Climbing

Micah is a climber! For the past month, I've done my best to keep Micah away from our stairs. Mostly, I figured that he did not need to practice crawling up them, because it would require us to install gates. Last weekend, while we were at my niece's birthday party, Micah crawled across the lower half of their deck, pulled himself up to a standing position on the step to the upper deck, then crawled right on up! I was amazed - he acted as if he had practiced the maneuver dozens of times!

This week, while we were out of town in Atlanta on business, Micah stayed at my parents' house. They have a split-level house, with about 6 or 7 stairs going from the family room level to the entrance level, and then another 12 or so stairs from the entry level up to the bedroom level. Apparently, the very first night at my parents' house, my mom plopped him in front of the stairs to see what he would do (something I've avoided for quite some time!). Micah crawled right over and climbed up the stairs. According to my mother, it was "effortless." We're clearly in trouble - I think it is finally time to install those baby gates!

Computer Woes

As you can see, I'm finally back to blogging after my long absence. I actually have a bunch of blogs I've drafted over the past few weeks that are "in the can" and set to auto-publish over the next few days. I have been going through withrdawal, lately, without my regular blog fix!

Just before Labor Day, my computer started to give me a hard time. It was repeatedly crashing and not saving documents properly. Finally, on Friday, my computer froze. I tried rebooting it, and my computer informed me it did not detect a hard drive. My heart STOPPED in that instant. My life (my work, pictures of Micah, videos, music, tax information, emails, writings, everything) are all wrapped up in this tiny little computer. And worst of all, I have been delinquent about backing up my hard drive.

After a few more tries and a restore session, my computer seemed to boot. At least I could see my files. My computer informed me there was a fatal error on my hard drive, and instructed me to backup my files, shut the computer down and get a new hard drive. I desperately tried to do a complete hard drive backup, but it kept failing. I managed to salvage all of my picture files (at least the ones that were not lost the prior three days), my outlook file, my pictures, my music, and most of my work files. It was a holiday weekend, so I could not get Dell to ship the part until Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Dell guy arrived at my house with a new hard drive.

After swapping out my hard drive (and fixing a few other things that were wrong), I was informed I would have to completely re-load all the software onto my computer. Since the move, I have no idea where my disks are. Dell had to send me fresh disks, and I was not able to start re-loading the software on my computer until Saturday. It took me most of Saturday and Sunday to get my computer up and running and restored, and Sunday afternoon I flew off to Atlanta for work.

This has been a very long week so far - meetings all day every day from 8 until 7. I did get to catch up with an old friend, but these weeks take a lot out of me. To top it all off, I'm flying to Orlando Tuesday through Thursday for another conference next week. I'm off to Minnesota and Chicago in October and Kansas in November. I'm dreading all this travel and time away from Micah :(.

Grab Happy

A friend of mine recently said she was told to "grab happy" wherever she could get it. This was said to her in the context of her struggle with infertility, but I have to say, it really resonates with me. Life is so short, and we all spend so much time stressing and worrying. We all need to focus on trying to "grab happy" wherever we get it.

I think I need to renew my efforts to "grab happy." I have so much happiness in my life right now - a wonderful family, a good job, and amazing friends. Sometimes, I wonder if I truly appreciate all that happiness and hold on to it. My goal is to "grab happy" in the small moments - the beautiful Micah smiles, the cute little snuggles from my dog, and the beautiful rose bush Elliot brought home on my birthday.

Today, I am posting from an airplane far above on my way back home from 4 days in Atlanta (isn't technology wonderful?). It was a long week at the conference, and I've been missing the Micah man terribly. As we were going to the airport, we learned our flight home was canceled. I went through the usual emotions, but after standing in a very long line, a wonderful woman re-booked us on a flight home to an alternate airport. We are actually arriving 20 minutes earlier than planned. So, today I am grabbing happy in the thought that soon I will be on solid ground, snuggling my little man andputting him to bed.

Little Mermaid

Sorry for the long hiatus - my computer hard drive died, and I haven't had access in over one week! I've got a ton of blogs I've been writing, but no way to upload them. I'll catch up over the next few days. For now, however, it's cake time....

Here is a cake I made for my niece Paige's birthday this past weekend. She wanted a Little Mermaid cake. I considered a bunch of different styles, but decided to use the Mattel Shimmer Princess doll and decorate around her. The mound was a strawberry cake, and the bottom layer is chocolate. I made the shells from white chocolate (using candy molds). I wanted to make a Flounder and a Sebastian out of either white chocolate or an edible image, but my printer and computer were malfunctioning and I did not have enough time to make them out of chocolate. I sprinkled some brown sugar to make sand. I also had made coral out of royal icing, but it was not dry enough to attach to the cake. So, here is the end result - not quite what I envisioned, but my niece was thrilled! Funny how I always look at these cakes and see the things that did not happen as I planned.

Family Visit, Daycare and Weaning

Elliot's brother Steven, his wife Jodi and our niece Stephanie arrived here on Sunday afternoon. Micah showed off his skills, bonded with the three of them, and Elliot grilled chicken for dinner. Elliot had to work at Wolf Trap on Sunday night, so I hung out with his family while he was gone. Micah did not nap well Sunday afternoon, so he was ready to go to sleep around 7:15. He went down quickly and easily, and we all sat around watching him on the monitor. When Elliot arrived home, we enjoyed dessert with everyone. We then played a boisterous game of cards - Jodi loves the game "May I," so the four of us sat around playing for a few hours.

On Monday morning, Micah woke up bright and early. He had his breakfast, played for a bit, then went down for his nap. When he woke up, he said goodbye to Steven, Jodi and Stephanie, and we bundled him off to his first day at the new daycare around 11:30! Elliot walked him over there, dropped off his stuff, and did the initial check-in process. He then met the rest of us at the Original Pancake House - one of my favorite breakfast/brunch spots! After brunch, Elliot's family packed up their things and left for home. It was a nice visit, although a bit short. I felt terrible that they drove all that way for only a few short hours of Micah time.

We picked Micah up from daycare at 5:30, and he seemed to have a great day. We were pleased with his caretakers, and he was in a good mood. Our only challenge: Micah would not take a nap at daycare. Not really a surprise - there is so much going on there! Hopefully, it will get better with time.

On Monday night, the ladies from my playgroup took me out to celebrate my birthday. It was a nice dinner at Clydes on Tower Oaks, and we had a great time catching up. I cannot believe how the summer has just flown by.

We sent Micah back to daycare again today. This time, I dropped him off. He cried a bit when I put him down, crawled over to me, started whining "Mama" and put his arms up to be held. He was so cute. I think he was just in a clingy mood today. When I finally left, he was smiling and playing with a toy while Carla (his primary caretaker) held him.

As of this weekend, Micah is officially weaned - or at least he is no longer nursing. He actually decided to wean himself on Saturday - he refused to nurse both Saturday and Sunday, so we are all finished. He is still getting 1/2 breast milk and 1/2 formula, and will for the next few weeks until we run out. I am hoping to start playing with sippy cups again - hopefully we can get him to drop the bottle and take his milk by sippy cup.