Tag Archives: Catie
Scenes from the zoo
Because we’ve been back for two days and I still haven’t written about it (my brain, it is not cooperating with me these days), here are some pictures.
Near the entrance to the NC Zoo, there are these enormous life-size statues of elephants. We stopped to take some pictures. My mom saw this photo, and thought it was a real elephant, and she fuh-REAKED out. “Where’s the WALL?!! It could’ve KILLED her!!” Um, no, Mom. I’m pretty sure it’s not going anywhere.
Although if the elephants were real, it would’ve made this moment with my brother all the more awesome.
He’s hilarious. (We were trying to get Catie to agree to sit on the elephant’s trunk for a photo. She refused.)
As for inside the zoo…
Sea lions are awesome.
The flamingo exhibit was hands-down Catie’s favorite. She started asking for them the minute we got there, and she was so excited when we finally found them. She’s normally more of a giraffe/zebra fan, I’m not sure why the sudden obsession with flamingos? Maybe because they’re pink?
I love this picture of my sister & Catie. I love their contrasting hair colors.
And then, of course, the obligatory “we’re going to take some damn family pictures before we leave here.”
I think it’s hilarious how my brother and sister both look all well-rested and healthy, while Dave and I look exhausted, puffy, and pale. Guess which ones are the parents?
P.S. Still no news on the job front. Hoping to hear something one way or the other this week!
Friday brain-melt
The job interview was yesterday, and… I have no clue about it. Here’s the run-down:
* 3 separate interviews with 3 different members of the team. – Those all seemed to go pretty well and I think I made a good impression on all of them.
* Writing test. – I think I kicked ass. (Actually, Dave’s boss told me that mine was way better than the other candidate’s that he saw. Nice to have the affirmation.)
* Lunch with Dave, his boss, and another engineer. – Fun. And the food was awesome. (Japanese, one of my favorites.)
* Teleconference interview. Singular: interview. With 3 people at the same time. Yeah. Three engineers in two remote offices (two guys in Texas, one guy in California), who btw were all asking me questions at the same time. – Holy mother of God, that was intimidating. For one thing, since it was on the phone, I couldn’t read anyone’s facial expressions and see if they were responding well to what I was saying. For another, two of the three guys aren’t native English speakers (one guy is French, and the other one is… I don’t know, maybe Indian? I couldn’t place his accent), and the conference room speaker phone was fuzzy, so I think some things might’ve gotten lost in translation. But besides that, some of their questions just threw me because they were completely not “technical writer”-y questions and it was just really, really strange.
The whole interview process took about 7 hours (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and was unbelievably exhausting. I was showered and in my pajamas before 6:30 last night. It kicked my butt, to say the least.
So, honestly? I have no idea how it went. I just hope I find out one way or the other soon, because I hate waiting. Patience is not one of my virtues, to say the least.
Moving on! Guess what we’re doing tomorrow?
(Apologies if this song gets stuck in your head for 10,000 years. We’ve been singing it around here for days.)
So, yeah. The North Carolina Zoo is in Asheboro, which is about 60 or so miles from here. It’s about the halfway point between here and Charlotte, so my brother and sister are going to drive over and meet up with us there. Catie is unbelievably psyched. I can’t tell if she’s more excited about seeing Tracy and Chris, or if it’s going to see all the animals, but either way, she’s practically bouncing off the walls about it.
You can expect about a million pictures when we get back. Should be fun! Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Autumn Weekend
I love fall. I’m a big fan of mild temperatures – not too hot, not too cold. This past weekend was perfect, and we took full advantage of it by spending as much time outside as possible.
On Saturday morning, we went to a birthday party for Catie’s friend Morgan. She lives across the street from our old house, so we got to see all of the neighborhood kids that we used to play with. Morgan’s mom, Kimberly, is a friend of mine, so our girls see each other on a semi-regular basis. But Catie doesn’t usually get to see the other kids from the old neighborhood, so that was A Very Big Deal. I was amazed that Catie remembered all of them since it’s been a year since the last time she saw them. One little girl in particular, McKenzie, has a very special bond with Catie, and always has. Catie absolutely adores her, and the feeling is mutual.
A month or so ago, we ran into McKenzie and her mom leaving the grocery store as we were walking in. We said hi, and the girls exchanged hugs. A few minutes later, in the store, Catie sighed happily and said, “Mommy, ‘Kenzie is my favorite.” Believe me, she’s not lying. McKenzie is 10 now, and in a couple of years, I will totally hire her out to baby-sit. She’s a great kid.
When we finally got home from the birthday party, we both collapsed and took naps. When we woke up, we decided to go to the playground to take advantage of the sunshine and mild temperatures.
That was a great day.
On Sunday, we met up with my cousin and her crew at the Green Acres Farm. BTW, huge shout-out to Andrea at Lil Kid Things for blogging about the farm because I would’ve never known that it existed otherwise! And it’s only a few miles from our house too, so we’ll definitely go back again.
After checking out the bounce houses and some of the other kid stuff, we set off to tackle the corn maze.
The corn maze was… well. It was fun for the first 30 minutes or so. Then the dead ends start to get really annoying. And you get tired of saying, “Don’t touch the corn on the ground, please.” “No, you can’t pick that up, it’s dirty.” “Be careful not to whomp anybody with your flag.” (They give you a flag to wave in case you get lost and can’t find your way out.) Considering that we had 3 kids under the age of four with us, I think we did really well. But after close to an hour in there, I think I can safely say that’s about as close to The Shining as I ever want to get.
After the corn maze, we hung out on a tractor while waiting for the hayride.
The hayride was fun, and I think we all enjoyed having a few minutes to just sit down and enjoy the view after that corn maze hike.
After that, it was time for the highlight of Catie’s entire freaking year. Also known as the pony ride.
Austin is only a year old, so he’s still too little for the pony ride. But Catie and Elizabeth absolutely loved it.
After it was over, Catie cried and cried because she wanted to go again. The pony rides are $5, which is my only complaint about Green Acres Farm – that seems a little steep for a 3-minute pony ride. But I’m a sucker, so I caved in and let her go for a second ride.
I know I know, I should be more firm with her. But I thought of how much I loved horses when I was little, and how I would’ve felt if I had the chance to ride a real live pony, and… eh. It’s only $5.
Totally worth it.
white coat phobia still firmly in place
I took Catie to the doctor this morning for a check-up and to review her asthma plan. Given the fact that she hasn’t had an asthma attack in almost a year, I feel reasonably certain that she might’ve outgrown her asthma by this point, but I’m also hesitant to take her off her preventative meds before winter. The doctor agreed with me on that one, so we’ll keep doing what we do for now (which is a Flovent inhaler and half of a children’s Zyrtec tablet every morning), and we’ll re-address it next spring or summer.
Oh, we also found out that she’s the average height and weight of a 4 1/2 year-old, which is kind of what I expected. Girlfriend is tall.
Catie and I talked about the doctor’s office quite a bit before her appointment. I thought it would help her feel less nervous about it. I told her what to expect: that the nurse would have her stand on the scale to see how much she weighs, and measure her to see how tall she is, that kind of thing. She said, “I going to be brave at the doctor’s like I did at the dentist.” Then the conversation sort of went like this:
Catie: “Does the doctor have a telescope?”
Me: “A tele… Do you mean a stethoscope?”
Catie: “Yeah, like the one in my daycare class!”
Me: “Oh yeah, of course, she has a stethoscope, and she’ll use it to listen to your chest and your back and make sure you’re all healthy. She also has a special flashlight that she’ll shine to look in your ears, your mouth, your nose & your eyes. But that doesn’t hurt, since it’s just a light.”
Catie: “Do I have to get a shot?”
This is where I kind of flubbed around. I knew she needed a flu shot, but I also was so happy that she was starting to get over her fear of the doctor, and I didn’t want the shot to be the emphasis of the appointment. So I kind of hemmed and hawed, and I told her about how the flu is a very nasty thing that makes us get really sick, and they have medicine that can keep us from getting it, but it means that yes, you do have to get a shot. (Since Catie has asthma, she unfortunately can’t take the nasal mist form.) But I wasn’t sure if she’d get it at this appointment or if we’d do it later (remembering how iffy the availability was last year). And plus, it’s ok because Mommy has to get one too.
This morning rolled around, and she did amazingly well during the whole appointment. She was cheerful, she answered all of the doctor’s questions, she gave high-fives when she did something correctly. All was great.
Then, the nurse came in with the flu shot. And she was still fine and nonchalant about it… until she saw the actual needle.
Oh man. I don’t even have words. There was screaming. There were tears. There was blood. There was me and a nurse trying to hold her leg still so she wouldn’t kick and make it worse. It was awful.
The nurse left, and we took a few minutes to calm down in the exam room before we left. She got a lollipop and two stickers (she was only supposed to take one from the nurse’s sticker drawer, but whatever man, you want Tinkerbell AND Princess Tiana? Fine, lord knows I’m not gonna argue after the trauma you just endured).
Then we went to McDonald’s and got a Happy Meal. She ate about six French fries and announced she was full. I think she mostly wanted the prize that came with the meal.
So, she’s fine. I reassured her that I think she did great at the appointment, and she was so good and so brave, and I’m so proud of her. But it’s amazing how one minute with a nurse can totally deflate all of the good feelings she had about the doctor’s office up until that moment.
Oh well, I guess this means we don’t need to be putting away money for med school in her future. Fine by me.
trying not to raise a pushover
There’s a new little girl in Catie’s daycare class named Allie. She’s the youngest of them by far, she just turned 3 a couple of weeks ago. Most of the other kids in the classroom are 3 1/2 to 4. But Allie was used to being the Queen Bee of the 2 year-old room, and she’s trying to maintain that status in the new classroom.
So lately, a lot of conversations at our house have been going like this:
Me: Do you want to wear your sneakers or your pink shoes*?
Catie: I want my pink shoes. But I have to take my socks off. Allie says I can’t wear socks with my pink shoes.
Me: Sweetie, if you want to wear socks with your pink shoes, you can. It doesn’t matter. Allie doesn’t make the rules.
*Note: “Pink shoes” is what she calls her crocs. And yes, she usually wears socks with them. I don’t care about the fashion statement, since, you know, SHE’S THREE. And if she has socks on, she’ll stay comfortable in them longer and won’t run over to me every 2 minutes to complain about some microscopic speck of dust in her shoe that’s bugging her.
—————————-
Me: What do you want to drink with your dinner?
Catie: Milk. Allie says I can’t drink water or juice, only milk.
Me: Um, you can drink whatever you want, actually.
Catie: I can? Then I’d like some juice, please.
—————————-
At bedtime, Catie is snuggling with her stuffed horse, who she named Duck (which I think is hilarious), and we’re talking about her day. (Also: Duck the horse happens to have been the stuffed animal she brought to school earlier that day.)
Catie: Allie said I can’t call my horsey Duck, because he’s a horse, not a duck. So I need to name him Cayden.
Me: Catie Bug, he’s YOUR horse, not Allie’s. You can re-name him if you want to, but I think Duck is a great name for him.
Catie (getting upset): And today, Allie said I had to put Duck in my cubby, and I wanted to hold him.
Me: Did Miss Mandy tell you that you had to put him in your cubby, or did she say it was ok for you to hold onto him?
Catie: She said I could hold him.
Me: Well, baby, Miss Mandy makes the rules when you’re at school, not Allie. So the next time she tries to tell you what to do, you need to very nicely say, “Allie, you’re not the boss of me.” And if she keeps trying to tell you what to do, you need to go tell Miss Mandy to make her stop.
Catie: Ok, I do that.
—————————-
Today, I took Catie to daycare. We walked in, and Catie marched up to Allie without so much as a hello, and said, “Allie, you NOT the boss of me!”
Oy. I guess she misunderstood the part about waiting until Allie did something bossy, and I was kind of horrified that she did it that way. But then? Allie’s response was, “I know I’m not the boss of you, Catie. Now here, you take this and go put it over there…” And Catie turned around and did exactly what Allie told her to do.
The good news is that the daycare teacher is well aware of the situation and is continually telling Allie to stop being bossy. Apparently she acts like that with all the kids, not just Catie.
I worry about how to teach Catie to stand up for herself and not be a pushover, but also keep her from taking it too far and becoming bossy herself. The line is pretty fuzzy when you’re dealing with kids this young.
I just never want her to conform to somebody else’s idea of what she should be.
Because who she is? Is pretty flipping fantastic.
a weekend in the mountains
Dave had been saying for a while that he wanted to go away for his birthday weekend. We don’t have the budget for anything major, but luckily, we can go on what feels like an honest-to-God vacation without leaving the state of North Carolina. We had the choice of going to the beach or going to the mountains. Dave picked mountains. And I’m so glad he did.
Not bad, eh?
It’s about a 4-hour drive over to Boone, NC. We stayed in a small town a bit further up in the mountains. Catie did great with the drive until we ended up on this unbelievable winding mountain road full of 180-degree hairpin turns. Luckily, she didn’t get too carsick, but we did have to make an emergency stop on the side of the road when she thought she was going to barf. (We walked about a city block’s length and that seemed to help her shake it off.)
We got to our hotel around sunset on Friday evening. We got snacks from the local Food Lion, checked into our hotel, and settled in for the night. Incidentally, we stayed at Blue Ridge Village, and we loved it there. Full kitchen, washer and dryer in the suite, jacuzzi tub, the works. It felt less like a hotel room and more like a furnished apartment. Totally comfortable and nice. (And no, they didn’t pay me to say that. Although if they want to comp me a room next time we go there, I sure wouldn’t say no.)
Saturday, our plan was to first go to Linville Caverns, then Grandfather Mountain. Due to a spectacular GPS fail that took us on a 30-mile detour, we scrapped that plan and went to Grandfather Mountain first (just because it was there).
I put Grandfather Mountain on our itinerary because they have an Animal Reserve there, and I knew Catie would love that.
I was right, too. She did love it.
The views at Grandfather Mountain are unbelievable. (That’s where I took the picture at the top of this post.) They also have something called a “Mile-High Swinging Bridge” that people can walk across, which was… not so popular with us. I thought I’d be ok until I actually stepped on it. I made it about three steps, then decided nope, can’t do this, and I turned around and bolted back to the mountainside. I’m not sure if it was the bridge itself or me leaving that made Catie freak, but Dave only made it about 5 more steps before she started to cry and said she didn’t like it and wanted to go back. So, none of us made it all the way across the Mile-High Swinging Bridge. And you know? I’m perfectly ok with that.
Once we were done with Grandfather Mountain, we headed over (finally!) to Linville Caverns. That was really, really cool.
I mean, any time you get to hang around rocks that are estimated to be around 22 million years old, and see trout that live in a stream inside a cave, that’s a pretty good day right there. Plus it’s 52 degrees year-round inside the caves, so after being outside in the heat, it felt fantastic.
We were worn out after that, so we headed back to the hotel and got some take-out from a nearby restaurant for dinner. I took Catie swimming in the hotel’s indoor pool after dinner, she loved that. (“The pool is INSIDE?!?!!”)
Oh! Let me back up. Our first night at the hotel, Dave and I had stupidly thought that all three of us could easily sleep in a king-size bed (completely forgetting that Catie tends to sleep sideways and likes to kick in her sleep). It was awful, none of us got a good night’s sleep at all. So on Saturday night, we decided to take advantage of the fold-out couch. You have never seen a three year-old’s mind blown like that. “You mean, the COUCH turns into a BED?!?!! And I can sleep on it?? Are you KIDDING me?!?!!” Between that and the indoor pool, she’s going to think this particular hotel is the site of Crazy Magic Stuff.
Anyway, she slept great on the fold-out couch, and the grown-ups got a decent night’s sleep ourselves.
On Sunday, we packed up and checked out of the hotel, before heading to the Tweetsie Railroad, which is kind of like an Old West-style theme park. The admission rates are crazy expensive, but then all the rides are free after that, so I guess it works out. Catie loved it.
The park is kind of built into a mountain, and we saw that there was a ton of stuff at the very top, but you had to take a chair lift (like at a ski lodge) to get to the top. Catie took one look at the chair lift and said, no way. So, we walked it instead. It was about half a mile, straight uphill, and she didn’t complain about it or ask us to carry her once.
Of course, after we hiked it, we realized there was a bus for people with wheelchairs or strollers. Which we could’ve taken for free. Sigh. Oh well, at least we probably burned off that funnel cake we ate later.
But thank God we didn’t skip the top of the park, because that’s where the petting zoo was located. Which I’m pretty sure was Catie’s favorite part of the entire weekend.
I think this emu thought my camera was food. He got super-close to me with his giant crazy bird eyes, and kinda wigged me out.
After all that, we went back and got on the train, where this is the best picture I got.
Yeah. Not my finest photography moment, to say the least.
Even in spite of the fact that we were all tired and grumpy, we still had to drag Catie out of there, she did NOT want to leave. And of course, she was asleep before we even got on the freeway.
It was really such a fun trip, but it also feels so good to come home. All three of us took the day off today to just veg out and relax. Oh, and Catie and I made Dave a birthday cake today, since he didn’t get one yesterday on his actual birthday. Unless funnel cake counts. And I don’t think it does.
P.S. In case the ridiculous number of photos in this entry isn’t enough for you, all the pictures from our trip are here.