Some Fun

These past two weekends have been totally awesome.

  

Last weekend, my Daddy and me went to some playgrounds, we went hiking,

we ate pizza and we even went swimming in the backyard.

  

This weekend I met some crabs, slept in a tent 

and did all sorts of neat new stuff.  

Join me as I think back on all this coolness.

Ready?

This way to the Baby Pool!

This is Duckie.  Oh yeah, and these two in the water

are Whale and Jimmy.  They like to hang out in their

big green boat.

We went to the beach.  It was kinda hard to walk 'cause there

were so many slippery rocks. Daddy says that beaches where he comes from have sand.  He must be from another planet, 'cause all the beaches I've seen have rocks.

This is Hermit Crab.  He was kinda shy.  If you held your

hand really, really still he would come out and say Hi.

He kinda sneaks up on you.  When he came out the first time,

I got scared and accidently threw him about 50 feet in the air.

This is a tent.  Daddy set it up while Mommy and I went to

the supermarket to buy "Supplies".  These "Supplies" looked a lot like a 

bunch of wood to me.  What kind of people BUY wood

when there's plenty just laying around?

YEEEEHHHAAAAW!

Here's Cowboy Daddy showing 

Cowgirl Katie some of his famous

roping tricks.

Water.  I need water.

Mmmmm.  My favorite camping food - pasta.

This is hot.  It's called fire. It is dangerous and only Daddy can touch it.

Fire is useful.  You can make marshmallows with it.

According to Mommy, marshmallow toasting is a fine art.

MMMMMMM.  Katie like it.

Here's a picture of Mommy.  She looks tired.  Daddy and her

didn't sleep so well.  Something about me taking up

the whole tent and some noisy people.  Hmph.

I slept fine.

Katie Awake!

Let's blow this joint.  I need me some Cheerios.

I guess the best part about camping is that it makes

you enjoy the comforts of home that much more.

Like having a nice dinner with your friends.

Busy Busy House

The blogs have been lacking.  I know.  It's been busy around here.

We got a big load of bark mulch delivered on Monday of this week.  I've decided to conquer the ever-increasing chaos that is our yard.

I've got guys that come and fertilize (all organic), I've got guys that come and mow/edge/blow (all carbon neutral w/ their solar powered machines), and I've got two hands to do the rest.

Who were these wonder gardeners that owned the house before us?  They must not have done anything else but work in this yard, I can tell you that.  Or they were wizards and used crafty spells to work funky garden magic a la Harry Potter.

So, the process of weeding our garden areas begins.  It's taken me all week, but I have weeded and mulched two areas.  Only about a dozen more LARGE ones to go.  Should take me until August or so.

We also have a gravel driveway to deal with.  Right now it's hard to tell where the gravel begins and the yard ends because there are so many weeds embedded in the gravel.  I have NO IDEA how to deal with this besides digging up all the gravel and just planting grass there.  Now, I just have to figure out how to get a back hoe in here to do that....

I forgot to tell you all that last Friday our little family went to see a performance by Sesame Street Live.  It was Katie's first arena event.  The show was called, "When Elmo Grows Up".  It's funny, 'cause the show wasn't really about Elmo at all.  It was mostly about Big Bird.  I'm thinking that it USED to be called, "When Big Bird Grows Up" and they just changed it to get more parents of Elmo addicts to fork over their mula.

Anyways, Katie loved it.  She was mesmerized for the first 45 minutes of the performance.  She clapped and danced and talked the whole time.  Then they took an intermission.  After that, all bets were off.  Katie started getting antsy and fussy, but she made it through the last 30 minutes without a major meltdown.

As for Huzbend and I, I can only speak for myself, but I rather enjoyed it.  The songs were catchy and it was good to see all my old Sesame Street pals.  I do have to say that Elmo's voice gets really, really annoying over a loud speaker.

Katie is still talking about the show a week later.  She likes to reminisce about how a spider landed on Oscar The Grouch's head at the end of the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" number.

Man, you shoulda seen his face!!!!

Reeeeetreeeeeaaaat!

I spent most of the weekend at a gorgeous house on the side of a hill overlooking Puget Sound.  The weather was stunning; Sunny and over 80.  Nice.

Huzbend and Katie had a Mommy-Free weekend.  From what I hear, they had a great time without me.  They went out to dinner, went to a bunch of playgrounds, did some hiking and even broke out the inflatable kiddie pool!

My Saturday afternoon and evening were spent relaxing, talking, eating lots of food and participating in a White Elephant exchange.  I got stuck with the most hideous ceramic clown face you've ever seen.  It is SO going back next year.  After that, most of the others left and four of us stayed overnight.  We played some 'getting to know you games' and had some good laughs. During one of the games, they found out that I like robots.  Alas, my nerd-dom always seems to sneak out.

Sunday was spent on preschool business.  We woke up and ate breakfast and jumped right into some 'Leadership Training'.  Since we're part of the Executive Board of the preschool, we kinda have to act like it.  After that we had, like, an all day meeting with a short break for lunch and a walk.  We discussed preschool policy changes/updates, enrollment issues, preschool seminars, class participant commitments.....phew!

By the end of the weekend, I was comfortable with all the ladies on the Board (there can be men, but we don't have any).  I also felt good that I decided to get in on it.  It'll be a lot of work in the coming year, that's for sure.  But, hey, it's all for the kids.

I can also put it on my resume.  

Heh-heh.  You didn't really think it was ALL for the kids, did you?  

Young at Heart

I was such a Mom today.

I was searching for a 2008/2009 calendar at Staples.  I was holding Katie while flipping through a planner. She kept trying to grab it from me, so I asked her to hold it while I checked out another.

The next thing I know, she's crying, "Oweeeeeee!  Oweeeeeee!  Oweeeeeeeeee!"

There's blood on the cover of the planner.  

The poor kid got herself a major paper cut right on the tip of her thumb.

**NOTE TO HUZBEND:  Please remember this if she starts crying while eating her dinner tonight.  It's not my food.  It's the paper cut.

You know what I did?  OH MAN, this is SO MOM-ISH.

I sucked the blood off her finger and pulled a Band-Aid out of my purse.

A Band-Aid!  I had a BAND-AID in my PURSE.

Man.  Who am I?

When did I get so grown-up?

For some reason I still think of myself as a kid.

Not like a little kid.  Not like Katie's age.  Like, just out of college age; although I am FAR from it.

Everyone around seems so much older than me.  I don't mean the way they look.  I mean in, ahhhhh, what word to use.....presence.  Yeah, that's it, presence.

I always feel like someone's kid that's eavesdropping on a grown-up conversation.

I was recently selected to represent my coop preschool on an advisory committee.  Our preschool is partially funded by a local community college.  There are six other preschools that enjoy this partnership as well.  This advisory committee is comprised of one representative from each of these preschools.  We get together once a month and plan huge All-Preschool functions and discuss/make policy changes.  It's pretty hefty work.

I went to my first meeting last week.  I felt so out of place.  They were all business and I was completely lost.

Because I'm on this committee, I have to go back and report what we discussed to MY preschools executive board.  So, that means that I have to attend their meeting too.  Just call me Mrs. Liaison Extraordinaire.

My first official preschool board meeting is this weekend.  I'm going on a weekend retreat (yep, an overnight) with a bunch of ladies that I've said "HI" to maybe once.  Should be interesting.

Sigh, I have a feeling that no one is going to appreciate my "Spock is my Homeboy" pajama t-shirt.  

I bet you didn't know that Elmo is totally into Sumo wrestling.

Totally.

Whooooo-Whoooooo

There is one thing that I dislike about having a kid:  It's the almost constant state of uncertainness that I find myself in.  It was born the same day that Katie was. 

Do I do this?  Do I NOT do this?  What does she want?  Is she hungry?  Is she tired?  What does she mean?  What the hell is she trying to tell me?

And though this has gotten a tad bit better as Katie has learned to express her needs with words, there is still some doubt as to what I do is actually what she wants.

Take for instance last night.  Oh boy.  It was rough one.

We had a wake up at 12:15am.  There was a lot of crying and tears.  No fever that I could feel.  A slight sniffly nose, but that could've been from the crying.  After 5 or 10 minutes of hysterics, I got her to calm down enough to make a request for cheese, a tissue for her boogies and some water.  All in all this process took about 45 minutes.

She laid back down.  But, alas, it was not over.  She would wake up and cry and then whine, "Mommmmy car" or "Daaaaaddddy block" or even "No. No. No. Nooooo."  And then she would get quiet again and seem to go back to sleep.  This lasted a while.  

I left the room in hopes that she would put herself to sleep.  Since she was making so much noise, I watched an episode of Roseanne downstairs.  Oh, the wonder that is Nick at Nite.  Man, Roseanne was a good show in its early years.

Anyways, at about 2am she started crying "Mommmmmy commmmeeee baaaaaaack."  Over and over and over.

I sat there.  This was the most heartbreaking thing I had ever heard from her.  Sure, she's cried before.  She's yelled out "MOMMY!" in the middle of the night.  This was different.  It was such a pitiable sound.  It made me want to cry.

Was she just trying to get me to come back to feed her cheese again?  Was she trying to manipulate me?  If she was and I went in there, I was in for another hour long cheese and boogie blowing session. Or, was she scared from a nightmare or anxious about being alone? Hmmm. Maybe I should go in there and see what she wants.

This is what I mean.  I sat there for 15 minutes thinking over all the possible reasons she could want me.  I had no idea what to do.  STILL.  After just about 21 freaking months.  I STILL don't know what to do.

Finally, I went with my gut.  I couldn't take listening to her cry for me anymore.  I went into the room.  She was sitting there in her crib clutching her blankets.  She looked up at me and said with relief, "Come back."

I told her that it was night time and that everyone was asleep, even Mommy.  That's what people do at night time.  I then reminded her of one of her books called Owl Babies.  In the book, the Owl Mother disappears while the babies are asleep.  The babies spend the whole book wondering whether she is going to come back.  Of course, at the end she does.  When I told her that HER Mommy would always come back, just like the Owl Mother, she said "Happy" (she was talking about the baby owls hopping up and down when they saw their Mommy).

She laid back down and in less than 5 minutes was so deep asleep that the binky had fallen out of her mouth.

Damn.  Books are so awesome.

And so, I guess I chose right this time.  It was a relief.  

Tonight might be more of the same.  I'm ready to be confused again.  To stand outside her door thinking and thinking and thinking about what I should and shouldn't do.  

Who knows, this time she might want me to get her pasta and meatballs.  You can't count it out. 

I am certain of one thing: I'm not ready to go THAT far.

 

In Her Own Words

Katie all done.

Katie balloon.

Mommy help!

Katie do it!

WOW.

Ball!  Ears!

Thank you, She-ra Kiss!