2013 A Year of Wondrous Feats

Yes, yes this is your run of the mill, regular old year recap but I thought I would jazz up the title because in all honesty, this was an incredible year for our little family. We all accomplished amazing feats. Looking back I can't believe how fast it all went by and how many changes we all went through. It was a truly remarkable year, so I will do my best to keep it short and sweet but there was just so mush awesomeness jam packed into 52 short weeks. Thar being said, every year has it tough times and in the most recent years, Thomas and I have gone through some real struggles so I can safely say that 2013 was our best year yet.

Emma:
What can I say, 2013 was Emma's year. I can hardly believe that just a year ago she was still crawling and putting everything in her mouth. Now, she runs everywhere and can talk up a storm.

This year also held a lot of firsts, first swim class, first soccer class, first trip to the zoo, first trip to the beach, first birthday, and much more.

The dogs:
We had a few scary moments this year, mostly involving Stanley our oldest, a boxer mix. He had to get surgery on his knee and then a few weeks later, he ran away from home. We were lucky that everything worked out in both situations as he recovered quickly and he was found the very next day after getting lost.

Thomas:
Thomas really stepped up as a dad this year and took on a lot more responsibility. When I had to change my commute he was able to take Emma to daycare every morning. He also got a promotion at work and changed store locations which allowed him to be home more often. It is beautiful to see his bond with Emma grow.

Myself:
This year I changed jobs twice and saw my career evolve into something I dreamed of. I finally figured out how to let go of some of the working mom guilt as I saw Emma learning so much from her daycare environment. I haven't written about it much but this year I stepped up my fitness routine and I am feeling healthier and more fit. I feel confident that 2014 holds nothing but good things to come.

Nothing is ever perfect but there were so many amazing memories I will love to look back on in 2013. It will always be a very special year for our family.We are looking forward to our adventures together in the new year!

Here's to a happy and healthy 2014 for you and your family! 

Holiday Recap

Christmas was a whirlwind of excitement and chaos and I am missing it already. We have been so busy lately that I did not have time to put together separate posts for each of our activities so I am going to mush them all into one big ball of holiday cheer. Enjoy reliving our holiday festivities!

Last weekend we went to go see Santa. I knew since it was nap time and she had just sat down for an hour long brunch followed by a wait in the Santa line that we had entered the Bermuda triangle of toddler meltdown situations. Right as we hit the front of the line she began getting fussy and as soon as we walked over to Santa she squirmed and held on to me with a toddler death grip. I had tried to explain to her that Santa is a nice man that brings presents but she is just shy of the age where she understands such things. Needless to say she was in no way going to cozy up to the guy in the red suit so we all sat down with Santa for a family photo. Then Santa whispered his magical plan for me to slowly move her onto his lap. At this point, somehow reason escaped my mind. Maybe deep down some part of me thought she might actually enjoy being abandoned in a strange place with an oddly dressed man. So, I did it and thus began the Christmas tears of 2013 followed shortly after by high pitched screams of terror and disapproval to insinuate that we were in error for attempting to place her in the very temporary custody of a stranger. I wish they had allowed us to take personal photos but they were forbidden this side of the North Pole so we only shelled out the money for the happy family photo but trust me when I say there we some great bad Santa photos as well.

 

 Then came Christmas Eve and our traditional visit to Thomas' mom's house (aka Mimi.) This tradition started out small with just us and Thomas' twin brother and his family. We started the tradition before we had Emma and when they had just one child. Then somehow over the years the festivities morphed to include our expanded families and Thomas' step brothers and their large families and some of their friends and his aunt and uncle and a few of his mom's neighbors and some of her co-workers. Oh, all in a one bedroom apartment. You really have no choice but to feel the love and the energy of the kids literally bouncing off the walls. Everyone was in great spirits except for the elderly woman who lives in the apartment below. I'm guessing by the sounds of her pounding on the ceiling she was not having a peaceful Christmas Eve....hmmm wonder why. Even though it is overwhelming and I do not recommend it for anyone with crowd anxieties it was still a fun time. Emma enjoyed playing with all of the big kids and of course it was great to see all of the Thomas' family. 

After the thrills of a chaotic night at Mimi's house, exhaustion set in. We made it home sometime around 8:30pm and then the real adventure began. The one I had been waiting for since I found out I was going to be a parent (and even before that.) I'm not going to come out and say exactly what I am talking about for all of those believers out there but for those that have gone before you know what I'm referring to. No matter how exhausted or how much work you know lies ahead, the reward far out weighs anything else. Of course this year as noted before, Emma is still not 100% on board with the whole Christmas thing but Santa Clause did come! I have it on good authority he worked really hard to make this Christmas a special one for Emma. Of course with all of the excitement and anticipation for the magic to unfold I was up at 6:30am and had to wait for everyone to get up. After a crazy Christmas Eve Emma sleep in until almost 8am...go figure. So with extreme excitement and anticipation I got her out of bed. Her dad was ready to record the whole thing... only we are in the process of transitioning away from the binky and well on this particular morning of mornings, the day of the birth of our king, lord and savor...behold, what could be heard from the Patterson household but not sounds of joy but rather tears and a tantrum! Leave it to stupid old mom to dare to take a binky away upon this day! Doesn't she know that's all that matters? Not the magic of the day but the dependency on a piece of plastic!

So our first video was of a screaming child. Seriously what kid wakes up Christmas morning to go out to the tree and bursts into tears... After some coaching Emma finally caught on that there were presents for her. Once again a few grandmas went overboard with the gifts so it looks like an obscene amount of stuff but Santa brought just a few things.

 

 

The final stop on our holiday tour was at my mom's (Nana's) house. Emma had napped and was ready to go but once again I was not prepared for what it would be like having her try to sit still for hours while people opened presents. Luckily she got some pretty awesome gifts to play with while the adults enjoyed their time together. She was spoiled once again and we really need to move now just to accommodate her growing toy collection.

All in all it was a very merry Christmas and I am truly grateful for the time I spent with family and friends. My only heartache comes with not having more time off to spend with my family. I worked a half day today and I am back to work a full day tomorrow. It was fun spending time playing with Emma this morning. Actually engaging with her, my husband, and all of her fun new toys was the highlight of my holiday. It brought me back to my childhood. I was honestly more excited about her gifts than my own! I guess that's part of the transition into parenthood. It really isn't about me anymore. It's about being with and doing what I can for my family and right now because of that my heart is full.

I hope you and your family had a happy holiday and will ring in an awesome new year!

18 Months

Don't worry, I will be back to my regularly scheduled holiday ranting later but for now I wanted to take a moment to breath and log what's been going on in Emma's 18 month. We are back to our old schedule and I am LOVING IT! I have more time with Emma in the afternoons now that m commute from hell is gone. She is growing and changing so rapidly that I am just trying to keep up from one day to the next. Here's a peek into Emma's 18th month so far:

Singing:
This is probably the cutest development this month. She is just starting to sing her ABCs! Thomas and I heard her singing herself to sleep the other night and we both stood in the hallway right outside her door listening and swooning. Her other favorite song? Row, row, row your boat of course! She can be in the throngs of building a massive block tower and all of a sudden out of nowhere she will look at me and yell "MOMMY! ROW ROW!" To which I am suckered into a rousing rendition of row row. For some reason she doesn't like any other line in the song other than the first one and will constantly ask for it to be repeated so my husband and I have started singing it in rounds to spice things up. She also loves twinkle twinkle little star. Apparently they must have taught her a dance to it at daycare because she starts making hand gestures and twirling around. Adorable!

Counting:
The first time I heard her count my jaw pretty much hit the floor. It hadn't been something we were working on at home so she must have picked it up at daycare. She can count up to ten! Sometimes she skips the number 5 for some reason which I'm hoping we can resolve since our currency consists of multiples of 5. The other day she started holding up her fingers while she counted and I was so amazed! She always smiles and laughs at the end, when she gets to ten like she knows how freakin awesome she is (yes my child is the awesomest ever!!! I invite you to start your own blog if you would like to rave about your child :)) - The image below is from her first outing in the snow (last year she was too little) she wasn't quite sure what to do and mommy probably had her bundled up too much.)

Testing the waters:
This month hasn't been all sweet songs and the makings for a hopefully successful mathlete career. This has also been the month where it has become crystal clear that Emma is testing her boundaries with us to see what she can get away with. I have no intention of letting my child walk all over me, however I do encourage her to be independent and explore her world. That being said, there are things that have to be done and some that are an absolute no. Getting her to comply is becoming a challenge. For example: she has taken it upon herself to feed the dogs about 10 times a day. After a careful explanation of why she cannot continuously feed the dogs, she will look at me with a sly crooked smile and continue about her business. Being a creature of mild intelligence I see what she is doing and with the best mommy authority I can muster up I remove her from the situation which leads to constant tantrums. This has been frustrating but we are slowly making progress. The other time we are having problems is when I pick her up from daycare. She refuses to put on her coat in order to leave. I have had to chase her around the room and hold her down in front of her caregivers and I am not to thrilled about looking like I can't handle the situation (however ...um I can't). My temporary solution is to pick her up and carry her down the hall to put her coat on by the exit door. I'm still not sure how to handle this or why she feels the need to practice dominance over me in front of others but perhaps I should read up on it.

Traditions:
This month has brought with it some awesome family traditions that Emma has participated in. I'm not sure if she has actually fully grasped everything that has been going on but I still love watching her learn about our fabulous American culture.

That pretty much sums it up for now. Lots of growing and some growing pains. One thing still remains the same...overall we really enjoy each others company and I defiantly look forward to what next year will bring.

Saying Goodbye to the City

I've never liked city life shall we say. To me, the city was always crowed, dirty, and full of ridiculously fashionable intellectuals. I was fine only venturing into its evil clutches maybe once a year or so for the occasional friend's birthday dinner or a possible museum visit but that was about it. There were probably stretches of a year or more where I hadn't set foot anywhere near downtown. Of course I had no idea where anything was located, yet I'd be the first person tourists would stare down with their sad, lost puppy dog eyes asking for directions.

Tourist: "Do you know where...is?"
Me: "I have no idea where that is or even what it is."
Tourist: "Oh you're not from around here."
Me: "Um..well technically I am but..."
Tourist: Stares at me like I am a useless human being for being an admitted "townie" but knowing nothing.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up right there. The simplistic explanation is I am a suburban girl through and through. Quiet streets, strip malls, community centers, off street parking...that's the life for me.

However one day, all of my suburban girl dreams came screeching to a halt when I finally gave in after months of applying for jobs in the good old burbs and did the unthinkable...applied for jobs downtown. I guess part of me thought it was necessary to get the statistics of the application process in order. If I apply to this many jobs then, therefore I should eventually get a job so I figured the odds would be better. I just had no idea that the job I would end up getting would actually be....horror of horrors...downtown. I have complained about the miseries of working downtown before and let me tell you after two months they are indeed still extremely relevant only now I have had the pleasure of adding being coughed on, creeped out, and waiting for long stretches of time for trains. I've walked in the freezing rain, gotten lost, and had to listen to more intellectuals bragging about where they reside than I care to recall. I've successfully continued to stick out like a soar thumb the entire time thanks to my lack of fashion sense. And yet now that I have been given the green light to hightail it out of here, I find myself pausing.

All of the reasons for leaving are still relevant, but there have been moments I have really enjoyed working in the city and there are somethings I am going to miss. Here are a few:

The food:
WAAAAY better selection than the lone cafeteria at my old building. Right outside of my office is a designated "lunch truck stop." If you are unfamiliar, it is where a bunch of potentially unhygienic trucks filled with delicious hot foods park. It smells like amazing carnival food on a warm day as soon as I step foot outside of my office. The line of lunch trucks stretches as far as the eye can see and I have sampled many a delicacy from those trucks. In fact, I don't think there was a bad lunch among them. This was just a small sampling of the culinary wonders of downtown as just blocks away were more amazing restaurants. Oh food.

The scenery:
My old building is located in an awkward area where you have to drive if you want to get anywhere (oh right it's in the suburbs). Anyways I really enjoy my nearly daily walks around the surrounding areas of my current building. There is so much history and culture downtown that you don't get in the suburbs. Amazing architecture, monuments, and parks are all within walking distance.

The smell of the pavement:
I know this one sounds really weird but I've been to a few cities in my day and the one I work in, in particular has a smell to it, like old concrete that has weathered a thousand rain storms and baked in the sun over hundreds of hot summer days. I can't really bring the smell to life through words any other way. Just microwave a damp piece of concrete and maybe you might get the smell I'm referring to.

The culture:
I read the free paper everyday on my way to work which introduced me to some new music venues as well as some great events I might not have heard of otherwise. The city has its own little secret cultural world that I got to be a part of if only for a moment.

Don't get me wrong I am really looking forward to my short commute from the warmth of my car where I won't have to worry about someone coughing all over me, giving me the bubonic plague and I will be going back to joining in on conversations about kids and after school activities rather than political drudgery, but the tiny adventurous, hip, funky, artist, foodie in me will always belong to those damp, sun baked sidewalks.

The Anatomy of a Christmas Card

I am trying to think back to the exact year it all started...the year I committed to sending Christmas cards. I am pretty sure it was three years ago because I still have the card (it was from before we had Emma) and it is a picture of all of our dogs in antlers (all but Stanely because, well, three out of four ain't bad). And if I may say so, it is freakin adorable! I recall the effort that went into that shoot. The box of dog biscuits, the patience, the timing everything just right. It was a grand effort. Last year Emma was still a squishy baby that would sit still from time to time, and we had my father nicely volunteer to come over and take the pictures for us. Of course we didn't get a smile out of her but a look of bewilderment was better than a weeping baby face.

As this year's annual tradition comes around, I find myself wondering how I got here. We are short almost a week this holiday season and just like the need to get the tree sprung up on me at the last minute, all of a sudden I realized that hey...we hadn't ordered our Christmas cards yet and OMG it is useless for people to get them after Christmas so we better get on it. I mean maybe after all of the exhaustion from Christmas slowly seeps from your body as you begrudgingly shuffle to your mailbox, the day after, you are suddenly rejuvenated with the magic of the season when you see the Patterson family holiday card because hey, we aim to spread the merriment all year long!..... Um yeah, perhaps not.

I started to wonder briefly if I could just quietly back out of the whole ordeal, like maybe if I don't send one this year then we are off the hook for the rest of our lives...but then I couldn't help but play out the scenario in my head of "oh the Pattersons didn't send us a card this year. I wonder if they forgot to send it to us or I wonder if something catastrophic happened because HOW could they possibly NOT send one after sending one two years in a row!" So not being one to start controversy, I have decided to continue being a slave to the institution of Christmas cards. To be honest, I LOVE seeing images of my family on a glossy card and I have saved all of the cards we've ever sent, so I guess really and truly it is my need for nostalgia that has sabotaged my need for holiday peace.

Besides dealing with the obvious anxiety I have convinced myself that this is a tradition we would be sticking with, I tried to prepared myself for the obvious...Emma is a toddler who won't sit still. With that little tid bit of information I knew we were in for a wild ride this year. Smiling and sitting still are two different things and any chance of them actually happening while my husband is pressing the shudder button is nearly impossible.

 To validate my point, I now present to you the outtakes from our Christmas card picture taking morning. A behind the scenes look at what it really takes to get that one good shot:

"The Doggies"

Here we have the attempt to get the dogs in on the picture. After one try I gave up. Having more than one moving body to capture is just too much to ask for.

 

"The Prop"

Here we are attempting to have Emma hold a sweet fake Christmas flower thing or as this picture likes to refer it to as; the blurry red thing.

 

"The Shinny Object"

Wait what IS that awesome thing over there...oh yeah a piece of paper. Ah the attention span of a toddler.

 

"The Mommy"

 Now throw your hands in the air and wave em like you just don't care cause yeah we're soooo over this. I give up!

Next year I am considering hiring a professional or going to one of those studios to take some of the pressure off, although I think there is something truly special about having just us together as a family for the misery that is Christmas card picture taking. We shall see what next year has in store for us, perhaps we will start a new tradition of saving some of our sanity.

Going Down New, Old Paths

I'm sure if you are past the age of 20...ok maybe 25, you realize that even the best laid plans are never set in stone. The best you can do is take aim and throw the dart at the dartboard and hope it lands close to where you wanted. Sometimes you wake up thinking you are on one path and then you refocus only to find yourself somewhere completely different. That's where I seem to find myself now. I can't fully go into detail on here about all of the amazing good fortune the universe has sent me and all of the path shifting and butterfly effecting that I have just crammed into two months but let me assure you it was epic. Catching the Golden Snitch epic if you know what I mean :). In short: I am going back to my old job.

I should really say old place of employment because my job will be different from when I left but I will be back in the same building, with my Emma. I will be back to a short commute, the opportunity to telework on occasion, and all of the other amazing things I miss from my last job. I literally cried when I left my old building because I really did love it there and now after a two month separation I'm going back. Not only have I just received an amazing opportunity to advance my career, but I also have the added bonus of going back to my cushy driving commute and my afternoons with Emma. No more massive hand sanitation after exiting a germ infested subway. No more walking blocks in the freezing cold rain. No more worrying about train delays. It's just me, my car, my kid, and the open road.

I am very excited for the work I will be doing and I will still do my best to keep up with my weekly blog posts. The job will probably require longer hours but the flip side to that is my husband will get to cut back his work hours so in the long run we will be spending more time together as a family. This also means some other big changes are coming for our little family as well. We will be looking to finally move out of our neighborhood and purchase our first house! We couldn't be more thrilled to move forward with our lives and enjoy the many new experiences to come.

I wanted to take a moment and say that this did not happen over night, it came with years of hard work, long hours, bad commutes, literal blood, sweat, and tears. Someday I hope to be able to recount for you the hard work that went into finally getting my career to where I feel it deserves to be, but for now just know that this is the moment, the moment that has changed my career and our lives and I am holding onto the amazingness of it for as long as I can. I am so grateful for all of the support and love I have received throughout the years. It has meant the world to me and my family. I really hope you (my future children and readers) are inspired! You can achieve amazing things with hard work and patience.

A Few Lessons I Learned from the Beginning of the Holiday Season

Well it looks like I blinked an now it's Christmas. Literally one day it was Thanksgiving and the next my Christmas decorations were up. We usually buy our tree the first weekend in December which usually comes a full week after Thanksgiving but not this year. Sometime around Thursday afternoon it hit me that this was the first weekend in December and I had no elaborately planned itinerary for the switch over to Christmas merriment.

First, if you will, allow me to back up to Thanksgiving dinner: the fiasco that almost was. Emma decided to nap for only 20 minutes on Thursday, even the "leaving her in the crib while she talked to herself so hopefully she would fall back to sleep" trick didn't work. So it was with a heavy heart and unwavering certainty of a disruptive dinner that I left our house that evening. Upon arrival at "Nana's house," Emma decided she was going to be shy and hide from all the unfamiliar, yet friendly faces (even those baring gifts for her.) She quietly thanked them for their gifts and proceeded to bury her head in her father's armpit. Not my choice of hiding places but nevertheless. An hour and a half later (exactly 30 minutes from Emma's normal bedtime) dinner was served. Lesson 1: My kid likes to be seated at the table while eating her meals. This is becoming more and more apparent and was blatantly obvious as she threw her sweet potatoes on the floor while sitting in the high chair only to turn around and eat them while she was sitting on my lap at the table. Next year and until there is a definitive "kiddie" table, Emma will get her own big girl chair at the Thanksgiving table.

The night slowly dragged on as I felt the timer on my toddler grow closer and closer to zero - zero equaling a meltdown of epic proportions. My mother is a sweet and generous soul, however I let her know the longer it took to get to desert, the more likely we would be subject to the wrath of my sleepy child. This hurried her none. By the time desert was set on the table Emma had lost the Thanksgiving spirit. She enjoyed a lovely game of house in the living room while I shoveled what I could into my mouth. Lesson 2: Have some fun distractions near by. - This bought us about 5 minutes of peace. I then got up from the table and proceeded to get her ready to leave. It was an odd scene. It took both my husband and I to hold her down while we put on her socks and coat. There was a ridiculous amount of flailing and screeching and frustrated grunts. I picture it like those old cartoons where two of the characters are fighting and rolling around in a large plume of smoke. All the while a soft candle lite desert was being enjoyed just feet away with rumbling adult laughter accompanied by the clanking of wine glasses. The two worlds are a stark contrast and once again I felt a little lonely being the only mother of a young child in the situation.

Thankfully (see what I just did there?) we made it out of there with only a few tears shed (mine from missing out on a bigger piece of fabulous fruit tart). As we drove off I knew our next great adventure awaited us...getting our Christmas tree. After much less obsessive over-thinking than normal, I decided we should just stick with the simplest plan...getting our tree from Home Depot. If you will recall last year, sickness forced just that and even with Emma more aware and excitable, I just felt like this year wasn't the year to run around the x-mas tree farm in the freezing cold while Emma tried to grab the saw away from her father, plus I was IN LOVE with our tree from last year and I was hoping for a magical repeat. And let me tell you, good old Home Depot did not disappoint! We found a beautiful, full tree. Emma had fun running up and down the trees aisles. She got to look at and touch a bunch of them and ultimately it was a 30 minute endeavor round trip, not a frozen finger in sight. Lesson 3: Everything will still turn out alright if you don't make it to the x-mas tree farm.

So of course I made a rookie parenting mistake in that I planned our tree purchasing at the end of the day. I thought Emma would be able to handle throwing a few ornaments on the tree and seeing the lights go up...um wrong. She held a few lights in her hand and then lost it after I tried to explain to her that the ornaments go on the tree. I was exhausted myself at that point so we put her to bed and finished the decorating ourselves. I set aside a few ornaments for Emma to hang when she woke up the next day and you know what...it was a success! I was very happy she actually got to enjoy decorating and she is at an age where having the tree mostly decorated already was fine. It did not bother her. Lesson 4: Plan all epic holiday festivities (like tree decorating) for the early hours - or whenever your kids best time of day is. Remind me of this when we go see Santa.

Well I think that about sums it up for now. Holidays here we come!