Spoiler Alert

Yeah to the free screener gods!!! I am so excited that we got to watch Quantum of Solace the new James Bond movie. Joel was going to see it with friends when I went to Florida, and I was sad that I wasn’t going to get to watch it with him, but then last night we had this FedEx package sitting on the counter that I hadn’t opened, and Joel is like, what’s that, and I was like I don’t know, it’s for you. And he was just telling me how all his co-workers were heading over to Pixar to watch the Academy screening of Quantum of Solace and he was sad that he didn’t get to go, so we open the FedEx and it is a brown envelop that says Quantum of Solace, we think it’s just the schedule of screenings, but then he opens it up and low and behold.. Thank you to the screener gods, it is the DVD. Whippeee…..

We had a fun romantic date night watching the film that fufilled all of its promise, starting off with an awesome car chase, that I particularly liked because the cars got very beat up, and I was scared for the stunt drivers.. This was speeding through the mountains of Italy, followed by a rooftop chase through Sienna. I won’t go into the details except to say that we were shortly followed by a boat chase, a few more street chases, and in the end, you can’t have a chase movie without a… wait for it… airplane chase! The move was a fun action movie, and typical bond. I did wish I had watched the last bond more recently so I would remember more what happened with Vespa, as the motivation for this film was somewhat fueled by revenge. I also thought that M didn’t react nearly as much as she should have, and lets Bond get away with way too much, but I suppose he wouldn’t be Bond otherwise.

Oh and one of my favorite scenes, a homage to Bond fans everywhere is the martini scene, I found it great comic relief, and a very original twist to a classic bond “thing” So yeah.. That was our evening. Dinner, then putting Holly to bed and by 11:00 we had a bowl of Ice Cream and the DVD in the player and had a cozy night.

Busy Thursday

So my mother’s group is getting on my nerves. Last week I went and saw a sign outside that they had moved to a new location, so had to get back into the car, and drive to and find the new location. The facilitator Jennifer did talk about how the set-up might change but I didn’t think anything was set in stone. See was set up as follows, 0-6 months, 6-12 months, and 12 Months Plus.. The 0-6 month group met at 12:30 which was awesome for me because that is when holly has her Therapy, so it is a time of day that is very active for her, and she typically wakes for her naps in time for a 12:30 appointment.

But when we graduated from that group we started going to the 6-12 month group at 10:30. This was harder because it is during her nap time, but I was usually either able to get her to take a short nap from 10-10:30 before hand, or if she woke up late in the day, I could keep her up and then she would be over tired, but immediately fall asleep for a long nap at 12:00 so it was ok. I was able to get there by 10:30, even though it is pretty early for me. The group has about 5 moms in it who come regularly and all the babies are crawling or sitting, and at a similar developmental area, starting foods, starting to be move active, ect. The Toddler group meets at 9:00 and sometimes we would see them running around before our group started, to give us a glimpse of what is to come.

Well, in the new location the groups need to be done by 1:00, so they decided to break them into 2 instead of 3 groups, the first 9 months and up and the second 0-9 months. The 9 and up group meets from 9-11am and the 0-9 meets from 11-1pm. So I had no idea this was officially changing and showed up today at 10:30 as usual, and the toddler group continued until 11:00 which was fine, as Holly played with all of the toys, crawled around and watched the other babies running around.

Then at 11:00 the other moms came, and when the group started and there were about 10 moms with babies all between 4-12 weeks old, and then me and one other mom each with an 8 month old. So they of course all wanted to talk about newborn issues, breast feeding, sleeping, ect. And the issues we wanted to talk about really had nothing to do with it, nor did they have any experience to tell us how they may have dealt with the same thing. So I feel like we were totally displaced.

Holly is 8 months old, so Jennifer said we could go to the older baby group, but hello people, that at 9am I had previously had 4 more months before having to go to the earlier time, and 4 more months of the calm before being thrown in with the sharks called toddlers, but it was so not appropriate for us to be in the infant group, so alas, I guess its 9 am. That said, next week is Thanksgiving, then I go to the mother’s group, and then the next 2 weeks I am out of town, and then the next 2 after that are Christmas and New Years Day, so by the time I go back to the group regularly Holly will be 10 months old, and I think actively crawling across the room and maybe even cruising, so perhaps by then I will feel like I am ready to be in the new group. Wow that was a lot of Bitching, so a not very big deal, I guess I just don’t like having my routine messed with.

This afternoon I missed Holly and Sally’s Session, but Joel came home for it. I was on a conference call for WASC, which is an accrediting body for Colleges and Universities in the Western Region, and I am doing this as professional Development, to keep myself active in my field. So I had to basically write a report and the approve or not approve a school who wants to start a new degree program, and then meet with my co-reviewers for 30 minutes to discuss the proposal, and then meet with the school for 45 minutes to answer questions and provide additional data. The meetings are all conference calls, so it is pretty easy to do these, and I have 1 report a month to do.

Sally normally comes on Wednesday at 12:30, but had to reschedule last minute, and I told her Thursday at 2:00 would be great, and then forgot I had my Call. So She came and tapped up Holly’s back, Holly had just woken up from a 90 minute nap (as I kept her awake all morning for the mother’s group) and had a bottle and a big poopie, so I expected her to be in a good mood, but I heard her crying in the other room the entire first 30 minutes of the call, so between sections while waiting for the institution to get on the line I came out to check on her, she was crying while Sally was taping her which she had never done before, but Sally had just finished so Joel picked her up and she said Hi to me, and then I had to go again, but she continued to cry and whine most of the session.

Joel reported back that while she was playing independently she would be fine but as soon as Sally would hold her or try and get her to do something she started to protest. Sally thought that perhaps Holly is at a developmental stage where she has learned quite a few skills and just needs to work on them, so she observed her at play and gave Joel a bunch of tips of things we need to do with her, like extending her legs was one. She also thought that the foam cushions I got were wonderful, and told us about a foam store that has more random shaped cushions we could get for a few dollars and was worth checking out, this weekend I plan on sewing the covers, so I am excited to let her play on them.

I got off my Call early, but Sally was already gone as she was making no progress with Holly. Holly was of course happy as soon as she saw me and was now ready to play. Joel went back to work and I decided to take her for a walk to the park. It was cool outside so Holly was wrapped up in the Jacket I knit for her and a green bean pod knitted hat from Silvia a friend of Jackie’s. She had on her purple Mary Jane sock/shoes and was nice and warm. She enjoyed walking in the stroller and when we got to the park was ready to play. There was a mom there with twin 2 year olds, and two older girls maybe 4/5 and 7ish they were all very cute with white blond hair and super rambunctious,

Holly liked watching them play. Later a mom and Oma came with a 13 month old and her older brother, I only know it’s the Oma because they were talking German the whole time, and they had fun, at 13 months old her baby was able to toddle around and play in the park a little more than Holly. Holly was the youngest Baby at the park, and basically could only swing, but that she did, and she loved it, she squealed with Joy and the other kids watched her swing because she was having so much fun. We also walked around the park watching the other kids play; there was a train, and a big slide. Then I sat her down and she played in the sand, it was a little pebbly, not too fine, so she liked to try and walk on it and it was a weird feeling on her hands, I watched her like a hawk though, as I was afraid she would try and eat it, but she didn’t. We stayed maybe 45 minutes and then walked home. She stayed awake for the ride back and then I put her into the swing and she fell asleep for her afternoon nap.

When she woke up we ate some more of her Garden Veggie baby food and she finished the rest of the container. She either really liked her green veggies or she is getting better at eating, I was very proud of her. We read some stories, played, and then watched language nursery, it’s my way of getting her to hear the sounds of Russian, Japanese, Spanish, German, and a few other’s too. They say you should expose your baby to the various language sounds between 8-10 months, so she is the perfect age.

Daddy came home and played some more with Holly, her new favorite game it trying to get to Mommy’s laptop Power Supply, I will put her on the far end of the carpet away from it, and she has to crawl several steps to get there but she does, I had to move her back about 6 times today. She has also discovered the Stereo and DVD Player, and tried to pull herself up on the Black entertainment center.

I didn’t want to make a big deal over her getting to it, as I was afraid if I took it away she would want it more, like the laptop cord, so I let her climb watching her closely, and she didn’t get into anything. My hope is she will find it boring, realize it’s not her fun toys and not be bothered to try and play with the electronics, but we will see how that goes.

She had a long busy day and fell asleep in her swing by 8:45. It’s almost 10:00 now though, and we transferred her into the crib which woke her up some so I am hoping she stays asleep, but the odds are not in my favor. She is quite wiggly on the monitor, but I have my fingers crossed, she is at least not crying.