Okay so in preparation for the big blog move I need a banner. I could sit down and make a really lame one with my geriatric, graphic skills or I could ask you guys to make one for me. I would probably display it, give credit and what else could I do get someone to do this for me? A could have a contest! Yeah! If I got three submissions, I could put it forth to a vote and then give the winner (or maybe even all three contenders) a prize! It would be something really cool too ... like .... uh.... I could make you something native american-y. Yeah! Like maybe a pair of hand made moccasins for your kid, an awesome beaded keychain, a necklace, or beaded earrings...all hand made by the real deal.

Mission: Make a banner(s) for Wazika

Those are the 4 most common sizes for wordpress.
125x125 is generally in the side bar
300x300 is a side bar
250x250 is generally in the post toward the top
468x60 fits across the bottom or across the top of a post.

Submissions due by Feb. 23rd.
Email to hadjare at gmail.com

And of course, if I don't get anyone willing to help a sister out, then I'll just use the randomizer flicker plugin. Which, you know, is a total cop out.

Athena at 6 Months

--Wow that sure went fast. I have a 1/2 year old now. Yowza!







EDITED TO ADD: Here is the link to see the month by month progression: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167734&id=627848828&l=011737b781

I was up at 6:30 morning to relieve a very grumpy Tim from Daddy duty because Morella was up complaining about being hungry. This after she went to bed at 9 or something. On the bright side, I got Neeners down for an early nap and Morella is distracted with Sesame Street...so here are some pictures from the last week.

Here we have a class BEFORE picture. I tried to look as infomercial as possible.



And this is pretty much the best I can offer for an after shot. I am having issues with how a hair cut doesn't always fix the rest of you. Wait, can I still claim "I just had a baby" factor? I also, I like Athena's expression in this photo. We match.

Pretty much how it is to be Athena with Morella as her big sister.

My friend Lowen who helped me organize all of Morella and Athena's toys. She really is good at that!

I found a baby bonnet I had gotten for Morella because babies in bonnets are incredibly cute. I put it on Athena for the afternoon. I think she'll be too big for it by the time summer/spring is here.

Athena and her grandmother. She was not a happy baby when we were gone watching a movie. Neeners knows how to drag a party down.

Once again, Morella in action....


Tim and the girls

Morella insisted "Morella's Turn" (a very fancy way of saying MINE! -- which incidentally she learned because at play group and what not, when someone would take a toy she was playing with the parent always says "Let Morella have a turn...." or "It's Morella's turn with that toy." ) She fit both of her chicken legs in one side. I think she looks like she really is in her office (which is what we used to call the exersaucer ... as I am sure a billion of other people do as well).

Morella and Athena at my friend's house.

My friend Rebekah just has a baby 12 days prior to this photo. Both baby and Mom look amazing and I wish I had a smattering of those genes.

Rebekah and Nova

Morella played with Rebekahs' daughters toys while we were there. Here at home she only has one barbie -- but I am almost positive that tide will change in the upcoming years.

I got an email from blogger telling me that they will be discontinuing their ftp publishing tool. Apparently I am one of the .5% of bloggers that use this tool, thereby hogging most of bloggers IT resources. I have until March 26 to move my crap over to a Blogger managed URL or kiss it all good bye.

For a long time I have thought about moving my website. I started with blogger back in 2000 when it was still new and shiny. Before that I had run a blog the old fashioned way by updating a website every couple of days with html. Being able to use a dashboard and have just type text and have it automatically update a website was a great idea. It still is. However, there are somethings I just don't feel like blogger can do for me -- one of them is comment management. I'll admit. I didn't even attach the comment feature to my blog for years and years after it became available for the sole reason that I didn't want people telling me how much they loved me on a posty basis. To be far, it was in the infancy of bloggdom when lots of people responded with "I love you!" and "Lol" and "so funny!" or even just " :) ". All of which I hated and was a total waste of time and resources. I mean, I didn't need to be validated by this.

Along the way I got a livejournal account. I needed one for the all the private angsty stuff I was going through regarding infertility that I could lock and no one would be able to see it except personally approved friends. I also started it so that I could join IF, TTC and likeminded communities. Over the years I gained a great collection of smart, interesting women from all over the world. All women and most with children. It was through this that I realized the value of comments had evolved over the years and grown up. Now they really do contribute to a more community feel.

The problem I have had with bloggers comments features is that they do not email the person back or in any way reflect that I have responded to a comment. The only way the commenter can tell if I responded is to check that very blog post, click on comments and scroll down. It has always sorted of bothered me that there was no continuity. I read all comments, however I dont' always respond because it's kind of buried. In general I end up responding in a post, but then again that isn't very professional.

Comments aside, I need something a little more stable. Part of the problem I have had with Blogger, especially over the past two or three years is that they have problems with their FTP program every time they make an update. I realize that this is exactly the kind of thing that they are talking about, and every time it happened I vowed that I would switch. Except, you know, switching is hard. It's a lot of stuff move over and start anew.

I also want to change www.wazika.net to be the page that my blog starts on instead of right now where it's just a link. I also want to eliminate the whole 'quatschen' part. I had originally started this journal with a friend and she had given it's name. I have long since parted ways with this friend but kept the name because that it what it was named and I had already had followers. Then the name of this journal is actually wo-wunk but that just doesn't make any sense now does it. What is it -- quatschen, wazika or wo wunk? Make up your mind!

Here is my chance to resolve all of these issues. Oh, and one more, I want to be able to easily add on to the list of blogs that I read because there are so many other great blogs I have found by merely following the blog roll.

I have a deadline now. I dared my husband to help me with this transition. I wrote him an email that pretty much said something to the effect of "you know how important blogging is to me...help me obe wan keno0b tim ... you are my only hope!" He is now researching the how and why of moving my blog to word press and started over as I have already mentioned. We expect some glitches along the way, there will be a redirect URL but eventually you will and probably should update your links to just www.wazika.net or whatever.

I thought I would be sadder about the end of this website -- but you know I built it all, did my own graphics and blah blah blah. My knowledge is outdated now and I just don't have the hours to devote to relearning it all and doing it myself when it be done much easier. I may have that time in the future ... but yeah. You know how it is with two kids under three.

So I got a hair cut. It's pretty short and I'm getting used to it faster than I though. I expect though that it will take a while longer for the DH to get used to it. :P

My big brainchild of an idea today was to put all of the toys in the house into a big pile in the living room floor. Then with Karen and my friend Lowen's help I was able to sort through and organize them all. I moved the target toy bin thing that everyone seems to have into Morella's closet and then put the organized toys in there. I rehung a wall frog type thing that has three ...well suffice to say I moved a bin, a frog and a chair a about six inches away from Morella's bed. Probably less, more like like three inches. Throw in the floor being clean and vacuumed and it all probably seems very different to Morella, even though it isn't that different.

Tonight we were treated to what is sure to be a common occurrence, a sleeping walking toddler. I was in the bedroom putting Athena to sleep for the second or third time when I heard a sigh from Morella. I thought it was kind of strange hear it so clearly. Then I heard Tim say "Morella? Morella?" and start walking down the hall. I asked him what was going on and he said "She is sleep walking." I quickly unlatched Athena and went to see. She was laying down in the middle of the living room floor on her tummy - completely asleep. Tim was about to gently wake her up, but I told him to just pick her up and put her back to bed, which he did. She was quiet again for another hour or so. After awhile we heard some movement in her room and mumbly whining. He looked into see her walking around her room confused. He helped her back to bed, but she has woken up enough by then to want the lamp on (low light) and keep the door open.

I asked Tim if he thinks this string of events is because of the mild rearrangement in her room and he said yes. Maybe. I could believe it though. Kids don't like change, so have something like this be changed must be confusing? I don't know. What I find compelling is that Tim confessed to me that he was a frequent sleepwalker, but mostly sleep talker when he was little. Myself, I was a notorious sleeperwalker -- the kind that walks outside, goes into other rooms and does strange things, the kind that rips needles out of their arm to walk into a neighboring hospital room. Thankfully I outgrew it. I'll be frank - Morella having two sleepwalkers as parents doesn't bode well for the future.

And you know what? Sleepwalking is kind of creepy.

In other news, yesterday was a super awesome day. Oh heck the whole weekend was great. Tim took Friday off and helped me talk Morella and Neeners to McDonald's to try out the playland. Desperate times folks....anyway. She got stuck in a lower part of the structure and needed the help of a little boy to pull her back up so she could get out. It's a loud, get your energy out by screaming and climbing sort of place.

Saturday, we went to one of the more affluent libraries that has a fish take, a train table with 20 trains, a dollhouse, a barn, tons of puzzles, stuffies that you can dress/undress, bean bags, duplo blocks table and of course tons of books. They even have a little volunteer run cafe in the front that serves diner style coffee for .75 cents or .50 if you have your own cup (good to know!). After the library we came home and had a family nap that lasted about three and half hours.

Sunday, we went out for my delayed birthday brunch to a Brazilian restaurant with some friends who have a five month old too. You go in and they have an exotic salad bar, and dudes walking around with sticks of freshly roasted meat on sticks ... it was pretty successful. Morella was a darling, Athena was a crabpot who should have taken a nap but overall managed okay and I had the best waffle ever. It had a hot berry and chocolate sauce combo on top. Since I had to stop midway through to nurse a fussy Athena, I ate slowly and didn't overdo it, though I short of wished I had. I guess that is for the hungry in me talking now.

Tim's parent's offered to watch the girls while we did something. I suggested to Tim that we really try to do something since it seemed like Athena was getting better about me leaving her for stretches at a time without needing food. We went to see Avatar - a movie I never thought I would get to see in the theater despite it selling out seven weeks after it's release. We splurged and got the ultra combo - huge popcorn and big drinks for each of us, and sat back to watch the movie. My only comment regarding the movie is that each time the Na'vi plugged their biological USB cords into the plants, I would instantly think of Athena. I realized after awhile that nursing and weird braid USB's were very similar. I guess, it's both a method of bonding and exchange of energy. Happy hormones for me and sustenance for Athena and of course, that bond.

We got back to a howling, tear faced Athena sitting in her grandma's lap and Morella waking up from a nap. Apparently Athena thought it would be more fun to cry through her afternoon nap and make everyone miserable the entire time. Big credit to Tim's parents though for not calling us and letting us see a movie uninterrupted -- it was on the best birthday presents ever. :D

Oh that Neeners...she's such a Momma's girl and I can't be mad at her because she is so stinking cute and cuddle and mine...all mine.

There are some other things I wanted to say but it's late and Tim just told me that I am where English words go to die. [In reference to full boar -- dude, I thought it was a wild big in full rampaging mode....and just now when I asked him how to spell substenence because stupid spell check wasn't bring it up. He said "You mean sustenance?" ]

I felt brave today, and on top of things. I was a super mom. I woke up well rested because Athena slept from 12-7. I took a shower with Morella and got clean while Athena took a quick nap. I dressed everyone, myself included. I made a batch of my awesome chocolate chip cookies before Toddler Time at the library. I attended Toddler Time and Morella had a blast while I managed to keep a non napping Neeners quiet. I let Morella play with the library stuff afterward before giving up the battle with Athena and went home. Athena feel asleep on the way home so I was able to have a peaceful lunch with Morella while baking two trays of awesome chocolate chip cookies, with walnuts for those "nut lovers." I then packed everyone in the car and ... this is where I really outdid myself ... I drove all the to Cross Plains (like 20 miles) to visit an old college friend who just had a baby two weeks ago. I brought a tater tot casserole I had made the night before -- I made a double batch so we would have dinner when I got home, an upside down orange cake (kind of bitter), and the cookies because the cake was bitter.

Anyway. It was a great drive. I did it! That was the farthest I have ever driven by myself with just the girls and I rocked it! Had a great visit. Drove home and missed all the rush hour traffic. I put the casserole in the oven, and watched "Ahh Aahh" (Curious George) with Morella while nursing Athena and then Karen came over and played with Morella while I ... oh I am getting bored writing this.

All I needed was to hear "It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight..." Ha ha. I also imagined that I was in a cut scene in a Lifetime movie about a courageous woman who turns her life around and makes it more fantastic than it already is.

So you know how I talked about not wanting to tackle Athena and the cosleeper? Sometimes all I need to do is publicly say something to give myself the motivation to do something. You know, it's the classic "Why wait for the perfect time that may never exist when I can just do it now?" Plus, Tim came back to bed after spending a week or two on the futon because of a terrible cold he had. I found the diminished space to be less than restful. My baby is huge and likes to spread out.

Today is day three of having her to go to sleep in her cosleeper. So far the trick is to leave my arm in there next to her for awhile. Sure there is usually one misfire or so where I have to take her out to re-nurse her into submission, but in the end she is asleep in her cosleeper like a good little baby. Just gotta take it one day at at time.

During one of the misfires last night, I looked down at her and she as nestled in the crook of my arm, sleeping peacefully and radiating contentment. She was just beautiful. I wanted to capture it forever and hold her all night long but then thought "No, this is just a ruse to trick me." No, I didn't really think that. But it does show you how easy it is to justify not sticking to something. "She'll only be little for short time. I should be enjoying this -- everyone tells me I should be."

Nursing a baby instead of spending two - 4 hours a day pumping for a baby is so much nicer. A thousand times nicer. How the heck did I do that for a year? No wonder I felt like I had no free time. I didn't.

Morella's newest thing is to take the squirt/spray bottle we use for getting the flannel wipes wet and going after the cats. I told her she could because Tim and I were sick of getting sprayed. I don't think I will ever forget how she learned it though. I was laying on the floor of her room while she puttered in the corner. I picked up the bottle she had knocked to the floor and was playing with and said "Morella..." She looked at me and I sprayed her right in the face. Her look was priceless. Shock. Bewilderment. Tears. I called her over and gave her a hug, apologized and wiped her face all while trying not to laugh. Exactly one hour later I got sprayed in the face and started laughing manically.

I am so tired. It's not very often I am afflicted by the tired side effect of having kids, so this is not a welcome feeling. One other other has been waking up all hours of the night or getting up at ungodly hours in the morning. Yesterday it was Neeners who wanted to play at 4:30. Today it was Morella at 5:45 because the milk that was left by her bedside was "no nilk!" You see, two of our local grocery stores were out of her particular brand of milk. 8th Continent Vanilla Soy. Anything else is no acceptable. I admit we dug ourselves into this hole by indulging her. It was just easier to buy that than to get her to drink anything else, especially since we were so thrilled she was drinking something. In our defense we have done some whole milk trials recently and she can tolerate dairy now. So we have been starting to mix whole milk with her soy -- right now we are at about 1 part milk (maybe a little less) to 3 parts soy. We only started last week, so we aren't ready to go full boar milk. But we might have too -- because how can two stores be out of the same milk that they always sell out off?

I know two of the other stores do not have it. The Hippy coop does not. Copps pick and save does not. Savers does not. Hy-vee does ... so that is where we are headed this morning. OH and you know, we did buy another brand of vanilla soy that we hadn't tried yet (and we have tried them all). Same result. A big part of that reason is that they claim it's vanilla, but it's only lightly flavored whereas 8th Continent means business whey they say vanilla. I even tried sweetening it with honey - nope. Trust me folks, we have tried every other option. I did get her to be quiet this morning by giving her some strawberry milk, but she only sips it. Treats it like a cup of coffee or tea, or a milkshake. Not life sustaining milk.

I am just to tired to face this battle right now after the week we have. Morella's high fever, thinking she might have had a UTI (she didn't, she was just afraid to pee), and then Athena getting sick, and me going out on my birthday (I don't regret that, but it did make for a late night), and that wretched headache I had all weekend that drained the life out of me all contribute to me wanting to put this battle and others off for another week. The other battle -- Athena needs to really start sleeping in her cosleeper. She is getting mobile in bed, and big. I want my space back. It's just so much easier to have her sleep right away though than to constantly put her down in it and go there five minutes later to take her out, recalm her and blah blah blah. I know. Think of the end game. The whole bed 1/2 bed to myself is reward enough...or is it? I hate this not having sleep thing.

Morella has been battling a fever all day. So far the highest has been 104.7 taken this evening at 8:00. Of course we called the doctor -- twice. First I did this afternoon when the two hours after a dose of tylenol her temperature went up almost two degrees and made an appointment for tomorrow morning at 10. Plenty of time to see if anything changes between then and now. The second time was tonight when Tim called. We got all the same information - give motrin and make sure it goes down. Weather through it. Kids get high fevers and it's normal. They also consider a fever of 104.7 to be only moderately high.

It's going to be a long night. Instead of foolishly going to bed at 12 like I did last night and waking at 2, 4, and then 5 for the day, I am going to go bed by 10. I am finally starting to feel the tiredness now. There is something about having a sick kid that gives you energy.

I think having a sick kid is one of the hottest fires imaginable in the tempering of parenthood. Sure there are the sleepless nights and exhaustion and uncontrollable and sometimes embarrassing tantrums, vomiting, spit up, poop and pee accidents. However, the most frustrating aspect to parenthood for me so far is when they get sick. Then you have all of the above plus a distinct feeling of helplessness. You just want to make it better but can't.

I got Morella some dvd's from the library to help cheer her up when she is feeling like watching some TV -- two Melmo (Elmo) dvd's and a story book type thing with Goodnight Moon. We just watched it a little while ago and it made me sleepy. One of the stories was How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight. I gotta say, this kid is pretty good natures because both Tim and I thought it was a creepy, scary story!

I also got her some subway cold cut trio meat, a snickerdoodle and ginger ale. She has a full cup of crushed ice with enough soda to fill in the spaces in her extra special Boppa (grandma) sippy cup with a straw. Now if only we can keep the Doctor (she renamed Arkham the cat) and Meyo (Migo) out of her room and off her bed. Especially that darn Meyo.

I hope she feels better tomorrow. What a rotten start to a birthday weekend.

PS. The fever did go down after the last Motrin dose at 8:10. It was down to 101.6 at 8:50. we are mostly worried about how high it will be before the next motrin dose.

Tim took a 1/2 day today so that he could come home and hold down the fort while I went to the DMV to renew my driver's license. This wasn't just any old renewing though -- this was me getting my permanent DL's! Yeah! I'm a real adult now! I get a few more fuck up points added to my card! Hurray! The picture is awful. However I am comforted by the fact that by the time I need to renew it again at the age of 42 -- I am 100% positive I will think I looked awesome. Hows that for a convoluted sentence. I would try to fix it, but it's super late and I gotta get to bed. I celebrated by going to a grocery store some chocolate cake and coffee and got pizza for dinner. When I returned home Athena was howling a desperately, Morella had red rimmed eyes and Tim look relieved. It took me about 1/2 an hour to calm Athena down. I told her I wasn't sorry for the 1 1/2 hours of freedom I had though and it was her fault for always waking up 5 minutes after I leave.

While Tim was at his Thursday night gaming thing, I went through photos and deleted most of the ones that were bad, relooked through them to try and narrow it down more and eventually uploaded 4 months worth of photos to Walgreens (total 370 photos) and ordered them. Then I shared the album with family so that they could order whatever pictures they wanted ... and then remembered I had four nursing photos on there. I went and deleted them but I am not sure if the family will see them or not. The Walgreens FAQ was hazy on the issue. It's not like they are distasteful. No nipple is showing -- they are very nice in fact. However, I don't need them all seeing that as the photos were for me. Sigh. Anyway. Let it go.

So here are four pictures from this month.

Sarah, Nicol, Me and Athena. I am fairy certain that Athena weighs more than her son who is seven weeks older than she is. It's so strange to have a big baby now considering how flimsy nature of Morella. Though Nicol is much sturdier -- Neener is still pretty soft and squishy.

Morella didn't want to get out of the bath. This is the most wrinkled, and pruny feet I have ever seen.
Athena the sitter upper.
Noah and Morella on their first drive in date.

This week has been strange. First I hosted playgroup on Monday and a bajillion people and kids showed up, enough for the neighbors to notice. It was cool though because for the first time ever having that many people over did not stress me out one bit. I guess I figured the house was clean enough from over the past week and what wasn't clean I can pawn off on having kids. Maybe it was being prepared ahead of time that allotted me that easy, stress free feeling.

I had a new friend over on Friday morning with her two sons, one of which is about two weeks younger than Athena. Since she had never been to my house I was on high alert and spent the week before that using her visit as a catalyst to get things done like put curtains up and redo elements of organization in the bathroom. Once those things were done it was easy to keep the house clean over the weekend. The visit went well and is worth repeating, especially since after March most playdates will have to be at her house because of her older son's schedule.

The day before that one of the playdate ladies came over with her son and we had a nice visit. Morella and her son had a blast until it ended very abruptly near Morella's bedtime because she was bitten. She had two round little bite marks on her pipecleaner arm, one with red and blue near the skin. No skin was broken but Morella was very upset. She ended up regaling the entire story of what happened to us several times over the course of the night (she stayed up until 10) and the next day. She made sure to reenact the entire experience by walking us to the kitchen and taking us to her room where the crime of passion occurred (near her bed). She was so serious -- it was much like the Owl incident. Tim had taken her outside to listen to an Owl and for the next week we heard all about the Owl. In sum, I am glad that she was bitten by a friend rather than some bully at the park. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and this way we were able to talk about it and deal with it as an accident rather than the world being a cold, cruel place.

Let's see, then Sunday we had our out of town friends, Sarah and family stop in for a visit in the evening. Morella and their daughter Ruth played beautifully together. Morella was very excited and happy to take Ruth's hand and lead her off to her room to show her around. In truth, Ruth is just old enough that Morella was enthralled by her older girl status. For the record, Ruth is 7 months older that Morella -- practically a cool, older teenager in toddler speak. Tim took the girls downstairs to play in the playroom while we stayed upstairs and had Athena and Nicol play with each other for awhile. Okay, we layed them on the floor next to each other. What else are you going to do with little babies? Ha ha. After they left I felt awful that we didn't offer to have them stay for dinner. God, sometimes I wish I could be more prepared. All the dishes were dirty and in the dishwasher, I didn't know when the heck dinner would be done and it would have been too late for them to drive back. Still, I like to imagine that I am capable of gracious hosting -- I guess that is a skill I will have to perfect. I apologize for not having thought ahead!

That brings us to Monday with the playdate. Well the all the kids must have tuckered Morella out because she took a nap. For the record, she has largely given up naps. It sucks because I have had to adjust for the extra 15 hours a week in my work schedule entertaining and keeping track of a toddler. I'm getting there, but I still am really tired by the end of the day. I was enjoying the unexpected free time catching up on the internet (which has sadly suffered since the Death of the Nap) and ... I am so embarrassed to admit this. *deep breath*

I almost got suckered into an online phishing scam. This one was via Facebook -- the good old "I got Mugged in London by Gunpoint" scam. It was only because Western Union has bulletins on their website that warn of fraud, scams and ruses that I thought to ask a personal question. A question the "friend" couldn't answer. In the the end, no harm was done. No money was lost, no personal information revealed and the world didn't blow up. No the only real lasting damage was to my pride. I emailed the friend and told her of the hacking and then tried to get on with the rest of the day. But you know, I just feel like such a rube. A maroon if you will.

You know, since then, I have been trying to think of other times I have done really stupid things and only two really come to mind. First and foremost was the stupid cruise I bought into over the phone. Thank goodness Wisconsin has a refund law that ensures you get 48 hours to change your mind. Secondly, was the time I left my camera at the outlook tower while camping. By the time we went back it was gone. Hey that reminds me of another one -- the time I forgot my camera in my bag by the car last October when I went to get pumpkins. Thankfully I was able to get that one back unscathed. I blame Morella for that. You know, that whole leaving things in a rush and you forget things. I can't tell you how many times I have locked us out of the house because I forgot to bring my keys with me.

Okay. It's Fringe time -- no more wallowing. I just wonder what my horoscope would have to say about this weird week. Probably something very cryptic. Yesterday aside, this month has gotten much better. I guess I need to start the New Year off with a major case of the blues so that I have something to shake off. The darkness before dawn. It's nice. This is going to be the year of unfinished business, I think. Finish things. Return things. Fulfill obligations. Fulfill promises -- at least those that I can remember. Have the whole year in which to wipe the slate clean. Maybe this should be my new years resolution.

Yeah. That it's. Brilliant.