a photo story

in four parts

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memorial day 2009

click

the emperor's new clothes

er, i mean, Princess's new room.

this is a current picture of her old room, now the mostly undecorated guest bedroom.  you can see how small it is:

here is the new room.  the color of the walls doesn't come through very well, but they are pale green.  you can see it best where the corner of the wall meets the ceiling.

the dollhouse is a "millinery shop" from J's mom.

she bought Princess a big new victorian dollhouse kit that J and Princess are going to put together this summer.

(don't you love the disembodied koala head mask? i need to find a better place for that.)

jonas brothers poster!!!!!!:

reading corner:

(she's just finished kindergarten and the other night she read me all of "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish."  she's doing great.  although does anyone else remember that book being so LONG?)

all of this and this morning i walked into autumn's room and found her playing in the closet with the door shut.  oookay.

"any mummery will cure if the patient's faith is strong in it."

-mark twain

our family had two doctors' appointments today - Kitten's 9 month check-up and J's follow-up with the orthopedic specialist after having an MRI on his knee last thursday.

as expected, J is going to need surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee.  surgery is schedule for two weeks from tomorrow, on friday, june 12.  they expect that he will be up and about the next day, which J was happy to hear.

Kitten's doctor pronounced her "perfect in every way," as mary poppins would say.  she has met or exceeded all of her developmental milestones.  she has no stranger anxiety (yet - although she's begun expressing a clear preference for me, much to J's annoyance) so she sat happily in the ped's lap and watched him talk.  the fluid in her ears has cleared up for now, and there were no shots to be had today.  her stats are as follows:

weight: 17lbs, 8oz (25%)

length: 28.25 inches (65%)

head: 40%

she's still long and skinny - and moving around at lightening speed.  in fact, she's so BUSY during the day that she no longer has the patience to take a bottle while at daycare, although she's happy to eat all the fruits, vegetables, and oatmeal that they will feed her.  as a result, she's not getting quiiiite enough formula every day (15-20 oz instead of 24-32 oz), so we're going to work a little harder on that.  

tomorrow is the last day of school.  J and i worked our tails off to get Princess's "new" room finished and it looks great.  i would promise pictures but i'm uber busy and can't guarantee it.  at any rate i'm sure she'll love it.

that's all i got.

the sun is but a morning star.

-henry david thoreau, walden

at 5:51 a.m. this morning, like every saturday morning, when i heard the first stirrings from Kitten's crib i groaned to myself and silently begged her to sleep for just a few more minutes. it's hard getting up at that hour every single day.  which is why i find myself going to bed at 8:30 p.m. on a friday night.  shocking, even to me.

but like every other saturday morning, i dragged myself out of bed leaving a sleeping J behind, picked Kitten up from her crib, and took her into the living room to start our day.

by 6:30, after my english muffin and cup of coffee has kicked in and Kitten has been changed and fed a bottle, the world looks considerably brighter (both literally and figuratively), and i begin to be thankful for this time that i have with her each week, those unrushed hours between sunrise and 9:30 a.m. when aislinn goes down for her nap and J and Princess wake up and the making of blueberry pancakes or omelets begins - those in-between hours with the smell of coffee and morning air coming in through the back door screen, the sound of crosby, stills, nash, and young coming through the infinity speakers that my dad bought me in high school (lesson: you must always, always have quality speakers) and Kitten happily babbling, just the two of us.

here's a snippet of this morning, complete with dirty onesie (she played on the patio while i watered the plants and we rescued a caterpillar from death at the beaks of the birds nesting there - or at the hands of aislinn, who seriously almost ate it before i saw it).

(sorry for the formatting problem where the video window runs off the right margin; click on the video to take you straight to youtube if you want to see the whole screen.)

wherein i reduce my life to bullet points because i don't have time to post in full sentences

• summertime starts next week!
• repainted the very large guest bedroom and are moving Princess out of her small bedroom into it next week while she's at her mom's as a start-of-the-summer surprise
• new bedspread, rugs, lamps, paint, curtains whole new 1st-grader look: no more pale pink princess, lots of bold purple, pink, blue, orange, and lime green; J doesn't see the big deal--obviously he was never a seven year old girl
• Princess is going to summer camp at Kitten's daycare - SO looking forward to dropping them off at the same place each morning
• trying to make summer plans, gave Princess the choice of visiting any state contingent to oklahoma, she picked kansas - what's in kansas?? - we convinced her to do arkansas; will probably go to branson 2 nights then eureka springs 2 nights - suggestions welcome
• annual lake trip with my family coming up in a few weeks
• Kitten's 9 month check-up is next week - NO VACCINATIONS THIS TIME so don't have to worry about that for another three months
• J blew out his knee last sunday (kneeling in front of the fridge to check out what kinds of beer we had after helping my sister and her husband remodel all day) which ended us up at the ER; we've consulted with ortho and had an MRI today, check-up next thursday will reveal whether he'll need surgery to repair what is probably a torn ligament
• work is crazy, hectic, miserable, annoying, and makes me clench my jaw, but i still wouldn't trade the flexibility that having my own practice gives me for anything, because you can't put a price on being able to skip out of the office immediately without having to make up the billables over the weekend when you get a call about a sick kid
• Kitten and Princess are complete opposites, i can already tell - Princess is very cautious, "wait and watch" type of girl; Kitten sees it, wants it, and is INTO it in 0.395 seconds
• southcrest hospital ER had us in and out in 1 hour - impressive for the second ER visit of my life
• my first visit: hillcrest, 10p.m., friday night, handful of friends, accident (not mine) with a bottle of spiced rum, a new glass pitcher from pier one freshly washed in hot water, and an ice maker in the dorms
• Kitten update: favorite baby foods: peas (yeck), cherry applesauce; least favorite: bananas, squash; pulling up and sitting down proficiently, moves from object to object (couch to coffee table), will be walking in no time; says "gaga," "yaya," "baba," and a little "mama" and "dada," but doesn't yet assign meanings to anything
• my sister and her husband are still remodeling their house and it is going to look amazing when it's finished
• my sister and her husband also adopted a new dog, lexie, who is like a long-lost twin to their yellow lab maggie
• if you see my sister or her husband be nice to them because their plate is FULL and they can't really speak in full sentences right now
• Kitten's still sleeping in the pack and play in our bedroom; after we finish Princess's room i'm going to actually dec-or-ate Kitten's room with the goal of having her sleeping in there by her birthday in august - we can't have her dreaming in anything less than a well-appointed bedroom, can we?  i've picked out the pottery barn kids "brooke" bedding pattern and hopefully will be able to buy it before they discontinue it
• made homemade chicken fried rice for dinner tonight and it is SO much better than the stuff from Asian Chef down the street
• and finally, congratulations to my friend jennifer taylor who just found out she's having a GIRL!!!!! to become a little sibling to her son blayne.  welcome to club pink.  i know you're thrilled.

confession

i am OB-SESSED with this "Jon and Kate Plus 8" drama.  i've always liked the show, J's always hated it, but he tolerates my watching it because i tolerate him watching "Tim & Eric's Awesome Show."

for those of you who aren't TLC nerds, don't google it because then you'll just think less of me.

i like kate, i know she's a terrible bitch, but the woman can run that household.  i'm fully aware of all of her shortcomings and the writing is on the wall, i know their marriage is collapsing and their household is completely dysfunctional, but MAN it makes for great television.

that is, like, the only show i'm watching right now, other than Real Housewives of NYC/Jersey and Grey's Anatomy which should really just buy stock in Kleenex because seriously?  and we still dutifully watch Desperate Housewives on Sunday, more out of habit than anything.

my days are so jam packed and full of work drama--every day is someone's emergency--that when i come home i am drawn to bad television.  i have a subscription to People magazine now.  i used to have a subscription to The New Yorker, and now i have a subscription to People magazine.  my attention span is that shot.

but they're small indulgences that i allow myself, along with pedicures and adding cream cheese to my california rolls and bringing Kitten into bed with me at 3am when she wakes because it's easier than getting her resettled in her pack and play and i want to cuddle.

life is short and i'm not apologizing to anyone.