To blog or not to blog?

I guess I choose to blog.

Not much going on today.  Thursday is usually laundry day.  I wash about 3 loads of clothes today, and tomorrow I do just one load with our sheets and towels.  We played outside for a little while this morning before it got too hot.  Emmett managed not to scrape his knees on the cement at all, surprisingly.  He gets a scraped knee about every other day it seems.  The kid just doesn't like to play in the grass.  He likes to run up and down the driveway and back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the house.  I'm about to buy him knee pads, if I can find any small enough for him.  He likes to push his little plastic lawn mower down the sidewalk.  We are thinking of getting him something that pedals, like a tricycle or something.  I'm not sure he's ready for it yet, but it may be worth a try.  Too bad by the time his birthday rolls around it will be cold.  We'll have to get it as a "just because" present.  I'm thinking of trying to find a used one at a consignment sale maybe.

I filled up his baby pool for this afternoon.  Its been out in the sun for a few hours now, so hopefully the water has had a chance to warm up.  Emmett doesn't like cold water.  When he gets up from his nap we'll check it out.  This might be one of our last chances to use the baby pool.  The evenings are already starting to get cooler.  I'm kind of excited a the prospect of fall this year.  I'm ready for cooler temperatures, and pretty leaves, and Halloween.  But fall is always just a little bittersweet for me because I know winter is coming, the only season I hate.  Luckily I live in a southern state where winter doesn't last very long.  If I had stayed in Erie, PA where I was born, I would probably have killed myself on a dark winter day under 4 feet of snow.  Of course I'm exagerating (about killing myself, not the snow, 4 feet of snow is normal up there) but I do know that Dad's job transfer to Virginia when I was 11 was a blessing in disguise.

So here's to the bittersweet end of summer...I will be celebrating with my feet in a baby pool and a Bud Light Lime in a VT coozy.   

Emmett's first baseball game

When the opportunity first presented itself, we really weren't sure we wanted to take him.  We have talked about taking him to see a Dash game (Winston-Salem's single A baseball team) but we haven't because Emmett is not a good sitter.  He prefers running around, wherever we are.  He is only willing to sit still while eating, and even then he's kicking his feet constantly.  He isn't the kind of kid who clings to our legs and wants to sit on our laps.  He is always moving and exploring.  So when Chris's company offered us a chance to see the Grasshoppers (Greensboro's single A baseball team) we game it some serious thought.  First of all, the tickets were free because of employee appreciation week.  We wouldn't want to pay for a game and have to leave early because Emmett wouldn't behave.  Second, the company has a box reserved at all the games, so not only would there be an air conditioned room for him to run around in, there would also be a section of seats out in front of the box that is basically fenced in so that he can be free to roam around without bothering strangers.  In light of that, we decided that the circumstances were actually perfect.

I got home from work Tuesday afternoon around 4:00 as I usually do.  I changed into casual clothes and packed a dinner for Emmett.  Then we headed to Greensboro to Chris's office around 5:00.  It takes a little less than 30 minutes to get there from our house, and luckily rush hour traffic is better going from Winston to Greensboro than the other way around.  We picked up Chris, grabbed a quick dinner, and headed to the stadium.  We were able to park relatively close, which is good considering we would have to carry Emmett, who is getting quite heavy and is usually not cooperative enough to hold our hands and walk with us.  We headed into the stadium and to the elevator that would take us up to the box.  The attendant operating the elevator asked us if this was Emmett's first ball game.  When we said yes, he gave him a baseball from his pocket as a souvenir.  Emmett smiled at him and said "ball."  We thanked him and headed up to the box.  Emmett explored the box room for a few minutes and quickly wanted to head outside to the seats.  This is the first picture we took on Chris's cell phone (we forgot our camera):

He loved looking through the railing down at the field and at the people below us.  He got to meet the team mascot:

He wasn't sure what to think of him at first, but then he shook his hand.  He wasn't afraid of him at all.  He did actually sit down on the steps for a little while as you can see in this next picture:

But I think his favorite "first" of the night was popcorn.  We had unlimited popcorn in our box and I let him try it for the first time (I never have before because I was worried about the kernels getting stuck in his throat or bothering his tummy - like they do me).  He ate about 2 cups full before I cut him off.  But he just kept his cup of popcorn in the cup holder and stood up against the railing watching the goings on.  The team has a black lab that retrieves the bats and he really enjoyed watching the "doggy" and saying "arf".

We ended up staying until the end of the 8th inning.  Emmett was in a great mood the whole time and we decided we'd stay until the end unless he started getting sleepy.  He sat on my lap for a while, which he almost never does, so I knew he was starting to get there.  Well in the bottom of the 8th we had a string of homeruns, after each there was a short burst of fireworks.  The first set just made him take a few steps backward.  The next set he looked a little concerned, and by the third set he started to cry.  I don't think fireworks would have made him cry under normal circumstances, but that was my signal that he was getting tired.  We decided to go because it was about 10:00 by that point I think, which is nearly an hour after his bedtime, knowing we still had at least a 30 minute drive home.  We stopped back at Chris's office so he could get his truck and we drove home.  I managed to keep him awake in the car, which is important for Emmett because we cannot pull him out of the car and lay him down still asleep.  He always wakes up and then takes forever to go to back to sleep.  We had him in bed by 11:00 and he slept in until 9:00 the next morning.  He was a little fussy when he woke up, and fussy at nap time, but otherwise he was fine the next day.  We were so glad he had a good time and we couldn't have asked for better behavior from him.  First baseball game was a wild success!

not such a big deal afterall

So I expected turning 30 to really hit me hard.  But it didn't.  It came, it went.  We went out the weekend after my birthday.  I had big plans to do some serious drinking and sing some karaoke.  Well I did drink quite a bit, but never got drunk.  Did sing some karaoke, but the dj at the bar we went to sucked.  He let his friends sing as much as they wanted and didn't call our group in order like its usually done, left out some of our friends all together.  So we ended up going back to our friends' house and playing Rock Band on their Wii and I had plenty of opportunities to sing then.  It was a good night, but I am definitely too old to drink like that.  I purposely held off on trying to get pregnant again just so that I could drink on my 30th.  Well I could have had just as good a time with no alcohol at all.  I'm one of those people who can get up and sing karaoke totally sober.  And when it was all said and done, I was not drunk at any point in the night, however I still woke up nauseous and had to throw up.  How stupid. 

I'm pretty happy with my life the way it is right now.  I haven't done any soul searching or worrying over whether or not I have achieved all I thought I would by this age.  I used to want 2 kids by the age of 30 and I only have one.  Oh well.  If I get pregnant soon I can still have the second one before I'm 31.  But who cares one way or the other?  I just want the second child to be born before Emmett turns 3.  I'm not teaching like I thought I would be.  If I had it to choose I wouldn't be working part time right now, but that's just something that I'm doing because I have to and I know its only temporary.  Lately I have been feeling more of an inclination to go back to teaching in some capacity, but not until Emmett and his future sibling are ready to go to school.  I wish I could have my own business or some kind of job that I could do part time from home so that I could be a stay at home mom but still make a little extra so that money wouldn't be quite so tight.  I really just want the freedom to be my own boss.  But selling stuff just isn't for me.  Oh well, my life is what it is and I love it.  I always wanted to be a mom someday, ever since I was little and played with my first doll.  Its my true calling in life, as if I was incomplete before.  Its like the thing I was always searching for that kept me from being completely happy.  I think as long as you are happy with your life, turning 30 isn't that hard.