That was not Helpful

I turned on the air after a sweaty, sticky nursing session, knowing that my insane need to live air conditioner free is not shared by Esposo and he'll be wicked happy to have it on when he comes home, especially since he biked the five miles to the train station today.

Stupidly, I didn't really set the temperature, and after feeling not significantly cooler, I went to check and found the temperature set at 83. Which was still better than it had been, but NOT VERY COOL.

I also must be doing something right in this parenting thing because Luke turned off Diego and was playing with his toys (he did not nap today, despite near exhaustion, but he had a nice quiet time - two hours worth). Then he played with playdoh for the first time. We had taken it out before but he never PLAYED with it, not seeming to get it until today.

I'm not saying my son may be overly right brained, but he yells at me that there's no singing or dancing in the car, rarely colors, likes to 'finger'paint only with cars, and just figured out what a fun mess playdoh is. The creative side of this child just may be a dormant little slug.

He'll make a great actuary!

Hot. HOOOOT.

So it's 94 degrees again. Maybe there is something to this global warming after all? I love when people start disproving global warming in the middle of winter because Hey! It's COLD outside! Global warming is a crock!

Methinks you need to read a bit more on the premise, dipwad.

That also goes along with the 'Hey, we never wore helmets/seatbelts/licked electrical wires and we survived.' train of thought. Yeah, except for the kids who died. Which brings me to the mental pain of liking country music and hating the viewpoints expressed on our country music station and in some country music. What's the scout motto? God, family, country? Or something like that... anywho, these are the people who got all PO'd about the Dixie Chicks hatin' W. Went against the 'love thy country' thing. When I do tune in during the DJs discussion, my brain frequently pours smoke out my ears as it burns burns burns. It's hard being a leftist country music lover.

Again, hot here today. The problem with hot weather and infants is DEAR GOD I DO NOT WANT TO NURSE THIS CHILD. My boob is already sweating, the kid is sweating, we have to get all close a snuggly to nurse? ugh.

1950 Calling

Lately I've been watching Beverly Hills 90210 reruns whenever I get a chance to watch TV. There's nothing else on and man does 1990's fashion kick ass! My favorite scene has been when the 'gang' is going on a camping trip and Steve pulls out a stack of shoulder pads and chastises Donna for bringing so many shoulder pads. I have some good memories of cutting shoulder pads out of every. single. shirt. And then my mom saved them for a good long while because you never knew when you might need 500 pieces of semi circle foam.

The episode I watched today centered around Brandon liking a girl. Okay, I know that doesn't narrow it down. Brandon liked a HISPANIC girl (dun dun DUUUUUN) and got very into race/class differences. Good thing he got that out of his system by the next show! Phew!

(The other episode I watched was the 'sleepover' episode where Kelly reveals her freshman year rape and Kelly's friend Amanda (never seen before and never seen again!) is on diet pills. But Kelly, Donna, Brenda and Ondrea confront her and are nice to her and she eats cookies with them and is all over her diet pill and thin obsession! Go West Beverly!)

I also recently read on a message board that "I believe the family has to have an important place in society. I don't like what some people are getting away with-bringing down everyone!" and it set me off into a mental tizzy. Who's getting away with what? The only thing I can identify would be, you know, THE GAYS. Who are trying to get married and be in committed relationships and raise children. Jerks.

Racism and intolerance always catches me off guard, like the friend who first told me that she 'didn't understand why anyone would want to buttf*ck' after she found out a close friend (er, FORMERLY close friend) of hers was gay. She followed that up a few years later with the information that she believed interracial relationships were wrong.

Me: um. (pause... trying to collect bits of brain that have been blown away by this viewpoint) You realize my brother is marrying someone of a different race?
Her: Yes, and I just don't think it's right.
Me: (pause. Can not seem to get this statement to make logical sense) (longer pause) Let's just say I really disagree with you and not talk about this anymore.

Is it wrong of me to hope her son brings home a non-white girl? Or, like my brother, shows a distinct preference for EVERY race except white? Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon...

In some sort of random conclusion on the whole point of this post, which I think is somewhere along the line of 'people is fucked up!', The Chicago Trib had a little quote section dedicated to Albert Ellis, who I'm wishing I could have heard speak...

"All humans are out of their (expletive) minds, all of them, biologically and sociologically." (-Albert Ellis)

"'Do you know why your family is trying to control you?' Ellis once asked a volunteer at a workshop. 'Because they're out of their (expletive) minds.'" (-Albert Ellis/Chicago Tribune)

EXACTLY!

Growth

Today we're headed into the doctor for Courtney's four month check up, never mind that it's closer to five months now, they were late with one appointment (because THEY didn't have any openings!) and now it seems that our appointments will forever be skewed. Which is upsetting for me for my scrapbooking because how big was she REALLY at four months? Now I will only have 3.5 months and 4.5 months and I will have to extrapolate her four month length and weight.

sigh

Courtney, fortunately, has no medical problems, and pretty much every day I spend a few minutes thinking "This is it, this is the good time! No one is sick, Esposo likes his job, I like staying home, our mothers are healthy, our children are happy!" and I try to hold onto this feeling. So you have to realize that I'm also waiting for the other shoe to drop at any point, because that's how life is. Happy!

Back to the point - Courtney. She's developed her little habits along with her personality over the past month or two, one being that she sucks on her bottom lip with a vengeance. Esposo looked at her and said 'I do that...' so it's not enough that she's his clone, now she has his mannerisms! She shares one other thing in common with him, too, and that's a growth on her head. It's a small bump above her left eye that the doctor said is merely a cosmetic issue.

When I first met Esposo he had a strange bump next to his eye on his nose, where your glasses would rest. After we had been dating a little while, I asked him about it, and he said it had just shown up one day a few years earlier. And he never thought much about it. Me, weird lump shows up on my face, I'm getting it checked out. Not Esposo.

At some point, Esposo and I were goofing around wrestling (which always leads to me getting hurt) and he claims I hit the growth with my nail. Which REALLY PISSED IT OFF. It got HUGE. And RED. And hurt, apparently. So he went to the doctor, and they told him it was a sebaceous cyst, popped it, and yanked the icky insides out. And that was the end of the odd bump.

Now Courtney has one of these things. It's not large, and I only occasionally get questions about what happened to her head, so it's not high on my list of things to 'deal with'. I think that as her head grows, the cyst will look smaller, right? Except last night I had a flash forward to pre-teen self hatred with her yelling at me about how I don't love her because I never had her bump removed.

I'm thinking I'm going to ask the doctor today about removal cost (does insurance cover it or is it too cosmetic?) and what the procedure would entail.

Vermiculture

Each time I look to find a new project in living a greener life, I have to research and mull for weeks. What do I need to do it? What will the drawbacks be? How much work will be involved? It took me probably 4-6 months to go from thinking about cloth diapers to using them, during which time I wasted money and added to Luke's personal trash mound. (kicking self)

I actually read about indoor composting many years ago, but never did anything with it. I'm coming closer to getting a bin full of worms to eat our organic trash, especially as Esposo and I are upping out fruit and vegetable intake. I would really like to compost in our backyard in a heap, but our yard layout makes that impractical and probably rude. Our entire yard can be seen from the street, and two other yards back up to ours. We have a low chain link fence, and no discreet corner in which to compost. I do believe in being a good neighbor!

But I have a mental block when it comes to moving a bin of worms into my house, even if it is only into the garage or the basement. I mean, worms. Living in my house. Eating my garbage and the dog's poop (I have to have two bins to accomplish this - one for poop, one for food scraps). It just sounds... unpleasant.

On the 'non environmentally evil cleaners' issue, I used vinegar and water to wash several windows and glass throughout the house. It's SO much better than windex/ glass cleaner! I streak the hell out of glass with standard issue glass cleaner, but with vinegar, not such problem! Why don't we all use this?

Glurb

It's been a rough week for me, feeling mostly out of sorts and unable to really get anything done, which is frustrating. My closet doors - because now I have two! - are leaning against the walls in our bedroom since I didn't get the spacing *quite* right for the hinges. This is why I only bought one door, because I know this is going to be a learning curve and I have to determine if I want to do this again for each door in the house.

On my weight loss efforts, all things are stalled. I remain 2-3 pounds above pre-pregnancy and far far above my ultimate goal. I must figure out what to do about that, how to monitor food intake better and exercise more. The problem is currently that Esposo works out in the mornings, and I simply can't work out at night lest I not fall asleep until 2 AM.

As for the environmental impact effort, I actually brought my collapsible crates to Dominick's and requested that they be used instead of plastic bags. And really, the first time you do something a bit weird like that is the hardest, so now I am more prepared for next time. And ah, yes, I will also be crocheting a tote bag from plastic grocery bags (or put more accurately, I will be hoping my mother will do that!) I'm currently debating my next move for this effort, and am thinking that 'rain barrel' is the way to go.

Funny Boy Revisited

Walking down the street, pulling off his new baseball cap with a "Yee-ha!" each time.

----

Given the options of walking or riding on my shoulders (as opposed to me carrying him in my arms, yelling "Those are not good choices!"

Quotes of the Toddler

As I am sitting at the Computer, Luke enters the room with one arm out of his shirt and no pants.

"This doesn’t look right." he says, inspecting himself.
Patting his shirt "This is a kayak. I am supposed to be naked."
I help him finish taking off his shirt, he leaves.

A few minutes later he returns, wearing one of my bras around his neck.
"I am all dressed up, Mommy."

-------
This morning we cuddle in bed in an attempt to get a few more moments of quiet time. Courtney sits on my chest, the dog lays next to me with her nose in my ear and Luke sits between them, an arm slung around the dog and his sister.
"I love you, Snow!"
"I love the baby!"
"I like you, Mommy."

What are you looking at?

I don't keep a tremendously clean house, I admit it. But then I see shows like "How Clean is Your House?" and I gag and throw up in my mouth and realize that I keep a damn clean house, comparatively. But it's not up to my mother's standards, who is, admittedly, crazy. My mother can't have anyone over without a pretty rigorous cleaning of her already pretty dang clean house, and so she's mostly chosen to not have anyone over. I consciously make to choice to let people see a messy house versus avoiding people contact. Ahh, familial neuroses...

I've been trying to be more dedicated to regular cleaning and straightening for a few weeks now, and about a month ago I signed up for 'Fly Lady'. It's a system and a book and apparently, an ostrich feather duster, that's designed to help people get out from a messy house. And it has some great features as a 'program'. Getting into habits and breaking down the jobs to manageable portions are key. I stopped really going after the site sent out an inspirational video, set to music, of people's clean sinks. I think they've collectively lost their feather dustered minds. But setting a time for fifteen minutes and cleaning what I can in that time works for me, so I have been doing that.

I invited a good number of people over to play on Thursday, and I've been trying to prepare my house for this. I did fifteen minutes in three different rooms today. Since it's moms with toddlers that are coming, I know that they'll mostly be concerned about a) things on the floor that could hurt their kids and b) comforting themselves that at least their house is cleaner than mine. I'm all about making someone feel better about their home.

While I was cleaning I noticed my vent covers, and ended up scrubbing three of them. Now I look at them happily as I walk by, almost lovingly, you could say. And I wonder if other people noticed how dirty my vent covers were. Do you notice minutia like that at someone else's home?

Dreaming

We spent the last week at Esposo's family lake house, which was fun and exhausting and a whole lot of people in not a whole lot of house. Which is supposed to be okay because everyone spends a lot of time outdoors, but by Sunday I was fried to a crispy brown and done with other people. Last night when I went to the grocery store was the first time I had been alone in 12 days.

The lake is a fabulous place for the kids, and Luke went out on the boat and enjoyed it. Luke is not the most adventurous child, so it was difficult to get him on the boat in the right mood, but once we finally did, and he was with his cousins, he had a great time. There were seven cousins up there, from 4 month old Courtney to 7.5 year old B, the first time they'd ALL had a chance to hang out.

There's a problem with having a four month old and going on a boat, mostly that she'd be screwed if there was an accident, since she can't hold her head above waves. The boat we use up there is about 30 years old, the lake is calm, etc etc, but I still have a nightmarish vision of Courtney slipping under the water. It's not as bad with Luke since he's more self sufficient, but if I could put him in three or four life jackets, I would.

Yesterday was a rough first day back on the home front, and I spent some time surfing the internet. I clicked on a link, then that link, then that one, and ended up looking at the pictures of Katrina's storm surges and flood aftermath. Which led to a very involved dream about being in a coastal city as a hurricane approaches. In the dream, I was able to get some clear pictures of the oncoming storm, and save my children from waves that flooded the tall building we were in by standing on a couch and holding them up. Thank God for that couch.