Croup-de-doop

Last night I had a dream that the girls and I were searching for something and it was vitally important to Michael. I can't remember what we were looking for but we had a map and portions of it were fuzzy like they were a mile away and had a glare. So we were following this map and the first part of it was at some sort of resort that I know for a fact that I've dreamed about before and it's a very creepy place. It's always foggy but people are swimming and these people are all swimming very quietly and slowly and have no expressions on their faces.

So we get on a raft in the water and this raft takes us all along this lake that is just huge and eventually we get to a very desolate shore and just as we're about to alight on land, wolves coming stalking out of the woods and pace along the shore watching us. I know that I'm supposed to get onto land here but obviously the wolves want my baby so I can't do that. We keep going on this raft which was self propelled in some sort of weird dream way. As we're floating along I realize that the sun is super bright and shining right on Diva who for some strange reason is only wearing a diaper. As I realize this, the look on her face is so serene and knowing that it basically says "Yes mother, I am going to get very sunburnt and we both know there is nothing you can do about it. I accept this."

Eventually we get to some sort of weird shop run by two older ladies and it reminds me of a bait shop crossed with an antique store. I don't know what they were selling but I got the distinct impression that they weren't being fully truthful when answering my questions about the map and directions.

What does this dream mean? That Diva has croup. She started making horking seal noises yesterday evening and I called ask-a-nurse twice and steamed her in the bathroom and let her toddle about until 1:30 am until she piled up a bunch of pillows and then feel asleep next to them on the living room floor. It was super cute. Then this morning her stridor (the seal noises) got worse and very constant and since the nurse had told me that was bad I decided to finally take Diva to the emergency room so I wouldn't have to freak out about her breathing anymore. Of course I was worried about her possibly having H1N1 and respiratory complications which is the most serious concern for babies getting the pigfluenza. Long story short, I freaked out, doctor diagnosed croup, cold air is good for croup so trick or treating was on like donkey kong.

If you already have a clumsy child, I do not recommend purchasing a mermaid costume for said child. Let's just say there will be a couple of bruised shins in this house tomorrow.

I bought three bags of candy to give out because I didn't know what kind of traffic the new house would get and figured that since we're very close to a school and there are four front doors within less than twenty feet of mine that we might get a lot. I was wrong. We had six trick or treaters. I have a lot of candy to eat. Must go put myself in sugar coma now. Hope a spooktastic evening was had by all and that you all check your kids candy and throw away the single Oreo cookie they were given. What the fuck was that lady thinking? Germs! Poison! Stale Oreos! I am grossed out and also wishing I had some Oreos to go with my shitload of candy.

pink towel comedy tour

Have you ever tried to do a 57 minute pilates workout with a 6 year old? I recommend it. Your core gets a little extra workout while you stifle your giggles at the noises the child will make when trying to coordinate her parts to do the double straight leg. And it's a great way to occupy them for 57 minutes. I don't know why it never occurred to me to work out while she was still bopping around but it may have to be a new routine for us. Her form is terrible and she makes silly noises and faces and flails all over the place and it makes the hour go faster.

When I asked her if she wanted to do pilates with me she asked if she got a mat. She has been jealous of my new mat that I got a couple weeks ago, mostly because it's something new that she's not suppose to touch. I told her that she didn't have a mat but that she could do it on a folded towel next to me. As I was starting the video I told her that if she liked working out with me and she made it a habit that we could maybe get her her own yoga mat. Of course after half assing the moves she did do and not doing the ones that she couldn't figure out, at the end she asked if we could do it again tomorrow and when we could get her a mat.

I just learned that they have a plethora of knock off designer hand bags in Kosovo. I am drooling at the implications. Hello Christmas!

it's the 20s ya'll

Do you ever get the booger flapping in your nose that just won't go away no matter what you do? I seem to only get them on the side that my nose ring is on so that may be a contributing factor. Either way, they annoy the hell out of me for hours at a time and nothing I do makes them go away. I always worry that it's a phantom booger and that one of these days it's going to be the final one that never goes away. Can you imagine having a flapper for the rest of your days? OMG, that would finally put me in the asylum.

overfloweth

So many things I want to tell you all about that I don't even know where to start. I know, bullets!


* I recently learned that Michael is most likely going to be sent to Afghanistan in 2012. I am processing and will go into it when I have less going through my head and heart.
* Diva has been in bed for at least 30 minutes and she is alternating between chattering and whining. It's kind of cute because I know she doesn't really want me to come get her (or maybe she just doesn't expect me to) and she's just entertaining herself.
* Is it possible that my obliques are going to start looking worse the more I work out? I don't know if that's the case or if maybe I just expect them to look better and they stay the same and that's what's causing me to hate the mirror but I sort of think maybe my hip bones are oddly shaped and that I'm going to always hate my sides.
* I also think that very soon I am gong to start hating Mari Windsor of Windsor Pilates. She is starting to piss me off, mostly because her workouts are so hard to do correctly.
* I was at the mall in the big city today and had Diva in the sling and heard so many people exclaim about how cute she was. The store clerks all said it to me but lots of shoppers just pointed her out to their companions and made silly faces at her. One girl, when I was walking out of Macy's, told her friend "Oh my god, that makes me want a baby. So cute!" Ha! Our child is gonna be inspiration for others to populate the world.
* Tiny has started calling Diva 'little sweetie' and randomly when Diva walks up to her she'll say 'you are SO cute'. It just turns me to jello. Those dang girls!
* My mother in law is finally totally starting to seem like herself again which is awesome. I think she was super tired all the time pretty much until this last weekend. She picked up Tiny this afternoon and kept her until bedtime which was awesome because it meant I didn't have to rush home and could shop in a leisurely fashion.
* My friend B asked me to color her hair and I'm so excited to do it. I never really thought about how much I miss doing hair (as a hobby) so it'll be nice to get back to doing some every now and then. I'm hoping that when other people in our circles see how beautiful her hair is going to be, they'll want to book appointments at salon de heather.
* Did I tell you that I cut my bangs again? I'm liking them a lot and it was totally what I needed. I've been tempted to chop all my hair off but I know I would've been pissed if I did that so I'm happy with my bangs for now.
* I cleaned out my mom's fridge when I was there and boy did she get pissed. The woman needs to be on a mini episode of Hoarders. If Mike ever thought I was bad, he has no idea. I was throwing things away that expired in 2003. No joke. Most of the things I threw were at least a year past expiration. She honestly didn't get mad though until she found out I threw her 6 boxes of cream cheese that expired in August. Seriously, dairy products have expiration dates for a fricking reason mom. She acted like I was crazy and that's when I started to get really worried that she might really have a problem that will one day require serious help.


There is so much more that I could write but there is also a to do list that is overwhelming me and causing me to shut down so i need to at least do something right now.

Redesigner

Have you ever wished you had your own blog? Have you ever wished your blog layout could reflect your personality just a little more? Well go check out Becky. She's giving away a blog design to one very lucky winner and you have until the end of the month to sign up. She has actually designed a few of the blogs that I currently subscribe to so I know she does good work. I've been wishing for a much prettier page for a long time and am crossing my fingers!

What's for dinner?: Smothered pork chops

Guilt

Fuckfuckfuck fuckity fuckity fucking fuck fuck fuck.

Hello, if you've just joined this blog I apologize for the excessive expletives in the preceeding paragraph. This is not how I normally run the show but it couldn't be helped today.

I'm freaking the fucking fuck out. My baby, my flesh and blood, the tiny child I made from scratch and worked very goddamn hard to incubate, the itty bitty little peanut who people cannot believe is capable of walking, fell down the stairs today. Please tell me you gasped just then. Please?! I am beside myself right now. At first I was rattled but she seemed fine so I just went about my business so that she wouldn't get any more freaked out than she already was. But I've had time to process and reflect and I am tempted to throw myself down the stairs just to feel a little better.

We spent the last few days at my parents' house which is in varying states of finishedness (totally not a word, I know but pronounce it with a hard D and see how fun it is until you say it 6 or 7 times and it stops making any sense at all) but all in all was a much more pleasant place to inhabit this trip than on our last few. The stairs in question are not carpeted yet so they are simply wooden treads at this time. We had placed the baby gate on the first step down so the Tiny and my decrepit parents would be able to hoist their bodies over it but it still stood high enough the Diva couldn't hoist herself over (though she's close, the girl is an acrobat. Did I tell you she can get herself into the bathtub when and if she so chooses?)

Now this gate is a little wonky and we had been having trouble making it connect on all four point of contact. Yesterday we shimmed one side and it worked out pretty well but the shim was in use elsewhere and I had thought I had gotten the gate to work right on it's own anyways so my mom didn't know a shim even belonged there when she took the gate down and later put it back up. Honestly, I didn't even think the gate was up at all so either it makes my negligence worse or maybe better depending on how you look at it. Anyways, my parents and brother were out in the garage and I was up in the living room. Michael was on the phone and I was very excited to be speaking with him as I haven't heard his voice in a few weeks and we haven't even IMed in almost a week. Needless to say, I miss him like mad. I saw Diva toddling towards the stairs and as I stated, thought the gate wasn't even there so I got up to grab her but didn't run because she's at the point where she sort of knows how to go over the edge of things but she takes her sweet time manuevering her butt and feet where she wants them and I figured I had the extra second she would stop to consider the problem.

Alas, the gate was there and she went to shake it like a monkey at the zoo and it went forward and she went with it, ass over tea kettle, rolling and bumping down the stairs. Since the gate just tipped down and stayed where it was, it ended up being in my way when I wanted to grab her so she actually fell the entire 6 or 7 stairs and then my mom came in the door at the bottom and grabbed her before I could get the gate out of the way and scooped her up.

I shushed her and bounced her and kissed her booboos and tried to distract her from her tears and she honestly took it like a champ. The girl is tough as nails. On Wednesday she got a flu shot and didn't make a peep until the nurse came at her again with the band-aid and understandably the baby didn't know that it was just a band-aid and thus registered a complaint. Today she cried but only for a minute until she knew that her needs had been met and that she wasn't going to be bonked again in the immediate future. At the time and for the next several hours I was amazed and very thankful that nothing worse had happened but didn't really give it that much more thought until I got in the shower.

That damn shower. I do my best thinking there but my thoughts always catch up with my emotions there and at times it leaves me sobbing hysterically into the downpour of water, hoping that no one can hear me cry.

In the shower I kept seeing her fall over and over again. I kept thinking about how helpless she was and how she didn't have any idea what was happening or when it would stop. Her little hands had no hope of grabbing onto anything to stop her from falling and her mommy wasn't there at the bottom to catch her. I know that I can't always keep my children safe and everyday bumps and bruises don't usually phase me but this was more. This could've been serious, even life threatening, and I couldn't catch her. I keep thinking that I should've gotten up faster. I should've kept her attention on something while I was on the phone. I should've made sure the gate was up correctly. I should've dropped the phone and gotten down the stairs faster. I should've been able to get the damn gate out of my way to scoop her up faster. I shouldn't have even stayed at my parents' house until it was done and ready for visitors.

I realize that I couldn't have known she would fall and at least I was in the room instead of walking away and trusting the gate would hold her. I realize that she is fine and I should just focus on being thankful and stop wallowing in my guilt, but I just can't. I hurt so much inside knowing that I in some tiny way contributed to harm that came to my child, my baby. Let's hope that guilt at least lets me sleep. The baby sure didn't last night.

Won't you be my neighbor?

The doorbell rings. I jump over a box, slip between two pieces of furniture, and past the toddling tot all while trying not to touch anything with my paint covered hands and ball of blue tape. The doorbell rings again. There's nobody at the front door which is the door one would expect to have visitors at. So I lean to peek out the window and spy my lovely neighbor lady at the back door. But buy the time I get the gate open and get to the backdoor, there's no one there. Heaving a sigh of relief I turn to step out of the doorway and she pops back into view. Shit.

She asks me to step outside and I tell her that it's too chilly and I'm in the middle of something and I have the baby in here. All of which seemed like common sense but alas, maybe my sense of sense is skewed. TinyP doesn't seem to agree with what I think is common sense either. Neighbor lady tells me she's just trying to help me and that I should put the downspout back up in my backyard. By this statement she has made it obvious that she knows I purposely took it down and thinks that I made the wrong choice. She tells me that it's dripping dripping by the side of the house.

I tell her that I took it down for the winter because I don't want it there when it freezes because that's bad for your gutters and your roof. When neighbor lady objected to this I told that I knew what I was doing and that I used to manage multi-million dollar properties and I'm not worried about it. She told me "Well so did the Germans", refering to the people who we purchased our home from. She either doesn't remember their names because she's old or she never bothered to learn them because she's racist and rude. I have long believed it's the second. Then she said "Well it sounds like you're a very smart girl." I said that I knew a lot because my dad builds houses and I have experience in a lot of things and can do a lot around the house. And my lovely neighbor said "Well it just sounds like you can teach us all a lot around here".

I've tried very hard to have patience with this woman and to just smile and nod and then do what I want anyways. She has asked me several times to unscrew the panel in front of the door that links our basements. She has tried treating me like an idiot and telling me what that door is for. She then asked in front of my dad and tried guilting me into it by saying I might save a life. She then knocked on my door and told me I had to do it because they had to have the fire escape there when the house was built. That was when I informed her that it was only required to have a second method of egress if you had a bedroom down there, which we do not, and that we were looking into the options for putting a bedroom down there and that we didn't want to do anything with it until we had explored that option. This was all bullshit but it got her off my back for that day at least.

I want to be a good neighbor. I shoveled the walk up to her front door the other day. I sweep off the walk when I mow the lawn so she doesn't have to shuffle through the grass and drag it into her house. I had Tiny bring her a plate of brownies once. I just want her to leave me alone. I take pride in my home and my ability to take care of it and she ruins it for me.

What's for dinner?: I'm baking a chocolate caramel candy thing today and dinner is pork chops in an onion celery brown sauce.

When you go to Dairy Queen, why do they always give you your ice cream before your other food? This is especially inconvenient when you've ordered a cone or something particularly messy. I don't get it.

I have not been doing anything very exciting lately. Diva has found a new joy in life. Playing in the toilet water. This disgusts me to no end but I'm pretty sure that when I tell my father about it he might lose his lunch. Diva's new hobby makes a lot more work for me because instead of just making sure the gate is closed and then letting her wander, I need to follow her any time she leaves the room. Of course there isn't such a thing as a toilet lock in the Tiny Town and the bathroom door doesn't latch for various reasons that I will someday have the ambition to address.

The girls and I went out to a pumpkin patch last weekend to pluck our own pumpkins so now we have six of them hanging around the house. Can you bake with pumkins you just pluck from the patch or buy from the huge pile in the grocery store? Or do you need to buy pumpkins that are especially grown for food use? Hmmmm, this requires googling.


What's for dinner?: Dairy Queen, weren't you listening? But last night was homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. Tiny saw it and said "I'm not sick!"

A nice long dinner

Tiny has been "eating" supper for over two hours. Tonight was leftovers of a meal she claimed to love two days ago. Apparently something has gone very very wrong in the refrigerator in the last 48 odd hours. So she sat at the dining room table for an hour sighing and whining and just a few tears. I moved her to the kitchen table when I realized she was too still and was listening to the tv instead of even pretending to eat.

Since the table switch there have been more tears and much muttering and also a lot of scraping of her fork against the bowl. Then the clicking started. I don't know how she knows that clicking her fork on her teeth is one of the worst things she could do but the girl has a sixth sense about how to piss me off. I've realized that this is a test of my will and am committed to following through on my threats. The girl WILL sit at the table all night long if that's what it takes. I hope she falls asleep and falls out of her chair. That would make me smile just a little. Especially to see the look on her face when I wipe her tears and then plop her back in her chair and tell her to eat.

Perhaps this is just the stand off we needed for her to finally figure out that I am the boss and that she can't beat me. I struggled with my mother for my entire childhood for the same reasons and I really hope to stop the cycle. My hope is that by training my strong willed child to live by the rules and to respect authority, she will be strong willed in living the right way. I'm sure that I will laugh someday at my high hopes and naivete. The child will probably beat the stubbornness right out of me.

Thong song

I kind of dressed like an old lady today. It's actually more of a high fashion look but I didn't go quite that far so it ended up looking more nursing home than runway. I'm sure you don't really care much but telling you makes me accountable. I've been trying really hard lately to not be dowdy. Not that I really have been but I feel bad that I haven't really been keeping myself to the standards of the woman my husband met four years ago.

I stopped wearing thongs. What the hell? I used to only own about three pairs of standard underpants because I only ever wore thongs. This is what led me to believe I have a problem. So I'm fixing it. I'm going to be the sexy woman who shaved every day and cared what she looked like more than how comfortable she was. I don't think I'll ever backcomb my hair quite so much but I'm making more of an effort in the hopes that he'll appreciate it and that I'll feel more like myself all the time again.

I'm working out and trying to wear pretty shoes and not wear jeans every single day. I love that I have the option to wear sweats and never put on makeup again if that's what I chose to do. My husband doesn't care and never really has. He doesn't compliment me when I make the extra effort but it's because he truly doesn't notice because he truly thinks I'm beautiful either way. He could care less whether I'm wearing $100 worth of lingerie or my Truffle Shuffle t-shirt with holes in it because he wants the body underneath. So yes, I'm trying to improve the frame as well as the decor but mostly the decor. I have made an effort to wear makeup every day since we moved but it hasn't been enough to feel like the vibrant 24 year old that I should feel like. So, no more granny panties. No more thinking about the weather, that's what coats are for. No more thinking about how comfortable my butt is, I'm going to think about how it looks. At least for awhile.

Babyzilla

We've spent the last three days doing this and pretty much only this.