A family bagel picnic

We love some starchy, creamy goodness up in this house so we've been doing impromptu bagel picnics in the morning.

Ezra calls it "team" cheese instead of cream cheese which is awesome on many levels but mainly because it makes me shout repeatedly, "Go, team!"

Random useless tidbits

Thanks to all of you that have weighed in on: a) gift giving for a tricky family ex and b) potty training.

I gave the ex a lovely box of chocolates thinking it wasn't too personal (item of clothing) or too impersonal (picture frame).

I'm stashing the potty training tidbits away for later. Ezra isn't super into it and still blames his poo on Iris (he so totally points the finger--literally--at her which I find hilarious), but he can tell us when he's wet and shows an interest in all bathrooms--so, baby steps.

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I took T's car to work since he was taking mine in for an oil change, and while his car has far too many buttons it does have Sirius radio. Ezra and I listened to the Broadway channel into school/work and loved the show tunes.

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It is the term break here where I work and a fine time to get things done without being hassled by students (our apparent reason for being here, or so the Dean says). It is lovely.

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Something has come up that I so don't want to do but I can't decide if I should place it in the column of "Obligation and Do It Anyway" or the other column of "Life's Too Short: Skip It."

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CurlyGirl and I are doing a massive holiday hang-out on Sunday that may involve nails and dinner and movie. It's going to be just what I need before work starts up crazy insane on Monday.

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I've updated my Google Reader and the links to the left with a few new blogs I'm reading.

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Do you ever feel bored in your head? Like, nothing much new is stimulating you and the days are kind of blending together and you're not really unhappy or sad but just in a lull of sorts? I think I'm there now.

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Michelle had her baby!

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T is working on a supa fancy new budget for our household and is no doubt utilizing all of the powers Excel has to offer. I told him to just break it down for me old school and tell me how much I can spend on Starbucks, clothes for those big and small and lunch.

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Pseudostoops and Sam and Sara are coming to visit in January. I am hoping this gets me through the month in sane place.

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I am not a New Years Eve gal. Even in my heyday, not so much. T and I are thinking stretchy pants, fancy cheeses and meats and a movie OnDemand is the way to go.

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Each morning when J the Fabulous Nanny walks in the door, Ezra exclaims, "J! YOU'RE BACK!" Whenever he enters the room, he shouts, "Hi, guys! I'M BACK!"

Both without fail.

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Share with me your random tidbits, please.

Time for the perculator

I am going to keep this short and simple:

• Based on interest alone, we have procured a small potty for our downstairs bathroom.
• It is for Ezra.
• We (as in: T and I) have no idea what we are doing, and I would gladly change his diapers for eternity such is my dread for potty training him.

Please share with me how you potty trained your child. And also cook me dinner because I'm struggling with that as well.

Best,

K

Christmas: over and out

Christmas was good. There were last minute errands, afternoon viewings of movies with friends, family, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts (an embarrassing fact: I ate 2/3 of the tray myself), more family, haaaaammmmm and some medicated sleep at the end of it all. It was good.

What made it even better was that Iris was home. This time last year was bad, folks. Worse than other random days during her hospitalization. With Thanksgiving, my birthday and Christmas within weeks of each other--it was just fantastically sucktastic to be going to the hospital and leaving the girl behind.

But! Praise to Jesus she is home and was in fine shape to be stuffed into the requisite Santa outfit. T rolled his eyes and protested weakly--mainly making it clear that I am a loon and that he was in no way associated with the stripping of Iris out of her clothes pre-dinner for the Santa photos.

I've included one of Ezra from two years ago because sweet Jesus his little happy face makes my day.






Hope your Christmas was good. I am looking forward to the internets coming back to life with its usual nonsense, yourself included.

Sweet girl

Awesome ladybug blanket courtesy of Hillary.

Sleepy roadkill

If last night's hours of between Midnight and 5:30am had had a theme, it would've been: Crap Sleep on a Cracker. Oh my gosh. It was so exasperating that I'm typing AND rolling my eyes at this exact minute.

Do you ever get so exasperated in the night that you just want to punch whoever is laying next to you sleeping super soundly? Despite sending this person a loving text earlier in the day that said something to the effect of "My GOD, you're fabulous"?

And while I don't want to punch my children OMG WITH THE SINGING AND CLAPPING AND STOMPING OF FEET. Both of them are just so freakin' happy that they can sing (Ezra) and clap and thrash their legs like a Riverdancing fool (Iris), that they randomly wake up and do this at all hours of the night. It's absurd.

2:00am?--I can hear Iris over the monitor kicking her legs back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on her mattress. She then coughed and passed back out.

3:30am-4:00am?--Ezra humming/moaning "Twinkle, twinkle" and "Jingle Bells." He then passed back out.

6:00am?--Iris clapping. She then passed back out.

In-between this nonsense, T was snoring in my ear. There was fury. I kept poking/stage whispering in his ear to turn over. As a result, he woke up tired because of not getting much undisturbed sleep.

I am a horribly light sleeper sans sleepytime meds and even though both Ezra and Iris sleep in their respective bedrooms, I hear every snort and snuffle. Tonight I might bust out the PMies just in case for I have a feeling it could be Take No Prisoners over the weekend, and if I'm not in tip top shape I could be deemed the slow moving elk.

The hard sell

For the past month or so I've been getting a bizarre-o phone number popping up on my cell phone and I was already pretty sure it wasn't anyone: a) wanting to hear what I want for Christmas or b) wanting to take me out to lunch or c) wanting to give me their lottery winnings. But! I still turned super sleuth and googled their number which turns out to be a land line in a nearby city. At this point, T should be happy to know that I did not pay the additional $14.95 to find out more information. I paused. I wanted to.

Anyway, I was further reassured that this person definitely wasn't anyone I knew when this clown dog called at 10:38 one night. 10:38?! All my good friends know I've been in bed for two hours and sporting stretchy pants for four.

So last night this damn fool calls again and I'm not sure what it was about 12:14am that prompted me to answer, but I did.

Me: Hello?

Clown Dog: Yeah. Hey.

Me: Yes?

C.D.: How you doin'? What'ch you up to?

Me: You have the wrong number.

C.D.: Nah. I don't. You gave me this number remember?

Me: No.

C.D.: Yeah, you did. mumblemumblemumble out one night mumblemumble

Me: No.

C.D.: Yeah! You live across the street with the white car and I saw you mumblemumblemumble Sherice was talkin' mumblemumble.

Me: No.

C.D.: YEAH! Why are you playin' stupid?

Me: No.

Now I have no idea why I just kept saying "no," but he clearly thought I was lying to him. There was none of the immediate "Oh, I'm sorry. I must have the wrong number."-business. And I didn't bother hanging up because I think I was just so perplexed at how determined he was to convince me that I was the one was calling.

C.D.: Come on! mumblemumble let's hang out mumblemumble

Me: No. Stop calling.

By this time I'm awake and laying in bed and T comes upstairs to go to bed. He was all, "Who were you talking to?" and I filled him. Clown Dog then calls again. Really, pal? T picked it up and promptly told him (in what I call his Work T Voice which is lower and more business like and less Jolly African which is what we get at home) he had the wrong number. Clown Dog apologized and quickly hung up.

A few minutes later, it totally dawns me! "Dude!" I tell T, "That was guy was calling for a booty call!" T, "Uh, yeah. He wasn't calling to get to know you."

Ah HA.

Holiday outfits procured!

Love/hate Friday

Love: This shirt for Iris. I love it so much I think I may order it in every size available.





Hate: I am the only one on the floor at work. Boss is gone and everyone just straight up jumped ship.

Love: I think I only need to buy a three remaining gifts in stores tomorrow, and then I'm done shopping.

Hate: The wrapping that looms waiting for me Saturday night.

Love: Iris is getting stronger and likes being on her hands and knees.

Hate: No crawling yet. Boo.

Love: Christmas music

Hate: John Tesh talking in-between Christmas songs. Since when he did he become the svengali of daily living?

Love: Toffee

Hate: Pretty sure I'm going to look like a toothless hobo if I keep eating it--both from cavities and from it RIPPING out my teeth with each bite.

Love: I have made some killer checklists for all my teaching prep for the upcoming term in January.

Hate: The break is only a few days long so I'm going to have to get my can in gear and quit dinking around with other projects.

Love: Saturday night we're going to go driving around and look at Christmas lights. Iris is getting stuffed in her jammies ahead of time to expedite bedtime once home. (See! I told you I'm trying to loosen up about bedtime activities!)

Hate: Stress and anxiety. I have been feeling a lot of both lately and I'm not sure why.

Love: This morning Ezra told me, "Mama, I angry and I wanna stomp around." Snort.

Hate: I wish I could do that.

Love: I managed to borrow stamps from a co-worker keeping me from wrestling with the post-office.



What are you loving and hating?

Bound for Broadway?

Last night Ezra's daycare/school had their Christmas program. We haven't participated in past years because he was either: a) too tiny went to bed wicked early or b) I was wicked tired from juggling work and daytime visits to see Iris in the hospital. Even this year, I waffled.

Let me just admit here that I am Ridiculous with our sleepytime routines, both at nap and at night. The origin of this Ridiculousness is hard to pinpoint as it could be Chicken Or Egg Syndrome. Is it because the children are fabulous sleepers and I don't want to disrupt this? Perhaps. Or is it because of this anal annie business that the children sleep so great? Who the hell knows. I'll spare you additional boring analysis, but just know that I am trying my hardest to loosen up a bit and not chew on my shoulder so much if it looks like an activity might encroach upon sleepytime.

The program started at 6:00 and because Iris passes out like a mutha at 6:30pm, we decided to keep her at home with T, leaving my mom and I to attend the program.

Ezra's classroom lined up as the first group performance and since we were sitting on the aisle, he quickly spotted us through the windows.

Little face. He is both a big boy and a little boy. This picture tears at my heart because that look of wonder and expectation and curiosity is how he looks almost all the time.

That's his hand. Grandma was quickly spotted and snagglepussed for a hug on his way to the front to sing.

Post-hug, my mom telling him to keep going with the rest of his friends.

Doing the Five Little Snowmen finger/song/thing.

Ezra loves a big Finish. He can sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and he BELTS out the last line at top volume. It is fabulous.

But eating is so great

My obsession with Iris' lack of eating by mouth comes in waves. I mean, I always am thinking about it. Always. But to the point where I start spending work time researching journal articles and thinking about expensive feeding clinics in Austria and making calls to doctors?--well, I seem to be on a 3 month cycle.

I last wigged out in September when it seemed that Iris was making zero headway since coming home. Looking back to that time, well, she made some strides. Slow and gradual and painstakingly slight, but still forward. Her doctors and therapists reassured me and we came up with a plan and I cooled my jets. I told her speech/feeding therapist, "I promise to slow my roll."

Three months later I find myself in December and wigging out again. Yet another swallow study to prove that she can swallow food without aspirating and still Iris will not open her mouth up if she sees us offering her a spoon with food on it. A spoon without food? Sure, that looks acceptable--she seems to say with her expressive eyebrows. Bristle-y brushes, all toys, her fingers, T's BlackBerry, the remote control to the television, her feet, our fingers? Serve 'em up. Craftily offered spoon with a lovely puree on it with a loud ass, distracting toy in attendance? That'd be a negatory.

The frustration T and I feel has no words. It is hard to experience this. I'm not yet sure if having Ezra and his killer appetite for all things on the earth (minus ham, go figure) is making it harder. Some days yes, some days no.

This weekend, while hashing it all out with T, I blurted this out, "Well, what's the worst case scenario? Worst case: she goes to daycare this May or June with the feeding tube, I somehow in the sweet heavens finagle things at work and go there and feed her and the perhaps goes to the intensive feeding program next year."

We are extremely fortunate to be in area that not only has a Level IV NICU (for the unfortunate who need it) but also one of the few pediatric intensive feeding programs in the U.S. Geared for children who have feeding issues of various, various kinds--it is called intensive for a reason. It is 8 weeks long, 8 hours a day for both child and parent. The application and evaluation process is almost a year in length because of its cost, the psych evaluations conducted and the evaluations done by doctors in advance of starting. Two weeks ago we put the wheels in motion to get Iris into the clinic and, hopefully, off her g-tube.

As I told another parent recently who wrestled with this with her son, "I think what is also most frustrating to see Iris struggle with this, a skill, is that for so long her struggles were plainly life and death. She survived and overcame so many more complicated things that eating, of all things, seems so benign. Except that it isn't for her."

So, the worst case scenario T and I came up with isn't so Worst. We know what Worst is many times over and so this we can get through. We just have to keep telling ourselves that.

Gingerbreading ahoy!

Yesterday afternoon Ezra and I decided to make a gingerbread house. I'm not sure he even knew what I was talking about when I said, "Buddy, do you want to make a gingerbread house?" But I do know that he was 'bout it, 'bout it when I cracked out the candy. He wasted no time in dragging a dining room chair into the kitchen.




Freaking excited I handed him a knife. "But, Mama!, I not supp'sed to hab a knife!"



We used an upside down child-sized shoe box from Target and it worked like a freakin' machine. It was the perfect size.




Wasting no time shoving something in his maw. I think at this point it was a gumdrop. Hello, cream cheese frosting in the foreground--I love you.




Excited. Period.




I eventually had to move the baggy of chocolate chips out of his reach. It was getting ugly and he was starting to drool chocolatey rivers.




Notice the gummy bears both standing up (attentive) and on their sides (passed out drunk).




One particular corner of the yard is very peanut-centric.





So I cracked out the gummy Lifesavers and you'd think I put Heaven on our kitchen island. I turned my back to grab a papertowel and half of them were gone. Check out that face.




Adding more stuff to the "roof."

Clearly European in its design.

My heart

A quandry

Would you guys buy a Christmas present for an immediate family member's new partner/relationship person if the person isn't exactly "new" but instead an ex-wife?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Anecdotes forthcoming

Folks, I promise to cut it out soon with the Talking via Bullet, but right now it's really all I've got. The week has been a nuthouse and as a result neither I nor Ezra or Iris have been stationary long enough for something anecdotal and multi-paragraph to occur.

Therefore, you get The Bullet. Plus I am writing this while the iron heats up so that I can iron my shirt for tomorrow.

• T comes home tomorrow. Praise J.C.
• I picked E up from daycare a few hours early today so that we could have some time alone together. It.was.awesome. We ran errands and went shopping and shared a churro (Mexican carny food?) at Costco and I gave him lots of kisses and he picked out new jammies for himself and Iris. It was good for both of us.
• This morning he was pi-double S-pissed that I put him in his carseat to go to school. He wanted to walk around outside and shout at our neighbor Barb through her kitchen window ("Barb?! Where are youuuuuuuu?" I find it hilarious but try to respect that Barb may not.). Anyway, I was buckling him in anyway and I saw him start to raise his wrist to his mouth to bite down, but he stopped and said, "Mama! I'm so ANGRY!" It was great. Angry is fine. Angry is normal. I told him this.
• I'm tired.
• Work was really frustrating yesterday and it took me two cupcakes and some "Mr. Mom" on cable to get to a more zen place about it all.
• I think this weekend that gingerbread houses might be attempted. I bought Iris some shoes today and the little shoe boxes will be perfect for pasting/frosting graham crackers to.
• I send friends Christmas cards and I consider you all my friends. Of course, I don't have addresses for most of you. So if you're down with getting a Christmas card from me--let me know. You can email me or DM me through Twitter and I promise to not hand your information out at rest areas.
• I am addicted to the apple juice for tots that has 40% less sugar in it. In fact, Ezra never drinks it--only I do. It's marvelous.
• It's supposed to snow like a mutha here this weekend. I'm kind of excited about it.

Okay, the iron is starting to smell Hot so I better finish ironing that shirt...

Mr. Crab

I am currently all kinds of crabby and everything under the sun is bothering me. Some of it I don't feel comfortable writing about here and some of it as benign as the fact that my effing hands are cold and it is making me feel snarly.

I'm even feeling pissy that T isn't here and I'm feeling lonely and don't have anyone to chat with.

Summary: I am feeling stank about a whole host of things and a whole host of people.

Bits of random

I don't even have enough for a full "Random useless tidbits" post, but this is what I have got:

• I don't ever want to be a full-on single mom. I don't think I'd do a very good job.
• Sometimes I get a comment from one of you and it makes me gasp out loud such is your honesty. I will roll the comment around my head and heart all day and it almost always leaves me wishing I could pick up the phone and call the person who wrote it just to talk to them more about what they said.
• Elizabeth Edwards. Geez louise.
• It is sometimes, okay...always...hard for me to read stories of babies in the NICU because I almost always end up feeling the age old emotion of "Why me, God?" It's been a year and still it lingers.
• When Ezra has been getting frustrated lately, I can tell he doesn't quite have all of the words to tell us just how frustrated/angry/pissed he is. As a result, he's been biting down on his arm in frustration. I Googled it today and it's apparently as common as rain for toddlers to do this. This evening he chomped down hard enough that he actually left marks and cried real tears. I felt so, so bad and ineffective as a parent. Another part of me hopes that that sensation left enough of a lingering memory to detract him from doing it again and help him use whatever words he has.
• Iris is currently--as I type--doing her nighttime oxygen saturation test (and breathing like a rocka). If she passes then she no longer needs oxygen at all at any time during the day or night. The monitor the company sent over to record her saturations isn't picking up as well as her usual monitor, so this has me worried that they'll be gauging her abilities slightly inaccurately. I will be letting them know otherwise.
• I might be getting something sparkly for Christmas.
• I realized the other morning that I totally didn't take advantage of the I Get To Sleep In On My Birthday ticket that most mothers take advantage of. I'm wondering if T will let me cash it in this weekend. Of course, he's always tired so I end up spending that time in bed feeling moderately guilty.
• My book club (BC, holla!) gals are coming over for a holiday pot luck this Sunday and I am v. excited.
• I drank sweet tea in the effort to stay up later this evening to feed Iris at 10:30 and now I'm totally awake. Plan backfired.
• I have been searching for "Love Actually" on cable so that I can record it on the DVR. Nothing. It appears to be playing nowhere on the television. How can this be? It's a holiday movie, for Pete's sake.

Okay, that's all I got.

Love/hate Monday

Love: Getting a free mocha this morning at Starbucks. Venti!

Hate: The guy in front of me in line kept turning around (I started counting...5 times!) to look at me. At one point I checked to make sure my zipper was up and I didn't have any boogies hanging out of my nose.

Love: Ezra coined "boogies." As in, "Mama! I have boogies! I need a tissue!" He also says, "Christmastreat" for Christmas tree and "meatbulbs" for meatballs.

Hate: Broccoli

Love: T's company is issuing bonuses this year. That news prompted a shout-out to J.C.

Hate: T is gone all week. Working hard for said bonus, I suppose.

Love: In organizing my nightstand drawer this morning (I was trying to find a headband), I totally found a forgotten gift card to an area spa. I neeeeevvvver lose things like this (T calls me Hawkeye), so it was even more of a surprise.

Hate: I was PMSing on Friday and was totally surly with an employee at Costco. I now kinda feel bad.

Love: I really could just eat real butter and baguettes and drink lemonade for every meal. There are no words for how I feel about butter and bread.

Hate: Work dramatics

Love: Having a husband who toooootally took one for the team and humored me in my desire to send out picture Christmas cards. Really. He did.

Hate: In the Christmas card, my son is holding a maraca that he refused to put down. Actually, I don't really "hate" this--it kinda makes me laugh.



Your loves and hates?

Big box = cheapest fun evah

Like that taxi cab show, but less seedy

While I am fastidious* (sooooo going to have spell check that word) about some things in my home, others I am woefully hillbilly and slovenly about.

And so I am providing you with a list entitled:

Housekeeping Confessional, wherein K admits her shortcomings and hopes that you will too so that she doesn't feel like a cotton-headed silly ninny-muggins**.

1. I almost never replace our vacuum bag.
2. I will hand wash dishes and dry them and put them away many, many days in a row before even thinking about emptying the dishwasher.
3. I have three very scary, very unorganized closets that I choose to ignore and act like they are dead to me.
4. I haven't been up in our attic in almost three years because I am scared there will be a squirrel carcass up there and I would rather just: a) send T or b) pretend we don't have an attic.
5. I probably don't change our bed sheets as often as they should be changed.
6. I won't vacuum or Swiffer under most furniture--just kinda around it.
7. When we painted the rooms in our house, it never occurred to me/us to paint the closets as well and now they're full of stuff (see #3) and I'm too lazy to remedy it. In fact, I rarely notice it now.

So, please...let me know your housekeeping shortcomings. This here is a judge-free zone.

*Okay, apparently I can spell "fastidious" but not "cotton." Geez.

**Oh my lands, I can't stop watching "Elf." T may leave me.