Monthly Archives: December 2010

How I make it through the hard days

Today it feels like one kid or another has been crying since 7am. It’s to the point where *I* am crying too. So I sat down on the bed with a screaming Calli and started crying. I was talking to Calli asking her to please stop crying before I lose my mind. Shanna came to the back of the house and said from the doorway, “Do you need me?” I told her yes and she came over and gave me a hug. She said, “I’m sorry you are upset. I love you and it’s going to be ok.”

And then she started telling me about something weird with a village hiding in the back of her dollhouse. But, hey. (eta: oh! She meant the little village people from Paula. She wanted help reaching one because it was too far back for her arm 🙂

I’m really proud of my kid. She is so compassionate and kind. I think I’m doing this right.

Ranting about ‘green’ shit

Fewer people to offend on lj than facebook. My typing will suck. Going around sleeping kids is hard.

I read various “Go Green!” things and uhm… I’m actually kind of appalled that they exist because the recommended things are all so fucking basic. Recycling. Give me a fucking break. There is NO reason to not recycle. It’s fucking braindead. Come on people. Try not to use paper towels/plates/etc. Uhm yeah. What the fuck is wrong with people that they think convenience justifies using one use items constantly? HAVE YOU NOTICED OUR PROBLEMS WITH LANDFILLS YOU DUMB FUCKS?!

I might be offending a few people here but I kind of can’t find it in my heart to care. My neighbor says that their dishwasher broke so they’ve been using all disposable stuff because they can’t deal with doing dishes. I want to tell her that she is a lazy piece of shit, but I don’t. (And it’s not just her. That household has two less-than-full-time adults, one late teen-early20’s daughter from the husband’s former marriage, and a boy Shanna’s age.) They could get freakin dishes done. It’s not like they cook much anyway. How hard is it to just eat out of the take out containers you are wasting anyway. 😛

I will confess that some ‘Go Green!’ advice bugs me. Recommending that even if you only have a couple of cloth diapers it’s an improvement over using disposables full time is… maybe true. The problem is that most people will still wash the cloth diapers separately out of fear of feces contamination (not a completely out of left field worry) so they are doing daily half or less full loads of diaper laundry. That’s not actually a great choice in terms of overall ‘eco-friendliness’, ya know? Think about how many gallons of water you are using. I am a big fan of cloth diapers, don’t get me wrong… but only having 10 cloth diapers means you shouldn’t be doing it at all. Seriously. You are wasting so much water. I suppose if you can get past the normal squeamishness and wash them in with regular clothes it’s a good thing. But I doubt people are doing that. Really.

(Sarah is stuck in her house thanks to a blizzard and wants stuff to read. So uhm maybe I’ll be ranting more. 😛 )

A journey of a thousand miles…

Tonight I did two. Miles that is (ok it was actually more like 2.28 but whatever). It was both less and more challenging than I expected. This is me formally, officially, publicly (ack the horror!) stating that before September 10, 2012 I will complete a marathon. Yes, I know lots of good reasons not to do it (oh my poor knees) and yet this is something that’s kinda on my bucket list. I really really want to do this for a lot of reasons that are hard to explain. It’s important to me. And you know what? That’s a good enough reason. 🙂

So tonight I went to the gym for the first time in…. I’m not willing to think about how long. But I did it. I don’t think I will be hitting ‘badass’ any time soon, but hopefully I will no longer feel too out of shape to do the things I want to do. 🙂

(This has virtually nothing to do with weight loss, though I expect some of that to happen. I just don’t have a good exercise icon…)

{milestones} and those other things

I haven’t seriously babbled about my kids in a while! Such a tragedy. *cough*

Calli is awesome! But she’s awesome in that way that babies are awesome so it’s pretty generic. I think she’s an easy sleeper (certainly compared to Shanna) so that makes things easier. She is trying really hard to get more clingy and I am resisting with every fiber of my being. I was astounded throughout Shanna’s infancy that I didn’t really hit ‘touched out’. I now live in Touched Out. I would kind of like to have an asbestos suit so that no one gets too close to my skin. I do carry Calli around but when she has the days where she starts fussing the minute I lay her down for a nap I end up having a stern conversation with her then holding her hand while she fusses for a while. I’m still opposed to “Cry it Out” but I am much more ok with fuss-it-out-while-I’m-holding-your-hand. I just cannot do the 24/7 in contact with the newborn thing this time. I will lose my mind. But she eats a lot and she’s vigorous and very interested in the world around her. Since the most recent pediatrician visit (dear god do we need a new one) I am aware that she is a full pound less than Shanna was at this age and almost an inch shorter. This child will not be larger than average. Apparently she is right on the 50% line for height and weight. So in fact she is… dead average. 🙂 Despite the ped telling me to get ready to start her on iron fortified rice cereal, I don’t get the impression she is going to be the most food-ready kid at 6 months. It’s kind of weird how different she is from Shanna. 🙂 She’s rolling over, but only on soft surfaces. The floor is still too hard. The couch or the bed is super easy. Sitting up this morning was surprising. I set her down and expected her to immediately collapse but she didn’t. Yay! She sat up for quite a while as I tended to Shanna.

Shanna continues to develop at an amazing (to me) pace. I don’t have much experience with other kids so it’s kind of weird to have an intellectual understanding about child development and them come against an actual kid who isn’t following all the normal curves perfectly. I was looking at the milestone chart this morning (someone asked me when sitting up was normal… I don’t know…) and I looked at the bits for Shanna. Holy Milestones she is asynchronous. The average kid her age is mastering their second adjective?! Oh. She’s speaking in 10+ word sentences using several $2 words at a go. Her favorite right now is ‘diatomaceous earth’ because we have been using it to deal with our ant problem. If you have ever heard the word before you can understand her. If you’ve never heard of the stuff she sounds kind of muddled. 🙂 I’m pretty impressed though. She is also being increasingly helpful in the kitchen. Like this morning she helped with a large portion of breakfast. She scooped out the granola, helped cut up the apples (her little kid knife did a better job than I expected), and she helped pour out the yogurt. Yay! Simple, but she’s trying so hard. She can also almost entirely make a pbj by herself. By 3 she will be able to make herself simple meals. I’m thrilled. But her physical development is… spotty. She’s a total klutz. And she also shows very little inclinations towards artistic stuff. I’m trying pretty hard to provide access to such things, but it’s not my thing… so I kind of suck at helping her. I’ll keep trying and she’ll keep doing her thing. I don’t actually mind that she would rather spend 30 minutes cutting up a piece of paper than color. 🙂 Oh! And she’s making more progress towards potty training. At this point my approach is to just leave her alone. When she makes comments complaining about diaper changes I tell her that she can avoid them by using the potty and she often asks for panties instead of a diaper. We aren’t having many accidents in panties because when she isn’t in the mood for the potty she asks for a diaper. Although I do give her candy for using the potty. 😛 I am trying to be mellow though.

Balancing the two of them is… interesting. Luckily they are both easy going and mellow so they wait their turn extremely well. It helps if I keep on a constant stream of, “I can see that you really need me to ‘x’ but right now I am doing ‘y’ for your sister. I know it is hard to wait, but please try to be patient for another ‘z’ minutes.” If I can keep that up in a patient, kind voice waiting up to 15 minutes is not a big stretch. 30 minutes can be very hard for both of them. Which uhm… is ok. They’re kind of young. 🙂

I feel like we have hit the ‘terrible twos’ and yet… if this is the worst I see we’re doing GREAT! Shanna doesn’t ‘tantrum’ much at all but she does cry a lot. She has a lot of really intense feelings and it’s hard for her to figure out what to do with them. I feel like as long as she is well rested and not hungry she does better than a lot of adults with her strong feelings. It’s kind of hard to console her if she is hungry or tired though. It gets hard. The crying sound makes me feel homicidal.

Because I’m exactly this kind of full disclosure person… I’ve lost it a couple of times. 🙁 When we were driving to Disneyland and she was really really sick of the car she started kicking the drivers seat on purpose pretty hard. I reached back and hit her feet. 🙁 I know it wasn’t the right decision and we’ve talked about it. She’s pretty happy to lecture me for a long time about how hitting is wrong and I shouldn’t do it so she enjoyed the hell out of that conversation. (so my daughter) I’ve smacked her hands a couple of times purely as a reflex when she is doing something that makes me twitch. Every time I do she begins her lecture again about how hitting is wrong. She tells me to apologize and I do. She cries and we cuddle and kiss and then feel ok again. I am trying really hard to increase my patience level but it’s hard. This is part of that ‘there are no perfect parents’ thing. I try to not spend much time feeling bad but instead put my energy towards doing better next time. It’s hard to not get into negative self-talk. Given how much stress these kids add to my life (it’s incredible in a kind of scary way) I’m aware that I am actually doing phenomenally well. It helps that I now self-medicate. The next step is to increase my exercise because that will help a lot. I informed Noah that I was going to the gym today. Period. He’s supportive. 🙂

Guess I’m willing to leave this kid before 6 months. Ha.

About my niece…

I had her come over for a bit yesterday to chat. There were some shudder inducing moments for me. She didn’t even know how she did in the classes because she never bothered to check. REALLY?! She had to ask me to define words a few times (the most memorable being dilettante). And she expressed extreme surprise that you don’t need a Business degree in order to open a small business doing event planning. *smack forehead* Essentially I talked her out of college for now. She’s really not ready. I told her that after some time has passed and she is actually interested in buckling down and doing the work she can try again but I’m not paying for her to fuck around. She seems oddly relieved.

It was overall a positive conversation. She really needs some life experience before she will see any value in college. I’m the only adult in her life with a college degree, of course she doesn’t really see much value in school. (Although I was smart enough to be in the position where I had *no* adults in my life who had been to college and recognize it as the problem…) So she’s going to go do her thing. I’m… I’m hoping that she does something with her life that is better than what my sister has done but I’m not holding my breath at this juncture. It could go either way. (Yes, I get to judge the fuck out of my sister.)

Families kinda suck. How hard is it going to be to ensure my kids don’t end up like my family?

qotd: Can’t be said on Mothering edition

Shanna got a little doctor kit for Christmas and she’s having a whole lot of fun examining people. Her favorite part is giving them shots so they can stay healthy though. I told Noah that I wasn’t sure how that would go down with playgroup because they are non-vaxxers. His response: “It’s ok. Just tell them it’s a shot of penicillin for syphilis.” Cue me looking horrified but laughing. He continues, “Well that’s better… right?”

On yet other family stuff

Noah’s mother has sent me some of the very best kids clothes we own. Really awesome stuff. I’ve been thrilled. This time… she sent jeggings. For those of you lucky enough to avoid this phenomenon: http://styletips101.com/fashion/how-to-wear-jeggings.html

I hope we ditch this ‘fashionable’ trend. I’m so not fashionable. 🙂 More smocked little girl dresses! (Uhm, in all reality I’ll randomly babble about this on lj but I certainly won’t complain because I am overall really surprised by how pleasantly things are going with Noah’s parents. This is me not rocking the boat!)

But really. Jeggings?

Paying for college

This is f-locked in case someone in my family is paying attention. I doubt it, but there is a slight possibility. So we are paying for my niece to go to college. This is something that I have always said I was happy to do for my niece and nephew to help them get the fuck out of the shitty life our family has. My nephew wanted to do this intensive program on learning how to install solar panels… sure! I’ll pay for that! That would be a great career! After doing alright in the program he decided he didn’t want to do it as a career. His skin is too sensitive to be outside that much. . . . Maybe you could have thought about this a bit earlier sensitive boy? (Oh, he works at Shoreline every summer as a parking attendant because it is ‘cool’. At least he has done it for two years in a row. So much for the sensitive skin.)

Now my niece is taking classes at the local JC. Though she wants to transfer because the one she is going to has “too many Asians”. I’m not entirely sure what that means as a criticism, but ok. She gave me her login information to the webportal program the school uses so I can pay her fees. She thinks I am not able to check her grades. I’m not sure why she is stupid enough to think that, but ok. Last term she withdrew from the PE class she insisted that she wanted to take (I told her it was a bad idea) and she got a C in the Intro to Business class (she wants to be a Business major) and a D in the basic level accounting class. So her GPA is a 1.5. No one is perfect, I get that. But uhm… a free ride to college is not exactly a god given right.

Right now I’m feeling pretty fussy. If I sit her down and explain, “These D’s won’t even transfer. So I’m paying for you to *say* you are in college but this isn’t actually making any progress towards your supposed future goals.” I will be the bitch. I will be the bad person who is pressuring her. In paying for her college we are directly taking money we would be investing on Shanna and Calli’s education and using it on my niece instead. I’m not sure how willing I am to do that while my niece is much more interested in partying than in going to school. But if I cut her off I am probably cutting off my last real tie to my family. I will have proven that I am a terrible person.

I love how no matter what *I* am the bad guy.

EDIT: Noah points out that this post doesn’t convey a lot of why I am pissy. She posts constantly on facebook about partying. She will only take night classes because she is completely unwilling to get up at a reasonable hour (I mean getting up before noon, not 6 am). I would have more sympathy if I thought she was trying and just not getting it right. She skips classes to go to parties. Yeah… it’s not just that she is trying and not figuring things out.

Edited again:
I just went and looked. She hasn’t bothered to submit any financial aid paperwork whatsoever. Given that her mother hasn’t worked in the past couple of years (I’m not sure how Denise is going to increase her drug dealing enough to stay afloat once she stops getting unemployment) I bet that I shouldn’t have to pay almost anything at all for my niece’s education. But she can’t be bothered. Oh I’m getting pissier by the minute.

Because it is fun!

I got:
-two super fancy pots. Enamel coated cast iron! Whoooo!
-a super sharp large knife
-TWO cool teapots for one. I think word is getting around that I’m drinking more of it. 🙂 (One is beautiful for loose leaf tea, which is mostly what I drink.)
-the crunchy lunch set of my dreams <3 -a wide assortment of delightful bath products -a great spatula -super awesome socks -a really long beautiful pearl necklace (Shanna picked it out!) -two beautiful bracelets -a great handcuff necklace -gorgeous Edwardian underthings -comfy jammies Noah got: -this awesome book from Santa
-a bunch more books (xkcd vol 1, Watership Down, Strega Nona, The Reluctant Dragon, uhm something I can’t recall from his parents)
-an interesting old fashioned microscope
-Star Wars stuff! cookie cutters, pancake molds, a spatula (Darth Vader), and a fun cupcake set where you can have the little guys battle
-kitchen towels and a good apron
-a knife sharpener
-a rotary cheese grater
-a variety of neat card games for playing with kids
-sushi tie

Calli got specific to her:
-clothes 🙂
-a plush Minnie ornament

Shanna got (much to be shared when Calli gets bigger):
-a wooden activity cube
-a shape/animal stacking game
-a plush Mickey ornament
-bath foam letters/numbers
-magnetic letters and numbers for the fridge
-a pouch for carrying around dolls/stuffed animals
-a set of play silks
-art supplies (window crayons, watercolor paints, a little notebook, and a cool pencil)
-3 more anamalz
-a Minnie purse
-a couple of nail polishes
-a marble sorter/tower
-pirate water bottle
-clothes + jammies
-set of tablecloth and napkins for her little kitchen
-a medical toy set
-practice chop sticks
-lego silverware
-this big, neat ladybug tent!

an awful lot of that came from out of town relatives or were stocking stuffers. we are very very privileged to experience such an overwhemingly wonderful Christmas. 🙂

So! What did y’all get? 😀

Keeping it real

I have decided that January is the month of no sugar. We have gotten to the point where sugar is not an occasional treat but instead it is a major dietary staple. That’s all kinds of bad. I am no longer pregnant and there is no need to be trying like mad to up my caloric intake. 😛

So. After a month of getting sugar out of our collective systems we will make more of a decision as to how to figure out a better balance with it. But yeah. I think we need a detox. And I’m the one who buys groceries and does most of the cooking. 😛 (Not breakfasts, to be fair. Noah does almost all breakfasts cause he rocks mightily.)

+/-

+Had sex last night!
-Missed last week. 🙁
+Maybe we will have sex again this week so we can keep our average up!
-Four month sleep regression (two wake ups in the hour after going to bed)
+Having a heater in our bedroom helps Calli sleep more deeply (still got 8+ hours of consecutive sleep after adding the heater)
-2.5 year olds are… kind of a pain in the ass
+2.5 year olds can be incredibly helpful and thoughtful and considerate
-No cookie making to date
+Cookie making with Paula tomorrow!
-Today is a vaccination day. 🙁
+Today is a Mother’s Helper day!
+Four days till Christmas!
+Only three more work days for Noah this week!
+The ants seem to have been assassinated en masse. Diatomaceous earth is *awesome*.
+Really good posts from rbus lately.
+Enjoying eating tasty leftovers.
+No need to leave my house for any shopping till after Christmas. Yay home delivered groceries.
+My little house is snug and warm since insulating the roof (and turning on the heater of course)
+Jenny got her super romantic propsal
+I get to go to Scotland!
+Laura will help with baby wrangling while traveling!
-Noah won’t be able to go to Scotland
+My midwife finally got around to submitting insurance paperwork
+/-I have developed a sixth sense about when I will be puked on but I’m not always fast enough to get out of the way. The impending sense of doom is really awful.

Overall things are net good. 🙂

Don’t know what to do with these feelings.

I need to tell Shanna no when she asks to watch birth videos. Every so often I kind of freak out and sob because I feel so much grief over the fact that I will never have a son. Every birth video I see where they have a son I sob and feel so envious I can barely see straight. In no way shape or form do I wish either of my girls away. I’m actually enjoying having a girl a little bit more this time because I feel less self-imposed-inhibition about enjoying the more ‘girly’ clothes.

But I have dreamed of my son for so long. It hurts so much that I will never get to see what that person would be like.