2nd Santa Visit Recap

This week I decided it was time to take Kailey to visit Santa for her annual visit. I took her to see Santa when she was 6 months old. This year the time came again with Kailey now 18 months old.

Just to recap last years visit, Kailey was pretty oblivious to Santa. When she was 6 months old she would let almost anyone hold her. She was confused by his costume, but she sat patiently until the pictures were complete.

This year things changed. I took Kailey to see Santa after I picked her up from daycare. She wanted to walk around and play. As I registered her to see Santa, the elderly woman asked me Kailey's age. Once I gave her Kailey's information, she warned me that Kailey would not take well to Santa. She recommended backing Kailey onto Santa's lap.

I took her advice and placed Kailey on Santa's lap. As soon as I placed Kailey down, she began reaching for me and the tears began to flow. Toys were used to entertain Kailey, but she would not crack a smile. She wanted down, and she was serious the entire time.

The first picture I ended up purchasing has Kailey looking very serious on Santa's lap. The second picture is my favorite. Kailey trying to bolt out of Santa's lap as he holds on for dear life. The third picture is of me holding Kailey sitting near Santa.

Although the visit didn't turn out the way I had hoped, I still feel good about capturing the true spirit of how she felt about her visit. Years later the pictures will be priceless and so entertaining.

I have no regrets.

Who are These Sockless People?

Today the temperature is -2, -15 with the wind chill. Over the weekend the temperatures were a bit warmer at around 10 degrees, with little or no wind chill.

Over the weekend my sister came over to make Christmas cookies and as we stepped out to get some groceries I noticed she didn't have any socks. She was wearing slipon shoes without socks! How can this be? I thought maybe this was a one time deal for her since she quickly came over and never gave it anymore thought.

Today as I was on lunch running errands I saw two more women in the same scenario. Slipon shoes without socks in subzero weather. What are these women thinking? Did they miss the weather advisory about skin freezing in a matter of moments when you are outside? Did they forget to do laundry?

The women I saw looked put together. Dressed as though they were on a break for lunch. I just can't figure it out. I'm totally the opposite of these women. I wear my Ugg boots everywhere. When I get to work, I take them off and change into regular shoes.

Outside, my boots are my savior. How can women not be wearing more than slipon shoes in the winter? Can someone explain it to me? I'm just missing the point. Convenience doesn't make pratically sense to me in these temperatures.

The jury is still out on this.

Winter Clothing Venting

Now that winter is in full swing here in North Dakota it means that subzero temperatures are a regular daily occurrence. During these moments of bitter cold Kailey has to be dressed just as warmly as I do. Even though I warm my car in the morning, she needs to get used to being dressed for these cold temps. If my car breaks down, if we get stranded, or if we just don't account for the weather in the right methods she and I may not survive.

Although this seems like a harsh environment. I have been living her my whole life. I feel the cold is a way for us to hibernate, get close to our friends and family and take a break from our busy lives. Our state boasts one of the best work ethics, with communities that bond together to get things done. Crime rates are low, and the homeless population exists, but is under control.

I digress...

One problem I have with the winter is how difficult it is to get Kailey ready for daycare. Our new dressing routine includes putting on Kailey's heavy duty gloves, her pink boots, her cute puppy hat with a chin strap, and finally her jacket.

If the weather is nice enough I bring snow pants with. Her daycare will allow the children to play in the snow and Kailey loves being pulled in a sled from what I understand.

Getting her in and out of her clothing to go and come from daycare definitely seems more of a challenge than last year when she was 6-7 months old, and more difficult than summer clothing.

I know it's all worth it, but ugh!

Weird Questions I've Been Asked

You've heard the saying that "there is no such thing as a stupid question". I'm seriously starting to wonder if this is true. I've had two very "odd" questions in the last month and I'm not really sure what the person was thinking when they asked the question.

Scenario #1 - Paying for Gas
Location - Convenience Store
People - Me and a female cashier in her late 20's

Conversation:

Cashier: Can I ask you a question? It may sound odd.
Me: Sure.
Cashier: I see you are wearing one of those popular wool coats with a beautiful jeweled pin. When you go public places like to church, doctor's office, etc. do you take the pin off your jacket before you hang it up? Are you afraid someone may take it?
Me: (confused) You mean this pin (pointing to pin)?
Cashier: Yes, it is so beautiful.
Me: (still confused) Well... First off, this pin was bought at Target on clearance for $2.48 so I'm not worried about it being stolen. Second off, when I go to public places I always take my coat with me. I never hang it. I take it off and place it under my arm.
Cashier: Ah. Well that would certainly make sense. Thanks for answering.
Me: (still very confused) No problem. Have a great evening.
Me: (leaving the store, shaking head, still very very confused)

Scenario #2 - Returning an item to WalMart
Location - Entrance of WalMart, item being tagged for having the receipt
People - Me, Kailey (in shopping card, one female employee, one male employee both in their mid 20's

Conversation:

MWalmart: Do you have a receipt for that item?
Me: Certainly, it is in the bag with the items.
MWalmart: Yipee! You would not believe how many people we've had to check items for today that don't have a receipt. We love people like you.
WWalmart: What a cute little girl. How old is she?
Me: She's 1 1/2 years old. Her name is Kailey.
WWalmart: What a cutie. Hi Kailey.
Kailey: (looking confused, saying nothing)
MWalmart: Can I ask you a question about your baby?
Me: Sure.
MWalmart: Is that her natural haircolor?
Me: (???) Could you say that again?
MWalmart: Is that her natural haircolor?
Me: (????) Uh. Yes it is her natural haircolor. She's had hair this color since she was born.
MWalmart: That's true your hair does look similar to your haircolor.
Me: (?????) Yep.
Kailey: (????)
Me:(??????) Well, thanks for your help. I'm gonna get going and get this returned. Happy Holidays.

Can anyone explain these two very interesting of scenario? Comments please.

Typing Class Blunder

I'm not the best writer in the world. I don't claim to be. I have found that I am guilty of a common fault of many new technical writers that stems back to my junior high education.

Back in junior high I took a typing class. The typing class was geared towards becoming familiar with keystrokes. I remember gazing at a typing book while practicing keyboarding weird sentences like "sad dad sas a lass". I passed the class with flying colors and feel as though my words per minute of typing has never been a problem.

New to the technical writing field I have been confronted with a pitfall that stems from my education. In the technical writing world sentences have 1 space that follows a period rather than two.

No big deal right? Wrong!

It has really been a learning curve for me to learn to rethink my keying. I analyze everything I write to make sure I used one space instead of two. It's really gotten annoying.

I've searched for tools to use that could replace the spacing for me if I missed one, but alas I couldn't find one. Until then I will have to continue a retraining process to get this new conformity of my writing.

One fleeting thought exists in my head. I wonder why my gym teacher taught typing. His hands were the size of a gorilla's. How could he have been proficient in typing?

2 More Days Down without the Bottle

Two nights ago Kailey woke up in the middle of the night crying lightly. She continued for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was probably around 5. I went in to check on her and she was very unsettled. I held her, tried to give her a sippy cup of water, and then her pacifier. She didn't want anything to do with the sippy cup and would push it away without taking any sips. She took her pacifier, but continued to sob. I rocked her for awhile, but it did nothing for her. I decided it was time for me to put her back in her crib and luckily after a few minutes of crying she went back to bed. I survived. Even though she went back to sleep I couldn't get back to sleep which made for a very long day.

Last night Kailey seemed famished at dinner. I was amazed by the amount of food she ate. I knew right away that based on the amount of food she had, mixed with her nightly bath she would sleep through the night. She did.

In the morning I feed her breakfast. I didn't in the past, because I gave her a bottle. I've been giving her fruit, cereal, milk, toast, or yogurt. She's had a decent appetite when she's awake. Yesterday morning she seemed very tired so she didn't eat much.

The good news is that I'm just 2 days away from a full week with no bottles! I'm beginning to think that it can be done, and we are on our way to a bottle free world.

Things Kailey Does Around the House

After reading a friends blog I realized that my readers may want to know what Kailey's up to around the house. She is becoming quite the little girl. Here are a few things you can expect when Kailey is hanging out around the house.

Christmas Tree
She loves the Christmas tree with all the bright colored ornaments. She will touch it, she will play with items on the tree, but she knows she's not to take them off. Recently I wrapped presents and she's started taking the bows off the presents. This has been harder to enforce than the ornaments. Random presents with bows missing. The bigger question is where they disappear to?

Cars
Kailey has a little green car that she can sit on. She loves when her daddy gives her car rides. He makes car sounds. She gets on the car and puts her feet up automatically waiting until daddy will push her. He zooms her around the house at full speed and she loves it.

Vacuums
Kailey didn't always notice vacuums, but recently she's deathly afraid of them. So afraid in fact that if she sees one that isn't even on, she will burst out in whimpers and tears. I don't know if something happened at daycare with a vacuum, but she doesn't like vacuums.

Clothing
If the house is quiet for a moment, it means that Kailey is most likely in her room getting into things. She loves to pull clothing out of her clothing bins and even dirty clothes out of the clothes bin. She will pull them out and place them everywhere. Recently she has even started pulling out some of my clothing from my room. She tries to dress herself. It's so cute how she will get a shirt and try so hard to put it on by herself. This weekend we let her decide on her outfit and it was quite the look. But she seemed proud of herself.

Snow
It recently has started snowing here. She loves standing by the window to see her new environment. She makes the cutest noises when she sees the snowflakes.

Kailey Getting her Way
Kailey already knows how to get her way. When she wants food, she will make little squeaking noises that she wants something. When she doesn't get it she will start making little yelling noises. Lower in tone at first, to a full out scream when you don't listen to her.

Hitting
She has begun to hit when she gets upset about something. It turns out to be a light tapping kind of hit, but that's not the point. I grab her hand and I tell her very forcefully that hitting is not the way to get something you want, hopefully I can get this bad habit taken care of early.

Dancing
Kailey still loves all things music and dances to anything. She even dances when I read a book because books are typically rhythmic. We think she's destined for a dance squad of some sort. Only time will tell.

Baths
If you say the word "bath" Kailey will prance to the bathroom and wait at the bathtub until you begin to get her ready for her bath. She really loves her bathtime.

Shoes
When I need to go somewhere and need to get Kailey ready, I ask Kailey if she wants to go and tell her that I need to put her shoes on. She will drop down on her butt and hold her feet up in the air so I can put her shoes on. It is so heartfelt. She randomly has found shoes in her room that are too small for her. She will bring them to me to put on her feet, or try to put the shoes on herself.

Although this took me a bit of thinking, I'm really glad I updated all my readers on Kailey's new habits. She's quite the little character.