Up, Up, and Away!

I know we have to teach children about letting go at some point or another, but after our traumatic trip to the grocery store yesterday, I don't ever want to let go!!!

There they floated, in all their glory, high over our heads with dangley colorful strings to entice tiny eager fingers. The grocery store balloons. Katie was being wonderful during our somewhat spontaneous evening grocery run. I packed the racing cart higher than I planned, but Katie sat peacefully waiting for me to finish walking up and down the aisles waving and honking her fake horn at passersby. She sat patiently as the cashier checked us out. I thought we could make it to the car without any issues for the first time in her two and a half short years. Just as I began to push the cart toward the exit, a sweet, but oblivious manager walked over to Katie and said, "Would you like a balloon?" Well, of course she wants a balloon! "What color would you like?"

"PINK!" Katie grabbed the PINK balloon, and even said "Thank you" without being provoked, leaving the manager feeling warm and fuzzy inside, I'm sure.

As we headed outside, I held onto the end of the string, without Katie's knowledge since she has to do everything herself, to save it from disaster. The whole while, I kept telling Katie that she had to hold on tight or else the balloon was going to fly away and she'd never see it again. I held onto the string as long as I could, but she wanted to do it herself while I unloaded the groceries into the back of the car. So, I let go.

I finished putting the last bag into the back of the car when I heard Katie shriek, "Mommy, catch it! Mommy, catch it! Catch it! Reach!" Katie was trying to climb out of the cart to reach high in the sky to catch the balloon which was already way out of reach. With all the compassion in the world, I said something like, "Katie Bear, it's gone. I'm sorry, honey, we can't reach it anymore. Look up there, see how far away it is already? It's too far away. We'll have to get another balloon the next time we come to the grocery store, but you'll have to make sure to hold on so so so tight so it doesn't fly away." Her eyes welled up so fast and she began crying the most pitiful cry I've seen to date! She looked up in the sky and said, "Bye-bye, balloon." Oh, my poor munchkin, if only mommy didn't let go...

Damn you helium!

Study Guide

Since family is arriving around July 2nd for a long weekend visit, I thought I would create a list of Katie's odd vocabulary. She generally pronounces words correctly, but there are a few words or phrases that often make us laugh because we just can't figure out where she comes up with them.

1. Flip-Flops = Foo-Farts
2. Charolette (Whitaker) = Shart
3. Strawberry Milk = Chocatte Berry
4. Yogurt = Yurt
5. Robot = Boobot
6. Fruit Juice Snacks = Yummy Fun or Juicies
7. Spoon = Boose, sometimes boosey
8. Madagascar Movie = Animals
9. Most names that start with the letter J = Jeremy (but she can say "Josh")
10. Tom and Jerry = Jeremy
11. Mickey Mouse = Mouse
12. Napkin = Cane-keen
13. Kitchen = Chicken
14. Caroline = Coin
15. Coffee = Chachee
16. Cracker = Caw-Caw

The following three words/references are used interchangeably and are sometimes hard to decipher:

1. Danimals = Momo (she can clearly say "animals" when referring to the movie Madagascar, but cannot for the life of her say "danimals.")
2. Grandma = Mama
3. Nemo = Momo

Katie is very polite and will usually say "peeze" and "thank you or thanks" for most anything. Likewise, she will eagerly apologize for wrong doings when prompted. When you yell for her she will yell back, "OK, Mommy/Daddy, I coming." But, she is also demanding and requests that we "A'mon, Mommy/Daddy! Follow me!"

Katie is very loud and doesn't have much of a quiet button. She doesn't like it when babies are sleeping, so she will get close to their face, whisper "baby seeping," then out of no where scream "wake up!" She loves how things echo and is always yelling "echo" everywhere to see if her voice will indeed echo. She is so fascinated when it actually does.

We've recently discovered that Katie is the life of the party. Hmm, I wonder where she gets that???

Small Wonder

I don't sleep very well when Jimmy isn't home, so he suggested that I let Katie sleep in our bed and maybe it would help. It seemed like such a good idea in theory; just having her in the bed should help me sleep. After we watched Toy Story, which she LOVED, I asked her if she wanted to sleep in mommy and daddy's bed and she got so excited that she raced to our room and started to climb on the bed. Before I could get there, she was half way up the bed yelling at me to "Do it! Help, Mommy!"

"Katie, what do you say?"

"Peeze?"

According to Katie, it was clearly playtime. She bounced, rolled around, and chatted up a storm. It was the chatting that got me to thinking about Small Wonder. You remember that 80's sitcom about a little girl robot named Vicki (or as Katie calls them, "boobots.") who was part of the family? Well, I just kept thinking, what if Katie had an on/off switch. I wonder how much simpler my life would be. I didn't have too much time to daydream about this thought because her constant chatter kept distracting me.

I would close my eyes and try to sleep, but I felt this dark shadow breathing over me. Sure enough, I'd open my eyes and Katie's face would be right in mine, giggling as soon as my hair tickled her face. I'd say, "Katie, you have one more chance to settle down or else you're sleeping in Katie's bed." One chance after another came and went. Finally, I had to break down and put her in her room even though it was great fun for both of us while it lasted.

Coincidence or Double Life?

We found this in the Sunday newspaper and couldn't get over the odd facial similarities. Could my mom be leading a double life? Even the hairdo is the same!!! Should I be calling her Phyllis???

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

I caught the tail end of a documentary on VH1 Classic about Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" (a truly classic album). I am pretty sure I watched it before, but I can never turn away from a classic rock documentary. Anyway, at the end, David Gilmour (singer/lead guitar) commented that he wished that he could have experienced putting on headphones and listening to the album all the way through for the very first time, like someone who had just purchased the record. That resonated with me...

I am in the midst of a trial this week. I can't really compare what I do to David Gilmour and Pink Floyd, but I have been reflecting on the sentiment of what he mentioned. You put hours and hours of work into something to present to the public (or a jury, as the case may be), and you never quite know how it will come off. I get so geared up as I head into trial, trying to look at my "good facts", and rationalizing why I should get a conviction. I spend a day meticulously selecting jurors to hear thecase, looking for reasonable, open minded people, hopefully who will not be either dingbats or overly analytical.

But I never get the chance to hear the case presented for the first time as the jury does. I never get to focus in on the important highs and lows as they will, because we may place different importance on different factors. Just as David Gilmour could point out a million tiny things on the album that the average listener may not pick up on, I get my chance to point out the "brightline" points in my case, but I never know what the jury has their minds on at that point.

I bring this up because nothing seems to go as planned in my line of work. I prepared my case, prepared my witnesses, interviewed testifying codefendants several times...Yet when it comes time for folks to testify, there are annoying factual inconsistencies, new revelations that favor the defendant that are revealed by my own witnesses for the first time at trial...

I don't want to be misunderstood-I expect these things to happen, even if I cannot always anticipate them. But I always wonder about the presentation, about that "earphones" experience of my jury. I mean, these are people who have sworn to be fair and impartial jurors, who I believe are decent and law abiding, and who expect others to be truthful. And here they are, confronted with strong physical evidence of guilt and a myriad of essentially consistent but simultaneously inconsistent witness statements...

Like tracks on an album, I hope they can tune out some of the weaker "songs", and still praise the "album" as a whole. Still, I am mindful, for an album to be truly convincing, to stand the test of time, it has to be cohesive. I have to console myself that I didn't create the case, I just present it. As Karla stated in our family's new most-used, least-favorite, omnipresent Americanism: "(I)t is what it is...".

That pretty well sums up my week so far. I just wish people could speak the truth the first time they are asked a question, and continue that truth for the duration. I know people may make mistakes, and memory can affect the truth. It just used to be that we celebrated young George Washington who said he "cannot tell a lie", meaning he was physically and mentally incapable of lying. What do our oaths mean, and what do juries think, when they are asked to believe four liars who nonetheless tell the same story that matches physical evidence pointing to a man's guilt? Maybe someone can help me out here...

Ants!

We woke up to an ant problem in the pantry this morning. SO GROSS! Jimmy killed the bulk of them before I even got out of bed, but there were still lots when I cleaned the entire pantry out this afternoon. Obviously, I never enjoy ants in my house, but it's a pretty good kick in the butt to do some spring cleaning!

It's pretty hard to clean from top to bottom while two kids demand your attention, in addition to one in your belly who requires food and her mother to rest. I was struggling to catch my breath, since that has become a new issue for me during this pregnancy.

Katie kept wanting to play with the ant baits that I bought at the grocery store this morning, so of course I was stopping to wash her hands every five seconds and scream at her. Plus, with everything I took out of the pantry, Katie would demand to have it immediately! (Side note: Katie is not doing very well these days with sharing. It's as if Caroline is her sister and they're fighting over who gets what already! It's driving me nuts. If Caroline wears a bib while eating, Katie tries to yank it off of her and screams "mine! share!" She just hasn't mastered the concept of sharing yet. To her, sharing means everything belongs to her.)

Caroline was doing pretty well until she got hungry tired. She had just eaten only 2.5 hours prior, but was screaming for more, all while being completely exhausted. Sigh.

I finally got them both to nap at 1:30pm, so I was able to finish up the pantry, but I've still left quite a bit of junk in the sink. I'll just have to get to that later because I feel like I'm dying right now. I mean, I need to eat something, but after cleaning ants, nothing really appeals to me. I need to rest, but it's still really hot in the house. (I can't believe how poorly we planned the due date of this pregnancy!!! I can't believe I'm still going to have two and a half more months left of harvesting this child come August... in North Carolina.) Sigh.

I need a nap.

Addendum

It was brought to my attention that my last post gave the impression that I thought my husband was "worthless" when it comes to helping around the house... It was not my intention to imply this in any way. Working in the front flower beds has become something that I normally tackle, so I guess I just took ownership over it in my post. Additionally, I stated that it was so hot that I wouldn't even hire someone to work on them right now, which would include asking my husband to get out there to work on them. I'm not interested in rushing him to the hospital for heat exhaustion. In summation, I apologize for any unnecessary anxiety my previous post may have caused. I know you're a busy man, Jimmy. I wasn't trying to call you out in public.

Heat Wave!

My goodness, it's hot hot hot outside! It makes looking after two kids kind of hard when you can't go outside to play or you dread getting in the car to drive anywhere. Not to mention, I've been spending lots of time worrying about our new trees that aren't getting enough water and our AC unit is working some mega overtime. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to our front beds, but it's too darn hot for pregnant ladies to get out there to trim bushes and weed eat. I'd actually pay someone to do it, but I don't think anyone should be working in these conditions. We're going to be at 100 degrees for about the entire next week... check weather here. It makes me want to vomit!

I think we're going to break down and get a new AC unit soon. I just learned that they offer payment plans, so I think we can handle it. The price seems reasonable, especially after getting 4 quotes. Also, I really liked the last guy because he listened to me and didn't try to sell me the top of the line. Thankfully, I got the quote before this tremendous heat wave, so I don't think the rate was inflated at all.

We have so many projects on the horizon, but I believe this AC unit will make a world of difference. Our power bills are through the roof. I just logged on to the News and Observer website and saw that Progress Energy just asked state officials to allow them to increase rates by 16% because their power plants are struggling to keep up with this awful heat! Holy shmoly!!! We're screwed! I guess the minivan will just have to wait for now. Sorry girls!

A few vacation pics...

On her way to the beach

Beach Face

Playing in the sand

Bumping bellies

Riding the waves

So happy eating bubble gum ice cream...

she's dancing!

Riding the ferry on our way to the Aquarium

Posing at Barefoot Landing, mango smoothie in hand

Home again, home again!

We're back from the beach. We got back yesterday and we're pooped. We had tons of fun and hope to have pictures posted by the end of the day.

We came back to find that our magnolia tree isn't doing too well, my email was hacked and sent ebay emails to everyone in my contact list, and then some good news... Sarah and Eric had their baby, Joseph Doc David (Jed), and he's doing great!

More to come soon!