A "new" fridge

When my parents remodeled their kitchen this year, we received several of their appliances. We have already installed the oven and dishwasher. Tonight we installed the fridge. It was not our first choice of what to do tonight but when we returned from being out of town, it was evident that our old one was no longer working. We thought maybe the power had gone out but after a few hours it was not getting cold. the hard thing is that we are not sure how long the power had been out. The stuff in the freezer was thawed but still cold, about the temperature of a regular fridge. So, we assumed it was all still safe to eat. The stuff in the fridge we were not as sure about so we decide to throw out milk and meat.
The most frustrating thing that had to be thrown out was 6 bags of milk for Caroline. Breastmilk can be stored in the fridge for 48 hours and since we were not sure how long it had been we went ahead and threw it away. I hate pumping and I forget to pump so this was quite a downer for me.
It took most of the evening to clean everything out of the fridge, move the old one out to the garage and the new one in. Our garage is 8 steps down from our kitchen so we enlisted the help of a neighbor.
We were really glad that we had a second refrigerator in the garage that we were already planning to move into the house. We are sorry though because we were planning to give the old one to a friends niece who lost everything in Hurricane Ike.

LOST

I wish I were posting about the TV show LOST, but it is not on this season . . . bummer.

Nope, my cell phone is lost. I have no idea where it is. Well, that is not 100% true. I know it is in the house somewhere. Why not just call it to hear it ringing and find it you ask? Well, the battery was almost dead the last time I used it so it is certainly dead now. When I called my number it went straight to voice mail.

I feared that I had put it in the accessory tray of my stroller and lost it when loading up the car so I went online to see my call history. The last call was when I talked to Madi on Monday. I was sitting on my couch. After I hung up, Katherine wanted to use the phone to call Nana. Because the batteries were almost dead I gave her the house phone instead. So, the last time I saw it I was on our couch. I have torn apart everything in the den, opening all the drawers, cleaning out all the toy boxes and it is not in that room.

I am sure that Katherine took it somewhere but every time I ask her if she knows where mommy's phone is she takes me to look in a different place.

The good thing is that one of our projects for next week was to look into new cell phone plans and get new phones. My contract ran out last month and Sam's has also ran out. My phone was a little broken so I was getting a new one anyway. In the meantime though, don't try to call me on my cell phone. I won't get the message.

Naptime struggles

It seems that nap time is a roller coaster these days. Some days it is a piece of cake. We read 3 books, snuggle, turn out the light and turn on the white noise machine (rain is Katherine's favorite) and she is out for 2 hours. Then there are days like last Sunday and today where it takes a very long time to get Katherine down for a nap.

I started trying to get her down at 2:15. That is my new chosen nap time because her new MDO does not do naps and we get home at 2:15. She often takes naps that late anyway so no big deal. She finally went to sleep at 3:45. In that hour and a half between, we read books and snuggled as usual. But when I turned out the light and left, she threw a fit. Now that she is in her big girl bed instead of a crib, she can get up. I had put a child proof door knob cover on the inside of her door and she tried for 15 minutes, screaming "MOMMY" the entire time before I went to get her. She asked if we could nap in my bed. At this point I was ready to try that. So, we snuggled in my bed. I fell asleep on and off periodically waking up when she would poke my eyes or pull my hair. She never slept. Finally I told her that she had to go back into her room.

We recently took off the bed rail because she was climbing on it and I felt that it was more likely that she would fall over the bed rail while climbing and get hurt than that she would get hurt falling out of bed. She has only fallen out once and it scared her so we put her crib mattress on the floor until she learns to sleep on the side near the wall. I told her that she could sleep in her bed, on her mattress on the floor or on the carpet. She chose the mattress.

It is now 6:25 and she is still asleep! I knew she needed a nap and the effort I put in during that hour and a half was worth it.

The negative is that we were supposed to meet our community group for dinner at 5:30 and then go to the town hall meeting at church at 6:30. Obviously I missed dinner and I may miss the town hall meeting as well. The bummer is that on Sunday when we had problems we missed a swim party with these same people. I promise, Katherine really is sleeping! I wish I was with you all at Chipotle right now. I am sooooo hungry!

$300 I did not plan to spend today

It's April. It's Texas. It's storm season. Last week there was a huge one that wreaked havoc all over the city. Trees and fences were down all over. Power was out, including signal lights the next day. We barely woke up and were clueless to the intensity of the storm. Last night there was another storm. It was earlier in the evening so we actually knew about it and I came home a little early from a girls night to make sure I avoided the hail. There was rain, there was wind, we saw no hail in our neighborhood. We thought it was no big deal again.

WRONG!

When we let Hooligan out we saw that our Bradford pear in the back yard had split in half with the fallen half leaning on our roof. The broken part is covering the window over the bed in our room where Sam and I sat from about 9pm on working on our computers and watching the news about the storm. How in the world did we not know that a tree had fallen on our roof and that there were branches literally inches away from crashing through the window, sending glass onto our sleepy heads?

I was really sad because this is basically the only tree in our backyard. We have two crepe myrtle trees up against the workshop but they have a fungus this spring that I fear will mean we have to cut them down this year too. This tree was great for shading about 80% of the yard for Katherine and the kids to play in. We have a chain link fence between our yard and our neighbor's yard and he had to cut down his one tree last year so now it looks pretty open and barren.

You can see what a great climbing tree it was. Nathan enjoyed it this February but now Katherine will never get to climb the tree. Katherine was quite distraught over the tree. She is very empathetic and could tell that mommy was sad. Therefore she was sad too. We spent about 45 minutes sitting in a lawn chair, watching the workers carefully cutting the tree to pieces. She kept saying things like, "Tree fall down. Tree on house. Men fix it. Mommy sad, very sad." Luckily it appears that there is no roof or gutter damage and if I had to choose a tree to lose I would prefer it be this one to one of the oak trees in front.
Now our yard looks so desolate. The stump will be ground later this week. On a positive note, we now have plenty of firewood for the next few years. Good bye tree!

My family has bad luck with trees. Some of you may remember that my parents lost a tree last year too. They live in an area with huge trees and theirs was one of the largest on the street. A week after my dad's heart surgery there was a wind storm that was the death sentence to a tree with a rotted trunk. It fell on the street, their house and several other trees. Here are a few photos from last years tree incident.

Highs and Lows

This week has barely started and there are already a list of highs and lows.

The Highs:

• Katherine has now been fully weaned for 2.5 weeks. She does still ask for it every day but I think she is kind of joking now. She will crawl into my lap and squish my chest and say "moot (milk), other side" over and over. Then she will say "mama empty, milk all gone". Today I reminded her that she had her yogurt milk in her cup to drink now (Kefir and milk mix) and she pointed to my chest and said, "mommy yogurt". Wouldn't that be fun if I made yogurt.
• Because Katherine is now weaned I am again able to cuddle and put her back to bed. That was the hardest part. For over a week I was having to distance myself and not have much cuddle time. It was hard. It was good that Sam has been home and he is such a great dad.
• Much, much family time. Sam has over 3 weeks of no work since he quit one job and delayed the start of the next one. We are getting a lot of family time which Katherine loves and we are getting a lot done around the house.

The Lows

• Tantrums - yikes, our sweet little girl can be a Jekyll/Hyde personality. She has thrown some major tantrums. We are really struggling with how to best deal with them. She is trying so hard to be independent. Sometimes she has done something she knows is wrong and it needs to be punished but sometimes she is just exploring her world and mommy says, "No". Then, mommy tries to show empathy and redirect her. For example, the other day I was folding clothes in her room and she was in her bathroom. I hear her say, "wet, mess". I turn around and she was dipping a burp cloth in the toilet and then using it to clean the tub. I took a deep breath and chose not to blow up or punish her. How would she know that the water in the toilet was not to be used to clean whereas the water in the sink or tub was? I got down on her level and said, "Katherine, you are such a good helper. We don't use the water from the toilet. Why don't we get a clean towel and mommy will get it wet in the sink and then you can use it to clean the bathtub." Her response - "yeah mommy". If I had taken away the burp cloth and told her "no" then she would have started a tantrum. There are plenty of those anyway so I want to avoid them when I can redirect.
• Potty training and diapering is getting to be frustrating. My plan was to switch back to cloth diapers after the holidays. The hope was that because they are cloth and feel more like underwear it would help us to finish off potty training. Well, between travel and sickness, it got put off until today. I have tried twice to put her in a cloth diaper and both times it has resulted in one of the aforementioned tantrums. Her request - "Elmo diaper mommy." I hate Elmo for this. I refuse to buy cute cloth diapers so that she will wear them when I have a perfectly good stash. I have not chosen to make it a battle yet because I know that she can and will probably win. If I do get the diaper on her, she is now capable of taking them off. Where does that leave me? With a big old mess. I was going to a cloth diaper store today to buy some petite training pants but they were closed due to an illness so that was a bummer.
• Sinus infections will not leave. All three of us seem to be stuck in a state where we are not really sick but we don't feel great either. Katherine actually has a runny nose (clear) and Sam and I just have the congestion, sore throat and cough. The worst part for me as that this is the only thing making my pregnancy sickness happen.

I know that parenting (and life for that matter) is always full of highs and lows. Those are just a few from this week.

Happy Birthday

Today is Sam's 34th birthday. We discussed that birthdays are no longer as much fun as they used to be. The reason - you still have adult responsibilities of work, cooking dinner, changing diapers and taking care of sick kids. Add that to the fact that the gifts are not as exciting and you are no longer able to have your party at places like Chuck E Cheese or Pump It Up and it is just kind of a downer.

Today was especially low for Sam. It started when Katherine woke up at 6:15. He is taking morning duty as we are finishing off weaning. As soon as he went in to get her she wanted to eat so there was no chance of getting her back to sleep. Since she has been a little sick we decided that only one of us should go to church and the other stay with her. He chose to stay with her for some quality father daughter time. Usually a good choice, today bad move. Katherine was still having some stomach issues and was a bit fussy.

We were going to meet my parents for lunch and to see the train display at the mall. Sam had a hard time getting out of the house and by the time he got to the mall, Katherine had fallen asleep in the car so he decided to go home. Usually she transfers pretty easily to her crib but not today. After a lot of crying and clinging to mom and dad I finally got a 30 minute nap out of her. Not enough sleep! So she was cranky all day.

Our evening plans included having Jen, Richard and their 1 year old Evie as well as Gary, Alysha and their 2 boys Caleb and Ethan over. Katherine was so fussy (read hysterically crying) and we were having such a hard time getting dinner ready that I thought about calling to cancel. I am so glad we did not. The evening with close friends was what salvaged Sam's birthday. Both of these families are some of our closest friends and they understand things like fussy kids, dinner that runs late and a less (much less) than perfect house. Luckily, once Katherine had her friends over her attitude changed and she was a pretty good girl.

After everyone left and Katherine was in bed, Sam was able to open presents. Like I mentioned, a 34 year old does not get the best presents. He received a rain check for brown dress shoes, a casual shirt, an electric tooth brush, king size pillow cases for his funky chiropractic pillow, 2 CD's, Godiva coffee (a perk of after Christmas sales), and a BBQ wireless thermometer. I think he ended up doing just fine.

Another perk of his 34th birthday. It is the eve of his last day working at his current company. He has had the last week off for the holidays and he has the next two weeks off before he starts his new job. We are enjoying time with the family, completing projects and getting things done.

Happy Birthday Honey! I love you!

Something that bugs me

Katherine outgrew her tennis shoes over a month ago. Since then she has been wearing every other shoe and I have been searching all over town for tennis shoes. Why in the world is this such a problem? Here is the thing - I don't want Dora or Barbie or Elmo or any other character on her shoes. Neither do I want it to be overly pink with flowers, butterflies or glitter. I just want a pair of tennis shoes that are mostly white and velcro so that they stay on and go with all of her clothes. The pair that she just outgrew is what I am looking for. I bought them at Kohl's but they are no longer there. I have found them at Famous Footwear but not in her size. Why does this have to be such a difficult quest?