although this happened a week and a day ago, i'm still turning it over and over in my head. it was one of those moments - perhaps i should capitalize it - Those Moments - that seem to linger longer than usual, and have the mark of becoming a wonderful, forever memory.
my dad's birthday was approaching, about a month ago, and i sighed out loud one night, "i just don't know what to get him!" m overheard me (i sigh loudly) and said, quite inspirationally, "well, why don't we get box seats to a tides game?" it took a moment to process what he said because a) it's been years since i even thought about the tides (our area's answer to minor league baseball) and b) because it was so unexpected for him to actually have an idea like that. normally when i say i cannot think of a gift for my dad for christmas/father's day/birthday, he always commiserates but we can never come up with anything.
once my brain wrapped around the idea, i realized what a stupendously terrific idea it was. it was terrific on so many levels - it would be j's first "real" baseball game, it would be my dad's first game in a long time, it would be their first game together, it would be a chance for d to spend time with my dad while he is here, and so many other things. it was a winner on all fronts! add in the fact "box seats" for a minor-league game around here are a whopping $11 apiece, and you have a real solution to the age-old dilemma of what to buy the grandpa who has everything. :o) add in to that the fact that the tides were actually playing a home series against columbus ON my dad's birthday, and it was meant to be. absolutely meant to be.
so come the birthday day, 21st of july, we all traipsed to my dad's house to surprise him. mom was in on the gig, of course, but dad had no idea. he thought only that we were coming over to visit him and perhaps have dinner with him for his birthday. when we got there, i gave j the tickets to present to dad, and whispered instructions on what to say.
all alight, j ran into the house, and very self-importantly paraded over to my dad. in a clarion-clear voice, glancing occasionally at me for prompting, he proclaimed, "grandaddy! you have a date with us tonight. for a BASEBALL GAME." produced the tickets as if they were mini Oscar statuettes, and my dad was finally, for once in his life, rendered quite speechless with surprise. ;o) mission accomplished! score one for us! lol
now, in these parts of the south where we live, our summers are predictably hot, humid, muggy, sweltering, slavishly drippy with condensation, you name it. i always tell folk who are not familiar with our summers that they will feel as if they can swim through the air. i, personally, love it wildly. i've grown up in it, and it welcomes me like an old friend each and every summer - i suffer, in the truest sense of the word, through each winter. fall and spring are tolerable because they tend to be largely on the warmer side of the spectrum and still moist-aired, but winter is the bane of my existence. if i could hibernate, i would, gladly!
but i digress.
july and august are our dog days of summer, as they probably are in most locations. that is when it is the hottest, the most humid, the muggiest, the most gloriously limpid. however...i firmly believe Someone created - out of his book of days - the perfect day for us. that saturday dawned, bright, crisp, clear - and COOL. it felt like early october outside. we stepped outdoors, and exclaimed all of one voice how absolutely astoundingly wonderful it felt. the sky was not the cobalt blue of summer; not the achingly bright sun-centered spectacle of beaches and coconut oil and sand and waves. it was the warmer, mellower, friendlier blue - crisp and clear, but not quite as brilliantine - of fall. the breeze was not warm - it was tinged with cool promise. the sun shone, but not with its usual intensity. it was actually cool enough that i grabbed a light sweatjacket on my way out the door for j, as it was a night game.
after much discussion as to how we would all fit into one car, we finally jockeyed into position. i had the unenviable position of being wedged between my dad (aka nascar wannabe) and m (aka mr. i do not like other people driving me around). the baseball park is only about 15 minutes from my parents' house, but it was a hair-raising 15 minutes. m spent the better part of the journey gripping my knee in a death grip while i facetiously joked about dad drafting off the car in front of him. ;o) ha. ha. ha.
but we did make it, sound of life and limb, and all tumbled out of the car. in retrospect, it must have appeared highly amusing to see five grown adults (three of whom are over 6' tall) and a 5-year-old all come out of a grand marquis sedan. lol! by now, it was approaching 7 pm, with the first ball scheduled for 7:15. the day had waned considerably, and the light was lower - dappled sunlight dancing through the leaves, and the park seemed to gleam in the setting sun. people streamed toward the building in a steady flow, populated largely with smiles and nods, and i snapped the obligatory pic or two of the whole crew standing outside the park.
once inside, we quickly found our seats (dad and m both proved they are cut from the same cloth when they both insisted to me, several times each, that i was leading us in the wrong direction; when it became obvious i was not doing that, and our seats were found without mishap, they both fell shamefacedly silent). i then realized how amazing our seats were. we were on the first baseline, 3 rows up from the field, within spitting distance of the first baseman and the home team's dugout. j kept shrieking, at the top of his blessed five-year-old lungs, about everything. "mama, look! grass!" "mama, look! i see a picture of virginia tech!" (the park had a commemorative VT logo, and all the players had the VT logo on their left sleeves - very nice). "mama, look! popcorn!" "mama, look! baseballs!" and so on. he was so excited he almost could not sit still.
m then departed with d in tow to score drinks for us. we had eaten at my mom's house before getting there, so i actually managed to get to the third inning before caving to the all-time siren song of cotton candy. and yes, i ate it. all of it. two bags! YEAH! i love cotton candy.
anyway, that's beside the point. this is about the game, not about my apparent mission to rot every tooth out of my mouth. right?
the announcer asked us all to direct our attention up. we all, as one body, obligingly looked up. (side note - isn't it funny how humans, en masse, seem to become almost of one mind and one accord in situations like that? it's like pavlov's dogs - put a pack of humans in a confined space, and they'll obey any disembodied voice over an amplifier). there was an airplane waaaaaaaay up there. and i do mean WAAAAAAAAY up there. i had thought originally they might have the blue angels, since they do that a lot, but then i realized this was something quite different. i saw pink smoke. yes, pink. i thought, "pink smoke?" right about then, j shrieked, "mama, look! PINK SMOKE!" presto, insta-confirmation! we all mumbled to one another, "pink smoke? pink smoke?" like some bad LSD trippers at a woodstock concert. soon, we saw a little black dot identifiable as a human. the pink smoke, inexplicably, was emitting from his....heels?
with a little help from the disembodied voice, we soon came to learn that these were navy and seal parachutists, and that some of them had sort of mini rockets (j's reaction? "mama, look! LITTLE ROCKETS!") strapped to their shoes, which allowed them to JET across the sky, careen wildly in dizzying circles, spiral in long lazy loops downward, and every other manuever you can possibly think of. it was, to be perfectly colloquial about it, VERY COOL.
we all oohed and aahed appropriately, and clapped thunderously when they were all down. one of the most spectacular parts was when two of the parachutists linked LEGS, at the knees, and came down together, with two chutes, and did not separate until they were nearly at field level. that requires some kind of skill, i know it.
then a choir from a local church sang the national anthem. there is just something about hearing children's voices sing such a simple, stirring song. it truly was moving - they sang with such belief, such gusto, and such clear simplicity - no one could hear it and not be genuinely moved by it.
then the first pitch - i missed who threw it out because j was back in his "mama, look!" raptured routine. he was delighted to find out that the tides had a #8 (his number in tee ball last year) who ALSO happened to play shortstop and second base (a position he played several times last year). so i, of course, had to take approximately fifty pictures of this one player. every time he came to bat, "mama, look! there he is! take a picture!" lol
the game began at 7:15 pm eastern. at approximately 7:17 pm eastern, we realized A Problem with our seats. any left-handed batter would be 99.999999% more likely to foul in our direction. and given how low we were sitting.... it would be likely to be a harder-to-field ball than, say, a long lazy lofty pop fly. but then we reasoned, "well, how many players are lefty anyway?" come to find out, a bunch of them! i would say, conservatively, about 60% of the players who batted for the other team were lefty. a lot of the tides were, too.
this led to what was easily the most amusing (and paradoxically, sweetest) spectacle of the entire game. each time the player batted, m would leap from his seat and try to shield us all from the potential incoming bullet. bless his heart. :o) one line drive curved sharply foul and literally whizzed past our heads and narrowly missed a woman 2 rows back - she was holding a sleeping baby, and never even saw it coming. another foul ball arched lazily over us, and landed smack in the middle of someone's slushie. rainbow slushie ice chips went flying everywhere. quite a catch. i've heard of spitballs, but slushieballs?
throughout the game, i took no small amount of delight in watching my dad explain various parts of the game to j, who listened intently. i put them beside one another for that very purpose. as the day wore on, and daylight ceded to darkness, the lights became ever brighter, and the whole scene took on an almost artificial look. it felt a little bit like the first time i saw "the wizard of oz" - the scene when dorothy emerges from her drab, dull house, canted at a wild angle, and walks out into the insta-technicolor world of munchkinland. it felt like that. improbably brilliant, impossibly colorful. the grass was too green. the lights were too bright. even the colors of the clothing on people around me seemed brighter, more intense, than usual. it was almost surreal. and oh! the air - it smelled wonderful. mingled popcorn, cotton candy, food scents, plus the sweetness of a southern summer night, the smell of the field, everything. it was a heady rush. overwhelming, in the best way possible. and watching my boy - how bright his eyes were, the intense focus he brought to the game, the way he cheered and clapped for each hit no matter who was hitting. absolutely wonderful.
some interesting comments he made during the game:
shortly after arriving, he scanned both teams, and then proclaimed with a faint air of disappointment, "there are no girls playing!"
about halfway through the third inning, my father was explaining "intentional walk" to j, who listened to the whole explanation, then declared absolutely unequivocally, "well, that's just cheating." (i had to admit, he had a point)
frequently throughout the entire game: "mama, did you SEE that! mama, did you SEE that! mama, DID YOU SEE THAT????"
and, my favorite - he said this upon arriving, as we were taking everything in: "boy, i wish c was here." melted my heart to hear him say he wished his little sister were there with us. big hug for that one.
we also (of course) visited the gift shop, where he picked out a giant foam finger. d picked out a hat, and i got c a cute little pink shirt that had the Tides logo on it.
we did leave after the 7th inning, both to beat traffic and because my dad and j were both tired.
thinking back on it, the things i remember the most intensely are just the feelings of overwhelming love, thankfulness and gratitude that we could do that, all be there together, sharing that experience together, and a deep sense of abiding peace. just to be there, sitting together with the people i love, sharing something so wonderful, was truly perfect. and the day could not have been more gloriously suited for baseball - it was truly one from the Book of Days. earmarked for us. and much loved.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
ice cream for breakfast
i gave j&c freezer pops for breakfast. or, rather, before breakfast. totally impractical, completely inappropriate, absolutely unhealthy, and terrifically fun. we're all sitting here munching, slurping, and licking icy-cold freezer pops and giggling over the fun of eating them before 0900 in the morning. :oD
sometimes, it's more fun to break the rules. :o)
sometimes, it's more fun to break the rules. :o)
friday randomania
well, once again, i find myself on friday, wondering where the heck my week went. :o) it was, overall, a good one, i think. it was marred somewhat by the fact j was sick (tonsillitis), but his amoxicillin is whipping that right into shape in short order, so that wasn't TOO horrid.
so, kind of a summary of the last week here!
saturday was a rough day - after c's vbs-vomit-comet episode friday night, she slept fitfully that night, woke up with a fever and a little fretful. she seemed to be feeling better as the day wore on, and cooler, but then she took her nap, woke up from her nap, and promptly threw up all over everything. her fever was back - it wasn't high enough to warrant serious concern, but it was enough to make us a little worried. she seemed in good spirits, so we headed off to my parent's house as planned for The Game with my dad.
by the time we got to their house, she was downright chirpy - but soon after we arrived, she sat down in my lap and didn't want me to put her down or let her go. so i snuggled her, and her skin kept getting warmer, so we put her in a cool bath. m, being his usual self, kept insisting we had to take her to the hospital. mom and i both made it clear that was REALLY not necessary, as she did not have *that* high a temperature. he kept insisting, though - sometimes i wonder if he just likes to create situations. who knows!
anyway, long story short, mom finally shooed us all out to the game with the logic that if we could just get away and stop hovering, then c could rest and her fever would probably break. she also promised to ring us up the minute anything changed, if it did change.
i'll put another post up after this one solely about the game, because it deserves its own post. for now, i will say it was a terrific experience, and mom called about halfway through the second inning to say that c's fever had broken and she was sleeping soundly.
after the game, we all trooped back to mom and dad's house, and bunked down in various places and sofas throughout the house. i slept in the same bed with c, in case she needed anything. j slept with my mom and my dad. m and d slept on sofas. all in all, it worked out fine, and everyone slept well. c woke up mid-o-night (closer to 0100, actually), and instead of waking me up, wandered into the other room and woke up d, who was sleeping on the sofa. he woke m up, who then came and got me. we got her changed, some fresh juice, and back to bed, where c promptly dozed back off, but i compulsively woke up every half hour to make sure she was still there. it was a nasty surprise to be woken by m with no sight of c in the room once already that night!
so sunday morning, i was sleepy as heck, but happy to see c feeling good and bounding around the room, giggling and laughing. however, j was not himself at all. he was talkative, but couldn't/wouldn't eat (he visibly gagged when he tried to eat his waffles, so i hastily pulled them away from him and said he could skip that), and there was just something off about the way he looked and felt. he was a little warm.
however, given c's 24-hour-fever, we assumed it was a bug that j now had. the plan had been for j&c to stay with my folks till tuesday to visit, and mom said it'd be fine, to go on home, he would be fine, etc.
monday, he was better, but still had a temp. by tuesday, he was consistently complaining of a sore throat, so mom took him to the dr. turns out j had tonsillitis! eesh. so they popped him some amoxicillin, and within 24 hours, he felt better, and within 48, he was back to bouncing off the walls, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed. so now, as of today, all is well from a health pov. lol
i always hate it when the kids are sick - for two reasons. one, i don't want them to be sick! and two, m always, always, A L W A Y S blows everything out of proportion! if they so much as sneeze cross-eyed, it becomes, "take them to the doctor! take them to the hospital!" eeeeeeegad. i mentioned something to his mom about it, and she laughed, and she said, "i'm afraid he gets that from ME!" i said, with a smile, "gee, thanks a lot!" i know he means well, and that helps, but it can create stress upon stress when the kids are sick and i feel like he is second-guessing my abilities to take care of them and to determine when they need to see a doctor.
i can't explain it, but i have always, always listened to my gut instinct. it just tells me what to do and when and whether or not to do something...and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. matter of fact, the times when i have steered myself wrong have been those times i IGNORED my gut instinct. but if i try to explain that to anyone else who doesn't do the same thing, i get the "ok, whatever" look and dismissal. lol.
i think some people override their gut instincts so much that the instinct either disappears, or the body/mind/soul (take your pick) forgets how to process it. sort of a desensitization of instinct.
anyhoo, on top of all that, work has been downright insane this week. one of my favorite customers has been in absolutely fine form (i.e., completely irrational), but on the bright side, i document stuff up the wazoo so it should all work out ok. i'm not too affected by it because, frankly, this is my job - NOT my life. my life is these two angels i've been blessed with. and they're a heckuva lot more fun than Mr. Irrational.
and cuter too, i bet!
oh, sunday after we dropped the kids off at my mom's, i took d to the local big shopping mall in newport news to spend the rest of his birthday money as planned. and yes, i know, i know, i KNOW i said i would buy myself some things.... i did buy myself one thing (two if you count lunch at the chinese place - $4.95 for enough food to feed a small platoon)... "all that jazz" (musical). i didn't buy myself anything else, though. i was too busy spending money on the kids. :oD lol!
we didn't get home till about 1800 sunday night. 1 mile from the house, the power steering on the truck went out. WOW! that sure is hard to drive. lol. so i got to deliver the Fun News to m, who promptly went absolutely nuts and swore he would kill the mechanic. see, the power steering (rack and pinion) on the truck went out about 3 weeks ago, and the mechanic "fixed" it.... but obviously not!! so after i extricated a promise from m that he would refrain from bodily harm, he and i made plans to get the truck in to the mechanic monday.
so monday was basically shot for him, since he is a salesman and has to drive to get to his jobs. he immediately insisted we had to buy another car. i told him we should wait to see what happened with the honda (still, as of this writing, NOT BACK IN MY DRIVEWAY) and the truck. got to the point of him actually looking up used cars for sale, then he talked to the mechanic and they loaned him a "dealer vehicle" (very nice of them, especially considering that they obviously didn't actually fix anything, eh wot?). the catch was that the dealer vehicle was for sale! lol. and he came home and presented it to me in a very salesmanesque manner - "look at the wheels! oh, and what a smoooooooth ride!" it is a 2006 jeep grand cherokee, laredo package. however, i've no interest in a new car - well, i do, but not in the attendant payments. :o) so then, tuesday, we got some bright news....the truck would be ready wednesday, and the honda thursday!
see, the man at the dealership decided to contact (imagine this) a honda dealership in richmond to try to fix the honda. THAT man was able to FIX the car IN TWO DAYS. let me say that again. TWO DAYS. whereas the other two mechanics had it for FIVE WEEKS combined. and all along, i had been saying we had to take it to a dealership to be fixed, and all along m kept saying it would be too expensive. well. lol. i'm not even going to touch that at this point. suffice it to say i think he definitely learned a lesson about hondas and repairs thereof. sometimes, and maybe this is terribly unchristian of me (matter of fact, i know it is), i really, really, really want to say, "SEE! I TOLD YOU!" but i don't. because, frankly, it would serve absolutely no purpose. and he's no idiot. he can see what's in front of him. so we'll let that one go....but i assure you, next time the honda has mechanical problems, there'll be no going anywhere except to a dealership. GUARANTEED.
(end rant)
so we did end up getting the truck back, but not until YESTERDAY (after they promised it wednesday) and the honda is still not ready, even though that was promised yesterday. and then i made The Mistake of asking m how much the bill for the truck was. he said $188 for the work/parts, and $100 for the tow. i pointed out that they ostensibly "fixed" this very same problem 3 weeks ago, and it immediately happened again, and they CHARGED us for labor and towing?? m kind of sort of somewhat agreed with me, and shrugged and said, "but whatcha gonna do?" in a sort of rhetorical way. i said, "well, i tell you what i plan to do. after we get the honda back and it is functioning properly, i plan to head on down to the mechanic and talk with ricky in person about how he handled these two situations, as well as the fact that he billed us for fixing the same problem again on the truck." michael visibly gulped and said, "well, please just wait until AFTER we get the honda back."
i said, "oh, i will. don't worry. but ricky and i have to have a little talk."
i'm an easygoing person, but i swear, the one thing that gets me every single time is businesses or people who say they will do something and then don't do it. that is just completely, completely unacceptable in my book. if you can do something, commit to it, then do it. if you cannot do something, say so, and don't commit to it. it is NOT rocket science, people. that, in my opinion, is one of the major faults of our society's underpinnings - the total lack of personal accountability and/or responsibility.
and i do plan to talk, kindly, firmly, and directly, with ricky, and i do plan to make sure he understands that i expect a refund on the labor and towing fees for the truck.
and lord help him if he tries to keep selling me that jeep cherokee! lol
well, i got kind of long-winded here. sorry about that. lol. i'm going to go ahead and bring this one to a close, and post another one (soon, hopefully) about the baseball game last weekend.
thanks for bearing with the bluster.
so, kind of a summary of the last week here!
saturday was a rough day - after c's vbs-vomit-comet episode friday night, she slept fitfully that night, woke up with a fever and a little fretful. she seemed to be feeling better as the day wore on, and cooler, but then she took her nap, woke up from her nap, and promptly threw up all over everything. her fever was back - it wasn't high enough to warrant serious concern, but it was enough to make us a little worried. she seemed in good spirits, so we headed off to my parent's house as planned for The Game with my dad.
by the time we got to their house, she was downright chirpy - but soon after we arrived, she sat down in my lap and didn't want me to put her down or let her go. so i snuggled her, and her skin kept getting warmer, so we put her in a cool bath. m, being his usual self, kept insisting we had to take her to the hospital. mom and i both made it clear that was REALLY not necessary, as she did not have *that* high a temperature. he kept insisting, though - sometimes i wonder if he just likes to create situations. who knows!
anyway, long story short, mom finally shooed us all out to the game with the logic that if we could just get away and stop hovering, then c could rest and her fever would probably break. she also promised to ring us up the minute anything changed, if it did change.
i'll put another post up after this one solely about the game, because it deserves its own post. for now, i will say it was a terrific experience, and mom called about halfway through the second inning to say that c's fever had broken and she was sleeping soundly.
after the game, we all trooped back to mom and dad's house, and bunked down in various places and sofas throughout the house. i slept in the same bed with c, in case she needed anything. j slept with my mom and my dad. m and d slept on sofas. all in all, it worked out fine, and everyone slept well. c woke up mid-o-night (closer to 0100, actually), and instead of waking me up, wandered into the other room and woke up d, who was sleeping on the sofa. he woke m up, who then came and got me. we got her changed, some fresh juice, and back to bed, where c promptly dozed back off, but i compulsively woke up every half hour to make sure she was still there. it was a nasty surprise to be woken by m with no sight of c in the room once already that night!
so sunday morning, i was sleepy as heck, but happy to see c feeling good and bounding around the room, giggling and laughing. however, j was not himself at all. he was talkative, but couldn't/wouldn't eat (he visibly gagged when he tried to eat his waffles, so i hastily pulled them away from him and said he could skip that), and there was just something off about the way he looked and felt. he was a little warm.
however, given c's 24-hour-fever, we assumed it was a bug that j now had. the plan had been for j&c to stay with my folks till tuesday to visit, and mom said it'd be fine, to go on home, he would be fine, etc.
monday, he was better, but still had a temp. by tuesday, he was consistently complaining of a sore throat, so mom took him to the dr. turns out j had tonsillitis! eesh. so they popped him some amoxicillin, and within 24 hours, he felt better, and within 48, he was back to bouncing off the walls, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed. so now, as of today, all is well from a health pov. lol
i always hate it when the kids are sick - for two reasons. one, i don't want them to be sick! and two, m always, always, A L W A Y S blows everything out of proportion! if they so much as sneeze cross-eyed, it becomes, "take them to the doctor! take them to the hospital!" eeeeeeegad. i mentioned something to his mom about it, and she laughed, and she said, "i'm afraid he gets that from ME!" i said, with a smile, "gee, thanks a lot!" i know he means well, and that helps, but it can create stress upon stress when the kids are sick and i feel like he is second-guessing my abilities to take care of them and to determine when they need to see a doctor.
i can't explain it, but i have always, always listened to my gut instinct. it just tells me what to do and when and whether or not to do something...and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. matter of fact, the times when i have steered myself wrong have been those times i IGNORED my gut instinct. but if i try to explain that to anyone else who doesn't do the same thing, i get the "ok, whatever" look and dismissal. lol.
i think some people override their gut instincts so much that the instinct either disappears, or the body/mind/soul (take your pick) forgets how to process it. sort of a desensitization of instinct.
anyhoo, on top of all that, work has been downright insane this week. one of my favorite customers has been in absolutely fine form (i.e., completely irrational), but on the bright side, i document stuff up the wazoo so it should all work out ok. i'm not too affected by it because, frankly, this is my job - NOT my life. my life is these two angels i've been blessed with. and they're a heckuva lot more fun than Mr. Irrational.
and cuter too, i bet!
oh, sunday after we dropped the kids off at my mom's, i took d to the local big shopping mall in newport news to spend the rest of his birthday money as planned. and yes, i know, i know, i KNOW i said i would buy myself some things.... i did buy myself one thing (two if you count lunch at the chinese place - $4.95 for enough food to feed a small platoon)... "all that jazz" (musical). i didn't buy myself anything else, though. i was too busy spending money on the kids. :oD lol!
we didn't get home till about 1800 sunday night. 1 mile from the house, the power steering on the truck went out. WOW! that sure is hard to drive. lol. so i got to deliver the Fun News to m, who promptly went absolutely nuts and swore he would kill the mechanic. see, the power steering (rack and pinion) on the truck went out about 3 weeks ago, and the mechanic "fixed" it.... but obviously not!! so after i extricated a promise from m that he would refrain from bodily harm, he and i made plans to get the truck in to the mechanic monday.
so monday was basically shot for him, since he is a salesman and has to drive to get to his jobs. he immediately insisted we had to buy another car. i told him we should wait to see what happened with the honda (still, as of this writing, NOT BACK IN MY DRIVEWAY) and the truck. got to the point of him actually looking up used cars for sale, then he talked to the mechanic and they loaned him a "dealer vehicle" (very nice of them, especially considering that they obviously didn't actually fix anything, eh wot?). the catch was that the dealer vehicle was for sale! lol. and he came home and presented it to me in a very salesmanesque manner - "look at the wheels! oh, and what a smoooooooth ride!" it is a 2006 jeep grand cherokee, laredo package. however, i've no interest in a new car - well, i do, but not in the attendant payments. :o) so then, tuesday, we got some bright news....the truck would be ready wednesday, and the honda thursday!
see, the man at the dealership decided to contact (imagine this) a honda dealership in richmond to try to fix the honda. THAT man was able to FIX the car IN TWO DAYS. let me say that again. TWO DAYS. whereas the other two mechanics had it for FIVE WEEKS combined. and all along, i had been saying we had to take it to a dealership to be fixed, and all along m kept saying it would be too expensive. well. lol. i'm not even going to touch that at this point. suffice it to say i think he definitely learned a lesson about hondas and repairs thereof. sometimes, and maybe this is terribly unchristian of me (matter of fact, i know it is), i really, really, really want to say, "SEE! I TOLD YOU!" but i don't. because, frankly, it would serve absolutely no purpose. and he's no idiot. he can see what's in front of him. so we'll let that one go....but i assure you, next time the honda has mechanical problems, there'll be no going anywhere except to a dealership. GUARANTEED.
(end rant)
so we did end up getting the truck back, but not until YESTERDAY (after they promised it wednesday) and the honda is still not ready, even though that was promised yesterday. and then i made The Mistake of asking m how much the bill for the truck was. he said $188 for the work/parts, and $100 for the tow. i pointed out that they ostensibly "fixed" this very same problem 3 weeks ago, and it immediately happened again, and they CHARGED us for labor and towing?? m kind of sort of somewhat agreed with me, and shrugged and said, "but whatcha gonna do?" in a sort of rhetorical way. i said, "well, i tell you what i plan to do. after we get the honda back and it is functioning properly, i plan to head on down to the mechanic and talk with ricky in person about how he handled these two situations, as well as the fact that he billed us for fixing the same problem again on the truck." michael visibly gulped and said, "well, please just wait until AFTER we get the honda back."
i said, "oh, i will. don't worry. but ricky and i have to have a little talk."
i'm an easygoing person, but i swear, the one thing that gets me every single time is businesses or people who say they will do something and then don't do it. that is just completely, completely unacceptable in my book. if you can do something, commit to it, then do it. if you cannot do something, say so, and don't commit to it. it is NOT rocket science, people. that, in my opinion, is one of the major faults of our society's underpinnings - the total lack of personal accountability and/or responsibility.
and i do plan to talk, kindly, firmly, and directly, with ricky, and i do plan to make sure he understands that i expect a refund on the labor and towing fees for the truck.
and lord help him if he tries to keep selling me that jeep cherokee! lol
well, i got kind of long-winded here. sorry about that. lol. i'm going to go ahead and bring this one to a close, and post another one (soon, hopefully) about the baseball game last weekend.
thanks for bearing with the bluster.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
the weekend!
hoo-rah! it's the weekend! of course, yesterday was technically the beginning of my weekend, since i'm off every friday, but we spent most of the day at the children's hospital in norfolk getting c's second ci flipped on and programmed... and while it was a terrific experience, it was also wearing because she vacillated wildly between loving the new ear and freaking out over the fact she could now hear something out of her left ear. long story short... i am glad it's done. :o)
then we finally got home at about 2 or so, and i put her into bed for a very (very) late nap, which was even more disorienting for her but i didn't have any choice - she was so tired she was nodding off all the way home! she promptly fell asleep, but only slept about an hour, and woke up super C R A N K Y. which is very, VERY unusual for her, but i guess in light of the events of the day, understandable. so she was fretful, off and on, refused to eat dinner, and then we went to the last day of vbs. there, she had a complete and total meltdown - she played fine for about an hour, then she wanted to sit in my lap and just twirl my hair around her finger, then she freaked out when i scolded her for pushing another child. all i said was, "you don't do that, no no!" she just MELTED. i guess she was in an emotionally fragile state. ;o) so she was weeping copiously, and i was holding her, and she was snuffling and blowing her nose in my shirt and hair (yum!) and then suddenly, she gagged. i, ever alert for the impending Vomit Comet, leaped for the bathroom door which, THANK GOODNESS, was only about 3 feet away from me. holding her in front of me sort of like a human shield (that is, if human shields vomited), i fled for the toilet and aimed her in the general direction of it just in time for the entire contents of her stomach to be thoroughly, completely, without-a-doubt regurgitated.
those of you who know me know i have much experience with vomit, thanks to j, otherwise known as Vomit Comet Senior. so it doesn't really faze me... that's not to say i LIKE cleaning it up, but hey. at least i can do it without upchucking my own self (unlike m, who has great difficulty cleaning vomit up without gagging, so i usually do it as i do not want to clean up after him too ;o) ).
so i got her cleaned up, wiped the bathroom floor up, etc., and tried to comfort her. she was in FULL wail mode by this point - tired, upset, emotionally strung out, and she had just puked all over everything and herself. i was already a little tired myself from the very, very long (but very good) day, and my back was absolutely killing me. i don't know what is going ON there, but let's just say the smell of ben-gay is becoming my new perfume. it's all the rage in gay paree this season, i hear...... ;o)
so i texted m from the church to let him know we were on our way home, pukey and tired, and for him to draw c a quick bath so i could get her cleaned up before bed. well, in the truck, she puked again. and again. so by now i am a little concerned, because this goes beyond "just being tired" or whatever. then i notice she has a pretty good temperature running, so i am definitely a little on mommy alert at this point, running through all possible signs from the last 24 hours of anything.... realized she had been a little off her feed, but i had attributed to that to the excitement of the ci - however, now i think it was more due to whatever was wrong with her than that.
so we got home, i gave her a nice, cool bath, washed her top to toe - she kept her eyes mostly closed through the whole bath, half asleep, so i got her dressed, tucked her into bed with a nice warm bottle of milk, and she was out before i got to the door.
then i settled in to watch a movie with m and d - "the matador," with pierce brosnan. it was hysterically funny by turns, but also surprisingly profound in bits and pieces. i enjoyed it quite a bit - it's certainly a departure from his usual fare, i'll say that much. :o) sort of a dark comedy, i guess you would call it.
well, just as the movie was approaching its climax, what should i hear but the plaintive wail of MAAAAA-MAAAAA! coming from c's room. pause button. trundle down the hall. weeping baby standing at her door snuffling and sniffling and holding her arms out. scooped her up (with many complaints from my back) and got her diaper changed, and went into the kitchen to get her some juice to drink. by the time i got back to her room, she was already fast asleep again! lol. so i tucked her juice in beside her, and went back out and finished up the movie.
it was about 11:15 by now, so i said, ok, off to bed with me..... no sooner did i walk down the hall than i hear MAAAA-MAAAAA....MAAAA(sobbing)MAAAA.... so back i go. she was at her door. crying. so i got into bed with her - by this point, she is DEFINITELY burning up - i gave her some tylenol and we laid down together. she tossed and turned, but finally conked back out, as did i.
5 this morning, i feel a little fat finger poking me insistently in my ribs. i squeezed my eyes shut, thinking if i just played possum, she'd go back to sleep. well, guess what. that doesn't work! ;o) lol. so i got up, stumbled to the kitchen (not very well-coordinated at 5 am), got some juice and water for her, back to the bedroom, changed her diaper, and laid down and closed my eyes. she tried, half-heartedly, to wake me up for about 5 minutes, then i felt her lay down and settle into a very calm position, and she fell back sleep until 6:30.
now 6:30, while still agonizingly early for me, is a whole lot better than 5! so we got on up, into the family room, turned on the ever-present spongebob, and i laid down on the sofa, and she sat on me (her favorite thing to do). well, after about 10 or 15 minutes, she laid down on me with her head on my chest. i just absentmindedly rubbed her back while pondering the many unexplainably wise things about spongebob.... and then i felt her drooling on my arm. realized she was asleep!!! so i laid there, in this sort of semi-contorted position, for another hour while she dozed. :o) well worth it, as when she woke up, she was considerably cooler, considerably happier, and bouncing off the walls. YAY MOMMY POWER! YEAH!
lol
then j woke up whining, "i have a sore throoooooat, mommy! IT HURTS!" i thought, lord, why? lol i should explain - today is my daddy's birthday, and as a surprise we are all taking him to see a norfolk tides baseball game tonight. dad is a huge baseball fan, and j has never been to a "real" game before, so it'll be terrific. however, of all days for the kids to be less than 100%, ya know?! however, i dosed him with some cold meds (we have all been sneezing and sniffling a bit) and gave him some ice water, and once he had breakfast, he said he felt "mostly" better. i gave him a nutty buddy - that topped him over into the "all better" category. ;o)
oh, i forgot to mention, fire hydrant lady was back at vbs last night. lol last night's topics of conversation were how she disciplines her children (often and heavily) and her mother-in-law. that, plus the c puke episode, made last night most memorable. ;o) 'nuff said, my friends. 'nuff said!
so today is going to be busy bee. the plan is for me to pack the kids' stuff pretty soon here (c is napping), do some laundry (ever-present!), then we're leaving at about 3:30 to go to my parent's house and surprise my dad. can't wait. :o) mom is in on the gig, but dad has no idea.... it will be so cool. i love my daddy. :oD
i did talk to my mom about keeping j&c tomorrow through tuesday, as she hasn't had a visit with them in a while THANKS TO THE FACT I DO NOT HAVE A CAR *ahem*. she said she'd love to... so that means tomorrow night i can take d to the mall to spend the rest of his birthday money, and maybe find myself a few pretty somethings. although i have profound difficulty spending money on myself, i need to try that. :o) then monday and tuesday will be MINE. ALL MINE. hooray!
i just got the tickets printed for tonight. it is going to be *so fun*. daddy is so hard to shop for - one of those "oh, i have everything i need don't buy me anything" types, but i want to give him something because lord knows he has done more than i could ever talk about for ME! so the baseball game was m's idea, and what a terrific idea it was! they are a minor league team - so the ticket prices were insanely reasonable - $11 for box seats. gotta love it, eh wot? :oD
of course, the food will probably be prohibitively expensive. the tough part is going to be keeping daddy from buying US dinner. lol!
potty training update - c is doing ok with it. she kind of goes off and on with the whole potty thing - sometimes she'll tell me she has to go potty BEFORE she actually has to go, but sometimes it's a little after the fact. ;o) it's kind of a back and forth thing. i've actually set up a reminder on my cell now to remind me every half hour to take her to the potty and see if she has to go... maybe that will help. we'll see! oh, i learned A Very Important Lesson this morning. do not ever - repeat - EVER leave a two-year-old in a bathroom unattended, even for two seconds, while she is on the potty. i did that this morning - walked into the attached bedroom (my room) to get something, peeped back in, and found that my little sweet girl had disappeared and been replaced by something resembling a toddler mummy. coincidentally, the toilet paper roll was nearly empty...................
and yes, it was doggone funny. *snickering* *marsing* *milky waying* *three musketeering* *butterfingering* (killing the joke here)
i am currently purchasing tickets for "walking with dinosaurs" for j's birthday in september. my parents are giving him 2 tickets (i'll be the one taking him) to go see this AMAZING live-animation dinosaur show. it's a $12M budget show, and if you go to ticketmaster.com, look it up, and look for the movie - or try this link, see if it works: http://media.livedaily.com/tmvideo/wwdinosaurs_1117759.html
it looks AMAZING. and we scored awesome seats, head-on to the stage area, so - it should be interesting. he'll either love it or be terrified of it. ;o) probably both! i should point out the dinosaurs are going to be pretty close to what size they WERE when they were alive. in other words - H U G E!
and while i'm on the subject of tickets, i have a problem with ticketmaster! what is WITH the time limits on every page? i don't object to the time limits in general, but my lord, some of them are prohibitive! i type fast, and i barely make it under the gun... lol! YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO COMPLETE THIS PAGE. and there's something like 10 fields to fill out. rofl. whatever! ;o) it does give one a sense of accomplishment to actually purchase tickets, put in fresh credit card information into one's account, and do it all under the gun.
ok, i got the tickets! j is going to DIE. he is going to absolutely die. lol. it looks like an amazing show, i have to admit. i hope that movie link works. the show is not a movie - it is actual live animation dinosaur models that, apparently, move amazingly realistically, roar, stalk prey, everything. the terrific thing is that the show is running right over j's birthday weekend in september, so i can take him to see the show on sunday after his birthday on saturday. perfect! :o)
so that's about it from la la land here in hicksville, usa. ;o) i better get my patootie into gear - with my back hurting, it takes a little longer to do what needs doing, but it'll get done. you know that. ;o)
tonight is going to be fabulous... i'm going to take scads of pictures, and j is going to wear his tee-ball baseball cap, and take his glove, "just in case, mama, they might hit a ball up to me!" ;o) i love that boy to pieces.
ta-ta!
then we finally got home at about 2 or so, and i put her into bed for a very (very) late nap, which was even more disorienting for her but i didn't have any choice - she was so tired she was nodding off all the way home! she promptly fell asleep, but only slept about an hour, and woke up super C R A N K Y. which is very, VERY unusual for her, but i guess in light of the events of the day, understandable. so she was fretful, off and on, refused to eat dinner, and then we went to the last day of vbs. there, she had a complete and total meltdown - she played fine for about an hour, then she wanted to sit in my lap and just twirl my hair around her finger, then she freaked out when i scolded her for pushing another child. all i said was, "you don't do that, no no!" she just MELTED. i guess she was in an emotionally fragile state. ;o) so she was weeping copiously, and i was holding her, and she was snuffling and blowing her nose in my shirt and hair (yum!) and then suddenly, she gagged. i, ever alert for the impending Vomit Comet, leaped for the bathroom door which, THANK GOODNESS, was only about 3 feet away from me. holding her in front of me sort of like a human shield (that is, if human shields vomited), i fled for the toilet and aimed her in the general direction of it just in time for the entire contents of her stomach to be thoroughly, completely, without-a-doubt regurgitated.
those of you who know me know i have much experience with vomit, thanks to j, otherwise known as Vomit Comet Senior. so it doesn't really faze me... that's not to say i LIKE cleaning it up, but hey. at least i can do it without upchucking my own self (unlike m, who has great difficulty cleaning vomit up without gagging, so i usually do it as i do not want to clean up after him too ;o) ).
so i got her cleaned up, wiped the bathroom floor up, etc., and tried to comfort her. she was in FULL wail mode by this point - tired, upset, emotionally strung out, and she had just puked all over everything and herself. i was already a little tired myself from the very, very long (but very good) day, and my back was absolutely killing me. i don't know what is going ON there, but let's just say the smell of ben-gay is becoming my new perfume. it's all the rage in gay paree this season, i hear...... ;o)
so i texted m from the church to let him know we were on our way home, pukey and tired, and for him to draw c a quick bath so i could get her cleaned up before bed. well, in the truck, she puked again. and again. so by now i am a little concerned, because this goes beyond "just being tired" or whatever. then i notice she has a pretty good temperature running, so i am definitely a little on mommy alert at this point, running through all possible signs from the last 24 hours of anything.... realized she had been a little off her feed, but i had attributed to that to the excitement of the ci - however, now i think it was more due to whatever was wrong with her than that.
so we got home, i gave her a nice, cool bath, washed her top to toe - she kept her eyes mostly closed through the whole bath, half asleep, so i got her dressed, tucked her into bed with a nice warm bottle of milk, and she was out before i got to the door.
then i settled in to watch a movie with m and d - "the matador," with pierce brosnan. it was hysterically funny by turns, but also surprisingly profound in bits and pieces. i enjoyed it quite a bit - it's certainly a departure from his usual fare, i'll say that much. :o) sort of a dark comedy, i guess you would call it.
well, just as the movie was approaching its climax, what should i hear but the plaintive wail of MAAAAA-MAAAAA! coming from c's room. pause button. trundle down the hall. weeping baby standing at her door snuffling and sniffling and holding her arms out. scooped her up (with many complaints from my back) and got her diaper changed, and went into the kitchen to get her some juice to drink. by the time i got back to her room, she was already fast asleep again! lol. so i tucked her juice in beside her, and went back out and finished up the movie.
it was about 11:15 by now, so i said, ok, off to bed with me..... no sooner did i walk down the hall than i hear MAAAA-MAAAAA....MAAAA(sobbing)MAAAA.... so back i go. she was at her door. crying. so i got into bed with her - by this point, she is DEFINITELY burning up - i gave her some tylenol and we laid down together. she tossed and turned, but finally conked back out, as did i.
5 this morning, i feel a little fat finger poking me insistently in my ribs. i squeezed my eyes shut, thinking if i just played possum, she'd go back to sleep. well, guess what. that doesn't work! ;o) lol. so i got up, stumbled to the kitchen (not very well-coordinated at 5 am), got some juice and water for her, back to the bedroom, changed her diaper, and laid down and closed my eyes. she tried, half-heartedly, to wake me up for about 5 minutes, then i felt her lay down and settle into a very calm position, and she fell back sleep until 6:30.
now 6:30, while still agonizingly early for me, is a whole lot better than 5! so we got on up, into the family room, turned on the ever-present spongebob, and i laid down on the sofa, and she sat on me (her favorite thing to do). well, after about 10 or 15 minutes, she laid down on me with her head on my chest. i just absentmindedly rubbed her back while pondering the many unexplainably wise things about spongebob.... and then i felt her drooling on my arm. realized she was asleep!!! so i laid there, in this sort of semi-contorted position, for another hour while she dozed. :o) well worth it, as when she woke up, she was considerably cooler, considerably happier, and bouncing off the walls. YAY MOMMY POWER! YEAH!
lol
then j woke up whining, "i have a sore throoooooat, mommy! IT HURTS!" i thought, lord, why? lol i should explain - today is my daddy's birthday, and as a surprise we are all taking him to see a norfolk tides baseball game tonight. dad is a huge baseball fan, and j has never been to a "real" game before, so it'll be terrific. however, of all days for the kids to be less than 100%, ya know?! however, i dosed him with some cold meds (we have all been sneezing and sniffling a bit) and gave him some ice water, and once he had breakfast, he said he felt "mostly" better. i gave him a nutty buddy - that topped him over into the "all better" category. ;o)
oh, i forgot to mention, fire hydrant lady was back at vbs last night. lol last night's topics of conversation were how she disciplines her children (often and heavily) and her mother-in-law. that, plus the c puke episode, made last night most memorable. ;o) 'nuff said, my friends. 'nuff said!
so today is going to be busy bee. the plan is for me to pack the kids' stuff pretty soon here (c is napping), do some laundry (ever-present!), then we're leaving at about 3:30 to go to my parent's house and surprise my dad. can't wait. :o) mom is in on the gig, but dad has no idea.... it will be so cool. i love my daddy. :oD
i did talk to my mom about keeping j&c tomorrow through tuesday, as she hasn't had a visit with them in a while THANKS TO THE FACT I DO NOT HAVE A CAR *ahem*. she said she'd love to... so that means tomorrow night i can take d to the mall to spend the rest of his birthday money, and maybe find myself a few pretty somethings. although i have profound difficulty spending money on myself, i need to try that. :o) then monday and tuesday will be MINE. ALL MINE. hooray!
i just got the tickets printed for tonight. it is going to be *so fun*. daddy is so hard to shop for - one of those "oh, i have everything i need don't buy me anything" types, but i want to give him something because lord knows he has done more than i could ever talk about for ME! so the baseball game was m's idea, and what a terrific idea it was! they are a minor league team - so the ticket prices were insanely reasonable - $11 for box seats. gotta love it, eh wot? :oD
of course, the food will probably be prohibitively expensive. the tough part is going to be keeping daddy from buying US dinner. lol!
potty training update - c is doing ok with it. she kind of goes off and on with the whole potty thing - sometimes she'll tell me she has to go potty BEFORE she actually has to go, but sometimes it's a little after the fact. ;o) it's kind of a back and forth thing. i've actually set up a reminder on my cell now to remind me every half hour to take her to the potty and see if she has to go... maybe that will help. we'll see! oh, i learned A Very Important Lesson this morning. do not ever - repeat - EVER leave a two-year-old in a bathroom unattended, even for two seconds, while she is on the potty. i did that this morning - walked into the attached bedroom (my room) to get something, peeped back in, and found that my little sweet girl had disappeared and been replaced by something resembling a toddler mummy. coincidentally, the toilet paper roll was nearly empty...................
and yes, it was doggone funny. *snickering* *marsing* *milky waying* *three musketeering* *butterfingering* (killing the joke here)
i am currently purchasing tickets for "walking with dinosaurs" for j's birthday in september. my parents are giving him 2 tickets (i'll be the one taking him) to go see this AMAZING live-animation dinosaur show. it's a $12M budget show, and if you go to ticketmaster.com, look it up, and look for the movie - or try this link, see if it works: http://media.livedaily.com/tmvideo/wwdinosaurs_1117759.html
it looks AMAZING. and we scored awesome seats, head-on to the stage area, so - it should be interesting. he'll either love it or be terrified of it. ;o) probably both! i should point out the dinosaurs are going to be pretty close to what size they WERE when they were alive. in other words - H U G E!
and while i'm on the subject of tickets, i have a problem with ticketmaster! what is WITH the time limits on every page? i don't object to the time limits in general, but my lord, some of them are prohibitive! i type fast, and i barely make it under the gun... lol! YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO COMPLETE THIS PAGE. and there's something like 10 fields to fill out. rofl. whatever! ;o) it does give one a sense of accomplishment to actually purchase tickets, put in fresh credit card information into one's account, and do it all under the gun.
ok, i got the tickets! j is going to DIE. he is going to absolutely die. lol. it looks like an amazing show, i have to admit. i hope that movie link works. the show is not a movie - it is actual live animation dinosaur models that, apparently, move amazingly realistically, roar, stalk prey, everything. the terrific thing is that the show is running right over j's birthday weekend in september, so i can take him to see the show on sunday after his birthday on saturday. perfect! :o)
so that's about it from la la land here in hicksville, usa. ;o) i better get my patootie into gear - with my back hurting, it takes a little longer to do what needs doing, but it'll get done. you know that. ;o)
tonight is going to be fabulous... i'm going to take scads of pictures, and j is going to wear his tee-ball baseball cap, and take his glove, "just in case, mama, they might hit a ball up to me!" ;o) i love that boy to pieces.
ta-ta!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
c and ci #2
i just posted a long ramble, but this deserves its very own post.
tomorrow is the day the audiologist turns on c's second ci (her left ear). i am so excited about it i could pop - it will be such a blessing for her, and it makes me stop and think about how amazing the medical advances have been just over the last 20 or 30 years. when i was a child, this kind of thing was really just starting to become a potential reality, but even then, it was very primitive compared to how it is now.... and now i have my little princess, and she will have the ability to hear, out of both ears, from the time she is 2 and a half onward. imagine what a profound difference that will make in her life!
i'm forever grateful, and i think maybe this is a good place to post something i wrote a few weeks ago. it's just sort of a thinking-out-loud piece...not meant to be anything of pure significance beyond a sentimental level.
Paper or plastic? The sound startled me out of my grocery-list induced reverie, and I quickly answered the quizzical cashier. However, this simple exchange would have been impossible just two years ago – before my entry into the world of sound.
The birth of a child, always a joyous event, brought double blessings for us when C was born in 2004; she was born deaf, but that meant she and I both found out we were candidates for cochlear implants in early 2005.
What most intrigues me is how differently we have responded to our aural stimulations; while I had 28 years of either silence or hearing-aid-amplified vibrato noise behind me, she had a clean slate, to be clichéd about it. While I marveled at the most inane things, such as the sound a plastic bag makes when it is crumpled up, or at the most soul-lifting things, such as a robin singing madcap to the sky, I watched her easily, quickly take her “new ear” for granted.
Is this a good thing? How could it be otherwise? Granting a child – indeed, anyone – the opportunity to replace a lost sense can only be a blessing. However, when people tell me, “You must be so happy!” upon finding out that C has her implant, I always think – Yes, I am happy, but not for the reasons you think.
Being able to retreat from a world of sound into a world of silence is its own blessing; there are days when, as a busy working mother, it is a boon to be able to remove the processor at night and relax into a world where the only intrusions are visual or touch. On the other side of things, it also forces you to become more attuned to the world – to see things you wouldn’t see otherwise. To read people’s body language. To find the slight flicker of something in a soul’s eyes. When you are not “listening,” often, you truly hear.
That’s not to say I would ever trade this experience; the pure, simple joy of hearing my son J's voice in the morning, chattering happily to his dog as he comes downstairs, or the delightful high-pitched tinkling laugh of C as she chases her big brother around the room. The rumble of my husband M's voice in the evenings when he comes home. The delight of being able to pick up the telephone and call him and have a boring, sensible, and utterly wonderful conversation about stopping by the store for some milk. The inexplicable, soul-searing experience of listening to music. The happiness that comes from all of these things cannot, and should not, ever be replaced or underestimated.
Still, even as I watch C, watch her make her way through the many notes of each day, scaling scores with ease, finding new sounds and new words, and taking it all completely, wonderfully for granted, I find myself thinking how grateful I am that she, much like her mother, has the option of inhabiting, and appreciating, both perfect worlds.
tomorrow is the day the audiologist turns on c's second ci (her left ear). i am so excited about it i could pop - it will be such a blessing for her, and it makes me stop and think about how amazing the medical advances have been just over the last 20 or 30 years. when i was a child, this kind of thing was really just starting to become a potential reality, but even then, it was very primitive compared to how it is now.... and now i have my little princess, and she will have the ability to hear, out of both ears, from the time she is 2 and a half onward. imagine what a profound difference that will make in her life!
i'm forever grateful, and i think maybe this is a good place to post something i wrote a few weeks ago. it's just sort of a thinking-out-loud piece...not meant to be anything of pure significance beyond a sentimental level.
Paper or plastic? The sound startled me out of my grocery-list induced reverie, and I quickly answered the quizzical cashier. However, this simple exchange would have been impossible just two years ago – before my entry into the world of sound.
The birth of a child, always a joyous event, brought double blessings for us when C was born in 2004; she was born deaf, but that meant she and I both found out we were candidates for cochlear implants in early 2005.
What most intrigues me is how differently we have responded to our aural stimulations; while I had 28 years of either silence or hearing-aid-amplified vibrato noise behind me, she had a clean slate, to be clichéd about it. While I marveled at the most inane things, such as the sound a plastic bag makes when it is crumpled up, or at the most soul-lifting things, such as a robin singing madcap to the sky, I watched her easily, quickly take her “new ear” for granted.
Is this a good thing? How could it be otherwise? Granting a child – indeed, anyone – the opportunity to replace a lost sense can only be a blessing. However, when people tell me, “You must be so happy!” upon finding out that C has her implant, I always think – Yes, I am happy, but not for the reasons you think.
Being able to retreat from a world of sound into a world of silence is its own blessing; there are days when, as a busy working mother, it is a boon to be able to remove the processor at night and relax into a world where the only intrusions are visual or touch. On the other side of things, it also forces you to become more attuned to the world – to see things you wouldn’t see otherwise. To read people’s body language. To find the slight flicker of something in a soul’s eyes. When you are not “listening,” often, you truly hear.
That’s not to say I would ever trade this experience; the pure, simple joy of hearing my son J's voice in the morning, chattering happily to his dog as he comes downstairs, or the delightful high-pitched tinkling laugh of C as she chases her big brother around the room. The rumble of my husband M's voice in the evenings when he comes home. The delight of being able to pick up the telephone and call him and have a boring, sensible, and utterly wonderful conversation about stopping by the store for some milk. The inexplicable, soul-searing experience of listening to music. The happiness that comes from all of these things cannot, and should not, ever be replaced or underestimated.
Still, even as I watch C, watch her make her way through the many notes of each day, scaling scores with ease, finding new sounds and new words, and taking it all completely, wonderfully for granted, I find myself thinking how grateful I am that she, much like her mother, has the option of inhabiting, and appreciating, both perfect worlds.
where did the week go?
it's thursday! obvious, maybe, but i'm amazed - where has the week gone? it's been a crazier-than-usual one, because j&c have vacation bible school all week this week, and it's at *night*. which, to me, is just entirely contrary to the whole concept of vbs as a whole, in terms of planning. every vbs i ever attended (and i attended a boatload of 'em) was during the day, usually in the morning. i guess they put this at night to work with the folks who have to go off to jobs and could not help during the day. but man. it makes for a crazy schedule, because the church is a 15 minute drive from here, and vbs doesn't begin until 1830.....i have to be there early to help because i volunteered to help with the little ones in cate's group so i could be with her. so i stop work at about 1630 or 1700, shove dinner into everyone's gullets, get the kids changed, and hit the road by 1800. oh, and i also fit a 2 mile walk in there somewhere, so i have to get a quick shower too so i don't clear the church. ;o)
so between work, housekeeping stuff, kids, and vbs, this week has literally flown by. almost the only time i am not moving is when i am asleep! lol. it's been a good week, though, although one of the ladies i'm in vbs with is a unique person in that she is a) an expert on every topic in the entire world, bar none, and b) is one of those folks who likes you to know every...single...thing about her, her life, her family, her opinions, her politics, her religion, and her children, within 5 minutes of meeting you. it's a fire hydrant conversation - it all rushes out at you, and all you can do is try to stay on your feet. ;o) she seems nice enough, which is good - it helps offset the TMI aspect of being in the same room with her. i do pretty well holding my own, conversationally, but by the time we leave and come home, i am so ready to leave. lol!
as an example! 10 minutes after i met her, she was giving me a detailed story of how she was in a car crash with her sister and her cousin when she was 17, and her cousin was driving the car, and she was in the front passenger seat, and her sister was in the back seat. apparently, there was a head-on with another car, and this woman was the only survivor. frankly, that's mind-blowing in and of itself, and no doubt it is a tremendous story, but that's a lot to lay on someone 10 minutes after you meet them, yeah? anyhoo, she has some interesting viewpoints, and we have had some fun discussions, so all is not lost. i have been listening to her talk for 3 nights now, and i strongly suspect she feels like no one listens to her at home - her mother in law lives with her, and there is a language barrier (MIL is from columbia, speaks almost no english), and both of her children are still very young (2 and 4), and from what she says, her husband is not all that good at communication. so i suspect she is overcompensating for that by unloading on anyone in the vicinity.... and i can completely understand that, so i listen. :o)
last night at vbs was particularly funny, though - in c's group, there are four little children - daisy, c, keegan, and jonathan. normally, keegan cries each night when his mama drops him off - and cries and cries for about 15 or 20 minutes, then it's done and he's good to go till the next night. last night was no exception. but when i got there, daisy was crying, which was so unusual - and it took me a while to settle her down. it was a funny feeling, trying to comfort another child besides my own - i know exactly what to say or do to make my own feel better, and i know how they fit in my arms, in my lap - but this was a strange little body, lighter than i'm used to, a different shape, a different smell - it's funny how that affects your interactions with the child. but i did eventually get her to start giggling by pretending a toy tractor was colliding with us repeatedly, and by making razzberry noises with my lips. soon, she was all smiles and giggles. WHEW. lol!
j is also loving vbs - he is old enough now to really be into this kind of thing, and he looks forward to it each night. the theme for the vbs is tumbleweed gulch, so it's all very western-themed... he wears his black cowboy hat each night when we go to VBS. so, so, so cute. my lil' cowpoke. :o)
the home life is pretty good. kind of a blur for this week, to be honest, but still good. yesterday was crazy. i had to do 6 loads of laundry, and i just did laundry what, last weekend? sometimes i think they purposely get things dirty just to put the clothes in the hamper. ;o) all i will say is what i have said many, many times before.... THANK GOODNESS FOR WASHING MACHINES AND DRYERS. 'nuff said!!!!!!
we're trying to get our mortgage refinanced. i'm the finances handler for the household, and really hoping that works out - my goal is to roll up any remaining payments on the truck and tractor and the like into the main mortgage and refi the whole shebang and save a little money each month. by my reckoning, if it all works out, we could end up saving quite a tidy little sum, which would be shoved into savings and then we could use it for christmas, or for when c begins school in the fall of 2008. that's a ways off, i know, but when you're talking about private school tuition, it behooves one to begin saving well ahead of time.
d's birthday was tuesday. he is now officially 15. yay, d! he got a card from his mom on monday - she lives in nc. she and m are most definitely not each other's favorite people...... i think the word "hate" is probably not too mild here. it was one of those divorces you see on television where one person ends up just shooting the other one and claiming temporary insanity. i'm serious. it was bad! i met him a few years after he got divorced, and i saw first-hand for my own little self just how evil she can be... whoo. bad stuff, i say. bad! so anyway, dan got a card from her, and oddly, i found myself scrutinizing the handwriting on the front. i guess i was trying to see some sign of the bad there. it just seems like handwriting ought to reflect your true personality. think about that one.
and while we're on the topic of writing, here's a fun idea. write a short story, with 2 main characters, and have each character assigned either a specific typeface or a specific type treatment (italics, bold, etc). it could be fun. or have a longer book, with each character's dialogue given a different color. i know, i know. i'm insane. but it's fun.
not much else to report from la la land. i'm a little sleepy today - i stayed up later than i should have last night, chatting with d, and now i'm sleepy sleepy. i did go for my walk last night, though, which made me very happy. i'm going to try to step it up to 4 miles at a pop next week when i don't have to squeegee it in between work and dinner/leaving for vbs. as it is, i barely have the time i need for 2 miles!
oh! my new ipod holder will be here T O D A Y. yay! i bought it online from pacific designs - it is awesome. dan has one, which is how i found out about them... the holder i have now is open on the top, so the ipod slips out. not good! i love getting stuff in the mail. love it, love it, love it, love it. there's just something delightful about it. i don't know why. :o)
still no word on the honda. the news last night was that the mechanic finally got his hands on a diagnostic manual for this particular vehicle, and he feels that will assist him in the completion of what has become a monthlong task...... to be fair, HE has only had it 2 weeks, but STILL. i feel like my whole summer is leaking away and i can't get out to take the kids anywhere. ergh. so much for the paid membership to the private pool. lol! i'm hopeful we'll know something tonight, though.
work-wise, i'm excited because i'm supposed to go to az for 4 days in august for an advanced class. it'll be so fun to get back out there, see all my friends from work, and have a little adult time without small ones clinging to my legs. although, even as i type that, i know after 1 day i'll be missing them like crazy. :o) but i am looking forward to the trip... just waiting for my final confirmation that i am approved to go so i can buy my plane ticket. i still don't have the approval, so i'm chomping at the bit - i was even checking out ticket prices last night. lol!
c is deconstructing my sofa right now, so i better go reconstruct it. she is such a sweetie, even when she is pulling my hair out (and yes, she pulls out individual strands of my hair. don't ask).
talk soon!
so between work, housekeeping stuff, kids, and vbs, this week has literally flown by. almost the only time i am not moving is when i am asleep! lol. it's been a good week, though, although one of the ladies i'm in vbs with is a unique person in that she is a) an expert on every topic in the entire world, bar none, and b) is one of those folks who likes you to know every...single...thing about her, her life, her family, her opinions, her politics, her religion, and her children, within 5 minutes of meeting you. it's a fire hydrant conversation - it all rushes out at you, and all you can do is try to stay on your feet. ;o) she seems nice enough, which is good - it helps offset the TMI aspect of being in the same room with her. i do pretty well holding my own, conversationally, but by the time we leave and come home, i am so ready to leave. lol!
as an example! 10 minutes after i met her, she was giving me a detailed story of how she was in a car crash with her sister and her cousin when she was 17, and her cousin was driving the car, and she was in the front passenger seat, and her sister was in the back seat. apparently, there was a head-on with another car, and this woman was the only survivor. frankly, that's mind-blowing in and of itself, and no doubt it is a tremendous story, but that's a lot to lay on someone 10 minutes after you meet them, yeah? anyhoo, she has some interesting viewpoints, and we have had some fun discussions, so all is not lost. i have been listening to her talk for 3 nights now, and i strongly suspect she feels like no one listens to her at home - her mother in law lives with her, and there is a language barrier (MIL is from columbia, speaks almost no english), and both of her children are still very young (2 and 4), and from what she says, her husband is not all that good at communication. so i suspect she is overcompensating for that by unloading on anyone in the vicinity.... and i can completely understand that, so i listen. :o)
last night at vbs was particularly funny, though - in c's group, there are four little children - daisy, c, keegan, and jonathan. normally, keegan cries each night when his mama drops him off - and cries and cries for about 15 or 20 minutes, then it's done and he's good to go till the next night. last night was no exception. but when i got there, daisy was crying, which was so unusual - and it took me a while to settle her down. it was a funny feeling, trying to comfort another child besides my own - i know exactly what to say or do to make my own feel better, and i know how they fit in my arms, in my lap - but this was a strange little body, lighter than i'm used to, a different shape, a different smell - it's funny how that affects your interactions with the child. but i did eventually get her to start giggling by pretending a toy tractor was colliding with us repeatedly, and by making razzberry noises with my lips. soon, she was all smiles and giggles. WHEW. lol!
j is also loving vbs - he is old enough now to really be into this kind of thing, and he looks forward to it each night. the theme for the vbs is tumbleweed gulch, so it's all very western-themed... he wears his black cowboy hat each night when we go to VBS. so, so, so cute. my lil' cowpoke. :o)
the home life is pretty good. kind of a blur for this week, to be honest, but still good. yesterday was crazy. i had to do 6 loads of laundry, and i just did laundry what, last weekend? sometimes i think they purposely get things dirty just to put the clothes in the hamper. ;o) all i will say is what i have said many, many times before.... THANK GOODNESS FOR WASHING MACHINES AND DRYERS. 'nuff said!!!!!!
we're trying to get our mortgage refinanced. i'm the finances handler for the household, and really hoping that works out - my goal is to roll up any remaining payments on the truck and tractor and the like into the main mortgage and refi the whole shebang and save a little money each month. by my reckoning, if it all works out, we could end up saving quite a tidy little sum, which would be shoved into savings and then we could use it for christmas, or for when c begins school in the fall of 2008. that's a ways off, i know, but when you're talking about private school tuition, it behooves one to begin saving well ahead of time.
d's birthday was tuesday. he is now officially 15. yay, d! he got a card from his mom on monday - she lives in nc. she and m are most definitely not each other's favorite people...... i think the word "hate" is probably not too mild here. it was one of those divorces you see on television where one person ends up just shooting the other one and claiming temporary insanity. i'm serious. it was bad! i met him a few years after he got divorced, and i saw first-hand for my own little self just how evil she can be... whoo. bad stuff, i say. bad! so anyway, dan got a card from her, and oddly, i found myself scrutinizing the handwriting on the front. i guess i was trying to see some sign of the bad there. it just seems like handwriting ought to reflect your true personality. think about that one.
and while we're on the topic of writing, here's a fun idea. write a short story, with 2 main characters, and have each character assigned either a specific typeface or a specific type treatment (italics, bold, etc). it could be fun. or have a longer book, with each character's dialogue given a different color. i know, i know. i'm insane. but it's fun.
not much else to report from la la land. i'm a little sleepy today - i stayed up later than i should have last night, chatting with d, and now i'm sleepy sleepy. i did go for my walk last night, though, which made me very happy. i'm going to try to step it up to 4 miles at a pop next week when i don't have to squeegee it in between work and dinner/leaving for vbs. as it is, i barely have the time i need for 2 miles!
oh! my new ipod holder will be here T O D A Y. yay! i bought it online from pacific designs - it is awesome. dan has one, which is how i found out about them... the holder i have now is open on the top, so the ipod slips out. not good! i love getting stuff in the mail. love it, love it, love it, love it. there's just something delightful about it. i don't know why. :o)
still no word on the honda. the news last night was that the mechanic finally got his hands on a diagnostic manual for this particular vehicle, and he feels that will assist him in the completion of what has become a monthlong task...... to be fair, HE has only had it 2 weeks, but STILL. i feel like my whole summer is leaking away and i can't get out to take the kids anywhere. ergh. so much for the paid membership to the private pool. lol! i'm hopeful we'll know something tonight, though.
work-wise, i'm excited because i'm supposed to go to az for 4 days in august for an advanced class. it'll be so fun to get back out there, see all my friends from work, and have a little adult time without small ones clinging to my legs. although, even as i type that, i know after 1 day i'll be missing them like crazy. :o) but i am looking forward to the trip... just waiting for my final confirmation that i am approved to go so i can buy my plane ticket. i still don't have the approval, so i'm chomping at the bit - i was even checking out ticket prices last night. lol!
c is deconstructing my sofa right now, so i better go reconstruct it. she is such a sweetie, even when she is pulling my hair out (and yes, she pulls out individual strands of my hair. don't ask).
talk soon!
Monday, July 16, 2007
meow
gotta tell ya'll this. :o) i found the PERFECT ringtone for my cell - it is the "meow meow meow meow" chorus from the meow mix commercials. it is HYSTERICAL. i love it!!!!
and it's monday!
ok, i tried to post about four times over the weekend since my last post saturday morning, and blogger just refused to let me do a single ding-dong thing, so i took the hint and backed away from the computer.... come monday morning, lo and behold, it's working like a charm. methinks my computer is trying to tell me NOT TO GET ONLINE ON THE WEEKENDS! (ahem)
saturday turned out to be a glorious day - c was tired and cranky from getting up at 0500 sat morning, so m stayed here with her while i took j&d to the pool. we left at about, oh... noon. stayed at the pool till 1600. absolutely delicious. i felt like a kitty sunbathing in a pool of warmth - and since j is old enough to play alone and/or with his friends in the pool, i was able to steal about 2 of those 4 hours to just lie on my chaise lounge, reading a completely stupid, inane magazine which required no brain cell usage, and half-drowsing while i listened to music on my ipod. can you say MOMMY HEAVEN?
then d poked me and asked me in a pseudo-stage-whisper if i'd had lunch. translation - HE was hungry. now, we all had a monstrously huge country breakfast that morning, so i was still full - but d, being a 15-year-old landfill, was hungry. so we all packed up and tootled over to the tasty treat for the second day in a row - and then i realized *I* was hungry. so it was chow-time, with me praying the whole time we wouldn't have an early dinner since i knew m was planning to make shrimp alfredo from scratch.
popped to the grocery store, then home - then realized dinner was being served RIGHT THEN. d, much to his credit, scarfed down a monster plate of alfredo (the wonders of a 15-year-old's metabolism!) while i managed a very respectable plate of it my own self.
so there i am, after dinner, thinking to myself, "i just ate 2 major meals in 2 hours, and i feel completely sluggish - i know! let's go for a walk!" so i asked d if he wanted to come along - he's been expressing an interest in getting more into some cardio stuff like running, walking, whatever. i told him we were going to go 2 loops of the 'hood - 4 miles total - and he shrugged and said, "yeah, easy enough."
about halfway through the first loop, he was half-running to keep up with me, and panting, "i think we'll skip the second loop!" lol. but it felt so good to walk that, after we finished the first loop, i dropped him at the house and went for a second loop at a slow jog. felt DARN good. endorphins, anyone?
made me realize how much exercise is really a vital part of my own life - without regular exercise, i feel sluggish, blah, don't sleep as well. i guess it's because i grew up playing sports - for as long as i can remember, i've been playing some kind of sport or doing something outside like climbing trees..... so my body, i suspect, just depends on that.
so saturday night, i slept like the DEAD, until 0200 when c woke up trilling my name.... la de dah, hooray, hip hip hurrah.....i stumbled on down the hall, and found her at her door in a cowboy bowlegged pose, pointing to her VERY full, VERY icky diaper. bleh. that'll snap you right awake, i tell you! got her changed and soothed back to sleep, and went back to my own bed, and slept till 0830 sunday morning. :oD yay!
sunday was busy-bee day - we were having an early birthday party for d, who will be 15 on the 17th (tomorrow!).... so i had to do a little last-minute straightening up, which admittedly didn't take that long since i'm so anal about keeping the house clean ANYWAY. the party was scoodles of fun - my parents came, as did my mil, and we had BBQ, chips, etc., and just generally hung out and had a good time. d scored over $200 in birthday cashola, and is already spending it like it's going out of style (on ebay - using my account, with the understanding he has to pay me for the final total there ;o) ).
m didn't want him to spend his money on CDs, esp since he has an iPod, but i told m, "look, d is 15, he is old enough to make his own decisions, good or bad, and it is his money after all. let it go. yeah?"
so that was that.
after the party, we all kind of sat around in post-party-stupor, until i decided to - yeah! - clean out c's closet! she has more clothes than *I* do - and she is 28 years younger!! lol. but that's done. cleared out the outgrown stuff for donation.
then i decided to go for another walk. dan passed on it this time - lol - but i towed the dog along with me, and we had a simply terrific brisk walk over 2 miles. would have been longer but a) it was late and b) i was actually a little sore from saturday night's walk/run!!!! which tells me i'm hitting some good spots. :o)
then d and i watched a movie last night. he talked me into watching "jackass 2" which..... well, let me just say.... i felt like a genius after watching THAT crew. i will admit some of their stunts had me rolling, mostly because they seem to have such a fourth-grader-noogie-good-time doing all of them. well, most of them. so that led to some really freaky weird dreams last night, as you can well imagine..... things like riding a rocket over a lake filled with snakes and whatever.
despite the weird dreams, i woke up very refreshed, feeling good, and READY FOR THE WEEK. it is light on meetings, and i am going to do my darn best to KEEP it that way!!!! only one meeting today (hooray!).... and we should find out more about the honda tonight. PRAYING PRAYING PRAYING we get it back today or tomorrow. i am going nuts without a vehicle!
time to get mah re-ah into ge-ah! keep on smiling. :o)
saturday turned out to be a glorious day - c was tired and cranky from getting up at 0500 sat morning, so m stayed here with her while i took j&d to the pool. we left at about, oh... noon. stayed at the pool till 1600. absolutely delicious. i felt like a kitty sunbathing in a pool of warmth - and since j is old enough to play alone and/or with his friends in the pool, i was able to steal about 2 of those 4 hours to just lie on my chaise lounge, reading a completely stupid, inane magazine which required no brain cell usage, and half-drowsing while i listened to music on my ipod. can you say MOMMY HEAVEN?
then d poked me and asked me in a pseudo-stage-whisper if i'd had lunch. translation - HE was hungry. now, we all had a monstrously huge country breakfast that morning, so i was still full - but d, being a 15-year-old landfill, was hungry. so we all packed up and tootled over to the tasty treat for the second day in a row - and then i realized *I* was hungry. so it was chow-time, with me praying the whole time we wouldn't have an early dinner since i knew m was planning to make shrimp alfredo from scratch.
popped to the grocery store, then home - then realized dinner was being served RIGHT THEN. d, much to his credit, scarfed down a monster plate of alfredo (the wonders of a 15-year-old's metabolism!) while i managed a very respectable plate of it my own self.
so there i am, after dinner, thinking to myself, "i just ate 2 major meals in 2 hours, and i feel completely sluggish - i know! let's go for a walk!" so i asked d if he wanted to come along - he's been expressing an interest in getting more into some cardio stuff like running, walking, whatever. i told him we were going to go 2 loops of the 'hood - 4 miles total - and he shrugged and said, "yeah, easy enough."
about halfway through the first loop, he was half-running to keep up with me, and panting, "i think we'll skip the second loop!" lol. but it felt so good to walk that, after we finished the first loop, i dropped him at the house and went for a second loop at a slow jog. felt DARN good. endorphins, anyone?
made me realize how much exercise is really a vital part of my own life - without regular exercise, i feel sluggish, blah, don't sleep as well. i guess it's because i grew up playing sports - for as long as i can remember, i've been playing some kind of sport or doing something outside like climbing trees..... so my body, i suspect, just depends on that.
so saturday night, i slept like the DEAD, until 0200 when c woke up trilling my name.... la de dah, hooray, hip hip hurrah.....i stumbled on down the hall, and found her at her door in a cowboy bowlegged pose, pointing to her VERY full, VERY icky diaper. bleh. that'll snap you right awake, i tell you! got her changed and soothed back to sleep, and went back to my own bed, and slept till 0830 sunday morning. :oD yay!
sunday was busy-bee day - we were having an early birthday party for d, who will be 15 on the 17th (tomorrow!).... so i had to do a little last-minute straightening up, which admittedly didn't take that long since i'm so anal about keeping the house clean ANYWAY. the party was scoodles of fun - my parents came, as did my mil, and we had BBQ, chips, etc., and just generally hung out and had a good time. d scored over $200 in birthday cashola, and is already spending it like it's going out of style (on ebay - using my account, with the understanding he has to pay me for the final total there ;o) ).
m didn't want him to spend his money on CDs, esp since he has an iPod, but i told m, "look, d is 15, he is old enough to make his own decisions, good or bad, and it is his money after all. let it go. yeah?"
so that was that.
after the party, we all kind of sat around in post-party-stupor, until i decided to - yeah! - clean out c's closet! she has more clothes than *I* do - and she is 28 years younger!! lol. but that's done. cleared out the outgrown stuff for donation.
then i decided to go for another walk. dan passed on it this time - lol - but i towed the dog along with me, and we had a simply terrific brisk walk over 2 miles. would have been longer but a) it was late and b) i was actually a little sore from saturday night's walk/run!!!! which tells me i'm hitting some good spots. :o)
then d and i watched a movie last night. he talked me into watching "jackass 2" which..... well, let me just say.... i felt like a genius after watching THAT crew. i will admit some of their stunts had me rolling, mostly because they seem to have such a fourth-grader-noogie-good-time doing all of them. well, most of them. so that led to some really freaky weird dreams last night, as you can well imagine..... things like riding a rocket over a lake filled with snakes and whatever.
despite the weird dreams, i woke up very refreshed, feeling good, and READY FOR THE WEEK. it is light on meetings, and i am going to do my darn best to KEEP it that way!!!! only one meeting today (hooray!).... and we should find out more about the honda tonight. PRAYING PRAYING PRAYING we get it back today or tomorrow. i am going nuts without a vehicle!
time to get mah re-ah into ge-ah! keep on smiling. :o)
Saturday, July 14, 2007
eureka moment
ok, i figured out just why yesterday was not exactly The Best Day ever. it was friday the 13th! d'oh. now, i'm not a big supersitious person - far from it - but yesterday sure was one of the lower-ranked days on the grand scale of Ranked Days in my life. i think it's just a lot easier to blame it on some vacuous supersition than it is to think anything else of it.
it was my day OFF. it was a FRIDAY. i had to get up at 0600 *!* and spent the entire day cleaning the house, doing 7 loads (yes, 7) of laundry (and mind you, i just did the laundry 5 days ago), refereeing three bickering children, and watching it rain...... and m was supposed to come home early (about 1) so i could take the boys (d&j) to the pool (or just get out of the house), and he didn't.... to his credit, he rang us at about noon and asked if we were still planning to go to the pool, so i asked if he was having a good sales day and he said yes.... so i told him to finish his day up then come home, and not to cut it short on our behalf. the right thing to do, sure, but i was feeling mighty claustrophobic!
our other car is still out of commission, and has been for 3 weeks. it's one of those "uhm, we're not sure what's wrong, so we'll tinker with a bunch of different things until we figure it out" situations with the mechanic. to his credit, he's being very honest with us about how long it'll take and this and that and the other........ so we'll see how that bill looks. ;o)
but i never realized how much i'd come to depend on having a vehicle at my beck and call whenever i felt like escaping from the house! so for 3 weeks, m has been using the other vehicle - our truck - for work, and i've been stuck here with j, c, and d (5, 2, and 15, respectively) and no ways or means of getting to the pool. AAH! lol.
it could be a lot worse, though - it could have rained every day or something. ;o) at least we can get out of the house and play in the yard.
last night was fun - it was RAINING, but i had promised j we would go to the pool. he was at the window, mournfully declaring the obvious - "mommmmmmeeee! it's RAINING!" i chirped, "get your towel!" he gaped at me, obviously thinking mommy had lost her mind - and reiterated, "but it's RAINING." i said, "pshaw! just a drizzle. come on!" so we went swimming in the rain, which is actually a lot of fun. he worked on his diving board cannonballs with me treading water in the deep end, ready and poised to rescue him should he need me. he, however, did not need rescuing, so i got a good workout from the treading. ;o) then we went to tasty treat for dinner, and i had what was, undoubtedly, the world's largest bbq sandwich EVER. it was half the pig, i swear. but ohhhhhh so good. i remember thinking for one nanosecond, "i really shouldn't...." then "oh what the heck" and CHOMP. bye-bye-bbq. follow that with some really delightful crinkly fries smothered in salt and ketchup, and a big cold yummy chocolate ice cream cone, and you have the perfect dinner. which, i should add, we also ate outside. in the drizzle. sitting at a picnic table with a big fluffy umbrella. it was fun. sort of a delighted "i can't believe we're eating outside in the rain after swimming in the rain and isn't this fun and we should do this a lot more often!" kind of feeling. the perfect antidote to friday the 13th. rain be darned!
so today is brilliant, sunny, and most decidedly not friday the 13th! we're all headed to the pool soon.... c woke up at 0500, but m got up with her and let me sleep until 0830, bless his good husbandly soul. :oD so i do feel quite a bit more refreshed, and geared up for a fun day in the sun, workin' the tan.
see you later, crispy and warm.
(that's a good life slogan. LIFE: CRISPY AND WARM.)
ciao!
it was my day OFF. it was a FRIDAY. i had to get up at 0600 *!* and spent the entire day cleaning the house, doing 7 loads (yes, 7) of laundry (and mind you, i just did the laundry 5 days ago), refereeing three bickering children, and watching it rain...... and m was supposed to come home early (about 1) so i could take the boys (d&j) to the pool (or just get out of the house), and he didn't.... to his credit, he rang us at about noon and asked if we were still planning to go to the pool, so i asked if he was having a good sales day and he said yes.... so i told him to finish his day up then come home, and not to cut it short on our behalf. the right thing to do, sure, but i was feeling mighty claustrophobic!
our other car is still out of commission, and has been for 3 weeks. it's one of those "uhm, we're not sure what's wrong, so we'll tinker with a bunch of different things until we figure it out" situations with the mechanic. to his credit, he's being very honest with us about how long it'll take and this and that and the other........ so we'll see how that bill looks. ;o)
but i never realized how much i'd come to depend on having a vehicle at my beck and call whenever i felt like escaping from the house! so for 3 weeks, m has been using the other vehicle - our truck - for work, and i've been stuck here with j, c, and d (5, 2, and 15, respectively) and no ways or means of getting to the pool. AAH! lol.
it could be a lot worse, though - it could have rained every day or something. ;o) at least we can get out of the house and play in the yard.
last night was fun - it was RAINING, but i had promised j we would go to the pool. he was at the window, mournfully declaring the obvious - "mommmmmmeeee! it's RAINING!" i chirped, "get your towel!" he gaped at me, obviously thinking mommy had lost her mind - and reiterated, "but it's RAINING." i said, "pshaw! just a drizzle. come on!" so we went swimming in the rain, which is actually a lot of fun. he worked on his diving board cannonballs with me treading water in the deep end, ready and poised to rescue him should he need me. he, however, did not need rescuing, so i got a good workout from the treading. ;o) then we went to tasty treat for dinner, and i had what was, undoubtedly, the world's largest bbq sandwich EVER. it was half the pig, i swear. but ohhhhhh so good. i remember thinking for one nanosecond, "i really shouldn't...." then "oh what the heck" and CHOMP. bye-bye-bbq. follow that with some really delightful crinkly fries smothered in salt and ketchup, and a big cold yummy chocolate ice cream cone, and you have the perfect dinner. which, i should add, we also ate outside. in the drizzle. sitting at a picnic table with a big fluffy umbrella. it was fun. sort of a delighted "i can't believe we're eating outside in the rain after swimming in the rain and isn't this fun and we should do this a lot more often!" kind of feeling. the perfect antidote to friday the 13th. rain be darned!
so today is brilliant, sunny, and most decidedly not friday the 13th! we're all headed to the pool soon.... c woke up at 0500, but m got up with her and let me sleep until 0830, bless his good husbandly soul. :oD so i do feel quite a bit more refreshed, and geared up for a fun day in the sun, workin' the tan.
see you later, crispy and warm.
(that's a good life slogan. LIFE: CRISPY AND WARM.)
ciao!
Friday, July 13, 2007
randomania
so i'm off work today (off every friday all summer, yee-haw!) and had to get up at some indecent hour this morning.... 0600, to be precise.... and those of you who know me know my brain cells are nowhere near functioning level before, oh, about 1100. ;o)
and would you believe c is begging me to play table air hockey with her? eeesh.... my motor control is not exactly at olympic peak right now, but you know, who can refuse the big brown 2 and a half year old sweet eyes? so i guess i'm off to play.... i'll try to resume posting later on today. it's cloudy and gray, so the planned pool day may well tank.
talk more soon.
and would you believe c is begging me to play table air hockey with her? eeesh.... my motor control is not exactly at olympic peak right now, but you know, who can refuse the big brown 2 and a half year old sweet eyes? so i guess i'm off to play.... i'll try to resume posting later on today. it's cloudy and gray, so the planned pool day may well tank.
talk more soon.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
long time no type
well, it's been forever, i daresay, since i posted anything in here. have to give kudos to my friend who writes the frustrated blog for inspiring me to get my rear back into the posting gear with this one. i'd actually forgotten i even had this.
so yeah, a lot has happened in the last 2 years. things tend to happen in 2 years, i guess. but the important thing is i'll try not to overload this, and i'll try to post timely and somewhat interesting information here. ;o)
if you're still along for the ride, glad to have you. we'll talk again soon.
so yeah, a lot has happened in the last 2 years. things tend to happen in 2 years, i guess. but the important thing is i'll try not to overload this, and i'll try to post timely and somewhat interesting information here. ;o)
if you're still along for the ride, glad to have you. we'll talk again soon.
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