Random musings

Nothing huge to report lately, so I thought I'd just highlight a few of the random things rattling around in my brain these days...bear with me...

• My child will be ONE YEAR OLD a week from tomorrow. This is blowing my mind right now. I have no clue where the last year has gone. Nevermind, I do know where it's gone - straight into the most beautiful child ever to walk the face of the planet (I'm not biased or anything!) Honestly, this year has been wonderful. I doubt I would have said that while I was nursing her around the clock. In fact, I think during that time I was wondering just what the hell I had gotten myself into and what made me think I was fit to be a parent. I now know that apparently most, if not all, new parents have this same feeling. It too shall pass my parent-friends said, and they were right. Now I can hardly remember what it was like to not have Carrie in my life (although I do vaguely catch a glimpse of what it used to be like when Jerry and I leave the house without her...that means if we say we are heading out at 5pm, we are actually walking out the door at 5pm, not frantically searching the house for socks/jacket/bottle/food/diaper bag/whatever else we need, and actually leaving at about 5:30)
• When planning your child's birthday party, make sure the decorations are still available that match the invitations you fell in love with and "just had to have." I ordered Classic Winnie the Pooh invites and sent them all out, and only then did I realize that Classic Winnie the Pooh decorations had been DISCONTINUED. Huh? Who the heck discontinues such items? Thankfully eBay exists and I've paid more than I ever thought I would to have matching plates, balloons, and banners.
• Carrie's trying her hardest to walk these days. She likes for you to stand behind her and hold her hands so she can motor around. It's pretty cute, and I'm all for her walking, but terrified of how in the heck I'm supposed to keep up with her at that point. I mean, she can already just about out-crawl me, so what's gonna happen when she's running???
• We really love living in SC! And to answer everyone's question - yes, it's going fine living with Jerry's parents, and I really mean that and am not just saying that since I know they'll be reading this :) Apparently they get the same question as well..."So...how IS it living with your grown son, daughter-in-law, and one year old granddaughter?" As if it's some sort of death sentence that we are bunking up with them for the time being. Alston apparently had quite the experience when some woman overheard her talking to Jerry's mom about this. If you know Alston, please ask her about this story - to see/hear her tell it is priceless.
• While we loving living here, we miss our friends :( Jenn/Rad, Amy/Aaron, Amy/Nate and all of the other folks we hung out with there. It's no secret that Gainesville wasn't my dream town to live in, but we really did have some wonderful friends there, so we miss seeing them on a regular basis.
• I love my job. Love it. And I'm a big dork because I love working for GT.

Okay, I think that's about it for now. Happy weekend everyone!

What a ham...

Word Update

Just a quick update on Carrie's word count...we're now up to four. The first three were, in order, "dada," "uh-oh" (she gets a lot of use out of this one), and "doggie." And now, ladies & gentlemen, last night we finally had a good long string of "mama" thrown in there for good measure. She was sitting in my lap at the table eating my strawberries and all of a sudden just launched into saying a string of "mamamamamamamama" for about 10 seconds. We all just got really quiet, listened to her babble, then clapped for her afterwards. I swear I thought I was going to cry at the dinner table...but I held it together :)

We Made It!!

Well, we've officially made the transition from Gainesville to Savannah. We've been in Savannah for two weeks now, and have barely had time to catch our breath, which is why I wasn't able to stick to me "write a post at least once a week" plan. Hopefully I'll get back on that bandwagon this week!

March 9th was the big move. Actually I guess it wasn't technically too big since we weren't moving everything we owned, just the "necessary stuff." Hah. The "necessary" stuff filled up a 6' by 12' U Haul, a Subaru, an Envoy, and an Expedition. Of course, I think my scrapbook stuff probably filled up one of those vehicles, but that's another post. Don't ask Jerry about it - it's a pet peeve of his that we keep dragging mementos of our past from house to house. I just keep telling him he'll be glad I did it once it's all in a nice scrapbook and he can look back and remember what he did with his life. Rhett was a total lifesaver during the move. She kept Carrie entertained the entire morning while Jerry, Izzie, and myself were scurrying around packing and cleaning up. We finally got out of Gainesville around 2pm, a mere 4 hours past Jerry's target time of leaving. We stopped at Wendy's for a little lunch, where Carrie reached over and grabbed a hot fry off Jerry's tray and screamed bloody murder because she didn't know what to do with it, but knew it hurt like the devil. Not fun. At any rate, we made it to Okatie all in one piece around 7 that evening and unpacked boxes into the front hallway. I'm happy to report that all of the boxes are out of the front hallway...unfortunately they have just been moved up to the upstairs hallway, but we hope to have them put away soon!

Carrie loves being around all the pups. This past weekend with Easter she had 8 dogs to entertain her since Alston & Nick had their two pups, Porter & Sam, to add to the mix. It makes for a lot of chaos with that many dogs, but I think it's great. We are definitely going to have to teach Carrie at some point not to just assume all dogs are as nice as these 8 dogs. They put up with so much from her (except Carolina, who has quickly learned that if she sees Carrie coming that she should just get out of the way).

Easter was great, although church lasted about two hours. Carrie was a real trooper. She got cranky only once, and Jerry took her outside til communion started. Other than that she just looked around and entertained our neighbors in the pews. Izzie wasn't kidding when she said she always felt like she'd been through WWII after a church service with kids. I only had one to keep up with, but Carrie's such a monkey that she was constantly trying to climb all over me the entire time. I can't complain though, she was such a good girl throughout the service.

My job is going really well. I'm such a dork that I think it's great to be back at GT. I got my Buzz Card this morning; talk about surreal. Since I was a student way back when, they still had my BuzzCard picture from freshman year. That was entertaining. Suffice it to say I look a bit older in this most recent picture than the one I had taken 13 years ago (yikes).

seriously???

Is it possible to pinpoint the exact point in time when you lost your mind?

Cause I realized yesterday at about 5:15pm that I had, in fact, lost my mind. I'm just not sure of when it happened.

I realized this as I whipped out my Amex yesterday afternoon to pay for $37 worth of party decorations.

For my dog.

Yes folks, that's right. I spent almost $40 on party decorations for Bailey's "Going Away" party at his doggie daycare for this Friday. And I haven't even bought the cake yet. I can't wait to see how much that's going to cost me.

Jerry and I decided before Carrie came along to make a conscious, concerted effort to not push Bailey to the wayside when she arrived on the scene. I think we've done a fairly good job of that. No, he isn't the only child in the house anymore, and he's had to sacrifice some Mommy/Daddy time to Carrie, but all in all he's adjusted well and seems to be a happier pup for it (except for the occasional pooping in the house for no good reason lately, but I think that's because he realizes something's up with all the packing and boxes). We've continued to take him to daycare at least once a week so he can see all his buds and get some much needed running around time. The folks that run Camp Marlin Doggie Daycare were so sad when I told them we were moving. He's been going there for 4 years. I remember the exact first day I took him to daycare. The only reason I got Jerry to agree to let me take him was because he was traveling all the time and I felt so guilty about leaving him at home all day by himself. The first day I dropped him off he looked at me like "Are you seriously leaving me here with these strangers ALL DAY LONG?" and he wimpered a little as I left. I called twice to check on him. No, I'm not kidding. Then the second day I took him it was all I could do to keep him from dragging me across the parking lot to get into the building fast enough. And ever since then, whenever I tell him to get his jewelry on Wednesday mornings he goes bonkers. We can't even say the word "daycare" at our house; it's referred to as "DC."

So I guess it's the end of an era. He won't need to go to daycare when we move to Savannah, at least not at first since we'll be staying with Jerry's parents and they have five dogs. It'll be like daycare every day. And so I find myself making a list of things I need to do for my dog's going away party....stuff goodie bags...order a cake...pick up doggie ice cream...fill up the pinata I bought with dog treats...

If it's like this with Bailey, someone stop me before I go overboard for Carrie's first birthday party!!

They're coming, I promise!

So I had no clue how many people were actually paying attention to all those pictures of Carrie I sent out on a monthly basis. Well, now I think I have a pretty good idea since, here we are just 3 days after her 10 month birthday, and I'm getting accosted with questions on when they next round will be posted on Snapfish. They will be posted this weekend, folks! I have to do Tour of Kitchens for Junior League tomorrow ALL DAY LONG, so it won't be till Sunday. Of course, we also need to do some sprucing up on the house so we can hopefully sell this thing. We've had some lookers, just no buyers yet. Send your positive vibes our way!!

Speaking of Junior League, Carrie got dragged along to a meeting last night at Jenn's house. She was a pretty good little Junior Leaguer and made everyone laugh a few times as she was interjecting her own thoughts in the middle of the meeting, in a rather loud voice I might add. She was sick earlier this week with a 103.3 temp, but is now back to her normal self. Tuesday night she just couldn't get comfy and breathe well, so she was up like every two hours, upset at the fact that it's pretty hard to suck her thumb and breathe at the same time when her nose is so stuffed up. Neither one of us knew what to do at those early hours; she was up at 9:45, 11:30, 1:30, 3:30, 5....both of us were dazed & confused since we haven't done that since....well....since she was about 2 or 3 weeks old. I am just hoping that if and when we have another child, the baby gods bless us once again with such a great sleeper.

Adventures in eating

See - two weeks in a row that I've posted something. You all should be proud of me (if anyone's even reading this blog anymore!)

So I think we've entered the "I want to feed myself, thank you very much" phase. She'll still let me feed her breakfast in the morning, which is usually a few cubes of bananas and/or apples. I think she allows this just because it's been roughly 12 hours since she last ate, and she's just hungry and doesn't care to fight. Lunch is a whole different story. Neither Emily nor I are able to get her to really sit down and eat anything for lunch. I think she's just too busy these days pulling up, cruising, and scooting around torturing Bailey. Dinner's also interesting in that she'll deal with me feeding her for a little while, then she just wants down to go play, or would stuff herself full of Cheerios or Gerber puffs simply because she feeds those to herself. Saturday night we had green peas with our dinner, and I put a few of those on her tray and she gobbled them up. We can't tell if she really likes the taste, or just the fact that not only can she feed herself peas, but they roll, which makes mealtime oh so fun. Needless to say, Bailey is LOVING this new stage we're in since only about 50% of the food actually makes it to her mouth. The rest ends up on the floor, which we never have to pick up because our own Puppy Hoover is right there waiting any scraps.

She's also pulling up on everything in sight. People, chairs, the side of the crib, Bailey...you name it. Everything's fair game, regardless of whether or not it's stable. I think we need to take the mobile down from her crib since now that she can reach it I've caught her on the monitor a few times yanking on Pooh and Piglet. I think if I don't take it down I'll come in her room one day and find them laying in the crib with her!