Thursday, February 26, 2009

Busy Week

Our annual Book Fair is this week at school-- along with Open House (Tuesday night), Battle of the Books practice (Monday afternoon; I am the coach), a faculty meeting yesterday (left school at 6:00 pm), and AK and I had our weekly mochas with Allison and Maggie today. So I have been busy, busy, busy and too pooped to post. In fact, I've been almost too tired at night to get on the computer... almost, but not quite. Gotta feed my addiction and keep up with my favorite blogs!

Here are a few more snapshots from a recent trip to the park!


Oh boy-- a mountain to climb!

I can do it!
Is that the summit already?
Queen of all I survey....
Mama, are you taking ANOTHER picture of me?
This is kinda high...
I'm not giving up!  I will conquer this mountain.  It will be my greatest accomplishment ever.  
Ooooh, this plastic rock feels so nice.
Maybe I need to taste the rock for the complete experience!


Monday, February 16, 2009

Five

Five months ago today, in a hotel room in Nanchang, China, I opened the door to this sight:

There are several events in my life that have, in a sense, divided my life into "before" and "after"... this was the most important one of my life.  At last, I was seeing my daughter.  At last, holding her.  Playing with her.  Feeding her.  Knowing her.  

Five months ago, I could only dream of the life I have today.  They were sweet dreams, but the reality is so much more.  Being Anna Kathryn's mom is my dream come true.  What a difference five months makes!   

Here are five of my favorite pictures from the past five months!

This was the second or third day AK was with us, (sadly, our trip is already beginning to blur a little)  September 2008.

Her first book, September 2008.

"I think I can, I think I can... feed myself!"  October 2008.

A nature walk on Veteran's Day with Daddy and Mama, November 2008.

Romping at the playground, February 2009.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Our Valentine






Anna Kathryn made the giant card for us in daycare.  She is so proud of her efforts!  We've had a nice and relaxing first Valentine's Day as a family of 3.  She's tucked in for the night and now it's time for Mama and Daddy to have some time together!  A movie, bottle of wine,  and cheesecake with fresh strawberries are waiting...

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Anna Kathryn's First Haircut...

... well, at least the first one since she came home with us.  

This is a fun place to hang out with Daddy!  He got a haircut.  Doesn't he look handsome?
What?  I'm getting a haircut too?
I'm not too sure about this...
Haircut, schmaircut.  Are we done yet?
No more haircut!!  I don't like this at all!  I object!!!
I feel pretty now!  And I have a cute puppy to play with.  This is fun again!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Mama said there'd be days like this



This is what happens when Mama gets distracted and in a rush.  Or, the way things normally run at the House of the Snickerdoodle.

Tuesday, 5:45 AM:  Alarm rings.  I roll over and mentally start running through the day's schedule.  Yesterday was kinda blah, hoping today goes better.  Drag self out of comfy, cozy bed. 

5:58 AM:  I put in my contact lenses. and do not realize that the right one isn't all the way in my eye.  Feel lens on eyelashes and automatically blink.  Hear lens hit the sink.  Know instantly that it's gone down the drain.  10 minutes of searching with a flashlight proves my intuition is correct.  (I have had a new pair of lenses for only 10 days, and I wear gas permeable lenses, which have to be special ordered.  $50 down the drain, literally).

7:31 AM:  Driving Anna Kathryn to day care, since I will be taking her to the pediatrician for a well baby checkup later in the afternoon.  Mark calls me, panicked, since I have apparently taken both sets of car keys to the other car with me, and he is stranded.  

7:34 AM:  Mark calls me to say that Allison can swing back by the house and give him a ride to school.  Yay!  This will save me an extra half-hour of driving, on top of the hour it takes me to get to work when I take AK, since her day care is the opposite direction from my school.  Thank goodness.  

9:35 AM:  At work.  Literally sitting down for a long-planned and very necessary meeting with a co-worker.  Said co-worker is pulled away due to big emergency event.  

10:00 AM:  I manage to drop our inventory scanner on the floor and have a few panicked moments while I reinsert the battery and make sure it works.  It does, thankfully.  A replacement would be about $1700 and it's not in this year's budget!

3:15 PM:  I make it to AK's day care in record time and find out she's had a good day.  Finally, good news!

3:55 PM:  Arrive at the dr.'s office, after a restoring detour at Starbucks for an iced coffee.  Find out this is just a visit with a nurse for more immunizations, not the checkup I thought we had scheduled.  Oh.  I had kinda been planning to ask if we can save this round of vaccinations for the next visit, since poor little AK just assumes by now that every visit to the doctor will involve pain due to shots or bloodwork, and acts accordingly.  So much for that idea.  

5:01 PM:  2 shots, one hour,  and a good deal of crying later, finally exit doctor's office.  

5:15 PM:  Arrive home.  Mark calls and says he's invited Allison and Maggie for dinner.  I get AK and all our gear inside and start pulling out stuff for dinner. 

5:30 PM:  I reach into an upper cabinet to get a bowl out.  CRASH.  I manage to knock a small Pyrex bowl out of the cabinet and it shatters into smithereens on the counter and floor, and the stove, which already has a-- not covered-- pan of rice cooking.  

5:32 PM:  As, I sweep and vacuum, Mark suggests pizza for dinner.  No arguing here!  He offers to go get it, which is fine by me, since disaster is following me today.  And then he makes my evening 100% better by playing with the girls and doing the whole bath and bedtime routine with Anna Kathryn while I sat on the sofa with Allison, yakking and watching Inside Edition while eating Moose Tracks ice cream (which is clinically proven to improve any bad day).   What a guy!!

It really wasn't such a bad day, really.  Just full of calamity and disagreeable things.  Anne of Green Gables would call it a Jonah day.  

On days like this, it's nice to end it with moments like this one:



(Yes, I got a haircut.  It's short again and I am so very happy.  It's not lookin' so pretty in this picture, though.  More on haircuts in an upcoming post!)