Ali turns 18 months tomorrow!!!

As I did at 15 months, here are pictures of me, Ali, and Chris, all at 18 months:

As far as I can tell, I still have AT LEAST a half dozen DAILY Eli-stalkers out there, and for your efforts, you definitely deserve new pictures!! We had a family dinner for the 4th at JC and Lindsay’s house. It was a lot of fun, and Eli was a doll. As far as his stats go, I’m pretty sure he’s up over 6 pounds now!

Ali’s first opportunity to hold cousin Eli – the shock and terror in her eyes says it all.
Taking a goooood look at him.
Beautiful little boy.

Playing with the coloring. . .
He is SO content when he’s wrapped as tightly as possible in a blanket!! That’s his secret bullet. Anytime he cries, swaddle him!

Now for a few of Ali (I’ll get back to Eli before it’s over, I promise!):

Ali and Pop sharing neck sugars. . .
Really getting those sugars!!
Ali discovered cousin Layla’s doggy door and had fun going in and out of the house without having to find a tall person.

Heading back outside. . .
Pop and Eli sharing a moment out on the deck. . .
Ali desperately wanted to give this leaf to Eli.

Eli also got his first Sunday in Church today! He was very attentive. He had his eyes closed in intense concentration the whole service.

Editor’s (Rachel’s) Note: I wrote this blog a week ago and have been agonizing over publishing it. I know it’s silly to agonize over a blog post – I’m paranoid about keeping my blog as G-Rated as possible. I just hate being offensive in any way. So what I finally decided to do is to replace the one offensive word in the post with “salt” – my reason in picking “salt” is because, as I have published before, when Ali says salt, it sounds like the word I am replacing it with. Confusing, I know, but it will make sense once you read the post. I hesitated in replacing the word because of the fear that the post would lose all of its humor, and so it might, but I think I’d rather risk writing an un-funny post than an offensive one.

One more note: Ali learned “pepper” the other night also, and ironically, the way she says it has the same meaning as the way she says salt. So now she says “(salt) and poopoo”.

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I don’t know how I let this slip by unblogged, but I had a very significant “professional” event happen last month. May 28th was my 10 year anniversary at Slappey Telephone!! I started working for Slappey when I was 16 years old – right at the end of my Junior year in High School. I started as a file clerk in the accounting department. I worked part time through the rest of high school and college, gradually becoming an accounting clerk, and gaining more and more tasks. When I graduated, I became the accounting “Team Leader”, and a year or so after that became the Accounting Manager. A few years of managing and I gladly demoted myself back down to part time, taking my favorite parts of my job (HR and Payroll) home with me when I had Ali. I have worked during her naps ever since, and take Ali and go into the office once or twice a week for an hour or wo, which Ali thinks is a complete treat for her!

So, to celebrate my decade of service at Slappey Telephone, I thought it appropriate to relay my most hilarious memory at Slappey. For anyone that knows Bill Slappey, I’m sure that you can imagine that there are MANY funny and outlandish moments. That is true. But there is one that sticks out in my mind, and still makes me laugh out loud EVERY time I think about it or re-read it. And oddly enough, Bill Slappey had no part in it. I’m not sure he even knows about it. It was an email. A very unfortunate email. One that I still search for in my saved mail at least once a year just to laugh myself silly.

It was May of 2001. There was a salesman that had worked for many years at Slappey and that was known for being loud, boisterous and a bit rash with words. He also sometimes failed to look back over his emails before he sent them. Let’s call him “Oscar”. Let me say that this email was a COMPLETE accident and he was QUITE embarrassed by it, although he was able to laugh at himself enough to admit to it. Also, all emphasis and capitalizing is original – I simply copied and pasted it exactly as it happened, except for the above noted one word replaced with “salt”. The following correspondence took place between him and a customer, who happened to be the secretary for the Pastor at a very conservative local Baptist Church:

Customer: Oscar, We wired the work area between two offices for a phone if needed in the future. It’s the future. Can you give me a price on installing just a basic phone in that office space? ASAP.

Oscar: sure….$167 for the basic phone and $100 labor….BUT…….if you want…..we can simply SALT TO YOU A PHONE AND YOU CAN PLUG IT IN YOURSELF. We probably made it HOT, but I would have to look at the paperwork to see. IF IT IS HOT, all you would have to do is plug in the phone and it would work. you want me to send you out a phone??

Customer: Oscar, Careful with your spelling! Can I come pick up a basic phone today? I can come around lunch time if you have them in stock.

I will never forget that moment.

p.s. – the word he was trying to type was “ship”

Ali will be 18 Months old on Tuesday, so we went ahead and did her portraits today. She did good!! Not as good as she did at a year old, but we had to wait a lot longer, and the cameraman didn’t exactly endear himself to her by picking her up from behind with no notice to put her back where he wanted her. That would have been fine if one of us had done it, but not a stranger. I don’t have to worry about a stranger ever sneaking off with my child, that’s for sure. My Mom came and helped Ali smile as usual, which is a TOTAL lifesaver – I can’t imagine getting pictures made without her help!! Here are the best shots (more will be on facebook – you can click the link to get to them, facebook member or not.):
Evil little laugh. . .
Family pictures!
Ali and Daddy. . .
Ali and Mommy. This pose looks so grownup to me. . .

Showing off her piggies!
Touchdown!
Raise the roof. . .

When the cameraman picked her up.
Getting a hug from Gramamma to make it all better:
Fun in the chair!

Clapping!

Kicked back in the chair. . .
Having a serious talk. . .

All in all, I’m happy with the pictures. They were kind of busy today, so they were more rushed than usual, which resulted in us thinking of a few things we would have liked to do after it was too late, but oh well – there’s always next time!
p.s. – do you like my new title picture? It was about time!

We went to get Ali’s 18 month portraits + family portraits this morning! I will post a bunch later when I can get out of the chaotic-have-so-much-to-do-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-first mode that always comes the day after vacation. But here’s one of our favorites for now:

I’m back home and am slowly sloshing my way through all of my tons of work emails while Ali naps, and found one that made me smile. I get all notifications of people out sick since I handle HR issues, so I received this simple email from an employee:

I won’t be in today…..stomach virus.

then at the bottom of the email:

No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus Software.

Thank goodness it’s not transmittable through email.

OK – I admit it publicly – I have always been one of those people who thought that co-sleeping with your kids was absolutely crazy – my reasons included the fact that I like to have my personal space and time with just Chris, that it couldn’t be good for kid’s independence and that it was good for kids to learn to sleep on their own, etc.

My parents have always put Ali’s pack and play in their room when she spends the night with them, and they talk about how sweet it is, and although it sounds sweet in principal, it’s never sounded appealing to me. I like my uninterrupted sleep, away time from being a “parent”, and quality time with Chris too much.

However, since we have been sharing a two bedroom condo with the Spurlings for the last three nights, Ali has been sleeping in her pack and play right next to my side of the bed, and I have, very surprisingly, enjoyed it immensely. I wasn’t looking forward to it because Ali has small bouts of crying in her sleep every now and then (they last a minute or less), and I am in general very paranoid about waking her up. But all four of us went in and out of our bedroom to go to the bathroom each night and never woke her up.

So here is the rundown of how our co-sleeping went:

Saturday night: Ali only cried once, and it was before we went to bed. She slept until 8:15!! She woke up talking to herself and completely content. So sweet!
Sunday night: Ali woke up once in the night, and she was moaning (her night crying is, I’m sure, a result of the fact that I can see at least 5 teeth pushing through her gums right now), so after laying her back down didn’t work, I picked her up and put her on my chest, and we dozed together for a little while – I actually have no idea how long it was – and then I put her back in her PNP. It was really sweet time, and I loved it!! Then she slept until NINE A.M.!!! Again, she woke up happy and talking – we heard a big “HI!!” in a very excited voice, and looked at the clock and couldn’t believe what time it was!
Monday night: She again didn’t cry after we went to bed, but I heard her start to talk around 7:00 am. I was still too groggy to rouse myself, so fell back asleep, and every now and then would hear her talking to herself or tumbling around in her PNP. She was perfectly happy to entertain herself while we slept in (Chris never even heard her). I finally started to rouse myself around 8, and so I rolled over, at which time she caught sight of me and gave me her morning greeting of the most excited “HI!!” ever. I picked her up and put her on the bed with us, and she crawled over to Chris and woke him just as excitedly. So fun!

The Spurlings left this evening, so we put Ali in their bedroom for the last night. Although I’m looking forward to our night of alone time and not having to tiptoe to go to the bathroom, I had quite a big tinge of sadness when we put her to bed. I’m going to miss her happy little voice in the morning, greeting me like I’m the most wonderful person on the planet!!

So, although I will not be changing our routines to include co-sleeping anytime soon, I have learned these things:
1. Co-sleeping is not annoying or intrusive – it is actually very sweet and endearing (at least if your child wakes up as contentedly and sleeps as soundly as Ali does).
2. I am not nervous about having to sleep in the same room with Ali anymore.
3. I have a new understanding of why people would choose to co-sleep with their kids.

For all of you co-sleepers out there, please accept my heartfelt apologies for my former misconclusions (is that a word?) about your co-sleeping choice!! :)

Afterthought: Here’s a picture of Chris covering our ocean view with garbage bags to black out the room, thereby altering Ali’s wakeup time from “with sunrise” to 8-9am. Although it seems a shame to cover an ocean view, isn’t it worth it to sleep in on vacation?

Today is our last day, and we are SO glad we decided to stay through today, because it was a BEAUTIFUL day! It was the first day that wasn’t overcast, so it was great weather to be in the water. Here are a few pics from today:

Headed out to the beach:
Ali and Daddy!
Building Sandcastles. . .

Trying to help Daddy with his sandcastle. . .
The whole scene. . .
Ali didn’t like her feet being in the sand. So she would balance herself on her butt and hand, and lift both of her feet off of the ground.

Still keeping those feet out of the sand. . .
She loved the waves lapping at her feet, but I don’t think she liked the sand slipping out from under her feet when the waves went back down, because every time a wave left, she would say “foot” and do a Karate Kid stance. . .
in the waves with Daddy!
Sitting on the piggy bank back in the room:
Ali finally got braver today, and would “scoot” off the side of the pool into the water (meanwhile, AJ is jumping off and laughing). She enjoyed her scoot-jump for quite a while, until we pulled out the video camera, then she quit. So, no video of her scoot-jump.

It’s so interesting to watch the girls and how they experience the world differently – they are always affected by everything in the opposite way. For instance, Ali LOVES being in the waves, but AJ didn’t want to be near the waves. AJ LOVES the pool and jumping in, but Ali was very skittish in the pool and was easily scared by getting water in her face. They are great for each other because they encourage each other to branch out – just like AJ has helped Ali walk better, and Ali has helped AJ talk more. They are such great friends! Last night, Ali woke up at some point and was calling out for AJ. They will be so sad to wake up and not be around each other in the morning!