Moo
April 15, 2010
We drove past a field with cows in it on the way home from daycare today.
My kid barked like a dog at the cows.
I tried to explain that the cows go, “mooooo!”
She snickered and barked again.
Yup.
That’s my kid.
There Is No Subject.
October 28, 2009
This is my joy.
There’s more on YouTube under my username Wuzzlicious if you’re interested.
She cracks me up. It’s okay. I know I’m biased.
Babies!
July 28, 2009
This post is a contribution to Nathan’s fabulous blog-off. Visit the link for the rest of the participants and further information. A portion of the proceeds are being contributed to The March Of Dimes, an oh-so-worthy charity.
This week’s topic: Babies!
I have a confession to make. I don’t like kids.
I know, I know. I have one and I love her more than life itself. I didn’t always dislike humans under the age of twenty. I used to really truly genuinely love children. Then I had one.
If that seems backwards to you, that’s okay. It’s backwards to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been blessed with a child who thus far, is just SO good. She’s so well behaved and she’s so happy all of the time. She cries very very rarely and never for very long. Crying for ten minutes straight is a major crisis in this house because it just doesn’t happen.
I find that children misbehaving in public make me want to run away. Even my own friend’s children drive me batty sometimes although I do have a much higher tolerance for them than for other kidlets.
It’s because of that that I’m almost entirely sure that I’m going to be happy with just one child. I love her so so so so much that I don’t think my heart can handle loving another one as much as her. My baby has completed my life in ways that I never even dreamed possible.
I have the best baby in the world and I just have no space left to love the rest of the little children out there.
Identity Crisis
April 4, 2009
One of the comments I got on my post a few posts ago was that I should talk more about myself. I kinda laughed when I read it because it’s true, I used to write a lot about me and what I was up to and my history and so on and so forth, but I haven’t – probably in the last year or more.
I started to think about it and I realized that it’s because I’m really struggling with figuring out who I am. I think this is pretty standard fare for the first year of motherhood, but that doesn’t make me feel any less isolated or unsure. I just really don’t know who COURTNEY is anymore. I’m a mom, sure. I’m a wife, yeah. I just don’t know what else I’m all about it. I know that a lot of that is because Ana is my entire life these days. I wake up when she does and I play with her until she naps. When she naps I work on my household chores (uhm, yeah, or play Bingo) and then take care of her again when she wakes. I change diapers every few hours and give food and/or bottles every few hours. I may be tired at ten in the evening, but if Ana doesn’t want to sleep until midnight, well, that’s how late I’m up. My life truly revolves around her. If I want to go out without her, I have to ask permission from my husband to make sure that he’s able to be home with her. I don’t think he realizes that. He can make whatever plans he wants, but I’m dependent on him being home in order to be able to leave without an armload of baby gear plus baby. But that’s not the point of this post.
My maternity leave is up in July and I’m really torn up about what I’m going to do. I’d like to be able to say that we can afford for me to stay home and take some online courses and get a degree in something, but realistically I think I need to find a job. I know that I don’t want to go back to collections and a call center. I just don’t. I also don’t want full-time work because I don’t want to be away from Ana that long. I don’t want to miss anything. The downside to that is that I really have no marketable skills. My options? Retail or waiting tables. Oh joy.
I’d like to go back to school, but I don’t even know what for. I’ve considered medical administration so I can do dictation from home. I’ve considered web design because I love making layouts, but don’t know enough code to put them together. I could also work from home doing design work. I’ve dreamt for forever of opening a small used bookstore, but the money to put together an inventory would take way more than anything I would ever earn. Especially since I live in a city that doesn’t really read a whole lot. I have another small business idea that I’d love to run with, but again – start up is far and above any sort of fundage that I can come up with.
I just don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know who I am and I feel like I’m still sitting here saying, “When I grow up…” But I’m almost thirty. I am grown up. Shouldn’t I know what I’m doing?
My ten year high school reunion is this year and I have to admit to being very relieved that I already have plans for that weekend. I don’t want all those people that I felt inferior to even then to see the nothing that I’ve become. Which is not to diminish my role as mother – I love Ana with every fiber of my being and I would never ever want to live another day without her. She is truly my greatest accomplishment in life. But. I didn’t graduate college. I never made a career. I never did anything.
I guess I just want to be more than mom and I don’t know who that girl is. I don’t know how to find me again.
Because Who Doesn’t Want To See Cute Baby Videos?
April 2, 2009
Okay, probably plenty of people. But they can just leave. ‘Cause here are some videos of my super-cute daughter.
Something New
March 30, 2009
I seem to have some problems with blogging consistency lately. How kind of you to say that you haven’t noticed, but really, its been an issue. It’s not that I don’t want to blog because I do. It’s not because I’m that busy because while I have been pretty active lately I always find time for the internet. I think my problem is that I want each blog post to be wrapped up in a pretty little bow with a subject, a beginning and a conclusion.
I am beginning to realize that you know what, this is a personal blog, not an essay competition and that really, I can fuck the format and do whatever the hell I want. That’s right. Whatever I want.
So I’m going to try something new and just write whatever the hell is on my mind at any given moment in the day and if that makes up an entry that is all over the board, well then, so be it.
For example: lately I’ve been finding myself really irritated by both Dove and Axe campaigns. I love Dove’s pro-woman campaign and I tend to pick up a lot of their products with that in mind. I have an extreme hatred for the Axe commercials that make women look like they can’t control themselves if a man smells good. Ridiculous. So imagine my annoyance when I realized that Dove and Axe are owned by the same company, Unilever. UGH. I think I’m done buying Dove products. I need to find out what other labels this company runs, too. I know they’re all out to make money, but to have such wildly contradicting messages really burns me. Especially when one is so empowering and awesome that is then totally negated by the one that makes women look like sex-crazed idiots.
Have I told you that Ana crawls now? She started crawling about eight weeks ago and now she’s standing up against furniture and taking baby steps along it. My goodness, she’s going to be walking by nine months. I am in T-R-O-U-B-L-E. My parents just spent the better part of last week with her and they kept repeating that over and over. She’s going to be a handful. She’s going to be a mover. She’s going to keep you on your toes. Oh yes, I know. I already know. She’s damn cute, though.
I have less than two weeks to go until I’m back to the dentist to have my other two wisdom teeth out and the stress is starting up again. This time though, I’m not as worried about the procedure (although I know that it will involve major suckage), but the aftermath. I hated not being able to eat. I hated wincing every time I swallowed and I hated the godawful pain every time I tried to take a sip of water. I’m such a baby. Can’t I just keep these two wisdom teeth? Really?
Do you know how anxious I am for summer to come? I just want it here. I want heat and sunshine and long days full of walks and playing at the park and taking day trips and camping. I’m so tired of this rain and snow and cold and wind and grey. It’s making me feel really blegh these days.
I think the universe is conspiring against me going to the gym tonight. I told myself that I was going to go before dinner. My husband and I were working on laundry and I started to get dressed to go about twenty minutes ago. Except that both of my pairs of workout pants are now in the dryer. By the time they’re done, it’s dinner time. My gym has crappy hours and closes at nine so I can’t go too late, either. Hmmm. To hell with it, my pants will be dry in an hour and I can just eat a really late dinner, I guess. I have to go to the gym.
I didn’t go to the gym. I’m such a slacker.
Oh! And dudes! It’s totally my four year blog anniversary today. Woot woot, go me, blogging for four years. I somehow never really thought I’d stick with it for this long. My posts may be few and far between (which I’m working to remedy), but I’m still here and still trucking. I thought I’d take this opportunity to snag a little survey from Cecily Uppercase Woman just to see what kind of responses I get. Please do take the time to answer a few questions even if you don’t usually comment! Feel free to use my email instead of leaving a public comment if you feel more comfortable with that. My email is courtney(dot)slavin(at)gmail(dot)com. Have at ‘er.
1. What do we have in common?
2. What DON’T we have in common?
3. How did you find my blog?
4. What do you enjoy about this blog, if anything?
5. Do you comment?
6. What do you wish I’d shut up about?
7. What do you wish I’d talk more about?
8. Where are you from?
9. What one question would you like me to answer? Be creative.
10. Do you have a blog? If so, plug it here!
Thanks and goodnight!
Mmmm, Sweet Potato
February 24, 2009
Ana gives some baby food a shot. I don’t think she’s a fan. I apologize for the video being so dark. I’m not really sure what was up with the video camera.
Wait, What? Christmas?
December 27, 2008
What the hell happened? I feel like I just got home from my parents house and then suddenly it was Christmas. It was so bad that Derek and I found ourselves running to the drugstore at 11:00 PM on Christmas Eve to pick up a last minute gift that we’d very nearly forgotten completely.
These last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of activity. Add to that the fact that Ana is very nearly mobile and no longer stays exactly where I lay her down and that leaves me with very little time to post. So be it.
At any rate, I hope that everybody had a fantastic holiday, whatever they celebrate, and that not everybody is sitting in the three feet of snow that we’re currently sitting in over here. Beautiful to look at, not so much fun to try to get around in. I would certainly imagine that the young girl who rear-ended us on Christmas Eve is wishing there wasn’t so much snow on the ground. Yes, we’re all fine. Ana included.
So now I’m scrambling to make sure that I can wrap up my end of year stuff and get settled in and ready for 2009. We took down our Christmas tree today, yup, the day after Christmas, just so we could make room for all of our regular stuff. 2009 will be a year of purging. I simply don’t have the room for all the stuff that we own and it’s time to eliminate.
That said, it’s going to be hard to eliminate when Ana pulls in the kind of loot that she did this year at her first Hanukkah and Christmas.
She looks awfully happy, doesn’t she? Now I’m off to find room for all of that… and yes, that was ALL for her. None of our stuff is in that pile. INSANITY.
Someone Discovered Their Toes Today
December 5, 2008
I Can’t Sleep, So This Is What You Get
November 21, 2008
Ah, it’s a damn good thing I didn’t try to do NaBloPoMo because dude, seriously, I’d have failed on day one. Kinda like I’m brutally failing NaNoWriMo. I’m supposed to have 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th. I currently have 2,000. That means that I’d have to write more than 7,000 words a day between now and the 30th and that includes an entire day in plane travel (I leave on Sunday to go visit my parents in Idaho), Thanksgiving, and two days spent driving from Boise to Eugene to pick up my stepsister from college. Somehow, I don’t see me hitting 50K.
There’s a police helicopter circling my neighborhood with its spotlight on. Oh, how I love living in the ghetto. Seriously. THE GHETTO.
Christmas is starting to annoy me. I think a lot of the fun has come out of it. I’m asked every year to give out Christmas lists and I get what’s on the list, but… there’s no surprise. My MIL this year has asked for a crock-pot and has even given us the brand name that she wants. That’s great, I don’t have any other ideas for what to get her, but what’s the fun in unwrapping a gift if you already know what it is? Meh.
I have a post in my drafts, an idea stolen from another blog, of 27 things to do before I turn 28. I’m kinda thinking that maybe just writing out 27 things will be a success at this point. I have NOTHING on the list. I also have a draft full of links, half of which are now irrelevant because I’ve taken so long to add to it and haven’t published it yet.
I posted a long long time ago about Wii Fit. I never posted that I finally got it about two months ago. Love it. Love love love it. My only gripe is that the exercises are so short. I’m hoping that they put out some aerobic games to use with the board. I’d so buy an entire game of step-aerobics or rhythmic boxing or hula hooping. Because seriously? I look like a jackass when I hula hoop, but I’m a jackass that is having a blast.
I should be reading right now. I’m still reading the same books that I was reading last time I posted about books and that was, erm, a long time ago. I’m a slacker.
I’ve had a lot of random thoughts through my head lately. Like, how long can a helicopter stay up in the air before they have to come down to gas up? What is the life span of a cow? I know. Random.
Do you watch Survivor? Did you see tonight’s episode? I’m not going to put any spoilers here, but no guaranteeing that there won’t be any in the comments. Holy awesome! I haven’t laughed that hard at a TV show in a long time. Best Survivor episode EVER.
I think maybe I shall try to go back to sleep now. Just because I’m up past midnight doesn’t mean that The Ana will sleep in later. Speaking of The Ana, she rolled over for the first time on Monday! Yahoo! I’ve copied Dooce and am writing her letters for each month, but I’m not posting them here. If you’re interested, you can check them out over here.
Th-th-that’s all folks.