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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Decisions I Never Had to Make Before I Had a Kid

Alternate title: Both Choices Suck

Do I go to the bathroom alone and listen to her scream outside the door the entire time or let her be in the bathroom with me which is just awkward?

The answer was always the first one, but lately the second one has been winning. I'm trying to interest her in the potty so we can start potty training in a few months *fingers crossed*. Instead she plays with her bath toys and leafs through Reader's Digest while I go to the bathroom. The worst part is that in thirteen years she will be whining about how she needs more privacy. And I will bite my tongue and not remind her of the years of my life when I couldn't even go to the bathroom by myself because of her.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Fun Times

Well, my cousin's new baby is named Marielle and if the pictures can be believed, she is absolutely adorable. I have to admit I've been having a bit of baby fever lately, with many new babies in real life and blog land. There was a woman with a tiny little baby sitting in front of us at church on Easter and I was having a hard time listening to the homily because my brain was just going "aaaaawww" the entire time. So I'm very excited for Brook, Brett, Corinne and Marielle to get settled in and to the point that they can contemplate visitors so I can get my little baby cuddles in. I'm not trying to have another baby in the near future, but that doesn't mean I don't want to coo over one!

Of course, seeing newborns also reminds me of how hard having a newborn is. Ramona's first few months were really tough. I felt alone, exhausted, sore and disconnected. The idea of going through all that again is daunting, but I like to think that it will be easier next time since we'll have family around to support us. People always say things like, "Women forget how bad childbirth is and that's why they have more babies" which I think is one of the dumbest things a person could say. It's not like women are stupid. Obviously, pain is something that you can't relate to unless it's immediate, but you can certainly recall your experience. The reason women have more children after the not so pleasant experience of childbirth and caring for a newborn is because 1) they know they can make it through, even though it's tough and 2) they know how rewarding having children is- it's worth it!

But before Joe and I have any more kids, we have to get through this wedding. Only 151 days left, according to weather.com (which tells me how many days are left for some reason?). It's hard to believe. It's dying down a lot. I'm not as worried about it as I was. I feel like everything is coming together and will work out. We have a catering tasting on Sunday. The weekend after that my BFF Lindsey will be out visiting and will finally meet Ramona. Later that month, bridesmaid dresses will be done, and my wedding dress will be started. I've got an idea for shoes and jewelry. We've picked out wedding rings. I'm working on decorations. I've ordered samples of the paper I'm thinking of for invitations. We've been working on the reception playlist. I made an eating plan to help me slim down a bit. Overall, I'm feeling good with all things wedding.

And on top of that, the weather is finally cooperating and Ramona and I were able to play outside tonight. She is learning so much so fast now. I'm constantly surprised by something new she's figured out. Tonight she walked up and down the outside steps without having to scoot on her hands and knees. Out of nowhere, she has a new skill. And every day seems to have a new word or two. Yesterday it was "pleeeease?" My heart melted. It kills me how big she is getting. I'm so proud of her. She is totally amazing and awesome.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Yay!

The new baby is here! I can't wait to see her. :)

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter!

Well, I've been spending a lot of time glancing at my phone and logging into facebook hoping to hear that my cousin has had or is in the process of having her new baby, but we're all still waiting. New babies are so exciting and I honestly can't wait to hold this new little addition to our family, but she is making us all wait! She was due on the 20th and has yet to make an appearance. Of course, she is still in the realm of reasonable gestation and there is no rush (we all know the things we're supposed to say) but I think I speak for everyone when I say, "We can't wait to see you, new baby!"

In old baby news, Ramona is now 18 months old! She had her 18 month appointment Friday and everything looks great. I love her pediatric nurse practitioner sooo much. She is so awesome with Ramona and it makes me really happy. Ramona got three shots, but she handled them pretty well and doesn't have to get anymore until kindergarten. She was pretty feverish and cuddly for about 24 hours after the shots, but she's back to normal and all over the place as usual. She learned some new words this weekend to allay any worries about her toddlerhood becoming official- "mine" and "no".

"Mine" occurred when we got home from church this morning. I think she learned it there today. It was her first time in the toddler room as opposed to the baby room, and she was one of the youngest ones there. When we got home, I gave Ramona her Easter basket. She focused on the chocolate bunny. She picked it up.

"Mine! Mine!"

She was excited. She went for a direct face bite.


She pretended she was going to be nice.
"Hey, friend, let's go for a walk!"
But ultimately, Bunny ended up looking like this:
Later, his eyes were removed, he was decapitated and finally consumed wholly. Ramona was so covered in chocolate by that point that she required a costume change before we went to Joe's parents' for Easter dinner.

Beyond "mine," "no" is absolutely hilarious. Joe and I crack up every time she does it. It started yesterday. Whenever she is not allowed to do something she wants to do or she has to do something she doesn't want to, she cries and screams, "NOOOOOOOOO!" in an over the top tortured manner. Last night we were dying eggs. Ramona was playing happily with some eggs.

But then, Mommy wouldn't let Ramona throw her crayon in the dye!Can you believe that?
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

I have also received "NOOOOOO!!!!" for washing her face and not letting her mash Peeps into the carpet.

Easter was pretty awesome, though. Ramona got four Easter baskets. Wednesday we went to my parents' house and Ramona, Alex, and Reagan had an Easter egg hunt and got Easter baskets. Friday, Joe went out to the bar with a friend from out of town who was visiting (whose first book is being released next week!) along with Tauno and Rob, and Tauno's mom had sent an Easter basket for Ramona when they dropped by the house. Then today she got her Easter basket from us and from Joe's parents. So, she was spoiled as usual. One of her favorite gifts produced one of my favorite pictures:
I love that she loves books. And, because I haven't loaded you guys up with enough pictures, here's a random cute one from a couple weeks ago:

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Rehearsal Dinner

Honestly, I hadn't thought about the rehearsal dinner much. My original plan was just to find a place we could have a bonfire, a pony keg, and order some pizzas. But my plan for that wasn't coming through, so I started googling around for rehearsal dinner spots in Toledo. I ended up at some wedding message board where two possibilities that interested me were mentioned: El Camino Real and Pizza Papalis. I really wanted pizza and not to get too drunk the day before the wedding (and El Camino margaritas would definitely throw that out the window) so I asked Joe what he thought about Pizza Papalis for the rehearsal dinner. It didn't take much to talk him into it. So, we're going to contact them this week and see if they are available that night for a banquet. It looks pretty reasonably priced for what we're expecting to do, but I don't know if there is some sort of hidden rental fee that I don't know about yet, so we'll see if it's worthwhile or not. As of now, it seems like our best bet.

I'm also really excited to get the catering set up. It's the only really big thing left and I want to get it out of the way so I can start focusing on the smaller details like invitations and clothes and stuff like that. I have a pretty good idea of what I want my dress to look like and my grandma has agreed to help me make it! I'm pretty excited but also pretty nervous because I haven't sewed anything in a long time. But I know my grandma will make sure it looks good, so I'm not too worried. My bridesmaids have agreed on a date to meet up for dresses and already have a pretty good idea of what they want, so I'm hoping that goes pretty smoothly. I'm finally starting to feel like this is really going to happen. The planning just never seems to end. I'm guessing that although people are happy to be getting married, the real reason people smile so much at their wedding is because all the planning is FINALLY over.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Sooo Much Going On- Part 2

The past week has been pretty eventful in other ways. Wedding-wise, we met with our potential photographer on Saturday, and we went ahead and made them our for sure photographer. I'm very excited. We made our first payment this week, and even though I'm going way over budget, I'm very happy with them, and Joe is, too. I was pretty gung-ho on them just from the website, but I wasn't sure about Joe. He was noncommital and didn't have much to say either way. I was worried that he thought it was "too hipster." So I was hoping the meeting with the photographers would be convincing.

Luckily, the meeting went really well and Joe seemed as excited as I was on the drive home. Meeting them confirmed that they seemed fun and we looked through a few albums and I think the quality really impressed Joe. So we talked about it during the week and finally picked a package and booked everything. Here's the place we went with. Abby is doing our wedding. I feel really good about it. I think our next step is catering, but we're going to wait until after Easter to work on that since we gave up meat for lent and we want to be able to taste what we order.

Giving up meat has been a lot easier than I thought. I think it really made us think more creatively about food. Joe and I have decided to continue to eat vegetarian two nights a week from now on. It makes us try a lot of new things, helps Joe be more inventive in his cooking, and is generally pretty healthy. I'll admit there was a meal of nothing but deep fried vegetables in there that probably wasn't very healthy, but it's really fried pickles fault for being so delicious.

After our photography meeting last Saturday, we finally got to paint the living room. It's white and it looks so much better. I really love it. But, we only painted the walls and later agreed that we should paint the ceiling, so I STILL can't want to hang my pictures. I think we'll paint the ceiling soon so I can finally finish decorating in here. I really want to cross it off my list. After that, we need to do the dining room and that one is going to take some work. It's not much wall space, but it's a lot of trim so there's going to be a lot of taping things off. I did pick a pretty blue for it, though.

I'm also in the process of getting things together for starting back to school. I paid my balance for Summer semester yesterday and need to go pick up my books. I'm still waffling between being excited to go back and being in no way excited to go back. Yes, I want to get my Master's, but the thought of homework and writing papers again is really dampening my enthusiasm.

Other than that, Joe's grandma passed away this week, so we went to Indiana Wednesday night for the showing (which we barely made it in time to catch) and the funeral on Thursday. I had only recently met her, so I wasn't too personally affected, but I was glad I could go to support Joe and his family. I was also glad Ramona was able to meet her before she passed, and I think having Ramona running around and being silly really helped raise a lot of people's spirits. The ceremony was really nice, and it was my first Catholic funeral, so it was interesting to note the subtle differences, which were mainly that they do communion and stress that the body will rise again. Also, everyone stood at the entrance of the church until the ceremony started and followed the body in. Basically, my usual experience with a mass- similar enough that I feel at home but just different enough that I screw something up and feel stupid.

Joe seemed to do pretty well. Funerals always bring up so many feelings. Not only about missing and mourning the person who died, but stirring up thoughts of your own mortality, and how you would cope with the loss of others. So, there were definitely some dark moments, but there was also a lot of familial bonding and I got to meet some of Joe's relatives from farther away that I didn't know. And Joe's mom seemed to be doing pretty well. It's been a hard week for her, but she has a lot of faith and I think it's helping her a lot.

So, it's been a pretty busy week full of tons of varying emotions. But it usually is.

Sooo Much Going On- Part 1

Man, I have wanted to update this for days now but have been too busy doing stuff. So I might break this into a couple different posts so I can cover all the awesome. Or not. We'll see.

First of all, this was one of those "someone dialed up Mony's IQ" weeks. She's figured out so many new things and it's hilarious and adorable. I mean, all the sudden she says all kinds of stuff. And she said her first sentence- "I got it!" (Thanks, Kai Lan.) Remember how much she likes to sing EIEIO during old McDonald? Now she actually sings it during the right part of the song instead of at the end. And yesterday when I got home from work, we had our usual giant hug of reunification and then I set her down and walked over to the bathroom and she said, "potty." This was a big deal because usually if I set her down when I have to go to the bathroom she cries and I tell her, "Mommy has to go potty." This time, she knew I had to go to the potty and she didn't cry because she understood what was happening! Amazing! She is constantly singing, which I absolutely love. We are singing buddies. And she is getting really good at imitating things Joe and I say. Or that DJ Lance says.



And- this was so cute my heart melted all over my lungs and created a huge mess- one of the songs that I've sang to Ramona since she was born is "I Love My Ramona!" There is an Andrew WK song called "I Love NYC" which I have adjusted the lyrics to:

I love my Ramona!
Oooooooh yeah! My Ramona!
I love my Ramona!
OH! YEAH! My Ramona!
So the other day Ramona wandered into the dining room (out of my sight as I was on the couch.) If I'm being too lazy to follow her as she wanders the house, I usually sing one of our songs so she'll come back in the living room. So I sang "I love my Ramona!" And a cute little toddler voice came back with, "Ooooooh yeah!" Joe and I both just looked at each other with huge grins because it was so adorable.

But even more than the new words, it's apparent that she is thinking in a more advanced way. She seems to be developing the ability to think about things that aren't immediately happening and to even have an imagination. It's very exciting to see her do something out of nowhere. I just love watching her learn and grow. The other day she was picking up Joe's cell phone and holding it up to her ear. "Hai-d'oh." So I went in the other room and called her from my cell phone. She babbled on the phone with me for a few minutes. Then I said bye and hung up and Joe said she looked pretty crestfallen when I stopped talking.

The biggest thing about it is just realizing what a giant brain sponge she is right now. And that she has been for awhile. I'm finally seeing that she really does understand much more than she can communicate. The way she knows and loves all the little songs and rhymes I've made up for her really blows my mind. And the amount of things she's figured out from just observing us with no effort whatsoever on our part to teach it to her is staggering. I'm really enjoying all these new skills.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Anniversary

So Friday was my and Joe's official five years of togetherness- very exciting! I took the day off work, not so much for the anniversary as much as I had a lot of errand type things I needed to get done. Mostly, getting my Ohio license and getting Ramona's 18 month doctor appointment set up. (Can you believe it? 18 months!) The license getting was a success and (bonus!) I have the best driver's license picture EVER. Unfortunately I didn't get the car registration done since I had to go to another location and the day is only so long, so I have to do that later this month (probably the same day I take Mony for her appointment.) Other than that, Joe and I didn't do much except say things like, "wow, five years! I love you!" every once in awhile. He got Chinese take out for dinner and we watched a Devito movie. Ramona fell asleep early and it was adorable- she fell asleep eating her dinner. I'll upload the video later, but it was super cute.

Saturday and Sunday I didn't feel that well. I slept a lot. We went to Joe's parents on Saturday and coincidentally got a second dose of Devito because they watched Mars Attacks! So two movies in one weekend. Wow, now I just have to write about them.

Sunday I finally got a hold of the last person for my wedding party crew to see if she was willing to do it, and I got another yes, so the wedding party on my side will be Kathleen, Erin, Lindsey, Kelly, and Nina. Joe has yet to talk to anyone I think. But that's his business. Anyway, I also started working on paper flowers for the wedding. I really like how they're turning out, but they are SO time consuming. Luckily I have plenty of time until the wedding, so I guess I'll just keep busting out a few a day. Lastly, I decided to suck it up and spend the cash on the wedding photography. We have a meeting this weekend with the photographer so I'm really excited. I'm hoping it goes well, because internet gallery-wise, I really love the work, so I'm hoping I like them in person and their real life examples. I do have a couple other photogs I'm interested in if it doesn't work out this weekend, but I have a feeling it will.

And in "Lord only knows what will amuse this child" news, Ramona has had the time of her life playing with a pillow case the last couple of days. What is that about?


Also, over the last couple of weeks Ramona started trying to constantly eat cat food again. She did this when she was around 9 months old, but she hadn't thought about it much recently. Then all the sudden she became obsessed with it. If you take your eyes off her for a minute she will run to the kitchen and start eating the cat's food. Anyway, when I was at work, Joe found Ramona predictably eating cat food. However, she classed it up a little by using chopsticks.
Joe thought it was hilarious and was kind enough to snap a picture for me to enjoy when I got home.