Sunday, January 31, 2010

Quote of the Day

Me: I'm going down the hall right now to kneel and pray that Kaycie got your brain.

Greg: From some of the things I've seen, it's too late...

Correction

There will be no pictures from Addyson's birthday party. Mostly because we didn't get to stay for the party. Minutes after we got there Kaycie got freaked out and started screaming. Greg and I spent 30 minutes trying to calm her down in the back room, but she wasn't having it. She wailed until we put her in the car and then promptly passed out. When we got her home she woke up the happiest baby you've ever seen. Sigh.

I don't know what was up with her, Addyson had walked over to her and was being sweet, but may have scared her. There were also a lot of people there and the noise level was getting pretty high for a minute there, so that could have freaked her out. She's not used to being around that much noise. And I wasn't holding her at the time, Jen's mom had her, so it could just be the combination of unusual activities got to her.

Anyway, I'm very very sad that I missed it. I'd been looking forward to it all week. I never get to see Addyson anymore, since I usually see Jen at lunch. And Jen's parents have only gotten to see Kaycie once, right before Christmas. Jen's in-laws hadn't seen her at all. I'm sure they all think she's a psycho baby now.

How is Kaycie?

I've been such a slacker lately that I haven't even posted any updates about my adorable child. Sorry. I've been too busy trying to keep her fed an entertained! Anyway, she'll be 12 weeks on Tuesday. I can't keep up with weeks anymore, so I'm going to have to start counting months instead. Greg put her on the scale this morning and she topped out just over 13lbs.

We've settled into a great routine. She wakes up around 9-9:30am most mornings, eats, plays, and goes down for naps around 10:30-11. She sleeps for 30-45 minutes, wakes up, eats, plays, and after a couple of hours goes down for second naps. Wash, rinse, repeat until 9pm, when she get snuggied and goes to bed. And sleeps until about 9 the next morning. No, I'm not kidding. She sleeps about 12 hours every night. I know. I thank God every day for an easy kid.

My easy kid is getting quite independent, though. The past several mornings she's woken up very happy, which isn't unusual. I hear her talking and laughing with the animals on her mobile and go in to get her, but now she seems to get mad at me for interrupting her conversation. She's fine until I take her out of her crib to feed her, then she pouts! And she won't cuddle much anymore. She'd rather sit up or stand up in my lap. And she talks a LOT. She will jabber away at anybody who will listen. Half the time I give her a bottle she will eat about half of it then start pushing it aside to make room for her thumb in her mouth. Unfortunately it's not quite big enough to accomplish much, and she ends up eating her entire hand. And while I made the schedule sound easy, I promise you when she doesn't want a nap, no matter how tired she is, we always have a showdown. Usually I win, but it may take an hour to get there!

She's also started playing with some of her toys, which is good. Like Leo the Lion, which was courtesy of Uncle Bill. Poor Leo gets the brunt of her abuse most days, but she also enjoys kicking the daylights out of the elephant on her play mat. I'm also happy to report that she likes her room quite a bit. She likes to stare at the bright flowers on her wall, which makes me happy for choosing bright colors!

And that's the State of Kaycie these days. Hopefully I'll have some new pictures to post this afternoon, as we are about to head to BFF Addyson's birthday party! How can little Princess Fussypants be a year old already???

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I Read a Book.

I totally suck. I wrote this post like 3 weeks ago but got interrupted and never finished it. I thought about it again tonight after recommending this book to Alison on FB. Sigh. Anyway, I'm not going to go back and see if this makes any sense, I'm just posting it as is.

I read a book last week. Actually, I read it New Year's Eve. The whole thing, start to finish. I'm pointing that out because I was pretty sure I'd never actually get the chance to finish a book again, at least not until Kaycie started school. But with her cooperation and Greg's help, I managed one more. I don't remember who recommended Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson, but I have to tell you it was a good pick. However, it does get a parental warning for language, violence and sexual content, which, I have to admit surprised me.

In a lot of ways the book is about the relationship among Southern women, and the writer does a pretty good job of weaving the complexities that exist, particularly within family relationships. This book is narrated by a woman named Arlene who left Alabama when she went to college and made a promise to God that she'd never return, never again lie, and never again have sex, so long as nobody ever learned the secret she left behind. Of course she ends up having to go back after nine years away. She is destined to confront her overbearing aunt who raised her and her sweet Southern Belle cousin, who considered Arlene's lifestyle as a teenager to be an embarrassment of sins. And she takes her black boyfriend with her to meet her family. I have to say, I thought that was a nice touch, it created a whole different conflict and highlighted a few personality quirks in each member of her family. Arlene spends the book gradually telling the story of her childhood that forced her to leave.

About half way through the book I started to think the plot was predictable, I knew what was going to happen next. Three-quarters of the way through I realized most of my predictions were totally wrong, mostly because I began to realize that Arlene was not a trustworthy narrator. She may not ever lie, but that certainly doesn't mean everything she offers is the truth. That's what made this a good book. I started off thinking it was about one thing and realized at the end that it was really about something totally different. There's a strength in each of these women that defies expectations. The conflicts don't get totally resolved and the crimes aren't brought to justice, but in the end you feel good about the journey the characters have made. I also appreciated writing style, which felt like a combo of educated city girl meets Southern diva. I can relate to that.

In the end, I liked this one enough to order another book by the same author, Between, Georgia. Maybe I'll get to read it one day too.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Whooooo Are You?

I keep getting friend requests on Facebook from people I went to high school with, which is cool. If I see your name and think, "Dang, I have seen that person since graduation!" then there's a good chance I'll accept you as a friend. If the only way I realize we went to school together is that I dug through your friend list and all 18 of our shared friends are WCHS class of 1993, Go Vikings!, then I'm going to think, "Huh, they must have gone to school with me" and then hit ignore.

But I tend to feel bad about that because chances are I probably did know them at some point, I just don't remember. Or they're on FB with their married name only. So I decided I needed a reference guide and started hunting down my senior yearbook. Except I can't find it. I know it's not at my house, I've moved way too many times without ever seeing it. I searched my mom's house over the weekend, but it's not there. Not a surprise, I didn't figure it ever moved with them.

My next and final option is to beg my brother to look at his house, which is the house I grew up in. However, since he cleaned out my room several years ago I feel like it probably isn't there either. This is the problem with having my possessions strewn out over three counties. But it kinda makes me sad. I don't have any of my high school or elementary school yearbooks, and all of the sudden I wish I did.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Ah, The Memories (Just for Tank)

My blog friend Tank's daughter is getting married this summer, and they've suddenly become eyeball deep in wedding planning.

I just love weddings. Especially when I don't have to plan them.

I imagine you all know that talk of a wedding brings out nostalgia of our own big days. I mentioned to Tank about a few of the finer points of my wedding and she said something about wanting to see pictures, so I dug some up. I think most of you know where this is going. If you were at my wedding, you're probably rolling your eyes right now.

At the moment I can't locate the pictures of the reception flamingo decked out in the pink feather boa, but here's the one that was stationed outside the front door of the church:


And of course then there's Ebay (the gnome, not the auction). He made an appearance in a LOT of wedding pictures.




Ebay has so many pictures, he has his own photo album on Flickr. And yes, some of those are from the honeymoon. Now if I could just hunt down the rest of the reception pictures with the Mikey Mouse table and the flamingos...

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Getting Close

So you may recall that I've mentioned the library that's being built behind my house. As in, DIRECTLY behind my house. In what used to be a heavily wooded area. Well, they should be done with the construction in the next month or two and hopefully have it open by mid-Spring. The outside part is mostly done, and ever since they put up the lights in the parking lot it looks like aliens have landed a space ship behind my house. The view from my back fence:



And the view from my back door:



I'm going to need a new back fence. And perhaps heavier drapes on the back door. At least we still have some trees for cover, you can see the entire building from my neighbor's back yard on the other side of this fence.