Many Februarys Past

10 Years Ago I was…

• A sophomore in college
• An education major
• Dating a great guy (and a few on the side – not one of my proudest actions)
• Probably drunk
• A smoker
• Not eating

9 Years Ago I was…

• A junior in college
• Home for the semester, taking classes at the local community college
• Was just about to start dating a truly great guy (now known as my husband)
• Possibly drunk, but not even close to as often as before
• An ex-smoker
• Almost at a healthy weight
• The happiest I had been in many years

5 Years Ago I was…

• In my second year of graduate school
• Engaged
• Working full time
• Even happier than I was at 9 years ago

2 Years Ago I was…

• In Florida on vacation
• Probably Drunk (mmm….Mojitos)
• Still exceedingly happy

1 Year Ago I was…

• Hugely pregnant (with three months yet to go), but also
• Completely blissed-out; just a totally happy momma-to-be

Today I am

• A wife (going on 5 years now)
• A mom
• Satisfied
• Happier still than any of those times past.

Life hasn’t always been easy, but it does just keep getting better.

This post is part of Flashback Friday. Go see who else is playing along here!

Ella Jo

I was all set to start typing out a post for today when I got a text message on my phone, something that rarely happens. Due to this text I can’t remember at all what I was going to write about, because:

My best friend had her baby this morning! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. We’ve been friends since we met at day care when we were two years old, so it feels like she’s my sister and I have a new niece. Unfortunately for me, they live across the country so there’s no new baby snuggling in my near future. Although, I hear that when I see a new, small baby my baby won’t seem so baby-like any more, so maybe it’s for the best.

No. I’m still sad I don’t get to go visit any time soon. But still – NEW BABY! WOOHOO!!!

Fresh, New Smartness

Recently at my place of employment they decided to implement a new surf-control service on our internet access. Basically, what this means is that they have blocked my ability to visit most blogs (the ability to leave comments has been blocked for quite a while) as well as to post to my blog and Twitter. So, work has gotten incrementally more boring. I was discussing this issue with myself on my way to work this morning; about how much it sucks that I can’t post and how my blog is suffering because of the lack of access. I can’t post at work and it’s nearly impossible to post at home, because, really, who could post when this adorable child is whining vying for their attention?

Then, because I come up with the best ideas when I talk them through with myself, I realized something. Hey! I can still write posts, just not online. And hey! They might be better quality too since I can’t just put some random words up on the screen all lickity-split and hit post. Plus, I’d have time to edit what I write as well. I can be a total genius sometimes. (Also, I’ve just discovered that it takes me about three tries to spell “genius” correctly.)

In other news, I’m a complete nerd. This weekend my sister introduced me to the game Bananagrams, and I’m hooked. I’m already a complete board, card, and video game geek, so it wasn’t like it was difficult to hook me, but I think this one reeled me in faster and harder than usual. I played all weekend, and even got a bit touchy when the rest of the family was done playing and I wasn’t ready to quit quite yet. (Don’t worry, I was able to reign in the tantrums.) The real kicker is that Aaron won’t play with me (see also: Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, You Don’t Know Jack, and any other game that I regularly win), so I’m left craving a game and have no one to play with me. It’s useless to buy the game for that very reason, because then I’ll just bug him more and that’s no fun for either of us.

The game also revealed that I am my family’s human dictionary. We would be playing and my mom, dad, or sister would ask if some word was a word, and I’d give them the verdict. They often didn’t believe me that the word they used wasn’t really a word (for example, my dad’s insistence that “dongle” was a word – it’s totally not it totally is, we were just using a dictionary from the ‘70s. Oops!), or that the weird combination of letters I played (for example, epee, lea, gamine, que, and any more) were.

I just saw, when finding the link for Banangrams, that they have a Facebook app. Guess I know how I’ll be spending my evening after the Gabbster goes to bed!

P.S.

I was going to put this on the last post, but forgot and thought maybe it might be better separate:

Is anyone out there planning on going to Blogher and in need of a roommate? I'm thinking about going and need to make the decision by the end of the month and the end of early registration.

My Tiny Covergirl

Gabbie loves to have her picture taken. As soon as the camera comes out she starts smiling and hamming it up for the camera. The above picture was one of many taken that night and she's got a huge smile on her face in every picture.

After a few pictures, the smile is still there, but she starts blinking a lot because of the flash, so we usually start to put the camera away, and she whines for us to take a few more. Even more than having her picture taken, she loves to look at pictures of the baby on our computer. I'm almost certain she doesn't know it's her, but she's such a social girl and she LOVES other babies. And big kids. Pretty much anyone actually. It's adorable.

She's going to be nine months old this week and I'm struck by what a big girl she is, and, at the same time, how tiny she still is. She'll always be my Itty Bitty, but currently she still is itty bitty. She's working really hard on walking these days, and I keep telling her to stop - she's growing up too fast!

Blissfully Banal

Today I'm home from work (Yay President's Day!) with Gabbie, and we're playing. Probably napping as well, but mostly playing. This is likely going to be a great day.

We caught one of our friends lately saying that we've become boring since the baby came along. I think he was just joking, and didn't know we were there, but it's pretty true. We don't go out much, our stories are all about Gabbie, and our lives revolve around this little one. Not that my life was terribly exciting before she came along - it wasn't - but I can see how, as the only couple with a small child among our group of friends, it would seem we've become very boring.

Truthfully, though, I wouldn't have it any other way, even if someone paid me handsomely. I love my life these days.

Gabbie at 8 (and 1/2) Months

Man, babies get to be a lot of fun at around 8 months. Although I've said that about every month so far, but this really is the most fun she's ever been. Currently Gabbie likes:

• Bubbles - they've been playing with bubbles at daycare lately, and apparently she absolutely loves them. Like, laughs so hard she has tears running down her face, won't pay attention anything else when they're being blown, screeches in delight kind of love. I think I'm going to have to buy some bubbles.
• Fuzz - if there's a piece of fuzz or any other speck on the floor, she's on it like white on rice. She will creep or crawl (she's crawling!) to wherever the fuzz is and put it in her mouth as quickly as possible. I think she does that because she knows we'll pick it up and throw it away if we get to it first. She also pretend picks up fuzz and eats it. That's pretty hilarious. We call her "The Fuzz Hunter".
• Bananas - She's totally bananas for bananas. Aaron and I each have a banana each morning and she bounces up and down when she sees us break one open and then yells at us until she gets a piece. Then she expects many more pieces. She'll even stare at them when she can see them on the counter in the morning and screech until we get one down. She's also a fan of whole peas, which we give her while we're eating dinner to keep her busy. She's got that pincer grip down cold.
• Mom - Gabbie's a mommy's girl these days. She dives for me when I walk into the room and gives me hugs and kisses as soon as she's in my arms. It's wonderful, but I think Aaron gets a little jealous. He frequently asks her, "What am I, chopped liver?" I've told him the tides will change, but seeing as she's a big fan of nursing lately she comes to mom because mom has the good.
• Standing - Gabbie has started pulling up on things, but she's not great at it yet. She does like to stand, though, so we set her up against the couch and she'll stand and play for hours if we let her.
• Riding on Daddy's shoulders - This has to be the cutest thing ever, and she'll grab on to his hair and rear back while screeching, which makes him screech and me laugh. It's absolutely adorable!

Gabbie is currently not a fan of:

• Naps or sleeping all night - there were a couple of weeks there where she did a great job, and two nights ago she did fabulously, but she's back on the "Sleep is for losers" bandwagon, and this is not at all fun for us.
• Her carseat - we moved her up to the convertible seat because she was screaming so much in the bucket seat (and she was too long for it), but she doesn't seem to be a fan of this one either and cries through every car trip. I really hope this is just a phase.
• Smacking her head on things - which she does regularly now that she's crawling and pulling up on things. She apparently has inherited my lack of grace/clumsiness, and regularly falls and hits her head or face plants. I'd be more worried if I didn't see every baby at daycare do the same things during this stage of development. When she does this she cries and wants to be picked up, and of course I pick her up, and then she hugs me and buries her face into my shoulder. 

At least she got to meet her great-great-grandmother?

This past weekend we decided to go visit Aaron's grandparents so they could see Gabbie. We've been meaning to do this more often, but with the crappy weather that we have here in the winter, traveling can be a little difficult. Now that the crappy weather has taken a break it was the perfect opportunity to go for a visit.

We visited his mom's mom first, and Gabbie was due to eat right when we got there. I don't mind breastfeeding in front of people, but Gabbie doesn't do well with an audience. She'll nurse for a second or two and then pull off to watch what is happening around her. It's cute, but not productive, and it makes her more likely to bite me, so I decided to head upstairs to the guest bedroom to feed her.

I sat down on the bed and Gabbie started eating. About 2 minutes later, she pulled off, turned her head toward the corner of the room, smiled and waved. She latched back on, and then a couple second later stopped to smile and wave at the corner again. After she did this the third time, I was done and we headed back downstairs to the safety of company.

I should mention here that both Aaron and his grandma have had ghostly encounters at her house, and his grandma's experiences usually are hearing her mother call her name if she's forgotten to turn something off or if there's some kind of danger around.

So I guess it was nice for Gabbie to get to meet her great-great-grandmother, but to be honest, it creeped the hell out of me!

A Mixed Bag

Lately I've been moody, switching between happy, tears, and incredible anger at the drop of a hat. I've also had some major cravings, been achy, and sleeping all the time. Then one day, it hit me: could I be pregnant?

I tested, and I'm not. It's probably just the January/February blues I typically get, but that I've been free of for the past year or two.

As Aaron said, "Woohoo! But also, shucks", because a baby wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but it would make life a lot more difficult right now. We've decided that Gabbie needs to be able to do some things for herself before we bring another child into the world, but sometimes (like now when my best friend is about to pop) it's hard to wait.

Why do they make the babies so darn cute?

Do you want to C what I like?

I saw this over on Sizzle's site and it looked like a lot of fun, so I thought I'd play along. So, without further ado: ten things I love that start with the letter "C".

1. Cuddling

If I thought I liked cuddling before I got to cuddle with a baby every day, I was wrong. Although I still love a good cuddle from my husband, my daily cuddle session with Gabbie right when we get home from work/school is my favorite part of day. I sometimes even duck out of work early so that we can start cuddling even earlier than usual. It's that awesome.

2. Chocolate

I'm a milk chocolate fan, but any kind will do. Especially if it's in brownie form. Yum!

3. Cheese

Any kind will do, thanks. Jonniker recently asked in a post if you had a house cheese growing up, and ours was (probably embarrassingly) Velveeta. But if you asked me now, we don't have anything close to one house cheese, we have several: cheddar, feta, fresh mozzarella, gouda, havarti, and the list goes on.

4. Crafting (especially Crocheting)

I frequently need a creative outlet, and when I do pretty much any kind of craft will do. For the past couple of years it's mostly been knitting and crocheting. I love the feel of creating a garment or item out of a string. It's amazing to me.

5. Cookbooks

Cooking is my all-the-time creative outlet. I read somewhere once that most American families have about 9 or 10 meals that they cycle through repeatedly. We are not like most American families then, because we are always trying new things. I have a whole bookshelf full of cookbooks, and I use them all the time. I just made the best cupcakes the other night out of one of them - it will now be my go-to cupcake recipe. Until I see another yummy-looking recipe somewhere else that is. I have recipe ADD.

6. My new Computer

Aaron got me a new iMac for Christmas and we're constantly fighting over whose turn it is to use it. It's still all shiny and new and not clogged up with a million files and programs. I love it.

7. Catan

Rather, Settlers of Catan . We're big board game geeks around here, and this one is our absolute favorite. It gets very competitive, and people have known to get fairly angry when their plans get ruined by someone else's play therefore causing us to have to take a day-long break between games, but it's totally worth it.

8. Christmas

I'm a huge fan of the Christmas season, including and especially Christmas music and movies. Aaron has limited me to those two things between Thanksgiving and New Year's day, only, but I can occasionally convince him to watch Elf in the middle of the summer.

9. Chardonnay

Well, pretty much any wine actually, but nothing beats a nice, chilled white on a warm summer evening. Man, I can't wait for summer. Even spring would be great, thanks.

10. Crayons

Growing up I colored all the time. I had shelves of coloring books that were very carefully filled in using my box of 64 Crayolas; I got a new box every Christmas in my stocking. I've been known to color even now when I get the chance, and I can't wait until Gabbie's old enough to color so that I have a better excuse for buying a coloring book.


**If you want to participate, leave a comment on this post and I will assign you a letter. You then write about 10 things you love that begin with your assigned letter and post them on your blog. When people comment on your posted list, you give them a letter and the chain continues on and on.