Inevitably Keely

I used to love Halloween. It was an excuse to dress up and have fun and be someone different. As a child I dressed up as a cat, a gypsy, a flapper. Over time, I became less interested in the dressing up. I didn't have time to play and give in to the whimsy. Meeting Daniel changed my outlook on things and made me comfortable to let my guard down. Halloween 2003: Halloween 2004: But then we got too busy to dress up. We were going to rehearsals for shows, dealing with illness, Nana's cancer, etc. Life kind of swept us up and we became Halloween grinches. It didn't help that our old neighborhood was ridiculous on Halloween. Car loads of children were dropped off and they would trick or treat until after ten at night. Teenagers who weren't dressed up held out their bags as they flirted with me. Drunk fathers stood in the middle of the road holding beers as their children commented on our extensive DVD collection. Last year, we closed all the curtains, turned out all the ligh...

Zoe is in her Jumperoo (the biggest toy, EVER) watching Shrek 2. She's talking to the movie and dancing up and down like she's having the time of her life. This is a relief because a half hour ago she was not happy laying down, standing up or sitting. She was crying. She was screaming. She was laughing. Yup. Laughing, and then crying. Our little monkey sometimes has trouble making up her mind what emotion she wants to er, emote. When all else fails, she likes to spring them all on me one after the other and see how I handle it. And then? And then she likes to mix things up a bit by throwing up all over herself and me. The dogs love this, especially Max who always runs over to help me clean up the mess. And Zoe? Zoe seems to like it too. Maybe it's the loud "Ew!" or "Yucky, Zoe." that make her smile the sweetest (sometimes sly) smiles at me. I'm not sure. All I know is I'm absolutely in love with her and that I smell like vomit. Yum. Sexy. I know...

So, I have a little more than two hours left to my "Mama Monday" and I thought I'd check in. It's funny how my "Mama Mondays" started off as a way for me to have some me time, get together with friends and sleep but now I tend to use them to run errands and blog. It's hard to get all the things I'd like to get done taken care of when Zoe is here looking all cute and wanting my undivided attention. But hey, at least I'm able to make time for blogging. Speaking of that. I'm crazy and have decided to participate in NaBloPoMo this year. Yeah. Me . That lady who just got finished saying how hard it is to get anything done. I've asked Zoe very nicely to let me participate and she seems keen on the idea (and Daniel is going to assist in cheering me on). I mean, what's not to love? I'll be joining some of my favorite bloggers in posting every single day for the month of November*. I'm thinking it will make up for all the lack of...

So. We are LOVING the new house. So much loving of the new house is happening that we are a little behind on cleaning the old house. It's just hard to go from this bright, big space to the old, dark house. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED that house too... but it was too small for the five of us and downright claustrophobic if we had guests. I'm going to hold off on posting pics of the inside of the new house until sometime next week. We haven't finished finding a spot for everything yet. We have nothing hanging on the walls and the guest room bed is not built. But in the meantime: Back of house: Bailey checks out the pool: Beautiful Roses in front and back yards: It really is like having our own park: We're all very excited*: Especially Max: Bailey is warming up to it: I feel like it's our own Shangri-La: Honestly, we feel so lucky to get to live here... which says a lot because Bakersfield? Not so much our ideal place to be living. * Couldn't resist posting one...

Today you are five months and one day old. You are currently stretched across my lap and sleeping. You’re out cold and obviously exhausted. But I don’t blame you. This has been a very busy month for our family. I think if I had to choose one word to sum up the past month, I would choose change. We (especially you) saw a lot of change this month. You started the month off with a new pediatrician. The old pediatrician was very, um, old. She was obviously very experienced and came recommended and praised, but she was not a good fit for us. I felt like I needed you to have a different doctor and so we took you to see the same doc Ellie sees. The first order of business at your appointments is to strip you down to your diaper and measure and weigh you. I nearly burst into tears when I saw the scale. In the two months since your previous appointment, you’d only gained 4 ounces. You were four months old and only weighed 12 pounds 7 ounces where other baby’s your age were weighing in at 18 or ...

Today is a good day. We have a happy, healthy baby who is on her way to gaining some real weight. Thank goodness! (It's a long story that I will tell after Wednesday.) We packed up four bookcases worth of books yesterday and have a game plan (I made a list!)for packing this weekend. Tonight we took those four bookcases and all the books and unpacked them in the guest room. We came home, ate dinner and packed up the cars for a early trip tomorrow morning after we drop Zoe off at Cheryl's. My friend is too sick to visit, so Cheryl is doing us the favor of watching the baby so we can get some stuff done. I feel a load of pressure off my shoulders. Zoe received some awesome presents from my blogger friend Sue today. Two adorable outfits. Two bibs. A pack of onesies. Socks. A toy that lights up, crinkles AND makes music. And my favorite: a pair of pink baby Converse.* I squealed when I saw these. Her generosity warms my heart. Thank you so much Sue! Have a great weekend everyone! *...

And let it out. Phew! I’ve had to remind myself to do this lately. Between baby, dog children, us visiting my parents, trying to maintain friendships and this house (the one we’re moving out of) I forget sometimes. Seriously. I woke up an hour ago. I took a quick shower (thank goodness!). I folded and hung up baby laundry. I put a load of darks in the wash. I unpacked our suitcase from this past weekend. I separated two more loads to try to do today. I checked email and forced myself to eat some cereal because I probably won’t eat again until at least 1pm. And now I’m sitting down blogging because, YAY! The baby is still sleeping. What I should be doing is making a list of the other things I need us to do so we can move out of here… hmmm. I’ve always admired SAHM’s. I’ve never been one to say it sounded boring or uneventful. I was excited for the chance to do this because I love the idea of getting to be with Zoe everyday and teach her. There are so many out there who would love to sta...

We rent. We aspire to own, but since we don't really know where we want to set roots permanently and the market here (well, everywhere) is not so good.... we rent. Renting has been good to us. So good that we've lived in a cute little bungalow style home for less than $900/month. We were lucky. One day we were just driving around and I saw our house with a for rent sign. I asked Daniel to stop the car and we snooped in the windows. We've lived here for two years and were glad to be out of the little apartment we were in. But in the two years, our family grew. We adopted Max and then I got pregnant and well, then Zoe was born and with her came a lot of stuff. Toys and whatnot. Our space seemed cramped. I felt cramped. And then I became more and more uncomfortable with our little neighborhood and the people who knocked on our door asking for money. So we looked around a bit and while we saw places in nicer areas, knew we could never afford them. And then Cheryl and her husban...

So, Daniel is going to be home with the Monkey pretty soon, so I figured I'll get some quick blogging in - nothing fabulous, just a few things on my mind. Today is 'Mama Monday'. I'm sick, so 'Mama Monday'? Not so much with the fun and the socializing and stuff. I was feeling too horrible this morning to get up out of bed and wake Zo-Zo. Yeah, that's right I wake her. She sleeps through the night (and has for a while) from about 9:30pm to about NINE or TEN in the morning. I kid you not. I would not kid about such important things as sleep. I also would not brag, because you just watch.... tonight she will demand to stay up all night and then wake up at 6am. So me? NOT bragging. Just letting you know that I am feeling pretty darn lets just say DAMN! lucky right about now, even if I do feel like crap. Daniel did me the favor of coming to get Zoe during his lunch and taking her to Cheryl's for the afternoon. I relaxed. I napped. I watched streaming video o...