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This afternoon, while Noah and I were bowling on the Wii, Caden was sitting on the sofa wearing his foam tiger mask. Yeah, just like it’s the most normal thing in the world. When I got my camera out to take a picture of him sitting there, he started running around the house. Here he is on his second lap.
I wish I could remember what sound he was making as he ran! I think he was growling, or something that was supposed to be growling… I’ve found my calling. I’m totally a soccer mom, and I’m not afraid to admit it! Tonight, Noah had his first session of “Futbolito” at the local indoor soccer park. We signed up late last week, so it was sort of last-minute. But to a 5-year-old, with nothing else on the agenda but sleep, eat, play, school, eat, sleep, play, eat, play, sleep, repeat, last-minute doesn’t affect you as much. Anyway, after picking up his t-shirt and soccer ball included in the registration, he pretty much spent the next hour moving. Literally moving the whole time. I was tired just watching him! He’d come off the field for water breaks and he barely broke a smile. I think he was really tired. But at the end, he said it was really fun, and he’s looking forward to next week because there will be candy, but he doesn’t want ice cream. Whatever that means. Here are some pics:
No, it’s not me that had the potential to be unemployed. Well, I suppose there’s always the chance I could lose my job, but people are still getting hurt, having surgery, having strokes, getting UTI’s, getting dehydrated, getting pneumonia, breaking bones, fainting, and crabbing about their pain, so I’m pretty safe for a while. Andy had the chance to be a stay-at-home dad after the announcement yesterday that Quad/Graphics would be cutting 550 jobs, 400 of them right here at home. The cuts at Quad/Tech (where Andy works) went down today. Andy reassured me several times last night that he wasn’t concerned about his job. Still, I was a bit nervous all day, waiting for a phone call (would Andy even call if he got booted?), wondering if I would need to beg for more hours or (gasp!) get rid of my DVR and cell phone. I called Andy’s desk at 3:30 and he wasn’t there. I didn’t wait for his voice mail, so I didn’t hear if he had changed his message to say something like “Hi, this is Andy. I used to work for Quad/Tech until the crappy economy changed everything for everyone and I had to get canned. Good luck trying to find someone else who cares!” I then called his cell, and was relieved he didn’t answer, sloppy drunk at the bar down the road from Quad/Tech with his box of belongings on the bar stool next to him, surrounded by 25 other former Quad/Tech employees and their boxes of belongings. He called me about 10 minutes later, from his desk, telling me he’s safe. He also let me know that all of the people I’ve met from Quad/Tech are also safe. It was a huge relief. I can stay part-time! I can keep my DVR and cell phone! Oh, and we still have our medical insurance and we can still afford our house. I suppose those are important too. So thanks Quad! Thanks for letting my husband keep his job. And to all of those people who are sitting at home tonight, worried about what comes next, wondering how they’re going to keep their houses, I wish them luck, strength to find the silver lining, and faith to believe there’s more to come. This evening after I picked up the boys from my parents’ house, we were driving past the hospital where I work. The cars ahead of me were stopping in the middle of the hill and I noticed 4 deer crossing the road (we live in a pretty suburban area, but the deer are everywhere!). I pointed them out to the boys and Noah said, “They’re going to the hospital!” Saj: “Maybe they’re going to visit someone.” Noah: “Yeah, or they need to see the doctor.” Caden: “A deer doctor!” Noah: “Or, they’re going to the deer hospital in the woods.” (The hospital is in a sort of wooded area.) Saj: “I have seen the deer hospital in the woods.” Noah: “I think it’s right near the seven dwarfs’ house!” (Giggling a bit) Caden: “Who are the dorfs?” Saj: “You know, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Caden: “Hmm. Yeah.” This morning, we were able to start our day in one of my favorite ways-the boys climbing into bed (nicely waiting until after the clock says “7-zero-zero” to come in our room) and all of us snuggling. Then off to breakfast, and no other agenda for a few hours. We cleaned up a bit, built with Legos, read some books. I went to take a shower, and when I came out, Andy and Noah were looking for Caden. “Have you seen him?” Um, no. I was in the shower. We found him in his room, asleep, on the floor between the window and Noah’s bed, snuggling with his “Big Blue Blankie” and Noah’s yellow blanket. It took him a little while to wake up! ——————————————————————– I headed out to meet an old friend for lunch. We’ve been in limited contact through email over the years, but recently reconnected through Facebook. I love Facebook! The really sad thing is that we both live in the Milwaukee area, and it’s taken us over 3 years to get together! We actually realized we haven’t seen each other since my wedding, 7 1/2 years ago! Way too long! We went to the Wicked Hop, drank some really tasty Bloody Marys, ate some yummy food, and proceeded to sit and get caught up over the next three hours! It was a great way to spend my Saturday mid-day. We’ve promised each other we won’t let 7 years pass before we see each other again. ——————————————————————— I came home after a quick stop at the mall (which was packed!) to find my back hall closet doors off the closet and leaning against the wall, our shoe shelves in the hallway, and our hanging organizer holding all of our hats/gloves/mittens hanging from the bathroom doorframe. It’s wood-working project time in our household! Each winter for the past few years, Andy has taken on a new project to help better our house. He’s built tall shelves in our living room, DVD/CD shelves in our living room, and a book shelf in our office (I feel like I’m missing something…). He does really nice work, and he gets to use fun toys tools. This year, he’s building an shelving unit/bench for our back hall closet. We’ve talked about taking out the whole closet to make an area like this. We’ve even entertained the idea of taking out another wall and combining our laundry room with a mud room. Since we don’t know how long we’ll be here, Andy thought this would be a nice (read: inexpensive) alternative. I’m all for it, but I’m hoping I can have my back hallway back to normal in short order. ——————————————————————– Random krazy kid kwote: “He was on a pobo stick. You know, a pobo stick that you stand on and jump really high. It was in the Muppets book in Daddy’s truck.” -Caden ——————————————————————- Now, I’m laying on the couch, blogging, reading other blogs, watching Grey’s Anatomy on DVD, winding down for the day. All in all, it’s been a pretty good Saturday. Okay, I’ve been having a hard time motivating to blog. I’ve actually been spending more time reading blogs rather than writing. See, I’ve been introduced to Google Reader by my brother and sister-in-law and it’s made keeping up with all sorts of blogs a lot easier. It’s also made me want to write more. And write better. I’m not guaranteeing either one of those things, but I’m going to try. One thing that’s keeping me from writing more is that I’m lazy. Lately I’ve been falling asleep on the sofa at 8:30 pm. It’s hard enough to keep up with the day to day, let alone add on writing. I’ve even been having a hard time with my photography. I’m just not very inspired. I’m ultimately going to blame my funk on this time of year. It’s the post-holiday let-down, and the beginning of the crappiest time of year, in my opinion. The weather pretty much sucks, the sun rarely shines, and when it does shine, it usually means it’s too cold to be outside to enjoy it. We all start getting cabin fever, and the options for activities are limited by my dislike of the cold. Here’s my theory of the winter months in Wisconsin:
I’ve decided February is my least-favorite month of the year (sorry to all my friends with February birthdays! I still love you guys!). It’s the shortest month, but it usually feels like the longest. And I know it’s not February yet, but I’m already anticipating the worst. So I’d love to get out of town in February. I’d even settle for March. For a short time, I thought we would be heading to the beach this year. I was all excited. We have frequent flier miles we could use, enough for two tickets. Who-hoo! Yeah, not so much. There aren’t any available seats for “Award travel” for pretty much any time we were thinking of going. Tampa, no. Orlando, no. Fort Meyers, no. Los Angeles (a bit of a stretch), no. We could go to Atlanta, but that’s not quite “beachy” enough for me. So I guess travel is out. We’ll have to look forward to our trip to Las Vegas in October. But we can’t use our frequent flier miles then either! Ugh. I think I’ll treat myself to highlights and a pedicure in February. Noah, my 5-year-old, is very active. He rarely sits still. He can sit mostly still when we read books, and I think he does okay at school during circle time. When he plays, if he’s doing something on the floor, he kneels on his right knee. He often slides down onto that right knee when he lands to do things on the floor or ground. I can’t tell you the number of grass stains I’ve had to get out of his pants, mostly from that right knee. Noah also prefers to wear jeans. I suppose that’s mostly my influence, since I’m in jeans most of the time when I’m not working. If I suggest that he wear khakis or cords, he wonders if we’re going to church. Needless to say, his jeans take a beating. Today, he put a hole into his jeans (these jeans are pretty new-I won’t be buying jeans from that store again). Yesterday, he put a hole into another pair of jeans. A few weeks ago, he put a hole into a different pair of jeans. All told, he’s put holes into close to 10 pairs of jeans. Here are the latest casualties:
How do I make this stop?! Are patches on the knees too dorky? (Is the word “dorky” too dorky?) I can’t afford to keep buying jeans every two weeks! I’m currently watching “17 Kids and Counting” and thinking, for about the thousandth time, that this family is CRAZY! Nuts, I tell you! I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but when they say they’ll have as many kids as God has intended for them, I say God made people smart enough to invent birth control! Please don’t send me any hate mail! I’m just expressing my opinion. It’s definitely not for me! I have difficulty with 2 kids at times! More power to them if they can handle it. But seriously, can she do something about that hair? OMG, they’re taking their ENTIRE family into a “specialty baby store” for the baby’s layette. I can’t even go into a place like that with ONE! Another thing that is nuts is the snow we have around here! We got about a foot of snow dumped on us Thursday night into Friday, and we have more on the way. UGH! According to the forecast, we are expecting 3-5 inches tomorrow, with another 3-5 inches possible on Wednesday. ENOUGH ALREADY! We’re getting our white Christmas, and then some! I’m hoping the weather clears up by Wednesday night to let my brother and sister-in-law’s plane land around 10pm, and of course we want Santa to have clear skies! It’s always fun to have my SIL come for Christmas. She’s born and raised in the Bay area of California, and besides spending a few years in Kentucky, she’s been in California her whole life. She had never really experienced a snowy winter until my brother brought her home for the first time in 2005. She’s had some doozies, too! This year she wants to go sledding. We have plenty of snow, and we have willing kids. Stay tuned for pictures! It should be fun! Speaking of pictures, enjoy some of the ones I took Friday while the boys and I played in the snow.
A couple of months ago, Andy and I started talking about taking the boys to Chicago. We thought they’d enjoy the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. This was our weekend to go, and we couldn’t have asked for a better weekend. We headed out early Saturday morning to drive down. We endured the dreaded “Are we there yet?” question numerous times. We didn’t resort to using our portable DVD player, and kept the boys entertained with books and looking out the window. We went directly to the Museum Campus when we got into town. After parking, our first stop was the Field Museum. We had been talking about Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex for a week or so, and the boys were really excited to see it. We walked up the steps to the hall where it is, and I think it was slightly anticlimactic because the hall is ginormous, and Sue looks quite small in that space. But as we got closer, it was more and more impressive. After we were done at the Field Museum, we headed over to the Shedd Aquarium. The day before we left for Chicago, I went onto the website and finally read some fine print. Unfortunately, the Oceanarium is closed for the first renovation since it opened (of course it would be now!), so we didn’t get to see the beluga whales or dolphins or penguins. But we were still able to see the sharks, sea turtles, freshwater fish, Amazon River animals, and a 4D movie of “The Polar Express” (condensed into about 15 minutes!). You could smell the hot chocolate, feel the cold air rushing over your face, and feel the tracks rumbling under your seat. After the movie, it was time to head to the hotel to check in, rest for a bit, and get ready for dinner. We took the boys to the Rainforest Cafe, riding in a taxi to get there (Noah made sure to buckle his seat belt!) because it was raining a bit. Yep, raining on December 12 in Chicago! We had a good dinner, with plenty of entertainment for the boys, including the gorillas with Santa hats on that thump their chest, the fish tank next to our table, and the wait staff coming out from the back yelling “Volcano!” as they carried a towering brownie with a sparkler on the top. During dinner, Andy and I talked about walking back to our hotel. It was only a half of a mile from the restaurant, and it was pretty mild out. We figured that if it wasn’t raining, it would be fun to walk. When we walked out of the restaurant, it was raining. But it wasn’t raining too hard, so we decided to brave it. We kept telling the boys it was an adventure. Noah complained most of the way back to the hotel, but I really thought it was fun. I love the idea of living in a big city and walking most places. I have a friend in Chicago who doesn’t own a car-how cool! It was a different way for the boys to see the city, and it was good to walk off our dinner! It was back to the hotel, then, and time to veg out. We didn’t have time to swim then, so we told the boys we could swim in the morning. We all cuddled up to watch the end of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (the Johnny Depp one), then hit the sack. This morning, Caden decided he didn’t want to swim, so we stayed in the room to shower (me) and take a bath (Caden), while Noah and Andy headed down to the pool for a swim. Caden and I had planned to walk to the Panera around the corner to pick up some breakfast, but by the time we were done getting dressed, Andy and Noah were back from the pool and ready to get showered and dressed to go to breakfast. After breakfast, it was time to check out, retrieve our car, and drive to Macy’s on State Street to see the animated Christmas windows, the giant tree in the middle of the Walnut Room, and maybe see Santa. We parked our car and then walked along State Street to look at the windows. It was another mild day, almost 50 degrees, and pretty pleasant to be outside, for December, at least! From there, we started back to Macy’s, stopping along the way to let the boys ride a bull outside of the Chicago Cultural Center. At Macy’s, we headed up the escalators to find the toys, Santa, and the giant tree. We found the toys on the 5th floor, but it wasn’t exactly what the boys were hoping for. We also found Santa on the 5th floor, but never saw him, just the line of kids, a city block long, waiting to see him. We decided it was a disaster waiting to happen! So we made our way to Seven on State to eat some lunch, then over to the Walnut Room to see the giant, 45-foot tree. It was really beautiful, and we were a little disappointed we weren’t able to stand close to it to get a good picture of the boys in front of it. By then we were all starting to get tired and cranky, so we knew it was time to hit the road. But of course we got sidetracked on the way back to the car. Noah was noticing kids with balloon animals and objects and wanted one for himself. We found the guy making them for kids, and stopped to get the boys decked out. Noah wanted a green sword, and the guy offered him a belt and a parrot for his shoulder. It was a great weekend and we’re all tired, but happy. We’re already talking about going back in the summer once the Oceanarium is open at the Shedd Aquarium and when the weather is nicer so we can spend some time walking, playing, and maybe heading up the Sears Tower. For now, we’ll stay close to home, eat at home (it’s really expensive to eat there!), and remember our weekend in the Windy City! I’m in amazement today. Caden, my “baby”, you are 3 years old! I swear I only blinked after you were born! This past year has been so fun watching you change and grow. And you have really developed quite a personality! You are a bit more “challenging” than Noah was at this age! You are fiercely independent, but still love having your Mama do things for you. You are very busy all the time. You love music, and really enjoyed our music class together this fall. You have many “buddies”, but your best bud is your big brother, Noah. You often ask when he will be home from school, even if we just dropped him off! You love your “school” and bring home great art projects all the time. You talk about your buddy, Oliver, every time school discussions arise. You are totally into cars, especially “Cars” the movie. If you had your way, we’d watch that movie every night! You have the cutest way of speaking, as you can’t quite pronounce your “R”s. You are also very animated when you are speaking excitedly. And you get excited very easily! You love the Space Shuttle, trucks, books, “Little Einsteins”, and being a boy! You always greet your daddy and me by running to us for a big hug-that’s the best! Your daddy and I have loved watching how you’ve changed over the past year, and we can’t wait to see what’s to come. I love having you in my life, and I can’t imagine what life would be without you, your enthusiasm, and your love. I’m so looking forward to seeing what you learn and do while you are three. I love you, my sweet Caden. What a difference a year makes! 2007 |
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