Moving Target

Tonight I attempted to get a few quick shots of Daphne, since she was already dressed up to go to the visitation. I wanted a picture of her by the bougainvillea but quickly realized if I didn’t have a baby wrangler there was no way I was going to get her to stand still and look at me so I could take a picture. See what I mean?

I’d rather pay attention to the dogs than you, Mommy.

Oh, what’s this?

The whole time I was repeating her name. “Daphne, Daphne, look at Mommy, hey, come over here, Daphne look this way, Daphne, Daphne, Daphne, don’t touch the water, Daphne, Daphne.” It was like Bill Cosby’s Jeffrey bit. And for those of you that have never seen Bill Cosby: Himself, here’s the clip:

I thought I’d throw that in here because I realize not everyone gets my 80’s references. In fact, while we were staying with my sister and her husband a few weeks ago we watched part of Two and a Half Men (which I had never seen before) and I made the comment about Duckie not aging too well. My sister got it, my brother-in-law didn’t. “Duckie?” He had never seen Pretty in Pink. Then my sister had to remind me, “well, he is 11 years younger than you.” I am so old.

Mommy Zombie

Can we go back to Sunday so I can start this week over? Please. After feeling strange Monday & Tuesday I wasn’t thinking last night and took a prenatal vitamin right before bed. Vitamins hype me up so I can’t sleep. My OBGYN never believed me, but it’s true. At 3:30 this morning I finally headed off to bed while thinking to myself, “I’ll be lucky to get 10 min of sleep before Daphne wakes up.” (Daphne still has one night feeding anywhere from 4-5am.) And I was right. Of course she wanted to pretend she was a newborn and eat for 45 minutes. So I was pretty much Mommy Zombie today. Well, without the whole flesh-eating thing.

This evening we went to a funeral home by my dad’s house for his mother-in-law’s visitation. She passed away on Saturday. My dad has been really sick and Chris had already warned him not to touch Daphne. Of course he touched her anyway. At one point he touched her hand and she immediately rubbed her eye then put that hand in her mouth. AAHHH!! I swear if she gets sick I’m going to kill him. I’m pretty grumpy when I haven’t had enough sleep.

The Mother of All Tote Bags

I realized today I forgot to blog about the ginormous tote bag I received last week. A friend who lives in San Diego picked up the bag at Comic-Con a few weeks ago, and knowing I’m a big Veronica Mars fan he offered to send it to me.

You might not be able to tell from the photos, but this bag is HUGE. I mean, any bigger and it would drag the ground. As it is when I put the strap over my shoulder the bottom of the bag is almost to my ankle.

My mind is boggled thinking of all the stuff I can put in a bag this big. See, I’m a tote bag junkie. Really. I have to force myself not to buy anymore cute tote bags from Target or Etsy. When I worked full time I would always have a tote bag with my purse, lunch, tolietries (toothbrush, hairspray), drugs (Motrin, vitamins, sinus stuff), extra clothes for the gym, magazines, and more. People would mock. I didn’t care. I prefer to be prepared for anything, plus things always came up missing at my last job and I didn’t want to leave anything in my office (at a mortgage company! really, you’d think people would be more professional). Towards the end of my pregnancy I added a few more things to the bag and it got to the point where I really needed my own personal sherpa or porter to carry it for me.

Anyway, I think this WB bag would be great to take to the beach.  Chris wants to head down to Galveston soon, so we might just get a chance to try it out.  Thanks again for sending it, Chong!!

In A Funk

Yesterday I was in a funk. Today really isn’t that much better. It’s rainy and cloudy here, which doesn’t help. Normally on days like today I’d love to curl up on the sofa with an afghan and watch all 300 minutes of Pride and Prejudice (the BBC/A&E miniseries). Not possible right now while chasing Daphne. That’s ok.

Speaking of Daphne, we bought her a pink, Minky fabric, upholstered chair yesterday for her birthday. It’s from Target:

You might remember I had a hard time coming up with gift ideas. We had no problem picking out little toys, but couldn’t come up with anything for a big gift. I thought about a wagon, but with her new car she really doesn’t need both. She already has an adorable table and chairs set. Chris didn’t think a little toddler chair would be something she would like so we tried it out at Target last weekend. Daphne LOVED it. Her eyes lit up and she ran her hands over the soft fabric. Once we sat her in the chair she kicked her feet and smiled. You could tell she was thinking, “I’m such a big girl in this cool chair!!” Same thing happened with Daphne’s first purse set. Chris didn’t think it would be something she’d like, I disagreed. Daphne ended up loving it. Dude, don’t mess with me. I know what little girls like.  Just for comparison we put her in the brown fake leather kid’s chair, since it would better coordinate with the living room and be easier to clean.  No, she liked the pink chair.  That’s my girl!

Way too young to date

A little boy hit on Daphne today at Whole Foods. We were in the cold beverages aisle when I hear a woman’s voice coming up behind me. “My little boy just would not stop pointing and chattering about your little girl. We just had to come and meet her.”  I turn around to see a blonde baby trying to touch Daphne’s hair while waving and saying “hi, hi, hi!”  Turns out William is a little over a year old and thought Daphne was just all that.  After we introduced ourselves and got the “how old is yours?” thing out of the way the mom asked William if he thought Daphne was pretty.  “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” (while trying to touch her face and hair)  If he could talk I’m sure he would have asked for her phone number to hook up for a play date later.  Yeah, Daphne’s daddy isn’t going to let that happen.  Not ever.

I thought I was going to have years and years to prepare for boys coming over to talk to Daphne.  Guess not, lol!

Currently I Am…

• Bummed I didn’t get to see the Olympic opening ceremonies. Looked like an amazing show. I need to see if it’s online.
• Still regretting the meal we had at the Empanada House last night. No more fried stuff. Ever.
• Totally unmotivated to do anything after church and lunch at Los Cucos. The heat doesn’t help. Hibernating in the cool living room with the shades drawn sounds good to me. We might venture out to the pool later.
• Contemplating how to decorate Daphne’s high chair for her birthday. I think I need a little high chair table skirt or banner to put around the tray edge.
• Planning to get some pictures of Daphne today. I realize it’s been a while since I had any pics here on the blog. Sorry (to Daphne’s grandparents).
• About to order a few more things for Daphne’s birthday, including a few Elizabeth Mitchell cds and a Gymboree toddler activity book. What did I ever do without Amazon Prime? I wear it out.
• Very happy my mom and I decided not to bake another birthday cake this weekend to try out a new recipe and practice our tier construction for Daphne’s cake. I’m pretty much sick of cake. Mom asked me what kind of cake I wanted for MY birthday. Um, how about birthday baklava? Candle placement would be tricky though.
• Trying to remember to call one of my girlfriends from Birmingham and make sure she has my new phone number.  I totally suck at keeping in touch with people once I move away.  I am trying to work on that.
• Forcing myself off the internet (as soon as I finish my Amazon order).  Need to fold laundry, practice the melted chocolate butterflies and flowers for Daph’s cake and go to Wal-Mart.

Feeding Herself

Today I decided to give Daphne the spoon while she was eating her applesauce. To my surprise she actually did pretty well feeding herself. My mom had asked if she could feed herself with utensils and honestly I hadn’t thought to try it. Hopefully that isn’t something she should have been doing months ago. I have no idea. But I have that fear since my mom never taught me to tie my shoes. I went off to Kindergarten without having that skill and I remember my teacher was just horrified. So hopefully there won’t be any important skills that I’ll forget to teach her. Here’s video of Daphne:

Oh, and I bought her a new high chair. She originally had a fancier German high chair, the Euro-Baby Family High Chair. I liked the idea of a wood chair and that it was adjustable for even adults to sit in, but it’s a pain in the ass to clean and the tray totally sucks. So don’t buy this one:

I got it for next to nothing as an Amazon Baby deal of the day. So I’ll either see if my sister-in-law wants it for her new baby (she’s due in March) or it’s going up on Craigslist. Her new high chair is from IKEA actually and cost a whopping $24.99 (it’s the one in the video). I love it! It’s a breeze to clean and get her in and out. I did some research before buying it last night and it seems like a great chair. I love how small it is and how easy it would be to travel with it. And it’s so light I can pick it up and hose it off if it gets trashed. Awesome.

Hot Date

We just got back from our date. I have to admit it was nice to have a few hours away from Daphne and be able to leave the house with just my wallet, lipstick and keys and not half the contents of Daphne’s room. Of course we might need a refresher course on what constitutes a “date.” We had dinner at Saltgrass then went shopping at IKEA and Costco for Daphne stuff. We had planned to get some frozen custard but pooped out and went home. Terribly exciting. It was really nice to sit and talk to my husband. We’ve had so many distractions lately and haven’t made time to have meaningful conversations.

As usual, the items we were interested in at IKEA were junky looking in real life. Chris thought the Trofast system looked like garbage pails so I guess we will either do the Expedit system, or look for something completely different for Daphne’s room. But we somehow managed to spend $113 so it wasn’t a total bust.

Random Thoughts

I’ve really been loving the look/art direction of Heather Bailey’s and Danielle Thompson’s websites. Such amazing color and details and great photography. And now that my hair is almost shoulder length I think I’m going to get a few of Heather Bailey’s Trash Ties. And maybe some short ones for Daphne. How fun!

Why is it that boiled eggs and walking daisies can talk on Oswald, but Weenie the dog can’t talk? Same with Jack’s Big Music Show. Everyone can talk (squirrels, cats, etc.) but Mel the dog. Bugs me for some reason.

We had our first, “Oh crap do we need to take Daphne to the emergency room?” moment last night. Scared me to death. I was unpacking our suitcase in Daphne’s room and turned around to see her licking the orange coating off of a Motrin tablet. She didn’t have the bottle and I didn’t see any other tablets around. My guess is the tablet fell out of the suitcase, as we don’t have any drugs or bottles within her reach. I was pretty sure it was the only tablet and she hadn’t swallowed any others, but there’s always that “what if?” We got an expert’s opinion (pediatrician friend of the family) and kept an eye on her. She was just fine. I was NOT fine. I dread those “my child is hurt or lost” moments.

Chris and I are going on a date tomorrow night for the first time since June or July of 2007. It’s about time!

I’m getting a makeover next weekend and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Now that my hair is grown out (from that horrible Jodie Foster in The Brave One cut) I’m going in to get it trimmed and shaped, then over to the MAC counter for a makeover. You know, I’ve never had a makeup application done at MAC, even though I own a ton of their cosmetics. Hopefully I won’t leave looking like a drag queen. You never know with the makeup artists they hire.

In less than two weeks I won’t be able to check the 18-34 age box anymore. Yep, I’ll be 35. How is that possible?

Toy Storage

I think after Daphne’s birthday we are definitely going to need a better toy storage system. I’ve been going through all the storage posts on Ohdeedoh and their “Now you see it, now you don’t” contest entries, as well as IKEAhacker trying to get ideas. Currently, I’m thinking of using under the bed bins for her larger toys (put under her crib so she has easy access to them) and maybe the Trofast system from IKEA or another unit with cubbies and baskets. Like this Trofast unit, but I’d paint it and do pink and white bins:

We’d secure it to the wall for safety purposes, but do you think this would be a climbing hazard? The tallest point is 36″. This would be another option, but I probably wouldn’t put so many units together. I don’t think we’d have the space for something quite so long:

Chris & I are going out on a date tomorrow night and I’m thinking about having him drive me over to IKEA so I can check them out. I also want to look at the Expedit series after seeing so many people use them for toy storage. Target also has a few options, but I like how IKEA’s systems are more customizable with different sized bins.

Or should I just get a toy box? But it seems like things get so jumbled up in them. Anyone have any tips/suggestions??