Author Archives: Cindy

teenage neuroses strike back

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Tomorrow I’m going to be meeting up with three girls who I’ve known since somewhere around the second grade. I mentioned it a while back, but the last time I saw any of them was sometime in 1993 or ’94. So, about 15 years ago? The whole thing is very weird, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t wigging out just a teensy little bit about our get-together tomorrow night.

So, besides the new haircut that I got last week, yesterday and today I’ve gone shopping during Catie’s naptime. (My parents were here, it’s not like I abandoned her.) Everything in my wardrobe is pretty casual, to put it mildly. I own way more hoodies than anyone should, and during the summer I often wear Dave’s old t-shirts with a pair of jeans and consider myself good to go. I very rarely go shopping for myself, and when I do, it’s usually to scour the out-of-season clearance racks. (Two of my favorite long-sleeved shirts I found at Kohl’s last spring for $2 each. Score!)

Anyway, since I’m a neurotic weirdo who feels like I need to prove that I’m not the same boring fat nerd that I was in high school, I’ve been looking for something that screams fabulous. (Or fierce. Where’s Christian Siriano when I need him?) I found a couple of cute tops, and one unbelievably fabulous shirt that does everything I could want it to do: it’s a bright print (I only wore dark solids in high school, the better to conceal my weight), it hides the tummy area without making me look pregnant, and it gives the illusion of boobs. It’s perfect. I would daresay that I look pretty smokin’ hot in it. Problem is, it cost $72. I haven’t spent that much on one article of clothing for myself… um, ever? (Well, there was my wedding dress, of course. But generally, I’m a $20-and-under type girl.) Oh, and it’s hand-wash only, which is totally impractical with my current life.

I took a deep breath and bought the shirt anyway, figuring that I’d try it on again when I got back to my parents’ house, and I’d find some huge flaw that would allow me to return it and never think about it again. Instead, what happened was that I tried it on, I modeled it in front of my parents, and my dad told my mom to write me a check to cover the cost of the shirt. So I think I’m keeping it.

I’ll take pictures before I go out tomorrow so y’all can see what I mean. Now I just have to find some fancy occasions so I can hopefully wear this shirt more than once. I’m thinking Dave and I might have to have a Date Night when we get back to North Carolina.

mom's surgery recap

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My mom’s surgery was… bad. I mean, it went as well as they were expecting. Her skin was too tight from the double mastectomy to do the implants, so they put in what they call “tissue expanders,” which from my understanding are basically deflated implants that will be filled up later, after her skin stretches a bit to accomodate them. I’m sure plastic surgery experts out there are rolling their eyes at my misunderstanding of what exactly happened, but that’s more or less the idea.

Anyway, that part was all fine and good. What sucked is that the anaesthesia made her really, really sick. And then they gave her demerol for pain, which made her even more nauseated. So yesterday and last night were pretty rough. She couldn’t eat or drink anything, she kept dry heaving. It was bad.

Also, with the amount of pain she was in, she couldn’t get herself out of bed. She slept in a guest room so she wouldn’t wake up my dad, and we gave her a cowbell (swear to God, a literal cowbell; my parents are big Mississippi State fans, so they have a couple of them in the house), and she rang it when she needed help with something so I could run from the room where Catie and I were sleeping to go help her. Miraculously, the cowbell didn’t wake up either my dad or Catie, just me. She only needed me twice in the middle of the night to help her up so she could take a pain pill or go to the bathroom. It was really no big deal when you compare it to the amount that a new baby wakes you up.

She’s a lot better today. The anaesthesia takes about 24 hours to get out of your system, so the nausea started to pass this afternoon and she’s been able to eat a little bit here and there. So that’s good.

Unrelated: last night, Catie talked to Dave on the phone and actually seemed to understand that it was her Daddy’s voice that she was hearing and talking to. It was pretty cool, she was so happy to talk to him that she wouldn’t give the phone back to me. Later, when I had to call my dad’s cousin to tell her how the surgery had gone (my dad had me call her, since talking about the surgery entailed “female stuff,” i.e. boobs), Catie thought that it was still Dave on the phone and she had a huge meltdown when I wouldn’t hand the phone over to her to talk. Poor baby. She’s having a great time here, but she is going to be SO happy to see her Daddy when we get home.

Oh, and per Dave’s request:
Catie in her new "Melmo!" shirt
Pics from the trip so far are here.

productive morning

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My mom’s in surgery right now. My parents left really early this morning, and told me to stay here with Catie, since hanging out in a waiting room for hours with a toddler is not exactly anyone’s idea of a good time.

It’s oddly quiet with just me and Catie here, but we’ve had a good morning. We got up, dressed, fed, and then set off for the grocery store (my mom had a list, and it’s one less thing for her to think about). Catie fell asleep on the way home, and she took a nap for about an hour & a half. While she was asleep, I took it upon myself to clean out my parents’ refrigerator. And I mean, I cleaned it – I took the shelves and drawers out and scrubbed down the whole thing. I’m guessing they haven’t done that since they moved into this house in 2004. There was a jar of horseradish in there that expired before I got married. Yikes.

Compared to the last time we were here in August, things are a thousand times better. Catie seems to remember my parents and this house, and she’s been totally chilled out and having fun. She went to sleep with no major issues and she’s let both of my parents pick her up. (My mom was happy about that, since she won’t be able to pick her up again for a while after today.) So it’s been good.

The weather is really pretty, but cold. This is not the type of Mississippi climate that I’m used to. I’m sure it’ll get hot before we leave, it’s just weird. But in the meantime, Catie and I are going to go bundle up and play in my parents’ backyard for a while. Hope y’all are having a good day.

P.S. to Dave: I was right. Last night before bedtime, she asked for Daddy and cried when I told her you weren’t here. Poor kiddo.

heading out

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Catie and I are about to set off for the airport (well, Dave too, since he’s dropping us off), and we’ll be flying to Mississippi in a few hours. I’m frantically packing, but I had to make sure I got my obligatory blog post up. I’ll have more to say later, live from the Magnolia State.

bye-bye, boon

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Random blog note: Since I always type Cate’s name on this blog as Cate, but I almost never actually call her that in real life, henceforth I’ll be typing her name as Catie, since that’s the name she responds to, and how she refers to herself. Really, the only time I ever call her Cate is when it’s prefaced by Baby – because Baby Cate sounds like “babycakes,” and I think that’s sort of a cute nickname.
[/end random blog note]

Today, Catie and I went to the grocery store to get a few things. This particular store has free balloons for kids in the floral department, and they are a huge hit with my child. And you know, anything that makes shopping with a toddler easier is just fine with me. So we grab a balloon – or as Catie calls it, “a boon!” – and happily went about our grocery shopping.

We head out to the parking lot, and I held onto the balloon because it was windy outside. They typically anchor the balloons by tying them to a lollipop, but whoever was working there today must’ve been a moron who thought that a tiny piece of scotch tape would be enough to secure the balloon’s string to the lollipop. Bet you can tell where this story is going, huh?

I opened the driver’s side car door and pushed the balloon through to put it in the back seat, so Catie could play with it when I put her in the car. (She was still sitting in the shopping cart while I did this.) I accidentally left my (front seat! driver’s side! NOT rear passenger!) car door open, and went to start putting groceries in the trunk.

Catie suddenly started screaming and crying, “Boon! A boon!! MY BOOOOONN!!!!” She just went totally apesh*t shrieking about her balloon. I was like, what the hell, child, you just saw me put it in the car, you know it’ll be there when you get in the back seat, just like it always is, every time we get a balloon from the store. Then I finally turned around to look at her and I realized she was pointing up, and… yeah. Her pretty purple balloon was floating away into the clear blue autumn sky.

Apparently a gust of wind came through that was strong enough to rip off the Scotch tape, because the lollipop was still in the back seat, and the balloon went floating away through my open car door. By the time I saw it, it was higher than the grocery store’s rooftop and halfway across the parking lot, so there was no way I could catch it.

I calmed her down, and told her I was sorry, but that balloon had to go bye-bye, but we’d go get her another one that could come home with us. I told her to wave goodbye to the balloon, and she very sadly waved and said, “bye-bye, boon.” It was quite possibly the most pitifully sad, mournful “bye-bye” you have ever heard in your life.

As soon as I got the groceries loaded into the car, we went straight back in and got her another balloon, exactly the same color as the previous one. She was happy, and held a death grip on her balloon’s string the whole way home.

The whole incident reminded me of the comedian Brian Regan – and of course I can’t find a clip of this on YouTube. He has a joke about how kids lose their minds when they lose a balloon, and adults can’t understand their distress because there’s nothing comparable for an adult. He said to imagine if you took out your wallet and it started to float away. “Calm down, it’s just a wallet, we’ll get you another one.” “I don’t want another one, I want that one! That one was mine!” Yeah. It’s sorta just like that.

Sunday with e-baby

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My cousin Cat and her husband Tony moved into an apartment while they’ve been doing a huge home renovation project. We helped them when they were moving into their short-term apartment. Now, two months later, this was the weekend that they finally got to move back into their house, since all of the improvements are finally finished. Since it’s difficult to move with a two year-old underfoot, we had Elizabeth come over to our house for the day to play with Cate, and we had so. much. fun.

Elizabeth's playdate at our house

Seriously, she’s just about the easiest toddler in the world. (I’m sure her parents don’t think so, but admittedly she was probably on good behavior for us.) In fact, I’m going to claim as my biggest accomplishment of the month the fact that I got not one but TWO toddlers down for a nap in the same room at the same time. And they both napped for about two hours. Go me.

Elizabeth & Catie discuss the finer points of sidewalk chalk

We played with some of the other neighborhood kids and both girls seemed to have a lot of fun. I took e-baby home late this afternoon, and we miss her already. We had such a great time.

Elizabeth & Catie playing in the yard

I know that taking care of two toddlers might not be some people’s cup of tea, but I think we got off way easier than the people who were loading stuff onto and hauling it off of a U-Haul. The only heavy lifting that I had to do was of two adorable girl-children, and really, you could do a lot worse.

hungover

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Last night, one of my neighbors hosted a party at her house. It was basically just for the ladies, there was a rep there from some company that sells silver jewelry, which was the main purpose of the party. I went into it thinking that I might be able to find Christmas gifts for people, but everything was crazy expensive, so I didn’t buy anything.

As soon as I got there, Margaret (the neighbor who was hosting the party) offered me a glass of wine. And I thought, well, I’ve had a long week and I deserve a break, so sure, why not? Then I had another glass. And another. I’m not sure how much I drank in total; I felt fine while we were standing in the kitchen talking. Then I left to walk home (it was two houses down from us), and as soon as I started walking, I realized that I was drunk. Not buzzed, but full-on, “ok let’s concentrate really hard on left foot, right foot so I don’t fall down” sloppy drunk. Um, oops? That hadn’t been my intention.

Cate had been hanging out with Dave while I went to the party, and she was happy to see me when I got home, but I was scared to pick her up. I sat on the floor and hugged her instead. I took a shower while Dave changed her into her pj’s, and we got her to bed. I promptly passed out.

Today, I have been so. freaking. sick. All day. Oh my lord. I think wine hangovers are worse than almost any other form of alcohol.

This is why I almost never drink at all anymore, because Mommy doesn’t get a day off to lounge around and feel miserable. I just have to suck it up and deal, because this little girl of mine still wants to play and she wants my undivided attention. I know, I know, I totally brought it on myself, so I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m just whining because I feel bad. Also, Dave has a big deadline next week and he’s been working all day today, so it’s been just me and Cate on our own while he’s been slaving away in his office. It’s been a pretty rough day for everyone around here.

Right now, we’re waiting for some pizza to get delivered to our house, because I think we earned just a little bit of laziness.