Sunday, December 14, 2008

Snow Day


Our first snow fall in the Portland area this season, a little early Christmas present. Carina and Papa got to go sledding.

For those of you who have been on the edge of your seat waiting for my next post the reason I have not been able to add anything in over a month was that Carina put a nail in the coffin for out last computer. It was already falling apart and she pushed it over the edge, quite literally when she knocked it off the table. Anyway I am back to using a mac and very happy with it.
So you are probably wondering what we have been up to for the last month.

Buggy's month in review
Carina went skiing "by herself"



She was pretty excited and a natural. So now she has her own ski's that we tested out today on our in town ski day.

We got her bed situation figured out by just lowering the bed down and returning the under bed storage unit and I will some drawer units in her closet. She still loves it and wont suffer a concussion if she falls out of bed.




Carina and I build a Disney princess gingerbread house.
This is what ours looked like


This is what the box said it should look like, I think we did alright and Carina enjoyed sampling all the candy decorations and frosting.



That is pretty much it.

Monday, November 10, 2008

The most perfect bed ever

I decided Carina needed a big girl bed, no not a toddler bed but a real twin size bed that she could keep until she grows up and moves out. And I found the bed, it is a captains bed so that we can eliminate the dresser in her ever shrinking room and it is a sweet girly antique white with scalloped edges. Ohhh so perfect.
The first furniture store I went to sold the bed except one little set back, it wouldn't be in for a week...two at the most. The manager even called the sale rep who told him that they had it in. Yeapy Carina will be sleeping in her bed, and not mine, in one week..two at tops. Well that was September 25.
After many calls to Nat my ever so friendly sales guy who has clearly let all his hair product impair his sense of time the bed finally arrived on November 5th. Oh, and you know I ripped into those boxes and immediately tried to put put it together. But I quickly realized that this was a job that required two sets of hands. So having no other option I instead sat on my hands until Sunday when the second set of hands i.e. Travis was able to help.

Travis asked me if I thought we should assemble the under bed storage unit first (I don't know why he asks me these questions). I said no, of course because the directions don't mention anything about this being necessary. So we proceed to putting the bed together and It went very smoothly. I should have know somethings was up because in order for Travis to fix or assemble anything he must break something along the way. So we had the bed together and now it was time to assemble the under bed storage and surprise we now had to partially take a part the bed. Yeah! But okay we rolled with it. After Travis saw how it was going to go together so we quickly had a disagreement about how installing the under bed storage unit would be like the worse idea ever(Travis) and it will be okay(Tamara). SO fast forward an hour and voila we have a compromise. A really good one that made us both happy not the kind where you are both disgruntled and smoldering quietly. And Travis agreed to assemble the drawers.

Travis quickly realized that it is impossible to screw the drawers to the frame of the bed, he tried he really tried but it was not going to happen. Okay, so I decided to roll with it some more and decided that the under bed storage was always a dumb idea. So Travis put the bed back together and slapped the mattress on it(the mattress we have have for a month). Travis called me into the room and asks me if I measured any of this before I ordered it. The top of the mattress is 30" off the ground and Carina is approximately 36" tall. She will need an elevator to get up there and it will be a midnight trip to the ER when she falls out of bed in the middle of the night. I think I had pretty much made up my mind at that point but there was a big part of me that wanted to see the whole package with the princess sheets that Carina and I spent days and multiple trips to multiple stores to pick out. (over a month ago) So I put it all together and I found the nail in the coffin so to speak the answered any questions in my mind about whether I was just going to roll with it or if the bed was going back. There is a 4 1/2 inch gap between the mattress and the bed frame. So all these scenarios of Carina falling through crack and breaking or leg or chocking went racing through my head. Yeah, the bed it definitely going back but darn it is cute and Carina loved it and WANTED to sleep in it. I actually had to put her to sleep in there and then move her into my bed. AHHHH

The most perfect bed ever to be continued.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Halloween 2008

Carina met a mad scientist


Pricess Aurora a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty


Diamond Princess Barbie and a Race car driver


A dragon


and his beautiful mommy


and 3 lbs of candy

Monday, October 27, 2008

our weekend

Nothing profound just some pictorial highlights of the weekend. It was swimsuit weather at the beach in October.













Here Travis is watching a surfer in the ocean thinking "Wow he really knows how to read the waves" We later found out the surfer was Gerry Lopez- who is a world class surfer. SO yeah Travis he really can read the waves, in fact he probably knew how to read the waves before he knew how to read books.












It was a gorgeous weekend at the beach. We also went to the aquarium and Carina got to wear her costume, not that she cared one bit. Carina was more interested in the fish.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

"mccain guarentees victory".....

the headline reads. My response "Tamara guarantees fleeing to Canada for political asylum"

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

bad habit resolved

So I really tried to listen to my wise sister in law and follow her guidance to ignore the nail biting but when Carina's nail beds starting getting infected I could no longer cringe the other way. I went to the drug store to get a product called Thum. The lady at the store explained how it is superior to the other products because it doesn't contain formaldehyde and it uses natural oils. Yeah that sounds good natural and effective; she did warn that sometimes kids like the taste of it.
So went went home and I painted it on and waited. Within 5 minutes the familiar chomp was followed by an ouch while she stuck out her tongue. I explained that she could no longer bite her nails. Quizzical blue eyes stared at me then she went back to watching her movie. Then I hear her gagging, I look over and she is red faced and ready to throw up with tears streaming down her face. I rush her to the sink where she throws up, my immediate response is to get that S*%t off of my baby girl as quickly as I can. I then notice the first ingredient is Cayenne pepper followed by isopropyl alcohol and acetone and then the warning In case of accidental ingestion contact poison control. They have got to be joking, the product is designed to be painted on children's fingers so that when they put their fingers or thumb in their mouth the taste deters them from doing it again. Kids can have serious allergic reactions to Cayenne pepper like swelling of the throat and generally it is thought as child abuse to place it in a child's mouth as punishment. But slap a corporate label on it and put it in the baby product aisle and it is perfectly acceptable.

So I decided to immediately implement a positive rewards based approach to this nail biting problem. Then I remembered how excited she got at the drug store when she saw all the pretty nail polish and embellishments. So I explained that if she could let her boo boos heal by not biting her nails then we could paint her nails. By Monday Carina was no longer a nail biter. I can't say whether it was the physical abuse or the promise of a reward. Ohh and by the way she totally put it together that I was the one who painted her nails with the ouchy stuff that hurt her. That goes in the mother's guilty bank.

I decided to really do up the nail painting and gave her the full manicure experience ( did I mention the guilt). I soaked her hands, used a nailbrush, filed and painted her nails. I put a couple of jewels on her nails but they did not stay past the pictures being taken
.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Evil

Last week one of my clients called me evil and like those individuals that we in this county currently consider evil, she to has considered me an ally in the past.

So why am I writing about this...well because it got me thinking about morality and religion. I at least in part prescribe to Kohlberg's theory of morality which states that people's moral development progresses through 6 stages. Going from rewards and consequences determining your behavior to consideration of the implications on mankind or to say it differently morality progresses from external to internal. Please keep in mind I am summarizing a complicated theory into a few sentences. But if someone is making decisions based on their preference for heaven over hell or to be in God's good graces their morality is external rather then internal. Which puts them about at stage 3. I have always considered religion to be a barrier to higher levels of moral thinking and then it hit me. Religion is only one stop along the way. When I am walking through the store I ultimately don't steal because I realize the social consequences of stealing but there is also a part of me that is thinking I don't want to go to jail and I don't want to embarrass my family or lose my job. So why cant religion also play a role in ones decision making without being the sole deciding factor, the answer is it can.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Sealions

Travis and I lived in Astoria for a summer way back in 2000. He was working for the state riding along with the commercial fisherman and torturing sea lions. It was undeniably the most fun Travis has ever had at work. It was a bit of adventure, a chance to interact with the kind of people who made the summers of his adolescents so grand and he was actually doing a little science. But the part about torturing the sea lions. It was his job to set the sea lions traps and then go out there and brand them so they could track their migration up the Columbia river and monitor their salmon intake. It was all for the good of the salmon blah blah blah. Sea lions are huge and stinky and cram a bunch of them in a trap on a platform in the middle of the river and they become very mean. They would bite each other but they couldn't get to their captures due to the construction of the trap. Ohh but those sea lions had their revenge. We lived in this cute house on the hill overlooking the city of Astoria and the Columbia river. One night we watch the northern lights from the front porch. But every morning without fail we would be awoken by the barking of the sea lions. It really is a horrible sound.

We went out to the beach a couple weeks ago with the intention to boogie board but once we got to the beach it was windy and cold and it just didn't seem so fun anymore. Well we stopped in
Astoria on the way home and Travis likes to go down to the docks where he used to work and they have been taken over by the sea lions.

Carina was fascinated by them and really didn't want to leave and has been talking about them and impersonating them ever since.

So it has come full circle and the sea lions have got the last laugh, except her incessant barking is rather adorable

Monday, October 13, 2008

I want it off


So whenever Carina gets hurt she says in varying degrees of anger or pain "I want it off, take it off" ohh baby I would if I could. It is every mother's desire to end their child's pain. It breaks my heart when she looks at me with those big blue eye believing that I have the power to mend her stubbed toe or whatever ails her. So right now Carina has the sniffles so she asks me last night to take off her sneezes. So I guess I will just chop off her nose clean it out and sew it back on

Thursday, October 9, 2008

bad habits

At 2 years old Carina bites her nails AHHHHH This is defiantly not my habit... it is Travis', grandma Sue does it but I am blaming it on Papa. I have been dealing with little flecks of nail all over the driver seat after he has been driving for ten years. He has kept me up with his squeaky chomp chomp on his nails while we are in bed. I hate nail biting, I am sorry but it is a nasty germy habit. There is no way to look self assured and full of confidence when you sheepishly have your fingers in your mouth. Carina is so flexible that she can bite her toenails...I know Travis didn't show her that. I have this image of Travis shaped like a pretzel in excruciating pain.

Anyway there is no way to deal with it...the more attention I draw to it the worse it gets. I guess when she gets older I will introduce her to fabulous manicures with fun colors and nice lotions.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Little Miss independent

So Travis and I have been skiing now for almost 8 years and about the time I was really getting good...I got pregnant. I missed out on the last few months of the 2005 season and the first few months of the 2006 session. Thanks to a wonderful friend, Took, and my mother in law who actually came to the resort and took care of Carina while I skied I was able to get a few runs in a couple of months after Carina was born. By the time Carina was a year old Travis and I decided to take her out with us. Now before you call the child welfare hotline consider this she, was well dressed in the best waterproof breathable gear Travis could find and in a wonderful backpack with a helmet.





Well we have always planned easy low angle trips. Great intentions but occasionally you find yourself over your head. Well on one particular day of skiing Travis took quite a spill and damaged his rear end in his attempt to save Carina from any danger.

She was not physically harmed but she defiantly decided that this skiing in the backpack was not for her. The wee when going down the hill quickly become tears of fear. We were not deterred and so Travis rigged a sled which had so much potential to work out...but unfortunately it is to unstable on the downhill portion. Travis ended up towing us both out on our last trip because I rode in the sled to add some stability. WOW I wish we had a picture of that. We were sure that we had ruined skiing for Carina for good.

So this last weekend Travis and I went to the local ski shop to smell the new skis. Carina quickly went over to the telegear and found herself some boots and skis and pronounced that she was going to ski by herself this year. WHEW WHO a skier is born!

Sunday, October 5, 2008

the first post

So I have been challenged to start this blogging experience by the end of this week.
So here I sit wondering if I have anything meaningful to say. I am the mother of one of the most fantastic two year olds I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I know all mother's say that but if you know buggy then you know the truth in my motherly pride. I guess what strikes me today is that I seem to truly appreciate her when I am not with her or as she is now, when she is sleeping peacefully. It seems that life gets in the way of my love for her more often then I ever thought it would. It is a struggle to be the type of mother that I wish I could be. See, I am a stay at home mom who gets up everyday and goes to work outside the home. The dichotomy of what I feel is best for my daughter and me is the opposite of what I feel I must do to pay the bills every month. Considering that my job is to to plan for the welfare of other people's children when I know in my heart what is best for my child is for me to be home with her is a 24/7 struggle. I imagine that this subject could fill a book and will permeate my blog. I'll try to stay focus on the gifts that I do have.