Crawling

Katherine crawled today! She has been getting around for weeks now but today was the first day that it was real crawl. Before this, we really haven't been sure how she was getting from point a to point b- it was some funny combination of scooting and sitting up, then falling down, then sitting up to cover ground- rather creative really... Have to get off the computer now. I am re-reading Expecting Adam which is one of my all time favorites. Am reading for a new book club that I am joining. Read it the first time before I was a mom so I am very interested to see what I think of it now...

Take a deep breath

This afternoon, Caroline, Katherine and I went on our first About Town Moms tour. This is a great group that runs historical tours around town that are child and stroller friendly. I was so proud of us- we drove downtown and went on a tour of the canal walk- very cool. Caroline did great- she struggled at first because the guide had said that she could get out of her stroller which I didn't want her to do because of her tendency to bolt but I finally let her out and she did great! Well, then it was time to come home and I could not get the stroller back in the car. It took me a good 10 minutes to figure it out. By this time, Katherine, who never cries- is screaming so I am quite flustered... Then on the way home, someone will not let me switch lanes so I miss our turn. We end up having to take Broad St all the way home. I am getting quite exasperated as we sit behind many cars trying to make left hand turns. I hear the "Mommy..." from the back seat and say, "What" in that tired voice that I use too much. Caroline replies, "Take a deep breath, Mommy." Enough said.

Gymnastics

Again, really tired so I'm going to be short but...
Caroline had her first gymastics class today- she loved it! I talked to the teacher after class- not before (long story). I said something like, "How did she do? This was her first class." and she was shocked- she said, something like, "Wow, it seemed like she'd been doing gymnastics forever..." The place seems a little serious- her class was not but I sat with lots of moms of older children- I think this is where the "real" gymnasts go- a little bit scary. And Katherine- I woke up from her am nap to go the grocery store and then woke her again to go to gymnastics and she literally just played on the floor or in my lap, happily, the entire time. It was actually great because there were a couple of other baby siblings of other students there so it was like a little play group for her! More tomorrow...

I just want to be plain

Brains...
Please take a minute to discuss the results of yesterdays election with anyone that will listen. What an exciting change we have going on in our country!

Babies...
Yesterday, I asked Caroline to hold Katherine's bottle for me while I ran to get something for Caroline- an all to common activity... Caroline looked at me and said, "No Mom, I just want to be plain." I really think that she meant that she just wanted to sit and do nothing. She wanted a request of hers to not be part of a deal. To not be an ok I'll do it if you do this. The more I thought about it, two things came to mind. The first was that she really had a good point. How rare it is for her to ask me something and for me to just do it. To do it without saying, in just a minute, when I finish this, or if you do this- to just do it. Today I will focus on just doing it- when it is possible- so that she can just be plain. It also made me think about how rare it is that I can just be plain and how great it would it I could be plain more often. This really is at the crux (spelling?) of the tiredness, the stress of motherhood, I think. It is so rare to not be multi-tasking- if I am not physically multi-tasking, I am certainly thinking about something else, while I am doing whatever it is that I am doing. My goal for today, is to try to be plain more often. Will let you know how this goes...

Too tired

I really feel like I have a ton to say today but I am just so sleepy- we were up a ton with Katherine last night for reasons unknown and had our typical 5:40 am wake up call from Caroline. I need to go to bed! More to come...

Old funny things...

Still trying to catch up on things that I should have been writing down- collecting all my random scraps of paper from the last couple of weeks...
- When we asked Caroline why Ragaen was her best friend, she said, "Because she is kind and she doesn't throw stuff at me." If only relationships remained this simple...
- Katherine is such the prototypical second child. I was feeding her a few weeks ago and I had gotten up at least 7 times to attend to an immediate need of Caroline's. I walked back in and there was Katherine, barely 6 months- trying so hard to give herself her own bottle! Poor thing...
Will get more organized again tomorrow- just really want to go sit on the couch...

Just checking in

Just checking in. I am determined to enter something every day that I possibly can. Carol and Frank are here today. I love it when they visit! We had a nice relaxed morning, went to Button and Bows for new puzzles for Caroline and now Carol is making yummy chicken parm for dinner while Rob makes sauce. Caroline is just great with these puzzles- she works and works and really doesn't seem to get frustrated- what a smart girl she is. Katherine is taking a nice long afternoon nap which is so hit or miss. It's two days in a row though so maybe we are starting a trend. Anyway, really don't have time to say much more...

Disrupted plan

I feel like a real dork- I'm in another library working on this! I have a sitter again today and we are working so hard not to spend money that the library really seems like the best place to spend my time!

Brains...
Hopefully, you all are doing better than I am. I posted a question yesterday that I never discussed with anyone! I'll try again... I listened to Andersson Cooper on a radio talk show. He was talking about the absolute horrors of life in the Congo. Your challenge today is to learn something new about this conflict. I think I will go and read his blog...

Babies...
Funny day again with the girls. Katherine slept straight through the night again. I think we are four out of five nights- quite exciting. Caroline also went through the night which scarily is worth a comment. She did though start her day at 5:07. The funny part of this is that just last night I decided I would start waking up at 5:15 to get just a little bit of time for myself. She has been waking at 5:45 and I am just so grumpy at that time. I am then extra grumpy if I haven't even managed to go to the bathroom before she starts calling my name. So the stinker woke up at 5:07!! I decided that I would still go with my plan- she has to stay in her room until 6 so I figured I would give it a try. The only problem was that I didn't want to go downstairs in case she came running so I was rather a prisoner to our room. I read a little bit of a book that I learned about in yoga- designed to give me inspiration for the day. I also tried to do a little bit of yoga. This all went well until she started screaming. It was all quite funny- me trying to be all zen among the sreaming... the Loscalzo's come this weekend- actually in a few hours so that should be nice. It is always so nice to have them- they are so helpful and so interesting to talk to...

Old thoughts...
I do want to post things as they come to mind that should have been in a blog if I had been doing one all along... On Halloween, Caroline asked if Katherine was goign to come trick or treating with us. I said yes and she asked if the people would give Katherine bottles- how cute is that!

Today

Technology fasinates me. I am in the library posting this. I have just checked my e-mail and will probably then use word to work on a writing assignment for my class and then e-mail it home. Truly you can be connected at all times. Good and bad. I am in the children's section right now- just picked up a bunch of books for C and a few more yoga tapes (more on this later!). It is so sad because there are tons of kids here playing games on the computer- so not what the libary is for... anyway, off my soap box.

Brains...
R, my husband and only reader (I'm not ready to draw attention to this yet!), asked what the brains part of my title was all about. I am still trying to work out the kinks in my mind but I thought it might be neat to post a question each day that people could discuss with friends, husbands etc... I feel, as a stay at home mom, so starved for thinking time, brain time, time when I can feel like I am still smart. I know it takes a lot of brains to run a household, stimulate C and K, keep everyone safe but it is such a different kind of thinking. I miss the old kind of thinking. So here is today's question... I am stealing this straight from Mitch Albums (spelling?) new book. If you could spend one more day with a person you have lost, who would it be and what would you talk about. Go talk about it with someone- get the brain working!

Babies...
I am struggling to function today. As usual, I have not gotten enough sleep to. Caroline had a dream last night and then wanted my to make sure that back up bunny was on his pillow. This was two separate visits. Then Katherine was up from 1:30 to 3:30, screaming. This is so infuriating as we finally had her going through the night- Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights she slept and then that... We think that it is all the work she is doing to crawl- she is just so close... Watching her is truly amazing- she has really gone through all the steps and is now just working to coordinate it all- she can do each piece separately but just can't put it together. It's really interesting and seems to be a theme- I just don't remember much of Caroline's babyhood. I really don't remember her going through all of the crawling steps quite so deliberately. The other interesting this is that Katherine is going to crawl before Caroline. It's so funny because their personalities are so different. Katherine is so much more laid back. I'm glad that later in life she will be able to say that she did something first!

Anyway, time to wrap this up so I can get home in time to send Mary Lou on her way. More later...

Just need to add a Caroline comment... Rob asked her how her day was today and she replied, "Not good. I was up last night so much." So funny and so true!

First Blog

I've been wanting to do this for a long time so I'm just going to jump in and start it. I'm afraid if I wait until I have a "good" title and a real plan this will never get done. My goal is to finally start doing two really important things. First, I want to do a better job of documenting my girl's childhoods. To date, all their pertinent info is stuffed into the bottom desk drawer... Not such a reliable system. And second, I really, really want to write. I don't know what yet- fiction, non-fiction, short, long- I don't know, but I want to write something. I'm hoping that by doing this everyday, it will get me started... So, we're off. Good luck to me! I'm going to just go ahead and publish this because I'm dying to see if it worked...