Home Sweet Home

Well, it has been over two weeks since we have been home. First we packed up and went to Nana's house for her big surgery. Her total knee replacement was a success. She is doing so well that she was able to come home today. Unfortunately, Katelyn was sick the ENTIRE time we were gone. She had the cold mentioned in the last post complete with congestion/runny nose, cough, decreased appetite and loose stools. Then just when she seemed to be on the mend, she spiked a fever to 104 and I had to take her to the doctor. Turns out she had an ear infection. And boy was she ever cranky... it was colic revisited. All she wanted to do was be held and cuddle on the couch watching "stories" on the "cc" (tv). So we watched a ton of Barney, Bear in the Big Blue House, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Vegie Tales as well as quite a few Disney movies. And to top it off she fell in the shower and got a huge bruise on her forehead and a little one on her cheek. All the while I was trying to get my mom's house cleaned up and in order for her to come back home... and I had the dog to take care of. She followed me around everywhere I went... I about tripped over her 17 times. And to top things off, Edmond ended up getting Rota Virus... so instead of babysitting for me, he was stuck in bed all weekend. I only got to see my mom for about 30 minutes at a time instead of a few hours a day as I had planned. All in all, it was not the trip I had planned on. Of course I suppose they never are exactly. Such is life.

But on the positive side, my mom is doing great and is back at home with plenty of close friends and my brother/sister in law and nieces to take care of her. Katelyn is started to feel much better, although still clingy and not quite back to herself. And yesterday I finally got some good news about my license, so I should be able to start working by the end of the month. Just in time, since I am about to be broke. Now if only this house would sell.

I am happy to be home. Although it was wonderful to experience some of the autumn I miss so much. I plan on taking Katelyn up to Williamsburg to see my sister -- we are going to take her to the pumpkin patch. We might even make it to Hallo-scream at Busch Gardens (where my brother in law works).

I will leave you with a pic of my little bug's first pigtails (they lasted about 2 hours before her hair fell back into a million curls, but it was sweet while it lasted).

My poor baby

Well, it has been a busy week. I have been enjoying spending time with Katelyn. Unfortunately she started getting a runny nose on Monday when she woke up from her nap. Then on Tuesday she developed a cough. She has been running a low grade fever (101) off and on. She has also been a little fussy. Poor baby. When your child is sick all you want to do is make it better. Thankfully she has not been sick very often. I like to think it was from the breastfeeding -- 18 months worth. She weaned herself a few days after getting back from her first long visit with her daddy.

Today has been a whirlwind with a doctor's appointment, out to lunch, long drive because the baby fell asleep on the way home, drop off a prescription at the pharmacy, finish packing for our 2 week trip to Nana's house only to get a phone call that they wanted to show the house at 7pm (it was 5:52 pm... giving me a little over an hour to get ready), so it was a quick cleaning and then we were off again. We came home and I got the baby ready for bed. The people then came to see the house around 8pm... didn't realize they hadn't come. Oh well. I keep praying that this house will sell soon.

Anyways, sorry for the babble. I will leave you with a funny pic of Katelyn being "cool." She is such a ham.

The Weekend

I had the B-E-S-T day with Katelyn on Friday. We got up around 7:45 and started our day with breakfast (including coffee, which Katelyn now insists on sharing with mama). Then, we watched Barney and got ready to go check out some daycare centers. I just loved the first one we went to. It was a Kindercare, and while the building wasn't as impressive as the Tutor Time we visited, I fell in love with the people. It was just so evident that the teachers loved the kids. And that was what I was looking for to feel like it is okay to leave her at daycare because she is being truly cared for. And she loved it... she got right down and started playing with the kids and the toys. She didn't seem to care that she was the only girl in a room full of little boys. And I am not worried, as I know one shrill scream and they will back off :) The second daycare was one of those impressive on paper, but definitely had more of a school feeling -- and at the age of 1 1/2 I really don't feel like my child needs a curriculum. I will put her in preschool when she is 3, but not before. After checking out the daycare centers, we headed to the Loop for pizza and "minade" (lemonade) for Katelyn, a coke for me.

We were headed home when I looked in the rear view mirror to find my baby sound asleep. Well, she does NOT transfer well, so I decided we had better keep driving in order to have a nap. And where better to drive than the beach. She slept for a little over an hour. Then we did a little shopping at Target, since I was wearing jeans and it was 86 degrees outside. Next we headed for "One Hot Cookie" -- it is the coolest place where you pick out your dough (brownie, sugar or chocolate chip) and as many toppings as you want and they bake it and give it to you right out of the oven. And you can have it plane or topped with ice cream (which apparently you can also have toppings mixed in). I choose to enjoy the cookie by itself, and my personal favorite is brownie dough with m&m's and thin mints... it is to die for. Katelyn was in heaven as she is my little cookie monster -- she even has a tee shirt that says "I did it all for the cookie."

Finally, we headed for the beach with our towels, bucket, shovels and the diaper bag. At first she did not like walking on the sand. But once I got her to the more flat sand, she was fine. She saw a seagull and started running after it saying "buh." Next I took her to put her feet in the ocean. She enjoyed feeling the wet sand between her toes, and when the water came up over her feet she got really excited. But, I guess I should have thought ahead because the next thing you know she had plopped herself right down on her tushy... in her clothes. Oops. So, I figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em... and I plopped right down in back of her. Then we waded further in, and she tried to just keep walking in over her head. Every time the waves crashed into her, she thought it was hilarious. I admit that I was a little nervous, so I held onto her with both hands the entire time we were in the water. Next we went back to our towel, I stripped her down to her diaper and let her play in the sand with her bucket and shovels. She had fun filling it up and dumping it out. I had to keep moving our stuff because the tide was coming in. At about the fourth move, I decided it was time to head out. And, since we were at the beach, we went to visit Dr. O'Reilly. Of course Katelyn was wearing only a diaper, since her clothes were wet and sandy. But she didn't seem to care. She made herself at home in the waiting room, playing with all of the toys. We waited for Dr. O and she invited us back to her house for dinner.

On the way to Dr. O'Reilly's house Katelyn said "Josh" ("shosh") and "Tori" for the first time. She was excited to see them and the kitties. She loves going to their house to play. She makes herself right at home since she knows where all the good things are. We put Katelyn in one of Josh's Spiderman t-shirts. She looked so cute. It had stripes on the sleeves and with her hair still up in a pom-pom, she looked like a little cheerleader wearing a jersey. On the way home she conked out, and she barely woke up as I changed her diaper and put her into bed. It really was the perfect day. I only wish I had gotten some good pictures from the day.

Here is an example of the "pompom" hairdo

Saturday was not too exciting. We ran a few errands and did stop at the mall to play at the indoor playground. It was raining outside and Katelyn kept saying "rain... uh oh... oh dear" -- it was so sweet. We had lunch at the mall and went home for a nap. When she woke up we watched her Barney zoo movie. Then I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner; meatballs are the one thing containing meat that Katelyn will always eat. And today was another day of "adventures in babysitting." Katelyn was a little better, but still acts like a little bit of a brute. Hopefully she will learn to share at daycare. The day was fairly easy, though, because Luca slept for 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, since he still wasn't feeling the greatest, and Katelyn slept for 2 hours; 30 minutes were overlapping, so I got a little time to myself even.

I am feeling old

OK, so I know I am not really old, but I sure am tired. I can't believe that I used to babysit all the time for anywhere from 1 to 6 children and be no worse for the wear. In fact, I spend 4 days a week babysitting for a family with twins and another baby 14 months older as well as 5 year old for an entire summer -- actually watched them for 2 summers beginning when the twins were newborns. And, while not always easy, most days I felt energized.

Well, today I babysat for a friend's baby who is 10 months old. And my 19 month old little girl was not really happy to share her mommy (or her toys). It was funny really to watch the two of them fight over her baby strollers. In his defense, Luca, or "bebe la la" as Katelyn calls him, really just wanted something to push so he could walk, and I later caught him head butting one of her dolls. Katelyn did give him quite a few hugs and loving pats as well, and she kept pulling out is binky and giving him a sip of water from his cup and then sticking the binky back in his mouth (it was hilarious and sweet). But I digress.

I realized today how difficult it must be to be a stay at home mom with two kids less than a year apart. The little one still takes 2 naps and mine is down to one nap. His, around 9:30 ish for about an hour and mine around noonish for 1.5-2 hours, then his again around 3ish for 1.5 hours. So, one of them is sleeping most of the day, but not together, so no rest for the weary. You can't even leave the house b/c someone needs to nap. And, I only have one high chair, so I had to feed them in shifts. Since Katelyn thinks she needs to eat whenever she sees food she whined through each of his meals. In my free time, I picked up the toys that had exploded all over the family room.

After Luca's mommy picked him up, Katelyn had one temper tantrum after another for the next hour or so. I finally got her to the park (a feat that took about 15-20 minutes since she insisted on bringing her stroller and most of her babies) to allow her to run off some energy. After 20 minutes or so at the park her little cheeks were red and her hair was saturated; I got her to cooperate and get in the stroller for the ride home. And then I was a lazy mommy... I took her to McDonald's (I know, it is horrible, and I swore my child would NEVER have fast food) for a cheeseburger, apples and milk (had to be a little healthy). We came home, had a bath with MiMi (one of her favorite bath books from Baby Einstein) and her new Corolle Tidoo baby doll. She was so sweet with her baby... she didn't want to leave her in the tub to dry, so I had to find a towel for her (I used a hand towel). She held that baby and kept kissing her. She made sure that the baby could hear the bedtime stories as well. And then I convinced her that her other baby needed to be the one to go to bed with her (so I could hang Tidoo up to dry :) I snuggled in the rocker listening to lullabies and then put Katelyn in her bed. She gave me a sweet smile as I told her goodnight. I just love our bedtime routine!

I watched one of my shows on the DVR that I missed earlier in the week and now I am watching a Grey's Anatomy rerun as I type this. And I am exhausted... so I think I will go to bed super early. See, I am getting old. And tomorrow I get to explore some daycare centers.

My simple pleasures...

So, my goal was to post daily... guess I sorta failed at that. In my defense, I did write one post after the last one, but I decided that it was too negative. My life goal has been to be more optimistic and focus on the positives, so I saved the draft and then didn't post. It was therapeutic, though.

Any who. I needed a post related to my title. Since I am now single again I have begun dating (though not frequently). While getting to know one of the "eligible bachelors" (I swear dating is like a job interview at this age), we emailed some questions back and forth. One question that really got me thinking was "what are your simple pleasures (kids don't count because they are not simple)?" It took only a moment for me to start listing... but I soon realized that it was all of these simple pleasures that make life worth living. Waking up next to someone you love, a good cup of coffee, a sunrise, the sand between my toes at the beach, walking on the beach holding hands, hearing the waves crash into shore, a first kiss, followed by a second/third/fourth (you get the idea), a good hug, getting whistled at (OK, so it should be insulting, but admit that it makes you feel just a little good), still getting carded for alcohol, chocolate, fresh baked cookies, having someone say "I love you," feeling appreciated, clean laundry smell, making love, laying in bed listening to a rainstorm, cuddling, snuggling up under a blanket with a good book, looking at the stars, laying in a hammock, a good lipstick, sexy lingerie under your work clothes, pasta, a good laugh, talking to my best friend(s) on the phone, going to dinner with a friend, late night talks with my mom, laying in bed with my daughter reading her stories, the way kids mispronounce words, watching kids play, swinging, lounging by the pool, a walk in the woods, feeding the ducks, getting real mail, listening to music, the smell of popcorn, the way you feel after a good work out, freshly shaven legs, getting your hair washed at the salon, a massage, singing out loud, a bubble bath (especially by candle light with music in the background), wrapping up in a towel just out of the dryer in the winter, a clean house... and so many more.

What are your simple pleasures? Think about it, I would love to hear from people.

My two favorite girls -- my daughter and my mom (aka Nana)