Saturday, December 29, 2007

Just Googling Around

This is a funny indicator of the age we live in now; (I'm sure it's not an original phrase, but I hadn't heard it said before last night.) These past two days at his job Martin hasn't had much of anything to do so he's been messing around on the internet and finding weird stuff. When he tells his stories he says he's been "screwing around" or "messing around" etc., but last night my mom was referring to his stories and she said he'd been "googling around." Isn't that hilarious? That's exactly what he WAS doing!

The picture to your left is our little family--our first family photo! I've been trying to get the three of us in a picture since the day Anja was born and it's just never happened. Finally last night as we were leaving my parents' house, we took Anja back out of her carseat for a picture together. Notice our sweaters--Martin's was a Christmas gift from his mom, and mine was a gift from Martin!! That white patch on the arm is this funny patch that has the brand name on it. Isn't that a cute sweater though??? It's so colorful, I love it!

We now officially have godparents for our baby girlie, but no baptism date. I tried to call St. Boniface yesterday but found the office to be closed until next week. But Matt Spencer has assured me that they don't care if a different priest baptizes your baby on any Sunday, so I don't feel as rude now. Also, Martin said that Fr. Alex baptized PeterXavier. I don't remember PeterXavier's baptism at all! I really have absolutely no memory of it. I'm sure I was there--especially if Martin was there--but I don't remember it.

Last night Martin and I went to my parents' house for dinner (ROAST BEEF AND BROWN GRAVY!!!!!!!!!!!) and afterward played some Euchre. Um... girls lost. Oops. I'm a really bad Euchre player. I really love to play it, but I'm just so bad at it! I think it's because my competitive nature is nonexsistant.... at least when it comes to games.

Matt Spencer came over this morning and we were talking about sleep. It was brought up that when I lived alone I really hardly slept, and I was never overly tired. I never felt at all sleep deprived even though I normally got only 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. I would stay up late and get up early for work and never thought anything of it... in fact, I would give Martin SUCH a hard time for not staying out later because he was tired and wouldn't want to be tired the next day, and I tried to convince him that people didn't really need that much sleep. Now look at me! Hahaha!! Anja sleeps for 5 hour stretches and a year or two ago that would've been my whole night and I would've considered her to be "sleeping through the night." Now she sleeps for one five hour stretch and a number of other stretches between 1 and 3 hours, and I wake up exhausted every day!! Hahaha... I'm such a loser. I really need to get back to not needing much sleep.

And I thought I was really lucky to have a baby who sleeps for five hours at a time at night, but then yesterday I found out that it's not normal for a baby to cry for the majority of time she's awake. My wonderful neighbor Tara came over and I was telling her about it and she said, "I don't have any advice for you because I never had a baby who cried all the time." (In print that sounds very mean, but really it wasn't; Tara is never mean.) She suspects Anja to be colicky. However, Anja is doing much better these past few days than she had been.... she has much longer happier stretches. But she still cries a lot.

Today is a "day off" from festivities, tomorrow we have a Qualio family get-together. I'm kind of really excited for it because we never see our extended family anymore and they're all nuts, so it's bound to be an entertaining event.

Friday, December 28, 2007

On the Third (?) Day of Christmas... (what day is it?)

To say that Anja "likes" her new Raffi DVD would be an understatement. She very nearly LAUGHED during "Tingaleyo!" We didn't mean to get a DVD though, it was supposed to be just a CD, but due to some miscommunication, we ended up with the 3 concert performances DVD. It is very great... but we ordered an audio CD yesterday afternoon. Hee hee hee! So now she can have Raffi wherever she goes!

Last night Martin bought me a sweater. I had seen it when we went shopping with TusaRebecca on Boxing Day, but I hadn't bought it because it was too expensive. I decided to go back to Old Navy last night and settle for another cute sweater that was much cheaper... but when we got there, it was gone! So Martin bought me the super cutie multi-colored sweater from Macy's. What a guy.

We wanted to have a date last night and go to Starbucks but as soon as we got there Anja started screaming her head off, so we skipped that.

I'm afraid I just wasted my one opportunity for a shower writing this worthless blog post....

p.s. Check out Martin's blog for my before-and-after pictures and keep up with it to watch my progress.... he might have also bought me a pretty blue kettlebell last night.....

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

The Real Christmas Pictures!

King of the Jungle!!!
Getting dressed for Work


My Daughter Hates Me

Christopher, Gracie, and Anja


Anja's First Christmas/Anja loves her Daddy


John Mooney's ready for Oktoberfest



ARCTIC SNOWBOOTS!!!

Aurelio and Anja


Theodore found this present while we were still wrapping things and
took it away.



Two Preggos and a Baby


Martin's Christmas Gift! (notice the bows?)

For Mama and Daddy

I didn't realize you two were such old people! I know that my blog posts are really fun and exciting to read, and I know that the pictures I post are TOTALLY worth checking the blogs every 3.2 seconds, but maybe you guys should... I dunno... find some hobbies?

Hahahahaha.... just teasing. I'll post the other pictures now.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

A Merry Christmas Post!

Well, here we are again, on another looney Christmas. I say "another" as if this isn't just the second Christmas Martin and I have spent together. But it's the very first Christmas with our Anja Lasagna, and that somehow makes it a hundred times crazier.

We spent Christmas Eve yesterday with the Schap side of the family. It was generally chaotic, but hopefully nobody went into it expecting anything different. I will post pictures soon, there are some really hilarious ones. John Mooney got the girls arctic snow boots. These things are hardcore. REALLY amazing, and kind of stylish too... well, maybe not... Anyway, it was really fun and the food was good and the presents were fun and the only thing lacking was all the singing of Christmas carols which, for one reason or another, never happened. The night in general was tons of fun, but as was the case with Anne's Charles, it was a little much for Anja. She had a meltdown around 8:00 and Martin and I wound up driving her around in the car and I nursed her in the Family Express parking lot in Monticello. It calmed her down, but we still left the party soon after we got back. Then we went home to our own wreck of a house and went to bed. Which brings me to my next topic:

What kind of nerds go to mass on Christmas MORNING?!? Talk about lame. At least we weren't alone though--we walked in at the same time as Anna and her mom and the girls, AND Mrs. Watson was there, so I don't feel completely loserish... but it still didn't feel as much like Christmas without going to Midnight Mass. And afterward Fr. Tim got to meet Anja. Because there were only about 12 people in the congregation so snagging him afterward for the introduction was no big deal.

Anyway, now I have to gather up my green bean casserole and my cranberries (and all of our presents!!) and head on up to my parents' house for the day. Merry Christmas to all my fellow life-less blog readers!! If you are actually reading this on Christmas Day, don't be such a dork! Go open presents!!!

Tomorrow I will post pictures of some of the things we got for my precious Theodore... REALLY good stuff.....

Monday, December 24, 2007

To: Mary

I am not mad at you!! I don't think you are seeing my comments though because they are sort of buried under more recent posts. I haven't been very good at checking tje blogs lately. I'm sorry you thought I was mad at you!! Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Unexpected Visitors

I got a visit from "Aunt Flo(w)" yesterday. Six weeks on the dot. I thought that was next to impossible while you were breastfeeding, but evidently, I was misinformed. I told Martin I never wanted to have a thousand children. He said it'll be hard to afford the hotel we'll have to buy to house our huge family. Lucky for me, my Lady Comp is in the mail!!!! Thanks to the generosity of a blog commenter whose first name is "Yo."

Today is our first anniversary! We woke up early and exchanged presents: I got Martin stationary cards with his name across the top and a book of poems, he got me a super cute Wabash hoodie, a gorgeous glass ornament from Artists Own, and also from Artists Own a photograph by Suzie Coles. Suzie was a super nice lady who just died a few weeks ago. It's thanks to her that Martin and I have all of our wonderful Scott Frankenberger pieces. She worked at Artists Own while people were shopping for gifts for our wedding and she knew how much we liked Scott Frankenberger's stuff so she would point them in that direction. So that gift was special, AND it fulfilled the first anniversary "paper" tradition, being a photograph and all.

Then we did our Christmas shopping and I believe we are now completely finished. I'm happy with a lot of the gifts we've gotten, in fact, almost all of them seem more thoughtful than I usually am with gift giving. It's not that I don't TRY to be thoughtful... I'm just a really rotten gift-giver. Martin is very good, but I'm proud to take credit for a number of the good gifts this year.

Today officially began my Annie-Gets-Back-In-Shape workout program. Guess who my personal trainer is? I'll give you one hint: Every session is free for as long as we both shall live! He's a real nazi too. He's going to put the program up on his blog so he took some REALLY unflattering pictures of me to start it out. I hope he puts up a much better looking pre-baby picture. I'd like there to be pre-baby, post-baby and post-training. I wanted to look really gloomy like the women in those before-and-after face lift or acne pictures, but he didn't let me. I guess he didn't want the world wide web thinking he was married to a homeless person.

Wow, so it's been like three hours or so since I started this post and just now I fell down the stairs with Anja, smack on my back. Whoops. She's fine. I think I punctured a lung though. (obviously I'm kidding.)

I can't believe Christmas Eve is Monday! Crazy!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Far from Starving

Theodore is like one of those little kids who goes around telling strangers that his parents beat him when really he comes from the most gentle, loving home imaginable. I swear, if you were to spend a day in our house, Theodore would convince you that he was starving. He eats EVERYTHING. Never mind the fact that he has a two-sided food dish (the kind for one side water, one side food) that is doubly filled with cat food. Never mind that we lovingly offer him our table scraps right off our plates. He still goes around eating things like egg cartons and flower petals and chocolate fudge as if he hasn't been fed in weeks and he has to go scavenging for his food. He's pathetic! Just today he tried to eat a plastic Santa Claus! And over the weekend Kim brought over a plate of cookies... Theodore ate them. There were some frosted ones with big fang marks in them and there were others that were eaten in half and there were a few that were completely gone altogether. Meanwhile, his cat food dish sits upstairs completely full and he STILL attacks our legs to get us to give him more. Do you know why? Because since he doesn't really eat the cat food, it goes stale. Then when he really is hungry and there aren't any holiday treats or flowers or random pieces of plastic sitting around for him to gnaw on, he goes upstairs to the cat food and refuses to eat it because it's stale and he likes it fresh. So he'll attack our legs (and visitors' legs, such as my mom's!) until we give him a scoop of fresh food. He's ridiculous!

In other news, Anja's eye was magically better this morning. I called the doctor anyway, just in case. I described the eye to the nurse there at Arnett and she said it sounded like a blocked tear duct. I told her that's what I had thought but this nurse yesterday told me otherwise because her goop was green. Today's nurse was skeptical. She told me to keep an eye on it for another day and if it is indeed pinkeye, there's no risk of letting it go for longer, and if it's the blocked tear duct, it'll go away and I don't need to come in. That's what I've done, and it's hardly even watery anymore and there's been no more green gunk. Also the swelling went down overnight and the redness is gone. She is cute once again!

I put up Christmas decorations today!!!!!!!!!! One week till Christmas and I finally got it done. We don't have a tree still.... but we have four stockings and some other little decorations and a cheap-o nativity set and my mom made us an Advent calendar that she brought to us last night so I put that up today. I didn't do a very GOOD job of decorating, but at least I did it. And now the back room is a huge mess again from everything I didn't use... which was a lot. (Did I mention the amount of Christmas decorations we have?...)

My parents brought over some leftovers from my sister's party last night and there was some killer tomato dill soup. I ate almost the whole thing, straight out of the Tupperware, in one sitting. It was delicious! Martin shared the venison with me last night but took the rest of it to work today for his lunch. It was also delicious! The peppermint bark was great (I ate it all,) the Bailey's will be a special treat for our coffee tonight, and the oatmeal cookies... oh, Theodore ate the cookies. Hm. Imagine that.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

PINKEYE!

When I woke up with Anja this morning her eye was completely crusted over with green gunk. I cleaned it off and we braved the blizzard to get to church with her in the sling inside Martin's coat, and she was okay during mass but by the time we got home she had a long line of green snot running down her cheek from her eye. Also, her eye was starting to get swollen, either from us picking at it or from whatever was wrong with her. So I decided to call the doctor. When you call after hours they put you through to this nurse hotline where the people are REALLY nice... I called them last time when she had diarrhea. They were very helpful and friendly that time and this time the woman was even MORE friendly. I described Anja's eye to her, and she laughed and said, "it sounds like you've got pinkeye!" I said I thought it might be a clogged tear duct, and the nurse said, "you've described yellow-green discharge from the eye? Yes, that's pinkeye." The woman was really light about it and friendly and so helpful. However, she did say, "She's EXTREEEEEMELY CONTAGIOUS! Don't let her touch your face!" And I thought, "oh dear. Too late for that!" So it looks like Martino and I might be in for it ourselves. But at least we know what it is now. I feel so bad for her, she looks awful. The nurse also said she hoped we didn't have any pictures planned for her!! Aaah, I hope she doesnt look this awful at Christmas. She kind of looks like someone punched her in the face. I wonder how long pinkeye lasts? The nurse got another call that sounded like it was more urgent than mine, and she said she would call me back... I hope she remembers. But even if she doesn't, there's not much I can do except what she told me, which is one wipe of the eye per cotton ball, and wash our hands constantly. And not go anywhere. And she also said get used to having your weekends at home because kiddies always seem to get sick on Friday nights!

So that's the story of the day. She said take her in tomorrow, which I'll do, and they'll give her some eyedrops and it should be not contagious anymore within 24 hours of treatment and I don't know when her poor little face will start to look better, but hopefully soon.

Oooooh, now Martin is saying he might've brought it home from a guy in his office who was out for a few days cause his kids were sick! Oh well... my sister was having a party at her house today that I'm sad to miss, but really it's kind of nice to have an excuse to just stay home and be snuggly all day, especially with all the snow!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Goopy Eye

Anja has a goopy eye. It's her left one. She woke up this morning and it was really oozy and gets big eye boogers in the corner of it. I looked did a quick search this morning for "baby oozing eye" and everything I got described a blocked tear duct. She doesn't appear to be sick or anything though. But her eye is all ugly and slimy.

This is unfortunate because Theodore had an oozy eye when he was a kitten too. Is it something I'm doing to my precious babykins?

Does anyone know what it is or what I can do for it? If it's not gone by early next week I think I'll call the doctor.

Oh, also, when Martin went anniversary shopping this morning he came home with two Scott Frankenberger mugs for us! They are SO cute... and not my anniversary present! What a goof!

BLIZZARD?!?!?!?

I hope you're all keeping up with Mike Prangley's blog today... the latest post says he's on a conference call with the National Weather Service talking about some BLIZZARD conditions and snow amounts of 12-14 inches being "solid" for our viewing area! Wooo! I'm about to go out and get some frozen chicken because we don't have any. We have a chicken from Thursday that I'm going to make some soup with, but I thought we might like more than just soup and eggs for today and tomorrow. Of course, when I told Martin I was going out, he said if I leave to drive in this weather he'll peek at his Christmas presents while I'm gone. Hm. That's quite a threat.

We've had a pretty good Saturday so far. Anja slept amazingly well last night, waking up every 3-4 hours instead of every 1-2 hours to eat! Martin braved the weather this morning to go anniversary gift shopping and when he got back we ate eggs and Kim came over with a plate of cookies and coffee for us. Sometime today we'd like to get a Christmas tree. Our plan is to walk down to St. James and get one and drag it home. I hope that plan works out!

Last night we went to Target to get some new onesies in Anja's correct size and when we walked past the shoe department it was hilarious... one aisle was mostly slippers, which were entirely sold out, and the next aisle over was all childrens snow boots--which were also sold out!! (Obviously they weren't ALL gone since we knew what had been there; there were a few pairs of each left.) Isn't that cute and funny? Everyone prepares for a blizzard in his own way, I guess.

This will be the second blizzard of 2007. Next year I think I'll make myself some snow shoes!

One thing I do miss about being childless this winter is our long cold walks. Martin and I have always taken long walks in the winter getting so cold and covered in ice and snow. Obviously we won't be doing that this year! But this year we will stay in and eat chicken vegetable soup and be cozy... and that will be a good memory too. Last year we went down to Chumley's and spent the blizzard with the real hardcore drunks. THAT was a memorable blizzard!

Another thing we've done for the past few years is stop in at a bar for a celebratory snow beer. Last year was kind of lame because we had to drive down from Eastway to go to the BrewCo, which is not NEARLY as fun as bundling up and walking down... but still. So this year Martin picked up a seasonal 12-pack of Sam Adams bottles. We are by no means big boozers.... we've been splitting a bottle between us every few nights. What a cozy little thing to do in the evenings! And they are yummie bottles too because they're holiday specials, like cranberry.

People have been writing mean things on Mike Prangley's blog. Dummies.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Some Pictures and Such

I have a lot of socks. My favorite part about Fall and Winter is that I get to re-discover all my favorite pairs!! Today I found in the bottom of my drawer a pair of navy blue socks (to match my navy blue shirt!) with this cute little print around the top. I had forgotten how wonderfully soft they are! Aaaahh!! I love them.



To your right you will find a picture of the Schap Family Bath. Our nightly routine for Anja has quickly turned into Theodore's routine as well!! Actually, it's kind of obnoxious because he doesn't usually sit where he is in the picture... most of the time he likes to hang out on the edge of the bathtub walking back and forth so that it makes it REALLY hard to wash the baby in the tub, whose bathtime it really is. But, Theodore was the center of attention for so long, who can blame him for his jealousy? Check out that huge belly on our baby girl! Can you tell who just had dinner?



I was going to do some Christmas shopping with my sister-in-law TusaRebecca today, but I cancelled on her. I can't tell you where we were going, but afterward we were going to knit together and I'm bummed that it didn't work out, but there's no way it would've been possible today. Anja was up about every hour last night (and the night before) and I was counting on her sleeping all morning, but she didn't! She was awake, and didn't want to be put down. So it was 2:30 before I was even ready for my day, yesterday's dinner dishes were still all over the kitchen and the pile of dirty clothes on Anja's bedroom floor was about to drown us all. Plus, my day doesn't seem to get going until I get my shower and makeup on. Until then I am a big, BIG
grouch-o. But eventually I got my shower taken and my makeup on and around that time Anja finally fell asleep and I was able to get all the dishes done and two loads of laundry. Hooray! But by then it was too late to get together with TusaRebecca... hopefully she didn't hate me too much for requesting a raincheck.






This is a dopey picture of me and Anja from the other night, to show off her cutie outfit from Auntie Perkalator! Too bad we both look like such losers in the picture.
And then there is the ice ornament from outside our kitchen window after the ice storm last weekend.
Of course I had sooooo much to blog about this morning when there was no time. Now I've forgotten everything. Except the fact that Martin set up the coffee maker this morning for double my usual daily amount of coffee, which is fantastic. I know I probably shouldn't be drinking as much coffee as I am, but I can't help it.... especially since the coffee we have now is chocolate truffle.....

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Stenographer for Hire

I have this great idea for a chick-lit novel!!! Does anyone want to be my stenographer? Obviously I don't have any time to write a novel these days, but I've got oodles of time to tell the story to a typist while I fold laundry and wash dishes and change diapers! Martin says maybe I could fall in love with my stenographer like in that stupid movie, "Alex & Emma." (The background story on that, for anyone who cares, is that once looooooooong before we were dating [back when I hated him] Martin and I watched that movie together at my apartment with another one of his friends... who was it, Martin? Was it Jason?... anyway, and we all thought it was a really dumb movie and I can't remember if Chinese food was involved that night or not, but sometimes it was. ANYway, the next day I was walking down Main Street and I ran into Martin and Bambino outside of McCords, and to Martin I said, "I watched this really stupid movie last night called 'Alex & Emma' and I kind of went on about it before Martin interrupted me and was like, 'yeah, I was there.' Um. Whoops.)

So anyway, long story short, if anyone wants a job that may or may not pay money, but will definitely pay in hot tea and coffee, give me a ring. Must be able to type.

It's official: this is the last day of Anja's 5-8lb onesies. They don't fit her anymore. This morning I could barely get the crotch snapped. How depressing!!! There are other things that don't fit now too, so I'm going to start packing them into a box. It's only been one month! How can she be so big already?!?

Every morning I wake up to a hot travel mug of coffee for Anja's 5:00 nursing session, and before he leaves Martin readies the coffee pot so all I have to do is push the "brew now" button.

Okay, this might sound judgemental, but I read an article in People magazine the other day about Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks. I hadn't realized they'd gotten married, but they did. And she was going on and on about what a great husband he was and giving advice about how to make a relationship work. I thought it was funny because preluding her advice was some statement about her past two marriages, and um, hello!? Aren't they the country music couple who got found out having an affair in 1998 or something? And wasn't it kind of really scandalous, what with Garth's three little girls and them having recorded that duet together first and everything like that? I'm not sure you're allowed to gush about your perfect husband and give relationship advice to public readers when your relationship started out like that. Of course, maybe I'm just narrow minded.

Anja and I are listening to the Notre Dame Glee Club's Christmas album today. Over the weekend we got out all the Christmas decorations, but again, it was a little bit overwhelming... so the only thing we got up was a garland of lights around the door and table in the front room. I'm glad we did that much though because I think it's pretty and I think Anja likes it too.

I can't BELIEVE Christmas is so close! And I still haven't gotten Advent candles!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Snuggilicious

If you could see me at this moment, you would all wish to be Annie Schap. Because I am wearing some really cute jeans, my super adorable brown Keens that my fabulous and handsome hubby gave me, I'm wearing one of my favorite turtleneck sweaters which is DEFINITELY pre-pregnancy, my very favorite hat--the stripey one from Latitude Zero--and I'm sitting on my uber comfy couch participating in my favorite activity of all time (blogging) with both my baby and my most wonderful precious kitty cat snuggling up against me. WHAT A LIFE!!!

I decided I didn't want to wait so long for my 6-week postpartum checkup, so I called and had it rescheduled. It had been for the 7th of January--now it's the 21st of December! I had no real reason to reschedule it, I just wanted it to be earlier, and that's what I told the lady, and she didn't care.

Anja had her one-month doctor appointment this morning. She's in the 25th percentile for weight, height and head measurements. She weighs 8lbs 8oz! Not as much as we'd guessed, but still... compared to her birth weight she's a whale. The nurse who called our name called us back as "the Schap family" because she wasn't sure how to pronounce Anja's name. Did we make a big mistake with giving our daughter an alternate spelling on an already uncommon name?....

Yesterday after a brief and somewhat uncharitable conversation, I said to Martin, "Martin, did you forget that we were going to work on being charitable this advent season?" His reply: "No, that's lent. This is Advent. This is when I am merry and eat a lot!"

Anja has been incredible last night and today. Last night after dinner we gave her a bath and she fell asleep just before 8:00 which put Martin and me in bed shortly after 8:00. It was the first time we'd gone to bed at the same in 2 or 3 weeks. Usually one of us goes to bed while the other tries to put her to sleep, then we trade off, etc. She slept in pretty solid 3 hour chunks of time, and when she did stay awake for an hour around midnight she was happy and fine and eventually drifted off again without being fussy. Then this morning she woke up at 5:00 which was exactly the time I wanted to wake up, and she was so happy all morning! I put her in her swing in the doorway of the bathroom while I took my shower and she was awake the whole time, and perfectly happy!!! It was GREAT!! I fed her right before we left for Crawfordsville, she didn't cry at all in the car, and then at her doctor appointment she was just awake and alert and didn't cry until the very end (and then all the way home) because she was hungry. She's been so great!! I think the bath last night definitely did it. She was very calm for it. She wasn't calm after I got her out of the bath, but she was calm for the most part while she was in it. Martin read us one chapter of Catch-22 while I fed her and she was out by the end of the chapter. It was a pretty perfect night!

Now she's taking a nap and I still haven't gone to the grocery store today! I also wanted to go out to Once Upon a Child and see if I can find some more pants for her. She doesn't have very many pairs of pants.

Wasn't the ice storm marvelous? Martin took a great picture of one little branch that looked like a christmas ornament was hanging from it, but I haven't uploaded it from my camera yet. When I do, I will post it.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Happy One Month Birthday!

Okay, first of all, I had this really great post written this morning, and then when I went to post it, the whole thing disappeared and all that was left in the automatically saved draft was the teensy paragraph you see before this one. Ugh. Talk about frustrating!!!

Anyway, they extended the ICE STORM WARNING!! to 3:00 this afternoon, while earlier this morning it had only been until noon.

Anja is one month old today! I cannot believe how big she is compared to when she was born. She is finally wearing her 0-3 month clothes and filling them out. It's great! She still wears her newborn stuff too, but it's so fun to dress her up in the bigger clothes because she has so many! Today she is wearing a very cute fleece outfit that AnnLaura gave her. Tomorrow she has a doctor appointment and we'll see how much she weighs now. It's at least 8lbs. Seeing her and carrying her around now that she's this big, I can't IMAGINE having a brand new newborn this size. She seems so huge!

Yesterday we ran errands all day, starting with 8:00 mass. It was a long, but fun day! And Anja was GREAT!! She didn't sleep the whole time, and she even bypassed her lunchtime fit. Have I mentioned what an incredible schedule she's on? She has a long crying fit every day at lunchtime (between 11:00 and 1:00) and another one at bedtime (between 10:00 and midnight.) It might not be an enjoyable schedule, but she keeps to it, that's for sure. Anyway, we had lunch at CiCi's pizza and she was awake and happy the whole time, probably due to the fact that on Friday, as soon as she hit her 4-week mark (when they say you "can" start giving them pacifiers) she started taking her nibby!! I had tried and tried before and she'd never wanted it until Friday. Now she's one of those cute baby's who has only eyes and a nose and the rest of her face is pacifier.

Anyway, we bought a bunch of gifts yesterday for people, although I'm not sure any of them were Christmas gifts. (We might go out later today and do some of that.) Also we went up to Monticello and got my engagement ring cleaned and the prongs tightened and now it's back on my finger!! yaaaaay!! It's good to have it back. I love my engagement ring. And I didn't have it off for long enough to make it feel weird to be wearing it again... in fact, I never really got used to going without it.

Today we are putting up Christmas decorations. It was the day of Aurelio's planned birthday party up in Chicago, but it got cancelled... because Aurelio got the chicken pox!! Isn't that sad?? And that alone didn't really matter, except that most of the guests who would be in attendance were newborn babies or pregnant ladies. Too bad. But I guess it doesn't matter SO much since they extended the ice storm warning, although we drove to church and the roads weren't bad.

So anyway, as I said, the plan today is to put up Christmas decorations, but so far we've just been sitting around drinking coffee. Well, that's not entirely true--Martin has washed dishes. But I have been sitting around drinking coffee all morning. So, needless to say, we're not getting much decorating done.
Happy One-Month Birthday, Anja!

ICE STORM WARNING!!!

I woke up this morning to our "freezing rain advisory" from last night being changed into an ICE STORM WARNING!! Doesn't that sound so ominous? Ah, if only it were a school day. And I were in school. Mostly elementary school.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Yingle Bells! Yingle Bells!

Look at our little Anja in the laundry basket full of mismatched socks! We put her in there just for fun, and doesn't she look cute? And if you look carefully, you can see that her eyes are almost entirely better! There's just a teensy bit of red on her right eye, and that is barely noticeable. Seriously, it's like she woke up one day and the bruises were gone.

We're about to leave to meet my family over at Purdue (they attended "A Tuba Christmas" which we wanted to go to as well, but Martin was afraid Anja might not fully enjoy tubas yet... He might be right, but I gave him a hard time about it because he's afraid of everything when it comes to Anja. He's way worse than I am!) but I wanted to post this cute picture. I will post more tomorrow and tell the good news about what TusaRebecca told me about ordering digital prints from Walgreens through Picasa!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Nightly Routines (And St. Nicholas Day! I forgot!)

I just read my brother's blog (actually I didn't read it, I just saw the first line and came here to post) and I'd completely forgotten about St. Nicholas Day. Well, actually that's not entirely true. I know that St. Nicholas Day is the 6th of December.... I just didn't remember that TODAY was the 6th of December. Therefore, I forgot that today was St. Nicholas Day... because I forgot that today was today.

Martin and Anja have gotten into a little bit of an evening routine. You see, Anja has this trick where she sleeps all day and then wakes up right after dinner and stays awake until about, oh, midnight or so. And she starts out happy when she is awake all evening, but then she grows steadily crabbier as the evening wears on. So about in the middle of the evening, when she's still fairly happy, between one meal and the raging fit that comes before the next meal, Martin sings songs to her. Tonight he was singing Johnny Cash, and she loved it!! But then guess what happened? I started singing along, and she went into hysterics. So I stopped singing, and she returned to being just fine.

I swear, my baby hates me. Well, she doesn't hate ME, she loves me because I feed her... but she hates my passion for music. How sad is that?!?

Last night we ate a pomegranate. I ate my piece with a spoon, but Martin ate his piece with his hands like a monkey. And today his hands are still all purple from the juice! It actually looks awful--he looks like he's got burns all over his hands, but it's just pomegranate.

Tonight we went to Target. We needed eggs for the weekend and Martin's been using my razor so he wanted his own, and we got some diapers and changing table pads and burp cloths because we didn't have very many of either. Then we sat at the Starbucks there and had some coffees. It was a nice little date. Anja wore this super cute onesie that is blue and brown stripes that her Aunt TusaRebecca brought over for her the other night, and it's REALLY cute, but she does look like a boy. Especially since she was wearing green pants and a green hat (with ears) and was wrapped in a blue blanket. But she looked so CUTE!!! One of our errands for Saturday is Once Upon a Child, so I'm hoping to find some plain pink pants for her and then she'll look more girlish.

It's supposed to snow again tonight so Martin worried about tomorrow's roads. Evidently they were REALLY bad the other day and he almost crashed and died. It took him almost two hours to get from here to Crawfordsville. He almost went back down tonight to spend the night. I thought he meant to spend the night at his fraternity house, but no... he was going to take his pillow with him and sleep on his office floor. Um. I told him that if he does things like and I have to explain it to people, they're going to think he's having an affair. Anyway, he stayed home and work out here in the morning and might be a little late to work if the roads are bad.

I have a baby question--when do they start holding their head up on their own? I'd like to know when I can start freaking out about Anja randomly breaking her neck. I'm guessing maybe they learn to support their heads around the time they start sticking their fingers in light sockets? That'd be my just my luck, wouldn't it.

Bad Hair Day

I'm having a bad hair day. Martin had me take a shower this morning while he was home and able to hold the baby, which was a big help. It freed up my day considerably. (I take long showers.) I put goop in my hair and hoped that it would dry cute and curly, but no such luck. So later on I re-wet my hair and blew it dry... and it came out looking poofy and page-boyish and mom-ish and genrally ugly. So then I tried to pull it up in a high ponytail which looked cute except for the big chunk of hair on the left side that wasn't long enough to reach. Finally I gave up and put on a stocking cap. Later in the day I got hot and took the hat off and found my hair had flattened out nicely, but I still consider it a bad hair day. Then Mrs. Schap came over--(well, she didn't exactly come over... I went outside to throw some garbage away and I heard her next door talking to Tara so I went over there and then Mrs. Schap came in to see Anja)-- and she thought my hair looked cute. I believe that she thought that, but I don't think it myself. Also, I put on my green sweater with a white scoop-necked t-shirt underneath and I thought I looked a little bit cute (cuter than the other day anyway, when I spent the day in Martin's Dropkick Murphys sweatshirt) but no sooner did I get dressed than Anja puked all down my back. Oh well. At least I can wash the sweater tomorrow and wear it on the weekend.

Once again, Anja's been sleeping all day. I've been getting stuff done as a result, though, including going to my backyard and clipping evergreen branches from the bushes. Looking through the Better Homes & Gardens magazine they had such great table arrangements with evergreens. So I tried to replicate them... but it just looks like I shoved some bush branches into a vase. Not cute at all. However, I think I'll get some sort of berries or flowers or something this weekend to stick in there as well and maybe that will help. I really hate it when I try to do the cute things in magazines and what I do ends up looking ridiculous.

Anja seems to like the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslaus" (sp?). Whenever I sing it to her she falls asleep.

I tried tackling the Christmas decorations again, like I said I would today... but I couldn't even get the boxes out of the closet!! You wouldn't believe the amount of decorations we have. Two big boxes, a small box, and various other things as well, like an old wooden sled and a big ugly santa and a huge painted window. WE HAVE A WINDOW in our closet. It's got painted snowmen on it and says "Merry Christmas." Why do we have that? Where am I going to hang it? Am I going to put an extra nail in the wall for this dorky holiday window?

Actually, the window might be cute. I can't really see it through all the other garbage in the closet... I can just see the top edge of it and remember what it is.

I hope Anna has her baby soon. I'm excited for it.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Peeking Ahead

Okay, first of all, Anja is in her crib and I'm in the back room with the monitor. As many of you already know, Anja snores a lot. But right now her snoring sounds a lot more like meowing. Of course, it all sounds way different in the monitor than it does if you're standing next to her. But it's still funny.

And now I have to admit something that makes me kind of a bad person. I'm reading a chick-lit book right now, and it's fine, whatever; I read another book by the same author and I liked the first one better. (This is her third--they didn't have the second one at the library last time I went.) So anyway, I started reading the book and in the very beginning the guy and girl split. And I KNEW that they would get back together at the end of the book--I knew it. But I got so annoyed and impatient waiting around for it that I had to read the end of the book to find out for sure. And I was right. But now I know how the book ends. Isn't that stupid? Of course, I'm still going to finish the book anyway... the bad part is, this isn't the first time I've done this. I do it kind of a lot. As in, all the time.

That's all I really wanted to say. I went into the spare room closet to dig out the Christmas decorations and put them up... but as soon as I opened the door I became overwhelmed. We have SO MUCH Christmas stuff. And to think of how much we threw away/gave away/sold in the garage sale...!! Pretty amazing, really. I will wait until I have Martin here to help me before I actually start making decorating decisions.

Good Morning, Snow!

I had lost all hope at 2:00 in the morning when I woke up to feed Anja and there was barely a dusting of snow on the ground. I thought Mike Prangley had been wrong about the forecast. But now it's 7:45 and the sun is coming up on a very wintery day!! I love it! And I love the view I have from the big back room where I can see so much just from sitting on the couch and everything looks so pretty when it's covered in fresh snow. It makes me want to wear moon boots.

Last night we went on a Favorite Date. I was so close to buying the Better Homes & Gardens magazine. It had so many cute Christmas decorating and gift ideas! (However, the Country Living was worthless.) Before we went on our favorite date we took [kind of a lot of] pictures of Anja in her cute hoodie bear suit. Here is a small sampling:
Our first anniversary is coming up. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm getting Martin, but it's somewhat lame so I'm hoping to think of something better soon. The first anniversary gift is paper.

If you want to know how stupid, stupid, stupid I am, you can know that I've been up since 4:30 this morning and Anja's been asleep almost the whole time. (almost.) I could have taken a shower and be ready for my day by now, but instead of being productive (except for the load of darks I did) guess what I've been doing? Uploading wedding pictures onto my computer and putting them on facebook. And then while I was at it, I uploaded these Anja pictures and I put them on Facebook too. Ugh!! I annoy myself so much sometimes.
Here's a fun story. Yesterday I woke up craving a vanilla chai. And of course, cravings are always WAY worse when you know there isn't any possible way you can satisfy it. So that's how I felt yesterday morning--hopeless. Then Martin texted me and asked if it was okay if his sister came over to dry her jeans because their drier had broken that morning. A few minutes later his sister texted me to ask the same thing and said she'd bring a chai for me when she came. (Keep in mind I had kept my craving to myself.) So later on she did come over and she did bring me a chai and it was delicious and perfect in every way. Later that afternoon, long after TusaRebecca had come and gone, Martin texted me and asked if she had brought me a chai. Well, yes she had! and I asked him why he asked. Evidently, that was the condition under which he would let her come dry her jeans. She was only allowed use of our drier if she brought me a chai. Martin makes a great husband, but sometimes I wonder if I'd so much enjoy having him as a brother....
I'm starting to worry about Theodore knocking over Anja's bassinet. He's tried twice from two different angles to get into it, and since he's a big idiot and doesn't know how to retract his claws, he gets stuck on it and just pulls to get loose, which could potentially pull the whole thing over because it really isn't all that sturdy. I hate getting mad at him and I really hate the idea of shutting our bedroom door and not allowing him in at night, but at the same time, I can't very well let him knock over the bassinet and kill our baby, can I?
Our weekend this weekend is going to be crazy and I hope it's as fun as I'm expecting it to be too. We have loads of errands to do on Saturday, including taking my engagement ring up to the jeweler in Monticello and having the setting checked. Then on Sunday it is Aurelio's 1st birthday party so we'll be going up to Chicago right after church. Yesterday Martin and I both spent the day thinking it was Friday. I think of all days to get mixed up on that, Monday is clearly the worst. We must be subconsciously nervous about the upcoming weekend and all its busyness.
And finally, because I really am this lame, here is a picture of Anja as she is right this very minute:

Monday, December 3, 2007

It's kind of too bad, but I make a really rotten hostess. And part of the reason I'm so bad at it is because I would love to be good at it... but I'm not. I'm always thinking, "Ooo, it'd be great to have this big party for [fill in the blank] reason." Usually those party ideas of my own never end up panning out. But when I'm volunteered to host some sort of event, I get just as excited about it. "Ooo, it'll be fun to have the family over for [fill in the event/holiday.]" And I think ahead to all the ways I can make it a cute get-together and all the ways in which I can show my family/friends a good time in my home. But then the day of the event arrives and I realize I've done nothing to ready my home, nothing to make my fabulous plans for the party come true, and on top of it all, I develop this sudden surge of claustrophobia where I think, "What was I thinking??? I want to go to bed right now (nevermind that yesterday it was 2:00 in the afternoon,) and now all these people are coming over and I know they're never going to leave!!!"

So yesterday Martin's family came over for a little get-together for his brother, Tony, who's being deployed to Iraq. We had it at our house because it was the best place to have it. And I was really happy to have it here! Really, I was! And all weekend, I said to myself, "okay, self, I need to clean [state every room in the house individually as if it's the only room to be cleaned] and get all AnnLaura's maternity clothes together for her and blah, blah, blah..." and on Saturday I did some minor cleaning up around the house, vowing that Sunday morning I would really hit it hard. But then Sunday morning came. And went. And suddenly it was Sunday afternoon and Martin and I were running all over the house trying to make it look at least presentable. And we did succeed in the end, but it was a hectic few hours--which totally didn't need to be that hectic since this get-together was not anywhere near being a last-minute thing. So anyway, there went my enthusiasm for entertaining. Then I was mad at myself for not being a more organized person, which made me grumpy, which made me more mad at myself because I knew I wasn't doing a good job of hiding my grumpies (and tiredness and social anxiety.) I think I overcame it all by the end of the night though. And it was a nice get-together, complete with pizza and cherry cokes.

We had a good weekend but it absolutely flew by. I can't even remember now what all we did, but whatever it was, it was fun. And I liked the freezing rain that Saturday supplied. Anja loves Ben Folds!! That's a pretty great thing, considering how much I love Ben Folds. And Martin does too, except he evidently forgets how much he loves him between listenings. We've been listening to his "Songs for Silverman" in the car and I love, love, love it.

I've also discovered why only married people are supposed to have children and it has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with snot-sucking. Anja gets some really colossal boogers and try as I might, I'm just not aggressive enough to get the things out with the little baby boogie vacuum. Martin, however, is a pro! And he's getting better every day too--the other night he got BOTH nostrils cleared and she hardly even made a peep! (The first time she screamed and screamed... maybe because I had been torturing her for a long time before Martin came along and saved us both.) What would I do without him? There are lots of other things that he does besides the nose stuff that I just can't force myself to do. I think it has everything to do with him being an aggressive man and me being a timid lady. And since for the most part, that's what couples are made of, this must be the reason society has always preferred people to be married before they start having babies.

Okay, so just for the record, this post was started at 6:30 this morning and now it's almost 6:30 in the evening and I'm just now getting back on the computer to finish it. I've had a crazy Monday! I can't believe how fast Mondays go by now that I have so much to do--and a time limit on it all. Today was made easier by my mom helping me out with my errands--she stayed in the car with Anja while I ran shirts inside to the cleaners, then the three of us went to the grocery store together--but I still had so much to do and so little time that I didn't get everything done.

When Anja was born we decided we weren't going to mess with dragging her around in the carseat all the time. I don't like to handle it, it's so big and bulky and heavy, I'd rather just take her out of it and carry her, especially now while she's so tiny. And I'm getting pretty good at eating one-handed since she usually wakes up right about the time we sit down for dinner every night. However. Anja is NOT a fan of her carseat, and she's even less of a fan when it's been sitting in the cold car for more than a couple of hours. So now we take her in and out of the house in her car seat and while she is much happier this way, I keep thinking I'm going to drop the whole contraption and kill her.

Baked chicken with carrots and onions, and mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner! Mmmm, smells good!!