Happy No Ear

I've read many blogs today that discuss how bad the year 2009 was and how much better everyone hopes 2010 will be. I'm inclined to agree. In 2009 the economy sucked, Will was sick most of the time, and I feel kind of like I slugged my way through the year. We definitely had many good things happen too and I'm not discounting that, but I will be glad to leave behind the year of being pregnant with a sick husband while trying to mother a toddler.

When I think about resolutions, I can think of lots for NEXT year, but in 2010 I know my body and my time will be almost completely claimed by a baby and a toddler so I am giving myself a free pass for this year. Instead I am feeling pretty good about what I have accomplished in the last week.

Christmas = Survived



Just barely




Train table = Pimped



Relaxation Trip = Accomplished without incident. Relaxation achieved.


My hair = Cut

I figure I will not have time to get to the salon anytime in the next couple months. I also figure I am going to a different place next time. I liked the way the girl cut my hair 2 years ago, but she keeps trying to give me bangs nowadays and I am just not really thrilled with how my hair keeps turning out.


Baby = Dropped (although the doctor says she dropped OUT, not DOWN. Whatever. She's not living in my lungs anymore so that's a win in my book)



Charlotte's room = Decorated...



....more or less.
Wal-Mart is still out of C's. Poor little Harlotte.
I also can't make the curtains hang right but I am too lazy to wash or steam them to get the fold marks out.
I also would rather gouge out my eyes than ever put those wispy little stickers all over the wall again. I hope Charlotte likes dandelions because those are staying put for a GOOD long time.

Embarrassing supplies for after the birth that make me feel like I'm 80 = Purchased


Not pictured = Gigantic pads (I have a couple leftover from last time and hope to steal enough from the hospital to get by), sitz bath and hemorrhoid pillow. I didn't need the last two last time, and I hope I don't this time but if it turns out I do I wanted to leave SOMETHING for Will to buy. He's half responsible for this baby's arrival too.

Hospital bag = Packed


My New Years Eve = Will be spent in bed spooning my snoogle


Now if only the baby will stay in until Monday or Tuesday that would be just swell.

I wish you all a Happy New Year. Or as Emily says, a Happy No Ear.

Houses and Dogs

Looking at the calendar, I realize that a year ago we had already closed on this house, and were 2 days away from the big move. It sounds trite to say "I can't believe we've been here for a year". EVERYBODY says that, so you would think people would re-adjust their expectations of how fast time goes by, but no matter how often you note the speediness of time, and no matter how many times other people warn you, it still always comes as a shock.

A year ago we were heading to Chicago. This year, I have no Chicago trip on my schedule, but Will is headed up there for a bachelor party in 3 weeks :-P I am quite irritated that I am not invited. Last year it took us FOREVER to get all of our stuff out of the old house, but as of a couple weeks ago the old house is officially sold and we don't have to hear about it anymore! I took a spin through the old neighborhood last week while I was out there visiting my seamstress, and was surprised by the nostalgia that hit me. I am not really nostalgic about the house, but I definitely am about the neighborhood. We did live there for 5 years, and for a large portion of that time I spent every morning out jogging or walking, so I knew everyone's dogs, I knew whose mailboxes will be covered with pretty clematis in the fall, and I knew the odd air currents that resulted in warm pockets in certain places on chilly mornings. I haven't done much (any) morning jogging or walking in this neighborhood, so I don't know it nearly as well. And even though the houses are closer together in this neighborhood, the people are more distant. We wave to our neighbors and talk over the back fence, but of course it can't compare to how well we knew the people in the old neighborhood where Will grew up.

But I love living close to everything. Driving out to my parents house makes me wonder how I survived before. The community pool was great this summer, Emily loves it and learned to be quite a proficient swimmer (with waterwings). The house itself has been great too, with only a pinhole leak in a pipe to marr an otherwise incident-free year. Knock on wood and cross everything that we continue to enjoy such good luck.

The only bad thing about this house is the Jehovah's Witnesses. They come around practically every Saturday morning, and although we have incredibly busy Saturday mornings, we somehow manage to be home for what has to be a large percentage of their visits. We had one doozy of a visit back at our old house when the woman, seeing that I was holding a 5-day old baby, thought it would be somehow appropriate to give me a pamphlet about losing a child. Luckily though, that was one of the only visits at the old house. But here we're much luckier. Will is comfortable telling them to sod off, but I am a sucker. I look at the poor woman's shaking hands, I notice the tie-clad man's awkward demeanor, and I can't just tell them to get off my porch. But that doesn't mean I don't hate that they come. When I make the decision to step out of my house and into the world, I do so with the understanding that I may run into a person or two who I would rather not deal with. But when I'm safely ensconced in my own house, I shouldn't have to deal with such people seeking me out. I can't stand their "it's just logic" approach, it makes me long to shoot their arguments full of holes whether I agree or not, but doing so would only encourage them so I usually just adopt the blob approach. If I just stand there staring at them vacantly, they eventually go away. But not forever, oh no. They'll be back next Saturday to take up "just a minute of my time".

One thing that is the same this year as last year is that I am still throwing money hand over fist into dog maintenance. Last year we were trying to figure out a way to keep Mingus' skin from falling off. This year I am spending money to try to turn Mingus into a dog I can actually live with. A couple weeks ago, I was ready to get rid of him. Despite the fact that whenever I hear of a family getting rid of their dog I feel like they should have tried harder and stuck it out, I was willing to swallow my pride and be that schmuck. Now that Emily is not just mobile, but steady and quick enough to catch up with a dog, we are having problems. He nips her to herd her, which is one thing, but he also nips her out of anger, which is one step away from actually biting her. Of course we never leave them alone together, and of course we work with both of them, teaching Emily that if he's growling or running away it means he doesn't want to be played with, and having her feed the dogs and give them treats to establish that she is fun and good and she controls their resources, making her higher up in the pack than them. But despite our efforts, things seem to be getting worse. Emily will come up to me crying with a red mark on her arm because Mingus nipped her, and that is not ok. I've worked on this dog for 6 years, and I've gotten nowhere. I can deal with him being an asshole to me, but I can't deal with a dog that bites my daughter.

So we're making a last-ditch effort and calling in the big guns. We hired a trainer to come out to our house and give us advice, and I think it went well. She pointed out that despite Mingus' aggressive, in-your-face behavior, everything points to him being an anxious, frightened dog. And even though he will come sit next to me and whine, or even put his head on my lap, he does not like it when I pet him. I suspected as much, but his mixed signals have kept me guessing. She also pointed out that dogs have mental capabilities that are on par with that of a 2.5 year old, so it helps me a lot to think of him as a frightened toddler vs. the belligerent old man he acts like. I am not supposed to pet him ever, and we determined that when Emily is running around and Mingus starts getting flighty (i.e. always), we are supposed to quietly close him in his room with a peanut-butter stuffed kong ball until he calms down. These methods seem to have helped so far. We haven't had any nips today at least.

But.

I have a dog living in my house who I don't like, and who doesn't like me. I cannot pet him. I have to tiptoe around him, lest he get too anxious and bite my daughter. 10 times a day I have to gently and lovingly escort him to his room and give him a treat just to avoid having him lash out. There is really no plan to make him a good dog who we can all enjoy, there are only ways to try to keep him calm enough that he won't hurt people. It is obvious that Emily's very existence only worsens his anxiety. I am not happy, and he is not happy. Is it really worth it?

I will make the effort. I will talk to the vet about anxiety meds for the dog when baby Charlotte arrives, as suggested by the trainer, because stress will be high for all of us and the last thing we need is to have to spend our time coddling the dog. I will do these things because if the time comes to get rid of him, I want to have a clear conscience. I want to be able to say we made every effort.

But I still feel that if we are ever able to find a different home for him, a place where we know he won't be killed or forced to live out the rest of his life in a cage, I will jump at the chance.

Maybe that makes me a bad person. Especially because "there are no bad dogs, only bad owners". But I also know there is only so much I can take.

Don't diss my cake or I'll sic the wasps on you

I realized today that I haven't left the house/yard in the last 51 hours, so obviously not much has been going on. I think I'll be forced to crawl out of my hole tomorrow though...I am out of thyroid medicine, Mingus is out of his various uber-expensive medicines, and I'm giving Emily skim milk with flaxseed oil in it because we're out of whole milk and she's so skinny I'm afraid she'll wither away to nothing without fat in her milk. But for the sake of posting an update, I will try to make a couple things that have happened sound interesting.

So let's see. Yesterday, after making it through the bee flower incident unscathed, Emily was half-stung by a wasp. For some reason, wasps seem to LOVE sitting on top of her swingset, and I think they're actually eating the wooden monkey bars. Incidentally, the squirrels are eating the swingset too. When we have to replace this one, I'm getting an industrial-grade steel swing set with rodent/pest poison paint.

Sounds healthy AND fun!

Anyway, back to the wasps. I know the wasps like her swingset now, but I didn't realize this yesterday, I just noticed a wasp flying by now and then while I was pushing Emily on the swing. I thought to myself "You know, Emily is probably going to end up getting her first bee sting this summer, just because she spends SO much time outside", and the thought made me sad. Not two minutes later, a freakin' wasp flew into her swing path, and as she swung forward it hit her chin and fell down into her lap. I immediately grabbed her swing to stop her, and luckily the wasp flew away (one of my greatest fears is being forced to do battle with scary insects to save my children. I'll do it of course, but if Emily ever comes inside with a honeybee stuck in her foot or something I will scrape it out, treat the sting, and then probably dissolve into a gibbering mess, the only intelligible words emitting from me being "ew" and "I touched it!!!"), but as it flew off Emily's eyes got huge, her face slowly crumpled and she started to cry very softly. It was a weird cry, there wasn't the usual amount of oomph in it, so I thought I had just scared her with my reaction and I comforted her for a minute or two. Then I looked at her chin, and I saw a little purple dot surrounded by a white circle, which was surrounded by red skin. I realized at that point that she'd been stung and I ran inside and put some baking soda paste on her chin and got her a popsicle and a Thomas show. Then I demanded that Will kill every one of those wasps. They perch on top of the swingset, and he is taller than me, so it was his job. He tried to convince me that it's all well and good to want revenge, but they're wasps and they only sting out of defense, but I believe I snapped something about them DARING to sting my innocent BABY, and he headed out to the swingset. He was a good daddy and went after them, but in doing so he found out the hard way that the monkey bars are too old and fragile to support the weight of an adult :-(

I say Emily was HALF-stung because she honestly wasn't nearly as upset by the sting as I had thought she would be, and by that evening there was no trace of a sting left. But I TOTALLY saw a sting on her chin, so I am just going to say that my daughter has super-human healing capabilities. It's really the only logical explanation. So far we have only killed two of the five wasps I have seen buzzing around the swingset (who am I kidding, there's probably an unlimited supply lying in wait in the trees) so poor Emily can't swing for longer than 2 seconds at a time because I am continually snatching her out of the swing at the first sign of waspage.

Other than that excitement, I've done a lot of vacuuming, I've changed Emily's clothes 3x a day because she gets totally soaked playing with her outdoor water table but I don't have the heart to empty it, and I've made some naturally-sweetened whole wheat carrot cupcakes as practice for Emily's party this weekend. I am still sticking with the "give her nothing but healthy food until she knows any better, then back off" approach, and so far she still loves healthy food and she still doesn't know any better. The cupcakes are very tasty, but quite crumbly, so that means I won't be able to carve cakes into a giraffe-shaped masterpiece that I was planning. I'm actually pretty relieved about that though, because now I can just make a normal cake and put a cutout from one of the paper plates on it, then fancy it up with some frosting. It'll take much less time that way, and hey, I was GOING to make an amazing giraffe cake, I totally COULD have done it, but my healthy delicious cake recipe didn't cooperate so I chose my child's HEALTH over a fancy cake and WHY are you complaining about the cake's shape anyway when I'm inviting you here and feeding you?

Oh, I see you got me Emily a Thomas roundhouse. Well then, all is forgiven.

A whole lot of nothing

So I know it's been a long time since I've updated, but as I sit here and try to think of an amusing anecdote or anything else at all worthwhile to relate, I come up with nothing. Lots of stuff has been happening, but my life seems to be stumbling along in a kind of disjointed manner these days, so all I have to offer is a somewhat disjointed blog post.

-The massage place was happy to work with me, so I now have a free 30 minute massage scheduled for April 15th, huzzah! Lets hope we don't spend the whole time talking about adhesions again.

-I am trying to get a schedule in place (again) so that I can have some structure in my life. I am partially horrified and partially enamored with the idea of having a schedule written out for each day of the week. Something like: 1:30PM - take Emily upstairs and read stories then put her down for a nap, 2:00PM - write out a menu for the week, 2:30PM - load up dishwasher and wipe down counters etc. I am horrified because I am not really a schedule person and just mechanically following a routine written out on paper every day seems boring, but at the same time it would also allow for guiltless procrastination because everything that needs to be done has been assigned a time so if my schedule says "free time", that means everything is taken care of and I really can relax for a bit. I think most experts agree that having a schedule is a good thing as long as you're not too rigid. It will be hard, because Will's schedule changes constantly. Last night he got a phone call at 2AM and had to go in to work for 3 hours to sort out some issue. Needless to say, the alarm was turned off and instead of waking up at 8 to shower and get a head start on the day before Emily woke up, I was awakened at 9 by Emily yelling "Poopy! Poopy!"

-I just put out a bird feeder, and I don't know why. It really annoys me the first week when the dumb birds won't go near it and you're waiting for birds to show up so you can ooh and aah, and it really annoys me after they finally start showing up when the greedy birds eat an entire feeder full of food every day and you are constantly having to re-fill it.

-I am noticing a disturbing trend in Emily's movie character preferences. Her favorite character in The Lion King? Scar. Alladin? Iago. Sleeping Beauty? Maleficent's crow. My daughter has evil leanings already.

-I have Twilight on Blu-ray from Netflix sitting on a shelf waiting to be watched. It is taking every bit of restraint I have not to put it in and watch it without Will. Actually that's a lie, there is also the fact that I don't know how to use the system downstairs in Will's man cave keeping me from watching it, and we can only watch DVDs upstairs.

-It is much more annoying to type "Blu-ray" than to type "DVD".

-I've decided that Bento box lunches are awesome and I must have a Bento box. I have spent far too much time looking through pictures of people's lunches here and here. I don't think I'll be fashioning small Japanese animals out of rice and seaweed any time soon, but I think the idea is perfect for toddler lunches.

-I am planning out a garden for my side yard, and I absolutely can't wait for May (or in some cases September...boo) when I can start planting things. This is the first place I've lived in a very long time where I plan to stay long enough to bother investing in making the gardens look nice.

-I also absolutely can't wait until it's FINALLY warm outside! Emily loves digging in the dirt, so I finally got her some new sand for her sandbox and she'll sit there for hours just digging. Her sandbox is right outside our kitchen window, we have a fenced-in backyard and two dogs who bark their idiot heads off the minute anyone even thinks about walking nearby so this arrangement allows me to get the kitchen clean without interruptions for the first time since I had a baby and it's GREAT! But I can't exactly plop my daughter out there when it's 40 degrees and drizzling so HURRY UP AND WARM UP ALREADY!

-As Emily starts talking more and more, I am noticing that she has a lisp, and she also has the same problem with R's her Aunt Krista had. "Bird" is "Buhd", "Roar" is "Waah". We might have to do something about that later, but it's so dang cute right now I don't want it to go away.

-I have decided on a theme for Emily's second birthday party. It will be a giraffe, or "Dash" party, since she and her little stuffed giraffe are inseperable. But once again, I am having issues. It is difficult finding giraffe-themed party supplies that #1 are not intended for a baby shower and #2 do not have other safari animals on them. I guess that's the problem with not having TV...she's not into Dora or any of the characters that are easy to find on party supplies, and while they make Disney princess-themed stuff, they don't make Maleficent's crow-themed stuff. Now I just have to think up some giraffe-themed alcoholic beverages for the adults.

Explosions and Fires

Emily is going through what experts refer to as a "language explosion". I read somewhere that at this age, kids are learning a new word every 90 minutes, which is amazing to think about. I believe it though. Today alone she learned to say "heart", "fly", "circle", and "octagon" (we got a new talking shape puzzle). And those are just the ones she said a bunch of times. There were probably others she learned but just filed away for later. She also said "Shoe off", which is one of her first 2-word combos, if not THE first. She was a late starter, but she's definitely off and running now. And the best part is, she can now say "poopy", so she tells me when her diaper needs to be changed, although it's only actually poopy sometimes. Potty training here we come!

I like the talking thing so far. It's great to finally get to see a little bit of what's going on inside the mind of this person you've spent the last 21 months with, even if it's only what their simple vocabulary can express. She has become a bit more demanding now that she can talk more though. These last few days she's gone to bed willingly enough, but as soon as she's in the crib her eyes get all big and she says "Fish-eee?" (or "Hoppy?" or "Minnie?", or inevitably whatever stuffed animal I've forgotten to bring upstairs) and then I have to go find the requested toy. Once she has her toy, she needs to be tucked in with the correct blanket, which changes every night based on her mood, and sometimes several times a night. Tonight she even decided the pajamas she was wearing were unacceptable and made me change her into her Christmas pajamas that she had glimpsed in the closet, waiting to be packed away. But we eventually get things all figured out and arranged to her liking.

Oh yeah, and she learned the word "firetruck" too today, as there were three of them parked right outside our window this evening, along with a brush fire unit, a police car, and an ambulance. I was chatting with Will on the phone as we drove home from the gym (in separate cars...we don't use cell phones when we can see each other, I promise) and all of a sudden he said "I see a lot of smoke...Oh my God, there's a house on fire!" I got a bit alarmed because I knew he was close to home, and asked "Where?!?!?!" "Our neighbor's! I'm calling 911!" was his semi-comforting reply.

When I got home a couple minutes later, I saw clouds of sparks billowing out of our neighbor's chimney. Luckily the firetrucks were there quickly, plus the fire seemed to lessen instead of spreading, so it stayed confined in the chimney and it all seemed to work out fine in the end. I was a bit nervous looking at the third firetruck, which parked right by my front door. Was that one sent and positioned to put out the neighboring houses if the fire spread? I SO didn't even want to think about that. And I now see the leyland cypress border in our backyard less as a convenient privacy hedge, and a little more as a convenient conduit for fires approaching from neighboring houses, eek!

We live very close to a fire station, and I've always felt more happy than not about that. True, the sirens wake me up at night sometimes, but they sure got here fast! It also confirmed that those firetrucks are indeed the ones that would respond to our area if we need help. I remember going on a tour of our town as a kid and hearing stories about how there used to be several fire companies and each house had a plaque on the front to show what fire station they paid for service. If a house right next to a certain fire station was buring down, that fire station wouldn't do anything about it unless the house had that fire station's plaque on the front. I know it's completely mental, I KNOW 911 sends whoever's closest, but I always secretly worried that there might be some kind of districting issue that would mean we "belonged" to a different fire station or something crazy like that. Mental note: bake cookies, put my address on the platter, and deliver to close firestation.

And can I just say, no matter how many times it happens, I'm still shocked at how potently music can bring back memories? My Bombay Dreams CD went missing years ago, and Will just downloaded the album for me tonight. I started listening to it and WOW. It's just flashes...moments that aren't anything all that special, but for some reason the music you were listening to at the time becomes fused with the memories and they come back SO strongly and in such great detail when you hear it again. When I heard the first track, it was all of a sudden spring 2004, it's beautiful and warm out, the sun is setting, and I'm driving my Audi (GOD I miss that car) back from the gym to go home and make dinner. And there's also sitting in the Apollo Victoria theater in London a couple weeks later watching in astonishment as an older couple seemed to be randomly sitting in whatever two seats they could find, and being forced to move over and over as the real ticket-holders for those seats showed up, and they actually seemed to be arguing each time they were asked to move. Our astonishment turned to anger when they were still being asked to move after the show started, and their confused milling made us miss the entire first scene. Grrrr.

And sadly, there's also the memory of going to see the Maryland Ensemble Theater's production of Lysistrata (which was terrible) and being blown away when the cast inexplicably burst into a rendition of Shakalaka Baby at the end. I wasn't aware that Bollywood even existed back when Aristophanes was writing his comedies. Shows how much I know.

Thanks for allowing me a trip down memory lane. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I used to drive an awesome car and go to see cultural performances while wearing clothing that was absolutely free of peanutbuttery handprints.

Of course hearing Emily yell "POOPY!" is just as good as all of that :-)

Shakes fist at sky

Today was a glorious day. Mid-sixties, sunny, wonderful. I joyously flung open all the windows, saying "It'll be nice to air out the stuffy winterness...and we'll save on heat!" I enjoyed the lovely day.

Then, as I was reading Oh The Places You'll Go to Emily before bed, I heard what sounded like rain outside. "Funny" I thought, "I remember the weather people mentioning wind, but not rain. It must just be that the wind kicked up because no way is it raining hard enough to make a roar like that."

But alas, it was. And the rain was pouring right in through all my open windows.

So I hurriedly put Emily in the crib, blew some quick kisses and ran out of the room. And when I looked out the front window, rain was POURING down in sheets.

What the hell? When it rains in January here, it's just a wimpy depressing drizzle. I have NEVER seen a summer-quality downpour like this in the winter. Sure, it was unseasonably warm today, but it's not unheard of to have nice days here and there sprinkled throughout the winter to keep our skin from falling completely off from the cold and dryness. They've never come complete with authentic summer monsoon before though.

My house has a lot of windows, and stupid panicked me, the first ones I closed were the ones that open onto the front porch. The ones with the least chance of the rain reaching in. Oh well.

The damage is minimal. But I'm still so confused. My windowsills and wood floor and Emily's toddler-sized chair and table set were pretty soaked, but all of those are hard surfaces I easily dried off. The problem was in the dining room, where it rained all over the carpet and an upholstered chair. I'm not sure what to do about that. I feel like pressing a towel onto it will absorb some moisture, but will probably also mash water deeper into the under-layers. I guess the best thing to do would be to get a fan set up and open the windows and let the moisture evaporate that way, but now it's all humid outside and it's supposed to get cold again.

And of course, it only rained for like, 5 minutes and then stopped. It just had to teach me a lesson for trying to enjoy the rare gift of a warm day in February.

Also I just had to go running upstairs to pull my daughter's leg back out from between the crib slats. Last night she awoke at 11 screaming and confused and when I rushed in to see what was the matter I found that she had thrust her foot out of the crib in her sleep, then rolled over, wedging and painfully twisting her foot. Luckily tonight she made a noise when she poked her leg out in her sleep so I checked the video monitor and was able to avert another leg-twisting incident. Thank goodness that girl inherited her mother's ability to never ever bruise, In the last 4 days alone she's taken a face dive from the breakfast area down into our sunken family room (on the wood floor), smashed her face while she was crawling around under the dining room table and fell on the leg of a chair, bonked her head spectacularly when she slipped on a blanket on the family room floor and then pinched and twisted her foot last night in her sleep. If she bruised easily the gym daycare would be reporting me to child services. And I wanted to take her crib bumper off yesterday. Without it she'd probably be wedging her entire torso through the side of the crib in her sleep.

At least it seems I made the right decision there. About the windows though? Not so much.

There's no place like home

I just took a quiz about my preferences in climate, activities, geography etc. to find out where in the US I would enjoy living the most.  #4 on my top 24 results?  Where I'm living right now.

Guess we won't be moving anytime soon!  Although it says we get 21" of snow per year and I don't think we've gotten 21" the past 5 years put together.

If you have the time, take the quiz.  It's fun.  And if you're so inclined, let me know where your perfect spots are.  I'm interested.

The best-laid plans...

8PM yesterday found me standing in a wrecked kitchen, peering into a pressure cooker that was still inexplicably filled with uncooked beans.  My back ached from vacuuming for hours (yes, hours!) and shoveling the driveway and the sidewalk.  Being a corner lot, we have A LOT of sidewalk.  My daughter still had nothing to wear out to play in the snow, despite a last-minute trip to Target to procure such items, and my husband DID have lactose-free milk, although the carton looked like a pack of wolves had tried to rip into it.  Despite my best efforts, yesterday kicked my ass.

I decided to do detail-cleaning of the floors yesterday, so I set about to scrubbing, vacuuming, mopping, and all of that fun stuff.  Shortly before noon, our friend Eddie called to see if it was ok for him to come over and finish the cabinet installation.  I said yes, since he's leaving on another mission on Wednesday and I would REALLY like to have it finished.  I TOTALLY appreciate him doing this in exchange for the van, it was just unfortunate that I had chosen that day to clean the floors, because a spotless floor + cabinet installation = a filthy floor.  Oh well.

By then it was snowing in earnest, and I realized that Emily didn't even own any sneakers, let alone snow boots.  It hasn't snowed appreciably around here for the past 4 years or so, so it seems like a waste to buy snow gear for a child who probably won't get to use it this year and who will DEFINITELY have outgrown it by next year.  The problem then is that when it DOES snow and you want to take your daughter out in the first snow she's old enough to enjoy playing in, you have nothing to dress her in.  So during Emily's nap, I shoveled the driveway and focused on cleaning the basement, and when she woke up we headed to Target.  They did not have a SINGLE toddler-sized boot, nor did they have any snow pants.  I did find one pair of slippers in a toddler 7/8, and although Emily wears a 6 I got them anyway since they were less than $2 and I hate how cold her feet get.  She won't wear them anyway, but maybe by the time they fit she will have made friends with them.  I also did not find any canned beans for the soup, and as I mentioned, the milk I got for Will turned out to have been severely tampered with.  By the time I realized though, I had walked all the way across the store to the checkout and waited through a surprisingly long line with a toddler who was close to losing it.  It hadn't actually been opened per se, so I just bought it anyway.

Since Target had no beans, I had to use dried beans, and since I had no soaked dried beans, I had to use the pressure cooker.  For some reason the beans didn't cook on the first try, and on the second try I didn't get the lid shut so the pressure never built up, and at that point I gave up and we had frozen grilled chicken strips I had made, peas and some frozen papusas we dug out of the back of the freezer.  So despite all my work yesterday, I still felt like an utter failure as I finally got a defrosted dinner on the sawdust-covered table at 8:15.

To avoid that mess, I decided to just get out of the house today.  Emily and I ended up happening upon a 12-24month storytime at the library, so we grabbed a ticket and walked in.  It was really nice, with all sorts of songs, signing, props, and activities, a good number of kids, and nice moms.  Pretty similar to the Sing and Sign class we took last semester at the Lucy School, except free!  And close to our house.  I think we'll make that a regular activity around here.

Emily also starts back into Little Gym this Friday.  I'm excited about that, since we really enjoyed it last spring, and Emily is older now so she'll be able to do even more fun physical stuff.  Emily's big thing nowadays is throwing things, so we're trying to teach her that you only throw balls, you don't throw toys.  We've gotten her a couple balls and we try to substitute those for hard toys when she's in a throwing mood, although balls can do damage too.  They don't hurt people though, so that's a start.  She also enjoys showing things to her stuffed animal friends, especially Elmo, Kitty and Bitty Bear.  She'll carry them around and hold them up to one thing after another, showing them her favorite things around the house.  She has named her first stuffed animal...a little pink bunny finger puppet she calls "Hoppy".  She spends a great deal of time making him hop along furniture, into her breakfast, basically on anything she can reach while chanting "Ho-PPY! Ho-PPY!"  Whenever I set up her tea set, she immediately runs over and just smashes everything all over the place until most of it is under the couch, in the cushions, behind the TV, anywhere it's hard to find.  Will says she has the most violent tea parties ever, at least since the Boston Tea Party.

She has also started talking like crazy since we got back from San Diego.  I still think she's a little bit behind for her age, but she's definitely making improvements and she's significantly more willing to attempt to say words.  Her favorite word is "Fish", and she shouts it joyously whenever the urge strikes her.  Most excitingly, she is starting to remember to say "more" (which she over-enunciates into a 5-second long word and also signs at the same time in case we don't get the picture) and "please" instead of just shrieking when she wants something.  THAT is big.

The other day, as Mingus rushed by Emily and sent her stumbling, I said "Uh-oh, Mingus almost  knocked you over!".  Emily looked at me, and started knocking on the door, the wall, the floor.  There was another instance, earlier in the day when I said a word and Emily showed that she understood the word but not the particular meaning.  It just goes to show how amazing a toddler's mind is...how much they have to learn and with what enthusiasm they set about learning it.  

She remains unhealthily obsessed with TV, although the only things she gets to watch are Baby Einstein and Sesame Street.  I try to tell myself it's not too terrible for her, since she dances around like crazy while she's watching it and after all, it's not a DVD, it's a digital board book for goodness sake!  But I know it's still TV, and I shouldn't let her watch it 3X a day.

And while I'm listing Emily's accomplishments, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Emily is a little tap dancing prodigy.  She already knows shuffles, taps, and flaps.  I can't wait to get this girl into a pair of tap shoes.  Don't tell her father.

Happy House-ing

I have complained a bit recently about not-so-good house related issues, so I figured I'd post a couple happy house related accomplishments.

#1: Our dining room no longer looks like this:
I realized something was missing, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.


Ah ha! A table!

And better yet, a tablecloth. Now I need to start throwing dinner parties. And get curtains, because I don't like those white blind-type things the old owners left behind. Haven't found any that tickle my fancy yet though.

#2, and even more excitingly, thanks to our pal Eddie the space between our front hall and our laundry room no longer looks like this:


It looks like this:

We are still waiting on a slab of Corian to match the rest of the kitchen (we might be waiting awhile) so for now the surface is just plywood, but it's still very useful! There was a big open wall space anyway, it seems like a little kitchen desk belonged there in the first place, and I love having a place to put the laptop and file all my works in progress. I still can't really believe this idea worked out, I was scared the whole time that we were seconds away from hitting a snag that would derail the whole project (can you blame me given how my ideas have been working out since moving into the new house?) but it seems like I measured everything correctly and Eddie did a great job putting everything in!

I'm thinking I might put corkboard up on the wall between the top cabinets and the desk as sort of a little built-in bulletin board. If we don't, we're going to have to paint it again anyway. I'm still waiting for creativity to strike.

Definitely making progress, although I feel like a house always seems like a work in progress.

Costly stupidity

When we bought our house, we managed to get a home warranty as part of the deal. I don't know if it was originally meant to be included or not, but we put it in the contract and they signed it, so there you go.

The problem is, this home warranty has sucked so far. The only things that we have had issues with (luckily) are the icemaker in the freezer, and a faucet outside that has started to drip. We called the home warranty company, and they don't cover either of those things. "But wait!" I said. "It says here you cover refrigerators and freezers!". "It's true," said the lady, "but the icemaker is not essential to the functioning of the refrigerator or freezer so that part of the freezer is not covered". And the faucet is not covered because it is outside of the walls of our house. Nevermind it's technically ON the wall and is definitely attached to plumbing that is inside the house. I wanted to dump a bucket of ice on her head, but I didn't have any on hand. Luckily our fantastic real estate agent felt badly that she had led us to believe that the icemaker was covered so she paid to have it fixed :-)

Then, one day, my favorite burner on the stove stopped working. It would get warm, but not hot enough to cook anything. It's a glass-top stove, so it's not as simple as just buying a new element like with a regular stove. I called the home warranty company, and it turns out it was covered! However we would still be responsible for a $100 deductible. Bastards. But my grandmother told me it cost her $250 to get hers fixed, so I figured we'd at least get some coverage out of the warranty.

Well the (rude and smelly) repairman showed up yesterday, took one look at the stove and said "I'll bet it's this switch". Turns out our stove has an incredibly helpful little switch that, when turned on, limits the temperature of the front burner to simmering. I must've bumped it while cleaning or something, and that explains why it stopped working overnight, and why it was still getting warm but not hot.

I was so excited to get some use out of our home warranty that I hadn't even really taken a look at the stove myself before calling them. I'd like to think that had I bothered to poke around a bit I would've realized the problem. And WHY ON EARTH do you even NEED a stupid switch like that anyway?

So the (nasty and sarcastic) repairman charged me $73 to "fix" a stove that wasn't broken. It's less than $100 so we're responsible for all of it, and I am incredibly pissed. I'm pissed at the sleazy repairman for being such a jerk that he charged us $73 for flipping a switch. I understand the whole "trip charge" idea, but he admitted he had two other calls in the area today so given the circumstances I would think he could find it in his heart to give me a discount or something. I'm pissed that the home warranty in effect cost me $73 because I feel like I would've taken a look at it and realized the problem if I hadn't thought to myself "Don't worry about it, it's covered under the warranty and they'll send someone to fix it". But mostly I'm pissed at myself for being so stupid.

If I sound like I'm still inordinately irritated considering this happened over 24 hours ago, it's because I was just recently frustrated by something entirely different. The people who painted this house saw fit to lay a thick layer of paint over every door hinge. This wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that Will gets up an hour before I do, and spends half an hour opening doors. He opens the bedroom door to get out. He opens the door to the laundry room to let the dogs out. He opens the pantry door to get out his cereal. Sometimes he opens the powder room door or the door to the garage. He definitely opens the front door several times. And every single door in our house emits a high-pitched nerve-shattering squeal every time it moves. I figured I'd take matters into my own hands and oil the doors tonight so that I could enjoy a blissful hour of uninterrupted sleep tomorrow morning. Well, each hinge is covered with paint, so you can't get any oil into them as they are. I've tried sticking a nail under the hinge pin and hammering it up, but the paint holds it tight and it's an awkward enough angle that I don't feel comfortable hammering with ALL my strength to get them out. I pried at them with a screwdriver, same problem. The paint keeps me from being able to get the tip in there. So instead of sleeping peacefully tomorrow, I will once again be treated to the screaming symphony of un-oilable doors with no solution in sight.

Any suggestions? For the squeaky doors I mean...I'm afraid my stupidity is beyond help.

Holiday yammerings

As I was falling asleep last night, I realized that tomorrow (today) is Monday. I couldn't believe the long weekend went by so fast. For that matter, it's Monday December 1st and I really can't believe that November went by so fast. I think about Lyle and Wendy's Halloween party that was exactly 30 days ago and it feels like last week. I guess that's what happens during the holidays.

Now that it's December, I can listen to Christmas music, which is exciting for me and nauseating for Will. Growing up, my mom had these old Christmas albums (and I do mean albums as in record albums) that we listened to pretty much 24/7 during the month of December. As I grew older, it got harder and harder to capture the same feeling of being "in the spirit of Christmas"...now I know you can never truly recapture the same feeling from your childhood Christmases, but I feel like maybe....just maybe if I listen to Christmas music often enough I can get close. My problem is that I don't own any decent Christmas albums, so I always just used the Christmas music channel on TV. That offered the advantage of not being able to pick your own music so I got the treat of listening to such unbearable classics as Paul McCartney's A Wonderful Christmastime and the formulaic and vomit-inducing Christmas Shoes by Newsong several times a day. Well, we don't have cable anymore, so now I'm reduced to listening to our local Christmas music station over the internet which features the convenience of not being able to pick your own music and the additional advantage of having to listen to commercials and corny taglines.

But no matter what I'm listening to, I definitely need to start decorating. It's been difficult because we were so busy every day this weekend. Thursday was Thanksgiving of course. Friday we had a family business meeting at the newspaper, and after that we went out with one of Will's friends from childhood who was back in town. Afterward we went to the Weinberg center to watch "Dark Side of Oz", which was The Wizard of Oz played with the soundtrack muted and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album replacing it. I'd heard of people doing this but I'd never seen it myself, and I still haven't really seen it because right about the time Dorothy was chatting with the munchkins we got a text that Emily was sick so we went to my mom's house to take care of her. The only problem was I had decided to cut loose and have fun since we had an overnight babysitter, and 2 glasses of wine, a glass of sangria and a peach pomegranate mojito later I was worried I would be in no shape to take care of a sick toddler. But luckily we took Emily home, put her to bed and everything was fine...there are few things more sobering than having to deal with your sick baby!

Saturday was a dark day indeed. I walked into my Salsa Aerobics class, excited to finally get to take it again after a week and learned that Kevan the instructor had quit. It's all very scandalous apparently, possibly related to his recent separation from his wife and his only slightly more recent dating of several girls in the class. Recently I have been branching out a bit and trying out some new cardio classes, but Salsa was still my mainstay so I'm going to have to find something else to take its place although I doubt anything can be as fun :*(

Yesterday and today we've had our friend Eddie over installing cabinets and rewiring light switches. Home Depot wanted an exorbitant amount to install our cabinets (of course) so we're having Eddie do it instead and in exchange we're giving him our old van that he borrows all the time. It's a win-win because now that we've moved and have curbside recycling and don't have to periodically move our inlaws junk out of our house we don't really have any need for a big nasty van anymore. And really it's a win-win-win-win because it also means we won't have to pay insurance on the van and I will be able to park in my driveway and not in the street in front of our house! And if all goes well with our unpacking, I should soon be able to park my car in the garage itself. Incredible.

And as I mentioned earlier, Emily is sick again. Maybe I should just mention when she's NOT sick, because honestly she's had a runny nose since June with just a couple days here and there of wellness. It was funny to me when the pediatrician remarked that Emily must be a very healthy girl because in 15 months we'd only had to make 1 sick visit with her. That is true, but she's been slightly sick for a large percentage of that time so I guess I don't think of her as super-healthy. I probably should, I know how lucky I am that she hasn't had any serious illnesses (hold on a sec while I go knock on every piece of wood I can find) but when she's weepy and clingy and covered in snoot all the time I sometimes forget.

So when she's feeling better, we'll have some fun decorating and doing other holiday-type activities for her first real Christmas. At least the first Christmas that she'll realize is different from any other day of the year.

Chicken and home decor

As anyone who's read my blog for any amount of time knows, it's important to me to feel like I have my life "under control". My standards for "under control" are pretty high, and I can probably count on one hand the number of days I've ever actually felt this way. But it keeps me striving for that goal.

This blog has really inspired me to take control recently. The woman who writes it is the mother of 3 young kids, and she still manages to cook food ahead of time and use coupons! She has made it easy to play the CVS game (where you get all sorts of stuff for free, or even earn money by buying particular products when certain deals are running and you have a coupon). And I spent most of yesterday cooking up 15 pounds of chicken into 2 weeks worth of dinners that are now hanging out in my freezer, waiting to make my life easier on busy nights. And don't worry, I don't plan to serve chicken for 2 weeks in a row.

So yeah, not much else to report except that the old house is officially devoid of stuff we want. Everything we plan to keep is over here now, and we just have to unpack it. Plus pack up the stuff from the old house we want to donate, rent a rolloff and chuck whatever's left and then clean it up, but still, we've completed the most arduous part!

We also have a new window in Emily's room, the cabinets for our kitchen desk area are sitting in the garage, and my couch FINALLY arrived!

The living room still looks a bit sparse though, so I'm thinking I need a lamp or a fake tree or something in the corner. I have also been eyeing this painting for the wall above the couch. It isn't really my style, but it really catches my eye for some reason, plus it's the perfect colors and I really like the idea of having 9 little paintings grouped on the wall vs. the typical one big one. The only problem is that it's really freakin' expensive (not for art in general, but in terms of how much I'm willing to spend on a picture for above the sofa). I found it as a poster on Amazon, so I'm thinking I might buy the poster for $35, cut the individual squares out, then stick them onto canvases (if I can find the right size). I know it's cheating, but it would be getting the same effect for about 90% less money so I might have to just overcome my moral issues with it. On the other side of the living room (behind where I stood to take the picture) I have a console table and I want to put together a little family tree of pictures on the wall above it. I won't draw connecting lines or anything, but I'd like to just kind of group them like a family tree. I have pictures of Will's and my parents on their respective wedding days, and all of our grandparents too so I have a good start. If I go back much further I might have some difficulty finding pictures (if there even are any) but it'll be a fun project and I think our kids will enjoy looking at it.

So that's what I'm focusing on now. There's plenty of other stuff I still need to do, but I haven't really posted any pictures yet and now that the living room looks presentable I wanted to get at least one up!

-Sara