Um..wow

People have found my site through searches for "Huge Poops" and "droppage of the uterine". Maybe I need to talk less about bodily function.

Redemption

In an effort to make up for the long day that was yesterday, my boys BOTH slept through the night. Yes, my sweet little GB slept from 11:15 until 5:30 this morning, and in my state of secondtime parenthood, *I* slept the entire time! No midpoint panicky wakeups to go stare at a sleeping baby, 6 straight hours of sleep, wow, it's been more months than I can count since I've had 6 straight hours of sleep. Ahhhhhhh.

Eternal Days

Ever notice how it's NOT the good days that last five times longer than a normal day? The days where you are at peace with the world, enjoying time with friends or family, having a blissful 8 hour reprieve from all things house and home? No, of course not, it's the days when things are tiresome, irksome, lonesome--some kind of not good.

Today the DinoBoy is sick, he has a fever and through sobs and much whining I deduced that his belly hurt--deduced, because even though my 2 yr old is perfectly capable of blathering on about nonsense for hours, he couldn't possibly articulate what if anything was ailing him. Normally when the DB is sick, he's merely lethargic, sleeps more than normal and often pukes multiple times. Not today, today he was in full I-must-whine-every-second-I'm-not-dead-asleep mode. Don't get me wrong, I felt so badly for my boy and I gave him many hugs and kisses amid pitiful groans and irritating litanies of "my mommeee my mommee my mommee". Would it be wrong to say 'Quit fucking whining my poor sweet baby'?

Well, to top that off, GB was in one of those I must be held every second or I will be crying like you are placing splinters under my fingernails moods.

So, today was an endless day of constantly having one boy or another in my arms. When I'd nurse, DB absolutely had to be held at that moment, or would start to cry. When I would quietly be holding DB in my arms, GB would wake up at start crying.

Amazingly, in the midst of this, I managed to clear out all the junk that has been sitting in our bathroom cabinets for ages, go through all my make up and throw out anything in carnation pink or sky blue (i.e. more than a year or two old), and actually CLEAN the bathroom--note: this hasn't been done by me in...oh, we won't say. AND I organized the junk drawer in the kitchen, put all of DBs winter clothes into storage bins and did some miscellaneous straightening. I was in a mode myself today, a super rare cleaning mode, damn,imagine what I could have gotten done with no sick kids.

Installing a ceiling fan with Mr. & Mrs. Slacker...

First, go to Home Depot around 5pm and look for a new ceiling fan-one with a remote, because God forbid you have to get out of bed to turn the fan/light on or off. Spend 30 minutes looking at each fan and it's options while DB runs up and down the aisles. Now go to out to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes and have a great meal.

Get home at 7pm and decide that now is the PERFECT time to install the new fan, because it's a new toy and new toys must be played with immediately. Put DB to bed so we can get started.

Mr. Slacker will now remove each part from box and group like pieces together on dresser and bed. Mrs. Slacker will completely mess up system while making the bed, so she's not sleeping on dust and ceiling crap tonight.

Flip every breaker in the house to figure out which one goes to the bedroom, use ultra bright flashlight for lighting.

Disassemble old fan and remove from ceiling leaving just a hole with wires sticking out. Hah, that was easy.

Ultra brite flashlight dies because it wasn't actually plugged in to recharge.

Return to basement to turn on power to rest of house and plug in industrial light in bathroom across the hall. Leave massive tangle of orange extension cord to trip over while going in and out of bedroom.

Step 1-Install new screw plate. Stand on bed while trying to find screw holes through the small slats in screwplate. Shake arms a bunch because working over your head sucks. Start cursing because you can't see the holes, go to laundry room and get two step utility ladder which is a whole 6 inches higher than bed, but at least it's stable. Try again to find holes. Curse more. Eventually create new holes because you're too pissed off to keep looking. Screw plate in.

Step two-Assemble canopy, downrod and motor. Follow the directions exactly, but decide that you know better than the book and wonder why they didn't tell you to add the decorative clamps. Realize you can't find the lower clamp, but that the upper clamp comes apart so you can install it later and say "Fuck it, we'll deal with it then."

Nurse GB

Step three-Hang assembled down rod by hook and realize you have 20 wires and a remote sensor to figure out. Sit down with instructions utter perplexed, say I must be the fucking stupidest human alive to not understand this, stomp out of bedroom (trip over cord) and go make a stiff Jack and Coke. Woman type person picks up directions and starts connecting wires.

Step four-Ask Mr. Slacker to return to bedroom to help screw in the canopy (filled with the remote sensor and 20 feet of wire) into the screwplate. Stuff, jam, force and finagle all crap into canopy while Mr. S questions if this is really how it's supposed to go. Yes, keep pushing. Get everything to fit, hand Mr. S screws to hold in place. Drop screw into motor assemby, remove assembly cover to retrieve screw. Realize by the third screw, that they are the wrong screws. Start over. Go get bigger ladder from garage because it really sucks working over your head (trip over extension cord) Utterly fail to get everything to fit into canopy and get more than two screws in place at once, curse a LOT.

Finally get smart enough to pull everything out and neatly coil up wires. Reassemble canopy and with minimal effort get it screwed into plate.

Step five-Install fan blades (assembled by Mrs. S in the beginning while Mr. S was doing cursing about screwplate). This actually goes smoothly.

Step six-Attach decorative clamps. Only find upper clamp and install, search for lower clamp. Realize lower clamp is already attached to fan assembly. Duh and Phew.

Step seven-Install light fixture. Thankfully this has a polarized plug instead of raw wire--click, done. Screw in place. Realize that the light takes three 40 watt candelabra bulbs and breathe a sigh of relief that these are the same bulbs that go in our dining room fixture, and we have some--now that the dining room fixture is short a bulb. Also think fuck, is this going to be bright enough? Install glass bowl.

Voila done! It's only 11:45pm.

Go to basement, flip breaker, press remote light switch--nada. Turn wall dial-nada. FUCK. Pull chain pull, ahh light! Turn fan dial-nada, try remote-nada, pull other chain pull--still nada. Realize both fan and light dial on wall control light--oops. Remote, nothing.

Feel utterly disappointed, say fuck it and go to bed.

Call Home Depot next day to come install ceiling fan.

The "B" word

That dreaded dreaded word that BWB and I have been tossing around for the last year and completely brushing off until this weekend--BUDGET. Now that my last paycheck has electronically jumped from my employer to my bank account, we needed to seriously go through our expenditures vs our income to see where we stood.

We put this off so long because mere mention of the "B" word makes both of us very grumpy. We don't like limitations dammit, we don't want to be accountable dammit, we like debt damm...wait, no we don't. So, we went through the tedium that creating a budget calls for, made some decisions and poof, we have a budget--was that so hard?

YES dammit it was.

You know what was hardest? The realization it was time to close my old teacher's credit union acct, the one I've had for 10yrs, the one located in FLORIDA, the one I've had money direct desposited in for the last four years since I moved to Missouri--my one last thread of fiscal independence. And more poignantly, the last of the money *I* personally earned.

I know I'd always resisted closing this acct because it represented a shred of independence within the realm of marriage. It doesn't matter if I spent the money on groceries or bills or whatever, it was just mine. Confronted with the need to get our accts organized and preferably in one place, I decided it really was time to move that money, to do what BWB has done all along and live by the "what's mine is yours..." adage, and decision made, I cried. Really, I did, I got so choked up and the tears started rolling down my cheeks. Upon the sight of tears the BWB immediately renegged all previous talk of closing the acct and told me to keep it open, fill it with more money, do whatever you need to but don't cry. Tempting as that is ;), closing it is really the right thing to do, to merge the last vestiges of my single days into my today.

It's hard letting go of the past, even if the present is totally where you want to be.

Shit AND get off the pot!

Nope, I'm not talking about toilet training here, I was reading an entry in Dooce's blog and thought it so funny (and true) that I made the BWB read it too. They say kids change your life irrevocably, what they don't tell you is how unequally for men vs women.

Remember when you first started dating and you refused to poop at each other's house because God forbid your significant other knew you pooped!? You'd even hold it overnight if you had to and rush to get home in the morning. Even after you were married, you still might lock a door and light a candle for the first few months anyway. And you actually had time to freshen up while in bathroom, and take leisurely showers, oh and even a bath...but I'm getting tangental. And then you have kids, and you suddenly have a time limit and an audience (well aside from the dog who's also there). You've found yourself with babe in arms, toddler in tow and butt on pot more often than you care to recall. Heck, you're ready to sign for FedEx deliveries all while using the toilet.

Not so for the BWB, he still locks the door, has private time and even gets 30 minutes of reading or playing games on his palm pilot all while using the facilities...three times a day (why the hell do you guys have to poop three times a day??). This is an hour and a half of private time--90 MINUTES! I don't get 90 minutes to myself everyday, not with two kids. My toileting time might equal 10 minutes total a day--unless you include sitting next to DB for 20 minutes at a time while trying to get HIM to poop on the potty--like father like son, I guess.

Well I'm crying foul(hee)! Sorry honey, the days of leisurely pooping of over, shit AND GET OFF THE POT.

GooGoo GaaGaa Duh...

So, what is it about babies that turns perfectly sane folks into blathering raspberry-making doofuses?



Oh yeah, first smiles.

10 days in review: the Good the Bad the Ugly

Good: Survived trip to PA with four adults and two kids in tow.
Bad: Spent six hours at O'Hare on the trip out because we were delayed out of St. Louis, and then everything was delayed out of Chicago and didn't arrive to ILs until 2am.
Ugly: On the return flight, while changing a nasty poopy diaper of GBs, DB puked all over himself after he'd already pissed out his change of clothes in the airport.

Good: The wedding was wonderful, everyone looked great.
Bad: I had to wear new shoes and my feet are toast
Ugly: My BIL missed the last step leading down to the gazebo outside the reception while carrying the DB, fell, shredded his suit and banged up his knees pretty good--the not ugly part, he managed to save DB from a single scratch (LOVE MY BIL!)

Good: My SIL got engaged!!!!!!
Bad: We stayed up until 3am celebrating
Ugly: GB woke up every 1.5 hrs instead of three. :P

Good: We made it home in one piece and the house was still standing.
Bad: Zeus, the hanging by a thread mutt, had diarrhea on our new carpet in the basement.
Ugly: While down there we discovered standing water in the bar area and realized our NEWLY FINISHED basement had flooded while we were gone.

Good: Our awesome plumber came out that night and fixed the pipe leading from the sump pump that failed, and arranged for everything to be cleaned the next day--obviously free of charge.
Bad: Our basement is unusable for the next several days due to the anti mold treatment.
Ugly: Our fucking contractor STILL has not completed the job--the phone lines still don't work, cabinet doors have not arrived yet, lots of small things to fix.

Good: After getting a total of maybe 15 hours of sleep the whole time I was gone, I didn't have to get up and go to work Monday.
Bad: I did have to get up and feed a hungry baby throughout the night, woke up to a rambunctious toddler and a messy house.
Ugly: Realized this WAS my job from now on...

La Phew

Back online after a WEEK of no internet service, see I wasn't just living up to my moniker...don't they know that could have been the death of a new stay at home mom??

Nursing Terminology

Sometimes you forget the funny things that babies do when they nurse.

The Hen Peck: When being held to anyone's shoulder and the nose bobs up and down looking for that evasive food.

The Fish: The gape-mouthed, side to side swing of the head when potential food is in sight--doesn't matter if it's through a shirt, or even someone else's boob.

The Turtle: The silmutaneous drawing in of head and limbs when latch is finally acheived.

Snail Mail

A rare treat and lost art briefly revived by a lovely overseas friend from whom I received a lovely package with a real live handwritten note. Thank you thank you for providing that burst of happiness one experiences upon opening the mailbox and finding something other than bills and credit card applications. :)

The Joys of Boys

Someone please calculate the odds of being doused twice within a two minute period by BOTH my sons' urine.

The elder boy is currently potty training and doing pretty well, though sometimes this means sitting on the potty for 15 minutes at a time yelling "C'MON POOPY!!"--which he does happily. In the middle of one of these marathon pot sessions I hear the younger start crying. I go to him, pick him up and start carrying him back to the bathroom, which is when I realize that the left side of his outfit is soaked and now so is my top. I strip him down and remove my top when I hear the elder start whining and yelling, which means poop is on the way! I rush in there in a nursing bra and jammie pants having barely diapered GB and there's DB, legs crossed holding the potty handles for dear life while yelling Maaaaammmeeeee. I stand in front of him uncross his legs and this unfortunately leaves me exposed to a penile assault as he's no longer positioned behind the piss protector and voila, wet pajama bottoms and satisfying Kerplunk (have I mentioned that my son shits like a man? Huge, huge poops, no wonder he screams).

So now all I need is a good unexpect sneeze or cough so I can soak my own drawers and I'll be about as pissed on as I can get in a day. (I'm staying far away from the dogs!)

I am so lame

How I spent my Friday night? Family trip to the grocery store. Yes, I am officially uncool.