Nick's Log Blog

For some reason, in the past month or so, Nick has discovered the fact that I have a blog.  Well, not really.  He knew that I had it before but referenced it only to say how I make fun of him (like in this post, which I still feel is highly informative) and degrade him as a husband.  This usually leads to me telling him that he shouldn't take me so seriously and to pretty much suck it up.  You know who you married.  Anyway, since some people he knows started reading my little blog, he is now (in true Nick fashion) all about it.  Seriously, I don't understand where all this confidence in me comes from.  He tells me how awesome I am (and really, who am I to correct him?) but it kind makes me feel like I have to live up to it.  For example, after this past weekend's competition we were talking about the various awards that my dances got and he said (and I quote) "well, I really expect nothing less from you".  OK, great, you believe in me, but no pressure!  So, back to my story.  He now randomly throws in little comments about my blog or asks me if I'm going to write about something in it.  When we were driving to Jacksonville he announced (after I rightfully corrected something he said) that he was going to start his own blog which will pretty much document every time that I correct him.  So then for the rest of the weekend he would randomly shout out something like this:  "3:41 - My wife tells me I'm wrong".  Well that's boring, who wants to read about that?!  Plus, you're not even saying what you were 'wrong' about, you have to be more specific. (I'm almost positive that this prompted another shouting of the time and accusation).  I told him that what he is writing (in his head) is not a blog, it's a log.  It's a log blog.  Just a list of things he's wrong about.  I can't help it if he says the wrong word sometimes or uses incorrect grammar or takes too long to do math in his head.  And, really, I'd rather correct him then have someone else have to do it.  I'm making him a better person.  He should be grateful.  (hehehe)

P.S. - Nick really is a wonderful person who uses excellent grammar and says the right word 99% of the time (which far surpasses my skills).  I just really do find it necessary to point out when something wrong slips out.  Call it a personal flaw on my part.  Also, this is a true story with some of my own sarcasm thrown in.  The conversations were true...my superiority complex, not so much.  I do not, in fact, think that I am as awesome as Nick thinks I am.  (that was a disclaimer solely for him in prevention of further time and accusation shouting)

P.P.S. - It's 5:23am and I'm really tired right now, almost delusional.  Consider this part of my own Log Blog.

P.P.P.S. - Nick chose to put up the pool by himself this year.

Jacksonville

 We went to Jacksonville this past weekend for a dance competition.  It was the first one of the season which, I'm not gonna lie, was a little bit scary.  Especially since a lot of the girls have never competed before.  There were some pretty good studios there, plus it only lasted one day from 9am to 8pm, which for a dance competition is short.  The girls did really well, too.  The soloists both got Golds, the little girls' group got a Gold (I think they did as well if not better then some of the older groups, but at competition my opinion doesn't count) and all of the older groups got Platinums.  My large group got 1st overall and my small group got 2nd overall!  Woo hoo!  Plus the other dances that I did with the other teachers got 1st place Line, 3rd and 5th place small group!  I know that means just about nothing to most people, but just take my word for it...they did really good.

This is my large group.

And this is all the competition girls in their 'Boot Scootin' costumes.  Cute costumes, right?  I can not even begin to explain the controversy that those things caused.  We are not dressing them to go to church, we are dressing them to compete as dancers.  I just hope that all the parents noticed some of the costumes that the other studios had because this is just how it is.  Everyone looked cute, there was no flab or cellulite hanging out, they looked classy and awesome.

Oh yeah, and Nick and Alexa came with me to Jacksonville.  Let me just tell you how crazy it was to get Hot Stuff to sleep on Friday night.  We drove there after Nick got out of work, so we got to the hotel right around her bed time.  We set up the pack-n-play, put on PJs, read our books, tried to put her down and then the screaming began.  I understand that it was a strange room and she was scared so we didn't get irritated.  Plus, she is usually great at bedtime.  We put her in her crib and if she cries, it's only for a few seconds before she puts herself to sleep.  Well, in that hotel room, she just couldn't handle herself.  Let's just say that, finally, at 9:00 she was asleep in the bed with me.  We eventually moved her over to the pack-n-play and she slept most of the night in there (minus one more hour in the bed because she was woken up by the crazy drunk lady across the hall).  Her lack of good sleep on Friday night plus a crappy nap on Saturday led to her asking to go to bed on Saturday night.  We got back to the hotel after competition and she walked up to the pack-n-play and pointed to it.  When I asked her if she wanted to go to bed she said yes and then fell asleep immediately when I put her in.

On Sunday, we decided to go to the Jacksonville Zoo.  It was raining on and off and we left around 2 to drive home but got to see a lot of animals and I think Alexa had fun.  Although I'm not too sure seeing that she had her Disney face on.  She loved the birds (of course) and had to point all of them out like a little crazy.

This bird was especially creeper.  It was huge and it was obviously not scared of people which made me obviously more scared of it.  The guy on the side of this picture actually touched it and the bird didn't move!  Creeper bird.  Alexa thought it was awesome but when we walked passed it (as far to the other side of the bridge as we could) I told it to go away and leave my baby alone.  Seriously.  I tried to take a picture of it, you know, for documentation purposes, but it turned it's ugly head away from me.  Nasty creature.  We walked by another aviary but I told Nick that I couldn't handle it again.

Instead we looked at elephants and giraffes and other animals that are kept in enclosed areas where they can't potentially attack my child.  We walked through the Florida exhibit, more for educational purposes then anything else.  That area of the zoo is like a small collection of my least favorite things.  We looked at alligators (Alexa did the Gator chomp, which I was very proud of, but I still despise those horrible animals), deer (those are OK), snakes, wolves, and bald eagles.  There was a black bear but he was hiding (just beyond our field of vision, I'm sure.  Sneaky.).  As we walked through, Nick pointed out all the cool things about the animals and I explained what to do if you ever saw one.  For example, if you ever see a snake, put your hands in the air and run away.  Of course I had to demonstrate this which caused Alexa to laugh and Nick to roll his eyes.  I'm not sure that they realized how serious I was being.  (The hands go in the air to prevent the snake from biting them.  We are assuming in this scenario that Alexa would have shoes on so her toes are more protected.  What?  When you see what happens to a kid with a snake bite then you can come talk to me about how crazy I am!)  Anyway, that part of the zoo was kind of stressful.  But the rest of it was pretty awesome.  We are going to have to go back another time because we weren't able to do about half of it (due to the rain and having to drive home).

My Little Puker

Before I get into Alexa's puking story...guess what?  My little blog has had 3,000 views as of, well, 2 minutes ago!  I know that's not a whole lot, but to me, it's exciting.  Especially since I have an embarrassing few number of followers.  So, if you want to follow me by email you can do so right over <------- there.  And, you know, tell your friends and leave a comment or two so that I can eventually quit my night job and become a professional blogger.  I was going to say day job but being that I work night shift, it wasn't too appropriate.  Also I foresee problems in the potential of quitting my night job to blog seeing that I do all my blogging from work.  But that's besides the point.

About 2 months ago Alexa got sick.  Like, high fever, sitting miserably on the couch all day, nasty sick.  Which, if you know anything about Alexa, that is not like her (the 'sitting on the couch - or anywhere - for an extended period of time' part).  A couple of times during that illness she threw up when she had a super high fever.  She got over it, no big deal, I thought the throwing up was a one time kind of thing.  Especially since she had been sick a lot in the previous 6 months (stupid day care) and hadn't had a problem vomiting.  Oh, did I mention that she only puked on me?  Yeah, that's important, remember that. 

So fast forward to last Friday night.  Alexa had been not herself all day Friday (low grade fever, runny nose) and a little after midnight she woke up crying.  I got up and went into her room expecting her to be hot, which she was.  We were quietly doing our thing...I changed her diaper, took her temperature, I was holding her in the bathroom getting out the Tylenol when I felt a heave and then felt something warm on my shoulder.  Of course she had puked.  On me.  Again.  She kept going a little bit so I hung her over the sink.  When she was done I took off her shirt and then took off my shirt (the first thing she did after puking was to try to put her head on my shoulder right where the puke was so that thing had to go quick) and tried to wash off Bunny (no! not Bunny!!!).  Just as I had Bunny in the sink, Nick came walking in to see what was going on.  He opened the bathroom door to find Alexa sitting on the counter and me standing in front of her, both of us topless.  I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he smirked when he said "shirts?"  I'm also going to assume that he was too worried about Alexa to bring me a shirt also because he definitely just came back with one for her. 

We ended up sleeping in our sick bed (Alexa and I, that is) aka the guest room that has a full size bed in it which is pushed up in a corner so that Hot Stuff can't climb/crawl/roll/fall out.  And let me tell you, she tries.  That child is all over the place!  I swear that growing up sharing a bed with Katie was God's way of preparing me to sleep with Alexa.  She wants to fall asleep right next to you which is nice except that when you try to move over (even if she's totally knocked out) she will wake up just enough to scootch up against you again.  Most nights that we sleep in there I end up hugging the side of the bed while Dynamite Jr. is sprawled across my pillow, me and anywhere else she can get her little body.  It's amazing how much room a 31 inch (rounding up) child can take up!  Plus, this time I was trying to keep the covers off her (because of the fever) and on me (still no shirt) so that was a mission in itself.  My mom says that I shouldn't make a habit out of sleeping with her in there but we only do it when she's sick and we like it.  I know it's going to turn around and bite me in the ass in the end, but right now I really don't care.  So anyway, she woke up the next day (at 6:00) feeling just fine and has been fine ever since then so who knows what that was all about. 

What I want to know is why does she always have to puke on me?  She doesn't vomit anywhere else.  Not in her crib, not on Nick, no where but on me.  Does she sense that it doesn't bother me that much (Nursing can make you immune to many things.  But given the choice, I will always choose emesis-free!)?  Or does she just feel comfortable enough with me to think 'oh, Mommy is here, it's OK to let the chunks fly?!'  All I know is that from now on, when Alexa has a fever, I will be wearing some sort of water-proof smock.  They have those, right?

This post brings new meaning to the phrase 'Crazy long post of pictures' (consider yourselves warned)

We went down south for Easter last weekend, which also happened to be the weekend before Nick's birthday.  So, obviously we had to have a party (because what good is a trip home without a Nettina party?).  

 Easter Bunny Alexa helping to put candy in bowls.

 'I have my baskets, where should we go shopping?!'

Yes, those are glass.

 Lexi and my mom

 She loves to dip.

 Alexa and Nikki.

Again, yes, that is a roll of tape that she's playing with.  No worries, I took it away from her before she could cut herself.

 awwwwww...look at the little cousins playing!

 They are so cute!

 Happy Birthday to Nick!!!  This was about two seconds before Alexa dipped her

finger in the icing and had a little taste.

 OK, so apparently this is one of those paper lantern things where you make a wish or something like that (I don't know, I was giving Alexa a bath when they took it out).  But, regardless, look at how big it is!

 Everyone on the patio watching the lantern go up.

 How can you send up a lantern while on a screened in patio, you ask? 

Oh, that would be through the large hole that is ripped into the screen.

 Want to see something just as ghetto as the gianormo screen hole, 10x as creepy and 100x as awesome?!  We (we being my mom) found a website where you can put people's faces into movie posters.  So she put

Nick's face (plus some with other people) in all these different movies, had them printed on 8x10s at Costco and then we taped them to the front of all the picture frames in our house.  Yup, scotch taped them.  Like I said, ghetto, creepy and awesome all at the same time. 

That was Saturday, now on to Easter Sunday.  We went to church in the morning.  Alexa was pretty good, she made it about half way through until Nick had to take her outside to walk around.

 I know that this isn't the best picture, but it's the only one where I don't have a triple chin.  Since this is my blog, I get to choose the pictures, and I choose the one where I don't look like a fat ass.  :)

 I don't know what she's doing in this picture but, I'm not gonna lie, she's pretty cute.  Why are you all standing in front of a slide, you ask?  Well, that's because Crazy McCrazeCraze threw a small fit and insisted on being by the slide.  In an attempt to get a decent picture, we went with it.

 Looking for Easter eggs (by outlet boxes).

 Yummy, Easter bread!  And...it's off to Easter with the Nettinas:

 Alexa got an Easter present from Aunt Kathy (and a bunny from Aunt Bunny...appropriately)

 Nettina cousins (plus some red-headed husbands)

 Playing with Aunt TeTe (aka Aunt Bunny)

Katie and Michael decided to talk to Grammy to avoid cleaning up...slackers.

 Yeah, I'm related to them.

 I love this picture just for Alexa's face toward Anthony. 

She seems to be very concerned about those cupcakes.

Both Nick and Abe's (Jennie's husband) birthday was on Monday so Aunt Kathy made them a peeps cake and we sang to them.  Apparently, they gave Grammy 1/4 of the cake as her piece and she went with it.  :)  Please notice the bib, it's awesome.

The 31 Party

I know that you are just dying to know how the little party thing went on Thursday.  Well lets just say that it lived up to, and possibly surpassed my expectations.  Let me tell you what happened.  OK, so Alexa and I drove up to the house at 6 which is when it was supposed to start.  There were a bunch of cars in the driveway so that, along with triple checking the house number, reconfirmed that I was, in fact, at the correct location.  (can you see where this is going...I mean, in regards to my craziness?)  I sat in the car for a few minutes deciding how to get into the house because this place (kind of like my house) has a front door, a side door where the garage and driveway are and a back door onto a porch.  What the hell?!  Who knows the appropriate door to knock on?  If you go in through the front door you might be weird or too formal, plus there were no pavers or anything leading up to it which leads me to believe that it is not to be used.  The side door is kind of strange because it goes through a garage which is usually how the family gets in but guests are different.  And going in through the back/porch door is kind of awkward too, what do you just walk into the house and say hi?  It took me like, 3 minutes to contemplate all of this.  After having a small chuckle to myself about a sign I've seen before that says 'back door friends are best' (raise your hand if you know what sign I'm talking about...that's right Katie!) and then making a mental note to jump 'get pavers to lead up to the front door' to the top of the list of things to do around the house, I saw someone walk onto the porch.  Awesome, here's my opportunity.  I get Alexa out of the car and walk onto the porch, introduce myself and then follow the lady (who ended up being someone who lived in the neighborhood but not the homeowner) into the house. 

I tried to say hi and to have a small conversation with people but really, what is there to talk about?  I don't know you and anyone who knows me knows that I literally can not talk to you if I don't know you.  Seriously.  It took me months to talk to people at work...months!  There are some people who I've known for years, you know, those people you see once every six months or so and you see them for a total of 3 hours at some one's party or something?  Anyway, I still don't feel comfortable talking to even those people, how am I supposed to have a conversation with these strangers?  Everyone else was already deep in their own conversations anyway, so Alexa and I walked around a little bit, she played in another room with the little girl who lives there while I awkwardly stood against a wall (not kidding), and we went outside so that she could go on the swing in their backyard. 

Finally, it was time for the 'buy these super cool purses' part of the party to start.  Which, of course, perfectly coincided with Alexa's usual bedtime.  Wonderful.  She ran around the room, I tried to chase her and stop her from doing crazy things like use a wooden duck as a stepping stool to climb onto a trunk (OK, so she wasn't really that bad but she did do the duck thing.  Hopefully she's still young enough to where other people think she's cute and not super annoying...hopefully.)  Regardless, trying to pick out an appropriate order (you know, I don't want to seem too cheap yet I also don't want to spend $100 that I don't have just because I got invited to this party) while chasing around an 18 month old is not my idea of fun.  I finally figured it out and we paid and left.  I said good-bye to the room and no one acknowledged me and then I said good bye to the hostess and thanked her and we drove home.  They probably all talked about me and what a bitch I am when I left, it's like high school all over again.  I had to go home and change my clothes due to the constant heart palpitations, pukey (Is that even a word?  Spellcheck says it's not but I disagree.) feeling and sweating that was going on over the previous two and a half hours.  Thank you self diagnosed social anxiety for once again reminding me why I only have a hand full of friends!  :)  (Apparently with a little paranoia thrown in there.  Have I ever told you that I used to diagnose my friends and family with my pocket DSM-IV in nursing school?  Everyone has a little crazy in them, some just more than others, but that's a whole other blog post!)  I had the purses delivered to the lady's house (instead of paying the extra $8 to have them delivered to my house...$8 to drive around the block is ridiculous!) so we will see what happens when I go to pick them up.  I really hope that they didn't all think I was a bitch because, most of the time, I don't think I am one.  But I can understand how someone can get that impression.  I kind of wanted to make a friend since we are going to be living here you know, forever.  But I guess that comes with time.  Maybe I'll make myself go to the next party too.

Crazy, Just Crazy

I am eventually going to post pictures of our Disney trip (maybe even tonight, if I get motivated) but first I must tell you about my crazy day with my crazy child and my crazy dogs.  First of all, Wolfie isn't doing to hot.  He has some back problems and now he's developed some anxiety.  Yeah, that's right, the dog has anxiety.  Now, normally I would tell him to suck it up and get over it except that his form of anxiety manifests as a high pitched whinny cry that pierces your soul and is never ending.  When you are trying to sleep, you will do anything to make that stop.  Trust me.  That being said, while I sleep, Wolfie is now allowed to roam the house at his leisure instead of going in the crate with the girls.  So I woke up this afternoon, an hour earlier than I wanted to (this is of course after getting up to pee three times because of all the Pepsi I drank at work trying to stay awake through the night) irritated that the one day I can sleep in a little bit, I wake up at 1:30.  Whatever.  So I get up, clean up Wolfie's pee off the floor (I'm not going to even get into that), and take the dogs out.  Of course Wolfie won't go outside so I have to pick him up and put him on the grass where he proceeds to lay down.  Fine, obviously you don't have to pee since you did it already on my wood floors.  He lays there until the girls are done and then finally decides to walk around a little bit and do his business.  So we stay outside longer.  Finally, 15 minutes later, after we all were ready to go back inside, I was able to take a shower and get ready.  I left to pick up Alexa from day care and returned home to find poop on one of the area rugs.  I was gone for about 20 minutes total.  I'm not going to get into how I know it was Wolfie poop but let's just say I have my ways.  The next hour and a half was full of making dinner, eating dinner, getting dressed for work and playing with Alexa/trying to keep her occupied so she will quit screaming like a banshee.  After dinner, we went outside with the dogs.  Everything was fine until it was time to go inside.  Of course that was the point where Alexa decided that she wanted to ride in her car or throw a ball or do anything else that I said 'no' to.  I'd be herding the dogs to the door, I'd get Alexa almost to the door and then she'd run to something else that she wanted to play with.  I tell her no, she throws a fit, I drag her to the door again, repeat, repeat, repeat.  Meanwhile, Wolfie now decided (of course) that it was a nice time to take a walk by the woods.  You have got to be kidding me.  Let's all now think back to that wonderful bear we had about 6 months ago which was never actually caught, which I imagine is sitting just beyond my field of vision waiting to pounce on and eat whatever small creature happens to be walking by.  (Hey, I never said that I didn't have issues too)  So, of course now my priority is Wolfie (who, by the way, I need two hands to carry because of his back) and of course I never got Alexa close enough to the door to actually get her in the house.  I run to go pick up Wolfie and Alexa runs to the swing.  The whole time looking at me and shreiking with laughter.  I loose it, and start screaming that every living creature in this yard better get their butts into the house NOW!  (slight paraphrase) Eventually, everyone got inside, Alexa and I got into the car and I was able to drop her off to Nick who was still at work.  During the whole walk to Nick's room, Alexa and I worked on stopping, going and listening to Mommy.  And I also decided that no one is allowed to chase her around the house for fun saying 'I'm gonna get you!' anymore.  It's banned. 

On a lighter note, Alexa and I are going to a 31 party on Thursday with all of the women in the subdivision we live in.  I'm kind of excited to meet some of our neighbors but I'm mostly terrified of having to actually talk to people I don't know.  In any kind of social situation you can pretty much say good bye to nice, kind of funny, sarcastic and witty Kristin and say hello to silent, awkward Kristin.  And without Nick to hide behind, it will be ten times worse.  At least Alexa is coming with me.  She's a good excuse to have to leave if need be.  I can almost hear my mom asking me "Kristin, did you make any friends today?!"  No, mom, I didn't.  Well, at least on Thursday I can get points for trying.

Carry-on

I'm pretty sure this is one of the funniest videos ever.  You don't even need to watch the whole thing.  The first 15 seconds are good enough.  Ha-freaking-larious!  The best part is that she totally did it herself.