Summer TV reviews

With the advent of all these new cable channels it has started a trend that I like a lot: Summer TV programming. Basically it means we have new TV year round. Woo hoo! Here are the shows currently on my DVR. Let me know if you love 'em, hate 'em or have other suggestions.

• Drop Dead Diva - I have a soft spot for this show. I think that the actress does a great job of channeling a model in a plus sized lawyers body. The best parts (IMO) are the cases. Sometimes the personal life plot lines are a little lame. Like Bravo, Lifetime replays shows a lot so you don't have to worry about recording conflicts.
• The Gates - I checked this show out for the first time last night and I'm not sure I'm going to keep recording it. Another vampire/werewolf drama? Boring. Some of the characters are engaging but they are in the minority. I have a feeling this show won't stick around long anyway.
• Scoundrels - Really, TV? Is Virginia Madsen is old enough to have a son who graduated law school? I think not. But I like her. It also features Sloan from Grey's Anatomy doing her ditzy best. This is a maybe show for me. My DVR forgot to record it this week and I found that I didn't really care. So I'm on the fence with keeping this as a Season Pass.
• Royal Pains - This is a cute show and I love the interaction between the two brothers. But the patient story lines are kind of lame and the show doesn't appear to know where it's going this season. Maybe it will get better.
• White Collar - Fun fact: the start of this show went to Carnegie Mellon and graduated a year after me. Damn, if he was that hot in school I'm mad I didn't know him in real life!! How can you not love a show that has Tiffani Theissen in it? I rest my case.
• Top Chef - need I say more?
• Doctor Who - I have to get my SciFi fix in there somewhere, right? I'm not in love with the new Doctor yet but he's growing on me. I do really like his new sidekick but why did they have to erase her fiancee? Lame-O.
• Leverage - DH and I love this show. Good plots (although the "solution" is a bit ridiculous at times) and engaging actors. I'm saving up some episodes since we've been trying to get through our 8 remaining Fringe episodes. But then it's full steam ahead on this show. I hear that this past week had a Parker-centric episode. I'm already excited to see it!

Toddler discipline

Cameron has a new skill that I'm not fond of: hitting. I'm assuming she picked it up in daycare but for all I know hitting, like biting, is an inherent toddler skill.

We were in the splash area at the JCC and Cameron picked up two buckets that another child had abandoned. The kid, older and of course bigger, saw Cameron take them. He marched over, dropped the toys he was playing with and grabbed the two buckets. His name, by the way, was Adlai according to the buckets. Cameron was not happy to have her toys taken away. Usually she just cries and comes to me for comfort. This time she decided that running after Adlai and starting to push him was the best way to deal with the situation. Being a smart mommy, I figured out what she was going to do before it happened so I swooped in and picked her up before she could tackle the kid.

This redirected Cameron to lash out at me instead. She attempted to hit me with both hands. I held her hands saying, "No hitting" and attempted to redirect her. The hitting has become a pattern with her. If she is frustrated or tired or just doesn't get her way she will lash out. It usually happens once or twice a day. But that is once or twice too often for me. Mostly because I am the one holding her or trying to redirect her which means I bear the brunt of her anger/frustration. I think she's too young at 15 months for time outs but let me poll my readers: what will you/have you done to correct this kind of behavior in your toddlers?

Happy Anniversary

June is a very busy anniversary season for my family. Grandparents, parents (both sets), aunts, uncles, siblings, the list goes on and on. Yesterday I wished my grandparents a happy 60th anniversary and realized that mine was the next day. Oops! I called DH and asked him if he remembered. Nope. Phew. At least I wasn't alone. Our gift to each other this year is to refinance the house. Yes, a very romantic 4th anniversary, I know.

Four years ago I was stressing about the weather. For days before the wedding I scanned weather reports and consulted the Farmer's Almanac. It was one of the rainiest summers in Massachusetts in decades. For basically the months of May and June it rained almost every single day. Talk about stressing a bride out when she's planning on an outdoor ceremony!

Finally I threw my stress to the wind and said, "whatever happens, happens." And guess what? It poured. But not until after we were married in the gardens and had all of the formal group shots taken. So it worked out perfectly.

We were married at the Harding Allen Estate which is in Barre, MA. Basically in the middle of nowhere! DH and I were living in Charlotte while I interned at BigFinance. Because I was in my first year of business school (aka Boot Camp as it's know at Darden) DH basically planned the whole wedding with my mother. By the end they were exchanging phone calls multiple times a day. I also discovered why people take a honeymoon right after the wedding. We were married on a Sunday. We took Friday and Monday off and were back at work on that Tuesday. I was exhausted all week! But we made up for it with a 2 week honeymoon in Hawaii during the winter break.

My dad gives the best toasts. Seriously, he's really good at it. The theme for his toast to us was welcoming DH into the family despite the fact that he is a Yankees fan. Dad even managed to put a Yankee hat on but also required DH to put on a Red Sox one. After all, fair is fair.

Our first dance was to "A Sunday Kind of Love" by Etta James. It was a painful process to pick a nice, short song. Neither of us are dancers and didn't take dance lessons. It was seriously the longest 3 minutes of my life. But we struggled through it just fine.

Happy anniversary to a wonderful husband and father! Here's hoping we live long enough to make it to our 60th wedding anniversary...only 56 years to go!

Holding pattern

I have been extremely remiss about posting lately. A major reason why is that I can no longer access any blog sites at work. I have been attempting to email myself posts but I haven't really felt inspired lately. The reason? I feel like we are in a bit of holding pattern.

We are waiting to hear back about a new daycare for Cameron. I think we'll get in but we won't know for another few weeks. Another upcoming event is our big family vacation/family reunion. T-minus 4 weeks and I am super psyched! Work is going well but I have to get a lot done before vacation as we have a big 7/9 deadline. Thinking about what to pack coupled with trying to enjoy the summer has resulted in far fewer blog posts.

Another big event on our horizon is closing our refinance on the house. The closing happens Friday and I am a bit nervous about it. On one hand we are reducing our interest rate by 1.5 points which is awesome. One the other hand we are going down to a 15 year mortgage. Eek! Needless to say this will increase our monthly payments but given the drop in value in our house we need to start building equity or we'll never be able to sell in the future.

Interest rates have been super low and it looks like they will stay that way for quite some time. Anyone else toying with the idea of refinancing? And can anyone else commiserate with buying a house at the peak of the market? And yes, I do count my blessings that we can afford our house and both (knock on wood) have stable employment. It just would have been nice to have timed the market a bit better.

The truth about toddlers

There has been a post going around comparing toddlers to teenagers. There are definitely similarities, particularly the destructive nature of both age groups. At least when you tell a teenager to stop doing something you are assured they understand what you are saying. They may not do it but they can comprehend what you're saying. Despite Cameron's advancements in understanding language we are lucky to have a 30% chance that she understands what we're saying and another 5% chance that she'll do what we ask.

Cameron is learning to walk backwards pretty well. A new trick is spinning in a circle while there is music playing. Two or three turns and she's pretty dizzy. It's a riot! When DH and I are sitting on the ground Cameron likes to walk over and turn around about 3 paces from where we are sitting and sit down thinking that she will land in our laps. So she's not so good at judging distances yet.

In terms of vocabulary we haven't heard new words. But we do have the fun experience of hearing her shriek with laughter. It's a little piercing and can quickly deteriorate into whining but it makes us laugh every time.

Cameron "reads" the newspaper. It really meant she went through the entire recycling bag and pulled out every single piece of paper.

We have entered the stage of book obsession. I actually have to hide her books sometimes to get Cameron to play with other toys! If we're lucky she'll let us read 1/2 of a book before pulling it away and demanding a different book.
Cameron is somewhat shy but now that we've been going to the splash park for a few weeks she is finally getting a handle on the fact that it is more fun to play in the water than next to it.

Cameron definitely doesn't like to get water in her eyes but she's learning to close them. Good progress!

Toddlers are also like teenagers in that they like to steal things. Most of the kids don't mind if Cameron picks up a toy lying on the ground. Sometimes they grab it away from her and then we get the nice new sound we are starting to dread: the screech/whine.

Toddlers have OCD tendencies. Cameron is absolutely obsessed with these galoshes. They are far too big for her but every time we leave the door to the mud room open she zips in to pull out her boots.

Cameron insists on immediately sitting down, removing whatever shoes she is currently wearing and whining until DH or I put the galoshes on her.

What are the odds that she'll actually want to use these when they fit and it's raining outside? Yeah, I wouldn't take those odds either.

A sign from above?

DH is traveling this week. Well, not all week. He left yesterday and will be back tonight. Regardless I am single parenting and actually kind of looking forward to taking Cameron with me to my Weight Watcher’s weigh in tonight. I just love showing her off!

About two weeks ago we learned that the Assistant Director at Cameron’s daycare was leaving. I really liked Miss Kris and was sad to see her leave. Apparently she got an offer for a standalone center (not a chain) a few miles away where she had the opportunity to move up to the Director position in a few months. A new Assistant Director was brought in and I just don’t get the same warm fuzzies from her. Case in point: when I picked up Cameron yesterday I noticed she had scrapes over her eye, down her cheek and on her arm and leg. In reading the accident report Cameron had tripped and fallen on the concrete in the outside yard. I expect accidents especially because Cameron is technically still learning how to walk. What I also expect in the case of a pretty bad injury is a phone call informing me of it.

The past few times that Cameron has been injured I haven’t received a phone call, nor has DH. Those were much less serious injuries so I didn’t make a stink out of them. But the daycare policy is that an accident must be reported via phone (even if it’s a message) to the parents. I confronted (yes, that’s the appropriate level of prissiness I had) the new Assistant Director after I picked up Cameron. She kept saying, “I know I signed the report.” My response, “Yes, I see your signature here but that doesn’t explain why you didn’t pick up the phone and call me.” I never really got an apology which is what I was looking for although she did say that they would be sure and call in the future.

So fine, I’m annoyed. After getting Cameron in her car seat I checked her daily report. Attached to the report was an announcement from the director that she was leaving at the end of the month. She assured us that with the Assistant Director things would be fine until a new Director was found. I’m sure you can imagine my response to that statement after what happened with Cameron. I’m also annoyed because Miss Kris was looking for a Director position so why wouldn’t she have just been offered the role? Then I would feel better about the situation.

I ran into another parent outside and was talking about when her daughter would move up to Cameron’s Waddler room. The parent told me that she was pulling her daughter out of the daycare at the end of the month. I didn’t put my nosey neighbor hat on so I’m not sure why exactly they are leaving. But it got me thinking that this could be a sign that it’s time to step up doing whatever we need to in order to find a new daycare for Cameron. I’ve been toying with joining the KidsChurch for my #1 choice because that would give us an edge. But at #16 on the waitlist it is unlikely we could move Cameron any time soon. There are only 8 spots in her age group and they are currently full.

Another option is the daycare (they call it pre-school) at the JCC we joined. It is about $150 more per month and has a funky structure where there is a school year and then the “summer” weeks are called camp. Regardless it is full time care and not in the opposite direction of work like our current daycare. Plus they would pick up at the local schools so long term it could make more sense. I have a call in and plan on taking a tour with DH if they have openings. Wish us luck!

Patting myself on the back

As of this week I have lost 15.4 pounds. Not too shabby. My goal is to have lose 20 pounds by our family reunion/vacation. I still have 5 weeks to go so I'm optimistic. I've been doing Weight Watchers for 10 weeks and am trying to be diligent about tracking my points. The flex points come in handy over the weekends or occasional lunch out and I love that I can track everything on my iPhone WW app. I'm not sure what my ultimate goal is for weight loss. I don't think I'll get down to the 115 range that correlates with my height but I'd like to be a size 8 or 10. That way I can shop in any store and be assured of finding my size.

Probably the biggest thing I've learned in this second go around with WW is portion control. I did WW about two years ago prior to getting pregnant. I lost about 15 pounds then and of course packed them back on plus some throughout the pregnancy. I certainly didn't restrain myself with portion control while pregnant! The days of stuffing myself are over. One thing about WW is that it is really a lifetime program. It isn't really a diet because it is more about teaching you how to eat properly. A skill that I will have to use for the rest of my life. My current struggle is that I still think of it like a "diet" with the implication that I can go back to usual (well, not all the way!) and I need to readjust my mindset. I hope I'll get there soon!

I have also started exercising. I loath exercising. I really, really do. But I've started swimming with our membership in the JCC and it doesn't really feel like exercise to me. I managed to get in laps Friday, Saturday and today which is great. One of the things I like about swimming is that it is just me with my thoughts. No music, TV or other distractions. You'd think I would have a lot more blog posts as a result but alas I usually go the mundane route and think about work or the list of chores piling up. The JCC has daycare so I can bring Cameron with me if DH has work to do around the house. There is a wide age range in the kids using the babysitting room and Cameron loves interacting with the older kids. She was so happy there she didn't want to leave today.

Along with the weight reduction I finally broke down and went to Macy's to spend far too much money on a new bra. And I love it! Embarrassingly I have been wearing my nursing bras for the past 15 months even though I stopped pumping when Cameron was 6 months old. My sister asked me to borrow them so it motivated me to hit the mall. Two different women recommended the same bra when I mentioned I needed to get a new one: Wacoal. Macy's only had one in my size (damn you DDs!) so I plan on picking up another one online. I much prefer shopping online anyway and will just get the same style in a different color. I swear that my "girls" have never looked perkier. This bra really does lift and separate. Sure $60 is a little steep but a boob lift would be even more. At least that's what I told DH. He's just happy that my cup size didn't go down. Men.