Inspired

I know I said I would 'never over-decorate my child's room'....well, I take that back. I don't think I'm going to go over-board with a "young" theme, murals, everything coordinated...but I am REALLY excited about my daughter having her own room and maybe putting a little personality into it rather than just furniture. I grew up in a house that was old and my father would not let me paint the walls in my room. I was forever doomed to a life of eggshell white. I would have loved to have done a little room decorating and really made the space reflect who I was. I never got a chance to and now...I want to be able to give my daughter some of the options I didn't get. She's one, so she probably won't care too much about how I decorate her room for her, but I really want it to be able to grow with her. It can't be stuff that she'll outgrow in 2-3 years...maybe when she's a teenager! She's such a happy bubbly baby (toddler) most of the time that I think COLOR!! Sometimes she's really quiet and just likes to play by herself...and then I think cool colors, calming....Help!! So, here are my ideas...we'll see what our new space will lend itself to:

Bright colors: tangerine, turquoise blue, pink (SMALL amounts), small amounts of a purple, green, and yellow and her bedroom furniture which is a dark cherry brown

Cool colors: salmon pink, robin's egg blue, white, light yellow and her bedroom furniture which is a dark cherry brown (Although I'd prefer white with this color scheme)

I'd love to have a fabric tent for her to play in no matter which color scheme Maw-Bell Designs (link below) has a great pattern for one. They also have a fun crib bedding set; a little romantic for the bright colors...but it might be a fun combination all the same...a little "sassy."

I also want her to have some shelving, a dresser (I really wish I could have my dad's childhood dresser, restained it would have been PERFECT...alas, it is gone in the world of garage sales), and a small activities table. I found a fun one of those at Target the other day, with storage underneath...that's what I like to see (extra storage)!

I doubt I'll get to pain the walls either way since we'll be renting for at least a year. Too bad...I get really tired of white walls.

http://www.maw-belldesigns.com/

15 Days

Countdown to the move: 15 days and we will be in Denver, CO for the duration of the summer before moving to Colorado Springs.

We are all starting to get excited...and a little overwhelmed about the packing process. We have some boxes packed and more empty boxes hanging out....probably will still need more than what we have. It's completely frightening how much stuff you accumulate when A) You stay in one place for a while and B) When you have a child. There is SO much more stuff just in things we've gotten with our daughter: and we are being ruthless in getting rid of things this time.

I'm really looking forward to getting to where we are going...or rather just KNOWING where our apartment is going to be. We don't, yet, have a place to live in the Springs because we really want to take a good look around and find the place that is going to work best for us. It's a good decision, but it leaves us in limbo until the question is all settled.

Ah, sigh...well, perhaps I'll finish watching "Shrek" and start packing more boxes...

One Year Doctors...

My poor poor baby! She had her 'well child checkup' for one year today. =( Lots of shots!! She's doing really well with them. Napping and a little clingy, but...who can blame her?! 5 total, although we COULD have done 4 today and then 2 at 18 months. I decided that since we are moving and we don't, yet, have a new pediatrician in Colorado Springs that I'd get all the ones we needed to get done done. The other 18 month shot isn't an 'urgent' one; if we don't start it RIGHT then she will be just fine. I imagine that we'll be able to get it done; I mean she's going to be 18 months in November so that's PLENTY of time to get a new pediatrician.

That's one of the things I hate about moving. Switching doctors, getting medical records transfered...grrr...it is annoying. Especially when you really like the doctors you are already with. I really am not looking forward to finding a new OBGYN. I LOVE my Doctor. She delivered my daughter, she's competent and funny....sigh...oh well!!

I think I need to take a moment and remind myself of the wonderful things about moving:
Meet new people.
New place, new apartment (WHOOHOO!!!)
Closer to family
Easier to get to family that is farther away
Better economy where we're going
A chance to really clean out all the crap that we accumulate
A chance to get new playmates for my daughter
A chance to go back to college and finish Grad School
Making additions to our family
Making additions to our family of friends
Ah, okay, feel better...

"How old is your baby....boy?"

Yes, I know that my daughter has very little in the way of hair and what she does have is strawberry blonde and not well noticeable. I also DO NOT plaster her in pink clothing every single day. She wears orange, green, blue, purple, yellow, pink (occasionally)...you get the idea. She wears a lot of colors and they don't always scream GIRLIE GIRL...which, in my opinion, is the point. You don't have to plaster your child in pink if she's a girl. Nor do you need to plaster your child in blue if it's a boy...I digress. The POINT being that if you come up to a stranger with a baby and you CANNOT tell if it's a boy or a girl the polite thing MIGHT be to say, "Oh, how old is your baby?" and then the parent MIGHT say, "Oh, he/she, is ___(however old)."

But no...no...at LEAST 3 times in the day TODAY (my daughter's birthday), I was asked 'oh how old is your little boy?' or 'Oh, your son is so cute.'...etc. Sigh. I was very nice because they were trying to be nice even if it was annoying the crap out of me. She was in an orange dress with flowers on it for part of the day and a purple and blue shorts outfit for the rest. Yeah, not screaming "GIRL", but....did they really look? I'm guessing not and they were just making polite conversation. Still, I really do think that if you don't know the sex of the baby just refer to them as 'your child' or 'your baby' because it gives the parents an 'in' to be able to say if the baby is a boy or a girl. It's a little thing, but parents take it kind of personally. Especially, when people get it wrong...

So, I had an adventure with my daughter today. At the crosswalk to the grocery store actually. I have been known, at low traffic times, to dash across the road rather than walk the block up to the light and then BACK 1/2 a block to the store. However, if there's a bit more traffic I do the proper thing and go to the light hit the walk button and await my turn to go. Today I went up to the crosswalk, waited, and started crossing. A couple cars turned right before I got to the other side of the 4 lane street. No biggie since I wasn't even over there yet and they had plenty of time to go. However, as I got more than 1/2 way more cars just kept turning not even paying attention to the fact that I was now standing at a stop in the road waiting for the stupid drivers to stop turning so I could go across. I have a NEON LIME green stroller. It's hard to miss, but no...I waited for probably 3 cars to go before there was a nice woman who was obviously rolling her eyes at the stupendous stupidity of the drivers before her. She was nice. I hope she has good car karma for years to come. Moronic drivers.....

Naps

I love naps. I really do. I like them when I get to take them; and I like them when my daughter takes them. I especially like naps when I'm really tired. Or when I have an extremely OVER tired baby. My daughter has been asleep somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours now. I think the swimming pool must have worn her out. We went swimming for the 2nd time this week; we went yesterday and she had a blast. Today before I had even gotten all the way through the gate to the pool area she was bouncing and squealing with glee. It was SO cute!! She loves the pool, she loves to swim. I've even dunked her under the water. She comes up, rubs her eyes, and then goes right back to squealing and screeching and trying to go on her stomach. I think I might need to get her some water wings because she really does just want to swim. She kicks her legs and feet, she paddles with her hands, she just doesn't quite get the face out of water thing. I guess it could be worse; she could be totally scared to even be in the water or to have her face get wet. I'll take the
"swimming" and just know that I'm going to have to get her lessons sooner rather than later. I know that they have toddler swim classes (toddler and parent/s come and help teach to swim and not be afraid of the water) I guess I'll look into some when we get to Colorado this summer or next.

She's going to be one year old in a week. It doesn't seem possible for time to have gone by this quickly, but it did.

Growl....just Growl.

I'm having an 'I hate everyone and everything and men in particular suck' moment. It's just a moment, because in reality I LOVE my daughter. I LOVE my husband; and I suppose I like my cats (but they are in the dog house right now for excessive puking). I'm sick. Sick as in 102 degree fever for two days straight, coughing like a madwoman, and get my fever back if I try to do too much. Obviously, since I'm sitting here writing this, I've been trying to do too much and my fever is back making me a cranky psycho. So, yes, here it is everyone. I HATE being sick! I'm a miserable bitch when I'm sick. And I'm even worse when I end up cleaning and packing BY MYSELF!

There's the root of my anger right now. I'm feeling very much like I might as well be a single mom throughout this move because, in the end, I'll end up doing 90% of the packing 95% (or more) of the cleaning, and almost all of the organizing before we leave. Part of that is because I'm a total anal retentive CONTROL freak when it comes to packing and cleaning and getting things ready to go. (Yes, I am a bit anal about my cleaning too. Those of you skeptics out there who have seen my apartment can put your eyebrows back down please.) I honestly would probably worry about some things even if my mother or professional movers packed them. My husband being a theatre teacher doesn't help because he spends long LONG hours at the school. I don't think people get what teachers have to go through to teach your kids. People are always telling me "Oh, but you have summers off and you get to go home when the kids do..." as if the work actually ends when the teacher gets to go home. HA! There are papers to grade, tests to make, tests to grade, projects to grade, lessons to plan...and THEN that whole whoopla about the summer. Most teachers have to do some sort of schooling in order to maintain their teaching licenses. Classes that THEY (not the state or the public taxpayer money) have to pay for. Also, because teachers are very underpaid many of them end up taking on seasonal summer jobs in order to help make ends meet for the rest of the year. (I know I've gone off my original rant, but this is important too) So, to all of the people out there reading this and whining about how the 'teachers aren't doing their jobs' BITE ME! (So, I've heard that a lot lately and I needed to rant about it...)

BACK on topic here for a moment. My husband is a teacher and he works really long hours because he's a theatre teacher. During the run of a show (at least 12 weeks out of every year and more like 16) he's at the school an average of 12 hours a day. Sometimes 15. At the end of the run I totally enjoy him coming home at 3:45 and spending some family time together before the sun sets and our daughter is bundled off to bed. However, at the end of this spring's show he took on another project with the kids...so he's been at the school until at least 5 if not 8 or 8:30 for the last couple weeks. On the one hand I'm totally thrilled that the kids have gotten comfortable enough to be creative and he's having a ton of fun. That's awesome. On the other hand IT IS MY TURN TO HAVE MY HUSBAND DARNIT! Especially since we're moving in 5 weeks and need to pack stuff up.

This of course leads me back to my original title for this post: WHY can't men see the things that need to be done that WOMEN see? Anyone have the answer to that? Anyone at all?