Two

When I was in labor with my daughter I called my mom at like 7 p.m. (I'd been in labor for 12 hours at that point - induced labor with my water broken) and said I was at around 8 cm so I'd call her when the baby was born, which we thought would be by 10 or so.  The baby had other plans.  After a few hours of fruitlessly pushing a sunny side up baby and some issues with my temperature and the baby's heart rate she was finally born the next morning at 3:43.  With all the excitement I told my husband not to call my mom because I didn't want to wake and worry her.  Too late, she was already in full worry mode and told my step-father that if anything had happened to me or the baby "I'm going to have a hard time believing in God anymore."  When I talked to her a few hours after my daughter was born and she had ascertained that I was ok, she asked how the baby was. "Perfect" was my only reply.  All things considered (you know, being a toddler and all) I'd say that stands.  She's healthy and happy and so very worth all that we went through to bring her into this world.

It's pretty miraculous really, one day you get a picture of 6 cells and then 9 months later you're holding an actual baby, and then a couple of years later, that baby is sitting atop a pony in your backyard.  

Almost 2

I'm spending my day doing birthday party prep for the big day tomorrow.  My single and childless brother came for the party and asked if they will be bringing a tranquilizer gun with the pony "in case the little fucker gets out of control."  He is the person we decided to make the guardian of our daughter should anything happen to us, perhaps we should re-think.

WWEPD?

What would Emily Post do?  I think in today's environment her head would probably explode.  Let's explore this.  I have some friends (I was originally friends with the man of the couple) who have announced they are divorcing.  This is their third such announcement in a year.  Each time they've announced it, they've re-thought it and tried to work things out because they have young children.  This time I think they are going through with it.  Yesterday I got an email (addressed to many others) from him announcing the divorce, which I don't particularly have an issue with.  After all who wants to call everyone you know and re-hash the story?  But after that e-mail went out he changed his facebook status to single.  Really, is that up there on the list of important things when you are in the midst of ending your marriage?  Is it a subtle way of telling people who didn't get copied on that email that you're available.  It just seemed a bit strange.  

On to today's thing that doesn't suck.  This is birthday week for the munchkin.  I am of the "a birthday is a big deal" school of thought so we're having a party (with a pony) and we already got her big birthday present.  It's a Skuut which is a balance bike, essentially a bike with no pedals.  It's supposed to help kids develop the balance skills necessary to ride a bike so no training wheels are needed.  I've heard only raves about this, my brother's friend had one and his daughter could ride a bike with no training wheels when she was 3.  So far Ellie likes it.  That is after we get over the helmet meltdown the precedes the riding of the bike.  I prepped her for weeks about the helmet.  Every time we saw someone riding a bike we talked about how they were wearing a helmet, we watched an Elmo video about riding a bike that talked about helmets, we picked out an Elmo helmet.  Uh yeah, conceptualizing wearing a helmet and putting on a helmet are apparently two verrry different things when you are a toddler.  I have high hopes that we'll get over it though.  And to prove how awesome helmets are I'm wearing my bike helmet around the house.  Which actually might be a good thing given the number of toddler head butts I've gotten this week.  

Because the madness knows no end

Kate Gosselin provides endless fodder, no?  I caught the stupid 30 second teaser for the new season of her show.  It had the feel of "a very special Blossom" wherein Kate, ever the victim, talks about feeling that she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and she's not going to "lay down and die."  No way, not when those American Chopper guys are on their way to bring her a new pink scooter.  No time to lay down and die when you've got a denim mini skirt and wedge sandals to throw on for that scooter ride.  Oh and great modeling for the kids by not wearing a helmet.  Shows us that you value your brain as much as the rest of us do.  

Oy, I am so tired of listening to people whine about how bad their lives are when they are in predicaments wholly of their own doing.  Like the NY Times economics reporter who got a giant mortgage he knew he couldn't afford and is losing his house and wrote a book about it.  My mother is a very no nonsense woman who has taught school for over 40 years.  This is what she would call "poor life skills."  

File this one under poor deductive reasoning skills.  Larry King discovered he had a long lost son and met him when the son was 33.  It's amazing he was able to even put the clues together at all, much less after 33 years because this is all he had to go on:

• He was married to the kid's mother.
• "She told me if it's a boy, I'm gonna name him Larry King Jr."
• "I knew there was a Larry King Jr. out there."
• If you think really hard, the name itself is a clue: Larry King Jr.

Kepler's Fourth Law

My junior year in high school I took physics.  Here is the sum of what I retain.  Kepler came up with three laws of planetary motion.  Do you know why I remember that?  Because one of the physics teachers had put up a cartoon on the bulletin board titled "Kepler's Fourth Law.  The world doesn't revolve around you, you know."  I don't think my mother in law ever took physics, otherwise maybe she'd know Kepler's Fourth Law.  But she does not.  My husband told her to ask me what to get our daughter for her birthday.  Oh no, she already had the perfect "unique" present.  

It's two CDs of personalized songs.  So when the twangy guy starts singing he says "ready, ELLIE, let's sing 12345."  And well, she hates them.  Not just an indifferent "eh, I prefer Elmo" attitude either.  This is a direct quote: "NO NO NO TURN IT OFF."  Alrighty then.  She also included some giant crayons and coloring books.  Giant non-washable crayons.  Ellie had them in her hand no more than 30 seconds when I went to the bathroom, said to my husband "keep an eye on her with those," and then heard what sounded like coloring on the outside of the bathroom door.  Apparently if you are a man "keep an eye on her" means "watch SportsCenter."  

Don't eat that

I don't know where she heard about it but my daughter lately has been asking for finger paints.  Despite the fact that we have regular paint that she likes to use with a brush.  I was at Hobby Lobby the other day and they had a whole finger painting kit with sponge rollers for $5 so I got it. Turns out that (a) the sponge rollers don't actually roll, they just smear (b) she does not in fact like to use her fingers to paint, she prefers a brush (c) something about that paint looked appetizing to her.  

Speaking of appetizing, I've mentioned before my daughter's semi-pickiness.  I introduce something new a few times a week.  Only one new thing per meal and with no fanfare.  She's good about trying stuff, she asks what it is, I tell her and she tries it.  It's a 50/50 split whether she likes it.  But my favorite trick is when she tries it, likes it, then then next 20 times I make it acts like "polenta, why on earth did you think I'd like that crap?"  From now on I'm just going to label every new food as "finger paint" and let her dig in.  

I once read somewhere that dogs understand a limited number of words.  For argument's sake (and because I don't want to look it up), let's say it's 100.  The study didn't indicate if it was a rolling 100 and my mom assumed it was first come first served thing so she was worried about "what if you waste words on things like "squirrel" and there's no room for something like "stay?" I don't know the answer to that because the only words my dog understands are "ice cream" and "outside" and oh how we wish "STOP BARKING" were stored in his little tiny yipper dog brain.  But that's not my point.  My point is that I think the human brain also has a limited capacity. For crap tv.  Last night I was watching the part 2 of the Real Housewives of NY reunion show and the Real Housewives of NJ was on right afterward.  I started watching but my brain just wouldn't allow it in.  It made me change the channel.  I watched Frontline instead.  It was called "Inside the Meltdown" and all about the economic meltdown.  And wow.  For everyone who bitched about the federal government bailing out big companies, watch this show.  To put it mildly, I'm not a fan of the previous administration but holy crap when you see that the immediate result of the government NOT bailing out Lehman Brothers was that all the credit markets FROZE UP and when the House failed to pass the first bailout package the Dow had its single largest drop in the history of the market then you realize how close we were to a complete meltdown and that something drastic had to be done.  So that's your thing that doesn't suck today folks, watch this show (you can see it online).  Your brain will thank you for it.  

Finally, something more hideous than the mullet

No one can ever accuse Kate Gosselin of modesty or introspection.  Because she claimed that everyone wants this hair style.  That people all over the country call her hairstylist.  Uh, they are calling your hairstylist to ask her to turn in her license as clearly she is nutters, as are you ma'am.  You can see her husband trying to make sense of it.  But sadly, he can't.  

Things we can't say

When the little ears start processing things that come out of the little mouth, it's time to start spelling or modifying your language.  Here are some things we now can't say:

God - inevitably followed by "damnit." I shamefully accept responsibility for this one.

Candy - Immediately taken as an offer of such.  "Uh no, I was just telling grandma about some candy......aargh....here take an m&m."

Outside - Both toddler and dog run around in circles when we say this.

Ice Cream - See above reference to outside.

Potty - We're finding the sneak attack immediate delivery to the bathroom for potty time works better than advance warning which means toddler just runs away. 

I gotta say though, it's so funny when the toddler language skills explode and you can tell there's some thinking going on behind what they are saying.  Ellie and I were watching a show on the Food channel this morning and someone was making Thai Beef Salad and Ellie said "that looks good."  

Selfish

I want the recession to be over.  The only reason is that I need my husband to get a job and out of the house very very soon, before I become an episode of Snapped.  My mom told me that the Today show had a segment on yesterday about the men who have been laid off and are home driving their wives crazy.  Why wasn't Matt Lauer on assignment here in my kitchen (shirtless) talking to me for this story?  Because I would tell him how even though my husband is here nearly all the time he seems to think he is surrounded by some sort of "do not disturb" bubble that is not to be penetrated.  I understand if he's doing some job related activities but when I am in the middle of cleaning up dog vomit and he is sitting at the counter eating ice cream and the toddler alerts us that she is wetting her pants and his reaction is to repeat this to me and continue eating ice cream well, I'm afraid mama's gonna snap.  

This is the continuous struggle in our house, he feels that if I need help I should ask, I feel that he should ask if he could help or you know, see the child standing in a puddle of urine and take care of it.  I know it's not just me, all of my friends say the same thing.  So perhaps we could spend some time retooling sex ed and add a whole unit in there about if you want to get laid all you really need to do is ask your wife how you can make her life easier.  

Pushing my buttons and some perverts too

In an ominous sign of things to come my almost 2 year old is getting freakishly good at pushing my buttons.  The "it's time to go potty" announcement is met with her screaming directly in my ear (does she not know that I grew up in the age of the walkman and now ipod and have virtually no hearing left), kicking me directly in the pubic bone, and then when we get into the bathroom, the wet noodle routine.  This morning I'd had it and just walked out of the bathroom and told my husband "I can't deal with her, you go do it" and he said "you can't deal with it? you're a mother, mothers everywhere deal with this."  Yes dumbass they do, but they don't deal with it joyfully and patiently 24 hours a day.  

I got an email yesterday advertising a package trip to the Helsinki marathon.  I'm this close to booking it.  But it's not until August and I figure that by then I'll probably be in some sort of cast due to the irreparable damage to my pubic bone and I'll be deaf too for that matter.  Oh yes and there's the small matter of neither of us having a job and well that trip costs money.  Precisely the amount that the worthless embryo transfer cost.  I'd rather have the Helsinki memories than the ultrasounds of my uterus memories.

Moving on.  To perverts.  Well one pervert.  We were at the water playscape at our local park yesterday.  Normally the place is great.  Yesterday there was some sort of water malfunction and the water would come on once every 10 minutes for about 10 seconds.  And one of the water spouts was like old faithful, the water pressure was set way too high.  Of course a few weird little boys took turn sitting on it.  Every time I'm there a little boy is sitting on one of those.   As we waited for the city to dispatch someone to come fix the water a mother ran over to us (my friend, her husband and I) and breathlessly told us that a guy was standing and watching the kids and masturbating in the picnic pavilion.  She pointed to a car driving away and said it was his.  I'm not sure why she didn't run after his car and maybe get the license number, probably because she was freaked out by the whole thing.  So yeah, that's nice.  We got there pretty often so I'm going to be taking my camera each time.  I wish I still had my nanny, she packed heat.  And this is Texas so I'm pretty sure you can just shoot perverts, no questions asked.  

Queen of the mix

I got my mom an iTunes gift certificate because she's quite the little mix master.  We get a mix CD for every occasion.  I was just listening to my mother's day mix and there was a song on there with some ukelele in it, I can't remember what, it's not a particularly popular song.  But I was thinking, there should be more songs with ukelele in them - banjo too for that matter - because how many depressing songs have you heard with ukelele or banjo in them?  Precisely none.   There's only so much Morrissey a person can listen to then you just need a little happiness.  

Speaking of happiness, I was reading another blogger's post recently about starting a new career.  And one of the commenters said something to the effect that happiness was just on the horizon.  I thought, well that's a crappy way of looking at things.  If you are always thinking that if only this thing would happen then I'd be happy, I'm afraid you will never be happy.  Through 3 years of trying to have a baby and dealing with infertility and miscarriage, I was still a happy person.  I was healthy, I had a job, I had a good husband, I had good family and friends.  I knew somehow things would work out, whether I had a baby or we chose to adopt.  I never thought "if only I had a baby, then I'd be happy."  Even now, my husband and I are both out of work and our efforts to have a second child have failed somewhat disastrously but I don't think of myself as unhappy.  Yes, I have moments of unhappiness but overall, I'm happy.  Now I think I would be happier if I could track down some Screaming Yellow Zonkers but I'm learning to cope with that. 

Today's thing that doesn't suck, awkward family photos.  May you never appear on this site.

Hot hot hot

If this week is any indication, we are in for a hot summer.  Last year it was above 90 degrees from the beginning of May until the end of September.  It gets old after a while but I like the trade off of summer heat for cold winters full of ice and snow.  The good thing is that around here there are lots of ways to deal with the heat, there are a ton of pools (every neighborhood has one) and right down the road from our house is a water playscape at the park.  So we hit that place twice this week.  My toddler attempted to run away both times.  The first day she did a brazen dead sprint out of the water scape then ran down the trail at the park and promptly fell and skinned her knee and was covered with gravel from head to toe.  The second day she modified her escape attempt.  This time she just casually sauntered off walking with a family that was leaving.  I no longer think child leashes are weird or cruel.  

Today in the mail I got a mother's day card from one of my friends.  She is one of the nicest people on earth.  She remembers every milestone and sends cards and thoughtful gifts.  Sometimes we'll get something out of the blue, for me or my daughter, just because she saw something she thought we'd like.  She even sends my mom a card on her birthday.  But the coolest thing is that she always finds a great card that's usually blank and writes a very thoughtful quotation in it.  So today I get a card with a martini on the front and inside she's written "Children and mothers never truly part - bound in the beating of each other's heart." 

It was nice to see that card in the mail right after listening to the voice mail from my RE who wanted to check in and see if I was alright.  Well yes, I'm alright in the sense that I'm moving on with my life but not quite in the sense that I can't quite move on because money and circumstances prevent any further movement on attempts for baby #2.  As I approach my second Mother's Day I'm happy and grateful that I get to celebrate and so very acutely aware that the fact that I am celebrating is fairly miraculous.  

Moving on.  First, do not be tempted to buy your girl child a little larger bathing suit.  Because as you can kind of see above, the bottoms will be sagging quite a bit once they get wet.  

Secondly, we still haven't conquered poop on the toilet.  I needed a solution to clean up poopy underwear.  I wondered what cloth diaper moms do so a little research and I stumbled across a mini-shower that hooks onto the toilet.  It arrived yesterday.  Sadly not in time for an accident. No worries though, 10 minutes after I got it installed this morning I had an opportunity to use it.  It's pretty cool.  It's super easy to install and works very well.  If I had another baby I'd even use cloth diapers because I have this thing to clean out the poopy ones.  Ok, I wouldn't go that far because I'm lazy.  But, until we get the #2 issue resolved, I'll be thankful I have this thing.  It can also be used to make your toilet into a bidet.  Which I don't find at all appealing but hey, who am I to judge if one of you thinks that's awesome.  

Denial

Sometimes a little denial is healthy, you know like when you eat that 4th chocolate chip cookie and you say to yourself "well I DID run this morning."  But generally, it's probably not healthy.  Like if say, you are away pimping your latest idiotic book about your 8 children and your husband is out at 1 a.m. with a 23 year old single "friend" and he says nothing happened other than he made a bad judgment call in going out to see a "friend" at a bar in the middle of the night and you act like the tabloids are the ones in the wrong.  Yes Kate Gosselin I'm talking to you.  Let's all concur right now that if your husband leaves your children in the middle of the night (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assume they were being cared for) while you are out of town to hang out with a young single woman, there's no legitimate justification to explain that away.  Perhaps we should all go ahead and give our husbands a heads up that the wives of the world have reached this mutual agreement, lest they try and use this excuse under some delusion that their wives have lost all rational thinking skills.  Oh and also, if you go on the Today show to talk about how you aren't going to get into the matter on your reality television show because it's private then Matt Lauer should have a free pass to smack you with a dictionary opened to irony. 

Here's some free advice that doesn't suck.  We've been getting our will and powers of attorney done - yes 2 full years after our child was born, I really really know better after law school that this should have been done ages ago.  And aside from telling you to get this done NOW, I want to impart some other advice that came out of this that hadn't totally occurred to me before.  I'm sure some of you are like me and don't live near your family.  It only recently occurred to me that my mother doesn't have the contact information of any of my friends here and vice versa.  The lawyer we are using for our estate planning told us to make sure a friend here who would know if something happened to us has the contact information for a family member AND knows who we've designated to be the guardians of our child if that should become necessary.  Also, if your designated guardian for your child(ren) does not live close by, draft a document authorizing that a specified friend can have short term temporary guardianship of your child until the authorized guardian can get to them.  This could save your kids a few days in foster care.  I know, none of us are ever going to need this but it's nice to take care of it and then never worry about it again.  

I'd like to be your senator/mayor/president

I'm thinking of running for office.  Among my vow to rid the world of the pestilence that is glitter, I'm adding fire ants to my "to eradicate" list, all part of my "getting rid of shit that annoys you" platform.  Though I haven't checked, I'm pretty sure fire ants serve no purpose in the ecosystem.  Well no good purpose, biting the crap out your sweet little girl's legs might be a purpose, but it's evil.  And yes I suppose some anteaters will die when their food supply dries up but quite honestly I've never seen an anteater in my yard so I don't think the threat is all that dire.  The good thing is that we won't have to worry about pro-ant protesters because there aren't any.  No one likes fire ants.  Even Charles Manson.  

It's a good thing I ran across this story today, because where we live there are snakes and this is the time of year they come out to lie on rocks and consort with the fire ants about raising hell.  And I usually want to pet and kiss them but I am now informed that is a bad idea.  Why is it that "the man" always wants to squash our fun?  I suppose some safety freak is going to warn us that jumping into the polar bear pool at the zoo is "dangerous" as well?

If you are fire ant/snake bite/polar bear bite free, check out this thing that doesn't suck.  Boots Skin Tonic is on sale at Target right now for $7.99.  It smells of rose water and feels quite refreshing without being too harsh.  It does however come in a glass bottle.  I have tile floors in my bathroom.  We all know how this relationship is going to end don't we?  

What is the proper protocol for this?

I was going through a pile of stuff that needed to be filed and I came across the pictures of our embryo transfer.  A picture of the two embryos and bunch of my uterus as they did the transfer (why I would need pictures of that god only knows).  I threw away the uterus pics but then wondered what I should do with the embryo pics?  Do I toss them?  Like when they gave me ultrasound pictures after telling me that I had a non-viable pregnancy.  Are those for my scrapbook of failure?  Thanks, I know just where I'll mount them, next to 850 pictures of negative pregnancy tests.  

My favorite show these days is In Treatment.  It kind of makes me think I need to get myself some therapy.  Because while on a day to day basis I think I'm doing pretty well, a thought of "I should have a new baby right now" or "I should be pregnant right now" will bubble up and I question how well I'm really doing.  The thing is we can't do anything further on the infertility treatment front until somebody gets a job.  So it's just hanging out there, no closure, no resolution, no plan of action to look forward to.  That's probably why I'm feeling this way, because for the first time since we started trying to have a baby nearly 6 years ago I don't have a roadmap.  I'm just driving aimlessly.  I'm trying to come up with something else to focus on and look forward to, most likely it'll be a marathon because that's my thing.  Getting pregnant and staying pregnant, clearly not my thing.

Has anyone gone to therapy for infertility related stuff? Do you think it's a good idea?  How do you find a good therapist? More importantly, how do you find a therapist who has Gabriel Byrne's brogue and awesomeness?

I know I said I was done talking about this but....

So potty training is going fairly well.  Except for poop.  The tricky thing is that the kid doesn't have a predictable poop pattern - not a set time after eating, no sneaky behavior to indicate that she's about to, and apparently no aversion to having poopy pants.  She does not appear to have any issues with pooping on the toilet, she's done it before without incident, she just doesn't feel the need to tell us or do it on the toilet instead of in her underwear.  And seriously folks, it's gross.  So if anyone has any tips on this front, send em my way.  Because the other day I dealt with two separate poopy pants incidents THEN the dog peed all over my husband's pillows.  I have no idea what that was all about.  Perhaps he wanted some of the Pez we use as potty treats.  

On to non poop related kid stuff.  We are getting to the stage where my daughter's language skills are getting pretty entertaining.  The other day I heard her yelling at the dog to "GET OFFA THERE" and though funny, I'm not sure how I feel about her pointing to the food trucks that troll our neighborhood (we have lots of construction going on, apparently by builders who don't watch tv or read the papers) and saying "Roach Coach."  My husband taught her that.  I personally think that the smells coming from those things are tantalizing.  Of course I ate a gas station burrito when I was pregnant, so clearly I am just one rung below that guy Andrew Zimmer who will eat animal testicles and dirt.  

How about something that doesn't suck?  Whoopie pies.  They really, really, don't suck.  I didn't grow up with Whoopie pies, I only recently discovered them.  I love this recipe.  I wanted a recipe that didn't use shortening for the filling and this one fits the bill.  I make mine a little smaller than the recipe suggests, I use a cookie scoop for sizing and this recipe makes 20 sandwiches.