Not Me Monday! Again!

This blog is intended to be more than a collection of posts about what I have not been doing, but since MckMama's Not Me! Monday blog carnivals tend to involve two important motivators (namely, a deadline and a prize), they seem to be the only ones I've gotten done lately.

OH WELL. At least this post should give you an inkling (more to come, I promise!) of what we have and have not been doing instead of blogging!

First off, DKG and I did not take our 19-month-old Kumquat on her gazillionth trip and add state #13 - CALIFORNIA - to her list of states she's visited (or #18 if you also count places we visited while I was preggo).

On this trip, I did not sacrifice my favorite pair of comfy shoes when we took our Kumquat to the beach just after our arrival in CA. We certainly did not head straight for the beach completely unprepared in spite of the fact that we had perfectly appropriate beach clothing & footwear in our luggage. We were not so excited about taking Little K to see the ocean for the first time that we didn't really care all that much about the shoes we'd miss later.

I did not completely fall in love with these two all over again.

We also did NOT take our crazy monkey toddler to a professional golf event, where everyone knows the audience should be quiet & respectful. And certainly not a major championship, where the stakes are high. Nope, not me!

And I did not have my heart warmed to watch these dads have the greatest Father's Day weekend! (And birthday week for DKG!)

And I did not very seriously consider never returning to the land of Kumquat Stands and instead move on to Colorful Artichoke fields. I mean, come on... Look at this place! Who'd want to live here forever? Certainly not me!

I did not have an awesome Mama KG-Little Kumquat date day while everyone else was at the golf tournament...

and no Kumquat Divas were sighted on this day, either.

And, finally, we did absolutely nothing whatsoever to encourage any diva-ish-ness by taking our 19-month-old (did I mention that already??) to Las Vegas for the third time in her life. I mean, really? Who takes a baby to Vegas?! Certainly not us!

I also did not begin to wonder if maybe she's been there a few times too many... ;)

So, that's a bit of what we have not been up to lately! I promise another post with more information on what we actually DID will be coming soon!

Not Me! Monday - Summer Style

Happy Monday to you! So, once again, I'm hopping on MckMama's bandwagon and writing a Not Me! Monday post about things I most certainly did not do this week yesterday. And it has absolutely nothing to do with me making a bit of a disaster out of a fun event because that's just what I do. Because I don't.

So, first off, I did not on my own decide that the summer picnic my awesome moms' group was having would start at 6:00, in spite of the fact that 6 is really kinda late for a dinner picnic with lots of little kids. Or the fact that the calendar clearly says 5. Nope, not me!

I did not also decide all on my own that the picnic would be held at a park about 2 minutes away from my house, rather than at one about 10 miles away. Especially not when the correct name (and address) of the park was listed on the calendar and its name was really not at all similar to the one I'd imagined.

And I certainly did not discover all of this once we were in the car - 20 minutes late - because I hadn't gotten around to looking at the details until then.

I also did not decide our navigation system didn't know what it was talking about and that we should ignore its directions. Especially since we already were soooo late... and that choice didn't take us about 10 extra miles out of our way. Not at all!!

AND, once we discovered all of my mistakes, I absolutely did NOT cry a little bit about it and really, really consider not going at all.

Thank goodness we didn't do that, because then we would have missed all this...

And that would really have been a shame.

I'm in Trouble

My kid is a diva... and she acts like she's 13 sometimes. For real. I mean, look at this girl.

At our last swim lesson (which sadly was weeks ago, since we were out of town last week & the little one isn't feeling too great today), she decided I'm no longer allowed to touch her while she's in the pool. Why, you might ask, would an 18-month-old not want her mama to support her while she's in water over her head? She was totally flirting with the lifeguard. I'm not kidding. She was batting her (ridiculously long & gorgeous) eyelashes at him, waving, and smiling. If I got between her view of him, she'd say "Nay! Nay!" (toddler-speak for "Mo-om! Get away! You're embarrassing me!") and push me out of the way. We finally reached a compromise where I could support her in the water and keep her from drowning only if I stayed on the far side of her and did not get between her and the object of her affection. Sigh.

Kind of the same thing she said when we took this picture. "OMG, Mom! Do I have to take another picture with you guys? SO embarrassing." Yes, child. It's Mother's Day. Suck it up.

Just look at her at our fabulous brunch on Mother's Day. And look at her sweet cousin, S. I think sometimes S doesn't know what to make of my Kumquat Diva.

Besides her general diva-ish-ness, she LOVES to pose. I've posted her "Cheese!" face before. Since then, she's added a little head tilt and arm positioning.

And check out that knee.

Oh yes, her mama's in big trouble.

Full Circle

And we're home



-- A Mobile Post

Weary Travelers

We made it to Chicago for a friend's wedding! It's our first trip as a family since we decided on a travel ban for February. We thought it would be an easy little trip. Our home airport is so small that it hardly takes any time to get through it. I should have known better. Nothing is easy in Chicago! Don't get me wrong; I totally love the city and sometimes wish we lived somewhere a little more... active. :) I sure don't miss the hassles though! So, almost 3 hours later than we'd hoped, we're finally on the way to my BIL's... I expect it'll take a couple hours to get from O'Hare to their place on the Southside. It is rush hour... and Friday... and raining... and Chicago!

-- A Mobile Post

18 Beautiful Months

Today, my little girl is 18 months old!

The months have flown by. It doesn't seem long ago that she was just a tiny little peanut.

In no time, she became a jet-setting baby flying here and there when she was just 6 months old. She's been in 14 states so far!

Before I knew it, Fall was here and we were celebrating her first birthday.

Now, Spring has come again and my Kumquat is definitely more little girl than baby.

So, here's what going on with my sweet girl these days...

She and Pink Kitty are still BFF's, but she has added some new folks to her entourage.

She's such a funny little collector. She always wants to make sure she has as many buddies & toys with her as possible. In the mornings, it takes a long time to get her out of the crib because she checks out all of the 4,325 buddies sleeping in her bed and tries to figure out how many she can hold long enough to get out of the crib with her. She's recently started handing me some guys to carry. It's funny how behaviors change, but are the same over time. Before she could walk, Baby K would crawl on her wrists so she could carry one toy in each hand. Just before she started walking, she tried also carrying something between her feet. I think that's when she finally gave it up and started walking. :)

We're finally starting to get some consistent words out of the little girl! Not too many, but we'll take what we can get. Baby girl loves to climb, so her favorite word now is "Up!"

And by "up," she means any vertical motion - up OR down. She also says, "Go!" Especially if you set her up with a good, "Ready! Set!" Just in the last few days, she started saying "Eat." She also sometimes says "Dada" and "Hi" and sometimes both together for a very precious, "Hi, Dada!" Even though she just has a handful of words, she is extremely communicative. She uses 51 signs! I counted today. God Bless Baby Signing Time... and God Bless my good friend, Sarah, for telling me about it! Today at brunch, K asked for "more drink please." I told DKG I can't imagine how different things would be for us right now if we weren't signing.

She actually has made up a few of her own signs. My favorite is her sign for "glasses." She makes a fist and taps the back of her hand on her eye. She also has her own signs for "walk" (the sign for "shoes" moving up and down), "spider" (so she can play the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" game on my iPhone), and swing (basically the same as "wind.")

Glasses and shoes are two of her favorite things right now. She can put her sunglasses on her face correctly on her own, although she does sometimes still prefer to wear them upside down or around her neck. Most of the time she gets it right, though! She also desperately wants to get her shoes on her feet all by herself. She can almost get some of them, but she can totally get her rain boots on alone, which may be why she loves them so. She's been dying to wear them, so she was thrilled to do some official puddle stomping last week.

Some of her favorite activities now are swimming at the YMCA, going to My Gym and walking to the playground. Even though the playground is just down the street, it usually takes us at least 45 minutes to get there and usually about an hour to get back. That might have a little something to do with all the awesome neighbors we meet along the way.

She has become so independent and adventurous. I just love that about her. She is so focused and determined and doesn't give up on trying any big girl thing... even if it's scary to her at first.

And once she can do it, she is just SO proud of herself.

And that makes me such a proud Mama.

Writer's Block

I swear I haven't disappeared. I'm having a serious case of writer's block lately. Well, it's actually more like editor's block. It feels like I've written a bazillion posts lately, but never posted them because I didn't really feel happy with them. When I'm not trying to write a post, I have a lot of what seem like clever ideas... which all fly right out of my head the second I sit down to write them.

I do have one in the works that I'll post soon that should be fun for all. Or at least there may be a little something in it for you... ;) Until then, enjoy some pictures of a birthday party we went to last weekend for my Kumquat's friend, Sassy.

Please try to overlook my sobbing child ruining the group shot and causing the birthday girl some concern! Believe it or not, this was the best group shot I took. :)

My girl is such a funny mix of bold and cautious. She is not keen on brand new situations. She really prefers to sit back and figure it all out before she's required to engage in any way. It's true even if some of her best buddies are there.

That makes birthday parties a little tricky. She was really not at all interested in leaving my side for most of the time...

until we went in to have cake and she ran laps around the room while the bigger kids sat at the table and ate.

Unfortunately, it means that this mama didn't have much time for picture taking. Good thing the birthday girl's mama is quite the experienced photo pro!

Not Me! Monday

It's been a while since I've done a "Not Me! Monday" post, but this weekend, I found myself mentally writing a post and figured it was probably a good time to do one.

First, I did NOT arranged to have some folks over for dinner just a couple days after getting from being out of town for a week. I know that it always takes me about a week to get my bearings after traveling like that, so it would just be silly to say that would be a good day to do it. Certainly not something I could do! Oh - and the dinner AND the date definitely were NOT my ideas. Really.

I also did NOT schedule this dinner for a date when I knew DKG was on general surgery call for his group and then totally expect that he would be home to help me get everything together. I mean, come on... We've been doing this for 8 years. I know better than to assume a call night would be quiet. Really I do. So, I totally would NOT have been completely counting on him and waiting for him to get home and attend to our unusually clingy cuddly Kumquat.

I then did NOT call my dear neighbor in a bit of a panic to see if she could come over to stay with K while I ran to the grocery store to get the food for dinner about 2 hours before my guests were due to arrive - especially not when I'd just given up "scrambling around at the last minute" for Lent and was so proud of myself for doing so much better in this area.

I then did NOT let my 17-MONTH-OLD child stay awake until the guests left just after 10 pm because I couldn't figure out a way to put her down for the night while also being a good host. That would just be irresponsible and not anything this 5-star Mama would do. Of course.

Finally, I did NOT have another glass of wine after cleaning up from dinner and get all choked up thinking about our Wichita friends (and amazing neighbor-friends, especially!) while I waited up for DKG, who didn't get home from operating until about 2 am... long after I'd given up and gone to bed. Poor guy.

But that's just me! Wonder what else folks have NOT been doing this week? Hope on over to MckMama's and see what others are talking about today.