Gift from Vegas

"Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr."

If you don't follow Big Bang Theory this probably looks like a really corny t-shirt, but if you're a fellow geek, then you know just how awesome my husband is for bringing it home for me!

Because I'm feeling very juvenile

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I met a new friend. Her name is Martha and she's from Minnesota. She has a very cute dog named Poppy. Poppy and Jack get along really well! We made plans to get together tonight so the dogs could have a play date. It was a lot of fun! Poppy and Jack chased each other through the yard while Martha and I got to know each other. Martha's neighbors don't keep her awake at night. Then Martha's friend Mary came out to talk to us. Mary is very nice, too. She brought her dogs Percy and Patterson. Patterson and Jack fought over a tennis ball the whole time. All of our dogs are the same colors. I think we'll be best friends 4 ever!

XOXO,
Katie

Traveling Baltimore, Part 1: The Aquarium

Quoted from Baltimore's 5:30 newscast on Friday 9/9/11: "Both Washington, DC and New York City have been threatened with terrorist attacks and Baltimore is right in the middle of them! Stay tuned to see what measures have been taken to keep our city safe this weekend."

I'll be the first to admit that most Cleveland news channels are over the top dramatic in an effort to boost their ratings, but somehow Baltimore manages to take it to a whole new level. Is Baltimore between Washington and New York? Absolutely, but so are 230 miles worth of other cities including Philadelphia and the entire state of New Jersey.

Nevertheless, this newscast and the recommendation of a few friends and family made us change our plans about heading to Washington this weekend for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I thought it would be touching to attend the memorials that are planned but as a mother it also felt a little risky. So, we opted to head out early Saturday morning and explore our own city instead. And I'm so glad we did because it was a spectacular day and a reassuring reminder of just how lucky we were to end up here because this place is just...well...it's very US. I don't even know how else to describe it.

We started off at Bob Evan's for breakfast:

Owen endlessly flirted with our waitress and kept stealing food from my plate. He said thank you or "dank du" to EVERYTHING. He was so charming, in fact, that they decided to take his meal off of the bill and give us coupons for free meals next time. With a face like this (his, not mine) and a pleasant mood, I often find it hard not to give the boy his every wish.

Next, we set out for Baltimore's Inner Harbor but first we made a slight detour at the special request of our Aunt Char and swung by Charm City Cakes, a cake shop so awesome it was worthy of 10 seasons of reality television on Ace of Cakes.

Let me apologize for the quality of this photo in advance. You can probably tell it was taken from the inside of our car, and well, that's because the area was a fun mix of row houses and small corner shops but it looked a little....rough, and I was too much of a candy ass to get out of the car alone and start snapping pictures.

Questionable neighborhood or not, these guys are rock stars when it comes to cakes.  And just when I thought I'd have to start up a new savings account to one day TASTE one of their cakes I read that they've released a line of affordable cake pops! Fabulous!

Next up, the National Aquarium in the Inner Harbor and I'm here to tell you that the National Aquarium is like ten thousand gallons of awesomesauce! So much so that we opted to splurge and become members for a year as opposed to buying a one day pass. I mean, Owen isn't even 2 years old and he couldn't get enough of it. It's like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for all things aquatic. The first exhibit you see is the giant sting ray pool which remains visible through most of the aquarium. They have everything from tiny minnows to massive whale fossils, and a rooftop rainforest. My favorite was probably the giant pink octopus. I cannot recommend it enough if you are ever in the Baltimore area, or even if you're not in the area and want to make plans to crash on our couch after a long day at the aquarium we're totally cool with that, too.

Again, I must apologize as my photos do not even begin to do this place justice. I was focused more on paying attention to and capturing Owen as opposed to the exhibits because, you know, we can go back anytime, but Owen's first impression can only happen once.

The view of the aquarium from Pratt Street:

The  35 foot waterfall that greets you at the entrance:

This was Owen's first face -to-face encounter with fish that day and it introduced his theme for the day-- lots of pointing and shouting "WOAH!":

Crossing one of the horizontal escalators and looking down on the ray pool which was by far Owen's favorite exhibit:

The rooftop rainforest which also offered  great views of Downtown Baltimore and the harbor:

Owen and Jon walking through the multi-level shark tank. Owen was equally freaked out by and fascinated with sharks. He wouldn't let go of Daddy's hand:

The dolphin show! I will never forget the look on Owen's face when he heard the dolphins "speak" for the first time and realized a dolphin sounds an awful lot like the squeaky noise he makes every time he sees a monkey. Needless to say, he now makes it whenever he sees a dolphin as well:

Our last stop at the aquarium was the jellyfish exhibit which was kept dark to show off how bright a jellyfish actually is. This is the last photo I managed to take before the battery died on my camera:

And just for kicks, Owen and Jon inside the massive jaws of a shark:

And it isn't Baltimore if there isn't a little crab:

Our next destination was traveling Baltimore's Inner Harbor just outside of the aquarium, and despite having a dead camera I did manage to get some really fun photos with my iPhone. So many, in fact, that this is going to have to be a two part blog.

Stay tuned to see why it's so easy to fall in love with this city!

As long as I'm living my baby you'll be

When Owen was only a few weeks old and I was desperate for even one solid hour of sleep I remember scouring every piece of new parenting literature I could find for some sure fire way to get him on a sleep schedule. I laugh at that now because I know you can't get a newborn on a schedule. You survive on shots of 5-Hour Energy and chocolate chip granola bars, but I was new to parenting and I was naive and would not learn this until much later.

I did eventually find a routine after roughly 3 months of cohabiting with my munchkin. I learned it was easiest when I started the evening with him in a warm bath, followed by changing into warm and fuzzy footy pajamas (he was a winter baby after all), and a bedtime story, usually a book called Love You Forever. I would then give him his last bottle of the evening and sing him three songs: Hush Little Baby, You are my Sunshine, and Rock-a-bye Baby while I slowly rocked him to sleep. The whole process took nearly two hours, most of which was spent on rocking him to sleep because God forbid if I were to lay him down while still even the teeny tiniest bit awake. If Mama made that mistake she was looking at another 30 or so minutes of rocking, easy.

Anyway, the routine was very time consuming but it worked and at 3 months we were ALL sleeping like a baby through the night, so I tried not to complain too much.

But then...THEN my dumb ass kept searching for parenting tips on the internet and came across this snippet of advice: Whatever bedtime routine you choose for your baby now, be prepared to follow for the next 2 years.

I freaked out. Two years? I was going to lose 2 hours of my life EVERY NIGHT for the the next TWO YEARS?! I wanted to punch myself in the face. This was just one more thing on a very long list of things that I had totally done wrong as a parent. And Owen was only 3 months old. My parenting skills = EPIC FAIL.

Or so I thought then...

Fast forward 15 months. Owen is now 1.5 years old and we still have a very solid bedtime routine to follow. We have bath time only it's not so much about getting clean as it is wearing him out with toy fishes and boats that float around him, lots of stacking cups that he uses to pour water from one to the other, and a crazy bubble machine that sings and lights up.

Bath time is followed by changing into our pajamas and giving Daddy a hug and kiss good night. I love this part because Owen doesn't hug with his arms so much as by laying his head on you and in this case, he's usually burying his face in Jon's thigh (because we're all usually standing at hug time) and then Owen very gingerly reaches out for my hand and we walk to his bedroom.

Sometimes we read a story, but I've quickly learned that life as an 18 month old must be very tiring and there can be mere minutes between sweet, tired little boy and his evil screaming twin so we read a bedtime story when we can but try not to push it.

The nighttime bottle has graduated to a sippy cup of water that he only sips occasionally while sitting in my lap all snuggled in his favorite polka dotted blanket. Owen is too big to cradle anymore. Instead, he sits in my lap with his little legs dangling over the side of the chair, lays his head against my chest and hums along with me as I sing our three favorite bedtime songs. Sometimes we talk afterward -- I tell him how much I love him, and he points to my eyes, nose, and mouth and waits for me to name them all -- but he quickly grows tired and starts pushing against me as if to say, "Yo, Mom, I'm done with this whole bedtime prep thing. Just put me in my crib already!" That's when I finally put him down for the evening. He snuggles deeper into his blanket and rolls over to his side. His eyes aren't even closed by the time I walk out, closing the door behind me, but we don't usually hear from him again until morning.

Our nighttime routine now takes less than 30 minutes and I still want to punch myself in the face....but only for ever thinking that time spent with this precious little boy is time lost. 1.5 years of mothering under my belt and I'm finally realizing just how fast he's growing up.

Deciphering Kate

Thoughtful Kate wants to put life on hold, leash up the dog, and walk forever. She doesn't care where she's going or where she's been so long as she can stay lost in her head and mentally write blog entries. The dog serves as her excuse to be out, a quiet companion, and her eyes since she isn't paying much attention to her surroundings. Her feet work as a mode of transportation and a crank for her internal monologue. She is most content on cold, rainy nights without an umbrella because wet, stringy hair and feet dyed black from her flip flops make her feel all emo and emo writes good blogs.

Tired Kate wants to march up a flight of stairs, pound on the Elephant Man's door, bitch slap him a few times, knock him to floor, and then slowly and painfully claw out his eyes all while a disturbing, maniacal laugh escapes from the back of her throat. She hasn't had a solid nights sleep since moving here because the Elephant Man doesn't give a shit about waking his polite neighbors at 1:00, 2:00, even 3:00 in the morning. She has complained to the office, pounded on the ceiling, screamed at the top of her lungs in a desperate plea for sleep but the asshole must think it's funny because he only gets more obnoxious. Tired Kate doesn't know how much patience she has left and may very well be featured on the next segment of Baltimore's Most Wanted. She makes no guarantees.

Wallowing Kate has an overwhelming urge to lose herself in bags of Cool Ranch Doritos, Little Debbie's Fudge Rounds, and entire seasons of One Tree Hill. She wants to wrap herself in self pity, fill her insides with high fructose corn syrup, become grotesquely obese, and spend her evenings whining about how the kids on Tree Hill have everything she wants but can never have because she's too fat and ugly and socially awkward. No, she doesn't make a whole lot of sense, she may even lack a single rational bone in her body, but she is one extremely overwhelming pain in the ass.

Lonely Kate is always reminded of something a friend told her a long time ago: "I moved so far away because I was trying to run away from my problems, but what I didn't realize was my problems were in my head, and they followed me all the way out there." Despite this very valuable advice given long before-hand, Lonely Kate moved to Baltimore in the hopes of reinventing herself and is failing, obviously. She wants friends. She wants to meet people. She wants her own "bestie", but she can't figure out how to exchange more than pleasant hellos while out walking the dog. She stupidly thought this was one Ohio problem that could magically fix itself in Maryland, but she was wrong. She recently started trolling this website: www.succeedsocially.com and is actively seeking a babysitter.

10 Things I Love About Working From Home

1. Quality time with Owen every morning watching cartoons and eating buttermilk waffles.

2. Jack sleeping at my feet while I work and then crawling out from under the desk at 11:59 and stretching in preparation for the daily lunch time walk.

3. Dress code = sweat pants, t-shirt and messy ponytail.

4. Non-stop Pandora radio.

5. The fastest, most convenient food is located IN MY KITCHEN and not some questionable and equally addictive burger joint around the corner.

6. MY OWN BATHROOM . 'Nuff said.

7. Beverly Hills 90210 re-runs on my lunch hour.

8. One tank of gas lasts nearly 2 months.

9. Dinner is often ready before one hungry little monster and his big, hungry father arrive home. This convenience alone makes for some very peaceful evenings.

10. This office space! Working in a space that is created by and for yourself makes a world of difference.

Road Trip Conversations to Remember

Jon: "I could really go for a tropical drink when we get home."

Katie: "Ooooh! Like a piña colada?"

Jon: "No, no pine cones! I don't like pine cones in my drinks."

Katie: "......I think you mean coconut?"