freaking out a bit

so everything's moving on at a jolly good pace, which is totally freaking me out!

i just went online & downloaded the school calendar for 2011-12 & realized that christopher's first day of school is august 15th & the kids start on august 22nd. our buyer wants to close on august 24th. that means that we need to move the weekend of august 13th at the latest! ideally, i'd like to move the weekend of august 6th so that we have 2 full weeks of sleeping in the new house before school starts so that the kids can start to get acclimated before we totally change their world again. and somewhere in there we'll have both kindergarten orientation and pre-k orientation.

but thankfully i have amazing kids. the other day, the kids and i painted their rooms. at the time i thought i was crazy for having them help with the painting, but it actually turned out really nicely. chris had found little rollers & paint trays for them, so they actually got to paint their own rooms. we had gone to home depot the day before and picked paint colors, which totally thrilled them, and they did an awesome job painting. so their rooms are done. barbara & chuck are supposed to come in this weekend to finish clearing out the house & then we'll be able to paint our room, the dining room & living room; rip out the carpet & have it replaced; buy a new refrigerator; and replace the bathroom sink. all in 3 weeks. the painting and carpeting NEED to be done before we move in. the existing carpet has been there since they bought the house in the 50's. seriously. it needs to go. every time barbara vacuums, she's vacuuming up the remnants of the padding through the carpet. i was really trying to convince christopher to go with the hardwood, but i had to be a gracious loser in that battle. oh well. i won the battle of the paint color for our bedroom, so :)

and i haven't even started packing what's left in the house. pretty much everything that we don't need is already in the new house or stored in the duplex. what's left is really just the bare necessities. i really think it's harder to move across town than across the country. it doesn't feel like you need to actually pack to move down the street. and we've been doing it so piecemeal that it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we need to get everything else ready to go. but i can't pack the toaster, cuz we still eat toast for breakfast. i guess i could pack my cardigans, sweatshirts & sweaters. i probably won't need those for a bit :) but the kids clothes are done. i actually need to get out what i packed away from the spring to see what we need for school. crap! another thing to add to my to do list :( and i wonder why i'm not sleeping & eating way too much chocolate :)

Parenting 101?

i was truly blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom. true, at times, it's driven me a little crazy, or at least made my craziness more apparent, but i'm grateful that i've been able to avoid serious daycare with my 2 little ones. but when my husband & i decided to have kids, we were both old & definitely wanted them. there were no *accidents*. although, by the time you're in your mid-30's there really shouldn't be any *oopsies* anyway :).

but it really gets my goat when i read another news story about seriously irresponsible parenting. i just read an article today that makes my heart sick. a mom (34 years old, so she should totally have known better!) left her toddler to drown in the tub while she played on facebook. really? drowning isn't a quiet way to go, so didn't she hear him thrashing? or was she that far away?

and the one that really gets my goat is the one about the parents who walled their naked kids into a room so they could get blitzed on whatever. seriously? they should just be taken out back and shot!

now, don't get me wrong, i'm not a perfect mom. i'm not expecting any medals. i've done my share of letting the tv watch the kids so i can pee/bathe/eat/cook/check my email/blog etc... but i still forget to shut the door when i'm in the bathroom cuz it's just gonna open again. i'm finally able to shower without a little head poking through the shower curtain. parenting isn't easy, but it's not supposed to be. if it is, you're doing something wrong!

buying secondhand

i noticed recently that all of the knees in alexander's jeans have holes in them. in fact, i sent him to school one day in jeans that were perfectly fine, and when he came home there was a huge hole in 1 knee and a small one in the other. craptastic! now, i shop pretty much exclusively at children's place. not becuz i love their clothes, which i do, but becuz i have a credit card for them & the bill goes to my mom (thanks, nana!). but i'd already gone shopping there this month cuz isabelle's on a dress & skirt kick. all of a sudden, she's a totally girly-girl. headbands & skirts with tights every day. and even though my mom would be cool, i didn't want to do that again. especially since spring is coming (someday!) and i need to go through the totes of stuff i packed up from last year to see what still fits & what needs to be replaced.

so we decided to go to goodwill. i could have gone to kmart, but their quality isn't the best. and i couldn't find the once upon a child in the north hills. i really wanted to go to old navy, but their prices are outrageous unless you catch them on sale. and at goodwill i found a great selection of jeans in his size that are heavier than what i would have found at either old navy or children's place for a fraction of the price. and honestly, in this economy you've got to watch your pennies. i spent as much for 5 pairs of jeans at goodwill as i would have for 2 at old navy or children's place. plus, they had an organ (unplugged, thankfully) that the kids sat and played on while i shopped. i definitely wouldn't have found that elsewhere :)

for some reason, shopping at once upon a child doesn't seem like secondhand. i think it's becuz they're so picky about what they'll accept, while at goodwill you still hafta check. but if i'm looking for special occasion clothes, once upon a child is my first thought. 2 years ago i found this beautiful deep plum velvet dress for isabelle that still had the tags on. originally it was $50 and i got it for $10! of course, they wouldn't take it back once isabelle'd outgrown it when i included it in the piles of stuff i was trying to sell back. oh well. we got awesome Christmas photos that year :)

for myself, my favorite place to shop is my church's rummage sale. i always help with the sorting so i get to shop early. and there's a couple of older ladies with impeccable taste that are tall, so their trousers fit me well :) a couple of years ago i got a black pin striped pants suit for $3! talk about a bargain! :) but i can't always count on the rummage sale for the kids.

when i was a kid, i hated shopping at goodwill. hopefully, my kids won't be as snobby as i was & will just take it in stride. :)

you can't unlearn the knowledge

this week at my son's school they've been celebrating dr. seuss and they've invited parents to come into the class as guest readers to read their favorite dr. seuss story. well, i couldn't pass up a performance opportunity, so i went in to read "green eggs and ham" which happens to be my favorite. but i was talking about it with a client at work and one of the other clients chimes in that i don't really know who dr. seuss is and once i find out the truth about the man i won't be celebrating him anymore. now, this piques my curiosity, and thus my downfall.

i'm one that MUST KNOW. i question everything. it drives my husband mad! but my brain is unsettled if i don't know why everything. but in this case, that's really unfortunate. several years ago i was watching an episode of oprah and she was talking about Megan's Law which requires the police to make available to the public a list of sex offenders and where they live. so, of course, i HAD TO KNOW, so i promptly went to the site and found out that we do indeed have a sex offender living on my street. now what? i haven't been back to check, but i'm pretty sure he was an adult rapist, and not a pedophile or child molester, so from a mom standpoint i'm relieved. but it's still unsettling to know that there's a registered sex offender living within walking distance of my house. i know he's done his time, but there's a reason they make them get registered. and now i'm stuck with this knowledge that i cannot erase from my brain. if only i had one of those flashy-thingies from men in black!

so do i want to do the research to find out if dr. seuss is a racist prick? not really, becuz then every time i read one of my kids favorite stories i'd be thinking about it. but it brings up another question: does it matter? according to the other client, his character the cat in the hat is based on a lazy, shiftless black man. ok. does that mean he thought all black people are lazy & shiftless? i don't know. do i know some lazy, shiftless people of all races? sure! but is that how i label all people of a particular race? no. but do i really want to open this pandora's box and ruin the simple enjoyment of good stories? some of his stories are incredibly political, at least the cartoon versions. so i definitely think he had more to say than simple entertainment. but is it wrong of me to want to just enjoy his stories without delving too deeply into the how's and why's of his creative process? part of me REALLY wants to know. but once you know, it's there forever. that sucks.

our government is run by idiots!

it just boggles my mind that we keep electing these stupid people into office who have the power to ruin so many lives. i don't usually blog about politics, but this time i hafta make an exception.

i keep hearing about how there's a bill that's being considered that will take away funding for crucial things like Planned Parenthood. clearly congress & the senate are full of men & women who've never been down on their luck, without medical insurance & in need of good gynecological care at an affordable cost. now, don't get me wrong, i'm totally pro-life, but i don't feel that i have the right to tell you what you should do with your body. i couldn't imagine what kind of circumstance would compel me to have an abortion, and i'll do everything in my power to talk you out of it, but it's YOUR choice. i won't drive you to the clinic, but i'll be there for you afterward. but Planned Parenthood does SO MUCH MORE than just abortions! in fact, the 2 clinics i've been to don't do them AT ALL! what i loved about them is that they had a sliding scale. i had a job, but i didn't have insurance, so i couldn't afford to go to a *real* ob/gyn but i still needed to have my annual exam & get my birth control pills.

now i'm reading that they're thinking about passing a bill for birth control for wild horses. WHAT?!? i was sure that i'd read the post wrong, but, alas, i hadn't. i don't understand why horses are more important than women. how would these congresspeople & senators feel if their daughter was denied care becuz she couldn't afford it (since they're intent on repealing the health care bill too!) and had no other options. are we going back to back-street abortions with no aftercare and inhumane, unsanitary conditions? really? especially since they're planning on cutting more and more public sector funding, like head-start, is now really the time to cut funding for contraception? you can't just make a decision like that and not think about the long-term consequences. no contraception = more babies. do they just expect people to stop having sex? clearing they don't watch maury povich or jerry springer enough.

living on the edge of perfection

so we're moving. it's such a pain in the butt! we've got a house that we want to buy, and the sellers are willing to wait until we're ready, but we've got to sell our house first. and in order to do that, we need to keep it in pristine condition so we can show it at the drop of a hat. so stressful! and i hate to clean. i've done so much cleaning in the past month or so that i'm sick of myself! but now that everything's clean, i find myself not wanting to do anything. chris & the kids were in youngstown over the weekend, and when i came home from work i came in through the garage and went no further than my basement computer room & craft area. i don't want to cook, cuz i don't want to mess up the kitchen. i would actually prefer to not be in my house right now for fear that i'll make something dirty & hafta clean it again!

it was a shock to see the listing online. it made it seem so real! and when i came home from the gym yesterday, the sign was in the front yard. i guess we're really selling our house. the kids keep asking for toys that we've packed to take to Miss Bea's house. as long as we're not giving them away to other little ones who don't have any toys, they're cool. :)

but the kids and i took a mental health day today. it's a beautiful day & as soon as isabelle has awoken from her nap, we're going outside to play in the snow (which we probably shouldn't do, cuz it'll mar the perfection of the yard...) and i'll bake cookies & make cocoa for when they come in. thankfully the cookies are in the freezer pre-made, so there's no mess there. just crumbs to clean up afterward, but fresh-baked cookies are always worth the effort :)

defiant use of urine

i just don't understand it. my daughter uses urine as a weapon. defiantly. it really drives me bonkers. if she's pissed off, and getting completely naked doesn't get her what she wants, she'll pee on the floor. sometimes she just pees while she's still fully dressed. the other day she peed on the couch while she was watching a movie & by the time i found out, it was cold, which meant it'd been a while since it happened.

it's almost like she's a dog with that extra store of urine so they can mark their territory. she can pee on command, as long as it's her desire & not mine. and she can hold it all day. there was one day that she hadn't gone to the bathroom all day. it was after dinner when i realized she hadn't gone all day & i finally forced her to go potty.

i know you're not supposed to *force* them to pee or it'll become a control issue & they'll be scarred later in life. i also know that you're not supposed to *punish* them for having accidents. but if i tell her she can't have something & her response is to pee on the floor, then that's not an accident.

and i'm so glad that we found a little spotbot for cleaning the floor from these incidents. if i had to pull the big carpet shampooer upstairs everytime we had a DUU then i'd be exhausted! we had 2 this evening: she peed while standing on the stool IN THE BATHROOM washing her hands, and again standing in her rocker picking pajamas. the ones in the bathroom just really blow my mind. she's peed on the floor IN FRONT OF THE POTTY. now, when she was sick & had unhappy poopey that was all over the bathroom carpet, that was different, cuz i really do think it just came out of her bottom. i'm just glad that one was IN the bathroom, cuz i could just take that carpet & throw it in the washer, where i'd have had to use the carpet shampooer in the hallway or her bedroom.

but i just don't know what to do to get her to stop DUU'ing. she still doesn't get what she wants, despite the stripping or peeing. and she gets a spank on the bottom (which is usually conveniently naked *smile*). and she hasta help clean it up (except for the unhappy poopey). but i'm tired of cleaning up pee pee! and i can only imagine what our house would smell like if we didn't have a shampooer. bleh!

I HATE VOMIT!!!

i really hate vomit. i hate doing it, i hate seeing it or smelling it or seeing someone else doing it or cleaning it up. but unfortunately, it's one of the joys of motherhood. ick! someone (either alexander or christopher) brought home these germs & i'm really sick of it!

alexander threw up the 1st time at school a week ago today. and then he was sick last wednesday night. i guess when i was cleaning up, i didn't wash my hands well enough, cuz i was then sick all that night & into the day on thursday. bleh! but i discovered that i am blessed with two of the best friends a girl could ask for. both my friend kellie & my friend michele came over into my germ infested home to help me with the kids while i was on my deathbed. how awesome is that?! i am so grateful, cuz i really had no idea what i was going to do with them while i couldn't get out of bed, except to throw up. i'd told alexander to climb up on a chair to get down the cereal & bowls so they could eat in front of the tv (with no milk!) and i told them that they had to be quiet cuz mummy wasn't feeling well. of course, just before that i was a scene from the exorcist with my head spinning and my demon eyes glowing as i ordered them out of the bathroom so i could worship at the porcelain goddess :) i think that helped them figure out that mommy was a little bit sick.

luckily, i've been doing frequent shots of pepto, which has kept BOTH ends happy. alexander hasn't gotten sick since saturday night. but now isabelle has diarrhea, which is the other component of this virus (which we think is rotavirus). i'd thought she'd been vaccinated against it, which would explain why we've been dealing with this for a week now & she hadn't gotten sick. but maybe it's too strong for a mere mortal vaccination. maybe it's SUPER VIRUS! able to leap tall daddies in a single bound! with the power to lay low anyone in it's path with either vomit or diarrhea! make way for SUPER VIRUS! but whatever it is, i hope it passes soon. i've always said i'm better with poop than with vomit, but when the pooper isn't wearing diapers anymore, it's a slightly different story :) getting poop out of panties is not for the faint of heart. what i wouldn't have given for a pair of rubber gloves! and to make it worse, we were out shopping, so we were in the bathroom of a sewing machine shop. they had sewing machines piled everywhere! including the bathroom! but thankfully they also had clorox disinfecting wipes, so we were good :)

anyway, i must go do battle with my can of lysol. there are surfaces that have yet to be disinfected yet today! GERMS BE GONE!!!

who's that girl?

i've spend a significant portion of today in the kitchen. so much so that i have my practice disc of lucia di lammermore set up in the kitchen cd player & my music stand with my opera score set up right next to it. i never imagined a life where i'd bake my own bread and granola on a regular basis. and i've actually even graduated from using my bread machine to making the bread with my kitchenaid stand mixer & kneading it by hand. hunh?

any of my roommates from undergrad could tell you that the kitchen was never my domain. i was always the last to take care of the dishes or cleaning up of any sort. and i think joanna had just about given up on me ever actually washing the silverware. she once commented that i was the only person she knew that could wash dishes without getting my hands wet :). and here i am now with 2 kids, baking artisan bread on a weekly basis and making gourmet granola on request -- special with nuts just for my husband to take to school for breakfast.

even though i never actually had clear picture of what the future held for me, i know it wasn't this, and it's taken me a while to be comfortable with it. my husband and i are still in the process of redefining our roles. i don't think i will ever be a typical housewife/stay at home mom. i was raised by a mother who routinely tells people to "bite me." it really does make you feel better, even if you don't say it out loud. my husband, on the other hand, was raised as one of 8 by a good catholic mother who took in sewing. so we have very different images of what a mother should be doing during the day. my vision includes surfing the web and tending to my online business. his vision includes pearls & and apron, meeting him at the front door with his nightly scotch. :) needless to say, we've still got some work to do to find the middle ground. but we're getting there.

luckily, he's progressive enough to realize that he's got to adapt as well. his mother once mentioned to me that his father never changed a diaper for any of the 8 kids, while christopher will often be the one to offer to take care of that duty. and he's awesome with vomit. my therapist thinks that i have an actual phobia about vomit. thank goodness i didn't have morning sickness with either of my pregnancies. but last night when alexander threw up at the top of the stairs, christopher didn't even think to tell me to clean it up myself. before we had kids i told him that i would do poop forever if he'd take care of the vomit. and there were many instances with isabelle especially where i was called upon to get poop out of all of the nooks and crannies. gotta love that runny breast-fed baby poop! it tends to get everywhere. not so much of a problem with a boy, but a completely different situation with a girl. ick! :)

but i'm excited, cuz i start rehearsal for my next show on monday. it's always nice to slip into a different personna every once in a while. i get to dress like an opera singer and go somewhere with other adults and sing in a foreign language. and i've heard they're the same costumes from the last production of lucia, which involved fabulous corsets. the kind of corsets that go from right under the boobs to your hips & require you to perch on the front of your seat with perfect posture. and last time we had an awesome dresser who really tied us tight into our corsets. we looked fabulous! i can't wait! yay me! :) i just hope our lucia this time is as fabulous as the last one. without an awesome lucia, both vocally and acting, the mad scene really sucks.

joining the 21st century

well, my mp3 player died a bit ago. and then while we were on vacation earlier this summer, i killed my husband's as well. so i've been in need of a new mp3 player, and i've had my eye on an ipod. i'm a mac user, so ipods just made sense. i have a dell as well, but the only reason it's still connected to anything is for music downloading and mp3 player syncing.

so my brother has recently found not one, but 2 ipods -- a nano & a touch. i totally covet the touch, but could only manage to get him to sell me the nano. really, the nano is more than acceptable for my needs. and it's the color i wanted, so it's even better :) . but in order to add all of my music to this ipod, i need to transfer everything from wma format to aac format. i'd had the brilliant idea a bit ago to simply upload all of my music from the dell to a thumb drive and then transfer it to the mac. that worked partially, but on my mac, anything that wasn't in mp3 format at least was ignored. and i couldn't figure out how to change the settings in itunes to get it to recognize anything else. so now i'm faced with the option of downloading itunes to the dell & converting everything from there. unfortunately that'll take another 6 or 7 HOURS! i have about 95 hours of music on my computer & i've converted 9.5 hours so far... what a process! i hope it's worth it. :)

but i'm excited to have a working mp3 player again. i've committed to going to the gym every day. i have to get up every morning to take alexander to school, so isabelle & i will go straight from there to the gym and get in a nice workout. i've managed to drag my friend kellie along with me for the past week, but there will be days (like tomorrow) that she can't go. and working out without conversation or music is really difficult. and my favorite fabric artist is making a custom qpouch for me with an armband so i can wear it while i work out. i'm hoping she gives me a discount since i gave her the idea for the armband (hint, hint *smile*).

ok, maybe i'm misunderstanding some of the numbers my computer's telling me. it's still gonna take forever, cuz this computer is about 8 years old, which is about 250 years old in computer years :) . i'm hoping that i'll be able to get to bed sometime before tomorrow :)

now that i have a new ipod, i need to get a new computer that will allow me to upload photos and be on the internet at the same time, and a new camera that will let me take photos indoors. it seems that all of my electronics have issues :)

sleepytime songs

i'm a singer, so when i put the kids to bed, i sing songs i know, and they just happen to be in multiple languages. i didn't really think that was odd until i realized that my kids sing along with me in my multiple languages. and they have names for everything:
the daddy song: "can't help lovin' that man of mine", from showboat
the mommy song: "adieu" and "prison" by faure
the isabelle song is made up by me, but sung to the tune of "silver bells"
the alexander song is also made up by me, but sung to the tune of "top of the world" by the carpenters
the german song: "gretchen am spinnrade" by schubert
ninghe: "cancion de cuna para dormir a un negrito" by montsalvatge
the new song: "someone to watch over me" by gershwin
the summertime song: "summertime" by gershwin

i've also sung random songs from shows that i'm working on. i've done bits from carmen jones, and most recently "uzh kak po mostu mostchku, pa kalina vim da sochkam, vainu, vainu, vainu, vainu!" from eugene onegin. they never actually asked for that one, but... :)

now christopher, he has a completely different idea of what sleepytime songs should be, and they tend to be more participatory in nature, which i totally don't think is the point. and his songs tend to me more camp-song in nature. oh well. we can't both be musical snobs :)

alexander is incredibly musical and can already match pitch and sing along in the right key, an octave higher (especially when he's singing with daddy). i have visions of marketing us as a mother/son duo for "amahl & the night visitors" soon. i love the mother's role, and he'd be an awesome amahl. at least until his voice changes :)

isabelle, on the other hand, doesn't do as well. i can't remember alexander at this age, cuz it seems like he's always been musical and sang well. i feel bad for her, becuz there are times when alexander won't let her sing along with him cuz "she's bad" he says. i keep trying to tell him that she's still little & singing with him will make her better, but he's not buying it. oh well. it would really be a shame for her to be the only completly unmusical member of an incredibly musical family. i can't really say she's getting better, though. just louder :) but just becuz she doesn't sing well doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy it. she doesn't realize how bad she is. i just hope there isn't a music teacher somewhere down the road who decides to burst her bubble in a really mean way. not everyone can be the fabulous mr. laret :)

SpongeBob is an agent of the devil

really, it's my fault. i'm the one that taught alexander what channels have his shows. but it's not my fault that nick decided that preschoolers don't need to watch tv after 9am. last summer i had until 10am with preschool programs, but not this year. and now that he knows what channel spongebob is on, he won't watch anything else. craptastic!

now, don't get me wrong. i'm not one of those moms who feel that all tv needs to be appropriate for my kids just cuz i don't feel like making sure they're watching something appropriate. i fully believe that i should be able to watch the daily show at 2pm during nap-time. but i do personally dislike spongebob. i don't think there's really any redeeming qualities beyond the entertainment value. which is fine! but not for a 2 year old and a 4 year old. if i'm gonna let the tv babysit my kids while i work on the computer, i'd much rather have pbs sprout or even disney, but lately it's spongebob or nothing. when i abscond with the remote and refuse to allow him to watch spongebob he just turns off the tv, which is fine. i'm tempted to block that channel, becuz really there's nothing on nick that we watch (except spongebob) since they stop doing preschool shows like dora and wonderpets after 9am. but i think my husband would be upset, cuz he actually enjoys spongebob. and since it's geared more to his age group, that's ok. :)

i can't think of any other shows that i really abhor. caillou is really whiny and he's not my favorite, but i can't really complain. at least he's age appropriate. spongebob lives alone, away from his parents, so he's obviously grown. he doesn't have his drivers license, but he's taking the class, further evidence that he's at least in high school, if not an adult. he's got a job, which again points to him being over 16. all reasons that a 4 year old should not be watching him. plus he doesn't always do the right thing. at least in the other cartoons we watch that aren't at all educational the characters make good choices so at least they're learning good decision-making skills. but spongebob tends to do the wrong thing with alarming regularity. very distressing.

if i block the channel, i'll also be able to avoid icarly, which is also not age appropriate but beloved by my 4 year old. i don't even think he knows what's going on with that show. but clare likes it, therefore he likes it :) and my son has always had a thing for older women :)

toilet paper fetish

my daughter loves toilet paper. i don't know if it's a typical toddler thing, cuz alexander didn't do it, but isabelle loves to unroll toilet paper and tear it up. the first time she did it we were in youngstown at my mother-in-law's house. i was doubly horrified, 1st cuz she was doing it, & 2nd cuz christopher & my m-i-l were just standing there watching indulgently. my question to them was "how is she going to know not to do this at home if it's ok to do at grandma's?" the answer is, she doesn't!

i got the kids down for their naps this afternoon and was sitting on the sunporch working on a new necklace design. when i'd finished, i put it on to see how it looked and went upstairs to look in the bathroom mirror. what i saw horrified me! first off, isabelle was sound asleep, completly naked at the top of the stairs. but she was lying in a position that would indicate she'd fallen asleep in the process of going down the stairs. i'm not sure how that's possible.

but then i went 'round the corner and saw the bathroom. the sight that met my eyes was the stuff of nightmares! toilet paper EVERYWHERE.

i spend a lot of money on toilet paper and unfortunately, this isn't the first time that isabelle has unrolled a brand new roll of toilet paper. if christopher didn't complain about the really cheap stuff, i wouldn't worry about it, but once you start getting decent toilet paper, you're paying some decent money for it. and losing an entire roll just breaks my penny pinching heart! the last time she did this, i made her help me roll all the toilet paper back onto the roll, but i don't think that's possible this time. what a shame! but at least she just plays with it and doesn't eat it. then i'd have a whole different kettle of fish to worry about!

my baby's growing up!

i'm so excited! isabelle made it all night with panties on and kept them dry! she's been wanting to wear panties to bed for about a week now, but i was hesitant cuz her nighttime underwear was always wet in the morning. but she keeps taking it off during the night because "her bottom's itchy" as she says. so last night, after i found her bottom naked for the 2nd time, we talked about it, and she said that if she had on panties, she'd keep them dry all night, and she did! i was so excited this morning when we woke up and she was dry. now all we need is for alexander to do the same! :)

i know boys are different. he's always been a heavy sleeper and a heavy wetter. he's getting better, though. there have been nights when he's woken up at 2 or 3 to go potty. but those nights are few and far between. and doctors don't consider bed wetting a problem until they're 5 years old. we've got a couple of months to work on it with him. but if i only hafta buy nighttime underwear for one of them, that's a huge savings. since we used cloth diapers for both of them, this is a huge expense that we were totally not prepared for. but at least it's only 1 diaper a day instead of 10 to 20 :)

things you can't do with a hole in your throat :)

it's amazing what you can't do with a hole in your throat. i don't know what i was thinking!

1. you can't drink from a glass w/out a straw -- trying to get that last 1/3rd is incredibly hard!
2. you can't fold laundry -- i'm so used to holding things with my chin!
3. you can't see things on a high shelf
4. you can't sleep on your tummy
5. you can't mediate violent outbursts by your 4 year old
6. you can't wear anything but v-necked shirts


but seriously, everything's going well. it's just so darn itchy! i can't wait until the bandage things come off so i can scratch for real! and the 4 loads of laundry i did today really were a challenge :)

...and the countdown begins...

well, it's 2 days til my surgery. i'll get the call on tuesday to let me know what time i'll need to be at the hospital on wednesday -- probably at the butt-crack of dawn. i've had all of my testing done, so now there's nothing to do but wait. and unlike childbirth, there's no joy at the end of this tunnel. and i don't have to have a bag packed *smile*. but i am hoping that my new bag from my sister gets here in time. she did kinda promise that i'd have it in time to take to the hospital with me *smile*.

once i met her, i googled my surgeon. she looks like she's 12, but she's done extensive research in thyroidectomies, so i feel a little better. and she's Black, so that's kinda cool. she's canadian, though (i think), so i didn't want to say african-american *smile*. she was really straight-forward in the consultation, and that really put me at ease. she didn't sugar-coat anything, but wasn't brusque and unfeeling either. and apparently they do a lot of these.

i also went to the voice center and had my throat scoped to take a look at my vocal cords. that was really nifty! it was awesome to see my cords working, although i could have gone without having something shoved up my nose and down my throat *smile*. but now i know how everything works, and i'm hoping it'll all work the same way after the surgery.

there's only a 1% chance that they'll nick either of the nerves that control my singing during the surgery, but there's a greater chance of jacking things up with the breathing tube, so i have to be firm with the anesthesia team about what i want, and hope that they do what's best for me instead of what's easiest for them. i can't go on disability if they mess anything up and i can't sing! *smile*

and i'm really excited cuz my mom will be here today! it's always a good time when nana's here. the kids are over the moon that nana's coming. they just don't know why. but i feel so much better knowing that she'll be here with them while chris and i are at the hospital. especially since it'll likely be all day, and not just a couple of hours. plus, what sitter would show up at your house at 5am and stay until 6 or 7 pm? you'd hafta pay an arm and a leg! :)

ice cream for dinner? *smile*

of course! i strive to be the cool mom who gets her kids to eat! i was talking to my sister today, and she was making sweet potato ice cream, and i thought it sounded delicious, so i'm making it, too, but as a side dish for dinner. the kids are over the moon at the thought that we're eating ice cream for dinner, and i even let them help making it. alexander's bored already watching the machine go around and around, but i had to tear isabelle away. she's being patient, she told me *smile*. well, i hope they like it. it smells delicious! lots of brown sugar and cinnamon. yum!!!

shopping with children -- the husband edition

so, i do about 95% of the shopping for our household, for the things that we use everyday from food to clothing. and i pretty much only shop before rest time, cuz the rest of the day is pretty unpredictable. if it's not done before 3pm (preferable 2pm) then it doesn't need to be done. my husband takes care of all the outdoor and home repair stuff. but every once in a while he decides that we all need to go to the store together for whatever we need. usually it's a big lots shopping spree, but tonight it was a trip to target. after dinner at the restaurant (eat n' park *smile*)

now, i love target. they've got the big carts with 2 seats for bigger kids, and that's awesome! i'm all about confinement for my 2 little ones. and when we got there, i found an appropriate cart and got them both strapped in, and they started whining about getting out. i'm a firm believer in confinement, but my husband told them that if they were good they could get out. i stopped to check out the jewelry (for inspiration *smile*) and the next thing i knew, they were both out of the cart, and the madness began!

i really don't know what he was thinking. our children have not yet grasped the concept of looking with your eyes and not your hands. they don't understand that we need to use our inside voices when we're inside. they don't understand that they can't just go look at something just cuz they want to, even if we're not going over there. they want to look at what they want, and not what's on mommy's list. hence the need for confinement. but my husband's got isabelle on his shoulders and alexander by the hand, and they're both talking a mile a minute while i push this ginormous cart that's completely empty. i found everything on my list while he went to look at bikes and toys and whatnot, and was forced to explain that they both already have bikes, so we're not taking the princess tricycle home. did i mention the need for confinement? *smile* by the time we were ready to check out, he was ready to leave them both in the store. it was after 9pm -- past their bedtime on a late night -- and we were both frazzled. they were both jazzed by being up late, even though they didn't get any popcorn, and they wanted to sing all the way home. needless to say, they're both asleep and i think my husband is too. they're exhausting on a regular day, but let us try something new and different, and i need an adult beverage! maybe next time he'll remember why they need to be confined in the store!

my word can she scream!

isabelle is a screamer. i mean, a serious screamer. she reminds me of the little girls i saw on a 20/20 about young girls who were severely schizophrenic. *smile*

now, i know that she's just 2 and is just finding ways to express her anger. she's not schizophrenic. or possessed. usually i just tell her that when she's ready to settle down and use her words to come find me. but christopher tonight stayed with her until she settled down, which really prolonged the situation for an extra 1/2 hour. it gets to the point where i'm really surprised she has a voice. i don't know how anyone can scream for 1/2 an hour or more 3 or 4 days a week and not have serious vocal issues! wow! she'll be a great gospel or musical theatre singer *smile*

but i can really see how parents can have their young children diagnosed as bipolar. one second she screaming like she's possessed, and the next minute she's cuddling with me asking for the babies she's thrown all over her room. absolutely exhausting *smile*

in search of sanity

after i had isabelle, i finally realized that i needed some help and found a fabulous therapist. and after working with her for a while, i finally admitted that i needed to be medicated. and it helped for a long time. it did what it was supposed to do and helped me through the darkness. of course, it also helped that isabelle stopped screaming all the time, alexander started going potty and both of them could walk and talk *smile*. but for a while, the meds were all that were keeping me out of jail. there were still days when i had to put myself into time-out *smile*

but i switched from zoloft to lexapro, and more recently from lexapro to prozac. they all made me twitchy, and the lexapro actually made me think i had some sort of neurological disorder, cuz my hand would twitch periodically like i had parkenson's or something. but the prozac just sucked. i had all of the side effects with none of the relief (see "prozac sucks my butt"). so i talked to my therapist and my pcp, and we decided that maybe it was time to take a break. i had to realize that the things in my life that annoy me and drive me crazy will be with me forever (or at least til they graduate from high school or college *smile*), so i really needed to figure out how to deal with it, since i can't medicate them *smile*. so i've been off my meds for a little over 2 weeks.

for the most part, i feel great. i've been doing a lot of breathing, but my children and husband are all still alive, and i'm not incarcerated or on a 72 hour hold somewhere *smile*. but then i have a day like today that makes me question both my fragile grasp on my sanity and my decision to go off my meds. today sucked. i think i cried for an hour. my kids were great, though. they kept coming into the kitchen to give me hugs, and allow me to hug their special toys, which was really great. but i had to call my union in NYC cuz i didn't pay my dues on time. and the guy was really MEAN!!! i mean, obnoxiously out of line and i really wanted to go through the phone and beat him to death. but unlike before i went on my meds and the girl at sally's caused me to throw a brush at her, i just called my mom who proceeded to talk me off the ledge. of course, when i told my husband about the incident later this afternoon, it made me cry again, but only briefly, so that was definite improvement.

i don't regret going off my meds. and i don't think that i'll never go back on them, perhaps, at some point if i need to. but i like being off them right now (with the exception of this morning *smile*). before i started therapy i was in a research study for post-partum depression, and one of the questions they would ask was if i felt that people were being overly mean or critical. they were looking to see if i was suffering from paranoia. but i don't think it's paranoia -- i think that when you're medicated you just don't care that ppl are mean! *smile* now that i'm off my meds i'm more aware of how mean and evil people can be *smile*

i've also come to realize that i'm a hoarder. i did talk to my therapist about it in my last session & her eyes got really big a couple of times *smile*. i prefer to think of it as selective collecting *smile*. but when i watch those hoarding shows, i totally understand the hoarder thought process, which is a little frightening *smile*. i'm much better now than i ever was when i was single, mainly becuz christopher limits the amount of space in which i can expand my collections. so i've become a somewhat organized hoarder. but we're thinking about moving, so i've gotta get it under control so that we can do something with it. i like to see all my stuff all the time, so putting it all in storage so we can show the house will be painful *smile*. and christopher already knows that he can't help me clean and/or organize. all he can do is fuss at me until i do it, albeit grudgingly *smile*. as long as it gets done, right? *smile*