The Adventures of the Gourleys September 2007 - May 2009

My name is Shanna Gourley and it has been 1 year and 10 months since my last post. Hello Shanna.

Yes, I am a big loser. Right after Reese was born I thought - what a great idea - I'll start a blog and let my family and friends know what's happening with our family. I made two posts and never emailed them to anyone. Read the original posts below and you can see what happened in the two months right after Reese was born. Now here we are almost 2 years later. Oops.


So let me catch you up.

August 2007 - December 2007:

• Daryl started working for Edward Jones. He spend spent the rest of the summer/fall studying for his tests. He passed his tests and is officially a Financial Advisor. We found out later in the year that he would be taking over an office downtown less than a mile from our apartment in January 2008. YAHOO!


• Shanna was still working for Clinique as a Regional Assistant in the St. Louis office. I really missed my job in New York and am grateful to still be able to connect with my coworkers in my new role. Also still benefiting from the perks of amazing free make up and skin care products.


• Aidan & Reese started at a new daycare after a very brief 'at home daycare' experience. It is just not for me or my family. I am not judging anyone that runs or has children that attend 'at home day cares,' we just had a bad experience and I have found what I always knew to be true, I love the structure and institutional methods of daycare centers. Something about the cubbies lined up in a row with each child's hook labeled with their name and the daily status sheets that they send home each day just makes me happy. The kids are happy there and they learn so much. Plus our new daycare is only 1 mile from our loft.


• Aidan is walking very well (read: running) all over and has an amazing vocabulary. He learned sign language at about 8-10 months old and it has been a huge help for us. He is also an expert at falling - he must get his balance from me. I keep Vaseline with me at all times - turns out it is a great remedy for bumps and bruises. I have also purchased stock in Spiderman BandAids and Neosporin. BandAids are my Windex - for those of you who have seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."


• Reese is growing too. She is so different from Aidan - it will be amazing to watch them grow up together. Reese laughs, but she almost always has a very serious look on her face

• We became friends with Melissa and Oscar Iglesias. They live down the street from us and moved here recently from New York City too. They planned to open a New York style pizzeria in Spring 2008. Their son Marin is 6 months younger than Aidan. We walked almost daily with Marin and Melissa and spent so much time playing on the St. Louis Memorial Arch grounds.


• For Halloween Aidan was a monkey and Reese was a banana. How cute is that?

• We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Natalie, Tim, Guy and Levi and even celebrated Natalie's birthday!

• My mom, grandma, sister Emily, and nephews Tristian and Elijah visited us for Reese's first Chanukkah. This is a huge treat for Aidan and Reese because they get 8 presents from each person. My dining room table and living room were cover in presents and then later with torn wrapping paper.
• 
  We had a great Christmas too! I took the kids to meet Santa - Reese dirty looked Santa too. I guess it doesn't matter at this point because she couldn't ask Santa for anything anyway. Aidan loved Christmas. He really enjoyed all of the presents.

January - December 2008:

• Daryl got his own Edward Jones office in January. He worked a lot of hours all year. Everyone told us that the first few years are the hardest. We'll let you know when it gets easier. We went to our first Summer Regional Meeting for Edward Jones in Memphis, TN. It was hard work for Daryl, but I got to spend time sightseeing with the kids. We walked Beale Street, went to the Fire Museum, and saw the ducks at The Peabody Hotel.

• Aidan and Reese attended Music Together classes. I love watching them participate in the class. They are getting more active and Aidan even knows the words to some of the songs. I think he will be a drummer, they boy has rhythm.

• Aunt Peggy visited us in April. Really she was in town to see Barry Manilow and we happen to live here too! We had so much fun showing her our neighborhood and our loft.

• Aidan and Reese enjoyed their first Peeps on Easter! Yeah sugar!

• Aidan turned 2 years old and we celebrated with a Dinosaur theme birthday party. His cousins Trisitian and Elijah were there and so were his friends Marin, Finni, and Max.

• Aidan, Marin and Reese are such great friends!

• We celebrated Reese's first birthday. She loved her cake and loved opening all of her presents. All her friends came over for a pool party.
  

• Aidan started potty training. I ending up doing a LOT of laundry. I tried the "one day" training method. I know it has worked for some people, but not us. Otherwise, this is the longest day of my life. Reese was staying with my mother-in-law for the weekend so that I could totally devote my time to the "potty party." For those that don't know the method, you are supposed to get a doll that pees and a mini toilet. You "teach" the doll to successfully go in the potty and throw a "potty party" whenever the doll makes in the toilet. I had all my supplies - doll who pees (we named her Charlie), mini toilet for Charlie, cupcakes, party hats, streamers, party horns, and lots of juice. Keeping the kid pumped up with juice and sweets is supposed to make them have to go and after all the attention that Charlie got he is supposed to want to have his own "potty party." Everytime they "go" you are supposed to cheer and give a lot of hoopla over it. By 10:30 am, Aidan wanted his own party. All was going well and thought I was a genius until 1pm when Aidan couldn't stop peeing all over himself. We had too many "parties" and he "broke the seal." There was no stopping him now. The big problem ahead of me was nap time. I knew it would be disaster because he was wetting his pants every 10 minutes. I would change him and then throw everything in the washing machine. This continued through the afternoon. We skipped naptime after I couldn't get the sheets off the bed and decided to dismantle the bed and make it into a daybed. The new daybed didn't have a rail and Aidan kept falling out which freaked him out so he didn't want to stay in his bed. IMMEDIATE trip to Babies R Us needed to purchase crib rail. With the help of daycare, a lot of patience, and Daryl's phrase "drop a duce," which Aidan loves to shout out in public places we got better as the year came to a close.

• In June my job with Clinique was eliminated along with the jobs of many of my other co-workers. I was excited and devastated at the same time. Summer was in full bloom and the only positive spin I could put on being unemployed was the idea of being a lady of leisure for the summer. Then it hit me - Once my stockpile ran out, I would have to pay retail for my cosmetics. Tear.

• My friend Evie had her baby boy Noah in August. Having been off for most of the summer, I spent so much time with Evie as she prepared for Noah's arrival. I was so excited that he was finally here. Another downtown mom and another playmate for Aidan and Reese!

• Reese was a flower for Halloween and won 1st place in a costume contest. Aidan was Superman. He loved his cape! He was so proud and excited to be Superman! Aidan won second place in the costume contest!

• Reese finally started walking in December! Best Christmas present ever. I thought she was so stubborn that she would never walk only because I wanted her to so bad!

• We had breakfast with Santa and Reese managed to dirty look Santa again this year. Hopefully next year will be better.

January 2009 - April 2009:

• Our friends Melissa, Oscar and Marin moved to Barcelona. We are so sad because we miss them so much. Aidan asks about Melissa everytime we walk by her apartment building. I told him that they moved to Barcelona, but I'm sure he doesn't understand what Barcelona means or how far it actually is from St. Louis.

• We decorated Easter eggs. Aidan handled the eggs like Lenny from "Of Mice and Men," so we decided not to eat the cracked and possibly poisoned eggs. Reese and Aidan both loved their Easter baskets, especially the Cadbury eggs!

• Aidan turned 3 in May. He had a Train birthday party at Tower Grove Park. My friend Sarah let me use her niece and nephew's life size train set and it was huge hit! All the kids wanted to ride it. It was a beautiful day and the birthday boy had a wonderful time. He is now telling me at the end of any event big or small, "Mommy, we had fun, didn't we?" Yes, we did buddy, we had fun!