New Things

Since I didn't chronicle my daughter's first birthday for you all, I'm going to list instead some cool new things that she can do.

-Walking! She's getting braver and has even walked halfway across the kitchen.
-Standing alone. She does this all the time and is getting good at it.
-Gives kisses and hugs. It started with giving kisses to her doll and now she does it with Mom, Dad, and Daniel too!
-Makes animal sounds, with minimal prompting. She does a mean impression of cows, cats, and dogs.
-Now, I'm not sure how to label the next one but this is what she did: She put the pacifier back in the baby's mouth, then patted her own chest and put her pacifier in her own mouth.
-Shaking her head no and yes
-Drinks well from an open cup. Even cups without handles! She does it so well that I can even leave the cup on her tray and she'll drink from it throughout the meal and usually doesn't dump it on her head instead.
-"Brushes" her hair and pretends to put bows and hair bands in it.

I'm sure there are more things to list, but I don't want to bore all of you out there with too much stuff. I just wanted to jot down some of these things for myself so I don't forget how much fun this age is!

I'm playing along!

This post goes out to Julie.... she got me, I'm playing along!


♥ What are your middle names?
Christine (me)
Erik-Michael (sean)

♥ How long have you been together?
We met in September of 1997, a chance meeting at a mutual friend's house.

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?
"Dating" is kind of a wierd term for us, since we lived in different cities almost up until we got married in 2001. I think I first considered us "dating" after I went up to Dallas in Oct. 1997 to visit Sean.

♥ Who asked who out? Hmmm. We never had anything like a typical date. Our friend Van cornered Sean to ask him if he liked me, she gave us the other's email addresses and we started writing.

♥ How old are each of you? I'm 32, Sean is 31.

♥ Whose siblings do/did you see the most? Well, considering I don't have any, I'd have to say his.

♥ Do you have any children together? Yes. Daniel Quinn will be 3 in May. And Georgia is 13 months.

♥ What about pets? Names? Stassney, a 9yr old (we think) blue tick hound mix. She was found by Tim and Julie at running through the street in front of Crockett High School, hence her name.

♥ Did you go to the same school? No, though Sean did do 2 semesters of summer school at UT, my alma matter.

♥ Are you from the same home town?Kind of, if you consider the DFW metroplex a "home town". He's from Garland, I'm from Duncanville.

♥ Who is the smartest? I think we're both intellectual equals, in different ways. But, if you consider a person who excels at math and logical problem solving to be smarter, then he wins hands down.

♥ Who is the most sensitive? I think I am, but I also think that Sean is more sensitive than I usually give him credit for.... which also causes me to hurt his feelings without realizing it.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? Freddies (with the kids), as a couple we like Vespaio, Madam Mam's.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? The Netherlands.

♥ Who has the craziest exes? Me me me!!

♥ Who has the worst temper? That would be me again. I've got one of those crazy red-headed tempers. But I'm really working on taming it. But Sean can hold a grudge like nobody's business.

♥ Who does the cooking? Me.

♥ Who is more social? Sean. This may surprise some of you, but he's usually the one saying to me "Hey, let's get together with friends" while I'm usually content to hang at home with him and the kids (not that I don't love each and every one of you, my friends who are reading this....)

♥ Who is the neat-freak? Neither? Yes, sadly two unorganized people managed to meet and marry. But I have aspirations towards neatness. Does that count?

♥ Who is the more stubborn? Sean. He's great at being stubborn. When he makes up his mind, he just blocks out any arguments to the contrary. Seriously, its like he can't even physically hear me.

♥ Who hogs the bed? I'm not sure. Snoring is the bigger issue with us!

♥ Who wakes up earlier? Me, though neither one of us has been getting much sleep lately.

♥ Where was your first date? I guess I would consider it the night we met. We were at a party (I have no idea whose house we were at), and he left with his friends in his cool car. I was sad. But then returned a few minutes later, and we were inseparable for the rest of the night (and wee hours of the AM)

♥ Who has the bigger family? I guess Sean, technically, since he has a sister and I'm pretty sure he has more cousins than me. And we both have extended families that don't live anywhere near us. But I think we actually see more of my extended family than his.

♥ Do you get flowers often? A couple times a year maybe?

♥ How do you spend the holidays?
Usually with my parents, but we try to carve out a little time for just us too.

♥ Who is more jealous? Well, there's different kinds of jealousy.... jealous of personal relationships? Not an issue for us. Jealous of time? I get "jealous" of the time he devotes to work. I think he might be a bit "jealous" of the time I get to spend with my friends at things like mom's night out or bookclub.

♥ How long did it take to get serious?
The problem with long distance relationships is that there is a level of committment built into the situation even when you're not quite ready for that. It takes work from the very beginning to keep things going, to have good communication. I think, though, that we really got "serious" in the summer of '98, when Sean came to Austin for the summer.

♥ Who eats more?Sean. He's a snacking fool!

♥ Who does/did the laundry?Most of the time me. Of course, with 2 kids and cloth diapers, all we ever do is their laundry. Its a miracle Sean and I are even clothed.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
That would be SEan. He loves to remind me how much I hate technology.

♥ Who drives when you are together?
I think Sean does most of the driving.

First Steps!

I can't believe it! My baby girl took her first steps today!!!!

She was in the kitchen, at the excersaucer, and turned around and took 3 or 4 steps to me! I was totally not expecting this! No one was home except Georgia and I, and I was bursting to tell someone, but Sean was at the doctor and Daniel was at preschool. I kind of thought it was some sort of fluke and was pretty sure she wouldn't do it again, but when Sean got back from the doctor, lo and behold, she walked (3 or 4 steps again) towards Daddy!

I don't know why I'm so surprised, because Daniel was almost exactly the same age when he started walking. I guess its just between this and starting down the road towards weaning, well, she just seems to be growing up so fast. But, I love this age. I just become more enamored of my little girl every day. Yep, that was cheezy and I don't care!

Maybe I can capture the little rascal on the move on video and post it later!

We rock!

It looks like we rocked Fontera Fest last night. See the great review here. The performance was a lot of fun, it went really smoothly. I just love it when I get to work with folks who are so professional and great at what they do, but also are hilarious and fun to be around.

I also really enjoyed watching some skit comedy by Lovey and Lovey. If you get a chance check them out.... Its been a while since I laughed that hard!

Breaking things is fun

I know that doing sound effects for a Frontera Fest piece may not seem very high profile to some people... But man, its really fun! I mean, how often do you get to throw glass items in a box and drop it to see what kind of sound it makes! Yay for sound design :)

And, that new student drought may be ending.... I've taken on one student in the last week and have gotten several calls from interested families. Let's hope this keeps up!

Oh yeah, and Georgia turned one on Sunday, but I'll have to devote a whole other post to that!

Argh!

I swear, I am THIS close to bagging this whole "I'm a piano teacher/running my own buisness" thing. If I have one more family tell me that they're not sure if they're continuing or not I'm going to go insane. My studio is barely hanging on as it is. I've advertised, put the word out via word of mouth, I'm on teacher referral lists of all manner.... I'm friends with a million moms, the problem is none of them have kids old enough to take lessons. And very few of my current students have siblings or friends of the age where they're wanting to start lessons. Most of my students are middle school/high school.... you know, the point at which they start dropping like flies. And that's exactly what my students are doing. I've lost 3 students at the end of the fall semester, possibly another one is going at the end of January, and 2 other long time students are going to every other week lessons. I'm so frustrated. I've not gotten one single solitary call from an interested new student since OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!! I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do. What's crazy is that I have awesome babysitters to watch the kiddos while I teach. The only problem is that I can't afford to keep them if I don't have anyone to teach. I attribute this paucity of students to the economy. But perhaps its just the cycle of one's teaching career. You go through boom and bust cycles just like any other. I'm trying to ride it out and take joy in teaching the few that I have. Because they are committed, bright and generally wonderful to teach. But, when you've got 2 other little people demanding so much of your time, your energy, and your soul every single day, there is a point where you have to ask yourself "Is it worth it?"

I love teaching piano. I never thought I'd be 10 years into my career and asking "Where have the students gone?" I know I've kind of killed my word of mouth momentum by the fact that I took two sabbaticals to have kids, in quick succession. But, I thought "Hey, there's always a wealth of young kids looking to take piano" I thought, with my close proximity to 2 neighborhood elementaries, plus the hordes of young families in Circle C, there would always be budding pianists knocking at my door. I have connections with home schoolers, evangelical Christians, Montessori school families, the Chinese community, and the Catholic church. My luck has got to improve at some point, right??

It's 2009!

Here's what Daniel has to say:



We attended a pagan ritual, er, First Night Austin, last night. At 8PM, they had a "family" finale that culminated in the burning- that's right- burning of a several hundred foot high wooden clock. There were throngs of people, all gathered round the pyre, chanting "Burn it, burn it". Sean figured if they didn't set that puppy on fire soon, people were going to get testy.... And when it went up in flames, well, see for yourself:



Pretty cool. Definitely tapped into a primal human fascination with fire. I found it interesting that in 2009, we were spending a long winter's night much as our ancestors thousands of years ago did.



















I could wax philosophical about all that I hope for in the new year, all the things I hope to change about myself. But I'll just sum it up like this: More than anything, I want to be happy where I am, happy in whatever moment I'm in. I don't want to live anyone else's life but my own. And I wish the same for any of you out there reading this too. Happy 2009!