A New Baby

Dan's friend Buzz and his wife just had a baby! A little boy. Here's the photo of the blanket I made for them:

It turned out just exactly how I wanted it to. At 48" square it's a little smaller than I planned, but I figure it's still big enough to use on Charlotte. The minky on the back is also the border so it should be really good to snuggle with. Now I just have to get it to the post office.

Once was lost, now found

Yeah! I have no idea where the cord was, but I let Charlotte play in the front room today and magically the cord appeared. So here's the progress report:

Here's the same corner in the kitchen without the upper cabinets. Today we've started to change the plumbing so the sink can go in the corner.

Here's what was once the flooring in the kitchen. It was under the cabinetry so at one point the countertop wasn't in that corner. It came up after this photo.

I know I didn't ever take a before photo of the ceiling, but this is after it was ripped out. I really like how at one point the walls were green, peach, and light peach.

This was my attempt to show you how many stinking staples there were in the floor. Notice how I say were, they're all out now.

The beautiful new cabinets that are currently residing in the dining room waiting to be installed.

Our new fridge and range! BEAUTIFUL!
Here's the front entry without the blue carpet. Next step-sanding. The before photo doesn't show much of the floor, but here it is anyway:

Progress

I've been wanting to post photos so badly since I took them, but unfortunately the cord from the camera to the computer is lost at the moment. I'm blaming it on Charlotte. She's figured out how to climb up on chairs now. The first time she did it by herself it was so exciting. Now it's just another elevation in the house that I need to baby proof.

Here's what's happened since last I posted photos:

• Took the blue carpet out of the entryway.
• Took the linoleum tiles up that were under the carpet (olive and cream set on point-it was totally awesome)
• Used the heat gun to get most of the adhesive up under the tiles
• Finished taking all the cabinetry downstairs
• Ripped out the acoustic tile dropped ceiling in the kitchen (including the fluorescent light)
• Figured out the wiring to get a new fixture in there
• Had the plumber come and replace all the copper pipes that got stolen

And this next one I'm most proud of because I did it all myself:

• Removed all the staples in the kitchen floor

There was slight drama today when Daniel thought he had ruined all the lights for the first floor of the house. At that point I thought it best that Charlotte and I go on an errand so as to let him fume in peace. We got electricians tape at Home Depot and by the time we got back he'd figured out what he did wrong and how to fix it and was again his happy self. (He was so mad I think I heard a "Darn" muttered under his breath.)

Our next steps are to patch up the holes in the walls and ceiling in the kitchen and then finish the floors. Then we'll be ready for my mom and dad to help with the kitchen installation and the bathroom work as well. It will be so great this time next week when my kitchen is all in!

PS. As soon as I find that cord there will be a whole lot of photos to post.

Busy Bees

Sorry for the lack of progress updates on our work on the house. Charlotte got a pretty bad cold very suddenly Thursday night so the two of us have been staying away from the house. Dan's been working on it all morning while I:

• made our one week menu + (It really should last us two weeks, but sometimes my plans don't stretch as far as I want)
• went to Schnuck's (For groceries)
• went to Sam's Club (For items we buy in bulk, like milk)
• went to Jackman's Fabrics (For fabric for Buzz and Lindsey's baby blanket)
• filled up the Honda ($45 made me want to throw up)
• Copied our reciepts at FedEx Kinkos (I'm keep track of everything we spend on the house, in duplicate)

Needless to say it's been a very busy day. Also Charlotte and I have been jetting around town in the Civic instead of the Matrix so that Dan can use the room in the Matrix for hauling things if he has to. I'd be totally fine with it if the AC worked. We figured yesterday that it must need to be recharged or something. Since that's not a necessity it's put right at the very bottom of our list. Looks like the baby and I will be sweating it out this weekend.

Grins and Giggles

Because it's been awhile since I posted photos of my baby here they are for your pleasure: Thank you Grandma Denise. Daddy thought the dress looked great at church.
Here is Charlotte eating breakfast with her best friend sitting right next to her. This is her prefered way to eat breakfast.
Playing in the fountain at Tower Grove Park.
She found the bin under the sink in the bathroom and thought it would make a great seat. Climbing on the lion at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.Peaking through the lion's mane.

Kitchen Progress

Before our work:

Sorry this is the only one I could find that we took of the kitchen. It doesn't show much, but it does show some important parts. My favorite part is the parrot hanging in the corner. We decided that he needed to greet everyone while we're remodeling and is now hanging on our porch.

After day two of work:

This is the same angle as the one above. Dan seems to be inspecting that huge hole in the wall used to plumb the sink. If you'll notice the lower cabinets are gone. I'm proud to say that I'm the one that helped Dan take them down to the basement. It was tricky getting it down the hole to the back door, but we managed.

Here we see the wall further on. The wood pannelling has been taken of the bottom half of the walls. That's why it looks so funky right now.

Further down the wall to the corner we see the door to the pantry and the spot where the new LG fridge (that was delivered today!!!) will eventually reside.

This shot is taken from where Dan is standing in the photo above looking back to the hall.

This is the hardwood we exposed after ripping up the linoleum. You can't see it in the photo, but there's staples in the floor about every 3 inches. Who thought they needed to do that? They are really hard to get out. Guess who's project that is?

Looking at these pictures a few days later things don't even look the same anymore. The old stove was taken away when Slyman Bro's delivered our new stove and the wall cabinetry is also gone. Things are really moving around here!

Yeah! We Have Our House!

The closing was last Friday. And so was Dan's last final. It seems like all our stress has just melted away. What added to the wonderful weekend was that we had was Dan's parents coming into town. Not only did the stress go away, but we also go to have a real holiday. It was tons of fun. We went to the Samuel Cupples house, the St. Louis Art Museum (which had a quilt exhibition right then), the zoo, and a few really great restaurants in town. My favorite dinner was at Kabob International. It has excellent food. It really was stupendous having them here and Dan done and our house all wrapped into one great weekend. Dan's parents loved Charlotte and she loved them right back. She told them jokes and sang songs and just generally enjoyed all the wonderful attention she got to have all weekend. She fell asleep on the way to the airport when we dropped them off Monday and then when she woke up and they were gone she seemed as though she thought she'd lost her two best friends in the whole wide world. It was pretty funny.

Another great gift is that Dan is taking today off from work. Yeah! He wanted to give the woman in charge of him a day to get all his papers together so he can really jump right in when he goes in. That means that today he spent the morning being the most wonderful husband/father in the whole world. He cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, and even swept the floors. He picked up the front room. He gave Charlotte a bath and played with her so that I could get all my work done. I got to clean the bathroom, change the sheets on the beds, do laundry, and pick up both bedrooms all in peace! We got two or three days worth of work done before he left to help some friends pack up for their move to residency. Charlotte is taking a nap now and I'm basking in the greatness that is my family.

Yesterday, after dropping off Dan's parents we went back to our new house and tore up the kitchen flooring to expose the hardwood underneath. The sheet of linoleum was on top of plywood that had been stapled to the floor so it wasn't too hard to get it up. Now it'll just take a few days to get all the staples out of the floor. Who thought you needed to put them 3-4 inches apart? That person was crazy. It's going to take us a while. We have a lot of work to complete before my parents get here in a week and a half. I'll take photos today while I'm over there to post so everyone can see our progress.

Update

Just an update on our house. For those of you who can count, you may be wondering why I didn't post something like, "Yeah, we have our house!" last Tuesday. That's because we don't actually have it yet. The stinking day we were supposed to close the selling agent decided it would be a good time to tell us that he found out 10 days previous that the copper pipes and electrical had been stolen out of the basement! We didn't close Tuesday. We're closing tomorrow with $1000 knocked off the price. It's fair and the people who matter are OK with it so I don't really care. In fact I don't have it in me to care about that right now. Tomorrow is also Dan's last final for the first year of medical school. I haven't really talked to him in about a week now and when I asked if he wanted Charlotte and I to bring him lunch today he said he was sorry, but didn't really have the time. Also, I've been scrambling trying to get all the stuff we were going to have delivered to the house re-routed and find new delivery times. Also I've changed all the utilities into our names as of tomorrow. And finally I have a 14 month old baby that's pretty much wanting to play all the time. Turns out that copper piping isn't that high on my list at the moment. I'm sure it'll sift up there when I want to, I don't know, take a bath, wash my hands, turn on a light, or flush a tiolett in the new place, but until then I'm just letting it go.

Fresh Fruit

Today I went to the Soulard market for the first time. I stinkin love St. Louis! There are some major awesome perks to living in a metropolitain area. Today I bought:

A watermellon
A pineapple
7 bananas
A bunch of grapes

They were all great quality and I had absolutely awesome customer service. I only spent $8.

Yellow

Sometimes I wonder how on earth such an assertive woman like my mother and a confident man like my father ever raised such a wimpy woman like myself.

One of the guys that lives below us came to our door at the beginning of winter asking us if he could pay us to use our washer and dryer in the basement. He only has a bike and it was a snowy winter so we said, sure. Our arrangement was that he would use the washer and dryer on Sundays so that all my stuff would be out of there and that he would pay us $5 for each time he used them. Well, he didn't really pay $5 every time, but that wasn't a big deal to me. It's not like we're doing this to make money. We were doing him a favor. He's still using them now, even though it's spring, but again, not a big deal. Then the past couple of weeks he's been using them on days other than Sunday. He's left his stuff in the washer and dryer and I've had to move it over in order to use my own machines. It was annoying, but I didn't say anything. Then, today, a Tuesday mind you, he moved my clothing over from the washer to the dryer in order to use the machines.

I found my nice Anthropologie dress with the silk trim in the pile on top of the dryer. He did not look at the tag on that rather expensive dress before just throwing it into the dryer. And it's not even his day to use it! I called my mom so, so mad and she told me I had to go talk to the boy and ask what he was going to do about it. That's an expensive dress and it's not like I can afford to replace it.

I gathered up all my courage and outrage and walked down to the front door. I rang. The other roommate answered the door. This threw me off. I was expecting to talk to the perpetrator of the "crime." Instead I told the roommate the situation and asked if he would please tell Andrew that I needed to talk to him when he got home. Then the roommate said, "Oh! I moved the laundry over for him. I'm so sorry!" I had no idea what to say to this turn of events so then I said (and this is where I totally let myself down), "Well, accidents happen." Then I started to cry just a little bit from frustration, and confusion, and surprise. So then he said, "Let me give you a hug." So the guy that just ruined my dress gave me a hug. A hug! I had no idea how to get the conversation back in the right direction so I left. Ack! I'm such a big wimp.

PS. Luckily I came back upstairs and worked a little on the dress and it looks like it'll still be OK. The silk isn't as pretty as it used to be, but it's not really "ruined" anymore. Man I'm such a wimp.

The Countdown

6 days until we close on our house
9 days until Dan's done with his first year of med school

I'm not sure which he's more excited about. I'm certainly excited for both! Since Dan's doing summer research it's not like he'll really have a great summer break, which makes the being-done-with-the-first-year-of-med-school a little less exciting. Don't get me wrong though, we'll be 1/4 of the way through the first phase. Yippee! Also, I realized the other night that I'll be in the neighborhood of 32 by the time we're done with this whole thing so that put a damper on my enthusiasm.

As for the house Dan has planned out everything as far as he possibly can without acutally getting inside and doing some work. Last night he was ruminating over countertops and wall color for the kitchen. We can't chose those until we know if we're going to be able to salvage the hardwood floors in there or put in tiles. This didn't stop him from trying to chose anyway. Finally I had to look him in the eyes and tell him to stop. He realized that he's gone as far as he can go right now.

I'm not sure if he really can be excited about either prospect right now though because he has so much studying and learning left to do. He has 5 hours of lecture today. He's gonna come home exhausted.

Red Hot

So the common idea about red heads is that they also have a red hot temper. Do I believe this? I don't know. Is it right about me? Again, the jury is still out. I'd like to think that it isn't the case. I'd like to think that I'm a fairly mellow person. Then something comes along to disturb my calm. It is then that I am confronted with what I will do.

I've learned that even though I may feel unable to control my anger, I can completely control my actions and words. Past experience has displayed in detail the shattering consequences my angry words can create. It is much harder to pick up the pieces of a negative situation gone much worse thanks to me, than it is to just let the dust settle and look at the picture as a whole.

My mom always told me to ask myself, "What do I want the result to be from this action or these words?" I know I'm angry when the answer to that is to just zing the other person. In the end that doesn't get me anywhere near where I'd like to be in any situation.

That's the little lecture I give to myself whenever I feel myself wanting to respond to anyone in anger. I may end up saying the exact same thing to them later I may decide to say something completely different or even nothing at all. But, when I do it with a level head I get much better results 100% of the time.

Which makes me curious, do most people consider themselves level headed? Do most people I know consider me level headed? (Please don't answer that one. It would be embarrassing either way you answered.) Does my pep talk make me have less of a temper or merely help me to control the temper that I do have? What are some other things people tell themselves to keep from saying things they'll regret?

Stormy Weather

Yesterday I got all the laundry done. I cleaned the house. I changed the sheets on the bed. I went to bed with the confidence that I would be able to go to play group today without anything weighing on my mind. I got up this morning ready to go walk Grant's Trail.


Now we're in the middle of a thunder storm.


How am I going to fill Charlotte's day now? I got everything done yesterday! I'm taking this as a lesson for the future. Never get everything done in one day. You must save some for tomorrow. Just in case.

Gross. No, Really Gross

Charlotte sometimes grosses me out.

Her new favorite toy is the plunger.

Not the new, unused plunger.

The old, used gross plunger.



So if you come over to our home and are greeted by the plunger at the top of the stairs just realize it's the only place I can keep it away from her single minded pursuit to carry it everywhere.

Gross.

A True Mother's Day

My husband is awesome! I got the best gift for Mother's Day. He made a special breakfast, lunch and dinner and did all the dishes. He also did the dishes from our little get together Saturday night. I was pampered all day.

You know who else was pampered all day? Charlotte. She had a little cold Saturday night, but then woke up Sunday with a full blown double barrel snot nose, cough and ickiness. Right after breakfast I was holding her and she barfed down the side of my arm, dress and nylons. We decided not to take her to church.

She ended up feeling much better by the end of the day so all in all it was a great Mother's Day.

Recommend

Dear City of St. Louis,

Your building inspector Shar0n is AMAZING! She gave me all the information I need to know so that we can do the work on our house and get into it and get an occupancy permit. She was SUPER helpful. She also said that she wouldn't do an inspection right now, since we're not actually occupying our house until a month or so after the closing date. That means we could get a refund! When I called City Hall yesterday to try and get the paperwork started on the refund guess what? She had already done it for me! A city employee that went above and beyond! I'm so greatful! Thank you so much Shar0n and St. Louis!

Thanks,
A Happy Citizen

Complaint

Dear Insurance Company,

If someone calls you to get an insurance quote that means they are a potnential customer. If you treat them like they're an idiot you wont get their business. If you patiently let them explain their situation to the fullest and do not interrupt them mid sentence when they're trying to explain something the said future customer will be much happier. Future customers can always find somewhere else to take their business.

On top of that, if said future customer's father is an insurance salesman then she will know something of what you're trying to get at. She may be trying to help get herself a discount that she knows she might qualify for if you enter it in right. If you don't let her answer your questions to the fullest and call her, "honey" like she's an idiot then she wont be giving you the business that you want.

Other insurance agents know all this. Other agencies are very helpful when potnetial customers call on the phone. They will get my upmost attention!

Sincerely,
Your ex-future customer

Tagged: House Edition

So Heather tagged me to fill this out for the house that we're going to have so here goes.....

My favorite things around the house….

My favorite thing about my kitchen is the new cabinetry that we're going to put in! We just purchased it and it's coming the Friday after we close on the house! Also we bought a new stainless steel fridge that was on an awesome deal! The kitchen is going to be awesome.

My favorite thing about my family room is hmm... well there isn't a favorite thing about it yet. I guess I could say the fireplace, but it's got this weird surround. We did find out that the fireplaces in the house were coal burning, not wood burning which is why they're all so shallow. Interesting little fact.

My favorite thing about my living room is… we don’t have one. So I'll do my favorite thing about our foyer. It has this awesome built in bench that is part of the banister going down the stairs. It's super cool and really beautiful. Well, it will be beautiful when we're done with it.

My favorite thing about our dining room is the bay window over the backyard. Also I really love the fireplace in that room.

My favorite thing about my laundry room is well, we don't technically have a laundry room. The washer/dryer hook-ups are in the basement. But they're right next to this funny bathroom in the basement. There's a shower surround (not inside a room mind you, just the surround sitting out on it's own) that works, but who takes a shower in the dirty basement? Also next to the shower is a room with a toilet and sink. So weird, but also pretty funny.

My favorite thing about my bedroom is... also nothing favorite about it yet.

My favorite thing about my bathroom is the new tile we're putting up on the floor and in the shower surround. It's gonna be awesome.

My most favorite thing about my house is that it is ours and we can paint or decorate however we want.

Also something cool we found out about the house is it has a great slate roof. I like that. A Lot.

A Good Friend

I always hear, "If you want to have a good friend then you need to be a good friend." I have found that to be true more and more as I'm experiencing life. Mostly I realize that if I want to have social interaction I need to invite, I need to contact, and I need to go out of my way to meet with people. Most people don't really want to be the ones to do that. To be honest, I don't really want to be the one to do it either. In a perfect (read lazy) world everyone would call me up and invite me over. Turns out that would be pretty lame for everyone else.

Confession: I'm super slow at making friends. I feel like I've started my little group of close friends since we moved here. I have a few that I feel comfortable just calling up and asking what they're doing, but, honestly not many. Don't misunderstand, I love my little circle of close friends. And I'm super happy to know that they're there, but more to the point the women I feel closest to are the ones that really truly did call me up! My friend Mindy is awesome at this. Totally 100% awesome at being there for people. She has tons of friends. Perhaps I should be more like her. More giving, more willing to reach out. I decided this past week that I need to go beyond my comfort zone. Events at our last med wives lady's night were sort of.....illuminating as to my situation here. Really most of the women that I meet are pretty much in my same position. They are wives and they've moved away from their family and old support system. They need a new one just as much as I do. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking to myself, "But really, do they? Haven't most of them already found close friends? Would they really like it if I called and invited them over just to play scrabble? They're probably too busy."

If I want to be a good friend I have to go out of my comfort zone. Who really wants to do that? I sure don't. But what I don't want even more is to feel like there's nobody I could call just to say, "I have to escape my house! Can I come over there for a while?" Currently it would take a whole lot of courage to do that. No, not courage. Just a comfort level that I don't yet have. Comfortable knowing that the impostion I would have on the other person would be overlooked. I'd also really, really like to have a friend that would feel comfortable doing that with me. Come, invite yourself over. I'll make room. I'd love it. I promise.

Don't Ever Grow Up

A few days ago I took Charlotte to the park. She was so cute I couldn't believe it! I was taking photos of her while she tried to climb the steps of the big toy. There were two older girls on the big toy. My guess is they were probably in the 7-8 range. One girl was clearly the leader of the two. Right in front of me she asked the other girl, "Do you think that baby's cute?" Typed out that seems like a very innocent question, but let me tell you that girl was just inviting the other one to say, "No she's totally ugly." I was instantly furious! I just waited to see what would be said. The other girl was in a jam. She knew I could hear her, but I could also tell she didn't want the other girl to think badly of her. I wanted to say to the girls, "Of course she's cute! She's the cutest little girl that you'll ever see and don't you go saying otherwise!" I didn't. The second little girl decided that since none of the answers she could think of would be good she would just say nothing. Then the leader girl asked the other one, "Do you think her shoes are cute?" (The expected response was a resounding, "No.") Again no response. The leader girl finally said to the other, "You should go spy on them." This the follower obediently tried to do. It was at that moment I decided that we should just move. Charlotte is only one so she doesn't care what other little girls say about her, but I sure do. I got mad when I realized that the mom there watching the girls was just sitting there on her cell phone not even paying attention to what they were doing.

I don't want my precious little baby girl who is smart and beautiful and funny and awesome to go outside of our house. Inevitably she's going to run into this type of situation again and then she might be old enough to really understand what's being said. And then I might not be there to protect her. It makes me so sad and so mad at the same time. I can't wait to see her ride her first bike, or drive, or go on her first date, but then again, maybe I can.

Decisions, Decisions

Which class would you rather take?

The Art of Fresh Flower Arranging

or

Woodworking for Women

Carnivore

Today Charlotte had her iron tested. Surprisingly the most traumatic part of the whole ordeal for her was having to keep the Dora Bandaid on after the poke. Once I took it off she was fine. She was also mad that a stranger actually had to touch her to do the thing, but that's a whole different story. The results came back that she has GREAT iron levels. Then we were talking about her eating habits and what she will and wont eat. She's not a picky eater at all, so I'm especially grateful for that. (Now that I say this, she wont eat anything but graham crackers for a week.) Anyway, I realized that the reason her iron levels are so high is that she has not run into any type of meat that she doesn't like. In fact for most dishes she'll root around all the other stuff just to find the meat. Don't get me wrong, she eats a fair share of everything else, but her clear favorite in the food category is meat. Does anyone else think that's 100% strange?

A Great Weekend

Friday night Dan and I went out on a date. We went to Charlie Gitto's On the Hill. It's AWESOME! I loved the entire experience. I wore my new dress that I just received in the mail a few days ago and did my hair and make-up and felt really girly and pretty. Did I have to dress up? No. Did I enjoy every minute of it? Yes. Since we are swapping babysitting with another couple we decided we didn't have to rush home. To do something entertaining that didn't cost money we decided to go "window shopping" at the Home Depot. (You can all see which half of the night was for me and which half was for Dan, but I still enjoyed it.) It was kinda funny to walk through Home Depot all dressed up.

Saturday was the Grand South Grand home tour that we wanted to go to. Unfortunately we didn't go. Fortunately Dan did spend the day at school preparing for his test this coming weekend. Charlotte and I ran away from home, to our two doors down neighbors to sit and chat. Also, because Charlotte has been desperately wanting to meet their three dogs. She absolutely loves dogs. They have two little dogs and one big one. As soon as the dogs calmed down she got off my lap and started petting them. Sometimes whit her hands, sometimes with her head. It was super funny. Dan came home and we went to Lowe's to see about getting an estimate for the kitchen cabinets. Turns out the guy from Lowe's was inept. It took him almost 2 hours to get the cabinetry up on the computer and then the quote that he gave us was, oh, a good 4K higher than it should have been. We decided to give up on Lowe's and went to Home Depot, where the excellent service was done in about a half hour and the quote was 6K lower for the same merchandise. (I think we might be spending a lot of time at the Home Depot store in the next three years.)

Then Sunday was a glorious day! Sunny, warm, beautiful. After church we walked from our apartment to the house and looked around. Then we walked back. It was a great day for being outside, but I forgot sunscreen. Good thing it was in the late afternoon. You can be sure I didn't forget it today.

Big News

We got the house. Dan didn't go to bed last night until 1 AM. (He blamed it on the Dr. Pepper he drank, but I didn't mention to him that I drank about 1/4 of that Dr. Pepper in between all his sipping and I was out by 9:30.) He was thinking and planning and improvising how our kitchen would work best. I think he came up with a superb layout that I think will work really well. It's a whole lot of problem solving when you have a small space to work with, but I think his plan really maximized the space.

Now I can't wait until Dan's parents come out! It's gonna be so much fun to show them the new house. Also, Dan's sister is going to drop of his nephew for wrestling camp this early summer so she'll get to see it too! Plus, my dad's already starting to plan his trip out here.

Yesterday Charlotte recieved "Christmas in April" from Grandma Denise. She got new books, which she loves, a new dress, and most of all, a new dancing duck and a little tykes piano. Guess which two she loves the most? You guessed it, the two that make sound. Right now they're both still pretty cute, but I can see that these two presents will be both a blessing and a way to teach me patience. Thanks mom!

PS. We had an earthquake here early this morning. Here's how it went in our house:

Me: Is that storm shaking the bed? (There was a pretty big storm going outside. It was rattling the windows.)

Dan: No, go back to bed.

Jump to breakfast:

Me: Did our bed shake in the night?

Dan: No.

Turns out there was a 5.2 earthquake in southern Illinois.

Delayed Response

Sorry for the no posts lately. There were a number of factors why. The first being that Dan and I are trying to buy a house that we're really excited about. We put the offer in and I was going to wait until the offer came back to post anything (I don't want to jinx it), but the bank hasn't said anything about it yet. We're buying a house that was foreclosed on and apparently it isn't the bank's top priority. Go figure. Anyway, the house is awesome and a fun project for the next three years. The only big things that need to be done can get done during Dan's down time this summer. Plus, my dad and mom are so excited to come out and help. And Dan's parents are coming out for Memorial Day and they'll see the place. It's great to have such awesome support. Other than the biggies all the stuff is totally do-able projects that can be spread out over the next three years here. We're both pretty excited about the whole thing. (Dan keeps getting out his orange Home 1-2-3 book from Home Depot just to peruse.) I wish I had news to tell right now, but I don't. We put the offer in and now we just have to wait.

The other reason is that Charlotte was pretty sick last weekend and it scared the crap out of me. She had a fever that came in the afternoon every day for about three days. Then she was pretty dehydrated and would not eat or drink anything. We were super worried that we would have to take her to the hospital, but the amount of fluids we forced into her kept her at home. We were just both really worried about her and I didn't really have anything to say except, "My baby's sick and I'm so worried I might throw up."

And the last reason I didn't realize until a few days ago. For about two weeks I was walking around being totally angry at Dan and totally sad and frustrated. Dan is an amazing husband and he didn't do anything wrong so I never brought it up because I knew that it was unfair to be mad at him. Whenever he asked, "Are you OK?" I just said, "I'm super tired," which isn't a lie because I was also super tired. It wasn't until I was talking with my mom about it that she asked if I felt a little overwhelmed with everything and I just started to break down and cry. So I guess that was the answer to everything, feeling overwhelmed. After thinking about it all the rest of the day I figured it wasn't fair of me to walk around feeling this way without telling Dan. Plus, I figured I was in a situation that needed fixing, and he happens to be pretty good at fixing things. Turns out that was the best thing I could have done. It was hard to tell him because I feel very responsible about everything that happens in our home. He has never acted like the running of the house and the raising of our daughter is my responsibility alone, but that's how I felt. (Why do I take on more responsibility than I need to? Something to answer someday.) After I told him this he asked what exactly made me feel overwhelmed to see if that was a task that he could take from me. Turns out that there is no one task he can take completely away from me. What he did say he wanted to do was take some tasks away from me partially. So our new plan: when Dan comes home from school, after he unwinds a bit, he and Charlotte have time just the two of them where they go for a walk or go to Home Depot, or go, well, I guess it really doesn't matter where they go. I then will be home. Alone. For half an hour. We've done this the past two days and it has been amazing how much better I feel. I don't have to get anything done when they're gone, but if I want to I can be that much more productive.

And also, he's taking me out to dinner tomorrow night! We've got reservations, and someone to watch Charlotte and we're going to use the gift card my sister and brother-in-law got us for Christmas. I can't wait! I've already planned what I'm gonna wear. (I've also planned what Dan's gonna wear, but don't tell him that.)

Spoiled

I started yesterday. When it didn't happen yesterday I knew I needed to start earlier in the day. So today I started the moment he got home from school.

Right after he kisses Charlotte and me: "Brownies would be great."

Just before dinner: "There's not very much milk. You need to go get some."

After putting Charlotte to bed: "How about some chocolate cake?"

Sitting on the couch while watching TV: "Don't you think some goodies would be nice?"

And then came the rather unexpected clincher: "I need the ward phone directory. Would you get it from the car for me?"

The golden response: "Well, since I'll be in the car anyway I might as well go get us some goodies. You wanted chocolate cake right?"

He is so awesome.

The Up-shot

I feel like I've been complaining about my baby a lot this past week and it's really not giving the whole picture. I LOVE how much she's learning right now. She seems to have exploded in the growth and development this past week. Here are somethings she's learned:

• If you ask for a kiss she will lean in and say, "Mmmmmm-wah" right along with you. It started with her leaning in with a fully opened mouth, but then she figured out that we're not doing that so she adapted.
• She blows on her own hot food. It's so cute because she hasn't quite figured out the direction of her blowing. She'll do it just above the food. But she knows to test the food with her fingers and if it's too hot she'll blow on it.
• She knows jokes, well, toddler jokes. She thinks it's so funny to do something unusual with the items we use in our house every day. She uses the hamper and puts it over her head. Then we put it over both our heads and laugh and laugh.
• She understands pretty much everything we tell her. She doesn't always pay attention, but she understands what we're saying and that's so fun.
• She's figured out how to flush the toilet, which is pretty funny. She will walk up and just flush the toilet and then walk away.
• When I say, "Do you want to help me with the laundry?" She'll run to the door to the basement and wait for me to take her down. Then she'll help me turn on the light in the basement by pulling the string. She's also learned to shut the dryer door for me.

So I have actually been having loads of fun with my toddler too!

Hip and Urban

Today I had errands to run. Instead of going out of the city limits to a big shopping area I decided to see if I could get everything done in my own neighborhood/area. I totally got everything done without once going on the interstate! I felt so hip and urban walking down the busy road to get my stuff done. What's even better is that one of the houses we're looking at to buy is only a block and a half away from the street where I did all my errands today. I wouldn't even have to drive if I didn't want to. That's kinda cool.

Grawwwh!

Translation:

Charlotte is now off the pacifier. (For two whole days now) She's teething. She's got a cold. She wants things that she has no words to tell me. She's very VERY busy. She thinks she runs our house. (She so doesn't.) My brain might implode.

That's my excuse for posting photos only of our California trip.

There's loads more, but I'm not putting them on here (see above excuse).

FOR SALE

Have you ever thought, "I'm just way too productive. I need something that will help me work harder and also slow down and lower my productivity." If you have, well, then I have just the thing for you! In a one time offer I am willing to practically give away the

UNDO-ER 1.0f

This creative product will both push you to do more and work harder while simultaneously slowing down your productivity! I know what you're saying, "Maggie! That can't possibly be true! That's the product of my dreams! How does it work?" First it pushes you to work harder and faster because it follows you around the house and as soon as you slow down it will attach itself to your leg and WILL NOT LET GO. If you want to be free from the amazing Undo-er 1.0f you must keep working. Another great feature to the 1.0f version is it's ability to walk behind you and say , "me me me me me me me me..." This will push you to work harder and faster. If you don't believe me, just give it a try.

So now you're saying, "I can see how that would make me work harder and faster, but how would this creative product possibly slow down my ability to get things done?" Well, I'll let you in on a little secret that's built right into the name. The Undo-er 1.0f will follow behind you and actually undo all the work that you're doing. For example, let's say you wanted to put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. You would rinse each dish and then place it in the washer and then reach for the second one. As you rinse the second dish the amazing Undo-er 1.0f will take the first dish out of the dishwasher and put it on the floor.

What if you're trying to put away the clothing. In this instance not only will the Undo-er 1.0f take out the clothing you're putting in the drawer, but it will also take out all the clothing already in the drawer. Amazing right? There are two special features to this particular model. The first feature to special to the 1.0f version is it's ability to open the little girl hair bands and throw them all over the floor so you have to clean them up. Multiple times. The second feature is that when you have a special day that you would particularly want to have the house clean it is smart enough to know that and will work twice as fast as regularly. That way you will have to work much harder on those special days.

Finally, I know you're saying, "How can I get my hands on that?" Well, I'm selling it very cheaply. All you have to give me is your sanity. I seem to have lost mine.

Blowing It

My spending money philosophy makes me feel like a tiny mouse that searches and stores up all the seeds it finds all summer. Then went I feel like I have enough I will spend it all at once. I've been saving since before Christmas. Yesterday I decided it was time to let the money flow. Those few days of guilt free spending are such a delight I will be saving for months in order to have them. Today I went shopping with two friends and I purchased:
These jeans (from gap) are super cute, but no I can't bring myself to wear high heels with jeans. My jeans are for comfort, not dress up.

These pants (also gap) are so cute and perfect for summer! They were the first ones I tried on and they fit perfectly! None of the other white pants I even tried on fit me right. In an unexpected turn of events I'm back down to my pre-baby pant size! I don't really feel like I'm back to my pre baby pant size, but the numbers don't lie. I kept picking out a size bigger for myself, but then they didn't fit and I had to go down a size.

So I still have money to spend after that! I'm thinking of getting new undershirts from Shade clothing and perhaps a new spring dress. I love when it comes time to blow my spending money! It feels good to get something for myself without worry about bills, my daughter, or, well, food. After today I'll be back to my regular thriftiness, but today felt oh so good.

Happy Birthday

Charlotte is one year old today! Hip-hip-hooray! Am I a bad mom because I'm not planning on doing a big party for her? I was going to make her a cake yesterday, but since were were both sick and I'm not totally 100% yet, I didn't and I don't think she'll worry. In fact she didn't even open any presents today (she's already received TONS of gifts from grandparents, aunts/uncles, and other family). I think I might invite some of our friends over for dessert Saturday, but nothing big. We spent about 45 minutes today reading ALL her books because we were just going to read her new books from both grandmas (THANKS! We both love them!) and then she kept bringing me all her old books too. We ended up reading all her board books and she was in heaven. Charlotte really likes her new Spot's First Easter book. And, I'll admit it, I cried while reading her I Love You, Little One. Luckily I'll get over that before she remembers anything. I think when she gets up it would be fun to make homemade thank you notes with her. She likes crayons, markers, and anything she can make marks with.

In other news I just wanted to tell everyone how awesome it is to have good friends here in St. Louis. I was so sick and we had no food yesterday. I knew it would be a good idea if I had 7up and soda crackers. I just couldn't think of getting myself off the floor (that's where I was laying so Charlotte wouldn't think she needed me to pick her up on the sofa) and dressed to take the little one to the grocery store to get it. In comes my guardian angel! I called Mindy and she went and picked it up for me and delivered it. That was all I ate yesterday and it saved me. She is such an awesome friend. I hope that I can help her when she needs it in the future.

Also, Daniel came home at 3 yesterday! Isn't he so awesome! He knew I was sick and since it was the first day of classes for this term (pharmacology and pathology) he knew he could take an afternoon off. He went to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials (milk, bread, dinner for himself) and helped me with Charlotte. Isn't he great? Also, by that time I was starting to feel a little better so when he asked, if I wanted to go out with him and Charlotte for a while I said yes. Turns out that was a good idea, but I pushed it a little too far. We went to look at a house we want to buy and Dan is all fire up about it. We went to go see inside it and at first I was fine, but then as we kept moving around I got all sick again so we didn't get to see the detached garage/carriage house in the back. Anyway, before we looked at it he liked the idea of buying a house, but after looking at it he got super excited. He spent 6 hours looking things up on the computer last night after we put Charlotte to bed. That's right. He was so excited he couldn't sleep until 2 AM. I woke up around 1:30 to go to the bathroom and saw the light on in our front room. In my clouded state I figured we had forgotten to turn it off when we went to bed. So I walked to the front and turned it off and walked back to bed. After crawling in bed I saw a person move out in the hall. That completely woke me up and I reached for Dan to wake him up and realized that Dan was the person in the hall. I had turned the light in the front room off on him while he was reading his home improvement encyclopedia! He was still so excited about this new house he was up in the front room reading his home improvement book! Isn't he cute?!

Saturday afternoon we were in Grand Junction, CO. My daughter woke up from her nap by barfing all over herself and filling her diaper with watery poop. Then we drove to Denver. She had the stinkiest farts the whole way there. Then yesterday she had diarrhea for the 14 hour trip home from Denver to St. Louis. She was so happy the whole time though. We gave her tons of water and juice and tried to help her as much as possible. She didn't really want to eat anything though, and I didn't blame her. She's not up yet today, but hopefully she's better. If not, I'd better call her doctor.



Turns out that a lot of whatever she has I eventually get. This is no exception. As Dan was heading off for class today he said that it's probably viral or some toxin we ate working it's way through so there's nothing we can do but wait it out. Then he left. Now I've got to get it together to take care of myself and my baby. Man, being a mom sometimes stinks!

I'm Ba-ack

Well, Charlotte and I made it back from vacation! It sure was fun. (And also the longest and hardest week I've had yet with the baby.) I haven't caught up quite yet and we're leaving Wednesday for Colorado. Dan's Spring Break is this week so I'm spending time with him. Also, his grandma had a stroke so we're going to go see them in the big CO. All this is my excuse for not posting any of the fun stuff that happened as of late. I would just post photos of the trip, but my sister took 169 photos on my camera the first three days of the trip so I've got a LOT of sorting, tossing and editing to do. She's so much better at taking photos than I am. I always enjoy the moments and forget to click the camera. The batteries ran out four days into the trip so the sum total of photos that I took is 3. I wish I had taken our video camera. She did so many funny things on the trip. Then again, I probably wouldn't have wanted to get the video camera out anyway.

Lost

My daughter loves to play with my cell phone. LOVES. She likes to hear the little beeps and see it light up and it gives her pure joy. I only let her play with it supervised so that she doesn't call 911 or something. She does however manage to call anyone on my speed dial. Mostly she loves to call my brother-in-law, the ear doctor. I tried locking the keys but then they don't make noise and beep and it makes her mad.

Then I thought of a genius new solution: put the phone on airplane mode. It's still on and the keys still beep, but it wont call anyone. In fact it cuts of the whole signal. Brilliant. She can play to her hearts content and not call anyone.


Now if I could just find where she dropped it last......

Exciting News

Today I was holding Charlotte on my lap while reading some blogs. I clicked on my friend Heather's blog. Charlotte pointed to the photo of Ezra at the top and said, "Baby?"! Can you believe it! Then I said, "Can you say baby?" and she said it again! Then I showed her pictures of babies in her board books and pointed to them and said baby and she said "baby?" right back to me! Isn't this exciting?!

Poll the Audience

What do you do to get happy when you're sad on a cold rainy day?

A Trend

Question: Why is it that I think two days is enough to establish a new trend?

Answer: I'm crazy.


To clarify, Charlotte is still on the two nap a day schedule. She was just thrown off for a few days. Thanks for the insight on that one. LeAnn was right, she was probably having trouble with teething and all. I'm glad. I like the two nap a day routine. I can tell that she's going to be switching to one nap a day soon though. Her second nap of the day is always a quickie. Plus, if we're out doing something out of the house she's fine skipping a nap and then just taking one long one when we get home. This is super nice.



In other Charlotte news she has decided that the whole world is funny the past two days. After we picked Daniel up from school yesterday we took a walk. As we walked and talked Charlotte sat in the stroller just laughing away. We have no idea why. She kept looking at me and laughing yesterday after I put on my glasses. I guess she thinks they're funny looking. Then this morning I was feeding her baby oatmeal for breakfast and after every bite she took she would laugh. We had tons of fun at breakfast.

A Good Excuse

Just in case you wanted something to make you happy, you should know that a week from today I will be packing. Charlotte and I will be taking a week long vacation to San Diego!!!! We leave a week from tomorrow to go to Yuma Great Grandma Jane's house to see Great Grandpa Mel for a night and then we'll drive on into San Diego. How exciting! We can't wait!

Then when we get back Daddy gets a week long Spring Break! YEAH! A whole week with nothing to do but have fun! Since Daniel hasn't seen much of St. Louis due to the fact that he's studying all the time, we'll be having our own St. Louis vacation.



(I realize now that this might not make you happy, but it sure does make me happy! YEAH!)

Relief

The past couple of days Daniel has come home quiet-very quiet. I know this means one of two things: 1) he's tired or 2) somethings stressing him out. He never tells me if something is stressing him out until after the fact so I asked if he was tired. He said no. So I waited for option 2 to present itself. This waiting game can last anything from hours to weeks. I was hoping it would pass soon. Today I picked him up from school (the bike is still broken) and he was positively chatty! I found out that since he has an test tomorrow (in ethics) he was feeling that he didn't have enough time to get all his studying in. Then today there was only 1.5 hours of lecture and tomorrow he wont have any lecture before the afternoon test. So I guess he figured he will have plenty of time to study. Glad that one is over.

Close Call

This morning my daughter started to cry to get up for the day at 6:50 AM. This is 25 minutes before her usual 7:15 AM get up for the day time. That was the first thing off that I noticed. The second was that my bedroom door was shut. Daniel always kisses me goodbye in the morning before he leaves. I'm mostly asleep when he does it, but I like that he does it anyway. It's important and he does it EVERY day. With the door shut it means Daniel never kissed me goodbye this morning. That's so weird. Then I noticed that he had left the kitchen light on. At that point I was a little annoyed thinking that the kitchen light is what woke Charlotte up early. Then I went and got her up.

Then I noticed that the lights were still on upstairs. Dan would never leave for the day with all the lights on. Something was wrong. So I looked around. His backpack was still next to the sofa. So I called his name.

No reply.

Little bells of worry started to go off in my mind. Where was Dan? Why had he left the lights on and his stuff at home? I went to the back door to the stairs to the basement. Dan had left it unlocked! He never does that! He wants to make sure that nobody could get into the house with his sleeping wife and daughter after he left. Something was seriously wrong. Where is my husband? Is he OK? What if something happened to my Sweetie?

I went down the stairs with near panic in my heart. I got to the bottom of the stairs just far enough to see that the board to our basement door was still in place. So where is my husband?! Then I heard a noise in the basement. I scurried upstairs because what if the killer was still in the basement? I couldn't have him getting to my baby. I thought I'd call Daniel's cell phone to locate him so that he could calm my fears and let me know he wasn't killed. I dialed and then his phone rang,

in our bedroom.

It wasn't on him! What should I do? Should I wake up our neighbors to help me look in the basement? No, I couldn't do that. With all this worry I decided that I would do what any responsible adult would do....

I called my mom.

She told me to go down and look in the basement and she'd stay on the line. So I went downstairs and called his name. I jumped and screamed just a little bit when he appeared from behind the sheet where our belongings are stored. He was simply trying to fix his bike before going to school. He wasn't dead. Oh good, another disaster averted.

When I'm Rich

I've been pricing out photography studios to get Charlotte's one year old photos. (Because a year can't pass without taking professional photos right?) I stumbled across this photographer's site. I LOVE IT. If I were rich I would totally use her! I love the photos. There really is a difference. Alas, I have enough money for JCPenney portraits or Olan Mills. She'll be cute either way.

The End of an Era

I'm pretty sure Charlotte has decided to go down to one nap a day (or is it no naps?). For the past two days she has REFUSED to sleep during her first nap and subsequently gone kicking and screaming down for the second, so riled up that she wont sleep. Then for the rest of the day I have to deal with a sad and tired no-nap little baby. So the game plan for today is not to try to put her down until noon. But as she's crying a lot right now I'm thinking that maybe two days isn't long enough to establish a new trend. Good grief!

The Big and The Little

It has occurd to me that I haven't mentioned very much about the whole medical school experience in a while. This is mostly because medical school is just so big and I don't really know what to say. Most days I think that it's no big deal. Most days it seems like any other job any other husband would have. Leaves in the morning, gets back in the evening. Mostly all I know about the whole experience is that he's either at home or he's not. I know you're all really surprised that my husband isn't much of a talker about this!

Sometimes though it's hard, very hard. My experience with medical school has been a lot like my experience in marriage. (I've only had two and a half years under my belt on the marriage thing and 7 months of med school so I'm no expert on either. That doesn't stop me from having opinions though.) When I first got married and people told me that marriage was work and that you had to work at your marriage to make it successful I always said ok, but I don't think I really understood. Being married to my husband has been one of the most wonderful blessings of my life, but it hasn't been the easiest thing I've ever done. I didn't understand the ways in which marriage could be hard until I encountered them. I never knew the minutae of life with this wonderful man and then our beautiful daughter that could stretch me to what I thought was my capacity and sometimes beyond. I know now better than I did before the hard work that is quietly done by each member of the union that make for successful and happy marriages. And just like with anything else you haven't mastered it until it seems effortless. I also know that future stretching will take place and that it wont be easy. It will be worth it if we are a success at it though.

Medical school is the same. When I told people I was marrying a man that wanted to be a doctor I always heard the sentiment that it was hard for people that had done it before. I agreed, it would be hard. I didn't understand the challenges that would face us. Some of them are not unique to medical school. Some of them all couples face. And some of them are unique to medical school. They're never huge obstacles that I feel I need to hurdle. Mostly it is the minutae and logistics of our life now that stretch me a little bit more each time I encounter them.

What I also didn't understand about either experience going into it was the wonderful blessings that have come out of both. When I have been stretched beyond what I thought was my capacity I discovered new facets to my spirit I never knew existed. I also discovered new things about my partner in this journey. The trick is to make sure that we're going forward together. That is my ultimate goal.

They call it Puppy Love

Charlotte's Grandma and Grandpa Whiting gave her a stuffed puppy for Christmas. For a few weeks now that has been her favorite. She has a teddy bear that is roughly the same fur texture and shape that she loves too, but it doesn't have the floppy ears. Yesterday she decided to carry the teddy bear around the house, but she didn't want to let go of the puppy. The answer: carry the puppy by the ear with her mouth. I should have taken a photo, but I couldn't find the camera.

In other big news, two more of Charlotte's teeth broke through her gums on Sunday! They aren't the middle two on the top. They're the two just outside the middle two on the top. It sort of feels like the middle two are trying to come in right now too so maybe we'll have more to share later.

One I actually Like!

Since getting married the vast majority of the photos of myself have been taken by my sweet husband. He thinks I look beautiful without my make-up. He likes it when I do very little, if anything, to my hair. He thinks I look great getting out of bed in the morning. In short, the photos he takes of my look awful. Here's a sample of his type of photography.

Why didn't he look at this one in the digital camera and say, "Tip your head down a little so we don't see directly into your nostrils"?

That is why I was pleasently surprised to see the photo in the camera the other day. I don't even remember taking it. Years from now my daughter will be able to look back at these photos and say, "You didn't always look like a slob when I was little did you?"

Getting ready for church. That head band in Charlotte's hair lasted approximately 10 minutes and then was ripped off.

Chicken

My daughter used to be so scared of the vacuum I had to hold her the entire time I vacuumed. Then we got our new red one for Christmas. I loved it so much I didn't put it away for a couple of days. She played with it, took off the attachments, knocked it over and enjoyed it throughly. Now when I vacuum she's still wary of the thing, but she doesn't insist on having me hold her. Now she plays chicken with it. She will try to get close enough to the vacuum to touch it and then "run" away. She's still slow at walking and turning so it's a slow tango we dance while cleaning the house. This very calculated game of chicken entertains her the entire time I vacuum the house. She knows that if she stops I will go around her and now there are four or five Charlotte sized spots in our house that aren't vacuumed because I got tired of waiting for her and moved away. It is so funny to play with her while vacuuming!

Creative Corner

My newest project is a dress for myself. I love this pattern. I typically like vintage dresses and I've fallen in love with this one. Now I'm just trying to find a good fabric. There are so many good choices out there. Do I want it to be a solid like this yellow or turquois? Do I want a pattern like this tan embriodered one or this red lotus print? But I'm still not convinced that I have the right fabric. Any ideas? Suggestions? Places to look that I haven't thought of? Other considerations?

Mental Health

I'm being so indulged lately! I feel like I just made it out of the dark hole that was my sickness, then my daughter's sickness. Sadly, now Daniel has the sickness that makes you want to die. I know because he's burning up and also because it took him until 9 AM to go study this morning! Also he took four Motrin with him incase he needs them during the day. I've never seen him actually sick before and it kinda freaked me out! He is the hardest working sick person I've ever seen. I hope he takes it easy tomorrow and focuses on getting better because he has a test next Saturday and he needs to be 100% for it!

Because of the recent illness our house has been going through I haven't cooked a dinner for everyone since last Monday! I know, you're wondering how we ate. Leftovers one night. Gift card dinner another, no dinner another, then eating at a friends house another. Now I'm sort of getting ready for cooking again.

The party was great! About 12 women came over and we sat around, talked, and ate. Unfortunately everyone brought a dish and I made dishes to eat so there was so much food that we got stuck with a ton of leftovers. Leftover meals are great. Leftover desserts and snacks can make a person start to feel a little sickly.

Yesterday, instead of cleaning after the party, Charlotte and I went to the zoo. It was so much fun, even though it was cold. We jumped from indoor exhibit to indoor exhibit and saw all the primates. It was great to get out of the house and see the sun! Today we did the same thing and went to the Botanical Gardens (free if you live in the city). I didn't realize how much I missed going outside during the cold winter days! It is such a blessing to have sunny weather days in the middle of winter. It's supposed to get cold again, but I don't care as much now that I've had a little time outside. Do you find that your mental health improves with outdoor time? Mine does.

Sick Day

I was sick the end of the week last week and then all weekend. Yesterday my baby had a temperature all day and through the night. I'm so tired! My house is a mess, my checks haven't been deposited, and my grocery shopping needs to be done, but I can't because she wont let me put her down.

Hosting

I'm hosting our Medical School Wives' girls' night out at our apartment next week. My plan is to just provide dessert and people will come, eat and chat. That's basically what we do when we actually go out to a restaurant so it should work here right? I'm worried though because last week was the GNO for January and I think people might not come to mine. They are just so close together. Oh well, at least that will mean more leftover goodies for me! What goodies do you think I should make? (Keep in mind that last month had around 20 women.)

Birthday Photos

Dan's birthday went pretty well I'd say. Considering he had a test in two days and we didn't have a whole lot of money for gifts, we had a great time. I think he enjoyed his pancake cake and we liked to actually have him with us for breakfast. I only took photos later in the day to share so here they are:

This is her trying to tell us that she has a poopy diaper.

Apparently we didn't get it so she tried her "Please change me now" smile. (What do you think of the side pony? I thought it was funny so I kept it, but I'm not sure I'm going to do it again.)

Dan looks good in both photos though so I kept them anyway. I discovered the poopiness after taking the photos and she was much happier later, but my camera had completely run out of batteries so you only get the grumpy baby shots.

Birthday Eve

Last night I looked at the budget and with a little re-arranging I made it so that we can still eat, get a new alternator for the Honda, and get Dan clamps for his birthday! Hooray! It'll be tight, but I feel so powerful for making it work. Today Charlotte and I went to get the clamps for Daddy and she decided that we should probably let Daddy pick out the clamps instead of getting them ourselves. There were so many of them and they were all so shiny and fun to reach for, but when we almost knocked a pile off the hooks we decided it was time to go. Plus, then he gets to go to the Home Depot even more!

Saturday is his test. He seems pretty confident, but we all still need to have positive thoughts for him.

As it turns out I hate all types of health insurance, not just the government sponsored kind. At least I found a doctor that will see me tomorrow.

New Links

Since I have such a loooong list of links over there to the left I thought I'd take a minute to note the two I recently added. The first is A3 Robinson. These are our good friends in St. Louis (I know! We actually have friends!). Charlotte is in love with their little boy Asher, who is older than she is and also pretty annoyed by her most of the time. Dan studies with Aaron and we live in the same neighborhood of St. Louis. We love to have them over! The other is Voice of Reason. I pretty much read her blog every day and I like it a lot. She's funny and smart. So I figured why not share the joy? So there you go.

A Recipe for Success

Get Up,
Get Fed,
Get Dressed,
Make Your Bed.

It never fails. When I do those four things my day is great and I get a lot done. If I don't do those four things, then I don't get things done and I don't have a great day. Or at least I don't feel like I get things done. Even if I will be spending all day at home doing chores with nobody to see me, if I get ready for the day in the morning my day is much, much better. I always feel better too.

(Does yellow cake with peanut butter fudge frosting count as breakfast? I didn't think so either, but it sure tasted good.)

Because I haven't posted any lately

This is the outfit that Aunt Katie got for her for Christmas. She wore it again yesterday and I love it.
We gave her a "soothing bubble bath" a few nights ago and she kept trying to eat the bubbles!
I realized that I can put two pigtails in her hair. Too bad I also realized that I'm awful at cutting off the top of her head in photos. I'll get a better photo of her new cute hair style next time I do it.

leftovers

Do you eat leftovers?

Before Dan I never ate leftovers, that is, unless my mom cunningly disguised them as something new all together. That means that the leftovers weren't really leftovers they were re-dos. So in the end I never ate leftovers. Dan eats leftovers. Leftovers are part and parcel of our medical school experience and I ate leftovers for lunch and dinner yesterday and lunch the day before. I don't like it. Not one bit. But I do it. Is there anything that you do because of circumstance? Or because it would drive your spouse insane if you didn't do it?

My Year to Shine

Last year I was horrible at getting good presents for Dan. When I say horrible I am not exaggerating. Every single gift that I thought out, planned and gave was a dud. That's why I decided that this year is my year to shine in the gift giving category. I already have a plan for his Christmas present and it will cost a total of about $5 and a whole year to plan. That's how dedicated I am to what I will hereafter refer to as The Gift Glory Year.

The only problem is that his birthday is in January and I have no money to get him glorious gift #1. I was going to get him some wood clamps because he wants to build this beautiful mission style bench for our house with drawers in the seat and a great back. He doesn't have enough clamps of the right size to complete the project. I was super excited to get him the right clamps, but now that's off the table. I need to find him something that he'll enjoy that is cheap or free. The only thing is that my awesome cheap present is slated to be the Christmas present and I couldn't give it now even if I wanted to because it really will take a whole year to put together.

Another issue about the clamp situation is that he can't start the project until we have money to buy the wood for it so it's not like he could start it for a month or so anyway. The clamps would have been there though when he was ready to start. He's been doing all this research on mission style furniture and the woods he wants to make the thing out of. He is really excited about it.

So any ideas? I just want him to know how much we love him and what a great dad he is and how much we appreciate all the work he is doing right now. I know that clamps probably wouldn't have said all that, but they would have made him happy. I think in order for this to be The Gift Glory Year I'm going to have to be much more flexible. I'm too stuck on those stinking clamps!

To Dream the Impossible Dream

It is impossible to completely baby proof your house.














Translation: Charlotte found the toilet paper roll yesterday.

And the People Rejoiced

We finally got our new fridge today! YEAH! It's white, which matches all the other appliances in the kitchen. Another bonus for it is that it closes fully. Also the lack of rust and black stuff makes me very happy. Unfortunately the old fridge is now hanging out on our death trap of a deck. Try as they might the walls wouldn't move even one inch to let the fridge through. (Crazy how that works.) My land lord told them to just try and "shove" it through, but they didn't want to take out a whole corner of wall to get the fridge out. Instead of giving up my land lord told the installers that they could leave the old fridge on the back deck and bring the new one in. I'm just wondering what he's thinking about doing with the old one. It doesn't have the doors on it anymore so the next time it rains it's going to get filled with water which will then grow mold and be gross. He did say something about a sledge hammer and "busting it apart" to take it down "piece by piece." I don't know much about old fridges, but I thought there were CFCs in there or something which you shouldn't let into the atmosphere. I don't really know, but I did bring that issue up with him. His other brilliant idea was to take down one of the rickety railings that I wouldn't even trust enough to lean on and just push the fridge off the second floor deck. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

So anyone want an old, rusty, fridge that doesn't close all the way? You can have it for free if you can get it off our deck!

Mom answering cell phone: "Denise *******, something something pharmaceuticals."
Me: "I just wanted to apologize for every time I wiped my nose on your shirt. Every time."
Mom: Laughs

After talking to both my mother and sister yesterday I started to think about my experience as a mom, thus far. Charlotte is officially a toddler. This means that yesterday she walked the entire length of our house to the bathroom where I was taking a shower. Then she pushed the door open (I didn't figure it would need to be latched) and then walked to the shower. She proceeded to open the door and stick her head in and call to me to let her come join the fun. As I was still in the shampooing process and she was fully clothed so I didn't let her. This made her mad. Being a toddler also means that she can make her way to the bathroom all by herself. And that she's strong enough to open the lid on the toilet. All I have to say about that is ick, ick, ick.

After recounting a few stories like this to my mom and then my sister, Katie said that being a mom must be a lot of work. Every little thing that isn't a big deal becomes a big deal when you have to take the baby along. When she said that I replied that being a mom isn't that hard of a job (please don't write hate comments until you read to the end of the post). My reasoning is that for every night of screaming terror or puking disasters there are days of let's just watch Nemo or splash in the ponds. Every job has its positives and negatives. She told me that she was going to remind me of that comment one day (now that I've written it down you don't need to Katie). It got me to thinking though, is that really true? Do I really spend more time just having fun or doing work? I came up with my answer, for now, after a whole 9 months of experience. Granted it's not expert opinion, but it's my opinion, and my blog come to think of it, so there.

Here goes.

I think that the hard things about being a mom are surprisingly HARD. I thought I was ready for them. Whenever I watched Supernanny I thought, duh, of course you have to keep putting your kids back to bed. They need to learn to go to sleep and sleep in their own beds! You'll go insane if you let them stay up all night every night! I still agree with the reasoning in that statement, but now I understand why it was so hard for the moms and dads to do that. I do not blame them for not being able to teach their kids that sooner. Because it is stinking hard to listen to your child wail like a banshee, long enough that they cough. I remember when I would lay in bed just holding my husband's hand waiting for her to sleep so that I could. That was hard, but for us it worked.

It's also hard to not know what your child wants.

It's also hard to know what your child wants and know that they can't/ shouldn't have it.

Breastfeeding for the first two weeks involves physical pain. I don't care how many books I read saying that if you're doing it right it shouldn't hurt. Charlotte and I were doing it right. I went to a lactation specialist and she told me so. It still hurt every time for two weeks.

Going places with kids is hard. Just the physical act of getting them ready takes a bit of fortitude.


On the flip side, the awesome, great, fun things about being a mom are amazingly good. I was trying to think of a better word than good, but that's really what describes them. They are good in every sense. They fill me with joy and I love them.

My baby's first smile, giggle, roll over, anything and everything is exciting to me. I have loads of photos of my daughter sleeping just because I kept trying to get a shot of that little smile. I share every milestone with family and friends because I just can't contain my joy.

I love that I can do things whenever I want to. I remember a day last summer that I decided we wouldn't clean the house we would play splash instead. I filled up a serving tray with water sat her in it and we just splashed together. I can spend all day cleaning and doing chores one day, but the next we can spend going to the park, making cookies, and seeing friends.

On a more selfish, and completely honest note, I know I can count on two hours of alone time just for me everyday. I can do with it what I want (granted sometimes that means mopping the floor without interruption) and I love it.

So I don't know if I would classify being a stay-at-home mom as a hard or easy job. All I know is that it's the best job for me right now.

There's no place like home, there's no place like home

As many of you may (or may not I guess) know a huge storm ripped its way across the Midwest last night. Here in St. Louis the TV had a ticker showing the tornado warnings across the bottom of both the National Championship game and American Gladiator. (Thanks to my husband that was the programming we were watching last night.) Tornado warnings always catch my attention because until we moved here I had never even seen a warning on the TV. Growing up in the west you just don't get the conditions for tornadoes. I guess there had been a few in Washington where I grow up, but they had never actually touched down in my recollection. There was also that weird tornado in Salt Lake while I was going to college, but it seemed more like a weird fluke. Here we see them often in spring and fall, but not often in January. I noticed about half way through Gladiator that there was a tornado watch for St. Louis county and St. Louis city! Since moving here there have been many tornado warnings in the viewing area of our TV station, but not ever for us. In fact, since moving to St. Louis I have noticed a funny trend for the most severe weather. It pretty much breaks to the north or south before hitting the city limits. I like to call this the St. Louis effect (or is it affect? I can never get those two right). Needless to say I brushed every thought of tornadoes to the side.

Another thing to make the weather not such a big deal was that our county just had a tornado watch. In my mind that's a step down from warning. I did however call my mom to let her know, because nothing says I love you like your mom halfway across the US worrying about you. Then, when I didn't get a great reaction from her I called my sister to let her know, but I didn't really play it up since I didn't want her worrying.

As we finished watching Gladiators and the game seemed to be loosing momentum I started to watch the warnings more clearly. This was my first big mistake. Actual tornadoes were being spotted in the county just next to ours. Never mind that counties are pretty big and I shouldn't worry about the one next to ours, red flags started to appear in my brain. Dan wanted to watch a movie since he wasn't tired and there wasn't anything we wanted to watch on TV. I told him then I wouldn't be able to see the weather report. So I decided we could watch the movie and I would put the weather report on the computer. Mistake number two. As Ocean's Thirteen progressed I checked back in with the weather every 15 minutes. Swirling winds (which in my mind meant tornado) would show up looking like they were pointing right at us. Then the St. Louis effect would start to come in to play and they would either lose energy or go to the north of us. All this paranoid tracking got me convinced that our house would be hit by a tornado sometime before 5 AM when the tornado watch was over. Not only that, but we would be sleeping in our beds, on the top floor, in rooms that were exterior to the house and thus we would all be killed.

I was very nervous when I went to bed. In fact I told Dan that we should sleep with Charlotte in our bed so that she would be safer. Also that we should sleep with the radio on so that if anything was coming we would know. Turns out that Charlotte doesn't sleep if she's in the bed with us. She plays with our mouths. After a good 20 minutes of mouth playing she went back into her own bed. Plus, I decided that Dan was right and we didn't need to sleep with the radio on. At 1:49AM I awoke to the flash of lightening and crash of thunder very, very close. Then I heard strong winds and driving rain. So in my panicked state I went to the front room and turned on the TV. Turns out that the St. Louis effect is very strong and all the station showed was thunder storms for the whole viewing area. I went back to bed and slept very soundly. I didn't even notice when Dan tried to get up at 6 AM. He said that there was still lightening, thunder and rain at that time so he went back to bed until 7 AM when it had passed. What a storm! Too bad we slept through the whole thing.

Back to Comfy

We got back from WA last night. Our amazing friends not only picked us up from the airport, but they also cooked dinner for us. It was awesome. The only thing marring the evening is Charlotte burned her little finger on the oven. YIKES! She's OK though.

Updates on Charlotte was that she's now decided that she can take several steps in a row without any help! She can officially walk on her own at 9 months old. She's really slow at it though so I'm still not having to race after her.

Today it's a good 60 degrees in St. Louis. I can't believe how warm it is on the first Sunday in January! We took a walk around a neighborhood in our area with beautiful houses and it got me thinking how much I enjoy just getting out. I know it'll get cold again before spring really happens, but I do plan on taking as much advantage of this warmth before it's done. I have got to get myself moving again. It seems that since mid November I haven't really been doing a whole lot of physical activity and I'm so ready to get back into it. Here's the thing though, I get bored of doing the same things. Plus, I have to find activities that I can do with Charlotte. Also, I have to do them for free since I don't really want to spend money on it. That makes my options go down dramatically. I'm for sure going out running as long as this weather keeps up though. It's supposed to be in the 70's tomorrow!

Our two week break was awesome. We tried to fit in everything and everyone we possibly could, which made for three really tired people when we got home yesterday. I finally feel normal again at 2 today. We went sledding while we were in Washington and it was alternately fun and terrifying. Dan's sister's in-laws live a ways into the country in an area with rolling hills so we had the best runs that weren't covered with people. It was awesome. It wasn't awesome when Dan and I went down the hill on a tube going backwards and then hit the jump at the bottom and landed on our heads. I've decided that I've got to get a whole lot braver when my daughter is old enough to notice because I don't want her to be scared of everything.

Hope everyone is having a great New Year!