Conversation from the car

Mike: There's the party store.

Erin: That's our turn.

Emily: A party store? We need to go there.

Mike: What do we buy at party stores?

Emily: Um.... Birthdays.

Of course, they sell birthdays at party stores. Makes sense to me.

It's always interesting when we get a peek into her head...

Babies are GROSS!

I'm sure you already know this, but babies are truly disgusting creatures.

Lucy has a runny nose. It has been pouring out her nose and running down her face. And when she breathes, sometimes she blows snot bubbles.

And when she feels snot on her face or bubbling out of her nose, do you know what she does? She rubs it into her face with the back of her hand.

Geh.

And then she gets REALLY MAD at us when we wipe her nose with a tissue. Because you know in addition to the battery acid wipes we use to clean their faces, I also buy sand paper tissues.

She's also STILL TEETHING, so she's drooling. I'm never sure what the clear fluid on her face is when I wipe it off.

She is truly a vision.

It's a really good thing that she's cute because, with the drooling, the snot, the spitting up, and the diapers - wow. Babies are really gross.

Call Him George

Emily has found a new friend here in Michigan.

This kitty has been hanging around my parent's house for a few weeks and Emily is IN LOVE. She's a very sweet cat and totally puts up with the mauling that Emily dishes out.

Emily's first words when she gets up are "Where kitty?"

We haven't seen Kitty again after this session, but I am sure she'll be back. She keeps hoping we'll feed her. Probably not gonna happen...

Eye Teeth of DOOM!

Lucy has been teething a long time. It feels like she was born with red, swollen gums, though I know that's not the case.

Her upper eye teeth finally broke through last week, after weeks of crankiness, drooling and an enormous BRUISE on one side of her gum. Poor kid.

We had a couple of days of rest from the upper eye teeth and now, lucky, lucky me, she's working on getting her lower eye teeth.

Good times.

Thursday night, she was awake every two damn hours.

I fed her at 8 as she went to bed, hoping to buy myself several (like 6 or more) uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Not so much.

She woke up at 11 and I was able to ignore the crying enough that she went back to sleep.

Lucy won in the end because she woke up at 1, 330 and 530. I kept going in and feeding her, hoping that the feeding would buy me extra time.

Oh, and Emily got herself out of bed and was on her way to the potty when I woke up at 2. I went and assisted, mostly so that she wouldn't use the whole roll of toilet paper to wipe 3 drops of pee. I counted that as not waking Mommy up in the middle of the night, since she actually got herself out of bed.

Thank you guys for the wonderful advice. Court, I am SO stealing the bed for Oscar idea. I think that will work pretty well.

UGH

It is 4:17 am.

I have been awake since 1 am.

THIS SUCKS!

I went to bed last night at 10, nice and tired and ready for a good night's sleep. Lucy woke up at 10:30. I went in and nursed her, figuring it would buy me several hours of uninterrupted shut-eye.

Well, not so much.

She woke up at 1 am, which for those of you who haven't been thinking about this for the last 3 hours, is 2 and a half hours. I laid there ignoring her for a few (10) minutes and then decided that since I was awake anyways, I might as well feed her so she would shut the heck up.

I was back in bed after feeding Lucy for 15 minutes when Emily started crying that Oscar fell out of bed. I laid there ignoring her for another few (10) minutes when I got mad and went in and yelled at her. I coaxed a half-hearted "sorry, Mommy" out of her for waking me up (AGAIN!) and went back to bed.

Except.

I was awake. My mind started whirring with all the things I need to do today and what to do about Lucy's eating thing and Emily's waking up in the middle of the damn night thing and random country songs floating through my head.

And here we are, 3 and a half hours later.

I finally just gave up and got up. I have a list of things I need to pack (we're going to Michigan for a few days) and things I need to buy (two birthday presents and an anniversary present, cards for same). I ordered refills for prescriptions. I looked into registration for the marathon (We're still accepting donations. Please donate. No amount is too small, every dollar will make a significant difference. Click on the happy little button up there on the right. Thanks!)

I am SO taking some Tylenol PM before bed tonight. If I don't get some sleep tonight, the drive across Canada Friday could be very interesting.

Crap shoot

It's a crap shoot on whether or not Emily is going to live to see her 3rd birthday.

She is driving me up a wall.

The biggest issue is with nap and bed time. We put her to bed and she refuses to get out.

Awesome, right?

Not so much.

If Oscar falls out of bed, she won't get out to get him, even though he is a mere foot away. If she has to go to the bathroom, she won't get out to go.

She'll sit on the edge of her bed, crying until she wets her pants.

How do I know this?

She woke up one afternoon and I was downstairs doing laundry, so I didn't hear her wake up. When I got upstairs, I heard her crying. When I went into her room, I discovered wet child, wet sheets, wet bed skirt.... you get the picture.

We have started standing out in the hall, instructing her to get out of bed to take care of what she needs, instead of going in to see her. That seems to be helping somewhat, but she is still DRIVING ME CRAZY!

And, if that wasn't enough, she still wakes up at least 3 times a week in the middle of the night. Usually she's crying that she wants a hug.

I love this child. You all know that. But the absolute LAST THING I want to do at 3:35 am is get out of bed and give Emily a hug. Especially with Lucy still getting up to nurse at least twice a night.

I have instituted a sticker per uninterrupted night's sleep system and that seems to be working. Emily gets very excited when she gets her stickers. And tomorrow, when we go to Target, I will give her a couple bucks to spend in the Dollar Spot as a reward.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Lay 'em on me!

Sincerely

Dear Pants,

Yesterday I plucked you from the laundry basket and put you on. Today, you are hanging around my hips and annoying the crap out of me. What's up with that? It used to be that the second day of post-laundry wearing you were still full of stretch and love, hugging my waist and hiding my muffin-top. Now, you seem to have just given up on me.

C'mon, where's the love?

Love,

Erin, who is SO putting you in the dryer on the high-heat setting if you keep this up

***

Dear Root Beer,

I quit you a week ago. Do you think it might be possible for my head to stop hurting soon? Please? I'm getting tired of hitting the Advil 3 at a time.

Kthxbye,

Erin

PS: Target, you putting root beer on sale TWO WEEKS in a row after I quit drinking it is NOT COOL. Same to you, CVS.

***

Dear Cookies,

I love you. You are so delicious. Get in mah belly.

Nom nom nom,

Erin

***

Dear Weather,

Take a good look at the calendar. It is MAY. MAY! The high temperature for MAY is NOT 50. Or, worse 38. We should NOT have to build a fire in MAY and then spend the rest of the evening remarking on how nice and WARM the house is because we built a FIRE.

Get it together, wouldja?

Erin

***

Dear Bananas,

I just bought you last week. You were too green to eat. So I waited. And waited. And now you are green. With brown spots. Which means you are not fit for eating. I have a freezer full of bananas just like you. WTH? No more bananas from the warehouse store. Even if you are $1.39 for a big bunch.

At least Lucy still likes to eat you.

Love,

Erin

No accounting for taste...

The girls and I went this morning to Courtney's for a playdate.

We had a ton of fun. Lucy and Janna crawled around and pulled up on things (Janna started doing this for the first time today! Yay!) and Emily and Elliott played with and fought over various Dora toys.

Courtney and I were talking about our various troubles getting kids to eat (Court) and how we're so sick of nursing we might just scream (Me). It was about then that we both noticed Lucy playing with Janna's sippy cup of formula.

Lucy rolled onto her back in the hall of Court's condo and started cheerfully gumming on the sippy cup and gulping down the formula that came out.

I had to laugh. I give this kid breastmilk 85,000 times a day. (Well, more like 6, but it FEELS LIKE 85,000, especially at 3:30 am.) And she's getting all gooey over FORMULA?!*

OK. Whatever.

Courtney was kind enough to give me a little baggie of formula to take home with me. If Lucy likes it so much, she can have it tomorrow night when she spends the night at my mom's house.

*Note: I have no issues with formula, other than that it smells AWFUL. Feed your kid whatever and however you want.

Kiddie pictures

I don't have much to talk about today. So I thought I would put up some pictures of my kids instead of writing something worthwhile.

Oh and hey! It's Wordless Wednesday! So yay!

Emily playing in her new house.

Lucy enjoys some late evening sunshine.

She cracks herself up.

I love to see my kids lovin' on each other.

Emily pokes her head out to say hi.

Fin

The great living room rearrange is finally complete. I spent the better part of this afternoon putting up pictures. I am incredibly thrilled with how well this all turned out. I bought new lamps, a new coffee table and new end tables and new drapes to go with the new furniture placement.

This is the old set up, without the hearth (the brown chair you can on the right side of the picture is where the hearth was).

Here is the new set up. I am standing by the front door, facing the west wall.
Standing in the dining room, facing west.
Still in the dining room, now facing the west wall full on. Nootice that, though I picked up the living room before taking these pictures, I neglected to pick up Emily's shoes. Whoops.
I am so glad that we decided to do this. I feel like someone has flipped my living room. It doesn't feel like the same room any more.

Next up? The master bathroom. Woo!

Robins

A family of robins build a nest every year in our weeping cherry tree.

This year, I have been watching with great interest as they built the nest, and then as the mama robin began her egg vigil.

I could see the nest from my living room window and her perky little tail, sticking straight in the air always made me smile.

When I went out the passage door from the garage to get the mail, Mama Robin would fly off, squawking a reprimand at my interruption.

This morning when I came out to the living room, my eyes automatically went to the tree to check on Mama Robin.

Except, something looked wrong.

The nest seemed to be gone. But that couldn't be right.

I looked closer. That was definitely the branch, now bare of any nest. No perky tail. No alert eyes, watching for my untimely exit from the garage.


My eyes drifted to the base of the tree and that's when I saw it.

I am not sure what happened, but the eggs are gone and the nest has clearly been pushed out of the tree. I think I remember a similar thing happening last year, too. Obviously some predator likes a late-afternoon or early-morning snack of warm robin eggs.

I am surprisingly upset about the disappearance of Mama Robin. I was looking forward to the emergence of the babies and enjoyed watching her carefully arrange herself over her eggs. My eyes keep drifting to the tree where her nest was to check her progress, only to be reminded that she's not there any more.

I know that this happens. Bird's carefully laid eggs get eaten, and babies who are much loved don't always make it, but it still stings.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

This weekend, Mike found an article about work at home moms that he thought I would be interested in. I read the article and was very interested.

So interested, in fact, that I contacted 4 of the 5 companies listed as flexible-staffing, work-at-home mom agencies.

I've since received feedback from one that their jobs are primarily in the San Francisco area. Another called me this afternoon.

She asked where I was located (specifically, where on Long Island was my city - yeah, not so much) and then indicated that I was "too far away" to telecommute.

Excuse me?

It turns out that the jobs they list as "telecommuting" jobs require at least some face time in the client's office.

She wasn't very optimistic that they would be able to help me. She's going to talk with her boss and call me back if the boss thinks they might be able to find something for me.

Ugh.

This is very frustrating. I want to have a job to do something and it seems like everyone is talking about how great it is to have people working from home, but then they don't want to give us the chance to do it. Or they want to tell us all about their great opportunities, but only after we pay a low monthly fee.


If anyone knows of a legitimate work-at-home job, I would love to know about it.

Dog Funnies

I have a couple quick dog stories that made me laugh recently. I thought I would share them with you.

The first involves good ole Domino. I was gathering the garbage to go to the curb and I decided to leave the door to the kitchen garbage cupboard open while I put a bag in a can in another room. When I came back, Domino had his head in the garbage can that was still in the cupboard. There's about 2 and a half inches of clearance between the top of the garbage can and the bottom of the cupboard frame. As Domino realized I was coming back into the kitchen, he tried to pull his head out of the can to make his getaway. Except... he couldn't. He was stuck. The poor thing was trying to get away and his head was too far into the can to get it out on his own. I had to help him. I couldn't punish him after that, I figured getting your head stuck (painfully, I'm sure) in the garbage can was punishment enough.

The other dog funny happened this weekend. Mike went to his grandma's house to help with some drainage issues and we girls joined him there for dinner after nap. It was his cousin and his future aunt's birthday, too, so we were having an impromptu party for them.

To set the scene, you need to understand a couple things about Mike's grandma's house. This is the house that Grandpa R was born in. It is old. And it is VERY small. I'm guesstimating it is about 800-1000 square feet. There are 2 teeny bedrooms, a living room that used to be the screened-in porch, a miniscule dining room, a kitchen and a bathroom. And R family gatherings? They are LOUD. Very, very loud. This grandma had 6 kids (in that teeny house. I'm still not sure how they did it.)

On Saturday, Aunt G, Uncle T, Uncle M and his fiancee, Mike's cousin and her 2 kids, Mike, me, Lucy and Emily, Mike's brother B, my mother and father-in-law and Grandma R were gathered for dinner. And then the brother of Aunt G's ex-husband stopped by. The more the merrier, so he stayed for dinner, too. If you've lost count, that is 16 people in an extremely small house.

Also there were 3 dogs in attendence. There was Angel, Wendel and Honey. Angel is Mike's cousin J's dog. J is an idiot. Seriously. I could go on for DAYS about how stupid J is, but that's not the point of this post. J can't be bothered to take care of his dog, so she has more or less become Grandma's dog. Angel is a pit bull, which wouldn't be MY first choice of dog for an 84-year-old woman, but Grandma R is way too sweet to say no, even to J. Wendel is Mike's cousin E's dog. He's a Great Dane mix and he's about 5 months old. And then Honey is Mike's mom's dog. She's 6 or 7 and is way older than her years. She was an old biddy dog even before she was a year. You can imagine, I'm sure how well 3 dogs were doing in this puny house with 16 friggin' people.

Angel and Wendel had a great time, running and playing and fighting for dominance and generally being puppies. Once Wendel arrived, we pretty much kept the girls up off the floor so that they wouldn't get trampled by the marauding puppies. Honey found an out-of-the-way corner and hid for most of the evening.

Still with me? Good. We're finally getting to the funny part.

The evening progressed and the dogs started to wind down a little after dinner. Pep (Aunt G's ex-brother-in-law) had a ride coming for him at 8. George arrived and came in to say hi. He took his shoes off in the entryway and expressed concern that one of the dogs would chew on them. We assured him that they would be fine right where they were.

About 10 or 15 minutes later, E looked up and gasped. Wendel, who is not quite 100% potty trained was peeing in George's shoe.

So it turns out our assurances were right. The dogs didn't chew on George's shoe, but we made no promises about peeing.

Hm. Maybe it was funnier for those of us who were actually there.

Un-Fortune-Ately

Mike was craving chinese food last night, so we went to a local chinese restaurant.

We gave Emily a small cup of tea and she was SO PROUD.

Both girls did well while we were there, though Lucy was so tired she started to lose it towards the end.

At the end of the meal, fortune cookies were brought out. We gave one to Emily, Mike shared his with Lucy and I got to eat mine all by myself. Just the way I like it. (I'm funny about sharing my food. I'd rather not. Especially yummy things like cookies.)

Our fortunes are as follows:

Mike's - The wheel of good fortune is finally turning in your direction! Mike's gonna be on a game show!
Emily's - The courage to be great lies deep within each of us. It was really tempting to add "in bed" to this when I read it to her. But I think 2-almost-3 is a bit young to teach her that method of reading fortunes.
Lucy's - Don't be afraid to take that big step. C'mon, Lucy! Walk already!
Mine - With a little more hard work, you creativity takes you to great height. Hey, wait a minute! Mike gets to be on a game show, and I get called a SLACKER?! That ain't right.


PS: Thank you all for your kind words about my aunt's death. I am mostly at peace about it. She is much more comfortable now and she's with her beloved husband.

Gone

My aunt passed away early this morning.

For something that I knew was coming, I was still taken by surprise by the emotions that have been washing over me today.

My mom's side of the family has always been small. Joyce was 17 years older than my mom and she lived in Philly until very recently. We were in Minnesota when I was growing up, so I didn't see her all that often. We also never saw much of the rest of my mom's family, her aunts and uncles and cousins mostly lived in Buffalo.

I have vowed that things will be different with my kids. I want my kids to have more than a slight acquaintance with their cousins, aunts and uncles. I want them to see their extended family on more than an occasional basis.

And, for the most part, that will be the case, especially on Mike's side of the family. But, my kids will have the same sort of withered maternal family tree that I grew up with and that really bugs me.