Finally getting to ‘baby’ on the to-do list

I’m starting the little to-do lists that finally actually have something to do with the forthcoming baby. So far, most of the to-do has been for a birthday, graduation, floor project, garden and basically anything but the poor little thing about to join the family.

Monday I got all the outside furniture washed and put together minus moving one big piece. It was a low priority item on the list but the kids were eating outside nicely so it was easy enough to do around them. Unexpected benefit; I could threaten to squirt them with a hose if they didn’t eat, and, I could actually squirt the cheeky cat that tried to sneak Zoe’s food. Really they both eat fine, I think I probably give them too much food… anyone have a real guide to how much a 2 and 4 year old should eat?

Yesterday we returned the extra wood we got for the floors, yippie for refund! We also got a new grabber for me since I’ve been complaining about the fact that Lars broke mine and 90% of the cleaning in the house is based on picking things up off the floor. I consider myself pretty spry for 9m, I can walk, get up and down off the floor, I could do yoga if it wasn’t an invite for kids to use me as a jungle gym but I seriously dislike constantly bending over. Once baby is born its still hard to reach the ground if she is in a sling so this will be a good tool for months to come.

Today I went to the store specifically to get a few things for the hospital and the days right after, and, a trio of card; sympathy, congratulations, and birthday… nice spread of emotion. Today is probably the first real prep for baby that was not a whim. I did pick out an outfit and a toy and a few blankets over the past few months but today was the first day I intended to get things specifically for the day of birth. I also got little gifts for Niamh and Zoe ‘from’ the baby – I found a set of sturdy bracelets and a sister charm plus a few really pretty beads and I’ll put them together tonight. I found cute pink tin boxes a week ago that I needed to fill so I think this fits the bill. I’m not ready to pack the hospital bag yet but I’m at least thinking of what needs to go in it.

Tomorrow and this weekend I hope to do more baby and house focused stuff. The following weekend my mom arrives and the weekend after that I don’t want to count on having. I want to be nice and ready so if that weekend she is still on the inside then we will have a fun weekend. It does not sound very ‘Memorial day’ like but that’s the plan. Maybe a picnic on Monday? Anyone up for that?

Owl Cake

Yesterday was Lars’s mom’s birthday and in quiet celebration the girls and I had leftover Owl cake and sang happy birthday.  I didn’t bring up the event to Lars or the kids either, the kids just like singing happy birthday any day of the week (month, year…).  We made the Owl cake for Zoe because of her obsession with owls, something that ironically occurred on the 1 year anniversary of Lars’s mom’s death.  Who knows, maybe nothing, maybe something but regardless Zoe loves owls.

I was browsing pinterest one day looking at all the crazy cakes people make and thinking that I would never do such a labor intensive thing for a cake and then I saw this and knew I had to do it for Zoe…

Thanks Martha Stewart site! yours is more pretty then mine

Mine is not quite the same as the Martha Stewart one but I think it turned out ok

My cake

My how to notes on the project….

1. I used two sheet cakes as directed but I made one chocolate and one vanilla so there were options.  I should have done the body from vanilla to keep the light/dark meat correct but seriously, I don’t want to really think about eating a real Owl!
2. I used canned frosting that was room temp – far easier to spread
3. Instead of Neco wafers that are rather hard to find, and, don’t taste great – I used small chocolate donuts.  They make great eyes and for the talons and beak detail I cut them in half (top to bottom half, not down the middle half)
   1. Eye note – I did not use the cake for the eyes at all, total donut replacement
   2. I had tons of extra frosting so I did more wing detail and still had leftover frosting from the 2 cans I used.

Otherwise the directions on the site and the template are perfect – you end up with a good size bowl of leftover cake bits but given I had extra frosting too you can mush it all together to make cake pops.

It didn’t take long at all to do the frosting, this gives me hope for future ‘crazy critter cakes’.  I put the whole thing in the fridge after the base layer of frosting to firm up and the details only took about 10min after that.

Everyone liked it but its hard to go wrong with mix cake and premade frosting and Zoe thought it was fantastic and that is what really counts!

weekend review

Busy weekend…. Most of my mental ‘will do after x’ postponements were based on this weekend –

I officially walked in graduation for my MBA at the University of St Thomas. My parents were celebrating my sister’s graduation from Stonybrook undergrad so it was a milestone weekend for them when they saw 3/3 kids past the higher education mark. The dean was actually decent in his speeches but he was odd about specifically recognizing that we should thank our parents for getting us through our MBA. I’m not saying my parents didn’t morally support me, but, I’m an adult living, paying, and working on my own on the degree. I think he got his grad and undergrad speeches mixed up because I thoroughly agree that parents are a major force in their child getting an undergrad degree; providing money, a place to live during breaks, phone support when things get hard in classes and even editing on papers etc. I think the majority of undergrads need their parents, and the converse for MBA’s. I think my husband and kids endured more with me in school then my parents did. Anyway, the ceremony was nice, the keynote was good, it was all relatively well done. The ‘hooding’ (where they put the masters hood onto you) was comical because they had two rather short people doing it and even I had to duck so they could reach my head – and there were people there who were at least 6’10” and some even taller… it was fun. The worst thing about it all was timing, it was right over any dinner hour (6:30-9ish) so I’m glad I brought a granola! The best was the physically location and set up. The lighting was so awesome you would have thought we were outside on a perfect sunny day.

The birthday celebration brunch for Zoe went very well too. It was very small but that was perfect because we got to enjoy the brunch too and talk to everyone and I’m sure Zoe felt like it was a ton of people. The kids played, the adults chatted, and everyone either left, took a nap, or got to play a new game (diablo III) at 1. After naps we went to Shoreview community center and played in the pool and Niamh went on the HUGE waterslide about 30 times. The first time she went up I waited at the bottom and was expecting to have to comfort a frantic screaming crying scared girl but the first word out of her mouth was that she wanted to do it again! Lars went up with her (following her down, not riding down with her) 4 times and then he hit his limit and then we just got a thumbs up from the lifeguard at the top when it was her turn so we could catch her. She wanted to do nothing more than slide. We all left happy and we are now official members for the year so there will be lots of trips to the pool and playground.

Those two things were my last ‘big’ plans before the baby. Not to say there are not a ton of things to do and a few fun things planned but nothing huge. Actually, making the guest room a room again is a big thing to do but once mom is here I’ll have more help for all the baby prep stuff so it’s a load off my mind.

Work this week is on the hectic side and it didn’t start well – we found out that our security guard, the one who has been with us since day 1 of the building, died over the weekend. He was not really old, he did seem to be sick kinda but just in a shaky hands sort of way, but he left last week saying he was going home to die and he did…. I only talked to him a time or two a day, sometimes just a goodmorning and goodnight, but he was always the steady presence at the front desk. He welcomed 2 babies of mine on visits to the office and handled countless other family occasions with flair so even Lars will miss him a little bit. I never asked about his health because he was the sort of guy that just didn’t talk about that sort of thing and I never wanted to hurt his pride. I guess you never know when goodbye is the last one. I will go to this funeral if at all possible and I hope that since he ‘knew’ he spent his last days doing everything he wanted.

I can’t end with such a sad thing, so, one last funny thing from the weekend. Niamh wanted to wear her Cinderella dress to Zoe’s party and why not, its in our house with our friends so she put it on. She choose to stay with me to clean rather than run errands with Lars and Zoe (Zoe got no such option) and when I really did put her to work she declared she had to change out of her Cinderella dress to clean and into her Snow White dress…. Ironic…. She did well helping and when she didn’t help she kept out of the way for the most part but at one point she said she needed to exercise and so she needed to change into her Rapunzel dress, If you’re counting, that is outfit #3 in two hours – fortunately she can do these changes solo and she spent the rest of the party as Rapunzel. I still think it’s great that given Cinderella’s story she could not wear that costume to clean…

Parent gang sign

April-016, originally uploaded by katymac79.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while…

We need to have some nonverbal hand/head signal that means “I’ve been there, don’t worry, we don’t mind, its ok” This would be used (by others) when you are dragging a toddler away from something in a store and they are screaming and kicking, or, when you are just calmly looking away as there is a tantrum raging at your feet, or even, the very socially inept comments a talker can make – the people you walk by you assume are judging you or annoyed at you etc but the sign would let you know that you are amoung allies or veterens. When I see this sort of thing I’m really sympathizing with them, it seriously does not bother me and I truly want them to know I’ve been there and know their pain. I would like to think that my opinion is the majoriy – atleast in places like Target or at the playground. Not going to touch the fine dining question – that is a different story all together.

This actually isn’t prompted by recent bad behavior but something that I just wish existed. Wouldn’t it be great to exit with a kid in a fit and get flashed the ‘its ok sign’ from a bunch of other adults? Conversely when you are witnessing a scene like that you know you can’t help and really should not say anything but if you could just have a gesture that gave that mom reassurance that its ok you could feel like you were lightening the load just a tiny bit.

Maybe there already is something that I’m missing? Anyone know of such a que? I know motorcycle riders have a whole hand language thing – maybe parents do too?

If there isn’t, what should it be?

This would be the best thing ever….

Selfish Bastard Day

(the story behind my title is down some, just so you don’t think I’m crazy)

Look!  I finally changed my header!

I took half an hour yesterday evening to just get all the little things on the pictures done and uploaded and I even got to do my favorite thing – make collages in Picasa.

I made this one for Zoe age 1 day, 1 year, and 2 years.  She has changed just a bit.  Lots of people think Niamh and Zoe look alike but I think they look related but not more alike that any other 2 irish white girls.  They share some features but their hair is radically different and I just feel like the shape of their head is different.  Personality is very different but behavior for both is running about constant with age rather and are about the same between the two of them.

I made another for my Mothers Day experience.  I know it’s a hallmark holiday and some people hate it because there is pressure to be ‘perfect’ as a mother or as a husband or child celebrating the day.  I’ve read other blogs that wish that mother’s day could be a day off from the millions of duties.  I’ve also read the rants from people who think its silly to have a day about mothering because they either choose to or can’t be mothers.  To them I can sympathize but I can celebrate veterans day without being a Vet or even a soldier, and, everyone had a mother at some point.  Second on the same point, there are childless women that act very motherly and I would consider honorary mothers* – if mothering means caring about how a child comes out and helping them be good then it can be shared with many women who didn’t produce a child personally.  The people I highly dislike are the people who preach about how becoming a parent is a terrible idea and their choice to be childless is the right choice because the world is too full etc.  They unfortunately get lumped in with those who choose not to have a child for a very good reason, or, could not have one and choose to let it go gracefully…  But to those who are anti-kid and therefore anti mother’s day (because they must have just sprung whole from the brow of their father….)and think there should be a day for their kind, Lars says we should contact Hallmark to  suggest ‘selfish bastard day’ as the next holiday – the cards practically write themselves….  I don’t want to start anything big because 99.999% of the people I know fall into either the parent category or the very good reason not to be a parent category but there are a few that think we are dumb for ‘wasting our time and money’ on children.  I’m not sure what I would do with my extra time and money if I didn’t have kids.  I doubt they are working in soup kitchens and donating to charity either – both things I’ve done in the past and plan on doing as able forever.

Anyway, I did say on Monday all the fun stuff we did and in pictures, here it is;

Many of the pictures are obvious but for the record;

Picture #2 is ice cream dessert

#3 is Niamh almost climbing the tree

#4 is the bump on mothers day.  I was wearing gardening stuff but I’ve branched out to stealing Lars t-shirts now

#5 Zoe has a thing about being barefoot as much as possible all of a sudden, she can take shoes and socks off before we are out of our neighborhood.

#6 and #7 are basically the same but I had to include the winter hat that they both insisted on wearing even though it was 80 degrees most of the day.

#8 – again the hat…. And they are cute when they hug

#10, 12 and 15 are them playing tag.  A little unfair since Niamh is way faster and Zoe would not wear shoes

#9,  11 and 14 are all pictures of the garden construction.  The thin wood is for making the 1f x 1f

Next mothers day there will be 3!  I’m kicking myself for not getting a picture of the rat traps Niamh made but you can’t constantly  carry a camera.

Today I’m teaching a major class at work so I should go review my notes and be ready -

honorary Mothers for me would include;  Marion, Sedalia, Bronwyn, Ashley (although Ashley is more older sister like), Aunt Polly (technically more honorary grandmother), and for my kids Sete, and even Heather both cares a lot about many of the kids they know including mine.

36 weeks