If you're going to procrastinate, you'd better like Hannah Montana

Today was fun-filled running around Fort Collins searching for a calendar. These little commodities are apparantly NOT USEFUL after Christmas and so have all been removed from shelves at lightning speed. Well, not ALL of us got an awesome calendar for Christmas, and not ALL of us wanted to go shopping the day after Christmas (or even the weekend after) and so WE losers are stuck with lame-o calendars on our walls. The most popular remaining day-counting-wall-art was Hannah Montana, the second was High-School Musical, and the third was a tie for equally lame subjects such as modern ballet, puppies, fill-in-your-own-date-and-no-you-don't-get-a-picture, or roller coasters. While the last doesn't sound TOO lame, believe me - it is.

In order to get said calendar, first we hit up Target, the logical spot for such a logical item. While I had to pass on tween-dream Hannah, I DID end up picking up some necessary feminine items. Although I am older and wiser I am STILL embarassed to be standing for so long surrounded by pads, tampons, and adult diapers (couldn't they stick those next to baby diapers or something? Then old people could act all non-chalent like "oh, yeah, just checking out the baby diapers...for my grandkids...."). Last time I got so flustered in the Isle of Embarassment that I just grabbed the first package my hand landed on and went home; what a mistake! I actually grabbed the product intended for "size 14 or larger." So when I ran out of supplies this time I FORCED myself to stand there and decipher every single package to get what I really wanted. Then I stocked up so as not to have to do this again ANY TIME SOON. As I go to check out I only have a few things - a can of starch and embarssing sundry feminine goods. The conveyer belt carries them down to the cashier much faster than I can load them, so my few items now take up the entire belt. The customer behind me kindly pushes my things forward so she can put her own load down (embarassing! but my hands are full trying to wrestle Patrick back into the shopping cart seat while wrestling my wallet out of my purse) AND IT TURNS OUT THAT I KNOW HER. I think this is FAR worse than a complete stranger moving my maxi pads because now I have to acknowledge our connection while trying to pretend that didn't just happen. Why, oh why didn't I load the starch on last??

Moving on. I still didn't have a calendar so we hit the mall to perambulate, apparantly with every high school student in the greater Larimer county. While the stroll did not produce a calendar (surprise) it DID produce a much greater respect for high school teachers and administration! They need to be payed more not just because they teach this future generation, but simply because they put up with them for 7 classes a day! I know I'm not that far removed from my own teenage years but I refuse to believe I was ever that ridiculous - that I dressed so poorly, did my hair so crazily, spoke so arrogantly, or followed my friends around like such a lemming! I can only hope that life grows them up and out of it. Now that I'm older and *wiser* I can arrogantly say "well, MY kids will never be like that!" (Haha, joke's on me!) At the very least I can refuse to buy my 14-year-old son pants that were made for a girl or drop my 9-year old off with his cell phone and friends on a wish and a prayer (that's what school was made for, right?).

Finally, the mall and slovenly teenage crowds in our dust, Patrick and I found the nearly-nonexistant 2009 wall calendar at Barnes & Noble - nothing fancy, but nothing ridiculous - and coughed up the required $7.50. HOURS of trouble for nothing fancy. I know what I'm asking Santa for next year!

The Ghost of Christmas Past

My dear dad loves, and has instilled a love in me, for creating and recording memories. Especially the recording. When we were very young he used to bring out the old video camera on Christmas morning, set it up on the tripod, and film the whole darn Christmas gift-unwrap-apalooza. Although this was done for prosperity, I don't think "prosperity" has ever watched a single tape all the way through because it's really just too much. If you think reality shows are kinda lame, and they EDIT OUT the REALLY lame stuff, then you would be bored to tears with 60 minutes of 5 children in the semi-dark at 5 in the morning unwrapping blurry shapes that they don't hold up for the camera and making comments you can't really understand. I have seen a few minutes of these recordings (between fast-forwarding to get to the less banal footage of my childhood), and those minutes were shocking. There we were, crying on Christmas morning! WHO DOES THAT??? I don't have a single memory of being remotely unhappy on Christmas! Obviously I have donned rose-colored glasses over the years because there our wails are, recorded for everyone (or no one [bo-ring!]) to see. While watching these snippets a few years ago it donned on me that being a parent might not be as easy as it looks if your kids don't even take a break from being whiny on this blessed holiday.

Although I still wear those rose-colored glasses for my own childhood Christmas's, Patrick's childhood was laid bare before my parental eyes today, and I'm thinking that my dad's old video camera didn't catch NEARLY all the crying that Christmas actually held. Today, full of wonder and magic and lots of awesome toys, was equally full of full-on screaming, tearful tantrums and much-too-much short on naps. Our poor babies were so over-wrought from all the noise, lights, gifts, food (ok, sugar, not real food), and general mayhem that tears were more the rule than the exception. But what can you do with 12 adults, 3 babies, and 1 miniature pincer in the house? We took plenty of quiet-time breaks when things just got to be too much, but even returning to the scene of the crime was enough to bring a new wave of howls and struggles. I felt very sad because I don't want Patrick to remember Christmas as one big stressful mess! But then I remembered the old video camera and how reality gets filtered over time. Though this Christmas was big and new and probably a little bit frightening for the little ones, and I expect at least a few tears for years to come, I think Christmas will always be a happy memory of time spent with those we love. Some memories just need bigger pink glasses than others.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope your holiday was one big messy, loving, imperfect yet entirely wonderful day as well.

That green is envy, not holiday cheer

I'm checking in from Grand Junction, where Patrick and I have come to hang out at my parent's house. We came over by ourselves - our first long trip without Joe! I was terrified, but Patrick slept most of the 6-hour drive, which, incidentally, has been the most he's slept SINCE WE GOT HERE.

We've been busy shopping and cooking, more shopping, some baking, and finally running errands (to the mall, aka shopping) - quite an agenda to wear a mom AND a baby out! And believe you me, Patrick IS tired - the yawns, eye rubs, crabby mood, head-on-my-shoulder-as-soon-as-I-pick-him-up move.... the whole 9 yards. So it is NAP TIME (or NIGHT TIME, depending on the time of day, of course). But Patrick is a sensitive soul (or the spawn of satan, depending on how long it's been since I slept) and is completely unwilling to sleep in his new accomodations. We have a pack-n-play set up in my bedroom in the back corner of the upstairs - nice and quite, complete with a fan running for white noise, a sweet santa night light, and an extra blanket beneath him for added softness. To me: a little piece of heaven. To Patrick: HELL. At least he sounds like he's being poked by little devils dancing around him with pitchforks, the way he screams for me! And it's like this every time we take a trip and he has to sleep in the dreaded pack-n-play. I've tried to make bedtime as familiar as possible, with a warm pre-bed bath, same jammies, same nursing, same nigh-nigh song (even the same number of VERSES of the song), but he's still upset when I lay him down. So I do the same comfort routine as home - 5 minutes, then pick him up for some snuggles, then back down. But he's still upset. So we do the routine again. And again. And again. And then I start getting desperate because this is obviously not working, just please please go to sleep it's been an hour! He's still upset (possibly MORE upset because I am obviously not giving in on this "bedtime" thing and those devils are waiting for him in the pack-n-play) and screaming and I'm getting more and more desperate because it's getting to be MY bedtime, just pleasepleasepleaselaydownandsleep.... and maybe, if we're lucky, he's so exhausted he gives in. If we're not so lucky, I give in and he comes to bed with me so HE sleeps but I am a quiet contortionist all night, trying to avoid his kicks to the crotch but also trying to do so as quietly as possible so he doesn't wake up and start the whole process again. Which he does anyway, at least 4 times between midnight at 6 a.m. I wish he could talk so he could tell me what's wrong and I could fix it! And then he could also tell me that I am the most awesome mom in the world for putting up with his shennanigans and he bought me diamonds for Christmas and a "coupon book" for backrubs, because otherwise I am not in the mood for one more night of this.

The worst part is I feel like such a bad mom. His cousin Espen sleeps through the night like a champ! I want that! His cousin Kalena holds odd hours (like play time from midnight 'til 2 am) but she does it with a SMIIIIIIILE on her face; Patrick just screams at me each and every time he's up. So WHY is he sleeping so terribly? Why do other babies sleep through the night at 3 months old (or even 4 or 5 or 6 months, or EVER) yet my nearly-one-year-old child is up every hour throughout the night for no reason? What have I done to deserve this???

Q: Is it medical, like he's in pain?
A. He's fine the entire day, he only freaks out at bedtime, and only if it's not his bed at home. He sleeps FINE there (not through the night, but he DOES go to bed). Just in case, I give him Tylenol after the 6th middle-of-the-night wakeup but since he's up an hour after that as well I am led to believe pain has nothing to do with it. I just wish they made baby Tylenol with sedatives. That would sell like hot-cakes even to the mothers who are reading this and shaking their heads. We all have our breaking points, you may just not have been introduced to yours yet. Or you've been introduced and you've forgotten. But remember me when it comes around again.

Q: Is he uncomfortable? Too hot? Too cold? Wet diaper?
A: TRUST ME. None of the above. Empty what's full, fill what's empty, scratch where it itches, and he's STILL mad.

Q: Is he hungry?
A: He'd BETTER not be since, in my desperate attempt to keep him from waking the rest of the house up, I nurse him almost every time he wakes up.... so, on average, he eats 6 times a night (on vacation). If you are still hungry after that we have more problems than bedtime! (and, like the question of pain, we do not have a problem all day, so a problem all night just doesn't make sense)

Q: Could he just need more comfort?
A: Yes, apparantly, since he is zonked out on my shoulder the second I pick him up. But since I am NOT a horse and canNOT sleep standing up, this is not going to work. And co-sleeping only goes so far, as I mentioned (quiet contortionist? remember?).

So all I can do is hope he find a new routine and accepts his travel bed SOON because I get grumpy on this pitiful amount of poorly-had sleep. My bleary-eyed self does not want advice comments back, I don't want to be chastised for my Tylenol remark, and I think I'll cry if you tell me your baby has been sleeping through the night since 6 weeks old. That is not helpful. What I need is a HUG and a NAP and possibly a day without my son so I can have a chance to miss him.

sooooooooo sick

Thursday was the WORST DAY EVER. Really, I haven't felt that awful since... probably labor and the immediate aftermath. I woke up feeling wretched, like I was going to DIE of hunger - I hadn't eaten anything in 12 hours, and I'm a nursing woman, so that made sense. So I ate an apple. And a bowl of cereal. And a banana. And I only felt WORSE; eating was obviously not the answer because hunger was obviously not the problem. I felt worse and worse and worse until finally, around noon, I thew it all back up. Phew! Got that out of my system, time for some soup to calm the tummy and replenish the fluids! Not so, not so. The soup made me feel WORSE. Worse and worse and worse until, hours later, the soup came up, too. I called to warn Joe, but he was out having a HUGE mexican lunch so he didn't get my message in time. And he started feeling BAD and it got BAD enough that he came home from work early, just in time to throw up that HUGE mexican lunch. It was awful!!!! Poor Patrick, he was feeling fit as a fiddle (how fit is that? nobody really knows, but he was great) but all mom and dad could do was lay around on the couch or curl up in a ball on the floor and beg him not to climb on them. The worst was, of course, when we would throw up - he would watch in sheer terror as as it looked like mom and dad were DYING, and he'd cry and scream as it was happening. Such compassion!! Like he totally knew what was going on. Then he'd crawl over afterwards to climb up and give us hugs (he'd already been as exposed as possible, a hug wasn't going to change a thing!) and be ok as soon as we were ok. It was really sweet; even we, who were wishing for a quick and painless death, could see that.

A day later (less than 24 hours! Thank goodness) Joe and I are MUCH better! Our tummies settled enough to have more than a watered-down glass of gatorade (as if gatorade weren't watery enough already) and we even got Raising Canes for lunch - funny how AMAZING greasy fast-food sounds when you haven't eaten for more than a day! So crisis AVERTED, I was worried I would be postponing our Christmas trip to see the family so that I could stay home and vomit. Not so, not so :) As an added bonus to getting better SO quickly, Joe will actually get to walk at his graduation tonight! Hooray! I'll post photos, as soon as we have any.

If home is where the heart is...

...then family is where the face is. You would think coming from an entire pool of genes that at some point other features would have come into play, but Joe and his grandfather Jimmy (James Orr) thought "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" So they didn't change a thing.

James Orr, 1933-1991

Joe Jacobs, 1985-20??

Based upon extensive examination and comparison of Patrick to Joe, and the knowledge that if A=B and B=C then A=C, I can only conclude that my very young son will one day look just like his grandfather Jimmy as well. See for yourselves.





It's almost creepy!

I call a re-do!

Tonight Joe and I got busy - yeah, you know what I'm talking about! We rearranged the living room. (Your mind was in the gutter, wasn't it?) We are weirdly in love with rearranging furniture and in our last apartment (where we lived 2 years), TINY as it was (520 sq. ft), we managed to completely rearrange about every 3 months. I think 6 months is the longest we've ever gone without moving a thing, and December hit that 6-month mark. I don't know if it's because we love changing our minds or our furniture or simply adore waking up to muscle pain, but we MUST MOVE THINGS. Frequently.

Tonight started out simply enough - we were going to finally switch out couches around. We have two couches - a love seat and a "cuddler," which is neither a love seat nor a single seat, but something in-between. The cuddler couch was next to the front door, the light switch, the reading lamp, the sliding glass door so it gets all the direct sunlight, and it directly faced the TV. This "cuddler" would work extremely well for a morbidly obese person, as there is no crack to get stuck in since there's only one butt pillow, and the arm rests are definitely far enough apart, but neither one of us is morbidly obese and we're far enough into our marriage that we don't feel the need to cuddle to prove our love for one another. Yep, we're that comfortable. (Also, we no longer feel the need to turn on the fan to drown out bathroom noises. That's when you know the "mystery" is disappearing). So you can see that the "cuddler" couch was obviously in the wrong place! All the amenities with none of the space. So we were halfway through this simple switch when we decided perhaps we should rearrange the couches entirely; now instead of facing one another they are perpendicular, with a space to walk between them. We found lots to lvoe in this new arrangement: one couch now faces the Christmas tree, so we can bask in the glow of twinkle lights (a Christmas MUST); both couches face the TV; the perpendicular couch gets light from the kitchen; and (most importantly) it is NEW and DIFFERENT.

Since the love seat is longer than the cuddler, furniture around the couches needed to be rearranged, as it no longer fit. And all this moving brings to mind an idea I had about moving our giant kind-sized behomoth of a bed with an entire wardrobe of stuff packed away underneath it.... and with the bed in a new spot, creating more floorspace, I was thinking the rocking chair from Patrick's room would work better in here instead... and as long as the rocking chair is getting moved, couldn't we move Patrick's bed to the other wall?... and if the bed is against that other wall, we'd have more room for..... YOU GET THE IDEA. So the every room in our oh-so-much-larger (815 sq ft) apartment is NEW and DIFFERENT.

Of course, all this moving makes for a VERY MESSY HOUSE (every room, remember?) that we're planning on cleaning up....soon...er than later. Some time, we'll clean it all up, I'm sure of it. Right now, my muscle ache. So while sitting and reading and enjoying our NEW and DIFFERENTLY messy house instead of CLEANING said mess, Joe's bud from school stops by. This is a 22-year old college kid, not married, I'm sure he couldn't care less about how clean (or unclean) our living room is, but in those few minutes he stood in our entry I found that my mother is (and possibly always was) right to think that it is embarassing to have guests see a messy house! More than that, a destroyed house, where we're sitting and reading books and not caring that in order to sit on our newly-rearranged couches you have to remove 3 layers of toys, blankets, and possibly some kitchen utensils (???). Just like that, I'm all fired up to clean the house, but not just to clean it and leave it be - I want his friend to come back here and see how darn spankin' clean it is! I call a do-over! So now if anyone wants to come visit, PLEASE give me at least 3o minutes notice so I can put my book down and get those mixing bowls off the couch :)

Is there a doctor in the house??

It's easy to recognize the "firsts" in life - first steps, first words, first day of scool, first boyfriend, first marriage (haha!), first baby (and then the cycle starts again); it is not, however, as easy to recognize the "lasts." Fortunately we get a couple freebies, like the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, EVER. Just like Friday was for Joe! Congratulations, Joe! No more college for this family for another 18 years ... unless Patrick turns out to be as smart as Doogie Howser. If that's the case, though, I don't think any of us will mind :)

How did I get here?

And now it's my turn to have a birthday - 25 years young! But how did I get here? I've decided to break it down into 25 life-changing events or decisions that brought me to where I am today.

1. I was born. This is very important to the next 24 items!
2. The analytical portion of my brain failed to mature, rendering me a helpless mess at math.
3. At 8 years old I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, officially making me a member of the LDS Church.
4. I planned and replanned and (poorly) painted my parent's house in an attempt to "make it more awesome." Although it did not, in fact, make it "more awesome," it was the beginning of my love of interior design.
5. In an attempt to make my high school transcript "more awesome" for chance at a good college, I took foreign language classes. Apparantly colleges want "well-rounded" students. Since French is obviously far superior (though far less useful) than Spanish, I took French. Since 4 years of language looks the best, I took 4 years. That's pretty much all the thought I put into that.
6. I fleshed out my procrastination skills, really turning it into an art. From high school on out I procrastinated about everything that could be procrastinated.
7. I attended EFY (Especially For Youth) at BYU the summer I was 16, reconfirming my faith in religion; specifically that I did, in fact, want to be LDS.
8. I proved so inept at match that I dropped out of pre-calculus my junior year of high school, cementing my future as a non-mathematician.
9. I dated a nice guy named John who introduced me to his friend Jennifer. Though John and I broke up, we remained in contact and were good friends.
10. I attended college at BYU-Hawaii, where they had a "language track" or a "math track." If you studied foreign language for at least 2 years you were not required to take any math classes to graduate from college. Lucky for me, I could refer back to life decision #5 and did not take any more math, though I took LOTS more French.
11. As long as I was studying French, studying abroad IN France made a lot of sense. There I received lots more college credit in French language courses, causing me to consider majoring in French.
12. My love of Interior Design and complete disinterest in any other majors BYU-H was offering led me to change universities. None of the BYU's offered undergraduate degrees in Interior Design, so I had to go somewhere that did. Not being a millionarie, I had to go somewhere in-state. CSU was my best option, so I transferred after 2 years of college.
13. Still in contact with ex-boyfriend John, who was still in contact with old friend Jennifer, who was a student at CSU, I got a call asking if I needed a place to live. Although my first semester at CSU was starting in 2 weeks, thanks to procrastination I sure was homeless. Fortunately she needed a third roommate for her and her friend, so I came to live with Michelle and Jennifer.
14. CSU's Interior Design undergraduate program is 4 years long, no ifs, ands, or buts. They flesh out the 4 years with basic requirements, which I had already fulfilled in my 2 previous years of college. With lots of time to spare, I completed my load with more French language courses.
15. Somewhere in here, I broke up with other guys and was single for the first time in a long time. This is important for #18.
16. I met Angela in the various French classes we took together. As you remember, I was still taking lots of French.
17. During football season I jumped on the CSU bandwagon with my roommates, Jennifer and Michelle, who were fanatics and never missed a game, including televised games. Although I was no fanatic, I went along out to CB&Potts to watch the televised CSU v. New Mexico game. CSU was losing terribly, so when Angela (#16) called to hang out, I ditched the TV game and went out with her instead.
18. While hanging out with Angela, who was dating one of Joe's best friends from Craig, she asked me if I'd like to meet Joe, then asked Joe if he'd like to meet me. Being single for the first time in a long time, I figured it would be worth a laugh. Little did I know, it was worth a lifetime.
19. Joe asked me on a date, and I said yes.
20A. Joe asked me to marry him, and I said yes.
21. Asked Joe to tag along to church with me and he was pulled in by a) church basketball, b) great home teachers who were not dweebs, c) 3 more hours with me on Sunday, and d) the promise of a whole lot more than one little lifetime together. To get an amazing guy who, amazingly enough, converts? A girl can't get too much luckier in one lifetime! But read on.
20B. A year after the wedding we recommitted and were sealed in the Denver Temple.
22. Although not married long, we were very much in love and anxious for a child, so we tried to time the due date to be between semesters. If this hadn't worked, we were going to wait 6 more months and have a baby in the summer. Neither one really panned out; I had a baby the first week of my last semester of college.
23. Our love of family life caused Joe to re-think his pursuit of a teaching degree, causing him to go back to school for Construction Management. I didn't have a huge decision in this, but I was a huge supporter!
24. Although I continued my studies in Interior Design, the CSU system jerked me out of quite a few French language credits from my study abroad, making it a hassle to get a second major in French. I settled for a minor and graduated with my I.D. degree in May of 2008.
25. With January just around the corner and Joe's official 1st day of work even sooner (December 22) we are just waiting for insurance to become official so we can repeat #22, without all the hassle of babysitters while I go to class.

So now you see - if I hadn't been so bad at math, I wouldn't have taken so much French, so I wouldn't have met Angela, who wouldn't have introduced me to Joe, and I wouldn't have had a beautiful baby and be looking forward to more all by the time I turned 25. Thank goodness for being creative instead :)


My birthday wish: to have more time to read Les Miserables - 154 pages down, only 1,039 to go!

Finished product

Ta-Da!

O, Tannenbaum

Like everyone else in the world, we got our Christmas tree this weekend! And, like everyone else in the world, it's time to show some pictures of our handiwork.

On Saturday morning we went up to Red Feather Lakes where you can cut your own tree for $10! Instead of simply paying for a tree it's more like paying for a fun trip to the outdoors, the experience of trekking through knee-high snow with a bundled toddler on your hip (weighing twice as much as usual from the extra layers), the joy of finding "the one," and then sawing it to the ground and dragging it like a neaderthal back to the car with you. I say $10 well spent! Of course, as soon as we drove back through town we were dismayed at how much more perfect the trees in the tree lots looked, but our has real personality and memories attached to it, and that's what's important to us (at least that's what we tell ourselves!). I'll let Patrick narrate the rest.

K, dad, we've been driving for 2 hours, but I think we're getting close - I can smell the pine!


You think I should just pull over here on the right? Alright, but you'll have to help me park.


Thanks. I needed a little help with that gear shift. Now where's my jacket? This hat just isn't going to cut it with that cold outside.


Man, mom and I look good all bundled up! What's that? Put my arms down? Sorry, no can do - too many layers in the way!

Ok, enough with the photos, on to the hunt! I think I see one over there - see where I'm pointing? Yep, over there! Mush! Mush!

Now this is more like it... except for that whole grove of aspens. Let's avoid that like the plague, they're too tough to decorate when they look dead.

Yay, Dad found it! The perfect apartment tree! Big enough to sit on the ground, small enough that if I topple it, I won't kill the furniture. Hey, um, dad? Where'd your coat go?

Now THAT is pure strength. Better keep up the snacks so I can get big like him.

Mmmmmm, I REALLY deserve these crackers, it was tough getting carried through all that snow. Now let's head home! ...I'll drive.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Today Joe turns 25 - happy birthday, Joe!

Funny how birthdays are remembered differently by the parents and the child. All my birthday memories are about balloons and friends and fun pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey games we played. A mother's memory is probably something more like the actual birth day, going to the hospital and hating her husband for a few hours and then, of course, finally meeting that not-so-smiling but oh-so-cute face. So in honor of Joe's mom getting the short end of the birthday-stick (I prefer pin-the-tail to a hospital any day) a whopping 25 years ago, here's a tribute to the cutest baby around: Joe!

And now the handsomest father I know (on another memoral birth day). I love you!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Fort Collins finally had its first snow of the season! Unseasonably late, to be sure, but definitely in time for Christmas! Patrick sported his new winter coat with a hood since he refuses to wear hats, and I hate to think how quickly a mitten would get flung in the snow, so he doesn't wear those, either. Perhaps I'll knit some with the string that attaches all the way through the sleeves and over the shoulders? We'll see how motivated I get, if this cold keeps up, and how long his winter slumbers (naps) are so I can get some more crafts done. But for the time being the cold doesn't seem to bother him and he loves running his fingers through the snow! So I say mittens, shmittens. Still, nice hood :)

A Drinking Problem

We've had a few great ideas to try yucky "adult" food on Patrick, positive it would get a great disgusted face out of him. So far, nothing. Sure, baby food needs to be spit out and thrown on the floor, but lime wedges? MMMMMMM!! Freezing cold ice cream? Bring it on! Crazy carbonated drinks? Put that in my sippy cup, please! So why fight it? Instead, we've decided to make him the new face of Diet Pepsi, keeping it in touch with the younger generation!* We're going to make millions.

*This stunt is performed by a professional baby with an empty drink; similar stunts should not be attempted at home.