Perfect End to a Day

Wish you were here...

Been busy

I'll blog soon, I've been a bit busy...

Dance Party Friday

Doesn't ever family have a dance party in the morning?  Happy Friday!

I'm Trying...

Ok, so after my recent post about my style ineptness, I decided that I would make a concerted effort to put some more thought into my outfit each day.  I'm going to avoid wearing ill-fitting clothes and try to at least match. 

Here I am this weekend at a wedding:

(Admittedly, its hard to screw up a dress.  Although, I did wear gold heels and gold earrings and in looking at this picture, I'm thinking silver might have been the better option.  Oh well.  Added bonus - Mr. Cob and I even compliment each other's outfits!  And doesn't Regan look cute - love that blue!)

And my workout fit on Tuesday:

 (The white Nannette Lepore shirt has been sitting in my closet for about 3ish years - it was a hand-me-down gift from my aunt.  I love it, but for some reason always shy away from wearing it.  The black and white skirt is a post-pregnancy-weight-loss shopping spree buy and the green cardigan is Talbots via Marshalls.  And the shoes (Franco Sarto - great inexpensive, comfortable brand) are 5ish years old, but I love them.  I find that I buy shoes, don't wear them, and then rediscover them 3ish years later and love them.  I have problems.)

I realized this morning that I need some work pants. And another black skirt.  I may or may not be wearing the same skirt I wore on Monday.  Don't judge.  I have realized lately that accessories are KEY in having style.  I'm really big into belts right now.  I could use some new necklaces though.

 I get to look at myself in the full length "mirror" in the elevator every morning...

I'm wearing the one pair of slacks that I own that kind of fit.  But I am wearing red shoes, which make me happy.  Try it, it works.

Do I at least get points for doing my hair today?

So I'm trying. 

At least my little monkey is stylin'!

Email is Out?

I heard on the radio recently that email is becoming the "old" way of communicating and that you can't expect someone to respond to your emails.  Rather, twitter, facebook and texting have taken its place.  Now call me old-school, but I just think this is ridiculous.  Perhaps its because I sit at a computer all day long and a very large part of my job involves emailing back and forth, but I just can't believe that most people don't respond to their email and would rather communicate via facebook or text.

Am I completely wrong here?  Do you respond to facebook messages or text messages before emails?  What is your favored mode of communication?

Admittedly, I have found myself facebook messaging people lately.  But I think this is due to not knowing someones email address.  So I can see where facebook is becoming a means of staying in touch, but my go-to is not a facebook message, it is an email.  And twitter as a way of staying in touch is just silly to me.  My obsession with twitter lasted all of about 10 days and I now don't ever really log-on. I never really "got" it.  I need more than 180 characters to say anything.  I'm wordy, what can I say.

Seriously though, do y'all prefer texting or facebook over email?????

Yes, Yes, There are Children in Africa...

Ok, so I know that there are many people less fortunate than myself in the world who would love to trade places with me and be dealing with my "non-problem problems". But I donate clothes to goodwill, so we'll pretend this is a serious problem for a minute. Great, thanks.


So my problem? I need a wardrobe intervention. I need What Not to Wear to come surprise me while I order yet another Dunkin Donuts coffee and fly my ass to New York with $5000 to go shopping. I'd withstand the humiliating 360 degree mirror, secret footage and national publication of my wardrobe ineptness. It would be worth it. I don't know what my problem is each morning when I have to pick out clothes, but I'm starting to suspect that either my taste is rapidly declining or I'm still half asleep when I get dressed.

Yesterday I managed to leave the house in dark jeans, a peach blousy top that one might wear when they're trying to hide a pregnancy (which I am not for those of you wondering), a Kelly green short sleeve cardigan and nude flats. I later traded the nude flats for olive green wedges, because, you know, that made sense. I looked at my reflection in the mirrored elevators on my ride up to work and just shook my head. I looked crazy. Not to mentioned that I had to wear this out to drinks last night.

Earlier this week I wore a black skirt, a blue top, different colored blue cardigan, brown belt and purple shoes. What? And today I have on jeans with a stripped sweater, a patterned top and animal print wedges - and nothing goes. I'm not even sure the colors match. At all. And no, I won't share a picture.

I used to pride myself on having decent style. I have no idea what has happened to me. I'm going to blame it on the whole being pregnant for 9 months thing and then the 9 months to lose the weight thing. That's 18 months that I wasn't wearing my normal size clothes. So most of my clothes are out of style. Or they just don't fit right because even though I've lost the baby weight, things have shifted, lifted, dropped and just changed on my body. So things that used to fit, now just look frumpy or a little off.
Sigh.  I think its time for a big time closet cleaning and then a trip to the mall.  Unless of course, anyone out there has a hook up with Stacy and Clinton.  Anyone?

Side Effects of Daycare

When people find out you're pregnant, after the initial questions: When are you due? How have you been feeling?  Are you finding out the sex?  Have you picked a name? I found that many people asked me if I was planning on returning to work.  After my response was yes, the next question that came was one I came to detest: What are you doing about childcare?  Or if they were more direct, the question was framed more like: So, you're getting a nanny, right?  Well as anyone who has read my blog before knows, no, I did not get a nanny.  When he was exactly 14 weeks old, Lukas started daycare.  As it would turn out, people are quite opinionated about daycare.  Especially older generations, as I've found they just don't seem to think kids should be sent to daycare.

I was a little nervous at first about daycare myself, especially since my childhood revolved around my mom  who stayed home with me and my brother.  Taking care of us was her career.  She was passionate about it and she's an amazing caregiver.  The closest I ever came to daycare was attending the after school program in elementary school for an hour or two until my older brother finished with school.

But for my child, I made the difficult decision to return to work as an attorney and "send him to daycare".  Gasp, I was going to have other women raising my child.  I know what some people think of this decision.   They are entitled to it.  But I am happy with my decision and my experience with daycare has had many pleasant surprises that I was not expecting.

(I should point out that Lukas is attending a new, in-town daycare/school and we pay a pretty penny for this care.  The cost rivals that of college tuition.  In fact, annually it costs more than what I paid for my law school tuition each year.  I realize that this fact alone sets my experience with daycare apart from many people who send their kids to "daycare".  Primrose is more of a "private school for babies", but in the end, Lukas is getting cared for during the day, so it's still "daycare".)

The first thing that I wasn't expecting from daycare was for the "strangers" who are taking care of him every day to become an extended part of our family.  His teachers and the administrators at Primrose spend more time with my son than most of my family.  They may not have the same kind of love for him that my family does, but they love him.  And we love them.  One of his two original teachers left a few months ago to start another job that allowed her more time with her young children, and I've missed her and was genuinely sad to see her go.  But we've stayed in touch (thanks to facebook) and have had one play date and another planned this weekend.  Another one of his teachers is leaving this Friday and she will be just as missed.  These women are such a huge part of my life and Lukas' life.  They are not strangers by any definition of the word.  They are amazing, patient and loving caregivers who I feel 100% confidence in caring for my son.

When I first went back to work, I felt like I was a horrible mother.  How could I possibly choose to return to work over staying at home devoting all of my time to raising my son?  There was a lot of doubt and we won't even talk about the guilt.  But over the past 8 months I've realized that I am a better mother because I work outside of the home.  I am fully present with Lukas when I am with him.  I devote all of my attention to him and whatever game we're playing, book we're reading or song we're singing.  I don't take the time I do spend with him for granted, and I think I would if I were not working.  I believe I would see taking care of him as another chore, another thing to do.  Instead, I really engage with him and cherish the time I am home with him in the mornings, evenings and weekends.  And they do more with him at baby school than I would at home - painting and drawing, reading lots of books, singing, dancing, learning sign language and gaining social skills by interacting daily with the other babies. I think he's getting the best of me as a mom and the best from daycare.  The combination is proving to work and so far he's an extremely happy baby, which is really all I could hope for at this point.

The last thing I wasn't expecting from daycare was making new friends.  I have had the joy and privilege of meeting some hilarious women in the other moms in Lukas' class.  It's nice to have other mothers who understand the frustrations of nursing and the questions about continuing to work.  These ladies know what I'm going through at any given time, be it juggling being a mom, working and being a wife; dealing with horrible diaper rash; projectile vomiting; not sleeping.  You name it, if it is baby related, they've likely experienced it.  I find that at the end of each work day I don't just look forward to picking up Lukas, I also have the added bonus of seeing friends.  The "boys club" as our boys have been dubbed, will all be together in the same class for at least another 6 months and I'm so glad because that means the moms will all get to be together for that long too.  It's not easy making new girlfriends, so I consider myself lucky to have met these women and be able to call them friends.

So the next time I'm pregnant and someone asks what I'm doing about childcare, I'm going to happily tell them that my baby will be going to daycare baby school at Primrose.

Complete Bullshit

Ok, so I just figured out how to view my blog stats and come to find out that out of my top 5 posts of all time (out of about 300ish), TWO of them are posts THAT I DID NOT WRITE. They are posts that MR. COB WROTE. What the fuck. Seriously? This is depressing to me.

This means one of many things:

1. Mr. Cob is much funnier than me. (Blah, Blah, Blah. Mr. Cob is great, Mr. Cob is funny. Blah. He gets it all from me. Don't let his humor fool you. It's not the improv classes, or the voice impersonations, or the random ass jokes that can make a room full of people laugh. He gets it from me. I'm the inspiration for his jokes, anyway.)

2. I am not funny. No, no, that can't be it.

3. Mr. Cob is more interesting than me. (Hum, lets do a comparison:


• Mr. Cob = lawyer. Me = lawyer.
• Mr. Cob = 30 years old. Me = 30 years old.
• Mr. Cob = oldest child. Me = youngest child
• Mr. Cob = video gamer, baseball lover, scrabble enthusiast, beer maker, dad. Me = wine drinker, sushi eater, wine lover, runner, wino, writer, mom.


Nope, we're practically the same person, so he's not more interesting than me. Definitely not.)

4. I promote his blog posts more than my own. (This is the only logical explanation as to why his posts get more hits than mine. I broadcast his posts on facebook and shout to the world: "read what my hubby wrote." And then you do. Yes, this must be the reason. He's not funnier than me.)

Well now that THAT is settled I'm going to go cry in a corner and attempt to forget that I don't even write the most popular posts ON MY OWN BLOG.

Stay tuned. I'll see if my celebrity fame-whore husband will write a guest post for your enjoyment soon.

Future Soccer Stars?

Mr. Cob and my brother have grand plans for Lukas and his cousin Stu to play on the US soccer team in the world cup in 2018.  If you want to be the best, you have to start early....

At Christmas, we'll take a video of Stu and Lukas kicking the soccer ball together!  Love my boys.

A Non-Problem Problem

This is so not a real problem.  It's not really a problem at all.  It's really just me being indecisive.  Which is something I'm bad at.  I'm trying to be better. Thanks for asking.  So today's indecisive/non-problem problem is what to do for the little man's first birthday.  Lukas turns ONE in exactly 34 days. (scream, yikes, whoa, how did this happen?)

It's a pretty big event/milestone in his life.  It's a big milestone in my life.  It means I made it through of one year of parenting with my marriage in tact, my job kicking on, my waist whittling down, a happy kid and my sanity still on the "more sane" side of the sane spectrum.  (What? You didn't know there is a sane spectrum?  There is.  Believe me. I've traveled along all sides of it - just ask Mr. Cob.  Or better yet, my mother.)  Where was I?  Oh yes.  One year birthday. 

It's a big deal in these parts.  In the past year alone I've been to two one-year-olds' birthday parties.  The moms order invitations, bake cake-pops, decorate the house, clean the house, invite family and friends, plan activities, open presents, etc. etc.  It's a big to-do.  And it's one that I'm just not sure I'm up for.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good party.  I love throwing a good party.  My parties involve lots of wine and beer and I even whip out the fine china every once in a while.  But I just don't know if the big One Year Old Birthday Party is something I should do.  For one thing, I don't know that Lukas would really want a ton of people staring at him while he's expected to smash the cake in his face.  (Although, the kid does tend to put on a show for an audience, and considering his hearty appetite and love for sweets, he'd probably dive into the cake.)  And then there's the question of who to invite?  Family, of course.  Friends with kiddos around his age, sure - they have to watch their little ones anyway, so why not come to my house and watch your kids with a glass of wine in hand.  But what about friends without kids?  Do they really want to come to my kids first birthday party?  Would they feel obligated to come and bring a gift?  Or would their feelings be hurt if I didn't invite them?  And then what about all of Lukas' school friends.  If we have a party, I think I'd want them to come.  They're his buds.  And then there's his teachers.  They spend 5 days a week with him, so would they really want to spend one afternoon of their weekend with him?  And now we're talking about a whole heck of a lot of people in my house.  And I'd need food.  What do you cook for a group of adults and one year olds?  And the cake?  And back to the whole house cleaning thing.  And what do you do at a one year old's birthday party.  In November?  It just sounds like a lot.  Especially when there's this little 12 month old dude who doesn't always nap when he "should" and could be having an "off" day and probably couldn't care either way.

Sigh.  This is so not a problem but I need to make a decision one way or the other soon.  I'm leaning towards just doing a family shin-dig.  Or maybe the party...there are some cute invitations out there and I just love an invitation poem:

A BIRTHDAY POEM FOR LUKAS

The animals have all gathered ‘round to say,
November the 8 is a very fine day.

For one year ago, with the sun shining bright,

Baby Lukas arrived, to his momma's delight.

His daddy smiled bigger than ever before,

Their lives suddenly changed with this baby to adore.

365 days have now gone by,

Some come celebrate with Lukas, our silly little guy.

We’ll dance and we’ll sing songs, as only babies do,

And we’ll wish Lukas a happy birthday as he turns one, not two!

Church Search Conclusion

It has been over a year and a half ago that we started our Church Search and it has finally come to an end.  We've found a church.  And we're joining it officially on October 23, which will be the same day that Lukas is baptized at said church.  As we discussed with the Pastor, it'll be nice to all join together on the same day, as a family.

Our search didn't go as I'd assumed it would.  I envisioned us trying out lots of different churches in Atlanta and had even started a list of places I was interested in, but we only ended up going to three different churches during our search.  The first was Redeemer Lutheran Church on Peachtree in Midtown.  It is a beautiful church that Mr. Cob and I had attended multiple times a few years back.  We liked it, but there was something that never felt quite "right" to me.  I was always a little uncomfortable.  And the one pastor we really like had left the church in the few years since we'd attended.

The second church we went to was Buckhead Church with some friends.  It was an entertaining service, but ultimately was not what we were looking for, for various reasons.

The third church we tried was St. John's Lutheran church on Ponce in the Candler Park/Druid Hills area of Atlanta, about 5 minutes from our house.  We've driven by the church countless times and thrown out the idea of trying it one day.  Eventually a few months ago, that one day came.  It's a smaller church than I thought we'd end up in.  The first service we attended was  in the summer and the regular pastor was out of town, so there was a female pastor filling in.  I enjoyed the service.  Mr. Cob seemed to like it just fine, but was a tad weary of the smallness.  We both liked it enough that we decided we'd go again when the regular pastor was back to hear him and give it a second chance.  And then I did some research on the internet and came across this piece  on the pastor.  And while most people will probably think I'm nuts for saying this, reading that piece is the reason I initially new that this church might be the place for us.  The fact that Pastor Bradley is gay said all I needed to know about this church.  It was open to all people.  It was liberal.  It practiced what Christians preach.  Acceptance.  Nonjudgement.  Love.  I called Mr. Cob and shared this bit of information with him and told him I definitely wanted to go back.  He thought I was crazy, but having grown up Lutheran himself, I believe he was happy that we might end up raising our own family in the religion of his childhood.

So we went back.  And then we went back again, and again.  Every week that we go, I feel good afterwards.  I feel happier about the world and have a renewed sense of faith in people.  I smile more.  I look forward to going back the next week.

This is a very odd and strange thing for me.  I have never before been fully comfortable in any church.  I don't usually connect with the sermon and what people are saying.  I am going through the motions and fidgeting the entire time.  But that has changed since we've found St. Johns.

We had coffee with Pastor Bradley and talked about joining the church and getting Lukas baptized.  Our conversation with him left in me with similar feeling to how I felt when we met with Brian, the Methodist minister that married us.  They are both very open and loving and not at all what I thought clergymen would be like.  I realized that I didn't have to believe 100% of the things that I thought Christians believed in before joining the church.  I don't have to have all the answers to the questions I have.  Best of all, I felt comfortable talking to Pastor Bradley about the questions I had about faith, Hell and Christianity.  He suggested some books that I might find interesting on the topic and the one I've already read, Love Wins, was a great read and one that I connected with.

Yesterday, St. John's Church celebrated the Feast of St. Francis with a blessing of the animals during the service.  So we brought our pup, Wrigley to church with us.  Lukas' favorite thing (aside from his mom and dad, of course), are dogs.  He can say the word dog.  He walks up to Wrigley, throws himself on her and just loves on her.  He can find pictures of dogs in his books.  And he gets very happy when he sees a dog.  So you can only imagine his joy upon sitting in church and staring, pointing at all the doggies and repeatedly saying "dog" yesterday.  As I sat in the last pew with my 11 month old son on my lap, babbling "dog" during the silent moments, my husband a little harried sitting next to me while our dog pawed at the puppy in front of her, I smiled and was truly happy in this chruch.

I am happy that we have found a place where I can explore my faith and hopefully grow in it.  I am happy that Lukas will be raised at a church that seems to practice what it preaches and that he will be taught at church to truly accept all types of people, no matter what.  I am happy that my family now has a church home.  I am happy that the church search has come to a successful end.