Nearly. Dearly.

Plowing through a busy week: end of class, home search, etc.

Anti-climatic end to a good semester, and I'm glad I was in her class too.

Charlottesville podcasts of music and more music.

IY's bulk peppermint = cheap + potent!

Finally discovering my super power (everyone has one!): an uncanny ability to tell time without a clock.

First Snow

Christmas party with old friends, and new friends, and iPhone beers, and Rubix Cubes, and fireplace warmth, and mixing the plain & peanut M&Ms.

Morning walk, La Taza treats.

"I drove 70 miles for a haircut today," she says, shaking her head in disbelief.

Nicky is well, and that is good.

Trying to keep mental space open for 4 more days of A&P thinking.

The moon is half full tonight...

...and it is my mother's birthday. My sweet, kind, loyal, supportive mother - how lucky we all are to have her.
xo

Welcoming Winter

Is it December already? ... It's funny to think about what is the same and what is different from a year ago this month. It's true, that little gem of wisdom a friend once passed on, that everything will be different a year from now.

Love love love my new apple core-er. Never again will an apple go to waste in my home because applesauce is easy!

Card shopping. And conspiring with Santa.

Glad to hear the parents are focusing on fitness.

Back to my morning routine tomorrow, and craving those damn Glorious Morning muffins from La Taza. Here's to hoping they have fresh ones in the morning.

Thanks giving

Plans for the four day weekend finally come together, sort of.

Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special & Pandas on PBS.

Splurging and stuffing myself on Mona Lisa pumpkin ravioli and tiramisu.

Two big books: The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Giving myself a little bit of time off from studying.

Reservations made for January trip to Charleston.

Babies are Magical

Fingers crossed for a baby story that evolves happily for J & T.

Baby Leah visits the office again, all blue eyes and head full of hair. Everyone gushes, as they should.

Wrapping gifts, which were so fun to pick out, for a baby shower tomorrow. (Spoiler alert: A Book of Hugs is especially fun!)

KG will be an Aunt x2 soon!

My two and a half year old baby niece declares herself a Big Girl tonight as she meets a Big Girl milestone (and calls to tell me about it)! (But, I think it's OK if she wants to hold on to some Little Girl habits for a little while longer.)

P.S. Lovely gift basket made with love, sent with thanks, carefully packaged and delivered right to my desk today. When can I come spend another week with K & K?, says Aunt Cat!

Cold November

Implementing a new morning routine to get me walking again (on my way towards running again) and to work earlier (which should also help prevent some Seasonal Affective BS) - so far, so good!

Replacing my holiday ba-humbug with exciting plans to prepare my abode for Susan & Kids at Christmas this year. I am making a list of all of the cool things I'd like to do with them while they're here: the Children's museum, the Christmas Market, restaurants, playgrounds, etc. :)

Summer clothes stored; last of the Winter clothes washed.

Happy that my appointment in the morning takes me over to the Bodo's side of town.

Thankfuls - Settling in at Home

Easy flight/drive back to Cville.

Holding on to my A, despite not enough time-on-task last week (for good reason!), and realising that I'm losing my credibility since every time I say I didn't do well on a test, I do well on the test.

Celebrating the election results with Supper Club.

A nourishing Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

Good news from KAK: she misses me, but more importantly, her new bed helped her sleep through the whole night in her own bed last night.

End of Another Fun Adventure

I woke up this morning in Charleston. I spent the night at a hotel and went back over to the Klugman house early. I let myself in and then it happened: Kallie saw me come through the door and her face immediately dropped - I think she was afraid that my arrival meant that her parents were leaving her again. So sweet - she was very relieved, I think, to learn that her parents were not leaving her after all, and I knew better than to take her reaction to my arrival personally. Things are all back to normal in the Klugman household.



After breakfast of blueberry pancakes and coffee, Susan, Kallie & Kyle took me to the airport. We all went inside and stood at the big window for a while, watching planes take off and land. And, we talked to Kallie about their upcoming trip to visit me in Virginia. She was excited to hear that Virginia has playgrounds too. :) Kallie and Kyle both gave me kisses as I left and then trotted off happily with their mother, my lovely sister.

I think that overall the whole experience was good for everyone. S & D got some much needed time together. K & K got some bonding time with their Aunt. It was all that I expected it to be in terms of the challenges, and more than I expected it to be in terms of the rewards. No, it didn't convince me to not have kids (neither did witnessing Kyle's birth, by the way, although the brother-in-law was convinced that that would be the end of my desire for children too!). And, yes, I'd definitely do it again.

Of course, the success of the experience has everything to do with the fact that Susan and Dave trusted me with their children in the first place and have such a well-equipped and efficient system in their home, and because Kallie is so smart and helpful and good, and because Kyle is so easy-going, and because Chatham provided a sense of security and affection, and because my friends and family provided me with much needed moral support.

So, tonight I'm going to sleep in my home in Charlottesville. My house feels eerily quiet, even with Garrett and Griffin keeping me company. You'd think I'd be glad for the downtime, but I'd kinda gotten used to the energy and excitement that a full house brings. I'm exhausted, and happy. Still, here's to sleeping in tomorrow....

Keeping you on your toes, is right!

Gosh, today was such a busy (and long) day that I hardly know where to begin. Let's see....

After breakfast this morning, I walked out onto the back deck and found this:



Are those not the cutest little tooshies you've ever seen? They were looking for Sugar-Bear (one of their doggies) who was sleeping underneath.

We spent some time playing outside early this morning. The air was cool and there were no mosquitoes, which is just how Aunt Cat likes it. I'm sorry to say that we had a little swinging accident - me and Kallie. She wanted to swing real high, like Daddy does it, and I didn't realize she wasn't holding on, and so up I pulled, and plop went Kallie. Flat on her back from about 1 1/2 feet. Ouchie. Her head hurt. And understandably so. Oh, that didn't make me feel good either. But, Mommy had a remedy in the fridge - Elderberry Syrup - and that did the trick. And, this is how Kallie looked shortly afterwards while eating a snack; pretty good recovery if I do say so myself.



This was my first time getting Kallie to nap at home. For the last 3 days, she was at school during nap time. Knowing about her issues with sleep, I tried to make it as appealing as possible. So, we laid her mat down on the floor, just like she would at school (I think!?), and got all of the important accoutrement: plug, blanket, Night Night Kitty, & milk. It was a little hard won, but after a few stories and laying really still, I got her to fall asleep, and I have the picture to prove it! (Pretty risky, huh? Taking a picture like that, when the flash could have woken her up? Yeah, but I like living on the edge.)



I decided that today was the best time to break out the 2nd present I brought for Kallie. Art in a Jar. And, this is what it looked like once the Art was Not in a Jar:



Kallie had fun playing with her new zig zag scissors (which scare me to death - I keep imagining cut lips...oh!). And even Kyle liked holding the two soft, fuzzy balls that came in the jar.





We did end up making it out of the house today, finally, around 3:30 p.m. We went to the playground, of course. And, I just wanted to share this photo to show that Kallie wasn't too scarred from the swing incident earlier in the day. Whew!



After swinging, and playing with some other kids on the slide, we took a very loooong walk around the park building. We explored lots of places that we hadn't seen before. Kyle had so much energy - he was running around, and skipping, and falling down in the pine needles, and doing the circle dance (a Klugman tradition), and walking on the yellow curbs, and running towards the road - he was noticeably energetic! (A little foreshadowing, perhaps?)





We did finally make it to EVO Pizza tonight - the best pizza I've found almost anywhere in the U.S. - I highly recommend it if you're ever in the neighborhood. Also, I just want to say that the folks at EVO were super nice to me tonight. It was the end of a long day, I'd just recovered from a near-lost-wallet situation (no ID means no plane travel!), and I'm sure I looked ragged as heck. The waitress took my order right away and the pizzas were ready quickly. Jason behind the bar recognized Kallie and Kyle and introduced himself to me (Dave and Susan are frequent customers there). Jason gave Kallie a pretty yellow Gerber daisy, which matched her sweater. And, the waitress, whose name I didn't catch, helped me get Kallie, Kyle, two pizzas and a salad into the car safely. We had a minor meltdown during that part of the adventure, but the waitress was really nice and I'm sure could relate since she told me she has two kids of about the same age spread at home. I just want to say that I now have a much better appreciation of what it's like to be a very tired Mom, and also how nice it is to have the help of kind strangers when you're a very tired Mom. Wow. Priceless.



Our nighttime routine was a little different tonight. Kyle went down, like usual, but then was suspiciously babbly over the baby monitor over the next hour or so. Once I got Kallie down, I went back in to check on him, but I'll get to that in a minute.

As for Kallie, I had started noticing that she gets a wee bit anxious when you start talking about night-night time. So, tonight, we scrapped that idea and decided that we'd have a girls night and stay up all night, reading in bed in our pajamas. Yep. Worked like a charm. In about 10 minutes, she was out like a light. Something about letting her off the hook from going "night-night" seemed to work. Small blessings.

But, you didn't think it'd be that easy did you? Oh, no. Kyle? You know, the sweet, lovable, awesome hugger? Yeah. Usually, you give him a bottle, read him a few stories, lay him down in his crib, say, "Good night, Kyle. See you in the morning" and walk out. That simple. Tonight? An hour after I laid him down he was up and playing in his crib. And, so I thought, hm, another story perhaps? No. That didn't work. Change diaper? Yeah, but for no reason. A little play? Bad idea - might wake up Kallie. At 9 p.m. the boy was swinging from the rafters like a man possessed. (Have you seen The Exorcist?) Good heavens. A little Gas Relief (yes, he was gassy - your nose knows!), another bottle, and finally he settled down. But, good grief!

As far as bed time routines go, Kallie and Kyle are like the Yin and Yang. I guess when one is Yin, the other has to be Yang. Tonight, they just switched places. As a wise man once said, "They sure do keep you on your toes at that age!" Yep, I reckon so. :)

XOXO

Editor's note: The time stamps on the photos are an hour ahead - my camera didn't "fall back" one hour like the rest of us did this week.