A Rosier Life

Today I took a Well-Being Assessment required by my insurance company.

It was odd to choose where on a "ladder" from 0-10 I would place myself in terms of huge questions like, "How happy are you with your life?" Huh? A number from 0-10?

The next questions asked me to rate on the same rickety ladder how much of "yesterday" I spent stressed, happy, angry, etc. Well, yesterday was a Sunday. Now it was a Sunday I spent mostly working - but I did manage to get outside and plant blueberry and raspberry bushes with Rosie. And it was a Sunday filled with 60-degree sunshine and culminated with hamburgers and grilled onions from the BBQ. So, wouldn't my response to those "0-10" scale of happiness, anger or stress questions differ if I took the assessment tomorrow after I've mostly spent the day in my office?

Regardless of the methodology or the answers I gave, I thought...

I have a pretty darn good life. A rosy life.

Wait, didn't I used to have a blog by that title? I wonder if I could even crack the password after all this time.

And so I tried. Three Google security checks later and I'm back.

And since I cracked the code, I decided to throw a post out into the world and see if anyone is still there to read it.

After all, I should document a few things since my last post 1,000 days ago...I added a Ph.D. behind my name, welcomed Haddie into the family, moved to a new city (in the SOUTH), started a new job, made a new home, went to my first SEC football game.

And because some things haven't changed. Jon and I are still living out these adventures together - and Rosie is still the girl of a million faces and words and I know what we should do, guys! ideas that bring joy and spunk to all who meet her.

And, also, because I lost my precious Grandma Rosie, her namesake, on January 23. And while that may have taken me down the ladder for a bit to deal with losing a loved one,  my sweet Rosie is keeping her spirit alive. She lights up the world like nobody's business - accompanied by her sister-in-crime, the incredible Happy Haddie.

And, so universe, I'm getting back on the digital horse (again) and climbing up that 0-10 ladder of life with this message that it's a very rosy life. Hope yours is, too.

Back in the Saddle

This post goes out to Missy who inspired me to get back in the saddle...of blogging.

Here are the top 5 reasons I've been so absent in the great Rosie Life blogosphere:

1) I like using pictures and videos in my blog posts, and I didn't have any new ones.
2) I have no new pictures or videos because I haven't uploaded new pics in FOREVER.
3) I haven't uploaded any pictures because my poor computer is almost out of memory (and it's only a year old). Apparently, I've uploaded so many pictures and videos of my child that I have only one gigabyte of hard drive left (out of like 160 gigabytes).
4) I am too afraid to delete any pictures and videos despite that I have them backed up in an external hard drive. What if the back up fails, too!
5) The longer I went without deleting old pictures, uploading new pictures and posting a new blog entry, the bigger and better I thought that entry would have to be in order to justify a post without pictures.

For those reasons, this poor digital diary has gathered dust. But no more!

I'm back in the saddle - (just like Rosie is these days on her friend Sasha's new rocking horse).

Before I sign off from this reentry post, let me share with you a different list...

Rosie's Top 5 Words these days:
1. Microwave (as in, "Mommy, check mic-wave")
2. Chicken nugget (as in, "Mommy, I would like to play with, but not eat, my cheeken nuggets")
3. Two (as in, "One, twwwwwwooooo" which she turns into three syllables, each in its own octave)
4. No (as in, "No, Mommy!" "No, Daddy!" "No chicken nuggets!" and "No! No! No! No!" with emphatic head shaking)
5. Police (As in, "O! Pleece! Pleece!" Yes, this child is uuurrrbbaaannn. She can distinguish between police, fire and ambulance sirens.)

So, there you have it. No pictures. No videos. But a glimpse into Rosie's ever-expanding vocabulary. Thanks, Missy, for reminding me to take 10 minutes to share little snippets of our lives.

Fright Night

I love Halloween. Love the crafts (like this pumpkin Rosie decorated with her nanny). Love the costumes. Absolutely can't wait to see Rosie dressed up in her poodle costume tonight. Love the colors. Love the candy. Love it all. Well, everything except being scared. I was a super scaredy cat growing up (still am, actually). Do NOT love haunted houses. The Children's Museum once had to turn on the lights and escort me out of its Haunted Museum...when I was 12! A Children's Museum!

Well, Halloween fright night came early for Mommy this year.

On Tuesday I was pre-treating stains from the day's nanny share adventures in Rosie's sink while she ran around her room. I suddenly became aware that she was no longer in eyeshot. Since she's quite the adventurer these days, I figured I better check on her.

Walking down the hall toward my bedroom, I saw an image that my brain couldn't compute.

Rosie. Bed. On top. Jumping. Running. Tiny girl. By herself. On bed. Cackling with delight.

Once the firing neurons could make sense of it, my brain filled with Mommy red alerts. I'm proud that I didn't scream in panic. I actually tried to downplay the whole thing (though I did move at lightning speed to grab my little monkey jumping on the bed so she didn't fall off and bump her head).

How did she do it? I didn't have to come up with any wild theories because she immediately did it again.

Jon and I hadn't made our bed that day (I know, shame on us). She'd climbed the pile of pillows and comforters at the end of the bed like a downy hillside. Once within striking distance of the footboard, she held on for dear life (literally) and swung her tiny foot up over the side. With all her strength (and tongue stuck out for extra oomph), she catapulted her 17.5 pounds onto the bed in a triumphant faceplant.

As I told Jon when he got home, we've entered a new millennium in this whole parenting thing.

My little girl is a pygmy mountain goat - scaling everything within sight. Metal scaffolding (high chairs), rocky peaks (staircases), tall trees (crib rails), cliffsides (bookcases) and whatever she decides to tackle next. We're going into hypervigilant mode. My mom's given me some tips to help teach her boundaries and the importance of being safe. But still...it's a scary thought that she can actually CLIMB stuff.

This Halloween, Rosie's putting the BOO in peek-a-boo. Be afraid, Mommy. Be very afraid.

Visits

This weekend we had the pleasure of hosting friends from California and Indiana. We enjoyed showing off our Rosie and watching her bask in the attention of her guest audience members.

It was especially fun to watch Rosie interact with Mikayla. When Mikayla and Rosie were last together, Rosie was 10 months old and Mikayla was 20 months old. Rosie was a wobbly pre-walker who hadn't yet said, "Mommy," and Mikayla was running around in circles talking up a storm. They were more interested in taking each others' toys than playing together.

That was not the case this weekend. Cut to high fives and hand holding. And that was just in the car where they both reached out from their car seats and giggled with excitement when they made contact. Rosie, who normally protests during long car rides, finally had some good entertainment back there. She literally watched every move Mikayla made and tried to mimic every sound she uttered. And since Mikayla is pretty verbally advanced, that was a lot of sounds.

We had a blast watching the girls together. Jennifer and I took them on the metro together, and you would have thought they were at Disney World. We pretty much could have just ridden the metro up and down the red line all day, and they would have been happy campers. But we also took them to Union Station for lunch, the National Building Museum for playtime in the kids' room, and a family farm with hayrides, slides, animals, cider, pumpkins, and climbing structures. These kids were in heaven.

With Auntie Aja in town, Rosie also got some 17A spoiling. Aja brought the pink poodle Halloween costume that has been handed down from the Mounts and Rabuck girls. Can't wait to see her in it! We got in some good Eastern Market time, and Mommy even got some ladies-only time at dinner and brunch with Aja and friends.

What a great weekend. Sad to have it come to an end. I'll post pics when I finally get them uploaded. The best news is that more visitors are on the horizon! We're looking forward to seeing Nana and Papa Blake in just a couple weeks!

Facebook Birthdays

Rosie will never know life pre-Facebook (or whatever social networking site is the rage when Jon and I finally break down and let her create a profile). That probably also means she will not find herself at age 30 + A (where A equals any constant between 1-9. Can you tell I'm taking a stats course?) and marveling at the newly discovered phenomenon of a Facebook birthday bonanza. For those of you not on Facebook (or like my Mom, have a Facebook account you've never touched!), let me explain.

Facebook has an "events" feature. When your "friends" have included in their profiles a specific birthday, that birthday shows up as an "event" on your Facebook homepage. I currently have 398 friends. That means I could technically have 398 events in my calendar just by having nearly 400 friends. For example, 4 of my friends have birthdays this week - one grad school friend, one friend who used to attend my church, one former coworker, and my Mom's former assistant director. Yes, she's my friend too.

Without Facebook, I would not have known when these four people's birthdays were. Maybe I would have heard someone wish the grad school colleague a happy birthday in the hall and had the opportunity to pipe in, but probably not. We don't tend to walk the halls here broadcastingour birthdays. We're more likely to discuss theory, methods, and literature reviews (like I did on the elliptical this morning with my friends). We're just that exciting, people.

BUT in the new world of Facebook, I can take 30 seconds to throw a "Happy Birthday" on their Facebook wall and bam!, I just added to their birthday merriment.

That is what happened to me yesterday. Sixty-three friends (16% of my total FB friends - stats again!) wished me happy birthday on Facebook yesterday. This included friends from high school, undergrad/masters/PhD world, former jobs, current church, childhood church, family friends, actual family, etc.

I marveled.

I made that verb selection with purpose. According to Merriam-Webster, to marvel is to become filled with surprise, wonder, or amazed curiosity.

I was surprised and curiously amazed at the wonder of Facebook and how it brings and keeps us together, how something simple like wishing someone a happy birthday on a social networking site gets them thinking, remembering about high school and college and old jobs and old bosses and old sermons and old shenanigans and old birthdays before Facebook when you ate cake and ice cream and read birthday cards from the select rank of friends who saw you that day or knew your home address.

Rosie won't know those days. On her first birthday, my parents were on Skype while Jon's parents held up a video camera capturing her messy introduction to chocolate frosting. I posted her birthday pictures, and a message to her, on Facebook! Pretty soon she'll get her own birthday text messages, email messages, Skype visitors, YouTube happy birthday renditions, and, yes, many, many Facebook greetings.

My dad, who is not on Facebook, missed my birthday. (I joked this morning when I called to tell him he missed my birthday that I would send him my shrink's bill.) The irony is that he was engaged in a different kind of social networking.

He was busy golfing with my Great Aunt and exploring back roads and forgotten Indiana cemeteries in a quest to locate the graves of his great-great-great-great (not sure how many greats to insert here but a lot) grandparents. He was looking at their "walls" - not the Facebook wall with its social comings and goings, but their small stones with just what's left - name, birth, death, maybe a few descriptors.

Those souls celebrated all their birthdays without Facebook. Rosie will celebrate all of hers in a world with Facebook or the next big thing.

There's a certain spectacle in the Facebook birthday bonanza, but there's also the opportunity to remember and be grateful for all those people who have come through your life.

So many blessings to be grateful for. And that's certainly one of the best birthday gifts of all to receive.

Happy Birthday, Daddy: Take 2

Today is Jon's XXrd birthday, his second as a Dad. (Until I get official permission from him, I won't reveal his age in this blog. Yes, we're getting that old.)

While I did my best to help Rosie greet her Daddy (when he returned from voting at 7 a.m.) with a happy birthday message, it sounded more like - "abadabaa, Dada." Of course, next year she'll probably be singing happy birthday! It's hard to imagine what two-year-old Rosie will be like. She's changed so much since Jon's birthday last year.

September 14, 2009: Rosie was wearing her 0-3 month clothes still. (Of course, she's still in 6-9 months at this point so we haven't changed all that much in terms of size!). BUT she was so much younger in so many ways. Last year on Jon's birthday, Rosie cried out when she awoke, snuggled in her sleep sack waiting for our faces to appear. This morning Rosie called from her crib "Mommeemommeemommeedaddeeeeeeeeee!" When I walked in the room, she was standing in her monkey PJs with a smile on her face, bouncing and dancing with delight that her greeting had successfully resulted in Mommy showing up! This year's Rosie could literally run circles around last year's Rosie who only rolled over but didn't sit up or crawl.

Last year she could giggle but not clap. She wasn't even eating rice cereal then and this morning ate peaches and blueberries by the handful. Last year's Rosie spent time on activity mats and in bouncer seats. Now she zigzags from toy to book to ball to blocks to puzzle to our laps with a book in one hand, toy in the other, and sippy cup dangling from her mouth.

And best of all, 15-month Rosie could offer the birthday boy a hand-blown kiss. Next year she'll probably follow up that kiss with an "I love you." Considering my heart nearly burst the first time she said "Mommy," I can only imagine my reaction to that magical moment.

Jon and I decided that our favorite birthday gift from each other this year (and every year) is simply Rosie.

A close second is simply Jon. I'm so grateful to him for being such an amazing and engaged daddy and such a loving and supportive husband. Sitting across from him at his birthday breakfast this morning after we'd dropped off Rosie at the nanny, I couldn't help but feel that same heart-bursting love. I had one of those overwhelming moments where you realize that you are living a life better than the one you'd imagined for yourself.

Birthdays are a good time for reflection on the past and the present. On the many blessings and gifts of the year (even the material ones like the new family car we bought last month).

My final thoughts on Jon's birthday are these: humble gratitude for him, for Rosie, for our family. Here's to another great year!



**Addendum: Here's a cute happy birthday banner that Rosie helped make with the nanny and her little buddy today! Notice the hand prints and scribbles. Too fun!

Year 3 of School Begins

On Monday I started back to school. It's year three of my four year program and my last semester of coursework.

Monday night was a public affairs management and leadership class that promises to be amazing taught by a professor who is on a first-name basis with the current U.S. Secretary of Defense. Nice.

Tuesday I met my students for my new class I've been prepping all summer. The good news is that I continue to gain confidence that I'm on the right career path. I absolutely adore teaching and talking to them about research and the profession (and their overlap). If I could just do research and teach, I'd be a happy working woman!

This morning a small group of us went to the gym together. Part accountability, part support group. Whatever you want to call it, it motivated me to get back on the elliptical for the first time in about 25 months, so that's something! My hope is that it will be good for my stress level and my physical health.

Tonight was the big stats class. It seems like it's actually going to be pretty good. I'm not saying there weren't formulas in that course packet that I'd prefer not to ever have to understand. BUT it's not going to be nearly as bad as it could have been (and was in undergrad).

Throughout the week there were also several meetings, course scheduling, book/course packet buying, syllabus tweaking, photo copying, article reading, and lots of driving and walking on a 95+ degree campus.

Tomorrow I've got jury duty so a colleague is taking my class for me, so I can head to the superior courthouse for the fifth time since I moved to D.C. in 2002. Crazy.

In the meantime Rosie is doing amazing. She's adapted so well to the new nanny and her new little friend. Jon's been doing drop off and pick up while we're getting into the semester routine, and the new car has come in handy for that!

We're looking forward to a visit from Jon's parents this weekend and next week so I'm sure there will be more photos and videos to follow.

And now back to homework...