Wednesday, March 25, 2009

No photos for today.

Sorry, my little Llama broke out in hives and I'm not mean enough to post the pictures. I have them, of course, but I'm not putting them on the internet for all to see.

She's allergic to amoxicillin.

Whenever we're back to normal, pictures will be back, too. :)

Monday, March 23, 2009

My daughter is already planning to leave me.

As I was making her breakfast, Llama was playing in the fridge. She had one of her pink storage cubby cubes next to her. I went to the fridge for cheese (you know she needs cheese on her eggs), and peeked in the cube. She had a bottle of ranch dressing, a bottle of italian dressing, a potato, and a cup of yogurt. I asked her what she was going to make, and she looked in the cube, then back in the fridge, and grabbed the cheese and threw it in the cube, too. I think she was packing her bag.

Then I was standing at the sink, waiting for her eggs to cool, and she grabbed my pant leg and said, "Daddy?" I said, "No, he went to work." And she said, "Noooooooooo!?" I've been demoted and it's not even 9am.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Mobility. It's not just for seniors with Hoverrounds anymore.

On Thursday, Llama stood up and took three steps. She really wanted the remote. (The remote is a big motivator in this house, and now Bucket and I have to learn to share it with someone besides each other, which is a problem. We're not even sure how to share it with each other yet. Maybe we'll have to buy her a television of her own, which was how we solved this problem for ourselves.) (I'm totally kidding about the television of her own, in case you didn't catch that. I'm not really down with babies having televisions.)

Since Thursday, Llama's taken a total of another four steps, but we'll cut her some slack. The poor girl has an ear infection and tonsillitis. Who knew babies could even get tonsillitis?

In any case, the combination of new mobility + hurty ear + sore throat = a real explanation for me of why she's been sleeping so very badly lately. Bad sleep for Llama means no sleep for Mama, and on Thursday night into Friday, it was a very literal interpretation. I sat in the rocking chair (very comfortable, selected for just this situation, thanks very much to my mother in law who knew best!) with Llama from about 11pm until 4am. She couldn't sleep laying down, probably because her ear hurt so damn bad, and she was so very hot that I had her almost naked even though it was cold outside. We keep the house cold at night (saves on the gas bill, and I really like to be cold when I'm sleeping... who knows why) so I felt a little bad taking her pajamas off, but it really did help her sleep. On me.

I had to sing a lot, though, and since I'm sick, too... the vocal stylings were not at their best. The offerings ranged from "Walkin' in Memphis," which is always Llama's song for sleepy times, to "Edelweiss" and "A Whole New World." Don't hate. We were going for songs to which I knew all the words.

But last night... last night was glorious. Llama loves Amoxicillin, by the way. She claps her hands when I bring out the syringe. I hope she always feels this way. Anyway, last night Llama slept for 8 hours, woke up so that I could rock her and sing (badly) to her, and went back to sleep for 4 more hours. And now she's a cheerful, happy girl. Back to about "half-tornado-strength," as I said yesterday. I'm hoping by tomorrow she's back to her normal self. Because as tiring as it is to wrestle my little tornado, I was really scared by how quiet and lethargic she was.

Have a fabulous day! It's the second day of spring and it doesn't appear to be snowing!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Wordless Wednesday... now with MORE WORDS!

As much as I'd like to keep this wordless... do you know me AT ALL? I can't miss an opportunity to explain this.

Last Thursday, Llama, Tuna Roll, their grandmother (my mother-in-law) and I went to a huge kids' resale event at the fairgrounds. It was a good time. Tuna Roll hung out in a Snugli that I wore, and she just snuggled right in and went to sleep on me for the entire time. Llama was not so calm and loving. She rode in the stroller and used the tray to kick her shoes off about one million times.

During one of the times I was putting her shoes back on, I spotted a Fisher-Price house thing. I don't know the exact name of it, I don't even know if you can buy it in the store anymore. I said to my mother in law, "I'm going to look at this house for Llama's birthday present." As I said that, this giant hosebeast of a woman came along and put her (too old for this toy) kid down in front of it and asked, "Do you want it, honey? We'll get it, then." I know she heard me say that I wanted to look at it.

So she let her kid play with it, despite all the signs saying, "Please do not play with the toys," and I walked away, mumbling angrily about people being deliberately rude.

And then the giant hosebeast's kid had a fit and she had to walk away. She took her hands off of it, so I went back and swiped it. I carried this giant-ass house around with me.

And I bought it, with complete disregard for the fact that I drive a small sedan, with two babies and their seats, bags, and various toys and accoutrements in the backseat. The trunk was full of stroller. Did that stop me? No. Bucket keeps tools in the car, thankfully, so as my mother-in-law changed diapers, I disassembled the house and wedged its pieces in the trunk and backseat.

I drove home with my knees in the dashboard, wedged precariously under the steering wheel. Bucket reassembled the house in the living room. And while I was planning to wait and give it to Llama for her birthday, they (Llama and Bucket) started playing with it immediately. I didn't have the heart to take it away from either of them.

Was it all worth it? See for yourself.

Yes, I think so. I'm again on the hunt for a birthday present, though.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Late again and not wordless at all...

Maybe Wordless Wednesday was a little ambitious. I'll keep trying, but I think it's more likely that what's going to happen is that I will get at least one picture each week of Llama and put it on here.

This is what happens when you walk out of the living room for one minute without properly securing EVERYTHING:


And coming soon to mailboxes across Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland:


I have to thank my friend Amy, who made the invitations. I'm crafty, but not with paper. Aren't they CUTE!?

Please note that the post for Llama's birthday will be titled, "Ain't no party like a cupcake party, 'cause a cupcake party don't stop." It's been in my head and now it's in yours.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Random bits of collected nonsense

Sorry about the lack of Wordless Wednesday and the failure to follow through with Thursday. Llama fell and had a bruise on her face that I wasn't willing to show the world. And right now, although I have some pictures from this weekend, we're eating breakfast (I'm multitasking, of course!) and the USB cord is all the way over there. Far away, like half a room away.

So on my Spring Break, it was actually spring-y. Llama and I took several walks, we played outside, and we planted pansies. Good times were had by all. Actually, trying to plant pansies while simultaneously trying to keep Llama from eating dirt is NOT fun, but she liked it, and she also liked the dirt. It might be her favorite food, surpassing even cheese (pronounced "eeeeez" in the common Llama vernacular). However, now that it's no longer Spring Break, it's also no longer spring-y. How odd.

Sort of relatedly, on my break, I also had two group projects to work on. One group is fabulous and normal and I really like working with them. The other group... well... I don't like them. They wanted to do everything together, rather than delegating parts of the project and getting together to finish it. And they were surprised that I "knew what I was talking about," and that I had read the book. The textbook. For the class. Also, they had issues with "their," "there," and "they're." And they called me old.

Well, they didn't directly say I was old. What they said was that maybe I just seem like I know what I'm talking about because I'm "older." I'm 27. They're 23. Screw that, I'm not old. I just did my work. I can't understand how someone could be in a master's level class, paying tuition, planning a career - and not be putting the effort in. It's not just my money now (in tuition), it's also my money later (in potential earnings). Even if I hated the subject matter (I don't, I love it), money is a huge motivator for me. HUGE. Ever been poor? I have. I didn't like it.

Anyway, I was saying... I don't like to say I'm smarter than people, because I subscribe to the theory of multiple intelligences. Meaning that, for example, Bucket is a genius with computers, cars, electricity, and most mechanical things. I'm not. But I am really good at organization, dealing with people, and communicating my thoughts effectively. Everyone is good at something. But if someone is not, for example, good at academic work, perhaps that person should not be planning a career in education and attempting to complete a master's program in education.

Frustrating. Both group projects are being presented tomorrow night. I hope like hell that I get good grades, because it's important to me.

Maybe by tomorrow I'll have the energy to get up and walk across the room for the USB cable and upload pictures, too.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

It's Wordless Wednesday, and I don't have a photo for this week yet.

It's shameful. I guess we'll have Wordless Thursday this week. Assuming I get a picture of something today...

Sorry about that.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Of all the things I've lost temporarily, this was the most annoying.

On Friday, I drove halfway to Erie to meet a friend in Grove City for lunch. It was a good time. I also dropped my cell phone in my car somewhere. It was on silent for some reason, so I couldn't call it from another phone to find it. Then its battery died.

I never even thought about it. Phone's not ringing? That's one less thing I have to do while making sure Llama doesn't, like, fall down the basement stairs or something. (It's a sliding door, there's no room for a regular one, and it can't be locked. So I worry.)

When I finally realized I hadn't seen it in a while, I went and checked the car. I didn't see it immediately, so I assumed I lost it somewhere. I didn't care much because it's not very nice. Llama killed my nice phone with baby spit and smacking. I didn't like the nice phone much, either, truth be told. I wasn't really stopping her from killing it. I didn't think Bucket would pull out a cell phone that Zack Morris used and set it up for me. He has the most random things stashed away in a kitchen drawer.

Anyway, back to my point. I didn't care much that I seemed to have lost it. Bucket cared. He always cares about these things. He cared when I dropped a phone in the driveway and ran it over. It was mostly okay, because we have a gravel driveway and it sunk in rather than getting smashed. He made me go look in the car again.

It was under the driver's seat. That's not the first important thing I lost under that seat, either. Bucket gave me beautiful earrings one year for Christmas, and one of them came out in the car, and I knew it was in there - but we couldn't find it. For three years. And then the warranty was up, so Bucket took the seat out and it was right where I thought it was.

Again, I digress. Back to the point at hand. My phone was dead, under the driver's seat of my car, for three days. I couldn't even turn it on until it charged.

I had ten messages. If you called me in the past few days, I just got your message today. If you didn't call me in the past few days, WHY NOT!?

I'll start returning calls tomorrow.