Hey!

I'm still here! I keep thinking that I should be posting, but I'm not giving myself enough time to actually sit and post. So here's a quick doodle:


Look at my boy! On the front page of the the Metro section of the newspaper!

Here's a better copy of the actual picture. It was on tbo's website in the picture gallery, and it was the photo jump from their FB page too!

(photo credits: Christie and tbo)

(almost) wordless Wednesday

Guess who benefited from daycare finding Spencer's old video game player three months after we replaced it, thinking we were the ones who lost it?

One

Happy first birthday, Henry! We love you so very much!

Bits and pieces - too tired for confessions.

I started out to do a wine and love Thursday, but this has been a little bit the week from hell, so all I got down was that I love book club. God, I love book club. Here's what I had to say:

This week I’m loving:

- Book club. I’m so glad that I took the initiative and started a book club. We’ve been going for a few months now, have read some great books (I haven’t been a fan of all of them, but that’s the point sometimes, right? Every book has had its fans in the group). It’s nice to get out of the house once a month and hang out with a different set of people than I normally would, have good food and good drinks and good conversation. Because of the diversity of the group it’s made it necessary to go out rather than rotate houses, and we’ve been making the rounds at local dining and drinking establishments. I don’t know if we’re going to ultimately decide on a restaurant to keep holding meetings at or if we’ll keep changing it up, but I’m flexible! I’m just up for the fun!

In other news:

The germiness of earlier in the week has escalated to the summer cold from hell (times two and possibly soon to be times four). The kids have been up coughing for hours at night, low grade fevers, congestion, all-day whinefests ...

...and Wednesday night we elevated one side of Henry's crib to alleviate the congestion, and he fell out of his crib. The time was 12:44am. It was the scariest moment for me in his life. Somehow, he managed to fall from the crib, clear the humidifier and land on his hardwood floor with nary a scratch, bruise or anything. I watched him for two hours scared his brain was going to start swelling and he was going to stop breathing. He: is fine. Me? Still not so much.

...and Spencer's fever spiked a bit Thursday, so he gets to visit the doctor bright and early today.

...and Henry's now been up since 4:30am, too tired to do anything but whine but unwilling to sleep. Here's to hoping the doctor will sneak a look at him this morning too.

...and Hubby is coming down with it, and I have a scratchy throat and a sore ear. I've washed all sheets, kid pillows, and sprayed down all toys with disinfectant. Please God let this run its course soon. I'm beat.

...and I'm exhausted. That's all I've got, folks.

Another day, another dollar

I'm running on a string of fantastic weekends, even though nothing serious has been done during them. It's been great. Every weekend has felt like a mini vacation.

One thing I have not been doing is watching the basketball finals. Am I the only one who hates basketball? I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who hates it as much as I do. And I do. I'm sorry if you like it, but the only thing I can stomach watching is a) Gators games b) celebrity games (they suck, and it's funny). It seems like basketball is ALWAYS ON and I think that I've realized that it's just because the NBA games do not follow the same season as the college games, so I always expect that when college is over, it's over, and that's not the case.

Speaking of sports, my son (the elder) was wearing his skates and hit bike helmet and kept falling on purpose. I'm pretty sure he's going to be a hockey player with all the dives he's taking. Dives ... maybe with the Capitals?

And Henry is still teething. I feel like a broken record (and a giant cliche) but it just seems never ending. We need to get stock in Infant's Advil and saline and those little nasal suction balls. I can see one of those top teeth coming through but it hasn't quite popped through yet. He's so happy ... except when he's not.

Anyhow, the hubby's cousin came over Friday night, who is one of my favorite people. And she got Spencer to eat squash (but not okra) so she might be a saint. There was a lot of wine, and a pork tenderloin and summer squash grilled outside and Hubby made okra and rotel (which was surprisingly good ... I usually only eat okra fried), and good conversation and a lovely evening in.

Saturday I tried to run but only got through 1.4 miles before I had to stop. The wine? The bruised toe? The morning? Who knows why. We finished replanting and mulching the front flowerbeds ... another resolution checked off! (Now to keep them alive) We also dogsat for a friend's chocolate lab while he was away for the overnight. It was a nice break from reality to have a dog again, albeit a well-behaved, doesn't-run-away-when-she-gets-out dog. Fun, but still a reminder that we do enjoy no longer having the added responsibility of animals. Holly played well with both the kids, and splashed around in the kiddie pool with Spencer on Sunday morning.

Sunday we spent all day out in the backyard, doing nothing. Spending a lot of time in the kiddie pool (all of us). I read a book, we had all our meals outside, and I ran 3.6 miles Sunday night in 39.50 minutes. It was the absolute end of my abilities - I ran the entire way except for about 10 seconds at miles 2.15. I run so much better at night than in the morning. I'm really not sure why that is, but I wish that every timed run was at night.

AND I came up with my favorite song. Which really is, one of my very favorite songs:

Five more days and I can do it all again!

My poor baby

My sweet boy has a tooth (and two more that I can see right under the gum line), but he also has a bronchial infection and has to have breathing treatments with a nebulizer. Mr. Man hates the machine - he cries the whole time, which I'm sure doesn't make the treatments as effective as they could be. Here's to hoping he feels better soon, and also that Hubs and I don't feel any worse than we already do (both have scratchy throats).

Ok, so I have a disturbing addiction.

It's Sunday night. I've caught up on DVR and could be watching Grey's or reading or really anything else, but instead I turned on the remake of the Parent Trap. You know, the one with Lindsay Lohan before she became a skank. How sick is that?

I know.

I also could retire to the bedroom to read a bit before sleeping, but Hubby is in there watching the hockey game and I really can't stand watching sports when they really mean anything ... he gets so worked up. He's yelling at the screen. Earlier I think there was a replay to decide if the puck was in or not, and I heard "It's in, yep, it's in. I said, it's in. I'm going to go ahead and clap now" and did that horrible slow clap. It's irritating and hilarious all in one.

Weekend: great. Well, a mixed bag really, but it turned out decent. Spencer woke up with a wretched barking cough and wheezing trouble breathing and ugh, it was horrible. I tend NOT to overreact with such things, but with an upcoming familial surgery and my mom's stuff and Henry's mood swings I was worried that ... well, I was just worried. I packed him up at 5am and dragged him to the Afterhours clinic only to find out that After Hours does not mean any hour, and they didn't open until 1pm. Back home we went and hit Walgreen's walk-in at 9:30 to find out that all his facilities were in order and if it was anything, it's too early to tell.

By then he said he was feeling fine, so we moved on with our day - finger painting, sprinklers, a NAP (that's what happens when he wakes up at 4:30am), a run (BTW, it's far too hot to run these days) and the realization that I've almost hit my one-year goal weight in four months. Once I technically hit it (my scale kept going up and down, but I think it's final decision was 2 lbs more to go), I'm going to set another 10lbs at a time until I get down to a happy weight. But I'm in the 150s now; I haven't been in the 150s since high school! I've never been a skinny minnie and I'm finally okay with that, but I do hope for healthy and strong and comfortable with myself.

Sunday was BOGO brunch at Ruby Tuesdays (they have this California breakfast quesadilla which is fantastic), $5 days at Mosi, 7-11 Icees and a fantastic salad for dinner (lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, whole wheat pasta, goat cheese and shrimp that was sauteed with a touch of bacon and brown sugar). Spencer fell asleep after MOSI and slept straight through the night from about 5pm on. Henry CUT HIS FIRST TOOTH and was a pill all night. Really, all weekend, but we finally were able to have something to show for it. A tooth! Excellent! But hopefully now maybe I'll be able to get him to do some sleeping.

Please Lord, let him sleep.

Chronicles of Mom-nia

I hate when things get so busy around here that I feel the need to chronicle everything. I don't know why, because I have no problem reading other peoples' chronicling, but I feel like such a lazy boring blogger when I chronicle my lives. Who wants to read that crap? I get bored writing it!

So here's the poop in bullets:

-- I'm ridiculously proud of myself for my 22 mile bike ride on Saturday. The furthest I've ridden in my adult life is about 14 miles when Spencer was about a year and we used to go on family rides. Still waiting for Henry to hit the magic one-year mark so we can start family rides again (the time passes when I don't want it to, and doesn't for the reasons I do want it to). I used to ride all over when I was young, but somehow you lose that drive when you get older. I didn't make it home (25 miles would have been home) but when I was dying, lying beneath that tree roadside while people looked strangely at me in the grass, I was glad to have gotten as far as I did. AND I was glad my FIL was at my house with his truck so Hubby was able to rescue me from said roadside.

-- True story:
Spencer likes to close doors. Spencer likes to push the button on the handle. Spencer does not realize that this locks the door.
(Hubby tries to get into our room): Spencer, come open this door.
(Spencer comes to open the door and finds it locked) I can't, it's locked.
H Did you lock it?
S Umm, yes.
H What does that mean?
S That means I go to time out.
H Okay, you go to time out.
(Spencer walks to his room with his head down)
YES! We have him trained! Now to train him not to lock the @(#&! doors.

-- I, who rarely ever reads more than one book at one time, am in the middle of three (3!) books. One, brainless: Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich. Two, pretentious: Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (holy JEEBUS is he a pretentious ass; somehow in the couple years since I last read/saw him, I forgot this). Three, Darn good: Born Round by Frank Bruni. I have 3 days to finish them all so I can put them on my woefully inadequate April reading list.

-- I've been toying with going to the doctor for a full physical because I haven't been feeling that good. I've had a nagging stomachache for over a week, and my 99 hours of Grey's Anatomy have taught me that maybe something is something and not just nothing (thank you fictional tv). However, I am also almost sure that it's low-level anxiety because it went away over the weekend.

-- If you are interested in where I am in Grey's, George is dead. I think they just went to his funeral.

-- If you aren't as far as I am in Grey's, I'm sorry for the spoiler.

-- If you want to follow along at home with my Book Club, our next book is Sarah's Key. I picked this all on my own, so it's my fault if it sucks. Has anyone read it?

-- The kids both went to bed with no whining (Spencer) or crying or hysterical fits (Henry). This might be a sign of the apocalypse, but I prefer to think that maybe my daycare lady needs to drag the kids to Chuck E Cheese every day, like she did today.

The Hodgepodge

1) This has been the worst week at work in a really long time. I was on the verge of tears yesterday, I've been on the verge of quitting several times (which I cannot do, obviously), I've been working 12 hour days several times this week and last ... it's been bad. I've been overwhelmed and busy and with neverending work ... I'm hoping to get through today so I can move on to next - it has to be better, right? It has to get better. I know it gets better but I'm not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel right now.

2) I brought home about 3 hours of work last night, and then stopped at the library and got seven brainless books ... and read one (Hero at Large - Janet Evanovich) and took out a second to start (Medium Raw - Anthony Bourdain) before getting into my many Words with Friends games and not starting Book #2. Or the work.

3) Every day there are about five moments, conversations, etc, with Spencer that I want to document and then I don't write it right down and something else happens and I forget exactly what was said. But here's one: yesterday morning I was in the shower sitting on the floor shaving. Spencer came into the bathroom and it was a lot earlier than he usually wakes up. He went directly into my closet and closed the door (did not say anything to me). A few minutes later he came back out, left the bathroom and closed the door. When I finished my shower, I opened the bathroom door and he was standing there waiting for me, and asked me to walk him back to bed.

4) Here's another thing which is so endearing to me: every single morning, Spencer waits until his brother wakes up and then he climbs into Henry's crib with him and plays for a half hour or so. Most times he brings his pillow and blanket (which make for a crowded crib) and lays down to "cuddle" with Henry. I always check to make sure that every one is safe, but he really takes such good care of his little brother.

5) Henry is cutting an eye tooth. Never mind that he has NO OTHER TEETH so this is not really the proper order of things, but his gums are misshapen there into a weird little point. My child might have a fang here soon. This might be why he cries and laughs so much at the same time.

6) Today is Good Friday. I wish I took today off simply for my mental health, but I also hope that every single person I would otherwise hope to call takes it off so I can work in peace. Peace for Good Friday. Peace for Earth Day. Peace, please.

7) I had book club on Wednesday night and it was SO. Much. Fun! It was a little weird that all but one member are people that I either work with or used to work with, but we got through the night without it being a giant complaint-suck about things right now. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one who mentioned work at all because I had gone straight from one to the other. Now I need to figure out what we are going to read for next month. Pronto.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to my wonderful husband. It's been nine years together, four years of marriage, three years of children, twenty months of pregnancy, seven residences and lots and lots of love (and a few fights, but that's to be expected). I'm always looking for a best girlfriend that I can tell all my secrets to but you are my best friend.


And we sure make cute kids, don't we?

Singledom

This weekend I got a taste of what it would be like to be a single mother with two small children and a surly teenager. The Hubby is sick, and since he gets sick even less often than I do, he's an even bigger baby than I am about it. He has a right to be; this morning he finally went in to the walk-in, and he has strep with a swollen uvula, so onto antibiotics he goes.

I will be taking Monday morning off to take Spencer to the dentist (he gets his fake tooth tomorrow) and to start washing things so the kids don't get sick (and so I don't get sick again).

In the meantime, I took the kids around on my own on all weekend - Saturday we went to the library, and to Kid's Day Out (Spencer refused the pony rides and the bounce houses, but rather enjoyed marching around "dancing" to the marching band and playing on the playground). We split lunch at Chickfila, came home for sprinklers and popcicles, played outside a lot, made chicken noodle soup for Hubby and overall played quite a bit. Henry tried to feed himself carrots for the first time. By 6pm, I was ready to go to bed myself ... I was counting down the time until the kids went to bed.

Today was more of the same. I got up with the kids and dragged them with me to the grocery store, and then later to the Model Train Expo for several hours, made three meals for us and oatmeal and minestrone soup for Hubby. Henry tried his hand at toast fingers (a BIG fan) and banana (already a fan).

It's not quite 8pm. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go collapse now.

Friday Hodgepodge

1) I’m listening to an audiobook that I borrowed from Cracker Barrel for a long drive on Tuesday. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. I like listening to audiobooks on long drives, but I hate listening on short drives – and when do I have to listen to them otherwise? I got through 5 disks on the drive and now I’m struggling to finish listening to the rest of the story. I’m kind of torn on audiobooks anyhow. They read so much slower than I read regularly, and there’s all this dramatic, breathy speech … I get it, twins, a ghost. Can you just read it to me? I put the hard copy on hold at my local library, so if it comes in today or tomorrow I’ll just read the rest of the book.

2) I did the same thing with The Tender Bar. I own the book, but I listened to the first half on audio before switching back to the book. I have never been more annoyed by the phrase “The Men” in all my life than I was while listening to that book.

3) Henry has decided to start walking this week. WALKING! Before he even turned 7 months old! He holds onto the couch and goes back and forth. I think there’s more playpen time in his future. Must. Contain.

4) Henry turned seven months today. Happy Birthday, baby doll!

5) DST kicked my butt this year. I’ve been so tired all week, I’ve been later than normal to work nearly every day. I can’t wait to sleep in (relatively, until 7am or so, when the boys wake up). I’m salivating at the thought.

6) After two and a half months of running, I can go for longer times but I still can't seem to run for longer periods. Thus, I have decided to start a couch-to-10k program beginning on Monday. Goal is to run for longer periods of time without stopping. Not how fast I can run a specific distance, just how long I can run.

Coral fingers, vasolined feetsies, scrabble and steps

I painted my fingernails last night. I never ever have color on my nails - it's just one of those things that has always looked better on other people, but mine are always natural. I'm not attached; I'll probably take it back off tomorrow.

I did my fingernails because I was doing my toenails now that my feet aren't completely hideous these days. I've always had bad feet; eczema, cracks, dryness... Lotion doesn't help, steroid creams are expensive and make them tender. I usually give up, but last week someone on Style Lush commented about using vasoline on dry winter hands and I thought, "what the hell" and it worked! Two days later and my feet are much more presentable than they have been in quite some time. Deserving of a mini pedi, even. So thanks, Style Lush!

I've been addicted to wordfeud on my cell phone for a few months now, and now I'm on Words With Friends too, which is almost as much fun (buggy for the android but prettier). Are you on either? Are there any better word games out there?

HENRY TOOK TWO STEPS YESTERDAY. He was holding on to the couch, but still! He saw daddy and decided he wanted to be over there and shuffled his little self over. Ridiculous, I tell you! 6 months old and trying to walk; I think I'm going to have a heart attack before he's two.

We all had a fabulous time at Disney on Tuesday; I just realized that I haven't blogged about it yet. Spencer loved it, went on all the rides and was so good all day. No stroller so he walked all day and stood in line and we were there until the fireworks ... It was a long long day. I'll probably post a few pictures for my Friday post. Toodles!

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Screams and shorts

I'm blogging as an alternative to going in to rescue Number Two, who woke up 5 minutes after falling asleep and is now crying in bed. Damn it, this has got to stop. We're six months old, dern it.

It's been quite a day. I got up and ran 4.2 miles which felt great. I took longer on my first mile, but I actually ran every mile pretty close to the same speed, and while I didn't run the whole thing I felt good afterward. Not like I needed to die. Not like I was going to collapse but not like I didn't work hard either. 4.2 miles, 53 minutes. Seriously, over 4 miles. FOUR MILES.

Of course, I then came home to find that my dear toddler had decided that Disney wasn't enough entertainment for him this morning and started pulling off the buttons from my laptop. I'm now missing the backspace, the \| key, the enter, tab and the `~ key. He also pulled off the page up/down keys, home, delete, end, caps lock and the left shift button but the Hubby was able to get those back on (well, the left shift is a little ... shifty). I'm still at that point where I'm so mad I'm resigned to ignoring the whole situation. Honestly, I need a new laptop anyhow - the battery doesn't work, we had to replace the plug once and the new one is half broken too, it causes sparks when I plug in ... it's a mess. But the stupid thing worked, and now I have to push the little spongy do-dads when I need one of those buttons.

In other you-never-thought-you'd-see-it news, I went shorts shopping today. I had a slight couple breakdowns - the first when I had a fat-attack in Loft because my stumpy legs are pasty white and um, stumpy), and the second when the Macy's shorts that fit me were several sizes bigger than my actual size (yes, juniors AND Macy's run small, so my 12 turns to a 15 but I just got down from a 14/16 to a solid 12. It's harrowing to have to buy a size 15 shorts). BUT I got through it and now have a couple pairs of shorts. Hmm. Hopefully I'll wear them. I definitely need to retire the maternity shorts that I pulled out this week.

Number Two is now officially cried-out, Number One is down and Hubby is opening a bottle of wine now that I've had two cups of coffee in attempts to wake the heck up this Saturday night. Let's go crazy!

Friday Bits

1) I wrote a post about a weird admirer I have at work (Suz, you might remember him as the “stalker”) but I’m hesitant to post it. Needless to say, I have this admirer/stalker at work who I like talking to because he’s a nice guy but then I get weird emails about him wishing that I wasn’t married, or telling me how nice I looked … it’s creepy, and I wish he could just be normal and we could have a nice work friendship but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to have to put the kibosh on that relationship.

2) I also wrote a post about last weekend’s race, but I never got around to posting it and I think it’s probably irrelevant now. The only picture I have of us all is when we were seriously sweaty after the race, because dude, it was hot. What business do they have starting a run at 9:30am in Florida? Yeah, yeah, the 15k started at 7am. Dude, it was hot.

3) I need to stop saying Dude.

4) I’ve gotten addicted to my phone again, with checking FB and my GoogleReader and my email. Today I actually put it away in my purse and put it on my work calendar to look at it at 10am and 2pm. Let’s see if that curbs the cravings. (update: I was good before the 10am check, but I couldn't hold out for the 2pm)

5) This is how cute my boys looked at last weekend’s wedding. When I dressed Spencer he said he was wearing a “daddy” shirt and that now he was the daddy. Because all daddy wears are button-downs. It was adorable.





6) I made awesome chicken enchiladas tonight for dinner. And I was good and only had one instead of stuffing in a second one ... which I easily could have done.

7) I broke into the Top 10 of BBL! I'm so excited, even though the people ahead of me are likely way ahead of me. Still, out of 109 people at the start, I'm now officially #9 (mostly because I stuck with it, I'm sure, and not because I've lost a serious amount of weight). I'm sure as hell going to go running tomorrow! I've come this far, I hope I can stay on the leader board for the next 4 weeks!

Me? Quick update?

It is probably inadvisable to take your newly-out-of-surgery mother up on her offer to watch the kids while they’re “sleeping” (ha) to go out to lunch, but we did and it was heaven. Bahama Breeze, booth overlooking the water, sunshine and low humidity … I think I love you. That was Sunday.

I took a 4-day weekend this past Friday through Monday, as I was off for President’s Day on Monday and my mom’s surgery was Friday. It was much needed and actually quite relaxing. Mom’s surgery went well, and I spent most of Friday in the hospital with her: reading when she was sleeping, bringing her coffee and just hanging out.

Saturday I ran my first 5k since the end of January due to all the sickness and stress and it was not a pretty sight but I was glad to have done it. My body can run it but my lungs can’t keep up. Mile times: 12.31, 13.41, 14.23. I ran again on Monday morning and did much better: 11.19, 13.03, 13.11. I know you don’t care about these things, but it’s important to me for posterity, or something. This Saturday is the Gasparilla 5k and I’m excited because when I made my resolution to run the Gasparilla 5k, I thought it would be the first time I would have run that far. And it’s not. And it won’t be the last time either, because not I have not only signed up for additional races in April, May, October and November but just today I signed up for on in March also! I’m still hoping that I’ll be ready to attempt 10k by November, but either way I’m running. I just don’t know how far yet.

I did a pill cleanse last week to try to jump start my weight loss again, since I’ve been teetering between 10 and 12lbs lost for nearly a month. It did help and I got down 17lbs, but now I need to re-evaluate my portion size. No seconds doesn’t really help if you pile up the first plate, right?

I finally put the bumpers in Henry’s crib last night since he’s mobile enough for me not to be worried about him suffocating himself in them. He slept all the way through the night last night, nearly 11 hours. I’m hoping it’s not a fluke but I suspect it is. I’m still in a constant argument with the Hubby on letting him cry a bit. This is his baby. He does not want his baby to cry. While I understand this, we let Spencer cry it out and he was sleeping through the night at 4 months. And that was my baby. And S sleeps through Henry’s crying even though they’re in the same room, so it’s not like he’s being disturbed either. Ugh. I don’t know, it’s a constant struggle. And I want some sleep instead of arguing in the middle of the night.

It was a productive weekend and also a relaxing one: I finally got the Christmas stuff to the attic, some of Spencer's old toys down from the attic for Henry, the house cleaned, the laundry done, the garage cleaned, the toilets cleaned ... and also made time to turn the sprinklers on for the kids, hit President's Day sales, take my mom to a traditional birthday lunch at the beach (seriously, you haven't lived if you haven't had Frenchy's she crab soup) and had the aforementioned mini-date with my Hubby (which also may have involved more President's Day shopping, wine shopping and a stop at Whole Foods. When we live, we live dangerously).

So the moral is, all’s well on this front! Here's a picture of Henry enjoying the sprinklers, and I swear that's enjoyment on his face (click photo for full effect):

Wednesday Whines

Let's have a look at my amazingly adorable baby:


Unfortunately, this is more like what he looks like lately:


And this:


Teething's a bitch.
But man, those are some cute angry faces.

Happy Valentine’s day from the land of 67 degrees!

It’s beautiful here. A little chilly for my taste still; I would prefer a solid 70 degrees. Still, it would have been criminal to stay inside all weekend so we spent a good deal of time on Saturday and Sunday outside playing or laying around on a blanket in the front yard (I really wonder what my neighbors think of me, but at least I’m not sitting in folding chairs in my garage) … This of course means that still very little cleaning got done, but since I wasn’t inside to see it I didn’t really mind.

We had a collection of restaurant.com gift certificates, so we ate out for THREE meals this weekend. Saturday morning we headed out to The Brunchery where I had my favorite (fattening) breakfast: A Bayshore Benedict. Croissant, scrambled eggs, bacon, asparagus and hollandaise sauce. I at least skipped the home fries and had sliced tomatoes on the side. We went to the playground for a bit and laid out on the blanket and I read and took photos of the kids before heading to dinner with family to celebrate Spencer’s birthday. Isn’t that great? He couldn’t care less about where we ate (he really doesn’t eat dinner anyhow) so I got to pick and I chose one of my favorite restaurants – Stonechase. They have this salad that has gorgonzola cheese, apples, grapes, candied walnuts, fire-grilled chicken … oh, I dream of that salad. This was where I chose to eat dinner the day I came home from the hospital with Henry. I heart Stonechase.

Sunday was rather uneventful during the day. Henry has been teething and he’s a cranking SOB, especially at night so nobody has been getting a lot of sleep (especially not my husband, bless him). I let him sleep and took both the kids grocery shopping. Did you know it only costs $1.25 to get a kid’s hot chocolate at Starbucks? And they can make it not-so-hot? I always have arguments with Spencer over sitting in the cart, but since it was just me and two of them there was no way I could let him walk so I promised him a hot chocolate and a muffin while we shopped and he was in toddler heaven. He made a mess, but I needed to wash his jacket anyhow so I zipped it up tight and let him go to town. My dad and his girlfriend came over in the late morning and brought Spencer his birthday present – several train sets from Ikea. I now have tracks all over my living room. At least he’s having fun.

My mom came over in the evening to babysit and Hubby and I went on a rare date night. We really didn’t think of it as a Valentine’s Day thing, but just a date night. We had another restaurant.com certificate for a tapas restaurant called Vizcaya so we had a half pitcher of sangria and stuffed prawns and stuffed dates and deviled crab and chorizo with cheese sauce and wild rabbit in a mushroom sauce … sorry, I had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. We also went to see The Fighter, which at least begins my NY resolution of seeing 6 movies in the theater. Very good, I would recommend (although I feel obligated to inform you that Christian Bale is not attractive as a crackhead, and also THANK GOD acid-washed jeans went out of style).

Today I’m back on the exercise/eating right wagon after the indulgent weekend – I ran/walked 1.5 miles in 20 minutes this morning on the treadmill (5.3mph 1.0 incline for total of 10 minutes, 4.0mph/3.5mph at 3.5 incline for 10 minutes) and then did some arm exercises on the weight machine. I’ve been toggling between 10 and 12 lbs lost for the last 3 weeks and can’t seem to get out of that rut, so it’s time for some drastic hunger pains. Think I can drink a gallon of water a day? I have my doubts.

Swinging on a saturday

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Camptown races sing that song

It’s been a little crazy around here and I haven’t had time to a) upload photos and b) do anything more with the computer besides refreshing Facebook 1,871 times an hour. So in two parts, here I am typing and later I will upload photos for the full effect.


Spencer turned three on Tuesday – THREE! Where does the time go? We got him a floor puzzle of Cat in the Hat (Top and the Hat to him), Candyland (conveniently left at my IL’s house for safekeeping) and a Fisher Price iXL video game system. My in-laws for once did not outdo us, and got him a bunch of clothes and a couple pairs of shoes, an educational game and a little ATV that professes to go 2mph … but there’s no way that it does that. It’s like 2 steps down from a Power Wheel, so he loves it and I’m not worried about him going 8mph into a tree. That comes next year. He loves his “bideo game”, and this morning I showed him how to play it a little better so now he’s playing the games and writing his letters and numbers to his heart’s content.



Henry is still sick, but he is a little snugglepuss when he’s sick so I’ve gotten a lot of cuddle time. We’ve been alternating between holding until bed and a bit of the Ferber system, but I don’t really feel up to doing that full steam until his nose is a little clearer because all that crying just makes things worse. He has been sleeping better through the night though. Not all the way, but we’re getting there. He’s had a fever for nearly a week, but when we took Spencer to his three-year check up, we snuck Henry in for a check too and they couldn’t find anything actually wrong with him, so we’re just on a Tylenol regimen for a couple more days. I think teeth. And a cold. And a miserable combination of the two.

He’s nearly 6 months old and we’re still not on any food other than formula. We’ve tried cereal, and bananas with cereal but he’s not that interested and I’m not interested in fighting it so we keep putting things off. He’s not hurting for food, that’s for sure – he’s a whopping 18.4lbs as of yesterday. He’s constantly up on his hands and knees trying to get around, and although he’s not technically “crawling”, he knows how to rock himself violently enough to scoot the back end of him forward and he gets around that way. It’s really truly insane how fast he’s progressing.

So let’s review:

Work – better, lower stress (and Suz, I know you hated working in my field but I actually quite like it so no offense … I couldn’t be a high school teacher, so there –ha!)

Home – better, less fights with Spencer, more cuddles with Henry. More take-out because I haven’t had time to cook but I’m making good choices there too. Mmmm grilled chicken Greek salad with no dressing or potato salad …

My house – a disaster zone. Seriously, my house is atrocious. I vacuum almost every day because Henry’s on the floor most of the time but otherwise? Stacks of paper everywhere, laundry day is every day, dirty pots and pans … oye. Maybe I’ll get on that tonight. Ha. I’ve let go a little, and it’s made things a lot easier (those who don’t actually know me, I’m a little anal about keeping my house picked up AT ALL TIMES).

Exercise – last week I didn’t exercise at all, not one single day. This week I’ve gone to the gym at work two days, and I’m going tomorrow, and hopefully Saturday I can get out in the morning for a long run or bike ride. I’m failing miserably at running for a solid 20 minutes without walking but I’m going to keep trying. I’m not giving up!

My mom – still needs surgery next week, but I think she’s getting to be in better spirits about it. She volunteered to babysit on Sunday so Hubby and I can get out for a date, so she’s obviously feeling okay enough to lift a 20lbs baby and play with Spencer (her favorite thing to do).