Grady Rolls

This was on Thanksgiving day, it was the third time in a row, and the third time ever. I am so amazed at his new trick!

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It's a Small World, After all.

This weekend, we went to Disney World. The happiest place on earth. Also, one of my favorite places on earth. I just love Disney. I love the atmosphere. I love the smell of the rides...yes, the smell. I am nuts, I know. I love the irony of it all. Parents pay thousands of dollars to take their kids to Disney and the kids spend half the day crying and the other half asleep in the $10 a day rental stroller because they refused to walk. Of course, we knew Grady wouldn't really care that we were at Disney. We were there for ourselves. We wanted the pictures and the time together as a family. And we had a good time. My in-laws were with us too. Now for those of you who do not know my sister-in-law, Katie, she HATES little animatronic people. So, "It's a small world" is, needless to say, like torture to her. This is something that Chris and I find so amusing that we spent a great deal of time bursting into the chorus of "Small World" and making "Small World" jokes. Well, as we were preparing to get onto Aerosmith's "Rockin' Roller Coaster" at MGM, literally miles away from the magic Kingdom and all of it's animatronic children,I saw a face in the crowd that looked incredibly familiar. I did a doubletake and it was an old friend from college that I had not seen in probably 5 years. Now, the chances of that happening were pretty slim, so in my disbelief I stammered "Lauren?" And it was her! I mean, could the world get any smaller? (tee-hee) We literally stood there in shock for 3 minutes and then moved on our separate ways. It was really good to see her. Now, my husband and sister-in-law were rather unimpressed, but I thought it was really cool. This was the girl I literally worshipped throughout my Freshman year. Now we are both married, and I have a son. Time and distance have separated us, but I immediately felt like I was back at college, not standing in the middle of MGM. Anyway not many people will be able to get my insanity unless they have had a similar experience. But, maybe you have. It is a small world, after all. (tee hee)

Grady Laughing

I am just trying this to see if it works. It's not the best laugh he's ever done, but it's cute. If this videosharing site works then you all will be able to see all of Grady's milestones on video soon! Let me know if it works for you...just click on the picture!

Luxury lost

So, we live in a "luxury apartment complex" ,which we pay an exorbitant amount of money to every month, in my opinion and I am fed up. It all started with the ants. Back in May or June I moved something and notice that the countertop underneath it had come to life..ants. Millions of tiny ants. Well, we bought RAID and cleaned everything and that mostly went away, except for when we occasionally have burgers for dinner and then they come back, the smell of the grease is more intoxicating than the remnants of RAID, I guess. Then came the Roaches. I am aware that I live in Florida, and I know that there are roaches in Florida, but that has not made me used to their presence. They came around the middle of July, the same time we brought our precious newborn home from the hospital. I reached my breaking point one night when I woke up to feed Grady and as I sat bleary eyed in bed I saw one crawl out from behind the nightstand. That was it. I knew they would soon be crawling all over me unless we took action, so we borrowed some "kill anything smaller than a ferret" bugspray and I haven't seen one since. I don't know what kind of spray the apartment complex buys, but for what we pay it should kill anything smaller than a chihauha. THEN we got spiders. Second round of evil bugspray. They're gone. Those were all things I could kill. My downstairs neighbors, however, I cannot kill. They are college kids, I think. Although, what college kids are doing living this far from any college I do not know. Why-ever they are here, I am so glad we are leaving. They spend most nights out on their lanai (porch) drinking and smoking and being really loud. Normally, I would not mind what they were doing, but their lanai just happens to be right below Grady's room, and they wake him up. I am already neurotic from lack of sleep, and they wake him more times than necessary. I realize the complex really can't solve this problem for me, but it gets worse. This morning, I was walking to the car and I thought to myself "hmmmm, the stairwell smells like vomit." I got to the bottom and found out why. There was a large pile of vomit on the third stair. Drunken Vomit. And I correct myself, because there still is a large pile of vomit, which is now congealed. All day long, the maintenance men trot around in their golf carts and not one of them can get a hose and wash off our steps? WHY? I cannot wait to get into our house. This place blows...literally.

Writer's blog

I really don't have much to write about these days. I haven't done a lot but sit home and enjoy my son. Which is fine by me. But it's hard to find a lot to write when you don't get out much. The last place I went was the dentist. That was fairly interesting. In the waiting room were 6 children who were all obviously siblings. They were well groomed and well behaved. The oldest was I'd say, eleven, and the youngest was probably one. The five that were old enough to talk were fluent in French. I love the French language, but I love it even more from children. I understand enough of it that I basically understood the major themes of their conversation. Their tongues tripped over the words and I found myself tickled. I was even more so that they were obviously American children. I am sure one parent spoke French, but they still amazed me.
On other fronts, Chris got a new job. He will be able to work four ten hour days, which means constant 3-day weekends for our family. I am so thrilled about that. Also, he won't have to work more hours during tax season, which was really hard last year.
Grady started really laughing this week, he thinks it's hilarious when I hold him over my head, rock him back and forth, and sing "shake your booty." He also likes when we touch his toes to his nose. We are planning on starting rice cereal this week and I am excited to see how he does with that. Also today, he tried to steal Chris' spaghetti at lunch...hence the above picture. I am not good at the cry it out thing. I just can't let him cry. So I have resolve myself to the fact that I will have to rock him to sleep until he' s six. Oh well.
That's about it with us. We're planning to move in with my in-laws at the beginning of December until our house is finished in January, so we have a lot of packing to do.
I usually try to put something funny in my blogs, but I am still in a lot of pain from the dentist and am not seeing the funny things about life right at the moment. But the good news is, we are going to Disney on Saturday, so that should restore my sense of happiness. If you made it to the end of this, you win a prize. Go bake yourself a cake.

I do love making lists

I find that when I haven't blogged for a while, list format is the easiest way to convey what's going on. Plus, I love lists. Just ask Chris how many lists I make. I even have a running list of how many ounces Grady eats a day.

1. I traveled to Minnesota with Grady this week for my great-grandmother's funeral. She was 98 and I am in a bit of a period of mourning that I never really got to know her.
2. Grady did great on the plane ride up, not so great on the plane ride home.
3. If I cancel an appointment without 24 hours notice at my dentist's office, I am charged a fee of $30. A few weeks ago they cancelled an appointment 3 hours in advance. I am still waiting for my $30.
4. Right after I had Grady, I had lost all but 5 lbs of my baby weight. I have now gained 6 of those back, so I have to lose 11. Damn that Publix bakery.
5. Today I decided to lay Grady in his crib at naptime and let him "cry it out" because the books say by 4 months, they should be able to do this. He cried for 12 minutes, fell asleep for 12 and is now crying again. We'll see how long mommy can last.
6. I have a ton of stuff to do in order to get ready for our move into our new house, packing, cleaning, throwing away crap, yet here I sit at the computer in my PJ's with unwashed hair and the laundry on the couch beside me.
7. The crying is starting to break me down. It's hard to know all it would take is me picking him up and he'd be back to sleep again.
8. We went to Busch Gardens yesterday and had a good time looking at all the animals. They had these strange baby monkeys that looked like gremlins.
9. I rode shiekra, the newest roller coaster, and the scariest part were the wasps swarming around the top of the ride. I don't like bugs, and I find wasps to be one of the unfriendliest of bugs in general.
10. I am definitely not good at the "cry it out" thing. I am going to go give him his paci, as I am sure he's spit it across the crib by now.