30 August, 2007

Mothers helpers and cute things kids say

So this morning before Spotty was awake he started to whimper and said I need Mantha. I told him we would pick her up later today and he said NOOOO I need her to sleepy with me. Mantha is our friend’s daughter. She comes over on Thursdays when I work from home. She and Spotty play, swim etc. while I work. It is a HUGE help as I am often on conference calls for 4-6 hours at a time. I dread when school starts because then I tend to have the TV on all day to keep the boy occupied. I always feel guilty, but then I feel guilty when I spend time reading or playing with Spotty, even if I am just listening in on a phone call that is as interesting as watching paint dry. I am hoping to bring Mantha out to get a fancy pedicure and to buy an outfit or two for school. If not I guess I can just give her money, but I think doing something might be more fun although maybe at 12 I would rather the money? I know Spotty will miss her a lot when she goes back to school.

Spotty says cute things all the time; I try to remember to write them down. When he wants to be picked up he says I want to carry you. When he needs to be comforted he says I need to snuggle you. When I ask him if I can have some of whatever he has (cookies, grapes, noodles) he says certainly mama. Sometimes he will hold his chin in his hands and tell me I am a little sad right now. If he wakes up in bed with us and he wants to get up he lifts up my eyelid, puts his face right next to mine and whispers loudly wake up mama He tells us don’t let bed bugs bite before he falls asleep. And recently he has started saying mama I talking to you if I am not paying attention to him as he is talking. It’s a nice way to remind me that to help him learn to talk, I need to listen.

We are off to the White Mountains to camp this weekend. We can’t wait. Spotty has been camping since he was 4 months old. I can’t wait to see what adventures we find.

27 August, 2007

Dairy Queen, Night Terrors and GPS's

So the weekend was a weekend

Our GPS was a super duper trooper as 495 was shut down and we had to get over to Braintree. I love that damn thing!!!! I can’t find my way out of a wet paper bag with a machete. I am that pathetic. I used to have to call the boy toy ALL THE TIME in tears, hysterical because I was in Connecticut and had been trying to get to Franklin. When we went to Duxbury Beach the other day and I was returning home in the pouring rain and at night, I ordinarily would have needed a valium to calm down. Instead I listed as John Cleese told me which way to go. Life is good.

My aunt graduated from college (we are so proud, at 52 she is now all edyakated). We had a party for her at
Jimbo's Steak and Fin which was really good. If you are in the area you should check it out. It is located in the same place that a Chinese restaurant “Braintree 5 corners” was located at. My parents used to take us there when we were kids; I remember it being one of our favorites. The usual suspects showed up. Spotty Chops was great and enjoyed having papa chase him around the place (until I reminded the boy toy that maybe he should be running around with our son as my dad and I were a bit tired).

Later that night Mantha and her parents (Speed Racer and Auntie D) dropped by to say hey. We had not had dinner yet and neither had they. I was hoping for something other than fast food, but they were dying for Dairy Queen and who am I to say no to a Blizzard? The boys wanted to go downstairs to see the race. I asked Auntie D to stay and watch Spotty Chop, but she insisted on coming with me to help with the order. Thank god she did. We ordered some bacon cheddar basket thingies, and a hamburger…and the poor girl at the counter got confused, you want all of the burgers to have no cheese? No, we want cheese 2 of them and then just a burger. I don’t understand. We need some burgers with cheese and 1 with no cheese, cheese? Luckily at this point someone else came over and with drill sergeant precision took our order, and then it turned into chickens with their heads cut off, not sure why, but they couldn’t remember what we ordered, how many things we ordered, we ended up with extra shakes, not enough water, and the wrong burgers. But I got a small cotton candy blizzard and a small M&M and caramel blizzard (for breakfast). Spotty Chop was pissed off because he couldn’t find his ice cream (vanilla with colored sprinkles) perhaps because as he never eats it, and always eats my blizzard I didn’t order him one, that will not happen again.

Yesterday I took Spotty Chop outlet shopping, along with everyone in the civilized world. I thought the place opened at noon, so we were there shortly after noon. I swear they must have opened at 10:00 because I got the last frelling spot. 2 hours and several hundred dollars later we were on our way back home. Spotty fell asleep on the way to Wrentham for about 20 min. So when we got home I tried unsuccessfully for 2 hours to get him to take a nap. He is fighting a cold and really needed the sleep, but it was not to be. He did fall asleep around 9PM which is early for him. Boy toy and I climbed into bed around 10:00 and spent a good 20 min just watching him sleep, he is so freakin cute. We decided to keep him in bed with us for a bit because he smells good and started to drift off when out of the blue, Spotty starts SCREAMING to wake the DEAD. Oh my god he scared the crap out of me. He wouldn’t let us touch him; it just made him scream even more. We tried to get him to wake up, but had little success. He jumped/fell out of our bed and he lay on the floor and switched between screaming and moaning. Because he was sick I was afraid his temperature may have spiked, his brain was cooking and he was about to die, so I of course had to keep touching him, and having him scream. He ran out of our room after 30 min or so, crashed into the gate by the kitchen and proceeded to scream more. I tried to turn on the TV (he wanted it) to see if it would wake him/help him focus, but he threw a nutty, so I shut it off. I finally picked him up and brought him outside. We looked at the stars, he calmed down. He asked for chocolate milk, we lay down on the living room floor and he played with my hair. He finally fell back asleep. Around 5 am I woke up and crawled onto the couch. I am too old for floor sleeping. Hell when I am camping we bring a double thick air mattress. In the morning boy toy woke us up. Spotty was wicked groggy and when I asked him if he wanted to crawl up into our bed he said yes, I want to have a little rest.

I don’t think I like night terrors, which is what I think he had. I am hoping this was the one and only, but from what I could gather on the internet, we may be in for a bit of a rough time. I hate not being able to fix things. I just want my baby to be happy…and healthy…and safe.

24 August, 2007

Somebody's day sucked and it wasn't me

So yesterday my boy toy’s day started with a bang. On Thursday’s I work from home, so Spotty Chop and I should be able to sleep until 8 or 8:30 am, but usually are up around 6 anyways. Yesterday however Spotty was asleep, we got kisses from boy toy and off he went to work, and I snuggled back down to catch a bit more sleep. A while later I hear the front door open and I thought to myself, what the F is his problem? What did he forget, why can’t he get out of the Fin house without my help… he walks into the room and says I have a flat, I called work, they asked if I could try using your jack. Hell ya, I thought, I mean I drive a cute little Jeep Liberty and you drive a 350 diesel man eater, but sure, give it a try, I tried and there is no way in hell it’s going to work, I’m running to Dunkin to get some coffee and wait for them. I roll back over.

I must have fallen asleep because a significant amount of time passed and the boy toy walks back into the room, I locked the keys in your car with it running, I walked back I am jumping on the bike (dual sport not to be confused with the Honda that is still sitting in the driveway as he works on the brakes). I said, Ok and rolled back over. He comes back and says I brought your car back, I need to walk back and get the bike, I asked him if he wanted me to wake up Spotty and drive him back, he said no, and gained huge points as usually I do end up having to do that kind of crap. Spotty finally woke up when boy toy came back in to tell me that he was back.

Around 7:30- 8:00 a company kid came out with a jack. The bolts were on so tight that he and the boy toy took turns jumping on the thingy that loosens the lug nuts. Eventually they came loose, the tire was changed, he went to work. I wore my pj’s and bunny slippers during my day of conference calls. It’s good to be me

23 August, 2007

Book Review - Wizard's First Rule

I am a re-reader. Before Spotty Chops was born I had a 2 hour a day commute via the train so I got a ton of reading done, I could easily get through 2-3 books a week (or one really big book). At one point had a $100 a month habit. Now my commute by train is only 30 min each way and that really screws up the reading time, because just when you are getting into the story, you have to get up and go to work.

I do not bother buying a book that I do not think I will reread and I especially love to buy series. I refuse to read the latest in a series without re-reading the older ones, this way I have even more books to read. Unless you tend to lend your books out and not remember what/where/or who and purchase the 2nd and 3rd books in a series because you loved the first one and then once the other books come in, go looking for the 1st one so you can re-read it and get on with things. Not that this has happened to me, I mean who would be so stupid to purchase 6 books and not be able to find the first of any of the 3 series? I will also only buy paperbacks (well, for the most part, sometimes it’s hard to wait 2 years for what happens next) and prefer to read them that way, mainly due to the commuter mentality. Hard covers are HEAVY.

I am currently re-reading
Wizard’s First Rule I just realized that I am far behind in this series. I am caught up on the Wheel of Time (and by god I will finish it if it kills me) and I never bought into the “well so and so copied the idea”. Let’s face it, in fantasy writing everyone is copying everyone. The format is fairly standard. Young boy/man/girl/woman is downtrodden/hunted/orphaned/ but meets up with an older person who has the key to everything/key to something/food. Young person finds out they are the missing/heir/prince/princess/wizard/messiah. They must battle evil/their father/mother/demons/monsters/EEEEVIL/system to save the world. There is usually a group of friends from when the youngster is growing up/met along the way. They fight the good fight, sometimes winning, sometimes loosing. There may be intelligent animals/sprit guides. There will be lots of magic, and a good time will be had by all.

Back to the book – it looks like there are 10 or 11 books out there, and I have only read up to book 5 or 6, and I have up to book 7, so I have weeks of reading ahead of me, which makes me very happy. I find I get a bit cranky if I don’t know what I am going to be reading next. Anyhoo I really like this book. Richard seems like a decent guy, it sucks that his parents are dead, but he grew up with his dad and his brother, there was no evil step mom in the picture so he lead a pretty normal life for awhile. I like his relationship with Zed. Everyone needs a wacky friend of the family. I like that when we meet Darken Rahl for the first time we get some insight that he is a FREAK. Granted anyone that tried to gain global dominance by cutting open other peoples abdomens and reading their entrails isn’t playing with a full deck, but his tribute to his dad is a bit over the top. I love the Mud people, I love how they are not perfect and like to eat their enemies, hmmm sounds like a few people I know. The Mord-Sith…damn have you ever read about a crazier bunch of byotches? Kind of sexy, but not soft pornish, not that there is anything wrong with that…Well, Richard is about to take care of his mate, if you have read the book, you know what I mean, and if not, give it a whirl and find out.

18 August, 2007

Friends in deed

My girlfriend and her girls helped me out hugely on Friday. I am the maid of honor for a train buddy, her wedding is in October. The invites had to go out on Friday. I have been waiting for the invitations I bought over the web to show up at my house and come Thursday afternoon knew I couldn't wait any longer. I have been so stressed out over this shower. Having never been a bridesmaid let alone the maid on honor, I really want this to be special, but damn nothing is ever easy is it especially when it’s a party for 70+?

I first went to A.C. Moore and picked up paper, but I ended up spending over $70. They didn't even have envelopes to fit the paper. I went to Staples to get envelopes, and found parchment paper with envelopes to match. I got really large mailing labels and through the magic of the Avery "wizzard" was able to mail merge the list of attendee's adding a black dragon to it to boot. I bought Avery silver foil mailing labels and found the Chinese character for friend, so I turned that into my return address. I also picked up Avery index cards and used that for both the directions and the “they are registered at”. The only issue I had with the index cards is that the font had to be small to fit all of the directions on one side.

I drove down to my girlfriend Moo's and as she watched Spotty Chop my girlfriend’s daughter Hippy Chick helped me to print. Of course she has word perfect on her PC so we had to do a bit of formatting. We ended up installing the printer drivers on my PC because it was just too much of a pain in the ass to keep reformatting everything. Once everything was printed it was assembly time. Hippy Chick punched out all of the directions, Moo and her youngest daughter Cheese Please ink stamped the Chinese characters of either happiness or love onto the invites. I put the address and return address labels on everything. Moo then started folding the invites as I stuffed and licked them closed. My girlfriends husband Freak Show luckily came home during this and kept Spotty entertained. Freak HATES that I call my son Spotty Chop, not sure why but it crawls up his ass, so of course I was calling Spotty every 3 seconds. We finally finish everything at 4:45, I now need to rush to a post office I have never been to buy stamps and stick them all before 5:00PM.

I DID IT!!!! And even though the invites are not what I originally thought of, I think it all pulled together, they are simple and sophisticated. (I hope)

Everyone was waiting for me when I got back, Hippy Chick had 3-4 friends come over and everyone was going to the beach. Spotty had been on a walk with Moom and Freak and managed to find every puddle in the state of Massachusetts. So I whipped off his clothes and dydie, and tossed him in his car seat. Off to the beach (for the first time). I got to finish my book on tape as Spotty fell asleep 3 mins into the drive. He woke up when we got to the beach. It was windy, a bit chilly, especially for a naked boy. It took him a bit to wake up, but once he did he loved it. We walked down to the water, dug holes walked along the beach, walked through water, fell into water, splashed in water and had a good time for ourselves. The beach closed at 8PM and everyone was going out for ice cream. We headed home, I had to pee and daddy was waiting to see his baby. As soon as we got into the car it started to rain like crazy. Luckily I have a GPS which is a story in and of it self.

15 August, 2007

What the hell is up with 1:00 AM?

My son whom I love dearly is 2, almost 2 ½. He has never been a good sleeper. He will not fall asleep without me snuggling with him. We have tried putting him to bed early (8PM) and funny thing; he wakes up at 4 or 5 AM. I am not a big fan of the early morning. Hell when I am traveling I don’t like it so if I don’t have to do it I don’t want to. So usually it is get ready for bed between 9 and 9:30 PM and he tends to fall asleep by 10 PM. He wakes up at 6 AM, just in time to “help” me get stuff together in the morning so we can be out of the house by 6:30.

Last night he was asleep by 10 in his room, and crawled into our bed around 1:00AM. After thrashing around for 30 min or so he fell asleep. I brought him back to his room. Walked back to my bed and heard the pitter patter of DOOOOOM. Crawled into our bed with the boy, 10 min later he was jumping on the bed (70’s style water bed, queue the “chicky pow” music). We go into his room to lie down, he plays with my hair, climbs over me, on me, over me, off the bed on the bed. mama I want to sleep on the couch. So we go to the living room where I step on 7 cars, 5 trucks, 2 trains, 15 – 35 pieces of
GeoTrax and 2 PS2 games. I lay a blanket down, lay him on top of blanket, and wrap him up with blanket. Kick EVERYTHING out of my way. Put a blanket on the floor and I lay down. 10 min later he is lying down next to me. 5 min later he is back on the couch, 5-10 min later he is next to me, with his head on my tummy, on my chest, on my legs, and then it is back onto the couch. 3 min after that he is jumping on the couch. I suggest going back to his room. It is somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00, I don’t know for sure because I have now misplaced my glasses and I am blind as a bat without them.

We go lie down in his room again. Mama can I lie on you, please please pleeeease. Of course you can spotty chop, I know you are having a hard time sleeping, can you stop elbowing me in the boob; and my hair, you don’t have to pull it out by the roots, just play with it. Stop putting it in my face I HATE having hair in my face, here I will roll over and you can play with my hair all you want, and then he climbs out of bed and goes into our room. I say good maybe I can fall
asleep. This of course is the time that he turns around and climbs back into his bed. Rinse and repeat. mama I want to sleep on the couch. NO Fin WAY IN HELL, I am cranky, I am so frelling tired and I am unfortunately loosing my patience. So I tell him that I am tired and we are staying in his bed, crying and hitting commence. F this. Fine stay in your bed by yourself then. And I walk out the door, close it, hold it shut for a few min and then walk into our room. Hysterics, I climb back into my bed.

The pitter patter of DOOOOOOM is back. He crawls in next to me, mama I want hold you. Well, I want to hold you too buddy, so come snuggle. Hair in my face, hair in my face, hair in my ears, in my nose, in my face, on his toes, his belly button, hair in my face. mama can I have come chocolate milk please. Yup, no problem, it is 3:55 and he has got to crash soon. So I make chocolate milk, with his help. And we go back to our bed. He drinks chocolate milk, plays with my hair, asks me to hold his chocolate milk, thanks me, rolls over, kicks his father once or twice, rolls back to me, asks for more chocolate milk please. Drinks milk, hands it back. Falls asleep. It is 4 something. I punch Dad and tell him to roll the F over because he has been snoring for 3 Fin hours straight. Loud enough to wake the dead, and not the recently dead, I mean the really
dead.

I finally fall asleep, to wake up to the alarm.

You ask yourself dad? I bet you thought I was a single parent didn’t you? Well, as the Big Dude is so fond of telling me. You didn’t listen to me when he was 6 months old, I told you to let him cry himself to sleep, if you had done that you wouldn’t need to be in his room, he would just go to sleep on his own, he wouldn’t get out of bed, he would fall asleep by 7 pm, he would nap well, the Iraq war would be over, national debt would be at an all time low, dogs and cats would live together in harmony. I think you get the picture. So he does not help out with bedtime. You know what? Blow me. I do not get to stay home with my baby. I am out of the house by 6:30 every Fin morning and I do not get home until about 6:30 in the evening. Snuggling at night is the way I distressed myself.

I don’t think you need to let your child cry themselves to sleep. It just does not seem right to me. This morning do I wish he would just fall asleep on his own? Damn straight, but from my understanding very few high school kids want their moms sleeping with them. I should be able to get to sleep in another 14 years or so.

14 August, 2007

Love that boy

So last night as I am getting dinner together I hear Spotty Chop and his daddy reading books. I am putting dinner on the table when Spotty runs over to me, grabs my hand and says i read book you. Who can argue with that? So I sit on the floor and he begins to read me a book we got from the library, Moon Plane

He is amazing! He is telling me the story, remembering all of the key points, some of the cute phrases, I can not believe it. This is more than just parroting back Clap Hands Which was fun in its own right, my dude is a story teller. When he is finished he says all done and I grab him and tell him that I need a snuggle because I am so proud of him. As he throws his arms around me he says I love you too mommy and I missed you all day long.

So here I am in tears because I am so happy that my kid is both a reader and now a storyteller, with the added bonus of gut wrenching guilt of but you are not home with me. Not that he was upset when he said he missed me, it was more informational or I know I threw a shit fit when we were leaving Aunties, but I really do love you.

It’s all good