Archives for April 2006

With the warmer weather, I am able to take my workouts outside… Meaning, instead of moseying on the treadmill daily (all that work to go nowhere), for 30 minutes, I get some fresh air, solitude, and a chance to see neighbors I haven’t seen since the first frost of winter. It’s been fun.

I have to admit, part of the fun is watching people interact as I walk by – just seeing these brief glimpses of someone else’s life and imagining the stories behind it. Yesterday, I saw a neighbor take a picture of his wife’s tush with a camera phone as she walked away! He wasn’t the least bit discreet about it – and I was half laughing and half thinking to myself, “How cool that they are still so in love!” (Or at least he is, anyway).

Our neighbor down the street is a young girl who appears to be about 9, and she likes to ride her scooter past this 10 year old boy’s house. It’s funny – yesterday, during a four minute duration, she went past his house about six times – stopping before her first trip in front of his house to fluff her hair and put sunglasses on. I was just in shock – I remember the boy I had a crush on at her age – and I can’t imagine ever to have been so brazen as to ride my scooter past his house over and over (and over and over!). What must her mother think? (Wondering if the boy even noticed – or if he was even home!).

Kids are out riding bikes and the other moms in the neighborhood have been out walking, and pushing strollers, and kids in wagons. I love this time of year.

I downgraded my Starbucks this morning – a tall, rather than a grande. The chick at the coffee shop made the worst cappuccino I’ve had in a long time – it was too milky (far more like a latte), and just – blah. Hubby, who has picked up my “signature” coffee order a time or two, noticed that I got a smaller cup today and I started complaining about my drink.

“What size would you say that was?” he asked me. I said, “It’s a tall, which is basically like a small… But it was supposed to be a cappuccino!”

Hubby then said, “Would you say you ordered not a latte?” (As in “not a lot”).

Sometimes he is so corny, he makes me laugh.

On a brighter note, Pumpkin slept all the way through last night after having Hubby wake up with her Friday night. I half wonder if she figured, “Oh well, Mommy’s not waking up – might as well just sleep!”

I am going to be a wreck as my girls get older. I just know it, and it bothers me, because I always thought (hoped) I’d be one of those “cool” moms. Why I thought this, I’ll never know, because “cool” has never quite been my thing, but I was still hoping.

I am definitely going to need to read the Queen Bees book – and maybe earlier than I had originally thought!

The other day, The Princess saw her little buddy, J, playing outside in her yard. J is slightly older and is in kindergarten already. Her parents are nice folks – the mom is a teacher, the dad works for a local business – they seem very down to earth. J, however, exhibits what a friend of ours calls “classic only child syndrome” (he was actually referring to his OWN son when he used that term, but it applies to J in my opinion). She was bossy, and snooty to my beloved Princess, and as I watched the two girls interact, I found myself actually getting frustrated that this girl was talking to my child that way.

The Princess, drawing near to her fourth birthday said, “I’m almost four.” J said, “OH YEAH? Well I’m already five… and a quarter!” The Princess said, “After I’m four, then I’ll be five.”

J: “Well, then I’ll be six and a quarter!”
Princess: I’ll be six next.
J: You’ll never be older than me. I’ll ALWAYS be older than you. You CAN’T be older than me. Because you’re YOUNGER.

Snot.

J’s dad was out mowing the lawn while the girls were playing, and since our backyards are somewhat adjacent, The Princess pointed out, “It looks like your dad is mowing our lawn.” J actually rolled her eyes at my Princess and said, “Well, that’s still MY YARD.” The Princess said, “I know but it looks like he’s mowing my yard.”

J: See that right there? That’s MY shed. And even behind that shed it’s still MY GRASS. He’s not on YOUR GRASS he’s on MY GRASS. My yard is on THIS SIDE of the hill. Your yard is on THAT SIDE of the hill. He’s still in MY GRASS.

At that point, I just picked up Pumpkin and told Princess that the baby had no sunscreen on and maybe we ought to call it a day.

Later, as I was telling Hubby about this exchange, I was still a little miffed by it. Hubby said, “You do realize that you are bothered by what a FIVE YEAR OLD said.” I told him that I was in for big trouble because girls are mean. It’s not going to get any better. Sometimes, The Princess is going to be on the receiving end, and sometimes she is probably going to be the mean one. Girls just stink that way – and I’m a little shocked it starts so early. It was a petty exchange that left me with such a bad feeling – I just know I’m in for a rough ride!

The girls were thrilled with their Easter baskets this a.m. – Pumpkin had a small basket with three Fisher Price “Roll A-Rounds” in it… The Princess had a slightly larger basket with a minimal amount of candy, but fun pens, notepaper, and hair accessories in it. She opened her basket and said, “I’m going to go look in the kitchen for more stuff…” She came back and said, “MOM! The bathroom door is closed – do you think the Easter Bunny is hiding in our bathroom?!”

For the first time in eons, Hubby didn’t have to go to work today, so we’ve been moving in slow motion – heading out only to go visit our family (Briefly) and turn around and come back home. My family put together a wonderful egg hunt for the girls (Well, for The Princess – with some eggs “marked” for Pumpkin), and that was fun. As we were leaving, Pumpkin turned on the charm with her new circus tricks – waving bye-bye, giving fives, and clapping (which she just started today, actually, so what fun!).

Home for a low key dinner and The Princess helped Hubby outside get ready to plant some bulbs. In conversation over dinner, the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana came up – I’ve since had it stuck in my head. I sang it to Pumpkin while bathing her, and little baby was rocking out. Hubby said to me, “You know the words to that?”

Well yeah… Doesn’t everybody?

The end of tax season is approaching – but it’s NOT HERE YET! Goshdarnit! Hubby worked 15 hours today and it’s looking like another full day tomorrow.

Ick ick ick.

I’m an idiot. Hubby was nice enough to not call me that when he easily hung up the shower curtain liner last night. I walked into the bathroom, looked at his “handiwork”, and said to myself, “Oh yeah…. that makes sense.”

I’m either a moron or I really need a vacation.

Or maybe both.

Currently, my arms are in an achy, sore state of being and I feel like they might fall off. Did I just complete an arm workout? No. I have been working on hanging a new vinyl shower curtain liner in the bathroom. And the liner is winning. I can’t get the darn thing up!

Part of my problem is I picked up a new fangled liner – one with metal grommets reinforcing the holes so that one can use one of those pretty “hooks” to hang the shower curtain – a decorative pretty hook. Well, I didn’t want decorative and pretty. I wanted to use the cheap, but functional ring that you can buy a dozen for under $2. I’m all about functional (and cheap!). Half of the rings are in, half I can’t fit. I don’t understand if the problem is that the rings are inconsistently sized, or if the grommets are – or both. In either case – only five of the 12 rings are in, and the remainder have yet to be dealt with, because at this point, I’m ready to say, “Forget it! Everyone can just take a bath!”

Or I may cave and buy the pretty little hooks.

I wonder if that’s the conspiracy – frustrate me so badly that I cave and buy the overpriced shower curtain hardware.

Sigh. This shouldn’t be that difficult… so why is it?

A week from now, there will be a calm in my house I’ve not experienced since January: tax season will be over. Gone will be the days of Hubby working twelve to thirteen hour days, only to fall asleep not long after the girls are snoozing, to wake up hours before the rest of us. Hubby working on the weekends will be a thing of the past, as well (at least, until next year!).

We miss him and we are ready to have him home.

I jokingly said that being a CPA during tax season is probably a lot like giving birth – you must forget the pain, otherwise, why on earth would someone do it year after year after year?!

It’s 10:30 a.m. and Hubby has already worked six hours today… Here’s hoping we all manage to make it through the rest of this week!

I knew several things would happen when I didn’t return to the office full time following Pumpkin’s birth: 1) I’d be able to be closer to my kids on a day-to-day basis, all day, rather than feeling like I had to have “make up time” at the end of the day (which I’d felt with The Princess), 2) I’d be able to breastfeed longer, ensuring many health benefits to Pumpkin (and cost savings to my wallet!), 3) I’d save money from not commuting, less lunches out with co-workers, etc. There were many things that went into making the decision and went into my ultimately working part time from home. One thing I never considered was getting to have a better relationship with my sister.

My sister is nearly 19 and because we’re so far apart in age, it’s never felt completely like a sibling relationship. As the years go by, the age gap seems to narrow. Since I’ve been home, I’ve gotten to spend quite a bit of time with Sis as she has had a fluctuating schedule for her college classes and work schedule and she drops by frequently to visit the girls.

Yesterday, Sis and I went shopping. My sister is gorgeous, and has a pretty keen fashion sense. I do not. She decided it was time to go jeans shopping (“I’ve never seen you in a pair of jeans that fits your butt right!” she told me). What fun we had. The rule was, if she picked it out, I had to try it on, and after 15 pairs of jeans, I did find a cute pair. Granted, it’s not my normal style, but it was fun. We’ll probably go out again on a shoe shopping mission (though she’s the Flip-Flop Queen, because we’ve both had extensive foot surgery, so flip flops rock my world as well).

We finished shopping and split lunch: water/soda and a shared bag of Chex Mix. It was a really fun time. I really do look forward to getting to be more like sisters as the time goes on.

Hee hee hee…

The girl who knows “jack” about basketball PICKED THE STINKIN’ WINNER!

I had Florida picked to win it all, and whoo hoo! I win! I win! I win!