Footloose and Fancy Free

This past weekend, we found something that doesn't exist in California: an empty soccer field.  (Although LA has plenty of empty basketball courts - a rare find in the south).*

So we let Leah run wild.  She had the best time, and spent most of this time running away from us.  Since there weren't many people around, we didn't feel the need to chase after her, and she had a blast.  (She also slept incredibly well that night...I think we'll be finding empty soccer fields a lot more often).

As a product of preschool, she also is a bit of a social butterfly.  She has no problem walking straight up to any kid on the playground. It's fun to watch the Peanut hold her own out there.

Leah is walking really well these days.  So for those of you who haven't seen Leah in a little while, enjoy these clips.

*Editor's Correction:  L.A. does not have plenty of empty basketball courts.  They are filled with skateboarders. 

Go Ahead, Give Me Your Best Shot

Baby Joy

For the Record: Let's Go!

We spent our first weekend at home in 3 weeks.  Unfortunately, BA was sick for most of it.  But we managed to hit the park for some family walking and Peanut swinging.  

Leah added a few things to her "bag of tricks" this weekend, and we got rid of the crib bumpers (which means we have pacifiers flying everywhere at night!).  She's walking pretty well with just one hand now, and can stand for a second or two if you let go.  She'll squat down, but won't attempt to stand up on her own yet.  But she's mastered the heel-to-toe technique, as long as someone is holding her hand.  It's pretty adorable. 

She is blowing kisses (even making the "kissing" sound a little).  She also copied us by saying "Let's Go" and sometimes just "Go."  She also said "big girl" again. 

She bounces balls straight at you, and she discovered that her pacifier bounces on the kitchen floor!  She enjoyed that.

And she likes to sit in her booster seat on the floor in her room.  At first we strapped her in, but then she threw her pacifier across the floor.  So we unbuckled her without her realizing it, and she still thought she couldn't move.  It was pretty funny to watch her reach so hard for her pacifier.  Now we don't strap her in, and she just sits there like a little lady.  After a while, she gets out to look around, then crawls back up to it, but she can't figure out how to get back in.  So she ends up just standing beside it until we put her back in.

While Skyping with BA's parents, BA had to leave the room to grab the laptop power cord.  After waving bye to Dad, the Peanut stayed right in front of the screen staring at Nana until BA returned.  He was so proud that she didn't wander off to climb the stairs or otherwise injure herself.  Then she commenced to show off her walking and straw cup sipping (which she has finally mastered after about 3 months of trying). 

But one of our favorite "tricks" that she's picked up the past few days has been her cuddling.  She's been awfully snuggly recently around us...hugging us and resting her head on us.  And she'll let us rock her to sleep for a few minutes.  We're not sure if this is because she hates daycare so much or is just going through a phase of wanting to be around us constantly.  Either way, we're trying to soak it up (while correcting the daycare issue, of course). 

Here's the scooter at her daycare class.  How cute are these kids in their little chairs all having breakfast together?  Notice the one kid that has to be held by the teacher?  Yep, you guessed it.  That's Princess Peanut, who was too upset to eat her Cheerios next to the other kids.  (Maybe it didn't help that Dad was taking a picture of the calamity).

BA's Corner: Daycare, Changes, and Family

Leah is getting ready to transition to the next daycare class.  I hope the "Tiny Tots" are ready for a big Peanut.  While she's still an "Infant 1," I thought I'd share some daycare pics we got last month (most are from "beach day").  If nothing else, this proves that she doesn't cry all day long, just when we drop her off and pick her up.  Ugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daycare has been a bit of a struggle - one we didn't expect.  New rules, new teachers, and new routines take some getting used to, and we're still adjusting.  For some reason, it seems like Leah has never been fully comfortable in her new daycare, and neither have we.  It's a nice facility and they do many great things with the kids.  But for some reason, we just haven't clicked.  There seem to be a lot of rules and things constantly change, so maybe that's part of it.  They are trying to push the kids from 2 naps/day to 1, and it's not going very well.  Aside from that:

• Leah has started to eat everything on the menu since she's turned 1 (which is great, and fun too)
• We continue to try the straw cup with her (unsuccessfully...although she did it once a few weeks ago)
• We are still transitioning from formula to milk (she drank full milk for a few days, but I don't think her stomach was ready for it, which resulted in some extra loads of laundry.  So we are still mixing it with formula and gradually working up to full milk again). 
• Plus she now has tennis shoes, since the "T-Tots" require them. 

 

Suffice it to say, there are many changes going on over here.  But Leah is sleeping very well at night and we are managing through the changes at a pace she can handle.  Plus, it is so wonderful to have AA back.  We feel like a family again - and a family that has control over our lives!  Monday afternoon, when we returned from our mini-vacation (thank you again Nana and Papa!), we took Leah on a wagon ride up to the pool after her nap.  We enjoyed swimming and relaxing as a family again.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is huge.  Leah had a ball splashing and kicking with both of us there, and she especially enjoyed when I would toss her up in the air.  Water splashed all in her face, and she just grinned and giggled.  

 

In our return to normalcy, we have vowed to:

1. Take some time as a family every weekend...no pictures, no blogging, just enjoying the moment
2. Salvage as much of the rest of the summer as possible, so that we don't look back at 2012 as "that awful, wasted summer when the bar controlled our lives."

 

Bar be gone.  We're a family again.

The Other Side

The Bar.  Is Over.

I made it to the other side.  And now I'm sitting on a beach-front balcony, listening to crickets, the waves, and a guitar player, and not studying for the first time in 3 years and 2 months.  BA and I are on a mini-vacation.  We went to Hilton Head to celebrate my freedom and the survival of his single-parenthood this summer.  We left the little Peanut at home with Nana and Papa and took our first vacation alone in over a year.  It is well deserved.  We are eating as much seafood as we can fit into our bellies, and I have spent the better part of the day just staring out at the ocean and feeling the breeze.  It's a good day. 

So how did I celebrate my completion of the bar exam?  Well to kick it off I contracted pink eye.  Yes, that's right.  I'm sure I picked it up at the bar exam.  My eye was red and a little irritated on Wednesday morning (the morning of the MBE exam) but luckily I didn't suspect anything during the actual test, but by Wednesday night it was apparent that I had pink eye.  Thursday morning I went to urgent care and started eye drops.  3 days later, both eyes were full blow infected with no improvement, so on our first real day at Hilton Head I was back at another urgent care clinic.  Now I have steriod eye drops and those babies are finally getting the job done. 

So how do I feel about the test?  Not great, but I think that's how I'm supposed to feel.  I felt good after both morning sessions, but at some point during both afternoon sessions I started to feel like I knew nothing and was getting every question wrong.  To be perfectly honest, I feel that, regardless of how I actually did, I deserve to pass.  I worked so hard this summer, I studied so much, and I think I deserve to pass.  Unfortunately, that's not how it works.  I'll find out in late October if I passed.  Until then, I'm going to relax and take it easy for a change.  And after 2 weeks of taking it easy, I'm sure I'll get bored and realize that it's time to start looking for a job.  But not yet.  Now it's time for vacation.  And then it's time to spend the days playing with Leah, cleaning up the house, catching up with friends and family, watching TV, and just being happy I survived.

Maybe She's Irish?

Leah is sick.  She woke up this morning hot, with fever, and spent the day moaning in pain (she's now in bed, moaning there too).  She took almost no naps, would burst into tears randomly, and refused to eat most of her dinner.  I finally got her to eat puffs and rice krispies after she refused her sweet potatoes and veggies with pasta.  I think she just has a nasty cold and is having body aches.  In any case, today I got barely 1 hour of study time in, and I had planned to spend at least 5 hours working.  And because she had a fever today and is feeling so miserable, I won't be able to take her to daycare tomorrow.  While I love the opportunity to spend quality time with my little snuggle-munch (I've already planned tomorrow out - a walk in the park and a family lunch with daddy at the Chick-fil-A near his office), I'm stressed over all the Bar studying I'm not doing.  I lost two days to pink-eye a couple weeks ago, and now I'm losing two more to this cold.  And if the amount of moaning/crying she is doing now is any indication of what tonight is going to be like, I can kiss sleep good-bye. 

So we called in the Reserves.  Nana is driving two hours from South Carolina tomorrow morning to watch/cuddle/console my little sick baby and I am going to study.  God Bless Nana! 

On a lighter note, we've learned that Leah's favorite genre of music is Irish pub songs.  My dad (Leah's Granda) was recently featured on an Irish CD sold at the pub where he bagpipes (do you realize that there are very few people in this world who could write a sentence like that!)  He sent us a copy and Leah decided she liked a couple of the songs. When I want to get her away from something in the other room, I  just turn on one of her favorites and she'll instantly stop whatever she was doing and crawl to the speakers.

Here, her Granda is singing in the chorus on this one, her favorite, "Rosin the Beau".

Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

1. The remainder of our stuff is still not here - which means our computer is still not here - which means no current pictures yet.

2. I get an email every week from my Career Development Office listing job openings for grads.  I can usually go through the week, quietly nagging myself that I need to start looking for a job, but when that email hits my inbox every Monday, I begin freaking out - until Tuesday when I discover there are many other things to freak out about (like the Bar) and job searching gets pushed down the list again.  Not any more.  I'm resolved to find time this week to really start looking.  My motivation?  It should be the expiration of my grace period on my student loans and the impending doom of a loan balance the size of a mortgage coming my way in October.  But no, my motivation right now is a new couch.  If I ever want to buy a new couch, then I need a paycheck.  Time to find that job.

3. Leah is doing better at daycare, and I am doing better with taking her to daycare (mostly because I've now outsourced the job of actually "taking" Leah to daycare, to BA.  I pick her up, so I get to see her when she's happily playing with her friends at the end of the day and hasn't noticed me yet.  Once she sees me, it's back to crying, but I'm now convinced that she's only doing it for effect.) 

4. Leah doesn't like to wear her bib anymore.  This past week she started pulling at it and ripping it off in the middle of her meals.  This means two things: (1) she usually comes home from daycare in a different outfit than what I sent her in, and (2) she eats her meals at home topless. 

5. Why does the Bar Exam have to test on SO MUCH STUFF?!?!  (I know, Dad, "because if it was easy, then everyone would do it").  I can't believe that I am already starting my third week of Bar review.  Where did the time go?  I know nothing - NOTHING - despite sitting in front of a computer watching lectures and taking notes everyday.

6. Our house is a mess.  Luckily our house is also big enough for me to spread the mess out so that it doesn't look as bad as it is.  But it's a mess, none the less.  This drives me a little crazy.  But I don't really have the time to bother straightening up.  So it remains a mess.  And it will stay that way until the rest of our stuff comes and I can finally get organized. 

Baby Talk

Well my baby has an ear infection in both her ears.  She's had a cold for about 7 days and last night her cough was so bad that she turned red and was gasping for air.  Her cough was waking her up and she couldn't seem to stop coughing until we got her in the bathroom and turned on the steam shower.  We did three steam showers overnight last night and by the morning I was watching the clock until the doctor's office opened.  Turns out she has two ear infections and a little bit of wheezing in her lungs, which is from some viral cough that usually accompanies the ear infections.  Poor little girl.  She has been sick so much recently which I'm sure is due to daycare.  I have a love/hate relationship with daycare - love them because they take good care of my child and allow me to pursue my career - hate them because she will constantly get sick as long as she's at daycare.  And when she is sick, which is a lot, I can't take her to daycare so either I skip school or BA takes off from work.  We had to do both this week.  It's been a long week. 

Of course Leah was a perfect little angel at the doctors, no constant whining and fussing like at home.  She just stared up at him and blinked her eyes every few seconds so calmly like nothing was wrong.  Maybe she remembered her last visit when she got her shots and thought, "if I just play nice, he'll stay away from me."    

And since it's finally Friday, here's a video from last weekend, before she got this latest cold.  Have a good weekend, everyone!

Obsessed

Is it okay that I'm obsessed with this little face?

I seriously cannot get enough of her. 

 

I am a little stressed out right now because the MPRE (nationwide ethics test that all lawyers have to take and pass) is this Saturday.  Even though I am studying as much as I can, I think I'm stressing out because this is really the first step toward taking the Bar exam.  I can take the test again if I don't pass, but I just don't want to have to study for it again.  So fingers crossed that all goes well on Saturday and I can get my life back.  Until then, I'll just continue to gaze at pictures of the Peanut to keep me going.

Oh Right .... I'm in Law School

With everything that has to be done to keep Peanut alive and healthy, I sometimes forget that I'm in law school.  And then, all of a sudden on a Sunday afternoon it all comes rushing at me and I'm overwhelmed with things that have to be done.  And I'm not even talking about homework.  There are so many extra activities to complete during my 3L year; for example the MPRE, the ethics test that all attorney's have to take and pass, is in November.  I managed to remember to register and pay for the exam, but now I actually have to find time to study for this test.  And then there's all the prep work that has to be done for the Bar Exam.  Registering for Barbri, changing my Barbri location (from California to Georgia) filling out my Certification of Fitness Application (this thing is a beast and it looks like it might take me half a year, working full-time, to fill it out). 

Most of these things shouldn't take much time at all to complete.  Maybe just 10 minutes per item.  It's just that there's so many of them, and I don't actually have 10 uninterrupted minutes to complete them.  Granted, these are things that all law students have to do their third year, it's just that most of them do it childless.

I feel like I am running as fast as I can and cannot keep up no matter how hard I try.  I'm always just a little late to class, a little less prepared than my classmates, a little less showered, a little more hungry, a little (okay, a helluva lot) more tired. And it's hard to stay organized because there is so much going on that I will start to think about something I need to do, and before I can finish making a note of it, or filling out the online registration form for it, something else will pop into my head that also needs attention.  And right at that precise moment, Leah cries - and whatever organization I had going on in my head is completely lost.

And she is so worth it. 
  

"Are you talkin about me?!?!"

Family Fun Day

Sunday was a family fun day for us.  I spent my entire day Saturday stuck in an intensive law class, so when I woke up on Sunday, I was in no mood to do any homework. So instead, we visited a local farmers market.   It's just down the road from our apartment so we loaded up the stroller and walked over to pick out a pumpkin.   In addition to selling various types of pumpkins, gourds, and Indian corn, they also have a western themed section with rides and a Corn Maze!!!  We didn't do the maze Sunday, but I made BA promise to go back and do it with me another weekend.  There were lots of families taking pictures of cute kids dressed up in Halloween clothing and costumes; because this was an impromtu trip we forgot to put Leah in any festive outfits, so we decided that we would save the "pumpkin patch pictures" for next year when Leah could sit up herself.   It was a fun day for all of us and I don't regret procrastinating on my homework for a day.

A very sleepy Leah at the pumpkin farm

"Wake me up again and you'll be sorry!"

Our pumpkin display from our farmers market trip

Starting Daycare

Leah's first day of daycare was on Tuesday and while I think the little Peanut fared well, her mom did not.

First day of school photo.

The plan was for BA to drop her off in the mornings and for me to pick her up in the afternoons, but for her first day I wanted to go with BA to drop her off.  But I couldn't handle it, I had to let BA take her by himself.  And as he was walking out the door I started to cry my eyes out.  This is so much harder than I thought it would be. 

When I picked her up, she looked safe and clean - I guess I can't ask for much else.  She was asleep in the swing.  I think she's going to spend a lot of time in the swing, which is okay, I guess.  I mean, she's a baby; she doesn't do much else.  I really can't expect the teachers to hold her and interact with her as much as I'd like them to.  I just feel sad, and very guilty, when I walk in to pick her up and I see her sitting there, asleep, in the swing because I know that's probably where she spent most of the day.  I think things will improve once she can sit up because then she can sit at the big table with the other little babies and she can play on the floor more.  I know the teachers are busy and have a lot of babies to tend to, but I just expected a little more interaction.  And the teachers are all very nice ladies; they seem to really know what they are doing, but even still, I just don't feel great about it.

Every day this week, I left for school in the morning thinking that I would stay after class on campus to get some work done until 5 p.m. and then pick up Leah from daycare.  And every day so far, I haven't.  I've decided half-way through the day that I don't want her just sitting there and that I miss her too much.  So I leave right after class and run to get her.  I don't get any work done when we get home because I want to spend that time interacting with Leah, doing tummy time, and playing with her - because I'm just not convinced that she gets much of it at school.  I'm still hopeful that daycare will become a positive experience for us all, even if it's not quite the experience I wanted, it's just going to take some getting used to. 

BA's Corner: Hangin' Out

I've found myself watching ESPN at night lately. Not because I love baseball and pre-season NFL games, but because I need something to combat all of the talk of breastfeeding and milk. Just an injection of manhood in my primarily girly days lately.

That said, I've enjoyed carrying the tiny whippersnapper around in her baby carrier a few times. She's confused at first but falls asleep in it pretty quickly. She enjoys feeling the breeze in her toes.

Plus, Leah is a chick magnet in this thing. Two girls came up to me when they saw her little legs dangling out of it. One shouted from across the parking lot, "Do you actually have a newborn in there?" "Yes, I do," said proud daddy. "A week and a half old." Then I scurried off, assuming they didn't have an updated TDAP vaccination.

Leah is oblivious though. Check out the position she wound up in by the end of the walk!

But you can tell she's growing up, because she fills out the carrier a little more these days...

A good solution when you need a free hand...

She usually falls asleep (at least something makes her fall asleep!)