Making sure daddy is workin hard!
Originally uploaded by alibee09
What I did while Mommy worked
Originally uploaded by alibee09
These two youngish people came to our door today while we were home with a sick kiddo to sell magazine subscriptions. They are “earning money towards college” (wasn’t sure I bought this but… meh) by doing this so after some hemming and hawing, I told them I’d take a subscription to Turtle for Katie.
First shocker: they charge me $62. A subscription to Turtle is $19/yr typically (I found out minutes later). What the hell is the up-charge for?!
Second shocker: while we’re chit-chatting afterward, when I’m already having some “hm” feelings about the whole thing, the girl who is the main talker of the two of them finds out that I’m Jewish and tells me that I’m the “nicest Jew [she's] ever met”. Then goes on to tell me that I’m the FIRST Jew to ever buy a subscription from her because “they hold on tight to their money.” (At this point I would have slammed the door but they were in the house… so I’m standing there going O_o) THEN she tells me that to make herself smile one time in Chicago while doing this door-to-door sales thing, she threw pennies on the ground so she could watch the Orthodox Jews PICK THEM UP. ‘Cause according to her you have to do something to make yourself smile when you hear so many people say “no” to your sales schtick.
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.
Yeah, the second they left I canceled my check and filled out the cancel notice on the subscription, which I will send out in the mail tomorrow.
Max has been sick, with a fever and general lethargy, since Sunday. He has sprouted two new teeth in that time (his top left molar and bottom right pokey vampire tooth), but has generally been a sad panda. Yesterday he developed the pukes so he’s staying home with us today (it’s easier to get work done with two parents tag-teaming). Poor peanut. I actually think he’s on the mend, though, and might be able to go to school tomorrow.
Katie’s ear infection MAY have returned, so we put her on a new med (we stopped the amox cold because it was causing her debilitating stomach cramps). She and I both have a low-level fever and cough, but she’s been able to go to school, except for Tuesday when she stayed at home with us.
I feel like we’re a plague house. Our neighbor had a new baby who I want to see SO BADLY but I don’t want to bring illness over there, waa!
In other news, venti sugar-free mocha! WOO!
Katie last night: “[kisses my hand] I love you Mommy, I marry Mommy. I marry Mommy.”
Katie tonight: “I not your friend, Mommy. I NOT YOUR DAUGHTER!”
How much things change in 24 hours!
Also, Max now makes “vroom” noises when he drives cars and airplanes across the floor. This seriously must be a Y-linked trait because K never, ever did it, even when surrounded by boys.
I spent today home with one legitimately sick child (Max) and one who claimed sickness (and is sick, a little) and who got to stay home because Mommy was staying here anyway (Katie). We watched My Neighbor Totoro two times in a row — like, we literally sat in front of the TV all day long. I’d feel guilty if my people were healthy.
(Day highlight: the kids trying to take care of each other early in the day, when Max petted Katie’s head and she talked to him about how it’s okay to be sick. Day lowlight: when M was melting down because K wouldn’t let me put him down for a nap [she kept coming into the room and riling him up just with her presence] so while I was making lunch, he was crying constantly and she was whining constantly about wanting to help, even though I was asking for her help and she wouldn’t do the simplest task of bringing her step over so she could reach the counter.)
Don’t tell anyone, but Max not only went to sleep on his own with no complaint last night, he slept for 8 hours straight… although he did wake up once. The 8 hours was after that wakeup.
I was nursing Max a few nights ago when I asked him if he wanted to switch sides. We did so, and then I said, “Are you having more?” and he detached, signed “more” to me a couple of times, and then grinned HUGELY with pride, as if to say, “You may have taught me NO BABY SIGNS BUT I LEARNED SOME ANYWAY!!!11one”
It was so incredibly adorable.
I think with Max, I am mentally keeping him a baby longer than I did with Katie, partially because I see the stretch between them in ability and it makes me forget that Max is actually getting pretty old (relative to how old I mentally picture him). This is a weird thing to try to describe, but here goes…
Katie was an early walker (9m). She was a fairly late talker (but not delayed). Max started walking at 12m and I recently noticed that he is talking, and in my head I’m thinking, “Wow! He’s talking so much earlier than K did!” Then I go back and do comparisons and he’s pretty much right where she was at the same time — and then I wonder why I think that he, at 15m, is doing things earlier than she was. I guess it’s because with your first kid, 15m feels old in comparison (your kids’ve only ever been younger than that), while when you have a 3yo and a 15m old, the comparison is different because you know how old 3 feels compared to 15m so now 15m feels young.
Or something.
Either way, I am still blown away by all the things he does, even though I no longer have even a remote feeling of whether or not they’re age-appropriate. :D
Max last night showed me his mad clapping skills in the bath while I was singing “If You’re Happy And You Know It”. I’ve never seen him clap on command like that, so I was totally enamored of how cute it was. He also has mad high-fiveing skills.
His communication skills are completely blowing me away. Since he was at school yesterday while Katie was home, when I picked him up and we left directly from his room, he asked me (using MaxBabyEse) where Katie was, and indicated repeatedly that we needed to go get her. In the car, he also pointed to her seat and said her name to show me that SOMEONE WAS MISSING! This morning, she was sleeping in because two nights of bad sleep had done her in, and when we went into her room he ran up to the side of her bed, pointed to her, and said her name repeatedly.
He’s exhibiting a lot of independence, as well. He’s still a mama’s boy cuddlebug to the extreme, but he also likes it when I put him down so he can walk into school with me and Katie instead of being carried. He LOVES to help and one of his favorite tasks is ferrying things between Brandon and I (this is how we entertained him for half an hour this weekend). When Katie tries to physically get Max to do the things he wants, he is a LOT more vocal about telling her to back off (and we’re helping her figure out when she should do so — mainly, always :) ).
Why stand for a meeting when you could lie down?
Originally uploaded by alibee09
bean at work
Originally uploaded by alibee09
Katie was sick all weekend — Saturday her eye started gooping up, Saturday night she had a fever and vomited (once) and was pretty much up nearly constantly, and even though we were low-key yesterday, she was up nearly constantly last night. She kept waking up telling us that her ear hurt, and since she was consistently complaining about it being her right one, B took her to the doc this morning (Mommy has no time off left) and it turns out she’s got her very first ear infection. Clearly she inherited my kick-ass ears that rarely get infected since it took until she was 3, and she’s being a little trooper about it (she even got Max a sticker at the doc’s office), but I’m sad for my poor peanut :(
Update: B dropped her off at school so he could go to work for a meeting from 11-1 and they almost instantly called me and told me that she was crying intermittently the entire time from ear pain, so I got her and took her out to special lunch (McDonald’s) and then brought her to work. She played with her Happy Meal toy and drew on a white board and was generally borderline delirious (someone needs a nap to make up for the lack of sleep last night and the night before) but really good and sweet. Then B picked her up! :D
At least I thought I did before I googled the guy right before I started this blog entry.
I stopped at Starbucks to use a gift card and was telling the barista how happy I was today, and how it was turning into a Rebecca Black sort of Friday. That led us to talking about the song (he is a musician) and this guy behind me asked me if I was a voice teacher (I was saying that most offensive to any musician would probably be the use of autotune in that song). I was like, uh, no, I’m an engineer. Then he started asking me if I did side jobs and app development, and then invited me to his 40th birthday, told me that he’s a celebrity chef, he’s an executive producer for a band, called me “sweetheart” and “darling” repeatedly, and was pretty much doing a full-court press.
Well, at least, I thought he was, until I just googled him and found out that he’s married with kids. But still! I felt for a minute that he was thinking I was quality MILF material. AW YEAH. Even if he didn’t think that, I’m totally going with it.
In other news, I am an obnoxiously cheery machine of doom today — except that my ears aren’t working. I literally cannot understand what anyone is saying today for some reason. (The guy was telling me his name and I could not understand him — of course, he said his name was Chef XXX; later a coworker was talking about it being Friday and I thought she was saying we’re having a fire drill today. What?!)
For the past two nights, I’ve nursed Max, put him down completely awake (standing) in his bed, and he has, with only a small amount of whining, gone to bed on his own. (The first night he laid down on my arm in his crib, which was adorable.) The middle of the night has been a little rougher — Brandon was up with him for quite a while before I got up, nursed him, and he went to sleep on his own the first night; the second night B took him in the front room and fell asleep with him, because he was worried about waking us up — but overall, he’s only getting up about 2x/night (to sleep at 7:30, up 12 and 4-5ish).
Apparently, he’s ready for this! Yay! It makes me feel stupidly awesome that I’m not having to resort to letting him cry, and that I have regained patience about the process. (NOT JUDGING CIO PARENTS HERE, ftr.)
Also, he’s 10 days to 16m, yo! My little blonde cuddlebug is not a baby anymore! *cries*
(Also: yesterday in the car he pointed to his foot and said “sock”.)
K: Mommy!
Me: Yes, darling?
K: I’m not darling! I’m Katie!
Me: I’m calling you “darling” like sometimes I call you “honey” or “sweetiepie”.
K: I’m not Santi’s mom! I’m Katie!
(Santi’s mom’s name is Darlene. I literally laughed.)
K: Why I not have school today?
Me: Because today is a holiday celebrating the life of a man who just wanted everyone to be treated fairly.
K: *ponders* Oh, is today his birthday?
Katie has also entered into the “why” phase — however, with me, she actually stops, while with Brandon it turns into a circle of “why”. I think it’s because I am less interesting in that I will actually continue to tell her “why” or ask for clarification as to what she’s “why”ing about and then try to explain. :)
Being “present” (although not in the right states, according to you people, heh heh) is going really well so far! Katie is being much more communicative and trying to express her needs better, Max is of course thrilled because he’s Mr. Happy Pants. Even Brandon seems to like the extra attention. The only problem is that by 5pm on a weekend, I’m about to lose my s*&# because that’s the time when both of them stop really attempting to behave and start chasing each other around and pressing every sing;e button I have, and I become utterly overwhelmed by the mess, and blah blah blah. Working on it, yo.
Max is amazingly able to follow directions. If you ask him for a kiss he leans his head into your face; if you ask him to do something (get something or put something away), almost always, he will. He’s great in trying to get me to do certain things for him, too — and he thanks me in babyese. I’m sort of overwhelmed at how responsive he is, especially because I keep thinking he’s a baby when he’s really not; he’s just not verbal yet. His daycare teachers are surprised at how quick he picks things up (they’ve told me they are, at least ;) ). I think I’ve got two smartypants children, ack!
B and I got digital frames for our desks and going through the photos yesterday to throw some (~215) pictures on them made me verklempt. I could, in each baby, recognize the toddlers and kids they’ve become, which made me start searching their faces for what they’ll look like when they get a little older. One thing is for sure: they’re TROUBLE!
We’ve recently been watching “Gnomeo and Juliet” via Netflix streaming. While I actually really dig the movie, one thing is bugging/amusing to me: the Elton John tie in. (BTW, I adore Elton John pre-90s, so I enjoy grooving to this flick for reasons beyond the good storyline.)
Some of the songs are meh… typical Elton John movie fodder.
Hello Hello, Love Builds A Garden, Tiny Dancer: Okay, fairly tame love songs. Tiny Dancer is especially cute in a movie about garden gnomes.
Crocodile Rock: Also fairly tame song about the 50s/60s. It seems out of place but … okay, no harm, no foul, gives the gnomes something to rock out to.
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart: I only find this song disturbing because I have been forever scarred by the bizarre interplay between Elton John and Kiki Dee in the song’s video, particularly when he kisses the front of her overalls. Seriously, this has stuck with me since I first saw this when I was like, 5.
Then it starts to get interesting. Tybalt and Gnomeo are about to race lawn mowers and they start playing Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting). Choice lyrics from said song: “my old man is drunker than a barrel full of monkeys and my old lady she don’t care”, “get about as oiled as a diesel train”, etc. The song is a rockin’ homage to good ol’ boys getting f’d up on booze, grabbing at women, and fighting each other. TOTALLY APPROPRIATE FOR A DISNEY MOVIE.
Rocket Man: There’s really no fathomable reason for this song to be in this movie at all. I mean, I like the song, but it’s got NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING.
One song in particular is brilliant: Paris (aka Stephen Merchant) sings a gnomized version of Your Song to Juliet, during which he turns into 70s-era Elton, complete with rhinestone glasses. Also, the inclusion of Bennie and the Jets is cutesy because one of the gnomes is named Bennie.
Anyway, Katie has taken to this movie in a big way. Her favorite thing to do right now is tell me she’s a gnome and then she suddenly freezes in a silly position when I look at her (like the gnomes do in the presence of people). It’s adorable.
My new, big resolution for this year, and the coming ones, is: be more present.
I have a ridiculously short attention span. Thanks to the advent of handheld devices and smart phones (I mean Palm Pilots, first gen Treos, and the like) I have actually become even worse at being present for even brief swaths of time — during our daily 15m standup I check my work email, during training I might read a quick news article, while giving the kids a bath I will peruse Facebook. Brandon is as bad — my addiction is social networking (blogs, Twitter, FB, etc) while his is games (insert the name of any game here). However, I realized that for my kids, I really need it to stop.
Katie was in the bath and I was reading a book while she played. In the corner of my eye I watched her fill up a boat with water, open the shower door, and then dump the water all over the floor. I turned to her and said, strongly, “Katie, WHAT are you doing?” She notably flinched, gave me a rote apology, and then we had a brief power struggle where I explained to her why what she did was not okay and she got mad at me for having scared her. When I was describing this incident later, though, it occurred to me that really, this wasn’t a problem with Katie — it was a problem with ME. She was clearly deeply engaged in imaginative play and wasn’t thinking about consequences at the time (seeing that she’s THREE, this isn’t atypical) and the entire incident could have been avoided if I’d actually been interacting with her or at least paying closer attention to her instead of spending her bath reading a book. A simple redirection before the fact (“let’s not dump that out of the tub!”) and she would have been on her way; instead, she made me frustrated, I scared her and that emotional burst caused her to scream angrily at me, and an otherwise pleasant bath ended on a rough note.
My initial excuse to myself is that by the end of the day, I’m mentally exhausted, and being present is HARD. But then I immediately chastise myself — my kids only get a few hours of my attention a day, since I work. Why can’t I make myself fully available to them during those hours? I know, without a doubt, that Katie and Max both are better-behaved and happier when I am fully focused on them instead of giving them rote responses and only half of my attention. They deserve to believe that they are contributing members of our family and that what they say matters. (It’s always been a pet peeve of mine when parents ignore their children’s requests for attention during discussions; I’m not saying that we need to always acquiesce to things like “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” but I think we need to acknowledge that they are asking for our attention and that we will give it to them when appropriate.) They deserve to have their mother’s attention for the few hours they ask for it each day, even if those are the most difficult times of the day (the tired+hungry times). Eventually they won’t want anything to do with me anyway, right?
Damnit, I’m going to make this time count!
Katie art!
Originally uploaded by alibee09
