Rain, Rain Go Away

In June, we had Tropical Storm Alberto dump a record amount of rain in the Raleigh area. Malls were flooded, roads were closed (including two of the roads that lead directly to the kids daycare) and property was damaged. Right now, we have some front that is stalled over us. Last report on the Weather Channel, Wake County is under a flash flood warning and is getting hit hard with some rain. And this isn't even Ernesto. We are thinking that we may need a generator instead of an irrigation system at this point. I am thankful that Ernesto weakened and all my blogging friends in Florida are safe!

Onto other problems - anyone have any suggestions on getting the urine smell out of mattresses? Yes, Ashley had not one, but two accidents in her bed last night. Yea for us. I just love getting up at 2:00am to "Mommy, I have to go POTTY," only to find she had already gone in her bed. No, we aren't too smart and have those water proof or whatever sheets on her bed. This will only be the third or fourth accident she has had in bed.

Why Sleep

With Ashley, we were constantly consumed with her sleep. It didn't help that everyone asks new parents, "is she sleeping through the night?". Ashley was what many would call a bad sleeper. As a newborn, she was up every two hours for the first couple of weeks (or was it months, I can't remember.) And the magical sleeping through the night did not come until she was 18 months old. Yes, you read that right. And we did everything right, she went to sleep on her own, we tried giving her water instead of milk when she woke in the middle of the night, etc. We were even part of a sleep study with John Hopkins. We were miserable and cranky and desperately needed sleep.

Now we have Audrey, the "good" sleeper. Well, at least she was. The second night in the hospital, I kept her in the room with me. She slept from about midnight until 5:00am. I was in shock. And when we brought her home, she would go to sleep around 10:00 or 11:00pm and sleep until about 4:00am consistently. Then at about 6 weeks, she was sleeping through the night.

Then teething came. Since then (the last two months) she has been waking up once in the middle of the night for a bottle. There has been the few instances that she has done more than that, but those are only once or twice a week. But Ray and I don't seem to be as cranky or tired. Maybe I shouldn't speak for Ray, but it doesn't bother me as much this time to get up with Audrey. She is so cute in the middle of the night. I go in to get her, and she looks up at me from the crib and just grins. She takes her bottle and goes right back to sleep.

The real reason I think I don't mind as much this time? I know this is the last baby I will have. I won't have to do the middle of the night feedings again once Audrey outgrows this. I am sad that this is it, but happy at the same time that these two girls are growing up into such sweet little girls.

The Reason I Started Weight Watchers

It is always freezing in my office lately. I work in a hospital, but in the administrative offices. They say they keep hospitals cool to ward of germs, but I am so cold sometimes in my office that my fingers hurt. So today, my office mate and I had a brilliant idea to cover up the air conditioner vent in the ceiling. In order to reach the vent, I had to stand on my desk (why I didn't stand on my chair or have my 6'2" without her three inch heels on do it, I have no idea). My desk is in an "L" shape, with one side bolted into the other. I was about halfway through covering up the vent went the desk went crashing to the ground. It had detached from the other side of the desk and completely fell apart. After my initial shock, I was laughing so hard I was crying. What a great way to end the work day.

Three Years Already

Ashley had her three year check up this morning. She is 39 inches tall, and weighs 36 pounds. Yes, a total bruiser. Don't let her sit on you, it hurts. Both of these are in the 85%. I am excited about the height because that means with shoes on, she is probably 40 inches tall. To ride Splash Mountain in Disney World you must be 40 inches, so she is so going on that ride with me in October.

Everything else checked out great. I was impressed with the vision and hearing test they did. She did have problems telling the nurse which direction the "feet" of the letter "E" was pointing, but I think the nurse confused her to begin with and then she just didn't want to do it. She is three after all and the fact that she listened as much as she did was amazing.

Then I had to drop her off at school and go to work. It took me 1/2 hour to find a parking space, and then I had to park in visitor parking which totally sucked. What a great way to start the day at work. At least I only have to work five hours...

We Love to Swing

Our after dinner activity...
And we got Audrey's swing up, one of many things accomplished this weekend.

We had a great weekend, got a lot done and still had time for tons of family things. My band concert on Friday night went well. There was one song, a Henry Mancini tribute that had Pink Panther in it, that the saxophones completely botched. But being good musicians that we are, we powered through the mistakes and still had a great concert. Ashley enjoyed standing in front of the stage and singing. And she would also let out a "Hi Mommy!" every once in a while. Ray had to eventually take her to a nearby playground so the people around her could actually enjoy the concert.

Saturday I chopped off my hair and we got a treadmill (finally!). Then on Sunday, we went to a great park called Kids Together Park. Throw in a little pool time at the Y this afternoon, and that about sums up a near perfect weekend. And yes, I did get on my treadmill tonight and ran about 30 minutes. I will start revealing the actual distance I run when I can actually run a decent distance.

Ten Things I Should Have Not Taught Ashley To Say

1. My underwear is up my butt.
2. Sugar, Honey and Ice Tea
3. Doodlebops are Yucky (only because it just isn’t nice, not because they aren’t yucky)
4. Green means go, red means stop. Yellow means Go Faster!
5. Mommy, you stepped on a duck! (Ray taught her that one, I can’t take credit)
6. My bathing suit is up my butt.
7. Jesus (and then Ray and I try to convince her we said Cheezits)
8. There’s a screecher on my butt. (I can’t take credit for that one either, and I have no idea where she got it or what the heck a screecher is.)
9. MOMMY, I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING (only because it is used as yet another stall tactic at night, she screams it from her room after we put her to bed)
10. I tooted. (only when out in public with many, many people around)

** I am attempting to change my template, after screwing it up multiple times already, I am leaving it like this right now. Look for more changes soon!**

Ballet Class

Thanks Grandpa/Grandma Fuzzy for the dress up stuff!

I decided to sign Ashley up for a ballet class at the school of dance in our town. It is actually a ballet/tap combination class for her age group. As a kid, I didn’t do dance or ballet or anything remotely girlie. I played softball. But I want my daughters to be well rounded and given the opportunity to try different things. So this year it is ballet. And at only $38 per month, it seems like a good deal. That is until I went to buy the shoes. She of course needed ballet slippers as well as tap shoes even though if she makes it to the recital in April, they will only do a ballet piece. The cost of those two shoes? 48 Freaking Dollars!! She better like the class now!

Of course in the car on the way to get the shoes, she informed me she didn’t want new ballet shoes or tap shoes. She had some at home in her dress up box. I told her gently that those are for play, and she needed some new ones. She cooperated while trying on the shoes.

Then I had to stand in line and pay. We were actually in the dance studio as they had setup everything in one of the rooms. So as I was standing in line, Ashley proceeded to stand in front of the wall mirror and sing and do her “super ballet spins” as she calls them. The girl in front of me who was probably around 10 looked at her Mom and said, “I guess that little girl likes to sing.” I wanted to tell her you have no idea. Just come to our house after we put her to bed and listen to her.

Talent Show

Today was a talent show at Ashley and Audrey's school (that's Ashley in the purple dress). Only Ashley's class and older participated (I guess they can't really get babies to do any tricks). Ashley's class sang some hippo song first that I couldn't really understand the words, and then they played on a cd player, "This Little Light Of Mine" and sang along. It was so unbelievably cute.

I had to hold back tears as I watched Ashley. Heck, I had to hold back tears as I watched an older class do the Macarena. I am pretty pathetic. If this is what it is going to be like every time she has a performance, then I am in trouble. It was just so amazing to see Ashley up there, in front of all those people doing her own thing. And it was so cute how she would look for me and Ray in the audience, making sure we were there, and then looking back at her teachers or the other kids. I will try to always be there for her, waiting in the sidelines, making sure she is okay.

So I couldn't get the video to load into blogger, so I loaded it into YouTube. Hopefully you guys can see this, it is cute. And hopefully the Grandparents can figure it out, if not, give me a call, I will walk you old people through it.

Various Pictures

Ashley loves her new rain boots, Thanks Grandma Midnight!

Dancing with my boots.
Audrey loves hanging out after a bath.
Audrey in the bath seat.
It is easier now that they both can take a bath together.

Packing

One little story I forgot to mention about our weekend trip. Since I was home on Friday morning while Ray was working, I was in charge of packing. Now normally, I do pack all the kids stuff (to include clothing, toys, food, you know, all the basics). I live vicariously through my girls' clothing, so I don't even let Ray do their laundry. I mean really, they get a new wardrobe every time the season changes (or in Ashley's case because she grows so damn fast, every two months sometimes). I have outfits in my closet from God knows when. Anyways, Ray asked me to pack for him as well. So picture this, I had to entertain a three year old, 7 month old (to include giving a bath), and pack everything all in a few hours. Needless to say, something was going to be forgotten.

Sure enough, we were halfway to Myrtle Beach when I exclaimed "Omigosh!" Ray about jumped out of his seat.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to."
"What???"
"I forgot to pack your underwear or socks."
"So I just have shirts and shorts?"
"Um, yea."

Later that night, Ray had a lovely trip to the Super Walmart in Myrtle Beach.

Once again, a horrible mother

Highlights from this weekend:

- The weather was great! Ashley enjoyed the beach on Saturday (Ray took her with Wendy, Matt and Ethan while I stayed back with Audrey. She is just too "white" and too young to go out in the sun yet. Next year.)
- We actually went out to dinner on Saturday night for Matt and Wendy's anniversary, and no one melted down, even though neither Ashley nor Ethan had napped.
- The water park was great on Sunday. Ashley loved the slides and the wave pool.

Okay, here is why I am a horrible Mom, again. So we get to the water park and head over to the little kid slides. Now, let me preface this by saying Ashley had been talking about going up the stairs and down the slides all weekend, so she knew what she was in for. We walk up to the top of the slide, and Ethan goes right down. Ashley decides, nope, she was not going down. We go down to the bottom, watch Ethan go down, and then I take her back up. I attempt to try and sort of push her down the slide, still nothing. At this poing she is crying, and I end of crying, so we go down to the bottom of the slides. I just knew she would LOVE the slides if she would just go down them. Then Wendy asks her to go up with her, and she goes. And Wendy sort of pushed her down as well, but as I knew it, she loved it and then continued to go down the slides over and over again.

But why am I so psycho about stuff? I think if I would have just waited and given Ashley time, she would have gone down them by herself. I just need to learn to be patient. I am so frustrated with myself for getting frustrated with Ashley. I just need to learn to step back and calm down. Any advice???

Weekend

We are off to Myrtle Beach today. I have every other Friday off, so I kept the girls out of daycare and am just waiting for Ray to get home. He had a settlement at 10:00 this morning. Ashley loves the beach and is excited about going. I think we may also try and do a waterpark this time.

Here is Audrey with proof she is teething. That pacifier she has she isn't sucking on, she is chewing on it.

My Favorite Store

First, a few maintenance items. I finally updated my blogroll. It still doesn’t encompass all the blogs I read (yes, I a lot of free time at work!), but I got tired of typing them all in. To those of you who blog – I love reading them, don’t ever stop.

I know, another picture of me (just in case my parents forgot what I looked like). This is from that weekend in NYC with the Moms’ for their birthdays. Yes, that is an alcoholic drink at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Yea for me.

So onto my favorite store – Target. I needed a few items from there last night, so off the whole family went to Target. Ashley had to use the bathroom since a) she had a cup of milk with dinner and b) she feels it necessary to use all public bathrooms. Anyways, I go in the family bathroom (I love places that have those) and sit her on the potty. She proceeds to tell me the following:

“Mommy, Zachary holds his cooch at school.”

Yes, I have taught Ashley that her private part is her cooch. Bad Mom.

“No, honey. Boys don’t have cooches.”
“Yes, they do.”
“Fine, they do then.”

I gave in since I didn’t want to come up with a word for the boy part and I also didn’t feel like arguing with a three year old in the family restroom at Target.

Miscellaneous Ashley

I got home a few nights ago and was doing our usual routine – fixing dinner and playing with the kids. Ashley had to go to the potty, so I told her to go to the bathroom. I checked on her to make sure she had made it on the toilet, and went back to check on Audrey who was laying on the couch. She has been rolling a lot lately and I wanted to make sure she didn’t roll off the couch. I hear the following from the bathroom.

“Mommy, come here! I am going to count to three and you better come here. One, two, three, COME HERE!”

I guess I have been counting a lot lately.

She is also still pulling the whole stalling at bedtime routine. Last night after a few rounds of I’m hot and I have to potty, I told her to go to sleep.

“I can’t remember how to go to sleep.”
“You just close your eyes goofball.”
“Oh.”

The other thing I have noticed she says ALL THE TIME is “but.” We will be in the car after picking her and Audrey up, and every other word out of her mouth is but. “But I didn’t sit next to Zachary today.” “But we didn’t have cake today.” Or she will just say “but” and lose her train of thought I guess and then repeat it again. It’s pretty funny.

Sleep

Ray and I need some sleep. Last night was a repeat of Sunday night with a little bit of Ashley waking up in the middle of the night mixed in. And it is now 7:50 pm, and Audrey has been asleep for almost an hour and Ashley is in bed as well. If it weren't for Big Brother, I would be in bed as well!!

I had my annual doctor's appointment last week with my OBGYN. My blood pressure was high, which was strange since it was never even high when I was pregnant. So I went back today and it was better and in the normal range. Needless to say though, it made me realize I should really lose that "baby" weight (yes, Audrey is almost 7 months old, but I can still blame her). I have joined Weight Watchers online and we will hopefully buy a treadmill next week. So far, two days into it, it has been pretty easy. I am surprised by the fact that there are foods that are "0" points. The hard part will be the weekend, that's when we tend to overindulge ourselves and eat fast food. Wish me luck!

Princess Audrey

Ray attended “Burger’s and Babies” last week in Audrey’s room at daycare. This is where he found out that all the babies have nicknames. Audrey’s nickname? Princess. The teachers are continually telling me that she is the easiest one in the room and she smiles all the time, so I am guessing Princess is a good nickname.

Well, last night she wasn’t so easy. My guess is she is cutting her top two teeth right now. Our normally good sleeper turned into a nightmare last night. She first woke up at 11:00 pm. I rocked her back to sleep and went back to bed. Not five minutes later, she was crying again. (And normally when she wakes up, even in the middle of the night to eat, she doesn’t cry, just sort of talks.) I did the same routine and got back in bed. She cried again, so we brought her to bed with us. She pretty much fussed all night long and was in and out of sleep. I held her, she slept on Ray, slept between us, I gave her a bottle at some point and then finally got up at 6:00. Hopefully the teeth come through today at some point and we can get some sleep tonight.

Shows I hate

So Ray and I love Disney, but we totally dislike the Doodlebops. We have even brain washed Ashley to say "Doodlebops are yucky." But being the curious person I am, I was totally fascinated with finding out what they look like without all their makeup on. So here it is. The chick is actually cute.

I was also curious about John Tartaglia of Johnny and the Sprites (yes, we watch alot of the Disney Channel). He totally fascinated me. And pathetic me, I had no idea he was gay (I was also clueless about Lance Bass).

Anyways, here is a picture of Audrey talking to her toys. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Year Round

Earlier this week, we found out that the elementary school that Ashley and Audrey are supposed to go to as of right now is slated to become a year round school for the 2007-2008 school year. This is one of the reasons we moved to North Carolina. We think that year round schools are a great idea. The kids get a couple of three week vacations and two 5 week vacations, and yes, they total up to the same amount of days off as getting the summer off. We like this because we can take vacations throughout the year without having to take the kids out of school. As you can imagine, though, this year round school thing has caused much debate in our county. I think if all the schools were year round or not, then it wouldn't be such a big issue.

We went to the kids' school last night for an open house. Ashley is moving up to the preschool room in two weeks, so we got to meet her teacher and see the new room. She is moving up with 12 other kids in her current class, so it shouldn't be that much of an adjustment. Lucky for where her birthday is, she has always moved classrooms to coincide with the traditional school year. Only two more years until kindergarten, I can't believe it. She actually starts learning how to write in this classroom. How scary is that?

Last night, Ray read Ashley books then turned out the light and left her room. A few minutes later, we hear, “Moooommmmy, I need to go POTTY” over the monitor. Although we don’t need the monitor because she says it so loud we can hear it through her closed door and down the stairs. So I go up there, knowing she doesn’t need to, she went right before she was read books.

I open her door and tell her, “You don’t need to pee.”

“Yes I do.”
“No you don’t.”
“I need to go poop.”
“No you don’t, you already pooped tonight.”
“I need to toot.”
“Fine, in the bathroom.”

So we go in the bathroom, she sits on the toilet for all of two seconds, and then back in bed. I cover her up with her little blanket (was from when she was an infant, pink on one side and striped on the other). I get it wrong because I cover her up with the striped side up, and she tells me that isn’t right (are all three year olds OCD??). So I flip the blanket, cover her with the comforter as well like I do every night, and then go back downstairs. I am not downstairs two seconds when I hear:

“MOOOMMMY, I’m HOT.”

I give up.

List

I was reading another great blog the other day, and it was about being a horrible mother. What have I done that was horrible?
- Ashley fell off the changing table at like 7 months, and I was standing right there next to her.
- I had put Audrey down for a nap, yet had the monitor on the wrong channel. After five minutes of wondering whose kid was crying outside, I realized it was Audrey crying in her room.
- I had Audrey in the swing asleep and had gone outside to help my friend pick up a playset from our backyard. I go back inside after chatting with him, and Audrey is crying and looks like she had been crying for a while (see a common theme here?).
- The whole falling down the stairs after I yelled at Ashley thing.

Picture

So some of you have asked for a picture of me. This is the best I've got, sorry. I really don't like my picture being taken and am normally the one taking the picture. That's me on the left, and Julie's Mom on the right. It's from breakfast in NYC on Saturday morning. Enjoy, because that is all you are getting until I lose about 20 pounds...

Dayside Live

This weekend was a success. The Mom's had a great time and no one ended up crying - oh wait, yea they did, but I will explain....

First off, our highlight of the trip was being on the Fox News show Dayside Live. Julie had bought these mardi gras looking necklaces for the Mom's to wear that said "Older is Better" and "50" on them, so we stood out from the crowd. Once we were in the studio of the show, we were seated in the front row. For those of you who don't watch it (and I don't since I work and it is on at 1:00pm during the week), it has two hosts and they discuss news stories/political issues with guests and let the audience ask questions. I got to ask a question and then at the end, the two hosts acknowledged the birthdays. It was pretty cool. A "low"light of the trip - standing in line for two hours for the Empire State building with people behind me that did not understand personal space.

On to the crying. On Saturday, we did the double decker bus tour and took the Mom's to Battery Park and the site of the World Trade Centers. I had been there in June of 2002, so to see all that had been cleared out since then was amazing. The subway looked to be almost complete. There were tears (more tears to come later) shed there as it is still so raw to see the big hole where those two buildings stood. After that we went to Sea Port for a snack and drinks, then we met Julie's Mom's cousin in Little Italy for dinner. Then we had a surprise for them. Julie had found on line a karaoke place that had the karaoke rooms (like in the movie Lost in Translation). Of course, the Mom's said they couldn't possible sing, but then we couldn't get the damn mike out of their hands!! And we wanted to sing too!! The real tears came when they sang some song I had never heard of about wearing red or something. It was funny, singing karaoke and balling theirs eyes out. Julie and I ended up back there later that night (much later, try 4:00am) so we did get our singing in.

I got back home yesterday afternoon to a three year old with diarrhea. She had it so bad and had so many accidents, she pretty much had a diaper rash. She screamed when she went to the bathroom and we had to wipe her. It broke my heart. What really broke my heart though? We had her stay home today with Ray because of the rash and this morning before I left for work, she told me "Mommies don't work". Put a knife in my heart and twist.

I am Tired

Quick update - we had friends crash with us last night on their way back from Georgia to Virginia (please, please move to NC Heather!!), Heather and her wonderful three kids. Well, Ashley and Susan, Heather's oldest daughter, were sleeping on Ashley's floor. At about 12:30am, Ashley decided she wasn't going to sleep there anymore. So into our bed she came and she NEVER sleeps with us. We have even tried when she is sick or whatever, but last night she totally passed out in our bed. And then Audrey was up at least 4 times that I can remember (damn teeth). So not much sleep was had for Ray and I.

Then I come to work, have a cup of coffee, and then of course have to go to the bathroom. In there I notice - I had put my underwear on inside out. How sad.

NYC

I am off to NYC tomorrow morning. Me, my Mom, my friend Julie and her Mom are going to celebrate the Moms’ 50th birthdays. I am not excited about the 7:00am flight tomorrow morning, but I am excited about the trip. A weekend where I actually get to eat in a nice restaurant, have a glass of wine (or two, or three…), and actually finish a conversation without interruptions will be great. One thing that will definitely happen – I will miss my family. I will only be gone two nights and they will be in great hands (Ray and his parents and the dog Mocha), but I can’t help it. The Mommy guilt of not being there for every minute of their lives is huge for me. What if Ashley says something profound and cute and I miss it? What if Audrey cuts another tooth and I am not the first one to find it? What if Ray realizes no one is there to get mad at him about not loading the dishwasher even though I told him I would load it but secretly wanted him to load it out of the kindness in his heart?

Okay, enough about my guilt, I know, I just need to get over it. But all weekend I will be thinking about my family, wait, I did say enough about it, didn’t I? So if you are up Sunday morning and watch the Today show, we are planning to be there. Just look for me, I will probably be the one that looks like I was run over with a bus. Or just look for two 50 year old women with signs (yup, Julie made signs!)

Change My Name!!

No, no, I am not going to change my name, although hearing "Hey Mommy" a couple hundred times a day does make me ponder it from time to time....


We were outside playing the other night and Ashley was in her red wagon. Jessica, a girl that lives on our street that Ashley idolizes (Jessica is eight and plays with Ashley anytime they are outside together), was on her bike talking to us. It is pretty cute how Ashley is having real conversations now. She asked Jessica what she got for her birthday as her birthday was the day after Ashley's. We were getting ready to roll away when Ashley announced she wanted to change her name. "To what?" I asked. "Jessica", Ashley responded very shyly. Where in the world did that come from? We went inside and I told Ray about it. He said that he thought maybe one of the teachers at school said something about changing their names. Sure enough, Ray went to school the next day and asked Ms. Stanley about it. According to Ms. Stanley, Ashley is one of those kids who is constantly "Ms. Stanley, Ms. Stanley, Ms. Stanley." I totally believe it because as I said earlier, all I hear at home is "Hey Mommy, hey Mommy, hey Mommy". So Ms. Stanley told Ashley she was going to change her name. Hence Ashley wanting to change her name to Jessica. Hopefully she forgets about it and we don't have to go to the courthouse and stand in line and get a new birth certificate. That would suck.

2nd 2th

Ashley was taking a bath the other night, and I asked her if she was done. "Nope, I'm not. I will let you know when I am done." Oh really. We are on your schedule now? If it were up to her, bath would last until the water was frigid and her skin was so wrinkled she looked like a raisin. Instead, I give her one more minute and go and pull the plug. Normally that doesn't cause too much of a fight. But she will sit in the tub until every bit of water has drained out and she has rolled around in the bubbles until I have to turn the water back on to rinse her off. Now who is in charge?

Audrey has been doing this funny thing lately. She has some sort of round teething thing, either one of those links or an actual teething ring. She will hook it on her thumb, hold it in front of her face, and grunt and say "aaaahhhhhhhh" at it for minutes at a time. Maybe she is telling it "next time, I will bite you with all of my two teeth I have in my mouth." Yup, she cut her second tooth yesterday. Now she has teeth.