Hey Texas--

(sorry Tammy.)

I got pricked.

Don't hurt my mommy!

Today, I went to the allergist to try to figure out why I am always sniffling and sneezing. Wow, it sucked.

30 pricks on my forearms, and then 10 injections in my upper arms. I'm extremely allergic to cats (good thing I have two), dust mites and tree pollens, mildly allergic to dogs and some other stuff. None of this news was a surprise. Got some allergy meds, let's hope they help. The red and swollen = allergic.

I can't believe we are leaving for Chicago next week. I have so much work to do before I go. I'm a little worried about a road trip with a baby and Big Man, but we will see.......let's just say Big Man and I have different traveling styles. I'm the stop at every interesting thing I see type, and Big Man stops for gas. period. Ugh. At least I'm reasonably confident the baby will need frequent stops.

Babywatch:

status = not pregnant

better luck in June...

More Mother's Day pics.

I spent a lot of time taking Dani pics while Big Man slept.

Overall, Mother's Day............no big deal.

I'm pretty lucky every day.

Big Man is a loving husband and daddy.

He cooks dinner every night.

Loves me a bunch. Couldn't ask for more. Man, I took one awesome picture of Big Man holding Dani while she stares at his big arms, but, since you can see his face........can't post.....until I reload the "officer friendly" coverup..............until then, more video:

A Mother's Day thought

When I was pregnant, I used to joke that I wasn't worried if I'd be able to handle being a mom because crackheads and teenagers do it all the time and the kids turn out okay. Really, I wasn't worried because I had such a great example in my mom. (love you mom!)

Today, I learned that Dani is a fiend for prunes. Flailing her arms eating them as fast as I will give her spoonfuls. For her sake (and mine) I only gave her 1/2 jar in hopes of avoiding the great diaper blowout of 2009.

Two videos, here. Dani enjoying the heck out of her bouncy bounce:

And, Dani, getting ready for a nap today.

That's all. Off to eat some chocolate or something.

Another first.

Last night, Dani had a bottle around 4:45pm. She went down around 6:30pm, and I didn't wake her to change/feed her around 9:30 like I usually do. I figured if I has to wake up early, so be it, but I wanted to see how long she'd sleep. She went to sleep like this:

(It may be hard to actually spot the baby in the field of dots!)

Around 5:30am I heard movement and went into her room and found this:

(I know, lots of dots!) But yes, baby on tummy! Too sleepy to figure out how to get back over!

Sleepy baby says, help me flip over!

Then, we got up, had a bottle, and had some fun in mommy's bed with Mr. Frog.

Also hit baby's first garage sale today were we got a ton of clothes and toys for $5! Woo hoo!

More video!

Took a couple of videos of Dani tonight. She's already sleeping because Big Man had to clear out so someone could look at our house so she had no afternoon nap; they stayed for about 5 minutes before informing our realtor that our house was "too much work for the money". Honestly? Are they $%*^(& kidding me? We've got it listed for $20k below our appraisal, and we've done a ton to the GD house. Oh well. Someone will buy it. Or not. Until the sellers cancel our purchase contract, we've got to keep it on the market. At this point, I'm wildly indifferent.

I'm posting one vid of Dani. I'm working up the courage to post the second, but I'm singing to her and am feeling a little shy about it...

Golden oldie.

Facebook is retarded.

I spend a bunch of time on facebook, and realize it is a complete waste. THIS really put it in perspective for me:

Nothing to see here, II.

Not so much new here. Big Man is at the tail end of a few days off. Work's been crazy, crazy, crazy and I can barely keep up. Kid, cute as ever.
Smiley, happy people we are.

All for a good cause.

Fighting Alzheimer's with cuteness:

Today was the Alzheimer's walk! Team Hanson, was in the hizzouse, with mascot Dani leading the way. The weather was beautiful and the event was great. Thanks to all who helped make it a success.

Dani was dressed in purple, the official color of the day.

She was awesome with the crowds, loud music, dogs barking--totally taking after her mommy and liking being in the mix of things!

Dani sticks her tongue out at Alzheimers! Bah!

An overnight addition.

Big Man came home this morning and asked me if I put a bird's nest on the deck (no). On our

back deck there's a shelf about 5' high, which holds my little radio/cd player we use when we are grilling. Looks like some birds were busy in the past 24 hours! I said we should leave it to see if baby birds arrive. Big Man predicts that if we leave it, we will be dealing with head-level angry mommy birds trying to attack our faces as we walk in the back door. Not too sure what we are going to do with it, but it's here for now. It's amazing when you see them up close how much work must go into them.

Dani and I went to the mall today; I needed to go to the Sprint store. I'm feeling much better today, so the huge list of things I had to do today seemed way less daunting. Any trip out means no sleepers on the kiddo--woo hoo!

It's nice and sunny, and just feels good to take the kid outside. I unpacked all her summer clothes today, in anticipation of the upcoming warm!

Another Dani first today--her first meat (stage 1 turkey in turkey broth). She could not contain her disgust. I snuck in a few bites between the sweet 'taters which she seems to enjoy.

Sweet potato face makes Dani look like the Joker:
Big Man got to sleep during the day, so he's actually up and around for the next few hours! :)

Death warmed over.

This pic was in the camera, daddy must have taken it this morning:
Death warmed over.........

that's how I feel. Allergies are off the chart bad today--I went home from work at 2:30 because I could barely function. Understandibly, Big Man took that as a sign he could get some extra sleep, so I'm sneezing and sniffing all over my kid, who has been extra cute, perhaps to cheer me up.

She loves to chew on the bill of her stuffed duckie from grandma. She can scream with delight on demand right now, and is laying on the couch shrieking, just for fun!Hopefully I will feel like a human being tomorrow and can take her somewhere while Big Man sleeps.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying. (Robert Herrick) So true.
How is it possible that just a few short months ago, Dani was this tiny, little fragile thing:

And now she is this strong, vibrant, smiley little person!

It is really becoming so much fun! We had some peas, sweet potatoes, and cereal this evening--and she's getting much better with the swallowing and not making such a mess. I did have to pull the bib out of her mouth every two seconds--I would be filling the spoon, and she'd be sticking the bib in her mouth to suck on it!

I am blissfully unaware of current affairs. I spoke to my mom tonight, and she asked me what the weather would be like for the Alzheimer's walk this weekend (no idea), if I heard about the new tattoo Barbie (nope) and what I thought of Joe Biden's comments this morning (are you kidding me? the closest I get to current is the newsweek magazine in my bathroom, so by next week, I should know what Joe Biden said today!) I am, however, aware that Elmo likes squares and puppies, and that Grover prefers rectangles, while Cookie Monster is more of a circle guy. At least that's what the shapes book I seem to read daily has taught me.

I don't miss the real world too much. I miss my friends and wish they'd come over at night more, as I'm usually stranded at home with a sleeping baby by 7pm, but that's about it.

Someone close to me, who wishes to remain nameless, is pregnant, and I'm looking forward to that! And, we are working on baby number 2. No word on that yet, but working on it when we ships passing in the night aren't too exhausted!

No, mommy, please don't make me

eat these green beans! YUK!

I tried them. They were downright awful!

Trip to CT.

Very warm weekend--Dani finally got to wear shorts and have bare feet, once she got up Saturday morning.

Dani, Daddy and Grandma went to Connecticut on Saturday. Mommy stayed home. It was a long trip but Dani had lots of fun. Here's the whole gang:

We had some more fun with the video camera today-Dani is getting good at rolling over:

Grandma's visit.

Dani, helping Daddy respond to calls on his police radio:

Grandma is visiting this week. Dani's having lots of fun.

In yet another development with our house on the market, the hot water heater decided to die today. Big Man called to ask what plumber we've used in the past--had to make an emergency call at 5:20 because the hot water was leaking onto the basement floor. Right now, a new one is being installed. They literally came within 1/2 hour.

I will have to call our realtor to add "new hot water heater" to the recently added "new stove" addition to our listing. GAH!

Slow week.

I've got to head to family court tomorrow. I hate family court. I swear, this cartoon is right on point:

My mother in law is visiting from Chicago, so it will probably be a light week post-wise.

Long weekend.

It was a long weekend of political goings on. Dani was particularly happy and friendly at the events we took her to and Big Man was a good sport too. I won't bore you with more political pictures. Rather, here's Big Man, lifting Dani up (and down and up and down) for lots of giggles!

I was charged with the task of cooking dinner tonight, and thought I would grill. Being a charcoal grill novice, I heavily emphasized the "char" on the chicken and sausage--seriously, it was black. Good thing I made 5 chicken thighs and 6 sausage links, because once we cut off all the char there wasn't much left. Oops. Maybe I should leave grillin' to the Big Man.

My kid can now prop herself up, and roll herself to all degrees (up to about 178 degrees for you nerds) at will. Basically from her tummy she can flip to her back. From her back, she can roll to her tummy, but she keeps her top knee bent so she isn't flipped over all the way. Here's her, propped up like a big girl--all she needs is a cordless phone in her hands!
Dani has been super fun these days. I'm really starting to feel comfortable in this whole mom-ness. I'm sure I'm not supposed to actually admit that it was kind of a relief to be back at work, when I went back--I know that having Daddy at home during the day made the transition easier! But, now Dani is happy, almost all the time, and smiley, and fun and giggly, and it's just so much fun.

I'm not pregnant yet. Found out the old fashioned way that I wasn't pregnant on Friday, so we will mark the calendar and try again in May.

Big Man's mom is flying in tomorrow for a week! She's going to have so much fun with Dani!

As promised, here's the link to the personalized books website: http://little1sbooks.com/

It's also to the left. These books really are great, and will now become one of my staple kids presents.

Democrats everywhere!

I went to the spring meeting of the Democratic Rural Conference of the State Democtratic Committee this weekend. Fun! Big Man brought Dani for a few hours so she could meet lots of people. Then they went home and I got to stay and mingle with the politicos, enjoy the plentiful food and open bar, woo hoo! Mommy's first night without the baby!

Her jeans were such a pain in the ass to get on and off, but were absolutely adorable!

A big shout out to Nancy who gave Dani the "Tiny Democrat" onesie.

Outside the Gideon Putnam:

With Senator Schumer:

Last night with Governor Paterson:

I had a nice sit down with the Governor today, with three other county chairs. We took some photos afterwards.

Back home and chillin' on the couch:


And, Big Man has the night off. Tomorrow's our committee's brunch with Congressman Tonko. Then, we rest, and Big Man's mom flies in on Monday for a week. She's going to have so much fun with Dani!