In the beginning

After timidly stepping around the corner of the brick building, fidgeting in line and pretending I was just another parent happily signing up my child for a class . . . . I find out this is what a preschool room looks like.

The very room my son will be going to a couple days a week starting in the fall.

The school has a good reputation among everyone I've talked to. The class size is less than 10 students. The teacher has a Master's Degree. The Man-cub will learn (I hope) how to follow instructions, take turns and mold Play-Doh without eating it.

So why was my stomach churning so much I couldn't eat dinner?



Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Flags over the Amazon

The Amazon exhibit at Miami Metrozoo

Shortcomings

Have you ever had a night when you couldn't sleep? But you felt too brain-dead to really do anything?

I had a night like that recently. So I did something weird: I read my blog. Well, most of it. And I felt a little jealous of my old self. I used to write every weekday! And some of the posts were even kind of funny! Some posts got a lot of comments! (OK, not lots of comments like the superbloggers get. But lots for my standards.)

Now that pregnancy is really slowing me down, I'm not writing every day. And my posts really aren't that funny. And they're not getting a lot of comments. This child must be a genius and is sucking all my brain activity out of me . . . yeah, that's it. It couldn't possibly be a shortcoming of my own . . . .

After the baby arrives, I'm not even sure if I'll be able to ramp things back up again. I just don't know what to expect when it comes to taking care of a baby and a toddler.

But I will keep blogging anyway, for what it's worth, halfway -- but not half-heartedly.

Car math

Just after our son son learned to walk, my husband was already making plans to build the boy a pedal car. I know, those plastic motorized cars that cost $500 new at Toys R Us are a big hit with the preschool set, but when it comes to cars and toys, my husband is more old-fashioned ... er, he would say classic.

After months of scouring eBay for a fixer-upper (because my husband loves a challenge), he found and won a set of two Porsche-like pedal cars that just need a tow to the junkyard a little TLC. The idea is to take the parts from both and make one really nice one. I don't understand car math, but my husband insists two dinged-up jalopies = one sweet ride.

When my husband unpacked the shipping box and pulled out the two car bodies, the Man-cub ran up to them excitedly, then stopped short.

"Oh no!" he said. "It's broken!"

Did I mention there are several car parts not included?



This might end up costing $500 after all . . . .


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Bakery bag

Just daily living in South Florida . . . .

My son, the morning person

This morning, I had to wake up my son so we could be somewhere on time. When I came into his room, he was already awake. His eyes were slits.

"Good morning!" I said, rubbing his back. "I hope you had sweet dreams. How about some sunshine?" I said, moving to the window to pull up the blind.

"NO SUNSHINE! NO SUNSHINE!" the Man-cub wailed.

I know he's too young for coffee, but it sure is tempting . . . .

A mama in the Bahamas

One extremely cool thing about living in South Florida is how close the Caribbean is. Like, a flight to anywhere in the Bahamas takes an hour or less. And heck, I can't even get out of the state of Florida in that amount of time.

You also can get to Freeport on Grand Bahama Island by cruise ship in about five hours, we found out this past weekend. I think it would take even less time, but the Discovery Party Cruise that seems to be advertised all over the tri-county area these days probably stretches it out to make more money from passengers.

It was all good, though. Well, waiting in lines at the port wasn't good, but the rest of the trip was a blast!

We left Florida behind and set sail for a not-so-distant foreign country! How many places are there in the U.S. where you can say that?



We paid a little extra to have our own cabin on the ship. It was totally worth the $40.



Our family went with some friends on the Discovery and stayed for a couple nights at the Our Lucaya resort.







The weather was cool last weekend, so no one ventured into the pool, but we did play on the beach.



Right across the street from the resort is the Port Lucaya Marketplace, which has the trademark Bahamas straw market as well as jewelry stores, restaurants and bars. It's a great place to wander around.



At night, there is usually a live show of some kind -- a band, dancers in traditional costumes or an amazing limbo guy.



I'm totally a Bahama Mama now!




Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Today's haircast: Sleek and cool with a chance of cowlick

Meteorologists are finally getting to the good stuff. They have figured out that, while it's nice for us to know the temperature and whether it's going to be "partly cloudy" or "partly sunny," what we really want to know is much more personal. What I want to know is . . .

How frizzy is my hair going to be today?!

There's a weather site that actually gives you a haircast! I saw this in the Sun-Sentinel. Today is rated "fair."

There are pros and cons to living everywhere, and one of the cons of living in South Florida for me is definitely the humidity. Not only do you feel you're living in a sauna, but for eight or nine months out of the year, I could pass as Roseanne Roseannadanna's twin. (Not that I am old enough to know who that is, of course.)



That is, unless I use a lot of hair products and my trusty hair straightener. Every hour.

As any good South Floridian knows from hurricane experience -- you can't beat Mother Nature, but at least you can be prepared.

Port Everglades

Ship at Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale

We are the proud owners of the letter A

As a parent, you might start out an optimist, but eventually, you become a realist. And it might happen several times. For me, it can happen every day. I start out the day as an optimist and, well, it can go downhill from there.

Like the day recently when I thought my son would be fine walking by my side (ha!) in the craft store so I could pick up a few tubes of paint.

The Man-cub remained cheerful through our quick trip but didn't exactly pay attention to me.

First, he was drawn to the candy display.

(Why is candy the first thing you see when you walk into a craft store?)

Then it was the strings of beads for making jewelry. Toddlers are naturally curious -- he had to run his fingers through them and shake them to hear them rattle.

Then it was the crayons.

Still looking for paint, we made unexpected detours to look at some toys, unpainted wooden boxes and colorful children's craft kits.

And then the Man-cub found the oversized foam letters.



Which apparently looked quite delicious and had to be tasted. And chewed on.

I just couldn't in good conscientiousness put this letter back in the bin.



So I picked up my son and his new letter A, walked outside where the shopping carts were located, placed him in the seat and finally found my paint.

I think I'll be realistic for a while longer and stick to the shopping cart as the ultimate toddler restraint.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Beach grasses

Today, my husband and I celebrate being married for 14 years! He proposed to me on the beach. So it's fitting that today's photo is of the beach.

Halfway through

Halfway through my pregnancy today, that is. It's going by so fast!

I had an ultrasound yesterday. My husband and I aren't finding out the baby's sex, though.

What we did find out is the baby has what's called a "bright spot" on the heart. It could be nothing, as the doctor suspects. But there's a chance it could mean the baby has a chromosomal disorder like Down syndrome.

Early on, we decided not to have an amnio test done because we were scared off by the teeny-tiny risk of losing the baby due to that test. We did a blood test for chromosome problems when I was pregnant with our son, but that doesn't provide definitive answers and actually can give false positives ... so we decided not to do it at all this time.

Whether our baby has 46 or 47 chromosomes, we will be happy to have him or her as part of our family.

We'll find out more when I have a final ultrasound in 10 weeks. Until then, I will be waiting, wondering, hoping and praying.

The one that got away

Once upon a time, there was a brilliant and witty blog post idea. It was the most amazing post the blogger had ever thought of. Although few people would read it, the blogger was proud of herself for thinking such a thing and was happy to share her genius thoughts with others.

So sure of herself was the blogger that she didn't write her superb post right away. The blogger got busy. She put off writing her post one day, two days. Her blog waited, silent.

When the blogger finally sat down to write her post, she couldn't remember what was so brilliant and witty and amazing and genius and superb. Not a single brain cell would cooperate. Was it something her child had said? Was it an epiphany from the great beyond? Was it something particular to her hometown?

All was lost.

The blogger stared at the computer screen with her fingernails digging into her temples.

"Why? WHY?" she cried out.

She wiped away a tear and turned her face away from her empty blog post, ashamed and humiliated. How could she even dare to call herself a writer?

Where was her muse? Her fairy blogmother? Alas, they did not exist. Not this day, not for her.

And so the blogger retreated from the blogosphere in defeat, her only hope that a new day would come to provide fresh material for her blog -- something to write about -- a changed perspective and a new view about life, perhaps, that would redeem her blog another time.

That night, the blogger dreamed of joyful typing and commenting and twittering, happily ever after.