A Tale of Two Cities

Thanksgiving with my family has changed over the last five or so years. We used to always go to my Papa's (grandpa's) house. Since I was fairly young, that was up in the bay area where he lived with my step-grandma. My mom, dad, brother, and I would drive up every year for Thanksgiving and stay for the long weekend. I loved it. Sadly, my papa passed away a few years ago. Since then, Thanksgiving hasn't been the same. My step-grandma has shut us out of her life, so we don't go up there anymore. Shortly after my Papa passed away, my parents got divorced. Shortly thereafter I met Matt (whose parents are also divorced). We started trading off holidays between FOUR parents--a feat that we will never master to everyone's satisfaction. But...that is what happens when people get divorced and you marry people who come from different parts of the country. You simply can't be with everyone all the time. So we do the best we can. Each year we trade off the holidays--Thanksgiving up north, Christmas down south, then the opposite the next year, and so on. This year we were with my family for Thanksgiving. Since my mom and grandma both recently got remarried, the guest list for the holidays has definitely changed, as have the traditions. This kind of change is difficult for me, as I think it is for a lot of people from divorced homes. I'm also very shy with new people, and there has been a constant influx of new faces over the last few years. While I'm adjusting as I can, I still feel very unsettled at the holidays. I go to a house I've never lived in, in a town I've never lived in, with people I barely know, and without people that I'm used to seeing. And now, with a husband and child in tow, I once more find myself in the holiday season, once again feeling a twinge of discomfort. On top of that, today was the longest we've ever been away from our home with Ben. Things went quite smoothly, much to my satisfaction and, if I'm honest, surprise. But it was a different kind of surprise. As previously mentioned, I'm actually quite shy. I'm also very modest and weird about nursing Ben anywhere but my apartment--alone and with no one around to entertain. The surprise for me was that I was oddly unafraid of our big day. Ever since he was born I've been irrationally nervous and fearful about traveling with him. He's a great traveler--we're blessed that way. But it occurred to me halfway through the day that at no point was I freaking out about being away so long with him, with people the whole time, needing to feed him at other people's houses, and getting him to nap amidst the chaos. And things went well. Other than a skipped afternoon nap and, consequently, a quickly devoured second Thanksgiving dinner with a crying baby, the day went great. Ben was a champ--and I accepted all of the change with all of the adaptability I could muster. I probably still came off a stuck-up to the half dozen or so new people I met today--my social retardation is often interpreted as such. Hopefully they can come to learn about the real me as time goes on.

All in all, it was a nice Thanksgiving. :)

Ben and his Great Grandpa Bob

Ben and his Grandpa Mike

This is the stock from which I come: my brother, Jared, and my dad, Mike.

My uncle Greg

Ben and his uncle Jared


Ben and the blanket my grandma insisted on wrapping him up in (did I mention we were in Hemet?)


My grandma, Del, and cousin, Megan


Ben and his Nana


Our little family


Ben playing with his daddy


Finally...the ride home

What a Sucky Day

Happy Birthday, Erin!

My dear friend Erin Udvardy is celebrating her day of birth today. So I tried, in my infinite love for my friend and a sincere desire to make her day special, to create a special message just for her. So I set Ben up with a sign that said "Happy Birthday Auntie Erin." I'm pretty sure this bordered on child abuse...but I'm also pretty sure he won't really remember. ;)

Happy Birthday, Erin!

Four Months!

Dearest Benjamin,

Today you are four months old. You weigh 14 1/2 pounds and you're 25 inches long. You are growing up so quickly! The last couple of weeks have been big for you. You can push up with your arms.
You've rolled over a couple of times, and each time it surprises you. It won't be long before you figure out what you're doing and how to make yourself do it. You've given us a few sweet little giggles. You love to sit in your bouncy seat and try to gather up all the toys on the toy bar and put them in your mouth at once. You also love to play in your jumper/exersaucer. At first you just sat in it and looked at things, but now you play with the toys. Your favorite is the frog. You love to play with your feet. Any time you're laying on your back you swing your legs up, grab your feet, and try to put them in your mouth. This is your favorite game. You're very social. You smile at everyone, and you gurgle and coo all the time. Your favorite person to talk to is Daddy. You eat rice cereal, too. Most of it goes down your chin and into your lap, but you really like it. You also love it when we take our family walks in the evenings. And when we come back and give you your bath, you kick your legs and smile as you splash in the water.

You are more and more fun every day, and I'm crazy nuts in love with you baby.

Busy Bees

So besides indulging in teen vampire lit, what have the Millers been up to lately, you might ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Last weekend I had a glorious full four days off. As a working mom, this break from one of my jobs was a little slice of heaven for me. And I kicked it off with a grown-up night out. Matt played with a couple of his friends in a gig up in Long Beach. While my step-dad watched Ben, my best friend and I went up to see them. It's unfortunate that we forgot our riot gear, because we arrived in Long Beach to find thousands of protesters and closed streets. We did, however, get to see the police in their riot gear. Very exciting for this small-town girl. The guys' show was great, and it was really nice to get out, sans baby, for a while.

Saturday and Sunday we had family time, which was nice. Monday was Matt's birthday. He took the day off work, and we had a lazy day. In the evening a friend watched Ben while we went out with some of our other friends. It was nice to spend time with them and celebrate the birth of my hubby. Tuesday I had Ben's four month doctor appointment. She gave us the green light for rice cereal, since he's doing so well with sitting up, and since he's started waking up at night every couple of hours again (lame).

This weekend has been nice as well. Yesterday, in between Twilight readings for me and a World of Warcraft marathon for Matt, we went to a picnic in Lake Forest with my dad's side of the family. Since it was a balmy 190 degrees and -100% humidity, it was the perfect November day. Matt played in the band at church all weekend, so I had a lot of time with Ben, which was nice. This afternoon Matt gave me a much needed break and watched Ben while I meandered through the mall and graded papers at Barnes and Noble (those are another post entirely). Now our weekend is over. Tomorrow I return to the land of 12-year-olds.

Side note: I swear if it's 90 degrees much longer, I'm moving. While Orange County has its perks, I'm desperately missing the seasons, and this year has been particularly dry and sunny. No joke--I'm losing my mind.

Sssshhhh....no one tell

So I had grand dreams of domesticity this weekend. I was going to clean out my closet, do laundry, prepare a glorious healthy dinner, go to a picnic with my extended family...it was a weekend that certainly could have made it into some sort of awesome wife and mother magazine.

Enter sleep deprivation.

Since introducing solids, Ben has been keeping me on my toes at night. Sometimes he sleeps through, sometimes he wakes up every three hours. The last two nights have been the latter. So, armed with four or five broken hours of sleep and a lack of quiet alone time, I have instead opted for a much less Parent magazine-friendly day. My wretched best friend came over last week and said, "Do you want to borrow my copy of Twilight? It's really good." No Erin, I do not. All of my friends and students are reading it. But not me. I'm better than that. I'm reading a complex satire by Mark Twain. I have no time for popular young adult fiction. Also, I refuse to conform to society's fad reading habits.

Please leave it on the coffee table on your way out.

And So It Begins...

Our little Benjamin had his four month doctor appointment yesterday, and his pediatrician said he was ready for rice cereal! So tonight was the big show. It began with a bang. As I was washing a few dishes and Matt was preparing the cereal, we heard a major explosion coming from the big guy in the bouncy chair. When I went to pick him up, poo was everywhere. All over the chair, running down his legs, covering his clothes--you get the picture. So after mopping up our little guy (and doubling the contents of his laundry bag), I decided we'd just do a diaper and a bib--no use destroying two outfits in thirty minutes. It was a fun experience. He seemed to love it. So much so that in between bites he was hunched over sucking on his bib and licking up what had previously run down his chin and into his lap.

Time is just flying by. The other night a woman brought her seven-week-old to the nursery at church for the first time. He was so tiny, and I remember thinking, perhaps for the first of a million times, "I remember when Ben was that small!" And now our little guy is lapping up rice cereal. It goes so fast.

Pre-Game


The Big Show


The Aftermath