Travel

After much serious consideration, Meghan and I have decided that travelling with a baby is not in any way enjoyable.

Shopping Adventure

Yesterday, a friend and I took our babies and decided to go on an afternoon adventure which involved driving an hour South to an outlet mall in Gilroy, CA. This meant the kiddos would be skipping their afternoon nap and be stuck in car seats and strollers for 4+ hours. Sounds like a recipe for disaster right?

Wrong! It was glorious!

Shopping has no longer been a love of mine since graduating to the plus size section. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating about the plus size, but not about the shopping decline. Not only does the idea of trying to bring along a fussy/grabby/squirmy baby sort of ruin the appeal, but who wants to cloth themselves in clothes that are three sizes bigger than they used to wear? At least if you don’t go shopping you can live in denial and sweatpants a little bit longer.

So I was both excited and dreading this forray into the world of buying clothes once again. Lucky for me, I had a friend along to share the burden. We took turns watching the kids while the other person tried on clothes. We gave honest opinions on shoes and jewelry choices. And, I had a fantastic time!

But the truly wonderful moment came when I went to try on a pair of jeans. Jeans are my arch nemesis. A great pair of jeans is like an old friend. You love them, you live in them, you wear them until their are holes in the butt and the bottoms are all frayed. Everyone loves finding that pair of jeans that fit just right. The unfortunate thing is how many pairs of jeans you have to try on that end up being all wrong before you find the perfect jeans. It can be a horrible hour when you go into the dresssing room, arms piled high with denim pants to try on and scrutinize yourself in, only to find that you are not actually a size 8 after all-you are a size 10. Or no- skinny jeans do NOT work for everyone. Etc, etc.

But this time, I walked into the dressing room, carrying two pairs of cute dark-wash jeans in the size I used to be pre-pregancy and also the next size up just in case these jean sizes ran small. Imagine my shock when lo and behold-my pre-pregnany size did not fit. They were very, very large. Yes, I am no longer a size 10 jeans, I am an 8. I have not been a size 8 jeans since high school.

My dream has recently been to fit into a size 6 jeans. It feels amazing to be only one size away now from that dream.

What a glorious day. Can you tell I’m dancing around my house in these jeans as I write this? I’m never taking them off. Well, at least not until I can trade them in for some 6’s.

What I’ve been up to lately…

Well, the questions has been asked by many, where the heck have I been? I’ve been here. Nope, I haven’t been traveling or anything. I don’t have exciting news or fun adventures to talk about. I’ve been at home enjoying the brief calm before the storm (aka August and September, they’re going to be brutal). I’ve been swimming with Reese in our pool, hitting the gym every day doing my sister Kellee’s weightlifting workout exercises she showed me on her visit out in addition to my Triathlon training. Did I mention I’m doing ANOTHER Triathlon? Yes, I’m crazy, and so very excited to do it with my friend Elena since it will be her first.

In addition to all of that I have also been doing a whole lot of this:

and this:

and some of this:

and this:

To say that I’ve been spending a lot of time at my computer would be an understatement.

SmugShot

With the release of the iPhone 3G tomorrow, Apple is also releasing new iPhone/iPod Touch software and the App Store.  Aside from a lot of other cool stuff, iPhones can now have third-party applications on them.  So what does that mean?

Have you ever wished your cell-phone had a whole bunch of other stuff on it, like a tip calculator, a to-do list, etc.?  Wouldn’t it be cool if you could pick and choose from thousands of applications so your phone does what *you* want it do instead of whatever the creators wanted it to do?  Well, Apple solved that problem with the App Store.  Developers can create their own applications and you can easily and quickly get whichever ones you want on your own iPhone.

Use Facebook or Myspace a lot?  Would you like to have an application on your phone to use your accounts?  Have you ever been at an electronics store and wanted to know how highly rated a TV was and how expensive it was online?  Wouldn’t it be cool if you could look them up with a simple application on your phone?  Thankfully, now you can if you have an iPhone.

But the best of all, at least for me, is that now I can take a photo on my phone and send it straight to my favorite online photo sharing service with SmugShot.  I can add captions, keywords, select specific galleries, etc.  And it’s free to download and use.

That’s hot.  And speaking of which, 500+ applications were released today with the new App Store, and guess which app is the hottest right now in the store?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Things sure are changing around here these days. Just when I start to get comfortable in a routine with Reese we hit a growth spurt or a transition and things change again. Here’s what’s new:

* Reese stood for the first time yesterday for over a minute without holding onto anything. Of course I placed her on her feet and gave her something (my iPhone) to hold so she would be distracted from trying to sit down immediately, which is what she usually does. She is definitely in no hurry to start stomping along on her own though, so I think we’ve got awhile before Reese will really be a “toddler”.

* Reese has always been a pretty good eater with finger foods and I was just starting to count my lucky stars that she seemed to eat any fruit or veggie I dared put in front of her (did I ever mention that she doesn’t have any interest in eating grain products like bread, crackers, or even cheerios?) Dum Dum Dum…

The picky eating stage has set in. I had hoped it would never happen to my sweet girl, but it has. Foods that she would once stuff with both hands into her mouth at alarming rates now gets thrown off her tray in disgust. I am beside myself trying to figure out what to feed this child. She can’t live on fruit alone! So far the winning foods are: bananas, watermelon, peaches, peas, avacados, raisins, toast and almost any other member of the fruit family. The losers include: scrambled eggs, PB&J sandwiches, veggie patties, spaghetti, pasta, cheerios, beans, and the list goes on…The worst is that sometimes she will scarf something I make the first time, so I get all excited that I have found something new she will eat, then she won’t ever eat that meal again.

I’m frustrated.

*We are also going through some really rough sleep issues. Reese has been weird about naps for about 2 weeks now. She will go down for a morning nap and act tired when I put her down for her afternoon nap but then she just cries the whole time. Or she won’t take her morning nap and then she is so tired by the time her afternoon nap rolls around she won’t sleep.

So I figured she is ready to go down to one nap a day right? I thought she was a little young for that, but all the signs were pointing that way. After the last two days I’m pretty sure that’s not the case either. She has been a mess! She is cranky and tired and she cries at the drop of the hat. I don’t know what to do, honestly. Any pieces of advice? I’m pretty sure she’s not teething, and she’s not sick. Argggh!

*Reesey and I are home alot more these days except for our daily outing to the gym. So Reese has had a lot more opportunities to play by herself with her toys. Lately she has been obsessed with taking things out and putting things back into containers. Whether it be laundry, blocks, even shoes. She will sit forever with her bucket and picking up toys and putting them into the bucket one by one, then taking them out and putting them back in again. I love peeking in on her while she’s playing quietly by herself, it’s totally cute.

*Reese is catching onto a few of the baby signs I have been showing her for months. She knows “more” and “all done”, although she still needs to be prompted to use them sometimes instead of whining. She can also show you where her head is and where “mama’s head” is when asked.

* Did I mention the whining? Yes, there is a lot of whining these days. I think the babe is a bit frustrated that she can’t tell us what she wants. It’s annoying. When she wants what I’m eating/holding/using, she whines. When she wants me to pick her up she throws herself at my legs, and she whines. When she wants more food on her tray, she whines.

My ears hurt.

Things they be a-changin’. Some things for the better, umm…we’ll work on the rest.