Entries from July 2008
This crazy storm is following me. I even took a road trip and it came with me. Or maybe, rather, it was leaving me but I decided to follow it. Hmmm. Anyway, happy to be in my safe new auto cruising down the interstate, I realize I have not figured out how to use the rear wiper. Now I know that rear wipers are not an absolute necessity, but the darn thing was there and it was pouring so it seemed like it should be on. A few minutes of tinkering and I managed to figure it out.
After the rain stopped I also figured out the cruise control. Then it started to rain again and I couldn’t remember if you are supposed to turn the cruise off during rain. I decided to turn it off to be safe, but don’t know if that is a useless fact I made up or if it is a fact from ten years ago that no longer holds true or an actual fact. Any ideas? I better check the manual.
These are the little things that bug me. I am a manual-reading person. You are either a manual-reading person or you are not. If I had the time I would have read it cover to cover. I started it, but only made it through about the first third. The first third is the more useless of the material, but I didn’t want to risk missing something important. I will have to put it back on my to do list so I can remember to read it. I only think about it when I am actually in the car. And that’s when I’m driving and sadly can’t do both at one time.
Those of you who are not manual-reading people are probably staring at the screen with your mouth open at the realization that people actually READ the manual. Maybe I am alone, but I love to know the little features that I would never guess if they weren’t spelled out in front of me. On the way home from the road trip I will have help driving. As far as I’m concerned that is when I kick back and finish reading all the interesting tidbits. I’ll let you know if cruise control is “allowed” in the rain. And maybe by then the rain will have gone away!
Categories: Brigid
Tagged: new car, rain
So today about a half an hour before I was due to pick up my daughter from preschool we got this crazy, out of nowhere storm. I am not normally a person who gets that freaked by the weather. Something today told me to take notice. I hesitated and then decided to let Maggie stay at school for an extra hour in aftercare.
Something weird made me decide not to get in the car at that moment. If I were the main character in the movie you would see me in my kitchen looking at the clock trying to decide what to do. I would talk to my one and a half year old about it in a talking-out-loud kind of way. Then they would cue the music and unbeknowst to me they would change cameras to the basement that was filling with water as I piddled about in the kitchen.
But as the movie goes on, I decide to check the basement for some reason and walk down to hear running water. The outside door has flooded and water is gushing in all around the door frame. Cue more music. I actually yelled at the water to stop. That’s a mom for you. When it did not listen I started cramming blankets and towels (our dirty laundry that happened to be on the floor) to at least stop the intensity while I ran outside to see what was happening.
Before I took two steps the electricity went out. Now cue the music with me in an almost pitch black room standing in water next to a refrigerator and then you see a flash of lightening. I don’t even know if it’s possible to be electrocuted in such a way, but it scared me at the moment. Then I took a step and the foam alphabet letters my foot was on slipped in the water almost causing me to end up on my rear. Cue the music and the power comes back on. Whew.
I must admit this is not the first time this problem has occurred, but I thought I had remedied the problem of a plugged outer drain. I actually had checked it just yesterday so I couldn’t believe that could be the problem. Outside I was greeted by the bottom three stairs being totally submersed in water. At this point I called my husband, not even for advice but because I wanted someone else to know I was in the middle of all this craziness. He gave me his opinion which was to reach into the water and unclog the drain. Being on the squemish side and not being able to see what I was about to grab, I decided to bail water instead until I could at least know I wasn’t going to grab onto a dead bird or animal of some sort.
So I bailed nine trash cans full of water until I could get to the drain and unclog it. The worst part of the problem was solved. The clean up was not fun but also not worth talking about. (Thank you, thank you wordpress for having an auto backup system. As I was just typing, another storm swept in and we lost power again! But alas, my work was saved. And yes, I already checked the drain and it was beginning to back up again! Ahhh!) So we have a plan for tomorrow on how to solve the problem once and for all. And for tonight we have decided a little debris in the pipe is better than a lot of water in the basement. So cue the music, I’m going to bed!
Categories: Brigid
Tagged: basement, flood, storm
Let me start out by saying I must be a little serious about this whole blog thing, because now it is cutting into my television time. My all-alone-I-can-watch-whatever-I-want television time. With that being said I will move on.
I went to Costco today and spent a typical $100. Not a big deal except I got a total of 3 things. Of course everything at Costco is big enough to break a toe if dropped but normally I get a little more variety. Today it was a $42 box of diapers for toilet boy. (who I feel I need to point out is almost 3 ft tall – in a previous post I called him 2 feet tall.) Anyway, diapers for him, two monster apple juices and five boxes of cereal. Five boxes of cereal? Yes, you read that right and no, it’s not a typo.
Let me just start by saying we are a family who loves cereal. It’s breakfast, it’s a snack, it’s dessert, and on days when we had eggs in the morning it ends up as the occasional lunch. So I try to be choosy like the choosy moms who choose JIF. I choose high protein, high fiber, low sugar cereals. Now finding that combination in something my kids and my husband will eat is not as easy task.
So it’s kind of like toilet paper. You KNOW you need it and if you run out someone is gonna be looking for it. Same with cereal. We know it will be eaten so why not stock up. The funny thing is that each box I bought has two inner packages. I have measured and the grocery store size is about 1/2 of one of the inner packages. So if I am doing the math correctly, which is by all means NOT a given, I basically just bought the equivalent of 20 boxes of cereal. Now I feel a little ridiculous.
In my defense though, we are heading to visit my parents who also happen to like the same cereals. So I will bring two boxes there and my hope is that we can actually leave them some when it’s time for us to go. If not, at least we will have saved them about eight boxes of cereal.
I will leave you for tonight to go watch television for an hour and have a bowl of cereal. Anyone care to join me? We have plenty.
Categories: Brigid
Tagged: cereal
This will be a short one. I don’t think I can string together too many words let alone many cohesive thoughts. People often say that being a stay-at-home mom is one of the toughest jobs out there. I think I have found one that is tougher. I had the pleasure of substitute teaching at my daughter’s school today. My son was with me and he did quite well, though that is another post for another day. Today let’s talk about the true warriors of the parenting world. The teachers.
I really enjoyed the day, but holy cow am I tired. I will lick my wounds tomorrow and recuperate with a low key day at home and hopefully a big fat nap. But the teachers who do this every day, whoa! How do they keep up? And then parent their own children on top of it all. We came home and I turned the TV on. Not because the kids wanted it (though they happily agreed), but because my brain was fried and I needed the break.
Packing lunches, having clean clothes, spending quality time with the kids and working a full time job – with other people’s children no less. It’s enough to make me bow in reverence to those who can keep up. I am humbled. All of a sudden one four-year-old and one 19-month-old seem easy. Two adults and six one-year-olds was a bit more taxing. And six was a “light” day. It could have been as many as ten! Thank you for the stars that aligned to make it only six today!
I was rewarded though many times today with hugs from children who didn’t even know me hours earlier. One latched onto me at the end of the day and insisted I was the one who took him to his mother in the pick up line. That’s a pretty good feeling. What makes my knees buckle is today is only Monday and the warriors will do today four more times this week. I am humbled.
Categories: Brigid
Tagged: preschool, teaching
I am officially on my way to a new workout regime, or any workout regime, for that matter. I took the first two steps. One: I tried on a pair of sneakers to make sure I had comfortable footwear. My life revolves a lot more around comfortable footwear than it ever has before. Second: I wrote down the times the YMCA has nursery hours. And then I was exhausted… not really, but that was all I managed to squeeze in today.
Tomorrow my hope is to actually enter the workout facility. The last two times I have tried to workout the nursery staff has had to fetch me to say that my son will not stop crying. He was going through a particularly rough patch of separation anxiety. He is used to being around me 24 hours a day and didn’t think I needed to exercise at all.
My sincere desire is that he will be OK now that he is a month older and I have been “practicing” leaving him. I would love to do more than the first 3 machines before being summoned back. If not, I will wait a little longer and try again. If only he could understand that I would be a much better mother if I got in a little me time, a little exercise time, a little serotonin-boosting time.
And the long term goal, other than a svelte body and some rocking hard muscles is the time away thing. The plan is for him to start school two days a week starting in January. He will be two then. We are in the midst of what they call baby steps. Baby step one: 1/2 hour at the Y. Baby step two: a whole hour at the Y. Then a half day at school and then the whole shebang.
Lots of parents send their children from a young age to school five days a week and those kids are great. They turn out fine. My choice, and I was lucky enough to have a choice, was to be a stay-at-home mom. This makes starting school at an older age a bit more of a challenge. My daughter started at 2 1/2 and loved every minute of it. She still tells me I come too soon to pick her up. But as no two snowflakes are the same, I have two children of different tastes and personalities. I fear Nicholas is going to have a tougher time getting into the school thing. I really do feel if I can play my cards right, the next few months could pay off for all of us and school will be a great experience for him. I love his soon-to-be teacher and school so there are no worries there.
What I strive for is getting him ready so that each day is not a tearful goodbye on his part. Other parents have said it took their two-year-olds weeks or even months of crying to get used to school. In my heart I don’t think that will be the case. I would love for it to go as seamlessly for my son as it did for my daughter but it is pretty doubtful. A few days of crying will not be the end of the world as long as he can rebound and enjoy the rest of the day. But I don’t know what I will do if my carefully laid out plans blow up in my face. Well, yes I do. I will lay out some more plans and call it plan B. But for now, I’m on my way to Y for a half hour.
Categories: exercise - sort of · parenting - my way
Tagged: preschool, working out
Today is the first day in almost a week that I have no idea what to write about. Yikes! Am I out of material already? That was pretty quick. So for today and to cut myself a break since it is Saturday, I’m just going to give you a few random thoughts.
The kids went to the Dr yesterday for check ups. My daughter is in the >97% for height category. That means if you lined up 100 kids her age, at the most three would be as tall as her. My son seemed puny by comparison being only in the 95%. Again, 100 kids, five taller. You get it, right? But all is well healthwise and that is always a good thing.
Mike is on day five of working out at the YMCA. I couldn’t be happier. The only day he missed was our night of miscommunication. But I’m pretty proud of him and a little jealous!
I have officially grown out of some of my summer pants! These are pants that were falling down just a few weeks ago. I better check myself when the kids are in bed and Mike is at the Y. My little treats are becoming not so little. At least so says my waistline.
My daughter has moved up in the world out of a carseat and into a booster. I can almost taste the freedom from the five point harness. Of course, the safety of the five point harness was a bonus but I’m hoping the one click seatbelt will get us out of the garage a little quicker!
And finally because I know you have all been waiting for this… …I figured out the presets on the car radio! And it was pretty simple once you know the trick. I have only set the first one, but I am confident it will be smooth sailing from here out.
p.s. Sometimes I wonder if I am making up words or just misspelling them. This spell check doesn’t like a lot of things I’m sending it. I hope after a bit of getting back in the groove my spelling skills will return. Right about now my spelling consists of whatever is on the grocery list.
p.p.s. Dad- sorry for the lack of commas. I’m sure there have been some missing. Again, hopefully I will polish up a bit!
Categories: utterly random
Tagged: random
In our family we give each other little nicknames like Laundry Man, Garbage Man, Breakfast Girl, etc. It can be anything that has to do with what you are doing. When my husband does laundry, our daughter lovingly calls him Laundry Man. I think that was how the whole nickname business started actually, with Laundry Man. We thought they were funny so now we make them up for various things.
I was trying to resist, but I think my son finally earned Toilet Boy last night. Not for the obvious which would be using the toilet, but for his everlasting fascination with the toilet. What doesa Q-tip, a toothbrush, a swimsuit and a hand bell all have in common? I’ll give you a minute because that is a toughie. Ready? All are items Toilet Boy has put in the toilet! Yuck! Double yuck! Nothing has been flushed thankfully but fishing out these items from my not so immaculate toilet has been interesting. I have used various items to reach in and grab the non-toilet items and then thrown away the whole operation.
Last night after coming out of the tub and wearing a fresh diaper and jammies he toddled right into the bathroom where his sister was finishing her bath. Normally he likes to pretend to climb back into the tub but last night he quietly crossed over to the side with the toilet. I can see the bathroom from the room we just moved the computer to so I blissfully kept typing away since my husband was also in said bathroom. After a moment I jumped up when my internal mommy alarm went off. Without a second to spare, I grabbed a book out of midair that was on its way into, you guessed it, the toilet. A split second later and my favorite parenting book of the moment would have been swimming with the… well, we all know what lurks in toilets. How ironic, he must think I don’t need any parenting advice…hmm.
So Toilet Boy it is, for the moment. I was careful to say it only in my head for fear that my daughter would think it was too funny and decide to call him that for the next 5 years of his life. It could be a good sign, maybe he will continue to be fascinated and soon we can say goodbye to diapers forever. I’d trade a few more household items to be out of diapers, I think. But this is the same boy who was scared by his own urine the first time he peed without a diaper on, so I have a feeling we have a long way to go. I’ll just keep an eye on my phone and keys in the meantime.
Categories: Nicholas · parenting - my way
Tagged: toddlers, toilets
I was thrilled to go to dinner last night with two good friends. My going out to dinner meant of course my husband taking care of dinner and bedtime for the two kiddos. Dinner, not a big problem. Bedtime, a whole other story. Our son is accustomed to me always putting him to sleep including a nightly nursing session. No matter how hard he might try, my husband just can’t duplicate our ritual. So I try to only be gone one or two nights a month and that just started fairly recently.
Anyway, I went to dinner, felt like an adult, not just a mom. I need a few hours occasionally to recharge my mommy batteries. We went to a store afterwards to continue talking and browse without having to entertain little people. I got home at 9:30 feeling refreshed and looking forward to the quietness that would greet me.
And all was quiet. In fact too quiet. I greeted my husband and got a grunt instead of a hello. Then I noticed his keys, Y card and walkman on the counter. He thought I would be home earlier and had been waiting to go workout. I had no idea and had dilly dallied out. Once I realized I apologized but also explained that I had no way of knowing. Tonight was my night to get a little free time. I didn’t know we were going to both try. He answered that he had no idea it would take me four hours to have dinner. Anyway, we both agreed it was a miscommunication but I still couldn’t help feeling a little bad about it.
But I was on duty when our daughter woke up at 3:30 with a nightmare and didn’t fall back asleep until 4:30. She told me in the morning that her nightmare was that I left her at the park and she couldn’t find me – making me feel worse for “leaving” the night before. I asked what they had done the night before. She doesn’t know yet that she’s not supposed to tell me the names of the shows they watched that are not allowed. She said they watched Ironman and Spiderman but that there weren’t bad guys. She knows I don’t like the bad guys because they give her nightmares! Imagine that. Forbidden shows, nightmares and suddenly I need to recharge my batteries again! I said “you know those are against the rules.” She said “I know, but you are the rules and you weren’t here!” So what is a mom to do when I’m on duty 20 hours a day and then in the 4 that I’m gone all the rules fly out the window? If what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, why am I up at 3:30 in the morning?
Categories: parenting - my way
Tagged: nightmares, parenting
Yesterday was one of those days my dear husband comes home from work and kind of suspiciously looks around the house and says “What did you do all day?” I, of course, hear it as “How can three people make such a mess in one day?” To my credit we had played a lot that day. It was what I call a total kid day until about 4pm when I declared mommy time and shooed everyone away for a few minutes to regather my senses. I must admit, the house did look like a disaster. But three people? No, ONE person. One 30 pound, 2 ft tall, non-speaking little guy who can single handedly destroy a room in 30 seconds flat. No man or machine is fast enough to trail behind him and restore the mayhem. My usual plan is to wait until he runs out if steam and then try to put the pieces back together as best I can. I sometimes try this in the afternoon before my dear husband gets a chance to see it. Yesterday I did not. I like to keep at least one room without stuff on the floor so I can walk by and have some semblance of order. The true sign of a good day for me is clean counters. If I can get all the clutter off them and wipe them down I am a happy woman. I can have 10 pounds of crumbs on my floor and not give a hoot as long as my counters are clean.
Categories: the lived in house
Tagged: house cleaning
…not mine, of course! This morning as I sat on the floor of the Brentwood Library and looked around at some of the children attending story time with us I began to wonder what time they must get up in the morning. Here it was 10am and these kids looked like they were ready to get portraits made. I looked at my own and they looked like they rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes, ate breakfast (evidence still lurking on the thrown on clothes) and landed at the library with five minutes to spare. OK, that’s pretty much how our morning went, but Tuesday is our day to hang out and catch story time and take a big fat nap so I won’t apologize. These kids at the library though all had beautifully washed, combed, styled hair. If there is something I am missing, please clue me in. Maggie was sporting her braids from yesterday that didn’t look too worse for the wear. But portrait worthy? I think not. Nicholas had missed the brush this morning, which 9 times out of 10 doesn’t matter with him. Today must have been the tenth day because from across the room I was suddenly sad that I hadn’t at least licked down some of the fuzz that was following him around. And the clothes? Don’t even get me started. One 6-year-old was in a white dress. A WHITE dress! Hah! And it was clean! Does the child not touch anything? Maybe she doesn’t. As I watched a bit more I realized my kiddos might not be perfectly coiffed children, but they sure were the happiest ones there. I’ll take happy over perfect any day.
Categories: parenting - my way
Tagged: children, hair
