Balancing Act

The title of this post might suggest that this entry will contain some philosophical musings about balancing work and school and mommying and life in general...but that would be incorrect. This blog is, instead, simply about the cat. I was doing some cleaning in the bedroom the other day, and Tucker decided that he wanted to get to the top shelf of my closet. He went from the floor to the chair to the dresser to the top of the door, and then he got stuck. (Not literally. He got stuck in the sense that this was as close as he would get to reaching his goal. He did not literally get stuck on top of the closet door.) He tried for quite a while to figure out how to get into the closet from atop the door, but he finally gave up and descended from his perch....

Ice, Ice, Ice

It's the ice storm time of year again.... Last year we got hit with one in December, and this year it waited until January. So far this one isn't as bad as last winter's storm. We've had a couple inches of ice during the past few days. It's slick and yucky outside, but absolutely beautiful at the same time. Everything's white and beautiful; it looks like we've had a few inches of snow, but it's simply a few inches of ice. We haven't lost power yet, but other parts of town have. I wouldn't be surprised if we do lose power, so we're somewhat prepare--or at least much more prepared than we were last year. The ice has done some damage already. A big limb from one of our trees came crashing down this afternoon. It hit the house and took out the TV antenna, and then it bounced off of the house and crashed onto our patio table, destroying it and also ruining our lawnmower. I guess if that's all the damage that happens were, then we're probably in pretty good shape....

Happy Robert Burns Day!!

Bring out the bagpipes and haggis, it's Robert Burns Day!! So, read some Scottish poetry, listen to the pipes, wear a kilt (or at least a tartan), and celebrate all things Scottish. (Eat some haggis if you can find some, but if you can't, you're not missing much....)

Obama Llama Duck

I know this is a campaign video, but given that tomorrow's the inauguration, I thought I would post it anyway. Some time ago, I posted a link to the Llama Song, and this one's a parody of that one. I don't necessarily consider myself an Obama supporter, but the video's fun anyway....

Reading the Paper

I picked up a newspaper at work yesterday, and Lily managed to pull it out of my bag earlier today. (I frequently pick up a paper at work, thinking that I'll read it when I get home, but that seldom happens. Sometimes I actually do read the comics or work the crossword puzzles.) Anyway, Lily decided that she wanted to read my newspaper, and she managed to make quite a mess of it. (This picture is from early on in the newspaper-reading experience.) She had fun with the paper, and I was amazed that Tucker let her have so much fun without joining in as he likes newspapers too.

Back to Work

Well, my holiday break is officially over. I went back to work today, and Lily went back to the babysitter. (She goes to a babysitter on Tuesdays and has a Daddy Day on Thursdays.) It was wonderful to be back at work, and I'm really looking forward to this semester. From what I'm told Lily did okay at the sitter's today, though not as well as usual. She generally likes the babysitter's, though this was the first time she'd been away from Mommy for more than an hour or two in the past month and the first time she'd had a bottle in just as long. I'm guessing she'll do even better next week.

When Daddy Babysits....

I plopped Lily down with Jimmy earlier this evening so I could go do a few things (toss in a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, and get everything ready for Lily's bath) without small hands attempting to assist me. When I returned to take Lily in for her bath, I found Jimmy asleep and Lily in possession of the remote control....

Painting Pants

I've been doing a couple of painting projects lately, and I just washed my painting pants today. As I was washing them, I noticed all of the different colors of paint that were splattered all over them and began recalling all of the painting projects.... There was bright yellow paint from painting lines on a parking lot as s fundraiser for the WYD trip to Toronto in 2002. There was grey-blue paint from helping a college friend paint her parents' house in the summer of 2003. There was off-white (54-11) paint from repainting my college dorm room back to the standard university-approved color following a prior painting project (which wasn't reflected on the pants). There was white paint, presumably from a slew of different projects: the bathroom and vanity at my last apartment, the laundry room at the previous house, and the office at school that I painted this past week. There was grey paint from the trim at the last house, and there was black paint from the current painting project: the shed (which will no longer be a garage when we're through with it).

Several elements of this whole thing amaze me: the number of painting projects that I've undertaken in the past 7 years, and the fact that I've had the same pair of painting pants for the past 7 years (not to mention that they still fit after 7 years)....

Bookshelves and Bedtime

I think I may have made a decorating mistake.... I moved a bookshelf into Lily's room earlier this week, and the only place that it could go was right behind our rocking chair. (Or at least that's the only place that it will fit without a major re-arranging of all of the rest of the furniture in the room.) While the arrangement is aesthetically decent, I'm not sure that it will work out: Lily has gotten very. very excited every time she has managed to peek over my shoulder and see all of her books. This hasn't had a big impact on bedtime yet, but I'm wondering if I should move the bookcase as a preventative measure....

My Neglected Baby (and Personal Assistant)

No, wait, don't panic...I'm not talking about Lily!! Lily's pretty much the princess of the house, which means that Prince Tucker has essentially been dethroned. Though the two of them are still getting along well, it's obvious that Tucker's feeling a little starved for attention. He acts out sometimes (usually either hovering underfoot or running through the house at top speed) and tries to sit on my lap whenever it's not otherwise occupied (and sometimes when it is). He frequently takes up residence on top of the computer monitor when I'm working in the office. He tries to help me, but he's not much of a typist or a proofreader....

Unseasonably Beautiful Weather

We've had a couple of days of absolutely beautiful weather here (highs in the upper 60s, maybe even low 70s) lately, and Lily and I have made the best of it. We got out the big stroller and spent quite a bit of time in the backyard. Lily got to play, and I got some work done. (We had a terrible windstorm about a month ago that took one of the trees in our backyard down and brought down limbs off of several others. We have quite a mess to deal with out there.) While Lily enjoyed the fresh air and watching the world around her, I picked up small limbs and branches so as to start the process of making our backyard pretty again.

Studio Mommy vs. Walgreens

I'd spent the last week or so thinking "I really needed to get out my backdrop and take Lily's Christmas pictures if I want to include pictures in my Christmas cards this year...." And this came after several weeks of debating with myself over whether to do Studio Mommy pictures or take Lily to a professional studio for pictures. Since I was relatively unhappy with Lily's last/only set of studio pictures, I opted for the Studio Mommy option. A couple days ago I actually did get out the backdrops and get Lily all dressed up and take a whole bunch of pictures. (I think I took over 70 pictures in an attempt to find one where the lighting was decent, the baby was looking at the camera--maybe even smiling, and nothing was blurry due to the moving subject.) I spent another day or two trying to decide which picture to print, and then yesterday I finally went online and placed my order for prints. I went in to pick up my prints this evening, and the photo people at Walgreens wouldn't give me my prints because they claimed that they were professional photographs and that I needed a copyright release from the studio before they could give me the pictures. After trying to reason with the photo people, I ended up leaving the store angry, confused, and without my pictures. When I arrived home, Jimmy went to Walgreens to try to reason with the photo people and retrieve my pictures, but he was also unsuccessful. I then wrote a very articulate but perhaps not-so-polite letter explaining that I give myself permission to print the pictures that I have taken. Anyway, after providing the photo people with the letter, I finally got my pictures. I think I'll be finding a new place to print pictures in the future....

Carrots!!

We're beginning to introduce vegetables into Lily's diet, and we started with carrots. While she didn't seem particularly fond of the carrots, she certainly didn't mind smiling for the camera....

Duck Thief

I believe Lily's filched a rubber duckie. I picked up Lily from her babysitter this afternoon and then went to a local coffee shop (my normal Thursday place actually) to get a late lunch and hang out with Lily before driving back home. When I took Lily out of her carseat, I found that she was sharing her seat with a rubber duckie (and it wasn't one of her rubber duckies as her duckies stay in the bathtub). As far as I can figure, Lily filched the duckie from one of two places: the babysitter's house or the foster care shelter/office. (Lily's babysitter does short-term foster care for infants, and sometimes she has to take Lily with her when she takes her other baby for doctor's appointments or parent visits or whatever.) I hope the duckie came from the babysitter's house, because stealing toys from foster children is just wrong on so many levels....

Thanksgiving Break

My poor blog has been neglected this past week as we were out of town. Lily (and Jimmy and I) got to go visit her Grandpa and Grandma B. (my parents) in Kansas for the week. They don't have the internet at their house, which explains the lack of blog updates for the week.

Anyway, it was a wonderful trip. The 8 1/2 hour drives each way became 12 hour drives because we made quite a few extra stops for Lily. She actually traveled pretty well considering the amount of time she spent in the carseat. The trip was pretty exciting for Lily. She got to meet all of her aunts and uncles and most of her cousins on my side of the family, and she got to spend time with her Grandpa and Grandma. (Isn't the Lily and Grandpa picture cute!!) The trip was also filled with lots of those little baby "firsts": first trip to the farm, first time to sit in a high chair, first real food (baby cereal--and whatever else Grandpa snuck to her while Mommy wasn't looking), first time to ride like a big girl in the grocery cart, first snow storm, and a first pair of shoes.

Jimmy and I enjoyed the trip too. It was the first real time off that Jimmy had from work since our trip to New Orleans this past August. (He has days off here and there, but he lives only a few houses away from his office and often ends up going in for things even when he is technically "off.") I spent a few days working, but I took plenty of time to relax too. I managed to sleep in a couple of days since there were other people around to play with Lily in the mornings. Jimmy and I even got to go out (together!) for beers one evening; we figured out that we hadn't done that in at least 15 months!

I always like going to visit everybody; it just makes me wish I lived closer so I could visit more often....