Over the weeks and months

Maia then.... Feb. 12, 2008.... Our first real visit with her - she was very quiet this first day and didn't walk and barely made any verbal noises.

Maia now... June 24, 2008. She is so happy, and not only walks, but runs and never stops 'chattering'. It is truly amazing how many strides she's made in not quite 5 months. I love watching her grow and change daily. It's awesome!!

Beach, Summer Camp and Loneliness

Well, Maia and I went to the beach for 24 hours last weekend. It was crazy, but my sister and her family were going to be there, and I thought if they were within 4 hours... then it was worth a quick trip. Of course, the trip home was 6 hours... but still... Gotta love 95.

Maia took to the beach this time like she's grown up there. I'll attach pictures and you can see... she wasn't at ALL afraid of the sand this time. I did take her a little in the water and although she didn't run for it all day, she wasn't terrified of it either. She loved playing with her cousins too - she had a wonderful time. It was harder on poor old Mom here... I'm not as young as I once was, so this trip after a full week of work, leaving at 6 a.m. Saturday and sitting in traffic for 6 hours Sunday... not a joy trip - but still nice to see the family!

My friend Caroline was in town for a couple of days from L.A. this week. She came over last night to meet Maia... it was great to see her! It had been a year and a half. Judy came over too - we always have an awesome time together. I took some pictures of both of them with Maia - I love the pictures! I'll post some of those too.

Matthew is at Summer Camp with the Boy Scouts this week. I know I am not home alone, Maia is here and of course, that is great, but can I just say how much I MISS Matthew!! i hate it when he is not here!! I hate to say it - but it's so boring without him here! I miss hearing about his day and his stories, and snuggling with him. He's almost 13, so if he heard me say that, I might embarrass him, but Mom here still loves it (and so does he I think!!) Anyway, I'm hoping and praying that he is having good weather and having fun. He'll be back on Saturday - and I can't wait!! I miss him - I'm lonely!! (And I feel really bad saying that since Maia is here, but she can't talk yet!!)

My new job is going so well - I love it!! There are days I'm not busy enough yet, but I'm sure that will change before too long and I'll be longing for a slow day before too long. I miss being with those that are my good friends from my old office - but I'm hoping I'll make some good friends before too long - there are nice people there.

OK, here are some pictures!

Harder to see than I thought... but try to see the sand all over the place!!


Check out her hair and the sand in it!!

Here you can see the sand... too funny!

Judy and Maia - great picture!!

Maia and Caroline! Another great picture!!

OK - the computer is starting to give me fits, so this is all for now... hope you enjoy!

Living Life

Well - Maia changes nearly daily. It is so incredible to watch - I love it!

She has regressed and really does not like her bath time again... even though she loves the pool and the hose... so i can't understand and I don't know how to fix it, but I'm trying different things. There are times she eats next to nothing, and other times she eats and eats and eats. She sleeps incredilby well (in fact this morning she didn't wake up until 9:00 a.m.!!) We all slept until 9 a.m, how wonderful!!

Since I started work three weeks ago, and day care didn't have a space until June 23, I had to find interim day care for her. My friend Abi, who has two children of her own, was able to watch her on Tuesdays thru Fridays. Her children are Sarah, age 2.75 and Jeremiah, age 13 months. Overall, it went really well I think. I know poor Abi had her hands full - and she even enlisted some help a few times from her family or friends to help her out. She went on with life as usual, playdates, errands, afternoons at the pool, etc. She just brought one extra child along. Maia! The first week was easy, my parents were around (with appointments...) so they would pick her up early those first few days and watched her that first Friday. They had had a busy day that Friday, and poor Mom and Dad were exhausted!! Next week, they are watching her for 5 days... I hope they are well rested!!

On Mondays, I had asked my ex-husbands new wife (Stephanie) to watch Maia for me. They have a baby, Evan (Matthew's half brother) who is only 4 days younger than Maia. So, they were able to play, or argue, like typical 20 month olds... They shared and played well at times, and pulled toys out of each others hands and shrieked at each other at other times. Stephanie is also expecting again, and going to be induced on Aug. 1... so she was starting to get tired after watching after both of them all day. I'm sure she's glad her days of watching an extra little one is over as she gets tired pretty easy right now too. Their next little one is a little girl.

I'll attach some pictures of Maia and her time with Abi - they played dress up in princess outfits and tiaras, sunglasses, and just had a blast!

I'll also attach some pictures of her time at the pool way back on Memorial Day. I did join a pool today, but didn't take any pictures... so more of those to come later. We haven't belonged to a pool in 3 summers, and I just couldn't stand it any more... It'll be money well spent, that's for sure!

There are also some pictures from last weekend when we took her out to blow bubbles... it was stifling hot, so we only last outside (at 8 pm) for 10 minutes, but it was still fun!

A cute picture of her sleeping, I love watching children sleep!!

First step in a pool!!

Playing dress up... the little diva in training....

What is he blowing at me??

These look OK... maybe I'll touch them....

This is fun!! I'm waiting for the next batch....

Here they come!!!!

I like it when the fly in my face - I just have to be sure to close my eyes...

I hope you enjoy these pictures... there are so many more - it's hard to decide which to post... Also, blogger is only let me attach one at a time - so it takes forever!!

This week, my parents will watch Maia all week. Matthew has graduated from 7th grade, so he has his first week of summer break. The following week, he'll be at summer camp and I will be home alone with Maia (meaning after work and in the mornings...) That is the week she can start day care so that will be one more transition, but I think it will go well. It is a great day care, Matthew went there for 10 years... and it was awesome. I can't wait for her to get started there - and I hope she likes it as well as Matthew did!

Mom and Dad arrive tomorrow to visit and to watch Maia next week. We'll celebrate Father's Day tomorrow. My brother will also be able to come and visit.

OK, Matthew is now in to the game of RISK. I've never played before this past week - and we need to try to finnish a game tonight - so off I go to lose at RISK. I am losing so badly...

TORNADOS WHERE WE LIVE??

What in the world?? What a wild and crazy day today! The weather got so severe, it was rather scary for those of us not used to Tornados! (Does one ever get USED to a tornado? I can't imagine!!) We live in northern Virginia outside of Washington, D.C. Not Tornado alley... and yet the sky got really dark and scary!

I was at work and people were right next to my desk and were like screaming, LOOK AT THE TREES and the WIND! I was like, good grief, calm down (in my mind), before I looked outside and right when I looked outside, the Intercom came on and in a stressed out voice, someone told all of us to get in the stairwell immediately. What?? Good grief! I grabbed my keys and my purse, but I forgot my cell phone. e-gads! How will I survive without a cell phone. Once I got in the stairwell, I realized it was RIGHT when school was letting out. Luckily, I had told Matthew to stay at school today until his dad could pick him up. But I was still worried he was trying to call me and I didn't have my phone on me! (I later talked with a co-worker who had grabbed her cell phone and an umbrella, but no purse and no keys...) We laughed... not so great under pressure, I guess!!

Anyway, when I did get back to my desk and phone, no one had called which frankly, worried me even more. About 30 minutes later, I heard the whole county had kept the kids in school, passed dismissal for safety. They were in the Tornado Crouch for a part of that time. Since they cancelled all after school activities, Matthew had to go home on the bus... but he was too afraid to go home by himself (and walk from the busstop, even though it had stopped raining for a while) so he stayed at school with a teacher! God Bless that teacher for allowing him to stay and for staying with him until 6:00 p.m. when one of us could get there to pick him up! the county did announce that buses would take up to 90 minutes to get kids home due to trees and stuff in the roads, not to mention the traffic. Oh joy!!

His dad had left work before 4 p.m. to get Matthew. The problem turned out to be a power line down on the Metro tracks... so his dad could only go so far on the metro and then had to take a shuttle. He later told me that if he waited for a shuttle, it would have taken up to 4 hours (so his wife went and picked him up where he had to get off because of the power line.) He called at 6:05 p.m. and was still a good hour or more away as he had just gotten to his car! I had already picked up Matthew just then, so he just ended up staying with me tonight. It turned out, it only took me one hour, which wasn't bad since it's normally 45 minutes! I owe his teacher BIG TIME - that was very nice of her to watch out for Matthew like that and stay at work with him so he wasn't alone at home!

I was worried, since my house backs to the woods, that I would have a tree in my roof to top the day off, but I do not! Yeah!!

The storms have continued all night but we are not currently under a tornado warning now. Yeah! Just lots of rain, thunder and lightening. I will try to post a video later of the heavy rain - it was insane!

I've never been whisked in to the stairwell at work for a tornado and Matthew has only had drills for tornados before. It was quite scary!! I have no idea how many tornados touched down, but it was a trying event, regardless of the number! OK, I'm going to TRY to go to bed now - and hope there aren't any more storms tonight. (Although the watch has been extended to 1 a.m.) Yippee! :)