Hosey Makes Three

Bedtimes

2012-01-26T20:48:00.006-05:00

Justin is such a sweet Daddy. He puts Roxanne to bed every night, and now Nadine joins in for story time. She doesn't always make it through both stories, but she definitely loves it most of the time. Roxanne is very sweet and shares his lap without complaining. And she giggles when Nadine tries to eat the book. Which always happens.
As you can see, her eyes are still blue!
She loves grabbing her toes. She gets frustrated with these footy jammies because she can't get her toes.
These are her Alice in Wonderland jammies. So cute.
She sits up really well, but only for short amounts of time. She's staring up at Roxanne's chandelier.

She's getting so big...
Sisterly empathy. Nadine is mid-scream here.
Nadine thinks Roxanne is hilarious.
Sisters.
They're both such beautiful and sweet ladies.
Blurry, but I couldn't resist.
She's doing great with tummy time. But she has figured out how to roll from her tummy back to her back or side, so it's hard to keep her up without some kind of toy, etc.
I can't believe she might crawl soon... Ack!
Again, blurry, but her face when she is watching Roxanne is just wonderful.

Where to start?!

2012-01-16T21:29:00.005-05:00

I know, I missed blogging Roxanne's 4th birthday, Justin's 30th birthday, Christmas, and New Year. I won't try to catch up with all of that. I'll just say that all of it was wonderful. Roxanne had her party at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur (where we had her 1st birthday party) and she wanted a Christmas theme. Most of her little school buddies came, and it was perfect. Lots of fun was had by all. :) For Justin, I threw a surprise party and some of his co-workers and friends came. We celebrated Justin's big 3-0 here at home in a fairly tame way, but he WAS very surprised and everyone had a nice time showing Justin how awesome we think he is. Christmas was the usual whirlwind of visiting, gift-wrap, and happy family moments. It was beautiful to share the holiday with baby Nadine. Santa brought her some goodies, probably because Roxanne was sure to tell Santa what Nadine wanted. Always looking out for her sister! In current news, Roxanne is doing wonderfully in school, and is quite the artist. She is learning to write some letters and recognize the sounds that they make. She love love loves to sing now, too. She still sings Christmas songs constantly, but she often substitutes the words for whatever is convenient (and silly). Nadine is grabbing everything she can get her hands on, and wants to put all of it into her mouth. She is sitting on her own for short periods (like 4 seconds...) before toppling over. She wants to be in the exersaucer as much as possible. We have started her on rice cereal and some apple mixed in. We had planned to wait until 6 months, but the doctor said we could start at 4 months, and she won't really take a bottle, so we opted to start her on cereal so Justin could feed her while I'm in class Monday and Tuesday nights. She doesn't eat that much of it, but she does very well with it! She's up to 17 pounds 5 ounces now, and she is so so long! Our littlest baby is getting not so little.

Nadine in her high chair!
On the floor gym at work.
Who needs toys when you have chub toes?

Nadine eating her first cereal with Roxanne's help.

Christmas morning!
Hot chocolate on the trolley at Callaway (light show!).
We had to...
Roxanne's real birthday night cupcake.
The night before Christmas; literally.
Decorating Santa's cupcake.

Roxanne was an angel in her school's Christmas chapel.
At her birthday party.
Yet another birthday party at which she cried at cake time. She thought she had been skipped for a juice box. Sigh.

Four Months!

2011-12-07T20:59:00.005-05:00

(photo is of Nadine today!)
I can't believe it has gone by so fast, but Nadine is four months old today! Justin took her to her appointment this morning, and she is doing great! She's now 16 pounds, and is 85th percentile for weight (and 90th for height, but I can't find the sheet with her height written on it...). The doctor said she looks very healthy and is on track with her milestones. Those milestones include smiling, giggling, reaching out and grasping toys (and then putting them in her mouth), sitting up with some kind of assistance, lots of babbling, and rolling from side to side. She has rolled onto her belly once, but I think it just scared her. She's doing pretty well with tummy time, in that she doesn't hate it quite as much as her sister did. And of course, she's heartbreakingly adorable. Her eyes are still blue for now, and we are starting to think maybe they will stay that way...? Her hair is definitely dark. When it's wet, it seems curly. Of course, the thing about baby #2 is that even while you have fun making guesses about how they will grow and end up, we know how fast it goes, so we are much better at slowing down and really soaking up each stage. She really is just such a wonderful little baby. I feel so incredibly lucky that I've been able to spend every day with her and be her primary caregiver. Roxanne also love love loves Nadine and wants to do lots of fun things with her little sister. She always wants to take a bath with her, but we only do that every once in a while because it's so hard to hold Nadine up in the big tub. Roxanne always wants to have matching clothes with Nadine, and she asks all the time about getting bunk beds. She really wants to share a room with Nadine, and we're considering it in a year or so. Maybe longer... Either way, it's very sweet that Roxanne is so in love with her little sister.
Roxanne and Justin at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Christmas Parade this past weekend.
Nadine in the bathroom sink for a super quick bath.
Storytime.
Listening!
Family portrait at the parade.

Nadine sucking her thumb.
Roxanne's first pedicure (and my second) at our first quick mom and me outing.
Roxanne at her school Thanksgiving chapel. Those are turkey legs on her hat.

Sisters playing.

Nadine video.

It's going too fast!

2011-11-12T21:59:00.007-05:00

Sheesh. Nadine is getting soooo old. Of course, Roxanne is, too! Since I've been bad at blogging lately, I'll just fill you in on all that Nadine is doing now. She's eating and growing wonderfully. She goes back for her next doctor's visit in early December. She is cooing, smiling, and has let a few giggles out, which are basically the most adorable thing ever. She sits up with assistance, and really really wants to be sitting up all the time. She wants to either be perched on your shoulder where she can look around and see everything or sitting up in your arms so she can see. If you try to lay her back, or put her in her bouncey seat or car seat, she grunts and struggles to sit up straight. We need to break out the Bumbo seat soon since we think it might be perfect to help her sit upright. And now onto the photos. They are in a weird order, since Blogger has the most annoyingly sequenced photo uploader ever... Sorry.
This is from tonight. Justin was watching football, but in a house with all girls...he was also getting the dress-up treatment from Roxanne. Isn't she sweet?
I love this picture of Nadine because you can see how pretty her eyes are. They are still blue, and we're hoping maybe they will stay that way...? My mom has blue eyes, so it's not impossible. I mean, we have a blond kid, so yeah. Recessive genes are a real thing!
Here's her beautiful big smile. :)
Yes, she's wearing a disposable diaper. We are still using the cloth diapers almost exclusively, but if she gets diaper rash and needs ointment, we have to use the disposables. Ointment messes up the cloth diapers. They are definitely a little high maintenance, but so worth it!
Here she is in one of her sleep sacks. She was waving like a mad woman trying to grab me and/or the camera. She is definitely figuring out how to grab everything!
Again from tonight, Justin was watching football with Nadine.
This is how Roxanne fell asleep on her bed last night. We got home from work at 6 and she had fallen asleep in the car. I set her on her bed and she wiggled to this position and slept through the whole night. She is in a sleep transition right now. She doesn't want to nap, but probably still needs to. Definitely still needs to...
Here's me giving Nadine her very first bottle last night! Her pediatrician kept telling me I had to give her one much earlier, but we just didn't really get around to it (or maybe I didn't feel ready?). In spite of this picture, she actually took to it really well and ate the whole 2 ounces I had put in there. I used pumped milk since we aren't planning on using any formula unless something unforeseen happens. But I'm very relieved she took to the bottle so well. *knock on wood* it will make things much easier when I start back to school two nights a week in January.
Here she has it down pat! Please pardon my end-of-the-day-exhausted-in-pajamas looks.
Here's Roxanne and Nadine on the kitchen floor. This baby seat was from me or my sister. Nadine likes it because it allows her to sit more upright.
Looking serious in the sleep sack...
Here's a blurry picture of Roxanne trick-or-treating! We went with my friend Sarah and her adorable daughter who was dressed as a bumblebee. Roxanne was a watermelon fairy.
We went trick-or-treating in a neighborhood near downtown Decatur. Our neighborhood was a ghost town on Halloween last year (pun intended) so we ventured out. This little section of Decatur is full of kids and very safe. And as you can see, Roxanne was pretty happy with her candy haul.
At the start of trick-or-treating... She couldn't contain herself. Blurry photos should just show you how excited she was. She couldn't stop moving!
Here's baby Nadine on Halloween. She had a matching Watermelon Fairy costume, but it was just too chilly. So we opted for her panda sweater. Cute and snug.
See with the weird order?
Here's Roxanne in her costume at the Little Five Points Halloween Parade. It was really really fun. Of course, waiting is not her strong suit, so the time before the parade started was a little rough... Fortunately, my dad came with us and brought his super cute dog Eddie. Eddie helped pass the time.
Nadine the baby watermelon fairy.
The wings on the back? Adorable.
Pop Pop (my dad) got Roxanne a chocolate ice cream cone. Which she promptly dropped on the ground. Of course, he replaced it. Grandparents are the best.
And here's Roxanne at pre-school working on her art project for the Halloween party. I'm glad I was able to go. The kids were adorable in their costumes!

In honor of our new camera!

2011-10-17T20:50:00.004-04:00

Justin's dad and Susan came for a lovely visit, and gave us their old (but awesome) camera. Yay! We've been very busy with everything and I'm back at work now. We're doing well and Nadine is getting huge! She is more smiley and interactive. Roxanne is loving school and being back at work. Yay for fall!
She loves her bouncy seat.
Please love the smile and ignore the drool.
So alert!
She loves the elephant.
Getting huge!
At Yule Forest (farm/pumpkin patch).
Hayride at Yule Forest with Grandpa Jim and Mimi.
Yule Forest.
The sisters at Yule Forest.
"Helping" Daddy carry a pumpkin.
Roxanne in the pumpkin fields. She was probably crying. Did you know pumpkin vines are actually covered in fine spikes. Tiny, but painful. We had the exact same thing happen last year. Sigh.
Roxanne on a horse at Yule Forest. She rode one here last year! The same guy led her last year.
Roxanne and Justin cutting off the perfect pumpkin at Yule Forest.
At the Ellijay Apple Festival. We somehow didn't take many photos at all here...
Sisters.

The Girls!

2011-09-23T21:23:00.006-04:00

Here's Nadine in her bouncy seat.
Roxanne working on a family of bears.
Nadine in her panda sweater.
Teensy.
Roxanne was desperate to be in a picture with Nadine.
That's Roxanne's head hanging out of the pumpkin ferris wheel at the fair.
Bumper boats at the fair!
Waiting in line for a ride.
See how Nadine is staring at Roxanne? We were playing "this little piggy."

Little hams. :)
Daddy and his girls.
So cute.
This is how you eat a chocolate covered banana at the Piedmont Park Ice Cream Festival.
How the girls ride in the double stroller. Roxanne likes to turn around and sit on her knees to talk to Nadine.
When Daddy stops paying attention...
The closest I've gotten to catching a smile!
Roxanne in her classroom. She was supposed to be sitting with the other kids, but she insisted later that "there was no room." The teacher was nice enough not to reprimand her.
Roxanne at DragonCon.
Nadine in her new crib!

I apologize for letting so much time pass! I always try to remind myself that it's so much easier to write frequent and short blog posts than wait forever and feel like I'm writing a novel, but then time gets away from me... Anyways, I'll try to be concise!

Nadine is almost 7 weeks old now! I can't believe how fast it has gone. She has started smiling, which is adorable. I haven't caught it on camera yet, but I'll keep trying. The cutest is when she does big smiles, which start out like a yawn. It's like she's figuring out how to do it. She has also started looking at toys more, and just this week started reaching for toys. She doesn't do it all that often, but she has a butterfly attached to her carseat that she stares at and sometimes grabs. It has helped a teensy bit with car trips. Nadine HATES being in the car. She usually cries/screams when she's in her carseat. It's so pitiful. Usually it gets better and worse as we drive so she's not just fussing the entire trip, but once she gets going, she means business. She is definitely more intense than Roxanne was at this age in that she wants to be held a lot. She is starting to be OK with sitting in her bouncy seat or swing for short periods, but still only about 10 minutes at most. Usually it's only about 2. :) I wonder if maybe she's a little more needy because she gets dragged around so much. With Roxanne, it was easy to just stay home and snuggle and nurse most of the time, but with a 3.5 year old at home, we've got errands to run and places to go to avoid cabin fever. Either way, it's definitely not awful by any means, just noticeably different than her big sister.

Roxanne is love love loving pre-school. She gets to take yoga, Spanish and music classes as part of her weekly schedule with school, and we also signed her up for pre-ballet on Wednesdays after school. She had her first ballet class on Wednesday and has asked me about five times a day since then when she gets to have ballet class again. She loves all of her various teachers, and spends a lot of time at school drawing pictures for them. She spends hours every day at school and at home working on drawings. She also loves gluing sequins (and anything else she can get her mitts on) onto her drawings. I bought her a pack of confetti/sequins a while back at Target and she loves taking the hearts and butterflies and flowers and incorporating them into her pictures. She'll draw herself and then glue the sequins onto her dress in the picture. Or she'll glue flower shapes in a straight line along the bottom of the page and then draw in a stem and leaves. She loves displaying her artwork and tells us it's an "art festival." She loves making cards for everyone, and practices writing names. Since she's a lefty, a lot of her letters are backwards and she writes names (including hers) out of order. But she draws a line before writing and so at least her letters are all on a line.

Together, the girls are adorable. Poor Nadine gets Roxanne an inch from her face all the time, but she seems to kind of like it. She smiles at her sometimes, and always stops what she's doing to look around when she hears Roxanne talking or yelling (which is ALL THE TIME). Roxanne always tells me she wants to play with Nadine or hold her. She loves giving her kisses, too. We have to work on not giving Nadine toys all the time, even though I always tell her Nadine is too little for things like stuffed animals. But at least it's that and not eye-poking or roughness. Roxanne tells me "You have me, and when Nadine gets bigger, you'll have two kids! Isn't that great?" So I know she has trouble understanding about Nadine being a baby versus a big girl, etc. In that same vein, she'll tell me "When Nadine gets bigger I'll have a sister!" Still, we're very grateful that Roxanne loves Nadine and hasn't had any aggression towards her.

Apologies in advance for the blurry photos...

2011-08-30T22:12:00.004-04:00

Yes, our camera is on the fritz again, so we've been using an iPod Touch to take pictures. Unless you are outside in bright light, they come out pretty fuzzy. I'm going to try and keep working on the old camera. No funds for a new one at the moment, so please don't get dizzy from looking at these blurry pictures! It's the best we can do for now. :)
Here's Nadine modeling one of her fancy BumGenius cloth diapers! We are so lucky that we were given enough to cloth diaper. I still use disposables sometimes for overnight or when we go out, but we're moving towards full-time use of them. They really are wonderful, and we can't thank our generous family and friends enough for helping us get set up with 12 of them. I might pick up some more here and there, but 12 is a great number to start with. They are on the smallest setting now, and fit her wonderfully. And lots of room to grow! They are supposed to fit until 35 pounds. Which should definitely be potty-training weight. Yay!
Here's a fuzzy close-up from the same diaper photo shoot tonight. Her eyes are the prettiest purpley/blue/gray right now. I know they will change soon, but I wanted to try and catch them in their newborn shade. And I know there is no cover on our changing pad. Awful, but she spits up a LOT and loves to pee on the changing pad during diaper changes. I gave up on trying to keep a cover on it for now.
Here's Roxanne feeding a parakeet at the zoo this morning. I took her and Nadine and we had a lovely time. This is our last week before Roxanne starts pre-school next week!
And here's Nadine enjoying the zoo from inside the sling... What a muffin.
Here's Justin reading to his girls this week. He reads to Roxanne every night, but Nadine only sits in once or twice a week. Roxanne loves it when all four of us sit together for story time. Of course, then we have to sit on the couch or her bed. We don't all pile up in that rocker.
It really almost looks like Nadine is listening...
One of Roxanne's favorite things to do during the morning/day with me and her and Nadine at home is read to the baby. Here she is reading Owl Babies, one of her favorites as a baby. Of course, she's not actually "reading." Just making up words that actually are close to the real ones. She sometimes gets absorbed in the books and forgets to say anything out loud. Then Nadine gets bored and fusses.
Here they are both being camera hams.
Here's Roxanne and I playing in the Chattahoochee on Sunday. We went to a park in Norcross with river access. It was gorgeous. Roxanne had a dress on, but since we had a spare in the car, we let her get soaked. Her favorite part was digging in the "sand" on one area of the shoreline. It was mostly dirt. Red dirt. Ew.
Justin was on baby duty. We've tried to be creative about taking the girls places that are fun and get her out of the house but don't expose Nadine to lots of germs (ie: no jumpy places!).
Here's Roxanne all dressed up for her pre-school playdate last week! School starts next Wednesday, but the room moms organized a playdate at a park near the pre-school. She got to meet some of her classmates and we met her lead teacher. Her teacher is really really sweet. She nannies in the afternoons, so we talked a bit about that. Roxanne played a little with some of the kids (especially Ben, who will be in her class) but she also loves swinging. I noticed two other kids in her class who wanted to just stay on the swings. Their moms kept urging them to go play with the other kids, which I did, too, but I finally just left it alone. She wasn't being shy or anything, she just really likes swinging. :)
Here she is at the playground, playing in the dirt. Sigh. She was burying treasure apparently. A little boy came over and started digging with her, and the two of them had a really elaborate conversation about buried treasure and whether or not to mark the spot with an X. She really is a social little thing, she just doesn't seem to feel the need to have someone play with her all the time. I think she'll like pre-school though. Oh, and she'll be going 5 mornings a week from 9-12. She'll do yoga and Spanish and music on rotating days. Fun!
And here's one last Nadine photo. This was probably the middle of the night during one of her peaceful but wakeful periods. We're working on getting nights and days straight. In the meantime, there's coffee for mama and the basement bedroom for daddy. Thank goodness for that.

Photos

2011-08-17T19:51:00.004-04:00

I know it's gas and/or a nice baby dream, but even involuntary smiles are cute.

Having a serious chat with Daddy. Roxanne picked this outfit out for Nadine at Target. We let her pick out two, and of course one is pink and the other is purple. She keeps asking me why Nadine doesn't have any dresses to wear. Oh, and they had newborn sized pink tutus at Target. Roxanne really really wanted to get one for Nadine, but we convinced her we should wait a little while.
Cloth diapers are WONDERFUL, but my favorite part is how they make her little booty look so big.
Story time with Daddy. Look how tiny Nadine is compared to Roxanne!
This was taken while Nadine was in the sling. It was her first trip to the park! We went for a nice long walk at Mason Mill Park. Nadine did this the entire time. :) Roxanne found lots of "nature" that she made Justin take home in his pocket. If we had a dollar for every acorn, tiny stick, rock, leaf, etc., that gets brought into this house, we could re-do our bathroom.
She's getting her chubs back. She's been nursing like a champ!
I know these are dark, but she has her longest wakeful period at night. Of course.
So many fun faces to try out!
Yawns.
Here's Roxanne and Daddy on our walk at Mason Mill Park. We've also been taking long walks around the neighborhood. We took our Joovy double stroller on one and it was perfect. Nadine's baby seat fits into it, and Roxanne can hop on and off whenever she wants. Poor Nadine is getting dragged around way more than Roxanne did she was a baby. We've just been trying to keep Roxanne doing at least one fun thing each day so she doesn't go nuts at home. Story time at Little Shop of Stories, lots of walks, and Justin has been taking her to the pool some. We are going to miss him when he goes back to work next week...

Nadine Patricia's Birth Story

2011-08-11T20:53:00.003-04:00

Fair warning! I'm going to post baby Nadine's birth story before I forget it. Don't worry, I won't be too graphic or anything. But I have to say that everything went so wonderfully that I want to be sure and write it down. Obviously, my birth with Roxanne was also wonderful and amazing because it resulted in our wonderful and amazing daughter, but in terms of the details, it was difficult and painful and scary. Nadine's birth was kind of a walk in the park in comparison! So apologies in advance for a long and rambling post. And I'm sure some of you might think this is way too much personal information to share, so I apologize for that, too.

For the whole week before Nadine's birth (my 37th week of pregnancy) I was feeling lots of contractions and just generally had the idea that things were moving along nicely. The week before, I had been checked (at 36 weeks) and was already 2cm dilated and 50% effaced, so I was really thinking I'd go early. But, a whole week later, Friday the 5th, my midwife checked me and reported that I was still 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. I have to admit that I was disappointed. But I tried not to worry about it since I was supposed to work on Monday. I kept thinking that maybe I'd go into labor on Monday or Tuesday and that would be perfect. On the flip side, I felt really sure that the baby had dropped, which seemed weird to me since I read about fifty times that your second baby drops only once active labor has started. On Friday night, I felt fairly sure that I saw my mucus plug, (sorry, gross detail) but not positive. On Saturday the 6th, I felt a funny feeling, and continued having contractions irregularly throughout the day. I was really emotional (ie: cranky and annoyed at everything) and felt this need to get some things done. I washed all of Nadine's cloth diapers, ran some shopping errands with Roxanne, etc. Thank goodness I took a long afternoon nap during a thunderstorm. When I woke up, we all went to Fellini's (on LaVista, where they have frozen yogurt inside...yum) and ate dinner. I was still irritable, and my appetite was really weird. I ate a salad but couldn't even finish one slice of pizza. Somehow I found room for frozen yogurt...

Back at home, I was just resting and felt exhausted, but I could not fall asleep. Justin was in the dining room working on work work, as he had been doing for most of the day. He had been "nesting" worse than me I think, bringing home work often to try and tie up loose strings before taking leave. He seemed to know even more than I did that the baby was coming soon. Anyways, sometime around 11:45pm, I was just laying down and playing on pinterest.com and looking at cute nursery photos. I felt a pop, and then a gush. There was absolutely no doubting that my water had broken. I yelled to Justin and told him my water had broken and asked him for some towels. I called my midwife's office, then started calling my mom to let her know we were probably headed to the hospital soon. Of course, the midwife called back while I was making other calls, and I had to wait for her to call back. She did, and I explained to her my history with Roxanne and shoulder dystocia, etc. etc. I had not met her, but she was very nice and calming on the phone. She asked me if I wanted to come to the hospital or wait at home for a while longer. Because I was nervous and felt like things might end up moving fast, I told her I wanted to come in. I guess I was also freaked out about how much water I was losing.

Justin had to finish up what he was working on before we left, so I paced around the house, which seemed to get my contractions going. Before then, they had still been irregular. After my water broke, they got to be around 15 to 20 minutes apart but got farther apart if I wasn't walking. After Justin finished, he gathered up our bags and scooped up Roxanne who was completely asleep, and we all got on the road. About ten minutes into our drive, we realized that we had forgotten shoes for Roxanne. Oops. We had her little suitcase, but no shoes. So once we got the hospital, Justin had to carry her everywhere. We waited in the triage area for a while before being brought back to a room. We settled Roxanne onto the "couch" with her pillow and blanket in our room, but of course she didn't fall asleep... Fortunately, my mom and Mike and Leah got there soon after we did, and waited with Roxanne while so we could figure out an approximate time line for when and how things would happen. I saw a nurse who came and did a few things while we waited for the midwife. Kate, the midwife (who again, I had never met before) came in and I immediately liked her a lot. She was very friendly and calming. She checked me, and I was only 3 cm dilated and about 60% effaced. She suggested I try and rest for a few hours and then she'd come back around 6am to check me again. I think by this time it was around 1:30 or 2am. I told her that was fine, and we told my mom and Mike and Leah to go ahead home with Roxanne since it would be a while. Justin settled in and tried to sleep, and I tried to relax, but my contractions were roughly 5-7 minutes apart by then and were very uncomfortable. I was still able to just breathe through them and distracted myself watching HGTV shows. I was also lucky that although I had an IV in, I wasn't hooked to anything, so I could unplug myself from the fetal monitor and blood pressure machine and move around. I was in and out of the bathroom constantly, and just generally felt really uncomfortable. I was definitely not able to rest, but I tried to at least keep quiet enough for Justin to sleep a little.

By about 4am, I was really really hurting. The contractions were much much closer together and they kept double peaking, so that I would get one, then one second later get another. I was exhausted, too. I called the nurse and asked her to send in the midwife to check me again. She came in and said that I was 6cm dilated and 90% effaced. She helped me into the glider chair in the room, which was MUCH more comfortable for my contractions, but I was really getting scared that without any rest, I would not be able to actually push when the time came. Because of my experience with Roxanne, I was just terrified that I would end up pushing for hours again. I was afraid to get an epidural because I thought it might slow things down. The midwife talked me through everything, and assured me that things were moving fast enough that a C-section was really not on the table, and that she didn't think an epidural would slow things down at all. After a particularly awful contraction, I opted to get the epidural. I think they placed it sometime around 4:30am, and I immediately fell asleep.

I woke up at 6:30am feeling a lot of pressure and discomfort. I felt like it had to be time to push, but the midwife had promised to be back at 7am, so I tried to just wait it out. I woke Justin up with my laboring, and asked him to start calling people. He was really out of it, but called people and told them he thought they might want to head to the hospital if they were coming. He didn't understand that I thought it was going to be any minute, but when he talked to my mom (who had Roxanne) I tried to make it clear that I wanted them to come ASAP. By about 7:10, my midwife still wasn't there, but I was REALLY uncomfortable. I felt the urge to push very strongly, and when the nurse came in and saw me, she said she'd get the midwife immediately. She did, and the midwife agreed that I was ready. Everyone got assembled and got things ready, and I started pushing. The midwife suggested I lay on my side, which was a million times better than laying on my back. After a few rounds of pushes, I was feeling frustrated and kept saying "I feel like I'm not doing anything!" but everyone did the usual reassuring that I was doing great. About 20 minutes into pushing, the midwife yelled, "look down! look down!" and I looked down to see Nadine being laid on my chest. They told us she was a girl, and Justin and I were both happy beyond words. She had lots of dark hair, and looked just like baby Roxanne.

The midwife told me that Nadine was bigger than she had previously thought. And the nurse who was going to weigh her guestimated that Nadine was a "hot 8." I'm kind of in love with that phrase... In the end, she was 8 pounds 12 ounces and 20.5 inches. A big girl! I'm so glad that she decided to arrive when she did, since another week or so could have ended in a very different birth situation. Everything seemed to happen exactly as it was supposed to, and we couldn't be happier with our new baby girl. We are a lucky family.

36.5 week check-up

2011-07-28T20:46:00.003-04:00

Here's my woefully unflattering 35/36 week photo. Although if I do say so myself, Roxanne looks adorable. This photo was taken on Saturday, and I hit 36 weeks on Monday. Just to give you an idea... :)
Here's a sequence of photos I took of Roxanne in the "atrium" at Northside while we were waiting for our "family tour" on Sunday. We got to visit different areas of the labor and delivery/recovery/nursery parts of the hospital. It was very very educational. Northside is definitely very different from Piedmont. Even if just in terms of sheer size. There are so many floors dedicated to babies and mommies! It also made it all much much more real. It won't be long before we are in that hospital with a new baby. Some big differences between here and Piedmont. They don't put any cap on how many people are in your room during labor. No children other than siblings are allowed to visit once you move to a recovery room. Which is sad, since we have lots of beautiful cousins and friends we'd like for the baby to meet right away. Sigh. They encourage rooming in as much as possible, and keep your baby with you much more than Piedmont did. So good things! The guide also mentioned in passing that if we have an emergency where we have to get to the hospital in the middle of the night and bring Roxanne, they will help keep that under control. It's not their preference, but they assured us they are a "family hospital."
As you can see, Roxanne has a bandage on her right hand. She burned her finger/knuckle on the grill the other night. We didn't take her to the hospital (maybe we should have?) but we've been keeping it clean and Neosporin-ed up, and it's healing beautifully. But she loves talking about it. Her favorite part? Telling people that it was an accident, but that Daddy wasn't paying attention. Oops.

She likes her shirt that I made. The top itself is a super cute hand-me-down from my sister, and I got these flocked iron-on letters from Michael's. I've been looking for cool "big sister" shirts for a while, but no luck. This one will do. :)

So, today I had my check-up with the midwife. I'm about 36.5 weeks. I'm measuring 37.5 weeks, but I've been measuring about a week ahead for a while now, so no big news there. Heart rate sounds good, and measured at 141 beats per minute. I'm convinced this baby is a girl... I also asked the midwife to check me, and she reported that I'm currently 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. I'm very much hoping that it's an indicator that I'll go into labor in the next week or two, and maybe avoid an induction on or around 8/15. I'm having a few other symptoms of early labor, so fingers crossed it will be sooner rather than later. Of course, I'm probably jinxing myself... Either way, I've got one more week of work, and my next midwife appointment will be early next Friday. But to be on the safe side, I think I should probably go ahead and pack the hospital bag. I can't believe it's time to do that! It's crazy how things move so fast even when they feel like they are crawling... I'm also done with my summer semester, which is really a big relief. Unfortunately, I don't have much energy to do all the cleaning, etc. I need to be doing. On the upside, we've been getting in some extra pool time after work, and it's wonderful for all of us. De-stressing and de-swelling. Perfect!

I apologize if that entire thing was incoherent. I'm really sleepy. All the time... It's like I have mono. Or a giant baby in my belly...

34/35 weeks

2011-07-17T15:33:00.002-04:00

I had my midwife appointment last Friday. It was short, and not much news, but the nice part was that the midwife let Roxanne "help" a lot. It was very cute. She got to stand up on a stool and help with the doppler and help measure my belly. So cute! I'm still measuring large, but at the same proportion as last time, so the ultrasound results should still stand, putting the baby in the 62nd percentile for size. She didn't mention anything about another ultrasound, just that "we'll have to make an executive decision at some point" about the c-section versus not. I go back in two weeks.
I'm feeling OK. Just trying to wrap up about a billion things while also keeping my feet up as much as possible. The swelling in my feet and hands is starting to be obtrusive, in part because of the heat I think. I need to be drinking more water, but it's rough! Having to run to the bathroom every five seconds is trying enough, but when you add extra water, I might as well just stay within five feet of a restroom at ALL times. The baby's room is coming along well. I'm going to post photos on the house blog, but here's a few shots of the room, just for fun.

Some Roxanne photos...

2011-07-06T20:38:00.002-04:00

OK, so I still can't find my camera charger, but my bosses have the same one, so I charged the battery at work. I asked Justin to take a few pictures of Roxanne in her dress up clothes while I was in class last night, since she almost always puts on one princess dress or another once she gets home. These were on the camera once I checked it after class.Here's a portrait of Justin by Roxanne. She loves taking pictures these days. I find this one particularly awesome.
Here she is in her Belle dress, with the addition of fairy wings. How can one make a princess even better? Add wings.
Yeah, she really really really likes pretending to be a princess these days. Can you tell?
She's also become a big fan of making weird hand gestures in photos. She's like a frat boy making some kind of secret hand gesture every time we get the camera pointed at her. Except hers have no relation to the Greek alphabet.

Happy Fourth of (rainy) July!

2011-07-04T23:35:00.003-04:00

I hope you all have had a nicer fourth than we did. Well, that's not true. Ours was nice, but not what we planned, thanks to all the storming. We went to our neighborhood pool party, which was surprisingly fun. It was a pot luck, and I brought some baked squash and zucchini, which I promise didn't taste like a wintery dish. They are both in season right now, so the Farmer's Market had a lovely selection of them. Anyways, we had a nice time at the pool, but after we finished eating, it started thundering and the lifeguards made everyone get out. It seemed like things were only getting worse storm-wise, so we ducked out and went home. Roxanne and I napped while Justin mowed the lawn... We ventured back out later and had dinner at the new Big Tex Cantina in Decatur (yum) and tried to gauge whether or not the fireworks would be cancelled. By 9:30, it was still raining with intermittent lightning and thunder so we gave up and headed home. Roxanne got a consolation "dirt and worms" sundae at Bruster's on the way home. Late bedtime for Roxanne means tomorrow is going to be rough, but oh well. That's what holidays are about, right?

This weekend has been nice, but it went by way too fast! We wanted to get as much done on the baby's room as possible, since we are closing in on delivery day. But more on that later... We got out the baby clothes we had saved from Roxanne, and rewashed all of the 0-12 month stuff and are in the process of putting the roughly ONE BILLION outfits into the dressers in the baby's room. The good news is that we have plenty of gender neutral stuff in 0-6 month sizes. After that it's more girl-specific and summery, which won't work too well based on the fact that this baby will be 6 months old in winter-time, and the fact that it could be a boy. Although that is highly doubtful... We also sorted baby gear, and washed carseat covers and put things in easy reach for when the baby is actually born. We are so lucky to have more room this time around, and also so lucky to have such wonderful family to share equipment with. The only thing we need to purchase for the baby is the crib, but since my aunt and uncle gave us a pack and play with a bassinet attachment, we aren't in a huge rush to get it. We've settled on the Gulliver crib from IKEA, which with a decent mattress (also IKEA) will cost under $200. It was not an easy decision to not use Roxanne's beautiful crib, but after hours and hours of research on the new crib safety standards, we decided that spending the money would be worth the peace of mind. It's never a good sign that we would actually be breaking the law if we tried to resell Roxanne's crib. Seriously. It is now illegal to try and resell any drop-side cribs. Even thrift stores, etc., are no longer allowed to. If we knew this baby wasn't going to be a climber, or would only be in the crib for a short time, we'd definitely have just used it. But considering this is at least a 3 year deal (including the time that it will be used as a toddler bed) the extra investment just seems worth it. Can you tell I still feel a little guilty? On the upside, IKEA's cribs are rated very well, and they conform to European safety standards, which are more stringent than the American ones. Phew. It's amazing how much has changed since we had Roxanne...

As for the nursery, we got some art on the walls, and really only have three or four things left to do. I finished knitting the pouf stool I've been working on, so now I just need to find time to stitch it up and stuff it. Soon! I'm also planning to make a mobile. I've been looking around online and I think I have some good plans, but we'll see. A big "to do" is to replace the light fixture in there. There is currently a rather rickety ceiling fan that is ugly and makes me nervous when the fan is running. I think we have a fixture we could use in basement (bought when we moved in but never installed). I'm just not sure how I'll get my 8 month pregnant self hoisted up and able to balance things well enough to switch the fixture. Justin could probably do it if I walked him through it, but I know he doesn't like dealing with the electrical stuff. Maybe we'll just call in some friends to help... :) I did finally finish the curtains this weekend though. I'd take photos, but even though I finally got our camera to work again, I now can't find the battery charger. Sigh. Trust me, the room is coming along, and looking cute. But if anyone has any leads on where to find CHEAP but large storage bins for toys, please let me know. That's one thing I haven't been able to find.

For the baby update: I had my ultrasound last Friday. Justin came, but it was a little anticlimactic, since we didn't really get to see much of baby bumblebee. We saw the top of the head and the heartbeat, but no face, no little feet, etc. And we certainly didn't get any fun pictures to take home! Oh well. I guess getting an ultrasound to determine the baby's size is probably not the time that they do all the fun stuff. As far as that goes, they estimate the baby to be around 5 pounds 5 ounces, which puts the baby in about the 65th percentile, which is great! After that I had a good visit with Judy, the most senior midwife at my practice, who I *really hope* will deliver the baby. She is very straightforward and doesn't sugar coat things, which can be hurtful sometimes, but she definitely knows what she's talking about. She said that I've done very well with my weight gain so far (I'm up about ten pounds since I got pregnant) and that might be helping with the baby being more "average" for weight. The downside is shoulder dystocia is apparently VERY hard to predict and can happen even in second or third deliveries, and even with smaller babies. So, for now, her proposed course of action for delivery is to schedule an induction for 39 weeks if I don't go into labor on my own before then, and go ahead and have a doctor on call in case I end up needing a C-section. If they schedule the induction, she said they will watch very closely for ANY kind of slow downs at any point in the labor. If any slow downs occur, they will proceed with a C-section, under the assumption that the slow down could be related to shoulder dystocia. I trust her judgement on things, in part because she is currently researching shoulder dystocia extensively because she's helping to defend a midwife who was involved in a "bad case of shoulder dystocia." I found out after Roxanne's birth that shoulder dystocia is apparently a big source of liability lawsuits for midwives and OBGYNs. It does surprise me a little, since shoulder dystocia only happens in about 1% of births.

Here's me at 33 weeks:
On an unrelated note, Roxanne has been telling me often that she is "so excited about the new baby." She has been playing pretend babies very very often the last month or so, too. Poor kid, I hope she feels that way in two months when she isn't getting as much attention anymore... She loves putting baby dolls or stuffed animals (also called babies) under her dress and then having them "come out" even though she tells me she doesn't know how they got in there. She tells me she has lots of babies in her belly and they kick her all the time. And she reminds Justin often: "You don't have a baby in your belly, Daddy, you just ate a lot of food." Poor Justin. He really doesn't have a belly though. Honest. He's as trim as ever. She basically talks non-stop these days (what's new?) and has started really showing her social inclinations. She wants to talk to everyone. She waves at strangers on the sidewalks and if they wave back, she tells me she made a new friend that she's never seen before. We've been gently trying to introduce the whole "stranger danger" concept, but I think it's not sticking at all. She wants to talk to anyone and everyone. I think she's going to really like starting pre-school in September. And let's hope that having a sibling around will help a little, too!

32 Weeks Tomorrow

2011-06-26T21:03:00.004-04:00

So, this Friday we are going back to the special ultrasound place to have another "photoshoot" with baby bumblebee. At my appointment two Fridays ago, my belly measured large, which I find frustrating since I'm still only about 8 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, but oh well. The midwife had originally said we should do an ultrasound at 36 weeks, but after the measurement, she decided to do it at 32/33 instead. Justin came with me for that last appointment, so it was nice to have a second set of ears to listen to the advice and procedures we have ahead of us. Basically, if the baby looks to be very large at the ultrasound, we'll likely be headed towards a C-section, but she also mentioned the possibility of having another ultrasound at 38 or so weeks, so we'll see. Other than that, things are pretty OK with pregnancy stuff. I get sore and swollen and uncomfortable by the end of the day and the Braxton Hicks contractions sometimes freak me out, but I know it could be much worse. Chasing 3 kids all day and then taking night classes twice a week is not ideal at 8 months pregnant (especially in this Georgia heat) but I thank my lucky stars every day that it's doable. I don't know what we would do if I had been put on bed rest, and as always, I'm very very appreciative that I'm in the home stretch and we will be having a sibling for Roxanne soon!

We have a LOT to do before baby comes, but I'm just not feeling panicked yet. I think having to focus so much on work and school makes it hard to think about the hospital tour and getting the baby's room all done, but I'm sure part of it is also just that this is our second baby. I know that in reality, the baby won't be sleeping in his or her room for a little while, so I can finish up some of these projects while I'm on leave. I'm planning to take a week off before my due date and then 8 weeks after the baby is born. So 9 weeks total. I'm also taking the semester off of school, although I'll still be registered for "thesis research" hours, which imply independent study and don't require any classroom time or graded materials. I'm hoping I can get lots of reading done for my thesis, and maybe even have a prospectus written by the end of leave. That would be amazing!

Roxanne is getting fairly excited about the baby, although I know it's still pretty abstract to her. She usually says she wants a sister, and she often wants to buy things like tiny tutus for it when we are out shopping. She has been playing with her baby dolls a lot more, and tells me she is a good big sister to them, and that her dollies can be "friend babies" for baby bumblebee. She also often puts the babies under her dress and then they "come out" and she takes care of them. She "nurses" them, but apparently that takes place through her knee. She is very curious about all of that stuff, and I'm sure it will get more intense once the baby comes, but I'm not worried about it. She usually asks funny questions of the midwife, like "is the baby going to come out through a door in Mommy's tummy?" or she asks me and Justin: "Have you ever heard of the name ___" complete with some really really weird combination of sounds. Although she has suggested "Felicia" several times lately, because she says it sounds like a flower. She will sometimes ask, "don't you love that name? Can we name the baby that?" and Justin and I always tell her we'll put it on the list of choices for the baby's name. Usually she is fine with that answer, but sometimes, she'll push and want to know why we won't just go ahead and pick that name as the baby's name. She spent close to a week pushing a name that sounded like "awful-cough" and still sometimes brings it up every once in a while. She definitely means well, and it's hard to tell her no!

Oh, and I'm sorry for the lack of photos. Our camera has been acting up a lot lately, giving this "lens error" thing and then shutting itself down, and from what I've read online, it is something we can keep temporarily fixing by banging it into things (I have not resorted to this yet...) or blowing out the lens cap until I feel woozy, and doing a little bit of rough handling with the lens as it comes in and out. But the bad news is that this seems to be usually a sign that the camera is on it's way to dying. Considering we've had it almost four and a half years, I guess we shouldn't be surprised. It was not a super fancy camera to begin with. Just like our Mazda, which is also breaking over and over and bleeding us dry, there is no money for a replacement right now. Here's hoping the special tricks keep working on this thing for a while. Or else we'll be taking baby photos on my Blackberry. :)

Oh, and just for fun, here's my 30 weeks pregnant photo at our old apartment when I was pregnant with Roxanne.
And here's me at 30 weeks with baby bumblebee. I guess my belly does look bigger... I guess I'm just confused because I always have been told that your belly is always bigger faster with your second baby. Better safe than sorry, I guess!

Baby Bumblebee Update

2011-06-07T22:44:00.003-04:00

So here's my belly tonight. And my exhausted face after a day of work and a night of class... I am 29 weeks pregnant as of yesterday. I seriously thought I was 30, but after double checking in a half-hearted way, I guess it's actually 29... I have NO idea how I lost track of such an obvious thing, but I do remember that happening with Roxanne sometimes, too. I haven't been as good this time around about taking weekly photos (close to it though) or posting on the blog, so I have less occasion to "announce" or record things. I can say with certainty that I'm now on the every 2 weeks schedule for midwife visits. Once I'm 36 weeks, it will be weekly. Ugh. I had my last appointment last Friday, and my next one will be next Friday. Last week I had my second gestational diabetes screen, and I found out today that I passed! I'm very relieved, since it looked like I might not based on my borderline results from the first test. I also talked to the midwife about my due date and the shoulder dystocia/giant baby concerns. She told me that they would not let me go past 39 weeks, so I will either be induced or have a C-section by then. They will have me do a late ultrasound probably around 36 weeks to check on the size of the baby, and that will dictate a lot of the decisions about delivery. I'm sincerely hoping the baby looks to be a smaller size than Roxanne, and based on the fact that I've been measuring "on track" for where I am in the pregnancy, I think maybe I have room to hope...? I feel pretty sure that with Roxanne I was always measuring ahead. I've also gained about 5 pounds to date this pregnancy, although the weight gain has picked up and I'm having more trouble keeping it off. Partly because I'm starting to have some swelling, especially at the end of the day... But I swear I had cankles with Roxanne way before this point, so that has to be a good sign... The baby's heartrate was in the 140's, so not great for pin-pointing a gender, but again somewhere in the middle. Sneaky! I have to admit, in my mind, the baby is a girl. It just seems more likely. I'd be perfectly happy to eat those words, though! We'd be happy with either. I'm just hoping for a healthy baby. I'm still so relieved we've gotten this far. We feel very lucky. :)

Memorial Day Beach Trip

2011-05-31T21:58:00.006-04:00

I'm sorry for the radio silence. I've been taking a Maymester class, which is an entire semester smashed into 3 weeks. Blergh. But it's over! My final was tonight, so I have a whole four days or so before my next semester starts up next Tuesday. This one coming up is going to be AWFUL. The syllabus is the stuff of nightmares... But I'll get through it. I'll be taking a nine week maternity leave starting on August 15, the week before my due date. I think that will be a really nice break. Back to the point; we just got back last night from a short trip to St. Simons Island. We had a great time, and got to meet up some with my sister and her family and my mom and stepdad and half-sister, too. We had lots of fun adventures on St. Simons and Jekyll Island, and it all went by too fast. I did remember to take some photos, although I fully admit I forgot the camera SEVERAL times. Blame pregnancy brain... Also, the photos are in reverse chronological order. The beach photos are all from Jekyll Island, where we had a nice visit to the Sea Turtle Hospital (as Roxanne calls it) again, and Roxanne was excited to show Justin. Then we went to Driftwood Beach at Jekyll, with all the giant, gorgeous driftwood trees. The beach there is lovely, but the part we were on faced an inlet, so not many waves and the water was really silty. Still nice though. The pier photos are from St. Simons. I'm telling you, I dropped the ball on the camera thing, so you'll just have to imagine all the cute images of Roxanne playing in the ocean and pool with her cousins. Sorry.

The little boss

2011-05-08T22:03:00.002-04:00

Whew, Roxanne is getting to be a sassy kid. I keep reading about how 3-year-olds go through tough phases, and yeah. Don't get me wrong, she's still awesome, just a little more challenging. She's always had such strong opinions, but now she is almost impossible to deter on things because she can take matters into her own hands. She's extremely independent, and doesn't want you to do much for her. She wants to climb into the car, buckle herself into her carseat, pick out her own clothes, put on what she can figure out on her own (before dissolving into a fit when she can't totally succeed on her own...) and definitely get her shoes on by herself. Basically, anything that she is physically capable of doing by herself, she wants to do by herself. In some ways, it's definitely nice, but in others, it gets old. Like when you are in a hurry and you just want to buckle her in and not wait for her to fiddle with her whatever six toys she's brought into the car, or buckle her babydoll into Ben's carseat (if he's not in the car), etc. etc. before buckling herself. She's always had strong opinions about the radio in the car, and wants the volume up to her liking, but now she's starting to (try) and pick the station, too. She likes the station we often listen to, which is an indie rock/college radio type XM station, but she will sometimes ask for "Fifties on Five," which she asks for just like that. And some days she's very patient about listening to NPR with me in the mornings or evenings, but other times she'll demand "music please! I don't want to listen to the news." Fair enough...

She's getting back into playing with baby dolls, which had been thrown over for playing with tiny Hello Kitty statues and Squinkies and Calico Critters. She still loves the little things, but now she wants to feed her babies, and change their clothes, and talk about their diapers. I'm not sure if it was brought on by talk about Baby Bumblebee, but I think it's cute. We talk about the baby kind of a lot, just in terms of trying to talk about how much the baby is going to love Roxanne and want to play with her. She has plenty of experience through my job about how much babies cry and require attention, so I'm actually not all that worried about that aspect. I think she'll adjust to sharing me fairly well since she already does every day with a baby and another toddler, but I do worry sometimes about her jealousy with Justin. They have gotten so close now that he has nights during the week of just the two of them. I worry that fall semester especially will be rough. I'll have class two nights a week, and the semester starts on my due date. So Justin will be at home with a brand brand new baby and Roxanne by himself. On the upside, I'm basically only taking one class, and it's shorter, so even though it's two nights a week, I'll be done and home before 9, whereas I usually am not home until after 10 twice a week. I'm sure they'll figure it out, but I hope it won't be too rough on them both! I've been trying to do plenty of reading about helping toddlers transition to having a sibling, etc., and I'm hoping that since she'll be 3.5, she'll be able to handle it fairly maturely. At least not too violently...

In other Roxanne news, she's still obsessed with writing and painting and drawing. She is very into letters and spelling. She loves "Super Why" on PBS Kids, and will often pretend to be "Princess P" from the show. I've been trying to scale her back on TV that isn't educational in an outright way, and keep her mostly watching PBS shows. She seems totally fine with that. She always wants to talk about different letters and what words start with them. I make letter color sheets for her so she can practice tracing the letters, and she definitely likes to. I don't hawk over her and monitor what she's doing, and it's all very laid back. I'm nervous about teaching her to write because she's left-handed. I have been reading about lefty toddlers, and it sounds like you have to be careful not to try and teach them writing the same way you would a righty. Sounds silly, but looking at the research, it totally makes sense. I'm trying to find a good book/workbook to help educate me and Justin about how to help Roxanne as she's learning to write. I keep reading that if you force them into righty habits in writing, they will often hit a point in school where they lag behind in writing skills. For now, we're trying to encourage her to keep practicing writing and learning the sounds letters make, but not in a scary, or even school type way. I'm a firm believer in the concept that just because a toddler can read or write does not mean that they should. But I love it when she asks me "Does "B" start with "Baby Bumblebee?" She always phrases that backwards. It's so cute.

Sorry for no photos this time! I've been bad about taking any...

Roxanne photos!

2011-05-01T18:26:00.006-04:00

I'm way way way behind on photo sharing. So please bear with me. I am starting with the oldest photos first. We've been so busy lately, and I've been spending a TON of time on schoolwork. We're still doing fun stuff on the weekends, I just haven't had time to blog about it! And about half of our events have gone un-photographed (for various reasons I won't bore you with explanations of). We have no Easter photos, or photos from our mini-family reunion with some of my Dad's side of the family. But they were both fun!
Pony ride at Little Creek Farm in Decatur. Sorry about the blurry photos. It was super dark in the barn, and our camera just isn't fancy enough to compensate. Roxanne LOVES pony rides though. Oh, and this is not really a pony. It's a horse. A big one. But Roxanne didn't mind. Grandpa Jim was here for this, too. Roxanne had a good time waving to him and me and Justin as she went around.
Look how little she is on that horse! After she rode around, we walked around the farm, which is very pretty, and pet and fed some of the other horses. She still remembers you "feed them with your hand flat so they don't eat your fingers." See, I still remember a few useful things from my almost 10 years of riding horses.
I think the Mardi Gras beads are extremely appropriate in this equestrian setting. Right?
Here's Roxanne at the Dogwood Festival at Piedmont. This was the Sunday after the pony rides, and Grandpa Jim was here for this, too. She had a BLAST on this scary jumpy thing. She kept saying she was flying like Tinkerbell. The guys operating the ride were super nice, and she kept asking them to make her go higher. They would grab her by the ankles and pull her down, and then she'd bounce super high. Terrifyingly awesome.
Just like Tinkerbell...
Ready to go!
On an awesome old carousel with Justin at the Dogwood Festival. Justin's face is highly accurate, because this thing was going FAST. It made the Zoo carousel look like a baby ride. Roxanne rode it once with Grandpa Jim and once with Justin. I passed...
Roxanne and Grandpa Jim running to the ferris wheel. She was SO disappointed that she was too short for it. But the carousel was a pretty good consolation prize.
You have no idea how long it took me to convince her that she could wear a skirt and shirt (as opposed to a dress, as she was begging for). I normally don't bother trying to fight about it, but she had no dresses clean. Even though she finally put this outfit on, she told me about five times that she was going to put a dress back on as soon as we got home. Sigh.
Justin, Grandpa Jim, Roxanne, and Roxanne's belly.
Here's from yesterday at the Strawberry Festival at Washington Farms in Watkinsville. We had so much fun!
Roxanne and Chloe feeding the goats.
The cousins staring at the baby cows. They were pretty standoffish and not interested in being pet or fed like the goats. But holy cow they were cute.
Roxanne and Chloe jammed into the same cow car on the cow train. Best recycling I've ever seen!
Picking strawberries!
Justin trying to help Roxanne pick good ones. She was basically only looking for the flowers...
"I'll pick it, Daddy!"
We weren't supposed to eat these as they were being picked, but I admit, a few were consumed. Oops.
Roxanne dressed up all of her "babies." Don't they look cozy?
Dressing up herself. Doesn't she look so so so old here???

A very delayed Bumblebee update

2011-04-17T18:18:00.003-04:00

Sorry, this photo is so blurry! This is the baby bump when Roxanne and I were at the beach. So, in a cheesy way, it represents Baby Bumblebee's first beach trip!

These ultrasound images are Baby Bumblebee's face profile. They were taken when I was 20 weeks, 4 days, and Bumblebee measured 20 weeks 1 day. I'm still hoping that I can continue not gaining weight (I still haven't gained any!) and keep the baby's weight at a good, healthy place. The Friday that I had these ultrasounds, Justin was able to come with me to the ultrasound part. That appointment was in the morning. My midwife appointment was later in the afternoon. I found out at the later appointment that even though I passed the early Gestational Diabetes screening, my blood tests were VERY close to the cut-off. So now I'm trying to follow the Gestational Diabetes diet. It's not easy but if it helps me avoid a C-section, I'm willing to do my best.
More Bumblebee pictures! The baby looks great on the ultrasounds. He or she was 15 ounces at the time of the appointment. Everything seems to be developing normally. The baby kept pulling his or her feet and hands all up together in front of his or her face. And waving one finger in the air. Oh, and for posterity, the baby's heartbeat was 154 at the ultrasound, and 159 at the midwife appointment. These rates are MUCH higher than Roxanne's were. And higher is supposed to mean girl. Of course, you can't totally rely on that, but it definitely points to girl! Justin says he'd love a boy, but that he doesn't think it's likely. :)

Here's a 21 week belly photo. Classy basement bathroom photo...
Here's from today. I'll be 22 weeks tomorrow. I know my face is sun-burned and a mess here. We went to the Dogwood Festival today with Justin's dad (much to Roxanne's delight!) and I got too much sun; in that charming way that happens when you wear sunglasses and no sunscreen. Oops.

The Beach! Photos first...

2011-04-07T01:11:00.008-04:00

So, the Friday before last, Roxanne and I drove to St. Simons Island for a four day vacation. We were very sad that Justin couldn't come (pregnant lady hormones=an actual tearful departure... sigh) but he is currently having the busiest month ever at work. And since I'll be taking maternity leave from work in August, I knew that I couldn't do a summer vacation unless it was when my bosses were out of town already. When they told me they were going out of town last Friday and the following Monday, I decided to just take Roxanne to the beach. Did that sentence make sense? I'm tired... Baby Bumblebee is kicking and kicking in a way that makes it hard to sleep. So I'm delirious blogging. Dangerous!
Back to the beach... We had a great time. There were definitely some stressful parts, since herding a 3 year old for that many days all by yourself can get old, and even more so when said 3 year old is an extremely stubborn little thing. Still, it was very very worth it. Our routine basically consisted of waking up, me letting Roxanne watch some cartoons while I tried to sleep in a little, eating some snacks for breakfast on our way to the beach, spending a few hours on the beach, heading to a restaurant for lunch, then going back to the beach until dinner. We added in some shopping and walking around the Village at St. Simons here and there, but I tried to keep the beach the main focus. Roxanne LOVES the beach. She loves playing in the sand and splashing in the water. While it was way too cold for me to swim, she had a good time splashing in the water and occasionally laying down in it.
On Friday, she was content to play with me and/or amuse herself, but by Saturday, she told me she was going to find a friend on the beach to play with. And sure enough, each time we went back to the beach, she would find a "friend" to play with for at least part of the time we were there. They were all little girls, and most were around her age or just a bit older. It was amazing to see her be so incredibly social (not that she isn't always pretty social) and to see how well kids can get along at the beach. It's like they are all in this state of happiness that makes it impossible for them to be mean to each other. Of course, at one point, she ran back to me from being down at the water with lots of other kids (including some wild boys) and said something along the lines of "all of those jellyfish are dead. They all got killed." Sigh. There were a ton of jellyfish washed up on the sand for some weird reason, but I had been telling her they were resting. Oh well. In any case, ever since we've been home, Roxanne has been begging me to take her back to the beach. She says she wants to live in the hotel. Forever. And never come home. A girl can dream.
On Monday morning, I took Roxanne to the beach for about an hour before we headed to nearby Jekyll Island to visit the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. I had been asking her for days if she wanted to go to the "turtle hospital" in the hopes that if I made it sound awesome enough, it would distract her from the fact that we were going home afterward. It actually was a lot of fun, and her favorite part was asking me all of the sea turtles' names. They all had very fancy names, and we got there in time to hear a short explanation about each "patient" and see them swimming in their pools. We even got to see some tiny tiny ones that had just recently hatched. They were Roxanne's favorites. Painfully adorable... The museum part was also really fun. Lots of interactive exhibits about different aspects of sea turtle protection and life in general. I'd recommend a visit if you are in the area!

Belly progress

2011-03-28T20:15:00.004-04:00

So here I am yesterday at 18 weeks. I'm 19 weeks today, so I just barely made it! Boo Boo is giving me moral support. I know it seems like she's just asking to go outside for the fiftieth time in an hour, but it's not. Support. I promise. I feel like my belly has been the same size for weeks. I actually even called the OB's office and asked a nurse about why my belly was actually shrinking (not in a crazy, hysterical way, just in a "please reassure me this is normal" way). Apparently when I was taking the progesterone supplement, it made my belly swollen and bigger than it really was. Hence the plateau in size... I also haven't gained any weight yet, but I totally admit that my exercise schedule is off track right now. Family, sickness, family sickness, and schoolwork are my big sources of blame. I will get back on track though. Honest. I do realize how much better I feel while working out, I just need all of the crazy 400 page a week reading assignments and constant papers to give me a break. And the strep throat. And the pink eye.

And just for fun, here's some Roxanne photos.
Here's her self-portrait. She's been loving taking pictures lately. Most are weird, fuzzy and impossible to see, but I kind of love this one with her mismatched Hello Kitty socks.
Here's her trying on a fake mustache a friend gave her for her birthday. I think this face is perfect. She's like an inspector.
She is totally working this look. I told Justin we should have a family photo shoot with fake mustaches on. I know it's trendy to have ironic mustaches, but I don't care. They are funny. And there are like 15 styles in this pack, so we could all get really good and weird ones. We're doing it!

Baby Bumblebee

2011-03-25T22:33:00.003-04:00

OK, so I just wanted to do a quick "new baby" post. I got a call from my midwife's office, and everything came back normal on my genetic screening tests. Yay! My glucose test was also normal. Also good!

I'm feeling the baby move quite a bit now. It starts up most when I lay down for bed, or when I'm sitting in class. If I sit too hunched over, I think the baby gets a little squished and starts really kicking me. Sugary foods make the baby go nuts (duh) and cold stuff does, too. Tonight we went to my little sister's drumline concert, and anytime there were big bass drum hits, I got a pretty good popping feeling from the baby. He or she can hear now, so I'm sure the loud noises were not very welcome. Sorry baby.

I'll be 19 weeks next Monday, and for now, I still haven't gained weight, but my belly is starting to really pop more. I noticed today I'm already "waddling" a little, and my back has been hurting from my joints spreading. Of course, I've also been busy at work with the littles, and several times this week I've had all four kids, so that definitely adds some strain to my back. But it's good practice!

School is fine, but it's definitely a learning process for me to figure out how to write papers, etc., without any coffee. Sad, but true. When most of your study time falls outside of normal business hours, coffee gets to be a useful ally. But I'll make it (I hope). For now, my plan is to take 2 classes this summer, but then take fall semester off to help adjust to the new baby, and working with 4 kids. Hopefully by the spring semester I'll be able to start back with school. At that point, I hope to only need about 3 semesters more. But a lot will depend on what is available in the night classes. Sigh. I'm sure it will be fine though, even if it takes a little longer.

Swimming Queen

2011-03-20T18:17:00.002-04:00

Here's Roxanne as we were leaving for her swim lesson on Saturday. She had just finished throwing a giant fit. We are finding that Saturdays and Sundays are full of fun, intermingled with periods of INSANE grumpiness. Roxanne is giving up her naps, and the transition is not very pretty. But we'll still keep her. Her Nemo suitcase is from my mom and Mike and Leah, and she loves it. It's perfect for swim lessons (and overnight trips) because we can fit her towel and suit and change of clothes in it.
She's wearing her new sandals here. They are the pink version of the red ones she had last year, and they are by Livie and Luca. She picked them out with me at a consignment sale in Candler Park where they sold unused Livie and Luca old stock for about half the normal price. Thrifty and fancy! She is still insisting on wearing ONLY dresses, and her girly girl obsession is getting out of control. She often insists on having a bow in her hair, and she wants to paint her nails several times a week. I swear we aren't encouraging it, but we are also just not making a big deal about it. Hopefully it's just a phase... Today we were meeting some friends with two sons for a playdate, and before we left, she said "I can't play with boys, because I'm a girl. I want to play with girls." Sigh. Of course I talked to her for a long time about why boys and girls like to play with each other, and of course she had a lot of fun with the boys. But good grief. Where is all of this coming from???
We took MARTA to Georgia State for Roxanne's lesson. I tagged along to watch. Oh, and here Roxanne is wearing her new Old Navy flip flops. Perfect for poolside, and she's starting to get used to walking in them. One thing about Old Navy; the clothes might be cheap and fall apart, but the flip flops are abundant, come in fun colors, and are CHEAP. Oh, and sidenote, we just realized at the MARTA station that the wheels of Roxanne's suitcase light up when you are wheeling it around. Fun!
We got to the lesson a little early (shocked? You should be) so Roxanne stared wistfully into the water while waiting for the teacher to come and get her. She was the only little girl in her group, and the four little boys were at least a year older than her, but she still seemed to have fun. From where we were watching, she seemed to listen to the instructor on most things, but she definitely did not want to float on her back. She did finally try it a couple of times. She seemed to like it when they were squeezing these weird bean bag things over their heads and then practicing getting the water out of their eyes/faces. Her favorite was jumping off the side and into the pool to the instructor (who was a very sweet young woman). Hopefully by the end of the session (five more weeks) she'll have gained a lot more confidence and be on her way to being a little swimmer! She loves being in the water, she just gets nervous about going under water.

143 Beats Per Minute

2011-03-16T10:22:00.002-04:00

Here I am at 16 weeks. My belly has actually gotten a little smaller. Weird.

I had my midwife appointment Monday morning (17 weeks), and everything is fine. The midwife found the heartbeat right away, and it was 143 beats per minute. I said something to her about how we were tracking the heart rates to try and figure out the sex, and she said "well, this one is right in the middle, but that's never accurate anyway." Sigh. I still haven't gained any weight yet (believe it or not) and my glucose test came back normal. I also had my blood taken for the genetic testing, or quad screen as they call it. I am not sure when I'll get the results back from that, but I'm hoping for good results. I go in for my ultrasound on April 8, and I'm very excited. Justin is going to come, too. I think the ultrasounds they do at the Maternal Fetal Specialists are more detailed, so they should be really fun to see. We aren't finding out the sex, so that part will be nerve-wracking. I actually dreamed that they told us the baby was a boy during the ultrasound and we were so upset that they spilled the beans. What a weird thing to be worried about...

A few photos

2011-03-13T10:03:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone! We've been fighting off strep throat around here the last week, ew. Finally on the mend thanks to the power of antibiotics. We've been very busy the last few weeks/weekends, so I just wanted to post a few photos from when we actually remembered to take them...
Here's Roxanne on our stoop yesterday. I had asked Justin to take my 16 week pregnancy photo and Roxanne demanded "Take my picture, too, Daddy!" and immediately popped this pose. What a diva.
We are frequent visitors of jumpy places around town, especially during the icky weather. I usually take the kids during the week, but sometimes we venture out with Daddy on the weekends, and Roxanne loves when he comes. This is a great example of what she's like at these places. A blur...
She's in the zone...
Here's Roxanne at the GSU pool. She was supposed to have her first swim lesson yesterday there, but timing was bad and her and Justin missed it. But they went swimming anyways, and she apparently had lots of fun! They can try again next week. :)
Looks pretty awesome.
She loves the pool.
Who needs a beach vacation? Indoor pools are apparently pretty perfect.
Roxanne and Daddy feeling exhausted and watching some computer TV on the couch.

14 Week Photo

2011-02-23T22:52:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the weird basement bathroom photo. Justin was already asleep when I got home from school tonight, so oh well. I can't believe how big my belly is already. I still haven't gained any weight (KNOCK ON WOOD) but I'm slowly starting to feel that "second trimester honeymoon period." As in, I only have occasional bouts of nausea and my hit-by-a-train exhaustion only comes once or twice a day. It's weird, but after you have suffered pregnancy losses, you actually enjoy the ickiness. Like, I'm relieved to feel bad, since it reminds me that things are OK. I'm feeling so much less anxiety these days, too, in terms of this being a viable pregnancy, and starting to enjoy it. I go for my next appointment on March 14. Nothing too exciting I think, just lots of bloodwork and that icky glucose test that you have to drink the sugar-drink for. Because of my weight, I have to do it twice. Sigh. I can't undo my starting pregnancy weight, but I'm working hard to keep it where it is!

In the world of non-in-utero kids, Roxanne is awesome. We've started trying to talk more about letters and the alphabet and what makes what sounds, etc. At first, she could care less, and would intentionally tell you the wrong letters and giggle. But she's slowly getting more interested, and asking what letter different words start with (of her own volition). We're trying to stay laid back about it, since I think too much too soon can make little ones shut down. She really likes trying to write letters, but it takes super intense one on one instruction, and so it's not something that happens all that often.

We got all of her paperwork submitted for preschool, so she'll officially be starting in September. I'm really excited, and so is she (to the extent that she understands). But if you say anything about fall, she'll pipe up, "That's when I'm going to school." The program will be 9-12 five days a week, so I think it will be a great introduction to Pre-K. She already likes all of the teachers she's met, so I'm sure she'll love being there. I hope she meshes with the other kids, and that the experience teaches her some good social skills. Right now, she's a pretty friendly thing, but she does get her feelings hurt sometimes when other kids say "mean" things to her. I'm hoping school will help her realize that some kids are grumpy sometimes and it's best to ignore it when they say mean things. With adults, she's getting way too friendly, so we've started trying to introduce the "stranger" talk. Like the other day at Monkey Joe's, these two moms were sitting on a bench talking, and Roxanne just climbed up between them and sat. Yikes. Anyways, I don't want to scare her, just work on some ground rules. I can't believe she's so old that we have to talk about this stuff...

Photos!

2011-02-13T22:06:00.007-05:00

Roxanne and me at Piedmont Park today. This is not the most flattering angle for Mama, but at least you can see my 13-weeks-tomorrow belly. I haven't gained any weight during my first trimester (not that I'm bragging since I realize that I have to work this hard to not gain weight since my weight was high to start with) so that is more or less baby bumblebee, and not as much pregnant lady cravings gone crazy. The baby is around the size of a peach now! Crazy!
I love how she's looking up at Justin here. So cute. This weird mound at Piedmont Park (in the awesome 1976 modern playground designed by a Japanese artist that I played on as a kid!) is surprisingly fascinating for little ones. It's just a concrete bump, but everybody loves it! I say it looks like the moon, but Justin says it looks like Stone Mountain. But that's probably flattering Stone Mountain. It has that scrubby foliage around the bottom. It's like a balding man's head.
Roxanne enjoying the playground... She was screaming "I'm stuck, I'm stuck!"
She likes to hang from the monkey bars, but only for a few seconds. Then she drops.
Justin and Roxanne were pretending to solve a mystery of what was in this "cave."
She really loves the mountain/moon!
Candid photos are as good as it gets with a wiggly little one.
She was doing a sand dance or something, but I think she looks like she's doing the kind of walk that the monsters do in "Where the Wild Things Are." She's obsessed with her rain boots these days.
I love this castle slide in the background. I am so glad that they saved and refurbished this equipment. It's gorgeous, and for a while, it was really in bad shape.
Here's our new stroller! It's a Joovy double stroller. I got it for $25 second hand at a consignment sale. New, these babies are $125ish, and this one is great shape! The front is where the baby will go since it converts to support any baby carrier. The little platform on the back, facing Justin, is where Roxanne can sit, facing whoever is pushing the stroller. It even has a little seatbelt. She can also stand on the bottom platform instead of sitting. I think with the age difference, it will be ideal. She will be able to hop on and off as needed, and there is a storage basket underneath and even a cup-holder for us! I wasn't really planning to buy a double stroller, but when I found this, I couldn't pass it up, even though it's so early to be buying stuff for the baby. It was just such a good deal! I also got the stink eye from some other moms shopping at the sale, watching to see if I was really going to buy it. Sorry ladies!
Watching the geese at Piedmont.
At a recent trip to the zoo on one of the nice warm weekend days. Is anything cuter than these pigs?
Roxanne brushing a goat is pretty cute. She insists on a pink brush...
At the zoo, the baby bird.
Look how close that lion is!! They never sleep so close to the glass!
It took a lot of convincing to get her to wear leggings and a skirt and not leggings and a dress. But we call this skirt a tutu, and I kept telling her she would look like a ballerina. I won, but by a close margin. Mostly, I don't bother trying to fight that battle, but her dresses were dirty.
Roxanne's first princess dress! We went to her cousins' birthday party, which was a princess tea party. I found this dress at Target, marked down to $7 and it's really cute. It's not a Disney dress, but she says it's a Cinderella dress if you ask her. I still don't really understand how she knows so much about princesses...
Another shot of the princess dress. It was really cold, which is why she's in a shirt underneath. She's also talking to Nana on my phone (the orange thing). She's always multi-tasking...

Now that everyone knows...

2011-02-12T18:32:00.003-05:00

I can blog about it! We're expecting a new baby on or around August 22. For now, we are calling the new baby "baby bumblebee," which is one of many names Roxanne picked out. I'm almost 13 weeks, so I'll try and start posting belly photos soon. Things are progressing much faster in that area this time around... I'm feeling pretty fine, just the usual extra tiredness and some nausea/heartburn stuff. But I'm working out between 5-7 days a week (just 30 minutes on the elliptical) and I think it's helping most of the pregnancy symptoms feel much more manageable.

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday. Well, a midwife appointment. We are going that route this time around. I love the midwife I saw Friday, but the one I saw the time before that is kind of a jerk. Oh well. Everything is going fine, and she was able to find the heartbeat right away with the doppler. Roxanne was with me, so she got to hear the heartbeat. She was very excited about it, but confused (understandably so). She said, "I don't see baby bumblebee, Mama." So I explained again we couldn't see the baby, but we could hear it's heartbeat. When I asked if she could hear it, she said, "Yeah, it sounds like the ocean!" Which really is pretty accurate... For documentation purposes, the heartbeat was 145 per minute. Which is in the girl range. So I'm convinced it's a girl. But according to the Chinese Gender Prediction Chart, it's a boy. Go figure.

Roxanne is excited about the baby, but she now asks if almost everyone she knows has a baby in their belly, too. So we're working on that issue. These are big things for a toddler to grasp... She's funny in that she decidedly says the baby is a boy or a girl depending on when you ask her, but she never waffles. Yesterday she told me it was going to be a girl because it had to be. I kept trying to explain that we didn't get to pick, but she just kept saying, "no, it's a girl baby. It's going to be a girl baby." Who knows?! Once again, we aren't finding out early. So we're thinking about boy names and girl names. We always ask Roxanne for suggestions, and although she usually lists names of kids she knows, or nonsense words that don't mean anything at all, she sometimes says fun names like "Rocket Baby" or "Blast Off Baby." That has a nice ring, right?

In all seriousness, any names that we think might be contenders we have her say to make sure she can pronounce them. Although her pronunciation is almost always cuter than how it's "supposed" to sound...

Roxanne-isms

2011-02-04T11:08:00.002-05:00

So, now that she's officially 3, she might as well be 15. She's quite the conversationalist these days, although she still likes to talk about "naked booties" or Hello Kitty more than anything else. We're trying to discourage the booties thing a little because it's getting kind of out of control. Oops. Here's some new stuff:
*Since we have XM radio in our Honda, Roxanne has learned that she can ask you the name of each song that plays, as well as "What's the band name?" She asks for almost every single song. If I'm listening to NPR and a song comes on, she'll ask, "Is this just a song between the news?" because she knows I don't know the names of those songs. I wish I knew where all of that information was being stored... She loves most music, but her favorite seems to be the 1950's station.
*She plays and plays and plays with all of her tiny little animals/Hello Kitty figurines, etc. She makes them talk to each other and have elaborate story lines.
*She's definitely more into TV than she has been before, so we have to make an effort to limit it. I think that's pretty standard for lots of little ones this age. Her favorite show right now is Busytown, which is the Richard Scary cartoon. She sings the theme song all the time, and will tell me randomly, "Mama, this is a mystery!" about some situation. They solve mysteries on Busytown. She loves it.
*We are hoping to be able to get her into a pre-school program next year. Because of her birthday, she won't be able to start Pre-K until the year after next. But for fall, we're trying to get her into Ben's program. It's really expensive, but really good. She would go five mornings a week (9 to 12) and I think she would love it. She loves talking to Ben's teacher when we pick him up from school, and she went right into his classroom when we went for the tour and got right in the mix. Of course, there's only one slot open, so we have to keep our fingers crossed. And we might have to ask for a tuition break. Ugh. We looked at programs near us, which are MUCH cheaper, but logistically, I can't pick both her and Ben up if they are at pre-schools across town from each other. Especially since by next fall I'll be keeping Ben's new brother (Nate) full time, too. Well, I'll be keeping Nate full time starting in April. So we'll see...

Alright, off to work. I promise not to lapse so long between posts! School is keeping me busy!

Snow Days!

2011-01-11T19:45:00.004-05:00

Our Three Year Old Girl

2011-01-07T22:09:00.005-05:00

So, I know I'm terrible and didn't post on Roxanne's birthday. She turned 3 on December 19! We had a Hello Kitty party for her at our house. Our house is so tiny, and people get kind of crammed in, but December birthdays make it tough to plan parties. That time of year, everyone is either getting sick, getting over being sick, or in a brief window of wellness. So it goes. Roxanne had lots and lots of fun having her cousins and friends over for her party, and got completely flooded with wonderful gifts (that I need to write thank you notes for...). She asked for a giant cupcake cake, so I bought a Wilton cupcake cake pan and did my best. :) I'm definitely an amateur. She was happy with it though. She gets a little overwhelmed at these kinds of things, so she gets kind of zombied out and sometimes fussy. But this year she was pretty much fine. We were actually able to get her to nap a little bit before the party started, but we ended up having to wake her up as the first guests started to arrive. Not ideal, but she pulled through. I had taken her to Old Navy the day before to pick out a special birthday outfit, so she got a Hello Kitty shirt with a cupcake theme, and some stripey tights. She has a pink skirt with tulle edging that is one of the few things she will wear that's a non-dress. She loves loves loves tights. Somehow they are highly preferable to leggings. Leggings apparently do not make her a "girl." So she insists on peeling them off as soon as we get inside our house (or work).

Christmas Morning!

2011-01-07T21:50:00.002-05:00

Christmas Time!

2010-12-12T20:59:00.003-05:00

Roxanne and Tucker on the Blue Ridge Santa Express. My grandparents treated us to the train ride and a night in Blue Ridge. It was wonderful!
Roxanne and Santa on the Santa Express.
Chloe, Roxanne and Ella on the train.
"Decorating the tree," or at least taking a break from doing so.

We are excitedly gearing up for Christmas (and Roxanne and Justin's birthdays). We spent the weekend decorating the house, and bought our family's very first live Christmas tree. It was a fun experience, and Roxanne loved it. She really loved decorating the tree more than anything. She kept putting almost all of the ornaments on the lower right corner, so were were trying to help her find other spots, too. But she was determined...

In other Roxanne news, she is really getting too big for her britches. Here are some anecdotes from recent Roxanne-ness:
*She insists that "ridiculous" is a "not nice word." So every single time me or Justin say it, she tells us in a panic: "You can't say that word! That's not a nice word!" Every time, we tell her that it really isn't a bad word, but she's not buying it.
*She is very very dramatic. This afternoon, she went for a walk with Justin and insisted on taking her singing/dancing Christmas Snoopy. I bought it for her last year, but we just brought it down from the attic, and she loves it just as much this year as she did last year. Apparently, on their walk (with Katie), Roxanne started crying and freaking out, and wouldn't tell Justin what was wrong. He finally realized she had dropped Snoopy, and he told her that a car was coming, so they needed to wait for it to pass before they picked him up. By the way, the dropping things and not telling us, but just crying instead is fairly common. Weird. And dramatic. Anyways, as soon as they came home, Roxanne ran in to talk to me, "I dropped Snoopy in the road and Daddy got him for me but he got run over by a car!" She told me about five times that he got run over by a car, and I kept looking at the non-harmed Snoopy and trying to figure out what she was talking about. Justin filled me in...
*She is very independent, as always, and she has learned to climb into her own carseat and buckle herself in. Usually, if you do it for her, she will scream until you undo it and let her do it again. She's learning to put her shoes on, and we're working learning to get her coat on and off (it has buttons, and she already popped one off by trying to just pull the sides apart).
*Activity-wise, she loves painting, drawing, and reading more than anything else. She will get up in the morning and pull books out of her book bin and sit in her glider and just read out loud. She makes up narratives that don't necessarily match up with the stories, but are usually pretty close because she has them memorized. She also loves playing with "babies," which are any small figurine she owns, like animals, Yo Gabba Gabba characters, etc. She makes them have really elaborate interactions. Usually they involve dragons, and fighting and someone getting in trouble and then getting forgiven. It's like a toddler soap opera.
*She is extremely excited about Christmas. She talks about Santa all the time, and how he is going to bring her ladybugs (these little rubber ones at Fernbank) and new "babies" (see note above). She also wants him to bring her some more Hello Kitties. A girl can never have too many Hello Kitties...

OK, that's all for now! We hope everyone is doing well, and getting ready for the holidays.

Blog Neglect!

2010-12-07T23:56:00.002-05:00

Poor Roxanne. If I ever get my act together and get this blog printed like I always planned, she's going to think she was abandoned at the age of 2. At least in terms of blogging...

School is overwhelming me right now, but just two more days. I plan to spend this weekend catching up on things. In the mean time, here's some video of Roxanne. Forgive me? Sorry about the quality. I take most of these short videos on our regular camera which cuts off after 90 seconds. Some day, I want to get one of those nifty flip camcorders that are digital and easy to use. Just when I was telling Justin that it was ridiculous that we hadn't been videotaping Roxanne more with our real video camera, he told me that he was pretty sure ours got ruined in the basement flood. Thanks water pipes. Have any of you had experience with those? I'd love some product recommendations...

Pink Pig!

2010-11-20T13:49:00.002-05:00

We went last night. Justin took her around this time. So cute. :) She got so so so excited about going. I promised her we would go back again. She wants to go with Nana and Ella and Chloe and Kendree.

More Drawings

2010-11-07T21:57:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to post about Roxanne's drawings. She love, love, loves to draw. We got her an easel, and she spends hours on the dry erase marker side of it. She also spends hours on Ben's dry erase easel at work... She just can't get enough... She also loves drawing on paper, the floor, furniture, the wall... Yeah. But these little people she draws are so neat looking. Sometimes they have hats. Sometimes they have ears, and if they only have one eye, they are Muno (the cyclops monster from Yo Gabba Gabba). She also loves to draw on herself... Sometimes random scribbles, but usually she tries to give herself whiskers on her face, kitty stripes on her arms, and she colors her finger nails. No matter how many times we punish her for it, she just keeps doing it. Last time, we took the markers away for a week, and she still drew on herself shortly after getting them back... At least dry erase markers come off easily with baby wipes...
Here she decorated herself. Lovely.
This is our family. Plus one. No, I'm not pregnant. But apparently, we have an invisible baby member of our family.
Here's a person drawn on the credenza.
Here's people drawn on the living room floor. Perhaps they look a little sad because they know they are not supposed to be there?

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-03T00:32:00.003-04:00

Some Music Room Videos (some better than others)

2010-10-26T00:59:00.004-04:00

Pumpkin Patch Photos!

2010-10-17T15:17:00.006-04:00

We took Roxanne to Yule Farms in Stockbridge yesterday. We are all kind of sick, but doing that thing where we take medicine and feel sorry for ourselves but try to do a little bit of fun stuff anyways. We had fun at the farm. I miss going to Burt's, but this is much closer, and we got to actually go out in the patch and pick pumpkins and cut them from the vine ourselves. And there were a ton of activities for Roxanne. Most were slightly low budget, but she didn't care. Maybe we'll get to Burt's at some point, but if not, this was really fun.
She was being very bossy by this point (we were on our way out and it was nap time). She kept telling Justin not to tip the wheelbarrow up, which of course is the only way to push it...
We had to get a mommy, daddy, and baby pumpkin. We each picked out our own.
She totally loves posing for photos now... Hammy hammykins.
The pumpkin hunter!
Braving the pumpkin patch.
Is there anything cuter than miniature donkeys? Actually, Roxanne petting miniature donkeys is pretty cute...
I realize this looks totally unsafe, but seriously, the guy was watching her like a hawk. And she begged and begged to ride the horse. Isn't she a little teensy baby on there?
The funniest was when she started slipping off, she would say in a very grown up voice, "Stop the horse, please." Then he would adjust her, adjust her helmet, and start back again.
The maze. Roxanne was our leader.
The weird pirate ship play fort.

This was a rabbit village. No petting though. :(

Fall!

2010-10-09T18:17:00.007-04:00

In honor of fall, we went to the Smith Plantation Fall Festival this morning. My mom came and met us there, and we all had a lot of fun. We were also picking up a chair my mom found at a yard sale, but that's for the house blog...
Here's what's new in Roxanne-land:
*Although she will wear pants with some nudging (or threatening...), she is extremely partial to dresses. I have NO idea where this is all coming from, but it's insanely pervasive. She's been wearing this pink corduroy dress/overalls thing a lot since we can slip it on over whatever for inclement weather, and every time I put it on her, she says "I'm a girl now!" Sigh. I always correct her, and tell her she's always a girl, and that she looks beautiful all the time, in pants or dresses, etc. and she will nod, but apparently I'm not getting all the way through. Yipes.
*Her obsession with Hello Kitty is going way strong. She has a ton of Hello Kitty stuff since I'm a sucker and pick up little things here and there as I see them (and because I feel a little sorry for her that her birthday and Christmas are mashed together). She has started insisting on wearing "paws," which means when we are at home, she wants to have socks on her hands and on her feet. She meows, sits on the floor, and licks her arms, telling us that she's a little kitty. Sometimes she's a "sad kitty," but usually just a kitty.
*She is really excited about her birthday. We talked about it a little recently because she's had some friends/family members have birthdays and when we go to pick out gifts, she keeps asking where her presents are. So we told her her birthday is in December, and that she can have any kind of party she wants. So of course, she wants a Hello Kitty party with "Hello Kitty cake, and Hello Kitty presents, and Hello Kitty decorations." She tells us, "My birthday is tomorrow, in December, and I'll have a Hello Kitty party." We used to correct her and tell her December is a long ways away, but now we mostly just nod...We're pretty sure she has no idea what "tomorrow" really means at this point. So we're probably safe.

Enjoy the photos! Most are from the festival today. :)
At Fickle Pickle for lunch. Roswell has their scarecrows set up. Roxanne was in awe of this one. I think it was called "Pickle Modern."
She really wanted to pick this pumpkin out. But she decided it was probably too heavy. Whatever works...
Here's her favorite dress I mentioned above. She's cramming rocks and acorns into the pocket. And these are her new winter boots! We've been looking for some for a while, and these were her favorite. They are brown with a layer of glitter on top. She really likes them.
Nana and Roxanne with her pumpkin!
When she wants to, she has LASER FOCUS.
The finished product!
Getting her face painted... She was unsure about this, insisting it would hurt, but the woman was so sweet and showed her it felt like tickling. So she sat very very still and actually seemed to enjoy it.
Is this not the cutest cow ever???
Roxanne kept calling it a giant doggy. I heard several kids ask "Is that real?"
Petting a giant bunny!
I seriously think her favorite animal was this rooster. When she tried to stick her fingers in, Justin told her it might peck her, and for the rest of the day, she's been saying "I wanted to touch that rooster, but it was going to bite my fingers."
A little miniature horse. So cute.
You can't see it very well, but this was a super cute donkey. Teensy, too.
A baby pig!
Her masterpiece! Justin drew the flower on the left, but the people on the right were all her. One is me, but I'm not sure who the other one is. The green one has very very long arms. Neat!
Nana got Roxanne this raincoat, and when we tried it on her last night, she insisted on wearing it until bed time. With the hood on...

Beach Trip (lots of photos!)

2010-09-29T21:10:00.009-04:00

We just got back from Tybee Island yesterday afternoon. I'll try and get back to post more details about it later, but I'm a bit overwhelmed with schoolwork at the moment. The highlights included lots of beach time, yummy seafood, a day trip to Savannah, and a boat tour to look for dolphins. It was a wonderful, relaxing trip. Roxanne had an absolute ball at the beach. She loved the sand, and swimming with me and Justin and getting "knocked by a wave." I hope we can make beach visits a yearly thing. It's so rejuvenating. Oh, and for some weird reason (by weird I mean stupid, since I am of the opinion that blogger's photo capabilities are ridiculously non-user-friendly) the photos are in reverse chronological order. So the top are the most recent, and the bottom are from the first part of our trip. Sorry.
Here we are squeezing into the self-made family portrait we are so fond of... On the boat.
I had to include at least one dolphin shot... It was SO neat watching them, both on the boat and from the beach near our studio. There were so many of them!
On the lookout! Roxanne was just as excited to point out the billions of jellyfish as she was to see the dolphins. She loves jellyfish because of SpongeBob Squarepants. She was crestfallen when Justin told her people don't go jellyfishing. Only SpongeBob and Patrick do.
Me and Roxanne on the boat.
She had to wear a life vest on the boat. She didn't complain once! This was from our last morning there. Captain Mike's Dolphin tour. It was lovely, and very cheap.
Doesn't she look crazy??? She was so happy on the beach.
She loved this foam.
vWe took a walk on the beach after dinner one night before getting gelato downtown. Roxanne flitted around like a little bird. Look at her fingers here... So cute.
From the roof of our studio (facing away from the water). We were VERY close to the lighthouse.
Roxanne worrying that the hermit crab would "pinch" me.
She held a hermit crab for about a second, then dropped it. This was in a little gallery/science center thing right downtown in Tybee. They had some really neat fish, turtles, alligators, and this area where you could touch some sea life. It was little, but really neat. And they had a one month old baby loggerhead sea turtle that was hatched at Tybee. It was so tiny and cute!
I can't believe she's old enough to pose like this...
Tybee has these painted turtles all over town.
Our new car! This was right outside our little studio.
Collecting shells for her "shell garden."
On the tour bus in Savannah.
Savannah. Justin squatted down to take a picture with Roxanne, but she insisted on copying his pose and not standing next to him.
Savannah. She was more interested in the Hello Kitty candy necklace than sightseeing. Thank goodness for touristy candy shops in Savannah.
In the studio. The lighting was perfect.
In the studio. She's probably trying to talk me into something here.
She loved loved loved building sand castles with Justin.
She's probably demanding something of Justin here.
The aged, but charming rooftop patio of our studio. The building was attached to what seemed to be a "battery" from the mid-1800's. We think it probably was originally part of that battery and then eventually got converted into living space. It was really neat looking.
The other view from the studio roof.
Here's Roxanne and Justin in front of the door of our little beach studio. It was about twenty minutes after we arrived. She was SO excited to get on the beach ASAP.

Some Roxanne-isms

2010-09-13T20:40:00.003-04:00

I am kind of overwhelmed lately with house, school, job, etc. etc. Sorry. But I'm absolutely loving school, and Justin has been great keeping Roxanne for me while I go to class. The two of them are so cute together. In that vein, I wanted to share some of my favorite things that they do. :)

*Justin is in charge of Roxanne's bed time. Always. Every once in a while, I take over, but I know it's not the same for her. Justin does this very specific sequence of things with her every night, and she loves it. They start out with the nightgown, then with a potty trip, followed by tooth brushing (she has a Hello Kitty toothbrush these days; she is smitten), face and hand washing. She has to have a dollop of lotion after she washes her hands. As some of you know, this is a Justin things. I let my hands crack and bleed before I put lotion on them, but Justin uses it EVERY time he washes his hands. They are smooth like baby skin. Roxanne is now incapable of getting to bed without her lotion. After that part, she comes and tells me goodnight, and gives me a kiss. Sometimes that includes discreetly wiping any excess lotion off onto me. Or onto whatever surface I'm sitting on or near. Sigh. After this, they read stories, usually two, although Roxanne lately has been angling for more. Then they go to her globe on her dresser, and point out different places. I think sometimes they spin it, but she always asks to see Georgia, Colorado, and Mexico (the last one I'm not sure why she is so interested in). She also asks for Italy a lot, in part because of a Wonder Pets book she has that takes place there. She can point to all of them on the globe on her own and name them most of the time. It's so cute. After that, they turn on her nightlight and radio (she listens to classical music on her sound machine all night) and then she turns out the light. Once Justin tucks her in, she gives him a kiss. If it's not somehow quite right, she makes him give her another one, leaning up and going "mmmmmmm!!!!" Most nights, that is all. But some nights, like tonight, she gets back up, opens her door and makes an elaborate excuse as to why she can't sleep. Tonight she told us, "I laid in my bed, and my arm was asleep and in my bed my poo poo hurt and then I needed to poo poo in the potty but I need to sleep in the big bed." Sigh.

In other news, she is more and more interested in going to "school." Ben and Locke both started, and now she asks about it. We plan to look into it for next year. In the mean time, my new schedule means we have Mondays and Fridays until noon to hang out with just the two of us. This morning, we ran some errands, and went to see the animals at the pet shop. They had TONS of kittens. I wanted to put them all in the car and take them home. Roxanne parrots me when we leave: "Bye bye kittens! I hope you all find a nice home!"

I'm off again to do some school work. Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Carlos Williams. But not at the same time...

The Chattanooga Trip

2010-08-30T23:04:00.008-04:00

On Saturday morning, I got home from running some errands and Justin said we needed to get out of town. I immediately said "Chattanooga?" and Justin said "Sure!" So I got on Trip Advisor and looked up cheap places to stay. I called and booked a room at a super cute and reasonable B&B called Sky Harbor, and we packed and left. All of this took about an hour... I think we have just been stir crazy. We had such a great little getaway, and it honestly felt much longer than one afternoon and part of the next day. We got up there around 3, and after checking in, we headed to the Incline Railroad. It was cheesy, but fun. Lots of lovely views. After that, we wandered for a while, then headed downtown to find something cheap for dinner. We ended up at a little restaurant in a super cute part of town called (I think) the North Shore. It's just a small street that we were on, but it was right by the river, and we found an adorable little restaurant that makes quirky hot dogs. And yummy salads. After that, we all had frozen yogurt at another shop before heading back to our room for some swimming. The pool was teensy, but it overlooked the river and Chattanooga itself, since the B&B was at the lower part of Lookout Mountain and had a lovely lovely view. In the morning, we headed out for breakfast, followed by check-out, Ruby Falls and Rock City. We left around 3pm, and we were home by around 6 (with a dinner stop at Bojangles. High class). Restful and lovely! So here are some photos from our "vacation."
Roxanne napped on the ride down. With her new Wonder Pets "flyboat" in her lap the whole way. I found this for her for $2.50 at a consignment sale before we left. She loves Wonder Pets.
The sign for the B&B we stayed in. Although, honestly, it wasn't really much like a B&B in terms of the breakfast. They put out some horrific donut holes and coffee in the morning. No worries. It was still a cute little place with a gorgeous view, and the price was right. :) Oh, and there was a litter of kittens for me and Roxanne to stare at. Sadly, they weren't very people-friendly, but we had fun looking at them.
The view between two of the B&B buildings.
Roxanne liked running laps up and down the room. The wood paneling lent itself well to echoes.
Our little back porch had amazing views. And rocking chairs!
Family portrait on the Incline Railroad.
I took this as we were going back up.
That's the glass ceiling. Not as cool as a Wonka elevator, but still pretty neat for Roxanne to stare up at.
As Justin was putting Roxanne to bed, I was reading for school out on the porch. I thought I heard thunder and then realized that the baseball stadium across town was shooting off fireworks. We could see them from our porch, so Roxanne and Justin came out to watch. They were far enough out that the booms were very distant and infrequent, but we felt special to get to watch them.
We forgot to pack a bedtime story for Roxanne. Fortunately, Justin's iPad came with a Winnie the Pooh story on it. She seemed to get a kick out of reading her story on there. He let her "turn the pages," which she definitely enjoyed. I'm getting a Kindle sometime in the next couple of weeks courtesy of Josh's parents' parting gift (how lucky I am!) so I might try and get some kid's books on mine.

Ruby Falls!
Down in the cave. It was quite a walk from the elevator to the actual Falls. Roxanne insisted on being carried the whole way there, because Hello Kitty was scared. P.S. Don't let your toddler bring their Hello Kitty stuffed animal into cave tours. She's a fraidy cat.
Ruby Falls. They really were beautiful. The colored lights were a little cheesy, but they were pretty.
Trying to get a shot of Roxanne's reaction to the Falls. She went from "wow!" to crying because she was getting dripped on.
In order to get her to walk on the way out of the Falls (as she is officially too heavy for me and Justin to carry for extended periods like that) I bribed her with candy. Yeah, I know. But seriously, shouldn't all kids get Rock Candy while in Chattanooga? Isn't it like a law or something?
Here she is at Rock City. I swear there are photos of me and my sister on this same stone bench here. And I'm about Roxanne's age. Can you see how deliriously tired she is? Whew.
Taking a pause at Rock City. These swings were so beautiful. Someone build us one!
Lover's Leap.
Yeah, I was having trouble photographing anything up here because I was busy having mini panic attacks every four seconds. I never realized how much of a non-fan I am of heights. Ugh.
One view of the "seven states." It was stunning.
I liked this sign. Everything at Rock City is so charmingly touristy and fairy-taled out. So many gnomes...
Another angle of the view. This is making me dizzy just looking at it. Yikes.

Photo Post!

2010-08-22T09:06:00.006-04:00

Pink poodle costume from Nana! So cute!
She folded herself up into her easel box. Cozy.
I love the ears. :)
Don't you love the pink sheen?
She loves this outfit. She kept acting like a puppy. Adorable.
Look at the tail!
I think her posing here makes her look really old. She's really getting hammy.
The cousins. Roxanne adores them.
She's in heaven. :)
She picked out this headband from Baby Gap. She's been asking me to get her a flower for her hair, but I totally didn't think she'd actually wear one. I figured it was just a by-product of Kai Lan and Hello Kitty. But I couldn't resist this one. :)
She is not a fan of dirty hands...
Oh, right! She got a haircut last weekend with Miss Lisa. Justin took her without me, and I'm so sad I missed it. He said she loved every second of it. He told her we wanted to try and grow it out, but that it wouldn't work in the bob shape. This is adorable.
Roxanne and BooBoo. A one-sided love affair. :)
She's a patient kitty.
Again with the dirty hands...
The flower is felt. So cute!
On a mission...
Here's the fake smile. She calls it her "happy face." Haha.
She loves Hello Kitty right now. Scratch that, she's OBSESSED with Hello Kitty right now. I got her this necklace at Urban Outfitters, and she loves it.

Music Time Video

2010-08-12T19:11:00.003-04:00

These were both taken in Roxanne's room, in her "big girl bed." We took the side off altogether so she can get in and out. Scary, but after about a week of her getting up fifty times in the hour or two after bedtime, she has settled in nicely. It's still funny to hear her get up in the morning and open her own door and see her pad down the hall in her nightgown. She's really really into closing herself in her room, or any room for that matter. I'm not sure what the fascination is, but she apparently needs privacy these days. It made me very nervous at first, but she isn't doing anything bad with the door closed (yeah, so maybe I stand at the door with my ear jammed to it sometimes), usually reading or singing. She is still very much in love with books (yay!) and spends a lot of time reading to herself. She has some favorites that are more or less memorized, and it's fun to listen to her "read" them to herself. I think my very favorite part is that Justin always tells her the name of the author when he reads her a book so she always says the title of the book and "by [insert author name]" when she's reading to herself. So you'll hear "Skippy Jon Jones in Mummy Trouble by Judith Shachner" coming from her room, although it's a little more muddled. And adorable. We hope she'll continue to be a reader. She certainly loves it for now.

Sleep drama...Again

2010-07-30T21:53:00.002-04:00

We are making a return to the sleep-deprived cranky toddler. We took the side off of her crib completely to make it a "big girl bed" and with her newly discovered independence, Roxanne is in a sleep deficit. She gets up and turns the light on, picks up books, walks around, etc., but we still feel like this is just what's next. She's been doing really well with her potty training, so we want to make it so that she can get up to go potty if we go down that route in the next few months. Or year. And really, it just felt like it was time. She seems to LOVE the "big girl bed" and talks about it a lot, but it's definitely an adjustment. I've been reading horror stories of kids being up and down all night during this transition, and it certainly hasn't been that bad, but missing one or two hours of sleep at this age still has an impact on her. In any case, this new transition has brought on some very funny (after the fact) moments. Here's my favorites:

*As I said, she likes to turn the light on, but she can't reach it. At first, she was putting her chair under the switch and climbing on it to reach. After I caught on around 10pm the other night, I moved the chair out of her room. Twenty minutes later, she walked out of her room crying, and telling me that I needed to put the chair back and she wouldn't stand on it again. When I refused, she figured out how to pull her laundry basket (with dirty clothes in it) to the switch, and stand in that to turn the light on. So I put that basket on the glider in her room. She pulled it down, and turned the light on. When I went in to turn it back off and put her back to bed, I put the basket in the playroom. She had a meltdown, and told me that the laundry basket had to stay in her chair (the glider). I told her no, and that it was going to stay in the playroom. She kept on and on, and since it was 11 by this point, I just put the basket back on the chair. But apparently, this was not enough. She insisted on finding Justin and telling him that the basket was to stay on the chair. After that, she stayed in her bed and fell asleep.

*A couple of nights ago, she came out of her room crying and asking for me. When I went to her, I brought her back to her room and put her in her bed, but she kept crying and saying something I couldn't understand. When I finally got her to calm down, I could understand her, and she was asking me to "get that scary crocodile out" of her room. So we talked about it and decided there indeed was no scary crocodile. An hour later, we had a repeat, except this time, she wanted me to get the eyeballs out of her bed. Seriously. How gross is that???? I finally decided that she was talking about the dot pattern on her sheets, since they do sort of look like cartoon eyeballs in the dark. But they are dots with hearts and flowers in them! Talk about backfiring...

Today, we had an unexpected day off. So we ran lots of unnecessary errands (i.e. window shopping and buying little things here and there) and just generally had a nice day. We came home to nap, and Roxanne was just really not having it. At one point, she snuck out of her room, went in the playroom and closed the door behind her. But she totally got herself caught by immediately picking up her Muno guitar. I could hear her playing the Foofa song, so I came in and put her back to bed. Let's hope she doesn't figure out any new sneaky techniques. I'm apparently not very intimidating when it comes to these situations...

OK, some real pictures

2010-07-22T20:00:00.005-04:00

Roxanne LOVES helping these days. She loves to do grown up stuff with us, and Justin decided to let her help with the laundry down in the basement. He got these photos of her down there. I say we keep this trend going. :)
She's a busy thing.
Eating delicious cupcakes with the birthday girl.
Riding Evie's bike.
She's telling me something important here.
Checking things out.
"Give me the camera, mama!"

Roxanne's photography skills

2010-07-22T19:47:00.004-04:00

Here's a collection of Roxanne's photographs. She LOVES taking pictures. I think we should get her one of those toddler digital cameras for her birthday. They seem rough and ready for drops and spills. Some of these are from home, others from her friend Evie's birthday party.

Her portrait of the birthday girl.
With the help of sunlight, Roxanne actually caught a real picture. And who doesn't love the pictures of someone else taking a picture?? Classic.
This red light was coming off the camera. I have no idea how she managed to catch this, but it's cute.
This is such a cute angle. She sometimes forgets that she has to turn the camera away from her, hence all of the close up self portraits.
Right after throwing a fit and being rewarded by getting the camera. Mom of the Year. That's me. See those crocodile tears???
I love her little shadow, and her toe. This was at the party
Again, at Evie's party. She always tells me she loves her red sandals.
This is me and Justin. There's something kind of adorable about this "portrait" of us. Like, this is from Roxanne's viewpoint... If you were to pan up, we were smiling nicely and saying cheese for her, but this was the result. Awesome. Oh, it was also taken at Evie's party.

Bootie Queen

2010-07-17T22:38:00.002-04:00

Roxanne just talks about booties all the time these days. Is it the Spongebob SquarePants? Should we stop watching it? Or is it just that she's my child, and has inherited some of my weird quirkiness? I mean, it's nothing really gross or weird (phew) but still. She's such a silly little kid. Her other current obsessions are reading (that's always a big one for her) which involves holding a book during nap and even at bedtime some nights. She will sometimes wake up in the night and ask for a specific book that she wants to hold. I know she can't actually see it in her crib because her night light doesn't shine very brightly. It's more of a blue glow as part of her noise machine (she likes to listen to the classical music setting on it all night, every night). But she's super specific about which book she wants. So it is not unheard of for me or Justin to be standing in her room half asleep, silently cursing as we dig through her giant book bin trying desperately to find "the Sleeping Beauty book," or the "Muno can't sleep book," or the "Wonderpets Book - no the big one, not the one that plays music!" She's a little tyrant. But so charming during the day... She definitely reminds me of that little rhyme my mom used to always say to me:
Once there was a girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid.

One of her other big controlling times is when she's singing a certain song and can't remember the words. She'll yell at me or Justin "I can't do anything! I can't sing the song! You help me! You help me!" And then Justin and I help her sing the song in half-terrified voices. The other day, she wanted Justin to sing the "princess song," which is this one from Cinderella about "a dream is a wish your heart makes." I sing it to her often, but she has only seen the real version once or twice. Justin has NO idea what the words are, so when she kept demanding that he sing it, we both kept trying to deflect it to me. But she was adamant that Justin sing it, and was almost melting down at his refusal. So finally, we pulled a Cyrano D'Bergerac and I whispered each line to him and then he would sing it. Oh the ridiculousness of parenting... I promise we aren't always total indulgent softies. We just pick our battles. Roxanne has taught us a lot about what to worry about and what to just let go. She's a stubborn little thing, and she's very particular, but she's also extremely smart and precocious. Kind of a tough combination to fight with. :) She's already learned the old "Mommy, can I have ice cream for dinner?" and when I say "of course not!" she simply turns to Justin and says "Daddy, can I have ice cream for dinner?" Sigh.

Oh, and for other news, I just put up a big long rambling post on our house blog. Hope you are all doing well, and staying cool!

Seriously bad blogging

2010-07-12T00:12:00.005-04:00

Sorry. I need to get back in line with my blogging! Remember those days when I blogged sometimes MORE THAN ONCE IN A DAY??? I'm working on it. Seriously.

In family news, Roxanne is really basically becoming a kid. No more baby. She's so precocious, and says and does things on an hourly basis that kind of blow my mind. Like the other night at dinner where she asked Justin if he knew about the oil spill. "It's on the beach." she said while nodding earnestly. I guess maybe I need to cool it on the NPR. She is becoming very girly now, too. She wants to paint her finger and toe nails all the time, and she LOVES wearing dresses. As soon as she puts it on, she announces: "I'm a pretty princess." Is this kind of thing instinctual??? She also has been increasingly interested in putting toys/babies/balled up pieces of paper, etc. "to bed" and calling them little babies or kittens. She is obsessed with snuggling things in blankets and giving them pillows.

Photo Post

2010-06-17T21:50:00.003-04:00

Here's Roxanne, all dressed for "watering" the new plants. :)
She loves that watering can.
Aren't her little water shoes so cute?
She's probably sassing me here. She's always sassing me...
Watering the grass.
She's showing Justin a green pepper she picked off our new pepper plant. She actually ate most of it!
What happens when Roxanne decides to put her bathing suit on with no help.
I think this is kind of a good look for her.

Whirlwinding

2010-06-10T18:18:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone. Whew. We are finally catching our breath. The HGTV people have left, so we are now the proud owners of a beautiful home. We really really love everything they did. Roxanne likes it, too. There's going to be a pretty serious learning curve since we don't know how to take care of all our gorgeous new plants, but we're working on it. And between my sister and my grandma, we have some fantastic family advisers. So far, we've been watering diligently, but the plants are still looking a little droopy. Sigh. Maybe this weekend we'll venture somewhere to ask questions about things like fertilizer... Kim, from the show, suggested that we use some "weed and seed" on our yard, so we are going to look into that, too. Our yard is pretty heavy on the clover.
Roxanne is basically a teenager these days. She talks and talks and talks and says the weirdest/funniest things. Here's some quotes from recent days that I want to have written down (I figure Justin can use them for her wedding speech):
"Mommy, you have a big head. I'm going to squeeze it and make it a little head." this is followed by some energetic squeezing of my face/head. she also does the same routine to Justin.
"I just need chocolate for breakfast." when I say we don't have chocolate for breakfast, she says: "I just need a cookie for breakfast." if she's really determined by this point, she'll list out cupcakes and ice cream, etc., like maybe it's not that she can't have desert for breakfast, she just hasn't hit the right one.
"Be careful Daddy!" yelled loudly every time Justin leaves the house to go anywhere.

She's a very busy little bee, and is wonderful at entertaining herself. She is starting to want to stay at Ben's or Josh's houses at the end of the work day, and I think she is just getting super attached to them. She just seems very social, and likes having people over at our house, although any time there are more than three or four people here, she expects cake. On Monday, we had people over for our HGTV party, and towards the end, she came barreling through the living room going "where's the birthday cake Mommy? I need birthday cake!" Sigh. Lest you think we feed her sweets constantly, she also eats a lot of fruit, and a few types of veggies. She likes carrot sticks, but I think because Justin taught her to gnaw at them and say "what's up doc?" like Bugs Bunny. Not that she has ever seen Bugs Bunny... But she thinks it's funny to say that.

She loves loves loves music and singing. She likes to make up little songs to narrate whatever she's doing, and they are really funny. She also likes to draw and paint. Ben has an easel at his house, and she loves to draw on it for long stretches. Especially the dry erase side. Our big battle is keeping the markers at the easel. She tends to want to carry them around (open) and accidentally marks on stuff. She also wraps them up in the washcloths used to wipe the board down and says they are little babies. She is obsessed with wrapping herself and/or other things up in blankets or towels.

Her favorite new activity is swimming. She loves her little baby pool, but now that we've started going to a few "big" pools, she asks pretty constantly to go to the "big pool." We really wanted to join the pool in our neighborhood, but it's just too expensive. There are other pools that aren't too far that are much cheaper. Maybe next year we can join the neighborhood pool so that we could go sometimes on week nights. That would be awesome! And apparently it's a great place to meet neighbors. There is a neighborhood barbeque this weekend, so we plan to go and try to meet a few people. We've met a few people during this HGTV process, which has been nice. So far, people have all been complimentary about the house (phew) and seemed patient with all of the activity.

We hope you are all doing well and having a nice summer!

Our happy little monkey

2010-06-01T20:57:00.001-04:00

Woops! It's been a month...

2010-05-19T18:53:00.003-04:00

Sorry everyone. I've probably lost you all by now. It's been a rough month or so, but now everything is settling down. Today was our first day of filming with HGTV! Lots of demo and laying out the groundwork for the changes that are coming. I put some photos on facebook, and I'll post some later on our house blog. For now, here are some Roxanne photos. Please note that her guitar now has all of it's strings. We picked up some new strings for it and Justin fixed it up. The two of them sit and play together now. I posted a short a video of them playing together. She is actually singing a song that is her "favorite," which is a Dr. Dog song. Justin is singing it, too, but she definitely knows the words. It's great that she's starting to love our music as much as kids' music. The Yo Gabba Gabba CD is great, but it was starting to wear thin... Speaking of which, the Yo Gabba Gabba Live show is coming to the Fox Theater next October. We're broke right now, but I might try and get some babysitting work so that we can get tickets. They go on sale soon, and I'm worried they will sell out. Roxanne is definitely NOT the only Yo Gabba Gabba fanatic out there... :)

Some family photos

2010-04-29T21:12:00.004-04:00

Finally!

2010-04-19T21:23:00.002-04:00

Just a note to say that I found out today that I got accepted into Georgia State University for the fall! I'm in for a world of stress, but I think it will be more than worth it in the long run. :) For the record, I plan to work full time, and have Justin watch Roxanne for me at night while I go to class. It's so nice that GSU offers night classes. UGA didn't offer anything past 4 or so. Anyways, that's a relief for me!

Not old enough for a sleeping bag

2010-04-14T21:05:00.002-04:00

Last Friday night, we were invited to spend the night in Ariel and Luke's lovely new guest bedroom. We decided it would be fun, and we could actually stay up later than 8 or 8:30 while at a friend's house. The bad part happened when I realized that I had left Roxanne's pack and play at Josh's house. In an effort to pretend like I didn't make a really big mistake, I was all "it's fine! We'll just bring her owl sleeping bag and she can sleep on the floor!" Yeah. She didn't fall asleep for good until 11:30 pm. And that was in the "big bed." I woke up at some time in the very early morning in the bed with Roxanne and looked down to see Justin crammed into that teensy pink sleeping back, zippered to his knees, and shivering a little. Please don't tell him I told you that. But it was very endearing, and says a lot about Justin's daddy sacrifices. The lesson learned is that probably even with the pack and play (which she can now climb out of) we might need to wait a little longer before we move onto slumber parties. But on the flip side, I feel like she needs to learn to be a little less sensitive to change. She's so incredibly routine oriented, which is great, but sometimes I think she needs to have a little bit of change to help her learn to be adaptable. We'll see...

We're still trying to get back on track with potty training. But basically, Roxanne was completely potty trained for like 2 weeks. And then something happened and she basically decided that she didn't want to be anymore. Now we're sort of a mixed bag. When the mood strikes her, she uses the potty. Other times, she insists on a pull up. I'm too worn out to push it, and since she is officially the only kid in diapers at work, I'm inclined to relax a little. I still put her on the potty frequently, but if she really throws a fit, I try to let it go. I don't want to give her potty trauma... I'm sure we'll get it figured out soon.

Also, I STILL haven't heard from GSU yet about my grad school application. I'm going a little nuts... Let's hope that for now, no news is good news?

Photo overload

2010-04-06T21:50:00.007-04:00

From our three Easters... The top set are from Easter with my family up at the Gainesville Country Club (I didn't take enough photos because our camera battery died, so the top two are stolen from my sister). She had a great time! The second set are from our Easter morning at home. The last set are from the weekend before Easter at the downtown Decatur egg hunt. Roxanne was grumpy and out of it for the most part, but it was still cute.

The photos in her brown hoodie are from the Easter Egg Hunt in downtown Decatur the weekend before Easter.

The chatty-est cathy

2010-03-31T20:48:00.003-04:00

Roxanne is now officially a motor mouth. She basically NEVER stops talking. And she has started saying the most ridiculous things. I really didn't know that by 2, Roxanne would already be embarrassing me with some of the things she says. I'm sure I'll learn to let it roll off my back, or learn a polite way of handling it, but for now, I just sort of pretend she didn't say it. That's the problem with her fairly clear pronunciation though... Most of what she says is actually intelligible. Like a couple of weeks ago when we had a plumber out on a Saturday morning... Roxanne pointed at him (and he was rather heavyset) and said, "that's a BIG man." And when my boss's 22 year old nephew stopped by the house on Monday, Roxanne pointed to him and said "that's an OLD man." Sigh. I know that people probably don't get offended, but it could happen. Toddlers are too honest.

At dinner tonight (we had a lovely dinner in Oak Grove, at El Vecino Taqueria, which I highly recommend to parents with little ones, especially since a new cupcake shop opened next door...yum) Roxanne was playing with an empty salsa bowl and kept telling Justin that she took his bowl, then that she took his *insert random word here* until finally settling on "diarrhea." Lovely. I guess because it got the biggest reaction, she decided to say it about fifty times. Loudly. And then later at dinner she randomly pipes in with "we don't eat boogers" which is sadly something that I end up saying MULTIPLE times a day at work. When Justin said the usual "let's get off the subject fast" response of "no, we don't," she wouldn't let it go. Instead, she started saying, "you eat boogers, Daddy. You have boogers in your mouth." Honestly, I didn't know that she knew the word "diarrhea" or that it was something icky and worthy of making people uncomfortable, and I certainly didn't know that she was old enough to taunt Justin with these types of insults. Whew! What will she be like at 4? Or 14? Yowsa.

In nicer Roxanne news, she has really started getting better with tantrums and whining. They still happen, but they are definitely vastly improved. She has started asking me to call people so she can talk to them on the phone, and she has prolonged conversations about different parts of her day. So she might mention "Joshy pushed me today," even though it happened last week, or "we blew bubbles and went to the library," which might have happened on Sesame Street, but not actually to her. Sometimes she starts stories with "once upon a time," but more often, she makes it seem like these things happened. And that she really did do these things "today." Then I feel like I need to get on the phone after her and explain that she didn't really mean it, and that we didn't really go to the library and blow bubbles today. Because, I just want to keep the record straight.

Oh, and we had our first HGTV filming experience yesterday. Interviews, before shots, and the big design reveal! It was very exciting, and we LOVE the design plan, which is perfectly to our taste. I can't tell you much more than that because we literally only saw it for like two minutes. And regardless of what it seems like on the show, they really do show it to you for the first time on camera. So our surprise is genuine. It was really a great experience, and all of the production staff was really really nice. We felt so comfortable! And part of the shooting was done at a playground, since they decided last minute (as in Monday) that they wanted to include some footage of us playing with Roxanne at a local park. My mom was kind enough to watch Roxanne for us during shooting, so she met us at the park and we played with Roxanne for a while. She was pretty charming, although for one version of the design reveal, she was standing behind me trying to climb part of the playground that she is NOT big enough for and saying "help me mama! help me mama! help me mama!" about fifty times. I wasn't sure what to do, but she wasn't actually in any danger or anything, she just wanted me to give her a boost, so I ignored her. Hopefully no one at HGTV thinks I'm now a negligent mom. When exactly do kids learn patience? At least it's reality. Warts and all. :)

We hope everyone is well and enjoying this beautiful weather! Roxanne has her first sunburned cheeks of the season. And so it begins.

Photos all taken in Roxanne's room

2010-03-21T20:20:00.003-04:00

Here's a photo of the ridiculous way Roxanne was napping the other day. She had her feet stretched out on top of the pillow when I first went in, but she started pulling them up as she woke. So I was a little late, but you get the idea...

Roxanne sleeping with her new "big girl" bed blankets. I bought toddler bedding at Target that matches the wall decals she has. It's super cute, and it helps her stay asleep at night because she's not constantly kicking off her blankets. It's so cute to see her with a top sheet and comforter... And the set, which was top and bottom sheets, pillowcase, and comforter was on sale for $22! I'll pay that much if it puts an end to the midnight demands of "put my blanket on!"

Here's a blurry "action shot" of Roxanne jumping in her new "big girl bed." I put the rail down to where it's low enough for her to climb in and out of, since she's been hiking a leg up like she's going to climb out. The way her crib is made, it's extremely stuck in this position, and we don't have to buy an $80 toddler bed railing attachment (lame). We spent half the weekend last weekend trying to figure out what to do about her bed. We even looked at some twin beds at IKEA, but the cost would be so big, we just decided to make this work for now.
Again, if you could have audio with this photo it would be something like "I will sleep in my big girl bed all night! I love my big girl bed. Look at the hedge hogs!" She definitely likes these blankets.

This was a moment I'm always trying to catch but usually don't. Roxanne likes to sit in her glider by herself and read books sometimes. When the lighting is right, she really looks like a little angel sitting there. It's so cute. And peaceful. She's such a lovely, wild, many-sided thing.

Today Today Today

2010-03-13T09:07:00.002-05:00

Roxanne has developed a very silly speech pattern. She likes to make a statement about something that happened to her, and then tack on "today" at the end. Even if said happening happened three weeks ago. The most common one is her talking about a run-in she had at Leapin' Lizards a few weeks ago: "A boy pushed me at Leapin' Lizards today. And a boy make me feel better at Leapin' Lizards today." It's pretty hard to correct her on it, so we usually just say "I think that happened a while ago." She also points to a spot on her hand where BooBoo scratched her like a month ago, and there is NO mark left whatsoever, and says "BooBoo scratched me today." Sigh. In other areas of speech, she is sounding more like a kid than a toddler. This morning, when she got up, I brought her back to our bed to snuggle for a few minutes, and after about five minutes, she said "I'm bored. I'm going to play in my playroom." I honestly did not know she knew the word "bored." Little sponges.
Roxanne is also getting into playing dress up. She loves to put on her tutu and then asks Justin to put music on the iPod. She says she is either a ballerina or a princess. She has seen a couple of episodes of Angelina Ballerina, and I think she LOVES it. Not like Yo Gabba Gabba loves it, but she loves it. So sometimes when she is dancing, she says she is a ballerina like Angelina. I think it's good for her to get some girly things in. She spends most of her time during the week with race cars, soccer balls, baseball bats, rough and tumble "wrestling" and just general boy-stuff. We have to keep the princess side going, too.
We've been very busy on the weekends lately, which is nice, but we keep hoping to have some down time. Tomorrow we are helping my friend Sarah move, but today, I'm hoping we can spend some time around the house. Not necessarily doing work, but just hanging out. Although, there is LOTS of work to be done... Isn't there always? The basement needs to be tackled in a serious way, especially since it's turning into a giant doggy bathroom. We're still struggling with Katie, but things are slightly better only because I installed a kick plate on the door she chewed through so she can stay in that one room during the day again. Poor Katie. I wish she liked being in a crate. It would make life so much easier...
I still don't have any news about my graduate school application. But on the upside, it looks like things are settling down a little at Georgia State, so we're *knock on wood* fairly confident that Justin's job is fine. He'll probably have some extra furlough days, etc., but probably still a job. It's so depressing thinking about how much Georgia schools (at all levels) are suffering right now. Here's hoping the economy picks up soon...

Video Post! (proof of the silliness of Roxanne)

2010-03-07T22:24:00.003-05:00

Photo Post

2010-02-28T11:50:00.004-05:00

This morning we had fun with some of Roxanne's costumes.

These glasses were a birthday gift from Sarah H. They are hilarious! Thanks Sarah!
This is how you get Roxanne to wear her new DJ Lance Rock hat and glasses (thanks Travis!). Skittles. That's what is clutched in that little sausage hand. Bribing is a cornerstone of our parenting style

Below are some zoo photos. I don't take many there any more because it's old news, but I try to remember to take a couple. Just to see how she is size-wise with everything. She's getting more and more fun at the zoo, since she understands so much more. The only problem is that she wants to pet everything. That's why she's pouting in the panda photo. She really wanted to pet him. I did, too.

The two photos above are from the Aquarium. We got free passes courtesy of my once in a blue moon posting on Pecannelog. And Christa being nice enough to let me go. We had a great time, but didn't take many photos because it was so crowded and impossible to take photos. That's what is going on the "family" shot. We were done.

Oh Katie...

2010-02-25T20:59:00.002-05:00

You guys, seriously. This dog is so BAD. I have been giving her Melatonin, and for the first day, it totally seemed to help. But not anymore. Today we came home to Katie having peed and pooped ALL over the basement. Especially on Justin's rug. She pees on Justin's rug almost every day, even though I put three peepee pads around the house for her. She pees on one of those, but then still goes on the rug. I've been reading up on how to deal with this kind of behavior, but it seems like the overwhelming consensus is that beagles suffer from separation anxiety much more than other breeds, and that they basically just need companionship. It's getting to be more and more stressful to come home to a mess, and we just aren't sure what to do to help her. We know the tips about "wearing her out" before we leave, but we simply don't have time. Getting two adults and a toddler out of the door in the morning is a nightmare. Especially because we have to leave super early because we carpool. We drop Justin at the Marta station and then go to work from there. In a perfect world, Katie would live on a farm with lots of other doggies and lots of room to roam. That's when she's happiest. But I can't even imagine giving her up, so I'm just going to keep trying to figure out new solutions and pretend like Justin doesn't keep threatening to either take her to the humane society or drive her into the country and set her free (that last part is not a real threat, FYI). Poor Katie. She's nuts. And making us nuts. At least BooBoo the cat is still wonderful. Even though we had planned to let her be an "indoor/outdoor" kitty, she hasn't tried to get out once. And for the record, we were only going to let her go outside so that we could avoid having a litter box and because of Justin's allergies, but so far, neither has been a big problem.

In other news, Roxanne's poop issues are getting much much better. The last two days have involved a LOT of pooping (sorry for too much information, but I know some of you are secretly interested). This afternoon marks the first time that she has sat on the potty and actually pushed her poops out on her own, which she has done roughly 872 times. I guess she has a lot of catching up to do... Regardless, I'm thinking it will make potty training much much easier. But it comes with some new "issues" that we've never had to worry about. Like tonight, when she had 3 baths. She pooped in the first one, peed in the second one before jumping up to tell me she had to get out and poop, and then the third one, which was clean, but short, since she had to get out again to go to the bathroom. And of course, between each one, I had to scrub and sanitize the tub. But I didn't want to punish her and not let her take a bath (she LOVES baths) since all of this is new and she's been a real trooper.

Enough about poop... Just in case I hadn't mentioned it (because I can't remember if I have) we are probably going to have our first filming experience on March 30. We're pretty sure that's when they will film us meeting with the designer and seeing what his plans are for the house. Then on May 17, they will start filming at our house. We had to sign all of the releases and read the rules. Everything looks fine, but it says we have to provide "offsite" care for our animals and our child during filming. We think we'll have Roxanne covered, but I'm sure after reading that first paragraph, all of you will be knocking down the door to watch Katie for us during the 2 to 3 weeks that filming will take. Sigh. We'll figure it out. I also would love to find a way to drop about 50 pounds before filming, so if anyone has any tips, or can hook me up with reduced cost plastic surgery, send me an e-mail. I'm all ears. I'm trying to use our new elliptical as much as possible, and stick to my Weight Watchers, but I've definitely been struggling. Especially since weaning. Apparently that extra 500 calories a day that nursing burns really was helping me. Oh well. At least Justin likes me the way that I am. Genetics are not in my favor in that arena. Let's hope Roxanne gets Justin's metabolism. Although we are trying very hard to raise her to be active and eat well.

One of her favorite things to say is "get up! move your body!" and make us all dance together. She knows where the iPod lives on the credenza, and goes to it and asks to dance. When we have dance parties, EVERYONE has to join in. If you sit down or leave the room, she throws a fit. She even tries to get Katie in on it. Sometimes Katie will let her hold her front paws and sway a little. Other times she pretends she is sleeping. But I know Katie secretly likes it. Roxanne's favorite music to dance to is her Yo Gabba Gabba CD, but she likes almost everything that we play. She really likes Lilly Allen, and some dancy indie rock bands that Justin put on the iPod. I won't mention names because it will just make me sound silly and snobby. But they are good, and it's good that she likes them. She also likes Roy Orbison and Bonnie Prince Billy, but definitely prefers fast dancing to the more mellow slow songs. Her dances are SO good. Lots of silly movements and shaking. It's positively lovely to watch. I'll try and video tape it soon. I think the evenings are the times when I'm most glad we don't have a TV. She mainly watches it in the morning sometimes (on our laptop) or on the weekends in the early morning when I'm trying to get a little extra rest. Weekday evenings are not TV times for her. Just me. :)

Alright. I'll post photos soon, I promise. But we've got friends coming for dinner tomorrow and every dish in the house is in our sink right now. We should have the new dishwasher running this weekend. Yay! Both of us are really sick of not having one. Thanks to Dad and Colleen for giving us their old one! It puts the rest of our kitchen to shame...

Sickies...

2010-02-19T19:22:00.002-05:00

All three of us are sick. I am taking antibiotics though, so I've been feeling much better. I went to a doc in the box Wednesday night and said I thought I had a sinus infection. The doctor agreed, and then offered me a choice of like five antibiotics. Um, since when do doctors let the patient pick out which drugs they want? Isn't that part of his job? Yeah. I don't know what I got, but it's making me feel better. Justin thinks he just has another cold and doesn't want to take anything. Roxanne has had a cold for as long as me, which has been for like a month... But today she was running a fever, so I'm going to try and get her into the doctor tomorrow. It's always tough getting in there on a Saturday morning, especially trying to get through on the phone line, but I'm just so happy that they are open on Saturdays that I will call a few times and not mind the busy signal.

Roxanne had a visit with a Pediatric GI specialist on Thursday morning. It seemed to go pretty well, and we are relieved to find out that she doesn't have anything physiologically wrong. She just hates pooping. And now she has such a back-up, she basically is getting painful urges constantly. So we have to try and figure out a way to get obscene amounts of Miralax into her system. Three capfuls a day! Wow. But it should take care of the problem, and we can slowly wean her down to a smaller dose over the coming months. We are just relieved to have some answers. Especially since he told Justin that the Benefiber we've been giving her is actually making the problem worse. Oh well.

Oh, and as Jim reminded me in my comment, I did in fact submit my graduate school application. I made it extremely hard on myself, and cut it down to the wire, but I did it. It's in. Phew! Now I'm planning to get back to work on the house projects. My to-do list is endless... We also bought an elliptical for the house, and I've been really really enjoying it. Justin plans to try it this weekend for the first time. It fits so well in our basement, and really helps me with stress (and hopefully some weight loss...). We hope everyone is doing well!

Obligatory Snow Photos!

2010-02-18T20:23:00.003-05:00

Here's Roxanne in the front yard, with her "snow boots" that I fashioned out of some grocery bags. Scoff if you will, but those bad boys totally kept Roxanne's feet and lower legs totally dry while we were tramping around in the yard. I was surprised that she kept them on, since she threw a fit when I put her rain boots on. Hence the grocery bags over her sneakers... Granted, the rain boots are still a size too big, but I put a sock down in the toe, so I thought it might be OK. We are so classy.
Here's me and Roxanne in what would end up being a failed attempt at a snowman. My gloves kept freezing up, and Roxanne just got bored when things weren't happening fast enough.
Would any snow day complete without some snow ball fighting? Me thinks not. Doesn't our deck look pretty in the snow?
Roxanne is wearing her puppy mittens here. She was wonderful about keeping them on. Usually she fights with me and tries to pull them off constantly, but she threw a fit with these any time one fell off. Which was every five minutes. I think her favorite part of the snow was shaking it off the bushes and branches. And stomping on it.
The bottom photos are of Roxanne's first homemade hot chocolate experience. Which was definitely a fun one. She's been really into "cheers"-ing us lately, so we did have a pretty major spill when she tried to "cheers" Justin with her hot chocolate and instead splashed it all over the floor and wall. Oops. But it cleaned up nicely, and she still had some hot chocolate to enjoy. Then they played Play-dough for a while, which is always one of her favorite things. The bottom photo is Roxanne making a "funny face," which is also one of her favorite things ever. Sigh.