Recipe for Disaster

The whole day was bad. It started off good though. J took L to school, so Mommy could get ready in peace. It seems lately that if I step out of L's sight she screams and cries and chokes herself by sucking on her fingers. She follows me to the restroom and tries to get up on the my lap! While I am occupied. She tried to get in the shower with me. She wants to play in my make up- dear god its starting already?? I should have known it was all going to go downhill when I had to drop off my laptop yet again to get worked on. This time they said they'd move me to the front of the pack and it wouldn't be long. So I wondered over to our retail store and went to the back to help out with some receiving stuff. Two hours later, my computer was done. By then it was too late to work out, too late to get anything done, so I went to pick up L. I should have known, when I picked her up Miss C said she'd been fussy since her nap, always crying if she fell down or got bumped. I took her home and she screamed in the car for half the ride, the finally stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked out the window. When we got home she wouldn't budge. I should have known, I unbuckled her belts and she threw herself back in the seat. When I finally got her out, she hit me. Hard. So hard all we could both do is look at each other. I smiled and kissed her on the head, not feeling like disciplining her. She was fine after we got inside. Fine while she ate her dinner, and fine when I cleaned her up. Then daddy walked in the door, and back out the door because he left our sandwiches in the car. She screamed, thinking he wasn't coming back. Then she got better again. Fine through her bath, fine when I put her in bed, fine when Daddy walked out the door to go to wally world for Mommy. Fine when I cracked six eggs and beat them in a bowl, fine when I dumped 3 cups of sugar in a bowl. Not fine when I started melting butter. Not fine when I was trying to mix the 4 cups of mashed sweet potatoes into the clumped up sugar/egg/butter mixture that I neglected when I went to comfort her. Some might ask why I didn't just let her cry it out. See previous post http://relectionsandgripes.blogspot.com/2008/10/blindness-and-baby-puke.html, she likes to make herself sick by crying. Its easier to check on her, give her a hug and kiss, than it is to clean puke out of the crib.

So needless to say my 3 sweet potato pies didn't turn out like the one I made before. Maybe it was my over zealousness and trying to make 3 at once. I would have been better off making one at a time. Then at least I would have only ruined one. I brought one to work anyway for the Harvest Potluck, but I didn't bother to label it as mine. It doesn't look pretty, J said it tastes fine, but I wanted it to be pretty.

Oh but that wasn't the end of the bad night. Why was J running off to wally world for me? Because I clogged up the sink trying to feed the disposal all my sweet potato shavings. We needed Draino. And swiffer wetjet solution to mop my floor. Oh wait, the batteries were dead on the swiffer. When I changed them, it still didn't work. I gave up at that point and went to bed. But wait there was a large pile of laundry, I half heartedly put some away, threw the rest of the dresser, turned out the lights and crawled under the covers. I gave up.

When I got up this morning, the sink was fine. The gross water that had backed up into the dishwasher was gone. Turns out the draino didn't work but the plunger did. And my swiffer is working again.

Thanks honey for being my handy man!

L is still in a foul mood though. I think she's adding to her mouthful of teeth. At least she looks cute trying to figure out what in god's name did her mommy dress her in this morning!

Why we don't wear white after labor day.

We had a wonderful day at Boo at the Zoo on Saturday. Lots of cute kiddos in cute and not so cute outfits. And as we are leaving this is what I see:

Yes, those are white stretch pants, after labor day. Oh do you want a closer look?

Piece of advice people, if you insist on the white stretch pants, at least wear a shirt that covers your rear! Enough said, the picture speaks volumes.

What to complain about today...

I'll start with the two guys on the entrance ramp to the interstate who decided they had to race each other down the ramp and onto the interstate during RUSH HOUR! I mean I've got a baby in the car, don't endanger her life because you have to prove who has the bigger youknowwhat.
Then there was the fact I got up numerous times in the middle of the night with L, who really was only thirsty. Man that kid can drink some water. Which also meant several diaper changes. Then we overslept, because we were so tired from all the water drinking and diaper changing. Then in the car on the way to daycare she takes her baggie full of teddy grahams and yogurt bites and dumps them all over herself and my somewhat clean car. But she's so darn cute, its hard to get mad at her. So I got mad at myself for giving her a snack in a baggie. I need some of those no spill snack cups, they can get their little fat fingers in but can't dump the snack out. I think I saw them at Target.
Then I got to work and realized I was really cold, well no kidding I wasn't wearing a coat. I am wearing a turtle neck and tank top, but I'm still cold. I think the air is still on in my building.

Things will improve after lunch....

People we meet...or try to hide from

So I'm at the car wash the other day, the kind you leave your car at the door, and they drive it through, dry it etc...so I go into pay and there's this guy, he just looks like an a-hole. Bluetooth headset stuck in his ear, he's playing with his Blackberry, shirt, tie, fancy shoes, etc. Anyways, he starts talking to the 70-something clerk that takes your money. And he's being pretty nice and pleasant, discussing the weather, other mundane topics. Then I hear him say "man I gotta lot of money tied up in some hedge funds, see I'm a hedge fund manager, I've got some big clients, so-and-so, blah blah blah". Yeah just when I was starting to think maybe I've misjudged the guy he starts to go all name droppey on me. And whining about the economy. Goodness. So then that led me to my next train of thought which was, I kinda used to be like that, or maybe I still am. Not a hedge fund manager, but rather the name dropper. You see I went to high school with the kid whose grandparents own our MLB team, you see that kind of stuff. Not that the kid would know me from Adam if he saw me on the street. Which then led me to another thought, I hide from people, totally. For a girl who likes to talk, and could talk to a tree, I hide from people that I think I know, or that I do know. Two thoughts will run through my mind if I see someone I've known in the past:
a. crap, I don't know if I went to highschool with them, or college, or just worked with them, or maybe she does my nails, or does her kid go to my kid's daycare?
b. crap, that's so-and-so and the totally won't remember my name.
So. I. Hide.
Like the time the husband and I were in Fazoli's and my highschool boyfriend was standing in line in front of us. I gave my husband my order and about faced and found a seat. All the time praying this kid wouldn't see me. I don't know if I feared that he would only slightly recognize me, but not remember my name or he would remember me all too well. I mean it had been at least 7 years since I last saw or talked to this guy. I also discovered in the last year, that I've been working with a girl that I did go to highschool with, we didnt hang out, but we had a class of only 200, so you would think we would know each other. But we didn't. I finally asked her at lunch one day, where did you go to school. And then we realized it. We had both married and had new last names, so it was understandable we didnt place each other immediately, and now that we've gotten that over with, we're work buddies.
And then there is the issue of sorority sisters. I have so many. With a sorority that had at least 120-140 girls per year, with classes of 40 coming in each fall, I've had plenty of them. 3 that I would call my best friends in the world. And we still stay in touch, and live in the same city, do Christmas, b-day's and weddings together. And then I would say there are about 10 more girls that I would do anything for, but we don't talk that often, if at all. Unless its by email, or at a football game. Then there are the rest. Some I remember, some I don't, some don't remember me. Just a few weeks ago, and my local ice cream place I could swear one of the girls that I hung out with quite a bit was standing in line in front of me, but I did it. I hid. Not really because I had to order our ice cream, but I made a big show of not making eye contact for fear she wouldn't know who I was, or she would and then there would be all the uncomfortable, forced, "oh hi, this is my husband, baby, dog, mother in law, etc", but really would that be so bad??

I should really try harder to keep in contact with friends I like.

Blindness and Baby Puke

Sounds promising doesn't it? Not really, but I'm going to tell the story anyways. It all starts 29 years ago when I was born into a family with the worst eyesight ever. Seriously. We all wear some form of glasses or contacts, every single member of my clan, except for L, but time will tell.
I've worn glasses since I was 8, and contacts since I was 12. Its probably safe to say my eyesight is the worst. If you wear contacts you'll get this...my right eye is a -8.5 and my left -9.5; my sister is like a -3, my mom -2...so my eyes are terrible. With out my contacts or glasses I can't see anything, my alarm clock has 6 inch high numbers so I can see it at night.
Now you know how bad my eyesight is, on to a little more background info, about a year ago I went to the Lasik Eye surgeon and was told, nope, it wouldn't even help you. Okay, what would? Some new experimental procedure where we basically replace your lens. Oh and it costs about $5 grand per eye. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. So I went to my trusty eye DR, who said the reason why I had been having problems for a year, with eye itchiness and my contacts would constantly float off my eyes was because I was allergic to them. The same damn kind I've worn for like 5 years, I was now allergic to. I have HIVES under my eyelids. Gross.
So he suggests I switch to a daily contact that I can throw away every day and it would help. And he was right. These things have been awesome. Save for the fact I have to keep a stock of 700+ on hand, since I buy for the whole year.
And why not wear my glasses, you ask? Well when your eyes are as bad as mine, it means your glasses are going to be coke bottle thick and you can't get cute little wire frames or glasses like Sarah Palin. Nope, plastic is pretty much your only option. I have managed to find some cool Coach glasses that I adore, but the next problem is that I (or rather my insurance company) spends a bunch of money to sand, grind, whatever to make my lenses appear to be as thin as possible. That means I lose a bit of my perifreal (i know thats wrong, but I dont know how to spell it) vision. I look too far left or right and everything goes blurry. Not very conducive for driving. So I have to wear the contacts. Besides I have good looking eyebrows, I don't want to leave behind some thick nerd glasses.
So now you know that I am blind, now on to the baby puke part of the post.
L has been sick. She has some snot and congestion thing going on and when she starts coughing she eventually gags and makes herself sick. She figured this little trick out a while back, and she knows that if she doesn't want to go to bed she can start crying and coughing and if she starts gagging, we'll come running.
So she goes to bed last night, peacefully, and then J and I start the bedtime routine. I took out my contacts and immediately my eye started to twitch then burn. I thought I had some jalapeno juice or something on my fingers. J was holding the discarded contact ready to throw it in the trash, when I take a look at it and realize a whole chunk of it was missing, which means its still in my eyeball. I've never done that, in the 17 years I've worn contacts that's never happened. So I immediately go to the mirror on the bedroom door and start looking around and rolling my eyeball trying to find that small, slightly blue tinged piece of plastic. I'm alternating between the bedroom and the bathroom. Eventually my eye stops burning so I figure I got it out, even though I can't find it. By then J has gone to sleep and its all dark, so I start rooting around for my glasses. I felt all the bathroom shelves, then the sides of our pedestal sink and nothing. So I go back to the bedroom and root around on the dressers and side tables, and I kept coming back to J's glasses but not mine. So I figure no biggie, I'll go to sleep, when I get up in the morning I'll have time to put in my contacts before L gets up. No such luck.

At about midnight I hear some coughing from her room, then she starts the gagging, then I can practically hear the snot start to gurgle in the back of her throat, so I run in there, not even realizing I can't see squat. Of course J has the ability to sleep through all this, I guess its good we both don't, or she may have choked herself by now.
So I run in there and she's half standing half sitting by what I can tell, and she doesn't have her eyes open but shes gurgling snot everywhere, so I step in some on the floor (I know gross) and I put my hand under her mouth to catch it all, and so she knows I'm there. By then I think I realize I can't see. So I gave up and I yelled for J to get his butt out of bed and help me out. He comes running in all sleepy eyed, but at least he can see. I told him to just find my glasses and he could go back to bed, all the time I've got a fist full of baby snot and spit up. What I really didn't want was for her to full on puke. You see there is a difference between baby spit up and baby puke. Baby spit up is the stuff that never makes it down to their tummy's. It comes up looking very much the same way it did going down. Milk looks like milk, snot looks like snot (TMI , I know) but baby puke is just awful. The first time we got puke after she started eating whole foods I actually gagged, and I'm the same woman who doesn't think twice about sticking my own hands out to catch her puke, but I still gagged.
Anyways I got my glasses, was able to see to get her out of bed, stick her in the tub and get her clean PJ's and back in bed. Then I stood there and played with her for 15 minutes until I was sure she'd go back to sleep and no more coughing and gagging. We were good for the rest of the night.
When I got up the AM, I had my glasses right next to the bed, so "I could see. It's a miracle" ($5 if you can tell me what movie that's from, just kidding on the $5 but you'll have my respect).
Then I go to put in my contacts before leaving the house, and OMG the burning. I figured I still had a piece of the torn contact in my eye. So I take the contact out, attempt to put it back in the little box it came from and then tried to put in my left contact, forgetting that I had already opened in and that's the box I put the right one back into. So now I've got two contacts in the same box and I have no clue which is which. So in the trash they went. Fifty cents wasted. But I got both eyes functioning and working now. So all is good.

Wow! Long and boring story....

Rainy Mondays are the Best

Am I the only one who likes a dark dreary rainy fall Monday morning? It makes my heart sing when I get up, get ready, leave the house and its all foggy like and the sun is not supposed to shine. I mean don't get me wrong, I love spring and summer as much as the next person. I got married in the spring, had a baby in the late spring/early summer, and my birthday is also at the same time. And I have the cutest sunglasses. But there comes a point in time, when the 90 degree heat and 100% humidity are no longer the days we crave (my hair isnt too fond of them either). Instead I am looking forward to the clouds, the fog, the rain and the leaves whipping around to the ground. Eventually that all gives away to freezing rain, sleet and snow and I'll be back to griping again, but for now I am going to enjoy my dreary fall day. By going to the dentist! What tops the dreary day better than that. I swear mother nature knows when I have a dentist appointment. My last appointment was in early May, and it too was one of those rainy, dreary spring days that I love. And before that? I bet it wasn't sunny then either.

I had a whole bunch of gripes I wanted to post today, but I've gone and forgotten them all. Darn that thing called a job. Oh well, I'll save them for another day.

Grandma's

So today's post is not going to be about a gripe, I had a good day today. I got to work on time, L was in a good mood (except for the tumble she took into a chair and subsequent cut on her cheek, but more on that later) and I got to fill in for my boss on a big director staff call and it made me feel good that he trusted me with that. J just gave me a big bowl of ice cream, so all is good in the world.

Today's post is about grandma's and why we should all love ours. I have both my grandmothers still with me, and thank god L has both of hers. J on the other hand only has one, and she's technically old enough to be my great grandmother. The sad part is all of our GiGi's live more than 4 hours away, and only one of L's grandma's lives in the area.

Today is my Granny's Birthday. She is 76 years old. She still lives alone, babysits the great grand babies and cooks fabulous meals. She is a mother to 4, grandmother to 10 and great grand mother to 5. And I miss her so much today. Of course I sent a card, but I usually don't call to talk to her, because she has trouble hearing over the phone. But I went to Tar Jay earlier and saw the cutest little old woman walking the aisles just looking at stuff. I had to fight the urge to give her a hug right there. She probably would have smacked me upside the head with her purse, but it would have been worth it. So I called my granny, right there from the laundry soap aisle. And we had a wonderful conversation. She learned about L's spill at school and the scrape on her knee, all just because she is learning to walk. We talked about my sister K and her upcoming big test, and then about the visit my family is making next weekend. But man did I miss her. She was supposed to come visit last weekend with my mom, but she has an inner ear infection that makes her dizzy and didn't think a 4 hour train ride was best. I was so looking forward to spending 2 whole days with her, and none of the other grand kids (sorry guys, but its my turn now). Alas, it didn't happen, but we will see her soon, hopefully at Thanksgiving.

So the moral of my little story is to appreciate your grandmothers. Doesn't matter if they had a small presence, or if they raised you, with out them you wouldn't be here....

Fashion Sense (or lack there of)

Okay boys and girls, today's topic is fashion, (Topics of reflection come and go, I get easily irritated so lets be honest here, I have a lot to complain about, but this is the last thing I remember seeing that made me pause so that's what we're going to discuss).





When did too tight Capri's that hug ones calf become acceptable "business casual" attire? I mean really? Business casual usually doesn't include blue jeans, and if your company's dress code calls for jeans, let me know because I want to work there. Anyway I digress. I saw a woman today, and I'm not going to say where, but lets just say it was not business appropriate attire for where I spotted her. She was sporting a nice button down top, that I myself might own, but she paired it with tight and I mean tight (I think she was cutting off the circulation to the lower half of her legs) blue jean Capri's and lace up ankle booties. I had lace up ankle booties once. Yeah, I think it was in 1993 along with the purple high top Reebok's. And don't even get my started on the peep toe boot. What is the purpose?

Topics for later fashion conversations are going to include too short skirts, shorts at work, and lacking a bra. And if I happen to be able to sneak a picture of the victim, you bet I'll show it to you!

My first time

Hey guess what? This is my first blog post. Mind you its not my first blog. I created one with the intention of keeping family and friends up to speed on the happenings of my little one, we'll call her "Sassy Pants", nevermind we'll just call her L, but I never created a single post. And L is 1.5 now. A toddler. Not a baby anymore.
Anywho, I decided to create this blog because according to my husband, J, I have a lot of things to gripe about. We were in the car and I was complaining yet again about something totally trivial and he said "you could write a blog with all your whining" and so now I am. Maybe this will make me less cranky and b**chy at work.
And maybe it'll make me a better parent and wife.

Here's hoping!