letter from isaac

Ha ha!
Isaac is on his first vacation right now...off visiting his grandparents in Birmingham for a couple weeks.
My parents sent me this "letter from Isaac" (with some unsightly visuals that I will spare you from!) It made me laugh out loud (Oh and by the way, English is far from my parents' first language, so excuse the misspellings! I left them in, because I think its cute coming from them. Just imagine an Indian accent attached to this!):

My dear mommy and daddy,

Cat and the cradle and the silver spoon, Your little Isaac says hello to you.

I am sure you enjoyed seeing the football game, so I had wonderful journey myself. I explored lots of gas stations. Went to Indian grocery store. I was very happy to look at so much of tempting food. Only thing I was worried is although I look like you daddy but I hope that I do not get your stomach.I can not wait till I test the all these Indian testing food.

My car seat was very comfortable that it put me to sleep all the time. Babyma wanted to play with me and she did play with me a lot on the way. She help me strike out a lot so I did not get very tired in the car seat. I never missed a meal. In fact now I did 5 to 6 ounces of milk every time. I think, I have grown some.

In the motel, I slept into he play pen. I had a nice padding of blanket under me and babyma swaddled me with the bed sheet. I had a good night sleep in the motel. I did get cranky a little before I went to sleep. My bouncer, my gym, my playpen and couple of toys were brought in the room for me to be comfortable. Motel did not have a bath tub so I had a sponge bath. Babyma is putting creams and lotion on me. My rash is not there anymore. Although I do have a dry skin on my back but not a rash. Babyma is taking care of it too by applying Aveeno cream. But I think my both grandma will take care of it and problem will be solved.

Oh! did you see my first successful our of potty. I asked Dada to take a photo and send it to you. Did you believe? That sure was a clean catch!! I think I shall use everyday. Want to have some more photos of it? Let me know so we can send you until you are satisfied.

Mama, I like badada's place. I think I will be very comfortable here. I like Tickle-Me-Elmo in my crib. I slept well. I had a 3:30 a.m. feeding and then I was up at five. I was not hungry and sleepy but I did not know what to do so I was moving my hands and legs like crazy. So Dada brought the swings in my room and then babyma put me in the swing and sang few songs and I liked it. Then, I went to sleep till 7:30 AM. Then, I had a first catcheven though my diaper was not wet. I just had an another feeding (6 OZ) andI think I might let them have their tea and breakfast!!

I shall call my Barbara grandma today and say hello to her.

Daddy I like your hometown. I have lot of people to meet here and I have not seen the entire family and friends here yet. I guess I will be busy meeting people. I keep reporting to you as I discover new things. You and Mommy have lot of fun without me. Get all the housework done. Daddy, you catch up with your studies and study more in advance so when I return, we will have good times together. Then, you will not complain that I did not let you study!!!!

I am in no hurry to come home. I like my parents hometown so I intend to hang around for a while.

Catch you later. I want to play now. I love you both.

Your little prince Isaac.

meme survey

I decided to take the meme survey Rock Chalk posted on her blog, Mashed Bananas. Here you go:

10 years ago:
Good lord....this was my senior year in highschool and I went bonkers. Makes me wince to think about it. Lets just say "responsible" would not have been the term to describe me that year.
I went to a boarding school in my hometown, and I lived on campus that year ... so it is sort of like when freshmen start college and get completely stupid. That was me.
Once I got a full scholarship to college about half way through the year, I stopped going to most of my classes. And one night I remember just deciding to hop in the car and go to Panama City with a guy I was dating, and returning just in time to skip French class the next morning.
Gosh I was stupid. I am not going to give details because there are already enough people who know way too much about all the stuff I did that year that I should never have done.
Luckily, I outgrew that phase by the end of my sophomore year in college. I stopped being a wild child and I started dating a very very nice guy (who I eventually married.)

5 years ago:
That was a crazy year too, but for different reasons.
First, I graduated from college.
Second, I went to India for four months to visit my relatives and help my brother get an arranged marriage. We interviewed (that is what they call it) 80 girls before finding my sister-in-law. Then we had a whirlwind HUGE wedding in about three weeks. And I nearly got jaundice that summer.
But that's not all. The week after I came back, I ended up getting engaged, and moving in with my future mother-in-law and my future brother-in-law, who has autism (wow, did I learn a lot from living with him. Gosh, I wish I could understand what's going through that sweetie's head!) And I got baptized in the Orthodox Church.
That was one life-changing year.

1 year ago:
I moved to Orlando, started a new job, survived three back-to-back hurricanes and then discovered I was pregnant (big sweet surprise since my previous doctor told me I could probably never have kids.) I guess that was a pretty life-changing year, too. Oh, and before all that happened, I had finally got the guts to cut three feet off my waist-length hair.

5 snacks I enjoy: Granola bars, baked lays, green apples and peanut butter, baby carrots, Keebler fudge stripe cookies

5 songs I know all of the words to: None. Unless you count "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

5 things I would do with $100 million: Pay off all our debt, give a huge donation to the Orthodox Church of America, start a trust fund for Isaac, quit my job, and TRAVEL!

5 bad habits: Spacing out, forgetting names, overfilling the garbage bag, leaving laundry in the washer until it becomes stinky, and getting water ALL OVER the bathroom.

5 things I like doing: Hanging out, cooking, shopping, taking baths and sleeping.

5 things I would never wear: Skorts, capris, army boots, shoulder pads, granny panties

5 TV shows I like: Gosh, I never get a chance to watch TV. But I have a completely superficial love for the Style network.

5 biggest joys of the moment: Just found out I have 52 hours of vacation left this year, my three-month-old son is giggling and sleeping through the night, I can successfully cook fish after many, many disgusting mishaps, I currently have Thurs, Fri and Sat off every week, and I am almost finished moving into our new place.

5 favorite toys: My digital camera, my computer, my webcam, my son's rubber duckies, and .... can't think of another one.

Caught on camera

I just had to post this pic...it was too cute. Isaac never lets us catch a smile on camera because he gets so intrigued with watching the camera he stops smiling. But he didn't see me this time...He was playing with his pops. Ha! Got him. Just thought I'd share.

Dude, where's my shrimp?

Ok.
If it is in the fridge, and its not yours ... DON'T EAT IT!
And definitely don't eat half of it and put the rest back!

On the same day my sweet munchkin left that lovely deposit in the bath tub, some moron at work ate half my dinner and put it back in the fridge!

I had made this dish of shrimp, veggies and noodles, and I put it in the fridge at work around 1:30 p.m. When I went to go retrieve my dinner at 5:30 p.m., I discovered someone had decided to pick off all the shrimp, cover the dish with Saran wrap again, and put it back in the fridge in the exact same spot ... like I wasn't going to notice!!

I mean its one thing just to swipe someone's food outright. But I think its even worse to pick at someone's food and then put in back in the fridge! That is just low. Stealing my food, and then making me clean up after you. At least throw the rest away!

And its not like it was a cup of yogurt or a diet coke ... something someone could easily confuse with something they brought ... no. It was a dinner plate covered with pink Saran wrap.

I just couldn't believe it. I then found out that this other dude at work has had 3 1/2 sandwiches stolen recently ... one day the culprit only ate half the sandwich and put the rest back.

Some people at work have made a list of suspects, I am told.
I think we should just plant some exploding dye in someone's food ... or maybe I can just start dying all my food blue so no one would want it.

I said "pee in the bucket" not "poop in the tub!"

This morning, my sweet little boy had a first that I really hope is a last!
It was bath time.
I have a little pee-pee machine who becomes a fountain the minute he hits the warm water in the tub, so I have been trying to get him to pee in a warm bucket of water before I actually lay him in the tub (so I don't have to change the bath water when he inevitably pees in it.)
But for some reason that is not working ... and he waits to pee until he is in the tub.

Anyhow, today was like any other day, where I put him in the bucket and say,"Pee in the bucket, sweets!" and of course he doesn't.
And of course he peed in the bathtub as soon as I transferred him. And a few moments later, I see another fountain of pee shooting up again and I look down and he has not only peed, but POOPED in the bath!

So of course I do what any mom would do ... yell for his dad.

"Oh my gosh! Joel, come here! Now!"
"What is it? Did he pee?"
"Yes ... and he pooped!!!!!!!!!!"
"We knew it was going to happen sometime."

We did? Do all babies do this? I really hope this was a one-time occurrence.

So I quickly get the babes out of the water and stick him back in the bucket to finish bathing him. I first try to get his hands clean (the hands that kept trying to swat the lovely little deposit he made earlier) because he has become the Orlando two-foot hand-eater lately.
And of course, he immediately starts eating his hands, and I worry in the back of my mind that I didn't get every possible trace of ecoli off his hands. But then I reassured myself and said, "He tried to bat at his deposit, but he never actually touched it, so I think we are good."

Meanwhile, Joel scoops that lovely deposit out of the bathtub, flushes it down the toilet and proceeds to clean the mess.

Gosh, I can't wait until my pee-pee machine (who we also call Dr. Pooper) is potty-trained.

Its a girl!

Just wanted to say I am so excited ... my friend Littlerazz gave birth to a baby girl last night and is doing fine. We are going to go see her tommorow and meet the little one, although me and hubby are going to have to take turns because our little one is not allowed in her room! I am so happy for her!

Moving on up, to the sky

I don't even know where to start.
I had the most surreal moving experience ever this weekend. We ended up having to file three different forwarding orders with the post office, which probably means we will never get mail again.

Forwarding order #1: On Thursday, right before we were supposed to sign the lease and move into our new apartment, we discovered the apartment was a total craphole. The model looked nice, so we weren't expecting that! The doors wouldn't shut, the garbage disposal sounded like it had an entire set of forks stuck in it, and the apartment looked like it had been run over. We decided not to sign the lease, despite the fact we had already put a forwarding order in to that new address, and left, newborn-in-tow, on a mad rush to find a new apartment ... that day.
This apartment was on the first floor.

Forwarding order #2: So we find a new apartment we liked. Granted, again we could only see the model, but the apartment complex was much more manicured than the previous one and we just had a better feeling about it. Plus, we did not have much choice because we were going to be homeless in about a week. We quickly apply for the apartment and get sent on 9 million errands to get documents we needed for the application. We are told we could move in on Saturday morning, which was great because we already had movers booked for then (and its really hard to find movers on such late notice.) To be on the safe side, we tried to sign the lease on Friday, but the lazy leasing agent at the apartment complex we were moving out of said she didn't have time to do the five-minute rental verification we needed to finish the paperwork. She said she would do it first thing in the morning (liar liar pants on fire) so the leasing agent at this new apartment assured us we could just sign the lease in the morning and move on in. Yeah right.
This apartment was on the second floor.

Forwarding order #3: Ok, I am not even going to get into the rental verification situation. Let's just say it was a BIG hassle, and just barely made it in time (because the lazy leasing agent was asleep on her desk and about to eat a burned bagel ... I am not kidding.) Anyhow, that's a different story. We finally sign the lease, which takes about an unnecessary half an hour due to incompetence (and all the while the movers we are paying $80/hour are just sitting there waiting for us to finish...) and the leasing agent goes to do a last-minute run through on the apartment. He returns to tell us that, oops, our application was never put in the system so the apartment wasn't prepped....we could not move into it.
Excuse me? I don't think so. We have a moving truck outside filled with all our stuff, and we are moving somewhere!
So we end up moving into another apartment in the same complex ... this one is on the third floor.
I don't think this is what the "Jeffersons" theme song meant when they sang,"moving on up."

The rain: Ok, so we are finally ready to move in. The movers move a lamp inside and, boom, it starts pouring down rain.
So the movers could either stay and wait out the rain for $80/hour, or they could go get something to eat and return after the rain, not charging us. So they drove off in the truck with all our stuff to get some grub.
The problem is more than two hours later, about an hour after the rain had stopped, they didn't come back.
So we started thinking, hey, did all our stuff just get stolen? We don't even have a contract with these guys ... all we have is a lamp. OH NO!!!!!!!!!!

Whew, false alarm ... an hour later they return with our stuff. They are soaked and covered with sand and dirt....hmmm? Turns out they got stuck in the mud while trying to back out of a fast food parking lot. The truck was so weighed down that they couldn't get it out. So they tried for an hour in the rain to get their truck free. They couldn't call us to tell us because we had no phone. Goodness. Heart attack avoided.
Here is the kicker though ... since they were covered in dirt, and everything we had that they could wipe themselves off with was packed in their truck, we had no choice ... all our stuff got moved in with sand all over it!
They finally finished about 7 pm. They had been working on this move since 10 am. But they were nice, and felt bad for us, so they only charged us for five hours. Thank you!

These are just the highlights of our hellish move....oh, did I mention the toilet in the new apartment flooded while we were moving in? Anyhow, the bright side of things is we really like our new apartment and we figure that living on the third floor will force us to get the exercise we have so much trouble squeezing in (I got groceries today, and oh boy... who needs Billy Blanks? I've got a third-floor apartment and a newborn!)

I wonder who will get our mail from now on?