Tag Archives: toddlers

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.

Type-A Mom Conference Recap

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We got home from the Type-A Mom Conference yesterday afternoon. This was only my second blogging conference; BlogHer was my first. It feels odd, to go to two in one year, when I’ve been blogging since 2003. I’m not sure how it worked out like that, but there you go.

I think that overall, the Type-A Mom Conference was a lot more enjoyable for me than BlogHer. At BlogHer, it was like Overstimulation Central. The schedule is packed, there are tons of people there, the marketers and their swag are all over the place, everything is rush-rush-rush, and while I certainly got to meet a lot of the bloggers I adore, I didn’t really get a chance to spend a lot of time with any of them. And that’s not really a criticism of BlogHer, honestly, I think it’s just the nature of the beast. By the time it was over, I was so glad to be home again.

By comparison, Type-A Mom was totally different. For one, just the fact that you’re at a resort in a smallish mountain town instead of being in a hotel smack in the middle of downtown Chicago gives it a different vibe. And the fact that it’s a smaller conference means that instead of rushing around trying to meet everyone, I had the chance to actually spend time with people; to have a real conversation and form an actual connection with them, not just a “hi! OMG you’re here! So great to meet you! Ok bye!” Which is sort of what BlogHer felt like to me.

Also, for me personally, Type-A Mom was different because Dave and Catie came along with me. In some ways that was harder (no “I’ll take a nap whenever I damn well please” policy like I had at BlogHer), but it was also great because then I didn’t have that urge to rush home to them – they were already there. Saturday morning, I totally skipped out on the morning sessions, which ok yes, maybe I would’ve learned something if I’d gone. But I spent the morning lying in bed with my family watching cartoons, and I can honestly say that there was nowhere else I wanted to be at that moment.

Oh, for the record? Catie freaking loved Kid Con, which I wasn’t expecting at all. She cried the first time Dave dropped her off there, and we tried to stagger her time there to keep her from getting too overwhelmed. But seriously, after that first time? Every time we took her back to “daycare school” (her term), she’d run into the room with an “Ok, Mommy, bye! You go now!” She was glad to see us when we’d come back for her, of course, but she clearly had a fantastic time there. That was an amazing program that they set up for the kids, all blogging conferences should follow that example.

So, yes. It was great. At BlogHer, I was so exhausted and couldn’t wait to get home by the end of the weekend. With Type-A Mom, I just felt sad and melancholy the whole drive home because I had so much fun, and I wish that all of those fabulous women lived in my neighborhood so I could see them all the time. Sigh.

@kaisermommy, @mrsflinger, me & @al_pal

VDog & me

me & Heather

@debontherocks & @anissamayhew

me & Angie (@alotofnothing)

Oh, and Catie’s take on the conference?
During:
oh hai, Daddy dressed me & he forgot to brush my hair!

After:
this is pretty much how I felt after it was all over, too.

I know how she feels.

the trip home, part 2

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Sorry for the delay in getting all this written down, I’m unpacking like a maniac and I’m actually having a hard time making myself sit down at my computer, which is freakishly rare for me.

SO! We spent the night at Cat & Tony’s house, and the next morning we all loaded up our respective children into various cars and went our separate ways. I dropped Catie off at daycare, and went to check out the new house. Still no power or water. I checked on the cats, dropped off our suitcases, and went to run a couple of errands. Came back to the house, and got to work setting up Catie’s room. I wanted the new house to make a good impression on her, so I figured that making sure her room looked like “hers” was a good place to start.

The utilities finally got turned on around 3:00. I was elated. I drove back to Cat & Tony’s house to retrieve our fridge & freezer food that we had stashed at their house. Came back, and picked up Catie from daycare. Dave got home a few minutes before we did, so we both got to witness Catie’s first reaction to the house. She seemed to like it, she was very excited to see a lot of her toys that she hadn’t seen in over a week. She kept saying, “Wow! Hey! Where’d that come from?” Like she couldn’t fathom how her stuff all magically got transported from the old house to the new house.

She’s had a couple of meltdowns since then, where she cries, “I no like new house! I wan’ go home!” Which stinks, and I hate it for her, but I think that once we get this place feeling a little more like a home and a little less like a box factory, she’ll start to like it more. Last night was rough, I found her standing in the dark hallway screaming her head off because she was scared and didn’t know where she was. (There are nightlights in both her bedroom and the hall, but it didn’t seem to make her feel less freaked out.) I’ve been trying to get things set up quickly to help her relax. The kitchen is almost done, then the family room is next on my agenda. I’m so focused on trying to ease Catie through this transition, I have a feeling that I won’t get Dave’s or my stuff unpacked until last. Oh well.

So. The transition is sucking, but we’re here. And this house is still beautiful and perfect and the absolute house of my dreams. So we’re good.

the trip home, part 1

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Yesterday was one of those travel days where it was almost comical how horribly awry everything went. Or rather, it would’ve been funny if it happened to someone else. Like maybe someone I despised. Let’s recap, shall we?

* Up at 5 a.m., so we could leave the house by 6:45 for our 8:25 flight. Catie didn’t get enough sleep and had a huge screaming meltdown before leaving my parents’ house. Fun!

* Got to the airport, got checked in, everything ready to go… then no plane. Or rather, no boarding onto the plane that was sitting at the gate. Turns out there was a mechanical problem, so our 8:25 flight was delayed until 11:00. That means that Catie & I both could’ve had an extra couple of hours’ sleep if we’d known in advance. The ticket agent got us rebooked on the next flight, so we actually left Jackson at 9:40.

Side note to American Airlines: please find the guy who was working at Gate 4 at Jackson International Airport on September 15th, and give that man a raise. I don’t know his name, he’s a thin young white guy with a little beard stubble and almost too-pretty eyes. He was fantastic, he was very fast at getting everyone taken care of, he remembered my name, and he made sure that my 2 year-old and I had seats adjacent to each other (something another ticket agent apparently didn’t think was necessary).

* While waiting to board our first flight, Catie cried, “Mooommy, I go hooome. I see Mimi & Pop-Pop.” I reminded her that we were going home to Daddy and the new house. She replied, “No, no Daddy and no house. I jus’ go hooooome.” Yeah, you & me both, kiddo.

* High point of the day #1: Catie slept the entire flight from Jackson to Dallas. Halle-freaking-lujah.
what she looked like 5 minutes before our plane landed.
Ok, this picture is actually from the flight there & not the flight home. Still, it’s a pretty accurate representation of the moment.

* Got to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport about 10 minutes after our connecting flight had departed. Sigh. We were rebooked on a later flight, and then had three hours to kill until the next plane left. Fabulous.

* High point of the day #2: We found the children’s play area at DFW and Catie had a blast running around playing with the other kids there. Way to burn off the energy, kid. But really, she was very sweet and nice during the entire layover, no meltdowns at all. I could hardly believe it. Lord knows I wanted to throw myself on the ground and scream for a good long while.
revisiting the Dallas/Forth Worth airport children's play area

* Finally got on the 2:25 flight to Raleigh. (Irony: if we’d made our original connection, we would’ve already been home for an hour by the time this plane departed. Sigh.) Oh, but first we had to stand on the jetway for 20 minutes in 90-degree heat because maintenance had to replace a seat cushion. WTF?

* I got us both seated on the plane, then called Dave to let him know we were finally on our way home. Turns out, he had left his office a little early to meet the cable guy at our house. He got to the new house, only to learn that we had no electricity. Freaking fabulous.

* Highlight of the day #3: Catie and I both slept most of the way to Raleigh. I can almost never sleep on planes, but I bought some Dramamine at the airport, which helped a lot. Poor Catie just sacked out for the whole trip.

* We got to Raleigh. Finally. Oh, and American Airlines, seriously? I had a 3-hour layover in Dallas and you STILL managed to lose one of my two suitcases? Are you kidding me??? (They found it later & delivered it, thankfully. But still. ARGH!)

* I called Dave again. He found out out that our utility company had orders to set up our new utilities on the 17th, not the 11th (clearly a typo). So they shut off our utilities, thinking it was the previous owners’ that they were shutting off, not the new residents. No electricity might’ve been manageable – we have a generator, and it’s not insanely hot right now. But we also had no water. So, no. Not staying there. The utility company said the soonest they could get out to turn our utilities on was at 1 p.m. today (Wednesday).

* I called Cat & Tony, made hasty change of plans to instead go to their house to crash for the night. Called Dave, told him to bring the cold food from the fridge & freezer (so it wouldn’t rot), and meet me there.

* Highlight of the day #4: the bath that Catie and her cousin Elizabeth took together. Freaking hilarious.
Catie & Elizabeth in the tub

* We all crashed for the night, prepared to take on the day tomorrow, blah blah blah.

More about the big “new house” reveal later. I’m tired. Will update with pics soon, too.