Gratuitous Fluffy Post about Nonsense

I hadn't bought new shoes in over two years. For real. My nice work shoes were looking... well, not so nice. So, I'm so excited about these I had to post a picture.

Oooooh, shiny.

I felt so snazzy I even put on lipstick when I left the house.

sigh, I am such a girl sometimes. If this keeps up I could lose my crunchy street cred.

How do you do it?

Moms who blog - regularly.

How do you find the time to write well thought out, well written, coherent articles multiple times per week? This question applies to stay-at-home moms as well as moms who do paid work outside the home (or from home, as the case may be). I am just struggling to survive the day to day grind, and so my blog languishes.

I have so many ideas of topics I would love to write about. But regardless of whether I'm at home all day, as I was for the past 3 months, or whether I'm splitting my time between the office and home, I just can't seem to find the time and energy to post anything more than 3 lines of brainless fluff once a week, if that. Gone are my feminist rants, analysis of current events, and parenting theory. sigh. Perhaps one day they'll be back, but don't hold your breath too long.

Random Tidbits

SchmoopyBoy is going through another growth spurt. I cannot believe the volume of food this kid is consuming. Seriously. I'm talking twice as much french toast for breakfast than I can eat, or three dinners in one night (separated by about 1/2 hour to 1 hour intervals). He's still a pretty thin kid, so where the heck is it all going? Furthermore, if he eats like this at the age of three, how the heck am I going to feed him when he's a teenager without going bankrupt?

**************************

Wow, I am uncomfortable these days. Which is ironic to me only because of how very different this pregnancy is that my pregnancy with SchmoopyBoy. With SchmoopyBoy, I was so miserable the first half of the pregnancy, I remember thinking that I would prefer 40 weeks of the 3rd trimester over a single week of what I experienced during the first two trimesters. This time has been so easy and relatively comfortable that I'm kind of beside myself that I'm so uncomfortable now.

This baby is just so... rude! It's funny that I don't remember SchmoopyBoy being quite so rude about practicing boxing on my intestines nonstop for over an hour. Or just hanging out on my bladder, putting so much pressure on it, if there is more than a trickle inside the discomfort is so excruciating I cannot even stand up straight sometimes. Hopefully not an indicator of things to come once he's on the outside. ;-)

************************

At 36 weeks, my doctor is not going to do anything to stop labor once it starts, so I'm officially on baby watch. That being the case, I'm still not ready for him to come out quite yet. I need probably at least one more week at work to wrap things up (although I'm planning on working until the last day to save my leave for after he's born) and my house is definitely nowhere near ready. I have a to do list on my refrigerator, and it feels like for every item I cross off the list, 2 new items are added.

sigh.

This is the desert in April

Ah, spring. The grass is finally starting to sprout and turn green. The storm clouds are forming and hail is starting to fall...

Um, wait a minute. Did you just say hail? Hail? As in ice, falling from the sky.




Yes. That would be hail. On my newly green patch of grass. In the desert southwest. In April. (Don't ask why we have a patch of grass in our yard when we live in the desert. It blows my mind too.)

Of course, it is expected to be back in the 90s before the weekend.

Wow. Some kind of weather we're having, isn't it?

I can't believe I just wrote a whole post about the weather.

But, dude, seriously, hail in April in Las Vegas. How often does that happen?

The Sick House

Isn't it amazing how small children are notoriously bad at sharing toys and food, but are notoriously good at sharing germs? While SchmoopyBoy is finally on the mend, both his father and myself are now sick. Total water works of the face. Truly a joy. So I'm taking a sick day or 2 (like this will really interrupt my oh so irregular posting schedule) but will hopefully have something coherent to write about soon.

Quick Update - The Sleepy Edition

By now some folks may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately. I don’t have a ton of fabulous excuses. I haven’t been gallivanting abroad in any exotic locations. I’ve just been very, very tired lately. The kind of tired where my head goes into a fog a couple times a day and I cannot do anything but close my eyes for even a few short minutes. The kind of tired that makes me pass out at the same time as my 2 year old most nights, leaving chores undone, dishes unwashed, diapers unassembled.

Oddly enough, I haven’t been sleeping well at night either. I’ve been having particularly bad episodes of insomnia in the middle of the night or early morning. I might be so tired that it hurts to even open my eyes, yet my brain just won’t shut up and I toss and turn until I get hungry. So I go downstairs to grab a bite, then lie back down and toss and turn until I get heartburn….blah blah blah and so it goes for about 2-3 hours. I suppose I could better spend at least one of those hours finishing my chores left undone when I passed out, but I keep wishfully thinking that if I stay lying down then perhaps I’ll fall asleep faster. Plus there’s that so-tired-my-eyes-hurt thing going on, so I really just want to keep them closed, which then makes scrubbing pots kind of difficult.

Yes, I am aware my poor sleep likely has something to do with my extreme fatigue.

I actually do have another reason for being so tired, but I’m not quite ready to talk about it. Don’t worry, it’s nothing overly dramatic. Give me another week or so and I’ll post an update.

On the fun side, that SchmoopyBoy is really becoming quite a character. It’s great fun (most of the time) to see his personality take off as he develops better communication skills. I could spend a couple of posts talking about that in and of itself. Perhaps if I find the time and energy I will one of these days.

On that note, I'm going to bed now. zzzzzzz....

Bad Poetry Friday - A Haiku (or 7) about Sleep

SchmoopyBoy and Sleep:

Why do you fight sleep?
Don't you know how great sleep is?
You'll miss it one day.

When you skip your nap
Your behavior becomes…. hmmm...
and we all are sad.

SchmoopyBoy at rest
My sweet angel, so serene
wakes up cranky. Why?

Dozing in my arms,
Baby and I are like one.
My heart is so full.

Me and Sleep:

Oh, Insomnia!
Why are you trying so hard
to make my nights suck?

Ah! How I love Sleep,
so dreamy yet elusive.
One day, you’ll be mine.

Coffee – so yummy!
Although you’re second to Sleep,
I’ll get through the day.

I am that old lady

During the afternoon on Christmas eve I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. As I was in the check out, getting my items scanned and bagged, I couldn’t help overhear the young people bagging the groceries chatting amicably. They were talking about music. The guy said something about loving “that Taylor Swift song” and then started singing “Last Christmas”.

You know, the song “Last Christmas” by Wham! that was uber-popular back in the early-mid 1980s?

Now, no one can accuse me of ever having been a Wham! fan in my youth, and no one can accuse me of ever having actually liked the song "Last Christmas". Nonetheless, I was so beside myself I could hardly control my mouth when I started exclaiming “OMG! That is NOT a new song by Taylor Swift!”

The kid sheepishly admitted that he knew it wasn’t a NEW song by Taylor Swift - that he had heard that guy’s version before, he just likes Taylor Swift’s version.

Umm, yeah, George Michaels is now officially that guy. Wow. Multiple number one singles, tens of millions of albums sold and he is now that guy.

Then the kids started babbling about something else.

I planted my forehead into my palms and shook my head. I didn’t try to follow their conversation after that. I do believe this officially makes me “that old lady who remembers when that song was popular back before you kids or Taylor Swift were even born!” So I just shut my mouth to fester old lady-style in 1980s music nostalgia.

Got flu?

I do.

And let me say, it is just as awesome as it sounds.

Which is actually a play on words, because as of yesterday my voice went kaput and I cannot talk more than to squeak out couple syllables if I'm lucky. So I sound...

sick...

because I am.

Enough ramblings. I'm going back to bed.

Band-Aids are Toddler Crack

So about a week and a half ago SchmoopyBoy gave himself a paper cut while flipping through the pages of what is currently his favorite book. A big boy book with real paper pages - one of his first. It was a doozy of a cut. A flap of skin, blood - not pretty. So of course I washed it with soap and water and put a band-aid on it.

Thus was his initiation into the world of band-aid addiction.

Every bump, scratch, owie, or boo-boo must have a band-aid. Must. Have. A. Band-Aid.

And god-forbid you should present him with the wrong band-aid. I mean, really, the addiction is so bad that any plain boring brown band-aid will do. Most of the time. But, boy I tell ya, if he requests Woody and gets Buzz instead... Oh, the calamity.

Every night at bath time, as soon as it gets wet, at least one band-aid loses its stickiness and falls off. The level of catastrophe rivals the end of the world. The End Of The World I Tell You!!!

The child is inconsolable. The crying and carrying on does not even stop once he is out of the tub, dry, with fresh band-aids on every finger. Such is the hell he has just been forced to undergo, losing a precioussss. It takes time to recover from that sort of trauma. A bottle of milk. Lots of cuddles. A couple rounds of Night-Night, Little Pookie.

We are working on overcoming the addiction. On Sunday evening I got him down to two band-aids. Yesterday when I came home from work I saw there was only one. Very impressed I was, that Daddy was able to pull that one off (no pun intended).

What is the power of band-aids? What is their mystical, magical allure? Is there a small amount of addictive chemical embedded in the sticky tape? Should we storm all the drug stores and march on D.C. demanding answers to our probing questions - Why has my toddler morphed into a crazed addict starving for another fix? What is the government hiding about what's in those band-aids, really? Is the band-aid lobby so great that we are powerless to protect our children? Think about the children, for crying out loud, won't somebody think about the children?!!?!?

Monday whine fest

Whine, Moan, Groan, Complain

Been fighting a migraine since yesterday afternoon. Dang, this sucker is stubborn.

Went to bed too late last night and had insomnia (see above for a reason) so I’m tired.

Stomach feels like a pit of glop for the above 2 reasons. It doesn’t help that I’ve eaten crap this morning. I meant to pick up a couple of bagels on my way to work, but I got out the door late so I settled for a donut and o.j. from 7-11 because it was quick and on the way. ugh. blech.

So why was I late getting out to work this morning? Without getting too graphic, I’ll just say we had an incident involving poop, carpet, and a little person who is interested in potty training but doesn’t quite get it yet.

sigh. It’s a bit after 9am. Can I go home and curl up in a little ball and go to bed now, please?

And yes, as a matter of fact, I would like some cheese with my whine. It might make my stomach feel better.

This random was brought to you today by...

dog vomit.

It's hard to get it out of carpet.

Good heavens dog, couldn't you have at least aimed partially for the floor?! It was only 3 feet away!

sigh. That's what I get for ignoring his scratches at the door. What? I had just taken him out to do his potty business an hour ago? How was I to know he had yuck-tummy?

More sickness

Tuesday morning SchmoopyBoy woke up with a fever. By evening he was a snot factory, and I was starting to feel it too. By Wednesday his fever was gone, but oh boy was I a mess. My sinuses are killing me. I would so love to just lay in bed for a while. And that is so not going to happen. sigh.

SchmoopyBoy Denied

Poor SchmoopyBoy totally got denied this morning.

Went to kiddie-hair cut place, it was closed for the next hour. So I did my other errand first - Trader Joes, where SchmoopyBoy delights in getting free samples of juice. Well, today they had iced tea. Caffinated iced tea.

Caffinated iced tea + not quite 2 year old = Bad Idea

So SchmoopyBoy did not get a free sample of iced tea. He was not impressed and kept pointing and repeating "JUICE. JUICE. JUICE. JUICE."

I tried explaining that "they don't have juice today, and I understand you are very disappointed" but he just kept repeating "JUICE. JUICE."

I considered going straight back to hair cut place and chance my groceries, but it was already over 80 degrees - hotter in the car - so I rushed home to put the parishables away, hoping to make it back to the hair cut place by 11:00 sharp, because I had to get him home no later than 11:40am in order to make it to work by 12:30pm. I got there at 11:05. There were already 5 kids ahead of us. I thought, well maybe they'll be quick and we can make it, but by 11:20 the line had not budged, so I took SchmoopyBoy home with his shaggy hair.

Almost 2 hours of shleping back and forth around town to get no juice and no haircut. sigh.

Fun With Hair Accessories

SchmoopyBaby had a lot of fun going through my drawer of hair accessories. His own hair is quite grown out, as you can see. I'm hoping to take him for a hair cut in the morning. Please excuse the horrible picture quality, I took these with my phone camera. I think he's pretty darn cute, although I might be scarring him for life by posting these on the internet.

Everything is going to be ok

John's kidney stone is passed.

All three of us are over our colds.

We are moved into the apartment, and it is going to work out just fine.

I'm getting an oil change for my car on Saturday morning.

We are looking at houses on Sunday afternoon.

SchmoopyBaby is turning 2 in about a week and a half! We invited some friends to my in-laws house for some birthday play time. Should be fun.

The second half of 2010 is going to be good.

2010 is turning out to be not my year

One day I may look back at this moment and shake my head and laugh. But at the moment I just want to shake my head.

So Wednesday I get woken up at 12:30 in the morning. John is crawling on the floor hyperventilating. He's in pain. Lots and lots of pain. I help him to the extent I can for the next couple of hours - but at about 4am he asked me to call 911. He was in so much pain he didn't even think he could make it to the emergency room in my car.

Turns out he's passing a kidney stone. It has now been a day and a half later and the stone is not out yet. My mother came into town on very short notice to help watch SchmoopyBaby so I can work Thursday and Friday. John is drugged up and in bed most of the time, but needs help getting food, and when the pain hits him he needs help getting into a hot bath, which provides a great amount of relief.

My attention is constantly being pulled in 4 different directions, and I haven't slept for 2 days.

We're supposed to go in to the apartment on Saturday to finish the lease paperwork and pick up the keys so we can start moving. I have no idea if John will be up for it.

Primal scream for this week... GAAAAAAHHHHH!

Big Shoes

I've got tons of pictures of SchmoopyBaby wearing John's and my shoes and have been meaning to post a couple for quite some time. This would probably be better as a Wordless Wednesday post, but I'm too impatient to wait until Wednesday. ;)



Ah, such style at a young age. Those crazy purple boots are sooo very 80's, but I love them! They are my favorite thing in my closet right now, and unlike my now deceased Fabulous Boots, I can wear them anywhere - even to work! heehee.

(See Mom, I still post fluffy fun stuff! I'm thinking about you! =) )

Of Depression and Appreciation

Yesterday I felt it creeping up on me. The desire to sit and stare at my computer, immobile and nonfunctioning… for hours. The spontaneous episodes of tears coming out of my eyes. Depression. I don’t want to indulge it. But I lack energy or motivation to fight it either. This is not the first episode in my life, and no doubt it will not be the last. I know it is situational. I know it will pass. I know there are perfectly good reasons for it this time around.

Nonetheless, I really don’t have time to succumb to it right now. I don’t have the time to be unmotivated. I have to move in a few weeks. I still don’t know exactly where I’m moving , but I do know that I am moving. Preparations need to be made. Boxes assembled. Six years of accumulated crap packed away. My child needs security, consistency, comfort. His world is about to be turned upside down. His parents are stressed out. He knows this but doesn’t know why, and it is affecting him – his body and his behavior all show that our stress is affecting him.

This is not ok.

I need to snap out of it.

So, number one – I started out with a list of things I appreciate. All the good, the blessings, the joys. Things I have that I can feel grateful for, to remind myself how full my life is and how fortunate I am. This worked. Between writing out all the things I appreciate, plus a bit of a good talk and cry last night with John, I am feeling much more functional today. So here’s my “happy” list:

1. John – He loves me and wants to make me happy. He didn’t want to sell the house. He was perfectly happy to stay here forever, but he knows I wanted to move so he agreed because he wanted to make me happy, despite the stressful mess I feel like I’ve plunged us into.

2. Schmoopybaby –He is such a delight. He is talking now, it seems like every day he tries out at least one new word. Every time he says “Bye bye Mama” and blows me a kiss as I leave for work I have a smile on my face for a long time. He is so cute and affectionate, my heart could just explode.

3. My job – I really like my job. The work is really interesting and rewarding, and I work with a great group of guys (the only other woman is on detail in another department until her retirement in 2 months). I love the security and stability of my job, and the flexibility and family-friendly culture.

4. Health – At this time, I have no health complaints to speak of. My vitamin D deficiency is taken care of by supplementing with a daily vitamin. I am currently off all pharmaceuticals and have been since I gave birth (I was almost going to say since before I was pregnant, but I forgot about that little stint with PIH necessitating blood pressure medication throughout my pregnancy. whoops, how could I have almost forgotten that!?)

5. Family – My family is a little bit smaller than it was less than a month ago, but what we lack in quantity, we more than make up for in quality. I don’t always see eye to eye with my mother and sister (ok, almost never) but they are mine and I love them. They love me and have always been there for me and would do anything they could to help me if I needed it.

6. Financial Stability – As I mentioned above, my job is very stable and secure. We have a good quality of life, always enough to cover our bills plus eating out or getting takeout about twice a week. We are thrifty and are able to save, so we can afford to splurge on a ‘big’ purchase every now and then (typically electronics equipment, which John is a junkie for). We are moving by our own choice, we are not being forced out of our home like so many other less fortunate people in my city.

7. Opportunity – It is easy to fall into the trap of feeling like I am going from a stable, secure environment of owning a house to an unstable, insecure environment. House prices may go up, interest rates could go up - we may not be able to afford the house we want in 6 months. But this is also an opportunity. Now that we will not be encumbered by a mortgage, we could go anywhere! We could look for jobs in California and go back there, near my family and most of my close friends. We could go to the mountains of Colorado, to the east coast, to Canada, anywhere. Rather than getting overwhelmed with stress, why not choose to be overwhelmed with excitement?

That last point is particularly challenging for me, given my natural temperament. I crave stability, security, consistency, predictability. I live a boring 9-5 style life and that’s the way I like it. I don’t do drama. I don’t take big risks. I don’t like roller coasters or horror movies. I may live in the gambling capital of the country but I don’t gamble. I may very well be the most boring person on the planet and you know what? I’m ok with that.

But there I go digressing again. My point was to share something that helped get me out of a depressive funk. The next time one of you, my dear readers, get in a funk, perhaps you can remember this exercise. Hopefully it will help you too. Make a list of all the things you appreciate in life – choose to focus on the positive, what you have rather than what you have not. It actually works sometimes.

Dear Universe: WTF?!

Is it just me, or does it feel like the universe is squatting over the planet, pulling apart enormous celestial butt cheeks, and taking a cosmic dump on us? I mean, seriously, 2010 has pretty much sucked @$$ since it started and it’s barely ¼ over! WTF?!

Let’s take an inventory, shall we? And lets count in 3s because sh!t always happens in 3s, right?

In the past 3 months, there have been 3 major earthquakes - one in Haiti, one in Chile, and one in Mexico.

In the past 3 months I have had 3 major losses - one child due to miscarriage, my father, and now my grandmother.

We have sold our house, and have made offers on 3 houses - one we realized was too expensive and we pulled out fairly quickly, one we were out-bid, and this last time (which absolutely kills me because this was THE house) the listing agent screwed up and, despite the fact that we had the first offer in, the seller likely never even saw our offer and accepted another offer the following day. So now we have about two weeks to move out and we currently have no place to go. Stress, anyone?

Tomorrow I am flying in to California for my grandmother's funeral, and I'm leaving John with Schmoopybaby at night for the first time ever. John is in no condition to deal with any of this on his own.

I cannot wait for 2010 to end. Better yet, can we please go back in time to January 1 and just start over from scratch? I need a do over.