Nothing Right

Yesterday was one of those days where Mommy couldn’t get anything quite right. After work I went strait to La Petit to get Laine, I felt like I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. I pull into the parking lot and Laine is sitting near the window being read to, I was going to sneak past so she wouldn’t see me and start crying before I could get to her but it’s like she has a Mommy Radar that lets her know when I’m in proximity because she did this awfully weird head turn and then did her laugh cry scream maMaMA thing that she does. So I hurried into the office only to remember that I’d left my debit card in the car so I ran back and she saw me again and looked so betrayed, like I was leaving without her and I could hear her crying through the glass. It was pitiful. I raced back in and paid my bill for the week but it seemed to take forever, I could hear her in the office crying, when I got back to her room finally her face was so read and she ran at me with her arms up and I thought I was going to get one of her sweet big hugs but at the last few steps she stopped and just looked at me crying, like “Maybe you don’t deserve a hug, Mommy”. It was horrible. I picked her up and tried to soothe her and we went outside to the car, but then she wouldn’t let go of me so I could put her in the car seat. I had to stand in the parking lot rubbing her back and shushing her until we were both sweating before finally she let me buckle her in. She cried in the car on the way home because somehow the sun was in her eyes the whole way. The WHOLE WAY! It’s like she had her own little sun following her like the rain clouds in cartoons. We got home and I got her out and took her right upstairs. I asked her if she wanted to take a bath and she nodded her head really hard, I guess that’s a big yes and she ran to the bathroom and tried to crawl into the tub. She started crying again when I made her come back out of the bathroom to get undressed. Finally she gets into the bath and is the happiest I’d seen her all day. She’s playing and counting to three and throwing water around then she starts saying “up, up, up” at me like I need to get in with her and I need a shower anyway so I do. I get in there but I don’t want to make her mad by turning the shower on so I stick my head under the faucet to get my hair wet, which kind of pins her to the side of the tub for a bit and she gets a little agitated, so I step back and let her have the water again. She starts sticking her face into the water stream then backing out and laughing at me then doing it again, like she’s getting herself wet like I do. She seemed very proud of herself. When I was done with my bath I got back out and let her have the tub to herself for a while longer. She started stomping in the water and almost slipped a few times so I turned the water off and let her play until it all drained out and it looked like she might be getting cold. She didn’t want to get out and I was back to being the bad guy again. I got her onto the bed and it took a while to explain to her that I needed to put her diaper and pants on before I could put her shoes on. I think she understood me because this morning she handed me her shorts and then her shoes. She’s a smart kid. After she was dressed I was toweling off my hair when I see her opening my bedroom door (it doesn’t latch, we just found this out since we hardly ever close our door) and running into the hallway towards the stairs. Laine knows she’s not allowed on the stairs alone but she ran strait for them and got down one step and looked through the bars at me with the “look what I did” face and I was only a step or two behind her saying No No! the whole way so when I got to her I snatched her up and popped her bottom twice pointed to the stairs, said No No! again and set her back inside my bedroom door, closed the door and said No No! again. She started crying then, not when I popped her but when I shut her away from the hallway. Like her feelings were hurt, not that her bottom hurt. This made me want to cry because I wanted the pop to hurt, not her feelings. I sat on the couch and let her cry for a few minutes, she wailed and kicked her feet and gave me looks like I wasn’t invited to her birthday party then got up and pointed at the door and started sniffling. When I felt I was opening the door because it was time to go downstairs, not because she demanded it, we went to the top of the stairs. I said “Hold my hand” and held my hand out to her and you would have thought I’d popped her again. She folded her hands into her blanked and backed away crying, the way she does when she wants to do something herself. I know she can go down the stairs just fine on her own and when I’m right beside her I’ll let her go without holding my hand, but not when she’s upset, she gets a little clumsy when her vision is blurry. So eventually I had to pick her up and carry her down the stairs at which point she went right back to them and tried to crawl up them again. I popped her once on the bottom, not hard this time just kind of a reminder and it worked, she stayed away from them for the rest of the night. I went into the laundry room and got myself dressing in some comfy pajamas and asked Laine if she wanted to go see Nana. She nodded at me and smiled big and I felt a little better, like finally I can do something to make her happy. After that she started following me around, basically with her head in my butt. I was having to be careful walking because my feet would hit her when I took a step, and when I was packing up my stuff I put Mom’s dress and Damone’s bra that I’d borrowed for the funeral on a hanger together and then put my camera on there too, so maybe I wouldn’t have to bring a bag with me. I turned around to head for the door and said “Come on Laine” since my hands were full I needed her to walk to the car, but in turning around the camera swung on the hanger and knocked her clean on the head, and that’s when she really started crying. She kept swiping at her head because I’m sure she didn’t know what else to do, it had to hurt; it hurt just hearing the thunk on her noggin. I tried to pick her up and carry her to the car but my hands were still really full so I ended up picking her up in the most awkward position possible. But in true baby fashion she snuggled into me and was sucking her thumb with her eyes closed by the time I got to the car, but I couldn’t let her stay comfortable now could I? I had to get the car door open and put all the stuff in the front seat and get her into her chair. I made a game out of saying “sit in the chair” with her so she’d want to sit in her chair. And she eventually did, so we were finally on our way to Nana’s house. Once we got to Nana’s house we set Mom’s dress on her bed and Damone’s bra on her bed then we went into the play room to find them putting together a puzzle. Laine wanted my mom right away and was really happy just sitting with her playing and reading a book.

Laine was hungry so we made her a plate of vegetables from the soup mom had made. I’m not sure if she bit her tongue or if it was spicy but all of a sudden she started crying again. It wasn’t that bad of a cry, just one that made it seems like she was hurting somewhere. I tried holding her and mom tried holding her and finally we made her a bottle and she was fine. She ate the rest of her diner and was happy the remainder of our visit. Just about twenty minutes before we were going to leave mom’s house Laine got into a really happy playful mood. My dad had already gone to bed and his door was still open and I would have liked to have been quiet for him but I’m sure he’ll understand. Laine was happy; I wouldn’t have cared if it did bother him. I just wanted to make her laugh and scream and run around and be happy. I’m so glad our night ended well. She fell asleep in the car after I drove around the neighborhood for about ten minutes and she slept the rest of the night.

This morning she was happy still and wonderfully beautiful and I find I still think she’s the best kid in the whole world ever.

Father's Day Weekend Update

Friday I got off work a little early so I went and got my nails did. Every other time I’ve ever gone to get my nails done I first call and asked Erik what color he’d like me to get. Almost every single time his first pick is pink, and since I’m not a pink on my toes kinda gal I’ll usually ask him if he’s sure a couple of times until he changes it to red. So this time after I completely forgot to call Erik and it was time to paint, I saw that I had just picked out a dark red, but I thought “you know, Erik usually picks pink first so I’ll just do pink for him”. As I was driving home I called him and asked him “If I had called him what color would he have chosen?” I was fully expecting him to say pink so I could go “Ah Ha! I knew it that’s what I got”. Instead I got “I don’t know red”. And I went “Nuh uh! I got pink!” Wah wah! It may not seem like a big deal to you or even to Erik but to me I felt like I’d just ruined the half hour massage I’d gotten. I know Erik doesn’t care what color my toes are painted but in my mind I do it for him so I like for him to at least pick the color. When he picked something other than what I had gotten, I felt like I’d wasted the $30. Yes, Erik had been the one to tell me to go and get it done so that I could take some time for myself to do something just for myself and that’s what I did, it’s just a little less enjoyable when I think that I didn’t get his color choice, even when I manipulate the color choice out of him anyway. Whatever. I’m dumb. Saturday we made plans to hang out with our people for the whole day. We were going to their house to watch one soccer game at 9:00 then we would all trek over to the Rosendahl’s to watch another game then go swimming afterwards. So we wake up at 7:00. Hang on; first let me tell you about the night before. Laine didn’t let me sleep. She slept just fine but every time I’d try to pick her up to put her down she’d start crying so I’d try holding her until she fell asleep but then she’d wake up as I tried to lay her down and start crying, so I tried keeping her in the crib and rubbing her back until she fell asleep then as soon as I’d get one foot out the door she started crying so I laid down on the floor and listened to her breathing until I though for sure she was out but when I stood up again she started crying. So I started crying. Which woke Erik up, so he got up and got dressed and took Laine for a car ride, they came back a very short time later with her knocked out. I went to bed around 4:30 and now we are back to waking up at 7:00. I told you all of this so that you’ll understand me when I tell you that in the course of our morning lying in bed as Laine pranced around us, laughing and hollering and screaming and being cute that when one side of her diaper came un-Velcro'd I just laid there not really caring. She didn’t care so why should I? She eventually worked the whole diaper off her and brought it over to me, I grabbed it and found that it was a loaded diaper. A hugely loaded diaper. Nothing got on the floor or on me but when Erik jumped up to check if any had gotten on Laine he found the one spot it had gotten on her and it transferred onto him. We all jumped in the shower really quick and got it all cleaned off, but I really couldn’t have cared. I was dead tired and it wasn’t even funny but I had to laugh at it. What a day it was already starting out to be.
Erik offered to let me sleep in and come back to pick me up after the first soccer game but of course I wasn’t going to miss hanging out with my person just because I was tired. If anyone can accept me in my grouchiest mood it’s my person. If anyone can relate to being up all night with a toddler it’s my person. So no, I’m not going to miss out on a chance to hang with her because I might be a little tired. And I’m glad because the whole day was wonderful. Swimming was so much fun and just being able to see Laine interacting with other children was fun. We went out to dinner at Jake’s afterwards and I was really impressed with all three girls. Each was distracted on their own and not once did we have a moment where strangers were staring. That’s a wonderful thing.
Sunday we woke up early and Laine and I brought Erik his Father’s Day gift in bed. I think if I had waited until he was more awake he would have been more excited about it, but overall I think he liked it. We got ready for church and were on the road so early that we were able to stop for breakfast and still get to church on time. After church we met Mom and Dad and Damone at Red River for some amazing BBQ, then we headed to Mom and Dad’s to hang out and open Father’s Day gifts and Mom’s birthday gift from the boys. Before we knew it the day was half gone and it was past 2:00 and we needed to head over to Erik’s parents for Father’s Day dinner. BBQ again but different kinds so I didn’t feel like we were eating leftovers. Alicia made ribs that were surprisingly good.
Laine decided to stay awake the entire day she didn’t go down for her first nap until 6:30. We left when she woke up at 8:30 and she passed out in the car and stayed out all night. I’m not sure what time she woke up this morning but she was playing quietly in her crib when I went in to wake her up. I’m so grateful that she can do that.
I dropped her off at Daycare early this morning so that I could swing by HEB for my breakfast for the week and I caught the bakery as they were putting out their breads for the day. Fresh bagels are the best.

Jasper, TX

Yesterday was the funeral for my Grandma’s sister. I thought it was just going to be my dad, me and Laine going but last minute efforts made it so that Erik could come to. And what a blessing that was. It would have been impossible for me to give the proper amount of respect to my family and watch over and keep Laine quiet during the services. She was really well behaved though that isn’t much of a surprise is it? She’s such a quiet well behaved kid normally that I’m not surprised at all that she was for the most part quiet and well behaved for the funeral. I’m also not surprised that after a few hours of sitting quietly she finally started acting like a baby. She hollered twice during the service and Erik just got up with her so I could stay. There was only one prayer a song and a little speaking until it was finished so she almost made it through the whole thing being quiet, as it was she was the most well behaved child there by far. There were a few other kids that were all good, but Laine was the best. Yes, my chest is puffed right now. I think I’ve come to take for granted the fact that Laine is a quiet child. I don’t normally notice that she doesn’t make that much noise. When she plays it’s the toys that make noise not her. When she talks it’s not so much a conversation she’s starting but more a statement she’s making. Of course she has her moments of running through the house screaming but that’s almost always after Erik or I instigate it. We do the “I’m coming to get you” thing and make the monster noises and she runs and screams and laughs, then she’ll stop and wait for me to advance on her again so that she can run again, but if I don’t advance she stops too, and she moves on to something else. When we got home after the trip Laine stayed up until after 11:30 since she’d done so much sleeping in the car, but she was quiet the whole time. My epiphany came when she laughed after she head butted me while we were watching TV. Her laugh was cacophonous. I’d had the TV turned down pretty low since there was no noise it was competing with and all the lights were out to try to get Laine to sleep, and when that laugh rang out it was like church bells, so loud. I swear I jumped. I’ve just never noticed before how quiet Laine can be.
After the funeral we headed over to Grandmas for a little bit to visit and eat some cookies that Nikki had made. My Grandfather called me while we were there to thank me for the chocolate cake I made for him that my Mom brought to him. I never made him a chocolate cake but I said your welcome anyway. I think he might have been talking about the brownies but I didn’t see any reason to correct him. Laine ate a cheese sandwich and played with Grandma for a bit then we had to head back out. Finally we got home around 8:00 and since Laine had been asleep for so many hours in the car she stayed up late, but once she did go to sleep she stayed down until I woke her up this morning. I really do have a great kid.

Chewing On It

Tomorrow I’m going to Jasper, Texas for a funeral for one of my dad’s aunts. It’ll be the first time since Laine’s birthday since I’ve seen my grandma. I’ve missed her a lot and I’m looking forward to her seeing Laine again. I really should make it over to Beaumont more than I do. Yeah, it’s hard traveling with a toddler but that’s really not an excuse. My grandfather lives just down the road from me basically and it’s been forever since I’ve seen him. I just don’t know what to do with him. I don’t’ know how to talk to him and I know it doesn’t matter what I talk to him about just that I see him and that I get Laine to get to know him and I’m not sure exactly why I don’t go, I just don’t. I guess the same thing would go for my grandma too except I do know what to talk to her about, I can talk to her about anything. She likes the same TV shows I do and some of the same music. I can talk to her about movies and when I was younger I was able to talk to her boys and bad habits and any little thing really. So again, I don’t know why I don’t just go.
I’m too busy or I work too late or I have too much to do at the house or I have too many plans elsewhere or I’d just like an afternoon to myself. The excuses are endless and many but that’s all they are, excuses. Yes, I feel bad, I feel guilty. Maybe getting it all out online will make me change that, knowing other people know that I’m a bad granddaughter. Maybe it won’t who knows.

Crying Babies

We are starting todays blog with a cute picture that has nothing to do with my blog topic.

Laine woke up last night around 11:45. You would think that since Laine sleeps all night long that when she does wake up it would be easy to swing back into getting only three hours of sleep like slipping on those old pair of jeans, it would fit perfect and I’d be fine except it’s not like that at all, I do put on a pair of jeans but it’s like the really old pair from high school you keep around just to remind yourself how skinny you’ll never be again and even without buttoning them up you’re muffin topping like a banana nut from Kroger’s bakery.
Every now and again Laine will wake up in the middle of the night, usually it’s a soft cry or whine and I’m in her room before she’s fully awake, by the time she realizes she’s unhappy she’s already being rocked and forgetting that she’s unhappy. It never takes longer than half and hour to get her back to sleep. Most of the time it’s less than that. Well, last night was different. She stayed awake until almost 2:30 and when she did wake up she didn’t cry softly or whine, she screamed. Like someone had a hot poker on her butt, like she had slipped her leg through the railing and somehow twisted and got stuck. Actually it was more like the hounds of hell were chasing her through a graveyard in New Orleans on Halloween in the middle of the night in the middle of a hurricane with only one rain boot and no umbrella. It was an intense involved scream that told stories and scared the living piss out of me. My heart was racing and I jumped over Erik to run out of the room into hers and she wasn’t even fully awake yet when I got there. It was probably a baby nightmare or something which scares me even more than her screaming because if a nightmare will effect her this way with only 16 months of life experience to be scared of what is it going to sound like at 16 years? My little brother had night terrors for a while and I remember a little bit of my mom being freaked out by it but I don’t have any real memories so I can’t pull from her on how I should react, so until I learn I’ll just die slowly of a heart attack every time.

The Second Half

We did eventually eat around 2:00 on Sunday; roast and potatoes and carrots with gravy. GRAVY!! It was a great meal. Afterwards Mom and I made a banana nut loaf that was gluten and sugar free, you never would have guessed, it was delicious. We also made some gluten free brownies that tasted yummy.
Erik and I hung out at mom and Dads until almost 7:00 Erik got to watch a soccer game and Mom and I spent a few hours looking online for the resort we’d most like to visit this Christmas. I think we finally agreed on one of them but they were all so amazing looking that I really couldn’t tell if one was better than another. I’m very much looking forward to taking another Mexico vacation, but I am very scared to leave Laine behind. I know I have a few months to come to terms with it but I think I may have some serious therapy ahead of me for it. Erik and I have been waiting to see the Prince of Persia movie for a while and Jenn said she’d come to our house to babysit for us so we went to the 7:45 showing and were home again before 10:00. I though it was an excellent movie. It reminded me a lot of The Mummy. Not with what it was about but the fact that there was no sex, no profanity, no real blood. Just a ton of action and adventure. It was a whole lot of fun to watch and if I owned it I’d probably watch it over and over again, just like I do The Mummy. Erik woke up this morning around 5:30 to head over to his parent’s house to watch the Denmark versus Norway/Normandy/Netherlands game. It’s one of those teams, I’m not sure which but apparently it’s a really big deal. I felt like I was sleeping in since I kept sleeping after he left. I kept jerking awake to make sure I wasn’t late for work, finally around 5:45 I gave up and got up and took a nice long shower. At work now and I feel like I had an extra long weekend. So much happened in the last two days, but then again not really. A lot of hanging out and swimming and playing but I guess that was it. Good times don’t always fly by I guess. It was a great relaxing lazy long weekend.

The First Half

This weekend is only in the second half so far and already there is so much to tell. After work on Friday I got home and vegged. Typically I clean and do laundry and keep active until I need to go and get Laine from daycare, usually while I'm doing this I feel guilty that I haven't gotten Laine from daycare yet and what if she knew I was home and not getting her? Would she think she wasn't loved and that I didn't want her around? So Friday when I was at home thinking these thoughts again I had to force myself to just sit on the couch, just sit there and enjoy the silence around me, I didn't fall asleep, I didn't read or watch TV, I just sat. And it was wonderful. After I got up and went to go and get Laine around 6:00 I went over to Mom’s house to hang out with Damone and watch some TV. They were doing a puzzle and when Erik showed up he took over for them trying to finish it for them. Damone and I sped through the So You Think You Can Dance episode we missed on Thursday night but she didn’t seem overly interested and I thought they could have done much better for their first dancing episode. We didn’t leave until after 8:00 and Laine was about ready to pass out. I don’t like keeping Laine out too late but as long as we can get her home close to bed time it’s alright by me and her schedule isn’t too messed up.

We woke up at 7:15 Saturday morning, not because Laine woke us up but because Erik wanted to share with me his winnings he’d just received in the family fun time lottery. I felt like a winner too. Laine woke up shortly after we finished and we all went downstairs to enjoy a lazy Saturday morning together. Around 9:00 Erik went outside to mow the lawn while Laine and I took showers and got dressed for the day. After Erik’s shower we left for Target to do a little shopping before heading over to The Rosendahl’s for the soccer game and Kate’s birthday party. The game was fun to watch, it was like the super bowl in that house, every one was packed around the TV and completely centered on that game, nothing else mattered. When England scored in the fourth minute there was some serious groaning and cursing and yelling and Laine didn’t know quite how to take that but the game went on and we all got over it. Erik was complaining over and over again that he couldn't believe they took Ching off the team and replaced him with a younger guy, I mean her really complained about it. And the more beer he had the more of an offense it was to him personally. When the US scored there was again yelling and jumping up and down and high fives and craziness that scared Laine and she jumped up into my arms and was near shaking, the yells this time really did come out of no where and it scared her a lot. It literally scared the poop out of her, I have just changed a wet diaper not even five minutes prior and when she jumped into my arms I smelled poop. They scared the poop out of my kid. We all got a huge laugh out of that.After the game we all got out into the pool for a while. Laine had a lot of fun getting thrown in the air and getting dunked under water. Jenn sat on the edge and took photo’s for us, we got some really good ones too. Laine had a blast feeding Erik and I Chex Mix from the bowl beside the pool. At one point I sat her on the edge to make it easier for her to reach and after a short while she jumped up and wouldn’t come back to me, it took me a long time before I could convince her. We stayed in the pool until Laine started trying for the stairs, it was close to 5:30 by the. Before we left I took a bunch of photo’s of Kate and her friends for their Facebook pages. We didn’t leave until almost 8:30 and on the way home Laine fell asleep in the car and Erik and I settled in for a movie. I fell asleep less than halfway through the movie and felt so bad about it because Erik had been waiting so long to watch it with me and I didn’t even stick it out all the way. We went up to bed finally around 11:30 and Laine let us sleep in until almost 9:15. We got great sleep last night, It’s one o’clock on a Sunday and I don’t even feel like I need a nap. We are waiting now for the roast to get done so we can eat. I’m starving. I’ve taken up over an hour to write this and I’ still waiting to eat, I’m so hungry.

Pool Time

Weeks and Weekends and Nights and Days

It’s been a little too long since my last update; my sister sent me an email telling me I was killing her with the lack of news. It’s nice to know someone reads my posts besides the folks I force.
So here we go, two weekends ago Erik and Laine and I went out to visit Levi and Sydney for a relaxing weekend at the lake.
Once we got there we found Mom and Dad and Brandon and his family too, it was exactly what we needed. We had good food and good company and even though we slept on the floor, I got really good sleep and my back didn’t even hurt in the morning. Laine got to play with a friend for two days and I was so surprised that she actually played nice. Or at least she played not mean. Laine would flip out every time Addison got close to her blanket or tried to open a cabinet. It seems that kitchen cabinets are no-no’s for everyone but Laine. She’s so spoiled it’s ridiculous. Before we left we were able to take a family picture by the water, it’s not the best picture of us but we all look happy, which makes it a good picture. I loved our visit to Levi’s house; we need to do it again very soon. When we got back into town we went to Erik’s parent’s house for a bbq. We ended up not eating until almost 8:00 and I’d had more than a few drinks so Erik and I decided to spend the night, I woke up a tad hung over but being able to swim first thing in the morning helped out a lot. After we left the Rosendahl’s we headed over to the Schmale’s house to swim with mom and dad, the Whites and the Tidwell’s. Mom dunked Laine under the water. She’s blow in her face really hard to get Laine to hold her breath then she just dunked her. I just about had a heart attack. It was an intense moment of letting go for me. So bring on cars and boys and college, I’ve got this parenting thing down. Ha! The week went by easily enough at first. Monday Laine helped me clean the house a bit, she is fascinated with cleaning the floors, give her a mop or broom and she’s happy for an hour easy. I showed her how to use a dust pan and she treated it like her most favorite Christmas gift ever, carrying it around with her the whole time I was making dinner. Tuesday I went to Mom’s house to visit with Danny and Damone before Damone was scheduled for her surgery. All went well with that by the way. Wednesday when I picked her up from daycare she felt a bit warm to me and sure enough she had a fever, I gave her some Tylenol while we were out to dinner with Mom and dad and the Hendrix’s but by Thursday morning her fever was up to 104. I had to stay home with her for Thursday and Friday and basically just watch her sleep. She had a sore throat which turned into a viral infection so she was on some heavy duty meds for a while, and it seems to really knock her out. Friday she was only awake for about three hour’s total, she wasn’t even waking up when I’d change her diapers. I’d give her water and Pedialite when she would wake up but I was lucky to get any food down her at all, she only wanted bottles. Poor kiddo was miserable. Saturday was a little better, she ate some rice cereal and some cheese and seemed happy for a while, she’d play and talk to us but when she looked at you her eyes were so glazed over she looked like a zombie. Finally on Sunday her fever truly broke, after three days at 103ish I know she was ready for the cool down. I can’t say it was all bad though, she got to take a lot of baths, and she seemed to enjoy those. By Monday I felt that it was okay to visit Damone so we went to see her for a little while. We did Christmas with them as we havn't really had the time this year to get together since last year. Laine got a new favorite blanket she carries around with her everywhere and sleeps with at night. We are going to try to make it over there as often as we can while Damone is healing. It’s got to suck after a while not being able to go anywhere so while she’s jailed we’ll be making the effort to make it fun. Or at least not not fun. While we were visiting the other day Laine got her first popsicle, I'm not sure if she kew what to make of it but we'll try again another time.On a side note Laine has been having some seriously tantrum episodes lately. I know that they aren’t full blown tantrums and I still have some horrific things to look forward to, but since these are her first real moments of attitude I’m having an adjustment period where I can almost do nothing but laugh and I know that isn’t the best way to handle it, it’s probably the worst way, I almost feel like I’m encouraging the behavior when I laugh, but then again she gets really mad at me when I laugh at her crying so maybe I’m not encouraging, whatever. As long as she isn’t mentally scarred or thinks I don’t love her she can toss as much attitude my way that she wants, I’m bigger than her I can take it.
Her first major meltdown was on Saturday, it was her first day back on her feet since she’d gotten sick, so I was pretty much letting her have her way with whatever she wanted. I went to the fridge to get something and she pointed to the yogurt like she wanted it, as I grabbed for one to show her to ask if that’s the one she wanted she got distracted by the diet coke cans (look a pretty castle) and I couldn’t get her to pay attention to me after that, she was mesmerized so I pulled her away and shut the door, and oh man the tears just poured, but the hilarious thing was that after about five seconds of hard heaving tears she stopped, peeked out behind her fists to make sure I was watching and then started crying again. She did it about three times before I had to walk out of the kitchen because one, we aren’t playing that game, and two, I almost ruptured a kidney holding in my laughter. I wonder where she learned that. All kids know that trick, crying gets me stuff, but what is it in their little short lives that have taught them how to manipulate others, I can’t for the life of me believe that she was deliberately trying to trick me, I think it was more of a test, to see if it really does work, and what was hilarious to me is that she probably had no idea that I already knew that trick. How disappointing it must have been to find out mommy is the master, my kung fu is better than her kung fu.
The second episode was last night. I got home a little early so that I could get Laine fed and bathed before we went out to eat for Kate’s birthday with Erik’s family. I fed her the dog out of the corndog and some goldfish. All Laine’s life she has been really good about taking baby bites and one at a time. But last night she was not. I mean hand over fist she was stuffing those cheeks to max capacity. So when it got to the point that she literally could not close her mouth any more I told her no, chew what you have first, drink some water and I’ll give you more. She the sat down on the floor and started screaming while pointing at the goldfish bag. I mean. This was a serious meltdown. Huge tears, red splotchy face, she was pissed! I could not contain the laughter, it was such an unexpected reaction that I really just sat there and stared at her for a few minutes until she started heaving in her breaths, she was really seriously crying with full blown rage. She stood up and stomped her feet, she was yelling at me. Yelling. At me. It was so insane, my mind was blown. Who was this little devil child freaking out on me? I don’t even want to know what she was thinking but I’m betting it was along the lines of baby profanity. Finally I reached into the bag to get a gold fish about and as soon as my hand was inside the bag she stopped crying and started chewing. So I took my time rooting around in the bag until she swallowed and then handed her one fish. She hit my hand! Batted the one goldfish away and screamed MORE! What the heck!?!? So we did this a few times, she’d stuff her face I’d make her cry then she’s stuff her face again. And the whole time my jaw is on the floor in shock. It was time to leave for the restaurant after while so the cycle finally stopped but I’m fairly certain those goldfish are getting thrown in the trash first thing when I get home today.

Where's Your Nose?

Th1rteen R3asons Why

Yesterday I bought a People magazine on my way into work. Work has been especially slow of late and I’m having a difficult time filling my hours during the day, there are only so many interesting sites on the internet, I can only make my TGIwtF posts so far in advance, and I’ve played every single game on facebook and yahoo already. So the Twilight Special Edition of People Magazine was my newest time taker upper idea. I never realized how much I really did not like that movie and all the hype surrounding it until I sat for thirty minutes reading and rereading the article anbout the sixteen different looks of Robert Pattinson, or the one about Kristen Stewart and her love of the art of acting and how Dakota Fanning is the only serious young actor besides her in Hollywood. It was a complete and total waste of my time, but I read the whole thing twice. One page in the magazine was an ad for two new books that the editors thought the fans of the Twilight series would enjoy, one was called If I Stay, about a young girl who is in a horrible car accident and as she lies in a coma her spirit follows her friends and family around watching how they are coping with her imminent death. Wah wah. The second was called Thirteen Reasons Why. There was a website for this book; it’s the author’s debut novel. On this website I found a comment left on the main page from a girl named Ashley, she said she’d persuaded her 9th grade English teacher to have her class read this book instead of Romeo and Juliet. They did character analysis’ and and now the teacher has decided it should be part of the required reading every year. Considering that my daughter will one day be in the 9th grade I thought maybe I’d look into this book, see if maybe I’d be okay with it. Its kind of like wanting to reread The Great Gatsby, I know my kid will read it one day, I’d like to have my own opinions about it fresh for when she comes to me with questions. So I looked online and there was an audio book for download, I got it and have been listening to it since. So far what I’ve gathered is that this book is about a girl who commits suicide. Her name is Hannah Baker and before she overdoes she makes cassette tapes, seven of them, each side giving one of the reasons why she killed her self. There are thirteen sides and one is blank, I am currently on cassette 3 side B. It starts out like any other 9th grade drama, but one thing after another and they are all little things, they snowball and they take over her entire life. This whole story is a testimony on why someone first said “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” or “thou shalt not lie” It’s such a simple and easy lesson to teach to children but none of them listen. Kids are so mean, they lie, they cheat they are horrible and they fight and put people down. I remember high school and how every little slight was life or death. My mom could say you aren’t wearing that are you and that would mean that obviously I was hideously ugly and I should just cut my face off so no one would have to see it ever again. I remember that. It was horrible. And there was a time around the 8th grade where I cried for 9 months strait over some stupid boy who broke up with me for my best friend because I wouldn’t do more than just kiss him. If you think about the rest of my life and how that snowballed it’s amazing. Watch your mouth people; there is no telling how your words will end someone’s world. Because by the time you realize what you’ve done it is always too late for apologies.
Fast forward another 24 hours. I’ve finished the book and I’ve had a whole night to think on it. And I am officially not sure what I think about it. I have no idea whether or not I’d want Laine to read it when she’s older. I know for the most part I won’t have a choice, once she gets to the age where she’d be reading young adult books I won’t be the hawk-eyed mom with her every second of every day. There is a good chance she’ll read it and I’ll never know. And I’d want to know because I have some valid opinions on the choices the characters made in their lives, I have similar life experience to Hannah and I made different choices than she did. I’m thinking about writing an essay of Thirteen Reasons Why Not and saving it until she’s of age then let her read both. I don’t know. Why does she need to learn to read anyway? Reading’s overrated.

TGI...wtF

1) Make art with Styrofoam and Staples

My Guy

I was running a fever again last night. The highest temperature I took was at 102.something. This morning it was back down so I came to work, since there are three people out of the office and no one else downstairs, there’s no chance of me spreading this on. I desperately want a nap.
Laine was up from 3:00 until a little after 5:00 with what I can only assume is teething pains. She had no fever but was inconsolable. And Erik took care of her for me. He’s such an amazing guy.
I got up with Laine at 3:00, I tried rocking her, I tried walking with her, I tried dancing in front of the big window in the red bedroom and nothing worked. I had her lay down in bed with me for a while and it seemed to cheer her up a bit until she started spastically flopping around and finally bashed her head against the wall at the head of the bed. At one point she basically belly flopped over Erik’s legs, Erik woke up and heard me begging Laine to settle down so he got up and took over for me; telling me to “get some sleep, momma. I got her”. Those are probably the most romantic words he’s ever uttered. She settled down after about fifteen minutes with him rocking her, I was so happy for the silence that I almost started crying myself, but it didn’t last. She kept having these spurts of hysteria, I mean, if a baby were able to have a panic attack I think this is what it would be like. She cried and screamed and clawed at Erik to get down and he just held on to her and shushed her and told her pretty things and promised her everything in the world if she’d just fall asleep again. I went in and out of sleep with her. Erik tried putting her back down close to five and she woke up like he laid her in a bed of fire and screamed for one last long minute before finally wearing herself out. Erik crawled back into bed with me and I couldn’t find enough places on his face to kiss him. I loved him so much at that moment. And again he just told me not to worry, it’s taken care of, he loves me, go to sleep. I may have been sick and tired but I’d never felt more loved and taken care of. He is so wonderful with Laine, he's marvelous with me.

Weekend Update

If you think I am about to tell you about a healthy weekend full of parks and sno cones and swimming pools you have got the wrong blog. I’m about to tell you about a weekend full of fevers and rainy days and antibiotics and long afternoon naps full sleep talk.
Laine and I both had fevers this weekend. Friday I wasn’t feeling so good and Laine was cranky and refusing to go down to sleep after dinner. Once I finally got her to sleep I decided to stay up a little later, like an idiot so that come Saturday morning I was feeling like and even larger pile of poop. Laine felt super warm to me when she woke up and Erik was taking April to the vet so I asked him to fill Laine’s antibiotic prescription while he was out and to buy us one of those thermometers that you stick in the kids ear. Those work great on babies and mommies. She was at 100.7 and I was at 99.5. That’s pretty high for the both of us. I also asked him to look for some Tylenol or Motrin for her fever, he said the CVS had been picked clean, all Motrin and Tylenol products had been bought and there was only one box of generic brand Tylenol left, the pharmacist actually congratulated Erik on getting the last box. After temperatures were taken and Tylenol and antibiotics were dispensed Laine and I still felt pretty crappy and spent the whole entire day lounging together in the living room. If you’ve met my daughter you now that even when she’s sick she’s still active so for her to take an entire day to just lie around and cuddle with me she must have been really sick.
Sunday morning Erik got up with Laine and let me sleep in a little later until almost 9:30 then threw the baby on me to wake me up. That was nice. My fever was back down to a manageable 99.5 again so I got dressed and went to church. Laine started tugging on her ear right before church but quit soon after. We ate lunch out and then headed home for naps, I took one with Laine until almost 4:00, and then Erik got us up again so we could go visit with his family for dinner. Laine seemed to be a hundred percent better while we were there and it made me think that if she can tough it out so can I. But really I was miserable and counting the minutes until I could go home again. And what did I do once I was home and Laine was in bed asleep, I stayed up until 10:30 cleaning the house and doing laundry. So yeah I feel like poop again today. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Jacob’s first basketball game with his new team is tonight at 8:00, I’m going to try and fight my way through the sick and just go and have fun and take pictures. Fingers crossed that I make it out alive.

Grr. But in a Calm, Rational Way.

You ever get irritated about something but instead of people accepting that you are frustrated over some THING they think you are angry at some ONE? That’s my problem today. I got annoyed today, everyone gets a little miffed every now and again, but I wasn’t peeved at any one person, I was just a little bit bothered with a situation; a span of time where opinions were voiced. The opinions of others are what bugged me, but not the people involved. Is that really so hard for other people to understand? Really? Because I’m already over it, and I’m still getting asked if I’m okay. I was never not okay, and the super funny thing is that I told no one about my aggravation, they just started asking me who I was pissed off at. NO ONE jeez, well, maybe you now, but seriously, I need new facial expressions, mine are stating to overlap.

On a lighter note, here's Laine playing in the sprinkler at my mom's house.

Crazy

There’s a commercial that has been airing the last few weeks, I’m thinking it’s a razor commercial but I’m not completely sure seeing as how I can never watch it to the end. It’s the one where normal things keep turning into water, like the boy and girl on the bed and she hits him in the face with a pillow but when it makes contact it turns to water. What the heck?! That’s insane. My mind wants to splinter at the thought of it. Erik thinks it’s funny to imagine what I’d do if it ever happened to me, he says they’d stick me in an empty padded cell. I say if they did that I’d probably drown in it, pillows for walls equals you’re under water.

Almost Only 130

I forgot to take Laine’s picture yesterday. And almost the day before too. I got a photo of Laine from Sunday night but only after dragging myself up at 11:00 and taking one of her sleeping. That counts. Yesterday I just didn’t take one, it completely slipped my mind. Luckily for me my mom took one on her phone. I was in such a panic this morning. I didn’t even realize I hadn’t taken a photo until I saw my purse in the entry way this morning, with my camera lying on top, just where I’d left it when I first walked through the door the evening before. I know it’s ridiculous but I felt like suck a jerk. Like I’ve got this amazing thing I’m trying to do for Laine, get a photo everyday, and I missed one. So I feel like obviously Laine will one day look back and have to ask me, “what was so important that day that you couldn’t take one little photo?” And then I’m going to cry. So I’m grateful to my mom for putting that day off just a little longer. Of course in that same mindset I’m going to have the whole conversation of why I didn’t start on her first day getting a photo every single day, I could lie and say I did but it all got deleted with the rest of our photos off Erik’s computer but I won’t want to do that. I can only hope that she’s more like Erik than me and this whole mess will never actually happen. That she'll just meh it and I won't have to feel like a jerk. Then again I hope she’s more like me than Erik so that she’ll appreciate the daily snapshots and not meh it, just not to the point where it hurts her feelings or anything. Yeah, I'll just hope she's more like Erik.

Weekend Update

I’m not normally the kind of person that looks forward to coming into work on Mondays. Actually I look for every reason under the sun to stay home most days; I look for reasons but don’t normally find them. I’ve got a pretty good attendance record, I only take off for illnesses so severe that a doctor visit is required for myself or for Laine, so when I started throwing up around 3:30 this morning you’d think I’d use that excuse to stay home today, but no, I was up at 6:00 putting makeup on and my new dress that I got for Mother’s Day, slipped into my high heels and threw may hair up to dry curly and off to my Monday I go. Still sick to my stomach and feeling dizzy but I’m here, and not at home. And I’ll tell you why.

Friday I got off work around 3:00 and headed strait home to clean. I got the living room and the dining room done before I had to go and get Laine. And it was clean. So clean it looked like it did when we first moved in and everything had a place and there was no clutter or dust or random toys on the floor. It was clean like my mom’s house is clean and I was dang proud of myself. Saturday I cleaned the office and the kitchen while Erik watched Laine and cleaned the bathroom. Halfway through that we took a break to go and see Josh play his soccer game at the park and eat some lunch. Laine started getting cranky near the end of lunch but we still had to stop by Target and Home Depot. I had Erik go to Home Depot while Elaine and I walked around Target and we’d checkout when he got there. I picked out what I wanted for Mother’s Day while I was walking around. An amazingly comfortable robe, Erik got me the matching pants as an extra little surprise. Laine was ready to throw a fit by the time we got done with all of our shopping so we headed back to the house to finish cleaning and getting ready for dinner. Well I cleaned, Erik and Laine build a fort in the living room with the couch cushions I had just vaccuumed. We were having my brother and sister over for fish that I had no idea how to cook and I wanted the house to be clean for them. Not so much that I thought they’d appreciate it and not so much that I need my house to be clean for guests, it’s just that momma taught me good, so I can’t not clean for company. Kind of like taking your clothes off before you get in the shower, it’s just something you do.
Cassie and James showed up around 5:30 and we started marinating the fish and getting the rice cooked and the veggies ready to roast and opened our first bottle of wine. Erik and James had Laine with the in the living room and in the back yard while Cassie and I stayed in the kitchen. It was a wonderful dinner but at some point between bottle of wine one and bottle of wine three I blacked out. I’ve heard stories that I was laying in the front yard talking to Cassie about how the stars at my house are different than the ones at her house, but at least I didn’t embarrass myself. Ha.
Then Sunday morning I woke up around 7:30 and went down for a glass of water only to find all of my clothes from the previous night in a pile in the middle of the kitchen. Yeah… I went back upstairs and there were leaves on my pillow. Oookay… I woke Erik up and said “hey did we have amazing sex last night or was that just an amazing dream?” Apparently we had gymnastastical, I’m still limping from the exertion kind of haven’t-done-this-since-I-was-a-teenager sex. UH- MAZING. Erik threw out his hip and my shoulders are still sore today. Where did that go in my life? Why does that not happen every single night? Oh yeah, because with the unabashedly free me comes a severe hangover. I haven’t felt this way since college, I’ve never had a wine hangover like this and it was awful. I curled up on the couch with Laine and didn’t even get dressed for church until 9:55. Church starts at ten. I didn’t have to go to church, I could have stayed home all day if I’d wanted, it was mothers day and my day and I could be bad if I wanted, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to see my mom and I wanted to get my mothers day hug from my dad. Those are the best. Seriously. Like yeah I screwed up a ton in life and yeah I still screw up a tone now and maybe getting pregnant wasn’t such a smart move back in the day but look at all the wonderful things that have come out of it. Knowing my dad thinks that makes my Mother’s Day hugs the best.
After church it was still all I could do to keep from vomiting so we skipped lunch and just headed over to Erik’s moms house… where they were cooking about six dozen eggs. There was an amazing looking pile of cheese covered eggs with ham and veggies in it but it also had onions, so did everything else but the French toast and deviled eggs. They didn’t know we were coming and I got about four different apologies for the onions but I got super full on the toast, it was just what I needed to help be feel better. I tried to take a short nap on the couch after we ate but Laine had other ideas. She got me good, right ton the nose, with the TV remote. I thought my nose was broken for a few minutes, but it didn’t even bleed. After a while we went home so that I could lay down some more but on the way Laine finally fell asleep for her first nap of the day so we put her down and I changed into my pajamas and headed over to my persons house while I had no responsibilities and she and I were able to celebrate our day together for almost an hour. I need to start celebrating more holidays so that I can see her more often, it’s like birthdays and holidays are the only time we have anymore. Stupid responsibilities, keeping me from my person.
After I got back home I woke Laine up and we all hung out in the living room until bedtime. Laine stayed up later than usual again and Erik and I went to bed at the same time she did. She woke up at 2:30 thought and I got up and gave her a bottle then laid her in bed with me, but I was coughing so much that I finally go up and took some Robitussin. I crawled back into bed but not even two minutes alter my chest started burning, from the inside. It felt like the Robitussin was eating away at whatever lining there was in my throat, so I got back up again, waking Laine up again and drank three big glasses of water then made myself throw it all back up. And once I started that it just wouldn’t stop. I got back into the bedroom at 3:30 and Laine was still awake. I rocked her for a while but at 4:30 I got Erik up again and had him take her for me, I only had another hour before my alarm was going to go off. He took her and she was out in minutes, I don’t know how he does it but I’m jealous.

So that’s why I’m at work today. This weekend wasn’t a bad weekend but it was full and I’m over it. I’m ready to get the week started so that I can get to next weekend and try and do it all better. This time with no hangover, but hopefully a little more of the amazing sex.