Sunday, March 27, 2011

Madame Queen

I have been meaning to make this post for a few weeks. We have such great customers at Swimworld!!! There is no in particular who I think that everyone must appreciate. Mr. W is such a super cute old man. Don;t get creeped out - he is not creepy - pretty much the opposite. Mr. W is about 95 years old and still drives and is a very attentive pool owner. He is probably one of the more kinder customers we have. He likes to measure out all his chemicals and takes a very meticulous inventory of his chemicals before coming to the store. But that is not why I need you all to appreciate Mr. W.

First, last summer he was coming in with this water sample for testing and an elderly lady was leaving the store - maybe mid-70s. I am toting around the beebster and we are about to send this lady out the store with a small box with a few things in it - we asked her if she needed help but she declined. So Mr. W is coming in and

A. Opens the door for this lady
B. Insists that she give him the box
C. Puts the box in this woman's car
D. Opens the car door for this woman

Who does that any more??? I hate to admit but I am not sure if I would do that!

Second occasion for thinking this man is great. Mr. W comes into the store this spring for our sale - side note was a huge success. So, Mr. W has his trusty stock of chemicals. He gets his chemicals and I am loading up his box and then he says that he does not want to take them. I tell him it is no problem that we can bring them when we open his pool. He then says he is hoping that he will be able to open his pool because he has been very busy tending to Madame Queen and she has not been doing so well. I am thinking to myself Madame Queen - who could this be? Clearly a cat or dog could not possibly be consuming hours upon hours of this 95 year old man's life. Then it dawned on me - it is his wife! It think back to how Mr. W treated the lady in the parking lot - if he treated a strange like that imagine how he treats his wife. I cannot possibly imagine how his does it because Mr. W is not the most limber of people but he is dedicated. I mentioned Madame Queen to Lee and Mr. W has ALWAYS referred to his wife as Madame Queen - since for forever. We've calculated it is highly likely that Mr. W and Madame Queen have been married for close to 75 years!!!

It never ceases to amaze me what you can learn from others by simple interactions. Makes me want to be the best wife to Lee so that maybe we can share the same kind of love and dedication that Mr. W and Madame Queen have enjoyed for 3/4 of a century!!!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

A huge purchase!!!

E and I hit up our local Wally-world and made a super big deal purchase --- a potty --- The Comfy Cushy 3-in-1 potty!!! Okay so I know what you are thinking. A potty at 10.5 months?!? Yes, a potty at 10.5 months. So, E gives us some fairly obvious warning signs when a stink is in the works. My thought is we can make it to the potty in time and Lee and I can positively reinforce going stink in the potty - and avoid a stinky dia-pi change. We have yet to give it a whirl so we will see what happens.



I have very low expectations at 10.5 months so please don't get me wrong but it can't hurt to start early. I am still thinking about how to reward or treat E for using the potty. She is too small for M&Ms and she would have no concept of 10 stars equals a trip to Dunkin Donuts for a donut hole... I have a lot of time to figure it out. But my biggest question is, once a toddler is potty trained how do you take away the reward?

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Christmas Stocking in March

Well actually it started in November. In November I got an itch to stitch - okay that was bad. Somehow I got it in my head that I wanted to stitch little E a stocking. I have never cross-stitched anything in my life but I am not one to take baby steps. (My first road race was a marathon) Maybe I am just a sucker for punishment but I am going to try and track progress on the stocking on the blog. I have already started looking for the stocking pattern I am going to do for Lee! I want to do a nutcracker!!!

Anyways with the bibi's stocking is going well. I am hoping, hoping, hoping to be finished by Christmas!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Swim Time



I thought it would be super cute for E and her papi to take swim lessons at our local YMCA. While the Y is not particularly convenient to our house and the lessons start at 5:30, which is dangerously close to the beebster's bedtime - I thought what the heck and went for it.



So the lessons are not really lessons. They are more like spend time getting used to the water and paddle after rings and then stick them in your mouth. I also thought it would be good for E to get used to the water because my mother-in-law has a pool in her backyard and I want E to learn how to swim and learn about water safety at an early age. So, after hunting down some Little Swimmer diapers at Babys R Us we headed to class. The instructor there is really great with the kids - there are two others in the class. They chase after these toys and sing songs in the water. E is the smallest in the class but she LOVES it. Each week she gets more and more comfortable. She squeals out in excitement sometimes! Also the last class was a huge milestone for her because the instructor dunked E's head under water! E was not afraid just a little concerned. They did that 3 times so E can start learning how to hold her breathe!










I was kinda of bummed after the last class because tMarch is kind of a busy time for us at Swimworld so I did not think Lee would have time to take E. However he informed me that I should sign up E for lesson in March because they need to have Papi-Bibis bonding time and that he would make room in his schedule for swim time!!!



Question of the day, to join the YMCA or to not the join YMCA?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Friends!!!


Not too long ago E got together with her best Lamaze friend B! They are super super cute together even though they don't really play together. Just watching them interact together is so cool. Also, gives his momma and I time to talk/vent. In case you did not know, being a mother is challenging which is why it is important to have someone to talk to who knows what you are going through. Megan told be about this AMAZING consignment store in Wil-town - more to come on that. I am so grateful that Lee and I were in the Lamaze class that we were so we could meet little B-man's parents!!!



Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Church Journal Week II

"If you don't have forgiveness in your heart, you won't make it"

So true! What is the point of going around everyday being mad about everything that people have done to wrong you? I imagine it would be pretty miserable. I'm not saying that it is easy to forgive people - especially family members. Life is entirely too short to hold grudges.

Church Journal Week I

"Sometimes you have to go out of your way to help someone"

Totally applicable on a daily basis and I really enjoyed keeping that in the back of my mind all week because that 'someone' could be ANYONE. A stranger, family member, co-worker, friend... And something that actually can be done on a daily basis. I am liking this Church Journal-ing

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Church Journal - The Premise

Lee and the beebster and I and my mom and my mother-in-law recently went to Ignited By Truth in Raleigh. We had a really great time and we heard some really inspiring people. One of whom is Matthew Kelly. Long story short he told everyone that they needed a Mass Journal so write down one thing that the Holy Spirit was trying to pound into their head that Sunday for the hour they were are church. I am game but I have a small problem with the verbiage. Liturgy, Mass same meaning - one word in Greek, one word in Latin - but so I can be 100% PC - which is my top priority - we'll go with Church Journal. So that is the premise of the theme of these posts - please feel free to share thoughts/you CJ whatever, this will help keep track of them all. I'll try and post weekly but I'm already a week behind - shocking I know...

Monday, March 7, 2011

Valentine's Day

This was our first Valentine's Day as a family of three. My mom always got us jelly bean, chocolate and I have vague memories of stuffed animals. I wanted to start a similar tradition at our house. E is clearly clearly too small for candy and sugar -even though I caught my mother-in-law giving E some 3 Musketeers bar the other day - but that's what grandma's are for, right. Anyways, Lee said he wanted yellow cake with chocolate frosting so I made pink cake - thank you red food coloring - with chocolate frosting cupcakes with red decorations! They were cute and I can definitely see making them again. For the record the Bibis did not have one - although I have big big plans for the 1st birthday cake pictures.



Rewind to earlier that morning when flowers arrived at work - but they weren't for me. Lee did have flowers for me at home which was so nice. I am much more of a live plant/ live flower person than fresh cut flowers. Its totally more sustainable and I think you get your money's worth. (I am sooo green!)

This post is completely out of order in terms of sequence of events but you will get the point. So in the middle of all this E and I went to probably one of my favorite stores in the Mount (we don't have a very good selection here so no judging) Hallmark!!! Hallmark is sooo great. The Christmas ornaments they have are so nice and the people who work their are so friendly. So with E in tote I got Lee's card and E's card (I made sure she was not looking), picked up a box of candies for Lee - total rip off, only 12 candies for 8 bucks, I will do better next year -, and a little frogman for Lee. I found this super cute frog for E too and it was not horribly expensive so we headed home. Lee came into the cupcakes and the cards and chocolate and he also got me a Yankee Candle - so great! E woke up from her nap and we let her open her card and squeeze her new froggie friend - all on camera.

















Well won't you know within the first minute of E having the frog she finds a hole in the back!!! A. just my luck and B. the beebster is so detail oriented it is crazy (she will pick a specks of dirt and find little pieces of junk on the floor rather than play with her toys) So off to Hallmark to exchange. I was hoping for another green frog because the first Valentine's Day with the green frog was already on camera. No luck. Came home with a pink elephant. I was bummed. The next morning I am getting ready for work and E is now playing with the elephant and lo and behold ANOTHER HOLE!!!



I decided to 'throw in the towelette' (as Lee would say) on the stuffed animals and splurged on the squeaky shoes. These things are AMAZING! Every child needs squeaky shoes. They squeak when the child walks and come in super cute designs. A wise sister in law of mine said that she tries to cut the noise level from her house and I totally believe her but for now I am sticking with the squeaks!!! I'll have to do a special post on my sister in law (I have two and both are so great) but one has kids closer in age to E so she is the expert on all things bibis...

In summary Valentines was a start of new traditions but Hallmark better step up next year!