Fear of Flying

Well, it’s almost arrived — vacation time! I am in the middle of packing the “world’s most crap that will never be worn on one trip”. (Seriously, there should be an award for that.) Tonight I aim to eliminate some of it so I can actually bring some clothes for KC too. I suppose making her rotate two outfits the whole time would be very uncool.

We leave early tomorrow morning. Ted’s Dad will be driving us to the airport. By noon we should be in our rental car and driving a couple more hours to Duluth. (If Avis doesn’t have the car seat I asked for you will hear me yelling all the way in Virginia.) It will be a long day, but hopefully worth it. We’ll be gone for more than a week. It’s a MUCH needed vacation for Ted and I. The pressure to have fun is HUGE. Ted won’t stop saying how awesome it’s going to be, etc.

Dear God, this better be fun.

This also happens to be the first time KC has ever flown on a plane. I am nervous as hell. I don’t really know why exactly. She’s a really good kid. People find her cute and charming. However, those people are typically passing by at the grocery store. Not stuck in the seat in front of her, or trying to sleep in the seats behind us. I am certain she’ll be her usual adorable self, but she’s very “active” these days. She likes to walk and run and explore. She’s full of energy and she’s just young enough that telling her to sit still is kind of a joke. Of course we plan to have stuff to entertain her, but it’s always the stuff she can’t have or can’t do that seems to lure her. I have this fear of the “tantrum to end all tantrums” when we try desperately to make her understand that “you have to sit in this seat until the captain says it’s ok to get up.” Yeah! Right. Even then, I don’t really want to get up and let her pace the aisles. Pain. In. The. Butt. That sounds like.

I pray to the Gods of airline travel (I’m talking to YOU, Knome!) that she’ll SLEEEEEP. (“She always sleeps in the car!” she said in a slightly manic tone.) Thank goodness it’s not a very long flight. We have one layover and I personally think that is a good thing. More opportunity for her to run around in the terminal and tire herself out. We shall see. I’ll be offline until after July 4th. I will definitely come back with photos and (hopefully) stories about how amazingly good she was on the plane!

Wow, you should have seen her! They were so impressed they gave her “wings” and let her sit in the cockpit! “Best kid ever on a plane!” the crew said. “You two are model parents!” all the passengers exclaimed.

If not then hopefully there will be stories that, while horrifying for us, will at least be entertaining for you. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

All Dads Go to Heaven

And by “Dads” I don’t mean simply men who sired children either. I mean DADS, real, honest-to-goodness DADS. The ones who grill for us, mow the lawn so we can play, pick us up and twirl around, or become a human swing on command. The guys who teach us how to do things like ride a bike, fish, paddle a canoe and paint an Easter egg with more pizazz than anything Martha Stewart could ever dream up. The men who often provide us our first jobs, our first cars, our first opportunity to build something. Our first real sense of pride and accomplishment.

Ted and I were lucky. We both had Dads like this. Dads who cared, who were fun and smart, who made us feel safe and alternately scared the crap out of us when we needed it. (Math grades come to mind for me.) Our Dads were responsible and held jobs to provide for us. They cheered for us and encouraged us. They pushed us sometimes too. All this because, they knew. This is what a good Dad does. This is what comes naturally when you love your children and your family.

Now I am lucky because my daughter has two amazing Grandfathers who helped mold her parents to be who they are now. And, of course, she got one pretty amazing Dad. Ted, you are so wonderful with KC. Fatherhood truly looks good on you. I know you will continue to be great at it. I’m sure there will be many hard days. I imagine you and KC will fight sometimes. I can already see she’s a lot like you! She’s got spunk and personality, she’s stubborn and also tough. She’s funny and silly. These things will get her through a lot of stuff and I know you will be right by her side. And mine too. Thank you for being such a wonderful husband and father.

Happy Father’s Day, Ted (aka Dada, Daddy and Dad)
Happy Father’s Day to my own Dad (aka “Gramps”)
Happy Father’s Day to Ted’s Dad, my Father-in-Law (aka  “Grandad”)

You guys are the greatest. Some might even say the World’s Greatest!

Snippets

I read a post on another blogger’s site that was simply a list of cute/funny things her girls do that she wants to remember. Good idea. So many things go on that don’t prompt me to draft an entire blog post, but they are still worth recording. Here are some of the most recent things that KC does that make us laugh, smile and/or sigh in frustration (and then laugh later):

Every night before her bath, she must run stark naked from the bathroom to the kitchen, squealing and laughing the whole time. She makes it to the dishwasher, stands with her bare bum and palms pressed against it, a look of mischief on her face, then runs back towards the bathroom again. The first couple of times we tried to stop her, but now it’s become part of the routine. “Here comes naked baby!”

*****

She seems to think “home” means wherever we happen to be going. At Grandma’s when we arrive to pick her up after work, she goes to the door and says, “Home.” In the mornings as we near time to go to Grandma’s she stands near the door and says, “Home.” Or, maybe she just feels that comfortable at Grandma’s.

*****

She LOVES to wear my shoes. (Ted’s sometimes too, but they are much bigger and more difficult to operate.) She’s gotten very adept at slipping into my flip flops and walking across the floor. She even manages the two stairs in the kitchen. Shoes and hats. This girl is going to be good at accessorizing.

*****

In the bath she lines up a bunch of her little plastic characters on the side of the tub, then carefully places other objects on their heads like little hats. She does this so carefully and accurately. Then she shuffles them around into a different line-up while trying to keep the “hats” balanced.

*****

Ted asked her over the weekend, “Who do you love more, Daddy or Mommy?” KC replies, “Mommy.” (Dad makes a sad face.) Ted asks her, “Who is more fun, Mommy or Daddy?” KC replies, “Daddy.” (Ted smiles, I roll my eyes and suggest she’s repeating the last word she hears. Ted considers this.) I ask her, “Who do you love more, Mommy or Daddy?” KC replies, “Daddy.” Yep. I thought so.

*****

Just as having milk in a bottle has become a habit based in comfort, watching TV has become a habit based in the fact that Mommy and Daddy have it running all the time. We have become Noggin junkies. Before, she would simply asked for a bottle as soon as we plopped her down in the living room after the pick up from Grandma’s in the evening. Now it’s “Bottle.” followed very closely by “TV.” Uh-oh.

*****

All she wants lately is to be outside, or as she calls it, “Side.” That’s probably a lot better than Noggin all day. Except when it’s raining. Or when it’s after 7 pm. Ted and I have to put our foot down then. We are pretty good about switching off to watch her when she wants to go “side”. Often we all go “side”, because, truly, it’s summer and we could all use the fresh air and sunshine.

*****

She likes to use the word “stuck”. I open the door to the car to help her out of the carseat, she’s arching her back saying, “Stuck”. She wedges herself between our legs as we sit on the couch and declares herself, “Stuck”. After finishing dinner this evening she got a very frustrated look on her face, pushed and sighed at the highchair tray as she exclaimed, (all together now) “Stuck. Stuck!”

*****

I love it when Ted chases her around the house. He hides behind corners and waits. She knows that he’s hiding and will jump out soon. The anxious anticipation on her face as she approaches the area where he’s disappeared is just wonderful. “Ahhhhh-rrrr!” Ted shouts as he jumps back into view. She jumps a little and giggles a lot. She doesn’t scare easily.

*****

The weight of her body, her squirmy legs and the softness of her wispy hair under my nose as she sits on my lap in the evenings for TV and books. I will miss that when she’s too big for such things. She doesn’t need to lay in my lap so much anymore to get settled for bedtime. The past few nights we’ve simply taken her to bed, still awake, and declared it “bedtime”. She fusses some, but generally goes down without a fight. It just dawned on me this very moment. The old ritual of “waiting her out” as she lays on my lap has given me a lot of sweet moments with her (also frustrating moments on nights when it drags too late). It has started to fade into the past. No more drifting away in Mommy’s lap each night. Hopefully a few more times, but soon she won’t need it. It was inevitable I suppose. Sweet dreams little one. Tomorrow is a new day.

Just be yourself. Sometimes.

Disclaimer: This is long and kind of personal, but not personal in an innapropriate way, just personal in a truthful (yet not too truthful) way that makes for a really long and possibly boring post that reads like some pathetic chic’s diary entry. You might abandon it half way through. If you do, it’s ok. I’ll understand. I just need to get it out and write it down ’cause it’s been a very real issue for way too long and it’s finally being dealt with. Kind of. It’s a start anyway.

*****

Is it ok to change yourself to please someone else, or make a relationship work? I think the answer is yes and no. At the core, we are who we are and shouldn’t have to change it much to make someone like us, or to please the people around us. However, relationships (especially marriage) are complicated things. It’s a two-way street…a game of give and take…it’s full of compromises. It’s kind of like a full time job in that it takes work. A lot of work. And patience. And understanding. Don’t forget patience and understanding. Sometimes it needs a lot of forgiveness too.

Ted and I aren’t perfect. (I know! You’re shocked aren’t you?) We have some issues. Not “deal breaker” issues, but issues just the same. We mainly have trouble communicating with each other. I tend to hold everything in and I HATE (and I do mean HATE) confrontation. I HATE (again with the emphasis) having someone mad at me, or yelling at me. And, of course I HATE yelling and getting mad at someone myself. I dislike it so much that I tend to fool myself into thinking I am fine with things I am not fine with just to avoid having to tell someone how I’m feeling. The things that I shove down get under my skin and fester for a while, causing me to do that annoying thing where you say, “I’m fine.” But really? Not fine, and then my mood sucks, and I didn’t get the issue off my chest. Everybody loses.

Ted also has some trouble letting me know how he’s feeling, but it’s different with him. While he doesn’t yell and fight with me on a regular basis, he does have a tendency to be quick with the bad mood and the crappy remarks. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it most of the time. He’s stressed due to work, or his health (arthritis mainly) and he snaps at whoever is in the vicinity. Usually me. He’s quick to switch back and forth from crabby to happy too. It’s like a roller coaster sometimes. A roller coaster I never get off of because I’m too busy being upset to realize the ride is over.

Typical male behavior I think (forgive me males, for generalizing). They get annoyed, lash out, get over it, move on to happy…all in the space of 30 minutes or so. I hold onto my annoyance/anger (that I never expressed to begin with) for a whole lot longer. Like a day or more. It makes for one big vicious cycle where somebody is annoyed pretty much all of the time, and both parties are annoyed at least half the time. Suckage.

It came to kind of a head recently. I won’t go into the gory details, but we’ll just say the constant “cold attitude” from me and his not being able to curb the bad tempered remarks made for a not-so-romantic couple. The not-so-romantic trend had been around for way too long already in all honesty, and it was just getting worse. Add to that the understandable stress of parenthood, finances, work and life in general…sigh…and it’s no wonder that after six years of marriage we are finally hitting one of those “ruts” or “bumpy spots” you hear so much about.

The good part is that Ted and I do have an awful lot of positive stuff in common. Love for one another for starters. Respect and also that awesome sense of humor we both seem to have in spades. (Thank the Lord for that.) The “rut” seems to be filling in. For now anyway. We sort of talked about how we don’t really talk (um, yeah…still not good at talking) but most importantly I (me, myself and I) looked inward a bit to figure out just what the hell my (our) problem was.

I decided to try acting a little less like the stressed, annoyed, cold fish of a wife who’s just tired of being, well, annoyed. I also am trying to stop being so damn sensitive every time he gets pissy and directs it toward my area of the room. I am too sensitive. That’s a fact. Truth is, I KNOW that most days when Ted gets grumpy and speaks to me in a less-than-polite way it’s totally nothing personal. (Usually.) A lot of the time I instinctively know that I should leave him alone for short while and I do. Another truth? I probably do the same thing to him sometimes. He just doesn’t get as irritated by it for as long as I do. (Remember that 30 minute vs. a full day thing?)

Another thing I am doing is to be honest about the fact that he’s very physically affectionate. He loves to touch me and to be touched. For some odd reason that stuff doesn’t come as naturally for me. Not that I don’t like my husband, but I’m not a particularly “needy” person when it comes to touch. He is. I’ve been trying to remember that just thinking in my head that I love him, or that he looks cute isn’t the same as actually saying it to him out loud. Likewise, I need to remember to give him a little squeeze or a kiss even if it’s not what I totally crave at the moment. He probably does need it.

This marriage thing is seriously a learning curve. Ted also has attempted to change some of his habits in dealing with me and our life in general. (Just so you don’t think I am the only one doing any work here!) He actually said to me this weekend, “Thanks for being so nice to me lately.” Sounds odd, but it made me really happy. I hadn’t told him my plan to adjust my interactions with him and it was kind of cool to see that he’d noticed it. I told him about how I figured that I could probably do a better job of letting him know I cared, and how I was trying to not get so bent out of shape at every single less-than-happy reaction/comment he had over some dumb thing or another. It’s working for the moment. He’s happier and so he’s not doing the stuff that gets me “bent” as much. We had a pretty awesome weekend as a result.

I’ll keep this up as best I can. Now that he’s onto me, I think he’ll also try to do the same. Hopefully this cycle of “being nice” will trump the other cycle of stress and shit that was spinning around this house. I’m not stupid, I know bad days will come and go. With practice, however, I hope in a few more years the “being nice” stuff will come more naturally to the point where we don’t have to try so hard.

Then again, maybe 10 years from now I’ll have grown so tired of his crap that I’ll have him locked in the garage with a small cot and a toothbrush…surviving off the kindness of neighbor’s leftovers and beer from his buddies while KC and I live luxuriously in the house by ourselves…shoe shopping online and ordering out every night of the week because neither of us can cook for shit.

Just kidding. I think. Thanks for listening.

21 Months

KC turns 21 months old on Sunday. We are almost at the big T-W-O. The change in her lately is really astounding. I could wax poetic about how fast they grow in the first 2 years, but you’ve heard it before. If you are a parent, you have experienced it. Lately she looks tall and lean. She’s losing the baby roundness in favor of the more sleek look of advanced toddlerhood. She looks more like a kid now than a baby. She’s even getting longer curls after being somewhat bald for so long.

She is tossing out many more phrases than before. They come out of nowhere sometimes. At the beginning of the week, as her Dad escorted her out the door to go to Grandma’s for the day, she looked at me and said, “Bye-bye, Mommy. Bye-bye.” She’s said bye a million times, but it was the complete phrase that just floored me. The way she said it with such conviction, so clearly and full of purpose.

(Funny thing. She also said, “Bye-bye, Mommy.” to her Dad after he dropped her off and was leaving Grandma’s for work. Ahhh, well. I’m sure she meant “Daddy”.)

None of this is any surprise, yet at the same time…it really is. Each time she jumps forward so obviously in her development it gives us such a thrill. It’s like we get complacent for a couple of weeks and then, all of a sudden…“Oh! Right! You are a real person! One who will, like, grow up and stuff! Damn. My bad. Are you gonna read the Metro section, or can I steal that from you?”

How long do you suppose before I can get her to make my coffee on weekend mornings?

Little Lady

One-5-oh!

I was making love to bag of Chex Mix when it hit me. It’s Wednesday Weigh-in Day! Joy. We don’t have a scale here at work so I figured I might as well go to the gym and work off all those pretzels and rice squares. With fingers crossed (and all articles of clothing save for a teeny-tiny towel removed) I got on the scale and…Yes! I have lost one pound since last week. I am finally at 150.

Ultimately, I’m aiming for about 140 if I can do it. Truth be told, I am pretty happy with 150. I never was one to obsess over the numbers. However, if I can fit comfortably into some of my pre-pregnancy shorts by the end of summer I shall certainly do a little jig. They are still too tight to wear in public. Screw scales. Pants are the real test for weight loss and general good health.

I realize the blog has been somewhat comandeered by this fitness/weight-loss kick I am on. I hope my regular visitors (All 3 of you!) don’t mind. I will try to intersperse more posts about “Life With KC” for those of you who are growing bored with all my inspirational talk of “inner goddesses” and “badassery” and what not.

Air Guitar

Ok, so it’s probably just coincidence that KC is holding her hands in a perfect “air guitar” pose in this photo. Then again…she is pretty damn smart.

The family that rocks together...

Keep it real, ya’ll.
-JRock

Dr. Badass and Mrs. Blob

Total “Badassery”. That’s a word I just made up. I didn’t Google the word, but I’m pretty sure I just made it up. We’ll just pretend that I did. It is a word that sums up what I feel while in the midst of a great workout or run. Like my 10k this past weekend. I am proud to report that I did really well. My time was 1 hr. and 16(ish) minutes. I ran the entire time. No walk breaks. That was my goal and I accomplished it. I felt really good. Until I saw the photos.

Let me stop here for a moment and just say that my Mom is amazing. She met me in Annapolis and actually stayed overnight with me. She paid for my hotel and a very good (and expensive) dinner in downtown Annapolis the evening before. She got up at O’dark-thirty in the morning and went out in pouring rain to stand with an umbrella to shield me while I waited for an hour to start the race. She never complained and never wavered. She wore a smile and was, as ever, my cheerleader. I love you Mom.

She also took a lot of photos, which was awesome. If she hadn’t done that, I would have no photo record of the day. That would have been a shame. However, as much as I appreciated those photos, they also kind of horrified me. Some of them were not, um, flattering. At all. The truth is I hardly ever find myself attractive in photos. They seem to always capture my worst angle. Usually it’s no big deal. I just toss them out put them aside.

But…on this day in particular I had felt the complete and total “badassery” of a real athlete as I moved through each mile. In my mind’s eye I was strong and beautiful. I was long lean legs, strong shoulders with a look of total determination and feminine beauty on my face at all times. All this in my mind’s eye. The camera is cruel. She reveals ashy, chicken skin on not-so-perfect legs, flabby arms, scraggly hair and a face that looked about 10 years older than my regular face. A face that wore a grimace of what could have been mistaken for pain and discomfort. (A few of the photos I speak of were taken by an events company out on the course. They later post them online.) It sucked to see that image looking back at me.

A couple of the photos were alright. I am going overboard on this description. However, I’m just trying to illustrate a point. The truth is, photos are often full of crap. For us mere mortals, photos can be unfair depictions of who we actually are. (Just look at tabloids that hightlight real celebrities in their not-so-perfect moments.) We are far more beautiful in real life than we are when captured in a split-second moment on film. Today at the gym I saw her again. The woman I love. The one I like to think is the real me. The badass, the Goddess, the athlete…ok, ok, I’m being kind of narcissistic now. But, I think you know what I mean.

When I am on the treadmill at the gym, doing my typical run, I feel invincible. Nevermind that I’m not the fastest runner. I feel great. I look over at that full-length mirror and the living, breathing, moving, pulsing, strong body in motion I see there tells the real story. That determined face that reflects back at me is the one I imagine in my mind. (Most days anyway.) The proud girl. The strong, beautiful girl. Nevermind that I still notice all the flaws. They are not as big to me when I’m feeling like “Dr. Badass”. At that point I have run far, far away from “Mrs. Blob” and left her sitting with her coffee and cookies and her self pity. Sure, she’ll be back, but I’ll put on my running shoes and shake her off once again.

A decent shot of me before the race started.

Ok, this one's not too bad either.

*****

I would like to also mention that I’m still “Down with the Sisterhood”. I missed yesterday’s weigh-in so I’m offering it up today instead. Surprisingly have not lost anything since my last report. I’m still at about 151. The new challenge has begun and runs until mid-July. Seven weeks. I will state here and now that I want to make it to 146. That is 5 lbs. I must work on my food choices a bit. It will also be a challenge to keep running now that the race is over. Am thinking I should sign up for a race in July or August to keep me motivated. Not with TNT this time. I think I’ll go solo and pray for some Saturday morning willpower.