cha-ka-ka

This past weekend our little family lit the Advent candles at church. On our way back to the pew Baby ran the wrong way. The Hater grabbed her and pulled her back. She ran the other way, my direction, so I grabbed her and started to bring her back, but ended up pulling my back the wrong way. I handed her to The Hater and ended upon my back - in the floor.

It was really cold this past Sunday - like 22 and windy when we left the house. But I opted for fashion over practicality and wore a khaki skirt with leggins and cute boots. It would be the day that I ended up on my back and in so much pain that I couldn't put my knees together.

Somehow I ended up pulling myself back onto the pew and sat there the rest of the service. The Hater brought me communion and I didn't stand for anything. The rest of the day was spent stiff and very uncomfortable. I took a nap when Baby did and could hardly roll over when she woke up from her nap.

Monday morning I was still pitiful. I ended up calling my PCP, who didn't have an opening that day. My back-up was out of the office, so I defaulted to another DO in the office. He couldn't get me in until that afternoon. So I went about my day, uncomfortable wherever I was, sitting or standing, having to use the handicap rail to get up off the toilet, dropping things and begging other people to pick them up for me. I just prayed that nobody would come into our office and fall, which thankfully they did not. Anyway, in my goings on I figured out that when I walked it hurt worse on the left side, more lumbar and sacral area.

The DO was so very nice. He adjusted my back and turned me inside out. He gave me flexeril and a really strong anti-inflammatory.

I'm feeling a little better every day, but still uncomfortable.

And I've taken the flexeril already tonight, and I'm feeling it. I think I'll be going to sleep very soon.

But wanted to document a few fun Baby quips:

"cha-ka-ka" is what she calls chocolate milk. She loves it. It's baby crack... and sometimes she gets it on the weekends. (Elmo would call it a sometime food.)

"sha-shook" is the word she calls things that she doesn't know the word for. She's using this less and less often since she's learning more words.

Sunday after church I was walking around in circles on because my back hurt and I was trying to keep it from getting stiff. I had an ice pack belted to me and was walking with my hands holding it, too, like the pregnant waddle without the belly. Baby walked with me with her hands behind her back. She kept saying, "Mama! Fun!" I told her I was glad she was having fun.

She's really into running in circles around the couch and wanting us to chase her. She loves that. "Fun!"

Now I'm really tard. Too tard to type. Wish me flexeril dreams.

motherhood: the gift that keeps on giving

This is going to sound crazy. And there's PG-13 graphic content... so if that will offend you or yours please overlook this story.

At some point in the past three years or so I either read or heard something about the great benefits of jumping rope. If I remember correctly the story went that if you jumped rope for 3 minutes straight at least 3 days a week you'd burn a ton of calories.

I was inspired and bought an adult-sized jumprope. It lived in a drawer in the garage for a long time.

Then one day I decided I was going to jump rope. I took it out of its box and it stayed on top of the dryer for a couple of weeks before I put it back in the drawer in the garage where it previously lived.

And then I think I got pregnant. Or something like that. That happened at some point because I remember thinking, oh, too bad I'm pregnant or I'd jump rope!

The timeline makes a big jump because I didn't jump while I was pregnant or while I was home on maternity leave or even after I went back to work. No, the jumprope continued to live in its abandoned drawer in the garage until this week.

I decided it was time to liberate the jumprope from the drawer in the garage. It was a perfect time because I'd already put the baby down for the night and The Hater wasn't here. I wouldn't have to give any random excuses. I took the digital kitchen timer to the back porch with me and my trusty jumprope and set it to 3 minutes and 15 seconds.

I can't really remember the last time that I jumped rope. I remember doing it in elementary school. I remember wishing that I knew how to jump double dutch, but never was taught. I remember not liking to run into the twirling rope because it always hit me. I remember trying to jump and name the alphabet before messing up. But this was all in early elementary school... in college I remember hearing a program called "Jump Rope for Heart" (link), but I don't remember anything about the program.

You can say I just assumed that jumping rope would be like riding a bike - something that I'd just remember how to do. It was cool outside, but not cold. I turned on the timer and assumed the jumping position. As the clock ticked down to 3 minutes I began jumping. These were my thoughts:

This isn't so bad. (20 seconds had passed)

This is harder than I remember.

Ew. I can feel it. (It being my period.)

Is it the jumprope messing up or just me? (For whatever reason I couldn't do more than 23 consecutive jumps without messing up, although that was the max -- most times I was excited to get to 19 consecutive jumps, but I probably only averaged 12 consecutive jumps. My inner second grader would laugh that I couldn't even make it through the alphabet.)

I can really feel it now. This is gross.

Oh no. I'm only wearing a panty liner - I hope that's enough.

This is the longest 3 minutes of my life.

I'm sure the dogs in the neighborhood next to ours are barking at me.

GROSS. I didn't consider that jumping rope was going to jumpstart my period.

How do the people in the movies do this so well?

How do second graders do this so well?

(Then, finally, the alarm goes off and I take what's left of my dignity and the jumprope back into the house. As I walk...)

Why are my pants wet?

Oh no. I think I've overflowed my panty liner.

(walking to the bathroom) Oh, yeah... I've overflowed my panty liner.

Gag. (to clarify - that was a thought, not an action)

And in the process of discovering why my pants and panty liner were wet I realize it wasn't completely full of period blood (it was there - just not the saturation factor). No, in fact most of the wetness was pee. I apparently pee'd myself while jumping rope. I'm 32 years old and I pee'd myself while jumping rope on my back porch.

That was a few days ago. I was eager to share this story with women with whom I work who have also had children. They're always telling me not to make them laugh or they'll pee their pants. For the record (because at this point I certainly have to clarify) I've never pee'd myself while laughing or coughing or or any other time that I wasn't intentionally hovering over a toilet with full intentions to pee (at least not since my third trimester, but that's totally normal). They were very supportive and laughed with me as I retold the story. They told me not to bother with Kegals because it wouldn't make a difference.

I didn't believe them. I've been doing Kegals like I was pregnant again. I've been a hard core Kegal queen. I can't say that it's made any difference yet, but it's certainly led me to believe that I'm being productive. Calisthenics for my pelvic floor.

So tonight I decided that I was going to jump rope again after I put the baby down. And I'm tickled to report that I lived through 3 more minutes of jumping rope. My top was 20 consecutive jumps, but my average was probably 14. Furthermore (and frankly the reason for much more jubilation), I did not pee myself!

The small victories mean so much.

It's truly a day to celebrate.

short and sweet

I've never been more thankful for the state of Arkansas than I am today.

if only

Baby loves helping me check the mail when we get home. She thinks it's a most amazing thing, especially if we see a school bus while we're at the street.

After we check the mail we come inside and she gets a sippy with 1% milk. I set my purse down and sort mail. She gets the junk mail circulars, political ads, and catalogs, all magical things.

Earlier this week I got a circular from Victoria's Secret. I opened it and glanced to see that they sent me a coupon for a free pair of panties. (Which is super exciting because there's no way I'd pay that much for them from my wallet.) I took the coupon off of the paper and handed it to her with some other junk goodies. She sat down on her step-stool with her milk in one hand, the ads in the other. This particular circular seemed to hold her attention and I was able to get a lot of things done without her pulling on my britches, begging me to pick her up.

She handed me her sippy with an, "All done". I was ready to throw away her junk mail treasures and she was eager to help. All this time she still had the Victoria's Secret circular under her arm. After we had everything else thrown away I asked her if she was ready to throw that one away, too. She wasn't, "No! No-no no."

She sat back down on her bench and opened it up. This was one of those typical VS ads with scantily clad women. I started to wonder if this was really the most wholesome thing for her to study. I asked again if I could throw it away. She wasn't ready to budge. I asked her if we could read it and she looked at me, seriously considering it. She turned the page and I asked her what she saw.

She pointed to a beautiful blonde model in her underwear and said, "Mama!"

I laughed. Only a child of one could make that mistake... but it still made me feel good.

And then we threw it away.

lesson learned

I emailed some of you with little ones last week with a poll for tempra vs acrylic paint for small ceramic figurines for some surprise Xmas goodies for the grandparents. Baby picked out two very festive colors - royal blue and purple with glitter in it.

I rolled out some wrapping paper over the floor, changed us both into smocky-like clothes, handed her the toddler brush, and held my breath. She did so well... and we managed to get paint on every piece. I cleaned up and figured we'd do the next color the next night. She was excited, I was excited; it was fabulous.

The next morning I woke up and saw that you could hardly tell we painted them. They totally absorbed it so that the streaks of bright purple looked barely pink with a little glitter. Tempra paint was NOT the way to go (if you're thinking about a similar project, don't bother with it!)

So we were back to the drawing board... and her options changed to what acrylic colors I had in stock. She chose bright pink, lavender and UT orange. Over several sessions this weekend we at least have some of each color on each piece. We also experimented between using a bristle-ended toddler brush and the 1" foam sponge brush (I noticed very little difference between the two.).

In her infamous words, "Ta-da!"

She didn't eat that much paint, either - so that's good, too!

Speaking of eating, tonight we figured out that Baby really likes fried okra. She gets it honest.

voting on values

My work has a policy where you can take off to go vote, so I plan on leaving a little early this afternoon. This morning, while driving to day care, I was trying to decide if I wanted to take Baby with me or not. She’s at fantastic stage where she repeats the end of every phrase I say back to me. So the convo goes something like this:

Mommy: Baby, we need to talk about something important.

Baby: im-pah-tah

M: Today is an election day, which means we have to vote.

B: vote

M: That’s right. It’s our civic duty.

B: doo-dee, doo-dee, doo-dee

(etc)

I won’t give you the whole lecture, but I was trying to decide if I wanted to take her with me to vote. On one hand, she’s gone with me to every election where I’ve voted since she’s been born. And that is im-pah-tah. However, it’s not like she’s going to remember this; she won’t know if she misses one. But at the same time my parents did a really good job modeling this for us, and the nerd part of me wants to be able to tell her that she’s been to every election since she’s been born. It’s a conundrum. Do I push the longer drive and take her to vote in the afternoon when she's already fussy – or do I do it before I get her? In a moment of brilliance I just asked her…

M: Baby, do you want to go with Mommy to vote this afternoon?

B: No. No. No-no-no.

M: Well, that solves everything.

Except it doesn’t, really. Any time you ask her a direct question the answer is always no. The easy answer is obviously to vote before I get her because that would make my life much easier. But voting is a huge deal, not to be taken lightly… Can you really impress any character-building moments on a nineteen month old? It’s a quandary and I had the rest of the day to mull it over before I made an official decision.

Speaking of voting, I’m about sick of the robo-political calls. It’s like junk mail on your phone, and it really gags me. We had 4 msgs on our answering machine yesterday plus got 4 more yesterday evening after we were home, including one at 9pm. I wish that had been a real person because I would’ve gone off on them about how no candidate who claims to support family values could possibly think that calling a home that late on a school night was a good idea. But, alas, it was a robo call. The one before it at 8:30 was a real person from the “Junior Chamber of Commerce” – that was Steve, and I told Steve that we didn’t accept political calls after 8pm, that my husband and I would be voting tomorrow and to have a nice day before I hung up on him. … I think there should be an opt-out type of policy for people to get their numbers off of the political call list. Personally, I’d like this to be based on your voting record attendance. If you’ve voted in the last three elections, you’re exempt from getting the phone calls (unless, of course, you’d like to get them, in which case an automatic referral to mental health services could be started). That way you’re rewarding the people who vote anyway. Furthermore, I wouldn’t get the calls that way, and since it’s my scenario, I’m going to devise a plan where I don’t have to get them.

And that was the big dilemma of my day. I decided to take her with me. At day care when I picked her up the workers gave me the what-in-the-you-know-where-are-you-thinking look. They told me that on the news it said that it was taking people 15-30 minutes after they got their ballot to vote. I explained to them that I'd already gone through and knew for whom I was voting and what I was voting for each of the state questions.

I ignored their doubts and went with Baby on a leash. The very nice poll workers tried to give her a sticker, but she wasn't interested. I walked up to the fancy cardboard podiums, picked up the marker, pulled out my cheat sheet, and was done in about two minutes. Ta-da.

Most likely she won't remember any of this particular day at all, which is okay because we've got to start somewhere. If nothing else she'll learn that the "I Voted!" stickers are worth the wait to get them.