2nd birthday party

We decided to have Aubrey's 2nd birthday party anywhere but our house. More than 1 toddler running in our house would be nuts. So, we researched a couple of placed and decided Discovery Place Kids would be the best for young toddlers to run and be crazy. And right we were. That place was awesome. There were so many fun things for the kids to play with from water to airplanes and the adults had a great time watching the little ones play. We then watched Aubrey blow out her candles and open a TON of Dora the Explorer presents. It was a great day and reinforced to Todd and I that a membership to the museum was going to be a necessity soon.

2 years old

Wow. Just wow. I cannot believe I have a 2 year old. I kept thinking on her birthday about where I was and what I was doing 2 years ago and somethings I remember so clearly, but other things are getting even more fuzzy, which makes me sad. My little baby is clearly not a baby anymore and while I love watching her grow and learn, it is so bittersweet.

This is my last monthly post, which is so sad. I will keep updating with her milestones, but not a clear monthly update as I've done the past 24 months. Sigh...more changes.

*Her bottom right molar finally made a slight appearance. This particular molar has given us hell the past month and we were so glad to see it. It gave us at least 1 missed day from work and many nights lacking in sleep. It really stinks to think we still have 1 more molar to make it through.
*She started transitioning to the 2-year old room at daycare. I didn't think it would happen so soon because she is not moving very fast with potty training, but I am glad she has the opportunity to move up and learn more.
*Speaking of potty training, it is still going slow. We've started being more consistent with getting her to the potty, but she still won't tell us when she needs to go. We have managed to get her to go #2 in the potty, but I think that was more being in the right place at the right time. We plan to do Potty Training boot camp in the next month so hopefully potty training will speed on up.
*She has become obsessed with Dora the Explorer and Yo Gabba Gabba over the past month. It is so cute when one comes on tv because she starts dancing and jumping around. We try not to let her watch too much tv, but a few minutes here and there allows us a few minutes of a break and thoroughly entertains her, so its a win-win for all involved.
*She went to the doctor for her supposed normal 2-year check up, but it was pretty far from our normal visits. She weighs 27.8 lbs (50th percentile), 33.5 inches tall (50th percentile) and has a 48 cm noggin (80th percentile). We thought we were doing good until the doctor checked her ears and told us the right one was slightly infected. Ugh. We made it 2 years with no ear infections just to start the next one with one. We still count ourselves lucky that we did go that long with no antibiotics. Then, we didn't think we were going to have shots, but the doctor told us the Prevnar shot had been updated to include new strains and she needed a flu shot so shots were administered. Not a good end to the visit, but a grape sucker and a visit to the mall playground made it all better again.

Enjoying her birthday present.

Week 4 Pictures

I didn't get my camera out at all this week until today. So, I only got a few pictures of Aubrey being silly while she ate her snack.

Week 4

I did not have a lot of time to work on many goals this week. I am proud that I did manage to squeeze in 3 runs. It felt good to get back into running, even thought I really hate running on my treadmill. But, 30 degrees and dark are not outdoors running weather for me.

The rest of the goals took a backseat for the week. Todd and I have been really tired and Aubrey hasn't been sleeping well, so we took the weekend off and just chilled. The next week is busy with Aubrey's birthday and party and all the family that will be here. So, it will probably will be 2 weeks before I get back in the full swing of goal work. But, I've done well the past 3 weeks so I think I will be ok.

Week 3 check-in

Being home for 3 days this week gave me ample time to work on some goals. The one I needed to work on the most was running and I did none of it. I have 8 weeks until my first 4 mile race and I really need to get a move on. But cold and dark do not make for great running motivation.

I cooked a new recipe this week, which was a basic stromboli, using Pillsbury pizza dough and our own toppings. It wasn’t bad, but I used spaghetti sauce, which gave it a weird taste, so I won’t do that again. Todd and Aubrey seemed to like the recipe, so I guess it will be a keeper in a different variation.

I worked on the loft/office and guestroom a lot this week, mostly out of necessity. My mom is coming to stay for a week and the guest room was a wreck. So, I cleaned it and got the Goodwill donations bagged up. Todd took those to the store yesterday, which made a huge difference in that room. I also sorted through all of the paper garbage from the loft and bagged that up to go out this week. I worked more on my office my purchasing some cute storage bins from Target and getting things in them. These bins are now my color inspiration for the office and loft. They are so girly and this is the one place where Todd really doesn’t give a flip what I do so I went for it. I also bought some curtains to hide my office closet since the sliding doors ended up being nixed from the project.

I ordered some pictures this week from Aubrey’s 2-year sitting and I can’t wait to get some frames to put them in. I haven’t decided what wall I am using yet because the few good walls we have for hanging pictures get a lot of daytime sun and I am afraid it will make the pictures fade quicker. So, hopefully after these pictures come in, I can get a wall decided on and start hanging away.

I also worked in Lightroom 3 a lot while I was home. I worked on editing snow pictures and forcing myself to try new things in it. I still get so overwhelmed because its such a big program, but I think each new thing I learn is helping me get the bigger picture and I guess that is the goal. I also received my new wider-angle zoom this week and I took a few shots with it. It is so nice to have more wiggle room with this lens. Even my 28-75mm lens feels tight in this house sometimes with the way that walls and furniture are placed. I can’t wait to use it more over the next few weeks, especially for Aubrey’s birthday party in a few weeks.

The next few weeks will be a little slower with my mom being in town and Aubrey’s birthday, but I think I’ve accomplished a good bit to allow for a little break.

Not the greatest of weeks

It has just been one of those weeks. No one thing was that bad, but adding them all up made for a craptacular week. We ended up being home Monday and Tuesday because of the snow and ice. And being copped up in the house with an extremely unhappy teething toddler  who also has a cold makes for 48 long hours. By the end of Tuesday, Todd and I were beyond ready to go back to work and get out of the house.

Despite the sunny weather, the roads were pretty treacherous coming out of Huntersville. The main roads were fine, but still a little nerve wracking to drive due to worrying about the hidden icy patches. Aubrey’s day care opened late on Wednesday and I warned them she would not be a happy child because of the teething and the cold. I called at lunch to check on her and they said she was miserable because she couldn’t sleep. So, I called the doctor’s office and left a message (they never answer the phone) and asked what else we could give her since she’s on Claritin. After 3! freakin hours, the nurse called me back and said to stop the Claritin and give her orange Triaminic. So, I left work early to go pick her up and get her started on the medicine. It was pretty worthless, though. It didn’t really seem to stop her faucet of a nose. And the Tylenol and ibuprofen were on constant rotation, but not really seeming to help much, either. We put her to bed and she kept waking up with these blood-curdling screams. Needless to say, Wednesday night was a long night.

Thursday morning, I take her back to daycare and question then about their policy on medications. Even though Aubrey is 2 freakin weeks away from 2, they won’t give Tylenol without a doctor’s note because it is not dosed for children under 2. That frustrated the mess out of me because they are basically saying as a parent, I have no authority to say what my child can’t and can have and I don’t appreciate it. And, they only dispense them at 2:30, no matter what time she needed it, which also rubbed me wrong. I understand they are busy, but I knew Aubrey would be a mess by 2:30 without her Tylenol, but what else can I do about it. Nothing, so I left pouting like any grown woman should do. I didn’t bring either the Tylenol or Triaminic with me for the daycare, so I ran to CVS to pick it up and called the doctor’s office on my way to get the doctor’s note in motion. Note, this call was placed at 8:45 AM. I took the meds back to the daycare and finally got to work around 10:00. At 1:30, I was pissed because I still hadn’t heard anything back from the doctor’s office stating they got my message. I was in  a meeting, so Todd called and they finally got off their rears and got that note sent. I understand doctor’s offices are busy places as well, but that note took 45 seconds of someone’s life to write and send, so I don’t understand why it took over 5 hours to get it going. Todd picked her up that afternoon and they said she did much better after that Tylenol dose so all was well.

Friday morning, I thought I was actually going to have a full day at work and then a nice 3 day weekend because I was scheduled to be off for MLK day. I get Aubrey up and she was not happy. Pretty inconsolable. And her nose was intermittently bleeding. I knew that would never fly at the day care, so I ended up switching my days off to stay home with her. We finally got her nose to stop bleeding later that morning and she actually became much more like herself around that time. She also took her first long nap in almost a week which let me catch up on some sleep as well. We spend the afternoon playing and watching endless hours of Nick, Jr. Its sad, but I am starting to know the tv schedule after watching so much it over the past week.

She has been much happier today, despite still having a runny nose. I can only see where 1 corner of her bottom molar has come through, so that means there is a lot left to come in, plus the top one to boot. So, we are not out of the woods yet.

This was such a whiny post, so I’ll end it on a brighter note with some funny pictures. These were mostly taken Sunday and Monday before the teething/cold/exhaustion took over.  She was not in the mood for pictures once that started.

Dancing to the Fresh Beat Band (and can I just say, this is one of the CORNIEST shows ever, but she loves it.

She looks really confused right here.

Todd teaching her to show her guns. She looks like a gangsta wanna-be in this outfit and it completely cracks me up.

Shhh, Mom. Yo Gabba Gabba is on and you are making too much noise washing dishes!

Feeding her baby.

Another snow day

The weather in North Carolina has gone nuts over the past few weeks. First, we get Christmas Day snow. And now we get almost 5 inches a little over 2 weeks later. That just doesn’t happen here. But, it gave us our first snow day from work and day care so we took it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, Todd and I enjoyed it. Aubrey was up with more teething drama last night so she was not happy most of the day and being in the cold just made it worse. But, it was so nice to not be able to go anywhere and just spend the day together watching tv and eating snow cream. So much fun.

Week 2 check-in

Yeah, I know. It’s only been 1 week since I started my New Year’s resolutions, but since we all usually forget them by February, I thought I’d post each week how I am doing with them. 

This past week has given me a lot of progress towards my goals.

Personal

*4-mile race in March.  I only ran once this week, but that’s better than the last 3 weeks, so that’s progress.

*52-week blog. I got 1 blog done last week and this is number 2 for this week, so I’d call success so far.

*Cook 20 new recipes. Last week’s meals were planned before I started this resolution, so we will start this week with a new recipe that I’ll share later.

*Read 1 book/month. I finished Eat, Pray, Love this week and completely loved it. I know I am one of the last people to read this, but I am usually so far behind I’m used to it.

House

*Redo loft and guestroom by June. We got a good start on this goal on New Year’s Day by making a trip to Ikea for a new desk for me. We pulled out the doors to the loft closet and put  my new desk in there, which frees up room in the loft to make it a spare bedroom. The current spare bedroom is a disaster right now with stuff from the loft closet plus our Goodwill donation pile. I’ll post pictures when they are both finished, but here is the desk that we bought for my closet office. Plain and simple, but it will be dressed up later.

*Clean closets by March/clean and organize garage by June/frame pictures. 0 progress. See goal above for where my house work has been focused.

Photography

*Learn Lightroom 3. I finished the Scott Kelby book this week, but I haven’t put much practice in with the software yet.

*Learn more about composition. Most of my camera shots this week were just simple-mom-catching-the-moment shots so I didn’t worry about composition too much.

*I’m combining my lens goals into 1 goal. I designed my lens buying plan for the next 2 years based on when I will need them. Its cold and crappy outside so I decided I needed a wider-angle lens for inside sooner than I needed a longer lens. So I ordered this lens and it should be here by tomorrow (depending on the weather). I will then buy the 85mm f/1.8 by summer when it can be used more outside. The longer zoom lens will come after Christmas because I don’t really need it anytime soon. After I’ve completed more of the focal lengths, I will then sell my 50 mm f/1.8 and purchase the 50mm f/1.4. Hopefully after I’ve purchased those lenses, I will then be ready to upgrade my camera body. We are looking at almost 2 years from now so I’ll wait until that time comes to decide what I’ll buy. I’m glad I have a plan in place so as long as the funds are there, I’ll be getting a new lens about every 6-ish months.

So, overall, I think I’ve made great progress towards my goals so far in 1 week. I know I can’t work on every goal every week, but getting a bit of almost all of my goals done this week was a nice way to start.

First Bad Daycare Report

I realized Wednesday morning while brushing Aubrey’s teeth that both of her left 2nd molars had broken the skin. She was fussy and irritable a few weeks ago, but then she’s been pretty happy for the last few weeks so I didn’t think anything else about it until I saw those 2 teeth. She hadn’t been sleeping well at daycare or home so it all started making sense when I saw those teeth. I gave her some ibuprofen before school and she seemed fine when I dropped her off. Todd picked her up that afternoon and he told me Aubrey got her first bad report from daycare. According to her teachers, she was aggressive and they had to talk about “nice touches.” She only slept for about an hour and was irritable the whole day, which is just not like her at all. As Todd and I were talking on the phone, all I could hear was her in the background screaming “hurt” and calling for me. When they got home, she said “night night” and “hurt” so I knew she didn’t feel good. The child never misses a meal so to think she wanted to go to  bed without eating was a sure sign of unhappiness. So, we did another dose of ibuprofen and she laid down on the couch with Todd while I cooked dinner. She looked pitiful and kept pointing to her mouth and saying “hurt, Mommy.” While it was a relief to have her communicating what was wrong for once, it was heartbreaking to listen to her like that.

After about 30 minutes, we could tell she was feeling better because she got up from the couch and was running around the house. She managed to eat a few bites of dinner before getting fussy again, so we quickly put her to bed where she passed out in 5 minutes. The next morning I was talking to her teachers about her behavior and they said she even attempted to bite a few kids and I was shocked. She hasn’t tried to bite us so I guess she is learning the other children’s bad behaviors.  Luckily had a much better day on Thursday and Friday. I hope those bad reports a few and far between because the thought of her being the “mean kid” is not cool.

52 weeks of blogs

I want to use this blog more throughout the next year so I've changed title slightly. For the past 3 years, its focus has been on starting and raising a family. But, I would like to make it a little more about our lives in general, which will still include a lot about Aubrey, but also more about running, our house, work, the dogs, that kind of stuff. So, one of my goals for 2011 is to have at least 1 blog per week. I hope to include more pictures, which will also motivate me to get my camera out more and edit throughout the month, instead of at the end of the month.

So, with that being said, here is my first step towards that goal.

We recently decided that we have had enough of Aubrey’s toys being in the living room. It was getting to the point where her toys were literally taking over the space. We decided after Christmas when we took the tree down, we would move her toys into the sun room (which is divided from the living room by a half wall) to give her more space to play and us more space in the living room. It turned out to be one of the best things we’ve done in a while. She loves having her own little place to make a complete mess and we love not tripping over her stuff. The only sad thing is we really can’t watch her every move like we could before, but we deal. So, she walked in the living room and asked us to put her sun glasses on. I obliged and then followed her back  in the sun room so I could get a picture of her in the glasses. About that time, that Apple iPad commercial came on with the catchy little piano beat and Aubrey started dancing to it and this is what I got:

New Year's Resolutions, Goals, or Whatever....

Here are my New Year's Goals for 2011.

Personal
Run more. I hope to finish a 2-3 5k races and a 4-miler in March
Complete a 52-week blog. More about that later.
Cook at least 20 new recipes
Read at least 1 book per month

House
Redo loft and guest bedroom by June
Weed through closets and do Goodwill donation by March.
Clean and organize garage by June. 
Frame and hang pictures.

Photography
Learn more about Lightroom 3
Learn more about composition
Purchase 85mm f/1.8 lens
Possibly upgrade 50mm lens to f/1.4 and sell 50mm f/1.8
Purchase a longer zoom lens
Possibly purchase a wider angle lens

These goals appear to be obtainable right now. I kept them simple and measurable which I hope helps me stick to them. I am keeping a copy of these taped to the wall by my desk and hope that holds me more accountable. I love to cross things off a list, so that should be even more motivation. So, let the fun begin!