Bad Poodles

An Update

2012-02-13T00:15:00.000-05:00

I have so much blogging to catch up on, but we've been in Dallas for an AWESOME 10 day visit with my family and have been so busy. It's been an incredible time.

My family threw Charlie a birthday party (definitely needs its own post) and we've gotten to see friends and family and have so much fun. My parents even babysat last night so I could meet some friends for dinner and go out with Megan and Bruce. Last night was the launch party for a web site Bruce has been working on called Central Track. If you live in Dallas, check it out.

I've also been filling the hump with delicious Texas-style food, inhaling tacos any chance I get. You'd think they didn't have food in London. But in all honesty, the UK isn't known for their food and there's a reason people. Hopefully I'm sick of tacos for now. Oh who am I kidding? I'm never sick of tacos!

Our flight is tomorrow night, direct from DFW to Heathrow. That will be nice, not having to connect. We arrive in London at 9:30 in the morning and are going to meet Brad at the new Afartment. He's been working so hard to get us moved in and Charlie's room set up. He also ordered some big, fat cable package so we'd have all the TV of home! No more iTunes downloads of kids' shows - I can have my laptop back from Charlie!

I'm sad to leave Dallas, but feeling better about going to London. Thanks to all my constructive worrying (not), things have mostly fallen into place. There's a crib, which Brad put together and a crib tent, which we've used here at my parent's house and is working like a charm. Knowing we can force some sleep out of Charlie is a huge weight off.

We did end up finding a preschool for Charlie. It's further away from our flat than I was hoping (it's in Notting Hill), but they have been so welcoming and helpful and I think it will be a wonderful place for Charlie. Having to put some more effort into getting him there is a small price to pay.

I'm still dreading the weather. Ugh. It snowed twice there while we were gone. I hope London has gotten the snow out of it's system because I don't want to see any of that business once we return! Which is strange because I actually love snow. You know, when I can watch it from inside while cooking and enjoying a fire and only have to be out in it voluntarily or in my car.

Our poor Ringo has to have surgery on his eye Tuesday. I am sick about not being here for it. I called a few times hoping for a cancellation so he could have it done before we left, but never got one. The house sitter is going to take him and take care of all of it for us. Ugh, poor Ringo. He gets so scared when he's not with Zoe.

Well I think that's it. Better get some sleep because it will be in short supply for a few days after tonight. Yay jet lag!

Things Going On

2012-01-26T15:00:00.002-05:00

This picture has nothing to do with anything, I just thought it was cute. Brad and Charlie, sitting up at the bar at The Warrington, the pub in our neighborhood in London. Until recently it was owned by Gordon Ramsey, but has apparently improved a lot since he sold it. Insert Kitchen Nightmare joke here.

Anyways, Charlie is all about bar stools these days, since when he goes to have lunch with Brad in London, that's where they sit. At the bar. And this is okay in London. In fact, on this particular day, there were about 3 other kids crawling/toddling/mayhem-causing in the pub.

But I digress. We are not in London. We are still in Richmond. Lovely Richmond with it's sunshine and 60 degrees today. Thank you Global Warming, I owe ya one!

Brad went back to London on Saturday and we've heard from him sporadically. They are working him pretty hard right now while he tries to get over jet lag. This weekend he is moving all of our things to the New Afartment.

I have started ordering things for Charlie's room and Brad is going to get it all decorated and cute and ready for him. We get there on Valentine's Day. So help me if he has to work until 4am that night like the last time we arrived in London.

Charlie and I have fallen back into our routine here and it feels so nice. He is sleeping beautifully again, thanks to the Crib Tent, also known as the best $50 I have ever spent. He's enjoying preschool, is better rested and I am remembering why I love staying home with him.

I was really questioning during our 2 months in London if I had what it took to stay home anymore. I was just so exhausted, had no patience and was constantly being tested by an overtired 2 year old. After over a year home with Charlie, it wasn't fun anymore. It just felt so hard. On more than one occasion I thought (or said to Brad) that I am not cut out for this, I need to just go back to work.

We get back here and what do you know - I love it again. This tells me something: routine is key and so is decent sleep.

These two things tell me a couple of other things (are you keeping up here?): we need a routine with preschool (Mommy break) and we need a crib with a crib tent. In London. Without these, we are set up to fail.

The crib and crib tent are no problem. Ordered and on their way. And yes, I realize he is a bit old to be in the crib, but it is comforting to him, and I think we are doing enough major change right now. It is also a lot safer, because when he gets out of bed and sneaks past our room, dangerous trouble can ensue. It scares me to think about what could happen. So we will work on the transition to the bed at another, more sanity-filled time.

Preschool on the other hand... well let's just say that thumping sound you hear in the background is me beating my head against the wall.

I've got three I'm talking to, which are really our only options in our neighborhood. The others are small or booked for months or, how do you say, undesirable. Each of these three has, right after I'm convinced we've found our best option, emailed me to drop some sort of bomb that changes everything.

One just casually mentioned today that they expect him to be potty trained. And if he's not, they'll see him in April instead after I potty train him. Because that should be easy, given all the other change in his life.

Another told me they had availability now, but when pressed said they don't know, we'll have to talk to this person and it might be June. Maybe. We'll see. Oh and they are sure someone will get right back to me. Still waiting on that one.

Our third option talked to me about morning preschool at length on the phone, but when I submitted the paperwork told me they only have 2.5 hour afternoon sessions (during his nap) and don't anticipate any morning availability.

Thump, thump, thump.

One thing is for certain: I do not want to step foot in that country without preschool confirmed. Not that they (or anyone else but Brad, for that matter) care. But Brad is taking the tours next Friday and then we will decide what to do. I think going there in person will help. Trying to arrange it via email is not working out very well.

That's enough on that rant. Just stresses me out.

We are heading to Dallas in week to visit my parents and sister. They are very thoughtfully throwing Charlie a little birthday party while we're there. Looking forward to seeing some friends, enjoying the nice weather and spending time with my fam. We're scheduled to go to London straight from DFW 10 days later.

I'm just kind of in denial that we're leaving in a week. I love being home so much! I don't wanna go! I'm going to try and locate my big girl panties by then and put them on. I really am planning on being more positive about all this London stuff soon. It's like a new year's resolution of mine. If preschool was settled and I knew we were covered, that would be a HUGE weight off. I wish that wasn't such a giant IF.

Until we leave for Dallas we are just going to enjoy one more week of preschool, seeing friends, playing at our usual haunts and having fun staying home together.

Here's another random shot. Charlie at the counter of the Brass Rail at Selfridges. They have some mean looking beef sandwiches there, I must try some time. We were just waiting around this time.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

The New Flat

2012-01-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

Or as Charlie likes to call it, The Afartment.

I got photos of everything but the kitchen because Brad and the realtor were talking in there and I felt weird snapping a photo. It's a whole separate room. No open living plans here.

Now if you were me, what would you do to make this place cozy? Welcoming? A home away from home? All the little tchotchkes, decorative items, etc. will be gone - they are just leaving most of the furniture. We can rent furniture as well.

Debating moving the sofa out of the living room and putting a sectional in its place so there's a place to curl up and watch tv. The furniture is lovely here, but not very practical. There's nowhere to really curl up and watch a movie or read a book. That's the main thing that I've been thinking about because it was bothersome at the last place, too. We love our big fat obnoxious American sectional here at home. Soooo cozy.

They are also taking the bedding and we are bringing our own. Still picking out bedding for Charlie's room. There will be TRUCKS. Or dinosaurs. Perhaps a train. I can't decide. But not a silk bedspread, that's fo sho.

If anyone has thoughts, I'd love to hear them. You know, out of both of you who are still reading this blog because I so infrequently update it!!

Living room...

Dining room...

Master...

Master bath, but no shower, so let's just call it Charlie's bath....

Hall bath, thankfully with a shower

Twin beds in Charlie's room

Charlie pretending to go to sleep in his new room. That was more effort than he ever put into going to sleep at the other flat, so I'm hopeful that's a good sign!

Coming Up for Air

2012-01-16T16:57:00.001-05:00

Or at least, we're trying to! I'd like to dedicate this post to being Dramatic and Whiny.

So we flew back to the states on January 4th by way of the Longest Flight of My Life. I think I can say that both literally and figuratively. It was 8.5 from Heathrow to O'hare, then customs and a layover and then a flight to Richmond.

Charlie wasn't bad or anything, it just takes superhuman effort to keep him entertained in a seated position for such a length of time. By the time it was over, it took superhuman patience to handle the O'Hare Temper Tantrums because someone was tired and would not nap on the plane. I have to say, I much prefer the red eye - it was an easier flight for us.

It was SO GOOD to get home. I don't think I've ever been so happy and relieved to walk around my own house and sleep in my own bed. To see my friends and watch Charlie see his. To drive my car to get somewhere. Especially after what was, probably, the Longest Two Months of My Life. I am more committed than ever to being a spoiled American.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It wasn't all bad. There were a lot of times it was neat to be in London, and we saw some amazing things and met some interesting people here and there. But the combo of Brad working ridiculous hours every day of the week, the cold dark climate, isolation during the holiday season, getting sick and Charlie abandoning sleep all together.... well, it sucked a bunch of the fun out of the experience.

I think the isolation was the hardest part. Back home in Richmond I have my support system, my dogs (never underestimate the power of a puppy snuggle), the comforts of home. Things get hard, I have a friend over and bake something. But having to deal with the challenges of a toddler and Brad being gone so much with no support system really sucked, for lack of a better description.

And Yet. We're going back. I probably should have dedicated this post to Being Insane.

Brad got offered a great opportunity to continue working on his project until August and we made the decision to do it before things got really hard there. While I'm not sure we would make the same decision today, he signed the contract and is now committed. He flies back this Saturday and Charlie and I will follow him a few weeks later.

The house sitter has agreed to stay on and take care of the dogs after we leave. But I can't really talk about them because I missed them a lot more than I thought I would. I wish we could bring them over, but I think it would be selfish. They love the house sitter, they will be in their own home, they will be fine. It's just my selfish missing them that makes me want to take them with me.

In the spirit of making the most of the situation we are in, we have been trying to figure out what we are going to do to make this round of things easier on all of us. For one thing, Brad is going to try and not work so many weekends and late nights. That would be huge for Spooner morale.

We have a new flat, one that will hopefully be more comfortable than the serviced apartment we were renting with the odd office managers who seemed to take pleasure in torturing us about the stupid white carpet we didn't want and weren't expecting to have (all the web site photos show hardwoods). $100 USD to remove any stain, no matter how faint. And walking right into our apartment whenever they felt like. That was always fun. I'm not even scratching the surface of the problems we had, but it's not the point of this post.

Buuuut, since it's my blog and I can write what I want, I'll go ahead and leave the name of the property (Europa House), as I wouldn't want anyone who reads this blog to stay there (at Europa House) whilst in London. I'm sure for a week or two it would be fine. For 3 months... not so much. Moral of the story: don't stay at Europa House. I will be ruining their Tripadvisor rating on Feb 1 (when our lease is up) if you'd like to watch the carnage.

Anyways, back to our plans.

A big one is getting Charlie in preschool - a routine that will both socialize him and tire him out. And provide me some kids to invite to his 3rd birthday party. He is all about birthdays lately and it kills me we won't be in Richmond for it so I have to make it fun for him, no matter what. Hopefully we can get some people to come.

Since preschools are very competitive in London and most children are on waiting lists since birth, finding a school is requiring quite a bit of effort. But I think I've found a couple, maybe 3 that are at least willing to talk to us and might have a spot for him. We will see. I'm in the process of sending back application forms and deposits and arranging tours for Brad to take when he gets back.

Brad and I have agreed that I am not bringing Charlie to London unless he has a preschool to attend. I am already in Mommy burnout mode from being with him 24/7 the last trip. Let's not stoke the fires.

Our new flat faces a garden and is very quiet. It's furnished and lovely. We have some funds to personalize it a bit and buy what we need, so I can actually cook. That's huge for me, being able to cook. Makes me happy. I need a homey place to nest in.

Charlie will have a new child-proofed bedroom with sheets that have trucks on them and a baby gate at the door to keep his behind in there for naps and bed time. One of my insanity drivers has been his refusal to sleep since he's mastered the art of climbing out of the crib. I left for London with a beautiful sleeper and returned with a horrible one. I can't tell you how frustrating that is.

To get him to go to bed or take a nap, I have to sit in the room with him until he finishes fighting sleep. This takes upwards to an hour. On the nights it takes 2 hours I'm really boiling. I think he will go back to sleeping better when he knows there's no other option. At least I hope.

I know part of this is the effect of this chaos on his life. I know children are supposed to be adaptable, but he did not adapt well to being there. He missed his friends and talked about preschool and our neighbors almost every day. He missed the dogs and our house. And I was right there with him. Made me feel terrible to hear him talk like that, like he wasn't happy. I hope with more structure and some new friends for both of us, we will both adapt better.

So what will I be doing while Charlie is in preschool you ask? Trying to get my head straight again! Exercise (huge priority), errands (which are NO fun with Charlie), perhaps some sightseeing to places I can't take Charlie. In other words, some calm to follow the chaos and to balance out the challenges of being away. I hope.

If we crash and burn and everyone is as unhappy as we were last time, Charlie and I will return home and we will just have to figure something else out. I hate to even think of us all having to be apart for so long like that, so I'm just going to be hopeful that with some more planning and better weather, we will all be happier.

We'll come home one more time in the middle - April or May? And then my parents are coming to visit in June. After that, we'll be on the home stretch and Charlie and I can either come back early or stay until Brad is done in August. Preschool ends in July, so we'll see. :)

So that's a long overdue post about what's going on with us! Complete with dramatics, whining, insanity and Unnecessary Capital Letters! More cheerful things to come, I promise. Thanks for reading!

Charlie's Photography

2012-01-03T08:49:00.002-05:00

Santa put a camera in Charlie's stocking this year. He did this because Mommy was tired of having her camera hijacked by Charlie!

Some of the photos he took with my camera, though, turned out to be kind of funny. There's also one of me trying to show him how to take a photo of himself in the mirror.

The new camera takes photos that look like they are from an indestructible $30 camera for kids, so this may be the last of Charlie's work posted to the blog for a while. :)

Our Christmas

2012-01-02T16:20:00.001-05:00

Well I sure have taken my sweet old time writing up this post. I'm not going to lie, it has been a rough few weeks - all three of us have been sick and two of us have been sick twice! We did manage, however, to have a very nice Christmas.

Brad and I realized when talking on Christmas day that this may be the only Christmas we ever spend just the 3 of us. I'm very ok with that, because I missed my family a TON that day. But it was also kind of neat to just focus on each other, especially given how little time we get together.

Christmas Eve day we spent running around doing last minute errands. I was buying groceries and going to the butcher and wine shop. I also ran out and found Brad some last minute Christmas gifts. And he Christmas Eve shopped for me too! Just so hard to find the time, and the shops are hella crowded around here in the Big City.

Finally in the late afternoon we got all gussied up and went to church. I found a children's service at a nearby church that sounded very low key. This was important because Charlie is not a big fan of sitting still and being quiet. Like, even when his favorite show is on. He doesn't attend the service when we go to church in Richmond - they do kids' Sunday school during the service. So had to be something where other children were being loud!

It ended up being very nice. They had some horses out front we were able to check out and pet. That one on the left was not pleased I didn't come bearing treats.

Inside there were lots of different costumes and LOTS of singing. I thought they were crazy for passing out candles to a congregation of small children in an old wooden church, but nothing caught on fire! Charlie helped me hold the candle and really did not want to blow it out. He was fascinated with the kids sitting behind us - I think because one was wearing a Cookie Monster t-shirt. And that's cool.

We came home and cooked dinner. My dad had sent me some simple recipes to try for Christmas Eve and Christmas day since I had limited supplies in the apartment kitchen. I made duck with a port and cherry sauce and some parmesan polenta. Charlie wouldn't touch it, but he's in a phase where he eats majorly at one meal of the day and won't eat at all the other two meals.

Afterwards, we put out the cookies and milk for Santa and read our Christmas books. The stockings were hung on the TV stand with care. And then I began the horrible night time routine of trying to get Charlie to go to sleep.

Meanwhile, Brad wrapped Charlie's gifts. Like, all of them. And since he has almost no toys here in London, there were lots of them! I was so happy he did that. It had been such a long day at that point!

I fell asleep more excited than I had been in years for Christmas. I was so excited thinking about Charlie waking up in the morning and finding all the gifts under the tree. And then opening them and being so thrilled. Speaking of the tree, here it is, our little homemade decorated Christmas tree. Popcorn, cranberries, ribbons, a few ornaments and.... pictures of the poodles our house sitter sent us. Yes, I poked holes in them and hung them on the tree.

In the morning, Charlie was of course up bright and early, and seemed a little confused and overwhelmed by everything. In fact, he mostly seemed perplexed that the cookies we left out were gone and can we have some more cookies over here mom? They are not, after all, Santa's cookies. Cookies are for Charlie.

We did stockings and I was getting all ready to go start some coffee while Charlie played with the contents of his stocking... and then I heard a giant rip and Charlie had torn into one of his gifts. It was a big cement mixer and he was so excited. In fact, it was a very transportation themed Christmas. Airplane, helicopter, fire truck, cement mixer. The Bruder trucks came already assembled, but Brad spent a good chunk of the morning putting together the PlayMobil ones.

After presents we had breakfast. I never did figure out how to put together the monkey bread with so few kitchen tools, so I just picked up some pastries at a bakery. The breakfast casserole didn't taste quite right, either, but was still good. I think we're going to need a breakfast do over when we get home to Richmond.

After breakfast it was just a lot of playing with toys, relaxing and watching movies. We managed to talk to some family, too, even with busy schedules and the time change. And we made a nice Christmas dinner of Chateaubriand, mashed potatoes and green bean bundles. YUM.

I was actually feeling sick again all day, so was trying to rest and drink as much water as possible. Brad left for a bit and walked a mile each way to try and find a pharmacy that was open. Everything here is seriously shut on Christmas. No CVS or Wal-mart for emergencies here. I thought that was so nice until I really needed some medicine! But I survived and I'm sure all the employees were very happy to not worry about working.

So that was our Christmas! Different, but still very special. Like everything else over here, makes me appreciate home, which I can't wait to get back to.

I hope everyone reading this has had a very nice Christmas and New Year's! Or as they call it in London... the Festive Season!

Visit to Santa

2011-12-22T17:52:00.001-05:00

Last week we took Charlie to see Santa at one of the large department stores here, Selfridge's. To commemorate it, I have a variety of low quality photos to share with you on the blog! These include our picture with "Terrified Santa" up above.

In an effort to skip the lines, I shopped around online and bought tickets. We had a designated appointment time during Brad's lunch hour and I thought we'd go, let Charlie talk to Santa for a few minutes and have time to grab some lunch.

Um, yeah, WRONG. When you book tickets to see Santa, at least at Selfridge's, you are there for an experience and you are not leaving until you have had one. Oh silly ignorant Kara (Stupid American!) thinking this would be time efficient and quick.

Little did I know that LOTS of people had our appointment time! Just because the appointment times were only 10 minutes apart online did not mean you got your own. We did end up standing in line, waiting our turn to go inside the experience as a group.

I'm just going to call it "the experience" because I have no idea what else to refer to it by. It was like a theme park ride without the roller coaster.

We went into a couple of different rooms, each for about 10 or 15 minutes, where a character in costume would talk to all the kids and show them different funny things about the rooms. These included buttons that make funny noises (from Santa's workshop, natch) and fake penguins wearing costumes.

I remember one character being an ice princess, or something like that, but I lost track after that. They all kind of looked the same to me. Elves, I guess? We were in some frozen, ice covered grotto. Father Christmas' Grotto.

Before we went in, we were warned not to take photos, upon penalty of ending up on the bad list. However, nobody seemed to pay this any mind, so we snapped a few too. The lighting was dim, though, so none of them really turned out. And Charlie appears to have orange hair in most of them.

After a painfully long wait peppered with filler activities, like sending your Christmas wish down a special tube, we were finally welcomed in to see Santa and his #1 helper/picture taker. And I finally told Brad to put up his iPhone or it was going to end up down the Christmas wish tube too.

Santa was maybe 30, but gave a decent booming voice. He took plenty of time with each child, which explained the long wait. He even spent a few minutes talking to the one baby in our group, who was there with his mother and grandmother and couldn't have been more than 6 months old. I'm not sure why they were there.

When you sign up for tickets online, there is a form that asks you what the child's hobbies are, their pet's names and what they want for Christmas. So both the check-in people and Santa asked about Zoe and Bobo. I have to say, Bobo's name in an English accent: hil-arious. Try saying it, all proper like. See what I mean?

Anyways, these strange people asking about his dogs seemed to really confuse Charlie. And Santa was a bit scary, so he mostly got shy and snuggled into my shoulder. But I was proud of him - he did manage to eke out his request for a fire truck, which he has been asking for consistently for 6 weeks.

We also managed to get Charlie in Santa's general vicinity for a photo by letting him sit in Brad's lap. After the picture was snapped, the head elf told Santa he looked like he was about to sneeze in the photo! Hmmm, not really. Does that look like sneezing to you?

It might be my favorite Santa photo, even above the one last year where Charlie looks absolutely terrified, just because Santa is so funny in it. I didn't even really look at it when we bought it. I handed it to Brad to scan at the office. There was no option at the check out to buy a digital file of the photo. Kind of a bummer.

After our photo, we walked out and had to wait in line for our photo and a person in a very large snowman outfit scared Charlie to death. I think Charlie was pretty happy to leave his Santa experience after that. Just toooo scary!

The whole thing took over an hour, so there was no time for lunch with Brad. Charlie and I ended up buying some McDonalds at the Bond street tube station. It was my first McD's visit since getting here. I note the following:

All the calories are up there on the menu board, which was kind of handy, but I mostly ignored because I was famished and really just did not care how many calories my McChicken had
The McChicken actually tasted like a chicken breast
They have not changed the milkshake recipe here like they have back at home, so it was yummy instead of too sweet
They had little mozzarella cheese bites to dip in marinara sauce on their holiday menu and Charlie thought that was awesome

So that was it. A big trip to Selfridge's. Charlie really hates Selfridge's because the two times he's been there, it's been extremely boring. For him. Not much of a shopper. In fact, he started to cry when we first walked in, thinking we were there to shop. We finally convinced him that that's where they keep Santa if he'll just be patient for 2 seconds!

I'll keep you all posted if Santa comes through on the fire truck. Frankly, he looks too terrified in the photo not to.

Good Morning!

2011-12-16T03:50:00.001-05:00

Here is what happens when you leave Charlie alone for a few minutes in the kitchen! So far this week there has been liquid laundry detergent and Aunt Jemima on the kitchen floor! Housekeeping is loving us. :)

Meet Bad Guy

2011-12-14T17:07:00.001-05:00

Some time during the flight over from the states, Person acquired a nemesis. A blond haired nemesis.

Since Charlie likes Person so much, I picked up a few more Playmobil characters for him to unwrap and play with on the plane when we flew to England. Ironically, I think Bad Guy came with some police gear and is a cop.

I have no idea where Charlie even picked up the concept of the bad guy, but now Bad Guy holds just as significant a presence in our lives as Person. He must be located before bed time, he has to take a bath, etc.

Incidentally, on Sunday we were shopping (aka *trying to shop*) on Oxford Street and Regent Street and decided to take Charlie to Hamley's, which is a 6 story toy store. On a weekend right before Christmas. Yeah, brilliant.

Anyways, we got to one of the floors, I don't remember which, and they had a HUGE collection of Playmobil stuff. Brad was carrying Charlie and his eyes got very wide and he said, in complete awe, "Persons!".... so very many persons.

I guess he didn't see any with blond hair because I didn't hear him exclaim about all the bad guys.

London Eye

2011-12-11T12:29:00.001-05:00

the London Eye at twilight a few weeks ago

Yesterday we went and rode the largest Ferris wheel in Europe - the London Eye. My family bought us tickets to visit the Eye and the London Aquarium as a Christmas gift, which was so nice. These were two attractions that were very appealing to us, but kind of on the pricey side. I don't know if we would have sprung for tickets for ourselves, which made it a real treat.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but this thing is HUGE. I've heard it's London's answer to the Eiffel Tower. It is located on the South bank of the Thames and was pretty easy for us to get to since our tube line stops right by it.

Wikipedia tells me the Eye is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the UK. And you can really tell - they are set up to process a ton of people. Since it was a Saturday during the holidays, it was pretty crowded, but since it was 40 degrees, not terribly crowded. I can only imagine what a zoo it is during the summer. Or what it will be like during the Olympics. Eek.

Charlie fell asleep in his stroller while we were walking around looking for the ticket office. We only had a 10 or 15 minute wait to pick up our tickets and he slept the whole time. That is so sad, that these days 15 minutes is a huge nap for him. Anyways.

By the time we got in line for the Eye, we had to get him out and fold up the stroller. He laid his head down on Brad's shoulder while we waited in line.

Quit taking my picture Mom

I was worried about the grumpies, but as soon as he saw the Ferris wheel pods (??) going by, he was excited. He would yell out Fly Away! I guess they looked like little planes taking off? I'm not sure, but it was a very cute Fly Away.

This is what they look like:

As soon as Charlie realized he had woken up, he was hungry. Fortunately I'd already had a moment of mommy-genius and purchased a ham sandwich, brownie and water for Charlie to eat when he woke up. We cracked that stuff open as soon as we were in our pod for the ride and Charlie snacked the whole time and was very happy.

Don't you love that hat? My mom picked it out for him. It's the first hat he's ever willingly worn.

The Eye is 443 feet tall. This provides an excellent view, given that London and the surrounding areas are pretty flat. Since it was early afternoon, the sun was already well towards setting the West (don't even get me started on how early the sun sets here), which meant Big Ben and Parliament were hard to catch on camera. This was the best we got:

Everything to the East, South and North, though, was lovely....

Charlie's favorite part was watching the trains speed in and out of Waterloo station....

He also liked watching all the boats on Thames... doesn't that water look yummy??

And here are all of us, posing individually because getting a shot all together is, in Charlie's words, Toooo Haaaarrrrddddd....

Doing his best Tom Cruise

After a week of being sick, it was nice to go do something fun and get out of the apartment for a while. There was a German Christmas market along the river that we walked by briefly, mostly because I am on the hunt for wooden Christmas ornaments and decor similar to what my mom and Aunt have from when my Aunt lived in Germany. I scored some cute stuff and we were all ready for a nap after that.

The tickets also include a visit to the Aquarium some time in the next month and I think we're going to go next weekend. I *love* aquariums and I wanted to have plenty of time to look at everything. I think Charlie will get a kick out of it too.

Thank you family for such a memorable Christmas gift! We had an amazing time!

How We're Doing

2011-12-07T13:52:00.001-05:00

We are sick. And by "we" I mean Brad and me, though Charlie might be sick too and just not showing it too much. Sightseeing obviously came to an abrupt screeching halt. Actually any major activity other than working for Brad and keeping Charlie busy for me stopped this week.

Tomorrow it will have been one week since I started feeling bad and I'm just almost feeling better, though not 100%. It's been a tough illness to shake. Brad and I both went to see a private doctor this week to get antibiotics. Yay for the zpack! I was diagnosed with walking pneumonia and Brad with his asthma-y lungs isn't doing any walking - just pneumonia, though it is improving.

The timing stinks, though, because we had to miss Brad's office Christmas party and I'd been planning my outfit for weeks. I need to find somewhere to wear this cute dress I found, and there are practically no holiday parties going on in the states anymore. Such a bummer. We're keeping it low key this weekend so Brad is rested to get back to work on Monday.

We did make it out for a while today to go the London Eye, the largest Ferris wheel in Europe, though! My family sent tickets as a special Christmas treat and we had a blast. It's definitely getting its own post because we took a ton of pictures.

We're getting ready to spend Christmas here, just our little family. We bought a tree last weekend and had it delivered. It's much bigger than I thought we would get - it's a 6 footer. Now I'm trying to decorate it without any of our decorations!

I made some garland out of popcorn and cranberries. We put lights on it. Bows, paper snowflakes.... yeah, after that I'm out of ideas. I'm going to buy a couple meters (not yards!) of fabric to bunch under there as an impromptu skirt, then take the fabric home and do something else with it.

I'm trying to plan Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals. Probably go out for one and do the other at home. I have very limited supplies in this kitchen, so I'm either going to raid Kristen's kitchen while she's out of town (hi Kristen!) or hit up a kitchen supply store.

My dad is helping me find some good recipes. While we are low on kitchen equipment, I think I can find just about any type of meat or fish or ingredient you can think of. There's a fantastic butcher nearby who has wild game and everything. Oh the possibilities!

We're trying to decide what to get Charlie for Christmas this year. We are going to see Santa at Selfridge's department store this Wednesday and it will be interesting to hear what he tells Santa he wants - if anything. He freaked out last year, but seems to get who Santa is this year. Except that everyone here keeps calling him Father Christmas!

Thanks to those of you who emailed me book ideas for Charlie! I was able to get some, though some of the American authored books cost twice as much here, so I went with some British books too. He's enjoying the Judith Kerr books, especially Mog the Cat. I just ordered Mog's Christmas. I'll always be able to remember which of his books we bought here since they call their moms MUMMY! ha

Charlie is still having a rough time sleeping and has had some night terrors. He won't nap and is basically exhausted. Night-mare. He was up 3 times last night. We've finally just come to the conclusion that he hates his room here and just doesn't feel settled. He doesn't want to go in his room at all, refuses to during the day and fights it at night. It doesn't help that he can get out of his crib. He loves his room at home and I hope hope hope he falls back into his routine when we get back.

I guess that's about all that's going on here! It got VERY painfully cold here this past week and so we are going to buy warmer coats tomorrow. I want something puffy with down in it. It's so cold it hurts to be outside at night. My Texas-raised blood can't take it!

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Merry Christmas from Charlie

2011-12-05T09:51:00.001-05:00

Winter Wonderland

2011-12-03T15:03:00.001-05:00

I am so behind on blogging. I have about 5 posts floating around in my head, but unfortunately also have about 5 different kiddie Christmas specials downloaded on my laptop, so Charlie's been hogging it. Also see earlier posts re: no napping and not wanting to go to bed. I finally have things to blog about and can't get any blogging done! Oh cruel irony!

But anyways. Each year at Christmas here in London, there is a carnival called Winter Wonderland that is put on in Hyde Park. It's a pretty major carnival - almost small amusement park sized. And really cuted up; reminds me a bit of Busch Gardens.

Charlie got to go to Winter Wonderland twice last weekend. Brad took him on Saturday morning while giving me a much needed break. Then I was so jealous I missed it, we all went back on Sunday.

There were a bunch of kiddie rides, all of which Charlie enjoyed. He wants to pick out his vehicle and then pretend to drive it. He got to do an airplane, motorcycle, double decker bus and Coca Cola truck. In other words, he was hot stuff.

There was a Santa that I thought we could go see, but by the time I checked it, the line was insanely long. So we blew it off. Here he is Father Christmas and you visit him in his grotto. I'm not sure about the elves, but for some reason "Santa's helpers" are dressed up as Christmas puddings around the grotto. Basically a big brown ball wearing a Santa hat. I'll just let you draw your own conclusion about what that looks like when you're not used to it.

On Saturday, Charlie also got to ride the big ferris wheel with Daddy while enjoying an excessively large lollipop. Between this and the binky, our future pediatric dentist is very disappointed in us.

From the photos, I can't tell if Charlie really knew he was in a ferris wheel, or if it was just a seat from which to enjoy a giant lollipop. Now when he asks me to ride a ferris wheel, is he really asking for a lollipop?? Not sure.

There was all kinds of yummy fair food from all over the world. We had some bratwurst and weinerschnitzel on a bun. About every 10 feet was a stand selling Belgian waffles covered in nutella. That is a huge thing here - I see someone selling it every time we are somewhere with street food. The British are serious about their nutella. Very popular in crepes, as well.

After we ate and it was clear Charlie was getting tired, we decided to throw all our tickets at a ride all 3 of us could ride. I don't know how to explain it, so here's a picture:

I remember there was an indoor version of this at Six Flags when I used to go with my dad as a kid. Anyways, I didn't recall it being that fast and there was a booth with a DJ playing music while you road, so I thought it would be fun.

To summarize, it was VERY fast, the DJ would only let about 15 seconds of any song play before yelling out something in German and switching songs, and we were both shocked Charlie wasn't scared. He laughed the whole time, except when they had to stop the ride to let a much older girl off (wimp). Then he just got impatient for it to start up again. I think we have a roller coaster fan on our hands!

Since I almost never include pictures of us, here is some proof we were actually there, watching over our child and buying him tickets and fried food and stuff. I like to call this smile my "Brad quit catching me off guard with your camera" smile. Smirk?

Last night Brad and I had a babysitter and headed back to Winter Wonderland to enjoy it adult-style. We found out that we are not very carnival-compatible. I wanted to ride scary rides and Brad wanted to check out the various bars and live music. By live music, I mean these strange one person music shows in each of the larger pop up bars.

In the end, I was only able to talk him into one scary ride before they shut the place down. Probably not very nice to do to someone with a fear of heights. It was SO FUN though! And here in a few years I think Charlie will ride all the roller coasters I can handle. And then some. :)

Canal Cruise and Camden Lock Market

2011-11-26T06:38:00.001-05:00

The weather was nice last Sunday so we decided to take a water bus to Camden Lock Market. We live near an area in London called Little Venice, which has a canal running through it. There are house boats along the banks, a boat that has a puppet theatre in it and you can take different boats to the zoo and up to Camden Lock Market. Since it's winter, we were limited to the Water Taxi, which runs year round.

Brad and I were pretty tired, we'd gone out the night before to Soho for tapas and met a really nice couple from Pennsylvania while we were in line for a table. Yes, a line. Because the restaurants in Soho are so tiny (they could rename it So-Small! hardy har) all of them have lines forming outside to wait for a table. Once you are in the portion of line that's inside, you can order drinks and appetizers and the time passed pretty quickly.

It's a quirky area of town, Soho is. I started keeping count of the drag queens, bachelorette parties and pairs of Louboutins that passed by. It's also the first area of town I haven't felt completely safe in. It's a little gritty and a girl two tables down from us had her purse stolen right off the back of her chair. We were sitting outside and were approached for change every 10 minutes or so. I was glad I didn't bring a handbag or anything valuable.

Anyways, we got drinks with the nice couple after dinner and stayed out way too late. Sarah shares my love of design blogs and good food and wine. So much to talk about. So the next morning required emergency take away lattes for 2 please.

Charlie was so excited about riding a boat, but he kept talking about the boat going fast, so was probably a bit disappointed once we got going. It's a slow ride and passes a number of beautiful homes and pretty areas of town. Brad brought his fancy pants camera and took a bunch of shots along the way.

The market is huge, both indoors and out. We arrived at lunch time and were pretty hungry. There was so much to pick from, it's impossible not to have remorse over what you ordered when you pass other food stalls. Dim Sum, Indian, Moroccan, Greek, African, you name it. A giant whole pig turning on a spit - smelled heavenly. Also so many sweets and pastries and mulled wine and cider. I feel hungry just typing about it.

We had some falafal and other greek type yummies and the most incredible chicken and plantains from a Jamaican stall. I got some apple and cinnamon - basically cider without the alcohol. Just couldn't do the real stuff after our late night.

After we ate, we walked around and checked out the stalls with merchandise. Luggage, carpets, fabric, clothing, antiques, junk, collectibles - just about anything you could ask for or dream up. It was challenging to shop with Charlie, who kept getting out of his stroller and grabbing things. I love the kid, but it would be nice to go without him some time.

One of the buildings there used to be stables, so there were these large iron horse statues everywhere. We tried to get Charlie to sit on one but he screamed his head off and was too scared. Brad jumped up there instead.

Charlie has become obsessed with motorcycles and scooters (the motorized kind) since we got here. There are always a few parked outside our building. We were walking around and he suddenly yelled at me to STOP and TURN AROUND.

He jumped out of the stroller and hopped on this antique Vespa. He stayed there for 20 minutes. The stall had the strangest "art" and was kind of boring, so 20 minutes was about all we could take.

Eventually Charlie fell asleep in his stroller, but not before we bought him a very cute sweatshirt from a little business, Wee Clothing, that hand sews these cute felt designs on kids' clothes. We got Charlie a sweatshirt with a double decker bus since he is our seasoned public transportation expert.

I just noticed that we even made the fan page for Wee Clothing! The owner took our picture after we put the sweatshirt on Charlie. Check us out! We really are fans, I want to get Charlie a couple more things. The designs are so cute and the sweatshirt has held up beautifully in the wash.

Getting home was pretty much a nightmare. Instead of booking a round trip on the water bus, we decided we'd take the tube home. Mistake. There were a number of lines and stations down for track maintenance and we had to switch twice and go up and down all these stairs and I don't even want to think how much longer it took us.

We were so happy to get home! But of course, 30 minute nap in his stroller was the only napping Charlie was going to do that day. Brad and I had to switch off for a little shut eye for ourselves.

Hopefully we can make it back at some point, but there are some other area markets we want to go to as well. I hope the food is this good everywhere!

A Very Non Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T03:12:00.001-05:00

Well, after yesterday, I can say that there is nothing that makes you more grateful for your family and friends than missing the heck out of them! I feel very fortunate that we are getting this time here in London, but yesterday was HARD. I was really missing my family, who were all together at my parent's house in McKinney. We did get to do some video chatting, though, and that cheered me up immensely.

It was kind of a strange day. Since I'm trying to get a few toys around here for Charlie to play with, I decided we would hit up this kid's consignment shop in Notting Hill that someone told me had lots of toys. As a bonus, Kristen showed me the most incredible cupcake shop there, called Hummingbird, and I thought we could get some of those.

The best way to get there is the bus since the tube route is so convoluted, so I got it all figured out on my computer, which bus to take, which stop, etc.

Then we walked over and got on the bus going the wrong direction! Yes folks, I am bus-stupid. Advanced college degrees and certifications have no bearing on my ability to decipher the bus system here. Not my proudest moment.

Fortunately it took me a while to figure it out and we had passed several shady areas and landed in a somewhat cute high street. We got off the bus to take the one going in the other direction and I looked around and thought we'll just hang out here!

I asked Charlie what he wanted for lunch and he said a cheeseburger. What an American request on Thanksgiving! We went to this place called Gourmet Burger Bar, which is exactly as it sounds, and had burgers, fries and a chocolate milkshake.

There were several charity shops around, pretty light on toys, but we did manage to score a giant bag of Mega Blocks, a puzzle and some books. The puzzle and two of the books are Postman Pat, which my mother-in-law Sue used to buy here for my sister-in-law Clare. Did you catch that? Anyways, it's a very British character.

Some woman stopped me in the store and pointed to the Mega Blocks and asked if I knew what I was buying because they go everywhere. Isn't that funny? Yes, they are toys and he is two so things do tend to go everywhere!

I also found a DVD of Christmas Vacation, which I plan to watch this weekend. That's a Crain family Thanksgiving tradition - time to bust out some of Chevy Chase's best work.

On the bus on the way back I noticed that Charlie's sippy cup had leaked all over my bag and soaked my iPhone. It is finally powering up but the screen is very dark - I can barely see the buttons. Such a bummer - I hope it will finish drying out and start working again!!

When we got home I attempted to make a reservation for a Thanksgiving dinner, since Brad said he could leave the office at 6. There were two restaurants nearby doing the whole turkey thing, but sadly both were booked solid. We ended up going out for some awesome Italian food. Fresh pasta and gnocchi and foccacia and prosciutto. And wine. Ok and gelato.

We will get our turkey fix on Saturday night. We've been invited to a dinner party to celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm making green bean bundles for 23 people!! That's a lot of bacon and butter. The dinner is kids-free, which is awesome, this mama needs a break and Charlie has grown quite fond of his babysitter here.

Anyways, thought I was past the hard stuff until my iPad told me the A&M score this morning and I felt sick to my stomach. What an annoying, horrible loss. UGH. Do we need to switch out coaching staff at half time??? Geez. My dad already had his A&M shirt on when we talked yesterday and I bet he yelled his head off at the TV!

Arkansas has a big game tonight against LSU. Go Hogs! Please win and perk up my week!!!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go waddle off all the Italian food I ate last night and head towards a bus stop going in the CORRECT direction. lol

Charlie's New Ride

2011-11-21T15:55:00.001-05:00

Thank you everyone who has sent me messages and comments on the transitional problems we're having. So many great ideas! I think one of the first things I'm going to do is hunt down some more toys for him and just it make it feel more homey for him.

We may also be moving flats soon to one with hardwoods floors that faces the garden. Right now we have all white carpet (yeah! with a toddler!) and face the street. There's a primary school across the street and the 45 minute a day estimate we were given for the recess noise was about 2 hours understated. So anyways, I thought if we move flats, maybe I can do some things to make the next room more *his* - though I'm not sure how just yet.

Also, I think I'm going to write down an official schedule for us. This is not something I've ever done for us before, but I think given the situation it will help. I'll keep you posted on what works and what doesn't in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

Wanted to post some more pics of Charlie with his pride and joy... his new helmet. LOL Seriously, I think he may like the helmet more than the scooter! He wants to wear it everywhere and has been taking it in the crib with him to sleep. He kind of likes to have the scooter near his crib/bed too, though. All the better to go rolling into Mom and Dad's room with.

We bought his scooter at this adorable kid's store in St. John's Wood called Igloo Kids. That's where I got his red wellies, too. They have insanely cute but expensive clothes, some really nice toys, disappointingly few books and they do haircuts in the basement. Funny.

Unrelated side topic: I just realized when I went to the Igloo web site that they are a small chain. That keeps happening to me here in London. I think I find the neatest, cutest little spot and think Wow! I've discovered this totally cool and original place! Then I find out there are 4 or 5 of them in London. London reigns supreme in the small chain arena. And I am never as cool and original as I hope.

So after we stopped for coffee at Gail's - another small chain I originally thought was only one awesome location I "discovered" - we went to the park for a bit and Charlie of course talked about all the scooters. That was all it took for Brad to want to get him one.

Charlie actually already has a scooter at home, so it was kind of hard to justify buying it. But it will keep him very busy the rest of the time we are here and they are so popular that if we want to sell it for a big chunk of what we paid for it, we should have no problem. I was not able to find him a second hand one because they sell so quickly on the UK version of Craig's List (Gumtree). It actually folds down quite small, so maybe we will just take it home and he can always have friends over to scoot!

So we went to the store, got him fitted for a helmet and he picked out the black scooter. It's technically for a 5 or 6 year old, but Charlie didn't want the blue one meant for 3 to 5 year olds. The only difference we could tell is that the one for the older kids a tiny bit heavier and the handle is adjustable for height. I'm not sure why Charlie was so taken with the black one.

I lamented whether we were doing the right thing in getting him the version for older kids and Brad pointed out that no way was Charlie leaving with any scooter other than the black one. And he was right. We were getting it to make him happy, why make him sad to leave the one he really wanted?

Here he is outside of Igloo with his scooter and helmet:

Charlie rode that scooter the whole way home (it took forever) and he and I spent a large chunk of the afternoon in the garden watching him practice. He's getting pretty quick on it, but is still figuring out the steering. He'll jump off if he's about to run into something instead of steering around it.

He really is so proud of it though... and possessive. Of course other little kids in the playground want to check it out, just as he was doing before he got one. Once I reassure him they are just looking and it is not going home with them, he's usually fine with it.

I think our MacLaren stroller is going to be feeling pretty lonely soon with all the attention we are paying the scooter. Once Charlie gets really comfortable on the scooter, we won't need the stroller very often at all. It's just sitting in the hall right now, feeling rejected.

Well, if you're looking for us, we are probably back in the garden, perfecting some scooter skills and terrifying the neighbors' cats. :)

Transitions

2011-11-20T14:04:00.001-05:00

I don't know why I picked a photo of Charlie standing next to two fake sheep for this post. They stand outside this very nice and $$$ butcher nearby. I think my dad would weep tears of joy if he walked in there, just meat, beautiful meat everywhere! Anyways, just felt like I need a photo of Charlie in here if I was going to be talking about him.

Just in case you thought it was all fun and games here in London, the past week-ish has been pretty rough from a Charlie perspective. I think he is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to being here. The first week was like vacation and his Mimi was here, but now we are effectively living here and it's wearing on him I think. His sleep schedule has been horrible and he's been acting out - being tired most of the time is probably contributing to that.

Our apartment here has 2 bedrooms, so Charlie has his own room, and the manager ordered us a brand new, nice sized crib for Charlie to sleep in. He still sleeps in his crib at home and loves it. He's been a very good sleeper up until now, usually 12 hours at night and a 2 to 2.5 hour nap most days. Lately we've been getting 9 to 10 hours at night and no nap. Let me tell you, it makes for a VERY long day to have no down time with such a tired toddler.

I don't know if the crib is not comfortable or if he can just tell it's not really *his* room, but he doesn't like sleeping in there. There are also 2 twin beds in the room and he will now occasionally sleep in one of those. He can easily get himself out of the crib, so it makes no difference if he's in the crib or bed - when he feels like leaving the room, he will. And does.

After getting over the jet lag, we had a few days where he would sleep until about 8 or so - about his norm. The last 8 or 9 days, though, he's been up at 6 or 6:30. We've tried putting him back down after he gets up, but he's not having it. When he's up, he's up. And therefore, so are we.

It's tough on Brad, who is working late right now. It's tough on me because I haven't felt rested enough to deal well enough with some of his tantrums and by 3pm I am just mentally done trying to keep up with him. I never realized how much I need that mental break in the afternoon even if I'm busy doing other things.

Nap time is a struggle because he just keeps getting up and throws an absolute fit at the suggestion of going back. This child back home would ASK to take a nap if he was tired. He would also happily go to bed at the end of the day.

I've had moderate luck going in his room and laying down on one of the twin beds and staying there until he falls asleep. In fact, I did that earlier tonight when we hit ten times of having to take him back to his room.

While at first his tactics to leave the room and sneak around the apartment were cute, they are getting tiresome. He'll kind of crawl on the floor into our room, I guess thinking we won't see him? I think he's copying Snoopy when he sneaks around along the ground on Charlie Brown. And now that he has the scooter, he quite enjoys just rolling into our room on that! Kind of victorious-like. Actually, now that I write that, it is kind of funny.

I've also noticed he's gotten very clingy with the lovie and little beanie baby we brought from home. Charlie has never been a stuffed animal kind of kid. He calls his lovie Bobo (like our dog) and used to barely notice he had it. He'd rather carry around a truck or Person. Now gets upset if he doesn't have it Bobo, who goes everywhere with us. All over London.

Charlie also has this beanie baby of a deer that's been in his crib since his little surgery at 1 year old. He calls that toy Odie, after my mom's dog. Odie doesn't leave the apartment (yet), but Charlie will kind of panic if he can't find him. Odie must be present at bed time.

Similarly, he's gotten very attached to his binky. He used to just insist he had it whenever he went to bed, but now he wants it all the time. I've had to insist it doesn't leave the apartment with us, but he will go find it when we are home and walk around with it in his mouth. It's not good, I can't tell what he's saying most of the time.

I guess because he's using the binky so much I'm realizing how silly it looks to have an almost 3 year old using it and that we should have taken away at 1 year like we were told. Given our other issues here, I'm not even going to TRY and bring that topic up until we are back in Virginia. Same with potty training - I bought him a trainer seat, but I'm not pushing it until we are back home.

The temper tantrums he's been throwing are very new to me - he's never been a big fit-throwing kind of kid. He can definitely be stubborn, but can usually be diverted or distracted. And those throw downs just don't happen that often. He's generally a very happy kid.

I guess as a way of asserting some control in his little life, he has become extremely stubborn and resorted to extremes to get his way. Like throwing himself down on the ground (yuck) in a busy tube station and kicking and screaming. I thought his head might start spinning during that little episode.

It was followed by another screaming fit in front of Madame Tussauds. The tourists got their own little show while waiting in line! We were meeting Brad for lunch and he had to leave the restaurant and come get us.

For the most part, when he's not making a scene, I try and just let him get it out and have his way as often as it isn't dangerous - can't do much when throws a fit because I won't let him play with the stove. If he'll let me, I'll pick him up and sit down with him or walk around with him and just talk to him in a soothing voice. Sometimes he's too mad for that, though and I just have to wait it out.

It can really make for an exhausting day when everything is a battle. He even protests putting on a diaper and clothes in the morning. I keep waiting for bruises to appear on my stomach from being kicked so much.

We were able to bring over a few little toys and books with us, but for the most part this apartment is pretty boring to him. We leave and go places for him to play every day, but the sun sets at 4:30 and we are generally back by then with time to kill until bed time.

He's bored and has started trying to play with things around the apartment - like the dishwasher, the washing machine, the DVD player, the fridge and freezer, etc. I feel like I am saying no every 30 seconds when we are home, just so he doesn't break one of the appliances!

That was a big reason we got him the scooter this weekend, even though he has a scooter back home. It helps wear him out and also keeps him very entertained, in a way no other single toy probably would. It was also a treat for a kid who is having a hard time but all in all being a trooper.

He's been talking about his friends back home more and more - bringing them up out of nowhere. He plays with the phone and calls Ben, Will and Owen and tells them all sorts of things. Tonight he was talking about preschool and his friends Grayson and Austin. He told me he wanted to go to preschool. Sometimes he tells me he wants to go home. It really kills me when he's crying when he says that.

I did not give enough thought to what Charlie's adjustment period was going to be like over here. I figured there would be one, but this is tougher than what I imagined. I thought the fun, new experiences and getting to see his Daddy every day would make up for it. I now realize that most of all he just wants his old routine.

I'm now trying to stick to a more structured schedule over here so he knows what to expect. I ordered a white noise machine for his room, which should arrive tomorrow, so it sounds more like his old room. I'm going to order some more books and look around for some more toys, maybe borrowed if I can swing it.

If anyone out there has any ideas, I'm all ears! I feel horrible he's not happy. I'm also very, very tired!! Also, I'm going to order him some new books, so if there are any that your 2 or 3ish year olds are loving lately (or loved at that age), could you send me the titles?

I need to catch up on email so bad - I know I owe several of you a message. Not to mention the blog - I have about 5 other posts imagined up, but not written and bunches of pictures I want to get loaded so I don't forget all that we did here.

Anyways, send me an email or FB message or comment here or whatever if you have any thoughts. I better get to bed, my wake up call is going to scooter into my room here in a few hours!

Oh, and some more photos, mostly for my mom and dad, who I know are missing Charlie a ton right now. These are from the park at Paddington Street Gardens where we played after having lunch with Brad. Charlie and a little French girl really hit it off. :) Wish I'd gotten her picture because she was darling, but felt weird taking a photo of someone else's kid and my French isn't strong enough to explain it to her mother.

even the trash can (yuck!) was neat at this park.

Regent's Park

2011-11-16T16:36:00.001-05:00

Since we are here during the winter months, most days are going to be cloudy, if not raining. In order to get out and see things and avoid the claustrophobia that comes with being indoors every day, we have to take advantage of each sunny day.

We woke up Tuesday morning to the most beautiful sunshine and mild weather. Charlie and I didn't have any plans, so I thought we'd ride the tube just a few short stops away and visit Regent's Park.

Regent's Park is quite large, like Hyde Park, and has lots of different things to do. Playgrounds, ponds, canals, wildlife areas, cafes, trails, etc. It also is home to the London Zoo, though I'm saving a visit there until Brad can join us.

For Tuesday I thought we'd just play on some playgrounds, eat some lunch and feed the ducks. I excitedly told Charlie about my plans, thinking he'd run to get his shoes. Except that he's in a very two year old phase right now and of course told me no, stay here, do this other thing FIRST.

It took forever to get him out the door, even with promises of ducks. I finally suggested he bring this little soccer ball he has with us, a gift from someone at Brad's office. He carried it the whole time we rode the tube and showed everyone we encountered MY BALL!

Once we got there, we walked along the water towards one of the playgrounds. I had the bread stashed in my bag, but I was honestly a little scared to pull it out. There were SO MANY birds and they looked hungry! I thought we may not be able to handle the situation. Those geese can be so pushy.

The playground was fun, we met some other little boys about his age. In typical London style, they were from all over the world. All but one spoke English. Of course, all them spoke energetic two year old and that's really all that mattered.

It took a while to get Charlie out of the playground to go find some lunch (do you see a trend here? It takes forever to get Charlie to go anywhere to do anything). Along the way I snapped my favorite photo of the day. Beautiful swans floating on a fall day.

We had lunch at the Garden Cafe, which has organic, locally grown type stuff. It was nice, but I'm honestly trying to forget the whole experience. While the sandwich and latte was lovely, Charlie brought about a gallon of sand from the playground into the cafe with him in his jeans and dumped some everywhere he sat - including the velvet piano bench he crawled up on while I was ordering our food. The piano was in the sit-down portion of the cafe and we were eating in the section where you order at the counter.

The screams when Charlie found out he was not allowed to actually PLAY the piano were loud and disturbing. Then to see a big pile of sand where he was just sitting... well, I was ready to leave. From the look on the hostess' face, she was ready for us to leave too!

We headed out to the rose garden and Charlie kicked around his ball for a while. A nice older gentleman even joined him for part of it. Lots of people were out walking on their lunch hour. And my latte gave me a second wind after the attack of the Charlie at the cafe.

We continued walking after Charlie got tired of kicking the ball and found an area without quite as many birds. I pulled out the bread and gave it to Charlie. He seemed excited at first, but didn't understand why the birds didn't behave like the poodles do when Charlie is about to give them a treat.

The poodles, after all, sit and look like excitement might overtake them at any moment or hang back, trying to figure out how to trick Charlie out of the treat without having to do anything for it. They do not head your way full force like they'll peck off your leg if you don't hurry it up already.

So needless to say, Charlie was a bit apprehensive.

This one was the worst. So pushy!

After the bread was gone, it was time to learn all of Charlie's objections to moving on and finding the tube stop. At that point my resistance was worn and there may or may not have been a chocolate cupcake purchased outside the tube stop for Charlie. And he may remember exactly where that cupcake shop is and may have gotten upset with me today because we were in that tube station again and no cupcake appeared in his hand. But that's another post!

Anyways, a fun and memorable time with my munchkin. I hope we can go back to Regent's Park on a beautiful day with Brad and maybe a picnic. I think he'd love it and the zoo is supposed to be awesome. Here's hoping for another sunny day tomorrow because today... was not. :)

Mimi and Gena Come to Visit

2011-11-15T16:24:00.001-05:00

You are probably going to be asking where the photos of Gena were at the end of this post. Sadly, my jetlagged self did not do a good documentation job and get any photos of either Mimi and Gena or Charlie and Gena. Doh! Also got absolutely no photos of Mimi with me. Fortunately, I have picked up my photography game lately, so it's about to get all picture crazy up in here. Doesn't really help with this post, though.

My sister Meredith and one of her besties Gena came to visit right after we got to London. Like, as in, the day after. So we were a little out of sorts, but fortunately they are extremely easy house guests. For example, they show up with presents and wine and are also quite self entertaining.

Gena is living in Paris for a month and Meredith came over to visit her. They spent a week in Paris and then came to London for a few days. Witty recaps of their adventures can be found here and here.

They really showed London who was boss with their sightseeing skills. I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to keep up with their schedule. Or maybe it was because I was watching it through jet lagged eyes? Not sure. They also pubbed it up and hung out with some, ahem, interesting locals.

Charlie absolutely loved spending time with both of them. In fact, the three of them were roommates. I think this was an OK situation except for their first night, which was only our second night in London. He was up during the wee hours, but I found Gena sitting by his crib, quietly reading books to him. It just melted my cold, jaded heart.

It was a nice visit; they are such fun girls. Charlie loved showing off for them and they brought him the most adorable policeman's hat (like a real Bobby wears!). After Gena left, Charlie continued to call her from the objects around the flat that he's adopted as his phones. Now he calls both of them. :)

Gena headed back to Paris on Monday and Meredith stayed on until Wednesday. So we had a nice couple of low key days hanging out with Charlie, ordering takeout and drinking wine.

On Tuesday we took Charlie to Hyde Park with the intention of visiting the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. We learned very quickly that Hyde Park is quite large and could stand to have some improved signage. It took us a while to figure out where we were going, but in the meantime, we walked so much and burned so many calories, there was nothing left and we were invisible. Or at least, that's what we told ourselves.

We had lunch at a very cute cafe right on the pond in Hyde Park. Of course I have no pictures of that. Don't worry Gena, the cute cafe did not make the cut ahead of you.

Then we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and cursed a little, and walked and walked and walked. Charlie was almost asleep in his stroller when we finally found the park. It is a REALLY neat park. It has a Peter Pan theme. Here are some fun action shots:

It was fun and we ended the day with lotso wine and Indian takeout. And a run to the store for more wine and CHOCOLATE. I mentioned how good the chocolate is here, right?

On Wednesday, Mimi's flight didn't leave until 6, so we decided to get out and enjoy the morning. We had ever intention of going to the Natural History Museum, but when we came up from the tube the sun was shining and it had turned into a beautiful day.

By the way, Mimi was quite impressed with Charlie's mad tube-riding skills:

She thinks he could hang with the city kids in NYC. He seemed excited to hear it, as he has been working diligently at Minding the Gap.

Anyways, back to Wednesday. We started walking again. And the stupid map made it look like everything was so much closer than it truly was. So we would walk 30 minutes and have made no progress. Trafalgar Square was just not going to happen, but once again, there was so much walking we ended up invisible.

We ended up on Oxford street (lots of shopping) with a very grouchy Charlie, found a pub and ordered some drinks and food. Charlie started playing with the salt and pepper shakers and got pepper in his eyes and screamed for 20 minutes. Yeah. That was fun. Exactly what the other pub patrons were looking for mid-day.

After eating and cheering up, we hit up Harrods. What an off the hook department store. I can't even explain it. It's like a museum dedicated to shopping. They have so much, it makes the Macy's at Harold Square in NYC look podunk. I must go back and re-examine.

After that we left Mimi to gawk at the super sized H&M on Oxford Street and I got Charlie home. That huge H&M must have been an intoxicating experience (or was that the drinks at lunch?) because Meredith got back just in time to leave for her train! We were sad to see her go, but know she was excited to get home and see Lucas.

So until next time (wherever that may be)... Bye Mimi! Bye Gena!

Learning Curve

2011-11-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

I'd like to think when I travel that I'm pretty open to new cultures and can assimilate fairly easily. But everyone likes to think that about themselves, right? Since we are in more of a living situation than a vacation, we're really getting to experience it all, good and bad. All first world problems, of course, but kind of funny or interesting.

Probably the thing irking me the most right now is our silly washer/dryer. Most flats have a combined washer/dryer unit in the kitchen. So you just leave the clothes in the machine and the dry cycle begins once the wash cycle ends. I guess it's an energy efficient machine - that's the only reason I can figure it's so standard here. We have plenty of room for a full size set.

But ugh, do I hate that machine. It doesn't hold very many clothes but still manages to be so rough on them! I am line drying everything, down to our socks, because it takes the machine so long to dry.

The water temps are of course in Celsius, which didn't occur to my jet lagged self on our second day, so I managed to ruin a new shirt of mine. I washed a bunch of Charlie's dark clothes on a very hot water temp, so anything light colored in the load is now covered in splotches. Lovely.

The oven and dishwasher both have some weird symbols on them, but are standard enough. The fridge only keeps things moderately cold, though. Europeans are just not big on very cold food or lots of ice in your drinks. Again, more energy efficient.

Our flat's kitchen is in its own little room with a door, almost like another bedroom that's been outfitted with cabinets along the walls. It's nice, all from IKEA I think. The bathrooms are tiny, but we are fortunate I think to have big rooms in the rest of the flat. It's pretty open with wide hallways - something I've been told is unusual here.

Dialing the phone here is still a bit confusing. So many numbers! Of course, I've made this more complicated than it should be by having both my phone from home (requiring the international dialing codes) and the apartment phone, which I can dial locally. At least, until I lost the handset for the apartment phone.

Kristen took me to an actual grocery store last weekend. Other than we go to the smaller local markets we can walk to. It was a little intimidating, but I figured it out. Things are organized a bit differently, not where someone from the U.S. would expect them. Obviously different terms for food (biscuits vs. crackers, frankfurters vs. hot dogs, etc.) and different measurements (metric obviously and the milk is in liters for instance) and different products.

Oh and the eggs. They are not refrigerated here. They are just out on a shelf, in the middle of a regular aisle. I bought some, brought them home and promptly put them in the fridge. Quite illogical of me.

So far I adore the yogurt and chocolate I can buy here. Sooooo much better than what we have back home. I can't really explain what's different about the yogurt, but it's delicate and not too sweet and I am having some every day. The chocolate here makes Hershey's taste like wax. Just a regular old candy bar here is an incredible treat - tastes like more expensive chocolate in the U.S.

I'm still getting used to the traffic patterns, but am getting better about not looking the wrong way for an oncoming car. Kristen actually has her driver's license and I am so impressed watching her drive. She had to take quite a few driving lessons to get comfortable with it. I would think it would go against every instinct developed driving on the other side of the road back home.

Hmmm, what else. The light switches are opposite here too. And they are usually located outside of the room they light. It seems like keys turn and doors open in the opposite direction most of the time too. So I guess you could say England! Just like the U.S., but opposite!

Charlie and I took our first taxi ride the other day, to Brad's office to meet him for lunch, and I love the taxis here. They are those old fashioned looking cars, but when you get in, you have all this floor space in front of you. Tons of room for bags, the stroller, you name it. So nice.

Still haven't ventured on a bus, but we have become seasoned pros on the tube. Charlie especially has taken to it. He gets right on the train and plops down on a seat, even if there are people on either side! That usually gets a smile or two.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Signing off because I have to go hang up every last article of clothing to drip dry. :)

Lazy Sunday

2011-11-13T14:36:00.001-05:00

Today was not my most productive day. In fact, it was kind of a hang around the house in jammies day until early afternoon. Mainly because I actually went out last night with other grown ups, had adult conversation, too much wine and stayed up way too late! It was so much fun.

We went with 4 other couples to this incredibly awesome hole in the wall Greek restaurant, where they just keep bringing food and wine until you can't take anymore. It was 8 courses long and the best Greek food I think I've ever had. A pleasant surprise considering how sketchy this place looks from the outside - windows covered in old fabric, run down exterior, the sense that you just walked into someones house when you come in the door - not a business.

The people we went with are so much fun and I haven't laughed that much in a while. We were loud and obnoxious and I would guess pretty annoying if you were sitting at one of the other 4 or 5 tables. It was a blast.... that we all paid for this morning. Some of us earlier than others, depending on how old the children were.

We had a wonderful sitter come and stay with Charlie when we were out. I met her at the park on our second day here. She's from Pennsylvania and babysits for some other families in our neighborhood. She couldn't be any sweeter.

After we met at the park she sent me her babysitting resume. That's apparently what they do here, but it was my first time to receive a resume from a babysitter. I think she's looking for a full time nanny position, but I will happily have her come babysit until she finds one! She's coming back next weekend so Brad and I can go out to dinner.

Brad had to head into work for a while yesterday and today, so Munchkin and I have been having our own little adventures this weekend. Yesterday we walked to the shops in a nearby neighborhood, St. John's Wood. I've recently learned that a street of shops like that is called a High Street. Did you know that? I am probably the only person who did not.

Anyways, we had been over there Thursday with my friend Kristen and her son (also named Charlie) and I found my Charlie the cutest little red Hunter wellies. They had to order his size and they came in Friday. so we picked up his shoes and ran a few other errands and had a nice walk in the sunshine.

Today I just kept downloading episodes of Super Why on iTunes until I could no longer justify not leaving the house in the beautiful weather. We walked over to a coffee shop and then went to the private garden that our building backs up to. It's a very long, kind of narrow space - the same area where the bonfire was held.

Charlie played at the playground there for a bit but had his eye on the other kids' bikes and scooters. Besides our building, there are many single family homes that back up to the garden, so these were the resident kids. I feel bad telling him no when he starts heading for another child's toy. There was a somewhat abandoned tricycle sitting there the whole time we were at the playground, so I let him play with that for a while.

I am dying to get Charlie one of the little lightweight scooters all the kids have here. They are from this Swiss company called Micro Scooter and they make a model for 3 to 5 year olds. Once kids here grow out of the stroller they typically ride their scooters to keep up with their parents on the streets. At least once a day, Charlie tries to steal a Mini Micro - they are EVERYWHERE. They are just lined up outside the preschools, waiting for their little owners to finish class. I'm trying to convince Brad we *need* one.

Anyways, it was a gorgeous day here. I think we have a beautiful week in store before it starts raining every day.

After our visit to the garden, we headed over to celebrate a very special boy's first birthday. This is little Charlie - our friends' Kristen and Jason's son. Charles is a family name in Kristen's family as well.

He wasn't too big on the cupcake, but took several steps in the living room while we all cheered. Party attendees were either exhausted from our big night out or under the age of 5. It was a nice gathering, but we were all a bit short on interesting conversation!

After we left the birthday party we decided to walk and grab some dinner somewhere. We hit up The Elgin, which is a bar and grill nearby. We discovered they have movies for the kids upstairs on Sunday nights, so we ordered food and watched some of Kung Fu Panda 2. There were a couple older kids there that Charlie loved going over to talk to. They were very sweet and would just smile and nod if they couldn't understand him.

We met some very nice people at the bar, one of whom invited Brad to play soccer. Everywhere we go here in London it seems like we meet someone new who is just so friendly. It's like Pleasantville with accents. It's very easy to just settle in and feel right at home when people are so nice. Even in Richmond, which I consider very friendly, I've never experienced anything quite like it. I don't know if it's this particular neighborhood or London in general. I'll keep you posted.

So that was kind of our weekend. Brad has a busy work week ahead and Charlie and I are going to make the most of the beautiful weather. Have a good week!

Playing in the Leaves

2011-11-10T14:24:00.000-05:00

Ever since we watched Charlie Brown's Halloween special 46 times, Charlie has been looking for piles of leaves to play in. While walking through Grosvenor Park near the U.S. Embassy last Sunday, he finally got his chance. He rain through piles of leaves, threw them up in the air and had so much fun. We had a tough time convincing him to leave!

I have to give London props for their great parks. This was really just a square in a busy area, but they are everywhere and provide lots of room for running around. Where we live there are really nice parks with beautiful equipment and rubber ground cover so kids don't slip in the rain. They are very friendly places - I end up talking to another mom or nanny every time I go.

I've taken Charlie to play in a park almost every day we've been here. I learned our second day here that if there is a puddle in the park, Charlie is going to jump in it! His sneakers were soaked for 3 days after our first trip.

I just took him this morning to get fitted for some bright red wellies, which will come in tomorrow. Unlike the cheap, clunky Target rain boots I got him in Richmond, I think he should be able to actually run and play in these. If it gets really cold or snows, I can just get him some wool inserts to keep his feet warm. I really kind of wanting some myself!!

Guy Fawkes Night

2011-11-09T19:47:00.001-05:00

The UK's answer to the Fourth of July appears to be Guy Fawkes night, which we had a great time celebrating last weekend. There was a bonfire in the garden behind our building and a fireworks show.

Apparently Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and kill the king a long time ago. He got caught, and was tortured and killed at the Tower of London. To celebrate that the king was not killed, the people started having bonfires and fireworks each year.

The bonfires are a way to burn ol' Guy in effigy. Of course, he does get a whole holiday named after him, so it might have been better to name it "Don't try to blow up Parliament" day. Just to really stick it to him!!

On Saturday night we met up with friends for dinner at their apartment and walked over to the bonfire drinking delicious mulled wine. It was chilly, but not too cold.

Charlie loved checking out the bonfire with his daddy and lighting the sparklers with the other kids we were with. The big fireworks show scared him at first, but by the end he was cheering with everyone else. We were still pretty jet lagged on Saturday so by the end of the fireworks it was time to crash.

I'm glad we made it here in time to check it out - I highly recommend if you're in the UK this time of year!

We Made It!

2011-11-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

As I typically do, I worked myself all up into a nervous frenzy about something that turned out to be fine. My stomach was in knots the few days before we left on the trip and it really could not have gone better. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was long and tiring and we are still dealing with jet lag.... but I can't believe how well Charlie did. I was really impressed with him!

At the last minute we had to switch flights from Tuesday night to Wednesday night in order to ensure we'd be in business class. I was relieved to have the extra day to get ready. We left Richmond around 8pm and flew to Chicago. That flight went fine; Charlie just watched his DVD player.

We had to walk quite a ways at O'hare to our next gate and during that time, Charlie fell asleep in his stroller. He stayed asleep until I had to take him out of his stroller at the end of the jet bridge. A very nice American gate attendant came over to where we were sitting in the waiting area, tagged our stroller and made sure we boarded first. I mean, how nice is that??

Once we were on the plane, there was a bit of fussing because Charlie was tired, but I got him in his pajamas and gave him his binky and he cheered up.

Business class was pretty much awesome. We sat down to a nice fluffy pillow, blanket and a menu to order our four course dinner off of. I know my son and told the flight attendant he'd cut straight to the ice cream sundae for dessert. I went ahead and enjoyed the rest, though. :)

During dinner, Charlie watched his DVD player and I put on Horrible Bosses, which was hilarious if you haven't seen it. Much funnier than I expected. They passed around Bose noise canceling headphones and even Charlie liked wearing them!

After dinner and lots of yummy wine, Charlie and I both fell asleep. The seats reclined all the way down and were so comfortable. I actually had to wake Charlie up about 15 minutes before landing. That's how well he slept.

After all the food the night before, there was no way I could do breakfast. The attendant very kindly packed Charlie up a breakfast to take with us. She was just so nice. Very kind to Charlie when I know others would probably not be a fan of a 2 year old in their section.

When we got off the plane I took him into a family changing station and dressed him for the day. Then we hoofed it to immigration, which was a ways off. That's about when I realized I'd left the hot pink envelope they gave me in business class to gain entry into the Fast Track lane. Doh!

I filled out a couple more forms and asked the lady guarding the Fast Track lane if I could show her our tickets or something to get through. The general line was VERY long. She told me to go ahead but then saw Charlie and waved to her coworker to open a barrier and let us through... to the FRONT of the line. I felt like I won the lottery. I thanked them both profusely.

Once we were through immigration it was on to baggage claim. At the advice of Brad's dad and step mom, I exchanged some dollars for pounds and hired a porter. That was truly excellent advice. He helped me locate our luggage in a sea of people just when I thought it hadn't made the flight. He loaded up our carry on bags and we schlepped it out to find the driver.

The driver was ALSO very nice and even pushed the stroller! Charlie wanted to be carried, but it wasn't far to the car park (how British am I?). I was so grateful everything went so seamlessly I tipped the both what was in retrospect a slightly insane amount. I have to remember these are pounds and not dollars I'm passing out here!

We hit a tad of traffic, but made good time to our apartment. Once at our apartment, the manager came out and helped us get the bags up to our unit, which is on the 4th floor and requires an elevator. At this point I am certain I have won some sort of travel lottery.

The apartment has been great, it is much larger than I was anticipating. We have a nice big kitchen and 2 bathrooms. The apartment manager bought Charlie a brand new wooden crib, which is very nice. We face the street, so we're still getting used to the sounds of the city out the window. Since our home in Richmond is perfectly silent at night, save the occasional cat or raccoon, I figured that would require some adjusting.

I really love the neighborhood we are in. It is just outside the very busy parts of the city and there are lots of schools and families and we can walk to all sorts of shops and restaurants and parks. We can walk to anything we need pretty much. In fact, Charlie and I spent most of Friday walking all over the place!

Our former neighbors from Richmond, the Fosters, moved here about a year and a half ago and we are staying just down the street from them. So far that has been a blast. It's so nice having a friend to do things with and show me the ropes. It's funny because when they left and we were all so sad to say good bye, I told them not to be surprised to see us move in next door in London! And here we are. I had no idea I could make such prophetic statements in my effort to make lame jokes.

And in a lucky twist of fate, my sister and her friend Gena are visiting for a few days! Gena is living in Paris for a little while and Meredith spent a week there with her. On Friday morning, they took the Eurostar and came to London! They've been such a big help with Charlie and so fun to have around. They even stayed with him last night so Brad and I could go grab dinner on our own.

Really the only challenging part of our trip has been getting Charlie used to the time change. I was hoping we could just stay up after we arrived Thursday and go to bed at night and wake up and be adjusted. File that under "Extremely Naive"because that ain't happening. When I put Charlie to bed at night, he thinks it's nap time and wakes up 3 hours later ready to have dinner!

The first night was particularly brutal - he went to bed at 8 or so and woke up at 1, stayed up until 4. Absolutely grueling for me after that overnight flight. Last night was a bit better, he went to bed around 11 and woke up briefly at 1:30. Both mornings I have been getting him up on time - 8:30, 9ish. Today he actually took a nap and I had high hopes he'd go to bed and be fine... but he talked in his crib until 11:45. So I guess we're taking baby steps back to a normal schedule.

And that's what's going on here! Mostly getting settled and getting rested up. Brad had a very tiring week last week with work, getting very little sleep, so we are all getting back on track. We had some fun with friends tonight for Guy Fawkes day, but I'll save that for another post.

Hoping to get out for some sightseeing with Brad and Charlie tomorrow if the weather allows. If we are going to successfully trek all over this city, we all need rain boots and the MacLaren stroller rain cover. So far it's warmer here than I expected (thanks Global Warming!) but it is most definitely rainy!

That's all for now! Good night!

Halloween!

2011-11-01T07:13:00.002-04:00

Charlie had a very fun and candy-filled Halloween! Mostly candy filled because I didn't realize he knew how to open the little packages the candy came in. So he ate a bunch after we went trick or treating and before I knew it, we had a raging sugar high on our hands!

Anyways, the day started with his preschool Halloween party. The parents were invited to at 11 so I showed up after more pre-London errands. I was in charge of the sweet treat and made rice crispy squares with orange and brown sprinkles. I found the idea on Pinterest, natch. They were a hit.

The funny thing about preschool, is that while Charlie loves it, when I arrive, he is ready to get the heck out of there. I showed up to read to the class a couple of weeks ago and he actually didn't like that very much at all. Yesterday I showed up for the party and he spent the entire time trying to grab his bag and my hand and get out the door! He got rather fussy about it.

He wouldn't wear his costume - might have just been too hot, though. And he didn't want any food or juice. That's pretty normal lately. My little eater doesn't want to eat anything anymore. He did have a rice crispy treat on the way home, though. And then refused all lunch. (I can barely get his pants to stay up as they are! He can't get any skinnier!)

After the preschool party we came home and he took a long and much-needed nap. He's still coughing and seems more tired than usual to me. He woke up right before it was time for our neighborhood potluck that we have before trick or treating.

Charlie's Didi and Papa came from Williamsburg for the evening, which was a huge help without Brad here. Papa passed out candy to all the trick or treaters and Didi helped me keep an eye on Charlie at the potluck and take him trick or treating. In the pouring rain.

The potluck was fun - there were lots of ride on toys for the kids to play on and delicious chili, mac n' cheese and apple brandy cider for dinner. It was overcast and chilly and I was glad Charlie had a thick costume to keep him warm.

Unfortunately, about 5 minutes before we were leaving to trick or treat, a very cold rain started to fall. Like, brutal, bone chilling cold. It was miserable. We kept Charlie and his friend Owen in the double Bob, covered up, but the rest of us were just wet and wishing it would stop. We hit about 4 houses and called it a night. The rain never really did let up.

Such a bummer, I bet a lot of my neighbors ended up with tons of extra candy because trick or treating is huge here. I managed to get rid of most of ours, but only because I was dumping tons of it in the bags of the preteens and teens who will trick or treat no matter what the weather!

Charlie didn't want to leave Owen after we decided trick or treating was done for the night, so we promised him another round of Charlie Brown Halloween on TV. It was nice to sit in front of the fire and warm up. After a while the dogs didn't even freak out when we got trick or treaters! I probably could have sent them out to walk with some of them - all the older kids commented on the dogs.

Our last trick or treater was Charlie's friend Hayden from up the street. He and his dad came by and while we were talking, Charlie and Hayden got themselves nice and cozy on the sofa with Charlie Brown on TV and started eating candy! It was pretty funny.

With his sugar high, I couldn't get Charlie to go to bed until late. We called his Nana and talked to her for a bit and he wanted to look at tons of books. Eventually he crashed, though and walked directly over to the crib and started to crawl in. Pretty sure he was out within a minute of putting him in there!

Now the hard part will be convincing Charlie that Halloween is over! Time to pull out the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, which I bought yesterday, and focus on a new holiday! Even though we will be in London, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our friends.

Speaking of London, we were supposed to leave today, but due to a mixup on the flights, are leaving tomorrow. I'm kind of relieved - I was very nervous trying to get ready to go after such a busy day yesterday. One more day to get ready - phew!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Mad Dash

2011-10-28T23:52:00.000-04:00

This poodle is the opposite of a mad dash. He's more like a slow do nothing.

Unrelated: this is usually the view I wake up to in the morning when Brad is out of town.

Phew, what a week getting ready to leave for London. I am beat. We had apartment drama at the beginning of the week, thinking the place we'd planned on staying was no longer available. But that got worked out and now we have a lovely apartment just a block away from our very good friends and former neighbors. It is going to be so much fun being close to them while we are visiting.

But I didn't get to enjoy that relief for too long before there was all this panic over Charlie's passport. We are using one of those expediting services so I wouldn't have to take Charlie up to DC. What should have been a very simple process was made a lot more complicated by none of our area post offices wanting to take 5 minutes to process the application.

They all operate by appointment, but had none available until after our departure date. Not to mention that most postal workers I spoke to were just rude and unhelpful. I kind of hate the USPS. Anyways, I was beginning to lose hope as I called office after office, but FINALLY found one that could fit us in and it wasn't too bad of a drive to get there. I was so relieved to get that package shipped off at FedEx.

We used VisaHQ.com to process his passport and they've been really great. Charlie's passport was issued today and it's been FedExed to us. We'll have it first thing Monday morning. If you ever need something like that, I'd recommend them. There are so many of those types of services, it's hard to know who is actually reliable and who is going to scam you.

I spent today running around getting errands done while the babysitter stayed with Charlie. I had my check up at the dermatologist and thankfully only had to get one mole removed - on my arm. I'll have biopsy results on that next week but she wasn't too concerned. It sure does hurt, though. The rest of the errands were insignificant - Target, hair cut, etc. It was sleeting on the way home. I'm so relieve we aren't getting snow here. I'm just not mentally prepared for that!

And now.... Charlie has a horrible cough. Our babysitter said it sounded like an adult's cough to her. And as I sit here listening to him coughing in his crib, I have to agree. I tried to give him some Benadryl and he spit most of it up. He's very anti-medicine lately and cries if he has to take it. Anyone know of any good tricks for that? I have the humidifier cranked up and we're doing breathing treatments. I have to get him feeling better before we leave on Tuesday.

I'm starting to get REALLY nervous about the flights. I'm so excited to go, but that excitement is really pushed back in my mind until I get through these flights with Charlie. Brad upgraded us to business class and the seats lay almost flat so I hope Charlie will sleep some. Even if I was doing this trip alone it would be exhausting. That's probably the scariest part to me. How can I handle it with him, too? AGGGHH

When I was a kid and we took long trips, my mom would wrap up little gifts for us to open each hour. It made the time pass because we had the anticipation of a present, unwrapping it and playing with it, all to kill time. I am doing the same thing with Charlie and really, truly hope I found some things that will keep him busy. I also ordered some new DVDs for the portable player because he is all about Super Why these days. I will optimistically pack a book and hope he is occupied enough to get a little reading done!

Packing is the other thing I need to do - it is going to be ugly. I've never been good at minimizing what I pack. Well, I was pretty good when we went to Italy, but I spent most of the trip wishing I'd packed other things. We're going to be in the same outfits a lot. I'm also taking Brad some more casual clothes so he can stop wearing the same 2 outfits each weekend! I had to get Charlie some new stuff, mostly pants - he is still getting taller and all his pants are too short! I still need to find him some mittens. Where do I go for that?

Well he is coughing almost constantly now. I think I better get him up for another breathing treatment. Poor little guy. We are supposed to go to Charlottesville in the morning to see my sister in law, so I hope he is up to it. It's also supposed to snow tonight in Charlottesville! Crazy. I guess we'll see. I hope we can go.

Happy Halloween Weekend everyone!

Apple Recipes

2011-10-23T10:24:00.000-04:00

I did it - I finished off all the apples we brought home from Carter Mountain Orchard! Granted, I did push some of them off on my MIL Sue, but I cooked a majority of them! I thought I'd share the recipes in case you find yourself in possession of an obscene number of apples.

In a first for me, I made a homemade pie crust for apple pie. Actually I've made 3. They aren't much to look at, but they taste good. The dough is so soft by the time I'm sealing up the pie that my edges are kind of messy. Or rustic, if you will.

I followed this pie tutorial that the Pioneer Woman posted on her site. I have no idea where to locate leaf lard, so my crusts were all butter.

While the pies turned out great, the recipe doesn't quite work for me - it always takes me at least twice as much water as she specifies - but it sure does taste good. Now that I've learned this parchment paper technique to rolling out dough, I may try another recipe and see if it works better. Overall, though, two thumbs up. Apple Pie. YUM.

I also made some mini apple crisps in ramekins, which are nice for single serving desserts. I follow the Barefoot Contessa's recipe for Apple Crisp but just bake them in the ramekins instead of an oval baking dish.

I actually keep a batch of the crumble topping in a zip lock bag in the freezer all the time and pull it out to make crumbles with frozen berries, apples, pears/cranberries, you name it. Very quick. My favorite is probably blackberries and frozen berries work just as well.

I personally think you can cut the amount of butter in half in this recipe and it still tastes incredible. She tends to overdo it sometimes with the butter.

I made homemade applesauce for the first time and I don't think I'll ever be able to eat jarred applesauce again. It was incredibly good. I like a chunky applesauce so just took my stick blender and pulsed it a bit after the apples cooked down and cooled until it was a nice chunky consistency.

I followed this recipe, but all applesauce recipes seem similar, so you can't really go wrong. I used 4 different types of apples in there, because that's what I had and it gave it a nice flavor. I prefer brown sugar to white and LOTS of cinnamon. Charlie ate a ton of the first batch, but has since gotten sick of it, so this second batch is all mine. :)

In truly sinful cooking news, my neighbor that I went to Carter Mountain with (Hi Ria!) has a deep fryer that we've managed to get in some trouble with. She pinned a Paula Deen recipe for fried apple pies that uses canned biscuit dough and has a basic fried apple filling and we went for it. Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top and OH. MY. GOSH. Sheer bliss. If you missed the state fair and want to be bad, this is the way to do it.

Incidentally, we also tried another Pinterest deep fryer/biscuit dough recipe this morning - donuts! Also blissful. The marriage between boiling oil and canned biscuits is a fruitful one. If you decide to make them, you can ignore the part of the recipe that instructs to dip the donuts in melted margarine (ugh) before the cinnamon sugar. The sugar sticks just fine without it.

I think that's about all I cooked - or assisted with. I did make some fried apples using a simple recipe of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon to cook down the apples. I put them on top of oatmeal. Kind of a naughty + nice breakfast. Delicious when it's cold out!

It's been fun cooking so many things, but I am really starting to get sick of apples. Glad we are going to be doing a lot of walking in London. I need it after all this food!

Yo Gabba Gabba

2011-10-22T21:59:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I found some $15 tickets to Yo Gabba Gabba Live on Travelzoo and decided to spring for them. I knew the show was coming to Richmond, but I wasn't sure if Charlie would like it or even sit through the entire thing, so full price tickets seemed like a gamble. I'm glad I went for it because he LOVED it!

We went to the 2pm show today and sat on the balcony. The show wasn't anywhere near sold out - hence the $15 ticket offer - so we were even able to move down from our nosebleed seats to the front of the balcony. Apart from one mom who liked to stand up and dance, there was nothing blocking our view.

It was a loud, high energy show and the performers encouraged the kids (and apparently that one mom in front of us) to stand up and dance. Charlie had a big smile on his face for a lot of the show and did quite a bit of dancing in front of his seat! The rest of the time he sat mesmerized. Or maybe just tired - the show was during his nap time.

Biz Markie actually made an appearance at the show, which was a nice surprise. That was probably my favorite part. He did his Beat of the Day, of course, but also brought some kids on stage to help and do their version of the Beat. Then he mixed some tunes and everyone danced. It was great.

After the show I offered to get Charlie a t-shirt, which he got excited about. He immediately picked a blue shirt with Muno on it and wanted to carry it back to the car himself. When we got close to the car, he asked if he could put it on. So we put it on him and he wore it home, passed out cold in his car seat. Tonight when it was time to change into jammies, he didn't want to take it off, so he's now sleeping in his Muno shirt.

Overall it was a great experience and I'd take him again in a heartbeat. He's really missing his daddy right now and it was nice to do something special for him.

Even though he pointed out all the characters, did the dances and knew the songs, he didn't want to watch the show when we got home. He's really stuck on Super Why right now. When does their tour come to town???

London Update

2011-10-19T00:47:00.002-04:00

I just wrote most of a blog entry only for Blogger to lose it and have no recollection what I was talking about. Ugh. Good thing I can't sleep, might was well type it out again!

I am not sleeping because I am sooooo excited about going to London! Things are finally starting to move along and I think we should be there 2 weeks from today! Or... tomorrow I guess. In my mind, I just completely gloss over that whole 11-hours-flying-time-with-a-two-year-old thing. We just magically arrive with no jet lag and it's fabulous!

We have found a wonderful house sitter to look after our house and puppies and are close to booking the corporate apartment and our plane tickets. I'll post more on our apartment and location after it's finalized. All that will be left is getting Charlie's passport. That part makes me very nervous. It is, after all, our federal government. Who knows what might/can/will go wrong.

I'm trying not to think about how if I'd just applied for an expedited passport for Charlie right after Brad left, we'd be close to getting it at this point. I thought for sure we'd be in London by now. Everything takes so much longer than anticipated.

We probably could go a bit earlier, but we decided to wait and let Charlie enjoy his Halloween here before we go. He has a preschool party that day and we have a neighborhood party to go to the Saturday night before. And trick or treating in our neighborhood is a big deal - lots of people out and about and tables set up for block parties.

Charlie is actually excited about Halloween this year, loves trying on his costume and can't wait to trick or treat. I'm sad Brad has to miss it. But we just decided we will have to make up for it once we get over there and the trip is really going to be a neat experience for our family. In other words, worth the sacrifice in the long run.

So until we go, I'm keeping Charlie (and myself) very busy. He is well past the point of recognizing, with his age-limited concept of time, that Daddy should have been home by now. He's still the same happy kid, but I know he misses his daddy and he brings him up pretty frequently. He likes putting on Brad's shoes and sitting in his car. He talks about going to find fire trucks and go carts (like on our beach trip) with Daddy. It's going to be so neat to see their reunion.

Well, got to get up in a few to get Charlie to preschool and myself to Starbucks, Target and yoga class. I'm going to try and NOT think about London so I can sleep!

Picking Apples

2011-10-11T22:59:00.000-04:00

Can you tell we're trying to keep busy with Brad gone? We're very lucky to have good friends who invite us along on their adventures. We had a really fun day this past weekend driving to Charlottesville and picking some apples!

Charlottesville is about an hours drive West of here and it's a really beautiful drive. The leaves are starting to change colors and it gets very hilly the further West you go. Go a little further and you'll hit the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Carter Mountain Orchard is at the top of a mountain and has incredible views. It was a beautiful fall day.

We got there right as it opened, hoping to miss some of the crowds. Which we did, somewhat. By the time we left, there were long lines to park and get up the mountain. It was hard waking up early, but totally worth it!

They grow many different kinds of apples there and also lots of grapes for some of the area winemakers. Virginia wines are finally getting better. When we first moved to DC in 2004 they were pretty bad. Compare to what you can get at a wine store, they are probably overpriced, quality wise. But hey, I like supporting the locals.

You can taste wine at the vineyard, which the adults in our group took turns doing. A flight of 6 wines for $2 before lunch time - not a bad deal! The wines they sell there are from a vineyard called Prince Michel. No, I am not kidding. I bought two bottles. The labels alone will be a nice conversation piece.

The main speciality of visiting Carter Mountain, though, is the DONUTS! Cider donuts, dusted in powdered sugar. Within 10 minutes of parking we were digging in. Well, everyone but Charlie. He won't eat much these days, but that's for another post. He did have an apple caramel cookie later and seemed to enjoy that. It was a life changing donut for me - they were that good.

We used one of the orchard's wagons for pulling around toddlers and apples, but it was pretty unwieldy and hard to get up and down the hills. In hindsight, I wish I'd brought our red flyer. Here are the kids having some donuts and cider.

And the boys enjoying their ride...

We hit three different areas to get some different types of apples. After Charlie figured out what we were doing, he was a machine! An apple picking machine. He would go deep into the branches to find just the apple he wanted to pick.

Of course, Charlie didn't necessarily grasp the concept of putting the apples in a bag and several ended up on the ground. However, it was hard to tell which apple was the one he dropped since the ground was covered with apples that had fallen off the trees on their own! There was so much fruit growing on each tree - it was amazing to see.

The apples are safe to eat right off the tree, which several of us did. They were absolutely delicious. A little warm from the sun and perfectly ripe.

Thanks to my apple-pickin' son, I have got AT LEAST 20 pounds of apples in my kitchen right now. Mostly Fuji and Granny Smith, but also some Braeburn and Winesap.

The orchard has the ever-popular Pink Lady apples too, but they aren't quite ready yet. Those trees were roped off with signs that said No Picking!! As crazy-crowded as the orchard was this past weekend, after those pink lady apples are ready, it will be crazy insane. Maybe we can go on a weekday and pick some. A good excuse to have lunch with Charlie's Aunt Clare, who attends the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. :)

Anyways, will do another post with the apple recipes I've been making that have actually turned out well. Something tells me we are going to be sick of apples by the time we bake/eat/give away all of them.

State of the Spooners

2011-10-08T22:37:00.000-04:00

Time for an update in my favorite format - bullets!

Brad found out last week that he's going to be in London for 3 months. We knew that was possible, but wow. I've been spending most of my free time making arrangements so we can go over and join him. Looking for a house sitter to watch the house and dogs, expediting a passport for Charlie, figuring out flights and finding a corporate apartment. Pardon me, a FLAT. It's all taking longer then I would care for it to.
Despite the stress of making it happen, we are really looking forward to all being together over there and getting to check out London for such a long period of time. Our former neighbors/good friends have been living there for a year and a half, so we are going to get to spend time with them, meet all their nice friends and have the advantage of advice from people very familiar with London. They're also going to be in town for Thanksgiving, so we get to see how ex-pats celebrate!
It sounds like Brad is finally getting his bearings after almost 2 weeks there. It was all such a whirlwind when he left - finding out Monday he was leaving Tuesday for who knows how long. But he's getting to know the team and even found some fellow Razorback fans last weekend to watch the game with. What are the chances?
Right now we're planning to be back in town in time to celebrate Christmas in Richmond - probably our last. Sniff. I love decorating this house for Christmas so I am going nuts this year. Charlie and I will probably get home a couple of weeks before Brad, who will come home right before the holiday. I know he'll be heartbroken to miss me on a home decor streak.
Until we get the details figured out, Charlie and I are just trying to keep busy and enjoy the beautiful fall weather. I don't think at this age Charlie is too aware of time, but he definitely knows Daddy should have been home by now. Sometimes, he is rather put out with Brad for being gone. I can't wait to see their reunion.
Tomorrow we're going with a bunch of friends to Carter Mountain to pick apples. I've never been, so I think it will be fun. The orchard is in Charlottesville. I've already pinned a ton of apple recipes on Pinterest. There will also be apple cider donuts involved. YUM.
Charlie absolutely loves preschool. He has his little friend Grayson there and they are both very talkative and talk about each other. It sounds like they've been having a blast playing together in the sand box and with all the trucks.
Separation anxiety is a thing of the past - Charlie doesn't bat an eye when I drop him off. He's also quit crying when babysitters arrive. Especially his favorite sitter, who is back for her sophomore year at University of Richmond. He's affectionately given her the same nickname as my sister - Mimi.
I no longer think Charlie thinks the babysitter is the real Mimi - I think it is merely a term of endearment. Like how he named his little stuffed deer Odie after my mom's dog. And he calls his lovie Bobo, after our dog. He definitely knows when it's the real Mimi - he has a more excited reaction to her.
I wish I could post about all the awesome books I've been reading, but they are sitting on my nightstand getting dusty. All thanks to Pinterest. I mean, somebody please stop me, as I can not stop myself. I have been cooking a lot of recipes and doing some of the crafts and decor things I've found on the site - all to varying levels of success. But still. Pick up a book Kara. Lay down the iPad.
My mother in law Hope (Charlie's Gram) sent him a very cute cup and plate set that he started using yesterday. The cup is a child's cup, kind of like a coffee cup, and Charlie thinks he is hot stuff when I let him drink out of it. No sippy cup for this big kid, thank you very much. He tells me he's drinking his coffee and yuuuummmmmy. I'm hoping I can catch him doing it when we call her to thank her - she would get a big kick out of that!
I've started going to yoga to get back in shape after my back pain and I am loving it. I'm surprised, I've tried it many different times before and it didn't take. It feels great and I'm really coming out of all this back pain, which is amazing. I was pretty much out for the count for 9 months. I'm also adding in more core work, which I need desperately.
I can still hear Charlie talking in his crib an hour and a half after I put him down. I think he is trying his best to be tired and grouchy for apple picking tomorrow. At this rate, I will be asleep before he is. It's my punishment for keeping him up too late last night grilling out with friends across the street.

On that note I'm going to sign off. REALLY hoping A&M can hold on to this lead over Tech. Every time I check the score I feel nervous. It's not on TV here - but Iowa St./Baylor is. I mean, really?

Ok, night night everyone!

Pumpkin Picking

2011-10-03T22:57:00.001-04:00

Sunday we went with some of our neighbors out to Ashland Berry Farm to pick pumpkins. Like literally pick them. From a vine. Before we went, I thought picking pumpkins meant, like, pick them UP. And pay for them.

To defend my ignorance: before we had Charlie, we didn't really think about going somewhere cute for the experience of picking pumpkins. We were more focused on what Halloween party we would be staying out at all night. Or what kind of wine to drink while passing out candy. The past two years we've avoided the crowds because Charlie was so young. This was the year! And Brad is of course in London. Boo.

So I took Charlie and we had so much fun! It was chilly and rainy and wet, but we were with fun people and had a great time. There were also donuts - homemade, warm donuts. They were life changing.

Charlie was very excited when we got there, but there was too much to check out to stop for any happy dance. He loved this fountain, which was scenically placed by the wall-o-portapotties. He actually tried to walk over the flowers and get IN the fountain.

He also loved all the tiny decorative pumpkins they had near the entrance and carried the little white one around all day. This is Charlie with his good friend Owen who lives across the street. They are two peas in a pod these days.

We had to wait a while in line in the rain for the hayride, but did I mention the donuts? Charlie loved the hayride and smiled the whole time. There was even a little dachshund riding with us. The hayride consists of two trailers full of hay hitched up to a tractor. And tractors, you might remember from Touch a Truck, are EXCITING. This one even got stuck in the mud.

When we got out to the field Charlie had a great time picking out pumpkins for me to get for him and then wanting nothing to do with them. I hear there are pumpkin shortages around the U.S., but not in Virginia! I could have brought a dozen home, there were so many beautiful ones. Unfortunately, I only have so many hands and no Bradford to help. I got 4 home and that was with Owen's dad's help! Charlie just continued to clutch his little white pumpkin.

On the way back we got to ride in the hay with a great dane! After the excitement from that wore off, Charlie laid down on me and closed his eyes. He was getting worn out and hungry. It was sweet. Of course, 5 minutes later he wanted to jump off the back of the tractor and told me to let go of him. Kid has no fear. He was extremely irritated with me for saying no.

He seemed to perk up when we got back from the field, though, and rode around with his friends on a pumpkin cart. Owen has a fairly new baby sister and is having some sibling rivalry. I love that he's pouting in this picture - I just picture him telling Charlie, no matter what you do, DO NOT get a little sister!!

It warmed up a tad and we sat outside and had a hot dog. A bee came by and I was swatting it and telling it to go away, which Charlie thought was hilarious. He started imitating me and laughing his little head off. He laughed so hard he got the hiccups! So now both my husband AND my son like to make fun of me. Great.

So we had a great time but were missing Brad quite a bit. We called him on the way home and told him all about it.

Brad asked on the call if I told Charlie that Arkansas won their football game on Saturday. I told him NO, I told him A&M lost. What does he take me for??? I'm only a Razorback fan when they aren't playing the Aggies. Also: what is going on with the team at half time that they can't seem to play the second half???

ANYWAYS. It was an action-packed, fun weekend and oh my gosh, what are we going to do this coming weekend? Brad still won't be back, but that's for another post.

Well I must run and find spots around the house for all the tiny white pumpkins we ended up buying!

Touch a Truck

2011-10-01T23:10:00.002-04:00

The Junior League of Richmond puts on a really neat event each fall called Touch a Truck. There are fire trucks, diggers, tractors, bulldozers, helicopters ....... and a bunch of other equipment I couldn't name if I tried.

Brad and I had been looking forward to taking Charlie for several weeks since Charlie is obsessed with big trucks. One of the first things I said when I found out Brad had to leave for London was that he was going to miss Touch a Truck! But we took lots of pictures and I did my best to stand in for Daddy. We were missing him a lot, though, and judging from the texts he was sending me, he was missing us too.

We met up with my friend Karen and her two boys. The temperatures dropped 20 degrees overnight, so it was cool and crisp - perfect fall weather. We had so much fun checking everything out and Charlie and Ben could have stayed all day I think. When we first got there, Charlie was so excited, he started doing this little happy dance.

Not sure where he got that from, but it was pretty funny! And neat to see him so excited.

The highlight of the day was the helicopter. Well, at first there were two, but one had to leave. We got to watch it take off. The other one we were able to get inside and check out. Charlie didn't want to get out and when he finally had to, he burst into tears. His love for helicopters is serious. Ben very sweetly told Charlie it was ok and don't cry.

There were also booths with games and activities and dogs to adopt and such. After we checked all of that out, Karen and I were hungry and getting a bit worn out. The only thing missing from the event was food. Well, and Starbucks, which I think should be at all child-focused events for the parents. There were a few places to get ice cream or bbq, but nothing really sounded appealing. So we packed it in and headed to Chick fil A. Charlie didn't want to leave and kept telling me to walk the other way.

On our way to the car we ran into Charlie's friend from when he was in daycare, Freddie. Freddie has a new little brother and we haven't seem him in a while. In fact, I don't think he and Charlie recognized each other! Kind of sad. Reminded me that I need to take Charlie by his old school to say hi to the teachers.

After Chick fil A, it was time for a nap. Charlie took a whopping 4 hour nap! I fell asleep for a while too. Tomorrow we are going to pick pumpkins, so it's another big day!

Some Big News

2011-09-28T06:30:00.000-04:00

I have a bit of an announcement to make here on the blog, though many of you already know what's going on. We have recently put our house here in Richmond on the market, with the intention of moving to Dallas.

This was an incredibly hard decision to make, as we love Richmond. Absolutely love it. We love living here, love our family and friends that live here (or near) and love the house that we've fixed up here.

While there are going to be many wonderful things about living in Dallas (namely, family and friends who are there!) as a city, it is probably not our #1 choice as a place to live, so we did hesitate on going. We've just gotten used to a town that is much smaller than Dallas and having been on the East Coast for most of our married life, it feels like home now. Richmond in particular feels like home.

But in the end, we had to make the decision that was best for us as a family, and at this point in time, moving to Dallas is what's best.

Brad's job is mainly based in Dallas, whenever he is not at the client site. We discussed moving when he first took the job, but we weren't sure how much time would be in the office vs. on the road. Now we feel like we have a better picture of that and that living in Dallas will mean he'll be home a lot more. Also, at the time, Charlie was a newborn, and I'm pretty sure I would have had a nervous breakdown trying to move back then!

Brad really loves his job, but it has meant a lot of sacrifice since Charlie was born and being away for milestones and things like that. It's also been hard on us as a couple to spend that much time apart. We are all really looking forward to having more time together as a family after the move. Well, Charlie hasn't been able to articulate that, but I think it's a safe assumption, considering how much he loves his daddy. :)

So our house is on the market and we are waiting to see what happens. The market here is terrible, so this may take a while. Fortunately, we are not under a lot of pressure to be in Dallas by any certain date, so we can be patient and find the right buyer. As much as I love this house, I feel like I'm trying to find a new home for my dog or something.

It's also giving us plenty of time to enjoy things and see our friends and family and really appreciate it. We've been blessed beyond measure while living here and are blessed further to have so many wonderful people welcoming us to Dallas. I know we'll feel right at home and have plenty of help getting settled and adjusted.

For now, however, we're just in a holding pattern. When there's more news, such as it's time to actually go, I'll let you know. But for now, we're just going to enjoy this last autumn here in Richmond. Fall in Virginia is beautiful and I plan to make the most of it!

London Bound

2011-09-27T22:01:00.000-04:00

Brad found out yesterday that his next project is in London. And he had to leave today! So he booked travel and packed last night and left this afternoon. It was kind of sad because we've had him home a bunch in the past month and got used to having him around.

Charlie's been talking about Daddy and airplane all night and asking where he is. We dropped Brad off at the airport this afternoon and Charlie got upset when Brad didn't get back in the car with us. He loves his daddy.

Brad doesn't know much about the logistics of how this project is going to work yet, so we are kind of in wait and see mode right now. He's not sure how long he'll be over there, how often he can come home, what the hours will be like, etc.

If he's over there for more than a few weeks, he will switch from the hotel to a flat. Instead of coming home, I think Charlie and I are going to go over there and stay with him for a week and a half or so. I'm very excited about this since I've never been to London. Also, our former neighbors here in Richmond now live in London and it would be a blast to get to spend time with them.

I'm trying to focus on the exciting aspect of all of this and not worry about the unknown part. We had some fun plans this weekend that I'm now going to do on my own. The Junior League has their big Touch a Truck event, where the kids can go and see all sorts of trucks and machines up close. And Sunday we had planned to go to Ashland Berry Farm and pick pumpkins with a bunch of our neighbors.

I'm sad Brad has to miss all that - especially the trucks. That's kind of his thing with Charlie. He's taken Charlie to a bunch of the area fire stations to see the fire trucks up close and they've stopped by construction sites so Charlie can see the diggers and dump trucks. Charlie talks about it for days afterwards.

We're also not sure if Brad is going to have to miss Halloween, which would stink. Halloween on our street is so much fun. Tons of kids and lots of block parties going on. Charlie is going to be a puppy dog this year. :)

And I'm not even thinking about if this project extends to Thanksgiving or Christmas. See, this is me not thinking about it. At all.

But hey, a trip to London would be pretty cool, so we'll just make some different kinds of memories! Crossed fingers we get to go....

Pain in the Asthma

2011-09-27T21:18:00.004-04:00

Poor Charlie. He got his dad's crappy lungs. But he also got his beautiful eyes, so I guess you can't win them all.

Since I went and jinxed myself a couple of weeks ago at Charlie's 2 1/2 year check up and told the pediatrician that it's just amazing, but Charlie hasn't been sick in close to a year (!!) Charlie is of course now sick. From allergies to bronchitis in no time at all.

He had a runny nose and a little cough all weekend. He went to preschool on Monday and they called me to pick him up early. He was wheezing a bit and it just kept getting worse all day. I gave him a breathing treatment and we headed in to the doctor late in the day.

Where we waited for almost AN HOUR. I was pretty ticked. Charlie was having more and more trouble breathing and finally I lost it with the girl at the check in desk when I no longer wanted to hear that they had no idea when he'd be called back but they are working as fast as they can. In my opinion, if you don't have time to see that many people, don't make so many dang appointments.

I told her my son was having trouble breathing and we either needed to be seen right then or I was taking him home for another breathing treatment. She snapped at me that I could have told her that earlier. A nurse heard the exchange and got us back there and Charlie a breathing treatment immediately.

For some reason Charlie is scared of the doctor right now and freaks out about taking any medicine or having to do a breathing treatment. Scared of things he didn't used to be scared of and that don't hurt. I can't figure it out. He screamed and cried the entire appointment. It. was. exhausting.

Because our doctor couldn't determine through all the screaming whether Charlie had any fluid in his lungs, we had to go to the hospital and get an x-ray. So that was time consuming and by this point we were both hungry and Charlie was exhausted. Brad came up to the hospital and met us, which helped a ton. He brought snacks and had more energy for carrying Charlie than I did. Charlie was asleep in my lap when he got there.

Charlie did great for the x-ray, didn't cry at all. It was a bit hard to keep him standing still and the guy doing the x-ray seemed to either think 2 year olds are more capable of understanding instructions or that Charlie was older than 2. It was almost funny - he was genuinely baffled why Charlie wouldn't stand in exactly the position he wanted him to and stay still.

The doctor called later and there was no fluid in the lungs and it looked like all asthma stuff and some bronchitis. We are doing breathing treatments every 4 hours and go back tomorrow so Charlie can be evaluated again.

Now that he's breathing better and I'm not so terrified, I don't think I'll jump all over the receptionist again. Still, she should watch herself because I can go from zero to Mama Bear in no time. Obviously.

I think the thing that shocked me the most yesterday was Charlie turning down food because he was too tired. Those were his exact words - Too Tired Mommy. Charlie is never one to turn down food. At least, not the food we were offering to make up for his pain and suffering.

He went to bed right when we got back and slept fine last night. He's been wheezing some today and seemed to have a fever this morning, but it subsided by lunch time and we even played outside for a little while this afternoon in between monsoons.

I'm relieved all the hospital stuff happened before Brad left town today. Just having another person there last night made it feel so much better than doing it alone. So yeah, Brad has left town now and gets to miss all this breathing treatment fun! But crazy details around that is for another post!

Meet Person

2011-09-25T21:58:00.002-04:00

This is Person. That is his name... Person. He is a PlayMobil (sp?) fireman and Charlie's most prized possession.

Charlie used to have another little guy just like it, that his Didi gave him from an old box of toys in her attic. He came everywhere with us for a while, until a fateful trip to Lowe's, where he was left somewhere in the Lawn & Garden section.

Then one day, Charlie and Daddy had one of their outings and went to this cute toy store down the road and got a new one. And that was the day Person came home to live with us.

He has a fire fighter hat on, which Charlie will point out to you after you have been introduced to Person. All of his other accessories have been lost. Poor Person no longer has an axe or hose to fight fires with. Just a hat.

Person comes with us on all our errands and to the park. He showers with Charlie and sleeps in his bed. He was left at the mall once last week, but as soon as I heard Mommy! Person! from the backseat, I knew we'd be turning around and going back to find Person. He was sitting on the seat of the coin operated pink bus near the food court that Charlie likes to pretend to drive.

Person has also been lost within our own house. It is quite tragic when Person is missing. Charlie asks for him constantly and is worried when he's not around. I guess some toddlers like blankets or stuffed animals. Ours likes Person.

Silly Mommy, who grew up with sisters, called Person a Lego at first. The learning curve from all sisters to having a son can be so steep at times.

Our 9th (gulp) Anniversary!

2011-09-21T09:35:00.000-04:00

Nine years ago Brad and I got married. It feels like I was just writing this post about our eighth anniversary! Time is whipping by. Kind of like our wedding day did, which felt about 10 minutes (don't get me wrong - exhausting minutes) long. We haven't been back to the Melrose Hotel in a while, but maybe we can hit up the Library Bar the next time we're in Dallas together.

The day after our wedding, we left for 10 days in Hawaii, which are some of the happiest memories in my life. So when I remember our wedding, I also remember our honeymoon. Brad planned out all these fun activities for each day, like horseback riding and helicopter tours, and we had long, romantic dinners and stayed at the most beautiful hotels. Hawaii is just everything you expect it to be. It's stunningly beautiful.

The picture above, obviously, is from Hawaii. Because why post a recent photo when there are ones available where we look so young and well rested??

I'm more appreciative of Brad then ever these days because I love having him to enjoy Charlie with. He is the other person who is as obsessed with every little thing that Charlie does (well, besides you Mom - ha!) and we spend quite a bit of time discussing how awesome Charlie is. We are that stereotypical couple that finally gets a night off to go out to dinner, and then spends the entire time talking about their kid.

After 9 years of marriage, I can say it's comforting, really, to be around someone who has known me for so long and been through so many of the same things. He knows all the little cracks and crevices of my personality. The nitty gritty. And we can laugh about things from years ago as easily as something from last week.

I also have to give him props because he is such a good dad to Charlie. It is easy to love him more each time I see him with Charlie because he just loves him so much. He is adamant about doing what is best for him and protecting him. It makes my heart swell when I hear him talk about Charlie. Our adjustment period to being parents took a long time because Brad had to be away so much for work, but we are in a very good place now and finally feel like we have this parenting thing figured out. Well, mostly. :)

And my last bit of bragging, I promise - how supportive Brad was when I had my melanoma scare this summer and how supportive he continues to be when I get scared about the future or self conscious about this big ol' scar on my face. Even with a lot of stressful things going on with work for him, he was very calm and reassuring and helpful so I could get through both surgeries and only need to worry about getting better. I felt very blessed.

So anyways, as we like to joke, we've made it 9 years and not killed each other. Yet. I'd say that's worth celebrating! Happy Anniversary Brad!

Here's what happens....

2011-09-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

When I try and make a video of Charlie. And why I don't post them more often! He's a moving target really. :)

Charlie's First Day of Preschool

2011-09-20T14:20:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a big day around here - Charlie started his first day of preschool! He is attending at St. Mary's Episcopal School, which is at our church. He is in the two year old class that attends Monday and Wednesdays. The class is mostly girls! But there is one other little boy, who is also a big talker, and I think he and Charlie will hit it off pretty well.

Preschool starts a tad earlier than we are used to getting anywhere on a given day, so I actually had to wake Charlie up yesterday to go. He was very excited about preschool, so didn't seem to mind... until we had to shut off Yo Gabba Gabba to get in the car. Then it was meltdown city.

Since Brad is in town this week, he got to go with us, and was helping me try to calm Charlie down as we were leaving. Obviously, my visions of cute pictures outside our house were obliterated by the ticked off toddler. Brad said some kind of soothing statement to Charlie and Charlie held one finger up to his lips and said SHH! Daddy! He does that when he doesn't like what we are telling him - he shushes us!!

We got him in his car seat with his favorite type of granola bar. Brad made the mistake of making a second soothing statement to Charlie and got the granola bar flung at him. This all seemed a bit much to take before coffee in the morning! I guess it was likewise a bit much for Charlie before he was done with his TV show!

Charlie cheered up a little bit when we got to the church parking lot and agreed to a few pictures. Something else happened and he started to get upset again, but I can't remember what. At any rate, we got inside the school and to his classroom and it was like a switch was turned on. Suddenly he was in a great mood and ran in to start playing. We talked to the teacher for a few minutes and left.

When I went a couple of hours later (preschool is just for 2 hours this week and then the 3 next week, to get them adjusted) to pick him up, he was still playing and having a great time. They said he had a good day and never stopped moving. That sounds like my Charlie! He didn't really want to leave, but we all promised him he could come back in a couple of days.

When we got home I tried to get him to eat lunch, but he was still too excited. All the sudden he just crashed and asked me if he could go to sleep. Um, sure, no problem! He took a nice long nap and woke up in a great mood, still talking about preschool.

I'm trying to get his schedule adjusted so that he's waking up a little bit earlier each day and going to bed a bit earlier too. I think once it's the norm to wake up earlier, it won't be quite as hard to get him out the door. His second day is tomorrow and I'm predicting another good day!

Two and a Half Years of Charlie

2011-09-17T05:18:00.003-04:00

Oh my goodness our baby is all grown up! Well, not completely. He still believes I can kiss away his boo boos. And while I love that, I hope when he's a true grown up, that's not the case. Ha.

It really hit me how much Charlie has changed when I looked at some photos from just a year ago. Gone is the baby chub and arrived is the huge vocabulary. It's fun to hear everything he's thinking. He's such a talker, I'm completely informed at all times. He also loves to bust out in song - usually something from a TV show he likes. Mostly Yo Gabba Gabba and Caillou (ugh).

As you can see, I did manage to snag a chair pic this time. It's been a while since he'd sit still in the chair! That's another big difference these days - we can ask Charlie to do something and most of the time he'll actually do it! Before recently, I couldn't even tell if he'd heard what I said. Our neighbor's 18 month old is doing that now and while I watched it this morning, it made me realize it's another way Charlie has grown up.

And of course, there's the height. This kid is growing like a weed - all up and no out! I have to cinch his pants as tight as they'll go in order to have them long enough for him. He's wearing 2Ts, but in some things, it's going to be time to move to 3Ts soon. I was shocked to bring home PJ's from Baby Gap in 2T and they were too short. Luckily Charlie's Nana lives near a Gap outlet and was able to send some in 3T! Most of the time, he won't wear the one piece Hanna Anderssons PJ's anymore - for some reason he's staging a boycott. I guess one piece PJ's are for babies. Sniff.

Charlie's taken on his father's affinity for vegetables. Meaning none whatsoever. I try and I try (with both of them, actually), hiding veggies in foods he otherwise likes - pasta and pizza, etc. - but he'll pick them out or refuse to eat it all together. In fact, most nights, he won't eat what I cook. If that's the case, then he just doesn't eat much. I'm trying not to get in the habit of cooking him his own dinner and I want him to eat grown up food. So I guess we're in a bit of a stand off.

Ever since taking him off bottles, Charlie won't drink milk. Like, at all. We got excited once at a friend's house, when he drank the Horizon milk in a box, but he won't touch the stuff now. Fortunately, he will eat yogurt and cheese (and ice cream!) so I can get calcium in him some way. He loves those Stonyfield yogurt smoothies. It kills me how expensive they are, but not enough to make homemade smoothies.

We are very lucky and Charlie is still an excellent sleeper. He consistently sleeps 12 hours at night and will take a nap about 60% of the time for 2 to 3 hours. He still needs the nap, but for some reason - maybe overtiredness? - he won't go to sleep. I can tell he needs it because he's such a grouch if he doesn't get it! But we've been very fortunate with how well he sleeps overall, so I have nothing to complain about.

Since I've been staying home, though, his bedtime and wake-up time have both been getting gradually later. We are going to have to move them both up, though, because he starts preschool next week and will have to get up earlier! I guess with Brad out of town during the week, I rarely have a reason to get him to bed any earlier. We just play and have fun and then he sleeps in in the morning.

About a month ago, Charlie didn't want to take a bath anymore and has decided he wants to take a shower! Part of me likes it because it's so easy, but another part of me misses playing with him in the tub. After he figured out how to turn on the water and switch it from the faucet to the shower, though, it was all over. I guess because he sees Brad and me shower, he wants to do the same. Now I have a huge bucket of bath toys I guess I need to pack away. Sniff.

No movement really on the potty training front. I bought a training seat for the toilet and he'll sit on it occasionally, but it hasn't clicked yet. He didn't really want anything to do with the training potty - I guess because (again) he wants to do what we do. From what I've read, he's showing some signs of being ready, but not all of them. I'm fine waiting until he's ready. I think it will be easier than trying to force it when he's not. The pediatrician gave me some tips and I'll probably check out some books from the library. Unless he shows signs earlier, I think I'll wait until after the holidays to work on it, so we can really focus without distraction.

The pediatrician also gave me a bunch of suggestions on the discipline front - I guess a lot of parents ask, so she just offers them up regardless. But honestly, we don't really need them. Charlie is really a very good kid most of the time. He is so loving and has a very sweet and giving heart. It is rare when he knowingly misbehaves. The challenge with Charlie isn't disobedience, it's his curiosity! Give him a room of 1,000 safe things and 1 dangerous, and he will zone in on the dangerous item in 10 seconds flat! It's like an innate sense! Into everything, that child.

Charlie's starting to show a lot of interest in playing with balls and learning about different sports. If there's a sport on TV, he yells it out, no matter where we are! He even watched some of the US Open with us! If it's the females playing tennis, he's very certain that's Aunt Clare on TV! He says it quite matter-of-factly. Oh, there's Clare on TV again!

He loves his little play golf clubs, soccer ball, basketball and football. He wants to play catch a lot these days and is getting better about actually catching it. Today we were playing with some neighbors who have a toy lacrosse set and Charlie picked up the stick and seemed to immediately know how to use it to throw the ball. He had a great time with it. He also loves running around with a tennis racket and trying to hit tennis balls. Here in a couple of years, he's going to be ready for lessons from his Aunt Clare - and Uncle Bruce too!

Charlie is still fascinated with trucks, trains, diggers, airplanes and helicopters. We talk about the fire trucks each time we drive past the station. We've had a lot of big trucks around the neighborhood cleaning up from Hurricane Irene and it's been fun watching Charlie's fascination when he sees them. There is nothing cooler than a big, big truck. I think he might be a fire fighter for Halloween, but I'm not sure yet if he'll wear the hat.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but that's all I can think of right now for an update. Here are a few more recent pictures of Charlie. In the first, we are riding the train at Short Pump mall. The second is Charlie making a few calls from the phone in Pottery Barn. He was so loud, everyone heard and the sales associates were cracking up in the background. And the last photo is just us walking around at Deep Run park.

Next update - 2 and 3/4 years?? Or 3 years?? I can't remember my intervals right now. Still can't believe I'm going to have a 3 year old....

Charlie's 2.5 Year Check Up

2011-09-14T15:16:00.002-04:00

We had our hastily scheduled check up for Charlie this morning - due to me not realizing we had to go back at 2.5 years. I thought we were in the clear until age 3. I had to get the appointment in so they could fill out Charlie's state health form to start preschool next week.

Here are the stats -

Height: 37 inches, 70th percentile (that is 2 inches since March!)

Weight: 28.5 pounds, 25th percentile

He just needed one shot, his flu shot. The nurse was the quickest I've ever seen and had an unwrapped lollipop to hand him immediately afterwards, so there no tears for that part.

We saw a pediatrician we don't normally see, but I like her. She was who we saw when Charlie had pneumonia a year ago. She had some kind of intern with her, some guy that is rotating among the pediatricians in the practice.

Charlie was initially excited to see them, due in most part to the Caillou episode where they go to see the doctor, but boy did his tune change once she started examining him. Screaming bloody murder. It was awesome.

After the examination, Charlie went with the nurse while I went in to meet with the doctor and.. whoever that other guy was. That's the way they always have done it at our practice and for the most part Charlie is a good sport about hanging out with the nurses.

The office portion took forever because the doctor was explaining everything to the intern. This visit included an autism risk screening questionnaire. They also measured head circumference because apparently kids with autism have bigger heads? Dunno.

We also talked about diet, discipline and potty training. It was all very interesting. Meanwhile, I could hear Charlie out in main area, helping the nurse show other patients to their examination rooms. He had a great time and gave her a hug when we left.

We go back at 3 years. Ack! I'm going to have a 3 year old in a few months!!

Teasing

2011-09-11T23:44:00.002-04:00

For a few months now, Charlie has been teasing his daddy. For some reason, that is something he reserves just for him. Charlie doesn't tease me, but he will tease Brad any chance he gets! I have to admit, teasing Brad is really fun.

It started with Charlie telling Brad "Bye!' out of nowhere whenever Brad got back in town on Friday. And Brad would dramatically reply "No! I'm home now! I'm not going anywhere!" and Charlie would laugh hysterically and say it again.

Then the teasing moved on to Charlie telling Brad that Bobo (our dog) was a horse. I have NO idea where that came from. But Charlie would tell Brad, quite happily, that "Bobo's a Horse!" - and Brad would again tell him dramatically NO! Bobo is NOT a horse! This would go back and forth for quite a while.

After a bit, Charlie changed the script and would concede that "Bobo's a big dog" after a few rounds. I think we need to get Charlie around an actual horse, since Bobo is nowhere near as big.

Today the teasing took a new turn. Now, in order to get a big reaction out of Daddy, Charlie has started calling him Brad or Bradford. It's hilarious. Juice Brad! Bradford? Where are you? I guess imitating me, though I can't remember the last time I asked Brad for juice. Wine maybe, but I'm not a big juice drinker.

I'm so curious to see where the next round of this ribbing takes us. Charlie has certainly shown his sense of humor early on!

Happy Birthday Nana!

2011-09-08T08:07:00.000-04:00

Today is my mom's (Charlie's Nana's) birthday! Since she loves a good Charlie video (actually ANY Charlie video), I decided to record him singing the Happy Birthday song from Sprout. Of course, getting him to do things on camera is always a little bit of a challenge, so we have two takes, both of which are a little hit or miss.

As a bonus feature, this video includes Charlie's rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You know, before he remembers we're talking about birthdays here!

You'll have to forgive him, but he realized mid-video on this next one that his hands were sticky from the peanut butter and jelly I caved and made him after he refused to eat the pasta and broccoli I made for dinner. The "talent" can be so finicky.

Happy Birthday Mom! Hope it's a wonderful day! We love you!

Gulf Shores Trip

2011-09-04T19:30:00.000-04:00

I'm so glad we didn't go to Gulf Shores this weekend, what with Hurricane Lee dumping all that rain on Alabama. Instead we went during LAST weekend's hurricane, Irene, which was dumping rain on Virginia. Still waiting to hear about NEXT weekend's hurricane, Katia, and whether it's coming this way.

But anyways. We had a great time on our trip, mostly because of the very fun group of friends we went with. It was fun to get away and have some time with just the three of us and some time to visit with friends we don't see as often as we wish.

The drive was probably a tad too long to just go to the beach for a few days, but we made it fun by stopping somewhere pretty on the way down and back. In both directions, we stayed in Opelika, AL, which is near Auburn University. The hotel is on the Robert Trent Jones Golf trail and it was beautiful out there. On the way down, we even got there in time to have a nice dinner outside as the sun set.

Charlie did great on the drive for the most part. He is a bit of a challenge to keep busy, but he was usually happy if I climbed in the back seat and sat next to him. We spent plenty of time wherever we stopped for lunch or dinner so he could play and get some energy out. Overall, I think he was a real trooper on the trip.

There were two little girls for him to play with when we got there and Charlie referred to them as "the kids." This didn't sit too well with the older girl, who turns 5 soon. She is not a kid! Whenever Charlie would cool it with the "kid" garbage for a bit, she seemed to really warm up to him! Charlie got very attached to these two little girls. He would get upset every time we got in the car, not realizing we were all going to the same place for dinner or whatever. Charlie sure does love the kids.

All three kids seemed to enjoy playing on the beach. Charlie shocked us all by just running and jumping in the water a few times. Fortunately there was always an adult nearby. The first time he did it, I hadn't even had time to set down my stuff before I had to run in after him! I will be signing him up for swimming lessons VERY soon.

Charlie seems to think he can swim already. Whenever Brad or I would take him out in the water, he would push on our arms and tell us to let go. Uhhh, and THEN what Charlie??

Gulf Shores as a vacation destination is pretty nice. The sand is white, there are plenty of places to go out to eat, there's an outlet mall about 5 miles away and other attractions to keep everyone busy.

I do have to say, though, if you have ever been to the Florida panhandle for vacation (Seaside, Santa Rosa, etc.) you will most likely be disappointed in the water at Gulf Shores. It is more murky and Texas Gulf-like. Not the clear emerald color that they have in Florida. The houses and the town are not as quaint and cute as Florida beach towns either. I hate to be a beach snob. But I am.

Gulf Shores is called the Redneck Riviera. I'm not entirely sure why, as the beaches were almost empty last weekend. If they are typically populated with rednecks, I can't vouch for that. I guess the beach was empty because school has already started in a lot of places in the South. Or maybe because it was so stinking hot. I mean, painfully hot. Like none of us wanted to back on the beach the 3rd day. Well, except the kids. And they got vetoed.

On Saturday morning, the moms headed out to the outlet mall and the dads took the kids to ride go carts, play games, ride rides and go out to lunch. It sounds like they had a really fun time! Charlie is still talking about it. Each time Brad would call from Dallas this week, Charlie would talk about the go carts. I think it's been a refreshing change from discussing the lawnmower and weed eater.

Charlie and his little friend Rhyan even rode this airplane ride all by themselves! I was really impressed when I saw the pictures. Neither of them seems the least bit scared! And the planes went up in the air and everything.

I found some killer stuff at the outlets and was pretty excited. There were no crowds, great sales and things weren't really picked over at all. I found a cute denim jacket and some leopard print flats, among other things. Of course, when Charlie found out I'd been shopping, I got "the look" from him.

Mom, I thought we had discussed you leaving me for any reason.

We ended up leaving the beach about 12 hours early. Brad and I were anxious to get back and take stock of the house after the hurricane passed through. The two girls had a rough car trip on the way down so their parents all decided to break it up into two chunks.

While we were packing things up, Charlie spied a beach toy golf set that Rhyan's dad had bought her and he threw an absolute fit that he couldn't open it. So because Brad and I are a couple of suckers, we stopped at a tourist trap shop and got him one on our way out of town. He held on to it the whole ride in the car that night and even wheeled his plastic golf bag into the Marriott that night.

The next morning, before we started our final leg home, he and Brad played some plastic golf out in front of the hotel. A small group that was there for a wedding stopped and watched and got such a kick out of Charlie and his clubs. He takes his golf very seriously. Brad's best friend Sam asked him right before we left, Charlie, are you going to be the next Tiger Woods? And Charlie told him yes.

Speaking of Sam, besides "the kids", Sam was Charlie's favorite person on the trip. Every time he saw him, he'd say "Hi Sammy!" just like Brad calls him. It was really cute. It's like he just knows that's his dad's best friend and he's going to be close to him too. He gave Sam a big hug before we left and it was so sweet.

We're hoping to head back to the beach next summer since Charlie loved it so much. Or maybe in the spring when it's not as hot. I'll still have to huddle under an umbrella because of the whole melanoma thing, but it is so worth it to see Charlie having so much fun.

Hurricane Irene. Ugh.

2011-08-31T23:41:00.003-04:00

Hurricane Irene hit while we were out of town at the beach, as Richmond continued Natural Disaster Week. I'm surprised it didn't snow, too. Anyways, when we left and up until right before the storm hit, it looked like it was really going to skirt by Richmond and mostly hug the coast. Then, like these annoying hurricanes do, it shifted West and all the sudden half of Vermont - which isn't even ON the coast - is flooded.

We ended up leaving the beach a day early and as we rode in the car Saturday, I kept up with current events in my most favorite way - my Facebook feed. I ignored the over-hyped national news and instead just read updates from people in Richmond. At least, those who still how power. From what I read, the storm sounded bad, but not horrible. It lasted a long time. Our house lost power a few hours in.

On the second half of the drive home Sunday, I kept checking in with my neighbors and calling Dominion to check the status of our power outage. We were so hopeful it would be on by the time we got home. But it wasn't. We rolled in around 11pm and I lit candles and kept Charlie entertained with flashlights while Brad unloaded the car.

We were very fortunate that it hasn't been hot in Richmond. Mid-80's mostly. So sleeping was a little hard, but not too bad. Monday morning Brad got up and went to the store and drove around some to look at the damage. There were/are just so many huge trees uprooted and many of them were laying on power lines. Every block or so is another one. Trees on houses, cars, power lines, you name it.

Most of the town didn't have power and so a lot of stores (including Walmart - you know they were ticked) and gas stations were closed and intersections were being directed by cops since the traffic lights were off. The start of school has been postponed since the schools lost power too.

I was revving myself up to handle the no power situation with Brad out of town, since he needed to leave by Monday evening at the latest to go to Dallas. It's a really busy week for him and not one where he could really stay. But after he got out of the shower and said there was no hot water, I decided we needed a generator. As Brad put it, I folded like a cheap suit.

So off to Home Depot he went, and picked up the same model our neighbors across the street got. We got it running and had hot water, turned the fridge on, plugged in a lamp, charged the electronics - it was great! It's kind of an intimidating piece of equipment, but I think I have it mostly figured out now. I'm sure it will come in handy many times in the future.

One nice thing about not having power is how the neighborhood comes together. People walk around and talk, we have been invited over a couple of times for dinner, and it's actually kind of social. I guess that's kind of what life was like before air conditioning. You just kept the house open and people dropped by.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still take air conditioning.

We were very fortunate and our house didn't have any damage from the storm. Considering the dozens of trees on our lot, that is VERY fortunate. We just have a TON of debris to pick up. It's a mess. Branches and pine cones everywhere. Brad moved his car into the garage before we left on the trip and so it didn't have any damage either.

Our power came back on yesterday and I'm feeling very lucky about that as well. The two adjacent streets to us still don't have power. I'm not sure what the hold up is for them, but it sure makes me feel bad. I've been offering to let people come do laundry or take a hot shower or watch TV or whatever. I wish there was more I could do. I don't know how we have been so fortunate to get our power back so quickly.

Walking up and down the street, all you hear is loud whirring. Almost everyone has a generator, most purchased right after Hurricane Isabel. Many people went without power for 2 weeks then. Some even have their generators wired into their homes. You can't use anywhere close to everything, but it saves having all those extension cords run all over the house.

So that's what's been going on here. After we got power back, I had about 2 tons of post-vacation laundry to do. And poor Charlie has developed an awful cough. I guess just from being tired out after the trip. His allergies are so terrible here, they turn into an infection really quickly.

I'll do another post about the trip. It was quick but fun! I hope everyone else out there impacted by Irene is recovering OK.

Beachbound!

2011-08-24T10:51:00.001-04:00

We are leaving for the beach today, for a little Spooner Family Vacay with some friends. We're headed to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I've only ever been to the Florida part of that coast, so I hope it's as nice. We're meeting some friends down there who are driving in from Arkansas.

It's a pretty long drive and it will be interesting to see how Charlie handles it. I've got the portable DVD player, crayons and sketch pad, books, cars, magnadoodle.... oh I hope I can keep him busy enough. Oh and snacks. Mom's got snacks.

Tomorrow night we're staying in Auburn at some Marriott. I'm sure it will feel like we're there all of 10 minutes since we'll fall asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows! Brad planned the trip and I'm not sure I even know where we are staying on the trip home.

I'm excited to take Charlie to the beach now that he's old enough to enjoy it. He's been to the beach twice, once at 2 months old and once at 6 months old. Needless to say, he didn't get that into it! This time there will be two other kids and one of them is almost his exact age. It'll be awesome to let them play and the parents can all kick back and relax.

Speaking of relaxing, I've packed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to read. One of my neighbors gave me all 3 books for my birthday with promises that they are awesome. I tried a few months ago to get into the first book and couldn't. I'm going to give it another try. I also got the new In Style fall mega-issue. It weighs more than Charlie - have you seen that thing? Anyways, I hope to have enough down time to enjoy both.

Going to the beach at the end of the summer has it's privileges. I found a bunch of Melissa and Doug beach toys today at a local toy store for half off. So I may have gone a tad crazy and gotten just about everything. Maybe. I also found cute beach towels for Charlie at Pottery Barn Kids marked down to $7. I love a sale. Woohoo!

I also found a really neat tent-thingy to take to the beach for me to sit under. I can't really have my incision scar out in the sun for long yet. You know, that whole melanoma thing. I've also really always preferred to be in the shade on the beach. It gets so hot! Under an umbrella with the breeze and the sound of waves crashing and a good book - that's my idea of heaven.

I'm going to try and get a lot of cute pictures of Charlie on the beach. He's such a character these days. I am way overdue on a post of all the funny little things he says.

Ok, we'll catch you on the flip side!

The Earthquake... a Drugstore Perspective

2011-08-23T23:36:00.004-04:00

If you've been living under a rock and missed all subsequent news coverage, we had an earthquake here in Virginia today. It was a 5.8 and the epicenter was about 30 miles from here, between Richmond and Charlottesville. It was felt all the way up the East Coast. In fact, the first person I heard from after the quake was my sister Meredith, who felt it in Brooklyn!

I was in CVS at the time, since Tuesday afternoons this summer is when I've had my weekly sitter. I was lost in my thoughts, about to walk out of the store when I noticed some really loud rattling.

My first thought was that they were doing some repairs on the roof or something. There was a small crowd near the registers and I heard one of the employees say something about how this kind of thing doesn't happen too often. I stopped and asked what was happening. An earthquake not being one of the answers I was anticipating.

I walked outside and got in my car and could feel it shaking back and forth. Then I did the next logical thing in such a situation and updated my Facebook status.

I also texted my babysitter just to make sure everything was OK and she said Charlie slept right through it and the poodles didn't even seem to notice! I'm a little surprised Ringo didn't panic since he got a little worked up during that thunderstorm last Sunday.

When I got home later she told me she was a little worried our TV that we have bolted on the wall was going to fall because it was shaking so bad. I've decided after hearing so many other experiences from today that I must have been in an exceptionally well built CVS because it really wasn't that bad. Nothing fell off the shelves or anything.

Nothing seemed amiss at home except a few pictures on the walls that needed straightening. All on the second floor. Apparently there was an aftershock of 4.2 around 8pm but I didn't notice. I was cuddled up with Charlie watching the Goodnight Show on Sprout. In fact, I think it was the part where the Pajanimals sing that song about their mom that always makes me want to cry. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

So that's the story of the earthquake in these parts. I'm not aware of anyone getting hurt or anything other than minor damage. I have a former coworker who lives about 5 miles from the epicenter and they were having aftershocks pretty frequently there. His dog was freaking. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night over there.

So now that we've wrapped up this odd natural disaster, a hurricane is supposedly headed this way over the weekend. Irene is coming to visit. Hopefully to just bring a lot of rain. :)

Ready, Set, GO!

2011-08-22T21:26:00.005-04:00

For some reason, when we come upstairs to put Charlie to bed, he heads to our room and wants to run back and forth. Kind of like a race, but he doesn't really care who wins, just as long as someone is running with him. And you need to be on his left side when the race starts for some reason or he will move you over. Picky, picky.

Lately Charlie wants Bobo to run, too. I guess he hasn't realized yet (like the rest of us) that Bobo is one of God's lazier creatures and there is not much that he will run for. That doesn't stop Charlie from trying to persuade him and barking (pun intended, ha ha) orders at him. If Charlie was running with a container of peanut butter Bobo might be game.

I got some video tonight of ready, set, go - realizing that it will probably just be my family interested in this one - it's pretty long! But Mom, Meggie and Mimi have been asking for more videos, so here's one! One of Charlie's favorite games!

Oh and sorry for the mostly naked running baby - he gets hot and strips off his jammies after a few races.

Staying at Home: a Recap

2011-08-11T00:15:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, this month marks my 1 year anniversary of staying home with Charlie. I worked from home for the majority of it, but that wrapped up in April. Now I am a stay at home mom instead of a work at home mom. At any rate, Charlie has been at home with me full time for a year.

Overall, I would give the past year 2 thumbs up. I have loved getting so much time with Charlie. That would obviously be the primary benefit - and one I had the urge for as soon as my maternity leave was coming to an end. I think a lot of women go through that, though - especially with their first child. It is so hard to leave them at daycare and they seem so tiny. But you get used to it.

As a secondary benefit, staying home has also made things around our house a lot easier for everyone. Our weekends are no longer races to get all the errands run because I do a lot of that during the week. I typically have a babysitter come for one afternoon a week so I can take care of things without Charlie. Overall, things just run a lot more smoothly, which was something we were in dire need of with Brad out of town for work so much.

It's a lot saner for me, not having to take care of baby + house + full time job + all other in-town things while Brad is gone. I think it's also a lot saner for Brad because I'm not as stressed and he can spend his weekends doing fun things with us instead of us constantly trying to keep our heads above water.

I guess you could say I gave up my job in favor of his. And that's probably true. I had kind of reached the natural stopping point for me at the job I was at and I was also dying to stay home. Brad loves his job, apart from having to be away so much. He loves being a workaholic. So I think we are both doing what makes us happy right now.

It's a luxury for me to stay home, and I realize that. I'm fortunate that I had a choice. A lot of moms don't. So I feel very blessed.

However, not being employed messes with my head a bit. After my job ended in April it was kind of weird and unsettling to no longer have a job. It still gets to me periodically, especially with this crummy economy and unemployment rates so high. I kind of can't believe I gave up such a great job. It's a strange panicky feeling until I remember each reason I chose to do this in my head.

I've even had a couple of dreams where I knowingly lied to people and told them I was working. Isn't that crazy?

As much as the part time gig was a great thing for a while, I'm relieved it's over. I didn't enjoy the pressure and feeling like I was never doing enough. Also, Charlie's not sleeping as much these days, so fitting in the hours would have been tough. His naps are shorter and he goes to bed later. It would have been tough to keep going with no daycare.

I recently met a couple of other moms who quit their jobs to stay home because their husbands travel every week and it's been nice talking to them. I feel like less of a wimp for bailing on my career right now. I know I'll pay for it later, when I decide to go back to work, but it's definitely feeling worth it so far. It's nice to meet other people going through the same thing in life.

So overall, it's working out great. I think it's mostly working because it's what our somewhat unique set of circumstances needed. And each of our unique circumstances is really what we have to base our decisions on in this arena, don't you think?

Funky Music

2011-08-09T22:57:00.002-04:00

Charlie and I saw this video on the version of Sesame Street that plays on Sprout (Play with me Sesame?? Or something like that?) and have been singing it for days. Tonight he wouldn't even let me sit down because he wanted to sing and dance to it!

Since I am a truly pathetic singer, and I was having trouble remembering the words, I played it on YouTube for him on my iPad. He wanted to watch it again and again! I have a feeling it's going to be the first thing he asks for in the morning when he wakes up!

The show this segment is from was filmed in 1977. It makes me laugh because I just envision my parents taking disco lessons in the 70's! lol I think my mom still remembers the moves!

Speaking of my parents, tomorrow (8-10) is their wedding anniversary! Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! We love you!

Puzzling

2011-08-08T22:50:00.005-04:00

Charlie's been saying something quite a bit lately and we can't figure out what he means! Usually between the two of us we can figure it out, but not this time.

Charlie will state some kind of object or activity - brushing teeth, going to bed, the poodles, putting on shoes, taking a bath, his toys, the TV show he wants watch.... and then say "Issa Har".

At first I thought he was saying It's hard, but that statement would be out of context most of the time he says it. So we really just have no idea. We just have to kind of say sure, yes, it is. And of course, exchange a look like WHEN are we going to figure this out???

Any ideas? Other than the obvious, it's hard?

The Munchkin

2011-08-05T00:23:00.003-04:00

This month marks one year since I started staying home with Charlie. Well, technically I was working through April, but only when he was asleep. Anyways, I've been thinking the past few days how much he's grown up since then.

He was still such a baby then, only walking for a few months, just speaking one word to communicate. Now he's this little boy who strings sentences together, runs everywhere, plays on his own and has no problem telling us what he wants!

So as I typically do when I realize that Charlie is growing up way, way too quickly, I panicked that I am not documenting things enough. My camera and Flip are now sitting out and I'm going to attempt to play some catch up for being such a lame-o all summer.

I attempted to interview Charlie tonight, but as usual, he let me know he wanted something different! Those of you who have watched as much Yo Gabba Gabba as I have may recognize some of what he's saying. He loves the "Cool Tricks" part of that show. He will also - out of nowhere - start belting out some of the songs sometimes. Once Brad and I catch on, it's pretty funny.

So anyways, here's the video and apologies for the partial nudity. He spilled at dinner and it gets fairly warm in our attic playroom, so I just let him play in his diaper for a bit. I promise, he does wear clothes!! Heck, dressing him is one of my favorite hobbies.

Happy Almost Weekend Everyone!

More Wedding Pictures

2011-07-25T23:47:00.009-04:00

Megan and Bruce got back all their wedding photos from the photographer and they are so beautiful! If you ever need an awesome photographer in the DFW area, let me know.

These are some of my favorites, though it was really hard to just pick a few because there were so many good ones. As you can see, I was quite partial to pictures of Charlie! And I promise, Brad was at the wedding, just not near a camera very often!!

Anyways, hope you enjoy!!

New Obsession

2011-07-25T22:57:00.001-04:00

Against my better judgement, I have joined Pinterest. I almost escaped it because the app wasn't jiving with the web browser on my MacBook, but today it started working and all I have done is pin stuff. One of the design bloggers I read called it a beautiful, inspirational time suck. Oh yes it is.

For those of you like Brad, who have no idea what Pinterest is, it allows you to create virtual pinboards of images you find on the web. You download a bookmark you can click on to load a photo from any web site onto whichever pinboard you want to add to. You can follow people and people can follow you to exchange ideas. If you see a picture you like on someone else's pinboard, you can repin it. Pretty nifty, huh?

I've started interior design boards for each room in my house. The neat thing about pinning a bunch of pictures that catch your attention is that you start to see trends in colors and furniture and it kind of narrows down what you should be looking for next for your room. I seem to be liking all white kitchens with some bright color thrown in on the backsplash or floor, grayish blues and greens for paint colors and dark grey painted furniture.

The most pressing design change I'm trying to get ideas for is Charlie's big boy room. We are getting closer all the time to moving from the crib to the bed. I think the jump will go hand in hand with potty training. At that point I will paint whichever room he ends up in a different color, de-baby his dresser and get a new rug and bedding. Right now I'm trying to figure out the colors and I've been looking for pairs of twin beds on ebay and Craig's list. I'd love to find something in need of some paint.

I made a to do list tonight of everything I have let slip while I've been on Pinterest. It's kind of sad. It was a VERY long list. For once, my internet going out would actually be beneficial!

If you are on Pinterest let me know! I'd love to follow along!

What's Up

2011-07-23T17:01:00.000-04:00

We've had a lot going on lately. Or maybe it's the same amount we always do, it just feels like so much more effort in this awful heat. It's been unusually hot for Richmond - over 100 for a few days - and very humid. I'm quickly running out of ways to entertain Charlie that don't require going outside.

This week I even took him to his first movie. It was Winnie the Pooh. It's just a little over an hour long and he made it through almost all of it. The theater speakers were very loud, so I thought the previews might scare him, but they didn't! When we left it wasn't even that he was upset or misbehaving - he was just hungry. So I took him to Cici's for lunch where he packed in a bunch of pizza.

My other attempt to keep him entertained, at least before it was over 100 degrees, was a baby pool I got for $10 at Wal-Mart. It was my mother-in-law Sue's suggestion and it was brilliant. Charlie loves getting in and out. He prefers to swim in the buff. Since he is the only one to swim in the pool, I let him. And it's a good thing - we've had a couple, ahem, accidents.

Other than that, I've just been beating our old indoor play haunts into the ground with repeated visits: the Children's Museum (both locations), indoor malls, bounce houses and music classes. Charlie gets bored more quickly each time we go. I'm seriously worried about keeping him busy all week this week.

I'm going to go ahead and say this and just be a big Scrooge. I hate summer. I absolutely hate it. The heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes - bleck. I'm sure if I was in the middle of a break from school I'd be singing a different tune. But I'm not. I grew up in Austin and have suffered through enough hot days to last a lifetime. I'd take an inconvenient snow storm over this heat wave any day of the week.

I feel much better. The heat wave has obviously made me whiny. Or whinier.

This week we found out a pipe in Charlie's bathroom has been dripping into the kitchen ceiling for quite some time. Our handyman had to rip a huge section of the kitchen ceiling and replace it. Charlie finds him absolutely fascinating. He drives a truck, owns a ladder and uses power tools - all the things that make someone cool in this world to Charlie.

Charlie started a new habit this week: he tries to get his pajamas and diaper off between the time he wakes up and I come in his room to get him. He just stands there, all casual like, buck naked in his crib. I don't know what, if anything, this says about potty training, but I think I'll order a little seat just in case. I'm going to get one to put on the regular toilet. He seems to want to go the way we do.

I started seeing a chiropractor for my back this week. I got another set of x-rays and found out my left leg is shorter than my right, which puts my hips at an angle and that's why my back hurts. After the doctor told me I was just thinking, is there anything NOT wrong with me lately?? Geez. At any rate, I'm already feeling better. I have a new pillow to sleep on, vitamins to take, exercises to do at home, water to drink and, of course, adjustments. Fingers crossed!!

We're taking it pretty easy this weekend. We had a birthday party today for one of Charlie's little friends at Romp n' Roll. It really wore him out and the timing of the party meant he skipped his nap. Early bed time for him! Wooohooo! Now if it would just rain and save our yard we reseeded in the fall, life will be complete!

Happy Weekend!

The Other Thing Going On

2011-07-17T16:03:00.003-04:00

So I've been pretty occupied with something lately, which kind of accounts for my lackluster blogging. But I wanted to do a post about it because it is something that could impact each of us at some time in our lives. Or one out of four of us, as Google tells me. Anyways.

The day before we left on vacation, I went to my mom's dermatologist to get a mole removed off my back that was getting irritated by my bra strap. Instead, when she walked in, she zoned right in on a mole on my face.

Some background: I had seen this dermatologist last summer and she had suggested I get a certain mole on my face removed. It had started growing when I was pregnant and had irregular sides.

At the time, I wanted someone more skilled in plastic surgery to remove it, since it was my face and all. The dermatologist I saw in Richmond, however, disagreed with her that it needed to be removed and told me to just keep an eye on it. He said it was normal for moles to grow during pregnancy and it would be a shame to scar up my face. I'll get to what an idiot this man is here in a minute.

She was able to tell when she walked in the room that the mole had grown. I was surprised - I guess it grew so slowly I hadn't noticed. At any rate, she was alarmed, gave me a list of plastic surgeons she recommended and told me quite seriously not to wait.

Well she did a great job at scaring me - I went back to my mom's house and scheduled the removal with a plastic surgeon on Monday morning after we got back from Puerto Rico. Charlie and I weren't flying out until Tuesday.

All during vacation it was at the back of my mind. Sometimes I couldn't sleep and would research melanoma on my iPad. What I read was very scary. It is such an aggressive cancer and is killing women in their 30's and 40's who have young kids all the time. Once the cancer gets below the epidermis it can spread like wildfire, popping up in lymph nodes and other organs. The survival rates once the cancer has metastasized are very low.

I am in a very high risk group for melanoma - I have a lot of moles and had some very bad burns as a child and teenager. I spent a lot of time in the sun as a kid. I was on the swim team and we went to the beach almost every summer. Some of my relatives have had skin cancer, though fortunately not melanoma.

I was mostly scared because the mole had been there for over two years and had been growing the whole time. I was ready to call up the Richmond dermatologist who talked me out of removing it and give him a piece of my mind. What was I thinking? Why did I not insist on it being removed? How could I let something as stupid as vanity affect my health like this? Did I wait too long? Would the year I waited be the difference between a cure or not?

I think Brad was glad when my iPad battery ran out because he hated to see me worrying so much. I tried to just forget about it at that point and focus on having a great vacation. Surgery and the biopsy results would of course be waiting for me upon my return.

I had surgery first thing in the morning - Brad and I got to the surgery center at 6am. By 7am I was put under and wheeled in to have the procedure. The plastic surgeon was very reassuring, explained to me exactly how he was going to remove it and what the scar would look like.

When I got out of surgery, I had about a 1 inch incision stitched up on my cheek, designed to fade into a "laugh line" and was just kind of groggy and hungry. The medicine they put me under with wore off by lunch time and by that night I felt fine. Charlie and I flew home as planned on Tuesday.

Thursday evening I checked my phone and there was a message from the surgeon. He called me himself. In my experience, when the doctor calls personally, that means something bad. I was in a scared panic. Their office was already closed. I called my mom and Brad to kill some time. Finally, I left a message on the surgeon's voicemail and told him if he has bad news to please call me that night, that I didn't think I could take waiting until the next morning.

He called me back around 9 and told me the biopsy had come back as melanoma in situ. I breathed a huge sigh of relief right before I got scared again. The mole was melanoma, but it had not grown beyond the epidermis. There was almost no chance the melanoma had spread. However, I needed to come back to Dallas ASAP to have the margins around the mole removed.

I called my mom and Brad again. My mom was great, very calming and reassuring. Brad was shocked. I don't think he ever imagined this could actually be something real. We decided that since Brad was going to be home the next week, he would stay with Charlie and I would fly back to Dallas and have my surgery July 5. My mom would go with me.

Thank goodness Brad still had some airline miles after our vacation - the last minute ticket would have been so expensive. It took a lot of miles to make it happen, but we were able to do it.

The second surgery was later in the day so I was starving by the time I got there! No food before anesthesia after all. The Casey Anthony verdict was read as they were prepping me and all the nurses were chatting about it with my mom and me. Everyone seemed to know that I'd flown in for the surgery.

Unfortunately, the result of the second surgery was a bit harder to look at. Just over 2 inches I think, with raised areas at the top and bottom of the incision. The skin in the middle, where the mole was, was stretched tight. The whole thing kind of made me look very angular and odd and scary.

My mom and I decided a junk food and reality TV day was in order. In n Out burger for lunch and Taco Cabana for dinner - YUM! It was all very comforting and took my mind off things.

I flew home the next day and besides the flight attendant, nobody has really asked what happened. The left side of my face swelled up and the stretched skin gave me headaches. It was a harder recovery than the first surgery.

Unfortunately, due to the timing of the surgeries, I had to give up going to Miami with some friends. That was pretty heartbreaking. I had been looking forward to it since May and was so excited to have a few days to cut loose with the girls. I didn't feel well enough for it and my mom thought I was insane to even consider it after 2 surgeries in a week. I still feel mopey I had to miss it.

Brad and Charlie were so sweet when I got home - they picked me up some roses and just showered me with hugs and kisses and love. It felt great.

I got a call later in the week from the surgeon with mostly good news. The margins didn't show any melanoma. There was a term in the pathology report about how my skin is producing cells that could become cancerous and that was scary to hear. My new dermatologist here said not to worry about it, though - it is evident my skin produces moles because I have so many!

I have to go to the dermatologist every 3 months for body scans. Google tells me I am more likely to get melanoma again because the first instance was on my face. I take that with a Google grain of salt.

My new dermatologist is great, very thorough, and did a wonderful job removing my stitches. She did find a couple of moles on my stomach she wants to remove, though, so I'm going next week to get that done. Who knows if I'll ever have another appointment where we don't remove something.

Overall this whole thing has left me pretty unsettled. I feel scared that melanoma is coming for me, that it could eventually kill me, pop up somewhere we can't see it, or so aggressive it grows before we catch it. Something like that. So many doctors along the way have told me how extremely lucky I am. I feel like I dodged a bullet. I don't like thinking about how lucky I was because who gets this lucky more than once?

These are the thoughts that go through my head as I process all of this. I'm sure I'll come to a better conclusion at some point after I get past some of that kind of bad thinking. It has definitely made me focus on all my blessings in life - I have many, especially my Charlie. And to not focus on the things that just aren't that important or are negative influences. After all, life is short.

This has fortunately been a wake up call to my family to be better about getting checked by the dermatologist. My sister Megan has already been and Meredith is going to go twice this year to get checked. I hope anyone that reads this will consider going to get a body scan. Sure, it's invasive and kind of embarrassing to have every square inch of you looked at, but you have to do it. I hope you will.

Thanks for reading all of this long post. It was cathartic for me to write it. One more step in moving on from this and not forgetting it, but not focusing on it so much either. To trust my doctor and the process of getting checked every few months to keep me healthy. And just live my life.

Meanwhile....

2011-07-17T16:02:00.001-04:00

While Brad and I were in Puerto Rico, Charlie was being spoiled rotten by his grandparents and aunt and uncle! He seemed to have a great time and happily gave me updates when I called to talk to him. He just loves my parents and they are so good with him. They planned so many fun things for him to do during the week - he was worn out each day, ate a ton and played his little heart out!

Charlie always picks up new words and phrases when he's around my mom. They are really funny. This time he had a few new ones when we got back:

It's a Party! He says this while raising his hands in the air. My mom was getting him ready for the birthday party they were having for me and my cousin Jason the night after we returned.
Cooooool. Charlie says this JUST like my mom does. It's hilarious. She tried to say that he must have picked that up from TV, not realizing how often she says it. Cooool.
She taught him to say Amen at the end of the prayer before dinner. Sometimes, now that we are back home, he likes to repeat Amen over and over for the first 5 or so minutes of dinner.

Besides learning new phrases, Charlie had some play dates, including one to a splash pad (followed by Purple Cow - jealous!) and to a bounce house type place. He also got to go see the Dallas Aquarium with my parents. He watched my dad mow the yard, which is something he loves to watch Brad do when we're home. He also took lots of baths in my parent's big garden tub - he loves that too. It's like a swimming pool to him - he could stay in there all night.

As is their tradition, my parents also took Charlie out for pancakes one morning for breakfast. That's a must-do every visit. Charlie gets so excited when the pancakes come out. My grandfather, Charlie's namesake, was also a huge fan of pancakes.

Charlie also got some time in with his Aunt Megan and Uncle Bruce. They are so great with him and he gets so excited when he sees them. They came over to see him a few times and Charlie even got to go to Megan's office and see where she works. He liked getting on her phone, of course, and having a nice chat with the dial tone. The next time she's interested in hiring a receptionist, I think Charlie's going to want to go for the job.

Charlie's been able to say Bruce since Christmas, but was having a tougher time saying Meggie, which sounded more like Monkey for a while. This visit, though, he got her name just right and said it over and over whenever he saw her. It was really cute. Kind of made up for how much he kept saying Bruce's name at Christmas! Anyways, they are an awesome Aunt and Uncle to Charlie and he is so lucky to have them.

Charlie and Aunt Meggie

Uncle Bruce and Shiner Bock

When we got back from Puerto Rico, it was late at night, so we didn't see Charlie until the morning. It felt like Christmas running into his room to get him. I could have held him all morning. I missed him so much.

That night, my parents threw my cousin and me a birthday party, complete with my dad's amazing enchiladas. My mom got a Nothing Bundt Cake for dessert. Charlie got upset for some reason that we were having enchiladas and not pizza. I think he was overtired at that point. He was, however, a HUGE fan of the cake!

My beautiful mom and sister holding the beautiful cake!

Cake... yummmy

It was a great visit for everyone and I can't say it enough - we were so fortunate to have my parents offer to watch Charlie so we could take our trip and get some sorely needed alone time. My parents rock, basically. :) I think Charlie agrees!

Mowing... or as Charlie says it "mooning"

Puerto Rico

2011-07-11T21:25:00.020-04:00

Wowzers, it's been over a month since I last updated the blog! I guess I needed a blogging break. It's also been so busy over here - most of which I'll get caught up and blog about soon.

So on to the best part of being busy - going on vacation! Back in April at my sister's wedding, my mom offered to keep Charlie for a week this summer if Brad and I wanted to get away. For a couple who spends so much of the year apart because of work, this was an amazing offer and we jumped on it!

Since Brad has so many frequent traveler points, we just needed somewhere we could get to on American Airlines that had a Ritz Carlton or Starwood hotels. Hello Puerto Rico! We decided to spend a couple of days in San Juan and then fly to the island of Vieques for 5 more nights.

There are non-stop flights between DFW and San Juan and we got to fly first class, so the flights were easy and pretty fun! Why YES, I WILL take some more champagne - thank you!

The Ritz Carlton in San Juan was really nice, though I wouldn't want to spend an entire week there. It's about a 10 minute cab ride to Old San Juan and is located near the airport on a strip of other big resorts. I think a lot of people stay there before or after they take a cruise from San Juan.

Anyways, for a couple of nights, it was enjoyable. We laid by the pool, tried some new cocktails, I hit up the spa, we played tennis, Brad went to the casino (but don't bring that up if you see him) - and we had some incredible food.

There was an Il Mulino New York in the hotel and it was some of the most amazing Italian food I've had outside of Italy. We ordered a ridiculous brunello and celebrated our first night on vacation with homemade pasta that made me want to cry it was so good.

Can you tell I like to eat?

The second night we went to this crazy restaurant at one of the resorts that was shaped like a clam shell. It was called Perla. Also very good. But crazy because you were sitting inside a clam shell! Listening to techno Caribbean lounge music no less.

We also spent a morning checking out Old San Juan - before any cruise ships docked and it got crowded. It's a cute little area, fun to explore, and plenty of beautiful views of the water. Man it was hot, though. I gave up on having anything resembling cute hair on that very first full day in San Juan.

On Monday (my birthday!) we flew to Vieques on this little connector airline. I was prepared for the plane to be rather small. I was not prepared, however, for it to be THIS small:

Yes, that is Brad sitting next to the PILOT.

All terror aside, it was kind of fun to see the islands and coastline from that vantage point. I was happy to land, though.

On Vieques we were staying at the W Resort that just opened last year. Vieques doesn't have much in terms of tourism just yet because the U.S. Navy had such a huge presence there up until a few years ago. The W is the first major hotel to open there.

Since the airport is a bit, ahem, rustic (no a/c, no concessions, etc.), the W has set up a lounge where you can wait to be driven over to the resort. It was nice. They had ice and air conditioning and even a full bar, if you were so inclined. We were so anxious to get to the resort, though. The ride there took all of 5 minutes from the airport.

When we were checking in they told us that we were getting upgraded to an oceanfront room. I had to try very hard to maintain my composure. When we got to our room, we were greeted with this view:

As soon as the bellman left I think I started screaming with glee! What an incredible birthday!! There were quite a few times during the week when I really just didn't want to leave the room. Just curled up in a lounge chair with a book - perfection.

We got ready for dinner at the resort and headed over for drinks on the porch overlooking the ocean. And yes, our outfits were color coordinated that night. Purple is the new blue.

We had dinner at the resort's signature restaurant, Mix on the Beach, and had a beautiful ocean view from our table.

I had lobster curry and Brad had seafood paella and we were just stuffed and happy afterwards. We walked back to the room listening to the ocean and just soaking it all in.

When we got back to the room I found champagne, chocolate covered strawberries and some birthday dessert that Brad had ordered up for us. So romantic! So thoughtful! So delicious I forgot how stuffed I was and made room!

Seriously, what an incredible birthday. There is nothing more I could have asked for... except maybe a hug and kiss from Charlie :).

Over the next few days we did a lot of this:

Some of this:

And enjoyed views like this:

We also rented a car for a few days and explored the island. There are two little towns and lots of beaches to check out. The towns were pretty rough around the edges but the beaches were amazing. Almost empty and pristine water.

The island also has a lot of horses. They just kind of wander around. Some of the local kids make harnesses out of ropes and ride them bareback. The horses do not appear to mind this.

One really exciting thing we did while we were on Vieques was to kayak and swim in the island's bioluminescent bay. It is filled with these single cell plankton that glow when they are disturbed. Everywhere you move in the water, all along the sides of the boats and even on the crests of the little waves in the bay was this soft light. It was a sight I won't ever forget.

On top of that, we were in the middle of this gorgeous bay at night and you could look up and see so many stars. The sky was so clear; it was stunning.

I wish I had some pictures to show. One man on our tour had a waterproof camera. He also has Brad's email address, but we haven't heard from him yet with the pictures. I have my fingers crossed we will.

When we weren't driving around and exploring, we were usually at the pool or the beach. We'd have lunch by the pool most days and it was so relaxing. They had the most delicious hamburger at the resort - gruyere cheese, grilled jalapeno and diced avocado. I think Brad ate one every day.

Oh my gosh, will I STOP talking about the food already?? Hope nobody is reading this while they're hungry.

We also played tennis each morning before it got too hot. That was fun. It had been too long since I'd played and I really do miss it. Felt nice to run around in between all the eating we were doing!

For my birthday Brad treated me to a spa package at the resort, which I enjoyed on our last full day there. It was absolutely heavenly. I felt like a very spoiled mommy all week long.

Mostly, though, it was just nice to go somewhere together, talk, relax and just be ourselves. That probably sounds weird, but we get so wrapped up in our stressful lives that it's easy to forget why we fell in love in the first place. We had a whole week to focus on each other and that's why it really felt like a second honeymoon to me. And Brad really made it all very romantic.

I did miss my munchkin quite a bit while we were there, though. We called and talked to him and my mom each day, just to see how he was doing. I'll write up another post on that because he had quite a few adventures of his own! I was so happy to get home to him, even if it meant leaving paradise. The big hug I got the morning after we got home felt even better than looking at this view. I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't close, but Charlie wins!

Bye Vieques! Thanks for an awesome time! xoxo

Low Expectations

2011-06-08T14:06:00.006-04:00

Is probably what you should have for this blog for the next few weeks. It has been so busy around here!! Mostly getting ready to go on vacation and doing some projects on the house.

Sometimes I also don't know what to post about. Charlie is still changing pretty quickly, but not at the new-milestone rate of his first couple of years. So what should I bore you with? Cooking? Books? Interior design? Non-toxic bug spray?

Also contributing to the lack of posting: I didn't feel well for most of last week. More of the fibro-crap. I think I'm in the anger phase of acceptance because I just got really ticked off over the weekend researching it and have decided I'm just not going to have it. Sorry fibro, find someone else to hassle. I'm going to feel fine and continue to play tennis and go to the gym and you can just go take a long walk on a short pier.

I'm looking into all the non-medicinal ways to treat it so I can get off the Lyrica - like diet changes, yoga, acupuncture, massage, supplements. I saw an elimination diet that of course cancelled out several of my reasons to live: wine, coffee, chocolate, cheese. It also said not to eat anything you've been eating more than twice a week. Um, ok, sooo... everything? I think that one's going to have to wait until after vacation.

Anyways, enough about that. It's so stupid I can't believe I gave it two paragraphs. NON-ISSUE.

More fun topic: vacation! We leave for Puerto Rico next weekend! Is it crazy I'm looking forward to the flight for all those hours of uninterrupted reading? I'm taking several books: Cutting for Stone, The Patron Saint of Liars, and Cold Sassy Tree. I vow to have them all read by the time we return. I'm also about to order a travel guide for Puerto Rico. Oh and my iPad is coming along! So never fear WWF friends!

I've been looking into activities for while we're there. Definitely going to hit up the bioluminescent bay one night, in kayaks. I also found a dive operator that looks good so we can go diving. I was so happy to read there are a couple of really awesome dive sites near Vieques. Both relatively easy dives, which is good - we don't dive enough to be getting all advanced and stuff when we do.

Other than that, I've just been trying to make sure I have enough to wear all week. Why are cute, flattering shorts so hard to find? I ordered a couple of pairs from Banana and they both have to go back. Bleck.

Oh and on the non-toxic bug spray front (are you snoring yet?): I read this AM that products with lemon and eucalyptus oils are great for keeping the bugs off. Bought Badger sunscreen with bug repellent and Lafe's Baby Insect Repellant. For use on babies (Charlie) and people who occasionally act like babies (Brad and Kara). I also bought some tea tree oil to put on bites. I'll let you know how they work.

It is going to be 102 here tomorrow. A new record. Also a record number of annoyed people in Richmond that we are getting all this heat so early in the summer. I'm running out of creative indoor activities to wear out Charlie. Help! One more gymnastics class to go - we've managed not to drop out! I think I may sign him up for some Romp n' Roll camps after we get back from Dallas. He would go without me for 3 hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I find that prospect VERY appealing!

It was beautiful over last weekend - mid 80's. We went to Williamsburg to see my in-laws. Brad and his dad played golf and we celebrated Brad's birthday on Saturday night. Sunday morning we watched the French Open final (my boyfriend won!) over Cheese Shop sandwiches. Later, during Charlie's nap, I got to shop at my two favorites - the Hanna Andersson outlet and the Williamsburg TJ Maxx - aka, the best TJ Maxx I've ever been to. Found some cute outfits on sale for Charlie at HA and two dresses at TJ to take on vacation! It was a fun weekend.

Brad got to stay in town until this afternoon, when he flew out to Chicago for a couple of days of training. Charlie's loved having him in town. He goes into the room where Brad works when he's in town and just talks and talks, telling Brad all sorts of things. We can tell what some of it is - words like truck, lawnmower, shovel, train, etc. pop out pretty frequently. Brad gets back late Friday night.

Tonight is my book club and we're test driving a new babysitter. Or maybe she's test driving us, who knows. I really miss my U of R sitter from last year, Colleen. Hopefully I can get attached to a new one. We are going to a wine bar here and it will be so fun to get out. I mean, there's a new Breaking Dawn teaser trailer to discuss and all. Oh yeah, and the book for this month.... which I didn't finish.

Tomorrow is both Brad's birthday and my mother-in-law Hope's birthday! Yes, he was born on her birthday! What a way to spend your birthday - with natural childbirth! But also with an amazing gift at the end! So Happy Birthday Brad and Hope!

Some More of What's Up

2011-05-28T22:31:00.003-04:00

I have been super lame in updating the blog lately. I can't help it - the Nordstrom half yearly sale is going on and there are 46 pages of women's clothes to go through. I mean, it's a time commitment. So instead of keeping up with my blog, I condense a week's worth of stuff in one post. Here goes:

The picture of Charlie is at the Sears outlet, which is a scratch and dent kind of place. We picked up a new Jenn Air microwave for half price because it was banged up on the sides. It's going to be installed in between cabinets above our range so you won't be able to see the banged up part. You have to take a sledgehammer to our current microwave to get any of the buttons to work. So anyways, Charlie had the time of his life sitting on the riding lawnmower saying Tractor! over and over. He had the temper tantrum of his life when it was time to go home. He even wriggled out of my arms, ran all the way back to the showroom and climbed back up on the lawnmower.

Charlie's been really curious and into everything lately, which has made it challenging to take him just about anywhere. We were walking around the outdoor mall the other day and I thought for sure the worst that could happen in Build a Bear was we'd spend some money we didn't need to. But when Charlie managed to knock down a few of the display window bears in the 10 seconds I turned my head, I realized I was wrong. The sales lady said that had never happened before, which I actually find hard to believe. But I took that as our cue to leave! Oh my sweet Charlie, just a bundle of curiosity!

Brad's about to have his last work week in DC. We didn't make it up to visit this past week but may go this week. We'll see. It's been so painfully hot in these parts lately that the thought of walking around all day outside with Charlie has been sounding.. not so fun. I'll have to see if it will be any cooler this week and let that decide whether we make the trek. Brad's been pretty busy, so I think our time with him would be a bit limited.

We bagged our weekend in Chicago for Brad's birthday after discovering his Marriott reward for 2 weekend nights would only apply to the broom closet at the partially constructed Midway Airport Courtyard. Seriously - we couldn't use the rewards at a single property in the city. So if we were going to have to pay for hotel, it kinda made the trip not worth it, especially right before we go on vacation for a week. We told Charlie we'd take him to Chicago some other time. He replied with his favorite reply lately - Okay Mommy.

So yeah! We finally booked our no-kid vacation! And almost entirely with points and miles! 2 nights at the Ritz Carlton in San Juan, Puerto Rico and 5 nights at the W Resort on Vieques Island. Woohoo! I can't wait. I think the island especially is going to be amazing. The W is the only resort there and you can swim in a bioluminescent bay there called Puerto Mosquito - just like they did in that movie The Beach. There are lots of secluded pristine beaches to explore. I can't believe we're actually going. And that it's less than a month away!

We don't have big plans for Memorial Day. Just doing things around the house mostly and meeting up with some friends for dinner Sunday night. Charlie and Brad will go out and hunt for fire trucks, diggers and other big machines, as is their weekend tradition. Last weekend they finished up their time together with a visit to Five Guys for Charlie's first real hamburger. Brad said Charlie was in heaven! But really, who wouldn't be. Wait until we take him to the In and Out Burger that opened up near my parent's house! His eyes will glaze over in pure bliss.

The gym class I signed Charlie up for is now on my 'most dreaded' list right next to brushing his teeth. He hates it. Well, he loves certain aspects, like doing the same thing over and over again for the entire class while the other kids move on and try new things. The teacher tries her best to encourage Charlie to try new things, but he's not interested. He marches to the beat of his own drummer. Will we become gym class drop outs? Stay tuned.

If you'd like to have a conversation with Charlie, be prepared to talk about the following things: lawnmowers, shovels, wheelbarrows, diggers, fire trucks, airplanes and helicopters. He also enjoys discussing "no" and "my turn" and requesting his two *wishful thinking* breakfast foods - cupcakes and suckers. Yeah right.

Charlie's new crocs have turned out to be both a blessing and an annoyance. It's awesome that Charlie can put on his own shoes and we avoid that battle a few times each day. He seems to be rather excited about it, too! But after the first pair I ordered was too small, this pair is a tad too big so he's flopping around in them like clown shoes. He frequently puts them on the wrong feet and refuses to switch them - and then trips even more than he usually does in his crocs! They also fall off a lot. I'm constantly checking both feet before I put him in his car seat to make sure we aren't missing one. But they are washable. That's nice.

We have thankfully moved on from Caillou as the favorite TV show. All I had to do was order 2 DVDs of Caillou episodes and Charlie no longer wants anything to do with it. The new favorite show is Berenstein Bears. Or just "Bears" as Charlie calls it. There are only 6 episodes available on Demand, so hello Amazon, show me what ya got.

Our current book club read is Cutting for Stone. I ordered it and it is a big honking chunk of book. So here's hoping it's a page turner! Otherwise, the prognosis is poor that I will have it read by book club on the 8th. Thank goodness we always have wine and interesting food to discuss as well!

I know we talked about this last year, but here is this year's sunscreen report by the Environmental Working Group. You can now download an iPhone app of the Sunscreen Buyer's Guide and the Pesticides Guide. So there you go. Go forth and detoxify.

Well I do believe that's all that's going on here in the Spooner Household. Or at least, all I can think of before I zonk out to sleep tonight. Another fun, glamorous night in the world of small child parenting! Time to sleep and dream of vacation..... :)

Mimi Comes to Visit!

2011-05-27T23:29:00.002-04:00

Charlie's Aunt Mimi was just dying to see him so she booked herself a train ticket and came for a long weekend!

After Brad's train from DC broke down and thoughtlessly delayed her train, they both finally made it to the house for beers, guacamole and quesadillas! Charlie surprised us all by loooving the guacamole - he couldn't get enough. He'd ask for a chip and then hold it up to Mimi and say either more? or dip?

Friday night I introduced Meredith to the TV show Extreme Couponing. We had a great time cracking jokes at their expense and deciding how close each participant was to switching over to the TV Show Hoarding. Good times.

Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dawn for haircuts. Kind of bad planning on my part, but it did leave the rest of the day open! And we were on Charlie duty all day while Brad took his photography class.

Mer is about to get the Keratin treatment on her hair so she can survive the humid NYC summer. So she just cleaned up the layers and got a fab blowout and style:

I went a tad more dramatic for the summer and lopped off all my hair!

So far I love it. Takes almost no time to fix. Has a bit more body now that I'm fixing it myself. She had to straighten to make sure it was even. It's longer in front than in back and it makes it so fun to style.

We of course took these phone photos to send my mom. :)

While Meredith got her hair cut I went and got Charlie so we could spend the day with him in Carytown. Saturday was actually brought to you by the letter "C." Charlie in Carytown, visiting Can Can (for chocolate croissants!), Clementine, Clover (both for Consignment Clothes) and Cartwheels and Coffee. Strangely, we had neither cartwheels or coffee there. It's a coffee shop with play areas for kids - for you non-Richmonders.

We did, however, have plenty of play pizza.

And of course, trains. Charlie loved playing trains with Mimi.

P.S. Isn't Mer's dress cute? Target! Fancy NYC Target, but still - Target!

Saturday night we had this amazing Cooking Light Lobster and Corn Risotto. Oh heavens it was good. We got the lobsters whole, but already steamed (no screaming!) and they were so messy to pull apart! I felt like the whole kitchen and I were coated in lobster gunk by the time I was done.

We watched No Strings Attached, which was cuter than I was expecting it to be. I guess I don't have high expectations for Ashton Kutcher these days, but it was kind of funny!

Sunday Brad and Charlie had their day so Mer and I went to Cafe Mosaic for brunch and went shopping. There might have been 2 rounds of mimosas at brunch, I'm really not at liberty say. There was definitely a breakfast sandwich with homemade pimento cheese. And wow.

We got Super Stars pizza Sunday night and watched Morning Glory. Which was.. well. Yeah. Ok. It was fine. That's a glowing review, isn't it? Mediocrity or not, it was fun having someone to watch chick flicks with! And with witty commentary to boot.

Charlie and I were kind of mopey on Monday because both Brad and Mimi had to leave, both on trains. Brad back to DC for the week and Mimi back to NYC. A few minutes after we dropped Mimi off, Charlie realized she was really gone and burst into tears! He kept saying Mimi and Choo Choo! It kind of broke my heart! He's such a sweetie. Just loves his family so much.

It was so much fun to have Aunt Mimi come for a visit - and so sweet of her to sit through two long train trips to be here. We love you Aunt Mimi!!

Strawberry Pickin'

2011-05-20T17:30:00.003-04:00

Charlie and I met our play group to pick strawberries on Wednesday. Kind of funny considering Charlie won't eat strawberries. He's gotten quite picky about food actually. He did love picking them, though.
Each time I saw him looking the other way, I tossed the overripe and rotted ones he had put into the container. The first time I tossed some he saw me do it and ran right over and got them, pretty sure Mommy made a mistake. After that I had to wise up and wait until he wasn't watching. Charlie may not like strawberries, but I sure do.
After all that picking, he was ready for a rest. It was a gorgeous day and we were close enough to the airport for him to see some airplanes. Eventually he got out of his chair and ran around with the other kids, playing with all the toys the farm owners so thoughtfully set out in their front yard. There were also a couple of extremely lazy farm dogs who needed to be pet.
I also bought some spring onions and kale. I have never cooked with either. Still not sure what I'm going to do with them. Fairly certain whatever I settle on, Charlie will not eat. He's a huge fan of spinach, though, so I suppose I'll let it go.

It was a really awesome day. :)

The What's Up

2011-05-16T21:26:00.003-04:00

Well, aside from major medical diagnoses, we have had quite a bit going on around here. I guess I haven't done a general update in a while! So in my favorite bullet format, here's what's going on with us:

Brad's spending 3 weeks working in DC. This is his second week and is a busy one. I think Charlie and I may go up and stay with him one night next week when things slow down a bit. Thinking of taking him to the zoo to see all the animals. And of course, get some time in with Da-da.
Brad's staying at the St. Regis while he's there and now knows first hand how difficult it is to check in when the president is having dinner there. Crazy, huh?
Charlie's gym class started last Tuesday and was a complete nightmare. The class is very structured and he kept having meltdowns each time we moved on to a new activity. It was very tiring.
Since Charlie had been poking at both ears recently, I took him to the pediatrician Wednesday and sure enough, an ear infection in at least one ear, maybe both. They didn't want to clean out both ears and confirm if he was going to have to go on an antibiotic anyways. This may have been the driver of the gym class meltdowns. We'll see tomorrow at class #2.
Had to do another visit to the vet today with Charlie in tow. Ringo's eye is infected for a 3rd time and the vet can't figure out why it keeps happening. We're trying a longer round of antibiotics and eye ointment. If he gets another infection we have to go THE veterinary eye doctor. I say THE because there is only ONE in Richmond.
Charlie's trying to count to 10 lately. It goes one, two, five, six, seven, eight, ten! Missing a few, but they're all in order!
We found out yesterday that a giant black snack has been living in the mountain of mulch in our yard. It's not much of a mountain anymore, as Brad has been working really hard to get it spread. He disturbed the snake, which fortunately only moved over to a tree to climb up. It was about 4 feet long. Brad thought it might be a cottonmouth. Scary!!
I am love love LOVING my iPad. Already not sure how I could live without it. You should get one. So many awesome apps for iPad. I'll have to do a list of my favorites.
Brad has to go to Chicago for some training his birthday week and we're planning on joining him for the weekend. I'm so excited! Haven't been to Chicago in years, since my friend Holly lived there, but always had an awesome time when I went. It'll be a great way to celebrate the big 3-5 for Bradford.
As for my big 3-5, we'll be on our vacation we're planning. Still looking like Hawaii but the flight time and time change is a bit daunting, so it's still up in the air. Wherever we go, it will be fun and relaxing and a most awesome birthday, so I can't wait.
My sister Meredith is coming to visit this weekend! I'm so excited to see her. She's dying to see Charlie. We're both getting haircuts Saturday morning and then taking Charlie to do some fun stuff. The rest of the time will be wine, takeout and bad tv. Woot woot!
And lastly, but not leastly, Meredith's boyfriend Lucas has a book coming out next January. I found it on Amazon and may not be able to help myself but preorder it 8 months early! Here's the link - isn't the cover art awesome?

Probably forgetting a ton of things. More later!

A Bummer

2011-05-16T21:25:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed I haven't been posting very much lately. It's because I've just been so tired. Like, beyond tired because I have a very busy 2 year old on my hands all week while the hubs is out of town. I've also been feeling sick all of the time. It's been worrisome. And not good.

I'm not sure how often I've complained on the blog the past few months about my back pain, but it started up in November when I aggravated my sciatic nerve, which caused pain up my back and down my legs. The doctor at the time thought it was due to my scoliosis, which has never really given me much pain.

Actually my back hasn't been completely right since my last month of pregnancy, when Charlie turned and put a bunch of pressure on my lower back and his feet right on my ribs, which he kicked to high heaven and cracked. My coworkers started calling him Baby Cullen.

So my back hurt some for a while after having him (his constant need to be held and husband out of town didn't help matters either) and then a lot after November. Just an innocent night on the elliptical machine that turned into not being able to walk 2 hours later.

Anyways. I have such a bad habit of going off on tangents when I'm writing on this blog. But anyways, I saw an orthopedist, saw some neat x-rays, did physical therapy, tried a myriad of muscle related drugs and nothing really helped. One of the drawers in my bathroom has unintentionally become a graveyard of medicine that didn't do anything.

Over the past couple of months, the pain went from my back to all over. Kind of like the flu. Just achy and don't touch me and my usual bumping into walls or stubbing my toe became major painful events. I didn't feel like doing anything but laying down. This does present a problem with a toddler.

Getting up in the morning has been the worst. When I first wake up, I lie there and think OK, on the count of 3 I'm going to grit my teeth and sit up. Because.. ouch. Majorly stiff and just ... ouch.

I've had blood tests for everything under the sun and all came back clear. My doctor was trying to get the pain under control since he wasn't really sure what it was. Finally, Mother's Day weekend it was so bad, I asked my doctor to send me to a rheumatologist. It was time to visit the specialist and get an actual diagnosis, instead of just trying to treat the pain. I managed to get an appointment last Friday.

After filling out a long form and having a long discussion with him, the diagnosis looks like it will be fibromyalgia. Hearing that diagnosis confirmed was like being punched in the gut because doesn't that sound like something someone much older than 34 should have? But I had a feeling that's what it was going to be thanks to WebMD. I'm not a doctor but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

At the same time, it was also a relief to have something of a diagnosis. I haven't been able to get that so far from my primary care doctor or the other doctor I went to for a second opinion. So now I know what I need to do to get better.

I've started yet another prescription, but this one is actually working. In fact, in just the 2 days I've been taking it, I feel better than I have in months. I also need to exercise and watch my stress level. The doctor said stress is probably what brought it on and he thought it was a good thing I'd taken steps to de stress my life a bit.

With any luck, I will hopefully be able to get off the medicine in a few months. At least, that's what the doctor said and I really hope he's right. I don't think there's a "cure" per se, and I may always deal with this off and on, but I don't want to think about this being something I have the rest of my life. That's very scary to me.

Instead I'm just focusing on feeling better. I'm so excited to feel better. I miss all the things I used to be able to do before I felt like garbage all the time. I miss having energy. I miss tackling all my little projects. I miss Saturday morning spin class and going to the gym. Never thought I'd miss that. Mostly I just miss feeling like myself. Hopefully I will again soon.