So, I have royally messed up my back. I imagine it has something to do with the constant arch I have going on - it's the arch that allows me to carry Charlotte and use my other hand for something else. I won't need the arch anymore once she's got full control of her upper body, but right now I spend most of my days bent slightly backwards. Anyway, it hurts my back. And tonight, with both Children in bed, and hours to go before I have to nurse anyone, I have decided to treat my back with a very stiff drink.
But I'm not really used to drinking anymore.
So I'm a little toasted.
Everyone ready for some real randomness?
I'm alone in the house. Or, I'm as alone as I ever get. Elliot is asleep, hands wrapped tightly around his little wooden Thomas the Train. Charlotte is asleep, pacifier firmly inserted, dreaming her tiny little girl dreams. And Waxor is actually out of the house - Been and Daniel are arriving tonight and he's off to the airport to pick them up.
Which makes me... alone.
I can't actually remember the last time I was alone. Either the kids are awake and asking for my attention (Grrrrrrrblghblghbrrrr. Oh really Miss Girl? Is that what you think? No, Mama, NO! Don't talk to Charlotte. But Elliot, she wants to talk to me. NO! You come play with ME. What shall we play? Let's play Thomas. Okay, is Thomas going to Chuff along the tracks? Yes, he does! GrbbbbbbbgHAAAAAAAAL!) or the kids are asleep and I'm trying to spend a little bit of time with my husband before I have to go to bed so I can drag my carcass out of the bed again in the morning. But right now I am alone. Blessedly alone. Peacefully, wonderfully alone. SO what am I gonna do? Well hell, clearly I'm gonna write email.
I miss all of you . Some of you I miss as my family (this includes both my ACTUAL family and people who are LIKE family). Some of you I miss as my friends (because, while I am making friends around here, the sad truth is many of my friends are spread out all over the damn place.) But, whatever catagory you fall in, rest assured, I miss you. I am writing this, of course, in the hopes that I can get you to write me back. See, while you may be getting a regular (if infrequent) update about MY life via this email/blog I do, I NEVER HEAR FROM MOST OF YOU SILLY PEOPLE! So, friendly reminder, write me back and tell me what's going on in your life.
Oooooh... tangent - Many of you have gone through the past years listening to me when I am down in the dumps. Many of you have heard me, while in said dumps, bitching about my husband. I would just like to announce that, having made it to a state in my life where I actually get a full nights sleep many nights, and where I try to let go of my more childish impulses, I am aware that I am married to a very fine man. This is worth mentioning for two reasons; (1) being that it's always nice to hear nice things said about you to other people, and Waxor gets this email, too. So if he reads it (which, actually sometimes he doesn't, but that's kind of okay, because he does live with me and know most of this crap already) he will get the chance to hear me telling pretty much everyone I know that he is really a spectacular human being. And (2) if any of you (and I'm not talking about those of you who are way more full of life experience than me, I'm talking about my peers and people younger than me) are going through or someday will go through a rough patch in your relationships, it's worth noting that there's a fair to middling chance that you will come out the other side and remember why you really loved that person in the first place.
There you go.
I did mention that I had been drinking, right? Drunk email - so much better than drunk dialing. You can reach a larger number of people with your blatherings.
So, Waxor and I have been trying to bribe our child to use the potty. That's right, bribe. I feel no shame in this. The boy knows how to pee and poop in the potty, he just sees no benefit to it. So, we've purchase (ebay is such a wonderful thing) some wooden trains for him, and they are hung up on the wall and if he has a whole day with no accidents he gets to have one of the trains. He managed to do this once, and then the next day he got about half way through the day and then...
Picture Elliot, standing in the middle of his wooden train tracks (a gift from Tracey, Devon, and Brandon). He looks up at me with a mournful countenance and says:
"Ohhhh... You don't get a train today."
And then pees . all . over . himself.
I was torn between hilarity and the hideous feeling that I will NEVER be done changing his diapers.
Oh, so, remember my back? Another reason it might be hurt is because we have redone out Dining room floor. I was so tired of the hideous, stinky, disgusting carpet in there I ripped it out and we put down a hardwood plywood floor, complete with stencil done by yours truly. It's lovely, and if any of you want to come visit then you can see it for yourselves.
Somehow I feel like I had more to say, but I can't think of anything... what's up with that?
Well, I've mentioned Waxor, and Elliot, Charlotte would be next.
Charlotte is really a joy. I think Elliot was actually an easier baby, but at the time that he was 4 months old I didn't have a toddler to provide contrast for me. She's sweet, she laughs all day long, she burbles and makes faces and SLEEPS LIKE A CHAMPION. She's average height, but her weight is starting to drop towards the bottom of the graph - not a huge surprise, given her father and her brother. She still looks big to me, compared to Elliot, but she's really not very pudgy anymore. She is, however, already in 6 month clothing. It's funny, cause Elliot was still in 3 month clothing at 6 months, and Charlotte isn't even 6 months yet and already in the 6 month size... it's her height, not her weight, but she still seems enormous to me compared to Elliot.
There, those are all the updates I can think of, and so I shall send this.
TATA!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
September 1, 2010
Oh. My. God.
I have spawned mini-me.
I didn't think I had. I thought neither of my children were going to particularly resemble me in temperament. Elliot is stubborn, but in other ways not like me at all. Charlotte was such a good sleeper and a happy cheerful baby for the first three months of her life I thought she didn't have a cranky bone in her body.
Oh sweet zombie jesus was I wrong.
I have given birth to a baby with my temper.
Clearly this could have serious repercussions.
You might ask "How do you know" after all, she's only three months old, it's not like she's really communicating yet. And I would say, in reply "Oh, she's communicating."
Three days ago Charlotte became unhappy with her carseat. Now, she's been unhappy with her carseat before, but in general has been easily pacified with her (aptly named) pacifier or, at the very least, has calmed down immediately upon removal. This day, however, was different. She was unhappy in her carseat, and when I got her out of the car she was still screaming. And when I carried her up stairs and shushed and soothed her she was still screaming. And when I changed her diaper, made sure she was dry, offered her her pacifier, gave her my boob, and rocked her and held her she was STILL SCREAMING. She screamed and screamed and screamed. And then she stopped. Now, let's be clear, my daughter does actually cry. Tears form and stream down her face when she is sad about something. This was no tear screaming. In other words...
She was pissed.
And she was going to let me know it.
I didn't think too much about it. I mean, it could have been anything upsetting her, and I wasn't going to assume anything about my child's character based on ONE incident, but it's happened four or five times since then. She still sleeps well. She still smiles and gurgles and is, in general, a supremely happy little girl. But if she thinks you are depriving her of one of her rightful comforts, be it being held, being fed, or being allowed to sleep; she screams her tiny frickken head off.
Today she got pissed because she was hungry, and actually forgo satifying that hunger in order to express her extreme displeasure to me. I just kept shoving my nipple in her mouth (I knew what was wrong, after all, it had been all of 3.5 hours since she filled her little piggy tummy) while she shrieked her outrage, until the milk leakage distracted her enough that she gave up and latched on. Then, having explained to me in no uncertain terms how outraged she was, she ate and was completely sunny once again. All smiles.
My mother has been, thus far, disappointed just a wee bit that my kids have not put me through any of the difficulties that she experienced with me. In that light, I have good news for her - just wait. It's coming.
Hi everyone!
A lot of my time these days is being taken up with cleaning. By "my time" I am, of course, referring to time that is NOT spent on the children - holding, feeding, entertaining, teaching, swabbing, bathing, diapering... it's sort of an endless list. So, in the grand scheme of things, the time that is "my time" isn't a whole lot of time at all. However, be that as it may, most of it is being taken up with cleaning. I have two types of cleaning in my life, daily and major. Daily cleaning is the cleaning I do in order to convince other people that I am not a total slob. This is just an illusion, of course, but if you live a lie long enough does it become the truth? (Incidentally, now would be an amusing time to mention that once, as a child, before one of our awesome parties when my mother was FORCING me to help clean up the living room I announced in very grumpy tones that, when I was an adult, I was NEVER going to clean up for company. Either they like me as I was or they could just not come over. At the time I didn't really understand the concept of letting the presence of others shame you into doing something that you wished you did more, anyway. At any rate, all the adult who knew me as a little girl may now feel free to laugh at me. You always have, anyway.) I spend more time doing daily cleaning than major cleaning - between two kids and two dogs the house just always seems like it's a wreck. There's toys to pick up, dog hair to sweep, dishes to wash, laundry to do, and everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE are dirty spit up cloths. Which is better than there being baby barf all over the place, but still, you sort of feel compelled to remove the coddled milk soaked rags before anyone NOT immediately related to you sees them. The more satisfying of the two cleaning routines, however, is the deep cleaning. See, the daily cleaning isn't really a chore that gets done so much as a state of flux that you pass through with great effort and very little long term results. The deep cleaning, on the other hand, well, that's like peeling off a huge, HUGE scab. Painfully and kinda icky, but totally satisfying.
Currently my deep cleaning project involves getting rid of all of our junk. Waxor and I have boxes of junk that have sat, essentially untouched, for the entire eight years we've been together. A few have been untouched for longer than that, being from my college days. I am *gasp* going through them all and getting rid of things I don't need. I went through my old picture box and got rid of all the out of focus, badly shot, odd pictures of people who I no longer even recognize. Waxor and I have donated about half of our book collection to the Salvation Army. I have gotten rid of all the old clothes that I will never, ever wear again (except for that one pair of pants that has the signatures of most of my friends over a period of three years. Those I kept.) I have gotten rid of most of the kids clothes that they have outgrown. I am cleaning house, baby! Eventually I hope to be able to move into our basement and see neat stacks of things that are actually worth storing, and whole bunch of empty space.
Of course, in the meantime I have piles of CRAP all over the house, making that first category of cleaning, the daily kind, a real pain in the ass
Sigh.
Elliot and I are currently engaged in potty wars. He doesn't like being dirty, but he hates being changed, and he refuses, with vehemence and ire, to actually go on the toilet. Oh, and he hates running around naked, too. I need a book for potty training for not so dummies. I mean, Elliot is a smart kid. He knows exactly what it is I want, and how to do it. He just doesn't want to do so. I can put him on the potty at the exact time of day that he always goes, and leave him there for an hour, and he'll hold it until he gets off. Sigh. This weekend we're going to Western Mass, and I'm planning on shamelessly using peer pressure to encourage him to use the potty. "Alex uses the potty, don't you want to use the potty?"
Of course, I know what he'll say, "No, I'm just fine using a diaper now."
The baby timer has popped and now I must be done.
I have spawned mini-me.
I didn't think I had. I thought neither of my children were going to particularly resemble me in temperament. Elliot is stubborn, but in other ways not like me at all. Charlotte was such a good sleeper and a happy cheerful baby for the first three months of her life I thought she didn't have a cranky bone in her body.
Oh sweet zombie jesus was I wrong.
I have given birth to a baby with my temper.
Clearly this could have serious repercussions.
You might ask "How do you know" after all, she's only three months old, it's not like she's really communicating yet. And I would say, in reply "Oh, she's communicating."
Three days ago Charlotte became unhappy with her carseat. Now, she's been unhappy with her carseat before, but in general has been easily pacified with her (aptly named) pacifier or, at the very least, has calmed down immediately upon removal. This day, however, was different. She was unhappy in her carseat, and when I got her out of the car she was still screaming. And when I carried her up stairs and shushed and soothed her she was still screaming. And when I changed her diaper, made sure she was dry, offered her her pacifier, gave her my boob, and rocked her and held her she was STILL SCREAMING. She screamed and screamed and screamed. And then she stopped. Now, let's be clear, my daughter does actually cry. Tears form and stream down her face when she is sad about something. This was no tear screaming. In other words...
She was pissed.
And she was going to let me know it.
I didn't think too much about it. I mean, it could have been anything upsetting her, and I wasn't going to assume anything about my child's character based on ONE incident, but it's happened four or five times since then. She still sleeps well. She still smiles and gurgles and is, in general, a supremely happy little girl. But if she thinks you are depriving her of one of her rightful comforts, be it being held, being fed, or being allowed to sleep; she screams her tiny frickken head off.
Today she got pissed because she was hungry, and actually forgo satifying that hunger in order to express her extreme displeasure to me. I just kept shoving my nipple in her mouth (I knew what was wrong, after all, it had been all of 3.5 hours since she filled her little piggy tummy) while she shrieked her outrage, until the milk leakage distracted her enough that she gave up and latched on. Then, having explained to me in no uncertain terms how outraged she was, she ate and was completely sunny once again. All smiles.
My mother has been, thus far, disappointed just a wee bit that my kids have not put me through any of the difficulties that she experienced with me. In that light, I have good news for her - just wait. It's coming.
Hi everyone!
A lot of my time these days is being taken up with cleaning. By "my time" I am, of course, referring to time that is NOT spent on the children - holding, feeding, entertaining, teaching, swabbing, bathing, diapering... it's sort of an endless list. So, in the grand scheme of things, the time that is "my time" isn't a whole lot of time at all. However, be that as it may, most of it is being taken up with cleaning. I have two types of cleaning in my life, daily and major. Daily cleaning is the cleaning I do in order to convince other people that I am not a total slob. This is just an illusion, of course, but if you live a lie long enough does it become the truth? (Incidentally, now would be an amusing time to mention that once, as a child, before one of our awesome parties when my mother was FORCING me to help clean up the living room I announced in very grumpy tones that, when I was an adult, I was NEVER going to clean up for company. Either they like me as I was or they could just not come over. At the time I didn't really understand the concept of letting the presence of others shame you into doing something that you wished you did more, anyway. At any rate, all the adult who knew me as a little girl may now feel free to laugh at me. You always have, anyway.) I spend more time doing daily cleaning than major cleaning - between two kids and two dogs the house just always seems like it's a wreck. There's toys to pick up, dog hair to sweep, dishes to wash, laundry to do, and everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE are dirty spit up cloths. Which is better than there being baby barf all over the place, but still, you sort of feel compelled to remove the coddled milk soaked rags before anyone NOT immediately related to you sees them. The more satisfying of the two cleaning routines, however, is the deep cleaning. See, the daily cleaning isn't really a chore that gets done so much as a state of flux that you pass through with great effort and very little long term results. The deep cleaning, on the other hand, well, that's like peeling off a huge, HUGE scab. Painfully and kinda icky, but totally satisfying.
Currently my deep cleaning project involves getting rid of all of our junk. Waxor and I have boxes of junk that have sat, essentially untouched, for the entire eight years we've been together. A few have been untouched for longer than that, being from my college days. I am *gasp* going through them all and getting rid of things I don't need. I went through my old picture box and got rid of all the out of focus, badly shot, odd pictures of people who I no longer even recognize. Waxor and I have donated about half of our book collection to the Salvation Army. I have gotten rid of all the old clothes that I will never, ever wear again (except for that one pair of pants that has the signatures of most of my friends over a period of three years. Those I kept.) I have gotten rid of most of the kids clothes that they have outgrown. I am cleaning house, baby! Eventually I hope to be able to move into our basement and see neat stacks of things that are actually worth storing, and whole bunch of empty space.
Of course, in the meantime I have piles of CRAP all over the house, making that first category of cleaning, the daily kind, a real pain in the ass
Sigh.
Elliot and I are currently engaged in potty wars. He doesn't like being dirty, but he hates being changed, and he refuses, with vehemence and ire, to actually go on the toilet. Oh, and he hates running around naked, too. I need a book for potty training for not so dummies. I mean, Elliot is a smart kid. He knows exactly what it is I want, and how to do it. He just doesn't want to do so. I can put him on the potty at the exact time of day that he always goes, and leave him there for an hour, and he'll hold it until he gets off. Sigh. This weekend we're going to Western Mass, and I'm planning on shamelessly using peer pressure to encourage him to use the potty. "Alex uses the potty, don't you want to use the potty?"
Of course, I know what he'll say, "No, I'm just fine using a diaper now."
The baby timer has popped and now I must be done.
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