Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Story Time at the Library

(As a side note, whenever I have a phrase structured like the title (blank time at the blank) I sing it to the tune of "Midnight at the Oasis." I have no idea why. It's not like the word time is in there anywhere, but it's just ingrained in me and I do it automatically without thinking. Story Time at the Liiibrary, get your books and songs...)

Monday nights are Brynna and my date nights. We usually do supper (although last night we cheaped out on that) and then head to the story time at the library. Just the two of us. Mommy-daughter bonding. Story time has been very educational for me and I'm glad we started it. There is no story time in April or May and I'm going to miss it intensely. Not just because of the lack of a really great activity which enhances my kid's love of books and reading, but because I have no freakin' clue what we're going to do next Monday.

Story time goes like this - there is a topic. Last night it was bunnies. There are stories about bunnies and songs about bunnies and sometimes, but not always, a nice moving around activity about bunnies. Then, there is a craft about bunnies. Finally, there is the Silly Dance Contest, which is a song by Jim Gill and gives the kids a chance to wrap up their fun by moving around and having a good time. I love the silly dance contest. It's my favorite part of story time.

But, like I said, story time has been very educational for me. I'd like to say that through story time, I have learned more about colors, airplanes and of course, bunnies. But the truth is, I mostly knew that stuff. I have learned about Brynna. It's been really rewarding, because I don't get to see her in many settings other than home and church. It's nice to see how she acts when someone else in charge, how she interacts with kids and how she learns.

We started going because I figured it's a nice approximation of school group time (which Brynn hates). I thought that maybe some fun group experiences would help her deal with the not so fun group experiences. I think this has worked a little. Her teacher said that her hatred for group time has cooled to a low sizzle, so hopefully, we can make it go away by next year. But, I thought I would share some the things I've learned about her that I never would have known otherwise. I am sharing this because I had to step us both out of our comfort zones to experience these things and I was surprised by a lot of them.

1. My kid is bizarrely mature. I see her playing or I have arguments with her and I think how young she is, but the truth is she is not as young as other four year olds. In this group, she is the only one that only stands when instructed, only talks when prompted and participates at the level of an elementary school kid. In fact, the teacher asked me when she would be old enough for Bookcrafters (a group with a minimum age of 6!). She's not only old enough to act more mature, but to be annoyed by kids who don't. I love the eye roll when one of the kids start acting up, even though I constantly tell her not to do it. I don't take any credit for this. It's all Montessori, baby.

2. She is sometimes intimidated by her peers. This kid is not shy. She does that shy around mommy thing, but on the whole, she is a mover and a shaker. A kid who gets things done, who plays with strange kids on the playground and invites loners to play with her. But Story time seems to be kind of a closed group. Most the parents know each other and so do most of the kids. Most of the kids are shy of Brynna and Brynna is shy of them, too. (Most of the kids also come in riding in Bugaboo strollers, wearing designer duds, so I am intimidated by their moms. Also have I mentioned the extreme lack of dads in this group. This is the first time I've experienced a world devoid of dads.) Anyway, I'm hoping that she makes a story time friend soon, because it's hard to watch her wanting to jump in with some of the other girls, but afraid to. It's just not like her to be afraid of anything.

3. She is one focused person. I don't know if I have ever been as focused in my life as she is on the teacher, on the music or on the craft. I don't know how many times the teachers have told me that she is reluctant to leave work unfinished, to the point of not wanting to go outside to play. But when you see it. When you see her aching to go do the silly dance contest, but not about to leave that craft project undone, well, it's inspiring and sad at the same time. I get angry for her that she doesn't get to do it, ever. (It doesn't help that my kid is probably the only one actually doing the craft because most of the other moms just do it for their kids.) She doesn't get angry or hurt or upset by it, though. She makes a choice to stick with her work, even when I'm telling her to just go dance and I'll finish or I'll save her seat and she can finish when it's over or I'll give you two dollars to finish it at home. She makes a choice and she stands by the consequence. Without flinching. Without ever whining that she missed the silly dance contest again. Without ever even mentioning that she loves it and wants to do it.



Last night we checked out the CD with the silly dance contest on it. And we did the silly dance contest in the car on the way home. Then we did it in the front yard while I hung her windsock (the coolest craft yet) on the porch. Then we did it while we were walking to the bathroom. Then we did the silly bath contest in the tub. We did it again this morning in the car. I'm going to get this CD so we can always silly dance on the way home after she has risen above.

The teacher kind of looks at us funny, maybe a little sad. I think she sees in Brynna a slightly anti-social, unplayful kid who seems intimidated by all the fun. What I see, though, is a kid ready to learn, ready to focus, a kid who will do the dancing and singing uncomplaining, but would really like you to get back to the stories, a kid who takes such pride in her work that she won't leave it to do the funnest thing, a kid who can't stand it when someone interrupts her learning, my kid. My glorious, smart, funny, imaginative, creative and sparkly kid.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Pretend it's Saturday, er, Friday

Welcome to the first installment of What's in My Crochet Bag! Here it is:

I am currently working on a little babyh sweater. It's a cute little thing with a ruffle all the way around it. I started it as soon as I found out that Maren was a girl, but then I got distracted, so I'm trying to finish it. The problem is that it's a size 0-3 months. So she probably won't be able to wear it. Although it looks like it's going to be huge, so we'll see. Anyway, not finishing it would just be a waste of yarn, so I'm working away on it this week.

The purple is just plain Red Hart Baby sport weight, but the variagated is a super-nice Bernat Softee. It is so soft, I'd like to make sheets out of it. I love to take little breaks and rub it up against my face.

If you are interested, the pattern is from a little Bernat Softee Baby book called Little Girsl to knit and crochet. I did a sweater for Brynna out of it last year (a size 4T that is still too big for my 5 girl). Typically, I find that books with both knit and crochet have only a couple of crochet and are kind of a waste of money for me. This book has two crochet sweaters, two crochet blankets and a crochet doll and the only knit is a teddy bear and a blanket.

In other news, I finally finished the 3 month pictures today and they turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I'm also just in under the 4 month deadline.

Doesn't that just melt your socks!! I love that face, and I'm telling you, nothing in creation is as cute as a baby in a bonnet. Now, if only I hadn't gotten the marker scribble in there. Anyone know photoshop well enough to crop that sucker out?

I also got this:
I took like 25 and this is the only one where they were bothing looking at the camera. Seriously, you would think a four year old could handle that better than the baby, but I have at least 10 where Maren is looking right at me and Brynna is staring off into space with her head turned all funny.

Anyway, I'm glad to have some good shots and I can't wait to get them printed and see how they turn out on paper. This is normally the point where I would hope everyone has a good weekend, but since it's only 2 and a half hours until the week begins all over again, sleep well is the best I can do.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Pretend it's Thursday

Gah! I had the day from wherever yesterday and didn't get to blog. Plus, I haven't taken a pic for my What's in my Crochet Bag update, so today, pretend it's Thursday (but only on my blog, don't ruin your weekend.) Tomorrow, we will pretend it's Friday and since I don't usually post on weekends, we'll be back in the sync with the rest of the world by Monday.

So, anyway...

I had my Spring Parent/Teacher conference last night. Can I just say that Brynna's teacher is one of my favorite peoples in all of creation. I love her. I wish I could hire her to be Brynna's private teacher and stay with her through college. Nobody gets my kid, like she gets my kid.

My kid has the best handwriting on the planet. She writes better than calligraphers (I'm pretty sure that's what she said, anyway. Once you add the mommy filter to it at least.) I love that. I love that she is such a good writer and that she really, really loves to write. Here's the shocking news: she can't read. They always do it this way at her Montessori (maybe all Montessoris (Montessories, Montessore, oh whatever), I'm not sure). I guess reading and writing are not really as related as we think. They use different areas of the brain, yadda, yadda.

What I want to know, is how does a kid desire to write if they can't read? If they don't understand the magic of reading for themselves, why do the even want to do it in the first place?

And Brynna desires to write. She wants to write more than she wants to wash her hands with no one else in the bathroom to tell her that's too much soap, more than she wants Maren to grow up already so she can play with her instead of just cooing, more than she wants ravioli for supper every night. (I know, not peanut butter and jelly or pizza or cheeseburgers but ravioli. Weird, right?)

She loves to practice writing. She loves for me to write things so that she can copy them. She loves for me to spell words while I'm cooking so she can write them down.

She does not love the reading stuff with the same vigor.

She and I had a forty-five minute argument the other night about whether cat started with a c or a t. I wanted to drop it, I tried to drop it, but she stubbornly insisted that I admit that I was wrong and cat starts with a t. Tat. I can't do that. I can pretend we're talking about something else, distract her with something more interesting, I can even bribe her to drop it. But I cannot lie to her in that fundamental way.

The fabulous-teacher-woman (let's call her FTW) thinks she's still having hearing issues. I tend to agree. We're going to have to do more testing, I think. Here's the scary part, and the part that I've been meandering around to: she said some dreaded words, the FTW, at our conference. She said the big PHL words. Permanent Hearing Loss. The words that have been rattling around in my head since we did the tubes. What if? What if? What if? What if there is permanent hearing loss?

She can obviously hear. It's not a matter of omygoodnessIhavetolearnsignlanguageandisn'tthere
aschoolforthedeafinKentuckyohmygoodness.

At this point, the only real issue I can come up with is that she won't be able to learn to read by phonics. Which really isn't that big of a deal, really.

It's just that I hear those words, those dreaded words and I wonder if I could have done anything different. Could I have prevented this in the first place if I had somehow known when she got an ear infection before it spread to her eyes, if I had realized that it's only four ear infections a year that is an indicator of tubes, if I had pushed for a hearing test when she was having speech problems a year ago, but the evaluation said that they weren't bad enough to treat.

But a wise, wise woman once told me, "You are going to screw up your kids. Permanently. You are going to do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, be the wrong thing. You are going to be the reason that your kids need therapy. And that's okay, because it's life and everybody lives with it. All that you can hope for, can strive for, is that you raise kids that are strong enough, caring enough, smart enough, kind enough and stable enough to get over it and screw up their own kids."

This is the same woman who told me to show Brynna a tape of the ball dropping at 10:00 on New Year's Eve so I wouldn't have to deal with the fallout of letting her stay up to midnight, so trust me, she's a smartie. (No, I didn't do it and it was only partially because I've never taped the ball dropping before.)

So, get over it, Jessi. Get back to the business of properly screwing up your kids and quit worrying about what's already been done. Guilt is not my friend, no matter how well we're acquainted. And worry will kill me and give me wrinkles. And let's face it, no one wants wrinkles.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Genetics vs. Sleep Deprivation

So, in a bizarre twist of fate, my three month old is sleeping through the night, but my four year old isn't. I say this because I'm wondering how much of my recent confusion and instability is the result of genetics and how much has more to do with my late night trips to Brynna's room to get her a cup of milk, or pick her blanket up off the floor or turn on the bathroom light or give her "huggies."

Yesterday, we walked out of the house without Brynna's lunch plate. It's her responsibility to bring the lunch plate to school. She knows that. I help, though. I always check and make sure she's holding it AS we walk out the door. I always ask her when we get to the bottom of the hill if she has her lunch. Yesterday, I walked out of the house without checking and didn't remember to ask until 20 minutes later.

So, I had to go home to get it. Except that I remembered on my way home that I had also forgotten my planner. So, I got that too.

Then, today, I locked myself between the house and the car. I knew I was forgetting something, I just knew it. I have a mental checklist for the mornings and I flew down it quickly: Maren's bag, Brynna's lunch (!), my purse, my planner, my cell phone, is everyone wearing shoes? Does everyone have weather appropriate clothing? Check, check, check. I walked out the door and immediately after closing the front door, I remembered what it was that I had forgotten - KEYS!!!

I used to do this all the time, so I always try to leave a window unlocked. Don't bother, thieves, apparently I don't do that anymore. I did find one window unlocked, but the screen wouldn't move, so only the top of the window would open. I tried to talk Brynna into letting me hoist her into a closed room in a dark, empty house and then running to the front door that she can't always get unlocked and try to let me in. She wasn't so keen on it.

So, I called The Husband. My dear, sweet husband came to the rescue. He was late for work, so I'm sure he's annoyed.

My grandma has always believed that she was getting Alzheimer's. It's just a thing for her. She's believed it since she was 12, I assume, or since the disease was discovered, whichever came first. We all laugh and remind her that she's always been forgetful, she just forgot. Heehee. And also that it's hereditary. We're all forgetful. My mom calls me at least once a week and when I say hello, she cheerfully informs me that she forgot why she called. Sometimes these phone conversations will go on for hours and she'll never remember what she wanted to tell me.

I leave my phone at home about once a week. I have also been known to drive right past the place where my kids are while they are there. Just forget that I have kids, or that I have to pick kids up, or at the very least where I entrust people to watch said kids. I've never made it home and remembered that I forgot one (at least not since home got so far away), but I'm sure it's coming.

I can't count how many times my Grandma forgot me at school or at church or whatever. I wasn't particularly traumatized by any of this, and in fact, I always thought it was funny.

Until I started doing it. Now it is not funny, not funny at all.

Monday, March 23, 2009

21st Century Digital Girl*

The end of last week, I had no internet at work. It's a long, boring story of incompetence and destructive behavior and I won't bore you with it.

But, as I result I realized two very important things about myself.

1. I spend a lot of time online.

2. I am totally incapable of surviving for long periods of time without a reliable high-speed connection.

Let's focus on number 2, because 1 is just stating the obvious, here.

I do not use the word surviving here with the requisite sarcasm. This is not like when I am "starving to death" ten minutes before dinner and an hour after a granola bar. This is not like when I am "writhing in pain" nestled into my bed and wondering if it would be okay to take a Tylenol PM. This is surviving, as in, I may not survive the winter if we don't get the furnace fixed.

I don't think I devoted much time here to the traumas of the ice storm, except for my homelessness updates, but one thing that was disturbing to me this time (I've been through this before) is how utterly dependent I am on electricity. I could not cook, could not stay warm, could not care for my children without some form of electricity for at least short periods.

Last time, I went a week without any power and did just fine, thank you very much. I was bundled up, reading by candlelight and eating cold spaghetti-o's and rejoicing my decision to not purchase an electric can opener. That was before kids, though.

Now, I can't even fathom the thought. We started packing as soon as we realized the power was off. Last week, I felt the same way at work.

It seems that everything I do, I do online. I don't have a radio anymore, I have Pandora. I don't have a phonebook, I have yellowpages.com. I don't have any form of communication except for email. Okay, that's a lie, I have a phone and mail and a fax, but all of my contact information for any of those methods are stored on my online database.

Furthermore, I can't even do my boring, envelope-stuffing-type work without the internet because there are no blog reading breaks.

Really, it's sad how attached to this little box I am.

I got a message in the mail today. We are trying to move over to more online communication methods and had sent out a card requesting email addresses. One woman responded by saying that she would like to continue to recieve hard copy communications and that she prefered not to "live in the computer." I live in the computer. And I like it.

And I'm good at it. Yesterday I took the kids outside for some much-needed vitamin D rich sunshine. I weeded a flower bed, Brynna played with our dog and a neighbor's dog and Maren napped. And got sunburned. That would have never happened if I had been playing online.

I'm still gonna do another bed tomorrow night if I can.

* Contest time! I love the blog contests on some of my favorite sites. Pioneer Woman has the best ones, but don't participate because I already have waaayyy too much competition. Okay, so, I want to try it myself, but I don't have the funds to send you anything spiffy, but I will send a hand crochet scarf to the first person who can correctly identify the bizzarely obscure reference in this post's title. I'll even give you a hint, it's a song...

Thursday, March 19, 2009

5 Minutes until I've Missed a Day!

Okay, crazy day, just got to the whole internet thing. No time to blog. Aaarrrggghhh! I'm down to 4 minutes. Must post before I get to 0 minutes. What if my clock is slow? I have nothing to say. I need something distracting. What's distracting? Cute is distracting. Rock Star Babies are cute.


Here:

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Am I THAT Girl?

Tonight at bookclub one of my friends said something about all her Facebook friends who still live in the same town they lived in when they were in high school, still hang out with the same people and basically have the same life.

"Oh my goodness, that's me!" Of course, everyone argued with me. (Mainly because I didn't go to high school with any of them.)

But I had to think, is that me? Am I that person that I always swore I would never become. I spent a good deal of my time in high school and college daydreaming about my mountain in Vermont, where I would live and write and be a hermit and order in my groceries. Or about living in Seattle, wallowing in the dreary rain and grunge music and the anonymity of a big city. Or even about the coffee shop (xPatriot) that I would open in Canada. But no matter where I dreamed of, I swore I would leave my home town. I would venture out. I would GO!

And here I am, still at home. Living in the house my mom lived in just five years ago. Hanging out at the same places, shopping in the same store. Taking my kids (who I swore I'd never have) to the same park where I spent many a late night revolving on the merry-go-round (now gone) having aforementioned daydreams.

I don't hang out with the same people, but (see yesterday's entry) I don't really hang out. Which is probably why I get so un-naturally excited for bookclub.

I guess to some extent I am that person. But I now understand that it's not quite as sad as I once thought. I chose this life. For all of it's shortcomings, I picked it and it has just as many perks as shortcomings.

I sometimes think about my big quiet mountain in Vermont and the friendly delivery boy who brings me my groceries and a little town gossip and it seems so peaceful. So amazing and beautiful and separate. But then it seems like a different kind of quiet. The kind where kids never laugh and people never wisper in the dark.

And my nice anonymous, rainy Seattle seems so dreary and romantic. And then it just seems dark and sad.

I don't think I gave up anything when I chose this life. I cashed in my old dreams for some new ones. Better ones. Ones where I have family around me and kids in the living room and neighbors and church and bookclub.

They are different dreams, but they are still mine.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Old or Boring

The other night I was chatting on Facebook with some friends from college. (This is me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1082820283&ref=profile. If you aren't my friend yet, friend me. I accept everyone, even mortal enemies. 'Cause you know what they say, Keep your friends close and stalk enemies and ex-boyfriends on Facebook.)

Said friends were drunk. Hillariously drunk. It was Saturday night. Not only was I sober, but I was playing Vampire Wars in my jammies in bed at 9:30. Seriously. Not a problem, though, it's not like I don't have interesting exploits to draw from for conversationalist purposes, right? Right? Damn, do cute stories about your kids or what happened on House last week count, 'cause that's all I've got.

Often when such a situation occurs, I laugh at myself and say, "I am sooo old." Here's the kicker, though. I'm not. I am not at all any older than these guys. Maybe I'm boring. I'm a boring mom-type sitting at home in her jammies.

I don't have a particuarly interesting life. I work, I raise kids (I don't care if you raise corn and rear kids - I raise kids), I obsess over grammar (obviously), I'm in a book club, I go to church. I crochet, I read a lot, I play on the computer, I write a blog, I continually plan the book I never have time to write (and make up excuses about never having time to write). But, I don't really think I'm boring. I think I'm the same person I was when I was hanging out with these guys at field parties. Just without the field parties. Wow, do I miss field parties.

Anywho... People didn't hang out with me because I went to parties (I hope.) In fact, I see it the opposite way, I went to parties because I had lots of people to hang out with. So, when did I become boring?

Now, understand, this has nothing to do with field parties (even though I've typed that phrase so much now that it no longer looks like words) or drinking or anything else. It has to do with that list above. That list above of the things I do. Add in go to the grocery, once every two weeks to the library and drop off the kids at their various haunts and that's it. That is the complete list of my life. I do NOTHING that isn't on that list.

I don't know what concerns me more How-did-I-get-here? or What-do-I-do-about-it? or Do-I-really-care? 'Cause I kinda don't. Care that is. I have nights like Saturday where I sit and think about how predictable and boring my life has become, how I have gotten older than my years and taken on more responsibility than I ever planned to. Sometimes I get those stupid "girlfriend" emails where you celebrate your girlfriends and how they are better than husbands and kids and everything and I think "Wow, I'm going to be screwed when my mom dies, 'cause she is seriously my best friend." But most days, I don't care about that stuff.

I have my girls. My beautiful, funny girls. And I have The Husband - a wealth of joy and laughter and frustration and fury. And I have my mom and my brother and my insane grandparents. And I have bookclub, which doesn't meet often enough for me, but still... I have other moms to share mommy moments with, I have my church-y friends to share my G-rated moments with, and I have my college buddies to share the memories of my insanity with.

I guess I'll always miss the crazy, wild version of me. And maybe I'll be that girl again, when my girls are old enough not to need me every moment, you know like when they are grandparents. (I actually think sometimes about how much fun it would be to have a field party for all of my college friends and see who whips out the pictures of their kids and who heads straight for the vodka and Tang (we were some broke kids, people)).

But for now, I think I kinda dig my life. I kinda dig being that weird old lady who still listens to music from the 90's and complains about having to stay up past 10:00. Who can't watch MTV awards shows anymore because she doesn't know any of the nominees. But who still rocks out in the car, could easily sleep until noon and can't wait until I retire so I can wear all my grunge clothes again. When I am old, I shall wear flannel. It's not exactly Maya Angelou, but it'll do.

On a side note, do you ever think about what retirement homes will be like when my generation is old? We'll all be deaf from that darn rock music and we'll all be senile and babbling about Kurt Cobain and singing I Like Big Butts. All those saggy tattoos and droopy peircings. My generation shall embrace blue hair in all it's shades and be the beginning of cammo and tie dyed control pantyhose. It's gonna rock. And I shall be the queen of the geriatric field party.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Sick Kids

I am going to make a confession, right here for everyone to read.

I love sick kids.

Not seriously sick kids, but there is almost nothing sweeter than a little one with a cold or a mild case of the flu.

For one thing, this is the closest you get to going back in time to the days when they actually needed you. Nothing says "Still Mommy's Girl" better than a pitiful cry for tissues. Even older kids than mine become blubbering lumps of mommy-needing-goo the moment their noses start to run.

For another thing, they get so affectionate. I don't know what it is, but when Brynna is well I hear "I love you" about twice a day, if I'm lucky. I mostly get eye rolls when I say it, but today she has probably said it 9,786 times.

Finally, they are so peaceful. Quiet, sleepy, beautiful little things. I should have taken pictures.

I hope she's all better in the morning but if she's not... Meh.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Friday Waste of Blog

I really want to make this whole feature thing work. Almost all of my favorite blogs run a feature and I really like saying "Oh, well, I run a feature on my blog..." It makes me feel important and special. Not quite like a rock star, but at least like the guy who walks out on stage to bring the rock star her other guitar.

Here's the thing, though. I am going to have to discontinue the Friday Waste of Yarn, due to lack of intelligent forethought on my part.

Item 1: I know nothing about copyright laws, but I know enough to know that the sentence "posting other people's pictures of other people's crochet of other people's patterns" probably has too many other people in it to mess with posting pics.

Item 2: I decided to solve this issue by crocheting this crap myself to post.

Item 3: When I sat down with my pattern for (I kid you not) a toilet paper cozie that looks like sushi, I realized something. I don't want this crap in my house! I don't want to spend time and yarn making this crap! Whose idea was this anyway?!? Mine, oh, well... I'm sure it made sense at the time.

Item 4: I call it a waste of yarn for a reason and I can't bring myself to do it.

Item 5: I'm really out of items here, but I love item lists and I just needed one more to make it a nice even 5 (which is really an odd number but always seems so neat and tidy and, well, even.)

So, if you were looking forward to a waste of yarn today, google sushi toilet paper cover and imagine what could have been.

Otherwise, I need to come up with a new feature. Hmm.... I have been thinking about this all day and I have "In my crochet bag" where I show you what I'm working on this week, "Paperback in my purse" where I give you a short, pithy and hopefully funny review of the book I'm reading right now, "Favorite blog of the week" where I introduce you to someone who is even wittier than me or "Friday Failure" where I point out my biggest shortcoming of the week (which, again, I would try to make funny).

Any opinions?

In the meantime:
I am not crocheting anything right now, because of the sushi incident. I plan on starting a hat tomorrow, though. For Maren, not me. I have got to get rid of all the baby colored yarn I have so I have space to buy some more colors.

I am reading The Watchmen which is awesome and proves that graphic novels are literature too. I don't understand why some people are so anti-graphic novel, it's still a book, with words and plot and character development and crap. It's sort of alternate history and I really am enjoying it. Even superheroes get the blues, apparently.

My favorite blog this week is www.dooce.com. You've got to love a woman who not only posts her hatemail but makes you pity the person who wrote it rather than the person for whom it was written. (Look, I used the word whom, I don't do that enough.)

This week's failure is sleeping. I haven't slept more than a few hours a night all week. And you know what the worst part is, the absolute cream on top of that crappy cupcake? Maren is sleeping through the night. It's no one's fault but mine that the earliest I've gotten to bed this week is 12:45. I am old, and sleep deprived, and bitter.

So, there you have it. A week in the life of Jessi. Seriously, help me out here and vote on a feature.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Time Change

Can I just say, the time change kills me? Seriously. (Well, not literally, obviously, though I'm sure some of you wondered with my extended absence.)

I am one of those people with a really accurate internal clock. I can tell you within about ten minutes what time it is almost all the time. I can also set my clock for ten minutes of sleep and sleep for almost exactly nine minutes. (My internal clock runs slightly fast, but still...) I think that's why the time change bothers me so much.

My body does not want to go to bed early enough, therefore it really doesn't want to get up early enough. So, here is my rant about daylight savings. Because the only thing in my head is sleep, sleep, sleep parading like sheep, sheep, sheep begging to be counted. (It's made me tired, just typing that sentence.)

Wasn't daylight savings invented for farmers? Haven't we made being a professional farmer a nearly impossible thing? So, why are we not only keeping up with daylight savings but EXPANDING it?!? Daylight savings ends in November this year, people. Seriously, that means that I only have 4 months of normal time. Can we even call it "normal" or "standard" time when daylight savings has a 2 to 1 majority?

Plus, will someone please explain to me how I am saving daylight when I have to drag my poor kids out of the house in the pitch dark to go to school, IN THE SPRING!!! It's bad enough that there is a solid 6 weeks in the winter when I have to explain every morning that it really is morning even though the sun hasn't gotten out of bed yet. But now, I have to do it again when Spring hits because of stupid, stupid daylight savings.

(This is when my 4-year old thought police would normally jump in and tell me that "We don't say stupid, mommy." I hate having my words thrown back at me. Plus, I am all for having the little tree-hugger kid and I have done everything in my power to raise this kid as an environmentalist, but if she tells me one more time that "That is called wasting!" when I pull off two sheets of toilet paper instead of one, my head is going to explode.)

Where was I? Oh yes, daylight savings sucks!! (We don't say sucks, mommy.)

Friday, March 6, 2009

Friday Waste of Yarn

I want to start a feature. Each week on Friday, I am going to post the worst possible waste of yarn I can find that week.

I have thought about this, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings (or break copywrite laws) by cribbing photos off of other people's sites.

This week's worst waste is dish soap aprons: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS297US298&q=dish+soap+apron+crochet

Follow any of the links to see the glory of dish soap aprons.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Hills are Alive with Bittersweet Music

It's pretty amazing how much of a difference it makes in your life, when, on that fateful night, completely unexpectedly, the baby sleeps all the way through.

Maren has slept through the night before. In fact, for almost a month she did it every night. Then she stopped. It became the ritual to get up every morning at 4 a.m. to try to pacify her with a bottle and the rocking chair. On some nights, she would refuse to return to sleep and I would end up watching TV with her in my arms at 5 a.m. Do you know what's on at 5 a.m? Freakin' nothin, that's what.

But for the past two nights, she has returned to her complete night of rest mode. It's pretty amazing. She takes her final bottle at 11 and then sleeps blissfully until the rest of the house is stirring at about 6:45. That's nearly 8 hours people!!

Right now, we're still getting up every morning at 4 for a paci-check. This is when we pop her paci back in (preferably as the "hand of God" where all she sees is the hand descending from the heavens) and then pray as we crawl back into bed that there will only be one paci-check that night.

It's habit to get up now, but the fact that the paci is sending her back to dreamland means (hopefully) that it won't last much longer.

Now the only problem is that 11:00 bottle. What I wouldn't give for a 10:00 bottle. It'll come, though. It's only a matter of time before I can count on 10 hour nights. Then it's only mere months until she is sleeping on Brynna's schedule and I have 2 kid-free hours every night when everyone is tucked in and I can watch grown-up TV and read and crochet without tiny hands getting tangled in the yarn.

Of course, then I'll probably be sad that my tiny baby is snuggled up in my arms every night.

That's the problem with parenthood. There is always this focus on the next thing: sleeping through the night, talking, walking, dressing themselves, going to school, driving, college, marriage. But as soon as you (or rather your incredibly well-raised young-uns) reach that milestone, you are filled with pride and joy and sadness because there is no going back. Brynna will never again call me "mum-mum" or look precious while in the middle of a spaghetti incident that puts Guns N Roses to shame. She will never again take stumbly, unsure steps (at least until she's old enough to get drunk, but I am sooooo not thinking about that). She'll never again giggle while someone claps for her heroic efforts at rolling over. All that is gone and I'll never get it back.
Maren will never again take her first bite of cereal or scare the crap out of us by sleeping through the night. And soon, she'll be Brynna's age and I'll be thrilled to have two girls in school, dressing themselves and feeding themselves and bathing themselves. But I'll also want to cry every time she tells me she can do it herself and beat myself up for not spending more time enjoying it when she couldn't do it herself.
I can't even begin to think how much worse it'll be with Brynna by then. She will be reading to herself and won't even need me for bedtime stories. I think when she tells me she'll just read to herself, it will be the saddest day of my entire life. And believe me, I will make her tell me. I won't stop following her into that room gripping Junie B. Jones, or Ramona Quimby or Laura Ingalls-Wilder until she stops me at the door.
I wonder if it's better as a grandparent.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Like a Prayer, People


My daughter, my beautiful, smart, funny and sweet oldest daughter has the weirdest fashion sense in the world. She loves clothes and loves to put together outfits. She has told me more than once that it's okay to wear shoes that are too small and hurt your feet if they are pretty and look good with your outfit. She once didn't speak to me for two hours because her sister got to wear a hairbow and she didn't. She went a solid three months without putting on pants because skirts were coooler. Last fall, she told me polka dots were "in." In what, little one? Are they big with the Montessori crowd? Did tiny child magazine do a spread about polka dots? Seriously, where does she get this stuff? I am no fashionista. I barely wear stuff that's clean and color coordinated, yet alone put the thought and effort into a single outfit that she does her top half.

When people ask me about her sense of style. "What kind of clothes does she like?" "What's her favorite color to wear?" etc, I reply that her natural style is sort of Madonna, a la 1982. She does a lot of layers, things in the wrong order, colors that don't really match, etc. etc. The thing is she puts things on and you think "Oh, no, make it stop! I can't believe she's going to put that red shirt on top of the pink one, oh-no-oh-no-oh-no." Then she gets it all on and her vision makes sense. (Okay, it's totally a twilight zone kind of sense, but sense all the same.) I am convinced that she's going to work in fashion when she grows up.

As a testament to the Madonna-y-ness of it all and her crazy style and timeless beauty, I offer this proof:



Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Three Month Pictures

Okay, here is my start on the three month pictures. I want at least one in a different outfit, preferably a fancier one. I just like to have a lot to pick from, really. These are my favorites, thus far:" Hmm... I believe you may have a point, there. But I cannot yet concur."



I can't decide which of the two I like better. The bottom one has better color quality, but the expression on the top one is slightly better. I wish I had PhotoShop.


I tried for hours to get this sideways shot and this was the best I could do. It's funny, though and funny is worth a lot.

I want a sleeping shot, too. I love sleeping babies.

When Brynna was this age, I spent a whole day trying to get one of those really cute naked baby pictures. After she had wet every blanket in the house and half the furniture, I gave up. So, I don't even think I'll try that this time around.

I'd love to get a good shot of the two of them together, but I don't think it's going to happen. I just can't quite manage anything that doesn't look like someone's head is about to pop off. I'll leave that to the professionals.

I will try to post the rest when I get them.









Monday, March 2, 2009

The Blog that Should Have Been

Today, I was soooo ready to blog. Okay, I didn't finish doing the three month pictures, but I started and I got one really good one. (And at least five funny ones.) I'd show you, but I forgot my memory card.

Also, Brynna and I did a super-cool project, fixing up her dresser. I took a bunch of pictures to show you what a desperate, no creative soul wandering hopelessly, no purposefully through Michael's and a brilliant four-year old with no bounds to her imagination can create together. But again, that pesky memory card.

I also cleaned off said memory card and found proof, that's right, proof of my daughter's insane fashion sense. Everything today involved pictures.

I was also sick. I have no pictures of that, but that's my excuse for my memory loss today. I'll have to come up with another excuse tomorrow... In the meantime, you've got some good stuff coming your way. Illustrated stuff no less. I haven't posted a picture since Maren was born, so get ready!