Tag Archives: life

Feb3

TODAY is the best day of my life!

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TODAY is the best day of my life!

Well, maybe you’ve heard that the Superbowl is coming to Indy on Sunday?

It’s just a little football game.

But you know what the BIG news was?  THE TODAY SHOW WAS BROADCASTING FROM DOWNTOWN!

Guys.  I love the Today show.  It’s, like, my favorite.

One of the things on my Bucket List was being in “the crowd” on the Today show.  For serious.  (And now that I’ve written it down I’m kind of embarrassed to admit it.)

So last week when they announced they were broadcasting from Indy this week on Friday – Monday, we were SO in.  In fact, this is how in we were: Joey took the morning off to make this happen for me.  He is a rockstar.

THANKS, JOEY!!!

A couple days ago, Angel’s husband Chang also became a rockstar because HE took the day off so she could come with us!

And that’s how it became a party at my house at 6:00 a.m. this morning.

Should I mention that I was so excited last night that I couldn’t sleep until after 1 am?  So when the alarm went off at 5:30, it felt super lame.  But we got up, we got ready, and we got in the car.

We drove down and parked in one of the garages near the convention center.  I am not going to disclose how much we paid for parking because it was a shameful amount of money, but I know from a Very Reliable Source that the cost for that same garage has increased by $20.00 in the last 4 hours.  I think that makes me feel less bad?

Angel brought her carrier and we loaded Analie up.

Analie was fully dressed in an undershirt, leggings and socks underneath her PJs, was also wearing a hoodie and covered in several blankets.  Oh, and a hat.

Poor girl was so tired and confused.

But she was a champ!  She didn’t fuss at all the entire morning; she just looked around sleepily at everything.  YAY ANA!

We ran upstairs and walked the two or three blocks to the broadcast site, and I think half of Indianapolis had beaten us there!  It was packed with screaming people waving their signs.  We didn’t get very close, but that’s OK.  Just being part of the crowd was so fun.

See that big gray post in the right third of the shot?  And that cute little lady in the white jacket?  That’s ANN CURRY, guys.

We heard buzz in the crowds behind us that Al was going to zipline at 7:30, so since our spot wasn’t very good for watching the broadcast, we moved to see if we could see Al go flying above our heads.

Sure enough, we did!  (That’s him in the top right of the photo.)  He totally looked right at me.

We lined up on the street by the end of the zipline and waited with a small crowd for a few minutes while Al did the weather from up in the tower.

Ana did all the beautiful coloring on that sign herself.  (And she got it all over her foot in the process.)

AND THEN AL ROKER WALKED PAST US.  (Also some IMPD officers.)

After that we decided to walk through Superbowl Village and over to Monument Circle and see the big Superbowl letters.

That’s when we realized how cold it was outside.

And by this point, our Miss decided she’d really rather not be in the carrier for awhile.  She wanted to be able to actually see what was going on.  (She’s too short to see much over the carrier.  Poor thing’s going to be a midget.)

Superbowl Village was OK, I guess.  It probably would have been ten times cooler if things were open.  But it was 7:45 am, and most visitors were probably still having their coffee in their hotel bathrobes at that time of day.

IF they were awake at all.

Analie was getting to the point where she was wondering why SHE was awake.  (We did not pose her like this.  It was hilarious.)

We made it to the Superbowl letters just as the sun was coming up!

And you’re wondering what Angel’s sign says?  Uh…”Chang is the Baby Ninja”.  I was really tired last night when I made it and it was the best thing I could come up with at the time.

After Monument Circle we all realized we were starving.  So we hit up a Panera and got bagels and tried to warm up some.

Have you ever seen a more sleepy pair of eyes in the entire world?  (I even put her to bed at 5:30 last night knowing we’d be getting her up an hour early!)  We’re going to have another early night tonight, I think.

I am so glad we were crazy and got up early to do this.  Sure, you’d need a magnifying glass to find us on TV (we found ourselves!), but just being a part of the spirit of everything was so worth it.  It made me feel like I was part of something in my adopted hometown.

Now I need to feed an early lunch to my exhausted baby girl so I can put her down for an early nap.  Then Angus needs a bath.  You don’t want to know why.

And we’re back to  business as usual.

Feb2

Analie has eight teeth. COUNT ‘EM.

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Analie has eight teeth. COUNT ‘EM.

This afternoon the weather was gorgeous, so we went outside to go mudding in the backyard.

I dressed Analie in her most awkward pair of pants, two pairs of socks, and two undershirts, thinking they might get ruined if she got super muddy.

But I needn’t have worried about her clothes.  She’s not into getting dirty, although I tried really hard to show her how to dig in the mud.

She does love Angus, though, so he tempted her to at least crawl a tiny bit off the blanket twice.  And then he got too far away so she went right back to where it was dry.

But how sweet is that smile?

My little girl is getting so big.  I love this stage; the curious wonder of a stick or rock she dislodged from the grass, the  fascination she has with picking furry bits of moss off the ground and handing them to me proudly.

Oh…baby girl…can we freeze time?

Jan27

Being a Mommy Counts

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Being a Mommy Counts

So, I read the “Don’t Carpe Diem” article everyone’s sharing around on Facebook.  And you know what?  I think I may be, like, the ONLY person on the whole Internet who didn’t love it.

Maybe that’s because Analie is in such a magical stage right now.  Guys, every single day I get all misty and choked up because she is so amazing and so sweet; I just wish she’d stay like this forever.

But I know she won’t.

And I hate that.

Sure, yesterday she noticed I hadn’t latched the Tupperware cabinet and emptied the entire thing on the kitchen floor within a matter of 25 seconds.  But the look on her face of utter joy in the discovery was absolutely unparalleled.  It took me probably 2 minutes to clean up and reorganize the disaster once she was down for a nap, but two minutes of my time is a drop in the bucket when it comes to filling Analie’s days with the beginnings of rich life experiences.  (Even if it IS only Tupperware.)

Sometimes I feel frustrated by the negativity that can surround being a mommy.  I feel like we mommies get so caught up in expecting our children to behave like they’re years older than they really are so it will be more convenient for us…when what they really need is for us to get on our knees with them (even though it HURTS these days, right?!) and crawl around the house, pull stuff out of drawers and bang blocks together.

Discover life on Analie’s terms.  Not mine.

And isn’t that why I chose to become a mommy?  To do life with my baby?  Even when it hurts?  Or annoys me?  Or wears me down?

Maybe this stems from the increasing panic I am feeling about losing my “baby” as she grows up.  But Analie’s earliest picture of Jesus is going to be what she sees in Joey and I.  And one of my biggest prayers these days is that what she absorbs about Him isn’t that she has to fit into the predetermined behavior box we’ve made for her based on the behavior books we’ve read by well-intentioned Christian authors, or just what makes our lives more convenient.

I want the moments to matter.  The late nights and early mornings aren’t forever.  And I know that someday, when I look back on the early years of Analie’s life, I don’t want to regret my lazy parenting choices.

(AND OH MY GOSH, doesn’t the Internet make it so easy to be a lazy mommy?  Does for me!)

I hope nobody reading this feels judged.  That’s totally not my intention.  Because I am at least 60% less awesome at being a mom than I think I am.

But I’m Analie’s mama.

And I’m the only one she’ll ever have.

I want to make it count.

Jan12

The Paint Can.

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The Paint Can.

First of all, I realize that I sound like The Most Unobservant Mother Ever.  I probably am.

Second of all, there is no photographic record for what I am about to tell you.   You’ll just have to take my word for it.  Because WHY WOULD I MAKE THIS UP!?

A week ago, Joey brought in a paint can from the garage to warm up so he could paint the inside of a door that he was working on.  Short version: the paint was all weird from being in the garage for so long, so we were going to have to throw it out.  He stuck the drop cloth and a couple of paint cans in the corner of the kitchen, and that was the end of the project.

Fast forward to today.  I was cleaning the kitchen counters while Analie and Angus alternately stirred and tried to climb inside my largest mixing bowls.  They’ve been playing on the kitchen floor all week and haven’t even noticed the drop cloth and cans in the corner, so I’d wipewipewipe the counter, glance back to make sure they weren’t biting each other, and then wipewipewipe the counter again.

Suddenly, I had to go to the bathroom.  (I KNOW, SORRY.  But it’s what happened next.  I’m sure you have to go to the bathroom sometimes too.)  I looked at my children, happily shoving each other as they scuffled over which one of them was going to use the spatula, and I ran out of the room.

I was gone for less than a minute.  Probably more like 30 seconds.  (Because really, who washes their hands in the bathroom when you left your kids playing on the kitchen floor by themselves?  My kitchen has a sink, and I know how to use it.)  When I returned, they were not where I left them.

NO.

THEY WERE NOT.

Suddenly, one of them had spotted the paint cans and drop cloths in the corner, so they had both crawled over and started exploring.

GUYS.  I have been staring at those stupid paint cans all week and somehow I neglected to notice that one of them didn’t even have a lid on it.

You want to know how fast they realized that?  Like 0.0001 seconds after starting to crawl over there.  And you want to know what else?  Not only did that stupid paint can not have a lid on it, but there was a stir stick in it!  STICKING UP IN THE AIR LIKE THE SEARS TOWER.  (Wait, do they even call it the Sears Tower anymore?  Whatevs.)  But you surely get my point, which was that the stick was super obvious to anyone who has eyeballs.  And it’s always a pretty good indicator that there’s no lid on a paint can if there’s a stir stick in it.

So we’ve established that I’m blind.

Back to the story.

I walk into the kitchen and there’s Analie, holding the end of a gloopy, paint-soaked, stir stick, and she’s happily sweeping it in broad swaths on the wood floor.  The grin on her face is worth a million bucks, and I can see the pure amazement that WOAH!  There’s white stuff every place I move this stick!

Where’s Angus?  Oh, he’s eating the wet paint she smears on the floor, so his face and whiskers are bright white.

What did I do?  I started screaming “WHAAAAAAT?!?!” and jumped around the kitchen floor throwing random things away.  I’m not even sure what all went into the trash can (hopefully it wasn’t anything important), but I know the paint stick was the first thing to go.

The paint on the floor was thick and oozing into the cracks between the wood on the floor, so I unrolled a bunch of paper towels and alternately tried to wipe the floor, my child’s hands, and keep Angus from eating more paint.

And did I mention that somewhere in the chaos I stepped in the paint?  I wish I had realized it when it happened, because the next thing I knew there were Jenna footprints all over the kitchen floor.

I could keep going, but I think you get the drift.  All told, it took about 20 minutes and Joey’s travel toothbrush to clean up.  Angus has since stolen that toothbrush and carried it off to who knows where.

I just hope the paint on it has dried by now.

(I feel like the takeaway in all this is that I just need to stop having to go to the bathroom.  Ever.  Because LOOK WHAT HAPPENS.)

And that is the story of how I inked my place in the record books as The Most Unobservant Mother Ever.

Jan4

Girlfriend just said purple. TRUE.

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Girlfriend just said purple. TRUE.

After lunch we were sitting on the floor in the dining room coloring Ana’s picture purple.  I bought her some chubby washable crayons, and it’s a good thing, too, because let’s just say that not all of today’s coloring was done on the paper.  And the crayon just wiped right off! (Crayola has come a long way since when The Kid was three and colored all over the wall in the hallway when Sister and The Brother locked him out of the playroom because he was being annoying.  And boy howdy, he sure gave them the What For.)

She still can’t choose purple out of a lineup of crayons, but I think that’s mostly because she just wants all of them at the same time, right now, please and thank you.

About five minutes of coloring later it was clear that Ana didn’t want to color on the paper anymore (key phrase: ON THE PAPER) so I decided to call it and switch to reading a book about colors.

I read that stupid book six times.  SIX.  (Once was backwards and once was on my  head, so if those don’t count as real read throughs then only four.)  That sixth time when I turned to the purple page, Ana screamed and said “BA-BUH!!!”  And then she looked at me like she had just singlehandedly averted Climate Change and wasn’t I super proud of her?

Now that she can SAY purple, perhaps we will be able to select the purple crayon tomorrow?

 

Dec22

The Annual Woestman Christmas Card!

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The Annual Woestman Christmas Card!

One of my favorite things to start thinking about at the beginning of the Christmas season every year is what we’ll do for our Christmas card.  The first few years of our marriage our cards were pretty bland (and last year’s was Analie’s birth announcement), but I’m getting more and more interested in making unique cards that express (some of) our personality.

This year, we had tons of fun with our card.

And I would have loved to be able to mail it to all of you.  But as it is, our Christmas card list has 100 names on it and postage was getting super expensive.

SO, please enjoy our Christmas card in blog version.  (Incidentally you will not find the phrase “Merry Christmas” anywhere on it, because we were getting so down to the wire that we weren’t sure it would be going out before Christmas.  Hehehe.)

We love you!  Even you blogosphere friends I have never met and/or don’t know are creeping on my blog.

Merry Christmas!

(This was a 5×7 front and back flat card in real life.  But the internet version can be whatever the heck you want it to be.  POSTMODERN!)

Dec19

ME TOO, GUYS!

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ME TOO, GUYS!

I was laying on the floor playing with Analie who was pulling stuff out of her junk mail bag (yes, my child plays with junk mail and she loves it) when Joey leaned over and gave me a kiss.

I’M SORRY.  IT HAPPENS.  I HAD TO PUT IT IN THE STORY OR IT WOULDN’T MAKE SENSE.

Anyway, when Analie saw what was going on and she immediately leaned forward and smashed her face right in between ours. Then she giggled like she’d gotten in on something really awesome.

I haven’t been able to stop laughing since.

Dec19

Angus is on a timer.

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Angus is on a timer.

Angus went peepee in the house three times yesterday.  HOLY COW DID WE GET THE DUMBEST DOG EVER?!?!  No.  We didn’t.  (I don’t think?)  But we did get a shih-tzu, and they are notoriously hard to housebreak, especially in the winter.  If you didn’t know, shih-tzus are actually half cat so they have that imperious I Will Do Whatever I Want thing, in addition to a super short attention span and can’t remember anything.

That’s why Angus is now on a timer.

Every hour it beeps and every hour Angus goes outside.  This is to remind me not to forget to take him outside, which is the predominant reason he keeps having accidents.

Maybe I am half cat too.

(I actually don’t want to think about that for too long. Cats make me sneeze.)

We’re going to keep with the one hour timer for 2 weeks, then I’ll back him up to two hours, if he’s doing well.

We’ll get there.  Someday.

I keep reminding myself that Henry was so easy to housebreak because a.) we lived in a 750 square foot apartment, and we could block off the back 400 square feet, so it was really easy to keep track of him, and b.) IT WAS JULY.

 

Dec16

His name is MUD

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His name is MUD

Tuesday, I thought for sure we had gotten an Exceptionally Smart Dog.

But by Wednesday, I was convinced he was as dumb as a box of rocks.

He had regressed in his housebreaking.

Severely.

It’s mostly our fault, though, because he had been doing SO well that we kind of forgot for a moment that he wasn’t Henry (aside from the fact that he’s black as coal – inside and out) and weren’t paying as close of attention to him as we should be.

This is how we went from a two accidents in four days house to a four accidents in three hours on Wednesday morning, with two more later in the evening as a bonus.

No, Internet, Angus is a five pound dog.  It is beyond my comprehension how he has room in his colon for that much business.

In any case, we did what we should have done in the first place.

He only gets food and water three times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and then we take up his dishes.  (Unfortunately he discovered that he can drink from the Christmas tree so I have to watch him super carefully.)  And he’s now on a leash at all times when he’s not in his crate, because for some reason the leash is tons easier to spot on the floor than he is.

These measures have been effective.

Since instituting them, Angus has had only two accidents!  WIN.

But you know what really irks me?

Today at Target they were selling Black Angus for $9.50 a pound.  I feel like I got ripped off last Friday because we totally paid $75.00/lb.