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Friday, August 31, 2007

Says it all...




...I should point out that my mom's maiden name is Uber ("yoo-ber", Americanized). But still. Self-esteem through T-Shirts, baby.

Ooops, and one for the kiddo:
If you don't listen to Weird Al it's not nearly as cool. But then, YOU'RE not nearly as cool either!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

9 Months!

Maddie had her 9 month doctor's appointment on Monday. She's doing really well. They were happy with her development; crawling, pulling up, babbling a blue streak. Growth-wise, she is pretty much dead-on 50th percentile. She had some lab work done today, standard stuff to check for anemia and other nasty issues, but that's just a precaution. (PS - Mommy lesson learned: Always take 2 adults along to get baby's blood work done, and have one sit in the back with baby on the way home. Otherwise, baby will pull the bandage off in the car and get blood on lots of stuff. Less than fun.)

In the news, she's figured out how to get from crawling to sitting, and vice versa. So now she can crawl everywhere, then sit and enjoy the view. She's also discovered the "Tupperware cabinet". It's a source of endless entertainment for everybody in the house. She's also learned to pull up with no help by climbing on Mommy, Daddy, and Max. We're waiting for the night she pulls up in the crib and can't figure out how to get back down. :-)

Monday, August 27, 2007

"Girls Really Do Prefer Pink!" and Other Lies Barbie Told Me

Since the moment I found I was having a girl, I've been thrilled with the idea. Never had any brothers, and for some reason (I'm mean?) I find myself correcting my little boy students easily twice as much as my little girl students. Perhaps I'm prejudiced. Perhaps my little boys have been raised with a "boys will be boys" attitude, whereas the little girls at my school have been raised to cross their legs and speak when spoken to. (I'm going with that one. You can't imagine how many families have fabulous older daughters and horrendous younger brothers, or vice versa!) Still, I LOVE raising my girl. And she will be receiving a play TOOL CHEST for Christmas. And a train set. And a Tonka truck or two.

But my major struggle has been with her clothing. I will not raise a 'pink girl'. I won't do it. Damn it, she will not be a Barbie, even if she is fortunate enough to inherrit her Aunt Laura's long legs and tiny waist instead of her mommy's, uh, 'good birthing hips'. For showers I requested as many gender-neutral clothes as possible, masking my dislike for the color pink as a desire to be frugal (I could use these clothes for baby #2, who may be a boy and not too into wearing little frilly pink bibs). For her first major public outing, a big Christmas Eve party and church, I dressed my precious 1 month-old in pale blue velvet. However, it gets harder and harder as she grows to find un-pink clothing, and some of the stuff out there is downright sickening. Target has some cute stuff that's less obnoxious. Pink pants, dotted with black, purple, and green flowers, and a matching white onsie that says "Mommy's Little Night Owl" underneath a purple owl. This I can do. I'm a sucker for funny messages on baby's shirts. As long as the words "shop" or "princess" aren't included.
Of course, to sock it to me, Maddie has more of my husband's coloring right now, and looks absolutely fabulous in pink. We ruddy red-heads, we don't touch it.

Now they've (who've?) published a study finding that women actually DO prefer the color pink. They tested abour 200 people, in their early to mid 20's, and the women miraculously leaned towards a preference for red-tinted colors. So surprise! Girls DO like pink! Barbie was right!

... um, anybody see a problem with this? I'm a big NURTURE vs. nature person. I believe that we have a huge hand in our children's future, including their color preferences. Twenty-somethings have had 20-something years to be schooled in the 'girls-wear-pink-and-boys-wear-blue' mindset. Twenty-somethings are MY age. Every toy, every easy-bake oven, every Barbie car, every everything was freakin' PINK. Magenta, usually, in the 80's. (PS - my parents went to several stores to find a teal Schwin for my birthday. Thanks Mom & Dad!) Shouldn't this study have been performed on, well, babies? Seriously, of COURSE adults follow traditional gender-color preferences. How many 20 year-old men are going to choose pink over blue? The write-up of the study mentions that there may be 'cultural influences' at work. It even admits there they really should have studied infants, who have not yet learned their rightful place behind the Fisher Price kitchen set vs. the Tonka truck. But "there are no plans" to attempt to recreate these results with the correct study group. Grrrr...

Thank God for Carter's "Pretty Blue" collection.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Summer Goals, Revised Yet Again

Summer Goals 2007, a last look:
Updated in BOLD.

o Read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons - really, I've spent so much time reading Harry Potter 6 & 7, and I have the Orff book to read. See Orff book explanation below.

o Create recorder method packet w/ Bob - Actually done, just needs formatted. All the content we hashed out a while ago. Who knows when we'll have time to format it, but the clip art is downloaded, and I don't need it till January anyway. But hey, we did it (mostly!)

o Prep September lesson plans - still needs done. Next week. At night. When Maddie's asleep. Cause no minute of Maddie time is being lost to school.

o Read Discovering Orff and create Orff unit for each grade level - Read part 1, enjoyed the history and theory of Orff. Thought, "Ok, on to part 2, application of the curriculum and sample lesson plans I can revise and use on my own!" Um, no. The author rambled for pages about this and that, and listed a very vague curriculum with musical examples. So she was simultaneously over detailed and under detailed. Plan to google instead.

o Paint bedroom furniture white - we decided it wasn't work the time or money. Or paint fumes.

o Get/Stay caught up withWhat to Expect The First Year Funny thing. I actually grew out of that book. I mean, I'll check it for milestones and whatnot, as a novelty kind of thing, but I grew seriously tired of the preachy tone, the hyperchondriac authors (headed by super-mommy Heidi Murkoff and backed by nobody with an M. D. after their name...hmmmm), and the paranoid, fake parents posing fake questions like, "Is there something wrong with my baby because she doesn't have hair yet?" I found that the authors really over or under-shot the developmental stuff, and most people I've talked to agree with me wholeheartedly on this - she wants you to explain to your 9 month-old why she shouldn't intentionally spill milk (because it makes a mess and wastes the milk), and then have them help you clean it up. I say that's fine, for a 5 year old. Thats' where we differ. And that's the tip of the iceberg. So I'm done with her. I will not be purchasing The Toddler Years. (Please understand that in most mommy circles I know, this is as good as announcing that you're going to sing your child to sleep with AC/DC lyrics and put Kool Aid in their bottle. This is THE book nowadays. This is mommy-school. But I believe I just graduated.) It also comes down to finally learning to trust myself a good bit, and every mommy develops that ability at different times. Or never. But still, Heidi Murkoff can bite me.

o Organize/Put away Maddie’s clothes - Done, and she needs some! I've been spoiled by all the clothes we got as gifts, we barely have any 9-12 month clothes here! Must hit Target hard, but first we're going to wear the 6-9 monthers for all they're worth, till she busts the snaps. Thankfully, my Dad came last week and wanted to know what the girl needed - She needs 9 month sized clothes for fall, like Barbie needs to eat a whole pizza. So clothes she got. Maddie, not Barbie Gotta love Target. At $4 a piece, she got 3 tops and 3 bottoms, all of them matching each other, so 9 potential new outfits! Those plus PJ's, dipper spoons, rice puffs, and a dressy outfit with stretchy corduroys for crawling, for about $40. Thank you Granddad!

o Set up Maddie’s play area better (to actually be used) - Done, although we don't use it a whole lot anyway. We usually don't hang out downstairs until after she's in bed, unless it's brutally hot. She's getting better at independent play every day - and getting more mobile. THAT'S when that gated-off area will be more useful, when we need to contain her crawliness! Well, she's crawling now! It IS useful, although she went from immobile to pulling up on stuff in about a week and a half, and the gate is a bit rickety to be used as a ladder for her crawliness. But OH it's so fun to crawl around and play with her in there. So yes, we use it more now. She actually plays well in there by herself, too, until she starts scaling the afore-mentioned gate.

o Hang the quilt Aunt Collete made on the wall in Maddie’s play area - Done, thanks to Bobby.

o Wash curtains in all rooms - ick, it's time. Done, thanks to my relatives coming to visit and necessitating a good gray curtain washing - hey, we actually have white curtains! Who knew!?

o Research allergens for babies and create month by month chart to turn over to all babysitters - "No, it's not ok for her to try a bite of your peanut butter cookie yet" - Done!

o Have college friends for a visit? Looking unlikely, with work schedules.

o Go to the shore and do boardwalk things w/ the family - Done, and it was a lovely night. The picture strip from the evening is displayed at the side of my lovely blog here.

o Order pictures from Winkflash - get caught up! - Done!

o Get/Stay caught up with baby book - almost done, but I need pictures! (Hence the above task of ordering pictures from winkflash. - Done!

o Update scrapbooks - Done for now. I have to make a few more pages to cover months 10-12. But not anytime soon.

o Create 2003-2006 family photo albums on Winkflash - Did 2003 as a test, to see if we liked it. We'll probably do one a month from now on, till we're done. Plus Maddie books for the grandparents for Christmas. Highly recommend them, btw, completely professional looking, and $25, including shipping.

o Have family picture taken professionally (JC Penny?) Well, we were going to do that yesterday, but with all the $ we've been shelling out this summer, we decided to wait till next month. We have an appointment for September 15th, I believe. Just want a nice family shot, nothing fancy, plus a few cute ones of the girl. Since we have NO pictures of her AT ALL.Only 1, 944 at the moment. Amateur shots, that is.

So at least right now, the count stands as follows:

10 Goals Accomplished
2 Goals Pending
5 Goals abandoned out of necessity or personal mental awakening

Not too damn bad.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Sting and Other Amazing Things

Whew what a day we had over here in crazy baby land. We decide to spend the afternoon at a local park. Pretty place; it used to be a landfill (I suspect all of NJ used to be a landfill) and it has 3 age-appropriate playgrounds, pavilions, and pretty little walking paths that wind through the trash-formed hills. It also has psycho-ass yellow jackets.

We bring a picnic lunch, puffs for the girl (she already ate) and staked out a table. Then the hornets of furry came at us. Yellow jackets are mean suckers. While we were batting off 3 of 'em, I looked at Maddie in her stroller. Her mouth was frozen open in that terrible silent inhale that precedes a wail of suffering and indignation - standard hurt baby cry. She'd been stung! I saw something on her arm. A piece of what I can only assume was leftover smooshed stinging bug, and a nasty stinger, embedded into my baby's arm!

I miraculously removed the stinger the right way - brush, don't pinch, or you'll release more poison - and scooped her up. She cried for 30 seconds, meanwhile Bob got an ice pack from somewhere in our picnic basket and put it on her arm. Within one minute of being stung she was recovered and playing with said ice pack. Me, I haven't recovered yet. I don't know what it was that actually stung her. Supposedly yellow jackets don't leave stingers, and she definitely had one. We ran to the grocery store and got meat tenderizer (always have this in your house people!) and made a paste of it. I had to put a cut-off sock on her arm to keep her from licking this paste off her arm, later on. That's my girl.

She was a happy kid till early evening, when the lack of nap due to increased mobility caught up with her. Would you nap when you could be crawling and pulling up on stuff and listening to your parents' shocked gasps? She was then a miserable crank - again, thoughts of teething danced in my head, but I still doubt it. But the baby Tylenol bottle promised me that she would feel better and be able to sleep tonight.

On the non-baby side of the news, Bob stumbled upon what is quite possibly the best music site ever. Musicovery. You indicate the exact levels of calm vs. energetic, dark vs. positive, decade, genre, hit or non-hit, dancability, and tempo, and it comes up with a 'chain' of songs for you to listen to, commercial free. Amazing.

Other amazing things include:

  • Maddie ate real chopped up green beans today and didn't choke.
  • 10 days, 21 hours till school starts.
  • It's 1 AM and I'm still up.
  • The fact that I will shudder in horror at the memory of my daughter's first bee sting and she won't recall it at all.
  • I finally got around to trashing the "What to Expect" books on my favorite message board and got huge waves of 'hell yes!' back at me. Affirmation, baby!
  • It was in the low 60's yesterday and it will be in the 90's tomorrow...and yet remain as humid as ever.
  • I will never have good hair again.
  • This video:


See, told you that the video was amazing.
Night!

Monday, August 20, 2007

Never. Traveling. Again.

Seriously, we are not leaving this state until LVC Homecoming, and that's not till October, and we only have to make it to mile 266 of the turnpike. We're confident (hoping) that this can be done with no stops, if timed properly (leave after breakfast bottle, right before naptime, bring lots of toys, pray to God.)

It was a nice weekend, in retrospect, just too much pavement rolling by for my taste.

Saturday we drove across the Walty to PHL to pick up Dad. We're tricky. We've learned that the quickest way to pick somebody up from the airport, at least Philly's airport, is to have them go to their departure gate, and through the use of cell phones and timing, drive by the quick drop-off zone, and have them hop in. In and out in 5 minutes flat, always. Except traffic was insane getting back into NJ, what with it being a gorgeous, 78 degree day. Saturdays=Shore Traffic, it's a law of nature. You want to hang a funeral-type flag on your car that says, "Just trying to get home, damn it!" so you can zoom past all those shore-goers. You also hate those shoregoers, because they're getting a day at the shore and, well, you're not.

Cait (sister) brought Matt (sister's boyfriend) to meet us and Dad, which I have to say was pretty cool. She's pretty darn serious about the guy, and after meeting him I can say that I'm pleased to see that. First of all, I liked him the minute I saw him. Freud would love this relationship: he looks like a young version of Dad. And a smidge of Bob, too. But he was friendly, polite, and offered to pay for lunch (and was denied the right, but the attempt solidified his place of "good guy" with Bob). My only concern is that he's from MA and from a large, close family there, and that's a heck of a drive. Since we know that Cait would be moving there. Duh. On the other hand, I've always liked that area of the country. It has vacay potential.

We bummed around and hung out with Dad and Cait after Matt left for home, and yesterday (Sunday) the REAL fun began:

In one day, we traveled aprox. 300 miles, round trip, with an (almost) 9-month-old baby, to my grandparents' house in PA. Long-ass trip, and that's doing it one-way. The traffic was bad getting there, the Vine St. Xpress-way was a parking lot-type mess. We stopped at a rest stop to feed and change the girl and found that they had no working changing table in their "Changing/Family restroom" and their high chair didn't have any working straps to actually secure a child into it. Joy. After a looooooo-o0oooooo-oooooong trip, we made it to Grandmother's House. First of all, I call her Mamu. Yes, that's what I said, but I call her it under duress, and have done so as long as I remember. I probably did it once, when I was 1, and she liked it, and it stuck. Or rather, she stuck it to me. When I attempted to switch it to Grandma at an older, more embarassable age, Mamu refused to give up "Mamu". Because we share a birthday, we share a "special bond". (She's mastered the passive-agressive tactics beautifully, and since I h have my own guilt gas tank, she usually gets what she wants. So again, we have a "special bond".) Oh, and I apparently 'gave my heart to Jesus' at her house. I have no memory of this. I think I was 2. But apparently Jesus has my heart, and it happened at her house, so she's now going straight to heaven, so I hear.
I've given up, can you tell? Anyway...

We begged her, BEGGED HER not to cook. Unlike most warm and fuzzy grandma's, my grandmother's cooking has always ripped large holes right through people's large intestines. This time Dad is on a strict diet and said before arriving in this time zone that he was going to cook everything, bring all ingredients, so that all my grandparents would have to do was relax and play with the baby. So of course my grandmother made a big deal of all the trouble she went to cooking and baking anyway, even though we told her that Dad didn't want her to do any cooking. So she made sure we knew that she spent all day making dinner. And what she made was "the chowder". This is actually a semi-stew like thing that sits in a crock pot for a day, consisting of chicken fat (and possibly something that used to be overcooked chicken), carrot mush, potato mush, and celery mush. No seasoning except for whatever salt was left in the giant gallon drum of salt she buys from Weis Market. Add that to yellow water, and you've got "the chowder". MMMMMmmmm! Colon-ripping good!
So naturally, we ate Dad's meal, delish and healthy, and except for the cookies that she made without consulting Dad and of course which Dad couldn't eat because of the diet (causing much moaning on the grandmother's part) we didn't touch a nip of Mamu's food. (Again, much moaning, but we TOLD her not to cook!) But hey, my tummy is happy and nobody had an emergency restroom stop on the way home.

Except for her passive-aggressive comments about having cooked for nobody, the visit went well. Mamu immediately scooped Maddie out of my arms literally before I got in the door, and was severely admonished by my faithful child's wails. We have stranger anxiety over here, in a big way. However, my darling girl seems to have a 6th sense for who Mommy really wants her to really punish for their invasion of her personal space. "Grab me without even so much as a glance to Mommy to ask if it's ok if you grab her child, will you? Screw YOU!" If a friend of Mommy's who is calm and sweet to her asks to hold her, she's cool with it. Thankfully, Maddie taught Mamu that if you warm up a little first, you get rewarded with many baby laughs and baby kisses and baby hugs. She went to everybody else like a champ, and eventually let Mamu hold her too. On her knee. Facing out only. Atta girl.

We took pictures, we visited, we assured Mamu a dozen or so times that Maddie was tired but wouldn't nap there (trying to keep us there longer, she insisted that Maddie should take a nap BEFORE going for a long car ride after bedtime...moms out there, does this sound reasonable to you?), and then we were on our way.

The trip home only took 28 hours - or 3, if you looked at a clock. I'm sticking with 28. Route 30, 83, turnpike, Schuylkill expressway, BF bridge, and finally to NJ and our homeland. We stopped once to change the girl. I sat in the back through half of it, to keep Maddie company. I can understand how a baby gets bored in the backseat in the dark. Toys aren't near as fun in the dark. So she attempted to remove my bracelet for about 2 hours, and she was sweet and happy. I also sat in the back because I get antsy driving in the dark and rain, and I'm always telling Bob to "watch out". Car accident in college. I'm a chicken ever since. We were only almost hit twice. Nobody looks when they change lanes, it's just not hip anymore. When we got home, we ached, were dead tired, and left the house even messier than it was when we left.

I came back mortified because we'd asked my in-laws to look in on the doggie during our expedition, and found that we left the house a HUGE mess for them to look in on. We'd had to do baby things, then pack, and get out of the house ASAP that morning. Of course mother in-law picked up a few things, because you couldn't see the living room floor for all the baby toys. But that was the mess we returned to, and promptly ignored, and went to bed. Slept so hard I didn't move till 5 Am. And that hurt too. 3 Advil, 2 cups of coffee, and a shower later, I'm a new woman.

So that was our expedition to and from PA in one day, with the baby. I have to confess that I gazed longly at the place in the van where hanging DVD player would have been, knowing that in a few months Maddie can sit facing forward. That might have come in REEEEEEEEAAAAAALLLLLy handy. But that doesn't matter. Because we are Never. Traveling. Again.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Picture Strips

First we took this one, which didn't turn out to well. The camera was really close to the back of the booth, and we barely got the three of us into it before it started flashing.

Farther down the boardwalk, at one of the older arcades, we took this 'old fashioned' one. Bob and I have been doing pictures strips since the first summer we were dating, and we loved adding Maddie to this tradition.
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ha!

"I'm gonna blog every day from now on," I say. "It'll be nice to have a written record of what I did and thought on a daily basis. I can go back and look at it nostalgically next summer, or whatever."
Oh yeah, every day I'm going to find time, energy, and motivation to come downstairs and type all my wheelings and dealings into this little window here. Riiiight. My next-summer self will just have to excuse me for my lazy/busy-ness

  • The girl can CRAWL! I really didn't think it would happen. She was usually quite content to play with whatever was near her, and if nothing was near her, her hands (or the air?) would do fine. Yesterday she decided she wanted what was in the basket beside the couch BAD. And off she went. And just like that, the house is a land mine field. She's already discovered the bar stools, and we've already discovered that the bar stools need to go bye-bye for an undetermined stay in the attic.
  • The dog is doing better on the thyroid meds. He ate, happily, two days in a row now. Yay, Max!
  • Things I must do: Mail stuff. Clean out 'family' bin on Bob's desk (asked me to weeks ago). All the crap from my summer to-do list (ha ha). Adjust to the fact that school starts in 19 days. Finish laundry before it's time to start laundry over again. Pick up car from garage, pray that new tires didn't cost more than car's original purchase price. Resolve to walk at school during my lunch break so I can still get some exercise and not miss Maddie evening time. Register for LVC Octoberfst. (No, I'm sorry, they apparently spell it "Oktober", because Lebanon is the land of "K"'s.)
  • Is it true that the Black-Eyed Peas's song "Let's Get it Started" is actually "Let's Get Retarded"???
  • Bought Maddie a new toy: It's two-sided, attaches to cribs and play yards, or sits on those cute little red feet like a table. She needed a crib activity thingy, and although all of us 70's and 80's children had them - those nice little plastic panels with sliders and clickers and spinny things to keep us entertaining ourselves and hopefully learning - they do not exist anymore. Instead we have these electronic aquariums that shine and put on a tame, seahorse-related show. Maddie isn't fooled by the seahorse. She knows it's the same one coming around, over and over. My smart kid wakes up at 6:30 AM and decides that we need to come and entertain her. We think otherwise. Hence the new crib "activity center". I'm sorry, the TinyLove "Developlay Activity Center". It's really cool. The blue side is for babies 3-9 months old and the green side is for babies 9-24 months old. I'm (doing the math) 317 months old, and I actually find it quite entertaining myself. And hopefully I'll find it good for an extra half-hour of sleep.
  • My dad is visiting on Saturday, from California. Not staying long enough for my taste, but he starts back to school earlier than we NJ teachers do. But still. :-)
  • Other things I must do: Eat 20 or so Tums, damn stomach. Clean out refrigerator (disgusting). Find clip art for the recorder packet Bob and I are writing together. Watch Mona Lisa Smile before I have to sheepishly return it to my sister on Sunday...I may have forgotten to ask if I could borrow it. And go to bed.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Purchases of the Junkie

Today, the purchased:
  • 8 large blue bags (large enough to tote around Kindergarteners!), 4 for me, 4 for Mom.
  • Split tubing for hiding electrical wires beneath the desk.
  • Desktop panel (white).
  • 4 desk legs & hardware for each (silver).
  • Electrical-themed childproofing stuff that Bob knows what to do with, I hope.
  • A black thermos to keep my elixer of life, I mean, coffee in for next school year. Tired of drinking out of plastic mugs that always taste of old coffee. Real mugs for me, baby!
  • 5 boxes of gingersnaps.
  • 2 new pillows.
  • Hanging toy storage thingy for kid's play area (bright blue, very cool).
  • Lunch - meatballs, soup, mac & cheese, and I had the delectable apple tart w/ vanilla sauce.
PS - The Swedish love to push lingonberries on you. Juice, jam, cookies. Blech. Lingonberries are cranberries that went bad last month.

Yay! I'm Popular!

Well, my wildest middle school dreams are finally coming true!

100% voted for "yes, I read your blog" (or some version of that remark).

Thank you, 1 anonymous person! You rock!

Ok, on a less embarrassing note, all is well. It finally stopped pretending to be Florida around here, and the temp has actually dipped a good 30 degrees. And a quick feel of my lovely locks tells me that the humidity levels have left the "rain forest" range. Bob and I have commented all morning that it feels so much like a late-September Saturday.

Heading off to Ikea in Philly today, very excited. We're Ikea geeks (junkies, if you consult the virtual bumper) and all it took to get my hubby to agree to haul the fam over the bridge to the land of cheap euro-furniture was the promise of Swedish meatballs for lunch. Oh, and we're buying an table to extend the desk in the family room. I've decided I'm a big girl and I should work/type/surf the web at a desk, not sprawled on the couch. And I wanna check out dining tables and chairs. Our dining room table is 3rd generation, and we are down to 2 good dining room chairs. It's time.

Plus I get to buy a bunch of those giant blue tote bags (for hauling baby stuff, school stuff, and groceries) and stock up on boxes of gingersnaps. Ikea gingersnaps, dipped in hot tea. Little slice of Swedish heaven.

Look out! on the loose!

Thursday, August 09, 2007

August 9th - "Back to the ole style"

As Bobby put it, "Back to the ole stye" of blog. Experimented w/ various templates and found that they either suck (they can't be used with the new version of Blogger), or they suck (you have no freedom to edit the layout, and I needs my freedom!).

We're heading to bed now. Good day. Every day we make it through 4 doses of medicine and several attempts at solid foods and there's no chocking, gagging, and vomiting - that's a hell of a good day.

Drank too much coffee. I may be up till 2:00 AM reading Discovering Orff.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

August 8th - Visitors & Changing Table Rant

  • Maddie ate great today. Downed food, just wolfed it down, plus a couple bigger bottles. :-)
  • Mom, Grandmom, and Pappy are here visiting until Friday.
  • The girl was a charmer, despite not napping much.
  • She can no more crawl than she can drive, but it's cute to watch her try.
  • Went out to dinner at Cotardo's and (as always, whenever Bob & I go some we love for dinner and bring somebody else along) the service was sloooooow, the waiter unapologetic. Having waited tables for many years, I understand that there are times when the food is going to take years and years coming out of the kitchen. I also understand that it is at those times that you, as a waiter, get down on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness, offer extra soup or salad, keep the drinks coming, and convince the manager to send out free dessert to keep everybody happy (and your tip high.) My mom left the tip and I KNOW she left less than 15%...*sigh* BUT the was food outstanding. Delish. Love Cotardo's.
  • I want to take a bath in their Della Casa sauce.
  • It should be illegal for restaurants not to have a safe changing table in at LEAST the women's restroom (should be in both. Heck, they SHOULD have a family rest room). I changed my daughter on a half-moon shaped wicker table that swayed from side to side every time she moved. Not cool. I swear to God some day when I find no reliable changing facility, I'm just walking up to the hostess station and changing my kid right there, on the podium, with the little table diagrams under her bare butt.
  • The pool is awesome now after dark, what with the new lights and fountain. And beach ball.
  • I love my family, but if they continue to talk too loud and don't turn the TV down upstairs, they ARE going to wake the kiddo and they ARE going to have to convince her to go back to bed on their own.
  • My poor dog has hypothyroidism. Under-active thyroid gland. Tired a lot, gains weight without eating much. He's on medicine now, and I have a feeling he's going to have to have a stronger dose soon. He gained 6 pounds since his last appointment, and he's eaten like a bird. With the exception of the teaspoon of peanut butter we use to give him his medicine. That he eats like a horse.
  • Ooh! I crossed off another item on my summer to-do list. Washed the curtains (and put them back up). Cause damn was it time.
  • I forgot my Dad's anniversary. It was the 6th. I feel like a bum. I sent him an e-card tonight and I'll send a real one tomorrow. I suck.
  • My feet are freezing. I will presently go steal a pair of Bob's socks out of the clean laundry. Love, Meg

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

August 7th - Homey Day

Nice Day:
  • Stayed home all day without going out of my mind.
  • Exercised - *gasp* in the pool and felt so refreshed and awake afterwards.
  • Had a sinus headache that came and went because I'm apparently allergic to something else now. I'm suspecting the culprit is matter itself.
  • It's stinkin' hot. Smack you in the face when you come out the door hot. Who'd want to leave the AC'ed house anyway?
  • Lesson w/ Horn student went well, unless you count the fact that she clearly hadn't practiced and I'm afraid I've been moving too fast with her. But she has her heart set on getting into the older kids' band come September, so push we must.
  • My laptop keeps losing its connection to the charger. Great.
  • My baby took at 2 hour nap today, ate her first jar of stage 3 food (peas and carrots, lumpy-style!), and is a smidgen closer to crawling than she was yesterday.
  • We discovered that giving Maddie a bin or basket full of stuff that she's allowed to have (toys, Tupperware, coasters) and letting her empty that container piece by piece, is fabulous entertainment for all involved.
  • Researched it, and I'm going to start giving her plain yogurt to get more protein into her. She won't eat those jarred meats, and I'm not going to mourn their absence. Meanwhile, working on getting her to eat tiny pieces of table food, including meats.
  • Stage 2 formula? Must research.
  • Doc called, The Girl's weight gain was good from measurement yesterday! Must keep hydrated, push sippy cup, push sippy cup, push sippy cup! (My wildest fantasy includes packing up the bottles by September, but that's just crazy talk.)
  • Max has his yearly tomorrow, getting those damn nails cut. (I am my dog's stepping stone.)
  • Mom, Grandmom, and Pappy are coming tomorrow for a 3 day visit. The house is ready, but am I?
  • Wha ha ha! Got mother in-law hooked on Harry Potter books. Too, too much fun!
  • The 'light' ice cream we bought tastes like 'light' ass, so I ate scrambled eggs with salsa for a late-night snack. Patting myself on the back for eating low carb for 20 minutes of my life.
  • The fam wants to go to Cotardo's tomorrow (or Thursday), because all restaurants in PA suck, with the exception of this awesome little authentic mexi place in my hometown that I think closed down 10 years ago. We have REAL restaurants here in Joysey, see? Looking so forward to the Tortellini Della Casa (Homemade torts in a blush sauce with scallops and shrimp). Dah-am. Oops, there went my low-carb kick.
  • Tortellni Della Casa is worth it.

Monday, August 06, 2007

August 6th - Blog > Sleep

That's right, I find it more important to 'get around to blogging' than I do to sleep. I never sleep much when I go to bed before Bob anyway. Lay up there watching TV or reading. May as well have done that downstairs.

Spent 15 minutes searching for fancier blogger templates, found one, decided it was too much work to upload all those files to photobucket and reassign all the images in the html. I barely understand how to change colors using html. Not happening right now.

Finally saw Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix. Liked it. At its best points it felt like a really good movie, and at its worst points it felt like a video book report on the novel. "Highlights from HP5, tonight at 11." Loved Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange. Very pleasant surprise (I do no research on movies, I think the kid who plays Harry is named Dan. Because Regis kept calling him Harry during the interview I caught, and the kid had to remind him - and a million 10 year olds - that he is indeed a real person named Dan) and the film was enjoyable too. What can you do, with a huge novel like that? You have to gloss over things. Why you have to add dusty smoke as people apparate is beyond me, since they never seemed to stir up much dust in the 4 previous movies. The effect was cool, though. Enjoyed the directing, little intense for kids, but I don't pretend to know what passes as a kids' movie these days. Not like the book read like a Brothers' Grim collection, anyway. Nana (Bob's mom) babysat so we could catch the movie.

Babysitting is another sebject weighing on my mind. We've been invited to the wedding of the son of one of Bob's mom's oldest friends. We see these people once a year at Christmas. Maddie was NOT mentioned on the invite, nor was it addressed to the "D'Errico family", nor are we particularly comfy w/ these folks. Old friends, you can just ask if the reception has high chairs and expect an honest 'yes you can bring her' or 'please leave her home so she doesn't squeal during the vows'. This is a bit different. Bob's whole family is invited, and we've been told, "you just HAVE to come!" It's been suggested that we leave the queen of reflux with Bob's aunt. Eh...not real thrilled w/ the idea, what with her wrestling you during meds time and batting spoons out of your hand and mealtime. She thinks she's cute. We know how to deal with it fine, and we time things out so that her Nana or Gram never have to give her meds. They taste like crap, you'd scream too. And then there's the pro-boxing match that is bottle time. (I do not force feed my kid, readers, it just feels like a constant fight to feed her WITHOUT force-feeding her.) And lately the girl has gotten quite dubious of strangers, and pissy as all get out when Bob or I walk out of the room. It's a stage, it will pass, and we will not raise a sissy. But she's 8 months old, I don't need to be molding her character yet, she won't get it anyhow.
I know his Aunt her own kids and a grandkid, but...I don't know.
And the wedding is the last Saturday of summer the next day being a loooong family gathering day (Crab Day) and frankly...neither of us would shed a tear if we sent a nice gift and enjoyed the last day off of the summer at home as a quiet little family. I doubt the other members of the family will be cool w/ Bob and I not attending because we'd rather not subject Maddie to babysitting and stay home and play on the floor with her and the dog instead.
So, the little voice on my left shoulder says, "You're the mommy, you know best, and you know that it won't go well. She'll be hungry, tired, fussy, unmedicated, and the family of said babysitter will talk for years about how unmanageable your kid is. Plus, it's the last day of summer. Stay home." The little voice on my right shoulder says, "It's not really about taking the easy way out, it's an obligation to go to this wedding if you can go, and the rest of the family wants you to. Besides, the absolute worst that can happen is that she won't eat all day, won't sleep all day/evening, she'll spit out all her medicine, and scream at everyone till they call you to come pick her up and then she'll have a 'bad' rep for a while. Everybody will live through it, no big deal, and maybe you'll both be better about babysitters in the future."
*Why should I make my kid uncomfortable in an unfamiliar situation for no good reason other than the fact that it would be nice if we could attend this wedding? (Nice for other people, that is.)
*Then again, why do I balk at the possibility of one day's worth of her being hungry, tired, and miserable... when it might all go just fine?
Therein lies my debate.

Presto-chango-subject0:
Summer just keeps plugging a long. I'm disgusted w/ how little I've exercised and how much I've snacked. The To-Do list is less than acceptable, but we're slowly but surely catching up. With the exception of our inability to get down to the boardwalk one more time (one night Maddie had a high fever for no reason, and one night it was weather), things are going nicely. And now, my family is visiting.

Mom is brining Grandmom and Pappy for a visit on Wednesday. I feel the need to entertain and make sure everybody is happy. Moreso because they usually treat us to dinner somewhere nice (or Peter's which is more than nice for us), and bring gifts for the girlie. So I feel like I should do what my guests want. We are not, I repeat, NOT going to go down the shore with them, though. I am digging my toes in for this one. Mom has this obsession with the beach, and Grandmom hasn't been in years. It is NOT fun to bring a baby and the tons of crap a baby requires down there, haul it across the sand, set it all up, and have her not nap, not play, and no enjoy herself for 2 hours, then haul it all back. No no no no no we are NOT going with them to the beach, final answer. Other than that, they get what they want for the duration. Grandmom stresses Mom out, and when Mom gets stressed out, she has the uncanny ability to transfer that stress to me. My stomach is already tight thinking about it. Wish me luck. And no, mother, we are not coming along down to the beach. No. (Pray to God I stand firm on this. We just got the sand out of the pack & play from the last trip.)

Well, it's 11, I'm exhausted, my contacts are more trouble than they're worth at this point, and it's time to go to bed. Blogging is no longer more important that sleep. Significantly less. *Night*