You Are a Snowman |
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I Prefer the More Politically-Correct "Snowperson"
December 14th, 2006Still No Basement Post: My Day
December 14th, 200612 a.m. – Wake up to Todd shaking me, Rollie crying. Go into Rollie’s room, give him some water and vaseline for his chapped lips. Go back to bed.
3 a.m. – Rollie cries again. Complaining of his cheek hurting. Realize he probably still has the ear infection for which he has already been through two rounds of antibiotics; Give him Ibuprofen, go back to bed.
7:30 a.m. – Wake up, pee, brush teeth, put on deodorant, put hair in ponytail, pull on jeans and tee-shirt, go into Tiller’s room, pick her up, grab one diaper, one pair of jeans, one tee, one pair socks, one pair shoes. Carry all downstairs. Todd already has Rollie eating breakfast at table in pjs.
7:45 a.m. Change Tiller’s diaper, realize pants are too small, put on her teeshirt, put her in highchair, throw down Cheerios for her, open fruit cup and dump it on tray. Run upstairs to get Rollie’s school clothes and another pair of pants for Tiller.
7:55 a.m. – Kiss Todd goodbye, start coffee, bolt down breakfast bar, change Rollie’s diaper and put on his clothes, including shoes.
8 am – Pour cup of coffee, read email from Honey.
8:05 a.m. Pack Rollie’s backpack for school, pack my diaper bag for Tiller, gather starlight mints for Rollie’s teacher to use for gingerbread houses.
8:10 a.m. – Realize Quint hasn’t been let out. Let him out.
8:13 a.m. – Sit down to finish cup of coffee.
8:15 a.m. – Turn on Thomas the Tank Engine dvd so Rollie will shut the hell up about it.
8:20 a.m. – Realize Rollie has dirty diaper, then pick him up and realize he feels slightly warm. Remember ear infection suspicions. Run upstairs to get thermometer and vaseline, along with Ibuprofen, just in case.
8:22 a.m. – Take rectal temperature (always wait till after first cup of coffee), 100.9, dose with Ibuprofen and decide to send to school anyway.
8:25 a.m. Put dog in crate, turn off lights, pour coffee into travel mug, turn off coffeemaker, look at house that looks like tornado hit it and pray that buyers do not come to look at house while I am gone.
8:30 a.m. – Pick up Tiller off floor, along with shoes she has taken off, put diaper bag over shoulder, finger through keychain, put rollie’s jacket on, then his backpack, which he insists on wearing, even though we are only walking out the door and to the car, where we will have to take it off again before getting in carseat. Hit alarm, get Rollie to open door, because my hands are full with diaper bag, keys, coffee, Tiller, and Starlight mints.
8:32 a.m. – Lock door, tell Rollie to stop trying to open automatic door on van while I am trying to unlock it, put Tiller into her carseat, then walk around to strap Rollie into his.
8:33 a.m. – Put diaper back and starlight mints into passenger seat. Get in car. Start car. Get back out of car to walk around to tiller’s side of car where I left coffee sitting on roof of car. Get back in car.
8:34 a.m. – Leave neighborhood. Drive to Rollie’s school in Decatur.
9:01 a.m. – Arrive at school. Get out, get Rollie out, walk around to Tiller’s side, get her out.
9:02 a.m. – Talk to parent of child in Rollie’s class about whether I am pissed about decision to split 3 and 5 day kids into two classes.
9:03 a.m. – Drop Rollie into class. Remove backpack and jacket and help him wash hands, all while holding Tiller at the same time. Kiss Rollie goodbye.
9:10 a.m. – Drive to new primary care physician’s on N. Decatur road. Park, get Tiller and stroller out of car, put her in stroller, find doctor’s suite.
9:20 a.m. – Check in with receptionist for 9:30 a.m. appointment. Sit down and try to keep tiller occupied.
9:30 a.m. – Receptionist asks for insurance card, driver’s license, and for me to fill out new patient paperwork. Pay $40 co-pay. Attempt to fill out paperwork, while keeping 13 month old occupied in boring waiting room. Get stared down by humorless, crotchety old people. Cough a lot.
10 a.m. – Wonder if Tiller and I will grow old in waiting room of unseen doctor’s office. Watch every fucking old person in Decatur get called in before us.
10:30 a.m. – Get called back. Nurse takes temperature, pulse, bp. Tiller seems okay. Nurse leaves and shuts door.
10:45 a.m. Tiller starts crying.
10:46 a.m. Crying becomes total freakout. I take her out of stroller and walk her for 15 very long minutes, back and forth, three little steps to a length of the room. Sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Starkle Starkle Little Twink (a post unto itself), Jingle Bell Rock, and Winter Wonderland. Big yellow snot comes out of her nose and runs all over my shirt, which was dirty when I put it on this morning anyway.
11 a.m. – Realize I have to pee, that Tiller will not be falling asleep, and that I am tired of holding her. Open door in frustration to see pitying look on nurse’s face. I say i have to pee. Nurse takes Tiller while I go to bathroom, then when I come out, they are gone, so i start looking down hall. Find Tiller with nurse in a doctor’s office and they give her a bear. Nice gesture, big points for nurses, big fucking lot of good it does me, though, as I still had to wait another 25 minutes for doctor to show and by that time she had lost interest in bear and was crying again.
11:25 a.m. – Doctor comes in. Immediately likable, as he looks like real-life Santa Claus, but it becomes quickly evident that reason he made me wait one hour and 55 minutes is that he likes to talk. A lot. Doctor talks to me about symptoms, his grandchildren, get up on the table, look at ears, nose, throat, What is the little princess getting for Christmas this year?, you obviously have bronchitis, a lot of malflora (sp?), and a grungy tonsil, and back in my day, we made our own Christmas gifts. We made boomerangs, and we would cut them out of plywood, and boy, if you throw one of those up and it comes back, you don’t want to be in the way, and here is your prescription.
11:45 a.m. – Finally get out of black hole doctor’s office, get back to car, go through drive through pharmacy at kroger to drop off prescription, then drive to Rollie’s school.
12:00 a.m. – Get Tiller out of carseat. Pick up Rollie at school. Bring both back outside, strap Tiller in, then Rollie. Drive back to Kroger on N. Decatur to pick up Pharmacy. (Only bright side to day – Kroger on n. Decatur has parking spaces especially for Walkup Pharmacy, so you can walk to the window and not have to take kids out of car.) Go up. Pay for prescription. Walk back to car. Open bag and realize only one prescription was filled. Go back up to window (Praise Jesus for walkup pharmacy window and walkup pharmacy window parking!!!!). Explain to Pharmacist about two prescriptions rather than one, then wait while he searches for script. Wait while he fills script. Pay for another prescription. Go back to car.
12:15 Drive back to East Atlanta.
12:45 p.m. – Get back to house. Rollie has fallen asleep. Carry Rollie into house and put on couch. Rollie wakes up and requests pillow, blanket, Thomas dvd. Obviously doesn’t feel good. Go get screaming Tiller out of car. Bring her in and plop her on floor.
12:50 p.m. – Make pbj for Rollie, cheese toast for tiller, soup for both. Serve all of this, plus two waters (because I didn’t get to go to grocery because fucking Dr. Santa wanted to discuss handmade toys for an hour), which Rollie then proceeded to lecture me about: “Water is for snacks. Milk is for lunch and dinner.” Heat up pasta from last night for me. Bolt down. Start getting requests for blanket fixing and more dvd.
1:30 p.m. – Go to fluff Rollie’s pillow, realize he is burning up. Change both kids’ diapers, and take Rollie’s temperature – 103.9: Fucking awesome.
2:00 p.m. – Call Pediatrician for sick visit appointment. Make appointment for 3 p.m. Put poor dog in crate. Go through same rigamarole about packing shit up, minus backpack and starlight mints and coffee. Put kids in car. Drive to Sandy Springs.
2:45 pm. – Arrive for appointment. Get both kids out of car and put Tiller in stroller, then Rollie says he needs to be carried, so I carry 36 lb son while pushing 26 lb daughter in stroller. Fucking awesome.
2:50 p.m. – Check in. Go through more insurance shit, even though i have already been there twice this week for flu shots, and the week before that for ear infections, the week before that for the first of the ear infection, and the week before that for the first goddamn flu shot. Take kids to sit down. Rollie’s tylenol kicks in and he starts jumping around like his not sick at all. Tiller starts screaming because she has either been in a carseat, a highchair, or the fucking stroller all day and who the fuck can blame her?
3:30 – Finally get taken back, 30 minutes after appointment time. See nurse practitioner; ear infection still remains, and she prescribes another (3rd) antibiotic. We check out at front desk (40$ co-pay!) and head for the car.
3:45 pm. – Sit in traffic all the way back to East Atlanta, where we go to Edgewood Kroger.
4:45 p.m. – Hit Kroger right at the same time as everyone else. Drop off prescription at Pharmacy. Go do grocery shopping. Amazingly have few fights between kids sitting in the car shopping cart together. Usually, someone would have an eye gouged out or something. Go back to pick up prescription. Deer in headlights look on pharmacists’ faces. “This medicine, after insurance, is going to cost you $90 dollars.” I am speechless, and then let loose with a “holy shit.” Say excuse me to old black lady wearing “Southern Belle Chattanooga” hat. She says, “Honey, I woulda said a whole lot more than Holy shit.” I feel ya, sister. DAMN.
5:00 pm. – Pay for prescription, which of course I have to pay for at pharmacy, then still sit through checkout line to pay for groceries.
5:10 pm. – Rollie has meltdown over cheap dumptruck toys set up right by checkout counters (those fuckers!). Check out and take groceries to car. Put groceries in car, then kids.
5:15 pm. – Sit in traffic on Moreland.
5:45 pm. – get Home. Unload kids. Set Rollie up on couch with Thomas dvd and blankets. Tiller follows me around, trying to hold on to my legs while I put away groceries I unloaded from car, and while I try to put dinner on (fish sticks and frozen french fries). Cut up pear for health purposes, and nuke broccoli. Balanced meal.
6:00 p.m. Attempt to right disaster that is house, especially kitchen. Unload dishwasher, and do dishes from both lunch and breakfast. Lunch dirty dishes are still at the kitchen table where I left them when I realized Rollie had high fever. Everything looks disgusting. Cannot believe people are not trying to look at house right now, because that is just the way it usually is.
6:20 Throw kids up at table with culinary masterpiece. Sit down with glass of water and then plug in Christmas tree, so as not to want to blow brains out.
6:40 – Kids finish meal. Get them down from table, then tell Rollie to clean up. Proceed to clean up kitchen from dinner, then help Rollie clean up his toys. Take kids upstairs.
7:00 pm. Contemplate not bathing kids tonight, but then realize that really need a HazMat crew to come in and hose us down after all the doctor’s offices we have been in today. Throw kids in bathtub. Scrub them too hard and make them cry. Get Tiller out, then put her diaper and pjs on. Go back in. Get Rollie out, help him brush his teeth. Fold towels, clean up tub. Help Rollie rinse. Brush his hair. Give him Tylenol. Realize I forgot to give him golden antibiotics. Go back downstairs, measure 1 teaspoon of meds, come back upstairs to have him insist on doing it himself. He spills the whole fucking thing on the bathroom floor. Go back down to get another dose. Take dose back upstairs. Force him to take it from me, amidst vocal protest.
7:20 pm. – Get his diaper, temperature stuff, and pjs and take into Tiller’s room, where the two of them have pulled all of the socks out of her lowest drawer and are now pulling her toys out of her closet. Take his temp (101) while fending her off as she tries to get into vaseline jar, then put on his diaper and pjs.
7:30 pm. – Read duck book and Goodnight Moon to Tiller while Rollie complains that HE wants to read the duck book. Ignore him. Put her down. Thank god.
7:35 pm. Go to his room. Read four fucking longass Thomas the Tank Engine stories, while he interrupts me the whole time. Try to shortchange him out of his usual three stories. He insists on the duck book too, which he has taken from Tiller’s room and brought into his room. I start to read it, and he argues with me about the fucking number of ducks that swam over the pond and far away. he also adds fifth quack to Mother Duck’s refrain, which everyone knows is only four quacks. I humor him, because sometimes it will be over faster that way.
7:50 pm – Kiss him goodnight, turn off light, tell him to sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.
8:15 pm. – Finally sit down to eat dinner. Eat quickly. Take decongestant. P0ur glass of wine. Watch two old episodes of Supernatural.
10:30 Pour another glass of wine. Post about this stupid day, because somehow complaining about it makes me feel better.
Or maybe it’s the third glass of wine.
Youth Recapture Interrupted: First Steps
December 12th, 2006I kind of figured that after recovering from my hellacious basement party hangover, that the first thing that I would do is download the pictures and blog all about it. Funny thing about kids: they have a way of trumping anything of importance in your own life, in favor of their own crises, milestones, and illnesses. Take Tiller for instance. . . .
I crawled back home on Sunday at about one in the afternoon, took a bath, changed clothes, and then fell into bed for a few hours sleep while the kids napped, it being impossible to nap while children are awake within a mile radius.
When they awakened, Todd took pity on me, and let me sleep a while longer. I planned on waking, eating grilled cheese, and blogging about the previous evening. I finished the grilled cheese while Todd played with Rollie and Matilda on the den floor. Todd was sitting on the floor about three feet from the ottoman, and my feet were on the ottoman. Tiller came over to stand next to me, holding her arms out to be held. I picked her up, hugged her, then set her down on her feet in Todd’s direction. Todd held out his arms, Tiller’s eyes lit up like the sun, and she put her arms out towards him. She took two wobbly steps, maybe three, and fell into his arms. First steps! He and I both welled up a little in the eye area. It is easy to forget about the little things with a second child, but some things are just monumental: A child’s first steps, always towards one of us, and setting off so suddenly a chain of milestones in the future, reminding us that they will continue to walk on and on, farther and farther away every day.
We practiced her new trick the rest of the afternoon and into bedtime, my attempts at recapturing my own youth completely forgotten for the time being.
Way to go, Tiller baby! We are so proud of you, sweetheart.
I can’t remember the last time I was so excited
December 9th, 2006Tonight, I am attending a going-away party for an old friend of mine. He and his family are moving Chicago. One of our group of childhood friends had the amazing idea of having a party in this friend’s parents’ basement. Brilliant. Who wouldn’t want to go back to the scene of the crime for one last blast?
We all grew up together, lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same schools, and played tennis and were on swim team together. These people know things about me that no one else knows. I have spent hours upon hours hanging out with them. We all have adult jobs and some of us have families, and we are ditching all of those this evening. These days, when we get together one or two times a year, we bring the spouses and the kids, and sometimes our parents are there. Not tonight! No spouses. No kids. Just the group of us, a fuckload of beer, and an old-school location. Todd has graciously agreed to take care of the kids tonight and get up with them tomorrow. I am spending the night out. Did I mention how great my husband is, that he will watch the kids while I go have a slumber party with seven grown men? He is awesome beyond belief, trusting and non-jealous. I adore him.
Hopefully, no one will get arrested, steal a mustang convertible and take it for a drunken joyride, go skinny-dipping, drive a grey caddy backwards across a busy highway, pass out in the bushes, have to run back to the house with only half their clothing, swallow a quarter, get to the chopper in the junipers, or put on a vomiting performance from the screen porch balcony with a cheering audience. No way anyone will be in the blue room. Hopefully, we will limit our alcohol intake to beer and liquor, while forgoing Boone’s Farm and Mad Dog 20/20.
Yes, there will be cameras, and I am just glad that there weren’t cameras back in the day. This will undoubtedly be much tamer. We are mature now. Really. I mean it.
Lighting the Tree
December 8th, 2006
Americans Really Are Dumb
December 6th, 2006The New York Times is reporting this morning that, “The New York City Board of Health voted yesterday to adopt the nation’s first major municipal ban on the use of all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, a move that would radically transform the way food is prepared in thousands of restaurants, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to Chinese take-outs. Some experts said the measure, which is widely opposed by the restaurant industry, would be a model for other cities.”
Boy, I sure am glad that city governments are stepping up to the plate to protect their citizens from trans fats. We should probably just go ahead and make it a federal mandate that all American cities adopt. That is surely what our founding fathers had in mind when they were creating our government. Saving us from the fried turkeys of the world.
Americans really are dumb.
Dear Annie
December 5th, 2006
Dear Annie,
Baby, I’m sorry, but i couldn’t live this white bread existence another day. I am going on tour with Blink 182.
Love,
Todd
Rollie’s First Snow
December 2nd, 2006Only in Atlanta would a child’s first snow be faux. Todd, Tiller, Rollie and I headed over to the Atlantic Station California Pizza Kitchen last night for dinner, then headed out to see their huge Christmas tree and the 7 P.M. snow machine display. I really thought it would hokey, and it was, but also a little contagious. At first, Rollie didn’t like it very much and was maybe even a little scared, but I picked him up and we practiced catching snow on our tongues and shook it out of our hair, chanting “Snow head! Snow head!” at one another.
It was pretty fun to run around, chasing him around the tree in the snow. Tiller just looked sleepy. I had a coughing fit afterwards that gave me a headache.
Here’s to my cough going away soon, and to having a real snow this year.
Baby, I’m a Star
December 1st, 2006My friend Jasonaut posted a link to this site where you can find out which Tarot card you are. . . . His was interestingly like him. Mine? Well, it is maybe more hopeful than I really am. I guess when I was answering the questions I answered them as I wish I were rather than how I am. Whatever. I am guessing this is not exactly scientific or guaranteed in accuracy, so without further ado: I am The Star.
You are The Star. Hope, expectation, Bright promises. The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised. The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you’re a dreamer, but you’re not the only one.
Retirement: November Quote
November 30th, 2006So dull and dark are the November days.
The lazy mist high up the evening curled,
And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;
The place we occupy seems all the world.
– John Clare, November
The lazy mist high up the evening curled,
And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;
The place we occupy seems all the world.
– John Clare, November