Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Rant: Because I needed another reason...

A factual fairy tale for your amusement...


Once upon a time there was a large whale-like princess that waddled around her castle while trying to keep her unruly subjects in order. Or at least attempted to keep them off of tall and/or dangerous furniture. Her body was constantly sore and her belly was LARGE. And throughout the night, because the whale-like physique encroached so much on her bladder's territory, she waddled off to the bathroom at least three times in the darkness. Seriously. Dark. Helen Keller style--no lights necessary. The routine occurred in complete darkness because as anyone else that's been whale-like knows, completely waking up in the middle of the night is a dangerous proposition. The whale-like princess may NEVER get back to sleep, no matter how exhausted or tired she may be.

But last night was different. At her midnight  potty-break, she stepped into the bathroom and immediately felt a stabbing pain in her foot. Half-awake, in shock, and fumbling for the light switch, she contemplated what might have caused such pain. Perhaps one of the loose tiles finally shattered and a jagged shard was protruding from the arch of her foot. Perhaps one of the unruly subjects set a booby trap, attempting to ensnare their wicked task-master.  But what it really felt like was a hypodermic needle being shoved about two inches into her foot. Though the princess was fairly certain no sloppy diabetics or i.v. drug users were hanging out by her toilet at midnight.

So the whale princess finally flipped on the lights and after her eyes cleared, she looked down and saw a very dazed and flittering wasp on the floor. (Can you blame him? He just got stepped on by a whale.) And indeed, her foot was already turning red and swelling around the needlepoint sized dot in the arch of her foot. And then it began to sting. Alot. And then it throbbed. Alot. And the princess still had to pee. Alot. But for fear that the wasp might still decide to attack again, she couldn't risk using that bathroom and so she hobbled out into the hall. And maybe she was cursing that wasp under her breath. Just a little.

But remembering the hall bathroom was out of toilet paper because the rebellious subjects hadn't obeyed and replaced the roll, all the princess could do was stand and holler. Luckily, the prince had just rolled into the castle.

(Did the princess mention the prince is in trial this week? Meaning he's been absent around the castle since sometime last week. Including the entire weekend which REALLY ticked the princess off. And he sneaks in at weird hours and then leaves a very cranky princess in the wee morning hours.) Little does the prince know, he may find that his key and garage opener don't work by the end of this week.

But luckily the whale-princess's hollers brought the prince running because he thought the princess was in labor. Apparently she had PAIN in her voice--whether from the incredibly growing mass of a foot or from having to go the bathroom so badly--we will never know. And so the prince squashed the evil villain and the princess finally got to pee. (A new spin on the Princess and the Pea.) And yes, as if the princess didn't have enough trouble sleeping through the night due to the impossibility of finding any comfortable position with her whale belly, now she had to endure a foot that felt as if it was on fire.

And so today, the tired princess is hobbling and waddling around with one very inflamed and painful foot. Because she needed another reason to have a bad attitude and to walk funny. (I just googled "swollen feet" to try to find a funny picture. TRUST ME. I am doing you a favor by not showing any--most of them were really nasty.)

And so the princess and the 2 little subjects that have yet to start preschool (2 more weeks), are headed off (full of SPITE with REVENGE on the mind) to buy lots of this:

The whale princess has decreed: DEATH TO ALL WASPS.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Ramblings: Dreamers

On the 40 minute drive to my doctor's appointment yesterday:

Alex: (LOUDLY voicing his unhappiness about my deejaying skills for the 50th time) MOM! Turn in to channel 6. I hate your songs. They're so weird.
Me: Alex, when you have your own car you can listen to whatever songs you want.  And if I ride with you, I'll probably hate all of your songs.
Aidan: Mom, when I get big, can I get a car?
Me: Yes. Probably.
Aidan: Will it be this car? (the minivan)
Me: I'm pretty sure you won't want to drive this minivan in 12 years.
Aidan: Avery, did you hear that? We get cars. What kind of car are you going to get? I'm going to get a fighting car. With knives (or knights--I couldn't understand him) and fire (painted flames) all over it for fighting.
Think this:
Or this.
Avery: Yeah, I will get a fast car and I will drive SO fast. But not too crazy or the policeman will get me. But as fast as a big truck with a big engine. (the kid is obsessed with engines and why some cars go faster than others.)

Avery almost suffered an excitement-induced hernia when he saw this GIANT engine.
Aidan: Avery, probably you will want to ride with me because I have "Beat It" (Michael Jackson) in my car. And Michael Buble. And we will listen to those songs. And we can drive to Mexico. (what?)
Me: Actually, you guys will probably have to share a car.
--Stunned silence for a few seconds while they digest that they will have to make the impossible choice between a SO fast car and a fighting car for their Mexican vacation--
Aidan: Avery, can I drive when we are sharing a car? I'm a good driver. I know all the pedals.
Avery: Yeah, ok. I will drive sometimes.
Aidan: Ok.

Whew! I'm glad we got those plans all worked out. Then it started raining HARD and the conversation evolved into how windshield wipers work and how tires can drive with water on the ground.  My brain was hurting when we finally got there. Answering questions and explaining things so that 4 year olds will understand is fairly exhausting.

Jeremy met me there to take the kids to lunch during my appointment. I told him where the nearest Chickfila and McDonald's were. And they were off.

My  appointment was depressing. I gained even more weight. No surprise. And I'm measuring a week bigger than I supposedly am. Great--I'm carrying a sumo wrestler. He'll need to be to survive around here, I guess.  And I'm carrying lower now--dr said that's about right, especially because my uterus got so stretched out with the twins. It's just expanding to how big it was with them. Which means I have enough room to carry this kid til he's 13. No thanks.

I texted Jeremy when I was almost done.

-I'm almost done. Where are you guys.
-At a Chinese Buffet.

Not what I expected. And the whole ride home the kids just screamed about how hungry they were. Even though they said they had ice cream with sprinkles and those cookies with paper in them. I called to ask Jeremy why they were so hungry after they had just eaten. Well, it turns out that the buffet was a great deal--only $14 for all of them. That would explain it--he said the food was pretty nasty. But the ice cream had sprinkles!
I need a Mexican vacation. Don't worry--I know all the pedals. 

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Ramblings: August ain't for sissies

Let me break it down for you. I go through this vicious cycle where I'm doing good at keeping this dang thing updated but then for one reason or another, I fall behind. Far, far behind. So far behind that the blog is a tiny speck in my rear view mirror. And then it's frighteningly overwhelming to attempt a catch up post that might possibly qualify for Guinness Book's "World's Longest and Most Boring Blog Post."

So...because I'm lazy and sitting in this "ergonomic" office chair makes my back hurt more than before I sat down, leaving me even crankier,  I'll do my best at hitting the high points and random thoughts during my heat-induced blog disappearance.

*Maddie turned 7 in July. She got an orange mustache for her birthday. She's apparently a little embarrassed about her colored facial hair.

* Jeremy was made partner in July and got a new spiffy office. Sounds fun, right? Partially. It just so happens that we had to furnish and decorate the whole thing during a couple of the busiest weeks ever. We were about to leave on a 10 day trip, Jeremy was in Hong Kong for a week, all the kids were home all day (have I mentioned that very few kids enjoy shopping for desks, bookcases, couches, whiteboards, etc.?), and I was continuing to have back issues that made walking feel like someone was stabbing me repeatedly in the lower back with some sort of crudely fashioned prison weapon.

Luckily, we finally found what we needed and in the past few weeks it's been slowly pieced together. I told him he should just drag in a whole bunch of huge boxes from IKEA and then be like "What? This isn't the kind of stuff you had in mind for a partner's office?" I do have actual pictures on Jeremy's phone but I'll wait until I finally get the family pictures up on the final wall until I show you.
I know. You're just on the edge of your uncomfortable ergonomic chair in anticipation. I will say--there's a shag carpet involved. Oh, ok. I'll show you. The star thingies are shaggy and I love em.
*Here are two pictures I'm considering enlarging for his office wall:

That about sums them up.
*We took a trip to Washington in July. We put about 1800 miles on the minivan we rented in Seattle. We got to visit with most of Jeremy's family--siblings included, which is a rare event (sorry to miss you Dave and Ciana).  Activities included: swimming, the peanut game, movies in the theater, birthday parties, basketball, and enjoying the COOL summer weather and fire-ant-free grass. The cousins got to run around and play and carry on in general silliness all night and day. How many cousins can we cram in one hot tub..? And luckily I think the Grandma and Grandpa's bed and breakfast survived our night there--and no toilets had to be removed like last time.
 

We spent the next few days at Grandpa Fielding's in the mountains of Oregon. Grandpa's got himself alot of land and horses--he's a cowboy at heart.

We all got crackin' to help the cowboy get his yardwork done. How could you not enjoy being outside in a place like this though...? And you see, Grandpa likes his BIG lawn looking dazzling. Meaning that we can't leave the cut grass on the lawn--so we raked, and raked, and raked (well, the boys raked. I drove the four wheeler with the grass wagon filled with some crazies behind me). And we hauled all the cut grass into a pasture far, far away. And Grandpa's several acres of lawn was dazzling at last. I'm not embarrassed to say that I was glad we weren't there two weeks earlier when they were stacking hay. I'll take the grass wagon over the hay baler any day.
Nothing hotter than a guy wielding a pitchfork in knee socks...

Do a good job, guys. Grandpa's watching!


There was still plenty of time for some monkey business...
 I'm not sure which set of brothers was more excited to get out on the basketball court. This little set of brothers...
or this much bigger set of MUCH more competitive brothers. That scream and yell at themselves when they miss shots. And play until they're covered in sweat and blood from diving on concrete. And make 'Your Mom' jokes throughout the game.
Here are Jeremy and his sibs (minus Ciana) with Grandpa and Grandma--and the slightly creepy cowboy that lives on Grandpa's porch. When we first pulled up into the driveway and the kids saw the creepy stuffed cowboy, they were sure it was Grandpa. "He's out there waiting for us!" In case you're confused, the real Grandpa is the one in the overalls.

*After a week, we drove back down towards Seattle for my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary/reunion at a campsite up in the mountains near White Pass. Yeah, that's right. I said CAMPING. (Although, is it really camping if they have heated showers?) Not only did we pack for a 10 day trip, we packed stuff to camp in the COLD mountain air. We had a great turnout and a great time.  60 years--now that's a long time to put up with each other! Each of my grandparents' kids and their families are color coded--navy, black, green, orange, blue, and red.


One of the best parts: I wasn't hot. Except in the sweltering kitchen. But outside--fabulous. And at night, it was COLD. Cold like your nose froze and you slept with as much of your body inside of your sleeping bag as you could cram. (For me that was fairly difficult. Did you know sleeping bags aren't really designed for pregnant people?) And so fabulously chilly in the mornings that I wore jeans for a few hours.  Also at night--chipmunks raided our tents and tried to crawl on our faces. Not as cute scurrying around in the pitch black as they are up on the tv screen singing "Me, I want a hula hoop." My little brother is still seeking therapy for his midnight chipmunk encounter. 
And y'all--I canoed. Stop that. Bite your tongue. No jokes about my largeness tipping the canoe--we remained afloat. And it's a good thing cuz that water was freezing cold.
The kids were glad we didn't give into their demands for cheap, flimsy sleeping bags with fun characters on them.  They figured out pretty fast how to disappear to stay warm. Although by morning they had wiggled out and looked like little caterpillars coming out of their cocoons. Alex apparently hadn't emerged yet.

We had a talent show one night in the amphitheater. I won't make you watch the relatively long videos we took, but Alex recited the Gettysburg Address that we bribed him to memorize and Maddie sang Love Story by Taylor Swift from memory. Acapella. Because Jeremy's ipod was dead and we didn't have the music on a cd. I was surprised she was so bold to do it in front of so many people. Jeremy was BEAMING. He grew up singing in front of crowds and he saw a future performer in the making.

We had an afternoon in Seattle before we flew back home to the heat. We took the kids to the aquarium, did some general sightseeing, ate some seafood, and shopped a little. It was actually freezing and since the kids stuff was packed and at the hotel, they each scored a very touristy SEATTLE sweatshirt jacket.

I discovered what kind of fish I would choose to be...this little guy had me laughing. It looks like he's wearing a full set of dentures and grinning from ear to ear. How could you not love this fish?

And that night I got deathly sick with fever, chills, and a headache that made me wish I could detach my head for a few hours. The sickness followed me home and lasted for another two weeks after it morphed into a sinus infection, ear infections, and then bronchitis. Ah, being sick and pregnant is a magnificent combination. All of the misery--none of the good drugs.

*Sunday Avery came up behind me and patted each side of my hips and said, "Wow, Mom. Your bum is sure getting big!" Thanks, dude. Just what I needed. 
*This August has been hotter than hot.  This is what I have to look forward to this weekend. Add that to the 50% humidity, and my deodorant doesn't stand a chance. 
*Our air conditioning stopped working last Friday at about 5:40 pm. I thought I might die. Within 20 minutes the temperature in the house rose 5 degrees and I started getting nervous. Luckily we were able to find someone to come out even though it was a Friday night. He got there at about 8 and had the thing going shortly thereafter--a blown fuse or something. But I fled at about 6:30 to roam Target while Jeremy waited it out in the inferno of a house. Once I got word that the temperature was below 80 in the living room, I came home.  I'm no hero, ok? And I'm fine with that.
*We still haven't thought of a name for the baby. And no, Baby Wiener will not make it onto the birth certificate. Any suggestions? Jeremy's starting to get anxious, but I figure sometime in the next few weeks we'll decide on something non-hideous.
* My back is aching from this dang office chair. I'll have to catch up more at another time. I'm off to go sit in front of one of my high-powered oscillating fans (in a very NON-ergonomic chair).

*Oh wait, my phone is ringing. Guinness Book's on the line. Hmm...I must be up for that award.