The Im Family

the kneehigh bugger doing his two favorite things: standing and gnawing. ozzy is FINALLY starting to go about 3 hours between feeds. well, at least it's been like that for the past two days. he is still doing short power naps that leave me very little time to get anything done. *sigh* at night he's still on some kind of marathon feeding schedule. last night he woke at 8:30 to feed, again at 10:00, again at midnight. he woke up again at 4 to feed, so i just put him in bed with me and he was latching off and on until 9 am this morning. he is getting really good at sitting up, with his head level with his body, for a few minutes before he begins that slow, slumping, descent off to one side. he can now comfortably roll from any direction, including rolling to his tummy when he's on his back. he's scooting around quite a bit. can pull himself up into a crawl position and move his legs, but hasnt figured out how to coordinate his hands to move forward yet, so he'...

mimi's grandmother asked her what she wanted for christmas. she said, 'nothing.' i asked her what she wanted santa to bring her for christmas. she said, 'i dont know.' we got pictures with santa the other day and when he asked her what he could bring her for christmas and she said, 'i haven't decided yet.' i wondered if she already had everything she could want and that's why she didnt want anything. but that just seemed odd to me because she doesnt have everything and often when we go shopping she can't stop looking at the things she doesnt already have and want them. so i wondered if the fact that she doesnt ever see any commercials and we rarely go toy shopping has anything to do with her just not knowing what's out there to be had? and what happened to that desire to have a real live rabbit? every time she refused to come out with me to walk the dog, i'd tell her that she couldnt get a rabbit until she could help take care of ...

the tree is such a happy part of christmas for me and i want it to be a happy thing for my kids as well. when people say they aren't putting up a tree, inside i'm sucking in my breath, aghast at the notion that some people dont want to put up a christmas tree. i have such happy memories of my dad putting up our old fake christmas tree and my sisters and i hanging up all the ornaments we ever made in grade school and the garish silver and gold garlands, and stringy silver 'icicles', and multi colored lights that my dad set to a timer so that you could adjust the blinking rate. and then gathering in front of the tree for holiday pictures. ( i have got to find those old pictures when i go down to hampton next time!) and so when it's time to decorate the tree, i always start with enthusiam, but when faced with dealing with all the tree parts to put together and all the branches to fluff (this is definitely one example of why a real tree is so much better!), that enth...

thankfully ozzy was not feeling so great either, so we've both been spending the day laying down and sleeping. along with this cold that i have (headache, nagging cough, postnasal drip drip drip, utter exhaustion), i have also developed a 'milk blister' (when skin grows over a milk pore and the milk collects behind it...it's quite painful!), the technical term being 'blebs'... what a misnomer! a bleb. sounds kind of like something drab and boring. bleb. whoever was in charge of naming these suckers couldnt have picked a more inaccurate sounding word. this hurts like hell, is torturous to latch a baby on, and is just the thing to annoy the living crap out of me because i'm one of those people who can't leave a zit alone when i see one (even rob's breakouts are not safe around me...it's a compulsion...i can't help it). so i see this milk blister and the desire to pop it is astounding. but it hurts too much to even pull my shirt over it,...

my sister from indy informed me that i had no pictures posted from thanksgiving weekend at my cousin hae's house. i didnt get very many pictures while we were in richmond, but here's the few i was able to get:

mark this day! exciting news! ozzy slept on his back and there were NO tears...TWICE today for his naps! the planets must have been in perfect alignment because i just put him down while he was still awake with a pacy in his mouth, and he just lay there quite happily and just eased into sleep on his own. he did that twice today! i am afraid this is probably just a fluke and may never ever happen again, but it thoroughly gladdened my heart today. i am holding out hope that it may happen again in the near future. it was magical. almost as good as those moments when our kids are sleeping sweetly and rob and i will lock eyes with each other over our children's heads and exchange one of those looks of sheer contentment with one another...it really doesnt get any better than that.

nothing gets me into the holiday spirit like vince guaraldi trio's 'a charlie brown christmas', some festive greenery, and of course, this dance video starring the Im Family!

remember that story about the monster looking for his hairy toe? i read this book to mimi for the first time when she was three years old and when i got to the end where the creature looking for his hairy toe yells out "you've got it!" i pounced on her suddenly, yelling out 'you've got it!' and grabbed her. anticipating a good laugh, i was taken aback by her reaction. oh, man, did she scream. then her face crumpled up. then she started to cry. i remember LOOOVING this story as a kid! my sisters and i enjoyed scaring each other with that surprise in the end. but, mimi was terrified. sheesh ! i guess, in hindsight, my sisters and i were older than three when it was such a big hit with us. after calming mimi down and apologizing for scaring her (we put that book away and she refused to read it for many moons) i got her to sleep and the next day when i took her to school she told on me to her preschool teacher, saying that mama read her a really scary boo...