Insane Decade

I've been thinking back a lot on the past 10 years. I went from a 20-year-old college student to a 30-year-old mother with a wife, house, and steady job. For ha-has, here's a list of random assorted facts, figures and events from the past 10 years.

In the last 10 years, I went from: age 20 to age 30.

I lived in: 2 dormitories, 5 apartments, and 1 house in 2 different countries and 2 different states with a total of 13 different roommates

For school, I: graduated college and then, 3 years or so later, from grad school

Had: 3 different jobs and 2 different careers

Dated: really only a handful of people, one of whom I'm married to now

Gained: 10-15 pounds

Saw: the Twin Towers in flames down the street, the first Black president, the birth of my son, the legalization of gay marriage in many places, and myself commit to someone forever

There's a whole lot more that happened, obviously, but those are some of the major events of my whirlwind decade. Most of those things happened within the first 5 years of the last decade, with the past 4 years being incredibly steady and the same (except for that whole wife giving birth thing). What a strange transformation 20 to 30 is! I'm mostly happy to be putting the tumult of my early 20's behind me for good and looking forward to what 30 plus has in store.

May your New Year's Eves be special and meaningful--even if it's just you hanging around the house with those you love most. That's what I'll be doing tonight-thankfully and blessedly ringing in the next 10 years of insanity.

Happiest of Days

So...WE MADE IT! It is Christmas Day. Our Christmas Eve preparations done, the dinner made and consumed, and now we get to actually relax with family. I can't explain to you how many times we felt like we were going to drop out of sheer exhaustion for the last week or so. Christmas Day is always easiest for us--we get to relax at S.'s parent's house and eat delicious food that I don't have to cook! This year we are joined by her brother, sis-in-law, and cousin Jackson who is 6 months younger than Theo. They were certainly spoiled this year by everyone!

And just to add to the excitement of a pile of presents...Theo's Auntie A. surprised us with a GIANT Elmo balloon. This is the very picture of sheer joy, excitement, and wonder.

Merry Christmas to all!

Theo's fever seems to be winding way, way down. Thank goodness. Cold symptoms, however, seem to be setting in. Not so thankful for that.

For now, winter shots. I cannot believe the holidays will start colliding and exploding in nearly a week. May merriness abound (you know, after the floor is washed, house is cleaned, laundry is folded, meal is planned and baby is well).


Winterberry


Hey..let me out there, Mama!


Homemade wreath


Homemade baby

Sicks Kiddos and Holiday Hell

I'm reading a lot of posts lately about sick bebes, and just to throw one more into the mix, Theo has some kind of massive bug going on. Saturday night, during a birthday party, the kid would.not.eat. For those of you who know Theo, this a sign that something is seriously wrong. He felt really hot so we took his temp and it was 103.something. Whoa. Now the house was crowded, and he and his buddy N., who is 4 months older, had been running around the house chasing each other all day long in joyful, screaming glee, but still. We T.ylenoled him up but a few hours later, he was still blazing hot.

Yesterday his temp actually got up to 104.3. Yikes.

Our ped. says it is probably the oink.oink.flu. Or, since the seasonal flu is just about peaking around these parts, that. He's on Tama.flu and lots of T.ylenol and M.otrin which is working to lower his fever to the 99-102 range. Definitely less scary than 104. Fortunately he's eating and drinking okay now and (knock on lots of wood right now) sleeping through the night. With a family holiday party this weekend and last-minute shopping and holiday meal preparation, we are hoping this virus passes quickly so we can drag him through what will be a crazy next week and a half or so.

*Frustration*

I've been brewing up this post since the weekend, but got distracted/overwhelmed/annoyed to tears by Sears. Yes, Sears - google it, see if I care. Sears has been so disappointing. We ordered a fancy-pants washer/dryer - they sent it vented incorrectly and were unwilling to cooperate by scheduling a convenient time for the second delivery. So, diapers dirty since Sat., 1 hour 20 minutes on the phone, and it better get delivered tonight or it's all going back. Never again, Sears.

Anyway.

Speaking of annoying... baby showers! Why do we women do this to ourselves and pretend to like it. All showers. No, yours was not any better. I love the camaraderie of women, I really do. I enjoy a nice meal. I get that we all need the "stuff". I love your baby. I love you. What I hate is the sitting, the chit-chat, the reading of the cards and special notes, the games, watching someone open gifts, and ooh-and-ahhing for 4 hours on a weekend, when all I want to do is be home, getting things done and spending time with Theo.
I have a great solution! Happy-hour shower! It's a block of time, you come in, chat, leave your gift, have a conversation with the mommy-to-be, she can even open your present if that's your fancy. Food? Yes. Drinks? Yes. Presents? Yes. And you stay or leave whenever you like. Good, right? We need to band together women of the world and revolt!!!

Update: Sears brought us the dryer but gave us the wrong cord and just left. Ahhhhhh.

Lights! Smiles! Action!

I'm kind of going into post-withdrawal, so here I am, posting...something.

How is your holiday shopping going? Well, we did something we thought we'd never, ever do--put lights on our front porch! Icicle hanging lights! Ahhhhh! There is a reason, however. We usually put those candles in the window, but with a little baby-toddler running amok around here, and one who is obsessed with lights at that, we were pretty sure they would all be smashed on the floor in a matter of minutes. But we wanted something sparkly and bright on the house. So---we bit the bullet and put the lights up tonight. To my surprise...they actually look really GOOD! We also have a homemade wreath (a Thanksgiving tradition at S.'s mom's house - before dinner wreath making with handpicked greens) with white lights hanging on the porch. We're in all sorts of Christmas spirit around here. Did I mention we also have our tree up? A fakey again this year, a smallish tabletop one. Again, the baby-toddler.

We'll leave you with some picks of our surly boy. You cannot get that kid to crack a smile when you try, but when he's ready to be happy, he's happy.

At the start of photo session--not so happy!
(This is what we'd call a "typical" Theo look--the kid sure can pout)

Warming up! (this ended up being our best shot!)


Finally, a genuine giggle and Theo accepts his fate.