07.30.07

Remember Shamu?

Posted in Uncategorized at 12:52 pm by Anne

Shamu

Originally uploaded by Dux

This past weekend we took our first ‘multi-family vacation’ with two of our best couple friends. If my bosoms were not in such exquisite pain and if Piper wasn’t teething and if we had found babysitters for all the kids for those three days it would have been PERFECT.

It was still pretty awesome though.

I hadn’t been to San Antonio for at least fifteen years and got to peer at it through my mommy sunglasses. The Alamo was a brief walk-through because we arrived only 30 minutes before closing time. Since there were more kids than adults to watch them, everyone was on high-alert most of the time. The riverwalk was even less ideal a setting to shepherd so many children through but once we were in some good old A/C and wolfing margaritas along with their chips & salsa brethren, all was right in the world. Then there was Sea World.

Wow. Saturday is probably the most idiotic day to go. Not only was it hot and humid in ways that stagger the imagination but it was packed to the brim with senseless freaks from every walk of life imaginable. It was like going to the State Fair. And don’t even pretend to not know what I am talking about.

attitude. rudeness. arrogance. selfishness.

We escaped back to the hotel in the early afternoon, 5 hellacious hours later and just chilled. and ate. and drank. and played a weird ass card game called ‘pitch’. while the kids rolled around on the floor. To me, that was the best part of all.

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07.26.07

Pass me another beer bartender.

Posted in Lily, Parenting at 9:48 pm by Anne

Today I had a sitter come over to watch the girls while I took Pipez for a fun-filled vacation to Tar-jay. There were steals to be made and deals to find in the clearance sections at the end of the aisles and the two of us had a nice time patrolling our heavily laden cart, all catty-wumpus though the store together.

Just as I was loading everything into the back of the car my cellphone rang.

Me: Hello?
Lily: Mommy! (crying and blubbering incoherently) I fell in the water and my bike is broken!
Me: It’s okay Baby. (worried by now) Is miss Lisa with you?
Miss Lisa: Hi. You will never belive what happened.

So yeah, not a particularly comforting introduction to the story of how my daughter plummeted down a steep hill on her bicycle, lost control, and flew into the pond. Do I need to remind you that she doesn’t know how to swim?

At home the sitter was giving them both a bath and combing tangles of algae out of Lily’s hair. I handed Pipes to Lisa and drove back to the pond to retrieve her bicycle. From the way the sitter described it, the bike was right on the edge of the pond. (The bike was left there because she had her hands full dealing with a soggy Lily and a very impressed Emma.) Which was why it took me so long to locate the dang thing. We’ve had a lot of rain and the pond has gotten so much run-off that most of it is blooming with scads and scads of algae. It is amazing to me that ducks are still living there to say nothing of all the fish! And bloom like that is kinda like quicksand; it moves in and covers things up leaving very little to trace. If only I’d had the foresight to bring a rake or a very long stick. After 5-10 minutes of hunting in the hot hot sun at long last I peered into the green muck and located the bike about 4 feet from the edge. What’s four feet to a monkey though?

Honestly, people. The floor looked so brackish, while a few garagantuan fish bubbled around eerily, that I half considered just leaving the damn thing until I remembered, “Lily got in that nasty water.” I was just lucky to pull my phone out of my pocket, saving it, in time to experience the putrid overly warm water reach my bellybutton. Nasty.

Now I am trying to put them to bed and prepare for the weekend. All’s well that ends well and as frightening as it was in circumspect, I’d say we learned a valuable lesson pretty cheaply. Especially if no one gets sick. GAhhhhh.

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07.25.07

pain and pain again

Posted in Parenting at 11:07 am by Anne

I’ve done it again. Don’t ask me how but for the second time in five months of nursing I’ve managed to come down with a blocked duct. Anytime now I expect to receive an award because it’s not the standard painful single blocked duct issue, this time I have gone above and beyond the call of mommyduty and have a DOUBLE infection.

How can I blame Pipes on this? I cannot. Obviously I have defective breasts. Just like my defective uterus that is twisted in such a manner to make ‘natural’ childbirth impossible.

Isn’t it great how modern medicine can come in and take care of things? It’s almost anti-darwinian. I am an example of that through and through.

Don’t mind me, I’m just feeling sorry for myself. nursing hurts. not nursing hurts. massaging the tiny portions of gravel imbedded in the tissue hurts. the breast pump releashes it’s own kind of exquisite pain. and having to referee the constant fighting between my oldest two girls is still a different hurt altogether.

The only good news I have to share is that I finished the latest Potter book yesterday. Personally I think it started out rather clunkily but day-am. She more than made up for it by the end. It will make one great movie.

More later. I am going to go put some ice on my ineffective milk producing glands.

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07.23.07

lovey

Posted in Uncategorized at 5:45 pm by Anne

lovey

Originally uploaded by Dux

This is it. The object of her affection and feelings of well being.

Kinda ratty, don’t you think?

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07.22.07

somebody slap her

Posted in Uncategorized at 12:28 pm by Anne

So I’ve done it again. Shan and I have become pretty good friends with two other couples. We get together for suppers, we hang out, we let our kids play blablabla…it is great. I look forward to spending time with these people.

Well. Remember that post awhile back (I can’t find it to link to it) about that chick from playgroup that I met around the same time as these current friends, and how our husbands just didn’t get along and her feelings got hurt that no one wanted to get together with her family and blablabla..well, finally I thought we had gotten past it all since we’re adults and all.

This morning I sent an email out to our couple friends, to firm up plans to meet at the lake next month. Well, I thought I had. In fact, I had accidentally sent the email to the wrong friend. It went to this friend we don’t hang out with in addition to one of the couple. So instead of writing “whoops! you sent this to the wrong person!” She replied to me and to the friend who was actually supposed to get the email ” I believe you sent this to the wrong person. You guys get together with Tina and her family - not us. Have fun”

nice.

So here we are back in that small rowboat of shame, where I get to feel guilty for having other friends and that no one wants to hang out with she and her husband. The difference is that I am so tired of apoologising that I’m done apologising. It’s sad, in a way, because Lily is ape for her daughter, but I don’t need the stress of pussyfooting around and not mentioning friends of mine for fear of hurting her feelings. And I’ve decided that I’m not going to apologise anymore. It was an honest mistake so get the hell over it.

It’s all so highschool; I could puke.

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07.20.07

sweet nothings

Posted in Emma, Parenting at 10:31 pm by Anne

Don’t ask me how or why but lovey was found. Lovey was found in the GARAGE of all places.

I have no idea what happened or how it wound up in the corner wrapped up in all manner of sports equipment but Shan found it tonight and presented it to Emma as if he were a knight in shining armour. and you know what? He was. He most definitely was.

A quick thank you to all of you who wanted to help. You rule.

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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:35 am by Anne

stargazing

Originally uploaded by Dux

and now we return you to the regularly scheduled posting of flowers.

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Thanks for the memories.

Posted in Emma, Piper at 7:27 am by Anne

Poor poor Emma. There is no trace of lovey anywhere. No one has returned it to the Target lost & found and I have a very sad but certain feeling that it must have been thrown in the trash. What kind of evil child-hating individual could look himself in the mirror after chunking such an obviously well-loved security blanket away is beyond me but we have survived three nights without it so far and it can only get better from here, right? Except for that nagging personal guilt and sadness…

Emma is doing okay with it. She and I have multiple conversations throughout the day about where her lovey is. and how it got there. and why. I can’t break it to her that she will never see it again, that it is in the trash, so instead I use terms like ‘when Target calls us’…in the meantime, a friend of ours gave her a replacement lovey. We refer to it as ‘new green lovey’ and she carries it around somewhat, almost seemingly to placate me, but it is a stop-gap measure and we all know it.

The reign of lovey is sadly over.

In other news, Piper is getting a new tooth! And more importantly, she has managed to bring her toes to her mouth. I’ve marked that milestone each time with the older girls and couldn’t very well ignore Piper’s ingenuity. She is one able girl! Now, if only I could get her back to sleeping until 6 or 7AM, we would be perfect! This 4:30AM wailing is not cool anymore.

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07.18.07

epic disasters

Posted in Emma, Parenting at 5:45 am by Anne

Yesterday two big things occurred:

1) the downstairs air conditioning unit went out
and
2) Emz’s most prized possession, her lovey, was lost.

Both are big deals, both make sleeping difficult, but the A/C can be repaired and sadly, I am not 100% sure we’ll be seeing old lovey again.

How could the first one be helped? I have no control over the GD HVAC system but lovey? Man. As we piled out of the car in the Target parking lot I clearly remember telling Emma to put lovey back in the car. We never take it shopping with us. But there was Emma, still coming out of her naptime coma, and there we were in the hot hot parking lot and I just didn’t want to fight about it. My bad. As a result the last time I recall having a glimpse of the ratty old thing was during check-out. The girls were laughing because Piper was grab-assing at the mangy lovey, and I recall nothing after that. It must have fallen or been pushed beneath Piper’s babybucket as it sat in the cart. I loaded the girls and the bags, pushed the cart to the graveyard, and lifted Pipes out without looking back.

sigh.

And no, they stopped making this particular thing and I cannot find a replacement anywhere. This is the closest I can find but Emz’s was pink and a bear. What are the odds that she will accept something green and with a puppy head? Not to mention, her lovey had an obliterated paw from constant rubbing. That only added to its specialness.

At the prospect of never seeing this security blanket again I have discovered a previously hidden personal attachement. It makes me sad to think I’ll never have to throw it in the wash again or settle it back down with my sleeping girl or warn her to stop hitting Lily with it.

Target opens in a few hours; wish us luck.

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07.16.07

bumbolicious

Posted in Piper at 10:03 am by Anne

bumbo beauty

Originally uploaded by Dux

Remember this ol chair? I had originally purchased one for Lily when she was a wee small tyke but promptly returned it after a red-hot scalding bitchout from the mister…something about ‘another GD piece of plastic crap that we don’t need…’

Well. Some years have passed since then and the price has dropped from 50 to 35 clams. and one doesn’t have to pay for shipping anymore.

A friend of mine made such great use of these little chairs for her twin babies that I decided they actually might be worth the green. When I saw them go on sale at Tarjay a few weeks ago, I sped in and picked this pretty blue one out for Pipes. Let’s just say that she loves it even if she doesn’t because I have a feeling that once she moves on to solid foods a bit, those grasping fingers will hold onto a whole mess of cheerios with royal impunity from that there chair.

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