Mountain Climbing

We took a big step this weekend, to prevent an even bigger leap. We have installed the hard-mount baby gate at the top of our stairs.

Over the last few days, Gracie has taken a huge interest in the stairs.

She kept inching closer and closer to the edge to look over, and has started flinging toys through the banister from the second floor onto the first. I will give her some credit, they do make a nice bang when the crash. It is almost the same level of bang that my heart made the first time I heard it.

Now that she is focused on walking, crawling is at lightening speeds. One second she is sitting there chewing in a shoe, the next she is on the landing flinging toys. Or more heart stopping, looking over the edge of the landing and down the stairs.

Hence the official installation of the gate and several holes in the hardwood banister. Eh, it is contractor grade though, so this just means that I will be able to replace it in a few years, right? Right??

So this is a win-win project! We keep our baby safe and I have the illusion that I will get some high priced home improvement in the years to come. Well, Lil’Rick doesn’t seem too happy about the arrangement. It is cramping his style.

We have a second mobile gate at the bottom of the stairs now too because when I caught her peering through the rail on the 3rd step of the stairs, my heart once again stopped for a moment. I yanked her off the stairs and slapped up the gate. What I didn’t realize is that I was trapping the dog on the stairs. Stuck in the limbo between the couch and our bed. 2 hours later, I noticed the whimpering.

Maybe if he starts peeing on the carpeting, we can add another home improvement project onto the list sooner instead of later!

Our Love Will Never Sour

Yesterday, October 4, was our 5th wedding anniversary. 5 years married, 10 years together. It seems like yesterday that we were married. In fact, congratulations to our friends Kari and Antonio, who WERE actually married yesterday!

I digress ...

Life has become so hectic, that I put little thought into the day outside of the chores that we needed to accomplish to be ready for Gracie's birthday party next weekend and the meal I was going to make us for dinner since we were sans babysitter. We usually don't exchange big gifts because we always DO something to celebrate, but this year I didn't even get the poor guy a card.

The chores didn't go so well, but the meal was fantastic. Braised lamb shanks, butternut squash risotto and a fantastic bottle of Cab. Yummy.

Matt, on the other hand, had apparently been putting a lot of thought into my gift.

5th anniversary = wood. Hmmm.

You know what he got me? A tree. Some might not be excited, but I was. And not just any old tree, nope not my hubbie. The man got me a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree! Eeeeeeeeee! That is my foodie/green thumb loving squeal! Complete with 2 full grown lemons actually on the tree when I opened the box.

So in response to this fantastic and completely unexpected gift, here is my heart in written form:

Through all the day to day drudgery, you are my light. You are my companion. You are my life. You are my soul.

You know me better than I know myself most days and still love me despite my flaws. You take the world on your shoulders to give it back to me brighter, happier.

Every year with you gets better, more comfortable, more loving. There has never been a second of our life together when I didn't not believe 100% that we were meant to be together.

You are right my Love, our love will never sour, despite the new presence of a lemon tree in our home.

Is That an Elephant on Your Back?

We are off to Chicago this afternoon for a 48 hour whirlwind adventure.

Being true to my nature, I am more tense about it than excited right now. It feels like an elephant is dancing a jig on my lower back. Though this time for slightly different reasons than the last trip.

My anxieties:
1) Missed naps.
2) Loss of baby infrastructure.
3) Containment of baby in the un-baby-proof house.
4) “Strange” people trying to put Grace to bed.
5) A cold and raining game.
6) Not getting to sleep until late, with an early morning baby wake-up.
7) Just trying to cram way too much into the time there.

The list could just keep going too. Even ignoring the obvious things I can’t change, like the weather, I feel like I can’t change anything on the list. We are not going to go buy $200 worth of baby crap for 1 day. We are not going to get back to my parent’s before midnight. We are not going to be able to cut essential activities out of the trip.

And so it is. I'll just have to suck it up. Our adventure begins at 1 pm this afternoon.

Damn Cubs better not disappoint. Or I’d better get drunk enough not to care.

Don’t Your Prefer Cheese?

Grace has had full control of the fine motor skill, index finger to thumb grasp, for quite awhile. She can pincer grasp things with the best of them, but still won’t say “Ma Ma.” Go figure.

With this skill she self feeds herself completely on the weekends. I still send mashed food with the finger snacks to daycare because I figure if they don’t mind having the food spit back on them, why should I? Grace is a champion with beans, shredded chicken, peas, pasta, fruit, Cheerios and cheese shreds.

You know what her FAVORITE snack is though?

Yeah, I know, all the major kiddy food groups are in the list. It’s because its not food.

It is ….. hair! Gross huh?

She sees our Corgi, Lil’ Rick, as a buffet. A smorgasbord. Between the snacks of hair that she finds on the floor and the drive by plucking, she eats hair all day. I keep thinking, “Don’t you prefer cheese? What are you doing kid?!?”

So I am constantly trying to feed her at home. Most of the time I will put her into the high chair, give her a snack and – Freak Out – OK, go back onto the ground and eat dog hair then. And she does.

It is not just dog hair though. Of course not. My daughter is apparently not that picky of an eater. Human hair seems to be just as good. She likes to rip fists full of hair right out of my head. I think they must taste better if it has the root too. I am fairly certain I will be bald by the time she is 2.

This past weekend, Grace and I met my friend Jen at Panera for lunch. Apparently, while I was refilling my drink, Grace lured Jen in with whispers of baby love and … BANG! … ripped out a chunk of her hair. Which went straight into the mouth.

To be on the positive side about this tendency that I can’t figure out how to stop aside from giving away our beloved pet:
1) She appears to be taking only what she is willing to eat.
2) It’s just another form of protein, right?
3) Given all options, eating hair is better then boogers. Although she has been trying to stick her finger up her nose lately. Hmmm ...

The Wave

My mom calls Gracie “Princess Grace.” It drives me nuts, but what am I going to say?

I can dictate what Gracie will call her though, thereby over ruling all the crazy names she is trying to title herself with. All because “Grandma” makes her sound old.

Guess what lady? You are old and your dragging me down with you too! So get over it!

Over the last few months she has been clinging to the title of “Grams.” OK, I’m fine with that one, but I still insist that GRACE will get to decide what she calls her, not the other way around.

Anywho – I digress –

Grace has been clapping for a few weeks now. Yesterday though, when I went to pick her up from daycare, she pulled out the wave. The kid crawled right up to me, sat down and waved. Just like she had been doing this for weeks too.

The wave was then followed by a round of applause, by me, Grace herself and most of her playmates (because babies don’t really need to know WHY they are clapping to clap. It is just fun.)

Due to the distraction of having to dodge raindrops on our dash from daycare to car, I completely forgot all about the new skill. I know – horrible parent.

When we got home though, Matt came out to meet us in the garage. What does Gracie do? She waves at him of course. Full out princess wave. I guess my mom isn’t so far off on her titles after all.

We are still calling you Grandma though!

Thank You Blarney Stone

It always amazes me when I’m the center of attention.

The witty one. The clever one. The leader of table conversation.

Because I am none of those things.

OK, I can lead, but I usually lead through a veil of forced self confidence, not true ability or gift of gab. I guess when I get desperate and have the desire to fill awkward gapping voids of silence, the talent comes out. Thank you Blarney Stone.

I went to lunch with a coworker today to celebrate his new job on Monday. Last week, I realized that nothing was being organized for him. Probably because our secretary (who is usually the one to plan events) is observant Muslim and celebrating Ramadan (where you fast until sundown every day during the month of September).

I wouldn’t want to be in charge of a food event when I couldn’t partake, so why should I expect her to organize anything? I knew it was gong to be dreadful but felt obligated to do something for the guy.

After much discussion, we decided to take him out for lunch. Just the team and a few others that he specifically wanted to include.

---WELL---

Folks started whispering about an ‘A-list’ event that they apparently weren’t good enough to attend….

The original invite email started getting passed onto folks that did not fall into the ‘friend’ category….

I started being questioned by coworkers as to why they didn’t receive an invite (and luckily was able to appease them enough so they agreed not to attend)….

The ‘normal’ people that I actually looked forward to having lunch with bailed….

And my Crazy Cube Neighbor crashed the lunch, showing up a half hour late, without an invitation or a declaration of intent to come.

So there I am, sitting in a mix of social misfits, trying to come up with conversation. We talked about golf, football, education, work and travel. OK, I am pretty chatty about travel, but I seemed to have the most to say about ALL of the various topics. Not a good sign.

During the 1.5 hours at the restaurant, I watched the Rat Eater devour a plate of chicken wings like they were going out of style. I watched my Team Lead eat 8 – see that number EIGHT – pieces of cake. I watched our Guest of Honor slam a giant beer and talk about how he could drink 6 more and still be fine to drive. I watched my Crazy Cube Neighbor try to burrow his way into every conversation just to be completely ignored and shut out.

Hmmm… maybe the lunch was pretty entertaining after all.

Hey, Chicago, What Do You Say?

Matt won the lotto yesterday.

Well, a lotto that gave you the chance to spend money. In our case, it turned out to be a lotto that tempted us into spending an entire paycheck in the course of 2 days.

The Cubs made it to the playoffs. Matt, as always with Chicago sports related events, was on the ball and entered into the drawings for the chance to buy playoff tickets. The three possibilities were New York (Mets), Philly and Chicago.

Well, the two that were within driving distance failed, but his name was picked for Chicago. He was notified at 9 am yesterday that he could buy tickets at 12 pm. Didn’t give us much time to think about it. Of course we were going to get tickets. What an amazing opportunity! We'd be silly NOT to do it!

And they are AMAZING tickets. Outfield, right next to the ivy, in Ronnie WooWoo territory.

So after shuffling through the list of options: Matt goes with friend; Matt goes and sells other ticket to cover the cost of the trip; or we just flat out ebay the two tickets (as of yesterday they were going for $600 a pair with a full day left!)

Then we came up with a final option. We BOTH go.

Huh. That really hadn’t occurred to me.

So now, we are busy making phone calls looking for a sitter (thank you Grandma!), explaining to family and friends (that now feel slighted that they can’t go) our decision, discussing how I am going to finagle the trip give when I have zero leave (and the lie I will need to tell at work to go with it) and making exorbitantly expensive flight reservations (hence the spending a paycheck in 2 days).

So, one week from right now we will be in Chicago. For a total of 48 hours. All I have to say is that they better win.

They're singing ...
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are gonna win today!

Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are gonna win today!

Thank God It's Monday

This past weekend was horrible.

HORRIBLE.

It was the kind of weekend that makes you think, “How can people possibly deal with more than one child?”

Grace has fallen into some kind of precursor to the terrible twos, along the lines of ….

I’m one and you can’t tell me what to do.
And you can’t make me do what you want me to do.
And you can’t make me eat what you want me to eat.
And you can’t make me take a nap right now even though I’m exhausted and have only had two 20 minutes naps since I woke up at 5:30am and it now 3:15pm.

Examples of this deplorable behavior are …

She would sit in the middle of the kitchen floor and just start screaming. Nobody touched her, no dog licked her and there was no injury of any kind. Just sudden screaming like she’d been stung by a bee….

….Unless we were out of the house shopping. And then you HAD to keep moving. Any stopping to browse or compare labels and it was all over. Luckily, at 7:30 am there aren’t too many folks in the grocery store. So when necessary I would stop. Otherwise I turned it into a game of trying to remember what was down every isle, so I could just grab items off the shelf while still moving. Sometimes we did several swoops up and down before I had completed the purchases. Sometimes I would just push the cart to keep it moving and then run to catch up. Grace thought it was great fun. Frankly, it would have been if I wasn’t so tense….

….Until 6pm last night, she refused to eat. Anything. She would drink milk, but only at 2 ounces at a time. This made for lots of dirty bottles and wasted formula. It also made me constantly try and feed her, because she MUST be hungry. Nope. She would take two bites of the 20 I’d just given here and then start flinging it over the edge or just flat out scream and buck….

….Finally, ½ an hour before she normally goes to sleep, she decided she was hungry. We went outside to gather ripe tomatoes, and before I could stop her (because it looked slightly funky and had a fresh worm hole in it) she chomped into the tomato. I tried switching it out with one that an insect hadn’t been feasting on, but she freaked. OK, you want a wormy tomato, fine, go for it. And she did. 10 minutes later, and completely covered with tomato snot and juice, she had devoured the entire thing.


Then she spotted the dish of mashed carrots I had tried to feed her earlier. She grabbed it and started scooping food into her mouth with her hands. Between that technique, and a first try at self feeding with a spoon, she ate 2 containers of carrots.


This was topped off with a baby who happily splashed in the tub for her longest bath ever, drank an 8 oz bottle and then slept through the night for the first time in what feels like forever.

This parenting thing isn’t so hard, right?

Helen's in Red

If you are looking for them, things that normally would go unnoticed actually occur quite often.

I always smile when I hear stories about people who look for random pennies and playing cards on the ground. In a movie I watched not long ago, a main character carried a camera and documented single shoes.

For me it is cardinals.

It is hard not to allow your eye to be drawn to a bright red flash of a bird. There is one that lives at work and one in our backyard, so I see them quite often.

My Grandma LOVED cardinals. LOVED them. I couldn’t even begin to tell you why them over any other bird. There was a family that lived in her back yard too. I think she named them. That sort of thing suited her.

Now, whenever I see one, I say “Hi Grandma,” out loud. Most people think I’m nuts, but I do truly believe that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, Gram chose to come back as a cardinal. A male one with the bright feathers, since what is the point of having the title of cardinal if you’ve got the boring brown female feathers? (Given this, cardinals are all transgender birds with the body of a male, but the soul of a female).

In the last two weeks we have had the passing of Grandparents Day (which I totally ignored since Gracie’s grandparents are 600 miles away and am fairly sure that they are not even away of the Hallmark holiday) and the anniversary of my Grandma’s death. She has been gone for 13 years and I still think of her all the time.

Today, the work cardinal bounced around the patio squawking loudly. In the course of her travels through the trees, over chairs, under umbrellas, she came to visit. This fiery little bird came right up to me, stood on my table and look at me. So I gave her a piece of rosemary ciabatta bread. She smiled at me (yes, I swear the bird smiled) and flew away with the treat.

Bye Gram. Thanks for the visit.

Lunching With Lizards

Today is perfect early fall weather. 60 degrees in the morning, 72, sunny and a light breeze this afternoon. Perfect.

At work, the campus is stellar. There are grand trees surrounding the building, seasonal flowers constantly being replaced and the most beautiful 20x20 patch of grass right next to the building that they groom like a mini baseball field.

As I sat outdoors eating my lunch and trying to massage away the giant lump of stress being stored in my lower back, I watched little lizards scurry around the patio. I envied them. These little guys get to crawl on that grass. They get to roll around on it. They get to play on it.

THEY get to play on it!

I wanna play on the grass too! No, there is no sign forbidding such actions, just the stares and whispers I am sure I would receive from the hundreds of people walking in and out the front door. I have been at this building for 7 years now and I have never once seen anyone actually on the grass.

Why is this? I’m sure I am not the only one that gazes longingly at the grass. Hmmm. To be a lizard, just during lunch.

Or maybe find a group of friends that will revolt with me and have a picnic one day.