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September 30, 2008

Let's check your stability during Flip the Bird

There are a lot of things I like about the Wii Fit. I like that it works me. I like that I can choose which exercises I feel up to on any given day. I like (when I'm winning) the competition between Rex and I and against myself in the rankings. I like that I can learn Yoga poses (or some facsimile) and screw up the rhythm boxing in my own living room, because working out badly in my own home is still better than not working out at all because you don't want other people to see how inept you are.

No, I have no issues.

There are a few things I think could be done better, like having to listen to the trainer go on and on after every pose, and having to wait between ski jumps. I don't really need the Wii's conversation when I start it up, either, asking me if the weather is getting cooler and whatnot.

I think my biggest peeve, though, is one I experienced tonight. For the past three nights, my weight has increased slightly. Just a tiny bit each time, so little that the Wii's only comments referred to normal fluctuations and it didn't even ask me about my poor eating habits. Tonight, though, was good. I lost the last three days combined weight plus a little, and what did the damn thing say? "You aren't going to be able to make your goal in the time you've chosen."

WHAT?

No good job, no way to go, nothing positive. So my peeve? I want the option to tell the Wii to SUCK IT.

Posted by me at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)

Hecho en Mexico

Posted by me at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2008

Still warm enough to spray the kids just for fun

Posted by me at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)

Rapidly aging

Earlier today, Katie was trying to convince me that she could have gum now. You know, because "back in the old days" I gave it to her once and she didn't swallow it.

On our way home from dinner, we passed her preschool. Jamie commented that it was her old school, and Katie chimed in that it was her old school, too, because she had been going there for years.

Posted by me at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2008

Owen at 6 months

Owen turned 6 months old on Monday. On Tuesday, he started pulling up on things. I'm mostly impressed by his ability to hold his entire weight including his massive, attention getting thighs, off the ground. And yet he makes no effort to roll off his back, preferring to just screech until someone rescues him and sets him back on his ass. Go figure.

His night sleeping is still, well, unpredictable. He'll have enough good nights in a row that I start thinking he's finally mastered this whole not waking up thing, and then we'll have a night like last night where he was up every twenty minutes from 9:45 til 2. NOT COOL, Little Man.

On the other hand, his daytime sleeping is going freakishly well. He goes down fairly easily, stays asleep solidly, and wakes up happy. Should he experience nappus interruptus, he wakes up happy for a while, and then goes down for another nap earlier and sleeps longer.

On Thursday, he had his 6 month well check. He was 17 pounds 12 ounces fully clothed, although Rex swears the scale is wrong and he weighs at least 25 pounds. Height-wise, well, he shrank. The nurse measured him first at 25.5 inches, and then again at 26. I watched, she did a careful job, but that still puts him shorter than the 26.25 from 2 months ago. Ah, well, the boy was gonna be short anyway, might as well get him used to it now.

Then the boy got the requisite three shots. He of course screamed until I picked him up again, and then he snuggled into me, turned around and gave the nurses the stink eye. For the rest of the day he was fairly angry at the world and mostly only content when I held him close.

Owen's latest trick is biting. Me. In a rather delicate, but necessary for nourishment kinda place. Thank god he doesn't have any actual teeth yet, because this hurts bad enough. I think the girls each bit me once or twice before they got the message that Mama don't play that. Let's hope Owen is as bright as his sisters.

So basically the little guy is a happy, healthy, adorable Mama's boy. Who needs to let us sleep!

Posted by me at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2008

Gumball fruit, with seeds inside!

Posted by me at 3:24 PM | Comments (0)

And 30 to drive!

"You have to be 13 or 16 to have gum."

Posted by me at 9:14 AM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2008

And the balance shifts again

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September 24, 2008

I blame Brie

Over a month ago, we finally made it to Houston to visit the family. What with the pregnancy, baby having, baby shrieking and life in general, we just hadn't managed the trip. Usually, when we go to visit family, we really don't have time to see friends, too, but we added an extra day to this trip and managed to visit Susan and her family, and then spent the afternoon and evening with Brie and her family. It was lovely.

While we were at Brie's house, she showed me how she was redecorating her daughter's room. She hadn't been able to find a quilt for Emma's big girl bed in the right colors to match the rest of her room, so she made one. Made. And then she said it was easy, and showed me some of the other quilts she had made in the same style.

Just cut out some squares! she said. It's SO easy she said.

And I believed her.

I was having some trouble finding a quilt I wanted for Owen's room, which I needed to pick out so I could pick a paint color. Nevermind that the kid isn't going to use the quilt for a couple more years, I want to paint the room, and it's way easier to match a paint color to comforter than find a comforter that happens to match your paint. I thought I might do what she did, and make one, but since I've successfully sewn one curtain since high school, I thought I should practice first.

And that's when I opened my big mouth in front of the girls. I told them I would make a quilt for each of their babies, thinking I could work the kinks out on some tiny little projects.

Yeah. For Katie's quilt, the blue one, I needed 112 squares of fabric, plus 56 of batting. Thank goodness I finished hers completely before I cut the squares for Jamie's, because it ended up way bigger than I intended. The squares ended up all slightly different sizes, which in turn caused the rows to be off by a lot. I don't think Katie or her baby really noticed.

Jamie's quilt went a bit better. I learned a few things from Katie's, including not to use the one fabric that was a pain in the butt to tear into squares. I also got the rows lined up much better.

The pillows were just a bonus of the leftover squares.

I'm glad I made them. The girls love them, and in spite of my complaints, I actually had some fun, plus I'm kinda proud that I managed to sew. The sewing machine is a scary beast, you know. It was also nice showing the girls that I have some skills, that we don't have to buy everything, and that they can do it too, someday. You know, when Grandma teaches them!

I'm also really glad I found a comforter that I really like for Owen's room.

Posted by me at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2008

Minor inconvenience

Last week it was so cool that I actually turned the A/C of in the afternoon, and let the house heat up a bit so it could cool off over the night. That sounds weird, but it actually worked out rather well. I can't see paying to cool the house a degree or two right before it gets cool enough outside to cool the house a degree or two. Plus, I think the coolness might have actually been waking Owen up. When it warmed up a bit, I started this game of A/C juggling, where I turn the upstairs one on so the kids don't cook, then turn it off at bedtime and let the heat from downstairs rise up.

No, I don't have enough to do.

This weekend, the warm came back in earnest. Not hot Texas summer earnest, just hot Texas fall. Still, though, the house was getting pretty toasty, so I quit playing games and just let everyone enjoy the blessings of conditioned air.

At least, I tried.

Saturday afternoon, I started getting a little warm in my office. I almost never get hot inside the house unless I'm doing something *really* energetic, but I have the vents shut off in here, so I thought maybe I was just having a flash or something. Then I noticed that the air in the kitchen wasn't all that cool, either. In fact, the whole downstairs was rather tropical rainforestesque. Upstairs was fine, though.

I checked the thermostat. Looked normal. I went outside and looked at the condenser, nothing. Checked the breaker, and it was blown, so I reset it. Just as I was walking back into the house, I heard it break over again.

Well, damn. I don't know what to do beyond that. So Sunday afternoon, I called the HVAC people (LOVE new home warranties!) and told them that we were ok to wait until Monday, but I wanted to make sure we weren't going to get pushed out any farther than that. The upstairs A/C has been doing a pretty good job of keeping the main part of the house livable, but our bedroom and especially bathroom were getting quite hot and moist. Opening the windows doesn't do much, since there's no cross ventilation.

Turns out the compressor has three prongs and one was touching the side of the condenser which was grounding out the system. Please don't explain all that to me, because all I really care about is that they will be coming back out tomorrow with a new compressor and replacing it FOR FREE. How it got like that and why it worked until now, I do not know, especially since the repair dude said he thought it was a manufacturing defect (Aside: We had an issue with the heat thingy in the attic in April, which was also a factory defect. Cursed, or just unlucky?) Like I said, I'm just happy this is just a minor inconvenience. Just thinking about this happening in, say, July, makes me sweat a little bit.

Posted by me at 9:38 PM | Comments (0)

For perspective

Posted by me at 9:23 AM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2008

Time suck

This is now sucking away my life. I blame Anna!

Posted by me at 10:29 PM | Comments (2)

September 19, 2008

Epiphany

I was going through some old pictures, trying to find the one of me and my classmates in second grade. Facebook, dontcha know. And I totally just figured out where all my body issues came from. The root, the start, the beginning.

I wasted a lot of years looking good and not believing it.

Posted by me at 9:51 PM | Comments (0)

Why I haven't mastered my Mac yet

Posted by me at 9:08 AM | Comments (3)

September 18, 2008

Touch me and I'll kill you

Owen has been doing this thing lately where he cries/moans/makes this noise that makes me want to rip off my leg and beat myself with it pretty much every. single. time. I set him down. And I wouldn't normally mind holding him all the damn time (too much) if he weren't constantly pinching me and yanking on my shirt and shoving it into his mouth and then barfing.

Makes you want to be me, huh?

The combination of these two behaviors is making me nuts. I'm starting to act unfriendly toward him, which makes me feel horrible, because he's my sweet little boy. Also, he doesn't seem to be getting it, so what's the point? It drives me nuts that my two choices ALL DAY LONG were to be relentlessly touched/pinched/mouthed or listen to the hounds of hell. I'm not even able to bask in the glory of the sleep I got last night, since he only got up once (well, twice if you count when Rex got up with him at 5, but since I got to stay asleep in bed, I don't).

I'm going to try to work off some of my angst on the Wii. Last night, I ran farther than I have in years. It's possible that I went a whole quarter mile. Well, in place, that is. I wonder if it's significant that I've Fitted for two days, and had two days of Owen hell? If so, that's backasswards, since I thought exercise was supposed to reduce stress.

Posted by me at 8:34 PM | Comments (1)

The pictures I took for the girls' room

Posted by me at 8:31 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2008

Superstar!

Posted by me at 9:37 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2008

Wii unfit

Back in July, Rex and I bought the Wii we had been talking about getting for months. I think we called it our anniversary gift to each other, but that's a little weird since we don't usually get each other much of anything. Whatever, we bought the damn thing.

While the girls were in Maryland, we religiously did the fitness test. Rex is naturally pretty good at both athletics and video games, so he easily scores younger than he really is.

I started in my 70's. No shit.

I thought after a few days, I'd get the hang of Wii'ing, but I think my best age to date is 39. I scored that tonight.

I really wanted to get the Fit, but I haven't managed to hit a store that had any in stock. I'm not willing to wait in line for hours, or get up any earlier than I already do, but I do wander through the video game aisle at any and every place that might carry them. Today, my persistence paid off. While hauling Owen's hiney around Target. I should get a few years off just for that! Anyway, Target had piles of the things, and even some consoles.

After the kids went to bed, I synced the thing up and got weighed and measured. I'm pretty sure my Mii gave me the finger after she saw my weight, but I'm in the healthy BMI range so SCREW YOU, MII.

Ahem.

The Fit said I was 42. Not bad, considering what the Sports Fitness test has been saying about me! Then Rex did his initial test, and damn if he wasn't in his 20's. His BMI is pixels away from obese, but he has the balance of an infant.

On the upside, I'm kicking his ass at the Yoga poses, and I retested and I'm already 4 years younger.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch tv and each my cheese puffs on the couch.

Posted by me at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)

Father and son

Posted by me at 2:19 PM | Comments (1)

September 15, 2008

Solo

I've been meaning for a while now to set up some sort of activity that I can do alone with each of the kids. Well, the girls, for now, since Owen gets all the Mommy time a kid could really want. It actually started out that I was going to take Jamie to see a movie, just my big girl and me. At the time, Owen was still eating every couple hours (who are we kidding? he still is!), so I figured I would pump a bottle so Rex wouldn't have to deal with two hours of ear piercing shriekage. Being the cautious sort, I wanted to try pumping a bottle ahead of time to make sure he would take it. I wasn't really worried because somewhere in my head I had decided that since he took a pacifier (unlike the girls) he would easily take a bottle (unlike the girls).

So I tried to give him a bottle. He refused. Rex tried. No deal. Each of the girls gave it a shot. Nada. We tried hungry and satisfied, with me around and without. Granted, this was all in one afternoon, but we did go through all the scenarios. So we gave up on the idea of Jamie and I going out for a little while, and got busy with our summer.

It's months later, and we still haven't managed to see that movie. On the up side, Jamie and I have managed a short outing or two, and Katie and I get more time "alone" together while Owen is sleeping. But still, neither of them really have something that is just theirs.

So last week, Katie tried out a gymnastics class. A real class that she gets to go to on her own, not the Mom and Tot open gym thing we've been to in the past. And she's loving it. I'm not entirely sure what she loves about it, that it's hers, that she does it on her own with me watching, the actual gymnastics, and I don't really care. I'm happy to see her happy.

Last weekend, Jamie and I got to go to a Girl Scouts recruitment fair together (and alone!) where she got to try out some activities and register for Daisy's. I'm not sure she knows exactly what she's getting into; I told her they would likely do crafts and learn skills. She, however, is fully aware that this will be something we do together, just her and I. And I'm hoping that once we get started, she'll love it for that, if nothing else.

I know I will.

Posted by me at 9:23 PM | Comments (0)

Lesson learned

Don't spray OxyClean on a stain and then let it sit for days. This onesie has been worn less than half a dozen times, and the parts where the fabric got lighter just fall apart in my hands.

It was one of my favorites, too.

Posted by me at 6:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2008

Katie's first day (yeah, I'm a little behind)

Posted by me at 6:08 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2008

Slacking

I have all these notes of posts I want to make. Half of them become sort of obsolete after a while, like the first day of school post, or complaining about the colds the girls and I got that are almost gone now.

Of course, there's still the one about Owen and his crappy sleep habits, but then last night he slept a three and a half hour, then a four and a half hour stretch, which isn't exactly ideal, but it's more sleep than I've had in a long time. I have no idea if it was related to letting him cry for 45 minutes the night before because I just couldn't justify not doing it any more.

In any case, that's the post that I'm going to not write tonight, so I can go to bed instead.

Posted by me at 9:36 PM | Comments (0)

Seconds before she went ass over ears

Posted by me at 12:34 PM | Comments (2)

September 10, 2008

Purty

Posted by me at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)

Deviation

I think I've mentioned before that we live right across the street from the elementary school Jamie attends. This has been great on days when one of the younger kids is asleep, since I can watch out the window until Jamie is almost to the corner, run out and meet her and be home before anyone notices. (In theory, anyway, since Owen seems to sense when I leave the house for real and always wakes up. I can stick my head out the door to look at something ten times and he won't even budge, but as soon as I walk towards the corner, he wakes up. Good thing I'm not gone long.)

Mornings, we've been walking Jamie almost to the door of the school, partly because until now, she's requested that when I give her the choice to walk from the corner, and partly because Rex enjoys walking her the whole way. In the afternoons, a teacher walks a huge herd of children up to the other side of the crosswalk, and half turn to the right and walk off to god knows where, while the other half cross in small packs to our side of the street. Of those, a bunch break off and cross again. (The stop sign is at a T intersection, if that helps.) I always wait on the corner on our side of the street, rather than cross and get all mixed up with the tiny little hooligans.

I've met a few parents who wait on the corner with me, but I don't actually know any of them or they're kids. On the other side of the other street across from the school (yeah, try to picture that. I should draw a map.) there lives a woman who I've hung out with several times, and several of her/our friends wait for their kids on her driveway. Most days I just smile and wave and stay on my side of the street.

Today I deviated.

I should never deviate. I spent a minute too long talking to them, and I missed Jamie crossing at the stop sign. She immediately turned toward home, and in hindsight, i should have just drug Katie and Owen along faster and caught up to her. Instead, I called to her to get her attention. She turned and started running back towards me, running right out into the street. Thank god the crossing guard already had all the traffic stopped, because in spite of me waving my arm and screeching GO BACK! GO BACK! she ran halfway across the street, then turned and looped across the center of the intersection, finally hit the first crosswalk, and then ran back to the group of kids.

I'm blushing just typing this. I'm not so much for drawing attention to myself and my parenting mishaps, yo.

The teacher walked her across the street back to me, at which point Jamie started bawling. I'm totally not blaming her for that, either. I mean, the kid can bawl at the drop of a hat over nothing, but I'm pretty sure she was truly freaked out by the whole experience. Running around in the middle of the street like a chicken with it's head cut off isn't her style. At home, yes, but not in the middle of the street.

I'm not sure if I should have waited, but I squatted down right there and hugged her, calmed her, and then talked calmly to her about what she should have done, and that when I yell stop, she should STOP RIGHT THERE. This is the point where she started alternating between pissed off and teary, so when she calmed down again, we walked home, and tried to have the discussion again. I had planned to go out this evening and play crossing guard with her to practice, but we were rained out.

I feel like the whole thing was somehow my fault (aside from the not being where I was supposed to be, because duh, totally my fault), but we've talked to her before about always waiting til the crossing guard says it's ok to walk, and I wouldn't expect her to be so wigged out at seeing me that she would totally lose control of her senses. She did ask that I let her walk to school tomorrow from the stop sign, so I don't think she was too traumatized.

But I don't think I'll be getting that picture out of my head for a while.

Posted by me at 9:09 PM | Comments (2)

September 8, 2008

Can't keep secrets from this one

Daddy doesn't feel well. He had crotch surgery. I know, I was there!

Posted by me at 7:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 6, 2008

Privacy

You know, I don't think I was cut out for blogging.

I sort of have this policy. I don't usually think too hard about my limits or my future plan or whatever, so it's more of just an idea, but whatever. The policy is that I don't write anything on this blog about other people that I wouldn't say out loud to them. That's not entirely true, since I have said a few things to my husband through this blog that I couldn't bring myself to say out loud to him, but I wanted to say them to his face. In general, though, when writing about friends or family, I try not to type the things that they don't need to hear, that would be hurtful, that are just me venting. It's ok for me to embarrass myself and to some extent, my husband and kids (although I'm starting to sensor what I say about my kid, too, since I don't want her to get mocked in school because I write about something that should never leave the house otherwise) (no matter how funny)(dammit!), but I don't think my MIL wants her dirty laundry aired across the internet.

It isn't really relevant that most of the people I post about would never know the post exists. Hell, most of them probably don't know what a blog is, and they sure don't know I write one. The fact is, once something is posted on the internet, no matter how briefly, no matter how secretly, it's out there. Forever. And in the same way you might find your very bestest friend from second grade completely by chance, family and friends can come across that one post you never meant them to read, even if you felt guilty about it and deleted it five minutes after you wrote it.

And there's always the chance you might get famous like dooce, and then pretty much everyone you have known, will know and share a gene with will see everything you've every written.

Why was I not cut out for blogging, you might ask? Because I'm a big wuss when it comes to saying things to people's faces. I don't want to offend anyone, or hurt their feelings. I want to be liked. I guess it's ok to be two-faced, as long as you keep the second face inside yourself. I would be horribly embarrassed if the people I knew in real life read what I want to write about on this blog, in spite of the fact that most of what I would type isn't rude or insulting.

Posted by me at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

September 5, 2008

Summer squish

Posted by me at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)

September 3, 2008

My newest baby

My new iMac came today.

I am in love.

The screen is so sharp and clear and bright that some of the pictures of the kids that I wanted to edit and make prettier? They already are. Seriously, I guess a laptop screen just isn't all that accurate to life.

Sure, I can't figure out how to do much more than surf yet, but I'll get there. I can't wait to dump the pics off my camera and see what I've got, and load all the years of pics I had to burn to DVD just to make room for new pics. I think sorting through them all looking for shots to print will actually be fun now, instead of the tedium I was avoiding on my laptop.

For now, I'm off to discover how to do some of the basics. Like balance my checkbook.

Posted by me at 9:22 PM | Comments (0)

September 2, 2008

Mr. Standypants

Posted by me at 10:16 PM | Comments (1)

Unpolitically incorrect

I was going to write a post about political issues, but I'm just not feelin' it tonight. Suffice it to say that while I don't think Palin's daughter's sex life relates in any useful way to Palin's leadership abilities, I wouldn't vote in her favor just because she has a vagina, either. I think it was likely a mistake to put her on the ticket, not because of her qualifications or lack therof, but because there are too many irrelavant but controversial issues in her life, all of which distract from McCain's campaign.

Not that I was planning to vote for McCain anyway, but I'm just sayin'.

Posted by me at 9:27 PM | Comments (1)