Ack! Spider!!

Everyone,

Two nights ago, Baby Girl and I were sitting downstairs in the rocking chair trying to get her to go to sleep when I happen to glance over at our couch and see the BIGGEST spider I have ever seen in doors not at a zoo. And it was in MY house! Inches away from MY baby's face. I could see 8 black glowing eyes staring at me. I slowly eased myself out of the chair and when I was sure the thing wasn't going to follow or bolt...I ran upstairs and woke up Juice.

"Big spider! Really really big spider!"

"Huh?"

"Really really big spider!" I set Butterfly down in her Pack n' Play and followed Juice downstairs. I showed him where it was, and he did a double take. The spider moved to the back of the couch and Juice and I are walking on our toes we're so creeped out by this ginormous arachnid. Juice first tries to hit it with a rolled up magazine but the spider was too fast and darted behind our couch. Juice hit the couch, out it came, and down came the magazine again. The spider lived. Juice said that the spider oriented on him and would turn to face him as he moved. Ew!

Do you ever have those creepy crawly moments where random body parts itch? I couldn't stop scratching my ankles. I'm normally okay with bugs but this spider was bigger than my thumb. I'd say bigger than a quarter, even.

Juice, being the wonderfully smart engineer that I'm SO happy I married, got out our shop vac and proceeded to suck up the offending spider. He put the shop vac outside. No more spider. Yay!

This is the spider after it had been through our shop vac. Notice the size of it, even missing all of it's legs on one side.



Again, ew!!!

Until next time,
Safire, Juice, and Butterfly

A conversation at the store

Everyone,

Last week Juice, Baby Girl and I were at the store and I was eating a hot dog. Juice took a bite of my hot dog and a guy across the way started to talk to us since Juice just swiped my food. He asked us if our baby was a boy or a girl and when we told him girl he said, "Oh I bet you wanted a boy!" pointing at Juice.

"No, not really," said Juice.

"Oh, the next will be a boy," said the guy.

"Maybe," said Juice.

"It will...it will. You try hard, every day. Boy will come." And then he smiled at us knowingly. Right. We just smiled and I finished my hot dog so we could get out of there.

People in the East sure are friendly!

Safire, Juice, and Butterfly

100 Days Old

Everyone,

As of Aug 17th, Butterfly is 100 days old. When I was pregnant, I would watch a lot of birth story TV...and one story stuck out in my mind for 2 things. First, because the couple were so miss matched in age...she was in her early 30's, he was in his 60's with grown kids HER age. Um, ew! The other thing that stuck out in my mind was the little party they gave their son when he turned 100 days old. When Butterfly was close to that day, I got curious and decided to do a little research (as much research as one can do with a baby) why these people were having a party for him when he was 100 days old.

According to Babyzone.com "On the hundredth day some Chinese families host another celebration. Friends and family bring fish and chicken to the child's home. When the chicken is cooked, the tongue is rubbed on the baby's lips to make the child a good talker. And the baby's paternal grandfather may present the baby with a rocking chair."

Juice and I celebrated Butterfly being 100 days old, just not like this. There was no tongue rubbing with chicken tongues or any other poultry. So sorry Butterfly, no good talking for you right now. Although I'm sure she'll talk just fine when the time comes. Not quiet looking forward to the all the why's just yet.

But I digress. 100 days. Right. Since we already have a rocking chair I think Elden is safe from that ritual too. But why have a party anyway? A little more digging (and I stress VERY little), I got my answer off of asiaparenting.com. Most articles were in another language (not even going to guess what) but I did find one article in English that gave me my answer. "Some traditions dictate that the mother and baby stay inside for 100 days, and then come out with a celebration." Aha! So that's the reason for the party. Not really for the baby (hurray you've lived 100 days!) but for the mom (you poor thing...shut off from the world for over 3 months...). Let me tell you the idea of being shut inside for 3 months is daunting! I couldn't do it. I go a week without really going anywhere I get a little stir crazy. Granted, the new mom isn't totally shut off. Her mother, sisters, mother-in-law and sometimes her husband are allowed to visit. More traditions indicate what the new mother should eat as well, called confinement food. Mostly that includes teas and such to promote healing. Not a bad idea.

I know in Europe they used to confine the women during the pregnancy and just after. That is where the term "Estimated Date of Confinement" comes from. Like my EDC was May 20th, or my due date. Not sure how long Europeans confined their women. Didn't have time to check.

The first 6 weeks after Butterfly was born I sort of felt like I was in confinement. We were careful to take her out only sporadically. Mostly to church and then to my mom's group when that started (I believe she was 6 weeks old). But I can't imagine just NOW coming out of that confinement. Ugh...no thank you!

So we celebrated Butterfly 100 days with a trip to the toy store and something fun for everyone. Butterfly got a mirror that lights up and plays classical music. I got a little bug that when you pull a cord, it shakes. And Juice bought the puppy a little dog that when you shake it, it says "Uh oh...woof woof woof". The puppy tore it up in a matter of 20 minutes.

I am going to have such a hard time keeping the dog off of Butterfly's toys.

Until next time,
Safire, Juice, Butterfly and Soot

I had to share...

Everyone,

Butterfly is 3 months old! She weighs about 16 lbs and is about 25 inches long. And what a sweetie!

http://www.jusspress.com/day.php?userid=8523¤tDate=20050809&currentTime=125718

I'm conducting a poll for Halloween costumes. Should she be a chocolate kiss, a cat, a monkey or a bee? Vote in my comments.

Safire and Butterfly

All 50 States

All,

I have a goal in my life to visit all 50 states at least once. It seems to be a family goal...one that my dad reached about 2 years ago when we traveled to his 50th state: North Dakota. When we moved out here, we kind of took the long way around just to go to North Dakota.

I have been to 41 of the states. I'm still missing 9...but I have Hawaii and Alaska. I hear those are one of the hardest to get, although North Dakota seems to be hard to. Good thing I have all 3 of those. I have been to every state west of the Mississippi and now a whole lot of them east of the river too. I'm sure you want to know but I thought I'd make a list of all the states and how I remember going to them. The ones in capital letters I don't have yet.

ALABAMA
Alaska: Honeymoon
Arizona: Trip to visit Sarah, a friend, in high school when she moved there. It was 119 degrees...we cooked an egg on the sidewalk!
ARKANSAS
California: Been there many times but the earliest I remember is my grandpa driving us out there to visit Great Aunt Dorothy and her house with a pool.
Colorado: Born there!
Connecticut: Family trip to New York and Boston...we drove all over getting states and postcards.
Delaware: See last post.
Florida: I think I was about 8 years old and we went to Disneyworld. Andrew and I flew on the plan by ourselves and met Dad at the airport. Our hotel had a great pool with water slides and Dad did a belly dance at the Moroccan Cafe.
Georgia: Layover on our way to England
Hawaii: My senior trip. We went on a cruise...it was great!
Idaho: I spent 2 years of college in this state. Not many people like it...I love it!
Illinois: Drive through to move out here.
Indiana: Ditto.
IOWA
Kansas: Drove through to get to Mt. Rushmore when Andrew and I were small. Lots of bugs in the car.
Kentucky: Layover coming back from England.
LOUISIANA
Maine: Drive to when we were visiting Boston. We only spent a few minutes in the state but I would love to see more.
Maryland: Area of current residence, hence the name of this blog.
Massachusetts: Trip to Boston where we toured the harbor, got to pretend to throw tea into the sea. Fun.
Michigan: Detour to Michigan when we were driving out here. Everyone wanted to see it so we cut across the bottom instead of just going across Indiana and Ohio.
Minnesota: Drive through to get out here. Very muggy.
MISSISSIPPI
Missouri: I'm not sure where I got Missouri but my list says I have it so...
Montana: Yellowstone National Park. Need I say more?
Nebraska: The other state we drove through to get to Mt. Rushmore when we were small. Again, lots of bugs.
Nevada: I have been to this state many times...driving through to California or visiting Las Vegas.
New Hampshire: We drove through this state for about 30 seconds on our way to see Maine.
New Jersey: This is where our hotel was when we went to New York for the first time.
New Mexico: We drove through this state to get to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with Uncle Dave and Aunt Shelly when I was about 8 or 9. I lost a tooth at their house.
New York: A trip there with my family. We saw Beauty and the Beast on Broadway.
NORTH CAROLINA
North Dakota: See above paragraph.
Ohio: Drove through to get here.
Oklahoma: I believe we drove through this state on our way home from Texas to visit family...am I right?
Oregon: Grandpa took us through Oregon on our way to British Columbia, Canada. I went with Nana, Aunt Lisa and Caitlin. A fun trip!
Pennsylvania: Drove through it while we visited New York, on our way out here, and Juice and I visited friends Tanya and Derek when they lived in Hershey.
Rhode Island: We have a lot of drive through states...this happens to be one of them.
SOUTH CAROLINA
South Dakota: Our first trip to Mt. Rushmore when Andrew and I were little. Our second trip to Mt. Rushmore when we drove out here.
TENNESSEE
Texas: Visit to Dave and Shelly Parker
Utah: Lived there for 8 years...I think.
VERMONT
Virginia: Lived there for 8 months.
Washington: First visit was to Uncle Vernon on our way to British Columbia. He had a beautiful appaloosa horse that he let me ride.
West Virginia: We went there for our anniversary trip last year. And we took Mom and Dad there to see the leaves when they came last year as well. Great syrup!
Wisconsin: We stayed a night there with my friend Amy and her husband Shane on our trip out here. We had a great time!
Wyoming: Flat, boring and hot. Enough said.

I have a plan to go to the southern states when we move back west in a few years. Juice has been to 25 states (way to go Juice!) and little Butterfly has been to 3 (born in Virginia, lives in Maryland, now been to Delaware).

So Andrew...how many do you have? ;)

Until next time,
Safire

Our Anniversary Trip to Delaware

Hi everyone,

Okay, we'll try this again. Since Butterfly is happily sittingg in her...I mean, MY new toy...I can try and tell you about our trip. Yes, we took our almost 3 month old on vacation with us and had a ball!

We got all ready, dropped the puppy off at her kennel, drove out of the DC area and stopped to get gas in Annapolis. Butterfly decided to get fussy while we were getting gas so we were talking about getting out her pacifier. Which was in our backpack. Which was still sitting on our bed at home. D'oh! It had all of our tolietries in it. Juice convinced me that we shouldn't drive the 2 hours back to the house to get it and I convinced him that we should at least stop by a store and buy things like toothbrushes and toothpaste. Imagine, he was ready to stink all weekend long! :)

We crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which was 14 miles of road above the ocean. Not a place I would like to be in a storm! We also passed into Delaware. There was a house right next to the sign and in between the Maryland and Delaware sign. Where do they live?

Butterfly was pretty fussy the rest of the car ride and was very happy to get out of her car seat when we got to the hotel. The people at the check in counter just oohed and ahhed over her. She's so cute. :)

We were able to have dinner at the hotel restaurant, but we only stayed long enough to eat the appetizer and order our food. Butterfly decided that it was time to be done. She smacked her head on the table while Juice was holding her and she was just unhappy after that. Poor thing! So we ate our dinner in our room and it was much better.

On Friday, we journeyed out to the beaches. Juice got a good map of the area and we were planning on going to a beach about an hour away but Butterfly had had enough of her car seat. We picked the closest beach to us and it was really nice. It was called Bower's Beach and it was basically deserted. It was great to have almost the whole thing to ourselves! I worried that Butterfly would get burned the whole time, but we had a cute little tent and also a shade umbrella. It worked out great. Doesn't she look sweet in her sunglasses?!

Friday night the power went out at our hotel because of a huge lightening storm. See part of it here: http://www.jusspress.com/day.php?userid=8523¤tDate=20050805&currentTime=202836

Saturday we drove/walked around Dover. We ran across the place where they became the first state, which was pretty cool. I was thinking about it and I have now been where the Mayflower left England, where they landed in America, where they fought part of the Revolution in Boston and now, where the Constitution was ratified. Pretty interesting for me! We also went to a few museums in Dover and that was interesting as well.

All in all, a good trip!

Until next time,
Safire, Juice and Butterfly

I hate blogger...

All,

I just wrote out a great post about our trip to Deleware and was about to publish it because Butterfly is fussy but I thought I should spell check it first. Bad idea since it just erased it all. I knew I was a bad speller but come on...not that bad! But since Butterfly needs me now I'll have to type it out again later. Sigh...

Safire