Monday, August 30, 2010

Mama's little helper...

Weekend:  WIN!!

This weekend was terrifically brilliant and awesome.  I spent most of Saturday working on the old dissertation.  I figured out kind of a tricky thing that IE had wanted me to do to add to the dissertation.  It was kind of annoying, but I figured it out, because that is just how I roll.  I ended up submitting a somewhat near to the last draft before going to committee draft to IE last night (this morning).  I am wiped out exhausted this morning, but I definitely feel good (adderall will do that for ya!).  Commence vacation till I get comments back (woooooooo hoooooooo!!) from IE.  The light at the end of the tunnel is now visible. 

I pulled two all-nighters last week, as such, this weekend was pretty subdued.  I was able to catch up on some stuff around the house (can't wait to post two new art projects that we completed.  Commence my sister stealing my ideas and doing them for herself.) 

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Sociology Dept's welcome back picnic out at Maclay Gardens.  Nico had a good time walking around getting into stuff.  Turns out the little man is crazy about swings.  I was swinging him in one of those high-backed baby swings and he had a look on his face that can only be described as PURE JOY.  Wishing I could have taken a picture of him...

Speaking of him... Nico now knows how to put away toys.  If you sit with him on the floor with a bin and tell him to put the toys away, he can pick up the toys and put them in a bin.  Isn't that great?  He also is starting to understand commands... like Sunday I was in the kitchen with him cutting out a pattern for shorts.  I had these little scraps of tracing paper that needed to go in the trash, so I called him over, handed him the scraps and told him to put them in the trash can, and pointed.  He did it.  Of course, he also got in the cabinets and pulled out pots and tried to put them in the garbage can too... so... there is that. 

Also, we went to IHOP on Sunday for some morning noms.  He apparently loves pancakes, because he was making like his Uncle Billy and ate him a ton of pancakes.... with strawberry sauce on them.  Then he looked at him and very distinctly said, "Mama."  I would love to call this his first word... but when I asked him to point to Mama, he pointed to himself.  So... maybe not quite yet?

I have decided to re-start my photoblog.  Don't be jealous.  In stead of posting a new original picture every day, I am committing to just post one picture every day.  And rather than it being pictures of my new pedicure, my latest culinary obsession or the like, I am trying to do some more artsty-photos, because let's be real here, I have, literally thousands of pictures on my hard drive.  And secondly, I take a mean picture... even with my crappy point and shoot camera.  And thirdly, I have discovered Picnik.com... Talk amongst yourselves.  Its pretty much like Picassa only, a cranked out on speed and beefed up on steroids version of Picassa. 
This newest venture was born out of my recent not too fiscally healthy obsession with Etsy.  I havent bought any prints yet (see previous statements on paying for things I feel like I could do myself), but I am currently obsessing with these BIRDS, these HOTAIR BALLOONS, and the Sacre Couer in Paris.  Here is the thing: these pictures aren't anything I can't do.  We have already establshed that I have a pretty good eye for composition.  Now it's just a matter of mastering the photoediting stuff... hence my discovery of Picnik.com.  Plus, now that I am not frantically trying to finish the dissertation during my lunch hour and breaks at work, etc.  I know have time to do other stuff... right?  This is how I am selling it to myself, anyways. 

In any case, my new photoblog web address is:  http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/jcbrphotog in case you wanted to see pretties...

All for now... hope you all have a fabulous week.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Judgey McJudgerson

Where in, I judge... bear with me.

So I was on my usual ADD blog to blog to blog to blog journey today and came across an interesting blog.  To give you a sense of what that journey looked like, it went like this:
"oh, yarn.  nice."
"oooh, how to sew a ruffle of flowers onto a shirt, LIKE."
"how to sew baby pants.  Good."
"this woman has four children.  WOW.  That is a lot of kids.  I am getting my butt kicked by one. Interesting."
"Oh.  Home births.  There are probably pros and cons... someone has to clean up all that mess... but then, not dealing with nurses checking vitals every five minutes would be cool."
"THE PLACENTA WAS WHERE?"

Exactly.  Now, this journey has suggested to me that I am not an actual hippie. At least in the "home-birth, it's all natural, lets let the older child play with the placenta, my husband delivered our 14 pound baby at home while I did cartwheels and baked a pie, and I want 25 more kids" sense.  I think I am, in fact, a neo hippie.  Just as neo-cons and new-marxists and neo-malthusians have taken the ideas that they agree with and made them their own, I think this would apply to neo-hippieness.

So... that is all I have to say about that.  I am a pale shade of hippie... speaking of shades... I did something I rarely do: I made a craft purchase without any plans for said craft.  You see, typically, when it comes to craft supplies, I am not one to just run out and buy craft supplies for the sake of having it.  I typically think, I need this for this and this...." etc.  But I made a purchase on Etsy which did not follow my method.  In fact, I have no idea what the hell I am going to do with this.


Isn't it beautiful?  Its merino.  And its shades of blue, teal, sky, navy, aquamarine.  I am going to try to make it into a scarf, but my guess is that is going to be pretty much useless due to its size.  :(

On other fronts:  I am wrapping up the dissertation.  Yeah, I know, just short of a decade that I have been in school for this thing... why end the party now?  Its time.  I am hoping to get IE a somewhat final-ish versoin this weekend... then maybe it can go to committee and I can defend this sucker.

Oh, and the craziest thing happened today.  So I had three really good friends in college... they were all basketball players (one was also a soccer player).  And I roomed with them for the first year and a half.  I graduated and moved away... I sort of kept in touch with one (ELF) and found another (JS) on facebook.  But I have been looking for the third (RLS) all over.  I wont bore you with the details, but I ended up with her cell phone number and called her today.  We chatted for a few minutes and I got her email address.  She is sitll living in Tennessee... which is funny, because I always thought she was the least likely of the four of us to end up living in Tennessee (always thought she would end up living in Portugal or France).  She is married and has a son with a daughter on the way.  Isn't that awesome?  We're going to try to do lunch on my way home from Knoxville's SDA this year (in October).  Very excited about that!!

The view at Capital Circle and Woodville Highway tonight at dusk:

Monday, August 23, 2010

Big Boy Shoes

We had a really great weekend around here!!

Nico has been out of school for the last two weeks... he's been hanging at the house with Grandma and Grandpa Royse, Dave and babysitters.  So two weeks before he turned one, he took his first unassisted steps.  He started trying to walk much more around the time of his birthday (two weeks ago) and now, he is a walking machine.  Sort of like Forrest Gump when Forrest is desribing how he first got into running. 

Nico: If I was going anywhere, I was walkin'!!

He doesn't have the best balance yet- and he has a very wide stance, which I am sure is common... but he is walking everywhere.  So Dave took Nico a lot this weekend so that I could work and they ended up someplace buying shoes... he wears a 6.  In real shoes... not like those moccasin shoes (like Roby's).  Real shoe-shoes.  I forgot my lunch at home today and Dave and Nico brought it by.  When I poked my head in the back seat, my heart felt a little pang because he was wearing his shoe-shoes, and not those baby moccasins.  How is he already so big?


He is talking a lot now... he is trying to say lots of things.  I feel sometimes like he is "Kicking Bird" from Dances with Wolves.  He seems like he has so much to say, so many questions to ask.  I point to something and say what it is and he looks like he is considering it, like he wants to understand more, how to say it, how to form the words.  Soon.... soon enough and he will be sassing me, I am sure. 

This weekend was awesome.  I spent it mostly working on the chapter for the edited volume I was invited to submit to.  Dave and Nico spent it mostly doing fun stuff like going to Trusdale and hanging out a Lake Ella with the ducks.   Man, this dissertation needs to hurry up, because I am missing out on some funs!!

We are in the process of trying to take away the bottle.  Which I dont think is going to be a huge deal... it used to be a really easy way to get him into bed at nap time and at night.  But lately it hasnt been working like a charm.  He is down to one, sometimes 2 bottles a day, and after this can of formula is gone, we're done.  Add to that the fact that he schedule has been a little weird lately, with the being out of school nonsense.  So he hasnt been sleeping well at night or at nap time.  He is probably going to be a cranky beast for his teachers.  YIKES!!  I always hated when kids would spend a week or two with grandma and come back to school all cranked out out of control.  Turns out, we are those parents.  Oh well.  

So now that we are getting back on a routine, the bottle is ending.  We might have to have a renegoitiation about night time sleeping.  See while he was in school, we didnt have to deal with it much, because he would go in his room and sleep pretty well, hardly waking up at all.  But lately, he's been waking up several times at night... so, we will see.  

All for now. 

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Dont be jealous!

So, my sister posted a post the other day about how clever she is with a miter saw... which I dont know.  I think once you start talking about saws and power tools, makes me a little gun shy.  But whatever.  Fast forward to my life now... now that Nico is content being on the floor tearing everything up, the last couple of weeks have been pretty cool, because I can come home from work and work on some stuffz!!  Yeah, I know.  I am pretty excited about it too.

I try to work on projects that are somewhat portable (like knitting- already made two baby hats this week for Newborns in Need), so that I can set it down in a second and chase Nico into the other room.  He has also developed the most adorable thing... which is to be on the floor playing or getting into stuff, then coming up to you and climbing in your lap and putting his arms around your shoulders and laying his head on your chest. Want to talk about killer... Do you realize how much he is going to have me wrapped around his little finger?  I can totally see him coming off the soccer field when he is like 10 and giving me some hugz saying, "I love you Mom.  Dont you wish that I could have those new adidas cleats?  Yeah, I know, they are expensive.  I love you anyways...." Mmmmm... I liked this the first time I saw it when it was called JJ!!  In any case, it is absolutely adorable.  

Without further ado... some of the projects I have been working on:

So, fabric.com has my number, apparently.  They know that all they have to do is send me an email with the word "sale" in it somewhere and it's on.  So I bought the elephant fabric because I thought it would be nice for shorts or in quilts or whatever.  Turns out its decorating weight fabric, so not so much.  So I thought it would be cool to do some art for Nico's room.  Arent you jealous!!??  


The curtains:
  
I am not terribly happy with them.  In fact, I am mostly sick of thinking about them...I apparently have problems measuring and considering the size of the windows relative to the amount of fabric I bought.  So the back of one of the curtains, which is dark brown fabric (to blot out the light) is actually pieced together from 2 different pieces of fabric... which wouldnt be so bad, except I didnt do it right, so I there is a visible seam running across the back. The people who had the house prior or maybe the owner did it, but there is this ridiclous scenario where the rounded curtain rods dont fit into the corner along side each other.  So I had to put this rod up a little higher (dont ask me for details, I cant explain this one).  I also did not have a grommet tool, so I couldnt make like it was a shower curtain and hang the curtains.  I thought about doing casing at the top but figured it was more work than I was willing to invest.  So I just bought some little clip hangy things from Target to hang them on the bar, so I can be done with it.  

The main reason I wanted curtains in his room is that those two windows in the corner let in a LOT of light... so nap time is crazy... its like bright as day up in his room. But, favorite fabric (the swirly green and blue paisley) was really probably too light for the job (hence the dark brown backing to the curtains).  

In any case, hoping to finish them off this weekend.  Wanna talk about EPIC adventure.  Also working hard on that submission for the book I was asked to contribute too.  Which is good, because its just making my dissertation better.  But, the semester starts again next week... speaking of which, that break was just too short.  :(

Aside from that, not much else going on.  Nico fell and bumped his mouth the other day.  He kind of has a Joaquin Phoenix look going right now. :)

All for now.  

Monday, August 16, 2010

Helpy McHelperson doing some cleans!

Something I didnt realize about turning one- time for ART!  MY FAVORITE SUBJECT!!  ZOMG!!1!

So the Baby Center website, where I get a lot of information about development, says that one is old enough to start doing art.  Isn't that great?  Obviously, this varies by kid, but Nicole and Cody started letting Maddox have access to art stuff at one.  This is so cool. 

I went and got some art supplies last week.  Here is Nico's first official drawing: 

Yeah, I know.  He is pretty much a genius.  Seriously though, isn't this better than Picasso's "Blue Stage"?

He is starting to want to help do stuff... but only how he wants to help.  Last week, I had him in the laundry room and was giving him things to put in the dryer... which he was fine with, until he started taking things out of the dryer.  So then I sat him on top of the dryer and was handing him things to put in the washer... he does like to help.  He thought this might be more helpful: 


I know I shouldn't be encouraging this sort of behavior- it is dangerous for him to get in either the washer or the dryer.  Plus, there is a predisposition for male members of the Royse family to get into the clothes appliances.  Thankfully, Nico doesnt have an older sibling to "Blast him off!"  Although, I did hear Drake offering to do the job (this refers to Dave's cousin, where in one got in the dryer and implored the other to "Blast him off!" which maybe means, turn the dryer on?)  But seriously, isn't he adorable?  Couldn't you just slap this picture on a bottle of laundry soap?  "If you bought tide, your baby could be this cute too!!"

More evidence of Nico's helping:


To be fair, those are writing books.  He is probably like, "Crap, this is crap.  This one is crap.  This one is okay, but this one is crap.  This is stupid.  Seriously, why would you waste your money on this?"

Hope you all have a terrici week!!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

BIRTHDAY PICS

This is the first picture that our photographer has posted from the photoshoot:



From the birthday party...Sorry there arent a ton of pictures to post... but I was a little out of sorts and didnt think to get more pictures.

Nico doesnt like opening presents. 

Savi is out of control!!  She had a blast in Nico's excersaucer.  She is also a little ham. 


Yes, that is cake on our feet.  That is how we do!

Monday, August 9, 2010

BIRTHDAY WIN...

We had a really good weekend here. All the family came into town on Friday afternoon. I have been wanting to get some portraits done of Dave, Nico and me and thought it would be a good opportunity to do pictures with the Bishop kids for my mom's collection. She has a very awesome set of photos of the Bishop kids going way back... so whenever we get the chance, we try to have a picture taken for her. Plus, I have been wanting my friend Jake to shoot some pictures, so it was a good opportunity to get everyone in a picture.

It was a lot of commotion. Nico was not terribly cooperative- he didnt want to be held by anyone but me... so who knows how some of the pictures will turn out. After we were done shooting pictures with the grandparents and JJ, we changed clothes and went back to reflecting pool at Maclay gardens and got some pretty cool pictures. I hope they turn out well.

Saturday morning we got things together for the first annual NicoBeast birthday extravaganza. I dont know if I mentioned it or not, but I bought a sand/water table off of craigslist a couple of months ago. We put a bunch of towels under it and filled it with water... it was a huge success... all the babies LOVED it. It is the perfect height for them- they could all stand around it and play with toys. It has a lid with a race track on it, so you can run cars around the top of it. They had a BLAST! Emme thought it would be a good idea to try to get into the water table (just like her Mom, I suppose).

Speaking of which... I dont think I have ever seen a happier baby than Emme. She and Nico played pretty well together. She is very active and loves tearing things up just like Nico. I think its going to be great- when she and Nico are 5 or 6 years old. Maddox will be 7 or 8.... but she will definitely be the boss of all of them.

Nico got a ton of clothes and toys and puzzles. So that was great. He got this one dumptruck toy that makes lots of noise and vibrates and shakes... it scares the hell out of Nico right now. He is not so much a fan. I will try to post some pictures tonight of some of the cool things he got.

He made a total mess of his cake... we were sitting on the floor doing the happy birthday thing when he thought he needed to put his feet in the cake. You can always tell amatuer hour... the rooks are always trying to do things like put their feet in the cake.

Sunday was a lot more laid back... we hung around the house. Dave and Mike ended up doing work in Nico's room getting rid of rust and mold on the old-school metal window frames while my Dad and JJ got on the roof to see what the damgage is (there is some rotting wood on the back of the house- I wanted to see what the condition of the roof was so I could tell my leasing company and also tell them I know a guy). When Dad was getting down off the roof, he brushed the gutter a bit too much and caused it to come down spilling gutter water all over JJ. It was hilarious!!

We ended up going over to the hotel to do some swims... which Nico loves. Seriously, I had to hang onto him- I thought he was going to try to swim away from me. He had a great time. Plus the cousins were all there. He was off the chain!!

It was pretty much an EPIC weekend. I submitted the first somewhat complete draft of the dissertation to IE. It still needs some work, but I am pleased with the progress so far. If I never had to deal with formatting MS Word page setups ever again, for the rest of my life, I would die happy :)

Today is Nico's actual birthday. It's weird because on one hand, I can't believe that he is already one... but its also weird because I can't believe that its been only a year. It seems like so much has happened in the last year. Its hard for me to comprehend a time before Nico was such a big part of our life. Its great.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Stickmouth

So things around here have been off the hook!!

One thing happened was that Gordon the Good got a stick stuck in the roof of his mouth. Cross ways. And we couldnt get it out. It was so bad that he was literally trying to scrape it out of his mouth and bleeding.

So Dave took him to the animal hospital... and was gone for about 15 months. He came back quickly because it took the docs about 20 seconds to get the stick out. And they didnt charge us. Weird.

And...I got sick.

Milka-what? I know, I couldn't believe it either. Because. I. Dont. Get. Sick. EVER. I cant figure out yet if it was food poisoning or sick...if that can tell you anything about my symptoms. I dont think it was anything I ate... however, I did try an Activia yogurt for the first time (they were on sale) the day I started feeling like death (about 12 hours before symptoms set in). In which case, I am going to film my own Activia challenge... called, "The first person that punches Jamie Lee Curtis in the face gets a cookie from me."

It was so bad, I atually went home from work on Tuesday and stayed out on Wednesday. Milka-what? I know... I dont miss work for being sick- probably because I am tough... like my Dad- navy man tough.

Crazy. In any case, I started to feel better yesterday afternoon- and made it into campus to do some writing on the dissertation (still trying to meet my deadline of sending off a complete first draft of the whole thing by the time family comes into town. Between the manic writing session and some time last night, I got ten pages done yesterday. I have two sections left on chapter 5 plus a conclusion and I am good to go (keeping fingers crossed).

The only bad thing about yesterday was that Nico was asleep when I got home. He woke up briefly around 11, but Dave got him. And he didnt wake up till after I left today. So, I've been more than 24 hours without any Nico snuggles :(

Speaking of which, he is doing the greatest thing lately. I am trying to condition him to pick up after himself... which means that when he is done tearing up books or toys or whatever, he should put them away. I fully dont expect him to be able to do this on his own yet... like, I better put these books away before I move on to these blocks. But if I sing the "clean up song" he should know to start putting the things away.

In any case, I never really learned the clean up song when I was a preschool teacher (because I taught the older kids). And basically it went like this, "Alright you monster beasts!! Lets get these toys cleaned up so we can have some snacks!!" Which worked perfectly well. So the "clean up song" goes something like:
"Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up, clean up, do your share."
There is more, but I only know this one line.

Nico recognizes it though... and takes it as his cue to start clapping. He is not interested in helping put the books up on the shelf, or the toys back in the bucket. But he will clap encouragement for you as you're putting the things away. I am going to try to get a video of it this weekend.

Also, where are we on pointy birthday hats for babies? I dont think it is a good idea- it just seems like an eye-pokey hazard. Maybe they are too little?