Sign of the Gemini

For two people who have just about every aspect of their lives planned out on a spreadsheet, it's apparent that we never consulted the stars upon deciding when to bear our "fruits." The other day I got one of those forwarded emails going around describing zodiac signs. Usually I laugh these things off, but Hayley's description was pretty accurate.

GEMINI - The Chatterbox (May 21 - June 20) Smart and witty. Outgoing, very chatty. Lively, energetic. Adaptable But needs to express themselves. Argumentative and outspoken. Like change. Versatile. Busy, sometimes nervous and tense. Gossips. May seem superficial or inconsistent. Beautiful physically and mentally.

Which led me to peek at what we expect Frog Prince's zodiac sign to be.

ARIES - The Daredevil (Mar 21 - April 19)
Energetic. Adventurous and spontaneous. Confident and enthusiastic. Fun. Loves a challenge. EXTREMELY impatient. Sometimes selfish. Short fuse. (Easily angered.) Lively, passionate, and sharp wit. Outgoing. Lose interest quickly - easily bored. Egotistical. Courageous and assertive.

I.Am.In.TROUBLE!!!!

We finished up another round of Hayley's swim lessons on Friday. We did figure out that part of Hayley's protests in the water have a lot to do with the temperature. This is one little girl who DOES NOT like to be cold. The pool temperature for lessons is kept at 88 degrees, but we've had several rather cool mornings here that have been in the sixties. We went to a few noon time lessons to see if temperatures close to 80 degrees made a difference in Hayley's attitude and she was a completely different student. Who can blame her distaste for the cold weather though? It's not like she has ANY meat on her little bones and neither Brian nor I passed on any genetic adaptation to cold weather. We're planning on continuing with just a weekly swim lesson for the rest of the summer. Hopefully we'll be able to keep Hayley in the pool quite a bit this summer and she'll get this whole swim/float thing mastered.

Happy Easter!

Hayley has had a busy Easter weekend We had a family dinner on Saturday evening and Hayley certainly enjoyed having so many people to entertain. We attended church service Sunday morning and Hayley got to show off her Easter dress. Apparently it was well received which was a problem for Hayley. She looked so cute in her dress that one little boy in the church nursery decided to hug her a little bit harder than she liked. She was in tears when we picked her up but Daddy reassured Hayley that getting upset because a boy hugged her is exactly what she is supposed to do! We returned home for an Easter egg hunt. Hayley surprised us an was actually really interested in hunting for the eggs. She'd find one, and then look up at us and ask "more?" She did a VERY good job of finding all the "hidden" eggs!

Pictures of our day:

Easter_2008

Here's some video of Hayley playing with the puzzle the bunny man brought her!

I'm getting a little nervous

Paranoid may be the better term to use. As I prepare for my second go round, I'm more nervous about labor and delivery then I ever was while pregnant with Hayley. With Hayley, I didn't know what to expect and in a way that was a good thing. With Frog Prince, I have an idea of what to expect and that is where the problem lies.

My labor with Hayley was really fairly "easy" (as easy as labor and delivery can be, right girls?) On the day of Hayley's birth, I woke up at 4:30am with some mild stomach pains that I really didn't think could be labor. I'd never had Braxton Hicks contractions so I thought that perhaps maybe that was what was going on. However, I was exactly 40 weeks pregnant and ready to reclaim my body and so I did all those things that I heard were supposed to get labor going. I walked Chloe, I pulled weeds, I cleaned up around the house. Still, no pattern to my contractions. By 11am I had 1 or 2 fairly painful contractions and I told Brian that perhaps we should just go down to the hospital to be on the safe side. When we got to the hospital at 11:30am I was 4 cm dilated. By 1:40pm I was fully dilated and we were waiting for my epidural to take effect so I could start pushing. Hayley was born at 2:01pm.

Obviously, I had a quick labor. Which was wonderful. But, that is also the source of my current concern. I keep hearing that second labors are usually much shorter than first labors and quite frankly I'm not the least bit interested in redeeming my 15 minutes of fame by having a newspaper article written about the woman who birthed her baby at home with the help of her toddler and trusty Shih Tzu. I'm into the au natural thing and even considered a natural birth (for about a day) but really, I want NEED my epidural!

On the flip side, I could be one of those anomalies where my second labor is longer and more drawn out then my first. Oh wait, that doesn't sound appealing either!!! Add that to the anxiety that is wreaking havoc on my Type A personality over the fact that I don't know exactly when this baby will come and I'm a paranoid ball of nerves. You can see I'm in quite the conundrum. If I don't blog for awhile, it's because I've gotten all too stressed out about this and have decided to setup a tent to live in the hospital parking lot.

Change of Heart

So after a miraculous and speedy recovery from the flu, Hayley returned to swim lessons on Monday. I'm thinking she must have really felt badly over the weekend because there is no other explanation for the sudden change in her attitude towards swim lessons. For the past two weeks, Hayley has been fit to be tied during each lesson. She's not uncomfortable and it's not that she's scared of the water. It's that SHE isn't getting to do what SHE wants to do... and so she screams. But on Monday, Hayley squealed with delight the entire time she was in the water.
Yes, I am talking about Hayley Roberts. Her excitement over swimming has continued throughout the week and she is now dragging me out of the house in the morning. So maybe it's an appreciation for the little things in life like feeling well enough to go to a simple swim lesson. Or, perhaps she just came to the realization that she looks so darn good in a swimsuit that she'd better learn to swim so she can wear a swimsuit more often. Either way I'll take it.

DEFCON 1

Alert Homeland Security. Our perimeter has been breached. Hayley has become the not so proud recipient of influenza. We had a normal day on Thursday with the routine afternoon nap. But when she woke up at her usual time she was burning up with a 103 degree fever. After a bit of Tylenol and a cool bath, her temp came back down and we had a relatively normal dinner. I thought perhaps she's just battling a virus and off to bed she went like usual. Until about 9pm when we heard her coughing and ran to her room to find her and her bed covered in... why didn't anybody tell me that kids throw up??!!! (Oh goodie, looks like I've earned the coveted vomit badge to add to my Mommy Vest.) Brian assumed the role of combat medic and I took over as combat surgeon. We made the decision to MEDEVAC Hayley to the tub. Hayley refused to let go of Pooh who was severely injured in the blast. Froggy was in bad shape as well, but apparently Hayley doesn't follow that "no man left behind" motto. Once we cleaned up Hayley's battle wounds we were better able to assess her condition and see the full extent of her injuries. Once again, her fever was back up to 104 and we were seriously considering MEDEVACing Hayley to the ER. I have to admit, we've known there would be war, but we probably haven't trained properly and certainly had never experienced this type of warfare before. Dare I say we were a bit unprepared and may have PANICKED??!! We opted for our next line of defense, the on-call Pediatrician who gave us some advice on getting Hayley's fever down and telling us when an ER visit would truly be appropriate. It took about 2 hours, but we finally lowered her temp to the point that she was comfortable and able to get some rest. She battled the fever all night as we monitored our patient with frequent temperature checks and Tylenol doses. Friday morning I packed Hayley up and we headed down to the Dr. for a nasal swab that confirmed that Hayley had indeed contracted the flu.

We know a few people who have battled this strain of flu this year and from what the Dr. told us to expect, we really were expecting a very unpleasant week. So far though, Hayley has shocked us as her fever has been absent since last night, she shows no other symptoms besides maybe the hint of a runny nose, and has been running around the house all day long like nothing ever happened. I've been spending the past two days armed with Lysol trying to decontaminate the house and praying that Brian's and my immune system can fight off the threat. I've even contemplated bathing in Emergen-C, because quite frankly, being 34 weeks pregnant with the flu is not something that I have any desire to experience. So I'm going to call this battle a draw. Obviously I lost the battle because somehow Hayley ended up with the flu. But, because of her strong immune system, which I'm choosing to believe that good nutrition and sleep played a part in, she successfully fought off the foreign invader.

And yes, I keep score of these battles. I HATE being sick and therefore I HATE germs. It's a personal mission of mine to keep my family and myself healthy so a germ invasion resulting in illness is like a personal failure to me. Now that we have one walking petri dish and another on the way, I'm going to have to step up my germ warfare readiness even further. I thereby declare that this household will remain at DEFCON 3 for the foreseeable future.

Oh, and because I know you're probably concerned, thanks to my "expert" surgical/laundromat skills, both Pooh and Froggy were awarded a Purple Heart for their brave sacrifice. They have made a full recovery and have returned to Sergeant Hayley's platoon.

Weekend Recovery

After a busy weekend we are slowly recovering and getting back into the swing (or swim) of things. Hayley spent Friday night at Nana and Papa's so Mommy and Daddy could participate in the community garage sale and unload the several boxes of "treasures" that we have been carting around since our college days. Brian and I had made a pact that whatever didn't sell would be donated and so we priced accordingly. We had a successful day and I'm greatly relieved to have rid ourselves of this excess baggage. Now we have room in the garage for all the new "rides" we seem to be quickly accumulating. Between the wagon, multiple strollers, and miscellaneous kid gear I'm beginning to think we should have built a four car garage.

On Sunday we decided to take a family trip out to Lido Key and let Hayley have some beach time. We live just minutes from the Gulf and don't take advantage of the beach nearly as often as we should as this is the first time Hayley has been to the beach since she could walk. It took us awhile to get across the bridge as the Sarasota Marathon was underway. I thought about the irony... last year at this time I had made it my goal to train for this year's half marathon. Looks like now I'll have an additional training partner to get my buns in gear for next year.

Unbeknownst to us, Hayley knew it was race day. I'm not quite sure why Brian and I thought that Hayley would be happy to just sit and play in the sand. Why on earth would ANYBODY (particularly Hayley) sit and relax on the beach when there are seagulls to chase, people to talk to, and lots of places to explore. Hayley ran for forty five minutes straight and only stopped because we couldn't take anymore beach bootcamp so we packed up and called it a morning. Due to the fact that Hayley can now outrun my waddle, I got to be on camera duty and Brian was the lucky recipient of Hayley's intense cardio workout.

Yesterday we resumed the ISR swim lessons that Hayley began last summer. She has retained a lot of the skills she learned last summer which is great, but let's just say that we've still got some challenges ahead of us. More on this to come.

Lost in Translation

Hayley has been talking up a storm lately. I know she must think we're dense when she tells us this big long story and we just say, "uh... yeah... that's right." A conversation with Hayley is like speaking to someone who speaks a different language. You have NO IDEA what they're saying but occasionally you hear an English word that you know. Such was storytime with Daddy last night as Hayley told us all about Corduroy and his Easter egg hunt. All we know is that she had a lot to say about the wab-beet (translation: rabbit) and the egg.

Privacy? Ha!

I went to get Hayley out of bed this morning and the moment I opened the door she promptly yelled "Monkey!" and pointed at the monkey on her border. She's never actually said the word monkey before, so I wasn't aware that she actually knew what a monkey was. Usually when I get her up in the morning I say something to the effect like "How'd my little monkey sleep?" Apparently she wanted to make it clear to me that she is not the monkey! She then said "sheep" and pointed to the zebra. Guess we'll keep working on animals.

So after Hayley's breakfast I headed off to take a shower. Usually Hayley will sit in the family room and watch an episode of Pinky Dinky Doo while I get ready. Of course today she must have been feeling her oats because she decided to take advantage of my helpless condition. I'd gotten my hair lathered up with shampoo when Hayley came running into the bathroom with a mischievous look on her face yelling "tower, tower." (I've long given up on ANY expectation of privacy ANYWHERE in the bathroom!) At first I thought she was saying "towel," but then she said, "Pooh, tower" and the next thing I knew, Pooh was in the shower with me! "Oh, she's saying SHOWER!!!" I pulled a wet Pooh out from under my feet and told Hayley that Pooh didn't need a shower, he'd just had a bath last week. She smiled and ran out of the bathroom. Moments later she was back with "that" look on her face. She grabbed the towels that were right next to the shower (you know, the ones I'd placed there to towel off with) and took off down the hallway towards the bedroom door where she dropped the towels and ran back into the family room.

As I dripped my way to my misplaced towels I wondered to myself how I'm ever going to survive when Hayley's partner in crime gets here. It doesn't look good for me so far.

The Big Slide

We spent Saturday back out at the strawberry patch picking strawberries. They had a "deal" going and we ended up with five pounds of berry goodness to bring home. You'd think that five pounds of strawberries would overwhelm us, but we seem to have made a pretty good dent in them. If we look a little red in future pictures, you'll know why!
Today we took Hayley over to the park for some playtime. Brian had told me that he had been letting Hayley go down the "big" slide by herself. I rolled my eyes at him thinking, "of course she's big enough to handle the big slide." That was until Friday when I took Hayley to the park by myself and about had a heart attack when she scampered up the jungle gym to get to that big slide. It really is a BIG slide! I grabbed her before she could head down and took her to the slide that is more age appropriate. Of course today, with Daddy there, I felt a little more courageous and watched as my fearless babe headed down that big slide all by herself! My little girl is growing so fast!
The "Big" slide
Climbing up the jungle gym
An action shot
Some video of Hayley going down the little slide

Another night of blissful slumber...

in her new bed! If only I could sleep this good!

Not to count our chickens...

...but we "think" our little princess may have flawlessly made the transition to her big girl bed! Over the past few weeks we've been preparing Hayley's new room. She will eventually share this room with little brother and the nursery will become their play room, but for the next year or so, it is all Hayley's. Brian and I spent a weekend painting and putting up a new border for her. Last weekend we moved her crib into her new big girl bedroom and for the past week she has been sleeping in her new room all in preparation for last night's grand finale.

I'll preface all of this by saying that Hayley REALLY enjoys going to bed at night. Each evening we wind down (actually there isn't really any "winding down" for Hayley) by watching Wheel of Fortune at 7pm. Hayley has always loved Wheel of Fortune and likes to hear contestants call the letters. She also looks forward to any pharmaceutical commercials that come on during that time. We've never been able to figure that one out, but she will drop everything she is doing to zero in on a pharmaceutical commercial. Anyhow, after the bonus round, Hayley grabs her milk, tells Mommy "bye," and grabs Daddy's finger to lead him off to storytime. After a few books, she then tells Daddy, "I done." Daddy will repeat Hayley's command and she will follow up by telling him, "bed, seep." At that point, it's off to bed where once in bed Hayley promptly tells us "bye." Never did we expect to have a toddler who so adamantly enjoys going to bed (and being left alone I might add). The comfort of this enjoyable, predictable and easy bedtime routine has made both Brian and I very nervous about the big girl bed transition. After all, why would you want to "fix" something that isn't broken? We absolutely enjoy our peaceful evenings and knowing that they are quickly dwindling doesn't make us at all anxious to do something that would make the peace cease immediately.

Last night we followed our regular bedtime routine except this time, Hayley was placed in her big girl bed. She got a little irritated at first and kept trying to climb into her crib. She'd drop Pooh in the crib, and go back and get her blanket and Froggy and drop them in the crib and then look up at us and fuss. After all, she wanted to go to bed!! Finally, I laid down on the bed with Pooh and Froggy and showed her that it was a place to sleep. She laid down next to me. After realizing that it was comfortable, she sat up, pushed me, and told me "bye." In other words, "get the heck outta here, I'm ready to go to bed!" I stood there and rubbed her back a bit and then slipped out of the room before heading off to watch her actions on our surveillance camera. Yes, we've hooked up a camera in Hayley's room that allows us to "spy" on our little dear all by turning to a channel on our tv. (Next, Brian plans to implant Hayley with a GPS microchip. We wouldn't want her to ever "get away" with anything!) It took Hayley a while to figure out exactly where to sleep in her new bed to be comfortable, but bless her heart she laid there and eventually went to sleep without so much as a fuss.

We had originally intended to start letting her sleep in the big girl bed at night while keeping her in the crib for naps. Naptime can be a little challenging as Hayley likes to sit and chat for a good 30 minutes before falling asleep. I figured naptime would be a difficult time to keep her in bed. But, after last night's success, we decided we should try the big girl bed for naps as well so we didn't confuse her. So at 1pm off to the big girl bed she went. I sat her down in bed and she immediately told me "bye." She seemed pleased as punch to be in her bed, so I left the room. She jabbered for a good 30 minutes like usual and then, SILENCE!

So, at this point, we're 2 for 2 and cautiously optimistic that we get to put a check next to one of those New Year's goals! It's days like this when we think, "hey, this parenting thing is pretty easy!" Yeah, I know, we'll probably get the rug pulled out from under us later this week!

Here's a little snippet of Hayley's first impression of the big girl bed. Lucky for us, her attitude changed quickly.

Hurricane Roars!

In case we haven't mentioned it before, Hayley is very advanced. She's so advanced in fact that we're afriad she's hitting those "Terrible Twos" just a tad bit early. We've had several power struggles over the past week or two and Ms. Hurricane just doesn't seem to understand who's wearing the pants, or shall I say shoes, around here. It definitely keeps our outings interesting and I'm sure we'll thank Hayley later. After all, she's just trying to keep us on top of our game in preparation for her little brother. He's going to be a troublemaker she tells me... moreso than Chloe or Pooh.

Hayley's vocabulary has really taken off over the past few weeks and it has been fun to hear what new word she will pick up on. She's obsessed with animals... particularly cows. Every large mammal is a cow. We took a walk the other day and ran into a lady walking a German Shephard. Hayley instantly began mooing at the dog. Granted, he was the size of a cow, but I think I probably need to expose Hayley to some larger dogs besides Chloe.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and Brian and I spent a romantic morning together creating our wills... because nothing says love like planning for your death! After our morbid morning, we were able to enjoy lunch by the bay. The weather was perfect and we sat outside and enjoyed a nice lunch with each other. Overall, it was a great Valentine's Day. I could care less about flowers and chocolates... I'll take lunch in a beautiful setting with my favorite, good-looking Valentine anyday!

Hot flashes, indigestion, and loss of brain cells

Ah, pregnancy. It's a beautiful thing. I must be getting spoiled because now just being nausea free is not enough. I'm asking for more. Brian and I have the same conversation each night as we climb into bed.

Me: "Is it hot in here to you?"
Brian: "No, not really." (as he pulls on his wool socks)
Me: "You didn't turn the heat on did you?" (Knowing I'm probably going to wake up at 3am in a pool of my own sweat)
Brian: "I don't want Hayley to get cold."

Obviously his internal thermostat is broken because it couldn't possibly be me. In fact, I'm beginning to think that all these Floridians are certifiably crazy. The other morning Hayley and I headed outside to take Chloe for a walk. I had on shorts and a t-shirt, as did Hayley. It felt WONDERFUL outside. As we walked, we ran into one of the neighbors who looked at me strange and said "aren't you all cold??" He was wearing a sweatshirt and gloves. Obviously I wasn't cold and I could tell he was worried about the welfare of my daughter. His thermostat must be broken too. Luckily, Hayley seems to run about as warm blooded as me right now, so we're a good pair.

I think Hayley is warm because of all the running around she does and I'm pretty sure that I've identified the source that is making me so hot blooded. I like to call it my "fire within." It's coming from my esophagus. It's on fire all day long. Eating is becoming an exercise in misery once again as EVERYTHING I ingest results in the all day burn. Some foods are more pyrotechnic however. My general rule of thumb is that if it is enjoyable to eat (ie: decaf coffee, chocolate and tomato based foods, so long sweet Italian), then it will probably induce indigestion that is incurable by Tums or Maalox (of which I should own stock in by this point). I had (what I thought was bad at the time) indigestion with Hayley and we all know how much hair my little baldy had for her first year of life. If Frog Prince is born bald then I think I can safely shoot down that whole indigestion is linked to babies with lots of hair study.

But of all the perils of pregnancy, I've concluded that the most damaging one of all is the loss of my mind. I didn't have much to spare this time around as I'm pretty certain I hadn't fully recovered the brain cells I lost while pregnant with Hayley. At this point, I sometimes wonder if I should be responsible for myself, much less a toddler. One of my pre-baby projects was to clean up our home computers. Our home PC has been running like a dog and my laptop wasn't much faster. Part of the problem is that my hard drive was FULL of digital pictures. I bought a shiny new external hard drive and proceeded to backup both computers before reformatting the drives. The process went smoothly on both computers and I was pleased that I'd made it through this whole process without any problems. UNTIL... I decided it was time to begin work on Hayley's two year old birthday slideshow and I began searching on that shiny new external hard drive for all of those digital photos of my princess. Everything that I didn't care a lick about was backed up on that hard drive except the ONLY thing I did care about... ALL MY DIGITAL PHOTOS!! Of course I called Brian at work, completely hysterical that I'd LOST every memory of Hayley's first years of life. Once he calmed me down and reminded me that unless I'd scrubbed the drive the odds were good that I could somehow get my pictures back. Yes, his wisdom and ability to stay calm in an absolute CRISIS is just one of the many reasons why I married this wonderful man.

So after $70 (worth every penny) and some time on the Internet, I think I have recovered just about all of our hundreds of pictures. It's taken me hours to sort back through all of the pictures and reorganize them by date, etc. but I feel like this is a worthy punishment that I am grateful for at this point. My new plan for photo storage now includes keeping a copy of all pictures on that shiny new hard drive, as well as burning a copy to cd and taking it to a top secret, weather-proof offsite storage location that is manned by an armed guard 24 hours a day. I don't want any crazy people (you know, like me) getting access to my photos!

Ah, pregnancy. It's a beautiful DANGEROUS thing!

Politicking

Today was the Republican primary here in Florida so after a morning at PlayAway Hayley and I headed off to take part in the privelege of voting. We hit the polls around 11:45am and seeing as how our polling location is very much in a residential area with few businesses I was surprised at the turnout. Officials had predicted that turnout would be strong and what I saw definitely fulfilled their forecasts. Luckily the line moved quickly and it wasn't long before Hayley and I were on our way with her "I voted" sticker.

Our "patriot"


This is what happened when I told her that despite our vote today, it was possible that Hillary could be our next President!

Apparently she's got an opinion

Daddy and Hayley have a nightly ritual of playing in Hayley's room after dinner and a bath. After lots of giggling and squealing last night, I walked in to find this: The final part of this nightly ritual, is milk and storytime with Daddy. Since the day she was born, Hayley has known exactly what she wants. And she hasn't been afraid to express to us what she wants. A lot of times, we didn't get it right. She definitely let us know that. So it should come as no surprise that as she gets closer to two, her opinions are only becoming that much stronger. Nightly storytime is not immune from Hayley's opinions. She has a very definite idea of which books she wants to hear each night and she makes sure to let Daddy know. And she keeps us guessing because her book requests demands change from storytime to storytime.

A Day at the Zoo

Brian has been enjoying a four day weekend with today and tomorrow off, so we decided to take Hayley up to Tampa for her first trip to the Lowry Park Zoo.

She was so excited she could barely contain herself as we entered the parking lot! I can count on one hand the number of times this kid has fallen asleep in the car. Who would've thought at 9am she'd konk out??!!

She got up close and personal with the giraffes until they started to come after her Bunny Grahams crackers. Hayley does not share food with ANYONE!


By far her favorite of the day was the Aquatic Center where she got to see big fish swimming around. She liked the stingray exhibit until she realized that she wasn't going to be swimming with them and threw a fit. I think she would have been happy if we'd spent all day in this aquarium.


Overall we had a good morning and we think that Hayley enjoyed the trip. She's still too little to participate in a lot of the zoo activities, but it was good for her to see so many different animals. But at the end of the day Hayley was happy as could be to come home to her favorite animals of all... "Kwowie" and Pooh!

Battle Wounds

Over the past year and a half we've come to learn that we've got a tough little princess. Good thing too because she's a dare devil! I can't tell you how many times she's taken a BIG tumble and gotten right back up, scraped knees and all, and just kept on running like nothing ever happened. Which explains why she seems to have so many bumps and bruises that I can't explain. It's not at all uncommon for us to come home from a morning of PlayAway and I start noticing rug burns, bruises, and bumps on my little dainty doll. There is one thing that can bring instant tears to my little babe's eyes (aside from hunger of course) and that is the mere sight of a Band-aid. A few months ago, Hayley scraped her knee up pretty bad. Lest she have a scar for life, Daddy was adamant about keeping an ample supply of Neosporin on her wound (Daddy's obession with Neosporin is subject for a post of it's own). Of course keeping Neosporin on Hayley's knee required the use of a Band-aid. The mere sight of this Band-aid was enough to send Hayley over the edge... it truly was the end of the world. We kept pants on her and the Band-aid was soon forgotten about until it was diaper changing time and the terrible Band-aid would reappear. I even bought Hayley some Dora and Sesame Street Band-aids in an effort to make being wounded "fun." But there is no fooling Hayley and the reminder of her own immortality was just too much for her to bear. Luckily we've been able to put the Band-aids away for the past few months and we've accepted the fact that perhaps the medical profession will not be a career choice for our little doll. Besides, the way that Hayley has been blaming Pooh and "Kwowie" for everything lately leads us to believe that "Judge Hayley" may be more up her alley.

But as I was saying, our family has been wound free until last night when Daddy came home with a cut finger. Somehow he'd cut his knuckle on a door at work. It was one of those cuts in a pesky place that wouldn't stop bleeding. Unable to get a Band-aid at work he came home asking for one. (Yes, he works for the Department of Defense, the Army, you wouldn't think it'd be that tough to get a Band-aid, but I digress.) Unfortunately, the only suitable Band-aids that I had for his wound just so happened to be bright yellow with a blue Cookie Monster on them. I got a bit of a chuckle seeing my 200 pound "protector of our household" sporting a Sesame Street Band-aid, but whatever.

Brian took off early this morning for a big day at work. He had to brief a Four Star General. I'm really hoping he remembered to take off the Sesame Street Band-aid.

Strawberry Shortcake

We headed out to the strawberry farm this morning to let our little Strawberry Shortcake have her first berry picking experience! The strawberries at this farm are grown hydroponically which means they are grown in stackers making them the perfect height for Hayley to pick! Unfortunatley, Hayley showed no bias to the ripe strawberries and tried to pick just as many of the green ones! Apparently she's an equal opportunity picker and does not discriminate based on color! We decided to leave the picking to Mommy and Hayley spent her time showing Daddy how to transfer each strawberry from Mommy to our basket.
Mommy and Hayley at the beginning of our adventure! Hayley found a good one! An organic banana smoothie to thank Hayley for all her hard work! (This was the absolute BEST smoothie I've ever had in my entire life. Granted I'm pregnant and obsessive about fruit right now, but I'll save that for another post.) Washing up some of the "fruits" of our labor for lunch! (These were the BEST strawberries I've ever had, but again, I'm obsessive and pregnant so I may be a bit partial!)

I think I mentioned that the smoothie was REALLY good. Of course Brian and I only got a sip of it because Hayley REFUSED to share. We've learned that you DO NOT come between this kid and fruit!

When Food Sneaking Plans Go Bad

Hayley had Macaroni and Cheese for dinner tonight.






She should have known that if she kept sneaking food to Chloe she'd eventually get caught! "Doggone," says Chloe!

Resolutions

I’m not sure if I look more or less ridiculous pulling this down the street?!!

Okay, so it’s January 9th and I realize it’s a little late for the whole New Year’s Resolution thing. But personally I’m not a big fan of the term “resolution.” I think I’d rather just call them goals. After all, you don’t sit through countless hours of business school classes and not get the meaning of the word “goal” beaten into your head. I’d like to “think” that somehow I’m putting this graduate degree to work. So, for the new year we’re turning over a new leaf and Hayley has some specific goals that she wants to make sure she accomplishes this year… beginning with potty training and sleeping in a big girl bed. Oh, and she’d like to have these goals accomplished by April. I think it’s great that “she” has chosen a timeline that just happens to meet the looming deadline of the arrival of our beloved Frog Prince!

Now my personal goals, those are a little more complex. Of course I have the usual goals to get in better shape, eat better, etc. And I do have a weight loss goal. My goal is to drop a good oh, say thirty pounds beginning in April. And I hope to work on my running and maybe by the end of the year enter a few races. The biggest lesson I learned after having Hayley is that no matter how I try to keep fit while pregnant, it is still a long uphill battle to regain the stamina and strength that I had prior to pregnancy. I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me.

Along with working on the outside, I’m trying to work on the inside. Now that Brian and I have had to become ever so conscious about the words we say, we also have to be incredibly conscious of our actions. So putting it broadly, my goal is to work to be an overall good person… to be a good wife, mother, daughter, friend, and all the other roles I play in life. This is the most challenging goal of all for me because it requires a daily commitment to all those specific characteristics that have always been a challenge (such as patience, understanding, compassion, did I mention PATIENCE??!! After all, I do have a toddler!)

So cheers to potty training, big girl beds, frog princes, health, nutrition, and personal improvement in 2008!