Friday bullets

I have been pretty lazy recently, but here I go with bullets again!

• This weekend CP and I are going to be KID-FREE for the first time since our 5 year anniversary trip to Santa Fe back in October of 2014. We aren't going far- just downtown Chicago- but I have been looking forward to this weekend for MONTHS as a way for us to slow down and reconnect. Tonight we will be checking out Little Goat Diner (one of Stephanie Izard's restaurants- she is from Top Chef) for dinner. Tomorrow we have Hamilton matinee tickets and dinner at Mercat a la Planxa, a tapas restaurant that CP picked out. We will probably try to fit in an arts festival at some point as well. Sunday we will meet up with my parents (my mom will have been with the kids all weekend), my sister and her husband for brunch and will have to resume parenting duties at that time. But we are looking forward to some kid-free time!!
• Wes had a successful ear tube surgery on Tuesday morning. We got up super early and he was a bit cranky until after his afternoon nap, but overall was a trooper. I am crossing my fingers that this means he won't have very many ear infections going forward.

Prior to surgery. I sent this picture to CP and titled it "living up to his Chunk nickname"

• Yesterday morning on the car ride into school Izzy started talking about death. Ummm she is only 3.5 years old?!? It was sort of an awkward conversation because I think that the entire concept is over her head and I also didn't want to scare her. After a few minutes I was able to distract her when we drove by a water fountain. Man, these long car rides to/from our rental house and daycare make for interesting conversations to say the least.
• I made my first cup of coffee EVER yesterday while I was working from home. Luckily there were still some espresso coffee grinds from the last time CP made his coffee so I was able to use those to make a single shot cappuccino with milk froth and some hot chocolate mix for a homemade cafe mocha (I got CP an espresso/cappuccino maker for his birthday earlier this month). HA! I was pretty proud of myself and it wasn't half bad.

After drinking most of my concoction 

• A little more than one more month in our rental place and I am ready to be OUT. Insulation in the new rooms is complete and drywall is up, along with the siding on the new sections. Hopefully now things will start to speed up!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Izzy at 3.5 years old

Height: Tall!

Weight: ~38 pounds

Language: Izzy can correctly recognize all of the letters of the alphabet and numbers up to 10. She makes up her own songs constantly and has started to try to rhyme words. She loves to ask how to spell ("pell" because she still doesn't pronounce the "s" before a consonant) words. In the car she loves to ask me to say different words that start with whatever letter she chooses ("Mommy what words start with "m"?).

Helping with chores

Personality: We like to call her the "Little Dictator." She loves to give orders to everyone, often telling people that she is the teacher and they need to listen to her. She can still be shy at times when meeting new people.

Favorite Toy: Anything related to her "art projects." She has markers, construction paper, stamps, crayons, stickers, glittery glue, etc. and will make all kinds of stuff for us. She loves to get home and use her kid scissors to cut construction paper so that she can glue different pieces (she says she is very good at making "quares"- squares).

Playing bumper cars with Wes

She also is a big fan of her new big girl bike. She was doing so well on her balance bike that we went to a consignment sale and got her a real bike. Friends have suggested taking off the pedals so that we don't injure our backs helping her stay up on the bike while she gets used to the new bike weight and balance, so we will do that for a few weeks before she is hopefully ready to go with the new bike (the bike is a little too big for her so she may not get to use it until next year).

Favorite Book: It varies every night. For a while she wanted to read "Frog and Toad" stories (something I loved when I was younger), Rumpelstilskin (the ending is so gory- did not remember that!), Rapunzel, various stories from a rhyming book, etc. Last night it was Clifford books.

Sleeping Habits: These days she goes to bed around 8-8:30 and wakes up around 6:30-7. She sometimes takes a nap these days- it really depends on her activity level earlier in the day. On days where she has swim class or has been running around, she will go down hard for her naps.

How I found Izzy sleeping during a nap

Eating: Izzy is a fairly good eater and thankfully enjoys eating fruits and vegetables. One day she came home from school and told me that she didn't like broccoli anymore because her best friend didn't like broccoli. I told her that was not a thing and that she shouldn't stop liking something simply because her friend doesn't like it. She says that her favorite food is mac n cheese but most times when she orders it at a restaurant, she doesn't eat a lot of it. She still likes to drink milk with her meals, but otherwise drinks water.

Potty: Izzy was having problems for a while where she would be doing something and wait until the last minute to go to the bathroom, resulting in a small amount of pee in her underwear. She has gotten better, but still has accidents every once in a while. She wears pullups for naps while at home and at night. She has recently been getting up in the middle of the night saying that she has to go to the bathroom (she gets us up to help her)- which is a good sign that she is waking up but not so good when her parents are tired!

Clothes: 4T clothing and size 10 shoes. Izzy wears nothing but dresses these days with either leggings or shorts underneath, depending on the weather. I have gotten her to wear tshirts only two days in probably the last two months- one was an tshirt that had bugs all over it (she wore it for the letter "i"- insects- to show and tell) and a tshirt that has the sun and planets because she was excited to show her preschool teacher. Her favorite thing to wear is a Hanna Anderson twirly dress.

A borrowed dress from a friend- little chance she will get one of her own

Media: Izzy will watch about an hour or two of tv (total) over the weekend but we have a strict no tv policy during the week. Sometimes it is a movie, otherwise it is Daniel Tiger. She never asks for our phones or ipads and it is a rare, rare occasion where we would let her play on them anyway (for instance a plane ride but we haven't gone on a family trip in a while).

Big sister: Izzy continues to be an excellent big sister...unless Wes takes a toy that she wants. LOL. She loves to jump in front of Wes to make him laugh.

11 months old

Eleven months

Raise the roof! One more month until I am 1!

Height- ?

Weight- Over 24 pounds

Diapers- Size 4 diapers during the day, Size 4 nighttime diaper. Changing diapers has not been a fun experience this month for Mommy, Daddy or Wes. He is so squirmy that it turns into a wrestling match most of the time or Wes wants to turn over and eventually stand up on the changing table so that he can hit the wall for fun. Hopefully this phase ends quickly...

Milestones- Wes started to FINALLY knee crawl a bunch this month. He is also starting pulling up more on seemingly everything and towards the end of the month he started cruising along the furniture. He is pretty hilarious when he cruises- he will kick his leg out like he is doing a TurboJam video just to move two inches to the side. He quickly started to race around the house using his walker, although sometimes he will drop to his knees while pushing the walker. His favorite is to take one of Izzy's art table chairs and push that around the house. We think that maybe he has started to clap his hands as well?

Playing bumper cars in Izzy's room

Language- Wesley responds to the milk, more, eat, and all done signs. We think that maybe he is starting to do the "all done" sign with his hands by just flailing them about when finished, but really with him who knows? He is starting to point at things when he wants them. Last weekend at the pool he kept pointing to the ball that we brought that Izzy was playing with because he wanted it.

Sleep- CP and I have decided that Wes is actually a better sleeper than Izzy. Around this point she was taking longer to get to bed at night and he willingly dives into his crib when he is ready for bed. We can also transfer him for both naps and nighttime sleep from the car seat to his crib without waking him up, something that didn't happen very often with Izzy (especially for naptime). He sleeps from about 7:30pm to 7 or 8am.

First time feeling cold Lake Michigan and he was not happy about it. Thankfully he loves our local pool.

Clothes- I have started to move him into 18 month clothing.

Eating- Wes drinks two 4oz bottles (in the morning and night) and then 3 6oz bottles during the day. Otherwise, he eats a lot of what we eat. We went to dim sum last weekend and he loved basically everything. He loves eating fruit and will go nuts for a banana in the morning.

I.love.food.

Teeth- No new teeth this month so he still is rocking 6 total.

Illness- Possible ringworm? We are putting over the counter medicine on it in hopes that it goes away soon (it's a circle on his back). We were hoping that his ear infection from a few months ago would clear up but only a few days before his ENT appointment, Wes got another ear infection and is scheduled for ear tube surgery tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers that it works.

I like to get messy when I eat.

Misc.- Izzy never had ONE stuffed animal that she can't live without....of course we made sure that she didn't have any stuffed animals in her crib until she hit at least one years old. Because Wes is a second child, we knew that a small stuffed animal when he got a little older was okay so we have been letting him sleep with a monkey that he got when he was a newborn for the past two months or so. He is pretty excited to see that monkey every time he gets put down in his crib and even makes a funny "eee eee eee" noise. He will grab it and snuggle with it as soon as he gets in his crib. We might have to buy a second one just in case the first monkey ever gets lost....

This was on the month of trying out new types of transportation for Wes. We took a few walks with him in the hiking backpack which he loved (although he held onto the sides for dear life the entire time). We also started to take walks with Wes in the wagon. He thinks that it is a lot of fun (despite this picture).

How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Racist

About a month ago, a friend of mine posted a parenting podcast on "How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Racist." I was intrigued, so I downloaded the podcast and listened to it on a long walk with Wesley one day.

The podcast was great....but my main takeaway is that you need to talk talking to your kids about the fact that people have different skin colors early. Not mentioning it and not talking about it can lead to kids thinking that it is something shameful or something bad. Interested in listening to the podcast? You can find it here.

That afternoon after I picked Izzy up from school we had a casual conversation about differences in hair color, eye color and then the fact that some of her friends and some of her teachers at school have different color skin. I was so proud of her that after the discussion we talked about the fact that everyone is the same on the inside, her conclusion was "we are all human." Perfect.

Yesterday as we were driving to school Izzy asked about the white person on the walk sign. She said, "I'm not white" so we had another race conversation where we talked about the fact that we are considered white even though we aren't technically white in color, how black people are actually brown, etc. She then made up a song that went, 

I am white, white, white

You are black, black, black

I was a little worried that she would show up at school singing this song so I offered up that she should add a third line- something like "But we are all the same." She refused ("No Mommy that is not how the song goes"), finally deciding to end the song with "Hi ho the deerio we all have different skin." Sure kiddo, that works too.

I plan on continuing to talk to her about this issue- never forcing it into a conversation, but waiting until it comes naturally. I may even buy some of the books that are recommended on the podcast website. 

Are you doing anything to talk to your kids about race?

Wednesday Bullets

*Memorial Day Weekend we headed up to MI to my parent's place. We had a fun weekend, but I think that going to a local carnival was Izzy's favorite. She got to ride on her first "rollercoaster", ferris wheel, and other toddler rides. She had a BLAST. She keeps telling us that she is going to eat lots of fruits and vegetables this year so that next year she can go on the ride that goes upside down (LOL).

Izzy enjoying her first "rollercoaster"

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*This weekend we took Wes to the pool for the first time. He has always liked to splash in the bathtub and doesn't mind when water runs in his face, but we still had no idea how he would react. It took him a few minutes, but he had a blast splashing at the pool while in our arms. CP even dunked him once to see his reaction and it didn't phase him at all!

Splashing in our homemade water table

*CP was offered the position for the job with less travel and a shorter commute! He is currently in negotiations with the company about the signing bonus because we stand to lose some money if he jumps over and takes their current offer (b/c of his current bonus structure with his company). We'll see!

*I'm just so proud of Izzy. She brought this home the other day- she was trying to spell her name. Sure she missed the B and the S is sideways but she spelled and wrote it all by herself!

*CP spent a lot of this past weekend painting Wes' room. It is one of the rooms that is not getting touched in the renovation, but ever since we painted it before Izzy was born, I sort of hated it. It was great for a baby's room, but it was time to re-think the room now that Wes will be a toddler soon (AHH!). We picked Benjamin Moore's Labrador Blue for the walls and BM's Patriotic White for the ceiling. It looks 10 million times better. Now I might try to find some dinosaur decals to put on the walls!

*Running is going well. Because CP spent a bunch of time painting this past weekend the first chance that I got to go running was not until Sunday afternoon- when it was 92 and disgusting out. I ran anyway....only going two miles, but I was proud that I went out there and did it anyway. I currently have a cold (along with Izzy and Wes) so waking up this week to workout has been a struggle, but I was able to push myself to run this morning. 

*Related to running, one of my motivators to run is seeing how many steps I get after even a short run. I have been doing a lot of challenges with Amber through the Fitbit app and they are so motivating!! Amber is the only person I know of the people participating but who cares? I want to beat everyone!! :-) When I don't have lunchtime meetings I have been stepping out of my office to go for a 15-30 minute walk at work as well.

*I thought that the Seasonale pill was going to be the answer to my birth control, but instead I'm halfway through the second month of pills and have had a light period for more than a week. Ugh. With all of this talk about dropping the requirement that birth control is covered from this administration, I finally made an appointment to get an IUD (Mirena) put it at the end of the month. That way I will be covered for five years and hopefully my period will go away completely. Fingers crossed!

*At the end of the month Wes has to see an ENT for the ear infection that he just can't clear. He may have to get tubes. :-(

*Thanks for all of your coffee suggestions the other day. My coworker suggested that I try the $.99 Iced Mocha Coffee from Dunkin Donuts so I went for it this afternoon. It is TERRIBLE. I even dumped some more sugar in it after getting back to the office. I am going to need a lot of gum after I muddle my way through this to get the taste out of my mouth. I think this is going to be harder than I thought....

YUCK!

House update #2

Things are sloooooowly moving along in our house since my last update.

In early May crews came to dig the new basement...

They installed drywall in the bathroom upstairs and started to construct the extension on the back of the house....

By the middle of the month there was a door to the new basement, window wells, and some other structural stuff....

It finally stopped raining enough to pour the concrete for the basement....

The bathroom started to look more finished with the bathtub tile complete, the bathtub in (NO MORE BLACK BATHTUB!!!), tile on the floor, and a few changes to make the room feel bigger.

Love the contrast of the dark tile and the white bathtub and tile

Closet depth shortened

Ceiling used to have a curve to it. The nice higher ceiling makes the room feel bigger.

Then towards the end of the month, the new extensions went up for both the back of the kitchen and the new family room on top of the new basement.

Check out how open that is from the kitchen to the new family room!

The new wider opening from the family room into the dining room

New basement!

Can't wait to see what changes the next month will bring!

Microblog Mondays: Coffee

At 38.5 years old, I think that it is finally time that I start to drink coffee. I have always hated the taste and smell (even of coffee ice cream!) which is clearly an issue when you want to start drinking coffee. But chai tea lattes are expensive and don't pack much of a caffeine punch. I do like a few teas (my current favorite is Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice), but again, it has about half the caffeine content of coffee and so only moderately helpful.

Starburcks Refreshers are a little better caffeine-wise, but I do know that they aren't super healthy with all kinds of weird stuff in them. And I don't even have to go into the specifics of how bad soda is for one's body....that's a habit that I would really like to kick.

So, coffee. It's time. I have started to read up on how to get my body to like coffee and it boils down to a few suggestions:

1. Start by drinking iced coffee. The bitterness won't be as prevalent in a cold drink, plus there is milk and sugar already in the drink.

2. Start by drinking espressos with some sugar poured in. I would only have to drink a small amount of coffee at once.

3. Start by drinking things like frapaccinos because all of the extra stuff will mask the coffee taste.

#3 is my least favorite option because I am partially trying to learn to drink coffee so that I can get away from caloric/chemical-laden drinks. I am leaning towards #1 simply because CP already likes iced coffee and maybe I can steal some tastes of his coffee and slowly learn to like it? Plus it is finally hot out....

Has anyone gone through this and have any suggestions? 

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