Julie's Dramas

New paint, new floors

2010-10-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

So on Friday, August 6th (two months ago to the day, coincidentally), the city turned off our water to fix a water main break. We accidentally left our bathroom faucet on and then left to go to Tim's parents so he could shower and then out to dinner with friends. We returned home to a flooded house.This necessitated replacement of all the engineered hardwood flooring in every room except Stella and Etta's bedrooms. Which, for some reason, took 6 and a half weeks to actually get installed. Well, technically they installed the floors in 10 and a half hours, all that in-between time was due to Floor King being really slow. We got the same Walnut floors so that we could keep the floors in the girls' bedrooms.

The only good to come out of all of this, well other than the fact that the flooring that

we accidentally scratched when moving the piano in got replaced, was that they repainted our living room, hallway and bedroom walls and ceilings to fix any places that got ripped when they pulled off the molding. And we got to choose the colors. So our formerly cave

-like living room (because the ceiling and walls were too dark) went from this:

to this:

I realize it's not one of those "wow" transformations, but it really makes the room seem so much brighter. The color before was a beigy-brown and had too much green in it and always sort of bugged us. It was hard to tell what color it was. The color on the ceiling is Behr's Swiss Coffee and the walls are Natural Linen. You should have seen us desperately trying to choose the colors the night before the painters came, lining up these little tiny paint chips on the picture ledges and trying to tell different shades of white apart. But it was definitely worth it, I think we chose the perfect shades.

Then we had the shelving unit wall. I'd had the idea few weeks ago to paint that wall orange to make everything on the shelves pop. I couldn't believe I managed to convince Tim this was a good idea and so as soon as the painters were out of here, I set plans in motion to get it painted before Tim could change his mind:)

I wish I'd taken a picture of the awful orange we chose first. It was called "Pumpkin Pleasure" in Olympic's No-VOC line, and it looked perfect on the chip, but it was totally wrong. After three terrible coats, Tim decided to use photoshop to get a fix on what the actual color was in our

inspiration picture (the one in the middle):

BTW, if you are looking for lots of inspiration on 60's and 70's paint colors, check out www.retrorenovation.com

So this is the wall with the shelving unit before:

And after, with the addition of Olympic's No-VOC Georgian Leather and some hard work rehabilitating the shelving unit using these instructions:

I also used Jonathan Adler's shelving unit as inspiration:

Although I could have done a lot better if I'd just had a grand or so to spend on some of his pottery. I wonder if he'd be willing to give me a gift certificate if I sent him an email? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery;)

What do you think? The orange color isn't exactly what we had in mind, but Olympic's no-VOC line had a very limited selection and we were in a hurry to get our house back together! Next up: our bedroom.

Our new living room

2010-05-18T07:40:00.001-07:00

I never blog anymore, but thought I'd include some pics of our living room with the new couch and curtains in case anyone reads this anymore. I made the curtains after the couch went in and haven't gotten a picture of everything together yet. One day...

10 Months!

2010-01-20T18:42:00.001-08:00

Etta, you turned 10 months old today. It is hard to believe that in that time you've gone from this:

To this:

My tiny little baby is growing up, only 2 months away from turning 1! Of course, you also get more fun every day and are in that stage where I'm reminded WHY I have children. You and your sister now play together on your own. Just wander off and I'm like, "where are the children?" and I'll go look for you and there you are in your room or Stella's room just playing together as happy as can be.
You worship your sister. Oh my goodness, I know you love me and I love you, but I will never be the recipient of the type of love I see in your eyes that you hold for Stella. She is your teacher, your buddy, your idol. It's an amazing relationship already.
Some wonderful and fun things you have been doing lately:

1/12/10: Etta pulls up in her crib! I went into her room because she was crying and not sleeping at nap time and she was standing up! I went to try and help her down and she fell down, stiff as a board, and nearly bonked her head on the backside of the crib!

1/13/10: Etta waved hi to me twice when I was putting her in the car after Stella's ballet class! Then she waved to her sister!

1/13/10: Etta pulled up to standing on the bathtub twice!

1/14/10: I love how when Etta wants you to pick her up, she'll crawl over to you, get on her knees and tug on your pant leg. She looks up at you with the most adorable expression:)

1/18/10: Etta was standing at a chair in the kitchen and she sat back down on her bottom without falling!

1/20/10: You're 10 months today! I love how when you're eating, you'll pick up a piece of food, tap my palm (or your sister's) with it, and then put it in your mouth. Almost like you're saying “cheers!”

You also are getting a "Buddha belly". It is the cutest thing I have ever seen. And no wonder since I think you only ever stop eating out of sheer exhaustion!

You change every day and it's an amazing process that I feel like I am enjoying and savoring far more this time. Thanks for being my little "Etta-bird".

Love,
Mommy

Under the Zilker Tree then and now

2009-12-31T16:11:00.001-08:00

Stella spinning under the Zilker Tree a few weeks ago:And 3 years ago (I do have video of her spinning, but no stills of that actually happening):
Hard to believe that is the same kiddo! 3 years has gone by so fast.

7 Months and One Week

2009-10-27T13:27:00.001-07:00

I love blowing raspberries

I decided to give Etta a running start on 7 months before I blogged about her. So 7 months and one week seems like a fair point to stand back and evaluate.

Still don't like baths. Still don't get them very often.

You are the smiling-est, happiest baby. I thought your sister was happy, but you take the cake.

Love playing with my rings, just like my sister did!
You have discovered the joy that is raspberries and you will happily do them over and over. This afternoon, your sister and you were having a back and forth raspberries contest in the car. If someone starts doing raspberries, you mimic them immediately!

You also love peek-a-boo. You just laugh and laugh when I cover your face with something and say, "Where's Etta?" then pull it off and say, "There she is!"

Goofing off with your favorite person

Two days after you turned 7 months you chose between two books! I put "Good Night Moon" and "Pat Them Gently" in front of you and told to choose one. You examined both and then decisively grabbed "Good Night Moon"! Now every time we read before nap or bedtime, I let you choose the book.

The last month has been really difficult as far as sleep goes. We sleep-trained you and you are much better for naps, although you still go down for pretty short periods of time, but you have gone from sleeping 7.5-9 hours at a stretch to sleeping 4. If I'm lucky. It's been hard, you slept through the night almost from the get-go, so going back to such extreme sleep-deprivation has been hard on your momma! This weekend you did 8 hours two nights in a row, so I'm hopeful that perhaps we're on our way back to longer stretches of sleep.

You eat 3 meals a day and often demand more, more MORE!

You suffered through your first Slapdash. MeMe stayed with you and Stella, and on the Sunday after it was all over, you wouldn't let me out of your sight. In fact, you wouldn't let me put you down, even to give you to Daddy. You are truly a Momma's girl.

You went on your first family vacation, to Galveston! You weren't too fond of all the time spent in the car, or all the missed naps, but I still think you had your own brand of a good time. At Schlitterbahn, you were all suited up in your life jacket and sharing the intertube with your Daddy and you totally passed out as we floated on the Torrent River. Everyone in the park thought you were adorable. Bathing Beauty
While on vacation, you also had a couple of complete meltdowns in the car on the way back from dinner. Your Daddy, your sister and I sang Old McDonald with increasingly silly animals and objects and you calmed down immediately. That is still your favorite song.

You started sitting in real high chairs at restaurants and sitting in the shopping cart at the grocery store.
You drink out of a sippy cup, although you usually need Mama to hold it so you can actually get water out.
You took your first bus ride
You slid down the slide in the backyard for the first time.

Sometimes I feel guilty because the number of photos I take of you pales in comparison to the ones I took of your sister. And I don't blog about you nearly as much, or in as timely as a fashion, as I did with your sister. And sometimes you get dragged around rather than having your naps exactly when they are supposed to happen. But I enjoy you so much, Etta. I really feel like you've made our family complete. We're now a self-sustaining, contained unit. And I hope that in exchange for not having a moment by moment photographic record of your life, you are getting better parents (because we're more experienced and much more relaxed), and a sister who adores you and keeps you constantly entertained.

And finally, because it's just too much of a coincidence that I took pictures of you and your sister in the same outfit at almost exactly the same age:

Here you are,And here's Stella:

I love you sweetie, till' next month!

6 months!

2009-09-24T13:16:00.001-07:00

Her first Starbucks. Very important milestone.

Etta turned 6 months old Sunday. I just cannot believe that my little baby is already halfway through her first year of life! We've been in hardcore sleep training mode and (knock on wood), I'm starting to believe it's working. It's hard when she's screaming and crying, but we'd been setting her up with bad habit after bad habit. And not scheduling around her naps. Last week the you-know-what hit the fan and she would not sleep. Woke up at her grandparent's Thursday night and wouldn't go back to sleep, so they got her up. Then woke up at our house at 1:50am and wouldn't go back to sleep for 2 hours. Eek! So we stiffened our spine, made some sacrifices (like Tim and Etta missing a birthday party that Stella and I went to Saturday afternoon to not sabotage nap), and got her back to human baby form. Most days, we only suffer through less than 10 minutes of crying before she falls asleep. But she still cries as she senses that we're starting her nap/bedtime routine and every time it breaks my heart and I say, "it's not going to work!" Tim is always like, "why don't you give it a few minutes, you say this every night!" I'm glad he's right;) Triple-decker of cuteness

So Etta is now back on the cereal (rice) and has started eating sweet potatoes. She really digs the food now. We went to the doc Monday and she is 26 inches long (50-75%), 13 lbs (25-50%) and 43 cm head circumference (50-75%). For comparison (and of course I have to compare), at 6 months Stella was 26.25 inches long (75%), 16lbs, 9.6oz (just below 75%) and 42 cm head circumference (25-50%). So Stella was 3 lbs, 9.6 oz heavier (WOW), but they're about the same on height. I blogged on the occasion of Stella's 6 month visit too. Apparently then I was also worried about squeezing in 3 feedings. That seems so silly in retrospect. What did I have to do back then? Ah, I was so naive! With Stella the doc, (same doc, btw), was all about cutting down on feedings. No mention of this that time. I guess that's the difference between having a big baby and an average/slightly below average one! I'm enjoying doing everything again this time, but having it be totally different.

Etta continues to be a super happy, smiley baby. She's now moved into the terminally cute blowing bubbles and making really cute gurgling sounds phase. I think teeth may be imminent, as she puts her tongue over her bottom teeth a lot and also is drooling constantly. Plus her gums are swollen. But who knows, Stella didn't have teeth until she was 8 months old!

We'll be going on our first family vacation two weeks from tomorrow. And this weekend my Mom will be coming and watching the girls while Tim and I do Slapdash Flimflammery 6 Hopefully all those changes won't sabotage our sleep training and turn Etta back into a zombie. I did not like zombie baby!
Well, Stella's timer woke up Etta, but not Stella, so I guess I'm back on duty again!

Family Photos

2009-09-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

We did family photos a couple of weeks ago and they turned out AMAZING! You probably will only be able to see these for a bit longer, but check out some of them at:

http://www.robinwinklesphotography.com/Favorites/thomas.htm
and
http://www.robinwinklesphotography.com/blog/?p=1985

Etta's got a brand new trick

2009-09-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Etta's been saying "mama" for the past week or two. The first time I heard it, I was shocked because Dada is the easier sound to make and Stella made that sound for months before she said Mama. But Etta is a bit of a Mama's girl;) I knew she was just making a sound and I wasn't naive enough to believe that she knew I was Mama. Until today.

This afternoon I was trying to get Etta to take a nap and she was wailing and was in full-on crawl position in her crib. She looked up at me with those big brown eyes and yelled, "Mama! Maaaammmmaaaaa!" Dude, no mistaking that girl knew what she was doing. She was tugging at my heartstrings. Hard. I am in trouble with this one, she knows how to play me!

5 Months

2009-08-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

Etta turned 5 months old yesterday. It is nearly impossible to believe that my tiny newborn has been replaced by this little creature that interacts with us.

In the past month, Etta has:
-started giggling, although it's really hard to predict what will make her guffaw. It is the cutest sound ever, though.
-started motoring using her feet and knees and sort of sliding along on her face.
-started playing with toys. She goes after a toy and really enjoys her rings and other little toys we give her. -she's also started sitting in her exersaucer. She REALLY enjoys it now. When we first tried it a month ago she was not into it.

-found her feet and added them as another "toy".
-started enjoying and lapping up her cereal! This is a very recent development. For the first few weeks, she was not into the food at all. Then last Tuesday, she started eating the cereal with gusto, but she'd spit it back up (the "I don't know what to do with this yet, but I sure want more of it!" syndrome). Yesterday she attacked that bowl like she'd never eaten before and cried when there wasn't anymore. AND most of it stayed in her mouth. This is very exciting.
-started grabbing our plates when we try to eat. Yesterday she picked up fistfuls of greens from my salad, and tonight she shoved her hand into Tim's refried beans. Dining just got a lot more interesting!
-her hair has really thickened up and grown in. Stella described the color of it best as "grey", although I'd call it more silver. It's definitely very blond with some darker light brown (or silver) strands thrown in.

Etta is the most beautiful, happy infant, at least since Stella. She may be even more happy than Stella. She and her sister get closer every day. The look that Etta gives Stella is the closest thing to worship I've ever seen. I can't help but feel a little pang that my sweet tiny baby is growing up so fast, but I'm excited to see the little girl she'll grow into and to watch her and Stella develop their relationship as sisters.
Looking like twins at different ages.

Money to Burn

2009-08-21T11:38:00.001-07:00

I was not aware of this, but apparently the City of Austin has money to burn. That's the only explanation I can think of for this:
This is a bag of crap that was left hanging from my front door and presumably the front doors of all my neighbors. The city paid some employee to walk around and deliver a CF bulb and a silly booklet full of "no duh" ways you can conserve energy. Did you know that you can buy energy star appliances that use less energy? And you can save $7 a year by using a CF bulb! Even if these were useful bits of info, they could have packaged the booklet in with our City of Austin bill and paid no additional postage. And they could have included a coupon for a free CF in the bills if they were so gung-ho about it. This is just a disgusting waste of money at a time when we are closing city pools and the libraries are each closed for 2 days a week.

McKenna Children's Museum

2009-08-18T19:36:00.001-07:00

We went to the McKenna Children's Museum in New Braunfels Saturday. Stella had a great time:Etta, not so much:

I do NOT want to ride the horsey!
That's not fair, really. We put her on the horse just as she was starting to melt down to let us know she was hungry. We just wanted to snap her photo before I whisked her away to feed her. But it really cracks me up!

Etta's Peculiar way of Crawling

2009-08-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

Stella's Quote of the Day

2009-08-08T12:23:00.001-07:00

I was trying to remember this for yesterday's post, and luckily Tara has a better memory than me and remembered the story!
Yesterday morning, Stella was standing up on our bed, yelling "I'm the Party Pig!" and then crashing onto our bed (like she was jumping into a mosh pit circa 1993.) I was like, "what's a party pig?" and she said, "the store I went to with Baba to buy Daddy's balloons for his birthday". I have no clue how she was a store. I asked her what Party Pig's wear and she said, "nothing. I'm the naked Party Pig!" and then dove onto the bed once more. Then she said, "I'm the Party Pig soldier!" before diving again. Sometimes that child is so weird.

Cute Quote from Stella

2009-08-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

I was trying to convince Stella to watch Sesame Street (rather than Curious George or Franklin, her favorites of late) and I said, "don't you miss Elmo and Big Bird and everyone?" And she said, "I don't miss them, Elmo and everyone misses me!" Then she decided to go ahead and watch it and she said, "So they won't miss me anymore!" Too cute!

Stella and Etta got the chance to model some more clothes Wednesday morning. Check them out. Make sure to scroll through to see all the pics (and all of Becka's adorable clothes). Pick up an outfit or bib while you're there!

Etta has started really motoring lately. She will use her foot or knee to push off and really is getting places. Guess it's time to start baby-proofing!

Etta on Etsy

2009-07-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Etta had a brush with fame yesterday. Her picture from Becka's Etsy store (Baby Bolt) was featured on the front page of Etsy! I didn't see it, but Becka sent me a link to a site that apparently saves them all. You can see it here.

This is very cool because, well, my daughter is adorable and I want the whole world to see and, more importantly, Becka sold 3 of those onesies yesterday because of the prominent placement. Yay! She also wants Etta to model some more stuff. How fun!

Of First Meals and Ballet Recitals

2009-07-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

Etta ate her first solid food Monday evening. It was the standard first food: rice cereal. She seemed sort of intrigued by it at first, but quickly broke down. That might have had something to do with the fact that we did it shortly before she goes to bed. She sure did look cute while doing it though!Yesterday was Stella's last class of Ballet. They invited parents and loved ones to come watch the class. It was so much fun to get to watch Stella in a totally different environment! I was so intrigued by how she interacted with the other students and the teacher. She was very good about listening and following directions and was quick to pick other students for her partner or share when sharing was called for. Other girls would talk, or sit there and not get up and join in, but not Stella! She also was a enthusiastic dancer. She couldn't stop jumping, it was so cute to watch!

Sitting on her circle at the beginning of class

They jump or do some sort of dance when their name is called during roll call. Stella gave a very high jump!
Dancing with her scarf, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

I took way too much video. In fact, I filled up my memory card! It was wonderful to see my fearless little girl having so much fun. I definitely plan to enroll her in another dance class, she seems to be learning so much and getting more and more comfortable dancing and moving. She also LOVES watching the big ballerinas.
She got a haircut today, so no more shaggy girl. I also scheduled pictures wth an actual photographer for the end of August. No openings before then, unfortunately, but I think it will be worth the wait. I ordered tutus for Stella and Etta from Etsy, and matching hairbows. The cuteness might break her camera:)

Cute quote from Stella: "For Halloween, Etta will be a ghost and I will be a cat." No clue where she comes up with this stuff!

Four Months Old!

2009-07-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, look, they're actually bathing me! This is my first bath in the bathtub

Etta turned 4 months old yesterday. It's hard to believe how big she's getting! I still think she's tiny, and then I see her alongside our friend's baby who's 3 weeks old and I realize she's big. She's a real baby now!

Last week, Etta got both her first cold and rolled from her back to her tummy for the first time. The combination of these two things kept her from sleeping much. At nap time and bed time, she'd roll over onto her tummy, scream because she was unhappy on her tummy, and we'd flip her back over. Lather, Rinse, repeat until the poor thing was too exhausted to roll over anymore. It is getting better this week, though. The cold seems to have finally made its exit and Etta seems to have made peace with rolling onto her tummy. Taken right after Etta rolled over for the first time

We had her 4 month check-up yesterdat and she was 25 inches long (75th percentile), weighed 12 lbs, 1oz (10-25th percentile), and her head was 41cm (50th percentile). Her sister weighed 14lbs, 12.8oz at 4 months and was 25.5 inches long. Stella's head was 40 cm. Dr. Patil said Etta slipped a bit in the percentages, probably because she's so active, so we need to start giving her cereal to get her more calories. I don't know when we'll squeeze that in, we barely get the poor thing bathed on a somewhat remotely regular basis! I can't believe she's ready for food, my baby is growing up way too fast! It's also weird to have a baby so different from Stella was always at the top of the percentages. Just goes to show that every child is different! Things On My Baby.com

Other fun things Etta loves to do: chew on her fingers, stare at her fingers, when I got her up to eat in the middle of the night the other night she was clutching on to her binky by the mouth end. She pushes way up on her arms when she's on her tummy. She loves to "sing along" with you when you sing. She LOVES to watch Stella dance.

Stella at just shy of 4 months
Etta just shy of 4 months

Now I feel like the girls are really starting to look quite different!

Television rots your brain

2009-07-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

I decided this morning that I didn't want to do the drive Tim to work, pick him up routine, that we would hang out here and be lazy instead of going to the weekly pool playdate out at my friend Beth's. It's only been an hour and twenty-five minutes since Tim left for work and I think I made the wrong decision. See, when Stella got up this morning, she asked where we were going today and I said, we're staying home. And I started to rattle off all the fun stuff we would do: eat breakfast, play outside on the playset, watch Sesame Street, all just us girls. Well, she latched onto that Sesame Street and declared, as of 10:15am after about 30 minutes of playing outside that it was "too hot" and she wanted to watch Sesame Street. I tried my best to dissuade her, that this was probably her only point during the day that it would still be cool to play outside. Heck, I was enjoying being outside, and as I had just put down Etta, I was really looking forward to playing with Stella. But I have created a monster.

Holy crap, they had the little German guy from Laugh-In on Sesame Street!

Yes, we are watching ancient Sesame Streets from the early 70's. Anyway, Tim and I have been strictly no television for most of Stella's life. We let her watch Sesame Street a couple of times last fall, once when we were sick and once when she was sick. We watched a Muppets Christmas special together, etc. I've never missed it or felt like I needed it to keep her entertained. Then since it's gotten wicked hot, in the late afternoons, like 5 or 6 before Tim gets home from work, we've watched an episode here or there, probably once a week or once every other week. I enjoy Sesame Street probably nearly as much as she does, honestly. She's 3 now and I don't have any problem with her watching occasional tv, but I sure wish she wouldn't whine for it. That makes me think I've turned her into an addict.

I think one of the hardest things about being a parent is that even when you give them your full attention, they can still sometimes be difficult. Like, I understand when I'm doing laundry or cleaning the kitchen or trying to get whatever done that she would start whining. But when I'm trying to be an actively involved Mom, which, I might add is 90% of the time, I want Stella to be an Actively Involved Kid. Which she is about 75% of the time. But man, when she throws temper-tantrums or wants to watch Sesame Street when I'm trying to play with her, that is tough.

Wow, Bill Cosby is YOUNG in this show! And wearing a weird leather vest and yellow shirt with butterfly collar.

Yesterday afternoon we had a super-fun time talking about my childhood. I saw a little glimpse of the buddy I'm going to have (and I DO think you can be a Mom and a buddy. I considered my parents to be my best friends growing up and they were definitely still my parents.) Stella kept asking me what toys I had when I was growing up, and who gave me my Barbies, etc. I got a little choked up telling her about how most of my Barbies came via my Grandmother, one each Christmas, who passed away when I was 15. But I was surprised to realize that I couldn't remember most of my childhood toys, even though I'm sure I had a ton.

Wow, some of this old Sesame Street is very Dada. No wonder they say it is "nostalgia for adults but does not meet the needs of today's preschooler." Whatever. My today's preschooler loves it and loves to talk to me about it.

Woah, they are showing the Lion and Tigers eating big bloody pieces of raw meet. Ewww.

Dude, the German from Laugh-In is back! God, I loved Laugh-In re-runs when I was a kid. I wonder if you can get them on DVD.

Oh man, that is a super-young Alan Arkin on Sesame Street. Was there any actor who wasn't on Sesame Street?

Stella and Etta had their first modeling gig yesterday. My friend Becka makes awesome clothes and she used them as models for her aprons and bibs. Check them out at her Etsy shop.

Well, I'd like to leave you with a cute picture, but uploading pictures to Blogger doesn't seem to be working right now, so you'll have to just be content with the pictures on Becka's shop for now.

3 Months

2009-06-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

And 10 days. I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I blogged. Life has been busy! So what's happened, let's see:

Etta turned 3 months old on the 20th, and took her first road trip, to see her grandparents and Aunts and Uncles in Houston.

The girls with their Auntie Caroline in her beautiful new house:

With their Pappy on Father's Day:
With Daddy on his first Father's Day as a Father of two:
Etta also started napping in her own room, first in the travel crib, then in her own crib, and now, as of a week ago, she is sleeping in her own room in her crib, at night. I think we all sleep much better with that arrangement. She's started wearing sleepers, and I think she's gearing up to roll from her back to her tummy any day now. I find her either on her side, or trying to roll that way almost every time I walk in her room.

Stella started ballet class today. She looks so cute in her little leotard, tights and ballet shoes. Unfortunately we all got soaking wet on our way to her first class, as it was raining cats and dogs this morning, but she seemed to really enjoy herself. I think her favorite part was watching the big Ballerinas and male Ballet dancers (is there a word for that?) before class.

Tim and I threw a joint birthday party with TWELVE children and a mess of adults. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of CRAZY too!

This is also the corner where we will be building a playscape for the kiddos this weekend. It was Stella's birthday present from her Aunt Caroline, Uncle Daniel, Aunt Christine and Uncle Brian, but we've been a wee bit busy and haven't tackled it yet. I'm really excited, Tim has grand plans!

Well, my car's done at the mechanics, so I guess that's all the updates for now!

I Feel Transformed!

2009-06-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

On the absolutely beautiful, really cool quilt Ashley made us
Etta went 7 hours and 15 minutes between feedings last night! Hallelujah! I hope this is the start of a larger trend. For the last week or so she'd been regressing to only 3 or 4 hours between feedings at night and it had been wearing me down!

I took her to book club last night and my friend who has a baby a week older than Etta also brought her daughter. I couldn't believe how much bigger and advanced her baby seemed than Etta! We were talking about how you can't help comparing your children, which of course I do, but I usually think my children are vastly superior;) I think because Margeaux (the other baby) had so much hair and was so much bigger, she seemed even older than she was. Everyone said Etta was so tiny, but to me she looks so big because I focus on how she's growing so much every day! Etta was perfectly behaved and really enjoyed her first girl's night out. I faced her out towards everybody and everyone told me she would turn to look at whoever was talking. Looks like I might have another outgoing little girl on my hands!

Yesterday afternoon, Stella and I lounged in the grass under the oak tree and cuddled and were silly. It was SO much fun! I have to remember to take those moments and just enjoy being a parent. There was a really nice breeze and it really was hard to believe that it was summer. That's definitely the part of our yard I think we'll be spending the most time in as it gets hotter and hotter. We'll probably even set up the outside stuff for our birthday party Saturday there because we're starting when it will still be hot outside. I'm thinking a bunch of blankets set out for a picnic while the kiddos run wild. I also took no pictures yesterday afternoon because I was just enjoying my time out there. That's rare for me.

Speaking of pictures, I think I realized a reason why people have so many pictures of their first child and far less of their subsequent children: when you have only one, you spend a large portion of your day just sitting around staring at them. So taking pictures gives you something to do. And it's creative and fun. Also, you feel like you don't want to miss documenting one second of their development. I'm busy with Stella too now, of course, but I also spend a lot more time just enjoying Etta and what she's doing, rather than grabbing the camera to record every moment. I get regular pictures of her, but there's no reason to take a whole "roll" every day! Actually I just tried to find a picture of Stella for this post and realized I've only taken one of her since May 25th. Now I feel a little guilty. Guess I'd better step up the picture taking of her at least!

Stella shocked me yesterday. We were laying out in the backyard and I was telling her about the Wildlife Park outside San Antonio and how we should go, that her Daddy and I had gone, etc. And she said, "Was I in your tummy then?" and I said no. Luckily she did not ask her usual question which is, "where was I then?" which is always difficult to answer. She's not ready for the details yet and we don't believe in some giant Cherub factory in the sky, so it's hard to say anything. But what she asked yesterday made that question seem easy-peasy. She asked, "How did I get in your tummy?" WOAH! I was not prepared for that. I said, "um, give Mommy a second." And then I said, "when a Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, they decide to have a baby." She wasn't falling for it, she said, "but how did I get IN your tummy?" Uh, Uh, stalling, stalling. "Daddy put you in there." And then she asks, "How?" Crikes, kid you're only 3! So I remember what I was supposed to say in the first place (at least according to the books) "how do you think he put you in there?" And she pointed to her belly button. PHEW! Then she pointed to my bellybutton and tickled me and the topic was changed. I neither confirmed nor denied that she was inserted via belly button. But I think I'd better read up on how I'm supposed to answer these questions and fast. Kids today grow up too quickly!

More cute Stellaisms: We were driving down South 1st Sunday in search of snowcones and there was a guy at S. 1st and Barton Springs just standing there wearing a G-string! He was pushing his bike (of course you wouldn't want to ride it because then you couldn't see the goods, duh!) We were flabbergasted and much amused. Even in Austin, we're used to only seeing Leslie wearing that little clothing. At least outside of Hippie Hollow. It looked like this guy was in shape enough to wear what he was wearing (we did only see his backside) and I guess he was just creatively trying to beat the heat. He also obviously enjoyed all the attention and was waving to passerby. We'd been sitting there for a few minutes, Tim and I talking at length about him, when Stella said, "He's probably wearing sunscreen." OMG, it cracked me up! Glad my repeated messages about sun protection are sinking in!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-06-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

At 8pm tonight I will have been on this earth 32 years. Hard to believe. I have to say, a lot of wonderful things have happened since my last birthday, but the definite highlight was having Etta, who is gurgling and playing on the floor next to me. Etta is the reason my birthday began at 6:15am, but I'll let her off the hook this time:)

Wow, poor baby has the hiccups and is farting at the same time. I have a feeling she won't be happily gurgling for much longer!

I have nothing profound to add, I'm too sleepy these days, but I just wanted to mark the occasion!

Hook 'Em!

2009-05-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

Stella did Hook 'Em for the first time Monday morning. She also insisted that Etta where her Longhorn Cheerleader outfit that day. Here's some pics and the video of Stella doing Hook 'Em and Etta looking like she's cheering!

Etta at Two Months

2009-05-20T14:46:00.001-07:00

Etta had her two month checkup today. She is 23 inches long (75th percentile), 10 lbs, 3.2 oz (almost 50th percentile) and her head is 39 cm (50-75th percentile). She rolled from her tummy to her back and really impressed the doctor. She also impressed the doctor with how well she can hold up her head and by trying to crawl right off the exam table!

Apparently she's taking after her sister, because I read back on what I'd written when Stella had her 2 month check-up and apparently the doctor used the word "awesome" to describe how well Stella held up her head and said that Stella "held her head up like a 4 month old". For comparison, Stella was also 23 inches long at her 2 month checkup, but weighed 11 lbs, 9.6 oz and had a head circumference of 38.5 inches. Here's Stella at two months:
Man, it is obvious they are sisters, but there are also obvious differences. For one, Stella had a lot more hair and I think Stella's face was a little rounder, where Etta's is a little more oval.

Stella had her 3 year checkup today and everything is right on track. She was 40" tall (97th percentile) and they said 41 pounds (97th percentile), but at home she's been weighing consistently 38.5 pounds. She was wearing her Lucky jeans today and I think they weigh a couple of pounds all by themselves!

China Cabinet and Uchi recap

2009-05-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

I got the stuff in the china cabinet. I'd still like to rearrange the stuff on the shelves a bit, but I love how it looks overall. I'm so happy with it!

We had a fabulous time at Uchi last night, the food was A-mazing, but we spent a bit more than we intended to. We ordered the Chef's special, which is "market rate" and it was a higher market rate than I bargained for! Oh well, how often do you have your 10th anniversary?

I neglected to take any pictures, of course, but we were wearing pretty much the same thing as when we went to Damon and Shanna's wedding Saturday, but dressed down a bit. So you can imagine we looked a bit like this:And now we're on day two of our eleventh year. Time sure flies when you're having fun!

10 Years!

2009-05-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

Today marks 10 years since I married the most amazing man on earth. My best friend and the father of my children. In honor of this occasion, I actually scanned in a few of our wedding photos. Please forgive the poor quality, I must not have set it to the correct resolution. But our scanner is in a cabinet in a corner of our bedroom right under Tim's desk, so I don't want to bug him again to re-do it.We're so young and so shiny, (I wish someone had told me to re-powder my face). Tim had just turned 22 and I was two weeks shy of my 22nd birthday. I'd known that I wanted to marry him since the first week we knew each other, and so we were ecstatic that the day was finally here.

I've known our 10th anniversary was coming for sometime, of course, and I had planned to write a long post about it, but, of course, life got in the way. To celebrate, we're going to Uchi tonight (my mom was awesome enough to come to town to watch the girls since the other grandparents are on their own vacation), and I'm going to drink too much Saki. You know this is a special occasion when I'm willing to actually use some precious milk, aka liquid gold, for it. Yay for the pump n' dump;)

New China Cabinet

2009-05-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

No time to blog lately, but I wanted to share the new china cabinet we got off Craig's List yesterday. It's Drexel Declaration, manufactured in June of 1958, solid Walnut and the price was right. It's a little more traditional than our usual style, but it has nice clean lines and if we ever find the perfect china cabinet, we can easily resell it. I LOVE the lines in the wood. Now I just need to put all the stuff that is currently sitting on our dining table in it!

Stella in her Spring Program

2009-04-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

I took a rather long video of Stella's Spring Program Tuesday. They sang the song she sings at least a snippet of almost every day: Dinosaurs Marching. It's really funny because here, Stella does all the motions, but she doesn't sing any of it until the end. It looks to me like she's looking around trying to find me, and at the very end (probably around the 1:20 mark), she sees me and smiles and it's so cute it just makes me melt! Stella can be so independent you think she's like "Mommy who?", so moments like this make a Mommy all warm and fuzzy.

Tim couldn't make it, so I'm SOOO glad I asked a grandmother I was sitting next to to keep an eye on Etta while I made my way to the front to get this video. If I'd stayed in the back where I was because of the giant stroller, I would barely have been able to see her and I certainly couldn't have gotten any pictures. (I did ask someone to watch Etta, though, instead of just walking off and abandoning my baby in her stroller like the two women in front of me. Seriously, I have no idea where those mamas went! And some man was looking in their strollers. Kind of creepy!)

We finally did Tummy Time and play time with Etta last night. And boy is she a pro at it. Etta played the little foot chimes immediately and for a long time. Stella loves it too. Just check out this adorable photo of them together.Stella also kept Etta entertained by talking to her and showing her her Barbies while I got ready. So cute!

Bye Bye Pacifier!

2009-04-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

Stella has only had 2 pacifiers left for some time now. Then it became one, and the one she had left had a tear in it, so it was definitely a deficient pacifier. So we'd decided, and she had agreed, to have this coming Thursday night be her last night with a pacifier. We'd already been talking about the Binky Fairy and a Binky prize. Then today I noticed that her one remaining pacifier had a big gaping hole in it and various rips. Not very safe, she'd probably already swallowed some plastic. So I decided I'd talk to Tim and we could decide to either get her another binky, or end Binky time early. Unfortunately, I forgot that she needed her binky for naptime AND bedtime, so at about 20 minutes before her nap, Tim and I decided she was giving her binky up a little ahead of schedule. And effective immediately. Since it was raining, we couldn't hang the binky in a bag in a tree for the Binky Fairy, so she and I went out on the front porch and hung it in a bag on one of the branches we have in a pot out there.

We talked about how the Binky Fairy would give her a small prize, and then we would take her to the Build a Bear Workshop and she could make a stuffed animal and name him Binky. She was very excited. And, shockingly, she went to sleep without any trouble. I thought I'd have to make a super-quick trip to the toy store during her nap, but it was raining cats and dogs outside, so I found a bag of prizes that I'd used when she was potty training and found that I'd added some of our stocking stuffers to it. So the Binky Fairy brought a slinky, bubbles, and a toy airplane. Luckily, because she's only 3, Stella found this bounty to be the coolest thing ever and kept talking about how the Binky Fairy had brought her this awesome stuff. Then she couldn't stop talking about going to the Build a Bear Workshop and building a bear and naming him Binky. I tried to tell her we could go another day, since it was still pouring outside, but kids don't understand waiting. So as soon as Tim got off work (luckily it had stopped raining by then), we headed to the mall to make her new friend.
Giving Binky a bath and brushing his hair. She did this for a long time.
She thought it was most amazing place she'd ever seen and selected a monkey, who she then put in a firefighter suit. Originally the monkey was a boy, but as we were leaving the mall, she declared him a girl firefighter, and of course we told her girls can be firefighters too. So she's sleeping with Binky the Girl Firefighter, her new best friend. She thinks her doll is way cooler than pacifiers. YES! Dressing Binky in her Firefighter suit.

Eating Dinner together.

Now is the time of night when I go crash on the couch. Today was rough, but tomorrow will be rougher: it's the first day I have to do the whole drop Tim off at work/ take Stella to school/ pick Tim up from work thing with two. And tomorrow has the added bonus that we have to take Tim to work early because Stella is having her Spring Program at school, which I'm staying for but Tim can't because he has a meeting at work. We're trying to get out of the house by 7:30am. God help us all!

House Numerology

2009-04-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

I just did the House Numerology for my house. Because I'm silly like that. And this was what I came up with:

House Number 1
The positive energy vibration of this house is that a House number 1 creates good energy and has many positive vibrations. This house caries with it an inventive energy that needs someone who likes to set trends. Lots of sunlight is a must for this positive vibration to occur. If you are lacking in natural sunlight, then I would suggest getting some natural lighting light bulbs.
This house can evoke selfishness and snobbery. It is also suggested that you keep an eye on the candles in this house for One houses are prone to fires. Make sure you fire alarm batteries are always up to date, even better, get the wired fire alarms.

Positive Colour Suggestions: Yellow, Gold, and Orange.

"Prone to Fires"? That's pretty scary! Of course, I don't really believe in any of this, except for fun, but it still freaks you out a little!

Get your house's numerology here.

Rain, Rain Go Away...

2009-04-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

So it's been raining yesterday and today. The days I'd planned to get out in the weather and have some fun with the family, especially since Etta hit the all-important mark of 4 weeks yesterday. But then it started storming. We need the rain, so I'm trying to not be too bummed about it, but it really would be nice to be out enjoying Spring rather than cooped up inside. That way Stella and Etta could be riding in the new stroller that came this morning, rather than Stella pushing it around the house with her dolls in it and pretending like she's going to the park.

Luckily, Stella still has fun, even in the rain:
I was looking at a website for suggestions for things to do on a rainy day, and there was a picture of a little girl spinning with an umbrella. Stella decided she wanted to do that and headed out, umbrella in hand.

We braved the weather to go out to lunch because we promised Stella, and after all of us napped, Stella and I enjoyed some hot chocolate.

How do children always get these food and drink mustaches while us adults never do?

This happened Wednesday, but Stella gave Etta a bottle. I was realizing that we needed to give her bottles every week or so so that she doesn't forget and stop taking a bottle, so we decided this would be a fun opportunity for Stella to help. She did a really great job and seemed to really enjoy it:

And now, since this has mostly been a Stella post, a really cute 4-week picture of Etta:

I guess Stella's sick of the rain, she has declared that it is sunny outside (it most certainly is not) and that she wants to take Etta to see the chickens. Time for some distraction!

Quick Re-cap

2009-04-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

I'm going to borrow the bulletpoint style from Kelli because that's all I have time for these days!

-Last Monday (April 6th), we went to the doctor for Etta's 2 week check-up. Her stats as of then:
Height: 21 inches (75th percentile. Obviously they didn't stretch her out all the way at the hospital.)
Weight: 7 lbs, 8.6 oz (25th percentile. I never thought I would have a baby in the 25th percentile in anything! There is nothing wrong with ANY percentile as long as a kiddo is healthy, but after having Stella, the super-chub, you just assume all subsequent chillins will take the same route. But it's pretty cool to have such a different experience this time. That said, I'm sure Etta will be a super-chub in no time!)
Head: 14cm, 50th percentile. I think that's exactly the same as Stella.
Overall, a clean bill of health from Dr. P!

Not too excited about leaving for her first walk
-This past Sunday, Etta had her first walk and first outing to the park. She was pretty unimpressed, but Stella had a great time, and it was a beautiful day. Being Easter, there were a ton of family parties in the park. Say what you will about our neighborhood, but its inhabitants know how to throw a party!

Chillin' on the bench with Daddy

-Monday, my maids came. My house was immaculate! I felt like we should just cover everything with plastic and move! Of course, we didn't, and by the end of the day Stella had already gotten footprints on the wood floor in the entry way, but the house still looks awesome. All the scrubbing and dusting is going to last for a while. And we have DUST-FREE BASEBOARDS! Awesome. We also took Etta for her first meal out, to McDonald's for breakfast. Then we spent the rest of the morning outside while the maids cleaned. It was very nice.

-We took out the bushes on the back patio and planted some new plants and it looks gorgeous. Our view is now completely unobstructed by those hideous bushes. We had to live with them for a while, though for me to be sure that they needed to go.

Before outside: (the only picture I could find quickly was from before we bought the house.)
After (obviously, we've made other changes as well, namely painting the house and the solar screens):It'll look even better once we re-do the pieces of wood surrounding the beds (we're going to probably paint them the same color as the house), and when the plants start taking off.

Before Inside:

After inside:
-I ordered a sit and stand stroller from Amazon last night. It's the Joovy Caboose and has really great reviews and was on sale, so I decided to go for it. The trip to the park Sunday convinced me that when I was by myself I needed a way to get both Stella and Etta to the park. We don't have sidewalks in most of our neighborhood, so it's important that Stella is contained.

I spent way too much time getting the perfect picture for the plants portion of this post, so I'd better get going if I want to get anything done today! It's back to normal life, as my mom is gone this week so we're having to do our laundry ourselves and procure food for ourselves. If you saw our pantry, you would realize we're doing terribly at this second thing!

Playing Dress-Up

2009-04-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Stella donned her full dress-up outfit she got from her MeMe and Pappy for her birthday this morning while playing with MeMe. It's so cute I had to share!

My Memory sucks!

2009-04-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

I am trying to write my birth story and I shouldn't have waited so long. I don't remember stuff! I'm going to have to get Tim and my Mom to verify my facts. I did, however, FINALLY get the birth announcements completed. They just have to go in the mail. Hopefully it won't take me too long to do that!

A big difference between mothering one and mothering two

2009-04-06T08:43:00.001-07:00

-This morning I chose reading "If I Ran the Zoo" to Stella over getting a little more much-needed sleep. (Hence the 2nd cup of coffee I am enjoying right now.)
-I let the dishes sit in the sink, or the floor go unvacuumed and play with my eldest daughter.
-If she asks me to do something with her, as long as I'm not feeding Etta, I do it. Not in five minutes, not later, but then.

And Stella is happy with these little interactions, even if they only last the length of a book. She understands Mommy is busy with Etta a lot of the time, and just spending a few minutes reading to Stella or playing with her or talking with her, is enough to make her feel special. That's awesome.

I guess I'm just saying that I value my relationship with her even more than I did before. Friday we went shopping, just the two of us, and had such a nice time. Even though we could only go for about an hour because Etta never stops eating;) Stella tried on clothes in the dressing room for the first time "because she's a big girl" (as she said). And Saturday, all three of us had breakfast tacos and just hung out enjoying the chatterings of a 3-year-old while Etta slept in the pack n' play in another room.

I think our lives may get a bit more messy, but it's going to be worth every speck of dust:)

(Of course, next week my fantastic, stupendous, wonderful, beautiful, sisters, Caroline and Christine, are getting me a maid. A MAID! YAY! So we're just doing the bare minimum not to drown in clutter, but leaving any big jobs for then. And my mother is here again this week, vaccuuming while I speak so I can sit and write this post, plus Tim has been wonderful about cleaning too, so we've been very fortunate!)

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be a family of 4. It's like my heart swelled again and I have more love and more happiness than I ever thought possible. I'm such a blessed and lucky woman!

Don't you have anything better to do

2009-04-01T14:56:00.001-07:00

Than eat? Etta is unfortunately one of those "eat around the clock" babies. The longest she goes between feedings is two hours and when she does eat, she just sort of hangs out there forever. This is getting a bit tiresome, I have to admit. Stella went 3 hours between feedings, pretty much from the get-go and even though she'd nurse for an hour and a half at each feeding, somehow that seemed easier, I don't know why. I thought I was going to have to nurse Etta again just a few minutes ago, but she calmed down just being held and then passed out in the Moby. So maybe I can eek just a few more minutes out before I'm attached again!

Because of all this time that Etta demands to be fed, I have given up any hope of returning to normal life yet. I have resigned myself to having my focus be simply feeding Etta, sleeping and eating. It's not a very exciting existence, but I guess it's what I've got to do for at least a little while longer! So if you see Etta or Stella (or me!) in some bizarre outfits, you can assume I still haven't had time to do laundry! I think the hardest part is that Stella and Tim tool around and seem to be having so much fun, but Stella doesn't really want much to do with me. She adores Etta, but I'm chopped liver. Oh well, I guess that's to be expected!

Stella and Etta

2009-03-29T08:13:00.001-07:00

My expectations of Stella's behavior with her sister have been far exceeded. Stella is just the sweetest big sister, always gently kissing Etta, wanting to see her first thing in the morning and first thing after her nap. In fact yesterday, she was like, "bring in baby sister" as soon as she woke up from her nap and I said that I had her and she just broke out into a wide grin when she saw Etta. She wants to hold her several times a day (of course heavily helped by us). I'm surprised because I thought she wouldn't find a newborn very exciting, but I was wrong. When we change Etta's diaper, Stella's right there with her step stool to help. If I need something, Stella will get it for me. And Etta is already enamored of her big sister. Seeing them together is so amazing!
Already sharing a joke.
Right now she's whining that she wants us to give Etta a bath immediately. We're planning to do it this morning, but at a more leisurely pace. Waiting is not a 3-year-old's strong suit, though.

I feel so behind, I have a 1,001 pictures to go through, but eventually they will be on smugmug, I promise! I also need to write my birth story before I forget it all. As I was telling Tim yesterday, it's so hard to transistion back to normal life after having a baby.

Good Family Photo from the Hospital!

2009-03-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

I got Tim's Mom's pictures from the hospital and thankfully she got a good one of the four of us. I knew someone out of all those cameras had to have gotten a good shot!

Tim's Interview at the Austinist

2009-03-25T17:14:00.001-07:00

Tim got interviewed by the Austinist today about Time Steps. Check it out.

I've got Two Hands Again!

2009-03-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Today after Etta's first Dr's appointment, we went by Austin Baby to get me a sling. I had planned on getting the Zolowear Ring sling based on people's recommendations. I was originally going to order one online because it was cheaper, but decided I would at least try the Zolowear to see if Etta liked a ring sling before I ordered one. I tried a zolowear on and Etta seemed to like it just fine, but I thought my shoulder hurt a little. Plus I still felt like it was too difficult to be sure that the baby's airway wasn't constricted. And the $89 price tag was holding me back a little. So I decided to try a Moby Wrap sling just to see, especially since that's what Courtney got for Oscar. Oh my gosh, I LOVED it! I'd always been intimidated by the wrap slings, they just seem so complex, but after Erin (owner of Austin Baby) helped me put it on once, I was able to do it again all by myself. Etta was totally comfortable in it, she was upright and therefore her nose and mouth were completely unblocked, I could see her face at all times, and her weight was so evenly distributed I had no discomfort whatsoever. I ate lunch with Etta strapped to my chest, I was actually able to help Stella put her toys away, and right now I am typing this post with both hands while looking down at my sweet baby. And I can't believe the $39 price tag. Two thumbs up!

As far as the doctor's visit, everything went great. Dr. Patil said Etta was perfect in every way, and gaining weight like a champ. She's already back up to 7 lbs, 1.4 oz. She was 6 lbs, 14 oz Sunday when she left the hospital. Now after a good nursing session, I am feeling like I'm about to pass out. It's nap time, folks!

Stella's 3!

2009-03-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe Stella turned 3 today. It seems like just yesterday she was like this:

And here she is today looking so grown up:
My baby's a big girl! Unfortunately I am very tired, way too tired to wax poetic about the situation. Got a new baby to feed!

Oh, and in other news, I never even got a chance to profess my love for the IPod Touch before it futzed out on me today. It really sucks because I was using it to record all of Etta's feeding times. Hopefully we can get it replaced tomorrow without sending it off. What kind of electronic breaks after 5 days?

Hospital photos

2009-03-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

They took some really cute photos at the hospital. I was planning to not get any, but we actually got prints of a couple. We couldn't resist! These are all of them, for "Web Viewing Only", obviously.

She's Here!

2009-03-21T11:23:00.001-07:00

Our sweet baby daughter made her grand entrance yesterday! Etta Mae Thomas was born at 4:03pm Friday, March 20th. She weighed 7 lbs, 7oz and was 19 inches long.

She was indeed born on my father's (her Pappy's) birthday. He was very excited about his birthday present and I think it made it easier to be half-way around the globe and not able to see her until she's a month old. If you are wondering where we came up with her name, we just really loved the name Etta, and her middle name is after my grandmother, my father's mother, Frances May and her mother, Edna May! Well, feeding time is upon us again, so I need to go.

Unfortunately, our family photo didn't turn out so well. Too many cameras at once! But we'll try again today!

Today seems like a good day to have a baby

2009-03-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

First day of Spring, my Dad's birthday (Stella was due March 19th and I think he was really disappointed she didn't arrive on his birthday), a Friday. Plus we already have a doctor's appointment at 9:45, in 3 hours. Plus now the Unbearables will have to stay together because I will miss their final show tonight! But I know I have been wrong before. A few times, but I really think this is it. All those contractions that I thought were painful - HA! Man, was I a pansy. I forgot what real labor felt like!

Assuming this is real labor. Which I'm going ahead and assuming because I am an optimist. Today at least.

If it is not real labor, I will be able to let the world know relatively quickly after my appointment because Tim got me an IPod Touch yesterday! It's my early push present. He says he got it for me early so that I could stop thinking about all these damn contractions I've been having. Very sweet. I really haven't figured out how to use it, and the thing that finally pushed me over the edge about wanting to get it is that there is an app that times contractions. Really. Although I can't get it right now because Tim's asleep (as he should be, as we all should be at 6:40am), and he must have changed the wireless password because the old one is not working. So for now I'm recording these %^%**&)*( things on the same purple pad of paper with the same black ballpoint pen I've been using all week. No technology is being used. Well, other than the fact that I'm blogging that I'm in labor. I should get Twitter real fast and then I can Twitter my labor. Would it make me feel better if I could let the world know I was in severe pain every few minutes?

By the way, does anybody know how, after you sync your IPOD with ITunes, to delete certain albums off your Ipod that you may not want on there? With my old mini, I never used the sync all feature, I just added individual albums because it was only 4 GB. My Touch is 32 GB (although I was disappointed to discover that it really only holds slightly less than 30 gigs), so I can fit almost all of our music on it. That was my biggest requirement if I got a new Ipod, I was tired of having to pick albums every once in a while and load my ipod up. I always waited too long to do it and it always took too long to do.

I can't help but feel a wee bit guilty about spending this much money on an electronic gadget, but I am trying to look at it as stimulating the economy. And we are so fortunate right now to be in a really good place (in fact, Tim just got a raise. I know, don't hit us!), so there's really no reason to go overboard on being frugal. I am naturally frugal in the first place, but you hear about all this belt-tightening and think, "I should go on the belt-tightening band wagon!" Luckily, babies are natural belt-tighteners, you have no time to do anything or go anywhere!

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that we meet BabyBean today!

More Reasons to Stay Pregnant!

2009-03-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

After yet ANOTHER tango with false labor yesterday, one where we really, really, really thought this was it but yet were turned away at the doctor's office, I need to remind myself of further reasons to stay pregnant and just deal with the constant contractions:

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN!

We were at Waterloo Records Sunday night with Tim's sister Christine, her husband Brian and their friends who were visiting from D.C., and they were giving out free tickets. I kept asking people what these free tickets were to and finally someone answered that they were filming concerts to be broadcast on DirectTV. I asked, who's playing? And people kept telling me 3rd Eye Blind and Ben Harper. Now Ben Harper is pretty cool, but even for free, I don't want to see 3rd Eye Blind! Finally, I found out they had a list of people playing and I discovered that Echo and the Bunnymen are playing Saturday at 5! Now why didn't people lead with that, that is freakin' awesome! In fact, E & the B are the only people I was really excited about who are going to be at SXSW. So I snagged a couple, and Christine and Brian snagged a couple, although they may or may not make it back in town to go. So if you're interested in a chance to see Echo and the Bunnymen at the Convention Center, let me know! And you can have all 4 if I drop a baby before Saturday;)

I'm finally feeling a little human again. I think I caught a stomach bug from Tim's parents (they maintain it was food poisoning), and that just happened to rear its ugly head at the same time as the 16 hours or so of regular contractions yesterday, so between those two things I REALLY felt like I was in a labor. AND I felt majorly awful. But I slept really well last night and took a nap this afternoon, in fact I fell asleep on the couch while Stella colored two feet away, so hopefully I'm fully recovered and can return to normal life!

It's not that I want the baby to be born tomorrow, it's just we're tired of our life being on hold and having to guess whether it's the real thing or not. And what is up with doctors saying "you'll just know" when it's labor? I was having painful contractions 3-4 minutes apart yesterday and that wasn't labor, how the heck am I going to know the real thing? I think I'm just going to wait to go back to the hospital next time until my water breaks or a baby's head starts emerging from between my legs!

Family Photos

2009-03-15T13:56:00.001-07:00

We finally got outside this afternoon and took some family photos. They aren't as nice as if we'd hired a professional to do them, but hey, they're free and didn't require phone calls or scheduling. And once I put them in black and white they look pretty fancy, if I do say so myself. In fact, I'm only broadcasting myself in black and white from now on, everybody looks awesome that way!

Babybean's Room

2009-03-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

I finally overcame my persistent laziness and took some pictures of the baby's room.

The baby's name is concealed by the piece of fabric, which is well-tacked for nosy visitors:
The closet door won't close because the baby swing is currently behind it. Also, we still need a stereo, but check out that awesome Monkey lamp:

Cozy corner with chair and chandelier:

I used scrapbook paper to cover the clear fronts of the chest of drawers:

I'm very happy with the result! I think it's a room the baby will be happy to come home to. Now I just have to overcome my persistent laziness to do my belly cast. We'll see about that one...

The Birth of Cool- Eh.

2009-03-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

Tim's parents watched Stella yesterday and we went to the Birth of the Cool Exhibit at the Blanton. We were less than overwhelmed. Unfortunately, it's a very small exhibit, we went through it in less than an hour, and it's a survey of music, architecture, design, media and even news events of the time period. It didn't go in-depth on anything. I think if you were unfamiliar with Mid-Century Modern design, it would be a great overview, but for fanatics like Tim and I, it was sort of like, "yeah, I already know this, show me a little more!" It was very cool to see Julius Shulman's Case Study House photos large, as opposed to small in books or on the internet (he took the groovy photo above), and there were some amazing photographs by William Claxton of the jazz musicians of the day, but did I really need a timeline of ALL the historical events that took place between 1959 and 1962? I mean, if they didn't have anything to do with MCM, did it need to take up space? And most of the events you would know about, if you had any understanding of history at all. I would have much better preferred to see photos from ALL of the Case Study houses rather than a history timeline.

So the verdict: You'll probably enjoy it if this is your first encounter with much Mid-Century Modern stuff, but if you, as Tim said, "Know how many case study houses there are and who designed them", it will probably be a little too surface for your tastes.

Interesting tidbit: Dobie Gillis was the first tv show to depict teens from their point of view. And his best friend was the first time a moody, beatnik teenager was shown on tv. I had no clue!

I was promised nice weather!

2009-03-15T07:25:00.001-07:00

At some point, at least the last time I checked the forecast for today, we were supposed to be done with this wet, cold weather and be back into the 70's and dry today. I woke up this morning cold and I could see through a space in the curtains that it was wet. Drat! I KNOW we need the rain, but really, isn't 4 days enough? Cold and wet is a very bad combination when you have an almost 3-year old because you can't take them outside. And without being able to take them outside, you quickly run out of activities to keep them busy. Also, my remaining fitting maternity clothes are skirts (well and one very saggy pair of jeans that drive me crazy), so I need the temperature to creep up a bit. I was going to finally get around to taking pictures of us as a family in the backyard this morning before the dagnabbit weather interfered.

Argh!

Concentrate on the Positive

2009-03-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

First off, let me just say that the previous post's title is really bugging me. It sounds nasty. Even though it's not. But I digress.

I have decided that rather than wallow in my personal physical misery about being pregnant and wishing I was no longer pregnant (which doesn't do a damn bit of good), I am going to concentrate on all the things I will get to do if I continue to be pregnant.

If I make it through next week (in other words, to 39 weeks): Wednesday I'm getting my hair cut and it needs it desperately, Thursday, we're going to see Bombs in Your Mouth at Hyde Park Theatre, a world premiere featuring the incredibly talented Liz Fisher and Joey Hood and I'd be very sad if I missed this one, and Friday Tim's taking the day off (he got an extra vacation day for a job well done) and we're going to the Stem and Leaf Records day party featuring what may be the last Unbearables performance and the always excellent One Hundred Flowers. Plus free beer for those of you who can partake. If I make it to Sunday, I'll get to sit in on the reading of "Teacher, Teacher", LGT's script for our June show at the Off-Center, and meet Max Langert, the playwright.

If I make it through the following week (40 weeks): I will get to see Time Steps, the Austin Scriptworks Out of Ink Festival which Tim has a piece in, as well as loads of other talented playwrights, including Sarah Saltwick, who wrote in Slapdash, and Aimee Gonzalez, who wrote in Slapdash and also our FronteraFest piece, in addition to the aforementioned Max Langert.

So you see, making it at least another 14 days (Time Steps opens the 26th), is very advantageous. Even if it means dealing with some discomfort. And as my ticker shows, I only have like 16 days left anyway until my due date, so I might as well sit tight and stop complaining. But I can't guarantee that March 27th, I won't be heading over to Reale's and chowing down on the pepperoni pizza that drives women (including myself with Stella), into labor!

Planting the Seed

2009-03-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason this morning, when Stella requested her Minnie cup to drink her milk out of, I decided to tell her all about where Minnie lives, Disney World. I also told her that Donald Duck and Chip and Dale live there (that's the only other Disney characters she knows because we have a Little Golden book from my childhood with them in it). I told her about Cinderella's castle, and the robots in the exhibits. I have gotten her totally excited, her eyes were just huge with wonder. Of course, now she just has to wait a few years until she's old enough to enjoy it!

37 weeks, 3 days

2009-03-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit behind on getting my belly shot for this month. I've been trying to do them every 4 weeks, but that would have put me at Sunday before last and I kept forgetting. So I got one yesterday, although unfortunately it was really cloudy outside, so it didn't turn out that well:
You get the idea though. I'm still pregnant. And I'm pretty big. I went to the doc today and she said I was dilated 1.5 cm. So I guess all these contractions are doing something. Just not as much as I want. This is the part of pregnancy that everyone hates. I mean, I'm still 2 and a half weeks out from my due date, but I am sooooo sick of being pregnant! I'm ready for this baby to carry her own weight. Or at least to carry her with my arms and not my uterus!

It's really cold and wet here, very odd weather for March. I think that, coupled with being so pregnant, has caused me to lose all motivation. I don't feel like doing anything! Although I need to drag myself up from this here computer to get ready and to run a few errands. Life calls!

Oh, Stella's vomit!

2009-03-11T08:12:00.001-07:00

I neglected to mention that we found out what was causing Stella's sporadic episodes of sickness: she was drinking too much water and then laying down, which caused her to get sick. We've cut out the sippy cup by her bedside and no more changing nasty sheets in the wee hours! I'm so glad that we didn't move her party and that everyone still came, since obviously drinking too much water isn't contagious!

Sleep, Glorious Sleep!

2009-03-11T08:02:00.001-07:00

This picture is completely unrelated to this post, it's just cute!
Last night I slept over 9 hours! I feel like a human being again, after Friday, Sunday and Monday nights where I only slept 4 hours each night (I slept about 8 hours Saturday night). 4:00am Tuesday morning I woke up with contractions that felt like the real thing and even loaded up the car Tuesday morning in case we needed to go to the hospital. Let me tell you, thinking you are in labor and having to get a 3 year old ready for preschool is a lot more work than the first time when I just lounged around watching music videos and Antiques Roadshow. I agonized over dropping Tim off at work or going into my dr's to get checked out. Glad I didn't change my routine because obviously it was false labor, since I'm still here!

Tim and I have been behaving like an old married couple: due to our individual sleep troubles, he's been sleeping on the couch (his choice, not mine). He snores because his allergies are so bad, which keeps me from sleeping, and of course every time I groan or get up to use the bathroom, it wakes him up. So we're keeping separate sleeping quarters for the time being, at least until we both catch up and his allergies get better. It makes me very sad when we go to sleep, but I sleep much better and that's really what's important right now.

This post is excitement in blog form, isn't it? I'm looking forward to the dr's visit tomorrow to find out if these never-ending contractions are doing any work. While I'm not crazy about having an early baby, I'm more not crazy about constant contractions and wondering "is this it?" for another 2.5 weeks!

Damn, that feels good

2009-03-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

It constantly amazes me how it lifts my mood to have such an intelligent, eloquent President. I'd really forgotten what that was like.

BIG Weekend

2009-03-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my absolutely fabulous shower and today was Stella's absolutely fabulous birthday party. So now I am sitting here just getting pictures uploaded and relaxing. I am very proud of myself for just sitting here when there are so many things to be done:) My mother was wonderful enough to clean up after the party before she left, though, so I have a lot less on my plate!

I am so relieved to have this weekend over. I have had a wonderful time, but I've been absolutely paranoid that the baby would arrive before we got these two events knocked out. Now that they are out of the way, I can breathe easy knowing I'm more ready. Okay, I still don't have a bag packed, but now I have time to do that! We've been especially paranoid this weekend, since I've been having contractions every 10 minutes or so since Friday evening. Last night I even had some painful, closer together ones and was really getting worried. But I guess I'm just going to have to live with this until the baby gets here! On the plus side, hopefully these contractions are working towards making my labor a shorter one. But I'm really hoping I don't have to endure constant contractions for the next 3 weeks! My incredible sisters who organized and pulled off the whole thing. Thanks guys!

Stella's birthday party was this morning, and although I don't recommend planning a child's birthday party for 10am the day that you have to "Spring Forward", I think a great time was had by all.
The theme was obviously Hello Kitty (selected by Stella) and we had the most wrong looking cupcake cake:
You would not BELIEVE the amount of icing they put on this thing! It was delicious, though, and Stella picked it out and was very happy.

We had a pinata, which Stella enjoyed, but Henry and Daniel wanted nothing to do with.
It was one stubborn pinata and just about the time I thought we'd have to take it down and get out a hacksaw, Jeff beheaded it.
The kids scored themselves castanets, bells, dinosaurs and a little bit of candy. Then it was time to sing happy birthday!

Stella made out like a bandit. Just see the aftermath for yourself:
Well, Stella's awake after a long and must needed nap, so I think we may leave the toys where they fell and go shopping!

Thanks blogging

2009-03-07T03:34:00.001-08:00

Seems I just needed to document my contractions. They seem to have gone away. Yay!

Insomnia, Insomnia, right on!

2009-03-07T03:19:00.000-08:00

(sung to the tune of Beck's "Nausea"). I've been awake since 3:25 and it's 5:19 now. I only finally got out of bed about 10 minutes ago. I've been an insomniac since childhood and I've always held fiercely to the thought that I'd be able to go back to sleep if I just stayed in bed. Of course, insomnia has largely disappeared since I modified my caffeine habits several years ago, but pregnancy has really brought it back. If I can't get back to sleep, it's going to be interesting to see how I fare with the very busy day coming up on 2 and a half hours of sleep. (I didn't get to bed until midnight and didn't fall asleep until about 1am). Extra bonus: we lose an hour tomorrow night.

The reason I didn't get to sleep until midnight is that poor monkey Stella threw up about 11pm. We were watching "Choke", (which was awesome by the way, I actually liked it better than the novel because it wasn't as gross), which we didn't start until late, so by the time we got Stella cleaned up, sheets changed, back to bed, etc, it was pretty late when we finished the movie. Luckily she hasn't thrown up again, and she was in really good spirits by the time we put her back to bed, so hopefully it was just a one time thing. It was totally gross though. Curry doesn't smell or look as good coming back up, trust me. I nearly retched and had to tell myself, "I am an mama, I can deal with this" as I cleaned up the vomit trail from her bed to the bathroom and changed her sheets. Feeling sick yourself yet? Sorry, hope you aren't eating.

I was having Braxton-Hicks all evening and Tim and I both had the horrible thought that I'd go into labor while Stella was vomiting. Wouldn't that be fun? I am still having them pretty regularly, and really, all I ask the labor Gods is that they let me get through this damn weekend pregnant. Stella's party should be over by 1 on Sunday, so hold off, okay? Besides I don't have one stinkin' thing packed and I don't even have a toiletry bag yet! I have the feeling if I went into labor and missed this shower today, my mother-in-law would never let me live it down!

Stella's new cute habit

2009-03-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

Stella has started reading books to herself. It is SOOOOO cute! She'll sit there and turn the pages and tell the story. She just finished recounting Pinnocchio and then started saying, "Thank you God for people and puppets!" over and over. I guess at least she's grateful;) She travels around with a large stack of my old little golden books and plops them down wherever she is (here she's in our bed), and starts reading. It's adorable! So glad we're raising another obsessive reader, it runs in both our families.
I have so much to do today it's not even funny! Tomorrow Tim's sisters are throwing me a baby shower luncheon and Sunday morning we're having Stella's birthday party since everyone is in town. Also, that way we don't have to worry about cancelling it if BabyBean comes early. So we have lots of family coming in town tomorrow. I'd better get cracking on cleaning and we've got to go out and order Stella's cake! It's her first store-bought cake, but we're trying to take the laid back route to this party since the weekend will already be busy. Less time prepping for the party, more time enjoying people's company!

Poking the Bear

2009-03-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

We had our first doctor's visit where the doctor gets "up close and personal" if you know what I mean. I wasn't dilated at all, but when the doctor checked my cervix, the baby moved, which was pretty amusing. I'm apparently 60% effaced, which means my cervix is pretty short and the baby's head is really low. The doctor was able to touch it quite easily (which caused BabyBean to jump). The doctor asked, "did you know she was so low?" Uh, yes, I am CONSTANTLY aware of that! The doctor said that means that labor could go much faster this time, so not to hold off too long on going to the hospital, especially since if I want an epidural. I don't want it to go THAT fast! I mean, as Tim pointed out, we have so much more to deal with: we have to get Stella handed off to her Baba's, and I'd better have that epidural or else I will not be a happy camper.

Stella's totally sensed something is up. She has been throwing temper tantrums over almost everything. She wants me to do everything for her. She was really difficult yesterday afternoon, but Tim said as soon as I left to go to book club, she was a little angel for him. So obviously she's aware of the fact she's about to have to share her mommy. Sorry, hon, I know it will be an adjustment, but trust me, having a sibling is the best gift we could give you, you guys are going to have a blast! My brother and I of course fought like cats and dogs, but we also were inseparable playmates all through childhood. Besides, how else can you gang up on your parents if you don't have a sibling to do it with?

Tim said last night he realized why neither of us have been getting any sleep. He said I was waking up 4 or 5 times an hour with a gasp and changing positions. He thinks maybe I was having trouble breathing and would move to try and get comfortable. Obviously I have no memory of this, although I do remember not being able to get back to sleep after I woke up from a dream at 5:45am this morning where the doctor told me I'd have to have a c-section and in the dream I was crying and crying. Then I woke up and started thinking I haven't been playing with Stella enough lately and started crying and crying in real life. Hormones! It took me until 7am to fall back asleep, and that was brief before I was awakened by Stella herself at 7:30. And my ability to nap seems to have left me. Yawn!

Get off my Bladder

2009-03-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

Really, I don't want to complain, but if you'd be so kind as to get off my bladder, that'd be great, thanks. I do have things to do other than visit the restroom every 10 minutes and spend my life in a constant state of feeling like I have to pee.

Also, I read a pregnancy book that said you aren't supposed to drop into my pelvis until labor since you are my second baby. Obviously you did not read that book, and are not following proper procedure. So crawl on back up because it feels like I'm waddling around with a bowling ball between my legs. Thanks so much!

Getting Ready!

2009-02-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

The super-cool rocker we'd been drooling over for months and ordered last week (thanks tax refund!) came in a couple of days ago. It looks really great in the nursery:
It does make me realize how small that room is, but I prefer to think of it as "cozy" not crowded.

Stella and I also went to the mall Wednesday to find a going home outfit for BabyBean. Stella was a great helper and in fact wanted to shop longer than I did. She kept saying, "one more store, one more store!" It was crazy! I guess there was just so much to look at. We wound up finding an adorable little outfit that I worried Tim would veto as too frilly, but luckily he was on board:

We also got the most precious socks that look like little shoes to go with it:
I was so blinded by cuteness that I neglected to notice that the outfit has buttons on the back (huge annoyance with a newborn) or that it was short sleeved so I probably needed to get a sweater too to protect those teeny tiny little arms. Oh well, even experienced moms are choose fashion over function sometimes!

For some reason I have found myself much more seduced by cute little girl outfits this time around. With Stella, I was Ms. Practical and really bought almost nothing for the baby, but this time I find myself drawn to the frilly dresses. I also got BabyBean a dress for next Christmas and another outfit, both on super-clearance. If you're looking for cute baby girl clothes, don't bother looking any further than Dillard's, they have the most adorable stuff!

I know that the next 4-5 weeks will fly by, but I'm in that state where I am anxious to meet my little girl. What will she look like? How will she act? How long will my labor be? (I vote for something between 22 hours and "having the baby in the car it's so short"!)

Tomorrow we're planning to do the final push to get the nursery finished. I promise to post pictures as soon as we're done!

The Oscars: My verdict

2009-02-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

The new format of the show SUCKED! And a lot of people at our party were saying Hugh Jackman was great, but just about anyone could be great if they only let him come out two or three times during the entire telecast, and then he just sang and danced, which is what he does well! He was fine, I had no qualms with him, but he definitely did not play the part of host. No jokes about how long the damn thing was, what's up with that? Let's bring back Jon Stewart, or even better, Ben Stiller. He came out to present as Joaquin Phoenix and was awesome. Just go back to one of my Jewish comedian teen crushes and I'll be happy. And these silly montages of all the films in different genres for the year: animated, action, romance. I forgive the comedy one because they had James Franco and Seth Rogan reprising their roles in Pineapple Express to talk about the comedies, and that was actually damn funny. In fact, I didn't realize that's what they were doing until later when someone told me. Make me laugh and you are forgiven. But the rest of them were pointless and just served to pad the 3 and a half hour running time.

But the worst change, the most absolutely horrible tweak they did, was to have past award winners fawn all over the current nominees when introducing an award. It was the most disgusting ass-kissing session I've ever seen. Hollywood, if you want to blow smoke up each other's butts, do it at the after parties. I do not need to see it. Plus, it took FOREVER, and you didn't get to see a clip of the movie to make you go, "huh, that looks interesting, I think I'd like to see that." Or at the very least to see the transformation of actor into character. It was just mostly the nominee trying not to look horribly embarassed as the past winner emptied meaningless compliments into their lap. Our party was about 75% against this new change and about 25% for it. There was actually squealing as some of the past winners came out, although there were also screams of horror at Sophia Loren. Jeez, it looked like she was there to give out two very tarnished Golden Globes, if you know what I mean. Sophia, you're lovely at any age, but hire a stylist. You looked like Peaches n' Cream Barbie.

Tim and I have decided we need to make one major change for next year: we need to have a "shut up I want to hear everything that's said" section right by the television and a "I am only watching this because of the company of good alcohol and great friends and we can be catty and make fun of it" section in the back. I swear, if I heard one more shush, I was going to yell out, "if you wanna' hear everything that's said, watch it at home!" You can obviously see what camp I was in;) Plus I'm a grumpy pregnant lady. I just didn't care enough about anything last night, although there have definitely been years when I wanted to hear some acceptance speeches more than others. I would have loved to hear Mickey Rourke had he won, although I'm certainly happy for Sean Penn since Milk is one of the top Best Picture nominees I want to see.

And one more thing: DO NOT GIVE AWAY THE END OF THE MOVIE IN YOUR STUPID MONTAGES! I am so pissed that they gave away the end of Benjamin Button, a movie I really want to see. Everyone was like, "obviously that's how it has to end, surely you see that coming." And I was like, "maybe, but I'd rather not see that image before the movie, it loses its impact." And don't show Schindler's List images either. Especially the one of the little girl in the red coat. Dammit, I got all choked up when they showed that. Argh!

Oscars, you know I will crawl back to you next year like Rihanna crawling back to Chris Brown, but please re-examine these silly changes you made. I only know one person who likes montages and while she and I have our battle every year over them, I don't think you're getting more ratings from adding montages! Or kiss-up fests. You've got a lot of talent on your side, find someone who has some and get them to make your show entertaining!

Yes, she's insane, why do you ask?

2009-02-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

The outfit Stella came out wearing after lunch today:
I rest my case, your honor.

Couples Meme

2009-02-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

I've gotten tagged on Facebook by a couple of people, but I would rather post it here, as I only use Facebook grudgingly. If you're part of a couple, please do it if you have time, I'd love to see your answers!

Much like the 'About me' notes, you also once you've been tagged, send it back to the person who tagged you, and all those you want to do it as well!! This is kind of like the 25 things - except they are pre-decided questions and it's about you and your spouse, not just you. Come on, play along - inquiring minds want to know! ;-)

♥ What are your middle names?
Denise (me)
Woods (Tim)

♥ How long have you been together?
We officially started "dating" when our friend Seth Riddle asked if we were going out. We answered yes on October 1st, 1996. We started dating just a few days before that. We've been married (odd it doesn't ask this question) since May 15, 1999.

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?
About a week.

♥ Who asked who out? Technically Tim asked me out, but I kept dropping hints. Our first unofficial date happened because I found out he was going to see a play, (Maribou Mimes), and I got a ticket so I could worm my way in and sit with him. We sat and talked for 2 hours afterwards and so I said a couple of times, "we should have gone for coffee in all the time we were sitting here." Luckily, he got the hint. I was in attack mode;)

♥ How old are each of you? We're both 31, although his birthday is 4 weeks before mine:)

♥ Whose siblings do/did you see the most? his. My brother is a bartender and works weird hours, so we only see him when we go to Houston, usually for Sunday lunch. Tim's family is more likely to travel to Austin, and there's more of them, so we see them a lot.

♥ Do you have any children together? Yes- Stella Lily, will be 3 on March 24th and BabyBean, a girl, due March 29th

♥ What about pets? Names? Lucy- a dachshund/chihuahua mix we got after we'd been married about 10 months, and Punky, an evil cat that I got about 2 weeks before we met. We also had a sweet Llapso Apso mix named Roxie who passed away last April. We would really like to get another dog, but we're holding off until the baby is at least a few months old. (It's taking all our will power!)

♥ Did you go to the same school? college, yes, high school no.

♥ Are you from the same home town? No

♥ Who is the smartest? He is. He knows a little bit about everything. It's really annoying. But I'm much smarter about music and pop culture, and he does bow down to my superior knowledge in that arena;)

♥ Who is the most sensitive? That's a tough one, I don't know. I guess I am, but I don't think I'm particularly sensitive.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? El Chilito, P. Terry's, Pokejo's, Freddie's.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? England/Wales

♥ Who has the craziest exes? Neither, but I think I have better stories. Like "Cappio Man", the guy who wore women's shirts and worked at Contempo Casuals.

♥ Who has the worst temper? I think me. It takes a lot to get Tim riled up, although when he does, it's really scary. I'm the type that he used to be scared I'd get him into a fight when someone cut in line or something. Having children has mellowed me tremendously and I no longer do that sort of thing.

♥ Who does the cooking? Tim, although I make breakfast.

♥ Who is more social? Me, but we're both pretty darn social, thankfully.

♥ Who is the neat-freak? Me, but Tim helps keep it up. I just think if he was on his own, he wouldn't be as neat as he is with me.

♥ Who is the more stubborn? Tim, by a long shot! He always insists he's right. Often I just wait and let him make a mistake to prove he's wrong. I know, I'm evil:)

♥ Who hogs the bed? I think he does. He says I do. I think this is in the eye of the beholder.

♥ Who wakes up earlier? He's been getting up with Stella lately most of the time, so he does.

♥ Where was your first date? Mojo's coffee, followed by the slab at Jester. It lasted until 3:30am (completely innocently), we just didn't want to stop talking and say goodbye!

♥ Who has the bigger family? Tim. He's the third of 4 children. I just have one brother. He also has a large extended family (his Dad is one of 11 children).

♥ Do you get flowers often? No, but he does lots of wonderful things for me that show love a lot better than a bouquet of flowers!

♥ How do you spend the holidays?
With both our families, one at a time. We have spent it alone before though. It's just more fun with our families!

♥ Who is more jealous? Neither of us is jealous. We trust each other completely, so there's really no reason to be.

♥ How long did it take to get serious?
We were serious almost immediately! It was definitely love at first sight on both ends, I think.

♥ Who eats more?
He does. Which is why when we first got married I gained 20 pounds trying to keep up!

♥ Who does/did the laundry?
We each do our own laundry ever since he accidentally washed a dryclean only dress our first year of marrriage. I do Stella's and the household laundry.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
Tim, he'd better be since that's what keeps me in furs and diamonds;)

♥ Who drives when you are together?
I used to drive most of the time, but lately I think we've been splitting it more.

My Decorating Style

2009-02-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

I took this quiz to find out my decorating style and I came up 50% contemporary, 30% vintage modern and 20% Hollywood Couture. I have no clue what those monikers mean, but I think the description fits me to a tee:
" Contemporary

So fresh and clean! Antiques? No thanks! Vintage collections and clutter of any type? Not for you! You like your space new and sleek. Each piece is chosen carefully as though it were a piece of art, and your love of minimalism is expressed throughout each room. Furniture has clean lines and geometric shapes are preferred.

You're not afraid of color — in fact, bold color options only highlight the minimal items you choose for your home. But the key is clean. To master the minimalist interior you not only have to be selective in the few furniture items you bring into the space, you must also find a way to hide all of the real-life items as well."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean my house! :)

Valentine's Day!

2009-02-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

Tim and I celebrated our 13th(!) Valentine's Day together yesterday. Valentine's is not my favorite holiday. Even though I have had a sweetie for 13 years, I will never forget the first 19 years of my life when I was single. Obviously, I didn't care about being single for the first 10 or 11 of those Valentine's, but the teenage years were maudlin, full of eating candy by myself, listening to the Cure and, I'm sure, writing awful poetry. My last Valentine's Day spent as a single gal was my freshman year of college (I know, don't hate me, I realize how lucky I am to have met the love of my life at 19). My gang of friends and I decided to get dressed up and go out to eat, to alleviate the misery of being single by banding together and making fun of all the sappy happy couples. We first tried to go to Spaghetti Warehouse, but it was way too crowded, so we wound up at Chuy's, which is hardly a romantic destination. Then we headed back to my friend Rhonda's house who, by virtue of being the only one of us not living in a dorm, had become the keeper of the party house. We all lay on the floor, feeling miserable for ourselves and listening to Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. I remember us all singing "Ice Cream" together. I am sure that there was some sort of substance being passed around to try and lift the mood, but it probably failed.
So it was quite humorous that last night I started my Valentine's Evening out at Spaghetti Warehouse acting in a Murder Mystery. It was even more packed than that evening when I was 18, we could barely get through the entryway to where we needed to be. We had a really great audience and now that we're down to only a couple more shows, the show was really tight and went great. Plus I walked out $150 richer! (They scalp folks on the Valentine's show, but luckily I get a cut of the higher price: triple my normal check.)
After the show, I walked in the front door to find the dining table set up with china, complete with chargers, flowers, and candlelight. It looked so lovely, I was really surprised! Tim made a delicious dinner of filet mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, white asparagus and followed up with dessert of Chocolate dipped strawberries, which my daughter assisted in the creation of. After dinner, we sat down to watch Sarah McLachlan's Austin City Limits appearance, which aired last night and which Anna and I attended back in December. Sure enough, you could see us for a few milliseconds a couple of times. It didn't hit me until this morning how similar this Valentine's was to that one so many years ago, complete with Spaghetti Warehouse and Sarah McLachlan. Of course, there was no loneliness this year and no "substances" either!
I think Valentine's is a Hallmark holiday created just to make people feel miserable and guilt guys into spending way too much money on flowers, cheap stuffed animals and chocolates. Luckily, my chef of a husband is still willing to make me a delicious meal every year. We avoid fighting the crowds and get to spend a quiet evening at home. I have to say, yesterday was extra fun because we spent so much of it with our sweet little daughter, and I bet next year will be even more fun because we'll have two!

It's a Small World After all

2009-02-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

We took the hospital tour this morning and saw not one, not two, but THREE people we know who are due to give birth soon. First in the parking lot on the way in we ran into my friend Nikki and her husband Richard. Then once inside we all sat down and started talking and my friend Rebecca and her husband Jonah come in. THEN a few minutes later an ex-coworker of mine, Lisa, who also went to our old church, walk in! It was a very funny and nice coincidence to run into so many friends! We're having the week of run-ins. Thursday morning at the regular ob's visit we ran into Tara and Jeff and then today at IKEA, we ran into Tim's Mom's friend Rebekah and her son Joshua. It was very nice timing because we were able to watch Joshua and chat with him while his mom went to the bathroom. I just hope no one I know decides to attend the murder mystery tonight at Spaghetti Warehouse!

The lady giving the hospital tour unfortunately didn't seem to know the answers to a lot of things. We did get to see the new Labor and Delivery rooms which are gorgeous, but found out the Post-partum rooms are same ones that were there when Stella was born, and actually will not be redone. That was disappointing, especially since you only spend a few hours in the L&D rooms and the rest of your stay is in the Post-Partum room. We did find out there are now 29 L&D rooms, as opposed to the 12 there were when we had Stella, so hopefully they'll be no hanging out in the waiting room during labor like there was with her! But it was a huge tour, so this continues to be a popular time of year to procreate. We also found out that they now do the bath, eyedrops, and Vitamin K in the nursery rather than in the room. I was disappointed to find that out because I really liked the fact that when Stella was born she never left our room after being born. Of course, as Tim pointed out, the lady doing the tour seemed utterly clueless, so I'm holding out a little hope that perhaps she was wrong about that part!

Stella was awesome despite the fact that the tour took over an hour and I brought nothing for her to play with or snack on. The one we had when I was expecting Stella only took 15 or 20 minutes, I think, so I hadn't prepared. But the lady today really enjoyed talking. I think someone should have told her that an hour is a very long time for a bunch of really pregnant ladies to have to stand!

Growing Girl

2009-02-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I put a pair of jeans on Stella that in September, when her MeMe and I bought them, had to be rolled up. Yesterday they barely reached the tops of her feet, they were almost too short. So we decided to measure her again before bed last night. She's grown another 1/2 inch to 39.5 inches tall! Girl is growing like a weed!

The End of an Era

2009-02-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

So I decided today it is time to face facts: Stella has given up her nap. She has taken two naps in the last ten days and I think both times Tim had to pull out some wicked voodoo magic to get her to fall asleep. I'm still able to get her to stay in her room for nap time, so at least I get some peace, but she's a pretty wonky child without her nap. She definitely still needs that nap, and I've read that kids really still need a nap until kindergarten, but you can't make a kid sleep. Even though she says she's tired, she says she's going to nap, and I leave her nearly passed out, 20 minutes later I hear, "Time to get up Mommy." Today she was kind enough to do that just as I was drifting off for my own nap. I was really looking forward to her napping to help me catch up on sleep after the new kid is born, but oh well. I'm sure this time will be easier anyway, I'm much more used to sleep deprivation now:)

Today at school was Stella's class Valentine's party. I brought Valentines for everyone in the class, as requested, but didn't attach a sweet treat because I didn't want to do that to parents. Well guess what? Everyone else attached a cookie or candy to their Valentine. Luckily, I was able to confiscate most of them without Stella even noticing. When did Tim and I become the hippy parents?

I got my diaper bag!

2009-02-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

I got my diaper bag today and I just LOVE it, even more in person! I can't wait to have the baby so I can use it:)

I got Tim to take some pictures of me with the bag, but I just look awful in them, way tired and sallow or something. So you'll just have to see the bag itself. Trust me, it's really gorgeous!

My Girl Wears Panties all the Time, Panties all the time, panties all the time

2009-02-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, that' s an Eddie Murphy song quote. After nearly a week of dry pull-ups, Stella wore panties to bed last night and was dry once again! I felt sorry for Tim, though, as she woke him up twice to go to the bathroom. Hopefully she will soon go to the bathroom on her own, but in any case, I didn't expect her to go dry at night yet and I'm really excited she is!

On the downside, she's only taken like two naps in the last week and a half. Today she couldn't stop coughing and so I gave her some honey, but I guess it woke her up because now she's playing. Poor thing was so tired on the way home from school that she nearly passed out in the car. We'll see how pleasant the rest of the afternoon will be! I know she's not ready to give up her naps, hopefully it's just a phase.

Dancin' Time!

2009-02-06T14:42:00.001-08:00

Stella's old enough for summer dance classes at Ballet Austin! Of course, the first day of the class has to overlap with her preschool summer camp, but I've asked if the Ballet school will let her attend a different day just that one week. I think it's going to be so cute to see her dancing in a little pink leotard, pink tights and pink ballet shoes, I know she's going to love it!

Victory in the Cool Stuff Department

2009-02-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

So Tim and I have been looking for a chandelier to hang in the corner of the baby's room over the rocker. It's to create a reading light that the baby can't try to get into once she's crawling (in several months of course). We've found nothing we were crazy about, and certainly nothing we could agree on until this:
So cute! I was reading Ohdeedoh and a woman had a really cute chandelier in her nursery that she said she got from Urban Outfitters, I went to check it out and found this one I loved even more! I called the UO on the drag and they have lots of them in stock, so I'm going to try and get over there soon to pick one up. I cannot believe how obsessed I've become with finding the perfect things for the baby's room! I guess it isn't everyday that you get to create a whole room from scratch. (Well, almost from scratch, we did already have the crib and bookshelves.)

The other thing I've been searching for, without success, was a diaper bag. I've looked at stores and found one at OhBaby, a high-end store in Westlake that I liked pretty well, and thought I might go back and get it with the 30% off coupon they gave me to use next week, but I still wasn't sure it was perfect. I really wanted something a lot like my purse, which is yellow and has a birds and flowers pattern. It's sort of mid-century modern, actually. I wasn't finding anything that came even close to that description, and then I remembered Etsy. I figured if anyone had it, Etsy would, and I was right. My bag was 3rd on the list of results:

It came from here and was a bargain at only $35. Tim even said he'd be happy to carry it, it was so cool. I can't wait to get it! This is my first experience using Etsy, but if it goes well, I'm sure I'll be back in the future!

In Stella news, she has woken up two nights in a row with a dry pull-up. This has meant Tim having to drag himself out of bed in the middle of the night and hang out while she goes potty (for some reason she needs us to be around, even though she doesn't want us involved at all), but it's still pretty cool. She asked last Friday to start wearing panties to bed and I told her she couldn't yet because I didn't have an extra set of clean sheets, but that she could wear pull-ups. So we bought some pull-ups and she's been having a lot of success obviously. We'll see if it leads to all panties, all the time which would be super-exciting! We certainly didn't expect her to reach that milestone anytime soon, but we aren't going to complain.

In sync

2009-02-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

Tim and have an extra babysitting night tonight and there are no plays open (except Dancing at Lughnasa and Tim has forbidden that one), so we're going to go see a Best Picture Nominee. Out of the 5, my top two choices would be Milk (even though I shouldn't forgive Gus Van Sandt for Paranoid Park, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. But he did make Drugstore Cowboy, my favorite movie of all time and the movie that turned me onto arthouse and independent cinema.) and Frost/Nixon. Tim piped back with Slumdog Millionaire, which I'm sure is fantastic, but I don't really want to see right now. So Tim eventually comes back with, "man, I was just thinking about what a boring person I am that my first choice is Frost/Nixon." And I came back with, "that's my first choice too! i guess we're both boring!" Ah, I'm so glad I found my fellow history geek. I can't wait!

Bragging on my Hubby

2009-02-03T08:48:00.001-08:00

I just have to brag a bit on my super-talented husband. His piece, Hungry Love, which he wrote for the Weekend Fling last fall - with me breathing down his neck trying to chain him to his computer;) - was selected for the Austin Scriptwork's Out Of Ink Festival! I'm so excited for him! Aimee Gonzales (SDFF 5 and 5 'Til for Frontera Fest), and Sarah Saltwick (SDFF 5) also had their pieces selected. My one complaint? The performances are the last weekend in March and the first weekend in April. So Babybean better be either right on time or a little late because I want to go! I'm going to go opening night, of course, can't take any chances there!

New Curtains and new Chair in our bedroom

2009-02-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

We're loving our new curtains in our bedroom. During the day, open, they frame the view beautifully and at night, closed, they remind us of a luxe hotel room. Plus, we sleep so much better without bright lights in our eyes or the sun beaming in. Now we want to change everything else to match the curtains!

If you saw "Mrs. Witherspoon", put on by Different Stages at the City, you may recognize the chair. Yes, we have a showbiz chair! Karen and Jennie, the director and the lead actress, offered us an amazing deal on the chair because they wanted it to have a good home after the show closed and they thought it would match our decor. They were right! We'd like to go in a Hollywood Regency/high-end hotel room angle now that we have the curtains and the chair. Our inspiration pieces are the chair, the champagne/gold curtains, and the fabulous vintage turquoise lamps (also from Karen and Jennie), but everything else except the furniture can go. Any suggestions? We don't have time to be painting right now, of course, but we hate the walls as they are. Especially since we did touch-ups with paint we found in the garage that turned out to be enamel rather than flat so our walls look ridiculous. One of our more unfortunate home improvement disasters. But we are STUMPED as to what colors to go with! So any design advice - Ashley, sweetie, my kindred amateur designer, I'm looking at you:) - would be much appreciated!

I was SO domestic this morning, you all would have died. Stella and I baked cookies! We cut out little heartshapes from sugar-cookie dough and then decorated them with homemade icing and decorations left over from when my mom and Stella made Gingerbread cookies before Christmas. Stella was very meticulous in her decorating and would not stop until every cookie had icing and sprinkles on it.

Stella wanted to go to the park really badly today, but I'm laying low because I really gave my abdominal muscles too much of a work out this weekend with all my walking and cleaning and shopping and they have been SCREAMING out in pain since last night. So in order to keep her happy, I suggested making cookies. Luckily, she is her mother's daughter and the promise of sweets quickly placated her. There are advantages to being pregnant and having to "take it easy":) For example, just look at all the blogging I'm doing! I told Tim I felt bad being so lazy and he said, "you're not being lazy! You need to relax." I told him, I guess he's right, I'm doing the important business of baking a baby!

32 Weeks and Baby Room pics

2009-02-01T14:49:00.001-08:00

So I'm 32 weeks today! Only about 8 weeks, more or less, to go. I had Tim take a belly shot outside since the weather was so amazing today. It's not one of my best, but you can at least see how huge my mid-section is getting. Tim says I really need to work on my potbelly;) Also, check out how low I'm hanging. For comparison, here I am with Stella at 32 weeks:

Everything's pretty much still pulled in. I'm sure the difference is due to the fact that my uterus is already all pre-stretched out this time around.

We got the curtains up in the nursery, so I snapped a few pics:
That big hole in the corner is where the awesome rocker we plan to get will eventually go.

There will be two shelves between Tim's cool handpainted tree and the changing table for diaper stuff, medicine, etc. I might put construction paper in the front of the drawers so you get color and not clothes. The baby's name letters will be above the crib, of course.

I am totally in love with the room. Is it bad that I want to live there:)

We were very industrious yesterday. We went to IKEA, registered at Babies 'R Us, and went to 3 different Targets to get curtains for our room. We found these curtains at Target that were on MAJOR clearance ($10 a panel!), so we scoured all the Targets to get enough. We had to pay $13.98 for 3 of them, but even at that price, it was a steal. So we don't have to spend the new baby's college tuition on curtains for our room. I couldn't believe Tim and I agreed on something AND it was on sale. Hallelujah! We had a great time doing all this stuff just the two of us. Tim said it was like stepping back in time when we could do everything at a leisurely pace and didn't have to worry about racing through stores while simultaneously trying to keep a toddler happy. We were pooped though. We are definitely out of practice as shoppers. Going to that many stores left us exhausted!

The Baby Train

2009-01-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

We finally found wooden letters we like for the baby's name to hang on the wall and while I was painting them this afternoon it struck me how many times I am going to see those letters in the years to come. And how often that little word is going to come out of my mouth. You don't really realize how much you use someone's name until you've had a child, and how many variations you make on it. I must use the name "Stella" 100 times a day. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but not much. I'm now super-excited about the baby's name and can't wait for her to arrive so I can share it with the world! I think even Stella is impatient about not knowing her sister's name. She insisted again the other day that we name her Lisa. Or Carolyn, which is the name of Stella's Cabbage Patch Kid. I guess at least she's no longer wanting to name her "Lisa Garbage Beer":)
One of the downsides about not telling the world your kid's name is that after we get the letters all assembled and hung on the wall, we'll immediately have to take them down and hide them. But it's worth it to have a little secret from the world that will last until little BabyBean makes her grand entrance!

We got the fan installed today by some awesome electricians (check out Tim's post for details), and so now I am ready to get cracking on that room! We put down the rug we got at IKEA and it looks fantastic. I'm so happy with how well it ties the room together. Once we get the curtains up, hopefully this weekend, I'll take another picture to show our progress! Tomorrow Stella's being shipped off to the grandparents and we have grand plans for a trip to IKEA and hopefully some time registering at Babies 'R Us, just so we can start keeping track of what we need!

We went to the doctor yesterday, (there's another hour of my life I'll never get back. And now she wants to see me every 2 weeks. Yay!), and she said I can bring my own hospital gown. Ever since I saw Tori Spelling in this incredibly cute hospital gown on Tori and Dean in Hollywood, I decided that I was going to blow a little cash and B.Y.O.G. (bring your own gown). There are SO many pictures taken after the baby is born, and while you don't really care at the time, I will go ahead and say that in retrospect, I don't like looking at pictures of myself looking that awful. When I went to the hospital a couple of weeks ago, the gowns were just disgusting, really faded and ready for the scrap heap. So I'm going to invest in my own. I'm also going to invest in some cute nursing gowns, because when you get home there are also lots of pictures taken and you don't want to look like a slob. Or at least I don't. I'm vain, fine I admit it! I cannot believe these things are actually hospital gowns, they're adorable! They're also very expensive, so I may go for the not quite as chic ones here. Hey, the baby can use her big sister's clothes, but Mama needs her own;)

Rockin' FronteraFest

2009-01-30T13:02:00.000-08:00

Last night, 5 'Til, the FronteraFest piece I directed, went up and rocked the casbah. I am so proud of the actors and Anna, my one-woman techie/designer band, as well as Aimee, the writer of course. The audience laughed their asses off and were left wanting more. But don't take my word for it, check out Julie's review over at the Austinist. She said: "A few short plays were winners. Aimee Gonzalez's hilarious Five 'Til, produced by Loaded Gun Theory, was clever, extremely well-acted and directed, and too much fun to watch. With a clever premise and some unexpected twists, this piece made us wish Gonzalez had a Long Fringe version for us to see."

Indeed. But I am sure we'll be producing more of Aimee's work in the future, she is a natural fit with LGT and it's pretty much impossible for us to go on with just one (very busy) resident playwright.

My haircut

2009-01-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

So this is not the best picture I've ever taken of myself, but it shows the haircut, sort of. Wow, I look like a crazy person with two different sized eyes. Really, it looks better in person, I promise.

I decided chopping my hair as short as possible while still giving me hair around my face in case of pregnancy face bloat was the best option. My hair has been funKY this pregnancy. It's normally so thick that when you combine that with the fact that during pregnancy none of your hair falls out, I have felt like mushroom head. And I've been totally paranoid about cutting my hair short because I had it short when I was pregnant with Stella and so there was nothing to hide behind when I got "pregnancy fat face". Of course, I also got "everywhere else pregnancy fat" last time, so perhaps fat face will not attack me this pregnancy. But I've been living with that fear of going too short this pregnancy until I realized that when I was pregnant with Stella I had a hairstylist who would cut my hair way too short, even if that wasn't what I asked for. My hairstylist now, Tamara, doesn't do that. She does this amazing thing where she cuts my hair like I want it. What a concept, huh? So I'm happy this time! It was quite astounding how she just kept thinning and thinning my hair to make it seem more in line with the amount of hair a normal person sports. Tim thinks it actually makes me look thinner, so hopefully it will be my secret weapon against pregnancy fat face, should it attack!

Taking Care of Business!

2009-01-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

The crib skirt. Ignore the sheet, that's left over from Stella's decor, I need to get a sheet that matches BabyBean's decor.

I velcroed the cribskirt onto the crib yesterday AND sewed the curtains. Yay! Unfortunately we don't have a curtain rod yet (we want something like this from IKEA, but when we were there last weekend Tim thought he'd seen one in Stella's closet and so we didn't buy one. It turned out just to be the clips). It's just like what we have in Stella's room. This morning I vaccuumed and mopped the kitchen/dining room, which was in desperate need. I realized my house was in desperate need of cleaning yesterday, but I really wanted to get the sewing projects done. Wednesday I was having a lot of Braxton-Hicks AGAIN (I guess it will be a weekly phenomenon), so I took it really easy, I read for all of Stella's nap. I love reading, but I cannot tell you how hard it is for me to just sit around when there are there are 322 things that need to get done. Some of them staring me in the face. I think that these contractions are just annoyances though. I mean, there is no baby emerging from between my legs, so they must be annoyances, right;) Anyway, I am still being a good patient and taking it easy. Like right now? I really want to be vaccuuming, dusting, or something but I am taking a break in-between chores. Aren't you proud of me? (BTW, no one has actually told me to take it easy, that's just me being cautious.)

Speaking of annoyances, the nurse from my dr's office called Monday and said they wanted to see me Tuesday morning to follow up on the hospital visit. I went and saw a Physician's Assistant and they did absolutely nothing! They didn't even check my cervix, which the nurse on the phone had said they probably wanted to do. They did check the baby's heartbeat, which is good, and asked my weight, did the pee on a stick thing to check proteins, but that was it. It was a total waste of my time. Sigh. That's another reason why I'm so behind.

Man, this post was b-o-r-i-n-g. Sorry 'bout that. If I have time after I dye my hair this afternoon, I'll post a pic of my new 'do. I got my hair seriously chopped Wednesday and it looks awesome, if I do say so myself!

Sleep Deprivation and what passes for Adventure these days

2009-01-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

I am so tired. Stella's been getting up earlier and earlier, Punky's returned which means constant waking up in the middle of the night to throw a cat across the room and off your head, and I got to have a fun emergency room visit Wednesday night. Wednesday night I kept having contractions, and if you have 6 or more in an hour you're supposed to call the on-call nurse. Unfortunately, I had 6 in about 50 minutes. So I called and she told me to take Tylenol, drink lots of water, and lay down for another hour and to call her back if they didn't get better. I continued to have them every 10 minutes for the next hour, so I called her back and she sent me to the hospital. It was really scary and I started to get freaked out. We waited for Tim's mom to come over to stay with Stella (thank GOD for having in-town relatives), tried to go on 35 only to find it was closed, made a detour to Mopac and finally arrived at Labor and Delivery. It was a slow night, there must have been 10 nurses just sitting around. I guess a very cold night in January is not as popular as March for having babies.
They got me in a room and in one of the horrible hospital gowns (these were even worse than normal, they were faded and gross. I am more convinced than ever that I need to buy one of the pretty ones that Tori Spelling wore on her show for when the baby's born.) They then spent forever quizzing me first on health and informational questions (I turned in my pre-certification for the hospital on Friday but it isn't in the system yet), and then of course the ER admissions person came in to make sure my insurance was in order. While hospitals can be scary, I personally found it really reassuring to be in a place where they could take care of me no matter what was going on. If something was wrong, even, as Tim pointed out, if I slipped in the bathroom, there were experts there to take care of me. That's SO comforting when you don't know what's going on with you and your baby! Eventually the doctor came in and checked me out. Everything was still closed and where it should be, which was excellent news, and they also did a test to see whether I had a protein that showed whether I would have preterm labor in the next two weeks. The doctor then wanted to start me on an IV to make sure I was hydrated and hopefully stop the contractions.
Ah, the IV. I wasn't really excited about it, but I think doctors know what they are doing and I follow their recommendations. I was REALLY not excited about it once two nurses tried 4 times total to get it started and failed. I tried to be stoic, especially since I couldn't help but think of poor Marsha and her many times of being stuck by nurses who couldn't get an IV started. But to be honest, it hurt really, really, bad. Like it brought tears to my eyes and felt like Chlorox was coursing through my veins. Finally they checked with the doctor and he said that he didn't want to be the one that made me go through more pain, so I could drink two giant glasses of water. Which I did. Then they said that the protein test for preterm labor came back negative, yay, and I was just having a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions. So they sent me home, but told me I had totally done the right thing and in the future if I have 6 or more contractions an hour they still want to see me. I just hope that I don't visit the hospital multiple times over the next 10 or so weeks! I got to bed about 1:30, but had to get up every 30 minutes to pee and throw the cat off my head. Yay!
Tim and I both freaked out a little since we are the furthest possible from being ready for the baby. Okay, that's not true. We have a place for her to sleep, a carseat, and clothes in the attic. But I definitely feel inspired to get her room totally in order now!

She's Baaaaack

2009-01-14T06:49:00.000-08:00

My parents called last night. Punky's back. Seriously, after over 2 weeks of gallivanting around Terranova West (my parent's neighborhood), they heard meowing yesterday and initially thought it was their cat, Phoebe. Then they realized it was coming from the back porch. They opened the back door and in sauntered Punky! We should have known Punky would just be gone long enough to make us feel sad and guilty and then pop back up. Oh, Punky! They've been out of town more than they've been in town the last couple of weeks so it's possible she'd tried to return home before. They said she's scratch-free and doesn't look to have lost any weight. Their neighbors leave out cat food, so she probably got her nourishment there.
They're bringing her back today. So it's back to waking up with a cat sleeping on my head and nightly pills. I can't wait!

Knocking off stuff on the to-do list

2009-01-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

Thursday the nesting instinct kicked in. Hard. So I spent all of Stella's nap getting stuff cleaned out of the nursery closet. I finished Friday and yesterday when Tim was able to move the really heavy stuff. This is the result, I just wish I'd taken a before picture. You'll have to trust me when I say that it was stuffed to the gills. Yes, unfortunately the previous owners painted the closed blue too. And it's just going to stay that way.
Today we got a ceiling fan. It's sort of funky, but it looks really cool in person. Tim is putting it up right now.

We also got curtains for our bedroom at Penney's. They were having a huge sale, and although I never expected to spend as much as we did for curtains in my life, they are very nice, very high quality blackout type and we got them for 50% off. We have huuuuuge windows in our room, so it took a lot to cover them! We ordered tracks from Walmart, so when those get in in a couple of weeks, my father will no longer be able to call us exhibitionists for not having our bedroom windows covered. And the baby should be able to sleep in there for the first few months of her life.

Stella has decided to work on her defiance skills this weekend, so it's been a pretty difficult one. No naps, lots of time-outs, lots of "no" and lots of guilt for letting a 2-year-old get us so worked up. But I will include a picture of her in happier times:

She's playing with her tools that we bought her with some of her Christmas money on the tool bench that some friends gave us because their kiddo was done with it. She LOVES it! I just don't understand why you would want to gender-stereotype your kid. That day we started out in the morning playing with her dollhouse, then switched to the toolbench, then she had me help her diaper and dress her Cabbage Patch kid, Carolyn. So much fun!

I leave you with one more picture. Ladies who are pregnant for the first time, this is what that nasty glucose solution they make you drink to test for gestational diabetes tastes like:

So foul. Tim thought it would be funny to record the moment for posterity. That stuff was so awful, it burned my throat and even my stomach. Then I was totally wired afterwards before the sugar crash. My doctor's office was running late (as usual) and I came extremely close to missing the hour window between finishing the drink and having your blood drawn. I sprinted upstairs and they whisked me back immediately in front of a waiting room full of people. There was NO way I was drinking that crap again!

3rd Trimester. Eek!

2009-01-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

So today marks my 28th week of pregnancy, which means I have officially entered the 3rd trimester. Which means, gulp, I have approximately 3 months left! I cannot believe how big my belly has gotten this go-around.

28 weeks pregnant with Stella

Actually, looking at the pictures, it's hard to tell if I'm that much bigger, but it sure feels like I am! Luckily, I am definitely much smaller in the weight department. Even with the holidays, I'm still right on track with weight gain. Yay!

But I have so much left to do! It seems like my to-do list gets longer and longer every day. I need to clean out the office closet, sew curtains and a crib skirt, finish the baby's scrapbook, finish Stella's baby book and get her more recent stuff scrapped (especially now that my sister Christine gave me all the scrapbooking tools I need plus gift certificates for more for Christmas!), and oodles more that I am forgetting. Because I have pregnancy brain. I have walked into rooms 3 or 4 times today and forgotten why I walked in there. Luckily, I am a list-maker by nature, so I write everything down in my planner everyday. And I mean everything. Because if I don't write it down, it will not get done! (Which is why the rose bushes my mother-in-law gave me never get watered. And I know she will disown me if those die!)

I got majorly behind on baby-related chores over the holidays and I have chocked January full of activities: I'm directing LGT's FronteraFest piece and I am in a Murder Mystery at Spaghetti Warehouse that runs until 2 weeks before the baby's born. This on top of my usual commitments like the B. Iden Payne meetings and seeing shows for that, book club, etc. Sometimes I think I'm insane. I'm a little paranoid that BabyBean is going to be early. I have soooo many Braxton-Hicks contractions, which I don't remember having at all with Stella. Christmas night I totally freaked out that I was going to go into premature labor because I seemed to have one long contraction that lasted a couple of hours. I had to insist on just lying down on the couch. I think that I overdid it and needed to rest. No more scares like that, luckily, but I'm definitely trying to pace myself more with housework and ask for Tim's help more. I feel pretty much fine, so maybe my body just has to tell me to slow down!

Stella is still super-excited about getting a sister. Today she said that she'd read her baby sister "Knuffle Bunny", a new book she got from her Aunt Caroline and Uncle Daniel for Christmas and her current favorite. I asked her if she was excited to meet her baby sister and she said yes, with a big grin! We're super-excited too, now I just have to get some stuff on that 'ole to-do list knocked out!

I lost my cat and an uncle, how were your holidays?

2008-12-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

But other than those two events, I had a great Christmas.

So yes, that title is not me being clever, unfortunately. Punky ran away while we were at my parents' house over the weekend. Saturday night Tim and I got in late from seeing some old friends, and I guess when we came in, she ran out. With all the hustle and bustle of the family Christmas on Sunday, her absence wasn't noticed until about 4 on Sunday when my Dad said, "uh, I hate to bring up a bad subject, but has anybody seen Punky lately?" Everyone except my brother and Stella launched their own search of the house for her. I was so sure she was hiding somewhere and would jump out at us just as we started getting worried. But she was nowhere to be found. And I mean nowhere. So we did a little walking around outside, but how the hell do you find a cat? I feel especially awful because she doesn't have her medicine, so she's probably a goner. I also feel bad because the last time we spent together was Saturday afternoon when she kept trying to roost on my laptop and I kept throwing her off. Tim's really pissed she got the last laugh, because now we will always feel guilty about losing her, as opposed to feeling like martyrs because we gave her a pill everyday and spent 100's of dollars at the vet on her even though she hated us.

So the disappearance of Punky really cast a bit of a pall over our Babymoon, which started yesterday at Kerbey Lane, rather late because Tim had to do laundry, then continued to Wimberley, Blanco and Fredericksburg, where we stayed in the same really cozy Bed and Breakfast we'd stayed in 4.5 years ago. This morning, we were preparing to leave Fredericksburg when my mother calls to say that my Dad's brother, my Uncle Steve, had died. It was sudden and pretty shocking. We made plans to come pick up Stella in Evant later in the afternoon, but otherwise tried to continue with our trip. I have to say, if there's anything good to come out of my Uncle's death, it's that I have totally and completely forgotten any guilt/grieving about Punky. Is that weird or what?

So we continued on to Llano and Burnet in search of antiques and especially the elusive "perfect china cabinet" for our dining room. The perfect china cabinet looks something like this and I'm pretty sure that we are going to spend years trying to find it:

When we got to Burnet my Mom called to tell me not to worry about picking up Stella, that the funeral arrangements were going easier than they thought they would and there really was nothing for them to do until Friday, so as long as we met up Thursday, they'd be happy to keep Stella. So we're still temporarily childless, unless you count Baby Bean, and we do miss Stella and Lucy horribly. But we'll see them soon!

Speaking of Baby Bean, we think we have a name finalized for her. Well I would say we DO have a name finalized for her, but I'm starting to second guess. Again. Sigh. But I'm fairly certain this will wind up being her name. I can tell you in March or April:)

I really would like to blog about Christmas, it was really fun. Perhaps later. I'm feeling sort of grinchy right now and if I don't go do laundry, I'm going to start out 2009 as a nudist.

Santa's Elves were here!

2008-12-24T11:08:00.001-08:00

Santa's Elves came by a few minutes ago to drop off the presents for tomorrow's Christmas Extravaganza! I was very proud of the fact I actually managed to get all but the two largest presents around the tree. (Those two are on the fireplace). I'm also excited about the fact that there are enough seats and room for everyone to sit and open presents tomorrow. Yet another reason this house is awesome.

I'm a little concerned about the fact that my mother-in-law told me this morning that my present is "the heaviest and largest package under the tree". (The presents from them are still at their house). Considering the fact that I don't remember asking for anything heavy or large, I'm kind of perplexed! Although maybe it's just by comparison. Maybe everyone else got really teeny tiny things, making my gift of something like a book seem large!

Stella this morning was like, "Santa come and eat dinner with us." I had to remind her that Santa would come while she was asleep. Then she said, "Santa come down chimney in attic." She went and pointed at the fireplace, explaining how Santa was going to arrive. So cute!

Well, I should probably go shower, considering the fact that it's after 1pm. In my defense, I had one foot in the tub when the doorbell rang announcing the arrival of Santa's Elves!

I heart your blog

2008-12-23T13:37:00.000-08:00

Kate passed this along to me, and because I'm procrastinating making placecards for Christmas dinner, I decided to go ahead and do it.

The way this works is I answer the following questions with single word responses, and pass the award on to 5 other bloggers:
1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? Norman's

3. Your hair color? Magenta
4. Your mother? Spring
5. Your father? Algeria
6. Your favorite thing? Home

7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your dream/goal? Happiness
9. The room you're in? Dining
10. Your hobby? Theatre
11. Your fear? Feet
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Here
13. Where were you last night? Oscar's
14. What you're not? Ballerina
15. One of your wish list items? Vans
16. Where you grew up? Spring

17. The last thing you did? Cut
18. What are you wearing? Silver
19. Your T.V.? Awesome

20. Your pet? Snuggly
21. Your computer? Noisy

22. Your mood? Tired

23. Missing someone? Tim

24. Your car? Box
25. Something you're not wearing? Hat

26. Favorite store? Waterloo
27. Your Summer? Hot
28. Love someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Lime
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday

I'm supposed to tag 5 more people, which I will do, but I know with the holidays most folks can't do it and I won't hold it against you!

This seems like a very girly exercise, so I only tagged chicks. Don't take it personally men!

Our hood is so cool!

2008-12-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

We went to a potluck at a neighbor's house tonight, Liz and Kenny, and met tons more neighbors. There are so many cool people around here! We met a nutritionist/chef, a Yoga instructor, a photographer and entrepreneurs. We were introduced as the writer and the actress with their own theatre company. Makes us sound so much hipper than "the Software Developer and the Stay at Home Mom". The cool people came with some pretty crazy kids who obviously enjoyed the very satisfying sound running around a pier and beam house makes. We barely saw hide nor hair of Stella the whole night. Except when she came into mainline some more cookies. Their house is just lovely and on a really high hill so you can see all the twinkling lights of Austin. AND it was built by their neighbor in 1948 (unfortunately he passed away last year). How cool is it to know the person who built your house? It was hilarious, Liz kept saying, "aren't we a cool, beautiful group of people in our 'hood?" as she would introduce new people that had arrived (she was being silly of course. sort of, we are a pretty glamorous lot. HA!). We're planning to have a Progressive Dinner in the New Year, it'd be such a great way to hang out and see each other's houses.

Did I mention I love, love, LOVE our house? Yeah, just a teensy bit! Now, I really must go clean the kitchen so I can go back to wrapping presents, the activity that I interrupted to walk to dinner. Yes, walk! Although I was grumpy on the way there 'cause I was freezing my bootie off, it's so neat to walk to parties!

Hey, don't forget about the houses for sale down the street! You too can be one of the beautiful people. Maybe you can even join us in time for the Progressive Dinner!

A Merry Mid-Century Modern Christmas!

2008-12-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

I think this picture looks like an ad for fiberglass chairs. She's so cute!

Stella had her school Christmas party yesterday and came home with a present for us that her teachers obviously made. But it's still really cute:

(BTW, for some reason Blogger's decided everything I type today should be centered, not left aligned, even though left aligned is what is chosen in the toolbar. Go figure.)

Here's her latest work of art, I've really fallen behind on posting them, although she also hasn't been creating much art lately.

Her church got all "super-Jesusy" for the holidays. Tim's theory is that they started out with the religious aspect of the school all hidden and now they're dialing it up a notch now that we're all complacent. Actually, I suppose Christmas IS a religious holiday, so I will overlook the fact that they randomly added "Jesus is THE Gift" to a handprint wreath, sent Stella home with a Reindeer that had a tag that said "Jesus is 'Deer' to Me" on it, and a Candy cane that had a little poem attached about how the red in candy canes represented Jesus' blood. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a few days before I can eat a candy cane again after that one.

And, unfortunately, Stella fell while playing yesterday at school and skinned her nose. So we'll have that in the holiday pictures. But thank goodness for the Touch-up tool in Picasa 3, you can't even see the scab in the above pictures. I'll have to keep at least one or two with it in there, though, so we can remember history as it really happened;)

"I'm a tall girl!"

2008-12-15T14:53:00.000-08:00

This morning Stella announced that she wanted to paint. So we bought finger paints at the grocery store. I grimaced at the mess they made (and her hands are now dyed blue, but she had a blast!)

This morning Stella announced to me, "I'm a tall girl!" Which was pretty funny. I'm sure she has heard this from other people, probably at school or something. I told her that yes, she was a tall girl and that I used to be a tall girl too and one day she'd be a tall woman just like me. Unless we start giving her coffee when she turns 3 or something. Ha!

Sparked by the fact that she's seemed so tall lately, I decided to measure her today after several months of forgetting. She's 39 inches! She weighs 37 pounds. No wonder she's thinned out so much, I think she's weighed 37 pounds for the last 7 months, but she's grown 3 inches. I think she outgrows something (maybe the car seat?) when she reaches 40 inches. What a big milestone!

Friday night we checked out the frankly kinda lame light show at Southpark Meadows. Luckily Stella is two. She was entranced!

Yesterday we went to a Holiday Cookie Party at one of Stella's classmates' houses. It happened to be in the Independence neighborhood where we were building a house before we found this one. And it happened to be in the exact same floorplan we were building! It was very cool to see what it would have been like to be there, and I am more sure than ever we made the right choice! Right off the bat, parking was a nightmare. We parked several houses away, which wasn't a big deal, but got one of the last spaces on the street. Tim kept seeing what he thought were spaces and I'd be like, "No, that's a driveway." The driveways are that narrow! I think we would have lost all our friends because no one would put up with trying to find parking to see us!

It was cool that almost everyone there was from the neighborhood. Apparently there are tons of kids and everyone hangs out together. I guess it's probably because their friends can't come over and visit anymore because they can't find a place to park;) We also saw the woman with 4 kids who would have lived across the street had we wound up living there. She seemed a little annoyed with us and said that she had wondered what happened to us. Apparently a single woman bought our house and she was wondering where the family with a kid went! It would have been nice for Stella since their daughter is only a couple of months older. But oh well, Stella has made plenty of friends through other channels! The house itself was so bland. I don't think it helped that the people hadn't decorated at all. But it definitely reconfirmed that we made the right decision!

And last, but not least, Stella must have learned "The Wheels on the Bus" at school because she was spontaneously singing it the other day. My parents somewhere have an old film of me singing this same song, although I'm older. I'd love to try and dig it up when I'm there for Christmas and compare!

Austin City Limits

2008-12-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

My my I sure am blogging a lot today, aren't I? I think it's the cold weather. It keeps me from wanting to do anything.

Monday night Anna and I went to see Sarah McLachlan at the Austin City Limits taping. It was so cool! She put on a fantastic performance and was really witty and warm while bantering with the crowd. She did utter a few 4 letter words, though. Not sure how they'll edit that. The sound is AMAZING! Anna said it was the best sound she'd ever heard at a show, and I have to agree. The only concert that could even come close was Morrissey at Royal Festival Hall in London, but they better have good sound there as that is a symphony hall! We were really close to Sarah, and it was so neat to watch the cameras do their work. A couple of times as the large crane camera swept over the crowd, I had some fear I might lose my head! But our noggins remained intact. They even had free beer, which I was so sad to not be able to take advantage of.

When we arrived, I swooped into a super-close space at the corner of 26th (Dean Keeton) and Whitis, right in front of my old dorm, Kinsolving. We headed to the Communications Building and asked a man where will-call was. It turned out to just be a guy in a blue shirt with a stack of envelopes standing outside the building. Very high tech. So we got our tickets, our hands stamped and we headed in the elevator up to the 6th floor. They have volunteers to shepherd you every step of the way, even operating the elevator for you. When we reached the 6th floor, we saw a sign informing us that the only restrooms were on the 2nd and 3rd floor (where we came in), so we headed back down and used the facilities. Then it was back upstairs for beer for Anna and water for me. All the seats were already taken so we stood in front of the stage. Eventually they brought tables and chairs and we were able to snag one after the 4th or 5th attempt (people kept stealing them from us. Sometimes being pregnant doesn't mean anything). We had a great time, and I was ecstatic that for her encore she did "Ice Cream", including an audience sing-a-long! I'm not the biggest Sarah McLachlan fan, but she is a great performer and her voice sounded amazing. I hope I can win more tickets to ACL tapings, it is a wonderful way to see live music!

The set is soooo fake in person, though. I can't believe that I used to believe that ACL was really taped outside in front of the Austin skyline. A friend my freshman year of college told me, "no, dummy, my Aunt works for ACL and it's taped in the communications building! That's a fake set!" Actually, I think she told me it was filmed in the basement, and it's really on the top floor, so maybe she isn't that smart either;)

Watch for Anna and I (and Sarah!) on February 14th on your local PBS station!

The Train, the Train!

2008-12-10T12:53:00.001-08:00

Stella also rode the train at the mall and loved it.

I was washing Stella's laundry last night and as I was taking her little tiny panties out of the dryer, I had the same thought I'd had when I was washing her baby clothes before she was born: how could anyone be small enough to fit into these! She seems like such a little girl now (as opposed to a baby). Something about wearing panties and using the potty makes it feel like she's grown up overnight. Not that I'm complaining. But I think when she wore diapers I could still pretend she was a baby. Now that she wears panties, there is nothing hiding her long limbs or the fact that she no longer has a little baby pot belly. She's so tall and lean (without being skinny).

She looked so freakin' cute, I couldn't resist snapping a photo.

I love the kid she grows to become every day though, and I wouldn't want her to go back to a baby even for one moment!

Santa!

2008-12-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

So Stella's experience with Santa this year went a lot better than last year, as you can see. As soon as we got to the front of the line, she wanted to run over to Santa. She gave him a big hug and sat on his lap while we waited for the picture-taking elf to finish showing pictures to the mom of the kid who was before Stella in line. She says she told him what she wanted and her name, so I think it all went according to plan, although I wish I'd fixed her hair a bit differently. She looks like she has a giant forehead. Although she is my child, so she probably does! Stella still wants a fire truck from Santa, which she has been asking for for a couple of months now. I'm really excited because we found a fantastic Tonka one at Toys R' Us the other day and all I have to do is get it and put it under the tree. It is definitely the top of the line in fire trucks, I think she is going to be over the moon when she wakes up Christmas morning. There are so many more cool toys for her now that she is almost 3 and can play with the 3 and up toys.

Christmas is definitely a lot more fun now that Stella is so into Christmas. Nearly every day at dinner she asks if Santa is eating dinner right now and if he's having the same thing we are. So cute!

Chuck E. Cheese: Harder than Prison

2008-12-09T12:11:00.001-08:00

Have you seen this article about Chuck E. Cheese? Apparently violence breaks out regularly there at locations all over the nation and police are often called. Wow. AND they serve alcohol there. WTF? At a kid's game arcade? That is really bizaare. At least I have an excuse not to take my child there.

In other news, it's official: Stella will not nap at school anymore. I'll be back to picking her up at 12:40 instead of 2. Sigh. I was just sitting down to lunch today when I got the call from her teacher to come pick her up because she had not only not napped, but was being really loud and yelling no. When I picked her up she said, "I can try again next time." And I said, no, today was the last time they'd let you try. She was doing pretty well, and then Thanksgiving came and she's never slept again at school. A moment of silence for my free time, please:( Her teacher said last week that she thinks what she wants is me to pick her up. And I think that's true. I have no clue why she doesn't want to nap at school. I am just so frustrated with her right now. And it will make Christmas shopping, which I had planned to do next week while she was at school, extra challenging since I now only have about 2 hours as opposed to 3 and a half. Damn.

A Christmasy weekend

2008-12-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

This weekend we indulged in a lot of Christmas activities. Friday night I stage managed a Murder Mystery at Dave and Buster's, which wasn't directly Christmas involved, but will result in a little extra Christmas cash, which is nice. I think I did a pretty good job, although my skin did crawl a bit at being back in the big D&B. I'm just ready for my check to come through!

Saturday night we headed out via bus, with Baba in tow, to the Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting and Sing-a-long. We missed our bus stop and had to walk back 2 blocks because we had forgotten that our facist governor elminated the bus stop in front of the Capitol for "security reasons", aka "I don't like to see poor people when I go to work." We ran into our neighbors Mary and Tim and their kiddos, but had to head down to Starbucks for a potty break for Stella. Actually all of us wound up taking a turn! Unfortunately, we did miss a good deal of the singing, but still got to belt out some tunes and catch some of John Aielli being pompass. The little kid next to us actually said, "wow, he's full of himself!" It was awesome. We had a great time and it was so easy to get to and fro with our new location. This will definitely become an annual event for our family.

Sunday was of course the pageant, and then we went to the Travis Heights Art Walk. We initially planned to take the bus, but just as we reached the bus stop, Tim remembered that our bus doesn't run on Sundays. So we headed back home and hopped in the car. We got a good walk seeing the beautiful Travis Heights houses and some interesting art. This lady, Deborah Lykins, had a homemade photobooth set up in the carport of her amazing 3-story home. She took a really fun picture of the three of us and sent us home with a souvenir. Unfortunately, our scanner isn't re-set up after the great office transition into baby room, so I can't share it with you. But I talked to her a bit and I think I'm going to contact her to get some pregnancy/family photos after Christmas. She does AMAZING belly photos. And she was really cool to talk to. I just hope I can afford her! As an extra bonus, her parents were there and just welcomed all visitors in as if they were guests. They happily let both Stella and I use the restroom, and even had a kid's potty for Stella! We also liked this artist. She had really cool shots of Austin in construction. I think it would be awesome to commission her to do a painting of our house, not even sure if that's financially feasible, but it would be cool!

We did have one interesting thing happen. As we were walking, we saw a guy back out of his driveway and hit the car that was parked on the street behind his driveway. He sat there for a few moments, blocking traffic, then finally pulled out of the way back into his driveway. Then he got out of his car and pulled back out the mirror on the car he hit and rubbed the dent he made in the door. We moved slowly and watched him. I made a mental note of his license plate. Then he looked like he was reaching back into his car to get paper and pen, but instead got back in and drove off. Without leaving a note! Dude, you backed into a car RIGHT BEHIND YOUR DRIVEWAY. WITH WITNESSES! So I started writing a note and the guy pulled back around the block, like he was watching to see if I left a note. He slowed down when he saw us (we pretended to be opening the stroller), but did not come back. I left a note and the owner of the car called us last night to confirm what had happened. Hopefully the hitter will do the right thing, I couldn't believe how bold he was!

We didn't come home with anything, unfortunately, although we kicked ourselves for not picking up some of the handicrafts they had that were created by Akins High School students. I don't know why we have to debate over ever single little purchase!

Anna and I are off tonight to see Sarah McLachlan's Austin City Limits taping. I won free tickets. I'm pretty excited, even though I haven't listened to her since freshman year of college. Should be a fun estrogen fest! Right now I'm debating over whether to wake Stella up from her first nap in two days so we can head over to her friend Sully's house for a playdate! Oh, playdates vs naps, such a touch decision!

Stella's Preschool Pageant

2008-12-07T18:23:00.000-08:00

Stella's pageant was this morning and the kids were utterly adorable. I actually filmed the entirety of them singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", but unfortunately it is a little blurry. But they stuck Stella right out in front so I have a clear shot of her! Apparently the teacher put her in front of other another shorter girl and Tim heard her parents, who were sitting in front of us,

complaining. Sorry, you should have had taller offspring;) I personally think it's just because she was dressed the cutest. I mean, check out that beautiful dress, $10, 70% off at the Carter's Outlet!

Here they are, doing their thing. Not sure if Stella actually sang any, but she certainly hasn't stopped singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" for the last week!

One Year in our Dream Home

2008-12-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

Toasting on our first night here

Yesterday marked a year since we've been in our house. I was just looking back at my posts from when we found it to when we actually got it and I would say that over the last year, I've only grown to love our house more. I'm constantly amazed by all the things it has that are perfect for us. Like the front window in which to put our Christmas tree. I'd forgotten about that, or how much I hated not having one in our last house, or how Tim and I discussed actually getting a second Christmas tree for the office in the house we were building, just so we could have one in the front window!

We have a million ideas for things we want to do with the house, but of course, the only major change we've made is repainting the battleship grey exterior blue and white. But it's wonderful to have a house that you can imagine an endless supply of little (and big projects) and improvements, enough to last the lifetime that we plan to stay here!

Taken tonight, all decked out for Christmas! We need a wreath, I can't find mine.

Stella's Potty Training Reward!

2008-12-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

So this morning we went to Toys R' Us to pick out Stella's reward for successfully potty training and filling up her "Big Girl" Star sticker chart. Earlier this week, when I told Stella that once she filled up the chart she'd get a big prize, she said she wanted to go to the toy store and pick out a toy. Seems fair to me! So this morning we headed on down to the big store (yes we braved Toys R' Us on a Saturday in December) and set Stella loose. I think she checked out every single possible toy before choosing one. My child likes to make informed decisions. Tim said she definitely takes after me, he would have probably just grabbed something the minute he walked in. Tim steered Stella towards the Lego and I tried to convince her that Barbie was the way to go. She carefully considered those, as well as all the baby dolls, baby doll accessories, kitchen stuff and instruments and finally, after an hour of fun (I think the trip may have been a reward in itself), decided on this keyboard. We were pretty happy with her choice. It's a very cool keyboard that plays like a real one, has all sorts of "special effects" AND it was very economical. We had to tear her away from it for nap (which it sounds like she is not going to indulge us in today).

She has been quite the champ this week on the potty, today she even went at Hyde Park Theatre on the "big girl potty" (as she calls it) while we were there doing FronteraFest publicity photos. Her accidents have been limited to only two on Tuesday, under extenuating circumstances (during a 3 hour nap where she was just exhausted and during the looong car trip to pick up Daddy at work), and the one at school on Thursday.

I still get excited everytime she goes, and I have already packed away the diaper bag and all the accoutrements with glee. I'm enjoying my 4 month break from diapers!

And then on the Other Hand...

2008-12-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

There are those days that make you go, "why did exactly did I decide to become a parent?" This morning, barely out of bed, Stella was already throwing tantrums. Fine, we got her to school anyway. She's been a bear all week. Then at 1:15 the phone rang. I knew before I even answered it that it was her teacher. Of course it was. Stella had been disrupting the whole class and refusing to nap. She had been saying "no, no, no" over and over again. Nothing would get her to calm down and go to sleep or at least be quiet. Tuesday they went through the same routine, except it ended with time out and then a talk with her teacher rather than me being called to pick her up. So of course I go pick up Stella and then her teacher gives me an extra bonus problem: Stella pooped in her panties. Yay! I was again told to talk to her about the nap thing and her teacher told her that if she pooped in her panties again she'd have to go to pull-ups. Great. I would not say this was my most embarrassing day (trust me, I have embarrassed myself a LOT in my life-it's sort of my super-power), but it's certainly not my proudest. I guess this is just the first in a long line of times my child embarrasses me. I know I embarrassed my parents a lot. When I think of how they must have felt when they got called by my teachers/principal about me, hoo-boy, I guess I have a long way to go before we're even!

I don't think my day of fun is over yet (did I mention I spent all morning getting my oil changed and my inspection?). Stella is chattering away in her room and already told me she won't nap. She says she doesn't want to nap at school anymore either. So the teachers are graciously letting me try again Tuesday, but after that it's back to early pick-ups if we don't succeed. I think all of Stella's turmoil this week is related to the milestone of potty training, but her teacher thinks it's related to me being pregnant. I sure hope it's the potty training thing, I don't want this to be a long-term problem!