Rebecca's First Haircut

Considering her stranger anxiety, she did remarkably well. She did cry hysterically for the first minute but after she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she couldn't help but be interested in watching herself get her hair cut. She cried a bit half-heartedly after that, but she held pretty still. I was hoping to be rid of her top-knot entirely, but that piece of hair will just have to be put up for a while until it grows out. Her new bangs should definitely help the shaggy-dog situation though.

Dinner and a Movie

Thanks to a wonderful invention called Grandparents, Joel and I got to go out tonight.

Back in the days before kids -- and for this we will have to think all the way back to the Hershey, PA days -- Joel and I used to go to the movies so often that going to the movies (and out to dinner for that matter) totally lost its appeal. For a while there was a string of horrible movies in the theater and since we had nothing better to do, we saw them anyway.

As for going out to eat, we did that so often (on the weekends sometimes for every meal) that it also lost its appeal. The restaurant choices in Hershey were limited, and some unfortunate choices such as Applebees got heavy rotation. I have not set foot in an Applebees since Hershey, and my aversion to it runs so deep now that if I were stuck on a desert island with a choice between Applebees and eating my own foot, I'd eat my own foot.

So to recap: Then: loads of free time, no good movies, nothing good to eat. Now: No free time, loads of movies I haven't seen, and lots to eat. Life is so unfair. But tonight we finally got to see Slumdog Millionaire and try the Thai restaurant we'd been meaning to try. Both were excellent.

Thank you grandparents!

A Tough Guy, He's Not

Of all the adjectives I could apply to my son -- many of them complimentary -- "tough" is not one of them. While he is constantly coming home with bruised shins, he rarely injures himself enough to draw blood. Indeed, the sight of even a tiny speck of blood on his body sends him into fits of horror.

Tonight (in a paroxysm of joy over his newly cleaned bathroom, probably) he banged his knuckles on the countertop, eliciting about one tenth of one drop of blood (if it was even that much -- I'm not convinced).

The look on his face when he saw that tiny scrape... BLOOD! he shrieked. NOOOO!!!! I'VE GOT BLOOD!

How You Know it's Time to Clean the Bathroom

When your four year old son says, "You know, you really need to clean this bathroom."

Try not to think about HOW DIRTY the bathroom must actually be before it comes to a four year old boy's attention. Out of guilt, I am going to try to clean all three bathrooms today, not just the offending one.

Deja Vu

I took Rebecca back to the doctor this morning. Her ears are still infected, her throat is pus-y, her nose is snotty, she has a rash all over her stomach and back... but, no fever! So she passes the fit-for-daycare test ;) The doctor prescribed omnicef (after amoxycillan and augmentin failed to clear up her ears) and if that doesn't work we get to see the ENT. I say "get to" because unlike other mothers apparently, I am all for tubes after having seen what wonders they did for Ben. He battled ear infections constantly during his first year of life and got tubes at 14 months. He's had one ear infection since then, and that was when he was three and a half, after the tubes had both come out. So at the ripe old age of 17 months tomorrow, it's about time someone mentioned the T word to me about Rebecca...

When I take Rebecca to the doctor -- as I have done so often lately (and Ben by the way hasn't been since his four year checkup last summer) -- she always enjoys the waiting room. They have a TV which always seems to be playing Jack's Big Music Show (think it just happens to be on since I always try to make our appointments around 9am) and she loves it. She stands there, transfixed, and laughs and dances to the music. I am worried though that at some point she's going to start associating this show with the doctor's office and at some point she will see Jack's Big Music Show and dissolve into hysterical tears. Because as soon as the nurse calls us back to the exam room, she dissolves into hysterical tears. Hopefully we can get her ear situation resolved without permanently ruining Jack's Big Music Show for her.

Something Tells Me They're Teaching Him More Than Just the 50 States

BEN: I learned more states, do you want to hear?
ME: Yes!
BEN: ... Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Spain --
ME: Spain?

And a little while later:

BEN: Becca, can you say 'Nanny'?
BECCA: Nanny!
BEN: Can you say 'Papa'?
BECCA: Papa!
BEN: Becca, can you say 'Morocco'?

That he got Maine and Spain confused I can accept. But where did Morocco come from?

A Conversation Overheard

BEN: What kind of dog do you have?
NEIGHBOR: What's your name?
BEN: Ben. What kind of dog is that?
NEIGHBOR: My son is named Ben, too.
BEN: What kind of dog do you have?
NEIGHBOR: He's a golden retriver.
BEN: I don't have a golden retriever in my book.
NEIGHBOR: Oh really?
BEN: Is it a shiba?
NEIGHBOR: No.
BEN: Is it a cavalier king charles spaniel?
NEIGHBOR: No, it's a golden retriver. Is that your cat?
BEN: Yes.
NEIGHBOR: What kind of cat is it?
BEN: A Japanese* cat. Do you have a welsh corgi?
NEIGHBOR: No, just a golden retriever.

Ben was obviously disappointed. He has learned some dog breeds thanks to one of his books, but the only ones on our street seem to be ones that are not in his book. I will have to get him a big book of dog breeds, I've decided.

*Ulysses is a balinese cat, and I was pretty impressed actually that Ben got even remotely close.

The Eye Doctor

Today I went to the eye doctor, officially one of my least favorite places on the planet. Probably there is an opthamologist's office waiting for me in my own special Hell. As soon as I walk in the door I start to imagine my vision getting blurry (well, more so than usual) and as soon as I see an eye chart my blood pressure sky rockets. Call it a left-over childhood neurosis -- one of many.

Anyway it is hard for me to get in and out of an opthamologist's office without being poked and prodded six ways to Sunday. I had to remind about four different people that no I am not here for my annual exam and I do not want my pupils dialated, I am only here to have a scratch looked at! I know that being the walking pathology specimen that I am, it is very hard for them to resist peering at my retinas.

I managed to fend them all off and get the scratch looked at. The doctor said it looks like it is healing nicely and I don't need antibiotic drops or anything. My eye still feeling like it's burning and watering a lot but it's bearable. Hopefully tomorrow it will be noticeably better still.

My Children and Their Lethal Claws

When Ben was around 2 he nailed me in the eye with a finger, causing a corneal abrasion and about seven hours of mortal agony before I finally managed to get seen by my opthamologist (who immediately applied blissfully numbing drops to my eye).

Tonight while I was putting Rebecca to bed she reached for the baseball cap on my head and nailed me in the eye with a finger. As I type this, an hour later, it feels like I'm being jabbed in the eye all over again every time I blink. Nevertheless I am trying to think positively and hoping that a nice night of keeping my eye closed will allow enough healing to occur to keep me from the eye doctor's office tomorrow (or worse yet, the ER in the middle of the night tonight).

Wish me luck in this.

Best Behavior

Ben really, really wanted a toy today, as evidenced by his good behavior. Which he took every opportunity to point out to me, in case I failed to notice.

He started by letting me sleep in. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 7:45 and went upstairs to get Rebecca, who'd been futzing in her crib for about 20 minutes. On the way I passed Ben's room, noticing that his door was open, his light was on, and he was nowhere in sight. I got Rebecca out of her crib and called to Ben, who happily appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "Are you proud of me Mom? I didn't wake you up! I got out of bed all by myself and I was waiting until you came up to get Rebecca! Aren't I being good because I let you sleep in?"

And later: "Mom, I told Rebecca to 'be quiet'. I didn't say 'shut up.' Isn't that good?" (Even though he never says 'shut up' to begin with).

And just for good measure: "Mom, I said 'heck' just now. Not 'hell.' Did you hear me? Isn't that good? Aren't I being good?"

As a reward (mostly for letting me sleep in!) Ben got to pick out a Ben 10:Alien Force action figure. Now if only I could bribe Rebecca to sleep in also...

Random Stuff

1. We went to Copper for dinner last night which just reaffirmed for us that it is the best Indian food anywhere, period.

2. Ben has a picture book of dogs that he rediscovered recently and he decided he wanted to guess what all the dog breeds in the book were. There's a list on the last page which tells what each one is, fortunately, since I'm a little rusty on my dog breeds. For a while he would guess "Chihuaha! Poodle! Miniature Pinscer!" for every single dog (even though there is no Chihuaha in the book, a fact which I pointed out to him numerous times but which never stopped him from guessing it). But now he's got about 95% of them down cold, including "Cavalier King Charles Spaniel!" My boy knows his dogs.

3. He also knows his states, up to Michigan now, in alphabetical order no less. So now instead of asking if we can go to Arkansas, he asks if we can go to Kansas or Idaho. My answer is still the same. Not that I have anything against Kansas... well okay, I do have something against Kansas actually.

4. The Cute Award goes to Becca (doesn't it always?) She was watching Joel do push-ups and she got down on the floor and tried to do push-ups with him. It was just about the most adorable thing I have ever seen.

5. Tomorrow the kids and I are off for President's Day, and I haven't quite figured out what we're going to do for the day except that Ben somehow weasled the promise of a toy out of me, somewhere between the guilt trip ("why didn't you get me a present for Valentine's day?") and the week or two of nagging, and the big brown eyes ("I was really really super good today, wasn't I?") he somehow dragged it out of me. Got to give him credit - he's a persistant little guy.

6. Ben's been waking up at 6:30 for the last few days. He comes downstairs and climbs into my side of the bed, and I tell him he can stay if he's quiet because it's not time to get up yet. He curls up next to me and pokes his toenails into my calves. And no matter how I change position, move over, etc, he shifts with me immediately so that his toes are right back to digging into my leg again. It's sweet, but painful.

Debt Free*

I just paid off in full the balance we were carrying on our credit card. Now we are debt free*!

*Except for the mortgage, Joel's student loan, my car loan, my student loan, and two smaller credit card balances, for a grand total of Holy Christ I Don't Even Want to Think About It. Hmm... well, it felt good for a minute, anyway...

Picture Problems

Lately I am having a lot of trouble getting quality pictures of the kids. Problem number one is that I have two very fast children and a camera with probably the slowest picture-taking ability on the planet. It's only a year old, too, so unfortunately I seem to be stuck with it for a while. I take full responsibility for making this poor purchasing decision.

Problem number two, as I believe I have previously mentioned, is that Ben usually will not let me take his picture unless he doesn't know I am doing it. If he sees me aim the camera at him he'll turn and run in the opposite direction or duck behind whatever piece of furniture happens to be handy. This leads to pictures like this (shown here in his new too-big jeans which turned out to be okay because he decided to wear his really-too-big shirt* with them and compared to the shirt, the jeans do not look too bad):

Rebecca on the other hand now has a tendency to toddle up to the camera as soon as she sees it, stick her face in it, and say "hi!" which leads to a lot of pictures like this:

Then she tries to grab the camera away from me, so I get at most one picture of her with her head filling the entire frame.

*This shirt is the first and last clothing item Joel has ever purchased for Ben (except perhaps for an Eagles jersey). "I was afraid it would be too small!" he said. (Dude, did you look at the tag? It's a 7/8!)

An Expensive Dinner

Since Joel seemed to be feeling a little better (ie not in immediate danger of coughing up a lung) I suggested that we go out for chinese food for dinner tonight, since we don't have much in the way of food in the house at the moment. Joel had some piece of exercise equipment or something to pick up at the fitness store next to a particular chinese restaurant, so convincing him wasn't too hard.

After picking up the kids, we headed for the restaurant. My Friday the 13th must have started early, because -- come on now, we all do this -- I made the left turn from Fairview onto Sharon as the left turn signal was turning from yellow to red, and I got pulled over by an unmarked police car (sneaky bastard). The woman in the lane next to me, who did the exact same thing, got pulled over also. (I hope the cop is proud of himself for doing a two-for-one).

So after the $171 ticket was written, plus dinner... that outing cost me about $210. As Joel said, "We should have just stayed home and made a pizza."

Ben, for the record, was the only one of us who was thrilled by the entire event (once we assured him that no, Mommy was not going to jail).

And also for the record -- THE LIGHT WAS YELLOW WHEN I STARTED INTO THE INTERSECTION! And if the slow poke in front of me had been paying attention to the light, I might've actually made it in time. So it's his fault. Entirely.

Blogging for a Living

Yesterday I was flipping through the new issue of Newsweek and I came across a column about blogs and how they are for the most part very difficult to make money doing. In driving home the point about how unprofitable blogs are, the author mentioned a couple of exceptions. One of them is Dooce, a personal diary blog run by a stay at home mom in Utah. Apparently it brings in between 500,000 and 1 million dollars a year in advertising revenues (and is now the sole means of income for the author and her family).

So of course I had to check it out. Very impressed - great writing, great photographs. From her site I also came across another one, The Daily Coyote, which chronicles the story of a woman in Wyoming raising an orphaned coyote. She now has a book published based on her blog.

Now how can I make my blog support my family....? I obviously need some more interesting things to write about... since I was not raised Mormon like the author of Dooce (thanks for nothing Mom and Dad), I'll have to think of something else. Maybe some neurotic dogs, a wild animal or two...? I shall have to mull over the possibilities.

A Rant About Pants

Okay so Ben is going through pants like no body's business - one pair got a hole ripped in the knee, one pair got red clay stains all over it which wouldn't come out after 3 washes in various solutions, and one pair I realized was too tight when I couldn't snap them even after telling him to suck it in...

So I stopped in at Children's Place and Gap Kids the other day hoping to find pants on sale... sweatpants, any pants... no sales and I didn't feel like parting with my money on that particular day. So I ordered him 2 pairs of pants on sale from Crazy 8. They arrived today. One of them is a pair of size 6 jeans, and one is a pair of size S (5/6) athletic pants. Now, I have ordered shorts from Crazy 8 before but never long pants so I carefully scrutinized the size chart. It said the height range for size 6 was 45-49 inches. Ben, at last measure, was 46 1/4 inches. So clearly this would put him in a size 6, right? Apparently not... I could wear these pants, I swear! I mean, they'd be like capris, but... they are a good 3 inches longer than any of the pants he's currently got even though he has at least 2 pairs of size 6 pants already that fit fine. Sigh.

What's New on Tuesday

Not so much, actually.

First, a warm welcome to the world to Hunter Wyatt, born early this morning. 5 lbs 11 oz, a few weeks early but doing well... and congratulations Josie!

Rebecca and I are almost fully recovered from our illness, but Joel is still in the middle of it. It looked like Ben was going to become a casualty also because yesterday he just was not himself, didn't eat dinner, complained his throat hurt and Joel said it looked red. So I was fully expecting him to be sick this morning but instead he was up at 6:45, full of energy and proclaiming to be feeling fine. Hopefully he will stay that way!

The weather is still unseasonably warm - supposed to go up to 72 today. It has me quite confused about what month it is. I had to turn in Ben's summer camp registration yesterday, which had me even more confused because I had to spend so much time thinking about summer while I was filling it out, and it was warm... since he starts kindergarten in the fall, he will be in preschool until the last week of June when summer camp starts. Then he will be in summer camp for nine weeks, until the second-to-last week of August.That week we've set aside for a vacation with the same friends we vacationed with last summer although the "where" has not been decided yet - possibly back to Virginia Beach. The last week of August is when school starts.

I know, I know, it's only February... I ordered Ben a new pair of Crocs this morning also though... spring is in the air! I'm afraid it's going to disappear soon though and reappear in a few weeks but I'll take whatever I can get.

A Taste of Spring

Last week's cold front has been replaced by a warm front, so we got a nice taste of spring this weekend. It was sunny and 70 today and yesterday. We took full advantage of the nice weather and spent as much time as possible outside. Ben played outside with the neighbors - bikes, scooters, stomp rockets, etc - and we re-acquanted ourselves with our backyard swing set.

Ben, in stereotypical boy fashion, invented a game where he would dig up a pile of dirt from underneath the swings and transport it in a toy dump truck over to the slide. He would dump the pile of dirt at the bottom of the slide and then - you guessed it - slide down the slide (face first no less) into the pile of dirt. (If anyone knows a good method for getting red clay dirt stains out of clothes, now's the time to tell me). When I commented on how dirty his hands were, he LICKED his palms! (!!) When did my son become so gross?

Rebecca, in a new pair of white sandals, was very reticent to go anywhere near the dirt/mud/long grass and so spent much of this particular time sitting on my lap sucking on a juice box (and sucking and sucking and sucking on it long after all the juice was gone).

We also ate outside, played Candy Land outside, and met friends at Freedom Park this morning for even more outdoor enjoyment. Freedom Park, incidentally, is a very large, nice park that in theory seems like it would be easy to find but in practice involved a lot of driving around in circles. Now that I know where it is, though, we will definitely be returning.

So to sum up the weekend: lots of sunshine, lots of dirty clothes.

Dinner

Since Joel's not around (in Dallas until Sunday night) I took the kids out to dinner tonight. I asked Ben where he wanted to go and (of course) he told me he wanted to go to the pancake house. Ben finished an entire plate of chocolate chip pancakes, and Becca almost finished a plate of silver dollar pancakes (minus one and a half that she dropped on the floor). I decided to try their other specialty, the apple pancake (I tried the dutch baby last time). I discovered it is not so much a pancake as, well, a cake. I was not so successful in cleaning my plate. Maybe I'll attempt a second pass at it in a little while, or see how it holds up in the microwave tomorrow morning for breakfast ;)

Another Ear Infection... Me This Time

I guess I missed the memo that adults are not supposed to get ear infections? I do still get them, very occasionally. The last one was right after we moved here (a year and a half ago) and the pain was so bad I wanted to throw myself out a window. This time it's not so bad (and hopefully won't be getting any worse since I'll go pick up my prescription in a little while). So now Rebecca and I are both on antibiotics. Though mine will be in pill form I presume and not nearly so tasty as Rebecca's seems to be (considering how happy and excited she gets when I bring out the bottle).

More White Stuff

I woke up to half an inch of snow on the ground and the news that Ben's preschool is closed for the day and Rebecca's day care was opening late. Becca's I didn't mind - it opened at 9:30 which is only about an hour or so after I usually drop her off anyway. But it annoys me that Ben's school is closed. His grandparents will be coming to pick him up a little later so that I can get some work done and hopefully get a doctor's appointment because my throat has been hurting progressively worse for the third day now. I'm now up to 3 advil every 4-6 hours in order to be able to function. I want to make sure I don't have strep.

It is 23 degrees right now and it's only forecasted to go up to 33 today. Where did this cold weather come from?! I am consoled by the long-range forecast though which is calling for lots of sun and temps in the mid 60s this weekend.

So to recap my day so far: Cold. Sick. Inconvenienced. That about sums it up so far. Hoping it gets better.

A Trip to the Doctor

I took Rebecca to the doctor this morning. She was supposed to go back anyway to have her ears rechecked after her last ear infection and considering that she's been coughing, snotting, and leaking neon green goo out of the corners of her eyes, I figured it was an opportune time to take her back to the doctor.

Rebecca loves the waiting room at the doctor's office, but not so much the actual doctor. When she came into the exam room Rebecca started wimpering, which turned into an outright scream fest during the ear check. For some reason she likes getting her chest listened to - holds very very still for that and stares at the doctor without blinking - but all the rest of the exam she hates. Her ears, of course are infected again (or still?) so the doctor gave her a prescription for augmentin and another one for a decongestant to try to dry up some of that lovely neon green goo.

I always schedule Rebecca's appointments for as early as I can, since that way we don't usually have to wait. Then I show up 15 minutes early and if I am lucky, like today, I get out of the doctor's office at the same time I was actually scheduled to go in. How's that for speedy service? When I told my boss yesterday that Rebecca was scheduled for a 9:20 appointment and I'd be in by 9:45, he scoffed. I was actually at my desk at 9:35... HA! Of course it helps that the doctor's office is 5 minutes away and Rebecca's day care is a minute away... But I was impressed nonetheless.

Sunday Night Update

Not a whole heck of a lot going on this weekend but it's been a nice weekend nonetheless. Yesterday morning Ben had a birthday party to go to, and in the afternoon Joel's parents came over and brought Candy Land for Ben so we had to play like six games of Candy Land with him (which actually was kind of fun) and then we all went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. As if Rebecca's little tummy isn't round enough, she stuffed herself so full of pasta, bread, french fries, cheesecake and ice cream that I thought for sure she was going to vomit. (She didn't, but her intestines have been working overtime today to clear out that meal).

This morning we took the kids to the gym, then went to PF Chang's for lunch, and then I gave Joel the chore of cleaning my car for me (knowing that it would be a good two hours before I'd see him again because when Joel cleans something, which is not very often, he does a very thorough job). The weather today was great so after I put Becca down for her nap I took the baby monitor outside with Ben where in the space of two hours he played about nine different games with three different neighbors in various front and back yards. One of his games was taking turns with his friend Miller sitting on a skateboard and riding it down a (kind of steep) driveway. After about the third time of seeing him almost fall off backwards I made him go get his bike helmet.

Tonight we went to a Super Bowl party at one of our neighbor's houses, where there were a lot of kids Ben's age so Ben had plenty of friends and other kids' toys to occupy himself with and was very well behaved. He got to take a few swings at a pinata in the garage also, which he enjoyed very much. It was the first time he'd ever seen one and he had no idea there was candy in it until it broke. He looked shocked, but wasted no time collecting a fair portion, which went straight into his mouth pretty much all at once.

I brought the kids home early of course, since tomorrow's a school day and they go to bed pretty early. Ben was exhausted and pretty much melted down when I took him upstairs -- didn't even want me to read a story. I guess it was a tiring day for him.

Okay, back to watching the game now...