Category Archives: Friends & Family

beach weekend

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Last year, Dave and I decided to take advantage of Memorial Day weekend and go check out the North Carolina coast. That trip came at the perfect time, we’d been stressed out and worried about a lot of things that were going on then, and we ended up having an absolute blast. It kind of sealed it in our heads: Memorial Day weekend, we go to the beach. A new tradition has been established.

Dave, me & Catie in the Atlantic Ocean

Of course, the problem last year was that Catie absolutely hated the beach. She hated the sand, and the waves, and all of it. But I’ve noticed that in the past year, she’s started playing in the sandbox at the playground, and she doesn’t seem to mind the texture of sand as much as she used to. So we thought it’d be worth another shot.

This time, we had much better luck.

Catie on the beach

Catie still doesn’t like the ocean. The waves came up way too fast for her, and the water was just a little too cold. But she had a great time building sand castles, digging big holes in the sand, and collecting seashells (most of which she threw back into the ocean, don’t ask me why).

sandy toes

This year we also decided to invite my brother and sister along, since they live in North Carolina too, and neither of them had ever been to Wilmington before. It’s a longer drive for them, but they took a shortcut across the southern part of the state and met up with us there.

It was great to have them there. It was a lot easier to make sure we had one or two adults on the beach with Catie, while the others were out in the ocean jumping waves. The higher the adult-to-kid ratio, the better.

Side note: At one point, Dave carried Catie out into the ocean. When she started to get a little bit scared, my brother Chris tried to make her laugh by acting like a goofball. And that’s how I ended up with this, one of my favorite photos of the weekend.
my brother trying to make Catie laugh
I love that I managed to get the picture of him while he was suspended in mid-air. Awesome.

So, yeah. We went to the beach, we hung out at the hotel pool, we ate a lot of delicious and fresh seafood, and we had a fabulous time.

jumping girl

How was YOUR weekend?

and yes, we're getting a baby-sitter on Saturday night

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Stuff from this week:

1. Mother’s Day was almost a week ago, and I sort of completely forgot to mention anything about it. But it was lovely. We went to Charlotte to hang out with my sister, and had a great time. We took Catie to a Children’s Museum on Saturday, which was a lot of fun, then went out for a fantastic dinner.

Catie playing at the kids' museum in Charlotte

And my sister, who is awesome, got me roses for Mother’s Day. It would’ve been nice if I’d remembered to take them with me when we left her apartment, but I forgot them at her place. Oh well. They were lovely.

On Sunday, we went out for brunch, then walked around downtown Charlotte for a while.

Tracy & Catie walking down the street in Charlotte

one of my favorite pics from our weekend

me & Catie on my fourth Mother's Day

It was a great weekend.

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2. My stupid elbow still hurts from where I fell on it, and the scab on it is absolutely revolting, but I’m still working out almost every day. I’m just being careful not to do things (like certain yoga poses) that involve putting pressure on my elbow. I’ll be fine. It’s really the food part of the whole diet/exercise thing that I need to work on. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to tackle that. I have a lot of ideas and I’m still trying to sort them out. I’ll write more about it when I figure out what the heck I’m doing.

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3. Catie is in this phase where she goes back and forth between being absolutely fun and delightful and amazing and wonderful, and a 37-inch tall hellbeast demon. And you never know which kid you’re going to get at any point in the day. I don’t really know what to do about that, other than just ride out the bad moments, implement discipline when necessary, and try not to lose my temper (that last part is the hardest one). It’s just difficult when she’ll go for like a week without needing to be put in time out at all, then all of a sudden we’ll have to do four time-outs in a single day. Which may be average for a toddler at this phase, but it feels like a lot to me.

But, you know, then she’ll say something that’ll have Dave and me doubled over laughing, because she’s an absolute riot. So I guess we’ll keep her, in spite of the occasional tantrums.

Catie next to (yet another) fountain in downtown Charlotte
She’s kinda cute too.

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4. I had a little moment of panic there on Monday, when Teenie wouldn’t stop barfing. Everything she ate came right back up (and this was after she coughed up a big hairball). I called the vet’s office, they said to bring her in immediately. They gave her a shot of some anti-nausea meds and an injection of fluids under her skin so she wouldn’t get dehydrated, and they ran some bloodwork. She’s borderline hyperthyroid (she’s also dropped over 4 pounds since we left Washington in 2008, which seems like a lot for a small cat – she went from 14 pounds to 9.8), so we’ll keep an eye on that and address it as necessary.

The whole thing was pretty upsetting and scary, and it reminded me of this post I wrote a while back, and oh god, if something is really wrong with the cat, how on earth am I going to explain it to Catie? I had a pretty big freak-out about that. But it seems that Teenie is ok. She stopped barfing, so either the meds worked or she got it out of her system. And her bloodwork is otherwise normal. So I’m thankful that I get to postpone that particular horrible (and yes, inevitable, I realize) conversation for a while.

Of course, if the damn cat doesn’t stop pooping in random corners of our living room, she may not be long for this world anyway. Argh.

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5. Dave and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary on Saturday. Five years. I can’t even wrap my head around that. It’s not that much time in the grand scheme of things, is it? It’s almost like, “Really? That’s it? Only five years?” Because in a lot of ways, it feels like we’ve been together forever. (In a good way. I promise.) So, I’m a little early, but happy anniversary, babe. Love you.

P.S. Apparently this is the “wood” anniversary. I swear I’m not making that up. And yes, I giggled when I read that, because I’m a 12 year-old boy.

A weekend in Charlotte

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Since both of my siblings now live in Charlotte, which is a mere 150 miles away, this past weekend Catie and I decided to pack a bag and make a mini-road trip to visit them. Catie’s pretty easy to travel with, and we thought it would be fun to check out Charlotte for the first time. I mean, I’ve been to the airport a few times, and I’ve driven through Charlotte, but I’ve never really checked out the city before.

Since my sister Tracy just moved from NYC (she lived in Manhattan, and yes I’m still slightly bitter that she moved in April instead of August, because I could’ve totally had a free place to stay for BlogHer!), she thought it might help her transition to life in the South if she moved downtown, instead of out in the suburbs. I think that makes sense, and it helps that Charlotte has one of the prettiest downtown areas I’ve ever seen (with exceptions for Seattle and Portland). She found this really cool building that had been a department store in the 1920’s or 30’s, and it’s now been converted to condos. It has these amazing huge ceilings with giant windows in her living room.

Tracy & Catie in the window

Playing peekaboo in the windows

Those windowsills are just about the only place to sit too, because Tracy has no furniture, since her movers are scheduled to show up with her stuff from NYC this week. But Catie travels with her own little suitcase full of toys for entertainment purposes, we had an air mattress for Catie and I to crash on, and we had a great time.

Catie & Chris playing peekaboo

I also got to see my brother’s apartment for the first time, which I felt slightly bad about, since we’ve lived in North Carolina for a year & a half, and this was our first trip there to visit him. (Forgot my camera for that part!) It wasn’t an intentional slight at him, just the way it works out. He usually comes to our house when we visit each other.

There wasn’t anything major that happened – we hung out together, we rigged up some iPod speakers and danced to silly kids’ music around Tracy’s empty living room, we ate out at a couple of really great restaurants, and we walked around downtown Charlotte a bit to explore Tracy’s new digs.

My view on the walk to brunch

yelling to Tracy & Chris to come see the "waterfall" (fountain)

And best of all, Catie got to hang out with a couple of her favorite people. (Two of my favorite people too, actually.)
Chris, Catie & Tracy

It was a really good weekend.

Easter weekend wrap-up

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Our weekend:

Catie & Tracy
We got to spend some time with my sister. (Clearly, Catie was not in the mood for my camera. At all.) Tracy’s friend Renee was also here, helping her move, which was fun because I haven’t seen Renee in probably six years, and she’d never met either Dave or Catie. It didn’t take Catie very long to warm up to Renee. I’m pretty sure she was in Renee’s lap within a minute or so.

My sister’s cats were also here, which was definitely a high point of the weekend for Catie. Probably not so much for the cats. They spent the night cooped up in a guest room, totally freaked out.

Saturday night, the Easter bunny came to visit. I think Catie is a fan.

Catie likes her new bunny a lot.

On Sunday morning, we got all dressed up and went to church.

Catie & Mommy before church on Easter Sunday
My new favorite picture of us.

After church, we went to the playground and a local lake (with the intent of seeing the ducks and geese, but alas, there were none at the lake yesterday). Then we picked up lunch, came home, and took a nap.

Teenie finds this particular lap insufficient, but you know, any port in a storm

After naptime, we had a little impromptu Easter egg hunt in our backyard.

Reaching for a pink egg under a bush

After the Easter egg hunt, Catie heard some neighborhood kids playing outside and wanted to go join in. I walked her across the street so she could play for a while. It was very bizarre to me that she ran up and started talking to these girls who are about 8 or 9 years old, and they totally understood her. Apparently my toddler-to-English translation services are no longer needed. That’s new.

Easter egg hunts are fun

Hope everyone else had a nice Easter (or, you know, just a nice weekend, if that’s more your thing).

her favorite aunt

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When we were kids, my sister Tracy and I didn’t always get along. She’s 5 1/2 years older than me, so she always treated me like a baby (which I suppose I was, to her). I went back and forth between desperately wanting to be included in all of the cool stuff she got to do with her friends, and being mad at her because she treated me like a baby.

Of course, we grew up, and things changed. I’m not sure exactly when, probably when we were both in our 20s. Now we’re pretty close and have an easy relationship with each other. Sure, sometimes we get pissy with each other, but it’s usually mild stuff that blows over within a minute or two (literally). I honestly can’t remember the last real fight that we had. I mean, I remember the time that I called her a bitch and it made her cry, but I think I was about 17 years old at the time. I can’t think of anything in the past decade.

And it particularly strikes me as odd, after spending the past weekend with my mom and her sisters. There are 7 kids in her family: 4 boys and 3 girls. And the brothers all seem to get along well with everyone; they’re the peacemakers in the family. But my mom and her two sisters… man. They have this competitive thing, this need to one-up the other and prove that I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG WRONG WRONGITY-WRONG. They love each other, of course, but there’s a lot of sniping and eye-rolling going on too. And they’re all in their 60s now, so it’s not like that dynamic is ever going to change. So it’s strange to look at those relationships, and then see the relative ease that Tracy and I have with each other. It makes me grateful, to be honest.

Tracy doesn’t have any kids, and I’m pretty sure that if you asked her, she’d say that she’s happy that way. But when Catie was born, I think it made her second-guess that decision, even if it was just for a minute.

with her Aunt Tracy

It was hard when we lived in Seattle and we’d only see our family a couple of times a year, but Catie never went through a “stranger danger” fear with Tracy. It’s like she has always known that Tracy belongs to her.

bouncing in the bjorn

post-Christmas poop-out

When we moved from Seattle to North Carolina, my sister flew from NYC to Seattle, so that I wouldn’t have to attempt a cross-country flight by myself with an 18 month-old. That pretty much cemented her position as The Most Awesome Aunt Ever. (She even got to experience Catie’s motion sickness firsthand; and as a result of Catie’s epic backseat milk barf right as we were pulling in to the airport, I’m pretty sure Tracy’s name has been blacklisted from all Dollar Rental Car locations in the U.S.)

Catie practicing her "trust falls" with Tracy (whee!)

For us, moving to North Carolina was a little bit of a double-edged sword with our families. Sure, it meant that we got to see them more often, and that was great. Tracy was only a short 90-minute flight away in NYC. But it also meant that Catie’s tears were increasingly dramatic every time Tracy had to leave and go back home. It went from a few tears and sniffles and woeful moans of, “my Twaaacy!” from the backseat, to (at this last visit) a full-on screaming meltdown of “I GO WIF’ YOUUUUU!!!!” in which she tried to extricate herself from her carseat and almost made herself vomit from sobbing so much. It wasn’t a fun goodbye, to say the least.

SO happy to see her aunt Tracy

A few months ago, Tracy started talking about maybe moving to be even closer. The company she works for is international and has offices all over the place; after a little research, she found out that they have a branch office in Charlotte, which is only 150 miles from here (also, coincidentally, where my brother Chris lives). She asked about possibly relocating, and they said yes.

(Of course, in a perfect world, I’d prefer that she relocate to Raleigh. But her company doesn’t have an office here, and she doesn’t want to leave her job, which I understand. It’ll still be nice to be able to visit each other via car instead of airplane!)

I’ve been scared to blog about this for fear that it would fall through, but right now, as I type this, movers are loading up my sister’s NYC apartment. She is moving to Charlotte. Today.

I think Catie might like Tracy just a little bit

And I know one little girl who can’t wait to see her favorite aunt.

New Orleans trip, in photos

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Our trip to New Orleans was so much fun, I don’t know where to start. I think I’ll let the pictures do the writing for me.

Catie in her princess dress that Mimi made
If you need a custom-made princess dress, it’s good to have a Mimi who knows how to sew. (Also included: silver sparkly headband-crown, which you can’t really see in this picture because of the light.)

Two of the nights that we were in town, we went to my cousin Ryan and his wife Theresa’s house, who generously hosted a dinner/family reunion/hanging-out-talking-for-hours thing. That was a lot of fun, since they have kids close to Catie’s age, so she had a fantastic time playing with her cousins (and their toys).

Brendan & C.C. smiling for the camera, while Catie's having a very animated phone conversation
This picture cracks me up. Brendan and C.C., two of Catie’s cousins, were happy to smile for my camera, but Catie is totally indifferent and is all, “Whatever, I’m gonna call somebody on this toy phone and have a very animated phone conversation complete with hand gestures.” And, um, I don’t know where she gets that whole talking-with-her-hands thing. *cough* I swear I don’t know anyone in my family who does that. *cough cough*

We were lucky to have gorgeous weather all weekend. On Saturday, a bunch of us went to City Park, which I was hoping to get to take Catie to see.

Oak trees lining City Park
I love the old oak trees in City Park. My aunt Michele said that the oak trees are almost like people, they’re such a part of New Orleans’ identity. I can kind of see what she means. Those oak trees hold a piece of my heart like almost no other part of the city.

The last time I was in New Orleans (June 2006), it was almost a year after Hurricane Katrina, and the train ride around City Park was still destroyed. I was six weeks pregnant with Catie at the time, and I started to cry because I always had this vision of someday taking my kids on the train that I had ridden on when I was little.

In the last few years, they’ve rebuilt City Park to even better than before. Not only is the train ride back, and the carousel has been restored, there’s a small amusement park there as well. It was fantastic.

Catie & me on the carousel

Catie "driving"

Finally, we got on the train.

family train ride!
All aboard!

I’ll be honest, I almost cried. It was so cool to finally get to take Catie on that train, which four years ago, I thought might never happen.

I took a few dozen pictures from the train. Most of them were crap. Then I happened to snap this one, which I didn’t even know was good until I saw it on my computer later.

One of the biggest & oldest oak trees I've ever seen

I want to have it enlarged and framed. I love it that much. And I’m not trying to toot my own horn as a photographer, this one was just a really happy accident. It was taken from a moving train, it’s not like I had time to compose the shot.

On Sunday, we went to the French Quarter.

St. Louis Cathedral
Catie recognized St. Louis Cathedral as “the castle from Princess & the Frog.” I tried to explain that it was a church, not a castle, but… eh. It has spires. I can see how she’d be confused.

The Wilkinsons on Wilkinson Street!
Hey look, it’s the Wilkinsons on Wilkinson Street!

Catie & Mimi share a moment by the Mighty Mississippi
I love this picture of Catie and my mom, the way their heads are tilted toward each other. They have such a great relationship, I love watching them interact.

Flying home yesterday was exhausting, as air travel always is, with or without a toddler. But we’re home, and we’re getting back to normal everyday life now. As nice as it is to be home, though, I am already missing New Orleans. I love that city so much.