Great, so now we need a second mortgage

Oh, dear god, we're going to have to order 4,000 photos from her photo session in Kentucky.

On the first pass through, I think #44 is my favorite, with #42 and 27 (and 23, and 6, and 4, and, oh, damn, every other picture) way up on the list, too.

What are your picks?

Oh, and did I mention there were bunnies?

Check out Liza's Easter portraits ... the standard, non-lapine ones should be available soon, too.

A week among the animals

This past week was Liza's spring break from preschool, a time when all of her playmates were out of town and all of the play areas and museums are totally swamped with families desperate for entertainment. Jason had to go to Germany on business for the whole week (poor guy), which left me faced with seven straight days of no school, no playdates, and no escape.

So we drove to Kentucky.

Yeah, I know, but it makes about as much sense as anywhere else you can drive on one tank of gas, plus we have friends down there who were desperately in need of swaddling blankets and crocheted stroller blankets. Right?

On the way down we stopped in Columbus to visit the zoo there with some friends. It was alternately pleasantly chilly and viciously cold and rainy, and we weren't really dressed to stand it for long, but Liza and Joy had fun chasing each other around the inside exhibits.

The zoo has a brand new baby elephant - as in, "born two days before we got there" new - which wasn't out where you could see it, but they had shuffled the pens around and the male elephant happened to be in the area closest to the observation area in the elephant house (where Liza and Joy were running endless laps around an interior wall). Let's just say that he had some impressive junk, especially when he decided to pee the entire contents of a wading pool all over the floor. For five minutes straight.

As soon as we left the zoo the weather cleared up, and Liza enjoyed the sunshine as she spent the next four hours "reading" her new fairy tale books and listening to The Princess and the Pea audiobook over and over and over again.

Our first morning in Richmond was a bit chilly (we had to scrape the ice puddles off the bottoms of the slides), but that didn't keep us from enjoying one of the 5,086 parks in town. We proved that she's now fully capable of conquering every slide that previously caused her to quake in terror.


We enjoyed the spring flowers, which are several weeks farther along than the flowers in Cleveland.


One of my main reasons for visiting Richmond was to eat at some of the restaurants we have missed since we moved. The Thai place was still there, and Sonny's, and Madison Garden, and Giovanni's, and Sonic. Yeah, should have brought more elastic-waist pants on this trip.

We had gotten the basic "Hooked on Math" for Liza before we left Cleveland, and I accidentally left the first set of flash cards in my purse when we left for Kentucky. Liza was perfectly happy to "do her cards" while we waited in restaurants, and she was super excited when I proposed that she take her first "quiz" while we were killing time at the hotel one evening.
We spent lots of time at the hotel pool, but unfortunately there aren't any photos of that because I wasn't about to get the camera anywhere near Little Miss Splashes For No Reason Whatsoever. I can highly recommend that parents of preschoolers find hotels with indoor pools whenever they go on vacation. Not only does it give you something to fill the dreaded two hours between dinner and bedtime (when the kid is tired, you're tired, all the playgrounds are closed, and there's nothing on television that you'd let them watch), but it also makes a great threat to enforce good behavior. "Sit down in that chair this minute or we're not going in the pool when we get back to the hotel" is remarkably effective, especially when the kid knows you're just mean enough to follow through on the threat.

What with everyone having babies within a day or two of our arrival, the schedule was a bit, um, flexible, but we managed to catch up with many of our Richmond friends. Here's Liza and her cohorts trying to trick the geese into thinking that the grass they're throwing is actually something tasty.

Liza and I made it up to the geese on a later visit with Cheerios purloined from our hotel's breakfast buffet. That's another thing I'd recommend to other parents - snagging extra stuff from the buffet to use later in the day. Liza is notoriously picky in restaurants, ordering food and then not eating it and then complaining of hunger later on. I knew she wasn't going to eat anything at the Thai place, so I brought a yogurt and an apple from the buffet, and she was perfectly happy to eat those while I had my spicy pineapple chicken. Mmmmm .... spicy pineapple chicken ....

The last day of the trip was busy. We stopped at the Newport Aquarium on our way through Cincinnati, and it was totally worth the lines and the crowd inside at the main exhibits. Why? Because I shelled out the extra cash so we could pet the penguins.

Yes, I said pet the penguins. As in, those adorable little fishy-smelling beasties in tuxedos were actually willing to be handled (gently) by strangers. And my adorable little yogurt-smelling beastie managed to hold off her naptime tantrums long enough to make it through the whole thing without startling the little guys. She thought it was cool, but I don't think she understands what a rare treat this was. After all, Mr. Rogers got to do it, and now we just pulled in off the highway and petted them, so how special could it be?

Speaking of special, the final reason we went down to Kentucky was to get Liza's portrait done at the place that's done all of her past photos. Remember how I was joking about going back down there to get future ones done? Not really joking.

The proofs from that should be up by the end of the week, so I'll link so everyone can see how absolutely freaking incredibly awesomely well the kid did. In the meantime, while I was cruising around the studio's site, I found that one of Liza's earlier shots is in their advertising portfolio (scroll down, she's on the right side). How cool is that? Not as cool as petting a penguin, but still - it's pretty chilly.

Is it just me?

... or does it take more than a few hours to make an "aged" steak?


... or should shiny, dangly, realistically-scrotum-shaped hitch ornaments only be sold to licensed stud services?

Anyone want to guess where Liza and I went on vacation?

Yearly trek to Berea for portraits

Yep, I'm actually thinking we should do it. I mean, what's not to love about the photos the folks at Brunner's take?

Yes, these are proofs, and I'm not supposed to duplicate them. However, since I'm duplicating them for the sole purpose of telling the world that I love Brunner's photos so much that I may be willing to drive for 6 hours to have my daughter's portrait done there every year, I don't think they'll sic their lawyers on me anytime soon.

That last shot is one of my favorites, even though you can't see her face that well. Anytime I get to see her trying to put bracelets on Mingo the Flamingo (proud member of the Pink Posse)'s neck, I break into a chorus of awwwws. And you can't even see the ring-around-the collar Mingo is developing from being carried around by his neck by a grubby-handed urchin.

Up, then down, then unexpectedly up again

Nope, not talking about my daughter's stomach contents (thank goodness).

As many of you already know, Jason and I haven't always lived in the Seventh Largest City In Kentucky. We lived in various suburbs of Cleveland, and a big city in Japan, and several other places before we landed here. Our lives as adults have been one almost solid stream of moving boxes and change-of-address cards ... we lived in Avon for about 4 years, and you wouldn't believe how excited I got when I had the opportunity to actual reorder checks without having to change the address or anything. So rare for us!

Jason's been working down here in Kentucky for three years. I can't say we've LIVED here that long because I stayed in Cleveland to finish out the last semester, so he's lived here three years, I've lived here two and a half, and poor Liza hasn't even made it past the two-year mark yet. We never really figured we'd stay here forever - the town is nice and we made some good friends, but we knew that Jason's job was likely to take us someplace else eventually. Despite the snow, and the fact that our family doesn't live there, and the snow, and the fact that we keep moving away every few years (and the snow), Cleveland is the closest to home we've had since high school.

So Jason's been keeping his eyes open for job opportunitites up north at his company's headquarters, which is conveniently located in - you guessed it - Cleveland. There have been a couple of interesting openings, but none of them seemed just right ... until last month. Challenging job that would make the most of Jason's skills, in a desirable division of the company, in Cleveland. He sent off his application, and thought it would take forever to hear back about it (he was one of two dozen applicants for the position).

When he got a call from the hiring manager before the application period had even ended, we took it as a good sign. When they wanted him to fly up to Cleveland to interview for the job in person, we took it as a better sign. When he found out that he was one of only three people they interviewed, we figured he had at least a 1 in 3 shot of getting the job, probably better, because he's just that awesome.

That was the week before we left on vacation, and the hiring manager wanted to make a decision by that Friday or early the week of our vacation. Jason and I sat around for a couple of days, jumping every time the phone rang, cursing the delay in the decision. I decided that my part in the process involved not mentioning the job possibility to anyone, which was like walking on eggshells every time I ran into someone I knew in town. I was afraid if I talked about it, I would jinx it.

When Jason found out the day before our vacation that he didn't get the job, we were upset, but also a little relieved. Moving jobs and households is, after all, a stressful process, especially with a toddler in tow and a wife who is sort of trying to start a business. We grumped about the guy who got the job, I joked about invoking voodoo curses necessary to get the guy hit by a bus so Jason could have the job, and we all went on vacation. In a way, the timing was great - no time to sit and mourn the missed opportunity, as we were too busy looking at ducks and buses and gravel in California. And we didn't have to waste our vacation worrying about what needed to be done at home to start the move.

Then yesterday Jason calls me on my cell phone, which he never does and can only mean he's in an ambulance or something similarly bad. He'd gotten a call from the hiring manager - does he still want the job? Because they decided the guy they hired would be a better fit in another, more recently available, position, so the one Jason interviewed for was open again. Sloppy seconds, as Jason so eloquently described it, but cool all the same.

The official offer came through Wednesday, and once he nails down a few details with the hiring manager, it looks like we're headed north. I'm simultaneously thrilled to be moving "home," and petrified to be moving at all. I haven't started to make The List yet, the one that includes all the stuff I need to get ready for the move (patch the hole in the ceiling in Liza's room, take boatloads of stuff to Goodwill, cancel our swim lessons and preschool classes, clean the house so it doesn't look like a toddler lives here, etc.) and all the stuff I need to do to get settled up north (decide which suburb we want to live in, find a preschool program for next year, find the libraries with the good toddler storytimes, change the address on all of my business stuff, etc.). There are tons of decisions to be made during any move, and adding the kid to the mix just means I have one more level of worrying to do. It's going to be complicated, it's going to be depressing, and it's all going to need to get done in the next couple of weeks. And my kid is on a nap strike. I see lots of Baby Einstein in her future ...

But I can't wait to get up there and get settled. There's a zoo (which probably has ducks, and I think there's at least a little electric tram thing), and the city is big enough that there's a public transportation system so Liza will get to see buses more than once a month, and the library system is huge. There are tons of quilt stores (aka potential Lazy Mama customers) and other opportunities for an itinerant journalist. Our best friends live there. I can find my way through the city without a map (it may take me a few tries to get where I'm going, but I usually only end up in the slums during ONE of those tries). It will be good to be home.

But I'm going to miss it down here. I've got a network of other moms of toddlers to hang out with, Liza's got a preschool I'm happy with, and our street is much more of a neighborhood than any subdivision will ever be. The library and two parks are within walking distance of our house, as are several restaurants, a grocery store, the post office, and a couple banks. The guy at the Thai restaurant knows Jason by name, and the librarians all know Liza. I've finally gotten the ivy beaten into submission, and this was the year I was going to put in a vegetable garden so I'd have something to talk to my relatives about at next year's reunion. I know where to go when I need to buy shoes, or get the carpet cleaned, or have some plumbing work done ... and if I don't know, I know someone who DOES.

It's going to be hard to leave, on many levels, but I'm convinced this is the right thing to do. My blog posts may be a little less coherent and more sporadic for the next few months as I juggle the work, the move, finding Internet access, and typing with a toddler in tow at the library. Bear with me, and I'll keep you all in the loop. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a sheet of paper the size of a twin mattress that says "The List" at the top ... time to start planning.

$5 says ....

... the grocery store is completely sold out of milk, bread, and toilet paper, thanks to the ENORMOUS snowfall we received today.You notice that the baby didn't even bother to put on a coat, it was that nice outside. Actually, it was relatively cold, and both times we went out for a walk, Liza decided she didn't want to wear mittens, and so I got to go home early, carrying a screaming kid with cold hands.

Tonight I'm taking a craft break from the sweater I'm making for the kid, and sewing her some elbow-length, impossible to remove mittens. Because otherwise the neighbors will start calling Children's Services, the screaming was that bad.

Meanwhile, the house down on the corner has mini daffodils that are going to bloom any day now. Stupid Kentucky weather.

So freaking wrong

There's just something so fundamentally wrong about baking Christmas cookies and trying to put the garland on the bannister while wearing shorts:

And it's supposed to snow tomorrow ... stupid freaky Kentucky weather. I'm dreaming of a Christmas which is cold enough to actually wear a sweater without sweating.