Outtakes

I am completely overwhelmed at work. So busy that even the usually comforting thought that I am in high demand is not at all dulling the edges of my sleeplessness and bloated time entries.  So busy that I just wrote a whole paragraph about hating anyone currently living a life of leisure based on the wealth of others while secretly desperately wishing I was one of those people. Then I deleted that paragraph because it was stupid and self-pitying and working is simply what I do and I have a good job and I am grateful for it and one day I will have earned the right to live leisurely too and blah blah blah. I mention it only to show how far I've fallen, it has not been a great past 10 days. I also renewed my vow to kill my blackberry in a long and tortuous manner and chase it with a night of sleeping without a red message light haunting my dreams at 3 a.m.  I look forward to that event, tentatively schedule for the day I finish paying off my law school loans.

Now, on to humorously bad pictures! 

A few weeks ago we had a photographer come to our house to take family pictures. I wanted to update our family portrait from the one we took 6 days after I had Claire (puffy tummy alert) and to get some cute, casual shots of the kids as they were about to turn 4 and 1. We (unwisely) planned for these magical moments to be captured at 5:30 p.m., when the light turns softer and kids turn crankier.  It went exactly as you might imagine- the entire CD of images is pretty much a roll of outtakes, with a few gems buried underneath. These are not the gems.

First, an attempt to recreate the family picture on mommy and daddy's bed. 

This was the first shot and probably the best take. 

 

It quickly devolved.

 

 

 

 

(They love each other, really.)

 

Hmm, maybe a few shots upstairs in the kids rooms.

Claire: Why in the hell am I in my crib?!  You haven't fed me dinner yet! I demand dinner!

 

Diabolical (yet cute) honey badger face.

 

Freakishly long baby legs.

Ooh, let's read a book. Claire loves books!

(Claire takes book reading seriously and won't look up from the prop)

 

Photographer: Maybe Landon can read her the book?
Landon: Okey dokie.
Claire: Wahhh, Landon took my book!

 

Landon: Pet the fuzzy page Claire. PET IT!

 

Moving it outside. 

Almost a great shot, if only we could photoshop away her entire hand.

 

All the beautiful lighting in the world can't compensate for cranky children.

 

 

Attempt at capturing a tender moment between Mommy and Landon:

Landon: This sucks.
Mommy, upon seeing the blown-up picture: Holy crap, are those really my crows' feet?

 

Attempt at capturing a tender moment between Mommy and Clairebear.

Claire: You will get me dinner and you will do it now.

 

Attempt at capturing a tender moment between Daddy and Clairebear.

Claire: Alright, you, daddy man, YOU will get me dinner.

 

Last attempt at anything.

Claire: Camera Lady, GET ME DINNER.

 

Mommy (the only one still looking at the camera): Oh fuck it let's go get some tequila and queso.

 

Annnnnd that's a wrap (and we did go out for tequila and queso (and other food)).

Think of it as a roll of film...

A roll of film you can scroll through, with bonus commentary!

This post is a whole week late and I still haven't had time to edit and sufficiently cull the 100+ pictures from Claire's first birthday bash. So, you're getting a whole roll of film's worth (for those who never used film, that's 24 exposures. It kind of blows my mind that it would take weeks for me to use them all so I could take it to the drug store and pay $7 to have someone develop it. I don't miss the expense, and I really don't miss the lack of flexibility with the images, but I do miss that feeling of excitement when you opened up your film envelope to see what on earth was at the beginning of your roll.)

You've seen the invitations and the cupcakes, behold the good times that followed:

Oh wait, first, there was a little daycare party, hosted by Claire's teachers for each of "their babies" when they turn one. JP and I were able to be there (marking the exact moment when I lost complete control over my next week's work schedule) and we were so excited to see what Claire would do with her first ever sugary treat:

Claire: Mommy is here. Daddy is here. I was picked up, I waved bye bye- why am I out of their arms and back in my chair?

What is that?! Why do you want me to touch it? Suspicious foreign object! Suspicious foreign object!!!

The foreign object has been destroyed. Now, who is this strange boy trying to touch me?

(author's note: Landon's class had a "funky Friday" party which apparently means they got to wear make up, spray dye their hair, dance, and eat popsicles. It was a day of awesome and win for a bunch of 4-year-olds.)

Next up, Sunday party day! (We pretty much skipped over her real birthday on Saturday. She got lots of "Happy Birthday Biscuit!" exclamations over breakfast and her official present of a back yard water table, but JP had hours of swim lessons to coach, I had a million rainbow cupcakes to bake, and then we both had to attend a firm recruiting event at my managing partner's ranch that night. Claire had her Gigi in town to babysit, so I promise she didn't mind.)

Now, party prep! Claire helped.

The food and drinks (including Mexican Cheesecake dip and Bobby Flay's delicious sangria):

The sweets (painstakingly layered rainbow cupcakes with homemade butter cream frosting lovingly piped by yours truly, and a cake bought from the store)

Friends arrived at 3:00. The birthday girl and her brother slept until 3:20, when they came downstairs to find an extra 20 people in their house. Both took it well; Landon because he knew people = cake time, and Claire because it meant a bigger audience to clap for her every move.

Birthday girl with her daycare poster, tutu, and adorable birthday tee from Hang to Dry! (and me)

Landon finally gets a cupcake (with Gigi and Clairebear)

3.5 hours of billable time:

Beautiful and delicious.

High stakes game of washers (notice the rolling grass in place of the broken playscape and gravel pit thanks to days of hard work by JP; also, pretty flowers, thanks to 10 minutes of work by me!)

Birthday biscuit!

Borrowed bounce house; a big hit with all ages. (I love how tough Claire is, we call her the "honey badger" for her general fierceness)

Back inside for cake time. Claire loved her hat.

Claire: What the heck is going on?

Oooh, something for me! Everyone seems really excited about this, I'll clap for them, they like that.

Must use great caution in investigating the new, bigger foreign sugary object.

Ohh, it's edible! And delicious!

Awesome.

So, it's really okay that I'm making a huge mess and also occasionally taking bites of this thing?

Best day ever!

Purple dyed frosting on everything. Claire's $1.99 Birthday Girl bib proved to be an excellent investment as her custom shirt was the only piece of clothing in a 6 foot radius without a few new, semi-permanent dots of purple.

Happy Birthday baby girl, we love you so.

365 days and counting

One year ago yesterday my grandmother was taken to the hospital with what appeared to be a stroke. One year ago yesterday, while sitting on the couch with my mom and 6 day old baby, frantically exchanging text messages and phone calls with family members, we were shocked to find out the stroke was actually a blood alcohol concentration of 0.285. One year ago today my grandmother woke up and decided she would never drink alcohol again.

Today marks 365 days that she's kept that promise- a promise to herself, to my grandfather, and to us, and not a sip of wine, beer, or liquor has passed her lips since that night. And, she reiterated on the phone when I called to congratulate her this morning, it never will again.

I cannot even describe the difference we've seen in my grandma over the past year. We knew she liked her white wine, but I would never have thought my sweet little Swedish grandma was a drunk or had a problem. Sure the box was a permanent fixture in the fridge, and she seemed to sip it much of the day, but still- she's 81 years old, it seemed she'd earned the right to drink wine out of a dixie cup if she wanted to. But, as an 81-year-old, her metabolism is slow. The doctor at the hospital sternly explained that the alcohol takes much longer to process out of her blood, so she was probably waking up each day with some in her system, which is how it was even possible she could have a 0.28 bac after a dinner with only one glass of wine. If she stumbled or repeated herself, we attributed it to her age. We thought her memory was starting to slip and we grew used to repeating the same answers to the same questions; we tried not to call too late in the evening when it seemed she was less able to follow a conversation. We worried, privately, that our time with her was shorter than we'd hoped and it was no small part of the urgency I felt last summer to get up to Siren to visit.

As it turns out, my grandmother's memory is fine. She's thinner, fitter, and her circulation is better. I don't hesitate to call at 9:30 at night. I don't repeat parts of the same story. She only occasionally mixes up the names of her 4 kids, 10 grand kids, and 2 great-grand kids, but really, who wouldn't? Only now, without the alcohol, do we realize how much it was affecting her. My grandpa is nearly overwhelmed with pride at her vow, and my grandma confessed a few months in to her sobriety that she hadn't realized how much he had disliked her drinking and how much it was affecting their relationship. After 55 years in one of the happiest marriages I've ever seen, my grandma has made it even better. And my grandpa, long an appreciator of beer, but never a big drinker, now proudly brings O'Douls to all their retirement center parties.

Not everyone could quite a lifetime of white wine on a single vow, and not everyone should try without help. For my grandmother I think it was made easier by the fact that she really didn't know it was a problem, and after finding out it was, she decided immediately it wasn't worth it. She decided (and we strongly agreed) that she owed it to her husband, to her children, and to her grandchildren, to be as fully present as she can be for as long as we have her here. And in that decision, she's given us the best gift she ever could.

Congratulations on 1 year grandma, we're so unbelievably proud of you.

Adjusting

We're on Day 4 of Two Working Parents with Two Kids (and Two Dogs and a Fat Cat) and it's been... interesting. Interesting and exhausting.

It did not help that Claire's party was Sunday afternoon so we didn't use Sunday as productively as we normally do, or that I had a very scary, time-wasting migraine on Monday afternoon, or that I've never been this busy in my 3 years of working, or that I left early last Friday for Claire's little daycare party and didn't work all weekend because we had family in town and other fun events not conducive to finishing a tax memo. So I've had to leave for work earlier than I ever have and JP is leaving the house at the crack of dawn to avoid traffic and figure out the arrival schedule of his new co-workers, and the kids are wondering what on earth happened to their lazy mornings and evening park visits and walks with dad. I got to work at 7:05 yesterday morning and didn't move from my seat until 12:50 when I realized I was dizzy, hadn't eaten or drank anything but the caffeinated tea I made in the office kitchen on the way in, and I had still made almost no headway through my emails or piles of work. It was a sad, very nearly overwhelming moment.

The kids have been the first ones at daycare for the past two days. I don't like that. Landon loves it because he gets all the toys to himself for a few minutes. Claire seems just okay with it, but yesterday she grabbed my shoulder with her little lobster claws and shook her head vigorously at her teachers. I didn't like that either, though she was fine as soon as I left the room. I don't like that I had to wake Landon up yesterday so that we could leave and I don't like that he ate a cereal bar in the car on the way over because I was starting to panic about how much work I had to do and wouldn't let him spend 5 minutes eating cereal at the kitchen table. I don't like that I've only had 2 waking hours with JP each day since Monday. I don't like that my work to-do lists are quite literally haunting my dreams. JP is having a tough time too. He dropped the kids off on Tuesday (so I could get to work even earlier) and all the daycare teachers told at pick-up that he mentioned several times how much he missed them. "I only got an hour with her yesterday" he very sadly informed Claire's teacher, "just an hour."

But.

This week is uniquely bad and we are making it. The kids are happy and fine and Landon loves cereal bars and the rare thrill of eating in the car. JP likes his job and co-workers and the commute isn't as bad as we feared. He'll figure out what he's doing, gain some trust, and then start adjusting his comings and goings to better fit our family life. After this week I can leave for work at my normal time which is 1-1.5 hours later than I have been and the kids can have more time at home in the morning. I do not usually bill 14 hour days. I do not usually get migraines or spend entire weekends both not working and not preparing for the next week. Landon does not usually sleep in as late as he wanted to on Tuesday. We have still had family dinners every night, even if JP has arrived when we're a few bites in. We have still cuddled in Landon's room and read books and tickled and given our kids every minute we can.

It's going to be fine, but this week, we're adjusting and I comfort myself with the fact that I think the parents are having a harder time of it than the kids.

Sneak Peak

I really want to post about Claire's party, which was awesome and fun and filled with a smiley birthday girl in a pink tutu and lots of friends eating delicious rainbow cupcakes, but I am so slammed at work I woke up dreaming about to do lists. On top of that, I got struck down with my very first migraine headache yesterday. I've had some pretty terrible headaches before, but yesterday was the first time I experienced all of the following in a 30-minute period: tunnel vision, blacking out of vision, dizziness, nausea, numb feet, shaking hands, and tingling fingers. It quite honestly scared the shit out of me and I started planning who I would yell out to for help when (not if) I fell out of my chair.

Looking back, I'd been ignoring symptoms since Sunday evening- sudden dizziness, temporary black outs when standing up, building pressure in my head, etc., but I wrote them off to being worn out from the party and my usual super low blood pressure. I woke up with a bad headache, but that's not unusual either-- but by yesterday at 3 pm, as I stared at my tingling fingers, unable to see the keys on my keyboard, I knew I was experiencing something new and needed to go home, even with the 12 hours of work I still had left to do. I also knew I couldn't safely get myself there, so I slowly walked myself down to our 2nd floor wellness room- a room I had never been inside- and lay down on a couch in the dark for an hour. I felt better, so I slowly walked back upstairs, collected my laptop and portable work and headed home. My work is usually pretty flexible- weeks are busy, but individual days can be adjusted depending on my own schedule. Yesterday was not one of those days- I really had a ton to do by the end of the day, mostly because I didn't work half of Friday or all weekend because of Claire's birthday. Monday was also JP's first day of work, so I had the kids on my own and we needed to go to the grocery store because Claire's birthday extravaganza, while fabulous, ate up our whole Sunday along with all the food in our fridge.

So yesterday was difficult, is what I'm saying. After an hour spent soaking in a warm tup with the lights off and a cool compress on my head I stopped wincing every time my heart beat. I was able to pick up the kids, make dinner, and greet JP with a hug and a grocery shopping list when he got home. When they went to sleep I got back online and worked for a few hours and then went to bed early, with a lessened, but still very present headache. I woke up with one too. I'm a little afraid of today, I don't have time for yesterday's nonsense to happen again.

But this weekend, it was really wonderful. Claire had a little daycare party on Friday (a tradition in the infant classroom) that JP and I got to be present for. My mom came to town Friday afternoon, so we did a little shopping, a little party prepping (I baked all the rainbow cupcakes- this time with five layers of color), and lots of hanging out with the kids. On Saturday night, JP and I took advantage of my mom's free babysitting and attended my managing partner's annual summer picnic at his beautiful ranch in Wimberley. It was a lovely evening (surprisingly cool at under 90 degrees!) and we had a great time. Sunday was Claire's party and my dad and brother drove up from the lake house exhausted after spending 3 days building a new dock but ready to party. My sister was there. Neighbors and work friends were there. And the Biscuit - the Biscuit loved it all:

More pics coming just as soon as I catch up on all the work I should have had done two days ago...

A Year Gone By So Fast

June 4, 2010 9:22 a.m.

Claire Annalise

 

The beginning of a beautiful friendship.

June 2011

Happy Birthday darling girl, we love you so!

More Party Planning

This itty bitty squishy baby is turning one on Saturday.

I've tried to slow her down, but she's grown into a chunky little toddler overnight- and a fiercely determined one at that. Landon has preferences, Claire has OPINIONS. Loud ones. We never baby proofed with Landon because he had an implicit understanding of what not to touch, and if he ever did do something he shouldn't, we just redirected him and he quite happily did something else. The Biscuit, on the other hand, requires extensive babyproofing and constant supervision. A frequently heard refrain in our house is, "Mommy!! Biscuit's not being safe!" Thank goodness she has Landon to watch out for her because we do occasionally have to take our eyes off her for multiple seconds at a time.

So our crazy little toddler is turning 1 and we're having a party. There will be the aforementioned rainbow cupcakes (both in mini and regular size), a small round (rainbow!) 3 layer cake for Clairebear to tear through (Landon dismissed his cake at his party, opting to eat watermelon instead. I think Claire is going to attack it- the girl eats absolutely anything you give her and then reaches out to grab your own food off your spoon), and possibly sugar cookies, if I have time to make them. There's a lot of baking and frosting in my future. We'll have lots of real food: Mexican Cheesecake, my mom's bunko friend's black bean salsa (delicious!), a cheeseball, sliced cheeses, Italian meats, olives, fruit, veggies, and crackers. An assortment of beverages: red wine sangria, beer, juice, fancy water, and soda. And most important, good friends and family to share the fun with.

I love entertaining, really love it. I love buying the decor, picking out the recipes, the baking, cleaning, and decorating, and the sharing of a special occasion with lots of people in our home. The only downside is that I have this real job that gets in the way of my little hobby. This week has been insane. I got 102 emails between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. today and those are only work emails - I get all personal mail, spam, ads, etc. delivered to my various gmail accounts. I did manage to make a diagram of how my counter will look with the various food I'm making and the serving dishes I'll need to use while on a recruiting committee conference call. Luckily, most of my deadlines are Friday, so I can dedicate my Saturday to baking (but for a firm recruiting event Saturday night) and my Sunday to prepping and partying. And if I can't make the stuff, I'll run to the grocery store and buy something, but I really enjoy the act of preparing food by hand to share with people I love.

Clairebear has an adorable little shirt from this etsy shop (love them) and a pink tutu and is going to LOVE being the belle of the birthday ball. I'm still a little sad she's already turning 1, but I'm looking forward to the celebration of this first wonderful year with my baby girl!