For my next trick...

Subtitled: One of those days?

I ambitiously thought I might make muffins this morning for breakfast. Can't explain how they wound up upside down in the oven...

This is going to be an interesting cleanup job.

Hello, Sigmund?

OK. So I know it's a phase, but man oh man Daniel. Do we need to start getting up at crack-of-dawn, peel-the-eyelids open 5 ayem? And combine it with wailing for "Da-Da!" at earsplitting levels? Mama is developing a complex here.

At least it wasn't a cuss...

Driving in New England has turned me into an aggressive driver. It's survival of the fittest, really. The commute to my former job included a traffic rotary of epically asinine proportions. Large numbers of lanes shrinking to one only to expand again, while at the same time offering four-plus choices of destinations with everyone jockeying for position to get where they needed to go. Needless to say, the pre-Daniel commute started to include much colorful language.

We've now been blessed with construction in our much-smaller town, which happens to be nearly outside our front door. Needless to say, leaving our street has become trickier. Daniel and I sat in the car yesterday, hoping for the tiniest window in traffic. Exasperated, I finally said," Come ON people, get a move on!"

A small voice echoed me from the back seat," Pee-pow. Pee-pow!" I was still hearing this as we prepared for bed last night.

C is for Chatterbox

Since having Daniel, I've noticed my parents like to mention that I talked alot as a child. H wants to know what happened, as I am now known as a person who considers her words carefully before speaking. It sometimes must give me the appearance of being a bit shy, but it served me in good stead as an executive assistant at my former company in my former life.

Daniel's 18 month appointment was marked by the pediatrician suggesting that he might need to be evaluated for speech delay. No sooner did I panic, and begin making appointments than Daniel seemed to decide: "OK, time to talk."

He's been making up for lost time ever since. I'm not sure that I can even give an accurate count of words at this point, as his vocabulary has exploded. Mama, Dada, car, ga-ga (this has meant dog from day one, don't ask!), kitty, pig, cow, apple, milk, cookie, cracker, cheese, walk, shoes, bag, box... the list goes on.

Last night we sat in the rocking chair, for a little pre-bedtime cuddle as we usually do... he looked up at me clutching his blankie in one hand, and his "ga-ga" in the other and said, "Bed?" So I kissed him, put him in the crib and he promptly rolled over and was asleep in about 0.2 seconds. (Please don't be under the illusion that bedtime is this easy every night!).

It is an awesome, amazing and at times totally weird transition to go from being the caregiver and trying to figure them out: Is he hungry, tired, bored, need to be changed? To having them start to request things from you like "Milk?" And last night's "Bed?"

Wow.

Just because I really need to see the sun...

This is me. I think I am roughly Daniel's age in this photo. I am hoping to do this with him soon. Or even take him up to the beaches in Maine. Grandma and Grandpa have a wonderful lake in Wisconsin as well.

New England is just getting dumped on with rain. It has also hovered around 50 degrees (or less) which has had me increasingly depressed. As a nearly-two-year-old Daniel is more on the move than ever, and the weather makes it hard. Would it surprise you to hear that his most recent favorite word is "Walk, Walk, Walk, Walk...?"

To Infinity and Beyond...

In the category of odd things you must see, I present... The House on the Rock. Located in Spring Green, Wisconsin, H and I took the tour with my mother a few years ago. Designed and built (begun in the early 1940s) by Alex Jordan of Madison, WI this is actually a complex of rooms, streets, buildings and gardens covering acres of land. I did not realize at the time, but discovered in checking out their web presence that there is actually an Inn and resort to stay at as well.

The top photo is an outdoor shot of "The Infinity Room"... truly a sight to see as it juts out 218 feet over the valley (unsupported) and has 3,264 windows for walls. Much of the rest of the house contains the various collections of Mr. Jordan, including items such as the world's largest carousel, antique guns, dolls, mechanical banks, areas devoted to aviation, nostalgia, a nautical theme (including a Titanic display, and this creature below...) and much more. It is an attraction that at times defies description. But if you find yourself in Wisconsin, I encourage you to swing through!

Eeewww!!!

Any tips about how to clean out the inside of tub toys? Things are getting a bit icky in there...

The Wheels on the bus...

(Boo on Blogger... no matter which way I type, insert picture or publish this post Blogger is deleting all my line spaces. Sorry about the hard-to-read format. Hopefully this will wear off by the next post...)

Do we have a boy in the house, or what? Our house is starting to resemble a parking lot, as Daniel is in the midst of a full-fledged obsession with anything wheeled. Car, truck, tractor - you name it. He heads out to the driveway during our walks and marches around cars like a little inspector, patting the tires and touching the emblems on the front and back.

Trash day has suddenly become an event, as Daniel must head for our deck to watch the huge truck rumble through, lifting bins overhead to dump bags into the back.

I have a class scheduled for him once a week at 9:30am. This week, at quarter to nine, the boy was still snoozing. Ordinarily I subscribe to the philosophy "let sleeping babies lie..." But we had places to go! So I walked into his room, opened the blinds, started rustling around saying, "Hey sleepyhead..." His little head popped up, sleepy eyes opened, and he looked at me and said, "Car???" So I suspect that there are even a few motorized dreams creeping in there...

Recovery Mission

I finished out my pregnancy with the usual litany of "pregnancy woes" one hears about. Not being able to see my swollen feet, peeing approximately every 2 minutes, unable to sleep at night for the aching in my hips and other joints. Daniel arrived 5 days before his anticipated due date, and needless to say at that point I was ready...

Unanticipated were the symptoms that plagued me even after all the requisite recovery from labor and childbirth. Without getting into all the gory details, I was left wondering if I was suffering the onset of Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBS. There were whole stretches of time where I was fine, but these would be followed by painful flare-ups of other symptoms that were gradually starting to affect how I lived my life. Much testing and "wait-and-seeing" followed, only to find out mid-April that I have/had gallstones! I am now recovering from gallbladder surgery, and the surgeon is pretty convinced this has been my problem all along. Why this took 1 1/2-2 years to diagnose is beyond me. I am starting a campaign where I am telling anyone with gastrointestinal distress to have their gallbladders looked at... The test is a simple ultrasound!

In any case, I am looking forward to being more in the swing of things where this blog and other projects are concerned. And especially looking forward to a Spring/Summer/future as a much happier Mom, friend and person now that this problem has been identified and tackled.