Updates and Observations

My eyes have glazed over after a day of working on a contract and trying to figure out a new computer application (MS Visual Studio, it worked yesterday, its not working today!!). So I'm going with bullets...because I can.

• Miss K. is officially with Papa and Gram Coberly for a few days. She was excited but also a little wary of the concept that Mommy and Daddy weren't coming with her but would be along in a few days. We did a very low key goodbye this morning, although she did request a kiss from both of us and waved goodbye as we walked out the door. She may have been thinking we'd be back after work. I'm trust right now that they all had a successful drive up to VA and one little girl is being spoiled rotten.
• The TV is now located in the living room and the TV room couch is in the process awaiting disassembly for it's trip to the dump. After our failed attempts to donate the loveseat to charity this year, we're not bothering even trying with the couch. We literally couldn't give it away when we tried. Now on to other furniture moving and rearranging.
• The air had a wonderful crispness to it this morning and even this afternoon during my lunchtime walk. Fall has definitely arrived!
• I noticed last night that my belly button is becoming shallower, on its way to dissappear completely. Already! All this didn't happen until much later the first time around. I need to try on my bridesmaid dress for the big wedding in two weeks, although there's no worries there. The dress had PLENTY of room in the stomach area! I swear I've felt a few flutters although according to the doctor its still a bit early. Chalk it up to gas instead.
• I'm officially wearing my first maternity shirt today. Most of them are still much to big for me. I'm in limbo, my regular shirts are getting tighter but I'm not quite ready for full fledged maternity wear.

That's the news that's fit to print!

Zoo bound...

Its a big day around here! Papa and Gram Coberly are arriving this afternoon. Katherine is heading up to their house tomorrow morning for a few days of R&R and, weather permitting, a trip to the DC Zoo! She is naturally pretty excited about this even if she doesn't understand what a zoo is at this point. When asked about what animals she is going to see at the zoo, she has replied "spiders and butterflies." Ted and I will arrive in Virginia on Friday night and the three of us will head over to VMI first thing Saturday morning to attend Ted's 10 year reunion for the day.

While Miss K is enjoying undivided attention from Papa and Gram, Ted and I get to enjoy a few "kid free" days. Not much is planned other than dinner out at least one night but it will be nice to be "Noggin" free for a bit. Which, speaking of Noggin, did anyone else among the preschool set notice that it is no longer called Noggin but is now "Nick Jr.?"

This past weekend was spent hanging around the house. The pool has been drained, which was actually the big activity the previous weekend for which Miss K got absolutely soaked in the process...and enjoyed every minute of it. No pictures since I was getting soaked right along with her and Ted was out grocery shopping. Ted spent last weekend brushing it off and cleaning it with some bleach and water so that it can be packed away for next summer. Miss K and I made cookies on Saturday. She enjoyed making them but true to form, she had no interest in eating them. This kid just does not like sweets. At pickup one day last week, the teacher in her room was concerned because..."We served ice cream for snack and Katherine didn't eat any of it!" We had to explain that we were not one of these sugar phobic parental types but that she doesn't seem to go for sweet things (especially chocolate...STILL does not like chocolate..."banilla please!") and would actually prefer some fruit or something else INSTEAD of the sweets. Clearly this was not inherited from two parents who love nothing better than making a Sonic run for hot fudge sundaes.

Future cropper...

Scrapbooking with Mommy on a rainy Sunday morning.


-- Post From My iPhone

Welcome to the Weekend!

Good gracious am I glad it's Friday night. That doesn't even begin to describe the elation. The end of this week has been exhausting. Work Thursday was taxing, how stupid was I took look at my empty calendar and think that I had all day in front of me to get some serious data analysis done. Instead, something I thought would take up 30 minutes, maybe an hour of my time took most of the day. And it's STILL not settled.

Today was my day off...meaning I was off from work but still busy as anything. Weeks ago, I booked K's three year checkup for this morning. Then two weeks ago at my doctor asked if I could do an appointment this Friday afternoon. I never even considered the logistics of booking two doctor's appointments in one day. THEN on top of that I decided to book an appointment with Apple concerning my iPhone today as well, since I my doctor is not too far away. Do you see where this is going?

K. was not one bit amused at the doctor's office. Not that I blame her considering her track record at that place. There was no hearing test, no urine sample, the basics were the best they could hope for considering she was clinging to me for dear life and saying "I want to go home!". They told me this is usual at this checkup and they consider those first two things icing on the cake if they can get them. We were able to get a height and weight on her (39 inches and 32 lbs, 95% and 75% percentiles, respectively). Then came the flu shot. We'll just say it wasn't pretty and leave it at that. She wanted to go straight home after all of this. Unfortunately part of this carefully planned day involved her going to school, I couldn't take her to this particular doctor's appointment. Drop off was rough, she was understandibly cranky. I sat with her for a bit but at some point I just had to hand her off and high tail it out of there. They told me she calmed down and was fine after I left, of course my nerves were frayed.

Off I went down the highway to the Apple store. Morning was rough but hey, it looked like I'd have some time for some window shopping after my iPhone appointment. In case you're all wondering the headphone jack in the phone is faulty and occasionally it's switching into headphone mode even though they're not plugged in. I have to reset the thing to get sound back. Apple tried to fix it once and it's still happening. They said if it starts happening again, they would replace the phone for me...if I could make it to the appointment on time. Who knew they were paving on I-64 and traffic was backed up for a good 3 miles? Not me! Argh!!!! I phoned the store from the road to say I was going to be late...through no fault of my own. They said to still come in and they would see what they could do. 30 minutes late but I arrive...to find out "what they can do" is put on me "standby" since there's no other appointments that day. Meaning I wait there until somebody else doesn't show up for their appointment or they start running ahead of schedule (ha!). I waited for 30 minutes before I decided that I was getting NOWHERE. Seriously Apple, I love my iPhone but you're customer service is a little to be desired. The folks at the store are super nice but they are swamped, they can't seem to handle it when things veer off of routine. Walk-ins? Forget it. I told them I would make another appointment online and left.

Shopping? Yeah, uh, no I was too busy sulking. My doctor has nice comfy chairs in their waiting room and I had a good book with me, thank you very much. Let me curl up in the corner and decompress.

Then, ahhhh, the fates turned in my favor. Maybe they new I had about had enough. The parking deck at the doctor's office was WIDE open. I walked in 40 minutes early and they were AHEAD of schedule. They took me right away. The appointment was smooth (everything is great), I was out of there by 3 o'clock, 15 minutes after my originally scheduled appointment time. I was early picking up Miss K (and I had feared that I would be racing down the road...can you blame me?). It was a small thing but oh, after these past two days...it went a long way to improve the mood of this preggo.

No plans of this weekend, just getting caught up around the house. I'm due another post too to get caught up on some odds and ends I've been thinking about. Until then, I'm putting my feet up for a bit.

I Need!

I've noticed some ever so slight changes in Katherine since her third birthday. This is nothing new, usually it's the difference in height and or weight that I'll notice from time to time when she asks to "carry" and I pick her up and grunt. But in the last couple of weeks her way of expressing her wants or rather wants that we have objections to has changed. It goes something like this:

K: I watch Noggin? (insert go outside, play on swingset, eat chicken nuggets all day long...)
Us: Not right now sweetie, Daddy is taking a turn. When he's done you can have turn.
K: I neeeeeeeeddddddd to watch Noggin! (this is usually accompanied with a good bit of whining and a desperate collapse to the floor..."oh the insanity, the injustice...you are just killing me here people!")

Clearly K. has caught on that there's this word called need. And if you need something, well, its pretty darn important and those you're making the request to better get a move on. What she hasn't caught on to is the difference between a "want" and a "need". And there are few things in life that you need so bad that it requires a desperate collapse to the floor.

K. is quickly learning that her tactic, while creative, don't get her the desired outcome any faster or many times at all. She may get a hug (yeah, we know, life sucks kid...get used to it. Did I just type that?) but other than that it is what it is. We step around her for a bit and move on.

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

If you were on here earlier this morning, you may have noticed a twitter feed that was definitely NOT mine. Don't know how that happened but I've taken it down and I'll try to get this fixed up along with a new post during lunch time. Sit tight!

My Expanding Waistline

The Bella Band (or generic version sold at Target) has been officially broken out. There was no way I was getting jeans buttoned this morning. Maternity pants still won’t fit so out it came! This item has been recommended to me by Bridget who swore by it for her first pregnancy. I actually never heard of it the first time around but anything that will allow me to extend the wear of my regular pants and thereby save some $$$ is worth trying in my book!

Smart me is having my second baby at the complete opposite time of the year as when I had Miss K. This means the vast majority of my maternity clothes from the first pregnancy are no good, unless I feel like wearing sundresses and tanks in the middle of January…not so much. And I am more knowledgeable of the fact that I will only be wearing these clothes for the next 7 months so I’d rather invest my clothing dollar on my wardrobe post baby (please remind of this in Jan and Feb when I absolutely cannot STAND the though of having to wear these clothes for yet another day and want to run out and buy some new duds). So to fill in my maternity wardrobe with more cold weather friendly items, I’ve been hitting the consignment shops and thrift stores with some success. It requires a lot of perseverance and digging but considering I’ve gotten a couple of shirts brand new with the tags still on at an absolute steal, it’s been worth it. The used items I’ve gotten have been in excellent condition as well. You figure that as with children’s clothes, maternity wear is only worn for a very limited about of time and then discarded. Now, I’m VERY fortunate that I work in a place that is very business casual most of the time so I can keep my professional attire down to the occasional departmental meeting or conference. I really feel for those of you who work in laws offices or similar type businesses where professional attire is required all the time.

Out of the blue this morning Katherine told me that there’s a baby growing in my tummy, that it was really small right now but it would get bigger and bigger. She held up her thumb and index finger pinched together to emphasize her point. Today is Green Day at school, to honor the Color of the Week. Off she went, very happy in her green shirt.

Katherine's new school

In the wake of the new baby coming we decided to move Katherine to a new daycare. Really and truly we were never satisfied with Growing Child. It was the best that was available at that time in our end of the county. It also had a location that enabled us to continue to carpool to work. K was settled there and seemed pretty happy. Since the transition from Dix to there was rough, we were reluctant to move her and go through that again. Still, I have to be honest, little things would bother us. Not in terms of safety (which would have prompted an immediate move) but other areas that gave us the impression that the program was not as strong as it's four star state rating and affiliation with a well regarded pediatric practice would have one believe. I felt that many of the teachers viewed what they were doing as a babysitting job; others seemed just plain apethetic. Yes, there were some strong ones there, which always made me second guess my thinking. But then there was the morning hand washing, required by state law that just never seemed to happen, which really irked me. Parents would drop and run and teachers would not enforce the hand washing rule. A complaint to the director resulted in an improvement for a few weeks but old habits came back quick.

I told myself that I felt the way I did because I would always be comparing that center to Dix and it would never measure up. Really, what could measure up to having onsite child care where you work?

As soon as we found out we were pregnant we inquired about tuition rates for two children at Growing Child and about fell over. Most centers give you a discount for having two children enrolled, Growing Child's amounted to about $43 off our monthly bill. Which brings up another thing that was irking us. Tuition rates were not published. They were based on age of child and when you started at the center. The theory behind that was that they could guarantee you that your rate would never go up and increased costs would be passed on to new families. Made sense in theory but in practice it seemed suspect. When your child moved from room to room, you had to request a tuition decrease and the director had to pass the request on to the owner who would come back with a response of "they can have 5% off their bill" or something like that. I don't think it was done uniformly so basically, that amounted to everyone in the room probably paying a different rate for the same care. It created a weird vibe. Plus when I inquired about the rate for the new baby I found we would be paying the same rate for him/her as a family that just walked in the door even though we've been with the center for over a year. Huh?

We had heard about a new daycare in Zebulon from our neighbors across the street. They had just moved their two kids there and we not only saving a bundle in tuition, the program was better than their old center as well. They warned that the building was not that impressive from the outside but there were good things going on on the inside. So I went over for a little looksie. I liked what I saw. Yes, there was still more work to be done on the actual building (owner converted a former industrial building) but I saw teachers actively engaging with kids, lots of artwork all over the walls, plenty of TLC, and an owner who was motivated to keep making improvements to the center. Since its a small family business (owner's kid is in K's class actually) there's motivation to make it work. Plus the tuition rate, not only are we saving just on K's tuition alone right now, when we enroll the little one we'll be saving $500 a month over what we would have been paying for 2 at Growing Child. I'll let you swallow that number...$500. That's a lot of diapers and formula.

Monday was K's first day. I was very nervous about the transition. We began talking it up with her weeks ago as her new "big girl" school. I had even driven her by it a few times. On Friday I took her for a visit. I had no reason to be worried. She loved it immediately and actually cried when I told her it was time to go home. She talked about wanting to go back the whole weekend. Drop off yesterday and today was a breeze, no tears, just a wave to Ted and I. The teachers reported on her daily sheet (OMG, we get those again, I can't tell you the last time we got a daily report at Growing Child) that "Katherine was a joy in the classroom". She was up at 5:15 this morning, ready to go. This just confirms our feelings...we needed this change. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Announcing...

I've been leaving some very important details out of my posts lately. Most of our close family and friends already know but I think it's time for us to officially announce the upcoming arrival of baby #2! My official due date is April 10, 2010. We've known for about a month and a half now but decided this time around to take our time in letting people know. There was something special about enjoying the news ourselves first. Plus, call me superstitious, I wanted to hear those magic words from the doctor "everything looks great" before I announced it to the world. I think I am more aware of everything this time around, which is a blessing and a curse. The picture you see up above is from my first ultrasound on Friday. You can make out the head and a leg. He or she was moving around quite a bit and had a nice strong heartbeat!

We have told Katherine that a baby brother or sister is on the way. Right now she really doesn't get the concept. She'll mention to me that there's a baby in my tummy and it's really small right now but she's also argued adamantly with me that she's going to be the little sister. Sooner or later she'll figure things out.

So, what have you missed lately? The beginnings of the Great Room Rearrangement. You may say that we have plenty of time but I know that April will be here before we know it and I also know that I will have no desire to move furniture when I'm eight or nine months pregnant. So here's what's happening in a nut shell: our TV room will become the new guest room. The desk will stay in that room, it is big enough for us to have a nice office area in the corner and a very comfortable guest room on the other side (yes, we'll miss the TV room but with guests here just about every month, we need a room for them. Plus, we never use our living room). The TV will move downstairs into the living room. Our former guest room (or Papas and Grams' Room as K. calls it) will become K's Big Girl Room. We'll set up K's current room again as a nursery (and I'm telling you, it feels like we just put that crib/toddler bed up in the attic).

My dad was gracious enough to paint the TV room in August in preparation for The Move. I've spent last weekend and this one cleaning out our guest room closest (yes folks, my scrapbooking hole has been relegated to a tote bag and one of those little rolling carts). I've realized that we'll probably need to organize and part with some things through this process. With no basement (yes, Northerners, you read that right, houses down here DO NOT have basements. I know, I know!), we are limited on the storage space. Our only choice is to put stuff in the attic, which is large but only partially floored at this point. Our next step is to move the TV down to the living room and move the TV room couch into the garage in preparation for its leaving our home (which btw, is the last vestiges of Ted's bachelorhood...moment of silence...thank you). This should be a fairly quick and easy thing but I don't think I should be assisting Ted in bringing bulky furniture down the stairs so this will wait a few weeks until Ted's parents are in town for the night (Hey there!). Then we can slowly move the guest room in and prep K's big girl room for painting.

Phew! See what I mean about wanting to start now????

So, now that the cat is out of the bag, I expect to be more frequent about my posts. Its easier now because I don't have to censure myself. I've already realized that the second time around is going to be entirely different but no less amazing that the first time.

More soon!

The Artiste at Work

-- Post From My iPhone

I cut my own hair, Part 2...

We didn’t want her to have bangs. Katherine had other plans. For the most part our Labor Day Weekend was a relaxing one spent at home, catching up on things. I finally got around to cleaning out K’s closet, making room for the fall clothes, culling through the summer and spring (and who am I kidding some of last winter) to remove the things that no longer fit her. K spent a lot of time on her swing set, help Daddy put together his new weight bench in the garage (which was beyond cute…especially when she came and got me when they were all done and presented the completed weight bench with a TAAA DAAAA!!!).

Monday rolled in gloomy and drizzly. And some point Monday afternoon Katherine asked to use her scissors while in the TV room. No problem, I handed them over and she happily started cutting up some paper. 30 minutes, maybe an hour later, she retired to “Daddy’s Bed” to lie down and watch Noggin (and I was hoping to fall asleep as well). The scissors stayed with the craft stuff in the TV room. I checked on her a few times while I was cleaning out another closet. Ted was on the computer. All was well.

At some point I walked into our bedroom to put something on my dresser. Katherine looked up at me and said “I cut my hair, its on the floor.” I took a brief glance… “Uh huh”. I thought for a second she had just grabbed another piece of paper and those were strips of paper on the floor. Then the bell went off in my head. I spun around to see that it was NOT paper but rather hair…Katherine’s hair. My reaction was not the best… “Oh Katherine, NOOOOO!!!!” I scooped up the hair and grabbed the scissors. Miss K., who I think was extremely proud of herself up until then, burst into tears. Ted ran in and inspected the damage. Honestly, not too bad, basically the kid has bangs now. I guess I happened upon her before the real damage was done. There was one strip the she missed that I think might need to be clipped but I wanted to leave well enough alone yesterday while we all (me) recovered. I still might take her to see Kim this week so that things can be evened off and fixed properly. Hey, it could have been worse, as you can see from the picture it in the previous post; she didn’t do a half bad job. Of course her mood for the rest of the day was less than stellar. She was pretty disagreeable and she got sent to her room for pushing me. She ended up falling asleep at 5pm and slept straight through until morning. I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture until this morning.

I know, it’s hair, it will grow. Plus once we get it trimmed up, you’ll never know something was amiss. But did I mention that she’s in another wedding in less than six weeks???? She knows how to time these things.

Those scissors are safely tucked away where K can’t get to them. We’ll be having a little talk before they are given out again, along with a lot of supervision. I’m still scratching my head on how we both failed to notice the scissors leaving the TV room and ending up in the bedroom. Honestly, I think she is still proud of herself, she’s mentioned multiple times that… “I cut my own hair.”

And I thought age 3 was going to be calmer than age 2…

I cut my own hair

Oh yes she did. Full story up soon.



-- Post From My iPhone

Sooooo Annoying!

We've encountered this woman quite a few times at morning drop off or afternoon pickup. It seems that she feels she is too important to use one of those parking places over there and is fine with just pulling up to the curb. She leaves the car running, gets her three kids out and runs them inside. Not even two minutes later she's back out pulling away. Brief aside: To be sure, she is NOT washing those kids hands. Per state law all parents must wash their kids hands upon arriving at daycare...ha! I rarely, if ever, see this happen. I even complained about this once. We're one of the few parents that consistently do this. But we'll save that for another post.

In the afternoon, she is kind enough to at least park, however she routinely takes up two spaces or parks so haphazardly in one that you can't park on either side of her. Again she pulls in, leaves the car running and dashes in to get the kids. Grrrr....

I could not resist snapping a quick picture this morning after glaring at her with my annoyance. Does the world really revolve around you lady?

What a week!

We’re back! Since this was the first week off I have ever taken from work (with the exception of maternity leave which we all know is anything but a vacation) I decided I needed to unplug for a bit. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do with myself. My parents took over a lot of the Katherine responsibilities and told me to “relax”. Hmmmm, how does one do that? I did figure it out. There was so many things that went on over the course of the week that it is most easily described in bullets. There are many more pictures than this and I promise I am working on my first Shutterfly album with all of them.

-Katherine took many dips in the hot tub with Papa. She also tried out the pool but was less than enthusiastic with the experience. I think the fact that it was so much bigger than her pool at home and she could not touch the bottom spooked her. She was fine in the lounge chair but very eagerly switched over to the much smaller hot tub when offered the chance. She especially like the hot tub at night with all of the lights.-She also enjoyed picking tomatoes from Papa's garden and washing them with Gram -On Tuesday night, we went to Red Rose for a special late birthday dinner for the big three year old. My parents brought in a cake and the wait staff sung to her. She was thrilled. -On Wednesday we met up with Christina, Tim and Noah for some breakfast and playtime.-I got the chance to check out my cousin Bill and his wife Bryn’s new house. It’s a cute cape with what can only be described as a “rumpus room” of a basement. Seriously, step down there and it’s 1975. Puts a smile on your face. This picture does not do the place justice. Their busy redoing the upstairs so their going to go with it for a few years and play up the theme. Let me know if you have any macramé owls or other 70’s paraphernalia to donate to the cause!

-There was a visit to the Dr. Seuss National Memorial in Springfield. For those that don't know, Theodore Geisel was born in Springfield, MA. K. had fun checking out the statues.-Katherine paid a visit to my Aunt Sue’s classroom while she was setting up for the year. Look at her all proud in a big kid desk. There was of course also the obligatory visit with Maggie the dog earlier in the week. I think poor Maggie was exhausted by the time we left. -On Friday we met up with a dear old friend of mine. Kerri and I grew up together in the same neighborhood. I never thought during our days of playing Barbie that we would someday be sitting there watching our own daughters play but there we were. The mall where we met had a carousel, K’s first time on one. It was undoubtedly a hit. “I see my horsie Mommy!”-Saturday was the main event. The wedding shower for my sister Colleen! Katherine was all too willing to help Aunt C open her presents and she seemed really excited over the boxes. -Katherine was so excited to get on the plane to come home. The cutest thing I heard at the airport while she was making friends with another little girl… “Hi, I’m Katherine and this is Mommy.” When we went to get on the plane in Hartford we discovered that we would have to walk down a set of stairs at the end of the jet bridge, hand our luggage over and then walk up the stairs to the plane. I was expecting K. to announce at the top of the stairs “carry me!” Not happening. But slowly, she made it down them and started jumping up and down and squealing when she caught site of the plane. She was excellent on the flight and ran down the terminal in Raleigh shouting “I’m coming Daddy!” She had a great week with Papa and Gram but she was also very happy to see her Daddy.

September already???? Where did the summer go?