pool, and I still get in as much as humanly possible. This summer she met a bunch of ladies that share her love for the water... all hail the Guadalupe Lady Toobers. Aren't they cute? (Mom took the picture - sneaky lady - not in it).

I digress... where was I? I don't feel that old, but I am, etc. Of course, whenever I'm with Charlie and someone asks how old he is, he always says "I'm almost 4... and MY MOM is THIRTY FOUR!"

In summary, since I can't figure out how to wrap this up. Get on facebook! It's super fun! Even if it makes you feel old.

What I wish I had told you instead...

2008-08-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's all the pregnant people around me, but babies are on my mind lately. I don't really want one. No sir, Charlie may very well be an only child and we are A-OK with that. But suddenly the memory of baby Charlie, and of becoming a parent has been on my mind a lot.

Friday night a few girls got together. Woohoo, Girls Night! Take a bunch of moms, minus the children, add one pregnant woman and two single gals, add a wine tasting and what do you get? Yep, mom talk. Delivery, nursing, sleep deprivation, the first few months of baby etc etc etc. "The truth," according to those of us in the know. The village elders passing on the wisdom of our mothering experiences.

I know. I felt like a real asshole afterwards. Thank goodness everyone else was drinking too. But this post has been bouncing around in my head for a while because so much of what you hear is not the whole story. So much of what I say is not the whole story.

This is not a post about post partum depression. Yes, that's out there. I had it, and more women than you could ever possibly believe had it. So be warned, as I was not warned. I don't think I knew exactly that the end of my pregnancy would result in bringing a human baby home. I guess I expected that it would be more like bringing home a cat. A minor change, a nursery painted and decorated, a college fund that we would need to set up - but on a daily basis, I didn't really expect my life to change much. Maternity leave - well, that was going to be a fabulous all-expenses-paid vacation.

So that all turned out to be... wrong. It was hard. And maybe even harder because I had no idea. But that, as it turns out, is just the beginning.

So ladies, you have been warned about all the bad stuff. You don't need me to add to that. I may have sounded like the world's biggest grump. After all, I never really loved kids. But here is my real assvice, what I wish I had told you instead.

Maternal instinct doesn't always kick in immediately. You may not know how to calm the baby down any more than anyone else. You may be more interested in going to the gym than enforcing tummy time. When your baby gets sick, you may have to cancel plans that you were looking foward to and stay home to take care of him... and you may feel a little resentful about that. When your child has his adenoids out and takes more than a week to get back to normal - you may get cabin fever wanting to get out of the damn house already instead of laying on the couch watching movies all day. The image of the loving mother, pressing a cool washcloth to her child's head, may linger in your subconscious and make you feel like a bad mom - but you're not.

You may want to stay home and you may want to go back to work. You may have thought you would want to stay home, but end up wanting desperately to get back to work. Your child may be whiny and tired, and you mentally pump your fists in the air as you walk out of the daycare (freedom!!!!). Maybe you stay home, but you don't want to do baby stuff all day, and you go to Target just to give yourself a break from one-on-one parenting all day long. Maybe you come up with errands that don't really need to be done, just so the baby will take a nap and you won't have to enforce it. None of this makes you a bad mother.

The thing is, it's hard being a new mom. Some women just do it so naturally, and it all goes so easily and smoothly. But for a lot of us - it's hard to give up your free time, your sleep, your body to someone else - especially someone who doesn't respond in ways that we can always see. As kids get older, they give back more. Eventually they become teenagers but I will tell you about that in about 10 years... but the maternal instinct - it does eventually kick in. After a few months (or years, for some people), you'll notice that this baby has become a little person. They have wants and needs, and they can tell you about them, and you generally shape his or her entire world. And instead of being overwhelmed by it, you will be excited by it. Sleep training morphs into snuggle time - from "he needs to learn how" to "oh come on, let's spoon."

Charlie is so far from being an overwhelming, scary being. He is the best company his dad and I could ask for. He is so smart, so funny - and have you seen this child? - so dang cute, I still can't believe he is mine, all mine. The questions he asks just amaze me, he has a whole brain all his own, imagination. I am so proud of him I can hardly stand it. I can't sit on the couch next to him without touching him - rubbing his little shoulders, playing with his crazy hair. And at night - when I go in to check on him - sniffing his sweaty, sleeping head. He isn't just a kid. He is an entire relationship, my whole world.

What I wish I had told you instead: I'm still here, I'm not just a mom. I didn't go away when he came along. I have other things going on in my life but that child is and always will be #1. You don't have to force yourself to be the type of mom you identify in your mind as the Perfect Mom. That evolution was natural, not a choice, and it took a while to get there. It didn't happen the minute he was born and I can't identify any one moment where I realized it but this kid is the best friend I will ever have. He is the most natural companion, an extension of myself that at one point in time felt new and scary but now feels like he has always been there. I didn't know I had it in me but I'm fairly certain that no child on this planet is loved more than this one. And my life is far richer for having brought him into it.

Small Crisis

2008-08-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

OK small crisis here. Yes we here at work are in the middle of our AOP (Annual Operating Plan). FUN times here for the Finance team. Lots of charts to be done, systems to update, overtime to be worked (hopefully not though), main drivers to confirm, yet here I am counting up this spreadsheet and thinking...

How can I not have enough yoga hours yet?

I don't get it. The first weekend of June I had my last yoga training weekend. I should have had my 200 hours then- everyone else did - but I was slow about getting my contact (with a registered yoga teacher) hours in - so I thought at the time I was 16 hours short. I blame it on Joe, because when he travels I don't usually go to yoga. But I get credit for the hours I have taught since then too, and I have been teaching one and taking one class a week so I was getting 2 hours closer each week... I should be done by now... so I just counted up and suddenly... 34.5 hours short.

????

Is it my math? Are the numbers scrambling in my head? How can I possibly still be that short on hours?

I need a few yoga workshops, in case this is true - gotta knock those hours out. The hours must be either teaching class or taking class or a workshop with an RYT.

FYI, I am fully trained. I passed the tests. If you are in my classes don't worry, I am just operating without a license. It is the DANG paperwork, the certificate that I am missing!! And I won't get it at this rate, if my math is correct, for 17 more weeks???

Where is Internal Audit when I need them??

Dog Days

2008-08-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

Friends, it has been a sad few weeks for those of us who love dogs. First, Jake the Wonder Dog Talley... and this past weekend, very suddenly, Brady aka BradyButt O'Malley.

If you're not a dog person, you may not understand. But if you have a dog - any pet - in your life, you understand that the grief is real. I walked into the Talleys' house for the first time this weekend and I felt the absence of Jake immediately. When I heard the news about Brady, so unexpectedly and suddenly gone, I felt an ache in my chest and behind my eyes that hasn't gone away.

If you have a dog... give him an extra biscuit or a walk tonight. And say a prayer for my friends who are missing their 4-legged friends.

If you give a pig a pancake...

2008-08-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Every night, we try to stick to the same bedtime routine. Bath, books, bed. We have been doing this routine in some variation since Charlie was about a week old. All seasoned parents tell all new parents this, along with all the other advice that people throw at new parents, and all new parents want to poke the seasoned parents in the eye because it is just too much to absorb, really.

Anyway, some aspects change - bath is sometimes shower, bed used to be crib and is now a regular bed, we used to read books in the glider and now we read them in bed, and as of age 2 he somehow managed to sneak in a few minutes of TV between bath and books - but the outline of the ritual has remained intact. Charlie always chooses the books. He is allowed to choose 3, and he always asks me to reread one of them, and I say no unless it is a short one or one that he won't notice if I only read every 5th page and paraphrase.

Last night's selection included a book that a friend unfortunately left at our house before Charlie was born, when we were babysitting her kids. * The title: If You Give a Pig a Pancake, by Laura Numeroff. It turned out to be prophetically true last night (but in advance, as the drama happened before the selection). The premise is the old "If you give him an inch, he'll stay up really late and be a holy terror to put to bed."

To wit:

Last night: Charlie went to his friends' house while I taught yoga. I got home at 7 PM, and the minute he walked in the door, he let me have it. He had spent the last hour holding his overtired shit together for his friends, and that was it. He was tired and "not yucky" and did NOT want to take a bath. I said, OK, and let him have a cookie since he ate two dinners. We like to reward Charlie for eating, blame it on Joe's Italian background (manga!). He wanted to watch Spiderman 3, a grossly mature movie for his age, and he can't follow the plot but he insisted on watching it, so I let him. Then he wanted to watch Franklin, and I thought he needed something more soothing than Spiderman 3 right before bed, plus I was eating my cookie too, so I told him he could watch one segment (there are 3 7-minute segments per episode). I went to check my email, and looked up - oops! He had watched all 3 and I hadn't noticed. SO NOW it is really time for bed. Cookie? Check. Inappropriate movie? Check. 21 minutes additional TV time? Check. Waaaay later to bed than usual? Check.

Anyone without kids probably thinks, MAN! He must have been so tired and gone RIGHT to sleep! What an easy night.

Anyone with kids thinks, oh hahahahahaha. FORGET it. Yup, complete and total meltdown. And that is what happened. "I don't want to read! I want to sleep in your bed! I want this bed to be broken!" Tears were shed. Veins were bulging. Charlie was.... exhausted. And fighting it, big time.

He finally calmed down and slept in his own bed, but he did choose to read Pancake, and even I had to laugh at the moral slap in the face. Message to self: next time, try parenting. It works much better than waiting for him to do it himself.

And to all the new parents: for crying out loud, pick a bedtime ritual and stick to it. And while I'm dispensing assvice let me add lose the pacifier and bottle by age one, skip the bassinett and when all else fails, baby Tylenol just may save your sanity.

Now it's my turn to duck, and avoid the fork in the eye. But don't say I didn't warn you.

*My house is known around these parts as the Bermuda Triangle. If you leave your stuff there, I will set it aside for you, but I will probably never bring it back to you. Not because I want it - I just can't remember. Off the top of my head, we have in our possession:

-Pancake book (since 2004)
-Linda's sunscreen (APPLIN written on it)
-Knopps' CARS movie
-Blake's flag socks and sippy cup with BLAKE written on it

Call Me Crazy... and a "Why Didn't I Think of This???"

2008-08-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

First, the crazy part:

High temp today is forecast to be 98 degrees and that sounds like a break compared to the 105+ temps we have had around here lately... now I know that is HOT. People are dropping like flies and everyone can't wait for fall.

Except me.

I love it. BRING IT! I can take the heat. Maybe it's because I grew up in Houston, aka HOTston, where maybe it isn't 105+ but it may as well be because of the humidity. I am one of the few native Texans in our circle of friends and it took me a long time to understand that when they complained about the humidity, they just didn't have Houston as a benchmark. Dallas is humid? Not to me. Blowdry and straighten your hair here, and it may possibly survive the walk to your car. So it is practically the desert to my mind.

And I admit too, 100 degrees is not ideal to me. If it could be 80 degrees and dry, sign me up, but those days around here are treats, not the norm. Given the choice - status quo or cold, wintry mix - I take the heat, hands down. I would always choose the weather to be warm enough to swim.

Granted - you have to be submerged in water to really enjoy the heat. Ahhh, but that is the best part! Let the sun rays bake into your skin (SPF 50+, of course, is required). Then slip into a pool of water and soak in your reward for enduring the heat.
*********************************************************************************
In the "if only I had thought of that first, I'd be a zillionaire" category - I found the best invention ever.

You know how when your pants are just a wee bit too big, and you need to either take them to the tailor or wear a belt? And then you want to wear a fitted top and then end up with a buckle bulge from your belt? NOT flattering.

Enter: Invisibelt. For $20 I thought I'd give it a try. It is a miracle!!! Completely flat, no belt bulge, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS????

Have a great week!

If These Don't Make You Smile, There's Seriously Something Wrong with You

2008-08-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

Awkward Topics

2008-07-30T14:08:00.001-07:00

OK, since I opened up the well of controversy with the discussion of kid leashes in the last post, let's continue the fun. I got lots of email / phone responses on that subject (not so many responses on the blog, shame on ya'll). So lets have some fun, shall we? Tell me what you would think /do if these things happened to you. They happened to me recently and NO you can't think about it. First response please!!

Awkward Topic #1. Handicap Stall. OK, we all know it is totally uncool to park in a HC space and if you see anyone doing it you should slash their tires. Wait. That defeats the point. Make that - key their car and sneak an economy-sized box of Depends in their basket if you see them in the grocery store. BUT - in the public restroom. I never thought about this before: always, given a choice, use the handicap stall. Right? Especially with a kid in tow - or in the airport with bags - you need the extra room. Of course, if there were a handicap person within spitting distance (not that I would spit on them, of course), I would gladly step aside and let them have at it. But any other time - to me, that stall doesn't need to stand empty the way you would leave a HC parking spot empty. BUT - when we went to NYC, just landed at the airport and I took Charlie in to the ladies'. There it was, the HC stall, wide open while a long line of ladies clutched their knees together and - waited. Nobody used it. Now, I don't know who started this, if this is some Yankee thing that nobody ever told us - or was everyone else in line too embarrassed to be the first person to use it. I don't know. What say you? Handicap stall or no?

Awkward Topic #2 - Acknowledging the Obvious. We were at Chik Fil A - Charlie, Joe, me. Charlie started getting whiny - he wanted to play, we wanted him to eat. He wasn't loud and annoying, I promise. At that moment, an obese woman was about to pass by, and she stopped at our table. "Are you being rotten?" She asked Charlie in a syrupy voice. Obviously a nice enough person, a kid person, but Charlie was a little taken aback. She starts pushing it. "Come here, I am going to tickle you!" Joe and I didn't know what to do. This was awkward enough. Protect Charlie, who was getting freaked out, and embarrass this nice woman who was just being silly? But it gets worse. She starts telling her life story. It went like this, verbatim.

"I love kids. I don't have any of my own. I'm too fat, ugly and brainless. I hate myself."

She was very large. That wasn't a question, it was obvious, and I am not trying to be mean. I can't say, "No you're not." Ugly - I don't know, I wouldn't really say that about anyone. And brainless - I don't know her. I can't comment on her brain. And then the end: I hate myself?

She was kidding. Kind of. But it was very sad, she had to think some of that was true. What do you say? I don't want to get caught up in some stranger's mental state, let alone that of a person my child can't wait to see disappear. But I also hate that this woman went alone to her empty house, feeling like she did about herself, and I didn't make it any better. Joe and I took the popular route: stare at each other in fear. But what SHOULD we have done? What do you say when someone says something bad about herself, and it's obviously true?

Awkward Topic #3. Controlling other children's behavior. We are all at the airport. We were just told that we had an hour delay. In the waiting area, Charlie quickly befriended a boy his age, we'll call him Sam. They played together a bit, had a snack. Then it got rowdy. They started rolling around on the floor. Under the chairs (ewwww). I tried to stop Charlie, but Sam's mom was like, "whew they're staying busy," and I felt weird so I let it go a while. Joe comes back from the newsstand with that look on his face that said, "Why is our son rolling around on the disgusting airport floor?" But he too stepped back for some reason, let it go for a bit. Then the boys amped it up. There were two arcade games in the corner - Pac Man and a driving game with a steering wheel. PERFECT. The boys played like they were driving, louder than I would have liked, but not on the floor and not running around. Then a Grown Adult woman came up to the boys and indicated that SHE wanted to play Pac Man. I am not judging, of course, she has every right to play, but whyyyyy? Anyway, Sam was on Pac Man. His mom was not budging. Charlie was on the driving game, not in the way, but still I felt like I needed to get Sam out of the way. His mom didn't. I didn't. Charlie (and now Joe and me) are now guilty by association. As the boys got louder, Joe and I kept hushing them, trying to keep them near us, and Sam's mom didn't say a word. Was she annoyed that we were hushing her child? I don't know. At that point her opinion started mattering less than the other passengers.

It reached a fever pitch when Sam had the idea that they would pretend it was morning and they were just waking up. He sat on the floor, then ran through the lobby, clutching his Member and saying "I NEED TO PISSSSSSSSSSSSS!" and "I NEED TO TAKE A DUMP!"

Sam's mom - NOTHING. Looked at me like, OMG, how embarrassing, but didn't move. Charlie got up, started to mimic Sam. I jumped up, grabbed him, and we stayed away from the waiting area and out of sight of Sam for the next hour. Which is not easy to do, mind you, as we had a flight to catch and wanted to be there when it was time to take off.

Again: What would you do?

Toobin' Pics!!

2008-07-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

My dad just sent me some more pics from last week - this is Charlie / me tubin' (toobin?) on the Guadalupe. FUN!!

Rollin' On the River

2008-07-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hello!! It has been a LONG time!

We just got back from 5 days at my parents' house on the Guadalupe. It is one of my favorite places in the world! We would go a lot more often if the following weren't true:

Five hour drive - patience not my strong suit
Charlie has a 3-night threshold for being away from home
We are a giant PIA.

We really try not to be a lot of trouble. It's hard though. One of us is always wrangling Charlie. At our own house, he can go off in his playroom and be fine for a while and we can do other things. Anywhere else - you don't know what he's getting into. So someone is always shadowing Charlie. And then there's Abby - our 80 lb lab. She loves it there, and we feel bad leaving her for too long, and it's ridiculously costly to leave her at the kennel. So we take her, and my mom's 3 cats are displaced, and then we feel bad about that. But we have fun, even if we are a hassle. Sorry, mom and dad! But we love you and thank you for having us.

So what we do there - we hang out with my parents. We try to use all the available bodies of water. Canyon Lake has a great dam for running along - over one side you can see the lake, and the other you can see all the green hills - and then the water there is always the perfect temp for swimming in afterwards. The Guadalupe is icy but fun - Charlie tubed a little, but not over rapids yet - maybe next year. The local swimming pool is always fun for him to get some real swimming in. There's the Comal River wading area in Landa Park (pictures above). And last but not least, the San Marcos river, which we all went tubing in. As Charlie gets older, or if we got bored, we could also go to Schlitterbahn, Sea World, San Antonio, etc. But for now, we are happy just hanging around doing all the relaxing stuff. Joe and I tubed for a couple of hours, so I got to experience the Beer Toob experience I had so sorely been missing on my last visit.

Mom's and my favorite spot is the "island." We get in tubes and float down about 5 houses; it takes about 20 minutes in summer when the river is low. We take low folding chairs with us, a small cooler and a dry bag for our books. Then we float till we get to the island, which I don't have a photo of but imagine a rapids area, then imagine some big, flat rocks just above it. It takes skill, but we are professionals at relaxing in the sun. If they had a PhD in Sun Worship (with a minor in SPF 50, of course), you would address us as Dr Mom and Dr Lisa. We steer around the rapids and towards the rocks, and we set our chairs out where the water is just a few inches deep and flowing but not too fast, where our feet and our butts are in the icy water. Then we get our books and veg out for as long as possible. We would stay there for hours if we could. It is pure heaven.

So as I said, 3 nights is about Charlie's limit, and on Day 4 he was DONE with the lake, DONE with the river, and wanted to hang out inside all day. FINE. But later that day we pulled out the Slip 'n Slide. SOOOO funny watching him try to figure it out, then finally figure it out on his own. Over and over and over again.

One more thing. Lest you think that all we do is go, go go. What a life of leisure it must seem like, based on my blogs! Trips and yoga and playing with Charlie. Well, we had the two trips (NYC and New Braunfels) back to back, but we are staying put now. Aside from Joe's business travel, which is pretty much go go go all the time, we are finished with travel for a while. And yes I have a job, but I don't blog about it much, because it is kinda like the face only a mother could love. Nobody really wants to hear about it, but if you are interested it is very very much like Ericka's job . So normal life for us is more about working, with little pockets of yoga and playing with Charlie than it may seem like.

One potentially incendiary comment. One day it rained all day and Joe and I took Charlie to the McKenna children's museum. Very cool option for burning preschoolers' energy on a rainy day. Well, there was a grandma there with a kid maybe a little younger than Charlie - say right around 3. And I empathize with the hassle of chasing around a kid in a public place, really I do. But a leash? I just don't get it. I don't get it in airports, I don't get it in the mall - but especially, I don't get it at a children's musuem that really isn't all that large anyway. She would literally yank this child away when he was acting up (which he did, in the form of growling at Charlie, who looked at him like, what is that you're wearing, and I could just see the words forming in Charlie's head - something about a leash, and our dog, so thank goodness Granny yanked Rover - I mean Marshall - away when she did). Kid leashes - yea or nay?

In other news. Anyone know any good contractors? If you know anyone who can do a built-in entertainment center, send me their number ASAP!!!

A Bagel Mystery

2008-07-16T07:30:00.001-07:00

Last night I got home from work and found an empty bagel bag on the living room floor. It had been on the counter, and full of bagels, when we left in the morning. Not a huge mystery who was to blame - and not overly shocked that Abby was not interested in her bowl of dog food.

The loss of the bagels is not such a bad deal. They were cinnamon raisin, Joe bought them, and Charlie and I don't "yike" raisins. So Abby had a nice, huge snack... so what.

The mystery is this: I let her out in the backyard, unloaded groceries and then Charlie and I went out to play. There was a whole bagel on the lawn. Uneaten, undigested, in case you were wondering. Whole, straight out of the bag. She couldn't have slipped by me with that whole thing in her mouth.

How did that get there?

I Heart NY

2008-07-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

We’re back now, from the trip that was never going to happen. And thank goodness it did because it was FUN!!!! I just love NYC. The energy there is just something you can’t describe. There is a feeling of being in the middle of the action. I loved the sights, the views, the variety of cultures. This was my first sightseeing trip to the city – I went there briefly, right after college, thinking I would find a job and stay there forever. I loved it immediately – even though it was January – and started about a week of serious interviewing. I got a couple of offers too – one travel PR job that was a dream chance – but I just couldn’t overcome the low salary and the high cost of living even though my hair looked great every single day. And I love the way my life has turned out but at the same time, it would have been a cool experience for a few years, as a single person and then maybe as a young married couple in NYC. Not that I would want to do all that schlepping around town NOW – but it would be cool to have the memories anyway. Here is a summary of our activities / impressions:

· Sightseeing Stuff – we did a lot of walking around and just seeing and absorbing. With Charlie we knew this trip would lean more towards outside / kid friendly stuff – Staten Island Ferry, Little Italy, Chinatown, Times Square, Ground Zero, Rockefeller Center. A highlight was at Top of the Rock where the tour guides singled out “Charlie the lineleader” much to his delight.

· Central Park – deserves it own category. Many many hours spent here – in playgrounds, walking around, carrying Charlie (he is so over strollers but one could have come in handy there). Truly way beyond my expectations!!

· Style – there is nothing like a touristy weekend in NYC to make a person feel short and dumpy. The women in NYC are amazing. They are impossibly, effortlessly chic. I watched Sex and the City, I know it’s all about the shoes – but that is for real!! Women walking the streets, or even in Central Park in heels or flip-flops that hurt my feet to watch. Sundresses and flats and their long, glorious flowing hair just tied up in a messy bun right out of the pages of Allure. Seriously, I felt stylish when I ordered my J Crew shorts and Tissue Tshirt – and of course, for walking around NYC, I had to wear tennis shoes or my feet would fall off. But actually wearing this stuff in NYC? With chocolate cookie smeared on my shorts on Day One and my shirt all stretched out and my “effortless” hairstyle looking nothing but effortless (no chic here) – ugh. Dumpy hausfrau, that’s me. Just adds fuel to the fire – next time, no Charlie, a Broadway show, and I am glammin’ it up.

· Food – not fair for me to judge, seeing as we were with Charlie and the theme of the weekend was: quick, cheap, and loud. I had thin crust pizza 3 days in a row and was happy every time. Also grabbed a cannoli in Little Italy and several black and white cookies – not as good as in my memory. But does it count that we SAW several 5-star places? I mean, we were RIGHT THERE! We just, um, kept on walking. And speaking of walking - Joe and I both think we would weigh about 10 lbs less each if we lived there. We just walked and walked and walked some more. I guess therein lies the secret of the thin glorious creatures mentioned above.

· Weird Coincidence – we spent an afternoon in Queens with Joe’s friend Dave and his family. The guys were playing basketball and chatting up some guy with a little girl. I join them, conversation flowed, and turns out – he went to my high school and graduated in my class! I didn’t know him well but we knew of each other. Weird, huh?

· Celebrity Sightings: 0.

· Charlie Behavior: overall, very good. What a little, overtired trouper we had. He had a blast though and slept on the whole flight home and then all night so it was totally worth it.

Would I want to live in NYC? Hell yeah. But only if we were rich. But as for visiting – we will be back!!!

Charlie's secret hiding place, at Belvedere Castle, in Central Park
Yoga! Those cool cats are doing yoga with THAT as a backdrop!!!
I love the view but suddenly am v. afraid of ol' Charlie plunging in the turtle pond...

Playground in Battery Park - found in the nick of time
The men and their kids - notice Joe's geeky tourist shirt. Seriously, he is wearing that shirt IN New York City! Charlie too! This is why Joe is going to heaven - he wore that shirt, feeling like an ass, because Charlie wanted him to. All together now - awe!!! I would have worn mine, too, if I wasn't afraid it would get us all beaten up. Somebody had to get us home, you know.
Top of the Rock - coooool
Can you believe this skyline? And this kiss? Awe...
This is who greeted me after school today!!! KINDA related to NYC, right??!!!

July 4th Wrapup

2008-07-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend... we did a lot of swimming and hanging out with friends. We kicked off the weekend on Thursday with a parade at Charlie's school. On the 4th we went to the Craig Ranch Red White and Boom! event - was really fun for the kids, with bounce houses, trains, hot air balloons, and fireworks. We went with our across-the-street neighbors who have become our good friends even though Lynn drinks too much wine. JUST KIDDING !! I am the bad influence there.

We also spent time with other good friends and just hung around all weekend. Today Charlie has Water Slide day at school - very exciting for him.

Oh we got our first bid on the backyard patio. OUCH!

Games We Play

2008-07-01T13:27:00.001-07:00

Life with a bossy 3 year old sometimes requires, um, creative thinking. We don't lie to Charlie (much). But there are some things that may help you out, should you ever find a reason to apply these principles. I didn't come up with them all on my own but I wish I did.

Problem: Child insists on getting the newspaper every day, but you want the paper and coffee quiet time, ironically, before the child wakes up. Solution 1: keep a Pennysaver paper on hand and toss out to sidewalk as you get the regular paper. Solution 2: retrieve paper, stealthy as can be. Replace classifieds back in the plastic sleeve, and toss back out on sidewalk. Remind yourself that you are providing your neighbors with comic relief vs looking like a time-traveling moron.

Problem: Child does not believe anything you say. Solution: Create an all-knowing authority figure. My solution: Ms. Ghattas, the director of his preschool. If Charlie insists on skipping sunblock or wants to be advanced to Elementary School: "Let's ask Ms Ghattas." Her response is always accepted without question. Bonus: I can pretend I'm on his side, but Ms Ghattas is the Boss. We have to do what she says.
Problem: Child wants every toy in Target. Solution: Let him play with whatever he wants. By the time we're checking out he will forget about all of them and play with a bag of peanuts. For $.69 I let it go and, using my body as a shield, I remove contraband from the cart.
Problem: any annoying behavior in a store / airplane / anyplace that has a loudspeaker. Solution: Tell child that the loudspeaker voice is talking to him, telling him to behave / sit down / buckle his seatbelt. Child will spend the duration of the flight / shopping adventure looking reverently toward the ceiling in search of the Voice from Beyond.
Problem: bedtime extending into the wee hours. Solution: HAHAHAHA. I'm still looking for the ultimate undereye concealer, does that tell you anything?!

Sidelined

2008-06-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

From what I hear there wasn't much rain in NYC. Not that I compulsively checked over the weekend, but I hear things. Such as the New Yorker, who wanted us to come visit and then called to warn us about the rain and suggested we reschedule... who then called Sunday AM with the message: "I'm outside with the kid. Too bad you changed ALL your plans because of an hour of rain."

Don't get mad, I say to myself. Joe was so tired anyway, it was nice to have a weekend at home. Plus now we still have it to look forward to. So HA!

It was a nice weekend. Note for those without kids: you have probably been warned that once you have a baby, your social life is over. Not so... Joe and I have made tons of friends since having Charlie. Once we officially cancelled the trip we were then freed to go to 2 pool parties on Saturday. One was a friend from Charlie's school, and one was neighbors with kids the same age. Kids are a great connection to an underground social life!

Sunday was a relaxing birthday-day for Joe aside from having to change a flat in the parking lot at the gym. We went out to dinner last night and left Charlie home with his sitter. Side note: as much as I love getting dressed up and having great food prepared for me and getting to eat without cutting up someone else's food, I get sooo antsy sitting there waiting for the food. I really think there is a restaurant concept that has gone undiscovered. I'm still working on the details but somehow a TV / DVD player at the table is involved. And a big, fluffy armchair or couch that we can retire to between courses. Joe and I have been married almost 9 years and we talk all the time. What we really want to do while we wait is catch up on our Netflix.

Sidelined: my leg has been hurting the past few days. You know that growing-pains, achy feeling we get from time to time? It's that, but it doesn't go away. It is mainly around my knee. I looked it up: patellar tracking disorder. I can't think of any trauma that would have caused it. And it really isn't just the knee - it goes down the shin. It's not a sharp pain - just a dull ache - annoying. Google MDs, can you help me out here?

Exciting news: we have a design consultant coming out this afternoon to help us plan out our backyard. We want to do this in stages but for this year the plan is - increase living space (i.e., add more deck area) and landscaping along the fence.

What's new with everyone?

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2008-06-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

What?? It's not raining. It's glorious out. Hot, sunny, not a cloud in the... oh, wait. It's raining in NEW YORK. More importantly, it's going to be raining in New York all weekend, when we were supposed to be there. So we're not going to be there.

It's OK though. We would have gone ahead and taken our chances if we couldn't reschedule without penalty... but New York in the rain, or more likely, New York inside buildings, is not what we had in mind for this trip. It was all about outside... the views from TOTR, the Staten Island Ferry, lots and lots of time in Central Park, wandering through Little Italy and Chinatown... so no biggie, we're going in two weeks instead. And now we can go to a friend's pool party, and out to a nice bday dinner for Joe. He will be 35 but thanks to the love and joy of his wife and son surrounding him on a daily basis, he doesn't look a day over 25. If you can remember please call him or email him and wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLD GUY!!!!

It better rain ALL weekend in NYC.

PTO

2008-06-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a short break from blogging... Joe comes home today (3 days early, hooray!!!) and I feel the need to gather my little cocoon around the three of us for a while. We leave in a few days for NYC and I'll post when we get back.

In the meantime, please send your prayers / thoughts / hare krishnas / whatever pleases you to Tracy Carruth, owner of Yoga Balance Studio in McKinney. Tracy was bit by a copperhead snake while mowing her backyard (Supermom, this was in your neighborhood, please be careful!!). After time in critical condition in the hospital, and from what I understand, excruciating pain - she is now recovering at home. If you don't believe in Karma, spend 30 minutes with Tracy and I bet you'll change your mind. She truly extends love and generosity to everyone around her, no strings attached, and you just can't help but want to return it.

Peace... and next up: Bright Lights, Big City, baby!!!

A Peaceful Evening Stroll

2008-06-19T19:43:00.001-07:00

The scene: a warm, steamy summer evening. Charlie and I decide to take a walk around the block. Historically, this block takes 5-8 minutes to circle (sans him, of course, as we all know nothing can be accomplished with a 3 yr old child in less than 2 hours. Except dinner, which takes 5 seconds).

Charlie pedals easily on flat surfaces and downhills, but welcomes my frequent help up inclines. Unless, of course, he doesn't demand it first, in which case it is a crime punishable by law. I witness a slow incline coming up and nonchalantly press the bike forward with my thigh, keeping my hands visible at all times. I get away with this for about 10 feet and then...

CHARLIE WITNESSES MY OFFENSE.

Charlie: STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, Mommy, do you understand me? I do it BY SELF!!!
Me: Charlie, this is a long gradual incline. I'm only trying to ...
Charlie (climbing off bike): I do it by self! You go in time out right now, do you understand me?
Me: Okay.

I wait patiently while Charlie maneuvers his bike clumsily, presumably with the goal of returning to the pre-tragedy location for a redo. Minutes pass. This is not going well, and Charlie quickly loses patience.

Charlie: COME HELP ME, MOMMY!!!

I help turn the bike around. He climbs on and rides back the remaining 2-3 feet to the starting point. He shuns my help turning the bike back around and gets off, does it himself while accidentally pushing the bike forward another 5 feet, and climbs back on. He puts his feet on the pedals and pushes. More minutes pass.

Nothing. This is halfway up an incline, after all. I stand patiently. This ain't my first rodeo. I await my instructions. I wonder if the people inside the houses are watching, and are they annoyed or amused?

Charlie: MOMMY! It's too hard for me to do! Why aren't you helping me?

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In an unrelated story (OR IS IT?), I saw this recipe in the DMN this week and I am trying it out tomorrow. I can't vouch for it yet, so try at your own risk, but I don't see any way the results could be bad.

Watermelon Margaritas:

1 (4-pound) piece of ripe seedless watermelon
2 ½ cups good-quality silver tequila
¼ cup Cointreau or other orange liqueur
1 cup fresh lime juice
Lots of crushed ice
Mexican (or Key) limes or additional watermelon for garnish (optional)

Trim rind from watermelon and slice fruit into 2-inch cubes. You should have about 8 cups. Place watermelon in blender and purée until smooth. Combine watermelon juice, tequila, Cointreau and lime juice in pitcher or jug and add plenty of ice. Garnish the glasses with thin slices of lime or watermelon, if desired.

Have a great weekend!

How It is Done

2008-06-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that my husband Joe works a lot. And travels a lot. Basically, he is gone, in some form or fashion, it seems, a lot. I might not say right here, on the WORLD WIDE WEB, or to plumbers or electricians or carpet cleaners or anyone who knows my address - that on a particular day, my husband is 6,743 miles away and not coming back for 2-3 more weeks. But yes, it is a lot.

So when he is gone, I inevitably get the questions. All variations on the theme: "How do you do it?" I do think about it quite a bit. And what the hell, I have a blog, so let's get it out there.

**DISCLAIMER**

All hail the single moms and others with more challenging circumstances. The content in this message applies to my situation and is in no way a whining session.

First of all, it is important to note that when Joe is here, he is HERE. He is a present and devoted husband and father. He puts Charlie to bed, hangs out with him while I go to yoga. He mows the yard and we go to the park and to Wal-Mart and on dates and have generally lots of fun and hang out together. He has been known, in very busy times at work, to come home to hang out with us and then he "tucks us in" and goes back to work (or on his laptop downstairs). So we are lucky. He loves us, loves hanging around with us. Not all dads are like that.

So it helps that when he leaves for a trip, I'm not already drained. Most likely I have had some "me" time, and we try to have a date night shortly before he leaves so we have had some "we" time. So I start out with a full cup. Then I have to think of ways to keep the cup at least partially filled for the duration. I make plans. Charlie and I get together with friends a lot, and at least once I try to schedule a sitter so that I can do something fun with other adults. I work during the week. Charlie goes to a fantastic preschool that he loves. Mon and Fri I work from home, and I try to do any major grocery shopping / errands on those days so I'm not dragging a whiny toddler around. I do my very best to work out on those days too, since working out is critical to my emotional health. I do a little illicit shopping (less so than I used to, right JOE?!) . Joe calls many times a day, and he always tells me I'm doing a great job. Charlie and I swim after work / school and sometimes eat dinner in the pool. It's a big party, but Charlie has to go to bed BY 9. Usually earlier - but by 9 is the rule. I need that recharge time after he's asleep to watch TV or read.

There is usually a crappy day or two. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, when bills start coming due that weren't here before he left, and suddenly I remember that it's not just a party, I still have to do a lot of stuff, TOO MUCH stuff, and Charlie starts acting out, and the end is not in sight and I feel sorry for myself. This usually means I need sleep - I've been staying up too late and wearing down the wick. I take it out on Joe. Then I feel better, and I go to bed, and apologize the next day and Joe says "Oh I know, it's hard. I couldn't do what you do. You do so much." Isn't that all we need to hear sometimes? Amazing how much better those words can make me feel.

How does Charlie do? Well, he misses his dad. He usually won't say it, he's only 3. But he acts up, whines a little, pushes me a little, takes advantage a little. And sometimes he can make the connection:

Me: Charlie, why are you so whiny?
Charlie: Because I WANT my daddy.

That is hard. But he gets over it. He talks to Joe on the phone (until he loses interest). He wears clothes like (he thinks) daddy wears although I have yet to see Joe wear a dinosaur shirt with snowman socks in June. He goes to school and plays on the playground, swims and does his sports class and plays with all his friends, and generally does just fine. He's not new at this - at the end, daddy always comes home, and with lots of presents.

Then there is the alternative. Would I rather Joe be home every day by 6 PM for dinner? Wait. Would I have to cook dinner? I'll get back to you on that. But in all honesty, it's not that simple. One of our biggest joys is travel. We all (Joe, me, Charlie) love to travel. A major benefit of all this travel Joe does is the free miles, the hotel points - we have opportunities to see and do things that I would never want to pass up. There's a whole world out there, and we want to see it all. Right now we are tiptoeing into the world of traveling with Charlie - he has flown probably 10-15 times in his 3 years and earned his first passport stamp (Mexico) a few months ago. We plan to stamp that thing up in due time. I am itchy to get back to Hawaii and Europe - not quite ready to take Charlie that far yet! - and Joe is eager for me to join him in Asia, and to take a family trip to Australia when Charlie is old enough.

So in a nutshell, this lifestyle works for us. We are pretty normal (hahahaha, that's debatable) when Joe is home. Things get nutty when he's not, and it can be hard and it is grueling for all of us - remember Joe is working 20 hr days and flying 14 hours, often in economy. Would I rather him not be gone so long? Well, of course. That would be the best of both worlds. But the reality is, that is the sacrifice. People don't fly 14 hours for a 2-day trip. So I have accepted that for us, for right now, this works.

Father's Day

2008-06-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

Charlie and I spent Father's Day weekend, appropriately, with my dad. Joe was out of town, my mom was on a Vermont hiking trip with a friend (60 yrs old and going on hiking vacations, how cool is she??), so we took advantage of a cheap Southwest flight and hit the river.

We had a fun weekend... a 3 year old's dream. There was lots of indulging Charlie's every whim. We went to my dad's 31-story construction project in Austin. Charlie loved taking the construction elevator, getting perilously close to falling to his death, and checking out the cranes and trucks. My dad is forever building these upscale high-rise condos in cool places like Austin but to date, he has never once offered me a unit at any kind of discount. Then we made a quick stop at the local cupcake trailer .. an only- in- Austin kind of a place. You gotta love Austin. I am a die-hard Aggie, but I have to admit Austin puts College Station to shame - the nature, the arts, the quirkiness - awesome town, even to me.

Then we headed to New Braunfels. Charlie's Big Dream for the past few months was going fishing with JJ (his name for my dad). We fished (several times for approx 2.5 minutes each), splashed in the river, swam in the lake, swam in the pool, and ate two servings in a row!!! of red meat (practically unheard of when Joe is gone)!

So... aside from having fun and wearing out the Boy, I had a little trip down memory lane. New Braunfels is full of the youngsters. By this I mean me - minus 15 years. SIGH. Lots of young people floating in tubes (spelled "toob" if you're local). That used to be me: a big group, tying our toobs together with the Beer Toob in the center, no sunblock, no worries! Eight hours on the river in the direct sun= bliss. Fast forward to now and I'm schlepping around in my Target shorts, trying to catch my kid and put SPF 1000+ on him, and if I'm lucky, spending 45 minutes in one location before Charlie loses interest and is ready to pack up all our crap and move on.

Question: should I have outgrown the desire for the Beer Toob and the 8 hours in the sun? Or is it normal for a splash of wistfulness (read: insane jealousy) now and then?

So now we're back, Charlie convinced me to let him "stay home and rest," and haha the joke is on me. Nobody's resting around here!

Circular Error

2008-06-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

Did you know that insurance sucks? Oh insurance is great, yes, we are sooo happy we have it. But using it? Hahahahahahhaha. That is the tricky part.

Our RE requires a pre-approval letter from insurance before starting an IVF cycle, or they will bill us upfront. Upfront, 100%, which could be somewhere around $5-8K. I'm not sure how medication factors in but say it's another $5K. With a preapproval letter, they will bill the insurance company, which, oh by the way, they only charge some fraction due to the crooked healthcare system. Is that fair? Since I happen to have good health insurance, which covers this sort of thing, they only charge my insurance company a small amount, but if I didn't have health coverage, I would have to pay, upfront, $10-$15K per cycle. If you are rich or have good health insurance, you can roll the dice and see if you get a baby.

ANYWAY. So this letter is key. Call insurance company and ask them for letter. Call back a few days later to verify they mailed it. Insurance mailed it several days ago. Call dr - they have not received it. Call back insurance - "we mailed it, here is the reference #". Call back dr with ref # - "what is a reference #? I need a letter." Call back insurance company, please fax the letter. Call dr, did you get the fax? Dr - "nope."

And so it goes. Can the two of them talk? Noooooo, silly! The Doctor is on the golf course and the business manager is terribly terribly busy, there are a lot of infertile people in DFW, you know, she can't hold my hand. First obvious solution: have insurance company fax it to me, and I take it to dr. Flaw: this letter is not something you want on the company fax machine. These are Personal Things. I am saying this stuff here because as my blogstalkers you are at some level interested in this - I don't know if Gary the Engineer really wants to read about possible ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection in the off chance you didn't happen to know) and embryo transfers and ovulation dysfunction and management and the explicit prices of this roller coaster ride. So I will settle for regular mail. But for the love of God, could the person who is about to get all this $$$$ from me get on the damn phone and call the insurance company?

Nick-Nack Paddywack

2008-06-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

Not much going on around here. The title comes to us courtesy of Tim Dungan (hee hee).

We had a good weekend. Saturday was Ericka's birthday and we celebrated on Friday night. Joe was out of town (came back in later that night), so I called my faithful sidekick to watch Charlie and I headed out for some fun with the girls - dinner at Cheesecake Factory. I was so excited about the dinner, and my shoes were a little too big, so I tripped running up the stairs in the parking garage. But no matter. We had fun, see!!

Saturday AM I went to yoga. It has been weeks (and feels like months) since I have actually walked into a yoga studio and participated in a class with no strings attached. Man oh man. Tiffanie's class kicks my butt, every single time. LOVE it! I can always count on Tiffanie to reduce me to a sweat puddle in the middle of the floor. And that, my friends, is enough to make any day an A+.

Other events of the day o' endless fun: Charlie got a new bike, I took Charlie to a bday party (fire station and bounce house - don't know any 3 yr old party that could top that!) and then Charlie went to his friend's house so Joe and I could go on a date.

Short aside. For us, dates are rare and are restricted to places we can't take Charlie. We rarely go out to dinner on a date because, well, we can eat with Charlie. So: movies or the gym. I am not setting foot in a movie theater until I can drag a girlfriend to Sex and the City - I cannot risk overhearing any details whatsoever. So don't hate. Yes we worked out on our date, OK! And it was a two a day for me!! Woohoo! But in my own defense, in transit I scarfed a huge piece of birthday cake from the best bakery in town, and we got fast food afterwards on the way to pick Charlie up. So net-net, we're back to where we started.

Tomorrow is a workday (in office). Not that every day isn't since my laptop is up and running 24/7 but I actually have to get up and dressed for work tomorrow. So off to bed - since none of you blogstalkers recommended an undereye concealer, by the way!