The battle over Christmas decorations

For the past 4 years DH has grumbled about one particular Christmas decoration. He complains when I talk excitedly about putting it up and turning the light on every day. When DH goes around the house to turn the window candles on he somehow always manages to miss this decoration. I almost gleefully come behind him and make sure it is turned on.

You'd think given DH's mile wide practical streak that the Christmas decoration in question is some kind of hideous, singing exuberance that represents all things wrong with Christmas. But no, instead it is a hand made ceramic Christmas tree. My great-grandmother made 4 of them and I have been blessed with getting one of them for my house.

So, what do you think? Ugly or awesome?

Watch out, Charlie, here comes Cameron!

First Charlie didn't understand why Mommy was getting so fat. Although he did love taking lots of naps with me on the weekends. Then Charlie was confused when we brought home a teeny tiny person who only seemed to cry and eat all day. Not to mention taking all of Mommy's and Daddy's attention. And now? Well now Cameron is absolutely obsessed with Charlie and would like nothing better than to follow him around doing her pseudo crawling.

Poor Charlie.

The great staycation experiment

Next week DH and I are taking a week off of work and staying home. It is the first time in our entire relationship that we are taking a vacation and not getting in a car or on an airplane to go some place. I am beyond excited!

Don't tell Cameron but I'm especially happy that she will be daycare for most (if not all) of the week. I've mentioned before that our two week vacation in Maine wasn't exactly relaxing for me since I was still on Mommy duty 24x7. And our weekends aren't the errand running days of pre-baby. I feel very much behind on personal things because I'm "trapped" at home for several hours a day due to Cameron's napping schedule. The napping schedule is sacrosanct so I make every effort to be home on time which means I have at most 3 hours to run errands with her and then squeeze in a few more during her naps (if DH is project-free and on Daddy duty).

Of course now DH and I have a list a mile long of things that we plan on getting done during our staycation. Part of me is happy and hopeful that the list can be completed. The other part of me also wishes for a couple of lazy days where I actually get to sleep in and wake up and not have to be Mommy right away. I thought when I started this post that I would feel guilty about being excited to have a break from both work and Cameron but there's nothing there. I guess even my mommy guilt is ready for a vacation!

Has anyone else taken a staycation? Were you able to get lots of things done or was there laziness too?

Video fun

I know I've said this before but I feel like Cameron is at that perfect infant age. She sleeps and eats well, loves to play with toys and isn't too mobile. So DH and I have been having a blast playing with our little munchkin. Here are a few videos from the past week or so.

Cameron and Mommy make up a new game.

The Tower of Daddy scared Cameron originally but now she loves it as readers predicted!

Cameron started "dancing" the other day. Too cute!

All I got was this lousy education

DH was in a bad mood last night. This is extraordinarily unusual for him and can usually be tied back to a specific source. Money. Or rather the amount of money that seems to be gushing out of our checking account at an alarming rate.

This past weekend I opened a letter from the State of Virginia Tax Department asking me to file taxes for 2009. I showed it to DH and laughed because we haven't lived in Virginia for more than two years. North Carolina and the Federal Government get enough of my hard earned money, thank-you-very-much.

We ain't laughing no more. Yes, that sentence did require a double negative to convey my annoyance. Turns out that when we filed taxes for 2006 we neglected to file a state income tax for me. Why? Because I did my internship for BigFinance in North Carolina and properly filed my NC state taxes. Both of us totally spaced on the fact that because I lived in Virginia for that year even though I made zero dollars in the state and paid out tens of thousands of dollars in tuition I still owned them money. The best part? Despite rock bottom interest rates we have been charged 42% in interest. Thank you, Virginia! I'm especially thrilled because even though my husband worked in the state during my tenure at UVA I somehow didn't qualify for in state tuition. But you better believe they will also charge me for income I didn't even earn in their state!

I'm hoping we can work some magic with the numbers and get the total down a bit. Isn't it lovely that this occurred right around the holidays? So, has anyone else had run ins with state or federal tax returns? Do I have any hope of getting some of that interest dismissed or is this a suck it up kind of situation?

Update: DH just told me that we now owe zero to the lovely State of Virginia. Woot! Apparently they credit us for what we paid to North Carolina which ended up being more than twice what we would have paid to Virginia.

It would be easier if she took a feed bag

For the past couple of months Cameron and I have been in a pretty good groove with her feeding schedule. It was far from perfect but it seemed to work in getting her to nap twice a day for 2 hours and sleep through the night. So really, what more can I ask for?

But of course Cameron doesn't just come from me. No, no. She also has a wide streak of her father in her. DH and I are diametrically opposed when it comes to food and eating. Me? Never met a carb I didn't like. I would rather cut off my arm than miss breakfast. I require breakfast, lunch AND dinner or I become a crazed, grumpy woman. DH on the other hand can sometimes go from breakfast to dinner skipping lunch entirely. When I poke him about what he had for lunch that day I get the following responses:

• "I was too busy to eat." Um, I would make myself un-busy just to eat. Otherwise I would be distracted by the constant grumbling of my tummy.
• "I wasn't hungry." Freak.
• "I forgot." Seriously? Who forgets to eat?

For many months I had an unhealthy fascination with the amount of food going into Cameron's system. I limited my stressing when I was breastfeeding because it's not like I really knew how many ounces she was eating. But when I moved to primarily pumping and then formula feeding I felt my Type A personality rear its ugly head. Despite this Cameron and I got into a groove where she would eat most of her bottle and I would count up the number of ounces she ate over the course of the day and not-so-silently seethe if she dropped below 20 ounces.

Flash forward to this week at day care. Cameron has decided that she doesn't want to eat at least 1/2 of two of her bottles most likely because they were too close together. So last night I made the executive decision that we are changing up her feeding schedule dramatically. Instead of 5 bottles at 5 ounces we are now moving to 4 bottles of six ounces.

Cameron has consistently eaten 6 ounces for her first bottle of the day so 6 ounces appears to be doable as a bottle size. Her new schedule (fingers crossed!) will be:

• 6:45 AM - 6 ounces
• 8 AM - solids
• 9 AM - nap
• 11:00 AM - 6 ounces
• 12 PM - solids
• 2 PM - nap
• 3 PM - 6 ounces
• 5 PM - nap (she really only needs this during daycare days because she doesn't nap well there)
• 6 PM - 6 ounces
• 6:30 - solids?

My biggest issue with the new schedule will be on the weekends. Cameron usually naps 2 - 4 PM which would screw things up. The other general problem will be fitting in the last solids of the day.

What I really like about this new schedule is that it gets us out of the habit of a bottle at bedtime. Now DH and I can create a new bedtime routine with books instead of bottles. Yay for reading! Anyone else able to swing four 6 ounce bottles with two 2 hour naps? When can I stop stressing about food with Cameron? Or is this just the start of a years long battle?

Making a list, checking it...crap, where did I put that list?

Is everyone else as shocked as I am that it's December already? Where the heck did November go? I guess I bagged it up with the dead leaves. But don't you worry, there are plenty more dead leaves still left to be raked into piles and stuffed into bags. Because nothing says December down South like raking leaves.

A couple of months ago DH and I decided we weren't going home for the holidays. I'll pause for your gasps of shock and disdain. Yes, we decided to deprive our child of her first Christmas with her extended family after a 1400 mile trip up North. And it has been the most relaxing and refreshing decision we've made in a very long time. In the past we've scrambled to get everything done a week before Christmas, pile in the car and make the LONG drive up to Massachusetts. Plus we end up taking two weeks off of work and not feeling like we had any kind of vacation. So this year we decided to bag it all and have our very own first family Christmas.

I'm especially excited because this will be the first time we've put up our very own Christmas tree! Yes, we are that pathetic couple that has glommed on to our families' decorated houses since 2002 as a way to fill the void of Christmas decorations. Sure I put up a few things here and there but a stocking and string of lights isn't very impressive. So for the first time in our 7 year relationship DH and I will get to decorate our very own Christmas tree.

Because we haven't done much in the way of local holiday cheer there are lots of things I need to buy. If only I had planned 11 months in advance I could have purchased all my holiday decorations at 60% off. With that in mind I am going to try and limit what I buy and try to stock up after the new year. But at a minimum we need:

• A tree
• Tree skirt & stand
• Colored lights
• Ornaments (to augment a small stash I already had)
• Garlands
• Stockings

Now if only I could get this motivate for family Christmas presents. Normally by now I have at least an idea of what to get people. But between work and Cameron I've got nada. Thank goodness for the Internet...