Top 10

So after having my parents big house to myself for the past week, I've mentally compiled a list of all the things I will miss when I return home to our little apartment.

1.) TiVo - I have been LOVING having this feature. I record all the shows/movies Jared doesn't want to watch with me, and then watch them during the day while he's at school. Parfait!
2,) Knowing no one is going to knock on the door for me (and therefore feeling no pressure to get showered and dressed in the morning)
3.) Not having to walk my trash to the dumpster across the parking lot all the time
4.) Running outside (not scared of the rapist on the River trail) and having lots of hills - Provo is so flat
5.) Having a dog to go on runs with, and to entertain Emmett
6.) Having my sister Kendall's closet to choose from. Shhh! (But really I should say closets, no lie. This girl has run of the basement and has seperate closets for her everyday clothes, her shoes, and her winter clothes.) ...And to think me and Jared have to share our dinky less-than-full-size closet. haha.
7.) Not being in my own home = zero need to do my daily household chores. It gives me an excuse to lounge all day guilt free!
8.) Going out about town and not having to worry about what I look like because I know I won't run into anyone I know
9.) The high pressure water squirter at the kitchen sink that makes doing dishes a breeze
10.) Turning on the fireplace with the flick of a switch while it's snowing outside.

My only concern is Emmett (and me) getting too used to this luxuriously large house and feeling cooped up in our little apartment when we go home!

10 months

A few days behind on the monthly stats, but here they are nonetheless!

• 23 pds, 28 inches long. (75th percentile for weight, and still about 35th for height -preemies take longer to catch up in height- both scaled according to adjusted age)
• is a MOVER - crawls like a speed demon and gets into anything and everything (although his favorites are things that are potentially dangerous)
• Is OBSESSED with my family's dog, Rufio. We are still housesitting, and Rufio is the main attraction 24/7. You see Rufio walk by and then all the sudden Emmett comes barrelling along behind him full speed. Whenever I get up to make a bottle or something I tell Ruf to keep an eye on Emmett for me (and he does pretty good at it!)
• ALSO OBSESSED with the vacuum. That has been his #1 motivator in picking up his crawl pace.

• Stands and moves along furniture, and just recently started walking behind his walker (still slowly), and very proud of himself

• Has been trying to pull up on stuff for awhile, but just starting to really get it down.
• Hair seems to be getting lighter and lighter as it grows in
• Eating pretty much everything, I give him bits of whatever we eat. Loves pieces of lunch meat and cheese.
• Knows how to "give kisses". If you say the word "kiss" or making a puckering noise, he leans in a plants a generous, wet one on you
• Can stand on his own for a few seconds at a time if I steady him first
• Loves bathtime, swims all around like a crazy person and plays with all his toys

• 

  I love this picture because he's making such a Jared face!

  At his Neonatal followup, a psychologist tested all his fine motor skills and she sad he tested at or above his birth age! (Things like hand coordination, feeding himself, responding to his own name, being able to do an action on command, and she even placed a pencil and piece of paper in front of him and he picked it up and scribbled on the paper! I was amazed!)
• Loves Put in/Take Out toys and Cause and Effect toys (and Baby Einstein Dvds!)

Hmmm...

I saw the most "interesting" discussion earlier on Good Things Utah (Utahs version of The View) that I couldn't help but post about it. They advertised the segment by saying "Stay tuned to see what addiction women are struggling with - the equivalent of pornography for women." So I'm thinking... shopping? tanning? working out? You know, the normal addictive behaviors for women.

Turns out their guest speaker was talking about reading. At first they began by saying "romance novels" (which would make more sense), but upon further clarification they explained they meant books like Twilight. She was crazy! She went on to say how women are getting addicted to being "turned on" by Edward, to the point that they are holding their spouses up to an impossible standard, and even failing to get turned on in their real life relationship anymore. Wow. wow. I don't know who the people are that led to this lady being on the air, but they must be some unbelievable Twi-hards.

Her thesis was that men are very visual and women are emotional, therefore reading is our porn.

THEN she said we should moderate how much we let our children read, in order to prevent them from getting unrealistic expectations about life and relationships, and to prevent them from getting turned on at too young of an age.

Here is my argument with this whole ludicrous theory:
We might as well ban every romantic movie ever made for "giving girls unrealistic perceptions of life." Ladies probably shouldn't have fantasized about Clark Gable all those years ago, considering it supposedly has such ramifications in marriages.

I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. haha. Forget about enchancing your literary knowlege, increasing your vocabulary, cultivating yourself, and learning the power of creativity and imagination... apparently reading is something that we should limit for our children these days. I am all for censoring the content of what they are reading, but other than that I will fully encourage reading in our home. I would so much prefer my children read than waste their life away in front of a TV or video game.

Anyway, I just got a kick out of that interview and thought I would share!

*In the defense of Good Things Utah, the show is not normally so odd and I enjoy watching it. They just happened to have a special guest on today :-)

Cassie in Real Life

The problem with the blogosphere is the overwhelming amount of blogs that gush about their perfect, Brady Bunch, unrealistic lives. Either that or most the people I read about happened to find the worlds perfect man and gave birth to angels.

I know we are supposed to focus on the positive, and for the most part I try to do that too. But journals/blogs are supposed to be an accurate glimpse into the daily life of the writer - Flaws and all. I want to look back 20 years from now and remember the real, raw emotions of this time of my life and not just the facade that gets put on for others. I hate the competitiveness - people having to prove their life is as wonderful as their neighbors.

And it's not that I'm not affected by it. I hate the guilt I feel when I get sucked into looking at others blogs and wondering how they just seem to have it all together.

Granted this post is fueled by the difficult day I've had today. Really when I lay it all out, it's not that the events are that horrible, it's just one of those days. My family left this morning to go to Newport Beach and Disneyland for a whole week. I would love to be there with them. But Jared couldn't miss class and it was planned with pretty short notice, so here we are. The guy my sister's dating is even on the trip. And I'm not going to lie - I have feelings of hostility about this. Why is he on my family vacation I can't go on? I know it's not his fault he happened to have the money and time, but I still can't help resent it.

While my parents are gone, they needed someone to come take care of the animals. So for the next week I will be staying at their house. This morning I woke up and tried to get everything in our apartment packed for a week (which is a big deal when there's a baby involved) while simultaneously getting myself ready, feeding Emmett breakfast, entertaining him, bathing him, and getting him dressed as well. I loaded the car up, stuck Emmett in, and headed up the hill to my moms (it's about a 25-30 min drive depending on traffic.) It was Emmett's naptime and I was hoping he'd fall asleep... but instead he ended up screaming most of the way. So there I was trying to sing Pat-a-Cake, Old McDonald, and other songs at the top of my lungs to ease his tears.

We arrive at my Mom's, and I set Emmett down to let the dog out and get things unpacked out of the car. Emmett still hasn't taken his nap, and now that he's in an unfamiliar place there's no chance of it. He's clingy and hungry but won't let me set him down to make him a bottle. I am on the verge of tears, wishing Jared was out of school to help me with all this, and even more so wishing I was at Newport Beach too. Eventually we both got so worn out and exhausted, that he finally fell asleep in my arms and I joined him not long after. It was a blissful 30 minutes until the dog started pounding on the glass and woke us both up.

(Deep Exhale) Let's just say I am excited to watch a movie and go to sleep tonight. Here's to hoping that Emmett at least somewhat sleeps in his unfamiliar bed.

PS- Sorry about the rant, sometimes a good vent session is just therapeutic. And I have to say, I feel better already :-)

Basketball Mania

I'm currently typing to you via my (*our) brand new dell laptop, freshly out of the box. And I'm stoked about it. You should see our old one. It's pathetic really (and it shouldnt be, it's only 2 years old). But obviously we didn't take that great of care of it. The shift key is completely missing (thanks to Emmett). I just press the little stub where the key used to be when I capitalize something. lol. The CD drive is crooked and doesnt play discs. There are scratches on the casing, and last time I tried to print something, the silver plug part of the usb adapter decided it wanted to stay in the port when I removed the cord (and thus jamming it for any future use).

Basically, this new computer has been a long time coming. And it is glorious.

There has been a lot of sports mania going on in our house lately, and I felt it would be an injustice in the record keeping of our life if I didn't include it.

Jared and I went to the BYU vs UNLV game last weekend, and had a blast cheering on "The Jimmer Team". Let's be honest, the screaming masses in the arena don't even realize the rest of the team exists. I felt bad for them when they all ran out onto the court for their introduction. It went like this:  "And now Ladies and Gentleman, what you've all been waiting for.... JIMMMMMMER!" (as a picture of his face flashes onto all four sides of the jumbotron, and the digital word display down on the court is constantly running the word "JIMMER!!!" I almost expected the announcer to add as a hushed, side note "oh yeah, and the rest of the Cougars".

Seriosuly all this hype about him is hilarious. He is the KING of Provo. Someone made an ENORMOUS cut-out of Jimmers face and people were passing it back and forth in the stands. You just see the giant Jimmer head surfing the waves. Cosmo caught a glimspe of it, and came and got it so we were lucky enough to also witness the giant jimmer face run all the way down from the top of the arena to the bottom, where it was then paraded around the basketball court while everyone chanted his name. (You know how everyone always yells "SCORE-BOARD, SCORE-BOARD" in that deep monotone chant? Yeah it's been replaced with "JIM-MER, JIM-MER".

If all of that isn't enough, check out this article written on ESPN. This is what happens when a girl in Provo tries to go against the masses. Rebellion. But really, who does she think she is?

On top of it, Jerry Sloan throwing in the towel for the Jazz has really had Jared in a tizzy. Last night, as soon as Jared caught word, he went crazy searching every article, opinion, commentary, etc he could find about the situation while simultaneously playing ESPN on the TV. I finally went and layed down with Emmett and ended up falling asleep.

Jared came in around midnight and said "What are you doing? Get out here and watch something with me." Then he followed it up with "I just want a little Cassie time."

I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed and was like "oh, I'm so glad to know it's Cassie time now that it's midnight and I can't keep my eyes open. Because from 10:30 until now it's been 'Jerry' time."

Jared just laughed and acknowledged he "got a little carried away".

Story of my life. LoL

*Update: Jared just read my post and feels it was unfair that I forgot to mention he was at school from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm that day. And that he was "distraught" and that he "feels like his childhood dog just died". So take that into account as you form your opinion of this post :-)

Thank You Napoleon

This morning I had to take Emmett in for another round of shots. The appointment happened to be scheduled right when it was time for him to go down for a nap, so he was sleepy and irritable already. I felt like such a bad mom forcing him to get dressed and get buckled in his carseat (not to mention get stuck with needles) when he kept rubbing his tired, red eyes. I promised him I'd give him a special surprise for being such a good boy.

He was so sad when they gave him his shots (I think the tiredness exacerbated it), that I left feeling like I was in need of a good treat too. Fortunately, his Pediatrician is located right next to Kneaders Bakery- one of my favorite places ever! I quickly decided this was definitely a Kneaders day.

Everytime I go, I stare into the dispay case longingly at the Napoleon, but it's not Jared's type of dessert so we end up getting something else we both enjoy and share it. Look at this picture and you'll see what I mean

Layers of flaky crust filled with cream. It is the perfect consistency for Emmett to share too! So we ordered one to go and went home.

Emmett got his promised surprise...

And turns out we found the cure for "post-vaccines-sad-baby" syndrome!

After filling that cute little belly with a few bites of tasty Napoleon, Em finally drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

Ahhh, my gratitude Napoleon, for making a happy baby AND mommy.

Salivating

I really, really want this watch.

If only I happened to have $100 to drop on a whim...

 Until then I'll have to satisfy my craving by posting about it instead. I'll let you know if it works. Although if it does, you might find me posting about things I want daily!

Footnote: I've been giving my living room a total facelift the past few weeks and I'm really excited about it! I have a couple accessories I want to paint and then I'll post pictures!