As Good as it Gets: February 2010

Hi. How are you? I'm good. I'm finding that I have a whole lot less to blog about these days. That's probably because it's not super interesting to sit down and blog about sitting in a class listening to lecture for about 8 hours a day. There is some interesting stuff but most of it I can't tell you because of HIPAA. Yeah, so there's that...

Maizey is moving right along. She's adjusted really well to her new routine. She's with my mom M-W, usually my mom comes and stays with us, but this week Maizey is down there (hence the free time to write this post). Thursday and Friday she goes to Ryan's mom's house. She often stays the night Thursday nights, which is also really awesome and gives Ry and I some time to go on a date or just hang out. I usually spend all Friday night and Saturdays with her. I look forward to it all week. It's kind of amazing how differently I feel about her and our relationship when I'm not with her 24/7. Being a stay-at-home-mama just wasn't for me. Sooooo hard!

So, what's new on the Maizey front? Well, developmentally she's moving right along. The girl is super coordinated. She does this thing in the shower where she grabs the bar of the little, built-in soap dish thing and then climbs up the wall (still holding on) and hangs with her head upside down. Sound dangerous? It is. Especially because after she hangs for a minute she counts to 3 and lets go, falling into the bath. It's awesome. It keeps me on my toes. She's talking a lot and can easily tell you what she wants. She's not using sentences or even really pairing words, but she is a master at the art of body language and can convey almost everything using her body and single words. She is also a master of manipulation. "Oh, here. Let me grab your finger and take you all over the house. I'll take you to the pantry and beg for 'choc' (chocolate) until you give in--and I'll cry if I have to." Also, she's a performer. My mom and I were at Starbucks yesterday morning before I had to go to school and Maizey was out in front of the bar (where people gather to wait for their drinks) dancing and jumping and talking a mile a minute to strangers. Puttin' on a show. She ran around from table to table waiting for people to look at her dancing and laughing and yelling. She then ran with all of her might to see a doggy, but wasn't paying attention and ran face-first into the side of a table. This caused her to breakdown and I'm pretty sure that I became "that mom" of "that toddler" at that point. Oh well. I think it's adorable and hysterical.

So, I'm really loving school. It's hard and it's challenging, but in ways I didn't anticipate. The workload isn't quite as big as I originally anticipated. And, the tests aren't that hard. Really. It was a lot of hype. In actuality, I'm not working as hard as I should be. I've done well on exams and assignments (half-way through I have an 88%), but as Ryan constantly reminds me--I don't want to just scrape by. He tells me that when my patient is "face-down in the muck," I will probably be hating myself for skipping that chapter in the book. He also paid waaaaaay too much attention during orientation and politely reminds me that my goal of maintaining an 80% in nursing school is actually barely passing (in the crazy nursing-school grade scale) and always says "I don't want someone who barely passed to be taking care of me when I'm in the hospital." I love him and his work ethic, but sometimes I want to punch his work ethic in the face. This is the man that graduated college with perfect attendance. Gag.

Okay, I need to wind down here so I can prepare for the big premiere tonight!!!! Lost is back for its final season and I can't wait for the nuts-o-ness to ensue! 3 hours of crazy tonight!

Here is a random assortment of photos that I managed to scrape together...

I finally loaded up our photos from Xmas tree hunting. It's a little delinquent, but we were in between cameras at the time and used our video camera to take stills. So, it's taken me a bit to remember to do this. Anyway, Ms. Maizey was awfully tired and fell asleep in the back pack. Soooo sweet.Aww...She loved hanging out in the back. And, as always, putting on a show for all the passerbys.
Here she is trying to plead her case about why she should be able to ride in the back with the window down all the way home. Oh the drama. Needless to say, she lost.

Fabulous dahling, I love the fringe.

No, those aren't her mama's sunglasses. They're her very own stylishly oversized sunnies. For all those mornings that follow very long nights. How very young, hip Hollywood.

Couldn't choose between these next two. A fun morning at Jump Planet with mommy and grammy.

Those teeth? Are you kidding?

We're in the middle of---hmm, let's call it a bad hair quarter. More than a day or even a month. This crazy strawberry-blond mop has to be controlled. Thank god for Naartjie and their cute headbands!