this is me starting a new trend for myself.
i’ve been emailing myself snippets of memories and saving them randomly in evernote but i’ve never actually PUT them anywhere (unless they turned into tweets). so this will be that repository from now on. too many little things have probably already been forgotten, and i don’t want that to be the case any longer. this will probably be the most random one because i’m back-filling it with as much as i can think of right now.
i want to remember…
my interview to work at sparc. my hiring process took less than 2 weeks to complete from start to finish. it was awesome. but before my interview, i was terrified. i wanted out of my current job so badly, that i nearly cried during my sparc interview. i was literally shaking. but i knew i was in the right place when i finished up my interview with the CEO, eric bowman. we talked for about 20 minutes, and then he stole my phone from me after i mentioned my angry birds applications. i wasn’t sure what to make of that until brett texted me. right when eric had my phone. i wasn’t sure what to worry about first–if there were any unfortunate photos in the text message history or if brett had said anything inappropriate just now in his text. and then bowman responded to brett’s text message with, “she’ll probably get a job offer”. i didn’t read it until i left the interview. one of the best and most flattering surprises in my life.
one weekend in october 2012, caylin was asleep. brett and i had some drinks. FINALLY had alone time (i will never again take just CUDDLING or even the smell of his clothes for granted). i baked tiny apple pies and they were completely fugly but also completely delicious. followed by beers, sweatpants, and our sunday ritual of dexter and homeland. sundays in the fall are some of my favorite couch memories with brett.
another weekend in october 2012. caylin and i went to burger king for lunch (burger king popcorn chicken is my weakness slash guilty pleasure, nom). came home and had a boardwalk empire marathon all afternoon. cooked steaks for dinner. followed by more boardwalk empire, and probably sweatpants.
christmas 2012, when brett gave me an ipad and made me cry. i hate when he spends money like that on me (besides the engagement ring, that i can handle!). most amazing husband on the planet.
christmas 2012, when i let brett sleep in and caylin and i came downstairs christmas morning. she had her christmas dress on and christmas bib. i had ripped a copy of my mom’s disney christmas CD and uploaded it to my amazon cloudplayer with the rest of my christmas collection. you have no idea how crazy thrilled i was to play this for her this year (i will be even more excited next year). for like 15 years, i awoke christmas morning to this same collection of songs. i can only hope caylin has the same experience. the tradition has started, and she LOVED. IT. it almost brought me to tears i was so happy. i love my mom for all of the traditions and random experiences she’s given me. i’m more than happy to pass them on to caylin. it is so so so exciting.
again, christmas 2012, when caylin’s weird sleeping habits started. the only way she would sleep for a while was if i held her and rocked her to sleep. and then for a while it was only if she had her face smushed up against me a certain way. for the last month, she has to eat 5-6 oz before passing out, and then i swap the bottle out for her pacifier. and she has to have her face halfway underneath the pillow, or part of the blanket in her face. it’s like an instant off switch. babies are like weird puzzles that you can never put together in the same order twice.
how disappointed we were when we ran out of boardwalk empire episodes to watch. we have yet to find a new show.
the last couple weeks when we try and tire caylin out so she’ll go to sleep easier, and stay asleep. brett calls it putting her “through the ringer”. which is hilarious because the poor girl hardly knows what hit her when it’s all said and done. lately, though, we’ve turned the TV to one of the music channels and brett sings like… everything. his favorite is fergie’s “glamorous”, which is unfortunate. there are some things you just can’t unsee… brett dancing to fergie is one of those things. at least tonight he threw in some spice girls and bone thugs crossroads. but he runs around the apartment singing and dancing, i sit with caylin and make her dance and flail her arms about and jump. less than 20 minutes of that and she can barely keep her eyes open. she starts to go limp and her eyelids can barely stay open. it is the most adorable (and also saddest) thing i have ever experienced as a mom. it’s so cute, but i feel so bad, like we broke her–she’s that exhausted. tonight she just laid there in my arms looking up at me, barely able to stay awake. her cute little cheeks smushed against my shoulder. i sat there smelling her head and just hugged her. i almost started crying with her in my arms when i started thinking about it. it’s amazing how much more i love that little bundle of cute every day. she is just the most awesome thing that could ever happen to us. i’ve never been this happy and simultaneously terrified in my life. she is so perfect.
the day brett went to costco to buy k-cups for his keurig. and then he came back with 5 lbs of lamb leg and 2 lbs of macaroni and cheese (and zero k-cups). we still have lamb leg in the freezer. on the bright side, i found an awesome marinade recipe and the first round turned out delicious!
caylin’s little thighs with the weird wrinkles. a guy at work said he and his wife didn’t even remember when their kids had those little wrinkles. i don’t want to ever forget that. she has the cutest little damn legs. she loves to stand up lately and they look even cuter when she’s all wobbly.
how excited she gets when she gets to play in her jumper. girl can jump forever these days.
when she’s overly hungry and overly tired some days when i get home from work and finally get done cooking dinner (and scarfing it down)–it’s just a lethal combination. i’ll warm up her formula and take her upstairs. lay her down in bed. she can’t calm down enough to eat. the only thing that calms her down is if i sing jingle bells. i don’t know why, but that’s the only thing that works.
how happy she is to see us when she wakes up in the morning. rolling over and seeing her huge smile is THE best thing i’ve ever woken up to. waking up to loki’s face peering over my covers when she was 9 weeks old is a close second. cowboy brazilian steakhouse. having never been to a brazilian steakhouse, we didn’t know what to expect. it was pretty much a religious experience. awesome salad bar. black beans, mashed taters, green beans. we turned our cards to “green” and the meat kabobs started a-flowin’. parmesan pork, like 4 kinds of steaks, sausages, lamb, ribs. fried bananas (not my thing but at least i tried it). weird potato-ey stick things which were pretty good. the first words out of brett’s mouth were, “this place is BALLIN”. 10 minutes later, followed by “i think i’m one burp away from another sirloin”. 20 minutes later, followed by “we need to go next door to the tanger outlets. i just wanna walk. for a WHILE.” which is exactly what we ended up doing. we hit up the under armour outlet and he got sweatpants, a hoodie, and socks. i found an awesome comfy tee for $6. went to check in at the hotel. i got us reservations at the crowne plaza hotel (GORGEOUS hotel a friend of mine stayed at where she did my boudoir photography for brett’s christmas present, nicest hotel i’ve ever stayed in, ever). we immediately changed into sweatpants and went back out to buffalo wild wings to watch UFC 156. got a beer and a whiskey sour and sat outside, waited 30 minutes for a table. finally got a table that had us sitting under the A/C vent so it was blowing RIGHT in our eyes. had a few shots and stayed like an hour before we decided if the A/C blew in our face anymore we’d be passed out by 11. went back to the hotel and got drunk there instead. opted to download the UFC fights online and watch them later. excellent decision because there was a weird indian guy, probably mid 40’s, wearing a suit, sitting at the bar. glasses, receding hair line, very put-together looking. his phone rang and it started playing an incredibly vulgar rap song and he answered it with a incredibly proper sounding, “hello?”, like no one else in the bar heard him. so. awkward. then i got a text from brett, looked up, and he was mooning me from the balcony. showed up downstairs wearing socks, no shoes. we ate chips and got drunk and pretended we weren’t lame for calling it a night at 11:30. turns out, lame was totally worth it because it was the best night of sleep we’ve had in 5 months.
tonight, brett went to the liquor store near our house. stopped at bi-lo (it’s right next to the liquor store). he was grocery shopping hungry (even though he knew i was in the process of cooking dinner), never a good thing. never a good thing for him to grocery shop anyway (see earlier mention of costco). he came home with corn dogs, burritos, eggo waffles, a weird chocolate cake, uncrustables, another box of garlic bread (we have a box in the freezer), a whole box of pot pies, nachos and queso dip, frozen cookie dough, and a crapload of gatorade and naked juice drinks. i love him. but he is forever banned from grocery shopping, lest we die 20 years early of diabeetus and heart failure.
3 separate occasions. once it was the CTO of sparc. the other day it was my team lead. most recently, it was the CEO of sparc. they each came to me, pulled me aside, and had a one on one conversation to tell me how much they enjoyed what i wrote, and wanted to make sure that i knew how appreciated i was. i mean, really, how often do you get to say one of your superiors read your blog and personally came to you to talk about it? that alone makes me realize (again and again) how lucky i am to work where i work. where people truly care about your well-being. i have never felt like i belonged somewhere more. even my teammates have done the same thing, and i am so happy to have them as teammates.
this is a pretty good start to a new category. i don’t want to forget these things. sometimes it’s the little snippets of happiness that make a whole month worthwhile.