Because turning one isn't exciting enough

This post will publish on MP's birthday (6/30) but actually happened today (6/29). This morning MP went through her usual post-breakfast ritual of pulling all of the books off of one of the lower bookshelves. The next step in her ritual is to crawl beneath the clock, point at it, and ask "Dat?" over and over until someone answers "Clock."

But this morning instead of crawling, she walked. Like she had been doing it all along. Like it was no big deal.

And then she kept right on walking.

Just yesterday she wouldn't walk without a death grip on at least one finger, preferably two. And then this morning I guess she decided she wasn't going to turn one without walking.

We caught it on video this evening. Enjoy!

Birthday Party wrap up

MP is not officially one until tomorrow (at 9:10 p.m. to be precise (can you tell I'm struggling with this?)) so her monthly letter will be coming later. But her party was a smashing success (if I do say so myself).

We had 17 adults + MP, all of whom were related by blood except one who is an adopted uncle. I decorated with streamers and balloons for the tables and made place cards. We had three tables set up in order to accommodate everyone - one for the young folks, one for the women, and one for the men.

I served bbq for lunch. The only thing that I really cooked was the cake. Here it is:

It was very tiring to make, but I'm really pleased with how it came out. I can't promise that every child will have this cake for every birthday. My arm is still sore from the icing.

Dad made a chocolate on chocolate cake which was absolutely delicious.

MP had her own smash cake. Unfortunately she was so exhausted, she really wasn't that into smashing it.

I helped MP open her presents. She really really raked it in. Books, toys, clothes - everything a girl could want.

Dad and I worked very hard on a video montage of MP's first year. It's still a work in progress, although we were able to show a version of it at the party. There is no way I will be able to upload it to my blog, but I'm considering loading it to Youtube when it's done. We'll see.

All in all, it was a really fun party!

Artsy Fartsy

The party was a magnificent success today. MP just about doubled her toy collection (seriously) and was too overwhelmed to decide what to play with first. A balloon (which she calls "boon") won. I'm not up for a full post yet on it yet, but I promise one soon.

One of my 101 in 1001 goals was to acquire an original piece of artwork. I recently acquired two, but I didn't purchase them. I made one, and Dad made the other!

I am NOT an artist. I've never been able to draw or even doodle. My doodles are all things like squares, and triangles, and if I'm feeling really crazy, hearts. But this was so so easy. A local artist hosts a class where all you do is show up, and she provides the canvas, paint, brushes, everything. She takes you through, step by step. There were 40 people in the class and Dad (brave boy) was the only male.

It's surprising how remarkably different everyone's turned out.

So here are ours. Mine's first and then Dad's. Please excuse the camera angle on Dad's:

What to SAHMs do all day, Part II

Because the thought of being home all day with a child who has a very limited vocabulary and who can sometimes be a tad irrational did scare me a bit, I decided to join a playgroup. There are tons of moms in the group, and there are playdates, meetups at local parks, moms' nights out, moms' nights in, etc.

One woman I connected with (she's from the Dominican Republic and still has family in Santiago) recently had a baby. Her second. So, I made her dinner. I remember those first few weeks home and each meal that I didn't have to cook (and got to eat) was wonderful.

Yay 101 in 1001!

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What do SAHMs do all day?

Actually, the vast majority of what I'm about to show off you was made while I was still working.

I mentioned that I was making a surprise for MP's birthday. The party is tomorrow and there will be at least 17, possibly 19 folk, here. We are in full party mode. MP will be spending the night with her grandparents to allow Dad and I to clean the house put finishing touches on the decorations, pick up food and ice the cake.

Since she's not going to be here in the morning, her surprise had to be ready to go with her tonight. And here it is:



I've mentioned that my mom is an excellent seamstress. She made my prom dress (amongst hundreds others). She has three? four? sewing machines, and gave me her old one when I moved into our house. We had a wonderful time making this for MP. Mammaw is a great teacher - she even rips out stitches when you make a mistake.

I realize that this dress isn't the fanciest or the prettiest. But, my mother made me so many dresses, I thought I should try to carry on the tradition.

I hope you like it MP!

Bad hair day

Guardian angel?

At my house growing up, we didn't have an automatic garage door opener. If you wanted to open the garage, you pulled up on a handle, and to close it you pulled down on a string. Having a garage door opener at my house now has really spoiled me. It's so easy to not have to bother with keys to get into and out of the house. The door between the house & garage is usually unlocked during the day.

Yesterday I was headed to a playdate (when I was growing up, we just said we were going to someone's house to play - no fancy name) when my garage door opener suddenly stopped working. I had MP all loaded up and ready to go, and it just wouldn't work.

I got out of the car and saw a string hanging down, which I pulled, thinking it would help me close the door. Instead, it disconnected the automatic closing mechanism.

"Great," I thought. I managed to jump up and pull the door down, and headed to the playdate.

When we got back I had to come in the front door with a key. I was really annoyed.



After a really long afternoon nap, MP was playing downstairs in the living room. She picked up her bumbo chair, and I saw a huge spider on the back of it.

I do not handle spiders well. My plan of attack was to run out the back door and bang the bumbo until it fell off. It was close to 100 degrees yesterday, so I closed the back door behind me. After beating the poor spider to death, I turned around to come inside, only to discover that the door was locked.

By this time MP had made it to the french back door and was standing there, crying. I started panicking. Dad and I had hidden a key in the back yard, but when I went to find it, it was gone. My neighbor got home right as I was searching, and I ran over and asked to borrow his cell phone. I called Dad to ask where the key was, and it was clear that I had already looked where the key was supposed to be.

And then I remembered the garage door. It was unlatched from the automatic opening mechanism, so maybe, I could pull it up.

Sure enough, the door pulled up easily, and I was able to get inside and comfort a nearly hysterical MP. We had been locked apart from each other for about 3 minutes, and it felt like an eternity.

When Dad got home, he reconnected automatic opening mechanism.



This morning - my garage door opener worked perfectly. If it hadn't quit working yesterday, I probably would have been forced to break a window. I guess MP's guardian angels were working overtime.

Technical difficulties

We are having some technical difficulties with our home computer which is preventing me from blogging and uploading pictures. I have so much to post - from MP's first trip to the kiddie pool, followed shortly to a trip to the real pool, and my first ever painting.

I wanted to sneak this one in just to say that I am officially a SAHM. Yesterday was my first day on the job. MP celebrated having me home by biting me. Twice.

Is there worker's comp for moms?

Mom, you may want to skip this one

I was talking to a co-worker recently about travel experiences, and I wanted to record this one for posterity.



One of the best (but also worst) trips I've ever been on was to the Dominican Republic with my best friend, Ying Ying. We went for New Year's, 2001. I had studied abroad there the summer before, and she had a good friend who lived in the capital. I speak Spanish and she is very well-traveled, so it seemed like the perfect trip.



Our problems were so numerous and varied that I don't know where to start - from the check-in assistant in Atlanta that kept my return tickets, to Ying Ying's friend not being there to pick us up when we landed, to us staying at the strangest hotel I have ever stayed in. It was a converted hospital. They had painted, and carpeted, but when you walked down the hall, there was an empty nurse's station. It was just creepy. No other word for it.



We spent a few fairly stress-free days in the capital after hooking up with Ying Ying's friend.



We then headed to the smaller town that I had lived in, Santiago. We caught up with some of my Dominican friends and had a great New Year's celebration.



We decided to go to the beach for the last few days we were there.



As our trip was winding down, we headed back to Santiago. We were both running out of money (we were in college) so I decided to use my local knowledge and language skills to land us a cheap ride back to Santiago.



In the D.R., there are buses for tourists, buses for locals, taxis for tourists, taxis for locals, etc. I found a local "taxi" that drove a regular route between Punta Cana (the beach) and Santiago. The cars they use are about the size of a Corolla, and they seat 2 in the front passenger's seat, and four in the back. Ying Ying and I were lucky to sit in the back together. The driver was a man, but all of the other passengers were local women.



If you've ever ridden in a car in Latin America, you know that many Latin American drivers believe traffic rules are more like guidelines than actual laws. Generally they are safe drivers, but they just don't drive the way Americans are used to. There have been several times riding in cars in Latin America that I've felt panic rise up in my throat, but my rule of thumb is that if the locals aren't worried, I'm not worried.



We were getting close to Santiago when the driver announced "Tengo que parar afuera de la cuidad porque no tengo los frenos."



This is what I understood: "I have to stop outside of the city because I don't have 'frenos.'"



Immediately all of the local women started screaming at him. They were visibly angry. I got scared. I kept hearing them repeat the word I didn't understand "Frenos."



"¿Como es que no tienes frenos, carajo?"



"¿Estas loco? ¿Porque no lo deciste antes?"



...



"How is it you don't have 'frenos' [censored]? Are you crazy? Why didn't you say so sooner?"



The driver was angry and defensive. The women were livid.



They yelled back and forth for a few minutes until I finally managed to get out "¿Que son frenos? ¿Que significa?"



"What are 'frenos?' What does that mean?"



The woman beside me turned and said "La cosa que hace el coche ir mas despacio. Solo tiene la emergencia."



"The thing that slows the car down. He only has the emergency."



BRAKES!! He had driven us for an hour without brakes! He only had his emergency brake. I had noticed he seemed to be using it liberally, but didn't think anything of it.



Ying Ying asked me what was going on, and I told her I'd tell her later.



We had to catch another taxi to make it all the way back into town. Given the excitement of that ride, we splurged on a tourist taxi to take us back to Santo Domingo for our flight out. Unfortunately that almost resulted in us having to beg some tourists for the exit tax. (Did you know many countries charge you a tax to leave? They do!) We scraped, changed our last few dollars, and boarded the plane.



I'm still an adventurous traveller, but I will never travel quite so adventurously again. Tourists buses are fine by me.

Randomness

I have to thank my family, friends and readers for their kind comments and e-mails. There are times when I hit "publish" and want to hide under a desk because I think that everything I say will be taken out of context, people will be offended, or that I haven't really expressed myself very well.

I've been amazed at the outpouring of support for my decision from...well...everyone. Everyone at work (even though I cried when telling my two mentors about my decision). My family. My friends. Everyone. They understand that it's the right thing, but still hard. They understand. So thank you.

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I wanted to report that I am halfway to one of my 101 in 1001 goals - #10 working out three times a week for a month. My workouts have been all walking, but I still think that they count because walking is part of You: On a Diet, which I have been following for for 2 weeks. I can honestly say that I am not hungry on this diet. First time ever I can say that about a diet.

With me staying home, I knew that I would need to cook more. I like cooking and I'm lucky that Dad will eat whatever I put in front of him. Because of this diet, I have eaten more vegetables and fruit than ever before, but it honestly does fill me up. I have cheated (I went out to eat with my parents), but I don't feel guilty about it, and just went right back to the diet. I am now at the lowest weight that I have been since MP was born.

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MP is absolutely adorable. One morning I picked her up and she pointed at the fan in her room and asked "Das?"

I have decided that "Das?" means "What's that?"

So, I told her "What's that? That's your fan. Fan. F-f-f- Fan. Can you say fan?"

She waved hi to the fan.

And then I melted from the searing hot cuteness.

Ch-ch-ch Changes

When I graduated college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. More accurately, I had absolutely no clue what the next step was. I debated between graduate school in Spanish (to become a professor) and law school. I remember calling Dad and telling him that I wish I had a do-over. I wish I had been an engineer - such a simple and straight career path. I wish I had become a teacher. I wish I had studied anything that was in any way practical. (Shockingly, employers aren't fighting over Spanish and International Relations B.A.'s)

I bummed around for a year, working a few unimpressive jobs, until I finally made up my mind. Law school.

I hadn't always dreamed of being a lawyer. Sure, I loved Perry Mason and Law & Order as much as the next person. I felt that there were injustices in the world and I wanted to change them. But, to be perfectly honest, like the vast majority of law students, I fell into law school because I had an undergraduate degree that wasn't going to be landing me any good jobs, and I didn't want to go to med school.

After the first year, it turned out I actually liked law school, and I did well. I accepted a position at a large (for my town) law firm and started practicing.

After about the first year, I started really enjoying what I did.

And being a lawyer has defined me in many ways. I'll admit it - I take a lot of pride in telling people I meet that I'm a lawyer. It means that I went to college, did well in college, took the LSAT and did well on it, got accepted to law school, graduated law school, studied for and passed the bar, and got a job offer.

It's pride.

My 10 year high school reunion is this year and being around old classmates brings out the comeptitive side of me. As I imagine myself talking to folks I haven't seen since the summer of 1999, I wonder what I'm going to say when they ask me what I'm up to?

Will I hedge my answer, or will I tell them what I actually am (or will be, next week) without any explanations?

A stay at home mom.