Tag Archives: mom

Aug27

Cradle Crap, part deux

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Cradle Crap, part deux

We were sitting outside, eating BLTs for lunch and enjoying the sunshine, when Pops leaned over and looked at Analie’s head.

“What’s wrong with your kid’s head?” he asked, “It has that cradle crap stuff.”

He paused.

And his eyes got big because he thought maybe he had said something wrong, but he couldn’t quite identify what it had been.  Mom’s eyes had gotten big by this point too.  Because Dad had inadvertently said “crap”, which is not on his list of Words Commonly Used.  Then he started snickering (so did Mom) when he realized what it had been.

Joey and I had a good laugh at Dad’s expense too.

And I ‘fessed that yes, Analie has Cradle CAP again. Because last week I forgot to bathe her a few times.

…cough*goodparenting*cough…

 

Jul30

Parents = troublemakers

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Parents = troublemakers

My parents are visiting.

Perhaps some of you old timers around this blog will remember that whenever my Pops comes to visit, we find Breathe Rights around the house for days and days.  (Please note that there are FOUR SEPARATE LINKS there.  That is how much I blog about Breathe Rights.)

Anyway, they’re here.

So far the most surprising part of the visit is that Analie has not experienced any of her normal Extreme Stranger/Separation Anxiety (which is so epic it is worthy of All Caps) with my pops.  I figured she would, since really the only guy she’s happy to be held by for any length of time is Joey. SIGH.  But so far, so good.

Maybe I shouldn’t have blogged that.  I could have jinxed myself.

This morning after Ana woke up from her beauty sleep she got to eat mango, fed to her by Nana and photographed by Papa.

Then I turned around for TWO SECONDS, internet.  Two seconds.

Please remind me to never turn around when my father is in the house.  Gotta watch that guy at all times.

The next thing I hear is my mom saying, “Oh…DOUG” and Pops snickering his Pops-style giggle.  So it seemed like it was time for me to turn around and get eyes on my parents since it seemed like they were misbehaving.

They were.  Obviously.

That thing on my child’s forehead?  A Breathe Right.  I guess Pops didn’t need it anymore.

It didn’t seem to bother her too much, though.  She polished off 1 ounce of mango and 3 bites of carrots in fairly record time.

Jul28

Talk To Chuck

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Talk To Chuck

I took a (really bad) photos while my mom was giving Analie a bath this afternoon, and they all turned out really fuzzy.  Apparently kids, like, move and stuff, which makes it hard to get a decent shot that’s not blurry.

As I was tweaking one of them, trying to see if it could be salvaged (and it couldn’t), I peaked out all the different levels and discovered two things.  Good news: you can’t tell quite so badly that she’s out of focus.  Bad news: she kind of looks like the spokesbaby for those Charles Schwab commercials.  So if you need investment advice?  You know where to come.

Unrelated: I have a stye in my eye.

Apr23

Like Mama, like Mama

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Like Mama, like Mama

You know how parents have Things They Say?  For instance:

  • If you keep staring at the computer screen your eyes will turn to marbles
  • Just wait until your father comes home
  • Clean your plate, there are people starving in Africa
  • Don’t run with scissors
  • When you cut your legs off with a lawnmower, don’t come running to me
  • I’ll give you something to cry about
  • If you keep making that face it’ll stick that way
  • Don’t use my tools unless you’re going to put them away when you’re done
  • You aren’t bleeding, so you’ll be fine
  • Leave that kitchen cleaner than when you found it
  • I brought you into this world and I can take you out
  • Turn the TV down
  • Save your money

My mama really only had two things she said often.  Before we got spanked, she always told us that “this hurts me a lot more than it hurts you” (which I can totally believe is true now that I have a baby), and that “books are our friends” (every time I was about to destroy one).  Actually she used to have to tell me to be gentle a lot.  I know this because we used to have a cassette tape of me as a baby, which we wore out listening to so often when we were all growing up.  The tape got lost (or destroyed) somewhere, which is unfortunate.  It was hi-larious.

The two best parts on that tape were of Dad trying to get me to say my ABCs when I was eating peanut butter bread, but I was too interested in my peanut butter.  So about every three letters he’d pipe in with a “don’t eat your peanut butter, say your ABCs”.  I finally made it through to the end, but I did get Q mixed up, I thought it was for Umbrella.  And another time I was abusing a laundry basket somehow, and poor Pops could be heard from the background telling me to “be gentle with the laundry basket”.

Anyway, when I was a little girl, my mama loved to read books to me.  And I loved to have books read to me. One of my earliest memories is of me deliberately throwing a book on the floor just to see if Mom would say “Be gentle, books are our friends”.  Because I had started noticing that she said it when I was being mean to books, and I was testing to see if she would say that every time.

She definitely did.

Dude.  Now I feel like I was a really wild, difficult child.

No wonder my child screams at the top of her lungs when she’s happy instead of making the soft, gentle noises that other babies seem to make.

The other morning, we were all cozied up in bed reading books.  I read Analie Hop On Pop, and Joey was reading his latest sci-fi weirdness.  I glanced over to look at Joey’s book, and when I looked back at Hop On Pop, it had somehow gotten in Analie’s mouth in the 0.2 seconds I hadn’t been watching and she was gnawing on its pages.

And then, out of my mouth came, “Be gentle, books are our friends.”

Poor quality cell phone picture? Yes please.

Dec5

Sunday, Sunday, Someday

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Sunday, Sunday, Someday

After a passably good night of sleep (we got in a REM cycle!), Analie and I woke up about 6:30.  My mom has been here this week helping us out (and what a help she was!) but was leaving this morning at 9:00 when my grandparents would stop by to pick her up on their way to Iowa.

Analie ate her breakfast and then I delivered her to her Nana, who happily kept an eye on her while I ran through the shower.  My goal was to get out and have my hair dried before my mom left, and miraculously I was successful.

An hour later, my mom was in the car and driving out of the driveway.  Analie and I stood inside the house and watched out the window as they drove away.  I realized that it was just the two of us.  Well, three of us when Joey’s home.  But if we were going to make it to church, it really would be just the two of us.

I took a deep breath, put Analie in her cow bouncer and set it right outside the bathroom door while I finished getting ready.  She happily watched me flat-iron my hair and finish putting on makeup.  Then, just as I was about to sit down and eat something (because I was so hungry I felt I could pass out), she began to fuss.

Hungry again.

I plugged her with her binkie (I know, I know…) and inhaled my blueberry muffin, orange juice, and vitamins.  Not exactly high nutrition, but it’s what I could find in a hurry.

Then I fed her, again, thankful that I had thought to pack up her diaper bag an hour earlier, because as soon as she was finished we needed to roll or we’d be late.  Joey wanted us to come for the last few minutes of Sunday School, and we were cutting it pretty close.

I stopped taking the painkillers prescribed for me after my C-section several days ago, and this morning was going to be my first morning to drive.  Despite the fact that I’d been trying to get Mom to let me drive all week.  I even jumped around the kitchen last Wednesday to prove to her that I was ready to drive.  (I had heard that once you could jump following a C-section, you could drive.  Mom was NOT having it.  She didn’t let me drive.)  My blood pressure medication still makes me a touch dizzy outside the house, but not so dizzy that I’m a hazard on the roads.  At least I don’t think so.

It doesn’t say on the bottle not to drive while taking it.  So…yeah.

One more month and then it’s no more medicine for meeee!!  I hate taking medicine.

I carried Analie’s carseat out to the car and snapped it into place.  I moved the seat back up into position for a non-pregnant me, and then backed out of the driveway, feeling a little bit apprehensive about driving my daughter around on snowy, potentially icy roads.

I may have grown up in Iowa, but I forgot all that bad weather driving stuff in Texas.  Especially with a newborn in the car.

Fortunately, the road conditions were safe and we made it to church in one piece.

I took the best parking spot in the entire church parking lot, and only felt marginally guilty doing so.  The guilt I did feel evaporated the minute I tried to carry Analie in her carseat across the parking lot into the front door.  The girl is HEAVY in that thing.  Halfway to the door I considered turning around and going back for the stroller frame, but reconsidered because the door was getting closer.  I figured we’d just take her out of her carrier when we got inside.

That turned out to be a super bad idea.  While the carrier is heavy, actually holding a 7 lb cutie pie for an entire church service is even heavier.  Joey and I shared her back and forth, but I am pretty sure we were both sore by the end, and I even ducked out early thinking Analie needed to eat.

We probably overdid it by trying to go to church when Analie was only 12 days old…by the end of the morning I was cantankerous, to put it mildly.  Analie was fussy because she didn’t eat well in Daddy’s office. (Daddy got rid of his couch last week, so Mommy had to try to finagle his awkward desk chair for feeding time, which did not work so well.  Mommy has requested that Daddy get a new couch for his office or he won’t be seeing much of his little girl around feeding times.)

This evening, we’ve been camped out in the den watching the Return of the King.  Gag.  I wanted to watch the Fellowship of the Ring, but Joey had a hankering for violence and battle scenes.  I quit paying attention about an hour into it, but Analie has been awake the entire time.

It occurs to me that it’s perhaps too much violence for her, but considering her eyes can barely focus on my face much less an Orc getting his head chopped off on a small screen across the room, I don’t think I’ll worry too much about her just yet.  Maybe next month.

And now…it’s time for bed.

Nov28

Mama’s bragging…again

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Mama’s bragging…again

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure: we skipped church this morning.  I KNOW, can you even believe it.  Our kid is like 6 days old and we’re already teaching her bad habits.

Instead of going to church, we actually slept (6 hours cumulative!!  I feel so great!!), ate a leisurely breakfast of delicious coffee cake, and Joey snapped some pictures of our little girl.  She’s so teeny weeny that 90% of her clothes don’t fit yet (including her little headbands) but we have a couple of extra tiny outfits that I actually thought would be too small for her when we got them.  Buuut, they’re not.  It’s amazing.

Seriously, though, she’s SO CUTE.  I told her she’d make a good model for Baby Gap, but she was all, MOM…don’t make me grow up so fast !  I’m only 6 days old once!!

I love the headband sliding off her tiny little head.  And you can even see where she hauled off and DUG her fingernails into her cheek this morning.  Then she looked at me as though the entire world had just done her wrong because OW MY FACE HURTS NOW!

Again with the massive headband.  But she is totally rocking the leopard pants and fuzzy pink socks.

I had her all swaddled up and we were snuggling while I ate my breakfast, and I glanced down and noticed she had her hands all folded up like she was praying.  Her Nana was very pleased to see that Analie is starting a pattern of prayer so early in her life.  We hope she continues it and that someday she prays not because it’s a good habit, but because she loves Jesus and wants to talk to Him.

Aaaaaand then in the very next picture she looks a whole lot less like she’s praying and more like she’s being a greedy money grubber.  Don’t you think she just looks like she’s thinking “MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY!” in this picture?  I totally do.  Cracks me up.

Sep23

The Name Game: Week 11

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The Name Game: Week 11

Yeah, so about the pictures of the house.  Remember how I said some larger-type person stepped on our camera at Old Threshers and broke it?  Well, we think we can take pictures on it, but we can’t see them.  So…this is causing us problems in the whole Take Pictures Of The House area.  I KNOW, way lame.

Henry has taken to the house surprisingly well, considering how traumatized he was of the emptiness and wood floors before we moved all the furniture in.  But he recognized his chair immediately, and he’s been alternating between it and the couches since he got there.  I think he’ll do just fine.

Last night I got up at 3:30 because, surprise!, I had to go to the bathroom again.  Henry was all curled up on the floor in the duvet that we had tossed over the edge of the bed, and he was a wad of coziness and cuteness.  I decided he was so cute I should just pick him up and snuggle him for the rest of the night.

So I did.

Well, Henry decided that he needed to sleep right where my feet should have gone, and suffice it to say that from 3:30 a.m. until 7:00 when Joey’s alarm went of, I did not sleep well.

No more Henry in the bed.  Even if he’s cute.

As this is Thursday, it is time to delete a name from The List.  I’m sitting in Joey’s office while I type this, and Mom’s right here next to me.  She’s been helping unpack boxes.  The kitchen is almost totally unpacked (excepting the fact that the kitchen cabinets don’t have doors on them yet, they’re all in the garage and still need some paint on them) and we were just hanging things on the walls before we came to check our email.

We still have no internets.

Anyway, I deferred the name deletion to Joey who, in turn, deferred it to Mom. After some consideration and consideration of her strategy, she has deleted Simone.

Adieu, Simone. C’était amusant que ça a duré.  (Translation: Farewell, Simone.  It was fun while it lasted.)

Analie

Beatrice

Coraline

Darcy

Elinor

Frances

Gillian

Helena

Isabelle

Julianne

Kiera

Lenore

Marna

Nora

Olivia

Piper

Quincy

Rowena

Simone

Talia

Uma

Violet

Wren

Xara

Yalena

Zerubabella

Aug25

The Name Game: Week 7

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The Name Game: Week 7

I woke up this morning with three things burning a hole in my brain.  No, four things.

  1. Where’s my orange juice?
  2. It’s my mom’s birthday, do not forget to call her!
  3. We are closing on our house today.  ACK!!!
  4. I need some Rice Krispy Treats RIGHT NOW.  (Our daughter will be born and we’ll discover she’s made out of marshmallows or something, that’s how many I have consumed during this pregnancy.  It’s freakish.)

So.  I am currently drinking orange juice and I feel much better now. And since it’s Wednesday I am going to use my mom’s Year of Birth to eliminate two names from The List.  After that, I’ll do some lawn mowing and take a shower so I look decent when we go to sign our life and all our money away in order to have a house.  Oh, and I’m making a new batch of Krispy bars right after I’m done with this post.

I’d better hurry so I can get started on eating them.

Well.  Mom was born in the year XXXX.  I’m not telling you what year, exactly, or she’ll remove me from The Will, and Mom isn’t the kind of person to just remove her children from The Will all willy-nilly.  (That’s Pops.)  But I think she might just do it to me if I posted the year of her birth on the internet.

Therefore.

I added some numbers together and I got 10 and also 11.

HOLY COW, the 10th name on the list is Julianne!!!  I know this will come as a great shock and horror to about 75% of my family members, who have been convinced for weeks we are naming our offspring Julianne.

(Sorry guys, we’re not.)

The 11th name on the list was Kiera, and it’s gone too now.

Well…happy birthday, Mom.  Uh, yeah…that didn’t quite work out how I planned it; now you’re going to have to start over on your list of Names You Think We’ll Call Her since your birthday just deleted Julianne.  Hehehe.

Analie

Beatrice

Coraline

Darcy

Elinor

Frances

Gillian

Helena

Isabelle

Julianne

Kiera

Lenore

Marna

Nora

Olivia

Piper

Quincy

Rowena

Simone

Talia

Uma

Violet

Wren

Xara

Yalena

Zerubabella

Aug4

15.3

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15.3

No, no, that’s not how much weight I gained last week but WOULDN’T IT BE FUNNY IF IT WAS?

On Monday night we processed 168 ears (give or take) of delicious Iowa sweet corn.  Actually, there were less than that because we saved out 12 to eat for dinner and then I stole one more after dinner.  So whatever 168 minus 12 is, that’s how many ears we processed.

Mom and I had gone out earlier that afternoon and picked them with great gusto and speed.  I got a magnificent corn rash in the process, and then right before we got in the van to go home I also saw a dead rat with ants crawling on it.  It was a pretty exciting afternoon.

We got home and Pops and The Kid carried the laundry baskets filled with corn out to the fence row and we stood there shucking, talking, and throwing the husks over the hotwire to the cows, who despite being stuck in the lower pasture seemed to know that we were shucking corn and they wanted those husks RIGHT NOW.

Then The Kid noticed that one of the laundry baskets was actually HIS laundry basket, and he got all high and mighty, spouting off, “I put my clean clothes in this!” as he scowled down at the corn silks, dirt and occasional corn boar squigging around in the bottom of it.

I told him it was Mom’s fault, not mine, and he decided it wasn’t such a big deal after all.

An hour and a half later, all the corn was in its quart freezer bags and Pops decided that it was time to go to Auto Zone.  I was super tired.  SUPER TIRED.  ”You need to drive so we can put gas in your car,” he said.  So I dug the keys out of my purse went out to the RAV-4, where I discovered it pretty much full of my brothers and my Pops, who was wearing my huge purple sunglasses.  ”It’s dark out here,” he said.

When you wear huge purple sunglasses at dusk, it definitely is dark.  Can’t disagree.

So the four of us went to Auto Zone where we picked up some parts for…actually, I don’t even know why we were there.  Something about a door being broken, and maybe spark plugs too?  Basically me, The Brother and The Kid just stood in the aisles screwing around while Pops did all the talking and bought whatever we came to get.  I do know that we walked out with a giant thing of Pennzoil and a mysterious plastic sack, probably containing something for the allegedly broken spark plugs.

The four of us piled back into the car and then we filled it up with gas.  I tried to check the oil but it had been so long that I did it all wrong and Pops and the two brothers had to supervise in order to ensure I pulled out the correct stick from the engine.  (My first attempt left The Kid saying, “Uh, NO, don’t touch that one.”)  Then Pops and The Brother cleaned all the bugs off my windshield.

Obviously I need to be married because I totally stink at vehicle maintenance.  Joey is all over this kind of thing.

On Tuesday morning, I peeled out of my parents driveway at 7:50 in the morning and set my course East on 80 toward the Quad Cities.  I planned to have lunch with Sister at her new house in the QC.  Unfortunately, I took the wrong 74 and wound up going all the way around the QC and having to backtrack to get to her house.  Thirty miles later, I arrived.

We had a very nice time, I got the tour of her house and yard, and then we went to Fazolis for lunch.  Fortunately, we drove her car.  Then I realized just what time it was and squeaked and said I MUST GET ON THE ROAD!  So I loaded up Henry and off we went, tooting right along down 74 for hours…and hours…and hours.

See, we had birthing class last night at 7:00 and Indy and Iowa are not in the same time zone.  This is very inconvenient for Joey and I, so we’d really like it better if Indiana would just go on Central Time.  It’s not going to happen though because we’re not important and no one listens to us much anyway.

Just about 6:15, I finally hit 465.  It was going to be a tight one, and I called Joey to tell him I was almost home but we’d have to turn around and RUN out the door when I did make it.  I whizzed down the side streets, stopping at a stop sign (because I follow the law) and noticed that my car kind of chugged when I hit the gas to speed up after I stopped. Then, I adjusted in my seat and noticed…the gas light was on.

HOW LONG HAD THE GAS LIGHT BEEN ON!?  I’d never heard it ding.  But, OH YEAH, I had been listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix so loud to keep myself awake I wouldn’t have heard anything.

I mentally tried to calculate how many miles it was between Iowa and Indy, but I got all confused quit.  Two more blocks to go…please keep driving little car.

PLEASE.

We’re already late.

I pulled into the driveway and turned off the car.  Joey was waiting for me, looking quite pleased to see his long-lost wife. “We have to take the Corolla,” I told Joey.  ”We’re out of gas in this one.  I have no idea when the gas light came on, and I forgot to stop for gas on the trip.”

He affectionately shook his head at me (somehow this did not surprise him?) and so we jumped straight into the Corolla and drove up to Fishers for our class.  Which I just about slept entirely through, so exhausting was that drive.

This morning, Joey took the RAV-4 to the gas station and filled it up. He drove slowly and carefully on the way, and fortunately it was only a mile.

He put 15.3 gallons in the tank.

It’s a 15 gallon tank.

And that’s what you call making it on fumes.

Aug2

Marna

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Marna

On Tuesday evening last week when Joey and I arrived at my parents’ house, I immediately went down to the basement to locate Marna.  I found her, after much difficulty, and brought her upstairs to show Joey.

“She’s really dirty,” he said, not even really noticing the gouged out bits in her eyes, hole in the top of the head, and nail-hole nostrils.

And she was.  Her head was dusty and there were suspicious brown spatters on the cloth part of her body.  Actually it kind of looked like someone had thrown up right next to her and she got the spatter residue.  Sorry, I know that’s gross and all, but it’s what she looked like.

I took a black permanent marker to her eyes and filled in the gouge holes, so now they looked more like pupils than alien eyeballs.  That made a very big difference.  Then, Thursday evening while Mom and Pops and I were being lazy and watching TV, I ran down and tossed Marna and her outfit in the washing machine, being sure to treat all the mysterious brown spottage on her with Shout.  An hour later when the wash was done, I pulled her out and, surprise!, she looked almost good as new.

I showed her to Mom who seemed very pleased by Marna’s rebirth.  Pops glanced at her but was unimpressed.  I think what he wanted to say was, That’s a super ugly doll, I can’t see what the big deal is.

Most boys do.  I guess Cabbage Patch dolls are more for girls.

“Will you take her home with you now?” Mom asked me.

I was all, NO WAY. Marna is going to be her special baby to keep at YOUR house.

Anyway, she’s all cleaned up now, germ-free, and waiting for little baby girl Woestman to get big enough to come to Nana’s house and play with her!