Hunting for houses… February 22, 2009

If it weren’t for Emma, we probably wouldn’t be trying to buy a house right now. But because of Emma, it’s immensely difficult. We can immediately rule out the vast majority of the homes that are in our price range because of the elementary schools they feed into.

Yes, Emma is barely a year old, but in about five years, she’ll be entering public school, and finding a home in a good — excuse me, an excellent — elementary attendance zone is of the utmost importance. Sure, we could buy a house now, build up some equity,  sell it in five years and then buy in the right attendance zone. We all hope that in five years the economy will have recovered, home values will have risen. But who knows? And who knows whether in five short years, we’ll want to do this all over again. It’s one thing to consider it, but to put yourself in a position now that necessitates moving?? That doesn’t sound particularly comfortable.

We’ve only been at it for a few weeks, and we know finding a house to buy is absolutely nothing like finding a house to rent. It’s potentially a much, much longer process. After all, it’s the single biggest purchase of your life. And it’s stressful. I’m sure we’ll find what we’re looking for, at the price we’re looking for (that’s what everyone keeps telling us, anyway…).

I can’t wait to find the one. I can already see the playhouse-swing-set-slide in the backyard and Emma playing on it.

The Dominant Gene: MEAN TEETH….. February 20, 2009

I used to be a biter.

Honestly, it was so long ago, I don’t remember any of it. But the story of my biting phase is grand lore in our family. My mom, an early childhood director, often meets with parents who have children going through the same phase. Invariably, my mother tells that story to other parents. I’m 30 years old. My mom’s been telling this story for roughly 85 percent of my life.

So here it is: When I was a few years old, I had a nasty habit of biting my peers, teachers, etc. I guess if something didn’t go my way or I was upset, I’d bite. If I wanted something, I’d bite. I’d bite just to bite. One day, my parents asked me why I kept biting people. I looked at them and said, “I don’t know — I guess I just have mean teeth!”

The story gets lots of laughs and is only mildly embarrassing.

Today, we learned that the mean teeth is a dominant gene. I received not one, but TWO phone calls from Emma’s teachers today, alerting us that she’d bitten classmates. The first episode, she snipped at the finger of a friend who was seated next to her on the Bye-Bye Buggy. Then, later in the day, she bit another classmate when s/he put her arm on the rail of a climbing tower. The teachers said they weren’t sure whether Emma had been mouthing the rail and the arm appeared, or whether she bit because the arm appeared on her rail. Either way — in the course of about five hours, two biting episodes, two phone calls.

Emma can’t talk yet, but I wonder what she’d say if we asked why she’s bitten her classmates. It’s just a case of the mean teeth, perhaps?

The big 01… February 2, 2009

Friday was the big day, sort of. Emma turned one year old. Of course, she was at home, sick. (The fever hit Monday afternoon and stayed on strong until Thursday, when it lifted for the afternoon. But Thursday evening, it spiked back up to 103-point-something and that meant no school on Friday — SUPER BIG THANKS to Honey and Papaw, who left Marshall at 3 a.m. Friday to get to San Antonio in time for Ashley and me to put in full workdays, something that hadn’t happened since Monday.)

Saturday, we had a birthday fiesta at Bubbsie and Gramps’ house. It was lots of fun. We had lots of Mexican decorations, ate chalupas and then had cake and ice cream. Emma, as you’ll see in the slideshow, really enjoyed her chocolate cake. We gave her a bite of vanilla ice cream, which she promptly spit out — must’ve been too cold.

She opened her presents and hung out with the fam. And then she crashed. Wonder if she’s one of those kids who won’t have insane reactions to sugar overload. I mean, she seriously scarfed some cake…

Wow, so it’s been one full year. It’s really amazing to think that just a year ago, she came into this world with dark, dark hair — a tiny little thing that did little other than cry and poop. These days, she’s a speed-racer crawler. She likes to stand around the coffee table and push her hippo. She walks when she’s holding her parents’ (or grandparents’) hands. She says “hi” to anything and everything that moves — from Tiger, the cat who’s recently adopted us to people walking down the street. Ashley swears she hear her saying her own name today, and she’s trying to say “Berkeley,” our chocolate lab.

She blows kisses, hates to wear shoes, though she has taken to the pink Chucks from Uncle Q an P. 

Her car seat now faces forward, formula is about to be taken out of the diet, and she’s eating some table foods (loves rice, and seemed to be intrigued by a lemon wedge today). The Little One has four teeth and counting, her hair is staying red and getting little curls. She’s almost 22 pounds, likes to clap and laugh and smile.

She brings joy to everyone she sees.

It’s been a truly amazing year, and we can’t wait to see what else happens as she grows another year.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SLIDESHOW.