9 months old

Kaelyn turned 9 months old on January 24th. She had her 9 month check up today. No shots, so that was great!

Last night Kaelyn only got up once. However, she got up at 5:20 as well and was very hard to keep asleep after that. I tried taking her to bed with me and that didn't work. I tried laying back in the chair with her so I could doze too and that didn't work. She would only stay asleep if I rocked. So rock on mama! She slept that way until 7:15 which I was glad about in hopes she wouldn't be crabby with me. I showered while she played in her stroller and threw keys to the floor over and over. Then she helped me eat breakfast. Next was her bathtime. SHe gets pretty excited about that these days. I take her pajamas and diaper off and start the water. She rolls over and joins me at the edge of the tub squealing and watching the water fill the tub in anticipation. Then, once she's in the bath, she's calm as can be. After she was all clean we played for awhile, then hit the grocery store for milk before the doctor's appointment. It's cold enough it was easy to leave it in the car for awhile and not worry!!!

The nurse actually got Kaelyn's blood pressure for the second time ever. They seem to have a hard time getting a read on her. But this time it worked, after several attempts, and it was 82/48. Her temperature was 97.7 degrees. She yelled at the nurse for sticking that thermometer in her armpit. Poor nurse. Poor Kaelyn! It got worse.

Then we had to take her clothes off and throw her on the scale. A practice she (like many girls) doesn't like. She just kept reaching for me while on the scale. It's a painless thing...she's such a big baby! :) She weighs 19lbs 8 ounces which is in the 95th percentile. After that traumatic event we had to lay her down and stretch her out to get her height. She's 28.5 inches tall...that's over 2 feet!! Which is in the 90th percentile. Her head was in the 90th percentile as well and she didn't appreciate that measurement being taken either. As long as the nurse stayed at bay Kaelyn happily babbled. Get anywhere near her and mess with her, here come the screams!

The pediatrician came in and took a look in her ears and nose (which she did not appreciate). Then the doctor sat back and Kaelyn just babbled and happily screamed away. The pediatrician approached again to push on her belly and check her eyes with a light. Kaelyn screamed bloody murder. The second she was done it was back to the happy babbles. She was VERY talkative. She had quite a story to tell. Maybe she was telling us how she had on a size 2 diaper and it was really riding up because she's been a size 3 for months.

Since Kaelyn was happy I got a chance to ask the pediatrician some questions. She said Kaelyn looks great and is growing well. I asked if she still needed to be eating at night. Answer: No! She said that babies need to eat at night until 4-6 months because they can't keep their blood sugar regulated. Around the 4-6 month mark they can and should no longer NEED to eat at night. After that it's more of a comfort thing. She said I could A. shut the door to her room and leave her all night. B. Give her a bottle of water or bottle of nothing to suck on rather than nurse her to try to transition. C. continue nursing her because it wasn't hurting anything and if it worked for us, fine. I'm not sure what I'll try, if anything. I may try just patting her back to sleep and see if that'll work more often. I do that if she wakes up and it hasn't been long enough for her to possibly be hungry again and it works then. But if it's been 3 1/2 hours or more I assume she wants to eat. Not that I know she doesn't HAVE to eat, maybe I'll try...not sure! I just don't like being yelled at at 3am. Or ANY time, really! :)

Lately Kaelyn hasn't been AS interested in baby food either so I asked about that. She said to just give her bites of whatever we're eating and let her try it. Put some on the tray and let her play with it because at this point food is just a toy. Something to get used to. She'll catch on eventually. My only problem with that is that Kaelyn doesn't put things in her mouth. Not food, not toys, nothing. Only the spoon when I offer it, stress balls (which is strange, I know!) her sippy cup...and me, of course! :) At lunch today I did try giving her little bits of bread and when I put them up to her lips she did take them. She made quite a face, but she ate them! So I may just have to hand feed her like that instead of expecting her to do it on her own at first. I look forward to getting some foods at the store soon for her to try. I'm not the fruitiest-vegetabley-ist (quite the words huh!) eater so I need to stock up on some things she could try.

Sometimes when I put Kaelyn down for a nap she jerks violently and that wakes her up and makes her mad and she just screams and screams so I asked about that. The pediatrician said as long as she doesn't act different because of it, not to worry about it. If it made her act different in some way, then I should be concerned. I guess she acts normal I just would prefer if she stayed asleep and didn't wake herself up!

I also asked if she should be drinking water and the doctor said maybe a little bit. That's good because I DO give her a sippy cup of water but all she wants to do is chew on the plastic nipple. The water just runs down her chin, if any comes out at all. So I'm glad to hear she doesn't necessarily need a lot right now. Sometimes she'll suck water from the washcloth in the bath and sometimes she'll even turn her head in the tub and drink it in there. But not very often. So I guess she's getting what she needs.

I meant to ask how you go about weaning a baby, how you know when they're ready, etc, but I didn't get to it and she probably would have given me her standard answer "There's no magic to it, do it however you want...someday she'll grow up and be a 12 year old girl and won't want to have anything to do with you no matter WHAT you do now." True, but not always the most helpful answer when I'm asking for advice!

IT was a successful visit. Kaelyn is doing well. Growing nicely and proportionately. I got a few answers to some questions and a few ideas to try. And some of my concerns were waylayed as well. We don't have to go back until she's a year old. And then she DOES get shots so I expect to dread that visit a bit more!!

Stir Crazy

I'm getting a little stir crazy with the cold, winter weather. There have been several days this winter when it's been SO cold we haven't even left the house to go to the mailbox. Sean, bring the mail in on your way home! There have been several days when our plans have been derailed because of snow or cold.

Kaelyn has lots of neat toys, but after playing with them for 12 hours a day SEVERAL days in a row...I'm bored. She's bored. The toys are bored. We just want to go to the mailbox!

We're facing another few days of being stuck inside. Alone. An ice storm is on the way, it sounds. I doubt we'll have our normal weekly Nana visit. I doubt we'll venture out because mama isn't very steady on her feet when it comes to ice and she'd hate to drop the baby!! How many days can the toys take of being played with and played with and played with before they throw themselves out the window to escape?

We did get a new table/stand up toy at walmart last week so that helps. And there's always the old standby favorite, my niece's ball toy. The balls go round and round and down and down and the music plays and plays. Sometimes this toy goes off when we're not even in the room...creepy! Then there are the shape toys where you put the shapes in the right holes. There are the toys you drag alone on the floor. The small ones you hold and turn over and over in your hands. The musical ones. The regular ones like boxes and tissue paper. They seem endless when they are strewn about on the floor, but when they've been played with for 12 hours, they seem so few.

I'm sure this spring when Kaelyn doesn't EVER want to be inside, I'll look back on our inside time fondly. Maybe? But for now, we're going stir crazy! That's all there is to it. I don't know how many more days of isolation I can take. And I'm pretty sure the toys feel the same way!!

Planning

I have to admit, I'm a planner. Maybe to a fault. I like things to go as planned and I always like there to BE a plan. Since having Kaelyn, when plans get disrupted it can be even more disappointing to me. My mom comes over once a week. Winter weather prevented that one week. Thus my plans were interrupted. My friend Andrea and I get together every few weeks. Winter weather and car troubles got in the way several times. Thus my plans were interrupted. My in-laws were going to come over on two different occasions this past week. Life got in the way and thus my plans were interrupted. It's not so much the change in plans, really, but as a stay at home mom who spends approximately 12 hours a day entertaining a baby, when you have something set in your mind...a day with a friend, a break with you mom, a change in the everyday play, it's a HUGE deal when those plans get changed! I never did like changing plans much. I guess I'm not very spontaneous, but now, when I go from having a fun day planned to having NO plans, it's like...crushing, I guess would be the word! :)

But onward we play! Because what other choice do we have! The toys gets tossed a dozen MORE times. The cat gets a little more attention, much to his chagrin. The poor guy just wants to nap! And I get to watch Kaelyn that much more closely for yet another day. Though it can be wearing, that's not such a bad thing.

Recently she's starting holding things out to me like, "see what I've got mama?" She grabs on to her pink safety pin toy and holds it up like it's the coolest thing in the world and she has just defeated something huge and triumphed.

Lately I've had a bit of a pretzel habit. The braided honey twists that are the size of a finger. When I eat those, Kaelyn just HAS to have one. Not to eat, just to hold, turn over and over in her hands, and wave in the air like it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. On a side note, strangely for this stage, Kaelyn never puts anything in her mouth. Other than her hands, the spoon I offer at mealtimes, and stress balls. Never any real foods, veggie wheels, assorted objects from the ground. Part of me is thankful for this and part of me wonders how we'll ever get her to eat real food! Hence the reason she can have a pretzel. Not that I leave her alone with it just in case, but so far, she hasn't even considered chewing it. Which is strnage, really, beacuse she sees me eating them. I've always thought that about straws too. She sees me sucking on them so you'd think she'd want to put them in her mouth. But no, she just wants to stick her finger in them. Well, whatever, kid!

I think planning pretty much goes out the window when you have a baby, though. You can plan all you want, it's really what THEIR plan is that counts. Just because you plan to get a good nights' sleep doesn't mean that is what they have in mind! Just because I plan for Kaelyn to nap around 10 and around 3 doesn't mean she'll want to. Perhaps motherhood has been a lesson in spontaneity for me. Taking things one day at a time is definitely something I'm getting better at! Though it'll never be my strong suit. It's funny when people ask, when does she nap? Because until quite recently (see the post about Schedules!) I didn't have an answer for that. "It depends on what time she gets up in the morning," I'd say for starters. It was a complicated process.

So I can't tell you what Kaelyn and I are going to do all day everyday. Even when I think we DO have plans. So I can't tell you how many hours of sleep we'll get or how much she'll want to eat or when. So I can't tell you how long she'll nap or when. So what!

I can tell you I love this kid from the very depths of my soul. That love wasn't immediate for me. I loved her from birth, sure, but the more I get to know her, the more I see her eyes shine when we play something new or open her favorite book, the more I love her. It's a daily event. Even if we do the SAME things day in and day out, she does something EVERY day that amazes me, makes me smile, enthralls me, and makes me love her all the more. I can't plan much these days and guarantee that it's going to for sure come to pass. But I know for a fact that I plan to love Kaelyn for this lifetime and beyond.

Frustrations/Annoyances

Don't you just love when you overhear someone talking about you and your mothering choices? Especially in a negative way? I guess if I had heard "Oh she's such a good mom, she does everything right!" I wouldn't even be talking about it, huh! So here's the thing. I don't leave Kaelyn with strangers. I just don't. She's a mama's girl right now anyways and freaks out when she's with anyone BUT me, other than a few close family members. With whom she STILL reaches and cries for me on occasion. So I kind of feel like I would be a bad mom if I left her with someone she had NEVER met before and didn't know at ALL. I'll leave her with my husband, I'll leave her with my mom. But until she gets over this phase and is happy playing with other kids and doesn't notice my absense so much, is it really so awful that I want to keep her with me? I go to a meeting and there's child care available. I keep Kaelyn with me. The child care provider thought that was strange, I guess and was telling someone else about it. There were plenty of other children being cared for. One even as young as 2 months old and THAT child did just FINE. It was really more the tone of voice and the facial expression that made me feel it was a negative comment. My other defense is that Kaelyn is still nursing. She needed to eat in the middle of the meeting. But even if she was fine with strangers and wasn't nursing, I can't honestly say I'd leave her with people she doesn't really know. Am I being overprotective? Perhaps. I think I'd rather be overprotective than underprotective, though. Maybe I'm even being selfish. Maybe I WANT her to be with me and only me for the majority of the time. I don't think I'll be on my deathbed thinking, gee, I wish I had spent more time with Kaelyn as a child. To not have that regret is reason enough! I guess I'm ranting a bit now, I just didn't like feeling judged. I'm just doing what I feel is best for my child at this particular time in her life. I wish the person would have talked to me if she'd wanted reasons or felt snubbed because I kept Kaelyn with me instead of handing her over. I'm sure she didn't know I could hear or that I was paying attention. It's a good lesson for me in mothering, though. Moms do what they have to do...what they feel is right. And if another mom does things differently than me, I'll try my best to respect it and not judge it. Every kid is different. They all have different needs. Every mom is different as well.

When I was pregnant I found it pretty annoying when people would touch my belly. No one ever touched my belly before I was pregnant! And yes, I realize there's a cute baby in there somewhere. But above that baby are my ribs, my abs (what was left of them!) my belly, my skin etc etc. They weren't touching the baby, they were touching MY stomach and that was just weird! Especially complete strangers and co-workers. Family must have known what I thought of that because they pretty much stayed away from belly touching. Sometimes people would talk to my belly as well. That was better than touching but I still felt like I was in the way of a conversation I wasn't really involved in!

After Kaelyn was born I realized people love touching babies. IN the stomach AND out! :) I went grocery shopping recently and Kaelyn had her lips all sucked in. The check out lady touched her face and said, hey where are your lips? I would never touch someone's baby's face after handling dirty money and groceries and who knows what else! People just love touching her hands and face etc. She's cute, I get it, but it's cold and flu season, back off! :)

I am also annoyed when people take Kaelyn from me when she most obviously does NOT want to leave me or go to them. The other night we were at a function and a lady tried to take her from me. Kaelyn turned away from her and clung to my shirt. She didn't know the lady, we had just arrived, it was a strange place, she wanted her mama. So instead of backing off the lady pryed her hands between me and Kaelyn and took her anyways. Kaelyn promptly started screaming, as I could have predicted, and I got her back shortly. But when a baby turns away from you as you try to take her, why try to take her? Let her warm up a bit. Make funny faces, play with her, talk to her. Don't try to take her away when she quite obviously is happy where she is and doesn't want that situation to change!

I also feel awkward when people are talking directly to Kaelyn when I'm holding her. Again, like when she was in my belly, I feel like I'm in the middle of a conversation I'm not really a part of. They're not talking to me. They're not asking ME the questions, and yet I'm stuck there in the middle. Because if they try to take Kaelyn she'll just yell at them so I kind of HAVE to be there! :) What do you do!

So that's my venting and ranting post for the day! :) It probably sounds like I'm in a bad mood or something! I actually feel pretty decent, just wanted to get a few things off my mind and I figured this would be a good place!

Schedule

I took Kaelyn to my MOPS group meeting today. Many of the kids involved in that group are actually preschool age, but Kaelyn is PRE school so it's okay for me to go too! There are a few with younger or older kids. Or some moms that have preschoolers AND a child Kaelyn's age etc. It's just nice to get out. The group meets once a month from 9:30-11. So far that has worked just great. In the previous months I would take Kaelyn for a drive before the meeting and she'd snooze for awhile. Then she'd sit on my lap and play with a paper cup or a juice box or something I brought with us while the group met. Then we'd drive through somewhere for lunch on the way home and she'd nap again.

Child care IS available at the group so I don't HAVE to keep her with me. And the ladies caring for the kids are very caring and wonderful people. But Kaelyn is still going through her mama only phase and I refuse to leave her with someone she doesn't know and go to a meeting knowing she's probably screaming for me. I just can't do it. Someday maybe I will be able to leave her happily playing with the other kids, but for now, she hangs out with me. She hasn't at all been a problem until today. She gets a little nervous in new places and was a little fussy when we first arrived. The group got going and I let her eat because it was time and she was wanting SOMETHING. Then she was happy for about 45 minutes. Though it was hard to keep her entertained on my lap, it was working. I brought a whole BAG of small toys and she took turns tossing them to the ground or inspecting them. After awhile she got bored so we moved to the floor. That only worked for a few minutes and then I just stood in the back of the room with her. Finally she got more scream-y so I left the group ten minutes early.

So why was this month harder? It's the schedule. During all previous months she was napping 3 or even 4 times a day. Now she only takes two naps. The first nap is generally around 10ish. The group meets 9:30-11am. I did go for a drive starting at 9. We drove through the bank on our way to the meeting. And she DID snooze for awhile. But she still was missing her regular (ish) naptime, I guess. We took the long way home...driving through the neighborhood three times...and she slept some more. She was in a happy screamy mood the rest of the afternoon. I love those happy screams. It's like she's trying to tell me something and it's a good something. She doesn't know how so she just screams in joy. Her eyes are all lit up. It's adorable and I wish she did it all day every day. Except during nap times. And overnight! :)

I remember when Kaelyn was born. After about 2 days of feeding her EVERY hour day and night and having NO idea when she would nap and what she needed I started asking around. When do babies start having a schedule? Two weeks later when I took her to the pediatrician I asked, when will I see a schedule start? I think she told me to give it a few more weeks and Kaelyn would lead me, but I was in a fog so I'm not really sure. I remember asking that question of every mother I could find for a long time. It was my biggest concern. I wanted to be able to predict her better. Why is she yelling at me? Is she hungry? Tired? Bored? Hot? Cold? What's UP with this kid?! I wanted to leave the house but if I didn't know why she was yelling at me, I didn't feel like I could go ANYWHERE!

All of the advice I got from others was wrong. It must have been what happened with THEIR kids or what THEY had read. But I didn't see a pattern with Kaelyn until about 3-4 months of age. At that point she was eating every OTHER hour and would nap every hour and a half for about 30 minutes or so. She never has been a LONG napper. Every few weeks or months that would stretch a little and she would eat every two and a half hours and nap every three hours.

But honestly, it wasn't until Kaelyn turned 8 months old that there seems to be set times for most everything. She gets up around 6:30-7am and eats. I'll give her solid foods around 8. She'll eat again around 10 and nap anytime between 9:30 and 10. Then we'll have solids for lunch at noon and she'll nurse again at 1:30-2. Another nap around 3-3:30 and nurse at 4:30. Solid supper at 6 and nurse/bedtime at 8. Until she hit the 8 month mark EVERY day was different. I may have been able to predict that she would want to eat every two or three hours or whatever, but the timeframe of that was different EVERY day. It's SO nice to have set times now. Though it's not an exact science at least it's more predictable when trying to make an appointment or meet a friend for lunch or whatever. And I DID start leaving the house before the 8 month mark, just so you know! :) As soon as I started seeing a pattern and could predict a bit better when she was hungry vs. tired I ventured out to the grocery store etc!

Other than the Mops meeting this morning Kaelyn had a great day. She played nicely and happily screamed the day away. Though playing with her is fun and getting to rest myself during her naptimes is wonderful, my favorite time of the day is when she gets UP from a nap. I'll pick her up and say, "hey pretty girl!" and she'll lay her head on my shoulder and cuddle. This can go on for 30 seconds or 10 minutes. I look at her in the mirror in her room and her eyes are wide open, she's just cuddling. I could do that all day. My arms, maybe not so much, but the rest of me wants to!

So if you're new to the mom world and are wondering, when will my baby get on a schedule? I hate to tell you, it could be awhile! Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones I ran into that saw a pattern at 6 weeks or 2 months or sooner. Or maybe you'll be wondering where that pattern is at the 8 month mark. As so many have told me, it WILL happen. And with kids, we never know when or why so just go with it! :)

Growing Up

Kaelyn is growing up. Fast. There are a few things she's not ready for yet. She's too big for the baby bathtub now. It's really pretty funny how much she hangs out. She's overflowing in that thing. But when I tried to put her in the big tub without it, boy did she scream at me! I got out the baby bathtub again REAL fast! She's all smiles again. I'm not sure how to transition to the big bathtub, but I think I'm going to have to do it pretty soon or start bathing her one foot at a time, one arm at a time, etc. She just won't all fit in there at once not too long from now!

She's standing really well now and wants to stand CONSTANTLY. She can stand alone for up to 10 seconds or so before flopping onto her bottom (thank goodness for diapers shielding those little butt bones!) or grabbing on to something. She's constantly pulling herself up on things. I've had to move a few things just these last few days to stop her from pulling them OVER onto herself when she's trying to stand up. Kaelyn may play seated for a few minutes here and there but she'd much rather stand at this point. But when she IS sitting, she's usually crawling. No more setting her on the floor and staying in one place to play. She crawls across the room to get the Desitin, then back for a toy, then over to the linoleum in the kitchen for no reason at all. It's a much more constant motion. When she first started crawling she would only take off if she REALLY wanted something. Now she goes just to go, I think. Just because she can.

I don't know how diapers EVER get changed on kids this age. Kaelyn constantly wants to roll over and take off. Sometimes I get the old diaper off and she takes off, her little nude-y butt waggling at me as she goes. And of course, that's always when the tinkling begins as well. Can't have a naked baby butt and no tinkling! So far she only pooped once without a diaper on, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that happens again. I have to constantly distract her while changing her if I have ANY hope of keeping her there long enough to get one diaper off, the new one on, and her pants back in place. She's just too busy to be concerned with such things!

She's sleeping a LITTLE better lately. Now that we're back home and in our groove again. She's only been getting up 3 times a night. Eating twice and once just for a few minutes. I think she just likes to check in and make sure I'm still there. I don't have to pick her up I just lay my hand on her and she goes back to sleep. She's over 8 months old now and I don't know if she really NEEDS to eat overnight anymore or not. Sometimes she's gone as long as 7 hours without eating overnight, but that's pretty rare. And she eats regularly every 3 1/2 hours during the day so if she wakes up and it's been 3 1/2 hours or more, I let her eat. She never turns it away! If she wakes up around 5am I usually have to bring her back to bed with me to get her to stay asleep any longer. She'll just roll around in her own bed and yelp every now and then and not really rest. So if either of us have hopes of sleeping more, I have to cocoon her in my arms and pat her until she settles and then hold her tight so she can't wiggle. That happens several mornings a week.

Poor Kaelyn, it's SO cold here right now I finally had her start wearing a coat. She looks like that kid in the movie A Christmas Story. She can't move anything but her eyes. She doesn't usually appreciate putting the coat on much, but I feel like she's quite warm and cozy in there once we get going! If I just put blankets on her she throws them off anyways so that's not going to work in below 0 temperatures!!

She's getting really onery too. Her favorite thing to do is throw things around. Throw the burp cloth off the couch, throw her table toys off her tray, throw little stuffed animals off the chair, throw books around on the floor. The other day I gave her a big pile of coupons and she tossed those around like they were the most fun things in the world! Moving things from place to place is a big deal. And when she's throwing things, like diapers from the box, and KNOWS I'm watching, you should see that little gleam in her eye. She looks at me like, I KNOW I'm being onery! And I react like it's a big deal...HEY, I say, what do you think you're DOING?! And she just squeals and jumps into my lap. Then gets up and does it again as I try to keep up in re-piling things for her to throw!

She's taking little steps here and there when holding on to things. I'm thinking she's going to walk pretty early. Kaelyn is crawling great but she's way more interested in standing at this point and I think she wants to be a big girl and race around. Maybe another couple of months and that could be the case! Then we'll REALLY have to watch out!

Someday all of this will pass and I'll probably look back and miss it. SOME of it. I don't know that getting up at 3am will be something I'll ever look back on in wonderment! But I'll always remember that gleam in her eye as she makes sure I'm watching when she starts pulling diapers out of the box and tossing them around. HEY! I'll say in my silly voice. I love to hear her squeal. I'll pile diapers back all day long if that's what it takes to get a squeal!

January is a cool month for a birthday

Happy Birthday to Sean as of January 4th. He said his New Year's resolution every year is to not age anymore and then four days later he always breaks that resolution. I have to feel sort of sorry for him because he spends MANY a birthdays outside shoveling in the driveway. I remember not even leaving the house a few years ago because it was so snowy. This year he didn't have such luck and had to go to work on the big day. But when he got home that night I grilled steaks for him, made tater tots, and even had some blonde brownies, quite a treat. I don't get much baking done with Kaelyn always around to help!

So Sean is a big 35 now. I also have to feel sorry for him for marrying so young. I won't be 30 until June so he always feels like the old one in the house. What do you do! He knew my age when he picked me! :) Sometimes we talk about how we met and when we met etc. and how weird it would have been had we met earlier. We met when I was a senior in college and Sean was working in Omaha. I was 20 and he was 25. But what if we'd met when he was in high school? I would have still been in grade school!! I think both of our parents would have raised an eyebrow or two about that! :)

So how did we meet? Well, that's quite a story! I had had a boyfriend at college who I had just broken up with over the summer before my senior year. Nice guy, genuine person, but I was getting really annoyed by everything he did and said so I just knew it wasn't right. A few months later my friends were like, hey Brooke, you aren't dating anyone, you should be dating someone. Not sure why they thought so. Maybe they were tired of me hanging around so often! :) And the internet and email and chatting online was all the rage so I started talking to people through yahoo's chat program. I really don't remember how I ran across Sean but we started chatting back and forth and then we started emailing back and forth and he sent me some pictures of himself and his family. I thought he was way cute. But I was a little internet-dumb so I didn't know how to send pictures of myself. He therefore, had NO idea what I looked like. At one point he gave me his phone number and one Friday night when ALL of my friends had other plans (mostly dates!) I called him. We talked for four hours. After the first 30 minutes, my calling card ran out of minutes so he called me back and we continued talking until the wee hours in the morning. Looking back on that now, that's pretty funny because Sean's a quiet sort of fellow. I really ought to remind him of how chatty he was then! During that conversation we decided we should meet sometime.

In the days that followed we decided to meet in a few weeks in his town. I was going to college an hour and a half away but happened to have a weekend job at a radio station in the town HE lived in. I didn't have to work that weekend, but a friend of mine wanted to visit his family in that same town anyways so we decided we'd drive there, I'd drop him at his family's house, meet Sean, and that way if Sean was crazy and I never picked my friend BACK up... :) Just kidding. We met at the radio station where there was someone else working anyways, so I wasn't in too terribly much danger.

Just to show off Sean drove his baby blue 56 cadillac to meet me. I heard that thing coming a mile away. When he got out of the car I thought, "dang!" Sean looks nice in pictures but honestly, pictures don't do him justice, he's a good looking dude. I remember also noticing his sweatshirt was pushed up on his arms. I don't know why I noticed that, but it's still something I remember to this day.

I think I picked my friend back up at 4am and got back home at like 6am. It was a long date! We played some games and got to know each other and were having SUCH a great time it was hard to leave. After that the emails REALLY started to fly and I visited him everytime I was back in town, which, after a few months, started to be three times a week due to my job. Once I graduated from college I moved and took a full time job at the same station and Sean and I continued to see each other. The following Christmas he emailed me a proposal and apparently I said yes and the rest is history. That's the short version of our meeting, I'll have to expand farther another time. The moral of the story is love knows no age! :)

I've always known I would probably end up with an older guy. I think I only ever dated ONE guy my age and ONE guy a year younger. Everyone else I dated or was interested in was at least a year older, usually more. I think it's a maturity thing. I have an older mind so my mind meets up better with the mind of an older guy. Something like that.

Unfortunately, Sean had to work all day on his birthday. And it was bitterly cold. And Kaelyn had a bad night the night before so she was a major grump all evening. Otherwise I'm sure it was a lovely day for him. We gave him a really cool picture blown up poster size that he took of himself on his motorcycle (which he has since sold to buy a camper...a little more family friendly.) He placed it on the mantel for now, but hopefully we'll get a frame for it and hang it in the basement or something. Not that I mind it, it's a cool picture.

So Happy birthday Sean, may the next 35 years be even better. I'll let you know what it feels like to be 35 in another 5 1/2 years when I get there...hahaha