it's over

Yesterday the sitter tried to get Oona to take a nap and Oona told her, 'no more napping anymore.' I came home to find her running around in circles in the living room. So I'm feeling like my posts might take a hit if she won't sleep for me anymore. She will fall asleep if I drive around but she wakes up during the transition from car seat to crib so there's not much that I can do. I could buy a laptop and run the car to keep warm but that's would be pretty silly and not very nice to the environment. Oh God! It's officially over, what am I going to do?

I'll try to throw one more post up here before Christmas but if I get overwhelmed with the maniacal madness of the season, and Oona's non-napping mania, I hope anyone who reads this has a most wonderful Christmas!

in the bedroom

Okay, now obviously I am not showing these photos of my bedroom while swelling with pride. Truth be told I'm mortified at the state of our bedroom and am posting these pictures in the hope that I can overwhelm readers with the dramatic makeover (yet on a painfully slim budget) that I'd like to accomplish within a month, at least that's the timeline I'm giving myself. We're hoping to move to a new house once Toby's done with school (he has a year and a half to go) so I'd rather not repaint the walls even though the Martha Stewart for Kmart heather is a little too Grimace purple for me (apparently Grimace has been dropped as of 2007, so my Grimace purple bedroom is really dated). Well enough explaining here's the place.

We'll begin the panoramic tour of the master boudoir with Toby's side. Those are his belts on the floor and stacks of drawers. I'm sure you're wondering what a stack of blue drawers are doing on the floor. Well, I finally finished Oona's room last year and had painted that dresser for her room but I never got around to filling her dresser because the inside of the drawers were nasty. So for the last, oh, month and a half or so the drawers have been sitting there because I haven't found time to get around to cutting the fabric to line the drawers. I mean it's much easier to write on my blog and complain about not having time to really finish Oona's dresser than to actually take an hour and do it.

Moving ever so slowly you get to see the north facing wall where our dresser stands mournfully in a corner, most likely embarrassed by the crap and dust that sits on top of it for ages. There's one of our cats, Sam, who loves to sleep on our bed during the day. And on the end of the bed is my Christmas gift and an instrumental part of the bedroom makeover courtesy of Garnet Hill, whose bedding, clothes and home decor I love but I could quickly rack up ten grand worth just browsing through the catalog, or Anthropologie for that matter, so nice yet so freaking expensive!

Moving on we come to the worst part of the room, my side of the bed. All the junk piled in front of the window is old clothing or toys of the kids that I need to go through and donate or try and sell at a local consignment store, which I hate driving to and putting the time into because I'll probably get all of $20, so this procrastination is what causes the pile to sit in that corner for long stretches of time. We also have two friends expecting a babies so I want to see if either of them needs a diaper champ or changing pad before giving the stuff away. And this dresser has all Oona's clothes, so I need to transfer her clothes to the blue dresser (once I finish lining the drawers) and free up some space by getting this dresser out of the bedroom. The monarch butterfly was hanging in a corner of Owen's room until nightmares took over and the butterfly started freaking him out. Oona likes it but her room is the size of a closet so she might have to wait until the next home.

Finally we come to the southern facing wall, where the headboad and footboard that my Mom sent me a year and a half ago remain propped against the wall. To be fair this was supposed to go up in the guest bedroom on the third floor but the boxspring wouldn't fit up the stairs and then I didn't know what to do with them since they really aren't my style, I'd like a wrought iron bed, but I hate to just put it out in the trash on bulk day. So they've sat against the wall, along with a framed picture of Degas dancers that I had back in high school. Stay tuned to see how I declutter, what gets tossed, what stays and what gets a brand new look. I've got some ideas but we'll see how things gel with this room over the next month. I hope we're all pleasantly surprised.

brave new world

So, as of yesterday I've entered the last year of my thirties. Hard to believe, really. No huge blowouts for birthday #39. Saturday night we went out to dinner with Toby's brother and his wife to a restaurant with local, organic food that's byob. It was a great tasting meal but they could really invest in some hairnets and a dimmer switch. Husband of couple almost coughed up a hairball from his salad, the strand was Rapunzel like in length. One benefit of the bright lighting was that I noticed the hair resting on top of a portion of my pork tenderloin and quarantined it to the far side of my dinner plate. Toby's brother was outraged when I found a hair, at first he thought I was kidding. I mentioned it to the waiter in the least offensive manner (it's not his fault and hair loss happens to us all). He was profuse with apologies and we all got free dessert. Plus Toby brought a really nice bottle of bordeaux, my favorite type of wine. Sunday was horribly rainy here but we got a tree that the cats are busy de-needling, at least the lower branches. I am thankful though that they're not climbing up the tree like last year. We ordered take out indian food from my favorite indian restaurant in Pittsburgh and the kids and Toby sang Happy Birthday to me; well Toby did, Owen half-heartedly sang between bites of his cookie and Oona made farting sounds from her mouth. And after the kids went to bed Toby and I watched a few episodes of season 3 of The Office, part of my gift from Toby (we missed most of last year's episodes since Toby had class Thursday nights). And I still have four leftover cookies from whole foods, which I got for us in lieu of a cake. All in all a good day.

picture day

I was trying to get a new picture of myself for my blog because I'm always a bit creeped out by pictures of authors that never change on their books even though many years might have passed. I'm thinking Danielle Steel but who knows, maybe she's like Dorian Grey and isn't aging, or is receiving a lot of airbrushing. And then there's Ayn Rand's portrait drawing on the backs of her books, which softened what photography couldn't with her. This is not to say that I'm famous, an author or anywhere near the caliber of the Queen of spinner rack novels or the Queen of objectivism, just that I like to keep the pictures current. When I finally got a decent picture, I actually look prettier than I do in real life, my hair looks dark in a nice way and my eyes very big and blue, but my skin is also blue, a la Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So much for being current.

Here is a current picture of Oona, taken today at our visit to Grandma's. I feel so bad because within the past month Oona's become scared of the people at my Grandma's assisted living home. She turns to me and says 'Carry scared!' clutching my thigh. I hoist her up and tell her not to worry, but she even acts scared of my Grandma when she first sees her. Once we're in her room she's fine but I don't know if she's just scared about the old people or if she senses that something isn't quite right about them since their memory is impaired. I don't want to bring her if she's truly freaked out about it and then I'd feel bad because my Grandma lives for seeing Oona, she's probably the reason she wakes up every morning. But she also says cats scare her, which is not true since we have two. She talks about pumpkins scaring her too and she makes a mock face of horror at the neighbors pumpkins still perched on their porch. Maybe it's just an I like to be scared phase. Could that work for a stay at home Mom? I could tell Toby laundry scared, dishes scary with a look of horror on my face but I don't think I could get away with a fraction of what Oona does, although to be fair she is a ton cuter.

ode to a nap

I am mourning the loss of Oona's nap time. Yesterday was a blissful day where I put her down without incident and she slept for close to three hours. But that was Tuesday, today is a different story. She always sleeps for the sitter, I've joked about needing the sitter 7 days a week in order to get Oona to nap, but I came home fifteen minutes early today and the sitter said she cried before going to bed, which she never does for her the babywhisperer of napping. I guess I shouldn't have gotten home early because five minutes after being back she started crying mommy, she's like a blood hound can she smell my presence?I tried to let her cry it out but that didn't work so now she's downstairs with me prancing around the living room in her pj straightjacket singing and clapping to a Little Einsteins video. I cut off the feet from a pair of her footie pyjamas in the hopes that it would prevent her from stripping every time I put her down for a nap, twice she pooped on the bed after these strippings. It worked but she has napped maybe 5 days in the past three weeks, so I think my ingenuity was too little too late. I wish I could reason with her about this whole giving up the nap thing because she clearly isn't ready for it. When I put her in the car for the five minute drive to Owen's school she falls asleep two minutes into the ride. If I drive anywhere in the afternoon this is what she does and what can you do with the time then, assist global warming by idling your car while you try to find a way to capitalize on that free time? It's rare that my kids wake up during the night though so I guess I should count my blessings, all in all they're pretty good sleepers.

scat & i'm not talking scatman crothers

TMI alert: this post if filled with scat references. Wait a couple days for the next post if poop talk leaves you ill.

Everyone poops but everyone doesn't have an easy time pooping, at least not in this family. My God! between me and my son we're going to need new pipes in our house and Oona isn't even toilet trained yet and she's the one with the worst poop problems by far. I've been diagnosed with IBS, it's much better to say that than irritable bowel syndrome, which sounds horrible to personify the colon that way. But at least that's gentler than spastic colon, which, who could say that about themselves without hanging their head in shame? It's like saying your colon is the boy who eats glue and hops up and down grabbing himself in class. A couple weeks ago I took Oona to a GI doctor and he told me what all the other GI doctors have said, keep her on miralax, it's safe, there's nothing wrong with her taking that every day for years if need be. But then he said he'd want to see her in six months in case anything changes with Oona or if they learn new information about the safety of miralax. Very reassuring. He also wants her to get some bloodwork done, more to rule certain conditions out, which based on her thriving health he doubts she has.

I had to go in for a procedure yesterday, which involved drinking a bottle of magnesium citrate and taking two enemas, sounds lovely doesn't it? I was scheduled to have this thing done at 11:30 and they didn't do me until quarter after two by which time I was completely stressed out because my sitter needed to be at work at 3:00 so I was hopping off my gurney to place calls to update her on when I might be done, while apologizing profusely for being so late, originally I told her I'd be back by 1:00 the latest, since I'd been told the procedure takes all of five minutes. If I didn't bring along my sudoku book to kill time I might have killed someone because going close to three hours past your scheduled procedure time seems a bit insane. It's like dealing with plane travel these days, except in a hospital gown. Apparently they were short an anesthetist which backed everything up (hard not to write in double entendres when it comes to the bowel). I didn't need anesthesia, unlike everyone else getting endoscopies and colonoscopies, so God knows why they couldn't move me to the head of the line and get me in and out quick. Once I finally got in there everything was quick, it's very bizarre to see your colon on TV and I was compelled to apologize since my prep for this procedure didn't work and they need to irrigate me, apparently this happens or that's what the fellow (a doctor who was a fellow, not a guy) with a probe up my ass told me. Everything looked normal and I jumped back into my clothes and ran out (as fast as I could while doubled over with cramps from getting water and air pumped into my colon) to pay my parking ticket and get home. Talk about a day well spent by myself, HA! I did like a third of the damn sudoku book, much easier without distractions although I still prefer crossword puzzles.

I am really tempted to see a naturopathic docotor or holistically oriented nutritionist. I just keep wondering if my family's (except Toby) troubles would clear up if we eliminated dairy from our diet or wheat. We all drink plum juice (much tastier than prune juice) on a regular basis but that doesn't seem to be enough. I'm always putting off visiting a naturapthic doctor because I'm scared they'll tell me I have to give up all my favorites; chocolate, caffeine, sugar and I'd probably need to be locked up in a padded cell in order to detox from those three.

reservation road

This is a well written book; it's engrossing and I found it hard to put down, but that's more because I had to finish it and be done with it as soon as possible. I'd give it more plums except I have kids and it was way too close to home in terms of imagining the death of one of my children. If you are a parent and want to place your heart in a vise then turn the screw, by all means get this book. If you're a parent who has enough on your plate worrying about your kids welfare in the real world or when you read you fall into the fictional world easily, do not get this book!

little white lies

I’m starting to feel like now might be a good time to start a coke habit, or some other drug that could give me delusions of grandeur. I’ve never done cocaine and the (thankfully) few drugs I have tried have never given me any sort of lift, more paranoia (pot is an absolute torturous nightmare for me) or nothing. Maybe I could find some psycho-pharmacological drug that could give my ego a boost since it’s really in a fragile place right now. I continue to feel like less than stellar Mom material with Owen. Toby tells me it’s nonsense, that I’m a good Mom but that Owen sees me as a pushover and he’s bright so he knows how to push my buttons and make me feel guilty. Plus I’m always trying to talk, in a therapist’s couch sort of way, with Owen, let’s discuss what happened, our feelings while I look less than receptive, my brows are permanently knit in exasperation. And, once again, Toby’s (rightfully) like, he’s five you need to take something away from him and punish him for bad behavior not talk things over. I tend to be a bit of a doormat in life but I learned from the best, my Mom, who learned from the best, her Mom. The thing is my Mom doesn’t feel she’s like her Mom or me, she likes to think the neurotic, overly-sensitive gene skipped her generation.

On Tuesday I had to take my Grandma to the dentist because she needed a tooth extracted and a filing. I had marked on her calendar that I would be taking her to the dentist and talked with her repeatedly about it but her memory is declining rapidly while her anxiety increasing, so she always tends to call me a lot the day before a big event, which leaving Sunrise (her care center) to go to the dentist qualifies as. When the dentist had come to Sunrise a couple of weeks earlier to do check ups on the patients she was beside herself. Oona and I arrived to find her close to tears, hands in fists, arguing with a care manager that she wasn’t going to see any dentist when her granddaughter was visiting, her teeth were fine. She was very upset that no one told her earlier about this, which I’m sure they did but she couldn’t remember. I convinced her to go see the dentist saying it would be quick and Oona and I were fine waiting in her room. She came back relieved but still talking about how no one had told her a dentist would be visiting that day and then she started worrying that she hadn’t thanked the dentist for what I nice job he did on her bridge (her six top front teeth) over the summer. I hate to see her get so upset.

My sitter came to watch Oona on Tuesday. I dropped off Owen at school and headed over to my Grandma’s early because I knew she’d be excited. She wasn’t too nervous but was very unsure of what to wear since she stays inside all the time, and is birdlike thin now, she wasn’t sure if she’d be warm enough. We got her into a corduroy skirt and sweatshirt and put on her winter coat and I got her into the car easily enough. The whole ride over she’s asking me how far it is (8 miles) and if this is my dentist (yes I lie, he’s very good) and why does she have to go there’s nothing wrong with her bridge (he want to look at a couple of your teeth). If we sit at a red light for longer than 5 seconds she gets angry and starts muttering ‘oh come on already’ and I try to tell her not to worry that we’ll get there in time. I walk her into the office, up the elevator and into the waiting room where her anxiety spikes, ‘Look at all these other people, am I going to have to wait long?’ I tell her no praying that that’s true because last time I took her here we waited a half hour which is like a lifetime to someone with memory loss, anxiety and a prolapsed bladder, and I had Oona with me then too! But the gods are smiling on us because as soon as Grandma sits down a hygienist says Dr. B is ready for her.

Dr. B is great with Grandma and I sort of worried initially because he has a slight accent and is Middle Eastern, my grandparents have never been the most open-minded individuals, but she likes him. He’s charming, handsome with a warm smile, and very gentle with her as he asks after Oona while urging me to take samples of toothpaste from a bowl next to plastic displays of teeth. Dr. B takes an x-ray of Grandma’s tooth and it definitely needs to be extracted but he’s going to hold off on the other than that he thought might need to be filled. Now the whole time I haven’t told my Grandma that she needs a tooth removed because I knew she wouldn’t consider going to the dentist then. I feel horrible lying to her, well not outright lying but huge omitting of fact by saying Dr. B need to check a tooth, but with her memory impairment and anxiety I try to gauge what is the best way to handle things. I hold her hand when Dr. B numbs her mouth and continue to hold it while Dr. B gently rocks the tooth (#18) back and forth with a pair of metal forceps while I marvel at the nerve you’d need to first try an extraction as a dental student. The molar comes out with little blood and Dr. B wedges a piece of gauze back there for my Grandma to bite on. She still has no idea what just happened but smiles and offers a garbled thanks again for the bridge. The whole ride home I tell her she’ll need leave the gauze in for an hour and no, the dentist didn’t mess with her bridge at all.

Once back at Sunrise I sit with my Grandma in her room. After ten minutes of small talk I finally tell her that Dr. B tried to fill the tooth but there was too much decay, it broke and he had to remove it. She nods with a smile, ‘oh, really?’ A nurse comes in to see her and I hand her the sheet of post op instructions. She sweetly yells at Grandma, she’s got pretty bad hearing loss but won’t think of getting a hearing aid, that she can’t brush her teeth, no drinking with a straw and they’ll bring her a meal in a couple hours, after the numbness goes away. ‘And if you feel any pain you need to let us know.’ Grandma nods to everything she says, smiling. After she leaves we go to the bathroom to take the gauze out. It’s no longer bleeding, thank God for small miracles. I go over the instructions with her again and write when I’ll next be out to visit on her calendar. I give her a hug and a kiss, tell her I love her, and lock her door for her before going since there are men, ‘they’re not right’ she says with a point to the head, that wander in her room from time to time.

About an hour after I get home the calls start. She can’t understand that a tooth has been removed, ‘but I’m not bleeding, where was it?’ she thinks it was removed from her bridge ‘he didn’t mess with my bridge at all did he?’ and ‘what do I tell everyone that’s asking why I went to the dentist?’ My responses contradict each other, they would collapse in a heartbeat if I was being interrogated by the cops but as long as there is an answer and a familiar voice telling her not to worry she gradually tapers off with the calls ‘oh, I don’t mean to bother you.’ And I tell her it’s okay. She called me yesterday asking when she might see me next and I said that I had just been there the day before and she couldn’t remember. The visit to the dentist, the tooth, the lies, it all just fades away.

pain management

Yesterday Owen had off from school and I thought that would be a great day to take the kids for their lead test, not that there's ever a great day for needles but they could both get tested at the same time. So in the morning I took us to the pediatric wing of the hospital in the neighborhood we used to live in. I'm filling out forms and trying to police the kids simultaneously when our visit to the hospital suddenly seems to dawn on Owen. He asks, 'Do I have to get a shot?' and I pause weighing what the best thing is that I can say. How can I spin this in a positive light? Owen never had a problem with shots until this past August, when he had to get five shots before starting kindergarten. That whole experience was traumatic enough but he also got sick with a fever and vomiting afterwards, whether because of the immunizations or some ill-timed virus, who knows. Since then as soon as he hears he might need a shot he starts bawling, really loud theatrical emotionally drawn out crying. So, on cue, when I admit that yes he needs a lead test he starts screaming 'No! I don't want a shot!' I am trying to reason with him calmly and get him to quiet down
'Owen it will be a quick prick and then it's over.'
'Shhh Shh, it will be okay. '
'Take a deep breath like you do in karate.'
but the crying doesn't stop, if anything it's like a snowball of hysteria and I say, calmly but pointedly, over the bawling, 'Owen there are children in this hallway who are seriously ill can you please calm down?'
Nothing doing.

So I take Owen and Oona into the room where blood's drawn and ask if I can shut the door so his screams aren't disturbing the actual patients. There's a bed shaped like a purple dinosaur and lots of kid friendly decor and stickers, what more could a kid ask for. But Owen crouched in the corner by the door crying so hard I can't even tell if he can hear anything that the nurses and I say to try and calm him down. The nurses ask why the kids are getting tested and I run through my list: 100 plus year old house that husband does renovations on, recalled Thomas toys with son that puts everything in his mouth and the playground my children went to a lot recently where it recently came to light that there's elevated lead levels in the soil. No, I don't just get tests to stick my needlephobe son full of needles. I am sleep deprived and Owen's crying is pulling at every frayed nerve in my body. I start feeling like such an abject failure as a parent with Owen and his bawling. Like I'm an abusive mother and there must be something emotionally wrong with me, him, or both of us for him to freak out like that. The nurses didn't say anything negative, one commiserated and said her daughter acted like that when she was six, but I just feel like I'm so obviously the bad mom, the one who can't calm her kid or looks annoyed at her clearly upset child, like I'm so not helping Owen in his time of need. The one nurse said I could come back with Owen on another day but she understood when I said I'd rather push through this and take the test today than come back with him at a later time because I think it would be worse, my logic being better to get it over and done with than the whole terror be magnified even more with anticipating a later date. We were going to do Owen first be he was too upset so Oona got on the dino-bed and started crying. I don't think she would have cried had it not been for Owen. She loves him so much and was so concerned over his crying, I think that scared her. She bawled hard for about ten seconds when her finger was pricked and they started drawing blood but after the nurse said they were milking her like a cow she said, 'no piggy' and oinked for her. I don't know of any pigs that have been milked before but she was fine after that, even though they were still milking her finger for blood, filling up two tiny vials. When she was done she got a Garfield band aid and a Dora sticker (no cable for us so she doesn't get the whole Dora thing) then I put her back in the stroller and turned my attention to my son, cowering with red swollen eyes in the corner. It took some effort on my part to pick up Owen, he’s skinny but put up a good fight. After a couple false starts I got him and carried him to the dino-bad where two other nurses helped pin him down and a third one prepped him for the finger prick. I had his shoulders down and my top half pressing his torso to the bed, at one point I dropped my head to his chest so he couldn’t see me laugh. I am a nervous laugher and he was like... all I could think of was some scared straight film I saw in grade school where they talked about how people on PCP can break through handcuffs. He's screaming at the top of his lungs 'No no no shots. No shots never ever again!' he was so consumed by his screaming it didn't break or alter after the finger prick. He continued to bawl through the filling up of the two vials, after the band aid, through my profuse apologies and thank yous to the nurses for all their help, through the trip down the elevator where I tried to joke that if his finger tip still hurt maybe we should amputate (oh I grimace at the lead balloon that was but if Toby had said it I'm sure Owen would have laughed), through the walk in the park to the car. He wouldn't stop crying until he talked to Toby on the phone while we were in the car. I hear him calming down as I’m driving and it hurts me that it’s so easy for him with Toby and not with me.

Throughout the day Owen told anybody that would listen about his blood shot test looking very serious and holding up his finger covered in yet another Garfield band-aid as evidence of his ordeal. During karate he showed it to his instructor and mentioned that it was still hurting him, he had karate 8 hours after his blood shot test. I was grumbling about it to Toby after putting the kids down for the night, ‘How can it still hurt him? With my luck he’ll develop necrotizing fasciitis in that finger and it will all be my fault.’ I love Owen so much but there are times when I feel like he doesn’t like me or that I can’t comfort him when he’s sad and that is so integral to what a Mom is, it’s disheartening. Every mistake I make with my kids is like another nick in my heart, it makes me feel awful and guilty and unbearably sad.

love thy neighbor

We had my Dad down for Thanksgiving and my Grandma came out too. A little odd having my Grandma and her daughter's ex-husband over for dinner. My Grandma spent the meal trying to figure out the connection, due to her memory impairment, and then trying her hardest not to say anything 'wrong' because she's pathologically polite and even though her memory isn't great she does know my Mom lives with someone else now so she tried to tiptoe around saying anything that would hurt my Dad's feelings about that. Toby did a wonderful job, as always, cooking the big feast. I did my nominal job of making cranberry sauce, no I didn't just open a can I made it with fresh cranberries, it's real easy and tastes great. I also peeled the yams, no candied yams here we like them mashed with garlic, heavenly! I got an organic 10 pound turkey from Whole Foods that was probably 3 times what you'd pay for a frozen turkey elsewhere but it was all worth it. How could it not be worth it when Toby cooked pretty much everything?!

My Dad got here Wednesday and was raving on Thanksgiving on what a good night's sleep he had at our house. Meanwhile I was agitated because the neighbors in the rental across the street had woken me up yet again due to their late night (3 a.m.) partying. They are nice tenants and I'm sure they don't mean to cause any trouble but if you drink enough alcohol there is no way you'll be able to be quiet unless you're passed out. A month or so ago I had to walk out in my pj's at 3 in the morning to tell the three girls talking (you know, they think they're whispering and it sounds like a 4 year olds idea of a whisper) on the front porch to please go inside. I've buried my head under a pillow when I hear a heated and inebriated heart to heart on the porch at 5 in the morning on a weekday, don't these people have jobs? I know that makes me sound like a curmudgeon but I can't deal with waking up at night, excluding my children needing me, it's so hard for me to get back to sleep. So Thanksgiving Eve I hear people on the porch yet again. I go outside in my penguin pj's and knock on the door, by then they had gone inside but had the door open so you could hear everything. A guy right near the door swings around and immediately starts apologizing, he was very sincere, and telling me that he doesn't live there. I said that was fine I just needed them to please keep it down so I could sleep. I turn to go and one of the guys that lives there comes out to talk to me. He's very polite and friendly and very drunk. He introduces himself and shakes my hand and wants to have 'a discussion' about what's going on. He's like 'I see you upset with tears in your eyes.' which I was upset but my tears were more to do with the fact that I had just woken up and was outside in the wind. He's going on and on about how I should feel safe due to there partying because it's unlikely anyone would break into our house with all that activity going on across the street, I present to you the logic of a drunk person. At this point I should mention that he has on a t-shirt that says 'I (heart) hot moms' and it just seems to crystallize how pointless and aggravating this whole situation is. I asked him, very politely, to keep his door shut when they have people over and if they want to go outside and talk to do it in the backyard. He wanted to continue discussing with me but I staved off saying that what I really wanted to do was go back to sleep, which surprised him, he seemed a bit disappointed in me. But he shook my hand and wished me a happy thanksgiving. It would have been happier if I hadn't been woken up and then was so agitated I couldn't get to sleep until 5:00, total flipping nightmare! There were three guys that lived in the rental last year and we never heard them, they were perfect. But living near a rental is never perfect for long. How I wish I had the money to just raze the building or, even better, move to a quieter part of Pittsburgh.

And last night one of Oona's talking stuffies became possessed and said 'peekaboo I see you' at 2:30 in the morning and two seconds later Owen is shouting for me and by the time I got settled to go back to sleep Toby is coughing uncontrollably. So he went downstairs but I called him back up an hour later because I still wasn't asleep. I went up on the third floor to the guest room and finally passed out at 6:30 and in that hour before waking I was plagued with nightmares of staying in a hotel with the kids where there was peeling lead paint everywhere, that Oona kept trying to eat, and then there was a fire and we had to escape the building from the second floor. Restful, I know.

orange belt

Last night Owen tested for his orange belt in karate.Ugh, I'm loathe to come across as some controlling sports mom (Toby and I don't even own any Pittsburgh sports related paraphernalia) but Owen doesn't seem to be learning any self control, or for that matter karate skills, in this class. I like the instructor a lot, I think he's great with the kids. Maybe Owen just doesn't fit with karate, he's not the most athletic child so it might be awhile before we find a sport that works for him, I keep thinking swimming might be a good fit with him. During his test last night he's acting like a total space cadet, smiling at me, scratching his head and playing with his face when he's supposed to be going through his forms with the teacher. He has absolutely no form whatsoever, constantly wobbles from one position to the next, you'd have no idea that he's been taking karate for close to a year based on his performance in class. But when we ask him if he enjoys doing karate he insists that he does.I'm confused. When the teacher gave him his orange belt he told him that he needs to work harder and get a better attitude about karate. Owen's shouted 'yes, sir!' and then goes back to the line and starts goofing off again, while I'm trying to catch his eye in order to signal that he needs to be quiet. He doesn't have to do any sport if he doesn't want, Toby and I thought it might help with his clumsiness and give him more confidence in his body but if he wants to do chess (he's part of his school's chess club) or math club that's fine. I just don't know how or when to determine that we've given karate a fair shot and that he should hang up his belt.

the dinner hour

Okay, now this probably, hopefully, happens to most every family with small children, the eternal struggle to get them to eat at dinner. These days I'm starting to feel like what's the point in forcing them to eat what Toby or I make for dinner, half the time I turn up my nose at Toby's more exotic dinners because I'm a horribly picky eater so is it a great surprise that my kids are picky too? And is it really going to kill them if they eat peanut butter and jelly (actually blackberry preserves without sugar or other sweetener added) on whole wheat bread or a couple of eggs with ketchup every night instead? The dinner battle just isn't one I want to participate in every night. I've got enough on my plate dealing with the fact that Oona will go down for a nap if anyone but me puts her down. With me she strips down to her birthday suit jumps around in the crib and on Saturday pooped all over her afghan. Thank God I have a sitter come in two mornings a week so I can do things like visit a doctor without Oona zeroing in on the biohazard box or volunteer at Owen's school. Anyhoo... last night we made Arthur loops with soy meatballs for the kids because they didn't want the tortilla pie I made. Owen finished most of his meal so he got to have some doritos as a treat and Oona threw most of her meal on the floor so she did not get doritos as a treat. Let me just clairfy here that I normally don't fashion Owen in ensembles that make him look like some precocious hipster skater but... 1. he just got the hat yesterday and was very happy with his purchase so I let him wear it most of the day. 2. he loves wearing his star wars lego t-shirts, of which he has two, but they're short sleeved so I said he could wear them if he put a long sleeved shirt on underneath. I just got Oona a flame hat this morning because she likes everything Owen and I think it will be funny to see her in her leopard coat with a flame hat on.

when you have nothing nice to say

About the weekend you spent at your in-laws, show pictures. Not their fault, just a bad weekend. So I'll leave you with pictures of the land Toby grew up on, which is pretty spectacular and filled with tiny treasures.

make it work

Just purchased filters for my brita pitcher ( the pitcher has only been without a filter for a year or so) I'm thinking that might make our nasty tap water taste better and increase my water drinking, if I can keep the glasses out of cats and children's reach. Maybe being hydrated is the answer to all my troubles - new dewy skin, boundless energy, thick shiny hair, it's what those darn magazines claim all the time.

Oona has been very affected by the end of daylight savings, she's waking up at least an hour earlier and is trying to forgo naptime. All this makes for one comatose mom. She's also taking off her pants and diaper during her naptime protests. After finally succumbing to sleep on Monday I entered her room to find her bare bottom sticking up catching the quite chilly breeze in her room. Fortunately she hasn't peed during these taking off the diaper shenanigans. This is her modeling her pink tee after being struck with future fashion designer inspiration. Look out Project Runway season 25! I think the bruise on her head (from running into the sofa too quickly) and drool spots really set off the whole look.

dorian graying

Can I tell you that I've become a little bit obsessive with facial skin lately? Now it hasn't gotten to the point where I'm buying Creme de la Mer for myself and I haven't gotten botoxed, but I'm reading every darn Vogue (my go to mag to learn how the well-heeled live) article on skin care and turning back the clock when it comes to your skin. I have the Fraxel website bookmarked for Toby, under 'things I like' for gift giving inspiration. I've talked to Toby for ages about how I want Fraxel at forty (dreadfully close now) in order to rejuvenate my skin that's looking positively haggard these days. I know it's vain but I have so much skin damage (i.e. lentigos) and hyperpigmentation because I got melasma with both of my pregnancies. Getting a blistering sunburn (doubles your chances of melanoma) on my face when I was 16 in Bermuda (I put 15 SPF on, which was the highest you could get in 1985, but that wasn't enough down there) did nothing to help my facial skin. That sunburn made me resemble a weather beaten sailor and at one point, when I was wingman for my friend, her Norwegian beau's brother told me that I looked better without my tan. Yeah, no kidding!
I have learned what I've always read about, that it can take years for the damage to show. And the past year is one where my face has aged 15 years. I'm middle aged. The reality of that statement is frightening. I know the bloom's off this rose, but the one thing I always had going for me lookswise was good skin so I can't go gently into my forties with hyperpigmentation, collagen loss, wrinkles and sagging. The other day I saw a commercial for Oil of Olay dermapods for the eye area and they mentioned how it helps fight crepeing and I was thinking to myself 'what's that?' then I looked closely in the mirror that night and realized 'Damn! my upper lids look like dark tan crepe paper. I've got crepeing!' There are days when I sadly resemble the Greek night manager of the diner I used to work at and I have no all-nighter to blame for those dark circles. So if anyone knows of a miracle creme in a bottle please let me know.
Oh, and this is incredibly obvious and foolish on my part but I know I don't drink enough water. There are so many, pretty lame, reasons for this... I can't watch my kids and pee every fifteen minutes, and unless I put the water in a sippy cup it's going to be all over the floor between my cats and the kids and I don't feel right buying bottled water what with all the flak about the plastic bottles, yet my tap water tastes horrible unless it's masked in coffee or tea. So if someone can convince me, aside from celebrities in magazines, that water is the miracle I need I'll try it, otherwise I'll maintain my stay at home mom, camel ways.

happy halloween

Oona: 'My, what a large sword you have!'

Owen: 'I'll kill you and your precious kitty trick or treat bag too.'

Mom: 'Just silence the mewing kitty bag, it's all I ask! Well, that and go pee and wash your hands before we start trick or treating.'

Yes, as a Mom I feel like I'm constantly trampling on the good fun of holidays with my admonishments to wash your hands after you pee, watch out for cars, hold my hand crossing the street and say thank you after getting a treat.

Owen in his full costume, he could barely see out of the mask. He finally relented to taking off the mask once, after some heated protests, as dusk approached. We went trick or treating with his friend, Dahlia, the vampire, and her parents. They take karate together, Dahlia lands some solid kicks, I would not mess with her if I was Owen. They get along together really well, her parents are great, and it's a lot more fruitful gathering candy in our tightly packed neighborhood than in the sprawling suburbs, where Dahlia lives. Owen has already informed me that next year he wants to dress up as a witch's cat, like Oona's trick or treat bag.


Oona is spooked by our neighbor who was dressed up as a werewolf, complete with claw paw hands & feet. Me? I'm spooked by how yellow my teeth are, thanks to a dead front tooth. I have no explanation for the molars and canines, they're inexcusably yellow. Yikes! I'll have to talk to my dentist about effective over the counter bleach products next time I see him.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Halloween. The weather could not be beat here, such a nice change from the freezing rain of Halloween '06. Cheers all!

lost my pants

Ugh, ugh ugh I'm so glad last week is over! At times I really wanted to run away and not be an adult anymore, if only for a few brief hours. But I took a hour to myself after visiting my Grandma, bought two pairs of jeans at Old Navy and wound up leaving them at the grocery store to be taken by whoever noticed the bag in the self check aisle. The only thing I'm thankful for is that I bought cheap jeans, if they were fancy $100 plus jeans I would have felt like shooting myself. I found out my Dad needs to go in for an angioplasty tomorrow. No real surprise given his lifestyle, which really isn't all that conducive towards living, but still it's upsetting and stressful to receive that news. My Dad's an alcoholic and a chain smoker who lives under the radar doing construction, which is all rather pitiful since he's very intelligent (he can complete Friday & Saturday NYT crosswords when I hit the wall at Thursday) and has a degree. When he's not drunk or in braggart mode he's unbelievably charismatic and the man is one of the best generalists I've ever met, he knows something about every obscure topic under the sun. Unfortunately he has a number of problems, which I think are probably biochemical in nature, and he's lost any good job he's ever had. To be blunt my Dad is delusional, he has no health insurance but isn't worried because he has friends and all these doctors he's seen have done stuff free and the cardiologist isn't charging him for the surgery so he'll only have to pay the tech bill, so my Dad said. He doesn't seem to realize that hospitals charge four dollars for a tylenol and he needs to go under general anethesia and stay overnight which all adds up to thousands, but he doesn't seem troubled at all by this. Maybe because he has a mountain, I'm talking Kilimanjaro, of debt so it's just more to that which will never be paid. But he's my Dad, how ever many faults he has, I can't cut him out of my life because I think that would hurt me more. So we're going to go visit him over the weekend to see how he's recovering. I have been so upset this weekend though, feeling like I should be with him when he goes into surgery but Toby has class that night and I'm supposed to volunteer at Owen's school that day and when I talked to my Dad he said he'd rather spend more time with us over the weekend, but I constantly have guilt chipping away at my tenuous hold of self worth. In a lot of ways I'm mad at my Dad, he has blown off coming to visit us so many times because he's working or not working or is embarrassed of his situation. I still have a Christmas gift wrapped up for him, that's how long it's been. It saddens me that he can't understand that I want to see him regardless of how much he makes or drinks or smokes or lies. As long as he doesn't drive drunk to see us. I want the kids to know who their Grandpa Boo is. Owen loves when he wraps his limbs up into a pretzel, but Oona can't even remember him. He's only seen her two or three times. Sometimes I feel so reactionary with everything I do. My Dad was a lot of fun when I saw him (on weekends) as a child, but he wasn't really a parent. He thought it was fine to spend the night drinking in a bar at an airport while his seven year old played on the escalator just outside. And this was in the seventies, before they had those emergency stops at the top and bottom of every escalator in case a shoe lace or pants hem gets caught in the teeth of the stairs and you're maimed or worse. The man has been bringing me to bars since I was little, which when I was twelve seemed super cool because I got to stay out late and the bartender would let me have one real drink, but as you get older you see how sad and pathetic that is. I am so the other side of the pendulum with my kids. I won't drink until their asleep and even then I have maybe one or two drinks a month. I sometimes feel that they won't get a chance to make mistakes or get hurt because I won't let them. I know part of being a parent is letting them strike out on their own, but I panic about every possible calamity that could happen to them. I am someone who never should have been a parent. My worrying makes it feel like torture at times, to have these two children in the world. I know I shouldn't worry so much, if I look back at all the dangerous things that happened to me while growing up (and I survived!) my kids should be fine but my mind doesn't work that way.

On the bright side though, an old friend was out in Pittsburgh on business and I got to have a lovely dinner with her. It was so wonderful to catch up with her and spend a grown up evening out eating dinner without tears or screaming or crayons/food/toys/fill in the blank thrown on the floor. My kids are usually well behaved at restaurants but just anticipating a possible meltdown can be exhausting. You can't ever let your guard down eating out with kids, but eating out with a good old friend and no kids? Heaven.

interpreter of maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri is truly mystifying to me. Who wins a Pulitzer Prize in their early 30s with their publishing debut?! I'm further blown away by how eloquent and mature her writing is and the restraint she displays in her writing, which makes her bittersweet stories resonate all the more. The stories in this collection all concern Indians or Indian-Americans, many stories deal with the particular loneliness of being an immigrant in America. Lahiri writes so subtly, yet movingly, about the disconnect for immigrants whose lives cross countries and vast cultural differences. Her stories are richly detailed with clear narratives and a compassion for her characters that makes this a book I'd highly recommend and after I finish what I'm currently reading I'm going to start her novel, The Namesake. I think I might enjoy that even more because now that I'm a Mom with little time on my hands when I do get the chance to sit down and read something I'd prefer it to be a long novel.

feverish

In the past 5 days...

1. Oona's had a high fever
2. We carved pumpkins with Toby's parents, brother and our neice and the kids were all dancing around the living room like maniacs which caused the steel and MDF entertainment center to squeak ominously, everything on it was bouncing, and made me stand up near the monster tv to throw myself in front of it and save the kids if the whole contraption decided to collapse suddenly.
3. Entertained my Grandma, Aunt and Uncle at our house and punctured our front left tire driving them all to our house. I hit the curb, which has a large metal bar bowing out of it, Toby punctured our tire last year doing the exact same thing. As soon as I hit the curb I heard air escaping from our tire at a furious pace and muttered shit under my breath and my Grandma and Aunt both said 'Are you sure the tire's flat?' Oh yes.
4. Now Owen has Oona's high fever illness and I get to bring TWO kids to the car dealership tomorrow and deal with a sickie and a two year old in the waiting area. Fortunately, McDonalds and Denny's are both close by so I'll have to seek refuge and drown my sorrows in a semi flat soda at one of those bastions to shitty food and even shittier cleanliness standards, I shudder to think of the grime on everything.
5. Toby leaves on yet another trip tomorrow, the poor guy has been travelling every week for at least a month now, he comes home late Wednesday night and gets his wisdom teeth out on Thursday.

I so need one of those spa vacations that stars and the well-heeled take regularly over a long weekend. Coke, the soda not the drug, is my equivalent of a spa vacation. That and a hot shower and some cookies followed by going to bed early.

pumpkin picking

On Sunday we went out to Riley's farm for a hayride and pumpkin picking with the kids. It was an absolutely incredible day, we couldn't hope for better weather. Well, it would have helped if it had rained recently because it was so dusty up where the petting zoo, face painting and other kid friendly activities were held. Poor Oona and her cousin were lost in the haze. At one point Oona sneezed and it was all brown from the dust. But, still there were adults who felt dry as a bone dusty hay on the ground is the perfect place to smoke and put out your butts. I have a huge pet peeve about adults smoking in zoos, playgrounds and other kid friendly places. Back when I had a disposable income and used to ski I was dumbstruck by the people that would stop halfway down the slope for a cigarette break, it seemed like a physical oxymoron. But back to the farm, here are some pics from the big day.

Choosing a prize pumpking with Dad and Jon. Jon works with Toby and is, quite possibly, the nicest single guy with children that I have ever met, but not in a creepy giggling Barney the dinosaur way. He's so great with both Owen and Oona. He and his fiance are very lucky to have each other, and I guess Toby and I are lucky to have people who are without kids and in their early twenties that want to hang out with us.

Admittedly I'm biased, since I'm his mom...but doesn't Owen have beautiful eyes. If you click on the picture you can see them in all their insanely pretty glory.







Oona communes with the pig. At least she didn't try to pull his tail. All the animals were full so we had a hard time finding any sheep, goat or pig that would take some milk from the baby bottle I bought for Owen to feed the animals. Maybe we have to arrive earlier in the day when they haven't gorged yet.

It isn't a visit to the farm without posing in a cut out of The Addams Family.

things that go boom

That would be my daughter's head, going boom, as she runs straight into the couch. Now, normally, if a child runs into the couch you don't hear the impact, but Oona's unique. Lately, she's taken to running laps in the living room and can gain such speed that she quickly loses control and tailspins into something or other. Yesterday, before we went to pick Owen up from school she slammed into the table near the sofa causing the light to fall over on me. After dinner last night I was washing the dishes, Toby was at school, and the kids were in the living room playing. I can see them from the kitchen and everything seemed fine until I head the boom and Oona's down on the ground crying. I ran over to comfort her and noticed her forehead starting to swell and bruise right away. What sort of momentum did she build to run right into the arm of the couch, bypass the cushioning, and crack her noggin into the kiln-dried hardwood frame? Fortunately, she's tough as nails and as soon as I kissed her head she was off to the next toddler extreme sport, trying to run around the living room with a blanket on her head. I quickly put the kibosh on that and redirected her to the less injurious sport of reading Moondance.

confusion about what i'm currently reading

To any loyal readers of this blog let me first apologize, I have so dropped the ball when it comes to what I'm currently reading.

First off, I've had the A Hedonist in the Cellar picture up for ages and I still have yet to finish it, but I've read one book and most of another in the meantime. I'm stopping A Hedonist in the Cellar for now, but I still think I should rank it, I got 2/3rds through. McInerney does have a tendency to name drop but I'll forgive him that minor weakness. The big pluses of this book are that McInerney has way of writing about wine that's quite engaging and he has great, accessible descriptions that are invaluable for selecting the right wine for your tastes. He clearly is passionate about the subject. The problem? Right now I barely drink, aside from one oh so regrettable evening with my husband last month. I had a wonderful time with Toby, but I drank way too much for someone who usually goes without and I was so horrendously sick all the next day. Oh God, and then I overhear Owen asking Toby if mommy's sick from drinking too much wine and I'm wincing in the bathroom, thinking that's all I need for him to say at school and then child services will come take the kids when that's the first time I've been drunk in 6 years. One other big problem with the book, it would be so much more helpful if it came with a little cliff notes, some sort of pocket guide you could bring with you to restaurants.

So I was reading A Hedonist in the Cellar when someone sweetly gave me a $10 gift card to Barnes and Noble and, sucker that I am, I bought Never Let Me Go based on the cover and eerie description on the back. British writers, at least the ones I've read, seem to break into two distinct groups; the funny, hyper-literate, manic roller coaster rides of Martin Amis or Zadie Smith and those whose writing has a much slower pace, is tinged with melancholy, and can ultimately pack a big emotional wallop, like Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote this book. First off, if you don't want to learn the 'surprise' of Never Let Me Go read no further. Still with me? Okay, I found the novel about the lives of clones completely fascinating. There is so much in the news about cloning and I've heard stuff on NPR about British scientists making chimeras, where they culture human cells and than implant them in an animal egg. Very mind bending stuff, even if the cells aren't allowed to go past 14 days growth. This story is very affecting and it's interesting in the same dystopic way The Children of Men was in that, in these alternative realities (but still close enough to reality to be frightening) you see cruelties that can emerge with desperation or, in the case of Never Let Me Go, a sort of willful ignorance. The story has a great narrative voice, my only quibble is that when I got to the end (another spoiler alert here) I couldn't help thinking, why didn't these characters run away from their ultimate fate? Maybe it isn't terribly realistic, and it wouldn't give the story it's elegiac air. But, even though it would turn the book into a Hollywood movie, I kept hoping the main character would leave what's waiting for her. There's an air of resignation that was unsettling. It makes for an effective novel, but you won't finish it feeling satisfied exactly.

a waif among waifs

So Owen and Oona went for their annual check ups and I had to have the doctor fill out forms for Owen's school. I didn't realize until after the fact that they had an area for BMI. There have been news stories here in PIttsburgh about parents getting irate when they get notes from the school nurse informing them that their children are overweight based on their BMI. These parents are usually overweight themselves and less than articulate for the camera. You know, this coverage falls under the 'more news less fluff' tagline of one of the local networks, which means we get plenty of news about any Steelers players with injuries and much prognosticating about whether they'll recover in time for the next game, but not so much about Bush's veto of SCHIP. Anyhoo, I digress. Owen's BMI is 14.3. Just to give a little perspective on this, anything under 18.5 is considered underweight. Guess I don't have to feel too guilty about Owen eating a school lunch that's high in fat. Can you see the conundrum I face trying to get him to be less of a picky eater, not allowing him to have a treat if he doesn't try to eat most of his dinner? I don't want him to go hungry, he's like the 5 year old equivalent of Christian Bale in The Machinist.

did it really seem like a good idea at the time?

I am slammed with work. It's a good thing, I shouldn't complain, I just got a bunch of projects from my one client that should help build our down payment for a new home considerably. But, Toby is away for work until late Friday night and Oona's naps have shortened considerably. Looks like some heavily caffeinated nights in my future. Not to sound vain, but when you're pushing forty going with little sleep does not look good in the morning. I hate that my face now looks so haggard some days. I usually notice this when I look in a mirror with my face pressed next to Oona's, who has that beautiful, ripe, dewy skin I cherish in little ones. Oh well, what I really wanted to lament was all the post ideas I have which will now have to wait a bit, maybe that will build up suspense in the readers out there, whoever you are. And I must apologize for my totally delinquent book list, and Owen's too. But I'll leave you with this humorous article from The Wall Street Journal, Toby gets a subscription since he's in business school and I peruse it if I'm bored or procrastinating.

look who's two

That would be Oona. I know, it's a little confusing since karate Owen is monopolizing the presents, what is it with first born's being so darn needy? And it's okay for me to say that since I'm an only child and the generalization is that we're even needier. Oona got a 'little people' suv with a mommy and baby, which I figured she'd like because she could do imitative play and we're in the car a lot. She also got a grocery cart that she can fill with store items or any of her other toys. She likes to put a baby doll in the grocery cart with a blanket and then give her a bottle of 'milk', which is actually a bottle of play mustard. Yummy! Happy Birthday you sweet little girl you.

message from the soapbox

I'm not a physics professor, oh how I wish that I were that would be super cool, or an accident reconstructionist but I agree 100% with everything this guy has written about cell phone use while driving. Please read it! If you talk on the phone while driving hopefully this article will be enough to make you strongly reconsider. I have enough distractions with two kids in the backseat, I can barely manage listening to the radio as well and I know I wouldn't be able to focus while driving and talking on a phone at the same time. Plus I have seen way to many people blow through stop signs (at Owen's school with kids trying to cross with a crossing guard!!!) and red lights while on a cell phone. I figure if people try to pass laws limiting cell phone use with teen drivers or school bus drivers they should just ban it for everyone, it's obviously a danger to everyone. And you people that say 'but I'm on a hands free phone' it's just as bad. Seriously, I could start a cell phone version of MADD I'm so against it. I hate even seeing it depicted on TV. Oh and when people get in cars and don't put on their seatbelt on TV, it drives me crazy. Fortunately Owen has picked up on my Bobby Brady-like hall monitor of the World ways and will say stuff like 'Mom, that man isn't wearing a helmet on his motorcylce' he's even admonished Toby for using a cell while driving, since I told him to yell at anyone who does that while he's in the car. Hey I'm not going to let anyone drive my kids around drunk and driving while talking on a cell phone is the equivalent to driving drunk. Don't believe me? Read the article, I beg you! And then send it off to other people who think it's no big deal to drive and talk on the phone at the same time. I'll be off my soapbox in my next post, I promise.

aarp membership should be arriving any day now

So I wrote a couple weeks ago about having surgery on my eyelid to get two suspicious moles removed. Well, they were biopsied and it turns out it was non cancerous lentigo, otherwise known as liver spots. Nothing like being told you have liver spots to make you feel old and start researching non-invasive skin treatments to restore that youthful glow, my mantra is fraxel at forty. I had this surgery 3 weeks ago, but yesterday I woke up with a bruise on the lid that looks like a drunk was putting permanent liner on me and gave up halfway through it. I went to the doctor today and he said it's very curious. It's not infected and there's no real reason it should suddenly bruise like that. He speculated that since new blood vessels, which are friable, are growing there, if I rubbed my lid too vigorously it could cause them to break. But I haven't really rubbed that eyelid. I asked him what to do if it got worse and he said talk to my GP because then there might be blood issues if I'm bruising easily. How I love growing old!

everyone poops

This post is more advice seeking from any green Heloise types in the blogosphere. I try my best to minimize our carbon footprint, no small task when I've got a 5 year old and a husband who always leave the lights on after leaving a room. Maybe it was the years of doing photo retouching in the dark but I never turn on the lights unless absolutely necesary. Still any electric frugality on my part is totally offset by the males in this house and our Freestyle which gets much worse mileage than was originally listed on the sticker. Toby works for the Union so we have to buy American cars and due to my late onset driving phobia I need a car that I feel safe in next to all the Ford 250's and Excursions on the road. Our Civic got great mileage but I was terrified if someone bumped into us we'd be goners. But the real reason I'm writing is to figure out how to effectively deal with all the stinky poo that my cats and daughter produce. I always put stinky diapers and the litter in a plastic bag and then put it in the garbage. If I don't bag it the house stinks up pretty soon. There must be an alternative to using all these plastic bags but I don't know what it is. I could do paper bags but I don't think that will contain the smell. I've thought of putting everything in a diaper genie in the basement but if the cats get bothered by the smell I'm worried they might let me know by peeing or pooping on something and we already lost a mattress due to a really smelly, pissed off cat peeing on it. So if anyone has a tried and true trick for curbing the poo smell I'd love to hear it.

guilty conscience

If you're a Mom like me you've probably seen most of the Pixar films so many times you can easily reference them for everyday life situations. Like I keep hearing Wallace Shawn, who voiced the dinosaur in Toy Story & Toy Story 2, saying 'Oh no, now I have guilt!' after they throw Woody off the moving truck towards the end of Toy Story. You see I now have massive guilt for saying negative things about Oona in the previous post. If there are any readers of this blog who only know me from the internet I must sound so bitchy. I probably sound bitchy to people who know me too. I hope any loyal readers of this blog realize that I was having a bad, overwhelming week and have since recovered. Oona seems to react to the gradual light changes in the spring and fall, her sleep/napping schedule gets thrown out of week and she tends to be fussier as a result. I try not to give in when she screams or acts up since I don't want to reinforce her negative behavior. I know that sounds cold but I really try to ignore it, well I can't ignore it but I act like I am since the books and doctors and every other kid authority tells me that's what you're supposed to do. Still, I also totally spoil and overindulge Oona, usually with chocolate and letting her use me as her personal jungle gym. She really is a dear, sweet little girl who, with her strong temper, will be no shrinking violet as an adult, to which I'm eternally grateful. The girl has moxie. She's such a sweet soul though. If I sneeze or cough, I've had a cold for a few days now, she'll say 'Okay Mommy?' in this voice full of concern. If Owen's crying she'll look at me very serious and say 'Owen sad.' and run over to pat his back or give him a hug. You know, I'm sure I get on her nerves from time to time, when I don't let her eat cheese puffs for breakfast or let her have treats all day long, but I felt really bad after that last post. It's not like she can read and post a flaming comment up to get back at me for saying that stuff.

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Can I just say that if I die prematurely my children will have a hard time recalling what I look like since I'm the family photographer, I'm always behind the camera never in front of it. I'm fine with that role as the few pictures I take of myself, you can pretty much guarantee an unflattering shot doing it that way, are quickly deleted and make me think how cruel time can be to facial skin. The only real documents of my face will be grainy pictures from the photo booth on the computer. But this post isn't about that. No, I'm feeling so beaten by my kids lately whom I love so much but with Toby working long hours and being in school on top of that, it's just me with the kids a lot. My only free time from them is an hour at the gym and I'm starting to feel like I need more. Twice this week Oona hasn't napped and she's reached the terrible two's a bit early. She's usually a dear, loving child but if the girl doesn't get her way, look out. She screams at a pitch that makes me feel like a cat is using my heart as a scratching post. If the screaming doesn't get a hoped for reaction she likes to bang her head on the floor or wall. Finally if I continue to ignore the bad behavior she comes up to me and will try to bite or hit me. I will put her down on the floor and walk to the other side of the room but all this negative, attention seeking behavior can get on your nerves after a while. Owen's in school now and is older so it's not as bad with him but yesterday he had off and was whining incessantly. Whining about where his juice was when I just gave him a vitamin I replied a bit harshly, 'Don't be so rude I haven't even walked over to the refrigerator yet. I'm not Ganesh' Yeah, that was a great response. I'm not quite the master of how to talk so kids will listen. You know it's all typical almost two and five year old behavior but I feel like I've been having a Calgon moment for days.

oona's best friend

Now normally I frown upon animal cruelty but in Frodo's case he seems to have a masochistic relationship with Oona. Oona doesn't mean to be rough with him, it's just that she's not even two yet, so she can be a bit overly enthusiastic when she hugs, pets or otherwise plays with Frodo. But Frodo just loves her. Whenever he sees her he comes over and rubs against her legs then rolls over on his back for her to pat his tummy. She will regularly put him down for a nap, covering him up in a blanket then patting his head while saying 'night night' and bending over to give him a kiss. I wouldn't be all that surprised if a dog was letting a child do this to them, but a cat? It seems to go against the very stereotype of catlike behavior? I've had to scold her in the past for pulling at the cat's tail and he doesn't even seem phased by it if it's her, not that anyone else is yanking the cat's tail. I mean Frodo is awful friendly with me too but I think that has more to do with the fact that I feed him and clean the litter box. Sam seems to prefer Owen, but he likes Owen when he's asleep, then he sleeps on his bed with him. Toby feels that neither of the cats like him and keeps talking about getting a dog but I feel like I'm cleaning up enough poop currently.

oops

Totally forgot in relaying Oona's massive poop explosion at the school that I had surgery on my eyelid right before that incident. No biggie, I just needed to get a couple freckles removed and biopsied. I think they should be fine but my dermatologist was a bit concerned because they were getting larger and darker and it's not like you've got a lot of skin to work with when we're talking about the eyelid. Everything went fine, the hardest part was getting the shots in the eyelid, but Dr. Choo worked his magic and my eyelid looks great if a bit shiny, since I need to put antibiotic ointment on it. I get my one stitch removed tomorrow the other couple stitches have already fallen out. So here's me with the kids at our 'photo booth' Owen is addicted to this thing. He does long series of photos, he told his kindergarten teacher he wants to be an artist when he grows up. I want to put a book together of his photo booth series for him for Christmas. Seems safer than buying him some plastic crap from China, that and I've got a stuffed monkey planned somewhere in my future.

first day of school

Oh my word, so much has happened the past week I haven't had a chance to catch my breath. Since I last wrote...
Wednesday night: Owen got a temp from his immunizations and later puked all over his sheets comforter and assorted stuffed animals that sleep on his bed. 3 loads of laundry later Owen was still alternately sleeping of crying about feeling so sick and his throat hurting
Thursday: A visit to the doctor has an amazing placebo effect and Owen starts seeming like his usual self again.
Friday: Owen's kindergarten readiness assessment, he does very well and his teacher seems quite impressed by him but not so much by Oona, who poops all over a chair and makes a trail of poop to the piano in the classroom. There was a huge turd the size of a large stone - I have no idea how that escaped her diaper and little panties let alone how she pooped and leaked as much as she did. His teacher was very nice about it and I whisked Oona away poop trailing down her leg while Toby cleaned up the scene and brought Owen and the rest of our stuff.
Saturday: We're at our niece's for her 2nd birthday party and one of the mom's there is trying to get Oona and her cousin, Maeve, to follow her ten second toy switch rule which she insists works for kids wanting the same toy. Give it to one child for ten seconds then hand it over to the other, back and forth til one tires of this. She does this with Maeve and Oona who both want the doodle pad, I'm biting my cheeks and bracing my head to keep from shaking it while both girls devolve into full blown temper tantrums but the mom insists that Maeve is getting it. Owen's complaining of a stiff neck and holding his neck and shoulder at a weird angle - is it a strain? sprain? meningitis from his shots? after an ennervating call with the triage nurse, a bath and some tylenol he seems much better.
Sunday: Spaghetti dinner with Toby's parents, his Grandma and my Grandma, who is quite forgetful and keeps flattering Toby's Mom by telling her she looks more like his sister than his mother.
Monday: A brief lull where we hang out at North Park with Toby's brother and family
Tuesday: Owen, Oona and I go to get Owen shoes for school. Me and every other mother with a child starting school seem to be at the shoe store.
Wednesday: One last hurrah of strawberry milk and chocolate croissants for Owen and Oona before school starts, really is it any wonder my kids are picky eaters.
Today: We get Owen to school. I plaster down his cowlick at the last minute with a baby wipe. It's total chaos in the auditorium where the children meet. None of us kindergarten parents have been told what happens. We bring the kids to there classroom and the teacher is explaining stuff but I hear none of it because Oona is flipping out, wanting to join in on the kindergarten fun.
So I go to the office to try and get a packet that will explain everything I haven't yet been told - how much is lunch? when does school end for them? where do I pick Owen up? I try to go to a parent meeting in the auditorium but Oona once again starts acting like she's possessed screaming at the top of her lungs and trying to bust out of the stroller. We leave and head over to visit my Grandma for an hour then come back and Oona goes to bed after lunch. It's so quiet and peaceful now but I've got all those fun chores that creep up on mom's before going to pick up Owen.