Carrie loves, loves, loves the Baby MacDonald DVD from the Baby Einstein collection. This is the kid that refuses to sit still for anything these days, but everything stops whenever I pop in that particular DVD and for a full, glorious 30 minutes she will lay on the couch with me enjoying the cows, piggies and horsies. She's obviously learning something from this DVD, as can be seen in this video of me, my mother and my father bombarding her with questions like "What does the ____ say?!"
Monday, January 26, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Please tell me I'm not the only one.
I will get back to blogging about China...I have to since it's my travel journal, and may actually do so this evening if I can't figure out how to watch what I've DVR'd on my satellite box on my laptop :) But I had to put this out there...
Please tell me that I am not the only mother out there that's had moments/days of complete and utter feelings of "I am sooooooooo bad at this, why did I ever reproduce?" Cause I've felt like my life has been made up of those moments WAY too often lately. Take tonight for example. Nothing I did for Carrie was right, and I mean NO-THING. Dinner apparently wasn't to her liking, she didn't like the fact that I had to pack up some stuff for us to bring over to Jerry & Izzy's house because it is going to be FREEZING tonight (the heater in the cottage has been acting flaky and the last thing I needed was to wake up at 3am to it snowing inside), she didn't want to take a bath, didn't want to get her pj's on....the list goes on. I have to admit I feel a little cheated. I mean, I only get to see her, on average, about 2 hours a day during the week, which apparently are her worst two hours. And I realize I bring that on myself by working outside of the home (a completely different guilt factor for another blog). All the teachers at school always say how sweet and pleasant she is....yeah, well, come on over to our house around 6:30 and let me know what you think. One of the teachers at school gave us her number and is wanting to babysit for Carrie. I'm afraid to have her come over for fear of ruining Carrie's reputation at school :)
To top it off, I feel like a wimp for feeling this way. I am lucky enough to have a MIL right here that takes her to school and picks her up 99.9% of the time so I don't have to worry with that aspect when trying to get to work and get home. My job is simply to come home and enjoy my child. This is hard to do when every single thing becomes a battle of wills. I know it could be worse, and I know I need to focus on that. But seriously....I keep telling Carrie that while Daddy's out of town we need to be on the same team and work together...not sure she quite gets that just yet. I'll keep trying, though.
Please tell me that I am not the only mother out there that's had moments/days of complete and utter feelings of "I am sooooooooo bad at this, why did I ever reproduce?" Cause I've felt like my life has been made up of those moments WAY too often lately. Take tonight for example. Nothing I did for Carrie was right, and I mean NO-THING. Dinner apparently wasn't to her liking, she didn't like the fact that I had to pack up some stuff for us to bring over to Jerry & Izzy's house because it is going to be FREEZING tonight (the heater in the cottage has been acting flaky and the last thing I needed was to wake up at 3am to it snowing inside), she didn't want to take a bath, didn't want to get her pj's on....the list goes on. I have to admit I feel a little cheated. I mean, I only get to see her, on average, about 2 hours a day during the week, which apparently are her worst two hours. And I realize I bring that on myself by working outside of the home (a completely different guilt factor for another blog). All the teachers at school always say how sweet and pleasant she is....yeah, well, come on over to our house around 6:30 and let me know what you think. One of the teachers at school gave us her number and is wanting to babysit for Carrie. I'm afraid to have her come over for fear of ruining Carrie's reputation at school :)
To top it off, I feel like a wimp for feeling this way. I am lucky enough to have a MIL right here that takes her to school and picks her up 99.9% of the time so I don't have to worry with that aspect when trying to get to work and get home. My job is simply to come home and enjoy my child. This is hard to do when every single thing becomes a battle of wills. I know it could be worse, and I know I need to focus on that. But seriously....I keep telling Carrie that while Daddy's out of town we need to be on the same team and work together...not sure she quite gets that just yet. I'll keep trying, though.
Friday, January 16, 2009
We Interrupt the China journal for an Important Announcement...
Yeah, cause I know everyone's still sitting on the edge of their respective seats since I'm soooo good about updating about China on a regular basis :)
Anyways, the impossible has happened. We have a contract on our house in Gainesville. Not just an offer, but a real, honest to goodness contract. I just sent it back to our agent with the necessary signatures so, God willing, we close on 2/27. Please be sure to pray to the real estate gods that all goes well and we are able to close this chapter that has been open for a year! Ironically enough, the offer came in exactly one year to the day that we put it on the market.
I'm having such mixed feelings about this, which I never thought would happen. I mean, I am SO thankful that we have warm bodies that actually like our house and want to buy it! But it's really bringing a close to our Gainesville chapter. When I moved there in September 2001, I hated that place. I mean, within a week I was telling Jerry "this places SUCKS, it's too small, I want to go back to the big city!!" But little by little it really grew on me. I finally got a job there I liked with the university, and we met some of the best friends we've ever had there. To this day I sorely miss being able to walk down the street to Jenn & Radley's house and see Ansley running around outside, or go over to Amy & Nate's house for a SuperBowl party, or have everyone meet up at Ichiban for some of the best (and relatively cheap!) sushi you've ever put in your mouth. And the decision to move from Gainesville was made even harder by the fact that a dear friend of mine, and Carrie's godparents, Amy & Aaron Aponick, moved cross-country from California to live in Gainesville when Aaron got a professor position at UF (Amy - I still miss our Chick-fil-A lunches!).
I know we will still be friends with these people....but it won't be the same. And I know we'll find a house here that we love just as much, or more than, this particular house in Gainesville. We bought that house with visions of raising our family there for a long time. Guess life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls. This has been a looooong road getting here, but let's hope it closes on a positive note about 45 days from now.
Anyways, the impossible has happened. We have a contract on our house in Gainesville. Not just an offer, but a real, honest to goodness contract. I just sent it back to our agent with the necessary signatures so, God willing, we close on 2/27. Please be sure to pray to the real estate gods that all goes well and we are able to close this chapter that has been open for a year! Ironically enough, the offer came in exactly one year to the day that we put it on the market.
I'm having such mixed feelings about this, which I never thought would happen. I mean, I am SO thankful that we have warm bodies that actually like our house and want to buy it! But it's really bringing a close to our Gainesville chapter. When I moved there in September 2001, I hated that place. I mean, within a week I was telling Jerry "this places SUCKS, it's too small, I want to go back to the big city!!" But little by little it really grew on me. I finally got a job there I liked with the university, and we met some of the best friends we've ever had there. To this day I sorely miss being able to walk down the street to Jenn & Radley's house and see Ansley running around outside, or go over to Amy & Nate's house for a SuperBowl party, or have everyone meet up at Ichiban for some of the best (and relatively cheap!) sushi you've ever put in your mouth. And the decision to move from Gainesville was made even harder by the fact that a dear friend of mine, and Carrie's godparents, Amy & Aaron Aponick, moved cross-country from California to live in Gainesville when Aaron got a professor position at UF (Amy - I still miss our Chick-fil-A lunches!).
I know we will still be friends with these people....but it won't be the same. And I know we'll find a house here that we love just as much, or more than, this particular house in Gainesville. We bought that house with visions of raising our family there for a long time. Guess life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls. This has been a looooong road getting here, but let's hope it closes on a positive note about 45 days from now.
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