This week I love . . . My Daddy!

Okay, I love my dad every week, but last week I had the "I love the Dwights" entry, so this week its my "I love my Dad" entry. I'm a total Daddy's Girl. I would happily admit it to anyone in the world. He is one of my favorite people on the earth and I admire and respect him and his opinions so much.

BUT the man is almost 70 years old and from the "non computer" generation. Pretty much the only thing he knows how to do on the computer is play Solitare or Hearts and he's content with that. My mom has tried to show him several times how to e-mail, but he just doesn't get it. So, my mom left Tuesday for Alaska for two weeks. I've made a promise to myself that I'm going to call or e-mail my dad every day just to say "hi" and keep him company. Last night he called me and the first words out of his mouth were "this dumb computer . . . ". Since he has Parkingson's a lot of times when he's playing his games his hand will jerk unexpectedly and he'll end up clicking on something random and screwing something up. I was so afraid that he had done that again this time and I was going to have to try to talk my "old school" Dad through fixing his computer. But he was trying so hard to reply to my e-mail as a surprise to me, but couldn't quite figure it out.

I walked him through replying and he was so determined to figure it out. As we continued to talk I kept hitting Send/Receive on my computer and I wasn't getting his e-mail. I was so scared that I was going to have to tell him that it didn't work when DING! I had mail from him! I was so proud of him and I have to admit I got really teary eyed! So I replied to him that it had worked and then before bed I was checking my e-mail and he had replied again all on his own!

I wonder if I'll be this proud and emotional the first time Alyssa walks! *wink*

I'm ready for fall!

Monday night we started getting some big storms about 5:30, so it got dark really early. Adam jokingly made the comment that it was finally getting dark at a decent time (so we don't feel like such losers going to be when its still light out). The pitch black by 7/7:30 made it feel like fall. And now the past two days we've had highs in the 70s and it has been sooo wonderful! I love having the windows open and letting the fresh air in. Last night we went to Village Pointe with Amber and Randy for dinner and it was actually a little bit chilly by 8 when we were out walking around. It reminds me so much of marching band/football season and I LOVE it! I want to get all the Halloween decorations out and my sweaters out and clean the house top to bottom.

Its kind of weird to think that we could possibly enjoy a "New England fall" this year as residents of the East coast. I wish a job would just drop out the sky for Adam if we are destined to end up out there.

Please, can this day be over with?

After listening to "mamamamamamamamamamama!" screamed at the top of Alyssa's voice for almost an hour and her not being happy unless I was holding her I gave her some Motrin and put her in her crib. She's crying, but I don't know what to do with her. She won't eat, she doesn't want to rock, she doesn't even seem to want to be held, but she sobs if I don't pick her up, but then when I do pick her up she flails and wiggles like she wants to be anywhere but my arms. I'm soooo dreading pictures today. I don't want to be the mommy today.

The coffee table

Alyssa has found a new favorite past time ~ pulling herself up and walking around the coffee table. So, I was at BRU last week and thought I would be a good mommy and buy some plastic "corner softeners" that you but on tables so that kids don't poke their eyes out by falling against the table. Well, I got my $1 worth because the little turkey can pull them off and she thinks that's just a great game.

So I was telling my mom last night that Adam has come to the point where he has now duct tapes all the corner things down so that Alyssa can't pull them off (after we tried using various different types of tape/sticky things). She started telling me that when they were babysitting Friday night it was driving her crazy that Alyssa would do that ~ Alyssa would pull it off, my mom would stick it back on, and Alyssa would crawl right back over and try to pull it off again. My dad has decided that we're going to have our hands full with her because she has such a mind of her own. My mom said that she was considering smack her hands to get her to stop pulling them off.

Now this really bothered me. She said that she decided against smacking her hands (she wouldn't have hit her hard, just tapped her), and I thought "oh good, she realizes that she should not discipline Alyssa until she knows how Adam and I plan on dealing with these situations", but she decided to not do it because she was afraid that Alyssa would be scared of her for the rest of the night. Ugh.

I don't see something like pulling corner thingies (what on earth are they really called?!?!?) as reason to smack a child's hands. I think of saving that for when she's doing things dangerous. Like getting ready to stick a key in an outlet or trying to reach for a hot stove. I don't care that she pulls them off . . . frankly, I think its kind of funny. She's sturdy enough now that I don't really worry about her falling and poking her eye out, I just thought since they were cheap I would get them just to be extra safe.

I've got the green and white ticket!!!

I opened a new box of wipes last week and found a green and white card from Pampers lying on top that read:

"There is something special about these wipes!

Dear Pampers Customer,
At Pampers we continually design innovative ways to imporve our baby wipes.

At different times during the year, we substitute regualr Pampers baby wipes with an improved product, which we invite you to evaluate.

This package contains these new and improved wipes."

I felt like I won a prize! I get new and improved wipes for the same price as the old ones AND before anyone else gets them! (And frankly, I do like the wipes a lot better than the other Pampers ones we have).

I think its really cool that Pampers does random product testing on their customers. It seems to me like it would give them better feedback than just using the same test group over and over and over again. Kudos to them!

Ode to Boomer

B is for benders that we like to race

O is for the outrage we felt when Tru Calling was cancelled

O is for one million and four ~ the number of times I’ve heard the cheesecake story that I never tire of.

M is for the movies that he likes to make

E is for every time I see him he makes me smile

R is for reading his book “Left Standing” and being awe struck at his talent with words

Are you feeling the love now, buddy? ;)

I love the Dwights!

I was just reading Eric's blog where he talked about how he realized yesterday that this year may very well be the last year that they are in Omaha to celebrate Angie's birthday. Just reading about it made it really hit home and I have been a sobbing mess for the last 10 minutes. I have such a hard time comprehending that there is going to be a time when we aren't going to be 5 minutes away from each other. That we can get together for dinner on spur of the moment or stop by to show off the latest scrapbooking efforts. I am so, so, so proud of them for chasing their dream of moving to Cali and I support that entirely and I know that our family may or may not stay in Omaha, but I hope Eric and Angie realize how very important they are to our family, how much we love them, and how much better our lives are because they are such a huge part of it. They are such an inspiration to me and have helped me become a better person ~ you guys are a huge influence in my life and I dig you! ;)

I feel sheepish . . . baaaa!

I was driving home from swimming this afternoon and stopped at a red light (something many people these days find unusal!). There was a truck in front of me and the two cars in front of him/her had gotten into a fender bender. The truck in front of me had his turn signal on to move from the left lane (where we were) to the right so that he could go around the accident and I was doing the same; we were both waiting for a lull in traffic. The DUMBASS behind me decides that she's going to move into the left turn lane, so she goes up on the curb/median to get around me and in the process hits the back of my car. Then it ticked me off that she didn't have the patience to wait for the two cars in front of her to merge to the right so that she could then follow, so she cut in front of the accident and moved over to the far right hand lane. I meanwhile moved into the left turn lane with my bruised car and my screaming child (the bump from the van behind us woke her up) so that I could pull into a strip mall to 1) tend to my screaming child and 2) check for any damage. As I'm stopped at the red light again at the same intersection waiting to turn left, I'm not so tactfully straining to see the licence plate number of "Ms Red Van" who hit me. I calmed Alyssa down and checked out the car to see that some of the dust had been shaken off my bumper, but I can't see any other damage. As I'm pulling out of the parking lot, "Ms. Red Van" turns into the parking lot, rolls down her window and apologizes, saying "I was just trying to turn left". (Then why did she move to the far RIGHT lane from the left turn lane?!) I reply in a VERY bitchy tone "Did you happen to notice that you HIT ME?!" Ms Red Van: "No, I didn't hear that" Me: "Well, you did, but there's no damage" Ms. Red Van: "Well, I'm sorry". Me: "Yeah, whatever" and I pull away. I so wanted to flip her off or call her a bitch or something. But I didn't. But as soon as I pulled away I started feeling bad. She really seemed like a nice person and she didn't have to track me down and explain things. I shouldn't have been so quick to judge and so hot tempered. It was an accident and accidents happen. Granted, I really think you should have the patience if you're trying to move into a turn lane to wait until there is room for you to get to the turn lane without having to drive up on the curb so I think that was sucky of her to do. So, Ms Red Van, I apologize for being so bitchy and I forgive you for hitting my dear Gwen (waking the baby on the other hand . . . I can't quite forgive that yet because those nap moments are VERY PRECIOUS!). ;)

Parking spots

I was half listening to Pat and JT this morning on the radio while I was getting breakfast for Alyssa and I. Granted, I was in and out of the room a lot, so I didn't follow the conversation as closely as I wanted to, but they were talking about how Westroads has designated parking spots for expectant mothers, new mothers, and senior citizens as well as the normal handicapped spaces. The big debate was that another guy on the show, Tommy, has no problem parking in the mother/senior citizen spots if no other spots close enough are available. Now, he's around 30, an athlete, etc, so there's really no reason that he couldn't walk a little farther just because he couldn't get a space close to the door. He actually said something about driving around for 15 minutes looking for a space close and that he wouldn't park in the first spot that he saw because it was usually too far from the door. I wanted to call in so badly and tell him what a jerk I thought he was, but he was being so "prickish" and stubborn and I didn't have a solid argument, so I was feeling kind of defensive and felt like I would just get more upset if I got through and got to speak my piece and then had that jerk just poo all over it. One mother called in and was talking about how when she was expecting she couldn't walk for more than 10 minutes without sitting down and crying because she was in so much pain and she thought that it was awful that Tommy would take parking spots away from people like her that could use them. She said something about the exercise wouldn't hurt him. He agreed that he needed the exercise, but came back with "pregnant women need to exercise, too". I found myself hoping that someday he gets married and his wife has a difficult pregnancy and needs the closer parking spots, but some young guy who's too darn lazy to walk a little farther takes the spot. But then I would never really wish a difficult pregnancy on someone. I can't believe that someone would be that stinking lazy and inconsiderate. That he thinks him parking close is more important than the senior citizen who has to struggle to get out of their house, but needs groceries. Or the 9 month pregnant woman who has to go out to get diapers for her other children. The whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach.

My experience with this . . . I was about 8 months pregnant with Alyssa and going to Hy-Vee. I drove past the "expectant mother" parking spot, but someone had just pulled in, so I parked about 2 cars away. Not a big deal. As I'm walking by the "expectant mother" steps out. She's about 16, wearing a skirt that barely covers her ass and a crop top that showed off her very non pregnant stomach. She looked really embarrassed when she saw me waddle past her. Now, I know some people have difficult pregnancies from the start and need the closer spaces because they aren't supposed to be on their feet that much and I know that sometimes they get a lot of flack because people can't tell that that is their situation just by looking at them, but I have a feeling that my situation was just a teenage girl that wanted the close spot. The thing that really got me was that I parked TWO SPOTS AWAY from her. Could she really not walk the extra 15 feet?!

Yesterday I took Alyssa to Target and was getting to pull into a spot. A woman was in the next aisle over and pulled through the spot on her side to pull into the spot that I was going to take. (Because it was closer to the door) I thought maybe when she saw me she would back up and take the space behind, but she made eye contact and gave me a "sorry, I was here first" kind of shrug. So, I went over and pulled in behind her. I though about smashing into her little tin can car with my big mommy mobile, but didn't. I hope she saw me struggle to get Alyssa, a blanket, the diaper bag, and my purse out of the car and felt bad for being such a witch.

Grrrr to all the stupid, lazy people who waste so much of their life looking for the closest parking spot possible.

9 month pictures . . . almost the death of me!

Per "someone's" request, here's a retelling of my experience at Alyssa's 9 month pictures. I copied and pasted from an e-mail that I sent to a good friend this morning.

Okay, here's my horrific picture experience from yesterday. I get all stressed just thinking about it. My sister had mentioned last weekend that she needed new pictures of Alyssa, so I invited Joni and Anna (my niece) to meet us at pictures so that Joni could pick out which ones she wanted. Dumb, dumb, DUMB move! My niece is one of the most obnoxious children you will ever meet. She has no self control, my sister doesn't try to control her and most times after being around her for 20 minutes or more I just want to throw her out a window. So we get to Penney's and there is only one girl working and she's totally frazzled. She's trying to get the phone, help people that want to pick up pictures, and get us started. She was really sweet and really apologetic and gave us 2 free sheets of pictures because there were so many interruptions which was really nice. As soon as Joni and Anna get there, Anna starts hanging all over Alyssa, poking her, pulling her binky out of her mouth, getting all up in her face, etc. I know she's just excited and loves her baby cousin, but seriously! So I kept asking her to give Alyssa some space because she was getting a little overwhelmed and she would leave her alone for about 10 seconds. We finally get into the little teeny tiny room to have pictures done and get Alyssa set up. Melanie (the photographer) and I are calling Alyssa's name, clapping, etc trying to get her to look and smile. Well, Anna keeps going in and grabbing her nose and tickling her and all this stuff, which Alyssa is not having. So she starts wailing. I finally get her calmed down and we change clothes to do new shots and the same thing happens all over again. Alyssa is completely overwhelmed because she's trying to look at the camera, but this dumb person keeping yelling at her and grabbing her. So I finally ask my sister (who's just standing in there not doing anything) to go out in the waiting area and take Anna with her until Alyssa calms down a little. Joni decides that she needs to go have a smoke (because its been 20 minutes since her last one and she'll die if she doesn't get a cigarette every 15 minutes or so), so she leaves Anna in the waiting room with instructions to not come back unless I say its okay. So, every 2 minutes she's popping her head in asking if she can come in yet, which distracts an already "unstable" baby. Then enter my dad's ex-wife . . . the wicked witch of the midwest. She's a horrible, awful person. (She drove my Joni and Anna to the mall) She comes in and is all "Christi, why is she crying? Why is she so unhappy? Why is this taking so long?!" and just looks totally annoyed with me. So I finally looked at Melanie and said to just wrap things up. Then I didn't care for ANY of the pictures she took. It wasn't her fault ~ she did an awesome job with poses/backgrounds, it was just that Alyssa didn't really smile in any of them. Or if she did look like she was smiling I could tell it was a "I'm about to wail" grimace instead of a smile. A few of the pictures she still had her binky in because it was the only way we could get her to stop crying. I ordered 4 pictures and made an appointment to go back next week to try them again. This time I'm going ALONE! I could tell that Melanie felt awful about everything, so I requested to set up another time when she was working, so I think that made her feel better. I'm going to write a letter to her manager and sing her praises (and also suggest that they have 2 people working at all time, because we were interrupted every 5 minutes at least). I think part of it was that pictures took over an hour. If two people were working and one could just focus on taking pictures, it probably would have taken 20 minutes and would have gone a lot smoother. Ugh!

Insurance and my sister

Where to start . . . my sister has had a lot of medical difficulties in her life. Both when it comes to her personal ailments and when it comes to being able to pay her bills. When my niece was around 7, I think, they filed for bankrupcy because they still owed a bunch of money for Anna's birth (among other bills that had piled up). She didn't have dental insurance, so she didn't go to the dentist even though she knew that she needed work done, which resulted in all her teeth being pulled last summer. Then it took 7 months (at least) for her to go back and get fitted for dentures because she didn't have money or insurance to cover dentures. (She now has the dentures, but doesn't wear them which totally wigs me out, but that's another blog). She had back surgery almost 2 years ago and still has horrible pain from it. She quit going to PT during recovery because it hurt her. She won't exercise because it hurts. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for her pain because I think a lot of it because she's lazy and sits on her ass all day long. She complains and complains and complains, but doesn't do anything about it and this is one of my biggest pet peeves about anyone. So this morning we're talking and she mentioned that she thinks she has a pinched nerve in her back and that's why she's in so much pain. I asked what kind of tests they could do to figure that out and she told me that the best way to do it is with an MRI, but they don't have insurance and don't have $1,000 to cover the test. I asked if they would have insurance once my bro-in-law had been at his new job longer and she said that he was eligable for insurance, but they couldn't afford to pay $700 a month so they would do without insurance. I mentioned that there has to be something cheaper that they could do on their own ~ go directly with an insurance company ~ to have some sort of coverage, but she said even that was too expensive. My response to that is stop smoking 3 - 4 packs of cigarettes a day and you'd probably have money for freakin' insurance!

Insurance is something that I'm anal about and I think everyone should have. In college I paid for my own health insurance and never thought twice about it. I only used it once or twice, but I still don't regret shelling out $60 a month for it (and that's a lot of money when you're in college with only a part time job that pays $6 an hour!) Knowing my sister's history with health problems, as well as her husband and daughter's problems I don't understand why they won't shell out money for insurance. Isn't it better to be safe than get thousands of dollars in debt and have to hide from bill collectors and file for bankrupcy again?! Again I say . . . quit smoking! I bet they would be amazed at how much extra money they would have! I understand that it can seem like a waste, but what about those times when unexpected things happen. When something that is supposed to be a simple laser surgery turns into doctors having to practically slice your husband in half? When someone who is so sure she can do natural childbirth realizes that she will throw herself out the window if she doesn't get an epidural in the next 5 minutes?! lol She may be my older sister, but for the millionth time in my life I feel so much more grown up and wiser than her and that kind of sucks!

Dork city USA . . .

Here's how big of a dork I am. I bought a super cool new phone at Office Depot yesterday. Its all charged and ready to go and here I am pacing around the house wishing someone would call so that I could hear/see it in action!

October mommies

I belong to an on-line support group for moms of babies born in October 2004. Sometimes I "lurk" more than I post, but this group of women have been a huge part of my life since I got pregnant with Alyssa and their support, advice, and experiences mean the world to me. Lately we've had a lot of drama with the group based in part of one or two "fake" people or trolls. I don't understand why people would create a fabricated life, fabricated children, even go to the extremes of "stealing" other people's children and/or identities just to post on a message board. Do you really have nothing better to do with your life? I don't understand why they would care so much. And thinking about people creating these identities makes me feel sick. It makes me want to run far, far away from the board. It makes me want to take down all pictures of Alyssa. But I love showing off my baby girl to other mommies. I love seeing the pictures of the other babies. I love sharing the ups and downs of motherhood and being there to hopefully support other people in my position. And it just ticks me off that a few crazy people out there are ruining that for me and so many other people on my board and other boards. Maybe I'm naive, but I was very trusting of everyone I met on-line. I felt like several of them were good friends, I felt like they were a part of my life and I was a part of their lives. Now I find myself questioning all the new people that visit our board and searching for clues that someone might not be who they say they are and I hate that feeling. Its like all the sudden I've been pushed into the "adulthood" of message boards and I just really want to go back to the "childhood" stage where everything is safe and happy and fun.

Thursday thoughts

Taken from MSNBC: "The Florida Keys ordered an evacuation of tourists and other nonresidents Thursday as Hurricane Dennis stormed through the Caribbean on a course that forecasters said might bring it to the state by the weekend" . . . but they let the residents stay?! Protect the tourists and their money, but the losers that chose to live here year round can fend for themselves? This amuses me for some reason.

I'm starting to hate the telephone. Yesterday I was on hold for 35 minutes TWICE while trying to call my therapist's office to confirm what time my appointment was. I had the joy of finding out that their phone system kicks you off after you've been on hold for 35 minutes. Shouldn't it be a rule that all doctor's offices provide the option of leaving a message for someone so that you don't have to put your life on HOLD to be on hold? Okay, so I could take tape off the wall and be on the phone at the same time, but that's not the point! I've been trying to call the Penney's portrait studio at Oakview since yesterday morning, but its been busy every time I've called. Methinks that there is something wrong with their phones. Or maybe they are just really busy and I should have called a year ago to get Alyssa's appointment for her 9 month pictures.