Happy Easter!

You know, I have written this post twice now. I don't have time to finish it, so I save a draft for later. I come back later to finish and publish and the draft has disappeared. I'm now writing my Happy Easter blog entry in late May.

Argh. Technology. You have bested me yet again.

At any rate...Happy Easter! (Pretend it's still April.) We did, in fact, have a delightful Easter. We were actually able to spread it out over a week when you include all of the pre-Easter activities we participated in.

The weekend before Easter, we went to an egg hunt at Musikgarten where we take music classes with Miss Emily. They did a group sing-a-long and then sent the kids out to look for eggs. Romelie was very respectful of the smaller kids (we've been to this egg hunt since it started two years ago when she was one of the smaller kids!) and managed to get a picture of the girls together without anyone getting injured.

The day before Easter, we dyed easter eggs in the backyard. It was a bit chilly, but way too messy for inside, so we braved the cold for the sake of art and tradition. Totally worth it. Romelie dyed 19 eggs - would have been a few more, but for some reason I have a really hard time boiling eggs without breaking them no matter what method of cooking them I try - and Cori watched calmly since messy dye and fragile eggs seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.

And Easter Sunday was spent at church, followed by a delicious lunch at my dad's house. Rather than trying to rush through an egg hunt at home before church, we just brought everything along to my dad's and did it outside in the backyard (it was much nicer out than the previous day). Both Romelie and Cori were wearing Easter dresses, which I've never bothered with before, but Cori's was a hand-me-down from Crystal's niece so I thought Romelie deserved a cute dress, too. Overall, it was a delightful holiday.

Other things that happened in April...Chason had a birthday! Happy birthday, husband. For his gift, I got tickets to a Twins game for April 12. Now for those who don't know, the Twins moved from the Metrodome into a brand new outdoor stadium last season, Target Field, and neither Chason nor I had been to a game yet. Unfortunately, we've had some bad luck recently with buying tickets to events. Last year for my birthday, Chason bought us tickets to see Simon and Garfunkel; that concert was postponed and later cancelled due to Art Garfunkel's illness. Then I bought tickets for us to see the MN Vikings play in December. That game was postponed and later relocated due to snow which ultimately collapsed the Metrodome. Fail.

Anyway, I figured I was taking a big chance on an outdoor game in April. Anything could happen (case in point - this picture of Romelie is from April 20th...sad). But man, we couldn't have had a better night. My dad babysat the girls and we got primo parking on the street for free. Pretty nice. The stadium is amazing, we had awesome seats (cheap seats, but front row third base line cheap seats), the weather was perfect, and the Twins actually won! And I got a free Pepsi Max on my way out the door. Bonus awesomeness.

Other April news...Cori is still coughing and raspy. I actually brought her in to see the doctor in early April when her cough had been going on for more than a month. The doc wasn't too concerned, though, and said to just keep an eye on it. Will do. Also keeping an eye on big angry red eczema patch on her face. Poor baby.

Romelie is becoming a pretty awesome big sister. She's really good at keeping Cori entertained by tickling her or making her laugh without being aggressive with her, which I appreciate more than I can describe because I know we're lucky in this regard. She's a pretty funny kid, that Romelie. She's especially into telling original Knock Knock jokes. They tend to follow this formula:

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
[Something that I can see]
[Something you can see] who?
[Something that I can see] that you eat with a [something else I can see].

For example, if I were to tell a Knock Knock joke at this moment using Romelie's Knock Knock joke formula, it might go something like this:

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Computer.
Computer who?
Computer that you eat with a water bottle.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Until the next update, I invite you to go forth and impress your friends with your hilarity.

Living up to her name...

Romelie Ann Dancer...dances. Enjoy.

Spring Break!

Hello Spring! How I've missed you! Granted, in Minnesota you are here in name only as there is a fresh 6 inches of snow on the ground, but in Texas, you were glorious!

I'm kind of failing on my "3 blog entries a month" resolution. As long as I get 36 over the course of the year...be prepared for lots of December entries.

So updates! First, my eye is good to go. In case anyone was worried. I'm still not wearing contacts, but at my last appointment on March 10, my doc said everything was 100% healed over, which is not the same as 100% healed, but it means all of the wounds, if you will, were no longer at risk for any kind of infection, and then it would just take another week or two for them to finish healing completely. So, good news. Yay.

One thing I don't blog about very often is work. The reason, as you might assume, is that it seems to be a bad idea to talk about my job in a forum that anyone interested could have access to. But every now and then, there is something about my job that is just too awesome not to share. So this is a picture of Anika, my awesome co-worker who I teach and perform with on a regular basis. She sits about a foot away from me in our office space, and also knitted the adorable blue sweater that Cori is modeling in the photo above. While waiting for a performance of our play "Shocking News About Your Heart" to begin, Anika had the brilliant idea to dress up these two puppets in the costumes we wear to portray various scientists. The scientist on the left is a combination of Charles Kite (the wig) and Claude Beck (the mustache), and the scientist on the right is none other than Earl Bakken.

Science!

(Sometimes my job is just so cool.)

But as cool as my job can be, everyone loves a vacation, and we were lucky enough to head to Houston for a cool 9 days! Longest vacation I've taken since I used to have summer break. Unless you count maternity leave, but if you think maternity leave is a vacation, you are wrong, my friend. We spent our first few days relaxing and Nanny and Papa's house (I know that as a grown-up, I should refer to them as Steve and Angel, but Nanny and Papa is so much fun to say!).

On Saturday, friends and family came to Richmond to say hello, eat some delicious fajitas, and meet baby Cori. Romelie had a great time playing with all of the kids, and I managed to get a couple of awesome pictures of the cousins that I feel like I should submit to one of those "weird family photos" websites.

Oh, I should mention that I have a new "ap" obsession: Words With Friends. It's basically Scrabble. I had been playing it on my ipod against random opponents, but now I play regularly against Martha, her husband Steve, Crystal, folks from work...so if you have Words With Friends and would like to challenge me, my username is dannidancer. I should warn you, though...I'm awesome.

Anyway, back to Texas.

On Monday, Steve and Angel took the four of us camping along with James, Bronwyn, Shane, Torin, Greta, and Crystal. It was AWESOME. I've only ever camped in a camper one other time, and it was really small and awkward (camping with a friend's family in middle school), and I couldn't figure out why you wouldn't just sleep in a tent. Now I know...campers are SWEET! Seriously, this thing was huge and comfortable and awesome and comfortably slept 7 people. I highly recommend.

We spent two nights at a place called Jellystone, a Yogi Bear-themed campsite with a water park, mini golf course, activities for kids, and other fun stuff to do. It was Romelie's first camping experience, and overall she did pretty well and seemed to have fun, though she's regressed a little on her willingness to swim. To be fair, the water was freezing...Cori wasn't having any of it, either.

In the evenings, we hung out at Bronwyn and co.'s campsite and sat around the campfire with s'mores. Everyone has their own techniques for roasting marshmallows, but I think Greta's style - burn, blow out the fire, burn some more - was by far the most entertaining.

Wednesday we spent the evening with Trisha, her boyfriend, and her daughter. Thursday was spent at Bronwyn's home with her family as well as Grandmommy Diane who was in town for a few days. I hung out with Crystal and her boyfriend that evening, and then Friday we headed back to Richmond once again for one last night with Nanny and Papa before heading back to Minnesota on one of the most turbulent flights I've been on. Like, moments of anti-gravity turbulent. Ah, well, we arrived safe and sound.

Did I mention how much I love vacations? I felt very relaxed on our return to Minnesota. Thanks, Steve and Angel for hosting us, and thank you to our family and friends for visiting with us. We miss you already and can't wait to see you again as soon as possible!

Would you rather...?

Did you every play this game? I had a book and used to play it in high school and college. It offers choices such as...


Would you rather wake up to discover your neck had grown five inches longer or that your butt had doubled in size?

Would you rather be stranded on an island alone or with someone you hate?

Would you rather always have to say everything on your mind or never speak again?

Stuff like that. Here's my recent real life (overly dramatic) dilemna: Would you rather take care of yourself or take care of your baby? More specifically, would you rather take a medicine that will fix a major health problem but not be able to breastfeed for up to a week, or continue to breastfeed and hope that the problem clears up on its own?

So last weekend, I started to have some pain in my left eye. At first I thought it was just my contact lens bothering me, but by Sunday night, it was clear that something was wrong. My eye hurt pretty badly, there was some weird pressure from the top and back, and I could hardly open my eye because it was so light-senstive. Chason ended up driving my to the doctor on Monday morning where I learned I have a couple of eye ulcers and iritis. Basically, open sores and an infection. My doctor labeled this an emergency medical situation (for my eye) and put me on aggressive medical treatment for 24 hours - basically, three different drops/ointments going into my eye every hour. The big problem is, these are all medicines that we don't know anything about when it comes to pregnancy/breastfeeding safety, so breastfeeding is out.

Luckily, I had quite a bit of milk stored in the freezer, so I have been able to use/ration that rather than go exclusively to formula. And I continued to pump so my supply stayed up, but I had to dump it. After my supply issues with Romelie, pumping and dumping is very hard for me to do. But, I didn't have much choice.

The good news is, I went back to the doctor on Tuesday (and Wednesday, and today...) and my eye is on the road to recovery. Not 100% yet, but getting better and not worse is the most important thing. And as of today, I am down to one eye drop 4 times/day, so my doctor approved me to breastfeed again.

And the moral of the story is, don't sleep with your contacts in. Ever.

In other news...Cori had her 4-month well baby check up yesterday. She is 14 pounds and 26" long. As we're not planning to have another baby, each milestone she reaches or pound she gains or inch she grows gives me a tiny feeling of sadness - aww, my baby's getting bigger, someday soon she'll be sitting up, eating solids, talking, walking, she'll stop breastfeeding, she'll tell me no...and I have to remind myself to slow down and just enjoy this time. Which is a cliche, but a good self-reminder.

Have I mentioned yet that we're going to Texas next week? March 10. The weather here is back to sucky, and I can't wait to see our family, our friends, and green grass. Here we come!

I'd love to share more, but I'll have to save it for the next post. I'll be sure to add pictures next time, too.

Friday night jam

Some folks go out to listen to live music on a Friday night. Me? I get an exclusive acoustic performance from the comfort of my own (messy) living room.

Snow day

You know what's awesome about living in MN? Snow days. They're one of the few really great things about the long, snowy, freezing cold winter months that seem to go on forever. They're pretty rare (we're pretty good at taking care of the snow, or at least we used to be), but every so often, a huge snowstorm comes through overnight on a weeknight and the plows can't take care of it before buses are scheduled to come through and schools (and often, by extension, The Bakken) are closed for the day. Hello, free day!

You know what stinks about living in MN? Snow days...on a scheduled holiday. Presidents Day is the only holiday that Chason and I both have off work while daycare is still open, which means we get an entire day to ourselves with no kids. Last year, Jen decided a few weeks out to take that day as an additional holiday. This year, it snowed over a foot of snow, and since her street appears to be the last street on the plow route for the city of Minneapolis, cars couldn't get to her home and she closed for the day.

Don't get me wrong; I don't begrudge Jen taking a snow day. I also love my girls and ordinarily would have been happy to have an unexpected day home with them. But I also love my husband, and we had made plans to go to lunch and a movie which we were very much looking forward to.

Stupid Minnesota winters.

Anway, there's my requisite complaining. On to the more fun events of the past few weeks, starting with...snow! (What else is there?) Again, one of the good things about MN winters is that when you're a kid, at least, it's pretty fun to play in the snow. Cori, unfortunately, doesn't get to go out as often because even when she's bundled up nice and warm, it's not really good for her to be breathing in lots of that cold air. But we had some glorious weather last week in the 30s and 40s, so both girls had fun playing in the snow. Romelie did a great job of helping her dad shovel, and Cori graciously allowed me to make her into a snow angel. Not that she had much choice.

Let's see. I have started working out with a personal trainer. It sucks. It's not one-on-one (there's no way I could afford that, nor would I want that much attention/abuse), but we do a group boot camp twice a week at Ballys for an hour. I like that it makes me feel stronger afterwards. I hate how much it hurts during, and how I can't keep up with most of the other people in the class, and how I'm not really losing much weight because I can't cut calories until I'm done breastfeeding...but as I am reminded, even if I don't lose much weight in the next 9 months, I will be getting stronger if I work out, and that will make losing weight easier when the time comes. In the meantime, I'm selling all of my maternity clothes on ebay as we speak. Even though some still fit comfortably enough, I'm done with the fat pants, baby!

Other news...Diane was here this past week! She was in town for work, but we got to spend a few evenings with her during the work week, and then she stayed with us for the weekend. Actually, due to the snow, she was here a day longer than originally expected! We were so lucky to get to spend time with her, and she also gave us a night off to spend some time with friends. Thanks, Diane; can't wait to see you again soon!!

In Romelie news, my darling little angel threw her first really humiliating public tantrum. Folks, it was bad. Like, way worse than I could have imagined. I mean, I was wearing a swimsuit. Come on. So we went to Diane's hotel one night with the girls so they could go swimming. I'm in the pool with Romelie and she keeps having little crying fits over seemingly nothing. The final straw comes when she's sitting on the stairs in the pool and an older girl sits down next to her. She immediately cries and tells the girl to "go away." I tell her she needs to stop throwing a fit or we're getting out of the pool. She doesn't, so we do. Then the tantrum starts. There's no where I can put her in a time out (we're in an echo-y pool room, and there are maybe 10 other people there), so I take her around a corner to try to remove her from public eyes, if not ears, reduce stimulation, and try to help her calm down. Unfortunately, she's flailing so much I can't set her down (hard pool floor and all), so I have to hold her pretty tightly to keep her from hurting herself. So she starts screaming bloody murder, Ow, you're hurting, stop, ow! So now I'm worried that folks in the pool think I took her around the corner to spank her or something. So I take her out of the pool room, wearing only my swimsuit, past the fancy open area where dozens of adults are having happy hour. She's kicking and screaming the whole way; I literally clamped my hand over her mouth for a couple seconds because I didn't know what else to do. I take her screaming up the glass elevator, and only when we step out on the second floor can I get her to stop screaming and begin to calm down. Once we got in the room, she had her time out (which she cried throughout), and the only good part to this story is that we actually managed to have a good, productive discussion afterwards about her behavior/choices.

Wow, that was a long story. But seriously, that was so embarrassing. If it had happened in a grocery store, at the mall, or in any other public place, I would have taken her outside, put her in the car, and stayed there until she calmed down. But we're both in wet swimsuits and it's the middle of winter. Going outside is not an option. I don't spank my kids because I understand that it doesn't work as a discipline tool. But I came pretty close to dumping a cup of water over her head in that hotel room. If I hadn't been concerned about soaking the couch, I would have.

Also, Romelie is adorable. Here's her wearing one of my headbands Rambo-style. I love my child. She's three years old. This is what I have to remind myself in moments like the one above.

And finally, some Cori news. Well, milestone reached - she can roll from her back onto her tummy. Granted, she's done it once, but she's made many attempts, and she very easily rolls onto her side. She loves to grab onto things. I love watching her in her blue bouncy chair - she has a couple stuffed animals that dangle overhead, and she'll grab one in each hand. Sometimes she'll put her feet up there, too, so she's got a foot and hand on each animal. Pretty cute. She still spits up like a champion; I'm hoping solid food will help with that, though it's still a couple of months away. And my favorite part of every day happens when she wakes up in the morning. She starts babbling in her bassinet until I come in to get her. I turn the light on, and she blinks and rubs her eyes. I stand over her bed, blocking the light with my head, and then she opens her eyes. She focuses in on my face...and gives me the biggest smile ever. Sometimes she laughs. I love it. It makes 7:00 am on a Sunday so much more enjoyable.

And as you can see, I set her up for some pictures. She was surprisingly cooperative, though she got a little frustrated after making so many cute faces and me still refusing to pick her up (I wasn't done yet!). I set up a foot picture similar to Romelie's from when she was this age. Is it too early to be nostalgic?

I'll save stories about music class (every Tuesday) until the next blog. And Cori's got her 4-month well baby check up next week, so I'll be sure to post her stats (weight, height, etc.) Two more weeks until Houston!

First month of resolutions success: check!

Ha! I got three blog posts in for January. Month one: done.

Now to think back on what actually happened in January...hmm. It's a blur. Well for one thing, Chason and I actually went on quite a few dates this month, which is rare for us since (a) we are homebodies, and (b) it requires enough advanced planning to request someone to babysit. But we had a few events worth braving the cold this month, and my dad was able and willing to watch the kids for all of them (thanks again, Dad!), so a dating we did go. We saw my friend James's band, The Robinson Caruso Organization, perform at their CD release show (for those who don't know James personally but were at my wedding, he sang and DJed. Check out some of his tracks here: http://www.myspace.com/rcotwincities/music). The following week, we bowled with The Bakken folks for our New Year party (Chason and I discovered we are equally bad at bowling), and then we saw a semi-staged production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" at the MN Orchestra. Good times. I think we will follow up all of this dating by totally staying home in February, including on Valentine's Day.

Also, I'm sure this is news to no one, but the weather in MN has been crazy sucky. Too much snow mixed with lots of painfully cold days. Romelie was actually able to play outside with her dad this weekend for the first time in over a month. I'm ready for that "early spring" groundhog prediction to come true. It has to; it's science, folks.

We were also fortunate to have my mom in town for the last week helping out while Jen's family was on vacation. Romelie seemed to enjoy staying home for a few days tearing the house apart. One bad-but-okay thing was that our basement flooded a bit on Friday (damn you, lint trap!), but that motivated me to clean the heck out of our laundry room, something we haven't done since we moved in. We now have incredibly clean, organized shelves, a more concealed litter box area, and a big open area that has been thoroughly mopped. It makes our basement look a lot less cluttered, which makes doing laundry less of a chore. Now if only all of the shelves in my linen closet would collapse, maybe that might actually get organized, too.

On to kid news! Cori just turned 3 months old yesterday. She likes sucking on her hands (not her thumb; her entire hand), grabbing and holding on to things like plastic rings, blankets, and rattles, and kicking her legs around in the air. She also is finally over her cold; she'd had crap in her lungs for about 3 weeks, but I haven't heard any coughing or raspiness for a couple of days now, so I think she's finally healthy. Of course, she wouldn't be my daughter if there wasn't something odd happening to concern me, so her new trick is not pooping. Some might argue this is a good thing, but since Romelie was always very regular with one or two poopy diapers each day, and since Cori is also a breastfed baby, and since this is a change that's only been happening in the last couple of weeks, it's very disconcerting to have a baby who only poops once or twice a week. But nothing else seems off, so I figure it's normal. Weird, but normal.

Romelie has been learning a few non-poop-related tricks of her own. She can now get undressed and dressed on her own. She puts on her winter gear (excepting snowpants) on her own, too, which makes getting the kids out the door significantly easier. She plays pretend with her toys, which is adorable to watch. She's learning our expectations, though of course she still doesn't always follow them; she's still 3, after all. She dances in an absolutely adorable way - lots of hip shaking. She makes up songs as well; behold:

Those lyrics were "Yee-haw, yap yap yap," by the way. She made sure to correct me when I sang it wrong.

And we have some fun times to look forward to. Super Bowl Sunday is coming up (though I pretty much despise both teams and don't really have anyone to root for, I'll still watch the game for the spectacle). Diane is going to be coming into town sometime in February (yay grandmommy time!). Paul is also hoping to come up for a few days. And then we are going to Houston for an extended vacation of 9 days in March. I am counting the days already.

I'll try to take more pictures for February's blogs...gotta keep that resolution going strong...