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Catie made a “book” at daycare last week, and this is too good not to share. So, I give you….

Catie’s Feelings

The cover is a picture of her and a little boy in her class named David. They were playing basketball together. Do you see the hoop in between them that’s at their shoulder height? Aww yeah, my kid can slam dunk.

So, apparently the idea was to pick a few emotions, and the teacher asked them to draw it. Then she said, “So when were you happy/sad/whatever?” and she wrote on the page what the picture was supposed to illustrate.

Important to note: Catie’s drawing skills are, uh, less than stellar. She has a hard time pressing down the crayon hard enough to even make a visible scribble. We’re working on that.

“Catie is sad when Mommy said I didn’t get a treat.”

See the misery and woe in those sad scribbles? That’s all because I didn’t let her have a York peppermint patty five minutes before dinner. Yep. Worst mother ever, that’s me.

“Catie was happy at the beach with Mommy and Daddy.”

I love this one, not only because the sentiment is so sweet (aww, she remembers our fun trip to the beach!), but also because her drawing almost makes sense. Those scribbles actually look like wave lines in the ocean, right? Kinda? Maybe?

Whatever, *I* can see it.

And now, for our big finale (seriously, this is the last page of the book)…

“Catie was lonely on the playground.”

WTF? I have to be honest, I laughed when I saw this because it just doesn’t seem like her at all. I’ve never seen Catie lonely on the playground. This is a child who runs up to stranger-kids and says, “Hi, kid! Wanna play wif’ me?” So… uh… when exactly did she go all emo-kid on me?

I showed her the picture and said, “Sweetie, when were you lonely on the playground?”

She said, “Because, a mosquito landed on me, and it bit me, and it HURT!”

I said, “Well, baby girl, that means you were upset. Lonely means that you were sad and all by yourself. Have you ever felt like that?”

Her: “No, that’s silly!”

Right. That’s what I thought.

There you have it. Catie’s Feelings. Or something that she thinks means the same thing. Close enough.

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This weekend, Dave taught Catie how to develop game apps for the iPhone.

She’s totally into it, and taking it very seriously.

She’ll probably design the greatest app since “Words With Friends.”

Oh, and I got an iPhone 4! Which shoots video! Related: we sang happy birthday to my sister, and filmed it since Tracy is currently celebrating her birthday with friends in Italy.

Of course, it didn’t really occur to me until later that my sister can only access her email on her Blackberry, which doesn’t have YouTube capabilities, so she won’t actually see it until she gets back to the US. Oh well. Happy birthday, Tracy!

We also watched a heck of a lot of Xanadu. (And I learned that if you turn the phone to a landscape setting, it automatically adjusts when you copy it over to your laptop. Nice job, Apple! I won’t make any more oddly narrow videos.)

(I’m still trying to get a video of her really singing it. So far, she kind of goes quiet as soon as she sees the camera. You can still see her lip-syncing it, but hopefully I’ll get a real video of it soon.)

(Also? This is how she always watches Xanadu – with lots and lots and lots of random questions about the plot.)

Sunday afternoon, we went to see the Wiggles in concert.

At first, Catie wasn’t too sure what she thought about the whole concert thing. But she took the popcorn very seriously.

Honestly? That might’ve been one of the most fun kids’ concerts we’ve been to (and I’ve been to a lot of them). You can tell that these guys have been doing this stuff for 20 years, and they just have fun with it and throw in all kinds of improv lines here and there, which makes it really funny for the adults in the audience.

That said, I’m glad I didn’t take advantage of the chance I had to get closer seats, because Catie got a little claustrophobic from the crowd, so we spent a lot of the show toward the back where it was emptier. She usually reacts that way in crowds, same as Dave, so I wasn’t too surprised by it.

I did manage to get one decent picture of all three of us, although the weird iPhone flash thing makes it look like we’ve been dousing ourselves in self-tanner.

Also? Sweaty. It was HOT in there. I don’t know how those guys on stage do it.

Overall, though? A pretty great time was had by all. But I can’t quite believe it’s Monday already.

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Last night I was looking for something to watch on TV that didn’t involve either Caillou or Dora. Catie was still awake and I was trying to get her to eat a pre-bedtime snack since she’d hardly eaten any dinner. It’s our typical Nightly Bedtime Struggle.

I happened to see on the cable guide that over on HBO, Xanadu was on. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Between Xanadu and Grease, I wanted to be Olivia Newton-John. All of my toys were named either Sandy or Kira. Because of Xanadu, I roller-skated in a dress while wearing leg warmers, and I had my mom braid ribbons into my barrettes. (If you haven’t seen the movie, that probably makes no sense to you.)

And yeah, I’ve seen Xanadu again as an adult, and I’m fully aware that it is not exactly a high-quality film. In fact, I’m pretty sure the people involved in the production were doing massive amounts of cocaine. (It was the 70s, after all.) It’s cheesy as hell. The acting is terrible, the storyline is convoluted and bizarre, and the weird “dissolves” between scenes look SO corny now. But whatever, I still love the music. In fact, I still have the whole soundtrack in iTunes.

Catie is just getting to the age where she likes musicals. The kid-oriented ones, of course, like the Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and the Wizard of Oz. And she’s seen a couple of (not risque) songs in Moulin Rouge and really liked them. So I thought I’d click it over to see what she thought of Xanadu. We missed the first half of the movie, and came in right around the beginning of the “All Over the World” song.

If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to watch that to get an idea. It’s supposed to be a simple, “Let’s take Gene Kelly shopping to find him a snazzy outfit for his nightclub opening” montage, and instead it turns into… that. I don’t even know WTF that is, 30 years later.

(Also? Poor Gene Kelly. The guy is probably one of the most talented dancers of his generation – he did freaking “Singing in the Rain,” for God’s sake – and to get a gig in his old age, they put him on roller skates. Did your investments really turn out that badly, Gene?)

Catie was absolutely riveted, because… well, probably because it looks completely surreal and bizarre.

And then, there’s the finale. Oh, the finale.

(Apparently if you want the full 8-minute finale and not a chopped 3-minute version, you have to deal with poor video quality. Oh well.)

Y’all, I couldn’t get Catie to sit down and eat her snack because she was too busy dancing around the living room (while keeping her eyes glued to the TV the whole time). As soon as it was over, she kept saying, “Again! Again!!” I had to search for the videos on YouTube for her to watch a couple more times.

This morning, as soon as she woke up, she asked, “We watch Xanadu again?” I said, sorry baby, it’s not on-demand and I don’t have the DVD, so we can’t watch it now. She said, “We can buy the DVD?” I told her I’d look to see if I can find it.

Since we couldn’t watch the movie, I turned the soundtrack on my iPod in the car when we drove to daycare. I had to explain to her daycare teacher why Catie might be singing, “Xaaaa-na-duuuuu” all day today. (Her teacher is in her mid-20s, has never heard of the movie, and likely thinks I’m completely insane based on my explanation.)

But you know I’m totally ordering the DVD on Amazon today, right? The only problem is that I’m not sure if Dave will ever forgive me for turning our daughter into an Olivia Newton-John fan.

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Getting back to real life this week has been crazy hectic. Here’s my BlogHer recap as quickly as possible (which is still probably way too long). Expect sentence fragments & a ton of links ahead!

* Flew in on Thursday. Minor flight issues (re-routed to JFK instead of LGA), but otherwise fine. Registered, settled into the hotel, met my roomies (I already knew Angie, but this was my first time meeting Patrick and Mandi), couldn’t get the wi-fi to work, and met my Boyfriend of the Weekend, Armand – aka the Hilton’s IT guy. (He was awesome. And cute. And he flirted with me, which, like, never happens. I mean, come on, I’m a chubby mom in my mid-30’s. I’ll take what I can get.)

* Got dressed up for Thursday night parties: first the People’s Party (highlight: I met The Bloggess!), then the Schick Intuition party (and I know, it feels weird to say I’m going to a party sponsored by a ladies’ razor, but really? That party was freaking awesome. Open bar!).

Jen!

Ali!

Danielle! (Who I’d never met before, but she’s awesome! And very pretty!)

* Left the party and sat in Jen and Brittany’s hotel room and ate greasy pizza at midnight and gossiped about all kinds of random stuff with Heather, Heather’s cousin Leah (Leah, do you have a blog?), Ali, Mishi, Danielle, and… um… at least 1 more person who I’ve totally forgotten. (I’m not trying to be rude, I’d just had like 4 drinks that night, so things are a bit… blurry.) That might’ve been one of the highlights of my weekend, I love those ladies.

* Got up way too early on Friday, and Angie and I went to Dawn and Lotus’s room to wake them up. I saw Dawn’s boobs. (Side note: WOW.) We all split up since I was in DIRE need of breakfast and Diet Coke.

* Went to lunch at Carnegie Deli with Angie, Aunt Becky (who is awesome and hilarious; she threatened me with physical violence within like 5 minutes of meeting me, so she’s totally my kind of people), and the one and only Anissa freaking Mayhew, which was amazing. There were also husbands there, and a couple of people who met with us later, but OMG the links are getting obnoxious, aren’t they?

* Had a free reflexology foot massage. Another highlight of the trip, for sure. That felt amazing.

* Community keynote speech. Awesome. Left my iPhone on the table. Not awesome. Realized it when I got upstairs to our room, then ran back down to retrieve it. I ran into Armand, my Hilton IT Department Boyfriend, and he said he’d help me find it. I almost kissed him. (I didn’t.) (Oh, also? Found out that because Patrick and I had been alone in the room when Armand came to set up our wi-fi, and we were both talking about our spouse and kids, who obviously were not the same people, he thought that Patrick and I were having an affair. Even though I’d just met Patrick, like, 15 minutes earlier. I found this highly amusing.) Ran back to the ballroom where the keynote speech had been, but my phone was gone. Found some friends, asked them to tweet about it, and Armand very sweetly walked me ALL OVER the damn Hilton looking for it. I filed a report with security, he took me way back in the kitchen to make sure it hadn’t gotten scooped up with the dishes & linens, etc. It was really so nice of him, since it was way above & beyond his regular job duties. I even tweeted the Hilton that they need to give him a raise.

* My iPhone never turned up. Broke my damn heart.

* More parties on Friday night. More booze too. Wish I knew that the photobooth pics were going to end up online, because I would’ve taken more. (Although that one with Miss Grace is awesome.) Snuggled with miss Annabel Spohr, made my ovaries ache.

Tried to go to sleep that night but stayed up talking about hair metal with Patrick. We share a common love for c0ck r0ck. (Angie slept through that conversation, but we kept poor Mandi awake with all our talk of Warrant, Bon Jovi, etc.)

* Saturday, went to a couple of sessions. One of them was the session on writing through grief and loss with Cecily, Loralee, Kim, Anissa & Peter. It was a really touching session, and everyone around me was crying, but I was doing a really good job of holding it together. Until I got an email from my sister, which said, “I want you to enjoy your weekend in NYC, so go to the Apple Store and buy yourself a new iPhone, and I’ll pay for it.” THAT, my friends, is the moment that I burst into tears. (It wasn’t just the phone, it was a combination of everything, I think.)

* Saturday afternoon, went to lunch at Serendipity with a bunch of people (seriously, enough with the linkage already), then walked over to the Apple Store to get my new phone. Walked back to the hotel, synced my iPhone with my laptop, and I think that probably everyone within a 5-mile radius heard my screams of joy when all my data was restored. (Sorry about that.)

* Saturday night, more parties and more booze.

It was awesome and so fun, and I’ve totally lost my voice from talking over the loud music. (In fact, that was my only teeny-tiny complaint about the parties – the music was TOO LOUD. Which I think shows that I am officially old.)

* Sunday morning: cab ride to LaGuardia with Lotus and Jen.

We look good for how tired we were.

* Got through security and found Casey.

Who also looks good for how tired she was.

* Flight home was uneventful. Saw Catie and Dave waiting by the escalators at baggage claim for me, Catie started jumping up and down when she saw me. I picked her up, and for the first time in ages, I didn’t care that all 37 pounds of her hurts my arms. I just couldn’t get my face out of her neck. I missed the feel and smell of her. Who knew you could miss someone so much after just three days?

I think she was pretty happy to see me, too.

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Tomorrow, I’m getting on a plane bound for New York City, so I can go to BlogHer ‘10. I bought my conference pass ages ago (February, I think?), so I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.

But yesterday, there was a big chunk of the day where I thought I was going to have to scrap my NYC plans completely. See, yesterday we found out that my uncle Stanton (you know my cousin Cat who I talk about all the time, and our kids are BFFs with each other? This is her dad) had a massive heart attack. Like, he was dead for 10 minutes and the EMTs managed to shock him and get him back. It’s really really bad.

It makes no sense. He’s one of the most athletically fit people you’ll ever meet. He’s an avid cyclist and rides his bike every day. This whole thing actually happened while he was on a bike ride with his friends. It’s just a freak thing. It’s basically the equivalent of Superman having a heart attack. Completely illogical.

And all I could think about was how Cat must be feeling, about how I’d feel if it were my dad, and I just wanted to do something. Anything. So at one point I offered to sell my BlogHer pass and change my plane ticket to fly to Texas with her. She said no, and she flew out last night with Austin, her 18 month-old, since he can still fly for free, plus you know, the Magic Healing Powers of Grandbabies can’t possibly hurt. She told me not to change my plans, to go to BlogHer and have fun. (Sure. Easier said than done!)

Right now it looks like things are very much in a wait-and-see phase, and we likely won’t have any news until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, by which point I’ll already be in New York.

So, you know, just FYI: I’m generally not the socially anxious type, and I don’t do Blogger Drama as a rule, so if you see me obsessively checking my phone with worry lines on my forehead? I’m not freaking out about the conference thing at all. I just don’t cope very well with family crises (but then: who does?). So if you happen to notice me looking all frazzled and distant, please come over and talk to me, give me a hug, slap me upside the head, shove a drink into my hand, whatever. I’d really appreciate the distraction.

Oh, also, for those of you who’ll be at BlogHer this weekend? See y’all tomorrow. (Yay!)

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I knew this wasn’t going to be our month.

I started charting my cycles again – I even dropped $1.99 on the oh-so-handy iPeriod app for my phone – and I started taking my temperature every morning. Doing that helped me get pregnant with Catie, so why not try it again?

Side note: I lost my basal body temp thermometer sometime during our last two moves. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it, so I finally bought a new one at Target. Dave saw the package and misread “basal” as “anal” – he wasn’t wearing his glasses, obviously – and he said, “WOW. That’s ONE way to wake up in the morning!” I laughed, but uh… no. (Can you imagine? If I had to do that in order to get pregnant, I’d probably decide that one kid is PLENTY. Jeez.)

Anyway, since I’m charting, I had a pretty good idea of exactly when I ovulated. And I knew our timing was off. I shrugged it off and thought, oh well, no big deal, at least now I sort of have an idea of how to predict it so maybe we’ll get it right next time.

But then, on Sunday, I woke up with a bad headache and really horrible nausea. I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I didn’t feel well and immediately got a bunch of “OMG do you think you’re pregnant???” And I thought, well, if I am, surely it’s way too early for symptoms, but… maybe?

By Sunday night, I noticed that the nausea was at its worst when my stomach was empty. As soon as I ate something, I was ok. Which is pretty much exactly what I felt like when I was first pregnant with Catie. I also noticed that my boobs were sore, which is not a typical PMS symptom for me.

Monday was more of the same: more nausea (which was at its worst when I was hungry) and more sore boobs. And I was really weepy about the strangest things. Normally when I’m PMSing, I get irritable, not sad. Huh.

I bought a pregnancy test and took it as soon as I got home. It was negative. But, I thought, it’s still early and I didn’t use my first morning pee like you’re supposed to, so… I guess it’s still remotely possible? I decided I’d wait a few days before I tested again.

This morning, when I took my temperature, I noticed that it had dropped. I knew that wasn’t a good sign.

I started my period a little while ago. Which, you know… it sucks, but I knew, I knew this was coming, right? I knew two weeks ago that the timing was off. So I don’t quite know why I’m so sad about it. But I am. There you have it.

And? I’m still having nausea issues, which at this point, feels like just rubbing salt in the damn wound. Like, ok stomach, I get the point, you win. I’m so sorry for whatever I ate FOUR DAYS AGO that you’re still upset about. You can ease up now.

On the bright side: this means that I don’t have to lie to anyone at BlogHer next week. Dave’s very superstitious about saying anything during the first trimester, and I respect that, but I didn’t know how that would work when I’m surrounded by a bunch of my friends who all know that we’re trying. It’s easy to hide this kind of stuff online; you only talk about what you choose to talk about. In person, things get more complicated. I imagined it going like this:

Bartender: Drink?
Me: No thanks, just water.
*record scratch, stunned silence*
All 2,000 BlogHer attendees: OMG you are totally pregnant!
Me: *blushing and hiding my face because I am a terrible liar*

So, you know, I don’t have to lie about anything. And I’m free to have as many fruity girly cocktails as my drink tickets allow. I guess that’s good.

Silver linings, people. I’ll take ‘em where I can get ‘em.

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“Catie has a Unicorn Pillow Pet” edition. (Thanks to my sister for the gift!)

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