Unprecendented

I blogged 4 times in the month of March.   A thousand apologies,  as I know you are all sitting riveted in your seats wondering what marvelous things are going on in my life.

Let me bring you up to speed.

It's really really really cold and I'm so sick of it.

By not blogging in March I spared you endless bitching about the unnatural coldness.  You're welcome.

In all serious, I haven't been blogging because I have had a serious case of writers block - which surprised even me since I don't write anything on here that takes much thought.   I generally don't proofread before I hit post (and when I say "generally don't proofread" I mean "I never once have proofread").  But when your life is full of mundane and it's really cold out and you are about to lose your ever loving mind if you don't get out of your 881 SF of hell... it becomes hard to think about anything else.

I did miss posting about my Little Man's 1st Easter while I was wallowing in my own despair.  Here we go!!

 Happy Easter Little Man!!

 And another one.  Please ignore me... it was early and I hadn't had any coffee or food or makeup or... anything.  But I need to be IN the picture more often and I'm trying to not let things like looking like I'm a zombie get to me.    Actually I didn't wear any makeup at all on Easter since we were running around like mad people trying to get to Church on time.   We failed in that endeavor and I still had to go sans makeup!

 Stolen egg!  The Easter Bunny only left eggs for Baby Girl to find, but my Little Guy was more than happy to steal them from his big sister.

 His Easter Basket!  Filled with mostly food,  some socks and sippies.   Oh, and a truck because what little boy doesn't want a blue police car?  I think it's a paddy wagon... what little Irish kid doesn't want a toy paddy wagon??  (answer: all of them) 

 Hello.  I think deep thoughts.  Also, how adorbs is my Easter sweater vest? 

Big Sister's 3rd Egg Hunt of the season.   Lucky.  Little Brother is more than happy to steal these too.

Family!  Even though I picked out and dressed the children, I guess I didn't get the memo to wear blue.   I also hate this picture, but again... trying to get IN the picture more often.   It would help if I had more makeup on!

I'm going to try to post more in April.  I still have massive writer's block, but I'm going to make an effort to push through it.

introducing Goldie

This is the newest member of the O'Girard household.   Look 3/4 of the way down on the right - see her?  That's Goldie,  our Beta fish.   That was the first day home and she hadn't started eating the food that makes her so colorful so she's a bit washed out.   Also,  I Instagramed that picture so the colors are wonky.

That's Goldie today, 2 days of eating her special food and non Instagrammed.  She's still about 3/4 of the way down to the right side. 

Let me tell you the story of how Goldie came to live with us.

After Christmas dinner, my family does a Yankee Swap to cut down on the amount of presents we were buying.   Included in this Yankee Swap are myself, Andrew,  my brother and sister-in-law, my parents, my grandmother, my aunt, and my three cousins and their significant others.    One of my cousins has a serious girlfriend who has been coming to family events for years.  Years and years.   Sometimes I do forget that they are not yet married (if they even want to get married).

Important to the story =  we do not play the Yankee Swap according to the traditional rules, we have developed our own unique spin on how to play it over the years.   The whole thing will not make sense if you don't know that part.

So.

My brother's number was called and he picked a present from under the tree.  A beta fish tank and some fish food.   Um...  okay.... weird, right?

Then one of my cousins asks my niece to come help him with something.  They go downstairs and she comes back up holding a small container.  With a fish in it.   Everyone laughs.   No one wants to end up with the fish.  My brother practically has steam coming out of his head.

I wasn't paying attention to this next part,  but apparently my cousin's girlfriend (NOT the cousin who brought the fish... a different one) took a present from my sister-in-law that my brother apparently wanted. I don't know what it was.  I was going after the movie tickets,  maybe they were too?  I was occupied with my Little Man during this part.

All I know is my brother (who still had the fish) was OF COURSE the last picked to switch his present.  OBVIOUSLY THE MAN WITH THE LIVE ANIMAL GOES LAST.

My brother was out to get my cousin's girlfriend for her transgression of taking something from his wife.

Before you think my brother is some kind of sociopath,  you also need to know that we (as a family) think it's hysterical to "get" people in Yankee Swaps.   It doesn't matter what you end up with,  as long as you royally screw someone over in the process.   Feuds have been known to last years (seriously.  Ask my father's cousin.  I went after him for YEARS.   I'd wager it closed in on a decade)

My brother, as you remember HAD A FISH.  A FISH. 

A few seconds later,  who had the fish?  My cousin's girlfriend.

She was aggravated when she got to my parents house.  They had been running around all day to different family members houses all over New England and had hit some  traffic in the process.  It was late.  She was frazzled.  And now she owned a Beta Fish.

Enter Baby Girl. 

Baby Girl decided she loved this stupid fish.  She named her Goldie.  She got to feed the fish.  She decided the fish wanted to live with her.  She was told by my cousin's girlfriend she could take her home.   And I honestly felt bad for them since they had run around all day to end up with a freaking fish.  I didn't want her to walk away from Christmas being annoyed with my family. 

So I switched my present, which was a cute wine holder with a seashell motif  and a matching wine stopper,  for a fish.

Guess who doesn't care about the fish anymore?  Right.   Baby Girl.

Guess who now has a new fish?  Right.  Me.

Guess who doesn't want a fish?  Right.

My brother is going down next year.   And the year after that.  Maybe when my Little Man is in college I will give up. 

Maybe not. 

My girl is clearly a genius.







It's been a hard couple of days. Everyone is tired and grumpy. I'm over it. I broke out some Christmas carols today to raise my spirits. It didn't work. I'm thinking a weekend at a spa would work...

1,000 apologies

 I'm not really sure how two weeks got away from me.  I have no idea what I was doing for the first week and the second week I was getting ready for, and then taking a road trip to Virginia.   Round trip, we spend a total of 22 hours in the car.   That's really 22 more hours than I care to spend in a car,  but seeing as the cost of planes and trains are prohibitive,  it was our only option!  

Much like most of the eastern seaboard,  Virginia was having higher than normal temperatures late last week.  We took advantage and had some fun at Virginia Beach.   Baby Girl had a blast and is still talking about how cold the water was!  (it may have been almost 90*,  but no one told the Atlantic that we were having a heat wave)

Of course it was all fun and games until someone took a header into one of the waves,  but we recovered quickly.  

If you read her blog (and why wouldn't you?),  you know that The Pioneer Woman was doing a book tour - actually I think she still is on it - for her new cook book.   I couldn't make it to the Boston signing because I have to save my vacation time for the arrival of the Little Guy,  butI saw that she was going to be in Virginia Beach...  As luck would have it, that date was before my whirlwind trip south of the Mason-Dixon line.  However,  my fabulous sister-in-law whom we were visiting (along with her family,  obvs) DID go down to her book signing to get a book signed for me!!!  Unfortunately,  the line was like 9 hours long so she wasn't able get it signed, but I STILL HAVE THE BOOK!!!  And a picture of my SIL with Ree in the background.  Win-win situation for me!   I've been going through the book and I'm pretty excited about what's in there.   Andrew and I are going to try to go through and pick out a different recipe to try on Friday nights in April.   We'll see how they come out!

Lastly,  Andrew has been running again,  training for the road race.  He was going to guest blog about his training,  but hasn't yet gotten around to it.   I have been trying to get him to guest blog for awhile because he is a much more talented writer than I am,  but I can't seem to talk him into it.   If you could leave a comment explaining how much you'd love to see a post with actual content written by someone who proofreads his work and fixes typos,  I may be able to convince him! 

some pictures of the weekend:

The palest girl on the beach - she can thank her Irish ancestors and the long New England winters for that

having fun splashing in the waves!

Worth the 11 hour drive.

I can't find my marbles

We're getting ready for a Life Changing Event here at Casa de O'G,  mainly the addition of the 4th member of our little family.   Part of the preparation is living on Andrew's salary as much as we can (another part is me drooling over the Beco Gemini.  drool.  want.) in order to boost up our savings.   He does earn a liveable wage,  but we are used to having two incomes and we're quite spoiled.  I don't want to tell you the amount of money we have spent on take-out over the course of our marriage.   Living on one salary has had its share of challenges,  mainly accepting the fact that we can't go out to dinner once a week and I can't drown my work sorrows in Italian subs and wine anymore.   I've been more stressed out and full of rageful hate at work because of this unfortunate turn of events.

We don't have any ink in our printer, and I'm still not convinced that using a coupon to buy something I wouldn't have bought in the first place will save me money so I'm not couponing (yet.... once I get some ink and someone explains to me how spending more money saves me money, I'm sure I'll join in on the fun).   I am, however, watching sales quite closely.    I have two main spreadsheets,  one to track the weekly specials at my local grocery stores (of which there are only 3.   Sad... No Market Basket,  Trader Joes, or  Price Chopper near me!) and the other to track what we are spending on a particular item over the long term.   I live for Thursday when Shaw's and Stop & Shop release their weekly flier.   Hannaford and Target don't release theirs until Friday and Saturday respectively.    Every Thursday and Friday night I can be found sitting at the computer going over the fliers (does anyone actually use the paper ones anymore?  what a sad waste of a tree) and updating my spreadsheets.   I'm sure you are very jealous of my super cool life.

It may not be the most fun way to spend 25 minutes on Thursday and Friday nights,  but I have cut our weekly grocery bill from $100-$120 per week to around $75-$80.   If I can sustain that saving and keep the grocery bill to the $75-$80 range,  I can save in the ballpark of $1500 PER YEAR.   That's a lot of money that I didn't need to be spending before. 

That's like 190 Italian subs.

Black Friday

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and the mashed potatoes were plentiful!  We had a great holiday and Baby Girl was so excited to see all her relatives!  This is the first time she would actually interact with them without me practically holding her the entire time.

This morning, for the second time in my life,  I braved the Black Friday crowds.   The first time was a few years ago,  I woke up at 3:30,  got to Kohl's by 4 when it opened and bought the sweater I had my eye on, and went home to go back to bed.   It was pretty uneventful.

This year was slightly different.

We have needed a new TV for awhile,  ours tended to do a weird squiggly line thing and be funny colors that was somehow related to the HDMI input.  We've tried to fix it,  but everything was a short term fix and it was clear the end of its useful life was coming.  We decided to watch the Black Friday ads to see what was going to be on sale and if we could get a good deal on a TV, we'd do it.   Target had a 46" Westinghouse for $298  so we had plans to get it.

We knew there wouldn't be a lot of inventory for this TV,  it was well marked that each store had limited quantities.  Andrew though we should get in line at 9.   I thought he was being rediculous.   9:00?  Three hours early in small town NH?

We did a drive by past Target at 8:00 before heading back to the hotel to get ready.   I told Andrew 30 times it was ridiculous to check,  that there was not going to be a line.

There was a line.   At 8:00.   Luckily for me,  it was still a relatively short line and Andrew hopped out with nothing but a mostly dead iPhone to keep him company.  I went back to my in-laws' house to get a camp chair, and some gloves for him.  Why I didn't get TWO camp chairs and a blanket is still unknown.  Not my brightest moment.

I went back to the hotel and tried to figure out what to do,  now that we were going to be sitting in line for 4 hours in the (literally) freezing cold.  I put on my flannel pajama pants,  put my jeans on over them (thank god I don't wear skinny jeans...),  put about 3 shirts on,  packed flannel pants, jeans, and a sweatshirt for Andrew and that was the best I could do.  I grabbed both of our Nooks (and mine isn't backlit, so clearly it wasn't going to do me any good.   Andrew had requested a coffee,  but hello - coffee and 4 hours without a bathroom is not a good combination.  

The first few hours were awful.  It was freezing - I had to go back to the car a few times to warm up my feet since I decided not to bring my Uggs to New Hampshire with me for this trip.   What can I say, I'm an idiot.   We only had one camp chair, so we had to trade off every 10 minutes.   I couldn't ready my Nook.   Andrew's phone was practically dead.  I wanted to cry I was so cold.  It sucked.  I almost went back to the hotel about 30 times. 

At 9:30 the manager came out,  explained how the TVs were going to work.  They had 43 tickets for 43 TV's.  They were going to give out tickets and you'd bring your ticket to the changing rooms and get a TV.  Sounded easy enough.  Then he handed out Luna Bars and I decided to name my firstborn after him.   (I'll explain to Baby Girl why her name is Manager Jason from Target later).

At 10:00,  he actually handed out the tickets and we knew were we guaranteed a TV!   It almost made the past 2 hours worth it because there was a VERY long line and most people had to give up the 46" TV for $298 dream.   Not us though!  Just two more hours to wait!

Around 10:40ish,  two of my brothers-in-law,  my sister-in-law ,and niece showed up to get in line for X-boxes (and they ended up being lucky to get them,  they ran out of them before we left the store!).   We chatted for a bit and then the BILs went to get me and Andrew coffee!  I have never been so excited to get a decaf coffee.    After that,  the time flew buy.    

For crowd control purposes,  Target was letting 30 people into the store,  waiting 30 seconds and letting another 30 in,  rinse and repeat.   We part of the first 30 in the store,  ran and got in line for our TVs,  ran over to the x-boxes and grabbed three of them and handed over two when the ILs came in,  paid, and hit the road.   We ran into a slight snafu when the boxes didn't fit in our car,  but some car shuffling today took care of that.

So....  long, freezing, boring night of Black Friday insanity yielded a new TV and somehow Andrew ended up with a new x-Box too.   I'm still not quite sure HOW that happened. 

If we had been more prepared it actually wouldn't have been that bad,  but we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants.  I hope to not need a new TV for a long time... but we desperately need a new laptop.   Good thing Black Friday only comes once a year, and Cyber Monday can be done from the comfort of my house!

sleep

Baby Girl went to sleep at 7:30 last night.    I got into bed at 7:45.   I was asleep before 8:00.   Baby Girl was awake longer than I was.

Apparently my body was desperate for sleep.   I slept right through 6:00 this morning. 

So now I'm no longer falling asleep standing up,  but this cannot be healthy.  I can't live on no sleep during the week and do 10 hour marathons on Friday night.   Especially since I was planning on catching up on some DVR'd shows last night!  

Rumor has it that Baby Girl will be trick-or-treating AGAIN tonight.  She's visiting some family whose trick-or-treating was postponed until tonight due to power outages and she gets to go again!  Never in my life did I get to trick-or-treat more than once a year.   I'm beyond jealous. 

I broke out the  Christmas Carols this morning... I can officially do it now,  Andrew can't yell at me.   It's not my fault there are no Thanksgiving Carols. 

busy bee

I have been so bad with updating this blog lately.  A thousand apologies.   Two illnesses swept through our house this week.   On Thursday I was 3/4 of the way to work when I got a call from Andrew that our Baby Girl was sick.  I had to turn around,  he had a meeting that had already been rescheduled once and he had to go.   Luckily,  my schedule was relatively clear that day,  so I turned around and came home.   I spent almost two hours in a car and I didn't even get anywhere! 

Baby Girl and I spent Thursday together and she watched way more TV that she's ever watched in her life.  I don't think she knew what to do with herself.  Andrew stayed home with her yesterday and I think she may have watched more TV than she did on Thursday.   I hope she enjoyed it,  because after today the TV is going to be on lockdown.   Not just because she's watched way too much for a girl her age,  but because if I hear the "hot diggity dog" song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse,  I may FREAK THE EFF OUT.

Andrew was also sick this past week,  but I think his forced sick day yesterday helped.   He's back to 80%,  Baby Girl is back to 90%, and I.... I'm ready for a nap.

It's Halloween weekend!  I had a FABULOUS costume idea for a party we are attending tonight,  but I completely ran out of time,  and even though I did manage to get to Target last night,  they didn't have what I needed.   So I think I am going to be Meghan.   I know, I know,  LAME.   But my family was sick for a week,  doesn't that make me exempt from costumes?

We're supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow tonight.   I really hope it melts before tomorrow morning because I don't have a snow suit for Baby Girl yet.   It was 80 degrees two weeks ago,  I thought I had more time!  She had two last year,  but one was an 18 month.   She wouldn't be able to walk.   I swear her other one was 24 months,  but I can't seem to find it...  that may or may not be because my house is a disaster area right now.   It's so bad,  every room needs to be picked up and scrubbed down.   But who has the time?  This is why God invented cleaning ladies.  I have GOT to find me one of those.    How much could someone possibly charge for 881 SF of hell?  Or maybe we have to pay extra because this is hell on earth?  Hmmm.... things to ponder....

One last note - as loathe as I am so see winter arrive,  I NEED daylight savings to end.   The sun doesn't come up until I am at work.   I need some sunlight to get me out of bed!

It's a grand old flag

Per usual (at least for this year) today is cloudy, a smidge bit foggy, and in the low 70's in Olde Cape Cod.

In the past 48 hours I have gone to the beach, gone in the pool twice, gone to Smitty's, read my book the hammock, eaten practically every meal from the grill, and forgot to reapply my sunblock. I've been avoiding the yacht club so I don't spend any more money, but other than that I've pretty much done everything there is to do and I can go home now.

The weather isn't cooperating to give us a super 4th, but in the immortal, but very overused words of Dave Matthew's Band..

celebrate we will because life is short, but sweet for certain

4th of July Family Picture, 2008

all about me!

I taught my girl a new song:

happy birthday to..... MAMA!
happy birthday to ..... MAMA!
happy birthday dear...... MAMA!
happy birthday to Mama!

It's our current favorite song. But Tim McGraw is better with words than we are:

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doing here In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family and hang out with my wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here, in my next thirty years

In my next thirty years

Through the Years:

hmmm.... circa 1986 or 87 I think.

Fall, either 1994 or 1995. I'm leaning towards 1994


Our wedding, June 18 2006



My little family, April 2011

back

Sorry I've been away. We went out of state to visit relatives this past weekend and for some reason, our laptop refuses to connect to their wireless. We've tried everything in the book and we eventually just stopped bringing it. Thank god for 3G iPhones. Much fun and merriment was had this weekend, but I slept terribly and I was a zombie on Monday. I need a weekend to just stay at home and lie on the couch for 48 hours. I wonder how well that would go over with my insane toddler.

The Target brand of Fiber One bars are just not as good as the real Fiber One bars (oats and chocolate, natch). Just in case you were wondering. The Target brand is like $2 bucks cheaper though. Aaah, Target, you are a cruel mistress.

Tomorrow is Friday! Woo Friday! These weekends are far too short, byt my 4 day weekend for Memorial Day weekend is coming around the corner! Unfortunately, that means my 30th birthday is around the corner...

To those of you keeping track at home, no, I have not started c25k. Soon. I promise. It rained Monday and Tuesday, what do you want from me? Oh.... this whole thing was my idea? Right.
Crap.

busy busy busy

Here we are again, winding down yet another crazy weekend. Andrew and I went skiing at Gunstock Mountain on Saturday, which meant packing up our skiis (and we're currently missing a key component of our ski racks, so they had to go in the car), skiing gear, 2 days worth of clothing for the three of us, food and toys for our Baby Girl, and lastly - the child herself, and cram it all into a teeny Corolla. Then we re-packed everything and went home this morning. It was a lot of work for one day of skiing. But we all got to visit with family and Baby Girl was spoiled (natch) so we all had a lot of fun.

But my god, I am tired. Baby Girl has a nasty cold and they don't make cold medicine for toddlers. Apparently they used to make it - when I discovered that baby cold medicine used to exist, I was so much less confused. I did not understand why parents of teenagers and older kids were so befuddled over the fact that I don't give BG cold medicine. Apparently it existed when their kids were younger - but alas, it does not now. It all got pulled from the shelves about a decade ago and the FDA won't allow it to be sold anymore. Something about little babies getting over medicated and then ODing on the stuff. Yuck.

Anyway, the point of that ramble is that baby girl has a cold, short of steaming her out a few times a day in a very steamy bathroom, there is nothing I can do. Which means she isn't sleeping very well and the 3 of us shared my nephew's bedroom for two nights (and he was banished to the couch. I have guilt over that). None of us really slept. She was sneezing, wheezing, and coughing all night. I was constantly sticking my head in her pack'n'play, trying to make sure she wasn't chocking on all the phlegm she was coughing up, and Andrew just couldn't sleep through the commotion. We are all tired bunnies today. Plus - Andrew and I had a full day of skiing yesterday! We are not used to so much exercise!

Recap: busy weekend. BG has a cold. No one slept.

And it's time to go back to work!

Let it snow!

Mama! It's NOMING!!

Ready to go outside Baby Girl?

This blizzard could not have come at a worse time. I simply cannot call into work tomorrow, with it being the week after Christmas, everyone who can take vacation did take vacation and those of us that are left need to keep everything running. Me not working tomorrow is not an option... but we're foretasted to get around 18inches of snow. 18 inches in itself isn't the end of the world (though it is a huge pain in the neck), but the blizzard conditions that are coming along with it mean I really shouldn't be driving 130 miles in a teeny tiny Carolla. However, as long as daycare is open tomorrow, that is exactly what I will be doing. Yuck.

Christmas has come and gone. Baby Girl got so many toys! She has a snazzy new ride on Elmo Bus which she loves and a million other things. I've already gone through her toys and put an entire trash bag of them away, and I still do not have enough room for everything she got. We really need a playroom for her. It's going to still be a few years before we can get out of this place, and I honestly don't know how we are going to do it. This house will be overrun with toys before we can get out! But she's a lucky girl, she has a lot of people that love her.

Everyone think good thoughts... please let daycare be open tomorrow, please let the blizzard conditions decrease before 6am Monday, and let's all REALLY hope my Carolla does not spin off the road!

10 on Tuesday

1. Abby's Flying School freaks me out. But I kind of wish that Mrs. Sparklenose was my teacher. And that I had a gerbilcorn for my class pet.


2. Thanksgiving is in two days!!! MASHED POTATOES!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. I am making the Pioneer Woman's green bean casserole for thanksgiving. Say a little prayer for me. And everyone who is going to be at Thanksgiving! I've realized that Thanksgiving is probably not the best time to try out a new recipe, especially a green bean casserole that is made from scratch. As in no Cream of Mushroom Soup and no French's Onions on top. I may have realized this too late.

4. MASHED POTATOES!!!!!! GRAVY!!!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!

5. My co-worker is young, cute, and reminds me way too much of me circa 5 years ago. I want to tell her that in 5 years she will be me. Married, never lost all the baby weight, may or may not have baby snot on her sweater, and constantly fighting a losing battle to remain a superstar at work. But I won't. I'll let her realize that on her own. My hope for the young Padawan is that she doesn't have sit next to a younger version of herself in 5 years. Also, if she could stop trying to take my job, that'd be cool. Not that I didn't usurp the job I currently have from someone else....

6. My toddler thinks she can climb stairs one at a time, like a grown-up. It's cute. Futile, but cute.

7. I have a TODDLER. WTF. I've given some serious thought to the fact that she is Baby Girl on this here website. She's not a baby anymore. I can't call her Toddler Girl, that's just lame. So I think she will remain Baby Girl until she gets married. (ew! I will be old when she gets married! OLD!!!)

8. I'm beyond bummed out that Grey's Anatomy isn't on till January. I heart Grey's. Even though it's not as good as it once was (side note - does anyone else think Private Practice is getting better this season?)

9. I'm officially declaring my girl crush on Jennifer Aniston over. It was a long run - probably 15 years. But I think we're over. I don't have another one lined up though. I guess you just can't replace Rachel Greene.

10. Baby Girl has 9 cousins, none of which she will see on Thanksgiving. Wierd, huh? I don't want to think about how the day will go without her running after "MOMMY!!!". She loves her big cousin. However, I'm pretty sure "MOMMY" will enjoy her day without a 17 month old being her shadow!

11. Because I cheated with #4, I'll do a # 11: MASHED POTATOES, GRAVY, STUFFING!!!!!!!!! AND CHEESECAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tired

I fell asleep on the couch last night at 7:30, and at 9:00 I gave up and went to bed. I got up at 6:30. That's a LOT of sleep, and yet I'm still tired. I really really have to get back to the gym and get my energy level back up, but I have to wake up at 5:15 on weekdays to go to the gym (it's at my work, an hour away), so you can see why that hasn't been happening. It's a vicious cycle.

I'm enjoying my quiet time before my family wakes up. Baby Girl will be up in a matter of minutes though. Then I will walk in her room and the following conversation will occur:

Mama: Good morning baby girl!
BG: Daddy?
Mama: Daddy is alseep
BG: NO
Mama: Yes he is. let's change your pants
BG: Daddy at work?
Mama: no, Daddy is alseep
BG: NO
Mama: Yes.

pants changing occurs

BG: Grover?
Mama: do you want breakfast first?
BG: WAFFLE!!!!!!
Mama: okay, we will have a waffle

BG then gets set down on the floor, runs at a breakneck speed to her high chair screaming WAFFLE!!! and tries to climb up her high chair

Mama: okay, here's your waffle
BG: Daddy?

At that point I give up entirely, make myself a coffee, and read the news on my phone. Because I am third in line behind Daddy and Grover.

wow

November? what?

Dear My Life,

Please stop flying by. Thanks.

Love,
MKO

Yeah. November. Almost Thanksgiving. In the past few years I have grown to LOVE Thanksgiving week, mostly because my company which is notoriously awful at recognizing federal holidays, does in fact give us the day after Thanksgiving as a holiday. And Wednesday happens to be my regular day to work from home. So I only have to go into the office two days that week of Thanksgiving. Therefore: Thanksgiving = possibly the best week of the year.

We do the every other year thing with Thanksgiving, mainly because we couldn't figure out what else to do. This year is Kwinzee for Thanksgiving.

Pros: No driving the day before Thanksgiving, no pork hidden in the stuffing (BLEH), and Baby Girl isn't going to freak the eff out because there are 18 million people around. Cons: no appetizers (for reals. I know. awful.), I am at my mother's beck and call (what? ungrateful spoiled child?), there are 3 sets of stairs that Baby Girl will try to be climbing ALL DAY and no way to block them off.

I was pregnant and threw up a lot the last time I was at my parent's house for Thanksgiving. I am neither pregnant nor throw uppy this year, so let the festivities begin!

Through the years

Sometimes I am absolutely amazed at how quickly time flies by. I was playing with my niece today and I picked her up and realized there is not an ounce of baby fat left on her - she's not a todder anymore. I guess I already realized this - she's pushing 3 and 3 year olds are not toddlers - but it was like a reality slap across the face. She's a little kid. And my baby has taken her place as the toddler and my nephew has taken my baby's place as the baby. At least my nephew is still a baby. He can't even sit up by himself yet, never mind say "no" incessantly, throw his food, have temper tantrums... I think he's my favorite right now!

And in non baby related "oh my god, why does time go by so quickly" news, Andrew and I have been together for 10 years. We are not yet 30, and we've been together for 10 years. Wow.

really?

10 years??

I wish I could show you a picture of us back in the day, but unfortunately we didn't have digital cameras in college, and I lost most of my pictures from college in a flood. I only have a few left - and the ones I do have are in a frame.

You can rest assured, we looked like idiots though. 1999-2003 were awful years to be in college. The fashion was terrible. And I've never been really fashionable, so you can imagine what we looked like.

Maybe I'm not so sad that there are only a few remaining pictures left!

Just another manic Monday

On the day we left the hospital with our brand new baby girl, we fantasized about a family naptime. We were exhausted and we were very much looking forward to taking everyone's advice and sleeping when the baby slept. Unfortunately we had to take her in for an emergency sick visit because she wouldn't eat (oh, the ridiculous fear of new mothers... because she WAS eating, but whatev). And a few tearful calls to my mother resulted into her coming over (thank god). The moral of this whole story is we never got our family naptime.

It took over 15 months.... but this weekend we got our very first family naptime! Yay!! The whole family fell asleep around 1 and two of us slept till 3, a 3rd member of the family slept till about 3:15.

It was FABULOUS. I love Family Naptime! I can't wait till the next one!

Wordless Wednesday

Family

We went to Patriot's Place on Saturday, with Andrew's parents. Baby Girl got a brand new Cookie Monster from her Memere! This picture was before New Cookie, but it's still cute. Obviously we had Elmo with us, so the Muppets are still representing. If only we had a mini rubgy shirt on the baby...


Today was my nephew's Baptism. We made the decision for Baby Girl to stay home and not interrupt a special day for 7 different families. I can't say I didn't mind the hour without a clingy Mama lovin' toddler! She joined us later for the party and she loved playing with her cousin's toys!