Author Archives: Cindy

PooBou's Reviews

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If there’s one thing I learned at BlogHer, it’s that there are a lot of bloggers out there who have got this whole selling-your-blog thing down to an art. There are also some whose marketing skills could use, um, a little polishing. (If any of you here are the ones who interrupted private conversations to throw your business cards at people, yes, I am looking at you.)

Honestly, the idea of doing product reviews or giveaways has never appealed to me because I didn’t think it would fit in with the narrative of my blog. All I do here is write about my daily life; I think of this blog as my journal, where I tell stories about my kid and oh-hey-this-random-funny-thing-happened. I think it would come off as awkward and contrived if I suddenly threw a product review in the middle of it. There’s a really great post at Suburban Turmoil about how reviews and personal posts shouldn’t mix, and I tend to agree with her. The last thing I want is to pull people in with a long sob story about my poor toddler’s asthma and then twist it with a, “But it was all magically healed with ACME Lung Fixin’ Balm!” at the end. (Note: I know of no such balm in real life. If you came to my site searching for it, I apologize.) You know what I mean? It’s disingenuous and phony, and I don’t want any part of that.

But, at the same time, I’ve gotten a couple of offers to do some reviews, and I don’t want to turn down a potential income source for my family. So to that end, I’ve created a new site:

PooBou’s Reviews

My first product review will be coming up soon, and seriously y’all, I’m SO excited about it. I’m working with CSN Stores, which is a perfect fit for me since they have all kinds of great home decor stuff, patio furniture, kids’ toys, and basically anything you might need for your house. Since we’re moving to a new house at some point in the next month, and we need stuff for said house, this little project is going to be very near & dear to my heart.

I’m also going to do some reviews for the lovely Room 704 ladies, which should be a lot of fun, since I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to cuss in those. And since I very rarely allow myself to cuss on my own blog, I’m really looking forward to that.

So, stay tuned. Should be some fun stuff coming up on that horizon.

me, you, and the dance floor

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Ok, everyone and their grandma has now seen this wedding video, right?

(If you haven’t, you need to watch it now. Really.)

I saw people posting it all over Facebook, and I ignored it because, eh, wedding stuff. I don’t care. I finally watched it, and OMG it’s hilarious and awesome. Catie happened to be on my lap, and she sat there mesmerized for the full five minutes. She immediately demanded, “AGAIN!!” as soon as it was over.

Her favorite parts are the guy who does the handstand (around the 1:15 point), and when the groom comes out (around 3:00). But none of that can top the excitement of when everything goes into slow-motion and she knows the bride is coming out any second. “Where is she? Where da lady? Where da white dress?”

Then when the bride comes out (at the 4:08 point), she squeals with glee and screams, “Dere she is! She got flowahs! She gon’ get mawwied!!” I tried to explain the whole wedding thing to her, and, well, it’s kind of over a 2 year-old’s head. Still, she loves it, and keeps demanding to watch it over & over. Of the 18 million or so views that it has on YouTube, I think we’re responsible for at least a hundred of them. And honestly? I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.

* This lazy blog post brought to you by the fact that it’s Saturday.

big girl, big changes

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All of a sudden, Catie seems huge to me. I guess if you see your kid every day, you don’t notice the gradual tiny changes until enough of them accumulate and smack you in the face one day. But it’s like, wait, there is absolutely no baby left there at all. When did that happen?

For one thing, she’s had this massive growth spurt in the past couple of months. This skirt? Used to be past her knees.

happy girl playing

See what I mean? (Actually, you might not be able to tell with the angle of that photo. But trust me, that skirt is now short on her. Like cheerleader-length short.)

I tried to get her to stand against the wall so I could measure her, but it’s difficult to make a 2 year-old stand up straight and still. Still, my estimate is that she’s grown at least an inch. SINCE MAY. She’s also gained four pounds. This kid is massive, I’m telling you.

More than that, though, her verbal development is just exploding all over the place. Some recent developments:
* Her daycare friend Kiersten is about to turn 3, and is having a birthday party. This led to a discussion about ages, so now she walks around saying, “I Catie. I two.”
* She wants to haggle and negotiate everything. If I tell her that no, she can’t bring all of her toys to bed at naptime, she said, “Ah, c’mon, Mom! It’s fun!”
* Last night she was coughing a lot and I wasn’t sure if she was on the verge of an asthma attack or not. I was just starting to think that she might need some albuterol in the nebulizer, when she announced, “Mommy, I need med’cine.” It’s great that she recognizes that the medicine helps her feel better, and that she knows when she needs it, but it also breaks my heart that she needs it at all and has to ask for it.
* Our bedtime routine has become one of constant back-and-forth. She always asks for one more book, and when I tell her no, she asks me to snuggle with her until she falls asleep. I usually say, “Ok, I can only snuggle for a few minutes, because I still need to go clean up.” Last night I was worried about her asthma, so I didn’t lay down any timelines when she asked me to snuggle with her.
After a few minutes, she decided she was done with me, so she gave me a kiss and said, “Ok, Mommy. Bye-bye. You go clean kitchen now.” Um, thanks? Nice to be let off the hook, but I also wondered if she was trying to drop a hint about those dishes in the sink. Like jeez, lady, you gotta do something about this place before we get ants. Nice.

As for potty training, I’ve basically given up on it until after we move, although she seems to be completely potty-trained at daycare. (Thanks, peer pressure, I guess.) Also, at daycare, she’ll generally eat whatever her teacher puts in front of her, and she’ll even feed herself with a spoon. That’s SO not the case at home, but still. It all counts progress toward her being a “big girl,” right?

She still has sleep issues. She’ll go a week or two of sleeping through the night, and then she’ll spend the next two weeks climbing into our bed in the middle of the night. (That’s the phase we’re in right now.) But we’re generally all getting a full night’s sleep, so it’s manageable.

The interesting thing is that with all this development of Catie’s, the idea of having a second baby no longer scares the crap out of me. When we were still in Washington, Dave and I talked about trying for a second baby after we moved to North Carolina (um, a year ago), then we got here and I was like oh no no no, I am sooo not ready for that. We decided, ok, let’s wait a few months, and maybe around Catie’s second birthday, we might think about trying for baby #2. Then that happened and no, still not ready. The idea of being pregnant and dealing with a newborn, plus all of Catie’s neediness seemed impossible, not to mention completely overwhelming.

Now, though, the idea of having a second baby? It seems… do-able. Heck, it even sounds kind of fun. I mean, I know all kids are different, but if we were to end up with another one of these?

my beautiful blue-eyed girl

I think we’d be doing pretty great.

completely random topic change

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Ok, so, we need to move on quickly because I’m uncomfortable leaving that post at the top of the page too long. Let’s talk about something else, shall we? Hey, I know!

CATS!

No, not the musical. Ok, so remember when we did this to Beaumont?

Beaumont post-haircut

I have to say, he doesn’t seem to mind his haircut too much. His short hair feels like velvet, so we can’t keep our hands off him, and he’s getting way more love than he ever got when his fur was all nasty and matted. So he’s happy. Which is good, because before we had him shaved, my mom was all, “You’re going to traumatize him! He’ll be scarred for life!” And, uh, no. Sorry, Mom. He’s a pretty happy fella.

It’s funny how different our two cats are in so many ways. Lately we’ve been having these intense afternoon thunderstorms, which are pretty common in the South. The humidity builds and builds and finally just explodes sometime in late afternoon. The funny thing is how differently the cats react.

Exhibit A: Teenie. Teenie was born in Memphis (I saved her from an ice storm in January 1997, a few days before my 21st birthday), and she lived there for a couple of years, so she’s used to this type of weather. She’s also old (almost 13!) and she sleeps a lot. The loudest thunder clap rarely gets her to even crack one eye open.

Then there’s exhibit B: Beaumont. Poor Beaumont was born & raised in the Pacific Northwest, where sure it rains a lot, but it’s more of a constant drizzle. There’s very rarely anything dramatic in the weather. (You know, except the occasional 70 mph wind storms. But those only happen when I’m EIGHT AND A HALF MONTHS PREGNANT AND YES I’M STILL BITTER ABOUT IT.)

Anyway, Beaumont does not know what to do with thunderstorms. He freaks. A little while ago, I heard a faint rumble of thunder way off in the distance, and Beaumont (who had been sound asleep on a dining room chair) rocketed up the stairs and under the bed as if someone had fired a starter pistol right next to his ear. (Um, not that I’ve ever actually shot a starter pistol near my cats. Honest. I really haven’t. Please don’t call PETA on me.)

laziest. cat. ever.
Meanwhile, Teenie’s all “Yeah, don’t wake me unless it’s the apocalypse. And maybe not even then.”

So, yeah. Cats are weird, I think is what I’m saying.

There. A blog post all about my cats. What could be less controversial, I ask you?

And how are you today?

lessons learned the hard way

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So, the past several days have been sort of a whirlwind of emotions for us, dealing with the whole Brittany situation. (I can’t link to her blog anymore, since it no longer exists.) I’m betting that the majority of you who read this blog already know the situation, so I won’t get into it. If you don’t know it, you can email me (see my little “Contact” page above), but chances are, if you haven’t heard the story by now, it’s probably none of your business.

Suffice to say, the whole thing has left Dave and I feeling very hurt and angry. We feel manipulated. We feel used. And we also feel very sad for a young woman who is severely messed up and needs a profound amount of help.

I wrote last week that I won’t let one bad situation keep me from feeling compassion for others. I absolutely stand by that. If a person seems to be in genuine need, I will try to help them out whenever possible.

But, I have learned one valuable lesson through all of this. And this is a big lesson. I feel like I should cross-stitch it onto a pillow or something, it’s that important. And the lesson is this:

Don’t invite people from Twitter to your house.

Seriously. Just don’t. No good will come of it.

You’re welcome.

P.S. Yeah, I’m trying to find the humor in the situation. It’s difficult. I’ll try to be funnier next time.

the not-really-a-vlog

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Probably some people who follow me on Twitter are going to come here looking for some draaama to follow up on what’s been going on over there, and, um, no. I don’t have the energy for that crap today. And I’m not sure it’s worth writing about ever, to be honest.

But hey, look! It’s a cute video of me & my kid playing with my webcam! With audio that’s a good couple of seconds off from the video! (Why does it do that? I have no idea. Something to do with exporting AVI files as MPEGs. Anyone know or want to help? Kind of drives me nuts.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwThSuhVI9A

Yeah. I guess it’s not technically a vlog post since I’m not really talking about anything specific, but there you go. Happy August 1st!

karma

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I believe in karma.

Admittedly, I’m not a Buddhist, so maybe I’m not an expert on the exact definition of karma. But I believe in the basic principle that what comes around goes around. That if you try to put positive things out into the world, positive things will come back to you. Same is true for the negative.

About seven years ago, I had a job that required me to drive all over the greater Seattle area on a daily basis. I’d start my day at my company’s office in Redmond (a relatively posh suburb), then set off from there to whatever client’s office needed me. If I knew that my day’s agenda involved going through downtown Seattle, I knew there was a good chance that I’d pass a homeless person on the side of the road. I always felt guilty about just driving past them. Sometimes I’d give them a couple of quarters or whatever spare change I had in my car’s cup holder, but it never felt like enough. But with that job, I never carried cash on me (too risky), so what else could I do?

One day, when I heard I was going to be heading into Seattle, I stopped at the 7-11 next to my office to buy a Diet Coke before I set off. I decided to also grab a couple of other things – a sandwich and a bottle of water – to take with me. When I saw a frail old man standing at the end of the I-5 off-ramp with his cardboard sign, I rolled down my window and handed them to him.

Later that day, my boss called me into his office and gave me a raise. No lie. I was not expecting any sort of payoff that fast, but that’s how it worked for me. From that point on, I always stopped at 7-11 to get food for the homeless people I would pass, and those days always ended up being my best days. It became something of a habit for me.

In fact, I gave some sort of snack (I think it was just some peanut butter crackers that I happened to have in my laptop bag) to a homeless person on May 24, 2004. Later that evening, I had a first date with a cute British guy that had contacted me through match.com.

Yeah. That was Dave.

Now, is there some cosmic connection there, like would I have not met Dave (or would we not have “clicked” as much as we did) if I hadn’t given crackers to a homeless guy earlier that day? Probably not. Our date had been scheduled for a couple of days, I don’t think it had much to do with the homeless guy. But I like to think that the two things are related. That because I did a good deed, something good (in this case, Dave) came to me.

There are also times when I’ve tried to do something good for someone, and it’s backfired horribly. Either my motives were misinterpreted, or the person took advantage of my generosity and I was left feeling used and horrible. But for every one of those experiences, there are so many more where the rewards were a million times better than whatever my small gesture was.

I refuse to let the negative experiences make me cynical or jaded. I will not sacrifice my desire to help people who are truly in need, just because of a few “bad eggs.” If I honestly know that my motives are pure, then I have to believe that something good will result from it. Even if it takes me a while to see it, I have to believe that the positive is there, somewhere.