Reese Does America

Reese's first trip to the States was great, I'm sure everyone got that impression from the rest of the posts about the trip. We had a long flight to Frankfurt to San Francisco and I was worried that Reese wouldn't be her cheerful self on the flight but she was amazing. The plane wasn't near full so we were able to bring Reese's carseat on the plane and have her sit in her own seat instead of on our lap. The flight was going well until a few hours in when I got up to change Reese's diaper; the woman in front of Reese had had her seat back about halfway but as soon as we got up she rammed it back all the way forcing Reese's carseat into a vertical position so when I got back I couldn't put Reese in. I couldn't believe someone would be so mean to a little baby, but she and her husband had already gotten upset when they got on because they couldn't get a free upgrade and were being pretty rude to the stewardess about it so I shouldn't have been surprised. Luckily the gentleman behind us had an empty row and offered to change seats with us.

It took Reese a few days to adjust to the time change and to the new people that were around her, but eventually she got used to everythind and everyone and just in time for Nate and I to leave her with my parents so we could take a trip to Tahoe. My aunt has a cabin up there and so she let Nate, Jaeger and I borrow it for the night. We went up and went over to the lake for a little bit and the next day we took a nice long hike before we headed back home to Reese. I'd like to think that Reese missed us, but I'm pretty sure she was too busy having Ava entertain her to worry about where we were. Ava was the ultimate Reese helper getting anything she may need and giving her tons of kisses. The best part of Ava with Reese was that Ava would always ask to hold her and then after a few seconds she would be done with it and push Reese away from her will trying to stand up and get away at the same time.

Well I've already posted about the rest of our trip and now that we're back we're just trying to get back to our routine, well I guess first we're trying to get back on Europe time then we'll worry about our routine.

Idaho Roadtrip

While we were in the States we made a trip out to Idaho to see Nate's family. We were planning on leaving early the morning after we got back from SoCal, but when we picked Jaeger up from the kennel she was a little under the weather so we decided to give her some time to get over it and left that evening instead. That decision ended up being a good one because Reese fell asleep 30mins in to the 11 hour drive and woke up about 15mins before we got there.

It was great to spend time with Nate's family. Reese got to meet all of her aunts, her uncle, her cousins and her grandpa while Nate got to meet his now two year-old niece for the first time. Nate also got to go home theater shopping with his dad which I'm pretty sure was the highlight of the trip for him, Nate loves to go shopping with other people's money. While we were there Nate's younger sister Molly took some family photos of us, she's such a great photographer (she would be the one who took our new header photo).

While we were there we also took a daytrip down to Utah to have lunch with Nate's sister Kendra who's at BYU and to visit some friends. We spent the afternoon with my friend Jenny and her sweet little boy Bjorn and then went to dinner with my old roommate Lara and her husband Alan. Being back there makes me miss all my college friends and the great times we had.On our drive back to California we had a great creepy gas station attendant moment that I definetly feel is blogworthy. We stopped in Reno at about 3am to gas up for the last leg of the drive and go to the bathroom. I went inside to return the bathroom key and buy Nate a slimjim (I know, random thing to ask for at 3am). When I walked over to Dwayne, the 5'5" blond mullet wearing gas station attendant who lacked a full set of teeth, a shivered, not because it was cold but for some unknown reason. Dwayne asked if I was cold and I told him no, I just had one of those random shivers. Dwayne then proceeded to tell me that if I was cold "he," pointing to Nate outside, "could probably keep me warm." I gave a polite chuckle despite the fact that my face was frozen in a scaredly quizative manner, grabbed the slimjim and left. I guess no roadtrip would be complete without a creepy gas station attendant moment.

How Dumb Are We?

The night has gotten away from me and I just now decided that it was time to eat dinner. Due to the late hour I opted to select a frozen food as opposed to creating a meal. As I snatched my chicken and cheese chimichanga from the freezer and read the heating instructions on the back I noticed the words that bug me to no end...."Caution: Product Will Be Hot." I'm sorry but how stupid am I that someone has to tell me that the chimichanga that I'm putting in the 350 degree oven in order to make it hot will in fact be hot when I remove it. It bugs me that our culture has become so petty sue happy that manufacturers are forced to place these crazy labels on everything in order to avoid a lawsuit. I've vowed as a parent to teach Reese that things that come out of the oven are hot, as are things that come off of the stove or out of the microwave or off on open flame for that matter so that she won't have to look at that warning and say "good thing they let me know that, I might have burned myself." Now I realize that some people just don't get it no matter how many times they are told, but let the morons burn themselves either they'll learn a lesson or natural selection will serve its purpose.

Disneyland

I absolutely love Disneyland and was beyond excited to take Reese there, despite the fact that she's only 4 months old and it won't really be a "memory" for her. I wanted to make sure that she got to do everything that she possibly could and while the majority of the time I just got her standard indifferent face there were quite a few times that a ride or a character coaxed a smile out of her.

Friday morning Melissa, Ava, Nate, Reese and I went to the Goofy breakfast which was at the hotel and had a bunch of characters wandering through the restaurant at different points. They had all the foods a kid would want to eat for breakfast from regular breakfast foods to peanut butter and jelly pizza and dirt and worms. Nate chowed down on the pb&j pizza and even added sprinkles to it, I stuck with more traditional breakfast foods. After breakfast we met up with my parents and went over to Disneyland. Our first stop was Space Mountain since I hadn't been on it since the remodeled it and I was not disappointed. We were pretty lucky because most of the rides had a 20 minute wait at most and those were the rides that we just got Fastpasses for and came back to later, so we actually ended up doing almost every single ride that first day. Reese got to ride the merry go round and the majority of the rides in fantasyland plus she went on Pirates of the Caribbean, seeing as she is a pirate in training. I was so excited that when we came off of pirates there was a pirate in the ride gift shop so Reese got her picture taken with him.

That afternoon we went back to the hotel and went swimming in the pool, mind you this is after they cleaned the floater out of it :) Both Friday and Saturday the pool was closed for a period of time thanks to turd nuggets, but I guess that's what you get when you've got a pile of 2 year olds in the pool. Reese really liked the pool as did Ava who is in that "do it again" phase so I got to have her jump into the pool to me over and over and over again.

The next day Nate and I took Reese and Ava over to the park early for the Magic Morning early entrance. It was nice because it was so empty that we were able to let Ava run around a little bit without worry. We rode some rides and then got a Churro breakfast....BAD MOM ALERT: I let Reese have a lick of churro dust and she was licking her lips she liked it so much. After that we went over to Disney California and rode the Tower of Terror among other rides. That afternoon Ava and Melissa headed back to the hotel while the rest of us took Reese over to the bugs life kiddie ride area. She really liked this ride that was like the teacups but a lot slower. After that we went back to the hotel and did some swimming before we went back over to Disneyland for the rest of the night.
As you can tell, we had a really great trip. It was fun to see Ava so excited about everything and hopefully we'll get to go back again soon.

Pacific Ocean

We've been in the States for almost two weeks now and I've yet to write a blog so shame on me. I'll be sure to write about Reese's first adventures next time I get a chance, but right now I'm sitting in the Disneyland Hotel while the rest of my family is asleep so I decided I'd post some pics of Reese's first beach trip.

We flew down to Orange County this morning for our Glass Family vacation to Disneyland. We weren't going to Disneyland until to tomorrow and since my parents were going to a museum exhibit today I decided it would be the perfect chance to take Reese to the ocean and indoctrinate her in the ways of ocean appreciation. So after we checked into the hotel and dropped my parents off at the museum Nate and I wheeled the "orange dream machine", that would be a lovely burnt orange minivan, over to Huntington Beach. When we first got there Reese was loving it, there was a nice breeze on her face and she enjoyed watching the waves and listening to the noises. Then I put her feet in the sand which she felt indifferent towards until a wave came up and tickled her toes. She didn't quite seem to know what to think of it but then when I dipped her little feet in a little more she decided the water was a bit too cold for her taste and we got the sour fat lip face. We didn't stay long, but I'm pleased that from my vantage point she seemed to enjoy her first trip to the Pacific.

Showing Off

I got the video of Reese rolling over a lot faster than I thought I would. We had Finding Nemo on while we were playing with our sea creature stuffed animals and when I put her on her stomach she was a rolling over machine. I secretly think she was trying to get a better view of the tv, but hey whatever works. When I tried to tape her from the front she would look at me and then just lay there, she's too smart to perform, so I had to take the video from the side. Anyways, here she is in all her rolling over glory.

WE ROLL OVER!!

Footage of said milestone coming as soon as I catch her on camera. She did it twice today but as soon as I got the camera out to tape her, her sixth sense kicked in and she went limp. Hopefully it won't take as long to get this as it did to get a photo of her smiling.

All Smiles

Sometimes life is going so well that you don't even feel the need to strangle T-Com when the internet goes out for the 9 billionth time; life is just that way for us right now and I'm loving it. It may have taken three months but I finally have all my energy back and I'm getting things done at a ridiculous pace. I feel like someone flipped a switch and I'm no longer constantly tired and struggling just to make it through the day, instead Reese and I are on a roll getting things done and it's a nice change considering how long the list is of things we need to get taken care of before we go on vacation in two weeks. I think this weekend was the turning point in the battle of motivation, Reese and I went on a Mother-Daughter outing to the mall in Koblenz since Nate was working 12 hour night shifts all weekend and sleeping the majority of the day. When we came back from a long day of shopping, which by the way Reese was totally into, we set to work getting the multi-purpose guest room all set up and then boxing up some baby stuff that Reese had outgrown. That was actually a really sad task because as I looked at the little pink turtle jammies that she had worn home from the hospital I realized how much she had grown in the last three months and how much she had changed in other ways as well. Then Sunday night after Reese went to bed I went down to the basement and organized all our boxes in preparation for the other boxes I was going to be bringing down, you have to admit it takes a pretty motivated person to organize a basement. Now we're just taking a break from our final steps of getting things done and I'm quite proud of myself. I look around and my house looks the way I want it to, granted I still need to hang some picture frames and eventually I want to paint the hallway, but our house is a home now and it feels nice.

Puppy Princess

Jaeger is all about comfort to the point that she'll randomly go off and find what she deems to be the most comfortable location in the house to sleep which last night happened to be a pile of old blankets and a big pillow that was sitting in the entry way.

Usually she just naps on the blanket that she commandeered from me or one of the throw pillows on the couch, but every once in awhile, when I toss the throw pillows on the floor for whatever reason, she'll act like true royalty and leave her post on the couch to go lay on the massive pile of pillows. It's quite entertaining to watch her scale a wobbly pile of pillows in order to mount her throne. You also have to be careful in the evening if you get up and leave for a second Jaeger will slide in and steal your spot almost everytime. As I'm typing this Nate got up to get something to drink and came back to find Jaeger laying on the pillow he was using, oh and she is refusing to get up despite his threat to aly on her. Now as you can imagine Jaeger's desire to be in the most comfortable position often leads her to try and lay on Reese's quilt or mat or anything else that she knows she's not supposed to be on. The other day as I was feeding Reese I looked up to see Jaeger slowly twisting herself into the perfect position in Reese's boppy pillow. She looked so cute that I just let her stay there.

Now since I'm already on the subject of Jaeger I'll continue to say that her and Reese are getting along very well. Reese has gotten to the point that when she sees Jaeger she'll smile and Jaeger will try and cuddle up next to Reese when she's playing on her playmat. Jaeger is also very helpful when it comes to watching Reese, a few times now I've left Reese in her swing asleep while I go try and get somethings done and when I leave I'll jokingly tell Jaeger to babysit Reese. Well if Reese starts crying while I'm gone Jaeger doesn't like the noise so she'll come find me. That's a pretty good babysitter if you ask me.

Somedays

As I was reading through my friends' blogs this evening, Mark's comments on being a temporary stay at home dad made me think about my own experiences at home with Reese over the past nearly 3 months. I never thought that being home with Reese would be that much work, I mean I didn't think it would be easy but I definitely didn't think everyday would be filled with attempts at accomplishing things. Like Mark, I assumed I would be able to get everything done that I needed to while Reese was sleeping because I had witnessed my mom do it while babysitting my niece numerous times before. However I'm learning that it's not as easy as she made it look.

Most days my living room is littered with toys (both dog and baby) and blankets and other random objects, the dishes don't always get done right away and that last load of laundry always seems to sit in the dryer for a day or so before I go down and get it out. We've been living in this house for a month and a half and there are still things that don't yet have a place and a room full of things to be put in the plastic bins and stored. It seems that whenever I get going on a project or even simply washing the dishes, Reese decides that she doesn't want me to leave the room and I don't care what people say I'm completely incapable of cleaning with her strapped to me in the baby bjorn. Somedays she'll play quite contently alone on her playmat while I pick up the living room, and somedays she'll sit in her bouncer chair and watch me cook or do the dishes as long as I pretend I'm the star of a cooking show and describe everything I'm doing to her in detail, somedays she'll even take an afternoon nap for more than a half hour. Then there are the days, which are the majority of the time, when I just can't take my eyes off of her because I realize how fast time is going bye and how someday she won't need or want me by her side. So in the mean time I just consider myself lucky to have a husband who helps out so much and doesn't mind the days when he comes home to a frozen pizza and a sinkful of dishes. I know I'm not supermom and I don't expect I ever will be, but Reese is happy and the way she looks at me makes me realize that I don't need to be.