Summer Update

Where to begin?

Summer is almost over. I can't believe how fast my "summer" goes. People always say how lucky I am to have "summer" off, but it only works out to be about 6 weeks. Some of those weeks are spent doing seminars and school stuff-so really it is more like a month we get off. I know I shouldn't complain, I'm lucky! However, the days of getting out in May and not going back to September are WAY behind us. In fact, I bet most schools are going to head to year round schedules before too long.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new year. I'm looping to 2nd grade with my class, so a lot of the usual fear/anxiety I have when August is near is non-existent this year!!! I'm just working on lesson plans and learning the new curriculum (which is not that different from 1st grade). My room will be ready and I'll be teaching on DAY 1 of school this coming year. I am very excited! That's about it from me.

Bryan's update is a bit more complex than mine. He is being laid off next week. We've actually known was coming, as they are moving his account to company headquarters in VA, and we didn't want to move. It was actually a blessing in disguise though. He was traveling NON STOP, and it was really hard on all of us. ALSO, and here's the biggie...he's decided to go to grad school and get his secondary teaching certification, and eventually his master's in history. Now if you know him, you're reading this and saying, "DUH! That would so be a perfect fit for him!" And to you I reply, "I KNOW!" He is sooooooo excited and I am THRILLED for him. He's starting school in August. The classes are actually taking place on Saturdays and nights, so he can still work. Which leads us to the fact he has NO JOB as of next week. So, we're praying and looking and hoping for something, anything that will bring home a paycheck. Lord knows I can support us on my crap pay! (Just think, when he's done with school, two of us will have crap pay! At least we'll both be in love with our jobs though :)

Next FRIDAY, he will have major sinus surgery. He's needed it for years, and due to the timing (no job and me being home still) we decided to go ahead and schedule it. According to the doc, he'll be a new man when it is all done, and let me tell you, he's been addicted to nose spray for 8 years, so this BETTER help! Don't tell him I said this, but I am NOT looking forward to having him laid up-he is not the best patient out there. But, I am so happy that he'll be able to breathe again. Should be VERY interesting!

Then there is Lucy. She and I have had a blast together on our MWFs together. She's still been going to baby school (I guess I have to rename it soon-toddler school?) on T/THs because we didn't' want her to get out of the habit AND she is very social and loves the interaction. She's been able to to lots of painting and water play and learning while at school, and we've done the zoo and pool and are working on trying not to EAT our crayons at home. I've never much cared for the taste of wax, but apparently Crayola has beefed up what they put in crayons, because she can't get enough!

She's also very willing to sit and listen to Bryan or I read an ENTIRE book now. She's a book nut!

She knows her ABCs, and now we are working out letters and sounds. She knows B and G and D. She's also becoming quite the parrot, which means we REALLY have to watch what we say. The other day something went wrong (not sure what now) and I said, "GOOD GRIEF!" To which Lucy in the background replied, "OOD EEF!" Oops. Bryan is perhaps most proud that she still can imitate the sound they make when you ask her what a "wookie" says. She can imitate almost any animal sound now, and I think the cat is my favorite. She does this really high pitched moew/screech. It is too funny! The screech/squeal is carried over into our every day life now too. At any random moment, you may hear it coming from the depths of our home. She must just love how it feels in her throat. It can really jar you if you aren't watching her and she decides to whip it out and use it against you.

Lucy would definitely want me to blog about her mastery of the "TODDLER FIT." She is an expert. Sometimes "THE FIT" accompanies my telling her "No." Then sometimes it rears its ugly head for no reason. She'll be playing in the floor, and just stand up and start screaming and crying. Those might be my favorite kind. Other times she has "THE FIT" might be when she's done eating and we don't get her out of the high chair quick enough, or when I change her diaper. That one is particularly invigorating, as I have to wrestle a freakishly strong 16 month old to the ground over and over, attempting to not get poo all over myself, her, the carpet, etc. Good times.

More endearing things to tell you about include the addition of "Sheeba" to our family. Sheeba is the potty monkey. Have you seen these?

They are cute little monkeys that wear diapers. They have their own potty and big monkey pants. A book and parent guide also comes with the set. Pretty cute, and very intriguing to me. We saw the set at one of my FAVORITE stores here, Smart Toys and Books. Lucy immediately fell in love with the monkey. You actually set the monkey's timer to go off every 30 minutes. She says things like, "I need to go to the potty" or "Hurry, take me to the potty before I have an accident!" So, you take her and sit her on her little mini potty. She comments with things like, "Oh thank you. I feel better now." or "Did you go potty too?" Basically it is supposed to get your child in the habit of trying to go and making it fun too.

Now, we are not HARD CORE potty training at our house yet (although I was trained at 11 mos!), but we're trying to get her interested in the whole process. She's used the potty several times, and is no longer running in fear when you mention it. Most of the time when you ask her if she needs to go, she responds, "Mo", which is "Lucy" for "No". Still working on that "N" sound. All that being said, the first night we had this little monkey, Lu started walking around saying "Sheeba, Sheeba, Sheeba" and we were perplexed. She took her to the mirror and said it again. Bryan was like, uh, did she name that thing "Sheeba?" So we asked her where Sheeba's eyes were. She pointed to the monkey's eyes. We did the same with "nose" (or "mose" if you are Lu) and mouth. All 3 times she pointed to the monkey! So, that is how we got "Sheeba". I know, she's brilliant. I named my first doll "Phyllis Peeba". Brilliant as well.

The last think I will fill the page with is about Lucy's current love-hate relationship with the camera. She LOVES to have her picture taken, and between her Grandy, myself, and her Aunt Leah, the kid has a camera in her face ALL THE TIME. She even says, "CHEESE!" However, she's learned to anticipate the flash, and now squints with all her might when you point a camera at her. This makes the already difficult process of capturing the kid doing something cute even harder. Oh well. It makes for some cute pictures!

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July! I can't believe this is another SECOND holiday for Lucy. It was a rather low key weekend for us, but it did hold some firsts for Lucy.

For many years, my whole family gathered at my Grandma's house to watch the Farragut July 4th parade, then eat lunch and spend time together. It was something my Grandma looked forward to all year long. She only came to the parade a few times-her joy was in doing all the cooking while we were at the parade, then watching us all feed our faces when we came in hot and sweaty from the little cheesy community parade. My Grandma died three and a half years ago, and we've not gone to the parade in a few more years than that. However, this year we thought that Lu might like a little parade...

She not only liked it, she loved the darn thing! I have NOT ONE PICTURE of it (I know you are SHOCKED). Her favorite part: the helicopter...no wait! Elmo... No! Getting suckers...or maybe the horses...or it could be the cows from Chick-fil-a. No, I think it might have been waving to the fire trucks. Basically people, she loved every minute of it. And let me just say, the town of Farragut has beefed up the parade a bit. It was L O N G. We actually left before it was over. The kid was fading, and we could see floats for as far as the eye could see. It was lunch time, and nap time, and it was getting warm....She didn't know the difference (next year will be another story though). My Grandma is proud. I know she was looking down on us, eyes beaming. No doubt she was having a good 4th too!

After that, we left Lucy with her grandparents (who took her out and bought her a helicopter and camera toy-thanks guys). Bryan and I got a DATE! We went to a movie-Grownups. It was HILARIOUS. We peed in our pants, almost, several times. It was so good. Not like Oscar good, but very entertaining. We had a marvelous dinner at Bonefish Grill afterwards. It was so very yummy AND I got to eat it HOT. We also got NINE HOURS OF SLEEP-STRAIGHT SLEEP!!! NO WAKING!!! We haven't had that for A MONTH! It was beautiful.

Today, the 4th, was laid back. We went to church, got Lucy back, went out for ice cream, and grilled out and ate too much. It was fun and easy and there was not a lot of "hoopla".

Lucy LOVED the ice cream, as you can see from the pictures.

She ate TWO hot dogs ( I should mention she did not eat at all yesterday, and of course I panicked, but it is fine now). It took her FOREVER to fall asleep tonight, and I know we'll be up at least once tonight, but over all, it was a great day.

Here is last year!

Can you believe it?!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

I MUST Brag

I must brag on my child for a brief moment. Now, I will preface what I am about to say with the fact that I KNOW all people think their children are really smart and gifted. I am a teacher, believe me I know this to be a fact. HOWEVER, Lucy really is VERY smart for her age.

We went to the doctor last Friday for her 15 month checkup. Yes, it was a bit late, but at least I did it! Anyway, every time you go for these milestone checkups (which also include an INSANE amount of shots for the kid) you have to fill out a little parent questionnaire about your child's vocabulary, development, etc. The doctor then looks at it and tells you where your child is developmentally vs. their real age. It is a good little piece of data to help you know things you need to work on with your child as well.

So...I filled out page one and two, but still had not found things little Mensa could not do. So I filled out page three. I found something she didn't' know (her belly) and so I had to stop. I'll interject here that she now knows her belly. But anyway...when the doctor came in to see us we were informed that Lucy was (by age) 1 year and 3 months old. By development, however, she is 2 years and 3 months old. WHAT?!?! This is wonderful, but I don't want her to be SCARY SMART. I had a scary smart kid in the team class my first year of teaching, and man! Scary smart is SCARY. All of you SC peeps probably remember old Elizabeth :)

Now, I'm thrilled that she's way advanced, don't get me wrong. I guess her being in the class with older kids at baby school is paying off. Plus, Bryan and I aren't dummies either. This kid just impresses me every day. Some of you have seen the movie of her saying her ABCs.

It's pretty impressive, I know. I mean, just look at her...

Picture of intelligence, right?

Vacation 2010

We are home! Vacation was a whirlwind, and exhausting, and stressful, and fun, and much needed, and now over-booooooo! I really could use about 3 weeks at the beach every year. One to acclimate, one to relax and enjoy myself under the umbrella, and one more to make me homesick. Oh well. I would need to win the lottery for that, and seeing as how we didn't buy A SINGLE TICKET the whole time we were there, I guess we won't win the $28 MILLION lottery. Also, there's that pesky little oil problem...

Our trip started not so great. The plan was to leave Saturday morning at 4:30 in hopes that Lucy would sleep until we got to B'ham. There we'd stay for a few hours, visiting the old college campus and letting Lucy run and play on the quad where Bryan and I spent so many of our days.

Instead, Lucy was awake ALL 10 HOURS (with the exception of two 30 minute naps spread out along the way). Bryan puked before we even got to Chattanooga, and Lucy seemed to be a bit grumpy and feverish and oh my! PULLING AT HER EAR!!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!! TUBES! WE HAVE TUBES!

So...we arrived at my in-laws house near Pensacola about 2 that afternoon. We unpacked and began preparing for the wedding rehearsal dinner we were going to that night. (We spent the first part of vacation there in P'cola area for Bryan's best friend Travis' wedding. I will say he married a lovely girl and we are thrilled for them!). Lucy began running about a 101 fever. I was torn. Do I go and support my hubby and his pal? Do I stay home with my sick baby? There are actually 3 capable adults in the house... I decided to get dolled up and go.

Lucy took some motrin, I gave her grandparents her schedule, and we were off.

So, a bit nervous about sweet Lucy, we drove to the rehearsal and dinner. It began to POUR rain. We were on a bridge. It was over the OCEAN. It was a long bridge. Here is a dialogue of what came next...

Me: (From inside the car ON THE BRIDGE OVER THE OCEAN!) "What is that noise?"

Leah: (From the backseat) "Yeah, I hear it to. It is a whistle"

Bryan: (Looking around from the driver's seat) "Maybe it is that car."

Car passes, its occupants flailing their arms at us pointing to the back of the car.

Me: "What in the world?"

Car: Boom, flap, grind

Bryan: "Oh crap, we have a flat."

Leah: "Yep, it's a flat, is it two flats?"

Me: (I won't actually write all that was said, but let's just say I panicked.)

Leah: "You have to get off the bridge"

Bryan: "I will, I am.

Me: "OH MY GOSH!"

Leah: "There is some HUGE fine if you stop on the bridge."

Me: (I'll just say there was more panic)

After that, we pulled off the bridge IN THE POURING RAIN, called AAA, and inspected our tire. It was a rear left blowout on the side. Thank goodness only one! AAA said it might be 2 hours, so we called Bryan's dad. He was there in no time, had it changed pretty much instantly, and we were only about 20 minutes late for the rehearsal. It was so nice of the two highway patrol cars that were LESS THAN 100 YARDS AWAY to come over and ask if we needed help...oh wait, they did NOT. Thanks FHP. Good think my father in law must secretly work for Nascar. He was my hero that day.

The rehearsal was great! We were able to see a lot of good friends and hear great stories about Travis and Amanda. These two are a perfect match! The food was good, the wine was good and the fellowship was good. We were also in a HUGE house on the bay, and were able to have an up close and personal view of a major thunderstorm that blew in. It was pretty amazing.

Sunday morning we woke as zombies. Bryan had stayed out a little late, and I'd been up with Lucy several times that night. Her fever had gotten up to 103 in the middle of the night, so of course I was frantic. We took her to the doctor that day to find she had AN EAR INFECTION! Can you believe it people?! I thought those things were a thing of the past! The doctor, who I had never laid eyes on before (you can imagine how worked up I was), said that it was mild, and he gave her some antibiotics. We got them filled and she was as good as new by time for the wedding.

The wedding was beautiful. It was right on the water in P'cola, and there was a breeze blowing. The rain held off and Travis and Amanda had the perfect wedding. The ceremony was great, although I spend most of it holding Lucy and telling her that she could NOT get down and run around.

The reception was in a beautiful room that was all windows overlooking the water. There was great food and a LIVE band.

It was during this time that Lucy decided that she was a dancer. That kid danced to almost every song. She had a BLAST! She danced with her daddy, her Poppa, random kids, Aunt Leah, more random kids, Steve and Debbie Hall (Travis' parents), and even got to go on stage and sing with the groomsmen!

She stayed up 3 and a half hours past her bedtime and was going crazy wild dancing. When we FINALLY called it quits, she crashed in her car in about 3 minutes. It has to be the best night of her life to date.

On Monday morning, we drove to Destin (about an hour drive from P'cola). We met up with my parents and chilled in the condo. We sat on the balcony that day and taught Lucy to say "Beach". She did it, and seemed to really be interested in going to see it. We didn't go Monday, but had a great dinner at The Back Porch, my favorite place in Destin!

Lucy crashed that night and did pretty well sleeping, but I can't say for sure because my saint of a mother took care of any wake up incidents there were. Bryan and I were exhausted!

Tuesday we ventured down to the beach.

We knew Lucy loved the pool and water last summer, but were not sure how she'd react to the beach and pool this year. SHE LOVED IT.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that she ran around like a crazy person for almost 2 hours at the beach.

She was not bothered in the least by the sand. Rolled in it, dug in it, ate it, no problem. As for the water, same deal. Ran towards it. No fear. Wanted to get in the water immediately. In fact, she kept saying "WATER!"

She loved the waves getting her feet, and loved that they got buried after a few minutes. Her Grandy and Daddy helped her dig in the sand, and after a few hours of this back and forth between the water, the sand, and the other people on the beach, she crashed. She took a great nap, ate lunch, the went for the pool! Although she didn't like her little floaty device this year, she sure loved to be pulled around the pool. She even learned to kick her feet. We didn't dunk her, as we have not yet had her follow up appt. with the ENT, PLUS that pesky ear infection was still around. But...if the doc says we can, I might look for some swimming lessons this summer.

The next few days were more of the same.

The poor kid was so worn out that she had to take TWO naps each day instead of her usual one.

On Friday Bryan's parents came to Destin to join us for a day (the boys golfed and we shopped) and a good dinner. We took a few pics on the beach, but Lucy was SOOOO tired that it didn't last long!

We have some great memories from this trip and are so glad that it was such fun for Lucy. However, we are exhausted. I seriously underestimated how difficult and tiring it is to have a kid at the beach. I think all my meals were eaten cold, and I am sure I LOST weight after lugging Lucy and her stuff around all week. Also, my days of lounging under the umbrella with a good book are OVER!

All in all, the trip started not so great, but was WILDLY successful! With the oil (that we did manage to avoid) set to be there soon, I don't know where we'll be next year :(

Memorial Day Weekend

Phew! I'm tired. As I type, Lucy is at baby school. I'm trying to not feel so guilty I cry. She absolutely needs to be there. She loves it, and needs to stay in the habit of going. Plus, I got grocery shopping, laundry, and some cleaning done already today, but I can't help but feel bad that she's there and I'm here. I miss the little wild child! She is only going 2 days a week. I'm not a bad mom, right?

Why in the world have I done so much on a random Tuesday? Well, Bryan's family was here this weekend for the Memorial Day holiday and we were BUSY! We went to the zoo on Saturday which was a total blast. Lucy REALLY liked the trip this time. I think her being a little older AND not having a RAGING ear infection made this trip better too. She LOVED the baby chimp, and he gave her a high five against the glass as we stood and watched him swing and play.

She was totally thrilled, and we got a kick out of watching her react to all the animals. Do I see zoo passes in our future????

Her grandparents were amazed at all that she could do, and were quite entertained by all her antics. I am so glad they got to come and see her live and in person! She's learned to sing "BINGO" this weekend. However, her lyrics go something like this..."B-I-OOOOOO". Utter disregard for the N and G. Oh well. It is terribly cute anyway. She also started the TODDLER 2 class today. She got moved up AGAIN. She's brilliant. I just hope her day is going well. I now know what all my students' parents feel like on the first day of school. It is a weird feeling handing your child's total care over to a stranger. EEK!

Vacation is coming up soon. Lots of sand and pool and seafood. She's sleeping in the pack and play, however, she's almost too long for it. Should be interesting. Also, a 9 hour drive to get us where we are going. Not super excited about that. Wish us luck!!!

Terrible Twos at 15 Months

Well, the terrible twos have officially begun at our house. Yep, it's early, but they have arrived.

I REALLY enjoyed months 12-14, but man, something happened last weekend and my child has a new attitude. For instance...yesterday when she grabbed the phone off the end table I said, "Lucy no. Give mommy the phone." Lucy proceeded to throw the phone on the ground, scream at the top of her lungs, then hurl herself towards the ground and kick and scream. It only lasted a few seconds, but holy crap! I cannot imagine another year of this.

On a lighter note, she continues to amaze me. I am pretty sure Mensa will be contacting Bryan and I shortly. Now, I know that most parents believe their children are quite gifted, but I think she truly IS! She knows most of her body parts, has an unbelievable vocabulary, knows A, B and C, knows red, yellow, and blue, and can dance like nobody's business. Yep, she's got rhythm. She eats like a pig (which doesn't make her a genius, but it makes me happy!), and sleeps pretty well now that she has the tubes. She also makes about 1010 animal noises if you ask her what a named animal says. She LOVES trains and says "CHOO CHOO" if you say the word. She also says it whenever we cross the railroad tracks by our house-completely on her own. She's getting better at running, and I'm pretty sure that she's going to get "Friendliest" in her senior yearbook. She waves and says "HI" to EVERYONE (including those next to us at stoplights). When you walk her into baby school, she says "Hi" to everyone she passes, just like an adult would. It is so cute! She is moving to the toddler 2 class next week with babies who are 18-24 months old (she is the baby, but I'm sure she's the smartest).

So yes, she's got a SHORT fuse, and pitches fits way more than I'd like, but she still has a lot of endearing qualities too. Did I mention that she already knows what time out is? Oh yeah. It is going to be some year!