We arrived at a friend's house late Friday afternoon for our playgroup's every-second-Friday tradition of pizza and play for the kids and drinks for the moms. I am the organizer of this particular aspect of our group, earning me the moniker "cocktail captain."
Anyway, we arrived and were just walking up to the table containing a steaming bowl of spiced apple cider alongside a variety of, er, "additives" to be added to the grown-ups' cups, when my charming daughter pipes up, "Mommy? Would you like a cocktail?"
Why, yes. Yes, I would.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Bamboozled
The scene: the dinner table.
The characters:
DAD, who has just picked up the children from daycare AND gotten dinner on the table, since Mom was running late. (Halo shining brightly)
MOM, who dropped the kids at daycare this morning, zoomed home, worked frantically until 1, drove to work so the nurse could see that there was no reaction to the tuberculosis test done on Tuesday, zoomed home, worked frantically 'til 3, zoomed to the dinner prep place, and spent 3 hours assembling TWENTY-FOUR healthy, freezer-ready, organic dinners, zoomed home, piled everything in the chest freezer in the garage, and collapsed in a heap at the dinner table. (Halo also shining brightly, though the rest of her could use a shower)
BUDDY, engrossed in finger foods
DEE, home after being (unusually) picked up from preschool by Dad (see above)
. . . . . .
Silence, sounds of chewing...
DAD: I forget to check the list to see if Dee took a nap today.
DEE: (Spots opening in Mom's strict No Nap=No Dora the Explorer Rule)
MOM: Dee, did you take a nap today?
DEE (Tiny devil sitting on right shoulder): YES!
MOM, suspiciously: For how long?
DEE (lying through teeth): For one hour and twenty minutes!
BUDDY (sprouting more teeth by the second): Chew, chew.. OUCH!!! WAH!!! Ooh, look- meatballs! Chew, chew... OUCH!! WAH!!!
DAD: Um, I'm going to go upstairs and work once I put BUDDY to bed, so DEE is all yours tonight.
MOM (Ignoring angel on left shoulder in favor of devil on right): Hand me the remote control, will you?
THE END.
The characters:
DAD, who has just picked up the children from daycare AND gotten dinner on the table, since Mom was running late. (Halo shining brightly)
MOM, who dropped the kids at daycare this morning, zoomed home, worked frantically until 1, drove to work so the nurse could see that there was no reaction to the tuberculosis test done on Tuesday, zoomed home, worked frantically 'til 3, zoomed to the dinner prep place, and spent 3 hours assembling TWENTY-FOUR healthy, freezer-ready, organic dinners, zoomed home, piled everything in the chest freezer in the garage, and collapsed in a heap at the dinner table. (Halo also shining brightly, though the rest of her could use a shower)
BUDDY, engrossed in finger foods
DEE, home after being (unusually) picked up from preschool by Dad (see above)
. . . . . .
Silence, sounds of chewing...
DAD: I forget to check the list to see if Dee took a nap today.
DEE: (Spots opening in Mom's strict No Nap=No Dora the Explorer Rule)
MOM: Dee, did you take a nap today?
DEE (Tiny devil sitting on right shoulder): YES!
MOM, suspiciously: For how long?
DEE (lying through teeth): For one hour and twenty minutes!
BUDDY (sprouting more teeth by the second): Chew, chew.. OUCH!!! WAH!!! Ooh, look- meatballs! Chew, chew... OUCH!! WAH!!!
DAD: Um, I'm going to go upstairs and work once I put BUDDY to bed, so DEE is all yours tonight.
MOM (Ignoring angel on left shoulder in favor of devil on right): Hand me the remote control, will you?
THE END.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Holy crap!
Wow- I ignore blogger for a while (okay, six months) and it goes and gets all fancy on me. Followers? Reading lists? WTF???
Life here in the Problem Uterus household proceeds fairly smoothly. Dee turned three in September and is an Enormously Big Girl. She dresses herself (she likes to "match" the most garish items in her wardrobe together; fear not, I am taking pictures), she opens and closes baby gates, she attends (and adores) preschool, she helps herself to items from her snack shelf in the pantry, she uses the toilet with complete independence... I guess it's time to start booking college tours. She's still three, mind you (Why? Why? Why, Mommy, why?) but I am amazed by how independent they get at this age. With a healthy dose of tantrums thrown in, of course, just to keep it interesting.
Buddy is 10 months old. He's healthy, cute as a button (adorable dimples, if I may say so myself), an excellent eater, a somewhat light sleeper, but nothing out of the ordinary, and is currently experiencing the descent of his top two front teeth as they join the current pair he's sporting on the bottom. He's cruising around the furniture like a pro but hasn't worked up the confidence to try and go it alone. He may have a bit of a hearing loss- he's delayed with elements of his speech, so he's got a fancy hearing test scheduled for January.
I am well. No lingering aftereffects from the Great Amniotic Embolism Event that livened things up so much, barring an intense and constant itching of the scar on my chest where the dialysis catheter went in. Psychologically, I seem to have mostly gotten over the drama that defined my pregnancies and deliveries. I am mourning the loss of the possibility of any more children. I know it seems greedy, especially considering my story and the stories of so many others in the blogosphere, but enumerating the results of my good luck wasn't making me feel any better about my uterus being permanently closed for business, so I'm allowing myself to admit that it makes me sad, and I'm trying to deal with it.
My poor husband probably got the worst deal from this whole mess. Apparently nearly becoming a single father of one when your 5-weeks postpartum wife is whisked away in an ambulance after trying to bleed to death on your (BRAND NEW) floors isn't enough to scare him into a mental hospital. Add in the embolus, though, with the ICU, the transfusions, the renal failure and the liver damage, and its associated glimpse of single fatherhood of two, and the poor guy is lucky he hasn't had to check into a sanatarium. I'm doing my best to not use up any more of my nine lives, and we'll see how long this whole "time heals all wounds" crap takes.
I'm up to working about 20 hours a week. Life as an associate faculty at my college isn't bad. I was planning to keep things this way for another 3 to 5 years, but my department chair tracked me down a couple of weeks ago and encouraged me to apply for a full-time tenure-track opening the department intends to fill for next year. Hmm.... I didn't think I had enough experience, but the chair says I do. Something to ponder, at any rate. I'm teaching a new class this semester, which is taking up a truly enormous amount of my time. I have a great crop of students, and I'm loving it.
So, as turkey day approaches here in the U.S. I thought I'd pop out of hiding for this update. I'm still commenting and/or lurking about on everyone's blogs, which I really seem to enjoy. I thought I'd wander away from this community now that things here are the way they are, and that's certainly proved true for my blogging, but I can't seem to stop following along on all your stories, so I guess I really don't have to!
Life here in the Problem Uterus household proceeds fairly smoothly. Dee turned three in September and is an Enormously Big Girl. She dresses herself (she likes to "match" the most garish items in her wardrobe together; fear not, I am taking pictures), she opens and closes baby gates, she attends (and adores) preschool, she helps herself to items from her snack shelf in the pantry, she uses the toilet with complete independence... I guess it's time to start booking college tours. She's still three, mind you (Why? Why? Why, Mommy, why?) but I am amazed by how independent they get at this age. With a healthy dose of tantrums thrown in, of course, just to keep it interesting.
Buddy is 10 months old. He's healthy, cute as a button (adorable dimples, if I may say so myself), an excellent eater, a somewhat light sleeper, but nothing out of the ordinary, and is currently experiencing the descent of his top two front teeth as they join the current pair he's sporting on the bottom. He's cruising around the furniture like a pro but hasn't worked up the confidence to try and go it alone. He may have a bit of a hearing loss- he's delayed with elements of his speech, so he's got a fancy hearing test scheduled for January.
I am well. No lingering aftereffects from the Great Amniotic Embolism Event that livened things up so much, barring an intense and constant itching of the scar on my chest where the dialysis catheter went in. Psychologically, I seem to have mostly gotten over the drama that defined my pregnancies and deliveries. I am mourning the loss of the possibility of any more children. I know it seems greedy, especially considering my story and the stories of so many others in the blogosphere, but enumerating the results of my good luck wasn't making me feel any better about my uterus being permanently closed for business, so I'm allowing myself to admit that it makes me sad, and I'm trying to deal with it.
My poor husband probably got the worst deal from this whole mess. Apparently nearly becoming a single father of one when your 5-weeks postpartum wife is whisked away in an ambulance after trying to bleed to death on your (BRAND NEW) floors isn't enough to scare him into a mental hospital. Add in the embolus, though, with the ICU, the transfusions, the renal failure and the liver damage, and its associated glimpse of single fatherhood of two, and the poor guy is lucky he hasn't had to check into a sanatarium. I'm doing my best to not use up any more of my nine lives, and we'll see how long this whole "time heals all wounds" crap takes.
I'm up to working about 20 hours a week. Life as an associate faculty at my college isn't bad. I was planning to keep things this way for another 3 to 5 years, but my department chair tracked me down a couple of weeks ago and encouraged me to apply for a full-time tenure-track opening the department intends to fill for next year. Hmm.... I didn't think I had enough experience, but the chair says I do. Something to ponder, at any rate. I'm teaching a new class this semester, which is taking up a truly enormous amount of my time. I have a great crop of students, and I'm loving it.
So, as turkey day approaches here in the U.S. I thought I'd pop out of hiding for this update. I'm still commenting and/or lurking about on everyone's blogs, which I really seem to enjoy. I thought I'd wander away from this community now that things here are the way they are, and that's certainly proved true for my blogging, but I can't seem to stop following along on all your stories, so I guess I really don't have to!
Friday, May 02, 2008
She CAN Be Taught!!!
OK, last poop update- I promise. I took a friend's advice and put Dee's little potty in her room at naptime. Dee was in underpants, as I reminded her about fifty times. No accidents all morning. I also left her bedroom door open. She got about 5 minutes into naptime when she decided she needed to go. She climbed out of bed (I was eavesdropping like mad on her baby monitor), took off the underpants, pooped in the potty, pulled her undies back up, and even took out the little drawer part of the potty that you take and dump into the big toilet. She was on her way out of her room with the drawer when I arrived.
Wow.
No accidents all afternoon, either. We were eating the celebratory alphabet shaped pancakes I made for dinner when she peed all over her chair.
Well, we're getting there.
Wow.
No accidents all afternoon, either. We were eating the celebratory alphabet shaped pancakes I made for dinner when she peed all over her chair.
Well, we're getting there.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Two Days...
...Two poopy carpet incidents. Yes, TWO. And Target was out of the spot cleaning machines. And potties.
ARGH!!!!
Will today's naptime will complete the triple crown?? Watch this space. And if you see any news items tonight about a biology professor/housewife in southern california going absolutely off her rocker, you'll know it's me.
ARGH!!!!
Will today's naptime will complete the triple crown?? Watch this space. And if you see any news items tonight about a biology professor/housewife in southern california going absolutely off her rocker, you'll know it's me.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Advice to parents and pet owners
You really need one of these. And tonight I'm going to buy one of these (thanks Erin!). Oh, and this stuff works well on non-feline sources as well. Geohde should probably get twice as much of everything for dealing with twins.
Sigh. Another day in the potty training grind.
PS. DD and Erin, I am stewing on a post of my own about resentment issues so as not to completely hijack your comments.
Sigh. Another day in the potty training grind.
PS. DD and Erin, I am stewing on a post of my own about resentment issues so as not to completely hijack your comments.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
We interrupt this blog's total silence to bring you...
... an e-mail I just sent out to a few friends and family.
Subject: Toddler available for adoption
Vital stats: 2.5 years old, female, 38" tall, 37 pounds
Recently demonstrated skills: liberally smearing self (and parents' bedroom carpet) with contents of diaper
Toddler available for immediate pickup. Hell, her mother will deliver anywhere in the world.
Also available: one similarly decorated book (her Dad's; sorry, dear) and one similarly decorated tube of lip balm. And empty diaper.
Subject: Toddler available for adoption
Vital stats: 2.5 years old, female, 38" tall, 37 pounds
Recently demonstrated skills: liberally smearing self (and parents' bedroom carpet) with contents of diaper
Toddler available for immediate pickup. Hell, her mother will deliver anywhere in the world.
Also available: one similarly decorated book (her Dad's; sorry, dear) and one similarly decorated tube of lip balm. And empty diaper.
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