Easter Sunday Picture Post

As promised, here is a photo post from our Easter Sunday BBQ with friends.

I decided to go the toy route vs. candy for Cameron's Easter Basket. The Wal-Mart cheap toy section make that an easy decision. As you can see from the two pictures below, the bubble blowers were a big hit. Messy, but a hit.

DH attempts to explain to Cameron that you have to shut the fan off before you load it up with more soap. It was not a lesson that she or Holden appeared to internalize.

Cameron loved the concept of an Easter egg hunt. I ended up hiding her basket and eggs today because I just couldn't take another hunt. Twenty was my limit!

Tooling around in Holden's car. Chicks dig the cop cars.

Holden offers to take the empty to the recycling bin.

A wonderful drama free weekend

DH and I were afraid that speaking it out loud would jinx it. But Sunday afternoon while Cameron was napping he turned to me and said, "Hey, we haven't had to put Cameron in timeout once this weekend!" I quickly knocked on wood, rubbed a rabbit's foot and threw salt over my shoulder. The man who obsesses about baseball should know that you never, never talk about a perfect game. But despite his misstep Cameron triumphed and we avoided all tantrums and timeouts.

There are a few reasons I attribute to our tantrum and timeout free weekend. The first is that Cameron was finally over the ear/sinus infection that had probably plagued her for weeks. The kid doesn't complain so identification of an illness is usually pure luck. She was also well rested. Daycare was closed on Friday (which means our drama free weekend was for 3! whole! days!) so we let her sleep in a little and she had a great nap. Cameron has also had another language explosion. It is rare that we don't understand what she is saying and her sentences are approaching 5-6 words. She can also clearly understand what we are saying and we've made more of an effort to explain things to her, instead of just telling her to do something.

On Sunday the Taylor family hosted us for a BBQ. Good food, sangria and deep frying experiments were all on the menu. Amanda had an Easter egg hunt set up around the yard (hunt is a bit of a misnomer since the eggs were in plain sight). DH and I had been "practicing" with Cameron all weekend when she brough 4 eggs home from daycare so Cameron totally kicked ass. She even ended up transferring Holden's eggs into her basket but he didn't seem to mind.

A picture post to come tonight!

The post where I tell you how much I hate sandboxes

As Cameron transitioned into her new 2 year old room she was also transitioned into a new playground. It is bigger with more equipment so initially I was happy with the change. Then Cameron started coming home covered in sand.

At first it was just in her shoes and encrusting her socks. She never complained about it so it usually wasn't until bedtime while removing said socks and shoes that the piles of sand were discovered. And scattered all over the changing pad, dresser and floor. Good times.

Monday was bath night. We usually only give Cameron a bath every other night (and sometimes stretch it to three) because 1.) I am lazy and 2.) there is still some lingering trauma from the pooping in the tub incident. She requires a lot of soothing and ignoring her "no, no, no" and "all done" comments so bath time is somewhat stressful for me. I stripped Cameron down for her bath, emptying out her socks and shoes of sand. When it came time to remove the diaper I found it to be absolutely filled with sand. It was stuck to every crevice of her bottom and made me very thankful that I had a full tub of water waiting.

I put Cameron in the tub and set to work removing all sand from her nooks and crannies. The only problem? Cameron was convinced that the sand coating the bottom of the tub was poop and she promptly freaked out. I kept reassuring her that it was sand and refused to let her leave the tub. Not only did I have to make sure all her girl parts were clean she had a ton of sand in her hair that was adhered to her scalp because of how sweaty she gets during play time outside. It required two hair washings (and Cameron hates to have her hair washed) and I still didn't get it all. The next morning I found sand in her bed and sleep sack (yes, we still use a sleep sack to avoid night time escapes).

I know that there is nothing daycare can do about this. I did complain about the sand filled diaper because I felt like someone should have caught that. But otherwise, if Cameron wants to roll around in the sand box, there is nothing I can do about it aside from refusing to ever install a sandbox in my yard. And to think this is a girl who refused to go to the beach this summer!

My mommy fix

My mom came to visit last weekend. The last time I saw her was a whirlwind trip home for the holidays so it was more than time for some quality 1:1 time. Plus it was a great excuse to take a day off of work and go shopping.


Having another adult in the house is so liberating. When DH was taking too long getting ready for dinner on Saturday I left Cameron with my mom to make myself look decent. Pure bliss to not have to corrall a toddler while putting on make up.


Besides shopping, my mom also came with us to Cameron's Little Gym class. We made cookies, played in the yard, watched Tangled and Cameron loved having her Grammy around. It got to the point that Cameron only wanted Grammy to push her in the shopping cart. Which also might be a sad commentary on how many stores we went to.


Quality family time like this makes me miss being around my extended family. I don't see us moving back to Boston but wish we can convince family to move closer. Below are some pictures from this weekend.

Cameron and Grammy playing with some puzzles, a new favorite toy.

Cameron watering the ground instead of the plant. Cameron as a bag lady. One of the girls in Cameron's class had a birthday. They gave all of the kids enormous pieces of cake. I took it away from Cameron after she ate half of it which resulted in an epic melt down. Fortunately Grammy was there to sing her songs and cheer her up.

miscelleneaous and 2 year stats

We ended up rescheduling Cameron's 2 year check up 2 times. First it was because I had a big meeting. Then it was because of a massive thunderstorm/tornado/hail incident that resulted in power loss at the doctor's office. Apparently third time is the charm because I just dropped Cameron off at school. The best part? No shots!

Yes, for the next two years Cameron is up to date on her immunizations (flu shot will still be a must) which makes doctor's visits so much more enjoyable for both of us. It turns out she has an ear infection and might have either viral pink eye or a sinus infection. So I'm off to the store to pick up her prescription in a bit. I'm just glad the pink eye won't require eye drops. Cameron has been such a pain in the butt that those battles would break me, I'm sure.

Cameron is 33 1/2 inches long (45%)
Her weight is 25.6 pounds (35%)
And her head is 48 cms (55%)

Unfortunately she is still in 18 month pants and I refuse (refuse!) to buy her shorts in that size. So I'll have to buy pants and shorts with the built in adjuster and pick up a belt too. Plus some dresses because those are easy.

Two other quick notes. Yes, I'm blogging in the middle of the day. How is that possible? My new job moved me off of a restricted server and I can now access blog sites again. Woo hoo! Hopefully that means I will be blogging more regularly although my new job is keeping me busy. The other item of note is that BigFinance has removed our ability to purchase through Amazon. Noooooooooooo! How on earth am I going to be able to get my Christmas shopping done? Or any other shopping for that matter? Apparently Amazon introduced a web storage capability that isn't completely secure and could result in compromising data. The site design does not allow for blocking this feature. Here's hoping that enough people complain directly to Amazon so they do something to fix it. We are 300K employees strong...unite!

My first 5K race

I'm marking it in my milestone book. Friday, April 8, 2011 is the date of my first ever race. And a 5K race to boot!

It was a great evening for a run. Not too much of it required running into the sun and there was a nice breeze. It was a little warmer than I expected for early April so I ended up sweating quite a bit. We were kind of a mess when we went to Loco Lime for dinner after. My two friends, KT and Amanda ran with me.

My official race time was 40:56 and I was happy to beat the 41 minute mark. I didn't run the entire 5K (although I did run about 90% of it) which was OK with me. My goal for the next 5K is to run the whole thing, not matter how slow I am jogging and I'll try to shave a minute off my time.

We are already planning our next 5K. Amanda suggest a trail run at the Carolinas White Water Center in July and the Weight Watchers 5K is in late May.

A kick ass year

Today is my birthday. Happy 34th birthday to me! And A. and Mommy, Esq., of course. It has been a pleasure sharing a birthday with my sisters over the past 3 plus decades. Not that I felt that way when I was younger!

I am struggling to see how this upcoming year will top the previous one. Over the past year I lost more than 50 pounds, started exercising regularly, got a new job and celebrated many milestones with my loving husband and darling daughter.

What are my goals this year?

• I plan on running several 5Ks and continuing to make exercise a regular part of my routine.
• Along with several other real life and Internet friends, I will participate in the Charlotte Warrior Dash.
• I will use all of my vacation time.
• I will have a girls' weekend with my longtime friends.
• I will commit to carving out more "me" time and "we" time with DH.
• And if I'm really lucky and work hard I will top it all off with a job promotion.

Wish me luck!