All about Clare

My baby turned one this weekend and became a toddler, literally and figurativly. Clare seemed to have a great time at her birthday party. Almost all of her relatives and a few friends came to help celebrate. It was a fun time and there was good food. Clare did amazingly well. She didn't have a meltdown towards the end of the party like Cate did on her first birthday. She just seemed to be having fun the entire time. And I've never seen a one year old eat birthday cake so neatly! She was all about not wasting a single bite. Another first that day was that she stood all by herself for a good 20 seconds! Maybe she just loves an audience.

That night when I was putting her to bed I got all teary thinking about the last year and all we'd been through with her. From bringing her home from the hospital and bringing her back a few days later with meningitis, to her first Christmas, to learning to eat big people food, to crawling, to fights with Cate, to standing all by herself. And poof, suddenly I don't have a baby anymore but a little toddler. She's already started not wanting to cuddle, has to be on the move. She's started protesting loudly at being taken out of the bath, at not getting her food in time, at having a toy taken away. The first tantrum is just around the corner. And, if today is any indication, she'll be walking then running all over the place in a few weeks. Today she was practicing the standing that she started yesterday and decided to throw a step in on one of them. Her first step, the day after her first birthday. So, goodbye baby, hello toddler. Sniff.

Life is Just a Fantasy

The reunion was a blast! Everything went off (mostly) without a hitch. Friday we got a late start (Scott got home late) but I was still able to make it to the bar where everyone was meeting by about 10:45. Here in the cities, they've banned smoking in almost all the bars so it was hard being back in a bar with a ton of smoke! Plus they were playing the 80's music just a little too loudly for my tastes. I know part of that is just that I'm getting old and "can't stand all that racket!" but we were all trying to catch up and you had to yell to be heard. Other than that, it was fun seeing everyone and chatting for a few minutes. We (the women) came to the consensus that the women all aged better than the men. Saturday we loaded everyone up in our van (the girls and my mom whom we brought along for babysitting duty) and took a trip down memory lane (for me and my mom anyway). Pipestone is doing pretty well I think compared to other small rural towns. I think they have really benefitted from the wind power in the area. And they seem to be attracting a few new industries to the area as well. All the houses seemed well kept and there weren't many houses for sale. Saturday evening was the big dinner/social party. My friend Lori had done up this cool power point slideshow with music that featured almost everyone in the class, past and present. Everyone was very impressed. After dinner we all moved to the bar and proceeded to have a ton of fun. As is true with most reunions I suppose, I initially chatted with all sorts of folks but ended up spending the remainder of the evening with the pals I hung out with in school. Some of the women still seem like they were in high school which is to say, they haven't really grown as a person at all. But a few, like Angie, Sharla, Lori and Kerry, seem to have all come into their own as mature (and still cool) women (is it still cool to say "cool"??). Sharla lives near me and we still do a lot together, but if Lori, Angie and Kerry were in the area, I know I'd still be friends with them. I can't say the same for the other ladies. But it was all still a ton of fun and I got back to the hotel around 3:00 am which is the latest I've been up having fun in a long time. And, thankfully, I must have done the alcohol just right because I didn't have a hangover the next morning - just really tired. Kudos to Scott for going with me and not complaining - I know he didn't want to be there but he was at least a trooper.

Yes, it was all fun, but truthfully, I'm glad its over. I'm not good at small talk - it doesn't interest me. I know its shallow but its hard for me to get in depth with someone that I may not see again in another 20 years. I'm also glad that the planning stage is over. Not because I was so overworked with it but because I can stop feeling guilty that Lori was doing all the work. Again, shallow. So, on with real life again. Back to the job of raising little girls, going to work, and getting ready for fall. And now that the reunion has come and gone, and with it my failed "lose 20 lbs" deadline, I should be able to get back to my normal lose-weight routine. I do horribly with deadlines - something in me rebels even when its a deadline I've set for myself. I'm thinking that now that I don't have a deadline, I'll probably start losing weight again. Weird but true.

And this Saturday is Clarebear's first birthday! I can't believe how fast this year has gone and how much she's grown up right under my nose. What a cute little peanut. I need to go shopping for some good presents for her. She's been totally bored with Cate's old cast-offs and of course only wants to play with whatever Cate is currently playing with which leads to lots of high pitched screaming. So it will be good to infuse the house with some new toys. It should keep them both occupied for some time. I think, however, I'm going to have to relegate my formal dining room to a play room. Currently we have a toy box in our living room that is always spilling over into the entire room and I'm constantly trying to keep it contained. I might as well give up and give them an entire room - we don't have a table in there anyway so its just sitting there not getting used. This is our life.

...and this too shall pass

You may remember a previous post where I talked about Cate and her wandering around at night. She's still at it. After we put the gate up, she would get up and just stand there trying to figure out how to get it open. At which point I would get up and gently lead her back to bed. Amazingly without any huge fuss on her part. I did this for a couple of nights - leading her back to bed thinking she'd soon tire of getting up. Oh no, not Cate. I woke up one night and saw a low light from the hallway which meant her door was open and her nightlight was shining into the hallway (we normally keep her door closed). I got up thinking she'd be standing at the gate, but she was sound asleep on the floor in the hallway. I left her there and she was happy as a clam the next morning. Soon she could be found every morning laying in the hallway all curled up in a little ball. I started leaving a pillow and blanket out there for her and now she just covers up and rests easy. I'm totally fine with this situation. She's not bothering us or Clare, she's so quiet even I can't hear her when she comes out of her room and lays down, and (this is the best part) she waits until we wake up before coming into our room in the morning even though she's awake before we are.

I was fine with everything until just a few moments ago. Scott and I were sitting out here on the porch. I started doing my blog and Scott went in to do the dishes (isn't he great!). He'd been in there about 15 minutes when he suddenly he rushes out and says, "Cate's missing!". The whole gate thing works great, but we usually don't put it up until we go to bed. Scott said he had been hearing a weird noise like a window was open for a while even though we have the AC on. Turns out it was the front door, hanging wide open. Cate had come down at some point when we were both on the porch and walked right out the door. Scott didn't notice the front door open when he went inside. Anyway, after a quick look upstairs, we ran outside. Here comes my little blondie from the open door of the garage. "Mommy I woke up." Yes, honey you sure did. I of course scooped her up and gently told her to please don't go outside when you wake up at night. It scares the freakin shit out of your parents (it was in kid speak however). She looked like she was going to cry so I told her she wasn't in trouble but that it was scarey for mommy and daddy. Hopefully it made some kind of impression.

So now she's back up in her bed, hopefully falling asleep with the gate firmly in place at the top of the stairs. We'll be installing a lock up high on all the doors tomorrow. I need a beer!

A little QT

Its Saturday night and Scott and I are sitting on our porch, enjoying an adult beverage in the dimmed light, watching lightening flash across the sky. Quality time? No. We're both on our computers, browsing the internet. Occassionally I produce one of my hacking coughs (I've had this horrible cough for going on 2 weeks now) and Scott will complain that its sound is too piercing. That's about the extent of our conversation. We (Scott) built this porch so that we could sit out here together and with our family and have good quality time. Yet every time we come out here we bring along our laptops. How sad are we?! I'm going to have to declare that we can't bring our laptops out here.....but I really like surfing out here....maybe I won't declare.

Actually, we had some nice quality time today. It was the first Saturday in I don't know how long that we spent the day together as a family. We went to Target for a grocery run this morning, then did yard work/played outside as a family, then we grilled burgers and made homemade ice cream for dinner. It was so nice to have Scott around to help and just be with us. I had almost forgotten how good it is to be a 2 parent family on the weekend! I don't ever want to know what its like to be an actual single parent. The quasi-single parent weekends are enough to let me know it would totally suck.

The girls had a fun day too. They're both goofey butts. And they both would be naked 24/7 if we let them. I have to chase Cate around the house after every potty time just to get her to put her underwear back on. Then good luck getting her shorts on after that. Clare is equally hard to pin down to put a diaper on her. Where do they get this?! Don't answer that. I've been known to relish being naked myself a time or two. Those days are over now - until I get comfortable with my new rotundness or until I lose all this weight. Anyway, today the girls got all wet playing with the hose and then found some mud right after that. So I brought them in, got all their dirty wet things off, cleaned them up and they remained in their b-day suits all through dinner (Clare had on a diaper).

Tomorrow we'll go to church in the morning. I'll check out my flower beds and see how much weeding I have to do. I volunteered this summer to be on the weeding crew at church and I've been slacking. And the beds I'm in charge of are right in front where everyone sees them. Eeek! I suspect I'll have to head out there tomorrow evening. Anyway, after church I think we'll do some patio furniture shopping. We're looking for a hardwood dining table and chairs, the one's that are bar height. But we're so cheap that we don't want to spend much. Everything is on clearance now so hopefully we can find something we like in our price range. Scott's parents are up visiting Dustin and Josie and they're stopping by at some point in the afternoon. It will be nice to see them since I wasn't down there last weekend.

And that will be another weekend come and gone. But so far, this is ranking up there with the good one's.

For comparison only

This is me today.

20 years!

This is me, 20 years ago. I'm helping plan our 20th high school reunion with my friends Sharla and Lori. To be truthful, Sharla's the one who stepped up to the plate at the last reunion and I told her I'd help her, but once we got into it we knew we needed some help and Lori just jumped in and save our arses. She has a knack for it or something. She still is in regular contact with many people in our class. I lost contact with most people about 5 minutes after commencement was over. I haven't lived in Pipestone (where I graduated) for over 20 years now. Its weird. Its weird to think that some people still live there. I remember moving there the summer before I went into 3rd grade. We had been living in Mankato where most of my extended family lives. Mankato isn't huge - maybe 50,000 or so, but compared to Pipestone at under 5,000, it was a metropolis. When we moved there, I remember thinking that the town was po-dunk - somehow beneath me because I was from the big city. La tee da. And even though I enjoyed growing up there and called it my hometown, I don't think I ever lost that feeling. I knew I would never live there past high school. So the fact that there are classmates of mine who CHOOSE to live there, still blows my mind. I'm just so used to all the amenities of a bigger city. I don't even want to think about living without a Target! Ack! Its weird to think that I'm old enough to be going to a 20 year reunion in the first place. I always had a mental image of people going to their 20th, and they were always super old. And I am not old. Although some parts of me are trying really hard to be a little too mature, if you ask me! Not liking that one bit. Anyway, it will be fun to catch up with old classmates. At least I hope it will be. I've never been good at small talk, it completely bores me. And after 20 years, you really don't know these people so you are reduced to small talk. But hopefully, I'll be able to connect with some of my closer friends that I've actually asked about in the last 10 years and we can have a conversation that doesn't make me want to barf.

On a completely different subject, my poor daughter Cate is destined to become anal. At least if her current behavior is any indication. She's a little perfectionist in the making which is really too bad, because it means you get way more stressed than you really need to be over the dumbest things. I am a partial perfectionist and Scott's a full on perfectionist in the things that matter to him. If it doesn't matter to him, he could give a rat's ass. So she was destined. She insists on lining up everything in a perfect row. Gets very upset if you mess with it too. She's 2 and half! She likes to do things the way I do them, to a T. Case in point, the sunglasses on the dash. When I get home I put my sunglasses on the dash of the car. Cate likes to play in the car for a few minutes after we get home, pretending she's driving. I went out to my car the other day to find my glasses on the dash and her bright pink one's sitting right next to mine in the exact position. All lined up. I'll start saving for the psychiatrist now.

Clare's brain seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. I swear she's trying to say full sentances already, even if they do sound all gibberish. But sometimes she gets a couple words right! And she is totally understanding way more than we think she is. I told her to comb her hair the other day and she did. Genius. She finally sprouted her front two teeth. That's gotta be a relief for her. And we discovered that she can ride a little push tractor today. She had a ball. But she almost fell off of it so that prompted me to go get a helmut on her (I'm turning into Stoller). Cate had already grabbed one of them which happened to be the smaller one, so I put the bigger one on her. She had a total balloon head going. It was great. But now I know we can head outsite and actually all play instead of Clare just crawling on the asphalt (she acutally walks on her hands and feet like a monkey - cute).


Well, that's about it. We're heading into the weekend with not much on our agenda which is great. We haven't had many weekends open like this. I'm looking forward to it. Adios.

So Cushy

There have been two moments in my life where I've been thunderstruck by just how increadibly cushy and easy my life is. The first was when I watched Schindler's List in the theater. I vividly remember watching the horror of babies being torn from their mothers, of children hiding in the bottom of an outhouse in the slimey filth of human waste, of men being shot for no reason and then looking around the theater and thinking, "We're all going home to so much comfort - we're SO fortunate and SO INCREADIBLY ungrateful!". My second moment just happened as I was reading the paper in the lunchroom at work (yes, I shouldn't be blogging at work but I'm eating my lunch and taking a break). It wasn't so emotionally charged as the first but it still struck me hard. I was reading a story about a race called Primal Quest that takes place in Utah. Its a 10-day endurance test over 416 miles in the Moab dessert of Utah. The two-person teams race almost non-stop and have to ride horse, run, bike, kayak, mountaineer, climb ropes and rapel and just about any other adventure-type thing you can think of. The best teams sleep, at most 2-3 hours a night, many times going a few days without any sleep.

Okay, in my day, I thought I was a pretty tough chick. I was a moutainbiker and did the 4-hour Chequamegon Fat Tire race which very few women do. I've done a sprint triathalon. And while I wasn't a top contender by any means, the fact that I was just out DOING it made me feel pretty good. But reading this article made my past attempts seem laughable and my current situation pitiful. At this point in my life, I make excuses not to go on a 3 mile run when the weather is above 85 degrees - heck in any weather. I can always find an excuse not to exert myself. And on the flip side, there's these maniacs out there going non-stop through the dessert for 10 days!! Insane! I need to get off my butt and move. I'll make these maniacs my inspiration! I'm gonna stop excusing my tired, flabby, unmoveable self. I'm gonna get off my couch and MOVE.....after I finish watching Primal Quest on TV. :)

Bless you Mommy

We all survived the weekend. I had a great time hanging out with Lori and Cath at the cabin and then on Sunday, at Ruttger's. Just the right amount of socializing, sleeping and alone time. Scott fared well with the little one's down in Waterloo. The sleep schedules got a little screwed up but that's because he's not a sleep nazi like I am. And now I'm in love-fest mode with my girls. I could just eat them up. Clare sprouted a new tooth over the weekend, her 3rd. Cate just called, "Bless you Mommy" from across the room after I coughed. So sweet. I really missed them, and Scotty too (and Attley too) while they were gone. It made me realize (again) how empty my life would be if they weren't in it. The rest of my life would stretch out like a big void and I'd carry a sadness with me all the time, even after I'd "gotten over it". So, while weekends away alone are great and something I really need, I'm most content here at home with my family. That may change when I have two teenage girls in the house and I'm going through menopause, however.

All alone

I'll be the first to admit that I can get a little emotional from time to time. But I was surprised at the tears I shed tonight as I said goodbye to my little family. Scott took the girls and Attley down to Waterloo to visit his parents for the weekend while I go up to Lori's cabin tomorrow. I've been fine with it all week, looking forward to it actually. I rarely get an entire evening free of any responsibilities, much less a whole weekend. But as I was loading up my little one's in "momma's silver car" as Cate calls it, I couldn't hold back the tears. I know exactly why though. I think every mom fears they'll never see their babies again when they are out of their grasp for a little too long. And its not an irrational fear. Last summer, we got a late night phone call (those are never good) telling us that Scott's cousin, Chad and his wife and two little girls, Hailey and Sydney, had been in a really bad car accident. Chad and Hailey died in the crash and Jamie was in very bad shape. Sydney was the only one who came out relatively unscathed. We had just seen Hailey a few weeks before that up at the lake where she had just celebrated her 4th birthday. So tonight, as I hugged my girls goodbye, I was praying like mad that this wasn't the last time I would see their beautiful little shining faces. I tried to memorize every angle of them. But before I could burst out in a freak-fest of emotion, I mentally shook myself and told myself there was nothing to worry about. But every once in a while, the feeling sneaks back and I shed another tear. I'm still looking forward to the weekend but I also can't wait until Sunday.

I don't envy Scott right now though. I called at 9:00 and the girls were laughing and screaming, playing peak-a-boo with each other. Clare's normally asleep by 7:00 and Cate, who normally goes to bed around 7:45, only had a 15 minute nap today. They're in that crazy over-tired stage. Its almost impossible to get over-tired kids to sleep without an all out tantrum of tears and screaming before they finally crash. And tomorrow, they'll be crabby and tired all day. But I'll be enjoying myself in the sun, on the lake, with a cocktail in hand and good conversation with friends.

I'm feeling better already.

Porch

Here are some pics of the fab new porch. Isn't it great?!

Crap TV

I just got the girls in bed, Scotty's working late tonight and I've got the TV on while I'm writing this post. Summer TV is so crappy!!! I've got on "America's Got Talent" - another uber-stupid reality show with stupid judges and voting/results shows. And the worst part is that its hosted by Regis Philbin! No, actually, the worst part is that our remote went on the fritz a month ago and I'm too lazy to get up and change the channel. But with summer TV being so lame, I'm not sure I could find anything else that would be worth watching anyway. I shouldn't be watching TV anyway, I've got a ton of stuff to do for this weekend.

Tomorrow morning the girls and I are going to visit my friend and client Sue, who just had a new baby and is on maternity leave. I left work a bit early today to go get a gift for her. I got the most adorable little outfits from Children's Place and some books from Barnes and Noble. I resisted the urge to buy outfits for my girls - everything was so cute!! After we get home I need to pack for the girls. Scott's taking them down to Waterloo to see Grandma and Grandpa Schwake.

Which means, yes, I have the entire weekend all to myself!! I'll be heading to my friend, Lori's, cabin on Saturday morning and on Sunday we're going to Barrstock - a talent show at Rutger's resort. Should be fun. I'll probably get home around the time Scott and the girl's do. I actually won't have much time to myself - just Friday night. But I'm really looking forward to it. Of course, I'm going to miss the girls a ton. But it will be nice to have some free time this weekend.

Hopefully Scott won't have any problems with Cate and her night wandering. Last night she actually slept through the night. It was great! Hopefully her night waking phase is over for a while. But he might have to get up with Clare. Her two front teeth are just about ready to burst through. Its about time! She's almost one and she only has 2 teeth.

The never ending porch project

Ah..... Here I am, sitting out on our mostly screened porch, enjoying the first non-sweltering night in over 2 weeks (or something like that), sipping on a vodka-cranberry and listening to the crickets and frogs... and the barking dogs...and the traffic. Just enjoying the evening with Scotty. Its been a long journey to this point. Scott's been working on this screened porch/deck for two summers now. He's a self-proclaimed perfectionist and won't accept much help. He's finally got everything done on the porch portion except for two section without screen - and its looking pretty dang fine! Its just sundown now and so far we haven't been swarmed by mosquitos. We'll see how long we last out here. This porch construction process has been a long time in the making. Scott's sick of working on it every spare moment, and I'm sick of being a single mom most weekends and many evenings. Plus, we both just miss hanging out together, like this. I have a feeling we're going to spend many evenings out here. I, of course, have all these schemes for how I'm going to decorate it. Scott will fight me on many of them, but in the end, he'll like what I end up picking out.

The girls are asleep. Clare should sleep soundly through the night like she always has since she was 8 weeks old. Super sleeper. God love her. Cate is a different story. Generally, she's a great sleeper too. But she goes on jags where she wakes up in the middle of the night for a few weeks. Its usually when she's making a new cognitive leap or adjusting to a big change. Like when we moved her to a big-girl bed, she had a hard time for a couple weeks - afraid to go to bed, lots of crying, waking up at night scared and crying. But once she adjusted, she slept great. Until last week. It started with one of those crazy middle of the night insomnia attacks. Woke up at 2:00 and couldn't go back to sleep until 5:00. And of course, she couldn't be alone - had to have one of us (mainly me) with her. And since that night, she's woken up every night. But she's going back to sleep quicker and quicker and with less and less fuss. The strange part is, she's decided she needs to get out of bed by herself...in the middle of the night. We knew it would happen sooner or later. After she moved to the bed, it took her over 2 1/2 months to figure out she could get out whenever she wanted to. The first time she did it, I was on a walk with Attley and Scott was working on the porch. He had the monitors on so he could hear the girls if they woke up. He started hearing a faint cry/calling. We've been having a lot of interference on our monitors from all the new neighbors so he thought that's what it was at first. But then the more he thought about it he decided he'd better check it out. Just as he opened the sliding glass door to the kitchen, he heard the front door click shut. The faint calling he had heard was Cate who had gotten out of bed and was looking for us so she decided to head outside to try to find us. The very first time the kid decides to venture forth from her bed, she heads all the way outside. Nice. That was last week and since then she's gotten outside 2 more times. We finally put up a gate to keep her upstairs which has helped me sleep better. Anyway, I'm hoping this phase pans out pretty soon and she gets over her late-night meanderings.

Okay, the blood sucking beasts found their way into the two huge open sections and are trying to feast on my feet (its always my feet!!). I've gotten 5 bites in less than 2 minutes. I'm heading in. Scott just told me I should get those screen sections up - he's on hiatus until the fall. Sorry buddy, it ain't happening. This is your baby.

Better get me off to bed. Cate will be up in a couple of hours.

And so we begin

I had a lot of reasons for not starting a blog. A) not a lot of extra time on my hands, B) unsure of how to get started, and 3) was I really so vain that I needed to see how many people would view my blog - some sort of popularity contest??! But a few of my friends had blogs and pointed out that A) you could post whenever you wanted, B) it was easy (and would help me avoid the "can't program the VCR" syndrome - gotta keep up on what the young kids are doing) and 3) its really more for family and friends than it is for my ego. So, considering I have 2 adorable little girls (Cate is 2 1/2 and Clare is 11 months) with grandparents that can't get enough of them, and since becoming a mom, I've had precious little time to keep up with my friends, I thought, what the H-E-double hockey sticks - I'm goin' for it.

I'm sure that the content of this blog will morph as I go along. But mainly I'm intending for it to be a spot to talk incessantly about my kids, my man, my dog, my family, my friends, my work (hopefully as little as possible), and my interests - ever changing as they are. I'm expecting it will mostly be visited by my man, my family, my friends and hopefully never my work. But you never know, it may just be the newest pop fad with millions visiting it every day!!