Monday, November 26, 2007

Crouching ambulance, howling toddler

Kyle and Grant have some of the funniest antics, many of which Dave and I are responsible for, though some I will completely deny involvement in. The two funniest ones of late are ones that make me say, “Oh geez, I can’t imagine what strangers or day care teachers will think.”

SCENARIO 1: We hear sirens

What he does: Looks at you dramatically, eyes and mouth wide open, then throws his head back, wobbles it slightly from side to side and howls like a wolf. This usually gets Grant going; he hasn’t mastered the sound but he throws his head back and shakes it from side to side. Pretty darned cute.

What a stranger thinks: Is that kid howling? At sirens? What a little nut.

How it started: Our dogs were howling at sirens one day. I love it when they do this – don’t know why – I just do. The boys looked at me nervously and to put them at ease I dramatically started howling. What really won’t help strangers’ perception is that when Dave and Grant and I are around we all start howling because we think it’s funny. Obviously we don’t care very much about what strangers think.


SCENARIO 2: Changing Kyle’s diaper

What he does: When Kyle hears the word ‘diaper’ he starts saying “No poopy” and shaking his head. He says it about 45 times throughout the process. He’s really into poopy these days. His new favorite antic is to check Baby Tad’s butt (Baby Tad is a talking frog) and say “POOPY!!!” as if he found Diego and Dora.

What a stranger thinks: Why is he repeating that he doesn't have poopy? Does he get scolded if he poops? Is he afraid of his parents? Do they whack him if he poops? Hmmm, I’d better call CPS.

How it started: Who knows. He’s two.

It’s off to the mall for a walk with Julie and Matthew this morning. Maybe I'll end up with more antics to write about!

Friday, November 23, 2007

Green beans are ready to go

I learned something today that I’ve been wondering about, especially now that Kyle is in these sizes. What is the difference between clothing sizes 24m and 2T? The word on the street (okay, Michelle’s blog) is that 24m has more room for diapers, can have a slimmer fit and is often longer. My cynical side has decided it’s all an evil strategy by the clothing manufacturers to lure us toddler-having parents into buying the 24m version, then liking it enough to buy the 2T version about 2 months later.

We’re trying to get the boys settled back in after a big week for them. They spent four days with Baba and Papa (Dave’s parents) while Dave and I had our non-honeymoon honeymoon (translation: stayed in town but didn’t have any kids!). Then they had a day and a half here at home then it was off to Grammy’s (my mom) for Thanksgiving. Now it’s back home and how-many-ways-we-can-test-mommy-and-daddy-and-see-how-far-our-silly-shenanigans-and-fake-crying-will-get-us.

Too bad they aren’t old enough to pull out the Santa threats. Though the Santa threats probably won’t work with Kyle and Grant. In another year just when threatening Santa sanctions might start to work, I’m pretty sure that the boys will say, “Santa shmanta. We have grandparents.”

It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving – not a very fun day for someone who hates shopping and would rather knock myself in the head with a can of green beans than go to a store with a bunch of angry shoppers so determined to save $5 that I might actually knock them in the head with a jar of sauerkraut (had to think of something heavier than the aforementioned can of green beans).

Did I mention that it’s freezing outside which means little to no outside play? No outside play and no outings (see the previous paragraph) will make for a lovely day. I think I’m going to go check the pantry to make sure I have a can of green beans ready in case I need to knock myself out!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

No trip for us at the moment

Well, Dave and I have canceled our trip to Santa Fe that we would’ve left for tomorrow. We didn’t want to waste money if I wasn’t going to be able to do as much as we’d like. The pneumonia is better and it’ll probably be fine but oh well. The boys are still going to Dave’s parents’ without us and Dave and I are just going to have a nice weekend doing things we never get to do.

I’ve been working more than I’d like. Not necessarily more hours than I’d like, but more often. I officially work Tuesdays and Thursdays but I’m finding myself checking my email and logging in to work on problems during the other days of the week. It’s making it so work is in the back of my mind all the time. Gotta work on that.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

No clever subject here

So yesterday I blew the do a blog entry every day for the month of November goal. If I really cared I guess I could’ve gotten up, posted something early this morning and back-dated it to yesterday, but that would’ve been just plain silly. Dave and I started to worry that we’ll have to postpone our Santa Fe trip because of me having pneumonia, but we’re not ready to throw in the towel just yet. My attitude at this moment is that I’ll be a lot better by Thursday and we’ll just adjust what we can do if we have to.

I didn’t go shopping yesterday because I was just too sweaty (thanks, steroids) and out of breath – I just couldn’t imagine walking from one end of anywhere to another. I’m going to have to go to the mall because I’ve been disappointed lately with the quality of clothes I’ve gotten from Kohl’s.

Kyle is melting down at every little thing. If you look at him wrong, if something he wanted to remain in one place moves a fraction of an inch, if you tell him to drink some milk before he shovels more food in his mouth – well, it all results in screaming and crying, sometimes real and sometimes forced. It’s kind of wearing us out but we’ve gone through little (and big) behavior phases before so this is just another one. He’s got his hands in his mouth a lot which makes us think of teething, but I could swear he had all the teeth he’s going to get for awhile. Guess I need to do some googling.

Grant’s latest thing is climbing on everything he shouldn’t. When he gets scolded, he takes his foot down and then smiles the cutest, most manipulative “now you can’t really be mad at me” smile. My response to that would be, “I’m going to be really mad when that Phonics bus you’re standing on slips out from under you and you get a black eye which I have to desperately explain to day care and anyone in public who looks at me like I’m a child abuser.”

I guess I’d better get presentable so I can go shopping. But wouldn’t it be so much better for my lungs and recovery for me to take a nap. Those who know me know which of these is going to win this battle.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Happy face

It's been a rough day in kid world here. The boys got up on the wrong side of their cribs and my irritability doesn't help calm the situation. I heard from the doctor that I have pneumonia and it can take between 2 to 4 weeks to clear up. It's an aspiration-type pneumonia and not an infection-type so no antibiotics unless things get worse. I can sure tell I'm on the steroids though - cranky, moody, blue. Two days of it down, five to go.

I'm going to have to force myself to go shopping this weekend since I have NO clothes that fit. Fortunately the weather has been such that I can sneak by with the sweatshirt and shorts look, but before long I will absolutely have to wear a pair of pants. Problem is, I hate to go shopping on a good day. Bigger problem is, I really hate it when I have to face how much weight I've gained over the last year. Dave and I are going on our belated honeymoon to Santa Fe next week and I supposed I'll need something to wear. I think we'll get to meet Leslie, an adoptive mom who went through her son's adoption while I was going through Kyle's. We've never even spoken on the phone, but it's amazing the kinships you can develop via email, especially when you're going through such an emotional experience as adoption.

Not sure what we'll do this weekend. My primary goal is to not let myself get any deeper in this blue mood. It's coming up on a sad anniversary for me so I think that's related to my frame of mind. I'm finding every possible thing to beat myself up over and when I find something I just add it to the snowball, and it gets momentum and then whammo. So my goal for tomorrow is to find my happy face. Wish me luck!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Almost missed it

I almost went to bed without posting an entry today but I'm getting in with an hour to spare. It's not like there are any sanctions or shame committee associated with National Blog Posting Month so it's not a big deal - I'm just trying to see if I can actually do it (post an entry every day for month of November).

Today was a so-so day. Kind of feeling blue but maybe I'll blame that on PMS. I went to the doc today and got a chest x-ray. I had an icky acid reflux episode Tuesday night and I aspirated which means the stomach acid came up and ended up going back down into my lungs. Appetizing, huh? So I guess I won't mention how unpleasant it was or how fun it is to have stomach acid coming out your nose. In a nutshell, it sucked.

Okay, so how was that for an interesting, entertaining blog entry? You're awed, I know.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

My very own peanut gallery

I've known for awhile that we need to watch what we say around Kyle since he's in the repeat a word every 8 seconds phase. Last week when I changed Grant's diaper I made a gagging noise and said, "Ewwww! Barfbag." So what did I get from my very own personal peanut gallery? Yep. Barfbag. Fortunately, it wasn't understandable if you didn't know the context.

Then yesterday I was sitting on the couch and Kyle leaned on me in a less than comfortable position. I said, "Ow! No squishing the b00bies!" Apparently that is a much funner and far easier word to say than barfbag and unfortunately he says this one clear as a bell.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Zero tolerance for junior

There was a story in the news here yesterday that gave new meaning to the school district's zero tolerance policy, when the district suspended a four-year-old pre-K student for three days. A 4-year-old for three days?!? Give me a break.

I know you must be thinking, "Now, Mary Jo, they have these policies for a reason. Surely the little boy did something really horrible like bring a live grenade for show-and-tell and threaten to blow the whole class to bits. Or maybe he wheeled his portable meth lab to school in his Radio Flyer wagon."

Nope. He brought to school a key chain with a little fake gun on it. I'm talking 2 inches by 2 inches. I hate guns and firmly expect that my kids will be able to go to public school without worrying about guns being there. I think a policy of no guns no matter how little and no matter how fake is a good one. The problem I have is not the policy, but the enforcement of it.

Is suspending a preschooler for three days, an infraction that will go on his permanent record, really the best way to honor the intent of zero tolerance? I certainly think a trip to the principal’s office for both the kid and his parents is warranted but a 3-day suspension is a tad much. I’m guessing that the ‘policy’ is one-size-fits-all; that it applies to all students period. While it should apply to all students in terms of whether they can bring a gun to school, I think a cute little matrix of age groups and punishments would be a wise addition to the policy.

By the way, once the news station starting shining a light on this, the school quickly changed the suspension to a half-day, in school suspension. Heck, that was yesterday. With enough pressure they may have revised it further today and given him a free trip to Baskin Robbins along with a please-don’t-sue-us greeting card.

Monday, November 5, 2007

MINE!

How worried should we be? Seventeen-month-old Grant’s first clearly understandable word is “MINE!” This is accompanied by a grimace of objection (usually because whatever he’s referring to is about to get taken away) and clutching the prized object to his little chest. The other day, he was standing on top of the slide and Kyle (27 months) wanted to get up. They both stood frozen – Kyle on the ground and Grant on the play equipment – shrieking “MINE!” back and forth. Kind of like a tennis volley, but more like a couple of small dogs on opposite sides of a chain link fence, just yapping away at each other.

So courtesy of big brother Kyle, Grant’s first word is quite charming. I’m fully expecting Grant’s next feat to be a full sentence, “Dude, you better jump back.” Kyle’s first words were duck and ball, but then again, he didn’t have an older brother to contend with.

The boys spent the weekend out at their grandparents’ house (Dave’s parents) having a miserable time playing in a massive pile of dirt getting as filthy as possible (big plus in the fun department), walking down to the lake, throwing rocks in the water, visiting the neighbor’s demon-possessed geese (surely there’s a Biblical passage somewhere about geese, right?), taking golf cart rides, playing on the porch, watching Papa scoop and dump dirt in his big tractor and all kinds of other torturous things Baba and Papa inflicted upon them. Poor little darlings.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

My masterful toy sculpture

The weather was gorgeous here yesterday and the boys are having a sleepover at their Baba’s and Papa’s house. Dave and I are kid-free for over 24 hours this weekend! We aren’t doing anything particularly special or momentous like maybe we should while we have the chance, but it is incredibly nice to just do regular and even mundane stuff without the kiddos around. We actually got to clean our bedroom, hang some pictures, go fly Dave’s RC plane and go to a little Italian place for a casual dinner.

Another chore I tackled yesterday, albeit half-heartedly, was getting rid of some of the toys that seem to reproduce as we sleep and have taken over our living room. There’s one tub of little stuff that the boys like to dump out. That’s it. That’s the game. There’s no exploring the toys, no putting them on their heads and pretending to sneeze which of course makes the toy fall off. Nothing but dumping the tub. So as a unit this mish-mash of random unrelated toy parts and rejects qualifies as a toy, doesn’t it? But as individual items, they don’t get played with and just create a big mess.

So what did I do? Not wanting to betray these little trinkets that have given the boys at least 60 seconds of pleasure, I had to think of a way to preserve all that they have brought to our lives but at the same time getting them the heck off our floor. I got out the glue gun and the welding torch and made a toy sculpture that is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Actually, I tossed all the crap into an empty Huggies box so it can make a journey to Goodwill this week. But I thought about making a sculpture so that should count for something, right?

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Ring tones' slippery slope

Is it wrong for me to roll my eyes at other people’s ring tones when my own cell phone plays some sort of Asian jingle? In my defense, it’s just one of the standard ten that’s on the phone. The other one I considered was a jazzy little Hungarian tune, but it was a little too obnoxious.

I’m doing a consulting gig two days a week and I sit in my little cubbyhole minding my own business. When suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m thrust back to the early to mid-1980’s and Hawaii is on my mind. Yep, it’s the theme song from Magnum P.I. You may remember the opening from the show is a shot of a helicopter swooping over the water. Whenever this dude’s phone goes off, I imagine him flying through the office with his trusty theme music at his side.

So I sit and ask myself, “IF I were into ring tones, which one would I want?” And suddenly it becomes clear to me how perfectly normal, sensible people get sucked into the whole ring tone thing. Remember when you first started using a computer and you realized that you could change the desktop background, windows frames, screen savers and the like? Remember how you thought oh I’ll just change this one thing – it’ll only take a second. Then two hours later you emerge blurry eyed and drooling from testing all the options and backgrounds, trying to find just the right one that makes a statement and heaven forbid if you pick the wrong one that doesn’t fit you could be forever branded the loser on the second floor who has a picture of a Cabbage Patch Kid on her screen and ohmygod can you believe she changed her color theme to mauve?!?!?

Okay, what the heck was I talking about? Oh yeah – ring tones. I’m not going down that slippery slope. One minute I’ll be convinced that the theme music from The Walton’s is just right, and the next minute I’ll realize that will be certain social death. Now, the Little House on the Prairie intro… that’s good stuff.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Cool Your Melon

The boys are napping now, and I’m sitting at the computer, alternating between staring at a blank Word document just waiting for all my brilliant thoughts and observations; and reading other blogs I like. Oh, and listening to Access Hollywood out of the corner of my ear, in hopes that I’ll get some blog fodder. But that’s just causing a headache because it hurts to roll my eyes so much. Honestly, I care about Britney as much as the next person (none) but enough about her meltdowns already.

I changed the template on my blog and renamed it “Cool Your Melon.” Makes no sense? You’re right, except that I say that expression about 12 times a day. I’m not sure how it started but it’s my generic cool your jets, calm down, keep your shorts on, knock it off expression. About half the time I add Stanley to the end, as in “Cool your melon, Stanley.” Keep in mind that my sons’ names are Kyle and Grant, my husband is Dave and my two dogs are female. The only Stanley I know is the landlord on Three’s Company and we aren’t even all that close.

So it’s random but very me. At some point I’ll add some graphics and other stuff to the blog, but now that I’ve committed to doing a blog entry every day for the month of November I won’t have any time. It’ll be a miracle if I can do a daily entry, especially with Dave and I taking a five-day vacation in two weeks, but I’ll give it a go.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Halloween averted

It’s National Blog Posting Month and I’ve signed up. All I have to do is post an entry every day for the whole month of November. “All I have to do” is kind of a silly thing to say because I’m a bit intimidated by it and it’s easier said than done to come up with a blog entry every day, but it’s exactly the kind of challenge I need to jump start the blog again! Wish me luck!

It’s over! Halloween. I don’t like it. I don’t like the characters, the masks, the music, the cotton spiderweb stuff in trees and the like. I admit that there have been years in the past where I’ve actually turned my front light on and given out candy; the one thing I do like about Halloween is seeing the cute little trick-or-treaters in their costumes. Well, until some of the older ones get just plain rude. Then I turn off the light and console myself with Three Musketeers and Tootsie Rolls, lamenting about the state of our future at the hands of ill-behaved monsters.

The final piece of soul-searching I had to do when I was considering becoming a mom was this reflective statement: If I become a mom, I will actually have to participate in Halloween and mostly act like I enjoy it. If I’m okay with that, then I can start the adoption proceeding.

Fortunately, the boys are just one and two so we could get by this year without participating, but I realize this will be the last year. I will say that we loved the Halloween present the boys’ aunt and uncle sent – matching sweat shirts, trick-or-treat bags which the boys carry like they are purses, DVD’s and books. But next year, Dave and I will be carving a pumpkin (okay, Dave will do that), dressing up the kids and stalking the neighbors (also known as trick-or-treating). Although I am working up a plan to get the kids on my side. I really think I’m onto something. I’ll deliver the following bit of news in the most earnest hey-this-message-isn’t-coming-from-me-I’m-just-telling-you-the-facts:

Well, boys, it’s time to pick you costumes? What? You say you’re excited? Oh darlings I’m so glad to hear you say that – nothing makes me happier than knowing you’re excited. I’m also proud of you for risking the Christmas consequences that sometime occur as a result of participating in Halloween. Unfortunately, Santa frowns upon Halloween and sometimes there are consequences on Christmas morning for those who take part. Santa sanctions, if you will. I know, kids, I think it's horrifying, too, but I'm just telling you the word on the street.

I didn’t think I was going to stoop so low so early in the parenting adventure, but alas, I’m going to start playing the Santa card. Pathetic, I know.