Voyages in Parenthood

We were sick this weekend. In fact, some of us are still sick! yuck! After that post on Saturday, after Leda didn't really sleep very well during her afternoon nap, she spent the rest of the day sleeping on me. At one point, I knew she had a fever because the kid was keeping me warm! We checked and lo and behold, 103.something. Call the doc. Why does it never fail that when I need to call the doc after hours, I always get the one I can't stand? Anyway, other than the fever and the general reluctance to leave my chest, Leda was fine. She ate lunch and dinner fine, she was taking in lots of fluids, she was outputting lots of fluids (from the right places!) Of course, at the same time, I am beginning to feel like crap, probably coming down with the same thing she got! Yippeee! Anyway, on Sunday, her fever had broken enough that we didn't have to take her to see the doctor (thank goodness...can't stand that guy!) By Monday, Mommy felt like a Mac truck had run her over, and

Today, Leda is 10 months old! Wow! In the past month, so much has happened. The biggest milestone is Leda is walking. Not just furniture surfing and taking a few steps between items, but full-fledged walking. No longer can we keep her contained in the walker when she wants to go places! She'll walk everywhere...can't carry her out of her room for breakfast anymore, nope, she's gotta walk out to the dining room. Leda's spending time with other kids her age at daycare twice a week. That might grow to full weeks for a little while sometime soon. But she loves it! She loves playing with the other kids. We are pretty sure that's where she learned to walk. She's ready to get rid of most of her bottles (except for that nighttime one!) and is starting to use a sippy cup most of the time. Again, due to the influence of the little boys she hangs out with at daycare! She has Tyler, who is about 8 months old. She bit him last week! Not hard, and she hasn't since. But, y

Yesterday Leda and I met Aunt Rachel, Caelan, Tristan, Granddad and Fay at the Valley Forge Scottish and Irish Music Festival to see Uncle Nick's band, Rathkeltair , play. We walked around and saw all the wares that were being sold, danced around to other bands playing and ate some and Mommy had a Guiness! By the time Nick's band went on (around 2), Leda was tired. She had tried to run away from Mommy (she wanted down on the ground, put her down and boy did she start to go...started walking right away from me!) and she was dancing around to the bagpipe bands (she's told Daddy she wants to play the bagpipes when she's a bit older! ;-) So, when she curled up in Granddad's lap and the band started playing, she just fell asleep. To bagpipes! That's my girl! The band was great! It was great to see Nick playing again. I, of course, purchased their new cd! Was hoping they would be around again up here soon, but it seems that they may go on hiatus for awhile as Neil (th

It was a sunny day yesterday and it streamed in the windows while Leda played.

I've set up a new blog that I hope to load Leda's video to. We'll see how it goes The Yates' Video Blog There's a link to it right over there on the side bar so you can always check it out once in a while. No new video yet. But will have to take some more and load it up! BTW, using Google Video to load up to the net. Cool!

We have proof! Ignore the messy living room. Oh, and proof she can do two things at once...walk AND drink Orange Juice! Wooo Hooo, she's multi-talented.

It appears that the daughter may take after the mother! Today, when we were in Leda's room, with Leda on the floor, Leda reached between the rungs of her crib and grabbed her blanket...the one we use to cover her up at night and during naps...and carried it out of her room and into the rest of the house. She played with her blanket for an hour or two, on and off, until her next nap. It's a mint green blanket. It's the softest, squishiest, most comfy blanket* we received for Leda from one of the many people who gave us gifts during my shower. I almost kept it for myself! It's got a silky border and it is really a lovely blanket, and SO warm. It's almost exactly like the blankie I had when I was a baby - except it's green and mine was pink and Leda's is a little more fluffier than mine. Yes, I had a blankie...I had a blankie that I STILL have! And yes, I carried the darn thing for YEARS! Of course, I sucked my thumb. Leda doesn't! At least she doesn't

Wow, did we get snow! Currently we have something over a foot of snow! It's still snowing right now, but probably only gonna get a inch or so more. Brock's out using the neighbor's snow blower to clear paths for everyone. Leda's napping - she didn't sleep very well last night. She's got a runny nose and a little cough, so I think we won't be playing in the snow later today. Maybe tomorrow or the next day - we'll see. So, I didn't sleep very well last night. I did get to listen/watch the really neat ThunderSnow storm last night. Usually we get one lightening strike and one good thunder, but last night we got about a half hour of a thunderstorm last night. The lightening was so bright and the thunder followed IMMEDIATELY after the lightening, so it must have been right over top of us! Brock and Leda slept right through it. So we've all been up since about 6-6:30. I would say that some naps are in order for ALL of us later today! Some pictures from

Well, see what ya get when you complain about the weather being nice? Yep, you get walloped by the Snow Gods! Well, we'll see. The weather people of Philly are promising a "significant-to-major" storm. (hey, did you know that they now categorize snow events from 1 through 5, just like hurricanes? Yep, they do. Of course, they say, they can't really tell what category a snow storm really is until AFTER the fact. That leaves me to ask, "then why categorize the darn things??" Geez, freaking weather people!) Anyway, the weather people of Philly are always promising me a snow storm of 6 or more inches and then down grade the darn thing about two minutes before it gets here. So, I'll believe it when I see it! I was going to complain that the snow is happening over a weekend, thus, not allowing me a possible day off from work, but it really doesn't matter this time around, as I was let go from my job yesterday! Yep, you heard me. I'm currently jobless!

Leda and I spent the entire weekend sans Daddy...well, not ENTIRE weekend, but during the day on Sat and Sun, there was no Daddy, just Mommy and Leda! On Saturday we hung out, took a couple naps, went to Le Target for a little shopping and then got dressed in our finest (well, not exactly, but we looked good!) and went to meet Mommy's old boss (and old just means she used to be my boss before current job...Sophie is by no means old! In fact, she looked GREAT!) for dinner. After deciding that waiting 3 HOURS to eat at the Cheesecake Factory (!!) was ridiculous and having waited about 5 minutes for Brock to arrive (he came directly from work), we decided on a meal at the Bamboo Club next door...at least we didn't have to wait for a table. Anyway, we had good food, good conversation and great company. And Leda behaved herself so well. She's really good at restaurants! She tried a little of my Mandarin Orange Shrimp and she seemed to like it. Then, she sucked on a lemon! Believ

Got bored with the old look of the old blog...this one, I can play with a little! Let me know what ya think (if you wanna!)...just leave a comment. Will be working out kinks over the weekend. In the meantime, if you need larger type (ahhem, New Glasses Boy), go to that tool bar up above and click on View and then click Text size and then select a larger type! Of course, for those of you using Mozilla (ahhemm, New Glasses Boy), you are on your own! ;-)

Don't ya just love cheesy shows that Barry Manilow shows up on? I mean, Barry Manilow singing Copacabana on Dancing with the Stars on a Friday night while blogging and drinking a beer? How much better can it get?? I mean come on..."music and passion are always in fashion...at the Copa!" (Now, do I have to really describe to you that I did stand up and sang and danced to the song? If I said I did no such thing, would you believe me?) At least Leda went to bed and Brock is in the basement to save me the horror of being watched! (UPDATE: I am pretty darn sure this post didn't warrant being posted twice, but apparently Blogger had other ideas...yep, when you do something completely embarrassing in the privacy of your own home and THEN Blog about it, you deserve to have it posted twice! Remind me never to blog something embarrassing again!) (UPDATE II: Okay, second post of really embarrassing post has disappeared...apparently it was too embarrassed to stay! Geez!)

Seriously, I don't. I already mentioned this a month or so ago...and since then, it's like everyone and their half-brother is doing a google search for "largest cat" and they end up here. Seriously...FOUR today! That's right...four people in the world did a google search for largest cat and ended up here. The other 3 out of 7 people who visited this blog today are family (and Monkey Boy - Hi Chris! ;-) But then again, Chris kinda is family!) So, you tell me...is there some kinda internet scavenger hunt going on? Is there an inside joke I am not privy too? What would cause 4 people to google "largest cat" in one day? I'm just saying.

Duh! Groundhog day doesn't make any sense! Seriously, Spring starts roughly 6 weeks from today anyway. Geesh! Of course, that's what the calendar says. Now we got some oversized rodent confirming that we've got 6 more weeks of winter. I'll believe it when I see it. Especially when this winter has been one nice spring day after the other. Well, for the most part! Seriously...we had "lots" of snow in early Dec and ever since, we've barely gotten below 40 degrees. Yes, there are those of you out there saying, "what is she complaining about? I'd LOVE to not ever have a day below 40 degrees. Geesh!" But what about winter? I mean, you gotta have those really cold, 20 degree days when you swear you will never be warm again so that you can appreciate those 90+ and humid days in the middle of summer. Seriously, without the cold, the hot is just unbearable. Besides, if it don't get mean and nasty soon, we'll be getting mean and nasty in April/M

Leda went to Day Care today. I did nothing (that I can remember) of substance at work today. When I went back to work after Leda was born, it wasn't as hard on me as I know it was on other women I worked with who had children in day care because I knew that I was leaving my daughter in the capable (don't tell him that) hands of her father. Leaving her for an entire day was hard, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. So, with One Lap pre-run coming upon us in Feb and One Lap in May, we needed to find someone to care for Leda while Brock wasn't home and I had to work. Brock did find a nice lady who watched children in her home, close to us. We visited with her, we called the other parents who use her and we signed on up. She really is a nice lady. She's got an 18 month old and another one on the way and has two other kids who she watches. And, she's not that far from our house (albeit, I have to go the opposite way than work to drop Leda off, but it's only