Busy, busy, busy
I realize that it seems I've forgotten to mention much of last week's festivites. Not so. I only haven't had time. You see we've done so much. We had Thanksgiving(s) and Birthday party(ies) and car trips and all sorts of neat things. I'll get to it eventually, I'm sure. With pictures even (that's what I've been working on). I have some all set for tomorrow and need to work on more. But right now I need to go pretend I'm a cow (moo! Oh wait, was that Too Much Information? Damn, and it's not even Tuesday!)

This could be bad
I ordered Christmas cards from Penney's last time I went. I don't rememebr choosing the text for the card. I wonder if it's too late? I wonder what will show up? If it's something generic, or "Insert your text here"? If Penney's will return my call soon...

oh, and Beth is doing a Christmas card swap. I think that's a neat idea. If anyone wants to do it, let me know. I love Christmas cards!

Oh,Thank God!

I took Anya to the Dr this afternoon. She has an ear infectino! She's not just crying for no understandable reason. She's in pain!

Ok, maybe that's not exactly good news, but um, it's pretty close.

The worst part, though, is that she didn't even have a fever. That sucks. It means that I have no way of knowing if she's just being a butt, or is actually hurting.

Anya's doctor didn't have any open appointments today, so I saw a different one at the practice. He said their standard protocol is to refer to an ENT after 3 months of not clearing fluid or 6 infections in a year. If I remember right (and I am going to check my archives as soon as I'm done with this) she was first diagnosed with fluid on Oct 15th. So, we're almost there. She's not clearing the fluid between infections just like Ally. hopefully we can get her tubes much earlier and avoid much of the pain and suffering all around. I really don't want Anya's hearing affected. We caught Ally's in time, but her speech was a little delayed because of her ear problems.

She's sleeping right now with ear drops soaking into her little ear. I hope it helps. Poor kid.

Pictures

My mom wanted to get her annual group pictures of all her grandkids taken, so we did it last Sunday. it was kinda crazy. My mom has 6 grandkids - my 2 and my sister's 4. Two of Christy's live with mom. 1 lives with my aunt Ruth. 1 lives part time with Christy and part time with his dad (I think? i try not to ask questions. It's just easier that way) So we all descended upon JCPenney's at 3:00. Well, not all of us. Christy and Bamako were late. After waiting a while, I got someone's attention and told them we hadn't been checked in yet. They didn't have my appointment written down. Grrr. So they said they'd work us in. Since Christy wasn't there yet, I was okay with the plan. Whatever. but, she still wasn't there when it was our turn. So we took individual pictures of all the kids. Christy's girls were all in matching clothes as were my girls. Mom bought all the outfits to coordinate. We had just about run out of kids to photograph when Christy showed up. So we got some with all the kids and some with just Christy's. It actually turned out okay.

Then Wednesday, it was time for just my kids monthly pictures. We needed Anya's 7 month, Ally's 3 year, Ally's Christmas, Anya's Christmas, and the two of them together. Last time I got Anya's, she was very cooperative and happy. It was at 11:00, so I scheduled this one for as close to that as i could. I picked the kids up early from daycare and took the day off. Apparently, 10:00 is NOT a good time for Ally to get her pictures taken. Oy! I wanted to strangle her! She wouldn't hold still. She wouldn't look at the camera. She stood when she should have sat. She sat when she should have stood. She screwed her face up when she smiled. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. She's only been to Penney's for pictures, like, 30 times before. At one point I actually hugged her tight so that I coudl try to control my anger. God, I'm not getting enough sleep. Anya was in a great mood. She smiled wonderfully and entertained herself in the cart while Ally got most of her pictures taken. The bad thing is that Ally used up all of Anya's patience. By the end, it sucked. Anya was not happy. We didn't get many good ones of Anya in her Christmas dress. i was so mad. They looked so adorable and Ally screwed it up. She just had too much energy. It looks like I'm going to have to start taking them seperately or something. I'll have them digitally soon, but won't put up the Christmas ones until after I've sent out cards.

I'm thinking of taking them to the mall this afternoon for Santa pics. Yes, I'm insane.

It ain't just a river in Egypt

Anya isn't sleeping. I haven't wanted to mention it, because I was afraid that by putting it in writing, it would be real. But from the way I feel lately, I can tell that denial just isn't going to work anymore. Recently, her longest stretch of upinterrupted sleep is right around 2 hours. That means mine is shorter. Sometimes she goes back to sleep easily and sometimes she's up forever (like last night). Mostly, I want to grab her by the arms and shake some sense into her. So instead, I nurse her and cry. I know she's not hungry, but it puts her back to sleep...

We have tried a bunch of different techniques to get her to sleep. I have tried sleeping with her. Nope. I have tried sleeping next to her on the floor so I can soothe her before she gets really woken up. Nope. I have tried feeding her more often while she's awake in case she's not getting enough to eat during the day. Nope. I have tried giving her more solid foods. Nope. I have tried giving her less solid foods. Nope. I don't know if you noticed that I said "We" have been trying different things, but all the different things "I" have tried? That's becaue it's Rob's idea to try all these things. He thinks that it would harm the kid in some way to cry herself to sleep. He can't soothe her, so I have to. "We" agreed that we wouldn't let our children cry, so I have to follow through with it. It's not working. I'm a basket case. I started crying this morning when Rob merely suggested that I get out of bed earlier so that I'm not late for work. The problem was that I tried to get ready this morning, but Anya screamed everytime I left her side. I'm so frustrated. I told Rob that if she's not sleeping by the end of the year, I'm doing CIO whether he likes it or not. I'm not a big proponent of the idea, but when nothing else works, you can't afford to rule out any possibilities, right? Oh god, I hope it doesn't come to that. I think I can handle Anya's crying, but not my husband's bitching.

TMI Tuesday #5 - How I met my husband - Part 2

When I moved, I had a couple weeks off school. My old school had cut the semester at the end of the year, but the new school's semester didn't end until mid-January. In the meantime, I didn't really have anything to do except settle in. (Oh, and get a job. Because we were poor and if I wanted to have any money, I needed to make it myself.) I found out that there was a scholastic bowl team at the new school. It sounded like fun. Geeky fun, sure, but fun. I like trivia. I'm really not all that good at it, but what the hey? So I signed up. The practices had just started, so I didn't really miss anything. I went to my first one after school got out one day before I had even started attending school yet. So the first people I met were the quiz bowl kids.

They were great. There was this group of friends that accepted me right away. They saw that I wasn't an idiot and made me one of their own. Tim was the captain. Rob did science and math. Jeremy (Ford) did more math. There was one other person, whose name I can't really remember. Abby and Emily did english and mythology. Bill and I ended up being subs. Oh my god. Just writing this makes me seem like such a dork. but it wasn't really like that. We Most of us weren't geeks. We were just smarter than the average population and chose to hang out with other intelligent people. It was nice to be able to talk about more than just who was going drinking with whom, etc.

I'm not a very confident person most of the time. I dealt with this in high school by attaching myself to a boyfriend and joining his group of friends. I wanted to be in this group, so I found an unattached guy - Bill. We started dating. I later found out that the rest of the group weren't really that close to Bill until I joined them. He was kinda the idiot of the group. They hung out with him more because of me. Oh well. Rob was dating Emily and Abby was Emily's best friend. Mostly Rob Emily Abby and one guy not in the group hung out. Then me and Bill. I got tired of Bill pretty quickly and we broke up. Bill kind of dropped out of the circle a little. Rob got this idea that I should date Tim, so I did. He was a nice guy and a great friend, but I just wasn't all that interested long term. We went to prom together with Rob and Emily. After a while, I broke up with Tim, I started dating someone else back in my hometown because I still visited pretty often. (Tim was fine with it. In fact, when he came to visit me in college one time, I set him up with my old roommate, who is now his wife)

I got along with Emily okay. She wasn't really a person I'd pick to be friends with, but I liked Rob, so Emily was around. She was a really needy person and kinda whiney. I didn't like Abby at all. One of the many times I went back to my hometown to visit, Rob and Emily broke up. By this time it was summer. Rob was going to go to Basic training soon, because he was in the National Guard. Rob decided that he wanted to go camping before he left. But his tent wasn't good enough for some reason. I don't remember why. He enlisted my help to create a tent out of mosquito netting, duct tape, and pvc pipes. Of course, I had to try it out too, so I lied to mom, and went camping with him. He cooked me macaroni and cheese over the campfire. That was the best mac and cheese I've ever had. We watched the sun set through the mosquito netting, laying on a blow up air mattress. I don't remember how it happened, but we ended up in a tickle fight. Rob didn't know it at the time, but I'm not really ticklish. I have found that being ticklish is a great excuse for a guy to have his hands on you though, so I feign it on occasion. I think I got about 80 mosquito bites that night because we hadn't gotten the tent up early enough for it to really work and mostly we just trapped the bugs in with us.

When he left for Basic a couple days later, we were together. We talked on the phone and wrote letters while he was away. I moved in with him the second half of my senior year. We broke up about 3,3221,435 times, but always managed to get back together. Good or bad, he is one of the reasons I am who I am today.

When I write it down like this, it just doesn't really sound all that interesting. There are a lot of holes in the story. Some of those are because I don't remember. I had some bad shit happen to me when I was younger and my memory was affected, I think. There are big chunks of my life that I don't remember. Some of it's missing just because it was just life. You know, all that stuff that they never put in the soap operas because it's just too boring - going to the bathroom, paying the bills, going to work, high school, etc. Mostly, it doesn't really matter anymore. We're together - that's what is important. So most of the time when someone asks how we met, I just say "We went to high school together." I mean "We shared a life" and we still do.

Wednesday? How did that happen

Tuesday came and went at my house. It left me lying in bed most of the day with a congestion, a sore throat, and headache from hell. I stayed home from work. I got nothing accomplished. I took lots of medicine. And now, I have to get ready for the weekend. Yikes. Tomorrow we go to my grandma's for Thanksgiving and a birthday party. Tomorrow, we let Ally open some stuff at home and then drive to Rob's mom's. Saturday, we have t-day meal again and another birthday party. So, yeah, busy. Gonna have to wait til next week to finish the story of Rob and I.

Anyway, I feel really bad lumping her birthday party into holiday visits instead of celebrating it separately, but that's the only way the whole family will be able to do it. otherwise, there's just no way to get everyone together. Too much going on. So I channeled my guilt into presents. I just realized this because I just finished wrapping them, and I went way overboard. Now, most of them are books and movies, but it looks like she has a mountain to unwrap. Oh well. I had fun getting them, and I'm positive she'll have fun too.

Now I've got to go start gathering things. Yikes!

and of course, a little about poop

Ally only had one accident all weekend. Saturday morning, I was in the shower when Ally woke up. Rob was upstairs with Anya and I blame him (of course). Ally came looking for me. She did not go immediately to the potty without Passing Go like I always do in the morning with her. So she peed in her panties. She is determined to where them to bed, so I let her. She has done really well. I think I'm going to have to donate her left over pull-ups soon. Yay.

Saturday night I was downstairs nursing Anya and Ally was watching TV upstairs. Rob was in the bedroom messing with a computer that we're trying to get set up to give Ally for Christmas. (I got my first computer when I was 19. Rob - when he was 24 or so? She'll be 3)  Ally started talking very loudly to me as she was coming down the stairs. When she got closer, I heard what she was saying and yelled for Rob to deal with it. She was carrying her potty seat cup downstairs because she needed to dump it in the toliet. She had pooped all by herself!

I believe that it just had to be her idea to potty-train. We used the pee-pee timer for a while. The potty wasn't an option anymore, it was just a matter of when. We had control with the timer. So she took the control away from us and peed in her pants on purpose. We stopped using the timer and she was back in control. The potty still wasn't an option, but the timing was all under her control, so she goes now. Maybe I'm just attributing motives, but that's how it seems to me. She's stubborn like that. She comes by it honestly

baby vs puppy

Sometimes I feel like I'm house training a puppy. Anya is constantly getting into stuff. Ally really wasn't one of those babies who you had to watch all the time. She was content to observe her environment and interact only after she had studied it. Anya crawls right in and puts tastes everything. She puts things in her mouth. She chases you around the room. She eats crumbs off the floor if I don't clean them BEFORE I get her down. No matter how far away I put her, she crawls back faster than I can sweep. I tell her "Get that out of your mouth" and "Don't bother your sister" and "Anya, get that out of your mouth" and "Here you can chew on this" and "Don't lick the toliet" and "Stay out of the pee". She will not leave Ally alone when she's sitting on her potty chair. She thinks it's the most fun toy in the world. I caught her getting ready to chew on the little splash guard the other day. The same splash guard that I had to sand down because it was all scratchy from when the puppy chewed on it. She carwls around things to find it. It's getting very troublesome. I wonder when we can put it away?

My god, she eats!

Anya is nothing like Ally! Ok, so she looks kinda similar and lately, she's been sleeping like Ally used to, and ...

But! She eats! In fact, she eats almost too much. I strap her into her booster (I don't like the highchair, so I put her in a booster at the table. She loves it) and she's reaching for the table before I even scoot the chair in. She eats just about anything you put in front of her. The other day she even ate some hamburger at day care. They gave her some little pieces and said she chewed them and chewed and chewed and when she'd finally gotten them all soggy and tasteless, she spit them out and picked up another bite. She's almost gotten the picking up part figured out. Although, sometimes she still gets them in her palm and doesn't know they are hidden there. Rob gave her a half of his biscuit this weekend and she ate it almost instantly. Then we gave her a muffin and it disappeared. There were crumbs everywhere, but she ate most of it herself. So far she has eaten:

Toddler food
wagon wheels
fruit puffs
cheerios
many many jarred foods (that aren't jarred now, they're in these little plastic containers)
crackers

Table food
pizza
hamburger
french fries
biscuit
blueberry muffin
little bit of enchilada
Chef Boyardee ravioli
pasta
mac and cheese (yes, it's pasta, but it's entirely different)
toast
bananas
cooked carrots

There might even be more. We have just been giving her whatever she wants. She reaches for everything. Even our cups. We've started letting her drink a little water and she laps at the cup like a little dog. So cute. But, she's getting the hang of it. She's not even 7 months old yet!

She needs to slow down, but she doesn't want to. or maybe I'm just sad because she's not dependent on nursing as much if she starts eating solids more. I never really thought I would be sad about it. I wasn't with Ally. Of course, she didn't eat like this. I was more than happy to wean her when the time came and only had mild pangs of nostalgia. Mostly, I felt an overwhelming freedom. I really suffer through the infant stage just to get to the other older stages. Infants are so hard. Anyway, where was I?

I know at this age food is really just practice, but I don't really remember how much is the upper limits (since last time I mainly dealt with the minimums) of what I should be giving her. Ally has a Dr appointment in a couple weeks. I'm going to have to talk to him about Anya then, too.

Format changes
I figured out how to make your email address visible only to me if you leave a comment. Yay! (If that matters to you)

Parrots

You know how some people say things over and over again and you don't even realize it? At least not until your daughter starts repeating it that is. I have found that I say actually enough that Ally has started to repeat it pretty often. "Actually, I prefer milk (the prefer comes from Elmo)" "Actually, no. I don't have to pee-pee now" etc.

Lately, she's pointed out one of Grandma Darra's more commonly used words that I hadn't noticed before. Darra starts the beginning of most sentences aimed at Ally with "Well..." For example: "Well, you'll have to ask you mom about that" and "Well, I don't think you should be ..." or the ever-popular "Well..." where she just doesn't know what to say.

So now, anytime you hear "Well..." coming from Ally, you know that an argument is coming.

What has your kid picked up from you or your family lately?

More conversations from the car

We were headed out of town to grandma's house. Anya was trying to get loose of her buckles by pushing against them with her chest with all her might. She lets out a yell...

Ally (gleefully): Anya if you say aaunhh again you will be in tr-uhh-ble! (giggle)
Anya: looks at Ally
Ally: Mommy if she says aaunhh again, she will have to be in trouble.
Anya: aaunhh!
Ally: You're in trouble. Mommy Anya said aaunhh again, so she's in trouble now.
Me: Yep. She'll have to be in trouble when we get to Grandma's house.
Ally: No, she's in trouble now. She has to sit on the couch.
Me: But, there's no couch in the car.
Ally: No, no, no, no, no. I was talking at Grandma's house! (Idiot)

 

Photo Friday

I took these at the beginning of October and just started playing around with them today. My god, my daughter is beautifull!

 

 

Potty update.

Wednesday night, we stopped for ice cream on the way home from day care. We promised to Ally that if she stayed dry all day, she would get ice cream. Hooray! And yesterday she was dry too! Then we had to take a trip to my mom's that took forever! because of traffic and rain, so she was wet when we got there, but she stayed dry all the rest of the time. I think we're going to get there! Finally!

OK, I'm going to quit typing now. My arm hurts. (wimper)

Anya update

The monster is retreating. (knock on wood) Tuesday, she actually slept for 7 1/2 hours straight. This is the baby I got used to and bragged about. She was happy. Last night she woke up a little more, but was not bad either. Keep you fingers crossed for me, oops, I mean, her.

She's also eating! Monday, she had a bite of enchalada (It took Ally 1 whole hour to take her requisite 1 bite before getting a replacement meal) She's learning to get her thumb out of the way and eating fruit puffs, wagon wheels and cheerios. In fact, she's doing so well, I told the day care to start giving her some table food. She had toast and banana with breakfast yeaterday. And she had some pizza for lunch and I gave her more for supper. I'm getting formed poops in her diapers! yeah for no more diarhea (my god I can't spell, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, cause my arm hurts just typing this. I just got a flu shot and I'm a wuss)

Her favorite toys are Ally's. Ally got a couple little halloween rattle-type maracas. THey fit perfectly in Anya's havnd/mouth. She loves them and will crawl across the room to get them if she spies them on the floor. She also likes a little basketball thing that Ally has. We bought it for her when she had already kinda of outgrown it, knowing that Anya was coming. So, it's Ally's, but... Anya loves it. it makes noise and has little hand sized balls (but too big to fit in the mouth of course) that she slobbers all over.

She loves to stand up. She thinks she's hot stuff. 9 times out of 10, I see her standing up at the padded ring on the floor at day care when I pick her up. She's standing there reaching for toys inside so she can fling them outside. What fun.

When Ally sits on her potty seat, Anya has to come investigate. it must be exciting if everyone it over there paying attention right? We have to constantly make sure there is never unattended pee in the potty when Ally gets done. This usually means that one of us takes it down to the bathroom to dump while the other is in charge of handwashing. it sometimes turns into a big production just to keep the baby from playing in pee.

She's almost 7 months old. Where did the time go?

TMI Tuesday #4 - How I met my husband Part 1 - The Backstory

I started writing this and it went in an entirely different direction than I intended. But I thought aout it and it made a huge impact on who I was at the time I met Rob. I can't guarantee that everything happened exactly the way I remember it, but, for better or worse,  this is what I can remember.

I grew up in a small town. There weren't even any fast food places, it was so small. There wasn't anything to do. So mostly, we drove around the country and drank. I don't especially like beer, so I didn't drink as much as some of my friends, but they were usually happy to oblige and get me something else. I'm a pretty smart person (I think) and I knew that I was just wasting time, but what else was there to do?

My sophomore year in high school, one of my friends came back to school in town. I grew up with him, but hadn't really gotten to know him that well until that year. He was always labeled a "troublemaker". His parents had taken him out of the school and sent him to another town's Catholic school for a couple years to see if it would get better. I'm not sure why (probably tuition costs), but he came back to my school that year. We had something in common. My mom had sent me to the same Catholic school for a couple years, because she knew that the school system in my town sucked.

No, this guy wasn't my current husband. His name was Tim. Just hang in there, I'm getting to the point.

Tim was in my World History class that year, and since there were only 4 of us in class, we talked quite a bit.  We started hanging out after school some. Mostly, we talked on the phone after we were both supposed to be asleep. He was not stupid by any means, but the teachers and, really, the whole town thought he was a troublemaker and didn't really want to deal with him. I don't remember our conversations exactly. There wasn't anything special, just friends talking. I know that he was depressed sometimes, but who isn't in high school? Yes, we partied some too. I remember one time that he had drank too much, and needed to puke. He started to walk out of the barn (we were in the middle of a cornfield in someone's barn) and stopped and came back for his beer so he would have something to drink after throwing up. It makes me a little sad to think that that is one of my strongest memories of him. He had his arms out and walks kinda bouncing while he was walking out to the beat of a Counting Crows song. To this day he always comes to mind when I hear Counting Crows.

Anyway, Tim had enough problems in school that he decided to go to an alternative school. It was for people who had discipline problems in regular school. I don't know if it was his idea or his parents, but he was kinda excited to be going. He thought he'd get a fresh start and get school over with and behind him. I ran into him that summer after he hadn't talked for a while. I asked him when he was leaving and if he had his new address yet. We talked for a long time and that night we set it up so I'd call him after everyone was asleep. We talked some more and he told me that hardly anyone even remembered he was leaving and that no one seemed to care. He was really down about it. He promised me that he'd give me his address when he got there.

Tim came by the night before he was leaving. He wanted me to go out driving around with him a little while. My mom didn't want to let me go that night, because it was a school night. She gave in since Time was leaving town, but I still had to be back early. I don't remember exactly what happened, because it wasn't anything special. It was just a normal night. One of his friends was with him and one of my friends was with me. Tim was driving his mom's car which was very nice, but I don't know anything about cars, so I don't know what kind it was. It was a stick-shift though. I remember that because Jackie couldn't drive a stick, so Tim and I sat in the passenger side together and let Jackie drive for a while. We went out in the country and had a couple shots of vodka. I had some leftover from another time. It wasn't very much. We got his mom's car all dirty from the gravel roads. When he dropped me off at home, he told me he was gong to wash the car and go home and I should call him in 30-45 minutes. I called and his brother answered. I called back 15 minutes or so later, and I don't remember who answered, but I could tell something was different. Whoever talked to me on the phone sounded more awake than they should have been at that time of the night. I knew something was wrong, but had no idea what happened.

The next morning, I found out that Tim had run into some other friends on the square. They had all gone drinking and Tim had missed curfew. His dad was pissed, so he came in town looking for him. They had a fight, and his dad went home. Tim was supposed to follow. He didn't. Instead, he went down another road and took a  corner too fast and flipped the car into a ditch. He died.

At that point, my life changed. I realized that the life I was living wasn't what I wanted. I was 16. We went to his funeral, and that night a bunch of people went out drinking in the country "in memory of Tim". Didn't they realize that driving drunk was what killed him? That he was on his way home and would have been fine if he hadn't stopped to "have a couple beers". I'm not going to say that I never went drinking again, but I do know that I had a DD after that sometimes, and I had never done that before. I tried to change a little. But it's really hard to do in a small town. I had grown up with all these people. They were my friends. You can't really make a major change when everybody knows you and expects certain things. At least I couldn't.

A couple months later (or maybe not even that much. I don't really remember) my mom got offered a job as a prison guard 3 hours south of where I grew up. She told me about it and expected me to be upset. Who would want to switch schools in the middle of their junior year? She was surprised when I jumped at the chance. We moved in December and it sucked moving away form all that I had grown up with. But I got a chance to make a fresh start. To reinvent myself. To be someone I chose to be and not someone that everyone else expected me to be.

I joined quiz bowl. I made friends with better people. They weren't deliberately making bad decisions daily. They were smart. They didn't drink. They didn't know who I had been, and I was able to make a new life. That's where I met my husband...

random catch -up

Ok, a lot's been happening since Thursady morning when I posted last, so I present you with bullets:

1. Ally peed in her pants on purpose all day long Thursday. Her teachers are pretty sure it was intentional anyway, and since I had just told Rob that she was doing it on purpose the night before (and was met with a "That's a horrible thing to say! What makes you think that?" uh - the wetness at home and not at day care. The dryness, and subsequent pottying whenever she's in the mood for a piece of candy.) I believe them. Anyway the next day they let up the pressure a little and turned off the pee-pee alarm (which was their idea in the first place, I swear!) and she did much better. We had a talk about it and stuff. She's had 1 or 2 accidents over the weekend, but nothing that looked intentional.
2. My mom came over and babysat on Thursday night. Rob and I went to a "non-department sanctioned" get together after work. His division manager set it up to welcome all the new employees. I fully expected it to suck and just be a waste of time, but it was great fun. No one talked about work too much, and we didn't go home until after bedtime. Of course Anya had gone to sleep and gotten back up because she won't lay down for more than an hour at a time in her plot to drive me insane. I can't remember the last time I went out with a fun group of people and relaxed like that
3. Anya's ear check-up was Friday. She has no infection, but the fluid didn't drain completely and she still has leaky snot, so I fully expect her to get another infection anytime. I will demand tubes. We'll see if it works. She slept a tiny minimal amout last night, so I'm going to get her checked and see if it has already happened.
4. Saturday we went to a family friend's house. Although, to be presice, the whole family is my friend(s) so I really don't know what to call it. Um, the-house-where-the-guy-who-helped-me-train-my-horse-and-his-wife-who-is-wonderful-raised-a-guy-I-used-to-date-and-his-sister-who-became-my-friend-in-college just doesn't have the same ring to it. Fun was had by all. Nice to see you Jill
• Ally made sure to tell Jill not to wipe her hands on her shirt. She should use a napkin. It's nice to know that she's actually listening to us sometimes. What would be nicer still is if she'd follow that advice a little more consistantly. (not that Jill is a slob or anything, but she'd been making noodles and already had flour all over her shirt. It wasn't getting any cleaner...)
5. Sunday sucked ass. More specifically, it sucked big hairy donkey balls. Anya didn't sleep much and Ally started off the day in a wonderful mood. I was cranky and so when Rob brought her upstairs, she ran over to me and I promptly pissed her off. Sorry. I just wanted to sleep, but Anya wouldn't let me put her down. I don't know if it's new sickness, or just the last month's worth of learned bad habits I now need to break.
6. No sleeping last night either. I even put Anya in the car to drive around for a bit. Anya doesn't like to sleep in the car, and she almost always wakes up as soon as I get her out. She hates her car seat. But Rob won't let me try to cry-it-out and I don't especially want to let her wake Ally up anyway, so I always have to try to keep her quiet at night. I was really about at my breaking point, so I put her in the car anyway. Mostly, just so I wouldn't have to touch her for a while. I was really not liking her last night. little bitch. Of course, she woke up as soon as we got home, and I spent the rest of the night in the rocking chair with her. Rob found me there this morning when it was time for me to shower. At least I got 1 uninterrupted hour of sleep.
7. But now it's Monday, and Anya is the daycare's problem. yay. I love her to death, but sometimes I hate her too. Does that make sense? Does that make me a horrible mother? No? How about the many times last night that I told her that if she didn't just shut upa nd go to sleep that I was going to throw her out the window?
8. I was desperate last night if you can't tell. I even had a post all worked out in my head, and if Rob hadn't been sleeping I probably would've sat down and written it (the computer's in our room).Yyou all would have had a post something along the lines of: I'm so tired. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of listening to either one of the children whine. I'm tired of being needed every fucking second of every fucking day for some menial little task that shouldn't piss me off, but does because I'm sleep-deprived. I'm tired of being pissed off and wanting to run away and hide. I'm tired of feeling guilty for longing for naptime rather than taking the time to enjoy my kids' waking moments... blah, blah blah. But I'm just too tired for that kind of depressing shit. I'll save it up so I have something to cry about tonight while Anya isn't sleeping.
9. In better news, last week someone (We'll call him Steve. Because that's his name) walked by and commented about the back-scratcher I had hanging in my cubicle. It was a King Kong one from Universal Studios that someone brought back from vacation for me once. I never use it. Steve is a little round man, and probably can't reach his back so well to scratch it himself. he chit-chatted a while and happened to mention that he'd trade me for cake. I thought he was joking and heartily agreed haha funny. He came back later and asked if I like german chocolate or angel food better. I started to think he was serious. I told Rob " I think Steve is going to bring me a cake" He was sure it was a joke. Lo and behold, this morning, Steve brought me one of those little mini cakes from Walmart. I happily handed over my back-scratcher. Woo!! Cake (carrot cake to be exact)
10. I have nothing else at the moment, but I just couldn't leave the list on such an uneven number when only 1 more would push it up to a nice rounded even 10. Have a good day all!
11. Oh hey, forget what I said about the nice rounded 10 crap before. i'm putting out videos on youTube. Click the link up there at the top to watch them, cause they are sooooo cute. (It's 11:52 central now, so give me a couple minutes)

Panties!

The day care has told us that Ally is goint potty pretty consistantly, and it might be time for training pants. So, Tuesday, I sent her to school in panties (and don't dare call them underwear) She had some accidents, but the teachers carry around a timer all day and every 25 minutes she sits on the potty. At home, she doesn't have as much success. I think she's fucking with us. Rob thinks I'm imagining it, but I think she wants attention. I've tried to give her extra cuddles and stuff, but she's driving me nuts.

Last night was better. She only had one accident at day care and that was before her regular teachers got there. Then she peed when I picked her up (on purpose, I think). But at home, she had no wet panties. Yay!

I've been trying to impress on her that 3 year olds don't wear diapers anymore. They are big and wear panties. She's VERY aware that her birthday is soon.

I'm not putting diapers on her again. Except at night and nap. Even if it is more of a pain in the ass to change her and lug around extra panties and find bathrooms and everything. We are going to do it this time!

Yet another MeMe. What can I say? I'm a joiner

This has some information that I haven't yet shared with my family. But I'm, um, 28 years old dammit! So I guess it's okay. I'm not going to get grounded or anything.

1. Explain what ended your last relationship.
hmmm.. That was long ago (if I assume this means romantic relationship). I guess I'd have to say it was me. I had a standing open relationship with a guy from high school. Whenever we weren't dating other people, we um... hung out. um... naked. (Hi Mom!) Then I got back together with Rob and that all ended.

2. When was the last time you shaved?
My pits - last week. My legs - ??Maybe August?? I'm lazy, it's winter, and my husband doesn't care.

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?
reading blogs

4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
showing off pictures of my kids

5. Are you any good at math?
I used to be pretty good. And I still can be with a pencil and paper, but I can't even subtract two 3-4 digit numbers in my head anymore. I balance my checkbook with a calculater

6. Your prom night?
First I went as a sophomore. My date was a loser junior that couldn't find anyone to go with. After prom, we went to the post-prom school-sponsered party. After that, he went to a non-sponsered party, and I went home with a couple of guys and their girlfriends to have breakfast one of their mom's was cooking. Yum. Harriett can cook!

Next, as a junior I went to 2 of them.
  One in the town I had just moved to. I went with the guy I was dating. We went back to his house afterwards with a bunch of friends (including my husband and his girlfriend) and watched beavis and Butthead. My mom was a total control freak, and didn't even want to let me. I had to come home early.
  One in the town I grew up in. It was 3 hours away, and I drove myself. (Mom, you might want to stop reading now. You know, ignorance is bliss and all...) I got an invitation and took a sophomore firend. His girlfriend was one of the sophomore attendents, and he wanted to be able to go to be with her. I caught up with my old friends and just generally had a good time by myself while he went with his girlfriend. Then after prom, I went back to a girlfriends house for a little bit while a couple other guys (My friend from question #1 up there) ditched their dates and we all went and stayed at a hotel. My mom never asked me where I stayed that night. She assumed it was with my girlfriend. These 2 proms were within a month of each other. My mom is weird.

I didn't go to my senior prom.

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
nope.

8. Have you had to take a loan out for school?
Yes. I made it out in 3 years and only had about $6000 in loans though. I think that's pretty good considering I paid for it myself with a waitressing job.

9. Do you know the words to the song on your Myspace profile?
I don't use myspace. Have never even seen a myspace profile

10. Last thing received in the mail?
A pre-approved credit offer

11. How many different beverages have you had today?
1 water

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine?
I never do on my mom's becuse the message is like 5 minutes long. Who wants to sit through that? (Gosh I love to be able to bitch on here where she can read it (Hi Mom!) and I don't have to listen to any repercussions. Otherwise, I leave a message only if I want called back.

13. Whom did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
Concert? Don't those require money and free time?

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
Beach? Doesn't that require money and free time? just kidding. I lived in Virginia for a little while and went to the beach occasionally. Didn't write my name in the sand, but never failed to bury a hand or foot or both.

15. What was the most painful dental procedure you have had?
back in June (I think) I had my teeth cleaned. It was the most painful thing ever! Not because of the whole dentist thing, but I was developing mastitis at the time. feverish, boob hurtage, teeth hurtage, yuckiness.

16. What is out your back door?
My deck off the 2nd floor, and the patio filled with Little Tykes off the garage back door

17. Any plans for Friday night?
I plan to sleep, but that never happens. Gosh I'm old

18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
I don't especially care about my hair

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
yep. I eat the carmel then the cheese, and throw out the unflavored usually

20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
Yes. It almost put me to sleep

21. Do you re-use towels after you shower?
I used to. But now I shower first, so my husband is in there when I get done drying my hair. The towel usually ends up abandoned on the floor, and discovered later after it's too late to reuse it

22. Some things you are excited about?
I have the day off work tomorrow. Yippee!

23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO?
red-flavored

24. Describe your keychain(s).
I have a Brookstone keychain with 5 removable rings on it. One has my truck keys. One has my car keys. One has my house keys. One has my jump drive (or nerd stick as my friend calls it). The last is rarely on because I don't carry it on a day-to-day basis. It's keys to my mom's house. (But don't tell my sister I have them. She's not trustworthy enough to have a set of her own)

25. Where do you keep your change?
in my pocket - in my desk drawer - in my ashtray of the car - on my banister railing - in my daughters piggy bank

26. What kind of winter coat do you own?
um, it's white and warm and the pockets are way too shallow

27. What was the weather like on your graduation day?
Kinda windy.

28. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
open - better to hear the kids screaming. But who am I kidding. Mostly I sleep upstairs on the couch, and there's no door in the living room.

Hmmm... you might see some of these topics reincarnated for TMI Tuesday. Ideas churning...