The Weekend Yay!

I am sooooooo happy that the weekend is here. The time after our 3 day weekend in October till Thanksgiving break seems to drag on so much. I guess cause it's a busy time of year. What am I saying - every time of year is busy. Genni was a pumpkin last night for Halloween - sadly I have no pictures as I have no clue where the camera is (I'll bet anything it's at school with my husband). I'm almost done with my video collage of Genni - it only takes 12-13 minutes to view a few pictures from every month of her life (mostly - I think we are missing a month or two). Videos are scarce(sp) but it's so funny to look at all those pictures at once and see how much she has grown. It's a good thing I'm starting now - now I can just keep adding to it as she gets older. Every time I pick up my computer she wants to watch it - making comments like "Genni naked!" "Genni sleeping!" "mommy sleeping!" Maybe I should record her comments and add them to the video - haha - she'll especially love the "Genni naked!" one when she gets older.

Speaking of getting older - every night after we read her book in bed I get up and turn out the lights, turn her music (mookey as Genni says it) on and then we say good nights. She generally lists every person she knows as well as Elmo, the dogs and some othe inanimate objects we used that day. Last night however the only person she would say good night to was Graham. I hadn't seen Graham at the parade so wasn't sure she had seen him till then. I kept asking her if she wanted to say good night to anyone else and she finally said "hugs and kisses" "for Graham?" "yeah (cute smile)". Boy oh boy if these two ever date I'm going to bring this up - how cute is that!

Well - now I have to start thinking about the musical - and the concert - and solo festival - and Christmas presents - and....it's a good thing I get to sleep in tomorrow.

Myself mama - do it myself.

Well - Genni has become quiet the independant. She cries whenever I buckle her in the car cause she wants to do it herself (although realitically she never has and can't yet get the bottom buckles herself, though she can do the top one with help). Sometimes there is just not enough time to let her do it - like at 7:15 when we should have left 5 minutes ago and Mommy is going to be late to school and still has to go to the babysitter. Sigh - or when she wants to put her socks and shoes on herself, again always at the times I'm most in a hurry. If I didn't like sleep quite so much it wouldn't be a problem. I'm just not a morning person. Though there are some benefits to "do it myself". On Friday, after having already gotten up twice to get my daughter more food - she was still hungry, so she went to the fridge herself, got out a cheesestick, and closed the door. I was so impressed, I said "Genni did you close the refrigerator door?" "Yes I did". Wow, ok -"here Genni can you put this in the garbage for me?" "Ok mommy". Sweet! Now if she was just big enough to do the dishes! Haha.
I guess Grandma got the first taste of Genni's more toddler type behavior yesterday. Usually Genni is awesome for everyone else, and saves all her testing for her mother. Grandma was watching her yesterday while I was teaching lessons and Eric was doing the play and I hear that my wonderful daughter said the word "no" more often than any other. Grandma even had to threaten a spanking! They say it only gets better from here:)
Well, the play is this weekend so Eric will be busy, but my weekend is pretty free. As always I'm looking forward to Saturday morning sleeping in and hanging out in bed for entirely too long while my daughter watches Word World and Big Big World and other educational programs. Then we'll go downstairs and she'll want to watch Elmo - to which my reply is always "Elmo is for after nap hunny" and without fail she will cry and complain till I send her to her couch. After a few moments of my ignoring her she'll say "mommy kisses" and come give me kisses with a cute little smile on her face. I think that smile means that I may have won the battle - but she is winning the war - haha:) Oh well - little miss independant - so long as I keep getting "mommy kisses" you can have your way every once in a while.
Till later!

Friday - Cleaning - and a big girl!

Well the week's almost over....East vs. West tonight. Don't know how the football teams will do, but to be honest I know how the bands will do:). I'm looking forward to the weekend, though it is pretty busy too. I'm starting to crumble under the pressure of working all day, trying to spend time with my daughter at night, a puppy, a dog and cleaning the house. Most people would say to just not clean - but then I feel worse cause I have a messy house and it's not like it goes away just cause I don't do it or some magic fairy will clean the house for me. It's still there, just worse. It just never ends...

You know the rhyme about the little girl with the little curl - when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was awful. I believe they were talking about my child. When she is happy she is sooo much fun. Such a big smile with dimples and laughing like crazy. She is certainly happy the majority of the time too. But when she is not happy, well there is no in between. Dr. Jekyle/Mr.Hyde baby. Oh wait, my daughter informed me last night that she was not a baby, that she was a big girl. Seriously those words came out of her mouth - I have no idea where she got them. It was way cute, and a little sad. Of course I'll still call her my baby - she'll have to deal - but she's right, she's not a baby anymore. sigh.

Looking forward to the weekend....

Cranky napper

My girl wakes up soooo cranky from her naps sometimes that I wish she hadn't even taken one! Sometimes she'll just cry non-stop for a half an hour once she gets up and she can't decide whether she wants to cuddle or not so I hug her and she alternates between pushing me away and being more upset because I'm not holding her. It was so bad the other day on the way home from school/sitter's that I slammed on the brakes and pulled over (we all know that driving while your child is screaming is great for the nerves) and told her I would wait till she calmed down before I drove home. Thank goodness she stopped! I just wish she could tell me how she was feeling when she acts like that. It's so confusing!

Anyway, after another episode of post nap crying in the car, and then totally ignoring mommy's questions about her day, we arrived at Daddy's school for the hand off. Then Eric went to go get mom and take her and Genni home so he could come back and do conferences. Sometimes the most complicated part of our day is scheduling - gee I can't wait till that includes driving Genni (and whoever else may come along) to pratices too! Daddy got home right at bed time, so he got to say good night to Genni and we actually were able to spend some time together for once. Of course our time together was more spent watching CNN and complaining about FOX news coverage and rejoicing in the polls and agreeing that we can't wait for this election to be over! But hey, at least we saw each other:).

Even though Eric will be gone till late on his Eastman trip, at least I don't have any duties after school except dogs and children. If I can finally finish all of the dishes, I'll have a very relaxing evening. Cheers!

Random thought - SNOW IN OCTOBER!!!

Busy Times!

I was just talking with a friend at lunch about what I had to do this week - and she said "don't you ever get tired? How do you do it all?". I guess that is just life for me and my family. We like to be busy, but we treasure our "do nothing" time as well. Sometimes the best thing is to just not have anything planned, but then be spontaneous and do something fun. No pressure that way. Anyway, today I have a bunch of lessons and Eric has conferences in the PM so between the two of us and mom someone will be the Genni. I'm not exactly sure how dinner is going to get cooked or if my dishes will ever get done, but that's OK.

My daughter is so much fun, she is talking a ton now and likes to tell us about her day. Unfortunately she seems to hold grudges because it doesn't seem to matter that Wallace pushed her down a week and a half ago, she tells me about it every day. She also tells on each of us to the other one. If I'm in the shower, I'll get out and Genni says "daddy spankin me" which really means he either yelled at her or even just told her not to do something. It could even have been two days ago and she just remembered it, you never know. We have a dog and a puppy, so between the two of them we give a lot of "dog" commands. So now my daughter thinks that if she wants my attention she should call "mommy come here" and pat her legs. That part is funny, the bad part is that she says "mommy no!" just like I say "Wallace no!". I keep telling her I'm not a dog - she'll get it eventually.

The other new thing lately is that while your holding her she'll grab your cheeks between her hands and kiss you. It's so adorable, cause then she hugs your head really hard. Kids drive us crazy sometimes, but they are so precious. We keep hoping for another one, I'm sure it'll happen eventually (though frustrating to wait). Remind me when I'm sick and tired at the end of the day of teaching while being pregnant that I asked for this!

Well - back to my busy life....till next time!

Here we go....

Well, I've never done a blog before, so I guess it's about time I catch up with the times! It was a busy weekend - well not really. Saturday we just sat around all day and did family stuff - which was awesome. Of course the house didn't get any cleaner - but that's totally overrated right? Then Sunday we all slept too late, had to rush to get to church and get the cake ready for the church luncheon, then to mom and dads to move the futon and let the dogs play, hen to MU for Octoboefest. We didn't get home till 9:30, so Genni got to bed late again. Hopefully that doesn't mean she'll be cranky today for her sitter's house!
I finally finished my new book - I'm a fantasy nut and was reading the latest Eragon book, was sorely dissapointed to find out the the trilogy has turned into a series and that the book I was ready didn't have any closure! Of course I'm happy to have another book to look forward to, but I would have liked to know from the begnning what to expect. Oh well.
Our friends sold their house and my daughter's sitter agreed to keep her through the winter till they can move and get settled - so no more stress there!
It's going to be a busy week as Eric will be working on the play all week since the show is next week - but at least we have Thanksgiving to look foward to and the musical will be starting soon too.

Busy life - tonight hopefully I can tame the jungle that is my kitchen and bring the puppy one step closer to keeping the kitchen floor dry! Cheers!