negative vibes

and by negative, i mean like -30 degrees. that's the windchill that almost mummified me on my walk jog to catch the train this morning.

...the only person i don't hear complaining is my husband, who is happily lagering in our thermostat-controlled enclosed porch. yes, folks. that is a photo of 16 gallons of beer on our floor. to put it into perspective, with this much beer, we could play the game 99 bottles of beer on the wall and STILL have 71 bottles left untouched in the fridge.

...i survived hosting my super bowl tea party with 13 adults and 12 kids aged 5 and under. we got cadence's room all organized like a bona fide playroom just in time. this is her new Braidy Bunch rug from the Land of Nod. i am totally loving the pattern, and cadence loves doing laps on it while she makes me chase her around singing "Doe a Deer, a Female Deer" over and over and over again.

...anyhoo, it was so good to see my old friends, some of whom i haven't seen in YEARS. our kids played so well together. i was kind of nervous, as cadence has NEVER shared her toys before, and although she was a bit resistant at first, she was much more agreeable than i expected, considering she had just started using the phrase 'it's MINE!!!!' last week. although there were a few struggles over tiny tea cups or coloring books or the rocking moose, nobody got hurt too badly. i was pretty relieved, as i wasn't expecting cadence to understand the concept of sharing at this point and would not have forced her to share her toys, so i was glad she did it of her own volition.

alright, i'm pooped. that's it for now.

multi-faceted

...a couple weeks or so ago, i took a whole bunch of grainy, high-ISO casual shots of cadence with the LCD flipped around so she could see herself as i was shooting. there wasn't much i could do w/ those shots, but some of her faces in them were so priceless, i decided to turn them into a strip like you'd get at a photobooth.

recovering

we are recovering from a sickly, sleepless home-bound weekend. cadence got a bit of a cold and kept me up most of friday night. her nose was in full runny swing by saturday, and i missed my friend jin's housewarming party. we also missed grandma day on sunday, which i'm totally bummed about cuz i found out grandma sophie was gonna make her greek chicken. oh well.

...i did get together w/ my friends from high school. josh, connolly and his wife chris and olarn came over saturday night and we got caught up with each others' lives.

josh just made captain, so now he's the head honcho in his airplane (he flies for a cargo company). and to think, the first time i saw him after high school was the day he'd just taken his exam to become a Certified Flight Instructor.

connolly is now a guidance counselor at our alma mater, and it sounds like he's loving it. that would be interesting to be back in my old high school, but this time as a teacher or on staff, instead of the awkward teenager trying to fit in somewhere. i actually have pretty fond memories of high school, although i was a total nerd. i was VP of the national honor society, carried around a cello and listened to debbie gibson. it doesn't get much nerdier than that.

olarn just got back from a month in thailand. his dad died on christmas day of pancreatic cancer, the same cancer that killed my dad. they were both 64, which is kinda eerie. it was painful hearing olarn describe what his dad went through because it was so similar to what happened to my dad. cancer is a bitch, and PANCREATIC cancer is one of the meanest there is.

i'm glad the 4 of us had a chance to get together, as olarn may be moving out of the country soon, and with josh in CT and flying all over the place, i don't know when the next time we'll all see each other again...

oh yeah. go bears.

well, it sure has been quiet around here, hasn't it? i wish i could say that no news is good news, but i've actually been too tired and burned out to post here. work was really busy for a while (as it usually is this time of year) and for a couple weeks, i actually had to go in all 5 days instead of working from home on wednesdays. thank goodness that craziness is over. and now we have three big weekends in a row coming up, one of which is hosting a massive super bowl tea party. yes, you read that right. super bowl TEA party.

it was supposed to be just a TEA party for some old friends of mine from my evanston vineyard days. we're all parents or soon-to-be parents now, and i organized a reunion at my place scheduled for sunday feb. 4th. it never occurred to me that the super bowl would be that very afternoon. this was quite vexing as we don't have an antenna for our TV and it had taken months to schedule a date that most of us could get together. i didn't want to cancel the party, but when the bears ended up winning the NFC title, i felt obligated to give my guests a chance to withdraw their acceptance of the invitation to the tea party, since based on the bears' record, chicago couldn't expect to participate in another super bowl until our kids are of legal drinking age. fortunately, my friends candy and eric offered to bring their bunny ears so that we could watch the game. i think it's because they're colts fans (they grew up in evansville, IN) that they really don't want to miss the game, esp. when they have the chance to tease a bunch of bears fans.

so now my tea party is going to be a SUPER BOWL tea party. who knows. maybe the bunny ears won't work and all the football fans will scurry home early.

...in addition to work and planning parties, cadence has been a major pain in the behind lately. i hear that kids often get this way at her age. maybe their brains are developing so fast that it drives them bonkers. she's just been a bit of a beeyatch, and i can tell it's taking a toll on us. the other night, ted was going out w/ his bro, and he looked at me and asked if i was okay with him going out. i told him it was fine, but i couldn't guarantee i wouldn't kill the little bugger before he got back.

of course, this little 'spririted' phase just HAD to coincide with my finishing haim ginott's classic parenting book Between Parent and Child, which i highly recommend to anybody in a relationship of any type with another human being. some of the ideas in the book may seem oversimplistic, but overall, i really got a lot out of it, not just for my parenting skills, but in relating to ted and even people at work.

anyhoo, in case i've ever made it seem like i absolutely ADORE being a parent and having cadence for a daughter ALL the time like 24/7 and how could i POSSIBLY have been happy before her birth…well, think again. sometimes, i just want to grab my camera, buy a pack of american spirits and head on over to the empty bottle like the good old days…

cute, funny AND a brainiac

...in case you were worried that cadence was merely about foofy pink tutus and cutesy poses, she is much more than that.

...cadence appreciates the simple pleasure of a lazy afternoon spent reading on the sofa...

...and she seems to have inherited her mother's affinity for the chicago reader, which she enjoys especially at local cafes like metropolis or the grind, which is where she is in this photo taken by teddy. so rest assured that she has a serious brainy side too. granted, it is the brain of a 2 year old, but still...just so you know, she's not all fluff.