Oh yes I did
Pediatrician visit co-pay: $15
Prescription for Xopenex: $20
Prescription for new spacer: $20
Yelling up the stairs that it’s time to suck the duck: Priceless
“Ifeelfineplaywithmeeeee!!”
Every parent who’s ever had a sick, inconsolable child knows the helpless feeling that comes with not being able to fix your baby’s pain.
Likewise, every parent who’s ever had a sick child who was too sick to go to school but not quite sick enough to just sit down and watch cartoons, already, knows the helpless feeling that comes with not being able to drop that kid off at school already.
GUESS which one I had today! Go on! read more…
Food, legos, leaks, and tuberculosis
You already know that when my folks are here, we do exciting things like watch endless hours of CSI: Miami. But obviously we cannot do that while the children are awake, because David Caruso is inappropriate viewing material for impressionable young minds. They would have nightmares. So what did we do while the kids were around?
Well, mostly we fill the time with eating. Sure, you might think, “Really, now, how much time could you spend eating?” And the answer is: Almost all of it. There are meals, of course, but then also there just seems to be endless amounts of snacking, not to mention the pie I had to make (because my dad likes pecan pie and I have to entice him to visit me SOMEHOW) and our traditional night of Chinese food which typically involves ordering enough food for a week and interrupting the steady shovelling of delicious MSG into our mouths only to give Chickadee occasional pointers on using her chopsticks more effectively. read more…
The important things
So, my parents are here for the weekend, and I am overjoyed. I never really realize how nice it is not to be the only person in the house who doesn’t think “I know you are, but what am I?” is astute rhetoric until others are here. Then, instead of being outnumbered by my children, I suddenly have reinforcements.
Of course, then the kids have an audience, too. So there is still a fair amount of burping at the dinner table. But at least my urge to make them wear their dinner plates as hats is somewhat lessened.
After not having seen each other for months, it’s only natural that we would stay up until the wee hours catching up on each others’ lives. Or just watching endless hours of CSI: Miami and wondering if David Caruso’s face is, in fact, melting off. Either way.
Reading once, reading twice. . .
… Reading books is very nice. (You’re welcome for sticking this in your head. No need to thank me.)
I would love to tell you something really meaningful and life-changing, tonight, but I’ve got nothing. Well, I have a bunch of laundry that needs to be put away, and NO COOKIES, and a couple of children who probably need a shower, and some parakeets that don’t belong to me (oh, don’t even ask), but nothing worth going on about.
Instead, allow me to revel in my geeky bookworm ways and refer you to other places where I had something to say, earlier… before I realized I was out of cookies.
If you go read me over at Maya’s Mom (a new parenting website with all kinds of good stuff, by the way; check it out) you can learn about some of my favorite books to share with my kids. (This piece is the third in a series I’m writing weekly for Maya’s Mom on all things kiddie lit.)
And if you go read me over at Ty’s you can enter your name in a drawing for free books that are guaranteed to please either your actual children or your inner 10-year-old boy. You don’t have to tell me which one.
Love transcends ordinary
Otto and I talk on the phone every night. Occasionally we only talk for twenty minutes or so—if it’s very late, or one of us has to go somewhere, or if I’m sick and cranky and need to sleep—and even more rarely we talk for closer to three hours; but most of the time we talk for an hour or two.
Sometimes I wonder if we’ll run out of things to talk about, what with being unable to engage in the natural pacing provided by a face-to-face relationship where you can stop talking and make out for a while when you don’t have anything to say. So far, so good. Plus, this way we don’t feel guilty catching up on the face-sucking thing when we actually ARE together. read more…
Littlest pet shop of horrors
Today the children and I stayed in the house and watched a lot of television. Eventually we took a break to drive very slowly around all of the trees which had grown weary of the ice and sagged downward, laying across the road. We’re so sorry, the trees seemed to say. We’re just tired, and stretching out, and we’ll stand up in a minute. Pardon us!
There was no pardoning them, however, as the Department of Public Works was hacking them up when we returned from buying bread and milk and baby carrots. I’d wanted to take some pictures, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
I thought that nothing could be worse than an (almost) entire day of Pokemon and Full House DVDs, but I was wrong. Chickadee had brought home her latest prized possessions from her dad’s house. read more…
Live from the city of. . . angels?
Winter, winter; wherefore art thou, winter?
As we’ve enjoyed our unseasonably warm and spring-like days I have said to anyone who will listen (and several who would not) that I feared winter’s arrival, because I’ve lived in the frozen north a long time, and I happen to know that winter WILL arrive. With a vengeance.
Of course, I was picturing something more along the lines of a couple of feet of snow. That’ll come later, I suppose.
Today was something. Hello, ice! read more…
Also note that
At 7:30 this morning I was down in my basement with a push broom, removing the last detritus from last year’s Basementgate. Sure, it’s been clean down there for ages, but I never swept out all the corners. Now I have.
This afternoon I steadily filled my brain with information until I had to go curl up on the couch with the remote and a bag of chips to recover. I’m not quite done recovering, honestly. read more…
Lesser of two crazy-making activities
I can’t decide:
1) Deciding to paint just that one piece of dinged trim before showing the house tomorrow and finding myself painting trim, doors, the entire staircase, and huh, whaddaya know, I’ve been painting for SIX HOURS.
or
2) Having a prolonged discussion about school districts, looking up statistics online, realizing I have lived a life of white privilege and that while I certainly COULD provide that for my kids in the south, it would be twenty different kinds of wrong to do so; and realize further that I am not just moving to another state, but possibly a different universe.
I was leaning towards the former being the lesser, but I dunno, I seem to have an unusually long staircase….