denied

The Hater does not have permission to be gone the first four nights of a time change without reading this post and getting written permission from myself for the next eight years.

It was the longest night we've had in over a year. I'm exhausted.

π

My cell phone died this morning. I have until April 1st until I qualify for a free phone. I blame DST.

We have a couple of "spare" phones, and while we were getting ready this morning we were bemoaning that I'd have to input everybody's numbers again for two weeks. But then when I got my new phone I would have to go back and do it all over again because the phone I want to get doesn't talk to the phone I currently have. It's all very complicated.

To further complicate things, Baby is adjusting to the time change about as well as we thought she would. She was up at her regular time this morning, which was par for the course. Meals have not been a problem. It took her about 30 minutes to go to sleep for her nap - she would settle, then cry for awhile, then I'd go in, she'd settle and repeat. We woke her up at what is the new regular time and we both could've used another hour.

During the nap The Hater drove across town to take the phone to the powers that be to see if they could either fix it or since we were long-time users of this particular company if they'd grace me the last two weeks of the contract so I'd qualify for the full upgrade (instead of just a half). Apparently he handed it to them and it magically turned on again, so I'll be limping it for the next two weeks. Hopefully it'll last that long.

Now it's time to go to bed and she's having a hard time again. The first time we let her cry for about 20 minutes before The Hater caved and went to her. Then when he left she woke up and all hell broke loose again. I went in and she's tired, but having a hard time settling. So we're trying something new. She's laying down next to me on the couch, under her bubbuh, listening to me type. I'll let her sit here for a while before I insist on taking her back to her room. It probably won't go over well, but that's the plan for now. I'd rather her lay quietly and rest than be up playing. (Although in the back of my head I keep thinking that if she goes to her room and screams it'd do a great job wearing her out and helping her to sleep.)

The current arrangement is going to make it hard for me to hit the elliptical tonight. I'm hoping she embraces DST by the end of the week because I know I'll be hurting for that nap on Saturday!

She's had a low-grade fever the last couple of days, but yesterday was worse than today. I've not given her anything since this morning. Part of me wants to give her something now because I know it'll help her sleep better (as I hang my head in shame), but the other part of me wants to see if she'll spike the fever again without it. For now the latter is winning, but only hesitantly because I know that if she spikes and I give her medicine it'll take about an hour for it to come back down. A long hour of a miserable, fussy baby.

She's sitting next to me whispering "Jingle Bells". It's really cute, but I must not let on that it's cute because this is quiet, resting time.

Hopefully she won't spike tonight or tomorrow. The Hater is off next week and I'd hate for him to have to spend his time with a sick girl. (That and his plan for tomorrow is to take one of the cars for its oil change.) Incidentally I do not have a significant honey-do list for him, but I have time to remedy that.

Meanwhile, today's Groupon cracks me up. It's $10 for $90 worth of fun at Glamour Shots. I have emailed my local friends and insisted that we buy it and go. I want the 1980s look with big hair, leather jacket, and popped collar. But, alas, nobody has replied. At the same time I forwarded the same email to some of my college friends and Sister, suggesting if they lived closer I'd insist that they do it, too. (We could even get the one of us who was a theater major to do zombie makeup for the shoot -- how excellent would that be?!) They have, of course, replied that they would do it if they were here. The good news (and probably much to the chagrin of my local friends): we still have two days before it expires; plenty of time to talk it up at work tomorrow. And, oh yes, it will be mentioned.

For all my band nerd and science nerd friends, this link is for you. My coolest aunt in the universe sent it to me today. This guy has taken the mathematical constant π and converted it to music. In April when I get a new fancy phone I may need this song as a ringtone because it's really that awesome. I'm just not sure yet who will be the lucky person (i.e. the nerdiest of the nerds) who gets this ring.

shock

It's important to me that Baby learn regular scholarly things - at least enough so that she can grow up and be a rock star member of society who can support herself and make a difference in the world. But it's also important to me that she learns some cultural, non-scholarly things, too. Tactful things. Real life things. Things that will get her farther in life than a fancy degree or letters after her name.

We have a special guest this weekend. They has no idea how offensive they can be or how ignorant they sound. I would really like to write specific stories about the weekend, but there's no way that I can frame them in a way that's positive. So we'll just apply one of those non-scholarly lessons: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all (and learn from other people's mistakes).

The weekend has really brought to light to me that it's very important for us to take our jobs as parents seriously, to teach Baby tolerance, respect, tact, and other non-scholarly lessons.

random thoughts

Just some random thoughts for the weekend.

• The Hater and I watched "The Last Airbender" last night. I had a friend who had told me about it a month or so ago and he was so excited about the story. He said if you could suspend reality and enjoy a sci-fi movie for that, then we'd probably like it. So we watched it -- and thought it was a lot of fun! (you know, because we can suspend reality and look past bad acting) We think it was wrongfully given the Razzie for worst picture. It wasn't that terrible - we've seen much worse. (and if you remember, we're not big Shamma-Lamma-Ding-Dong fans) We may have to go back and watch the tv series since we highly doubt they'll be able to make the rest of the series on the big screen. We also liked that the people had to do fancy martial-art-type-moves to activate their fancy powers. So The Hater and I have been doing fancy faux-martial-art-type-moves the rest of the weekend. And when The Hater farted I asked him if he was trying to be the next air bender.
• Speaking of flatus, Baby has figured out that fart sounds mean that someone has pooped. Sometimes when I move Baby to our bedroom in the mornings while The Hater and I are waking up he will serenade us with fart sounds. Recently Baby will hear that and say, "Daddy poo poo!" Followed by, "I check", where she tries to check to see if he's still clean. This always makes us laugh, and then we talk about farts and how they're different from poo poo. I'm just waiting for us to be in public where she announces that someone else has made poo poo in their pants. Also, when she says 'fart' it sounds more like 'faw-ahrt'. Too cute, as long as we're inside our own home and not announcing things in church.
• Speaking of announcing things... At Target this week I'd taken milk with me to pick Baby up from daycare. We went from there to go pick up a few things at the store - where I was ready with milk and a snack. With the snack she was content to be pushed around and wait in line without protest. On our way out there was a lady ahead of us. She stopped in the little portico area between the two sets of automatic doors. I pulled behind her and waited. And waited. And a lady pulled behind me while we were waiting. I think the lady was putting her wallet back in her purse, but she was in no hurry. Baby was counting for me and we were really in no hurry, either. Another lady came up behind me holding a basket of groceries. Baby started looking around, turned around and eyed the lady who was parked, then screamed, "GOOOOOOO!" The lady turned around and looked at me, apologizing. I went white and apologized, too. The ladies behind us laughed. The lady in front of me just looked at Baby and I. I looked at Baby and corrected, "No, honey, we say, Go PLEASE." So of course then she yelled, "Go please!" The first of what will probably be many harrowing moments of apologizing for what she says in public.
• I'll keep you updated on when she announces that someone else has poop'd or farted. For whatever reason I expect this to happen at the grocery store, too.
• We were really excited to have The Hater home with us this weekend! So glad the gaggiest part of his season is behind us.
• Every day I get more excited about our vacation this summer.

absolved: abdominals

My cousin Kelly and I have made a pact, and it's not pretty: we're going to get our abs back.

For now we've committed to each other that we're going to do three minutes every day of ab exercises. Initially we said five minutes a day, but then decided that was too much to start with - no sense in going crazy.

I was sore today at work and sore tonight as I did my three minutes. But someday we'll have our abs back, and that's exciting.

verbage

This time last year Baby could say about 50 words. I had a list where I wrote them down when she'd say new ones. We were so excited.

The list stopped after a while because it got to be too hard to keep up with all of the words that she knew. She picks up a dozen a day and she's stringing more and more together at a time. She averages 3-4 word sentences, but can put together 5 or 6 word sentences/statements sometimes, too.

Life is so much easier now that she can do a better job just telling us what she wants. It's really taken a lot of tears and tension away from communication.

She adores the cat. Zoloft, the cat, has a kitty heart attack every time Baby comes anywhere near her. If Baby squeals from the living room we can hear the cat's bell jumping from on top of our bed to hiding below it. Baby likes to talk about the "sounds" that the cat makes. Unfortunately, the cat usually doesn't make sweet meow sounds. Usually the only sounds that Baby hears her make are hisses. Zoloft hisses at Baby, then baby squeals and looks back at her and says "hhhaaaaa" back like a whisper. She gets so excited to "talk" with the kitty and has no idea that the hisses are warnings or need for concern.