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when they say it goes fast? this is what they are talking about.

Weekends like this make me completely understand that frantic-nostalgic tone in the voices of parents with grown children when they say, "Enjoy it!  It goes so fast!"  

These days when it is sunny and cool and Natalie asks for "One more snuggle, Mama!"  & work is the last thing on my mind & the house is un-dirty enough for me to just not worry about it, I get it.  These really are the days that fly by in a blink and will be the memories I hold fast to when my child no longer reaches for my hand and needs me to nuzzle into her cheek at bedtime.  These frustrating moments (like when she freaked her freak at a middle school basketball game yesterday when the buzzer sounded and then refused to re-enter the gym for an hour and a half) will be the memories we groan over in laughter and wonder why we took it all so seriously.

These near-dusk moments on a fall playground (where I watched my brave child conquer a ladder with my heart rising in my throat) will undoubtedly bring tears to my eyes when she is keeping secrets from me and discovering what it really means to be independent.

The sight of her running free and being such a kid makes my heart simultaneously swell and break.  There has been nothing as gratifying in parenthood as watching my child grow and become brave and experience simple joys, but I hear the chorus of voices at the back of my mind reminding me that it will go so fast and all I want is to press pause. 

This weekend, with its tears & laughter & running & cooking & finger-painting & dancing & bumps & bruises & snuggling, will be tucked away in my emotional memory bank so that someday I can remind parents with babies-becoming-children that it goes so fast, enjoy every second.

Natalie is 2  years & 7.5 months.  She loves Taylor Swift and the Berenstain Bears books.  She dances with every inch of her body and has an imaginary friend.  She insists on painted toenails and carrying a purse, blanket, and doll everywhere she goes.  Her hair is easily 100 different shades of brown and her legs are constantly covered in bruises and scrapes.  She calls everything she loves "special" and flails her limbs constantly in her sleep.  Her favorite color is pink and her favorite food is cheese.  She insists on wearing boy underpants (the characters are so much cooler) and loves to snuggle at night by wrapping both arms tightly around my neck.  

let her sleep

This child never sleeps past 5:30 on a weekend morning.  Never.

I have to, literally, drag this same child out of bed at 6:40 every weekday morning so that I can force her into clothes and the car to make it to daycare (and, you know, work) on time.

But today!  Today is a 2 hour delay day!  And because Natalie is asleep & unaware of weather patterns & school closing policies, she is still blissfully conked out on a Thursday morning at 6:50am while I enjoy a second cup of coffee.  It's going to baffle her to wake up on her own, and I am so happy she really gets a chance to enjoy a full night's sleep without me waking forcefully waking her up.  Also?  I don't mind the 2 hour delay to my workday and the quiet time in my warm house while the wind howls outside.

Because no post is complete without some sort of complaint--I am a bit bummed that all of the work I put into preparing for my scheduled formal observation may go to waste.  First period today was my scheduled time to be observed.... and now I will likely have to reschedule.  Booooo.  

song song song sing sing sing sing song

Lately, Natalie has been using everything she finds as a guitar (her play-vacuum, our rake, random sticks).  I finally got a clue and bought her a real guitar today.

She loves it.  She literally squealed in excitement at the store, and danced for the employees to show how happy she was about getting her very own guitar.

I am not sure she will sleep tonight--as I type this, she is serenading her stuffed animals while supposedly trying to fall asleep.

best part of my weekend?

Probably this little nap with my budgie.  That big girl bed was THE best choice we've made in parenting thus far.  

walleen!

We decided to be a family of random superheroes this year for Halloween, which was a moderate success in costuming.  Aside from Natalie refusing to wear her mask & cape, and my costume turning out to be totally see-through from the back, we looked pretty darn cute.

Nat woke up on Halloween morning completely cranky and in no mood to wear her costume to daycare.  It took all of my toddler-wrangling skills & best bribery to get her to at least wear the full Hit-Girl ensemble for a couple of photos before ripping it all off.  Peanut butter cups, I owe you.

We managed to snap a couple of pictures of the fam in the backyard before heading out for early evening trick-or-treating.  Rain threatened to pour down on us most of the time we were out, and we narrowly missed some torrential stuff.  But we managed to stay dry, and Natalie was a whole different kid this year as we went around the neighborhood collecting candy.

Seriously, she literally skipped her way from house to house and kept saying "Just one more, Mommy!"

She was an old pro at the knock, say "trick-or-treat," smile big, say "thank-you" routine by the end of our rounds.  I was awfully proud of her as she waved goodbye to every house and shouted in glee at every treat she got in her bag.  

Natalie's highly inappropriate Hit-Girl costume was a combination of TJ Maxx leggings & skirt, Wal-Mart tee & boots, online purchased cape & mask & purple hair spray (which seemed to evaporate after about 45 seconds).

wah!

I am allowed to feel sad about this:

{6 months}

{17 months}

{30 months}

All photos taken while apple picking with Bampa & Mimi at School House Farm.

lately

Here I am again, auto-posting a barrage of updates between month-long absences on the blog.  There just doesn't seem to be any other way for me to keep up with it all.  I am only able to sit down and write this evening because of an early dismissal from work (hurricane/flood watch) that gave me some QT with my girl earlier in the day, and thereby pushing my mommy guilt aside that I am down here typing away while she watches Harry Potter and hollers to me from the other room.  Lately, her favorite game is "I'm the mommy!" which means she pretends to leave me at school while she goes to work, and says things like "I'm so sorry I have to leave, but you have to go to school!"  and "I'm the mommy, so I pick you up and read stories and sing songs, but not until after I go to work."  Pretty much, she breaks my heart at every opportunity.

Overall, this transition for our family continues to go well.  I love my job.  The school district is, um, the best. The administration are fantastic.  My staff are supportive and capable and friendly.  The kids work hard and have all the basic skills I would ask of 7th graders.  I get to talk about Ke$ha and Gangnam Style and the Kardashians at work because, helloooo, they are 12 and we have lots in common.

It really is great.  But it continues to be a tough balancing act.  I know I sound like a broken record, and I know this isn't anything new to you parents who have been working outside of the home full-time all along, so I don't mean to sound all "Woe is me," but I do want to share the tough stuff, too.  

The tough moments occur on those mornings when Natalie wants to sleep in and cuddle and I have to, literally, pull her out of bed to make it to daycare on time.  It's tough not taking a random nap with her every now and then, just for the fun of it.  It's tough pinning all kinds of fun activities to do with her, and never taking the time to actually plan out an afternoon to accomplish some of that stuff. 

Our weekends are all about recovery--we hunker down, snuggle up, and sleep as much as possible.  I haven't felt like the creative & fun mommy that I liked being when I was home the majority of the week.  Our house is constantly covered in a layer of mud and peanut butter and leaf remnants, and I don't want to waste any precious time cleaning it up when it means I'm giving up playtime with Nat.  Or, let's be honest, a nap for me.

I'm not alone in this, right?  I know I keep asking, but here I go again... What are you doing to balance home and work?

big girl bed!

Okay, let the pointing and laughing commence over us keeping Natalie in a crib until she was over two and a half years old.  Seriously, the kid never once tried to climb out & we have a very steep flight of stairs outside of her room to contend with--we were quite happy to keep her in the confines of her crib for as long as possible.  The little budgie has been more interested in sharing our bed than spending the full night in her own lately, though, which we thought was in part because a real bed is way more comfortable.  We decided to cash in the Big Girl Bed Coupon that Nat's Bampa and Mimi gifted her for her second birthday and start the transformation from nursery to big girl bedroom.

Last Saturday, the bed arrived!  Natalie was over the moon when the delivery men arrived.  "Where the mans go?" she asked when they would go back out to their truck to get tools or her mattress.  She insisted on staying in her room and watching the (very patient, very sweet, very kid-friendly) delivery-men put her bed together.  As soon as they were gone, she jumped on the bed non-stop for ten minutes or so, and then cuddled right in when I put on her new bedding.  Girlfriend was THRILLED.

Part of the transformation of her room included taking out her changing table at last, rearranging some other items in the room, and adding a little tent for a reading nook.  I followed this pattern (and consulted this one and this one, too), which was remarkably easy.  Very little measuring, and only required two flat twin sheets and a couple of yards of ribbon.

Nat's first night in her bed was a great success--she conked out with no difficulty, after a sneaky little solo tea party.  We found her like this, on top of the covers with all of her books piled on her pillow and every piece of play food in her room next to her.

a blurry happy mess

Dishes piled up this weekend.  Floors went unswept.  Toys remained strewn about every room.  Laundry that was washed on Saturday remains in the dryer this morning.  

We let the house-upkeep stuff go in favor of a fall fun weekend.  Saturday was cool and clear, so we set up a tent in the backyard, jumped in leaf piles, drank apple cider, and toasted marshmallows over a fire.  

Sunday was rainy--probably a perfect day for catching up on housework.  We figured we'd let it slide in favor of movies & pajamas & leftover Chinese takeout.

The chores can wait, amirite?

we're beautiful, like diamonds in the sky

oh, ya know, just livin' like we gonna die young.

making mornings work

Mornings are tough around here these days.  It's always a challenge to get all 3 of us dressed and fed and out the door on time, and Natalie has added some new fun to the mix by occasionally deciding to sleep in for the first time in her life.  Several people have asked me what things we're doing to make the weekday mornings work for us, and the truth is that I really don't have any innovative solutions.  Pretty much, we scramble like mad from 5:30 until 6:15 when Mike is out the door, and then I continue scrambling until 6:45 when I pack Natals up for daycare and speed on down the road.  So far, we've made it work every day of this school-year, which is no small feat.  I'm just waiting for the inevitable sick days and snowy roads that will get in the way of our pretty flawless track record, but in the meantime we are plugging away.

A few things that have helped us out along the way are:

- Packing lunches for all 3 of us the night before.  We take turns packing Natalie's food so it doesn't feel like such a chore for one person, and we make ourselves get our lunch boxes ready, too.

- Set out clothes the night before.  Sensing a theme?  Anything we can do before the pre-dawn alarm clock helps us make it out on time.  Clothes for all 3 of us are out and ready to go by Nat's bedtime.

- We get to bed early.  It has been a rather depressing transition from summer bedtime to school bedtime, but it is keeping us sane.  We do a little racing around between the end of the day and Nat's bath, and then settle in for a bit of quality couple-time before conking for the night by 9:30.

- Giving ourselves a little cushion of time.  We have a window to work with when it comes to daycare departure time, which means that if Natalie is ready to go we have the reward of some quality time in the front seat with me while we wait for daycare to open, and if she's running late then I just have to do a drop and dash.  She much prefers the former, which is a great coercion tool in the AM hours--"Don't you want special time in the car with Mommy?"  

-  We meal-plan.  This one has been another toughie after a summer of free-livin', but it is so much easier to turn on the crockpot in the morning and come home to a meal than start cooking after being on my feet all day.  We cook more on the weekends and enjoy leftovers during the week, and rely on the crockpot a TON.

- We use the weekend for cleaning, and have learned to accept a messier way of living.  In truth, we have become pretty good about doing little things each day to keep the household running smoothly (garbage/compost/vacuum/laundry/toy box/etc.) and then just force ourselves to devote a weekend morning to a mad dash of scrubbing.  And that's it.  We start the week with what we've got, and have chosen that dirty floors are preferable to a night without toddler-snuggles.  

What things are you doing to make workday mornings run more smoothly??  I'm looking for any tips you have!

steppin' out saturday: fall fun at home

I know, I'm actually writing a blog post AND linking up.  Things must be wild around here, right?

This past weekend was just right for recuperating after my 7th grade field trip (3 days & 2 nights in a cabin with no heat & no electricity & tons of giggly boy talk); the rain forced us to stay in and rest up together, with just a quickie outing on Saturday afternoon to go grocery shopping and get the goods for an evening of brownie sundaes & carving pumpkins.

On Mama:  Shirt dress:  Old Navy // Boots:  JCP // Scarf:  Mace's (local) // Sunnies:  Betsey Johnson @ TJ Maxx

On the budgie:  Leggings & dress & jacket all thrifted & gifted by the Nana-sitter

The best part of the weekend was definitely getting some quality time doing fall stuff with my honeys.  We devoured brownies while watching "Hook," scooped seeds from the pumpkins grown in Nana and Poppy's garden, and played chase all over the house.  Second best part?  NAPS FOR ALL.

feeling fallish

\

Our days have been pretty packed of late, between work & play & more work & cold season.  We've been  too busy for me to sit down and bang out a few words on the blog, which is both awesome (yay for lots of fun stuff to do!) and depressing (boooo to such extreme exhaustion at the end of each day!).  

This rainy Sunday has so far provided me with the exact circumstances I need to actually follow through on blogging a bit:  breakfast out on the town as a family, looooong nap, solo time while Mike and Natals are at the Children's Museum.  I'm here in the shadowy dark of our dining room, looking around at a house that is still in complete disarray from our week, but I have decided that quiet time in front of the computer is way more fun than digging in to the cleaning supplies at the end of my weekend.  Brownies & coffee & Pinterest ftw!

I wanted to share a couple of pictures that at least give a little glimpse at our last week or so, just to prove that we have not completely gone off the grid.  

Above, our first day of apple picking, on a gorgeous mid-week afternoon.  Having a little something fun to do as a family after work absolutely makes my week.  

Last weekend we got a quick little visit in with Nat's Gma and Gpa, who drove all the way from NY just to spend a night with their girl.  It was another dreary one, which meant we mostly hunkered down at home together and let the kiddo entertain us.

This past week I was away from home for two nights, which hasn't happened in, oh, a year.  I chaperoned the 7th grade ecology field trip with the rest of my team at work, which meant sleeping in a cold cabin with ten 12-year olds and making sure their boy talk didn't verge on the inappropriate.  It was a great trip, all told, but I missed home something fierce.  It has been drizzly and chilly all weekend, which has been perfect for getting into the fall spirit of things with pumpkin carving and hot chocolate and witch window-clings.  

Don't be alarmed, but I am planning on getting a couple of posts up DURING THE WORKWEEK.  I know.  It's shocking.  Crossing my fingers that I follow through.  If not, see you back here next Sunday!  

ugh, potty training.

This kid, right?

I am tentatively willing to put on the blog that my child is potty trained.  I have held off on writing this post (and not just because, ya know, I haven't really written anything substantial for a couple of months) partly because I don't want to jinx our progress, and partly because I really don't want Natalie to look back in embarrassment at the nitty-gritty details of her life that I chose to share online.  In the interest of her teenage reputation, I will keep the gross to a minimum here.  Promise.

I thought it might be helpful, though, to outline a bit about how our process has gone (well, is going) so that other parents have our insight, and so I can someday look back on all this and laugh.  *Fingers crossed*

Okay, so we introduced the potty (holy heck do I hate that word) to Natalie when she was around 15 months old.  We kept it downstairs (our only bathroom is upstairs) and encouraged her to sit on it, play with it, and let her toys practice using it.  She would alternate complete disinterest with some excitement over it, and we got in the routine of her actually using the potty maybe once every other day.  That was pretty much it until partway through this summer, when she hit just about 27 months old.  At that point, we started really encouraging her to use it first thing in the morning, right after her nap, and just generally if she showed signs that she had to use the bathroom.  It was not super successful.

Our clues that she was ready for something a little more formal included her ability to wake up with a dry diaper about 50% of the time (from naps and overnight); her success at practicing pulling her own pants on and off; her ability to follow multi-step instructions (um, using the bathroom has a lot of steps); and the occasional "Mommy I peed!" or "Mommy I have to pee!" exclamations that let us know she was tuned into when those bodily functions were happening or about to happen.

My cousin (and tons of ladies of the internet) recommended the 3-day potty training method, so we set aside a long weekend when we would all be home and pretty much imprisoned ourselves in the house for three days.  Natalie was pants-free the whole time (with the exception of one outing each on the 2nd and 3rd day), and we loaded her up with juice & fruit & veggies so that our constant nagging to get on the potty would have some results.  Overall?  Success.  We had accidents, to be sure.  Oh, did we have accidents.  We still have accidents, to be honest, but the headway we made over those few days was incredible.  I wouldn't call this method entirely fool-proof, or a guarantee that your kid will be fully trained in just 3 days, but it does force the issue in a way that I think is really helpful.  It made me and Mike follow through, got us all lots of practice at remembering to try All The Time, and helped us figure out a plan for the inevitable accidents and setbacks ahead.  

That was almost two months ago, and I think it's safe to say that Natalie is fully potty trained at home.  With the exception of when she's sleeping, we are diaper-free (and still often pants-free) whenever we are in the house.  We occasionally have accidents when we are away from the house (usually at the playground or some other fun place where she gets so caught up in having fun that she doesn't remember to tell us she needs the potty, or maybe is just hoping we won't notice the drenched pants), and we are nowhere near potty trained at daycare.  Actually, that's probably been our biggest challenge.  Nat's teachers are great about reminding her and encouraging her, but Natalie's response at school is usually, "I go potty at home, not school," and then she refuses to try there.  Ugh.  It's tough to face putting pull-ups on her every morning before I send her to school, and I am so ready to be done with talking about the potty every frickin' day with her.  I know she'll get there (she's made so much progress at home!), but it is feeling like a looooong process.

Some things that have been invaluable to us:  lugging the potty chair EVERYWHERE in the house and backyard to make sure it's always available; getting a little toilet seat converter to make the bathroom upstairs accessible; finding rewards that work (outings are our most successful reward--the promise of leaving the house is a guaranteed way to make sure Natalie uses the potty); and having Natalie "help" us clean up accidents when they occur.  

Any tips from potty-training veterans??  I'd love your thoughts on how to encourage Natalie to take her potty skills outside of our house.  :)

forging ahead

Another week gone, another weekend disappeared, and here we are on a Tuesday morning.  Whew, this full-time working thing sure does make time fly by!  Mikey and I both felt really good about work last week, and were totally ready for a fun weekend.... our sweet child had other plans, though.  Miss Nat has been on the edge of a cold all week, and woke up on Saturday morning with a full-blown case:  runny nose, barking cough, cranky attitude, body aches.  Ugh.  We had to make the tough decision to cancel our weekend plans (which mean we missed out on Claira's 4th birthday party.  Wah!) in favor of just staying home and snuggling up as a family.  It was a quiet weekend (other than the rampant tantrum-ing, of course) around the house.  We blew up our oversized air mattress on the living room floor and hunkered down with snacks & blankets & movies during the day, and then made a fire in the backyard to toast marshmallows in the evenings.  The most ambitious we got was to tackle a small furniture-painting project in the backyard since we knew we weren't leaving the house anyway.

And now here we are, already barreling ahead through another week.  I have several notes scattered around with reminders about things I'd like to get on the blog (potty training!  daycare update!  time-saving tips!  house projects!), but for now I'll leave you with a few shots that never made it onto BabyMooHoo from our family portrait session last month.  Our multi-tasking baby-sitter did us the huge favor of majorly affordable family pictures in our backyard & by the harbor, and did a gorgeous job again this year.  We've framed a handful already, and I find myself going back through all of them just about every other day, marveling at how much my little girl grew up this summer.  Here are a few of my favorites:

ooof.

First things first:  I am not dead.

Second:  I am *barely* surviving this working full-time outside of the house thing.

I know it's been an age since my last post, and even that post was a random placeholder to make up for the age that had passed since my previous post.... but I am still out here, just exhausted and trying to figure out how I am going to fit it all in.  

The school year started for me about 3 weeks ago, with new teacher trainings & orientations & beautiful harbor cruises with my administrators.  Lovely and welcoming and motivating.  But definitely a reminder of all the stuff I had to get together before students arrived, which happened the Wednesday before Labor Day.  So far, I love the job.  I knew that I would, but it is validating to have that job satisfaction at the end of every day.  The toughest part, as you might imagine, is finding any semblance of balance between work and home. I feel very fortunate that the demands of my job are, relatively speaking, not insurmountable (I am not breaking my back with physical labor, rubbing tired eyes during an overnight shift, dealing with traffic on a lengthy commute, or any other things on the long list of work-related challenges); however, I am nonetheless absolutely WIPED OUT at the end of every day.  I have been putting wishes out in the universe for energy and patience and the perspective I need to make it through this transition phase, which I know will be the hardest time period of the job.  And I am surviving.  But barely.

Our weekdays now start at 5:15 with the beeping of Mike's alarm clock.  We alternate who gets up first to take the earlier shower, and then quietly work around each other to get dressed, have breakfast, pack up our cars for the day ahead.  We are in the habit of packing lunches for the three of us the night before, and having all of Natalie's daycare stuff packed in advance, too.  

Somewhere between 5:45 and 6:00, Natalie's internal alarm clock kicks in and she's up for the day.  Mike has to be out the door by 6:15 (he commutes an hour to his school each way), so he has been taking the lead on getting the Natster dressed and downstairs for breakfast so they can have some time together before spending the day apart.  By the time Mike is out the door, our goal is to have food on the table for Natalie's breakfast.  The last half hour at home before hitting the road for daycare is spent reading books and combing hair and watching Yo, Gabba Gabba if time allows.

I have to be at work no later than 7:25, and Natalie's daycare doesn't open until 7:30... so we're paying one of her teachers to arrive early and give her some solo attention while I race off to my classroom.  It's worked out so far, and I aim to get us out of the house in time to spend about 10 minutes alone together in the parking lot before bringing her in to her teacher because it seems to make the transition a little easier if I'm not rushing her in.

The mornings are HARD, and I'm usually just barely catching my breath when students arrive in my classroom for the day.  The workdays have flown by so far, though, and I'm truly excited about the months ahead with these students.  It's been tough to leave school "on time," and I've gotten in the habit of putting in an hour or so of extra photocopying & grading & organizing to get ready for the next day.  Then it's time to pick up Natalie, have some supper, maybe make a fire in the backyard, and off to bed for all of us.  We've been collapsing into bed before 9 o'clock every night so far, and sleep feels So Good.  

I guess I'm sharing all of this with you guys because part of me wants to prove that I have been busy and I'm not trying to neglect the blog.... as if somehow I need to prove that.  I think I mostly want to prove it to myself.  I've been missing my online community something fierce, and I want to set aside some time to continue nurturing this part of me that exists on BabyMooHoo, but if something's gotta give at the end of my day, it's going to be the internet, every time.  My goal  is to get in the habit of being a Weekend Blogger, filling you in on how this new chapter of our lives is going and trying to keep up with the exciting things going on  for all of you.  I miss you & this place, but I just haven't figured out how to squeeze it all in.  I'm workin' on it!

steppin' out, after quite a hiatus

I know, I know.

It's been forever.

AGAIN.

I made Mike snap a couple of pictures of me last week to make sure I had something to put up for a Steppin' Out post so I would be able to link up with my favorite internet ladies at Harper's Happenings.  I do actually have lots more to share, and I'm hoping to get a handful of posts up over the remainder of this week.  I've been busy with the fun summer stuff (visits from the in-laws, road trips to my Grammy's, family portrait day in our backyard) and also lots of work prep (3 orientation/training days last week, and another 2 lined up for this week.... and then full-on school calendar begins in earnest on Monday.  Eek!). 

I'll fill you in soon, swearsies.

In the meantime, here's what I wore for a morning coffee date & then a movie date with the Moo:

Shirt & bag & belt & sunnies:  TJ Maxx

Skirt:  Old Navy (a couple of years ago?)
Earrings:  gifted
& I wish you could see my sweet little yellow flats, but you'll just have to trust me that they are cute.  Got 'em at Macy's a little over a year ago.

boys. uh-oh.

Our trip to New York was wrapped up with a quick visit & ice cream truck pit stop with the Gebbies and their boys.  These kids are thee cutest, and are going to be major trouble in the future, I just know it.

Case in point:  both were eager to woo our girl by sharing their ice cream truck treats with her. 

We are so in for it.

oh, yeah. we went to the fair.

Part of our trip to upstate New York last week was a visit to Bampa & Mimi's house, and a (very short) outing to the fair.  Natals was enthralled with the animals at the fair, but quickly became irritable when we moved away from the sweaty barn over towards the food & games & rides. 

Here are a few shots of our outing: