Congrats Katey and Jeff!

Our good friends Katey and Jeff got engaged last night! We're so excited for them...and very excited for another wedding! Katey and Jeff have been together for over 2 years and are such a great couple and we couldn't be happier for them

Congrats Katey and Jeff! Can't wait for the wedding!

Maelin's First Tooth!

It's official: Miss MaeMae has FINALLY gotten her first tooth! You can barely see it: it's just poked itself out of her little gums. She's stubborn as a mule when it comes to me opening her mouth so I can look at it. She locks her jaws together and no one can get in there.

So how do I know it's there? She was laughing yesterday and I saw a little white line: looks like a fingernail clipping on her gums. Later she was chomping on my thumb and it hurt! It was sharp pain instead of pressure pain. I'm going to try today to actually open her mouth to see if I can see it, but it's there!

Maelin's first tooth. Now she'll be able to eat those candy apples she keeps pointing at!

Maelin's First Christmases!

Boy, it's been a busy but super fun time with the little one. On Christmas Eve, we went to my Aunt Laura's for dinner and xmas fun with her teenaged daughters (I can't believe how fast those girls have grown up!), my sister and her two boys, my mom of course and Uncle Jeff and Aunt Kat. We had a great time!

Maelin was a champ. She was tired from all the activity, but she hung in there in typical "I can go anywhere and do anything" fashion. She took a quick nap when we first got there and then again with my Aunt Laura around 8:30pm and then we took her home and she went right to sleep like always. She is SUCH a good baby. We are so totally lucky: not only is our little one cute, sweet, smart and happy, but she's so GOOD. We can usually take her anywhere and she's so mellow about the whole situation.

Anyway, we had a great time opening presents with my family. Here are a couple pictures of Maelin's first Xmas Eve with the Kimling Klan:




My two nephews couldn't have been cuter either. Ryan was singing "The Music Man" all night was given a "band in a box" from Kat and Jeff, so he was pretty excited. He also had a great time playing with the two older girls. Cole was adorable...we gave him a Pizza Set and after he opened that, he didn't want anything to do with any other gifts...he was hilarious.

We were pretty tired when we got home on xmas eve, so we all went to bed and woke up to...SNOW! 8 inches of snow to be exact! It was the biggest snowfall on Xmas Day in 40 years! It would have been picture-perfect if we hadn't had to get in the car and drive 40 minutes through the snow to Grandma's house...(isn't there a song about that?????) We almost didn't make it but we prevailed and showed up at Kevin's Mom's house just in time to see everyone and start another round of gifts.

Kevin's sister-in-law Sally gave us a fantastic "Baby Signs" book that we've already started using with Maelin. I'll post another time about how beneficial this is supposed to be for kids. It's pretty fun figuring out what "mommy" and "daddy" and "cat" means...we also got some really cute toys for Baby. Nana (my mom) and Grandma (Kevin's mom) went all out and got her some great books, clothes, toys and stuffed animals. My mom got Maelin her first baby doll! It's the cutest thing ever. Here's a few pics of Maelin celebrating her first Xmas Day:





We battled our way back into town through the snow, said a sad "goodbye" to Nana and settled in on Xmas night. I was exhausted and sweet baby Maelin slept like a champ. We woke up on the 26th to Santa! He had come all the way through the snow to see the baby since she's sooooo good. She had a great time opening up her stocking and the "busy ball popper" that daddy got her.

After all that, we've been taking it very easy. Kevin had to go to work, but Maelin and I have stayed home (it snowed again yesterday so we didn't even leave the house for 2 days!) and we've taken naps together, read books, played with new toys and just really really enjoyed being home. I LOVE not going to work!!!

9 days left...make the time slow down!!

Merry Christmas!

Good morning everyone! Believe it or not, but Maelin's first Christmas is a white one! It's snowing like crazy outside: should make for an interesting drive to see Kevin's parents...

We had a great time with my famliy last night and now we're getting ready to go to grandmas and we just wanted to say a quick "Merry Christmas !" to all our family and friends. We hope you have a great day!

Kevin, Mara and Maelin

Hectic Chrismas Happenings

I've been trying to post more, but between getting everything ready at work for the holiday break (thank god!!), finishing up xmas shopping, cleaning the house for my mom's arrival, wrapping presents, writing thank you and xmas cards, laundry, etc...well, I just haven't gotten to it much this week. I'm sure you understand. (oh, and I forgot to mention that MaeMae has another cold...)

Let's see...I probably won't have much time to post in the coming days either. Yesterday was my last day of work for a while!! My vacation is officially called "Sixteen Whole Days With Maelin." It's very exciting. Yesterday was also Ann's (my student teacher) last day. We had fun, but it was also sad. I think I'll be more sad on the first day the kids come back and it's just me in there by myself again. I have some great pictures of her last day and our party with the kids, but I have to wait for Ann to email them to me. I'll post them as soon as I get them.

My mom is coming for xmas today! She's coming in tonight and staying till Xmas night. I'm very excited to have her her but it's always a bit awkward when we have people stay with us because they have to sleep in Maelin's room and I always feel bad when she wakes up or I have to change her diaper because although I'm used to getting up at 6am on a Sunday morning, I know that the rest of the world is not...

However, it's going to be very nice to have Nana here. I can finish laundry and wrapping and she can play with the baby.

So if I don't have a chance to post much in the next few days, I hope all of you have a magical Christmas with your family and friends. Miss MaeMae says she hopes you celebrate responsibily like she is in this picture...

Merry Christmas!

Crazy Christmas Time

I have some adorable pics of Miss Maelin to post here for you, but I haven't had a chance to get them off of my camera yet. As soon as I do that...

Christmas time is busy for everyone, but it's totally crazy when you have a baby who needs to stay on some sort of a consistent schedule. I'm trying so hard to get everything done but it's just impossible!

I had a bday party on Sat night that was really fun...we went to a Belgium Brewery and it was just like being back in Brugges! Maelin came and we had so much fun. She was just a little star: she was being passed around to everyone and was in such a good mood. Uncle Jeff bought Kevin and I one more beer so we would stay a bit longer so we didn't get home until after 9 which is past Maelin's bedtime. I had a cookie party the next day, so I stayed up late baking and then got up early to finish.

The cookie party was a success: it was great to see all my friends and our cookies were so yummy! My sister took a lot of time making gorgeous Martha Stewart Gingerbread Snowflakes and they were sooooo pretty. Maelin came to the party for a while: she had a great time eating the sprinkles!

I stayed up late last night (till midnight...a weeknight no less!) wrapping some presents. This is the latest I've ever gotten that done. I'm usually so on top of Christmas. I love to wrap presents and I used to try to make them so pretty, with elaborate bows and ribbons. This year, you'll be lucky to get a wrapped present at all from me! I think I'll start doing gift bags....

Christmas is such a fun time of year but throw a baby into the mix and it completely changes your priorities. I guess that's going to be true of everything now!

Friday Night at 9pm...

Check my previous post about things that change when you have a baby...I think it was number 16 or 17...

Guess what I want to do RIGHT NOW????

Yup...go to bed. If any of my friends are up and reading this, I would pay you $20 to come put Maelin to bed for Kevin and I. I'm sooooooo tired and I still have to feed her, then Kevin puts her to bed, then I pump. I won't be going to bed for at least another hour or so...assuming little pumpkin goes to sleep right away.

Those of you without kids: please enjoy the luxury of having the house to yourself and being able to do whatever you want whenever you want and being able to go to bed when you're tired with the GUARANTEE that you'll get at least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep...

Oh, those sweet bye-gone days...

The Drama of 2nd Grade

To be an effective teacher, not only do you have to be able to teach reading, writing, math, science, social studies, etc., you also have to be an effective therapist/child psychologist.

A good example of this is what happened in my room this morning. Yesterday, Michael found a note in his box from his "secret admirer". Now we don't allow 8 year olds to "go out" or to even talk about boyfriend-girlfriend stuff in school, so I told Ann (who's still solo student teaching) to try to figure out who did it. She called all the girls together this morning and she got nothing from them. Nobody would fess up.

So I came in swinging my MA in Psychology around...I can get them to tell me the truth! I thought! I talked to all the girls and told them about honesty and how I was going to call all their parents unless someone told the truth because at this point, it was more about all of them lying to me than about the note. All 8 girls stood their looking at me with big eyes and one by one, told me it wasn't them.

Okay, I thought. Time to switch gears. I took each girl aside individually and told them how important honesty and trust is and how sad it would be if I had to call their parents because someone was lying and to just please tell me the truth so you don't get your friends in trouble! Again...each girl looked me right in the face and either told me it wasn't them who wrote the note or they blamed Jenny.

Poor Jenny. Since 7 girls were blaming her, I had two options: either believe them or assume they were all ganging up on her. She is usually pretty honest, but 7 girls all had the same story! I thought she was probably lying, but I didn't want to accuse her outright, so I decided to wait a bit and see what happened.

Turns out, I didn't have to wait long. About 2 hours later, I was in the room getting some work done, and Melissa came up to me and very quietly said,"Mrs Corzine, I did it." Melissa is one of my very top students, very sweet and the LAST person I would have thought would have lied about this! I thanked her for telling the truth and sent her back to her desk. Then I called the other girls out in the hall and talked to them about how they accused poor Jenny and how they owed her an apology. You could tell they all felt bad.

I had Melissa write Jenny a letter telling her she was sorry and I told Melissa she had ruined my trust in her and I was very sad she had lied. Melissa started crying because she's not used to being in trouble and said how sorry she was.

All of this over a note to a boy...and they're only 8 years old. Can't imagine what my life is going to be like when Maelin gets a bit older and starts acting like a typical "girl"...

Things That Change When You Have A Baby

People keep telling me, "You've really changed since you've had Maelin." I know this...there are many things that have changed: a few of which I've talked about before. Here is an extension to the list of the ways Kevin and I have changed since little MaeMae has come:

1. You are no longer freaked out by throw-up. You just don't panic and clean it up as best you can because it's guaranteed there will be more of it later.

2. Where you once believed you were fearless, you now find yourself afraid.

3. The sacrifices you thought you made to have a child no longer seem like sacrifices...who cares if you can't go to happy hour on Friday night??? You get to stay home and watch your baby laugh and squeal and coo at you!

4. You respect your body ... finally.

5. You respect your parents and love them in a new way.

6. You find that your baby's pain feels much worse than your own...you would do ANYTHING to be sure your baby is never hurt.

7. You believe once again in the things you believed in as a child.

8. You lose touch with the people in your life whom you should have banished years ago.

9. Your heart breaks much more easily.

10. You think of someone else 234,836,178,976 times a day.

11. Every day is a surprise.

12. Bodily functions are no longer repulsive. In fact, they please you. (Hooray for poop!)

13. You look at your baby in the mirror instead of yourself.

14. You become a morning person...(I am doing much better at this one than Kevin is...)

15. Your love becomes limitless, a superhuman power.

16. You'd rather buy a plastic tricycle than those shoes that you've been dying to have. (or baby clothes, or baby toys, or baby anything...)

17. You don't mind going to bed at 9 p.m. on Friday night!

18. You realize that the 15 pounds you can't seem to get rid of are totally worth having.

19. You no longer rely on a clock — your baby now sets your schedule...up at 6:30am on a Sunday? Yay!

20. Your kitties — who used to be your babies — becomes just kitties(although our two kitties are doing a great job hanging out with me again. they are sleeping with me again and Gizmo just LOVES the baby)

21. You take the time for one more hug and kiss even if it means you'll be late.

22. You learn that taking a shower is a luxury and you can go for longer stretches than you ever thought pre-baby.

23. It's the best thing you will ever do with your life: bar none!

Maelin and her Good Friend Zeke

We have an awesome neighbor...we're really lucky because she takes care of the stuff she's supposed to, she's willing to help out with anything that we all need to do regarding our properties and she's super sweet and friendly.

You can't ask for a better neighbor than that...AND one day she brought me gelato from our neighborhood spot without me even asking her! She just knocked on our door and said she thought I might like some. Now that's a good neighbor!

She has an adorable chocolate dog named Zeke. Now Zeke is a young doggie and is pretty energetic so there's lots of times our neighbor will go outside with him and he gets so darn excited, he barks his little tail off.

Maelin thinks that's pretty funny. Every time we're outside and Zeke starts barking, Maelin laughs and laughs and kicks her legs and watches Zeke and laughs again. I think the first time I ever saw her really give up a good belly laugh was when she was watching Zeke play.

Now Maelin listens for Zeke. A few times lately we've heard him playing outside and we've gone out to visit. Zeke loves Maelin as much as she loves him. He runs right up to her and sniffs her and barks and runs around. The two of them really couldn't be cuter.

Here's a picture of the two of them on Halloween. Maelin is a chicken and Zeke was Godzilla (or Dogzilla...). His costume was a bit small which could explain the look of humiliation on his little face, but Maelin couldn't stop staring at him...it was if she was saying, "What happened to my friend??? Why does he look so funny and why is he so sad? By the way, what the heck am I doing in a chicken suit???"

Maelin is 8 Months Old Today!

Boy these kids grow up fast. One minute they're these little, squirming, things and the next, they're recoginzing you, eating food and saying, "dadadadadadada" (yes, we're pretty sure Maelin's first word is "dada".)

Maelin sure is a cutie. She loves people and she loves to smile and yell and squeal at just about everyone. She has figured out how to roll over and she's working on crawling. She's got a couple of teeth that are getting ready to pop through and she's growing out of clothes faster than I can buy them...which is pretty fast.

I can't believe how adorable she is and how quickly she makes the people around her smile. She's the best thing ever!

Happy 8 Months Baby Girl!!

It Was Bound To Happen...

Yesterday I went to pick up Maelin from daycare as usual. Sondra answered the door holding Maelin: the little pumpkin was kicking and squealing and laughing when she saw me. I reached out to take her and...

She didn't want me. She wanted Sondra. Maelin looked at me again, put her thumb in her mouth, starting crying and arching towards Sondra. I was devastated, so I gave her back to Sondra for a minute thinking she just needed some transition time.

As soon as Sondra took her back, Maelin stopped crying and started squealing again. The little bugger. So, I tried again. I reached out to take her and...

She didn't want me. Again. She wanted Sondra. She started crying again and did the whole routine all over until I gave her back a 2nd time.

At this point, I was getting really upset. I didn't want to show it though, so I gathered her stuff together and said, "It's time to go bye-bye!" and reached out to take her back. She's MY little girl, for gosh sakes! As soon as I took Maelin again: yup, you guessed it, she started crying again and arching towards Sondra.

Sondra reached out to take her but I turned away and just whispered quietly to Maelin to get her to calm down. She was still whimpering when we left, but by the time we got in the car, she was happily chewing her toys and was just fine.

Hence goes the working mom's dilemma: I'm sooooo happy that she loves Sondra so much and it obviously shows she's getting excellent care there, but damn it, Maelin is my baby girl: she's not supposed to cry when I hold her!! I remember this happening to me in reverse when I was a nanny, so I knew to expect it, but I didn't expect how devastating it is when it does happen.

It made me want to immediately quit my job: to march in to my principal and tell her that I'm sorry; Maeln comes first and I'm not going to let someone else raise her any longer. Then I got home and saw my first student loan payment since I consolidated them...it's over $300 per month. There's no way Kevin and I can afford for me not to work: we need to have money for Maelin and bills and insurance and cars and LIFE! Life is so bloody expensive and Kevin does not make enough for us to live on his salary alone. I just cried the whole way home because I'm so sad.

I'm sad that I can't stay home with Maelin. I'm so sad that I didn't have enough foresight that I might want to stay home so I didn't run up the credit card debt by traveling that we have. I'm sad that I had to pay for both of my degrees myself, hence my large student loan debt. I'm sad that teachers don't make more money so I could pay everything off sooner! Mostly I'm sad that someone else gets to spend 8+ hours a day playing with my adorable baby girl and I only get her for 3.

Time to go get her. Keep your fingers crossed that she's happy to see me today because I don't think I could take it two days in a row...

Teaching is a Hard Job

Not to complain or to say we teachers have it worse than anybody else, but listen to this:

My poor student teacher Ann is having quite a day. Today is her first day of "solo student teaching" where I'm not supposed to be in the classroom at all. I've been sitting out in the hallway testing all the 2nd graders on their reading so I've been able to listen to what's been going on.

She did a great job this morning during the literacy block. All the kids were on task and even though the charity dentists were here and taking kids out of the room right and left, Ann was able to redirect all the kids when they came back in and they all did great. She made one mistake which seems like a little thing but it's still biting her you-know-where:

She left 3 minutes early to take the kids to PE. Doesn't seem like a big deal, right? Well, she forgot that our Autistic boy J. was with his special group and when he came back to the classroom, the other kids were all gone. Didn't matter that the special ed teacher was with him. Didn't matter that I was there and was able to talk to him about where the kids were and how we would go find them together. J. just shut down: crying, sobbing and refusing to move. I finally stepped in (remember, I'm not supposed to be helping at all...Ann is supposed to be dealing with everything but there's no way I was going to leave this all on her) and I got him to at least go to PE. J. just sat there the whole hour and then refused to come back and sit down.

When J. refuses to do something, he means it. He stands as still as a rock and you have to use all your strength to pull him along. Then he finds something he can hold on to so you have to pry his fingers up off and continue to pull him. Then he keeps crying and dragging his feet while you're pulling or lifting him to where he needs to go.

J. did this during writing after PE, on the way to lunch, after lunch and just now again. I stepped in every time because it's hard for me to deal with it gently (actually, we're not supposed to touch the kids at all, but what do you do?), let alone poor Ann. Now I just went and had a talk w/ my principal because I finally got J. to respond to me and not just refuse to do anyting I asked of him: he is sitting here next to me happily playing on the computer while all the other kids are taking a math test. Is that fair????

My principal said to just let him be and for Ann to try again tomorrow. I have spent about 45 minutes dealing with J. today: imagine if she were by herself? There usually isn't a seasoned teacher sitting out in the hall for new teachers to call on for help when one of their students gets out of control. Are they supposed to leave the other 23 kids alone while they deal with the one???

No wonder 1/3 of all new teachers quit the profession after 3 years of teaching...mabye the average salary of $29,500 per year just isn't worth it to put up with the J.'s of the world: while you're supposed to be testing and teaching 23 other kids...

Christmas is Coming!

We spent some of the day getting our mini Christmas Tree set up. As our house is only 988 sq feet, a large tree just wouldn't work, so we have a fake 3 foot one that I set up on top of a corner table. It works for the time being. Another benefit is that it's up off the floor so Miss MaeMae can't grab anything off of it.

I'm so excited for her first Christmas. I know she's not really going to understand anything that's going on, but I'm looking forward to it just the same. We've already bought her her main present: we got her a toybox. We knew that it didn't really matter what we got her this year, since she'd be happy to roll around on a roll of wrapping paper, so we got her something that she needs that we wouldn't necessarily get her at any other time of year.

I found a great one online: here's the link to it if you're curious (or bored). We got it in the cherry color. I'm very proud to say I bought it on "Cyber Monday" on the Monday after Thanksgiving, so we also got free shipping on it AND it was on sale for $114 which is quite a bargain. It should be here sometime next week and Daddy will have a great time putting it together!

Anyway, Maelin was very interested in her first Christmas Tree. She kept putting her fist in her mouth and squealing so we brought her up close to look at it and boy, did she want to put that tree in her mouth! Because it's so little, she could have easily pulled it right off the table, so we kept her at a distance, but she sure loved it!

I also got her her very own Christmas stocking with her name on it! It's adorable: it's red and white checked from Pottery Barn Kids with an angel and it's bigger than Maelin is! I'm going to try to see if Maelin can actually fit inside it and if that works, I'll post a picture of that too...

I think one of the reasons I'm so excited for this Christmas is because we didn't celebrate any holidays when I was a kid so this is a first for me too. I'm so looking forward to creating traditions with my family that I never had: what a wonderful time of year!