APRIL for June '04 Toddlers! 22 months and counting! - Page 9

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by mattjule

hey Liz. evidently they didn't like my "arrested by the sig police" sig line because now I don't have one at all! And they call us petty. No pm either, just suddenly no sig line.

Amazing! And here I've had my nasty, "untrained monkeys" signature for at least two months. That's what really gets me about it-- Liz, how long did you have that signature? It was at least four or five months, wasn't it? Strange. But we don't have free speech here, not really. That's why I have a blog-- so I can swear when I'm typing.

My brother's been trying to convince me to get MySpace for ages now-- maybe we should do a group MySpace. That'd be pretty cool! I also promised ChibiChibi she could have a blog of her own when school ends and she's free of that evil institution forever (the evil applying to this particular school and the middle school that she'd be going to if she stayed in The SYSTEM). She doesn't even know what it is, only that it will involve her being here and using the computer, so she's thrilled.

Originally Posted by Mummoth

On Monday morning, Roland woke up & said "Mommy, it's your choice: Today, we can go to the beach with the purple startfish oooorrrr we can go to the muddy place." and I said "Today we're going to play in the yard," and he said "That wasn't one of your choices."

: OMG, BeanBean did the same exact thing in the car this monring! After we picked up my composter, he said, "Mamma, we can go to the park or we can go to Pine Grove." When I told him we were playing in the yard after we went to the grocery store, he said, "That's not allowed, we have to do one or the other today." What sort of monster am I raising?!

I'm desperately scouring the web for a picture of Sally Ride wearing the suit and holding her helmet under her arm. I know that I've seen pictures of many astronauts like that, but I can't find one of Sally Ride for the life of me, and ChibiChibi's project is overdue.

[Queen of Cups]

Rynna - I don't see a picture exactly like that, but if you go to www.images.google.com and search for Sally Ride, you'll get hundreds of possible images.

Okay, I'm off to go jogging. I NEVER thought I'd ever start jogging, but the will to loose weight can make you do anything! Seriously, though, jogging always felt terrible to me, but now it actually feels pretty good. And, Killy LOVES it when I jog with he and Ellie in the jogging stroller - "Wooooooowwwwwww!" is the exact quote, I think.

[Smithie]

I'm determined to jog after I recover from this birth. My father was a fabulous track athelete, and my build is very, very similar to his, and it's just ungrateful to God not to use His gift of running in order to keep myself in shape.

I used the "leash" today, in Home Depot. We had to spend about a hour standing around and I knew it would get ugly. It was definitely a better option than forcing him to stay in the stroller, I will be using it more often from now on. I bought one of those cheapo stretchy tethers that attaches toddler to mommy via two very similar wrist straps, people seemed to be less judgemental of that design than of the dog harness I'd prefer to use

[eilonwy]

I love the car carts at Home Depot. Sometimes I take the kids just to wander around the gigantic ailes with the nifty car cart. I usually pull out a few paint color sample cards for them, if they're antsy, and then wander around looking at all the nifty stuff. Occasionally I'll even buy something. Gosh that's a cool store...

[Smithie]

Oooh, the car cart! A 3 y.o. waiting in the same godawful line as we were had snagged that cart. James thought it was supercool.

[eilonwy]

They only had one?! : Goodness, that'd make everyone crazy. Our HD has at least half a dozen, we never have a problem getting one.

I only wish that the grocery store had big car carts, like the ones at HD. I'm trying to figure out what the tiny car carts are for, aside from agravating parents. I mean, I've got three children, I obviously need *more* space in a grocery cart, not less!

[LizD]

I barely survived a two-hour stint at home depot today. my mother-in-law wanted to buy everything i need to renovate and put it on her card with the no-interest deal, better than having to lend us real money, obviously, but her back had gone out, rowan was trying to get into the bowels of the aisles and we had to buy like two thousand dollars worth of stuff: paint, outside paint, vanity, countertop, french door, bifold closet doors (5 pairs!), tile and more tile, etc. some is being delivered monday, some i brought home.

and the cat dh has had for 18 years, since he was 21, seems to be on his last lap. he is so personable and peculiar every vet's receptionist has always said, "oh, of course i know garcia!" we don't even use our real name, just say we're calling about garcia. and now he is not himself. very weak and not eating, and kind of cries instead of his usual duck quack. and we are supposed to leave town on tuesday to visit the waldorf school and look at houses. if he's even still here tuesday, it will be very difficult to leave him. the meds the vet gave him today don't seem to be helping.

and my custody-battle friend, his wife, and his little boy are all here again, on less than 24 hours' notice. this after the week trying to be supportive of my mother-in-law, whose sister was in the hospital all week, and my friend, who also was in the hospital all week with a kidney stone.

i am exhausted! when do i get to do fingerplays?!?!?!?!

rowan is delightful, though, loves to dance and stomp and has great comic timing already. and loves to plug things in. in fact, tonight when no one was watching, he went into the room where the other boy was sleeping, unplugged the night light i'd given him and brought it out to the living room and plugged it back in there. i figure there is little point stopping him. he does these "dangerous" things just fine, but has to go to the hospital from walking across a room.

speaking of which, my MIL tells me there have been 3 tragedies lately with children being killed by televisions falling on them. one more thing for us all to worry about.

what did your signature say, julie? i was ready to leave over it too, and i gather my posts are being monitored or how else would they know, since i rarely post anywhere but here...and smithis was my lady in shining armour.... so what did it say?

[eilonwy]

New pictures under "Mike" and "Bella" in my sig.

[Queen of Cups]

Bella's so cute! I love the picture of her lying on her tummy smiling so big - is she laughing? I couldn't see the pics of Mike, though.

[eilonwy]

Thanks! I fixed it.

But yes, Bella is grinning! She smiles and makes gurgly, squeaky, not-quite-giggles when she's tickled or spoken to. She's also trying to talk-- she makes those adorable pre-speech sounds if you leave breaks in a conversation. It's so cool! Nothing that sounds like a real word yet, but she's definately starting to interact a lot more. I think she's so cool, I'm just smitten with her.

You can really see how weird her eyes are in some of the pictures, though. Definately something going on there...

[Smithie]

Well, I spent another hour at the Home Depot this morning, and then dh was so colossally pissed off at their repeated incomptence (order not pulled on time for pickup, promised discount not given, etc.) that he drove their rental truck right back and returned the $700 worth of fencing material.

We're only out $20 for the hour of the rental truck, but I'm not sure how to put a dollar value on my sanity I am NOT buying the next order, and I'm not sure I can ever show my face in that Home Depot again.

It's raining today, so the fence couldn't have gotten built anyhow. We're rescheduled our teenagers from the church for next week, so that gives us a week to buy fencing elsewhere.

In happier news - tonight we see Cirque de Soleil! Apparently we committed to a group trip months ago and then completely forgot about. Last weekend was our First Paid Sitter Ever, this weekend will be sitter #2. I'm trying a college girl this time, for $10/hr I'm hoping she'll take the initiative to clean up the kitchen and the toys before we get home. I'm sure this makes me sound like a stingy old fart, but I don't recall getting $10/hr when I babysat...

[eilonwy]

I used to get $8-10/hour for babysitting SkinnyPunk, of all people, because I'd inevitably be out past curfew. I got more on school nights. Her mom liked to go out late; in fact, I can even remember spending the night there a few times, and walking to school in the morning from there, as well as dropping SkinnyPunk off at daycare. Wow, that feels like yesterday... and now SkinnyPunk has a baby of her own. Unbelievable!

[Queen of Cups]

I made $8/hour babysitting in college plus a $5-10 tip on top of that usually. I was in great demand... (There was a certain politician that stiffed me and only paid $6/hour, so I certainly won't be voting for him if he runs for president in 2008!) I think the biggest factor in how much babysitters get paid is where they are located in the country. I doubt babysitters make that much here in Kansas.

So, DH gave Killy a coffee bean this morning and he ate it! He wasn't really any wilder than usual, though. We went to an Asian Culture festival at the library my sister works at and everyone fell in love with my kids. It was cute! We also met a woman who had a 3.5 year old and she though Killy was the same age as her daughter. She was SHOCKED to find out he wasn't quite 2 years old yet, and commented on how big and how talkative he was. (I guess the speech therapy is paying off!) Then, she was shocked to see Ellie sitting up and playing with toys at only 5 months old.

OMG, I just found out today that the Organic Truffles from Whole Foods are dairy free. I'm in heaven!

[Doodlebugsmom]

We pay our babysitter $10/hr. She's a child development major at the university in our town. She's awesome, and well worth $10/hr. She usually comes once a week for 3 hours or so. I would've killed for an extra $30/week when I was in college. The kids just love her. I don't expect her to get much cleaning done, but the house is never trashed when we get home. So, if they get out a bunch of toys, she must help them clean it up.

In other news, ds began asking to sit on the potty last week. The first few days, he didn't do anything. Now he pees on there numerous times each day. I'm pretty amazed since I never mentioned it to him at all. He decided on his own.

Queenie, we've caught ds slurpping espresso from a near empty cup of dh's. We've also caught him sucking the last drops of Guiness from a can sitting on the counter! He also will ask for sips of coffee when we have some. I've never noticed that it makes him any wilder than usual!

Erin hasn't posted in a while. Wonder how she's doing?

[dharmama]

Erin hasn't posted in a while. Wonder how she's doing?

She's huge and grouchy...and two days past her due date!!

Oh and Lil randomly asked for her potty this morning too. I had put it away in the closet because she was getting so upset every time I asked her if she wanted to use it.

Today she asked for it and sat on it but didn't do anything. She was quite happy about sitting on it though.

[LizD]

I think $10 an hour is fairly standard, depending on whom you're hiring. We paid our friend's son six, at his request, when he was 16 and couldn't drive. And dd was so old by then (7) all he had to do was get picked up, she'd already be in bed, usually, and listen to all our old LPs until he fell asleep on the couch. Pretty good gig when a non-driver has few options besides working in his mom's preschool.

Bella is a real doll baby, I mean she looks like a doll.

Sad news. Our dear cat who's been with dh for seventeen years finally passed away last night at around 4 am. He was weak and barely moving for many hours, and then at the very end he seemed to have a stroke and some kind of seizure. I think dh probably feels he suffered, but I really don't think he knew what was happening by then. I think it was all automatic responses, and he probably wasn't in pain. But dh continued to lie on the floor where he'd been sleeping by him, until late this morning when he moved himself and the cat to the bed, where he remains now. I suppose I shouldn't be worried yet, and we knew he would take it very hard (he has a death phobia into the bargain), but not getting up ten hours after the cat has passed is starting to concern me. I've cried my eyes out a dozen times but as the mother : I still have to make sure people are fed, dishes are done, trips are prepared for.

On top of this our custody-battle houseguest is here with his wife and son. His son is driving us crazy. He has a sweet side but he's definitely got some issues. Doesn't listen at all, is rough with our pets (this is a BIG hot button for me- I think there's something wrong with kids who continue to be rough after they've been told not to. And he's six years old), monopolizes Rowan's toys, doesn't seem to have a clear idea who any of us are and no curiosity about where he is. Then our friend, the dad, is on the one hand saying his wife should be involved with his kid, but as soon as she says something he disagrees with he pulls the "it's-my-son-and-you're-not-a-parent-so-back-off" and I really see her side of things now. Plus which she is from a very large Italian family in Queens, who all live on the same block, so she's honestly got more experience with kids than he has. What a mess. And he's so enthusiastic about getting to play daddy that he's overdoing it, buying model rockets and wondering why his kid just wants to play, and wondering why his wife is angry and not participating in the bedtime routine, and get this: at this moment *she* is threading beads because what her husband decided they would do today is make a birthday present for his little boy's mother! He won't tell his son she's his stepmother, or another mother, or clarify anything, and yet is having her make something for his ex-girlfriend's birthday.

This is very hard to deal with when my mother-in-law is ill, I am supposed to leave town Tuesday, I have been up two nights with a dying cat, and now my husband is in bed with the dead cat and my daughter is hysterical and playing video games to keep from snapping at people. And the vet's voicemail is full so we have to wait until tomorrow to make cremation arrangements. "It's all too much," as the George Harrison song goes. I think this is really too much!

[Mummoth]

Holy crap Liz! I hope things lighten up over there really soon! If you asked your houseguests to scram for a while, so you guys can have some quiet mourning time, would they be respectful of that? It sounds like you really need to be able to just STOP.

We're having a bit of a crazy time, too. DH quit his job. He gave his notice a week and a half ago. His last day was Friday & he told me yesterday morning. At first I just thought he'd booked his vacation time, but no. He's persuing his dream of becoming an unemployed bum He's starting his business. I'm at a total loss as to how to react... as far as I'm concerned he's totally unprepared... he doesn't even have his contractors licence yet! So far all i've come up with is to joke about it & to tell him that since we don't have to come to an agreement before one of us makes a life altering decision anymore, he can expect that we're going to be getting a dog . Yeah... right. He knows I wouldn't go though with that.

[Smithie]

Oh, wow. Major drama in here today.

To add to the drama, after hearing last night that my urinanalysis still showed a trace infection after the last course of antibiotics, and having three "real" contractions at Cirque de Soleil last night - I just put a big dropperful of blue cohosh tincture under my tounge I will NOT get sick again. I will not NOT destroy all the flora I've worked so hard to build up in the 10 days since I went off the abx. Bring it on, baby!

I'm so sorry about the cat, Liz. I think your dh will probably be better off for the hard-core grieving he's doing now, but the timing SUCKS and leaves you totally stranded. He's gonna owe you one.

[LizD]

Thanks, friends. I think I owe him for all my emotional scenes over the years, so I am ok with letting him wallow in it. I like to do that when things are bad too. Wallow, get over, move on.

Good luck Smithie! That stuff is nasty so I hope you don't need to take more of it! Keep us posted!

[3girlsmommy]

Liz- to you and your family. Losing a pet can be as hard as losing a person.

smithie- to you. I hope you have a quick and relitivly soon birth experience!