Giving Thanks, Getting Shots

I love Thanksgiving! Good food, family and giving thanks for it all. We had the wonderful opportunity to host Thanksgiving at our house this year. I was a little bit nervous as this was our first year doing it but the thought of staying home all day (we have gone to 3 different houses in one day in the past) was so very appealing.

We had Levi’s family over and his dad’s parents. Claire has not been at all interested in the Thanksgiving food, which is weird since she usually loves green beans, rolls and mashed potatoes. She has been much more interested in drinking cup after cup of milk; she’s definitely my child! We had all of the traditional food and it was all homemade (thank goodness our guests brought some dishes!), and all delish! Claire didn’t want any pumpkin pie instead she licked whip cream off both her grandparents’ pies.

The funniest part of the evening, by far, was when Claire’s babydoll keep pushing the pumpkin decorations off the table. After the babydoll spent some time in the corner, the baby then had to pick up the pumpkins and put them back. It was the cutest thing, we couldn’t even be mad that Claire had made her baby be naughty.

 

Onto today-Claire had her 2 year checkup. She is Amazon girl! She measured at 38.25 inches (99th percentile) and 29 lbs 4.5 ozs (79th percentile). I’ve heard you can double their height at age 2 and that’s approximately how tall they will be as adults. Yikes, that would put her at over 6 feet tall, like 6’4”! Levi and me are a little taller than average but not that much! Hopefully she goes through an ungrowth spurt for a couple years so the other kids can catch up. :) I noticed that BMI is now on her paperwork, her BMI is 14.09 (2nd percentile). Wow, I wish my BMI was 14! Actually not really, I like food too much. The Dr. said she is just perfect in everyway, but we already knew that. ;) She had to get a flu shot but she did great, didn’t even cry. I can’t believe the next appointment isn’t until 3 years old, a lot can happen in a year, I don’t know if we’re ready for this. Plus it’s nearly impossible to get a hold of anyone over the phone there.

I’m only 24 days late… Happy Birthday Claire!

I’m not sure where November has gone, by it’s just about over, yikes! We had a small party for Claire the beginning of this month. It is so hard to believe that she’s 2. She was a bit of a crab the day of her birthday (why do they not take naps the days they need them the most!?) but got over it as soon as she started opening her presents. What wonderful family and friends we’ve surrounded our daughter with, thank you to all those that came and celebrated with us and made her day special. To the right-Claire pushing her “walk”

She is such an amazing little girl. She is very independent and intelligent. She loves counting to 13 (but usually skips 6, 11 and 12), she loves having books read to her, running, spinning in circles, she’s constantly asking “what’s that?” and “what are you doing?” She doesn’t want to have anything to do with baby stuff (bibs, high chairs, etc), except for diapers but she’s super interested in potty training so hopefully that’ll happen soon. She loves everyone and is constantly saying “Hi!” and waving. She has recently started trying to sing songs like “Twinkle, twinkle little star” and the I love you song one of her bears sings, it is pretty much the most adorable thing we’ve ever seen. Although she can make us want to pull our hair out a lot of the time, we love her so much and are so glad she’s a part of our little family.

Our group is growing!

 

 

 

 

 

My mom made this adorable playhouse out of felt.

I’ll have to take some better pics of it.

 

 

 

The Elmo pinata was really hungry, hahaha, silly girl.

 

 

 

Dan having to show these girls how to finish Elmo off.

 

        

No Tricks, Just Treats

Our first time trick or treating as a family was a huge success! Claire dressed up as a fairy and after hitting all 3 houses on our street, we headed up to Keizer.The first couple houses she bawled. The people weren’t dressed up so she wasn’t scared, we think she was worried we were going to leave her there. Silly girl! But she got over that real quick as soon as she figured out you just have to be as cute as possible, say something that vaguely sounds like “Trick or Treat” and you get a handful of candy.

Randomly she would just say, “Hurry, hurry” and start running. After a couple blocks Claire would reach her arms up and say, “hold you, hold you”. She’s not quite getting the whole me-you thing all the time. She’s been super clingy to me lately so I had to carry her a good chunk of the time;  Levi ended up with my purse, hehehe.

At one point a very nice lady gave her 2 giant handfuls of candy and while walking away Claire dropped it and candy flew in every direction. Claire kept screaming , “Candy, candy!” while we hurriedly cleaned it up. The lady brought her another handful, there’s nothing like getting more candy to help you get over a traumatic event. She was not too excited that we wouldn’t let her have all the candy she wanted.

I loved Halloween as a kid but it was even more fun taking Claire and watching the excitement and joy on her face. I’m kind of sad we have to wait another year to do this again.

As far as our lives go lately… we’re busy as usual. Levi has been going to school one night a week, one full weekday and the last 2 Saturdays. He also got on as a reserve officer (the police equivalent of a volunteer firefighter) in a nearby town and is loving it. He starts reserve academy this week and that’ll be 2 nights a week. So basically we don’t see much of each other.

Claire has been going to daycare one day a week and she is loving it and doing very well. She gets a little upset when Levi drops her off but she gets over it pretty quickly and is just a happy camper when I pick her up. She can now turn the lights on and off although she mostly just like turning them off regardless of my begging to leave them on. She is just a really funny kid; not a day goes by that we don’t laugh at something she does or says. She loves to dance and boy, can she boogey! I so desperately wish we could steal just a tiny fraction of her energy so we could keep up with her.

I’m still working away and really liking my job. It’s been super busy as we are one person short but I would so much rather be busy than have to find things to do to stay busy. I’ve also been getting allergy shots for the last 2 months. With the hope that in 2-5 years I will be allergy-free. At this point I can’t even comprehend that but I am so excited to find out! I have to go in at least one a week but I’ve been trying to get in there twice/week just so I can get it done with sooner. I haven’t had much in the way of reactions yet, just some swelling, itching and then later a knot at the injection site. It will take me another 4 or 5 months to know if this is helping. I can’t even put into words how thrilled I am at the thought of not taking allergy meds almost every day.

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!

Zany Zoo Day

A couple Saturdays ago we decided it was time to take Claire to the zoo for the first time. We were almost there and realized we’d forgotten our camera. So we stopped at Albertson’s to grab something for lunch and sure enough they had disposable cameras. Archaic, right!? But we couldn’t miss getting this first on film, even if it sucked. The camera cost $8, after finding out that Target and Costco no longer develop old school film, we got these pics put onto a CD by Walgreens for $8.48. That was the worst $16 we have ever spent. Note to self: make sure we ALWAYS have the camera. As you are looking at the pics try to not focus on the absolutely horrible quality of the photo, instead pay attention to the adorable subjects.

It was a beautiful, bright sunny day (and as the day wore on, way too hot). 

Claire wasn’t sure what to think at first, for the most part she was just observing and taking it all in. But every single exhibit we would walk up to she would gasp and exclaim, “Wa-wa”. Yes, you read correctly, we drove 50 miles, paid $21 and Claire was most excited about the different forms of water in the exhibits. Claire look at this leopard, “wa-wa”. Claire look at these toucans, “wa-wa”. Claire look at the alligator, “wa-wa”. After a little while she seemed to get a little more into the animals. It was so fun showing her all these animals that she had only seen in her books and maybe on PBS.

 

She was quite interested in the petting zoo. She would brush the goats, then put a little dirt on them and then brush it off. She probably would have done that all day had we let her. I’m sure the goats would have revolted before too long. It was pretty hot by then though so they probably didn’t care much. Claire of course threw a fit when it was time for us to move on, ahhh terrible two’s.

 

Claire had her first elephant ear she loved it. I think she ate more of it then either of us did.

We bravely decided to let Claire out of her stroller for a bit, oh boy did she run like a mad woman. She ate it a couple times, but she would pick herself right back up without so much as a thought of a tear.

 

And about an hour later, she was done. That of course only lasted maybe 45 minutes.

Dan , Lacey & Baby Keira met us there for a little bit. What a sweet little baby that girl is! We ate some ice cream and walked (well Dan & Lacey walked, we took turns chasing after our monkey), it was so nice to catch up with our friends. We should have gotten our picture taken all together but we just didn’t even think about.

 

And lastly this was probably Claire’s favorite part of the whole entire zoo…. the waterfall! For those of you that haven’t been in several years, you should go, all the  renovations look absolutely amazing!

 

All in all, we had a wonderful time! I’m sure it will become more fun and magical the older she gets. I love revealing the world to her and watching her face light up and the her little wheels start turning. She’s so smart and fun right now. If it weren’t for the horrendous tantrums, I would want her to stay this age forever.

A lot of Firsts this Summer

We've been doing some super fun things with Claire lately, and so much so that we're never home to blog about it. She's at this super fun (and often times frustrating) age where everything she sees, encounters, touches, etc, is absolutely amazing to her. We love to see her eyes light up and to watch her explore and help her learn all about this world around her.

I'm not quite sure what took us so long but we took Claire to the beach for the first time a couple weekends ago.

Utter amazement, she's probably thinking, "this is the coolest place I've ever seen, why have my parents never brought me here before!" We could not keep that girl out of the frigid water.

Note to self: Take family photo before Claire gets all wet and sandy next time. ;)



This is what we got when we told her to smile, cheese it up Claire.


No ball left behind!

Probably the best part about this whole summer has been having Claire's cousin's in town from Colorado. Oh boy, does she loves those kids. She's still working on saying Rayden, but Kolten she calls "Kole-Kole", and both Zenna and Savannah are "Nenna", way to be efficient Claire. We met up with my parents, Grandma & Granddad and Jay and the kids (plus Rayden's friend); hilariousness/chaos ensued.

Claire made a mad dash any chance she got and grabbed everyone's ball at least once and slam dunked it in the hole; maybe mini-golf wasn't the best idea.

The water was very fascinating, a little later she (very) purposely chucked our ball in the water.

Grandma Debi w/ all her grandkids plus one (Rayden's friend in the hat)

She was very interested in the arcade games, she just squealed and ran from one to another.

Me trying to teach an 1.5 and 3 year old how to stomp on the spiders, I don't think we did very well.

We stuffed ourselves with pizza and ice cream, and laughed way too hard at those silly kids. We removed Claire twice from running on top of the skee ball machines. A better time could not have been had. Claire crashed sooooo hard on the way home.

And then last week we went to a Volcanoes vs. Emeralds baseball game (sadly, we forgot our camera). Levi's cousin works for the Emeralds and invited us out and we had a blast. It was of course Claire's 1st baseball game, but mine also. Claire plastered herself in cotton candy and continually clapped for the wrong team. Thank goodness for the playground behind the bleachers, Claire could only sit still as long as the cotton candy lasted which wasn't nearly long enough.

I love summer! Why does it have to end!?

-Elizabeth

Call Mr. Yuk-- Oh and I Smell Smoke!

Well, today was an interesting day to say the least.  It started off with an incident that began similar to The Vaseline Incident.

I haven’t seen these poison control Mr. Yuk stickers since I was a kid, but I think they ought to think about bringing them back.  Clairey added diaper rash cream to the long list of her pica items (including biting a hole in the drywall, Vaseline, and her favorite-hair barrettes).

Before Elizabeth left for work, she had asked me to fix some invitations she had been working with on the computer before she got home for lunch.  So, I parked Claire in front of some Yo Gabba Gabba! (which will be getting its own vitriol laden post I’m sure…) and started to work on the invitations.  I wasn’t in the bedroom 2-3 minutes and I started to hear a slurping noise, which was odd since I hadn’t given her anything to snack on yet.

As it turns out, she had eaten approximately half of a brand new tube of Boudreaux's Butt Paste diaper rash cream.  You don’t think about it until it happens, but the cutesy little ‘trying to be funny and humorously push the envelope on product names’ takes a turn for the macabre when you have to relay it to the lady at the poison control center.  She said it shouldn’t kill her (oh good, thanks for even putting that in my mind), but that she would probably be pretty sick and to keep her hydrated.  Claire threw up about an hour later, a white tarlike glop mixed with the red juice she had been drinking and a handful of grapes.  It was basically a pile of bird crap.  She proceeded to throw up 4-5 more times and has had diarrhea most of the evening.  Poor kid.  That’s what happens when you eat things meant for your butt, I guess.  Hope she’s better tomorrow.

It is so hard with Claire, there is not even a single minute you can take your eye off of her and she is into trouble.  It makes getting my schoolwork, job applications, paperwork, projects, and housework next to impossible to work on.  If she could only focus her energy constructively, she would have cured cancer by now, I’m sure of it.  I think she sits and plots things in her head that she will do the instant we blink.

Then while I was finishing baking our breaded pork chops, I started to smell smoke.  This isn’t a rare smell in our neighborhood.  Go ahead and Google Maps “Restaurants near Auburn and Lancaster Drive in Salem, OR” and you will get 15,641 results.  We smell every grill, every fast food burger, every restaurant, and every taco stand in Salem.  This was different though, it smelled like a campfire.  I went outside to look around, and noticed that our next door neighbor’s house (about 20 feet away from our house) was on fire!

There was a wooden platform of some kind that was leaning against their house with flames flowing out around the sides, so I didn’t know if the fire was coming from the house or just from this wood.  I yelled to Elizabeth to call 9-1-1, which she did on my 3rd request while I was spraying at it with the fire extinguisher.  This is the 2nd time we have called 9-1-1 in the past 2 days, and it’s funny the little nervous tremble she gets in her voice while she is on the phone with them.

The fire department got here so fast, they kicked over the burning platform to reveal it was burning on its own.  However, they said if left much longer it would have definitely started the siding of the house on fire.  They took their axes and chainsaws and cut a huge hole in the side of the house to make sure no fire got into the walls.  One of the firemen running back along the house saw the burning wood and said “Oh $(%-- that’s it!?”.  Classy.

The fire inspector took my information and a statement after the smoke had cleared, and said that it was most likely the cigarette butts they were discarding in a plastic can that caused it, and that they can smolder for days before igniting something like that.  You learn something new every day.  A lesson to the smokers out there.

In regular news, we spent Sunday at the Long Family Reunion in Yamhill.  My mom was in charge this year and did an EXCELLENT job!  Although it was not as well attended as other years, it was awesome.  Any given year there are a couple hundred people that attend, we’re related to most of Yamhill and Washington Counties.  It’s a shame to see family feuds stand in the way of people coming, and even worse- when two people/families feud, they both don’t come to avoid the other.  Their loss I guess, great food and visiting!

You can seriously see the mischief in her eyes.

Then the morning of the 4th, we went to the St. Paul Parade.  Claire thought she had died and gone to heaven, all you do is wave and you get candy?!?!   We took a trip over the Wheatland Ferry, which we all love.  Then we went to Elizabeth’s aunt’s house, and we ended our evening at home spotting all of the illegal fireworks in the sky around our neighborhood.  Claire waved goodbye to each burst of light in the sky as it slowly faded away.

All in all, a great holiday weekend.

Happy 25th Birthday, Mimi.

Clairey wants to wish a Happy Birthday to the best mimi in the entire world!

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! The best mom and wife anyone could ever ask for.  Here’s to another 75 wonderful years…

Love,

Levi, Claire, and Roxcy

The Toddler Bed

You know, I have spent most of my life trying to remain pretty neutral on Sweden.  As a country, they don’t really have that much to offer, other than meatballs and chefs.  Maybe the occasional supermodel.

But, there is one especially egregious blunder they introduced into the world as a culture:

There had really ought to be a class action lawsuit against the guy that invented the IKEA cam screw.  I believe there will be a special kind of hell where one spends eternity holding one 300 pound piece of particle board, threading a headless screw through a 1/16” pinhole- trying to meet up with another 300 pound piece of particle board precariously perched in such a way that you can turn the connector head towards plus with your third hand before it falls out of the hole and crushes your foot.  “Place the shmorginshmorgie in the geshmorginforgin and turn the hortenvorten” they say, well I’m not buying it.

What ever happened to guys with names like “Chuck” or “Rocky”, or guys named after their haircut like “Buzz”, that would smoke Lucky Strikes and go to a place like The Woodright's Shop and make furniture out of real wood?  They would join two pieces of wood with dovetail joints and mortise and tenons.  Furniture without that cardboard backing that has a picture of wood printed on it.  Furniture that would last more than two moves across town.  I guess only the Amish build that kind of stuff anymore.  But, I guess if they still made the kind of furniture you pass down to your grandkids, we wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.

That being settled, this is a follow up to the Prison Break! post from earlier this month.  We discussed a few options of what to put Claire in for a bed.  The crib she has been in the last 19 months is one of those with a front that pops off to turn into a day bed.  Great, right? Nope.  We took the front off, and that same night heard the thump of her rolling out of bed.  We then put her mattress on the floor, which she promptly rolled off of, we found that out that night when I went to check on her and she was asleep in her closet.

So we went out and bought a toddler bed.  Great part about that is that it uses the same mattress and bedding as her crib.  Some Lots of ‘IKEA style’ assembly required, however.

I opened the directions. Step one, Shred the styrofoam packing into as many microscopic pieces as possible with the screwdriver so they can’t be picked up by the vacuum.  Step 2, Eat some.  How did I accomplish all of this, you might ask? Well, I had “help”.

I had this stupid thing entirely assembled, and the very last step was to attach the guards that keep her from rolling out.  No hole to screw them into.  Come to find out, I had switched parts E and D.  I took that POS apart 3 times and reassembled it.  Luckily again, I did have “help”.

If by “help” you mean scratching the crap out of the new white finish with a flat head screwdriver.

All in all, this was a good daddy daughter project.  I’ll let you guess how much she stays in it after we put her to bed each night.  Note the spot above her bed where she bit a hole in the drywall.

If all of this is repayment, we must have been really crazy kids.  But, it’s those moments when she spontaneously shows she loves you that make it all worth it.

Prison Break!

Anymore, my days are filled with paperwork and housework. I can get done just about enough housework to break even with what Claire has destroyed that day, and if the wind is blowing right have something resembling dinner ready by the time Elizabeth gets home.

I have a full time class load at school, and right now I’m looking down the barrel at finals week. Also, I am at one stage or another in the police reserve hiring process at 4 different agencies. There are so many very qualified guys and gals anxious to get into a law enforcement career that there are literally hundreds of people clamoring over these precious few unpaid positions. At Marion County Sheriff’s Office alone, there were over 50 applicants who entered the first phase of the testing process; I and 2 of my friends had gotten far enough into the process to be left with around 10-15 people.

So, I have been doing police oral board interviews, filling out job applications, and filling out background check packets. Background check packets are a real treat. Every police agency is different, but for most you have to fill out every address you have ever lived at, every person you have lived with, each job you have ever held, list your debts, bank account balances, list people as character references, any crimes you or any member of your family or friends have committed, etc. And, these character references aren’t like references on a regular job application that have about a 10% chance of being called; these references have 100%chance of getting the 3^rd degree grill treatment. They are sent a packet to fill out to make sure you’re not a dirtbag (or confirm you are a dirtbag, I guess). I feel so bad for my references if I get far enough with the few agencies I have applied with that they each have a separate background check. I guess I’m going to be in the business of buying them beers to make up for it. Another joy is that you can’t just list the people you know who like you, they ask if they know anyone else you know, and so on until they’re talking to the middle school teacher who wanted to stomp your guts out.

There are a lot of people who talk about what bad people some cops are, and that they’re corrupt, and that they’re just out there to flex muscle and bully people around. If they could even begin to grasp what it takes to get into a law enforcement position, they would have a whole different opinion. Those people have seen The Departed and Changeling one too many times.

Back to the matter at hand. In all of this chaos, the only chance I have to take a breath is when Clairey takes a nap. I get a hot shower and enough time to grab a quick bite to eat, then back to the grind. This morning at her usual nap time, about 11:00, I warmed her up some milk, and put her down to sleep. About 15 minutes later while I was warming up my lunch, in walks Claire- bright eyed and bushy tailed. She was smiling ear to ear knowing she had pulled one over on her old man.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The last few days, I have heard screaming coming from her room, only to walk in and find her trapped like this picture below, about ready to gnaw her own leg off coyote style. She is so desperate to get out of her crib that getting bear trapped every once in a while is just the cost of doing business.So, I put her back in her crib to see if she could do it again, and I shot this video. I think this escape trick would leave Houdini scratching his head.

 

 

Elizabeth came home for lunch and watched her do it again, so we talked about crib tents: like this. Ghetto!

I figured I could do the same thing, but the good ol’ boy way, a la duct tape and bailing wire. So, I put a sheet over the top of her crib, and tied it securely at the corners. I just wanted to keep her in until she fell asleep and then I could remove it.

Although it sagged some in the middle, she thought this was the coolest fort she had ever seen, plus she got to sleep in it! Psh, who needs a canopy bed when you have a wrinkled sheet, right? It only needed to last for today’s nap until we can figure out a permanent solution. I proudly walked away, straining my arm from patting myself on the back, to commence my daily routine.

After I finally could tell she had fallen asleep, I went in to check on the newly installed security system, only to find that it had been turned into a leisurely hammock. Whatever it takes to get her to sleep I guess.Outsmarted by a freakin’ 1 year old.

The Vaseline Incident

Although the title is ‘The Vaseline Incident’, that would really be like calling Death Valley ‘warm' -- or the Titanic a ‘rowboat’.

Since I got laid off at the beginning of April, there have been a lot of adjustments to being a stay at home dad. Our little Clairey is the crown ninja of home destruction. She finds and breaks things I didn’t even know we had and turns our house completely upside down à la Tasmanian Devil, all in less time than it takes to toast a piece of bread. And don’t even think about going to the bathroom unless she’s taking a nap!

Part of pursuing a law enforcement career involves doing little things to gain a competitive edge over your fellow candidates. So, I am taking a remedial Spanish class to refresh my skills so I feel more comfortable putting it on a resume. But, this is the eeeeaaaaaasssssyyyyy Spanish. I took Spanish in high school and studied/taught Spanish on my mission- but no certifiable formal training. This week I had a mid-term test, part of which was the geography of all of the Spanish speaking countries in the world (there are 22- with the US being the second most Spanish speaking country by populous, more than any country other than Mexico.), something I have never really studied. To most Americans (I’ll half raise my hand here), all of the Latin American countries are mere appendages to Mexico, I would be surprised if many people could name more than about 10. Go ahead and try. So, what part of Mexico is Guatemala in anyway? :)

Back to the Vaseline Incident. While I was studying for my test, I started to get that feeling every parent gets from time to time, the ‘it’s been a little too quiet for a little too long’ feeling. Imagine my delight as I opened her bedroom door to discover this: 

And this: And when I took the jar away, this:

I could hardly stop laughing long enough to decide what to do. Clairey has very sensitive skin, so the doctor recommended putting the Vaseline on the worst spots. You really need to click on them and zoom in to gain appreciation of the carnage.

They say that Sir Robert Chesebrough, the inventor of Vaseline, used to eat a spoonful of it every day because he believed in his product and its healing powers so much. He did live to be 96, although I’m not sure how much he ate of the Equate Brand Fresh Scented variety. Judging by the jar that Claire ate, I’m guessing she will be alive well into her 200’s, and the layers she applied to her face, hands, eyes and hair should preserve her supple, baby soft skin for many of those years.

So, after a precursory wipe down and a feeble attempt to clean the carpet, I went ahead and tossed her in the shower; which was about as useful as trying to rinse the scales off a fish. If they ever decide the adage “water off a ducks back” could use some updating, I may have just the replacement. The water from the shower beaded up on her like the wax that costs the extra $2 at the car wash. 

What's funny to me is that the seemingly endless pounds of Vaseline that glopped her tiny face, almost to the point she could no longer open her eyes- didn't seem to matter to her a bit. Nor did the fact that trying to stand in the shower was about like Bambi trying to find legs on a frozen pond. Only the fact that I took the slimy jar away from her bothered her!

I shampoed her hair 4 times in an effort to reclaim it, Elizabeth tried again with dishwashing soap. I think we'll just have to let it work itself out naturally, and in the mean time she'll just have to keep that used car salesman shine.

Lesson learned. Lock all doors, hide all the fun stuff out of reach, and for heaven sake never study Spanish again!

Growing Like a Weed

Just a quick note on my lunch break:

Levi took Claire to her 18 month appointment (Yes, she's not quite 18 months yet but we had to get her in before our insurance runs out) last week. She weighed in at 25 lbs 8.5 oz (71st percentile) and measured 34 inches (98th percentile). They say that at 2 years old they are half of their adult size (who is "they" anyhow!?). Let's just keep our fingers crossed that she slows down on growing because she's already looking at 5 feet 7 inches and she's not even to 2 yet!

I hope everyone had as fabulous of an Easter as we did.

I'll try to post some pics tonight. :)

-Elizabeth

Claire Withdrawals

I've been going a little too bonkers the last several weeks to blog. I started a job 3 weeks ago. So far I love it! But it's been quite an adjustment going back to the whole 40 hour work week thing. Not to mention I miss my little Clairey like crazy!

I'm working as an Administrative/Accounting Assistant at the accounting office for several assisted living facilities. It is quite the busy place. I have so many different responsibilities that my day just zooms by. It's an all female office and they have all been so friendly, patient and helpful as I'm learning the ropes. The office is about 5 min from our house and it's been so nice to be able to come home on lunch and get some snuggles, if by luck Claire is awake.

I don't know what we would have done the last several weeks without wonderful in-laws and some fantastic friends that were able to watch Claire, big thank you to them! Levi is going to focus on school for a while so between that and Claire, he is definitely going to have his hands full.

I think the hardest part about this is me giving up control. Realizing that I have to relinquish control over what she eats, when she sleeps and how much TV she is allowed to watch. I ask how their day was and while Levi's telling me I start having these critical thoughts but I have to remember that I didn't always do things perfectly and sometimes even if you try, Claire has different things in mind. It's also been tough just not being around her as much. My (mostly) sweet little girl has been my companion, my buddy, my little shadow, for the last 16 months with very little time spent apart. I so miss all the hours spent playing on the floor, the random moments she would say "Hi" and run up and give me a hug/kiss and the way I missed her and wished she would wake up from her naps. I'm so grateful that I was able to stay home with her as long as I did, I know a lot of woman don't have that luxury. Of course I spend as much time with her as possible when I'm home, but my now 3-4 hours of Claire-time is a huge difference from the 10-12 or so I was spending with her. I'm having Claire withdrawals.

So far our little role reversal has been going quite well. I think it is giving us both a greater appreciation for each other. We realize that neither working full-time or staying home is easy, they both have their challenges and rewards. Although I do have to admit that I really love doing less dishes and housework.

I just got some exciting news today... Eric (my little bro) is coming home to visit Easter weekend! We haven't seen him in nearly 6 months now. We're SO EXCITED! I'm sure he'll just want to spend the whole weekend with his new wifey but hopefully they can squeeze in a little time for us.

Here are some recent pics of you-know-who: