Baby it's COLD outside!

Every winter I remember that I hate the cold - I hate being cold - and the only reason I no longer want to move down south is because I like fall and spring too much and appreciate their contrast with the freezing cold of winter. That and snow days, 2-hour delays and early dismissals. But seriously, it went from a bunch of peasant days to - COLD!!

So we are getting the house ready for our trip to NH this week - still lots to do. One of my students is house/dog sitting for us so I feel like it really has to be clean since she may stay there some nights. Not much time for cleaning though - Friday Eric was at the football game (we got beat bad!) and I was just so exhausted when I got home I couldn't do a thing. We resited turning the TV on for most of the evening, but Genni started to ask for Elmo, and I thought that would be a great time for some shuteye. So I layed down on the couch with Genni next to me in my arms and Wallace curled up on my stomach (he thinks he's a cat sometimes I think). It was great till Elmo was over, then I had to get up. Saturday we went wine tasting, Genni was with us so they kept giving her grape juice everywhere, and she loved the food they gave us at each winery. (don't worry she din't get any alcohol!). It was quite a late night though after we went out to dinner. Of course Genni didn't fall asleep in the car so I still had to get her to sleep when we got home. She has been quite difficult at bedtime lately, she asks for all the typical things to get out of sleeping - apple juice, another story, the bathroom. Then once I leave the room she gets out of bed to get book and toys and she has recently begun taking her pants and diaper off too. On Sunday afternoon, after an hour and a half of this, she didn't take a nap at all. Then on the way to the church dinner she fell asleep in the car. We laid her on the couch in when we got there and she woke up 45 minutes later in a not so great mood. She has also started to freak out if we close her bedroom door. Luckily she is a pretty heavy sleeper so we can make a god deal of noise without waking her up. She didn't get up till 4 today, which meant 4-5 hours of sleep in a row for me, something I haven't had in quite a while!

Well back to class, I'll finish later:)

Winter is here!

Let's see - what has happened since my last post? Well this past weekend I played with the Williamsport Symphony. Great fun, I was almost accurate with all of my playing. If the conductor hadn't taken Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien faster than anyone on the planet I would have been fine. You should have heard the wind players griping in the back - none of us where happy. Bolero went fine, and the bandalino tune was very nice as well. I got a lot of work done when I wasn't playing as well. Then Sunday I went to see East's show - Fantasticks - kudoes to all for a well done performance! Last night we had a nice family evening at home - I even got to nap on the couch:). Despite my nap this morning was very difficult to face and so I called in for a half day and enjoyed a relaxing morning with my ever bright and cheery daughter (really she was I'm not being sarcastic). My dining room table arrived before we left for school and it looks SOO good in my dining room. I've never had new furniture like that before so it's very exciting. Eric's football team won on Friday 28-26 and are playing again this weekend in Rochester. Go West! So Eric is off to Rochester on Friday for the game, and then we are going wine tasting on Saturday.
So Genni gets more vocal every day. "Don't even think about it Wallace!, Wallace give that back right now! No Wallace!" Having a puppy has certainly brought on more full sentences. Wallace is being pretty good, still a chewer of all things moving or standing still, but he can generally control his bladder, which makes me happy. If there is a single tooth mark on my new table I'm going to take him to the shelter though!
Well - hopefully we are in for a relaxing week...cheers!

And Life rolls on....

Well - although the day off was wonderful - I'm all messed up now as to what day of the week it is. Today is Thursday, but tomorrow is conferences so no students. So really it's like Friday, but it's the second day of school in a row and the third one this week...argh. I have managed to cram all of my lessons into 3 days, 4-12, and so I have absolutely no time to do all of the other millions of things on my desk. Including practicing for the gig this weekend (some seriously fast parts that I need to be able to do!). Today is choir, tomorrow is rehearsal in Williamsport and the game in Syracuse, Saturday I will be in Williamsport the majority of the day for rehearsal and concert, and Sunday I have church and then go to see dad's show at East - but Eric has a concert at CMOG. Whew! Then we still have a whole week of school again! Here I go complaining again -I'll have to stop that.

Anyway - Genni is so much fun now, we were sitting at dinner last night (pizza, I totally didn't feel like cooking or eating leftovers!) and Genni started to say the same thing over and over - mom and I looked at each other confused trying to figure out what she was saying. She was reciting one of her books! "The moon is up, it's getting late, let's get ready to celebrate it's pajama time!" Of course there were a few words missing "The moon is up it's getting late, let's celebrate" so I said it with her to help her. Then she was in charge of whose turn it was. "Ok mommy's turn. Genni's turn, mommy say it with me" Sooo cute. Then we went in the living room and watched her video that I put together and I put the microphone close to her and recorded all of her comments. I'm going to extract them and put them in the video, some day she'll love it. Actually she is very fond of listening to her own voice even now:). Of course she is becoming more independant every day and wants to do everything "myself mommy myself". It's really a lesson in patience to let her do all of the thing I usually just do. I know she needs to learn, but does it have to be when I'm running late for school? She can now say music (not mookey) and balloon (boodan). Fun times:)

In other news - Wallace can now climb over the baby gates, so the good news is I can take out my kitchen rugs, the bad news is that I have to discipline him constantly to keep him from chewing up Genni's toys. He is now in his crate at night as well as when we are gone. In fact he went in it a bit early this morning since he peed on our bed when upstairs with Eric. What do dogs think? Genni is doing better at potty training then he is sometimes!!! She got to wear her "dora's (pull ups)" because she went in the potty all by herself - I had left her to get the dog away from something or other and she comes out with no diaper on saying - "mommy I did it!" "really hunny? (disbelieving)" "wow you really did, good job!!"

Life's small joys - till next time!

Seriously?

Well good and bad things abound - Last night my daughter took over an hour to get to bed in the first place, and then was awake from 12:30-3:30. Finally falling asleep in our bed to wake up at 7:30 - then I got her to go back to bed till 9. Seriously? One day in the week we have off and I spent it awake half the night? I even woke up Eric after the fourth time I got out of bed - but she just cries harder if it's not mommy so I got up anyway. hhhhh - so even if we didn't have today off I probably wouldn't have gone in in the morning anyway. Such is life.
Good things - we went to the store and found a dining room set we like - affordable (especially with our connections) - so it's being delivered on Tuesday. I'm so excited to have a real dining room set! Our current one has was Eric's grandmother's and it was in the house during the flood in Corning - so it's basically falling apart and it's just not our style. It will be donated to the school so we can use it in the play - so it will still get some use.
I'm currently at West killing time since my first student called 5 minutes before her lesson started to tell me she wasn't coming. I have another one after her so now I have 45 minutes to kill. Of course I could be using that time to practice my own oboe since I have a symphony gig this weekend and haven't played the music yet - but no I left my oboe at home. What a stupid place for it to be! I would also cancel this other lesson, but do you think I have her phone number? Nope. Oh well - back to killing some time. :) Cheers!

One day of school - then sleeping in again!

I don't know who had the idea to have us go to school for one day and then have a day off - but it totally rocks. It was so much easier to get up this morning knowing that tomorrow I get to sleep in. Of course at 6:50 today my daughter grumpily awoke because I woke her up, and yesterday she was up at 6. So maybe this will fool her into sleeping later tomorrow! I don't have anything else interesting to say - it's still Monday morning and brain is not yet awake. Random note - the times that it says I'm posting on the blog are like 3 hours off and I have no idea how to fix it - anyone have any ideas? Cheers to a relaxing week!

Potty Time

Although my daughter has gone in the potty a few times this week - this title refers more to the fact that she is currently watching Elmo's Potty Time so that I can have a few minutes to myself. I was reading through my blog entries and realized I hadn't posted since Tuesday. Also that in almost every post a complain about being busy - not that I won't keep complaining - but at least I realize it now:) Haha
Anyway - Wednesday we all spent at home, which was nice - Thursday was choir for me and a reahearsal for Eric, so Genni came to choir with me. She was SOOOO good, she just read her books and walked around a little and listened to us. I was just so happy. Friday Eric had Area All State so it was just me and Genni. We went Walmart for some stuff and I solved my "Genni up" problem in the store. If I put her in the backpack she actually lets me shop! Super cool. So that brings us to today, traveling to Binghamton for the West High football game. They won 12-8 with an amazing interception in the last 30 seconds that kept the other team from scoring the winning touchdown. So this means that Friday Eric will be going to Syracuse for the next game, I will be in Williamsport for rehearsal and grandma will be with Genni at home.
Genni fell asleep in the car on the way home and woke up in one of her moods, hence my last resort Elmo video. As the video is now over my daughter is now trying to push all of the buttons no the TV - my cue to stop typing. On the plus side Wallace is chilling out next to me on the couch chewing his bone. I guess you can't have it all:)

Time Change

OK, I take it back, I hate the time change. I'm hungry at 9:30 in the morning for lunch, starving at 4:30 for dinner, and all of us where exhausted by 7PM last night. I even put Genni to bed early, something I never do because I'm so protective of the time I have to spend with her. She didn't wake up till 4 though - and againspent the hour between 4 and 5 trying to get back to sleep between Eric and I, fidgeting all the while. Tomorrow I'm taking her back to her bed if she appears in our room at 4:00. Grrr. The ONLY benefit is that when I take Wallace out in the morning it's actually light out.
Speaking of Wallace, he's 4 months old now and still having accidents inside. Is that normal?? I mean shouldn't he have figured it out by now? He'll spend a half hour outside, then be in for less than a minute and go on the floor. It's infuriating! I want to put away the mop, take out my kitchen carpets and allow him to be in the rest of the house with us all the time. I want to put away the baby gates for good! For those of you who don't know, Wallace is a beagle pup, not a person. :)
Busy Tuesday's - I have lessons after school and then Eric has some rehearsal tonight or something. I guess Tuesday is going to be hang out with grandma day for Genni. That's the bell...back to teaching! Till later

Monday Monday

Well - although it did not mean my daughter slept any longer (in fact this morning she spent the hour between 4 and 5 fidgeting in our bed instead of sleeping) I did enjoy the extra hour before I needed to be at church on Sunday, and at least for today it feels better to have light in the morning. We had a nice weekend of plays, playing and cleaning (why is it that laundry and dishes are NEVER done! If we just didn't eat or change our clothes my life would be so much easier!)
Friday I went to see the West High play - the kids did a really nice job (I was also scouting for who might be able to do which part for the musical :)) and I imposed on my friend Laurelyn to keep my daughter for the evening so I could see it (my husband being the tech director and all). I guess most people actually do something on Halloween. I grew up in the country and don't remember going house to house for candy. I do remember going to the mall trick-or-treating once and getting BAGS of candy though. Luckily my daughter doesn't know any better yet so hopefully we can put off trick-or-treating for awhile. But anyway, that's why I couldn't find a babysitter. Luckily Genni and Graham play really well together and so didn't drive Laurelyn crazy. Genni then spoke of nothing but Graham the whole next day.
Saturday we hung out with daddy till after nap and then went back to see Laurelyn and Graham again. I am SOOO bad at sewing that Genni's curtains have been halfway done for ages. So since Laurelyn is much more talented with a sewing machine, and I seem to be able to handle the pinning part, we got some more seams done on her curtains in between toddler questions.
Sunday was church, spaghetti lunch (youth group fundraiser) and then nap and to mom and dad's for dinner. The play is now finished and the set struck so Eric should be home all night tonight - yay! This also means I can go to the grocery store tonight without Genni - she is an angel for the babysitter when they go to the store, but when I go with her she spends the entire time crying because I won't carry her. Now I know she isn't that heavy, but have you ever tried to push a cart, carry a two-year old, cross things off of your list, and actually think about what you are putting in the cart? Luckily I wasn't trying to keep a tally of prices in my head too! So, as much as I love my daughter, I'm looking forward to traversing the grocery store without a screaming child:).
Oh! one last thing - I get to play with the Williamsport Symphony on the 14/15th! I'm super excited to have a proffesional gig, it's been so long since I played with that quality of ensemble. We are playing Ravel's Bolero, Tchaikovsky's Cappricio Italien and something else I don't know. But anyway - super fun! Till next time!