It took David maybe 15 minutes to do this. He arranged the shoes, walked over to hold onto the knee wall for balance, realized he was too far from the shoes, rearranged the shoes, went back to the knee wall, got one shoe on, lost that shoe while putting on the other shoe, and I
An ode to the best season Watermelon in the backyard Sprinklers in the park A picnic with cousins Pool parties in the backyard Summer
Summer is finally here. It sort of snuck up on us this year. After weeks of one day in the low 60s and the next in the mid-80s, we’ve started seeing mosquitoes and are appalled at the humidity. Welcome to summer in the south. Yesterday after eating fajitas on the porch, Tom grabbed the hose
I just finished reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was great, but I don’t think this is really the best stage of my life to really appreciate the beauty of the writing, the complexity of the story, the details, the characters. I’m just too tired these days. Too much of my brain space
If you have a very discerning eye, you may have noticed that David’s hair is growing. David doesn’t have much hair, he takes after his mama. I’ve actually talked about this before. So before you say, “Oh, I didn’t have much hair as a kid either! I didn’t get hair until I was two!” Check that
I’d been holding off on getting out baby clothes and organizing all of our newborn necessities — things like swaddles, newborn diapers, merlot. I thought maybe our lack of preparation would entice the baby to come a little early. If being a mother for 21 months has taught me anything, it’s that babies like to catch their
I’ve mentioned before that David doesn’t say mama. He doesn’t, but that isn’t the entire story. David CAN say mama, he just won’t. Or, rather, he won’t call me Mama. Usually he doesn’t call me anything, but when he has to he calls me Mommy, which sounds like “Nah-EE”. David also seems to be really
A cardinal recently built a nest in one of the bushes right by our porch. Can you see it? There she is. Since I noticed her, I’ve done a little research. Did you know that male cardinals help the females incubate the eggs? And when the babies hatch, the male cares for the baby birds
The other day during dinner, David was shoving corn in his mouth without putting his water down. He did it for like five minutes straight, which is 34 years in toddler time. Once I went to get the camera, though, he stopped. Toddlers are spiteful like that. As soon as he put his water down
Brigham’s daily schedule looks something like this: He goes outside around 10:30 p.m., and then comes home around 8 a.m. starving, exhausted, missing tufts of fur. Sometimes brings rodents home with him. He eats, drinks from the toilet, and then he sleeps all day. He wakes up around 10:30 p.m., gets a snack, licks himself,
After two weeks of vomit, diarrhea, and laundry, everyone in our family is back to eating solid foods. It’s a good thing, David has missed his daily bowl of marshmallows. Here’s the upside: we’ve saved a ton on groceries. David used to love spaghetti, then he hated it, and now he loves it again. He must have realized
You never realize how many holiday decorations revolve around balls until you have a ball-obsessed toddler. There are pumpkins at Halloween, ornaments at Christmas, and then there are Easter eggs. David calls them Easter balls. Our church hosted a huge Easter egg hunt, an event David has been training for his entire life. He treats
Now that I have a child, the days when they would just take everything — sheets, pajamas, blankets — outside and burn it after an illness makes a lot of sense. Throwing everything in the washing machine just doesn’t give you the same satisfaction as watching all those germs go up in flames. On Easter morning, before
Tom has been traveling for the past two weeks, and both David and I missed him very much. When Tom is gone it means I have to take over all the “daddy jobs,” things like taking out the trash and compost, disposing of the birds Brigham leaves on our porch every morning (happy spring to you, too,
It’s starting to seem like my mother and Mother Nature are conspiring to get me to take my son to play in the snow. March came in like a lion and is going out like a lion. It’s the end of March and we’ve had snow twice in the past four days. Ok, I get
I really, really planned on swimming laps a lot this pregnancy, but now I’m 27 weeks pregnant and I haven’t been in the pool even once. I have a good reason: we stopped going to the gym around mid-December. I had been going faithfully, but then what happened? Oh, that’s right, every time we even
We’re having quite the snow day here in Richmond, Va. It’s way too cold and windy for a delicate flower like myself to go outside, even for the sake of a photo. I mean, I’d probably need to put on a coat or something, right? No thank you. I took this through our living room
This is a true story: When I was in college, I was eating at a Mexican restaurant with some friends and one of the guys saw me double-dipping my chip. When he confronted me, I didn’t deny it, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I said, and I quote: “If you’re going
Photography has gotten much harder as David’s gotten older. I miss the simple days when I could put bunny ears on him, give him a carrot to gnaw on, and have plenty of time to find an angle that would show his chubby rolls and the dogwoods in the background. Those days are gone. Now, whenever
Remember when we migrated our site from Tumblr to WordPress? And we hated how it looked, but we decided to just go with it anyway? Well, nothing (about the look) has changed. I did change the backgroud color one day. And today I updated the “About” page. But besides that, we’re going no where fast.
There’s still sand on our street from last weekend’s snow, but today is all sunshine and warm breezes. We had a solid week of constant rain which turned into a heavy, wet snow, followed by a week of temperatures barely above freezing, followed by another messy snow. And now? Now THIS? I know this is
If you’re a subscriber of this blog (THANKS!) and the posts have had lots of html since the big WordPress switchover, try this: 1) unsubscribe from the current feed 2) resubscribe to http://www.thekriegers.org/feed/ That should fix any problems. If it doesn’t, let me know. And if you weren’t having any problems in the first place? Well,
David spent all morning couponing. We apply all the money saved using the coupons he clips to the back rent he owes us; the late fees are adding up fast. If you didn’t get a chance to count, there were four photos of footballs and one photo of a meatball sandwich in this week’s coupon
For months now David’s been working on his memoirs. The working title is, “My life with the most boring Mom ever.” Like most toddlers, David is nothing but energy. He loves playing with other kids, especially older kids. He desperately wants an older sibling, four older siblings would be even better. Unfortunately for David, that’s
You may have noticed thekriegers.org has a spiffy new website. Well, maybe I shouldn’t use the word spiffy quite yet. This is actually sort of the rough draft. Let me explain. Ever since we started this blog I’ve wanted to use WordPress as our platform, but we stuck with Tumblr for various reasons and I
I’ve known Tom for 11 years, and this is the first year he hasn’t mentioned making New Year’s Resolutions (or, more appropriately, New Year’s Goals). Tom and I haven’t talked about goals or why we are or aren’t going to set goals, but if I’m going to be completely honest, it’s hard to think about
It’s time for New Year’s Resolutions. Actually, a week and a half ago was time for New Year’s Resolutions. We’re running a little late because we were hit with the horrible respiratory virus that’s leveled most of Richmond. At first Tom and I just thought we were getting a little cold. Ten days, 18 boxes
Since oh, I don’t know, the day I started feeding David solids, he’s refused to eat off a spoon. At first he’d grab the spoon and guide it to his mouth. Then he just all-out refused to eat off a spoon. He wouldn’t eat anything off a spoon; yogurt, cereal, not even ice cream. That’s
Here’s to a Christmas full of gifts, time with family, photo ops… …and lots and lots and lots of balls.
My mom’s grandmother lived on a farm, like lots of people did back in those days. So she, my great-grandmother, had to go out and milk the cows every morning. My mom once told me that while my great-grandmother was out milking the cows, she’d give her babies a box of pictures to look through.
David has cried whenever I cook anything since the day he was born. He did it as a newborn, a sitter, a dragger, a crawler, and now that he’s walking he has so much more leverage. Once he pulled my pajama pants down in a fit of rage when I was making his breakfast. A
It’s salt. If missed the explanation of these photos, read the bottomish of this post.
I just put David down for a morning nap, which isn’t going to happen because it hasn’t happened in over a week…but mama still has hope…and a fussy baby. So we’re trying. Last week Tom was out of town for work. Before he left I told him that the one thing that would keep me
Last night I was getting David’s bath ready and he started tossing his bath toys into the tub. He threw a Tupperware bowl, a red toucan, and the letters B-O-Y. In that order. The odds are too great for this to be a coincidence – there are 26 letters and 10 numbers in that basket.
When we went to the Virginia Tech game in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago, we sat with Pittsburgh fans. The Pittsburgh had so much to cheer about that David remembered how to clap during the game. Last week Tom held David while he watched VT play Cinncinnati, and he learned to yell at the television. At least
Walking is a weird milestone because it happens so gradually. It’s not like rolling over. When babies learn to roll over it happens in a moment. It’s like this: 8:22 am: baby cannot roll over 8:23 am: baby can roll over Walking is a little more of a process; there’s a big learning curve. When
Did you ever see the show Fear Factor? It was a reality show where bikini-clad women and shirtless men would “face their fears” by competing in icky and scary challenges for $50,000. Most of the challenges involved eating, and some sort of swimming/underwater challenge. My brother and I really wanted to apply — most of
I’ve only just begun recapping our vacation, but I have to take a quick break because we were on the road again last weekend. This blog generally runs a week or two behind real life, except when real life intersects with current events, like Virginia Tech football. We went to Pittsburgh for the Virginia Tech
I grew up near Smith Mountain Lake, and if you grow up near a lake you perennially hear stories of scary things that happen on the water. Though growing up on the water made me a confident swimmer, it also made me a little more nervous than the average lake-goer. Take lake nerves, add in
You might have noticed that, for the past two weeks, my posts have been a little mature than before. It’s because I’m a year older. But it wasn’t just a year, I turned 30. Thirty. Dun, dun, dun, right? Starting with my nephew Caleb’s birthday last year, I’ve done a birthday post for my immediate family
Tom and I watched the Virginia Tech season opener with his family at Smith Mountain Lake. It was Berkley Grace’s first Hokie game. I remember David’s first game well. This is a photo of Steve and me making pizza dough together before the game. I’m posting it because Steve was the only one not wearing
This video is a PSA for any of David’s future employers. If he ever calls in sick and you hear him sneeze like this over the phone, make him come in anyway because he’s totally faking.
While everyone was enjoying their cake during David’s birthday party, we all gathered in the living room to watch a little year-in-review slideshow. It’s amazing to see how much happens in the first year of a baby’s life, and how much our life has changed in just one year. You can watch it here, or below. When I first
When David woke up last Saturday morning, balloons were floating around the living room. I like to think that’s when his birthday party officially started. We planned a backyard party in August, in Richmond. And somehow it wasn’t hot and the mosquitoes weren’t (that) bad. David woke up from his afternoon nap just as guests
All of David’s cousins have blogs documenting their childhoods and I often read through the archives to see what his cousins were doing when they were his age, what their temperament was like, sleeping patterns, etc. Recently I read this entry on my sister’s blog about how a “maturity light switch” was flipped around 10 to 11
David never hugs me like this. We’re happy to be home. Traveling with a baby is hard; in 9 days David slept through the night just twice. And oh my goodness the stuff. Our car was packed with baby contraptions, brightly colored plastic and bags and bags full of nothing but items designed to absorb
David’s first birthday is coming up, and since my sister and her family won’t be in town on the day of the celebration we decided to throw a pre-birthday party with them. I had planned on just making a cake (I needed to do a trial-run of the cake I’m making for his party) and
The other day I was buying some stakes at Home Depot and the cashier commented that, like David, her daughter was bald as a baby. She said she started washing it more and, guess what? Her hair grew! Maybe I should try that! Strangers make comments all the time. No, I don’t cut David’s hair.
I put David in his red diaper and blue hat with all of his red and blue toys and plopped him in his pool to wish everyone a very happy 4th of July. [David was leaning over the edge of the pool and splashing, which caused lots of water to spill, and drenched our towel.
I was in the kitchen when I realized David had been quietly occupying himself for a few minutes. Usually that means he’s gotten into the compost bin or Tom’s sheet music. When I went to check on him, I was so happy to see he was playing with his ball rather than elbow-deep in kitty