Mamashark

Movin' on up.

2011-05-10T20:57:00.000-04:00

We managed to survive moving with two children and an over sized dog-beast. How, I'm not entirely sure. It could possibly be due to my belated birthday present.

Cut back to the Wednesday before our big move-out. Steve had rented a small U-haul to take down a load of boxes to the new place and get the keys from the realtor. He had only taken a half-day off from work to do it (or so I was told) so he came rushing back to the old house, changed and headed back out the door. Before leaving he said something along the lines of "Your birthday present should be here today but I won't be here to see it arrive." He'd been hinting at this amazing, top secret present for a month. It kind of drove me batty. So, naturally I rushed out to check the mail that afternoon. No present. Just junk. Fast forward to later that afternoon, Finn was taking a late nap and I was feeding Cabbie. Steve strode in at his usual time and said "Hey, they left your present in the garage. I'm gonna bring it in, but you have to close your eyes. No peeking!" Like an ass I closed my eyes and wondered what in the world it could be. I was also slightly miffed at the post lady because she never bothers to leave my packages in the garage even after I leave her notes telling her to do so. And I wondered why I needed to close my eyes at all, wouldn't the packaging disguise what the actual gift was? So, I'm sitting there like a complete befuddled moron when I here the door open and shut. Steve said "Okay, open 'em!" And what did I see before me? None other than my favorite Canadian lady, Martini.
After crying and calling them both every name in the book I learned that Steve had taken the whole day off and driven up to Erie to fetch her from the Greyhound station. And she was staying with us for the whole weekend and helping with the move.

And help she did. From meticulously packing boxes, to helping to lift our mammoth couch to entertaining a screaming 3-year old she was a relocation saint. I seriously don't think we could have done it without her. I'm pretty certain I would have resorted to homicide if she hadn't been here (well I still almost did). Next time she's here I owe her big time. Cookies galore and possibly a full body massage.

Same but different

2011-04-15T16:11:00.000-04:00

While in the hospital I made a choice that may cause a bit of a dilemma down the road for us. I was asked numerous times whether I wanted Cab circumcised. The first time I hesitantly answered "Yes" with a glance at Steve. The next time I replied "Not really, but my husband does." Then the final time I was asked I told them "No. Absolutely not. No." So Cab stayed intact much to my relief. Steve didn't put up a fight like I expected, but I think since I was the one who had just had major surgery he figured I should have the say in any other cutting that took place during our stay. But my decision places us in a curious position. When Finn was born I didn't think twice about having him circumcised. I hadn't done any research on the topic and even though I'd occasionally see a post from a crazy "intactivist", I didn't feel the need to. Steve is cut so our boy would be too. And on his second day out in the big wide world, that's what we had done to him. I was shocked when I saw his baby boy bits all bloody and swollen. I cringed each time I changed him and feared I would hurt him more. It looked far worse than the 7-inch incision across my abdomen. That sealed the deal with Cab. I'll never be a nutty anti-circ extremist, so don't worry about seeing rants about the topic. I just did not have the stomach to see his little bits all bloodied up. But how in the future do we explain to the boys why their penises are different? Do I tell Finn that I was stupid and didn't think before signing him over to the nursery that morning? I'm hoping we have a few years to figure this one out because I'm seriously perplexed at the moment.

Special Delivery

2011-04-14T20:36:00.000-04:00

I know I said I would write up the story of how Cab came to join us, but after starting it and only getting to half way through the first day I realized I don't recall all the details. And that 50 or so hours of labor are way too many to document. So, I guess I'll cut to the chase.
After laboring over the entire weekend, I along with Steve and our doula Amy (who I will be forever grateful for) headed to the dreaded hospital Monday the 7th around 4 AM. My contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute. I was exhausted and getting shakey, and I know both Steve and Amy were tired as hell as well. We were all certain that I was progressing nicely. But after an extremely uncomfortable exam we learned that I was no more dilated than I had been a week earlier. I felt completely crushed. And even more tired. Then when the doctor on call came in (remember I hadn't met any of the doctors in the practice at all) she dissected my birth plan and made it pretty clear that she wouldn't budge on anything. I wanted to punch her. Especially after she insisted over and over that I wasn't even in labor. That what I was doing could go on for weeks. I wanted to scream at her that I knew what my body was feeling, that it was her practice that told me to come in when I was having contractions exactly as I was at that point and that damnit I was in labor. But I didn't. I sat there and held back tears. They kept me monitored to see if I would progress any more and the doctor was going to come back to give me my options. I already knew what they were. Go home with an Ambien and try and get some sleep; stay, get pit started and re-live the awfulness of Finn's labor, or opt for the c-section. When the staff was gone from the room and told Steve and Amy that I was done. That I just wanted the section and wanted it to be over. They were both concerned since it was the complete opposite of what we had envisioned for the past 9 months. Steve asked what could make me change my mind. I told him that unless he was somehow going to get Ellen to meet us back home and have the baby there that I was completely done. When the doctor came back in I told her my decision and she seemed shocked but accepted my decision (of course she did, it's much more money for her). Then started the prep work. The IV was put in, the handsome anesthesiologist brought in a stack of consent forms, and I had a very awkward shave. Before we knew it I was wheeled off to the C/S OR. Which was unbelievably crowded since it was in a temporary space due to the regular room being flooded. I was a trooper getting the spinal inserted, but when I was laid back down I started feeling a little of the panic that I experienced with Finn coming back. And nausea. They quickly killed the queasiness, but I still struggled to hold back the anxiety and feeling of claustrophobia. I felt a little better when Steve was allowed in, crammed in with what seemed like a million other people. Then the pressure and the pushing and pulling. I felt sea sick. Steve alerted someone that I was woozy and they gave me more of the anti-nausea drug. I remember silently pleading for everyone to stop touching me, to hurry up and get the baby out so the touching could stop. Every touch made my skin crawl. Luckily, we soon heard "We have dark hair!" and we both got excited. Then "We have chubby cheeks!" and one of said "Of course!" Then someone asked "Umm, how big was your other baby?" Steve told them 8 pounds. The same person replied "Oh, this one is bigger!" I thought, "Well, duh. Of course he is." I heard Cabbie squeal and then cry out in what would quickly become his signature noise maker cry. They brought him around and all I could see was his dark hair and his perfect little face. I held his chubby little hand and kissed his head before they swooped him away. I got really panicky again and wanted to lift my hands up to tear the oxygen line away from my face. And the touching needed to stop. They were stitching me up and I knew it would be over soon, but the touching could not end fast enough. I yelped for the nearest nurse and she took away the oxygen line for me which helped some. Finally I was popped back over to the bed (again more touching that made me want to scream) and wheeled to recovery. I wanted so badly to get out of there ASAP and be with Cab. I kept silently willing my toes to wiggle so that they'd give me the all clear. No such luck. That spinal stuck around for a good three hours. And when I was finally given the okay I arrived in my room to find Steve and Amy semi-worried because no one had told them what was going on. Then they brought in my handsome little boy. I hated that I had been kept from him so long. He was clearly hungry. Steve said that he'd had his little hands jammed in his mouth, ferociously sucking the whole time. Amy helped me get him latched on for his first meal, which was no easy feat considering I had an IV taped up my left arm, was shaking and still couldn't move much. I know I cried (happy tears). Amy got a little teary. I think Steve cried too. I was so stinking happy to have him safe in my arms. It was truly surreal to realize that our little family had gone from 3 to 4. My mom brought Finn in towards the evening to meet Cabbie for the first time. While he was interested in the baby for 10 minutes or so eventually the tropical fish in the lobby won out. Nothing can compete with clown fish as far as Finn is concerned.

Hmm....I don't really know where to go from here. Describing the hospital stay seems silly. And the few other things I wanted to add will be better as separate posts. Drats. Sorry to leave with a crappy ending. Next post will be better I pomise.

Oh, by the way...

2011-03-21T15:35:00.000-04:00

In case anyone is thinking that I'm still waddling about hugely pregnant....

I'm not. I've just been busy with this little (big) guy. Calloway Meloy Mankoski. Born March 7th at 9:05 AM. 8 pounds 15 ounces and 20 inches long. I'll write out his birth story at some point, I swear. It didn't go as I'd hoped and prepared for, but in the end I'm satisfied with having a chubby, milky-breathed pudding cup of a baby in my arms.

Finn- Year the First

2011-03-02T10:38:00.002-05:00

2011-03-02T08:11:00.000-05:00

My no-good-very-bad-day in a nutshell.

I went in for my 39 week check yesterday morning. The CNM started off by asking me if I was thinking of being induced. Obviously I told her "No way. Absolutely not." She said something along the lines of "We try to wait as long as possible with VBAC moms anyways, before inducing." Well, duh. So then she checked me and found I was "still only 1 centimeter" (because that means so terribly much) and that I measured a 1/2 centimeter bigger than last week (she's been having a student measure me every week and quite frankly, he doesn't know what he's doing.) After a disapproving look she turned her back to me and said over her shoulder, "Before your next appointment I want you to have an ultrasound. You know, just to check the fluid level, the size of the baby and his position. That sort of thing. Of course you can avoid that by making sure you have this baby by then!" I was dumbstruck. Ultrasounds performed this far along are incredibly inaccurate at even estimating such things. I know that based on Finn's size at birth if I do agree to the ultrasound that they're going to try and play the CPD ("cephalopelvic disorder", for all you non-birth junkies) card and insist that this baby is too big for me to give birth to. Which is nonsense. The only way to actually diagnose CPD is to take an x-ray of my pelvis while I'm, get this, in labor. And no one in their right mind is about to attempt that. Anyways, I get all dressed and stumble to the receptionist to make my next appointment, barely choking back tears. Then she tells me that the CNM has also ordered that if I don't oblige and go into labor by Saturday, that I'm to go to the maternity ward every three days for a non stress test and "to keep going until you're so sick of the NST that you pop that baby out." This is also ridiculous since they've been having me keep a kick count chart for the past two weeks, and can easily see that he's not stressed out in any way, that he's amazingly active in there. Coupled with the fact that his heart rate is never below 140, I'd say he's the opposite of stressed. I was handed a stack of papers and an appointment card and once again reminded that I could bypass all this fuss if I would just make sure that I go into labor before the weekend. Once I managed to calm down and stop the urge to puke I called Amy, who managed to talk me down off my ledge and reiterated everything I already knew, but just needed someone else to say out loud. So enormously thankful I had her to call.

Oh, wait there's more.

Finn and I managed to have a pretty pleasant day after all that. Little grocery shopping, little play time, had some lunch together. But once we got home and Steve ran our rent check over to our landlady, we all got bitch smacked. She's kicking us out. We have until May 1st to find somewhere else to live. She's "doing us a favor" by extending our lease until then because she feels bad for me and the kids. Right. Good-bye garden. Good-bye big yard. Good-bye best neighbors in the world. And possibly good-bye Harley, since finding a rental that allows for pets at all is harder than hell, let alone a dog his size.

If the universe's plan is to somehow stress this baby out of me, it just might work.

Progress

2011-02-23T15:47:00.000-05:00

Call me crazy, but I'm actually excited about experiencing labor. I've been having steadily increasing, but irregular contractions all week and I'm pretty much tickled pink to be going through pre-labor. I've been reflecting on my experience with Finn and realizing that I never had a single sign of impending labor with him. He never "dropped", there were never any cramps or weird hip looseness. And even at what was, according to the evil doctor, my 41 week check up I showed no signs of thinning, softening or dilating. Which again makes me think that I was correct about his actual due date being later in February, not the beginning of the month. So you'll understand why I was thrilled at my check up this week to hear Laurie say "Looks like you're softening a bit and thinning out nicely. And you're at one centimeter." Obviously, Cab isn't going to be tumbling on out of there at one centimeter, but to me it's proof that my body can do this on it's own. It doesn't need to be tricked into it with drugs or a pokey little stick. If I just relax and let everything go, he'll come on his own terms and he will be healthy and perfect and wonderful. In the meanwhile I'm going to enjoy these pinchy contractions, sore back and feeling like my hips are popping out of socket because it means my body works and that is pretty damn awesome.

Birthday Bonanza

2011-02-14T10:01:00.000-05:00

I had planned on doing a "3-years-in-pictures" kind of post for today, but since our external ate itself and we lost every picture from the time he was born until this past summer, I had to nix it. We should be getting said hard drive back in the next week, so maybe I'll get motivated then and do a belated photo heavy post.

But, nevertheless, Finn turns 3 today.

Three years ago at this time I was looking in wide eyed horror at the nurse as she informed me that she had just hooked up a bag of pitocin to my IV. Color me annoyed.

Today I'm staring in complete loving confusion at a little boy who is stomping around in his jammies and frog wellies singing a made up song all about Mommy. Clearly things have improved.

Oh, and underneath those jammies....underwear. We dove headfirst into potty learning last Monday, with me just hoping he'd get past his love of screaming in terror at the sight of the potty. And a week later he's had no accidents and even ventured out of the house sans diaper with great success. Granted he's terrified of going in a regular toilet, and he insists on stripping from the waist down each time, so any bathroom breaks while out and about involve packing his little blue potty in the backpack and an extra 5 minutes for undressing and re-dressing in the bathroom stall. But it's been well worth the hassle. The idea of doing diaper laundry for a newborn and a toddler was pretty daunting.

We celebrated his birthday on Saturday night with my Dad at our place. Just venison burgers and chips for dinner, followed by dinosaur cupcakes and ice cream. Nothing fancy. We were supposed to continue the celebration yesterday by going to the Children's Museum with Steve's Dad, my Mom and her boyfriend, but Finn had other plans. He woke up in a no-good-very-bad kind of mood (and that's the understatement of the year). He threw one continuous tantrum all morning. We managed to battle him down for a nap at 10, figuring if he was up by noon we could still go and have plenty of time to see everything. Then he woke up in an even worse mood than before. We somehow wrangled him into clothing and drove to Butler thinking if we just got him some food he'd be fine. Wrong again. Every tiny thing set him off: the length of his sleeves, his shoes, the fact that he could see his socks when he sat down, the way the seat belt was buckled. Clearly the museum was not going to happen. He did settle down for a bit at home, but he went to bed very shortly after bath time (kicking and screaming and half comatose). Steve and I pretty much collapsed on the couch. I'm fairly certain that I'll enjoy 2nd stage labor more than I enjoyed yesterday. Today, he's a completely different little man. Sweet, lovey, cuddly. Not a single truck or tractor has been launched at my head. Go figure.

And after today, Cabbie has my full permission to make his entrance. All I wanted was to make it past Finn's birthday, so come on kid. Let's go!

2011-01-05T07:34:00.001-05:00

I have to make a call today that I've been putting off for two weeks now. It's going to kill me to do it, and I know I'll end up in tears, but I have to call Ellen and tell her that I won't be able to have her attend Cab's birth. Steve is all up in arms over the cost and refuses to consider a home birth anymore. I hate that money is the deciding factor in whether or not I get to feel safe during labor. I know I'll still have Amy by my side, and that's a huge relief, but as we get closer and closer to March I'm getting more and more anxious about setting foot inside Butler Memorial. I'm sure it's not helping that my chances of being attended on by the midwife that I actually trust at maternal services have dropped to nil. I'm not sure if she's left the OB's practice entirely or is just not working with MS anymore. I'll be playing roulette with the remaining midwife (who's not awful by any means. I would have just felt more comfortable with the one who ran her own home birthing practice for many years) and the handful of doctors whom I've never met or even laid eyes on. Awesome health care system, Butler County.

Throwing in the towel. Or blanket.

2010-12-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

Finn has had trouble sleeping on and off for the past year or so. Getting him the "big boy" bed of his choosing helped for awhile. Heck, he would even tuck himself in and drift off to sleep without so much as a peep. Then, he'd get a cold, or cut a tooth and as with all toddlers his sleep would be disrupted. He'd climb into our bed, or we'd spend the night camped on his floor. Then suddenly he wouldn't go to sleep by himself. He'd have to have one of us sit next to his bed for a few minutes and chat about what we were going to do the next day. But then he'd be okay with us leaving and go to sleep after singing to himself or stroking the life out of his beloved seahorse. Then he progressed to not wanting us to leave at all, which is what we're still doing. One of us sits there for up to an hour while he ever so slowly fidgets to sleep. And sometime over the summer he added horrendous night terrors into the mix. He'll be soundly asleep for an hour or so and then just start screaming. High-pitched, blood curdling screams and sobs that scare the absolute crap out of me and Steve and any other adult that happens to be around. He's completely inconsolable when he has one. He's awake, but not really awake. He has no idea where he's at, who we are, and has no concept of his surroundings. He'll scream for things that he's already holding (his blanket, his baby), shakes like a leaf and works himself up so much that we're always petrified that he's going to pass out. His shortest episode has been about 30 minutes, but generally they last closer to 90. In reading up on night terrors this morning, every article seems to recommend leaving him alone when they happen, as trying to console him can make the episode worse and last longer. But how in the hell do you let a terrified 3-year old sit in the dark by himself, crying so hard that they make themselves sick? I don't know anyone that would be up to that task.

So, I did a little digging this morning and found a pediatric sleep program at Children's North. It seems like an extreme measure to take, but with at least one episode a week and a toddler that is scared senseless of falling asleep I have no idea what's left to try. We booked the earliest appointment for an initial evaluation, and it's over a month away. I'm hoping they can give us some insight on how to help him because I can't bear seeing his little eyes glazed over in tears every night.

Midwife meet and greet.

2010-12-17T12:59:00.000-05:00

Met up with Ellen this morning. I was a little anxious that I wouldn't "click" with her since she was kind of quiet over the phone the first time we chatted. I'm a terribly self-conscious phone person myself, so it was an awkward conversation to say the least. But, she showed up semi-unannounced this morning ( I thought she was calling before she made the drive here) and the fact that she was unfazed by 70 pounds of dog beast hurtling at her full speed won her points right away. She's much easier to chat with in person, which is a huge relief. I feel like I should have a had a huge list of questions for her, but then again I didn't want to be one of "those" women that have a mile-long list printed off and drill her with no-brainer questions. I did think to ask how long she's been practicing (over 30 years, which is staggering since she certainly doesn't look that old) and how many babies she's delivered (about 850. Holy babies!) In chatting I also found out that she's a mom of 5, including 2 sets of twins, all born at home. The "two sets of twins" thing might make her a candidate for sainthood, as far as I'm concerned. She works a lot with the Amish in the area, which I found super intriguing. I guess she even has a separate house for the Amish women to labor in, in the case that they have a lot of family coming and going at their own homes and want a little privacy. Besides the chatting, everything else was essentially like my appointments at the doctor's office. Except that Finn could run around and be as rambunctious as he wanted. He was super curious and had to investigate the sphygmomanometer (still one of my favorite words of all time) and learned to say "stethoscope". He loved that when she used the Doppler to hear the baby's heartbeat he was allowed to crawl up next to me on the bed, something that's a big no-no at the doctor's office. And of course he delighted in showing off all his "mad skillz" for her, as he does with anyone new. He also demonstrated that he has no filter concerning what he should and should not tell people. He regaled her with the story of how he peed in his favorite boots a few weeks ago and that's why he only wears one of them now. Complete with sound effects. Luckily, she's used to this sort of thing and just laughed her head off. So, all in all, I'd say it was an excellent visit. The final decision will happen after Steve and I talk tonight, but I was certainly happy with how things went today.

2010-12-07T09:40:00.001-05:00

So, maybe I'm losing my mind. Maybe I just need to get this out of my system and exhaust all possibilities. Maybe it's just hormones. But, lately I've been really freaking out over giving birth in a hospital setting. I swear every other blog I read is posting amazing home birth stories these days. And not just run-of-the-mill home births, but HBACs, something I would, by all medical smarty-pantsness, be nutso to consider. I read all of these women's stories and I get teary-eyed, I get all smooshy thinking of new babies, and I get all sorts of thoughts of "Well, why not me?"

So, I've spent the morning scouring every midwife database I can for even semi-local midwives in private practice. Of the two closest, one didn't have any contact information listed (but I managed to find a number listed under her name) and one I'm not so certain about just based on it's location (it's a mere 6 miles from us, and I'd really like to think that if we had midwives that readily available I would have known about it. But, man would that be convenient.) I e-mailed a home birth service based in Erie, even though we're 10 miles south of what they list as their coverage area. And the drive from Erie to here is an hour and a half in good weather, so late February to mid-March could be sketchy. But, I'm determined to start somewhere.

Edited to add: According to our doula, the first midwife I came across seems quite nice and does attend VBAC's. So that's definitely good news. I'll be giving her a call later today. And the home birth service that's super close to us seems to be two doulas, one of which also states that she's a Direct Entry Midwife and the other is an assistant midwife. I didn't see anything about whether or not they attend VBAC's. But based on their website I think they're a little too fanatically religious for me. Their proximity would make them ideal, but I don't think they'd enjoy my profuse use of the Lord's name in vain while in labor.
Thought? Words of wisdom?

Bump Watch: Week the 28th

2010-12-03T11:00:00.001-05:00

I should take a new photo, since this one is from 26 weeks, and I am undoubtedly more round by now. But, now is break time while Finn and his buddy Harper nap, so blogging after over a month is the most activity I'll be doing at the moment.

Cab is growing quite well (as illustrated by my expanding midsection) and on the whole this pregnancy is just as uneventful and average as the last one. I did have to go in for a third ultrasound so another attempt at seeing his spine could be made, but once he cooperated everything proved to be just fine. The only things vastly different this time are that I have a toddler to chase around (which equals extra sore back and extra frayed nerves at the end of the day) and Steve is working at a much, much busier shop, so he hasn't been able to make it to any of my appointments. His work schedule has also thrown Finn into a loop since he only gets to see him for a couple hours between dinner and bedtime. Add that on top of whatever teething/growth spurt/realization-that-he's-not-going-to-be-the-baby-anymore thing that he's been going through, and you've got yourself a recipe for a great time (read: at times impossible to deal with little boy).

That's all for now. Time to revel in the plushness of the couch. Which really means that I will sit down for 10 seconds and then panic that I have laundry to switch, a butcher to call about a half hog I ordered a week ago, dinner to start prepping, and million other little things.

It's amazing.

2010-10-14T16:10:00.000-04:00

Just a few little things that wow me.

1) Obviously, this little man. And his dimples. I love how you can see all four of his dimples in this picture.One in each cheek, one in his chin ("Dimple on the chin, devil within", right?") and the one I like to call his "thinking dimple" right along his hairline in the middle of his forehead. He was actually quite crabby this day, but at least I got one good, big dimple-y smile out of him.

2) Finn's rate of learning. It more than wows me. It blows me away. He quickly learned his whole alphabet by sight, upper and lowercase. And his numbers 1 through 10. His sentences get longer and longer by the day. He can have pretty full conversations with people and loves to tell stories about his day. We just recently started going over the sounds that each letter makes. Today while waiting in the car for Nana, Finn pointed at a sign and said "Look up there! It's a 'D'! What does 'D' say? Da-da-da-da!" I was speechless. We spent the rest of the car ride with him yelling out letters and their sounds.

3) Also, with Finn's sentences growing longer, he's taken to telling people all about his baby brother. It goes something like this: "There's tiny baby in mommy's tummy. So tiny. Is my baby brudder. Calloway! He's sleepin' *insert snoring noise* He's warm. He has a blankie." The first time Steve heard Finn say "Calloway" I think he nearly cried. Adorable.

4) Though we see him only for a short time at night, Steve is also pretty awesome. He works so hard for our little family and I can't express how much I appreciate it. Because of him I get to stay at home and see my kids grow up and teach them to be good, hardworking boys too.

5) I'm happily amazed that I'm about halfway through this pregnancy.

6) I'm in love with the fact that the baby's tiny jabs have become full on kicks and headbutts. Steve felt him for the first time last night, which is always neat. I'm fairly certain he was perfecting his Charleston in there.

Meet Calloway

2010-10-04T12:42:00.000-04:00

Hooray for the awesomeness of ultrasound. I could never be one of those folks who wait until the baby is born to find out whether it's a boy or a girl or a t-rex. Plus I think it's super neato to finally see what's been growing inside of me. And today confirmed what I was worried about, it's not a kraken or a walrus. Just a normal, healthy human baby. And a boy baby at that. (And there was much rejoicing in the exam room.) The tech had some trouble at first because I had drank the prescribed 20 ounces of fluid beforehand, which ended up squishing the baby into a little ball instead of making things easier to see. She managed to get all the needed measurements on the heart, the brain, arms and torso. But the legs were tucked up under the bottom to the point that she couldn't get a measure on them at all, let alone see what was in between them. I got shooshed off to the bathroom and got rid of some of the water (quite possibly the best bathroom break ever. Making a pregnant lady drink copious amounts of fluid and then forbidding her to pee for an hour is on par with torture.) Baby had some room to stretch then and ta-da! Boy bits. We got a lovely shot of his little bum, his long legs and his teeny boy parts. And of course his little hand groping the bits. The one thing the tech was unable to see was his spine, so I'll be going back again for another scan in hopes that he'll be more cooperative.

As for his name, originally we were settled on Bixby for either a boy or a girl. Then Steve decided it sounded to girly. I decided Steve is crazy. But I made up an alternate list, consisting mainly of traditional Irish names. Not that either of us is Irish, mind you. But Polish names are fairly awful, German names aren't any better and Italian names sound like the names of bizarre internal organs. So, since we obviously have one child with an Irish name, I stuck with that. We narrowed it down to a small handful of choices and figured we'd wait. And then we were putting laundry away one night, listening to a jazz and big band mix, and Steve blurted out "What about Calloway?" I immediately thought it was a genius idea. I've loved Cab Calloway since I was a little girl and he was on Sesame Street. I'm not big on the nickname "Cal" so we'll be calling him Cab for short. Perfect. The middle name has yet to be picked but I have a few in mind.

So, yay for new boys!

Relaxation

2010-09-30T10:17:00.000-04:00

Do you hear that?
That's the silence that only occurs when you don't have a 72-pound dog beast sitting next to you licking his nether regions. Sweet, sweet silence.
Harley went to the vet yesterday to get his 2 year vaccines and stayed overnight to get neutered this morning. I'm to give them a call around noon to check in on him and he'll be rescue by Steve this evening once all the sedatives have worn off. But right now, I'm just enjoying the decreased level of crazy in our house. Ahhhh.
We have great hopes that getting snipped will calm him down a good deal, or at least keep him from going bonkers when our neighbor's dog goes into heat.We shall see though. I do know that not being able to clean himself while the stitches heal is going to drive him mad. And I also know that seeing him with the "cone-of-shame" is going to provide us with hours of laughter and plenty of funny pictures.

In non-dog related news, I had a check-up on Tuesday. My mom tagged along to help wrangle Finn if needed. I really wanted him to hear the baby's heartbeat. And he did, but he was massively unimpressed with the whole ordeal. He was pretty angry that I was laying down on the exam table though, yelling "Mommy get up! Mommy get up right now!". Because heaven forbid Mommy lay down while Finn is awake. Sigh. All is well with the developing kraken as far as we can tell. Heartbeat is very strong and fast, much like Finn's. And I've started feeling bits of movement as well. It took a few times for me to be certain that movement was what I was feeling. I expected the first moves to be similar to Finn's: small, sweet swishes and flips. But this one has somehow already acquired the pointy jabs and pokes that Finn had past the 23 week mark. Clearly I have feisty one on my hands.
Last evening we had a meeting with our doula, Amy, which went stupendously well. She won Steve over, which was my only worry. I had asked him many times if he was okay with having a doula there, and if he would feel like he was having his toes stepped on in any way. He assured me that he would actually be relieved to have someone else there that had a better understanding of everything and who could be extra emotional/mental support. But I still worried. It's what I do. But he got along with Amy very well, and seems really excited to be able to kind of take a step back when it comes time to actually have this baby. He's decided his job is to keep my water filled, sneak me granola bars, and tell me I'm gorgeous even if I'm drenched in sweat and wearing ugly slipper socks. Good man.

Big ultrasound appointment on Monday, so hopefully I'll have exciting news to announce then. Hooray!

Bump Watch: Week 16

2010-09-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

I've read dozens of times that with each successive pregnancy you "show" sooner and get larger. But I'm still shocked at how much more bump I have this time around. When I was 12 weeks pregnant with Finn I shot a photo set with Alissa Brunelli. I looked amazing. My stomach was teensy from 3 months of constant vomiting. My boobs looked cartoonishly disproportionate. My butt was darn near perfect from all the running I had been doing prior to discovering I was pregnant. I may have felt like death slightly warmed up, but damn if I didn't look awesome. This time though at 12 weeks, I was poking my belly, turning this way and that trying to discern whether it was a bump I was seeing or just a "food baby" from the extra large banana split I had just consumed in 2 bites. This week I ripped our house apart in a frantic search for a bellaband that has apparently disappeared into thin air. The only thing keeping me out of ugly maternity pants at this point is the fact that my favorite jeans are cut much lower in the front than the back. Thank you, Levi 504's. And see that striped shirt. I have two of them. And I live in them. Chances are if you see me out and about, I'll be wearing one of them. I have other shirts that fit (that aren't empire waisted circus tent maternity tops), but I've developed some sort of dependence on these two Old Navy shirts. I really should have purchased more of them.

Right now I'm just looking forward to the big ultrasound appointment in a few weeks. I'm dying to know what exactly is in there. With Finn I had kind of a feeling that I was carrying a boy. But with this one, I have no clue. It could be a kraken or a walrus for all I know (I'm kind of hoping for a kraken). We went through a little debacle over the unisex name we've had picked out for two years, which lead to coming up with an entirely new boy's name. A boy's name we've been keeping from my mother, which is apparently killing her. I've promised to tell her once we find out if it's a boy or a girl, so I'm exciting for the appointment just to put an end to her constant digging for hints.

Itchy

2010-09-02T14:50:00.000-04:00

We had quite the exciting night last night. And by "exciting" I mean "terrible, no good, very bad."

We had Finn in bed early. Relaxed, played some Yatzee (which I won, for once), and had a delightful evening leading up to grown-up bedtime. Because of the heat Steve and I were already sleeping restlessly, when Harley came bounding back the hallway. And then he ran full speed back to the living room. Repeat this several times, with some pausing to shake in between. We assumed the obvious, he had to pee, so Steve let him outside for a few minutes and then brought him back in. We'd just settled back down, when Harley started the whole routine over again. He positively would not calm down. Determined to have a few hours of sleep, Steve contained Harley in his crate. Just as we drifted off to sleep, he did his pitiful whining. So back out of the cage he came, only to repeat the running of the hallway again. At this point, I start thinking maybe he's pulling a Lassie-esque "Timmy's in the well!". So I jump out of bed to prod the completely dead-to-the-world toddler awake, just to make sure he's okay. All was well, and after Finn gave me the stink eye for waking him up we all went back to bed. Harley continued his running. We tried to ignore it, thinking that giving him attention for it would just encourage him more. This lasted until he bounded into our room and slammed his entire front half into the bed. We stuck him outside on the run, hoping he would wear himself out and fall asleep on the porch. Thirty minutes later he was crying his head off and was brought back inside and put in the crate. Either he was so exhausted that he gave up or we were so tired that we passed out without noticing any more antics. I'm not sure.

So, we wake up this morning and start to get ready to leave. As I'm in the bathroom, Steve yells "Ashley! Get out here!" I lazily wander to the living room, assuming this has something to do with SportsCenter. Nope. Harley's neck was scratched raw to the point that it looked like someone had tried to slit his throat. I fetched a cold washcloth and cleaned him up as best as I could. We both thought his harness had irritated him and he had scratched at it profusely. Then as I cleaned further down, I saw huge red welts on his chest. And behind his front legs. And on his front legs. All over his belly. Covering his doggy junk. Ugh. I honestly had no idea dogs could get poison ivy. Somehow Steve did know this though. I just know our furkid looks miserable. We've been giving him children's benedryl to help with the itch, but he still looks mighty pitiful. I gave him a nice long scrub this afternoon to get any remaining residue off of him, which hopefully keeps us from getting it and keeps it from spreading on him anymore.

A few pictures of his itchiness:

Front leg

Neck (these are the sores he had scratched open last night)

More of the neck bumps

Even on the paws

And the worst. His belly. I feel so bad for him.

Picture-y pictures

2010-09-01T08:10:00.001-04:00

A few pictures from this summer:

Finn makes this face. A lot. Usually in conjunction with his favorite phrase "Whatchoo want?"

We had to start buying mini-marshmallows because he likes to cram two or three big ones in his mouth at a time. It'd be one thing if I could get him to say Pudgy Bunny, but nothin' doin'.

We took an impromptu trip to the zoo with Nana. Really impromptu. We were supposed to just be going to the park.

And I've been watching this gorgeous little ginger, my friend Bethany's son, this past month. Finn can't quite decide if they're friends or archenemies. He's always very excited when he wakes up, exclaiming "Harper's comin'! Harper be here soon!" But once Harper is actually here, things can go either way. Some days they get along fabulously, and others I have to keep them separated in different rooms. They're both pretty scrappy fighters.

I'm having a baby, my baby and me.

2010-08-25T14:36:00.001-04:00

Well, I've put this off long enough I suppose. Here it goes.

I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant.

Some of you might recall that Finn's birth was, let's just say, a less than ideal delivery. You may have heard it straight from me. You may have read it here or elsewhere. It left me with some serious emotional scars, and no matter how much I want to remember the day my little man was born as a happy one, I can't. So, it's no surprise that when we started thinking about having a second child, I wanted to plan for a completely different scenario. And when I discovered I was pregnant and had the appointment to confirm the pregnancy, you can imagine my horror when the following transpired:

Nurse: So, are you planning on having a scheduled c-section or on having a vaginal birth?

Me: Well, my son was born via emergency c-section but I've been planning on a VBAC for this one.

Nurse: Oh, that's not going to happen.

Me: (Now in tears) Excuse me?

Nurse: Well, I don't know who you're planning on seeing, but the doctor that works with our office absolutely will not let you attempt that. And I'm certain that the doctors that deliver at Butler won't let you either. They'd be crazy to. There's just too much risk.

Me: (sobbing) Are you kidding me?!

Nurse: Was the problem that you were tired afterwards? Because with scheduled surgery you won't be tired.

Me: (jaw on the floor) Of course I was tired! I just had a freaking baby! Being tired was NOT the problem!

I exited shortly thereafter completely unsure of what to do. I was hysterical. I was furious. And I couldn't even call my mom to vent because we hadn't told anyone yet. Adding to the frustration was having to deal with sorting out insurance and figuring out which doctor's office I could actually use. Butler County is insanely complicated with this and it took 4 weeks to get coverage and book an appointment. And this appointment was just to fill out an hour and half of paperwork and to have some initial bloodwork done. Luckily, the nurse I had at the maternal services office was an angel. She took weeks of fretting and anxiety off of my mind by informing me that the nurse at family planning was full of bullshit. That their office would actually encourage me to attempt the VBAC, not tell me I was crazy and book the operating room for the day I hit 38 weeks. Of course, more sobbing ensued (I'm an emotional pregnant lady). And I somehow managed to restrain myself from hugging Jan-the-best-nurse-in-the-world.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm fully aware that babies have their own plan. That no matter how much I "plan" for his or her birth, things can quickly change. But, I also know that Finn's birth taught me to be more assertive with voicing my needs and wants regarding my medical care during labor. To not get mowed over by medical staff and pushy, jagoff doctors. I'm also looking forward to having the support of Amy, a doula that I met though Finn's playgroup. I think having her there will also be a huge help to Steve who I think was very overwhelmed last time by my mom and the staff. I remember looking over at him and seeing him with this startled, blank look on his face a lot. Luckily, he came to his senses when we were in the OR together and was leaps and bounds ahead of me in the sanity department by then.

So, here's hoping that this time around, things go a little better.

Hiker's high

2010-06-16T09:12:00.000-04:00

Over Memorial Day weekend Steve and I dropped Finn off with Pap and went on a mini-date to McConnell's Mill. Somehow in the nearly four years we've been together I'd failed to take him to our biggest local tourist spot. Clearly this had to be fixed. We had an excellent time, hiked more than we planned, and vowed to do it again. I haven't been hiking in years, and I got such a buzz from just our short little hike that day. It felt so amazing.
So this past Sunday we went back again, with our friend Jeb in tow, to hike the entire 7 mile Slippery Rock Gorge trail. The previous time we'd hiked a bit of the Hell's Hollow portion at one end and the Kildoo Pass loop that hooks onto the other end, so we had no idea what was in store for us in between. This is what was what we found:

We interrupted a lanky blue heron's breakfast.

We pondered whether or not this was the spot a hiker died last month.

The boys decided to investigate. (and finding bits of crime scene tape on the way up did not deter their climbing)

Finally at the top and deciding that, yes, indeed someone died here.

After 3 miles we stopped for lunch and to clean ourselves of the layer of mud encrusting us from the knees down.

And I looked sweaty and happy.

I wish I had pictures from the last half of the hike. I really do. But that trail kicked my ass so much that my hands would not have functioned properly. Which is a pity, because we had great fun pretending we were on a Goonies-style adventure (with all the mud, ravines and waterfalls it wasn't hard). And we took a most excellent side trip into Hell's Basin for some wading and splashing. It all ended at Hell's Hollow Falls where I could have happily spent the rest of the day, splashing in the cold knee-deep water (which worked wonders towards numbing my feet.)

Definitely a trip to be repeated.

Update: Part the second.

2010-06-03T10:47:00.001-04:00

So we returned safely from our Canadian adventures to a garden that desperately needed some planting. Steve had tilled it up before we left, but that's about as far as we had gotten. I planted a mesclun mix near the back door for easy salad pickins and those shot right up:

But the actual garden needed a bit more work. We expanded on last years plot and threw in some new crops as well. Our lovely raised beds now include: Bibb lettuce, Bright Lights swiss chard (which is gorgeous), Deep Purple and Nantes carrots, Amish Paste, Jet Star, Summer Taste, Big Boy , Sun Gold 100 and Brandywine tomatoes, Sweet Chocolate and Wisconsin Bay Sweet peppers, Cyclops (because how could we refuse a pepper called Cyclops), Hungarian Wax, and Tequila Sunrise hot peppers, some jalapenos, Walla Walla and some random red sweet onions, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, green beans, one zucchini (that will still produce more squash than any family can eat) and four rows of corn. Plus a separate bed of nasturtium, dill, parsley, and cilantro.

I should note that the plant pictures are now a month old and oh, how they've grown. The corn which was just starting to sprout in the above picture is now nearly knee high. And the swiss chard is now lovely and crunchy. Seeing the bright shoots of color in a salad is fantastic.

And what has our darling son been up to? Funny you should ask.

He's helped in the garden and met some new friends.

He's been really excited about bathing.

He attempted to hone his hockey skills. (He has none yet.)

He did his best to look innocent.

He finally got his new bed/fort. Sleeping is much improved for everyone.

He fell in love with the park.

And he's spent a lot of time not wearing pants.

Procrastination

2010-06-01T08:39:00.001-04:00

The longer I put off updating this darn thing, the harder it gets to do so. So much has happened in the past few months. I swear we did more in the past two months than we did in the whole of last year. I'm gonna hit the highlights here in an attempt to catch up.

Firstly, in mid-April we ventured sans toddler to the suburbs of Buffalo, NY to see our amazing friends Kent and Paula tie the knot. I had the privilege of being the photographer for the big day and let me just say, it was a blast to shoot. So many awesome shots from that day. I had so much fun and I know Steve did too.

The day after the wedding we migrated north to Niagara:

before heading to our final destination of Toronto. Steve and I share an enormous love of Toronto. And judging by how most of our trip was spent, we also share a large love of food.

We started our first evening there with dinner at Sneaky D's where we met up with some yummy nachos and my favorite little lady in the world, Martini.

The next day Steve and I wandered through Chinatown and grabbed some grub at a Szechuan place that we'd heard great things about. I was a bit disappointed in my dish, but Steve's chicken with garlic and chilies was delectable and I could have drank a gallon of their hot and sour soup.

We did some more wandering around after I bought more pastry tips and chopsticks than I will ever use and ended up in Kensington market. After a couple of hours there we were hungry again. How, I'm not sure. And it just so happened that Steve's food nirvana was on the next block. Jumbo Empanadas.

I restrained myself and just had a mini chicken empanada and a cheese one. Steve, as you can see did not.

Later on, Kent and Paula arrived to join us in our food adventure.

We ended up at some crazy Japanese tapas place for dinner and then after a disappointing attempt at late night entertainment, we had drinks and snacks at Sneaky D's before crashing back at the hotel.

The next day was my birthday! Hooray! We spent it shopping, sightseeing and of course, took Kent and Paula to Jumbo Empanadas. Steve consumed more food than I have ever seen a human eat in one sitting. Later on we all got gussied up and headed out to Trimurti for my birthday celebration. We were joined by aforementioned favorite little lady, Martini, and a close second in the race for favorite Canadian, Karen.

The night ended way too soon. I miss those gals so much already. With any luck, Martini will be spending a bit of time at our place this summer, so I'm looking forward to that.

The next day, we packed up early and headed home. The looooong drive home. While it had been pretty darn nice to spend some adults-only time, I missed Finn like crazy. Next time we head north, he'll definitely be coming with us.

This entry has ran long enough. More in the next update!

2010-04-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

A few pictures from around the yard:

Words can not express how giddy I was when I saw this bleeding heart sprouting up by the garage. I purchased it on clearance at our weird local hardware store last year on a whim, thinking it would never grow. Not that it had a chance to, since Steve mowed it over with the weed whacker. But, lo and behold, I saw little purple shoots springing up a last week and it popped up super fast. It's still tiny (maybe 5 inches high), but it surprised me even more when I checked it out yesterday and saw:

It had started blooming! Woah! The hearts are miniscule, which just adds to their adorableness.

Cursed ferns. I hate these things. They're in a bed filled with cacti on the edge of the driveway. Apparently the family who rented this place before us for 16 years were obsessed with Southwestern/Native american culture and decor. And landscaping. It's terrible.

The snowdrops finally sprang up. They need to be on their game a little better next year.

If you look closely you can see Finn off in the distance. He likes to stand by the pine trees and taunt the cows next door. He wiggles his bum and yells "MOOO! MOOOO!" Sometimes I worry about him.

I'm taking a litte break right now from the pre-vacation hustle. We're leaving bright and early tomorrow to drop Finn off at Nana and Pap's and then heading to Buffalo from there. Part of me is sad we're not bringing him with us, but the other bit of me is overcome with excitement at the thought of four nights of sleep. Plus, I think making small children have a passport is ridiculous, so seeing as he'd need one for the second bit of our trip, he'll be staying behind this time. How in the world do you get a two-year old to sit still for a passport photo, anyways?

Okay, break time over. I still have a few things to pack and dinner to finish up. Updates later next week, with tons of pictures.

Bedspring time

2010-04-06T08:30:00.000-04:00

Hallelujah! The worst is over, the storms have cleared, and all is right with the world. Finn is sleeping through the night again. Praise Ikea.

About two months ago, Finn started getting really, really bad about sleeping. He was up more than he was when he was a few months old and nursing constanly through the night (gotta love growth spurts). First we'd have an hour long struggle to go to bed. Screaming, kicking, all-out battles. He'd be so tired that he would have his eyes closed and be half asleep while throwing punches. Then he'd be up around midnight. He'd get changed, snuggled and back to sleep he'd go. Then at 2 he'd be up again, wandering into our room. We'd try to put him back in his bed and all hell would break loose. He'd scream. He'd cry. He'd tense up so much he'd shake like a leaf. He'd yell "Big bed! Big bed! Sleep in the big bed!" until we'd cave and tuck him in with us. Unfortunately, he didn't want US in the big bed with him. He'd flip and flop and kick and hit until one or both of us ended up on the floor, the couch or in the spare bed. And after all of this, he'd still wake up at 5:30, still tired but refusing to go back to sleep anywhere. Needless to say, we've all been exhausted.

We'd been thinking of getting him a twin bed for awhile now, but this sleep mutiny gave us the push to actually do it. With the grandparents chipping in, we headed to Ikea this past Saturday to get this child a big boy bed of his own. I'll skip the details, because I'll just end up more peeved. They didn't have the bed that we drove two hours to get. They refused to sell us the floor model. They wouldn't ship one from another store. They can't tell us when they'll be getting more of them in. They were completely rude and gave us just about the worst customer service ever. Ugh. Anyway, we left there with everything but a bed frame and a ridiculously tired toddler (we had decided to push naptime back a bit not realizing that A) he wouldn't catnap on the ride down and B) that we'd be there for several hours dealing with completely unreasonable people). Once we got home, I set to disassembling his toddler bed, which he found quite entertaining, and hemmed the curtains to the right length. His new room looks pretty darn nice. I imagine it will look even better once we have a bed frame, but for now he's enjoying the mattress on the floor.

And his sleeping....oh, it's so much better. He doesn't even fight going to bed now. He happily marches in and snuggles down in bed. He asks "Mommy, stay here?" and I agree and snuggle with him for a few minutes before he drops right off. He's been waking just to get changed in the middle of the night, but he doesn't come wandering into our room and he goes right back to sleep. And best of all, he's been sleeping in. Okay, I know most people don't consider 7 a.m. to be "sleeping in", but when your toddler usually wakes up at 5:30, 7 seems like a godsend. It's pretty darn miraculous, really.

And now for a few extra pictures from our lovely spring weather:

Figures the first seeds to sprout would be the hollyhocks that Steve picked out. You know, the flowers that won't bloom until next year. :eye roll:

"'Laxin" is his new thing. He'll plop down in a chair and grab his drink and say "Oh, I'm 'laxin. Ahhhhh!"

A stress filled Easter with a teething toddler. Holidays should not be this hard. Seriously.

And the first of the yellow plague, I mean, daffodils. They actually beat the snowdrops this year, which is unheard of.

Dance dance revolution

2010-03-22T08:56:00.001-04:00

Holy moses, what a weekend!

Headed out on our dance adventure on Saturday morning, with a stop in Grove City first to get a new car adapter for the iPod. From there we took the longest, most ridiculous way to Edinboro. The "scenic route", if you will. Stopped in at the workshop to say hi to Dan, who was massively sweaty from teaching Charleston all morning. Had a few hours to kill before we started our class, so we drove to Erie to indulge in some sushi and hibachi. Okay, not "some". Massive amounts is more accurate. Headed back to the university for our class, praying that food would settle before we got to the dancing. Ow.

The class went so amazingly well. Everyone caught on surprisingly well and I think they all had a blast. We even had a few of the old Rocco's crew show up, so that was really cool. The only times I felt flabbergasted were when I had to explain little stylistic bits that I do. I have no way to explain them to people other than "I'm just following Steve" or "I dunno. I've always done it that way." For instance, apparently Steve and I have a signature move that we do with our shoulders. Neither of us have ever really thought about it, it's just something that we do. We got asked numerous times "Wait...how are you doing that?" and all I could say was "I'm not doing anything. I'm just following." Steve tried to break it down and explained it as a rowing motion, but it was still baffling I guess. I think they'll get it more when they stop thinking so much about the movement. with blues dancing you can't overanalyze each step, you just have to go with the music. The class did a wonderful job of that when we had them dance with their eyes shut, so clearly the intention is there. They're such an enthusistic group of kids, and I just adore them to pieces.

After many hours of dancing, Steve and I scooted home and reveled in the wonder that is a quiet, toddler free house. And a toddler free bed. Oh, the luxury! We slept in, went out to my favorite Chinese place for lunch and swung by Lowes to price some lumber and to pick up a few seed packets. We picked up a very sleepy Finn from Nana's and came home to work in the yard. Finn helped me plant the seeds in their pods and it was possibly the cutest thing ever. You could see the concentration on his face as he carefully picked up one seed at a time and pushed it into the soil. I wish I would have had more pods because he could have kept going with it. Steve grilled up some yummy burgers for us and not long afterwards it was bedtime for everyone under the age of 3. Easiest bedtime ever. I think we're going to love spring and summer for the fact that Finn is too worn out to even attempt a fight at bedtime. It's nice for a change. I forsee a bad bedtime tonight though, since it's pouring outside, ruining any chance we had at burning off some energy. Oh well. Can't win them all.

Change of seasons

2010-03-10T17:50:00.001-05:00

This week has been gorgeous. No, really. Unseasonably warm weather, grass visible in most of the yard (yes, that's right, GRASS!), and the masses of adorable birds flitting around the patio. So, of course, we all come down with a monster, nose killing, mucus festival of a cold. Finn started it all on Saturday. Steve noticed him sniffling while at the zoo. By the time I got home from my tattoo appointment, he had commenced the sneezing. Sunday and Monday the cold progressed to full blown rivulets of snot and a glorious hacking. By Tuesday both Steve and I had itchy throats. Today I woke up feeling like I could barely breathe. Steve's colds rarely ever progress past the itchy throat phase, the lucky bastard. Finn and I spent the majority of the day snuggle up on the couch under the big comforter watching movies and eating chicken noodle soup. What a way to spend a lovely 60 degree day.

Anyways, rewind to Saturday. It ended up being quite fun. Mom and I started our day in Erie with some gut-filling grub from Moe's and then hit up Target to find a suitable party dress for my birthday. Gave up on finding a dress and settled on a cutesy floral skirt that I will get infinitely more wear out of than a dress anyways. Headed downtown to Karma and spent the next 3.5 hours under the skillful hand of Doug Lopretto. I hadn't even seen the artwork before then, and I have to say I was blown away. I still am actually. He got the linework and about half the shading done. I'm hoping to make my next appointment at the end f April. I can't wait to see this gorgeousness colored in.

2010-03-05T13:54:00.000-05:00

I'm getting pretty gosh darn excited. In a little less than 24 hours I say good-bye to my naked right arm and hello to a most excellent half sleeve filled with lots of underwater critters. It's been a long time in coming, about three years to be exact. The last tattoo I got, my chest piece, was completed about a week before I got pregnant with Finn. Who knows, maybe this one will have the same baby-making effects. I'm planning on having my IUD removed after our trip to Toronto in April, so baby-making will definitely be on the horizon. Oh boy. Or girl. Or as my mom LOVES to tease "maybe one of each!". Seriously, not funny mom. Not funny in the slightest. Speaking of my mom, she will be the one going with me to my appointment. This should prove to be interesting since she thinks the tattoo experience is like an episode of Miami Ink : The tattoo customer prattles on and on about the deep, life changing meaning behind their choice of artwork and the artist is brought to tears by their emotional story and then relates a similar story of their own. I love her to pieces, but...really? She has a lot to learn. I went with her for her first tattoo and it was an experience I will not be repeating. She clung to my leg, cursing about the pain. For three hours. For a woman that went through 36 hours of labor, you'd really think she'd have handled it better. Anyways, possible face-palm moments aside, it should be an enjoyable day. We're heading up to Erie early so I can look for a birthday party dress and have a delicious lunch. Meanwhile, with the nice weather we've been having (holy shit! Is that GRASS I see in our backyard?! No way!) Steve is planning on taking Finn to the zoo. I think this will be the first time he's taken a semi-big trip with Finn by himself. So, his day might be more hilarious than mine. I'm looking forward to comparing stories when we get home.

Get Milk

2010-03-01T13:10:00.000-05:00

We got seriously off track with drinking raw milk this summer. We took Finn off all dairy for quite awhile there and that, combined with serious money issues, made the 45 minute drive to get milk seem completely unworth it. But, we slowly re-introduced dairy to Finn and since he's been fine with it and our milk consumption went back up I decided that it was high time we get back to swilling the good stuff.
Two Fridays ago after dropping Steve off at work Finn and I made the drive to Wilson Farms. I figured he wouldn't remember our previous trips but I was wrong. Upon mention of going to get milk his eyes lit up. "See doggies? And kitties?!" he yelled excitedly from the back seat. For him the best part of getting milk was not the milk, or the cookies that the farmers stuffed his pockets with, or getting to pet new born calves. It was always the barn dogs and cats. He is such a cat person. As soon as we parked ouside the dairy shed, he spied the big orange cat perched in the window. "KITTIE!!! Pet da kittie!". He couldn't scramble inside fast enough. We lugged our gallon containers inside and he immediately made a beeline for the half sleeping cat. I tried to catch up with the owner of the farm, but Finn's sole interest was in petting the kittie. Luckily, the owner was quite understanding and dipped him out a cup of fresh milk and produced a cookie to munch on while playing with the critter. Our jugs filled, I had a heck of a time explaining that the kittie could not, in fact, come home with us.
"Kittie? Home? In da car?"
"No, peanut. Kittie has to stay here. "
"Oh...Pwease?"
"Kittie makes Mommy sneeze, so he can't come in the car. Sorry buddy."

Thankfully, a meltdown did not occur. He seemed okay with the promise that we'd come back and visit the kittie soon. And now almost two weeks later, he's still telling the "get milk" story anytime he sees a picture of a cat. It goes something like this:

"Aww, kittie... Mommy get milk. Byes in da car. Get milk. See kittie. Kittie, maowwww. Get cookie. Petted da kittie. Maowwww. Nice. Is black kittie. No, is orange kittie. Is orange."

quick tidbit

2010-02-23T11:25:00.001-05:00

This was too long for a facebook blurb, so I suppose I'll stick it here. It's too funny not to write up.

So, I'm standing in the kitchen peeling Finn's second clementine for the day (he's developed an addiction I think), when I see him sneaking into his hiding spot. Our kitchen counter extends to the wall but the cabinets underneath do not since there's a heating vent on that wall. This leaves a little space perfect for Finn to hide in. Oh, and by "sneak" I mean he does everything imaginable to make sure someone notices him going into hiding. So, he's in his hiding spot and I pretend not to notice. Usually I pretend to be in a panic and yell "Where's Finn?" or something along those lines. But I didn't right away today and after waiting a few seconds I guess he got impatient because i heard "Where's Pinn? Where's Pinn?" from under the counter along with a stifled giggle. He barely ever attempts his name since he can't make the "F" sound properly. After holding back my laughter I repeated back "Where's Finn? Where's my little boy?" and he ran out and exclaimed "Dere's Pinn!"

Oh, little man, you are priceless.

Potty monster

2010-02-22T07:55:00.000-05:00

I don't know how it's come to this, but I'm about to rip my hair out.

Last year at this time, Finn was darn near fully potty independent. we started using EC when he was about 8 months, which is considered a late start as far as EC goes. But he did so wonderfully with it. I knew his pee scedule by heart. And if we were doing something that involved not being right by a potty, say driving, he would hold his bladder until we got to our destination and were able to get to the nearest bathroom. And for awhile there he even got really regular with his pooping too. Very morning as soon as he'd wake up, on the potty he'd go and within a few minutes he'd be pottied and back in his jammies ready to start the day.

And then we moved into our new place. And things started going downhill. Fast. First his bm's became more irregular. Then he began wetting in between trips to the potty. He'd pee in the potty and as soon as his diaper was back on he'd wet it as well. Then he began only wanting to sit on and use his potty if we read books. Which is fine. But then it grew into a game almost. We'd sit and read book, after book, after book. And when we'd give up and put the diaper back on...instant wetting. Now it's to the point that he won't even sit on the potty. He screams, he kicks, he throws punches. He does the ol' stiff as a board move. He'll roll on the ground. Anything to not sit on the potty. Just recently he's started telling us when he's peed again, which I guess is a step in the right direction since he hasn't even been doing that for the past few months. I've tried everything to get him back on track, and I'm at my wits end. I just wish I knew what was going on in his little head.

Birthday bonanza

2010-02-18T09:18:00.002-05:00

Finn's party on Saturday was a hit. Papa Bill showed up early in the morning (with donuts from Mighty Fine. Yum!) which pleased the birthday boy very ,very much. Steve and his dad took off into town while Finn napped. He didn't nap long though. Just barely long enough for me to get the decorations up and put the meatballs in the crockpot. He' been awake for just a few minutes when Nana and Grammy showed up with the rest of the food for the festivities, followed closely by Steve and Bill. We made the mistake of putting his presents out, and played a rousing game of keep-away until the rest of our guests showed up. Pap and Uncle Mike showed up, along with great Uncle Jeff and Gram Janice. Finn hardly knew what to make of it all. After stuffing ourselves full of super yummy food, Finn finally got to open his presents. He lost all interest in them though once he opened the computer from Steve and I. So the adults took turns opening the presents and showing them to the toddler hunched over the laptop. Oh well. We figured he'd be super amped about blowing out his candle, as he begs to have candles lit just so he can blow them out. But no. He extinguished his birthday candle with his hand. What a goober. Now for some pictures!

This year's attempt at making the cake was far more successful than last year's:

Nana and Pap showed up with a huge bag of peanutbutter M&M's, so he didn't eat any of this yummy lunch. Way to go Nana and Pap...

Showing off his new Batman shirt. He was really excited about it until he saw the computer...

Crammed inside the ballpit/tent/tunnel complex from Nana and Pap. It's ginormous. We're going to have to buy the huge victorian house we've been looking at just to have somewhere to put this thing. Finn adores it though. He loves asking people to "Come in!" when they walk by.

After all the guests left, Finn lasted about another hour before he completely crashed. Easiest bedtime ever.

On Sunday, we took him to our favorite local Mexican restaurant for lunch. The boy loves tacos. He had no interest in his taco though, instead he focused his eating powers on the bowl of chips and salsa. All the while, trying to charm the little girl at the next table. He even tried to impress her with a little dance and his Spanish skills. Okay not so much skills, as ability to repeat "gracias!"

That's about it. All in all, a very nice birthday weekend for the little guy. I have more to update, but I'll save it for another post. Later yinz guys!

2010-02-11T14:28:00.000-05:00

Well, since I've been asked two times this week "where did your blog go?" I suppose I'll resurrect it.

So, Finn turns two this Sunday. He's somehow gone from this:

To this:

Pretty unbelievable if you ask me. I can't figure out where two years have gone. He's so darn remarkable and lightyears cooler than I will ever be. His vocabulary is astonishing and terrifying. He has little conversations with himself these days. Just yesterday he was helping in the kitchen and he plucked a magnet off the fridge and had the following exchange with himself: "Coe-lor's that? Dat's blue! No, it's not owange, it's blue! Mummy, it's blue!" So funny. He's also become obsessed with anatomy lately, and being a little boy ,his focus is on one certain body part. He delights in yelling "penis" or "my junk!" any time his pants come off. So far no public outbursts have occured, but I'm sure it's in our near future. Christmas was fun this year, since he had a little more sense of what was going on. He made out like a bandit (as usual). He has no idea what to make of this birthday business though. He knows that he gets to blow out a candle (which he's very excited about) and it involves the cake sitting in the fridge (which he's very, very excited about). I'm excited to see his face when he opens his presents. Steve's dad got him a mailbox playset, which I can already see being the hit of the party. Finn loves, LOVES to get the mail. The playset has a big wooden USPS drop box and has letters and postcards of different sizes to sort and match up. He's going to have a blast with it. Steve and I got him a big set of wooden food that I think Finn will love as well. He played with some over Christmas and really liked telling us what each piece was and making pretend meals, so this should go over well. I'm really relieved that we're keeping it low key this year. Just having the grandparents and Uncle Mike over. It was great seeing so many people last year, but OMG. The planning and organizing was awful. Not to mention wasting all that money on a hall rental. Ugh. That still irritates me. I'm sure we'll have many birthday blowouts down the road to look forward to, so I doubt we'll miss one this year.

Finn turning two also means we're hitting another marker. I've said for ages now that when he turns two I'd get my IUD out and we'd start trying for velociraptor #2. The lack of insurance is putting this on hold at the moment, but I think it's something that I'll be doing in the near future. I think we've both been having the baby pangs lately. I know I certainly have. And Steve has been quick to point out cute tiny babies when we're out and about. Sure, Finn drives me nutso at times, but when he's his usual sweet, goofy, affectionate self...man, there's just nothing better in the world. And when he cuddles up and says "Kiss? Hug?" he just melts my heart. Another one of those? It's not even a question really.

should have stayed in bed.

2009-12-14T07:21:00.000-05:00

We had some AMAZING weather yesterday. And by amazing, I mean shutting down every major highway. I was scheduled for a call-in at 12:30 (which means that I call the store an hour before and see if they need me or not). Given the wonderful weather conditions I started calling at 10 (to tell them I wouldn't be in until my solid shift at 4). No answer. I figured maybe we opened later since it was Sunday. Called again at 11. No answer. And again at 11:30 and 12. Uh-oh. Finally got a very flustered Rhonda on the phone at 12:30. Seems everyone had trouble getting there. What a bunch of awful. And when I did leave for work at 3:15, I got about 1/4 mile down the road and the noise we thought was being made by the brakes got really, really loud. So I turn the car back around, get home and discover I have no tire on my passenger side. Complete blowout. Ugh. Piled us all into Steve's car (which is any day away from blowing a head gasket. Stupid cars.) and got dropped off at work. Two things did make my no-good-very-bad-day a little better though. Having pretty amazing co-workers (one of which is possibly procurring me some new tires for free) and watching Meet the Natives when I got home. Seriously, if you haven't watched it, and you enjoy seeing the way we live as Americans mocked, you need to see it. Hilarious.
Back on the car though, the rim seems to be okay. And it looks like something had been rubbing on the inside wall of the tire, and that's what caused the blowout . Steve drove it (very carefully) to work today and is going to take a look at everything. No sense in putting new tires on first, if there's something that's going to cause another flat tire. Fingers crossed that it's not something uber expensive.

Pretty, but cold.

2009-12-12T07:47:00.000-05:00

As I type this, my hubby (Steve the great white hunter) is out braving the frigid temps in one last attempt to fill his deer tags for the season. As much as I love venison, I'd rather have my left arm sawed off than sit outside in the cold. Not for me. I'll stick to cuddling inside with Finn, eating hot toast and cocoa with marshmallows, thanks. Brrrrrrr.

This little monkey is growing and learning in leaps and bounds lately. His vocabulary is exploding and he's getting better at putting said words together and making small sentences. Lately everything has been "BIG!". Big truck, big ball, big butt, big tree...you get the picture. And he's learned to kick so we hear a lot of "Hey! I kick it!" and "Mommy! Kick it!" Such a little boy these days. The only time I see the baby side of him anymore is at bedtime, which had been pretty darn good for awhile. But lately, he's backslid a little, and always says "Mommy! Stay here! Stay here!" when I try to tuck him in and leave. I don't know if he's getting afraid of the dark or having bad dreams or what. He has a heck of a vocabulary, but still can't always tell us what's wrong (not that I'm expecting him to be able to or anything. That's just ridiculous).

He's finally un-afraid of Grammy Zarnick (my maternal grandma). I think the fact that she treated us to a wonderful day at the Science Center helped her cause a good bit. I don't know who was more in awe of the exhibits, Finn or Grammy. They were both pretty blown away by the underwater Omnimax film. I was just shocked that Finn sat through teh whole 45 minutes of it. Of course seeing a lot of the Nemo critters probably helped ("Mommy! Tu-ttle! Ssssark!") and the fact that he passed during the last 10 minutes didn't hurt either. Grammy couln't stop talking about teh trip for a week. And of course before leaving she loaded the boy up with every souvenier from the gift shop. Such a fun day. I think we'll go back for his birthday (which is rapidly approaching. Holy cow. 22 months already?) when the miniature train village is back up and running (we missed the re-opening by a week). He's got a love of trains and big trucks, this one does. He will not be disappointed on Christmas since there are at least 3 gigantic dumtrucks, a big backhoe and a plethora of tractors waiting to go under his tree from various sources. Santa has some very busy elves apparently.

I've been working pretty steadily, which is both great (we can definitely use the money) and stressful (shuffling Finn around is making me want to rip my hair out). Finn's been staying with Grammy Z. the past couple of weeks while I've worked and he's done really well with her. Unfortunatley I just got a call this morning that she's back in the hospital with her Crohn's acting up. Obviously I want her to be alright and get better, first and foremost. But now I'll have to find somewhere else for him to stay this week, which is going to be none too easy given my crazy schedule. I found one daycare with openings, and I'll have to give them a call bright and early on monday. Fingers crossed that they don't charge an arm and leg fo just a couple days a week. Sigh. I really wish I knew more people around here that were good with kids and had free time.

Oh! Two gunshots from the back property!!! Go Steve, GO!

Work and possible dead deer aside, Finn and I have been keeping busy around teh house as well. We've put up the Christams tree and hung all my grandma's old ornaments. Finn, unfortunately, think that they're huge candy globes and has tried to eat three of them so far, and pulled countless others off the branches. He's also been a big help in the winter baking. We've made bread, pasta, pretzels and numerous cookies in the past few weeks. He makes for a great sous chef/official taste tester. I think we'll make some egg noodles today for dinner next week. And we have plans for Guinness cupcakes and Guinness cheese fondue for Christmas eve. This will be our first time hosting the Christmas eve get together, and I thought it'd be nice to throw in a few new things along with our traditional grub. We always have meatball and hot sausage subs, pasta salad, macaroni salad, some form of potato and a dessert of some sort. Kind of a picnic meal. We'll open our presents from mom and dad and eat til we're ready to pass out. Sounds like an excellent time.

More shots! What the heck? Either he missed the first two times, or this is an indestructable deer. The pressure is really on today, since this is the last day Steve will be able to go out and since my little brother got one yesterday...well, I think Steve's feeling a bit competetive. He has three tags to fill, and judging by the amount of handwarmers he purchased last night, I think he means to stay out until he has them all filled (one buck and two doe.) Three would be way more than we would eat in a year (two would be too much, really.), but we plan on donating any extra meat we end up with. He hasn't texted me back yet...hopefully this means he's on the chase! I had a dream last night that I woke up at 9:30 (yeah I know...sleeping in to 9:30 would be a dream indeed) and Steve was in the living room playing with a fully dressed and breakfasted Finn (again, a dream). I was confounded as to why he was back so soon and he said "I got two by 8, so I decided to call it a day!". I woke up from the dream before I could badger him about why he couldn't feed Finn breakfast every morning. Go figure. But I'm hoping this means good luck for his hunting today.

Okay, off to shower and make noodles. Think good deer thoughts for Steve today!

Quick tidbit

2009-11-27T16:03:00.000-05:00

A conversation with Finn yesterday while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner:

*Finn walks by muttering something incoherent*

Me: What was that buddy?

Finn: Boobies! Big, BIG boobies! Big boobies!

Me: Big boobies?! Who taught you that?

Finn: Nana.

Me: Mooooooom, come here for a second......

Black Friday

2009-11-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

Dear holiday shoppers,

As Black Friday approaches, I'm sure you're all gearing up for your massive shopping blitz, your eyes glazing over at the thought of all the life-changing bargains you're sure to find (personalized oversized cat sweaters 2 for 1?! OMG!) But before you start your buying rampage and completely destroy all of the store displays that took hours to put together, please take a moment and consider the guys and gals that will be taking care of you during your retail high: that's right, the store workers. Now, sure, we've been planning for this as much as you. Stocking the shelves with bright, shiny packages right at eye level, strategically hanging shopping bags so you'll be encourage to buy more than you came in for, practicing how we'll get you to add on even more unneeded crap at the register. But all the planning in the world will not prepare us for your self-entitled bullshit. Just because you spend money in our stores does not give you the right to treat us like garbage. Yes, I know you bought $29 dollars worth of product , but no, I will not let you slide on getting the $10 off a $30 purchase coupon. I don't care how much you've spent in my store before or are planning on spending in the future. If you don't meet the requirements to use a coupon, you're not getting it. And no, I will not individually wrap your pocket hand sanitizers. They're one-inch, by one-inch. They do not need to be wrapped. It's called a stocking stuffer for a reason. And no, I will not follow you around the store and be your personal shopper. I do not know what your Aunt Betty would like, I have no clue as to what fragrance your cousin just bought yesterday, and quite frankly I don't care. I do not get paid enough to put up with your high-needs, co-dependent shit. I will be polite and as helpful as I can with 200 people crammed into a space meant to only hold 50. But really, you should do the same. It is the holidays after all, a time for family, charity and kindness. A fact that gets grossly overlooked when there are anti-bacterial soaps on sale 3 for $10.

Happy shopping!

Sincerely,

a friendly retail slave

Halloween, homes and flying pigs

2009-11-08T13:03:00.000-05:00

First off, Finn's second Halloween was pretty awesome. He was a chicken this year (see picture in previous entry) and made a darn fine one at that. I'm really glad I didn't find him a Shrek costume since he abandoned his Shrek obsession a few day before Halloween in favor of Nemo. On Thursday we took him to the mall where I work for their halloween parade (living in the sticks means no trick-or-treating, since to go house to house you'd have to trek along a main highway or walk through peoples pastures to get anywhere. Somehow I don't think the cows would be fond of costumed children disturbing their peace). I was worried that since it was so close to Finn's bedtime that we'd be in for a rough time. But he was remarkably well-behaved. He wasn't too keen on the idea of approaching people for candy, but he was pretty excited to actually get the candy. And he loved seeing all the other kids in costume. Downside was that everyone was giving out lollipops, which sent Finn into a frenzy and he ended up with one sticky sucker in each hand. On Saturday (the actual holiday) Nana and I took him out to a few relatives' houses where he made out like a bandit. Both Nana and great-Grammy know that we're not big on giving him lots of sugar, so they each gave him gift bags filled with goodies. His favorite so far have been a set of matchbox cars (he now goes to sleep every night driving one of them over his pillow) and a pair of t-rex "schwippahs", both from great-Grammy. He also received some super cute jammies and a few pairs of comfy lounge pants from Nana, along with healthy snacks from everyone. He was pretty blown away by all his "pwesunts", so it'll be interesting to see what he thinks of Christmas this year. I know we plan on keeping things low key at our house with just a few fun gifts (I'm sooo excited to get him some Sprig trucks!), but I know Nana goes nutso buying stuff for him. I forsee a toy box clean out in our very near future to make way for all the new stuff.

Last week, we had an appraiser at our place. Our landlord paid for the appraisal, which was a huge load off of our backs. We really want to buy our place because we love it so much, and also because we hate moving. We were really hoping it would appraise for what we think it's worth, but it came out about $20,000 more than we expected. I'm not sure what they take into account during an appraisal, but it apparently doesn't cover anything I find important. Like the fact that the kitchen is stuck in 1965 and needs a complete overhaul. Or the desperate need to rip up the gross stained carpet and refinish the hardwood underneath. Or the fact that when the "new" bathroom was put in all the fixtures were put in crooked and the plaster work was never finished or painted. Or the fact that none of the rooms besides the kitchen, dining room and Finn's room have central lighting. Or the fact that basement leaks and needs to be sealed and finished. I just don't get it. I browsed listing for other houses in our area,and I kid you not, there's a place three times the size of ours (on a smaller lot), with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and an updated kitchen and it's on the market for $70,000. Which is what we thought our place would appraise for. Instead our quote is $90, 300. Ridiculous. My parents old house which is, again, twice as big as our place, has more land, has recent remodeling on the kitchen, bathrooms, and basement is only listed for $59,000. I don't get it. I really, really don't get it.

Now the topic I've been putting off for awhile. But two of my favorite mommy-bloggers has posted on the subject, so I figured I should as well. Please skip this paragraph if you're already sick of my crazy whackadoo ramblings and my weird approach to parenting.
H1N1 and it's vaccine.
As Twwly put it so perfectly, let's give the pig farmers a break and stop refering to it as Swine Flu. I like pigs. I like ham. I love pulled pork bbq. I do not like a media hyped sickness or its vaccine. It's just another flu. Seriously. More people die every year from the regular flu than have died from H1N1. You have a better chance of being killed in a car wreck on your way to the clinic to get your vaccine for H1N1. No really, you do. When we went through this same frenzy in the 70's, more folks died from the vaccine than they did from the flu itself. And all those "completely healthy" folks that died seemingly out of the blue? Bogus. No one is "completely healthy" these days. Why? Because no one has a decent immune system anymore. We're a nation of fast-food guzzling sloths. We don't exercise enough. We get immunizations for practically everything. We pop pills for the slightest cough or sneeze. Our bodies no longer know how to fight off anything. Sad, but true. We've had the H1N1 "scare" in our area, but am I shaking in my boots? No. Am I rushing out to get us all stabbed? Absolutely not (I'll pass on having my kid injected with mercury, thanks). What are we doing? Eating right, staying active, getting plenty of vitamin C, staying away from anyone sick. Which, by the way is all that you're recommended to do if you feel you have H1N1. Stay home and rest and get lots of fluids. Not rush to the ER where you're just wasting a doctor's time that could be spent treating someone with a REAL emergency. Use common sense folks, and soon you'll be able to say proudly that you survived the flu scare of aught 9.

Edited to add:
So you don't think I'm just stating MY opinion, and that I'm making up the fact that America is very unhealthy as a nation:
American Diet and Eating Habits
Childhood Obesity
Eating habits and a healthy immune system

Let's talk about...

2009-10-31T21:59:00.000-04:00

Teenage girls. They top my "most hated creatures" list. And yesterday night, on my dinner break this fact was greatly enforced.

I'm in line waiting for my sandwich, when two very scantily dressed 12 year olds get in line behind me (I would later find out that they were 13, not that this makes the events any better). I'm instantly appalled that their parents let them out dressed like that. Then I hear one of them mention that a friend was recently found to be smoking by their parents and said parents then made child smoke an entire pack in front of them. For a second I found this funny, since this was what my mom always said she would do if I tried smoking. Then they turned to discussing what brands of cigarettes they liked the best, and who bought them cartons last. Yeah. I was agog. I was aghast. My sandwich being done, I took a seat and thought, "okay, i don't have to hear them any more." But, unfortunately, these mini-chainsmokers sat next to me. And had a loud discussion of who hasn't turned 13 yet, and which sex acts they and their friends have tried already. And where they've had sex. Absolutely mind boggling. I pointed out that the discussion was loud because on the other side of these lovely litle ladies were two tables of families with small kids. I was so disgusted on so many levels. It took every ounce of willpower for me to not start a scene and ream these girls out. I was shaking by the time I went back to work. How has parenting gone so ENORMOUSLY downhill since I was that age ? My mom would have rather fed me to rabid dogs than let me go to the mall by myself at 12-13 years old. And while I had "the talk" by that point, I certainly didn't know all the details. I didn't even have my first "real" kiss until I was 14. And I was completely terrified of the idea of sex until almost 18. The fact that these two girl were so flippantly talking about something so adult is so horrifying and awful. These girls couldn't even take on the responsibilty of caring for a hamster, and yet they're out fucking. Positively disgusting. Yet another reason Finn will be homeschooled and another reason why we live out in the middel of nowhere, far, far away from horrendous people.

2009-10-28T13:46:00.000-04:00

Filler for now

2009-10-27T10:31:00.000-04:00

Until I get around to editing pictures of the past week....a lame meme.

1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth? toothpaste

2.Where was your [Facebook] profile picture taken? my backyard

3.Can you play Guitar Hero?absolutely not

4.Name someone who made you laugh today?Finn

5.What time did you go to bed and why? 10:30 ish? We stayed up to watch Dancing with the Stars.

6.If you could move somewhere else, would you? Canada

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?probably. until the fireworks started raining down on us and we had to run for cover.

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you?Aaron and Cassie and that whole lot

9. Do you believe ex’s can be friends? sometimes

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?Tasty every now and then

11. When was the last time you cried really hard?last Wednesday when I realized how fucked we were financially

12. Who took your profile picture?me

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?A paint covered Finn

14. Was yesterday better than today?I don't know yet

15. Can you live a day without TV?yes, definitely

16. Are you upset about anything?being in the hole $600 and having to pay rent somehow in four days

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?yes

18. Are you a bad influence?Some would say yes, but I don't think so. Not these days anyhow

19. Night out or night in?Out

20. What items could you not go without during the day?Computer, fuzzy socks, camera

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?my grandpa right before he passed away

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?I have no idea

23. How do you feel about your life right now?Happy but stressed. Wishing that we could be financially stable for once

24. Do you hate anyone?not really

25. If we were to look in your facebook inbox, what would we find?play date invites

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?yes, they might find copious amounts of ice cream though

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?yes, and they were bat shit crazy for thinking that

28. What song is stuck in your head?Lipgloss-Li'l Mama

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?Not a deranged stalker or a bear, that's for sure. and if someone was on our property at 2 a.m. I'm sure our neighbor would already have the person at gunpoint before they could knock on my window.

30.Wanna have grandkids before you’re 50?That's not really up to me

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow?make cookies

32. Do you think too much or too little?way too much

Cleveland rocks!

2009-10-19T07:48:00.000-04:00

Well, this blog was going to include lots of hilarious pictures from our weekend in Cleveland, but since Steve uploaded them, heaven only knows where he filed them on the computer. Sigh

Anyways, we ventured to Cleveland on Friday afternoon to visit with Kent and Paula, arguably the cutest couple alive. Nana and Pap were even free to watch Finn overnight so we could go toddler free, which just about never happens. We kicked off our journey with a stop for lunch at our favorite Mexican place in Grove City before making the long drive west. The rest of the drive, pretty uneventful. We made it in one piece and waited with Paula for Kent to get home. After that we all headed to the House of Blues (aka the Biggest Ripoff Ever) since the guys were seeing the Mars Volta (aka worst band in history). We had a highly over priced and under tasty meal there before Paula and I split off on our own for the Cleveland Art Museum. I had never been there before (save wandering past it drunk and barefoot 6 or so years ago), so I had no idea what to expect. It was pretty mind blowing. Especially given that so far the only museum we've had Finn to is the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh. Which, don't get me wrong, is amazing, but it's not exactly old world masters. After a couple fantastic hours at the museum, Paula and I headed out for drinks and dessert while we waited for the guys to call us. Which they did, complaining about being cold and soggy. Our reunited group went to the Spitfire Saloon for a few drinks but the band there was too loud (but I loved them) so we journeyed elsewhere to have drinks and conversation. And did we ever! Steve somehow managed to get into a drunken debate with a random wino over Wings. I wasn't aware that Wings was worth debating. And this wino was apparently the biggest Wings fan ever, and the other three of us saw he night taking a possible bad turn. Luckily, crisis was avoided when they (thankfully) switched to discussing the re-release of the Beatles catalog. Phew. The evening ended with quite possibly the longest Taco Bell run ever (what the hell were the people in front of us doing?) and some long overdue sleep.
When we finally all got up and motoring on Saturday, we had lunch at BD's. And I ate myself into a food coma. With the exception of the lamb, everything was soooo yummy. Afterwards we went to teh used bookstore where I got a ridiculously cheap copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Steve and I headed home after that, even though Nana had called and told us that she was going to keep Finn for another night. So we returned to a toddler free house (which is pretty quiet and empty feeling) and I'm surprised that we didn't both pass out immediately. We're way too old and parent-y to keep up that pace. Luckily it doesn't occur that frequently. Otherwise we' be dead.

In summation, excellent, awesome weekend.

And now, the roofers are here. Much too early. I have no idea how Finn is going to nap today with them pounding and stomping around.

Pictures galore!

2009-10-09T19:51:00.000-04:00

Ah, fall in western Pennsylvania. Usually my favorite season of all. But this year it came out of left field. There was no slow fade from summer, not pretty autumnal blue skies. Just this gross, rainy, soggy weather, and heavy winds. So far our leaves are still clinging to the branches, so at least we have some gorgeous foliage to brighten our days. Oh, and a million acorns littering our property. We must have the fattest squirrels in the universe. This may explain how, when we first moved in, I mistook a squirrel for a grey fox. Seriously.

Our last sunny day outside we spent cleaning out the garden (except for my sunflowers, which are holding on despite the temperature drop), and mowing the grass. And this led to figuring out what Finn is allergic to: fresh cut grass. The boy who lives for mowing the lawn with daddy, who begs "twactor! twactor! twactor!" all day long is allergic to cut grass. Sigh. Hopefully he'll grow out of it. He mowed the lawn with Steve one last time this past weekend and with full pants and sleeves he managed to not have a reaction. Hopefully he'll grow out of it. On the other hand, he's pretty happy that he can have oat-y cereal again, since I took it all away after his breakout of hives.

Since it's been so yucky, we've been baking up yummy treats. I tried my hand at vegan chocolate cupcakes, and I must say, the results were marvelous. And Finn thought so too. Since they contained no raw eggs I didn't feel quite as bad about letting him lick the batter spoon. O course then he kept bringing the spoon back to get reloaded with ooey, gooey goodness. And i was left with a chocolate covered toddler as well as a trail of batter from the kitchen into the living room.

Later that night while I was making spaetzel for dinner, he turned into a monkey. A cupcake seeking monkey. I never heard the chair being pulled out from the table, or the thud of little feet climbing. Darn kitchenaid mixer is a blessing, but it sure is loud. As I turned it off I heard "Mummy! Cakey!", and sought out the tiny voice. Low and behold:

And Finn was gracious enough to take a break outside to model for me for his 19 month pictures. Unfortunately this was almost a month ago and now I need to concoct something for his 20 month shots.

Wrong side of the bed.

2009-10-01T17:08:00.000-04:00

I don't know what's up with today. Finn and I have been butting heads all day long. He didn't want to eat breakfast. I wanted him to finish his cereal. He wanted to watch shrek 2...again. I begged him to watch Martha Speaks or read some books. I wanted to go to dance class. He wanted to leave the second we got there. This is just not our day I guess. I'm hoping a dinner of grilled cheese sammiches and Nana's tomato soup will patch up our wounds. :crosses fingers:

Yesterday was quite fun for everyone. My friend Liz was in Erie visiting her in-laws, and made the drive down to spend the day with us. Sadly, her in-laws kept her gorgeous daughter Melia with them, so Finn had no buddy to play with (read: to terrorize adults with). She graciously did a little modeling for me since I don't get much practice these days with my trusty camera (other than with Finn and his hammy self). We had a super yummy dinner and played Scrabble until she had to leave (far too soon). Hopefully her next stay with us will be longer :)

First day

2009-09-23T23:00:00.001-04:00

Deep breath.

Okay, so apparently my stress level from going back to work and the idea of leaving Finn with someone I didn't know made me overlook the most obvious answer to my dilemma. Luckily, my friend Vicki mentioned to me that she'd be willing to help out, and I was reminded that "Oh, yeah, she works at home and is Finn's best bud's mommy. Duh." So Finn went over there today and had a fun-filled day of co-napping, yummy lunch and lots of cars and coloring. I seriously could not thank Vicki enough. Knowing that Finn was with someone I knew and knowing that he wouldn't have a complete meltdown made my day much, much better.

As for my first day, it went very well. Mostly paperwork and the obligatory training video. Some product sampling and register training. I'm so rusty after not working for two years. And my adult conversation skills....damn near nonexistent. Definitely glad that I'll be working just a few shifts a week to start. And bonus, most of the shifts I'm scheduled for so far are after hours stocking/floor setting shifts. So I can abandon the restrictive dress code and be comfy without worrying if I have a tattoo showing.

In weird and possibly creepy news, the lady I had spoken to about babysitting Finn (who got replaced by Vicki) is really, really persistent. She called me, I'm not joking, withing minutes of me leaving work. I had mentioned what time I was working when I spoke to her the previous day. And when I called her last night to say I wouldn't be needing her I mentioned that I might have an idea of what I'd be working after my first day. I ignored the first call. Then she called again a few hours later and I answered. The following transpired:

Me: Hello?
Creepy lady: Hey, is this the lady who talked to me about watching her kid?
Me: Yes it is.
Creepy Lady: Do you need me to watch your kid tomorrow?
Me: Well, no, I don't work tomorrow.
Creepy Lady: Well, when do you need me to babysit?
Me: I told you this job is just a couple days a week until the holidays.
Creepy Lady: Will you need me this week sometime?
Me: No, actually I have my schedule for the next two weeks and all the shifts I'm working are when my husband is home. So he'll watch the baby.
Creepy Lady: Oh. How old's the baby?
Me: He's actually a toddler. He's 19 months.
Creepy Lady: Oh. well, what about next week? Will you need me next week anytime?
Me: No, I just told you, I have my schedule for the next TWO weeks. My husband will be able to take care of him those days.
Creepy lady: Well, then maybe in two weeks you'd need me to work then?
Me: Umm, I have no idea. I don't have a schedule for those weeks then.
Creepy lady: Well, do you know anyone else that needs a babysitter?
Me: No, I think everyone I know has teenagers that take care of themselves.
Creepy lady: Oh, teenagers....Well, you'll call me when you get your schedule, right? Cause I need to work, you know.

Yeah...so needless to say, I will not be calling her. Ever. And I've blocked her number. The fact that she has my address kind of freaks me out (she was going to come by to meet Finn and figure out where we live. Apparently she felt she could easily get lost on the 1.5 mile straight-shot drive to our house).

2009-09-22T15:02:00.001-04:00

Dear Doozer,

First off, I love you very much. And that's what is going to make tomorrow all the worse. Secondly, I know you're not going to understand what's going on and it's okay if you're scared and cry. But try to be a good boy and have fun playing. Hopefully you'll be napping most of the time I'm gone and won't have much awake time to worry about where I'm at. Please don't be afraid to tell the babysitter what you want to eat or what you want to play with. I know you have all the words you need to help her out, but just don't be all shy about using them. I hope you have fun and don't cause too much of a scene when I go. I'm going to miss you very, very much, but I'll be home before you know it.

Love, love, love,
Mummy

Daycare woes

2009-09-18T21:07:00.000-04:00

It's become apparent that I need to go back to work, at least part-time. Money is so tight around here these days that its making everything stressful. And while the prospect of having adult conversation again, and having time sans toddler parka is appealing, I'm kind of heartbroken as well. I tried finding work nearby that would allow me to work nights (read: after 4) so Finn could just hang out with our neighbors daughter for an hour or so until Steve got home. I know her, trust her and Finn adores her. He'd never have to leave our house, and I know she'd stick to our rules for him. But due to the uptight pricks that own the dive bar down the road, I couldn't get hired there because of my tattoos. A biker bar apparently is no place for tattooed ladies. Go figure. So, I've been looking into retail jobs since it's the only field that's hiring now. This means of course, a schedule that would involve placing Finn in daycare, something I've always appalled. I'm worried that the cost will completely negate whatever menial salary I manage to make, that the caretakers won't follow our rules/beliefs with him, that we won't be able to find one that will agree to use cloth diapers...etc. So stressed out right now. On top of that I've been thinking ahead to our next child and I'm saddened by the idea that I might not be able to take as much time at home with him or her as I have with Finn. I feel like I'd be short-changing them. Like "your brother was awesome enough to stay home with for almost two years, but I can't stay home with you for more than 6 weeks". Plus I know I definitely want to home-school our kids, and I can't even wrap my mind around how that would work with having a job outside of home. I know that's years down the road, and our financial situation will undoubtedly improve before than, but right now it's making me feel pretty stinking awful.

Phew.

Okay, bad stuff aside, I had an interview the other day that went amazingly well. Mostly because it was a group interview, which I've never done before. Can I just say "thank you" to who ever thought of group interviews? Because normally in a normal one-on-one situation I'm all kinds of fidgety and nervous and have no idea what to say (even though I've rehearsed it a million times in my head). But, man, that group interview made me look like a damn rock star. I was the only one that looked even remotely professional, and the only one with any real retail experience. And the only one over age 18. So, hopefully I'm just waiting for the job offer call. This job would be nice, since it starts out just one or two days a week and then will build up as the holidays get closer. It might be an easy fade in situation for Finn and I both. Fingers crossed.

And all job stuff aside, here's a delightful Finn story for the day.

Usually Finn is awake by 7, 7:30 at the latest. And I'm ready for him, because I can hear him scrambling around via our monitor. But I swear someone slipped me a sedative last night (Finn perhaps?), because I never heard him this morning. I know he wasn't awake when Steve got up at 7 because I half woke up then. And Steve says that Dooz was still passed out when he left at 7:30. But at 8:45, I got a little tap on my head and heard a proud little voice saying "Marker! Marker!" I looked at the clock and thought "Wow! Sleeping in is GREAT!". And then, my mind computed what Finn had just said. I jumped out of bed and followed his little march into the guest room. Where he triumphantly showed me his masterpiece of black sharpie. All. Over. Everything. "Marker! Marker! Marker!" he cried happily. He was so proud, and so stinkin' adorable that I couldn't even get mad. He stood by and watched as I erased as much of his artwork as I could with nail polish remover.

Toddlers, kayaks and everything in between

2009-09-14T21:09:00.000-04:00

This might be lengthy, so bear with me. Lots of pictures ahead though, so it should be worth it.

Firstly, our party went very very well. Not as many people showed up for the actual picnic as we were expecting, but we had quite a nice turnout anyways. Finn had a blast playing with his friend Ethan's firetruck and with the bucket of ice that was keeping all the soda cold. Apparently ice is a great entertainment to all toddlers, as Ethan got in on the frosty action as well.

We had sooo much food. Actually we just finished up the last of our leftovers two days ago. I even pawned off several containers of goodies to my dance teacher to make a little room in my fridge, and still had enough to feed a small army. Finn as usual was more than ready to dive into stuffing himself silly with baked beans. His most excellent eating habits even convinced his buddy Ethan, who is usually reserved about trying new foods, to gobble up some beans.

I tried to surprise Steve with the fact that our friend Rob's parents, Ken and Kathie, were coming. But as usual, my mom ruined the surprise. But it was fantastic to see them nonetheless. and it saved me postage or a trip to Erie to deliver the photo book I had made of the photos of Ken and Rob's party a few weeks before. and it meant I got to see Kathie's reaction to it (she cried, just like I knew she would). After the "adults" cleared out we "kids" settled in around the bonfire for some s'mores and delicious sangria (courtesy of Kent and the ever adorable Paula). Lots of ranting and raving about music, health care, zombie movies and old friends was had and enjoyed by all. Definitely a spectacular evening.

Finn and I spent Friday morning picking the last of the veggies in our pajamas. Thankfully we're out of viewing from our neighbours. Lots of "pepples" and "to-toes". Finn particularly loves the cherry tomatoes and pops them right in his mouth straight from the vines. And as I discovered, straight from the table edge when you're not looking.

This picture is Steve's doing. I may be able to deal with toddler puke, clean up poopy diapers and even disembowel animals, but I can not, can NOT handle bugs. Steve came rushing into me on Sunday morning screaming "There's a praying mantis on the woodpile! Come see!" (he's very much the little boy when it comes to gross things). After vehemently declining, he opted for taking a picture of it. You know, to forever have something to gross me out with. The fact that the thing is leering into the lens like he's going to chomp off my head is enough to make me puke. :shudder:

Steve, the great white hunter, ventures down into the woods near the Cabins (more on those in a later journal) every chance he gets to scope out our deer population. Hunting season is rapidly approaching here and he's intent on knowing their habits. If you look closely you can see his main foe "the big buck" a.k.a "dinner" grazing right in the middle of the path.

After two failed attempts (one because my oven broke right after the second rise, and another where my dough didn't rise at all), I finally succeeded in making the Swedish cinnamon rolls featured in Eat Well and Prosper, the foodie blog I sometimes contribute to. You know, when I don't have a sick toddler, or a million loads of laundry to catch up on, or a busted stove. Anyways, they are simply amazing. I un-veganed them, so they might be a bit richer and definitely more fattening.

Sunday we went for a family stroll on the Allegheny River trail, the Foxburg to Parker leg of Rails-to-Trails. It's so pretty own there. Steve and I are hoping to go kayaking with our friend Jeb soon. I hope I'm up to it. The guys want to do the Kennerdale to Parker excursion which is, I believe, 25 miles of river fun.

2009-09-04T11:36:00.000-04:00

Hives are gone! Yay!
So far we haven't found a food trigger. We're really thinking it was something outside. The only other possible culprits are the cereal (which I still haven't been tempted to give him, despite begging and pleading) and the body wash (now stashed in the hall closet and replaced with non scented stuff). One of those toddler mysteries we'll never have a answer to, I suppose.

This week has a been a veritable beehive of activity for us. we're having a nice little party tomorrow afternoon (to be followed by a bonfire later in the night), and we've been rushing to get everything done. For such a little place, we have an ENORMOUS amount of cleaning and organizing to do. Especially the poor guest room. Since it was the only place safe for the computer to reside it's been overtaken by our notebooks, cd's, photos, and other various junk. Now to find new homes for all this stuff....it's pretty maddening. I'm glad we have people bringing food too. I can't imagine making all the food for this party. I've made an Amish-style coleslaw and a veggie tray so far, and I'll prep the burgers tonight after Finn is asleep. We're so looking forward to seeing everyone though!

Oh, be-hives

2009-08-28T19:22:00.000-04:00

So, on Tuesday night Finn mowed the grass with daddy. We noticed a couple of bumps on him and assume that they're bug bites, since it's been muggy and mosquitoes have been frolicking in our yard lately. Cut to Wednesday night. He has blotchy bumps on his legs and feet. I call Nana to see if he had been in the woods by their house at all over the weekend. This of course sends Nana into a panic, which leads to her calling me back every five minute with a new possible diagnosis from her coworkers. All I wanted to know is if he had contacted any poison ivy. Geesh. So, after eliminating poison ivy (by looking at copious photos online, which lead to a verrrry long bath afterwards. Just looking at those made me itch like crazy), we slathered him in calamine to help de-puff the bumps and tucked him in for the night, planning on calling the doctor in the morning. Thursday morning, he wakes up bump free. Happy as a clam. He goes to dance rehearsal with me and has a blast. After some grocery shopping, we come home and I put him down for a nap. He wakes up an hour later screaming. He's completely inconsolable. And he's got huge clusters of bumps on his thigh and on the tops of his feet. Ugh. So I slather them in calamine (do you have any idea how hard it is to get a toddler to leave calamine alone so it can dry?) and strip his bed, clean the mattress top and remake it with fresh linens. Obviously it must be something in his bed, right? So, he finally calms down, Daddy gets home and we have dinner. Finn's a little cranky and tired, but otherwise fine. We think we have the bump-causing culprit safely under wraps in the hamper. Then just as I'm getting ready to leave for the dance studio, I look at him and he has a huge cluster of grossness on his little tummy. When I get home later he's in bed and has the worst night of sleep he's had in a while. He's so uncomfortable and does not want to be left alone. I end up camping on the floor. This morning he woke me up and we went into snuggle with Daddy in the big bed. We see several spots on his legs. I plan on calling the doctor as soon as they open. Finn and Steve go and play in the living room while I enjoy my bed for a half hour. By the time I go out and join them, his legs are plastered with spots and welts. He looks like a leper. By the time we get to the doctor's office he has them on his little hands and arms, and a couple on his face. Sigh. Poor little man. Apparently he's allergic to something, but I'll be damned if we know what it is. The only new things we've given him are a new brand of cereal (same kind of cereal that he's been eating, just a new brand name), and we switched toddler wash last week. I've cut those out now, and hopefully one of them is the culprit. He's had his first doses of benedryl and some kind of steroid, but his spots actually seem to have gotten worse. We give it til Monday and if there's no improvement he's going to an allergist.
I guess we should be thankful that, besides at bedtime, they don't seem to be bothering him. But man, they sure do look yucky.

Ripe

2009-08-27T09:23:00.000-04:00

Tomatoes are finally red. Red and tasty. My sweet peppers which I was so excited about, however, are refusing to get ripe. They're rotting on the vine. Ugh. I know I could pick them green and use them, but 1) I really dislike green peppers and 2) I didn't plant such a huge array of crazy colored peppers to eat them unripened. Sigh. Better luck next year I guess.

Some pictures from the farm show. Finn was super in love with the goats. Seeing him with them made me even more determined to get a few next year. But, then I got this months issue of Hobby Farm, with a special section on raising dairy goats. And now....I think we'll be waiting a few years. I know goats (and any kind of livestock), involve lots and lots of care. But I never factored in planning day trips and long weekends away around when the goats dry out for the year, or who in heavens name would come over twice a day and milk them if we weren't home. And then I thought, well, we could raise meat goats. But I think if we raise any four-footed animal for meat we'd look into raising low line Herefords instead of goats. Sigh. Goat dreams on hold for now then.

Check check

2009-08-15T17:39:00.000-04:00

Finn had his 18 month check up today. I hate taking him to the doctor. Especially this doctor. He freaks out within 2 seconds of getting into the exam room. The doctor has zero bedside manner (or manners in general). They give us flack for giving Finn raw milk. We get the evil eye when we mention opting out of the chicken pox vax. Add to that the fact that they ask if I'm his mom at every appointment and when I answer yes, I then get the look that clearly says that they think I'm a horrible parent and/or that I'm an unwed teenage hussy. Grrr.

Aside from that, his physical went very well. He's on track with height and weight (and his head is still ginormous, still over the 90th percentile). And the PA was super impressed with how clearly he speaks. When he wasn't crying he gave everyone "Pows", which is always a hit with the ladies (he taps his little fist against yours and yells "Powwww!").

Later, he and I ventured to the Scottish Festival in Foxburg. What a HUGE disappointment that ended up being. Total lack of actual festivities. Unless you had gobs of cash to throw around at the concessions (which I did not), or your clan was represented there and you actually knew folks there (which I did not) there wasn't much to do except walk around. Which we could have done for free on the Allegheny River trail. I did research my grandma's last name when we came home and found out what clan we belong to, which was interesting, but even if I had know it before going, our clan (MacDuff) was surprisingly not represented there.

Last night we went to the farm show, and it was a much greater success than the Scottish Fest. I have pictures of Finn loving on some goats to post later that are extremely cute. And after seeing the entries in the farm products category, I think next year I'll enter some of my jam. My Triple Berry Chambord could have swept the competition this year. Seriously. Steve and I ogled chickens and goats, while Finn ogled balloons and plotted to get into the cow stalls. Nana and Pap met us there and gave our arms some much needed relief by carrying Finn for awhile. we ran into my cousin Mike and his wife Kelli and their two kiddos. Finn wasn't too interested in socializing though as he was busy stuffing his face with BBQ (that's my boy). On the way home, Finn jabbered about the goats non-stop. I have a feeling Steve is going to cave and we'll have some Boers joining our chickens next year. All in all, a very nice night :)

Jam session

2009-08-13T19:39:00.000-04:00

Relaxing while the crushed plums thaw out so I can make even more jam. I came to the sudden realization today that I have all this jam (and will soon have even more) and I haven't a clue what I'm going to do with it. You know, besides eat jam for every meal, every day, for a year or two. Good grief. The picture above is just part of the strawberry jam I made with my mom last week. 36 of those little jars in the pyramid. Plus a half dozen half -pint jars. Plus 9 other half-pints from my first batch earlier that week. This afternoon Finn assisted in the making of (read: clung to my leg, waving a spoon around) Triple Berry Chambord jam. Our kitchen smells heavenly. I came pretty close to just eating the smashed up berries straight from the pot. Once the plums thaw (which they should be by now) I'll have a batch of Peach Plum jam. Yum yummy. I like that when I use Chambersburg peaches, I can use half of what the recipe calls for because they're the size of my head. And Finn likes it when I use them too, because he gets to eat all the leftovers.

Okay, break time over. Time to jam it up!

Dance dance dance

2009-08-07T19:39:00.000-04:00

Three years ago (before the whole hubby and baby addition) I was in training to be a dance instructor. Due to the relationship I was in at the time going south (very, very south) I quit very suddenly and always regretted not at least giving my instructor notice of any sort. A few months ago I started going back in to the studio for their weekly social lesson and party, and have been having great time with that. I didn't want to bring up the subject of re-starting my training, because quite frankly, we can not afford it. Luckily two weeks ago my lovely instructor/awesome friend Herb brought up the idea himself. We bartered out some terms (in exchange for lessons I supply him with copious baked goods and help him with landscaping next year) and I began training again this past Wednesday. Finn even came with me and was on fairly good behaviour. Besides picking up with training, we're also working on a quickstep for the fall showcase. Which was an enormously bad choice on my part. I love how it looks and I adore the song we've chosen (Istanbul, Not Constantinople), but man....it's the most difficult dance I've ever taken on. We did a quick run around the floor just to get an idea of how fast we needed to go, and by the end of the song I was panting and racing for a big glass of water. Apparently lifting a 25 pound toddler all day is not sufficient preparation for competition level ballroom dancing. Who knew. But even with getting my ass handed to me, I'm soooo thankful for the chance to get back into what I love to do. I have another session on Tuesday (hopefully sans Finn, so I can get in more than two hours) and I am so looking forward to it.

Finn tidbits:

Yesterday, we went "byes" to do laundry at Nana's. I assist Finn onto the back porch and turn to lock the door. By the time I turn back around to grab his hand to walk him down the steps, he's already toddling down them himself. And he did not fall and scrape his face off. Woah. Then on the car ride there, we drive past a dairy farm and he starts freaking out. I ask him "What's wrong?" He points out the window and yells "Cowwwwws! Cows, mommy! Cows!!" So funny. And when asked what the cows say he replied "MOO!" He never drags out the "oo". It's always an exclamation.

2009-07-30T10:18:00.000-04:00

Baking today. More zucchini bread. I'm fairly certain I could bake a loaf for every family in Butler County and still have more zucchini than I could possibly eat in a life time. We absolutely will not need to plant any next year. After this loaf is done I need to come up with something to take with me to the dance tonight to share. I considered a veggie tray, but then realized it would consist of nothing but cucumbers, zucchini and carrots. Steve eats all the cherry tomatoes before I even see them and our bell peppers aren't ripe yet. So I guess I'll be scouring through my cookbooks in search of something uncomplicated but tasty.

Finn has been amazing us all lately. He's been doing this astounding thing called "sleeping through the night", which I've heard about but never experienced before. And he's been going to bed without a fuss again, like he was before he came down with roseola and threw us all into a sleep-deprived loop. It's been heaven to say the least.

And a funny Finn incident that I forgot to post earlier. He and I were at Target a few weeks ago and I was perusing the lingerie department for some new undies. Finn spots the bras and yells at the top of his little lungs "BOOBIES!!!!! BOOBIES!!! MOMMY! BOOBIES! BOOOOO-BEEEEEES!" Just when I think my face can't get any redder, he then makes a near successful attempt at pulling my dress down to grab my boobs. For a boy that likes boobs so much, you'd think he would have nursed longer. Sigh.

Okay, loaf is done. Time to invent something for tonight!

Edit:
I tweaked a recipe for apricot spice bars using fresh Chambersburgh peaches from our local co-op. Oh. My. God. I do NOT want to share them. A second batch is going to have to be made because I'm sure I could wolf down this entire tray right now.

Deery me

2009-07-27T10:07:00.000-04:00

So we knew we were having a deer visitor to our garden. Tops of pepper plants nipped off, trampled lettuce and a lovely pile of poo in our backyard. However we assumed it was the doe and fawn that keeps getting sighted across the street. Imagine my shock when I got up at 4 to tend to Finn and, looking out the bathroom window, saw the BIGGEST buck I've ever seen in my life. I whisper shouted a few obscenities, which I swear the stupid thing heard all the way across the lawn, because he turned towards me with this "Oh, are these your peppers? So sorry." look on his face and sauntered off into the woods. I then, stupidly, prodded Steve awake to tell him . He sprang out of bed and proceeded to make every loud noise possible (as he usually does). Thus waking Finn back up. Sigh. Last night though, we got our first night of uninterrupted sleep in quite awhile. I think I'd forgotten what it was like to sleep for a solid 8 hours. Crazy. I'm not going to get my hopes up that we'll have a repeat performance tonight, but you never know. He might surprise us.

Bits and pieces

2009-07-22T12:06:00.000-04:00

So, after 4 months we finally have a computer. And then after a few more weeks of waiting, the cable company actually ran lines in our neck of the woods. Our little town is moving up in the world for sure.

This is our lovely little abode when we first moved in. I assure you it's much prettier and greener these days.

A month or so ago we took Finn to his first post-natal concert (he danced gleefully in my tummy when we saw Jimmy Eat World when I was 5 months preggo). The Boiler Maker Jazz Band is amazing. And they're all very sweet. Especially since they put up with our toddler running amok during the entire set. Finn wasn't content to just shake his booty in one spot. He had to run from one end of the auditorium to the other, showing his moves to the entire crowd. Oy vay.

We've had a few visitors since we moved in. First our friend Liz came with her gorgeous girl Melia. She and I took the kidlings to the Children's Museum for some fun. Below they're playing in a huge bird nest exhibit. Which was adorable until they both started chucking the eggs at other kids.

And then over Memorial Day weekend our friends Jess and Daryl came to stay with the adorable Jonah in tow. Finn didn't quite know what to make of a kid younger than him. First he was wary, then a little jealous and finally settled on quiet plotting. In between though we managed to take a group trip to the zoo. The was that the boys would nap on the way there and be refreshed and bright-eyed for the animals. And of course they did not. Hence we dealt with a bit of crankiness during the trip, but then they passed out simultaneously on the ride home. And really, who could hold a grudge against ones that look so damn cute when they sleep? Having them here was awesome. It's not often we get to hang out with families that have the same parenting views that we do, so it was super refreshing. In a dream world they would live right next door to us.

And then the following weekend Papa Bill (Steve's dad) cam to visit for the day and took us to the zoo. Again. And again there was no napping on the way there. Sigh. But I did manage to get a shot of all three generations together, so I guess it wasn't a horrible trip.

Lastly, Finn with the positively crazy lilies that sprouted along the garage. The don't even look real. And this is the first picture where you can see Finn's teeth. He finally has some. Holy cow! Of course said teeth have lead to a crazy sleep regression (he still has more coming in) and general crankiness on just about every one's part.

Peppers, at last.

2009-05-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

Hooray!!!
The hot peppers were apparently just taking their sweet time sprouting. Now the only thing now growing in our spare bedroom/greenhouse is the mix of sweet peppers. I've given up on them though. I'll just buy the seedlings from the nursery in a few weeks. However, Steve is FINALLY getting to till today. Which means onions will be going in post-haste. We planted a few strawberries by the patio the other day and already they seem bigger. I'll be transplanting the sunflowers soon too. They, along with the overabundance of zucchini, are taking over the table in the bedroom. We've actually started giving away the zucchini seedlings because they are so plentiful and MASSIVE. Apparently they will grow anywhere. Geesh. Steve has a few barrels of topsoil dug for me to make the zucchini hills (far away from the main garden.) So if you plan on visiting this summer, plan on leaving with an armful of squash. Our tomatoes are doing quite well despite being told by numerous people "Uggggh. I never have any luck with tomatoes! Just buy them at the farmer's market." But our 50 roma and 50 big boy plants are doing just fine so far. I can't wait to have a crack at my great-grandma's spaghetti sauce recipe, as well as my mom's tomato soup (which is the most amazing soup in the world. )

Finn has started organizing things, putting stuff back where it came from (except for Steve's cds, which he rips off the shelf with wild abandon and then just plain abandons them for someone else to pick up). The other day he was playing in the spare room while I was transplanting some of the squash into larger pots. I turned my back for a split second and BAM! He had overturned a pot filled with soil. While I scooped the soil back into the container, he grabbed another empty pot and picked little fingerful of soil off the carpet and placed them inside. So helpful. He also helped out Steve with our new fire pit. While Dad was hard at work, digging dirt out of the ground, Finn stood by and fistful by fistful, put the dirt back in the hole. Hahaha. He's too funny.

Oh! And we just found out that our friends Daryl and Jess and their handsome little guy Jonah will be staying with us over Memorial Day weekend. We've never met Jonah and they've never met Finn, so it should be fun. If anyone else on this planet has a dancing baby like Finn, it would be Daryl and Jess. Maybe it'll be a baby dance party. Steve and I have finally tossed aside our dancing differences (he does Lindy and I, gasp, do a "boring" triple-step). After Finn fell alseep, and after the Pens kicked some Washington ass, we threw on some music and faked something halfway between the two styles. I think he might even finally be willing to teach me Lindy. It's only taken three years for him to get over his annoyance with my ballroom training, but he's gotten there. Haha.

2009-05-02T14:27:00.000-04:00

Time sure flies.

We've been in our new place for a month now. Finn is growing and learning like crazy. He has 45, that's right, 45 words. We keep a running list on our fridge. My personal favorites are "pickle", "baby" and "belly button". Just now he came in and informed me that he saw a bug. He's such a smart little guy. And he dances. Oh, how he dances. He grooves to any music, even random noises set him off into a fit of bum shaking. This past week we had our friend Liz and her 18 month old daughter Melia visiting us. They had such fun. On Friday we took them to the Children's Museum. And even though they were both beyond tired, they had a blast playing with each other and the other wee ones. Worst point of their visit (and it wasn't terrible) was Melia getting into the bath last night and we discovered a tick stuck to her thigh. It was easily removed, but we definitely need to get our backyard treated now. Finn went for a walk with us a few weeks ago and came back with a tick on his neck, but we assumed that it had come from the deep, dark woods. Not from our sunny, warm, wide open back yard. Yuck.

The garden has yet to get tilled up. We've been waiting,and waiting, and waiting for our landlady's tiller to come back from getting fixed since she had said we could borrow it. She finally called us today and reported that it would be back any day now, though this is what she said two weeks ago. I suppose we shouldn't panic though since our seeds just started sprouting last week. They've moved from our cellar shelves to a nice sunny table in the spar room. All our sprouts are doing nicely except for our peppers. Both our sweet and hot peppers will NOT sprout. Very mysterious. I may give them another try, but we'll most likely end up buying seedlings from a nursery. If anyone has any tips for starting these little buggers from seeds, it would be greatly appreciated.

Off the grid

2009-04-16T09:45:00.000-04:00

Our move to our little country house was successful. And went quicker and smoother than expected. There's still a few boxes of random junk to go though in the basement and I haven't yet set up my sewing studio, but mostly we're settled. Let the guests come!

We've dug up a nice little herb/flower garden so far, with hopes of getting the main garden tilled up in the next week. I have a tray of various herbs started in our hall closet and they've sprouted nicely. I think this set is bound for a nice big terra cotta pot for the porch so it can be brought in for the winter. The basil I have growing supposedly sprouts lovely blue flowers in the winter, so I'd like to see them. The next batch will be bound for the garden along with a darling pot of tiny mums that my mom got me for my birthday.

Oh yeah. I turned 26 on Monday. Goodness. Where did the time go? Mom scooped up Finn for the night so Steve and I could go out to dinner and relax. As much as I love the little man, oh was it ever nice to sleep straight through the night. Funny how last year when Mom and Dad took Finn over my birthday weekend I cried and cried and cried. I sobbed uncontrollably for hours and couldn't even watch him go with them. This year though, we had him in his shoes and coat a good 30 minutes before she pulled up. Of course this could have been in part to me making the crucial mistake of telling him he was going "byes with Nana" early in the afternoon. From then on he marked every 10 minutes by running to the door yelling ad waving "buh-bye! buh-byes! Nana! Buh-byes!". By then time Nana did show up he was fairly perturbed. And he gave her quite a night too I hear. At 3 AM he woke up and just HAD to dance. He saw the radio in the room and woke Nana up insisting "Nana! Dant! Dant! NANA! Dant! DANT!!!" So she had to turn the radio on and he danced and spun himself around for a half hour before finally passing out again. What. A. Nut.

Finn's vocabulary is astounding. We did a tally after Easter dinner and came up with 25 words. At home we added a few more. So he has 30 words. And even more noises. When someone burps he whispers "Buhp!" He'll drag the hand mixer out of the cabinet and sit on the floor whirring it about like he's making a cake going "wwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrr". And then in the next minute the mixer becomes a race car and he's dragging it along the floor going "rrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmm". At night when he's ready to do his nighttime routine he'll find us and yell "BATH!!!" and run towards the bathroom and wait for us, tapping his little hand impatiently on the tub. He impresses and amazes us every day. Seeing him constantly growing and learning makes me anxious to make another baby. Will our next be so outgoing and adventurous? Or will they be quiet and studious? A mix of the both maybe. Sigh. Our attempts at number two are months away but I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune when I'm puking my guts out every morning and trying to manage a toddler. Haha.

What else...what else.....
Oh! The much coveted retro oven is turning out to be a big pain in the ass. It burns everything to a crisp. Even with reducing the temperature by 75 degrees it burnt my loaves in 10 minutes. Seriously. I made sourdough yesterday and turned the heat down 100 degrees. It still baked the first loaf in 20 minutes (and I had to wrap it in foil after 10 minutes to keep it from over browning on top). The second loaf got over browned on top after 8 minutes (too late for the foil to do much help). I need get a thermometer this week and check what temperature this oven is actually going to. And then call the shop we got it from and get their repair guy out to fix it. Thank god for one year warranties. Luckily my attempts at homemade pasta do not require the aid of an oven and hence turned out beautifully. Yummmm

Fridge of gross and moving out

2009-04-01T14:05:00.000-04:00

First, a picture from bedtime s few nights ago. He looks so sweet. Completely unlike the hellion he is when awake.

So today while Finn was napping I took it upon myself to clean out the basement fridge since it will be coming with us to out new house. It's mostly used here for stashing drinks and a surprising amount of condiments (all of which expired 2 years ago). After ridding the fridge of its occupants I set to scrubbing. Not too bad, I thought. A few gross spots, but easily cleaned. Until I pulled out the crisper drawers. Underneath them was a puddle a half inch deep of goopy, coagulated something. I'm still not sure what it was. All I know it when I doused it ith hot water to melt it the stench it released was vomitous. I actually had to make a mad dash to the patio door for air, nearly knocking over the by then awake Finn. So effing gross. But now it's clean and unplugged and ready to move on out. So glad that's over with. Blech.

Tonight we go and sign the paperwork for our lease and hand over more money than we've ever paid for anything before. Tomorrow Finn and I are going to move in small stuff with my car and set up the bathroom (I think it's the only room we have everything for). I have to take window measurements tonight for curtains, and perhaps while Finn naps tomorrow I can whip up the cafe curtain for the kitchen at least. We have drapes for Finn's room and our room as well, so that leaves me to fashion curtains for the living room, dining room and spare bedroom. I think we've bitten off more than we can chew with our hopes of getting the place set up by the end of the weekend. Sigh. We'd so hoped to break ground for the garden next week, but we'll have to wait and see how the next few days go I think.

Okay, enough for now.

One week out

2009-03-25T13:30:00.000-04:00

From moving. Oh my goodness. Thank goodness. I'm about to lose my mind here.

So, we got the retro range last week. And it's being kept safe for us until we move in, so we had one less thing to lug into the storage locker last Saturday. That was a fun move let me tell you. Ugh. I never ever want to move again. Seriously. On the upside I did get to spend a good bit of the day with Liz in Erie, taking some of Finn's outgrown clothing to Once Upon a Child. Hopefully she and Melia will be coming down for a few days once we're settled into the new house. Downside: No wings. I guess Antler's doesn't open until 8 on Saturdays. Darn our luck. Maybe next time.

Today Finn and I went to town and had tea with Bethany and her sweet little guy Harper. I haven't seen B since...forever ago. It was excellent catching up with her and exchanging baby stories and whatnot. Hopefully we can do it again soon. It's nice to have another level-headed mom to talk to. And she took Finn's Gdiapers off my hands, so one less thing to pack. Bonus.

Now off to enjoy a late lunch while the doozer dozes and round up ingredients for dinner tonight.

Moving, moving, moving

2009-03-20T11:07:00.000-04:00

Appliance shopping yesterday. I was supposed to wait to go with Steve tonight, but mom, Finn and I were in the general area of teh used appliance store yesterday, so I snuck a peek. Well, intended on sneaking a peek and ended up putting a deposit down on a washer/dryer set and an amazing 1950's extra wide range. Which led to a panicked phone call to the landlady to make sure said extra wide range will actually fit in the kitchen (it will! Yay!). Steve and I are still going to scoot in there tonight so he can have a look (and so help me god if he doesn't like the range...) and we can pay the balance off and arrange for delivery. We're still in desperate search of a couch. I've messaged a guy in our local freecycling group about furniture he has up for grabs twice now. First to ask if he had pictures of the sofa and then again to say heck we'll just take it anyways. I've yet to hear back from him at all. That might be my biggest pet peeve. People that don't respond to emails/texts/phone calls in a timely manner. I mean, heck, if I can manage to do it while having a crazed toddler running around yelling "Pickle! Pickle! Pickle!" I dont see why others can't. And yeah. That's Finn's new exclamation. We're not sure why, other than he really likes stealing pickles from others plates. He ran around the bathroom yesterday while I was brushing my teeth yelling it over and over. Today he's added "Bugga, bugga, bugga!" in with the "Pickle!". What a nut.

Tomorrow we head north to Erie to fetch our stuff out of the attic at my father-in-law's house. Fun stuff. Lots of heavy lifting. And I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that there will also be copius amounts of wings from Antler's as well. I could eat two dozen right about now. Yummmm

Homeward bound

2009-03-11T13:41:00.000-04:00

Annnnd we have a house to call our own! Excellent.
It's small, but should prove roomy enough for us. There's a large basement that's nice and dry that will make a great workshop for me and my sewing hi jinks (although part of me wants to use it as a skating rink). The two larger bedrooms will be ours and a spare room, while the small one will be Finn's domain. There's plenty of closet/storage space, which we'll need. And the back yard is very roomy. The space for our garden is already mapped out for us, so I suppose I should be seed shopping. There's even a chicken coop and a small barn with horse stalls (though technically they belong to the landlord's house next to ours. Maybe she'd be willing to let us keep a few hens...). The owner is very nice. She breeds siberian huskies and runs a grooming business out of her home. And apparently she knows most of my family. She even grooms my cousin's akita. It is a small town after all. Only real downside is that we have to bring in our own fridge and stove. We'll be taking one of my parent's extra fridges and I guess looking around for a used stove. Sigh. The possibilities of this place excite me. Especially the thought of possibly buying it next year. The owner is selling her home right now, and said she's planning on doing a rent-to-own with this house next year sometime. We could be honest to goodness homeowners. Right now though I'll just be happy to be an honest to goodness gardener this summer. Hmmm, where does one get good seeds these days?

While the dragon lays sleeping...

2009-03-09T14:10:00.000-04:00

...I'll add a happier update.

Finn has been a master adventurer lately. A regular Indiana Jones. Last week during our bout of unseasonably warm weather we took him to the turf field of my alma mater. I don't know what it is about the fake grass, but he goes absolutely CRAZY about it. I think he ran the length of the field three times. And on Saturday with the pond thawed out I took him for a spin on the paddle boat while Steve and my dad raced their rc boats around us (much to the annoyance of the ducks). We also took him to the park and he learned to scale the play center and go down the slide by himself. Hilarious. And when we go out we get bombarded by "Dat? MumMum, Dat?" as he points to something impatiently. He has to know what everything is. He does the same for his books when we look through them in the evening. His curiosity and sense of adventure make me really excited to move soon. Steve is going to take a peek at a house in North Washington that looks very promising. It's on the outside edge of our budget, but it would be so perfect. If it means I have to work a few days a week I'd be okay with that. It's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, energy efficient and comes with an acre of land (I know it's hardly my dream farmland, but it's certainly enough for a good sized garden). I'm crossing my fingers and my toes that we can claim this place as our own. We need it.

Know what else we need? The yummy chicken vindaloo I'm making for dinner. Tasty. And if Finn wakes up from this peculiar long nap in a good mood, I think cupcakes are in order as well. Oh boy.

Relapse

2009-03-06T13:36:00.001-05:00

So it seems all this time that the store bought milk was indeed to root of all Finn's evil. After a full day of having raw milk he started sleeping peacefully again. And get this, after two days he SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. Holy hell. Normally we put him down in his bed and then move him in with us when we head up for the night. But he was sleeping so peacefully and sound that we let him be. He didn't wake up until 5 the next morning. Of course I still woke up at 1 and toss and turned, not knowing what to do with so much bed all to myself and Steve. And his horrendous trouble with pooping has completely disappeared as well. Hooray!!

That said, he still has his difficult times. Yesterday he was so over the top whiny and clingy. Nothing I did was right by him. And he was so sleepy and yet would NOT nap. He got so crazy that I snapped at him. Actually yelled is more like it. Which made him cry even more. Which made me burst into tears. I had to call Steve to come home from work to take care of us both. I felt like such a failure. I struggled so hard when Finn was younger to get over my PPD. To have it flash back like that out of no where was scary and humiliating. I felt better though after making the drive out to Wilson's to get more milk. I think all the stress and tension around here lately is eating away at me. I'll feel so much better once we get a new house pinned down and our car back from the shop.

Moo cows

2009-02-28T20:34:00.001-05:00

So, after yet another night of tossing and turning on the behalf of our beloved mini monster something had to be done. This evening Steve and I finally packed up our milk bottles and headed to Worthington in search of Wilson Farms/Le-Ara Holsteins. We took probably the longest way there (my stupid idea) but we still made it in time to buy 2 gallons of fresh milk. This was made even more awesome by the fact that we didn't see anyone around when we got there and when we walked around the barn a bit and stumbled into one of the owners she led us through the barn where the cows were happily tucked in for the night. It was strangely awesome to see the actual cows that produced the milk that we purchased. And they had made it not even and hour before it was funneled into our jugs. Excellent. We hurridly brought it home to have a sample. Steve had never tried it and the closest I've had is raw goat milk and that was years and years ago. Finn even tried some cold and was licking his chomps afterwards (plus he got it for his bedtime drink slightly warmed up). Without a doubt, it's the best milk ever. Just slightly creamier than the store bought stuff and sooo much better for you. Want the facts? Go to http://www.realmilk.org. I've been touting the facts of real milk to Steve for ages now but he just finally read the page and was thoroughly blown away. It's pretty astounding that they sell the pasturized-homogenized stuff at all.

Now we just need some chickens and a garden and we can commence to be crazy livin' off the land recluses.

Economic crisis

2009-02-26T14:51:00.000-05:00

So, when Steve lost his job in Erie 8 months ago and couldn't find a new job in the area we packed our stuff and moved in with my parents. Steve found a great job in December and we've been trying to get our act together and get back on our feet. Then last month as I was having a heck of a time getting some pants on the boy, a sheriff showed up on the doorstep. I, of course, assumed it was some new antic of my brother that had brought him here. Instead I was served a foreclosure notice in my parents name. I was flabbergasted. How could my mom let them get so far behind that they would lose the house? Our house. The one solid place I've always been able to come back to. I have so many memories here. I know every little crack in the walls, every creak in the stairs, how to sneak in through the dining room window, and that the water from the bathroom sink faucet is far superior to the water from the kitchen sink. I've spent the past few summers enjoying all the hard work my dad has put into our pond. Helped raise several broods of ducks, helped trawl for the snapping turtle that ate the first few groups of ducks, and spent hours upon hours canoe-ing and then paddle boating around in lazy circles. And I had so hope for Finn to be able to spend some of his summer days here too. Teach him to roll down the big hill, to catch tadpoles and baby peep frogs. Now it might not happen at all. My parents got themselves a lawyer who has bought them two months before they have to move out. My mom spends her free time desperately searching for a rental property to move in to. They haven't rented since I was 3. That's how long they've been in this house. We were obviously planning on moving out (it's far too cramped here for all of us), but to suddenly have a deadline.....it's a bit overwhelming. And on top of that we have to get one of our cars fixed before we can even think of calling to take a look at a new place. What use is having a new place to live if we have no way to get us and our stuff there and no way for Steve to get to work from the new place? Ugh. After mom and dad move out of here I guess the house will be eventually put up for auction and they'll have a chance to buy back their own home. The lawyer assures them that if they buy it back it'll be at a much lower interest rate. But that of course is if they don't get outbid. How ridiculous is that? I'm so stressed and angry. Angry at the economy for being so shitty, angry at the mortgage company for being so heartless, angry at my mom for lying over and over again about how she had this "under control" and for spending hundreds of dollars of meaningless crap when the money was clearly needed elsewhere.

Deep breath.

So, yeah. That's the kind of junk we're dealing with these days. While it has been a great kick in the behind to find our own place, it's probably the worst situation ever.

Good-bye cold

2009-02-25T14:59:00.000-05:00

Thankfully Finn slept through most of the night last night. Hallelujah. It was most unexpected after yesterday morning and his 90-minute screamfest. That was flipping awful. No matter what I did he just screamed, and screamed and screamed. Poor guy. But he's back to his normal, inquisitive, adventuresome self today. Yay!

Speaking of screaming, I mentioned in my last post that Finn had a rough time after getting vaxed last week. And so did we, not so much from Finn's crankiness, but from the way our beloved Dr. Barber (aka Dr. Tim Burton) acted during our check-up. I mentioned to him that we were curious as to what was making Finn toss and turn all night long. He asked me what our bedtime routine was (Finn gets a bath, has a bottle or cup of milk and either goes to sleep immediately afterwards or stays up for an hour or so and then he goes to bed), and upon hearing this I got scolded harshly. I was told that he's "looking" for the bottle in his sleep and that we should not give him one before bedtime. And when I mentioned that he's fine and completely still for naps when I snuggled with him to get him to sleep, I got scolded again and told I should be letting him get himself to sleep. That I'm coddling him and giving him too much attention. That if he should cry out at night I should just ignore it. I was beyond shocked. We are very anti-CIO (cry it out). Both Steve and I consider the practice child abuse. And to find out that Dr. Barber, a pediatric neurologist who is very pro-breastfeeding, pro-choice with vaccinating, is all about the CIO was just insane. And then when I talked to Finn (something along the lines of "Are you okay, bud?") when he fussed as the doctor examined him I got snapped at AGAIN. Dr. Barber said I was just perpetuating "his fake whining" and that I was going to make it worse by offering him comfort. Then when Finn burst into tears, the doctor actually handed me a specimen cup and told me to use it to save Finn's tears for later. I was livid by the time we left. My mom, who had accompanied us, was ready to have Barber's head on a stick. And to think just before the visit I had been sad because it would be our last visit to Dr. Barber because making the two hour drive is just ridiculous. Ugh. What a jerk-face he ended up being. I'm still peeved and it's a week later. I've been poking around trying to find a local pediatrician with a more natural approach to their practice, but so far the closest I've found is 45 minutes away. Sigh. And after this looooong bout of awfulness that Finn has gone through we will definitely not be vaxing our next wee one. Forget it. Never mind the chances of autism that vaxing has possibly been linked to, and the awful stuff in the vaccinations as well. I just don't care to have an insanely cranky baby for days on end.

Sick, sick, sick

2009-02-23T11:27:00.000-05:00

Finn has been an entirely different guy this week. And not in a good way.
He got vaxed on Tuesday (more on this experience later) and we expected him to be grouchy afterwards for a day or so. Lucky us, he not only got grouchy but ran a fever. It was just slight at first, but by mid-day Thursday his temp was up to 100.7. Poor, poor little man. Plus, despite our efforts to get him to drink more liquids he still ended up constipated Friday and Saturday. And he's developed a cold. He's a complete mess. And his sleeping at night because of all this is pretty much non-existent. Last night he joined us in bed at 11:30 (he had finally gone to sleep in his own bed at 9, 2 hours AFTER he was supposed to). And he slept fairly well with us til 3. Then he got up, had a bottle and would not go back to sleep. Not where was supposed to anyways (i.e. in between Steve and me). He tossed, he turned, squirmed and squiggled. Rolled over so many times that Steve gave up and moved to the floor. Then Finn wrestled around with me for a good half hour trying to find a comfortable spot that didn't involve either of us hanging off the edge of the bed. He finally settle down, upside down and diagonally across the center of the bed. I'm sure that a lot of this battle could have been avoided had we brought the vaporizor into our room for him, but I'm allergic to the menthol. Sigh. And today he's just as stuffed up and miserable. He woke up at 7 this morning and went back to sleep at 8:45 and napped til 12. He woke up fairly happy after that. But by 2 he was ready to go down again. I just want my normal, healthy little guy back. Ugh.

On the upside, his long naps left me time to look up a yummy french onion soup recipe (I want to suprise Steve with it this week), bake cookies to send to Bobby and Katie (chocolate chip!), and do some research on chicken coops. With us looking at a few farm houses for rent I'm hoping we can get a few hens for the spring. Nothing says homemade like slaughtering your own chickens in the fall! I picked up an issue of Hobby Farm yesterday and they had a whole section on rare chicken breeds and composting with chicken manure and fancy-schmancy coops. I get pretty excited about such things. I got REALLY excited about the Omlet Eglu coop. Until I looked it up on their website and discovered that the whole set up runs about $500. Ouch. While it is a very complete kit, and would be preceisely what I'd need for under a half dozen hens, that's just too pricey. So I guess we'll have to build our own little house for the birds. I'm sure my dad could help us build one like some of the fancier models in Hobby Farm. I so want my own little farm. My dream farm is right across the street from where Steve works. I sigh and dream each time we drive past. Big ol' farm house, giant barn, roomy shed, fields upon fields for planting and grazing. Someday, someday. For now I guess I'll just have to hope we can score one of these rentals and that they'll let us keep a few hens out back and plant a few rows of veggies.

A few days late but....

2009-02-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

Finnegan Reid: A toddler

Dear Doozer MacGee,

Wow. I can NOT believe a whole year has gone by since you joined me and Daddy, making us a little family. It seems like such a short time ago I was snuggling your little peanut body close to my chest while you slept all day. And now you can walk by my side, hardly even wanting to hold my hand. But even though you have such a strong independent streak, you still come back to me (and Daddy too) when you need a little help or want some reassuring hugs. You are quite the little man.

This past weekend we had a BIG birthday party for you. It was not the small, at-home party we had wanted for you, but you had tons of fun so it was okay in the end. You got to hang out with all your little cousins and your little friend Ethan came too. You gave out lots of hugs and smooches to them all. You're such an affectionate boy. When it came time for your own cake (which I had painstakingly made the night before), we stripped you down, waiting for you to go crazy with the smashing. Instead you were your typical polite self, and only poked at the icing with your finger. A few times Nana tried jamming your hands into the cake, but you would just lick the icing off and then go back to your single finger prodding. With your table of presents you were more interested in the packages than the gifts. Much like Christmas. Shortly after we made a hasty exit because in all the excitement you had refused to eat. You were getting crabby, so you and I came home, you had some milk and we took all your new toys out of their boxes. Your favorite is an activity table from Nana and Pap. My favorite was the big stack of books from Kelli and Mike and their kids. Of course you like those too, and I'm sure we'll have lots of fun reading them before bed this week. Also this weekend you got your first real haircut. You were so well behaved for the barber. You just sat on Daddy's lap and looked at yourself in the mirror while the barber snipped away your shaggy baby locks. When he was done, I got a little teary-eyed when I saw the little boy left behind. Definitely not the face of a baby anymore.

Speaking of sleeping, this past month you have been kind of terrible when it comes to staying asleep at night. Usually we get you down with little problem, but then you toss and turn, kick and twist all night. You fuss and whine and roll all about. And for the life of me, we can not figure out what is going on with you. We keep passing it off as your teeth (where are they, by the way?) or a growth spurt, but it's hard to know what's really going on. When we realized you have a sensitivity to oats and cut them out of your diet I thought the wiggling and squiggling would get better. But so far, its gotten worse (although your gassiness has subsided. No cheerios for you.) The only other diet related problem I can come up with is your switch to milk. But you're fine with it all day long and have no problem laying completely still for naps. So how that could be the cause of your nighttime shennanigans is beyond me. I'm hoping to pick up some raw milk this weekend from a local farm and see if that helps you. I'm crossing my fingers that it does, because we (you included) could all use a decent night's sleep.

All your moving and shaking at night though, pales in comparison to your activity during the day. How quickly you've gone from 4 steps, to 10 steps to walking the entire way around the house without help. You even walked along with me whiel we went shopping the other day (that is until you shook off my hand and took off grabbing everything in sight). And you're trying out more words every day. So far you can say:

Dog
PupPup
Duck
MumMum
Dada
Nana
Pap
Mike
Moe
Poop
Num num
Button (you've only said it once though)
Baba (bottle)
Belly Button (bell-buhn)
Sound of the doggy (arf arf!)
Sound of the ducks (dududududuck!)
Sound of ducks sleeping (snoring noise)
Sound of butterfly (a-la-la-la-la while you wiggle your hand like a butterfly)
Sound of muscle man (you flex your arms and grunts)
Sound of cow (oooooo! You just learned that this morning and can't seem to put the M on the beginning)
Sound of cars and trucks (rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

And recently you've taken to using ANYTHING as a phone. You'll hold your phone (or puzzle piece, or fork, or car or stuffed toy) up to your ear and babble on like you're talking to someone. It's super funny. When you do it in public you have everyone in stitches. Especially after you look at them like "Uh, I'm on the phone, do you mind?". Also you've been trying to dress yourself, which is quite cute. You'll grab a sock and hold it by your feet and wiggle your toes as if it's somehow going to get on your foot. You do the same thing with your pants too. And you get quite upset if I or Daddy tries to help you. You even tried to put my slippers onto my feet this morning. You like to play with everyone's shoes and even try to put them onto your feet. You also like to try on everything and everything as a hat. Your potty, a bib, a burp cloth, a basket, a diaper...if you can pick it up, you've tried to wear it as a hat. You're such a comedian. You contsantly have us laughing with the silly things you do. You amaze me and Daddy every single day. It has been so great to be able to spend everyday with you this past year, watching you grow and learn and change and become this beautiful little boy that you are. I can't wait to see who you become over the next year.

Love, love, love,

MumMum

One small step...

2009-02-06T10:57:00.000-05:00

You know what's difficult to do? Maintaining a blog when you have a crazy, active soon-to-be toodler. It's true. And he will indeed be a toddler in just a week. How insane is that? I can't believe he went from teensy (okay, not really teensy) human larvae to this chubby-cheeked maniac in just a year. Just last night I pulled him out of his bed and into ours and snuggled him on my chest, like we used to when he was brand new. I got a little teary-eyed realizing that a year ago his little toes used to be curled up at my stomach when we'd snuggle like that. And now his feet nearly reach my knees. And then I realized that I was also getting teared up because I couldn't breath. There's a big difference between an 8 pound baby curled up on you and a 26 pound toddler sprawled out on your upper body. Sigh. Later in the night, he woke up just enough to roll over and wrap his arm around my neck and muttered a little nonsense song into my shoulder. Double sigh. No matter how much hell he raises during the day, little things like that make up for it all.

And he's walking now. Not full-fledged, all the time walking. But he's certainly getting there. In just a few days he's gone from taking a few steps here and there to walking in a big circle in the kitchen. And just today he walked the entire way across the living room. I don't know who gets more excited about it either, us or him. Every few steps he pauses and lets out a victorious yell. It's pretty funny actually. He knows he's doing something big. And he also seems to be pretending. We noticed last week that he was holding his hand up to his cheek and ear a lot and couldn't for the life us figure out what he was doing. Then yesterday he picked up his play cell phone and did the same. And later when the cell phone wasn't around I gave him this empty tic tac box that he's obsessed with and he held it up to his ear too and babbled away. I was like "Oh! That's what you were doing with your little hand! " And then a second after that he dropped the box into his potty (he had been peeing at the time) and that was the end of the beloved tic tac box cell phone. Speaking of pottying, the EC seems to have really taken effect lately. Especially with pooping. He'll signal that he's got to go (usually an impatient grunt and this curious stare) and he'll wait for me to get him to the potty to actually go. It's very rare these days that I have to change a poopy diaper. Which, I think, is reason enough to use EC with him and our next child as well. It really is so easy and just kind of comes naturally after awhile, I can't get why more people in North America don't use it with their babies.

Have I mentioned I've been sewing. I'm pretty sure I have. Here's the doozer modeling a felt bib. In hindsight, probably not the best choice of fabric for a bib, but I'm still pretty happy with it.
Oops. Forgot to rotate. Again. Oh well. You get the idea. He went to his first Super Bowl party the other night....and lasted all of 20 minutes before we came home to have a bath and get tucked in to bed.

And these are from a bit of fun we had yesterday. He was modeling a new shirt from Nana (one of my favorite kinds too- H&M's organic cotton baby tees. They're super soft and under $7)

And he was also trying on custom boots that I ordered from a great gal on Etsy. They're technically a birthday present, so after this I put themaway until next Saturday. I'm fairly certain he won't remember.

Finn, the stair conquerer

2009-01-12T16:09:00.000-05:00

Busy as usual in our household.
Steves new job has kept him busy outside of the house, while baby-wrangling and sewing have kept me going, going, going. I've been working on opening up my own shop on Etsy this past week or so, while at the same time restraining a very curious 11 month old from cracking open his little blonde skull. Today he, who showed no previous interest in going up steps besides standing at the bottom and yelling up, practically FLEW up the entire flight. No pause, no false steps, just motored right on up to the top (with me following behind). Once up there we played a bit of peeks around a door and then sat and read a half dozen books in his room. And yes, he's closing in on 1 year old. Geesh. Finn's also added two new words to his vocabulary. Dog and duck. And he attempts to make the noise that our ducks make when he sees them. Not so much a quack as it is a "aaaaauuuuuul", which actually is pretty close to the sound that the african geese make (those horrible, noisy bastards). He was supposed to go to a first birthday party for the son of one of Steve's co-workers, but as we woke up to a foot of snow and ice everywhere we stayed home and went sledding instead. We stuck to the small hill in the backyard for him, but Steve and I got more adventurous that night and tackled the huge, steep hills of the ballpark. So much fun. I quite suprised we didn't break anything.

As I mentioned I've been doing a lot of sewing. Mostly baby stuff-bibs, diapers, diaper covers, burp cloths, blankets, lovies, but also a few tries at pj pants and last night my first big tote bag (which for being completely freehanded turned out quite nice). Hopefully I'll be opening that etsy shop in the next week and even more hopefully it'll be profitable. If nothing else it's been great getting to be creative again. Seeing my ideas turned into a physical reality always makes me happy.

Year in review

2008-12-31T11:25:00.000-05:00

What a year....from the end of my pregnancy, to becoming a mum. From having this tiny helpless little bundle in my arms to having a strong, growing boy that amazes me each and every day. From Erie to Pittsburgh. It's been a crazy ride. But even with it's bad moments it's definitely been the most rewarding year for me ever. And now we can look forward to yet another year as a family. New jobs, a baby rapidly approaching toddlerhood, adventures in gardening and who knows what else awaits us. Happy New Year everyone!

36 weeks pregant and ready to burst. I can't believe I was ever this...round.

Fresh out of the oven. His arrival was not in any way, shape or form what I'd hoped or wanted. But once he was in my arms, that's all that mattered.

One month old and already being silly with Steve

Two months old brought us the start of his infectious giggle and his first smiles

Three months old at HellCity Tattoo. He was quite the hit with my fellow SG's.

Four months old and summer had started. This meant much time spent in the backyard enjoying the grass of our teensy Erie lot

Five months old came with lots of co-napping for everyone

Six months old and exploring the zoo with nana and pap. He also got reacquainted with Martini when she visited us from Toronto.

7 months and....well, just look at that face.

8 months old and celebrating his first Halloween as a portly, immobile pirate.

9 months old brought us crawling, pulling up and a Thanksgiving turkey

10 months old and he's getting to be quite the little man

And now for something I swiped from Gillian at http://www.typealice.com/blog. If you have a chance to read her blog, do. She's such an amazing woman and mom. And she makes really adorable slings (which I would buy in bulk if Finn wasn't so all about motoring on his own these days).

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Was pregnant (well only for a month into 2008)
Had a beautiful son
Spent every single day with a baby and documented just about every minute of it
Cheered on my husband's band at many local shows
Attended a tattoo convention....with said baby
Took up sewing
Actually stuck with sewing
Witnessed Finn growing from tiny cuddly human larvae into a crazy, energetic little boy (who needs to get off of that table RIGHT NOW!)
Found great mothering role models
Walked. A lot.
Found a new respect for parents everywhere (well some parents)
Attempted to grow tomatoes
Failed at growing tomatoes
Bought and ate a ton of veggies from local farms
Perfected my nacho recipes
Did some baking (and the results were edible!)
Gave up some friendships
Rekindled other friendships
Remained unemployed for longer than a few months
Moved from Erie back to my hometown
Went slightly crazy for a bit, but became better for it

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yup, I resolved to be the best mum I could be. I think I'll keep that one up for the new year
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Eh, my cousin had a baby, and so did a handful of SG friends
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandpa died at the beginning of 2008.
5. What countries did you visit?
Umm....none. We've been US-bound since having Finn. However we did import the best lady in Canada for an all-too-short visit
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
More close friends, thinner thighs
7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
February 14th, 2008- The day I kissed childless life goodbye and gave myself over to another human being completely
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'm gonna have to go with becoming a parent. In fact I'm pretty sure that'll be the biggest acheivement of my life
9. What was your biggest failure?
Not being able to breastfeed as long as I would have liked.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Hmmm...I had a pretty bad cold. Oh and a touch of PPD.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
BumGenius diapers. I'm waaay too excited about things that Finn poops and pees in.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I have no idea
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I'm gonna have to go with Gillian on this one and say judgemental moms on the interwebs. Oh and teenage girls. Bleh.
14. Where did most of your money go?
To a 2 and half foot tall pipsqueak
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Absolutely everything Finn does, or attempts to do. He's amazing.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
I'm not sure I could narrow it down to one
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
Happier, waaaaay thinner, poorer (but getting better)
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Gone to the beach, taken even more walks.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being alone
20. How did you spend Christmas?
Unwrapping presents in the morning followed by a late lunch where we all stuffed ourselves senseless. Later on Steve and I took my grandma home and then drove arond a bit looking at lights. Then at Finn's bedtime he threw a fit and we had to go back out for another drive to get him to sleep.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Of course.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
SVU, House, The Most Dangerous Catch
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
yes.
24. What was the best book you read?
DiaperFree Baby, and Love is a Mix Tape
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don’t know.
26. What did you want and get?
A baby.
27. What did you want and not get?
Oodles of tax free money, lots of photo work, a pony
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Christ...did I even see any movies this year?
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 25, and I went rather unwillingly to see Steve's band play an all ages show. Afterwards we went and snagged a drink and then ate at the breakfast place.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Having our own place
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Ummm.....I try to wear things that go well with baby puke?
32. What kept you sane?
Finn's smile and infectious laugh.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Gwen Stefani. She has such adorable babies
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Prop 8. Grrrrrrrr
35. Who did you miss?
Ugh, everybody
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Tita. She's such a ball of happiness. It's pretty ridiculous actually
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
People without kids can only hear about your child so many times before they get annoyed.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Meh.

Past thoughts

2008-12-11T01:24:00.000-05:00

I don't know why, but it seems every time I hit a rough patch emotionally, physically, mentally or what have you, I start dreaming about living in Savannah again. Which is positively insane considering how terrible (in hindsight) living there was. Or maybe that's exactly why i dream about it. Because even though now, looking back on those days, I can clearly see that holy crap was there some crazy shit going on in my life then, at the time, in the moment, life was excellent. Everyone was just kind of existing as best as they could, and we all had a blast no matter how broke we were, or what was going on around us. Now, with a family, a baby, I am at all times accutely aware of every little problem around me. And I'm always nitpicking, trying to perfect things that can't be perfected. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for a time when my biggest responsibility was keeping myself alive. I certainly don't miss the drugs, the drinking (although occassionally I wouldn't mind a good glass of scotch), the staying awake for days at a time (of course when Finn is in the midst of teething, we ALL get to re-live this gem), the not knowing when I was going to see my family again. Stability has its perks, and I enjoy them very much. I like being at home and knowing that A) there is edible food besides ramen to be had for dinner, B)there will not be gun shots outside my bedroom window every Thursday through Sunday night, and C) I will not mistake my hubby or anyone else for an intruder and nearly bash their brains in with a Louisville slugger. At the time, we all sat around and laughed about stuff like this, and many many more such incidents. But now, it's like, how in the hell was I not perpetually scared out of my mind? Maybe it's because I was surrounded by so many good friends those days. Even though most of them eventually ended up being incredibly bad friends, for awhile there we had such a nice little family. And that may be the biggest reason that I get all reminiscent about the S-A-V. Starting a family, having a baby, while positively amazing and rewarding, can be lonely. All the non-parent friends kind of slink off once you can't go out on a whim, when just going out for a quick drink requires calling all nearest relatives to find a sitter, and then giving detailed instructions to said sitter. And even if you do get to go out, people with out kids can only sit through so much baby chatter. And if you're lucky enough to have friends with kids you find yourself comparing your baby to theirs. Even if you don't mean to do it. And plus you get all kinds of un-asked for advice. And you get critiqued for everything you do differently then them. There's no winning really.

So, I guess I'll just look forward to spring, and pawn these southerly thoughts off to the weather we've been having. At least in spring we have new ducks to look forward to. And who knows maybe the ducks will bring new friends with them.

Not so much to do with the baby

2008-12-08T17:19:00.000-05:00

Maybe its the holidays. Maybe its the weather. But I've been a bit..eh...on edge, I suppose you could say lately. And as a result I've started compiling a list of things that, as Steve would say, really grind my gears. Please, enjoy the rant.

People that do not respect the boundaries of my marriage.

Sure I'm fine with being hit on. I understand it. I'm sure I unconsciously flirt every now and then. But for asshats to send me messages via Myspace, Facebook or what have you offering their , ahem, services is just downright rude. I make it pretty darn clear in any online community that I'm a member of that I am married and have no desire to sleep with, or even meet up with random, gross, perverted men or women. Seriously.
And while we're on the subject of flirting, yes, I understand that my hubby is a cutie. But he, like me, makes it very very plain that he's married. So kindly refrain from trying to get in his pants. Especially if you happen to be an 18 year old band groupie on a mission to screw her way through every local band.

and on the subject of 18 year olds...

Trampy little girls wearing impossible outfits

What the HELL kind of weather are you preparing for by wearing a micro-mini, HUGE down vest, tights and knee high sherpa boots? Are your knees and thighs just THAT perpetually warm that do not need covering? And why do you need Ugg boots in the first place? Granted, yes, we do get snow here in Pittsburgh, but it's hardly enough to warrant knee high boots with sheep lining. You all look fecking ridiculous. Please stop now.
Honestly, seeing what young girls wear these days is what made me and Steve sooo happy when we found out we were having a boy. The day before the all important ultrasound, Steve came home from the grocery store and reported seeing a 12 year old girl wearing a skirt so short that when she leaned over just slightly he could see her thong. A thong. On a twelve year old. Ugh. Now, I'm hardly one to be conservative. But, please explain to me what in god's name a child is doing wearing a g-string? The kid is dressed like a freaking hooker, and yet I'm sure her mother will wonder just how in the heck she's knocked up at 14.

Bands on Myspace

Yes I love, LOVE to support local music. You see that...local music. So if your band is on the other side of the continent, please refrain from spamming me with 20 flyers for your amazing gig on Saturday. And you can also keep your Myspace and Facebook e-vites for said gig. Even if I had the means to globe trot to see marginally good unsigned bands, I would not.

Supposed friends

I know I'm not always the best friend. I could be lame and blame it on getting married, or having a baby. But I won't. I can be lazy when it come to keeping in touch. I know this. However, I do NOT stop talking to people when their life changes. I've noticed that since I got hitched and had a babe a large number of my friends have ceased to talk to me. I understand that maybe my life isn't all excitement and parties, and maybe we're all in different places in our lives, but christ, I don't think that makes me that unapproachable. Sorry I can't just go out and get wasted with you on a whim these days, but geesh, I can still chat on the phone or go out for tea. And if you're weirded out by hanging with my kid, well, then you have no idea what you're missing out on. Because he's just awesome.

Well, I suppose that's it for right now. I'm sure I could add on to this list (and I'm sure I will at some point or other), but I'll leave it at that.

Now it's high time I go and cozy up in bed and watch Finding Nemo for the millionth time.

Crazy baby on the loose

2008-12-03T21:05:00.000-05:00

Oh my.
Finn has gotten two teeth. The first appeared the day before Thanksgiving and the other started cutting through on the holiday. And there's another one just about cut through on top. He's got quite the bite. For such little teeth they sure are sharp. His crawling and pulling up and cruising has reached new heights of pandemonium. We can hardly keep up with him. And with his new chompers coming in and making him quite irate in the process he's been on an eating and napping strike this past week. And his sleeping at night has been fairly awful. No amount of cuddling and snuggling and rocking can get him soundly back to sleep. He'll pass out in my arms, actually be snoring softly (awww, cute), but the minute his little behind touches mattress he's wide awake and mad as hell about it. I just keep repeating "This too shall pass" and enjoy the snuggles and his warm breath on my neck and try not to think too much about the teeny number of hours (or perhaps minutes) of sleep we're all getting.

As for our holiday, all went well. We all ate way too much, including Finn. He's discovered the greatness that is noodles. He slurped them down like he'd never see another one. And we managed to put off the impending shopping til yesterday. Steve and I ventured out sans baby to pick him up a few things. I was pretty put-off by the huge amount of electronic baby toys available versus the tiny number of actual educational toys. I'm already annoyed with Nana buying and pushing blinking, beeping toys at Finn. To actually see them in HUGE amounts all in one area was mind-boggling. Ugh. And knowing that millions of kids will be receiving these stupid things in a few short weeks is pretty mind-boggling as well. What ever happened to playing WITH your child? What happened to actually being hands on and helping them make new discoveries? Color me aggravated.

Now that I'm good and riled up, its probably best for me to relax with Steve for a bit. Before Finn wakes up and yells at all of us.

Busy days

2008-11-23T20:07:00.000-05:00

We've been a bunch of busy bees lately.
This weekend was the start of cookie baking season. Mom baked 7 different kinds in two days. Lots of taste testing was in order of course :)
And Finn has been busier than ever. He started cruising the other day, so nothing is safe at all. We have a morning ritual of removing everything from the coffee table and every other low surface downstairs before Finn gets up and motoring. Then after bedtime we put everything back where it came from. And I think he's trying to say bear. When he's shown his teddy bear Mesquite he goes "Bah, bah, bah, bahr". It's pretty adorable.
As for me, I've been sewing up a storm. My cousing had (yet) another girl last week, so I made up a set of matching blankie, burp cloth and bib. It's turned out very cute, except for the bib which I think I'll have another go at. I also picked up some cuddly fleece SUPER cheap and I've already made a soaker for Finn and I have another soaker and a pair of sweatpants ready to go under the needle after he goes to bed. I think I'll be able to squeeze one more soaker out of it too. Not a bad deal for $2.50 :P I think after the holidays I may start a shop on Etsy for my plush creations as well as my diapering and baby supplies. It's something to think about anyways. It could take up the time between cold weather time and gardening time in the spring. I'm looking forward to starting that garden. Nothing big, just enough space to grow some tomatoes, onions and peppers. Something to get our feet wet with anyways. I haven't planted anything since I was a wee one, jabbing carrot seeds down into the ground next to my grandpa. It'll be nice to show Finn how things grow too. It'll especially be nice to get him outside again after being cooped up in the house all winter. I'm not sure how much he's going to enjoy being contained with his new found mobility. We may all be in for a bumpy ride.

In store for tomorrow:
Hand turkeys!!!

Baby Hefner

2008-11-16T15:16:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Steve and I took our little adventurer to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. He (and we) had such a great time! He doesn't get to spend much (okay, any) time with other kids, especially babies around his own age, so it was a great opportunity for him to socialize. And man, did he ever. We had him on a see saw-like exhibit for about 10 seconds before a little guy of about 2 years old came running over to play. And after his mum helped him go back and forth gently for a minute or two, a little girl came over and played on the seesaw with Finn too. Then they both played on the light peg table for a bit before the girl decided to high tail it out of there. Eventually after some more exploring we all settled into the baby play area where Finn was quite the hit with the ladies. Hehehe. He made two new girl friends, Chloe and Julia, both of them born within a week or two of him. It was really neat to see how three babies all born around the same time can develop so differently. For instance, Chloe had a bunch of teeth and says a few words (and actually knows what she's saying), but isn't really mobile yet, where as Finn has 0 teeth, says tons of nonsensical words, and is crawling all over the place, and the Julia also had tons of little teethe, didn't say much and was the most mobile 8.5 month old I've ever seen. She was tearing across the play area, pulling up on benches, cruising from one thing to another. It was crazy. I guess we have that to look forward to very soon.

Fast times

2008-11-14T00:23:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems my baby is turning into a little boy. And quickly. Steve and I went out for a date night last Saturday and came home to a son that could pull himself up and break everything on the coffee table. The next day he decided he'd had enough of crawling backwards and set off to explore the house in a forward crawl (but didn't make it much further than the other side of the living room). Yesterday he explored under the end tables, threatened to take to the stairs and later on terrorized the dining room and attempted to sneak some dog food into his slobbery little mouth. Oh boy indeed. I guess he had to move on to the out of arms phase at some point, I just thought it would be more gradual. Suddenly he wants nothing to do with being carried unless its absolutely necessary (or if he needs a kiss on the head after bumping it on the entertainment center one too many times). Also today he learned (well, actually just randomly started doing) "soooo big", which entails throwing his arms way up above his head when you ask him "How big is Finnegan?" and waving hi/bye. What a crazy little guy.

Even crazier, when I think about it, is the fact that just a few years ago I wouldn't have even been able to imagine being married let alone being someone's mum. Then when I met Steve everything changed. From the moment we met I knew I could settle down with him and raise a family. I don't know what it was exactly. Maybe it's that he made me feel safe for the first time in a long while, or the fact that he made me laugh so hard without trying, or perhaps its that he knew how to dance or that i kicked his ass at monopoly and mariokart on our first date...but whatever it was, it definitely got me hooked. It's been an insane couple of years for us, but I can't help but look forward to many many more years with him. He is truly my lobster.

A new start

2008-10-29T16:41:00.000-04:00

Well, where to begin....
My name is Ashley, but I'm also known as Iso as it's the name I use for modeling. I'm 25 years old, and live with my family about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I'm about to celebrate my two year wedding anniversary, as well as my son's (Finnegan) first Halloween. Pretty exciting times. Besides being super mom, and doing a bit of modeling here and there, I also do a good bit of freelance photography. Lately I've been taking more pictures of Finn than anything else, but normally I focus on pin-up and event photography.

As far as parenting goes, we practice attatchment parenting. We co-sleep, breastfeed (well, I breastfeed....its not really Steve's forte, haha), and prefer to wear or carry Finn over keeping him in a stroller. We encourage him to make new discoveries every day, and don't try to retsrain him from doing things his way. He's pretty darn amazing, if I do say so myself.

I'm starting this blog to detail our life as a family, and to have a place to go and vent. With any luck, I'll actually keep it up too :)