All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

Malia is the knitting goddess of time and space.

Why?

Click below and I'll show you. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present...

Continue reading "Can You Handle the Mirth?"

About a month ago, our clothes dryer started getting pretty loud. At first we weren't even sure if it was really increasing in volume, or if it was just our imagination. But over this past weekend, there was no confusing it: you could stand outside our house on the opposite side of the street and hear our dryer.

It wasn't a rumbling or a knocking. It was just doing its dryer thing, but extra loudly. The sucky part is that the dryer is only 15 months old. Nothing too major should go wrong, right?

Well, at first the repairman diagnosed it as a warped motor, which was a $240 repair. After I about crapped my pants, he tinkered on it a little more, reached into the blower and pulled out a handful of used fabric softener sheets, and said, "Here's your problem."

Fabric softener sheets. Like Bounce or whatever. They get sucked up into the blower and wreak havoc.

He went on to say that those things keep dryer repairmen in business. I commented that the owner's manual certainly doesn't say anything about not using them, and he said that while he didn't know why that was, he was thankful for the business it generated and that we ought to start using liquid fabric softener.

So there's your tip for the day--the tip it cost me $95 to hear: don't use fabric softener sheets.

This public service message was NOT brought to you by Whirlpool, though it should have been.

I just bought about $550 worth of tires for my car. Ugh. That's a lot of money, but it was necessary. I'm trying to put a positive spin on it by telling myself that I just bought some really expensive new shoes for my car and they are SO CUTE! Oh my God, and they're BLACK, so they GO WITH EVERYTHING! And the best part is that they are stylish in EVERY SEASON! Oh my God!

Sigh...

In a completely unrelated aside, this is pretty cute too. Take it to heart, or you're doomed! Repeat: doomed!

When we came home from the park yesterday, we stopped at Albertson's while Grandma and Grandpa got a few necessary items. Matt, Freya and I sat in the parking lot and waited for them.

As we sat there, a family came out of the store. I couldn't say exactly what their dynamic was, though they were clearly on the poor side of the scale. There was a woman, a man and two boys. They cranked up the hood on their old pickup and put some oil in it. As that was going on, the boys played in the back of the truck. I'm guessing they were around five and seven years old. Since the truck was old and just had the one bench seat, it was clear they were definitely in violation of Idaho law, which says kids have to be in child seats until 8 years of age. But you know, some folks can't make that work, and that's just reality, I suppose.

What killed me was how verbally abusive this woman was to the boys. They really were just playing quietly in the truck, but it was clear that they could do nothing right in her eyes. She hogged down an ear of corn as she stood there yelling at them, while the man looked on as he ate some jerky. After cleaning out the truck and putting the trash on the ground in an empty seat cover box, the little boys laid down in the back of the truck and pulled an old sleeping bag over themselves so that no one could tell there were children riding in the back. It was clear this was an old routine for them.

As they left, I realized something important. This parenting competition that I sometimes find myself in truly doesn't matter. The women who breast feed should respect those who bottle feed, and vice versa. Those who stay at home with their kids should acknowledge that working outside the home can be a good choice too. The bottom line is that we love our children and try to do the best we can for them. We give them our hearts, our love and our support.

Not all children get that. And that's where we need to focus our attention. We shouldn't try to talk one another into doing it our way: the right way. We need to pay attention to make sure that every kid has a safe seat in the family car, that they have adequate nutrition, and most importantly, that they are treated with respect. Otherwise this cycle of poverty and discontent, and the raising of unhappy kids will carry on for all the generations ahead.

What a weekend--all indications were that this would be a cold one, but the first weekend of autumn was a suprise. It was beautiful and warm, which makes me feel slightly guilty about skipping the annual Women's Fitness Celebration race with the excuse that it was going to be too cold to participate.

But it was beautiful with temperatures in the 70s, the sun was shining, and we absorbed all the Vitamin D from the sunlight that we could, in preparation for the long winter ahead. We went for several walks, and we ended up in Kathryn Albertson Park this afternoon.

Golden days...golden days.

Things have been a tetch scattered here lately. My out-laws have come for a visit, which is kind of cool on the one hand, because they want to see their youngest grandchild (of 14 total). On the other hand, they are unfamiliar with the old saw that says, "Houseguests, like fish, start to stink after three days." Ah well, what are you gonna do? I feel guilty neglecting my company by sneaking upstairs to blog in the evenings, and I don't blog from work. So I try to write a post throughout the day, e-mail it to myself, then quick as a wink as I am upstairs changing a diaper anyway, I put Freya in her crib with some toys and race to the PC to cut and paste my post into Movable Type.

Recent observations from my life:

I just read a chilling article in the most recent issue of National Geographic magazine about how our homes and bodies are positively saturated with chemicals that can have effects ranging from mild headaches to birth defects and/or fertility difficulties to death. I'm in the middle of a giant wig-out about the whole thing, and am trying to decide how many organic products I can incorporate into our lives. And I realize there are certain things you're just never going to get away from, even if you move to the wilderness of the Yukon Territory and live in a wood house and wear clothing made of bark--you're still going to get air pollution. So I am trying to figure out a balance.

Tonight kicks off the new season of Grey's Anatomy, and I could piddle from the excitement. However, it airs past my bedtime, not to mention the in-laws' presence would totally kill the buzz of watching it anyway. They're uncontrollable "tsk"ers, and the lack of morality would create a tsk-athon the likes of which the world has never before seen. So we'll be Tivo-ing and watching it next week. That and Survivor.

So, internet pals, that's the excitement here. And wish me luck that we will continue in the non-episodic vein of visits with the in-laws that we have enjoyed over the last few years. Bad things have happened in the past, but we're finding common ground. Send vibes that it will continue.

I have just been treated to a Random Act of Kindness from Mel and I am so damned excited!

I don't want to spoil the surprise (because you all will find out before too much longer), but I will say that I am tickled pink!

One of my close girlfriends is pregnant for the first time. She's only 9.5 weeks in to it, and is puking her lungs out. I can relate. For those of you who weren't reading at that time, I was the Queen of Reverse Peristalsis from about Week 10 to Week 17. After I had puked for the third time in the doctor's office (in a single visit), they prescribed Zofran for me, which is an anti-emetic given to chemotherapy patients to help keep them from vomiting.

So when my girlfriend hopped on the Chunder Train, I suggested Zofran to her. I even offered her a few of my extras to try. She said she was going to try to make it without taking anything for another few weeks. I thought she was nuts, but okay. Well, I just heard today (through a mutual friend) that she doesn't want to take it because she's scared that in ten years it will be found that Zofran could have some horrific side effects on children whose mothers took it while pregnant.

Immediately, I got a giant hair up my ass about the whole thing. And then I got to thinking, "Wait. Why am I mad?" I thought, "Because there's an implication there that I didn't do the right thing." And the hair stayed there for a while longer.

Later today, as I was reading a heated discussion on a message board about breastfeeding vs. formula feeding, I harkened back to my feelings about the Zofran. I've been pondering on it, and have come to the decision that parenting is a highly competitive business. Most people want to be the best father/mother they can be, so they research, they find things that work for them and their children, and they start to believe that is the only way things should be done.

You've got the aforementioned breastfeeding v. formula debate; there's the Attachment Parents taking on the Cry-It-Out and Flex Schedulers, and down the line you have the Stay at Home Moms duking it out with the Work Outside the Home Mothers. And believe me, it gets pretty ugly in some of these forums.

I wonder why we have such a hard time stepping back and saying, "Your way probably works great for you, just like my way works for me. Have a nice day."

My husband just called to order a pizza from the nearby pizza place. They make really good pizza, but they must have some kind of rehab/training program for the recently cranially-injured. They hire the dumbest kids available.

The conversation tonight went like this...

DH: I'd like to order a pizza to go?
Pizza: You mean for take out?
DH: Uh, yeah.
Pizza: What do you want?
DH: A large pesto, chorizo and tomato.
Pizza: A what?
DH: (repeats)
Pizza: What's pesto?
DH: It's a sauce option. It's on your menu.
Pizza: Oh. What's it called again?
DH: Pesto.
Me (in the background): It's green!
DH: It's green.
Pizza: I don't think we have that.
DH: Yes. You do. It's on your menu. It's made of basil and olive oil, if that helps.
Me (still in the background, but getting louder): Is there a grown-up there we can talk to?
Pizza: Hang on. (Hands phone to coworker slightly more afloat in the gene pool.)
Pizza Girl: What was your order?
DH: A large pesto, chorizo and tomato.
Pizza Girl: Okay, that'll be about 15 minutes.

It'll be a freaking miracle if we get what we ordered.

Freya is getting her third tooth. Oddly, it is another lower incisor, which means all her teth are on the bottom. I am NOT complaining about that, let me tell you.

I just wish it was going a little more easily for her. She's been quite out of sorts the last few days. Maybe once it breaks through the gum she'll be feeling better...

Just last night, I saw probably the worst commercial I have ever seen in my entire life. And I'm including those horrible yelling car dealer commercials in that lot, just so you know.

This one was for Gap, and it featured old clips of Audrey Hepburn dancing. That's all well and good, but the music the clips were set to was "Back in Black," by AC/DC. The incongruity just killed me. The intent was to sell the new skinny-style pants (in black) that Gap has come out with.

Well, Freya has THOSE EXACT SAME PANTS, and she got hers from Gymboree way before Gap even thought about their style. So there.

Actually, I do not have psoriasis. I have something I feel that is equally hearbreaking, though: I have developed cystic acne.

Yeah, there's a little post-partum perk they don't really tell you about. Not that my complexion has ever been super, but I haven't ever had to experience what my husband calls "The Zit That Ate Cincinnati" on a real regular basis. Now I have that one, plus the one that took out Des Moines, at pretty much any given time.

Evidently, it's due to the fact that my hormones are still out of whack. Freya still breastfeeds, and most women start experiencing their monthly curse at about 6 months post-partum if they are regularly breastfeeding. We're up to 7 months now, and I have nothing to show for it but some really craptastic acne flare-ups.

I went to the dermatologist, and she gave me a topical antibiotic. It isn't helping much. I did a lot of looking at products, from this one to that one. I've been researching stuff lik crazy, and the person I consider to be the world's smartest online dermatologist, (and check out that site if you are looking for information on product lines and ingredients) indicates that I am pretty much stuck with it unless I start hormone therapy, which has its own set of problems associated.

Pregnancy still hasn't gone a long way toward making me more beautiful. Even seven months afterwards...

At the recommendation of my boss, I picked up the book, Mama, Do You Love Me? at a book store today. It is a beautiful story about a little Native Alaskan girl who presents scenarios to her mother to find out if she'd still be loved, even if she turned into a polar bear and chased her mother into a tent. It really is sweet.

There may be a more literal interpretation of the question at our house tonight. Freya hasn't pooped in three days, and is getting pretty uncomfortable from the gas. (Aside: how is it that a 16 lb. baby can fart like a 300 lb. trucker?) Common home remedies to stimulate a baby poop involve hands-on participation.

Yes Freya, Mommy loves you. Enough to massage your little pooper with her finger. Wish me luck, internet.

One day, a baby polar bear goes up to his mother and says, "Mom, are you sure I'm a polar bear?"

"Of course I'm sure you're a polar bear," she replied. "I'm a polar bear, your dad is a polar bear, grandpa and grandma are polar bears. You're a polar bear too."

The little polar bear wandered on to his father. "Dad, are you positive I'm a polar bear?" he asked. "Son, I'm positive. I'm a polar bear, my dad was a polar bear, and his dad before him was a polar bear. You're my son, and you're a polar bear."

Discouraged, the little polar bear went to his grandmother. "Grandma, am I really a polar bear?"

"Yes dear, you are," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm cold."

I can't think of a damned thing to blog about. I even Google-searched, "My mind is empty, what should I blog about," and didn't come up with anything. What good is Google, anyway?

So I decided that in lieu of filling up your gray matter with useless information, I'd post a poem that I memorized in high school (and have since forgotten the words to), and have always enjoyed.

The Cameo, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Forever over now, forever, forever gone
That day. Clear and diminished like a scene
Carven in Cameo, the lighthouse, and the cove between
The sandy cliffs, and the boat drawn up on the beach;
And the long skirt of a lady innocent and young,
Her hand resting on her bosom, her head hung;
And the figure of a man in earnest speech.
Clear and diminished like a scene cut in cameo
The lighthouse, and the boat on the beach, and the two shapes
Of the woman and the man; lost like the lost day
Are the words that passed, and the pain,-discarded, cut away
From the stone, as from the memory the heat of the tears escapes.
O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard,
Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure;
From the action of the waves and from the action of sorrow forever secure,
White against a ruddy cliff you stand, chalcedony on sard.

I hope the week ahead is a good one for you. And hey, if you have a particular favorite poem, feel free to post it (or the title and author of it at least) in the comments.

It struck me like a trout to the head today: my baby is closer to her first birthday now than she is to the day of her birth. People told me this time would fly, and since I was typically putting it in the context of the interminable amount of time pregnancy took, I didn't really put a lot of stock into the "time flies" way of thinking. Boy, was I wrong.

Freya Marie, you are just amazing to me. You've been sitting up by yourself for well over a month now, but you're not showing much inclination toward crawling. You're not getting a lot of opportunities, I must admit: your father or I are generally always holding you and wandering around the house with you. Why drive when you can be driven?

As I have mentioned before, you are quite the little magpie. Largely, your vocalizations are all along the lines of, "Aaaaaaaaa," but you're starting to get some consonants in there. And when you are really mad, you start saying, "Maa-ee! Maa-ee!" I like to think you're saying Mommy, but I can't really nail it down quite yet. And you've decided to give solid food a chance, but you're mainly just interested in biter biscuits, prunes, and the occasional nibble of the mint ice cream that I snack on lately after dinner. I can tell if I gave you half a chance, you'd give yourself the ice cream headache from hell. You like it that much, but I'm scared the dairy and the sugars will upset your tummy.

You are doing really well with our neighbor during the day when I am at work. You seem to be very happy to go to her, and you're still very happy to see me when I come home at lunch to feed you and at the end of the day when I pick you up.

I think between your daddy and I, you probably get kissed a million times a day. You've started kissing back--you grab our faces between your little hands and open your mouth as wide as possible, pressing lips, two lower teeth, most of your available gums and your tongue onto our faces. We call them "high humidity kisses," but we love them.

You're a wonder, little one.
Love,
Mommy

Tonight we were driving home from dinner and Matt asked if there were any stops I wanted to make on the way home. In a flash, it struck me: Condemned Foods! Condemned Foods is what my family called Grocery Outlet when I was growing up. For those of you who bought your groceries retail suckers, Condemned Foods is where pallets of things like cereal, shampoo, frozen foods and whatnot end up after the pallet has fallen off a truck. There's a lot of scratch-and-denting going on, which is why it is sometimes good to avoid the canned goods. Hard to tell if it was a fall from a height that made it bulge that way or if it is actually botulism.

Not all of the products are brand-name. Tonight we saw some off-brand stuff, things that didn't sell all that well and ended up where groceries go to die. Notably, we saw something called "Bootie Beer," which was labelled as an entertainment beer. Not too sure what that means, and we decided not to partake. I told Matt that when we were growing up, we always got cereal there called Scabby-O's, and he believed me. (See, you're not the only suckers out there.)

Anyhoo, I ended up stocking up on high-end hair products for $2.99. I won't be buying conditioner for another three years or so, and I sure as hell won't be paying retail for it.

I just saw this article today on co-sleeping. A few segments:

One of Britain’s leading experts on children’s mental health has advised parents to reject years of convention and allow children to sleep in bed with them until the age of five.

Margot Sunderland, director of education at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, says the practice, known as “co-sleeping”, makes children more likely to grow up as calm, healthy adults.

Also:

Professor Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Washington State University, who has written a foreword to the book, said Sunderland’s arguments were “a coherent story that is consistent with neuroscience. A wise society will take it to heart”.

“In the UK, 500 children a year die of Sids,” Sunderland writes. “In China, where it [co-sleeping] is taken for granted, Sids is so rare it does not have a name.”

I promise I'm not trying to convert anyone here. The thing is, co-sleeping has been great for our family and I hate to see it turned so taboo by a few instances of bad science. Much like breastfeeding, I'd like to see attitudes about cosleeping change so that families who do it don't have to feel like they're in the closet about it.

So, internet: where did you sleep as a child? Or, have you ever slept with your young child in your bed?

We went and bought a king-sized bed today. We'd had a California king once upon a time, but it had been through many moves and ultimately was folded up into roughly the shape of a taco shell from being wedged around corners and other tight squeezes getting into the various apartments and houses I have called home in the past. So it was time to move on, and we went for a queen bed.

After starting to co-sleep with Freya, we discovered that the queen wasn't quite big enough for the three of us. I had purchased a bed rail, which is pretty much required equipment for co-sleepers. It keeps the baby from falling out of the bed, right? No. The baby is in no danger whatsoever from falling out of the bed. The bedrail keeps Mommy from falling out of bed. I find myself wedged tight against that thing most every night. Good thing it has mesh sides for safety--I might have suffocated in my sleep long ago if it hadn't.

So we bought the king today. I think it was in one of Dr. Sear's books where I got the bit of advice to skip buying an expensive baby crib and mattress that would likely not get much use, and use that money to upgrade your current bed to a king size. Would that I had heard (and heeded) that advice long ago!

I just paid two early-teenage girls money to take our dogs for a walk. There's no way that I can walk two hyperactive Springer spaniels and manage a stroller at the same time. I can't even do it when I carry Freya in her sling. The two bozos just pull me in either direction and it's scary. Matt is getting into his busiest time of the year, and can't usually take the dogs with him when it is as warm as it has been lately--it's just too much for the old dog, particularly.

These girls came out on a door-to-door visit a couple of weeks ago and handed me a very professional flier for their business. And the best part is the price: $3.25 per hour per dog! I'd pay a lot more than that, and will be adding a generous tip to the final total.

I hope this is a success for the dog-walkers--I plan to employ them weekly, if possible.