Friday, October 30, 2009

Haiku Friday - Disney Days

We're at Disneyworld
Mouse ears, rides, 3D and shows
We are all melting

I've gone upside down
And backwards. Through time and space
And hung with mermaids.

Claire loves princesses
Hannah loves to sing and dance
Lord Honey went fast

My best friend is the
Eternal queen of all fun
And Disneyworld guide.

Got the girls their shots
I worried about swine 'flu
Instead we got colds

Monday, October 26, 2009

Mad about the mouse

My feet may be wee bloody stumps but we are having a great vacation. As I type I am pumping milk for Hannah in a nicely air conditioned family bathroom whilst my children are minded by my best friend and my husband takes off on his third mission to Mars today. I will likely have some 'splaining to do when Lord Honey sees the bruise I got on my ass shimmying up onto this changing table to spend 20 pumping but there was no way I would spend any 20 minutes extra on my feet today so up I went. Hannah loves the undersea Nemo ride, Lord Honey loves space, and Claire loves her pink Minnie Mouse ears. More to come if I learn how to do pix on a Blackberry.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Haiku Friday - packing everything she owns

How many t-shirts?
Disneyworld is big and warm
so much to savor

Drinks, treats, and french fries
To savor is to spill, smear
We will be dirty

We all need good shoes
good stroller wheels and suncreen
and some books and toys


Post your own Haiku and link at Jan's to join in.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Girls, girls, girls

This is how her head looked before I let her tip over, right in front of me, as I helped her work on learning how to cruise, and even in my grasp I let her smash her wee noggin on a pointy cornered toy. I am full of the awesome!



In other news, Hannah had her updated testing for Early Intervention, and now rates at eight months in gross and fine motor skills, but a whopping fifteen months in language, out ahead of her actual fourteen months. That's my daughter! She rated high because she has words besides mama and dada, namely book and baba. She is working on boo for balloon. Her greatest accomplishment, however, is that she can sign milk to us and nearly bursts with joy every time we see her squeeze her imaginary teat. I was rocking her to sleep two nights ago and she would nestle in to my neck, sit up and dramatically sign for milk, take two swigs and stop to snuggle, then lather, rinse and repeat. When she tired of milk on demand, she sat up very purposefully looked me in the eye and stuck a finger to my mouth. I guessed she wanted me to sing (questionable choice) and when I did the babykins jumped with joy that she had yet again successfully pulled my puppet strings. I cried and she smiled joyously. Everyone went to bed happy, except Claire.

This one is full of sass right now, so I look back longingly at this view, taken a short two weeks ago, when she was full of good cheer and not too many screams. It seems she is not enjoying her best friend at preschool right now, and she gets amped up beyond all reason at things of little consequence. And, she is three and a half. While I was enjoying Hannah's expanding communication skills, I found Claire had crawled out into the hall outside her bedroom to spy on the activities in the house that go on after bedtime, and she fell asleep on the cold, hard floor. I kept hearing the breathing and thinking Lord Honey had the monitor turned up extra loud, only to find it was a different child, snoring away in a different place altogether. We seem to be going through a slightly more difficult stage, where she wants to do more but doesn't know how to get there. And it all kinda pisses her off, some.

I am in fluster to get all my regular things done so my life doesn't come apart at the seams while I am away, pack for all of us for a week away, and get all who are girls inoculated against the H1N1 menace. Busy, busy, busy.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Please forgive me

My posting has been light, and so has my time for reading all the blogs I love to stay caught up with. Hannah has a head cold, not anything too severe, and thankfully we seemed to have passed the I am sick therefore I don't eat phase of infancy (god help me if I've spoken too soon) but it does mean that much more cuddle time and that much less get things done time.

Did I mention that the other day I found a fully formed green booger in my bra, at the end of the day, a full two hours after the last time I had been cuddling the baby? Two hours. Fully formed, nostril blocking sized, and green.

Our personal version of the Big Dig has been dug, the footings and foundation poured, the pad and driveway poured, with only the following collateral damage: Two retaining walls, one chunk of asphalt driveway, one zone of asphalt in the public alley, a fair bit of my grass, and one chunk of neighbor fence. It seems entirely possible that we will remain married through this project. Hope springs eternal! But I might strangle Lord Honey if he ever again raises a conflict we have in the choices we must make either right before bed, to rob me of sleep, or three minutes before I leave for work when he says do you want that patio? It's $850, tell me now. Arrrgghhh! Lord Honey spends every evening digging something out, putting wires in, cutting ragged asphalt to prepare for pouring new, all to save us money so I can't tell him to stop, even if that leaves me with all the inside stuff on my own. I am looking forward to completion, not just to have covered parking.

My mind seems extra full right now, of what to pack for Disneyworld with two wee kiddos, and how not to get the H1N1 'flu without getting the vaccinations, and wondering just why I thought breathing recirculated air for four hours was such a great idea. Why? Disneyworld? Because I was going to a conference and thus the trip was subsidized by my employer, only to have the conference cancel after getting non refundable airfare in order to take the fam on the cheap. Yes! Being in an enclosed space during pandemic season! Yes. It is a good idea!

Friday, October 16, 2009

Haiku Friday - the daily grind

I'm in a stupor
we never get up on time
I need the coffee

just to get to up
to be a thinking person
means a second cup

by mid day I need
the caramel macchiato
I love you Starbucks

Join in and post your own Friday haiku - put a link at Jan's.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Teeny tiny update and attack of the Blue Meanies

All right, you ladies who weren't going to have more kidlets soon - in lieu of a real blog post I am posting some pictures to make your uteri twitch.

Hannah is lovely and smiling as ever these days:



Claire is busy as ever and sporting a sassy new haircut:



In yet another awesome parenting event, when Claire painted this ceramic pot at a friend's birthday party, she got a glob of blue paint on her dress. When I washed her face before bed we wet the paint blob and reactivated it. Innocent Claire got yelled at for spreading blue around, but I thought she'd stashed a marker and gone on a tear with it. When she took her dress off, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as it has a snuggish neckline, she left a trail of blue up her forehead and into her hair and then at various and sundry points around the house. I had to stop yelling at her when I finally found the source and realized she wasn't in fact painting the town blue wilfully but only accidentally. We put this on the list of things she is not doing, like peeing on the floor and calling me stinky Mama.

What she isn't doing

I didn't tell her about the Not Me Monday meme, but Claire apparently knew anyway.

She crawled into my bed this morning and said "I'm not calling you Stinky Mama!"

"I'm not peeing on the floor."

"I'm not painting my face with markers!"

"I'm not calling Hannah stinky butt!"

Friday, October 9, 2009

Haiku Friday - standards

Now I know the truth
a mother first, me second
I ate old stale food

I was so hurried
to do things and then get home
and care for my girls

I ate the Cheetos
stashed in my car for one year
and a Tootsie Roll

Emergency snacks
don't get much better with time
but the Tums were fine

Friday haiku - it's not just for breakfast anymore. See for yourself here.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The new profanity

Across the internet I have been coming across new ways to swear, of which I have become overly fond, as I am a dyed in the wool pottymouth. These are my new favorites:

Asshat.
Douchenozzle.
Jackhole.
Craptastic.
Jizzlewax.

The only one I really don't understand is jizzlewax. Maybe I don't want to know.

My favorite new to me word today is embiggen, to enlarge, or in a metaphorical sense, to empower. Let's use it in a sentence: If you want to see the picture in greater detail, press embiggen. Or in a metaphorical sense: The fates decided Ginger wasn't large enough, and so she was embiggened.

Please add your own in the comments, because I look forward to trying them all.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Hannah makes a milestone

Well, I didn't get a picture of it yet, but Hannah sat up by herself today while we were at my sister's for my niece's birthday dinner. We've been working on that for about six or eight weeks or so with her PT. She lies on her back, rolls to her side, and pushes off on her strong arm. After she proved herself to her adoring fans, I walked away leaving her helium balloon dangling over her head, and she sat up without an audience to be able to grab her balloon. Since I am never one to stop talking, I have been telling her how a girl who can sit herself up is a girl who can get things done and other such platitudes. That usually comes right before she pokes me in the eye and squeals like a baby pterodactyl. I still don't know how to do video so I'll post a series of pix soon.

She has indeed made enormous other progress lately such as her right arm being able to go well above her head when she tells you she is "SO BIG" and has come a long way since July



She enjoys standing and working on her balance




While she wears her cute wee boot to support her foot



And I finally found a use for law books that get tossed once a year when the new codes get delivered to my office. Reduce, reuse, recycle, apply duct tape. It is never to too early to teach your kids of the wonder that is duct tape.



And yes, a toy store did explode all over my living room, what of it?

In other parenting glory, Claire got her first homework assignment today which I forgot to tackle before bed. Three and a half is not too young, right? They say the idea is to give parents examples of the progress the child is making, but I cannot lie, I was dumbstruck when I found the assignment amongst her "work" of finger painted pumpkins and worksheets extolling the virtues of the letter B.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

I almost got my seasonal 'flu shot

Because I work for the city, my insurance covers me for a free 'flu shot at one of many locations hosted at city offices to inoculate city employees. I missed most of the clinics at the admin buildings near me due to scheduling conflicts and then I checked the list and realized if I got up early on Friday and hustled I could hit a location near to my house on my way in to work. At the city cemetery.

On Monday I'll be dropping by the parks department.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Haiku Friday - Lord Honey's Ditch Witch

the hole must be dug
put electrical wiring
well below the grass

eighteen inches deep
and a full sixty feet long
this trench is not small

he started with spades
and he swore with much vigor
then chose to upgrade

without this rental
he'd still be hand digging
and fairly pissed off

men love their machines
and today we are praising
Lord Honey's Ditch Witch

Yo, haiku to you. Go on, join us. You know you want to. Post a link here.