Thursday and Friday

Presenting the future president of the United States, JACK!

OK, just having some fun with the photos that we had taken. This one cracks me up. I sure wish Jack would say yes more. What is up with toddlers and saying no all the time? And if Jack says no all the time, why do I persist in asking him questions? Do you want to get your jammies on? NO. Do you want to brush your teeth? NO. Do you want read books? NO. Half the time I don't even finish the question before he says NO. I just need to stop asking questions and start telling him to do stuff. As if this will change anything.

Ann and Emma came over Thursday morning for the Coffee Clatch. Or was it Klatch? I can't remember. Anyway, we just spend a couple hours talking while Ann's kids are in preschool. Emma is just now staying home with her 1 year old after working most of the year. I think it's a lot harder to be a stay-at-home mom and she is finding that out. At least she is tired in a different way at the end of the day. Let's face it... you never, ever get a break like you do at work. I took Ty to the doctor and sure enough, he has a clogged tear duct. Nothing major... they usually grow out of it but I got a note from the doctor to give to his day care so they don't send him home every day with a alleged eye infection. You may as well have tuberculosis when you have pink eye at a day care.

Thursday night, Annette came over to give me a massage. I love her massages. Annette is deceiving in that she is petite... but gives a very deep massage, which I love. I was worried when I first met her that she wouldn't be able to give me a deep massage but I was pleasantly surprised! A lot of my back aches and pains are gone today. Not sure what I will do when she has her baby in the next month or two. :-(

I decided to spend my last day with Ty at home. We did get some good quality time, but it was a long day and I realized that I was probably ready to go back to work when I called Brian at 4:30 and yelled at him for not calling more during the day. That is such a chick thing to call and say. When I am at work, I really don't care if he calls me or not and in fact, I get annoyed when he does call because I am busy. :-)

My OCD of book reading is now spilling over into my audio book listening. I not only listen to them while I am walking, but now while I am driving. I'm afraid of what is next...

I want to get rid of the spider veins on my legs. Has anyone done this and can they recommend someone to do it? It's time to start my post-babies extreme makeover.

Has anyone seen my brain?

I was supposed to meet Jill B for lunch yesterday and totally spaced. Anyone who knows me knows that I have to be on my death bed to cancel out of a social event. And forgetting a social event is unheard of. Fortunately we hadn't decided on a time and had agreed to touch base that morning so she wasn't sitting in the restaurant waiting for me. Ugh. What's worse is that I was at home and had fallen asleep while feeding Ty and just didn't hear the phone. I was at home all day! Fortunately I was able to make amends by loaning her the book club book, in her favorite Large Print Edition style, for the month and dropped off a piece of cake. Which by the way was made with olive oil instead my usual canola oil because I had an airhead moment during that as well. It was today at the doctor's office when they told me that my appointment was for tomorrow at 1:30 PM that I realized it was time for my brain cells to return from maternity leave. (I SWEAR the woman said the appointment was for Wed so I'm still holding to my guns on that one).

The other thing that is making me feel better about going back to work is the fact that Ty doesn't sleep well in the car or when I'm out and about. I start to feel guilty about going out and doing things because it doesn't seem to be very good for him. Being at day care assures that he will have routine and won't be dragged around on errands. I suppose this is just a working mom rationalizing but it works for me.

I made my final visit to my mom's group this morning at Holly's house. It was a nice visit. The one mom who I have gotten to know much better during this maternity leave is Tina, from Germany. It is interesting to hear her observations about Americans like how uptight we are about nudity (stemming from the whole Chandler "breastfeeding in public is indecent exposure" fiasco) but then how open we are about our husbands' vasectomies and our fertility problems. She, by the way, also has a 10 year old pantyhose collection, brought here all the way from Germany no less. She just sold Kristi's house, who is also a mom in our mom's group, and Kristi is moving to Dallas where she is from originally. That's the one downside of living in Phoenix where just about no one is from here... everyone seems to want to move back to their hometowns. That is, except us and Jill M. I haven't much desire to move back to the Carolinas even though it would be nice to be closer to my parents and sisters. The way of life and opportunities are just different here... I love it here and plan to stay for many, many years to come.

Whew

I can't remember the last time I posted. It's been a whirlwind weekend! I've finally started to exercise again. After doing aerobics since I was 12 (no kidding) I've decided to focus on walking. The reason is that I am a huge fan of Michael Thurmond from Extreme Makeover because he truly changes the shape of people. He is the fitness and diet guru. He says that walking, running or bicycling for 60 minutes a day on a flat surface is the best way to burn fat. Other types of exercise like aerobics and stair steppers and elliptical machines burn sugar. I am definitely more interested in burning fat these days so I purchased a portable CD player and tape player and have checked out audio books from the library. It makes the time go by really fast. I'm already looking forward to my next walk this evening. I am "reading" Janet Evanovich's 9th book (these are the Stephanie Plum series for those of you who read her books).

Speaking of the library, every time I go there I think my heart rate increases. I just love the library. My sister (Nicki) and I would go there in the summer time when we were tweens and teens and check out 70 books at a time. I am not kidding. And we would read them all in the 2 - 3 weeks that we had them checked out. I'm a fast reader but Nicki reads even faster than me. I would like to have a read-off between Nicki and Tracy W. Tracy reads huge books in 24 - 48 hours. A bit OCD ;-) but so I am so I can relate. I try to read during all meals but Brian doesn't let me during dinner. Men... they just want to talk all the time.

Before I get into the weekend, I talked to Yvonne on Friday. Yvonne sits across the hall from me at work. I talked to her on Friday. She had a meeting in Oregon for work and was staying in a hotel with the other people from Chandler who were going to the same meeting. Well, one of the people, a 38 year old mother of two young children, was supposed to ride with Yvonne to work that morning but never showed up and didn't answer her door. She was found dead her room. I didn't know this woman but the news was really hard to hear because I think about those two kids and the husband who are now going to have to live their lives without their mother and wife. And she is only two years older than me... not that age had anything to do with it because she wasn't sick... it was one of those unexpected tragedies. It just made me appreciate my time with my kids and husband more this weekend. And definitely makes me want to spend less time working and more with my kids. You never know when your time may be cut short.

We met up with Liz and Inigo and their two kids (close to Jack and Ty's ages) at the AZ Science Center to go to the special Seasame Street Body exhibit. This was probably the best time I've had with Jack ever at an outing like this. He just loved it there and there were a bunch of things for a toddler to do. He was so good. He even waited patiently in line to see Elmo and when it was our turn, he gave Elmo a huge hug. I can't wait to take Jack again.

Our dinner plans for the evening were canceled, so Brian and I split up. He went to Costco and I went to Scottsdale Fashion Square. I hadn't been there in a long time and I was amazed at the changes. There were some very nice, upscale new stores. Like the Chandler Mall, they had their share of Goth people. To me, it doesn't seem like Goths would care to be seen in a mall of all things but maybe those are the Goths of the 2000's. While Brian and Jack were eating their slices of Costco pizza, I was sitting in La Madeleine's eating Chicken Friand and a ceasar salad.

Our morning plans were also postponed which turned out to be a blessing. I had scheduled a 2 PM appointment to get Ty and Jack's photos taken. The place, called Portrait Innovations, said that Brian and I should get our photos taken as well. I couldn't believe the amount of time spent on selecting clothes for the boys and for myself and the time spent making myself look decent. I mean, including the shower it was probably only 30 minutes but that's a long time in a house with two little kids and compared to the normal 5 minute shower (if I'm lucky) and no time on makeup or blow drying hair. I really liked the photo place. They took tons of photos and didn't use the tripod type camera so the photographer was moving around. Jack lost his patience (actually, he was probably starving) while we were selecting photos and I was breastfeeding a squirming Ty and the person helping us didn't bat an eye. I guess they deal with that stuff on a daily basis. We wetn to eat and the photos were done in 20 minutes!

Where does the time go?

Story behind the picture from Brian: Thursday morning, I was getting Jack & ready for work/school. Kelly/Ty were still sleeping. After breakfast, Jack disappeared in the Living Room while I was getting our lunches ready.
He was kinda quiet ... So I called for him, looked around the corner .. And found that he had pulled a chair back from the dining room table where I left my work laptop, climbed up into the chair and had one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard... I truly think he thought he was "working" on the computer. I returned to what I was doing, and even though the computer screensaver was locked, he kept doing what he was doing for several minutes (which is years in toddler time).

Time seems to go by really fast these days. It will be Halloween then Thanksgiving then Christmas before we know it. Starting in 2006, I will have four weeks of vacation. I can't wait.

Yesterday Ann came over for coffee talk which is a very nice couple of hours. It goes by very fast. I've really enjoyed the visits I've gotten from people over the past few weeks and have come to prefer having one or two people visit at a time versus doing a large group thing. I guess I would rather have a long quality conversation than a larger quantity of smaller conversations.

Then I went to Pane Bianco (Chris Bianco's sandwich shop) with Heather, who is also on maternity leave--Peyton was born 1 week after Ty, and who also works where I work. She is going to take the rest of the year off to be with her baby. Makes me wonder if I should stay home longer but 3 1/2 months worked well with Jack, plus I think I'm ready to get settled with a routine. I had my favorite tomato and mozzarella sandwich and a cappuccino and a mini chocolate bundt cake. All were delicious. Heather is training for a half marathon and I seem to be training for an eating contest.

I made a stop at a place called the Lumber Liquidators which was close to the Bank One Ballpark, I mean Chase Field (it was renamed today). I am looking at wood flooring for our dining room to replace the carpet that the cats have been peeing on for the past 5 years. By the time I got home I was so tired. My favorite moments of the day are lying down with Ty in the bed and taking a snooze. It's decadent.

I was able to take a 20 minute walk last night. This may not sound like much but it's the first time I have formally exercised since giving birth. Once it gets cooler, it will be nice to walk. I listened to the baseball game on the radio and the time went by really fast. I wonder what other kind of talk radio is on in the evening that would be interesting to listen to...

IKEA and Playgroup

Yesterday we decided to go to IKEA for a family evening out. We love going there for dinner on a week night and looking around the store afterwards. It's like a giant two-story playground. Jack won't ride in a stroller or cart anymore and has to push his own stroller with Mickey Mouse in it. He especially likes to run over people's feet and ankles with his stroller which is horrifying to me. I spend most of my time apologizing for him and chasing him. Fortunately, when Brian is there, I can push Ty in the stroller while Brian does the chasing. We escaped with a $12 purchase, some more tracks for Jack's IKEA train and a spray bottle.

Brian and I talked last night about my working 32 hours a week when I go back. The question is: would I only work 32 hours a week? I would definitely like to have Friday's off where I could put the boys in day care in the morning and I can run all the errands and grocery shopping we need for the week. That way, we wouldn't have to spend time on the weekends doing that kind of thing. Then I could spend Friday afternoons with the boys. We will see if this is something that I can make work.

There are a lot of houses in my neighborhood for sale. I don't think they are selling as fast right now. My friend, Jill, is looking for a larger house. It would be nice if they would move into the neighborhood so we could show up at their house for dinner every night (Jill is a much better cook than I am--she would never burn a Costco pizza).

This morning I hosted playgroup at my house. I am not quite as good as Berly about taking photos and so have not taken any for a few days. This morning would have been a good time. There were like 8 kids here this morning. Jack was at school which is good because he would have freaked out to know that so many kids were pawing his stuff. After they all left, I went into the bathroom to see if I looked presentable and tried to brush a hair off my face but instead realized THAT IT WAS ATTACHED TO MY EYEBROW. Holy cow. It was really long. I swear it wasn't there yesterday becasue surely I would have seen that. I can't believe I walked around like that all morning. I met Jill and Liz for lunch and then went home and decided that Brian needs to go in to be "tutored" -- reference to an old Far Side joke that shows a dog in a car excitedly telling his dog friend that he is going to be tutored. Ha ha. So I made an appointment for him. He is going quite willingly... he should as I have endured far more misery that he will ever experience. And then I will throw a "I Will Never Be Pregnant Again" party.

Pantyhose

Last night I threw out every single pair of pantyhose that I owned. There were perhaps 25 pairs. You might be wondering why I even owned pantyhose. Well, the truth of the matter is that most of them I have owned for over 9 years (the amount of time I've lived in Phoenix) and I used to wear them in the 80's and 90's. I believe that I have worn pantyhose twice in the last 9 years. Once with the legs cut off at the knees to avoid panty lines with a formal dress (probably around 1998) and the other time was at my wedding in 2000, also to avoid panty lines. If I remember correctly, this pair was bought the morning of my wedding and didn't even come from my already existing pantyhose collection. Why has it taken so long to get rid of them? Because if I ever needed a pair, I wouldn't have to go out and buy some. They would be right there in my drawer where they have been TAKING UP PRECIOUS SPACE FOR THE LAST DECADE. I really haven't a clue as to how much a pair of pantyhose costs these days but I'll bet in the event that I needed a pair, which seems unlikely given that the only reason people wear pantyhose these days is to rob liquor stores, it won't break the bank to buy a new pair.

My family has a condition that we call "the abandonment syndrome." This means that we don't like the feeling that we are missing out on anything. It also means that if one person in my family comes to Phoenix to visit me, everyone else has to come because they might miss out on something exciting like a trip to Trader's Joes or IKEA. Given that I am the only family member not living in the Carolina's, I've come to put this disorder behind me. Or so I thought. I really wish I was in South
Carolina helping out with the 30 year awaited kitchen renovation, even though it looks like a lot of work. There are a lot of memories in that kitchen.

The Weekend

Not really too much time spent sorting T-shirts or blogging this weekend with all the boys at home. Brian came home to watch Ty on Friday during lunch so that I could get my hair colored and I managed to escape for an hour on Saturday morning to get a pedicure. On Saturday we met our dear friends Joe, Deb, Pete and Ann for dinner at Pizzeria Bianco, my favorite restaurant in Phoenix. They were able to get there early to put our names in for a table so Brian and I didn't wait too long (I can be out limited amounts of time because of the whole breastfeeding thing.). My good friend Yvonne came over to baby-sit Jack and Ty and brought her friend's daughter, Gianna, who is 10 years old. Yvonne usually brings her 10 year old son, Colton, who Jack absolutely LOVES but Colton had a birthday party to attend. But it sounds like things went great and Gianna read Jack about 10 books. I am very spoiled having Yvonne and her team of baby-sitters take care of my kids.

Meanwhile, back at Bianco's, I was thinking about slipping a love note ("Will you go with me, circle yes or no") to Chris Bianco, the owner of the restaurant but didn't think I could do it without being detected. I'm not sure if it's possible to build a relationhip on fresh mozzarella either. Then someone told me that he was married and had two kids! I feel like he's cheating on me now. After eating our salads, pizzas, and finishing off the wine, Deb, Joe, Brian and I headed off to the newly renovated Phoenix Symphony Hall to see Doc Severinsen. For those of you who don't know him, he is a conductor and fabulous trumpet player (he also led the band on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson). I personally find the symphony rather boring but Doc always makes it interesting with his sequined jackets, running commentary on the music and his selection of music. Brian and I tend to be the youngest people in the audience when we go. We heard Gershwin and Mancini, two of my favorite American composers.

On Sunday, I had brunch with my longtime friend Missie. We are both battling the post-partum body blues. If it's mostly skin that hanging around my mid-section, how do movie stars get around that? I mean, all the exercise in the world doesn't get rid of loose skin and they can't get tummy tucks 2 months post-partum. I don't get it. So I did what most non-movie star women do in my situation: I made brownies.



I have tickets to a series of Broadway shows at the Orpheum. I completely forgot about "The Full Monty" last night and told Brian that he could go see the Billy Joel song-based show. So he bought a ticket to that. Then at 10 PM last night, he said %^&*. He completely forgot about his show. So it turned out that neither one of us saw our show. This just goes to show that having kids does impact your ability to remember anything unless you write everything down on Post-It notes and hang them around the house.

Back to Work and Men's Shoes

I set the date to go back to work on October 4. I am not as ready to go back to work as I was with Jack. Jack was fussy and colicky and I was exhausted and going back to work was almost a vacation. It didn't make putting him in daycare very easy however--I think it is always traumatic for a mom to leave her child. Fortunately Jack absolutely loves going to day care. He has a lot of good buddies and oftentimes doesn't want to come home. I've gotten quite attached to little Ty. He always has a smile and a coo for me. It will very hard to leave him all day.


A friend of mine was commenting on Brian's shoes. Brian does have excellent taste in shoes. He came to me this way but unfortunately, not all women find that the man of their dreams has exquisite taste in shoes. While I believe strongly that you should not try to change a man, I believe their clothes, shoes and hair are negotiable. My friend's husband lives in athletic shoes and I believe will sometimes wear black socks with his sneakers. While a direct approach of "Your shoes look hideous." may get the message across, it may make him defensive and change averse. The best course of action is to compliment other men on their shoes in front of your husband/boyfriend. This seemed to work for my sister and brother-in-law. If your husband doesn't pick up on this and show interest in shoes, purchasing shoes for your husband may be the best course of action. I'm happy to report that my friend has successfully made a purchase of some cool black shoes for her husband, and he likes them. The photo is my favorite pair of Brian's shoes although they are looking a bit worn these days. There is one drawback of men having nice shoes and that is less money for your shoes. Something to think about.

Here is Theo helping me with the paperwork for our Medical Spending Account. What is it with cats and sitting on your paper?

T-Shirts Chronicle Events in My Life Part II

More T-Shirts
I bought this T-shirt because Kels is what my family calls me.
The Bob Marley T-shirt is from Jamaica. Anyone who has been Jamaica knows how pushy the vendors are there. But it's a beautiful place. I love Bob Marley and play his music frequently.
From a coffee bar in Key West... I went through a phase where I liked buying T-shirts that had anything to do with coffee. One of the best parts of Key West was Hemingway's House where about 70 cats live now.
Spa Fitness is the fitness club I joined when I was 15 years old (fortunately you can drive at the age of 15 in South Carolina). I loved doing aerobics and went to this club for about 4 years. I wore those high gloss shiny tights with my Reebok's and sometimes wore this tank top with a belt over my leotard. Ugh. I never wore headbands or leg warmers though.
Buzios is in Brazil and is a fishing village that Bridget Bardot made famous in the 1960's. My dad has a thing for Bridget although all the sunning she did in the 60's has made her quite unattractive these days. Brian and I were supposed to fly to Brazil on September 12, 2001. Of course, our plans were a bit delayed... but we made the decision to leave for Brazil as soon as the flights were going and we ended up leaving on September 17. We figured South America would be a great place for American tourists after 9/11. I still remember the the ground crew at Miami lining up outside the plane on the tarmac waving an American flag. It was very touching. We spent a couple weeks in Brazil and Buzios was my absolute favorite place. We didn't see a single American tourist.
This is a very famous painting of Salvador Dali, one of my favorite artists. This is hanging at the Dali museum in St. Petersburg, FL. I went to this museum with a guy I call Lear Jet Man. After informing him that I would be getting a divorce (we were co-workers), he said he had been in love with me for past five years. That was quite shocking. For a first date, he flew me on a Lear Jet to St. Petersburg/Tampa to go to my favorite restaurant, Bern's. (I will note that I had a 1976 Shown and Sons Cabernet Savingnon which gave birth to my love for big bold earthy red wines).
This T-shirt was sent to me by my best friend from high school, MB, when I had mono. I was living at home during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, was working full-time for NCR and was staying out late every night. I didn't leave my bedroom for 3 weeks and didn't once see my sisters or brother. Can't say I blame them... it was a horrible experience but I did crank out three watercolor paintings because I got bored. After I recuperated, I wore the shirt while looking for the Lizard Man, a creature of the Bigfoot and Loch Ness genre that resides in rural South Carolina. I didn't find him.
T-shirt from Sugar Mountain, NC. It was one of two close ski resorts to Columbia. I love snow skiing but haven't gone much since I've lived in AZ. I hope that my sons like to ski one day. But you will notice that this shirt looks very dirty. That is because it is my spelunking T-shirt. It has been through the caves of Tennessee, Alabama and Arizona. The first time I went was with my sister, Nicki, and we went with a bunch of strange people from her work. There's lots of stories here, maybe for another day... but the highlight was when Nicki and another guy were stuck in a very narrow tunnel because Ken was stuck in the opening of the tunnel for about 30 minutes. I swear his body swelled up to twice its size because he was panicked. Fortunately I was able to lure him out with cookies.

T-Shirts Chronicle Events in My Life

First of all, I would like to say hello to Berly who just moved to China with her family and really was the first person to introduce me to this blogging thing. We miss you.

In the process of cleaning out my closet, I realized that my T-shirts were difficult to get rid of becasue they commemorate events in my life. I usually forget to take photos of certain events but I used to always buy a T-shirt! Of course, T-shirts were the main staple of my wardrobe in the early to mid-90's. I would wear T-shirts, jeans (that came up to my belly button and were tapered), and running shoes. After I moved to Phoenix and started working, a co-worker came into my cube, assessed my boring haircut and T-shirt/jeans ensemble and claimed "You need a day of beauty!". That's when I was introduced to Jack, the guy who has cut my hair for the past 9 years and keeps me somewhat modern, and it was also the first day I have ever worn mascara. I need a whole blog dedicated to my discovery of pedicures, make-up and shoes, so back to the T-shirts.

So here are some T-shirts (not in chronilogical order).


Does anyone remember when Banana Republic sold clothes that were like safari clothes? Yes, it's true... they did not originate as a modern clothing store. Their clothes were literally like safari clothes which explains an name like Banana Republic. Here is an original T-shirt from their store. My sister still carries around a little leather purse that I bought from them, probably back in 1986.

I went to school at the University of South Carolina (Go Cocks!) I spent most of my college years hanging out in smelly computer labs, going to IHOP where a vegetarian delight omelette consisted simply of green beans because they made meals based on what food happened to be lying around, and going on dates with 20-something guys from work (a computer company) because they would buy me nice meals.

I spent a lot of time in my early 20's playing in outdoor volleyball tournaments (mostly co-ed doubles). We got T-shirts from every tournament. This is in Columbia SC and is dated 1991.

This is kind of a dorky T-shirt we have to wear when we do volunteer work for my place of employment.

The closest the Olympics has ever been to where I live (Columbia, SC) was in Atlanta, GA. Unfortunately, I moved to Phoenix in February 1996 so I missed the Olympics... not sure where I got the T-shirt but I do remember being in Malaysia when there was a bombing in the Underground.

SPAM and Blogging - September 14, 2005

Does SPAM really work? I mean, does anyone really follow up on a junk email message? Someone must be if they persist in sending junk emails. Well, I get a bunch of junk comments on my blog that I have to go in and delete. Who knew? I think there is a way to prevent this but I am not sure how to do that yet.
I have also found that working on a blog in the evening is difficult because it's slow and it crashes a lot. Probably because 10,000 other people are blogging. So I will have to do this in the mornings.

Here is a photo of Ty in our usual position of Ty on my bent legs. I know the photo isn't overly flattering because it's too close but this is the best time when he is smiling at me. We do this every morning over coffee and the Today Show. I will miss that show when I go back to work. It's the right combination of news and fluff, probably heavier on the fluff. My mom doesn't like Katie Couric but I'm not sure why. I think my sister might not like her as well. Maybe she is too liberal for our Republican family.

And speaking of Republicans, I have been thinking a lot about the war in the context of project management. A project is defined as "something that has a definite beginning and end." See, where I work, we always put together a plan before we launch a project. Part of that plan describes what we are going to do and what the success criteria is. You know you have had a successful project if you meet the success criteria. You also know when the end is here. We also have checkpoints throughout the course of the project to make sure that we should be continuing the project. Sometimes we discontinue the project if we don't think we will meet the success criteria or maybe the business conditions have changed or maybe even something more critical to the business has occurred (like a hurricane). I think we should apply the same discipline to this war and just about everything we do in the government. How do we know when we are done? What does success look like? What problem are we solving? Just think of all the debate that could be settled in the United States if we just applied a little project management methodolgy to our government. I've always been an advocate of having a business person in the role of a president in lieu of a politician but now I am advocating project managers in that role. Hope that wasn't too boring but it feels good to get it off my chest.

Wire Hangers

Today I managed to identify about 50 clothing items to donate to charity. I got rid of anything that was boxy. I can't exactly use the rule "if you haven't worn it in a year, get rid of it" because I've spent quite a bit of time in the past 3 years pregnant.


I freed up a large quantity of plastic hangers which I then put in Brian's closet because his closet is full of wire hangers. NO WIIRREEEE HANNNGGGERRRSSS was going through my head. You may be wondering why Brian has the crappy wire hangers and I have all the nice plastic ones. Well, the same reason I have the larger closet.
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I did manage to find a very nice pair of Cole Hahn boots in size 8 that are too narrow for me now. Must have been from the pregnancy. I have never worn them. Maybe I will take to a consignment shop.

I got a note from my friend MB from Boston on the baby doll top. She also thinks that they make people look pregnant. And my sister, Nicki, modeled a few of them for my other sister Kris-Kris, and they thought she looked pregnant. So the question is: why are we all wearing them? Did Brian have a point with that "Emperor's Clothes" story? Are we slaves to fashion? Why do we wear pointy toed shoes when our feet aren't pointed? You don't see men wearing pointy shoes. Or high heels. Why do women wear the painful clothes and shoes but not men?

I would like to take a moment to advertise my parents' kitchen remodel. See, this is a monumental occasion in our lives because it has all original flooring, cabinets, appliances, and countertops that were put in the house when it was built in 1976. It's quite the museum of the Coberly clan.

http://coberlykitchen.blogspot.com/

I'm on maternity leave right now and I keep thinking I should be savoring every moment of being with my child. Ty is a very smiley guy and that is fun but only for about 10 minutes and then I am antsy. I wonder if other mothers feel the same way or if there mothers out there who enjoy holding and looking at their babies for hours on end.

Wine currently open in the household: Bogle Petite Syrah--it's quite excellent and I highly recommend it. I have really started to enjoy and appreciate Petite Syrahs.    

Inaugural Post

Blogging seems like a good way to communicate a lot of same information to multiple people. Question is... is the information even remotely interesting to anyone? Well, we will see.

Today I woke up to Jack saying "Mama GET UP" which is an every day event. I am on maternity leave and usually wake up with my two month old lying in the bed next to me... my husband and son are heading out the door to head to work and day care. I go back to work on October 4 which will be interesting... getting two kids ready to go to day care and us ready for work.

We are having artificial grass put in our backyard and the guys showed up today to install it. http://www.synlawn.com/synlawnhome1.html. Turns out that the sales guy underestimated the amount of turf that we needed by about 500 square feet. Fortunately, my brilliant husband noted in the 6 page contract that the square footage measured by the sales guy would cover the area. So we think they should make it right for the same price. We will see.

The housecleaners showed up and I try to make myself scarce when they arrive so I headed to the mall to get some more tank tops. On Sunday, I attempted to get stylish by purchasing one of those baby doll type tops that everyone is wearing. Yes, it made me look pregnant but everyone is wearing them. I proudly showed Brian the top and he said "It makes you look pregnant." and proceeded to say he didn't know why all the women were wearing those tops. He then started to talk about the "Emperor's Clothes" which is a story I had never heard of but you can look it up on the internet. Anyway, I appreciated his honesty. I mean, I don't really want to look like I'm pregnant when I am not. So that's why I went to buy the plain tank tops that I always wear. Oh, and a bronze pair of shoes. And I did peruse the Coach store. They have a new baby bag but I'm not sure it's worth $348.

Tonight we had my favorite Thai food. Jack ate some although we had to bribe him with ice cream. He gets ice cream once a week.