My parents have a Santa that sings and dances. Chloe LOVES it. She loves it so much, she broke his button, so now you have to use the motion sensor to get him moving.
Now, how is this more acceptable than a human Santa?
Saturday night, we had a pre-Christmas event because my little cousin Jordan won’t be able to be with us on Christmas day, and I would love to say it was pure joy. In reality, Chloe fell asleep in the car at 4:00pm, we moved her into her bed and decided we would wake her up when the traditional pre-Christmas pizza arrived. The mistake in the plan was the “wake her up” part. She was a MESS. She cried over everything, she refused to open her presents, she wouldn’t eat anything, and she just kept melting into piles of mushy goo. In my infinite wisdom, I decided, “well, if she’s that tired we’ll just put her back to bed.” That’s like saying, “I know I can get all this toothpaste back into the tube if I just keep trying.” After 45 minutes of laying her down and hearing her say, “Mommy!” over the monitor, then going upstairs, laying her down, “mommy!” lay her down “Mommy!” I got her back up and she ended up have a blast playing with her big cousins.
She is completely enamored with her cousin, Sabrina (4). She calls her, “nanina” and follows her everywhere. Sabrina is a good sport, and I think she kind of likes the hero worship. When we were done opening presents Chloe and Sabrina decorated sugar cookies. Needless to say, there was more sugar than cookie when they were done, and Chloe refused to eat her creation. (I ate it, though, and it was delicious.)
On Sunday night we went to see the Zoo Lights with Felicia and her gang of misfits. Unfortunately, we lost them in the dark and ended up just seeing it by ourselves, but it all worked out okay. It was cold, but not too cold, and we bundled Chloe up like the stay puffed marshmallow man. John and I thought it was pretty cool, but Chloe was pretty stoic through the whole experience. She might have been too cold to react, or maybe she was a little overwhelmed, but we had to keep checking to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep in her stroller. When we realized we lost everybody, we let her walk since it no longer mattered how slow she walked, and then I think we got more of a reaction out of her. But even then, she really didn’t say too much. We’re going back again with John’s parents next Saturday, so we’ll see how she does then.
Oh, and if you are ever in Colorado, and you see an advertisement for the Christkindl market at the Cherry Creek mall, don’t bother. They tried to make it a traditional Christmas Market like they have in Germany and in the Netherlands, but they failed. Even the Glühwein didn’t smell right. (We didn’t even bother to taste it because they only sold it by the cup and you had to drink it in a tent they had set up.) We were disappointed.
Several people have asked me what website I used for my diet, so I thought I would post the information here and that way anybody who is interested in losing a few pounds can access it. Oh, and I do realize my timing is terrible, considering it’s the holidays and there will be cookies and chocolate in abundance. But I figured that maybe after the holidays, when people are working on their New Year’s resolutions, they can look back here.
Anyway, I used two dieting websites. The first was ediets.com, this provided me my meal plan with recipes and grocery lists. However, this website is not free, I think it was like $12-15 a month. But, for me, this was additional motivation because I wanted to make sure that I got my money’s worth. I didn’t follow the diet to the letter, but it really helped me understand portion control and I learned a lot about counting calories.
The second website was sparkpeople.com. This website is totally free and offers a plethora of services, including online logs of calories and exercise. Plus, it offers support groups and information information information. I learned soooo much about food, the good, the bad and the really ugly. I honestly think that this website helped me more with motivation and with feeling accountable because I was “weighing in” every week and tracking my food and exercise daily.
The bad news is that I literally had to cut my calorie intake down to 1200-1500 calories a day, and I exercised every day for 30-45 minutes excluding warm ups and cool downs. So, it was a serious commitment. But, I was able to lose 35 pounds, which was all the baby weight and the “after college” weight and I am now back down to where I was in college. In size terms, I went from a size 14 to a size 4. In weight terms I went from 146 to 112.
Here’s the before and after:
This was me last summer right after we moved to New Jerse.y
This is me this summer right after I lost the weight.
Seth on Vocals and keyboard
Chloe on guitar
Guaranteed to be a huge commercial success, but will break up when school starts over “creative differences” related to boys having cooties.
Oh, and when Chloe took her bath last night, she drew this on the wall of the tub and said excitedly, “A BEAR!” My Child is an abstract artist!
I took Chloe to the mall play area today to blow off some steam. While we were there, there was this little boy who decided to target Chloe. By “target” I mean, he would run by her and “tap” her, not hit, tap. She didn’t seem to mind so I didn’t say anything. Then he followed her to every play area. If she went to the fishes, he went to the fishes, if she slid down the slide, so did he. Then, he started to get in her way. If she went down the slide, he tried to climb up it, if she played on a fish, he tried to push her off of it. But, she was still handling it fine, so I didn’t say anything. (I should also mention that his mom was on the cell phone the entire time and didn’t notice any of this.) Finally, the last straw was when he started to actually hit Chloe when he ran by her. I told him, “Please don’t hit.” Then he tried to push her down the slide. I said, “wait your turn.” We left after I had to grab him and stop him from pulling her up the slide after she started to go down it. The good news is I saw his mom pull him out of the play area after he took a swing at another kid.
Now, I am a newish mom, and definitely new at playground politics, so my question is, “Should I have told his mom?” I mean, It really would have been one of those conversations where I would have to say, “excuse me, can you get off your phone and pay attention to the fact that your son is harassing my daughter.” I am sure there must be a better way to handle it, but at the time I just wasn’t sure. And, I felt unbelievably uncomfortable grabbing him to stop him for hurting Chloe.
Anyway, these things have a way of spoiling a good time and I really didn’t want to punish Chloe for what another kid was doing.
I just need to vent about how much I hate traveling. I know this will sound odd coming from someone who has been all around the United States, Mexico and to Europe several times. But I HATE FLYING!!!! The problem with flying for me are those damn airline seats. I have rods in my back that limit my flexibility, and the airline seats are designed for much taller people who have flexible backs. In addition to this, I hate being stuck in a seat for hours and hours at a time, forced to deal with random strangers sitting next to me (and inevitably invading my bubble because the seats are so damn small) and having bad airline food inflicted on me, if they feed me at all. Add to this my incredibly small bladder, and the fact that they take forever to turn off those fasten seat belt signs, and you have the recipe for pure torture. And now, I also have a toddler in my lap. Fun, fun, fun. It is such a bizarre feeling, I am really excited about going back to Colorado and seeing our families and friends, but I am so nervous about flying that it keeps me up at night.
Sigh, its just a shame that everything cool is so far away. I am with Misty, someone should get on that teleporter idea.
We decided to celebrate Christmas at home today so that Chloe would have a chance to play with some of her presents before we leave for Denver on Wednesday.
We started by visiting Santa and the Longstreet Farm in Holmdel. The Longstreet Farm is an historically accurate farm where they make hot cider, ginger cookies, and let the kids help milk the cows. Chloe was, no surprise, not interested in seeing Santa. So, Mommy had to be a buffer.
Of course, after we left, it was Santa this and Santa that. She waved bye bye to Santa as we left, and she saw him walking across the farm and excitedly yelled, “SANTA!” Apparently, he is better at a distance.
Then we went home, and mommy and daddy had hot cocoa and we all opened our presents. Chloe really wasn’t as “in” to it as I thought she would be. She would open one, and then play with the contents, and then slowly open another. After three or four, we asked her if she wanted to open some more presents and she said, “no.” This makes me very nervous about Christmas at home. I suspect that Chloe will have a TON of presents there. We may need to spread it out over our trip.
One of her favorite gifts she got was tub crayons. Here she is, or budding artist:
Ok, I just have to brag, my baby is soooo smart! Yesterday, we were stuck in the house all day due to icy rain, so Chloe and I played “school.” Chloe was able to do two of her peg puzzles completely independently, (Several times, actually), and she told me all of the animal sounds from the pictures. She was also able to put all of her shapes into her shape sorter box completely independently. And, it should come as no surprise that her favorite shape is a “star.” She picks out stars EVERYWHERE. I am sure that it helps that there are several stars on our Christmas tree.
We’ve been working on having her clean up her own toys now that she is older. So, every time she decides to switch an activity, I sing the clean up song and she helps me clean up her toys. (song: “clean up, clean up, everybody every where, clean up, clean up, everybody do their share.”) Now, when she is done with what she is playing with, or when she is bored with something, she starts singing the clean up song. Of course, is sounds more like, “ceen up, ceen up.” Today, I went out to lunch with Ellen and Seth, and Chloe decided she was done and started to sing the clean up song. I just HAD to laugh, it was too cute. It even made me less annoyed that I didn’t get to finish my lunch.
in closing, I have to share one more picture of Chloe in the nose glasses, in this one, she’s checking her self out in the mirror, it was really hilarious to watch!