Our other story from the weekend -
We walked back to our seats after communion at church this week and the monkey sat down, picked up her bunny crackers and pulled one out holding it towards my mouth. As she did, she said "Body of Christ, Mommy."
I seriously don't know what to do with this... (Mostly I'm laughing. I'm wondering if I'm supposed to do more than that...)
My husband said it's her early commentary on females in the priesthood.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Why Moms should never be proud/boastful
This weekend while our daughter was playing with her friend, her friend told her – "sometimes my Mommy & Daddy get frustrated and yell at me." Our daughter responded – "my parents don’t yell at me, they talk to me." We were feeling really good about this. Till today…
Monkey – sometimes my Mommy and Daddy get frustrated with me
Me – No, sweetie, we don’t.
Monkey – and then they…
Me – what do they do when they get frustrated?
Monkey – they do bad things.
Great! I dropped her at my mother in laws and told her to just go ahead and place the preemptive call to Child Protective Services.
Monkey – sometimes my Mommy and Daddy get frustrated with me
Me – No, sweetie, we don’t.
Monkey – and then they…
Me – what do they do when they get frustrated?
Monkey – they do bad things.
Great! I dropped her at my mother in laws and told her to just go ahead and place the preemptive call to Child Protective Services.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Today's message brought to you by the letter g
I recently noticed that the monkey seems to drop the last “g” a lot – you know, she says: I’m comin’. And what are you doin’ (or more whatcha doin’)? So I thought – ok, she must get this from me. I’ll have to watch that and try not to do it. Then I remembered a friend telling me that my NJ accent came out more when I drank, as I started dropping (droppin’) g’s then. Now I haven’t been drinking (drinkin’) a lot (I actually pretty much gave it up for Lent in a bid to FINALLY lose the last 5 lbs and get back to my pre-baby weight), but I figure drunk is kind of like tired – esp. in speech. So, here’s the thing (thin’). I think I’ve just been tired for two years…
Crap…
She also repeated me when I said holy crap the other day! The funny part is – in my head, I though, I’m cleaning myself up so I don’t say the other. But then she repeats my new one and I think – well, darn – I don’t want her to say that either! (And this is when I start to realize what a bad speller I am / how much I rely on spell check… Most condemningly, I can’t verbally spell stupid.
Crap…
She also repeated me when I said holy crap the other day! The funny part is – in my head, I though, I’m cleaning myself up so I don’t say the other. But then she repeats my new one and I think – well, darn – I don’t want her to say that either! (And this is when I start to realize what a bad speller I am / how much I rely on spell check… Most condemningly, I can’t verbally spell stupid.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Betty Crocker, I aint. Dork? Yes. Yes, that I am.
Why even discuss my absense and irregularity in posting? It's become SO irregular that irregular is, in fact, my regular/norm.
... Yeah...
So anyway, this Mom's group I'm in mentioned doing a recipe exchange this week. Hmm... I thought this was a good idea until I typed it and thought - oh my gosh, is it 1955 already? I mean, I did just say gosh! But I'm going to share anyway as it's the first time I've even opened up blogger in nearly 2 months and this is what I've got.
I do also have toddler non-sequitors. My favorite this week was when she looked at our dog and said, "That's my dog. Sometimes I poke him in the eye." (My husband and I had to hide behind a pillow laughing before we could compose ourselves enough to tell her that was not a nice thing to do.
She's also started telling jokes. Bad jokes, admittedly - the first came from her Elmo if you're happy and you know it book. She looks at you and says - "what do you call banana peels?" (it's supposed to be 2 banana peels, but it's hit or miss if she says that...). "A pair of slippers." Then we laugh like it's the funniest thing we've heard repeated over and over today.
The other one came from my sister in law staying on the banana genre - "why did the banana go to the hostible?" (That's hospital for those of you not fluent in toddler.) The answer is supposed to be 'because it was peeling.' She usually says - "it peeled," which leaves people scratching their head a moment before they get it.
We've tried to branch beyond bananas (and fruit in general) to get her to tell our new favorite worst joke - "How do you make Lady Gaga cry?" (The answer is "Poke her face" (Poker face).) The best we can get is she say - how do you make goo goo ga ga cry? But she doesn't get the punch line (which doesn't work anyway if you've missed the Lady Gaga reference).
Regardless of the awfulness of the jokes, she has caught a few family members by surprise by telling them unsolicited - which is far funnier to us!
OK, so better crocker, here are those recipes. Sorry about the general lack of exactness - that's kinda how I cook...
Chicken salad with grapes, apples & walnuts
Bake chicken flavoring with a small amount of olive oil, herbs de provence (rosemary can substitute), garlic, salt and pepper (350 for 15-20 minutes should work) or use leftover baked chicken.
Amounts below will vary based on the amount of chicken – most important is the 2 to 1 ratio on yogurt to mayo.
1 cut non-fat greek yogurt (regular plain non fat yogurt can substitute)
½ cup low fat mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Red grapes (halved)
Apple (diced) – I like granny smith
Walnuts, chopped (optional – I no longer include these for the baby)
Combine ingredients and let sit in refrigerator to mix/set (I’ve eaten immediately, but it’s better if it has an hour or two first)
Chicken pesto pasta
1 lb Bowtie pasta (cooked)
1 small jar pesto
Cooked chicken (great use for leftovers – if I’m making it fresh, I usually use just a couple of pieces of chicken breast)- the original recipe recommended shredding. When my daughter was very young and didn’t eat much meat, I pureed it. Now I usually just cube.
Cherry tomatoes (halved)
Combine ingredients and serve. This came from a picky eaters cookbook and has worked very well for my toddler.
Lemon risotto
2 cups Arborio rice
2TBs olive oil
4 TBs butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped (you can also buy this frozen to save time)
Fresh rosemary (I use a couple TBs of jarred most of the time)
2 lemons (zested)
1 cup parmesan cheese
7 cups chicken broth (can substitution vegetable for vegetarian dish)
1 cup white wine
Pine nuts (optional – roast on stove for just a couple minutes as they brown quickly)
In a large skillet (med high), cook onions and half rosemary in olive oil and half butter - do not brown. Add Arborio rice and cook for 2-3 minutes till grains begin to become translucent.
Separately, mix broth (I use bullion cubes), wine and the juice from the lemons.
Add broth mixture slowly (recipe says one ladle at a time. I usually add in larger increments) to the rice letting rice absorb the liquid before adding more.
Once all broth is added and absorbed, mix in the remaining butter and parmesan cheese. Add remaining rosemary and lemon zest as garnish (the lemon zest REALLY adds a lot of tanginess) as well as roasted pine nuts if including.
Spaghetti and hidden vegetable sauce
The original recipe made the sauce from scratch. This is the lazy man’s…
1 jar spaghetti sauce
Carrots (1-1.5 large or a handful of baby carrots), uncooked, as finely as your food processor can chop them.
1 Zucchini (uncooked, finely chopped)
Browned ground turkey
Other options in the recipe that I don’t add, included – finely chopped onion or apple.
Serve over spaghetti sauce or, if really adventurous, spaghetti squash.
Yogurt chicken
Marinate boneless skinless chicken breast (ideally cut and pounded) in non fat plain yogurt and dijon mustard (as much yogurt is needed to cover the chicken and then just a TB or two of dijon depending on how much you're making).
Dip the chicken in bread crumbs (I prefer cornflake crumbs myself)
Cook on rack over pan (rather than directly on the pan - this way, you don't need oil in the pan)
350 for 15 minutes (check at 12-15 mins, might take a little longer)
OK, this is a much streamlined variation of something from Paula Dean (I think), but I really love the tanginess from the yogurt mix and the chicken comes out really moist.
The other massively dorky thing I did this week....
I started to create a schedule of all the weekly kids events in the area (I focused on the free library stuff, but put up others too) so that I can post it in the kitchen for ideas on what to do when I'm totally at a loose end and going nuts (we call that every day in my house...).
... Yeah...
So anyway, this Mom's group I'm in mentioned doing a recipe exchange this week. Hmm... I thought this was a good idea until I typed it and thought - oh my gosh, is it 1955 already? I mean, I did just say gosh! But I'm going to share anyway as it's the first time I've even opened up blogger in nearly 2 months and this is what I've got.
I do also have toddler non-sequitors. My favorite this week was when she looked at our dog and said, "That's my dog. Sometimes I poke him in the eye." (My husband and I had to hide behind a pillow laughing before we could compose ourselves enough to tell her that was not a nice thing to do.
She's also started telling jokes. Bad jokes, admittedly - the first came from her Elmo if you're happy and you know it book. She looks at you and says - "what do you call banana peels?" (it's supposed to be 2 banana peels, but it's hit or miss if she says that...). "A pair of slippers." Then we laugh like it's the funniest thing we've heard repeated over and over today.
The other one came from my sister in law staying on the banana genre - "why did the banana go to the hostible?" (That's hospital for those of you not fluent in toddler.) The answer is supposed to be 'because it was peeling.' She usually says - "it peeled," which leaves people scratching their head a moment before they get it.
We've tried to branch beyond bananas (and fruit in general) to get her to tell our new favorite worst joke - "How do you make Lady Gaga cry?" (The answer is "Poke her face" (Poker face).) The best we can get is she say - how do you make goo goo ga ga cry? But she doesn't get the punch line (which doesn't work anyway if you've missed the Lady Gaga reference).
Regardless of the awfulness of the jokes, she has caught a few family members by surprise by telling them unsolicited - which is far funnier to us!
OK, so better crocker, here are those recipes. Sorry about the general lack of exactness - that's kinda how I cook...
Chicken salad with grapes, apples & walnuts
Bake chicken flavoring with a small amount of olive oil, herbs de provence (rosemary can substitute), garlic, salt and pepper (350 for 15-20 minutes should work) or use leftover baked chicken.
Amounts below will vary based on the amount of chicken – most important is the 2 to 1 ratio on yogurt to mayo.
1 cut non-fat greek yogurt (regular plain non fat yogurt can substitute)
½ cup low fat mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Red grapes (halved)
Apple (diced) – I like granny smith
Walnuts, chopped (optional – I no longer include these for the baby)
Combine ingredients and let sit in refrigerator to mix/set (I’ve eaten immediately, but it’s better if it has an hour or two first)
Chicken pesto pasta
1 lb Bowtie pasta (cooked)
1 small jar pesto
Cooked chicken (great use for leftovers – if I’m making it fresh, I usually use just a couple of pieces of chicken breast)- the original recipe recommended shredding. When my daughter was very young and didn’t eat much meat, I pureed it. Now I usually just cube.
Cherry tomatoes (halved)
Combine ingredients and serve. This came from a picky eaters cookbook and has worked very well for my toddler.
Lemon risotto
2 cups Arborio rice
2TBs olive oil
4 TBs butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped (you can also buy this frozen to save time)
Fresh rosemary (I use a couple TBs of jarred most of the time)
2 lemons (zested)
1 cup parmesan cheese
7 cups chicken broth (can substitution vegetable for vegetarian dish)
1 cup white wine
Pine nuts (optional – roast on stove for just a couple minutes as they brown quickly)
In a large skillet (med high), cook onions and half rosemary in olive oil and half butter - do not brown. Add Arborio rice and cook for 2-3 minutes till grains begin to become translucent.
Separately, mix broth (I use bullion cubes), wine and the juice from the lemons.
Add broth mixture slowly (recipe says one ladle at a time. I usually add in larger increments) to the rice letting rice absorb the liquid before adding more.
Once all broth is added and absorbed, mix in the remaining butter and parmesan cheese. Add remaining rosemary and lemon zest as garnish (the lemon zest REALLY adds a lot of tanginess) as well as roasted pine nuts if including.
Spaghetti and hidden vegetable sauce
The original recipe made the sauce from scratch. This is the lazy man’s…
1 jar spaghetti sauce
Carrots (1-1.5 large or a handful of baby carrots), uncooked, as finely as your food processor can chop them.
1 Zucchini (uncooked, finely chopped)
Browned ground turkey
Other options in the recipe that I don’t add, included – finely chopped onion or apple.
Serve over spaghetti sauce or, if really adventurous, spaghetti squash.
Yogurt chicken
Marinate boneless skinless chicken breast (ideally cut and pounded) in non fat plain yogurt and dijon mustard (as much yogurt is needed to cover the chicken and then just a TB or two of dijon depending on how much you're making).
Dip the chicken in bread crumbs (I prefer cornflake crumbs myself)
Cook on rack over pan (rather than directly on the pan - this way, you don't need oil in the pan)
350 for 15 minutes (check at 12-15 mins, might take a little longer)
OK, this is a much streamlined variation of something from Paula Dean (I think), but I really love the tanginess from the yogurt mix and the chicken comes out really moist.
The other massively dorky thing I did this week....
I started to create a schedule of all the weekly kids events in the area (I focused on the free library stuff, but put up others too) so that I can post it in the kitchen for ideas on what to do when I'm totally at a loose end and going nuts (we call that every day in my house...).
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
ok, ok - I'm back. Worst blogger ever...
Sorry for the pause in your irregularly scheduled operations while we "did" the holidays (and I just didn't feel like posting, darn it!).
Where are we now?
You know I do have stories to tell you, but somehow launching into my diatribe about everyone having a cold through Christmas, then getting 30 inches of snow while visiting my Mom, followed by the baby getting some sort of stomach virus the middle of Mon night/Tues morn before we started the drive back south (with the REST OF HUMANITY, mind you!), which took 8 hours instead of 4-5 - though admittedly that was because of the long stop when the monkey projectile vomitted... Well, that just seems wrong now doesn't it? (Um, did that count as a rant?)
Anyway - though it does provide a more colorful anecdote, it's not a really good picture of our Christmas, as truly - it was rather nice (minus masses of mucus and ... oh, sorry, sorry!). After all the flurry of getting ready (why didn't I start earlier?), we were actually mostly ready for Christmas when it came.
Santa came to our house on the morning of the 24th and we opened gifts with our own little family then. It was nice and fun. The monkey got a play-doh grocery store "kit" that Mommy and Daddy really wanted to play with (funny how Santa knows! And why didn't they have things this cool when I was this age?) as well as a few other small toys (many of which are already driving me nuts!) and one spring dress (with matching dress for a doll!) that I couldn't resist. So nothing too too crazy. We knew too too crazy was coming yet!
That afternoon we went to church (where the monkey who loves opening and closing things discovered the fly on Daddy's pants - "ooh, zipper!" and started opening it while the woman sitting next to my husband tried to contain her laughter. Seriously, he's thinking - look, I swear I didn't teach her this! Please don't call protective services! while he tried to redirect.) and headed to my in-laws for dinner and the first round of family and gifts.
The monkey made out like a bandit, of course! And got into the gift opening (though she likes paper and boxes best) - so she just started opening everyone's presents. It was actually rather fun to watch (and luckily she's the only kid there, so no one cared).
The next morning we did the trek up to my Mom's and just had time to unload the car and get dressed before heading to see one side of the family for dinner. After dinner (and more presents for the monkey there), we headed to other side for dessert (and my New Year's resolution will involve not eating that twice in a day this year...) and, you guessed it, more presents!
After staying up too late a 2nd night in a row, we took her back to my Mom's and hoped for sleep. We got... some. As it was Sunday, we were back at church again and then - time for presents with my Mom! Sadly by this point the monkey was actually starting to weary of getting gifts. She just wanted to play with what she had - and nap! I think she was a bit overwhelmed - I mean, she had one of those ride in electric cars at my Mom's! (It was a hand me down rather than an actual gift, but it was in great condition and, seriously, who cares?) We had to stop midway through gift opening for a nap and dinner and she finally made it through. (I didn't want to push - opening gifts is really supposed to be a FUN activity! Not work!)
Given the plague on our house (ok, a cold) and the "snow-icane" (i.e. blizzard of 30 inches), we were pretty well quarantined the rest of the trip.
And there you have it.
Did I live up to the hype? Yeah, probably not... ;)
Where are we now?
You know I do have stories to tell you, but somehow launching into my diatribe about everyone having a cold through Christmas, then getting 30 inches of snow while visiting my Mom, followed by the baby getting some sort of stomach virus the middle of Mon night/Tues morn before we started the drive back south (with the REST OF HUMANITY, mind you!), which took 8 hours instead of 4-5 - though admittedly that was because of the long stop when the monkey projectile vomitted... Well, that just seems wrong now doesn't it? (Um, did that count as a rant?)
Anyway - though it does provide a more colorful anecdote, it's not a really good picture of our Christmas, as truly - it was rather nice (minus masses of mucus and ... oh, sorry, sorry!). After all the flurry of getting ready (why didn't I start earlier?), we were actually mostly ready for Christmas when it came.
Santa came to our house on the morning of the 24th and we opened gifts with our own little family then. It was nice and fun. The monkey got a play-doh grocery store "kit" that Mommy and Daddy really wanted to play with (funny how Santa knows! And why didn't they have things this cool when I was this age?) as well as a few other small toys (many of which are already driving me nuts!) and one spring dress (with matching dress for a doll!) that I couldn't resist. So nothing too too crazy. We knew too too crazy was coming yet!
That afternoon we went to church (where the monkey who loves opening and closing things discovered the fly on Daddy's pants - "ooh, zipper!" and started opening it while the woman sitting next to my husband tried to contain her laughter. Seriously, he's thinking - look, I swear I didn't teach her this! Please don't call protective services! while he tried to redirect.) and headed to my in-laws for dinner and the first round of family and gifts.
The monkey made out like a bandit, of course! And got into the gift opening (though she likes paper and boxes best) - so she just started opening everyone's presents. It was actually rather fun to watch (and luckily she's the only kid there, so no one cared).
The next morning we did the trek up to my Mom's and just had time to unload the car and get dressed before heading to see one side of the family for dinner. After dinner (and more presents for the monkey there), we headed to other side for dessert (and my New Year's resolution will involve not eating that twice in a day this year...) and, you guessed it, more presents!
After staying up too late a 2nd night in a row, we took her back to my Mom's and hoped for sleep. We got... some. As it was Sunday, we were back at church again and then - time for presents with my Mom! Sadly by this point the monkey was actually starting to weary of getting gifts. She just wanted to play with what she had - and nap! I think she was a bit overwhelmed - I mean, she had one of those ride in electric cars at my Mom's! (It was a hand me down rather than an actual gift, but it was in great condition and, seriously, who cares?) We had to stop midway through gift opening for a nap and dinner and she finally made it through. (I didn't want to push - opening gifts is really supposed to be a FUN activity! Not work!)
Given the plague on our house (ok, a cold) and the "snow-icane" (i.e. blizzard of 30 inches), we were pretty well quarantined the rest of the trip.
And there you have it.
Did I live up to the hype? Yeah, probably not... ;)
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Today's anecdote where I tell the mechanic he's full of it but then realize he's still working on my car and hope he doesn't cut my brake lines....
The anecdote of the day:
I went to get my oil changed today at about 6K from my last change (my dealer recommended is 6k and I have an oil life monitor that told me I still had 15% oil life (the light went on yesterday) and I've read several articles recently that you really can go much longer than what Jiffy Lube tells you as we use synthetic or synthetic blend oil). The guy tries his typical upsell on air filters and fuel injection cleaning. Nope, I'm good. Then he comes back in from the garage a little while later (he's the manager)
Dude: (Chastisingly said in the someone was a bad girl voice) Somebody went 3K over their 3000 mile change.
Me: My oil life monitor showed 15% and my dealer recommends 6K.
Dude: But you should really still do 3K. It's better for your car.
Me: (Laughing) You're full of it. (oops was that out loud?)
Dude: No really - the dirty oil is wearing on your engine and making your engine wear out faster. The dealers want your engine to wear out sooner so you have to buy a new car sooner. They're seeing a lot of 2000 and 2004 Fords now whose engines are worn out because of that. (By the way - yes, the dealer wants you to buy a new car sooner, but if my engine is totally dead after 6 years and 70-80K when I've done their recommended maintenance, you can be darn sure that the car I buy won't be the same one! So it's theoretically possible that that isn't actually their strategy.... hmm....)
Me: Yeah, but that's a Ford. Show that to me on a Toyota or Honda.
Dude: yeah, true. (pause) But really - the dirty oil is bad for the engine (or something).
Technician (the guy probably actually working on my car who happened out front): Here's the deal - if you use real oil, that last about 3K. If you use a synthetic blend - 5-6K. A full synthetic - 8-10K.
Me: And which did you just put in my car?
Technician: A synthetic blend. (At this point I look over at the manager again who must be seething, but who's really got nothing now.)
Dude: Yeah, but I still change mine every 3K.
(I bite my lip from asking his price v. mine.)
Technician: Some people still do, but you don’t really need to.
Then I go to leave and he tries to charge me $10 more than he quoted over the phone. I got him to honor the price though he told me that I needed to make sure to print the coupon online the next time (this has never before been necessary).
Sigh... Really wish I knew anything about cars - it'd make these conversations so much more fun. I should have been an engineer. Do they have to take lab science in college?
I went to get my oil changed today at about 6K from my last change (my dealer recommended is 6k and I have an oil life monitor that told me I still had 15% oil life (the light went on yesterday) and I've read several articles recently that you really can go much longer than what Jiffy Lube tells you as we use synthetic or synthetic blend oil). The guy tries his typical upsell on air filters and fuel injection cleaning. Nope, I'm good. Then he comes back in from the garage a little while later (he's the manager)
Dude: (Chastisingly said in the someone was a bad girl voice) Somebody went 3K over their 3000 mile change.
Me: My oil life monitor showed 15% and my dealer recommends 6K.
Dude: But you should really still do 3K. It's better for your car.
Me: (Laughing) You're full of it. (oops was that out loud?)
Dude: No really - the dirty oil is wearing on your engine and making your engine wear out faster. The dealers want your engine to wear out sooner so you have to buy a new car sooner. They're seeing a lot of 2000 and 2004 Fords now whose engines are worn out because of that. (By the way - yes, the dealer wants you to buy a new car sooner, but if my engine is totally dead after 6 years and 70-80K when I've done their recommended maintenance, you can be darn sure that the car I buy won't be the same one! So it's theoretically possible that that isn't actually their strategy.... hmm....)
Me: Yeah, but that's a Ford. Show that to me on a Toyota or Honda.
Dude: yeah, true. (pause) But really - the dirty oil is bad for the engine (or something).
Technician (the guy probably actually working on my car who happened out front): Here's the deal - if you use real oil, that last about 3K. If you use a synthetic blend - 5-6K. A full synthetic - 8-10K.
Me: And which did you just put in my car?
Technician: A synthetic blend. (At this point I look over at the manager again who must be seething, but who's really got nothing now.)
Dude: Yeah, but I still change mine every 3K.
(I bite my lip from asking his price v. mine.)
Technician: Some people still do, but you don’t really need to.
Then I go to leave and he tries to charge me $10 more than he quoted over the phone. I got him to honor the price though he told me that I needed to make sure to print the coupon online the next time (this has never before been necessary).
Sigh... Really wish I knew anything about cars - it'd make these conversations so much more fun. I should have been an engineer. Do they have to take lab science in college?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
planes, train and automobiles - and a crapload of work to do before that!
Sorry I've been MIA. Work got totally crazy as I've gotten a ton more responsibilities (and no more time to do them in - ugh). And then we went to Florida for my cousin's wedding. The trip was a ton of fun, but I'll just go ahead and weigh in on TSA with the rest of America now...
My complaint is not so much about the new xray scanners or pat downs, but on profiling. I realize that my toddler who SCREAMED her way through the TSA line (happily most passengers just noted to us that she was only expressing what we were all feeling) probably did do the most to "terrorize" other passengers (and cause terror - you're not on MY flight, are you?), but that does not make her a "terrorist." Seriously, does my 21 month old fit a profile? I know we all have to take off our shoes and everyone hates it, but it poses a threat - and all that stuff. But, see, her shoes are small - not even a foot long (no pun intended) so is it completely necessary for her to take them off when she REALLY doesn't want to (and I mean really!) while you take her milk away from her (ok, so it's possible that when you did that she did start to sound very threatening - but I don't think she's actually part of an organized group on this front).
On our way out, TSA was testing new screening procedures - with a long line of travellers and ONE agent checking IDs. I'd just gone for a new license that week (which I did not know was going to be mailed to me or I would have waited. As an aside, it arrived and I look SERIOUSLY psychotic in the picture. I know everyone complains about the pictures, but this is horrifying!), so, after an hour or so of wrangling a toddler in line, I handed over my old (not expired, just old) license with the paperwork from the DMV that meant it was still valid. I never should have handed over the paperwork. They never would have noticed the "void" stamp (I hadn't noticed it till just then). They called a supervisor who needed to call a monitor. After 7 calls, he hadn't answered the phone yet. My husband looked at the agent and said - wow, so if you guys had a real problem, I guess they just hang you out to dry. The agent, with no sense of humor, said - no, they would NOT. They come as fast as they can. (Well, how do they do that if they don't answer the phone?) Finally the monitor came and after I gave him some secondary ID (credit cards), he decided that the 30 something woman of Irish decent traveling with her family was probably not actually all that big a risk and I could go. (OK, yes, I know they need to double check these things and really would have been much more accepting if we hadn't had to wait SO long to get that far. Or maybe if we hadn't had to stand to the side with a TSA agent guarding us as my overtired toddler tried to make a run for it.)
Then we went through security (see shoes and milk note above). We got to FL and realized we'd made a reservation with the shadiest of all shady offsite rental car places (U Save - avoid them like the plague!!!) and cancelled it. When my husband said - you guys are shady (they had tons of hidden fees and were totally unprofessional), the guy at the counter told him that if he made one more comment, he'd be walking back to the terminal and he was going to follow us outside to ensure that no comments were made. Oh sheesh.
The vacation as good - though busy! The monkey enjoyed the beach a lot (though we did get kicked out of the pool at my Mom's place since she had a swim diaper on. This is south Florida - my husband joked that more of the adults have diapers on than kids!).
TSA was slightly less exhausting on the way back. I didn't hand over the paperwork with my license and they didn't notice the void stamp. We did have the shoes and milk issues again - ugh. Happily they did not make us go through the new scanners though - I have since looked them up and I'm pretty sure that the x-rays are safe, but I really hadn' researched in advance and just didn't want to walk the baby through that. Also, you have to walk through and stand like the DaVinci man - arms out, feet apart. How does one explain that to a toddler - who wants you to carry her? Thank goodness we just did metal detectors! I mean, what if she got the pat down instead? Who knows what she's transporting in that diaper? Actually... I found out later as we didn't want to wake her from her nap till we had to put her in the car even though we knew her diaper was full, so when she got outside and the cold air hit her (and inspired her), she peed all over me! Welcome home.
Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope your travels go well!
My complaint is not so much about the new xray scanners or pat downs, but on profiling. I realize that my toddler who SCREAMED her way through the TSA line (happily most passengers just noted to us that she was only expressing what we were all feeling) probably did do the most to "terrorize" other passengers (and cause terror - you're not on MY flight, are you?), but that does not make her a "terrorist." Seriously, does my 21 month old fit a profile? I know we all have to take off our shoes and everyone hates it, but it poses a threat - and all that stuff. But, see, her shoes are small - not even a foot long (no pun intended) so is it completely necessary for her to take them off when she REALLY doesn't want to (and I mean really!) while you take her milk away from her (ok, so it's possible that when you did that she did start to sound very threatening - but I don't think she's actually part of an organized group on this front).
On our way out, TSA was testing new screening procedures - with a long line of travellers and ONE agent checking IDs. I'd just gone for a new license that week (which I did not know was going to be mailed to me or I would have waited. As an aside, it arrived and I look SERIOUSLY psychotic in the picture. I know everyone complains about the pictures, but this is horrifying!), so, after an hour or so of wrangling a toddler in line, I handed over my old (not expired, just old) license with the paperwork from the DMV that meant it was still valid. I never should have handed over the paperwork. They never would have noticed the "void" stamp (I hadn't noticed it till just then). They called a supervisor who needed to call a monitor. After 7 calls, he hadn't answered the phone yet. My husband looked at the agent and said - wow, so if you guys had a real problem, I guess they just hang you out to dry. The agent, with no sense of humor, said - no, they would NOT. They come as fast as they can. (Well, how do they do that if they don't answer the phone?) Finally the monitor came and after I gave him some secondary ID (credit cards), he decided that the 30 something woman of Irish decent traveling with her family was probably not actually all that big a risk and I could go. (OK, yes, I know they need to double check these things and really would have been much more accepting if we hadn't had to wait SO long to get that far. Or maybe if we hadn't had to stand to the side with a TSA agent guarding us as my overtired toddler tried to make a run for it.)
Then we went through security (see shoes and milk note above). We got to FL and realized we'd made a reservation with the shadiest of all shady offsite rental car places (U Save - avoid them like the plague!!!) and cancelled it. When my husband said - you guys are shady (they had tons of hidden fees and were totally unprofessional), the guy at the counter told him that if he made one more comment, he'd be walking back to the terminal and he was going to follow us outside to ensure that no comments were made. Oh sheesh.
The vacation as good - though busy! The monkey enjoyed the beach a lot (though we did get kicked out of the pool at my Mom's place since she had a swim diaper on. This is south Florida - my husband joked that more of the adults have diapers on than kids!).
TSA was slightly less exhausting on the way back. I didn't hand over the paperwork with my license and they didn't notice the void stamp. We did have the shoes and milk issues again - ugh. Happily they did not make us go through the new scanners though - I have since looked them up and I'm pretty sure that the x-rays are safe, but I really hadn' researched in advance and just didn't want to walk the baby through that. Also, you have to walk through and stand like the DaVinci man - arms out, feet apart. How does one explain that to a toddler - who wants you to carry her? Thank goodness we just did metal detectors! I mean, what if she got the pat down instead? Who knows what she's transporting in that diaper? Actually... I found out later as we didn't want to wake her from her nap till we had to put her in the car even though we knew her diaper was full, so when she got outside and the cold air hit her (and inspired her), she peed all over me! Welcome home.
Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope your travels go well!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Alcoholism is a lifelong disease, so I don't see why I need to fix it this week.
Sorry for the blogging hiatus. Realistically - it's not over.
Work has been crazy. I've been cranky (or just in a bad mood for weeks on end?). This actually wouldn't stop me from subjecting you to this (don't get me wrong!), but I'm frazzled and just haven't had a lot of time to torture you this way.
Quotes of the last week:
(beyond my title which I actually did say to my husband after another harrowing day of training)
My husband as I opened a bottle of wine at the end of my first day of training when I got home around 8 after spending 11 hours with a visiting coworker: Yeah, I thought you'd need that. What took so long?
My mother in law on hearing about the above: You don't really need a glass - a straw will do.
Me, after the first bottle was kicked. OK, not all in one night! I know I totally just lost street cred: I realize that opening up another bottle of wine tonight may be a sign of alcoholism. I don't care. I'm going to deal with that next week.
Great they are all about drinking too much... Crap. I was trying to be funny and now I might actually have to do something about that. And THIS is why I stopped blogging!
Work has been crazy. I've been cranky (or just in a bad mood for weeks on end?). This actually wouldn't stop me from subjecting you to this (don't get me wrong!), but I'm frazzled and just haven't had a lot of time to torture you this way.
Quotes of the last week:
(beyond my title which I actually did say to my husband after another harrowing day of training)
My husband as I opened a bottle of wine at the end of my first day of training when I got home around 8 after spending 11 hours with a visiting coworker: Yeah, I thought you'd need that. What took so long?
My mother in law on hearing about the above: You don't really need a glass - a straw will do.
Me, after the first bottle was kicked. OK, not all in one night! I know I totally just lost street cred: I realize that opening up another bottle of wine tonight may be a sign of alcoholism. I don't care. I'm going to deal with that next week.
Great they are all about drinking too much... Crap. I was trying to be funny and now I might actually have to do something about that. And THIS is why I stopped blogging!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
More stuff I don't really want to talk about
Seriously - if you're in a good mood, don't bother reading this and ruining it. And if you're in an unhappy mood, don't read this to add to it. Really you should only read this if you feel like the day is already shot and what the heck or maybe if you're a bad person. Yeah, if you're a bad person who deserves to be brought down you should totally read this.
I know I've been a bit quiet recently. This is largely due to severe work stress / levels of busy-ness; in part due to even larger degrees of work stress / limited timeframes for my husband that I am trying to mitigate by making the rest of life run; and also in part having more stuff I don't want to talk about.
A few weeks ago I posted that I'd miscarried. It sucked and going for the D&C was scary (as my husband put it while we waited - they do a good job making this process as scary as possible) and just so weird. I was overwhelmed with emotions. But also working on repressing them - partially because I couldn't process them yet and partially because I'm not good with any public displays of that type of emotion.
I moved through the weeks following - repressing away, but I guess it was always close to the surface.
We went back to the OB for my post op follow up last week. She told us that there were some results in the pathology. I'd had a molar pregnancy (or actually a partial mole). * She explained a bit about this and I hit the computer with crazy research later, but basically it seems that two sperm fertilized the egg, but something went wrong. Instead of twins, a molar pregnancy developed. Either there was one twin which was overcome by the abnormal cells (a possibility that makes me sadder) or the fetus was never viable because of abnormalities. (I've read both options. I don't know if both are a possibility or if one of the sources was wrong.)
Well, at least we had a reason? Wasn't that what we wanted in the prior miscarriages? Something to point to and say - here it is. A secure knowledge that it wasn't because I hadn't started my prenatals earlier or because I'd gotten a bad sunburn at 6 weeks? And it wasn't something that was likely to recur, so that was good.
She went on to explain that a molar pregnancy puts me at a heightened risk for GTD (gestational tropoblastic disease - not sure if I spelled that right)*. Basically this means that though they "evacuated my uterus" the growth (the abnormal cells that were not a baby) could come back. And, if it did, it wouldn't necessarily be limited to my uterus (most reading I did suggested the lungs were a likely site).
The only way to test for GTD is by monitoring your hcg (pregnancy hormone) levels - which means you can't try to get pregnant for at least 6 months after they reach zero (as of last week they hadn't yet). This is done by a weekly blood test until you hit 0 and then a monthly blood test to make sure you're still at 0. (Is now a good time to mention how much I HATE having blood taken?)
Though it's probably not very likely, if the tests did come back positive, I think I'd have to have a CT scan to find the growths. They are generally benign, but treated with chemo. In 1% of cases they do turn out to be cancerous, but overall the prognosis is good.
Now I know all those things are worst case scenarios, but it's so hard for my head not to swim with all that. It's so much to take in.
Also, even though I'm not really consciously worried about cancer - or at least I'm telling myself not to be - the thought is lingering there. I start thinking about my Dad's cancer and how many people in his family had cancer. Then I pull myself back in and say - it's not a real possibility.
And.. I don't know... maybe I'm not actually even worried about that. Maybe it's easier to focus on that - on the big C which we all know is scary and horrible than all these other things I don't want to think about yet. Like tumors growing all over from GTD. Like all these blood tests when I can't even think about veins without feeling weak flutterings in my stomach. Blood tests when I was pregnant / trying to get pregnant all seemed doable because they were all for a good cause. But I sat in the lab last week waiting for the needle and got entirely focused on how much I HATED that. Didn't want to be here. Because it's NOT for a good cause. It's because of this bad thing that happened. And maybe that's really what I don't want to think about.
I'm leaving comments open this time because I need more information and am open to anything anyone knows on the subject. Also, I got the nicest email from a wonderful fellow blogger after my last post on this and realized I was probably dumb to close comments - even if I didn't want to talk about it.
*Note - I know I should post links to wikipedia here. Honestly at least part of what's held up this post is I'm feeling too tired (or emotionally tired) to go through getting together all the links I should have. So here it is without any supporting Google's revenue stream if you decide to do a search. Sorry.
I know I've been a bit quiet recently. This is largely due to severe work stress / levels of busy-ness; in part due to even larger degrees of work stress / limited timeframes for my husband that I am trying to mitigate by making the rest of life run; and also in part having more stuff I don't want to talk about.
A few weeks ago I posted that I'd miscarried. It sucked and going for the D&C was scary (as my husband put it while we waited - they do a good job making this process as scary as possible) and just so weird. I was overwhelmed with emotions. But also working on repressing them - partially because I couldn't process them yet and partially because I'm not good with any public displays of that type of emotion.
I moved through the weeks following - repressing away, but I guess it was always close to the surface.
We went back to the OB for my post op follow up last week. She told us that there were some results in the pathology. I'd had a molar pregnancy (or actually a partial mole). * She explained a bit about this and I hit the computer with crazy research later, but basically it seems that two sperm fertilized the egg, but something went wrong. Instead of twins, a molar pregnancy developed. Either there was one twin which was overcome by the abnormal cells (a possibility that makes me sadder) or the fetus was never viable because of abnormalities. (I've read both options. I don't know if both are a possibility or if one of the sources was wrong.)
Well, at least we had a reason? Wasn't that what we wanted in the prior miscarriages? Something to point to and say - here it is. A secure knowledge that it wasn't because I hadn't started my prenatals earlier or because I'd gotten a bad sunburn at 6 weeks? And it wasn't something that was likely to recur, so that was good.
She went on to explain that a molar pregnancy puts me at a heightened risk for GTD (gestational tropoblastic disease - not sure if I spelled that right)*. Basically this means that though they "evacuated my uterus" the growth (the abnormal cells that were not a baby) could come back. And, if it did, it wouldn't necessarily be limited to my uterus (most reading I did suggested the lungs were a likely site).
The only way to test for GTD is by monitoring your hcg (pregnancy hormone) levels - which means you can't try to get pregnant for at least 6 months after they reach zero (as of last week they hadn't yet). This is done by a weekly blood test until you hit 0 and then a monthly blood test to make sure you're still at 0. (Is now a good time to mention how much I HATE having blood taken?)
Though it's probably not very likely, if the tests did come back positive, I think I'd have to have a CT scan to find the growths. They are generally benign, but treated with chemo. In 1% of cases they do turn out to be cancerous, but overall the prognosis is good.
Now I know all those things are worst case scenarios, but it's so hard for my head not to swim with all that. It's so much to take in.
Also, even though I'm not really consciously worried about cancer - or at least I'm telling myself not to be - the thought is lingering there. I start thinking about my Dad's cancer and how many people in his family had cancer. Then I pull myself back in and say - it's not a real possibility.
And.. I don't know... maybe I'm not actually even worried about that. Maybe it's easier to focus on that - on the big C which we all know is scary and horrible than all these other things I don't want to think about yet. Like tumors growing all over from GTD. Like all these blood tests when I can't even think about veins without feeling weak flutterings in my stomach. Blood tests when I was pregnant / trying to get pregnant all seemed doable because they were all for a good cause. But I sat in the lab last week waiting for the needle and got entirely focused on how much I HATED that. Didn't want to be here. Because it's NOT for a good cause. It's because of this bad thing that happened. And maybe that's really what I don't want to think about.
I'm leaving comments open this time because I need more information and am open to anything anyone knows on the subject. Also, I got the nicest email from a wonderful fellow blogger after my last post on this and realized I was probably dumb to close comments - even if I didn't want to talk about it.
*Note - I know I should post links to wikipedia here. Honestly at least part of what's held up this post is I'm feeling too tired (or emotionally tired) to go through getting together all the links I should have. So here it is without any supporting Google's revenue stream if you decide to do a search. Sorry.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Amber is the color of your energy, but red?
Because I apparently like to be stressed and unsure of myself...
I joined this playgroup on Thursdays (starting in October) called "Little Sponges." It's 5 or 6 moms/kids and there are 3 activities each week. Each mom has to plan one activity (although the organizer seems to have managed to leave her name off the planning lists... Hmm...) - either music, art or reading.
OK, sure.
The organizer (who a few weeks ago mentioned fears that her child could be color blind, though she's not yet 2, so I think she just doesn't know her colors yet. I digress) just happened to pick an "easy" theme of colors for the semester. Each week is a different color.
The first week is red. And I've got music.
Now there are lots of songs on colors - but on a single color? I'm coming up with "You can't ride in my little red wagon..." I looked online and found SOME more songs (most are multiple colors).
But now I'm left wondering how to 'entertain' half a dozen kids ranging from under a year to probably 2 and half for 20 minutes with songs? (I should probably mention here that I'm just barely a step above tone deaf.) I mean, my daughter actually loves music, but I can't see entertaining her this way. Maybe itsy bitsy spider... But spiders aren't red! usually... Could I pull that off?
So far I've decided - I'm not signing alone for 20 minutes! I've found some lyrics (generally to well known tunes) and will print them for the other moms to join. Maybe I'll print some pictures of the objects... a red apple, a red wagon, a red fire truck... Um, yeah, I think I might be done now...
I should mention the woman organizing is a former teacher / administrator and has suggested that all this will be easy (did I mention she's not signed up for any lessons?). Having no teaching experience and generally finding myself to be a totally crap teacher, I'm not really finding that to be the case!
I welcome all suggestions!
I joined this playgroup on Thursdays (starting in October) called "Little Sponges." It's 5 or 6 moms/kids and there are 3 activities each week. Each mom has to plan one activity (although the organizer seems to have managed to leave her name off the planning lists... Hmm...) - either music, art or reading.
OK, sure.
The organizer (who a few weeks ago mentioned fears that her child could be color blind, though she's not yet 2, so I think she just doesn't know her colors yet. I digress) just happened to pick an "easy" theme of colors for the semester. Each week is a different color.
The first week is red. And I've got music.
Now there are lots of songs on colors - but on a single color? I'm coming up with "You can't ride in my little red wagon..." I looked online and found SOME more songs (most are multiple colors).
But now I'm left wondering how to 'entertain' half a dozen kids ranging from under a year to probably 2 and half for 20 minutes with songs? (I should probably mention here that I'm just barely a step above tone deaf.) I mean, my daughter actually loves music, but I can't see entertaining her this way. Maybe itsy bitsy spider... But spiders aren't red! usually... Could I pull that off?
So far I've decided - I'm not signing alone for 20 minutes! I've found some lyrics (generally to well known tunes) and will print them for the other moms to join. Maybe I'll print some pictures of the objects... a red apple, a red wagon, a red fire truck... Um, yeah, I think I might be done now...
I should mention the woman organizing is a former teacher / administrator and has suggested that all this will be easy (did I mention she's not signed up for any lessons?). Having no teaching experience and generally finding myself to be a totally crap teacher, I'm not really finding that to be the case!
I welcome all suggestions!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
I keep asking either or questions...
And getting yes or no answers.
And not always from the same person. So I'm worried it's me.
Slowly going insane in Virginia...
And not always from the same person. So I'm worried it's me.
Slowly going insane in Virginia...
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Snakes, snakes, snakes!!!!!
Had a freak out moment this morning when I went to the basement and saw a snake sitting on the bug/mouse sticky traps. Freaked, screamed, shut the door, ran up the stairs, shut the other door, shoved a towel under it so nothing could come up and wondered where I put the realtor’s number. Texted my husband who was in class today with a freak out message telling him we’d be moving and I was going to start packing upstairs, but he’d have to pack the basement. Or we could just abandon all that stuff.
But it wasn’t a snake stuck to the trap.
It was THREE SNAKES! THREE SNAKES!!!!! THREE!!! The number that is HIGHER than two. THREE! All stuck to traps. Likely a momma and two babies. My coworker came over to look and take care of them. So he checked the rest of the basement. There was a FOURTH over on another trap! FOUR! EVEN MORE THAN THREE!!!!! And some big snake skins stuck up in the rafters. He thinks they came in through the dryer vent which was filled with lint and stuck open, so he sort of wedged it closed and said that was probably it. He said she probably just came in to nest – a safe place to have her babies because it was cold last night. Um, have her babies? Yeah, why the EFF doesn’t that make me feel better!!!!?!?!?!?
But I just made the BIG EFFING MISTAKE of googling how many babies they have. HOLY oh God, Holy… I… sniffle, sniffle. One site said 12-40. One said 3-80. One noted a litter of 98 was recorded. NINETY EIGHT! Are you effing kidding me?!?!?!?! I am NEVER doing laundry down there again. It is totallymy husband's job now. Thank God I had the foresight to wash our clothes and sheets and towels this weekend because I’m not going back down there!!!! My coworker noted that momma wasn’t that big and for 98 it would have had to be a huge snake. Yeah, so I’m probably lucky and it’s only like 40. Oh Fuck.
At least I can give the realtor a range on what she should be looking for because GOD KNOWS I will not be SHOWING her the basement.
You'll remember that first we had big spiders and then mice. We got these plug ins to deal with the mice and I haven't seen any since. So, woo! Big sigh of relief. No more mice. Yeah, sigh...
UNTIL NOW! I mean snakes! I feel like Indiana Jones - why did it have to be snakes? Except like a really really wimpy Indiana as I don’t recall him screaming when stuck in a pit of oh yeah, poisonous, snakes. Sniffle, sniffle. Did Indy cry? I don’t recall him crying… I think he did. It was probably just off camera.
F*ck, f*ck, f*ck… And now I have Tourettes.
I'm really having a bad effing week.
whimper, whimper...
But it wasn’t a snake stuck to the trap.
It was THREE SNAKES! THREE SNAKES!!!!! THREE!!! The number that is HIGHER than two. THREE! All stuck to traps. Likely a momma and two babies. My coworker came over to look and take care of them. So he checked the rest of the basement. There was a FOURTH over on another trap! FOUR! EVEN MORE THAN THREE!!!!! And some big snake skins stuck up in the rafters. He thinks they came in through the dryer vent which was filled with lint and stuck open, so he sort of wedged it closed and said that was probably it. He said she probably just came in to nest – a safe place to have her babies because it was cold last night. Um, have her babies? Yeah, why the EFF doesn’t that make me feel better!!!!?!?!?!?
But I just made the BIG EFFING MISTAKE of googling how many babies they have. HOLY oh God, Holy… I… sniffle, sniffle. One site said 12-40. One said 3-80. One noted a litter of 98 was recorded. NINETY EIGHT! Are you effing kidding me?!?!?!?! I am NEVER doing laundry down there again. It is totallymy husband's job now. Thank God I had the foresight to wash our clothes and sheets and towels this weekend because I’m not going back down there!!!! My coworker noted that momma wasn’t that big and for 98 it would have had to be a huge snake. Yeah, so I’m probably lucky and it’s only like 40. Oh Fuck.
At least I can give the realtor a range on what she should be looking for because GOD KNOWS I will not be SHOWING her the basement.
You'll remember that first we had big spiders and then mice. We got these plug ins to deal with the mice and I haven't seen any since. So, woo! Big sigh of relief. No more mice. Yeah, sigh...
UNTIL NOW! I mean snakes! I feel like Indiana Jones - why did it have to be snakes? Except like a really really wimpy Indiana as I don’t recall him screaming when stuck in a pit of oh yeah, poisonous, snakes. Sniffle, sniffle. Did Indy cry? I don’t recall him crying… I think he did. It was probably just off camera.
F*ck, f*ck, f*ck… And now I have Tourettes.
I'm really having a bad effing week.
whimper, whimper...
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Potty Training
We decided to give potty training a go last week. Yeah, it seemed a little crazy and many of my friends noted that it seemed a bit…early to them. But I’d gone to this thing on sign language for potty training at the library last month and THEY said your child could train by 18 months. And as the monkey is 19 months, CLEARLY I needed to get on board.
Hahaha.
So I picked a weekend that both my husband and I were off and would be home for several days (THEY recommend 3 days “intense training”) and marked it on our calendars. As it happened, we were both home Thurs-Sun. Plenty of time. Then my husband signed up to teach Thursday nights and Sundays. Ok, Ok. But Sunday would be day FOUR and we really only needed THREE. And he’d be home most of Thursday, right?
Then he signed up to take a class on Thursday. (I swear he doesn’t even look at his calendar. Seriously when he sent me the details on that class, he sent me his schedule for the fall. I looked at it and said – you know we’re in FL for a wedding for 3-4 of the dates you have listed, right?) Ugh! So day 1 is all me! I told him he could make it for it by starting on his own on Wednesday. Ha. (Actually, he did legitimately have some work stuff to do that day – though it wasn’t on his calendar…!)
Thursday morning the monkey wakes up and after breakfast I decide – ok, let’s start. I take her diaper off (THEY all say to leave them naked from the waist down for this) and set up the potty in the bathroom. I ask her if she has to go potty. No, but she really likes it. She sits on it for awhile, enjoys checking it out, squats down next to it to look at all the parts and – when she stands up the floor is wet! Right directly NEXT TO the potty! I decide to take this as progress – hey, you got close! Next time IN the potty, baby. But so close. Yeah!
A few minutes later, she squatting again, but I figure she’s ‘empty’ this time so we’re fine. She stands up and she’s pooped on the floor. I just barely got it up before she fully stepped in it. Ugh! But hey – close, yeah! Being a total idiot, as she hadn’t pooped IN the potty, I forgot all about poop etiquette and consequences and didn’t think to wipe her till I noticed some brown on her foot. Oh, yuck…
She’s still interested so we stay in the bathroom. She’s up and down on the potty, checking it all out and – yup, she’s peed on the floor again. (yippee?) Sigh.
By this point, she was done “looking” at the potty (and christening the floor all around it), so we go out to the family room (sans diaper) and start to play. It takes a little bit, but I start to realize that her crankiness seems to be related to her lack of diaper – maybe? Aren’t babies supposed to like being without a diaper? I don’t know, but man she doesn’t seem happy.
After half an hour, the timer goes off, so we head towards the bathroom and I ask if she wants to use the potty. NO! She starts to head towards a tantrum, so I immediately drop it (that’s what THEY say to do). But I also decide we better put a diaper on her. If she’s not going to try on the “schedule,” it’s just going to be a damn messy day. She must not be ready and we’ll try another day.
My Mom was visiting so I asked if she’d watch the baby while I went up to shower. While I was gone, the monkey looked at her and said – Potty! They went into the bathroom, she sat down the potty itself was finally christened! My Mom put her back in her diaper.
Twenty minutes later, we’re back in there (and now I’ve got it fully set up with batteries and turned on so when she goes it plays a song). She goes in the potty again and the song plays. She loves the song! Why won’t the song play again? A small tantrum ensues. She sits on the potty again – up and down. I empty and clean it and she tries again (almost right away). She pees another thimbleful and gets another song! So that became the pattern for the day. Running into and out of the bathroom all day and peeing every time she could get enough in her bladder to make the music play. My Mom asked if I thought she did these small pees all day long normally. Could she really have that much control to work out to only go a little really frequently so the potty would sing to her?
Sadly we had a few things come up this weekend unexpected that prevented any further potty training (she used it on and off, but I think we totally lost momentum). We’re contemplating whether to do a bare bottom weekend (when my husband does NOT schedule classes!) soon, but we’ll see…
Hahaha.
So I picked a weekend that both my husband and I were off and would be home for several days (THEY recommend 3 days “intense training”) and marked it on our calendars. As it happened, we were both home Thurs-Sun. Plenty of time. Then my husband signed up to teach Thursday nights and Sundays. Ok, Ok. But Sunday would be day FOUR and we really only needed THREE. And he’d be home most of Thursday, right?
Then he signed up to take a class on Thursday. (I swear he doesn’t even look at his calendar. Seriously when he sent me the details on that class, he sent me his schedule for the fall. I looked at it and said – you know we’re in FL for a wedding for 3-4 of the dates you have listed, right?) Ugh! So day 1 is all me! I told him he could make it for it by starting on his own on Wednesday. Ha. (Actually, he did legitimately have some work stuff to do that day – though it wasn’t on his calendar…!)
Thursday morning the monkey wakes up and after breakfast I decide – ok, let’s start. I take her diaper off (THEY all say to leave them naked from the waist down for this) and set up the potty in the bathroom. I ask her if she has to go potty. No, but she really likes it. She sits on it for awhile, enjoys checking it out, squats down next to it to look at all the parts and – when she stands up the floor is wet! Right directly NEXT TO the potty! I decide to take this as progress – hey, you got close! Next time IN the potty, baby. But so close. Yeah!
A few minutes later, she squatting again, but I figure she’s ‘empty’ this time so we’re fine. She stands up and she’s pooped on the floor. I just barely got it up before she fully stepped in it. Ugh! But hey – close, yeah! Being a total idiot, as she hadn’t pooped IN the potty, I forgot all about poop etiquette and consequences and didn’t think to wipe her till I noticed some brown on her foot. Oh, yuck…
She’s still interested so we stay in the bathroom. She’s up and down on the potty, checking it all out and – yup, she’s peed on the floor again. (yippee?) Sigh.
By this point, she was done “looking” at the potty (and christening the floor all around it), so we go out to the family room (sans diaper) and start to play. It takes a little bit, but I start to realize that her crankiness seems to be related to her lack of diaper – maybe? Aren’t babies supposed to like being without a diaper? I don’t know, but man she doesn’t seem happy.
After half an hour, the timer goes off, so we head towards the bathroom and I ask if she wants to use the potty. NO! She starts to head towards a tantrum, so I immediately drop it (that’s what THEY say to do). But I also decide we better put a diaper on her. If she’s not going to try on the “schedule,” it’s just going to be a damn messy day. She must not be ready and we’ll try another day.
My Mom was visiting so I asked if she’d watch the baby while I went up to shower. While I was gone, the monkey looked at her and said – Potty! They went into the bathroom, she sat down the potty itself was finally christened! My Mom put her back in her diaper.
Twenty minutes later, we’re back in there (and now I’ve got it fully set up with batteries and turned on so when she goes it plays a song). She goes in the potty again and the song plays. She loves the song! Why won’t the song play again? A small tantrum ensues. She sits on the potty again – up and down. I empty and clean it and she tries again (almost right away). She pees another thimbleful and gets another song! So that became the pattern for the day. Running into and out of the bathroom all day and peeing every time she could get enough in her bladder to make the music play. My Mom asked if I thought she did these small pees all day long normally. Could she really have that much control to work out to only go a little really frequently so the potty would sing to her?
Sadly we had a few things come up this weekend unexpected that prevented any further potty training (she used it on and off, but I think we totally lost momentum). We’re contemplating whether to do a bare bottom weekend (when my husband does NOT schedule classes!) soon, but we’ll see…
The short version
I don’t really want to talk about this. I know I need to. I need to get it out – put it somewhere for the world to deal with so maybe I can stop. But I feel like I’m having a hard time saying the words. Well… posting them anyway. Truthfully, I wrote about 10 pages of post yesterday, but I’m not ready to put those out there (you can save your cheers on that one).
But if I don’t tell you this, everything else I write feels like a bit of a lie. Because THIS is what I’m thinking about. Sometimes it feels like all I’m thinking about. Sometimes it feels too surreal to think about. But the truth is – I was pregnant and last week we found out I wasn’t anymore. We’d gone in for our 8 week sonogram the week before and things didn’t look good, but they wanted to confirm. There were lots of ifs and maybes. My hcg numbers were high. I should be hopeful. But really, I wasn’t. I was paying attention to my body that week and knew that it had been telling me this for a little while now – I just wasn’t listening.
I went for the D&C on Friday afternoon. The day was interminably long waiting for that. The check in process was horrible and I decided I hated the woman taking my information and the other woman who flitted about the office. I hated their cheeriness and perkiness (this was the gyn surgery unit. I can’t think of a reason one would be “happy” to be there), their lack of understanding (yeah, that might just have been me. Seems I was in a bad and whormonal* mood), the information they didn’t give me.
I was woefully unprepared for all this (I didn’t even know you were asleep for the procedure). In my super long (unpublished) post I wrote all the details of it. I needed to get it out and what if someone else was as unprepared as I was? I should be able to tell them. And maybe one day I’ll publish it or a version of it. But it turns out that again today I don’t want to talk about it.
And then, after forever, it was done. The surgery itself was easy and by Sunday I actually felt physically better than I had in weeks. I wasn’t SO exhausted anymore (which is too bad, as hiding in sleep would be sort of blissful). The whole day felt fuzzy and dreamlike with some moments of nightmarish clarity, but now it feels like it happened to someone else. On occasion reality pokes its ugly head in and brings anger with it, but mostly I’m just moving along. Two friends have told me about their new pregnancies already this week and I feel like a horrible person that I can’t quite seem to feel happy for them yet. I want to be a better person than that. But I admit it. I’m jealous and it pokes the wound a bit.
So for now, I’m going back to posts about potty training, new words and the silly things a 19 month old does. She’s learning animal sounds. Recently she picked up “gobble gobble” which she can’t say without laughing. My husband and his fellow VT alumni sister are very happy with this development (hokies, which are turkeys, are their mascot). As a BC grad, despite 4 years of college, I can’t say I have any idea what an eagle (our mascot) says (does it say “suck it, VT?” Just kidding. I promise it’s my second favorite!). I’ll have to work on that.
*As always, whormonal is still stolen from The Domestication of the Single Girl.
But if I don’t tell you this, everything else I write feels like a bit of a lie. Because THIS is what I’m thinking about. Sometimes it feels like all I’m thinking about. Sometimes it feels too surreal to think about. But the truth is – I was pregnant and last week we found out I wasn’t anymore. We’d gone in for our 8 week sonogram the week before and things didn’t look good, but they wanted to confirm. There were lots of ifs and maybes. My hcg numbers were high. I should be hopeful. But really, I wasn’t. I was paying attention to my body that week and knew that it had been telling me this for a little while now – I just wasn’t listening.
I went for the D&C on Friday afternoon. The day was interminably long waiting for that. The check in process was horrible and I decided I hated the woman taking my information and the other woman who flitted about the office. I hated their cheeriness and perkiness (this was the gyn surgery unit. I can’t think of a reason one would be “happy” to be there), their lack of understanding (yeah, that might just have been me. Seems I was in a bad and whormonal* mood), the information they didn’t give me.
I was woefully unprepared for all this (I didn’t even know you were asleep for the procedure). In my super long (unpublished) post I wrote all the details of it. I needed to get it out and what if someone else was as unprepared as I was? I should be able to tell them. And maybe one day I’ll publish it or a version of it. But it turns out that again today I don’t want to talk about it.
And then, after forever, it was done. The surgery itself was easy and by Sunday I actually felt physically better than I had in weeks. I wasn’t SO exhausted anymore (which is too bad, as hiding in sleep would be sort of blissful). The whole day felt fuzzy and dreamlike with some moments of nightmarish clarity, but now it feels like it happened to someone else. On occasion reality pokes its ugly head in and brings anger with it, but mostly I’m just moving along. Two friends have told me about their new pregnancies already this week and I feel like a horrible person that I can’t quite seem to feel happy for them yet. I want to be a better person than that. But I admit it. I’m jealous and it pokes the wound a bit.
So for now, I’m going back to posts about potty training, new words and the silly things a 19 month old does. She’s learning animal sounds. Recently she picked up “gobble gobble” which she can’t say without laughing. My husband and his fellow VT alumni sister are very happy with this development (hokies, which are turkeys, are their mascot). As a BC grad, despite 4 years of college, I can’t say I have any idea what an eagle (our mascot) says (does it say “suck it, VT?” Just kidding. I promise it’s my second favorite!). I’ll have to work on that.
*As always, whormonal is still stolen from The Domestication of the Single Girl.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Is learning how to manipulate grandparents against parents by 19 months impressive or just scary?
My Mom is visiting this week to watch the monkey for us while my mother in law is on vacation (she usually watches her one, or possibly three(! depending on my husband's schedule) days a week).
Yesterday I came home and my Mom told me how good she'd been. No crying and hardly any whining all day. Happy and helpful and listened - all those things.
Within a few minutes of me arriving home - whining and crying had started. My Mom looked at her and said - what is this? I just finished saying how good you were!
The monkey has learned the importance of grandparents and begun to master toddler-dom. Ah, I am so "proud," young grasshopper. (But still tired, so could you PLEASE quit whining?!)
Well, truthfully, she hasn't totally mastered manipulation. I mean she TOTALLY showed her hand in front of Grandma at the end there. (Whatever. Maybe she also realizes she's an only grandchild and is going to be completely spoiled regardless.)
Yesterday I came home and my Mom told me how good she'd been. No crying and hardly any whining all day. Happy and helpful and listened - all those things.
Within a few minutes of me arriving home - whining and crying had started. My Mom looked at her and said - what is this? I just finished saying how good you were!
The monkey has learned the importance of grandparents and begun to master toddler-dom. Ah, I am so "proud," young grasshopper. (But still tired, so could you PLEASE quit whining?!)
Well, truthfully, she hasn't totally mastered manipulation. I mean she TOTALLY showed her hand in front of Grandma at the end there. (Whatever. Maybe she also realizes she's an only grandchild and is going to be completely spoiled regardless.)
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Stress, random thoughts and the other junk I threw in here. Sorry...
Hello, blogging world!
I know I've been a little MIA recently. The truth is - I am stressed. Sometimes it's that background music stress - that stuff that's always there playing in the back of your head, but you're not really listening to. But then I stop to think and its ugly head is raging up again and it's the bull in the china shop of my psyche stress.
So, you know, typical.
Anyway, as I like to diversify my stress (to hedge lest one should actually resolve!), it's coming in two flavors these days. The first is a personal issue that I just don't really want to talk about yet.
I'm sorry - I know that's annoying and it's not meant to be a cliffhanger. We'll get there, but just not today.
The second is work. And though I'm perfectly "ready" to talk about this one, no one in their right mind would be ready to listen! Seriously - for those of us working isn't the 5 minutes (or was that hours?) we take to check out blogs done to escape?! You don't want to hear my whines about work! (Well, you probably will at some point anyway. But I'll try to spare you this one today too!)
So I've been a little quieter on the blogging front to keep from doing the mental upchuck of all my stress (which could lead to real physical upchuck of any poor readers!).
So instead I throw out some random stories to amuse:
How Daddy reads children's stories:
This one was Pooh's New Clothes or something (it's the Emporer's New Clothes, but with the pooh characters).
Pooh was walking through the forest to the bee tree to look for some honey when he saw all his friends standing together. He wondered what they were doing.
(and for the ad lib)
It turns out it was an intervention. See - it's obvious. There's the Pooh with the honey AND he's looking for more.
**********************
How Baby Decorates
I've mentioned the plethora of ugly wall paper in our house before. We're working on removing, but apparently not fast enough.
I took the monkey in the bathroom with me and she started out by pulling down all the magazines (as usual) and ripping some. When suddenly she noticed something that looked more fun to rip. Before I could stop her she'd grabbed a peeling edge of wallpaper and RIP!
Guess maybe we'll move up redecorating here...
**********************
Be careful what you say...
As the monkey bent in half starting to do a headstand / forward roll / God knows what..., my Mom looked at her and said - "You're amazing!"
It's now her favorite word ("mazing"). I'm not sure she knows what it means, but she knows it's a good thing and she knows it refers to her (I'm not sure if she's really putting two words together yet or not, but she does seem to be saying "I'm mazing."). It's getting a little narcissistic...
Thank goodness this isn't one of "Daddy's" words...
**********************
Faking it
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this one before... So here goes - Like all kids, my daughter has perfected the fake cry (the one that stops the second she gets attention / what she wants). But she's got a few others now too - the fake cough, the fake sneeze (achoo). But my personal favorite is the fake laugh.
If she hears other people laughing, she'll suddenly jump in with a really boisterous - HA HA HA!
I've also started asking her to find her laugh when we do body parts. (I'd started with smile - which leads to this really over the top, squinched eyes smile.) But then, as nothing is "funny," her laugh tends to be more like - sigh, ha, ha. I'm humoring you.
I know I've been a little MIA recently. The truth is - I am stressed. Sometimes it's that background music stress - that stuff that's always there playing in the back of your head, but you're not really listening to. But then I stop to think and its ugly head is raging up again and it's the bull in the china shop of my psyche stress.
So, you know, typical.
Anyway, as I like to diversify my stress (to hedge lest one should actually resolve!), it's coming in two flavors these days. The first is a personal issue that I just don't really want to talk about yet.
I'm sorry - I know that's annoying and it's not meant to be a cliffhanger. We'll get there, but just not today.
The second is work. And though I'm perfectly "ready" to talk about this one, no one in their right mind would be ready to listen! Seriously - for those of us working isn't the 5 minutes (or was that hours?) we take to check out blogs done to escape?! You don't want to hear my whines about work! (Well, you probably will at some point anyway. But I'll try to spare you this one today too!)
So I've been a little quieter on the blogging front to keep from doing the mental upchuck of all my stress (which could lead to real physical upchuck of any poor readers!).
So instead I throw out some random stories to amuse:
How Daddy reads children's stories:
This one was Pooh's New Clothes or something (it's the Emporer's New Clothes, but with the pooh characters).
Pooh was walking through the forest to the bee tree to look for some honey when he saw all his friends standing together. He wondered what they were doing.
(and for the ad lib)
It turns out it was an intervention. See - it's obvious. There's the Pooh with the honey AND he's looking for more.
**********************
How Baby Decorates
I've mentioned the plethora of ugly wall paper in our house before. We're working on removing, but apparently not fast enough.
I took the monkey in the bathroom with me and she started out by pulling down all the magazines (as usual) and ripping some. When suddenly she noticed something that looked more fun to rip. Before I could stop her she'd grabbed a peeling edge of wallpaper and RIP!
Guess maybe we'll move up redecorating here...
**********************
Be careful what you say...
As the monkey bent in half starting to do a headstand / forward roll / God knows what..., my Mom looked at her and said - "You're amazing!"
It's now her favorite word ("mazing"). I'm not sure she knows what it means, but she knows it's a good thing and she knows it refers to her (I'm not sure if she's really putting two words together yet or not, but she does seem to be saying "I'm mazing."). It's getting a little narcissistic...
Thank goodness this isn't one of "Daddy's" words...
**********************
Faking it
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this one before... So here goes - Like all kids, my daughter has perfected the fake cry (the one that stops the second she gets attention / what she wants). But she's got a few others now too - the fake cough, the fake sneeze (achoo). But my personal favorite is the fake laugh.
If she hears other people laughing, she'll suddenly jump in with a really boisterous - HA HA HA!
I've also started asking her to find her laugh when we do body parts. (I'd started with smile - which leads to this really over the top, squinched eyes smile.) But then, as nothing is "funny," her laugh tends to be more like - sigh, ha, ha. I'm humoring you.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Somehow the whole day was gone trying to sleep. Which never quite happened. So it just kind of sucked. But then we were grown ups again.
The title sums up quite a lot of my Friday and Saturday.
After Thursday, I started the day Friday exhausted. My husband got held over at work which meant that he got home around lunch - I was counting the hours. All day we both felt beat and sort of lounged around the family room - but with a toddler, so no real sleeping actually happened and that "hint" of sleep (so close, I can almost taste it but alas, no) felt possibly worse than actually running around all day would have.
Much of Saturday felt the same. Till finally as the monkey and I were sobbing together about her inability to fall asleep, my husband decided to take her for a ride and leave me to sleep. I blessed him, but then felt horribly guilty and whormonally (thank you, Single Girl! -
http://domesticationofthesinglegirl.blogspot.com/) cried again for awhile.
I HATE those type of days.
But then Saturday night we went out to a party downtown. It was my friend's birthday and she and her roommate had commandeered the party room in their condo as well as the balcony (an awesome location overlooking the China town arch) to celebrate. Suddenly I saw friends I hadn't seen in ... God knows how long. Adult beverages were served (and this is one of my cool friends, so real adult beverages - mixed drinks, but tons of prosecco and bellinis and wine and microbrews and, oh crap, I'm not drinking. Damn it.) and adult conversations had. But she also had a pinata (I was the muscle behind finally breaking this one too. And was then accused of juicing...). .
The one downside was talking to all my childless friends who planned to sleep till noon the next day and maybe shower by 2 or so.
Jerks.
After Thursday, I started the day Friday exhausted. My husband got held over at work which meant that he got home around lunch - I was counting the hours. All day we both felt beat and sort of lounged around the family room - but with a toddler, so no real sleeping actually happened and that "hint" of sleep (so close, I can almost taste it but alas, no) felt possibly worse than actually running around all day would have.
Much of Saturday felt the same. Till finally as the monkey and I were sobbing together about her inability to fall asleep, my husband decided to take her for a ride and leave me to sleep. I blessed him, but then felt horribly guilty and whormonally (thank you, Single Girl! -
http://domesticationofthesinglegirl.blogspot.com/) cried again for awhile.
I HATE those type of days.
But then Saturday night we went out to a party downtown. It was my friend's birthday and she and her roommate had commandeered the party room in their condo as well as the balcony (an awesome location overlooking the China town arch) to celebrate. Suddenly I saw friends I hadn't seen in ... God knows how long. Adult beverages were served (and this is one of my cool friends, so real adult beverages - mixed drinks, but tons of prosecco and bellinis and wine and microbrews and, oh crap, I'm not drinking. Damn it.) and adult conversations had. But she also had a pinata (I was the muscle behind finally breaking this one too. And was then accused of juicing...). .
The one downside was talking to all my childless friends who planned to sleep till noon the next day and maybe shower by 2 or so.
Jerks.
Monday, August 30, 2010
How many times a day can your child bleed before it starts to become a reflection on your parenting?
Is it less than 3? If it's less than 3, I'm in trouble.
Last Thursday was one of those days. I woke up feeling like crap and realizing that motherhood did not come with any sick days - damn. I figured I'd muscle through it and decided to take the baby for a walk. Muscle through it, my butt... I was barely hobbling home wondering how long it would take me to get the monkey out of the stroller and into the bathroom with me. I moved the baby gates to make the bathroom accessible - I had no time for this. By the 4th or so trip in, she had no time for this either. But I managed to control her ire via tv watching. We usually try to minimize this. Not so on Thursday. Look - we have a collection of vintage episodes of the Muppets right here! (Then in a fit of self pity, I even put on the movie I'd been watching the night before.)
Anyway, eventually I felt better, so on with the day and errands. As usual, the monkey was opposed to the nap concept, so I had to trick her into it with a car ride. But unusually I was actually able to transfer her from the car seat to her crib so I could lay down too - maybe my day was looking up! Of course, that transfer always means that the nap will not be long.
But, as she'd napped, I decided we could go to the pool. Despite the fact that she was really still overtired and a bit cranky. And the problem with a tired toddler is that they're sort of like little drunks. Flitting from one thing to another on unsteady feet - and they fall down. A lot.
So in my brilliance, I'd taken this small person ready to fall down to a concrete filled area. The possibilities are well, not really endless. In fact, they are pretty limited to the obvious bad thing that's about to happen (cue after school special music).
We were there about an hour before the big fall. I ran and checked her knees and hands glad there were no (more) scrapes. But I soon realized that that was because she'd managed to take quite a bit of the fall with her forehead. Oh jeez! Luckily it wasn't actually that bad (technically, she didn't actually bleed, which my friend insisted meant that it shouldn't count in my accident numbers for the day). I went to the lifeguards (always Eastern European youths, it seems. I have no idea why this is) to ask for ice. One checked the first aid kit and reported, no we don't have any. I went to get her a cold/wet cloth from the bathroom (only it wasn't that cold) and when we came back out, he told me - oh, we found some in the refridgerator (what a place to look for it!). Here, I wrapped it in cotton (meaning, stuck a half dozen cotton balls around it, which are thick enough to not conduct the cold at all) for you.
He then followed me back to our stuff as I tried to put the ice on her head (this is what the monkey considers adding insult to injury or are you effing kidding me?) and get her changed so we could go. The lifeguard then asked me - how did this happen?
Now I know that he might be 17 (in 3 years) and obviously does not have kids or much exposure to small children and he's male and all that, but it was the Mom in me that responded - she was walking. She's a toddler. She's not very good at it yet and she falls down sometimes. (I tried to hide the silent duh in that sentence. I know it's not fair. I mean, among other things - there ARE in fact other ways she could have hurt herself like getting in or out of the pool or... well, maybe that's it. And it's probably just a standard question they need to ask for reports. It was just that his tone seemed so perplexed - like, wow, how did this happen?!)
Anyway, the lifeguard was very nice and did try to play with her / distract her some. I just wasn't having such a good day...
So we went home.
And a couple hours later I decided to make dinner. And as I turned on the oven, the monkey started climbing into her high chair. I hate that she does this. I always want to hover and hold and "help." She's so little. The floor is so far away. But I can't actually seem to stop this from happening. So I just live with the heart palpitations. But I must have gotten too used to my fear - as rather than run to help her, I actually went to turn off the oven (if she was already climbing into her chair, she was hungry. I clearly didn't have time to bake chicken nuggets (oh yeah, I'm a regular Betty Crocker) and would have to nuke them.
And in that second, she fell.
And there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And blood.
Oh how I hate that sight.
She was fine in the end. As much as she would let me look in her mouth, it didn't appear that any teeth were chipped or knocked out (wouldn't it be nice if I could get the first set in before she's spitting them into her sippy cup?) - just blood. It looked like she'd bit / somehow split her lip (well, a little).
The Muppets were brought back out (why not rot her mind at this point too?) to soothe and she decided she liked the little ice pack things. And I think she particularly liked getting to eat chicken nuggets on the couch with the tv on (like the grown ups do! Well, not that she'd know that... I hope!).
And I prayed for bedtime to arrive fast and without further injury.
God help us.
Last Thursday was one of those days. I woke up feeling like crap and realizing that motherhood did not come with any sick days - damn. I figured I'd muscle through it and decided to take the baby for a walk. Muscle through it, my butt... I was barely hobbling home wondering how long it would take me to get the monkey out of the stroller and into the bathroom with me. I moved the baby gates to make the bathroom accessible - I had no time for this. By the 4th or so trip in, she had no time for this either. But I managed to control her ire via tv watching. We usually try to minimize this. Not so on Thursday. Look - we have a collection of vintage episodes of the Muppets right here! (Then in a fit of self pity, I even put on the movie I'd been watching the night before.)
Anyway, eventually I felt better, so on with the day and errands. As usual, the monkey was opposed to the nap concept, so I had to trick her into it with a car ride. But unusually I was actually able to transfer her from the car seat to her crib so I could lay down too - maybe my day was looking up! Of course, that transfer always means that the nap will not be long.
But, as she'd napped, I decided we could go to the pool. Despite the fact that she was really still overtired and a bit cranky. And the problem with a tired toddler is that they're sort of like little drunks. Flitting from one thing to another on unsteady feet - and they fall down. A lot.
So in my brilliance, I'd taken this small person ready to fall down to a concrete filled area. The possibilities are well, not really endless. In fact, they are pretty limited to the obvious bad thing that's about to happen (cue after school special music).
We were there about an hour before the big fall. I ran and checked her knees and hands glad there were no (more) scrapes. But I soon realized that that was because she'd managed to take quite a bit of the fall with her forehead. Oh jeez! Luckily it wasn't actually that bad (technically, she didn't actually bleed, which my friend insisted meant that it shouldn't count in my accident numbers for the day). I went to the lifeguards (always Eastern European youths, it seems. I have no idea why this is) to ask for ice. One checked the first aid kit and reported, no we don't have any. I went to get her a cold/wet cloth from the bathroom (only it wasn't that cold) and when we came back out, he told me - oh, we found some in the refridgerator (what a place to look for it!). Here, I wrapped it in cotton (meaning, stuck a half dozen cotton balls around it, which are thick enough to not conduct the cold at all) for you.
He then followed me back to our stuff as I tried to put the ice on her head (this is what the monkey considers adding insult to injury or are you effing kidding me?) and get her changed so we could go. The lifeguard then asked me - how did this happen?
Now I know that he might be 17 (in 3 years) and obviously does not have kids or much exposure to small children and he's male and all that, but it was the Mom in me that responded - she was walking. She's a toddler. She's not very good at it yet and she falls down sometimes. (I tried to hide the silent duh in that sentence. I know it's not fair. I mean, among other things - there ARE in fact other ways she could have hurt herself like getting in or out of the pool or... well, maybe that's it. And it's probably just a standard question they need to ask for reports. It was just that his tone seemed so perplexed - like, wow, how did this happen?!)
Anyway, the lifeguard was very nice and did try to play with her / distract her some. I just wasn't having such a good day...
So we went home.
And a couple hours later I decided to make dinner. And as I turned on the oven, the monkey started climbing into her high chair. I hate that she does this. I always want to hover and hold and "help." She's so little. The floor is so far away. But I can't actually seem to stop this from happening. So I just live with the heart palpitations. But I must have gotten too used to my fear - as rather than run to help her, I actually went to turn off the oven (if she was already climbing into her chair, she was hungry. I clearly didn't have time to bake chicken nuggets (oh yeah, I'm a regular Betty Crocker) and would have to nuke them.
And in that second, she fell.
And there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And blood.
Oh how I hate that sight.
She was fine in the end. As much as she would let me look in her mouth, it didn't appear that any teeth were chipped or knocked out (wouldn't it be nice if I could get the first set in before she's spitting them into her sippy cup?) - just blood. It looked like she'd bit / somehow split her lip (well, a little).
The Muppets were brought back out (why not rot her mind at this point too?) to soothe and she decided she liked the little ice pack things. And I think she particularly liked getting to eat chicken nuggets on the couch with the tv on (like the grown ups do! Well, not that she'd know that... I hope!).
And I prayed for bedtime to arrive fast and without further injury.
God help us.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The big hooha about hoohas
My parents like to say that they always believed in telling us anatomically accurate names for things. There wasn't poop in the toilet, but feces. I didn't have to go potty - I had to go to the bathroom. I didn't pee. I urinated.
My Dad liked to tell the story of one time when my brother was very young and told my grandmother that he needed to go make urine from his penis. She was horrified! How could they teach him such words! My Dad said, he responded - what should he say? I have to make zee-zoo from zumba (or something like that). It's silly. He should use the right words. (Um, ok, maybe what he should have said was - I have to go to the bathroom... But then again, my Dad liked to exaggerate or hyperbolize, as he might prefer, so this story may be well, 100% accurate.)
Regardless, my parents were all about correct words. Except I didn't know what MY private parts were called until ... I don't know, when do you learn this stuff in biology? Probably Middle School or something. In fact, several years ago when I was reading The Vagina Monologues my Dad seemed to avoid using the book's title - till I finally called him out on it and he sort of mumbled the name. (I was probably 26.) I noted that they'd never taught me the proper word when my brother had learned penis and I think my Dad pointed out that you don't, in fact, urinate out of your vagina, so it's not the proper word. (After that I don't think any of could actually come up with what the proper word would be. Urinary tract?)
So now I'm the parent and the question of language has come up with my husband. Now I'm know that he is NOT in favor of teaching her vagina (apparently vulva is technically more accurate, but let's not REALLY confuse matters. I mean most adults wouldn't know what she was saying. OK, maybe it was just me...), but then comes the question of what to call the waste.
The thing is pee and poop seem so much more universal terms (i.e., not just used by kids) than when we were kids. Urinate or defecate/feces seem so... I don't know? Can a poop word be formal?
I was reading a little article on this this morning that suggested we shouldn't treat genitalia any differently than any other body part. You'd never come up with a cute kid name for your elbow, so why the penis or vagina?
Have I said vagina too many times in this post? Hmm... and this is probably why it's good I blog anonymously (Mom).
Then I read a really interesting (by which I mean kind of scary) comment on the article. It was from someone who worked with Child Protective Services. She suggested that God forbid a child is abused, if they don't know the appropriate words for body parts when they meet with the police, they may not explain what happened correctly and the case could be thrown out.
So that feels a little like an extreme scare tactic... And yet...
Ugh. Parenthood is hard (said in Barbie's "math is hard" voice).
What did you (or do you plan to) teach your kids? Any other thoughts on the subject?
My Dad liked to tell the story of one time when my brother was very young and told my grandmother that he needed to go make urine from his penis. She was horrified! How could they teach him such words! My Dad said, he responded - what should he say? I have to make zee-zoo from zumba (or something like that). It's silly. He should use the right words. (Um, ok, maybe what he should have said was - I have to go to the bathroom... But then again, my Dad liked to exaggerate or hyperbolize, as he might prefer, so this story may be well, 100% accurate.)
Regardless, my parents were all about correct words. Except I didn't know what MY private parts were called until ... I don't know, when do you learn this stuff in biology? Probably Middle School or something. In fact, several years ago when I was reading The Vagina Monologues my Dad seemed to avoid using the book's title - till I finally called him out on it and he sort of mumbled the name. (I was probably 26.) I noted that they'd never taught me the proper word when my brother had learned penis and I think my Dad pointed out that you don't, in fact, urinate out of your vagina, so it's not the proper word. (After that I don't think any of could actually come up with what the proper word would be. Urinary tract?)
So now I'm the parent and the question of language has come up with my husband. Now I'm know that he is NOT in favor of teaching her vagina (apparently vulva is technically more accurate, but let's not REALLY confuse matters. I mean most adults wouldn't know what she was saying. OK, maybe it was just me...), but then comes the question of what to call the waste.
The thing is pee and poop seem so much more universal terms (i.e., not just used by kids) than when we were kids. Urinate or defecate/feces seem so... I don't know? Can a poop word be formal?
I was reading a little article on this this morning that suggested we shouldn't treat genitalia any differently than any other body part. You'd never come up with a cute kid name for your elbow, so why the penis or vagina?
Have I said vagina too many times in this post? Hmm... and this is probably why it's good I blog anonymously (Mom).
Then I read a really interesting (by which I mean kind of scary) comment on the article. It was from someone who worked with Child Protective Services. She suggested that God forbid a child is abused, if they don't know the appropriate words for body parts when they meet with the police, they may not explain what happened correctly and the case could be thrown out.
So that feels a little like an extreme scare tactic... And yet...
Ugh. Parenthood is hard (said in Barbie's "math is hard" voice).
What did you (or do you plan to) teach your kids? Any other thoughts on the subject?
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday Minute - which is apparently the when I feel like it minute now...
So the Monday Minute has moved from Ian to (dum, dum, dum!) Melissa and Heather
And just to be crazy, I thought I'd participate.
ish... sometime well into Tuesday... Ugh. Dude, it's been that type of week. And it's only Tuesday...
What is your favorite 80s flick?
OK, I LOVE 80's movies! I just recently saw Hot Tub Time Machine and all the 80's references were BEYOND AWESOME. I don't know where to go here - John Hughes did some awesome stuff (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Better off Dead - if I'm messing up my references here and those aren't him - see note on it's Tuesday and I'm posting for Monday). Pretty much anything with John Cusack (Better off dead makes the list again, One Crazy Summer, Say Anything).
But I might have to note two of my favorites to watch IN THEATERS when they came out (because I am THAT old!) - Back to the Future and Adventures in Babysitting.
Oh man... Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I can't NOT watch that when it comes on... Oh, and Red Dawn...
I'll stop now! This could go on awhile.
One genre of music needs to be banned. Which genre?
Hmm... I'm not a fan of rap. But if I could ban one thing from the radio, it might be Diane Reams (spelling?) on NPR. Or maybe just all of NPR. I know, I know - I'm a phillistine. But when I get into my husband's car and he's listening to this stuff. Ugh. Can we play some music? Just not rap...
What is your all time favorite candy?
Wow, very mood dependent as well. I think M&Ms are really high on my list. Possibly dipped in peanut butter - which is way better than peanut butter M&Ms. And way messier.
How 'flawed' is your driving record?
Not too bad. Actually, scrap that. I'm going to be driving soon and I've seen speed traps recently. I just don't want to talk about this. it's a total jinx waiting to happen!
What was high school mascot?
Lions!
and finally...
What color socks are you wearing?
None. I LOVE summer!
And just to be crazy, I thought I'd participate.
ish... sometime well into Tuesday... Ugh. Dude, it's been that type of week. And it's only Tuesday...
What is your favorite 80s flick?
OK, I LOVE 80's movies! I just recently saw Hot Tub Time Machine and all the 80's references were BEYOND AWESOME. I don't know where to go here - John Hughes did some awesome stuff (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Better off Dead - if I'm messing up my references here and those aren't him - see note on it's Tuesday and I'm posting for Monday). Pretty much anything with John Cusack (Better off dead makes the list again, One Crazy Summer, Say Anything).
But I might have to note two of my favorites to watch IN THEATERS when they came out (because I am THAT old!) - Back to the Future and Adventures in Babysitting.
Oh man... Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I can't NOT watch that when it comes on... Oh, and Red Dawn...
I'll stop now! This could go on awhile.
One genre of music needs to be banned. Which genre?
Hmm... I'm not a fan of rap. But if I could ban one thing from the radio, it might be Diane Reams (spelling?) on NPR. Or maybe just all of NPR. I know, I know - I'm a phillistine. But when I get into my husband's car and he's listening to this stuff. Ugh. Can we play some music? Just not rap...
What is your all time favorite candy?
Wow, very mood dependent as well. I think M&Ms are really high on my list. Possibly dipped in peanut butter - which is way better than peanut butter M&Ms. And way messier.
How 'flawed' is your driving record?
Not too bad. Actually, scrap that. I'm going to be driving soon and I've seen speed traps recently. I just don't want to talk about this. it's a total jinx waiting to happen!
What was high school mascot?
Lions!
and finally...
What color socks are you wearing?
None. I LOVE summer!
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