Usually when I read about immigration reform it elicits an involuntary eye roll. Perfect example:
Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.
The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants.
...
"Our people need to know," said the Montgomery County businessman. "Our Homeland Security can't police their own home. How can they police our borders?"
The whole article.
Thursday
Friday
Life with Z
I know I need to write more often. Right now the gaps are so long that when I do write, I have way too much to say and it’s hard to figure out what to focus on. I’ve been using Twitter a lot more, so I find myself doing mini-updates there, but grandmas don’t read Twitter and they aren’t getting their Zoe fix.
The big Zoe news is that she has started using the potty, more or less. She’s 18 months old and I assumed we’d be waiting till around two before real “training” started. All we’d done was introduced her to the potty and let her sit on it whenever she seemed inclined. Mainly she treated it like another game and would grab her bath toys (which sit in a basket between her potty and the tab) and throw them in the potty and close the lid. But within the past couple of weeks she’d started playing a lot with her diapers doing things like this
and this
, and I started wondering if maybe she was trying to tell us something.
At daycare she moved up to the toddler class and she is one of the younger kids, if not the youngest. A lot of the older kids use the potty. I talked to her teachers and they said if I thought she was ready, they would take her, too. On the first day (which I think was this past Monday) she went and used the potty successfully with everyone else. So we started trying at home. Essentially we’re guessing and putting her on the potty at typical times we’d think she’d use it and we’re guessing correctly about two times a day. We’re not to the point when she actively tells us she needs to go. I think she is still figuring out how everything fits together. I guess I should probably read a book about this but after my fiasco with “sleep training,” I’m inclined to go with common sense. And until she learns what the sensation of needing to go is, and is able to communicate that to us in time to get to the bathroom, I don’t think we can make the next step. Next step in my mind is pull-ups or big girl underwear. We’ll see how it goes. I still think she’s pretty young and I expect a few bumps along the way. I’m excited she is even interested in the potty as something other than a receptacle for toys! Maybe I’ll break down and read some typical potty training advice but right now “experts” are bugging me.
In general, I’m really enjoying toddlerhood. Zoe’s communicating a lot more. She says please, milk, more, and shoe in sign language, for example and random words pop out, or at least what sound like words to me, like “that’s it.” She’s still hard to understand. Diaper is something like “die-puh” and hello is something like “hiyoo!” but we’re getting there. She’s very independent and wants to do a lot of things herself. She also has very definite ideas about shoes. Sometimes I’ll grab a pair and she shakes her head and goes to grab another set. Very often they do not match and she’s discarded the ones that would be really cute with her outfit, but I have chosen not to care. Moving on! Not going to argue with an 18-month-old over shoes, especially when I know I won’t win. At least not without a lot of tears and screaming and who needs that in the morning before you’ve had any coffee? She also occasionally shows us she’s ready to go to sleep by doing things like walking to her bed and lying down (lol).
She’s pretty fearless. She’s gotten into the phase where she wants to climb up on everything, furniture, boxes, whatever. She’s doing the same at daycare and while one teacher likes that Zoe is “rough and tumble” and admires the fact that she doesn’t cry very often when she falls or jumps off things, another teacher has asked us to remind Zoe that her “walking feet” belong on the ground so we stay safe. We’re trying to reinforce this at home but have had some pretty funny experiences at playgrounds when the child launches herself off equipment. And without fail she always wants to go down the biggest slide, try to climb the big kids’ stuff (and her little legs and arms are often too short to reach the rungs), and generally is pretty rough and tumble. She likes climbing up the stairs outside our apartment and will consent to having her hand held.
She’s also very affectionate. She gives lots of kisses and hugs. Sometimes I think I miss her infancy, when she was so tiny and I held her more. But this phase is pretty exciting, too. She’s now more than half my length (not that that’s hard, I’m a shortie) and developing more into her own person every day.
Next update: thoughts on my novel and publishing.
The big Zoe news is that she has started using the potty, more or less. She’s 18 months old and I assumed we’d be waiting till around two before real “training” started. All we’d done was introduced her to the potty and let her sit on it whenever she seemed inclined. Mainly she treated it like another game and would grab her bath toys (which sit in a basket between her potty and the tab) and throw them in the potty and close the lid. But within the past couple of weeks she’d started playing a lot with her diapers doing things like this
and this
, and I started wondering if maybe she was trying to tell us something.At daycare she moved up to the toddler class and she is one of the younger kids, if not the youngest. A lot of the older kids use the potty. I talked to her teachers and they said if I thought she was ready, they would take her, too. On the first day (which I think was this past Monday) she went and used the potty successfully with everyone else. So we started trying at home. Essentially we’re guessing and putting her on the potty at typical times we’d think she’d use it and we’re guessing correctly about two times a day. We’re not to the point when she actively tells us she needs to go. I think she is still figuring out how everything fits together. I guess I should probably read a book about this but after my fiasco with “sleep training,” I’m inclined to go with common sense. And until she learns what the sensation of needing to go is, and is able to communicate that to us in time to get to the bathroom, I don’t think we can make the next step. Next step in my mind is pull-ups or big girl underwear. We’ll see how it goes. I still think she’s pretty young and I expect a few bumps along the way. I’m excited she is even interested in the potty as something other than a receptacle for toys! Maybe I’ll break down and read some typical potty training advice but right now “experts” are bugging me.
In general, I’m really enjoying toddlerhood. Zoe’s communicating a lot more. She says please, milk, more, and shoe in sign language, for example and random words pop out, or at least what sound like words to me, like “that’s it.” She’s still hard to understand. Diaper is something like “die-puh” and hello is something like “hiyoo!” but we’re getting there. She’s very independent and wants to do a lot of things herself. She also has very definite ideas about shoes. Sometimes I’ll grab a pair and she shakes her head and goes to grab another set. Very often they do not match and she’s discarded the ones that would be really cute with her outfit, but I have chosen not to care. Moving on! Not going to argue with an 18-month-old over shoes, especially when I know I won’t win. At least not without a lot of tears and screaming and who needs that in the morning before you’ve had any coffee? She also occasionally shows us she’s ready to go to sleep by doing things like walking to her bed and lying down (lol).
She’s pretty fearless. She’s gotten into the phase where she wants to climb up on everything, furniture, boxes, whatever. She’s doing the same at daycare and while one teacher likes that Zoe is “rough and tumble” and admires the fact that she doesn’t cry very often when she falls or jumps off things, another teacher has asked us to remind Zoe that her “walking feet” belong on the ground so we stay safe. We’re trying to reinforce this at home but have had some pretty funny experiences at playgrounds when the child launches herself off equipment. And without fail she always wants to go down the biggest slide, try to climb the big kids’ stuff (and her little legs and arms are often too short to reach the rungs), and generally is pretty rough and tumble. She likes climbing up the stairs outside our apartment and will consent to having her hand held.
She’s also very affectionate. She gives lots of kisses and hugs. Sometimes I think I miss her infancy, when she was so tiny and I held her more. But this phase is pretty exciting, too. She’s now more than half my length (not that that’s hard, I’m a shortie) and developing more into her own person every day.
Next update: thoughts on my novel and publishing.
Monday
For the Grandmas
Taken by our friends Laurie and Jarrad on Halloween (obviously). We misplaced our camera for a couple of weeks after our move but finally found it recently. New pics should be coming soon. We took several this weekend.
Thursday
Lots of Change in the Air
In addition to a new President-Elect, the Stullover household has faced a lot of change this past week. While Nate and I toasted our new president on Tuesday night, we also celebrated our house closing finally going through. We had signed the paperwork earlier on Tuesday morning. After it was all done, our realtor said, “Now that the deal is closed I can tell you that it almost fell through.” Apparently, the lender had agreed with the buyer that the down payment would be three percent. One or two days before our original closing date, the lender told them they had to come up with 10 percent or no deal. Luckily the buyers managed to come up with several thousand dollars over the next few days, but it delayed the closing for a little over a week. And while we were of course wondering what the heck was going on, I’m sure the buyers were highly stressed as well.
The house sale is great on multiple levels. We are no longer paying rent and mortgage, we can begin paying off some credit card debt that we’ve accumulated (especially when getting the house ready to sell), and we can finally settle into our new city. Nate and I have both been able to get in a few workouts in this week, which has felt amazing, and last weekend we got to go to some fun events and feel like Austinites again.
On Friday, we went to our friends’ house to have Zoe tag along to trick or treat. She speaks isolated words and is often hard to understand, so saying “trick or treat” was not an option this year. However, this did not hold her up her in the least. She’d run up to people’s front doors, but didn’t seem very interested in the candy. She often walked around whoever was handing out the treats in an attempt to go into their homes. As always, she was very curious and interested in people.
Our fun weekend continued. First we went to the Texas Book Festival. We weren’t able to get organized enough to go to panels, but we did walk through the book/exhibitor tents and we listened to Terry Hendrix at the music tent. Then we met up with some friends and walked down Congress to go to the Dia de los Muertos event at Mexic-Arte. We had some beer and ate some food and Zoe danced A LOT. It was pretty funny. She kept walking up to groups of people and breaking out into dance. Nate and I took turns following her around because she ranged pretty far from the group. At one point, an older Mexican woman walked up to touch Zoe’s face in an effort to avoid giving her ojo. Nate has heard about this from my family, so he took it all in stride saying, “Do what you gotta do.” Zoe hadn’t taken a nap that day, but all the dancing wore her out. After we left, she fell asleep in her car seat before we had reached the first stop light.
On Monday, Zoe moved up to the next room at her daycare, the toddler room. It always makes me nervous when she moves up because she is the youngest and the other kids seem so big. But all of her other teachers have told me not to worry because she stands up for herself. (And having been the recipient of a few of her looks, I can tell you that the girl has a stare that says, Huh, you talking to ME? It’s pretty funny for a one year old). On Monday when I picked her up in her new room I saw a little boy kiss her cheek three or four times in a row. Her new teacher says that another little girl likes to touch Zoe’s cheeks. I can sympathize; they are pretty cute. I’ve also been told that some of the older girls have taken Zoe under their wings. So, all is good. Lots of change but I’m hoping things start to calm down soon.
The house sale is great on multiple levels. We are no longer paying rent and mortgage, we can begin paying off some credit card debt that we’ve accumulated (especially when getting the house ready to sell), and we can finally settle into our new city. Nate and I have both been able to get in a few workouts in this week, which has felt amazing, and last weekend we got to go to some fun events and feel like Austinites again.
On Friday, we went to our friends’ house to have Zoe tag along to trick or treat. She speaks isolated words and is often hard to understand, so saying “trick or treat” was not an option this year. However, this did not hold her up her in the least. She’d run up to people’s front doors, but didn’t seem very interested in the candy. She often walked around whoever was handing out the treats in an attempt to go into their homes. As always, she was very curious and interested in people.
Our fun weekend continued. First we went to the Texas Book Festival. We weren’t able to get organized enough to go to panels, but we did walk through the book/exhibitor tents and we listened to Terry Hendrix at the music tent. Then we met up with some friends and walked down Congress to go to the Dia de los Muertos event at Mexic-Arte. We had some beer and ate some food and Zoe danced A LOT. It was pretty funny. She kept walking up to groups of people and breaking out into dance. Nate and I took turns following her around because she ranged pretty far from the group. At one point, an older Mexican woman walked up to touch Zoe’s face in an effort to avoid giving her ojo. Nate has heard about this from my family, so he took it all in stride saying, “Do what you gotta do.” Zoe hadn’t taken a nap that day, but all the dancing wore her out. After we left, she fell asleep in her car seat before we had reached the first stop light.
On Monday, Zoe moved up to the next room at her daycare, the toddler room. It always makes me nervous when she moves up because she is the youngest and the other kids seem so big. But all of her other teachers have told me not to worry because she stands up for herself. (And having been the recipient of a few of her looks, I can tell you that the girl has a stare that says, Huh, you talking to ME? It’s pretty funny for a one year old). On Monday when I picked her up in her new room I saw a little boy kiss her cheek three or four times in a row. Her new teacher says that another little girl likes to touch Zoe’s cheeks. I can sympathize; they are pretty cute. I’ve also been told that some of the older girls have taken Zoe under their wings. So, all is good. Lots of change but I’m hoping things start to calm down soon.