It’s snowing

While technically last winter would have included Kayleigh’s first snow, this time she is actually aware of the fluffy white stuff falling all around. And she seems to be looking forward to more of it.

It's snowing!

A couple weeks ago when a not-so-record 6 or 8 inches fell on my house, we took her outside for some exploration.

Kayleigh shows off her new snowKayleigh and Mommy in the snowKayleigh and Daddy in the snow

Snow can be terrible around these parts, but I still miss that almost constant blanket on the ground as a kid. It’s just so much fun for play, even if you’re still not convinced you can walk in it.

This year ended decently, hopefully that carries into the next one…

Almost a wonderful day

One of these two turned a year older today. The other one threw a fit in the nice restaurant that we went to for breakfast. Can you guess which is which?

Cuddly Kayleigh

Being upset with a 17-month-old toddler is a crappy feeling. Especially when her outburst was fairly uncharacteristic and she was very well behaved almost the entirety of the weekend besides the incident this morning. I look forward to her turning 18 months when I assume her separation anxiety will magically disappear overnight.

Rumors of my demise…

After a month of heavy posting I shut up and then leave some stupid tweet about having a really bad day… pretty crappy, eh? Not to make any excuses, but it comes down to this: layoffs suck. They suck a lot less when you’re not on the receiving end, but they still suck. And when you run the IT portion and get stuck doing some of the dirty work well… you can guess.

Just in time for pundits to start declaring “the recession is over” my company downsized for the first time in its 25+ year history. Obviously I couldn’t mention any of this before it happened because… duh. Once the deed was done and the press release hit the wire I still needed some time to gather myself. My office hidden in the deep back corner of a half empty building only shields me so much.

It’s not like I’m going to discuss specifics about my job anyway, but know that everything hit like a ton of bricks just when things seemed like they had turned a corner. The stress resulted in at least half a dozen gray hairs popping up in my winter beard which has since been trimmed down to disguise them and may disappear completely. It also beat down my immune system enough for a cold to grab a hold of my head. Fortunately the rest of the household remained unaffected while I took up residency on the back couch and passed out by 9 every night.

For now my head is buried in the sand far enough that things seem to be back to normal. In all seriousness there’s nothing here for concern beyond the need to tighten our belts a little “just in case”. Maybe I’m just an eternal optimist, but things have a way of working themselves out for me.

Thankfulness

Is there really any question what I’m thankful for?

Showing off my little family
Showing off my little family

This photo is a few months old by now, but it’s one of the few “formal” shots we’ve done of our family. It was an impromptu shoot in our bedroom started by The Woman in an attempt to capture Kayleigh spending some real fun time with daddy. The more things change… It’s amazing to realize how much she has grown since that moment, and I’m so thankful to be apart of it.

An attempt to get everybody in one picture
An attempt to get everybody in one picture

Back in September my sister Christine got most of the family together for a slightly more formal photo shoot. This is one of the better ones from my camera. That’s 3 generations of Slatterys – my baby girl being the youngest of the young. Let me just say that I am thankful for each and everyone of them.

Hope you all had a happy turkey day!

Weekend update

What is it with the Internet and weekends? I’ve noticed for sometime now that once the work week ends, posts, status updates, tweets, links, etc. all begin to run dry. Sure seems like, despite recommendations to the contrary, a lot of people still tie their personal Internet connectivity to their jobs. Tsk! Tsk!

Of course that would be better for me than writing this late… Holy cow! It’s not even 10 PM! How’d that happen? The past couple of weeks have been pretty rough in the parenting department. The wee lil’ one had lost interest in sleeping through the night and continued to turn her nose up at the concept of napping. Thus our past week or so has been dedicated to correcting this most inconvenient behavior. After briefly discussing and even more briefly testing a few suggestions, we’ve finally settled back into our old routine with just a tad more parental strength in an attempt to reclaim our past success. So far it’s been decent – although the promise of a regular nap over 1 hour long continues to elude us…

Still, it chipped away at my sanity and free time which is why I, once again, have failed at NaBloPoMo. But even with all of these distractions, I’m only a few posts behind my pace in 2007 and have written way more in a 3 week span than almost any 3 month span in the past couple of years. Now if only I could convince people to read it…

Inspiration

As much as I love taking photos of Kayleigh, it sometimes feels like a photographic rut. But that has more to do with how few opportunities I get to be inspired away from her. But last night after finishing some quick clean up in the backyard I glanced towards the sunset and was reminded of other uses for my camera.

Sunset #1

I need to do a little touch up work, but you get the idea.

Fortunately another blogger’s work reminded me that sometimes inspiration is just a matter of stepping away from the flash and getting back to my favorite lens.

She makes it look easy
She makes it look easy

Best reality show ever

I caved. Or we caved. Somebody caved. After weeks of battling with the little one over her new desire to stand up in her crib in the middle of the night and demand attention, it was time for routines and reactions to be changed. And to help out, I finally ditched our el cheapo baby monitor and picked up one of those new fangled moving picture units. Only 10 or 12 months too late.

When a monitor was initially purchased, there wasn’t a whole lot of thought put into it. I wasn’t keen on anything beyond just audio – something just seemed a tad overkill with all of the video and motion sensors out there these days. Can’t we all just walk into the nurseries and accidentally wake wake our kids up while checking their breathing like parents did in ye olden days?

The issue finally came to a head this week when it was determined that we needed to know Kayleigh’s positioning before going into her room at night. Because sitting or standing while calling out for momma is a real priority over the typical grunts, sighs, groans, and grumblings let out while still lying down and half asleep.

In reality I’ve always liked the video feature because I’m very curious what our noisy little one is doing all night long with the tossing and the turning. For the first time tonight, I actually get to see those moments as they happen! So far she has straightened her legs out, curled them back in, rolled onto her right side, rolled back to her back and so much more. Seriously, I could watch this all night – especially if the night vision didn’t cast an otherworldly “color” on her (hooray for infrared).

P.S. First incident passed with flying… greyscale? She went back to sleep all on her own. Now if only I could.

Too tired

For the first time since before Kayleigh was born, every post on the main page is from the current month. And it’s not even the middle yet. Hooray!

A missed button screwed up my chance of actually posting every day, but I didn’t let that stop me from becoming active again. But the reality is that this late night posting is becoming harder and harder. For the past couple nights, it seemed like things had turned a corner with some real contiguous hours of sleep. But once again the wee little one who refuses to tire out despite climbing the stairs 4 or 5 times reared her cute little head tonight. Le sigh.

A new routine must be established. Maybe lunchtime posts? Wouldn’t you all just love to hear what I’m eating each day? Probably better than the potential gibberish that may come out when I fall asleep at the keyboard.

I told myself there would be no lame posts talking about why there were no (lame) posts. Oh well…