Meggie Turns 16

My niece, and Sophie's cousin, turned 16 yesterday. My prenant brain forgot to bring her birthday card with me on Sunday when we had dinner for Father's Day, so it is being snail-mailed to her and is late....for probably the first time ever. To try and make up for my spacey brain (you'll understand when you have babies someday Meg!!) I've decided to post today about my niece Meg. Meggie has been less like a niece and more like a little sister. Mostly, because her mom Teresa -of Continuing the Journey - and I are so close. When I was young and single with lots of expendable income, I showered Meggie in gifts; taking her to the mall to buy us matching pajamas when I'd have a slumber party at their house, buying us fourth row seats at Beauty and the Beast when the Broadway tour came to town, buying racks of Disney movies so she'd be entertained at my apartments. When Teresa was in nursing school, Meggie and I spent every Saturday together for months painting our own pottery and having picnics on the patio at Panera. Meggie has always been a joy to be around, and is growing into quite a lovely young woman. When my husband told me two years ago that he wanted his 16 year old brother to be a groomsman in our wedding, it was a no brainer who he would be escorting down the aisle.

Meggie now watches my little girl occasionally (hopefully more now that she can drive....). I hope that they can one day have the relationship that Meggie and I had.

Happy Birthday Meggie!!

Does this make up for my card being late??

Dear Stinkerbell

Mommy loves you....
...Even when you stick your hands in your messy diaper while I'm trying to change you.
...Even when you you eat your lotion.
...Even when you pour baby powder all over the hard wood floors and make snow angels.
...Even when you try to take Superman dives off of your changing table.
...Even when you use your teeth to gain leverage against my shoulder when trying to climb over me on the couch.
...Even when you grab a pile of clean laundry and shove it in the toilet.....like you did this morning...making Mommy late for work...
...Even when I have to say it through clenched teeth with veins popping out of my neck.
I love you.

Love,

Mommy

Baseball and Dance Recitals

Friday, June 12, the social committee of our regional office (of which I am the President) organized a trip to the nearby Florence Freedom game. For those of you not from these parts, the Florence Freedom are a Minor League pro baseball team right on the upper edge of Kentucky. Being from Cincinnati and growing up with a Major League team in our backyard, I've always loved going to baseball games. But as I got older and started driving and paying for myself, the magic definitely started to wear off. An afternoon game could easily set you back $100 if you weren't careful and getting out of the parking lot could take hours. That is why I love the Florence Freedom. It's like a Major League ball park on a miniature scale. Your seats are either on the field or in a box. There are no nosebleed seats, hot dogs aren't $5 and you don't have to travel 30 mintues to get to a bathroom. And they really make an effort to engage the crowd with contests and promotions. The son of one of my co-workers got selected to wrestle in a sumo costume at the end of the seventh inning. We've had a blast everytime we've gone and it costs less than a date to the movies. We've even talked about getting season tickets.

One of my social committee chair jobs is to commemmorate our outings in photos. I'm only in one...my family watching baseball. Stinkerbell, whose favorite past-time involves less ball and more stroller. She played the up/down game quite a bit.
We were in one of the private party boxes, which came complete with a pulled pork and hot dog buffet and......a visit from the 'Diva'.
Sophie was mesmerized and super jealous of the hair and shoes. She ended up giving the Diva a hug and a high five. It was soooo cute. The night ended with a fireworks display from the Rozzi family (the same Rozzi's from the Labor Day WEBN Fireworks on the Ohio River). It was awesome, but a little scary for Stinkerbell since we were so close to the fireworks. The loud noises pushed her into Daddy's arms where she watched them safely on her terms.

Saturday, Meggie had her last dance recital with All That Jazz. Sophie, who's taken to watching So You Think You Can Dance with me, came to support her cousin. She had to blow off some steam with Grandma outside the theater first...
But settled down like an angel to watch the dancing. She did a little dancing of her own from her seat and ended up falling asleep in Grandma Jane's lap during the second act.

Afterward, she pranced around the auditorium like a true dancer-to-be. Soon, Stinky. Soon I'll buy you some tap shoes...

Baby Chores

Husby and I are quite in favor of the house appearance improving, character building, responsibility growing benefits of children having chores. Clearly, 15 months is too young to assign them. But it's not too young to be introduced to chores. I try to make Sophie a part of whatever chores I can so that she can see that they can be fun early on. I know, fun may be an exaggeration, but once I started including Stink Bug instead of seeing her as an impediment, I surely began to enjoy them more.

First off....cooking. Sophie loves to be my little mini-me shadow when I'm doing anything and the kitchen can be a pretty dangerous place for the climby, grabby toddler, so I gave her a pancake job which she seemed to enjoy.

She stirs up the chocolate chips (and of course steals some to eat) to keep them fresh while I'm cooking. She'll sit there for a good 30 minutes bopping to the music I always play when I cook (Stevie Wonder and Harry Connick, Jr.) and stirring her chips. And I like having her around to dance with and talk to.

Next.....Laundry. Sophie likes to be a part of the sorting process. She helps pull everything out of the hamper and then I have to hurry and sort faster than she can mix up the piles. Her favorite laundry items?? Daddy's socks which she likes to wear like a boa and......

Yes, you're seeing right. Mommy's bra's. Sometime she puts them on her head like a hat. Sometimes a scarf. Sometimes she just drags them around and I find them in strange places like her toybox or the dining room floor or tucked into the crevices of her stroller.

At least it's not Daddy's underwear....yet.

Gimp Daddy

At Uncle Ted's high school graduation, Husby reaggravated an old paint-ball injury and ended up with an anke the size of my prego belly. After ice and some rest, the pain seemed a bit too reminiscent of the break of almost a decade ago and we made the trip to the emergency room to get some X-rays. We, of course, made it a family adventure. A Wendy's picnic in the waiting room led to a tour of the emergency room facilities.

By the end, both were pretty good sports and we got out pretty unscathed. And Daddy just had a bad sprain. He got to head home to put his foot up and on ice again while Sophie and I went to a picnic. Stink Bug was a total angel.

Daddy's now graduated from the huge storm trooper boot and now has a small brace that he wears under his gymmers, hopefully to be brace-free soon. And all is back to as close to normal as you can call us.

Zoo Outing

Brandon's Aunt Sue bought us a wonderful Christmas gift, which we've been waiting months to be able to enjoy.....a family pass to the ZOO! The bad thing is, once it got warm enough to venture out, everytime we'd make plans to go it would rain or Cashew would make mommy too sick to enjoy it.

Well, after a long week in Indianapolis working on a project (and earning enough overtime to take Friday off) Sophie and I dusted off the pass and headed off for our first Zooey adventure last Friday. Since me taking the day off also meant that my best friend who helps me out with Sophie had the day off, we made a double family adventure out of it. We had a wonderful time. Too bad daddy couldn't make it.

Sophie loved the reptile house. It was feeding time for the baby alligators when we arrived and she loved looking over the side to get a peek.

A shot of Mandy (who is also 20 weeks pregnant and expecting a little girl) and James (7 months older than Sophie) from accross the pen.

In the insect house Sophie wanted to find out her weight in insects on the special scale. I don't really think she cared about the weight, just the climbing up and down off of the scale part. Incidentally, she weighs just over 4,001,000 bugs.

After a trip to the petting zoo, which was a little too hands on for mommy to be able to take pictures of, we headed over to see the giraffes and elephants. Clearly this was too much for Stink Bug.

But she perked right back up when it was time to go for lunch. Not being used to sitting so close to BFF James in the car, Sophie took the opportunity to show some love. He was a pretty good sport.

Next time, we promise, Daddy, we'll take you with us :-)

What Do You Do When....

....your daughter keeps stealing your shoes?

My clothes and shoes are stored in what will soon be Stinkerbell's room on the second floor of our house. To save myself the up and down, I bought a basket which sits by the stairs, and in which I put my shoes when I'm finished wearing them. When the basket reaches Mount Ve-shoe-vius proportions, I take it upstairs and put them all away. Lately Sophie has been absconding with my shoes and carrying them around the house, often times settling in the living room to put them on. Her favorites?? My many colored flip-flops. At least she always finds a matching pair, both in style and in color. It's super cute....until I want to wear a specific pair....

....your gorgeous daughter looks nothing like you??
That's not entirely true. She has my mouth, smile, hands, feet...but she's got Daddy's piercing blue eyes and blonde hair. All I ever get is 'She looks just like Brandon.' Well, Mommy learned the hard way that you shouldn't cut your hair while you are pregnant because my face has expanded like Violet Beauregard's. The wider my face, the more hair I wish I had. On a lark for my birthday, I bought some Jessica Simpson hair extensions to play with. I totally love them and wear them quite a bit. Sophie's Go-Go-Gadget arms don't seem to have a limit to her reach and one day I found her carrying around my fake hair. I thought we'd go with it, just to see what she looked like with dark hair.

She's definitely a blonde.

Bad Hair Days

Sophie was born with a full head of hair. She's 15 months and has already had two haircuts. Poor thing lost all of the hair on the back and sides of her head by 6 months, but the top just kept on growing. She's finally caught up and her hair is getting really long. Long enough for piggy tails....

But the problem is that as it gets longer it gets more and more scraggly and hangs in her face and gets matted to her forehead when she sleeps. For the comfort of my Stinkerbell, we've been going to the Pebbles for naptime...which has been expanding to all weekend long sometimes. I've always hated the Pebbles and swore I'd never do that to my baby, but I've caved since it's so effective.

Oh yeah, and I was also sure I'd never let my kids run around in just a shirt and diaper, but that blew out the window, too.