Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Crawling, day 3

After almost no crawling on day 2 post-mobility, A. made great strides today. She can now slowly putter around her room, chasing the cat and investigating whatever strikes her fancy. It's so interesting to now see what captures her attention enough to warrant the slow and difficult process of crawling over to it.

This video is of terrible quality, but you can see how she can get a few good moves in before collapsing for a break. Of note is the fact that the room is scattered with her toys, but she heads toward the one thing that's not -- a water spritzer.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Crawling!

A. made huge strides today in her mobility. First thing we noticed was that she was picking a hand up and balancing on three points of contact.

Not an hour later, she picked up a hand, moved a leg, and made a bit of progress. I scooped her up, plopped her in her bedroom, and recorded the video below.

While I was uploading it, she moved from sitting to all fours and crossed about 1.5 or 2 feet to get to my laptop.

Since then, she's been unstoppable. It's not zooming around -- more plodding -- but she's making definite forward progress and is improving every time.

We're in so much trouble now.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

"Gated"

This part of Florida seems to be the land of gated housing developments. They have huge, impressive guard shacks or automated gates, and long fences that are stretched across the front of the development and painted to stand out (including a lot of white picket fences).

The amusing part is that these fences often curve around the corner of the development and then... stop. They just end.

"No one may enter here! ... Unless they, you know, walk a bit."

Dreams

So even though I'm pretty happy out here, I'm apparently not completely done mourning leaving my job. The last two nights I've had dreams about going back.

Friday, November 23, 2007

First day of work

This week we're finally falling into our pattern for the near future. JJ worked yesterday night (Thanksgiving) and tonight, so he spent today sleeping. That meant that A. and I vacated the premises to give him a nice, quiet house. It wasn't my first day as a stay-at-home mom -- JJ'd spent a week at orientation -- but it's the start of normalcy.

A. and I had a nice day -- we took advantage of a Black Friday sale at a children's resale store to get extra-cheap clothes and a few goodies, helped at the warehouse, took a nap, and went grocery shopping. Being able to pop in to my parents' warehouse to help for a while and being able to steal the bed in their guest room to get A. a nap were fabulous. I'm still getting used to having support on a day-to-day basis, but it's such a relief.

I found myself surprisingly happy and proud as I walked into the grocery store with A. on my hip. I'd expected the worst of being a stay-at-home mom -- feeling lonely, only talking to the baby all day, feeling unfulfilled. So far, none of that has materialized. I love that if A. wants to practice her crawling skills, we can spend an hour hanging out on the bed and playing around. If I feel like I need to be productive, I just pop into the warehouse where my parents get to hold and play with A. and I get to help them in a very tangible way.

It may be a honeymoon period, but so far I'm happier than I thought I'd be.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Bistro Gourmet McDonald's

One of the side effects of living near a huge tourist town is that every chain you could ever imagine or that ever tried to launch is here somewhere. While coming back from a crafting convention over the weekend, my parents and I stopped at a "Bistro Gourmet McDonald's".


It's a strange marriage. There are two menus -- one with the traditional McDonald's food, and one with sandwiches, paninis, pizza, pasta, and desserts. You can order from either or both, but the Bistro food is made in another kitchen off to the side.


I had the grilled chicken panini -- "Herb marinated and lightly seasoned grilled chicken breast with roasted red peppers, sauteed spinach, and provolone cheese served with a shallot dill sauce on a ciabatta roll". It was surprisingly tasty, even though they pulled a typical McDonald's and forgot the spinach. The panini was cooked really well -- crispy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside -- and the dill sauce was unique and yummy. My mom had the pizza, freshly cooked in the pizza oven. And, of course, you can't resist the siren song of the fries.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Moving in!

We're going to spend our first night in the Lake Katherine house tonight. JJ and A. put in some hours at the house today while my Mom and I went to a crafting convention in Orlando. The big job today was moving our things out of my parents' house and into the new place.

I have to admit to mixed feelings about moving out. It'll be nice to have our own stuff and not have to watch our behavior, but I'll really miss there always being people in the house, having grandparents always there more than willing to hold A. while I took a shower or just a break, and sitting around the table after dinner sharing all four of our days.

Still, leaving today wasn't like leaving to go back to the other side of the country. We have firm plans to meet at the local farmer's market tomorrow, and it's always a possibility that we'll just bump into each other at the grocery store or Target.

I've spent a few days my Mom helping out with the mail-order business. A.'s been a great help, too, playing in her Exersaucer and playpen, being carried around, and sleeping in the carrier on my back. It's hard work, but some baby has to do it.

It's been about 3 weeks now. So far, I really like the area and having my family so close. I'm looking forward to seeing how things evolve as we live on our own and settle into a routine.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Trying to move in

Our stuff arrived on Monday, and I've been spending the last few days trying to get the house in a good enough state that we can move from my parents' house into the new place. It hasn't been easy; JJ's been at his work orientation normal-person hours (7am to 4pm), so I've had to handle A. and unpack.

Since she doesn't like to be set down, this consists of holding, bouncing, playing, then setting her down for about 5 minutes until she realizes that she's not the center of attention. At which point I'm informed loudly and insistently that this is not an acceptable state of affairs. Back to the holding, bouncing, playing.

A.'s a huge handful these days. She's constantly wiggling, grabbing at everything, eating whatever she can get to her mouth, and generally being a full-time job. I'm so happy to be able to come back to the house and hand her to someone else to hold for a while. And the best part is, my parents are thrilled to see her when I'm most frustrated with her.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Videos

Some videos of A. sitting and working on her crawling skills are up on YouTube.

Impressions

So what's Clermont like? It's a fairly small town about 15-20 miles from the center of Orlando. It was a very small town until just a few years ago, when the real estate boom reached this far and developments sprang up.

Clermont and Minneola merge together quite a bit, with Clermont spreading east, west, and south, and Minneola to the north. There are two main arteries -- east/west 50 and north/south 27 (both four-lane roads, but not highways). The two intersect very close to downtown Clermont and divide the area into quadrants that I can generalize about.

The south-west quadrant is where the Lake Katherine house is located. It's very residential in general, mostly older and custom-built houses. This area was probably developed earlier than the other quadrants. The landscape is spotted with lakes big and small, and the roads are small and twisty. There's nearly no retail infrastructure, with the nearest grocery store being about 15 minutes from our house. I really like this area, but since the highway leading to Orlando is to the east of Clermont on 50, it's quite a commute for JJ.

The north-west quadrant is dominated by Lake Minneola. It also has older residential communities, but it's not upscale as the SW. There are more cookie-cutter developments than custom-built houses. I'd say this was mostly developed after the SW area. Downtown Clermont is here; it hasn't seen any kind of renaissance yet -- it's pretty empty.

The north-east was probably developed third. It's nearly all fairly recent, cookie-cutter neighborhoods.

And the south-east is still building out. It's very cookie-cutter, copycat houses piled one on top of another. There's more empty space here than other areas.

Retail is concentrated around the main roads, 50 and 27. It's almost exclusively chains -- Target and Walmart, Panera, Friendly's, Long John Silvers, etc. Pretty much everything you may need is here somewhere or will be soon.

My impressions so far are fairly positive. I really like all of the water around here -- it seems like every time you turn a corner, there's another lake. People are much friendlier to strangers than I experienced in California. It's wonderful to have family around, and it seems really great for A.

I think the big negative is the generic nature of many of the stores and subdivisions. Row after row of identical roofs going up a high is pretty depressing. But that's not everywhere, and there still are a few small stores to patronize.

I'm feeling fairly comfortable in the area. I'm really looking forward to getting our stuff (Monday!) and starting to live a normal day-to-day life. I reserve the right to change my opinions after that. :)

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Whee

Our first week here, JJ and I traded in our California licenses for our Florida ones. It wasn't because of some time limit in the law or the urgent desire to have yet another bad driver's license photo, but rather so that we could get our Disney Florida resident Annual Passes.

The first Saturday we were here, we went to Epcot to see the Food and Wine Festival with my parents. This week, we went to Epcot again for some lunch and to take A. on her first rides.

Her very first ride was the clamobile ride in The Seas with Nemo and Friends. She seemed to enjoy looking at all of the scenes going by. Then we took her on Journey into Imagination, because she loves her Figment stuffed friends. I'd forgotten, though, that there's a bit of a scary part at the end where the walls blow out with a loud noise, burst of air, and flash of light. She didn't like that one bit.

A.'s going for her own rides. She's managing to get up onto her hands and knees and wobble around a bit, but still no forward progress. Last night she stood up on her own, hanging onto a chair for balance. That seemed to be the best game she'd played in a while.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

We have the keys!

After a few delays, we finally met up with the leasing agent, did the walk-through, and got the keys to the Lake Katherine house!

The more time we spend there, the more we like the house. The neighborhood is quiet and well-cared for, with lots of trees and grassy lawns. The houses aren't the more recent copy-cat blank boxes, but rather a variety of one- and two-story, stucco and shingle. We were there in the evening, around 5:30pm, and there were lots of individuals and families walking the sidewalks or riding their bikes.

And the lake... It's just a small lake, not connected to the Chain of larger lakes. But it provides an amazing view and is so calming to look out onto. The screened porch (lanai) is huge, and I can see many evenings sitting out there enjoying the weather.

We haven't heard from the moving truck driver, so no idea yet when our stuff will arrive. We symbolically moved in by placing a rug we'd bought in the family room and a telephone on the counter, but we're still living with my parents while we await the truck.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Nearly mobile

A.'s in a phase of rapid improvement in her motor skills. This afternoon she rolled back-to-front via her left side for the first time, and tonight when she started crying in her crib, JJ found her on her back (we put her to sleep on her stomach). She's also raising her stomach completely off the ground during tummy time, and today she started pushing herself backwards (a precurser to crawling). She appears to be so very close to being mobile -- a significant change in how we interact with her, and a huge step foward. It's all very exciting.

After slacking off on the house search yesterday, we had a burst of activity today. A little before noon we got the call that the Lake Katherine/coupola house will be available for a 7 month lease at the original price, with the option to go month-to-month at the end. That's exactly what we wanted.

The problem is that our stuff could arrive as early as this weekend, and it just takes time to get through all the verification and paperwork for the rental. Even after spending today running around in a bit of a panic to dot all the 'i's and cross all the 't's, it looks like the earliest that we could be in is Monday, and our stuff was projected to arrive this weekend. Luckily, the driver is going to be visiting family in Tampa, and he said that if we needed some extra time, he could do that visit before the delivery, giving us a few more days. I think we can make it all fall into place.

Cross your fingers!