Can you tell which one is Anna?
HA!!! That's our girl.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Parent-Teacher Conference
Paul and I had Anna’s first parent-teacher conference yesterday. Looks like she’s on track to become an evil genius.
Pro:
-She’s above average in her cognitive and verbal skills. Though she’s know her ABC song for awhile, she only knows like a few letters and a few numbers but apparently that’s a step ahead. She knows her colors and shapes and stuff too.
Con:
-Teacher says she tries to keep Anna challenged with new things because she gets punchy or something when she’s bored. I’m not so sure about that, myself. I’ve never seen her get in trouble or punchy because she’s bored. But I guess if she’s bored and school and has other kids to potentially go over to and torment, I could see the draw.
Pro:
She’s a natural leader and helper.
Con:
That means she’s Miss Bossy Boots and also a little aggressive when her friends invade her personal space. Also she likes to go over and take away toys. Frankly I think there more pros to that, but we will just have to teach her to use her powers for good and not evil.
Pro:
She is learning what remorse and sympathy is, as well as what other people’s feelings are about.
Con:
Now she’ll be prone to guilt trips ;) and also prone to giving her own guilt trips.
Pro:
Her teacher thinks she may be able to write her name by the end of this school year. Not in any real perfect way but in an Anna-perfect way.
Con:
World domination is only possible with clear handwriting.
Her teacher says that it’s obvious that Paul and I spend a lot of time talking to her and including her and stuff. She said lots of parents are too busy to actually talk to their kids. I can see the business but I can’t see how any parent could treat their kid any less than a human being. I hate the old sayings that kids should be “seen and not heard” and all that old school crap. Granted no, Anna doesn’t get the same levels of interaction with me as if she’s a full-grown adult but how can any parent not treat their kid with the right level of respect and expect to get respect in return? Those parents don’t get respect from their kids. They get fear. I HATE that. With a PASSION. It sucks.
So probably what this means is Anna’s going to grow up to be a spoiled brat by her parents. Oh well. At least she can’t blame us when she’s explaining the reasoning of an evil genius to her future shrink.
Monday, January 25, 2010
About the Potty
I guess it’s safe to say Anna’s over the rough stuff of potty training. We’ve been sending her to school in her Big Girl Undies since before Disney, and the only accidents were when on the playground back then and they couldn’t get to the potty in time. Last week there were no accidents, and this past weekend she’s even started “doing #2” on the potty. She’s gone in airports, airplanes, hotels, Disney bathrooms, restaurant bathrooms, and this weekend, on the road in gas station bathrooms. I think that between Paul and Anna I may ultimately know the locations of every bathroom in the Clear Lake area and airports. So she is getting it down.
A few weeks ago we donated all her diapers to her school and we’ve slowed down on the pull-ups use too. She does still get a pull-up for naps and an overnight diaper for night time. I can’t even fathom when we might be able to stop those… In the meantime she’s also gotten fine with sitting on a big potty without the little seat attachment and without me holding her, where at first she was afraid she’d fall in and I had to hold her and reassure her. She has even gone so far this weekend to proudly tell each Paul and me: “Look! I don’t need you!” Well ha, that’s the first time we’ve heard that but she’s pretty correct in a number of ways.
We’re on our way to many more of “I don’t need you!” Funny how I anticipate that same phrase can mean lots of different things (good and bad) in the upcoming phases of her little life.
I admit at this point that diapers were much more convenient during travel!!! There’s nothing like pulling over 2-3 times on a 3 hour drive so she can go to the potty. No doubt these toddlers need to pee at all the wrong times. Like standing in line to check in at the airport. Or to see Mickey Mouse. Or when there’s a lonnnnngggg line in the Women’s room. Telling her, “Looks like you’ll have to pee pee in your pull up” elicits: “nnnnnoooooo!!!!!” and ensuing whining. So I tell myself this is another phase of toddlerhood that I should expect and celebrate, and to (as usual) roll with it. Slow down, remember you have a child now.
We are super excited and proud of her for getting this potty training thing down. I guess she’s behind and ahead of peers her age but for this day and age I think she’s pretty average. Smack in the middle. We haven’t pressured her to learn to go, because we knew enough that this is a touchy subject for lots of kids. Just kind of eased her into it over the course of the last several months.
She’s still a little OCD. She was inspecting a pair of her undies last week and was a little freaked out by the seams on the sides. You know, the one that holds the undies together! I had to show her that mine had seams too and it helped…but then she had a tougher time overcoming the fact that her favorite Yo Gabba Gabba characters’ heads and legs were chopped off at that seam. Oh well, baby steps. She got over it after a little discussion of how undies are made…sigh…How many other kids might just put them on without even thinking of it?!
I think she gets it from me.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Here it comes: Dec- Jan 19
The individual posts below are the abbreviated regurgitations of all the stuff we've been doing over the Christmas holidays, through our trip to Disney World. I've learned the wonders of posting all my photos to Flickr and then simply hitting a button that says "Blog This" and BAM, it posts to my blog! It's saved me time, but if you want to see all the MANY MORE pictures we've taken over the last several weeks, just go straight to my Flickr page by clicking on scrolling photos on the top right hand side of my blog.
Christmas was at my mom's house and was busy and fun. We actually took our yearly little family photos at Portrain Innovations before we left Austin like we did last year but I don't have the CD handy to post those right now. Remember I posted last year's photos, complete with out-takes. This year, she's a year older and amazingly, no funny out-takes. Anna-Marie hammed it up for every darned pose the photographer asked for. Sure made it easy this year but you have to admit, the out-takes can be hilarious. Anyway, I'll try to post those soon. Here's a fun little piece of trivia: Paul and I are wearing the same sweaters in both years' photos. And yes, we are aware of that. And it was partially on purpose.
We've been so much on the go over the past few months, now that we're home and things have slowed down, Anna always asks, "where are we going today?" when she wakes in the morning or after a nap. So it's not just me...
Disney was really great fun. She rode her first roller coaster, and since we love them ourselves, we were super proud of her. In fact she wanted to ride a second time. All the lines at Disney were so short we really didn't have but a 5-10 minute wait, and in some cases, no wait. Yes, it was darned cold. The highs that week were int he low 40's and lows in the 20's but we bundled up and toughed it out! We pretty much rode all of the Disney rides you'd go out there to ride, except for Everest, which always had too long of a wait for our opinion so that one we'll catch next year. And I have to add: "Soaring" was cool but heck I'm not quite sure that it deserves as much hype. I mean, eh.
Of all of the Disney characters, Anna hated Mickey the most and had to work up to even get in a picture with us after a few attempts. Her fave was Minnie and Chip and Dale (those chipmunks). She doesn't know who Chip and Dale really are on TV but she was obviously confusing them with Alvin and the Chipmunk movie she'd just seen. Regardless, everytime those bundles of fur came around, we had to derail our paths so she could snuggle into their soft coats for some love and cuddles. That was really too.danged.cute. She also hated Donald Duck. And I can't blame her. That's one potty-mouthed duck. And he's mean. Don't know how he got a girlfriend.
Anyway, the princess thing was REALLY played up here. So much so that towards the end of the trip, Anna donned her new "princess" nightgown my mom bought her and asked each Paul and I to pose with her separately for a photo. She was acting like the princesses who had posed with her earlier! She thinks she's a princess and now she must wear the nightgown every night. I think we must balance this out with the appropriate amount of space stuff. So it's forthcoming.
This was our second year for the Disney Half Marathon. It was cold. It was sleeting. It was crowded. My registration was lost so I bought one from Carrie on Craig's list. Turns out Carrie was a walker and registered her time such that it put is in the very LAST wave of runners to start. We could literally look behind us and see the lag vehicles. As a result, our run route was always crowded with walkers and we had a tough time just getting around them to maintain a decent pace. We also did alot of running on the sides of the roads since the walkers took up the entire width of most of the roads. The end result of it all was an end time of 2 hrs 47 minutes, which isn't bad, about a 12min 45 sec pace per mile, which is a little slower than what my training was. BUT we could have done even better if we'd have started with the runners that we would have otherwise started with if my registration had gone through. Ah well, it was still our best time ever, beating our previous time by 5 minutes overall. Next year will be even better.
As it turns out, running in the sleet and cold is part of showing to yourself what you're made of. In fact, the longer I ran the less cold I was. Even as the temperature dropped to 35 degrees by the end. 10 minutes after the finish, the chills came on and lasted the rest of the morning. Two things that helped: start time was about the same start time CENTRAL time zone as when I'd normally run with my 4am run group. And I had also run in 30-something-degree weather with my morning run group in the past. So it wasn't all soooo bad.
Notes to myself to remember for last year:
1) Leave no later than 4am for the start.
2) All roads to Epcot are closed off from our resort so pretend we're everyone else and go out to I-4 and just start from the beginning of the directions posted in the race instructions.
3) You can do this on 4 hours of sleep or less but it'd be great if Epcot would choose its Extra Magic hours the night AFTER our run.
Crap, now I forgot the other stuff I wanted to remind myself of at the time.
Anyway, another great time at Disney. A year ZOOMS by. We're registered to run again next year (and THIS TIME I HAVE PRINTED my confirmations and they're SOLID). Not sure how many more years we'll do this...probably just till Anna starts school. I was talking to a fellow mom at a birthday party this past weekend. They'd just returned from Disney. She said they weren't going to make it an annual thing because it seems like it would be "less magical" for the kids. They're probably going to space it out every 4 years or so. I can see that and appreciate her point. There are lots of reasons against making a Disney trip a regular yearly family trip. But for us, it's about more than just going for the magic of Disney. We aren't even huge Disney geeks and I've only seen a handful of Disney movies. Maybe. We don't even watch the Disney Channel at home. For us it's about a family event full of experiences. We all do the family runs as part of the reason we go out there, and as part of that, we earn a sense of achievement and pile a bunch of fun on top of it. Anna's still making little neural connections that allow her to build experiences and I do know she remembers these trips. Still these days when we eat squeeze cheese on crackers she says she remembers "this from Colorado!" (this summer's trip). And everytime she says she "remembers this" Paul and I get excited. Making memories is one of the best parts about being a parent.
That said, I do realize you don't have to go all out as far as Disney World every danged year to make those memories. But for us right now, it's fun (and yes, stressful too) and we'll do it until we think Time's Up. In fact, I took a moment while I was there to be proud of the fact that Paul and I have done well enough in our careers to be able to afford this kind of a family vacation in the first place. We've come a long way and we think this trip is fun. So that's what it is for us right now. That and making our best time on the next year's half marathon!
Teaching starts up again for me next week. And so does my little 4am running group. I figure if I'm going to make even better time next week I should stay on board. They just did the Houston Half marathon this past weekend but I haven't met with them yet to hear how they did.
In the week before the Disney trip, I was in Orlando attending an AIAA conference (the family came out to meet me there for the start of the Disney trip). Long story short, I am heading the committee on organizing next year's 25th Symposium on Gravity-Related Phenomena in Space Exploration, which is part of the AIAA conference. Again in Orlando, again the week before our Disney trip. This AIAA conference is a yearly conference our office attends and it's always in Orlando so it looks like this will be part of our January's for a few more years at least. Anyway, the conference was amazing. I learned so much and met so many ISS science investigators and commercial space developers. I got to stay at a really fantastic resort with a view out my window of Disney World fireworks every night. Not to mention some good food, including the crazy yummy crab cake sandwich...Now I have to crave it for another year. Planning the symposium is something brand new for me but it's all part of my desire to dabble in it a bit and my boss's fantastic intuition when it comes to career development.
So things here at work are AMAZINGLY COOL as usual. This past year has been a blur and in mid Feb, I'll have been at this job for a YEAR already. And I'm STILL a new kid. I've published some papers, attended conferences, traveled overseas, met nobel prize awardees, reviewed proposals, and done lots of outreach. My boss is the best mentor ever. The only thing missing from this job is a trip to space. Not sure that will ever happen, but for now, this will do ;)
WHAT A GREAT YEAR 2009 WAS! HERE'S TO 2010!!!
Christmas was at my mom's house and was busy and fun. We actually took our yearly little family photos at Portrain Innovations before we left Austin like we did last year but I don't have the CD handy to post those right now. Remember I posted last year's photos, complete with out-takes. This year, she's a year older and amazingly, no funny out-takes. Anna-Marie hammed it up for every darned pose the photographer asked for. Sure made it easy this year but you have to admit, the out-takes can be hilarious. Anyway, I'll try to post those soon. Here's a fun little piece of trivia: Paul and I are wearing the same sweaters in both years' photos. And yes, we are aware of that. And it was partially on purpose.
We've been so much on the go over the past few months, now that we're home and things have slowed down, Anna always asks, "where are we going today?" when she wakes in the morning or after a nap. So it's not just me...
Disney was really great fun. She rode her first roller coaster, and since we love them ourselves, we were super proud of her. In fact she wanted to ride a second time. All the lines at Disney were so short we really didn't have but a 5-10 minute wait, and in some cases, no wait. Yes, it was darned cold. The highs that week were int he low 40's and lows in the 20's but we bundled up and toughed it out! We pretty much rode all of the Disney rides you'd go out there to ride, except for Everest, which always had too long of a wait for our opinion so that one we'll catch next year. And I have to add: "Soaring" was cool but heck I'm not quite sure that it deserves as much hype. I mean, eh.
Of all of the Disney characters, Anna hated Mickey the most and had to work up to even get in a picture with us after a few attempts. Her fave was Minnie and Chip and Dale (those chipmunks). She doesn't know who Chip and Dale really are on TV but she was obviously confusing them with Alvin and the Chipmunk movie she'd just seen. Regardless, everytime those bundles of fur came around, we had to derail our paths so she could snuggle into their soft coats for some love and cuddles. That was really too.danged.cute. She also hated Donald Duck. And I can't blame her. That's one potty-mouthed duck. And he's mean. Don't know how he got a girlfriend.
Anyway, the princess thing was REALLY played up here. So much so that towards the end of the trip, Anna donned her new "princess" nightgown my mom bought her and asked each Paul and I to pose with her separately for a photo. She was acting like the princesses who had posed with her earlier! She thinks she's a princess and now she must wear the nightgown every night. I think we must balance this out with the appropriate amount of space stuff. So it's forthcoming.
This was our second year for the Disney Half Marathon. It was cold. It was sleeting. It was crowded. My registration was lost so I bought one from Carrie on Craig's list. Turns out Carrie was a walker and registered her time such that it put is in the very LAST wave of runners to start. We could literally look behind us and see the lag vehicles. As a result, our run route was always crowded with walkers and we had a tough time just getting around them to maintain a decent pace. We also did alot of running on the sides of the roads since the walkers took up the entire width of most of the roads. The end result of it all was an end time of 2 hrs 47 minutes, which isn't bad, about a 12min 45 sec pace per mile, which is a little slower than what my training was. BUT we could have done even better if we'd have started with the runners that we would have otherwise started with if my registration had gone through. Ah well, it was still our best time ever, beating our previous time by 5 minutes overall. Next year will be even better.
As it turns out, running in the sleet and cold is part of showing to yourself what you're made of. In fact, the longer I ran the less cold I was. Even as the temperature dropped to 35 degrees by the end. 10 minutes after the finish, the chills came on and lasted the rest of the morning. Two things that helped: start time was about the same start time CENTRAL time zone as when I'd normally run with my 4am run group. And I had also run in 30-something-degree weather with my morning run group in the past. So it wasn't all soooo bad.
Notes to myself to remember for last year:
1) Leave no later than 4am for the start.
2) All roads to Epcot are closed off from our resort so pretend we're everyone else and go out to I-4 and just start from the beginning of the directions posted in the race instructions.
3) You can do this on 4 hours of sleep or less but it'd be great if Epcot would choose its Extra Magic hours the night AFTER our run.
Crap, now I forgot the other stuff I wanted to remind myself of at the time.
Anyway, another great time at Disney. A year ZOOMS by. We're registered to run again next year (and THIS TIME I HAVE PRINTED my confirmations and they're SOLID). Not sure how many more years we'll do this...probably just till Anna starts school. I was talking to a fellow mom at a birthday party this past weekend. They'd just returned from Disney. She said they weren't going to make it an annual thing because it seems like it would be "less magical" for the kids. They're probably going to space it out every 4 years or so. I can see that and appreciate her point. There are lots of reasons against making a Disney trip a regular yearly family trip. But for us, it's about more than just going for the magic of Disney. We aren't even huge Disney geeks and I've only seen a handful of Disney movies. Maybe. We don't even watch the Disney Channel at home. For us it's about a family event full of experiences. We all do the family runs as part of the reason we go out there, and as part of that, we earn a sense of achievement and pile a bunch of fun on top of it. Anna's still making little neural connections that allow her to build experiences and I do know she remembers these trips. Still these days when we eat squeeze cheese on crackers she says she remembers "this from Colorado!" (this summer's trip). And everytime she says she "remembers this" Paul and I get excited. Making memories is one of the best parts about being a parent.
That said, I do realize you don't have to go all out as far as Disney World every danged year to make those memories. But for us right now, it's fun (and yes, stressful too) and we'll do it until we think Time's Up. In fact, I took a moment while I was there to be proud of the fact that Paul and I have done well enough in our careers to be able to afford this kind of a family vacation in the first place. We've come a long way and we think this trip is fun. So that's what it is for us right now. That and making our best time on the next year's half marathon!
Teaching starts up again for me next week. And so does my little 4am running group. I figure if I'm going to make even better time next week I should stay on board. They just did the Houston Half marathon this past weekend but I haven't met with them yet to hear how they did.
In the week before the Disney trip, I was in Orlando attending an AIAA conference (the family came out to meet me there for the start of the Disney trip). Long story short, I am heading the committee on organizing next year's 25th Symposium on Gravity-Related Phenomena in Space Exploration, which is part of the AIAA conference. Again in Orlando, again the week before our Disney trip. This AIAA conference is a yearly conference our office attends and it's always in Orlando so it looks like this will be part of our January's for a few more years at least. Anyway, the conference was amazing. I learned so much and met so many ISS science investigators and commercial space developers. I got to stay at a really fantastic resort with a view out my window of Disney World fireworks every night. Not to mention some good food, including the crazy yummy crab cake sandwich...Now I have to crave it for another year. Planning the symposium is something brand new for me but it's all part of my desire to dabble in it a bit and my boss's fantastic intuition when it comes to career development.
So things here at work are AMAZINGLY COOL as usual. This past year has been a blur and in mid Feb, I'll have been at this job for a YEAR already. And I'm STILL a new kid. I've published some papers, attended conferences, traveled overseas, met nobel prize awardees, reviewed proposals, and done lots of outreach. My boss is the best mentor ever. The only thing missing from this job is a trip to space. Not sure that will ever happen, but for now, this will do ;)
WHAT A GREAT YEAR 2009 WAS! HERE'S TO 2010!!!
Poor darned cat.
I almost feel sorry for KSC. I think sometimes she wishes she'd have run away from me when I found her outside.
Yes, that is a camel
You know, it's part of the Christmas holiday and all. At the gilruth Children's Holiday party.
Festival of Lights
Our annual treck to Festival of Lights with our good friends. Always super fun. This year the weather was just right!
Daddy helps Anna suit up for her 100m dash at Disney World
Mommy and Daddy aren't the only runners on this trip! Earn your Disney vacation!
Disney 2010 Half marathon start
Sleeting and around 40 degrees at start. About 35 degrees at finish. 13.1 miles at a 2:47 finish, which is still not light speed but 5 minutes faster than any other half marathon we've run. It was ALSO SUPER CROWDED. "Carrie's" entry time was as a walker so we started with the walkers and could never get around them. They slowed down our time LOTS and were everywhere. Ah well, at least we got to run. Next year's time will be super better!
Build-A-Dino
Her first Build-A-Bear thing is a Dinosaur she made while we were waiting to eat at T-Rex restaurant.
Seriously snuggly
Chip and Dale were her favorite. Even though she confused the with the Alvin n Chipmunk movie she'd just seen. She cuddled with these guys every time we saw them.
Bonfire at our resort
We made smores and Chip and Dale (the Disney characters, people!) came by for Anna hugs.
She hated Mickey, LOVED Minnie
Apparently Mickey had a "big nose" and "big ears" and freaked her the hell out. She preferred Minnie Mouse. Must be a girl thing.
ROLLER COASTER!
Anna's first roller coaster ride was at Barnstormer at Disney World. She LOVED it and we had to ride again. At the end of the first ride I heard a squeal and grunt and looked over to what I expected to be a fearful little face who wanted off. But the squal was followed by "THAT WAS FUN!! Let's ride again!!". Whew, relief. We were proud!!!
Monday, January 4, 2010
By the way, this week while everyone is going back to work from their nice vacations, I am at the AIAA conference in Orlando. I'm staying at the kick ass Marriott World resort, the largest Marriott in the world. It's very cool and I'm learning tons!
It just worker out that the conference ends the day we were planning to fly to Orlando as a family for the Disney Half marathon. So I'll be here already and the rest will join me thurs and we'll be moving to the Disney Wilderness cabins. We loved them last year!
Anna runs her 100m dash on Friday and our Half is Sat morn. I am confident I'll make my best time ever, though it'll show under Carrie's name.
This is our second year doing the Half and Anna's second year doing the 100 m dash.
Last year none of the rides scared her. But this year she might be of that age where she gets scared. Will be interesting to see how she does.
It gets harder to say goodbye to Anna the older she gets! She doesn't cry or anything but she is more aware and misses me more. Last night she called to sing to me :) and asked me to sing to her. And I realize I miss her more the older she gets
We get home from Disney on Wednesday the 13th.
Meet Carrie
I registered Paul and Me for the Disney Half Marathon back in Jan 27 2009 through Active.com. Good thing, too, because it sold out in April.
In May I registered Anna for the kids 100m dash. It too has since sold out.
Since then I have paid for airline tickets, made vacation arrangements, and paid Disney for our stay at the Wilderness cabins, which starts Friday.
I have gotten up to run at 4am regularly with a group of stranger-friends as part of my training.
Which is why you can understand how I temporarily lost all control of voluntary body function 3 nights ago when I dowload Paul's and Anna's race waivers but couldn't find mine online. Next click showed I wasn't even registered at all.
My meticulous planning had built a perfectly deceptive world that Tara R was going to run in the 2010 Disney World Half Marathon.
As it turns out, she is not running. But Carrie H is. Let's cheer her on because she will be me since I found her on Craigslist as someone who needed to sell her Disney Half entry. The results of my run this year will be posted under Carrie's name. My race bib will say Carrie and not Tara.
Not a bad name. But holy s*** The universe apparently feels I needed a good exercise in "how to be resourceful when s*** seriously goes wrong. Because yes, it's been awhile since s*** has seriously gone wrong.
I sure got lucky to find her. Not many are selling but there are plenty of posts out there who need tickets like me. Carrie's original buyer backed out.
And no, even though Disney and Active.com felt bad for me there was nothing they can do.
Go, Carrie!
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