Preparing for a nice weekend

Top on to-do list: PURCHASE CEDAR SACHETS.

There has been no further sign of Mr. Moth, but suffice it to say that I've turned into Someone Who Is Already Type A And Has Now Morphed Into Someone Downright Paranoid and Annoying. I have my yarn under lock and key, but I were to ever find anything...*living* in the yarn itself, I would faint dead away. And we really don't want that to happen, do we?

Anyway, in other news, Anne can now climb the stairs. As you can imagine, this is just a fantastic development for us, no?

*martyr-like sign*

She's been able to get her little leg hiked up a stair for awhile now, but she never showed much interest in climbing the full staircase, and we did nothing to encourage her in this regard. But then her grandparents taught her how, and now we're all suffering because of it. Every time she does it, she gets FASTER. So we have to put a chair at the bottom to prevent her from climbing all the time, and so she stands at the bottom and sobs.

Wonderful.

Hopefully, she'll lose interest in this new project pretty quickly.

But Mike and I are going to dinner Saturday night, *without the children,* so that'll be nice. You know. Uninterrupted. Can hear yourself think. Not picking up thrown Cheerios off the floor for half the meal. Not that I don't enjoy going out as a family, that has it's own...charm. But date nights are sacred. And Mike and I are celebrating...

Me getting tenure. :)

Mostly, this is a relief. I mean, I'm happy, I never took it for granted. But I'm simply ready to move on to the next step and just enjoy the job security. If I hadn't gotten it, could I just have kept showing up and collecting a paycheck, sort of like that guy on Office Space? Likely not. As big a bureaucracy as a state-run university of this size is, I'm thinking they would "fix that glitch."

So, there's that. And I'm belly dancing like a madwoman. It's going well. I'm feeling as comfortable (as I can, I suppose) with my mostly improvised solo. I have a beginning arranged, with a veil entrance and cute fling away, then mostly improvisation broken up by some planned accents. Although, at this point, I've run through the music so many times that I often remember some steps I've done in previous incarnations, so if I can't think of anything better, I just do that. :) It gives me some comfort. I do feel more relaxed. I can't "forget" anything. Sometimes I even don't remember to do the planned accents, I just do something else, and although those accents aren't quite as BAM! as the planned ones, they're still fine, and at least my face doesn't reflect the dreaded "Oh God, I forgot what to do!!" expression. Doesn't exactly put the audience at east to have a clearly panicked dancer in front of them. So, that's going decently well.

We had sword practice last night, and I need to work on that routine plus my little solo part in it. It's just a trio of us, so we each have 6-7 counts of 8 to dance solo to. I'll mostly improvise, but I have a few planned movements . Since we have to place the swords on our heads while dancing, I've adopted a winning strategy:

(1) As I raise the sword up I tell myself: "It's going to stay on." The Power of Positive Thinking.

(2) As I place it on my head, I rub it back and forth a few times on the balancing point to "screw it in." I may go bald in that spot, but as long as I don't humiliate myself by having the sword fall, I don't care.

So far, so good. If I feel that the sword isn't quite perfect, I've broken down my resolve to never touch the sword and instead just tweak it withing the first 30 seconds or so of balancing. No reason to suffer for the rest of the song and have my eyebrows look all scrunchy and worried. It's better to feel confident that it's on there real good.

And then there's the group cane number. I'm still worried that someone may lose an eye or break a window, but it's coming along. We'll get there.

I'm starting a 54 day rosary novena on Monday, so I'll be reporting in then. :)

Anne having a bad day

This morning, Anne was running around in her onesie, which is her outfit of choice for summer nights. And she's sleeping great, so I don't know what her deal is, but every.single.morning, she turns into Pod Anne: She Who Terrorizes the Household.

She'll usually play for a bit after her morning nursing session. But then, when I come downstairs from getting ready, the whining begins. I can usually pacify her with some Cheerios and removal of the safety latch from the Tupperware cupboard for her perusal.

After I eat breakfast, I pop her into her high chair for some cereal. She does this thing lately where she won't let you feed her (*swat!* *swat!*) unless she's also holding a spoon. Sigh. Once she refused further food, I took her out.

Well. She came running over to me, crying. She points to the kitchen table. I survey the options. Small bottle of fruit juice? It's sealed, so I hand it to her.

She glares at it. Then she glares at me. Then she TURNS AROUND AND WALKS AWAY without a word. When she reaches the other end of the kitchen, she turns around and runs back, sobbing.

Fantastic.

She points to the kitchen table again. Bowl of Cheerios? They are offered. They are resoundingly refused. Stray toy? Another turn and walk away, with zero acknowledgement. Until she races back, of course, sobbing. Suddenly, she points to the table again, jabbering in an angry-like fashion. Cup? This produces a cackle. I put some water in it, and let her drink from it. She likes this. She tries to grab aforementioned cup, which I don't let her do, since it's full of water.

A protest ensues.

Finally, I empty the water and just hand her the cup. This makes her happy for a solid 2 minutes, which was a real coup this morning, seriously. Until she threw the cup in disgust and opened her mouth in one of those catroonish howls in which I can see her tonsils. Even picking her up and just holding her netted big rolling tears and lots of pouting.

It was just one of those mornings.

Those not-so-glamorous parenting tasks...

The children have been particularly active lately ("No Honey, don't do THAT!") and it got me to thinking about the parenting tasks that we all dread in the moment, but can joke about later. :) I think there are many of them, for all of us. Let's hone in on the recent examples...

(1) I Can Fit Through There! - Anne's newest trick is to (attempt to) squeeze her little self through small openings, usually barriers erected to keep her out and from killing herself. Sometimes she fits through, sometimes not. This does not discourage her from trying. She gets stuck a lot, and is now vocal enough to let us know to come to her rescue. Her efforts seem to focus on (a) a shrieking volume, and (b) irritable tone.

"DA DA DA DA *BAAAAAAAAAA*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" *a bursting into tears*

This happens *frequently*. And inevitably, it's when your hands are busily cutting raw chicken or some equivalent task.

(2) Can You Check To See If I Got It All? - This one's a favorite. I'll set the scene: Mike is teaching. I'm home with both children. I've already fixed Henry's supper. I've fed Anne. Finally, I whip up dinner for myself while Anne plays with her Cheerios. This will take some time, because I'm going to want an omelette. I don't know why, but I love breakfast for dinner. I'm weird like that. I mix the eggs and a dash of milk. I cut up some cheese and veggies. I warm the skillet. I begin to cook the egg mixture. I toast some bread and butter it. I may heat up a sausage patty. I pour myself a drink. I flip the omelette. I may utter a swear word, because sometimes I don't wait long enough and make a mess in the flippage process. Finally, the omelette is done. The toast is done. The sausage patty is done. My drink is on the table. I grab a napkin. I sit down. I get Anne more Cheerios. I lift a forkful of fluffy eggs and creamy cheese to my lips and...

Hark. What is that?

It's Henry. And he's in the bathroom.

"MMMOOOMMMMYYYYY! I NNNEEEEEDDDD YOU!"

Oy.

Yes, that's right. It's a request for assistance involving the action verb "to wipe." Just what I want to be doing right in the middle of eating. Mike and I talk with such longing in our voices about the day when we have to wipe nobody's rear end but our own. Those days are a long way off, my friends.

(3) It Smells Funny Over By Anne - Anne is very insidious with this one. When Henry was a baby, if he dirtied a diaper, the entire room knew about it. One time, on Christmas Eve no less, the entire church knew about it. Anne is not like that. It's all very quiet and dainty, but there's no disguising the telltale smell. So she's scooped up and summarily deposited on her changing table. That's when the fun begins.

For one thing, she thinks it's great fun to twist around real quick-like and attempt to leap off the changing table. She's smaller than we are, so we can wrangle her back into position, but then she plays her trump card: a sudden, rapid reaching motion *down there*.

Suddenly, she has poo on her hands. Which means I get poo on MY hands. Many wet wipes are tore from the container in a panic. Her hands are wiped. My hands are all wiped. And all of this is taking place while desperately trying to keep her squirming butt from smearing poo all over the changing pad. Once our hands are halfway decent, the wiping process continues, and as Mike exclaimed as soon as he changed her first diaper home from the hospital, "this is different from changing Hank when he was a baby; there are so many *folds*!" Yes, the girl diapers do require a bit more time management and wipeage skill. It's all very exhausting.

(4) "Uh Oh. Don't Worry Mommy, You Can't Even See Where the Juice Went!" - Mike and I are tidy people. This is a polite way of saying that we're a bit anal, and quite possibly obsessive-compulsive. If we didn't have children, we'd probably have a white couch. But we do have children. So, we have a hand-me-down couch that is a loud print that we both hate. But I tell you, that thing has had every fluid known to manKIND spilled on it, and no one is the wiser. I'm sure all of my local friends and family are so glad to know this for when they come to visit. When we get rid of this thing, we're just going to have to burn it.

And so, the possibilities are endless, but that's my top 4. Thank goodness for Oxy Deep.

The case of the missing shoe....

The weather is getting warmer around here, and to my mind, this means one thing: the battle between us, Anne, and her socks will return.

When the weather is cooler, we just keep her in a footed sleeper all the time. It's warmer, plus the sock thing makes.me.crazy. Because if we put her in pants and a onesie, or shorts, etc., we always put socks on her so that her feet aren't bare. And socks are the bane of my existence with her.

Last fall, we put socks on her a lot so that she could wear the cute outfits people had bought for her. And we know how well that turned out. She's been wearing sleepers ever since.

Us (0), Anne and her socks (1).

Yesterday, it was particularly mild, and since it had rained, even a tad humid. We cracked a window, and worried that Anne might be too warm in her adorable fleeced sleeper with polar bear face feet. Mike changed her into a pink short sleeved onesie with cupcake print pants. Even though it was mild, I still worry about her feet getting cold. So I put a pair of socks on her. I don't care how far and how tight you pull those puppies up, they WILL be off her feet in minutes. This is where the shoes came into the picture.

A few weeks ago, in a trip to Carter's, we bought her a pair of pink sandals. But when we got them home, I realized they were way too big. She'll be able to wear them eventually, just not right away. Finally, we were at Payless yesterday since both Henry and I needed new shoes. And I picked up a pair of infant shoes for Anne in a smaller size, when I could actually measure her foot.

They're adorable. They're brown slipper-like shoes that hug her feet. And with them on, she won't be able to get her socks off. Huzzah!

I put them on her. She immediately sat down and tried to wrench them off her feet. No success. She then put her foot in her mouth and sucked on one for a few minutes, but eventually got up and walked. The little pitter patter sound as she made her way across the hardwood floor was absolutely precious. And her socks stayed on.

Us (1), Anne and her socks (1).

She played before dinner for a bit, and on stayed both the socks and shoes. Henry and Mike went out to get us a pizza for dinner, and I popped Anne into her high chair for some green beans and Cheerios while I waited.

By the time the men came back with the pizza, Anne was full and throwing Cheerios on the floor. I got her down and opened the cupboard full of Tupperware containers for her to play in while we ate. She plopped down there happily.

A few times while we ate, she toddled over to hand us something. And I had to fetch her from wandering into the bathroom a few times. After we finished, I scooped her up and took her into the living room to nurse.

She only had 1 shoe on. And 1 sock was halfway pulled off. Trimphantly.

Us (1), Anne and her socks (2).

I quickly backtracked our route from the kitchen. No shoe. I scanned the kitchen floor. No shoe. I even pulled everything out of the Tupperware cupboard. NO SHOE.

I nursed her, figuring that when I could dedicate some time to it, I'd find the shoe.

That, my friends, was a classic case of overconfidence.

Next thing you know, I'm crawling around on the kitchen floor, poking under the stove and into corners. I emptied the Tupperware cupboard again. NO FREAKING SHOE. This was now getting personal. Mike and Henry joined in the search. Heard from our kitchen as we searched:

"Did you look in the dishwasher?"

"How could it have gotten in the dishwasher?"

"I don't know, but she loves it in there."

"Anne, what are you...OW! Don't bite, Honey!"

"Could it have gotten under the refrigerator...OH GOD!! When was the last time we cleaned under here?!"

*crickets chirp*

"I don't remember either. Good God, it's REPULSIVE under here! We *have* to clean this."

"Could she have put it in the garbage?"

"God, I hope not, I just threw the garbage."

*short silence*

"You want me to go outside and check the garbage don't you?"

*10 minutes later*

"It's not in the garbage."

"Well, it's not in the sofa cushions either, but I did find that missing cake from her tea set."

"Anne, come here Honey. She's walking toward the bathroom! Maybe she'll lead us to it!"

We looked for that *insert your choice of naughty words here* shoe for 30 full minutes. Do you think we found it?

NO, WE DID NOT.

Us (1), Anne and her socks, (3)

Say a St. Anthony prayer for us, if you would.

Sigh.

Holy week begins...

It's been a busy few weeks at work, and yesterday I was looking forward to a restful Palm Sunday. And it was. Except for the going to Mass part.

Anne stayed home with Mike this week, but I had Children's Liturgy of the Word. I'm not certain how I got talked into doing it on Palm Sunday, but at any rate, those were the breaks. Given how much longer the Liturgy of the Word is on Palm Sunday, I was not looking forward to wrangling the children, but I said a prayer and hoped for the best.

Well. It was *rough*. I did my best, but there were a lot more children there than usual, and they were squirmy. Add in the additional time element, and you have a recipe for a not-so-pleasant Palm Sunday Mass. But we lived through it. I sweated, though. A lot.

When I got home, I found Mike rearranging our living room. He wasn't doing this out of any sense of decor; it was because our daughter is intent upon destroying our possessions and getting into every possible crevice she can with her newfound ability to walk, and in the absence of that, crawl really extra fast.

We got a baby gate erected in an extremely inconvenient spot in the main living room entranceway because she can now climb the stairs. Yet, the next thing I know, out of the corner of my eye I spy Anne vvveeeerrrrrryyyyy casually crawling past ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GATE. She had found the dining room exit that ultimately also leads to that hallway. I just thought it would take her a lot longer to figure that out. Sigh.

She is sleeping better though. Notice that I didn't say "good," I just said "better." But hey, we'll take it. The only real issue is that Anne still possesses the innate ability to awaken *just* as I close my eyes, when I am at my most exhausted state. She's in a different room, so I just don't see how she manages this insidious task, but somehow, she manages it. And me being in a weakened and exhausted state, I'm ashamed to admit that the first thought that runs through my mind isn't"

"Well, at least she's sleeping better, I should be grateful!"

Oh no. Rather, it is:

"WHY DOES GOD HATE ME SO MUCH?!"

But you know. I'm only human.

I've been thinking a lot about Lent 2011, and it's making me very emotional and nostalgic. This day last year I was belly dancing with Anne in utereo. In public. :) And it was just such a special time, with my good friend coming into the Church at the Easter Vigil and us nesting and preparing for Anne's birth. I can't believe it's been a whole year!

*sniffles*

Anne's world: 8.5 months

As you can see, she's at the refrigerator looking for a drink. :) I've been grumpy the past few days, so I determined that I wanted to dwell on more uplifting things. It's not helping that I have to edit my tenure documents, and the reason I'm blogging right now is to procrastinate with that *just* a hair longer. The good news is that my tenure documents look good, and once I make these few edits, they're ready to move on past the library-level review onto the university-level. I do feel confident that I will receive tenure. That's even better news. The bad news is that I have to rewrite the conclusion to my required Statement of Research Interests, and well. I wrote this thing, and I'd rather gouge my own eyes out than read it again.

So, Anne. She's adorable. She's also into everything. She's on top of things. She's inside of things. She's opening things. She's underneath things. She's dismantling things. She's unscrewing things. It's rather impossible to sit down and relax when she's on the loose these days.

And every day, I make sure to fit in an indoctrination session:

"Anne. Say: "Ma Ma. Ma Ma. Can you say that? MA MA."

She knows her name, and will look when you call her, which is pretty cute. And she does say Fa Fa. And Ba Ba. And what sounds like Tha Tha.

I'm busily putting yarn into my online shopping cart in preparation for knitting her some summer dresses. And a coat for next winter. And a new hat. God, I love knitting for her. I just love her. And I feel so blessed that we have her.

Although I'm still not sleeping at night, but hey. You can't have everything.

Our view from locked behind the baby gate

So we're officially at THAT PLACE in parenting again. Traversing from one of the upstairs bedrooms downstairs goes as follows:

Down the stairs. Into the living room, wait. Baby gate there, to prevent Anne from getting into (a) the stairs, (b) the radiator, (c) the bathroom where she particularly enjoys the trash can, and (d) the guest room/office where Hank often spreads itty bitty Legos out everywhere as he builds and rebuilds various emergency vehicles and an alien spacecraft with a human holding bin.

We move into the kitchen, to access the other doorway into the dining room/living room space. That's unblocked, and for whatever reason, Anne is far less interested in getting into the kitchen, although she occasionally tries to venture in there on her own to grab at the empty beer bottles and other recyclables. The dining room is an Anne-safe zone, with all electrical outlets covered and no small pieces lying to and fro. She likes to crawl around under the table and generally do victory laps around the room since there's a lot of space in there.

Moving into the living room proper, you're likely to step on a squeaky infant toy or twenty, and accessing the front door is a bit of a chore. The neighboring fireplace and a DVD case holder are blocked off with a strategically placed dining room chair, and new keep out devices are in the works for a nearby bookcase. Her exersaucer (Godsend that it is) blocks another DVD case holder, plus some electrical wires.

Such is our state of baby wrangling these days. Not only is she standing AND cruising, she's now babbling, and I have to say it's totally adorable.

"A ba ba ba, la la la."

It's like having a little Smurf in residence at all times. And it's wonderful, but also exhausting. So Mike and I were thrilled to go out to dinner by ourselves Saturday night to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. He even volunteered to go to Mass with me beforehand at a parish down the road from our chosen restaurant, which pleased me greatly. He loves vigils for some reason, while I prefer Sunday mornings. But hey, whatever. If he wants to go to Mass, I'll go when he wants to go. :) The only time I *have* to go Sunday mornings is when I'm the catechist for Children's Liturgy of the Word, which is only once per month.

Anyway, it was a much more modern church than either of us usually prefers, but I have to say, for a modern design it was quite pretty. Which I hope doesn't sound disparaging, I just prefer a more traditional look. But this church used natural light very beautifully, and still had a high ceiling, with wood beams, and although it mostly lacked traditional stained glass, it looked lovely. The Christmas decorations were still up and were gorgeous, and it was one of my very favorite feasts, the Epiphany.

It was a good, good weekend.

Unfortunately, I just discovered that I forgot my breast pump ice pack AGAIN and have to put my milk into the common work refrigerator. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

Here's to a happy 2012...

Well, I'm back. And I keep typing the year wrong. I'm a good typer, I took a typing class back in high school (do they even do that anymore? *feels old*) and yet I notice that in my head, I type "2012," yet what comes out is "2010." Apparently I want it to be 2 years ago. Well, it'd be nice to be 2 years younger, but other than that, I'm happy it's today and not two years ago. But I digress.

I had a very nice holiday, and most of all I LOVED just being home with my family. So, quick updates on everybody:

Anne - Thriving. Is now slowly cruising around furniture when she pulls herself up. *heavy sigh* She has also discovered the entertainment center and now attempts to push buttons when she pulls herself up over there. I think this has been genetically bred into modern babies. She can now crawl at the speed of sound and is extremely happy all of the time. Except when she's teething, which consumed a good amount of last week. During which time, our days consisted of (1) carry Anne around, (2) arms get tired, so set Anne down, (3) Anne bursts into tears, (4) repeat steps (1) through (3) for approximately 12 hours, with short breaks in between for one decent nap and one crappy one. Pretty typical for her age. But overall, she's doing very well. She loves her new Christmas toys and has been playing very cutely with them. Her favorite is a Fisher Price tea set, and she carries one cup around with her even when she crawls so that she can bite on it when she reaches her destination at the other side of the room.

Henry - Very cute and happy. He loves being home with us and being on break from school. He got lots of Legos for Christmas, and has been a very good boy playing with them, taking everything apart and putting them back together. He also loves board games, and he got a bunch of new ones for Christmas this year. We also took both kids to the our local botanical garden over the break, and Hank just loves it there. One thing that I really enjoy about him is his appreciation of beautiful things. He really has an eye for aesthetics in nature, and he loves showing his finds to others. It's really precious. He also memorized his assigned prayers from the Advent chain he brought home from school and learned to read them himself. He's such a good boy.

Mike - Thriving at home with the kids. And we couldn't stop talking about how much we loved all being together as a family all week. Although I work full time outside of the home, I feel lucky to have a job in which I get lots of vacation and holiday time, plus normal hours. So I'm home a lot. We enjoyed every moment of last week, and I have plans to take some additional time off in the coming months when Henry is off for his winter break and for Easter. The only mar in Mike's week was a bout that he had with some sort of throat infection. And we've been married long enough (7 years this coming Sunday) for me to know one thing about my darling husband: he is SUPER easygoing and easy to live with, aside from one thing, but hey, nobody's perfect, right? And that one thing would be that he is a terrible sick person, and he would be the first to admit this. He gets actually mad when he gets sick, because it incapacitates him and keeps him from doing things he wants to do or feels he should be doing. And hence, he's miserable to be around. He grumps around the house until I tell him to go to bed. Translation: "you're driving me crazy, so please go get some rest before I say something that will hurt your feelings." The next morning, the antibiotics had kicked in and he looked sheepish and back to normal. Thank God. He's really adorable, and I'm lucky to have him.

Me - I knit, and knit and knit. I finished socks, I crocheted myself a cardigan, I knit a scarf and I felted slippers. I was Super Compulsive Knitter. And I loved every minute of it, being inside on a chilly winters day with a cup of tea by my side. I played with the kids, and I snuggled lots with Mike. Life is very, very good.

And I need to keep that in mind when my birthday approaches next month and I move even closer to 40. But we'll return to obsess about that another day...

"Wait, What on earth?!"

Yesterday, I was closed in our bedroom folding laundry with Anne. She really gets around these days with her little crab crawl, and so you really have to take precautions to prevent her escaping or otherwise getting into a life threatening situation.

I was watching Say Yes to the Dress as I folded, my favorite reality show guilty pleasure. As I bent to pick up an items, someone standing next to me handed me a shirt. Wait, WHAT?!

Yes, it was Anne, casually standing at the laundry basket, sorting clothes. Apparently she can pull herself up now. Which she then did with alarming regularity for the rest of the day, becoming better and better at it by the nanosecond.

OH SIGH.

I'm dreaming, and a baby is crying. Oh, oh wait...

Last night was one of those nights. We had barely fallen asleep, and I stumble up, expecting it to be at least 2 am, and the clock tells me that it's 10:30 pm. I do not believe aforementioned clock. But yes, it is true. Anne is awake. Not only that, but after waiting a few minutes to see if she'll go back to sleep (ha!), I go in to find her *sitting up* in her crib, howling. She's so happy to see me that she tries to *stand up* to greet me. Fan-tastic.

And after that, we're woken again, and another nursing session commences. On the third go-round, I gave up and took her downstairs to snuggle on the sofa and watch the season finale of Sisters Wives on demand. I don't approve of Sister Wives, but what can I say? I can't look away. Plus, it was the season finale and a new baby was being born. I cried. Because I always do when babies are born, even when they're not mine.

After Sister Wives, I put a sleeping Anne back in her crib, and then guess what? I couldn't fall asleep, even though she was sleeping. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

Then, naturally, come 6:30 am, I was dead to the world when I felt Mike get out of bed. When I saw the clock, it and I had yet another disagreement. I laid there until 6:45, when I forced myself to drag my body out of bed. It was tough, but I managed to make myself LOOK ALIVE with some creative makeup and hair combing. I did feel better once I got down for breakfast.

And these days, holy smokes. Anne is into E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. Put her on the floor. Does she play with her carefully arranged and safe infant toys that are well within her grasp? Oh no. Her sight is set on any number of other destinations.

The fireplace!

Electrical wires!

DVD case!

Nativity figurines!

So we're now in THAT PLACE. Wherein your butt cannot touch the couch before one of us has to leap up to save her from some approaching calamity of her own devising. And it'll only get worse once she can pull herself up and reach tabletop surfaces.

Oh dear.