Friday bits

1) this sign has been up in the bathrooms at work for EEVER, and every time I see it, it makes me giggle.

2) I hate my sister. I wish I could go into more depth, but she is draining my entire family of any empathy. It's no longer about love or forgiveness or understanding. It's about self-preservation and I'm sick of ignoring what she puts people through.

3) I wish my mother could hate her too - it would be so much healthier for her.

4) the gasparilla 5k is tomorrow morning. My friend's wedding is tomorrow night. I'm doing both. So is the friend who is getting married, as well as a few of the bridesmaids.

5) I stayed out too late last night at my monthly girls' night/play date, but I had so much fun. I did feel guilty leaving early before Spencer got up this morning because I know it was rough for him and daddy. He didn't go to sleep until after 10pm. He was having too much fun too!

6) as of an hour from now, my husband will be officially laid off. I'm nervous.

7) I had a horrible headache today, and I broke down and had a soda. And it was a cherry coke zero, and it was heaven.

8) I'm reading a fascinating book right now: Listen, by Rene Gutteridge. It was a free or cheap book from Nook a couple weeks ago. Not sure where it's going yet, but I can't wait to find out. In the meantime I have so many books waiting in the wings I almost wish I was the one jobless so I had time to read them all.

9) pretend I didn't say that. Then find me some wood to knock on.

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Scenes from the backseat

Me: Happy Valentine's day, Spencer. I have a surprise for you at home.
Spencer: What is it?
Me: You'll have to see when we get home.
Spencer: What is it? A new computer?

---

Me: I'm the momma, and therefore I'm the boss.
Spencer: (hangs head) I can't wait until I'm the mommy.
Me: You don't want to be the daddy?
Spencer: No. I don't like to be daddy. I will be mommy.

---

(Henry is crying)
Spencer: Momma, my baby's crying.
Me: I know, sweetheart.
Spencer: Can you stop him crying? I can't hear the music.

---

S: I had to go back and give Nora a hug and big kiss
M: Is Nora your girlfriend? (Note: Nora is the only girl over 6 months in the daycare)
S: Yes … oh, no no no. Nora’s not my girlfriend. Momma, you’re my girlfriend.
M: I’m your girlfriend?
S: Yes, yes you are.

---

M: What did you do at Pama's today?
S: I had oatmeal and watched tv and ate spaghetti o's and watCHED TV!
(obviously he felt those were the highlights at Grandma's house)

Me? Quick update?

It is probably inadvisable to take your newly-out-of-surgery mother up on her offer to watch the kids while they’re “sleeping” (ha) to go out to lunch, but we did and it was heaven. Bahama Breeze, booth overlooking the water, sunshine and low humidity … I think I love you. That was Sunday.

I took a 4-day weekend this past Friday through Monday, as I was off for President’s Day on Monday and my mom’s surgery was Friday. It was much needed and actually quite relaxing. Mom’s surgery went well, and I spent most of Friday in the hospital with her: reading when she was sleeping, bringing her coffee and just hanging out.

Saturday I ran my first 5k since the end of January due to all the sickness and stress and it was not a pretty sight but I was glad to have done it. My body can run it but my lungs can’t keep up. Mile times: 12.31, 13.41, 14.23. I ran again on Monday morning and did much better: 11.19, 13.03, 13.11. I know you don’t care about these things, but it’s important to me for posterity, or something. This Saturday is the Gasparilla 5k and I’m excited because when I made my resolution to run the Gasparilla 5k, I thought it would be the first time I would have run that far. And it’s not. And it won’t be the last time either, because not I have not only signed up for additional races in April, May, October and November but just today I signed up for on in March also! I’m still hoping that I’ll be ready to attempt 10k by November, but either way I’m running. I just don’t know how far yet.

I did a pill cleanse last week to try to jump start my weight loss again, since I’ve been teetering between 10 and 12lbs lost for nearly a month. It did help and I got down 17lbs, but now I need to re-evaluate my portion size. No seconds doesn’t really help if you pile up the first plate, right?

I finally put the bumpers in Henry’s crib last night since he’s mobile enough for me not to be worried about him suffocating himself in them. He slept all the way through the night last night, nearly 11 hours. I’m hoping it’s not a fluke but I suspect it is. I’m still in a constant argument with the Hubby on letting him cry a bit. This is his baby. He does not want his baby to cry. While I understand this, we let Spencer cry it out and he was sleeping through the night at 4 months. And that was my baby. And S sleeps through Henry’s crying even though they’re in the same room, so it’s not like he’s being disturbed either. Ugh. I don’t know, it’s a constant struggle. And I want some sleep instead of arguing in the middle of the night.

It was a productive weekend and also a relaxing one: I finally got the Christmas stuff to the attic, some of Spencer's old toys down from the attic for Henry, the house cleaned, the laundry done, the garage cleaned, the toilets cleaned ... and also made time to turn the sprinklers on for the kids, hit President's Day sales, take my mom to a traditional birthday lunch at the beach (seriously, you haven't lived if you haven't had Frenchy's she crab soup) and had the aforementioned mini-date with my Hubby (which also may have involved more President's Day shopping, wine shopping and a stop at Whole Foods. When we live, we live dangerously).

So the moral is, all’s well on this front! Here's a picture of Henry enjoying the sprinklers, and I swear that's enjoyment on his face (click photo for full effect):

Star Bright

Spencer is not allowed to sleep in my bed with us. He is allowed to climb into it when he wakes up in the morning to cuddle, and he’s allowed to watch TV snuggled up under the covers before bedtime, but he is not allowed to sleep through the night in my bed. The reason is that he’s a TERRIBLE SLEEPER when he’s within arm’s reach of anybody (this does not bode well for 20 years from now). He’s always been this way, a restless sleeper, a kicker, a hitter, a sleep-sideways-so-feet-touch-daddy-and-feet-touch-mommy. In his own bed he sleeps like the dead (even through Cry-It-Out with his brother). In mine? Not so much.

Every once in awhile though, like last night, I’ll let him fall asleep there with the caveat that he knows he will get moved when daddy comes to bed. And every once in awhile, I’m tired enough to go to bed too. So we lay there and talk before one of us (me) falls asleep.

The prior owners put a butt-load of stars on the ceiling in my room over the bed and we’ve never scraped them off, mostly because after the initial shock of seeing them there, we stopped noticing. Spencer, though, since he’s rarely in our room with the lights off notices every time.

This was the conversation last night:

“Star light, star bright, I wish I wish I wish on THAT one” (he points to a random star)
“I wish on that one!” (I point to a random star) “I wish that we have a great day tomorrow, Spencer. What do you wish?”
“I wish for … you!”

A few minutes later, there is whispering:

“and that one’s a banana, and that one’s an apple”
“are you naming the stars after fruit?”
“yeah. That big one’s a banana.”
“and raspberries, and strawberries …”
“and blueberries. That one’s blue, it’s a blueberry”
“And tomato. Tomatoes are fruit.”
“No, tomatoes aren’t fruit. Tomatoes are dinner.”
“They are fruit.”
“No …” (he’s laughing at me. I mean, really – tomato? Fruit?)

We stopped for a few minutes and I started nodding off and heard this:

“and bananas, and blueberries, and salad is fruit. Tomato fruit, salad fruit. Chicken fruit.”

Do you think if I start calling things fruit, he’ll eat it again? I’m thinking no for greens still.

Wednesday Whines

Let's have a look at my amazingly adorable baby:


Unfortunately, this is more like what he looks like lately:


And this:


Teething's a bitch.
But man, those are some cute angry faces.

TOT - Summer edition

1. Any vacations you are looking forward to this summer? Why, YES! I've decided to go to Delaware in July or August for a long weekend for a friend's wedding shower/bachelorette party.

2. What is your favorite article of summer clothing (shoes are included)? I'd say flip flops but I really wear them in the dead of winter, but I'm self conscious in shorts, tank tops, bathing suits ... okay, flip flops it is! Actually, at the end of summer I bought a bathing suit that I'm actually excited to wear this year, especially if I could get a little bit more in to shape.

3. What is your favorite summer drink (alcoholic or non)? orange juice smoothies.

4. Do you tan or burn? I do not change color. I go from transparent blue to pasty white, and back again.

5. Any goals you are working toward this summer? I'd like my husband to find a job he wants (new old job ends in two weeks), I want my deck built, and I want to drop another pants size (or two).

6. What is your favorite summertime food? guacamole. But that's a year-long-lovefest-to-summer food.

7. What song most says “summer” to you? Hmmm ... Baz Luhrman's Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen?

8. Any home improvement goals planned for this summer? Deck! Deckie deck deck! Woot, deck! Did I mention I want my deck built? Maybe (ahem) sooner than summer?

9. What is one thing you hate to see at the beach? dog poop in the sand.

10. Did you ever go to a summer camp? I went to summer day camp. Not nearly as cool.

For more TOT, see Chelsea.

Happy Valentine’s day from the land of 67 degrees!

It’s beautiful here. A little chilly for my taste still; I would prefer a solid 70 degrees. Still, it would have been criminal to stay inside all weekend so we spent a good deal of time on Saturday and Sunday outside playing or laying around on a blanket in the front yard (I really wonder what my neighbors think of me, but at least I’m not sitting in folding chairs in my garage) … This of course means that still very little cleaning got done, but since I wasn’t inside to see it I didn’t really mind.

We had a collection of restaurant.com gift certificates, so we ate out for THREE meals this weekend. Saturday morning we headed out to The Brunchery where I had my favorite (fattening) breakfast: A Bayshore Benedict. Croissant, scrambled eggs, bacon, asparagus and hollandaise sauce. I at least skipped the home fries and had sliced tomatoes on the side. We went to the playground for a bit and laid out on the blanket and I read and took photos of the kids before heading to dinner with family to celebrate Spencer’s birthday. Isn’t that great? He couldn’t care less about where we ate (he really doesn’t eat dinner anyhow) so I got to pick and I chose one of my favorite restaurants – Stonechase. They have this salad that has gorgonzola cheese, apples, grapes, candied walnuts, fire-grilled chicken … oh, I dream of that salad. This was where I chose to eat dinner the day I came home from the hospital with Henry. I heart Stonechase.

Sunday was rather uneventful during the day. Henry has been teething and he’s a cranking SOB, especially at night so nobody has been getting a lot of sleep (especially not my husband, bless him). I let him sleep and took both the kids grocery shopping. Did you know it only costs $1.25 to get a kid’s hot chocolate at Starbucks? And they can make it not-so-hot? I always have arguments with Spencer over sitting in the cart, but since it was just me and two of them there was no way I could let him walk so I promised him a hot chocolate and a muffin while we shopped and he was in toddler heaven. He made a mess, but I needed to wash his jacket anyhow so I zipped it up tight and let him go to town. My dad and his girlfriend came over in the late morning and brought Spencer his birthday present – several train sets from Ikea. I now have tracks all over my living room. At least he’s having fun.

My mom came over in the evening to babysit and Hubby and I went on a rare date night. We really didn’t think of it as a Valentine’s Day thing, but just a date night. We had another restaurant.com certificate for a tapas restaurant called Vizcaya so we had a half pitcher of sangria and stuffed prawns and stuffed dates and deviled crab and chorizo with cheese sauce and wild rabbit in a mushroom sauce … sorry, I had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. We also went to see The Fighter, which at least begins my NY resolution of seeing 6 movies in the theater. Very good, I would recommend (although I feel obligated to inform you that Christian Bale is not attractive as a crackhead, and also THANK GOD acid-washed jeans went out of style).

Today I’m back on the exercise/eating right wagon after the indulgent weekend – I ran/walked 1.5 miles in 20 minutes this morning on the treadmill (5.3mph 1.0 incline for total of 10 minutes, 4.0mph/3.5mph at 3.5 incline for 10 minutes) and then did some arm exercises on the weight machine. I’ve been toggling between 10 and 12 lbs lost for the last 3 weeks and can’t seem to get out of that rut, so it’s time for some drastic hunger pains. Think I can drink a gallon of water a day? I have my doubts.

Swinging on a saturday

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Camptown races sing that song

It’s been a little crazy around here and I haven’t had time to a) upload photos and b) do anything more with the computer besides refreshing Facebook 1,871 times an hour. So in two parts, here I am typing and later I will upload photos for the full effect.


Spencer turned three on Tuesday – THREE! Where does the time go? We got him a floor puzzle of Cat in the Hat (Top and the Hat to him), Candyland (conveniently left at my IL’s house for safekeeping) and a Fisher Price iXL video game system. My in-laws for once did not outdo us, and got him a bunch of clothes and a couple pairs of shoes, an educational game and a little ATV that professes to go 2mph … but there’s no way that it does that. It’s like 2 steps down from a Power Wheel, so he loves it and I’m not worried about him going 8mph into a tree. That comes next year. He loves his “bideo game”, and this morning I showed him how to play it a little better so now he’s playing the games and writing his letters and numbers to his heart’s content.



Henry is still sick, but he is a little snugglepuss when he’s sick so I’ve gotten a lot of cuddle time. We’ve been alternating between holding until bed and a bit of the Ferber system, but I don’t really feel up to doing that full steam until his nose is a little clearer because all that crying just makes things worse. He has been sleeping better through the night though. Not all the way, but we’re getting there. He’s had a fever for nearly a week, but when we took Spencer to his three-year check up, we snuck Henry in for a check too and they couldn’t find anything actually wrong with him, so we’re just on a Tylenol regimen for a couple more days. I think teeth. And a cold. And a miserable combination of the two.

He’s nearly 6 months old and we’re still not on any food other than formula. We’ve tried cereal, and bananas with cereal but he’s not that interested and I’m not interested in fighting it so we keep putting things off. He’s not hurting for food, that’s for sure – he’s a whopping 18.4lbs as of yesterday. He’s constantly up on his hands and knees trying to get around, and although he’s not technically “crawling”, he knows how to rock himself violently enough to scoot the back end of him forward and he gets around that way. It’s really truly insane how fast he’s progressing.

So let’s review:

Work – better, lower stress (and Suz, I know you hated working in my field but I actually quite like it so no offense … I couldn’t be a high school teacher, so there –ha!)

Home – better, less fights with Spencer, more cuddles with Henry. More take-out because I haven’t had time to cook but I’m making good choices there too. Mmmm grilled chicken Greek salad with no dressing or potato salad …

My house – a disaster zone. Seriously, my house is atrocious. I vacuum almost every day because Henry’s on the floor most of the time but otherwise? Stacks of paper everywhere, laundry day is every day, dirty pots and pans … oye. Maybe I’ll get on that tonight. Ha. I’ve let go a little, and it’s made things a lot easier (those who don’t actually know me, I’m a little anal about keeping my house picked up AT ALL TIMES).

Exercise – last week I didn’t exercise at all, not one single day. This week I’ve gone to the gym at work two days, and I’m going tomorrow, and hopefully Saturday I can get out in the morning for a long run or bike ride. I’m failing miserably at running for a solid 20 minutes without walking but I’m going to keep trying. I’m not giving up!

My mom – still needs surgery next week, but I think she’s getting to be in better spirits about it. She volunteered to babysit on Sunday so Hubby and I can get out for a date, so she’s obviously feeling okay enough to lift a 20lbs baby and play with Spencer (her favorite thing to do).

Crying Uncle

They put me on heavy antibiotics last week that I took for a few days and then stopped taking them because, well, they were too heavy duty for that yogurt thing to work and I wasn't having it. However now I have an earache and I'm wondering if I finished the antibiotics if it would clear that up too, so I have a stop by a drugstore for other medicine so that I can comfortably take the rest of those antibiotics. While I was there I also got infant Advil and more gripe water, and I'm hoping maybe that combination will get us through somewhat of a decent night's sleep tonight. He choked on the gripe water and threw up some of it so I'm not sure how much he ingested; he might get some more before bed but right now HE'S SLEEPING. I strapped him to me in my Mai tai carrier while I walked around the house doing nothing and he passed out so I've transferred him to his swing for a nap.

Let me tell you how much of a debbie downer I feel like lately. I don't really want to be around people because I feel like all I can do is complain these days. I don't smile, I don't laugh. All these things that happen aren't really happening to ME (well, okay, the strep and subsequent ear issue, but that on its own is no real big deal) but the stress of it all hits me like a Mack truck and I don't want to deal with anything. The thing is, I think I'd be better if I would be around other people instead of just hanging out at home fighting with the kids and watching the rain.

Henry's issues aside, both the kids have been so sweet and cute these days. Spencer is addicted to the shower - every day we come home from daycare and he wants a shower. Well, really he wants a bath but I won't let him stay in by himself so he gets a shower so I can continue to do stuff and he just plays for a half hour. I know it's a waste of water but he loves it, gets him clean, and I don't have to deal with the tv or him under my feet or complaining about this and that. We've been having a lot of power struggles, but what three year old doesn't. Today at Target he pouted and said, "I can't wait until I can be the Mommy." ha! He can be the mommy all he wants! Henry is crawling around slowly on hands and knees already and can't wait to follow his big brother around.

My mom is having a second surgery a week from Friday. They found cancer in all the lymph nodes that they took out, so they are going back in and are taking all the lymph nodes on that side. I thought she was starting to get herself together and starting to feel better about the whole thing, and now she's down again. Somehow I don't think she's going to bounce back quite as quickly from this surgery as she did the last one (she had been planning on going back to work today) but I hope she regains her spirits.

And Friday my friends' baby passed away. He was eight months old, and was a beautiful, sweet spirit. His memorial is tomorrow and I'm taking off early to go to it. I can't stay long because Spencer's birthday is also tomorrow but I feel it's important to me and to the family that I go. There's nothing I can say, Jonah was a beautiful, amazing little boy.

And that's it. Next post I'll be more upbeat, I promise.

PS- did I just tell you about my yogurt dilemmas? What in creation is wrong with me?

Wee

Here I am coming at you in the wee hours of the morning again. This time I have given up after 1 hour and 45 minutes of solid screaming and trying to will Henry to not wake anyone else up in the house (which was not happening, BTW) and I've now laid him in his crib, carried Number 1 out to sleep on the couch and I'm just done. He doesn't cry himself to sleep and instead just works himself into a state so I've been reticent about the whole CIO thing with him but now I'm floating on about 34 minutes of sleep before he decided to get back up and I can't do any more. He has had tylenol, and mylicon, and OH MY GOD WHY DIDN"T ANYONE REMIND ME ABOUT TEETHING?

At least that's what I assume it is. For all I know he has ear infections that he didn't have last week when I dragged him into the doctor for his cold but the substitute daycare lady said he's teething and by God, I'll agree.

And let's stop for a minute so I can tell you how much I like the substitute daycare lady? I wish she was an all-the-time one. She's one of those women who's youngish but you know she has 10 children and 25 grandchildren and loves each one of them to death but doesn't take any nonsense from anyone. And that's what kids need.

It's raining like the dickens out there - I love it. I wish I could sleep through it and I also wish my husband would take his butt to sleep and let me deal with things since it's my night and I just get more frustrated when he comes out to take over things since it's not changing anything. I'm tired, I'm irritable and damn it someone should get some sleep around here.

At least Spencer is conked out.

The little bits

It's 12:19am and I'm still awake. Why, you ask? I have no-freaking-idea. Henry keeps waking up, but truthfully I'm taking care of it because I still haven't fallen asleep. I have a great big headache, probably because I'm over tired and I haven't had my glasses on in two hours since I started trying to go to bed. So this is me, not really trying to go to bed.

-- my mom went home Thursday while I was at work. I can't decide if she had enough of me or just wanted to go home, but she called me at work and asked me if I minded. When I got home I realized she left her cookies, her tums, a key to i-don't-know-where and her shoes. Obviously she left in a hurry.

-- Henry stopped army-crawling and is now up on hands and knees rocking his way to putting Momma in an early grave. I have video. Sometimes he rocks too far and face-plants. Mark my words, he'll be fully crawling by Sunday. Which is 2 full weeks before he turns six months old.

-- Did you know eating yogurt helps prevent yeast infections when you're on antibiotics? Why has it taken 30 years for anyone to tell me this?

-- I still haven't blogged about my first 5k. It was hard. It was very hard. I felt very accomplished once I finished though. And I have another one in 3 1/2 weeks and I haven't ran since Sunday and there are a whole lot of my friends at this one so I'd like not to embarrass myself but I'm not sure if that's possible. And BTW, "trail run" with "challenge" in the title=not a beginner's race. Who knew we had terrain like that in Florida?

-- Spencer bit a kid at daycare on Wednesday. And then he said he didn't do it. Kid, you have one tooth. They can tell if it was you. "No Bites, No Fights" is going to be my mantra ... again. He's only done this once before, and it was the same kid about 10 months ago. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it.

-- I think I'm going to try to sleep now. I think I had more to say but it's burned somewhere in the part of my brain that's already asleep.

OH! I made it to the week's Top 10 for BBL this week! Too bad I gained 2 lbs back while not eating because I had strep. Everyone else gets sick, loses weight. I can't even eat (I'm serious, I couldn't eat) and I gain 2 lbs. It's nice to see a Top 10 even though it's unlikely to last. Not giving up though!

Thursday links

Because I'm going back to work today (kicking and screaming) and because everyone needs some comic relief after watching CNN for any length of time over the last 36 hours, I bring you these:

Dance your cares away, worry's for another day ..

It was another rough night last night, and at 3am I took another hot shower and drove to Walgreen's to get some Chloraseptic for my throat while I set my mom up with Henry and a bottle. Today we're doing better though, all of us on all fronts. I'm finally no longer contagious (the RN said 24 hours after I started taking antibiotics) so I stripped the beds and towels and I'm running laundry (six loads including my comforter - where did all this laundry come from? I swear I just did it!). My mom and I got out for a little while for formula (and cookies) and I got this awesome little contraption:

I was going to look for a garlic press, because I spent most of my adult life using jarred minced garlic even though I KNOW fresh tastes better because I hate to mince it. But then I ran out and I had a head of garlic anyhow from making garlic chips so I've been on a fresh garlic kick. But I hate to mince it so I thought I would try a garlic press even though I knew they press a lot of the juice out and you still have to run a knife through it anyhow ... BUT THIS THING WORKS AWESOMELY! We came home and I made an egg scramble for lunch - onions, mushrooms, spinach, ham, cheddar, egg/eggwhite combo and I stuck a clove of garlic in there, rolled it back and forth and Voila! Minced! I'm so excited I'm wondering what else I can stick garlic in.

I'm making this pot roast tonight. I'm not a fan of beef roasts because I don't think they often have enough flavor and I really don't like gravy (juices yes, gravy no). I plan on also making these potatoes and brussel sprouts with bacon. Yum!

I felt so helpless yesterday, not being able to help my mom with much of anything. Today though, I realize that she doesn't need me to actually do anything for her but just to help if she needs it. She'll be going home tomorrow or Friday, and she'll need to do things for herself but she needs me to be there in case she can't figure it out for herself. I can do that. In the meantime I can feed her and do laundry.

What? You say there's still work sitting on my dining room table that needs to be done?

Sick again and other goings on

Look at that face: it's enough to make you feel better, isn't it? My mom had her surgery on Monday, and last night after visiting her I started getting run down and feverish. I'm a terrible baby about being sick anyhow, but I had a bit of a meltdown since my mom was supposed to be recovering at my house Tuesday from major surgery and I was contageous. Fun.

We're quite a pair, my mom and I. She's crying about having one boob, I'm having meltdowns about not being able to properly take care of her. The thought of changing her drain is making me physically ill but I can't tell her that.

Tonight I made the greek pitas. Tomorrow I think I'm making pot roast and I think I'm making lasagna on thursday but otherwise I just don't know. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by then.

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