Randomness and Ramblings

Some random thoughts for today.

I wouldn't typically use this as a forum to bitch about work but an unnamed fellow employee in an unnamed office in the State of Florida pissed me off. I had a simple request for him to send a junior level staff member to a client safety meeting that I would provide billable time for and he totally copped an attitude with me. Stating "what is in it for me" and when we resolved the issue and I told him another person from another office was going to go, he in turn sent a snide email back. Total rudeness.

Big news, some might already know. We went to Denver a few weekends ago to visit my brother-in-law and my in-laws drove up from Omaha to meet us. It was a great trip. Good time with family and great weather. The purpose of our trip was two fold, to visit family and to consider relocation. I looked into transferring with my company and we took a real hard look on whether we still wanted to live there. Long story short, we aren't moving, at least not right now. The housing market is considerably higher than here in Charlotte and if we wanted to buy the same house we have now it would be 3-4 times more expensive in Denver. Secondly, the opportunity to transfer isn't there right now. Lastly (the biggest reason I think), the trip allowed us to take a step back and really evaluate what we are missing in Charlotte that we think Denver will give us, and yes Denver puts us closer to family but we have a good life here. I think if we were being handed a transfer on a silver platter this post would be different, but since we aren't we are content to stay in Charlotte and continue to build our life. We have some great friends, good jobs, a house we love all right here. We just need to figure out how to make the distance between our families smaller through technology and yearly visits. We are at a good place with our decision.

Since we decided to stay in Charlotte, we are considering selling our home for an upgrade next year. I know I just said we love our house, which we do but we can't say the same thing about the neighborhood. Jeremy got a great deal on some new kitchen cabinets so he is in the middle of a remodel project, 2 weeks before a 1st birthday party mind you. Nothing like a little pressure to get a project done. I'll do a separate post when we are done.

Update on Holden. We have a bottom tooth poking through. I suspect there are more coming in the near future. Thanks to Stacey, Motrin is a life saver. Also, Jeremy and I are in a battle to see if "da da" or " ma ma" is going to win out. He says both but we aren't 100% convinced that he puts recognition to the words. I think I might be winning though, last night I got home late so I didn't get to see Holden before he went to bed. I went and checked on him around 10:30 and he stirred. I tried to sneak out of the room but he must have woke up and saw me because he started crying. I went back in after a couple minutes and he was standing up in the crib, crying and saying "ma ma". We will see if he repeats it before I declare victory. Lastly, he is recognizing "kitty", if we ask him to go get the kitties he goes right for Moe or Homer. Its pretty funny. We started weening Holden onto whole milk and its going great so far. Our strategy is 3/4 formula, 1/4 milk this week; 1/2 of each next week; 3/4 milk 1/4 formula in week 3 and straight milk by the 4th week. Daycare is doing the same thing so we are consistent and so far so good.

I had a really strange dream last night that Jeremy took a 2nd wife (a girl I didn't care for in high school at that) and it caused major problems for me. And somewhere in the dream she dressed Holden up like a girl with pigtails. Strange. I guess I have been watching way to much Big Love.

Lastly, Lent has started today and I decided to sacrifice my Diet Coke for 40 days. Its going to be hard. But I am also trying to cut out high fructose corn syrup from our diet, here is a good article about why, and cut down our T.V. time. I think we need to get our T.V. time to about 2 hours a night so we don't set a bad example for Holden as he gets older. I think I'm going to have a hard time convincing Jeremy of this one.

OK enough rambling for now, here is a great photo of Holden exploring the snow we got last weekend in Charlotte.

7 pounds

We are in Denver visiting my brother-in-law and in-laws this weekend. I went into the Denver office this afternoon to work and this is what my husband and brother-in-law did in the meantime.

Big Margarita prior to the Big Burrito
7 Pound Burrito at Jack and Grill in Denver, CO (as seen on Man vs. Food)What is left of the 7 lb burrito

Holden has his first ear infection. Also a nasty cold, bronchial virus, that has him beat. We have been home from work and daycare all week because he can't seem to consistently keep a bottle down. And I think all of the coughing is starting to hurt. So we have a whiney, wimpery little boy. He is sleeping all the time and hopefully by tomorrow the antibiotics will have given him some relief and he will start to keep some liquids down.

Why is tomorrow so important. We leave for a trip to Denver at 6 am on Thursday. Jeremy is flying United and Holden and I are flying solo with Delta. Frequent flyer miles my mom gave us to use helped us take the trip but now I'm second guessing the separate flights. I'm gearing up for all of the evil looks and comments when boarding the plane with a sick kid.

We are going to visit my brother-in-law and my in-laws are driving up from Omaha to spoil Holden for 4 days. Or spoil us since we will be able to hit the town.

Any advise is welcome for traveling with a sick baby.

The Catcher in the Rye

I'm not a writer so this won't be poetic or thoughtfully written like the commentaries we will hear in the next few days but one of my favorite authors died today. J. D. Salinger at 91. Even though he hasn't published anything since 1965, his book The Catcher in the Rye is my all time favorite book, hands down. I read Catcher in junior high during a summer break after finding out that it was a book on the banned book list. I have always been an avid reader and read above my age level for a long time and when my mom told me there were banned books I was flabbergasted. I was both intrigued and appalled that people would want to censor books. I wasn't that naive that I didn't understand why so much, I guess my liberalism was budding.

So, that summer in junior high I checked Catcher in the Rye out from the library and fell in love with it. I can't tell you how many times I have read it, or how many school papers I wrote about the book or even really why I like it so much. I didn't really relate to Holden like adolescent boys might but maybe the sense of telling people 'no' or the freedom he chased was what was so appealing. Without getting to philosophical I just liked it, and still like it.

So we come to my Holden, if you haven't guessed it yet, he is named after Holden Caulfield, the original Catcher in the Rye. I wanted to use the name Holden for as long as I have known that I wanted to have children and I'm thankful that I have a husband that was cool with it. Hopefully when Holden gets to be in junior high he will have his interests peaked and read his mom's favorite book.

So I leave you with a famous quote from the book and rest in piece J. D.

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. ... Thousands of kids, and nobody big at all, nobody big but me. And I'm standing on the edge of this crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to come and catch them. If they start to fall ... and don't look where they're going. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.

The jury is still out on 2010

January 2010 has not been a stellar month for the Taylor house by any means. There have been some really great things that have happened this first month of the new decade but there have also been some really devastating things. We'll start with the good.

• Holden started crawling while my mom was here. It was pretty neat that someone else was here (besides Jeremy and I) to see such a milestone since we dislike that we are so far away from all of our family.
• Holden is pulling himself up onto things and starting to walk along furniture. We already lowered the crib to the lowest setting. Purpose for the quick crib setting change: Holden learned to pull up on stuff Friday. Sunday we find him standing up bawling in the crib and trying to step on the bumpers. Quick study.
• Holden has figured out the sippy cup finally and he has learned to accept some texture in his meals without gagging anymore. Two very big pluses for mom.
  

Now for the not so good, well the really bad.

• Malachi passed away a couple weeks ago as you might already know from an earlier post
• Our home was burglarized on Friday. The punks didn't take much but the feeling of helplessness and violation is hard to get over. Not to mention the pissed off angry feeling.
  

Even though the beginning of 2010 has really tested our stress levels and resilience, I am forever grateful and thankful for my wonderful husband and beautiful baby boy and very supportive friends and family. I'd share a cute photo but the ass wipe that broke into my home stole the camera.

Sweetness

I had to work today (Saturday) which is a rarity. So Jeremy was a single parent today. The best thing about it, Holden decided to have 4 poopy diapers today (cloth diapers mind you). Awesomeness. Glad Jeremy got to do the dirty work for a change.

In Memorium

We lost our beloved puppy a week ago. Malachi was 5 and the best dog in the world. I'm sad that Holden and Malachi didn't get to become best friends.