Never a dull moment
Parenthood is always full of surprises. Like a few minutes ago when I went to check on my daughter in her bed – I bent over to tuck the blanket around her and smelled something AWFUL. It was her beloved stuffed dog that she drags everywhere, even to the table, where she spills food all over it. Apparently doggie was due for a bath. I had to pry him away from her, and now he’s on the spin cycle as I type.
Another surprise today: my son decided to re-decorate the Christmas tree. He was supposed to be napping at the time and had apparently slipped out of his room, where he quietly took all the ornaments off the bottom 2/3 of the tree and stuck them into two clusters. Problem was, he dropped most of the wire hooks in the process, which we had to search for. Sigh.
There’s always plenty of laughs sprinkled through the frustrations, though. Jay and I have both smiled over Mikaela’s rendition of Old MacDonald: “and a moo moo, and a moo moo, E-I-E-I-O.” (that’s all she knows of it.)
She also made us giggle last night, when we’d just put her and Gabriel to bed. He was crying, and we heard her voice thunder from her room: “HUSH!”
He actually gave us a scare tonight. We found him in his room, bent partially over, with his hands over his eyes, and he would NOT take them off. He whimpered and trembled when we tried to pry his hands from his face. I still don’t know what his deal was, but he was acting fine when we put him to bed. Very strange.
Well, I can hear Mikaela crying in her room… must’ve woken and found doggie missing.
Twinkle, twinkle, little me
I am covered in glitter. That stuff is really, really hard to get off. It must be catching, because Jay’s sparkly, too.
I’ve been working feverishly on my Christmas cards. They’re coming along, but my craft area is a huge mess. I’ll post new card pix soon. You’d be shocked at how many varied objects and techniques you can use in cardmaking – from stickers and stamps to paper folding and die cuts … the possibilities are endless. It’s always fun to look at the card-making books and magazines for ideas.
Watch what you wish for!
Well, I’ve been schlepping around in my flip-flops this last week, complaining about how it’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit when walking from your house to the car makes you break out into a sweat.
I’ll be singing a different tune come Thursday – after a cold front passes by, our lows are forecasted to be 29 degrees. Our first freeze.
I’m breaking out the cocoa and the parkas!!
A cure for croup
Only a parent who has been through it knows how frightening-sounding those late-night, barky coughing spells can be. Croup usually equals an anxious parent, a miserable child, and not much sleep for anyone.
My daughter has croup for the second time this fall. It starts out with a runny nose, but at night, she has a horrible-sounding cough.
Last time it got so bad, I had to take her to the ER so she could get a steroid shot to calm the swelling in her windpipe. The doctor there advised me to try home treatments next time, including running a cool-air humidifier, taking the child into a steamy bathroom for a few minutes, and/or taking the child out into the cool night air for a bit. All of these things theoretically work by moistening the dry and irritated airway of the child, calming its swelling down.
I have never had much luck with the home treatments, until last night. Instead of just running the cool-air humidifier in her room, I got her carseat out of the car, propped it back on a pillow so she’d be in a reclined position, and set the humidifier on the floor next to her, where it was blowing the moist air right in her face. (I wrapped her in a blanket so she wouldn’t be cold.) I know, it sounds like torture, but it’s REALLY helped - she’s sleeping like a baby. Last time, she woke about every 10 or 20 minutes to have a coughing fit – this time, she’s only coughing a few times the whole entire night.
I think it helps that her carseat is big and cushy, too… she konks out nearly every time she’s in the car.
On the Michael Richards debacle
*please note that this blog contains some not-G-rated language… thanks, kids. 
*
Oh, good grief. ‘Kramer’ has really done it now.
As I’m sure you all know – or all of you who haven’t been in a coma this past week – that the actor who played Kramer on “Seinfeld” has shocked the country by his racist rant at an L.A. comedy club.
What basically happened was that a couple of black guys were heckling him, and he responded by calling them the n- word and saying that 50 years ago they would have been hanging from a tree, etc…. he carried on this way for over a minute. Some fast-thinking person got this all on video thanks to their video-phone, and the rant was posted online at TMZ.com.
Anyway, Richards went on to apologize a couple of days later on the Letterman show (via sattelite). During this not-very-convincing-sounding apology, he said that the crazy thing is that he’s ‘not even a racist.’ Right. And that’s why you were so quick to spew the ‘n’- word? I ain’t buyin’ it.
When I get pissed off at a black person, I might call him an asshole, but that’s where it ends. When you bring race into an argument, I’m sorry … you can’t tell me you were just mad and it slipped. It has to be in your head before it slips out of your mouth.
Since Seinfeld is my favorite sitcom ever (we constantly watch the reruns on TV and DVD), I was especially sad to hear about this situation. It really taints it for me.
Sleepy time
Putting Mikaela to bed has turned into a production. She’s now requesting that I fetch specific stuffed animals or dolls for her to sleep with – “beaw” (bear), “dog,” and “baby” to be specific. She seems to add a new one every time she goes to sleep. If she keeps this up, her bed’s going to be so full of animals, there’ll be no room for her!
I was an expert bedtime staller (‘mama, can I have a glass of water?,’ etc.)… apparently, she’s following suit.
Don’t get me started
So Charles Rangel wants to re-up the military draft.
I think this is a HORRIBLE idea, and one that I feel very strongly about. Some people are just NOT born fighters, and why would we want to force them to be? I will GLADLY shell out more tax money so they can raise military salaries to make it a more attractive career option. But for God’s sake, don’t send people who don’t want to go. It’s just not right.
Further, as the mother of a son, I would gladly take my son to Canada before allowing him to be drafted. That possibility is many years in the future, but the mere thought of it makes my blood run cold.
PLEASE don’t leave me comments telling me I’m spoiled and don’t appreciate our country or our military. That’s not even close to true. Last time I wrote a letter to the editor of the Tennessean (when I lived there) saying the same thing, I got a lot of hate mail. Save your breath. Or rather, your fingers.
On being a good little Southern girl
I was raised in the deep south, the land of sultry summers, Bible-thumpers, and lip-smackin’, rib-stickin’ vittles. My mother instilled in me a strong, Southern-ized sense of right and wrong, as well as manners. Old-fashioned manners were mostly an annoyance to me growing up – so many rules to remember – but these days, manners is a refreshing rarity, when found.
You think I’d get used to the world as it is – mostly rude. But, I never do. Some part of me longs for the old days in Dixie, when men always opened doors, elders were respected, and people were almost always friendly to you.
I was raised to hold my tongue when I couldn’t think of something nice to say. Not that I’ve always succeeded at that. But, I was shocked recently at an acquaintance scolding me for letting my children watch Sesame Street … ! (She reminded me of a recent study that said that children under a certain age should watch no television at all.) I might disagree with someone else’s parenting style, but I would NEVER tell them so!
Alas, even today, things aren’t the way they used to be down in good ol’ Alabama. My mother laments this frequently, saying, ‘even the BAD people used to try to ACT nice – going to church and being polite to ladies and such…’ It’s not quite that way any more.
Some people probably appreciate the change in the status quo – they like people acting like their true selves. Not me, I’ll take fake polite over rude and curt any day!
I want a pony for Christmas
I went to Target about a week ago and saw it: a life-sized stuffed pony for sale. I thought it was cute, so I went to check it out. This wasn’t just any regular stuffed pony: it snorts and whinnys, turns its head toward your voice, moves its head all around, and eats its carrot. I think it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, but at a price of $250, I think we’ll just have to wait.
Brrrrrski
It got chilly! I actually had to break out my closed-toed shoes tonight, as well as put jackets on the kids.
We went shopping tonight during the ‘Horns game. I shop while my husband rants and raves at the TV; it’s a great arrangement and probably keeps us from killing each other.
I enjoyed the shopping, but my excursion ended on a sour note at Wal-mart. Let me pause here and clarify my hate for Wal-mart… I wish I could convince myself never to walk in that place again, but alas, I am a cheapskate (oh, all right, I’m poor) and keep caving to their low prices.
I digress. Every time I go in that place, I wind up choosing the lane with the slowest cashier. Tonight was no exception, and when I was next in line, the people in front of me made a request that the cashier couldn’t figure out. So she called the manager. He couldn’t figure it out, either (even though the problem was relatively elementary), but the two of them bumbled around for TWENTY MINUTES before the customer just said to forget it.
So, I guess Wal-mart’s math goes: Low prices = lousy employee pay = lousy employees. Well, there’s also much to be said about the near-slave labor that products are manufactured under to maintain those low prices too, but I’m not going to get into that.
Fall has … uh, fallen?
Well, it’s finally happening. Throughout the day yesterday, leaves cascaded off the trees with each stiff breeze. I was starting to think we were going to have fall for Christmas again.
Fall is my favorite season. Well, my allergies hate it, but I love, love, love the sights, sounds and smells of autumn.
And now for something completely different
My children are apparently trying to make up for lost time and are all of a sudden eating me out of house and home! I’m not complaining, I’m actually thrilled.
Gabriel, especially, has a voracious appetite – he ate FIVE cereal bars for breakfast! That makes me full just thinking about it!
boys
My son likes playing with dolls. No big deal for his age, really … except for the fact that he ALSO likes to carry my daughter’s purse around all day, and last week Jay caught him pretending to put powder on his face. I discourage this every time I see it, but past that, I really don’t know what to do. It’s hard to keep the kids and their toys separate. Maybe I need to get Gabriel some more fun toys or something.
What fall?
Last year – my first fall in Texas – I was surprised that the leaves didn’t turn brown and fall off the trees until it was actually winter. I’m used to pretty fall colors in October.
This year may well be a repeat of last year’s late fall. We’ve had some cool days, but for the most part, I can still wear my flip-flops and t-shirts all the time.
It’s hard to start gearing up for Christmas when it’s over 80 degrees outside. I guess I’m just going to have go get used to this …
And the tally is in
No, not the election numbers – the weight after we recovered from our stomach viruses.
Mikaela, inexplicably, gained a pound. I took her to the pediatrician today to check, fearful she’d lost weight after being sick and having a lousy appetite. I don’t know how on earth she gained a pound … maybe by my sheer will.
The other good news is that I lost 15 pounds! In 1 1/2 weeks! I know, part of that was probably water weight. But, I’m happy anyway.
The election
… is it over yet? Am I the only one out there who is just OVER IT?
My hair is turning grey
Ever since my kids’ stomach viruses, they haven’t had good appetites at ALL. Neither have Jay or I, but it’s going to be quite some time before either one of us is in danger of starving to death.
But the kids on the other hand, Mikaela especially, can’t stand to lose any weight. They’re both picky eaters, especially the last week or so. I know, they’re recovering, but GEEZ… I’m having to BEG them to get them to eat a bite of cookie! Something, anything, just to get some food down them …
I fixed Mikaela three different things for dinner last night, to no avail. She never ate a single bite. I am at my wit’s end.
I used to be of the opinion that the kids could eat what I put in front of them or just go to bed hungry … and Mikaela has called my bluff. She WILL go to bed hungry if you don’t feed her what she wants, and that’s not a good thing for an under-weight toddler.
Sigh.
Another one bites the dust
I was saddened to hear the news of Pastor Ted Haggard’s recent fall from grace, epecially in light of our ties to him.
My sister attended his church when she lived in Colorado Springs for 2 years. I actually went there myself, along with my family, to witness my niece’s baby dedication.
I always get the wind knocked out of me when another Christian figure-head gets caught in immorality or sin. I know, it’s inevitable, but it saddens me to see the name of Christ tarnished.
Then again, what would the world say if they could see MY sins and shortcomings? Even though I am not in the ministry, I should strive to live my life in a way that glorifies Christ in all things. I’m sad to say this is not always the case. And shame on me for that.
Stomach bugs are no fun
Mikaela was first, several days ago, then Gabriel. Friday night was my turn, and Jay had it Saturday into Sunday. Good Lord in heaven, I wouldn’t wish a stomach bug on my worst enemy. I can’t remember the last time I had one, and I hope to never have one again!!!
All I’ve eaten in the last several days amounts to what I would normally call a snack. Well, at least maybe this will be a good jump-start on losing a few pounds. Have to find that silver lining, you know me …
Missed visit
So, my sister was supposed to come see me today, but decided she didn’t want the plague, so she smartly decided to stay away and reschedule the trip for another time.
I don’t think I’ve ever talked about my sister on here. We have always been a little different than most … she was born to my parents when they were 21, and remained an only child for 16 whole years until I made my surprise appearance when my parents were 37. My mother often joked she had to have two “only children” so she could afford to put us both through private school. Anyway, my sister and I only lived under the same roof for 5 years, until she was married when I was 5. I was her flower girl.
I’ll write more later … still worn out from yesterday.
Sick yet again
Another member of my household is sick … it never seems to end.
Mikaela came down with a stomach bug last night. I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say it required lots of clothes-changing, sheet-changing, and carpet cleaner. Ugh.
She seems much better today, and is sucking down the pedialyte I’m giving her to keep her hydrated.
I’m so frustrated that she got this bug after we’ve worked so hard this last few weeks to get her weight up. She’s SO teeny for her age (20 months, 18 1/2 lbs.), both height and weight-wise. She looks proportional, but the doctor was concerned about her weight and wanted us to start giving her Pediasure to bulk her up. I’m pretty sure we were doing well in our endeavor until this latest bug… so, I guess we’re probably back to square one.
Anyone else have any magic tricks for getting a kid to put weight on? I’m trying Pediasure, Carnation Instant Breakfast, and chocolate ice cream. I mean, she eats regular food too, of course, but I’ve added those things in to help her weight along …
