Spring Ramble

It’s funny how a little goes a long way. A little smile can make me just beam inside. A little sniffle can make me worry all day. A little dance makes me want to quit my job and stay home every day. Yes, you’ve guessed it; I’m talking about my Emma. I seem to be infatuated these days. I am beyond happy to have her, and I just can’t get enough! She is now at the stage where she wants me around (granted, it’s ALL THE TIME) and I love that she does! Life is good. :-)

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…….

Are you as excited for Easter as I am?!?! Not only will Emma really appreciate her Easter basket this year, and actually be able to help dye eggs, but we are going to church Easter morning! It’s a new church, so I’m sure we will all have jitters about it come Sunday, but I haven’t been in so long and I desperately want to get back. So, keep your fingers crossed that we are comfortable there as a family. :-) I’m already daydreaming about vacation Bible school for Emma, and church camp, and Sunday School. Lol. A solid church community is something I think everyone needs. It’s even in the laundry list of “things that will make you happy in life.” I’m excited.

My Mom and I took Emma to Purina Farms last weekend for an Easter event. It was great to see Emma’s reaction to everything! Baby animals to watch and pet, a dog show, sand layering, a wagon ride, etc. It was only a two hour thing for us because we were starving and she was getting tired, but it was great! I’m so glad we went. And I’m so glad that my Mom went with us. I hate to admit this, but I almost like it more when she goes with us instead of Gene. Haha. No offense to Gene, but I don’t think he’d pick up on the cute factor since he’s a male. And that whole morning was cuuuuuuute!

Here are some pictures from that morning:

That same day, but in the afternoon, I took her to The Little Gym for their open house. There was to be balloon animals, face painting, jamberry nails, etc. Well, I’m not sure what happened, but all that we saw was balloon animals. So, we played in the extremely-crowded gym for about ten minutes, and then we waited in line for 40 minutes for a balloon animal that turned out to just be a balloon shaker/rattle because she was done at 5 and our 40 minute wait took us to 5:20. Emma did get a cookie and lemonade on top of a goodie bag, so all wasn’t lost. :-) It was a good time. I may have even stopped for a tropical snocone on the way home for us to share. Mommy-and-me time to the fullest. By the way, I learned while we were at the gym that Miss Emma can now do flips on the bars with a little help. She’s obsessed with it too. My big girl.

I’m actually contemplating not renewing Emma at the Little Gym for the summer. The hours don’t work well for us since my Mom goes on Days, and Gene isn’t the greatest at handling her by himself, so I’m just not sure if I should or not. The only reason I’m still on the fence about it instead of just saying no, is simply because she absolutely loves it. It’s hard to tell your baby “no” when they get such innocent joy from it.  

I’m already behind on Emma’s birthday party. Haha. I know it’s not until July, but I’m so paranoid about picking the wrong venue that I just keep putting it off. Sky Zone would be fun, but for $400, is it really worth it at 2 years old? The Little Gym is a possibility, but also $200. Jaycee park is only $50 and would be great since it has a splash pad, but we’d be against the odds with Mother Nature (not to mention they’re booked already). So now I’m thinking our only options are at my house or my parents house, or The Little Gym. Ugh. I can’t decide.

Emma’s vocabulary is intense. She has full conversations now and it’s delightful and sad at the same time. How did she get so smart?!?! Where did my baby go?!?! Just this morning she kept on about how Pawpaw was asleep, and she wanted him to wake up, but since Gramma won’t let her she will play with his hat instead. Seriously?!?!?! It was more like “Momma! Momma! Pawpaw’s seepin, Emma wake, Gramma says no-no, Emma play Pawpaw’s hat too.” But still, a whole scenario all played out by Emma. It’s insane. She also counts to twelve now (that’s how high Sesame Street usually goes) and knows lots of letters (not in order though).

Oh, yeah. With her new knowledge comes a new phase. The “scared” phase. So, going back to the beginning… The bad Momma that I am, I vacuumed while Emma was home. I had no idea it panicked her so much, so when I was done with my one minute vacuum job I found her cowering in a corner of the dining room screaming and crying so hard that her shirt was soaked. In. One. Minute… Soaked! I was able to calm her down and I thought everything was okay, but that night she had a dream about the vacuum (I’m assuming) and it was non-stop blood-curdling screaming like she was dying for close to 10 minutes. It was bad. Really bad. We’ve had bedtime issues since, and now she understands the word “scared.” So, anytime she’s remotely scared or nervous, she cries and says she’s scared. When we rode the wagon, when we walked to the car, when we left Gramma and Pawpaws, when she doesn’t want to go to bed at night, and when Thomas the Train (toy) moves. Is this a phase that will pass? Is anyone else’s child dealing with this? Are there any tricks? I’ve tried a lot of talking and hand-holding, but it only goes so far. I scarred her for life with the vacuum!

For a bit of adult talk, granted I’m not sure if I should be talking about this publicly - some of you know this already, and some of you don’t… As of April 1^st I took over a new role at Crown Vision Center (full-time). I am now the Product Assistant (previously the Managed Care Administrator). I went from handling insurance matrixes, training stores on submission, answering help-desk calls, etc., to ordering and transferring product, meeting with vendors to pick product, etc. Do I like it? Yes. Let me rephrase that… YES!!!!! I no longer have the stiff neck and shoulders from the stress of being unhappy and I have a bit more freedom (which is hard to adjust to). I enjoy it a lot. However, with the enjoyment comes a lot more work. I work longer hours (which in all honesty I wanted fewer hours), I don’t take breaks like I used to, I sometimes eat at my desk, and I don’t get to make small talk “at the water cooler” anymore. But, I guess you have to take the bad with the good, right? It’s definitely a keeper.

With spring here (although you can’t really tell right now) I keep getting the urge to do things like fishing, camping, etc. None of which Gene has the slightest interest in. I’d go fishing by myself sometime, but I can’t take the fish off the hook. I’m too scared of getting “finned.” And he would probably go camping with some coaxing, but he’s not the manly type so I don’t think he’d be much help with putting up the tent or fire-building. It’s hard to do one-off things like that when your husband doesn’t care for the outdoors unless he’s at a baseball game. :-/

Speaking of baseball games, we haven’t been to a single one yet. I know, it’s nuts! If you know us, you’ll know that we are huge baseball fans (Gene more than me obviously). This year though, we didn’t buy our 10-game pack so we missed out on the Home Opener. In fact, we didn’t even watch the game. I took off work for Gene and I to go downtown, but it rained so I played with Em in the morning, Gene and I met Holli and Russ for drinks at the start of the game, but we left in the 2^nd inning to run errands and go pick up Emma. Am I upset? No. I had a great extra day with Emma! I also haven’t watched any part of a game since. Crazy, right? However, I am craving Busch Stadium and my Cardinals, so I need to go soon.

Back to spring though, the Farmer’s Markets are opening up. We stopped by one on Sunday, but because we already had plenty of food we didn’t buy much. If you know me, I’m a diehard Schnucks shopper, so I buy all fruits and veggies there. However, I’m going to try my hardest to buy from the locals because while I want to support my hubs and the company he works for, I also want to support our communities. I want to go down to the Soulard Farmers’ Market soon too. I keep seeing my Aunt Vicki post that she’s going, so I may just have to invite myself!

We did attempt to do something fun last night… we went to “Food Trucks in the Park.” It was cold. Haha. It was at Frontier Park in St. Charles, and it wasn’t as crowded (which we were hoping for) so we were super stoked, until it kept getting colder and colder. After two trucks we decided it was time to go. We got some cupcakes and went home to finish our food. Did you know that I want to own a food truck? I already have it all planned out in my head what I want it to be, but I stink at cooking and it’s a lot of work starting something like that. Not to mention that I have no idea if it’s even worth my time profit-wise. I guess it’ll have to stay a dream.

So that’s just some of the stuff that’s been going on. As you can probably tell from my jumbled mess of a post, this took me three days to complete. I just don’t seem to have the time to blog right now. I really need to get a better schedule going and give up some of my sleep time because I can’t seem to get much done. Who am I kidding though, I love my sleep. More wishful thinking I guess.

TTYL!!!