Archives for 2005

… my true love gave to me:

three bottles of Purell hand sanitizer

This is the first of the gifts to truly make me laugh out loud. Hubby thinks I’m weird about this stuff, but with two kids in the house, and because kids can life so chaotic and crazy when they are sick, I am all about zapping those germs.

The Princess likes to put her fingers in Pumpkin’s mouth because Pumpkin will chomp down on them and gnaw at them. I think Pumpkin is sort of pre-teething, and will chew on just about anything. But when you think of all that three-year-olds get into, and how they aren’t necessarily the champions of hygiene – well, you see where the Purell comes in.

…my true love gave to me:

four more batteries!

I’d swear, you would think we need stock in Energizer or something – but it’s a different kind. Between the MP3 player and the digital camera, we do go through a lot of batteries (here’s hoping, though, that he’s done with batteries for the countdown – I have no idea where I’m going to store them all!).

I took the girls to Target already this morning. The Princess, though she’s been daytime potty trained for nearly a year, doesn’t always stay dry all night – so we have a “Dry All Night” chart. When she gets five stickers on that chart, she gets a treat. We have owed her a treat for about four days now and she was getting antsy. She picked out a package of glitter glue markers, and she’s now doing “art” – putting a bunch of colors in a big pile on a piece of paper. I don’t know if it will dry, she’s got so much on there. After we shopped, we went to Starbucks (of course) and I got my cappuccino and they made The Princess a vanilla milk (milk w/ sugar free vanilla syrup in it). She was feeling pretty cool with her little coffee cup.

Pumpkin has returned to sleeping through the night now that we’re home from Great Wolf Lodge. Thank goodness.

…my true love gave to me:

a five-pack of Diet 7-Up

(Yup, it was originally a six-pack… I think he drank the sixth one to make it five! He cracks me up!)

As we’re winding down the twelve days of Christmas, it truly makes me feel blessed to have a husband that does this for me. Also, it makes me wonder, what does day one have in store? Some years, he finished with somewhat of a “bang” – there have been Christmases where I’ve gotten a dozen roses first thing in the morning (he purchased them Christmas Eve and kept them chilling in the trunk of his car!). Some years, it’s been another fun, goofy thing. In any case, the anticipation is fun and makes me actually look forward to rolling out of bed in the morning. The days Hubby gets up before me (which is most days, because let’s be real – my commute to work is walking from my bed to the computer – I stay in bed as long as I can get away with!), my present is often waiting on the kitchen counter when I get downstairs. I love that. Any day that gets started with presents is almost always a good day.

…my true love gave to me:

six packs of Orbit Cinnamint gum (my favorite)!

It’s funny, my love for all things Cinnamon began with my pregnancy for Pumpkin. When I was pregnant for The Princess, I had little or no food aversions (I can’t remember any, anyway), but with Pumpkin, so many things just didn’t sit right for me – mint was one of those things.

Usually, I’m a spearmint gum kinda gal. I like to chew gum, and chew it quite a bit. When I was pregnant, it just made me want to gag. Regular minty toothpaste did, too! So I had to switch to cinnamon. Even coffee (the taste, smell – everything) grossed me out for the first few months, and you all know how I love my Starbucks!

Just this past weekend, I had my first diet Coke (caffeine free, since I’m still nursing) since last year. Even diet Coke grossed me out during my pregnancy. I wonder if this means Pumpkin is going to be a picky eater? I don’t think I could handle that.

We arrived home several hours ago from a weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge. The idea was that once the new year hits, Hubby is going to be mad busy at work, seeing as how tax season kicks off in January. His evenings and weekends are going to be filled with lovely tax forms and deductions and exemptions. No fun. This was a last family “hurrah” if you will.

Now, the thing is, after the Pennsylvania debacle in 2003, we swore we’d never take Hubby’s son (hereafter referred to as Stepson, because some of the other names I want to call him after this trip just aren’t that nice – and he’s only ten, so we can’t be cruel) on another trip again. In Pennsylvania, he basically wigged out on us at our hotel, cried and screamed through Sesame Place, and pitched another random fit at the Hershey Park. No fun.

However, Hubby decided that we’d all go. We knew Pumpkin wouldn’t really care too much (because shoot – all she still cares about are eating, sleeping and pooping – not necessarily in that order). We knew The Princess would love it – waterslides, pools, story times at night. Stepson had been there before with his mom and family, and we knew he loved it. We thought his love of this place would keep him behaving well. Wrong-o.

For starters, he and The Princess fought almost entirely the whole drive there (inclement weather added an hour to our trip). Why a ten-year-old picks fights with a three-year-old, I don’t know. But in anycase, they fought for HOURS. All was fine once we arrived. Everyone was in awe over the decorations – it’s amazing really. They don’t miss a trick. Trees decorated, lights everywhere — it even snows in their lobby several times daily.

This really could have been an amazing time. Two major problems: Pumpkin’s sleeping schedule went all crappy on us (which was expected, but painful nonetheless) and Stepson acted like a royal schmuck and behaved poorly. Stepson’s behavior was the biggest aggravator, as Hubby actually ended up catching the kid hitting another kid in the waterpark. Hubby, of course, yelled at both kids to knock it off out of instinct (he said the other kid was bigger and was shoving back). This of course led to a white-trash exchange with the other kid’s parents, who had apparently been watching this whole thing transpire (without intervening – parents of the year, yes?). Stepson, never one to accept responsibility for his actions, blamed the other kid, going so far as to say, “He held me underwater for five minutes! I could have DIED!”

Ay yi yi.

Needless to say, that was the end of the waterpark for the day yesterday.

Early in the day yesterday, Hubby presented me with an appointment card for the resort’s spa. My nails are now a smokin’ hot red and they look gorgeous, which almost makes up for the fact that we spend several hundred dollars to have to police the ten-year-old, deal with an over-excited three-year-old (hopped up on hot cocoa that they served in the lobby each evening, or sugar cookies decorated for a crafts project on “Candy Cane Lane”), and walk the lobby at 3 a.m. with a screaming, sleep-deprived infant.

A beautiful place, and not a bad time. But man:

There’s no place like home.

…my true love gave to me:

eight candy canes
seven scratch-and-win lottery tickets

I won a buck on the lottery tickets, which is cool, but I was kinda hoping for “seven hours of uninterrupted sleep” after our weekend away…

Okay, it should not surprise people that I was up til 11 watching the finale of “The Apprentice” (Donald, not Martha). I have been sucked into reality tv since the original seven strangers were picked to live in a loft and have their lives taped (though for the record, I haven’t watched ALL the seasons of “The Real World” – I skipped some, like London and LA, and a few others here and there). Probably for the same reason I like reading blogs, I adore reality tv: because everyone else has a more interesting life than I do (or so it seems with some fancy editing).

As a faithful watcher, I’d been there since day one of Apprentice 4 – and was actually VERY pleased with the final two. So, I watched for two hours and you could kinda sorta tell that Trump wanted to hire both Randal AND Rebecca. So he hires Randal – and then he asked Randal if he should hire Rebecca too… and Randal gives some lame-o response about “This is the Apprentice, not the Apprenti.” (Um, genius with the five degrees, “Apprenti”?! That’s not a freakin’ word – I checked!).

What on earth was that all about?! I can’t believe I stayed up to watch that. Heaven forbid someone steal the guy’s thunder. That girl hobbled around on a broken ankle for twelve weeks to have some goofball cheat her out of a job too – just so he wouldn’t have to share his limelight? I really liked him too. What a schmuck he turned out to be.

…my true love gave to me:

nine cans of tomato soup

How funny… Tomato soup is that perfect lunch when there is no food in your house. And it almost counts as a vegetable.

When I went to pick up The Princess from daycare today, her teacher said, “So, I hear you got a new bathing suit. The Princess told us ALL about it.”

Eep.

Of course, there was no graceful way to say, “Soooo, what did she say?” I can only imagine, which is what makes it worse. It’s not a thong, by any means – doesn’t require a Brazilian wax to wear it… Just a green patterned two piece. Actually, it’s quite flattering (as far as bathing suits go – but I bought it several days ago and have eaten much popcorn since).

When we got in the car, I said to The Princess, “You told your class about mommy’s swimsuit?” She nodded her head, “I told them it was your favorite color! And I thought they would be happy that you got a new one.” I so hope that is all she said.