Broom, Broom!!

So, Matt has found his new love--cars! Sean and I were going through some old boxes last night, and Matt was of course, "helping". Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but he found an old toy car of Sean's, a scale model of a Porsche. He said: "Broom broom!!!!!!!!!!" and he was hooked. He calls it his Broom broom, and did not let go. He made me put him to bed with it last night. As cute as that is, it had lots of small parts, so I got a replacement broom broom today, and here he is right before falling asleep, tightly clutching the car.

And here is a video taken today while Matt was at his Grammy's house. Witness--one of the only videos with Matt AND Daddy!!! And yes, that's his old broom broom (the Porsche), in the pool. No, he's not obsessed...not at all...

Well, gotta go grab the hour of spare time before bed! Enjoy the cute video! (thank you for taking it Gram...hehe!)

HAPPY 200TH POST!!!

Hard to believe that this is my 200th post--and I've been keeping this blog since I was 16 weeks pregnant with Matt, and now he has grown into a handsome, smart (and sometimes compassionate) little boy. To think, not long ago he was just a funny feeling in my tummy :-)
Anyway, just posting to announce a new and pathetic low:
Tonight, I ironed my placemats....
Things can only get worse from here!

Low Key Day

Today I woke up feeling sick. I have had a cold for a couple days, but I felt better yesterday and thought it was over. Nope! I woke up feeling pretty yucky--all phlegmy with a headache and feeling dizzy. To top it off, I had lost my voice! I could whisper very softly, but whenever I raised my voice just pathetic sounding partial words and squeaks came out. Matt thought that was just the funniest thing ever!

Here's a picture I snapped of him this morning while I was laying on the couch trying to feel better. He was just all happy and full of energy this morning, and I felt bad that I didn't have the energy to interact with him much better. I drank some green tea (hence the teapot in the background) and some Walborne (generic Airborne). I heard somewhere that taking Airborne has now been proven to do absolutely nothing to shorten your cold and it's pretty much a waste of money. Honestly though, I think it helps me get better faster, and all those vitamins and minerals plus a healthy dose of placebo effect can't hurt.

This is Matt doing one of his favorite things right now--rolling the truck over the coffee table and knocking off everything in his way. I can tell when it's time to take him outside to run off some energy when it goes from gentle rolling with cute "brooom..brrroooom" sounds (see above) to violent shoving of the truck and loud piercing screeches....

Like this!! Crazy toddler attack!!!!
So, this is him outside, in the morning. My voice had come back by then but was still iffy and I wasn't feeling great still, so I did what every parent does when the kid has too much energy--let them loose on the outside world! Here's a video of him busying himself outside. If you listen closely you might hear him talking, but probably not. He said a few things, which I am pretty sure the mike did not pick up. I swear, he talks!

Let me list some of his consistant words/phrases: "it's hot", "what is that?", bubbles (buu buus), banana (na na), Mai, Nino, tree (tee), shoes (shoos), socks (soc), truck (tuk), car (caaa!), bird (burr), nice (ni-ece), mom/mama, pacifier (ci, ci), balloon (ba-ooon), light, yum, no, yeah, outside (side!), diaper (die), mouth (mou), teeth (tee!), milk (malk), juice (juu), eye (aii), nose (no), foot (foo), shirt (shi), pants (paa), cat (ca!!), dog, (dag!), lizard (lizzy! or zarrd) chair (cha), slide (side). bowl (bawl), and ball. When he wants something that you are eating he makes a very cute "mmmmmmm" noise. Those are all I can think of right now, but he understands so much. He will go get and purposely hunt for his matching shoes when I tell him to go get his shoes, he tells me he is getting his shoes and that we are going outside. He understands a lot more than he can talk, but he is definitely hitting that language "explosion"!! Can't wait until he can really talk. I will try to get some on video, but the presence of a camera makes his vocal chords shut down.
Right now he is supposed to be napping, but that's not happening! Guess I better go get him and take him to the park like I promised. I feel a lot better now :-)

Unknown Helper

This is going to be pretty quick because I have to wake matt up soon and get ready to drop him off at daycare. I'll post more (with pics) tomorrow or the day after.
Just wanted to say that Matt is a lot more helpful then I give him credit for. For a long time, every time I have been unloading the dishwasher, he has been touching the dishes, grabbing things, and generally getting scolded for doing that while making me go as fast as possible to get it over with. Yesterday I finally gave up and, guess what he did? He grabbed a plate and very nicely handed it to me to put away. The entire time, I let him help me and he was just sooo happy and proud of himself, and it was a nice bonding time.
I have been starting to let him help, by putting his dishes in the sink, or sometimes putting his toys away. It's just always a nice surprise when you think he is going to do something destructive, and he does something nice instead (without prompting!)
Ok, I've gotta run! Got 15 min to get myself, Matt and car ready to go (have to switch seats and pack day bag for Matt). Bye!

NEWS FLASH: MATT IS CUTE!

Sorry for the lack of posting! I can't count how many times I've said that but I really am sorry. A lot of things have been happening that have been occupying my time. Firstly, our lease expires at the end of this month, and we got a letter saying we could renew for the same rate by the 10th or give our notice by the 10th. We have been trying very hard to find a house to rent, but we can't afford any more than we're paying now which limits our choices. We found several promising ones, but the #1 issue was money. We don't get our deposit back from the apartments until 3 weeks after we turn in the keys, and in order to move anywhere we need the deposit up front. Besides wondering where to get a couple thousand, each one we looked at/applied to either was already rented or we did not get a reply back. So, now that it is 3 days away, we have decided we probably will stay in the apartments for yet another year. Money has been very tight so probably going to take out a loan from Navy Federal to put into savings because it is now gone. Was counting on the deposit money--but we don't get that now that we're staying! We have had a lot of expenses, like the kia breaking down and daycare this month that has made it pretty hard to get by. This month will be better! So anyway, in a nutshell, I have been pretty stressed out and busy and that is why my posting is lacking. Now that things are settled, posting should resume on a semi-normal schedule.
So, Matt has shown us that he is a big boy and we thought he was ready to sleep in....

A BIG BOY BED!!!!!

Isn't he cute?
So he slept in it fine for naps and it took a little adjusting to at night, but we finally hit upon a routine after a couple of nights that worked pretty well (low monotone recitals of Moby Dick, anyone?) and now he is sleeping in it wonderfully. He had trouble adjusting to the fact that he could get up and play with his toys anytime he wanted. It has been wonderful for me. He seems to sleep longer, and in the morning sometimes he will wake up early, quietly play with his toys and go back to sleep.

Matt has also been getting more expressive about his needs and wants. He doesn't say complete words yet, but I will ask him if he wants milk or juice, and after thinking about it he will choose whatever he craves. This time it was "malk!"

He carries it to me...

And he drinks it with dinner! Oh, he also is using a fork/spoon pretty well now too. But nothing can compare to hands still.

This morning I made whole wheat oatmeal and currant scones. He LOVED them! Him and I just hung out drinking milk, eating scones and talking.

Well, I was talking and Matt was...trying. Still very adorable.
We are also introducing him to the potty. He tells us when he has to go by looking very disturbed and pulling at his diaper and going "doe", "doe" (his word for diaper). He will gladly sit on the potty, but will NOT go on it. I know it's early, but I'd like him familiar with it for when the real training starts. Every time he tells me he has to go, I put him on his potty. One day it'll click :-)
Anyway I think that is all for now. Need to take a shower while Matt is sleeping!

The Sickness is contagious!

What a way to start off the week! Monday, Matt threw up everywhere in my car and by the time I had picked him up from daycare had had 3 watery yellow diarrhea diapers. Jana's kids had the same thing so I did what her dr. told her to do. He said to give lots of pedialyte, and keep them on a "BRAT" diet: Bananas, white Rice, Applesauce and Toast. It worked for Matt and then later that night, Sean got sick! He was violently ill, up all night with constant puking/diarrhea as I lay in bed wondering when it would hit me. It didn't hit me until last night, when I got a sudden wave of nausea and chills. I was able to ward it off, though and I am okay. I did have plenty of warning so I had been sticking to simple foods and liquids along with preemptive immodium and pepto-bismol. Now they are both better. Was supposed to go to the zoo today but decided to wait. Guess it'll be another boring day! Might turn in some outgrown clothing into salvation army--we'll see! Not much else going on--hence the lack of posting. I will try to take some pics and video of him talking though. Hope everyone is feeling better than us!

I was wrong!!!!

It's a boy!!! Atticus David Shimkin born on July 18th at 1:05 am, weighing 6 lbs, 15 oz and 19 inches long! Matt and I have a new cousin. Yay!

Happy Birthday Maybe Baby!!!!

My Aunt Hillary is going into labor today and is going to give birth soon to her little baby! Saying maybe about the birthday because we don't know how long she'll be in labor. Will post when she has him/her. I am taking my bet now--it's a girl! Been thinking it's a girl the whole time. I may be wrong--I think everyone is having a girl (but everyone who's been pregnant around me has had a girl). Updates will be coming shortly!

Allergies????

I think Matt and I are allergic to something in the air. Our eyes are burning up and our noses are running! So lame...I've never had allergies before!!! No new news items to report right now. Life is good! Except for allergies. And the upstairs neighbor who sounds like he is knocking down all his furniture and jumping up and down. Can't wait to move!!

Finally Part-Time/Dog Drama

So, I know this week I am part time, which I thought meant that I would get everything I needed to get done done, and have lots of free time for blogging. WRONG! Just been busy busy.
First, let me start out with Monday, my last day of work before my days off. I was getting ready, Matt was sleeping, and everything was going normally and well. Suddenly I hear a noise at my door and the dogs go crazy. I open it and, lo and behold, it's a stray german shepard.
On one note, this is the second shepard who has just strolled up to my door and waited there for me to come take care of him and find him a home. What, really, are the odds? So of course I took him in, gave him food and water and called work to find out if anyone wanted him.
I do not believe he belonged to a family for several reasons. #1, I walked around the apartment complex asking people about him and everyone said he had been wandering around for days and no one knew who he belonged to. (Big dogs aren't allowed in the apartments). #2, he was not neutered...which isn't an absolute, but he was not 100% purebred and usually caring owners neuter their big dogs, hoping to make them more docile/friendly etc. Not all the time, but mostly.
#3, he was covered in fly bites. All around his eyes and ears. That means he has been outside for a long, long time. Some were scabbed over and bitten again. His ears were extremely dirty.
So, with all that info, and armed with the unfortunate knowledge that if I took him to the shelter (he wasn't micro-chipped by the way), it would pretty much be a death sentence for a full grown, somewhat too big black shepard. But he was such a sweetheart. Wonderful with Matt (didn't let them get too close just in case, but Matt was throwing a huge fit because I wouldn't let him touch the dog and the dog was paying no attention), and very mellow. When I was driving him to work (I found him a home), he fell asleep with me rubbing behind his ears and his head almost in my lap. He stayed in the kennel all day without a peep, good-naturedly tolerated the bath (it was obvious he had never had one by the way he reacted), and waited to be taken to his new home. Seriously, these dogs KNOW I feel pity for them. They just do.

Okay, that day was odd, but went well. Unfortunately, later that night, my friend Jana called to say her oldest (and may I say most beloved) dog had escaped and she couldn't find her. Her and her girls were walking around calling her to no avail. She was heartbroken but resolved to be strong and deal with it in the morning. Then I get a call in the morning that her youngest puppy is on the brink of death and she doesn't know why. She said when she woke up, he was great. Jumping around, barking, wagging his tail. When she came back from dropping her kids off at school, he was laying on his side, completely limp and hardly breathing, He was having seziures and wouldn't open his mouth to take food or water. He was in a clean kennel by himself with food and water. She has no idea what happened.
So I came over to try to help and together we managed to pry his jaws open and syringe-feed him some pedialyte (the vet ok'd this) and high-calorie gel (nutri-cal). After a while he began to stir, swallow, and start to look better and more aware. It took a few hours but we nursed him back from the edge and he was doing well.
And I went outside to begin putting "lost dog" posters up, and there was already a sign up saying "Found" Brown and white dog". I called and they had her! So, all in all, the day ended well but it was so hectic and scary at times that by the time I got home I didn't want to do anything.
And today, Joey and I are going to the "Aquatic Center" with Matt, which is a small local water-park with a well-developed kids area. That will be fun but again, it will tire us out. Luckily...I have tomorrow!!!!!
Well, I think I have rambled on enough. I will post soon about what we all did on 4th of July.

Part Time!!

I am going part time in a week and I am so excited!!! Finally! I am going to have tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays off now. Three days in a row, each week. It's like a mini vacation! And from there, if Sean keeps rising up in the ranks at work, I can cut down to three days and finally be at work less than I'm at home.
And tomorrow, (my first day off since I got back), I will officially start the search for a place to live! I really hope we get into a house. So sick of apartments!
Well, I just thought I'd post a little update. Don't have much going on right now, but that's all going to change soon, I'm sure. I'll post later if anything exciting happens!

The Best/Worst Day Ever

Yesterday was a weird day. We flew back to California yesterday, and it was a good day because we arrived safe and sound and so did Sean. I am very thankful for that and it's because of that that I can't dub it the unluckiest day ever. But, here is a list of what happened yesterday that sucked!
Woke Matt up super early.
They changed the gate of my connecting flight and I had to run across O'Hare and almost missed my flight.
When I told Sean "San Diego" he misinterpreted it as "Ontario" and he went to the wrong airport to pick me up.
(a note: I got my Aunt Karen to pick me up since she lives close by and that was a blessing in disguise because I hadn't seen her in a while plus she had some extra food items to give away so we lucked out!)
Sean met us at Karen's and while he was waiting for us, someone called the cops on him to report a suspicious person. (Karen was able to convince the cop that Sean wasn't that suspicious)
We drove out of our way a bit to go get the car and go to Jana's to pick up the animals.
On the way to Jana's, Matt puked everywhere.
After getting a change of clothing out from the car, I stepped the wrong way on her lawn and twisted my ankle pretty bad.
Picked up animals and they were super gross and dirty (no ones fault there, they were outside and they like to roll around in the dirt) and they stunk up the cars.
We were finally on our way home when we waited in traffic forever, and it turned out they were doing construction and blocking off a six lane expressway that goes straight home. We go onto a side street and travel along it for a while until it dead ends.
We go the long way home, after backtracking.
I look at my phone and discover that somehow the front screen LCD broke completely.
Sean gets rear-ended.

And this doesn't directly affect us, but after we settle in we get the news that Jana's mom had a stroke. We are all wishing she gets better. She is stable and doing okay now.

Oh, and this was technically this morning but I am counting it anyway: Matt woke up at 3:3o thinking it was 6:30...yuck.

Anyway, that was the best worst day ever. Hopefully work goes ok today. Heck, even if it doesn't, I am comforted because I go part time in two weeks! Yay!

Haha

Sean is going to kill me. I just found this site. Best thing ever. Let's just say he is getting an urgent call from the future...

Interesting

I was reading Brenda's blog, and she mentioned a thing called Wordle, in which you take a bunch of text and makes a "cloud" from it, with the most repeated words big, and the least very small. So I put in my most recent posts and this is what I got:

I like the many variations of Matt I have in there. Time was a surprising big one, as was the (apparently) many mentions of myself. Ally didn't know Ally mentioned Ally that much by name, but Ally guesses Ally does! Hehe...

Also, Hillary's surprise baby shower was today, and I do have some pictures!

Here's the mother-to-be with her great-nephew.

And here is Matt making a strange face...not sure how this is baby-shower related, but it's cute.

The shower was really nice. Hillary was surprised, she genuinely thought we were going to brunch. She did surmise that there would be one at some point, but she didn't know where or when. We played the typical party games and chatted about babies--typical shower stuff. Matt behaved ok under the circumstances.

Here he is, trying to be the center of attention. He has a light-up duck in his hand (ducks were the theme). He managed to find and gather every single duck there. By day's end he was pretty duckered out. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Sometimes it isn't always a great match with 37 1/2 week along pregnant women and really fussy squirmy toddlers.
After the shower, I headed over to a local Cambridge park which Matt loved.

They had a separate toddler section and everything (yes, besides the trash can). It had a bunch of donated toys, a safer playground and sandbox, and even benches that rocked back and forth, I'm guessing for moms with small babies. It was nice. I really like the big city and the strong feeling of community. I like that everything is within walking distance and the abundant public transportation. I want to live here or someplace similar someday, but not sure Sean would go for it. Plus to get a GOOD inner-city experience, you have to have more money than we have now. Someday!
Well, I go back to Brenda's tomorrow, which will be nice. And we fly back wednesday! I do not want to go back home, to all my responsibilities and my job, but it will be nice to see Sean again. I miss him, and I am sure Matt does too. Sean is having an awful time at his training. 122 degrees with no a/c today. He's miserable. Enough of that though! I am going to say goodnight. Goodnight!

My Un-Adventurous Adventures In New England: Part 5

I had lots of time to post, but unfortunately my Grammy Schafer does not have internet and I didn't have an opportunity to go someplace with wi-fi. Now I am at my Aunt Hillary/Uncle Brian's place and they have internet. Yay! So, continuing on with the adventures...
We left Brenda's house on tuesday and traveled to New Hampshire to go visit some grandparents! First, we stopped by Grammy Dawn's to say hi. She hasn't seen Matt since he was 6 months old, and she liked him lots! Here is a cute picture of them:

We played with her dogs a bit and Matt ran around. We saw the guest house, which is close to being finished. It is so nice! Before long though, it was time to be on our way to Somersworth to go visit Grammy Schafer.

Here's Matt and his cousin Andrew sharing some secret toddler attack plan.

"Now, like we planned. Take the mower and run!"
We had a really fun time. We went to York beach in Maine and that was really fun. Matt loved the beach, of course.

"Aren't I handsome?"

He loves running! Too much. We had to make him stay still...somehow.

Believe it or not, Parent's Magazine actually says that burying your toddler is a widely-used and acceptable method to make them shut up and stay still. Well...it made him stay still.
Next we went to the Nubble lighthouse, which was closeby.

It was super windy! And cold. Actually I just glanced at my Forecast Fox sidebar and it says tomorrow in Hemet it will be 111 degrees. Today in 29 Palms according to Sean it is 122 degrees. Here it's about...80. Wow. Anyway!
Last but not least, here is a beautiful shot I got from near Nubble.

That is so nice, I may make it as my background for my laptop. Ah...pretty. And I have to go back to this:

I guess it is beautiful...if you're a cactus!
Well, I'd better get back to visiting! Hope you enjoyed the post!

OSV

Or, Old Sturbridge Village!

A sign, to prove I was here. See? See? I MUST have gone to take a picture of the SIGN!

It was pretty interesting to see all the old historic buildings. Some were replicas, but many were moved here from other parts of New England. This was one, a Quaker meeting-house.

That is just really gross. Ew.

Here's everyone playing Ye Olde Hasbro Checkers. Matt won!

Here's a beautiful circa-1800's garden. Things have sure changed...

A room!

And a Matthew!

They luckily had a Olde Playground, which Matt enjoyed. I love how no matter where you take kids, it's always going to be the genaric food and playgrounds they like best...of course he is too young to fake any interest in anything else. :-)

This looks like the other garden, but it's all herbs. This actually was pretty interesting because I got to find out what they used them all for. There is an astounding range of medicines hidden in there.

On the way out, Matt decided to tear the place down! But it didn't work. Sturbridge is here to stay!

On the way back we stopped here. It's exactly what it seems like from the sign. A family resturaunt centered around books. You get to take three home free! I took two, but they are in the car so I can't tell you the titles. One is "Bury Him Among Kings", but I don't remember the author.
All in all, I omitted a lot of boring (to you guys) pictures, but it was a really fun day! The next post may not be for a few days because we are heading off today to visit my grandparents! Grammy Dawn and Grammy Schafer. I will post later with many more pictures and adventures of "Matt Invades New England".

Big One

This is going to be a big post! I might even split it into two different ones. This is what I get for being lazy about posting! Basically we have been going places and doing exciting things and I have been taking pictures!
Yes, I am going to split it into two posts. This one is going to be about our trip into Historic Hartford!

Here is the capital of Hartford! Yay! This is the only good picture I got so I guess I won't have to put you through a billion shots of the same thing.

Here's Matt on the trip. He had a good time for the most part. He wanted to dive in the "DANGER DO NOT GO PAST THIS SIGN" lake, but I wouldn't let him, so that made him mad. But he forgot about it when we put him on the carousel!

He was mostly confused, but seemed to be having a good time. Here we are before it started. I decided to start him off on a stationary horse. Next time we'll go on a fun one. Besides going places, we've just been hanging out at home.

Here is coffee from a local place here that I like. Good coffee and bagels. Dunkin Donuts is a given, but it's always nice to find another place that's good.

On sunday we went into Boston and picked up the car that Hillary and Brian very generously offered for me to use on the trip. It's a Honda Civic Hybrid, which is AWESOME! We filled it up right before leaving, and got completely lost on the way home (missed an exit) and drove almost to New York. We knew when we saw the "ALBANY: 111 MILES" sign go to "ALBANY: 55 MILES" that we were probably off track. Anyway we went hundreds of miles, along with the trip to Sturbridge, and it's only gone down half a tank :-). I love it! Bet I can make it today from here to my two stops in New Hampshire on that same tank. The best part: it fills up with 10 gallons! Ok...enough of that. Onto more important things!

Here's Matt making strange faces as he eats.

Matt enjoys playing in the back, near the strip of woods. It's a perfect environment to introduce him to hiking. There is a trail that goes through it that's very short, probably a hundred meters or so, but it is rocky and uphill, and he loves climbing it. Hopefully he will continue to love it so we can go hiking together when he's older! (crossing fingers)

He has also (almost) mastered the art of climbing down stairs, which is a relief because those can be pretty dangerous to someone his size.
Well, that's enough for now. The next post will be about our trip yesterday to Old Sturbridge Village!

First Round!

Yesterday we decided to go do something exciting, new and refreshing. Something you can ONLY do in Connecticut.
...Go to the beach!!!

Matt had a great time! He was a little cautious at first, because this is his first time at the beach when he could actually walk and play in the surf.

Trying to get him to walk in on his own.
Guess he knew better! He wanted Mom to help.


In no time at all, though, he was playing and having a great time.

Look Mom! I bet I can walk into the Atlantic all by myself!

No I can't.

After all that, we headed off to wander around New London, and came upon Fort Trumbull.

Well, we HAD to stop there, because as you know, I have a lizard named Trumble at home and we had to see his ancestry. I am figuring his family had to change the spelling of their name due to an immigration discrimination issue sometime last century.
Then we gazed at the beautiful scenery:

Beautiful New England shipyard...

The Mystic River...

And ME!!!

Needless to say, after a long day, Matt promptly passed out in the car. That was fun! Today, we are going to explore historic Hartford. More pictures to come!