Ice Skating

Riley finished her first Ice Skating lessons today. She's starting again in a few weeks. Debbie skated with us today. We didn't know she was coming, so we were surprised. Riley was excited to show off her new skates and what she's learned in skating so far.







Rest of the set here.

In other weekend news, we had poker and everyone had fun trying to solve the puzzles I got Doug for Christmas and Riley and I had fun playing the new game she got from the Gotobeds!

I Will Not!

I'll warn you before I get started that parts of this story maybe too much information for you.

Sunday didn't start out so well. Riley woke up at about 8:45am, came into my room to let me know she was awake and would be playing in her room. I got up to go to the bathroom, I was feeling gas pains. It all went downhill from there. I started to get more intensified pains, began to lose control of my bowels, then I got very cold and started sweating like crazy. I had no idea what was going on, but I felt terrible. So I'm in the batroom trying to deal with this when Riley walks in and states she has to go potty. I tell her that it's going to be awhile and remind her that there are 2 other bathrooms in the house. She insists on waiting. So she's just standing there in my face staring at me not saying a word. That starts to drive me nuts. Then all the sudden I start to feel sick to my stomach. I think I'm going to throw up. I don't know what to do, I can't risk moving for fear of what might come out the other end. I call out a couple times for Doug to come and help me and also get Riley out of there and to a different bathroom, but of course he's sleeping on his good ear and can't hear me. I say to Riley,

"Riley, can you please go and get daddy for me?"
To which she replies, "I will not"

I will not, are you f'in kidding me! She must be kidding. I try again.

"Riley, please go get daddy for me, I really need him"
To which she replies again, "I will not"

What the F#@! Is this kid serious? I will not? What am I going to do? As I'm quickly surveying the bathroom trying to make a game plan, I hear Nyssa russling around on her bed. Nyssa, my saviour. I call out to her.

"Nyssa, Nyssa come!" She immediately complies.

"Nyssa, get daddy. Nyssa, get daddy." To which she very obediently complies. I'm thinking, thank god I trained her to do that. Who knew what was something funny and playful would actually be so handy? I hear Doug's voice and I call for him. He manages to get Riley out of the bathroom, but never comes through with an alternative location for my puke. His answer was "get off the pot" which as I stated really wasn't an option. Luckily, the urge to throw up subsided.

I'm still trying to deal with what's happening to me. When I hear Riley break into one hell of a diva tantrum. This was unlike any other she's had. She went into her room, slammed the door, and stood pushing on the door, trying desperately not to allow her father into the room, all the while crying and screaming. I was able to get my bowels and cold sweats under control long enough to go to her room and try to go in. (Doug was standing outside it, playing with his iPhone). Riley yells, "No don't come in" and I can feel her pushing on the door. I say, "Riley it's mommy!" and she lets me in. Now she's crying even harder. I pick her up and ask what's wrong? She doesn't have an answer. It turns out she was scared because something was wrong with me. She wanted to play in her room, and she wanted to use the bathroom of her choice which was occupied, and she wasn't going to budge on any of those things. I tell her I'm just not feeling well, but I'll be okay. She's able to stop crying long enough to say, "Are you done in the bathroom, now?" To which I reply, "for a few minutes I think" She goes in to go potty and I go lay down. As soon as she's done, she runs back into her room, slams her door, and is refusing to let Doug in and crying again.

I tell Doug, "She's upset because something's wrong with me and she wanted me to tend to all her needs this morning. You'll need to console her." He replies with, "I know". Then there is a few minutes of silence. All I can hear is her crying though the baby monitor. Next thing I know I hear:

Daddy: "Riley if you come out, I'll take you to Mcdonald's to get french fry thingys(breakfast hashbrowns). It's still early and they are serving them."
Riley: "Yeah!!! (stops crying and opens the door). YES! I'm happy now! Can I get two?"

Nice bribe Doug!

I had one more round of uncontrollable bowels, cold sweats, and almost puking and then I slept until 12:30. My stomach was off all day, but I was fine. I have no idea what was wrong with me?

Squiggly Ears

We had a fun Saturday.

First up was swimming lessons in the morning. Last week, Riley swam all by herself with just 2 swimming noodles. She was very excited about it, so she convinced her Daddy to come to swimming lessons this morning so she could show him. It was safety day today though, so she barely got to go in the water. They spent all class reading pool safety books and walking around the pool reading all the rules. The only actually pool time they got was when they were trying the life jackets. They got to jump in and see how the life jackets helped them float. Both Riley and Daddy were bummed. Daddy said, "Pool safety is important, but not very fun, huh?"

After swimming lessons, we came home and relaxed for just a few minutes and then headed out to the movie theater to see Madagascar 2. Riley loved it. Doug and I thought it was good, but no where near the level of the first movie. There were 10 times as many monkeys in this one though, so Riley was happy!

After the movie, Doug took a nap and Riley and I had a fun project afternoon. We made squiggly eyed monsters and turkeys. Then Riley showed me how to color her Dora coloring pages and then roll them up together her.

After our projects were done, we had a little photo shoot with them, and when Roo was taking my photo she said, "Mommy, say squiggly ears!" and then she said the same when I took her photo. Together, we laughed about it.









And Riley's Xmas list looks like this so far:

1. Scooby Doo movies
2. Alvin and the Chipmunk movies
3. Tag reader
4. Piano
5. Singer microphone
6. Kung Fu Panda tag reader book
7. More art supplies (white glue, paint, dora coloring pages, paper)

LANGUAGE!

It's no surpise to anyone that Doug has quite a potty mouth. He just can't seem to control his swearing around Riley. It really annoys him, but whenever he says a bad word, I immediately say "LANGUAGE!" to remind him to be careful what he says around her. She is at the age now where she picks up easily on words and is able to reuse. Luckily, I haven't heard her say any really bad words and there have been no reports from her school of such language and I'd like to think it's because I've made it very clear that these words are bad words and shouldn't be said. Doug thinks that I shouldn't make such a big deal about the swear words and if I don't call them out she won't even notice them. I strongly disagree, I think that if I don't call them out as unacceptable words that she will think they are okay and just start using them.

While playing Mario Kart on Sunday:

Daddy: "F*@!"
Riley: "Daddy, Language!"

I almost fell off the chair in laughter. To say Doug was annoyed would be an understatement. Now he gets it from both of us. Unfortunately, I am not immune to this. Making lunch this morning, I was having a hard time opening a jar of dip.

Mommy: "Shit, I can't get this jar open! What the hell!"
Riley: "Language Mommy!"
Mommy: "I know sorry."

But now she's taken it to a whole new level. I also said things like:
Mommy: "I can't get this jar open. How annoying?"
Riley: "Is that a bad word?"
Mommy: "no annoying is not a bad word"
Mommy: "Crap why won't this open" "What the heck?"
Riley: "Is that a bad word?"
Mommy: "No crap and heck are not bad words"

I started to get annoyed that she kept asking if words were bad just so she could say language mommy, so I proceeded to explain to her what words were bad which I'm not sure was the best idea.

Mommy: "Riley, the bad words are F!@#, Shit, Bitch, Hell" (These are the words that are most commonly said around her, so I just used those as examples. No need to introduce ones she's never heard at this point)
Riley: "oh"
Mommy: "Daddy says those alot huh?"
Riley: "yeah"
Mommy: "They are bad words and we shouldn't say them especially outside of the house"
Riley: "You forgot F@#! (mommy trying to ignore what Riley just said) Mommy, You forgot F@!#"
Mommy: "Yes that's a bad word too. Don't say it just say Gosh instead okay"
Riley: "Ok, Gosh"

Tuesday so far

When I woke up this morning I was wondering why I even started this whole capture a week in my life thing. I was planning to quit, but here I am sticking with it. I didn't take a single photo yesterday, so I don't know how that will work out. I did take a few today though. I was really in no mood to go into work today, so I decided to work from home. Riley stayed home with me today too. Doug had to go in early, so I would have had to take Riley to school. Also, she's been complaining that her lower back itches alot and we found some bumps on her back and were worried she had some kind of rash, so I decided to call the Doctor and see if I should take her in. They found an opening for us at 2pm. During the morning, Riley watched Scooby and Curious George while I worked. She got pretty bored though so I had to stop work and entertain her for a bit. We read books, and played with legos. Then we had lunch (leftover dinner from last night), did some art projects, and then got ready for the doctor visit. Turns out she just has some dry skin. I paid a $25 co-pay to have them tell me its just dry skin. Don't I feel retarded. Oh well, better safe then sorry I guess. Riley is napping now and I'm enjoying the quiet of the house. Guess I better get back to that working thing.

The rest of Monday

I picked Riley up from school. She was drawing a picture of circles when I got there. She was excited to have found a pen to draw with. We headed over to gymnastics as we do ever Monday. Riley changed and went into class. We're not allowed to watch because they say it's distracting to the kids, but I've been curious about what they do in class, so I went out to the car which I parked in front of the big window to the building and was able to watch Riley from there for most of class. After class, I picked Riley up. She had a ton of energy and kept running away from me all over the gym. I got pretty annoyed. She ended up losing her Scooby Doo TV privileges because of it. She cried all the way home and they even more once we got home. She tried to use the sympathy card on her daddy, but luckily for me he stayed strong and we were a united front. Doug started dinner and Nyssa and I went for a run. The run was hard last night. I hadn't run in 4 days, but I made it through. We ate dinner, watched Chuck, put Riley to bed, watched Terminator and Heroes and the second half of Dancing with the Stars and then went to bed.

Told ya it was gonna be boring...LOL...

A week in my life: Monday

So I came across this blog post about documenting a week in your life and making a scrapbook about it. I thought it would be fun and figured I'd put it on my to-do someday list, but this blogger is doing it this week and I figured, I might as well play along. We'll see how long it lasts :) I just decided to do this at about 2:3pm today, so I didn't photograph any of my morning routine, but that is okay. I consider my life to be quite boring. My weekday routine is pretty much the same everyday. I spend most of my day at work, I also spend a lot of time during the fall season watching TV. I think it'll be interesting to see what the finished project looks like.

Thoughts in my head today:

• Thinking about another scrapbook page I'm considering doing about my excessive TV watching, I counted 16 TV shows that I'm currently invested in this Fall TV season, yeah I said that, 16. That doesn't even count the random things I watch, that's just the shows I'm invested in, and watch on a weekly basis. Thank god for DVR and internet TV though, best inventions ever. I can record and watch the shows on my own time which often means I'm watching a show that aired at 8pm at 11pm the next day. What wonderful things DVR and internet TV are.
• So my Monday is pretty typical so far. I woke up showered, made Riley's and my lunch, and then spent a few minutes eating my cereal and browsing the internet. Then it was time for Riley and Daddy to wake up and me to get ready and go to work. Every Monday morning I have a team meeting. It's about the only day during the week that I HAVE to be to work at a certain time. The rest of the week I take full advantage of my flex time.
• I spent some time this morning reading the blogs in my Google Reader as I always do and wound up off on a tangent looking at fitness related stuff. I wandered into a couple blogs about people training for marathons and a couple about people documenting their weight loss journey. That lead me to think about my own fitness and the weight loss journey I should start. I've been trying to add running back into my life, I loved it in high school. It's been a hard road so far. I am doing the couch to 5K program, and am repeating week 4 this week because I had an extremely hard time with it last week. I suffer from shin splits or I suppose weak shin muscles. I'm just hoping as the program goes on my legs get stronger and the pain goes away. I'm realizing to reach my goals, I'll need to do more than just running 3 times a week. I discover a few things on my blog reading journey today:

This fitness DVD which is supposed to be awesome.

Jillian Michael's Wii Fit game comes out in October.

• I'm thinking of getting both and starting up a stricter fitness routine. I was inspired by the blogs I read. I want to be one of the success stories.
• As I have been for quite some time now, I'm concerned about my job and what will happen now that my company has been bought out and specifically what will happen with the account I'm working on. Wondering if I'll be looking for a new job in the next few months or in the next year. Wondering if I'll find a job if it comes to that and will it be one I like. It's always better to change jobs on your own terms when you can be picky. Not so fun when it's urgent and you have to take what you can get. Very uncertain times for me and it stresses me out alot.
• I watched the HBO special, Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger over the weekend and it was hillarious. I highly recommend it.
• I really want to sign up for a scrapbooking class called Scrap your Travel and Vacation that starts today, but I have no more money in my scrapbooking budget for this month. October is almost here so maybe it'll be part of my October budget. Although the class is $25 and that is almost my entire monthly scrapbooking budget, so I'll have to think about it some more.
• A few weeks ago Doug and I for I think the first time ever developed and actual budget. I was motivated to do this when I realized that we EAT way to much of our income. My bank website has a reporting and budgeting feature that lets you categorize your spending and create a budget. We spent something like $500 eating out in August and then another $600 ish on groceries. I'm embarrased to even admit this. It's absolutely insane. Nobody needs to spend that much on food. So we sat down one night and categorized everything, made a very realistic budget, something that I know we can easily stick to with the least amount of lifestyle change. I mean hell if all we did was eat at home all the time think how much money we'd save. The budget is going well and we are staying within our limits for the most part. After a few months go by I'm sure we'll need to make adjustments in some areas, but one I know we won't be adjusting is our food budget. We're sticking to that, believe me!
• Doug doesn't believe I can stick to the budget.
• Someone commented on the My Jam scrapbook page I created and said that Riley has eclectic music tastes. I took that as a compliment on my music tastes. What she listens to is in direct relation to what I like. That felt good.
• I think we'll soon be adding In the Ayer by Flo Rida to Riley's playlist. I've been singing it alot lately and last night at dinner (All three of us sat at the kitchen table and ate, pretty cool huh?), she busts out with, "This is my jam. Don't understand. hands in the air" while waving her hands in the air. It was quite cute.
• I was in a really crappy mood on Friday and I'm thinking Deb might have noticed when we were talking on the phone Friday evening. I hope she knows that I was just in a crappy mood. I don't even know why. It had nothing to do with her.
• Need to get my camera and make sure to capture my boring week.
• This blog post killed a good amount of time, yeah! Just one more hour until the work day is over.

Nyssa, I'm Full!

I have a pretty awesome Dog. I love her. She is a cute, fun, good, smart Black lab. She understands many words and commands; sit, stay, down, come, wait, nicely, walk, and ride to name a few. She's a quick learner, but has a hard time understanding commands from Riley even though Riley tries hard to get her to sit, wait, and okay. Today, I think she picked up her very first Riley command.

Mommy: "Riley honey are you eating your lunch?"
Riley: "I'm full!"
Nyssa wakes from sleeping in the hallway, runs over to Riley and plops herself in front of her patiently waiting for what always comes after those words, Riley's food. :)

August in a nutshell

I have really been slacking on this blogging thing this month. I thought I was getting better at it. In my defence alot has been going on this month and blogging just wasn't at the top of my mind. I suppose it should be quality of posts not quantity, huh.? Here's August in a nutshell.

We started the month off celebrating Riley's 3rd birthday. The theme was Scooby Doo, of course. Her party was so much fun, my favorite party so far. I loved the way everything turned out from the setup of the party to the decorations to the cake to it not raining. She had 3 friends from school come and I loved seeing her play with them outside of school. I also remember the look on her face when everyone was singing Happy Birthday to her. I wish I could have captured her joy on film. I've never seen a kid blow through presents as quickly as she did. I couldn't keep up. I really need to get the thank you cards in the mail.



Entire set Here.

Then we had some very sad news a few days later that basically turned our lives upside down. My father in law passed away. It was not sudden and something we all knew was going to happen, but still none of us were ready for. I miss him very much. I'm not going to go into details because I don't think Doug would want me to.



This photo was taken on Thanksgiving and I think is one of the last photos I have. I wish I had taken more. I'll never forget the last things I remember him saying to Doug. "You just out in the neighborhood driving around and decided to stop in?", "I told you I wouldn't make it to Riley's next birthday, but I did." Doug helping him with water, "That hit the spot."

We had several vacation plans for August that we continued on with because Doug's Dad told him, "Go out and live your life, have fun. Don't worry about me." So we did and those words will be with me forever.

We went to Alexandria Bay with my parents. We took a boat tour, Riley got to drive the boat, saw two castles; Boldt Castle and Singer Castle, and Riley had Smoore's for the first time. I found a really expensive dark chocolate to use in hers since she can't have milk.






Entire set Here.

The next weekend we went to Camp Mead in the Adirondacks with our friends the Gotobeds. We went to Great Escape, did some hiking, canoeing, and swimming, played some games, watched Michael Phelps kick ass!, and then stopped in Lake George on the way home for another boat ride. Some of my favorite photos from the trip:





Entire sets Here, Here, and Here

The fun didn't stop there. I also attended a wedding, bridal shower, and wedding poker night for our friends Kai and Hannah. Riley ate chicken feet which I don't have a photo of. I'm so happy for Kai and Hannah. They are such nice people. Hannah is incredibly greatful for everything and she makes me realize just how much I take for granted in my life.



This is by far one of my all time favorite photos. To me the exposure and composure are great and I really captured the emotion. I think this is probably one of the best photos I've ever taken. I love it.



Rest of the sets, Here, Here, and Here.

And guess what there's more. We managed to find time to go blueberry picking, goto the zoo twice, have dinner at Chris and Deb's new house twice, play some Rock Band, goto the Drive-in a couple times, and if you can believe it even relax and do nothing a couple days. I think the rest of August will be more of the relax and do nothing. Now that I've put it all out there, that's ALOT in one month.

Dad Heckman, We are having fun, we are living our lives. We love you so much and miss you terribly.

What the F#@!? Isn't she alittle young to be shaving?

Daddy and Riley are on vacation this week by themselves. It's nice that they get to spend some quality time together. When I arrived home from work last night, I immediately noticed that Riley had a new bandaid on her leg and it in fact was covering a boo boo. When I asked what happened, this is the story I was told from Daddy:

"I was playing Guitar Hero and Riley was in the bathroom. She had the door closed when I went to check on her. I tried to go in and she said, NO! I'm doing something, go play another song. What she was doing was shaving her legs. She had my shaving cream on her legs and was using my razor to shave her legs. She scraped her leg. "

I had to laugh and then worried what could have happened with that razor. Oh boy! Next I'm told of another interesting thing that happened. Daddy and Riley were outside most of the day. Riley playing in her sandbox and Daddy working on our new backdoor landing steps (which I should take some photos of). He had a piece of wood sitting on saw horses and Riley walked right into it and bumped her head. She didn't cry, instead she looked up all angry and said, "What the Fuck?" I didn't believe it, but Doug swears that's what she said. He said that he told her that was a swear word and not to say it, and I said, "Well at least she's using it in the proper context?"

I can't wait to find out what interesting adventures they had today.

Everyone say it with me

It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.

This is what our IM conversations are like

Part of an IM conversation tonight between Deb and I. Doug laughed out loud when I read it back to him, so I knew it was funny and I should share.

The video in question:


The conversation:
Deb I'm gonna send you a forward, but it's not really dumb, honest

Carin:They really need to set that video to the ok go song. it's cute

Deb: Bex sent it to me. I really don't forward stuff that often but that cracked me up

Carin: I just asked Doug to watch it and he's all like "I've seen that". and I'm like: When? and he's says "Like a couple months ago or a year ago, it's really hilarious though"

what an ass

Deb: well it's new to me so poop on him

Carin: me too. Hang on let me go poop on him

Deb: thanks!

Then right before we said goodnight:

Carin: I'm serious about adding that one section about pooping on Doug to my blog. You okay with that?

Deb: I'm more than OK with that

Carin: lol

Everyday Life and Childhood Memories

I haven't been blogging as much as I have wanted to since I moved to blogger, but more than I did when I was on Livejournal. I guess I feel like I don't have a lot to say and I feel like the day to day stuff in my life probably isn't all that exciting. Like for example, yesterday, I went to work for 8 hours give or take a few in either direction (haha). I'm not going to write about my work even though it gives me plenty of material. I don't want to get dooce'd. After work, I picked Roo up from school, we came home, had McDonald's for dinner. She got the Master Crane in her happy meal. She really really wants Master Monkey! anyone surprised? Then we went upstairs so I could get some materials for her birthday invitations. She threw a massive temper tantrum because I wouldn't let her bring downstairs the huge pile of crap she had collected together. "But I Love it Mommy, I don't want to put it back!!" Too bad! After that I worked on her birthday invitations, talked to my brother on the phone for a bit, put Roo to bed, played Wii Fit for about 45 minutes, watched some HGtv shows from the on-demand channel, some Chelsea Lately, and went to bed. See very boring, nothing exciting happened, no funny or insightful stories to tell, just everyday boring. Who wants to read about that. Anyway.

I've been thinking alot lately about my childhood memories. Lately, I've been seeing alot of scrapbook pages and blogs about things your mom used to say, or memories from childhood, etc. I feel like I have no memories, I mean I have memories about my childhood, but I don't feel like I have those meaningful stories, life lessons and awesome words of wisdom from my parents that most people seem to have. It's starting to really bother me. Why can't I remember things my Mom used to say or things my Parent's used to do all the time? They are amazing parents so why don't I have these types of memories? I know I must have them, but how do I pull them out, how do I remember them or how do I better convey the memories I have? Maybe that's my problem? I wish I could sit down and write a detailed recount of interesting things that happened in my childhood like this guy. Or why don't I have a scrapbook page all about my mom's words of wisdom like on page 35 of the July Scrapbooks, etc? I want those things, but everytime I try to think about it, I got nothing?

I remember the time I made my mom so mad once she pushed me up against the back door, but I don't remember what I did? I remember my dad worked late alot and everynight no matter what my mom was doing she'd sit in the kitchen with him while he ate his dinner and they'd talk. I remember that my brother and I used to fight, A lot, so much it would make my mom nervous leaving us alone. We'd call her all the time at work. My dad can't turn down stuff. He'll pick uneaten food out of the garbage (at home only) and eat it. He'll pick anything up off the street. We joke about it all the time, how he'll ask Mom to stop the car so he can get that sock laying on the side of the road. I told my brother when he was about 3 or so that he'd played basketball and love it and he told me he never would, that he hated it. I remember my Dad made the best snowmen, he'd collect aftershave bottle tops for eyes and a nose. I have a lot of photos of us making snowmen together. I remember my senior year I got drunk on a school night and had a terrible hangover, puking, and the works and my mom forced me to go to school, but I don't remember what she said to me. So I have memories, lots of them I could go on forever, or moments, but I don't seem to have memories of conversations, I wonder why?

Happy 60th, I mean 59th Birthday Mom!

282_8271_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

For a few weeks now I've been talking about going home for Father's Day/Mom's Birthday. They were on the same day this year. We usually don't make the trek home for this holiday, but this one was special. Mom was having a milestone birthday, 60. I talked with my brother and he was going home to. We talked about it being her 60th birthday. The day before we left to go home, he told me about this really cool hardcover book he got Mom about 1948 as I was headed to Factory Card Outlet to get her balloons and lots of fun 60th birthday stuff to make her day special. Heading home after purchasing all the stuff I had a major freak out moment, "Oh crap, is it really her 60th birthday?" I start to think to myself, Dad was born in 47 (I know this because it's part of yahoo id). Mom's two years younger than him, no wait one year. Oh CRAP! So I immediately call my bro who is already at our parent's house and ask him:

Me: Mom is turning 60, right?
Bro: Yeah, why?
Me: I had a freak out moment, all the sudden wondering is she?
Bro: Dad, how old is Mom going to be?
Dad: 59
Me: No, he's messing with us. right?
Bro: Nice job, sis. Great misinformation.
Me: Well, you never corrected me
Bro: You're the one that's supposed to be on top of this stuff.
Me: Oh Crap. Well at least we figured it out before we presented her with all this 60th Birthday stuff.

I'm officially the worst daughter in the world. I felt like a complete jackass. How could I screw something up that bad? It has nothing to do with her looking older than she is that's for sure. It has everything to do with my terrible sense of time. I was sure that dad's 60th was 2 years ago. I was convinced that my Bro or my Dad would rat me out for sure, so I figured I better fess up before they did. I called her that night to fess up and she laughed and preceeded to pick on me all weekend. Later, my brother says, "Why did you tell her? I wasn't going to say anything?"

At least it made her 59th birthday memorable.