Judge for yourself

Because I attended a baby shower on Saturday, I've been having discussions regarding whether or not newborns look like their 3D sonograms.  Judge for yourself:

...and then comes baby in the baby carriage

All last week, I planned our weekend with the knowledge that we'd have two kids.  Then, Friday hit, and I found out that we were suddenly kid-free for the weekend.  I'm sorry, but you cannot just throw someone into a situation like that.  Especially someone who is a stickler for mental preparedness. 

Why was I not jumping for joy?  Well, I'm not sure how impromptu, kid-free weekends go in your household, but we always manage to screw ours up.  

For a rundown of how our weekend went, you can just assume there was an argument (or three), and that someone had to go grocery shopping to calm down (someone who is monumentally impatient and hates grocery shopping - so really that should give you a way to gauge how frustrated that person was), and that one (or more) "I don't know, what do you want to do?" conversations happened. 

We've lost the ability to function properly as a duo.  Is there training for that?  How-to-be-alone-together-successfully-after-you-have-kids training?  Can someone send me a pamphlet?

Hypothetically speaking - version 2.0

When you're frustrated about fifty things you can't really talk about because some of it is not your business and some of it is no one else's business, sometimes your frustration comes pouring out over things you usually just sigh about and move on.

On that day, you blow little things out of proportion and throw tantrums at work and have to have meetings that make you uncomfortable and feel like you should apologize to half the office.

Of course, I'm speaking hypothetically here...again.

Victory is mine!

In October 2008, I broke my ankle and had surgery and the surgeon put screws and plates in my ankle and made me fumble around on crutches for a couple of months.  Then, after I was finally allowed to walk again, he told me to stick to swimming for now (it was December) for exercise (um, yeah, I was a different person then.  He didn't volunteer that info...I asked for it).  Then I found out I was pregnant with little Silas man and got all sleepy (because that's what happens the minute you find out you're pregnant - pee on the stick, plus sign, bam! you need a nap) and said "screw the gym if all I can do is swim.  I'll just sleep until I have the baby, and then I'll get hot again."  Part one of that plan worked beautifully..........

The point of that narrative is that prior to October 2008, I had fought a hard won battle to conquer the elliptical.  I say hard won because the very first time I got on an elliptical, it defeated me and threw me off and laughed in my face after about 2 minutes.  So, it took some humility and determination to build myself up to thirty minute work outs on the machine. I don't have any pictures of myself on the machine, but I imagine I looked something like this at the time (I totally didn't, but you've never seen me leaning on an elliptical in a sports bra, so I could have been pretty close and you'd never know the difference):

Picture of a girl in really good shape leaning on an elliptical in a sports bra to sell shoes - Reeboks if you're interested

Anyway, last night was my first encounter with an elliptical in more than two years.  I'm sure you want to know who won the battle.  Well, I did not get thrown to the floor in a puddle of sweat and defeat after 2 minutes.  No, I heaved and gasped valiantly for 6 minutes, which was one minute past what I predicted I could do before I started (holla!).  Then I begged for water and moved myself into the position I felt least likely to hyperventilate and die in and waited for R to deliver the water.  So, all things considered (all things being what terrible shape I'm in), I'm going to call it a victory.

Mommy's little brain ninja

 Sigh.

Maybe Silas is trying to wear me down.  He is a master strategist, and I've stopped trying to decipher his motives.

Last night, I was trying to run down the street two blocks with my friend Randi, and Silas threw the most dramatic fit in history and pleaded to go.  It kind of broke my heart.  So, I spent more time putting his carseat in Randi's car than we spent going to the store we were going to, which was obnoxious, but it also secretly made me feel good that Silas wouldn't let me out of his sight (because normally he could give a flip what I'm doing).  

Then he brain-ninja'd me this morning.  I was (falsely) under the impression that Silas was on one of his "I love my mommy" kicks (you know, because of the being upset if I walked in another room or tried to leave the house without him the night before business).  So, on the way out to the car this morning to buckle him in, I said something like "give mommy a kiss" and maneuvered my cheek next to his mouth.  He slapped me right in the face, y'all.

All you could hear as I buckled Silas into his carseat was the sound of me grinding my teeth and Michael saying, "way to go Silas, now we all have to suffer."

What is it about those three little words that scares men so much?

Last night, Silas had about four ounces of Sprite all to himself.  He then grabbed Michael's cherry-limeade off the coffee table and sprinted across the room drinking as he went (yes, I was freaking out about the running with the straw in his mouth, and no he didn't fall and put a hole in his trachea...it's not that kind of story).

The scene that then unfolded was akin to the beginning of every episode of Super Nanny... 

My slightly mischievous, but otherwise sweet, child morphed into a sugar-crazed blur of destruction and chaos and wreaked havoc on our house for a good forty minutes.  When he finally crashed, he whined and kicked and cried and snotted all over me until I wrangled him into bed...............and then I begged to be sedated.

This morning I felt like he owed me a debt of love and gratitude for putting up with him last night.  So, I kept trying to get him to say "love you" because he did it once last week, and I assumed that meant I was going to be able to get "luv you's" out of him whenever I pleased going forward.  He pretended he had no idea what I was talking about.

So, I made him watch the video of when he was about 3 or 4 months old, and it sounded like he said "love you" back to me after I said it to him (the original video is something like four minutes of me saying "I love you" over and over and over, but it has been edited down to the 22 seconds where Silas finally grunts something sounding like it could be "love you").

I just needed him to know that I know that he's capable of making the sounds and that I'll wait him out...because he can't feign ignorance forever.

I should stop forgetting my jacket

Some (extremely rude) people fixed the air conditioning on our floor yesterday.  So, it's about 23 degrees in my office today.  Because I spent a good portion of my morning trying to decide whether being really sleepy warranted me calling in, thereby putting myself in a big rush after I decided it did not, I forgot to bring my parka to the meat locker in which I work.  

Fortunately for me, there has been a jacket hanging on the back of my office door for about two years.  It hails from a time when I was a size small.  I'm wearing it.  I'm not a size small anymore.  Please see video below for a visual reference.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For some reason, I expect you to expect me to be all cynical and snarky about Valentine's Day.  You would be wrong.

It's not because I'm all married and about to brag to you about all the stuff I got (because there's nothing to brag about).  Mostly it's because I love the idea of setting a day aside to celebrate the ones you love (for me, that's not just Michael, but it's also my son and my family and my best friends).

I know it is popular to hate Valentine's Day as a holiday created by corporate greed, and that is probably a true characterization of what the day can be because most of our holidays have become commercialized.  However, a day is only what you make it, and I choose to remember things like making "mailboxes" in elementary school and handing out Valentine's and delivering flowers to people when I was in high school and the thoughtful (notice I didn't say expensive) things people have done to make me smile throughout the years.  

The day doesn't have to be about corporate greed or being forced to watch others celebrate their relationships (all in your face if you are single) or buying your sweetheart some exorbitant gift.  The day can be about taking the time to make the people you love smile.  

Happy Valentine's Day to you all, and remember:

 (Um, my kid loves Elmo, so me communicating via Elmo images is something you're just going to have to get used to)

Language Barrier

Woman: "How's the (meal she just spent two hours preparing)?"

Man: "Fine."

Woman: "Well, I'm sorry you don't like it."

Man: "I didn't say that!"

 

Yes you did, and stop trying to deny it. 

 

Men and women speak different languages.  Men need to understand that when you say anything at all, women hear full paragraphs even if you only speak one word.  When we chew you out for saying something, it's entirely inappropriate for you to come back with "I didn't say that."  Your words mean absolutely nothing in those situations.  The only thing that matters is what we heard when you said them.  We will fight to the death to defend our side of these arguments.  You are wrong.  Accept it, apologize, move on.

This makes very little sense - there, I've warned you

This is another one of those long stretches where it looks like I'm not writing blogs, but I am writing blogs.  It's just that nothing is coming together properly or making much sense or being particularly entertaining.  So, I have approximately six drafts to get back to at some point.

Perhaps it is because I'm freaking out about too many things at once, and my brain is overloaded with trying to juggle everything I'm juggling, and when I request that it (my brain) put sentences together for entertainment purposes, it throws a big Silas-style tantrum and refuses.  

While I believe I poke enough fun at my flaws on this blog to have given the world-at-large the understanding that I'm not - make that definitely not - Super Woman, there are some people who beg to differ and dump all manner of stress and nonsense and problems on me and expect me to return the situations to them all neat and tidy and organized.  So, that's what I'm doing with my life; I'm working and moonlighting as a Solution Fairy for the solution-challenged. (What I'm trying to say is, other people keep dumping their messes on top of my messes, and I'm in the middle of trying to keep us all from drowning - I told you I've lost the ability to make sense).

So, I'm going to work on one of those six drafts and try to turn it into something worth reading, but not today.  Today, you just get to read my incoherent babbling.

Snow Day

This is my last vacation day until July. When Michael arrived back from the store this morning and informed me that he'd spun the car in a complete circle, I knew there was no way I was putting Silas in it to drop him off and go to work.

It bothers me that that choice is thrust upon me, but that is the nature of being a working mother.

Without further ado. I present you with pics from our snow day:

Wish List

The ice storm combined with all of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania descending on Dallas for the Super Bowl totally screwed up my life yesterday.  While I had visions of hiding from the ice, sipping hot chocolate and playing games with my family, all manner of other mess collaborated to sabotage my "vacation day" (as I spent one of them trying to avoid the freaking roads) and keep me in a constant state of panic/worry/anger/fear/tears.

Apparently, for a bunch of reasons that didn't translate into anything sensible to me, there was not enough electricity to go around yesterday.  So, the great state of Texas initiated rolling blackouts.  They were supposed to last for 15-45 minutes (unless you were at Cowboys' Stadium, where you got a pass on the black-out, but if you were in a hospital giving birth to a newborn, or on a Dart train trying to stay off the icy roads - no such luck - I digress).  I must admit, the first black-out lasted 45 minutes, and my power was restored as promised........for, quite literally, 30 seconds.  It was then shut off again and remained off for approximately 5.5 hours.

The very last thing I wanted to do was load Silas into a car and drive anywhere, but my choices were getting down to risking the mile drive to a friends' or exposing him to increasingly frigid temperatures.  So, bundle up and load up we did.  We spent the black out chatting with friends and watching the kids play until we received word that our side of town was up and running once more.  The day was back on track. 

Or so I thought.  While I was in the middle of trying to protect my child from this freakishly-annoying storm, a crisis was a-brewin' at work.  Upon my return to our re-electrified home, I was able to check emails, and I was alerted to the crisis.  As I had already spent enough time on the roads to know I had no desire to drive all the way to the office, I tried to delay taking action, shut off my computer, took a nap, awoke to check my emails and learned that my effort to delay was rebuffed.

Having no other options, back out on the ice we went - stopping to drop Silas off so as not to subject him to our near run-in with a retaining wall.

When all was said and done, we made it back home at 11:15 last night, and Silas practically begged us to put him to bed.  

My birthday is fast approaching, and I am putting lottery tickets and a trip to some place tropical on my wish list.  Feel free to combine forces to make it happen.