Friday, April 29, 2011

almost

Nope, not old people age spots...

I had a burr up my saddle to be extra productive this weekend and decided to restain the fence in the back yard. We've not done it since we moved and it's time for the wood to be resealed. (Plus it took a pounding during the hail storm last year and although the insurance company gave us money to redo it, we'd just not done it yet.)

I stopped and bought all of the goodies that I'd need. And last night I pretended like I was the Karate Kid and painted the entire fence on the south side of our lot (including what's visible from the street). I used one full bucket of stain and a little bit of a 2nd. About that time the sun went down and I had to come in, although I was on a roll and really would have painted until it was done had I been able to see.

Today I wasn't as sore as I thought I'd be. But as the afternoon wore on my hamstrings and thighs were angry with all of yesterday's squatting. I took some ibuprofen with supper and decided that achy legs weren't a big enough deterrent to keep me from painting.

It's crazy windy outside, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Oh nosireebob. It's always windy here, but this wind had the just right kind of whip to it to make little specks of stain get in your mouth and eyes. But I persevered because I have visions of a beautifully stained fence.

And then I ran out of stain.

These dozen or so boards are ALL that I lack. Sometime this weekend I'll have to go back and get the supplies I need to finish, but I am utterly gagged. I won't be able to finish it this weekend because we've got a chance of rain on Sunday. It'll have to be another project for another weekend.

I'm also highly gagged that the Terminix people did not show up today between 3-5pm like my appointment said they would. Oh, yes, I called and expressed my disgust since I took off work early to be here to let them inside, but couldn't be as honest as I wanted because it wasn't the call center lady's fault. She gave me "the number to the local office" so I could express my disappointment in their poor service, but when I called it the number was disconnected. At that point I called back to the call center, but their computers were down and I can't even make an appointment for them to come back and spray the perimeter of the house for spiders. GAG.

Okay, I've thought about it. I'm way more gagged that Terminix stood me up. Moreso than running out of stain on the fence.

Off to the shower to remove the stain spots, again.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

homophone haha

(during the benediction)

Preacher: Lord, we ask that Your loving presence-
Baby: (yells out with much excitement) PRESENTS!!

Happy Easter!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

ideal


Come on now, be honest... If you were turning four and you fancied yourself a princess, wouldn't you think this was the greatest birthday-gift-wrapping ever?

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

time flies


The Hater graduated from high school two years before I did. He went to a high school in East TN and I went to a high school in Middle TN. We met in college on the debate team. Isn't it funny how two years seems like a long time when you're in high school?


This spring The Hater will have been out of high school for 17 years. HOLY COW! I'm married to an old man!! To refer to something that doesn't seem that far into the distant past as 17 years ago feels completely insane. More insane than two years difference seemed in high school.



He says Baby is what makes us old, not having been out of high school for almost 20 years (gasp). I completely disagree. I contend that she is what makes us young again.

The Hater clarifies, "Let me rephrase. She makes me feel old."

I rest my case and smile smugly at another trivial argument victory. It may be semantics, but we both agree that he's old.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

promises


My double knock-out roses are blooming.


This makes me happy.


Hopefully we'll get some rain this week.
So far all we've gotten this spring is wind.


And hopefully hail won't accompany the much needed rain.
Last year after my roses first bloomed we ended up with the hail storm of the century. My roses bloomed again, but they never came out as showy as they were the first bloom.
Or maybe that's when they were the most anticipated.


Other things coming out include the ash tree in the front yard.
It's pitiful.
At it's best it looks similar to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.


Yet it perseveres.

We have much to learn.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

say cheese


My friend got a new fancy camera for her birthday. We went to play after we left work. If she thought I was just taking pretend shots of the store she's crazy.

According to the 10-day forecast maybe one day next week we'll get rain. Looks like we have a 30% chance a week from today. We're really hurting for rain. I wish it wouldn't come by the pounding bucket when we finally get some, but I suppose that beggars can't be choosers.

I'm so excited that tomorrow is Friday I can hardly stand it. Bring on the weekend!


Sunday, April 10, 2011

amoxicillin rash

First, a sleep update! The last two nights we've had zero crying when going down and zero crying in the night. We're back to an easy transition and The Hater and I couldn't be more relieved.

Next, an update on the ear infection. She's been on antibiotics for one week. We have a pleasant child again and it's wonderful! But life is always an adventure...

Yesterday we noticed some little red bumps on Baby's arms and torso. This morning we woke up to lots of small and medium sized red bumps on her torso, arms, legs, bottom, face and neck. If you remember the adventure with last year's hives, these were nothing like those. They weren't raised, didn't itch her, and this time she's not acting like it's the end of the world.

The differential is measles.
But she's not been running a fever, so that's highly unlikely.

It's perfect timing because today at church The Hater and I were going to volunteer for a church-wide mission project with Stop Hunger Now. We packaged meals to feed three meals a day to feed an entire orphanage in Haiti for a year.

But we weren't sure if we were going to be able to even go because she looked terribly pitiful. I called the "Nurse on Call" 24-hour line that our insurance has now. This would be the second call in a week. Anyway, according to the algorithm it's a side effect of her amoxicillin. Not an allergy, but a side effect. She said that it would last 1-3 days, but if it lasted more than six that we needed to see the doctor. And continue to give the antibiotics. And even though it's beautiful outside, don't let her go out and don't let her get hot.

I didn't believe her so I read about it after I hung up the phone and, sure enough, for kids who have gotten amoxicillin the first time about 3-10% of them will develop this rash. It doesn't mean she'll always get the rash, but she has it this time.

We went to church. She did great in the nursery. We packaged meals. She took her antibiotics the rest of the day, and when I put her down tonight the red bumps looked more like pink bumps, mucho better than it did this morning.

Is a rash after her birthday going to be a repeating theme? Only time will tell.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

dry run


This is marshmallow creme. It was supposed to be the magic secret ingredient in a semi-homeade frosting.... the lighting is weird because her two kids were going to bed and we had to work by the light of the stovetop.


This is my friend playing in the marshmallow creme. A month or so ago she asked me if I'd help her make homemade cupcakes for her daughter's birthday at the end of the month. We decided it'd be a good idea to practice once before because even though we're two college educated women, neither of us are bakers.

At the time this picture was taken it was probably 10 or 11 at night. We're having to keep everything at or below a whisper and still working by the light of the stove.

She's still smiling because we're still hopeful.


It's midnight or so and there's no caffeine in her house. We've followed the directions to the letter, but the frosting isn't light and fluffy like in the picture. We've tried putting it in the fridge. And now she's convinced that it'd be better if she stirred it by hand, but note her smile has faded.

We ended up consulting Chef Google and figured that we might as well add more powdered sugar because it couldn't hurt anything. Between the butter and the marshmallow creme we couldn't imagine that 1/2 cup of powdered sugar would be enough - so we threw in the rest of the two pound bag.


It's about 1 am. This was her first run using a piping bag. Please note the dribble down the side. It was so hard laughing quietly and trying not to pee on myself while keeping it down so the kids wouldn't wake up.


To make the story complete these are strawberry cupcakes made over reverse oreos (vanilla cookie with chocolate frosting). We started this process about 8pm. Note that her smile has turned upside down with complete disappointment after about five hours of work has yielded frumpy cupcakes.


They were really pitiful. The icing never set up. It was tasty, but it didn't look anything like the picture. These are not cupcakes worthy of a princess.


About 1:30am Saturday morning. As we put the cupcakes into the fridge we saw the instant-whipped cream can and started laughing again because we knew we could've saved four hours if we'd just gone with that instead. We discussed another practice run.

And then we started talking about the logistics of five dozen cupcakes from carrying them across town without cupcake holders, keeping them cool, when we'd actually bake/ice/prepare for said party... and then we decided there's a reason that people just buy cupcakes when you're having a princess themed venue birthday party for a four year old.

The end.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

sleep training

Have I mentioned that we've had a terrible time with sleeping lately? Duh, you say, that's what happens when your kid has an ear infection, you say.

Except it was more than that. First it was the time change. Then the cold that turned into the first ear infection we didn't know about. Then Baby started calling for "Daddy" when she'd cry at night (which she'd not done before and The Hater couldn't stand it). Then we've had company just about every weekend since the time change. (So why bother starting training when you know that you can't let her scream over the weekend?) Then the second ear infection that made her have fevers for about 5 consecutive nights. It's just been a mess.

I'm feeling chronic tiredness. But it's almost to a giddy point, so it's pleasant.

When she's in bed with us The Hater and I are both on our edges of the bed. She takes up about 60% of my pillow and sleeps perpendicular to me with her feet in The Hater's face. She scoots me off my pillow and kicks him all night long. Then she'd wake up and cry, or reach over and touch my face to make sure I'm still there, or kick the covers off of everybody, or lean over and smash her lips to my face and whisper, "Wuhd You, Mommy". I took what I consider to be really good pictures of her sleeping in our bed. She looks so sweet that you almost forget you haven't rested in weeks because of her.

Our last set of visitors (The Dorks) left early Monday morning. She was still fevering Monday night, so we decided that we would wait to go cold turkey to get her sleeping by herself again. I consulted the greatest book ever (see below) and The Hater and I formatted our own cold-turkey plan to get her sleeping in her room again.

Here's how it's played out since then:

Okay, so Tuesday night she screamed/cried for 1h 40m when we first put her down. Then around midnight she woke up, we changed her silently and left the room, and she screamed for 1h 40m+. It was a long night.

Last night she screamed for 22 minutes when I put her down. Around midnight she woke up, we changed her silently and left the room, and she screamed for about 25 minutes. Much better.

Tonight I put her down and she didn't scream. I walked out and The Hater and I looked at each other blankly. Then she screamed... for three minutes. Total.

Moving in the right direction. Thank goodness for my most excellent Mommy friend who told me this would be the most important parenting book I would need when I was pregnant: ref=sib_dp_pt.jpg


Dad keeps suggesting that we move her from the toddler bed (or PNP, where she's sleeping now) into the queen size bed in the other room so we can lay down with her every time she needs to go to sleep, every time she wakes up in the middle of the night. He's convinced that's what we should do because that's what they did with me. I'm very nicely telling him that's a terrible idea, but they think we're heartless.

Everybody just tries to do the best for their kids, but short of flagrant safety issues, nobody really knows what the "right" thing is to do 100% of the time.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

earache

I've had good intentions to post several times this past week, but life got in the way.

My parents, aka The Dorks, came to visit last week. We had a great time. Baby loved having people dote over her. She's going to be very sad when it sinks in that this was the last of her birthday celebrations.


Her two favorite things were being read to and rocked by Nana AND playing the ukulele with BigSid.


Saturday night she finally spiked a fever and I took her to the urgent care clinic. Ear infection in the other ear = antibiotics. She continued to fever until yesterday afternoon. She's acted like she felt better today, thank goodness.

She's learning a hard lesson of sleeping in her own bed again tonight. Fingers crossed that we don't have a scream fest in the wee small hours. I can't lie - I'm expecting one.


Someone call Pat Summit and let her know that it's time to start scouting OKC for the Senior class of 2027. Hopefully she'll be more graceful than I was.