Category Archives: Cate

The world’s worst dueling trumpets

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Hi there! How’s your day going? Good? Awesome.

By chance, do you have a splitting headache yet? Do you want one? SUPER! Let me help you out with what I like to call THE WORST SOUND EVER.

A little backstory: once upon a time, when Catie was about 2, we took her to the state fair and bought her a toy trumpet. It was one of those stupid first-time parent mistakes that you only make once. The thing makes a god-awful screechy noise, but she loved it. Lucky for me, she soon forgot about it.

Fast-forward a few years, and Lucy discovers the trumpet at the bottom of a toy box. Which, of course, launches Catie into a full-on, “She can’t have that! It’s MIIIIIIIINE!!!!!” meltdown.

So, my mother, who is otherwise a reasonably sane person, goes on Amazon, finds THE EXACT SAME AWFUL SOUNDING TOY TRUMPET, and buys it.

Because, as she put it, “Now they won’t have to fight about it anymore, because they’ll each have one!”

Only, you know, now I have to listen to THAT SOUND. In stereo, to boot!

(A friend of mine said she watched this video, and her fiance heard it from the next room and thought she was watching clown p0rn. You’re welcome for that.)

So, as revenge on my mother, the trumpets now both live at my parents’ house.

And I know, you’re probably thinking, what did my poor dad do to deserve this eardrum-splitting punishment? You want to know what he did?

My dad gave Catie a Mississippi State cowbell to clang around the house. (Some of you might not know just how loud those cowbells can be. Those of you who get that reference? YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.)

So, thanks, Mom and Dad. Enjoy the worst trumpet concert ever in the history of the world. Hope you didn’t forget to buy Excedrin.

Why I’m glad I didn’t go to BlogHer this year

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Last week, when I was in the throes of a “woe is me” moment, I started crying when I was talking to my dad.

I said, “And I don’t even get to go to BlogHer this year. All of my friends will be there, and I can’t go. And I know that’s selfish because I should be putting my kids ahead of me, but there it is. I’m selfish. I want to go and I can’t and it’s not fair.”

I went to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up, and when I came out, my mom had come in the room and said, “Wait, when is BlogHer? You need to go!”

They’ve said several times that they can’t handle both girls overnight, so it didn’t occur to me to even ask if they could take the girls so I could go. I just assumed that they would say no.

Of course, by this point, the conference was long since sold out, and I couldn’t get a plane ticket on less than a week’s notice, so it wasn’t going to happen. But: next year? So there.

This year, though, it turns out that it was really lucky that I didn’t go, for two different reasons:

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1. Last Tuesday, I got really, really sick. Like, fever spiked to almost 104, I was hallucinating, the whole thing. My mom had to call 911 to have the paramedics take me to the ER so my parents could stay with the kids. They pumped me up with fluids and IV antibiotics and pain meds and I finally got discharged from the hospital around 3 a.m. on Wednesday. Oof.

I’m still on antibiotics, but I’m mostly ok now (it’s a long story and I don’t really want to get into my diagnosis since it partially involves my lady bits, and… well. No.), but I’m so glad that I wasn’t in a hotel room in NYC when all of this happened. It’s much nicer to be sick and miserable in your own bed, and I would have missed so much of the conference being sick. So it was kind of lucky that I wasn’t there.

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2. Lucy started walking on Thursday. Like, for real walking.

That video is actually not the best example, she can usually get from one side of the room to the other without falling over, which is kind of amazing. And if I had been at BlogHer, I would have missed it.

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So, you know, I’m ok with the fact that I missed the conference this year. I was a little sad reading tweets from people I love talking about meeting up with other people I love, and thinking, “I want to be there with youuuuu!!”

But overall, it’s ok. This weekend had some really nice moments, even without all of the awesome people and parties and big city and all of that.

It's milk time, y'all.
This is how we have a drinking party at my house.

Sunday at the park

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July in North Carolina is typically not a good time to plan any outdoor activities, unless it involves a swimming pool. Yesterday, though, it was a little cooler than it’s been lately (temps in the mid-80s), and it was too overcast to go to the pool, so instead I loaded up the girls and took them to Pullen Park.

(Note that I am not being compensated in any way for this post. But if they see this and want to give us free ride tickets next time, hey, I won’t object.)

I’d taken Catie to Pullen Park once, way back when we first moved here, and we hadn’t gone back since it underwent renovations. The park is absolutely beautiful. Tons of playground space, a train ride, kiddie boats, and old-timey carousel… It’s basically kid heaven.

And oh, how my girls did love it.

Hey look, it's Levitating Catie!
[Side note: this picture happened when I told Catie to show me how high she could jump. I was not expecting a picture that basically looks like she’s levitating off the ground. If I knew how to use Photoshop, I would cut her out of this picture and then just randomly insert “Floating Catie” into all kinds of other photos, because I think it’s freaking hilarious.]

Lucy on the baby swings.

This was also Lucy’s first merry-go-round experience, and she… well, she hated it. She wanted NOTHING to do with sitting on a giant fake animal, so instead I ended up holding her on my hip while we stood next to Catie the whole time. She had a very worried look on her face, and every few seconds, she’d say, “No no no,” and shake her head. She didn’t freak out or cry, it was just a very matter of fact, “Ok, y’all, I do not like this one bit.”

The train ride was slightly more successful since I was sitting with both of them, but mostly she just looked confused by the whole thing.

This sums up their reactions to the train ride pretty accurately. Catie: "COOL!!" Lucy: "...the hell?"
Catie is all, “This is SO COOL!!!” And Lucy is all, “…the hell?”

However, it did give me the chance to snap this picture, which I love.

Holding hands with both of my girls.

The absolute favorite part of the park for both girls was the kiddie boat ride. Seriously, I could’ve let them do this all day, probably.

This was their favorite part of the whole day.

Lucy & Catie on the kiddie boat ride

Catie was slightly annoyed that Lucy went on the ride with her, because she wanted to ride by herself, but once they were both there, Catie snuggled up to her baby sister, and they had a fantastic time.

Lucy is very intent on steering. Catie is very intent on ringing the bell over and over.

The best part of the park? It wore. them. out. Lucy was asleep by 7:30 last night, and Catie crashed not much later. And they slept so hard, I had to drag them out of bed this morning so we could get Catie to school on time.

If the park can do that every time, it might become our regular Sunday afternoon outing.

Edited to add:

(My mom asked me to upload this video. Everybody else probably won’t care.)

New Routines

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We’re starting to get settled into our new routine now, and it’s good. I’m getting in the habit of making lunches at night before I go to bed, plan out the kids’ outfits in advance… all little things that make the mornings a lot easier.

Once we’re out the door in the morning, I drop Lucy off at daycare first, then take Catie to kindergarten. (The daycare is less than 2 blocks from the elementary school, so it’s an easy commute.)

Me & my buddy.

The past couple of mornings, we’ve gotten there early, so I park the car, and Catie climbs into the front seat with me, and we talk for a few minutes before we head inside. I love that time with her, where we can just sit and talk about what she’s excited to do at school today.

Her reviews of kindergarten so far have been mixed. She mostly seems really happy, but big changes are scary. She likes her teacher a lot (so do I, for that matter), but the rules are a little more strict than at daycare, so I think she’s going to need some time to adjust to that.

Our daycare has an after-school program, so in the afternoons, they pick Catie up on their bus and take her to daycare. Catie was so excited to ride the bus with Miss Debbie (the assistant director of the daycare who picks them up), and it lets her keep a little bit of her routine, since she spends a couple of hours with all of her daycare friends who she already knows.

And, bonus for me, it means that I only have one stop to pick up both of my girls in the evenings.

So, things are working out really well, is I guess what I’m saying.

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In completely unrelated news, Lucy would like you all to know that she has 7 teeth now. SEVEN!!

See?

That is a hard cheese there, Lucy.

And also, that she’s still being a pain in the ass about waking me up in the middle of the night. Which might be the impending arrival of tooth #8, I don’t know, but Motrin at bedtime hasn’t helped at all, and I still feel like I’m going to lose my mind.

So, she needs to knock off that nonsense immediately. Because I’ve decided that part of our new routine needs to be that everyone in our house gets a good night’s sleep. GET ON THAT, LUCY.

First day of kindergarten

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Yesterday’s post was all about Lucy, so now I need a minute to brag about my Catie-bug.

Where we live, the public schools have both traditional and year-round calendars. We opted for a year-round school (meaning, kids go to school for 9 weeks and then get 3 weeks off, every term), because I like the idea of being able to take off-season vacations, and it also works out well for planning visits from Dave.

So, year-round schools started today. This means that I am now the mom of a kindergartener.

Catie on her first day of kindergarten!

She has a dinosaur backpack with an Angry Bird clipped onto the zipper, a Sonic the Hedgehog lunchbox, a My Little Pony nap mat, and new sneakers that light up when she walks (her “sparkle shoes”). That pretty much encompasses Catie in a nutshell right there.

She knows how to write her first and last name. She can count to 100. She knows more words in Spanish than I do.

I love that Lucy's mouth is all, "SHUT. UP. No way!"
See look, even Lucy is all, “SHUT. UP. No way is my sister starting kindergarten already!”

She says she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up, so she can look for dinosaur bones. But she wants to live with me and have me drive her to work every day, because she doesn’t want to learn how to drive a car. (I expect that desire to drive will kick in sooner than I want it to.) I’ve told her that she can live with me for as long as she wants, and I’ll drive her wherever she wants to go.

Lucy & Catie
Lucy will probably be hotwiring cars before she even hits middle school. That kid is gonna be trouble, I tell you.

She was so excited about starting kindergarten. I, on the other hand, have been a nervous wreck. My stomach would knot up every time I thought about it. I’ve been faking it for her sake, acting like I’m super-excited too, because I didn’t want her to pick up on any of my worrywart vibes.

Only this morning did she finally say, “I think I might be a little bit shy at my new school.” I told her that was normal, and that a lot of the kids are shy at first because it’s new for all of them.

We dropped Lucy off at daycare first, and then Catie and I went to the elementary school. We got there early, and waited outside (along with a lot of other parents and kids) for the doors to open.

A little apprehensive before school opened on the first day.

We made our way in and found her classroom. She was a little bit clingy and wanted a lot of extra hugs and kisses before I left. But really, she was fine. Great, even. By the time I got to the door, she was happily working on a dinosaur puzzle with a little boy.

No tears at all for either of us. I think we both deserve a cookie.

Me & my Catie bug. First day of kindergarten for year-round school.

I am so damn proud of her, y’all.

Charlotte trip recap

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The trip to Charlotte this past weekend was really nice. I don’t know how to summarize it in a normal way because it’s too hot for my brain to function.

So, hey look! Highlights!

1. We saw Beauty and the Beast on stage. It was The girl who played Belle was fantastic, but the Beast was obviously hired for his singing voice, because when he transformed back into a prince, all of the adult heterosexual women in the audience kind of went, “… Oh.” He was decidedly NOT hot. Sorry, dude. The guy who played Gaston was really good, and Lumiere damn near stole the show.

Of course, I hear the “Bonjour!” song at the beginning like this in my head:


(Warning: If you watch this video, you’ll never hear the song the same way again.)

2. I finally got to see the house that my brother bought. It’s lovely.

3. The plan to time our departure with Lucy’s naptime? SUCCESS!

Operation "plan the road trip around Lucy's naptime": SUCCESS.

4. We split up so it was boy’s house/girl’s house. This meant that my dad stayed with my brother, and the rest of us stayed at my sister’s apartment. Catie and my mom slept in my sister’s room (her room is huge, she has a queen-size bed and there’s plenty of space to also set up an air mattress), and I slept in the guest room with Lucy. I brought the pack & play, but Lucy started screaming after about 30 minutes there. I didn’t want her to wake up everybody, so I brought her onto the futon with me.

There are worse people you could have to share a futon with.

This meant that I didn’t sleep that great, but let’s be honest, I’ve shared futons with worse people.

5. My kids love my sister’s apartment.

Piano sisters. (My sister's apartment is so not kid-proofed.)

And more specifically, my sister’s cats.

My sister's cat Valentino is very concerned about Lucy taking his cat toy.

6. Overall it was really nice. The heat was brutal (110+ degree heat index, whee!), but we just altered plans and made it so that we stayed indoors as much as possible. The trip home was pretty easy too. Both kids slept for a good chunk of the ride home and it was fine.

7. The one bad part: I came home to a house with no A/C. Well, partially. I have a two-story house, so the A/C upstairs (where we sleep) is fine. But downstairs, which is, you know, where we actually live, was boiling. I called the landlord’s after-hours answering service, but they couldn’t get anyone out here on a Sunday. The service tech called me this morning and said he’ll be here this afternoon, but he wasn’t sure when. Fingers crossed it gets fixed soon, because no A/C in July in the South? No thank you.

Overall, though, A+ weekend. And it’s nice to know that I can take both kids on a road trip. It’s exhausting, sure, but totally manageable.