Must stick to commitments!

It's been almost 3 weeks since my last post. I will not succumb to the laziness that is my nature and stop writing here.  Must. Stay. Focused. Let's begin.

We've been keeping track of Jack's vocabulary.  We made a list of the words he knows.  Typically, when a kid is 2 years old, pediatricians like to make sure they know some stuff, to make sure that the kid's not dim and that we're not in need of an investigation by CPS.  Generally, I think they're supposed to know 50 words by 2 years old. I've got 45 on the list.  And that was just like, 15 minutes of trying to remember all the things he knows.  I'm sure we're beyond 50, but I'm not worried about it anymore.

And he's really starting to figure stuff out.  He can answer yes or no questions with pretty solid accuracy.  He can help us decipher his wants and needs.  He can point to his "pee-pee".  Yep, he's basically a genius.

Also, we're finally in the market for a house. Like, a not-for-rent, we're-going-into-debt-for-30-years, HOME.  It's pretty great.  We've looked at a handful so far, and there's one in particular that we're in love with.  It's not too big, but not so small that we'll be on top of each other like we are currently.  Hopefully we'll be putting an offer in on it in the next couple of weeks.  I'm stoked.

GIS for "stoked".  Hyperbole & a Half gets me.

Jack is 20 months, 2 weeks old, and will soon be in his own room. FREEEDOOOMMM! 

I'm not old, I'm 27!

So, today is my birthday. Fun.

I bought myself a Kindle Fire, which is pretty cool so far.  However, $280 (for the device and some accessories) seems a bit steep for a gizmo that does everything my phone does, minus make calls or take pictures. Thus, I'm having a bit of buyer's remorse, but that happens every time I spend money on anything that isn't food.

And full disclosure, $250 of that was in the form of Amazon gift cards from my parents between Christmas and my birthday. So really, I'm sad over only spending $30 of my own money on a pretty sweet new electronic thingy.

I also got to take Jack to see his ENT today.  SEVENTY minutes roundtrip, TWENTY minutes in the waiting room, TWO minutes for the doc to say, "looks good, call me if he has any troubles." Cool. Thanks. I made the appointment to follow up on some grody ear blood from 3 weeks ago (yeah, 3 weeks was the soonest they could get me in for blood coming out of a hole it's not supposed to come out of).  Doc said it was probably just the tube in that ear dislodging. Gross. Now we get to keep our fingers crossed that the kid can go ear infection-less for a while so he won't have to have tubes put in again.

Then Jack and I stopped at an epic playground for a little while.

And that was the highlight of my day.

Parenting Things That Make You Go, "Aaaghhh!"

In no particular order:

- Very sudden illnesses - fevers, vomiting, any sort of liquid coming out of a tiny body that usually stays inside the body.

He makes this sad face when he's feverish. I can't take it.

- Stepping on small toys in the dark

I'm not as hardcore as Chuck Norris.

- The ever-lingering smell of poop

Only it's not Grandpa's poop. It's the toddler's.

- "NO NO NO NO, MAMA!"

This is what he looks like when asked if he needs a new diaper.

- Giant car seats in small cars.

The bane of my traveling existence.

- Unsavory individuals wanting to come into physical contact with my child.

That's all I can think of tonight, but I know there's more. What can you add to the conversation?



Jack is 19 months, 3 weeks old, and a sudden fever brought this topic on this evening.

Ohh, the pharm (plugging another blog).

There's this other blog I follow, The Angry Pharmacist. If you can't figure it out by the title, this dude is a (retail) pharmacist. And an angry one. If you don't work in a pharmacy, you probably won't get a lot of what he's talking about, because it has much to do with insurance problems and specific medications, and other job-specific crap we deal with every day.

M'yes. You wouldn't understand. Peasant.

But just about everyone has worked retail of some kind or another. TAP's last entry had me rolling because I've been there, both in the pharmacy and in other retail jobs.

Click here to read about people barfing in a store.

Eff cancer.

I've realized lately that I'm a grown-up now. How do I know this? I've begun feeling genuine, crying-for-another-person empathy. When I was a kid and something sad was happening, it was "oh, I'm sorry. That sucks. How sad!" Then I'd go about my life. But now I get engrossed in other peoples' cruddy situations.

I have a coworker (M) who is more than twice my age and she's awesome. She's so sassy and smart. And she and I talk crap about customers behind their backs. She's how I imagine myself to be when I'm near retirement age. Or she's how I HOPE to be when I'm near retirement age. She's awesome. But her so sweet, kind, caring, cool guy husband was diagnosed with cancer. It started with a trip to the doctor for a sore throat which turned into a diagnosis of squamous-cell carcinoma of the throat, which has now turned into metastatic cancer that's spread to his liver. I'm so amazingly sad for them. He's not a spring chicken, as they say, so the chemotherapy is going to be rough. Another dear friend (P) of my coworker came in today and was told the news, and she immediately sprung into action of "everything will be okay, what can I do to help? I'll bring him in for treatment, I'll help you make a bed for him in the lower floor of your house so he doesn't have to climb stairs. We'll all help you both get through this." I lost it. She was verbalizing everything I was thinking. Yes, I'm older than I used to be, but I still have trouble saying the right thing when faced with a situation like this. And I didn't want to accidentally say the wrong thing, or the insensitive thing, or the stupid thing. So I cried and told M that P had said everything I wanted to. Eff cancer.

Cancer has taken my three grandfathers, and it almost took one of my two grandmothers several years ago. Cancer is ridiculous. If cancer was a person, it would be a coward. A coward that takes the very young and the elderly alike. It beats down professional athletes and babies. Mothers and fathers. The rich and the poor. It is indiscriminate.

I don't know. Cancer sucks. And it scares the crap out of me.

Thanksgiving in February!

So back right before Christmas, I smashed a deer with my car.  Oops.

There are deer parts under the snow. You're welcome.

We have a local auto body shop that offers a free frozen turkey if you bring your deer-smashed car to them for repairs. Sweet...... and weird. Whatever, so they fix my car, and give me a turkey.

Cut to 2 months later, this 12-lb monstrosity is still taking up valuable freezer space, and I'm not growing my proverbial set of testicles as far as gaining the courage to cook the thing goes.  So I manned up last weekend.  I found the following recipe on All Recipes.

Homestyle Turkey, the Michigander Way 

(why it's "the Michigander Way", I don't know. Maybe you have to know how to build a car to fully enjoy this meal?)

1 (12 pound) whole turkey
6 tablespoons butter, divided
4 cups warm water
3 tablespoons chicken bouillon
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
2 tablespoons seasoning salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
2. Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the parsley and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.
4. Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.

It was fan-freakin-tastic.  I didn't take a picture of it because I'm an idiot.  But it was so delicious.  You know how when you go to your grandma's house for Thanksgiving, and the turkey is always dry and bland and you have to cover it in gravy?  Yeah, not this one.  It's still moist today, after being sliced up and refrigerated. Outstanding.  And I feel like an idiot for being so nervous about cooking a turkey this whole time.

Much has changed

When we last left off, our intrepid adventurer was but a novice, young mother to a baby a mere 3 months old.  Today, she is a seasoned veteran-mother of a toddler of a ripe old 19 months.

Sir Jack is now a professional Goldfish cracker eating, "NO!" shouting, bathtub splashing, nap resisting, Elmo loving, amazingly bright little dude.  Here's the handsome young lad now:

We had many sleepless nights while adjusting to parenthood, which by the way, has not been the 100% puppies and rainbows that people claim it is.  However, as Jack's becoming more vocal and independent, it's definitely getting more fun and less stressful.

Quick recap time!  He had near-constant ear infections until we had tubes put in at 9 months. Which was also right around the time that we took on one Dr Richard Ferber as our personal mentor.  So when he's not sick, we finally have a toddler who sleeps in his own bed for upwards of 12 hours a night.  That's been a major factor in the "life is looking up" department.  

He's in the Toddler room at daycare now.  Jack and I both definitely cried when I dropped him off the first day in a room full of "big kids".  But he's flourishing with his peers.  And he has some older (I'm talking 3-year-old mini cougars) female admirers who apparently chase him around for kisses, and he loves it.  Player.

As far as mom and dad go, things are good.  I'm currently working 2 part-time jobs, one of which I thoroughly enjoy, and the other, not so much.  D is rocking at his job.  He recently got an amazing raise, which is helping us to get out from under some debt, and we've started talking more seriously about getting out of our tiny apartment and into a house, which excited me to no end.

Basically, we're just living every day.  Parts of me wish it was more exciting than that, but most of me really likes the day-in, day-out routine.  Since I'm not crazy busy all the time, I'm getting to watch my son turn into this awesome little person.  Every time he looks at me and says "mama" or gives me a kiss, I feel terrible about how awful I thought the first few months were. And I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

Jack is 19 months, 4 days old, and life is pretty nice today.

That awkward moment when you try to start blogging again...

So, blog... I know it's been over a year, but do you think we could go back to where we left off? I mean, I was in a weird place emotionally, and I just wasn't ready for that kind of a commitment. But baby, I've grown. I feel like I'm more capable of nurturing you and helping you grow as a blog. Can you ever forgive me?

Alright, so I'm back. I have big plans of writing some kind of a condensed "what have I been doing for the past year" post in the next few days, so keep an eye out.

Weeee!

Human nature is above all things lazy.

I'm way too lazy to be a mom. This little person relies on me for absolutely everything. He can't feed himself, wipe his own butt, and half the time he even needs me to help him fall asleep. I have to carry him around the house. If he's awake and I need to shower, he sits in his bouncy seat in the bathroom and the 5-minute countdown to Jack MeltDown begins. It's a constant struggle of is he hungry? does he need a diaper change? what can I do to entertain him? It's crazy. I genuinely miss zoning out in front of my computer all day with silly games or watching old episodes of House. Now I'm lucky to get a couple of half-hour jaunts of me-time during the day when he's napping in his swing. It sucks.

Speaking of things that suck, I went back to work this week. A few weeks ago while still on maternity leave, I got a call from Big Name Pharmacy telling me that my position had been made redundant and they were letting me go. So naturally, I freaked out. But luck would have it that a clinic pharmacy in Dan's parents' town was looking for a tech. I basically rocked the interview and signed on for 25 hours per week, split between Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It's not as fast-paced and fun as the corporate store I worked for, but it's a paycheck.

Remember the test I talked about Dan taking in my last entry? He did awesome on it. This company got something like 300+ resumes. They narrowed it down to the top 60 to invite to take that test, and the top 20 scores of those are the people they REALLY want on the ground floor of the company. Dan is part of that top 20. So now he's 2 weeks into a 15-week course of computer classes to ensure he knows what he needs to know to help run this company. Which means Monday through Friday 8am-4:30pm he's in class.

Translation: Jack is in daycare for 3 days a week. Boo. But it's an in-home thing with a girl that Dan went to school with, so at least it's not a total stranger watching my kid and 20 other babies. At most, she has her own toddler, Jack, and a 6 month old girl, then 2 older kids after school. So yes, it sucks, but it could be worse. And she's cheap at $75/week.

So back to how lazy I am... I started typing this entry like, 3 days ago. I'm awesome.

Jack is 3 months old tomorrow, and there's a lot of crazy stuff happening right now.

9/11

Today is September 11, 2010. Nine years ago, our world changed forever. On that day, I was a junior in high school. I lived on Fort Meade, Maryland, less than 30 miles from Washington, DC. It's still thought that the NSA building on Fort Meade was the intended target of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. The NSA was 2 miles from my house and 2.5 miles from my high school.

My best friend's dad's office was in the part of the Pentagon that got hit. Luckily, he had just left the country to do a year in Korea. But my dad knew someone who died in the Pentagon.

The weeks that followed were crazy. On Fort Meade, they had just finished building new gates all around the base where heavily armed Military Police would be stationed 24/7. We were on complete and total lock-down for the week following the attacks and no one could leave or come onto the base. We were completely protected but it was still so scary.

After everything calmed down a bit and they reopened the gates, every time you wanted to come back on base, there would be a line of cars waiting for the MPs to check everyone's IDs. At the beginning, the only people allowed on base were those with military IDs. They eventually loosened the reins a bit and made it so as long as SOMEONE in the car had a military ID, you could come on base. No civilians can go on base anymore without someone in the car with them or without some kind of official business on base or without proof that they are visiting someone who lives there. It's nuts, but I'm so grateful that I lived there when I did.

Watching footage from that day still brings me right back to the emotions I felt watching it as it was happening. It's less open-weeping and more outrage and astonishment now.

Someday we'll be able to explain to Jack what it was like that day. 9/11 will always be our Pearl Harbor or JFK.



......................



In baby news, Jack's 2 month appointment is on Monday. I get to hold a screaming baby while he gets shots. :( I have to go alone because Dan will be doing work-related things.

He'll be out taking a test for an amazing job opportunity that, if he gets said job, will mean I get to be a SAHM and watch my kid grow up. I can't wait. He's SUPER qualified, and from what we can tell, there hasn't been as much interest in the jobs that are open with this particular company as originally thought, so he has a really good chance of getting it. There's a million hoops he has to jump through though, so it'll be a while before we know for sure.

Stuff is crazy right now, but good. Crazy good.

Jack is 8 weeks and 5 days old and currently napping in some jungle jammies.