Announcing

Jessie Elizabeth Greenlaw, born 4:26 p.m. Sunday May 17. 20" long and weighing in at 8 lbs. on the dot. Mom's labor and delivery nurse, was, in what seemed an apt coincidence, named Jessie.

Big Sister Stuff

20 days and counting til the arrival of Baby Jessie, and Big Sister Lily is gearing up.

She earned her "Super Sibling" certificate at a class last Saturday, going to the effort of digging her not-so-gently worn "Big Sister" shirt made by Grandma Marsha out of the laundry just so she could wear it to the class.

Then on Sunday, at a lovely baby brunch hosted by some work friends, the hostess asked Lily what she thought the big, narrow tall gift was. Without a second's hesitation, Lily asked excitedly, "A pogo stick?!" Needless to say, she was sorely disappointed to learn it was a stroller. But she still enjoyed tearing off the wrapping paper.

Then today she asked me, "Sometimes it's hard for mommies to breathe when they have babies, isn't it?"

"Yes honey, it is."

She paused. I'm thinking she's going to say something sweet and sympathetic. But I would be wrong.

Then she said, "Well, I hope you have a hard time breathing today so Baby Jessie will be born."

Alrighty then.

At both her Super Sibling class and in the books we've been reading to prepare for the baby's arrival, Lily's received a lot of advice to sing to the baby. I must say though, I hope she waits a while before she decides to sing the following diddy to the baby. She seems to be quite fond of it today.

Five little monkeys swinging from a tree
Teasing Mr. Crocodile, you can't catch me
Here comes Mr. Crocodile, quiet as can be
Snap!

Loud cackle from Lily

Four little monkeys....

Take my word for it, the cackle's kind of scary.

Look Ma, No Hands!

My 5-year old is becoming quite proficient at the hula hoop. It reminds me of when she first started to learn to swing. It seemed for the longest time she couldn't master the leg kick, and invariably would stop swinging as soon as the initial push from Mom or Papi wore off. Same with the hula hoop. For months, she could manage 1, 2, maybe 3 revolutions before the hoop would be at her ankles. Then boom, all of a sudden she can keep it waist bound for 45 seconds or a minute at a time.

I like the combination I see in her of perseverance and diligence. She's not one to hesitate at praticing something she wants to better herself at - whistling being another example. She can already outwhistle me. I hope these are traits that continue to stay with her through life, as they will undoubtedly serve her well.

I've got a pix of P. Daddy hula hooping as well, but since his arms are outstretched in a motion as if to strangle me for snapping the shot, I opted to leave it out. :)

Random Musings

Have very few cohesive thoughts to offer for this blog (OK, I have NONE), but I do have a non-cohesive assortment of Lily/mommy updates to offer.



1) My leetle artiste made this on the PBS Kids Web site recently. I thought it was a nice symbol of springtime.









2) My budding politically-aware daughter announced out of nowhere to me this morning that "Ava wrote a letter to Barack Obama, and Barack Obama wrote back to her." So Lily wants to write a letter to Barack Obama too. Anyone have any idea what White House lackey gets the job of responding to Barack's fan mail from kids? If so, I want his/her address.



3) Not feeling like a great Mom lately. House moving/general lack of energy owing to being 8 months pregnant has me falling on the short side when it comes to playing with Lily. Promising self to do a pretend tea party or something of similar nature tonight.


4) Poll to readers - I know there's a poll function somehwere in this tool, but I don't remember where it is, so I'll just embed it here. Last night P. Daddy and I went to childbirth refresher class. Nurse/teacher asks for questions. P. Daddy chimes in with "Does North Austin have a special ops lab?" I look at him quizzically. Nurse/teacher asks him to explain further. "In case of a post-partum bleed, I want to know if they can take care of her here or if she has to go to Brackenridge?" Me starting to think P. Daddy's being awfully morbid. Nurse/teacher replies: "They are well equipped to deal with that here." P. Daddy then says something along the lines of, "I will know what doctor's on call that night, and if I don't like that doctor, I will have my own doctor on call." Now methinks P. Daddy's being awfully sweet and all. So what say you, morbid or sweet?


5) Finally, a challenge to my mother. Try posting a comment to the blog, instead of reiterating to me on the phone what you did/did not like about it. :) It's sort of the point of the blogosphere - creating online conversations!

Lenten sacrifices, clowns and bunnies

Being the not-so-devout Catholic that I am, I decided to let Lent 2009 elapse without me sacrificing anything. I'm already sacrificing sleep as a result of my yet-to-be-born child inhabiting my body, so that's enough, right?

Well, I know it's a little late in the game being only 5 days away from Easter and all, but I've decided to give up something after all.

Bunnies. Yes, bunnies. As in rabbits. One of the ever-present symbols of Easter, if not Lent. Ironic, huh?

In my opinion, bunnies have vaulted right to #2 spot on the List of Things that Cathy Doesn't Like. The #1 position will eternally be held by clowns.

So I can avoid the bunnies, P. Daddy's been duly informed that he's now in charge of Easter.

I know at least one of my readers out there already knows the reason why, but for the rest of you, I'll explain.

So this past weekend I jaunted off to Las Vegas with some old college gal pals, and a great weekend it was. We decided to take in a show while we were there, and the one we landed on was Criss Angel's "Believe."

Now I may just be the only person in the world who'd never heard of Criss Angel, but apparently he's been the most famous magician out there for oh, the last decade or so. So this show is combined with Cirque de Soleil. A Cirque de Soleil magic show. Sounds magical, right?

Not so much.

I liked the magic part. Enough to want to make me check out past episodes of Angel's highly touted cable show "Mindfreak." But there wasn't nearly enough magic.

Now the Cirque de Soleil part. Picture some weird combination of Alice in Wonderland, Moulin Rouge, New Orleans Mardi Gras and decapitated bunny heads dancing upside down on their ears, and you'll have an idea of what I witnessed.

Hence my new aversion.

This might just be enough to make me return to being a more devout Catholic and go to church on Easter to celebrate Jesus' resurrection and all. As long as the church doesn't have a visiting Cirque de Soleil troupe appearing.

I Pledge a Lee Gents

I'm not the type of mother that easily shrugs away parental duties, at least not on purpose. But I suddenly became aware today that I had so far failed to impart any civics lessons whatsoever unto my child.

"I can say the Pledge of Allegiance," Lily announced out of nowhere earlier today.

"You can?" I responded, triply suprised, proud, and grateful to the school system for picking up my parental teaching slack. Or to be more precise, I thanked the pre-school system.

I then eagerly awaited what I fully expected would be a mangled recitation of the pledge, something along the lines of:

I pledge a Lee Gents
To the flag of the
Night and Skates of America
And to the Republican
For witches stand
One nation,
Under God, invisible,
With liver teeth and juices for
all.

Instead, my articulate daughter recited the pledge near perfectly. With one exception. She left out the words "under God."

I thought at first maybe she had just forgotten to say them, but when I attempted to insert them on her behalf, it didn't ring any of her bells.

Then I realized I'd just had an up-close-and-personal encounter with Church vs. State.

Do you realize if you Google the words "kids, pledge of allegiance, and controversy" you'll end up with a whopping 76,500 results? The key words "pledge of allegiance constitutionality" generate 319,000 results. A quick scan of the results leads me to believe that nearly every school district in every state in the country has grappled with this issue. And at least one federal circuit court in the US has ruled the mandatory recitation of the pledge in public schools is unconstitutional owing to the inclusion of the phrase "under God."

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not what you'd call an active religious practitioner. Neither am I an atheist, or a non-theist, or whatever the politically correct term is these days. I can read about and understand the mostly intellectual but sometimes emotionally charged arguments from people on both sides of the pledge issue.

What I have trouble understanding is what all the fuss is about. Kids will ultimately grow up and develop their own religious and spiritual beliefs, hopefully influenced more by their parents than by the schools they attend. Whether or not they say the words 'under God' while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance won't be the ultimate determining factor of their personal religious creed.

So I guess what I'm saying is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Say the pledge, with or without the two controversial words. But we shouldn't let two charged words, a mere three syllables in total, stop our schools from helping to instill a sense of national pride and patriotism in our children.

Gosh, it seemed a lot less complicated when I was a kid.

Is this a great dad or what?

Anatomy Lessons

So the other day when I drop off Lily at school, her teacher Ms. Heather comes and asks me if I saw the drawing Lily brought home from school yesterday.

Now, I look through ALL of Lily's drawings, but honestly, since she produces them at an astonishing pace, I can't say I spend more than a couple of seconds looking at each. And for the most part, I promptly forget about them immediately afterwards.

So I quickly rack through my recollection of yesterday's artwork, murmuring a muted "uh-hum" to the teacher, all the while wondering if my precious daughter just happened to illustrate something that would ring the alarm bells of school psychologists.

"Did she tell you what it was?" Ms. Heather asks.

"No," she didn't, actually," I respond, which is unusual, because Lily typically likes to describe her creations in graphic (no pun intended) detail. "What was it?"

"She drew a uterus for the class."

Oh boy.

Or in my case, oh girl.

Did I mention Lily's excited about becoming a big sister?

Yes, apparently Lily had drawn said anatomical part, knew the exact pronunciation, and told all 31 of her classmates what it was. Considering I've been getting many pats on my stomach from said classmates, I'm surprised none of them came up to me and asked me about my uterus on that day.

Ms. Heather was amused, to say the least. She's the type of teacher who would probably turn the uterus drawing into some sort of learning opportunity for the kids.

I'm just relieved she didn't ask me to come in and be a guest speaker on the topic.

Shout Out

Just want to give a shout out to another friend's blog, one I probably should have known about a while ago but for some reason just discovered. Anyway, check out There....I Said It by the inimitable Jane Kovacs. http://kovacsjane.wordpress.com/

Dr. Mom

I feel like I passed a major "Mom" milestone today. I successfully removed a splinter from Lily-bug's hand and she said it didn't even hurt. Blue ribbon for Mom!

On a completely unrelated note, thanks to Susie http://constantlyrelocating.blogspot.com/ for passing on a fun "to do" today. Google your first name and then the word "needs"and see what comes up. Mine was the following:
1. All Cathy needs is a big feather to fan him and feed him peeled grapes.
2. Cathy needs a Senior HR Mgr from IBM to come talk to her about organization.
3. Cathy needs an angel.
4. Cathy needs chocolate (ain’t that the truth!)
5. Cathy needs a cabaret agency in Sydney.
6. Cathy needs your help.
7. Cathy needs a bathy.(no misspelling here)
8. Cathy needs a wheelchair.
9. Father Cathy and her family need your healing touch.
10. Cathy needs Vicodin.

The Puffier and Fluffier the Better

What is it with girls and their fascination with bubble letters? You know the kind I mean - the cloud-like letters with scalloped edges and hearts over the letter "i" where ordinary dots would ordinarily appear. Have you ever known a girl who didn't go through a bubble-letter writing phrase?

For me, bubble letters bring back memories of passing notes in 7th grade - all the other girls of course, never me - or of logging a "So & So loves So & So" in a Chandler's assignment book.

The bubble letter fascination has appeared to have struck Lily early. This week it's been bubble letter this, bubble letter that. Personally, I think the bubble letters just give her a reason to indulge in her favorite pastime - coloring. At this rate, she will have bypassed the bubble letter phase by 7th grade and be on to something entirely different. Hieroglyphics perhaps?

But for now, bubble letters it is. And since Lily's been helping me pack this weekend for the upcoming move, the movers will be treated to seeing words like "Bar" and "Bath" spelled out in bubble letters on the sides of the boxes. I guess there's a first time for everything.

I've Slapped Myself on the Hand

Racked by guilt = working from home on a Sunday aftenoon to receive an email from a work colleague from another company who you barely know who tells you that she's impressed that you find time to write a blog and you're thinking 'how does this person even know that I write a blog?' and then you think 'gosh how long has it actually been since I wrote in my blog?' and then you look it up and find it's been 3+ weeks!

BREATHE.

All while your child is also writing what appears to be something approximately the length of a "War and Peace" and because she can't spell you end up reciting every single letter of every single word in response to her "How to spell dragon?", followed by "How to spell clown?", followed by "How to spell wing?" ad nauseum, ad nauseum, ad nauseum....

BREATHE.

And it's been like that for the last three weeks, or at least it feels like it. Abominably, overwhelmingly crazy. Between the work weeks that have crept up from 40-45 hours back into the 45-50 hour range, and you can't slack off (not that you ever did) because layoffs are coming, to the endless parade of birthday parties (see blog entry from almost exactly one year ago), from selling a house to buying a house, from the maddening array of paperwork requiring initials and signatures for aforementioned house selling/buying to gathering other, yet similar paperwork for 2008 taxes, from having Pete's car repaired to having my car repaired, from swimming lessons to summer camp registration, from having to cook multiple meals in one night to try to salvage the food from the garage freezer that unfroze when the housing inspector forgot to flip the circuit breaker back on to, oh, I don't know. Oh, wait a minute, yes I do. Back to work. So now, in addition to doing real work, we're supposed to fully immersed in our social media tools, and Twittering, and Digging, and Yammering (the AMD company version of Twitter), and don't forget about Facebook and Mogulus. So when the heck are we supposed to be blogging?

BREATHE.

So THAT'S why I haven't written a blog entry in three weeks. Sue me.

Yet with all the madness, I think of the wide-eyed, grinning face on Lily when we suprised her the other night and took her to see Elmo's Green Thumb live show, and the unexpected pleasure from going to the grocery store this morning and finding the Oscar Mayer wienermobile parked out front, and the enjoyable Valentine's evening out listening to jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis with P. Daddy, and the upcoming gal pal trip with old college friends in Las Vegas, and how P. Daddy braved the "despicable" (say it in a Daffy Duck voice) crowds to satisfy his pregnant wife's desire for a mighty fine vanilla milkshake from Mighty Fine Burgers, and I can't help but think of one of the songs on a CD belonging to Lily.

The tune itself has to to be one of the most annoying melodies known to man, sung by a chorus of extremely irritating voices. But oh....the sentiment. With that they've hit the nail on the head. The song title: "I'm Happy in My Heart."

Funny, I think I can breathe again now.

2009 Blog Goal

So, for a project at work today, I had to try and qualify a request for an interview from a certain blogger. I was trying to determine what tools were available to tell me where this particular blog ranked in popularity/credibility across the entire blogosphere. A colleague pointed me to technorati.com, which then told me this blog ranked somewhere in the 75,000 range. Of course, what does that really mean? How many blogs are there? How was it measured?

Well, I found out there are at least 2,523, 501 blogs in the blogosphere, which makes a 75,000 ranking look pretty good.

How did I determine that, you ask? Well, that's where Momsoon ranked in the Technorati poll. I don't think I'm at the absolute bottom of the list, but then again, there's no way for me to really be sure.

So, uber-competitive person I am, I ask you faithful half dozen readers to help propel Momsoon to at least the 2,523,000 ranking in 2009. That's only 501 spots up. Can you help me? Keep reading, please!

US History for a Five-Year-Old

I know Lily's probably too young to understand most of it, but I'm looking forward to breaking the "no TV at night during the school week" rule tonight and watching some of the inauguration coverage with her. I was excited the other day when some channel flashed a picture of the Obama family on TV, previewing their upcoming coverage. Without the "P" word having even been uttered during the preview, Lily took one look and said, "That's the president!"

That's my girl.

More to follow.

P.S. Thanks to Erica at Moms are Talking About for her teachable moments blog today. http://bomoms.boston.com/post/momsaretalkingabout/inauguration_lessons.html I'm looking forward to read about what lessons you pull from today as well.

Just Another Thing to Love About Being a Mom

So, last night, in the middle of my 9-hour bout of sudden onset vomiting, Lily starts rummaging around the freezer. We've gotten accustomed to her foraging for her own food, and since it was close to dinner, we were suspicious. Turns out she was looking for one of the insulated ice cubes (you know, the kind you can freeze and re-freeze). Sometimes we use those on her if she's got a bump or bruise. She digs one out, brings it over to the couch, and places it on my belly so I'll feel better. So sweet!

The "R" Word

It's that time of year again, the time where billions of people the world over embark on their New Year's resolutions.

I'm not typically beholden to this particular tradition, or whatever you prefer to call it. But then I thought with a new baby coming, it might be good to make some parental resolutions, get in top form before the arrival of the new one, so to speak. You know the kind of resolutions I'm talking about:

1) Play with your child more often
2) Hug your child more often
3) Yell at your child less often

And the grandaddy of all parental resolutions:

4) Make your child eat more vegetables

Then I got sidetracked by thinking about the word resolution and all its intertwining parts. Resolve, resolute, resoluable, resolvable, resolved. So I pulled out my trusty dictionary - which I really should add to my all-time favorite book lists - and was intrigued by the myriad of meanings the various words represented.

"solving, as of a puzzle, or answering, as of a question"
"answering or made clear"
"to come to a decision"
"that can be resolved"
"the thing determined on"
"determined, unwavering"

I was struck by how definitive all of the meanings were. Every variation of the word "resolve" or "resolution" has a sense of finality to it, of closure, of completion.

But parenting is never really about completion or closure. It's a state of being, a journey. It's not about improving oneself and then checking that item off the list; instead, it's a state of constant betterment. No matter how good we might be, we can ALWAYS strive to be better parents.

So I'm resolving to not make any parental New Year's resolutions for 2009. Oh, I'll still work on improving upon all those items I mentioned (play more, yell less etc...). But I'll do it knowing the job will never really be done.