Thanksgiving and weekend run down

I can't believe I didn't post one thankful thing all weekend... and especially when I have SO MUCH to be thankful for.
Calliope's first Thanksgiving was awesome. She enjoyed mashed potatoes, a little turkey and some butternut squash. I bought the most adorable turkey bib and forgot it at home. She was still pretty cute though.
The other pics are of Calli with baby E and hubby. Calli being super crabby because I couldn't play with her and lastly with her newest best friend.

I spent the rest of the weekend getting my car fixed, writing a paper, visiting family and eating pumpkin pie. The newest trick Calli has is that she is crawling! She debuted Wednesday night and wowed everyone at dinner on Thursday. She is also getting her two upper front teeth. Lots of unexplainable complaining. Lots of growing.

Hope you all had a wonderful time with your families and friends for the holiday. Bring on the season!!
xo
ciao
S

7 months

Yesterday Calli turned 7 months. We are having a blast. We figured the eating thing out... or rather we figure it out anew every evening. Tonight she ate so fast I could barely keep up. Last night she really enjoyed watching herself eat in the mirror. It was hilarious. She eats sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, brown rice cereal, oatmeal, peas, pears and sometimes apples or bananas. Much to our shock she didn't love the pastina the few times I made it. I will try that again. She also didn't love avocados the first time we tried that. Sometimes in the morning I give her a piece of banana in the mesh teether and she goes to town on it. Mostly gives herself a banana facial and banana hair treatment and cleans the highchair with it.

Calli loves to play and continues to put everything in her mouth. Even my shirts, the towel, her socks, her own shirt... I think she might be getting another tooth. She has been increasingly vocal and has added gurgling to her repertoire. She grunts and shrieks and sometimes even talks herself to sleep. Most nights I nurse her and she falls asleep as I am placing her in her crib, but some nights she just isn't tired after nursing so I sing a few songs to her and when she still isn't tired I put her in her crib to figure herself out. The other night she talked herself to sleep... no crying (or very little), no screaming, just babbling away.
She sits up on her own and loves to scoot around on the floor. She isn't crawling yet but she sure gets around and fast. Lately she gets to her hands and knees and then gets to her toes and then can't figure out where to go from there. It is so interesting and fun to watch her try to figure it out. Hubby and I just sit and laugh and cheer her on. She is really getting into bath time and loves to splash and play with a few toys.

Love her.
S

Today

 Today Calli would not eat the food that I lovingly prepared for her. Why? I am not really sure. She cried, and fought me with each bite. Sometimes if I caught her off guard she would take the bite and like eating it. Otherwise... not so much. She also decided to wake up at 3:30am this morning and cry for an hour and then not nap (except for an hour this morning at about 9:30). She slept this evening a bit and is sleeping now. I feel like we are experiencing something and I'm not quite sure what. She also wanted me to be with her all day today. I assume that her teeth are acting up because everything ends up in her mouth. She already has two teeth. She is super congested but has no fever and isn't coughing. Ugh. I feel like a detective and the only answer lies in a mute non-communicative wizard that doesn't want to help me. Ha!

This is the stare down

I threw this photo in so you could see the smiles that I usually get

11 years and 6 months

Respectively. 11 years ago (on the 25th) my hubby and I said 'I do.' 6 months ago (on the 18th) Calli was born. October is a super busy month. I LOVE IT! The trees are colorful, the air is brisk.
On our wedding day the sky was bright blue with big white puffy clouds and the air was cool and crisp. My favorite. It was a gorgeous day and we had such a great time. We wanted to go out to eat to celebrate the other night but hubby wasn't feeling well so we postponed a week. So looking forward to a night out. We will leave Calli with her aunt and cousins and they are really looking forward to baby-sitting. 11 years have gone by in a blink. Makes me worry that the next 11 will fly too.
Hubby- thank you for our beautiful daughter. I remember the day that we decided that we wanted to try again to expand our family and I know that it wasn't an easy decision for us (a lot of people in that gallery know that it wasn't an easy decision for us! wink wink). I can't for a millisecond imagine our lives without Calli. I know that she is heaven sent expressly to us. I love our family and I love you. Watching you be a father is the most amazing thing... I thought I knew you, and Calli brings out a whole new side to you and it is amazing. You are a great father and husband.
I brought Calli for her 6 month appointment the other day and all is well. She weighs 18 lbs 3 oz and is 26 and something inches long. I can't remember... but both are 75-90 percentiles for her age. She is doing so great. She is really so much fun right now. Big smiles and giggles now and then. Most of the time she is very contemplative and will only give you a smile if it is really deserving. She love love loves the jumper and her activity center thingy. She also loves to jump in your lap while you hold her. She notices everything and everyone and is distracted very easily. She likes to sing (the only way I can describe her constant noise) and practices using her voice. She loves to chew on her hands, toys, clothes and toes. She has two teeth coming in on the bottom. She seems like she is getting ready to crawl... she gets on her hands a knees and then get on her tippy toes... like a modified downward dog. So funny. She is still a pretty chill gal and doesn't give us too much trouble. I think she is saving it for her tween and teen years!
There is so much going on these days but not really much else to report.
Ciao for now!
xo
S

Neglect

Wow, this is shaping up to be my worst year of posting yet on this blog. I really truly can't imagine why?
HaHa
Stuff that is happening and on my mind:
- This weekend my friend from grade-school came for a visit for a few days. I haven't seen her in 23 years... can you believe that? We lost track of one another in our mid teen years and didn't reconnect until FaceBook a few years ago. It really was so very exciting to get the opportunity to get to know one another again.
- Of course this happens during my two most very busy weeks at work. Oh well. Such is life.
- I find myself very tired at the end of the day but not always sleepy. Weird phenomenon for me.
- I am definitely going back to real life classes next semester. I can't get into this online stuff. It is hard enough for me to find time to sit and read and get all the work done and now I have to monitor the website and the discussion boards and write meaningful comments... AUGH!!!
- I am in a crappy mood as of late and can't really figure out what the dealio is!?! Must be the stress of work and every weekend being busy and feeling like nothing ever really gets done. Not sure how other mothers deal with that feeling... I swear the dust bunnies are gonna get together and protest for better benefits or something.   :)
- We baptized Calli this weekend. She was a rock-star and I was a mess. I got us to the church late and then spent too much time freaking out over where people were sitting and forgot to just sit and have a good time. Once I did that it was awesome; too bad that was the last 20 minutes or so.
- These days have been so darn beautiful out. The sun shines and the leaves are just breathtaking. It always amazes me how quickly it all happens. One day you look out and there are a few red and orange leaves here and there. The next time you look it is just gorgeous and all kinds of colors are out there and every tree is just majestic. Then the next time you remember to look everything is brown and falling... then bare. Ugh. The only reason I am looking forward to the winter is so that Calli and I can snuggle.
- On top of some crazy days at work I have an exam to write this week. Yup. And honestly it is what I need to be working on right now.
Ciao
S

Thursday is my FAVORITE day of the week

Thursday is the day that I pick Calliope up from daycare. Seeing her face as I walk through the door makes me so ridiculously happy, I can't stand it. It isn't the same look she gets when I walk in the house and she has already been home with my mom or hubby. I count the minutes on Thursdays; especially because I do the dreaded drop off every day. I take that back, it isn't totally dreaded but some days I swear I could sit there and play all day because the kids are so happy. The daycare provider tells me all kinds of stories about what Calli did all day and how the kids played and she watched or she talked and discovered something new. I think she is a different person when she is there than when she is home with me.

The new Calli news is that she cut her first tooth today. After I fed her this morning I put my finger in her mouth out of curiosity... sure enough there was the beginnings of a tooth there. I'm glad I discovered it with my finger first! She is growing up so fast I am already forgetting what is was like when she was a newborn. I know, I know... blah blah blah... sentimental crap... I've been sentimental a lot lately. Oh well.

Happy Thursday to you!!
Ciao for now!
xo
S

ME time

Things are really crazy at work right now and things in my life are pretty crazy. I started an online class, we are christening Calli, I am in a wedding, my friends are having babies... not to mention I have a house and a marriage to tend to.
This weekend I had two bridal showers, one on each day. I have neglected my home, my homework and my husband. Thankfully there is football to entice my hubby so he barely noticed I was gone. Just kidding; he helped out by grocery shopping and doing laundry and trying not to let his crap pile up too.

Pretty baby.

I mention all of this because on top of not getting to do everything else, I've also forgotten to pay attention to me. And now that I really think about it I don't remember the last time I paid attention to me and I don't even really know how to do that anymore. Don't get me wrong... I TOTALLY (totes magoates) LOVE MY LIFE; I have a great job with a great boss and amazing colleagues, have a hubby that love love loves me, a daughter that melts my heart with her every inch right down to her stinky toes, a family that wants to go to the ends of the earth for me, and friends that are the bees knees. I just don't know how to be me anymore. I know that it is probably normal and that this is stage of life and blah blah blah... I just don't know the new me very well yet and I don't know how to go about getting to know her/me. What I do know, is that I can't start if there isn't any time to so that means that I need to start saying no again... and that isn't bad news. Doesn't mean I love my peeps any less just that I need to love on me for a bit right now. The hardest part of that is the baby part. Does she factor into this or not? I think popular opinion would be that I need to do this alone and spend some time with me and all that, but honestly folks I REALLY love spending time with baby girl too. This is the conundrum. Oh well, this is not getting answered at 9:48pm on a Sunday night when I REALLY should have been doing homework.

Ciao
xo
S