Wednesday, May 26, 2010

And now for something completely different.

Hmm… ok, not completely different – we’re back to the work life balance question. It just feels a little different… maybe… Well, it feels effing overwhelming is what it feels…

Oh right, the point.

So last week my husband came home and told me that he’d just heard on NPR that furloughs were on the way. Apparently the number of days of furlough would depend on how much you currently make starting at 3 and going up. I am deeply suppressing my tangents on this and will just say his is 5 days.

It’s unclear to us what 5 days means – 5 of his 24 work days or 5 8 hour equivalents (about a week’s pay v. 2.5 weeks pay). And there’s so little info available as he hasn’t heard it directly yet. I’m going to refrain from shooting my mouth off here to blow off a lot of steam in deference to him / his work, as that’s not REALLY what this post is about. I’m just giving you a framework to work in here before I start on the path.

So here’s the framework – he’s got a furlough coming (oh, a furlough means you don’t work/don’t get paid for some amount of time. So rather than just cutting your salary by 2 or 4 or whatever percent, they pay you that much less, but you also don’t have to work), so we’ve been looking at our finances and our plans anyway. He’s been talking about getting a part time job in addition to fire fighting. He’s even considered quitting and going back to consulting full time.

Of course, if he works 5 or 6 days a week, what does that do to our current daycare amalgam – where I work 3 days and have the baby the other 4 (usually 2 or 3 with him), he works 2 days and gets her on his own 2 and his Mom watches her one day. We weren’t sure we could bring his Mom up to 3 days a week – she might not want to do it / it might be too much. So we talked about whether I should quit (I don’t really want to. I don’t always like my job, but I like the balance) or what we need to consider.

And then…

Reorgs are coming at my office. Due to some M&As, we likely don’t need as many support staff (I’m in finance) as we have and the role I currently have is probably on the chopping block. But I’m a good worker and I’ve known my boss a long time and he thinks there might be some other options for me. But part time? That doesn’t seem too likely – at least not short term.

He mentioned a couple of options. In another life, one of them might actually have been of real interest to me. Maybe it still is… but really, right now (right this second), I like getting some good quality time with my baby and just working 3 days. Maybe I could get into the stuff I’d be doing, but the idea of leaving her hurts my heart a little.

Always the negotiator, I suggested that maybe I could jump into that role full time for a couple of months and then once I had the hang of it and had reorg’d that team a little bit to better use their strengths, maybe I could go part time. He agreed to present that version to his boss. But… whoa…

I mean, it’s good to be wanted and to have a good reputation. It’s good to have a job (the other option is that I’d be losing my job in a couple of months). But it feels like we’re really getting hit with a lot.

And…

Even though he’s going to float the full time for awhile transitioning to part time idea by his boss, there’s no guarantee on that. I may get into and determine – yeah, this is really a full time job. And then I’m screwed and working full time. Maybe I’d get lucky and find something else, but I probably wouldn’t even make as much as my severance package would have been in that time.

It all makes my head (and heart and stomach and…) hurt.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I just needed to throw this all out there to the universe. Please say a prayer for me or send me good vibes or whatever. Thanks!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Post it Note Tuesday

My weekly homage to Supah Mommy is here with post it notes - late again...





Friday, May 21, 2010

An idea as smooth as a baby's bottom... I hope!

OK after my last post dissing pampers (I apologize to my good friend who works for P&G, but seriously, man, you didn’t see my baby’s butt!), this seems like a fitting next post. Stephanie at My New Life As Mom is hosting a “Fluffy Bottom Cloth Diaper Event” form June 1-30.

As we were going through the “what are we going to do” ugh of the diaper rash issue, I mentioned to my husband that if we didn’t come up with another solution, I wanted to try cloth diapers. He was totally opposed. I believe the exact quote was – I’d prefer to let her go naked and just clean up the furniture/rugs later. (um, ew!)

I think a big part of the problem is neither one of us really has any idea how cloth diapers work (to this point, I’ve found disposables to be one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century!). We didn’t wear them. No one younger than us in our family wore them. I’ve heard stories – you rinse them in your toilet? Who knows what else? But none from anyone who has ever used them.

So I’m kind of excited by this event – because it’s not just giveaways (yes, I do love those too!). It’s also some education about cloth diapers – styles, price comparison, misconceptions, etc.

Anyway, if you’re at all interested too, go visit herhere and find out more.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Doesn’t the name Pampers imply some level of … pampering?

When the monkey was born, the hospital had Pampers Swaddlers – they gave us a bunch to take home and we’d gotten a bunch at the baby shower. They seemed like a good choice. But we did also have some Huggies – I think some free samples and maybe some from friends. We tried them and it seemed that we had far more leaks / explosions / ew moments with Huggies than with the right size Pampers (my husband had an uncanny ability to open the bigger size packages she hadn’t yet grown into and think they were the right ones in those days).

So while I’ve never been much of a person for brand loyalty (people loyalty sure! Brand – um, is it on sale?), we became Pampers people. And for 13 or 14 months, we felt a loyalty here. Sure, Costco sold Huggies for cheaper, but remember? They leaked. Not worth it. And there were the non-name brands – but didn’t that seem risky for my little munchkin’s caboose? No, Pampers people we were.

And then a friend of mine mentioned that she thought that Pampers had changed their diapers – to some new “dry max.” She said the box looked the same, but the new diapers were thinner and she thought that they might have even caused a diaper rash.

I didn’t think too much of it. I didn’t even realize that they’d changed. And then, I started to notice a diaper rash on the monkey – maybe a little over a month ago. OK, these things happen. She’d never really been prone to it before, but ok – we need to get on top of changing her more often and lube her up with diaper cream. I’m on it.

Except that didn’t seem to do it. It would get a little better, but the second you didn’t cover her in an inch thick layer of diaper cream for one or two changes (usually it would be that I’d be out and didn’t have it on hand), the rash would be back. I mentioned to my husband that maybe we should see a doctor, but he brought me back to the point I’d been making for a week – what will the doctor tell us? Change her more frequently and get cream on her every time. We just need to do that.

Until one day, I went to change her and her butt looked horrible! I mean, it looked really painful. It was all red with lots of angry looking bumps. I called the doctor right away and in we went. He told me that what had started as diaper rash had opened the door to other opportunistic infections – staph (but not the bad kind. The kind that is always on your skin.) and a yeast infection. He gave me his “recipe” for diaper cream, called Dr. Bill’s Butt Paste – it was equal parts A&D, Lotrimin AF and Neosporin. I went to get the ingredients and, though not a brand girl, went name brand on all – creating a tub of $20 diaper cream.

A week later she was still all red. It wasn’t as bad. But it wasn’t good. We went back. I saw the other doctor and she gave me a prescription. She mentioned lots of possible causes – any change in diet or soap or cream and did mention that some people thought the new pampers could be the cause of this. I began to wonder… But didn’t switch her out yet as I had the new prescription.

In our overzealousness, we ran through the whole 30 day supply in a week. And really – her rash wasn’t gone. It was better certainly – but she was still red and a little bumpy. We went back to the doctor – he gave us another script (telling us to only use this one twice a day, not every time – apparently not all of us were listening when this advice was given (ahem)) and we mentioned we’d switched to Huggies the day before. He told us – you’re actually not the first parents to make this connection. I can’t tell you if it’s true, but you’re not alone in thinking it.

A week later was her 15 month appointment and, of course, we did another check on the rash. She looked a ton better, but her skin still looked a little discolored. The doctor looked and said that discoloration actually wasn’t diaper rash, but the healing skin. The rash was gone, but it could take up to 6 months (SIX MONTHS!) for the color to go away and the skin to be entirely normal.

UGH. So we are no longer Pampers people (this is what I get for brand loyalty!). And the internet is implying that a number of other people are going that same way – though Pampers official statement is still that this product was well tested and is not an issue. We’ve given away the rest of our size 3’s (it was of course the ONE TIME we were totally stocked up!) to friends not having the issue.

Is anyone else having any issues with the new Pampers? Do you have a specific product for which you have unshakeable brand loyalty?

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Mother's Day

I mentioned last week that we went away on Friday and Saturday. What I didn’t mention was that the combination of pollen and screaming (when I was awake. I can’t account for the blacked out parts…) pretty much destroyed my voice. On Friday afternoon it worked – sort of a sultry low voice. My husband kept asking me to say something sexy – like 'you can hold the remote.' But Saturday morning, it was just plain gone. I actually didn’t feel too bad – I just couldn’t speak much. You’d think this could work out well for my husband’s weekend, but instead he spent a lot of time hearing angry whispered “yells” from me telling him to STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!

We got to his parents house to pick up the baby and his family noticed my lack of voice right away. The husband looked at them and said, but don’t make fun of her for it – you’ll get in a lot of trouble.

And would you believe his Mom started making fun of me for it!?!?! Even noting, it’s OK, I won’t get in trouble / she won’t get mad at me. (!!!!!!) Ok, now NORMALLY I really love my mother in law. She’s (well, usually!) a very sweet lady and always very nice to me and doesn’t try to tell me what to do or how to raise my child or things I should do for her son – or ANY of those typical “mother in law” type things. But, dude, SERIOUSLY! You’re going to rank on the laryngitis! When your son just forewarned you about this.

Actually, she only did it once. Maybe she saw the look I shot her son as she whispered and faked sign language to me.

Anyway, we went to bed pretty early again (I was feeling wiped) and got to sleep through till 7:15 when the monkey decided it was time to be up! After her breakfast, my husband bundled her into the car to go buy bagels (my breakfast of choice) while I went back to bed. We finished up and got ready to go to church for 10:30. He was about ready to go (and laughed that I changed the baby from the jeans, red socks and colorful pink sweater into a little party dress. It was mother’s day after all!) when we noticed the baby looked exhausted. Church was NOT going to be fun. So we put her down for a nap and promptly fell asleep ourselves with plans to go at noon.

Well, thank goodness the “noon” mass is actually at 12:15, as I woke up at 12:14 with a SHIT! As I saw the clock (I like to throw in as many expletives as I can to celebrate the Sabbath… Yup, I’m an overachiever that way). We ran to get back out the door and then drove like “Catholics late for mass” (my husband’s universal expression for really, really horrible and impatient driving) and made it there horribly late – but it was our last church option, so we went with it. (It’s been a lot of years since I’ve slept through a noon mass – oh, I miss those days… ;))

Our afternoon was pretty low key. We FINALLY put up the baby gates on our stairs (something that will perplex the dog to no end for days to come!) and hung out till we met my in-laws for dinner. Late. As always.

I think we just might not be very good at low key…


Tell me about your Mother’s Day. Or how you have managed to combat the ever ongoing battle with late! (We won’t discuss how this post topic is a week late…)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Is it a good sign or a bad sign that I am not the only one in the family cooing over baby ANYthings?

My husband got home from work about 8 on Friday morning and heard a noise in the front yard - sort of a crying / hurt animal noise. But he didn't see anything, so he came in.

About 9:30, we were headed out and then he saw it - a baby raccoon was at the bottom of our tree in the ivy (or the #$%@$ ivy, as I prefer to call it), looking like it wanted to climb up, but couldn't. We stopped to look at it for awhile, took pictures of its cuteness and then wondered... hmm... you don't usually see baby animals all by themselves...

We decided that mama must be gone and this little orphan was left alone on the lawn. My husband asked what we should do. Pragmatically I said, we should go to the appointment we were now late for and think of what to do about this when we got home, as it would surely still be there if mama was really "gone."

We got back around 11:30 and didn't see "Rocky" (or Roxanne. I never really got to know the little furball *that* well). But then we went out to the store a few hours later and I realize he (or she) had just moved a bit and was now about 3 feet from the tree on the other side. We also noticed that there was a second baby over there, but it looked like that one hadn't made it. So we were left wondering what to do again?

Now here's the thing - if this were a full grown raccoon, we'd be giving the thing a damn wide berth. I might be calling animal control for that, but for very different reasons! But this one was... cute!

So we called animal control who gave us the number of some rescue operations in the area. We left a message and headed to the store. All the while my husband was saying, "we can't adopt a raccoon" (in that voice that says - I'm trying to think of how we can adopt this raccoon...). The rescue people called us back and offered to pick it up. They also confirmed that we shouldn't feed it (they have very sensitive stomachs as babies) and we should be careful about touching it (keep the baby and the dog away), as they can be born with rabies and it can be transferred via fluids.

So when we got home, my husband put on his fire gloves (to protect if it bit) and set up a little "home" for it - a cardboard box with newspapers, a hospital blanket and a hot water bottle. Apparently, when he picked it up (by the scruff as mama would have), it barely reacted at all. And we waited for the rescue people to come by. (Side note - when he called the first rescue number, he got the "rescuer's" husband who said - she's taking ANOTHER raccoon?!)

After a little while, my husband went to check on the baby (he'd left the box outside) and it was gone! There was a big scratch (from the outside) in the box and the little raccoon was gone along with his/her sibling on the lawn. Mama came back! Or so my husband assures me to prevent the inevitable - did something come and eat the baby raccoon? - conversation.

Now all this is cute and Disney. But just wait for my blog in a year or two - and those #$~!% raccoons are in my garbage again! ;)

So am I the only sucker who tries to save baby animals (that will later destroy my yard!) or do you do the same?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

When I really have nothing to blog are knock knock jokes acceptable?

As I've already whined in earlier posts, I'm a little under the weather this week and therefore everything I'm coming up with is starting to sound all whiney and annoying even to my own ears (eyes?). So rather than post those things, I wanted to direct you over to Ian at the Daily Dose of Reality who is sponsoring Mission Monkey, a raffle to raise money to help his friend whose young daughter was diagnosed with cancer.

Click on monkey to donate...please help!







While I've never experienced this (and pray to God I never will), some good friends of mine have (with a happy ending, as their daughter is doing very well now) and can only imagine how rough this is for that family, so I wanted to spread the word to the blogging world. Thanks!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I generally thought it was pretty fun until I started to black out. For my husband, blacking out was where the fun began!

Monday I mentioned that we went to Kings Dominion (an amusement park) as a belated birthday gift to my husband last week. Now the awesome thing about going to an amusement park on a random Friday in May is there are no lines. Paradoxically, the problem with going to an amusement park on a random Friday in May is – there are no lines.

Wait, bare with me!

I hate waiting on all those crazy lines in the blazing heat as well. But I’ve come to realize – I think that those lines possibly serve a purpose. They give me time to resettle my stomach and hold my lunch back down before I get on again. This was not an option last week. No… it wasn’t…

We got to the park about 10 (it opened at 9:30) and headed in to see what the day would bring us. I haven’t been to an amusement park in several years – the last time was when my friend’s company sponsored an amusement park day in November. So there were actually almost no lines then as well – and I already knew that no lines could be a problem… Before that… hmm… well, when my Mom and I went to Disney in 2004, we were using day 3 of our 4 days passes bought in 1989. So you get the basic idea.

We headed right for the grizzly – my husband’s favorite from his previous visit (senior class trip, 1996). We jumped into the front car and away we went. We got back – and hey, still no one waiting for the front car – let’s go again. The third time, we had to move back to another car. Then I said I needed to stop to walk to another ride before going again.

So we got to the next one – I believe it was called the hurler. Also, an old wooden coaster (like Grizzly), so rickety and load and bounces your head around, but no upside down parts. I think we did that one twice (?).

We were working our way around the park mostly sticking to the “big” rides. We did have a short stop on a less intense ride, but actually got kind of bored, so it was back to the big guns.

It all starts to get somewhat hazy… but I think we hit our first metal upside down roller coaster around this point – I think it was the anaconda. And suddenly my husband had a new favorite. Then there was the indoor in the dark coaster, Flight of fear – and we both had a new favorite. But now we were at the back of the park – at the newest coaster the park was unveiling for 2010 – The Intimidator.

Now I generally think these ride names are cheesy (the Dominator, I started calling the denominator – which let’s face it, a math test can be WAY scarier than a few loop-di-loops!), but this one may have intimidated me a little… We head in and this was the first ride where we actually had to wait a few minutes to ride (the injustice of it all!). But finally we get on and start heading up the first hill – pretty much a straight lift up about 300 feet (learned that later), then you fly down the hill at a bit over 90 mph (again, checked our stats later – you’ll see why in a sec) and immediately bank right (I think). This was about the point where I thought – why do I still have my eyes shut? Oh God, I don’t actually have my eyes shut. I think… I think I just blacked out a little…

We got off the ride while my husband crowed how that was the greatest coaster ever and I wondered exactly where the ground was. Still feeling dazed by it, I turned to him and said – I think I almost passed out on that… Once he established that I was OK (as we passed another woman throwing up on the pathway out), this only helped to confirm to him that this was, in fact, the greatest coaster EVER.

Beyond feeling a bit shaky, I was also feeling pretty lame. I mean how OLD am I getting now? What loser passes out on a roller coaster (or fine, almost passes out)? And this is where we turn to technology to save my self esteem. My husband checked the web on his phone and found that apparently you experience about 5 Gs on the ride and most people will start to black out at 4-5 Gs.

While that helped my ego, it didn’t quite help my “sea legs.” But I didn’t want to ruin his day! So we stopped to get lunch (and funnel cake!) and then headed for another coaster. Two coasters later, I was feeling all the shakier and my husband noticed that I was starting to look pale. So we stopped for awhile and just lay down on a bench and then listened to a show. And then we were off! (I may be lame on the wooziness, but I want points for the rally!) We did a few more rides and then… I gave in. I knew he REALLY wanted to ride the Intimidator again. So “intimidated” as I was… I started towards the ride. As we got to the line, one woman turned to me and said – go ahead! I am NOT riding that. I hear that you black out on the second hill.

Where was she when I needed her? Where was she to tell me that was “normal?” (I’m not sure it’s “normal” to go back and do it again, but that’s another point…)

We got to the front, all the while my husband coaching me to tense my leg muscles so that it shunts the blood flow and keeps it from all draining from my head (something he learned in flight school! Flight School! I need flight school to ride this roller coaster!). The second time through I only grayed out a bit (he did too this time).

But thank goodness we could call it a day then! Cause I really needed to lie down…

I wondered later if doing things like that was killing brain cells – you know, depriving them of oxygen and therefore killing them. My husband suggested that I probably would have been able to figure out that answer before I rode the ride.

What’s the craziest roller coaster you’ve been on? Or the stupidest thing you’ve done (twice!) for the one you love?

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Post it Note Tuesday - I'm back... ish...

Finally back for post it note Tuesday after my hiatus!


Sorry for the sad return showing. My brain is dead today!








Monday, May 10, 2010

Mystery trip

For my husband’s birthday (in March), I gave him a mystery trip – a night away with activities planned by me and, the big deal, our first night away from the baby. (yeah, I feel like I should have a drum roll in their or something – psshaw, like I’d have any idea how to pull that off!)

So Friday morning, we got up early and dropped the munchkin at her Grandma’s and hit the road while I teased my husband about where we MIGHT be going. He’s generally not a great a guesser when it comes to these things. He thinks I’m a good guesser (to the point that he’s suggested I’m psychic), but it’s because, being a bad guesser himself, he sometimes REALLY gives it away with his clues. I think this runs in the family. Before the monkey was born, his Mom told us that she “knew” what the baby’s name was. She just had decided it and was sure. As, at 7 months pregnant, we did not actually “know” what the baby’s name was (I think we were narrowed down to 3 possibilities, but I was still swinging widely between favorites), we asked what it was. We told her it could save us a lot of time and trouble! She wouldn’t tell us, though, insisting that could change the outcome – but she promised that she’d told my father in law so he could confirm if she was right. We begged for a clue and asked what letter it began with. So she said, well, it could be one of 2 letters.

So work with me here – if it’s one of two letters, we’re seriously narrowed down. It’s basically got to be a vowel (most likely A/E, but I guess there might be other options), C/K (seems the most likely possibility in the bunch), F/Ph or C/S. So I said that. Her face froze on C/K and she said – ok, you’re too good at this! No more clues! Now, I knew that she’d intended to name my husband Kathleen if he was a girl, so it wasn’t too hard to get to a likely guess here (I didn’t voice it then, as she seemed a little upset that I’d “figured” so much out, but that was her guess. By the way – our daughter’s name is not Kathleen.)


OK, back to the present. You see where I’m going on clues. So when I told my husband, it was a little north of Richmond. It was a day totally focused on fun (I didn’t go so far as to say “amusement” – I thought that might be too much). And he’d be “king” for the day as it was his birthday present. I didn’t worry at all that he’d guess King’s Dominion (an amusement park just north of Richmond). If you didn’t guess either, don’t feel bad (esp. if you didn’t grow up near DC) – I wasn’t trying to make it too easy (though I thought king for a day was a risky giveaway) and he got other clues (like, you’ve said you wanted to go here since the baby was born. You’ve been here before, but not in a lot of years. Etc.).

I think my favorite part of the day was watching his face light up when he realized where we were going. His friends/coworkers all knew we were doing some sort of mystery trip, but guessed that he was going to end up at a bed and breakfast somewhere. Now, I have to admit – I’d considered that, but eventually discarded it for 2 reasons. First – this was HIS day, not mine. The B&B would be something I’d love, but while my husband would enjoy it, it really wouldn’t be an exciting surprise for him. And second – the B&B involves “breakfast,” right? Something they generally want you to get up for - early. So why on earth would I plan our first night away from the baby – our first chance to sleep in in 15 months for a place with a wake up call for breakfast by 8 or 8:30?! That’s crazy talk!

Anyway, more on the amusement park in another post, but overall the day was great. We actually didn’t stay till close, as after riding countless rides and screaming for hours (and getting up early to head out!), we were pretty well beat at the end of the day! So we headed to the hotel and got cleaned up for dinner, but FIRST – we flipped channels!

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it here, but when we moved we never renewed our cable subscription at our house. We were thinking – it tends to be very expensive and how much do we ever really use it? I mean, there’s usually NOTHING on tv and we really don’t want the monkey watching much tv. So instead of cable, we figured we’d just go with broadcast tv. Except there’s pretty much no signal at our house… Oops. So, instead we’ve got the laptop hooked up to the tv and we watch a lot of netflix instant and we catch our favorite shows on hulu. So, in the end, we really more just watch stuff we actually WANT to watch instead of just zoning out with what’s on. 95% of the time this is a bonus. But about 5% of the time, we just jones to zone out with the nothing that is on all the time! Oh, and we don’t catch enough news this way. We get our news online, but I felt like I really missed the constant weather updates during “snowmanji” (aren’t we supposed to be glued to the screen watching accumulations at those times?).

So anyway, a hotel room with TWO TVs was like a resort for us! And yeah, there was still NOTHING on… So we went to dinner, fell asleep early after our long day and then… oh, wait for it, wait for it… SLEPT IN. To quote (or probably paraphrase), Office Space, I did nothing and it was everything I hoped it would be.

We headed down to breakfast (hot breakfast served till 10 – now that’s a more reasonable wake up time! OK, we woke up by about 8:30 anyway. Our internal clocks are just broken now!) and then decided to head to Richmond to tour the Confederate White House before we headed home.

Yes, we did miss the monkey. But we actually really enjoyed ourselves – and truthfully, that thought did not consume me the way I worried it might. We did check on her quite a few times, but she was happy and well cared for and she and her grandparents had a ball!

What was your first get away without your children like? I’m guessing most people don’t spend it at a kid centric place like a theme park! What’s the longest time away you’ve gotten? Did you do well the first time or just worry about the little ones throughout?

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

YARD SALE!!!! Woo woo!!!

At the beginning of the day, my husband said he thought it was “cute” how excited I got at the yard sale concept. By lunch, he could not be stopped.

Me: Honey, I think the baby needs to eat.
Him: Ok, just one more (I didn’t realize he meant neighborhood!)

Last Saturday was our community yard sale. The HOA sets up 2 Saturdays a year for everyone to have yard sales. If you go to the proprietary office on Wednesday, you can get a map of all the sales. We, of course, didn’t do this. That would have taken advance planning, so not really our style. But, that’s OK, as they were YARD sales – you can drive around and look in the, um, yards.

So we did and boy did the monkey ever make out!? She’s really about the perfect age for this – young enough to be super cute (don’t you want her to have this?), but mostly too young to market to (mostly! One person did try to convince her and/or me that she really wanted some little stuffed animal. Fail! She was interested, but then noticed sharp objects she shouldn’t be near and choking hazards and was WAY more interested in those.)

Several of my friends had recommended that we troll garage sales for any of the Little Tikes things or really any plastic outdoor tables / slides / etc. They tend to be expensive to buy new and they hold up really well, so they’re fine to buy used. Hence we bought her this little slide ($10).



We also got her an outdoor climb / slide / God knows what implement, but I couldn’t find a picture of that. (Also, it’s not currently put together, so God knows what a picture would look like…) It looked like it’s probably a bit bigger (still guessing on exactly what we’re getting for $20...)

But that was just the start! There was also a Noah’s ark ($4) – she’s played with this one at friend’s houses and loved it.



A dollhouse ($5).

A xylophone ($1 – it looked something like the attached, but this isn’t it. We also managed to knock this out of the car and break it on the way home…



And about a bazillion books. Or, well, maybe 13 books ($3).

We weren’t really looking for us, but someone was selling some decent area rugs for $5 each (and we’re in desperate need – yes, we will shampoo them first, Mom!) and a cool picture of the earth (that looks something like this, for $3)




Oh, and someone just gave us a ride on toy for her – I think he was pretty desperate not to have to bring it back inside!

So, yes, we went to A LOT of houses! But we done good!

Oh my God, my excitement at my life in suburbia is SO sad…

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Yes, I'm still alive

But we're starting the forecast and I'm planning a semi-surprise trip away (he knows we're going away, just not where)for my husband this weekend (the monkey is going to grandma's! Our first night away - I'll pack extra tissues for me), so all feels chaotic.

I'm going to try to get a post or two in (I lost a follower for the first time today and realize this must be because I am delinquent... or crap... ugh) this week, but will definitely do my best to catch up later. Thanks!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Sometimes Monday morning lasts a few days and random musings for today

Why do I try to pack everything I need for the week into Monday morning before work? Seriously? I managed to get my laundry (and some of my husband’s - I find it hard to distinguish his clean clothes from his dirty based on his… unique storage system) done yesterday, but didn’t hit up the baby’s at all or things like towels. So first thing this morning, while the baby was still asleep, I put on the towels. Then once she was up (and my husband was watching her), I moved the towels and threw her clothes in – while deciding that I needed to pull tags off / wash a bunch of her new summer clothes, as she is growing and it is getting warmer. And this needs to be done... NOW.

Then I remembered that I wanted my husband to mail a birthday gift and the mother’s day gift for my Mom. Now the birthday gift is already nearly a month late – so CLEARLY, it needs to be mailed right now. Of course. And hey, as long as I’m doing that, I’ve got two new baby gifts to send – one, we haven’t even received the birth announcement on and the other sent our daughter a new baby gift for her first birthday, so they’ll understand if we’re late (they expect this of us anyway…). But no, it was really important to pull those together – to get the price tags off everything and wrap them (well, put them in gift bags). Right now. Of course. It goes without saying. What else would one do while running late for work on a Monday morning – besides move laundry?

I also decided that it was really important to micromanage my husband. My husband who watches this child on his own at least a day or two every week. And while I may tease him that she is dressed like Punky Brewster when I get home those days (he’s color blind. And not like typical male color blind, but actually doesn’t pass the spot test color blind. And also – typical male color blind…), she’s always happy and healthy and no worse for wear.

He was headed to his Mom’s. So I wrote out the list of things he needed to bring with him – things that needed to be returned to his Mom’s, the soup that the monkey is willing to eat pureed (his Mom is watching her several days this week, so this will save me from trying to fit all this into my Tuesday morning crazy) – you get the idea. I stopped short of packing the clothes for her. But let’s be honest – this is really only because now I was REALLY late for work.

I’m going to blame this level of crazy on the pure mad exhaustion that overcame me by the end of yesterday. The monkey is pushing through molars and because someone up there must hate me, Motrin was recalled this week. And my husband was spending the day with his dad. He got several – when are you coming home voicemails? And one “the dog just puked in the kitchen and it smells like have digested poop, kill me now,” text message. I wish I were making that last one up.

Happy Monday!

So how was your morning / weekend? ;) Just kidding! But I know we all have those days – those days where everything feels like it’s exploding at once – a teething toddler who won’t nap / a dog throwing up / and you don’t feel well – or something along those lines? What are you worst? How do you cope? What are your craziest doing chores like a mad woman first thing in the morning though they could totally wait stories?