Author Archives: Cindy

random odds & ends

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Lucy isn’t sick anymore, but she’s still in some Demon-Possessed Toddler phase of waking up several times a night. Why? NOBODY KNOWS. Just for laughs, I guess.

Since I have to, you know, work during the day and actually be a functional human being, my mom has been sleeping over in the guest room for the past several nights. So she gets up with Lucy and lets me sleep. This is another instance where I don’t know how I’d survive this whole single mom thing without my family nearby to help me out. It’s been a life-saver.

Still, this phase cannot pass soon enough for me.

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Catie has been taking swim lessons, and has amazed me with how well she’s doing. I’ve been cajoling her all summer to put her face anywhere near the water, and she refuses. During her second swim lesson, her teacher said, “Simon says, put your nose in the water and blow bubbles,” and she just did it, no questions asked.

I guess it goes to prove that other people can get your kids to do stuff that you can’t do, it takes a village, blah blah blah, but still! She put her face in the water! Voluntarily! I’m so proud of her.

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Speaking of Catie, at what age am I supposed to start correcting her when she says things wrong? Or do I leave that for school to do? Because I love some of the ways she says things. Like, instead of “anyway,” she says, “anywayses.” And instead of “each other,” she says, “each ozzher.” (Like the S sound in treasure.)

It’s adorable and I don’t want her to stop, but I also realize that it needs to end at a certain point so she doesn’t sound uneducated. I’m just not sure when that point is.

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We’re going to the beach this weekend. Originally this started as a simple thing. Ali is going to be in Wilmington for a wedding, and I couldn’t let her be 100 miles away and NOT stop by to give her a hug, so I figured I’d drop the kids with my folks and make a quick road trip.

Then, my dad mentioned the fact that he hasn’t seen the North Carolina coast yet, and he hasn’t dipped his toes in the Atlantic for over 50 years, and he sure would like some decent seafood… (my dad is not the most subtle at dropping hints). So, I figured, ok then, let’s just make a family trip out of it. It’s going to be short, because hotels + my kids = nobody sleeps very well. So we’re leaving on Saturday morning and coming back on Sunday afternoon.

Still, I’m curious to see how the girls react to the ocean this time. Catie hasn’t been since she was 3, and she was terrified of the waves then, but she might have outgrown that. And Lucy’s never been, so it’ll be cool to see what she thinks of it.

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Last night, I walked into the kitchen and saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned just in time to see a tail disappearing behind the stove.

I didn’t know what it was. Mouse? Rat? Maybe just a lizard with a bad sense of direction?

After jumping up and down and freaking out and questioning whether or not my renter’s insurance would cover arson if I burned the place down (unlikely), I called my mom. She was on her way over to spend the night here; instead, she made a detour to Rite-Aid and bought a mouse trap.

(It was one of these covered ones, in case you’re curious. And btw, I love that they advertise it as “re-usable.” As if I’m going to re-use it! Oh D-Con, you so crazy.)

We baited it with some peanut butter and set it up. When I came downstairs this morning, I was glad that it was a covered trap, because I didn’t have to see the gore, all I saw was the tail sticking out of the trap.

So, yeah, it worked. Rest in peace, mouse. Thanks for not giving any of us the Bubonic Plague, I guess.

I threw the trap away, and I suppose that I will eventually, someday, stop shuddering and dry heaving. I doubt it’ll happen anytime soon, though.

Also? WTF, Beaumont? Back when we lived in the sticks, that cat was a mouser that killed all kinds of critters. I guess now that we live in the suburbs, he decided to retire? He is SO FIRED.

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Next week, I get to fulfill a dream I’ve had since I was 7 years old: I have tickets to see Duran Duran in concert. My cousin Cat, who has loved them as long as I have, is going with me. When I found out I was going, there was much squeeing and bouncing. I don’t have words to explain how excited I am. But I think it’s a safe bet that the odds of me embarrassing myself next Tuesday night are going to be uncharacteristically high, even for me.

This week in Lucy-ness

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So. Lucy. This freaking kid.

On Tuesday, I went to pick the girls up at daycare (Catie goes there for after school care), and the new daycare teacher mentioned that Lucy seemed kind of sleepy after she woke up from her nap and she felt a little warm. Which is a little weird for my normally hyperactive wild child.

[Side note about the new daycare teacher: she seems nice and all, but my favorite daycare teacher – the one who has taken care of both of my girls for the past 2.5 years, and who baby-sits them on a regular basis, and is the only person other than my parents who has kept both of my kids overnight? She got fired last week. Don’t even get me started on THAT, because it pisses me off to no end.]

We went to my parents’ house for dinner. Normally Lucy would be all over the place, making a mess of my mom’s kitchen cabinets, playing with some awful loud toy that’s been banned from my house, or demanding to go in the backyard to explore.

Instead, she lay down on the floor and tried to go to sleep. She had a fever and was obviously miserable.

Fever baby does not care that we're late this morning. (Poor girl.)

The next couple of nights were rough. She had me up basically every 30 minutes to an hour, and it was pretty clear that she felt awful.

Since I couldn’t send her to daycare with a fever, she spent Wednesday and Thursday at my parents’ house. Thank god they live nearby and can take over when I have a sick kiddo so I can still work.

By yesterday afternoon, she seemed fine when I went to my parents’ house to pick her up. I mean, other than being spoiled rotten by them.

Just drinkin' my "bah-bah," drivin' a plane. As you do. No big.

Since I had suffered through two miserable nights with her, my mom came over and spent the night to help out. She said that she would get up with the baby so I could actually function at work today.

Of course, since my mom was on standby, Lucy slept through the night. Little shit.

Long story short, I still don’t know what that was. Teething, a virus, some random WTF-itude to keep me on my toes.

I do know, however, that this kid might well be the death of me.

One of the 2 reasons I can never sleep late on weekends.

Rotten, I tell you. Just rotten.

The world’s worst dueling trumpets

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Hi there! How’s your day going? Good? Awesome.

By chance, do you have a splitting headache yet? Do you want one? SUPER! Let me help you out with what I like to call THE WORST SOUND EVER.

A little backstory: once upon a time, when Catie was about 2, we took her to the state fair and bought her a toy trumpet. It was one of those stupid first-time parent mistakes that you only make once. The thing makes a god-awful screechy noise, but she loved it. Lucky for me, she soon forgot about it.

Fast-forward a few years, and Lucy discovers the trumpet at the bottom of a toy box. Which, of course, launches Catie into a full-on, “She can’t have that! It’s MIIIIIIIINE!!!!!” meltdown.

So, my mother, who is otherwise a reasonably sane person, goes on Amazon, finds THE EXACT SAME AWFUL SOUNDING TOY TRUMPET, and buys it.

Because, as she put it, “Now they won’t have to fight about it anymore, because they’ll each have one!”

Only, you know, now I have to listen to THAT SOUND. In stereo, to boot!

(A friend of mine said she watched this video, and her fiance heard it from the next room and thought she was watching clown p0rn. You’re welcome for that.)

So, as revenge on my mother, the trumpets now both live at my parents’ house.

And I know, you’re probably thinking, what did my poor dad do to deserve this eardrum-splitting punishment? You want to know what he did?

My dad gave Catie a Mississippi State cowbell to clang around the house. (Some of you might not know just how loud those cowbells can be. Those of you who get that reference? YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.)

So, thanks, Mom and Dad. Enjoy the worst trumpet concert ever in the history of the world. Hope you didn’t forget to buy Excedrin.

Why I’m glad I didn’t go to BlogHer this year

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Last week, when I was in the throes of a “woe is me” moment, I started crying when I was talking to my dad.

I said, “And I don’t even get to go to BlogHer this year. All of my friends will be there, and I can’t go. And I know that’s selfish because I should be putting my kids ahead of me, but there it is. I’m selfish. I want to go and I can’t and it’s not fair.”

I went to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up, and when I came out, my mom had come in the room and said, “Wait, when is BlogHer? You need to go!”

They’ve said several times that they can’t handle both girls overnight, so it didn’t occur to me to even ask if they could take the girls so I could go. I just assumed that they would say no.

Of course, by this point, the conference was long since sold out, and I couldn’t get a plane ticket on less than a week’s notice, so it wasn’t going to happen. But: next year? So there.

This year, though, it turns out that it was really lucky that I didn’t go, for two different reasons:

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1. Last Tuesday, I got really, really sick. Like, fever spiked to almost 104, I was hallucinating, the whole thing. My mom had to call 911 to have the paramedics take me to the ER so my parents could stay with the kids. They pumped me up with fluids and IV antibiotics and pain meds and I finally got discharged from the hospital around 3 a.m. on Wednesday. Oof.

I’m still on antibiotics, but I’m mostly ok now (it’s a long story and I don’t really want to get into my diagnosis since it partially involves my lady bits, and… well. No.), but I’m so glad that I wasn’t in a hotel room in NYC when all of this happened. It’s much nicer to be sick and miserable in your own bed, and I would have missed so much of the conference being sick. So it was kind of lucky that I wasn’t there.

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2. Lucy started walking on Thursday. Like, for real walking.

That video is actually not the best example, she can usually get from one side of the room to the other without falling over, which is kind of amazing. And if I had been at BlogHer, I would have missed it.

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So, you know, I’m ok with the fact that I missed the conference this year. I was a little sad reading tweets from people I love talking about meeting up with other people I love, and thinking, “I want to be there with youuuuu!!”

But overall, it’s ok. This weekend had some really nice moments, even without all of the awesome people and parties and big city and all of that.

It's milk time, y'all.
This is how we have a drinking party at my house.

Sunday at the park

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July in North Carolina is typically not a good time to plan any outdoor activities, unless it involves a swimming pool. Yesterday, though, it was a little cooler than it’s been lately (temps in the mid-80s), and it was too overcast to go to the pool, so instead I loaded up the girls and took them to Pullen Park.

(Note that I am not being compensated in any way for this post. But if they see this and want to give us free ride tickets next time, hey, I won’t object.)

I’d taken Catie to Pullen Park once, way back when we first moved here, and we hadn’t gone back since it underwent renovations. The park is absolutely beautiful. Tons of playground space, a train ride, kiddie boats, and old-timey carousel… It’s basically kid heaven.

And oh, how my girls did love it.

Hey look, it's Levitating Catie!
[Side note: this picture happened when I told Catie to show me how high she could jump. I was not expecting a picture that basically looks like she’s levitating off the ground. If I knew how to use Photoshop, I would cut her out of this picture and then just randomly insert “Floating Catie” into all kinds of other photos, because I think it’s freaking hilarious.]

Lucy on the baby swings.

This was also Lucy’s first merry-go-round experience, and she… well, she hated it. She wanted NOTHING to do with sitting on a giant fake animal, so instead I ended up holding her on my hip while we stood next to Catie the whole time. She had a very worried look on her face, and every few seconds, she’d say, “No no no,” and shake her head. She didn’t freak out or cry, it was just a very matter of fact, “Ok, y’all, I do not like this one bit.”

The train ride was slightly more successful since I was sitting with both of them, but mostly she just looked confused by the whole thing.

This sums up their reactions to the train ride pretty accurately. Catie: "COOL!!" Lucy: "...the hell?"
Catie is all, “This is SO COOL!!!” And Lucy is all, “…the hell?”

However, it did give me the chance to snap this picture, which I love.

Holding hands with both of my girls.

The absolute favorite part of the park for both girls was the kiddie boat ride. Seriously, I could’ve let them do this all day, probably.

This was their favorite part of the whole day.

Lucy & Catie on the kiddie boat ride

Catie was slightly annoyed that Lucy went on the ride with her, because she wanted to ride by herself, but once they were both there, Catie snuggled up to her baby sister, and they had a fantastic time.

Lucy is very intent on steering. Catie is very intent on ringing the bell over and over.

The best part of the park? It wore. them. out. Lucy was asleep by 7:30 last night, and Catie crashed not much later. And they slept so hard, I had to drag them out of bed this morning so we could get Catie to school on time.

If the park can do that every time, it might become our regular Sunday afternoon outing.

Edited to add:

(My mom asked me to upload this video. Everybody else probably won’t care.)

New Routines

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We’re starting to get settled into our new routine now, and it’s good. I’m getting in the habit of making lunches at night before I go to bed, plan out the kids’ outfits in advance… all little things that make the mornings a lot easier.

Once we’re out the door in the morning, I drop Lucy off at daycare first, then take Catie to kindergarten. (The daycare is less than 2 blocks from the elementary school, so it’s an easy commute.)

Me & my buddy.

The past couple of mornings, we’ve gotten there early, so I park the car, and Catie climbs into the front seat with me, and we talk for a few minutes before we head inside. I love that time with her, where we can just sit and talk about what she’s excited to do at school today.

Her reviews of kindergarten so far have been mixed. She mostly seems really happy, but big changes are scary. She likes her teacher a lot (so do I, for that matter), but the rules are a little more strict than at daycare, so I think she’s going to need some time to adjust to that.

Our daycare has an after-school program, so in the afternoons, they pick Catie up on their bus and take her to daycare. Catie was so excited to ride the bus with Miss Debbie (the assistant director of the daycare who picks them up), and it lets her keep a little bit of her routine, since she spends a couple of hours with all of her daycare friends who she already knows.

And, bonus for me, it means that I only have one stop to pick up both of my girls in the evenings.

So, things are working out really well, is I guess what I’m saying.

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In completely unrelated news, Lucy would like you all to know that she has 7 teeth now. SEVEN!!

See?

That is a hard cheese there, Lucy.

And also, that she’s still being a pain in the ass about waking me up in the middle of the night. Which might be the impending arrival of tooth #8, I don’t know, but Motrin at bedtime hasn’t helped at all, and I still feel like I’m going to lose my mind.

So, she needs to knock off that nonsense immediately. Because I’ve decided that part of our new routine needs to be that everyone in our house gets a good night’s sleep. GET ON THAT, LUCY.