Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Miss Fancypants Lilah Frances

Snapped this pic with my phone camera last night.
Makes me smile.
Thought I'd share.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I don't really want to talk about this, but....

UGH.

Potty training sucks.

I've been dreading this particular milestone. I've kind of been doing the head-in-the-sand thing, hoping she'd somehow just "get it" and knock it out of the park from the get go.
Sadie has been slightly ahead of the game with regard to lots of other developmental things, but come on. Who was I kidding?

I didn't buy a bunch of books or do hours of online research. All I did was purchase a little potty for her and start talking about it whenever I changed her diaper - something along the lines of "you know, someday you won't need diapers anymore...when you're ready, you can tell me or Daddy and we'll help you go on the potty," etc.

The ironic part about this is that Sadie decided out of the blue about a month ago that she wanted to stop wearing diapers (atypical for a toddler with a new sibling) and she is actually doing really well with it so far. I'd say she's about 95% potty trained for going pee, and somewhere around 60%-70% with poo. She seems to have a hang up about going #2 in the potty and it's driving. Me. CRAZY.
For some reason, she doesn't seem to be the slightest bit upset by going in her training pants or underwear. I thought a few accidents in her pants would serve as super duper motivation. That, and the shower of praise she gets from us when she goes in the potty. Maybe I'm just impatient.

I know I'm supposed to be nothing but supportive/positive about successes (no problem) and nonchalant about accidents (not nearly as easy) but I'm telling you, this is the biggest bummer I've encountered in parenting so far.

Miraculously, Sadie doesn't seem to be picking up on my angst. In fact, her last two poo accidents she "cleaned up herself" - which is lovely if all I was going for was independence, but actually really really not cool, as it results in frantic rubber-gloved scrubbing and copious use of Lysol by yours truly.

Sigh.

I know we're getting there. We're actually really close. I guess I just needed to vent on this one today.

Monday, June 14, 2010

I was on NPR today!

Wheeee!
I used to listen to NPR all of the time in the car, but nowadays I default to the classical station.
Today, I finally tuned in while driving and they had an interesting topic on Talk of the Nation. It was an interview with a man who has a book out about how people can "click" upon meeting one another. I have definitely had that experience with several of my long time friends, and the conversations piqued my interest. As always, they were asking for callers to share their own experiences, so I called in and actually got selected to be on the air!
http://tinyurl.com/28shahz
If you have time to listen to the whole 30 minute segment, it's pretty good. I particularly liked Gary's comments from 20:34 through 23:18.
I come on at the very end of the segment - 26:55 and I got nervous, so I'm talking way too fast and adding unnecessary details, but oh well.
Here's the wedding day crack-up photo that I referenced at the very end.
I love to laugh.
I watch Ellen Degeneres sometimes and my favorite moments of her show are when she starts laughing. She likes scaring/startling people (which I am actually not a fan of) and this is a funny montage of those moments.
I could watch my Friends DVD bloopers 100x in a row and not get sick of watching those actors bust up over missed lines, etc. This is one of my all time favorite YouTube videos, for obvious reasons. You get the point.
I totally believe that laughter is greatly beneficial to life in general, but for me - it is also the glue that holds many friendships tightly together. I have some friends that I have had laughs with over the years that we still reminisce about (and often start laughing again). I have a couple of friends who swear that they laugh harder with me than with anyone else they know. Love that.

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
e.e. cummings

I wish you great enjoyment in your next laugh.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

New hair. Not bad.

There's nothing like a fresh haircut to make a gal feel reborn. I'm not a particularly stylish person and in my adulthood, my hair has become an accessory for me.
Right after college, I got my hair completely chopped off and it was very well received by friends and strangers alike. Granted, it took a few cuts to get the right look, but when I did, it was awesome. I'm a sucker for a compliment - especially about my appearance.

Then I did the terribly predictable thing and grew my hair long when I was dating my husband (even though we met & fell in love when it was short). It was at it's longest when we got married, and like a complete bonehead, I wore it up in curls instead of down & flowy - don't even get me started on my wedding hair regret. Boo hoo.
Anyway, I have cut it short a couple of times since then. For some reason, though (fear of "mom hair"?) I seem to always get the itch to let it grow out, which is a major pain because the in-between stages are not cute. I'm certain that I'll look back at my hair during my pregnancy with Lilah and say "what was I thinking?" but whatever.
It was finally long enough to let my stylist cut it into some sort of cute look and so he did. It's basically long bangs and lots of long layers around the back.

I like it.
(even though my expression doesn't show it. Smiling in self-portraits is weird)

Of course, I'll probably never spend the amount of time he did with product (thickening spray) and equipment (diffuser, boar-bristle round brush) to make it look like this, but he promised that it is an "easy" style for me to do myself that can be done a couple of different ways, and I believe him. If I have trouble, I'll go back to him and have him give me a tutorial.


So - I resisted the temptation to chop it all off (this time). I'm really glad that I know I can do the super short hair thing, because I know I will again at some point. Who says "mom hair" can't be cute?

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Aaaaaahhh.....


At least they know how to relax!

Sadie at 6 weeks

Lilah at 8 weeks

Sunday, June 6, 2010

also this weekend...

Lilah is not even close to sleeping through the night yet. We are actually going to put her in her own room already. I have mixed feelings about it; we'll see how it goes.
Anyway, mornings are a bit rough for me. But I don't mind waking up on Saturdays, knowing that Andrew will be home to help.

We needed to make the most of this particular Saturday morning, because we had 2 parties (one 3-year-old birthday and one celebrating a friend's USA citizenship) and Andrew had a race in Pacific Grove this morning which we girls were not attending.

After a bit too much time spent convincing Sadie that she needed to get dressed, we went out to indulge ourselves with Peet's coffee and pastries. I grabbed a seat with Lilah sound asleep in her car seat and Sadie joined Andrew at the counter to order. They chose banana bread and chocolate cherry bread for us to share. YUM. Andrew got his usual black coffee, Sadie had a hot cocoa with whipped cream and I had a mocha. Did I mention we were indulging? Peet's makes the best mochas, hands down - honestly, I don't know why people even bother with Starbucks.

We had about 30 minutes to chat while Sadie played with her dinosaur and Lilah snoozed. I can't recall a single thing we discussed, but being out with my family (all of us) makes me incredibly happy; I can't explain it. Well, I guess I can. I suppose it's simple pride. I like being out and about with the girls on a day to day basis - grocery shopping, running errands, etc. but something about being with Andrew and the girls fills my silly soul. We are that young family that I used to stare at and wonder, will I ever have that? And now I do. Crazy cool.

When we got home it was time to kick it into gear. I got Sadie set up to color the birthday card, wrapped the gift, packed the diaper bags with red, white & blue outfits for the citizenship party and fed Sadie some lunch. Andrew rearranged Lilah's room to accommodate the crib.

Anyway, before I knew it, it was time to head out. I was thrilled when we pulled up to the birthday party 10 minutes early.

Then I looked in the backseat:
So I parked in the shade, opened all of the doors for the perfect breeze to soothe my sleepyheads, and we were 15 minutes late to the party.

a little bit of glitter...




...goes a long way!

Thanks for the fun art project, Alissa!

At our old apartment, I had one entire wall in the kitchen covered with Sadie's art projects. They were from a little art class she took at the beginning of last summer. I generally shy away from art projects that require anything beyond paper, crayons and washable marker - for fear of the mess. But I need to let loose a little, because clearly it's fun for kids to get messy while being creative. I mean, that's almost the whole point at this age, right?

What I really need to do is set up the play room so that she has the right space in which to get busy with her art.

Right; off to work on that. And clean up some glitter.