A Day Late

But really is it ever too late to show one's New England pride?


-- Post From My iPhone

Turkey Day 2010

We are relaxing post turkey dinner at Papa and Gram Coberly's.  Teddy is fast asleep in his pack n play (!), Katherine is putting together a puzzle with Great Grandma.  I am contemplating a post dinner, pre-pumpkin pie walk, so far contemplating is all that seems to be happening.

The holiday season is upon us. We have so much to be thankful for this year, so much to look forward to in the next few weeks.  Katherine has reached that magical age where she gets everything that is going on and buys into it hook, line, and sinker. Teddy is about to experience his very first Christmas. One of our local radio stations has begun to play it's annual Christmas music line up, I turned it on during the morning daycare drive and happened to catch it ride as Santa Claus is coming to town started.  "Mommy, they said Santa on the radio!!!"  She was hooked.  That's my girl. Being the type of person that begins listening to Christmas music off and on way back in September (oh yes) I'm thrilled.  She wants to go to the North Pole though she's still not sure how she feels about Santa (other than the part where he brings her presents).

Our main objective over the next few days is to relax.  We may do some black Friday shopping, we may not.  I'd like to get caught up on all of the pictures for the picture site, we'll see.  I'm not making a lofty goals.

Pardon us while we renovate...

So if you checked out the blog for about an hour or so Sunday afternoon and kept hitting refresh, you would have been mighty perplexed.  Because every time the screen came up a new background would be there.  You see, I’d grown tired of the current background and layout and I was itching for something new.  Blogger has a new template designer so I decided to give it a whirl.  Turns out the “preview” feature was not working as it should so, in order to see what you were doing you had to actually apply the changes to the blog and then view the blog (anyone else having that problem?).  Hence the constant changing background.  What you current see is probably not the permanent choice either.  Things got busy and I had to stop for a bit.

Sleeping last weekend was an adventure.  Teddy was up multiple times each night and declared that the only place he was going to sleep soundly was in Mommy and Daddy’s bed, snuggled up to Mommy (or on top of) as much as possible.  This is something I resist because I love my sleep and we all know that you don’t sleep as well when a kid is in the bed with you.  He may be tiny still but he sure knows how to take up a good amount of space.  After two nights of this I thought we were done for.  But then Sunday night he slept in crib the whole night.  Three wake ups, but still in his crib.  Then last night, he woke up once.  ONCE.  I can’t tell you the last time that happened.  There was another, brief wake up early this morning that I don’t really classify as a wake up because all he wanted was his paci and to be covered up.  Of course, him sleeping better last night would mean that I got the call from Miss K in the wee hours “You way wid me?” I happily slept for three hours in her bed.  All in all I’m feeling a bit more rested today.  We’ll see what tonight holds.

Teddy it just about full out crawling now.  He still keeps his forearms on the floor, Army crawl style, but he’s lifting his butt up in the air rather than dragging it behind him.  Every day I remark how “Wow, you can get yourself over there now!”  Katherine is having a few growing pains with this because of course he wants to get to what ever she is doing. But she has also become fond of tickling him in her spare time.

AHHHHHH!!!!

So I decided it was time for a new look.  In the midst of trying to figure out the template designer, I revert back to the old template and.....CRAP!  Lost a bunch of our links.

Sit tight, I've got some fixin' to do!

Already?

So yesterday I worked from home to be able to attend an open house at Katherine's future elementary school.  Yup, as in kindergarten. K.I.N.D.E.R.G.A.R.T.E.N.  We are only months away from registering Miss K. We're fortunate that her base school is a Gifted and Talented Magnet school in the county.  We're also lucky that since we're so far east in the county, we've not experienced any of the growing pains that other parts are going through with the constant redistricting and bussing.  We won't even get into the politics that are currently going on with the proposed end of bussing for economic diversity (thinly veiled disguise because it's illegal to bus for race...welcome to the South).

So, off I went yesterday morning to check things out.  Turns out I was the only parent interested that day.  This is probably because actually kindergarten registration is not until February and there are another series of magnet school open houses then.  I have no idea what will be going on in February so I decided to take the opportunity now.  Actually, it was nice to have my own private tour of the place.  I didn't have a lot of questions for the staff other than general interest about the magnet program but being alone made it easier for conversation.

I'll tell you straight out, I liked what I saw.  Boy is elementary school different now!  There's media rooms, computer labs, and weekly homework (yes, even in kindergarten!).  And not only that, as part of a magnet program, she'll have the opportunity to choose from a number of elective classes that occur in addition to the regular curriculum, starting in kindergarten.  There's choices in music, dance, art, robotics (!!!), science, you name it.  Obviously in the beginning, it's more parent choice than kid but it will be interesting to see what she gravitates to as she goes along.  Because the kids were at lunch I got to actually walk into the kindergarten rooms and meet two of the teachers.  She would flip if she saw the room (of course, I didn't tell her I was going to avoid the obvious meltdown that she couldn't come too).

Growing up in a town versus county school system, all of this is new to me.  There was no "choice" in elementary school, there was THE school closest to your house that you went to. Our elementary school choices are either Katherine's base school or the public charter school that is in town.  You have to lottery into the charter school and since it's a small school with grades k-12, your odds of getting in on the lottery are slim.  Their open house is in February so we'll check it out then but based on my reviews of the website I'm still a bit apprehensive about it.  So, more to come in this area!

Oh Mr. Sandman!

It's time we come clean about our dirty little secret.  As I sit here late on a Sunday evening typing this post I wonder what tonight holds.  You see, at 7 months, Teddy has yet to sleep consistently through the night.  He may give us one night of total sleep in an average week but most nights we can guarantee at least one wake up.  Last night it was two.  How I have not completely lost it by this point I do not know.  The wake ups are not horrible, luckily the little man is all business.  And thanks to the holding power of Luvs we don't do diaper changes unless we absolutely have to.  That would just wake him up more.  But seriously kid, it's about time!

Like Katherine, Teddy started sleeping through the night right about the time I went back to work.  But unlike her, that period was short lived.  At the time I blamed it on his first daycare cold, congestion keeping him up all night.  Then came another cold.  And another.  You could say that for the months of August and September either him or I or both was nursing a cold.  So I didn't really think much of the night time wake ups. 

As October began, Teddy was starting solids and I was sure that a full belly would equal a full night of sleep. HA!  Part of the problem here would be Teddy's reluctance at times to eat solids.  He really prefers a good warm bottle to an baby food I send his way.  So some nights you feel like you are force feeding to get a good meal in him.  Some days are more successful than others, I haven't noticed whether the more successful days equal more successful nights although he did eat a good dinner tonight so we'll see.

Mobility!!! Ha! There's my ticket to a good night's sleep.  That little body can sure get itself around now.  You'd think it would exhaust him.  Not so much.  Nap a lot during the day, nap a little during the day, doesn't matter.  Overall the dude is a cat napper during the day anyways (moment of silence here for Katherine's three hour marathon naps as a baby, God I miss those).  And his favorite place to sleep?  On top of someone, me preferably.  Teddy is a snuggler, which on the one hand is wonderful but on the other hand...well you pay for it.  The second I lay him down he's usually awake.  Thank God for the swing, which he is very quickly growing out of. He'd be in heaven if I'd bow to the sleep gods and let him snooze on top of me for a night.  In fact, I'd place money on the odds that he would sleep straight through till morning.

Bottom line?  It's a pot shot every night.  And I'm at a loss about what to do except wait it out.  After all, the kid has to sleep through the night eventually, right?  We have started to try to ween him off night time feedings by offering the paci and comfort before anything else and slowly decreasing the amount of formula in those night time bottles.  But then, if he doesn't have a good day of eating he sucks down those night time bottles in nothing flat. The vicious cycle begins.  There's always the ol' "cry it out" method.  I'll be honest, I don't think I have the will power for that one.  And I don't feel like we're there yet, especially because he goes down sooooo easy at the start of the night.

So I count the small things right now as progress, whether they are or not.  For instance, tonight he went down at his usual time but woke up about 30 minutes later.  I walked in to a pair of happy eyes that seemed to say "Hey Mommy! Let's play!"  I popped in the paci, fixed his covers and snuck back out.  He was back asleep minutes later.

Baby steps...baby steps.

Leaf jumping

What a way to enjoy a day off.





-- Post From My iPhone

A weekend to ourselves

Our last true weekend away (meaning one that did not involve a trip to see family or friends) was our honeymoon, over seven years ago. To say we were overdue is an understatement. Ted was the one who instigated this trip, almost a year ago. “Next fall we’re going away for a long weekend, just you and I.” If he didn’t insist on it, it would have never happened. Well into pregnancy number two, vacation days in my book were saved in miserly fashion for things like maternity leave and trips to see family. Money was being put away for an upcoming delivery, hospital stay and dare we mention the prospect of paying for two kids in daycare? An actual vacation for the sole purpose of just getting away? You must be joking! Nope, he was serious. Papa and Gram Coberly eagerly came down to watch the kids and off we went. By Friday afternoon we were already talking about where we would go next time.

Ted found the B&B and I have to say he made an excellent choice. I would recommend it to anyone who is planning a getaway to the Outer Banks. Tucked away in Manteo, on Roanoke Island, it was walking distance to some really cute shops and restaurants and just a quick drive over to the main action in Nags Head (albeit toned down, off season, main action). I really can’t do better than their website to advertise how wonderful our stay was, so click on the link above and check it out. We stayed in the Roanoke Room, which I would also recommend (Since we were the first to check in our Friday, all of the rooms were open and of course that means that yours truly had to poke my head in each of them for a closer look. Really, their all beautiful in person.). Our treat to ourselves was a first ever 60 minute, full body side by side message in our room on Saturday morning. Why do we not do this more often?

We didn’t make any special plans for the weekend other than relaxation. No stress, we didn’t make a rule that we wouldn’t talk about the kids, if they came up in conversation, they came up. It was just nice to have some time to go at our own pace and not have to worry about nap schedules and early morning wake ups. I realized how much we needed this time away and how we don’t seem to take this time in our normal, everyday crazy routine.

The picture above is a pier in Manteo. On Saturday afternoon we spied a couple getting married, surrounded by friends and family, out on that pier. The weather was much colder and cloudier that day than when I snapped the picture on Friday but I’m sure they didn’t let that ruin their special day.

On the way home I got out my calendar to take a peek. It hit me, we have this week, next week and then WHAM! The holidays arrive with Turkey Day the week after. Are you kidding me? I was SURE there was more time than that between now and Thanksgiving. I have a personal goal this year of getting the majority of our shopping done by December 1. I better get a move on. Back to our crazy routine!

Playing with my food

Papa let Teddy have at his dinner, something Teddy has wanted to do for a while but Mommy wouldn't let him. That's what Papa's are for!


-- Post From My iPhone