Is there anyone out there?

I missed National De-lurking week, which was last week, but I've been finding myself wondering who reads my blog. Sometimes I feel like I'm just writing to myself. So ... if you read and want to continue to hear my musings, please leave a comment and let me know that there are readers out there! :)

And now for a quick update on the family and the crazy fun that is my life.

Alyssa started swimming lessons last week. She loves it. And I love seeing her all alien-like in her little swimming goggles! Dance class started up again last week and she was SO excited to get back to that. The weekend after Christmas she was a flower girl in her "Uncle Noodle"'s wedding. She did SUCH a fantastic job and Adam and I were both REALLY proud of her.

Joel is celebrating the anniversary of his birthday in 17 days. But he will not be turning 1. Because that's too old for my baby to be. I *think* he is saying "mama" "dada" "hi/hey" and "yes/yeah". He also grunts in a barking fashion whenever he sees the dogs. He would make Tim the Toolman very proud. He's started standing (very briefly) on his own without holding on to anything, so I suppose walking isn't too far away.

Adam and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary December 28th by traveling to the great state of Illinois for David and Kristi's wedding with my parents. 5 adults, 2 kids, 2 carseats and luggage in a 7 passenger van. I'm happy to announce we all made it out alive.

And I'm excited to announce a new member to our family. Our Wii! The entire family (and several friends) are all having a blast with it.

And I'm crazy to announce that I have taken on 2 more daycare families. I've added a 16 month old, an 18 month old, and a 5 year old to my mix. The plus side is that they are all boys, so finally Joel is getting a little testosterone in the house during the day instead of being the only boy with four girls. Its working out really well so far. Both new families were willing to work around my Monday, Wednesday, Thursday schedule, so I still have Tuesdays and Fridays off to do whatever Alyssa wants me to do. ;)

Sweet Alyssa moment

Today while we were at Adam's parents for Christmas, Alyssa came up to me and kept asking where "shell" was. She has a really bad cold, so for the past couple days her voice has been so hoarse that bits and pieces of her words won't come out, which makes it hard to understand what she's saying sometimes. I kept asking her to repeat herself and was racking my brain trying to figure out what present "shell" was or what "shell" was short for. Then I realized that she was talking about her future Aunt Rachelle (as of 3 days ago another daughter-in-law is officially in her way to the family ~ hooray!) who was spending the holiday with her parents. My brother-in-law (her finance) realized about the same time as I did that she was asking for Rachelle and we both looked at each other and got a little teary ... thought it was pretty darn sweet.

Lost Loves

Adam bought me an iPod a couple years ago (I was a green eyed monster after seeing Eric and Angie's new iPods and I wouldn't shut up about wanting one, so he finally took pity on me). It bit the dust a few months ago. I put a new one on my Christmas list; not expecting in any way to get it, but SURPRISE my inlaws bought me one for Christmas! Its beautiful and blue and cute and adorable and cool. I plugged it in tonight and realized that I had forgotten how much I loved my iPod. And I finally was able to download some songs that I had purchases through iTunes ~ I had also forgotten how much I love Bon Jovi. ;)

Wednesday

This blog entry will be made up of several of my thoughts since yesterday's horrific shooting at the mall, but I couldn't come up with a title, so it will simply be titled "Wednesday". Wednesdays used to mean dollar margaritas at Julio's with "the crew" ... but yesterday certainly wasn't anything like those Wednesdays.

I'm touched and surprised at how many people contacted us yesterday to make sure that everyone in our family was okay. It seemed so surreal that people from North Carolina, Indiana, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania knew about everything that was going on. I was surprised that Adam's younger brother called to make sure we were all safe and was relieved when I told him that I had talked to his mom after the shooting took place. People have compared it to the shooting at Columbine several years ago. Even though that was a horrible tragedy on some level it seemed like a movie or a story that someone told me. Even yesterday's incident and watching our local news teams cover the story, it still didn't/doesn't seem real. I can't wrap my head around the fact that it happened at the mall where I take my kids for playdates with my good friend, Staci. Where I had so many of Alyssa's baby pictures taken. In the very store that I bought my maid of honor dress for my best friend from college's wedding. In the mall where Adam and I shopped for wedding rings.

I was reading some of the bystanders "stories" today and my heart was tugged when I read about a mom who was shopping with her pregnant daughter in Von Maur. One was on the 2nd floor and one was on the 3rd when the shooting happened, so they were text messaging each other that they were okay. I started thinking about parents who leave their older child in one department to look around while they go to another. How horrific to have something like this happen and know that one of the people you love most in the world is so close, yet untouchable and possible in grave danger. I was talking to my mom about that this morning and she reminded me of when we went shopping a few weeks ago when she and her friend Mary took the kids to a couple store while I went to another store to try on clothes. I tried imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like people were in yesterday knowing that friends and loved ones were there and not being able to hold them and protect them and know that they were okay.

And I don't understand how someone can be so angry at the world that they want to hurt innocent people before they end their own life. The guy's suicide note said that "now he would be famous" and he wanted to go "out with a bang". What's the point? What does it matter if everyone knows your name when you're gone? Is it better to be remembered as a horrible person than to only be remembered by a handful of people that cared?

More

For those of you who don't know, this:



is what the sign "more" looks like according to ASL (American Sign Language)

Here's my kids' take on it ~

Alyssa first signed "more" by holding one hand out so the palm was flat and using the pointer finger of her other hand to point to the middle of her palm repeatedly in a "put it right here" kind of way. She first did this when we were in Target as my mom was pushing her past the toys. That's my girl.

Joel looks at me like I've gone completely crazy or I'm the funniest person on the earth when I'll ask him if he wants more and show him the sign for it. But I have noticed lately that when I say "more" he'll start pounding on the tray of his high chair in a "Damn it, Mom, quit goofing around and give me my cheese puffs!" kind of way.

What's with the ears?!

We finally, finally, finally seem to have gotten poor Joel's ears cleared up. He was scheduled to have his tubes put in this past Tuesday, but after a follow up visit last week to the ENT his ears were proclaimed clear and Dr. D told me that we could postpone tubes and just keep an eye on him to see how he does. So far, so good (knock on wood!). We got back to the ENT in a few weeks to have his hearing checked and make sure that his ears are still clear.

But now, my poor baby girl is the one with the ouchy ears. She spent the night Monday night and Grandma and Pappa's house and Tuesday morning my mom called with a report of a very restless/sleepless night where Alyssa was complaining of her ear hurting. Last night when I got her home she was running a temp of 102 and still saying that her ears hurt. So I decided I was taking her in today just get her checked out because she's been "off" lately. I was fully expecting to hear that she had an ear infection, but my heart sank when Dr. K told me that both her eardrums were ruptured. He assured me that it wasn't a big deal, but that world RUPTURED sounds so awful! We came home armed with good old amoxicillian and some ear drops, so hopefully she's feeling better really soon as it just breaks my heart seeing her all weepy and miserable and sick. All she wants is love and cuddles and that's hard to do with two kids. Makes me wish that I could hit the pause button on Joel so that I could devote all my attention on her.

The Tree of Pooh (as in Winnie)

I started collecting Winnie the Pooh things when I was around a sophomore in high school. Since then I've acquired quite the collection of Pooh Christmas ornaments. For the past few years I've thought that I should really do just a small "Pooh tree" since we have so many ornaments on our regular tree. (Or I should say ADAM has so many ornaments on our regular tree). This year I bit the bullet and did a Pooh tree. I put it up in the front window in the play room, so we can kind of pretend that its the daycare tree.

My two favorite ornaments ~ I think this first one is a fave because it reminds me of the mural that I painted in Alyssa's nursery.

And this one I received the year Alyssa was born ... kind of another baby-ish one since its a mobile of Tigger, Pooh, and Piglet hanging on stars under a moon.

Along for the ride

Its that peaceful time where Joel is able to play and interact with Alyssa ... and she hasn't figured out what a pain in the rump a little brother can be. I LOVE it!!! :)

Family Picture

Our friend/neighbor Amy took family pictures for us this afternoon at the lake by our house. We took almost 100 shots ... I think about 3 turned out fairly decent. :P

ts tough getting 4 people to all smile/look at the same time. Especially when one of those people is Alyssa. But I think this one turned out pretty well ~ its my fave!

The "T" word

Yesterday marked the 4th time in 6 weeks that I took Joel to Dr. K's office to have his ears checked and each time we were sent home with a new medication to try. Yesterday we also left with a referral to an ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) to set up a time to have tubes put in his ears. I had a feeling that news was coming, but I still didn't like getting it. I know that its a really common and simple procedure, but I still hate to think about it. But if it'll make Joel feel better that's all that really matters.

The really amazing thing that happened at our appointment yesterday was that there's always been this big ball of wax in one of his ears that prevented doctors from getting a good look in his ear. But we saw 3 different people and each one said that they didn't want to dig around too much in his ear and since they knew the other ear was infected they didn't really need to see that ear. Well, yesterday Dr. K got the "ball" of wax out. This sucker was a little thicker than the ink insert of a ballpoint pen and almost an inch long. I don't know how on earth something like that could have been stuck in my little guy's little ear! The really cute thing was that after that Joel kept touching his ear like he couldn't believe he could hear out of it. :)

Life under a rock

It was about 9:15 last night while I was talking to Paula on the phone that I found out last night was "fall back" night. I had thought about daylight savings time changing a few times over the past couple weeks and I think I *thought* that it was this weekend, but I totally would have spaced it off had I not been talking to Paula. I must live under a rock because that seems like a pretty big deal to miss.

My moment of mommy-zen

This happened last Tuesday, but I figured it was good enough to share late ...

Over the past 3 years I've felt like I was probably 85% Mommy/Wife and 15% Christi, but after walking into Costco with a screaming child, infant strapped to my chest in a baby Bjorn and a Barney sticker stuck to my ass, I think I achieved 100% mommy.

Thank goodness for good friends who are on sticker patrol ... Staci, I don't know what I would do without you.

Its about time!

For once I'm not the one with the big double chin in a picture!!!! HA!

Out of the mouths of my 3 year old ...

Alyssa was refusing to take a nap this afternoon, so I told her that I would put a movie in while I cleaned up the kitchen and she could have "quiet time". When I asked her what she wanted to watch she replied with "Beauty and the Beast", but her toddler-tongue I could have sworn that she was asking to watch "Boobies". "Boo an Bees" Between watching "Boobies" movie and the girls singing stripper music and Alyssa running around singing "I'm nakey! I'm nakey" while completely naked I'm starting to feel like I'm running a whorehouse instead of a daycare.

End of an era

After Alyssa's 3 year check up this morning she and I went to Build-A-Bear to make a "Binky Bear". I've been struggling with "binky removal" options for several weeks/months ... years, I guess, honestly, but yesterday when I was in Build-A-Bear the saleswoman was telling me about people that would bring their child's binky in and put it inside the bear and then sew it up so that technically they still had it. I thought it was a really sweet idea and fell in love with it immediately, so I bought Alyssa a Bear "charge it" card (gift card),which came with a little box that we named her binky box. I told her that since she was going to be 3 years old on Friday she was a really big girl now and that meant that she would get to have a binky bear, so she put all her binkies (okay 4 binkies ... I wasn't going to have them stuff it with 7+) in her binky box and after a visit to Dr. K's office we were off.

And of course her scrapbooking mama documented the trip. :)

Ready to get building

Stuffing with binkies

Kissing her binkies goodbye (insert mommy's tears here)


Ready to go home

Alyssa's official binky bear (complete with her own binky accessory)

I never dreamed that I would cry when she gave up her binkies, but its just one more sign that my little girl is growing up.

Times they are a changin'

Last night our next door neighbor's kids came over selling various items for a school fundraiser. As I was looking through the catalog they were talking about the "prizes" they could earn from what they sold. Top prize for selling 200 items was a Nintendo Wii. T & J were aiming for 50 items so that they could earn ... are you ready for this ... free text messages to share with their friends. Back in my day I think we tried to earn bookmarks. Or MAYBE a t-shirt if we were REALLY the little salesperson. lol

Too many toys ...

Do you think its a sign that you have too many toys when you're looking through the Fisher Price catalog with an almost 3 year old and on each page in the first half of the book she says "I have that toy" or "There's Joel's toy!"? I think I might be on to something here ...

Look Ma! It still fits!

When I was pregnant with Alyssa I tried really, really hard to avoid buying anything "girly" or "boy-y" things since we weren't finding out the sex of the baby. But on one shopping trip with my mom I broke down and bought this really sweet little dress with duckies on it. When I came home and showed it to Adam he declared that he wanted the baby to be a girl (not that he didn't feel that way before. lol). And he got his wish, but who would have known that that dress 0 -3 month dress would last for almost 3 years ...

First Thanksgiving ~ approximately 6 weeks old


9-16-07 ~ some odd days short of 3 years


She's such a goon!

Good to know

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Greasy Magician. Where You Lived: Egypt. How You Died: The Plague.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Milestone week!

We've had a couple big milestones in our family this past week. On Thursday Alyssa had her first dance class. She's taking combo tap and ballet once a week. All day Friday she kept asking to go back, so I think its a hit. She thinks she's pretty hot stuff with her new tap and ballet shoes. (excuse the quality of the picture; it was through the "viewing glass" during class)


Our little Joely bear has mobility of the crawling kind! Or at least scooting, I guess. I *thought* that maybe he was getting there on Friday, but we had the official "thumbs up" from Dee yesterday afternoon, so that sealed the deal. No crawling pics, yet, but this one is awfully cute. :)