Monday, December 17, 2007

Emily's Christmas List

My daughter is already disobeying me every chance she gets. She even deleted my post here while I was writing it, so this is my second shot. It makes me fear for her teenage years. If she is this bad now, when she's barely even mobile, how much worse will it get then?

Emily's Christmas list, if Emily could write, would look something like this:

-A 6-pack of Minguses
-Electrical wires, preferably plugged in to a power source
-Plastic grocery bags
-A plastic tape measurer (the kind with sharp edges and metal on either end)
-A broom

I take issue with all of these things. I have explained to Emily that none of them are good for babies to play with. Doggies don't like it when you try to bite them and pull on their hair (especially high-strung doggies like Mingus), electrical wires can electrocute you once you have more than two teeth to bite them with, plastic grocery bags can suffocate you, the tape measurer is a strangulation hazard and can cut you, and a broom is just nasty, but these items are her favorite things in the world. If any one of these things comes into her line of vision, her face lights up and she utters an earsplitting shriek of joy as she wiggles her way towards the object she's spotted.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to take her to see Santa, I am going to have to stay close by to make sure she doesn't ask him for an electrical plastic Mingus with a broom. A regular Mingus is more than enough Mingus for one household.

Speaking of Mingus, he's a pretty infected guy. We brought him home from the kennel, and he developed an eye infection like he always does after staying there. Luckily I had some leftover eye ointment and took care of that myself. Next, he started the telltale scratching-followed-by-yelping routine that signifies an ear infection. I just got him in to the vet, and it turns out it's a yeast infection, so I have to give him ungodly-expensive antifungal cream in his ear every night. I should've just bought a tube of Monistat at Safeway, probably would've saved me a bunch of money. The problem here is that Mingus is not a good enough dog to warrant me having to constantly medicate him and take tender care of him as I nurse him through his troubles. If he were a steadfast and devoted dog who loved me, that would be one thing. But he spends most of his time growling or whining at me, trying to push me to wherever he wants me to go, and nibbling on my baby (it must be the Dingo in him). He's much better than he was, and he was a rescue dog so I guess he's pretty good considering all that, but geez. If he's going to be so sickly, he should be a good dog and make it worth my while that I have to cram pills down his slimy throat and anoint his various infected body parts with ointment. Blech.

Other than trying to keep my baby from killing herself and medicating my dog, I am spending my time these days getting ready for Christmas. I have to take my car in for it's check-up tomorrow, so while I'm out I hope to finish my Christmas shopping and get stamps so that I can spend the rest of the week holed up at home wrapping presents and sending out Christmas cards. I don't know what I'm going to do next year when Emily will recognize her presents. Right now they're sitting in a box about 4 feet from where she usually hangs out and she's none the wiser. I think that's awesome. I don't have room in my house to hid presents everywhere, every nook and cranny is already filled with stuff we don't need but dang it we might one day so we're keeping it just in case. And we'll probably be getting another round of unusual gifts from Will's Grandma to pop in the closets this year.

I hope you all enjoy your respective goofy Grandmother gifts, Happy Holidays to everyone!

There, are you happy Will?

-Sara

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Rude Awakening

This morning I awoke to the sound of shattering glass and my husband cursing. Well, in all fairness I ORIGINALLY awoke to the sound of my daughter fussing, but once I nursed her and went back to sleep, THAT'S when I heard the shattering glass. I went to investigate, and found Will standing in a sparkling sea of glass shards at the front door. Apparently our new storm door and the 18 degree cold didn't agree, and the minute Will touched the door this morning the glass shattered into a million pieces. It's ok, because the since the door is only a couple months old I'm sure it's still under warranty, and I had accidentally pulled the handle off of it a couple times already so it was a bad egg from the start. Now we are denied the use of our front door for a little while, but I'm sure we can manage. It got me up and vacuuming though, and I managed to get the whole downstairs done before Emily woke up, which was nice because I don't like to vacuum when she's awake and downstairs. It hurts her ears and I can't hear if she's calling for me. If you'd ever asked me before whether or not I'd be happy to be awake and vacuuming at 6:15AM, I would have laughed in your face, but time makes fools of us all I suppose.

Yesterday Emily and I braved the snow and went down to Gaithersburg for my Dad's federal gold medal ceremony. I'm so proud of my dad! I was worried however about how Emily would hold up through several long drives and sitting in a quiet auditorium for over an hour, but once again, she did beautifully. She lasted a full hour sitting in the auditorium without making noise, and she was fascinated by applause. Mom did have to take her out of the auditorium for the last 20 minutes of the ceremony, but that was only because she was squealing and talking loudly. Emily even got to meet the director of NIST, who has a 2-year old son and I think she made a great impression (networking already)! She slept all the way home, even though we were in bad traffic and it was past her dinner time. Yay Emily!

Once again, I've rewarded her good behavior with shots. We went in and got her Hib and IPV today, but she only cried until I picked her up, then she was fine, she was even good at the grocery store afterward. She's snoozing happily, and now she has a 2-month reprieve before her next shots are due.

So enjoy the Christmas (or Hanukka) season all of you, and I'll try to post again before it's all over!

-Sara