Isn't Your Cell Phone Called "Baby?"

Lucy has a new toy: my cell phone, Ross' cell phone, Gumma's cell phone, Aunt Stephanie's cell phone, Grampa's iPad, basically anyone's cell phone or iPad is her new toy. She doesn't play with it like you would think...she doesn't watch videos or play games, instead she likes to look at pictures of "baby" and even calls the cell phone or iPad "baby."

Occasionally, we've let Lucy look at our cell phones, but not very often. I think this new "baby" thing started with Gumma (my mom). A few weeks ago we were at Gumma and Poppy's and Lucy was getting a bit cranky. She sat with Gumma for about 15 minutes looking through all of the pictures on her phone. I'm sure there were a lot of Lucy pictures on the phone, but Gumma probably has about 1,000+ pictures on her phone, so there were lots of people to see and Lucy loved it. It resulted in a mini-fit when we had to put the phone away.

Ever since then when Lucy has seen our phones, she's said, "baby," "baby," and made a mad dash to get our phones. It took us a bit to figure out why she was saying baby to our cell phones, but it all made sense when we figured it out. It's kind of funny because Lucy has learned how to swipe the screen to see more pictures and has also learned to push the play icon to view videos. (If she knows how to do this at 16 months, I can only imagine what she will be able to do on our phone, iPad, and computer in another 16 months!) She's usually pretty good with our phones and doesn't throw them down or anything. This new little toy has come in handy a few times, too, when out shopping or doing something where she's getting restless. I just give here the phone and know she will stay occupied for about five minutes.

One downside to this new toy is that sometimes some of my apps have been deleted or moved around and pictures have been taken because she's gotten into the camera app and just started taking pictures not knowing what she was doing. It's kind of funny to find random pictures of the floor in my camera roll! Here's a screen shot from my phone photo album. Don't we have a nice floor?!

A New Year of MOPS

Last year I wrote a post about MOPS. You can read about it here. I was involved in my MOPS group all year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I made some good friends from it and decided to come back this year and even volunteered to be a table host. My job as a table host is to welcome everyone, keep the conversation at my table flowing, try to get everyone involved, keep everyone at my table (8 moms and 1 mentor mom) informed of upcoming events, plan play dates, and just keep everything organized. 

We had our first meeting today and it went really well. Everyone seemed very friendly and like we will all get along well. When I received the list telling me who all was at my table I saw that two of the ladies at my table are part of the steering team. One lady is the finance coordinator and one lady is the coordinator over all of MOPS at Central AG. I have to admit, this really intimidated me and I wished I had not volunteered for this job. I was thinking that again when driving to MOPS this morning.

Overall, I think I'm a pretty friendly and easy to get along with person, but I tend to be shy in new situations and when meeting new people. My shyness came out this morning at the beginning of the meeting but I realized that I was the one in charge of this table and needed to step up and be extra extraverted, but not annoying. :)

The meeting went well and I was proud of myself for coming up with things to talk about and everyone involved. It made me feel very happy and relieved when Bekah, the finance coordinator, told me at the end of the meeting that I did a really good job today. And then later in the day the table host coordinator called to see how everything went. She told me that Sara, the MOPS coordinator, told her I did a great job and she was impressed with how organized I was. Oh that made my day and made me very happy that I'm a table host. Even though I got a little scared and wished I hadn't signed up for it at the beginning, I'm very glad I did. I like things like this and think that I excel at them.

The second thoughts I had this morning on my way to MOPS are quite common for me. I can think of several times when I have started something new and totally regretted it right off the bat, but then was extremely glad that I did it. The time I remember the most is when I started graduate school. After my first graduate class, I remember sitting in my office at work and called my dad, crying, to say that I didn't want to go to graduate school. I don't remember exactly what all he said to me, but I do remember that he was a bit irritated with me. In the end, though, it all worked out just fine and I'm very glad that I went to grad school and I'm very glad that I'm a MOPS table host this year.

I Married A Smart Man

A few nights ago, Ross and I had a rude awakening at 4am in the morning - our neighbors across the street had some friends over and they were outside being very loud for that time of day. We heard what we assumed was one of the (drunk) girls yelling at her boyfriend and the boyfriend seemed to be trying to calm her down. It didn't go on very long, but what was extremely annoying was the fact that I was woken up out of a deep sleep and had a hard time going back to sleep. Oh this frustrated me!

I started thinking about how rude it was of those people to be so loud like that at 4am and also that I wish we had different across the street neighbors. Now, don't get me wrong. We live in a very nice neighborhood and our neighbors are very nice. We don't know much about the across the street neighbor, though. He seems like a nice guy, but just keeps to himself and isn't super friendly when we do see him outside. He's a single guy, maybe our age, and about every few months he'll have a party or an after-party at his house. It's not really that bad, it just got me thinking that I wish we had a different across the street neighbor than we do.

The next day Ross and I were talking about the party outside the night before. I told him that I wished people like us lived there - totally meaning a family with young kids that could play with our kids and we would all enjoy hanging out together. Then I asked Ross if he thought I would be friends with someone who was EXACTLY like me. He paused, looked at me and said, "I'm not going to answer that." I asked him what he meant by that and why he wouldn't answer it. He just laughed and then said, "Yes, I would absolutely love someone who was EXACTLY like me."

He sure is a smart one, my husband!

Slowly Growing Belly

I'm 16 1/2 weeks pregnant and my belly is slowly growing. I remember with Lucy it took a while to really tell I was pregnant. I was working at the time and so many of the women there would tell me how little I looked. It kind of gave me a complex, thinking something was wrong with me because they all said I looked so small. I even remember worrying that the doctor would be mad at me or something because my belly wasn't as big as those women thought it should be. Silly me!

I'm so excited for three weeks from today, September 30, when we have an ultrasound to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. Oh, I can't wait for that! Ross and I have names picked out (Molly and Miles) but that's about it. I haven't looked at any nursery decorations or anything like that. I decided not to look until after we know if we're having a boy or a girl.

Here's pictures of my growing belly!

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

Week 16

Mommy Fail

Our library had a summer reading program, and I was so excited to learn that they even had a program for Lucy's age! The program consisted of 16 activities to complete and once done, you could turn your card in for two free board books. The activities were very simple, such as checking out an ABC book, going to story time at the library, reading a book about animals, different things like that. You just had to turn the activity card in to the library before the deadline of August 2 to receive your free board books. 

Unfortunately, I did not realize how strict the library was in keeping with this deadline of August 2. I didn't get it turned in before August 2 because I thought it really wouldn't matter if I did or not. Ross had August 5 off, which was a story time day, so I planned on turning it in then. When we got there, I went up to the librarian's desk and asked if I could still turn in my card. To my great disappointment, they told me no, it was too late to turn it in. Oh I felt so bad! I felt like I had completely let Lucy down by not turning this card in. I know that she really has no idea about it at all, but I just felt so bad!

You can be assured that next year I will be on top of this library program and get our card turned in on time and be sure to get Lucy's prize!

First Day of College...Again!

Ross had his second first day of college at Missouri State University a few weeks ago! He has decided to go back to school for a second Bachelor's degree - this time in accounting. He graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor's degree in marketing and has been working in the insurance field ever since. He's been with Traveler's Insurance working as a field appraiser for the last 9 years and has been actively looking for a new job over the past year. He enjoys his job, but there have been lots of changes at Traveler's and he is ready for something else. He works from home and travels around the region now, so is looking forward to working in an office again. He's always been interested in accounting and after not having any luck finding a new job, decided school was the best option.

He met with an advisor and found that he will only need to take 10 classes, making it even more of a perfect fit for him. He will take the classes at night, and possibly some online, and hopefully be done in 2.5-3 years. He's taking Tax Accounting 1 this semester and it meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5:30-6:45. He leaves home at 5 and gets back around 7:10, which isn't too bad. He can still be home to help put Lucy to bed - I like that! He will probably have about 2 hours of homework each week, and so far it hasn't been too bad. He works on it on the weekends and at night after Lucy has gone to bed.

I'm so proud of Ross! I think he's made the right decision in going back to school and know that he will do really well. And he was such a good sport and let me take pictures of him on the first day of school!