Posts filed under 'MommyHood'
I just asked Cameron to put his Daddy’s shoes away. He did - he’s a good little helper. And then I stopped to think about what he’d just had to understand and figure out, and just how amazing it is that our brains put these pieces together.
First, you need to know that Daddy’s shoes were in amongst several other pairs of shoes in a group near the front door. Our family tends to do a good job of taking shoes off when we come in; we’re not as good about putting those shoes away, so there were at least four pairs collected there. So Cameron had to sort out a few things: one, which items in the room were shoes, which were Daddy’s shoes, and then grab just those two. (He did, and then commented ‘Heavy’.)
Then I realized he had to figure out where to put them. I hadn’t told him where Daddy’s shoes were to go, just “away”. He parsed that to mean, take them down the hall, and put them in Daddy’s room. Taking a quick peek, he not only put them in Daddy’s room, he put them in Daddy’s closet, and even on Daddy’s side of the closet.
I got into computer programming because I wanted to teach computers how to think. I’ve now spent some 15 or so years in the profession, and no program I’ve ever written intuited nearly as much as my not-yet two year old putting his Daddy’s shoes away for his Mommy. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” - Psalm 139:14
July 27th, 2008
A friend of ours sent us some pictures she took at various points earlier this year. Her daughters and our daughters like to play together, and Cora thinks of Sammy as her best friend. In amongst the pictures were a few shots of Cameron. What I noticed about the picture is that Cameron still had straight hair: I think of him as my curly-haired little man, and in these, his hair hadn’t yet “sproinged”. This was only a few months ago: just looks like a different little kid to me.
Cameron with “sproing” versus Cameron pre sproing. (Pre sproing picture taken just a scant two months ago…)
August 11th, 2007
My princess-savvy girls have discovered Lego Star Wars, the XBox game. They’re too young to watch the Star Wars movies, but they make those Lego parts fly with their light sabers. And, of course, they fight over who gets to be Princess Amadala. Even better is when they’re BOTH the Princess… all sorts of confusion ensues.
Peek at some screenshots here…
May 30th, 2007
A Haiku
The baby gurgles…
Two ends with which to gurgle.
The diaper tells all.
October 27th, 2006
I’m at 36 1/2 weeks into this grand adventure called pregnancy, not that I’m counting down or anything. Who wouldn’t be counting at this stage, I wonder? The things to count down to:
- clothes that fit again
- no longer having an aching back
- having more energy
- going to the gym again (eventually)
- holding our baby!
The corollary list of things to count down to (since having a baby isn’t all sweet smelling baby powder)
- not sleeping more than 3 hours at a time
- changing diapers again
- LABOR!
Someone asked me yesterday whether we were ready for our lil’ guy. My response was that yes, we’re ready, but mostly because this is kid #3. That means we’ve already got a car seat, we’ve already got a bassinet, and our expectations of what this kid will need on the day he comes home from the hospital are much lower. We’ve got some clothes washed, some diapers ready, and some new receiving blankets. Callie’s willing to share her blankies, but we figured we’d use her expertise to pick out some nice new ones for our baby boy. Toys? I think we have a new rattle for him. A decorated room? Well, we are getting the carpet redone, but that’s needed to be done, anyway. A matching crib set? He won’t be in the crib for a bit, anyway: there’s still time. Most things just don’t seem as critical anymore as they did when we were newbie parents. And if it does turn out to be critical, we’ll go out and get it then, rather than overstocking our house in advance. Given that this’ll be the first maternity leave period where we’ll have both parents at home, this is looking like a relative vacation. I’ve been mentally making a list of techie topics to explore whilst on my “vacation”. (I understand that as long as you’re drawing short-term disability pay, you’re not allowed to perform actual work for your employer.) And did I mention that I’m looking forward to going to the gym? 
September 2nd, 2006
My girls are big into princesses, both of the Disney variety and otherwise. So I count it as high praise that my Mother’s Day card this year noted that ‘Mommy is a prince’. Not sure why the use of the male royalty title… One of my little girls then called me a Queen! That’s more like it…
May 15th, 2006
There was this running joke at my last job, that we were looking to hire Tina 2.0. Tina 2.0 was the person who would step into my fairly large shoes (both in terms of responsibility and actual size) when I moved onto bigger and better things. At the time, we all thought that that would mean a new project within my company, but that’s another story. I was a bit troubled with the release notation: it implied that this would be a major upgrade of me, when in fact it was more of a substitutionary or cloning kind of thing (and no, I don’t want to explore that particular phrase).
So now I’m wrestling with release numbering yet again. Our family is comprised of parental units 1 and 2, and child units 1 and 2. We could call ourselves P1, P2, C1, and C2. Heck, maybe we could get Cat in the Hat/Thing inspired t-shirts. But there’s no Thing3 in the Cat in the Hat, and there’s the rub. C3 (whose diaper will be filled not with P0, but with Poo [or, as P(not me) put it, P-ewwww]) has a targeted released date. C1 is highly excited (”Mommy and me are going to have a baby!”) and C2 is oblivious. P1 and P2 are so busy with C1 and C2 that I don’t think it’s really hit us yet. But, oh, it will, it will.
March 22nd, 2006
I’m on something of a sabbatical from work, courtesy of the government procurement cycle. As in, hurry up and get it done. Oh, wait, you mean we need to give you a task order to allow you to keep working? Those familiar with the situation would recognize that now is a great time to take that use-or-lose leave that’s accumulated during the year, due in large part to the “hurry up and get it done” part of the cycle.
It’s only been a few days, and it’s already interesting to see what it is exactly that my girls do while I’m at work. Jason blogged a bit about
what it is that they think I do. Definitely interesting to see it from the other side.
What I’ve observed so far:
(1) the pace of things changes very quickly
(2) … unless Mommy or Daddy wants the pace to change very quickly
(3) the amount of fun being had directly correlates to the amount of noise being made
(4) there is no such thing as a neatnik toddler
(5) … except where their own personal hygiene is concerned: sticky hands or a shirt that has a drop of something on it must be corrected IMMEDIATELY
(6) the greatest chefs in the world have either a drive-through window or a carry-out phone number
(7) sleep is for those who’ve given up on the day, and is to be battled at all costs
It’s my own anthropology adventure - more insights likely over the course of the next few weeks. I’ll be observing them in their natural habitat this week as Daddy takes a well-earned reprieve and visits family, sans species of schedule interruptus. As I prayed in church this morning as they wiggled/squirmed/caused other church members to offer to assist me: “God help me have the patience not to kill ‘em”.
Note that I’m waiting for the kisses and snuggles of bedtime to readjust my attitude. It always happens… they know when my tank is near empty, and then fill it back up with snuggles or a hug or snack which they had to save half of for Mommy. Or a “I’ve got to put the bugs away” comment.
December 18th, 2005
Our baby, lil Callie Flower, turned two today. Actually, she turned two almost 24 hours ago, having chosen to enter the world at the ungodly hour of 1:10 am. Note that she’s often played havoc with our sleep schedule since that day, as well.
She’s a beautiful little girl, who looks absolutely NOTHING like me. Blonde, blue-eyed, curly hair, and possessing three deadly weapons: a smile that makes her eyes sparkle, a pout that she delivers from underneath her curly mop of hair, and a laugh that sounds so delightful as it trills and rolls up from somewhere deep inside her little body. She’s irresistible, particularly since she loves everyone. Sample Callie anecdote: at a family picnic, with an extended family including folks in no way related to Callie who she’d never met before. She played airplane with one unrelated family member, gleefully flying through the air. When some of the kids were to told to line up to kiss their grandparent, Callie jumped into line ahead of her cousins, whose granddad this was, and planted a smooch on a gentleman who’d just met her that day. That gentleman’s wife was so delighted, she asked Callie for a kiss herself, and was quickly granted one.
Callie’s a cuddler, rarely to be found without a receiving blanket which she carts around for when she’s tired or wants comforting. I can’t bear the thought of the day when those blankets are left behind.
Little woo: you’re two! Mommy can’t believe it, and feels tremendously grateful that you were granted to us to be part of our family. Happy Birthday, and sleep well tonight. Tomorrow’s just waiting for you to wake up and move a little closer to little girlhood and a little farther away from baby and toddler land. Give Mommy the gift of lingering here a little while longer, though…
October 10th, 2005
Cora’s now begun preschool. She’s 3 1/2 years old, very intelligent we think (as Garrison Keillor puts it, “where all the children are above average”), and has always been just a bit shy. OK, if you’ve actually met her, occasionally painfully, throw a fit if you get near her shy. That’s changed somewhat as she’s gotten older, but it was still with some trepidation that we considered her going to kindergarten as her first exposure to not being the focus of mommy/daddy/grandma’s attention and doting. So, we essentially decided to move the pain up, to when the doses were smaller, and the outcome was less dire if she hated the whole experience. Off to find a preschool we went.
Our criteria for the appropriate school? Very limited. Do you have kids? Do you have adults to watch those kids? No obvious electrocution/drowning/falling out of windows hazards? Great! You’re the one for us. Actually, it was even slightly more relaxed than that. We knew two families in the church who were sending their little girls to a particular school, and we kind of figured if it was good enough for them…
So Cora’s been to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two weeks now. And she comes home to tell us about stuff that we didn’t get to see her do. Up to now, when she told us stuff, there was this mind mapping that had to go to figure out what precisely from today she’s found interesting to talk about. 3 year olds aren’t great on giving context. But you witnessed her whole day, mostly, so you had the keys. Now, though, there’s a whole set of stuff that she does that we’re really interested in finding out about, and dependent upon asking just the right questions to get her impression of the situation. Very odd experience… Not something we were really prepared for with a 3 year old.
Jason has it even weirder than me. I’m used to coming home, and only getting snippets. Heck, I only _want_ snippets. He’s used to seeing the whole thing in gory detail. And now there’s this set of details Cora may choose to reveal or not reveal. New friends, new experiences, … our daughter has a life of her own at 3 1/2!
September 15th, 2005
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