Life at Home and Away

I've been splitting my time between NC and FL, working on my dissertation research, which has been difficult. Of the 6 weeks that Vivian has been in preschool, I've been home for 3 1/2 weeks. It's been pretty rough. I went down to FL for the first week of classes. I met several professors, including the professor whose class I'm using for my study. I got a lot done, so it was very productive. I was trying to make up for the 4 months of NO progress.

I'm currently in GA for the weekend, although I've been away for 9 days now and won't be home for another 6 days! :( Thankfully, Chris and Vivian are driving down to meet me for the weekend...so at least I can see my family (other than using Skype every night for storytime). Vivian currently says "mommy laptop." She sees me on Chris's laptop. Chris says she's doing really well adjusting to me not being there, which I'm grateful for...but I still have severe mommy guilt. I HATE FL..HATE IT, but I need to go down a few more times to collect more data.

When I'm home, we've started exploring our own backyard now that the weather is getting slightly cooler. Okay, so it's still been in the 90s, but that's better than it has been. We went to the Duke Gardens, which are absolutely beautiful, and to the Duke Chapel. We've enjoyed exploring various parks in the area. We also took a trip to the NC Zoo! Vivian had a great time looking at all of the animals. We paid another visit to Marbles, the children's museum, which was a total zoo with a lot of older kids running around -- so we didn't stay long. We also went to the NC Museum of History, which was pretty interesting. There was also an old classic car show that day, so we walked around the capitol area of downtown Raleigh. We also went to the Durham Museum of Life and Science, but didn't stay long because the event wasn't that great and it started to rain outside so we couldn't go see the animals. We took Vivian to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) to see where our season tickets would be. We all really enjoyed walking around on stage and backstage.

One of Vivian's favourite activities is going to the RDU observation deck and playground. She likes to watch the planes take-off and land. She also (finally) likes playing in the sand!!

Vivian is really thriving at preschool, which we knew she would. She looks forward to going twice a week for a few hours each day. We went to Vivian's back-to-school night where we met with her teacher and talked about Vivian's progress.

We decided to sign her up for The Little Gym again this semester. She always says "have fun Little Gym" and "shake bells." She likes to tell me about her day! :)

Vivian is doing really well overall. Her vocabulary is pretty amazing, as she says over 200 words now and can tell you what the books titles are by looking at the cover. She loves reading Clifford books. We have almost the entire collection!

I'm hoping to take some pics of Vivian this weekend! We're going to the gluten-free vendor fair tomorrow (YEAH!!!!) and then to the aquarium on Sunday!

First Day of Preschool

Vivian started preschool this morning. After touring the school 5 months and talking to the director 6 months ago, we were so eager to finally send her to school. She's probably the youngest child in her class because they start accepting kiddos at 20 months. She's in the early preschool classroom (20 months to 3 years).

We dropped her off with a smile and we picked her up with a smile. Her teachers said she did great. We'll see how the drop-off goes on Thursday.

Oh..and what did mommy and daddy do after we dropped her off -- went to Target! It was really weird to run an errand and not have Vivian with us. Of course, we came home after that and started working.

Here's a first day of school picture taken before we left this morning:

There's something new in the bathroom.....

It's a POTTY CHAIR!



I bought it at a consignment sale several weeks ago and finally cleaned it up and put it into the bathroom. Vivian saw it when she woke up from her nap and immediately knew what it was. I took off her diaper and she sat on the toilet........and PEED!!!!! Not bad for the first time on the potty!!!

Now we need to come up with a plan! :)

We're still here!

I know I haven't provided a life update in a couple of months. We FINALLY closed on our house, a month after we were supposed to close. It was a very difficult process and even up until the day we did close, we weren't 100% sure we were going to close. Thankfully, the sellers were wonderful to work with and they allowed us to rent the house from them for a month while we worked on securing funding.

Other than trying to close on the house, we haven't done much else. I have to laugh at this, but it's really true. We haven't gone anywhere or really gotten into a routine yet. We've been trying to find sitters/nannies but haven't had much luck. We really miss our sitter that we had when Vivian was an infant.

We did have to buy a new car -- a Honda Pilot (like everyone else, it seems). Vivian's very excited about the Honda Pilot. She keeps looking out the window and saying "Honda Pilot" all the time. Chris's Audi was finally put to rest after it leaked oil in the driveway.

Vivian and I are just getting over colds and have been out of commission for almost a week, so hopefully we'll be back to 100% next week.

We switched ped's offices and just met her new pediatrician yesterday. She was awesome! We really liked her and her daughter is in Vivian's class at preschool!

Vivian is enjoying going to the Y and to The Little Gym. Who knew that gymnastics for toddlers would be so much fun?! She is starting preschool in about a week-and-a-half. I'm really looking forward to it!!! She's going to have so much fun there. We went to orientation a couple of weeks ago. Vivian didn't want to leave! I'm excited for her to learn about composting, recycling, gardening, and living a healthy life, in addition to meeting friends and learning about different topics.

Vivian is also enjoying her new playroom! Her climber, kitchen, PBK table and chairs, some books, alphabet/# mat, and smaller toys are up in the bonus room. Her couch, some more books, and picnic table are downstairs. Her PBK chair and house are in her bedroom. We also recently bought her a wagon and she's having a great time being pulled around the cul-de-sac and down to the greenway.

Vivian finally has enough hair for pigtails!!!!






I've been having a difficult time adjusting to life back in NC. I'm going to be going back to FL in a couple of weeks. My plan is to go back once a month for a week. My hope was to go to FL for the semester and to take Vivian with me, but it's just not really feasible, so this is the compromise. If I need to go down more often (just not move there), then I can do that too.

I hope to keep more up-to-date with the blog. It's just been a really rough 3 months!

Toys

Someone asked me the other day what kinds of toys Vivian really enjoyed when she was an infant - early toddler. So, here's the list:

Fisher Price Baby's First Blocks - Basically a shape sorter with a bucket. It started with just mouthing the shapes and now she can put the shapes in the appropriate holes. She still loves it.

Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Fun with Friends Musical Table - Vivian was introduced to this when she was a tiny baby at our sitter's house. When we moved to FL, we had to get one. She still plays with it everyday. It's great because you can take the 4 legs off and sit it on the floor, then add 2 legs back on when she sits up. Then you can add the 4 legs when she stands up and becomes a cruiser.

Fisher Price Laugh and Learn House - Vivian rec'd this for her first Christmas when she was 12 months old and she still plays with it.

You'll notice a theme here. I'm allllll about toys that aren't just a novelty and that actually "teach" the kids something.

Books - Vivian has always had books and likes to read them everyday.

Stacking cups/blocks - These are great and are transportable everywhere! Get them and you'll thank me on a long road trip!

MEGA Bloks - Vivian likes to build things....and so does daddy! :)

Now that Vivian is older, she really enjoys puzzles (Melissa and Doug puzzles that have sounds), colouring, stickers, books, stuffed animals, her play kitchen, her chairs and tables (all different sizes), balls, and bubbles. She loves her Kangaroo Climber, which takes up a lot of room but it's great when the weather is rainy/too hot and we can't go to the playground.

WHEW!

I know it's been almost 2 months since I last posted, but it's been a total whirlwind since we moved back to NC in April and things aren't still completely settled. Our hope was to move back "home" and get back into a routine -- this wasn't the case.

I decided to leave on the same day as Chris and Vivian, which meant missing out on a couple of events at school -- a retirement party for one of our faculty members and the awards ceremony for my program. However, it meant that Chris wouldn't have to be by himself (with Vivian, of course) for a week dealing with the movers in a new house. Not a good idea.

We took 2 days to drive, which was much, much smarter than the straight-through drive we did in March. I called our landlord on the morning that we were to arrive at the house. I left her a voicemail that we were coming up and that I had no way of getting into the house. Although our lease went into effect on the 15th, our landlord never sent us keys. Several hours later, I finally heard back from our landlord. She gave me the garage access keypad code. That was it! As soon as I walked into the house, I knew she hadn't done anything that we had requested to have done prior to moving in. We also didn't have hot water. We expected her to come over that weekend to do a move-in inspection with us. That wasn't the case. She didn't come over until a month later, after we had e-mailed her our inspection form and after we hired a licensed home inspector, engaged an attorney, and sent her a certified letter that stated she was in violation of the contract AND was breaking NC housing laws.

Fast forward 2 months: We finally got out of our lease. We have a settlement agreement in place and will be terminating our lease at the end of this month. The jist: She feels like she did everything she possibly could. This is what she told our attorney. She didn't fix several of the issues in the house. I'll give her some credit: She did hire a professional plumber to fix the hot water heater leak and leaking hose bib. However, she refuses to fix some things because she doesn't see them as problems.

The other news: We are under contract to buy a new house!! We're closing on June 22nd. We're very happy that everything is working out! Perhaps we can finally get a routine under way, rather than dealing with our nightmare landlord on a DAILY basis. We're very excited about the new house. It's just a few miles from our current house, so we aren't going too far this time! :)

On the baby front: Vivian turned 18 months old yesterday. I can't believe how big she's getting. Her vocabulary has exploded even more over the past 2 months. She can tell you (for the most part) what she needs. She even tells us when it's time to go upstairs, when she poops, and when she's ready for bed. I'm pretty amazed at how well she's doing. We recently bought her a play kitchen, a Kangaroo climber with slide (she got that this morning), and a couple of outside chairs. She loves to play inside and outside. She still loves to read and watch Fraggle Rock (only 1, sometimes 2, episodes before bedtime). Vivian has also enjoyed 3 playdates since we've been back.

We've joined Marbles and Durham Museum of Life and Science for fun things to do. Vivian will also be starting The Little Gym this coming week. We're hoping to start swimming lessons next month at the Y. Preschool starts in 2 months.

Oh...and I almost forgot: Chris and I had a date last month!!!! We went to go see Wicked. The last time we had a date was to see Rent and that was when Vivian was 6 weeks old! I'm hoping that with our hockey season ticket package and the Broadway season tickets we can get out a bit more than once every 16 months!

Here are some pics to enjoy!

Vivian's 2nd haircut


Getting ready to go down the slide


SLIDE!!!

Saying Goodbye

It's hard to believe that the time has come to say goodbye to FL. The movers are coming tomorrow. Chris and Vivian are leaving tomorrow after the movers leave. I'm staying a few extra days with Lilli so I can attend a couple of school-related functions. One of the faculty members is having a retirement party and the student awards ceremony is next week. I've been nominated for an award, but I don't know what award.

The past month since we got back from NC has been a busy one. I'm trying to tie up all the loose ends with school -- talking to faculty members, talking with the librarian who specializes in my field, making sure all required forms have been signed and sent to the appropriate departments, and finishing up classes. I was also recently recognized as a Preparing Future Fellow at the Celebration of Grad Student Excellence a few weeks ago. There were only 2 fellows at the university this year, so I was really honored to be recognized.

We've also been tying up loose ends with other things, such as having another autism check at 15 1/2 months and 15-month pediatrician appointment, and a 16-month weight check appointment. Vivian dropped off of her weight curve, but is now starting to track along the 50th percentile curve. She gained 3 ounces in a month and is now about what she weighed at 12 months before getting sick. Overall, she's doing really well and is running around everywhere. This has made packing a challenge when she likes to crawl into boxes and take things out of the boxes.

It's hard to believe that we've been here almost exactly a year. We moved here the weekend before finals week and are now moving back the week before finals week.

In the year that I've been here, I finished my coursework, satisfied my residency requirement in 2 semesters (it usually takes a year) took the qualifying exam, took the preliminary exam, defended my concept paper, advanced to candidacy, became a Preparing Future Faculty Fellow, sat on the Academic Honor Policy hearing committee, took a leadership role in our program's student association, helped organize the department's fall orientation, attended the faculty retreat, helped to organize our multimedia studio grand opening, completed a certificate in our program, reviewed conference proposals for two conferences, completed two research studies, submitted a proposal to a conference, and attended a 2-day conference on Program for Instructional Excellence. WHEW! Oh...and I managed to maintain a decent GPA!

And so you don't think that all I did was school, here's a list of fun things we did while living here. We managed to travel quite a bit to Orlando (multiple times), Jacksonville, Pensacola, Panama City Beach (for shopping), Ft. Walton Beach, Destin, Atlanta. Locally, we went to the Greek Festival, Asian Festival, Homecoming Parade, Heritage Day, Maclay Gardens, Dorothy Oven Park at Christmas, Thomasville Victorian Christmas, Howl-o-Ween at the animal shelter, Lake Ella, Tom Brown Park (Vivian still loves the swings), swimming pool, pumpkin patch, Tallahassee Museum, North Florida State Fair, Jewish Food Festival, Springtime Tallahassee, Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science, San Luis Mission, and a couple of FSU baseball games.

The next few months will be busy as well. Vivian will be starting preschool in August and swimming lessons in July. Chris and I will be having date nights, since we never got to have that here. We have Broadway season tickets and we are sharing a hockey season package. I'm sure we'll be eating out a lot more (we never do that here), since there are a LOT more gluten-free options in NC. We're going to attend track days at VIR and CMP. Chris has never been to the track before. Perhaps I'll FINALLY get the "family" car onto the track. :)

We're eager to get back home and back to friends, playdates, game nights, and cookouts at our house! I know Chris is looking forward to hanging out with adults again!

Sorry I can't close with a picture of Vivian. My computer has a trojan virus on it (so I'm using one of Chris's laptops) and the server has been packed away. I promise to post some pics when we get settled in a few days! :)