April showers!

Sorry for the blurriness, but Rose wanted to show off her new rain jacket!

Rose-isms (pre-birthday edition)

Now that Rose's third birthday is only a few weeks ago, we've started talking more about it. Last night we had this conversation:

Me: What would you like for your birthday this year, Rose?
Rose: Um....presents!!
Mike: What kind of presents would you like?
Rose: Um...green and white and blue!!
Me: That sounds like lovely wrapping paper! And what would you like IN your presents?
Rose: Um...oven mitts.
Mike: Oven mitts?!?
Rose: And a stove. And things to put in it.

In other words, she wants a play kitchen (wrapped in blue/white/green), just like she has at Ninja and PopPop's house, and just like she got to play with at Megan's house with Norah last weekend. :)


This morning our conversation went something like this:

Me: What kind of food should we have at your birthday party?
Rose: Cake and ice cream!!
Me: Would you rather have cupcakes or a big cake?
Rose: Both!
Me: What other food should we have at your birthday party"
Rose: Lots of cake and ice cream!
Me: But what about lunch food?
Rose: Um...mac and cheese!
Me: Any maybe cucumbers?
Rose: Lots of mac and cheese, and lots of cucumbers!
Mike: Sounds delicious, Rose!
Rose: And fishy sticks! Lots of ice cream and lots of cake and lots of cupcakes and lots of mac and cheese and lots of cucumbers and lots of fishy sticks!!

I bet you're all excited for her party now! :)

First Mommy-Daughter Road Trip!

I've been getting the travel bug for awhile, but we haven't had a lot of spare money to plan a major vacation. (I can't WAIT to take Rose to the ocean, but alas we just haven't had the resources to do such a thing. YET.)   So a couple weeks ago, as Mike was planning a solo getaway to the arrowhead region for some ice fishing, I decided to get a little creative with planning my own vacation. Of course I wanted to go South for some warmth at the end of winter, but instead of the gulf coast I figured that maybe Iowa would be a little more in line with the realities of our financial situation.  My friend Megan (and her family) moved away last fall, and she had given us an open invitation to come visit them in Cedar Rapids. Well, having a trip SOUTH at the end of winter seemed like a great opportunity, even if the initial allure of Iowa wasn't quite as strong as the allure of the ocean. But the promise of a cheap, fun, and do-able getaway was too great to pass up! And such a trip would be my first chance to try some solo travel with Rose -- Mike has taken her to Hayward by himself a couple times, but I've never been alone in the car with her for more than an hour or so - I think Northfield has been our limit.   Once we settled on our road trip destination, I was able to look forward with excitement to the last weekend in March!!

As it got closer, Rose got more and more excited about our "road trip." I don't think she entirely understood what we would be doing, but she knew that I would both drop her off and pick her up from school, that she would have a half day at school, that we would be bringing our suitcases for a sleepover, and that she would get to play with some new friends. Pretty soon she was hooked!  The night before, we worked on packing her suitcase, which she LOVED doing. Then we were going to back some brownies to bring with us, but she was so worried that I hadn't packed yet! I tried to tell her that I would pack after she went to sleep, but she ultimately decided that she would rather help me pack than bake the brownies!

The morning of our adventure, she insisted on bringing her own suitcase out to the car. She was SO excited!

I picked her up at about 1pm, which I thought would be perfect timing since she normally naps from 1-ish to 3-ish. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans...  At 2pm we stopped for a quick potty (for her) and caffeine (for me) break, and it wasn't until 4:40pm she finally dozed off. Oy vey!  We pulled in to Cedar Rapids at about 5:20, at which time the change from highway speeds to local roads woke up Little Miss. After a quick consultation with Megan, we decided to meet up at Chick Fil A for dinner. Now, I was a little nervous about it since I'm not a huge fan of fast food, the MN location has never been convenient for me to try, and I'm vehemently opposed to their politics. But now I'm singing a different song because (a) the food was delicious (Rose also agreed!) and (b) the play area was perfect for our three little ones.  And they've stopped supporting anti-LGBT organizations, so it's okay to eat there now, right??

After dinner we went to Megan's house, where the kids (Rose - almost 3, Norah - 4.5, and Henry - almost 2) all played for a little while before bedtime. Rose went to bed like a champ, and I stayed up way too late drinking wine and catching up with Megan - it was lovely!!!

The next morning we saw that Rose and Henry happened to be wearing the exact same pajamas!

Norah was happy to be the star of the pictures!

I was the odd woman out - my pajamas didn't match anyone else's!

After breakfast we went on a "nature walk" in the woods behind their house.

We even got to see deer!!

 

We also played outside for a little while before lunch.

It was so much to see Rose getting along with her friends!!

For lunch Megan also invited over her new coworker (and my former grad school colleague) Catalina. It was so great to catch up with her, and to hear about how her husband Kristian (also a former grad school colleague, member of my intern class, and now personality research bigwig) is doing.

After lunch came nap time...

...followed by some exploration of downtown Cedar Rapids! They have a beautiful public library with a GREAT kids' section.

We also walked around the Newbo Market, and then ate dinner at the Parlor Pub. Rose was so excited to get a Happy Hour drink (root beer), macaroni and cheese, applesauce, AND ice cream for dinner!

(for some reason the picture of her huge smile with all her dinner favorites won't load. Sorry!)

Then on Sunday morning, it was time to head out! Rose had a minor meltdown when she saw a ladybug on the window of our car, but all was well by the time we got to Culver's for lunch. (Remember what I said about generally not liking fast food? Culver's totally doesn't count because they have AMAZING cheese curds.)

And after all the driving we did, Rose definitely needed to get to the park on Sunday afternoon to get in some gross motor activity!

All in all, it was a GREAT vacation. Having something to look forward to certainly helped me to get through the month of March, and it was SO great catch up with Megan. I was surprised that a part of me was sort of envious of the quiet rhythm of life in a "small" town like Cedar Rapids (although not so intrigued that I would actually want to pick up our MN roots!). The trip also gave me some new confidence as a mom: four+ hours in the car each way and only one relatively minor meltdown? not bad! I also learned some skills toward being a better "free range parent," as I could see that having two kids certainly forces one to be less immediately responsive to a single child's desires - I learned to step back a bit and Rose work things out more on her own (such as sharing with Norah) instead of immediately stepping in to mediate. I also learned that I love chick-fil-a, even if I feel immense liberal guilt for professing such a thing. Finally, in one of my discussions with Megan I reflected a bit on the role of social media in my life. For the longest time I thought I was immune to the negative effects of Facebook, but recently I've observed my subjective well-being is inversely related to the amount of time I spend on Facebook - I think this is because I see all the travels that my friends do (even if it's infrequent for any one person, with 100+ friends it can look as if everyone is traveling all the time!) and I start to feel jealous, poor and inadequate. As a result, I've been trying to decrease my time on FB, and instead focus more on my blog. I think this blog functions more as medium for healthy self-reflection (like a journal), rather than unhealthy social comparison. In addition, it allows me to both reflect on recent events (thus prolonging positive experiences, and allowing me to process negative ones) and also to be more present in everyday events (e.g., the "Rose-isms" posts) that I might otherwise forget. Finally, I enjoy writing and photography, and this blog helps me keep those creative pursuits active at least a little bit.  I'm appreciative for my time driving and talking to Megan in order to reflect on all of these topics this past weekend!

Well, it's coming up on my bedtime again, so I will leave you with this final image of Rose in her favorite princess dress-up outfit. Have a great week!

another week, another illness

It just wouldn't be a complete week in the Burcusa household without another illness, right? Luckily this one was just a scare - on Wednesday daycare thought she might have a UTI, but thankfully she did not!  Rose was quite a trooper during the exam, especially when she had to be cath'ed since she couldn't pee in a cup. :(

When we got home, she got rewarded with M&Ms and more Frozen.

It was also a chance for us to relax because the MD appointment had interrupted her nap. I love cuddling with my little munchkin!

In other news, Rose and I are leaving this afternoon for our first mommy-daughter road trip. Iowa, here we come! Rose was SO excited to pack her suitcase last night, and to bring it out to the car this morning. :)

Finally, another "Rose-ism" is that she has decided that she only ever wants to wear "all blue." (And apparently navy doesn't count - she prefers teal and light blue. So those blue pants above are not really blue in her mind, and that polka dot shirt was a disappointment because it's not ALL blue.) So every morning we have to search through all her undies to find her "all blue" undies, then through all her shirts to find her "all blue" shirts, etc. It's quite an ordeal! And since she only has about two "all blue" items in each category, they are frequently in the laundry, which is a downfall almost every single day. In order to avoid the extreme (yet frequent) disappointment of having to wear pink or purple or anything else that's not "all blue," she has now started to proclaim "let's call this blue." So today when she had to wear that white shirt under her polka-dot shirt, she decided "let's call these all blue." And then her outfit was satisfactory.

fried

Three days cooped up inside our tiny house with this sick kid (who's still adorable yet undeniably grumpy when feeling under the weather) led me to want NEED a big glass (or two) with our fancy dinner of leftovers and cold cereal.

Oh, and did I mention that it's snowing?! No wonder my mood is foul.

Rose-isms - remind me of these when she's a teenager

Rose has starting saying the sweetest things to me and Mike. The first two are definitely variations of things she has heard us say to her:

"Mommy, I love you."

"I love you SOOOO much, Mommy."


But this third one is one that she created all on her own. It's my absolute favorite thing to hear her say, and one that I wish I had on tape to remind of her of when she becomes a teenager:

"Mommy, I want to stay with you forever and ever."

:)

speaking of health...

Yesterday (Friday) Rose woke up screaming at 5:30am. Definitely not our usually weekday routine of me gently rousing her awake for ~10 minutes at 6:30 in order for us to leave the house by 7am. It soon became clear that she was screaming because she was burning up! Poor girl - I'm so sick of all these fevers that she gets! Since Mike was headed out of town for his big solo fishing weekend (don't ask me if I'm nervous that he's ice fishing all alone for five days in a remote area of northern MN with no cell phone service...), I cancelled my day and changed from work clothes back into yoga pants and a fleece.

First we watched "Brave" on the downstairs TV. (No photo, sorry.)

Then she watched "Frozen" on the couch while I cleaned the kitchen and made a grocery list.

 Around 10am the ibuprofen had really kicked in, so we made a Costco run. OMG, I had forgotten how AMAZING it is to shop at Costco on a weekday. No crowds! No lines for samples! No congestion in the parking lot!

Rose crashed during our drive home, so we ate a quick lunch and then she went to bed at about noon.

While she was napping I watched two episodes of "Modern Family," worked on her annual photo album (which I haven't done since Christmas!!), and read a few chapters in my book. It was heaven!  Finally, around 4pm I ended up gently waking her, out of fear that she wouldn't sleep at all at night if she napped for much longer than four hours.  (I debated that for quite awhile in my head. I definitely know she needs her rest when she's sick, but I also know that she can get off her sleep/wake schedule really easily.)  She then watched "Frozen" again while I cooked dinner.

 Bedtime was a breeze, and I ended up staying up late (10:30pm!) to get her photo album up to date and to read more of my book. Then the Murphy's Law of toddler parenting happened when she woke up crying shortly after 11pm. Seriously, no matter what time I go to bed, she wakes up less than an hour later when I'm hoping to get a good night's sleep. Sigh. At least she generally sleeps quite well when she's not sick. But she was SO upset at 11pm because the afternoon ibuprofen had worn off, so I gave her more medicine and totally caved when she begged me to sleep with her. She was so happy to have me in her bed, but I slept TERRIBLY! Good thing she's so cute.

Today we baked muff-mahns, played legos for hours, went for a short stroller walk around the neighborhood, played at the park, and read lots of stories.

She's finally not feverish tonight, so here's hoping for another relaxing day at home tomorrow, and that she can go to school again on Monday!