I am Rocky Road

My mother's curse

Last night, my mother's curse from my childhood hit me last night, about 11 p.m.

I guess when I was a baby/child, I never slept through the night. It wasn't until I was about 2 1/2 that my mom could be assured a good night's sleep. She always told me she hoped I had a kid just like me. :)

I thought I'd escaped the curse when Anne Marie started sleeping through the night at about 6 months old. But these last few weeks, the curse has come to haunt me.

Last night was horrible. At about 11 p.m., Anne Marie woke up. I let her fuss for a bit, but it was clear she wasn't going back to sleep on her own, so I tried rocking her for awhile. She just kept pointing at her stuffed animals and screaming to get down and play. I gave up for awhile, and decided to lay with her on the couch and listen to soothing music. Didn't work. So at 12:30 a.m., I decided to take a drive. She falls asleep EVERY time she is in the car.

In the car, she spent about 30 minutes waving her arms and giggling, so we went home. I stuck her on the floor with her baby doll, then closed my eyes and laid on the couch. She was happy to hang out and play. At about 2 or so, I said, "It's time for bed." Total scream meltdown. I stuck her in the crib, and I'm assuming she fell asleep at some point. I was out to the world.

I'm sure that the childhood experts would have a hey-day with all of the things I did wrong, but sometimes you're just too tired to read the parenting books. :) So I just let her party on.

This is the face you love during the day. At night, it makes you cry.

Tough woman

The other day, Anne Marie and I were running down the hills at Bartz field. It's one of her favorite activities, and it gets me plenty of exercise.

As I was catapulting with the stroller down the hill (Anne Marie likes it fast), I heard screams of "EMILY!!" It was two of the women from my Bradley birth class, walking with their babies around the field. Since the three of us represent all but one in the class, we took a commemorative photo. It's posted above. I zoomed in on the babies so you could see something.

Note the dress. The little boys are in full winter gear - blankets, hats, double coats, etc. Poor Anne Marie has a hat and her lighter winter jacket. I don't think it's because I didn't dress her well. I think it's because she's a tough woman. She absolutely hates to be too warm. She comes from hearty stock, and she'd much rather feel a bit of chill from the early spring air.

I wish I had a photo of her first day skiing last week, but it didn't work out. It's true she isn't walking yet, but I took her up the rope tow at Kelly Canyon, and we whizzed down. She loved it! Next year, she'll be ripping up the slopes. :)

A wild ride

I wish I had a picture of my stupid car this evening. Perhaps you can picture this in your mind:
I'm driving down the Pebble Creek road, and, having already stopped to help two different trucks in ditches, am definitely going as slow as possible. I put my car into first gear, and figure I can coast all the way down without having to brake or gas (both seem scar to me). It turns out, if you leave your car in first and never hit the gas, the engine dies.
So my engine died, putting my car into neutral, making it go pretty fast down the mountain with no control. So I decided to turn my key to start the car, and I hit the brake.
NEVER BRAKE ON ICE. It's a cardinal sin. My car slowly spun around until it was going backwards down the hill, gaining speed as it went. I freaked out and pulled my parking brake, which surprisingly, worked.
So there I was, 10:30 p.m., sitting in a backwards car on the ski area road. I decided I needed to go forwards, so I started my car, and let it slip until it was facing forward. It kept slipping, and went into the ditch.
It looked pretty spectacular. My back wheels weren't touching the ground. A fellow ski patroller coming down for the night stopped to help, but she is 8 months pregnant, and the two of us were definitely not going to be able to push the car out. Skiing pregnant is one thing. Trying to lift a car out of a ditch is something else.
She did have a big truck, though, and another person brought me a tow rope. So she pulled me out three times (the dang car just kept slipping back into the ditch), but finally, I was going down the mountain. I was already embarrassed, so I didn't care about the fact that I went no faster than 10 mph the rest of the way down, even though the road got much better near the bottom.
It was a wild ride, but wilder than my whole evening of skiing. I was going to head up tomorrow as well, but I think I'm going to stay home.