Motherhood, Politics, Faith & Whatnot

new blog not working yet?

2005-08-19T14:25:00.000-05:00

Don't worry -- I've really been giving out the correct URL, but it seems that the new blog may not be appearing. It's not some elaborate ruse to fool my two readers. :)

Off to troubleshoot.

Pssst.

2005-08-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

I'm moving. The blog, that is. Drop me an e-mail and I'll give you the new address. Don't be shy!

suzeana@gmail.com

And because I'm afraid nobody's gonna e-mail me, I might go looking for you! Or at least my "top referrers". :)

Um. . . . BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.

2005-08-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

BushFish.org: Supporting God and Country

Is it cynicism? Paranoia? No, don't answer that.

2005-08-12T22:35:00.000-05:00

I'm looking at the cnn website and the coverage of the 9/11 transcripts that were released today.

But what I'm really looking for are more photos of when the Bush motorcade sped by the protesting mom who lost her son in Iraq.

And all of a sudden, it occurs to me how convenient it is that the 9/11 stuff was released today of all days.

What's been getting a lot of top billing in the news lately? This mom outside W's ranch.

What would have gotten lots more coverage today? Bush's motorcade whizzing past her.

What doesn't seem to be getting as much coverage as it would have? Bush's motorcade whizzing by.

Why? Because the 9/11 stuff was made public today.

How does this help the Bush administration? It helps in two ways. It gave them some cover from the grieving, protest-mom story. And it reminds everyone of the fear and terror of that horrible day, hence the purported justification for the "war on terror". (Let's just continue to overlook the small fact that SADDAM HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11 AND THAT OSAMA IS/WAS IN AFGHANISTAN AND WE STILL HAVEN'T CAUGHT HIM. OK, that' more than one fact to overlook.)

Speaking of things not really making sense, I heard Rick Santorum, Congressman from Philadelphia, say that the "war on terror" has been successful which is proven by the fact that the US hasn't been attacked since 9/11. We took the war on terror to the terrorists. Um, yeah. Tell that to the Londoners. Aren't they taking the war on terror to the terrorists also? Santorum actually said, "The proof is in the pudding."

On the other hand, I think the terror level alert was lowered today. Maybe the world is a safer place now. Heh.

Why can't I come up with this stuff?

2005-08-12T21:06:00.000-05:00

A good point.

True evangelism, based on the example of Jesus, does not suggest the "missionary zeal" of self-righteous proselytizers. It implies, on the contrary, the kind of all-embracing universality evident in Mother Teresa's prayer: "May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in." Not just fellow nuns, Catholics, Calcuttans, Indians. The whole world. It gives me pause to realize that, were such a prayer said by me and answered by God, I would afterward possess a heart so open that even hate-driven zealots would fall inside. - David James Duncan

Also a good point.

"outrage at the negative aspects of proselytization is well-founded, but the truth of the matter is that proselytization's main flaw is its lack of universality. why, then, do we think that other forms of evangelism are better? is humanitarianism the only way to show god's love instead? the truth of the matter is found in scripture, where christians are referred to as the "body of christ." it's not that any one form evangelism is better than another. it's that they all compliment each other. the stark raving moralism of many proselytizers is well-founded oftentimes but also overdone. humanism is a great tool to show god's love but often ignores the moralistic teachings we must hold to to benefit one another. we all have our own gifts and call and must coordinate to work out the best plan."

Baby clothes for sale.

2005-08-11T14:36:00.000-05:00

We are planning a garage sale in a couple of weeks. At first, I wasn't even thinking about trying to sell baby clothes. There are several other large kids' consignment clothing sales around here and I thought I might try to sell at one of those. But as i thought about it, I might as well put them out at our garage sale because it's a lot less work than to lug them somewhere else.

The thing is I'm not sure I'm quite ready to get rid of them. Unless something changes, we are probably through having babies, but still. Getting rid of the baby clothes makes it all the more certain that we are done. It makes me a little sad. Are my childbearing years really over?

It's kind of funny though because I have a large tub of maternity clothes and I've had no plans to sell them yet. And I won't bring them out for the garage sale either. So, I guess that's a good compromise with myself. I was looking on ebay today at all the lots of infant clothes -- it would be easy enough to get a new lot of them, if we needed them. :)

Yes, a good compromise indeed.

Why it's a bad idea to have a pitcher of leftover margaritas in the fridge. . .

2005-08-11T12:33:00.000-05:00

it looks a lot like lemonade. I'm just saying.

Something to make Jon Stewart's day. . .

2005-08-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

We had the TV on PBSkids at lunchtime and between the shows, they do this little bit where famous people talk about the kids shows they remember from when they were little, etc. Well, Jon Stewart's little bit came on, and he was doing it from his desk at the Daily Show.

Daniel looks at the TV and says, "The news is on!"

2005-08-11T12:14:00.000-05:00

Alas, dear blog-readers, I'm in the throes of an existential blogging dilemna: to blog or not to blog. But then, I've thought of about ten different things to right about, so maybe the crisis is over. Read on.

Environmental Stewardship

2005-08-08T07:40:00.000-05:00

Fiercely protecting God's creation, er . . . or part of it: the oil part.

ABC News: Fight Over Alaska Oil Drilling Continues

I need me a set of these.

2005-08-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

Fun Stuff Bright Necklace

Amen.

2005-08-04T21:08:00.000-05:00

The Message Thing: a great op-ed piece in today's NYT outlining what the Dems should focus on by Jim Wallis. (yes, it does require registration to read, but it's free).

*click "Amen" for the link to the article.*

How I know that my 7 month old is mobile . . .

2005-08-04T16:58:00.000-05:00

something just started sucking on my ankle.

Oooo, it's a fraternity meeting!

2005-08-04T15:41:00.000-05:00

BB_28_0126
Originally uploaded by lambdachialpha.

Wonder if they are talking about secret stuff.

I love flickr.

Good babysitters are hard to find.

2005-08-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

Are you possessive about giving out your babysitter's name and number?

I think I should be more possessive.

After living here almost two years, I have, only in very recent months, found two babysitters. I've had a couple before these two, but they graduated or moved or my toddler scared them away or whatever. (I'm actually kidding about the last part, because as near as I can tell, he's a perfect angel to everyone but his parents.)

One is a student getting her MA in nursing at a local university. I got her by placing and paying for an ad in the university's newspaper. She's great and Daniel has a crush on her.

The other one I found a month or so ago on Craig's List. She is a teenager that lives in my neighborhood. She seems OK, except that I have to go pick her up (she doesn't drive yet) and she likes to keep the TV on when she babysits. I think it's kid's programs, but still, that's momma's tool for when she needs a break.

Anyway, a family with a one year old moved in a couple of houses down several months ago. Before Andrew was born actually. The mother was asking me if I had any babysitter recommendations the other day. I offered my two very quickly thinking that they would probably be happy to have more work anyway. I don't know if my neighbor will use them or not.

But afterwards, I was like, this mom has been here for less than a year and now she has the names of two decent babysitters just like that. I had to suffer a good year and a half plus before I got a couple of good ones. Why should she get it so easy? And now she might want them to babysit at the same time I might need them. What was I thinking?!

Darnnit.

Distraction.

2005-08-03T19:18:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I can turn any small task into a full-scale project. Some under-used part of my brain must crave adventure and novelty in the tedium of my daily life, so I seem to satisfy that need by making simple tasks into convoluted expeditions. The internet has made this tendency so much worse.

(frickin' blogger. I had written more than this, but when I went back to it, this was all that was left. Argh.)

The other day, I needed to know some fact about something or other. All I had to do was pick up the phone and call one of my friends. But why do that, says another part of my brain, when you can go look it up on the internet. Who knows what fun and interesting tidbits of information you might find along the way. Oh, OK, you're right, replies the other part of my brain. (That part of my brain is kind of a pushover, truth be told.)

Calling my friend only involves picking up the phone, well, and probably finding it first. I think I even have her number memorized. Besides, the phone is something that you can easily use with a toddler around by holding it above their reach. Well, if you can ignore their screeching every time you get on the phone. And hear the other person over the screeching . . .

Anyway, I went for the laptop. Why even try to find the exact website I am looking for when I can do a google search and see what other kinds of things pop-up. Maybe I don't know the exact web address anyway, so I'll just do a search first.

Inevitably, this leads me off on many tangents. How many other things can I look at before I really need to find what I was originally looking for? What's around that next corner? I don't know, let's see. Oh, and I should check my e-mail real quick, too. An hour later, I still haven't gotten to the site that might have the one tiny piece of info that I'm looking for, but I've had so much fun along the way (while fending the toddler off all the while) and learned so many new things! (I'm being a little facetious, here. Heh.)

Oh yeah, what was that I was looking for? An hour of distraction maybe? Yeah, that's it.

still teetering on the edge, but the ants are gone

2005-08-02T19:53:00.000-05:00

today would have been better than yesterday had it not been for the fact that Andrew has come down with croup. Croup is scary. Daniel had it when he was a baby and we spent Christmas Eve in the ER that year. The doc gave him the steroid injection this afternoon, so hopefully, things will be OK tonight. I think Daniel has a milder case of it as well.

The ants are gone for the time being and both J and I have a steely resolve to clean up every speck of food left behind from the day's refreshments.

Grief is a funny thing, isn't it? Who am I grieving? Well, it's more of a what. My two kitties who passed away last fall. We'd had them for 10.5 years since they were kittens. We lost one in September and one in October. Pepita was my little buddy, my female ally in a house of XYs. Willy was a great cat, too, more like a dog than a cat. When they died I was pretty far along in my pregnancy. We were heading into the holiday season, too, so although I was sad, there was a lot to be preoccupied about. Then, I had Andrew at the end of December and have been busy managing an infant and a two-year-old since then, plus the botched Sophie the Stray Cat experiment which didn't turn out too well. So, while I missed the cats every now and then, I was frankly glad to not have anything else to take care of. As Andrew's getting older and spending less time with his momma and more time trying to get his brother's attention, I've found myself missing my kitties. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I need something to need me or I feel sad. I'm more saying that because Andrew is needing me less, I'm less preoccupied with his care and my brain has a chance to remind me thatI do still miss my kitties. Know what I mean?

As I said, grief is a funny thing. It can catch you by surprise.

sigh

2005-08-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Do you ever feel like you are just teetering on the edge?

Today was one of those days for me. I hope it's better tomorrow.

Daniel got sick at the end of last week with a pretty nasty sore throat. His tonsils are huge and we spent the weekend trying to get him to eat. We'd offer him his favorite foods and he'd yell, "No! No! No!" and begin to cry as if we were forcing him to swallow nails. We'd pump him up with some Tylenol and then try again. Poor little guy. We were worried it might be strep, but couldn't really do anything about it over the weekend. His fever was pretty high for the first couple of days, but has gone down.

This morning, we all got up and out of the house in order to go to walk-in hours at one of the pediatric practice's other offices. Our ped doesn't have walk-in hours. Well, it turns out that the walk-in hour is only for the pediatricians at that particular office.

I spent the next three hours repeatedly calling our pediatrician's office to try to get an appointment for today. But their computer was down, so they couldn't make any appointments. They knew they had openings today, but had no idea when.

The difficulty in getting into see the doc began to outweigh my concern about whether Daniel really has strep or not. He was eating better today and even eating without having had a dose of Tylenol. So I finally just asked to speak to the nurse. She advised us to wait another day or so. So, we'll see.

It was more frustration than I was prepared to deal with on a Monday morning. Plus, Daniel was clearly feeling well enough to be a frickin' pain in my ass. When do toddlers get out of the "throwing mom's shit on the floor stage"?

Andrew's teething and constipational problems continue to make him unpredictably crabby. He's into arching his back now to show his displeasure / discomfort. I can see him getting more and more independent every day.

And finally, there were the ants. Our kitchen is overrun with ants and we can't seem to stay ahead of it. They were all. over. the counters this morning and on the floor. We've been battling them since the spring this year. It doesn't help that we have a toddler who enjoys stuffing whole muffins in his mouth and then laughing as big chunks fall out onto the floor. Please tell me when the stuffing things in your mouth phase ends. He stuffed a whole piece of American cheese in his mouth today and then chewed it a little and opened his mouth and let it fall out. Nice. Let's just say that he went down for his nap a little earlier today. Mommy needed a break.

One saving grace, however, was that Andrew went down for his second nap so easily. I put him in his crib, turned on the music and left the room. A few minutes later, both he and I were sound asleep.

This guy?! Really?!

2005-08-01T15:47:00.000-05:00

Bush names Bolton as U.N. ambassador

So, Bush decided to go ahead and name Bolton the UN ambassador for the U.S. Great. I think it's a super idea to put this guy in, don't you? Diplomacy so seems to be his strong suit. *smirk*

On one of the news shows that we watch on the weekends, one of the pundits suggested that Bush has been "hurt" over the opposition to his nominees. Hurt? What did he expect? A standing ovation for his choice? I think not. Of course, he was going to pick a right winger, but this guy? Really.

It's said that Bush likes Bolton's brash style. That he wanted someone who's going to go in and inform the UN of our agenda as opposed to having the UN's agenda foisted on us. Does he think appointing this guy is really going to get the message across? Is the rest of the world really going to care? Wouldn't it be better to choose a skilled, but hard-nosed diplomat to represent the U.S.'s interests? Wouldn't that give the President a better chance of advancing his agenda (not that I would agree with this agenda, but at least, we wouldn't look like the loud, obnoxious fools that the rest of the world thinks Americans are anyway)? I guess Bolton could always scream at the ambassadors from other countries and chase them around the U.N. chambers when they disagree with him. That will definitely get their attention.

BlogHer wannabe.

2005-08-01T10:02:00.000-05:00

I was looking atMelissa's flickr photostream from BlogHer Con 2005 which took place last weekend. And I found myself wishing I was there. A weekend of hanging out, getting to know people who also enjoy playing around on their laptops, having some drinks with said fellow bloggers, and secretly taking compromising candid pics of each other and posting them online for all to see. Jana could probably provide enough content for a group live blog. How fun it would be to meet all the cool blog-people I know IRL. So whaddya think? BlogHer Con 2005, part 2 (but without all the seminars) this fall, or maybe next spring would be better so I could save up. Maybe Seattle? I've always wanted to go to Seattle. Or maybe in the Caribbean? I've always wanted to go there, too. Or maybe a cruise?

Red Sox Nation.

2005-07-31T21:29:00.000-05:00

Red Sox Nation.
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

2005-07-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

In the pulpit.

2005-07-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

More dancing. (I thought all 3 pics went through at the same time.)

2005-07-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

The baby was baptized last Sunday. After the service was over, we brought Daniel back into the sanctuary for pictures. What did he do? He went straight for the pulpit and started dancing around in it. I'm not really sure what that means. *scratching head*

but, lest you get the wrong impression.

2005-07-28T21:45:00.000-05:00

I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not a member of the W. fan club (in case you hadn't figured that out yet.)

Oh, guess I'm not a hippie. . .

2005-07-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

I am 19% Hippie.

What? Am I a Republican? Why did I even bother taken this test?! I guess I’ll back to my George W. Bush fan club and tell them I just wasted 10 minutes of my life. At least I don’t stink, man.

Take the
Hippie Test
@ FualiDotCom

courtesy of ambuh

Large males for sale.

2005-07-28T21:25:00.000-05:00

largemales
Originally uploaded by subterranea.

Wow! Cheap. Who knew?

E-bay newbie

2005-07-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

I posted my first item up on e-bay the other day. And I don't have any bidders yet. Bummer. I don't know if I should have priced it lower and set a reserve. Or maybe I didn't choose the right shipping option. Or maybe it's the color. It's kind of a funky green, kind of whimsical. Or maybe it's because I don't have a big score yet? There are five people watching it. Are they just waiting until the last minute so that the price stays the lowest? That sucks. I hate that about e-bay. Does anybody bid before the last second? Can you bid on your own stuff? lol

Changing the title.

2005-07-28T10:52:00.000-05:00

Looking for a new title. Playing around with a few to see which fits. Any suggestions?

And I thought I had it rough. . .

2005-07-27T21:22:00.000-05:00

As much as I complain about Daniel bolting from me whenever we leave the confines of the house, this might be worse.

I have a friend in playgroup who just had her 3rd child. Her second is about 2 1/2 years old and has always been very attached to her momma. But she's taking it to an extreme. She won't leave her side and insists that her mother go with her everywhere. They can be alone in the house watching TV and Caroline has to be touching her mom. She won't play on her own even at home. I wouldn't really say that she's timid, because it's not like she ever warms up. She's totally not interested in interacting with anyone else. We've all tried to distract her away from her mom in the interest of preserving her mom's sanity, but to no avail.

Today, Mary mentioned that at breakfast this morning, Caroline insisted on pulling her chair around their circular table to the other side where Mary was sitting. She pulled her chair right against Mary's and then insisted on holding Mary's hand during breakfast. I don't know about you, but that would make. me. frickin. insane. I would totally lose it and say, STOP TOUCHING ME!!!!!!!!! Heck, I do that now. Heh. Mary's really, really frustrated and is concerned that Caroline's not going to do well at preschool this fall. She didn't last at a mother's morning out because rather than getting better about her mom leaving her, it got worse and Caroline would cry for longer and longer periods of time.

What would you do? I think I would totally start working on getting her to play or be by herself for small increments of time, even if she protested or cried, and gradually increase the amount of time. But that's just me.

I'm just saying . . .

2005-07-27T21:10:00.000-05:00

We went to Play*space today which is billed as a child's "first museum." Really, it's more like a huge room with a bunch of different themed-play areas. If you go before 10:30 a.m., it's OK, but after that it's bedlam. Still, we had fun. It's one place where I can just let Daniel run around without too much redirection or worry that he'll get into something that he shouldn't.

We'll, there a dress-up/drama play area that has bunches of clothes and shoes and costumes for the kids to put on and also a small stage area with big velvet curtains. Daniel, in his first lap around the place this morning, ran through this area and onto the stage. He ran into the middle of the stage and said, "Ta-da!" Where do they get this stuff?! I was dying laughing.

Anyway, after a while, I noticed this one kid, probably 6 or 7 who was hanging out around the train table. What was unusual about him was that he was wearing a bright purple kid-sized princess-type ball gown. Clearly, he had donned this in the dress-up/drama area, but here he was at the train table playing oblivious to the fact that he was wearing this dress. Did he pick this out and put it on? Did somebody tell him to put it on as a joke? I don't know. Not that I see anything wrong with kids trying on whatever they want, but it was just such an interesting choice. Did it remind him of something that his mom wore?

But I do know that several minutes later when I saw him again, he was still wearing said gown and I noticed that he was wearing some beautiful Cinderalla-style slippers with it, too.

Hmmm. . .

2005-07-26T08:57:00.000-05:00

ABC News: Woman Bills Husband for All the Housework She Did

There's an idea.

The only problem is that it sounds like she actually did lots of housework. I'm not sure I could bill very much. Unless I could bill for time I spent "working" on the computer. Heh.

Don't be alarmed if . . .

2005-07-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

you no longer see your blog listed on the blogroll. You haven't been de-listed. ;) I'm added them to my bloglines page and left the ones that I can't get to on bloglines on this blogroll. When I have a minute, I think I'll be able to put up a link to my bloglines page, too.

Hope you have a good day. It's gonna be a hot one here today.

Politics.

2005-07-21T12:41:00.000-05:00

One thing that bothers me the most about the Bush administration is how it's enshrouded its machinations in so much secrecy. They have taken the executive privilege so far beyond what it was intended for and then some. They have extended it further than any other administration. ever.

Did you know that counsel to President Richard Nixon John Dean has written a book about the Bush administration and its obsessive secrecy entitled "Worse than Watergate: The Secret President of George W. Bush"? Worse than Watergate?

This is to say nothing of their politics of course, but you have to admit that there are probably some politicians on the opposite side of the fence that even though you disagree with them wholeheartedly, you respect them as individuals. For me, that might be McCain, for example, or Colin Powell before he stood passively as he was emasculated by this administration.

None of that for the Bush administration though. At all. Just a sickening, uneasy, nauseaous feeling in my gut. Just dirty, dirty politics.

And Bush being revered for being a strong Christian. Give me break. His chief political operative/hatchet man, Karl Rove, the "architect" of Bush's reelection (or election if you are of the opinion that he wasn't elected the first time) is not even part of the religious right. His religious beliefs don't inform how he lives his life unless he worships Machiavelli, not that they need to, but if you are President Bush and you are holding yourself out as some self-righteous, born-again Christian, but then you surround yourself with people who don't hold the same values, but can do your dirty work, isn't that just a bit, um, WRONG? Why can't people see that? Rove isn't some big champion of the Religious Right, like it seems that most think he his. He has no morals or values. He sees nothing wrong with smearing those who speak out against the administration.

Being a Christian is more than what you profess to believe, but also how you live out what you believe, how you treat and interact with people and the world around you. Even your enemies. Why don't people get this about President Bush? Argh.

And if I paid attention more in church, I'd be able to quote some stuff from the Bible to support this. Darn it.

Ever had to use a port-a-potty with your toddler in tow?

2005-07-21T12:38:00.000-05:00

The 2nd part of Cesca'spost reminded of something that happened last week while on vacation.

It was my turn to take Daniel out and about for a little while so that J , who had had a mostly unsuccessful trip to the beach that morning with Daniel, could get a break. (Unsuccessful beach trip being defined as when you child prefers to play in the outside shower at the bathhouse than actually on the beach. Yeah.)

Anyway, I needed some postcards, so I thought we'd walk up to the store and get some. As we walked, my stomach started rumbling. Uh-oh. I figured that there would be bathrooms at the store and we were closer to it than to where we were staying, besides, I needed postcards and to keep Daniel out and about longer. We got to the store, stomach still rumbling, but I was like, maybe I can make it until we get back.

Or not. Daniel had located the plastic car/truck selection in the store which I had been unable to steer him away from, being distracted by my abdominal distress. While he obsessed over which one to choose (I had told him that he could pick one out since I knew I couldn't handle a tantrum and hold my bowels together at the same time), I started looking around for the restrooms in the store.

OK, now I really had to go. I picked up Daniel and told him that we would come back to get a car/truck, but that mommy had to go potty. Ignoring the sign at the cash register saying "Port-a-potty out back around the corner", I asked if they had a bathroom. You might guess what the answer was.

I don't know about you, but I've never really been a port-a-potty user myself. Something about the sight/odor of raw sewage just tightens those sphincter muscles right up. So, we went outside, hurried by the port-a-potty to the next store. I quickly located their bathrooms, but also noticed the out-of-service signs on the the doors of the mens and womens restrooms. Thinking that maybe they weren't really out of service or that maybe they would be miraculously in-service for me, I asked the cashier about them. Sadly, they were indeed out of service. He empathetically suggested the port-a-potty in the parking lot of the store next door.

I knew I couldn't make it back to the room, so I carried Daniel back outside, put him down, knelt down and told him that we were going potty real quick and then we'd go back and get his car (which he was clamoring for) and oh yeah, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING.

I held my breath and we entered the port-a-potty. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING.

Ooo, what's this? he says as he looks around inside our close quarters.

DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING, I repeat as he points to the urinal.

I take care of business while he says, "Oooo, it's a potty."

DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING.

And we're done and back into the store for the promised car/truck purchase. Thankfully, I don't think he remembers anything about it except that he got a car and mommy got some postcards that day.

Lovely, eh? You gotta do what you gotta do. :)

Shhh. Be very, very quiet. . .

2005-07-21T11:59:00.000-05:00

I think Andrew just fell asleep on his own in the crib while watching his mobile. I could be wrong. Maybe I've become temporarily deaf. I'm not sure. But it is very, very quiet up there and there are no little red lights blaring on the monitor.

I took him up and put him down in his crib in order to put Daniel down for his nap, fulling expecting to come back and coax the baby into dreamland. But looks like he made it there unassisted. This is pretty remarkable given the fact that I was called home early just this morning by my babysitter because he was so unhappy from teething and she didn't know what else to do. (She's only a high school student, and believe me, when Andrew gets mad and starts screaming, you lose any sense that you may have had in your head.) The teething with him has been really rough. We've been relying heavily on Tylenol and Ibuprofen and oh yeah, my boo*bs. Can't say that I'm really enjoying it that much, but at least it quells the screaming. He's normally such a good-natured baby. I hope that we haven't scared the babysitter away.

Andrew definitely has a preference for Mama. I hope that it's only because he's teething. He also gets like that when he's going through a growth spurt or is hungry. . . or. . . when he's sleepy . . . or . . . hmmmm, well, that's a lot of the time. The other night he was awake and crying and I was trying to get him back to sleep. I had my glasses on and I think he didn't recognize me at first. At one point, he stopped screaming long enough to open his eyes and you could almost see something click in his brain. I think he actually almost immediately stopped mid-scream and grinned when he realized that, oh, that is mama, silly me.

Come on out, toothies. We're ready.

43 Things

2005-07-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

43 Things

This is so cool! What 43 things do you want to do in your life? Start thinking.

What I read on vacation.

2005-07-17T20:55:00.000-05:00

I know that you are dying to know. . .

Did I finish any of those books on my vacation?

Hah.

I read about 10 pages of a book called Rockville Pike that I had started the week before we left.

That's it.

The upside is though that I still have a stack of good books to read. I'm not sure when. But sometime. Like when the boys leave home or something.

A lot of times when I'm sitting in church, I'm thinking about the things I need to get done. Yes, I know. I'm supposed to be paying attention to the sermon and I do mostly, but the sermons aren't always the most compelling. I was thinking today how I'd like to have a much better working knowledge of the Bible. I think about that a lot at church. I should know more than I do. And then I was thinking about all those books I took with me on vacation to read, but didn't touch. I want so badly to devour them and other things, too, but am limited by time for one thing. But also by the rate at which my brain can assimilate things. It's so frustrating because there's so much to learn and read, but my brain can only handle so much at one time, so it's not like I can pack my brain every spare second. It just doesn't work like that. At least not anymore. I think I assimilated information much faster when I was younger. Hah. What a revelation. People don't learn as easily when they get old? You're kidding!

And one day when I do have more free time to sit and read, I'll probably be sitting on my ass, sipping a margarita, maybe at the beach, thinking about all those things I should be reading or doing.

On memories and being home again.

2005-07-17T20:46:00.000-05:00

It's funny what our brains do. As we were getting ready to drive home on Friday morning and I was thinking about getting back home, for a second, the home that I picture was not the one we lived in now, but our apartment in Boston. Driving up to the outside of the building and parallel parking or if we were lucky there would be a spot. Unloading all of our crap and making several trips to get it all up from the car into our 2nd floor apartment. Checking the mail box which was on the exterior of the building. Wondering how many hair balls we would find on the carpet just inside the door. Wondering how the kitties survived being left alone for a few days.

In fact, as we were driving home this time, I found myself all of a sudden thinking about the kitties and getting a little excited about seeing them. This little ritual clearly had worn a rut in my brain, in my memories. We don't have our kitties anymore since they both died last fall, but I still think of them at odd times.

Anyway, we were all soooo glad to be home on Friday. Everybody was super mellow. Daniel played quietly and contentedly on his own for a long period of time. Andrew chilled out in his exersaucer, catching up on all the whacking of his toys that he had missed in the last week. J spread himself out on the couch, TV remote in hand. Me, I was in my usual spot, laptop on my lap. There was a big sigh about the household for a little while that evening.

Blah-dee, blah-dee, blah.

2005-07-16T21:22:00.000-05:00

That's how I'm feeling tonight. Kids keep waking up screaming. I've heard so much crying and screaming in the last week that I hear it in my head even when they are quiet.

The baby is constipated. He's been passing little turds for about the last 24 hours. I'm hoping those prunes kick in very soon. J is upstairs walking him around while he screams for about the fifth time tonight. I feel bad for the little guy, but I just don't know what to do and I'm kind of at the end of my rope.

J submitted his big grant on July 1st, then we had two different sets of guests for a week, then we had "vacation" for a week. By the way, say a big "Hooray!" to J for getting his grant in. He worked very, very hard. He deserved a big break. I'm not sure that spending a week on an island with a 6 month-old and a two year old was the relaxation he needed, or I needed for that matter.

And the car rides. They were a real hoot. Nothing like driving with two children screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to find a place to stop. Daniel would just totally flip out when he got tired of riding in the car or when his brother would start crying.

Oops, gotta go. Baby's still screaming and I'm sure J needs a break.

Vacay update.

2005-07-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a bit of a wash. It pretty much rained all day, so we decided to take the ferry up to see the Hatteras lighthouse. It's a beautiful lighthouse and pretty incredible that they moved it inland by about 1/2 mile because the beach is eroding. We saw it ever so briefly from the comfort of our minivan as our two young offspring slept in their seats.

Daniel had about ten million tantrums yesterday. Schlepping around in the car is just not ideal for him. And he's got these honkin' (yes, that's a technical term) mosquito bites that are itching the crap out of him.

This morning J resolved to take D to the beach on his own and the sun was shining when we got up, er, I mean, when Daniel got us up, so they took off. Baby A had fallen back asleep and I had a few quiet minutes to myself before he awoke again.

When he did wake up, we head out to the local coffee shop just down the street to get some caffeine. Apparently everybody on the island gets their coffee there. It's pretty cool though. A and I hung out for a little bit while I drank my coffee and then headed out again when he started getting restless.

We walked around a bit stopping to peek into some of the shops that I hadn't had license to enter previously when I was with the whole gang. Daniel is obsessed with those whirligig wind ornament thingies that you put in your garden or hang from the eave of your house, so I got him a little one of those. What I really wanted to get him was the tractor one, but it was too much money.

We headed back to our motel after a while to find that this morning's trip to the beach was not too much better than the first. We tantrummed our way through the rest of the morning, had some lunch and the conked out for naps. Daniel slept for a really long time.

Anyway, tonight we all headed back to the beach. We had the BEST time. I hung out with Daniel and just let him do whatever he wanted to do (which was mostly play with the sand.) I carried him a lot because he seems to kind of be afraid of the water, but encouraged him to walk and run and play. He loves dogs and we saw a family with their dog there and he went nuts, practically chasing the dog into the water We even managed to get him to leave without too much fuss. (Of course, being promised ice cream always helps.) It was a really pleasant evening.

I'm kind of sad really that our vacation is ending tomorrow. Today, the island seeming to be filling up for the weekend and I found myself kind of jealous of the people who were just beginning their vacation as we are ending ours. It's been kind of rough but this is an awesome place. These are some of the things that I liked about it:

1. You can pretty much walk anywhere and everyone does. There are always people out walking and riding bikes. The streets are pretty narrow, so the cars drive slowly and carefully. What's the rush anyways?

2. You can walk to shops, restaurants, bars, the coffee shop, which means that if you have a babysitter, you could go out to dinner, have a few drinks and not even worry about who's driving home.

3. Everyone is so friendly and laid back. I didn't have enough cash for our dinner that I was picking up the other night and they would have let me take it for a little less than full price if I'd had that amount.

4. This place is kinda quirky and totally not pretentious.

5. The beach is beautiful.

6. Lots of fun little shops to poke around in.

7. Love the coffee shop.

8. Love our accommodations. Kind of simple, but then when I go on a vacation where we are eating out more, I don't enjoy myself as much because I'm worried about spending too much money.

I'm sure there is more, but it's time to say good night.

Current events.

2005-07-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know. I'm on vacation. I shouldn't be concerning myself with these things. But I am.

One of the President's closest advisers and the architect of W's whole outreach to the right-wing evangelical churches which ultimately lead to his election and reelection, Karl Rove, was apparently the one who leaked the identity of a CIA agent to members of the press because said agent's husband was making statements against the administration.

At the time it happened, the Pres said that whoever did it would be fired. Do you think Karl Rove will be fired? Only if we're lucky. Can't. Frickin. Believe. This. Crap.

Oh yeah, and Rehnquist has no plans to retire. Unrelated to the above topic, but noteworthy all the same.

Why didn't somebody warn us about taking a two year old and a 6 month old to the beach?!

2005-07-13T15:57:00.000-05:00

We had an unsuccessful trip to the beach to say the least.

We attempted it yesterday morning. Slathered everybody with sunscreen and packed up the car. Drove the couple of miles to the beach. It was easy to park.

We quickly realized that we would need a couple of trips to get all our crap onto the beach. I tucked baby A under my arm, gathered a couple of things and started walking. J grabbed D and a couple of bags and the beach umbrella and we all headed up the walkway over the dunes. D insisted on walking himself, but soon tired out.

When we got to the end of the walkway, J abandoned his bags in order to carry D. I trudged onward through the soft sand, scouting for a good spot down, way down near the water.

Half an hour or so after we left the car, we arrived at our spot. (j/k) It didn't really take that long. It just kind of felt that way. Once at our spot, we commenced try to get set up.

Spread out the beach blanket, the one that isn't quite heavy enough to not fly away in the wind. Try to spread it out again and throw our bags on the corners all at once. D begins to run from us into the water and J tries to get him leaving me to wrestle with the blanket with jumbo-baby under one arm.

J brings D back who comes with fistfuls of sand which he deposits in the middle of the partially nailed down blanket. Great. Baby A is almost instantly coated with sand which sticks to him because of the heretoforementioned slathering of sunscreen. I also think I hear baby A's fair skin beginning to sizzle under the sun and feverishly try to set up his little sun shelter. While also holding the beach blanket down as the wind continues to wrestle it away.

J is chasing Daniel again and when he comes back, I ask him to put up the beach umbrella. Hah. It stays put for two seconds before it is aloft over the beach, landing about 20 feet from where we were. Luckily, it didn't impale anyone. So, the umbrella is enlisted in the struggle to hold the blanket down.

A's sunshelter also does not wish to remain grounded, so I try to hold it down with my knee and quickly lay baby A in it. After about two minutes when it starts blowing down over him, he wants out.

Meanwhile, D keeps running down the beach before we know it and pitches fits when he's brought back. Not too good at sticking around is that boy. Ten minutes in and I've had enough. I can't just hold the baby because I don't want him in the direct sun, and if he's not in his shelter, I have to hold it down with my leg or whatever.

"That's it," I growl at J. I'm going back to the car. He follows with D. We take some stuff and abandon the rest for J to make a trip back once we've secured the children inside our vehicle.

Beach outing: aborted.

J will just take D by himself with minimal bags to carry.

Ugh. What were we thinking?

The beach is really nice here though.

Vacation expenses.

2005-07-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

Ferry ride to remote (sort of) island: $15.00

Sweet accommodations with full kitchen, screened porch, shady courtyard: about $85/night.

Wireless internet access at said accommodations: priceless. :D

Vacation Day One: Lessons Learned

2005-07-12T20:24:00.000-05:00

Two year olds don't like long car rides and will scream bloody murder to get out of their car seats until you stop.

Two year olds can only be distracted for so long on a car ride before you just. can't. distract. them anymore.

Two year olds don't like to eat when they travel, nor do they like to take naps. Not a good combination.

Two year olds don't always respond well to new environments (at least the first day) not matter how many familiar items/routines you have.

But . . .

we made it!

Yes, I have a large baby.

2005-07-10T21:42:00.000-05:00

We went to a party at a friend's lake house yesterday. It's tucked way away from anything on a small lake that has no public access and doesn't allow waterskis or jetskis. Our friends have a great little, rustic place with an awesome deck and screen porches, and a free-standing screened hut that is down closer to the water's edge. In this little hut is a TV, a sofa, and a nice view of the lake. We got to ride on their pontoon boat. D was interested, if a little scared. Andrew just napped in his baby (or maybe, toddler) size lifejacket.

Everyone was exclaiming over how big Andrew is. Yes, he's only six months. Yes, he's big for his age. Yes, he's long. Yes, he doesn't miss any meals. Yes, he likes to eat. Yes, he has buttery thighs. I beginning to wonder if they think it's cute that he's big or not. Well, we think he is. :) But I'm tired of trying to think of ways to respond. I'm pretty proud that he made it to 20 pounds at five months on bre*ast milk alone.

What would you say?

Vacay reading.

2005-07-10T21:28:00.000-05:00

Off to the beach tomorrow.

Packed a bunch of books (as if I'm going to have tons of free time. heh) --

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -- never read it before and figured I should.
Tuesdays with Morrie ditto
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table saw it at B&N and thought it looked good
White China I saw it at the library and it looked interesting.

Will also throw in a couple of crossword puzzle books and some Real*Simples.

I tend to take too much stuff. I also have a couple of personal finance books from the library that I could take along, plus that Stitch*&*Bitch I got for Christmas, some parenting books. So much to read, so little time.

I tend to go a little nuts when packing for a vacation. Maybe if I bring just the right books / CDs / toys / games / outfits, it will all go smoothly. Ack.

Is there something that you obsess about when you pack for vacation?

2005-07-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

Don't be fooled by the sweet smiles.

Damn, lazy-ass dads.

2005-07-08T19:33:00.000-05:00

J helps out a lot with the kids. Apart from the usual grumblings about who's turn is it to get up with a crying child or an early riser, we do alright. J changes diapers, feeds them, puts them down for naps or to bed at night, plays with them, disciplines the toddler and backs me up in discipling the toddler, and lets me escape for a few hours here and there. I have a great deal.

But when we have guests come and the father doesn't do much at all, then I think J starts to wonder if he does too much. Jim's sister and her family were here earlier in the week. They have two boys who are four and six and totally run wild. For the first few days, Daniel had a ball playing with them, but when they wouldn't stop trying to pick him up and pulling him around by his arm, he got kind of sick of it and spent the last day they were here not letting J out of his reach.

J's BIL is OK as a dad and does a fair amount with the boys, but sometimes, he just disappears. He'll vanish upstairs to take a nap and just leave the boys roaming the house. When he doesn't feel like disciplining them or watching them anymore, he'll just check out.

It'd be nice to be able to do that wouldn't it?

J and I spent the several days they were with us saying, "No." Over and over. Can I hold the baby? No. Can we watch Tom & Jerry? No. Can I get Daniel up from his nap? No. After a while, we didn't even try to be nice about it anymore. I ended up yelling at the oldest cousin on the last day they were here. I was looking for Daniel and Tim (the six year old) found him in some other part of the house. All of a sudden I heard Daniel crying and saying, "Noooooooooo." I went in the room where they were to find Tim dragging Daniel across the floor by his arm. Idiot.

Of course, his mom's response was, as she shook her head, he does the same thing to his brother. Well, here's a thought: maybe teach him not to do that. Maybe?

This family is really loud, too. They can't do anything quietly. at all. My family tends to be overly cautious about being loud, so I can't tell if my expectations are unreasonable or not. But I just kind of think that when your kids wake up at 6:00 a.m. and are running around the upstairs, that it would be more considerate to just take them downstairs than lay in your bed with the door open and let them come in and out talk to them. And maybe, you could ask them to at least try to be quiet when they are upstairs at night after others are already asleep. I know that kids will be kids and don't always do what they are told, but at least, make an effort.

Anyway, I'm feeling really ranty at the moment and I just want to get it off my chest so maybe I'll feel less wound up about things. We are going on vacation to the beach on Monday and I'm worried that it's going to be more stressful than not. Oh well.

Frickin' Firefox.

2005-07-03T22:21:00.000-05:00

It's crashing all the damn time. I'm almost tempted to switch to Internet*Explorer, but that would be a desperate move.

Maybe it's my virus protection software. Frickin' overkill. What's all this shit running in the background? Slowing down my surfing experience. Don't they know I have a teething baby and a cranky toddler and have to get my internet in short, but efficient bursts. Argh.

And anytime something goes wrong, the computer wants to send a report somewhere, to Microsoft, usually. More wasting of my precious time. Heh.

But on the good news front, Jana is back! Yippee!

Dear Baby Andrew:

2005-06-30T12:25:00.000-05:00

You are six months old! The time is going so fast. And you are getting so big. I was thinking this morning that your no. 3 diapers are kind of small on you. Trying to feed you in bed at night is a wrestling match.

Your smile continues to light up your whole face, including your eyes. And you smile so readily as soon as you see Momma or Dadda or even brother Daniel. Brother Daniel doesn't always pay as much attention to you as you do to him, but that may change soon.

You are a strong boy and can sit up for a little bit of time on your own. You will grab any toy or object that looks interesting and sort of in your reach. You love to manipulate toys such as rattles and your Fisher Price lights and music toy.

After a brief period where you didn't poop for eight days, Dadda realized that you were fussing because you were ready for some real food again. You are eating sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears and rice cereal. We've stopped making the rice cereal with formula because we think it might be irritating your stomach.

You've been kind of fussy lately and are also waking up a couple of time a night. Dadda tries to get you back to sleep without having to eat, but you aren't always very happy about that, so many times you end of eating anyway. We think you are teething because you are gnawing on everything that gets near you. You have a wooden rattle that you especially like to chew on. It's a rattle that Mamma bought in a book store in Martha's Vineyard for your cousin Henry. Henry out grew it and passed it along. We're glad he did!

Teething may be making you crabby, but it might also be stomach issues. We haven't quite figured it out yet.

You had your first bad virus this past month. I say "bad" because you were running a high fever and you had lots of snot and were having a hard time eating. Mamma and Dadda were a little worried. It finally subsided after a couple of days and you are pretty much back to normal. You still have a runny nose but we think that it might be because we need to change the filters in the return air vents. Because of said runny nose, Mommy's picking your nose all the time. We don't think you really like that.

You love taking a bath. Mommy usually gives it to you in the kitchen sink. You sit in the water and kick and kick and kick.

We still aren't sure what color your eyes are going to be. They are kind of a greenish-brown color, maybe a dark hazel? Who knows.

Bedtime horrors.

2005-06-29T20:22:00.000-05:00

Bedtime has become a nightmare around here. We are not sure what the deal is. Andrew wakes up about five minutes after he goes down. And he does this two or three times before he finally falls completely asleep. He does this for naps, too. I am so tired of rocking that child to sleep only to have him up and crying again several minutes later. It's either teething or something like reflux. I am so hoping that the pediatrician will have the secret decoder ring when we go for Andrew's 6 month check-up on Tuesday morning.

And Daniel. Daniel goes through his usual bedtime routine just fine. No protests. He gets in the crib. Door closes. Music on. Several minutes later, he starts crying and calling franticly, for J usually. It's like he gets almost to sleep and then something freaks him out. So J or I go back in and rock him a bit and talk to him. Then, back in the crib. Tonight, that was sufficient, but sometimes we have to do this a couple of times. He never used to be like this. Never. He was a piece of cake to put down for naps.

Ack. It's not like the rest of the night has been going smoothly either. A 20+ pound baby just doesn't need to be waking up twice a night to eat. Especially when he wasn't doing that a couple of months ago.

Observation.

2005-06-29T20:21:00.000-05:00

Just watching this Dancing with the Stars show. Joey McIntyre ain't really cutting it, is he?

Ridiculousness.

2005-06-28T22:00:00.000-05:00

This sht shouldn't happen here. . .

So, some idiots decided to burn three crosses in Durham a couple of weeks ago. After reading more about it lately, I realized that one of them was actually at the other end of our subdivision.

During the summer between my junior and senior year, I lived in the town where I went to college. The tiny town in rural North Carolina. It was known that the KKK was around that area. There was a bar up in the next town called the Korner Pub or something like that.

The summer that I lived there, I was dating a Ugandan exchange student (bet that was something that you didn't know about me.). I heard one day that there was going to be a Klan march through town. I remember being kind of scared. Like I thought the KKK was going to come and hunt down any people of color in town or something. I was afraid for Antony's safety. I went to warn him not to go near Main Street anytime that afternoon.

Honestly, I don't remember whether they came through or not. I think they did, but it wasn't a very big group and they were moving pretty quickly. I was disgusted and sickened by my brush with the KKK. How dare these people, these ignorant hateful people, be allowed to ride around spreading intimidation and fear.

When I heard about the cross burnings in Durham a few weeks ago, I thought, "What a stupid prank." In Durham, which is quite a bit larger than the tiny town where I went to college and much more progressive, did the KKK really think anybody would be intimidated by this? The KKK claims that they aren't responsible for them. Maybe just some stupid, misguided kids. We have a pretty vibrant gay community here in the Triangle, and some members think that the crosses were more directed at them. We also have many Hispanic people here and some think that the crosses were directed at them.

There was lots of public outcry and candlelight vigils held. Much of this outcry was expressed by the white liberal contingent of this area. It seemed a little over the top to me. Only because, I still figured it was some stupid prank and better handled by not paying attention to it, the same way that you ignore some idiotic person who's making ignorant comments, that everybody knows to be ignorant.

That's not to say at all that I think that problems of racism or any of the other -isms should be ignored and not talked about. And certainly, if this is more than an isolated incident and begins to escalate, then it should definitely not ignored.

I heard the author of a great book called Blood Done Sign My Name speak last Sunday. Actually, I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my list, and he was a riveting speaker. He tells the story of growing up in a small town in NC when a black man was murdered by a white guy in the community and the resulting trial in which the white guy was acquitted. Tim Tyson was a professor in Afro-American studies at the University of Madision, but is coming back to Duke University to work for a reconciliation center that they are setting up. He's got great insight into race relations in America.

OK, gotta go. Rescue Me is on.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

2005-06-28T19:04:00.000-05:00

"Deal with them abroad before they attack us at home . . . "

Wonder when they are going to tell him that Saddam didn't have anything to do with September 11th. Maybe they should do that before the U.S. spends lots of money and loses a bunch of troops. Oops.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm living in an alternate parallel universe. Maybe what he says makes sense in the other universe.

Do you think W has a speech impediment?

2005-06-28T19:02:00.000-05:00

". . . shpeshal forshesh. . " I always get the feeling that he has to practice his pronunciation before a speech. He gets this look on his face like he's so proud of himself when he utters a particularly long or difficult phrase.

Oh boy!

2005-06-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

The Pres is right down the road tonight. Oops, gotta go. He's gonna speak. Can't wait to hear what erudite things he's going to say.

Like our rattan chair?

2005-06-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

We have two of them. They belonged to my grandmother.

I always feel like somebody's watching me.

2005-06-25T22:03:00.000-05:00

Things I'm excited about.

2005-06-25T13:55:00.001-05:00

It doesn't take much really.

Rescue Me is back on.

These mean that I don't actually have to wash my face at night. Just wipe and go.

Cruise Gets Confrontational - Yahoo! News

2005-06-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

Cruise Gets Confrontational - Yahoo! News

Said it before and I'll say it again. Tool.

2005-06-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

The Grandma Barb Su*ze Beautification Project, however, was somewhat less successful. Like my new shirt?

Grandma Barb's Yard Beautification Project

2005-06-22T20:11:00.000-05:00

Cascading Geranium on the Porch
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

As I mentioned before, Grandma Barb was visiting with us for a few days. She planted some beds in our front yard. My attempts at beautifying our yard have been limited mostly to pruning bushes down to mere nubs and planting things that rabbits like to eat, so flowers are a nice addition.

This is the planting she did around the mailbox. The white-leaved plant (dusty miller) was something that survived from last year's landscaping efforts.

This is are Impatiens.

A lovely potted geranium by the garage.

Daniel received a lesson in watering the pretty flowers.

2005-06-21T21:02:00.000-05:00

Again, I love my mother-in-law very much. It's just been a long couple of days.

As I mentioned, she planted a couple of beds for us in our front yard. I was trying to get some stuff done inside the house (bills, bills, bills) while D was at Parent's Morning Out and also tend to A who was fussing. I had wanted to do some errands, but A was fussy and then fell asleep.

I'm so appreciative of what she was doing in the yard (will post some pics soon), but I didn't want to stay out there with her and keep her company while she worked. I had stuff I wanted to get done and wanted to make sure the baby was happy. I don't know if she was a little put-upon that she was doing all this work and I wasn't helping or out there with her.

This is a common theme with her actually. And I think it's more a conflict within herself. She wants to be helpful and do things for us, but in her zeal to be "helpful", she overdoes it to the point where maybe she gets a little resentful. We've all done that before, right? Where you just overextend yourself.

I get caught up with her in this every time. She says that she would "love" to put in some plants for us. "Love, love, love." She's the "master gardener," after all. And I don't dissuade her at all, because she seems so excited and seems to love gardening so much. She does like to garden, but she worked her butt off. Probably more than she bargained for.

But what can I do? You can't tell her to slow down or not do too much. I didn't know that she would require an audience when she did this for us. I should know this by now, though. The same thing happened last time she was here after Andrew was born. She came to help and did tons of cooking and cleaning. I don't know what she wanted from me (and yes, it's something from me, not her son), but I sensed resentment then, too. I think it's difficult to work hard when those around you aren't. At that time, I was still recovering from childbirth and lack of sleep and wasn't going to be doing much of anything whether she was there or not. And when she's getting a bit put-upon, she goes into overdrive. Which is totally aggravating. By the end of that visit, she was practically removing the clothes we were wearing at that very moment in order to wash them. She had washed every speck of cloth in the house, some several times.

It's like she has to prove she's the best grandmother when she's here -- the most helpful, the best advice-giver, the best houseguest. I just want her to be Barb, not the "best." We'd still love her and enjoy her company even if she didn't do half the stuff she does for us. Well, mostly. Heh. I'm kidding.

2005-06-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

Oh my gosh. I love my MIL. I really do. She's great with the boys. She cooks and cleans while she's here. Yes, it's true. She bought us Chinese take-out for dinner last night since it's impossible to take us out for a meal with the boys. She's an avid gardener and planted the bed by our mailbox and another bed in our front yard today, and she paid for half of the stuff to do it. She's awesome!

But, she's. driving. me. crazy. She gets so wound up about things. Something's not right with Andrew at the moment. Could be teeth, belly, butt, nose, ears, growth spurt. Who the f#ck knows? But he screamed for two hours last night right after we had put him to bed. It's pretty nerve-wracking for J and I, because, we don't really know what demon has possessed our baby. All we can do is rock him and walk him and give him baby Tylenol and feed him.

The MIL was all freaked out. "What's wrong with him?"

Then, today, he did the same thing for a couple of hours. She get really rattled because he was doing it part of the time I was gone to pick up D from parents morning out, so she was trying to soothe the screaming A. I took him when I got back and nursed him. He and I fell asleep. She went outside to do more gardening and I thought that would help her relax.

An hour or so later when I went outside to talk to her, she was still all wound up about his crying spell. She just keeps asking what I think is wrong. And I go down the list, but then she'll ask me again two seconds later. She can't stand not having the cause nailed down, having to exist in that space of not really knowing. I know she's probably worried, but argh. I'm worried too, but I don't want to have to hold her hand. I want someone to hold mine and tell me it's going to be OK.

She finally said tonight that she's determined that he's teething. That's what's troubling him. OK Barb, you've figured it out. Whew.

Organizationally challenged.

2005-06-20T19:39:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've added some to budget/personal finance-minded blogs to my blogroll. I'm on a kick to get our budget straightened out once and for all. No more overspending. And more prioritizing of where our money is going.

Organizing and prioritizing. Two things I so totally suck at. I so want to be a good organizer. I buy lots of containers and crates and baskets to put stuff in. If I just had the right containers, I'm sure everything would just fit perfectly. Right?

Well, getting back to the budget blogs, there are some really good ones out there, and I'm gleaning all the right info. If I just get all the right info, you know, I'll have the perfect budget and never go out of it again. Right? Right.

I knew that I had bookmarked some of these blogs the other night, but I couldn't remember where. Are they in Lek*tora, my RSS reader? No. Are they in My*Yahoo? No, not there. Are they in my bookmarks file? No, not there either. Where in the frickity-frack are they? Oh yeah, I blogrolled them. Duh.

That's right, folks. I have four places that I have saved bookmarks. Not very efficient. Not very organized. I want to be organized, but that would mean choosing one place above all others, another thing I'm bad at -- making a decision. Then, it would invovling transferring everything over, which would involve lots of "Should I save this one or not?" "You don't ever look at that." "But I might want to go back there sometime. I'll save it." Ten minutes later, "Tell me again why I saved that one." And then there's the categorizing that must be done. Should this go under mom stuff or nursing stuff or baby health stuff? Should this go under homemaking or decorating or crafts or budgeting? Another exercise in losing the forest for the trees.

I think I would have stuck with something like My*Yahoo for everything, but it bugged me that I couldn't put the blog list in the wide column as opposed to the narrow one. Idiots. Who are they to tell me how wide my blog-list column should or shouldn't be?

Lek*tora, I really like, but a bunch of the blogger, heh, I just typed "blooger", sites and others don't have feeds. Or else, I just haven't figured out how to get them yet.

So, while I could be figuring all this out, like an organized person would be doing right now, I'm writing about it. Much better.

I'm changing my name.

2005-06-18T23:15:00.000-05:00

My New nickname is Lieutenant Sneezey E. Stupidsen.
Take The Third Grade Insult Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Note to self: don't give cough suppressant to the toddler if we want him to sleep.

2005-06-16T20:54:00.000-05:00

The mini bub-bub is on the mend, thank goodness, after a nice trip to the kind pediatrician yesterday afternoon, a script for some nose-clearing stuff and another script for an antibiotic in case the fever didn't go away. One ear was still pink, but didn't look too bad. It seems there's some virus going around. He's mostly fever free today.

I keep thinking Daniel is coming down with it, as well. He's had a runny nose and when he lays down to sleep, he coughs and coughs, but he hasn't had the fever. This afternoon, he couldn't get to sleep for his nap, so I gave him some cough suppressant, the dextra-- one. Yeah, that one. Well, guess what? He didn't sleep. at all. Not because of the coughing though - the coughing went away, but Daniel was replaced by Cornholio (not sure I spelled that right, so don't hate me.)

We did all sorts of fun things this afternoon. We looked at cars and trucks and trucks and cars and cars and trucks and trucks and cars on the internet. We ran around the backyard naked (not me, just him -- wouldn't want to scare anyone.) We ran around in the Elmo sprinkler and then got totally doused when mom decided to clean off the dirty spider, cobwebs off the windows on the back of the house. Then, we dried off and went out front and pulled the wagon around, played with the dried grass clippings left on the lawnmower and other fun stuff. He was bouncing off the walls. But at least, he was in a good mood.

He peed twice in the backyard, sans diaper. The first time, I had my back to him and I heard him start saying, "Oh no! Penis!" Then, he said some more jibber jabber, the only part of which I could understand was something about, "Penis." Very funny. In case you are wondering, I'm hoping that letting him run around the backyard naked this summer is going to be my fail-safe potty-training method. Either that are the fastest way to get a nasty case of poison ivy. Eek.

2005-06-15T14:01:00.000-05:00

Congrats to Christi who welcomed baby Taryn into the world about 45 minutes ago!

frazzled.

2005-06-15T13:49:00.000-05:00

Baby A is still sick. He was up at 1:00 a.m. screaming. He went back down eventually after drugs and some milk. Then, his brother was up at 4:00 a.m. crying and yelling for "mama." I'm not sure what's going on with him. It's the second night in a row that he's gotten up around then. Last night, it was hard to get him back down and J ended up sleeping with him in the guest bedroom after both of us had tried to get him back down. Then, baby A woke up again at 6:00 a.m., feverish and crying. And Daniel woke up at about 6:30 whining. I was ready to put my ear plugs in, turn Baby Einstein on repeat play, and hook up a vodka IV at around 7:00 this morning.

It's now 3:00 and we are making it thanks to Baby Einstein, motrin & Tylenol. I'm taking baby A back to the pediatrician in a few minutes. I always worry about being one of those moms who takes their kid into the doctor for every little thing. I think Daniel is sick with the same thing, but since he's bigger and we've been through this with him before (and he doesn't seem to have the high fever), I just gave him some Tylen*ol cold medicine. But this is Baby A's first real illness and it's kind of scary when the little guys have a fever of 103.2. So, whatever.

I should probably wait one more day to take Andrew back in just to see if things clear up on their own, but it doesn't seem like he's getting any better, plus with two sick kids and lack of sleep, I'm not feeling very patient. It's funny how another part of your brain takes over when your kids are sick. I can tell myself all day long that baby A is fine, but when his fever goes up, any remnants of my rational self are out the window.

Ouch.

2005-06-15T05:49:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News Photo

a Walmart cookie?

2005-06-14T21:11:00.000-05:00

Wal*mart is evil. I'm sure of it.

The trial period on my anti-virus software ran out, so I had to update it.

I opted not to automatically accept cookies, although I'm wondering now if somebody *ahem* reset this because I'm not seeing any cookie requests since I've been on tonight.

Anyway, as I was surfing last night, I was notified that walma*rt.com wanted to send me a cookie. And I wasn't on any site that had a wal*mart ad or anything remotely like that.

Maybe it was because I was on the Sam's Club website a couple of weeks ago? I don't know.

Doesn't it kind of wig you out, though? It's bad enough that Microsoft appears to be monitoring every little thing we do on our computers. It wouldn't surprise me if Bill Gates and W*almart were in cahoots to take over the world. It's like Big Brother from 1984.

It bothers me that companies or whomever can monitor where I'm going and what I'm doing on my computer without me really being aware of what kind of info is being communicated and to whom.

So, no, I didn't go to the christening.

2005-06-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

As it turns out, Andrew was sick.

But I still did go to our church. And I'm glad I did.

It's really an important part of my week. I'm not an evangelical, "born-again" type Christian, but my faith runs deep.

I grew up going to church most Sundays with my parents, going to Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, singing in the choir. At home, though, we did not talk about religion at all or pray or say grace before meals. I don't think I've ever heard my mother say "God" or "Jesus".

If there was conversation about church, it was about how the minister was a jerk or some gripe about the service, how the sermon was too long or the organ piece wasn't very good.

I wouldn't say that I learned what it really means to be a Christian or to follow one's faith, whatever that may be.

Like most people, I didn't really go to church while in college. Sunday mornings were for sleeping off the previous night's excesses. Although, I did start going on my own during my last semester there.

Anyway, during the second half of my senior year of high school, I began having problems with anxiety, panic attacks and depression at times. I sought counseling off and on through college, but never really got anywhere.

After college, I was still struggling with issues of depression and anxiety and started looking for a good shrink to hopefully get to the root of whatever was going on, if possible. I saw somebody for a while, but wasn't getting anywhere and decided to switch.

At the same time, there was this dynamic, young, smart, amazing minister at my parents church where I had grown up, and J and I started going to the worship service. He ended up marrying J and I, in fact.

One day, I went to see a new pscyhiatrist. When she welcomed me into her office, I noticed that she was wearing a large wooden cross around her neck on a piece of yarn or or something. I was really taken aback. How often do you see doctors or professionals wearing a huge cross, making it pretty, darn clear what their religious views are. Especially shrinks, just by nature of their line of work. They don't want to risk offending any of their patients.

We hit it off, not because of her religious views, but just generally, and I stayed with her for a couple of years. But more importantly, I knew that that cross around her neck was about as clear of a sign as I could get that being back in the church and exploring my faith was exactly where I needed to be. I am not really a person who looks for signs or messages in things around me, but I couldn't really ignore that one.

Since then, I've tried to learn more about faith and becoming authentically involved in the life of a church. I have a long way to go and find that I really have a hunger for this knowledge. I love talking to people who know more about theology or the Bible than I do, so I can ask lots of questions. I have so many.

OK, so this is probably not where you thought this post was going at all, but I hope that it was a little enlightening.

Going to our church on Sunday is a very centering, grounding thing for me, and I need all the help I can get right now.

So that is why I'm glad that I went.

Katie Takes Up Scientology

2005-06-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

Katie Takes Up Scientology - Yahoo! News

What a big surprise! I never would have thought!

I saw the lovely duo on the MTV Movie awards today. What a freak show. Tom Cruise was trying to be all cool and hip in front of his MTV audience, many of whom were probably like "Who's that old guy? Is he somebody's dad?"

Guess what, Tom. You aren't cool or hip and you never were. You are a freak.

Why is it that if you are cute, have a nice smile and wear leather give you the benefit of the cool-doubt. He's hot, so he must be really down-to-earth and awesome. Um, nope, not in this case, at least.

OK, I'm just blathering on. I know. But still. What a jerk. Really.

2005-06-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

It will be really nice when the babes don't wake up crying in Daniel's case or screaming in Andrew's case. I think Daniel's just going through some phase where he wakes up kinda crabby.

Andrew, however, has a cold and probably a nascent ear infection. I took him in tonight to have him checked out. The doctor said his ears looked a little pink, but not too bad yet. We'll ride it out and see what happens. Poor little guy. You know something is hurting when he wakes up with a blood-curdling scream. The kind of scream that just rattles your bones. You feel like you've done something horribly wrong.

My baby's growing, growing, growing.

2005-06-11T22:18:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling a bit wistful lately.

Andrew is almost 6 months old. I can't believe it. He's growing so fast. He's bigger than my friend's 10 month old.

He's trying to sit up. He'll grab anything near him. He's starting to try to pull his knees up under him in preparation for crawling.

He's starting to be a restless nurser, more interested in whatever else is going on around him, especially if his brother is being entertaining. It's like a wrestling match.

We're pretty sure he's teething. I'll miss that toothy grin.

We've started him on solids. The feeding thing becomes a bit more complicated then and less intimate.

Slow down, my sweet boy, slow down.

2005-06-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

My DH told me that I've been bitching too much about being a mom, that it "gets old." He's probably right, but whatever.

He should try having a baby attached to his boob every couple of hours, especially one that is ostensibly teething and prefers the boob as his teething toy. And then he could also have a two year old climbing on him all. the. damn. time and constantly pointing out cars and trucks and trucks and cars and trucks and cars and cars and cars and trucks. Plus, the bony elbows in the aforementioned boobs.

There I go, bitching again.

I can't really complain about the amount of help DH gives with the bambinos. He's really good and he knows what's up. It's a good thing, too, because I would truly be in an asylum if I had to do all of it on my own. But here's the thing. DH runs sprints, not marathons. Sprints to his nice, cool, ant-free office where he can complete a thought, sit down and eat lunch and not get up until he's done, talk on the phone without a two-year-old screaming in the background, and more. But then of course, he has to manage/coddle/placate the eccentric personalities in his lab, endure the torturous grant-writing process, agonize over getting funding. No shortage of stress, for sure.

But, then, I bet he doesn't have a little entropy machine, going behind him, undoing or messing up whatever he has just done. And I bet he gets to go to the bathroom when he wants and for as long as he wants, and . . .

Oops, there I go again. OK,OK, maybe a little less bitching. Maybe. Just a little less.

I'm not a very good friend, I think.

2005-06-11T18:11:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine's daughter is getting christened tomorrow at their church during the Mass. It's a 10:00 service and normally, I'd be at Sunday School class and then the service at my church. I totally don't want to go.

Andrew's been superfussy, like screaming every so often, today. I'm thinking about not going and using that as my excuse. We think he's teething, but he may also have a cold.

Is that lame? Not to go?

I'm having a tizzy.

2005-06-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I'm just so sick of things, I could scream.

I'm sick of never being able to have a frickin' minute to myself.

I'm totally sick of never being able to finish whatever I'm working on.

I'm sick of the frickin' ants in our house. I'm sick of finding them on me.

I'm sick of our stupid kitchen, with its stupid moldy, caulk around the sink and the huge gap where the counter is coming away from the wall and the stupid faucet that gushes water out the back every time you turn it on and the stupid chipped ceramic (or whatever) sink that's too small and constantly gets food bits caked on the sides.

I'm sick of empyting the dishwasher, only to fill it back up again with more sippy cups and plates and cups caked with crap and chewed up, spit-out food.

I'm sick of our stupid garbage disposal which scares the living dead when you run it and backs up the sink in the blink of an eye.

If I could just board up the kitchen, that would be nice. No crap to clean. We'll just eat PowerBars and drink water or something. Do ants like Power*Bars? I'll get a big plastic ant-proof container to keep them in. Oh, and we'll keep the coffeemaker out, too.

Dammit, I'm so frickin' fed up at the moment. And guess what? My babysitter for tomorrow cancelled. Over e-mail. Like 20 minutes ago. Yeah. Great.

And there's a huge pile of white clothes on the couch that need to be folded. I hate folding whites. I don't see those getting folded tonight or maybe not even tomorrow.

Cooperation.

2005-06-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

Ta-da.
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

I've been trying to get Daniel to play with blocks for several months now, mostly because I like building stuff with blocks. He really hasn't been interested, but I noticed him watching one of his little buddies building a block tower yesterday. I pulled them out today and said that we could build a tower together. I've also been trying to introduce the oh-so-foreign concepts of "sharing" and "taking turns." He's mostly been interested in the concepts of "mine" and "no."

But anyway, taking turns (sort of), we built this tower. I was thrilled because maybe he's into building stuff now and because it's the first thing that we've kind of done together. Pretty cool.

Of course, he then went and knocked it down. But that's OK.

Pretty fly for a white guy.

2005-06-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

Pretty fly for a white guy.
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

His Royal Chubby Cheeks.

I have a confession.

2005-06-03T20:33:00.000-05:00

This is more a confession to my dear spouse than to the internet. But you guys are free to listen.

I want an RV.

Yes, it's true.

Not now, obviously. I'd settle for a pop-up camper when the boys are a little older. I grew up camping with my parents in a pop-up. Loved it.

We camped a lot when we lived in New England, a great area of the country for camping. Loved it. Mostly. It was my first experience with tent camping and that took some getting used to. We joined the inflatable mattress crowd pretty quick. Can't say that I'm a big fan of pit toilets, either. So needless to say, I'm not a hard-core camper-type. I like a comfortable bed and a bathhouse with hot showers and flush toilets close by.

But, when we're old and retired, or maybe even before then, I'd love to toodle around the country in a motorhome.

I don't want one of those supersized luxury RVs that has rooms and canopies that shoot out and dwarf everything close by. Just maybe a medium-sized one that would be comfy enough for us and maybe a couple of grandkids. And my little toy poodle, Chi-Chi. Ha-ha. Just kidding. Gotcha there. No toy poodle.

Imagine all the stuff we could see. All the people we'd meet. We could go wherever/whenever we want.

Yes, I'm serious.

Next summer's vacation.

2005-05-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

Ocracoke this year. Here next year. A whole island to yourself.

Charter post of the Tom-Cruise-is-a-tool-webring.

2005-05-29T21:39:00.000-05:00

I never really liked Tom Cruise [edited not to be kind-of-over-the-top bitchy]:). Too cocky for me and not a very good actor either. Always seems to be overcompensating for something. Maybe something is a little smaller than he'd like. Besides his stature, I mean.

Anyway, most of you have probably heard about his ridiculous comments in his Billy Bush interview last week. I know stupid people exist in this world, and I know that stupid people have a myriad of opinions on a wide variety of topics. And I would not argue for one second that they are not entitled to express them. But it takes an incredible amount of stupidity, plus a generous scoop of arrogance, ignorance and tactlessness, to air your opinions on national television by criticizing somebody who's life experiences and choices have absolutely no bearing on you whatsoever and expounding on topics you know absolutely nothing about. Talking out your ass, I think they call it. Your tiny little flat white midget-man, dating-someone-half-your-age-who-probably-is-more-into-the-idea-of-
Tom-Cruise-being-interested-in-her-than-the-reality-of-it-after-all-
she-did-just-break-up-with-someone-else-someone-who-is-taller-and-younger
-than-you-and-isn't-a-Scientology-freak-(I-think), toolish ass. [My apologies to any Scientologists who are reading this. I really have nothing against Scientology per se. Just against Tom Cruise.]

So, that's my little rant against Tom-the-Tool. I was hoping that maybe others more artful than myself in humorously and entertainingly (yeah I know, it's not a word, but you know what I mean)tarring and feathering the abominably stupid among us, might hold forth on this topic so I could just link to them and say, "yeah that." But maybe it's just not worth anyone else's breath.

Tool.

Happy 5 months, Baby Andrew!

2005-05-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

You are five months old today. What a sweet joy you are! The time has gone by so quickly. You are a chubby little guy and are also very long. You like to smile a lot, especially when people talk to you. You charm everyone with your grins and happy disposition.

You like to eat and get very mad when you can’t eat when you want to, but once your belly is fully, you are happy again. When you are hungry, you will grab anything near you and pull it quite forcibly towards your mouth. Attack baby, we call you.

You’ve started making a few new noises over the last week. I swear one sound is “ma-ma”, but although it might be music to my ears, it’s just another interesting thing you can do with your voice to you.

You started rolling over from your back to your front a lot over the last couple of weeks. You tend to get stuck on your belly though, and after lifting yourself up and looking around for a couple minutes, get quickly bored and start squawking for someone to roll you back over or pick you up or otherwise pay attention to you.

You’ve gotten good at reaching out for things that are held in front of you. You are strong and can muster a pretty good whack at mommy’s head with your mini-python arms.

Lately, you like to lay on your back or side and hold your hands in front of your face, turning them and watching them, occasionally talking to you them.

You love to watch your big brother and all his antics. He can make you giggle by pretending to sneeze over and over. I think you are going to be crawling after him sooner than we know it.

You giggle when mommy or daddy kiss your belly or nuzzle your armpits. Kisses on your chubby cheeks are a cause for big grins, too.

We started you on rice cereal. Or I should say, you’ve tried it a couple of times. The second time, you seemed to be getting more of a handle on this eating thing. We’re not worried.

Most nights, you end up sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed for at least some part of the night. Your favorite way to go to sleep is with your forehead tucked up against something – mommy, a pillow, whatever’s close by.

You like to touch things -- our faces, mommy's hair, blankets, the carpet, whatever.

We call you Baby Andrew. For your sake, I hope this is something that we can drop easily when you are no longer a baby. If people are calling you "Baby Andrew" when you are 35, you can blame us. :)

We look forward to watching you and your brother continue discovering and exploring your world.

Vacationing.

2005-05-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

We are going on a real vacation this summer. Well, as real as it can be with a bambino and a 2-year-old. Heh. This is our first vacation since 2002 when we went to England/Wales/Scotland (mostly Scotland), oh yeah, and Iceland. That was back when we had two incomes and flights were cheap out of Boston.

So, where are you going, you ask. Well, we are going to the beach that was recently ranked as the 2nd Top Beach in the U.S. by Dr. Beach. (Don't ask me who he is, because I have no idea, but what great taste in beaches he has. . ) Is it in Hawaii, you ask? Nope. Is it in California, you ask? Nope. Is it in Florida? Well, the No. 1 beach is, but this one is in NC. We're going to a remote island called Ocracoke at the tip of the Outer Banks. It's accessible only by ferry, but has a busy little village. I like having stuff to do and see -- a little history / a little artsy culture / good restaurants, while J prefers being away from people. Cape Cod in April was great for him, but too devoid of people for me. Now that I think about it though, he likes B&Bs. I don't. I don't really like having people wait on me, plus one thing I like about staying somewhere like a hotel, is that I can not hang my towels up or not make the bed or leave my dirty clothes in a pile on the floor and not feel guilty about it. Somehow, it feels awkward that the same people who know that I throw my dirty underwear on the floor or who change our sheets or who observe that my other half doesn't always have the best . . um . . aim, would be preparing and serving my food as well. Wouldn't want to risk pissing them off by not being perfect houseguests. Trying to be a perfect houseguest is notrelaxing. Vacation is being allowed to let my inner slob rule.

Anyhoo, my inner slob will be taking up residence at a lovely retro-ish motel with rooms that have small kitchens and private adjoining screen porches.

Crying while eating.

2005-05-28T20:38:00.000-05:00

This is oddly funny. I'm not sure why, though.

toddler TV watching

2005-05-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

Just wondering what people think about kids watching TV. . .

Daniel watches an hour plus in the morning, maybe a half an hour around lunch and then maybe another hour plus in the late afternoon evening. The shows he's currently into are The DoodleBops (ack), sometimes the Wiggles, sometimes JoJo's Circus, Blues Clues, sometimes Sesame Street or a Sesame Street DVD, a Baby Einstein DVD, sometimes Between the Lions. So, that's what his daily TV watching amounts to.

Is that a lot? How much do your kids watch? I have a good friend who doesn't let her daughter watch TV at all. She's not preachy about it and hardly mentions it, but I'm always comparing Daniel to her daughter and attributing his "spazziness", for lack of a better word, to his TV watching. I'm always feeling guilty about turning the TV on.

Yet, I need these breaks throughout the day.

I think I need more friends who let their kids watch TV.

2005-05-25T20:39:00.000-05:00

This has been going around, but I came across it again most recently Chez Cranky Mommy and decided I needed to know what my world view is. I don't know about the Creative part, or the cultural either, for that matter. Hmm.

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the
newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to
shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something
greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not
religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

94%

Postmodernist

63%

Romanticist

44%

Idealist

38%

Existentialist

38%

Modernist

25%

Fundamentalist

13%

Materialist

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

2005-05-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

Driving.

2005-05-25T20:30:00.001-05:00

Daniel's dream come true. A truck! In our front yard!!

2005-05-25T20:30:00.000-05:00

An important conversation.

2005-05-25T20:27:00.000-05:00

Wheelbarrow racing.

2005-05-25T20:26:00.000-05:00

Matching wheelbarrows!

2005-05-24T20:39:00.000-05:00

My parents are watching the TVGuide Channel. Seriously. Help me.

finally getting to it. . . .

2005-05-23T20:29:00.000-05:00

tagged by the lovely Mel

1. Total volume of music files on my computer: None on my laptop.

2. The last CD I bought was: Garden State Soundtrack

3. Song playing right now: Kraft Buttermilk dressing jingle.

4. Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me:

(you mean besides, "Big Red Car" and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?)

- "So Lonely" probably my favorite old Police song; love to sing it loudly in the car.
- "Unforgettable" by Natalie Cole; our song for the first dance of our wedding
- "Let Go" by Frou Frou from Garden State Soundtrack
- "New Sensation" by INXS -- oh those high school memories.
- "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc -- oh those college memories.

Which 5 people are you passing this baton to, and why?

First sign that my parents were home from their shopping trip . . .

2005-05-23T20:16:00.000-05:00

a loud fart as the front door opened, heard by me as I sat on the couch in the den at the back of the house.

2005-05-23T19:37:00.000-05:00

My parents are watching Laugh-*In.

Uncomfortable.

2005-05-23T19:33:00.000-05:00

Watching a Cial*is commercial while sitting next to my father on a chair-and-a-half.

Power struggle.

2005-05-22T20:16:00.000-05:00

As I'm getting some ice cream out of the freezer, my mother says to me from her seat across the room on the couch where she's watching TV, "You know what's good on vanilla ice cream?"

I hate these questions. "What?"

"Peanuts."

Peanuts? Peanuts? Not that I object to anybody putting peanuts on their ice cream. But our son, her grandson, has a peanut allergy, so we (sadly)don't eat peanuts around here. I don't get it. I just don't get it.

"What's your point?" I replied. "Do you like reminding us that Daniel has a peanut allergy?"

"I'm just making a comment," she says.

Then, I figured that she was suggesting having peanuts on my ice cream, in fact, because she wanted peanuts on her vanilla ice cream, which she eats every night at 9:20 p.m. She has a bad habit of expressing what she wants by suggesting that you should want it. If I said to her, "But I don't like peanuts on my ice cream." She'd say, "Oh. Why not?" As if it was unheard of that I or my dad or whomever might not enjoy the same thing that she does.

Or she'll use something going on in our life to complain about hers. Like this morning. We go to church on Sundays. We like our church. We enjoy going. Hey, we get a couple of free, child-free hours. Heh. Anyway, my parents go to church, but she's always bitching about theirs. Always, always, always bitching about theirs. It's not so much that she's complaining, really, it's how she does it. It's with a kind of scorn and bitterness that come from somewhere deep down in the core of her soul. Ranting about something, anything is really about her only form of communication. How sad this really is, is not lost on me either. But what can I do?

Anyway, this morning first thing, she picks up our church newsletter and after reading it for a couple of minutes, exclaims, "Ugh! It's Youth Sunday." Her voice full of disgust. Disgust.

Now, we didn't get much sleep last night and what we did get, was pierced by the frantic calls of a frightened 2-year-old. Not sure what was going on with him, except that maybe he was having bad dreams, possibly having to do with the fact that last time Granny & PopPop put him to bed without Mommy & Daddy (DH & I went out on a "date" last night and Granny & PopPop babysat), his whole world turned upside down. Mommy didn't come home for a few days and when she did, she had this baby that ate up lots of her attention and was always on her lap. And she was even more cranky. (Plus, we think he might have a sinus infection.)

So, after a very rough night, the last thing I wanted to hear was my mother bitching about going to church, etc. as I'm trying to get breakfast ready for everybody with a hungry, muddled, sleep-deprived brain. If you don't want to go, don't go, but keep your fuckin' vitriolic spews to yourself. Grrr. Well, as it turns out, she just wanted yet another opportunity to bitch about the Youth Sunday at their church which took place last week and how awful it was and how it used to be so much better.

But, get this, they had no intention of going to church with us anyway, even if it wasn't Youth Sunday. They didn't bring clothes for it. So, why does she even give a shit about what's going on at our church?! She was scanning the newsletter looking for evidence of the things she hates about her church so that she could rant about them. Make sense? Probably not. Welcome to my world.

So, back to the peanuts in the ice cream story. . .
She just fixed herself a bowl of ice cream a few minutes ago. Guess what she added to it? Yep, peanuts. They brought their own jar from home. I knew they brought their own, even though I told them that we didn't want people to eat peanuts around Daniel in our own house. Daniel isn't supersensitive to peanuts, so I'm not superstrict about what people eat around him, but since it's their grandson, I guess I figured that out of respect and concern, they wouldn't eat them / bring them, etc. and certainly, wouldn't go around extolling the yumminess of peanuts on vanilla ice cream.

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing how passive-aggressive this really is and kind of shocked that there are not some topics that are offlimits when it comes to this age-old war of the wills that we've had going on. Don't get me wrong, though -- I don't think she even realizes what she's doing or how it's coming across.

She just wanted peanuts on her ice cream.

*sigh*