A Letter to My Dearest

My husband doesn't read my blog, which in some ways is good. Changes are a comin' and instead of telling him (and scaring him) I will just write them here:

To My Darling Husband,

When this new baby comes, you are going to have to share your heart with another adorable being, just as special as our precious baby girl.  You are also going to have to change the diaper genie for the first time ever, which I am positive is one of Dante's 9 circles of hell.  There is nothing more putrid smelling than 4 days of poopy diapers shoved into a funnel.

It is truly moving to watch you gently carry a sleeping Kenzie from the truck into the house.  In the following months, I will also be moved, watching you on the monitor at 1:30am trying to console our dear daughter who has woken up for no reason at all.  Good luck falling back asleep.

You have always been a wonderful Dad to our children and our dogs. The time has come for you to take over the loving responsibility of changing our old dogs diapers, which are much more soaked and frequent than our children's ever were.  Also, the 3am puking, which seasonally picks up in the Spring, will now be your glorious task.

There is no other person on this earth, that Kenzie is happier to see walk into the house. I absolutely
love, and admire, watching you play with our daughter. Teaching her to ski this young is amazing, and probably a necessity, since your shaky depth perception of our door frames have probably taken a toll on her. Remember to tuck the new baby into your body as you cross the threshold from room to room. 

I love the way you love me. We aren't the most affectionate couple, but you make me feel loved every day by the little things you do, like picking me up a cold treat on your way home from work. If you even think about eating my ice cream cookie sandwiches after this baby is born, I will break your knees in your sleep.

With Love Always,
Your Loving Wife

Pregnancy and Kenzie Update

Ready for my close up.

I have been getting bombarded with two questions: 1. How are you feeling? 2. How is Kenzie?

Here is a little update for all our friends and family:

Kenzie - 16 months

Kenzie is blowing my mind with her skiing. I can't believe how much joy she gets out of it. Obviously, she got that passion from Dan. It is truly a joy to see Dan's face glowing when he gets home from the hill with her. I have never seen anyone more proud.

Other new developments: Screaming. I guess she has found the volume of her voice and she is testing it to the extreme. She screams because she is happy, mad, or sees a dog.  She can say Hero, dog, cat, duck, ball, hi, bye, and daddy.  She tries to say elephant, bird, banana, gorilla, I love you, and probably a bunch of other words I haven't picked up yet.

She has mastered her threading farm as of Sunday, which made me almost as proud as the skiing. She is also playing her harmonica, and has started to feel more comfortable playing solo in her room while I work in the living room or kitchen.

She knows where her eye, nose, ears, teeth, foot, toes, mouth, and belly button are. New this week: Elbow. 

Pregnancy - 6 weeks left

Kenzie screaming, I was trying to smile
but my ears were bleeding.

My energy level is plummeting again. I have been trying to go on walks just to get out of the house. When we come home I plop down on the couch and slide slowly into a coma, until Kenzie starts shrieking and pulls me back out.

I started sleeping in the guest bed, which has helped significantly. We just can't fit 2 adults, 3 dogs, and my gigantic pregnancy pillow, named Bob, in one bed. Plus the dogs were taking turns throwing up at 3am all last week.

Unfortunately the baby is 100% a night owl already. I fall asleep and he wakes me up punching my bladder, rolling around, and last night stuck some body part in the side of my pelvis, waking me up to excruciating pain. The irony was, it was probably his elbow.

No squandering my freedom today!

Dan took Kenzie skiing and I stayed home. This time I didn't squander my freedom, on the couch. 

What would I be doing right now if I didn't have kids? 

First of all, my house wouldn't smell like a fart. So I set to work. First thing first, put on MY music. None of Dan's bluegrass, no songs from Frozen. 

Ugh, what is that smell?

I am putting down the carpet deodorizer I fail to use when Kenzie is around, because it will end up either in her mouth or she will spill water on it turning it into a sticky carpet goo. <Sniff> Yup better already. Let's add a candle and an airwick plugin I haven't changed in 6 months. Mmm lavender and pumpkin spice. Weird combo but I think it works.

Time to vacuum. Why not do the upstairs too. No one ever sees that, so I think the last time it was done was... hmm... well that doesn't matter.

Done. Toys are picked up and I sit here 30 minutes later and there are still lines from the vacuum in the carpet. I love that. 

Time to clean up the hallway where Dan leaves all of his snowboarding and ski gear. I think there is a bench under here somewhere, I saw it last summer.

What else would I do if I didn't have kids?  Well lets take a look at my reflection. EESH! I seriously didn't realize I only put eyeliner on one eyelid today. I went grocery shopping like that. Some of you are thinking, how could you not notice? Others are thinking, you left the house like that?  Everyone else is thinking... eyeliner, what's that? Anyway, I fixed it.

Hiya doing Hal?

What else? They will be home soon so I better think fast. Hmm... wait, what is that smell?  It smells like spicy cologne. Is there an old dude in a bathrobe lurking in my house?  Abort mission! Lavender and pumpkin spice do not work together!

Boy Baby Names

Dan wanted to get everyone's opinion on our name list. Some of these are just fillers, some are Dan's favorites, some are my favorites.  Our leading names are included in the list. What's your favorite?  Post comments below or on facebook.

• Ansel
• Bauer
• Case
• Dempsey
• Ellis
• Fisher
• Gord
• Hudson
• Irwin
• James
• Kilian
• Lane
• Mumford
• Ned
• Owen
• Pader
• Quigley
• Redmond
• Sam
• Tennyson
• Ulysses
• Vaughn
• Whitaker
• Xavier
• Yates
• Zane

I need a name!

My Own Worst Enemy

Yup that's me. 5th grade.. Do we all have awkward years or was it just me?  I feel like we all do, although some have many, many more years than others.

5th Grade - So it begins...

I am sure my awkward years have shaped me into who I am now, especially since I was so ugly, I had to figure out how to be funny.  I didn't have my family's quick wit, so I had to come up with my own brand of humor.  I spent hours perfecting my impressions and watching recorded tapes of SNL.

I spent my Friday nights with the beloved TGIF line up. I am not sure what I would have done without Full House, Step by Step, Perfect Strangers, and Family Matters.

Oh Balki, don't be Re-dic-u-lous!

I was part of the nerd group, but I wasn't particularly smart. I was just struggling to fit in like everyone else. Unfortunately, I would struggle for years before I stopped caring about what people thought.

My worst enemy during this time was myself. I had totally unrealistic expectations. I had some Disney-like image of how I should look. Shouldn't everyone have blond hair? Shouldn't we all be able to talk to animals and sing?  In 1989, little mermaid came out and now I had to add boobs to my list of Disney princess things I didn't have.

It didn't help that I continually embarrassed myself. 5th grade I had to read this word out loud: "unique". For someone that was in the slow reading group in 2nd grade, there was no way I could figure that out. So I pronounced it U - NEE - Q. Oh boy... that's rough. People that were in my class STILL remember that! 
 
In 6th grade, there was 2 minutes left before the bell rang to go home. A classmate started singing the Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant commercial: "Fri-i-i-ied, Fri-i-i-ied Ice Cream" and just as he ended 2 loud farts erupted and then the bell rang. There was no hiding who did it. Sigh...


6th Grade - Yup it was me and I was
probably wearing this same 3 piece suit
 

9th Grade homecoming dance, I went without a date, with some friends and their dates. Like all 14 year olds, we went to taco bell after the dance. When our parents came to pick us up, it had rained. We walked out, I slipped and fell. After that all I heard was "Better call Sam!" Sam Bernstein was an injury lawyer with countless terrible daytime commercials. Damn you Sam... damn you.

My awkwardness came and went in high school, but returned again in college in another way.  I packed up my puzzles, scrapbooking supplies, and other nerdiness and put them away. I wasn't going to be myself any more. It was time to find a new me. So my low self esteem and I went on a 3 year journey. I was loud, rowdy, emotional, and deep down, unsettled.  It didn't take long before I realized I couldn't keep up the façade.


8th Grade - My glasses were even crooked!

Turns out I am a nerd. I love puzzles, dorky sitcoms, and reading nonfiction. I enjoy doing accounting all day and writing at night. I like being alone, which is different than being lonely. I love that I found someone who loves my nerdiness because isn't that what being a Disney princess really is?  To find your prince charming that loves you for who you are? 

I am still awkward in some social situations and have lingering social anxiety.  Having Kenzie has actually been a blessing, because when she is with me I know exactly who I am. I am Kenzie's mom and nothing else matters.  Ok... that and staying away from fried ice cream and commercial jingles.



Sept 2013



It's been snowing here since October.

Hero doesn't escape
show knows where the food is.

Ah April... how does it go? April showers bring May flowers? Yes that's it. Did they mean snow showers? They must.

My boss just sent me an email stating that it's snowing in Colorado Springs today. I replied back that it's been snowing here since October. I didn't specify October 1st because it probably wasn't necessary. 

We have had piles of snow all winter long. So much snow, that in my 30 weeks of being pregnant, I had to hike 6 blocks pushing a baby in a stroller, over snowy streets, to retrieve one of my dogs that walked out of the yard. Our fence is at least 5 foot high, but you haven't been able to see it since December.

Dan has been out of work twice this winter from a pulled neck muscle due to shoveling. At least that's what we tell people. The first time it happened he was putting on a shirt, the second time he was washing his hair, but it's probably from shoveling.



There is a man out there shoveling
the snow is up to his head.

Yesterday, I went out and started Dan's truck for him in the morning. When I opened the door of the truck, the wind blew and covered both the interior and myself with wet snow. You don't need coffee in the morning when you get a shot of snow up your bathrobe.  HELLO I'M AWAKE!

Don't get me wrong, I love snow. I love admiring it from a window, watching it fall while sipping a cup of hot cider, and waking up on Christmas to the ground and trees sparkling. There is also nothing more spectacular than a partly sunny day, when you catch a snowflake on your finger. Really look at it. It is totally magnificent and something everyone, everywhere should admire at some point in their life.


Good thing she likes it.

We moved to the mountains and I knew what I was getting into. People up here celebrate the snow, the more the merrier. The resorts will stay open this year until July 4th, or at least that's the rumor. I will continue to admire it from the inside of my warm house, and only from October to Christmas. After that I will continue to complain until August, when the last of it melts.

Ridiculous Baby Bucket Items

As I said in my last post, there are so many unreal things they tell you to do before having a baby. Let's count them down...

7. Perform a random act of kindness.  Yes do this because you will become an evil shrew after you have a child. Seriously? I feel like I am kinder now that I have a child.  Never stop doing random acts of kindness.

6. Develop a hobby. Great piece of advice, because after baby you are going to have so much time for your hobbies. Save the money from the scrapbooking supplies in your amazon cart right now and put it into a diaper fund.

5. Address any problems in your relationship. I am not saying this is a bad idea, but if you have some bad problems in your relationship you shouldn't have a baby bucket list. Kids put a tremendous amount of stress on a relationship, so if you aren't solid, but the baby on hold.

4. Buy your dream car. Sure go ahead and spend the money to buy your dream car. As if having a child isn't expensive enough. What you should be doing is saving your money NOW to pay off the insane medical bills from having a kid. The reality is that you will be cashing in your dream car waaaaay before you have it paid off, to get something kid friendly, like the Toyota the Muppets are singing in on that commercial. Yes I want one.

3. Enjoy an all-nighter. Ha! You are going to have plenty of these after baby. Do the opposite and get yourself some sleep now.

2. Take a career risk. Honestly, now is NOT the time for risking your career. You want something stable that you can take a long maternity leave and not worry about losing your job. Also health insurance is sometimes not available for the first 3 months of a new job.

And the #1 worst baby bucket idea is:  1. Have someone else's baby come and stay overnight. WHAT?! I have never ever heard worse advice. First of all, this just seems creepy. Second, if your child wakes in the middle of the night, it is vastly different than someone else's child crying at 3am.  Third, you will surely decide never to have children after that night and then a few months later concede. So do yourself a favor and skip this horrible step.

Have you read some terrible pre-baby advice?  What was it? Comment below.