Thursday, February 26

In on the Secret

So, it's that time of year again. When my mother calls me up and asks, "So...what'd you give up for Lent?" Only, now she's going to a Baptist church and I don't think they give a crap about giving stuff up. Except maybe dancing. Which I would NEVER give up, even if the only time I get to dance is in the morning when I'm making baby's breakfast and I'm trying to make her laugh....which is hard because I pride myself on my dancing ability so if she laughs it's ten minutes in the corner for her.

Well, Fat Tuesday sneaked up on me and I had to make a rush decision about what to do without for the next forty some-odd days. I went with beer, which is my usual M.O. In 1998, I gave up beer for Lent, and then I took up tequila. Those were good times. But now giving up beer isn't a real stretch because it's not something I need. And when you go out to eat, it does save about seven dollars. At least for my part of the bill, since I'm a bit of a beer snob. I've given up beer the last three years, though 2007 may not count since with was with child, which brings me to another point: If I'd had a looking glass I wouldn't have given up beer in 2006.

I also gave up Facebook. Watch out! My friends are a little upset by this. The Boy said I shouldn't do it and that when I go back I'll only have 137 friends. That may not be a bad thing. Somehow I've accumulated a crap load of people, or "pseudo-friends" as someone likes to all them. A lot of them have played huge parts in my life at one point or another. It's really wonderful catching up with them and not having to call them and chat on the phone. I would never do that.

My friends tried to get me to give up coffee instead of beer because St. Pat's is coming up and trust me, the two years I went out on St. Patrick's Day I made it three hours and fifteen minutes the first year and much longer actually when I was pregnant. But coffee doesn't cause me to lose hours in the day. Beer doesn't either. Okay. Yes, it does. Who am I kidding?

So I guess you'll be seeing more of me. Which should make my friends happy! ARE YOU EVEN READING THIS?

Happy Jesus' something to all of you!

Friday, February 20

No Fair. I Want Some!

I went to my practicum today. I have to make-up two days since I missed Monday and Wednesday last week with the sick little babykins. My little first-graders are the sweetest most hug-hungry children I've ever come across. They are always coming over to hug me; boys and girls. On Wednesday (they were off school on Monday for President's Day), one little girl said, "You look very pretty today." Yikes. She is already on to me. I had given a little more effort--okay, that's a lie...I'd actually given some effort finally--than usual and she picked right up on it. I really like her. She gets in trouble a lot and cries at the drop of a hat, but she is adorable and whoever dresses her in the a.m. has superb style.

Today, I walked into the class in the middle of their writing assignment. I put my bag down and took off my coat and jumped right in to help. I made sure to bend down so they wouldn't have to stare up my nose. As I was helping one girl (who is very bright) the girl next to her pointed to her own paper and DUDE! she had on a full-set of acrylic nails. She is SIX YEARS OLD.

At least it was glitter polish.

Saturday, February 14

It Really Was No Miracle/What Happened Was Just This

Baby got sick last Saturday in the car. Nothing worse than a baby throwing up in the car seat while you're on the highway going 65 mph. Poor little mite. The Boy was driving so I climbed into the back and wiped her little tears. He and I were on our way out to dinner with his family. My mother was keeping baby overnight. I called Gramma and alerted her to the situation and she met us in the driveway, swooped up the baby girl and whisked her off to a warm bath waiting in the very nice ceramic utility sink. The Boy and I want a square bathtub that comes up to our eye level. Sad to be so jealous of a baby's ability to look so tiny in a sink, but it's possible.

I chalked up her vomickin' to being car sick, as I get car sick very easily...especially so if I have to face backward like on the LIRR or subway. Egads. Look out stranger next to me...and open your briefcase.

We went to dinner and I picked her up the next morning at 7.30 a.m. She had gotten sick twice during the night. Okay. So, not car sick. She ended up puking up the entire contents of her breakfast all down my tee shirt and velour zip-up hoodie. It is times like that when you realize, yes, I do love this person. I didn't even flinch or blink or nearly gag. But I am quite certain, had it been anyone else's child, I probably would've have fainted right there in a pile of not-quite-half-digested vegan waffle and banana bits.

I took her home where she proceeded to throw up three more times, but not again after 3 p.m. I called the doctor-on-call and he said it was probably just a bug and to keep her hydrated. Duh. So I did. She didn't have dinner, but woke up at 2.15 a.m. Monday and ate an entire container of applesauce and kept it down. Later that more at the real wake-up time, she ate a whole banana and was fine. That afternoon, she asked for applesauce and threw it up. So I took her to the doctor. They said she wasn't dehydrated and to feed her normally, continue the fluids, give her a bottle (soy formula) and not the legendary BRAT diet.

I gave her a bottle that evening and she walked into the other room and barfed up nearly all of it onto the tile floor without missing a beat. That was the thing. No fever. Ever. Yet, she couldn't hold anything down. And after throwing up, she was the most cheerful child you'd ever seen.

Wednesday morning was a different story. She threw up six times in an hour and a half so I rushed her off to Children's Hospital. Emergency rooms are the Goodwill's of health care. No matter how dressed up you are--which I wasn't and I hadn't bathed since Monday night's semi-traumatic shower right after baby looked up at my dear friend and said, "I go two potties"--you look like a crazy homeless person and if you have a nice handbag they look at you like you shouldn't be shopping there.

Baby ended up getting an IV of fluids. Her glucose level was a 47; normal being 60-120. She has kept everything down since, demanding two bananas for breakfast and has eaten 400 puffy stars. I tried to get her to only have a few pieces of bread after I brought her back to The Boy's house but she was having none of it. With every handful of puffy stars and banana and crackers, I just KNEW she was going to puke it all up in mere seconds. But she did not. And, of course, she wasn't the least bit interested in drinking anything since her liquid cheeseburger at the hospital.

The wind outside had started to pick up. I'd heard it was going to be fairly windy that night. (I was hoping it wasn't going to be like the Hurricane Ike winds we'd inherited back in the early fall. The winds that ripped off my sunglasses and had me trapped against a planter for 25 minutes on my four minute walk to work.) I kept looking out the windows. Some trees were blowing and some weren't. It was very strange. I noticed a giant evergreen in the backyard of the neighbor's home and wondered how it had never fallen over. It is sooo tall and precariously placed on a hill.

About 45 minutes later, I put baby down and went into the kitchen to do some homework online. I wasn't in the kitchen ten minutes when I heard a sound I've never heard before. Suddenly the power went out and I was pretty sure it was a tornado ripping apart the house. From the bruises on my knees I'm quite certain I crawled my way out of the kitchen. I rammed my head into the banister when I'd made it out into the front room. I was screaming for The Boy and was desperately trying to climb my way up the stairs to the bedrooms. He has been sick for two weeks and had been asleep since the late afternoon.

I thought for sure the house was going to be swept away and that he and baby were going to be gone forever. My legs were Jell-O. I crawled into the baby's room and felt around for her bed. I couldn't see a thing. I tried to walk back downstairs but remembering how I'd already fallen down those stairs with her before I just sat down in the hall and cried. He came running downstairs and said, "It's okay. It's just the power. It's just the power." I said, "No! Something came into your kitchen." He walked past me and a few seconds later came out and asked, "Were you in the kitchen? Were you in the kitchen!?" I said, "Yes." He gave me a hug and said, "A tree came through the roof. It's just a tree."

A 65 foot tree fell onto his house and burst through his roof four feet from where I was standing. I am pretty sure I'm very lucky. I know I am very grateful that The Boy and the baby are safe and sound. I can't imagine what I would have done if it had truly been what I'd imagined.

The next morning while the tree parts were being cut out of three spots in his roof, we decided to go out to breakfast since the tree had knocked down the power lines and the kitchen was unusable. I went to start my car and...nothing. My fuel pump went out. Just talked to the service station and it's going to be $300 or so to fix. Great.

I am beginning to think trees hate me. When I moved in with my ex-husband, the 100-year-old tree in his front yard died. We moved and the 15-year-old tree in our front yard died. And now this. Maybe it's because of my stationery addiction. I'll try to be better.

Wednesday, February 4

Ready? Set. Stop.

This semester is a bust.

I was off school last week from Monday to Thursday. My practicum therefore was canceled on Monday and Wednesday, as well. Only, I didn't realize that the county had called off school. I was up at 6.20 a.m. on Monday for some reason...can't remember why.... The only schools that were called off were an hour and a half away. They still get our local news and Lexington's news. So I figured it was just bad weather to the west and south of us.

I suspected baby was teething. She had a temperature of 100.4. Oh yeah! That's why I was awake at 6.20 a.m. Duh. Anyway, I didn't want to take her to daycare, so I called my mother and asked her if she would come down and watch her. It was about time for her nap and I didn't particularly want to take her outside if it wasn't necessary.

I drove out to my practicum with no problem whatsoever. I pull into the parking lot...empty. WTH? I didn't see anything on the news about it. It had snowed a tiny bit and was pretty cold but it wasn't unbearable. There wasn't even any snow on the roads. I still don't know if they'd been let go early or if school had been called off altogether.

I ended up using the few minutes of pretend free time I had and stopped by a consignment shop. I found some really great jeans; two pair of Gap and one pair of Banana Republic all for under $3.99. They were marked 50% off. I can't figure out why they were still there. I also found the greatest sweater ever invented: cable-knit cream sweater with a hood, no buttons, and a belt. Also in the 50% off room. There were only two other things on the rack with it, so it wasn't like someone needed to search through a hundred sweaters to find it. It was just there begging to be purchased. I bought it for $3.50. Crazy.

When I went to pay my card was rejected three times. Card error. I left my stuff there and went home. My lovely mother was headed out to the grocery which is right next door to the store and picked up my clothes for me. She's so wonderful. I can't wait to do things like that for baby. I love getting little gifts for my mom. Things she wants that she would never buy for herself, like Chanel No. 5 Body Creme, which has replaced Chanel No. 5 Body Lotion. (If you remember...everything I like is eventually canceled or discontinued. I do not lie about these things.)

I went home and checked my balance through the bank's website. Plenty of money. One of my resolutions is to only write checks for things. Hope you don't end up in line behind me. My mother writes checks everywhere she goes. Remember the fit she threw at Gap Outlet? She threw the same fit at IKEA. I think it is very important and a great way to keep track of expenses. I just suck at it.

Friday, I went with The Boy to a store downtown to buy us stainless steel water bottles. Card error wasn't the message this time, but something more elitist. Finally I had the sense to call my bank.

Baby Fish Mouth: Something is wrong with my debit card.
Teller: Account number?
BFM: *waiting*
Teller: Oh, this card has been canceled.
BFM: Uh...nuh uh.
Teller: Yes, it has.
BFM: By whom?
Teller: Well, the company who owns your card had a security breach so your card was canceled.
BFM: How was I supposed to know this?
Teller: Well, it was on the news last week. Don't you watch the news?
BFM: No. I don't. I quit watching the news when I saw a bank teller had been strangled through the phone. (I didn't really say that, but I wanted to say it.)

I'm sorry. Do I have to rely on the local news to tell me important information from my bank? They can't even freaking tell me when the schools are closed.