Seven in Seven 3: The mystery blogger

When I said I’d post every day this week, I didn’t realize it meant EVERY day. So this is going to be a bit of a free writing exercise because I’m drawing a blank here.

My sister made her new year resolution to save money on groceries by making stuff from scratch and by wasting as little food as possible. These are both subjects I find very interesting, so my sister calls me frequently to discuss Magic Bread and food-saving practices like keeping all of your vegetable peelings and tops in a Ziploc bag in the freezer instead of throwing them out and then using them to make broth later. And then, if you’re me, freezing the broth in a new Ziploc bag and then putting THAT bag in the freezer in your basement for the rest of time.

Our bread discussions usually segue into other things, and the other day we got to talking about my internet friends. I think I told her about my plans to attend the Edel Gathering this summer with Maggie, Arwen, and Lauren, and she started asking me about one of my blog friends who I told her about years ago. I told her she should be reading this blog, but it turns out she already was reading it, or at least she was at the time. She had since stopped following very many blogs, but this one stuck in her memory except that she couldn’t remember the name. “The blogger was so great,” she told me. “It’s like… she was who I want to be when I grow up!” but the blogger’s name remained elusive. “It starts with an ‘S’,” she said.

“Swistle?” I offered. But that wasn’t it, and I was at a loss, because I couldn’t think of any other blogger that I’ve been reading for years whose name starts with an S.

“What I liked about this blogger was how she just does her own thing and doesn’t make a big deal about it,” my sister said. “She just seems to be saying, ‘This is how I do it, and you can do it this way too, if you want, but you can also do your own thing and that’s fine too,’ instead of making it her crusade to convert everyone to homemade organic bread or something. You’ve been reading her forever and you’ve met and you’re friends now. But what was her name? S-… S- something… it started with an ‘S’.”

“Uh… Maggie?” I offered, drawing a complete blank on all “S” bloggers.

“There’s a least an ‘S’ in it, Maureen,” said my sister, with great indignation. But I had nothing to offer her. We talked about blogs and the internet for a few more minutes and then, figuring I’d give it a shot, I said, “Is it Arwen?”

It was Arwen. Or “S’Arwen,” as we sometimes call her. 

Anxiety

We went camping this past weekend. It was our first camping trip with tents; last year we "camped" at a campground, but we rented a cabin with "beds" on which there were "mattresses" and there was also an attached kitchenette and bathroom. The kitchenette and bathroom were legitimate; no quotation marks necessary. The main reason we got the cabin was that, at the time, I was still nursing Ann Marie during the night, and I required a wall on which to lean. But this year she sleeps right through, so tents it was! Jack and Nora slept in one tent; Andrew, Ann Marie, and I had the other.

Everything went swimmingly except that I woke up at midnight on the first night thinking I had heard Nora unzip their tent and call out to me. I sat up as though shot from a cannon and whispered, "Nora? Nora? Nora?" Andrew groggily asked what had happened, and I said "I think Nora's standing outside our tent!" I unzipped our window, but I couldn't see anything because a) I was not wearing my glasses and b) it was pitch dark. Undeterred, I kept whisper-shouting, "Nora? Nora?" but to no avail. I put on my glasses, but it didn't help much. See above, re: pitch-darkness. I tried shining a flashlight, but it just reflected off their tent and didn't help me at all.

"Do you want me to stick my head out there?" Andrew asked, already halfway through the tent flap. "She's not out there," he told me. "It's fine. Their tent isn't unzipped."

Reassured, I lay back down and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately my adrenal system was not on board with the whole "reassured" status, so instead I lay there, heart racing, picturing my small daughter wandering the campground in the dark, lost, frightened, and encountering bears. Because that is where my adrenal glands took me: Bear attack. In the family-friendly, somewhat crowded campground just a few miles outside of the town center. I should also point out that the kids' tent entrance was approximately four inches away from the side of our tent, so for Nora to wander off and get lost she would have had slink by our tent sideways for us not to have felt her brush against the canvas. Considering this is a child who is afraid to be downstairs when I am upstairs, the odds were strongly against her voluntarily sneaking off into the dark woods all alone at midnight.

And yet there I lay, anxious and worrying, and also with the increasing need to go to the bathroom but too scared to traverse the 30-yard-long, bear-encrusted path. It was a dilemma.

Finally unable to stand it, I woke Andrew up and asked him if he thought I'd run into any animals on my way to the bathroom. And by "animals" I really meant bears, or possibly rabid coyotes. Did I mention that I had heard some coyotes? I did. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Slavering just outside the tent. Andrew, however, did not seem to think I would encounter any animals, slavering or no.

"Will you stay awake until I get back?" I asked him. He said he would. I want you to take note of that agreement. I was relying on this, because his staying awake was going to keep me alive on my terrifying journey.

I put on my sweatshirt, took my flashlight, and bravely exited the tent. The first thing I did was shine my flashlight into the kids' tent and count how many children there were. I counted heads at least three times and there were always two, so I was at least able to put that fear to rest. Which left only the bears. And the coyotes. It left only whatever bears and coyotes were between me and the bathroom. I took a deep breath and headed out.

Suffice it to say, I successfully made it to the bathroom and back without encountering any bears OR coyotes, and once back in the tent was finally able to relax and fall asleep. The only repercussion was a nightmare in which Murdock from MacGuyver blew up our house.

But it was no thanks to Andrew, because guess who fell asleep while I was gone? THAT'S RIGHT. Fortunately, he didn't tell me that part until the following morning, when the sun was up and I could once again see the bathroom right from our campsite because it was seriously right there.

Wish I'd written it

Looking for a post I started writing a while back, I cam across this in my "to write" folder:

"Write about Curious George play and scooting to church and back and being chased by crocodiles and chasing the bunnies and scooting/walking around the park and showing daddy the bird berries and playing chase and nora swinging and what an awesome weekend"

It was created March 7, 2010. I don't even remember what "bird berries" are now.

Some stuff that's been happening

This past weekend was our niece and nephew’s double birthday party at my brother-in-law’s. Everything was going fine until Andrew nearly cut the tip of his finger off chopping scallions and everyone FREAKED OUT. Well, I exaggerate. My mother-in-law came over and with careful calmness told me that Andrew’s dad would be taking him to the hospital for stitches. I got up to investigate matters and found Andrew’s brother holding him up at the kitchen sink while water ran over his finger. There was also a bag of frozen vegetables on Andrew’s head because Andrew had almost passed out. Fingers, it seems, bleed a lot.

At any rate, my FIL took Andrew to the hospital, and they were back after only two hours with only four stitches. During the two hours, my MIL pretended to be totally cool and fine, but she was actually having a series of secret inner heart attacks because her child! Was at the hospital! I, on the other hand, was fine except that I felt guilty for not being more worried that my husband! Was at the hospital! Perhaps I would have been more upset had it been my 35-year-old son instead of my husband? But it’s just that… it was only his finger. In the absolute worst case, Andrew was going to lose a fingertip. Which, yes, would be awful and nasty, but not as though Andrew is a professional musician or something; he’d do just fine without a fingertip. Losing a fingertip is no day at the beach, but, you know, fingertip. There are worse things to lose.

The best part of this story is how my FIL brought my MIL’s phone with him, and her sister called while they were at the ER. I guess she started talking, and the nurses were yelling at my FIL for using a cell phone, so he just said, “I can’t talk; I’m at the hospital with Andrew,” and then he hung up. He hung up! And of all the people he could have said this to, Andrew’s aunt is among the most freak-out-able. I’m a little surprised she didn’t leap into her car and start driving. So Andrew’s poor aunt had to wait two hours to find out that he needed four stitches, and had not been in a terrible car accident or something.

***

In other news, Temerity Jane has been writing a lot about cloth diapering her adorable baby Penny. TJ uses mostly fitteds, and they are adorable enough to be worthy of Penny. And now Amalah has gone and written a cloth diapering manifesto of her own (mine is linked in the sidebar), and SHE uses fitteds with fleece and wool covers!

Now when TJ first started showing us all the pictures of Penny’s diapers, I thought, “Yes, they are cute, but isn’t it annoying to have a bunch of different kinds? And also expensive? And also you have to keep shopping?” Because we have been CDing for almost five years now, and I tried a few kinds of diapers, but settled on BumGenius one-size. It’s simple. It’s streamlined. I don’t have to keep shopping. The aplix on ours got all curly and annoying, and some of the elastics wore out, but I paid someone to convert them to snaps and redo the elastics, and they’ve been working out mostly great. They don’t fit Nora as well now, but Nora is pretty close to being trained, so I wouldn’t dream of buying new diapers for her. Still, TJ and Amalah have somehow managed to convert me. I now covet adorable fitted diapers. I’m not going to purchase any, because adorable fitted diapers are just as pricey as the 24 pocket diapers I already own that work just fine. But I WANT adorable fitted diapers. Le sigh.

***

I knew it was inevitable, but Jack no longer wants to use his pink accessories (water bottle, pencil case, etc.) that he specifically chose because he likes pink. It seems his friend laughed at his pink pencil case because pink is for girls. I am more annoyed by this than I expected to be. It would be one thing if Jack decided on his own that he doesn’t like pink anymore, but I fear he still does like it, he’s just embarrassed about it. And for crying out loud, it’s just a color. The kid should be free to use a pink water bottle if he wants to. Stupid peer pressure.

In all other ways, school is absolutely wonderful and he comes home simply brimming with songs and games and stories. I’m so glad we enrolled him even though it’s five full days (7:50-2:10). He is just thriving.

***

Finally, I’m totally pregnant. Somewhere around 30 weeks if you can believe that. I can believe it because I have the heartburn to prove it. I find myself feeling like I’ve consumed two Thanksgiving dinners by 1:00 every afternoon, and then I get terrible heartburn which induces nausea and I can’t eat anything until 8:30 or so. The doctor actually gave me carte blanche to eat ice cream every night if I want to since I haven’t gained that much weight yet, but I can’t because of the stupid heartburn. Le sigh indeed.

As far as baby-readiness, we aren’t. We did finish painting the bunkbeds, but we haven’t put them together because Andrew was going to do that this week but then he nearly cut off his fingertip instead. And all other baby preparations hinge upon getting the bunkbeds set up, because that will mean moving the dresser which will affect where I put the baby’s clothes. And, actually, that’s all I really need to do I guess, so maybe we’re not in such terrible shape after all. We did already buy the minivan. It’s a 2005 Toyota Sienna, white. I’m pretty happy with it except for how it uses twice as much gas as my Civic Hybrid. Damn, but I miss my old gas mileage.

And on that completely boring note, I will sign off and perhaps take some antacid. My life is so filled with glamor and excitement.

California

Last week we went on a secret vacation to California. I didn’t say anything before we left because I didn’t want to advertise that our house was empty because isn’t that one of the things you’re not supposed to do on the internet? Tell all the crazy people that your house will be empty for a week? So I didn’t tell you. But now we’re back, and I can tell you ALLLL about it, which will actually just me putting a bunch of pictures up here. Modern day vacation slides.

Hey, did I ever tell you about a history teacher I had in high school who literally showed us vacation slides? He and his friend “Mel” traveled around… Europe? I think? And took a bunch of pictures of each other crouched in front of large landmarks that honestly would not have been blocked at all if they had just stood up like normal people. That guy was weird. He also got the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars mixed up when he taught them to us. Or rather, when he taught one of them to us but added details from the other one. Remember the Maine! And Tyler too! Or something!

Right. California. So last December, my college friend Dr. Lapp (not her real name) who married an adorable Argentinian named Pato but whom Nora calls “Pasta,” came home to spend Christmas with the Lapp Family. (I mention that he is Argentinian only so I can tell you that we went to their wedding in Buenos Aires, and if you ever get invited to a wedding in Buenos Aires you should go. Those people know how to throw a party. Food! Entertainment! Dancing! More food! More dancing! More food! Hey, look at that, it’s 5am!) We managed to get together for lunch during which Dr. Lapp and Pasta let slip that they recently bought a gigantic house with fifteen to twenty extra bedrooms and that we should come visit. “Really?” we said, “Because we will.” So we did.

First of all, I may have taken some creative license there, because Dr. Lapp’s and Pasta’s house is really only FIVE bedrooms. But it is gorgeous. And so well-decorated. It’s like grown-ups live there. I honestly do not understand how people know what furniture and artwork to buy so that it all GOES together like that. And they’re not really done, as they still have to furnish several of the bedrooms. I have to say, if I had several bedrooms to furnish from scratch, I think the pressure would kill me. It’s helpful to have a slew of hand-me-down stuff to start with if you are decorationally-challenged, as I am.

Since Dr. Lapp and Pasta’s 23-bedroom house is a convenient half hour away from Disneyland, we bought a three-day park hopper pass and spent Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there. I have passed the point in life where Disneyland is where I’d spend my vacation, given a choice of anywhere, but that’s if it were just me. Taking little kids to Disneyland is something else entirely, and lordy, it was fun.



























I had been worried that there wouldn’t be anything for Nora to do, but she could do almost everything! Her favorite thing was the Dumbo ride (“I rode effants!”) and her only complaint was that it was way too short, a message she conveyed by screaming and yelling when it was time to get off. Jack’s favorite thing was Splash Mountain, because I seem to have become the mother of someone old enough and tall enough to ride actual roller coasters. Please explain how that happened. Here’s what Nora did while Jack and Andrew rode Splash Mountain:



That’s Baby Minnie Mouse, who is Nora’s new favorite character, and whom she calls “Money.” Also, Minnie came with a sort of Velcro swaddling blanket that kept falling off, and Nora would say “I need help!” and then, “She’s very very very very very cold,” as we reswaddled her.

Speaking of Minnie, Nora was typical about meeting the characters. From far away, she was all about giving them hugs, but as soon as we got close she would cry. So we waited for a minute at Mickey’s house but when she lost interest, we left. She insisted upon waiting to meet Minnie, however, so I forced her to go through with the photo.



She looks thrilled, yes?

There were, all things considered, minimal tantrums or meltdowns at Disneyland, if you don’t count mine. But I was sick, so it totally doesn’t count. ANYONE would have been grumpy, trust me on this.

The days we weren’t at Disneyland we went to a local science museum, the beach, and a tiny nearby airport to eat lunch and watch the planes take off. Then we went swimming in the backyard pool of my friends’ 35-bedroom home. All told, it was a really fun, fabulous trip. And may I take this opportunity to say that we receive multiple compliments on our well-behaved children on each of the four different flights we took, so we win. (Seriously, the plane rides were easy! EASY! I don’ t know how we got so lucky.)

Spoiled rotten

So did you all have a nice Christmas? I had a nice Christmas. I got a Kindle! It is totally awesome. I had been avoiding purchasing one because I was afraid that I would immediately spend thousands of dollars on books, because each one is so cheap! And all I have to do to buy it is push this button! But so far, I’ve only bought Mockingjay which I’d had on request at the library for weeks and which naturally arrived for me about thirty seconds after I bought it. I also bought Scrabble, because did you know you could play Scrabble on the Kindle? It’s excellent, because I have no one to play with. Andrew won’t play with me because he gets too mad when I slaughter him, which I routinely do. I don’t mean to brag*, but I’m pretty amazing at Scrabble.

What really helps with keeping the Kindle costs down is the plethora of free books available. They’re mostly old books that are out of copyright, several of which I downloaded with excellent intentions but which I will probably never read, thanks to Scrabble. I also got a newer book that was free because of some promotion, but it’s pretty terrible, and I may not finish it. We shall see.

More significantly, the Anne Shirley books by L.M. Montgomery are also free, and I have happily been rereading the ones I no longer own and sort of forget a little. But if you follow me on Twitter, you already know that for some mysterious reason, Amazon’s Kindle store doesn’t have two of the novels. I may have talked about this on Twitter quite a bit. I may have been fairly outraged. But it is outrageous! The Kindle store seems to think I have IMAGINED Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside. I even got to the point where I was willing to pay for Anne of Ingleside, but even the collection of “all eight Anne Shirley novels” you can buy in the Kindle store for 99 cents doesn’t include them. Instead, the collection includes Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea. These, my friends, are not “Anne Shirley novels.” These are not even novels. They are anthologies, and, OK, yes, Anne makes a cameo appearance in a few of the stories, but that in no way makes up for the fact that the Kindle store is pretending Anne of Ingleside and Anne of Windy Poplars didn’t happen. THEY HAPPENED, Kindle store. Do not MESS with my Anne of Green Gables books.

But I digress.

I also got a wall-mounted radio for the kitchen to replace my under-cabinet one with a broken CD player and completely snapped off power and volume-down buttons. The broken one was technically more than sufficient, since all I ever listen to is NPR and the remote turns it on and off, but it sure is nice to have a shiny new one with far better sound quality. Really shows off the timber of Carl Kassel’s rumbling baritone, you know?

Andrew, on the other hand, got a selection of the geekiest, nerdiest Christmas presents ever known to man. From me. And he loves them all. His “big” gift, the gift that I knew he’d be most excited about, was a TI-85 graphing calculator. Andrew’s original TI-85, the one he had in college, broke a few years ago. Since the TI-85 has been discontinued, Andrew thought he was out of luck. But then I blogged about it, and Arwen’s husband Bryan gave him his. Ah, the magic of the internet. (Well, the magic of the internet plus the magic of being internet friends with thoughtful, generous people.) Sadly, Andrew spilled Chinese food on Bryan's a few months ago, and it broke. Andrew has been bereft ever since. Bereft, I tell you. Where was he supposed to store his variables? Fortunately, I had a brainwave a few weeks before Christmas and harnessed the magic of the internet once again and bought him one on Ebay. Best Christmas present ever. The only thing missing, it turned out, was the manual. I got that for him off Ebay after Christmas, and the day it arrived, I found this scene on my way to bed:



So what’s geekier? The way he lays out his breakfast along with his breakfast reading before he goes to bed? Or the fact that his breakfast reading is a CALCULATOR MANUAL?

If you check back a few paragraphs however, you’ll note that I claimed Andrew got a selection of geeky presents. You see, I had planned to write mainly about the calculator, but then I mentally ran through the list of gifts I got him, and it struck me as hilarious. So here you go:

1. A discontinued graphing calculator
2. A book about the elements
3. A book about being a geeky dad
4. Socks

I know I’ve gone on for quite a while here, but I can’t end this post without telling the internet about the set of tools my father-in-law bought for my four-year-old son. It included, among other things, a hammer, a saw, a screwdriver, and a hasp.



Despite my father-in-law’s very indignant claim that “They’re plastic,” when we made fun of him, they are not, in fact, plastic. That there is a real saw. It is a small saw, yes. A child-sized saw, if you will. But a saw quite capable of cutting through wood – and therefore fingers – all the same.

Call us crazy, but we don’t allow our children to play with sharpened metal blades until they are at least five.



*Yes, I do.

Thankful tree, take 2

I thoroughly enjoyed making the thankful tree last year, so today we did it again. I had to, it is on the list of "Monday chores" for getting ready to host Thanksgiving this week.

I now present to you Jack's list of things he is thankful for, in the order he mentioned them:

1. my scooter
2. food
3. chicken [Technically, items 2. and 3. were presented as "food and chicken and stuff." -ed.]
4. shows [A repeat item! What can I say, the kid loves TV.]
5. Mommy [Daddy didn't make the cut, but don't feel bad, because he's the thing Jack is thankful for at school.]
6. apples
7. my bed
8. fishing [Note: he has never been fishing.]
9. my helmet
10. our house
11. my family
12. the color yellow
13. corn on the cob

For contrast, here is my list, which I made in order to subtly suggest to him things that might be good to put on the tree:

1. the dishwasher
2. our house
3. Jack
4. Nora
5. Daddy
6. clothes
7. the internet [What? I'm also putting on things I'm actually thankful for, after all.]
8. my bed
9. pancakes
10. Grammy and Papa
11. clementines

I also made a list on Nora's behalf. It includes one item.
1. my baby

Andrew made his list when he got home:
1. gum
2. superbowl parties
3. the Merritt parkway

Now Andrew's list needs a bit of explanation. First, Jack requested that he put on gum. I think because Jack is planning to buy gum for Andrew's birthday present, and he wanted to be sure he really does like it. "Well, I guess I am thankful for gum," conceded Andrew. As for the other two, well, Andrew and I met at a superbowl party and got engaged on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut on the way back to grad school/ his job.

Excuse me, I have something in my eye.

Lordy but it's hard to blog these days

Especially going on day five or six or ONE THOUSAND of a nasty sinus infection that has rendered me dizzy and blocked up and it feels like knives in my ears when Nora shrieks. Which she tends to do.

But Monday, before I knew it was a sinus infection, we went hiking. It was the perfect solution to my desperate attempts to think of something fun to do with the children in the beautiful weather. I would have liked to visit family members, but they all have wee children (newborns, even! I have another nephew!) or are otherwise immunocompromised, so I can't bring over my germs. But the hike worked out beautifully. Especially since we went to the state park that has a farm that sells homemade ice cream.







Not to change the subject too abruptly or anything, but last week Jack tried candy corn. Now, candy corn is gross. I realize this. I also love it, so I allow myself one bag a year. I can only have one bag, because eating candy corn causes me to enter an infinite loop wherein the candy corn leaves a weird taste in my mouth which can only be removed by eating more candy corn, and oops! I ate the whole bag. Traditionally, I get all of it because Andrew hates candy corn, but I was fine with sharing my bag with Jack this year. So I had no complaints when Andrew bought a small bag for Jack after his flu shot.

Jack could barely wait until after lunch to eat it, but when he finally got a taste of it, he said, "I think there's something wrong with this candy corn." I tried a piece.

"Sorry, Jack," I said. "That's what candy corn tastes like."

I think he was just stunned that there could possibly be a CANDY that tastes BAD. Stunned and betrayed.

But hey, good news for me! I got all the candy corn again. Oops.

Vacation!

Hey, there, Internet. Were you wondering where I was all last week? No? Well, I didn’t miss you either. Nyah. Because we went on vacation! It was a secret vacation, because Consumer Reports told me not to tell the internet if I was going away because it’s like saying, “Hey, robbers! Come to my house! It will be empty!” Except now that I think of it, I may as well have told you as the house was not, in fact, empty all week because the tile guy was here. He was cleaning the grout, re-caulking the tub, and switching out a few tiles for us that were damaged. It was supposed to take him a day, maybe two, but we are idiots and forgot to leave the tiles out for him which made it challenging for him to switch out the damaged ones. He tried to call us, but our cell phone reception was surprisingly bad, so we didn’t get the message until we were on our way home. Fortunately, he colluded with the neighbor who had agreed to water our plants, and they braved a trip to the billion-degree attic to find the tiles. So he did manage to finish, but it took him all week. And our caulking is no longer a biohazard! This is so thrilling to me, I can’t tell you.

Speaking of the billion-degree attic, I had to go up there myself yesterday to put away the down comforter, because just the sight of it in heat like this is enough to make me feel ill. On the way up, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the bottom step that I thought was a hammer or wrench or some such. On the way back down, I got a better look. You want to know what it was? You don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It was a dead bird. A DEAD BIRD. We have some sparrows nesting in our gutter. We are aware this is bad, but we figured we’d let them finish out the season and then seal it up for next year rather than pull down the nest full of babies. So my theory is that the bird got through the flashing or something into the attic, couldn’t get out, and dropped dead from the heat. I didn’t step on it, but I am still fairly traumatized.

And now is the part of the blog wherein I force you to look at my vacation photos. We rented a cabin on a small lake with one of my sisters and her family, and we got to go for a week. A whole week! We haven’t had a week’s vacation in over four years, so we were giddy with excitement. And it was awesome. AWESOME. My only worry had been that Nora wouldn’t sleep, but she did! Not through the night or anything, but she gave us the critical few hours between her bedtime and our bedtime, and that is all I wanted. Plus, vacationing with my sister’s family ensured that we didn’t get sick of each other and also that there were enough adults there to give both Andrew and me legitimate time off. I spent one afternoon just reading on the beach. And I got to go running as much as I wanted.

Other highlights include a trip to a little kids’ amusement park, a motorboat ride (Nora: not so much a fan), and a day of swimming with a bunch of cousins. We checked a lot of things off Jack’s life list last week.






First smore


Bliss




I KNOW.






Yaaay! Boats!


Why are you making me wear this enormous orange torture device? And I am getting WET. DO NOT LIKE.


That's a lemon.


See?



(Let me explain the life list: Jack has a habit of saying things like, “Mom, I’d like to ride in a blimp some day,” and I always reply along the lines of, “Yeah, that would be fun, Jack. Maybe someday we can!” Recently I started saying, “Let’s add it to the list!” But we don’t call it a “life list” or anything. So now we have fun listing all the things we’d like to do someday, and if we’ve done it already, we say, “CHECK!” And nothing is too trivial to be added to the list. Example of checked items: Swimming in a pool. Riding a scooter. Riding in a motorboat.)

I am going to post this even though it’s terrible because I need to feel like I’ve accomplished something during Jack’s preschool time. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, and the heat’s making me feel anxious and distracted like I did when I was post-partum with Nora. Or as though I’ve had six cups of coffee. It’s quite unpleasant.

Thoughts on teething

Well, they're all pretty negative, naturally. I MEAN. This teething thing? Who came up with this? It is a terrible, terrible idea. Nora's bottom two teeth came in about two to three weeks ago, and she's been working on her top two teeth since then.

Well, at least I think she has. I mean, I know they're coming in now because her gums are all swollen and weird looking and today I saw a teensy little nub poking through, but has she been teething for two to three weeks? Who knows?

I've always wondered about where people come to their teething conclusions. "Oh, she's chewing on everything. She must be teething!" they say. Or "Oh, she's drooling! Is she teething?" Or "She sure seems cranky. Teething?" But here's the thing. Babies chew on stuff, drool, and get cranky. All babies. All the time. So how are people so sure that THIS time, those things are a sign of teething?

My favorite part, however, is how these people who are so sure that the drooling, mouthing baby is teething are always proven correct, because, eventually, teeth appear. So after weeks or even months of, "She's teething" claims, out pop the teeth and they say, "See?"

So this was Christmas: Part 2 (The good part)

I have already discussed Christmas Eve, which was half good and half bad, at least in terms of child wrangling. The only thing I didn’t tell you was that we went took a risk and went to the 5:30 pm pageant Mass, and it was well worth it, since Nora obligingly slept in her carseat right up until the sign of peace, which was when I would have had to wake her up anyway, since we can’t very well leave her in the pew while we go up to receive communion. (Communion comes shortly after the sign of peace, in case you non-Catholics are confused.) Jack was reasonably well-behaved even though Andrew had to stand in the back with him for a large chunk of the Mass. Apparently there was a threat or two of a time-out, but they were in the back so as far as I was concerned, there were no problems at all. What? I had to stay with the baby!

But by the time both children were in bed, our standards for what we wanted to accomplish that night were vastly lowered. Ribbons and bows on the presents, for example, suddenly seemed very unimportant. And figuring out a way to hang a tarp across the living room door so that Jack didn’t see the tree without us? Not going to happen. And so we collapsed into bed around 10:00 or so and hoped for the best.

And the best is what we got.

First of all, Nora woke only once or so and was at this point still allowing me to put her back in her bed. (Oh, how I long for the days.) Then Jack’s daily morning hike to our bed didn’t happen until 6:00 instead of the usual 5:30. When he did finally climb into bed with us, he told me he loved me and he loved Andrew and he petted me and told me I was “snuggable.” Sunggable! For real! Strange how something that, were it to happen in a movie would make my eyes roll and roll, can be oh! So nice to hear. I believe I actually said, “Well, this is pretty delightful.” And all parties agreed.

So then I got up to see if Santa had come and possibly turn on the tree lights and get the camera ready.



Which I did.

The morning continued to be delightful. Presents were opened and played with.







Boxes were chewed.



“Happy Birthday” was sung and single-layer coconut cake was consumed. Andrew and I congratulated each other on going to mass on Christmas Eve, thus ensuring a lazy, unrushed morning. We headed to Andrew’s parents’ house around noon, where we spent an equally delightful afternoon.

All in all, it was a fantastic day. We lived off of it for the next week, a week that was pretty awful what with the housebound sick people and the tantrums and the teeth starting to torture the baby, teeth which are now sharp little daggers that CONTINUE to torture the baby. Whose plan was teething, anyway? BAD PLANNING.

But I digress. In short, this Christmas, the first Christmas Jack really had any idea what was happening, was our best Christmas yet.

Bring it on, 2010.

So this was Christmas

Everyone else is busy writing their 2009 retrospectives and resolutions for 2010, but I am going to forge ahead with my post about Christmas anyway. Remember Christmas? We had a lovely Christmas. Which is a good thing, because all the days AROUND Christmas have been sort of… awful. There’s been a lot of illness and not a lot of sleeping and the tantrums have been excruciating. EXCRUCIATING. Motherhood is just beating me down right now, is what I’m saying.

But more on that later, because this post is about Christmas! Which was lovely! Our family festivities started on Christmas Eve when we had plans to go to Big Sister #3’s house for an extended family gathering complete with eleven million cousins of the Jack generation. OK, actually only eleven of Jack and Nora’s cousins, but when you add in Jack and Nora, you get a total of thirteen cousins; nine of whom are under eight years old and six of whom are under four. So it sort of FEELS like eleven million.

But as loud as all those little kids can be, I actually love getting together with all the cousins. It’s wonderful to see my parents and all my siblings and their spouses for one thing; for another, with all those cousins to play with Jack could not be less interested in me so I actually get to participate in the adult conversation. Also, if I’m at a party, it means I’m not supposed to be cleaning the bathroom or preparing dinner or doing the budget or the like, so if Nora demands to be held nonstop, I can just hold her! No problem! Sometimes this comes with some guilty feelings because it means Andrew is stuck dealing with any discipline issues that arise with the preschooler, but then I just sip my wine until those feelings pass. And so the party was a success.

Getting to the party, however, was filled with a touch more strife, because we had a certain number of chores to get through before we could go. I wanted the house to be at least RELATIVELY clean for Christmas morning, for example, and since The Great Respiratory Illness of 2009 had me sidelined for most of the month, we had a bit of an uphill battle on that front. Additionally, I wanted to make the coconut layer cake for Christmas morning to continue our new tradition of having Jesus’ birthday cake with Christmas breakfast. Unfortunately, Jack was completely wound up and running around like a nutcase, making these chores particularly difficult to get through. And then, in a bonus little “pbtthh on you!” from fate, I dropped one of the cake layers while trying to tip it out of the pan. I would have taken a picture of the sad little pile of broken cake pieces, but I did not have time to get the camera because I had to stop Jack from LICKING IT UP OFF THE FLOOR LIKE A DOG.

Ah, three. What a fun year!

And now Nora has awoken from her Ergo nap, so I have to shower and get dressed and get everyone else dressed so we can go visit the grandparents because we need to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and SEE PEOPLE. (See above re: beaten down.) So I will be back to tell you about the good parts of Christmas, of which there were many. And then I’ll return to complaining.

A snowy morning

11:00 Begin to get Jack ready to play in snow
11:02 Shirt
11:10 Pants
11:14 Socks
11:15 Second pair of socks
11:20 Snowpants
11:25 Boots
11:30 Coat and hat
11:33 Scarf
11:34 No wait, the other scarf
11:36 Head carefully downstairs
11:38 Smear on protective Vaseline
11:40 Force on mittens and send him outside
11:41 Head back upstairs to get Nora ready
11:42 Second pair of pants on Nora
11:43 Second shirt on Nora
11:44 Ergo
11:48 My boots, coat, hat
11:50 OUTSIDE!

11:51 Jack is cold.
11:52 Disrobe.
12:00 Hot cocoa.

I don't even iron my CLOTHES

Every time I wash my sheets, I think of what my mom told Big Sister #4 when she got married. "You don't have to iron your sheets when you wash them," my mom said.

"Not to worry," replied my sister.

I've already used my 15 minutes elsewhere

Sorry! But here are some photos from our mini-vacation. We went to Storyland.

It's a backhanded INSULT

My third sister (fourth sibling), hereafter known on this blog as "Mad Dog," her family nickname as a teenager (HILARIOUS to those of us who know her, it is ironic and yet... not. This is impossible to explain on the blog, sorry) said I could post this story even though it is rightfully hers.

Mad Dog was out with her three boys (currently 7, 2, and 1) and a stranger stopped to admire them. He particularly admired the 2-year-old, saying, "Wow, you sure are a gorgeous little boy. Your father must be really good looking!"

The second kid is a different experience. Who knew?

I have two kids now. Life is a bit crazed, but I have noticed a few differences between mothering (or fathering) a newborn the second time around. For example, when your firstborn is two weeks old and cries to be held you pick him up, enter the time you picked him up on your New Baby Excel Spreadsheet, rock him for precisely seventeen minutes, enter the time you put him back down, wait eight minutes to see if he will go to sleep, repeat. When the second baby cries to be held, you hold her.

When the first baby is hungry, you struggle to get into position, carefully check the time, nurse for ten minutes, switch (making sure to switch the safety pin reminder on your bra even though it is useless because you can never remember if the pin means that you started on that side LAST time or that you should start on that side THIS time), nurse for ten minutes, and then write it all down on the feeding chart. When the second baby is hungry, you feed her.

When the first baby is tired, you swaddle him, rock him, shush him, bounce him, carefully lay him down in his cradle and do it all again until he finally gets to sleep. When the second baby is tired, if rocking and swaddling doesn't work within ten minutes, you pop her in the sling and go about your day.

When the first baby is done with one of his nighttime feedings, you go through the whole swaddling/shushing/bouncing routine described above, because heaven forbid he should develop a habit of sleeping with you. When the second baby is done with a nighttime feeding, you weigh the benefits of trying to put her in her own bed against the benefits of just going to sleep with her on your chest. Guess what wins.

And here I had thought that I was a pretty relaxed first time mom back in the day.

Happy Fourth of July!

Just a quick update: Today I had no postpartum hormonal episodes at ALL. This is likely because of a variety of reasons. First, Andrew took Jack to Home Depot this morning, and came upon a kid-activity, so he was there for quite a while, giving me a lovely break. Second, the sun came out and it was GORGEOUS weather, and after lunch we all walked to the park and then had ice cream. So all in all, today was awesome.

Andrew goes back to work on Monday with the caveat that I can call him in a panic if I need to and he'll come home. We also have a plan of attack for dinner for the upcoming weeks. He and I will plan out the meals over the weekend, and I will be feeding Jack when he gets up from his nap instead of waiting till Andrew gets home. This will make things much easier, I think. And for the upcoming week, at least, Jack will be eating lots of mac and cheese and the like until he gets used to the new schedule. Andrew has been my rock during this period, completely understanding and willing to do whatever I need to get me through.

So. Things are better, and more under control. I was even able to upload some photos. You are welcome.


Two Days Old


Paging Mr. Pickles


When she's rooting, I like to put her on my cheek because it feels like kisses. Plus, she makes a snorfling sound.


Dear Lord, I have two kids.


And one of them has very tiny feet.


Home Depot project


The poorly thought out glitter project from the other day


This was supposed to be a shot of her July 4th outfit which reads, "American Cutie"