Shoot Shoot SHOOT!

I stopped by ParentDish this afternoon and saw this article.

I thought the name Jardine sounded familiar, so I went to the CPSC site listed and lo and behold my crib is one of the recalled ones. (Not only that, but my crib is the first one pictured on the CPSC site. Isn't it cute?)

Yippee.

Of course, Lucy was sleeping IN the crib when I discovered all of this, so I had to wait (NOT a strong suit of mine) until she woke up to verify that my crib really is affected.

Sure enough, it's model number BC-010W.

I called the Jardine recall phone number and talked with a very nice lady who quickly got my information and gave me the retail amount I can expect to receive from Jardine. $219.99. Which, as I recall, is about what we paid for it.

So this winds up being a fairly sizeable* big pain in my butt, but I think it is going to work out for the best.

Y'see, Lucy is nearly a year old (GAH!) and in another 6 or so months, we're going to want to put her into a "big-girl" bed before she outgrows the crib.

I was wondering how exactly we were going to fund that little venture, now I think I know. My current plan (all without talking to Mike, so definitely subject to change) is to buy a convertible crib (like this, or oo! this one), use it as a crib until she's a little bigger and then convert it to either a toddler bed or straight into the double. Dunno which we'll go for (I sort of think toddler beds are, well, silly. But I might be changing my mind, what with the FREE and all) but I think it will work.

*Blogger says that this should be spelled "sizable". Outlook said that it was spelled correctly as "sizeable". Either way, I mean "BIG". (Frankly, I think Blogger is WRONG.)

Welcome to Club Neb!

I took Emily to the doctor yesterday and the Fabulous Dr. Sara said she had been hearing Emily coughing all through the office.

Yeah.

She hooked us up with a prescription for Orapred AND a refill (because, when she said she wanted to do that I said I figured that was what was going to happen, so I can jump the gun should this happen again in the next year. Woo!) and sent us on our merry way. We love Dr. Sara.

I have continued the hated nebulizer treatments on Em and they, along with the Orapred, are making a HUGE difference. Emily slept for 3 and a half hours today at nap. She slept longer than Lucy did (which, today, isn't saying much, but whatever) and when she got up she was our happy Emily again. Yay.

I also started Lucy on the neb treatments because her cough is slightly better than Emily's but not by much. I'm hoping that she actually got some of the medicine tonight, because WOW. She really really didn't like the neb. At ALL.

And the newspaper dude (I have randomly decided that our delivery person is a guy based on no evidence) didn't deliver my paper today. I called back and ranted at the hapless Customer Service person and she promised it will be delivered tomorrow. Any takers on betting that it isn't here tomorrow morning?

Then to continue my water woes from last week, this morning I sorted and started the laundry. I did my white load, as usual, first, with bleach and hot water. Imagine my surprise when, as I am putting the whites into the drier, I notice that these whites are suspiciously yellow for a freshly bleached load of wash. Hmmm.

I put them back in the washer and tried again, all the while remembering several things. 1) We have been out of salt for a couple of weeks and just put a bunch of new salt in the softener, but my shower this morning didn't seem to reflect a freshly salted softener. 2) My MI mom used to (and probably still does, to some extent) fight with yellow clothes when her softener wasn't adjusted properly.

I called Mike at work and gave him the great news that something wasn't right in Softener-ville. He came home, took a look and decided to head to a local store that we know sells water softeners (turns out like hot water heater repair, not everyone does that. Who knew?). They asked him to come back with pre- and post-softener water samples. We did that on our way to Denny's (kids eat FREE! on Tuesdays! We had dinner for $18 tonight! YAY!) and the guy confirmed that our water softener is dead. DED dead. Good times.

Why is it ...

... that the night the baby gets a bath is the night that her diaper leaks? I put a nice, clean, yummy-smelling baby to bed last night and this morning I got a wet, stinky baby out of the same crib. NO FAIR!

... that ice cream is coming in smaller containers for the same price? That is NOT COOL! And not only because there is less of the Edy's Loaded Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup to stuff in my face.

... that my kid is sick IN THE SUMMER? Isn't summer supposed to be the HEALTHY season? So why am I dragging her to the doctor with ANOTHER (suspected) case of croup? And, really, how old are you when croup is no longer croup? (And if it isn't croup, what is it?) Isn't almost-3 a little old? Ugh.

... that cars with the handicapped tags on the mirror are driven by someone who is incapable of locating the accelerator? Also, note: If you read the back of those hang tags, it says to take them down BEFORE you start driving. Otherwise it impairs your view of me tailgating you as you drive 35 mph on my 55 mph road. Or something.

... that I inevitably get stuck behind the person who doesn't like to go quickly as we enter the Thruway. Listen, if you don't like driving more than 40, that's fine, but then don't use the Thruway. The entrance we use puts us on at the foot of a large hill. The speed limit is 65. It is not easy to get up to speed, up a hill with a semi on your bumper, especially when you were stuck behind someone who was going 35 on the on-ramp.

... that the morning I had plans to get some stuff done before the kids got up is the morning that they were BOTH out of bed by 6:45. Seriously.

... that my newspaper delivery person decided this weekend that I didn't want my paper? I WANT MY SUNDAY PAPER! It'd be great if it were here on Saturday, that's how great my desire for the paper. And when I called to say that I hadn't received my paper? How come they can deliver it tomorrow but not today?

... that of the 4 A/C companies I called, ONE decided that a 2 pm appointment means show up at 4:15? All 4 companies are experiencing the same heat-related sales increase, but one wasn't equipped to handle it. For the record, I am still not sorry for calling them and yelling at the receptionist. Not her fault, but DUDE. They were over 2 HOURS LATE!

... that I have been kicking the idea for this post around in my head for WEEKS and I can't remember all the other questions I had? I hate that.

MORE deep breathing practice

Honestly, if I had known it was going to be this hard, I would have made Mike handle it.

We were out in the backyard a couple of nights ago and noticed that there was a large cloud of black smoke coming out of the chimney and a yucky smell of oil burning. Mike deduced that there is something not quite right with our (29-year-old, oil-burning) hot water heater. He talked with his dad and did some research on the web, all of which advised that we have a professional in to take a look at it.

Now, for a hot water heater, do you call a plumber? Or a heating technician?

Who would you call?

I called one of the companies that came out to give me an A/C estimate, since their paperwork says Plumbing and Heating.

Nope.

She recommended I call another company. I looked that company (let's call it Buddy Oil, for giggles). Buddy Oil in the Yahoo! Yellow Pages gave me Buddy Energy and Buddy-Sam Plumbing &Heating.

I called Buddy-Sam (because they answered the phone) and the service tech who called me back informed me, a) that they don't do oil hot water heaters, honey* and b) Buddy Oil no longer exists. Buddy Oil is now doing business as Smith Energy.

*I HATE it when people I don't know call me honey. HATE IT. Especially when the honey-caller is a male.

I call Smith Energy and the very nice, quiet-spoken lady** told me that I was calling the wrong number. I needed to call another office that services my town.

I call the other office and am transferred to the service department.

Finally! I am getting somewhere.

Or, maybe not.

I explain that I have a hot water heater in need of some assistance and this nice, soft-spoken lady** asks if I am a Smith Energy customer.

I don't think so, I say.

Who do you buy your oil from?, she asks.

Whoever has it the cheapest, I reply.

That's who needs to service your hot water heater, she says.

Fabulous. I manage to hang up the phone without losing my cool (a MAJOR feat) and sit breathing deeply for a minute. I don't want to start venting in front of the kids, because Emily 1) starts asking 8,000 questions (which drives me CRAZY when I'm not frustrated let alone when my patience has been stretched by crappy customer service) and 2) picks up the slightest "bad" word that might come out of my mouth and repeats it. Neither is desirable.

**Seriously? You put soft-spoken people on your phones? Do you realize that some of your customers might have a 2 year-old and an 11-month-old clamoring for her attention and The Wiggles playing in the background as well as a dog barking because 3 leaves moved suspiciously in the backyard? It's kind of difficult to hear when you speak so quietly, is what I'm saying.

I look up the oil price quote spreadsheet I made last year (shut up, I know I'm a geek) and determine who I think we bought our oil from. I run downstairs and look at the price list Mike posted on our oil tank (shut up, I know HE'S a geek, too) and confirm it. I come back upstairs and call them, leaving a slightly frustrated message.

A few minutes later, OC-WBFLY*** calls me back.

***OC-WBFLY = Oil Company We Bought From Last Year

The good news is that this lady IS AWESOME. As soon as we started talking, I remembered her from last year. She's really nice, she's got a couple young kids and we get along like a house on fire.

She tells me what I was thinking, which is that Smith Energy is full of crap. They don't want to come out because I haven't given them any of my money before. Of course, that doesn't mean that my money won't work for them now, but whatever.

She asks me a bunch of questions, gives me the latest price for oil (HOLY CRAP! It's more than TWICE what we paid last year!) and says she'll call her husband to have him come out here.

She just called me back to give me an estimate of when her husband would be here and said he had a good idea of what the problem is, so yay!

But, oy, if I had known that it was going to take nearly 2 hours to get someone out to look at the hot water heater? ALL MIKE.

Mr. Con Sistency and his sister Ms. Per Sistence

They are not my two favorite words (persistence and consistency), but wow, they sure do work with kids.

To wit, please witness the following sample conversation.

EMILY: I want a hug.
ME: *blank stare at child, eyebrows raised*
EMILY: Please.
ME: *bsac, er*
EMILY: Please may I have a hug, please.
ME: *hugs adorable, polite child*

Or, the scene from dinner last night, in which we saw food consumed and polite conversation between the adults without voices being raised or threats of immediate trips to bed without dinner.

Or nap time this afternoon, in which Emily protested going to bed, but went anyway and stopped crying when instructed to do so. And then, then she went to sleep.

And Lucy has been sleeping through the night. Every night. For the last, um, week. Sorry about the small type. I feel like I should whisper that since her older sister STILL isn't sleeping regularly through the night. Emily went 2 nights in a row without waking me up (and received "Little Nermaid" stickers and a BIG DARN DEAL was made about the not waking up of the Mommy) and then last night called for me at 4-friggin'-15* for a hug. Ugh. We'll get there. I am sure I won't have to drive to Emily's college of choice in the wee hours of the morning because she wants a hug.

*And yes, it is 4-friggin'-15 in the morning. Especially when your husband's alarm goes off at 5:30. Anything much before 6:30 gets a "friggin'" attached to it.

I attribute all of these small successes to persistence and consistency (and liberal use of the Daddy Voice**). Mike and I work very hard to be consistent with the kids, often reminding the other of the need for consistency when one (me) is tempted to let it slide. There are so many times when I just don't want to have the same discussions about the same things over and over and over. I try to suck it up and do it anyways because I'm da mama.

** Daddy Voice = when Daddy gets out his mean, loud yelling voice. Suddenly everyone snaps to attention when Daddy uses the Daddy Voice. The Mommy Voice (also called my Yelling Voice, sometimes paired with Spankin' Hands) works well, but is not nearly as effective as the Daddy Voice. Now, we can usually say "You don't want me to get my Yelling Voice/Spanking Hands out, do you?" and whatever bad behavior is happening usually stops.

Which, now that I think about it, is probably why I am failing rather miserably at maintaining any kind of calorie reduction plan. I have to hold the line on consistency so many other places, the LAST thing I want to do is force myself to be consistent anywhere else. So for now, the calorie reductions will come as they come. I am reasonably happy with my current weight (though that's not to say that 20 or 30 pounds falling off over night would break my heart), I have clothes that fit and (I think) look good on me, so I am not going to worry about it.

Oh, and Court? Your diaper thing (where you put the older, potty-trained child in their younger sibling's diaper if they wet the bed instead of getting up to pee)? Just the threat that Emily would be wearing one of Lucy's diapers if she refused to go potty before nap was enough to get that girl on the toilet. The threat alone. And then there was a long soliloquy that she was a big girl and big girls don't wear diapers, diapers are for babies, etc. Worked like a charm. Thanks!

Busy busy busy

I don't know about you guys, but our Father's Day was busy. Very busy.

When the girls woke up yesterday, they came in to snuggle with us. I had Emily give Mike his present once she got tired of cuddling. We got him a Micro SD card kit for his cell phone. Very exciting for the tech geek that is my husband.

We finally got out of bed and got ready for church. After church we went to Mike's parent's house for lunch. We left their house about 2 pm and put our tired kids to bed. And then soon joined them for a quick nap. I was feeling very stressed about all the work I needed to do around here, but I had a headache that wasn't getting any better, so I thought a nap would do me good. And it did.

When the girls got up from nap we went out to my parent's house for dinner. We brought the girls home and put them to bed, extremely tired from a full day of socializing.

And on top of it all, yesterday was Mike's and my 6th anniversary. Our anniversary was really the last thing either of us were thinking about all day. We both forgot to get cards for each other. But both our parents gave us anniversary presents, even though we kept forgetting.

We'll go out to really celebrate our anniversary this Friday, when my parents are able to take the girls overnight. It will probably be something really exciting, like dinner and a movie. Woo! We really paint the town red around here!

Morning has broken, but it can be fixed!

I am very lucky that mornings around here are usually pretty laid-back affairs. While we almost always have something going on in the morning; an activity or an errand (or three!) to run, I have purposely scheduled these so that they are later in the morning and rarely require us to dash out the door at inhumane times of the day.

Our mornings typically go something like this:

5:30 am: Mike's alarm goes off. He gets up and gets ready to go to work (he's working early-ish hours this summer so we don't feel as though we are falling quite as far behind on the summer-related house projects).

6:30 am: Mike kisses me goodbye and leaves for work. I try to hoist my bones out of bed at this time and get my shower taken while the girls are still sleeping. The success of this depends on the number of times I was out of bed dealing with kids in the night.

7 - 8 am: The girls awaken. Emily has been leaning towards the earlier end of this spectrum, recently getting up as early as 6:30 or 6:45. I lay out her clothes, give her medicine and set her up with a Pop-Tart and milk in front of a Wiggles video. If I haven't showered yet, this is when I grab my shower. Lucy tends to get up more towards 8 or 8:30. I get her up, dress her, give her medicine, give her a bottle and feed her some cereal.

8:45 - 10:30 am: Somewhere in here we will leave for whatever activity we have scheduled. We're about 20-30 minutes from just about anywhere we need to be, and I hate being late, so I try to build in a cushion of time to ensure that we aren't running in the door at the last minute.

As I said, I am very lucky that I am at home with my kids. I don't have to try to push everyone out the door by 6:30 so that we can do a day-care drop-off and get to work before 8 am. My morning schedule has gotten significantly easier now that Emily is old enough to take care of a fair portion of her morning routine on her own. She dresses herself (well, not all the time, but she knows how) and will sit happily at the table in the living room to eat her breakfast while I wander around doing other stuff.

The thing that has helped me the most is getting up before the kids do so that I can get my shower and personal care stuff done. When Emily was very little, I would stay in bed until she woke up for the day, but then I had to figure out what to do with her while I took my shower (of course, I was a paranoid first-time mom who didn't want to leave her alone. I got over that eventually). And I do NOT function until I have had a shower. Just does not happen.

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a contest sponsored by KRAFT BAGEL-FULS.

Weaned

Lucy is officially weaned.

She has been, actually, for nearly a week now.

I was going to start weaning her right about ... now, but while we were in Michigan, she started to have a really bad latch on my left side. So bad that I developed a sore, which then became infected. The weaning schedule, it was accelerated.

Last Thursday was the night I was supposed to give her a bottle before bed. Mike suggested that I nurse her one last time to really pay attention and remember, since it is more than likely that I won't be nursing again.

So I did.

And tried not to get teary as I remembered nursing Lucy at less than an hour old in the recovery room. She was so little, and so neatly packaged in the baby burrito blanket the nurses are so adept at doing. That was a stark contrast to the baby on my lap last week. Her knees were draped over the arm of my rocking chair and her left fist clutched a handful of my shirt. Her right hand was on my side, alternately patting and grabbing, trying to keep me close. [Lucy is my huggin' girl. She wraps her chubby arms around my neck and squeezes, patting my back and humming in my ear.]

To answer Karen's question, I have started giving Lucy cow's milk. I know that I am not "supposed" to do this until she is a year old, but I'm doing it on the advice of a lactation consultant from my pediatrician's office. Her logic was that I'd wean her off breastmilk onto formula for at most, 2 months and then have to switch from formula to whole milk. She said that was just silly, instead wean from the breast straight to whole milk and skip the (expensive!) middle step.

So far, Lucy seems to love the whole milk. I started trying to give her sippy cups, but discovered that regular bottles work better. She had very little exposure to a bottle prior to this weaning thing, so I think she needs some time to get the inner workings of a bottle down before we try the sippy cups again. Plus, she is seriously annoying with sippy cups. She takes a big gulp and then lets the liquid drool out of her mouth. That's cute when it is water, but it is GROSS when it is whole milk.

My favorite side-effect of the weaning is that I get to wear real bras again! YAY! And not the same 4 all the time! I have pretty ones! And ones that don't come with industrial strength fasteners! Woo! AND! I don't have to wear a bra to bed! SO EXCITING! And especially awesome when it is 85 trillion degrees outside.

Ok, gotta go. I'm missing my show.

93.4

The title? Yeah, that's the current temperature in my damn house.

We don't have air conditioning.

Well, that's not strictly true. We have one window air conditioner that might cool a fair portion of the house, but I'd have to close off the bedrooms and ... well, we're not even sure it will fit in the window in the living room.

I called around this afternoon (when it was so hot, Emily couldn't nap, after a full morning of playing in the pool and running around in the yard) and started getting appointments lined up to get quotes on central air.

It turns out that our heating situation (a little-used oil furnace that is 29 years old) might make central air more difficult and expensive than originally thought.

I guess we'll have to wait to see what happens when the guys come out to see me on Wednesday and Friday.

We have a winner!

Courtney, after much guessing, figured out that Emily was going to shoot a 'tend groundhog with her tower of bah-wocks.

She's seen Daddy go out to shoot groundhogs (those are the same as woodchucks, right?) and so that was what she was doing. Court, I will personally hand-deliver your Starbucks gift card to you. Probably with my fussy children in tow for a playdate. You lucky girl.

Usually she uses her bah-wock tower to vacuum, but that's a different story.

Today has been a sort of mixed bag of parenting. I had a MOMS Club meeting this morning, in which I was supposed to be "voted" in as the new AVP. I say "voted" because there was no one running against me, so the election sort of wasn't. I also took my van to a local glass shop to get a couple windshield chips repaired. This place has a very ear-wormy commercial jingle and every time I saw their name I would hear the jingle in my head. Successful marketing, but annoying all the same.

I dashed out of the house, sans children (thanks again, Mom!) and got the windshield fixed. I came home, swearing the whole way about my bluetooth headset. It has always been a pain in the butt, but in the past several days, it has been more so. I have to push the button 85 times to get it to make a phone call (always handy when you're trying to drive) and sometimes it calls the last person I talked to instead of giving me the option of choosing who I want to call. This morning, it upped the ante and called Mike at work and then went mute. I couldn't hear him, I couldn't hear the voice command stuff. AUGH! It's making me mad just writing about it. I'm sure it is another instance of the Dad F curse*, but it is very frustrating. I sent it home with my mom, hoping that Dad can work some magic with it.

Once I got home, I loaded the kids in the car and we went to a local park for the MOMS Club meeting. That was great until Lucy decided to puke CURDLED milk all over herself. YUM! And then! THEN she did it AGAIN! This time, in her stroller. GREAT! And while all that was happening, Emily was playing in the wood chips, rubbing them in her hair, getting her butt all dirty (which wasn't a big problem, but ugh) and wandering off out of the area I had asked her to stay in and giving me a heart attack when I'd look up and not be able to find my kid. Oh, and then, as we were leaving, she ran ahead of me and disappeared. I thought she was in the parking lot, by the busy road and all I could see was her little body crumpling under someone's fender. It's very hard to be mad at your kid for wandering off (she was back with Courtney and Baby Janna) when your heart is pounding and you're trying not to freak out.

We got home and I put Lucy down for a nap, since her fussiness was starting to drive me crazy. She went right to sleep and was still sleeping at 12:20 when I decided to get her up. MISTAKE. She was cuh-ranky. She was hungry, but didn't want to eat. She was thirsty, but that sippy cup offended her. She wanted snuggles, but wanted to sit up and watch her sister. I finally gave up and put her back to bed. Clearly that was what she needed. She, of course, didn't agree. She cried off and on until I finally decided to try to give her milk to her in a bottle. She sucked that bad boy right down. And now silence reigns in my house.

So I am going to sit on my couch and read my magazines. I need to wash the cover of the stroller since it is covered in curdled milk puke (ick, that grosses me out just writing it), but it's not happening right now. The housework can suck it.

*Seriously. My NY dad has a major curse that follows him around. If he buys something electronic, it is either broken in the packaging or dies an untimely death shortly thereafter. Even if the item is not for his use. And, we've even had instances where something has been purchased FOR him and it STILL dies. We call it the F---- curse (where F---- = his last name).

Sweet!!

Jennifer suggested I look around on craigslist for available work-at-home jobs.

While there, I saw a link to the best of craigslist. I just couldn't resist. I clicked over and have been reading and chuckling to myself for the last 20 minutes.

I found this listing, which made me laugh until I cried. Enjoy!

PS: Still no job. I found one that would be perfect for me, except for the fact that it is an in-the-office job. It's part-time, 10-2. Veeerrry tempting.

PPS: Contest is still going on. There have been lots of guesses. I am replying to the guesses in the comments. Feel free to guess as often as you want.

CONTEST!

It is Contest Time again here at Chez Looney.

Look at the two pictures above and guess what Emily is pretending to do.

First person who guesses correctly will WIN! A Starbucks gift card!