Rearranging - The Saga Continues

Nikki's guess of completing this project by 11pm on Sunday was close, but not quite right. We did indeed stop working at 11pm on Sunday, but we are far from finished. In fact, the room itself looks like the Cable Guy came in and threw up cables and components all over. Yes, the house (not just the room) is strewn with cables, components, spare furniture, cds, DVDs, and various other random items. This makes Mommy very uncomfortable so let's just recap how we got here, shall we?

Alright maybe rearranging the living room wasn't the best idea to have on a Saturday morning, but we got an early start so what's the harm? After much haggling over the furniture placement, a call to the neighbors for advice, and a good deal of back breaking furniture movement, we finally got the room arranged. That took most of the day on Saturday and one trip to IKEA to get another table (which, by the way, was the wrong color and had to be returned on Sunday).

On Sunday morning, Luke decided to tackle the more complicated task of actually moving the TV. Of course, we have the wrong TV mount (we need one that tilts now) and no connectors or line testers and the wrong speakers and some other stuff probably that I can't remember. So, off to IKEA and Lowes Luke goes, plus he had to pick up a new TV mount from some guy on Craigs List. Four hours later he returns to our electronics graveyard of a house to finally hang the TV. Using all of the strength in my puny little arms we get the thing up there, and this is what it looks like....totally crooked. Off by I don't know how many degrees but enough that it makes me laugh out loud. No consolation to my perfectionist husband. Poor thing had used the holes that the previous owner used and didn't actually count them. Puny wife didn't have enough strength left to get the thing back down again so at 11:00pm we just gave up. There our crooked TV will hang all day while I quietly chuckle from my desk at work and steam continues to billow out of my husband's ears.

Rearrangement - Update

It's now 8:26pm, and we have been rearranging and then rearranging again for a good part of the day. I've finally gotten all of the furniture in positions that I like BUT we have not actually moved the tv. Nope the tv remains on the wall, not above the fireplace.

Ok, so we have way more furniture than we have space for because this is a much smaller house than we had in Nashville. So, too much furniture, but of course, not the right furniture. No, there are at least 3-4 new pieces that we could buy to make the room just perfect, but I told Luke he had to work with what we have EXCEPT for one key piece - a table for behind the couch. Tonight, I sent him to IKEA to buy it. Now, sending Luke to IKEA by himself is like sending him to Best Buy by himself or the farmer's market or the grocery store. Hmmm...I'm sensing a pattern here.

So, anyone want to take a guess what he came back with BESIDES the table? Yes, he remembered the table, but we are also now the proud owners of 3, count them 3, giant trees for our living room that already has to much crap in it to begin with. I wanted 1. I got 3. I can barely take care of the two plants that I've managed to keep alive since we moved here. Ok. I need to go water my plants now.

Rearranging

Luke has finally agreed to rearrange our living room. This wouldn't really be that noteworthy except that the new arrangement involves the unthinkable - mounting the tv above the fireplace mantle. Shocking, right? It's not optimal viewing, you know.

So, we are now about 10 minutes into the process, and he's already determined that we absolutely HAVE TO buy a new speaker system. Well, our speakers are floor speakers, and we need ones to go on the shelves now. Oh, and a new center channel because ours is too tall. That will never do. Why don't we just listen to the sound that comes out of the tv?, I suggest. All I got was a laugh in response. Oh the trials and tribulations of living with a geek! Or is it dork? Nerd maybe?

Mama Bear

When we got our dog, we took her to the vet and did all of the tests and shots and whatever. Well, they asked us if we wanted to have this little chip imbedded in her skin so that if she ever got lost, they could scan the chip and find our contact information. Well, I was all like "duh, of course I want that because I just made a serious investment in this critter and I don't want some overzelous animal control guy gassing her." Anywho, so they pull out this science fiction looking gun that looks like a cross between the thing they used to pierce my ears and a laser gun from Star Trek and they shoot a tiny little computer chip in her neck. It couldn't have felt good, but she seemed unphased.

Now, has anyone else been following this story about the little girl who was abducted when she was 11 and just found 18 years later??? That is just the scariest story ever. It really makes my Mama Bear instincts come flying out, and I just want to invent a little GPS tracker that I can embed into my children so that I never lose them. Yeah, you heard me. I want to Geotag my kids or GPS them or whatever the right word is. I mean, I'd only use it if they got lost. I wouldn't use it if say their boyfriend kept them out past their curfew. No, I'd never do that. Just in case they got stolen or lost or whatever. I mean it's either get the GPS shot or get locked in the basement. It's your call, girls!

ADD

I'd like to make a self diagnosis. Sophia is the youngest baby to have ADD. Yeah, ADD. The kid can't focus on anything. I can't nurse her for more than 20 seconds without her stopping to look around. It only takes the slightest noise - a sister screaming, a dog barking, a fly buzzing at the window - doesn't matter. She hears something or imagines she hears something, and she's got to stop to see what it is. I'm lucky if she releases me (if you know what I mean) before she starts swinging that little head around. So, she stops, looks around, kicks her legs a bit, smiles her big milk mustache smile, and then goes back to it. It's ridiculous. Bring on the Ritalin; we need a little focus here.

Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy

I can't stop watching the coverage of Sen. Kennedy's death. I've cried multiple times. For me, he was an icon for much of what I believe in. I know that many people disagree with his politics or despise the way he lived his life. But whether or not you liked him or agreed with his politics, we can all agree that the world is a very different place because he was in it. It's always these moments when I stop to wonder how the world will be different because I was here. What more can I do?

Food

As the proud parents of two beautiful girls, Luke and I rarely have a chance to go out to dinner on our own. Tonight we had the chance, and here's what I realized - food is supposed to be hot. What!??!?! Hot?!?!? No! I took the first bite and honestly thought to myself, "There's something wrong here." It took me a while to realize that the food had just come out of the oven and no one was distracting me from eating it. It was almost too hot to eat. I wanted to say to the waiter, "Hey, can you stick this in the fridge for me. I'm just not used to this whole hot food thing." What an odd experience.

Mini Vacation

The Hamilton family spent a relaxing weekend up in the GA mountains. I didn't realize how much we needed a vacation until we were there. It was a bit stressful when we left Atlanta because Hailey broke out with another mystery fever just before we left. We were all very upset about it, but felt like the fresh air would do her a lot of good. And what good it did! Hailey's fever only lasted 1 night and was gone by the time we got back from our fabulous boat ride.

Goings On

Lordy, Lordy look who's well, look who's getting bigger! The girls are all over the place these days. Aside from having her constant make-believe conversations, Hailey is also learning to write her name and to read. Here's a picture of her writing. She's great with H, A, L, and I. The squiggly letters are a little tricky, but we're working on M and D too. We've also started to read Sophia Goodnight Moon together every night. In just two nights, Hailey recognizes the word goodnight and can "read" some of the other words from memory. It's amazing how fast she picks it up.

Sophia, on the other hand, is literally all over the place. Her favorite place to be is on the floor so that she can "pre-crawl" around. This basically means that if I put her down in the middle of the carpet, then run into the kitchen to get something, I'll come back and wonder where did she go? Oh, she's just rolled herself under some unsuspecting piece of furniture. There's never a moment of being still with her. She's always reaching for something, grabbing her sister's hair, or sticking various objects in her mouth. Quite the wiggle worm.

As far as sibling interaction goes, it couldn't be better. Hailey loves to spend time with Sophia and will sit and make faces at her for 2 whole minutes, which is an eternity in 3-year-old time. We did, however, have our first sibling induced injury the other day. Hailey accidentally closed Sophia's finger in a drawer. There were tears but only minor suffering. It won't be the last time that they injure each other.

Earth to Hailey

I know that this shouldn't come as a surprise to me, but my child has an imagination of her own. It's kind of shocking. Well, it's particularly shocking when she's walking around the house talking in different voices, and I wonder to myself whether she's telling herself a story or she's just schizophrenic. I think it's probably the former unless her other personalities happen to be named Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella, and Aurora. Wouldn't that be a hell of a coincidence!

So, all of these make believe stories that she tells are hysterical and bode well for her fulfilling her mother's life fantasy of becoming a professional writer. Yes, now that we've officially declared that I'm old, it's ok for me to start living vicariously through my children. Wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, the stories are really entertaining to ease drop on, and I don't even need to hold a glass up the door of her room like I will in a few years when she's a teenager. Nope, she just tells these stories right out in the open no matter how ridiculous the voices are. It's great. Unless of course you are trying to get her attention, then you might as well be on another planet because she's far to enthralled with how Belle is going to buy the dress to go to Cinderella's wedding because Aurora pricked her finger on the spinning wheel and now Jasmine has to find her prince to save her. In an emergency, I actually have to say "stop, look at me and listen to what I'm saying" just to break the spell.

By the way, that's just another one of those phrases that you say as a Mom that you're like "oh god, did I just say that...I'm so f*ing old." I decided to go with this old thing for while. Those college kids really messed me up. Thank god I didn't go to my last reunion, I might have gone out and gotten a face lift.

Yum Yum

Sophia Eats from luke hamilton on Vimeo.

If you ever need a laugh, try feeding a newborn a food that she's never tried before. Little Sophia has been such a trooper. We've tried rice cereal, bananas, and applesauce so far, and her reaction is always the same. She is interested in what's going on, she opens her mouth expecting something great, and then she makes a face as if you just fed her gasoline. Then, she slowly regurgitates the whole spoonful back out again so that it slowly drools down her chin. The best part of the whole thing is that she opens her mouth again, expecting you to give her something better the next time, but she doesn't like anything. We just play this game over and over again until she's covered in regurgitated mush and Mommy can't take it any more.

Manic Monday

It takes the Hamilton family a total of 6, count them 6, bags to get out of the house on a typical weekday morning. It’s a wonder we ever go anywhere.

Saturday - Musically Enhanced

Hailey Dancing from luke hamilton on Vimeo.

Hailey and her friend Eryn spent some time in Marietta Square this Saturday, and what's a Saturday without a little dance? There was no music so I added some in just to make it all more entertaining!

Shot Time

It's one thing to take Sophia in to get her shots every few months. The poor little thing has no idea what is going on and will never remember all of the trauma. On the other hand, it's quite another thing to have to take Hailey in for shots, which I had to do on Friday. She totally knows what's going on, is ultra dramatic about it, and is terrified of the male nurse at our doctor's office. All in all, that's not a good combination. Regardless, shots must be had.

So, I'll skip all of the easy parts of the visit and get to the good stuff. I had kind of prepped her about the shot with some genius Mom stuff that I made up. I knew she was going to cry. What I didn't count on was her screaming and thrashing BEFORE the needle was even out of the protective casing. Her screaming set off Sophia screaming and before you know it my head was going to explode. In case you were wondering, the cure for a shot = princess sticker and lollipop.

The best part about the whole experience actually happened later that morning when she ran into her classroom, hiked up her skirt, and told all the kids in her class that she just got a shot. Yeah, she was totally traumatized!

I'm Old

Now that I drive the Hamilton Family Carpool every morning, I get to enjoy the pleasure of Atlanta traffic. That, however, is not why I’m getting old. Well, it doesn’t help. No, my premature aging is caused by the sight of hundreds of college freshmen moving into their dorms this week. What?!?! Was I ever that young? These kids look like…well, they look like kids. So, as I'm driving through this throng of horny little teenagers, I looked at my eyes in the rear view mirror and thought "I need to get some wrinkle cream or something."

Hunger Strike Ends

Well, Sophia is a stubborn little bugger sometimes. So stubborn that she did indeed refuse to eat all day yesterday. Of course, I rushed out of work immediately after updating you, my fine blog readers, on her hunger strike. I expected to find her screaming and causing a major scene at school. I burst into the room to save my poor starving baby only to find her passed out on one of the teachers. What?!?!? Where's the mass hysteria? Well, there was none. There wasn't even any urgency to her wanting to eat. I think that she was having a tummy ache and just didn't feel like eating. So, what did I do? Tried to feed her rice cereal. More on that later.

Back to the hunger strike. Yeah, it's over. She drank from her bottles at school today. Crisis averted.

The Call

A few minutes I got “the call” from the school. Every working parent dreads these calls. Now, I don’t know if “the call” is for Sophia being cranky or Hailey spiking a fever. This particular time it was the former. Sophia has apparently refused a bottle all day. They had to dump 2 of the 3 bottles that I brought…that’s LIQUID GOLD, PEOPLE!!! Ok, back to Sophia. So, she’s on a hunger strike. Why am I still sitting at work writing this blog? Well, I gave her teacher some tips on how to give her the bottle. I want the teacher to try these tips before I go running to the rescue. Also, I’m like 5 minutes away so she’s not going to die of starvation in the extra 5 minutes it takes me to write this, and aren't you glad that I kept you up to date on all of the goings on? Ok more on the hunger strike later.

First Day Jitters

Today is the first day of school in sunny and ungodly hot Atlanta. When I was a little girl (oh, God, I’m becoming my parents!), school didn’t start until Labor Day, but alas, this is the South, and we like to get a jump-start on our worst-in-the-nation school curriculum asap. If nothing else, it gives the high school students a few extra summer days to enjoy after they drop out. Ok, that was just mean. True but mean.

Where was I? Right, first day of school. Sophia was starting school for the first time, and Hailey was moving up a level and getting all new teachers. It was a very exciting day. For those of you who haven’t done this in a while, it’s not like you can just take them to school and drop them off…ha! That would be far too simple. There’s a very long list of items that you must bring for each child to put in their respective cubbies. Oh, and as if you didn’t spend enough time running around the house collecting all of these items, now you have to label them all. LABEL THEM ALL! Bust out your Sharpie, Mommy. This is not so easy with Sophia’s clothes which all have those convenient little tagless imprints on them. Hello, makers of onsies in America (or more likely China), can we please get a little tag action every once in a while? How am I supposed to Sharpie her name onto every little outfit if there is no tag? Ugh. Back up the stairs to find the three onsies with tags.

Ok, I got a little sidetracked again. The point is that I was totally and completely 100% organized (shocking, right?). Two bags packed, two bags in the car the night before. I was like the model of motherhood? Well, right up until the point where we parked the car at the school this morning, and I turned to Luke to say “I left Sophia’s milk in the refrigerator.” UGH! I mean, does the child have to eat? Fine (express that in a whine, please) back I went home again to get the milk. Thank goodness we only live 3 miles from work/school. Unfortunately, in Atlanta, 3 miles means 20 minutes. What a morning!

Oh, what about the girl's reaction to starting school? Umm...are you trying to say that it's not all about me and my morning? Whatever. They were totally fine. Hailey was one of the more adjusted of her classmates moving to the new classroom. She was all smiles this morning. She acted like she owned the joint. Pretty funny. Sophia on the other hand was a little cranky by the time I got back with the milk. Alright, so maybe she needs to eat after all. I decided to give her some Mama milk straight from the cow instead of the bottle. She passed out, and all was right with the world.

Mommy and Sophia

I know that I've mentioned before that most people believe that Sophia has red hair. I'm not one of those people. However, what I know for sure is that she looks like me in lots of other ways. That's Sophia on the top and Mommy on the bottom.

Little Baby, Big Chair

Two Girls, One Room

Last Thursday I did something completely radical...I let Sophia sleep in her own room with her sister. What was even crazier was that I turned off the monitor, and not surprisingly, she slept through the night. It's been 4 nights now! 4 nights of full sleep! Granted I wake up with boobs like giant boulders, but it's better than waking up two or three times a night. I feel like a new woman. Plus, it's just nice to have the girls in the same room. Hailey loves her sister and seems to really enjoy that they sleep near each other. It's so sweet.

Birthday Party Recap

The birthday party was a wild success, and by wild, I mean picture 10 three-year-olds running around, screaming, and jumping on all sorts of inflatable moonwalk rides in a giant carpeted warehouse. It was that kind of wild.

The party began a little bit shaky because I had misinterpreted the usage of the “party room.” Not having thrown or attended a party at this facility before, I understood that the party room was just for the 30 minutes at the end of the party when we would be having cake and ice cream…WRONG! Silly Mommy! Adults and children have free access to said party room throughout the entire 2 hours we are there. So, not having snacks in there would have been a fatal mistake, since hungry three-year-olds are akin to rabid hyenas. No problem…Mommy made a quick run to the grocery. By 15 minutes into the party, we were equipped with veggie and fruit trays galore.

By the time I returned from the grocery store, another crisis had broken out. Someone had a little peepee accident on one of the inflatables. Oh boy. This was a bit of a problem because said child’s Mommy was not prepared with an extra set of underwear, and said child refused to wear Pull-Ups. Now, the not wanting to wear Pull-Ups thing is understandable, but the not having extra undies packed is inexcusable. What a horrible mother.

Now comes the best part of the story…said Mother’s dear friend (who I won’t mention by name) kindly offered to run to the store to purchase additional undies. Unfortunately, the only types of stores in the vicinity were grocery or drug stores. Thus, she returned with giant, adult-sized Grandma-style undies (no offense to Grandmas) AND a role of masking tape. Do you see where this is going now? Several minutes later, said child was the proud owner of what we lovingly dubbed toga undies. Picture tiny child, picture giant undies, now picture how much tape would be required to get giant undies to stay up on tiny child. We’re talking serious McGiver action here. The whole thing would have been side-splittingly hysterical if it weren’t for said child’s adorably sad face. Ugh…those puppy dog eyes get me every time!

In the end, the sun and another friend saved the day by drying out the undies that her Mommy had washed out in the sink. There was much playing and fun left to be had. The store-bought cake was a wild success. We retained 5 of the 6 princesses (the other one mysteriously disappeared!) A good time was had by all and by 3pm it was all over. She certainly had a wonderful time.

More pics on the Flickr site.

Cake Controversy - Final Chapter

Well, I have to say that the cake was quite delicious except for the store bought fondant. If only our caped cake crusader would have made his own fondant (as he originally planned), I might not have had to peel it off. However, the story doesn't end with the cake from the previous blog. Nope, the stubborn mother-in-law still insisted on making her own cake, and now her own fondant, from scratch. So, while Luke and I toiled away at our respective offices on Thursday, Grandma set about to make her own marshmallow fondant. When we got home from work, this is what we found. It's a white cake with strawberry filling, oh and some of the pieces of red velvet cake that we had shaved off stuck in for good measure. It was pretty funny to have all of these cakes floating around, but the child is 3 so I suppose 3 cakes is appropriate?

In the end, we ate Daddy's cake at home on Thursday. Grandma's cake at a friend's house on Friday, and of course, the Publix Princess cake on Saturday. All in all there was much cake to be had by all, and we are all heavier for it.

The Art of Asking a Question

Hailey received a little princess song player for her birthday.  It allowed her to play DJ this afternoon.  Like any good DJ, she took requests, but only when they suited her tastes:

Hailey:  "Papa Harry, what do you want to hear?"

Papa Harry: "Maybe something from the Moody Blues."

Hailey: "No, Doody Shoes.  What Princess song do you want to hear?"

Papa Harry: "How about something from Cinderella?"

Hailey: "No, what song from Little Mermaid do you want to hear?"