This is What it Takes to Get Me to Post

Boring kid update: Bobo has pink-eye. Uck. What is going on here? Chuckles started kindergarten and he adores it. Adores it. He's doing fine. He's on the smaller side, but he's reading now and writing and the Homework. Oh my. It's fun and hard and fun and no naps ever again. He went to the Apple Orchard and I packed his first ever school lunch in a bag with an apple tree on it and they left it behind so he got a hot dog for lunch at the orchard and he was so happy and then he ate lunch. From a bag. For dinner. Low key, easygoing, lunch fail. There is a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch coming up. I will duct tape his lunch to his arm.

OK, why am I posting today of all days? Because I work for a giant faceless corporation with offices all over the world and they are hosting a contest. And I can no longer contain the sarcasm. The sarcasm, it burns. Here is the crib notes version of the email I got:

Giant Multi-National Corporation is hosting its first International New Year’s
E-card drawing/art contest, open to our employees’ children and the youth in the
communities where we have operations. An International New Year's card is
like a Christmas card, but we can't use the word Christmas because we wouldn't
want to show favoritism to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and heaven forbid we
call it a Holiday Card because everyone knows that's code for X-mas
anyway. The theme for the 2009 contest is "Feel the Joy of Sharing" and
artwork should demonstrate cultural diversity and a sense of
community. Feel free to use all the shades of brown in the 128 box
of Crayola Crayons when drawing the Sharing.

In other news, I planned Bobo's First Birthday Party last night. Hot dogs, hamburgers, and S'mores in a brand new fire pit in our backyard two weekends before Thanksgiving or something. I am happy about the First, but sad because, you know, my baby is growing up. BUT! Only 7 more weeks of pumping. I am thrilled. I might actually go an entire year feeding the baby only breastmilk (and baby food) with no formula. That would be something. I might not make it the whole year, and that's OK too. The pumping output is really tapering off, so I am taking fenugreek, and I pump on weekends sometimes now, and I dropped day care bottles from 2 or 3 to 2 only (I only send two now). So, I've done all I can. He takes 2 five-ounce bottles on weekdays, and we'll see what happens. He crawls real tummy up crawling now. And he learned to do that the same day he got his two bottom teeth. It was a busy sleepless time at our house. He also started walking along on furniture over the weekend and that's something too. I'm pretty sure he's all gross motor skills all the time.

Last night, Chuckles was sitting on his bed working on his homework (red, green 5-9, and Tt) and we were chasing Bobo around and throwing him in the air and dangling him by his feet and Chuckles just kept chugging along at his homework. Chuckles is the guy at Woodstock trying to find a shower to wash the mud off so he can make it to class on time while everyone else strips naked and slides in the mud while cutting class.

I am thisclose to ditching the Mirena IUD. I am still spotting. It's been like 9 months. I am so over the mini-pad. I will wait until I wean to see whether that helps (although truth be told, at a year, I only plan to give up pumping...I am not stopping nursing). That is all on that topic.

Abrupt topic shift: Health Care Reform. I am against it. As I am sure you knew. I really don't think health care or access to health care is an enumerated power or an inalienable right. Just don't think so. Sorry. It is a service and like other services, my libertarian heart thinks everyone needs to pay for their own. I am fine with a little Medicaid here and there as a temporary thing, but really, not feeling the low for health care. I am fine with high deductible cost-sharing plans too. I happen to have had good-to-great insurance for most of my life, but I am willing to have higher co-pays and cost-sharing or a high-deductible plan so that I shop around for cost-effective treatments. I am fine with that. I'm a smart consumer. But I don't have many chronic conditions and I am not gravely ill, so my perspective is, as always, governed by my own experiences (note: I did buy Cobra once and it was not cheap and I was young and healthy and could've bought insurance on the open market a whole lot cheaper but I was too lazy to investigate and I was not going to risk ruin on going insurance-less).

Oh, and I believe that you and your doctor should make your health care decisions together (which is a really cryptic thing to say but it does mean keep insurance and government out of the exam room and out of the equation...whatever the decision: end of life care, abortion, pain management, birth control, when to stop labor, when to resuscitate a premature infant, VBAC, c-section, etc).

Quarantine

We are finally out from quarantine. Bobo is better. It was chicken pox. Eventually four of the eight babies at day care contracted it. One parent also contracted chicken pox, and I hear she is miserable. Patient Four is still out of day care after a week and a half. I'd say excluded from child care for two weeks is a pretty sure bet. We're not totally out of the incubation period yet so more could come down with it still.

Mr. Long-Suffering and I took turns working from home during the illness. Chuckles stayed in day care so we could actually work during naptime. I got a solid 6 hours of work done per day. Not bad, but exhausting.

Quarantine was awfully boring. I'm glad I don't like in the age of diphtheria. I don't think I could handle the yellow card. I took Bobo in the car to drop Chuckles off at day care (but he stayed in the car...I was right there 15 feet away at the door...still outside). I took him for walks in the great outdoors, but mostly, we just stayed home. Boring. My mom and dad came to visit to break up the monotony. My in-laws avoided us like we had the plague. My mother-in-law claims she's never had the chicken pox, but both her kids did and she has worked in a school for 20 years, so she's either had it or has super immunity some other way. So, we were pretty isolated. I suppose I could've updated the blog, but I felt isolation was the safest course of action. For you. I'm trying to protect you, my one blog reader. Don't you feel special now?

Eight years ago today, I wore a really pretty silver dress and a little tiara thing and I got hitched to Mr. Long-Suffering. Tonight, I plan on trying my wedding dress on to make sure it still fits. Then, if he's lucky, I might take the dress off. Who knows? On a weeknight, even.

The weather turned colder, and I started cooking again. The tomatoes are in the garden and I made a pot of chili. I also made chicken marsala for the first time ever and nom, nom, nom, can't stop eating to write...it was so good. The recipe is long and easy and one of the ingredients is Holland House cooking Marsala. Who knew? I also made garlic mashed potatoes with potatoes from Chuckles's little garden plot. He found digging in the dirt for "prizes" to be a lot of fun. And I turned a 2-foot long zucchini into 48 muffins. Mmmmm. Some of them had chocolate chips.

Oh, and I crock potted a chicken in just water and made homemade babyfood with chicken, broccoli, and sweet potatoes in the food processor. It tastes like a little slice of Thanksgiving heaven. Bobo wants nothing to do with it. I'll eat it.

Speaking of Bobo...when is he going to stop eating over night? He was so over that, and now here we are again. I guess I don't mind too much as long as he sleeps through the night every once ina while. Again, speaking of Bobo, he is master of the army crawl and thinks sitting it for losers. All teh cool kids are standing this season. And so, he stands. All the time. Which is fine because I don't hang out behind him. He has to do it all on his own.

Now since I'm all about equal time, I will tell you that I requested they evaluate Chuckles to see whether he should be in kindergarten. He's no where near the birthday age cut-off. He turned 4 in May. He just seems so ready. So, I asked for an eval. And if they say yes, he starts the Tuesday after Labor Day. And if they say no, that's fine too. And if the say yes and it doesn't work out, that's ok too. Easygoing. He asked me to teach him to read and I just don't have the time. Literally. It's horrible. With meals, baths, nursing, and other things that absolutely must get done while both kids are awake, I do not have the time to teach Chuckles to read. So, I am outsourcing it I guess. Oh well. We'll see how it goes and what happens. I'm letting it unfold in an organic way. Or something lowkey and laid back.

Dottie

Bobo has chicken pox. He seems mostly unaffected although he would like company in the wee hours. He goes to the doctor tomorrow for confirmation, but if it clucks like a chicken and uhhh somethings like a pox....

Patient Zero was an infant at the day care. Patient One, also an infant at the day care, took ill 5 days after Patient Zero. Patient Two, Bobo, developed his pox between 7 and 8 am this morning, one week after Patient Zero.

Supposedly, nurslings and children under one year don't get it as bad as older kids (or adults), but I hear that Patient Zero had it bad. Poor kid.

Oh well...I thought you should know.

Full Circle

First things first: It was hives as an allergic reaction to Amoxicillin which was treating Baby's Second Ear Infection. His airway was not compromised, and the hives are resolving.


Now onto the main event.

Twenty years ago it was 1989. I think Family Ties was popular as was Guns-N-Roses. My hair was big and so was Kip Winger's. My family had not a lot of money, but I still wanted to be stylish. I had a very large, white pleather hand-me-down purse with only a small ink stain on it. I had a jean skirt. So, my purse wasn't Liz Clairborne and my cologne was Designer Imposters' Primo (for Giorigio), but I was making do.

Everyone was wearing IOU Sweatshirts and Guess? jeans. Other places Cavaricci jeans were big, but in my town, it was Guess? I had one pair of hand-me-down Palmetto jeans which were almost as good as Guess? but they were white and blue pinstripe. I couldn't exactly pull off wearing those every day. I thought about cutting the tag off of the back and sewing it onto my Chic jeans.

One day, my mom, realizing I needed more pants, came home with a new pair of jeans for me. I was so excited. Would they be extra-high-waisted with pleats and taper to a nice, tight ankle...maybe with zippers on the ankles? Well, no. They were not.

They were inky blue whereas I wanted something lighter, something paler, something... splotchier. Perhaps something that had been splattered with bleach or washed with acid. Yes, acid washed, perhaps. They had straight legs. I wanted something more tapered, possibly improbably tapered. Tapered so much you could barely get your foot out of the bottom, possibly making those little ankle zippers a true necessity. I wanted something I could tight roll without too much hassle. I wanted something that would really set my hips off from the rest of me. They had a flat front. I wanted pleats. Lots of big pleats to add extra fabric to my mid-section, really setting my hips off again. Apparently, I wanted to look like a peg-legged pirate. But worst of all, they were from K-Mart. K-Mart did not make Guess? jeans. K-Mart did not sell Z. Cavariccis. K-Mart! Was my mother trying to kill me?

I'm sure I sulked. I am sure I whined. And I know for absolute sure that I washed those jeans in hot hot hot water with detergent and a hint of bleach trying to get them to lighten up a little. And I figured if I used safety pins, just so, that I could get them to tight roll into a taper. And who would notice my tight rolling when I was wearing three pairs of awesome color-coordinating slouch socks? And I figured if I wore my longest aqua blue sweatshirt, maybe no one would notice the lack of pleats and lack of name brand on the pocket. Maybe. I'm pretty sure everyone noticed.


Flash forward to this morning as I was getting dressed in my Kohl's jeans. They are a dark inky blue with a flat front and a wide leg. And I am happy about this. They might be considered "mom jeans". And I needed to make sure I didn't accidentally tuck my boobs into them as I was zipping up. Other than that, all good.

What my blog would look like if I twittered (or tweeted)

I have a co-worker. We email during the day. Some excepts. I'll be SC and he'll be CoW.

SC: Woo hoo. And Jersey Boys was good and the Bean yesterday was good (but we got caught in traffic because of some bike race).

CoW: Hot damn, I’ll probably never see Jersey Boys but it’s good to know. That bike race was pretty sweet! They were flying through the closed course at 32 mph for 50 miles. If that was the only thing you got stuck behind then you had an easy trip. I played a new game this yesterday, bike polo. It’s just like polo but on bikes obviously. It gave me a little bit of a beating when I tried it on my bmx bike with out a hand to brake with or a seat to balance more on. It was so much fun though.

SC: It took us ONE HOUR to go FIVE BLOCKS thanks to that bike race. We could see the entrance to the parking garage and just. Couldn’t. get. There. We could abandon car and get on with it already, but no. Bike polo. I saw some guys in the US training for elephant polo by sitting on the roofs of SUVs (and playing polo, obviously).

CoW: You couldn’t have gone to a different parking garage? Come on, you know the city. How exactly does sitting on to of a SUV help you train for Elephant polo? You aren’t controlling anything from the top of an SUV just swinging a mallet.

SC: I was gridlocked. I couldn’t go anywhere. At all. Someone else “drives” the elephant for you while you play polo so it’s probably very similar.

CoW: Haha I’m going to be a jackass here and say you did travel 5 blocks so there was 2-4 chances for you to turn off. That is why I don’t drive in the city, it’s just a hassle and not nearly as fun. I feel a little let down that you are steering the elephant at the same time but it is still pretty funny. I wonder if there are any elephant collisions like there were with bikes.

SC: Michigan avenue was closed, so any turns to the east were not permitted. All one-way streets. So, perhaps one chance to turn and go west but there was construction on Adams. Very booo-urns.

CoW: You don’t seem bitter enough. Can you imagine my frustration when it took me 3 hours to get home once this last winter? 2.5 hours of that was within the last 6 miles. We really need to get going with those matter transporters already.

SC: If you get a matter transporter, will you let me borrow it? I want to beam myself to the day care a couple of times a day just to check in. And I’d like to see my sister in Vegas occasionally too.

CoW: If you had matter transporters we wouldn’t even have to live around here to get to work. I’d be some place warm to get out of these damn winters! I could imagine that the birth rate would also increase since it would make booty calls so much easier.

SC: And childbirth would be a snap because, you know, just beam the baby out.

CoW: If we weren’t already over populated this would do it. Won’t some one please think of the children.

SC: Mrs. Lovejoy. I got the reference. Well, it’s Tuesday now. That is all.

CoW: If this week was like last week it would have been Wednesday already. You got to love it some times when your mind is a day behind the actual date. I tried to run a query over night and came in to find nearly a dozen ODBC call failures. I don’t know why one wasn’t enough for an unmanned computer. I think I’m going to camp at the Michigan dunes this weekend. I’ve never been and it could be dandy. That is all.

SC: Day care called. Someone needs to go get small. He has hives. What the H? I am staying at work. I had someone call secret husband on the radio because his cell wasn’t getting reception. Go get your hive-y kid. All my queries have been working today. Yay. I wrote a new one and learned about a new table.

CoW: What the hell is with smalls lately? Jesus. Did you have some one call him on the radio and say call your wife or pick up your hive-y kid? Either of those would have been really entertaining to hear. [redacted work stuff involving computers and databases]

SC: No, I had him call dave on the phone and then dave told him to “call carrie” and my husband, the truly devoted, said, “Carey who?”.

CoW: Secret husband has put me to shame though since not only are you his wife but he’s known you for a hell of a lot longer. [story redacted about this time he was pulling into the car hole when his cell rang and it was his not-quite-girlfriend (twenty-somethings and their texting and girlfriends and unfettered single lives)]

SC: I really do enjoy that you use the phrase “car hole” and I totally know what you meant, Moe. And now I know that Burb girl has a name. Secret does win points by going home to be with hive-boy…who is going to the doctor this afternoon for the third time since Wednesday.

CoW: Calling it the car hole only seems fitting even though there are 6 times as many bikes as cars in there. I thought I told you burb girls name was Nicole before. If I did or didn’t it doesn’t matter too much because nicknames for people is so much more entertaining between us any way. Can small make it 4 visits by tomorrow?

SC: Oh, man, I hope not. Those visits aren’t free, you know. So, [redacted name of gossipy coworker] called me yesterday to see if I had any gossip as to why one of the pre-K teachers just didn’t come back one day (fired, quit in frustration, etc). I had no idea. I had just assumed Miss X was on summer vacay. So, now, I must get the scoop.

CoW: What, isn’t it like a $20 co-pay? Are you telling me I should start some sort of savings plan for a kid, those little buggers just seem to take it all. How well do you know that she really isn’t out on vacation or maybe even a family emergency? I had no idea [redacted name of other coworker] would be such a gossiper.

SC: Well, I don’t know, but I can find out (and [redacted name of foreign-born coworker whose child goes to day care with Chuckles] can’t because the subtleties of the language and appropriate volume levels for gossip are too much for her). And yes, start saving now. They’re expensive.

CoW: Haha one day she will learn… Man, I don’t even think I have to experience having my own kid yet to know you aren’t lying when you say kids mess everything up. [boring work stuff redacted]

SC: Doctor appointment in 20 minutes. What do you think is wrong with hive-boy?
(a) Mumps or chicken pox
(b) Allergies
(c) Nothing
(d) eczema
(e) other
I’m leaning toward C, although b with a hint of d is always a possibility.

CoW: I’m thinking B myself. I have a feeling that the rash he had the other day could be related to it is some way, maybe detergent or something.

SC: Definitely not lotion, soap, or detergent because #1 son is also rash-boy so all irritants were removed from our house in 2005. He is wearing a new shirt today though and I didn’t wash it first, so maybe the sizing they put in the new clothes (although he wore a shirt out of the same package last week without incident).

CoW: Chuckles is not Bobo though so how can you rule out some sort of reaction? Couldn’t it possibly develop from coming into contact with something at day care? I’m going to make you paranoid if I keep on going.

SC: Chuckles used to get rashy at day care and I would pick him up and by the time I got him home, there’d be nothing. ‘twas maddening. Their carpet cleaner was causing him to react so whenever they set him down, he’d explode in red. Very pretty. My boys are so sensitive. Have I made you look at pictures of my boys lately?

CoW: See maybe it’s something just like that, it happens. Are your kids Irish at all? The Irish seem sensitive to me. Bobo looks like a very photogenic little guy and he’s already picking up some cute girls. Chuckles has some pretty good posses there too I must say.

SC: I am Irish, therefore, my children are Irish as well. Doctor's report: It’s either allergic or viral, they don’t know. He’s off amoxicillin and on Zyrtec now. I’m home with him again tomorrow. He has to go back if it's worse tomorrow. Dang!



This is the reason you don't get more posts from me. I have nothing. [boring stuff about my life and what I ate redacted]

Nike Plunge

I have a new theory since having Bobo. Just do it. It might be awful. It might be fine. You'll never know unless you try.

With Chuckles, I tried. And I failed. And then we stopped doing until he was older. We just stayed home. He always needed to eat and never slept when we went anywhere. It was sort of miserable. A few times we left him with his grandparents. We would hurry back in 2 hours. He wouldn't take a bottle, and well, it's a good thing my memory fails me because it was a whole lot of suck.

So, since this is all I knew of babies, I was shocked. Shocked! That other parents went away for the weekend sans child. Or went to a liesurely dinner. Or a movie. Or to a friend's house for the evening. Or on vacation and came back more relaxed than when they left. It was so foreign to me.

Fast-forward to today. Well, last night actually. Mr. Long-Suffering and I lef the kids at home with Mimi and Papa and went to see Jersey Boys. At intermission, I called home. Chuckles was alseep (without issue). Bobo was still awake and quite happy to be watching the toys dangling over his head. He didn't take a bottle but seemed fine. I was concerned since it was 9:30 (2 full hours after Bobo's typical bedtime and he is still a little sick). I decided it didn't matter and whatever. So, I didn't call again and we left right after the show. Bobo was asleep when we got home. I guess after I prodded her about the sleep, Mimi gave it another try and Bobo went right down. He woke up at 2 am to eat, and then at 6:20 I brought him to my bed to nurse again (and I assume he went back to sleep...I did, at least).

Even though I am so tired (I was up after midnight and out after dark), I am invigorated. I wore heels. ANd jewelry (I nursed Bobo right before I left and he was transfixed. He'd never seen me in a necklace before.). For 6 hours, I was a grown-up. It was all kinds of awesome.

The Ask Moxie Chicago Meet-Up

The AskMoxie Chicago meet up is this Sunday, July 26th at 2pm at the Bean in Millenium Park. I'm planning on being there so if you hang on Ask Moxie (or here), come on down and say, "Hi."

If you stalk me though, please be nice.

I told my husband I was taking the kids and going downtown to meet strangers I met on the internet. He was unaumsed. I think that's the right way to put it. I told him I'd bring my mace and somehow he pictured a giant spiked, metal ball on a chain. That ought to go over huge on the train.

Anyway, I will bring at least Bobo, the nursling, because the nursing and the pump hating. I may also bring Chuckles so he can go in the fountain. And I might bring Mr. Long-Suffering since you know, four hands and whatnot. But I swear, he'd be in the background holding kids and keeping them from flinging themselves out onto Michigan Avenue.

Shannon says she's coming in from Homewood (I'll be coming in to Randolph Street Station on the South Shore, so if you're coming in on Metra, we'll, like, totally be at the same train station). I'd like to give a shout-out to Homewood as I lived there from 1989 - 1994 (and had that as my "permanent addess" until 1997). I also graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor HS. Class of 1994. And I went on Facebook and looked at the Class of '94 group and well, huh, that was weird. My real question is: Why are there people on that Facebook Group that did not actually graduate in 1994? Are there fans of '94? 'Cause really, we weren't all that great. Although, I think our prom was at the Drake, which was quite cool (or maybe the Palmer House...I have no idea).

Anyway, I'll be at the Bean. Or at least I plan to be. I am home from work right now because Bobo had a little fever this morning (100.9 rectally). Acetominophen was admistered but didn't seem to do anything. He's asleep right now, but if the fever's still here when he wakes up, I might actually take him for an ear check since he's not that far out from his last ear infection and I don't need that.

Back from "Vacation"

Well, I survived. And the 7 loads of vacation-related laundry are done. In fact, I have no idea how we came home with so much laundry when we each wore the same three outfits the whole week. It was unseasonably cool. Well, had it been October, it would have been seasonable, but for July notsomuch. We had one day where it didn't even get into the 60s. Considering I like watersports, this was not a good turn of events. It was plenty windy but not nearly pleasant enough to rent a sailboat. It was too cold to sit and watch a lumberjack show. Actually, that's not true. Had I packed snowsuits, it would have been fine. I should say "Had I packed enough winter clothes, it would have been plenty warm enough out to sit and watch a lumberjack (or water ski) show". See, it's my lack of planning that made the weather seem miserable.

Anyway, we went, we saw, we were conquered or something to that effect. The kids slept well enough (actually, except for one night they both slept pretty poorly, but I was expecting worse so I was pleasantly surprised). Chuckles slept on his kids' aerobed which really is the bomb. Bobo slept half in his Pack-n-Play at night and half in our bed (to steal our warmth) and all naps were had on the (squishy, leaning downhill, full-sized) bed with the pack-n-play, two walls, and a stack of pillows to keep him from rolling out (although truth be told, he's just not that into locomoting. He can roll and army crawl, but he chooses not to do so). Bobo however now will eat baby food (stage 2) by the jarful and knows how to pincer grasp and feed himself toasted oat rings (aka Cheerios).

All-in-all it was a fine vacation. Chuckles got to fish. Chuckles got to go to an indoor waterpark (and I got to do the slides). Bobo had baby's first boat ride (but really, how come every time I got in a boat some kid fell asleep on me?). Chuckles caught his first 8 fish ever. Chuckles had his first pony ride, he got to ride go-karts. and did myriad other things like play with his Leapster (which is some little video game thing that he is not normally allowed to do but for the car ride....). And we got 27 miles per gallon on the return trip with the A/C off (since, you know, cold for free). Somehow, that's my highlight.

Stil here, Still Alive, Going on "Vacation"

Another year has come and gone and tomorrow, I am leaving with the whole family for a week in the Northwoods. Why am I going back? Why why why? A small price to pay for not getting divorced, I suppose.

Here’s what’s up with us. Chuckles is 42 pounds and 41.5” tall and if I stick his hair straight up, he might be tall enough to go down the water slide at the water park on vacation.
He rides a bike with training wheels, can get his own cereal for breakfast, and is in charge of watering our garden (granted, sometimes he waters the patio and the other day he sprayed me, but he’s learning). His handwriting is coming along, but his reading really stalled out recently. He must be working on some other skill (maybe math or learning to turn on the TV). He is nighttime potty trained pretty much all the way now (we still do pick him up out of bed before we go to sleep to take him potty…I don’t think he even wakes up for that). Oddly, Bobo woke up with dry diapers two days last week (once on a day when I didn’t feed him overnight and the other time was after I had fed him, so who knows!).

Bobo was 20 lbs 4 ounces about 3 weeks ago when we went to Urgent Care on a Sunday for Baby’s First Ear Infection and Baby's First Amoxicillin. Yesterday he was 20 lbs 6 ounces, which seems like a little slow on the growth there, but as long as it's going up (and following Chuckles's growth curve closely), I guess I don't need to replace breast milk with butter cream frosting. Chuckles was so jealous that Bobo got to take his much-beloved pink amox (and Bobo was spitting it out which just enraged Chuckles more). So, Chuckles kept telling me his throat hurt and the next thing I knew he had a fever for a day. So, he got purple ibuprofen and was pretty mellow then. Unfortunately, he missed a field trip with the day care/summer camp due to the fever, but I think he preferred the purple stuff to the planetarium.

Bobo is still not a fan of solid foods. I had to take him off of cereal (and the formula I used to mix with it) because it turned his poop screamy. That seems better and we've introduced Cheerios. He does eat a variety of things but sometimes nothing. So, it’s less than fun but I never worry if we’re busy and I don’t get around to feeding him since he doesn’t care and doesn’t seem to need it. In fact just last night....

Bobo has started rolling over with the fierce moral urgency that comes with knowing your binky is right there and no one is giving it to you.

The issue with the swaddle worked itself out all on its own as I hoped it would, and it was so very much not a painful process because we let it come to an end all on its own (and Bobo is innately an easy child). There was a warm spell, and he needed to be naked in the swaddle and then he wanted to be sleeping on his stomach and well, anyway, after two nights of being helped in the night, he now sleeps without the swaddle (sometimes all the way through the night until morning which is like mind blowing because he's so young....at least in comparison to Sir Sleeps-A-Not).

I’ve been working a bit on night weaning....and by working I mean being too lazy to get up out of bed int he night without a damned good reason. That’s where Dad goes in when he cries in the night and if he can calm Bobo down, I don’t go in and feed him. And if Mr. Long-Suffering can’t get him to settle in the night, I do go in and feed him. It’s working somewhat. Several nights recently, I didn’t have to get out of bed all night. He sits up very nicely and is trying to figure out how to go forward while crawling. He knows how to push and go backward (and wind up under the couch).

Chuckles did a very bad thing at school the other day and then lied about it (and then hit and didn't apologize and then lied about hitting me) and well, after 9 time-outs in a row and bedtime fast-approaching, I threw pajamas on him, force brushed his teeth and told him it was bed time. And then I didn't give him a vitamin or read him stories and he didn't want hugs or kisses, so that was that. Now, where do I go to get my Mean Mom Card laminated?
Last night, however, was a lovely evening with stories and hugs and kisses and teeth and bath and lovey dovey and when I went in to his room at 9pm to get socks to pack for vacation, he was still up reading comic books quietly in his bed on his own without need for intervention from me. Carry on, then.

We've been singing the Erie Canal Song. I recommend the Suzanne Vega version available on youtube. While you're there, check out Johnny Cash doing Camptown Races.

I'll see you in a week when I come back and regale you with stories of my lumberjackedness.

The SAT Revisited

I don't remember what they're called on the SAT, but those word analogies where banana is to yellow, as orange is to orange, axcept harder and with words like verisimilitude.

Prison:Cigarettes as Work:Donuts
I bought myself $6 worth of donut hole goodwill today. Fifty
Munchkins for $5.99 and the undying love of the Order Entry group. I consider
it an investment in my mental health.

Swaddle:Sleep as Sleep:Sex*
On the last post Julie asked how weaning Bobo off the swaddle was going. Well, there's nothing I like to do more than answer reader questions...and it's pretty easy to do since I only have two readers, one of whom I alienated, so here you go Julie: If it ain't broke don't fix it. I have decided that when/if it becomes a problem, I will deal with it then. Bobo is not about to outgrow his awesome (seriously love them) swaddling blankets. He doesn't fight the swaddle. He likes it. He smiles for it. I guess I just thought that you were supposed to stop. And you are. Eventually. But I still like covers (even in the summer). So, now if he's really asleep, I'll put him in his crib with his swaddling blankie but not in it. It might someday become his lovey this was. And he's taken two naps of 2+ hours unswaddled. So, I think, someday, we'll make the transition. And heck, it might get too warm this summer for swaddling, so we might quit then (or we'll move into a meat locker...one of those two things). *(the answer is, you can't have the second if you're not getting the first)

Bobo is 20 lbs and 28 or 29" long. We use Size Large Kiddopatamus SwaddleMe blankets. We have two in microfleece and two in a t-shirt weight cotton. They are $10-$12 apiece. I bought them all new. And you know how thrifty I am, so I must think these are the bomb to spend over $40 on them. We had one Miracle Blanket which was fine, until Bobo was about 10 weeks old and too long for it. So, for as much as that cost (and it was a gift), it was so not worth it. I also had a SwaddleMe in polarfleece size small which we used alternately with the Miracle Blanket (whichever was in the wash, you know).

Ear Infections:Sleep as Tornadoes:Trailer Parks
I thought I might throw in the towel and start co-sleeping, but then we discovered that Chuckles had an ear infection and he started sleeping again. So, Bobo remains in his crib in a separate room where he has slept every night since coming home from the hospital. Babies are all noisy and grunty in their sleep so I do not want them in my room where I try to get precious sleep. If they sigh, I'll hear them, so no worries.

My Finger:Red as Ocean:Blue
Lisa the Cat has a death wish. She threw up on me at 1:17 am the other morning. Or is that considered night. Anyway. This necessitated that I stagger around the house finding cleaning products and whatnot. I ended up closing my pinky finger in the bathroom cabinet. I exclaimed with an audible M-Effer and developed a heck of a blood blister. So, here I am typing nine-fingered. For you. Because I care.

Bobo:Lizards as My Legs:Fluffy Furry Animals
Bobo got booted from daycare one day not that long ago. Suspected ringworm. Turns out, he has eczema. In the shape of circles. I bought a new cream (Aveeno with the blue cap for dry skin even that caused by eczema) and with thrice daily applications, even his disgusting bloody circle of shame is clearing up. He had this...THING on his neck the size of two quarters that was just raw, like meat. And that is recovering with this cream. I like this cream. This nine-dollar cream. It's good. It's clearing up random spots on his face and legs. Apparently this kid was a little scaly.

Bobo's Poop:Marbles as Baby Chuckles's Poop:Acid Water
Bobo started solids and his poop turned to marbles, so I have taken him off of cereal with formula. I don't know which of those two things was causing the operational slow-down, but one of them was. Since stopping, his poop is still only weekly but it's better. Less screamy, if you know what I mean. So, I guess I can't wean until it's milk time since he can't have formula (or at least not Nestle Good Start, which is the formula we used with Chuckles who had milk protein issues).

Breastfeeding:Bliss as Pumping:Buzzkill
I like breastfeeding well enough, but I hate pumping. So, the thought of needing to keep this up is a little depressing. When I was doing it because I wanted to, that was one thing. But the obligation is a little rougher. Of course, it's not all about me. It's about not wanting Bobo to scream. At me. So, there's that motivation. I'm no where near ready to give it up yet, so that's good, but I've noticed my pumping volume is tapering off a little and I'm starting to dip into my (completely ample) freezer stash. Such is life. I'm sure I could try a different brand or a soy formula or something, but I was hoping not to have to do that, since I get the Good Start for free included with my day care. Maybe I'll take their formula and sell it and buy enfamil or something. Or I'll just keep on keeping on and nursing. I do like being able to eat whatever I want and stay the same weight.

I think I'd like to learn to write haiku and put the next post in that format since this analogy stuff is such a laugh riot. I also have thoughts on Iran's stolen elections, David Letterman's objectification of women, the liberal media, conservatives with no fiscal sensibility, General Motors, my love of the corvette, my desire to buy a boat, the political firing of the Inspector General, political favoritism in college admissions, Mike Pence, earmarks, the end of the era of The Dollar, the crappy way Newsweek reinvented itself with my subscription money, the digital TV conversion (and what is on the TV now with and without a convertor box), the lawsuit I have with the place that nearly killed Chuckles, Chuckles's first school field trip on the big yellow bus, and much more. But it will have to wait for another day. I'm beat and off to bed.

How did it get to be June already?

First off...I just got an email from my aunt. She and my uncle are going on a cruise to Greece on some brand new cruise ship....without their kids. For 12 days in September. And here is my answer to her: "I hope you enjoy my honeymoon." A billion years ago when Mr. Long-Suffering and I were getting married, we planned on cruising the Greek Isles, but there was a nationwide air-traffic stop as we were married in Sept. 2001. So, we went to Chicago and did dinner and a show every night. We re-planned the cruise for our six-month anniversary but Bali bombings. For our one-year, we went to Vegas (but Venice and New York and Paris all in one!). And so, here we are 8 years later, and we have yet to take our honeymoon.

Mimi and Papa have decided to sell their house and get something in a single story so they can stop doing stairs. Personally, I think my mother and step-father are nuts to sell a house right now when there is no compelling reason to do so. It seems like a fine time to buy a house, not-so-much for the selling. But they both think it will be no problem because it's summer and they have a pool.
We just refinanced and had a professional apprasial and found out our house is worth what we paid for it 6 years ago. Since then, we've done windows, roof, bathroom, insulation, landscaping, waterproofing, updating, etc. And we've made a grand total of zero dollars on the proposition. At least we enjoy living here.

I accidentally turned one of the Medela bottles that go with my Pump-in-Style inside-out rendering it useless. I could tell you how I did it, but I rather like leaving you with the mystery.

I have an all-day work meeting tomorrow off-site. There is a dedicated lactation room where I am going. And I am pretty excited about it. I know. They last time I had an off-site meeting, I wound up sitting on the floor of the ladies' room pumping in a stall so I could be near the only exposed electrical outlet. A decidated room sounds like it might have a fridge. And a chair! I'll let you know what I find out.

Bobo has gone from being a happy sleeper monkey to being a happy non-sleeper monkey. I am not thrilled with the change. Actually, he sleeps. He's more of a wake up every couple of hours and have you come in just to show me you're still there kind of monkey. Not sure what kind of monkey that is. A gibbon, maybe.
There are new rules at our house. Mr. Long-Suffering is in charge of all wake-ups before 2 am (unless I magically determine that Bobo is actually hungry, magically/arbitrarily, whatever). Then, at the next wake up, I feed him. Then, Mr. Long-Suffering is on again until it has been at least 3 hours since the feeding. So, I am up at 2 and 5:15 for 20 minutes each time (or 1 am and 4:30). Mr. Long-Suffering is up for 30 seconds at 11, 11:45, 12:58, 1:19, 3:17, and 5:42 (at which point he stays up). I'm not sure who has it worse. Mr. Long-Suffering is up for 3 minutes over night and I am up for about an hour, but he has to get out of bed more, but I have to push him out because he sleeps through the wake-ups. It only takes a second to get happy monkey back to sleep, but ignoring him doesn't work. He doesn't even open his eyes, he just needs to know you're there. Very odd. I hope he grows out of it.
I am learning to do side-lying nursing. I think it could change my life. Am also considering co-sleeping, and if you know me, you realize the level of desperation I'm experiencing. It's funny though. I know I was MUCH more deperate by the time Chuckles was this age. I never split night-time duty with the Mr. I never ever co-slept. I rarely napped. Chuckles woke a lot more. And here I am considering much more drastic measures than I had with Chcukles. Because I don't want to become that crazy person I was last time. I'm starting to think I might have had Post-Partum Depression after Chuckles. It's not uncommon. I had about eleventy risk factors (history of periodic/episodic depression, sleeplessness, emergency c-section with a difficult recovery, infertility, high expectations about maternal role, little support). I'm just doing so much better this time around even though things are more hectic (with a second kid around to take care of). I'm proud of myself for realizing that this can't keep up and getting a plan in place long before I'm crying hyserically all the time because I am so so very tired.

I have mentioned my Pro-Choice stand on many occasions. I love babies. I trust women to make the best decisions they possibly can in crappy circumstances. I've been blogging birth control and abortion since long before that was cool. So, I reiterate, get your laws out of my hoo-ha.

As far as I know, Indiana has no "right to breastfeed" laws, but I've been out feeding my baby in public like a mad-woman because I almost feel like I want someone to challenge me. I will make a federal case of it. I'm quite discreet most of the time. My in-laws are funny. They still don't "get" it. My FIL asked me if we were bringing a diaper bag out to dinner one night. I replied that it was in the car. He asked if we had a bottle. I smiled and said, "No, we have me." And I did feed smiler monkey at the table in the restaurant using my Boppy and my cool hooter hider.

I think they don't get it because my SIL who has kids roughly the ages of my kids said she couldn't breastfeed because she never got a full supply. I knew she did some supplementing with formula in the early days but when talking to her, she had no idea that this would hinder her milk coming in. She thought she had to feed the baby until her milk came in. Uhhh, no, that is not how supply and demand works. Ha ha. The sad thing is no one ever told her until it was too late. And she thought the marathon feeding sessions of every hour all evening meant she didn't have enough milk or good enough milk, etc. No one mentioned that this was the baby's way of putting in his order for more milk, please, and also hold me close and keep me safe and warm. Man, am I glad I read the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. It was a little over-the-top for me, but the mechanics/science was good.

I just finished reading the book The Girls Who Went Away about young women who surrended children for adoption in the years before Roe v Wade. Poignant. The women didn't want to do it. Sometimes, the boys were even willing to marry the girls, but the parents said no. Horrible. In one case, I would say it was actually kidnapping. And the lies the people told about he absences and the lengths to which people went to keep the secret. It wasn't all girls going upstate to visit a sick aunt. One family told everyone their daughter spent the summer in Florida working as a cabana waitress and sent her to the maternity home with a tanning lamp so that when she came back, she'd look like she'd been in Florida. So many of the schools turned the girls out on rumor of pregnancy. The girls didn't know what was happening. There was no knowledge of the body. It was horrible. And the secret was so shameful. It ruined the girls' lives, so often. An excellent book. Truly excellent. Makes me support comprehensive sex education that much more.

Speaking of birth control....I mentioned I got the Mirena and have bled every day since. Once I put it out on the internet, I went 3 days without bleeding. Only to have it start up again with a vengeance. I bought 130 panty liners a while back and they are all gone. I need another gross of them, I guess. I was supposed to be enjoying my lactational ammennorhea, but here I am.

My new car is still awesome. If GM put as much engineering, thought, attention to detail, and quality into every car they put on the road, they would not be in bankruptcy. My car is awesome. My car also no longer has satellite radio after today, and that it a shame. RIP- Hair Nation siriusXM 46. I think I should be in charge of dismantling and rejiggering GM. I like cars. A lot. I am contemplating buying a '64 corvette (red, convertible) right now. A guy at work is selling, and I would love it. Love. I like horsepower and things that go vroom. I know drivetrains, chassis, trannies, direct injection, turbo-diesel, rack-and-pinion, stability control, air bags, power assist, CVT, AWD, ABS, quiet steel dashboards, two part paint systems, etc. I could be better than that 31-year old who has never been inside an auto plant. I've never been in an auto assembly plant, but I've been in components plants and an off-highway construction vehicle aseembly plant. That is close enough for gorvernmnet work, I'd say.

Cheers!

Perspectives

Having two children gives me a lot of perspective on what is important and what's what and who's who and all that. Here I will now list vignettes regarding having child(ren) and facts therein.

• Two months ago, I scheduled the well visits for both kids for the same day. 9:00 for Chuckles. 9:15 for Bobo. We got out of there just before 11:00 this morning. 9 vaccines shots were administered in total. All were correct. I will never schedule two well visits together ever again.
• Bobo fell off of his growth chart. Bobo needs solids. Bobo thinks taking food off of a spoon is an affront to his babyhood and an injustice. He'd have Amnesty International on speed dial if he could crawl to the phone. So, the good pediatrician said we should brush his gums with our fingers or a toothbrush and then try again with something tasty. So, today, we did sweet potatoes with oatmeal after scrubbing his mouth and that boy ate it up. Woot! Growth curve here we come! On average, he was eating four half-meals of solids per week. He is apparently supposed to be eating 3 meals plus a snack every day. Ha ha ha ha. OK, so we'll get on that.
• If Bobo was my first child and fell off of the growth chart, I would be googling and frenzied. Instead I am blogging to let you know I had no idea who much he was "supposed" to be eating. I am mellow. He'll be fine. He's still pushing 20 pounds. He'll be fine. No problems.
• As a second-time mom, I know there is no such thing as "supposed to" when it comes to kids. They do what they do and you just guide them and kep them safe. You can lead a baby to the breast, but you can't make him latch. Ditto that, spoon.
• I am sure Bobo will be fine. Although he has a fever. Which I am sure is nothing. Although lab results were being faxed in to the ped's office confirming swine flu on other kids. But it's quite common where I live right now so not particularly worrying. Bobo just has a cold or a slight reaction to the vaccines. He'll be fine. He had a bit of a double-barrelled snot faucet before we went (no fever though).
• Chuckles has developed a fake limp in reaction to his vaccines and he demanded medicine. Faker. Actor. Drug-seeker. That's my boy. Monday morning he woke up with a sore throat. I checked it out with my otoscope (what? you don't have an otoscope at home? all the truly neurotic moms have one...got it on amazon). It looked red but not serious. Doctor also commented on the size of his tonsils and the redness but said it didn't look like strep - keep an eye on it, etc.
• The other day I was at work and something worked and I had been working on this little bit of programming for a year - I kid you not. And it worked. And I walked around my trailer getting high-fives from all the other engineers who were impressed and wanted to know how I did it and they were congratulating me. I was a rock star.
• Another day at work, I was having a bad day but I got to writing an important email and 5 o'clock came along and I hit 'save to drafts' and left. Mid-sentence, I left work. Laptop shut, light off. Baby's gotta eat, so I gotta go. (Although in retrospect, I guess he should have been eating solids without me.) This is priorities. Kids before work. I told this story to some other people (parents) at work and they were really impressed with my ability to shift gears between home and work. I don't know whether they know my secret...by 5 pm, my chest is ready to rain milk down on my keyboard, so leaving seems like the best option.
• Chuckles has discovered some of the ultimate stalling tactics: getting into bed and saying he wants to put his toys away. I'm a suck for some cleaning up, but I don't let you get out of bed, so there's an impasse. We'll get through it.
• Bobo can roll tummy-to-back and back-to-tummy. He has done each multiple times. He prefers not to do so. He's much happier on his back with some toys dangling above him or on his stomach looking around. Movement is for losers. I know at this age Chuckles was using rolling over-and-over as a means of locomotion (to go behind the TV and get at the wires). Bobo prefers that toys are brought to him. Kids. They are all different.
• I am haunted by the realization that I gave Bobo the wrong name. He is such a fat and benevolent king. I feel that - if I had to give him a clown name, which I did - I should have named him Happy The Clown. I am sure I will be haunted forever with the knowledge that Bobo is really Happy. When I think of him in my mind, I refer to him as Happy. When I look at him, all I see is Happy. It's terrible. As Bobo, he is named after some other clowns in the family (and really, Mr. Long-Suffering's uncles are clowns), but Happy is just a name that fits. Oh well.
• I got the Mirena IUD at 7 weeks post-partum just as the lochia has started to stop. However, because of the Mirena, I have bled every day for the last 6 months. I am nursing around-the-clock. I should be enjoying my lactational ammenorhea. But instead, I am using pantyliners like I own stock in the company that makes them. I am not happy about this. After Chuckles, once the 8 weeks of post-partum bleeding ended, I did not bleed again until he was 17 months old - 5 months after he was completely weaned. Oh well. After Chuckles, I would have been thrilled to get pregnant again easily (OK, not true. I just lied to you. I would have been scared to death because I hadn't slept through the night until he was almost 2 and the thought of having another one do that to me would have sent me into a panic attack. Little did I know I was going to have Happy - the Sleeper Monkey.) Anyway, Mirena - my thoughts are mixed. I'm not pregnant (yay!) but I could have just taken the pill and not bled - Bigger Yay!
• Bobo only poops every 5 to 7 days. I hadn't changed a poop diaper since I went back to work. They send the nasty clothes home from day care in a plastic bag. I throw them away (because he is pretty much out of the 9 month clothes anyway, I don't need them any more). Yesterday before work, he pooped. I changed it. And I didn't get any on his clothes. Woo Hoo. I liked that outfit, so I am really glad I didn't need to burn it.
• We have thrown a party at our house every weekend for the last 3. Chuckles's birthday, Mother's Day brunch (any excuse to drink champagne out of my Waterford crystal while eating quiche), and Sunday's party of random people who couldn't make it to either of our last two parties. A good time was had by all, but I think Chuckles is starting to think we're going to have people over all the time because he wants to know what kind of party we're having this weekend. Coincidentally, it's Memorial Day so we will probably be going to some kind of paty this weekend. I'm sure my party animal will be thrilled. Of course, when he says it, it comes out as "party aminal", which is super cute.
• I got my review at work. I was told that I am free with the information that I know and have. I am of the "teach a man to fish" school of thought. My boss thinks that's great. My husband thinks it means I am too lazy to do things for others. Looks like a win-win-win situation. There will be no raise though, something about global financial collapse and a drying up of the order book and 30% capacity, and well, I'm sure you know the rest.

And a Happy Memorial Day to you.

Chuckles is 4 and I have been crying ALL DAY

Today, at 4:31 pm, Chuckles turned 4 years old. 4 years ago (05-05-05) I had an 8-lb 3-ounce, 21.5" baby boy yanked from my belly kind of blue, not breathing, and a little lifeless. This morning, I heard a 39-pound, 39" tall walking, talking, breathing boy get out of bed to go potty at 10 after 6. I am so lucky.

Today, this morning, Chuckles started pre-K and I have been crying ever since. Pre-K is the big leagues and they don't baby you in the big leagues. There is supposed to be no crying in baseball, but I've been crying all day. It started with his ding. Hig DING. If you're new here, his ding is favorite blankie which he named ding at some point in his life. They tell me he can either have his ding at school or he can have it at hom ebut he can't bring it every morning and take it home every night because of something something regulations about they need to wash it. I do wash. I actually have two dings (after the great ding disaster of January 2007), but he doesn't like to leave his ding any where and only one ding it out at any given time (after the other great ding disaster of 2007 (the one involving the ER waiting room and vomit)). So, having a ding at home in rotation and a ding at school in rotation just isn't working for us, but rules is rules and I loves me some rules so we'll see what I can do.

And well, it all went downhill from there because I don't sleep and I'm tired and my baby is 4 and well, i'm rambling but i'm sure you can see why i am deeply troubled by all of this. OK, so now that it's all typed here it doesn't sound that bad, but they don't remind the kids to potty before nap and they won't help in the potty if a button needs to be done or undone or if the kid needs help wiping (not really an issue for us since Chuckles will wait to poop at home...always and comically). His handwriting is good and he's learning to read more words. All-in-al I'm sure pre-K will be a fine experience for him. It's me I am worried about.

Oh and I got a report on Bobo from his school today. The report said he was fussy and needed his binky more today. And then I looked and he had only had three 20-minute naps. This child usually gets 2-4 hours of daytime sleep. He had only gotten one. Put him down for a nap. Dude, raising children is not rocket science. I even write on his chart every day that he rarely stays awake for more than 2 hours at a stretch. He just doesn't.

OK, rant is over. Oh, except we served tacos at Chuckles's birthday party and I have had tacos 2 meals/day since Saturday and I am truly happy about that. Good night.

Fun With Hats

The weather turned nice and I have just now realized that Bobo is of northern-European ancestry. The boy has strawberry blonde hair and turns blotchy red at the mere hint of it getting above 70 degrees in the house. And he started getting itty bitty baby beads of sweat on his nose. It's only April. I think he may spontaeously combust come July. Perhaps we can harness his power and gain our energy independence by August.

Chuckles noticed that there was no frost on the driveway and wanted to be outside in shorts and a T-shirt and mom-can-we-use-the-hose-and-get-all-wet. So, the kids are....differently suited for the seasons. Chuckles is a year-round hearty type. I think Bobo may prefer the more indoor pursuits. Time will tell.

I was cleaning out the garage (see also glorious weather) and came upon a hat box (do you remember hat boxes?) from Marshall Fields (do you remember Fields?). In the box were three high-fashion hats (one green velvet with a pheasant feather, one black with some kind of protruding protuberance, and the 3rd looked like something Barbra Streisand would have worn in a movie) from the 50s or 60s, one pair of ladies evening gloves, wrist-length, black, covered in rhinestones, and a black dress purse with change purse inside. Chuckles and I then proceeded to garden while wearing fetching hats.

Our older lady neighbor thought we were lovely, and told us a story about the last hat she bought in 1974. Mr. Long-Suffering found it tolerable and funny, and my mother-in-law thinks I am trying to turn her grandson gay. As if you can turn people gay from hats! Obviously, it's not the hats that turn boys gay...it's playing with dolls. I jest. Anyway, we looked lovely. And now I miss my grandmother less since the hats still smelled like her dusting powder after 11 years in my garage.

In other news, I am very thrifty and someone was about to throw away 3 pounds of perfectly good meat, so I took it and brought it home and cooked it up and that is why we had spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner. (I know....they were throwing away perfectly good meat!)

Bobo is turning 4 in about 10 days. Next weekend is the party. Today, I made a pinata out of a Trader Joe's paper bag with handles reinforced with duct tape. The bag is filled with fruit leather, Matchbox cars, assorted balls, whoopie cushions, stickers, and a few pieces of candy. An odd assortment to be sure. Hopefully, next week I can write that a good time was had by most if not all.

Three-Minute Blog Post

Did you know that it takes Medela microwave steam sterilizing bags 3 minutes to sterilize your pump and bottle parts? Well, it does, so I have 3 minutes for this.

Back to work and I have only cried in the office once. I have pumped at my desk 26 times already. Time sure does fly.

Time being what it is (finite and linear....time travel be damned), I don't have much time to blog these days, but I do want to fill in some gaps.

Highlight: It's not meningitis.
Lowlight: It's strep.

Chuckles is sick. He picked it up at school. Kids are sick all over the place there. He's on antibiotics and is no longer contagious, the good pediatrician doctor tells me. But in the condition he was in Saturday, I never would have sent him to school. Why do other parents do this? (and I know that some people just cannot afford to take off of work for a sick kid, but dude, your sick kid is getting my kid sick. I'm looking out for number 1.)

Well, the microwave has dung, or is it dinged, so I must go dump the parts to cool and dry, pack the pump for tomorrow, lay out clothes, fix my lunch, brush my teeth, and fall into bed so that I may be reawakened in a few hours for the all-night, all-you-can-eat buffet. Peace, out.

Five Black Bags & a Sad Ending

Back to work means the mornings are a mad-dash to get people dressed, brushed, lunches, shoes on, coats on, in the car, c'mon let's go!

Anyway, I never want to be half way to work and look in my mirror only to realize that I forgot to drop the kids at day care. Likewise, I don't want to be half-way to work and realize that I lef tthe computer with the baby and have a bag of bottles with me (I also just realized I spelled halfway three different ways in this paragraph...whatever).

So....I have this little counting ritual I do as I set off in the morning. I count my five black bags. And if I have all five when I pull out of the driveway, everything is going to be OK.

• purse (including phone, keys, wallet)
• milk bag with freezer pack to transport pumped milk home from work
• laptop bag
• bottle bag (containing 3 bottles, each with 4 to 5 ounces of hard won human milk)
• Medela Pump-In-Style Advanced with handy shoulder bag

If I can count to FIVE, I'm stayin' ALIVE.

Speaking of Alive, my grandmother is no longer living. It's not terribly sad. Were she still with us, she'd be (hmmm, carrying the one) 96. She passed away in 1994 at the age of 81. She was pretty well up until about a year before her death, which is really quite good. I miss her.

Anyway, my point is my granmother could cook. She had several things that when I eat them, I think of her. Oh, and we always got to pick our own birthday dinner and she'd fix it for us. I always picked steak and sweet potatoes (she'd make filet mignon). The smoke detector always went off when she made it, but it was always perfect. I think her broiler and smoke detector were just having a turf war. She always served a salad course before dinner and she'd always tell us what was in her dressing (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano, and "a pinch of sugar to cut the vinegar"). And for your birthday dessert, everyone chose angel food cake with Grandma frosting. And she'd tell us how she'd doctor up the store-bought cake mix to make it her own extra-special most awesome cake. And I say this part sobbing, "I cannot remember how she doctored up the cake mix so I can't make her cake and it's so good and I miss her." So, anyway, I decided I would make her cake for Easter since I was in charge of bringing dessert. I just made the angel food cake per the Duncan Hines directions. My instructions for the frosting are on a slip of paper and it says this:

1/2 cup milk

2T flour

Cook. Cool. Add:

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 pound butter

Not very descriptive is it? But I tried my best and improvised and the flavor was perfect, but the consistency was too thin, so I don't know what I am supposed to do...more butter, more flour, more sugar, less milk, cool it more, maybe cake flour, or granulated sugar instead of the powdered I used? No idea. And my cake was ugly. My grandmother's cakes were always attractive and even with a flat top and I have no idea how she did it. Angel food cake doesn't have a flat top so you can't set it upside-down and you can't frost it right-side-up, and I guess maybe she took a knife and evened it out, but I just don't know.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm open to trying to contact the dead if that's what it takes. Also, grandma always served the milk with dinner from a Blue Delft pitcher with a cow on it. She did not heft the plastic gallon up on the table. Grandma was a class act all the way. And I wish I had that pitcher.

The End of an Era

Things here have been hectic with my return to work. But, things are good.

Highlight: Both kids are going to bed between 7:30 and 8:00
Lowlight: Both kids need bedtime rituals at the same time (we had one-at-a-time before).

Highlight: Bobo is taking bottles and napping at day care.
Lowlight: Chuckles is not napping and is a raging terror by 6:30. A cute terror, but a terror.

Highlight: Bobo is learning all about other babies and sharing.
Lowlight: One of the other babies shared her cough with Bobo (he seems fine except for a hack...must tell him to quit smoking....Mr. Long-Suffering calls it the "kennel cough").

Highlight: Bobo rolled over tummy-to-back twice yesterday.
Lowlight: We only got 6,512 photos of it. Would have preferred 7,000 photos.

Highlight: Chuckles had an unprompted, spontaneous outburst of love for us. "I love you, Mommy and Daddy...and Bobo and Lisa too."
Lowlight: Bobo had an unprompted, spontaneous outburst of poop for us that caused emergency laundry.

So, all-in-all, a good time. Hectic but good. Dinner has turned into something of a circus, but we'll probably hit our stride in a week or two. Hope you're all doing well.

He Took The Bottle

and I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off of my chest!

The Secret to My Success: Denial

I go back in 10 days and Bobo doesn't take a bottle, so if you want to see stressed, see me when I think about that (often at 3 am). Bobo is going to "Baby Bottle Boot Camp" at the day care on Wednesday. I have scheduled a massage during that time so that I DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT.

My biggest fear is that Bobo will be like Chuckles. I have to keep reminding myself that they are different kids and not compare them blah blah blah, but ugh. Chuckles did a little thing called "reverse cycling" where he slept a lot during the day while I was at work and didn't eat much and then was up all night to eat when he had access to the All-You-Can-Eat smorgasbord that is me. It was wrenching and exhausting and I swear to you, I will wean if Bobo does this just to spite him. Or something. It was greuling. I'm still tired from that. That is the reason my kids at 3-1/2 years apart and not 2 years apart as I had originally planned. In fact, I was thisclose to leaving Chuckles an only child.

Two more things: A big "Eff You" to the good folks who write our tax code. Thanks for nothing. We owe $4 and that is with withholding of Married-Zero for Mr. Long-Suffering and Me. We have 4 dependents so that seems odd to me. At least we didn't owe AMT. Good thing we had Bobo last year or we would have owed thousands.

I was doing some Spring cleaning in the flower beds and took a sharp stick to the eye. It hurts. I abraded my schlera and well, I have excruciating eye pain. Which is always a good time. The hardest part was when I pulled the stick out of my eye where it was stuck and dangling. Actually, the best part was when I told CHuckles to go get Daddy and he did. Very proud of my big big boy.

Oh, one more thing, we went to Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop, which is one of Barack Obama's favorite restaurants in Chicagoland. Food gets a 9. But the restaurant was so uncomfortably warm we had to leave. I mean like 85 or 90 degrees. Chuckles took his sweatshirt off, I was sweating, Bobo turned beet red and fussed but didn't want me to hold him because I was warm. He was hungry so I fed him but I couldn't use my "Hooter Hider" because of the aforementioned heat. Bobo would have burst into flames. At least I was in Illinois where they have Right to Breastfeed in Public Laws. Anyway, good food, bad ambiance.

Gah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I try not to be all judgey and everything, but here I'm going to judge....

If you are someone who, for a living, shoots things into little tiny babies, you had better make sure you know what you're doing. Damn sure.

Yesterday was Bobo's 4- month ped appointment. He was administered 3 shots, which covered 8 diseases. Except! One of the shots was wrong! Wrong! Wrong! As in, he was given a vaccine not approved for use in the US in children under 12 months, and approved in Italy for 5 months and up. So, no country in the world approves the use of this vaccine on a 4-month old. And my Bobo got it. Bobo, who has had nothing in his body except breastmilk and vitamins (plus a few correct shots). The very same Bobo who did not receive the Hep B vaccine in the hospital because they would not let me be present for it (to make sure it was done correctly).

I feel so guilty because I was there and I asked about a million questions to make sure they were all right. And then I was given a print out of the shot record and I was reviewing it and saw that he received the Hep A vaccine instead of the Hep B. THe doctor called today and apologized. Argh! Now what do I do? I love our pediatrician but I have been completely underwhelmed by his office staff (it's not actually his staff as it's a big corporate clinic place so I don't think he gets to pick people). Do I change pediatricians? Do I just step up my diligence (which is already set to Freak Out Code Red Alert)? Do I sue? What do I do? Tell me, dear internets...