Category Archives: Cate

new camera! Squee!

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I’ve been frustrated with our point-and-shoot camera for a while. It seems like I’d only get one good photo out of every 10 or so that I would take. Most of them were blurry, or washed-out, or the shutter speed was so slow that I’d totally miss whatever great face Catie was making at that exact moment. So I decided it was time to upgrade.

So, I just got my very first-ever DSLR camera. It’s a Canon Rebel XSi. I think I’m in love.

making out with my new camera
(I would’ve slipped it the tongue, but I’m afraid it doesn’t like to get wet.)

The camera arrived yesterday, and I swear it was like Christmas morning for me when the UPS guy rang my doorbell. I sat on the kitchen floor to open the box, I couldn’t wait. And since my muse was napping on the couch, I did what I had to do for my first picture.

first picture with my new camera

She didn’t even stir.

Later, when she woke up, we had more fun with the camera.

just woke up from her nap

Then we went outside to take pictures of the flowers in the yard. It’s an odd season here, some flowers are still blooming, and some plants are definitely making their autumn transition.

flowers in the backyard
My mom says these flowers are annuals. Too bad, because they’re pretty, but I have no intention of re-planting anything next spring. It’ll have to be replaced with something that has a bit more longevity.

fall colors
No idea what kind of shrub this is, but I love the color gradation on the leaves.

maple tree in fall
Sigh. Maple tree. My favorite.

Then it was back to taking pictures of my kid. As usual.

happy running girl

mmm, PB&J, nom nom!

check out the pink boots

So yeah, I love it. I can’t wait to learn more about how to tweak the different settings and make my pictures fabulous. CANNOT. WAIT.

Also, I have to give a big thank you to Rick at Tiny Prints for selling his camera to me. And another thank you to Casey, without whom I wouldn’t have known that Rick was selling his camera in the first place!

semi-Wordless Wednesday

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The weather got wonderfully cool last week, enough so that we were able to break out our fall clothes for a few days.

showing off her new coat & shoes

I cannot tell you how much I love this outfit.

And then we also had a few days where the weather was genuinely cold, which of course just happened to fall on the day we went to the state fair.

on the merry-go-round at the fair

I forgot my camera, so I only managed to get two pictures with my iPhone. I think Catie is still a little young for the fair. She doesn’t like the crowds (although having the stroller helped; it seemed to give her a sense of personal space), and my cautious girl was too scared to try any of the toddler rides. We only barely managed to talk her into the merry-go-round, but she still wanted to sit on the bench rather than on a horse.

But, just like last year, she loved the petting zoo and feeding the carrot slices to the baby goats and alpacas. And we got her a trumpet from one of those little overpriced toy stands. She adores it.

showing off her trumpet from the state fair

Her other new favorite toy is this tutu that my sister sent her in the mail. It has a button on the waistband that plays “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” And yes, that does get old just as fast as you would imagine.

dancing with Daddy in her new tutu

dancing with Daddy in her new tutu

But, you know, it’s also really freaking adorable, so I can ignore the tinny electronic Nutcracker theme for now.

vaccine'd up

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I know the topic of whether or not to get the H1N1 vaccine is kind of a hot-button issue. A lot of parents are opting to skip it. I honestly don’t understand why, but my view on this issue is skewed. Catie’s asthma is severe enough that a bad cold can land us in the ER (and it has, twice). The thought of her getting the flu scares the bejeezus out of me. I don’t even want to try to think about how awful that would be.

Honestly, I don’t know if I would still feel strongly in favor of the H1N1 vaccine if Catie didn’t have a chronic respiratory illness. But there have been 86 children that have died from H1N1 this year so far. Sure, statistically that’s a very small number, but it’s still 86 too many. I can’t imagine what those parents are going through, but I imagine that if they could reverse time and get their children a vaccine that would prevent them from getting sick, they would. I also don’t know the conditions behind those deaths, if those children had other contributing factors that compromised their immune systems. But I know my kid, I know how her little lungs are not prepared for a severe flu, and I’m taking every imaginable step to prevent that from happening.

The problem is that no one seems to have the H1N1 vaccine. Anywhere. I saw on the local news this weekend that our county’s health department received 3000 doses, and that they’d open their clinics to give the H1N1 vaccine on Monday morning at 9 a.m. So today we got up early and drove to our nearest clinic (a good 30 minutes away) to be there when they opened. (Note: there are four different clinics in our county. I thought odds were good that the clinic we went to would be less crowded since it wasn’t the one in downtown Raleigh.) Clearly, we were not the only people who had that idea. There were literally hundreds of people there. The line wrapped around the building and down the block.

line at the health department
The best picture I could get. Doesn’t even begin to show just how many people were there.

Catie and I waited – and the line didn’t move at all – for about 10 minutes. Then I thought, hmm, I wonder about her pediatrician’s office? I had called them on Friday and they didn’t have the H1N1 vaccine, but if the health departments got a shipment over the weekend, maybe the private practices did too? (And also: why didn’t I think to call them before we left the house?)

I grabbed my cell phone & called, and the nurse said that they have “a limited supply for high-risk patients.” I said, “I have a two year-old with asthma, does that count?” She said yes, and asked if I could come right then. I said yes, and quickly got out of the mile-long health department line.

So, back into the car for the 30-minute drive back to town (thank goodness we were in Dave’s car so Catie could watch the Wiggles on the DVD player; I heard nary a peep of objection during all of this back-and-forth driving). Since we only had to see the nurse and not the doctor, they got us in and out of there in no time. We went ahead and got both the seasonal flu shot & the H1N1 (she’ll need a second dose of the H1N1 in a month). The shots were awful, of course. I had told Catie that the nurse was going to give her medicine so she wouldn’t get sick, but you know, a needle is a needle. She screamed and cried, until they whipped out the magic lollipop reward, then she was all happy and smiles again.

She hasn’t shown any signs of side effects so far, and I hope it stays that way. Now it’s just up to Dave and me to get our shots (Dave’s afraid of needles, so I’ll probably only be able to coerce him into the nasal mist kind). Because really? I do not need a repeat of last year’s trip to the hospital. In fact, if I could stay away from pediatric ERs for the rest of my life, that’d be fine with me.

timesharing the holidays

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When I was little, I thought that my grandparents lived really far away. In reality, of course, that wasn’t the case at all. I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. My dad’s parents lived in Meridian, MS, about 80 miles away. My mom’s parents were in New Orleans, which is about 200 miles from Jackson. Both sets of grandparents were a road trip away.

In hindsight, we saw them relatively frequently. Holidays were generally split. We spent Christmas with my dad’s parents – which I guess is fair, since my dad is an only child and we were his parents’ only grandchildren; my mom, on the other hand, is one of seven, so there were plenty of grandkids around during the holidays for her folks. A couple of days after Christmas, we’d go to New Orleans and usually stay there through New Year’s.

Flash-forward, and now I’m an adult with a child of my own. And Catie’s grandparents genuinely are far away. My parents are still in Mississippi, which is a good 800 miles from here. And Dave’s parents are in England. Both sets of grandparents require airplanes to visit, not short little road trips.

We’re lucky that Mags (Dave’s mom) has been able to come over for a few visits. But Catie has a granddad (Dave’s dad) who she’s never met. Heck, I haven’t even met my own father-in-law either, and Dave and I have been together for over five years. He & his wife haven’t ever come to the US, and Dave and I have never gone over there – which was first because of problems with Dave’s visa, and later because we had a new baby, and then we just couldn’t afford it with the move. There was always a reason that stopped us from going.

Now, though, Dave has a green card so he can freely leave and re-enter the country (hooray for that!), and we aren’t quite as broke as we were a year ago. So, we’re going to England for Christmas. Actually, we’re going for more than that – we’re flying out on December 11th, and we won’t be coming back until December 28th. Seventeen days. Hopefully that will be enough time to see all of Dave’s family, make a touring visit of his friends who’ve spread out all over the country, and also do some sightseeing, since I’ve never been to England before. How sad is that? I’m 33 years old, and this will be the first stamp on my passport (because they don’t stamp it when you go to Canada).

Obviously, we’re all really excited. It’s going to be weird for me because I’ve only spent one Christmas away from my family in my entire life, but I’m also really looking forward to this trip because I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I emailed Dave’s parents yesterday to let them know we’re coming, send them copies of our flight itineraries, etc. Dave’s mom of course is thrilled; she and her partner, Roger, will be coming over for a visit in a couple of weeks, but she’s like any other grandma in wanting to get as much Grandbaby Time as possible, so she’s very happy. And Dave’s stepmom emailed me back to say that when she told Keith (Dave’s dad) that we’re coming, he got choked up and teary. He’s beyond happy that he’ll finally get to meet his only grandchild. Of course, hearing that he teared up made me all misty, because that’s just so damn sweet – and, well, also because I’m a big wuss.

And honestly, I’m feeling a little bit guilty that we haven’t made more of a concentrated effort to go there sooner. There probably was a time when we could have gone to England, and we didn’t. I guess neither Dave nor I truly realized how important it is to them. I think that in the future we’ll have to work harder at that.

why does she always get sick on the weekend?

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Oh hey, know what’s funny? You know how in that previous post I very casually mentioned in the first paragraph that Catie had a stuffy nose that woke her up? And then I quickly moved on, without even noticing that gigantic anvil labeled “FORESHADOWING” hanging over my head?

Yeah. So the past 36 hours or so have been a blast, let me tell you.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a cold. Kids get colds all the time. But colds for Catie mean asthma flare-ups, and trying to take care of a kid who’s lying on the floor crying because she can’t freaking breathe? That is a level of stress that I don’t wish on anybody. Thankfully, we’ve stayed out of the hospital this time, but there was a brief moment last night when we debated on whether or not we were going to take her to the ER.

I was up with her a good portion of Friday night, and since I was exhausted, Dave took over last night to let me sleep. The poor guy was so worried about Catie that rather than sleeping in between her wake-ups, he just stayed up all night. He finally went to bed when I got up, around 9 this morning. Poor guy.

As for Catie, she seems a little better today. She’s still pretty raspy and wheezing a little, but she’s also eating some Cheerios and drinking watered-down juice. And she’s actually talking rather than wailing and crying, so that’s definitely an improvement.

Really, this is all the more reason that we’re getting our flu shots this year. I know that the H1N1 vaccine is a little controversial, but seriously, if a simple cold can make my kid so sick that she almost ends up in the hospital, there is no way that we’re going to eff around with the possibility of her getting H1N1. Her pediatrician’s office doesn’t have the vaccine yet (apparently only local health departments have it now, a lot of private practices don’t), but I’ll be taking her in for an appointment as soon as they have it.

Now let’s just hope that this is the worst of it.

Random Friday

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I had an idea for a blog post in my head, but then Catie got this stuffy nose that woke her up (and hence, woke me up) no less than six times last night, and now I can’t remember what I was going to write about. So until I get a decent night’s sleep and get my brain back, here’s some other stuff that may (or might not) interest you.

First, I had a post published over on Aiming Low! It’s something that I wrote three years ago, back when we were trying to get pregnant with Catie. Anyway, I love the ladies who write over there, they are a freaking hilarious group of women, so I’m honored to have my little guest post featured as part of their Three Day Weekend series.

Second, since I have no brain today, here’s another round of “Cute Things My Kid Has Said/Done Over the Past Few Days.” With pictures!

1. The Fashion Consultant

rockin' the blue shades

Catie’s recently become fascinated with playing dress-up, which is something she’s typically been indifferent about in the past. She suddenly has very big opinions about what she’s going to wear each day, which is also sort of a new development. I knew this was coming eventually, but it’s still surprising when it actually happens.

And then there’s the mimicking of the things that I say. The other day, she ran her hand down my chest, and said, “Mommy, I love this shirt on you.” Like she’s my own personal Tim Gunn or something. And it’s totally the kind of thing I say to her when she gets dressed in the morning, it just sounds doubly hilarious when someone three feet tall says it back to you.

2. Halloween

This is the first year that Catie has picked out her Halloween costume. And she picked a dinosaur.

we have found her Halloween costume

I cannot say how happy this makes me. I know that she most likely will have a princess phase, and that’s fine. I’ll deal with it when the time comes. But I’m also happy to put it off as long as possible. For now, I love that she has this balance of the super-girly – like, she adores pink and purple, she picks out clothes that have butterflies and flowers and hearts all over them – with the regular kid (or stereotypically “boy”) stuff. Like, she loves Thomas the Tank Engine, she has a weird sort of obsession with lizards, and when presented with aisles full of girly Halloween costumes – princesses, fairies, and ballerinas – she picks the dinosaur.

dressed up & chatting with Mimi & Pop-Pop on Skype

(FYI, the dinosaur costume looks great over yellow flowered PJs with a hot pink hat and mittens, and furry brown winter boots.)

And for those of you keeping track, last year she was a spider.

itsy bitsy spider

And the year before that, her first Halloween…

Two kitty-cats

…she was a cat. My mom made that costume. And that picture still cracks me up to this day.

3. Social Butterfly

We’ve been going for walks to explore our new neighborhood. She likes the new playground here a lot.

She likes the tunnel at the playground

It’s about ten-minute walk each way, although it’s more like 20 minutes going at a two year-old’s pace. There’s also a pool there, which is closed for the year; it’ll be fun next summer.

What amazed me was that one day when we went out for walk, we passed a group of kids (maybe 8 or 9 of them) that were playing freeze tag in their front yard. Catie ran over and said, “Hi, kids! I Catie!” And she just joined in the game. Of course she has no idea how to play freeze tag, but she ran all over the place with them and had a great time. She found two little girls (who were both a lot older than her; I’m guessing one was around 7, the other was probably 10) and she was holding their hands as they ran within about five minutes.

It’s just astounding to me, I don’t know that I was ever that brave when meeting new kids when I was little. I hope she keeps that ability and doesn’t get shy as she gets older. Because I think it’s awesome.

cute girl in her hoodie

I think she’s pretty awesome, too. You know, not that I’m biased or anything.