Pretty Much a Rock Star

Tuesday was the big day. The day I took the FOUR hour test to determine if I would become a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW). Once a Social Worker has a Masters Degree they can take the LCSW test and it opens up doors for better jobs. Once you have that license and work for 2 years under a LICSW and receive 100 hours of supervision then you can take the LICSW exam. The exam consists of 170 questions, all of which are multiple choice and made to trick and confuse you. They usually give a brief scenario and expect you to know what type of therapy is being used, what clinical diagnoses someone has as defined by the DSM-IV, how to assess for different things such as Domestic Violence, Suicide Risk, etc. They test your knowledge on stages of development, different types of family therapies, group therapy techniques, defense mechanisms, and on and on and on. It is a lot of information to jam into your head; then you have to apply it to the scenarios they give you and learn how they want you to answer the questions.

I have never been great at multiple choice test, so I was nervous to say the least. I have been studying for months now and really intensely for the last two weeks. It has been such a stressful time!

Tuesday morning I woke up early, got ready, Christian dropped me off in Back Bay, I spend 3 hours and 40 minutes answering all the questions and then pushed the FINISHED button. My hand were sweaty and I was shaking; I was SO nervous. Then the letter came up to tell me if I passed or failed; my eyes would not focus, I could not find any words that meant anything to me. FINALLY, the words CONGRATULATIONS popped out at me. Instantly I put my head in my hands and began to silently sob. Passing this test opens up so many opportunities for me and my family in terms of jobs I can do, my salary etc. It is something I have worked for since I decided to become a Social Worker. It was a really great moment of accomplishment for me. I made it outside the building and instantly called the love of my life to tell him the good news. He screamed, I screamed, and I was all smiles for the rest of the day!

The best news of all is that I NEVER have to study for another test EVER again!

A special thanks to my dad who helped fund the test and some of the study materials! As well as my sweet hubby who allowed me the time to study when he had so much to do himself. And to my sweet friends and mom who sent me encouraging words and texts before the test!

Wahoo! I did it!

Look What I Can Do

Top Three

The top 3 highlights of my day:

1. A 60 degree day that felt like a special Gift from God to all his children (this one in particular)

2. My boot camp class instructor told me I was looking skinny (oh HECK yes!)

3. When Berkeley told me at dinner tonight, "Mommy, doggie poopy butt." (Hey honey we need to start watching what we say, as we have a mimic in our midst)

Berkeley at 26 months

Mr. Berkeley is growing up so fast. He is learning to talk more and more and his personality is really emerging these days. I want to write down some of the cute things he does or says right now as I know my memory is pretty poor; and so that all his family that rarely gets to see him can know what he is up to.

• Berke Man LOVES to dance; anytime he hears music he starts to move to the beat. He loves all kinds of music. Even driving in the car he starts rocking back and forth in his car seat and doing some fist pumps when he hears a song he likes.



• His most said phrases are: "I did it!", "Mommy, what's that?"(this is said to any care taker..mommy, daddy, babysitters, etc.), "Show, Mommy?"(I want to watch a movie), "I pad" (this kid has a serious obsession!!!), "A goo?" (I want milk), "Where'd he go? Where'd he go?"



• Berke is very good at making many animal noises. My favorite are his pig, owl and elephant sounds.
  



• Berke loves bath time. He pours his foam letters and numbers in tub and will hold one letter up after another asking, "What's that mommy?" I tell him, then we move to the next. He isn't really picking up the ABC's in order, but he does know quite a few letters from playing this game. He picks up the letter B and says, "B for Berkey." He also knows the letters, F, S, Q, Y, and O. There is really no rhyme or reason to it. But it always amazes me when he picks up a letter and tells me what it is.



• This kid really loves books, not reading them so much, but looking at the pictures and asking, "What's that Mommy?" (are you starting to get the picture of how much this phrase is said at our house?) He loves to name objects and just look through the pictures in books. We make frequent trips to the library to get new books. Last go around he was obsessed with a book called COWGIRL ROSIE. We discussed the book several times, and one night I gave Berke his milk and his reply to me was "YeeHaw!" Christian and I looked at each other and just started cracking up.



• He still loves Elmo and when we ask him what Elmo says, he states, "La la la." When we ask what Cookie Monster says, he pretends to eat a cookie like Cookie Monster does and says "namnamnam." He sleeps with all 5 of his Sesame Street stuffed animal friends at night. He is FINALLY learning that Abby and Zoey are not the same character and has even said Zoey a few times.



• Berke's favorite shows right now are Sesame Street, The Cat in the Hat movie, all his Elmo's World Movies, Cars, and Curious George. We are pretty good at only letting him watch 45 minutes of TV a day or else he would become a serious couch potato. It doesn't stop him from asking for it all day everyday however!



• Berke loves playing with all of his musical instruments; he has lots of them. Almost daily he will bring everyone in the house an instrument and then say, "okay, go!" We all play our instrument while he dances to the beat we create.
  



• Berke also has an obsession with Thomas the Train which he calls "Tommy." He can name all the trains he has, Percy, Victor, Charlie, Lady (he calls her Lily), and Freddie. He loves to wear the Thomas sweatshirt his great grandma Evans gave him for his birthday. He always wants to watch the Thomas show on TV, but it only keeps his attention for 5 minutes max; it really is kind of boring.



• He also loves doing puzzles and is pretty good at them. He will sit at his table in his room and asks, "Car Mommy?" That means he wants his car puzzles; he has 4 car puzzles that we cycle through a couple times a day. He has many other puzzles as well but he is on a strike against all puzzles that do not involve cars/planes/choo choos. He will occasionally do his tool puzzle as he loves to hammer.



• Berke has always been a good sleeper, he was sleeping 8 hours by 7 weeks old. However he has always done odd things in his sleep. Luckily he overcame the head banging stage a while ago and we have done well until a few weeks ago. We have now entered a new sleeping stage where he is waking up every night between 2-4 a.m. and is awake for an average of 2 hours. During this time he is a very happy, very chatty little two year old. He talks and laughs and has a grand old time. The last couple days this chatting has turned into yelling; not a mad yelling just a "I am gonna talk really loud and animated" kind of yelling. This is not the easiest thing to sleep through and there is really nothing we have figured out to quite him down. We try whispering to him and he giggles, we try giving him all his stuffed animals and he talks to them, we try giving him a book and he yells, "What's that Mommy?" So we just close both the doors and wonder when this new madness will end. He NEVER cries, so what do you do? Any suggestions. Needless to say, this kid seriously loves his crib and is in no way ready for a toddler bed. He sleeps like a maniac and if he were in a bed now he would probably be up playing with his toys at 2 in the morning.
  



• This kid is a picky eater! His diet consists of milk, vegetable juice, veggie dogs, spaghettio's, PB and J, graham crackers, crackers, fruit snacks, apples, applesauce, bananas, sometimes yogurt, craisins, dried blueberries, raisins, banana bread, raisin bread, waffles, pancakes, cheerios, and cheese tortillas. He won't touch a vegetable and the green smoothies that he loved for so long he now rejects. He refuses to try anything new unless it is candy. It is crazy to me how he knows sweet stuff and will try it right away! He doesn't like cake but he loves ice cream and all things chocolate (he really did inherit the Gentry sweet tooth). Luckily we rarely have junk in the house so he doesn't get to indulge too often.



• Berke is not really averaged size for his age, he is kinda short and small. Luckily all of the 18 month summer clothes that we bought for him to wear last summer (that never fit because he wore 12 months until he was almost 2) will fit him this summer. He is still sporting 18 month clothes at the (26 months) moment. He still wears a size 5 shoe and we are hoping this summer he can move up to a size 6 so he can fit in the adorable sandals I bought for him.



• Berke has some signs of OCD, if he sees the side of a rug curled up, he has to fix it. If he sees a drawer open he has to close it. He cant stand to have his sleeves rolled up. He gets obsessed with shirts with zippers and buttons; they have to be just a certain way.



• Berke is a hitter! He hits any kid that comes near him and has any thought of even looking at the toy he is playing with. He has gotten very good at saying, "Sorry, no hitting" We work on this constantly and I am seeing NO signs of improvement. Hopefully he grows out of this. Time out is sometimes a useful tool, but many times he hits and then says to me, "timeout mommy?" Then he laughs and sits in time out and folds his arms; he thinks its funny. What do you have to say about that Super Nanny?



• Berke loves to go to the babysitter's house. Megan is the BEST babysitter EVER! She is so good with Berkeley and really cares about him so much. I could not imagine a better place for Berkeley to be 2 days a week. He loves Megan's little boy, "Q". Every time we get in the car he asks, "Q house?" He is always happy to go and never wants to leave. He loves his little friend Q so much. When I tell Berke we are going to church, he says, "Oh Church, Q, RyRy?" He knows he gets to see his favorite people when he goes to church.




• This kid is generally VERY happy and is always trying to make us laugh. He has a contagious laugh and smile. He is so sweet and happy the majority of the time. He is also quirky and silly and that is why he fits into our family so perfectly!
  

Out and About

We've been able to do a couple family outings this week since the weather has been a little more cooperative. I had an evening event on Thursday at work, so I had the morning off and we all went to the Museum of Science. Luckily my co-worker gave me free tickets, so we were set!
Berke was as high as a kite to get out of the house and have a place to run around and be "free." This winter has been tough, and if it weren't for him visiting his friend Q, he may never have gotten out of the the house.

The best part about the Museum of Science (for Berkeley) is not all the amazing exhibits they had, but all the BUTTONS that he got to push.
Buttons=pure bliss.

I love spending time with my little monkey!

We invited our friends Lina and Rani to join us on our outing and they had a great time as well. I love this picture of Lina getting all close and cozy with Berke and in true boy form, he is totally awkward and silly. There is just no way he got this from his dad.......okay maybe he did.

Saturday we drove to Parker's Maple Barn in New Hampshire to see how Maple syrup is made, and then partake in delicious breakfast foods which included this amazing syrup. They just tapped the trees last week and are still collecting the sap to make the syrup. They collect the sap which is pretty much sugary water, in these buckets. It is a pretty amazing process.

We love how many wonderful things there are to do and see in New England. What a fabulous place.

I love how cute my boys are; two peas in a pod I tell ya!

I'll be on your side forever more....cause that's what friends are for

Presidents Day weekend for the last few years has meant Julia and Laci time. This year we didn't really have anything planned and thought perhaps the summer time might be a funner time to meet up. It isn't easy to get together two gals who live across the country from each other. I have been having a particularly difficult time lately with some personal things and because my BFF aka THE MOST AMAZING FRIEND EVER, decided she would fly out to see me and have some much needed BFF time. We had the BEST three day whirlwind weekend. I'm so grateful to have such a wonderful gal pal.

When she arrived we had a lovely 60 degree day; we took full advantage and walked around downtown and visited the aquarium thanks to the FREE tickets my co-worker gave me. Berkeley was so happy to be out of hibernation; he ran around the entire place rejoicing his new found freedom. He would stop and say' "Oooo, what's that Mommy?" His new things is grabbing our fingers to touch things he wants to touch, not sure why.

The highlight for me was seeing a clam spit water at me, it gave me a pretty good scare.

We also enjoyed the 80 penguins at the Aquarium, I never seen a penguin poop before, but now I have. We had a great time looking at all the sea creatures, a 70 year old tortoise, sharks, jellyfish, starfish, huge crabs, otters, etc.
Afterward, we sent the boys home so we could have a grown up night out on the town. We relished our dinner at a fine dining establishment without entertaining a two year old which was simply marvelous! We had grown up talk, girly talk and giggled a whole lot. We left the restaurant to find wind and rain; winds so strong at times that we either could not move forward no matter how hard we tried or we had near "run-ins" with cars as the wind was making us run with its strong forces. We enjoyed a movie....in a movie theater. I was able to use a gift card that I got for the theater Valentines 2010; yep that is how often I go to movies. We saw The King's Speech and it was SUPERB!

There is a few things that Julia loves: Dr. Pepper, me, Jed, and Chick-Fil-A. They do not have Chick-Fil-A in Seattle; and the closest one to me is 30 minutes away. But don't you know that we drove there (even though I am morally opposed) to get that darn food, cause that is what you do for your friend who flew across the country to see you.

After lunch we embarked on a SHOPPING SPREE~! We went to a few stores at the Burlington Mall and then headed to the outlets, another hour drive, but that is just how we roll to find the most amazing deals ever. Let's just say we found some deals that were so good that it would have been criminal to leave them behind. My #1 steal of the day were the hot black leather boots, you know, the ones that are the rage these days, that were originally $109 and I got them for $27! Did I mention that I look like a total diva in them? I also found some cute sweaters for $7-10 and some other fabulous shirts nothing over $10. Julia found a pair of $80 pants for work for the lovely price of $12. Man I sure do love shopping, but more than that, I love finding amazing deals. No wait, I think what I love the most is shopping without a kid.
We really did SHOP till you DROP!

We ended the evening with take out Thai and the movie Date Night which was so funny.
During the visit we also managed to squeeze in a Sunday Brunch and mani-pedis.

Berkeley was a little shy around his God Mother but he enjoyed having her around. Julia instantly won his love by bringing him a Tickle Me Elmo and teaching him how to do "Wolverine Knuckles."

The visit was short but surely sweet. We had an amazing time together. I stayed up way too late and got up way too early, but it was totally worth it. I feel so lucky to have a friend that I can just let loose, talk about exactly how I feel and just be listened to and can always have fun with.

Love you Ju!

I Heart You!

Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day with all my HEART and "SOLE"!!!

Love, Berkey