“I like everything BUT the sand, Mama.” Seriously, we had to create an island for her and continue to brush off any granules that happened to adhere to her body. Only a fruit bar could make it tolerable.
We’re back from the beach and I am slowly but surely uploading photos and creating posts in my head.
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As usual, we all forgot to bring our toothbrushes on our trip out of town. That’s what happens when you put a toddler in charge of packing the oral hygiene products. So we had to do the obligatory run to the drugstore for the family. While the adults got the Walgreens brand, Lolo got a Crest Sesame Street toothbrush with a little picture of Elmo on it just because that’s what they had. It’s very different from the plain, translucent, BPA-free, marketing-free, excitement-free one she uses at home, and it’s now the top pick of our bedtime routine. She actually giggles with joy when I give her the toothbrush to use. (This is a dramatic shift from the normal closed mouth clamp she displays when we whip out the old toothbrush.)
What’s funny is she doesn’t even know “MehMo” in a real way. Lolo does get a set amount of TV each day (gasp!) but we never sit down at the same time to watch so she sees what happens to be on PBS Kids or Noggin at the time. She loves Sesame Street but he’s not always on so she sees him less than occasionally. (And Mama also likes to watch YoGabbaGabba.) But, this is how it starts. Before I imagine a future of cartoon character bedroom decor, I’ll rest easy with her simply gazing at a toothbrush and cackling like she’s getting away with eating cake for breakfast, which really would be fine if it was whole wheat cake.
“Toda” to Keren B. for the hip hot dog shirt I lusted after once I saw it on Neko. Some things you can only find in Brooklyn!
We’re back from South Carolina after showing off the most famous granddaughter on the planet. While she was a superstar on the plane, it was still an exhausting job to entertain her and make her think it was awesome to be strapped in a car seat for an hour and a half on a vehicle that you could not tell was actually moving. All in all, it was really quite successful especially since she didn’t poop while we were in the air. You know that was a show I was dreading.
She’s still catching up on sleep and so am I. And, then I started thinking about how tired I have been for the past month. And, then I started thinking about how “off” I have felt even though allergy season is over and I’m no longer on antihistamines and nasal sprays. And, then I started to mentally investigate possible culprits for these symptoms (other than something fairly logical like being a busy mom, the ree-donkulous amount of rainfall we’ve had, lack of sleep, etc.).
[By the way Internet, it’s really unbelievable how much rain we have had this spring and summer in the Northeast, more specifically in my state, in my township and on my block. Unfathomable. Unfair and untenable. It’s obviously bad enough for me to mention it on my non-weather-related blog.]
And, this is where I turn to search engines to find me a new paranoia. So, now I am convinced that more than a year after I started it, the Mirena is rotting my brain. (Go ahead, google it.) And, it was all I could think about for a full 24 hours until it was time for another mom’s happy hour (where ladies such as myself head out sans diapers, husbands, toddlers and snack traps to drink and be merry). And, that’s when I left the worries behind to kibitz with my gang.
Don’t be too shocked, but we were hit on by a group of college kids home for the summer. Yes! I’m not kidding. There we were, a bunch of thirty-something mamas literally talking about doulas and birthing when we were approached by some dudes asking if we were available. Holy mother of a 16 month-old. We still got the magic. Let’s just hope they didn’t do it on a double-dog dare. Maybe the Mirena’s not so bad after all.
It’s looking as though I should have signed up for a mommy-and-me “visit the doctor’s office” class rather than the Wee Whales swim class we registered for this Spring. I haven’t documented every single trip to the pediatrician simply because it’s the same thing every time, right down to the timing.
Scenario: Child gets fever Sunday or Monday. Child is cranky and not self. Child tugs at ear once and only once. Child sleeps through the night. Perplexed parent makes appointment Tuesday or Wednesday. Child diagnosed with raging ear infection. Parent and child must skip swim class and instead head to CVS. Seriously. She has never gotten an ear infection on a Thursday.
I feel like we have a VIP card at the doctor’s office, too. We walk in to a packed waiting room. One of the nurses peers at the door to see who walked in. “Hi Lolo,” they say. No sooner are my quads doing the work necessary to sit in a chair than they are calling us back to a room. I could have totally just jinxed myself and will now be punished with a 2 hour wait time today. But, I’m weary especially when you add in my own trips to the doctor this season. I’m so worn down that I release her in the waiting room to actually touch surfaces. I don’t have the energy to convince her that it’s much more fun playing in my sanitized arms than to squirrel around with a pile of worn out Time magazines.
If Murphy’s Law comes into play today, I will have finally self-diagnosed her with an ear infection only to hear, “Her ears look fine,” from the doctor.
Come with me on a medical adventure.
I had my appointment with the podiatrist yesterday. Since he wasn’t my original doctor (who is on vacation), I had to explain the whole history of this cyst and the sippy cup debacle. I started out by saying, “I have a ganglion cyst on my foot.” He smiled and said, “Heh, I can see that,” while staring at the prominent lump. (I knew I would like him from that moment on.)
As soon as I got my story out, he explained that this is old hat. He needed to aspirate the cyst and take out the insides. My response to the aspiration would determine whether I eventually needed surgery or not.
[Side-note: You may be wondering where Lolo was in this whole scenario. Well, she was a superstar sitting in her front row seat, the stroller. When we’re in any sort of doctor’s office, she is a wiggle worm who wants to investigate everything UNTIL the doctor comes in. Once the doc is on the scene, she turns into the perfect audience. I think she senses their authority and that they are going to do things she’ll want to watch. Still, I was a little worried. I had my blood pressure taken recently, and she freaked out when she saw the big band around my arm and the nurse doing something to mama. In the end, she found it all utterly fascinating.]
[Warning: This could be a little gory depending on your tolerance for Discover Health shows. If you’re at all squeamish, skip to the sentence near the end in red.]
First, he numbed the whole side of my foot with an injection of lidocaine which I neglected to watch. Then he pumped the cyst up to twice its size with some sort of fluid. And, then for the peak of drama, he used an 18-gauge needle (which in my state of shock looked as thick as a coffee stirrer) to suck out the cyst’s innards. It turns out that you don’t really drain a cyst because the filling is thick like jelly. He even showed me what he was able to pull out, and I was surprised to see that it was less than a teaspoon. He then finished it all off with a shot of cortisone.
To be frank, it was magical. As soon as he sucked the jelly out, I felt no pressure, no pain, and the bump was reduced to half its original size. Even with the lidocaine, I could feel the release. I have a follow-up appointment next week and am supposed to keep it tightly wrapped until then. He said the success of the treatment greatly depends on the compression I administer with bandages.
All was good. I went home. I performed all the normal evening activities and then went to bed.
With a surge of pain, I awoke around midnight startled by the fire in my foot. I guess the drugs finally wore off and the effects of forcibly disrupting the cyst were setting in. I tossed and turned in distress for 4.5 hours. Motrin sort of eased the misery, but not really. I fantasized about hitting my left foot with a hammer so that the pain in my right foot wouldn’t feel so bad. Alas, morning came and the ache subsided.
I will post a picture once I can kick Matt off the big photo editing computer upstairs. In the meantime, I am off to soak my foot in epsom salts. Nothing like a good foot soak to make you feel old.
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I officially feel like a mutant. A few weeks ago, my ganglion cyst came back larger than ever.
For the first couple weeks, it loomed large on my foot but didn’t hurt. Now it’s angry and sending throbs of blood pumping pain up my foot. For some reason, it’s worse at night when I am finally off my feet.
Today at music class, instead of just taking off my flip flops to join the circle of mamas, I reached into my purse to put on socks. I didn’t want anyone to suffer from seeing my freakishly bumpy foot. It looks like I am saving a gumball in my sock for later. Only, I’m not.
Ok, so my toes are a little odd, too. But, they won't make children run away in fear like the growth on the side of my foot will.
I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to see if he can temporarily relieve my pain. It makes me cringe to even think that he could maybe, possibly, in a way “drain” it. God, that makes me want to throw up.
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Harrumph. Hand this one over to the ‘Complaint Department’. I’m cranky.
How does one live in “Jerz” without being affected by the “so called” stereotypical attributes of the Garden State (that really aren’t stereotypes after all)? They’re real. The hair, the jewelry, the nails, the leather. Bravo TV isn’t exaggerating their portrayal of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. It’s all real.
Yes, yes, there are plenty of normal people who have arrived here from other normal places (such as Brooklyn). But, they’re not the ones who own the hair salons. You can see where I’m going with this one. I just wanted a haircut. A simple one. I landed at a salon close to our house that is truly indescribable. Suffice it to say that Carmella Soprano would have had her hair done there and felt right at home amongst the vinyl “mock marble” counter tops. (In fact, the majority of the Sopranos was filmed in this area.) When the stylist found out I just wanted a trim, she told me that “I could think about that decision” while I was having my hair shampooed. When I was delivered back to her chair, she asked what I had decided. I told her I was going to keep it simple and didn’t want any more layers right now. Without a word, she started to cut my hair, which took about 5 minutes. Then she silently dried it, and I was on my merry way in less than 15 minutes. Miffed she was. Miffed that I didn’t want a Jersey “do.”
I’m overwhelmed by the shiny gold, the tanning, the makeup, the eyeliner. But, it’s seeping in slowly but surely. I’ve heard myself say out loud more than once that I may need to invest in some UV-free tanning. And, I’ve been wearing lip gloss to the playground. What’s next? Frosted highlights and snakeskin pants? It’s a slippery slope.
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With so many visitors from Virginia, there just hasn’t been time to post. Here’s the abbreviated breakdown of the past few weeks.
-My brother popped in for a long weekend before his fancy, earth-friendly, biological, bacteria-growin’, science internship starts.
-We found out Lolo grew 6 inches in 3 months.
-Nothing spells fun for a toddler more than wrecking your nap schedule and stomping all over the Children’s Museum of Manhattan.
-New words are “uh oh” and “buh bye”
-Now that it’s the end of May, I think it might be safe to put away the winter clothes and turn off the heat. But, you never really do know.
-“Gamma” Virginia stopped in for some hi-jinx and fun before heading back to the grind.
-And, last but certainly not least, we AGAIN had the opportunity to call 911.
Ever since moving North, I think we’ve called “911” at least five or six times in total. However, this was our first-ever suburban emergency.
Don’t get the wrong impression. We’re not reckless with our emergency dialing. Each time we do it, we really do think our lives are in peril. They have all just turned out to be false alarms, that’s all.
But, who wouldn’t call when a drunk Australian tries to pick a fight with you from street level as you’re on your patio above a subway entrance? Who wouldn’t call when it smells like the whole building you live in is filled with natural gas? (It just so happened that it wasn’t natural gas, it was sewer gas from the Dunkin Donuts below our apartment.) Who wouldn’t call when the cable guy says that there is bare wiring behind our apartment building that could start a fire at any moment?
So, what suburban madness led us to call 911 this time? Crazy teens, of course. I was laying in bed just before midnight over the Memorial Day weekend when I started to hear a loud verbal fight between a few guys. But, they were fighting like girls. They were arguing about someone not getting in the car and about how someone else was tired of always being the one to drive. There were six or seven cranky 16 year-olds standing around a car in front of our neighbor’s house. When I went upstairs to get the non-emergency police number (we do try not to blow everything out of proportion), Matt went to the window to inspect what was going on. Then they started throwing glass bottles, so he was forced to dial our favorite three digits.
Just as he was calling, as if they knew, they sped off only to screech to a halt in front of our house. They all got out of the car and proceeded to scream and fight even louder. Two minutes after our 911 call, three cops showed up to inspect the disturbance. That’s when the “Cops” intro music started in my head, and I got all giggly about the smack down I was about to witness. I had already mentally arrested the teens for driving under the influence and hiding illegal substances in the car. The cops thought it, too. I heard phrases like, “This is your opportunity to tell us if there are any drugs in the car. It’s not worth going to jail trying to hide a dime bag.” It was awesome. But, unfortunately that’s when the drama peaked.
The cops detained the kids for about 20 minutes in the hopes that one would crack and fess up to what was really going on. In the end, the driver was issued a ticket and asked to get home safely. (And, to stop fighting like chicks when all the babies are trying to sleep.)
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It’s shameless and most likely completely boring to you. No, utterly boring. I just can’t help it. She makes me laugh and I have endless access to my camera.
To rationalize this as a post consisting of more than a toddler video. This is what’s been occupying my brain this week in order of importance.
1. Jon and Kate Rumors. I’m riveted.
2.Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread. Delicious and scarfed down by husband and child.
3. Whether I can still wear shorts as a mom and have them not look like “mom shorts”.
4. Sunless tanning. I think I want it.
5. I think I need a blackberry to keep track of my daughter’s social life. And, because I am not so secretly addicted to the Internet.
6. What about parenthood causes you to drink more than when you didn’t have to wake up at 6:30 am 7 days a week?
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Blog on Noodle Girl.
I wanted to give a little shout-out to my friend who just created a blog about her process of TTC (“trying to conceive” for those of you who don’t crawl infertility blogs). She would like to remain somewhat anonymous, so she calls herself Noodle Girl and writes about her story here.
We’ve finally been inducted into the exclusive, underground homeowner’s club and our platinum membership card is already in the mail. You’ll know you’re “in” when you’re no longer planning your next vacation but rather how much you’ll have to pay a contractor for new drywall installation.
As winter thawed, the ice dams in the gutter over our TV room started to melt backward towards the house. Unfortunately, there were two gaps in the flashing that allowed that trickle of water to flow into the walls. (Yum.) So, apparently, there is good reason to clean out your gutters regularly.
March and April unfolded, and my scary-good sense of smell sniffed out a funk behind the leftover 1970s paneling that no one else could detect. Needless to say, the stink quickly went from an annoying odor to a major tear-out of three walls, new drywall, gutter and window repair, etc.
We went from panic (me), to antsyness (me), to demolition (Steve the builder), to acceptance (Matt) as we dealt with an unexpected home repair. I do feel like a more accomplished homeowner, yes. But, now I am left with this unknowing panic. What else am I missing or not smelling? Do I need to sniff the entire interior of our house?
I now drive around the neighborhood and check out how sophisticated other people’s gutters are. I listen for leaks. I peer at the integrity of caulk around the tub. Seriously, this all came about because of my nose. I’m sure that eventually someone would have come to our home and asked, “Dude, what’s that smell?” But, we caught it early because of me and my olfactory system.
I carry on, though, in my obsessive plight. We did save some money by painting the trim and walls ourselves (myself). The process was long and arduous. In total, it took me over a week because I could only manage to do two hours each night after dinner prep, cooking, cleanup, laundry, etc. But, I did it, and we won’t mention the defeated tears that occurred in the interim. We have Wilmington Tan walls, and they are lovely.
So, the morning after I finished the room, we had a scheduled delivery of a washing machine to replace the dilapidated one rusting in our basement. The guys decided to shut off the water supply to the entire house to hook up the washer. In order to completely drain the line, he asked me to flush all the toilets upstairs and turn on a couple faucets. Unfortunately, he neglected to tell me when he was turning the main water line back on. While I was on the second floor attending to Lolo, the sink on the first floor was flooding the first floor bathroom and raining down into the basement. When I walked down to the basement to see how everything was going, they looked at the water gushing and said, “Something’s wrong.” As soon as I realized what was happening, I raced upstairs, put Lolo back in her crib, and grabbed the first towels I could find. In my nice jeans on my hands and knees, I began to sop up water frenetically just imagining the possibilities of disaster that this could cause. I began to sob in an extremely pathetic way. It wasn’t pretty and the delivery guys were a little taken aback.
In the end, the washer was hooked up. I had my contractor come to look at the floors and called the delivery company about possibly filing a claim if the slats started to buckle. But, I got the tears out and took care of business.
The very next morning (which was Saturday of course), the trash guys took our trash from the bins as usual and proceeded to drag them along the entire length of my neighbor’s driveway to the truck. Unfortunately for me, he was dragging one of the bags that had the discards from my painting escapade. Leftover white paint from a “trim cup” spilled in a perfect line down the asphalt all the way to the street.
Inside, I laughed a hysterical cackle. How else could I top off the week? In my pink and white “heart” pajamas, I put on my rain boots and set to scrubbing the driveway next door with an old mop head and bucket. It was perfect. Priceless even.
The paint did come up and the problem was solved, but not before giving the neighbors a very perplexing show.
Tomorrow will mark 15 months, so I thought this was a perfect time to update the world on what the bean finds delightful.
1. Walking backwards is utterly hilarious.
2. Spinning around in a circle makes her smile.
3. You definitely don’t need rain to wear a raincoat.
Her words are growing and her ability to quasi mimic our language tells me that she’ll be breaking out of babytalk soon.
1. “Nana”= Banana
2. “Shoosz”= Shoes
3. “Nigh Nigh”= Nite Nite
3. “ZeeZee”= Zoe
4. And, finally, she said “Papa.”
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I’m well aware that I obsess. That I research. That I never just go to the store on a whim to buy something without knowing all the alternatives and what they cost. That’s exactly why Google Shopping was invented. I embrace this and I own it. It’s who I am.
Well, I’ve started to notice that my mom friends have picked up on this trend as well. They look to me for what the best deal is on gyms in the area, what I wash my hardwood floors with that’s both natural but not wicked expensive, how well a 14 month old can walk in crocs, how much is the swingset at Costco, who can install it if you buy it …
Could I capitalize on this? Yes, yes, I know that mom groups, social networking sites, and the mother of all message boards, the Internet, already exist. But, I am the filter with my own very specific point of view. A very valuable, OCD point of view in my estimation. I could create a cult following with monthly dues. Maybe it could build into a pyramid scheme? Something along the lines of the Mary Kay business plan?
Maybe if I made 50 cents for every piece of advice I gave, making mistakes on my own wouldn’t seem so costly. It’s like a stopped up toilet would pay for itself.
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Is it wrong that I jam out to this song on the way to baby swim class? I feel like it might be.
I can’t stand Kanye in general but had no idea this was his song until after it had infiltrated my easily influenced brain. Damn you Kanye.
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I thought my life was lacking its usual drama until two weeks ago happened. (Sidenote: You can relax a little bit. It’s not so big of a deal that I couldn’t write about it for two weeks, it’s just that Easter and other visitors have come in between “then and now” so I’m tardy on my dramatic reporting.)
I woke up one morning and saw that a house across the street had workman setting up for some type of home improvement job. With all of the houses around here being close to a hundred years old, lead paint is definitely a hot topic. Everyone’s worst nightmare with young kids is for a neighbor to have their house sanded in preparation for a new coat of paint. The lead tainted sawdust gets everywhere and easily travels into neighboring homes through doors, windows and on the botom of shoes that enter the house. So, our town has ridiculously strict codes including ones that require contractors to use sanders with HEPA vacuums attached to them. Painters are also supposed to completely encase a house in tarps to prevent the dust from traveling, and they’re supposed to wear protective clothing themselves with masks and respirators. Better yet, they are supposed to give all neighbors proper notice of this kind of work being done.
With that background established, as I brushed my teeth, I leered through the bathroom with my eagle eyes. I could tell it was definitely a painting job but there was only one tarp so I assumed that no sanding would be done. I went off to music class without a worry only to return to see the neighbor’s house covered in dust, one measly tarp blowing wildly in the wind and the dudes sanding without any protective gear. Their shoulders and faces were covered in dust. I immediately called my neighbor who has young kids and learned that she had abandoned her house with her two little ones earlier that morning and planned to be out all day.
I was still in my car a good distance from our house to minimize exposure and started to quickly freak out. Was I supposed to go into the house and just hope it wouldn’t travel? Did I have to check into a hotel? Lolo was overdue for her nap, and I didn’t really have the energy to stay out all day especially since I didn’t have enough supplies to last me. Staying out all day doesn’t really help either because if it’s in your house, you have to come back to it eventually. My neighbor called back and said she would meet me to talk about our plan of action. I called Matt and he connected with the painting company who was sending out the job’s supervisor to see what was going on.
He arrived and immediately took me for a paranoid and irrational mother who would eventually cause him extra work and a doozy of a headache. While this isn’t far off from reality, he didn’t have to show that he knew I was a lunatic. In a completely condescending way, he told me that he couldn’t help that it was windy and couldn’t control the weather and that he was complying with all codes. In fact, he was working with an inspector on this job.
Wha? By that logic, if you don’t control the weather but it’s raining, you would still paint a house. No, you wait until it stops raining. If the one tarp you have is waving horizontally in the wind, you either add more tarps or adjust to the current conditions and postpone work.
He was obviously annoyed and wanted to disperse with us as soon as possible and said, “Fine, I’ll tape your windows.”
So, work stopped as the men traveled over with ladders to tape the windows on our two homes. At this point, I’m leading the charge with Matt covering from his office by making calls and researching on the internet.
As they tape our windows, I call the painting company’s main office and say that while this guy is trying to manage the situation, what they’re doing is still not making sense. The one tarp, the lack of protection for the men sanding, not adjusting to the weather, etc. I said, I’m concerned and I don’t think this guy is going to appease me. So, Matt gets in touch with the town inspector who is on his way to check out the work. While we’re doing all of this, we realize that this house is just over an invisible township line and they live in a town with no lead restrictions and their inspector is out of town for the Easter holiday.
However, I think I barked loud enough at the main office to cause others to intervene, and the job was shut down for the day. Bam!
While our town’s inspector did come over, he couldn’t do much because it was outside his jurisdiction. But he did allay some of my fears and was glad they had agreed to tape our windows.
The next day, the painters showed up with full on Tyvek space suits, masks and plenty of tarps. They overlapped the tarps around the house and actually anchored the bottom edges to the ground so they weren’t waving in the breeze.
The job supervisor never showed up again to check on anything, but I was defintely more satisfied. I couldn’t quite relax as the sanding progressed through the weeekend, and I did end up calling once again when a tarp detached from the house. But, all in all, I am glad I spoke up. What’s a few more people in town thinking I’m out of my gourd if it saves Lolo from lead poisoning?
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She gazes at the reflection of this barrette in her hair just basking in the glory of all that glitters in the world of accessories.
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stinkerbean 