Birfdays!

Today has been kind of a crappy day, but that's okay. I really had my birthday over the weekend, with a fabulous birthday party and great times with friends and family. It was great, you were great and I can't really complain a bit.

Plus I got an iPod Mini! I had asked everyone for one, but told them I didn't really expect anyone to pay for it. Sure enough, Daddy wanted me to have it and surprised me with one. I used it at the gym yesterday and it was great.

You went to the gym with me yesterday and I guess you had fun too, because you asked me this morning if we could go back!

So, things overall are good. Just in a weird funk today. I think it's improving though; only 1.5 more hours of work left. :)

Love Story

It's a sweet story but I just can't imagine 74 years of marriage. Hell, I can't imagine being 105 years old. But it sure would be interesting!

Developing

I should post more often on your development. Not sure why I don't do that. I suppose part of it is because the changes are so gradual. But I really do think to myself every day how lucky we are to be your parents.

Right now you're really pushing your independence. You can sometimes dress yourself, top and bottom. You can get socks onto your feet and sandals, too. Tennis shoes are a little trickier, but you try. You LOVE lotion, washing your hands, using toilet paper, and even cleaning/picking up. Yes, that's nice I must admit. You sing the Barney clean up song and happily pick things up. If your milk spills, you try to find a towel or napkin to clean it up. If something falls over in another room or the dog makes a mess of some sort, you will come to get one of us to drag back and show it. When I give you a cheese slice or stick, or banana, you will eat the food and take the wrapper or peel to the trash can by yourself. It really is wonderful.

You are also old enough now to make up your mind. Unless you're tired you almost never do the random contrary statements. When you say you do want to do something, I can trust you mean it. You think before answering me when I give you choices, and you won't hesitate to tell me if you want a choice I haven't given you. You also won't hesitate to tell me that you're unhappy I won't relent to it becoming one of your choices. But usually choices involve milk or water, cartoons or movie, this outfit or that one, stroller or walking. The latter, incidentally is hardly a choice anymore. You definitely are not interested in sitting in the stroller. And a cart? Fuhgettaboutit. Unless it's one of those newfangled carts that doubles as a race car, it's just not going to happen. Our grocery store of choice just got these, but you can't take them out of the store. How annoying is that?!?! But I digress.

Honestly, you amaze me more all the time. Whether you're chasing daddy around the house while he vaccuums and you're pushing your popcorn popper toy to imitate him, or talking to Grandma on the phone, I find you very entertaining.

Entirely too hot

I still don't know what's up with my body. It's not the big P, I'm sure, just... weird.

Of course, part of it might be because it's 57,000 degrees outside. Okay, more like 116 but seriously, how long can a person survive in 116 degrees? It's been weeks at over 111, and a good solid week over 114. Nobody is normal in heat like that. Our ancient air conditioner is fighting hard to keep the house below 80. That made the flooring experience this weekend lots of fun.

Fortunately, we got it done and your bedroom looks GREAT! We dismantled the crib (sniff) and put it neatly under your bed. We moved the bed to the other side of the room and reorganized everything. It leaves you with an incredible amount of room. We were even able to put most of your toys in your room for the first time ever! Maybe we'll be able to use our living room as a living room again and not a toy box. Mostly I hope you'll want to play in there more often, though I think I need to get you a rug. I'll post photos here soon.

Work will be very busy this week, and then Saturday is my birthday party. I don't kno what there is to celebrate. I'll be 30 next Tuesday. Maybe that's why my body is acting up: Protest! It all makes sense now.

Interesting

So I turned in your application to the Montessori school of our choosing. Of course, it would be $750/month, so I also picked up the financial assistance package. I don't know what to think. In an ideal it would be perfect, and it's worth a shot. But there are drawbacks too. Not the least of which is that your (hopefully) future brother or sister would be $1,150/month as an infant. Yeah, no. That's more than our mortgage payment. So either we'd have to get that basically knocked off, which might happen if they looked at those two in relation to our income. OR the future child would have to go elsewhere, probably where you're going now. It's about 1/2 block away, so it's not really inconvenient.

Aaaaanyway, while we're on the subject of the future child... We were, weren't we? Yes, well. Man, I'm a bad prego wannabe. I'm not used to be a la natural, sans pregnancy-preventing hormones. So a lot of the weird crap my body's been doing in the last couple of weeks and really the last couple of days do nothing to help. What is all this stuff? My body's blissfully happy with The Pill. Well not blissful but relatively uneventful. Now I have all of these hormones. I have mood swings, hot flashes, boob sweating (WTF is up with that?!) and general pregnancy-type feelings that only come full force right before you get your period. Sorry, TMI. I'm sure my lovely Aunt Flo is around the corner, but in the meantime her impending visit leaves me with Attitude. And how! My coworkers are lucky to share in the joy that is me right now.

Of course, there's always the chance it's not a test. No, shut up you. Go away now. I am not in danger of forgetting that when you're TTC'ing, every twinge, flash, flicker and blip of a body change signals your mind to say "Oooh, oooh! That's what you feel when you're pregnant, right? I must be pregnant!" Then your evil Mr. Hyde reminds you that you're a bloody fool.

Yeah, so I'm having some fun at present. Stay tuned. I am pretty sure I'm losing my mind.

P.S. No, I'm not drunk. I'm at work. More like punch-drunk with exhaustion.
P.P.S. You, yes you - Don't snap at me for not telling you anything first. There's nothing to tell you. Didn't you read above? If I pee on a stick and it says anything, I will call you. But I won't be peeing on a stick anytime soon. As Chez Miscarriage says, "Go away, evil eye."

Finally!

I don't know how my blog got so messed up, but I finally fixed it with a happy little float:left command. Phew.

Woot!

I so would have bought these if they hadn't been sold out when I first saw them. $11.99 for two digital cameras? I would have given one to you and probably one to Grandma or something, just to spread the wealth. But I would have really enjoyed seeing what you would do with your own camera.

Last night I gave you my very special ring. You were playing with Daddy's wedding band and demanding a ring of your own. So I dug into the bag of my childhood and miscellaneous fun jewelry and sure enough, I found my real gold ring with an enamel Minnie Mouse charm from when I was very young. It's adjustable, and when I put it on your hand it fit beautifully. You couldn't believe your luck. Of course, you fell asleep with it on. Your hand was even spread where you left it, watching it as you fell asleep. Way too cute. I put it away and will bring it out another special time.

One hundred and fourteen degrees. It should be illegal. We did get to swim in the pool on Sunday though while Auntie Chelle was over. You really enjoyed that, and I hope we get to do it again.

Prayers

If you're the praying type, please keep a very special little girl in your prayers. I don't have her linked for her own privacy, but an online friend just found out that her daughter who is a little older than Ceili appears to have leukemia. I've known this mother for a while now and watched her beautiful daughter grow along with Ceili. I admit I'm very worried and a little frightened for them. Please keep them in your prayers.

Three years ago today

On July 5th, three years ago today I found out I was pregnant with you. I'd been having heartburn for a couple of weeks and that day my breasts were really sore. Sorry, TMI. It was a Friday and Daddy was up in Heber with Grandpa Dan checking out the fire damage on the rim. Grandma Laurie and I drove to Nogales because she needed to get some medicine. She asked me why I hadn't taken a pregnancy test yet, and I told her there was no way I was pregnant. I thought I knew when I ovulated and it was while I was out of town. She talked me into taking a pregnancy test anyway.

When I got back into town, I went and bought some groceries including a six-pack of hard cider. Thinking how bad it might look, I went to a different drug store to buy the pregnancy test. I went home, drank some cider, peed on a stick and actually forgot about it. A short while later I went and checked... And screamed! I started talking to Princess like a mad woman because there was nobody around to tell. Daddy wasn't coming back until the next evening. So I called Grandma Laurie and broke the news to her by saying, "So what do you think? I just took a pregnancy test and it's positive. Should I call Joe or wait?" She laughed, congratulated me and told me to wait. That was already my plan but it was funny.

It seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at once.

Houpy farth!

It's the long July 4th weekend, hooray! It's going to be a ridiculously hot one here, too. That part sucks but what can we do?

Tonight Daddy and I have a date. Tee hee. So exciting. We'll probably go to a bar and play NTN trivia like complete nerds.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to run some errands and go to The Children's Place (evil giggle) and then at 1-2ish we'll head over to America West Arena for the preshow before the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus! I cannot wait. It's your first circus, and mostly I'm looking forward to you getting to see the elephants; they're you're favorite.

Sunday it's off through the smoky wildfires of central Arizona to Prescott for the rodeo with Grandma and Grandpa Fricke. That will be lots of fun too, if we can get there. Whole sections of freeway and highways are shut down for the fires and backburning.

Monday the Fourth it's a big family gathering at Aunt Chelsie's. Uncle Paul is back from Iraq for a few months with his family, and I think Great-Grandma Devine's coming up from Tucson for what will be her 82nd birthday. We're supposed to bring potluck food and I'm at a loss of what to do but I'm sure we'll work something out. I think in the morning of the fourth, you and I and Grandma Laurie will probably go to the little neighborhood parade like we did last year. That was fun and very neighborly. I would like it to be a tradition. Maybe Daddy will come this year.

So, as usual it's a really busy weekend. But a great one, full of friends and family. I hope everyone else has a fabulous long weekend, and I hope I don't think about work or computers once until Tuesday morning!