caught up, sorta kinda

so i finally took some photos of andy and uploaded to my flickr page. there are some great ones there. but this is one of my favorites:


this weekend we were sorta kinda busy, chris had a few jobs, but they weren't long ones so we still had time to be together. sunday, we took the boys to the park, max loves the park :) i do too but i think i prefer it more so during the week. we seem to have it to ourselves more during the week than on the weekend... but max doesn't seem to mind.

one thing that perplexes me though is this. a few visits ago, there was a mom and a little boy playing near the slide. the little boy wanted to climb up the slide. she stopped him and said, "no honey, you can't crawl up the slide, you have to climb up the stairs first, then you can go down the slide." chris and i found fault with this. i mean, it's a play area, you play there, you are creative there, i feel like if you want to crawl up the slide then crawl up the slide... now it's one thing if there are other kids trying to come down the slide but if that's not the case, why couldn't he climb up the slide? am i wrong here? should we be telling max that he can't climb up the slide? do you think we are wrong here? or is the other mom wrong? i'm torn by this... i feel like kids need to learn "laws" in some sort of way... is this one way to start that training? is there really black and white ways to teach those "laws"? is climbing up the slide really all that horrible? i think we've encountered a gray area in terms of what to do and not do at the park...

and since i've been slim on the photos lately, here's another:

photo fairness

so yesterday, on one of the most beautiful days of the year so far, i packed up the kiddos and went to the zoo with a few other mommies that know. i scurried around the house prior to anyone else being up gathering up diapers, sippy cups, snacks, extra clothes for the wee one, hats, coats, sweaters, baby carriers and batteries for my flip video camera and my regular camera. got everyone fed, dressed and into the car and i only managed to be a few minutes late... due to me being behind every single slow moving dump truck along the way... needless to say, everything went swimmingly. we had to leave a bit earlier then the others since i had some family coming to visit us later that afternoon. but we managed to get through the entire animal part. then on our way out we stopped to see the polar bears.

this year, max in all of his one and 1/2 year old glory, actually knew that there were animals out there and what some of them were. IF they moved.... lol. needless to say, it was entertaining for me to watch him see the animals....

however there was a bit of a sense of disappointment. as mentioned above, i had to round up batteries for all of my life recording devices... well... you might think.... 'oh, i'll bet you got some great photos of your little ones at the zoo, it was such a beautiful day and all' well, that is a far cry from reality. i snapped 3 photos.... i didn't even get my video camera out. and did i take any photos of andy? no! i was wearing him so that made taking his photo a bit hard... but still.

this is something that i feel horrible about. i took these three photos of max, two of them include the back of his head and an animal in the background.... but overall. this is about how the overall percentage of photos of max to photos of andy is in our entire family photo collection. for max by age 2 months, i'm sure i had over 100 maybe even 200 photos of him in all sorts of mushed up positions. sleeping here there and everywhere. being held by every visitor. in the stroller for the first time, going outside for the first time, sitting next to the cats for the first time... you get the picture... this time around. nothing! i have taken i think three sessions of photos of andy. two are of him in his swing. and now i managed to take him to the zoo and didn't document that! i need to get my butt in order and bridge this photo gap and do it soon.... he's getting so big already that if i don't get on the ball soon, he'll be 1 year old and i will have 5 photos of his first year of life....

what is it about kiddo number two? why do they get slighted in terms of photography and general life documentation? is it because what was new with number one is old hat? is it because with two kiddos to take care of you don't have time to be mama happy snaps? is it because your so tired from taking care of two children that you can't remember to bring the camera out on a regular basis?

i realize this is a pretty funny predicament to be in considering that my husband is a professional photographer and all... but really... we both need to grab our cameras and get snapping. because if we don't this little baby will be gone in a flash and will then be a big toddler and we'll miss all his little wee cuteness.

workout update

i did another fit for duty over the weekend. it was a good workout like the first one.

i didn't do one today but should of... i have a playdate scheduled tomorrow so i'll have to resume my plan wednesday.

workout goal reached

yay, i did it! well, sorta... and as annie requested, here's a review (i was planning on reviewing them all anyways....)

i didn't get up early but i managed to do it around 10 am while andy napped. max laughed at me and jumped around a bit, so he liked it too!

i did 30 minutes of aerobic workout with Fit for Duty, a military workout show.
i liked it, it was basic step aerobics (i don't have a step so i just did the workout without it, i hate using a step regardless and wouldn't use one even if i had one). i felt that the workout can really be done without without a step. for the last ten minutes they did floor work, leg lifts in reps of 20 - 30. then a minute or two of stretching. all very basic but a good way to get back in to a routine. there was one floor move that i just couldn't do... my pelvic muscles are just too week just yet... especially since i haven't worked out or worked them since i got pg with max in dec 2005!!!! that's a long time ago... anyways, i set the dvr to record more of these.

i was actually surprised that i could keep up with these people. it was sort of a low budget type show, shown on the pentagon channel for other military peeps to watch. i was impressed with myself that some of the people on the show were visibly sweating but i was not :) that might have been hype for the camera, i dunno... regardless i found it to be a decent workout.

tomorrow, i do plan on getting up early. that means i have to go to bed early. i didn't do that last night... and i really just couldn't get my bum out of bed due to that.

why didn't i think of this sooner?

so i have somehow motivated myself to want to start exercising again... gasp! i know, i know, i'm not sure what has come over me... but whatever it is, i guess i should listen...

so... what didn't i think of sooner? well, since we've had dvr, i've recorded er "dvr'ed" all sorts of things from curious george episodes for max, to anthony bourdain episodes for chris and i, to knitty gritty, wife swap and supernanny for myself... and war shows for chris. so, why didn't i think of dvr'ing a few yoga or aerobic shows for myself. well, i just don't know... but today, i fixed that problem. i set about 5 workouts to record. one is a 30 minute workout on the pentagon station that is performed by various military folks (we'll see how long i can hang for this one), another is a yoga show, another is a workout with gilad, and another is a workout with denise austin who chris asked if she would be wearing a leotard that made her have camel toe... nice..., and another is a workout that contains some yoga and some low impact aerobics (which frankly sounds like it's right up my alley). i plan to check them all out, and then record each new episode of the one i like the best :)

so your next question might be, well, cara, when do you suppose you'll get to these dvr'ed workouts being that you can hardly find time to eat a balanced lunch or cook dinner or do laundry on an even semi-regular basis? well, friends, i'm going to get up early! there, i said it! i'm going to get up early so that i can workout before my kids wake for the day.

i plan to start this adventure tomorrow morning. so wish me luck! i plan to keep a log of my progress so stay tuned.