Spring Fever (literally)

Well, we made it through March and it was quite an eventful month!  The first half I spent writing non stop and preparing for my defense.  Mark spent a lot of time in Tampa being Super Daddy while Jacob was sick.  He had a fever for 8 days which ended up turning into sinus stuff and was treated with antibiotics.  He finally improved . . . for a week.  Another fever started last Monday and Mark spent another week home being Super Daddy while I was at a conference in Orlando.  What started out once again as what the doctors thought was a virus ended up being diagnosed a strep on Sunday and his 7 day fever finally broke Monday.  So Doctor Doctor spent her first official full time work day as Mommy Mommy yesterday snuggling with the little man while Super Daddy went back to work.  The antibiotics helped quickly and he's finally feeling a lot better but we're glad it's April and hoping everyone can stay well this month!

In the couple days we had this month that J wasn't sick we went strawberry picking which was a blast.  We got 12 pints of super fresh and delicious strawberries for $6.  This was J's 3rd season picking strawberries and it's turning into a fun family tradition.

Phinally Done!

Wednesday I successfully defended my dissertation and other than a few edits which have already been submitted I'm done with school.  It's a great but odd feeling.  So much of our lives have been devoted to this over the past 5 years.  I am looking forward to doing something other than writing every evening and weekend!

It was made clear to me by Jacob yesterday though that my title as Mommy trumps all.  I was telling Jacob that it was an exciting day because I was done with school and a Dr. Dr.. He immediately, and very seriously told me "No Mommy, you're my Mommy Mommy!" :-)

We had a good time in Gainesville.  Jacob and I drove up early Wednesday morning.  He played with Mark while I defended and we then played at the Pitkins for evening.  Thursday morning Jacob and I had a breakfast date at The Bagel Bakery and had a play date at the park with Max and Genevieve.  It was so fun catching up with them.  Then I had a quick meeting on campus before we drove home all went out for a yummy dinner to celebrate.  

My new title: Hannah W. Siburt AuD, PhD

(That's going to take some getting used to)

A 2.5 year olds vocabulary

I love some of his little Jacobisms and don't want to ever forget them!  He's asking a lot of "how" questions now in addition to "why".  How do you get to school?  How do you do that?  How does the sunrise?  How does Bailey poop? 

Popcorn=popquan

Little=yittle

Surprise=prisprise

Horse=neigh neigh

Bailey=Bubba

Hannah=Mommy or Momma(followed by a laugh)

Mark=Daddy

Piano=pinano

Ls are Ys and Rs are Ws

Napkin=Yakin

That's my favorite

"Mommy, question for you." And then he waits until he has my full attention 

And after nap today.  "I want to go downstairs and play with Daddy and Mommy.  I like you guys.  I miss you guys."

My morning

The following 2 conversations sum up my morning; I've been reflecting on it all day.

My morning conversation with Jacob.  I think he misses someone! Our conversation on the way to school:

J: Me to go school, you go home.

M: yes, you're going to school but I'm going to work

J: No! me go to school, you go home and find my Daddy, you come pick me up

M: 😃ok

He is so observant these days and obviously really missed Mark when he's in Gainesville working during the week.  He knew he was coming home today and was very excited!

After dropping Jacob off at school went to Dunkin' Donuts to get a coffee and this is the order of the person in front of me:

I'd like a coffee, and cinnamon raisin bagel toasted with butter and um <long pause>  a hashbrown, and um <long pause> can I please get whatever donut is popular with 2 year olds.

I'll just leave you to ponder that. . . Wow!

Here's a morning hug from Jacob

2.5 years old

Last Saturday Jacob turned 2.5.  Part of the reason I write this blog is so we don't ever forget some of the little moments in life (and to have them to share with Jacob when he's older).  So this post is a little recap about Jacob at two and a half.  There are many reasons why I'd like to freeze time and keep him at this age forever (and a few reasons why I wouldn't).

• He's a little sponge and I love watching him learn.  This week on our drive to and from school we've been talking about traffic lights (something he's been fascinated with a for a while).   He amazes me everyday as he explains the world to me and understands more and more.  He now realizes that if we have a green light then the cross road has a red light and that's why they are stopped and he explained the whole thing to me this week.  
• Santa brought him color tablets for the bathtub and from talking about those during bath time and deciding what color to make his bath he learned that red and blue make purple.  The other day when he was choosing a bath color I told him the only colors we had left were red and blue.  So he told me "they make purple".
• His imagination is exploding!  He likes to pretend he's the teacher,  zoo keeper, train conductor,  doctor, chef, etc.  He often re-enacts the days events at school for us when we get home so I've learned about what they do at school that way.  His "restaurant" is named Fire and he usually cooks us fruit soups or pizza (his piece doesn't get sauce).  
• He loves to read and often brings big piles of books to me so we can read together.  Most of the time we read to him but he also likes to "read" to us and make us sit crisscross with our hands in our lap :-)
• He likes to help us cook and bake and he still LOVES music. 
• He tells us he's a "worker boy" and really likes being involved in whatever we are doing.  His new "job" is to feed Bailey and she is so patient with him. . . especially on the days when we decides to fill her bowl one piece of food at a time!
• He loves the zoo.  We are so lucky to now live 15 minutes from the Lowry Park Zoo.  I think  we've been at least once a week since moving to Tampa. Jacob could give tours now and came home from school very concerned the other day that the Okapi wasn't at school.  (I think they have zoo animals to play with but they are the typical lions, zebras, elephants, and monkeys). 
• He's every bit  of a 2 year old when it comes to transitioning from one activity to the next which often results in dramatic meltdowns about the most absurd things.  He can snap into and out of a complete meltdown in what seems like milliseconds.  The other day we were in the car and I was looking back at him in his seat asking him for the 150th time to stop doing something and he looked me in the eyes and asked very seriously "Mommy, you have green eyes?".  His scheme worked really well at changing the subject and making us all laugh.  He's quite the inquisitive little boy these days.  
• He asks more and more "why" questions but still doesn't quite understand how to answer those questions if we ask him.  He asks me almost everyday why he likes a particular food and then we have a discussion about the reasons why he might like it and he decides which reason it is. He likes pomelos because they are juicy :-).

We went to the doctor this morning for his 2.5 year check up and he's a healthy, growing little boy.  He weighs 33lbs and is 38 inches tall.  A couple of weeks ago his shoes were suddenly noticeably small so we took him to the shoe store to have his feet measured and they'd grown a size and a half!  He went from a 7 to an 8.5/9 shoe size.  Needless to say he has all new shoes now.

He is still the healthiest, picky eater I've ever met!  He loves his fruit and veggies and only likes extra sharp white cheddar cheese or provolone (which he refers to as "plain cheese").  The other evening we had green beans for dinner and he ate his portion and mine, shoving them in his face as cookie monster does cookies saying "I love green beans!". 

Last Saturday we took him to Disney to celebrate his half birthday.  He wanted to go to Magic Kingdom to see the castle and we had a great day!  The weather was rainy to start but ended up being the perfect temperature.  We rode Aladdin's magic carpets, went on the Jungle Cruise and watched the show at the castle with Mickey and the princesses.  He came home talking non-stop about the princesses and hasn't stopped, so, this week we used his ToysRUs gift card from Christmas to get  cowboy Woody and cowgirl Jessie figurines as well as Ariel and her castle.  They now all play in Ariel's castle and sing Under the Sea.  :-)  One our way home from Disney he was talking about the princesses and I asked him which one was his favorite.  He immediately replied "Mommy princess"!  My heart melted!

That sums up this fun little, lovable, silly, precocious, energetic 2.5 year old.  :-)

Life in Tampa

"Now this is the story all about how . . . My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there . . . I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-air"

Well, this is a little off, as non of us are now the prince of Bel-air, but otherwise it's quite accurate.  We moved a month ago this Sunday and it's been quite the whirlwind.  We're all very thankful for the holiday weekend we have to take a few deep breaths and start to feel like we're settling in.

I have a lot to recap in this post.  Pictures from our surprise trip to Virginia for Christmas.  A wonderful visit with my parents and then my brother who went home on Thursday.   The holiday was full of surprises and was a lot of fun.  After surprising the Grandmas in VA for Christmas and enjoying a holiday with lots of family, Beep and Pops drove back to Florida with us.  (The were planning on coming to visit after Christmas before we surprised them).  Then, Dad flew back to VA to work for a few days while Mom stayed here and played with Jacob during my first week of work and Mark's first week back in Gainesville.  At the end of that week Dad planned to fly back to FL but little did he know that so did Henry.  Henry offered to take him to the airport but took him early "because he had to get to work".  He then went and parked his car and snuck into the airport waiting until Dad boarded the plan to board behind him.  Conveniently when planning this 2nd surprise of the holidays I had Dad's flight confirmation and knew his seat number so Henry was able to book the seat next to him on the plane.  He surprised Dad by coming and sitting next to him and then they flew to FL together.  Mom, Jacob and I went to pick them up at the airport and while Dad came out to the car Henry snuck out of the airport and down the exit road (it's a tiny airport).  As we were leaving the airport Dad saw a "hitchhiker" on the side of the road and pulled over to pick him up while Mom started freaking out until saw Henry and was one again shocked.  It was perfect!  :-)  Then we all got in the car and met Mark for a dinner to celebrate my birthday. 

This coming week will be another new adventure for me as it's the first week since we've moved that I'm on my own with Jacob and Bailey while Mark's working in Gainesville.  Fortunately he only has to be there 2 days this week because of the holiday today and then a conference down here on Thursday.

Living in a big city is a whole different ball game.  There's more to do than you have time for AND more traffic than you have time for.  The news stories are crazy and it takes a lot more time to run a simple errand.   It definitely feels like life in the fast lane and will take some adapting to find a new balance that fits our family.  That being said we've had some great adventures so far.  We've been able to go to the St. Pete Saturday Morning Market twice (a place we loved visiting before moving here), spent a morning at the Tampa Downtown Market, explored the beautiful Gulf Coast beaches and towns, have eaten at two new yummy restaurants, visited the Florida Aquarium and have already been to the zoo twice.  I was reading the paper on Thursday and couldn't believe the list of weekend events in the area.  We're going to have lots of great new adventures this year and have lots of new things to share with our out of town visitors.  
 
I've also realized in past week that this blog may turn into an outlet (of sorts) for me to share the "joys" of complex living during the next year.  We're renting a townhouse in a large complex for the year so we have some time to settle in Tampa and decide where we want to live permanently.   There are so many great places to live here, and so many terrible places to commute from and to that we need to know where we'll both be working before we decide where to look for a house.  In the meantime, we're trying to settle into a 3 story townhouse in a very busy complex.  Fortunately (because we can leave quickly) and unfortunately(because of "busyness" and constant noise) we live at the entrance to the complex.  We have nice amenities, a garage, 2 porches, 2.5 bathrooms and a dishwasher so there are plenty of advantages; but as we learned last week that we also have the lovely "advantage" of being directly next to the emergency siren sensor to activate the complex gates.  We've gotten experience this "fortunate" event 3 times in the middle of the night since moving in.   That's all for this edition of "complex living at it's finest".  Until next time :-)


Pictures from the past month . . . my pictures are in a million different places right now so as I find and download them I'll upload more:

Happy New Year!

2013 is behind us and our family is beginning 2014 with many big changes.  We're slowly settling into our new house in Tampa after a whirlwind December!  In the last month we packed, finished another semester, packed, all got the terrible norovirus bug spreading around the country(a week before moving), packed, finished data collection for my dissertation, moved, drove to VA and back to surprise the Grandmas for Christmas, and started unpacking.  I am not sure how it all got done but I am now sitting on the couch with a cup of tea while Jacob naps on a rainy New Year's Day and can think back on it all and the rest of 2013.

The new year will bring many new adventures to our life. I start my job at USF on Monday.  I'll be graduating with my PhD in May, and Mark will be starting a new job in Tampa this year too.  We've already started exploring our new city, this morning we went to the Florida Aquarium and earlier in the week we went to Tarpon Springs and had delicious Greek dinner after walking on the sponge docks.  Here's to health and happiness in the coming year!