Silly Shenanigans

We just got home last night from a too short, fun-filled trip to visit my family in TN and to celebrate the 2nd birthday of my sweet niece, Emma. Isn't she just precious?? I have to admit that it has been SOO hard to pick which pictures to post of our trip, so I'm going to go ahead and link to the entire album - videos and all!

Here is the birthday girl getting a head start on the celebrating...
Dancing on the table!
Isn't that a precious cake her mama made for her?
Look, being a princess is not all that easy. It takes a lot of hard work!
An AWE-filled birthday
Grammy & her girl
Pizza, cake & apple juice... quite a birthday feast for a little princess!
Nummy!!
Yay, presents! Emma got the most awesome kitchen ever from her mommy & daddy and a pretty adorable apron (from this lovely vendor) from a certain auntie, uncle & baby cousin...
And what did a Baby Kumquat do while her big cousin opened presents? Why, she sat in cousin's chair and had a snack, of course!
And let's not forget this sweet baby sissy...
Big girl teaching her little cousin how to cook

The fun continued the following day when we went to the greatest park ever. Seriously. It was amazing. It had LOADS of equipment, a splash pad, a lovely layout, and a Starbucks. What more could you possibly want?
An amazingly gorgeous day? Check.
Sweet girls to play with? Check.
Silly girls who always make me laugh? Definitely check!

On the Road Again - or - A Few of My Favorite Things

So, I've taken a bit of a blogging vacation. I've definitely taken a bit of a travel vacation. We're nearing the end of the end of the longest travel-plan-free spell we've had since we hit the road again after the baby was born. What have I been doing since we haven't been traveling? Honestly, I don't know. I suspect it somehow involves lots of playtime with a certain little girl, but seriously - where has the past month gone? From the state of things, I can tell you what I have NOT been doing: blogging, cleaning my house, working out, filling in K's baby book and responding to emails in a timely manner. Yup, I suck.

Anywho... We're hitting the road again soon, so I'm starting to think about our past trips and all those little friends of mine who have made my life a bit easier. If you've read this blog for long, you know that we're a jet-setting family who travels to exotic locations like Midland, TX, Sioux Falls, SD, and Clarksville, TN. Look at all the places we've been since DKG & I found out we were expecting a little Kumquat!

Source:create your own personalized map of the USA or check out our California travel guide

So far (knock on wood), she has been an amazing traveler. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on traveling with a baby, but I am an expert on traveling with a Baby Kumquat. I've had quite a few mama friends ask if I have any travel tips. My #1 tip is to have a happy, joyful, laid-back, easy-going baby who sleeps well and loves to cuddle close to her mama (especially when she's stuck in her mama's lap on a plane for 3 hours).

So, how about some things that that we actually have control over? There are some products I've found that do make our traveling days a little easier. Since I'm forever in the debt of many mommy friends who have shared their favorite products with me, I thought I'd return the favor and share my favorite things for traveling.

1. Chic & Cozy Blanket Bag by ChicTots.
   The first time I flew with the baby girl, I carried a big, heavy backpack stuffed with everything I thought I could possibly need. I really did use most everything in that bag, but boy was it heavy! For our last flight, I packed the backpack, but also brought this blanket bag along and used it to carry everything I'd need to have handy while we were on the plane or in the airport. As you can see, it came in handy once we were at the hotel and had a long wait while Lola took care of getting us checked in. Perfect for a picnic!
   
   
2. Changing Wallet by Skip*Hop
   I bet you think this is a diaper-changing wallet, don't you? Apparently the folks at Skip*Hop think so, too. But me? For me, it's an awesome way to organize all the odds & ends I need to feed a Kumquat on the go. I do use a diaper wallet for travel (this one, to be exact), but I have found that the Skip*Hop one is great for food. I usually bring a couple containers of baby food*, some spoons**, bibs***, snacks, table covers, wipes & extra ziploc bags in it.
   *I usually either make Baby K's food or use pre-made organic frozen food, but that doesn't travel so well. For travel, I use Gerber Organics. I'd prefer Earth's Best, but the glass jars are heavier for traveling with than Gerber's plastic ones.
   **I use the take & toss kind for travel because sometimes it's just easier not to worry about cleaning the spoons all of the time. I do always keep 2 Ziploc's in the bag - one for clean spoons & one for dirty.
   ***I usually bring one real bib, but mostly use disposables. I've found through trial and error (mostly error) that bibs can go awry in the luggage if they're not cleaned and dried very thoroughly before packing.
   
   
3. My Little Seat
   
   
   I think one of the most difficult things about staying in a hotel with a baby is feeding her. Most hotel rooms don't come with a highchair, you know. I've also found - especially in Vegas - that so many highchairs in restaurants are broken. This lovely little highchair sling is awesome. It folds to about the size of a diaper. It's easy to use and as long as you can tie a knot, the baby is quite secure! I've even used it at home when the regular cover on K's highchair was in the wash.
   
   
4. My Buddies, Robeez
   Baby K loves to stand. She pulls herself up on everything. In preparation for our last flight, I imagined the little girl standing in the airport, on the airport carpeting, with her sweet, soft little baby feet and had only one thought... eew! I wanted to make sure we had something on her feet that would stay put. When she was younger (and it was cooler), I'd just dress her in a sleeper for a flight. But we were flying to Vegas and it was supposed to be well over 100. So, we needed shoes. I'd heard these shoes are way hard for kids to remove and it's true! So far, our little Houdini has not gotten them off on her own. She also doesn't seem to mind that they're on her feet. Oh, and have I mentioned that they're so. stinkin'. cute?! (And isn't Baby K??)
   
   
5. Fiddlesticks!
   I've recently become a fan of Plum Organics. I have to admit that I don't love their frozen baby food as much as Happy Baby's, but I really love their Fiddlesticks and Mish Mash. Fiddlesticks are basically like teething biscuits, but not as messy. I'm continuously searching for healthy snacks for us to take on the go and these two are my current favorites. I thought the Mish Mash (like Gogurt, but just fruit and easier for little ones) might be too advanced for my Baby Kumquat, but we tried it for the first time this morning and she was able to feed herself very easily. That's my goal, after all. (And that's for entirely noble, good-parent reasons like encouraging her self-sufficiency, independence, and sense of competence which will then lead to a healthy self-esteem and positive attitude towards the word and has absolutely nothing to do with the face that once she can feed herself, I can do other things... like eat.)

So there you have it! A few of my favorite (traveling) things! Hopefully these guys will continue to help us have happy trails. I'll keep you posted!

Welcome Baby Paul!

A warm welcome to the newest member of the family... my nephew and godson, Paul! We love him already and I just can't wait to see him next month and kiss his sweet little toes off!

-- A Mobile Post

Remembering 9/11

It was one of those moments when you automatically knew you would always remember the day it happened and what you were doing when you heard. The Challenger Disaster was the first experience I'd had with this in my life (we were in Sr. John's 3rd grade class listening to the launch on the radio... yep, I'm that old!), but we all knew right away that this was huge. Here are my memories of that day...

I was working in Admissions at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. Over the summer, we'd had a tropical storm, which flooded caused a "high water incident" in Texas Medical Center and destroyed the Admissions Office. After several moves, we took up residence in a cubbyhole office in the Department of Internal Medicine. That's where I was when my co-worker's boyfriend called and said that "something bad was happening" and we should find a TV. We did find one down the hall and got there just in time to see the first tower collapse.

I returned to my office and called my mom, who hadn't heard anything yet. My youngest brother was in the 82nd Airborne Division & they were on field alert status, which means they had to be ready to ship out within 24 hours (or something like that - sorry if I have that wrong, Kev!). My mom was immediately panicking saying, "He's gone, he's gone. They've already gone, I'm sure." It seems funny now - 2 deployments later - that the idea of his deploying was so terrifying. But it was.

By the afternoon, all of the "non-essential" (basically non-medical) people in the Medical Center were being sent home. Probably because no one was really interested in working anyway. I remember riding the bus home & seeing all of the emergency vehicles stationed in the Med Center... just in case.

DKG (who was home because he'd had a bad needle stick the day before and had to get HIV testing & preemptive HIV meds) and I watched the news in my apartment in Houston for the rest of the day. There was lots of concern in the news about whether or not Houston would be attacked, as I'm sure there was everywhere else. They were worried about the oil refineries being terrorist targets and there were people evacuating the city. The shock, fear and grief was overwhelming. I remember thinking that nothing would ever be the same, that some previously unacknowledged sense of safety and security was gone forever.

There's a passage from Rilla of Ingleside (one of the Anne of Green Gables novels) I thought of immediately...

In March of the year of grace 1918 there was one week into which must have crowded more of searing human agony than any seven days had ever held before in the history of the world. And in that week there was one day when all of humanity seemed nailed to the cross; on that day the whole planet must have been agroan with universal convulsion; everywhere the hearts of men were failing them for fear.

What were you doing on September 11, 2001?

Ten Months!

It's true! As of yesterday, the Baby Kumquat is 10 months old! Cr-azy. What's also crazy is all the stuff she's started doing in the last few weeks. Let's see if I can hit some highlights:

• She is a signing machine! I love it. She started signing "milk" almost as soon as we began doing the sign language thing when she was around 7 mos. It took a while for many others to catch on, but now she's all over it. Some of the ones she uses often (that I've recognized, anyway) are: "more," "all done," "fish," "ball," "shoe," "hat," "dog," "wash hands," and "dad."
  
  
• She's talking more and more every day. It's funny to me how she gets and loses words. She'll start with a new word and use it regularly, but then stop for a while. Over the past few weeks, she's used "duck," "dog," "cat," "uh-oh," "bye," "mama," and "dada."
  
  
• She's all over the place, too. She has gotten super quick with her crawling - and she's now doing a more traditional right-left crawl rather than her earlier inchworm moves. She pulling up and cruising all over the house. She seems to have lost interest in walking for the moment, but I have a feeling that won't last for long. She used to take a few steps if I held her hands. Now she usually just sits down. She has stood for a few seconds without any support a few times, too!
  
  
  Oh, and she's a dancing queen, too.
  
  
  
• She eats so well. I'm very lucky that she's been pretty open to most everything I've tried giving her. She definitely does not prefer the green veggies, but she'll eat them if I'm persistent. She totally ♥'s cheese. It's basically her favorite thing ever. She recently has decided that she would much rather feed herself than wait for her mama to feed her mush with a spoon. Oh, and she's quite generous. She's more than happy to share her puffs with me.
  
  
• She's still a great traveler, although I think our recent trip to and through South Dakota may have traumatized her just a bit. She was awesome on the trip, but for about a week, she cried every time we put her in her carseat. Hopefully she'll get over that soon. Her summer has included trips to SD, TN, Las Vegas, and MO. Busy girl! I recently counted them up and realized Baby K will be in at least 11 states by her first birthday. Now that's crazy!
  

I've always been fascinated by people's thought processes (part of why I became a counselor), so that's exponentially true for my daughter. I love that she's signing & talking more because I've been able to have more insights into how she's beginning to understand the world. It truly amazes me how much babies pick up. Yesterday we were singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" (yep, she does motions for it - oh, and she claps & waves now, too!) she signed "wash hands" when I said, "washed the spider out." Impressive, no?

Funny story... When we were in SD, Baby K was able to say "cat" and she used it both for my bro's kitties and for her own stuffed kitty. When we came home, though, she seemed to forget that those critters are "cats" and started calling ours "dog." Given Connor's size and mass, it's a totally understandable mistake. I've been trying to correct her when she calls them dog, though. It happens often.
The other day, she pointed to Connor and said "Dog."
I said, "No, Baby. He's a cat."
K looked at me like I clearly was insane and signed "hat."
"No, Baby. Not 'hat.' Connor's a 'cat.'"
"Dog," said K, as she signed "hat."

So, that's our "cat" for now. A dog who wears a hat.

Meta Blogging (or Blogging about Blogging)

I've been doing some Fall cleaning today! All of a sudden, the 90's are gone and the weather has turned much cooler. The big kids are all back in school and the neighborhood is much quieter during the day. When the seasons change (I know, I know... Fall doesn't officially end for a few more weeks. I'm talking about the cultural seasons. The cultural Summer is over. *Sniff*) I always feel the need to clean things out, change up some colors, rearrange the furniture, etc., etc. So, I've spent a lot of today doing the same in my virtual world. As you may have noticed. :) Among other things, I've been thinking about privacy & security lately. Maybe it has something to do with the continuous discussions regarding privacy on Facebook and this article DKG read on our recent trip. A few months ago, I'd decided it would be best to keep our last name & the Kumquat's first name off the blog. Initially, I'd considered keeping my name & hubby's name off as well, but couldn't think of any sort of clever nickname and eventually just gave up the effort. I'm revisiting the whole privacy thing and have decided to go ahead and take our names off, too. I still haven't come up with any clever nicknames for us that I love, so whatever. In thinking about our Baby Kumquat, I was reflecting on how hubby & I care for her, support her and encourage her growth. That is what this blog is all about, after all. So that makes us gardeners of a sort. Kumquat Gardeners to be exact. I've decided I'll just call us Mama KG & Daddy KG (or DKG for short).

So that's that! And while I'm meta-blogging...
When I started this blog (over 2 years & 120-something posts ago!), it truly was just intended to be an efficient way to keep in touch with family & the friends we were leaving behind when we left Chicago. (And maybe to give me something to do as I looked for a job.) That is still the primary intention, but it's become much more of a hobby than I'd ever imagined. Truly, I thought it would just save me a few emails because I could write any big news here and not worry about who I forgot to email. I do love to write, though, and it's been fun to get back to it a bit. I also always find that the best way for me to sort through my thoughts is to write about them. For some reason (laziness, primarily) the whole journaling thing never worked out well for me. I'd be awesome in spurts, but could never make it a real habit. Blogging has worked out better mostly because I convince myself that there are people out there eager to read a new post. (And I know there are! You family members don't have a choice but to be eager readers! Bwah-ha-ha...) So that keeps me coming back. In turn, I have discovered something I didn't know about myself before I started this. I have a high need for virtual affirmation. :) I ♥ your comments. I check for them obsessively often. I know I have gotten a bit lazy (that comes up often!) about commenting on others' blogs and I'm going to make a more concerted effort to actually type in the comments that are in my head. I hope that if you have comments floating around in your head, then you'll share them as well. No pressure, but I just wanted to let you know that I drink them up. I send pics of Baby K to my family members VERY often and I sometimes wonder if that gets annoying. Do they ever think, "OK, OK, I've got it. Your kid's cute. I know," when they get the 18th pic of the week? My sweet SIL recently reassured me that she doesn't and she's always happy to see the pics. So that's my intention: should you ever think about commenting, I just want you to know that I will savor it.

Enough housekeeping! I actually have 3 new posts in the works, so hopefully I'll give you lots of commenting potential this week. ;)

South Dakota Days, Part I or "Our East Side Story"

When thinking about where a fancy, jet-setting family like ours should go for a summer vacation, there was only one logical choice... South Dakota! Jealous? Truthfully, my brother and his wife moved up there last year and I figured there's only about a 2-month window (i.e. July & August) of any given year when we could see their new home without fear of freezing to death. Easy now, I'm not saying it's a logical fear. Auntie C & I have birthdays in August and only a week apart SO, what better time to make a visit to beautiful SD than during our birthday week? The Kumquat, her daddy and I made the long drive there in one night. Except for one catastrophe little mishap involving a flat tire in the middle of a storm at 3 am about 30 miles from my brother's house, we made it up there without too much trouble. Many, many thanks to my friend over at Bubs & Chubs and to my 5 backyard friends for their parts in making a peaceful 10-hour drive with a 9-month-old possible.

Anywho...
We finally made it there and got a big taste of South Dakota right away! Sadly, our late, late night (early morning) arrival meant that we missed out on the pig wrestling, demolition derby & minnow races, but we got there just in time for Auntie C's birthday AND Pheasant Fest!
Pheasant is serious business around those parts. They boast some of the best pheasant hunting in the world (or so I'm told). So, for Pheasant Fest local businesses cook up pheasant in various ways & have a lovely little street festival where you can load up on all the pheasant and delicious homemade desserts you can eat for $6. I love small towns. :) We tried just about everything there. The pheasant pizza was pretty amazing, I have to say. I think I probably ate about as many desserts as pheasant, though. But it's Birthday Week, so that's how we do it!

Uncle D & the Birthday Girl

No pheasant for babies! Maybe next year. :)
She did enjoy her fruit & corn muffins, though!

Pheasant Tacos... nummy!

Main Street (of course) and the town hall. So cute, right??

Even the trash cans were so cute!

After our big day of South Dakota eatin', we went to the local country club the following day for a round of golf. I have to say that the place does give new meaning to the term "country club..."
It was very pretty, though, and a nice course. Or so I'm told.
I really don't know about these things. I took some golf lessons in Charlotte back when we lived there, but then I got so busy with work - oh, and pregnant - that golf kinda fell by the wayside. So, this actually was my first real round of golf. Yay! Being South Dakota, it was no problem to bring the Kumquat on the course with us. And K didn't seem to mind, either.

Auntie C & I did our best to class up the place.

Uncle D working on his swing.

After our highly competitive exhausting epic 9 holes, we had lunch in the rockin' clubhouse.

The following day, we took a trip to the thriving metropolis of Sioux Falls. It occurred to DKG & I that the footwear I'd packed for us wasn't really appropriate for hiking around Western South Dakota (what? no flip flops?)... especially where there are snakes and such. So, darn, we had to get some new kicks. Oh, and a new tire. Can you guess which one I was all about? While we were at the mall, Auntie C, Kumquat & I stopped by Wacky Bear (which totally makes me think of McDowell's from Coming to America) and Auntie C got a present for Baby K!
The Kumquat has a new BFF! Oh, and she loves the kitty, too. :) Unfortunately for DKG, the tire situation did not get resolved that day. So, the following day he headed back to SF (Sioux Falls, not San Fran, silly ones) and we just chilled at D & C's and prepared for our big adventure Out West the following day.
That evening, we drove to a nearby town and went to the driving range there. My sweet golfing Kumquat had lots of fun. Lately, balls have become one of her favorite toys. She played catch with her daddy for the first time about a month ago and it's been non-stop ball action ever since. Can you imagine what a driving range must be like for such a baby? She was over the moon! And a bit of a handful, since she desperately wanted to get all of the balls she could find. It didn't hurt that the range uses bright yellow ones. Thankfully, I'd brought along one of her own and Auntie C loaned Baby K one of her hot pink ones. Now that's good times. So, she hung out on her blanket while Auntie & I took turns playing with and taking pictures of our sweet girl.

See, Mama? You just need to bend your left wrist a bit more on the back swing and it'll go much better.Along with her love of balls, she has recently started doing the sign for "ball!" Exciting, huh? She's had a bit of a developmental explosion over the past 2 weeks, but I'll save most of that for another post. I thought I'd include this video, though, since it does include some of her new favorite things... :)

And after the driving range, we drove by the area's tourist mecca... The Mitchell Corn Palace. That's right. Corn Palace.


And it's not even Iowa. ;) To my dismay, I learned that the entire building is not actually made of corn. It is pretty amazing, though. The walls are all decorated with corn pieces (husks, I think) in a theme that changes each year. It's impressive to me that they take it all down and recreate it every year. So this year's theme is "America's Destinations." See the St. Louis Arch?
We didn't go inside, but I heard from the locals (aka Uncle D & Auntie C) that the outside is really the part to see. I'm not entirely sure what Baby K thought of it all, but I think it was something along the lines of "Silly South Dakotans!"
After our corny excitement, it was time to head home to get ready for our next adventure... A trip to the Badlands of the Wild West in search of the Gilded Golden Butterfly to see the Badlands, the Black Hills and these guys...