Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Life Lessons Brought to You by Survivor

(Warning:  Includes spoilers from episodes 1 and 2, air date 9/25/08)

 

Michelle, the angry victim, was the first person voted off Survivor: Gabon last week.  It reminds me of something I witnessed at the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago.

I was in the waiting room when this tense woman walked in.  Angry Woman went to the front desk and asked where Dr. D.'s office was.  The receptionist told her that this was indeed his office.  Her response was, "Oh, well I would have expected his name to be on the door or something."  The receptionist asked her name, and whether she had her "orders."  In a short tone, Angry Woman said that, no, she didn't have her orders.  The receptionist asked about some other paperwork and by now, Angry Woman was pissed.  She sarcastically told the receptionist that she did not have that paperwork either, the implication being that the receptionist was out of line for asking.  Angry Woman was given some forms to fill out and she sat down, fuming.  After a moment, she declared to the room at large, "I might just have to leave."  She looked around at all of us, seeking a sympathetic face I suppose, and apparently the woman next to me gave it to her.  Angry Woman addressed my neighbor directly:  "Did they treat you like that? I might not be able to stay here if they are going to treat me like that.  Did they treat you like that?" My neighbor mumbled, "Yes."  Then Angry Woman muttered to herself for a minute or two.  Eventually she went back to the receptionist and gave her a tongue lashing about how people who come here are in pain, and need help, and if this is the level of service from the receptionist what can she expect from the doctor, and she might just have to leave, and she is outraged, etc. etc.

I've been to this doctor about 8 times, and the administrative staff is way above average and I've always been treated with respect.  The receptionist treated Angry Woman the same way, at least until Angry Woman gave her the bad attitude.  Then, the receptionist was a bit more formal and short, but that's about the extent of it.

After chewing out the receptionist, Angry Woman joined my neighbor and they started bitching together about how terribly they have been treated.  I had to change seats because I just couldn't take the needless negativity.

Later that day, I went to the drive through at McDonald's.  I ordered a Filet O' Fish and a milk.  Chicken McNuggets came up on the display screen.  I corrected the order a few times, and managed to get the fish sandwich and milk up on the screen, but no matter what I told the woman on the other side of the intercom, those nuggets stayed up there.  I was laughing when she asked me, "Will that be all?" as the quantity of nuggets went from 1 to 2 to 3.  In a silly voice to make sure she knew I wasn't mad, I said, "yes, but NO NUGGETS."  She laughed and finally got them deleted.  When I got to the window to pay, I said, "You're really doing the hard sell on those nuggets today, aren't you?"  She laughed and we had a nice moment.

How many times in the past have I been bitchy about someone getting my order wrong, or misspelling my name 3 times in a row, or not using their turn signal?  What a waste!  Most of these people are not incompetent or mean or out to get me.  Maybe they are new on the job, or hard of hearing, or are actually doing something good that I'm just not aware of.  Sure, the incompetent people are out there, but going through your life angry about how the stupid people are making your life hell is counterproductive.  I've been doing it for 30 years and I'm just realizing that I've been the stupid one.

Michelle bitched and moaned about how her tribe mates were stupid.  They voted her off because of her negativity, but she was convinced that they were losers and that they voted her off because she was strong.

Victims choose to live in the world that they complain about.

Kiwi

This is probably the most beautifully sad video I've ever seen on YouTube:

Monday, September 29, 2008

If the Joker is evil because he embraces chaos, does being a control freak make me an angel?

Last Friday night was "Parents Night Out" at Sam's day care.  For $20, they babysit the kids from 6:30 - 10:00pm, and dinner is included.  They do this once a month and that's usually all the babysitting we need for a night out here and there.  On Friday we decided to see a movie instead of going out to dinner, our usual outing.  The Dark Knight was still playing at a nice theatre just 8 miles away and it started at 6:55pm - giving us just enough time to get there after dropping off Sam.  We loved Batman Begins and really wanted to see this sequel in the theater, so we felt very lucky that it worked out so well. 

It was raining that night so I worried about traffic delays, but getting there was no problem.  I got the tickets while Adam parked, we raced in for popcorn and soda, and had just enough time to visit the restroom before the previews began.  Perfect!

About an hour into the movie it occurred to me that those previews had gone on for quite a while, and movies tend to be so long now that we might be cutting it close for Sam's 10 o'clock pickup.  I checked my watch - it was 8:05.  I forgot about it.

By 8:45, I was thinking about it again.  Why didn't we think to check the running time?  I guess we figured 3 1/2 hours had to be plenty of time.  It felt like the movie was about to end, but I'd been feeling that way every time the scene changed for the past 10 minutes.   At 9:05, I whispered to Adam that we might have to leave before it was over.   It was only a 15 minute drive, but we had never been to this theater before.  Sometimes it takes 10 minutes just to get out of the parking lot at a busy, mall-based theater like this one.  And I had to go to the bathroom.  And it was raining.  And it was Friday night.  What would they do with Sam if we were late?  I've actually had nightmares about forgetting to pick her up at day care, so I started to get anxious. 

By 9:15 I was freaking out and I didn't process the end of the movie at all.  It finally ended at 9:30.  Some people applauded.  I stood up so fast that I accidentally pulled a woman's hair by grabbing at the seat in front of me so that I could gain that fraction of a second.   Adam gallantly indulged me and rushed to the car while I went to the ladies room.  I was so stressed out that I criticized his driving the whole way back - I really thought the car was just going to slide right off the wet road.

We made it back with 5 minutes to spare.  I can't say that I learned a lesson from this about chilling out.  Maybe that is the right lesson, but what I've decided is that I will never go out to a movie again without checking the running time.

We're going to have to rent The Dark Knight on video as soon as it comes out so I can see the end.  I think it might have been quite a good movie.

Friday, September 26, 2008

A Little Thing



The way Samantha says "mine" when she means "yours" brings home to me how complex our language is, and how amazing it is that these little people learn it so easily. 








Thursday, September 25, 2008

Doing His Job

I love my dog.  I take him for walks and he obeys.  He plays with the cat.  He is waiting for me in the car when I come out of the store.  He sleeps under the bed and farts and groans and makes me laugh.  But now that we have a toddler, he's actually earning his keep.

First of all, he's a vacuum cleaner.  I'm not sure what people do about all the food under the high chair if they don't have a dog.  I mean, you're not going to clean up under there 5 times a day, are you?  I wouldn't.  But Toby does.  This skill alone pays for all of his pills and shots and vet visits.

Toby prompted Sam's first giggle when she was just a couple of months old.  Adam came home and chased him around the house like he always does.  Sam must have heard me laughing at this dozens of times, and one day, she joined in.  This pays for the hell he put me through as a puppy.

Samantha is old enough to play fetch with him now, too.  For some reason, this Labrador Retriever will not fetch for Adam or me, but he will for Sam.  If we throw something he might bring it back once or twice but then he's done.  For Sam, he'll fetch as long as she's interested.  Maybe it's because she can only throw the ball a few feet and he figures it's worth the trip.  Maybe he enjoys the way I clap and say, "yea!" in my cutsie voice when Sam is involved.  Or maybe he finds her as adorable as I do when, after throwing the ball, she turns around and runs the other way, squealing with delight.

TobyWhatever the reason, it's our favorite game right now.  I get to lie on the couch and just watch them play.  Toby usually brings the ball back to me, not to Sam, so I tell him, "drop it," and then hand it to her for the next throw.  I'm trying to teach her to give him the "drop it" command, but she can't get the syllables straight.  She is, however, getting the hang of giving him other commands.  She can tell him to fetch, which she says very clearly.  She also delights in telling him he is a "bad boy."  But the best one is when she tells him to sit, which she pronounces, "shit."

Yep, that dog is in the black now.

A Little Thing

I walked around the mall for an hour today with a heart sticker on my butt.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Grown Up

An old friend contacted me through Facebook the other day.  I worked with her in the mid-nineties when I was doing software development.  She had a young daughter at the time and was a bit older than me.  We weren't very close but I liked her, and she said one thing to me that I still think about quite often.  When I was about to turn 30 and expressed some surprise that I could be so old, she told me that her thirties were a great decade and that I would love my thirties.  She might have told me why, but I don't remember what she said.  I just remember that I was surprised to hear that somebody was happier when they were older.  Most people don't talk that way. 

Since then, any time that I get that scary, I'm-getting-old feeling, I recall her words.  I've always thought those people who pine for the good ol' days of high school or college were morons.  They always seem to talk about how easy life was "back then," but they forget that they chose the additional responsibilities in order to gain values:  marriage, kids, a house, a career.  These things are values you have to work for, and bemoaning the effort is just childish.  The effort is part of what makes these things values to begin with.  Seeking the unearned is the most direct route to unhappiness.

I was pretty clear on how much better life was in my twenties than in my teens, but I didn't translate it to my thirties until my friend prompted me.  Life really is better now, and there's no reason to think it won't get even better in my forties.  The first thing my friend wrote to me on Facebook was, "So, like, you're a mom and married and all grown up."  Yes, I am.  Nice to be here.

A Little Thing

I don't care what it says about me as a mother - I find it adorable that Samantha says "french fries" every time we go to the drive-through pharmacy.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Field Trip

The pet store might be Sam's favorite place on earth right now.  She squeals with delight when we walk through the pet section at the grocery store, so imagine her excitement about a whole store full of pictures of cats and dogs, PLUS REAL LIVE ANIMALS.  It's even better than the zoo at her age.  She doesn't really need the variety of animals - it's all novel to her - and she's not old enough to beg for a kitten.  And she can see the animals close up, in air conditioned comfort.  Our local chain has fish, birds, cats, and all kinds of rodents.  When we were there the other day, another woman with a toddler said, "It's nice to see someone else thinks the pet store is a good field trip."  I realized that people without pets might not have discovered this gem.  Try it!

First Pee!

Samantha went pee on the potty for the first time today.  She did it at day care so I didn't see it.  Now I know how the working parents feel.  I should never again complain about the "always on call" nature of being a stay-at-home parent, but I probably will anyway.

Friday, September 19, 2008

It's a Matter of Taste

Adam, yelling at the dog:  "Toby, get away from Jinx's litter box!  That is not a food depository."

Me:  "You mean repository.  In fact, it really is a food depository of sorts."

Adam:  "Yeah, right.  Toby, get away from that box!  That is not manna from heaven.  If you eat it, you'll make Jinx even more certain he is a god."

Monday, September 15, 2008

Little Bear

Sam has been watching a lot of TV since she's been sick.  Normally, I like to let Sam watch videos and TV in moderation.  It can be a nice break in an active day and it is true that sometimes I just need the electronic babysitter.  I try to avoid letting her watch TV for longer than 20 minutes or on two consecutive days.  Twenty minutes is a long time for a toddler, and I've noticed that kids who don't watch TV daily don't ask for it much.  When it's not part of the daily routine, it remains a treat.  It's not a big issue in our house either way.

Since we watch so little children's TV I don't know much about the shows most kids watch.  We tried Dora but I found it absurd for Sam's age.  How can a two-year-old relate to a girl running around solving mysteries and a computer-icon arrow clicking around the screen as a pointer?  The attempt at interaction is just stupid.  TV is not interactive and having cartoon characters ask questions and pause for answers is just a way to rationalize letting kids veg out in front of the TV instead of spending real time with them.  (Don't you just love Noggin's claim that it is "like preschool on TV." Ha!)  There are also some high-energy, musical-type shows, but just because toddlers are little balls of energy doesn't mean they need to watch a frenetic show.  As I've written before, Sam and I like to watch Sesame Street, but our favorite show by far is Little Bear.  If I try to get Sam to watch anything else, she begs for Little Bear.  She loves it almost as much as she loves our cat, Jinx, and that's saying a lot! 

Little Bear is such a great show that I think it is positively healthy for Sam to watch.  Little Bear is a sweet character, the stories are short and benevolent, and the orchestral music is beautiful.  As the website says, "the series celebrates the playful and sometimes enchanted aspects of the everyday activities and important moments in a pre-schooler's life."  Little Bear cooks with his Mother Bear, wrestles with his Father Bear, and makes up songs with his friends.  The characters treat each other with respect and speak slowly and clearly.  There is never a pedantic "message."  There is no multiculturalism and no environmentalism.  It's the only children's show that has never offended me. 

This does not mean it is vapid, though.  Little Bear solves problems, uses his imagination, and deals with troubling situations.  In one episode, he breaks the record player on the day of his grandparents' anniversary, so he and his friends form a band to make music for the party.  In another, one of his friends sits on a doll and they all decide the doll has "died" and throw a funeral for her.  In the episode we watched today, Little Bear enjoys the colorful fallen leaves of autumn and makes a scary mask out of them.  He playfully scares his parents and all his friends with it.  Most children's stories would use this as an opportunity to "teach" the lesson that it is not good to scare people - somebody would inevitably get hurt and the naughty child would see the error of his ways.  Little Bear's friends all have a good laugh and join in the innocent fun.  In the end, though, they tire of the game, and Little Bear gives his mask away "to a friend;" he lets it blow away on the wind.

I'm not sure how long this show will appeal to Sam, but I'm hoping for years.  I'm going to have a hard time weaning myself off of it this week as we return to our normal routine.  Little Bear will be a part of Sam's toddlerhood that I always remember fondly.

A Little Thing

Samantha had a frightening poop-out from the antibiotic-induced diarrhea.  I remained calm and comforted her instead of freaking out.  Ahhh, the little victories of a neat-freak.

Lipstick on a Pig

Sam is officially prone to ear infections.  The official making this determination is I.  I think I'm qualified as an expert on Samology at this point.

We took Sam to the Emergency Room last night.  She had been sick and wasn't getting better.  Besides the usual congestion, her breathing was fast and shallow and she had maintained a high fever for over 2 days.  Luckily, her lungs are clear and the fever came down when they gave her both ibuprofen and Tylenol together.  Oh, and a Popsicle.  The ear infection is just a bonus she gets every time she has a cold.

I was surprised when we entered the ER.  I don't think I've ever been to one before, and my exptectations were low.  However, the waiting room was cool, clean and bright and had nice windows and a high ceiling.  (I tried not to look at the other people.)  The reception people we dealt with were friendly and helpful.  We had to wait, but I think we were only there for a total of 2.5 hours.  Adam and I marveled at all the modern equipment.  It was also fascinating to see how many objects can be made cheaply enough out of plastic that they are disposable - what an improvement in sanitation!  When we walked back to the examining rooms, I had to comment to Adam that they had sliding glass doors - something we had cynically sneered at in the hospital of Dr. House because no hospital looks that nice, right?

Sam's doctor was ok.  All he had to do was look in her eyes, ears, and throat.  But the nurse - oy vey, the nurse!  The nurse had to take Sam's blood pressure, check her oxygen saturation level, and take her temperature - rectally.  This woman had the bedside manner of a troglodyte, as Adam so aptly put it.  She looked stoned - her face was blank and she moved at the speed of a Windows PC running antivirus software.  She did not tell us what she was doing, but simply "did her job," meaning she performed the physical actions required to collect the data.  When she tried to put on the blood pressure cuff, she kept repeating, "It's going to give your arm a hug," over and over, like a mantra somebody had taught her in nursing school.  Otherwise, I don't think she said a word directly to Sam.  Once the blood pressure cuff was on, with Sam screaming and struggling, the nurse told us it "wouldn't work well" unless we held her arm still.  But once Sam is against something, you can't change her attitude, so we did our best to hold her down.  It would have been easy to convince Sam this would be fun if we had had the chance.  She's the kind of kid who likes it when the doctor looks in her ears, is proud to show how she can open her mouth and say "ahhhh," and doesn't even whimper when getting a shot.  But only if you respect her.

With the cuff still on her arm, the nurse put a band on Sam's finger to measure her oxygen saturation level.  Again, we had no idea how long this would take or what we needed to do.  But it didn't matter much because Sam got that thing off within a few seconds.  There was just no restraining her at this point.  In the meantime, I asked the nurse, "Is her hand supposed to be turning blue?"  She responded, "Oh  ........  no  .......  I guess the cuff is too tight," and she took off the blood pressure cuff with no success in getting a reading.  She tried again, but never did get Sam's blood pressure.  She did manage to get the oxygen reading by putting the band on Sam's foot, after a second failed attempt on her toe.  She had to call in another nurse to teach her how to do it.  All throughout, she is saying, "almost done, almost done," when that simply wasn't true.  At one point, she said, "almost done," and then left the room to fetch something or other.  I didn't quite quite catch what it was, because I was in the "cone of silence" - that place your baby creates through screaming, where no other sound can enter.

The nurse had to stick a thermometer in Sam's anus twice because the first one didn't work.  Not her fault, right?  I wonder why then, when she went to get the new one, she needed to leave the old one inside of Sam. 

When Sam's torture was finally over, Adam's begun.  The nurse tried to give him the discharge instructions.  This meant that she read some words off of a piece of paper.  She might have been reading The Iliad in the original Greek for all the comprehension she showed.

First impressions aside, hospitals will always suck.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Like a Waitress at Charlie Trotter's

I'm not big on table manners.  I don't put my napkin in my lap and I use my fingers to push peas onto my fork.  I talk with food in my mouth all the time.  I don't plan to hold Sam to standards any different than we have for the adults in our household, so we've been pretty easygoing about table manners so far. 

I mean, she's only two, so there isn't too much we can expect yet.  It was quite a victory to get her to stop throwing food on the floor.  She does know how to use a fork, a spoon, a regular cup, and even a napkin, but that doesn't mean she chooses to use them every time.  When she is hungry, fingers are still the fastest way to get food from there to here.  That's fine with me.

However, we are working on a new "skill" at the table: getting Sam to accept more than one food in front of her at a time. I had to think about why she had a problem with this.  When she was a baby, of course, we fed her one thing at a time out of little jars or bowls.  Everything was soft so even when she started using a spoon, bowls made more sense than plates.  Then she moved on to solid but soft things like cooked carrots, fish sticks, and noodles.  We could have put these all on a plate, but many of them still belonged in bowls and it was just so easy to offer the vegetables first, by themselves, so that she wouldn't leave them on the plate.  It was just the natural progression of things and it has carried over even now that she is starting to eat many of the same things that we do.

A few days ago I realized what I was doing.  I would get up from the table to get Sam's next "course" multiple times per meal, and it suddenly started annoying me.  Time for her to get her meals all on one plate, all at one time!  I knew she would fight this, so I set my expectations.  I brought her bread with cream cheese, peas, and sliced chicken, all on one plate.  She screamed and flung the whole plate on the floor.  I told her lunch was over for the moment, and we cleaned it up.  I asked her if she wanted to try again and she said yes.  And that was it.  Problem solved. 

Now we're working on having a cup on her tray at the same time as the plate.  I wonder what other crazy things we're doing to accommodate her old baby needs that we just haven't noticed yet.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Raise the Bar

Kids can be honest, brave, and responsible.  Read this story to help remind yourself to keep your expectations high.

Struck by Lightning


View Larger Map

I don't think much about the two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-six people who died that day.

I don't think much about my loss of freedoms.

I don't think much about whether I'm safe from terrorism.

I don't even think much anymore about what we could have and should have done in response.

I think about those buildings.  I think about the greatness of the human species and, in particular, the greatness of this country that they represented.  They are gone forever and their loss is not purely symbolic.  I'm still in shock.  If you've ever read Atlas Shrugged you'll know what I mean when I say the Twin Towers are my own, real-world version of Eddie Willer's oak tree.

I think about those buildings.  They symbolized life, freedom, security, and moral certainty.  I don't need to think about anything else to remember what that day meant.

Three

Why does counting to three get your kid to do just about anything? 

I discovered this trick a few months ago.  I'm not sure what made me think to do it except maybe a thousand sitcoms.  It worked the very first time.  It's not as if I had to do it a few times with consequences if she didn't listen.  I just said, "Sam, on the count of three I want you to come to the couch for a diaper change.  One, two three."  She came and was happy to do it.  I told Adam about this and it worked for him too.  I try to use it sparingly so I won't wear it out, but so far Sam hasn't built up a tolerance at all.  Of course, the few times she hasn't listened she has received a consequence - I pick her up and put her where I want her or pick her shoes for her or whatever it is.  She loses the power to control herself and she does not like that.  But why do I need to count to three for it to work?

Today at Sam's two-year check up, the doctor suggested the one-two-three method for times when Sam wouldn't listen.  Wow - this is universal?  My opening question is not rhetorical.  Why does this work?

Monday, September 8, 2008

A Little Thing

Pretending the concrete parking bumper is a balance beam and "doing gymnastics" with my daughter.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

The Sam Update - Twenty Four Months, Part Two

2 years oldI thought the 2 year update was significant enough to break it up into 2 posts.  First of all, here are the pictures!  I'm moving from Shutterfly to Picasa for viewing and it took me a few days to figure out how to make it work the way I want it to.

I mentioned in the last post that Sam has developed even stronger likes and dislikes.  We were surprised to find out that Sam likes strong flavors.  I thought toddlers were supposed to like bland food like bread and pasta and plain cheese pizza, but Sam is bored by those things.  She likes steak with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, Italian sausage, and pepperoni pizza.  She also loves pepper.  It must be the Afflerbach genes.  She wants pepper on everything and when she's done, she wipes up the leftover pepper on her plate with her sticky fingers and licks it all off.  Then she says "more."

She loves jewelry and buckles and dolls and pink, but does not like to wear a dress.

Her vocabulary has grown tremendously.  She is in a practice phase now where she likes to mimic words just to see if she can say them, even if she doesn't know what they mean.  Of course, she uses many words properly and her most common two-word-sentence is HELP, PLEASE.  Her first sign-language word was ALL-DONE and now she can finally say it out loud, which allows me to pay less attention to her while she eats.  Some other favorite words right now are AIRPLANE, LATKE, LOOFA, FRENCH FRY, and still number one, JINX.  Sometimes she still gets her syllables mixed up.  My favorite is when she tries to say BYE-BYE DADDY and it comes out DIE-DIE BADDY.

Sam had her first canoe ride a few weeks ago.  She hated the life-jacket but was fearless about the boat and the water.  I hope to get out on the canoe a few more times before it gets too cold.

For Sam's birthday, we continued our tradition of filling her room with helium balloons during the night so that she wakes up to them on her special day.  Her grandpa and grandma Mossoff came for Labor Day weekend so we celebrated a few days early.  We did a lot of small things - we went to the mall with a fountain that the kids can play in, we had a nice lunch, we grilled burgers and had cake and presents, we went to the park where we rode the carousel and the train and had a picnic lunch, we went to a party thrown by our development where they had a moon-bounce, cotton candy, bubbles and lots of kids.  It was low-key and there was plenty of time for the grandparents to hang out with Sam - just a perfect weekend.  It was very similar to her first birthday actually, except that Grandee and Grando Afflerbach were the grandparents at that one.  Maybe we'll be lucky enough to have all four of them at her next birthday.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Sam Update - Twenty Four Months Old

Samantha Miriam Mossoff is two years old.  She's definitely not a baby anymore, and overall, I'm pretty happy about that.  So why do I tear up when I think about it?

There is nothing I can think of that defines her becoming a two-year-old.  It's just a lot of small changes.  She says more words every day.  She is combining words into simple sentences.  She can jump.  She knows the color yellow.  Her likes and dislikes are becoming more pronounced. 

Something that snuck up on me was her ability to finally go to sleep without crying.  Until recently, every single time she went to sleep Sam cried for at least five minutes and at most an hour.  It averaged about twenty minutes.  From what I hear from other parents, this is not normal.  But it was normal to us.  Sam slept through the night when she was ten weeks old and has always taken regular naps.  But every time, there was the crying.  I got somewhat used to it.  I could watch TV or maybe even read a magazine most of the time.  But there were times that she sounded more upset than usual, or it went on longer than usual.  This could make me writhe in agony while I willed myself not to go to her.  You see, if we went to her it would just reset the clock and we'd have to go through it all again.  Crying was Sam's way of soothing herself to sleep.  Besides the pain of hearing it every night, it also added to my uncertainty about whether she was hurt or in real distress.  There were times when I would hear something different in her cry and I'd run up to her room to find something wrong:  her leg sticking through the bars of the crib, a poopy diaper, or something else that needed fixing.  So every night, I'd have to listen carefully to her cry, on red alert for any change in tone.  Talk about the girl who cried wolf.  And talk about stress.

About six months ago, Sam stopped crying before her nap.  And a few months ago, the time she cried at night started decreasing.  Adam and I noted at one point that she seemed to be crying only about five minutes instead of twenty.  But then it went on like that for a while.  And then, it was gone.  I think it took us two or three weeks to recognize it.  No crying at all.  Silence.  Immediate, beautiful silence.  The most difficult thing about our baby was gone and it had happened so gradually that we hardly noticed. 

And this is what makes the emotion well up in me when I think about her getting older.  It's the fear that I won't be paying close enough attention as she grows up.  The idea that I might not notice something, or that it will be gone before I really understand it.   Constant change is here to stay, and even though I love the excitement and anticipation this creates, there is some ambivalence in me.  I suppose there's nothing to do but enjoy the ride.

To Be Continued...(with pictures)

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Two of a Kind

Today is Sam's third birthday, if you count the day she was born.  She turned two years old at 11:37am this morning.  We're all still recovering from the three day party we had over the weekend with grandma and grandpa Mossoff, so I'll just post this old video today.