diary

Cocooning

Well, we had a great time in Vegas, all five of us.  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, except in the case of my single girlfriend who now has a picture onstage with the "Thunder from Down Under".  Don't ask.  My college roommate hung in there pretty well for the trip, and she was able to do almost everything with us.  That's about all I'm going to write about her because I doubt she'd appreciate having all the details of her medical problems on the innernets.  Another girlfriend I was with just found out that her husband is having an affair (bastard!  I could strange him), so let's just say that I'm feeling pretty good (relieved?) to have the life I do right now.  Not that I wasn't before, but there's something about hearing other people's problems that makes you glad you don't have those problems yourself.

OK, now that I've made NO SENSE whatsoever, I just wanted to write a little about my sweet daughter.  Who will be two-and-a-half soon!  My GOD, the cuteness!  I still kiss her sweet cheeks as much as ever, it's just getting harder to capture her to do so.  She's taken to singing in the car, her own versions of popular children's songs. 

"Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o....and on that farm he had a...PIG!...oink, oink, here, oink, oink there, e-i-e-i-oooo."

She can say her a-b-c's the whole way through but gets a little tripped up on l-m-n-o-p.  Sounds more like elle-m-no-pee.  Cracks me up inside every time. 

She's counting, but for some reason 11 is the number she chooses to stop on.  Not 10, not 12.  Go figure. 

We're working on the whole potty training thing.  She's gone poopy on the potty once at home so far, but she'll go at school just fine.  I'm considering having a few of her friends come over to go potty with her - peer pressure seems to be where it's at.  ;-)  Hopefully in 20-plus years when she's in Vegas with her girlfriends, she won't get onstage for a picture with Thunder From Down Under.  Because peer pressure is not always a good thing.

Vegas, baby, Vegas.

So, I'm going to Vegas tomorrow with four of my girlfriends.  I'll be "rooming" with my college roommate who I haven't seen in a while.  Why, you ask?  Because she has cancer and she hasn't wanted me to see her.  As in, "don't come see me, I don't want you to see me like this."

She's flying out tonight and is going to have a home health agency come visit her in her hotel room tomorrow to do her dialysis and IVs and such.  She says that by the time I fly out and get all checked in and settled, she'll be done with her "medical stuff".

She was always my strong, funny, brave, wonderful friend (and she still is), so I don't know exactly how it's going to be seeing her like this.  She's a wife and mother to two sweet children.  She's a brilliant writer and is getting her master's right now (or was...)  The three others who are going haven't met her before (they are my friends from other parts of life) but they're being supportive of everything. 

I just hope this isn't the last time I have with her. 

Peeks aroung the corner, slowly.

Hi.  :-) 

Oops. 

I guess if you're going to have a blog, you should update it every once in a while, no? 

So, I don't know, I've been busy, work, school, blah blah blah.  And Ella is even more fun than ever before.  I just want to sqeeeeze and kiss and love all over her. 

The fact that graduation is only two-and-a-half months away has given me the worst case of senioritis EVER.  WAY worse than high school or college.  I'm actually looking FORWARD to not working and studying for the bar exam.  I'm excited about bar review class!  Because it's not work and law school and being away from Ella for 12 or more hours a day! 

This has been by far the worst semester for a couple of different reasons.

1.  I have class four nights a week and I'm taking 11 credits.  I've only had to do that once before and it was pre-Ella.  I get home past 9:00 every night except Thursdays (8:30). 

2.  Ella is far more aware of my absence at night than she was even last semester, and as a result, she's becoming increasingly clingy when I am home.  "Mommy, I want uuuuuup!"

3.  I am learning jackcrap.  Nothing new.  Well, except for my 2-credit class on NAFTA which I picked as a schedule-filler but has turned out to be the best class this semester. 

4.  Busy work!  They've actually assigned things like weekly journal entries and papers and crap in my classes.  What are we, in the eighth grade?  GAH!

So anyway, am HATING the last semester of law school and looking forward to being done.  And going to Vegas next week on "Spring Break" (my last ever) with four girlfriends.  Four out of the five of us are mommies, so it will be kind of tame.  Sort of.  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?  :-)

I know, I know, I'm a slacker.

So, I had a sick kid (nasty cold).  And then final exams (4).  And then Bella got sick again (with strep throat).  And now I'm sick and so is my husband (colds).  I think I should buy stock in Claritin and Motrin. 

But, see?  We're all done shopping for the holidays.  We had 37 people on our list.  We used over 60 gift tags and spent $268 at the UPS store.  And that doesn't even include the stuff I bought online.  It's crazy, the whole buying presents for aunts-and-uncles-and-cousins-and-friends bit.  But that's just how both of our families have always done Christmas.  I probably should have married an aetheist, but it didn't work out that way. 

Now we're packing for the trip to Florida, where we're spending Christmas with the in-laws.  Again.  And my husbands FOUR ninety-something-year-old grandparents.  And his cousins and their families who have flown in from the Midwest.  I met one of his cousins and his wife at our wedding (liked them), the other cousin and his wife and 2 kids (who will all also be staying at the in-laws) I haven't even met.  And apparently they're very...Midwestern.  Traditional.  As in, my husband has warned me that his cousin will probably give me an earful about being a working mom in law school.  (Heh.  He has no idea what's coming.)

Next year?  We're not going ANYWHERE for Christmas.  I decree it.  Of course, that's what I said last Christmas. 

This is just GROSS, y'all.

So, Saturday morning I dragged myself up at the "regular" weekday time (there should be a LAW against that) and went up to school to take the MPRE (that's the ethics portion of the bar exam for all you non-lawyerly types).  60 multiple-choice questions, 2 hours, and I came away with it with a general feeling of, "OK.  I guess I did OK."  It's a very non-test. 

On the way home, I called C. to see how his morning was.  He said, "I-have-to-call-you-back-emergecy-Bella-dog-poop."  And hung up. 

Ten minutes later, he called me back and explained that he had gotten Bella ready for her bath (i.e., diaper off), and his best bud had called.  He left the bathroom (no water running yet) and talked with him for a minute, leaving Bella on the bathroom floor playing.  Apparently she climbed into the shower, and POOPED right in the shower.  You know, instead of telling Daddy that she had to go poop or, I don't know, maybe using the toilet?  But WAIT!  It gets better.  C. gets off the phone, takes Bella to her room to clean her up, and the DOG (we have two) climbs into the shower and EATS the poop!! 

At this point, I'm dying laughing.  Because me?  I know the dog and I know he will eat ANYTHING THAT SMELLS AT ALL, so I probably would have closed the door to the bathroom.  So now C. has a clean daughter, but a dog with poop all over his fur, and a disgusting shower. 

It was all cleaned up before I got home.

I'm not letting the dog kiss me anytime soon.

This is only further proof that all hell breaks loose when I'm not around. 

Someone prop me up with a pillow, please.

My nephew was born about two weeks ago, and I've already been to Georgia to see him. He's adorable, and Aunt P. (that's me) stayed up from 1:30 - 5:15 a.m. last Saturday morning because I was trying to "help" my brother and his wife.

Visiting them was a wonderful reminder of how incredibly much WORK having a newborn is, and why Bella will maybe possibly be an only child.

Every time I call my mother these days and tell her that I have some news, she thinks I'm pregnant. I'm NOT pregnant. I'm not GETTING pregnant any time soon. I'd have to be INSANE to get pregnant right now, because I'd be due right around the time of the bar exam next July. And honestly, can you imagine much worse than taking the bar exam nine months pregnant??

But anyway. I was sleeping on the sleeper sofa at my brother's house. In the living room. In between their bedroom and the nursury. So I got next to no sleep all weekend, and my sweet daughter woke up 3 times last night in the middle of the night. And my husband is gone (out-of-state for work) so I had to get up every time.

Please, someone prop me up with a pillow! Preferably a goosedown-filled one, not the concrete-synthetic monstrosity I was sleeping on at my brother's house. Thank you.

Elmo Dere! Elmo Dere!

On Saturday, C. and I braved the traffic (to Baltimore from Northern Virginia) and the rain (sporadic) and the children (TONS of two-year-olds) to take Bella to see Sesame Street Live - ELMO MAKES MUSIC!

A couple of days before we went, I started asking her, "Bella, do you want to go see Elmo?"  Her response was always, "Noooo."  So I was a little nervous about Sesame Street Live.  I had also been warned by other mothers that at this age (almost-two), the little ones can be scared by the giant character costumes.  And our seats were in the fifth row.  Hmmm.

We parked with no problem, went into the arena, and bought some popcorn (which was a genius idea because it kept Bella occupied until the show started, as opposed to the hundreds of other little ones screeching around the floor of the arena).  As soon as the lights dimmed, and the characters started coming out onto the stage, she was enthralled. 

"Oh!  Elmo dere!  Elmo dere!"  She bounced up and down on my lap, giant smile on her face, and eye lit up like Christmas lights.  For the next hour and a half, she was bouncing, laughing, smiling, singing along when she knew the songs (like the alphabet song).  She had a grand time. 

And me?  I actually cried...cried little tears of joy when I saw how incredibly excited she was, and what a wonderful time she was having.  And no, it's not that time of the month, either.  I just love nothing in the world more than seeing my little girl so happy.

Even if the source of her happiness is an annoying furry red monster and not me. 

Lunch Ettiquette

I'm a regular at the restaurant next door to my office at lunchtime.  It's one of those typically high-end D.C. steakhouses, with a nice bar (at which people rarely smoke) and a decent selection of salads, burgers, sandwiches, pasta, soups & fish as well.  I haven't actually ordered a steak for lunch in months.  The staff is great - the bartenders and maitre'd all know me and will ocassionally comp my desert or even entire meal.

There's just one problem - the other patrons.  When I eat alone (about half the time I go), I like to take one of their complimentary copies of the WaPo (that the Washington Post for you non-DC types) and sit at the bar.  Several of the other "regulars" do so as well, and, more than once, they've tried to engage me in their conversations.  Normally, I'm a very outgoing, bubbly type of person, but when you're spouting off very conservative, pro-Bush, anti-common freakin' sense rhetoric, chances are, I'm not going to want to talk to you.  And certainly not about politics. 

Seriously, this afternoon I had to listen to a ten-minute diatribe about how the Democrats are all wrong on the whole giving detainees human rights issue.  My blood was boiling by the time the one-sided "conversation" was over, because I refuse to engage these fucktards in political wrangling over my cream of tomato soup! 

Is there a polite way to say, "Shut up, asshole, you're ruining my lunch?"  You know, for the next time I TRY to eat by myself.

Morning "foffee"

Our mornings used to begin with Bella crying in her crib, which wouldn't stop until one of us threw on a bathrobe and our glasses and stumbed into her room.  Fortunately, that's stopped for the most part.  Now, she proclaims, "Daddy!  Mommy!" quite insistently until one of us throws on our bathrobe and our glasses and stumbles into her room. 

After the morning diaper change, we have to let the doggies outside.  She used to just be content with being held while we did that - now she has to direct the doggies.  They're 14, they've been outside thousands of times before, but Bella has to say, "Go on, doggie, go on!" to each one of them as they head outside. 

Next is "makin' foffee".  C. and I are big coffee drinkers, and we like our morning cups.  I'll plop Bella down on the counter, and she directs me, much like she directs the doggies.  First, Mommy has to get the filter ("Fil-tah here," as she sticks her fingers in the basket.)  Next, "Wa-ter here," then "foffee here," and she counts ("two, two, three, four" - she's never been big on the concept of "one") as I spoon in the coffee grounds.  After the "foffee" is brewed, she directs some more - "Mommy's foffee cup, Daddy's foffee cup, hot foffee, milk here, sugar here, spoon here."

I've offered her a sip of coffee before, but she doesn't like it (whew!)  I think she just gets a kick out of helping me jump-start my morning.  I know this routine won't last very long, but I hope it's longer than a few weeks.  I enjoy my morning foffee-makin'. 

My little chef

I wanted to make a good dinner last night, with enough for leftovers, and I thought C. would be home from work early enough to watch Bella while I cooked.  He called to say he was going to be late, but rather than scrapping my dinner plans and succombing to my daughter's, "mac-and-cheeeeese, Mommy, mac-and-cheeeese" whinings, I thought I would take the opportunity to have her help me in the kitchen (or chitchen, as Bella calls it). 

I was making individual Italian meatloaves (a Rachel Ray recipe, which we all know take longer than 30 minutes) and homemade mashed potatoes.  I had a fair amount of chopping for the meatloaves (green pepper, onion, garlic) and I had to wash and cut up the baby new potatoes as well.  So I plopped Bella down on the counter and had her watch and help when she could.  She handed me potatoes from the bag so I could wash them, and after I cut them up, she put them in the pot for me.  The pot already had (cold) water in it, so she got soaking wet plunking the potato pieces in the water.  But I also learned that she LOVED helping Mommy in the chitchen.

When I cut up the green pepper, she actually ate a few pieces of it (what?! - my child likes raw green pepper?!)  She watched me mix and form the meatloaves, and mash the potatoes after they were cooked.  And best of all?  Because she had helped me make dinner, she wanted to try everything!  She said, "Bella try...Bella try" when we were dishing up the plates (C. got home just in time to eat, of course).  My not-quite-two-year-old ate Italian meatloaf with onion and pepper and garlic in it...and loved it! 

I think next time I'll try baked macaroni and cheese with ham, and a fresh salad.  She can help Mommy wash the lettuce.  And eat the chopped ham, of course.