I Guess I'm Getting Old...

Last night, I caught a few minutes of Glee. I keep hearing about this show so I wanted to see what it was about. My review - meh. Not terrible, but certainly not worth taking up valuable real estate on my DVR. (I currently have 86 hours of unwatched television shows on my DVR. Yikes. And I don't even record that many shows. I'm going to have to go into seclusion after the Lost finale, because I am currently 6 episodes behind. I'll finally figure out the dang storyline sometime late this summer. Or maybe not. That has to be one of the most confusing shows ever.)

Anyway. Back to Glee. The only reason it's worth bringing up is that a girl was going to sing a song with a guy, and she said that she heard he liked classic rock. So I was expecting CCR, or maybe BTO, or one of the other great acronymical bands of the 70's. Uh, no. The song she chose was U2's "One". Which was released in 1991. Since when is 1990's music considered classic rock? I guess that makes me a classic. Yeah, I'm going with that. It sounds better than "old".

Let's see...two months since my last update. What have we been doing? Mostly planting the garden, playing with the neighbor kids (we have a 4-year-old neighbor girl and a 3-year-old neighbor girl and most nights you'll find one or both at our house), and all the other things that go along with having a job, two small kids, and a very naughty dog who finds it easier to piddle in the house than to ask to go outside. Between the dog and Natalie, who has been potty-trained since January but is still "fine-tuning", I think we are going to rip out the carpet and put in hardwood sooner rather than later. Carpet is too high-maintenance with young children and pets.

A Misunderstanding

When I graduated from high school, I received two kittens as a graduation present. For the next 10 years, Diablo and Anya were my faithful companions.

About a week before Sam was born, Diablo started vomiting blood. What timing. I was so exhausted, uncomfortable, and nervous about the upcoming birth that I couldn't get Diablo in to the vet before I became a parent. Then I ended up with a c-section so it was about two weeks before I felt like I could carry the 20-pound cat to the vet. The news wasn't good. He had some sort of a mass in his intestine, likely cancer, and I couldn't afford to invest a whole lot of money in testing and treatments. Between the cost, and knowing that Diablo was 10 years old and not likely to live more than a couple more years anyway, I made the difficult decision to put him down.

After her brother died, Anya was lonely and desperate. She began yowling, night and day. None of us were happy with this situation, so after a year and a half of this, I finally gave her up to my mother. She seemed much happier in her new home, since she had other cats to hang out with (unlike most cats, she was very social).

When we would visit, Sam called her "Lasagna". Lasagna, Anya, they sound pretty similar, I guess. Sadly, Anya joined her brother in kitty heaven this past year.

I made lasagna for dinner a couple of nights ago. As Sam was eating, he thoughtfully said, "Mom, are we eating cat?"

I don't think I'm ever going to look at lasagna the same way again.

Part III: The Wrap-Up

Part III of the awfulness of the past six months is really not so bad anymore, now that it's in the rearview mirror. But at the time, it was very stressful so I will still mention it and then I will move on.

Natalie and Sam were playing froggie in the living room. This game consists of taking the couch cushions off of the couches, whereby they become lily pads. The children then morph into froggies and hop from lily pad to lily pad. Well, on the last lily pad, the smallest froggie lost her balance and toppled forward into the couch. And this couch has a hard frame on the front part, which is normally not exposed because the couch cushions are usually on the couch. Natalie hit one of her teeth just wrong on the hard frame and chaos ensued. And blood. Lots and lots of blood. Her tooth was bent backwards at a 45-degree angle and I was sure it would come out in my hand if I touched it so I just mutely stared and ran through all the possibilities in my head. Of course I was home alone as is the case 95% of the time these days, so I didn't even have a second adult to consult with.

I ended up calling her clinic's on-call doctor, who told me not to brush her teeth that night - and NO BINKY - and try to get her in to her dentist right away the next morning. So she very abruptly weaned from her binky. Surprisingly, she accepted it very stoically when I told her the doctor said she couldn't have her binky for awhile.

Now it's fine, and even straightened out on its own so there is no remaining evidence of the mishap. The dentist warned one more blow like that would probably be the end of that tooth - and as rough and tumble as she is, I'm guessing that tooth is going to come out before its time.

Sidenote - a couple of weeks ago, I found a binky underneath the couch cushions (um, maybe I should clean more often? But then again, no). Since Natalie had been binky-less for a good three months, I didn't think she'd have any interest in it, but was I wrong. She popped that binky in her mouth and picked up right where she left off. She had a major fit when I took it away from her but luckily, she never asked about it again.

So! Enough whining and complaining for awhile. 2010 is going much, much better, I'm happy to report. Natalie is almost completely potty-trained and we are down to only one foot of snow left in our yard after the past week of melting. Hallelujah!

A Tragic Play, Act II

Remember Johnny the Cow, the hamster? It was about one year ago that we took Sam to the pet store, after he'd become successfully potty-trained, and allowed him to pick out a small, furry rodent of his very own.

For a brief period last fall, Johnny practiced his escape skills religiously. He was like a tiny MacGyver, fashioning a rope out of bits of his fur and creating little parachutes out of scraps of lettuce and carrot tops. At least, that's what I assume based on the fact that he kept managing not only to get out of his cage, but also to drop the 4+ feet to the floor without ever getting hurt. In fact, I was starting to think he was invincible. Once, he managed to escape unnoticed while I was folding laundry. Then I saw the dog start tossing around one of his squeaky toys, but upon closer inspection I realized that it was actually Johnny. I screamed and monkey-clapped my hands while Happy dropped the hamster and ran to hide under the chair, freaked out at my display. Whatever works.

Johnny was perfectly fine, in spite of his wild adventure. I put him back in his cage, and wound industrial-strength packing tape around his cage everywhere there was a seam. That finally did the trick. All else was fine until a few months ago, when seemingly overnight, Natalie took an intense interest in poor Johnny.

She'd push a kitchen chair over to the bookshelf on top of which Johnny's cage rested. Then she'd climb up on the chair, pop open the latch to his cage, and take him down to love him, and pet him, and squeeze him, and call him George.

I'd remind her that she could only take Johnny out if mom or dad were there to help. She took my advice under consideration but ultimately decided she could handle it herself. I reminded her that if she chose not to listen, she'd spend some time in her room. She took my advice under consideration and decided that she would start being sneaky about taking Johnny out.

So then. One day as I was in the office checking my email, she brought Johnny's exercise ball in to me and said sadly, "Johnny has a bad owie". Poor Johnny was lying limply in the bottom of the exercise ball, all life gone from his tiny body. Natalie told me she "squished him in her hand". I have no idea what that means, since I know she wouldn't have intentionally hurt him. My best guess is that she tripped while she was carrying him, and...well, you can guess the rest.

I'm still sick about it. He was such a friendly, trusting little thing and I should have done more to protect him. Sam took it pretty hard, too, and that night we had some pretty deep discussions about what happens when you die. I think what broke my heart the most was when he started asking where he would live when Mom and Dad die. Even though I tell him that Mom and Dad will almost definitely be around for a very long time, he continues to worry.

Since "the incident", I've been borrowing a lot of kids' books from the library on death and dying. I should be embarrassed to admit this, but there's one called A Story for Hippo that had me sobbing by the end. I hid that one away so Sam wouldn't ask to read it again. There's a reason why I've never watched "Beaches" or "Terms of Endearment" a second time, as great as the movies were. I am a mess.

A Tragic Play, In Three Parts

(Or, how I spent the past six months)

Act I:

One of our tenants buys their own house and gives us 30 days notice that they are moving out of our rental duplex. Yay for them! They managed to secure a mortgage even in these tough economic times! Am genuinely happy for them.

Spend much money, time, and woe readying their apartment for re-rental. Finally put an ad in the paper, interview many potential tenants over the phone while my children screech in the background. After each call, scratch the interviewee's name off the list and write "over my dead body" in the "notes" column.

Finally get a call from a promising tenant. She has a glowing letter of recommendation from a previous landlord! She is from the area and has a seeming stable rental history! She has a boyfriend who has a good job and between them they easily make enough money to pay the rent!

Call the landlord listed on the letter of recommendation. Reach the business office of a local trailer park. Ignore my initial reaction to this news. After all, not everyone who lives in or has lived in a trailer park is so-called "trailer trash". Not fair to stereotype.

Money exchanges hands. Sign rental agreement with new tenants. Breathe sigh of relief that our ordeal is almost at an end and we will soon have enough incoming money to pay our bills again.

Receive call from boyfriend, five days after lease begins. He explains that he never moved in to the duplex because they had a "little fight" and he "had to be taken away by the cops" and now he can "no longer talk to her". He requests his money back. As all of the money we received for first+last month's rent came from him, I respectfully decline his request.

One week later: Our telephone rings at 9:30 p.m. Caller ID reads, "[redacted] Police Department". Ron had just returned home from work, so I mercifully avoid having a stroke at the thought that he was in a car accident. Police tell us new tenant is not answering her door and they need a key to get in.

Ron goes over to the duplex, speaks to the police who inform him there have been repeated calls to this residence in the past couple of weeks, and due to a new city ordinance we will soon be receiving bills from the police department.

Variations on the above scene continue ad nauseum.

Fast-forward to today. We still have not received any rent from the tenant since November. (No longer tenants (plural) as the judge wouldn't lift the restraining order against her boyfriend even after she begged for it to be once she realized "he really does love her" and "he doesn't mean to do it" and "it's really her fault for making him so angry".)

She was given notice to vacate by February 25th, and she claims she will be out at that point. We will see. I really would like to avoid the time and cost of a court-driven eviction, but it may still come to that.

So, there you have it. That has been the main issue these past six months, and it is amazing how this situation has affected every area of my life. The one good thing I can take from this whole mess, is that I have discovered just how little money we can actually live on. And I now know enough about rental law to pursue a new career, if need be.

Has it really been that long?

Wow. I guess I haven't posted since October. Where does the time go? Not coincidentally, October is when I started feeling overwhelmed by life and I had to give myself some time to regain my sanity. I don't have time to go into the details right now, but it's nothing that will matter 5 years from now so I really have nothing to complain about. (Not that that will stop me.)

I've been meaning to create a new blog for, oh, two years now? Something like that. Since Natalie stopped nursing (before she was a year old....um, she's two AND A HALF now) and my old blog title became irrelevant and outdated. And besides, I track my google searches and there were some search terms relating to my old blog name that made me feel yucky and uncomfortable at the thought of those people clicking through to my blog and looking at pictures of my precious, innocent children. So, out with the old and in with the new.

I will try to update soon with the events of the past few months but now I need to go break up a fight. Sigh.

When Grocery Shopping is FUN

I have always been a bargain hunter, but lately I have REALLY gotten into couponing. There are tons of great blogs out there devoted to the cause of saving money, and I consult these blogs weekly to find the best coupons, as well as shopping lists that do the work for me of matching up sale prices to available coupons.

I think this was my best week yet. I just came home from the grocery store (Cub Foods) where I spent $63.50 for $95 worth of groceries. But, wait! That's not even the best part! (30% off retail is my goal, which I meet almost every single week.) I received $26.50 worth of catalina coupons off of my next order - that means, not coupons for specific products but coupons that take money off the total order! Awesome! So this is what I got for basically $37.00.

For perspective, this filled up 5 grocery bags, so it's more stuff than it even appears to be from the picture. Now my pantry is full, so I expect to spend about $20 a week for the next 3-4 weeks. Thank goodness, because we're going to be plopping down $2000 tomorrow on carpet.

Still Trucking Along

Time for a brief check-in....I'm alive, still just overwhelmed with life. Which means, I've had to mostly eliminate a few things from my life - sleep, showering, and internet.

However! I am online today for a very good, very exciting reason. My sister called a few minutes ago to tell me that she is engaged! I couldn't be more happy for her. My future brother-in-law M is a great guy and I'm so happy to be adding him to the family. I immediately logged on to my Facebook account to tell him so, and it so happened that my cousin (who happens to be one of M's best friends) was online, and we spent a few minutes chatting about the happy news.

Isn't the internet grand? It makes the world seem so small.

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I don't think I've posted since before Natalie's birthday, which has been almost a month ago already. She's now 2 going on 20. One minute she will be carrying on a mature conversation with me about death ("The baby toad died. I squished him. That was so sad." Trust me, you probably don't want to hear that story. I still get queasy when I think of it.)

And the next minute, she is throwing a tantrum because I chose the WRONG shirt out of her closet.

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And now, I hear SpongeBob SquarePants coming to an end out in the living room, which means the end of my time on the internet. Once I get my life straightened out, hopefully within the next month, I will start posting more again.

Nothing About Nothing, Really

The kids and I went to the State Fair earlier this week, which is always a lot of fun. Except when it's not.

Probably due to this summer's much-cooler-than-average temperatures, there has been a huge turnout at the Fair this year. Even more so than usual, and it always is a zoo. By about noon, I'd had it with the crowds.

And then it got worse. I took the kids into the bathroom and, because there were no stalls big enough to accommodate a stroller, I pulled my wallet out of the bottom compartment and brought it into the stall with the kids and me. About five minutes later, I realized I'd forgotten it there.

In a panic, I went back into the bathroom and that stall was occupied. I waited, and waited, and waited some more for the occupants to come out (I could see two pairs of shoes under the door). In my mind, I debated - do I yell over the top, "Hey, do you see a wallet in there?" but I didn't want to bring any attention to it if it hadn't already been noticed. When the mom and daughter finally came out of the stall, I was disappointed but not surprised to see that my wallet wasn't there anymore.

After about fifteen more panicked minutes, I located the Lost and Found and was thrilled to discover my wallet had been turned in. The "good Samaritan" had taken a $20 finder's fee, but other than that, everything was there. I was incredibly lucky, and I am still hyperventilating at the thought of all the money and time it would have taken to replace its contents, including my bus pass, driver's license, a credit card and a debit card, and all of the ride tickets I'd pre-purchased for the kids.

The other craziness in my life at the moment revolves around our rental duplex. One of our long-time tenants just moved out, and we've been crazy busy trying to replace carpeting, paint walls, and all the other maintenance-type things that go along with making a house renter-ready. Not to mention, fielding all the phone calls from prospective tenants. One couple was ready to sign the lease - and then they backed out of the deal. Sigh and start over from square one, putting the ad back in the paper and digging out the "For Rent" sign again. I will be really glad to be

done with this. As if I have all this spare time to spend cleaning a SECOND house.

You meet some interesting characters when you have an apartment for rent, though. The last time we had to do this, in 2006, we had the Beverly Hillbillies themselves drive up in their rusty, primer-colored pickup truck to take a look at the place. Four people piled out of the short cab pickup, like clowns out of a clown car. When the wife smiled and showed me her teeth (all two of them), I started looking around to see where the cameras were, because surely I was being punk'd. They showed an unnatural interest in the furnace, which alarmed me. A furnace is a furnace, right? Needless to say, we didn't rent to them. We found out a month later that they had

moved into the rental duplex next door. And then, four months later, we saw the eviction notice on their door.

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My favorite Sammy-isms of the week:

#1: "Natalie has such pretty white hair. And I have such pretty brown hair. And Mom has such pretty black hair. And Dad has...Dad really needs a haircut."

#2: I'd given him a piece of gum, a rare treat. He was riding his trike in the driveway, and flipped it over backwards. He was unhurt, but "apparently I swallowed my gum!" he said, in shock. Natalie, standing off to the side, pursed her lips in an "O" of surprise and clasped her hands over her mouth. Oh, the horror - a wasted piece of gum, down the tubes, so to speak.

The Town Festival

Our town festival was this past weekend, and the kids had so much fun. First was the parade. Sam rode on his daycare's float and then got to join us for the second half of the parade. I don't have any pictures of him because his daycare's name was displayed prominently on his t-shirt and I don't have the time or inclination to blur it out. But here's a couple of pictures of Natalie instead.

Then was the petting zoo. They have a pretty awesome petting zoo each year, with llamas, chickens and geese, sheep and goats, calves, and a horse and a donkey. This year, there was also a huge bounce house - actually, an entire bounce neighborhood.

On Sunday, Ron and Sam went to the classic car show while Natalie and I went shopping. When the boys got home, I asked Sam how it was. "Great!" he said. "They even had the hoods open so I could look at the engines!" My little budding mechanic.

Needless to say, we were all exhausted by the end of the weekend.

The Three Musketeers

Taken a few minutes ago, from my view at the top of the stairwell. The kids were sitting on the front doorstep, enjoying their craisins on a warm summer's evening, while Sam petted his dog.

Aren't the best pictures always taken when the subject is unaware? (At least according to Stalking for Dummies, chapter 4, "Photographing Your Subject").

This summer has been great. The kids are getting along so well, really and truly enjoying each other's company. Every day when we get home, I've been putting the gate up at the end of the driveway and letting the kids and dog run free. With the doors and windows all wide open, I have auditory and/or visual contact at all times and I'm mostly free to clean, cook, or make uninterrupted phone calls.

The past two days, I've canned: Strawberry Blueberry Banana jam, Strawberry Balsamic jam, Lavender-Infused Strawberry jam (strawberries are on sale this week; can you tell?), Gingered Pear preserve, and Mixed Dried Herb vinegar. On the docket for tomorrow is Strawberry Margarita preserves - yummy! It has alcohol in it, in case you didn't guess from the name - so it is mine, all mine, not to be shared with the young'uns. I'm thinking it sounds delish over some vanilla ice cream.

I'm so sad that this summer is almost over, and I'm trying to savor every last remaining second.

A Brief Update

Has it really been that long since I've posted?  It's not for lack of things to say - wow, has there been a lot going on lately - but for lack of screen time.  The only screen time I've had lately has been with our screen door, as we've been enjoying this beautiful, temperate summer.

 

Last week, it got hot for the first time since June.  And I've had the misfortune of this coinciding with me having to wear long pants every time I leave the house, in order to keep people from screaming and running in fear from my leprous-looking legs.

 

It all started two weeks ago, when I took the kids and the dog to a local park of woodsy, walking trails.  The raspberries were thick, and since we haven't had enough of our own this year*, I was picking dozens of raspberries to feed to my (apparently) starving children and dog.  (Happy the dog LOVES raspberries and peas, I discovered this summer.)  (And anything else, really.  Including, but not limited to, plastic toys.) 

 

There were lots of mosquitos at the park, as well, so when I noticed lots of bumps on my legs the next day, I assumed they were bug bites.

 

Until a few days later, when it became evident that I'd tangled with poison ivy.  Which over the course of the next few days developed into the worst case I have ever had.  In case you're lucky enough to be one of the 15% of people who aren't allergic to poison ivy, let me tell you that not only does it itch, in bad cases it causes weeping, oozing sores.  Not to get too disgustingly graphic here, but I would bandage up my legs every morning, using my own patented system of cotton balls, tissues, and band-aids, and I'd still have wet spots developing on my pants by the time I got home from work in the afternoon.

 

Ah, the glamorous life I lead.  Next up:  Adventures with Bats in the Laundry Room!  I only wish I were joking.

 

*That's said tongue-in-cheek, you should see the bags upon bags of frozen raspberries residing in my freezer right now!  And the raspberry bushes are again filled with tons more berries that are about to ripen.

 

Things That Go Bump! in the Night

At 12:30 a.m. this morning, I was woken out of a deep sleep by the sound of toenails clicking on our bedroom hardwood floor.  I laid there in the dark, half-asleep, thinking that Ron must have forgotten to put Happy out in his kennel.  In light of all the potty accidents we've had lately*, I knew I should take him outside for a few minutes and then put him in his kennel.  But the lazy half of my brain sleepily murmured that I could clean up any messes in the morning.  I agreed with the lazy half of my brain and started to drift off to sleep.

 

The second time I heard the toenails, I snapped to attention with a different thought - had I remembered to put Johnny back in his cage?  He'd been running in his exercise ball last evening, and at least three times I had thought to myself, "I really need to put him back in his cage before I forget" but I couldn't remember actually doing it.  Oh crap.  That feeling got even stronger when I found his empty exercise ball in the kitchen.  How he got out is a mystery, but I suspect he bumped into a chair while he was speeding around and the door popped off.

 

I got out of bed and blearily looked around in the dark.  I couldn't see anything but wasn't really expecting to.  Johnny isn't really that big, after all, and there are tons of hiding spots for a small hamster.  I decided my only choice was to make a hamster trap.  I found an ice-cream pail, put some treats at the bottom of it, and started looking around for something to use as a ramp (the theory being, he'd climb the ramp, see the treats at the bottom of the bucket and drop down, then not be able to get up again).  My sleep-addled brain wasn't cooperating and I couldn't find anything sufficiently ramp-y that would allow him enough traction to actually climb it.

 

Time for Plan B.  I got a flashlight and started looking behind the dresser and the bookcase.  The flashlight hadn't been on for more than 10 seconds when I felt whiskers brushing against my ankle.  I shone the flashlight down and, lo and behold, there was Johnny looking up at me with his beady eyes.  He came right to me, like a dog or a cat would.  (I suppose he was probably hungry, after being out half the evening.)

 

After putting him back in his cage, I tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep in spite of the snoring taking place next to me in the bed.  I finally moved out to the couch, where I listened to Johnny happily reuniting with his exercise wheel for the next hour before I finally dozed off.  Shortly after that, Natalie woke up and started crying so I moved back to the bed with her in tow.  And then Sam woke up and decided to join the party, leaving me approximately 2 inches of sleeping space.

 

Ron slept through the whole nighttime drama, and the kids got to sleep nice and late this morning.  I still had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to head off to work.  *yawn*

 

*Happy has not been the only source of potty accidents.  A few days ago, Natalie removed her diaper and then took a dump in the hall.  After I cleaned it up, she still excitedly pointed out the spot to anyone who'd listen: "Poop there!  Poop right there!"

 

Slàn leibh, Frank McCourt

I was never really a Michael Jackson fan, so all this hoopla about his death has seemed a little over-the-top to me.  I was over it about 5 minutes after I heard the news.  (Obviously, I'm in the minority here, or it wouldn't be STILL all over the news, two weeks later.)  No doubt, the guy made some good music, but what I mostly remember him for is the child-molestation accusations that have overshadowed his life for the past 20 years.  Whether or not he was guilty, I don't know - but at the very least he was a sad, strange man-child who made some bad decisions.  Honestly, I can't help but feel a bit sorry for him. 

 

But I was very saddened to learn this morning that Frank McCourt is critically ill and not expected to live.  Angela's Ashes is on my list of top-10 favorite books of all time.  After reading it with my own eyes, I listened to the recorded book version (which Frank McCourt himself read aloud) and...wow.  It was so powerful to hear his story, in his own words, read by his own voice.  So sad but yet uplifting.  And, improbably, laugh-out-loud funny at times.

 

The likely loss of Frank McCourt affects my life much more than Michael Jackson's death did.  I feel a bit as though I'm losing an old friend.

 

I Have Similar Feelings About Cleaning

Freeing the world of obnoxious cleaning equipment, one colorful feather duster at a time.

I wonder what color his poop will be tomorrow.

Foot fe*tish

Sam walked over to my friend J, bent down and inspected her toenails, then gave the big toenail a few rubs with the pad of his thumb.  Then without saying a word, he stood up and walked away.

 

J looked at me and said, "What was that all about?"  I chuckled nervously and joked, "Oh, just a bit of a foot fe*tish.  He gets that from his father."

 

But the truth is so much more than that.  I think it started when he was a wee baby who didn't like to sleep in his crib.  I'd camp out in a sleeping bag on the floor next to his crib and snake my arm up through the railing so he could hold my hand and know I was still there.  He'd rub my fingernails gently as he drifted off to sleep, and then I'd carefully disentangle my hand from his grasp so I could make my way to my own bed.

 

Until he was about 2 years old, he also insisted on rubbing my fingernails when we were in the car for long stretches.  I'd finally have to say "no more" when my arm threatened to fall off from the weird angle it was at in order to reach his carseat.  Then I'd listen to wails of "Hand, hand!" as he begged for me to return my beloved fingernails to his possession.

 

One day his daycare teacher mentioned to me that he liked to rub her fingernails as he fell asleep.  I felt oddly betrayed, thinking But I thought MY fingernails were the only ones he loved. 

 

When summer came around and the bare feet came out, it became obvious that toenails were far superior due to their larger rubbing surface.  Recently, Sam told me how much he loved my toenails.  "They're so....rubby," he explained.

 

I think maybe I see a future for him in podiatry.

 

Update in Picture Form

There's been a lot going on around here and I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed; thus the lack of posting.   I don't even know where to start so I'm just going to post some pictures as a little snippet of what's been going on the past couple of weeks.

We had a garage sale.  What a disaster that was - hours and hours of work, and barely any garage-salers were out that weekend.  But Natalie had fun helping me put price tags on items.

Every waking moment that I'm not at work, I'm chasing kids and dogs and trying to keep them out of trouble.  Notice how, in this picture, there is one running child and the other two are poised to take off after him?  That's typical of any given moment.  The good news is, they all sleep REALLY well at night.  Me, especially.

A rare moment of stillness, captured for eternity.  I wouldn't have believe it, either, if I hadn't snapped a picture.

Two seconds later, Natalie has had enough of that business.

A 4th of July trip to the farm, and for Sam, a "tractor" ride with Grandpa.  He'll be talking about that for months to come.

No pictures of the snotty noses I've been wiping non-stop for the past week as Natalie and I fought a monstrous cold that attempted to replace every living cell in our body with snot.  You're welcome.  

Goodbye, Old Friend

I remember being in my second trimester of my pregnancy with Sam, and finally allowing myself to get excited about the baby it looked like I was going to end up with in a few short months.  Ron and I set up the crib, then tried to move it into the baby's room, only to find it didn't fit through the doorway.  We had to dismantle it, move the parts into the room, and "re-mantle" it.

 

For the next few months, I used the crib for storing all the various baby accoutrements we received as gifts and hand-me-downs.  I started to wonder where I was going to store all that stuff when I had to put the actual baby in the crib.

 

Then Sam was born, and slept in the crib for the next 2 years.  (I use the word "slept" in the loosest sense of the term, since sleep has never been one of his favorite pursuits.)

 

Then Natalie was born, and after the first couple of months that she spent in a bassinet in our bedroom, she moved to the crib.  Unlike Sam, she actually SLEPT in the crib for the next year and a half.

 

This weekend, I dismantled the crib and moved it downstairs, where it will live for the next few weeks few months until I get around to posting an ad on Craigslist.

 

Goodbye, crib.  It's been nice knowing ya.

 

*sniff, sniff*  Now I officially have no more babies in my house.

 

Close Encounters of the Medical Kind

Saturday started off with some unwelcome excitement.  The kids, the dog, and I were all outside and Natalie was having a snack while Sam rode his bike around on the driveway.  For no apparent reason, he ran into her with his bike, causing her to start crying.  I could tell from the tone of her cry that she wasn't hurt too badly, so I "attended" to Sam first by sending him to time-out and sending his bike to the inaccessible-to-him bike rack for the remainder of the day.

 

While I was doing this, a strange, gasping, choking sound started coming from Natalie's direction.  She was choking on her snack.  I've never had any reason to do the Heimlich maneuver in real life, but I pictured 1) my high-school health class and the 2) instruction sheet that used to hang in the kitchen of the restaurant I worked at throughout high school, and on the second thrust -- out popped the obstruction.  Her first cry brought tears to my eyes, similar to the way I felt when I heard her first cry at the hospital the day she was born.

 

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A few hours later, I packed the kids into the car and went to Urgent Care.  Three weeks ago, I was bit by a deer tick and the site is still an itchy bump.  I hadn't been worried about it too much, but I had been thinking I should see my doctor one of these days, since I would have expected a bite to heal by this time.  I'd been watching for the bullseye rash associated with Lyme disease, but hadn't seen one so I figured I was in the clear.

 

Until Thursday, when I started having some strange symptoms.  Dizzy spells, heart palpitations, and nausea.  When this was still happening on Saturday morning, my husband convinced me to go to Urgent Care.  "Easy for you to say," I said, since he was going to work and I was facing the prospect of taking two young children with me to the clinic.  But ultimately I decided to go in.  At this particular clinic, Urgent Care hours don't start until 12:00.  I was hoping to be in and out quickly, so I promised the kids we'd stop for lunch afterwards. 

 

The triage nurse sent me to the E.R.  Three hours, two hungry and tired kids, five vials of blood, and $100 later, they discharged me with no answers.  The Lyme disease test won't be available until Wednesday, and that is not even definitive.  A positive test is definitely positive, but a negative test is not necessarily negative.  Evidently, there is not a test available to measure the number of spirochetes in the blood, so they can only measure the number of antibodies being produced.  Early in the disease, my body might not be producing enough antibodies to make the test positive.  So, who knows.

 

Since I've had no appetite, I've lost a couple of pounds in the last week.  I might hold off on taking the antibiotics until I lose that last, pesky 20 pounds.  Kidding, kidding.  Sorta.

 

Quite a Workout

Monday night, Sam had his preschool screening.  I had no idea they do it so early now, but it makes sense, I guess - better to catch any potential problems as early as you can.  He passed, so he's ready to start kindergarten in the fall of 2011.  Me?  I'm not so ready.  But since it's still two years away, I can live in denial for a bit longer.

 

The first screener asked him about 50 questions, ranging from "what color is this block?" to "complete this pattern".  At his age, he only had to answer 11 questions correctly.  I didn't find that out until the screening was over, so when questions came up that I hadn't even thought of teaching him, I knew he was going to fail the test and not be able to start kindergarten until he was 10 years old, and it was ALL MY FAULT.  Patterns?  It's never even crossed my mind to teach him that concept.  But he got 29 questions right, so he passed without a problem.  Thank goodness.  I'm counting on him to support me in my old age.

 

Then they did hearing and vision screening, which he also passed.  When we were done, and waiting to speak to the nurse to review all the results, Sam plopped down into his chair and said, "Whew!  That was a lot of hard work.  I'm very sweaty from all that hard work!"

 

No one said building mental muscles was easy!