My husband is not a very good girlfriend.

Earlier today I wrote this sweet stuff about Ryan because I was explaining some of his endearing qualities before letting it be known that as a girlfriend he stinks.

 Ryan is an incredible dad. He's dedicated, attentive, loving and all around wonderful. He takes Caitie fishing and to Daddy Daughter dances. He plays board games and basketball. He straddles the "man" world and the "little girl" world very well.  He really is a great husband too. He pays attention to me, he's caring, and willing to watch girly movies when I want him to and to get the hell out of my house to go fishing periodically. He goes to the store for feminine products and he helps out with the housework, he cooks most of the meals and still plays video games/rude word inducing basketball with the guys. Most of the time he's got a grip on what it takes to lead a balanced life in a house full of women.

Now I'm thinking about taking most of it back. I had an entire blog post written that I was just sort of holding onto for the day to see if I still felt the same way at the end of the day when my PMSing was in full swing I was tired and cranky. This evening after taking care of 3 1/2 year old twins and Caitlin all day, I was reading my friend Megan's blog and decided to read the latest post to him. He foolishly made rude comments about keeping a blog, so I had to read him some of the funnier posts that my friend Sara has written recently to show him that blogging is a good thing. I started talking about why I love blogging and that he just doesn't GET IT, and that cramping/bleeding/hormonal uproar is a serious issue and while I'm women are experiencing it we I should not be trifled with. My friend Sara on the other hand completely gets it. She wrote this funny tid bit that I was relaying to my husband while trying to explain to him why he's not a good girlfriend. That's when he really put his foot in it. He said that she should have PLANNED BETTER!!! As if buying a box of tampons immediately after finishing one period, so we're prepared for the next, is going to make everything all happy happy joy joy. Ugh. Even if we had an entire years supply stocked up in the closet, our husbands would inevitably do something stupid to piss us off we'd still find something else to be mad about. If we're not mad then we're probably in tears about something and that's gonna piss us off too. I told him that I was gonna tell Sara what he said about planning better and then I was gonna let her have him for breakfast. Because really, anyone dumb enough to tell a woman *who is in the middle of her period* that she wouldn't be having all the crazy hormonally driven symptoms if only she'd planned ahead  deserves whatever bad stuff they get.

I'm Better, She's Better, He'll get there.

So last week I posted all about the fun day I had, then I put Caitie to bed. Shockingly her tummy started to hurt as soon as I put her in bed. This is a common occurrence because bed= sleep and sleep = anxiety. What if she can't fall asleep? What if someone tries to break in her room? What if she gets hungry? What if...What if....What if.... Yes Caitie comes by her anxiety naturally because I believe a few weeks ago I was having similar 'what if' thoughts when I tried to close her bedroom door. So knowing how she's feeling, we went through our usually nighttime routine of calming the anxious nerves and she went to bed. A few hours later however she woke up and RAN to the bathroom. Then all hell broke loose. Actually I think some demons may have come in and set up residence in my daughters abdomen and then tried to break loose from there. It was HORRIFIC! It lasted three painful, gag inducing days for her and then those dreadful demons moved into my abdomen. Actually they started the moved to my body on the third day of inhabiting hers. That was also the day that I discovered that I am unnecessarily paying for after school care. You see, Ryan had to work and since I was 'home' and Caitlin was still too sick to go to school, he left her with me. He fed her breakfast, packed a non-perishable lunch and some snacks, and left a bottle of water on the table for her. Then he gave her the remote to the XBOX so that she could watch movies via Netflix's instant steaming and said be a good girl. So as I thought about how dying would be so much more enjoyable than what I was currently enduring, my six year old demonstrated remarkable maturity by not needing me at all. She not only took care of herself, she also managed to let the dog in and out to go potty, throw the ball down the hallway so the dog could have some exercise and give the dog fresh water. I suppose being there in body counts if I needed to direct her on the specifics of calling 911 but there is also the strong possibility that she could have handled that on her own too. Thank GOD that she was already on the mend by day three because I was pretty much non-functional all day that day. By the next day those evil demon spawn discovered that there was an uninfected inhabitant of our home and set up residence in Ryan's gut. Poor guy. He's still sick, but getting better. The lifespan of Satan's minions appears to be only three days, but ugh...what an awful three days they were! I'm sooooo thankful to be done with this and would not have any hurt feelings at all if EVERY SINGLE emesis producing bacteria/virus on the planet were to suddenly become an extinct species.

Today...

Today I have:

*Skipped Church
*Texted multiple times with my friend Sara
*Agreed to and watched my nephew Lucas
*Facebooked an invite for other people to come play Twister with us
*Vacuumed my whole house
*Played Twister with Lucas and Caitlin
*Acted as a referee when playing time became fighting time
*Cleaned my kitchen
*Allowed my daughter to call my friend Sara and leave a message on her voicemail
*Resisted the urge to call/text Sara to tell her to ignore Caitlin's drama-princess tone of voice in said voicemail
*Done all my laundry-even putting it away properly
*Played ball with my dog
*Read Berenstain Bears books to Caitie and Lucas
*Fed those two children about 538902 times so far
*Listened to Mama Mia (movie version) while the kids sorta watched it
*Set them up to play "Puppy Pal's" on Caitlin's Leap Frog Click Start
*Checked my email
*Caught up on all the blogs I read regularly
*Changed several diapers
*Unsuccessfully tried to convince Lucas that he's ready to use the big boy potty

Today I wanted to:

*Eat some ice cream (I will resist, I will resist, I will resist!)
*Take a nap
*Turn the care of the children over to my husband (if only he'd come home from fishing so I could do that)
*Look at some old photo's and remember previous lovely days
*Go to the movies (sans children) and lose myself in mindless entertainment for a couple of hours

Today (tonight/right now) I am going to:

*Go make another meal for the kiddos- just call me a short order cook
*Get clothes laid out so tomorrow morning will be less of a hassle
*Make sure that lunches are packed for tomorrow
*Wrangle the little ones into and then out of the tub so they won't stink
*Clean the bathroom when they're done
*Pack Caitlin's school bag with extra clothes and library books to be returned
*Play referee again and again between the cousins
*Send Lucas home with his parents (explain to Caitie that he can't stay any later)
*Put Caitie to bed
*Explain that its a school night so for the bazillionth time NO she may NOT stay up late.
*Turn the TV on and enjoy some mindless entertainment

Yep, today was just another typical Sunday in my beautiful life.

Hippie Chics Let it all Hang Out.

Well its been a little more than an hour since I was debating on whether or not to wake up Ryan and he's still asleep. Which is truly a testament to how much I love him, cause a BIG part of me wanted to wake him up just so he could feel as pissy as I did.... But I resisted temptation and instead spent a lovely time re-reading some posts on Sara's blog and then checking my email. I am SOOO glad I check my email. My friend Megan sent this really funny forward to me about Hippie Chics and what free love looked like then:

And what it looks like all these years later:

I laughed so hard I'm surprised Ryan and Caitlin didn't wake up!!! I hope when I'm as old as the hippie chic I have the same sense of self confidence to just let it all hang out! Either she has an INCREDIBLE, ENVIABLE confidence in herself or she did so many drugs as a young free lover that she fried the portion of the brain responsible for self preservation:)

Awesome blog ideas are gonna have to wait

All week I've had really awesome blog post ideas running through my head like a crazy person, but I haven't been in a position to type them up while they're making their appearance. So I would just tell myself- 'It's ok, as soon as you get home, go write about xyz...' Then I'd get home and the dog would need to be walked, Caitlin would need help with her homework, dinner and dishes would be calling my name (I completely ignored the dishes, and so far this week I've only actually made dinner at home on Monday night) and then next thing I know it was bedtime. So I'd spend a few minutes debating the merits of sleep versus blogging and inevitably sleep won. Now here it is THURSDAY for cryin' out loud, I've put both my husband and child to bed, it's not even 10 pm, I have the whole house to myself and I can't think of a single thing to blog about. Sigh. That's probably not entirely true, if I wasn't annoyed with my husband for interrupting me earlier I could probably spend more energy thinking about all the neat and fun things that I wanted to tell y'all about. Instead however I am contemplating whether it's worth it to wake him up to see if he'll actually have a decent fight about his earlier rude behavior. Probably not, probably instead he'd get defensively angry because I woke him up and then say that my behavior was just as rude. Great, now I don't even need him to be awake to have a fight with, apparently I can carry on both sides of the conversation on my own. I did tell him at the time exactly what I thought of being completely cut off mid-word, and he apologised (as he should), I just didn't accept it because I don't think he was really sorry. I think he was done with the subject we were on and he thought that if he made me mad I'd shut up. Foolish really. Of course I didn't shut up, I switched to a diatribe on how I can't stand it when he does that. Then I shut up and refused to "tuck" him in the way I tuck Caitie in. Now I'm sitting in front of the computer still mad and getting more annoyed because I REALLY wanted to blog about a bunch of different topics and it just isn't going to happen tonight.

On the other hand, I'm totally excited to spend the day with my friend Sara and her precious little girl, and watch her son try out for the basket ball team on Saturday! In fact I've been looking forward to hanging out with her all week. Someday I'll even introduce you to her, (she was/is one of my planned blog post topics) but right now I'm so happy to have finally found her again that I'm going to selfishly keep her away from the rest of you because I don't want you to steal her away from me. I'm just not ready to share her-She's MY friend and since I KNOW you'll love her as much as I do, I can't let you meet her yet. Maybe next year, or the year after that. We'll talk about it later dearies, right now I get her all to myself. In fact I'm going to just pop over to her blog to revel in her funness and allow it to pull me out of my bad mood.

What a lovely day.

So today (well yesterday really since its 3am) was a LOT of fun. First I spent all day with my friend Sara and her beautiful daughter Lauren. We talked and laughed and shared stories and watched our children play together. It was absolutely wonderful. You see, my friend Sara was my absolute BESTEST friend all through middle school. We had so very much in common; the same Perfect name, we were both raised vegetarian, we both loved to read, we were both fascinated with Native American culture... and we were 'pre-teens'. I think I found a soul sister in Sara when we were twelve years old. Then she moved:( Then I moved:( and we lost track of each other. I still thought of her often and wondered where life was leading her, but didn't think that we'd ever reconnect. I mean how could we? I had gotten married and changed my last name, maybe she had too. Her parents had gone their separate ways years before and it's not like my parents have their telephone number listed, besides did she even know that we had moved to Newport? But thanks to the blessed social networking site of Facebook, we've reconnected after more than 15 years! Hallelujah! So we spent the day just catching up on some of what our lives have been like since we lost contact. I know it's going to take many many many more Saturdays full of long conversations to fill each other in on what's gone on since the eighth grade, but I'm ok with that. In fact I'm really looking forward to it! The best part is- she's only a few miles away from me- just one town over in fact! How's that for a small world? We've lived near each other for the last six years at least and didn't even know it. We even had a membership to the same gym! Crazy. The second reason today was a lot of fun was because tonight we celebrated my friend Jantina's birthday. Honestly I thought I wasn't going to have a good time, and I kinda didn't want to go, but she really wanted me to come so I said alright. We went to a drag queen show in Portland called Darcelle's. It's big for bachelorette parties and birthdays and was actually quite funny. When Tina first called me to say that she wanted to go out, I thought to myself- Crap! I didn't like the "bar scene" when I was in my twenties and it was socially acceptable. Now I'm a mom, I"m thirty one years old, I don't drink...this is gonna stink. But I said I'd go and just planned on acting as the designated driver. I was pleasantly surprised to find the even at 79 years old Darcelle is FUNNY! I'd gone once before to see the drag queen strut his stuff for Chandra's bachelorette party. It was funny but I was frankly too young (read immature) to really enjoy the show. I was embarrassed almost the entire night and just couldn't wait to go home. This time the racy jokes didn't bother me and I was able to appreciate the amount of work it takes these she-men to choreograph and learn their routines. I'm up much much later than I should be and tomorrow I'm gonna pay for it, but for tonight I'm glad I went. I'm glad that I'm grown up enough to not be embarrassed by it and I'm glad that Tina had a fun "girls night" birthday celebration. I'm glad for my new years resolution to accept more invitations. I have been having a really fun year because of it!

I Don't Have To Like It

Please allow me offer some background for those of you who don't already know this stuff. Until the middle of last year Caitlin has slept in our bedroom since the day we brought her home from the hospital. At first we had family bed, then she had her own bed in our bedroom, and then her own bed in her own room, but she would still come to our bedroom in the middle of the night. Finally (in the last two months) I got to the point that I was willing to get up to put her back into her own room every time she came into mine in the middle of the night. Those "back to your own bed/room" trips lasted only three nights before she was consistently sleeping through the entire night in her own room. All this time I have been saying that "she wasn't ready" to sleep in her own room, well clearly that wasn't the case now was it? Since it took only three nights of me consistently putting her back into her own room. Then last night I decided that since she was already asleep and we were going to watch television that I would close her bedroom door so the noise didn't disturb her. It became a problem when I couldn't find the baby monitor that used to reside in her bedroom. Suddenly the thought of closing her door became abhorrent to me! What if someone tried to break in her bedroom window and I didn't hear them over the noise of the TV? What if she woke up and cried out, or fell out of bed and needed me and I didn't hear hear? What if, What if, What if.... I simply COULD NOT force myself to close her bedroom door. I even tried putting Emily in and shutting the door because at least if someone tried to break in then the dog would be there for her protection. However, after only 5 minutes I was back opening the door, ostensibly 'just to check' that Emily wasn't chewing up Caitlin's toys, but really to check that she wasn't suddenly choking and not breathing. I wouldn't know if she stopped breathing even if her door was open, but still I couldn't bring myself to leave it closed. Being a parent really sucks sometimes. If she sleeps through the whole night without waking up, then she no longer needs me for that middle of the night comfort. If I close her bedroom door then she has 'grown up' enough to not need instant and immediate access to me. I simultaneously want my baby to both grow up strong and independent and to need me to take care of her completely. I get frustrated when she doesn't want to 'expand her horizons' and then I get frustrated when she does. Good grief. I can see now why some parents have 15 kids- there is always someone who needs them and it's much easier to let the big ones grow the way they need to when there is another little one waiting to be cuddled. Control freaks should really think long and hard before having kids, because kids are a serious lesson in letting go. I may have to let go, but I don't have to like it.

Productive Today

I've managed to complete everything on my to-do list already and the day is not even half way over yet! I love days like this. I have now made all necessary arrangements in preparation for returning to work next Monday, scheduled a vaccination appointment for Caitlin and decided on what will probably be Caitlin's summer time care program. Our goal for summer care was to find a reasonably priced 'day-camp' style care provider who could also speak Spanish with her. We really don't want her to lose any of the language acquisition ground that she's gained over the course of this school year so we've looked really closely at our budget (by that I mean I am sacrificing my tax refund and supplementing it with my own income) and decided to put her in The International School summer camp program. They offer four sessions of two week long immersion day camps and we've decided to sign her up for all four sessions. Each session covers new information so our hope is that she will not only retain what she's already learned, but also gain some confidence, a new perspective about the world she lives in, perhaps even expand her Spanish vocabulary. The language is the main reason I'm willing give my entire tax refund (which I was planning to spend on something fun!) for what is essentially day care, but there are other benefits to this program. They include; twice a week swim lessons, field trips to the Portland water front and the fact that it's only a few blocks from my office! It means more "one on one" time with her. If I'm stuck in traffic after work, at least I can spend that time with Caitlin! If we want to go to Grammies house after work/school? No problem, it's just a dozen blocks back downtown, not a half hour to forty five minute drive to Wilsonville to pick Caitie up and then another 1/2 hour to 45 mins back into Portland! So at least for this one summer I am going to suck it up and pay almost double what I would otherwise have to pay for summer time care. I don't know that I will be able/willing to keep it up every summer simply because I do want to go back to school myself and I would really like to be able to buy a house sometime in the next 10 years! Of course this plan for her summer care is not set in stone yet and may change by the time school lets out in June, but for now it feels nice to have some idea of what we think she'll be doing for the summer while we're working.

Hershey's, Naps, and Anxiety.

Well we tried the gluten free diet for a week and a half then gave it up. A.) It's a pain in the behind B.) It did nothing to relieve Caitlin's stomach ache issues C.) Its a really big pain in the behind! I know you're supposed to try it for 6 weeks or so but really there should be some sort of improvement after 10 days at least, and we actually had worse symptoms while she was off of wheat. So I just took her to see her pediatrician today and he ordered stool samples (YUCK!) and took a urine sample at the office, and believes that it may be related to anxiety. Great. What does that say about me as a parent? It says that I'm stressing my six year old out so much that she's having anxiety attacks that's what! Actually we already knew that she had anxiety issues because we had her tested for developmental delays with a pediatric developmental specialist and he said that the only thing he noticed about her (other than that she's extremely polite and sweet natured) is that she shows some signs of "Mild social anxiety" but not to a clinical level. Wonderful. His suggestion was to enroll her in Tae Kwon Do lessons to help her develop some confidence as that particular martial art focuses so heavily on discipline. This made me laugh loudly and for a long time because I've been saying the same thing for 2 years! Ryan wasn't opposed to enrolling her in martial arts, but he also didn't want to force her to do them when she wasn't interested. So now we're enrolling as a family. We'll just have to keep working day by day to help her over come her fear of failure. In other news today we came home from the doctor to discover that her "prize" for having sold the most stuff in her school fundraiser had finally arrived. It was a 5 lb Hershey Bar!! Oh my goodness was she excited! She didn't know that she had won so it was really funny to see her react. Of course the UPS man got all the credit for it because she barely even remembers her school fundraiser, let alone the possible prizes. I think she believes he just randomly dropped it off for her. And while Lucas and Caitie were playing this weekend they decided to take a 'nap' in the apple boxes that I used to take home all my groceries from Costco. Those kids crack me up! If I'm lucky the Hershey Bar will put her into such a sugar induced stupor that the anxiety will disappear forever. I know that much chocolate would make any of my "problems" go away for a really long time!

Winter Picnic

What do you do when you really want to have a picnic but it's pouring down rain and very cold outside? You have a WINTER PICNIC of course! Apples, cheese, crackers, macaroni and potato salads... and of course a juice box! We don't let the winter weather keep us from having summer fun! The menu may change in the near future however because despite the fact that Caitie has had the Nissen surgery twice she's still experiencing stomach issues. Pain, not reflux related, especially when she eats wheat based foods. I have been tossing around the idea of putting her on a gluten free diet for a while now and then last night she had a small bowl of macaroni and cheese followed by an hour of stomach pain. So I called her gastroenterologist first thing this morning and set up another appointment. Since he can't see us until April 15th, I decided to just go ahead with the elimination of wheat. Of course I've never tried a gluten free diet and most of the vegetarian substitute proteins are primarily made with wheat gluten, which makes this idea even more challenging. I know that when you're testing food for allergies you're supposed to eliminate the food entirely from the diet, but gluten shows up in the most random places. According to this website it can be found in all sorts of things like; artificial color, dry roasted nuts, and even vitamins! We had her tested for Celiacs Disease last year before her initial surgery and it came back negative so I probably don't need to be really be concerned about eliminating all gluten from her diet. I think what I'll really do is just concentrate on eliminating the major sources of wheat from our diet. While talking to my mom today, I discovered that our family appears to have a "wheat allergy" or wheat sensitivity. She said that my Uncle Mark sometimes goes on the Atkins diet and that whenever he does, within a day or two all of his heart burn symptoms go away. She also said that when she stopped eating bread and veggie hot dogs her stomach aches went away too. Of course this makes packing her lunch for school a pain in the ass an interesting undertaking. Oh the things we'll do because we love our children.

Kisses

Tonight while waiting for the salmon to finish baking in the oven Caitlin and I decided to play with makeup. Then because our lips were so beautiful and red we decided to give lipstick kisses to each other and to Ryan. I am really enjoying my new years resolution...a month ago I would have told Caitlin that she could certainly play with make-up but that I wouldn't participate. I would have missed out on a really fun evening and a beautiful picture.

Wishful Wednesday

I wish...

* That I could leave Emily out of the kennel all day when I go to work and not worry that she is going to chew something up...

* That I had a house with a garage to store all the crap that should go in the garage and a big fenced back yard so that we could get another dog for Emily to play with...

* That Caitlin will grow up to be self confident and happy...

* That I had unlimited airline miles so that I can travel to my hearts content...

* That barring unlimited airline miles my family on the other side of the country would have a change of heart and decided to move to the West Coast!

* That all the spiders would respectfully remain out of my bedroom at all times so I don't have to feel guilty for squashing them...

I wish...

I love Ryan, Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Video Games! Homework! Bedtime Enforcement!

Nie Nie

Have you met "Nie Nie" yet? She is a blogger mom that you can find here. She is my newest inspiration. To be a better mom, to rejoice in the little details that make up our daily lives, to hold strong to my faith and to share that faith with my daughter. To take more photos. To love more deeply. Her faith is different than mine- at least I'm pretty sure it is because she is a Mormon and I am Episcopalian, but the basis for loving our families and children are rooted in the same place. I first learned about StephaNIE NIElson because I was cruising around the blogger world out of sheer boredom a couple of weeks ago while Caitlin was at school. Her story of survival is ongoing, painful and full of love. I pray for Nie Nie's continued recovery and that she never loses the inner peace that allows her to function when it would be easier to just give up.

As a side note I'm still doing pretty well with the acceptance of invitations...Yesterday Caitlin really wanted to play a game with me but couldn't decide what she wanted to do. So together we came up with the idea of drawing on the WINDOWS! Here is a picture of our masterpiece.
And this is what happens when I tell my six year old to go take a bath but don't supervise the undressing process.

Sleepovers....

So this is my third attempt at blogging about Caitlin's sleepover last night. The first two attempts were simply too detailed and unnecessarily gripey. Let's see...Two of the neighbor girls spent the evening and night with us last night and were amazingly well behaved. One of the girls has a "sensory disorder" that makes everything feel more extreme from physical to emotional, so I was prepared for at least one meltdown and even half expected to have to walk her home around bedtime. As a result when bedtime came and all three girls snuggled down into their respective sleeping bags and went straight to sleep without a fight I was more than a little surprised. Not to mention happy! I had picked the two girls up at 4pm yesterday afternoon and walked them back to our place where they played until dinner time, then they played again while I cleaned up from the meal and prepared (very very small) root beer floats to have while they enjoyed a movie. It was off to bed immediately following the movie and to calm the giggling and whispering that threatened to keep them up all night I simply read them a bedtime story and told them that if they wanted to hear the story then they had to lay down and close their eyes.The girls slept through the night and woke up happy and ready to play. They woke up earlier than I would have preferred, but since I escaped the evening and night without tears I really shouldn't complain. Now two and a quarter hours after getting up, they have been fed (pancakes and waffles), dressed in clean clothes, and are happily playing again. Caitlin's bedroom may take me an hour to clean when they leave but all in all it was a successful sleepover. My only concerns are the fact that neither one of the girls' mothers felt like they needed to come over to see where their kids would be spending the night and neither one even asked me what my last name was! They have my apartment number and cell phone number and that was good enough for them. Weird. I would NEVER allow Caitlin to even go play at someones house without first having been to the place myself and I would know more than just the first name of only one of the adults staying in the house. I guess I just put off a very respectable trustworthy vibe, weird but there you have it. Or maybe I'm just over protective and paranoid about my daughters safety, but I can't imagine not at least asking a few questions, like 'Who will be staying at the house?' and 'What is your last name?' You know basic information about where your child will be staying and who they will be exposed to. Oh well at least they're having fun together.

Wordless Wednesday

Back on my own computer again.

Well I'm connected to the outside world once again. Ryan hooked up our old desktop last weekend so at least I have easy access to the Internet again, even if my desk has been completely over taken with the monitor. When we disconnected the desktop I wanted to get rid of it completely and now I'm kinda glad that we kept it cause paying for a new computer would be annoying to say the least. Life is settling into a nice routine again, which makes me very happy. Caitlin is developing more confidence with her Spanish language acquisition each day and I am so proud of her. Ryan is working hard and fishing when he has a chance (which means at least every other Sunday and some Thursdays). I have been reading at lot (shocking right?) but I haven't been reading a lot of different authors. I decided to try reading everything that our library carries on just one author and then I'll move onto another. This weeks author is Linda Howard and she writes these really amusing romantic mysteries. So far all of the books have the same cookie cutter feel to them with regard to the plot, but the characters are generally so funny that I don't mind. Since Saturday I've read three of her books; Dying to Please, Open Season and Cry No More. I like that the heroines are able to maintain their inherent femininity and rely on the macho hero while still being strong, capable and honest. It helps that I'm not really looking for anything particularly engaging in my reading material, just rather mindless entertainment, and so far I haven't been disappointed.
This Thursday we have an appointment with a Pediatric Developmental Specialist to have Caitlin evaluated again. We had this done when she was still an infant- several times in fact because of her prematurity but then when we decided that since all was going well she didn't need to go in every 4 months. A couple of conversations with her kindergarten teacher regarding her "debilitating shyness" led to the decision to have at least one more appointment just to make sure that the shyness is a personality trait and not a symptom of a learning disability. The appointment is going to be interesting because it's broken into three consecutive weeks. The first with just the parents, the second with the child and any siblings and the third a follow up with just the parents again. I'm pretty sure that Caitlin's development-mentally and emotionally at least are right on track, but if there is something other than personality at work here I want to make sure that she has all the help she can get. So I'll keep you updated as we get information. That's pretty much it for now, we're into week two of the new year and I've yet to decline any invitations! Yay me.

Merry Late Christmas and Happy New Year

As I mentioned in my last post, my computer is not currently working. Well at the time it was only sometimes recognizing the power cord and not holding a charge at all and now its not working period. So I have been VERY disconnected lately. I should just suck it up and go buy a new computer, but I'm cheap and I refuse to put something like that on a credit card. Plus my car had massively expensive repairs completed just a couple weeks before Christmas-again if possible- I won't use my credit card so that made things interesting for the holiday! Despite the unexpected expenses our Christmas was beautiful! We spent it at Ryan's dad's house- a first for us. Caitlin was extraordinarily polite and stopped to say "Thank you" after opening each gift. As it was just our family of three and Ryan's dad and his dad's wife in attendance, this behavior was rather amusing. One of the nicest parts of having so few people was the lack of pressure. No one saying "here open another one" before Caitlin had even finished opening the first. At one point she actually stopped opening gifts and left a really large pile unopened for several hours so that she could play with a new Barbie from Santa. I was so impressed! That had NEVER happened before! It was a most enjoyable experience that hopefully will be repeated in the future. I am really looking forward to this upcoming year. I only made one "resolution" this year and I feel like it's reasonable: I am going to accept more invitations than I decline. I left it so general and open because that covers so many options- if a friend invites me to exercise and I accept, then I'm being healthier; if Caitlin invites me to play a game with her and I accept, then I am being a better mother... You get the point. All the magazines always say make this the year that you say "NO" and take more time to yourself, but I feel more positive saying "Yes!" and making the time that I spend more enjoyable. I say "NO, not today." or "No, not right now" much too often. So this year is my year to say "YES!" Within reason of course. I would love to accept an invitation to join some friends in Hawaii for a week this coming fall, but that one is not really in my budgetary plans for this year. A review of last years resolutions showed that I was able to keep two out of three. I retained my faith and even managed to grow a closer and better relationship with God, and I ate chocolate without guilt whenever I wanted. I can't say that I did something for my health-at least my physical health- every week though. Still two out of three isn't too bad, especially when I exceeded my goals on one of them. If I we hookup our old desktop soon I will update more frequently and if not, then just know that I am thinking good thoughts and sending them your way! I hope that 2010 brings peace and happiness into each of your lives and that you have the strength to meet your goals for the year.

The last few weeks...

I've been an absentee blogger lately because my computer is on the fritz. It suddenly won't recognize the battery and only sometimes recognizes that I have the wall charger plugged in. To even further frustrate me it will sometimes turn on and then randomly (and without warning) just shut off. On one of the rare occasions that it has stayed on I was able to do some research that tells me it's probably a connection on the mother board thingy that needs to be soldered back together. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that and my car decided to take a week long visit to the mechanic so I can't even take my computer to the doctor. Oh well. I'm on here for the moment and I can always utilize the library for anything major. Just facebook and blogging are going to suffer for a while. As for what's been happening in our lives...Caitlin and I just got back from a weekend long birthday party at my God Daughters house. Alexandria wanted to have Caitlin come sleepover for her birthday but since my car is in the shop we had to stay for the entire weekend instead of just one night. Well if we wanted to attend the actual party portion we did. See on Friday night our friend Phill picked us up after work and drove us to their house because he works really close to our house and lives an hour away really close to Ally's house. Then Ryan had to work on Saturday until late so he came to pick us up yesterday when he was done fishing. I'm usually not ok without having access to my own transportation, but this weekend I decided to just let it go and have fun with the kids. The previous couple of weeks have been pretty busy which made it easier to just want to stay in one place for a while. I finished up at work the day before Thanksgiving and ended the day with an office wide football game. We're getting new office furniture so EVERYTHING had to come out of our main office and get moved into random cubby holes throughout the rest of the building which left a large empty room just ready for some fun. Then we shared Thanksgiving with my sister Chandra and her family and spent the rest of the weekend playing with Lucas. Last week while Caitlin went to school I went out running errands-taking the dog to the vet, taking Ryan's car to DEQ and DMV, Christmas shopping, taking my car to the auto shop and observing in an occupational therapy clinic. I have decided to change career paths and pursue a degree in Occupational Therapy instead of education. I really enjoyed the time that I spend in the pediatric OT clinic and I think it'll be a good fit for my personality and talents. Now I just have to take all the pre-req's and get accepted to the program. There is only one school in this area that teaches OT and they only accept 26 students per year....yikes! I'm confident however that I will be successful and I'm really looking forward to the challenge. As for what's coming up in our lives, this weekend I am going to visit my mom and I get to see my Aunt Natalie too because she's here visiting from the East Coast! Hooray! Then I'm just counting down the days until Christmas break with Caitlin. I have plans to make cookies and to listen to even more Christmas music and to go look at all houses with lights on and to drink hot cocoa and to watch Christmas movies and to really enjoy the season! I am super excited! Hope you winter months are treating you well and that you enjoy the season too!

New Moon

It was the annual 'girls night out' last night and I must say it was spectacular. I had a ton of fun going to see Twilight last year, again because it was the girls night, and while I didn't hate the movie, there were many parts that I was disappointed in. However, I was very happy with New Moon- I think that they did a much better job sticking to the story line. I liked the way that they used a narrative of Bella "emailing" Alice to explain the parts of the story that could only be told by the main character. Which is something that they really missed out on with Twilight. By the end of Twilight you were left wondering why Bella and Edward loved each other, and they didn't even mention Jasper's mood control gifts. With New Moon I thought the wolves looked a little too computer generated but I'm willing to forgive that flaw simply because they demonstrated the story so much better. This year's girls night was especially fun because there were more of us attending; Megan, Shannon, Jantina and me. We had the kids with us all day so I didn't feel like I was abandoning my child and not spending any time with her at all, but when the evening came I sent her away with her dad and zero guilt. Then we hit the theater, went out to dinner and hit the theater again. Of course this tradition of going to a movie twice in a row is one that I started in high school so the nostalgia always makes it more fun. I can hardly wait to read my cousin Amy's blog for her review of the movie. She is really good at giving very intellectual and articulate reviews of both movies and books alike.