HP

Hattie Pearl continues to make me laugh everyday. Yesterday we went on an errand to buy a shoe rack (good times). I looked and looked for the one in the ad and couldn’t find it. Hattie was holding the picture from the ad and I asked her if she could see it. She looked around, scanning the aisles, and looked and me and shrugged. It was really cute. She's so expressive for only having 2 words in her vocabulary. Lately we’ve got body parts down, colors, and are now working on shapes. She understands just about everything you say to her, which is so cool. I’ll be in a conversation with someone and you would think she would tune me out or not understand, but she’ll pick out a word or phrase, and indicate she understood by pointing to the object or in some way show me that she got it. It’s pretty amazing. She’s pretty amazing.
Her new obsessions? Light switches, her blue flowered shoes, playing 'chase' and phones. Will post pics soon.

The Human Body

I took a vacation day last Friday so that I could attend the Bodies Revealed exhibit at Union Station with Mom and Dad. It was so amazing and I highly recommend it to all. The ‘controversy’ surrounding it is total rubbish - it is tastefully done, educational and completely fascinating. I came out of it wanting to treat my body like the miraculous gift that it is. It is well worth your time and money. Go see it!
Afterwards, my mom left us and Dad and I went to lunch at Room 39. The food was good and the company was fantastic. I don’t get opportunities to hang out with just my dad much anymore- there are usually kids, projects or other things distracting us. It was such a nice afternoon and left me feeling high for hours. I love you, Dad. I can’t tell you enough that I am one of the luckiest people around to have you and Mom. I love that you were so involved in my childhood, but still gave me loads of freedom. I love that you are still here for me all the time. I love that you spend lots of time with Hattie. You’re the best and I appreciate all that you are and do.

Rainbows

When you have a child, you wish for them all the good qualities in you and your significant other. I wished for Hattie her daddy’s musical abilities, his mechanical and art skills, his nice hands and full lips, his patience and calm. I wished she would have my blue eyes and sense of color. Yes, sense of color. I can look at a tan and tell you if there is too much yellow or red in it for my liking. I can tell you I love colors washed with gray and could mix any color up with paint that you like. I mixed my own paints for the interior of our house so they would match the carpet. I know it is early yet, but Hattie may have just gotten my sense of color. She can pick an orange, pink or red out of a group of objects. She knows a blue or green from a purple. I am so proud! She cannot say the words yet, but can see her own rainbow of colors. It’s the newest trick in her ever-expanding repertoire. I can’t tell you how excited I am to color, draw pictures and paint with her. I envision buying canvases for her to paint and hanging them about our house. I envision many blue ribbons in the art fair at school. I envision someone who can put on paper exactly what she visualizes in her head. Am I getting ahead of myself here? Or should I say getting ahead of her? We will stick to the primary palette for now, but soon we’ll be mastering periwinkle, aubergine, puce and citrine. And I can't wait.
I must also follow up on my facial experience. Not what I expected at all. I was hoping to be scoured, scrubbed and irrigated. What I got was an hour long face massage. Relaxing, I suppose, but rejuvenating to my skin? Not so much. About halfway into it I thought, is this it? She's barely scrubbed! Where’s the exfoliation? Where’s the sandblasting? And then I switched to, is she almost done rubbing the damn cream into my face? How long have I been lying here? How greasy am I going to be after this? The hot towels between “treatments” (I use that term loosely) felt fabulous. And I was relaxed. However, I am pretty much always relaxed. I don’t need tribal muzak and face rubbing to calm me down. I wanted results, damn it. Instead I got creamed. If I would’ve been at a trendy salon and paid $50-100 for that, I would’ve been displeased as hell. Maybe my vision of a facial is just wrong, but if I want to relax give me a regular massage any day of the week. Do they do those for 72 quarters?

Raisins

I made an appointment yesterday for my first facial. I’ve never had one before, thinking they were a luxury that I didn’t need to waste my money on. However, lately my face seems to be transforming into a character out of the California Raisin’s commercials, only pastier. Wrinkles, dark circles, sags, sun spots and laugh lines galore. I’ll take the laugh lines, as it marks a badge of honor for me. It says I have lived a good life filled with many laughs. I will not, however, laugh at the dark circles. They look like a pair of halved Michelin’s implanted under my wrinkly eyes. Where are you when I need you, white walls?
The idea was brought up to me by a new guy I work with (no, not the Michelin idea). His wife is in aesthetician school and can do all kinds of things on the cheap. I am splurging an entire $18 to have my facial. I figure I may have that much in quarters under the front seat of my car, so what the heck. It’s a great price, unless I become addicted. Will I turn into Joan Rivers over the next few months, tucking, sandblasting and downright removing most of the skin from my face? Not a chance. But I may just need to go see this girl when my face threatens needing tucked into the top of my shirts. I hope she can work miracles – for 72 quarters, she better be able to.
All things on the Hattie front are terrific. We FINALLY got some gates up for her. No more shoving the ottoman between the couches to lock her in. I hate having to put them up; they seem like they should only be used for little yapper dogs or rabbits or something, but there are so many damn sets of stairs in our house we had to. I hope we won’t need to keep them up for long. Maybe we can have stair training sessions in the afternoons. And up, two, three, four, down, two, three, four. Alright maybe not. We are finding that she is becoming more and more girly. Lately, she is enjoying taking things out and putting them back exactly where she got them (I do LOVE this!). I was setting up blocks for her to knock down yesterday. She knocked them over once or twice (with a small ‘ugh’ I might add – they are made of cloth after all) and after that she only wanted to pick up the block off the top and hand it to me. We would carefully disassemble one tower and create another. She played in the room for hours after having stacked a tower taller than her and left it standing when she went to bed. I know of no boys who would allow this kind of blatant tower disregard. She’s a girl, she is. My girl.

Hello, stranger

Hello blog world. It’s been awhile. Things have been speeding by so rapidly, time seems to be completely slipping away from me. Life is hectic right now. I am training in 3 different areas at work, and that just mentally drains me by the end of the day. Add to it that I am averaging 9 hours there, then going home to become mom, chef, shopper, and housekeeper and I feel spent. I haven’t worked out in months. My house is not nearly as clean as it should be. My car needs a detail. My hair is always a wreck. I haven’t spent time with my husband after about 9:00pm in weeks. I sleep so hard and so soundly we could get burglarized and I wouldn’t have a clue until morning. So there, there’s my little rant for the day. Woe is me. I have a beautiful child, loving husband, wonderful family and friends, health all around and plenty of money to live comfortably. Woe, indeed.
So, on to the good stuff. My daughter is funny. She understands about everything we say now, can identify body parts, walks everywhere, and laughs like she did something funny every time someone else laughs. She gets sillier all the time. We’re just having a blast.
I am adding pictures of HP in her new big kid car seat and playing in the laundry. She ‘helps’ with it a lot. Happy weekend.

My New Favorite Picture...

Ramble On

The holidays are over; decorations and presents put away. Sigh. It was a lovely holiday season, though I felt, entirely too fast. By the time I got in the ‘true’ Christmas spirit, it seems we were already wrapping it up (no pun intended). Some years I have that elated spirit for weeks, others for a few precious moments. It’s my own chasing of the dragon. Thanks goodness it’s only about good cheer and appreciation.
Hattie, we have decided, is a true party girl. Even on days when we push through naps and go go go, she sticks with it and maintains pretty well. And these are days I am ready to collapse by the end of it right along with her. With both of us having large families in town, we tend to circle the city for the days surrounding Christmas. It can be exhausting at times, but always so much fun. We’re lucky to have them. This year we had many small days so that helped us out a lot, too.
And our little trooper is now officially a walker! She’s been wobbling around for about a month, but her skills are increasing so much that she now moves from one side of a room to the other with (some!) ease. She’s getting better everyday. I’ve found these milestones are difficult to pinpoint. Her first word? Dada- I think. She said it over and over for a week, so we’ll go with that. Did she know what she was saying? It’s unclear. Walking? I dunno, she’s been taking a few steps here and there for awhile. At what point do you make it official? 3 steps? 10? Who knows. For now, we’ll call it our Christmas present from her.
Pics are of her new sled, the cutest Christmas dress ever, and hanging with Dada.
Hope your holidays were all you hoped they would be.
Ba- Happy birthday. You are the best brother a girl could ask for and I love you!