can you hear me now?......

a friend of mine was telling me one day a while ago about how cool it was when he realized his niece understood what he was saying.......i had kind of forgotten about that story when about a month or so ago it hit me.......casey understands what we say.......ok she's not responding back in full sentences, but if you tell her to go get her green eggs and ham book or pick up a particular toy she does it.......i said the other day, ok time for a diaper change, and she ran into the living room, sat down on the carpet and laid down (in diaper change position).......it's so neat to see her turning into a little person........i look at 4 and 5 year old kids and wonder how they get from casey-like to that.......at 4 and 5 you can have conversations with them, they walk all the time by themselves, they color without eating the crayons, they eat without needing to be coerced......they're like a totally different species than a 16 month old.......but seeing her understand what we're saying is definitely a huge step towards that.......i'm really proud of her!......

apple.......

casey has finally added a new word to her vocabulary.......for a while we thought she was never going to say another word besides "birdie" or "ball".......aside from "dada" and "mama" (well, "mama" has become "mana" lately for some odd reason).......her newest word is apple.......it's super cute how you can actually see her working to get it out......it doesn't quite roll off the tongue yet......but she is definitely saying it.......

chicago trip

realized i neglected to add a blurb about our somewhat recent roadtrip to chicago to see jean (casey's godmother).......we drove.......16 hours each way........split it up over 2 days out and 2 days back - which was a good thing because i don't think any of us could've taken anymore time in the car per day........on the way out, we took the northern route - over the great lakes into canada......saw niagara falls for about literally 5 minutes.......stayed at a quaint little holiday inn express in hamilton, canada.......on the ride back, we went south of the great lakes and stayed over in erie, pennsylvania at a nicer, but not as homey, courtyard marriott.......it had a pool which was a nice change of pace for us all - especially since we actually checked in an hour before casey's bedtime so we had some time "to spare".......we spent 3 days with jean in chicago.......it was very nice to not be in the car, although we did make quite a few trips to the grocery store while we were there!.......it was fantastic though to have homecooked meals that i didn't have to prepare or clean up from too much and it was great seeing jean........i'm glad she and casey are going to be close even though they're not living near each other.......casey wasn't as sure about jean's cats though.......she liked to see them from a distance, but wasn't too psyched when they came to check her out........didn't really warm up to them like we thought she might over the 3 days.......jean's house is really neat - all kinds of decorations and fountains and cool little knick-knacks and it's situated on a lake which was great to be able to take casey around........it was so nice to not have to drive to a nice place to walk.........the path around the lake had 2 playgrounds so we made sure to visit each of them........one day we went to this sturbridge village like place that had some animals, mini tractors, a carousel, a train, and a hayride that casey took part in.......we forgot her stroller and kept her out a bit too late (missed naptime) but otherwise she loved it........and we survived 32 hours in the car.........now we'll have to see how camping goes next month!.......

my return to the work world......well, kind of.......

continuing my blogging procrastination.......
so i started a 10 hr/week job at stop & shop last week.......once unemployment money runs out (should be coming up within the month) we're going to need me to bring in some cash to cover bills.......we worked out that i need to bring home about $120/week........really not too bad at all.......i've already got $30 from teaching my monday morning gym class........so the 10 hrs at s&s will bring in $80 more.......only need maybe one more small gig a week or just need to readjust our spending somewhere so we're spending $10 less a week........
anyway, s&s isn't too bad.......i'm working mostly behind the service desk so it's different from in high school when i was a cashier.......feels a little "higher" in command.......not sure if that's in my head or not - not like i'm making more money than any of the cashiers in the front end.......there's a lot to keep us busy behind the desk - lottery, western union, money orders, bottle returns, product returns, cashing checks, and random things like rug doctor rentals.......it was an adjustment standing on my feet for 5 hours at a time, obviously because of the being 5+ months prego thing, but think i'm getting used to it........
in addition to the extra money, it gives my parents time with casey without me on thursdays and steve a night at home with her without me on tuesdays.......both of which are good things.......

blogging instead......

so instead of the million things i should be getting done right now (dinner, dirty dishes, dirty sippy cups, laundry, designing a flyer, reading my personal trainer textbook, etc., etc.) i've decided to blog instead.......
i'm fearing that we may have crossed the line to one nap per day land.......casey hasn't really had a second nap for about 3 days now - the last 2 days i figured it was because her schedule was off and she wasn't napping in her crib for that nap, but today's attempt was in her crib and has seemed to fail........of course her first/only nap seems to now be happening at 9:30am so by 3pm we've got a super tired casey that won't nap.......we've gotta figure this thing out........if she's going to one nap, that nap's gotta be at least around noon........tomorrow we've got our waterbabies class then supposed to be going out for coffee/breakfast afterwards, so casey won't be napping until about 11ish anyway.......guess we can try out the new later naptime and see how that works.......it's been so long now that we've had a consistent napping schedule.......i'm dreading getting us into a new routine........i'm sure it'll happen, it's just that neither casey or i handles change all that well.......=)