Good/Bad/Good Day

So today, a beautiful day, we took our kiddos to Mass, as we do every Sunday.  Palm Sunday Mass, to be specific.  It was L-O-N-G.  But they were both good.  We were happy.

Charlotte wanted a bagel so we enjoyed "Coffee and Donuts" afterwords.  As we were leaving, she started screaming about being hungry.   Of course she was hungry; it was well after her normal lunch time.  We went to Buffalo Wild Wings and she was an angel at the table.

We came home and tried to get her to take a late nap at 2:30.  No dice.  So what do we decide to do?  Go to Macy's.

Did I mention that Frederick hadn't slept much either, except for almost an hour and a half in my Mei Tai carrier?

Disaster.

I walked up to the Clinique counter and had to wait to be helped.  They didn't have what I wanted, so I tried to see if they might have something else that would work.  Meanwhile, Fred took the antsy kids for a walk around the mall.  I decided that I didn't want a substitute for what I usually purchase and they had  my product at the other Macy's in the same mall (really?  How long is that going to continue?).  Fred walks by and I hear the screaming.  Newborn baby screaming and sobbing little girl screaming, "There is my Mommy, right there!"

Why was she screaming?  Apparently she pulled up her skirt and shoved her hands into her panties and out the leg holes. Poor Fred was walking around the mall and everyone kept smiling/laughing at Charlotte and he didn't know why.  Once he realized what she was doing, he told her to stop or he was going to have to strap her into the stroller (yes, I know you are always supposed to strap them into the stroller).  She did it again anyway and he strapped her in.  Ensue screaming like she's being murdered.  Add in Frederick's tired sympathy cries and Fred was getting all the sympathetic looks.

Fred told me this story and I just laughed.  Fred was mortified, but since I wasn't there, I get to find it funny.  We tried to wander up to the kids department where they were having a sale, and I wanted to look for a pizza stone, but after 3 minutes we declared it a complete failure and ran for the car.

Fred waited in the car while I ran into the other Macy's for my makeup.  Charlotte screamed bloody murder the whole time that she wanted her Mommy.  Fred turned up the white noise of 87.7 and Frederick slept.  Back on 610 both babes were passed out.  I asked Fred if he'd like to take a road trip somewhere while they were both out and quiet.  He declined, but I'm pretty sure he regretted it when we got home and they both woke up.

And then, almost as suddenly as it had been a failure, we enjoyed the setting sun outside to the tune of 2 year old laughter and 2 (almost 3!) month old coos.

We put them to bed.

Then we had wine.

What a day!

I'm So Dizzy

Sorry I've been MIA.  I've been Dizzy.  Like the world likes to move dizzy.  I have my allergies to thank for that.  Yay Houston.  I'm slowly feeling closer to normal.

Frederick had two shots today and isn't feeling so hot, yet he sure can be a smiling kid for being so fussy!  His weight at 11 weeks old?  14lbs 12 oz.  Crazy, huh?

I finally turned MC's car seat from rear facing to forward facing last week.  I wanted to wait until she reached 30 lbs before I turned it around, but at 28 lbs, she's still a peanut, and I was just ready to turn her around.  One of the perks is that I now know she's looking out the window in the same direction that I am.  As we were driving on 45 yesterday, I pointed out Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral.

"Charlotte, look, do you see that church?"
"Yes"
"That is where Aunt KK and Uncle Brian got married."
"Ohhh"

Follows a conversation with MC asking me, "What's that builder?"  and me mostly saying "I don't know, Charlotte."

With the big buildings no longer in sight, she asks, "Where did Aunt KK and Uncle Brian go?"
"Sweetheart, they had to go back to Lubbock.  They live in Lubbock."
"Aunt KK and Uncle Brian and Mary live in Lubbock?"

I then tried to explain "married" to her, but I'm not so sure she gets it quite yet.  Until then, KK and Brian live with Mary :-P.

Potty Talk - Updated

Tonight's conversation in the Fuddrucker's restroom:

MC: You go tinkle!
Me: mmm-hmmm
MC: You go tinkle like me!
Me: Yes, Charlotte.
MC: (clapping her hands) Yayyy!  Good job, mommy!  You get a mystery egg? (mystery egg = reward in an Easter egg)

Gotta love the toddler enthusiasm in public places.

****
Sometimes, most times, I hope there isn't someone in the stall next to us when I take Charlotte to use a public restroom.  If you ever find yourself in the next stall while I am helping Charlotte, you might hear something like this:

Charlotte:  I don't have to go tinkle!
Me: Okay, well, you are going to have to try, okay?  Then we can go see the baby animals!
Charlotte: Okaaaay. (She always says OK with a really long a.  Drives me nuts. Or it is really cute; I haven't decided which yet.)
Me: Good job, Charlotte!  I knew you could do it!
Charlotte: I go poopy.
Me: Oh, poopy too.  Good job!
Charlotte: It's AMAZING!

This kid has crazy enthusiasm...maybe we've shown a little too much appreciation of her potty accomplishments.


Another favorite stall conversation:

Charlotte:  Those are my private parts.
Me: mmm-hmmm
Charlotte:  Mommy have private parts?
Me: mmm-hmmm
Charlotte: Frederick have private parts?
Me: mmm-hmmm.  Honey, can we not talk about this right now? Let's not talk about our private parts in public, please.

Photos from San Diego

Seaport Village at Sunset

Botanical Building at Balboa Park

Sanchez Life Outside of Portrait Shots

Nighttime View Outside of the Manchester Grand Hyatt

Harbor House at Seaport Village

Home Sweet Home

As you may have been able to tell from Fred's sushi post, we've been away in sunny So Cal all week.  We spent 5 nights in San Diego; Fred went for work, and I went for play.  Frederick came with us (of course) and Charlotte stayed with my parents.  Aunt KK and Uncle Brian were in town, and Helen and Ernest are home on Spring Break, so I am told she did not miss us at all with all of the extra attention she received!  She was still very happy to see Mommy, Daddy, and, of course, Frederick.  It is great to be home!

We had a great time, but I missed Charlotte like crazy.  I've traveled without her before, but missed her more this time around, even if it would have made for a more chaotic trip to have her around.

I"ll post more later, with photos, but for now, I'll leave you to enjoy this yumminess: 

お任せ - (Translation: Omakase/Chef's Choice/It's Up To You)

While I'm away on business trips, the best part of the job is dining at good restaurants. My co-worker and I were looking for a good seafood place to eat so we looked up reviews on Tripadvisor.com. One of the highest rated places we found was a sushi restaurant called, Sushi Ota.

After we sat down and ordered our drinks, I told Elizabeth and my co-worker the best places in California have the option of selecting sushi called omasake or chef's choice. This is where the sushi chef makes the decision on what you will be having for dinner. I always wanted to try this on my trips, but could never find a good enough sushi place for chef's choice. Well, in San Diego my search was over.

The sushi was phenomenal! It even put my favorite places in Houston (Ginza and Osaka) to shame. We were served a platter of sashimi with fresh mackerel, prawn, fatty tuna, and sea urchin. For sushi, we were served various types of snapper, lobster, giant clam, Japanese squid, and stuff I've never even heard of. It was perhaps the best sushi I've had in my entire life.



Although I loved eating all this sushi, little did I know that the sashimi platter was going to be a little too fresh for my liking. After the three of us ate most of the sashimi on the platter, I went to pick up the prawn to see if its insides were edible. When I went to grip the prawn with my chop sticks, this is what happened:




The youtube video is actually my co-worker prodding the prawn a second time, but that first second when I didn't know it was still alive I thought, "OHHHH F$&#*#!, (facehugger), S*#$%# !!!!!" I didn't vocally curse, but I dropped the prawn back on the platter and held my hands on my face for a few moments and started to laugh at myself for freaking out. Elizabeth and my co-worker got the better end of the laugh. Too bad there wasn't a video camera to catch my reaction.

You LOVE It!

Charlotte (running in with a multi-colored drawing):  Mommy!  I made this for you!
Me: Oh, thank you, Charlotte.
Charlotte:  You LOVE it!

She wanted to hang it on the wall, but I convinced her the refrigerator would do just as well.

---

Every night at bedtime, as I tuck her in, Charlotte asks, "Mommy, are you gonna come check on me?"
Every night I say, "Of course, Charlotte, I will be back to check on you."
"You gonna check on Frederick?"
"Yes, sweetheart, I'm going to check on him too."

At first I couldn't figure out why we were having this conversation every night, and then I realized that I often say during the day, "Hold on a second, Charlotte, I'm going to go check on Frederick real quick."  I guess she wants to make sure I'm checking on her while she's sleeping too :-).

Bath Time

I've often thought that I have the most smiling kiddo on the planet.  Seriously, it takes nothing but a glance in his direction to make this little man light up into a big smile. 

Until I hide behind the camera lens, of course.  He was smiling at Fred during bath time tonight and I ran for the camera. 

Oh well, there is always tomorrow for smiling photos, and these are the first bath time photos we've taken, so I thought I'd share.

Fred even tried the "nose boop" to no avail.

Maybe he was just getting cold and wanted out!

On another note, his eyes still haven't changed color yet.  I know it can take up to 6 months for a baby's eyes to change, and am fairly certain they will be brown like Charlotte's, but right now they are a mixture of blue-gray and brown.  I wish I could get a good close-up of them.  This means that sometimes they look more gray and others more brown. How fun would it be if they kept this unique coloring?

Pictures! (at Herman Park)

As I scrolled through my last several posts, I noticed one thing they all had in common - a shortage of photos!  This morning we decided to make a last minute trip to Herman Park to enjoy the beautiful day.  We managed to  a picnic lunch together and get everyone out the door by 10:15 and pulled into the park/zoo parking lot around 10:35 to find that available parking was almost gone already!  Note to self to always get out the door around 10am on a beautiful Saturday if I want to find a space :-).

  
The good news - Fred got a lot of great shots of us at the park.  The bad news?  Since the trip was so last minute, I didn't have a chance to charge up the camera battery, and it died as soon as it was my turn to wield the camera :-(.  I wanted more pictures of Frederick and Charlotte, but Frederick slept in the Mei Tai the whole time.  Okay, the whole time minus the few cranky pictures we have. 

 

I like this picture, but it is actually an out-take of a shot I think we'll use for birth announcements that I'd like to make.  

This was right after our picnic in the Japanese Garden.  I have some where you can actually see Frederick's face, but since he's not happy we can at least pretend he's happy in this photo, right?  On a side note I totally nursed in public sitting on the ground right there and didn't even bother to use a blanket.  Sometimes I think the harder I work to "cover up" the more obvious it is that he's nursing.  Something about baby #2 also means I could care less what other people think about nursing in public.

Don't let the innocent gaze fool you.  In his defense, he has his first cold and we hauled him off to the sunny park...

And the camera literally died in my hands after I took this one and only shot.  I was seriously bummed.  Some of the trees were in bloom and there were so many branches about to bud into new life.  I was dying to have a go.  Fred wore Frederick in the Mei Tai (flower side turned in :-P) for the rest of our visit, and I didn't get any pictures of that or him with Charlotte.  No fun photos of our train ride either.  Boo.  I think it is time to invest in a backup battery for the camera bag.

It was a great day, though.  We always love trips to Herman Park!

Brought To You by the Letter L

Friday afternoon I let Charlotte watch Cailiou on the laptop computer.  (We often use the laptop to watch shows and movies from Netflix, sometimes hooking it up to our flat screen TV, other times not.)  Frederick was taking a nap in his bouncy seat (one of these days I'll start having him nap in his crib...maybe), and I was running around trying to get ready to drop the kiddos off with my parents and head out to the Rodeo BBQ Cook-off.  I kept a general eye on Miss Charlotte, who seemed to be engrossed in the program.

As I'm making bottles in the kitchen she comes pattering in and hands me a wet, bent piece of black plastic, "Here, Mommy, this is for you."

"Umm, Charlotte, what is this?"

"It's a button!"

"What?"

I turn the little piece over and see the letter L marked on it.  Realization finally hits that she's pulled one of the little keys off of the laptop sends several thoughts through my mind as I become upset.  First, I think Fred is going to blame me for letting her sit at the laptop unsupervised.  I wonder where, or even if, you can get replacement laptop keyboard letters.  I think that if the key looks this bent up, she must have done a number to the gadgetry under it, and a replacement piece of plastic might be useless; I may not be able to functionally type without having someone replace the entire laptop keyboard.  I thank God she didn't choke on the little piece of plastic, which also bears a couple of teeth marks. Perhaps I should have had the last thought first.

I was mad and quickly jumped all over Charlotte about braking the computer.  Seeing that I was upset, she quickly and earnestly said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."  I never know if she's truly sorry - I'm not quite certain she fully understands the meaning of the word, but, as always, that deflated a little of my frustration.  She follows this with, "It's going to be all right."

As pick up the laptop, I am relieved to see that L is the only missing key.  After straightening out the key as best I can (now sporting a white line where it had beenbent), I am amazed to find that it snaps right back in place like it should.  While I'm repairing the keyboard, she steps closer, puts one arm around my back and rubs my arm with her hand, saying softly, "It's okay.  It's okay.  It's going to be all right."

And really, who can be angry with that much sweetness?