Category Archives: NaBloPoMo

how I spent my Saturday morning

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Want to guess what I was doing this past Saturday morning? I was going door-to-door for Barack Obama, making sure people had information about early voting and that they know exactly where their polling location is if they choose to vote on Election Day. (In case you didn’t know: for early voting, you can go anyplace within your county. The place where I voted was in a shopping mall next to a LensCrafters. On Election Day, though, you can only go to your district’s assigned voting location.)

I was planning to volunteer on Election Day, but the local Obama campaign office called me and asked if I could help over the weekend, and well heck, why not? It’s only for three hours, it’s not like it’s some huge imposition, and I do believe in the cause. It was fun. It was nice to chat with the other volunteers about the election, and most people that we talked to were very nice. A good portion of them had already voted, which was encouraging. We had a few people on our list who had moved, and the new residents were McCain supporters, which was awkward. But we just gave them the, “ok, sorry to bother you, have a nice day!” And it was fine. Nobody was overly rude, so overall I’d say the venture was a success.

Also, since it’s so close to the election, the local campaign office was giving volunteers all sorts of Obama gear for free. Which is how I scored a yard sign. Check it out.

my front yard

It’s really bizarre to me how split our neighborhood is – on our street, there are an equal number of McCain and Obama yard signs. But what’s even weirder is how all of the kids are involved with it too. Yesterday, little Ryan gave me crap about my Obama yard sign, and I was like, dude, you’re 5 years old! How do you even know who the candidates are? His mom said she’s worried about him (and his older sister, Cate’s BFF McKenzie) because if Obama wins, she’s concerned that both of her kids are going to be totally depressed. WTF? Doesn’t that seem strange? I mean, I do remember getting picked on when I was in 2nd grade because my parents were voting for Walter Mondale, but I don’t remember caring that much about it.

There are also at least three other kids who live in our neighborhood who hang out with us almost every day when Cate and I are playing in the yard. Their parents are McCain supporters, so they keep asking me about Obama because they seem to want to understand the other side of things. So like, one of the kids came over and asked me what it meant that “Obama wants to spread the wealth around.” And you know, I don’t mind discussing politics with anyone; after all, even when people disagree with me, I can usually keep it respectful and polite, even if some of their views make me want to roll my eyes back in my head until I can see my own brain. But I keep hitting a road block with these kids: how do you explain politics to an 8 or 10 year-old? I can’t figure out a way to break down things like tax policy and “trickle-down economics” on a level where they can understand it. And then when they ask me what I think of Sarah Palin, I can tell them what I think about her lack of experience and the fact that she seems pretty uninformed about the world, but I can’t get into the abortion issue, or that she made rape victims pay for their own rape kits in Wasilla. I’m also trying to be very careful of how I phrase things because I don’t want their parents to get mad at me for putting my liberal beliefs in their kids’ heads. So it’s just strange. I’m anxious for Wednesday to get here just like everyone else, but one of my reasons is that I’m hoping that the daily barrage of questions will let up.

Speaking of waiting for Wednesday: I mentioned this on a post at Mandajuice today, but whatever happens with this election, I hope that whoever wins will work across the aisle toward the best interests of the entire country, not one small subset of the population. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican (back when the parties had totally different ideologies), and he filled his Cabinet with a mix of both parties, because he wanted the smartest men available to work with him, regardless of their party affiliation. He wanted them to argue with him and give him the counter-point to every issue. George W. Bush has surrounded himself exclusively with other Republicans, so there’s no diversity of thought in this administration at all. I hope that regardless of whoever wins – even if it isn’t the guy I like – our next President will prove to be more like Lincoln, because that’s what we really need right now.

biking for two

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I haven’t decided if I’m going to do the whole NaBloPoMo thing this year – a post a day for the month of November. I expect it’ll be hard since I’m going to Mississippi for the second half of the month (I’ll save that story for another post), but I’m going to give it a shot for now.

Our next door neighbors are awesome. First they loaned us the spider costume for Cate to wear on Halloween, and then when I was chatting with them about getting a bike trailer, they loaned me their old one, since both of their kids now ride two-wheelers. Score!

Today I took Cate to Target and bought her a bike helmet. It’s probably not necessary in the trailer since she’s buckled in and it’s pretty stable, but we’re trying to implement the rule that bikes = helmets, so we won’t have to fight about it later. I got her a red helmet with Sesame Street characters on it (of course “Melmo!” is her favorite), because it seemed gender-neutral, and I’m all about being able to re-use things for any future kids that we might have.

I fully anticipated Cate freaking out over the helmet, because she hates anything on her head. Hats and hoods? No way. So I planned ahead: I rounded up a couple of other neighborhood kids to ride with us (who of course all had their helmets on), I put on my helmet, strapped her into the trailer, and then put on her helmet at the last possible moment before I hopped on and started pedaling.

And yeah, she did scream for the first ten seconds, until she realized that we were moving, and then she started laughing and saying, “Whee!! It’s funny!!” (She hasn’t learned the difference between fun and funny.) We rode to the neighborhood playground, which is about a 15 minute walk but took no time at all on the bike, and she had a great time playing with the two boys who rode over there with us. On the way back, she didn’t object to the helmet at all, because she seemed to get that it meant she was going for a ride again.

I’m so excited that she enjoyed it, I think it’s going to give us some opportunities for more outings this fall, and of course more exercise for me. The downside is that with all the excitement, she only took a 15-minute nap today (in the car on the way home from Target), so she conked out at 6 p.m. tonight. I’m fully expecting her to wake up around midnight ready to play. Hmm.

NaBloPoMo Day 30: The End, and back to baby stuff

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I guess the lesson I learned from this whole NaBloPoMo experiment is that I can, in fact, come up with something to write (most of the time) when I feel like I have nothing to say. I just need to sit in front of a blank entry page and see what comes out. I don’t know if I’ll stick with this whole thing of posting more frequently, but I’d like to. Not every day, but more than I was before.

Oh, and I know I just did this three days ago, but I have a couple more baby milestones:
* Cate stood up! On her own! No holding anything! This just happened for the first time about an hour ago. We were playing around and she was standing up holding on to Dave, and then she just let go and kept on standing. She held it for a few seconds before she fell on her butt, but she did it again, so I think this is going to be her new favorite trick.

Question: what’s the approximate time gap between independent standing and walking? I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?

* The past two days, when I’ve gone to pick her up at daycare, she took one look at me and said, “Mama!” So I think she might actually know what it means, which is pretty exciting. Earlier tonight, she was in the living room and I wandered into the kitchen for a minute. From the next room, I heard her say, “Mama?” with a definite question mark on the end. It could’ve just been babbling (since she does that non-stop), but it sounded intentional. I said, “Here I am!” And a few seconds later, she came crawling in to the kitchen. So who knows?

* Also, when I drop her off at daycare now, not only does she not cry anymore, she actually reaches for Patsy. So I think we’ve found a pretty happy arrangement there. Happy baby, no guilt for mommy, everybody wins.

Oh, and have I mentioned the teeth? They’re hyooooge!

Last night I had a dream that Cate was in bed with us, which is not a stretch, since she’s usually in our bed from around 4-8 a.m. everyday. (She stopped sleeping through the night when she got sick back in October.) But in the dream I could hear her babbling, so it seemed very real. Then I woke up, and she wasn’t there, and I panicked. We prop open the baby gate at the top of the stairs at night so the cats can come & go (and so Dave and I don’t bump into it in the dark), and I just thought, “Ok, I heard her, but she’s not in the bed. Oh god, she’s crawling around and the gate is open, and she’s going to fall down the stairs!” I bolted to the top of the stairs, and since I heard Dave watching TV, I yelled downstairs, “Is she with you???” He was like, “Uh, is who with me?” That’s when I woke up the rest of the way and realized that I am, in fact, one of those obsessively anxious new moms that you always hear about. Way to go, me.

NaBloPoMo Day 28: all over creation

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First of all, if you haven’t been following the comments on this post, go read them. That Google is a funny thing. Although I’m slightly mortified that I dissed a cartoon in passing and then the show’s creator left me a comment. Eek!

Today has been crazy errand-running day. After dropping Cate off at daycare, I:
* Made the rounds at Costco and stocked up on formula and other essentials.

* Got a haircut. (It’s been over three months since my last one – I was due.)

* Hit a health food store for protein and vitamin supplies (end results of my gastric bypass). While I was there, I ran into a former friend who I haven’t spoken to since before Dave and I got married. That was awkward, but I decided to be the bigger person and say hi. It wasn’t so bad.

WARNING TO MY DAD: No reading below this point!! (Not that I’m worried, I don’t think he ever reads this site.)

* Went to the Microsoft store to buy my dad’s Christmas present. This required me to be kind of sneaky and subversive, since I haven’t worked there for a year, so technically I’m not allowed to shop there anymore. I tried using my old badge to unlock the door, which of course didn’t work, so I asked the security guard if he’d let me in, and he did without even giving my badge a second glance. The thing is, my badge showed that I was a contractor, so it’s not like I would’ve gotten any cool employee discounts anyway, it was just gaining admission to the Sacred World of Things with Microsoft Logos on Them.

(I got my dad a golf shirt. He loves them. He likes bragging to his golf buddies about how his daughter works there. Or used to. Technically, my paycheck still comes from them in a very indirect way, but that’s a long story.)

(Oh, and I got Cate a “Microsoft Kid” t-shirt since she’s outgrown her Microsoft onesie. Hee! Dave says she isn’t allowed to leave the house wearing it. Whatever. We’ll just see about that.)

And now, it’s off to give the baby a bath and head off to bed. I feel like I haven’t stopped moving all day. So tired.

NaBloPoMo Day 27: 10 months

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Today is Cate’s 10-month birthday. Time for some baby milestones!

1. She said her first word. Only it’s not really a word, and I have no idea if this counts. Every time she sees one of the cats, she gets all excited and she says, “Beh-baaah!!” It’s like she’s calling them a baby, which doesn’t really make any sense, since I always say “kitty-cat” when I point out the cats. But she’s consistent in calling them “beh-baaah” every time she sees them, so I think that’s her first official word. She’s not very good at K and T sounds, I’ve only heard her say them a few times sporadically, so I think she just made up a multi-syllable name for them that she can easily say.

She can also say “uh-oh,” and has used it appropriately a few times (i.e., after throwing her sippy cup off her high chair), but I’m not sure that she really knows what it means.

2. She understands a few words. She’s definitely got “no,” “stop,” and “uh-uh,” although usually she just laughs and keeps on doing whatever it was I just told her to stop doing. Most of the time it just gives me an extra two seconds to catch up with her and remove her from whatever situation she’s gotten herself into. Also, sometimes if she’s freaking out because I walked into the next room, I’ll say “come here” and she seems to know that means to follow me. We’re still working on some of the other basic words and signs – milk, eat, more, water. She seems to understand them, but so far she doesn’t have any interest in signing back.

3. Her singing and dancing never ceases to crack us up. I don’t have a good video yet of her doing her Ray Charles rock-back-and-forth dance, but I’m working on it. (She gets distracted every time she sees me with the video camera.) She does it pretty much anytime she hears music that she likes. And now that she can clap her hands, she has a whole new way to express her happiness with music.

4. Her new favorite game is to sit in the hall, I sit a couple of feet in front of her, and I roll a ball to her so that it stops in the V of her legs. She laughs and laughs, and flails her arms so excitedly that she ends up knocking the ball back to me. It’s a riot.

5. She is so active. We’ve been joking that she’s like one of those perpetual motion desk toys – if she’s awake, she’s on the move. Last night she got fussy around 5 in the morning, so I brought her into bed with us and got her back to sleep. She woke up at 8, pulled herself up to a stand on our headboard, and started jumping up and down. She’s not exactly the most subtle alarm clock, she was just! so! happy! because! morning! Yippee!

6. Probably because she’s so active, and also because she’s gotten so tall, I’ve noticed that her little fat rolls are starting to disappear. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I’m glad because I don’t want her to be an overweight kid. I know what that’s like, and it’s no fun. Of course I’ll love her and think she’s beautiful no matter what, but I know firsthand how cruel kids can be, and I would feel so guilty if I passed that on to her. The last thing I want is for her to inherit my “fat gene.” On the other hand, I love her little fat rolls, and it makes me a little sad that she’s turning into a (gasp!) toddler, and she’s not staying a teeny-tiny widdle baybee.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally excited to see her turn into her own little person, and I can’t wait until she can really talk and we can have conversations with each other. I often wonder what kind of personality she’s going to have, what kind of things she’ll like, what kind of hobbies she’ll take up (my guess is dancing or gymnastics), and I really can’t wait for all of that stuff. My excitedness about the stuff that’s coming far outweighs the sadness that I feel for the babyhood that’s leaving. I just have to remember to keep kissing all of her little fat rolls as long as they’re still around.

NaBloPoMo Day 26: random stuff

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1. My mom is having her lumpectomy a week from tomorrow (December 4th).

2. I think I’ve been more worried about my mom than I’ve been letting on, because I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep. As a result, my jaw is killing me, and ibuprofen isn’t touching it. I’m not sure what to do about that, short of sleeping with a bite guard in my mouth (sex-ay!).

3. Work is slowing down. I’ve finished all of my projects, so I’m just working on edits right now. Which is kind of nice, since the in-laws arrive next week and I don’t want to be frazzled with work stuff while they’re here.

4. Cate has been doing all kinds of new, groovy tricks lately, but I’m saving them for her 10-month birthday tomorrow. Finally you’ll have a blog post worth reading.