Archives for January 2006

Sometimes, when you are home the majority of the time, the days melt together, and nothing seems particularly outstanding, and nothing differentiates one day from the next. The past two days, though, have been good. Very good. Something about having a day that is better than normal can pick you up and raise those spirits…

Yesterday, The Princess had a Teddy Bear Picnic at school – she was so excited to leave in the morning that she didn’t make a stink about me doing her hair, she didn’t make a stink about getting dressed – instead, she just did what she was told and Hubby was able to easily get out the door. Always a good thing (but such a rarity, to be perfectly honest, as she usually procrastinates over morning cartoons or wanting to eat breakfast, or needing a cup of juice).

Pumpkin and I had plans with a co-worker and her one-month old, and we met for the best lunch at Uno’s. Note, if you are going to go hog-wild and just eat everything horrible for you (down to the Oreo Brownie sundae – yum yum yum), don’t look at the nutrition facts on their website. Just don’t. Go to Uno’s and have the sundae. My friend and I shared it and didn’t leave a single drop of ice cream on the dish!

Left the restaurant to find that it was sunny and fifty degrees outside! Yes, mid-January, temps in the 50s. I left my coat in the car and Pumpkin and I ran a few errands and headed home, basking in the sunshine the whole drive. Later, we even let The Princess play in the back yard on her swingset after dinner – gotta take advantage of those sunny days when we have ’em!

And today – both girls napped – AT THE SAME TIME! Though I could have been productive and got some house work done, I gleefully read my book, watched A Baby Story on TLC, and even caught about 20 minutes of rest myself… Ahhh. Happy mommy.

One of my good friends and I have VERY different political affiliations. This wasn’t always the case. Somewhere along the way, she met and married a man (I use that term loosely) who had radically different political beliefs than I do, and she took them on. Fine and dandy. However…

Politics is one of those topics I tend to shy away from. Politics and religion are those hot button topics that guaranteed, if you aren’t careful, you can really offend someone in a discussion. Typically, these are the types of things I only talk about with Hubby, because I know that he feels near the same way I do (despite our votes cancelling each other out in the 2000 election – okay, was it 2000? My mind is now drawing a blank).

You would think that good friends could have those kinds of talks without offense. Turns out, they can’t. At least, that’s my conclusion from yesterday, when after spending several hours with a friend of mine, she proceeded to tell me that the current book she is reading is basically bashing people who lean the same way I do (politically). Nice. She just got done reading a book about “how to talk to” someone of my political beliefs “if you really have to”. Nice.

I had such a sour taste in my mouth after that – and I must say, I’m not even that political. I don’t follow every little thing that happens in Washington DC (though I should pay more attention, to be honest). I’m not an over-zealous, preach it to the world activist for the candidates and beliefs I follow. But to be lumped into some category of people that should be avoided? Ay yi yi. I was purrrrrrty peeved.

Isn’t that ridiculous? The last election was about 50/50, which means that half of the people approximately saw things my way (or for the pessimists, didn’t see things my way). That’s only part of the person – and not reason to avoid the person altogether (or read books about avoiding them, anyway!).

So, love me or hate me for who I am, and not the way I vote. At least I voted.

(As a P.S. for Crystal, who asked — my Aunt V did call me at about 4 on Monday – I took the girls and Hubby to meet her at the mall – it was a nice visit – only about an hour long and it was great to see her. She has a different perspective on things than my dad, including my Aunt Anne’s Alzheimer’s and my grandmother’s failing health. It was actually pretty interesting).

My Aunt V called last night – she is going to be in Michigan for one day only (actually, her flight gets in shortly after lunch, and she’ll be on another plane by 8 p.m. – less than half a day really) and would love to see me and the kiddos. Seeing as how I have nothing on my calendar for the day (besides getting some work done), I told her sure, and asked what she had in mind.

“I don’t know, why don’t you give me a call at Anne’s tomorrow afternoon.” Anne is my father’s aunt – she’s in a “retirement community” – oh, and she’s suffering from Alzheimers and has no idea who I am. Yeah, I’ll call her. I got Anne’s number from her, and then said, “But why don’t you call me once you are here and settled, and we’ll come see you.” I could kick myself for ever saying the words.

Yes, I want to see Aunt V, but there are so very few things in life that annoy me more than having my life hanging in the balance (Okay, that’s a tad dramatic) waiting for someone. I have two children, meaning I can’t get out of the house with less than 15-20 minutes of preparation (and that’s optimistic). I have no idea if she’s going to call when the plane lands, or hours later. In the mean time, I have naps to contend with, work to do, and a dinner to pull together.

After I hung up the phone with Aunt V, I called my dad. I said, “Your sister tends to fly by the seat of her pants, huh?” Dad said, “She doesn’t just fly by the seat of her pants – she’s flying without a map and with a blindfold!” Sibling love alive and well, I take it.

I talked to Hubby and he said, “Go see your aunt. If dinner doesn’t get made, we’ll order pizza. No biggie.” It’s hard to explain how frustrating it is, to want to do something or go somewhere, but just not having concrete plans can really throw things out of whack for a planner like me. Even now, I don’t have an office to go to daily, I don’t have meetings to attend, and I’ve somewhat loosened my grip on my Franklin-Covey planner — I still like to have order and schedules in my life.

Just call me Mrs. Spontaneity.

This morning, The Princess had an appointment to get her hair cut (“Not ALL of them, mom, only SOME of them!”) at 10:30, followed by my joyous eyebrow wax appointment. Trying to get the girls ready to get out of the house, I turned on the kitchen faucet to wash my hands, only to have the water spit out into the sink in short spurts, little blasts of water. And then… Nothing. No water. Yikes.

I called Hubby at work to see if he had seen a notice from the Village Department of Public Works about any planned outage – he had seen none (yes, we live in what is technically a “village”). So, I called them. Mind you, I am the most non-confrontational person in the world (read: I’m a big wuss-baby who doesn’t like people to be mad at me), so I’m usually not one to complain or be nasty. However, I have two small kids in this house, and no freaking water! I dialed and listened to the phone ring several times before getting voice mail, to which I left this message:

“I can only hope that because you aren’t answering the phone you are out FIXING THE WATER!”

I went on, but, that was the gist of it. I realized quickly though, we had to get out of the house. Inevitably, with two small children, someone (The Princess, of course) will want a cup of water, or need to use the toilet (and I had no idea if the outage would affect flushing, and who wants to find that out the hard way?), or (germ fest alert) wash our hands! I quick gathered our stuff, hopped in the car, and went to our appointment. That went much faster than planned, and we had about an hour to kill before meeting Hubby for lunch, so we drove aimlessly towards the “big city” where I saw probably the most beautiful three words in the English language: Starbucks and drive-thru. (Is drive-thru two words, or only one because of the hyphen? Ah well, it’s two today).

I swung thru the drive-thru, got my grande cappuccino (amen!) and drove around some more, singing along to the Backyardigans cd with The Princess while Pumpkin snoozed in her car seat. We ended up meeting Hubby early for lunch, and (lucky for the village) by the time we got home, they had repaired what was apparently a water main break, and our water was fully functional. Flushing capacity restored, we were able to spend the rest of the afternoon, blissfully hanging out doing NOTHING.

I don’t like secrets. Well, I take that back – I like keeping secrets but I don’t like when others are keeping secrets from me. Hypocritical? Quite possibly. Do I care? No, I’m a proud hypocrite! What has got me thinking about secrets is that I got a “Save-The-Date” card for M’s wedding yesterday. Of course, Hubby and I are going. Even if I wasn’t in the wedding, I would still go, because M is just one of those people we both adore (which means quite a bit, because to be honest, Hubby doesn’t like all of my friends – fair enough, because I don’t like a lot of his!) and I wouldn’t miss this event for the world.

I held this card in my hand and I started thinking about the wedding, and it started bugging me that I have no idea what her wedding dress looks like. She’s keeping it a secret and seeing as how I don’t do well with secrets, now I am so insanely curious about what kind of dress she picked out. It will be gorgeous, no doubt, and it will be the kind of dress that when we look at her in the dress, we’ll know that it was the perfect dress, and that no other dress would have done justice. But… What does it look like?!

I have to be fair here, because really, I am obnoxious about secrets. Through both of my pregnancies, Hubby and I wouldn’t tell anyone the name we had picked for the baby. To make it fun, we gave some people clues, but so few people guessed, and even fewer guessed correctly (oddly enough, both times, my coworkers guessed correctly and were the only ones who knew prior to each baby’s arrival what her name would be). My dad, in particular, was really frustrated with the secrecy (hmmm – where do I get it from?!), and would call and send emails saying, “You can tell me – I won’t tell anyone else!”.

But, I kept my lips zipped. On the day The Princess was born, and the day Pumpkin was born, most people heard the chosen names for the first time. And it was a surprise.

That was fun for me. And only me. When others have secrets though? Not so much fun (for me). So… M, if you’re reading this, can you cut me a break and just email me a picture of your dress? I won’t show anyone else – I promise!

Pumpkin is nestled in my lap as I type this and I can hear her poor stuffy nose with each breath she takes. We’re waiting for the nasal saline to do its magic so I can just suck it all out with the nasal aspirator (a.k.a. “Nose Sucky”). Poor little thing.

It seems like we just can’t shake this bug in our house. The girls keep on passing it back and forth, The Princess has a constantly runny nose these days, and, three-year-old hygiene practices being what they are (or aren’t, as it may be), I think she’s the culprit. We’re living on Purell antibacterial wash and frequent hand-washing, but still the bug lives on.

It’s finally gotten that Hubby and I are snotty and snorty too – and we both have sore throats and froggy voices. I called him at work this morning (testing out our new phone – wheeee), and he sounded so rotten when he answered, I almost felt bad for him. I didn’t completely feel bad because he was apparently well enough to play b-ball last night (and if he was so sick, he shouldn’t have stayed up so late the past few nights watching football, but I digress!). I was eating popsicles by 5:30 this morning to relieve my throat soreness.

I hate winter.

One of my favorite gifts that I received this year were these “hand”made ornaments from The Princess. She said to me today, “Didn’t you just LOVE what I made for you at school?” Of course I did!

Tom Cruise really creeped me out in 2005. Between couch-jumping on Oprah and the berating of women who medicate for post-partum depression (and don’t even get me started on his impregnated fiancee – the one who said she was saving herself for marriage – puh-lease!), he really got on my “Ick List”. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I tried to watch Jerry Maguire while working out on the exercise bike tonight. I had to mute it. Then I had to turn it off. The man just bugs me.

For the first time in a week and a half, The Princess is at daycare today so it is just me and Pumpkin. The house is strangely quiet, and Pumpkin is in her crib playing quietly (she’s kicking the toy on the side of the crib, so I keep hearing “Hey Diddle Diddle” over the monitor). The doctor had advised us that she should take two one-hour naps daily, and to put her in her crib for an hour – if she doesn’t sleep during that time, if she screams or plays, that is fine, but she needs to get used to the rest (Hubby, when he heard that, said, “Dang! She’s hard core!”). As a result of Pumpkin’s crib time, I’ve had much mommy-time: Swept and mopped the kitchen floor, emptied and filled the dishwasher, scrubbed the upstairs toilet (I hate toilet-scrubbing!), and even had a bit of time to sit down with a good book (“Prep” by Curtis Sittenfeld, if you were curious).

Feels like I can finally fall back into the groove of life, post-holiday. What a relief. It was lovely to have Hubby home for two three-day weekends in a row, but we were both useless yesterday after we took turns staying up all night with Pumpkin. She cried and cried with a hoarse, horrible cry, and it was obvious to us all that she wasn’t feeling right. Hubby took her on two drives around the town (once at midnight and the other at about 2 a.m.) hoping to get her to sleep, though it only worked once. Yesterday was a bit rough for us. We took turns with the kids – one would stay awake and alert and the other would pass out and nap! She slept much better last night, but I still have these lingering dark bags beneath my eyes.

We are now out of the Bermuda Triangle of holidays. I did notice, however, while I was out shopping yesterday, that all of the Valentine’s Day stuff is already out. Can’t we get a little break from it all?