Sunday, August 27, 2006

2,996 Tribute

Have you heard of this? It’s about the victims of 9/11. I read about it on another bloggers page and decided to sign up. I was assigned Abigail Cales Medina. I’m finding that there is lots of information about her death (lots and lots of lists of the victims out there), but, sadly, not tons written about her life. I am getting a sense of her through comments people have written on some of these tribute pages, so at worst, I’ll be able to gleen from those. My hope is that maybe by listing her name on here now someone in her family may google her name and see this and help provide me with the information I seek. If you knew her please email me at mommyspeakATyahoo.com I want to know more about her so hopefully when I post my tribute in a couple weeks it will be an inkling of what she deserved.

On the topic of 9/11, this is something I have a very, very, very hard time discussing. I’ve mentioned before that the event basically helped to put me into a full depressive episode. I try not to think about it too much, it brings back all those feelings and honestly feeling nothing is better then feeling like that. If I had lost someone close to me in the attacks I’m not sure I’d ever be able to really move on. On this five-year anniversary I thought maybe I could do something positive to help myself (and maybe a few others) start to heal and this seemed like a good start. You should consider doing something similar (last I checked there were still about 400 names left.)

I saw something on a talk show the other day, it was two moms who had lost their sons, their circumstances aren’t important to this post, but their resolve is. One said to the other, “It will never be OK, but it will be alright.”

How very much I want to believe that.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

End of Days

I know, another post. In less then 24 hours. Yes, hell may just have frozen over. OR….

Or my outlaws may be vistiting and I may be going batshit crazy.
Probably the later.

We went to dinner tonight and my 3YO is happily coloring her child’s menu. She finishes coloring one picture on it and holds it up for all to see.

MS: “Oh, TS you color so well!
DS: “Great job!”
Grandmother: Well now you need another one to color.

And of course, TS suddenly realizes why, yes she does need another menu to color. Right now. And if she doesn’t get one, right. the. F. now. She may just f’ing implode.
Grandmother smiles at TS, sips her water and happily watches her have a complete meltdown.
I think she's smiling because she knows I am ready to crawl under the f'ing table.

I just love it when they come to visit.

One of those days…

I’m having one of those days where I’m trying to get things accomplished, but not having a lot of luck. Went by Goodwill dropped off 4 bags of stuff, but they wouldn’t take my old stroller. Went to Micheal’s to get some plate hangers, got those, but they had some of these groovy organizer bags back in. I previously bought one in black and haven’t used it cause I’m hoping they’ll get more in pink (God they are cute.) The store I went to this AM had some in blue, so decided that even though I’d completed my mission at Micheal’s I must go to another to see if they had anymore. So not really completed. Went by what will be TS’s (and BS’s) new preschool/daycare to drop off deposits, they’re closed for in-service. Bah. Went by second Micheal’s, no luck on the bag. Went by Tiny Tots cause one of the girls in the new mom’s group had one of these, are they not adorable???? I got a knock-off from Target for $15 but wanted to see what they cost & if they had anything similar in pink. Even if they did have anything similar they were $50!!!! OMG! So no go on that. Got home & had a call from the church about BS’s baptisim and to “come on over to fill out paperwork”. Damn, I was just by there. I’ll go after I eat lunch, mop the floor & walk the dogs. Ok, that doesn’t sound like it’s all going to happen does it? Well I’m going to eat & I’m going to mop, so maybe I can get TS & then walk the dogs. Right…

Monday, August 21, 2006

Dog Days of Summer

Well here’s a change of pace; something positive. Last week Mowry started jumping the fence again. (Obviously, this isn't the positive part.) We have no idea what was setting him off. In the past the blowers, lawnmowers, etc…have been known to freak him out enough to get him up and over the fence. While he still doesn’t like them AT ALL, he hasn’t gotten upset over them like that since around the time we moved in (last November). The other morning he was barking like crazy. This is really unusual because he wears an electric bark collar (part of his anxiety is that he’ll bark excessively, mostly when we aren’t home. Really goes over great with the neighbors. Makes us very popular.) Anyway, I didn’t think it was him at first because the collar works so well that he won’t bark unless he has a really good reason. When I realized it was him I walked into the backyard & could hear him, but couldn’t find him. I thought maybe he gotten stuck under our deck or something. Then I realized he was in the next-door neighbor’s yard! I walked out front to get him out and saw “M” the neighbor who lives on the other side of us. She proceeded to tell me he’d been out front earlier, but when she tried to approach him he’d run away. Just then he jumped the fence & joined us. Jeez. I put him back in the yard & about two minutes later lots of commotion. He had just jumped the gate into our side yard (supposed to be our dog run, but he kept jumping out of it.) As I turned the corner to the gate more commotion, I got to watch him jump onto our garbage cans & into the neighbors yard again. Jesus Dog! WTH is wrong with you? I still have no idea what was setting him off. I went out front and he promptly jumped their fence to the front yard again. This time I tied him to a lead in our yard (I hate doing that). After a couple hours I let him off & he seemed to have calmed down. A few days later (gardener day) he got out, but was nowhere to be found. I had BS napping & TS with me, so I couldn’t go looking for him. It was just about the time DS got home, so he walked out the door to look for him & Mowry came walking right up to him. Little turd was probably hanging out in the neighbor’s bushes watching while I’m calling for him in the front yard.

So here's the good news part; I walked him this weekend. We’ve become huge fans of The Dog Whisperer and have utilized many of his techniques with some success; however the biggest thing this dog needs is to be exercised. He’s a high-energy dog and tiring him out would go a long way toward lessening his anxiety level (according to what Cesar Milan teaches & I’m a believer, especially after today). I had great intentions with all the exercise I was going to get these dogs while on maternity leave. We were all going to get into great shape together this summer. Riiiight. I wasn’t comfortable walking Mowry by myself, much less w/another dog (Merit, who is a really shit on lead & a huge part of the problem), a baby in the snuggli and a toddler in the jogging stroller. But Cesar (we’re on a first name basis you know) has this technique with the way you put the collar/leash on them that puts them in the right frame of mind (it forces them into the accepting you as Alpha, this stance puts them into the zone or something). I wasn’t really convinced it would work all that well to be honest but hadn’t a free moment when DS was home so I could try it out. This morning the free moment finally happened. I took him out & walked him for 10 minutes with no incident. He was excellent! He was one of those dogs with a loose leash! He healed, he stopped, he slowed, and he sped up all just by my change of pace, no need for verbal commands even! It was amazing. Who are you and what did you do with my dog? I walked back home picked up Merit & walked her around the block. She too got it right away. And she’s a tougher case; more years of bad behavior on lead (she pulls like crazy till we would end up letting her off. The irony; she’s great off lead, but a turd on lead. Who’s in charge here, huh?) So I circled the block with her & then picked him back up. They were awesome! We even had a squirrel in the path & a cat, which would’ve meant lots of pulling in the past. Not so this time, a quick correction from me and they continued on, no pulling, no problem. Back around the block to pick up the jogging stroller. Once more around the block with both dogs & (empty) jogging stroller. I’ll need to practice the maneuvering of a dog in each hand while pushing the stroller, but we did it! I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow. It was awesome, why did I wait so long to try it? They were awesome. I was so proud of them. I was so proud of me.
Hopefully it wasn’t a fluke.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Mudder F-er (say it outloud)

Here's my bitchfest for the day:

I’m having a rough go of it today. Not really sure why, like I said before I think I might be having a good case of “The Blues”. What I do know is that my mom is putting undue pressure on me over nothing. This is something she’s really good at. At lunch today I was saying that we were planning on going to the SF Zoo w/the outlaws when they come next week and she made a face. So I said, “What?” And she’s all, “You always do stuff like that with them.”

WTF????

What have we done with them? They never want to DO anything. They come and sit around our house and drive me nuts getting into our business, so I try to find things for us all to do. When I make suggestions I get shot down 9 times out of 10. (I think it’s mostly cause they don’t want to spend the money on things, but honestly I’m not sure, it seems like they just never want to leave the house mostly. Of course, then they complain about being bored….oh the fun never ends around here, let me tell you. But that’s fodder for another post.) Know what we’ve done with them? We went to Happy Hollow. One time. That’s it. Yup, I know, seriously unfair to my parents who see the kids like Every. Other. Damn. Day. CHEEE-RIST my mother can drive me nuts sometimes. She’s trying to play the martyr, I’m not sure what her real issue is over right now, but it really, really pisses me off.

Here’s the other vent I have over her; I’m in the process of finding at new daycare/preschool for TS (you know, in my free time). I’ve narrowed it down to two in fact. The reason I’m looking to move TS (from the school she truly loves) is because her current school doesn’t take them younger then 18 months. My folks are big on traveling these days so I need a back up for BS when they go away. (My parents will be watching her & TS will go to daycare.) I don’ t want to take the girls to two separate places and changing TS while I’m on maternity leave seems like a good time to do it. If I put TS in a “real preschool” (Half days, 2x a week,) then I’ll be scrambling for back up for both girls when my folks travel and I’ll be leaving work in the middle of the day to take TS from school to daycare. Much better to work it out before hand & be dealing with one place.

So my mom calls me the other morning and starts in again about how if I want to send TS to a “real preschool” that she’d be willing to pick her up, etc… Her offer to pick up sounds really sweet right? But there’s the catch: I also know that my mother being the martyr that she is will bitch to high hell about driving across town 2x a week to pick her up. I know she’ll do this because she bitched to me about doing it with my brother’s kids. (What she really thinks is that we should put them in schools on her side of town because it's more convient for her.) What pisses me off is that she acts like we’re taking advantage of her when that’s not the case at all. The phone call this AM was like the 4th conversation we’ve had about it. I keep stating what I’m going do and she keeps bringing up the half-day preschool option. If I were to take advantage of her offer she'd be talking shit about me to everyone under the sun. The way she approoaches it also implies that I'm doing something wrong (taking TS to daycare instead of preschool) and not raising my kids correctly. See why it pisses me off.

I really think I need to go see my old shrink, I have trouble breaking my old habits with my mom; she thinks she gets a vote on all things in my life. It was a huge revelation when I had a shrink point out to me that my mom does not get a vote in my my decisions. I was 32. Slow learner. Just because I realize I need to chance that relationship doesn’t mean I’m successful at it. I've told my mom on a couple of occations that she didn't get a vote (like when naming my children) it went over really well as you might imagine. The first time I said it she just got pissed. The second time she said, "I get a vote. It may not count, but I get one." Do you understand why I need threapy???? I'd say I'm going nuts, but I think I'm already there.

Going to the Scrapbook Convention tomorrow with SIL, maybe I finally have something positive to post after that. I’m such a downer lately.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

MIA

I know I’ve been MIA lately. I’m trying to get everything together, but when I work on getting “caught up” on one thing others end up suffering, usually sleep, but this last week it’s been my blog. Ok, my blog and my sleep.

My big project is getting our “study” unpacked. I put the parenthesis because it’s really just been a junk room since we moved in. It’s one of those things that makes me feel overwhelmed and can depress me, so I’m trying to get it cleaned up and unpacked. I’ve made a dent, but it still has a ways to go. My plan of attack: I don’t walk down the stairs empty handed. There’s so much stuff in there that needs to be tossed or at least put away somewhere else, that it’s a good approach for now. I’ve been to Goodwill 2x already this week for it.

I started going to a playgroup for BS. I know she’s only 3 months old and while I’m sure she is gifted, no they don’t actually play. DS wanted to know if we pile them up in the middle of a blanket to see what they’ll do. At this age it’s totally for the moms, it’s later when their toddlers that it’ll be for the kids. I’m in a working mom’s playgroup for TS. (Las Madres) We’ve made some really good friends through it—all three of us. It’s such a rare thing to find friends that both of us as a couple like AND the kids are friends! So I don’t really need a support group of moms this go around, but I figured I’d check into the neighborhood group (SAHM) and hopefully meet some mom’s who live in our immediate neighborhood. Not that it’s really an issue either, but the what the heck. Anyway, went to a “playdate” last Friday and a walk on Monday.

And last, but hardly least, I’m trying to pay attention to me more. I’m still vacillating a lot on the PPD thing. I don’t really think I’m depressed, but I have a lot of downs. I guess it’s what they’d call “The Blues”. Now that I’m verbalizing it I realize I need to really pay attention to it. I had a really bad bout of depression after 9/11. I was in a similar place emotionally at that time and 9/11 just pushed me over the edge. It was bad. Real bad. I remember just sitting in the middle of the house alone one day and crying uncontrollablly for hours. I couldn't tell you why, but I couldn't stop either. I still can’t deal with the whole 9/11 thing either (think I'll skip the movie). A shrink once told me that I had symptoms of PTSD to which I was like how can that be, I wasn’t in NY when it happened, I have family there, but everyone was fine, I mean it’s like PTSD by proxy which is super lame. But apparently it’s not an uncommon occurrence. (I still think it’s super lame.) And I still have a lot of issues with major disasters, the Tsunami was a similarly shaky time for me. I think what throws me is the randomness of it. And the unfairness. I still have so much to do in this life it scares me to think that I could miss some of it, especially relating to my girls. Ok I can’t say much more about that or I’ll start to get emotional. (Yes, I am that lame sometimes.) So back to the paying more attention to me; I’ve making a point of walking everyday. (That’s the time suck when I could be blogging.) I’ve been putting BS in the snuggli and TS in the jogging stroller and hauling ass for at least 30 mins everyday. I am hauling ass too, as evidenced when I went out with the mom’s group on Monday and was surprised by our leisurely pace. (I was all worried my out-of-shape ass wouldn’t be able to keep up.) I’m hoping to get back to my blogging regularly now, as I realize it’s also a big part of “paying attention to me” and I need the outlet.

On a happier note:

TS is swimming like a freaking fish!!! We’re going to swim lessons 3x a week and I signed her up to continue (1x a week) this fall. She’s amazing!!!

BS is babbling up a storm these days. She’s a HUGE flirt (already) and giggles. Today I had her on her playmat & she scooted off of it. TWICE! She is also trying to pull herself in a sitting position. She’s is killing me with her growing so fast that one.

Ok, more soon. I must go feed the flirt again, and then sleep.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Sigh of Relief

Spent the weekend cropping (that’s working on scrapbook pages for those of you who have actual lives) at SIL house. Very fun & very, very much needed. I was originally thinking I would just go for the day or something, but I haven’t cropped since before we moved (that would mean last October, OMG!) and I do these G’parent albums every year that I hadn’t even started yet. So that's what I worked on, and I was on a roll. The albums have consisted of a page a month of TS, but now since there are two kids there are two albums per Grandparent household. Hmmm…didn’t really think that one through completely when I started it, now did I? Just glad there aren't any divorces in that generation, they'd be lucky to get pictures. Anywho, I got this project completely up-to-date—I know, I totally rock! I realized sometime Saturday morning how very badly I really need to be doing something like this for me. BS went with me, but she’s so super low maintenance that it wasn’t a big deal it still felt like I got a weekend off. I figured I would come home to a very, very messy home, toddler & husband, but I was wrong!

The house was (are you sitting?) cleaner then when I left it, there were flowers (all pink, of course) in a vase on the counter for me, a F’ING PIE (blackberry & necturine—from our neighbor’s yard) had been baked for me and dinner was marinating in the fridge. WTF??? The conversation went like this:

MS: What’d you break?

DS: Nothing.

MS: Are you sure?

DS: Yes, I just thought it’d be nice for you to come home to this

I know I should ask him who he’s sleeping with, but I’m afraid I get an answer. He was right it was VERY NICE. The result is that I have time to blog today because I don’t feel like I’m playing catch up with house work & such! DS ROCKS!

Friday, August 04, 2006

Working It Out

I can’t believe I’m already starting to stress about this, I’m not going back until October. But do you realize that’s in two months??? I’m trying not to think about it too much, but Wood brought it up today and since I’d been mulling over the last week or so I figured it was an omen and I should trying getting some of these feelings out too. (Maybe talking about it will make it not seem so bad. Riiiight.)

Much of my postings are my rants about my frustrations with TS, which makes me feel bad, but this is supposed to be my version of threapy, so, sorry TS you'll just have to deal with it. You really only frustrate me when you're supposed to be napping and are beyond tired, but instead of sleeping you find that you must keep asking me "why?" about. freaking. every. damn. thing.

I want to stay home and hang with you too, but you're also a very independent little girl and I'm down with that. You don't NEED me the way you're sister does. In fact, I think you're a lot like me, (which scares the living crap out of me.) You like going to "school" and I know you're a better person for it. So while I want to stay home with you I can rationalize why my going to work it good for both of us. Your sister is a baby & needs me in ways that no one will ever need me again & I want to experience that to it's fullest. I get it this time, I won't get these moments back. This time I want to make sure savor every single one of them. (Don't ask me why. Because I said so, damit.)

So Internet back to my story; when TS was a baby and I had to return to work she was six weeks old. DS had been laid off unexpectedly, a month prior to her birth & the job I was going back to was contract. It wasn’t supposed to even exist any longer, but I was suddenly damn glad it did. We were in the middle of the “dot bomb” and had been though more then our share of lay offs/companies imploding, etc… in the last year or so. Luckily my version of “nesting” during that pregnancy was to hoard money, so in the end, we were fine. At the time, it was really scary. Anyway, TS was only 6 weeks!!! I know, how could I leave her??? Well, for starters I was leaving her with her Daddy or G’ma if Daddy was interviewing or something. Much easier then leaving her with a "daycare provider". At least I think it was. I was only working part-time, so really just a few hours a day. And she was only 6 weeks. She didn’t really do anything yet. She hadn’t gotten fun yet. By the time she did get fun,(12 weeks is when your level of sleep deprivation goes down enough, and they wake up enough that life really does get fun with these guys), I had been back for several weeks & made the break. I was bummed, but dealing with it.

BS has gotten fun already.

She’ll be that much MORE fun in 2 more months. WAH.

Lately, I’ve been scheming in my mind on how I could work it out to stay home. (I didn’t nest during this pregnancy, at least according to our savings account.) Actually, our finances are amazingly ok without me working. AND I haven’t given up my mochas, AT ALL. Amazing, I know, cause I have a bad (read: expensive) mocha habit. I keep joking that I need to go back to pay for Disneyland, the dog’s surgery, lasix and my laser hair removal, after that I’m out of there. I’m not really joking. Of course, we just had the car in the shop this week, paid our percentage of the hospital bills (BS’s birth) and then the annual bill for our homeowner’s insurance arrived today. BAH.

These are the reasons I need to go back to work. I'm trying not to think about it.

She giggles now.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

LOVE


I’m in love. Every mom goes through it, for some it’s immediate, for me it takes a while. Apparently it takes about 3 months. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my baby the moment she was born, but at some point you fall IN LOVE with your baby. For me, it happened in the last week. She’s so damn sweet, she coos and smiles and flirts and I can’t stand it. I just want to curl up in her crib with her cause I can’t get enough of her these days. This is the love that you feel for your child with an intensity you never knew existed. The kind of love that literally takes your breath away. It’s beautiful and scary all at once. It’s the whole walking with your heart outside your body thing. It is such a wonderful, beautiful feeling.

Don’t worry TS isn’t being neglected. I had this same occurrence with her and its still going on. There are (days) moments (recent—like since potty training) when I am less in love with her then this, but the feeling itself really doesn’t go away. I often want to curl up in bed with her too. This time around I know the intensity of this feeling doesn’t go away.

So forgive any gushing I take part in during the next few weeks, I won’t be myself. It’s not my fault, I mean, how can you not be complexly in love with the dimple & curled eyelashes? Mere mortals have no chance.