Ratatat

This will probably be an odds and ends post – what else can I do when I haven’t written for a few weeks?

Is it more embarrassing if your mom talks about your mental or gastrointestinal health?

If Bella is going to be a more typical kid — pickier eater, better sleeper, stranger aware, fall down on the ground tantrums, frustrated by her inability to speak intelligible words, sharing and smacking in equal measures — boy, the next year is going to suck.

I feel cheated by the lack of rain. Rain is not my favorite part of spring, but rain now would wash away the dirty icky snow (and dirty icky airmass hovering over Wisconsin). And the dirty snow needs to go. Instead of drenching rain, we have fog.

Drifting fog + stagnant green water in the far fields + ice patches + winter trees = the landscape of a ghost tale. In Scotland.

Just because you know what you’re doing is potentially and probably dumb, it doesn’t make it any easier to do the smarter thing. Self preservation may be smart, but it isn’t easy. This is probably universally true, not just in worklife.

I am struck that Scott Walker’s idea to break MPS into 10-12 districts is not nearly as interesting as if he suggested a county wide solution. You know, creating a city-county school district. Of course, the 10-12 districts could each be the suburb at the edges of Milwaukee, each taking a piece. Leaving behind maybe 2-3 smaller fully urban districts.

I can’t even tell if I hate this idea.

I really can’t even believe I don’t live in Milwaukee anymore.

And I wonder where the suburbanites who fled Milwaukee would flee if there were combined city suburban districts.

How can I be frustrated with my daughter’s pessimism when I am not exactly a ray of sunshine?

Just rain! Rain! Rain! Blow in some new weather.

Henry has more homework in kindergarten than Miranda had in first and second grade.

Miranda got her state test scores and her MAPS scores. She is doing well. She finally wants to read harder books.  I wonder if testing well is an inherited trait? They make her more nervous than I even remember feeling.

We had a quiet weekend ahead of us. I hope.

This has been a day of small hiccups. It just didn’t even seem worth trying to get anything done. I got side-tracked this morning and forgot to eat breakfast. Henry forgot his gloves. I didn’t notice that I Henry forgot his gloves until he was taking his cold little hands out of the car. On the day he has cold hands, we got to school 4 minutes earlier than normal, so he had 5-6 minutes of cold hands rather than the normal 1-2 minutes of warm hands before he goes in. I went home. I got the gloves. By the time I got back, the kids had gone in.  I had to park, walk the gloves all the way to the kindergarten rooms. I came home, decided to go to Target. Target had only 2 of the 3 things I went to get. But they had Kindergarten Cop for $4.75.

I came home, dyed my hair, started reading a Jennifer Cruisie novel. This was the highlight of my day. Then I was off to a doctor’s appointment at 1. Henry was seeing the same doc at 3:45. I didn’t notice earlier in the week when I could have combined those appointments.  After the doctor, I went to Walgreens. They had the missing item from Target. I finally got a prescription filled that I have been trying to have approved for 2 weeks. Another small plus – 90 day supply for $30 for a name brand drug. Even though it was to my favor, the line on my receipt that said my insurance saved me $370 seems ridiculous. I don’t want to pay $400 for the medication. But I hope my insurance company doesn’t pay that much either. Or that Walgreens doesn’t eat the $370.

I head home, make the homemade blueberry mini muffins I promised Miranda for her half day birthday at school tomorrow. Yesterday, I decided I was too lazy to follow a recipe from scratch. I wanted a mix. The first mix had lard in it.  No. All the rest had partially hydrogenated oil. Ugh. I buy the Hodgins Mill Whole wheat blueberry muffin mix. Whole wheat. Some molasses. Add egg and sugar and milk. And then I give in and buy some of the Betty Crocker.

The whole wheat muffins are so stereotypically hard and chewy that I think I could make crunchy granola out of them. I made the “regular” muffins as well. And then the plan to give each kid 2 mini muffins fell apart. And I was out of butter. Despite 2 store trips, no butter. Did I mention we had a miserable whiny snow  all day? It was messy and wet and I just didn’t want to go out again. My mom rescued us by heading to the grocery store and getting grapes – so each kid will get 9 grapes and 1 mini muffin. Happy half Birthday.

I get 39 rock muffins. And 35 fluffy muffins. I head to school to pick up Henry for his doctor’s appointment. On most pickups, Henry is sitting in the office, dressed in his boots and snowpants and hat and gloves. Waiting. Not today. I am a bit later in the day, there is no parking. I double-park with my flashers. And Henry isn’t there. The office confirms Henry should be there. I head down to his room. I grab all of his stuff and pull him from class.

The doctor’s appointment was fine. We head home. We see Henry and Miranda’s bus. And after we’re home and Bella is watching at the window…the bus with Miranda on it? Doesn’t stop at our house. We wait. It circles the block. Then it stops.

Henry got in trouble for talking 3 times at school today. Miranda couldn’t sleep between staying up later than normal watching American Idol and thinking about her half birthday. Arabella took a later nap and didn’t want to go to sleep. I should be trying to sleep right now. But it just hasn’t been that kind of day.

Bella has either said her first two syllable word or her first two word phrase: Up Stairs

She wants to come up too.

Bella is 16 months old now. She seems huge – she’s so long stretched out in bed. Thank goodness she generally likes her crib and we’re not having toes and elbows in our faces all night long. She weighs 22lb now, which doesn’t seem like that much. But she’s just gotten bigger. Next to a small helpless baby, I’d think her a monster :)

My mind is a jumble with travel. I am off to SF this weekend. Not to excite any people who fit within the Venn Diagram of burglers and people who read this blog, as my parents and the kids will be home all weekend. And there is nothing like planning 3 nights away from you children to make your heart all ooey-gooey for them.

Bella is 16 months old. She is walking, running, climbing, singing, babbling, yelling, pointing, tattling, crying, stepping, and moving all the time. She is trying to open the kitchen cabinets, the living rooms cabinets, the drawer with the DS stuff, the keyboard tray, the computer printer all the time. She loves the remote controls, telephones, cell phones, toy phones, calculators, the DS, her doll, her doll’s stroller, and pulling blankets from the bedroom to the living room. She copies her big sister and lays on her tummy on the floor in front of the TV. She rarely angles her head correctly to see the TV while she does this.  She bangs on the refrigerator door for her milk. She thinks the pantry is her playground. She will pick up a toy or a remote control and run around the house. If you chase her, she runs faster. If you get close, she throws the item to the floor. She has dimples and a smile on her face most of the time.  When she gets into everything, without joy, but with a picking, angry purpose, then she is very tired. She will resist sleep. But she needs it.

Pigtails

Her hair is longer. Her bangs are in her eyes, but they are still baby bangs. We have been putting them into a pony tail nearly every day. One day I tried pigtails. She seems to like having her hair up. When it isn’t up, she pokes at it. She likes to rub her hair with mashed potatoes or other soft foods. She likes baths and hair washing, to a point. She hopped in the shower with me and did not like the spray.

She talks, a little. She says Mama. Grandma and Gr’pa, and M’Randa, and Enry and Papa. And baba and dada as all purpose words. She says cook-cook in a very breathy way for cookie. She loves cookies. One in each hand is best. She likes to tickle with sharp little finger nails. She laughs a lot. She wants to go bu-bye and gets her coat when anyone else gets to go away. She likes wearing shoes and boots. She like to try on bigger people’s shoes. She can take off her shirt. She can take off her diaper if she has no pants. Taking off her pants is hard.

She might get red skin after eating tomatoes or chocolate. It isn’t really clear. Her cheeks will get red or sometimes her bottom. We have tried to separate and/ or cut back on chocolate and tomatoes until we can figure it out.  She loves to eat. She will eat with as many people as have meals separately – so if I eat lunch, then Grandma and then Grandpa, Bella would prefer having 3 meals.

She takes 1 nap, usually in the afternoon. 1-2 hours long. She sleeps from 7:30 to 7, waking up once if at all. Or stirring at 5 and then cuddling in a warm bed until she warms up and goes back to sleep. The most exciting time of day is when the bus brings her big kids home. All is better in the world when the big kids and Mama and Grandma are home.

Tomorrow, Miranda and Henry, maybe in 2 posts?

Hello 2010. Good-bye 2009.

I am not sure I can even remember all the way back to January. I started a frugality plan, along with the rest of the Western world. I can’t say I did all that well at it. I think I was good for about 6 months and then we went to a cabin with my mom, and Miranda’s birthday party grew larger, and then Halloween. I usually assume I need stop shopping. I wonder if perhaps I should not entertain at home.

But boo on that idea.

Let’s see if I review my digital photos:

January: We started rocking out on the Wii to Guitar Hero. Bella started eating real food with a rapacious appetite. She learned to roll over, at least accidentally. We went snowshoeing and for some walks into the ice and snow.

January 2009

February: We visited Chicago. We celebrated Henry’s fifth birthday with his preschool pals at Dairy Queen. We visited my grandparents in Green Bay. Bella kept growing and growing. I enroll Henry in kindergarten for next year and shed a few tears.

February 2009

March: We start some early spring walking around the block. We celebrated my mom’s birthday and my birthday. Miranda takes St. Patrick’s Day very seriously. We visit Green Bay again.

March 2009

April: I work on the preschool yearbook. We see the Easter Bunny and hunt for eggs at the grocery store. Bella puts her feet on the grass. We visit Green Bay. Miranda makes her First Communion and her godparents come from California to see us. We take an amazing band of people to the Dells. Bella is sitting up on her own.

April 2009

May: Baseball with racing sausage madness. A family wedding and some happy time in Green Bay. Faraway friends come for a visit, if only we could pop over to Idaho to return the favor. Rob builds a crazy bike barge. I get 6 yards of dirt for the garden and Henry gets great king-of-the-hill joy. Henry graduates from preschool. We celebrate Rob’s birthday. We connect with Rob’s aunt and brother. Good friends visit from Madison. Bella starts crawling around this time.

May 2009

June: We get 6 yards of sand and don’t spread it out. King of the hill returns. We torment the children with a 5K -we cheat and it still too long. But they run in the kids race and finish! We go to Green Bay and visit our favorite amusement park. 25 cent rides can’t be beat. Rob plays drums in a barn. Henry plays t-ball. We dip our toes in Lake Michigan. Yep, still cold. Henry and Miranda go to Safety Town. We have breakfast on a farm.

June 2009

July: We celebrate America’s Independence with water slides and go-karts. Two trips to the Dells in 1 year should be too much but it is mostly awesome. We head to Green Bay and check out the wildlife sanctuary and Bay Beach. We visit the Milwaukee Zoo. Twice. With my grandparents, we head to Door County to pick cherries. We check out the Town’s heavy machinery at the Happy Days-esque outdoor restaurant. The children enjoy summer bounty from Texas. We head to the free Ozaukee county fair.

July 2009

August: We visit the fair again. We head to Madison and enjoy the company of good friends while being happy neither of us has 6 kids alone. We head to a cottage in Waupaca. We nearly drown the two big kids by flipping a pedal boat, but by grace and luck we don’t. We enjoy the lake life. I relearn that making 4 right turns makes you drive in a circle. Rob and the big kids participate in the triathlon. Our garden exploded while we were gone – the zucchini were too huge. Miranda has a spa birthday party for several of her closest friends. We signed a contract to have an extra area added to our garage.

August 2009

September: School starts. It is an odd thing to have both big kids gone all day. Bella turns 1. We have a nice party. We attend a baseball game. We sit too high up, but Bernie slides a few time, so it is OK. We get Miranda and Henry new desks from IKEA. We visit Chicago and hang out with B&B. The garage slab is poured.

September 2009

October: Halloween madness descends. Miranda is a snow princess. Henry is a monkey. Bella is a frog. Bella learns to walk. Rob is Levon Helms (And if you know who he is, god bless you :) The band was rocking out to Woodstock so I was a hippie. My desire for a car load of pumpkins outweighed my common sense and even my desire to carve 60 of them. We went to the Milwaukee Zoo to delight in their decor. We had a fabulous Halloween party, first the kids in the afternoon and then the kids mostly adults at night.The garage has walls, but no roof.

October 2009

November: While I adored the Halloween festivities, by November 1, I was done. We un-decorated and I appreciated minimalism. I started a part-time leave-the-house job in early November. Even at 10 hours, I have had challenges getting everything done. The garage comes together with walls and a roof. I decorate the outside of the house to take Christmas photos of the kids. My seemingly early planning paid off. The cards were finished. They had clothes to wear for the holiday concert at school. We decide to buy a new TV in the family room. This results in removing the gas fireplace that we didn’t like, removing the floor, putting in new laminate flooring, painting the walls, buying a new entertainment stand and desk for the computer. Perhaps Frugality 2009 should have had no parties and no home improvement? We visit Green Bay. We stay home for Thanksgiving and my brother and his wife visits. Did more happen in November, or is it just more fresh?

November 2009

December: We see Santa in the Park, enjoying Rob’s work holiday event and seeing the Enchantment in the Park lights show. I realize how awesome it would be to live somewhere warmer – whose Christmas events include fireworks? Walking through light shows. Ah, the possibilities. We start parking the cars in the new garage, before the snows start coming. The big kids each sing in the holiday program. We head to Green Bay and to Madison. Santa brings much job with presents. We find out just how early you need to go to Xmas eve mass to get seats in the old church. (earlier than 35 minutes before) We have a seafood extravaganza for New Year’s Eve. We stay in. It is quiet.

December 2009

It was a grand year watching Bella turn from a 3 month old cuddly bug into walking, nearly-talking, dynamo at 15 months. She has maintained her dimples. And her joy in being around her siblings. I hope I can say that in 10 years.

Just catching up on TV.

Monk series finale, part II.

Wow. That’s the way a television series should end. It made me want to buy all 8 seasons and watch them consecutively. Monk is an amazing character.

White Collar – the fall finale, which is just brilliant marketing to make us care about the upcoming gap in episodes, was breath-taking. I’m hooked. I call mercy. Oh basic cable, you are amazing. It reminds me of watching a movie and loving the characters so much I want to see more of them. To see the little stories about out-sized characters, to get to know them the way a television series can. And then it actually happens. The show has gone on and filled us in and delighted me. And Peter better not turn out to be bad or I’ll be crushed. Ah drama.

And watching Community, I vow to start using “Congradu-horrible.” and from now on I want to describe my job as “I do officey things for the Dean.”

Television was not my only weekend distraction.

We saw Santa at the park. Bella was mildly alarmed. She sat on Miranda’s lap and Henry sat on Santa’s knee.

Ho Ho Ho

I kept snapping away, never getting a golden shot. Hard when no one really smiled.

Merry Christmas

We saw snow flurries, causing Henry to be convinced he could make snowball out of the tiny fluff that accumulated on the edges of the lawn. He couldn’t.

I finished my Blook club selection.  I wept. It wasn’t a cleaning cry.

We went to a baby shower, which was pleasant and low-key. Miranda was so hoping we’d play the “identify the smooshed candy bar in the diaper” game. We didn’t, so everyone else was happy. Three of us bought the same bouncy chair off the registry. It felt more than mildly ridiculous.

Jolly Old St. Nick filled our stockings Friday night. No rotten potatoes or coal to be found.

A sent us an amazing advent calendar sewn on a pair of pants. It is crazy delicious.

Turn your head, I am too lazy to load PhotoShop to rotate it.

Henry had three meltdowns. The imminent risk of having St Nick not bring him anything did not dissuade him from tantrum #1. I think being good in school all day and all week just saps him of his patience at home. Despite being normal and understandable, it is still frustrating.

We have 7 helium latex balloons on our ceiling, “favors” from the shower.

Bella was far more social at the Santa event than at the shower. She was awake when we arrived at Santa and had taken a  nap before. For the shower she slept in the car on the way. Just a planning point for the holidays.

The early darkness is so draining. The power of positive thinking can only do so much. While we contemplate our small attempts to bring light into the great barren darkness, say with a candles for Chanukah or Christmas, the Solstice or Festivus, I did try to think of how awesome and early you could watch fireworks. In winter. I think I vaguely understand that near the equator they have 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. All year long. Fireworks at 7 sounds so blase I might need them every night. Just to make it a something. If I liked fireworks.

Arabella is a walking, babbling, giggling, dimpling, playing happy baby!

Now how did my arm get out?

And

Drumming!

And

walking!

And I am such a meanie, I am starting a new, leave-the-house, work-in-an-office job. Only 10 hours a week. And in the wise lessons of Dooce, I won’t be discussing it here. But I am mostly excited. And then Bella is fantastically, delightfully, naughtily cute.

Bella is walking! I should record a video of her walking. I have taken several still camera photos, but honestly, I have pictures of Bella standing. And some pictures of Bella fallen over.

Henry is mostly recovered. The fever is gone. The cough lingers. At least we’re in an upward trajectory.

And Miranda…poor Miranda keeps getting stuck with outside activities. Like a very fun birthday party at a p[umpkin farm…at which it snowed. And tomorrow, she’s going on a nature hike. I better find her winter boots. Or buy her winter boots. Something I probably should have thought about YESTERDAY.*

Rob is off to Vegas for work. If only his job were gambling…Vegas show reviewing…Vegas showgirl reviewing? We will all miss him. And he’ll avoid the pre-winter weather we’re enjoying.

I know, I know, October can be the second month of winter around here and that’s if August is warm. But I don’t like it. We’ve had a freeze. Now warm up for a few weeks. Alas, the weather has no Problem Solver interface.

*Am I the only person who uses the Adam Sandler in the Wedding Singer voice whenever the question is “thought about that yesterday!” (The scene when Robbie is screaming at his would-be-bride, Linda, after she stands him up at the altar?)

Henry is sick. Ragweed blew by the house in September; our allergies flared. Our = Miranda, Henry and me. And maybe the baby. I recovered far more quickly that I expected. Miranda and Henry started a cough. It lingered. Miranda started to recover early this week. Henry…Henry did not. He threw up Tuesday night and started running a fever. He has been home from school for two days. We visited the pediatrician on Wednesday. He diagnosed the fever and new heavy congestion as a cold.

This is usually when moms sigh. Unwell kid for 3.5 weeks…please don’t send me home without hope. And the doctor came through with an awesome cough medicine, directions to Sudafed and Tylenol as needed, and instructions to call if the fever isn’t gone in 72 hours.

For every child whose parents pushed the Tussin as a cure-all (Chris Rock made it funny, if I remember correctly), it is worth knowing that the children’s prescription Tussionex (cough relief plus antihistimine) does not taste terrible. Henry doesn’t even mind. I am concerned that the doctor promised it would help him sleep and that is not happening. The pharmacist told me that this is a very serious drug and to be very very cautious.

Henry is a cheerful sick kid. He misses school. It takes him until about noon to wonder why Miranda and Papa aren’t home, because isn’t it Saturday? That said, he is droopy. He won’t nap, but he rests a lot. I want him to be well again, to start eating real meals, to go back to school to his friends, star words, and fabulous teachers.

Meanwhile, Bella has been walking more and more. She is fascinated to have Henry home with her. She is also grumpy and hungry and doesn’t want to sleep. I don’t know if she is so busy trying to make her legs walk the way she wants them to that she can only use her happy dimples to escape ire for crawling under the changing room door at Target. She climbs up to the first landing on the stairs to the 2nd floor whenever the gate is open. Then she “uh’s” until I find her. We have this ridiculous round hole in the door to the basement. My dad put clear plastic over the hole to prevent Henry from getting his head stuck. That has saved Bella from imminent doom. She loves to look at people as they disappear into the basement. She yells and pounds on the plastic until they return to her view. She loves macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, meatballs and cheese. She does not like chicken or turkey, which is new and odd. She has figured out how to push her shopping card and her riding Winnie-the-Pooh-mobile. She can stack the ring toy. She loves to empty my purse and take the insoles out of my shoes. She thinks she is adorable in a hat or hood (she’s right) and loves to take her cowboy hat off and on, off and on. She is driving my mom and me crazy with the not napping, but she makes up for it.

I need to sit down and write, to capture some of the delight that is Arabella, age 1. She walks 1-2 steps between trusted adults and then dive bombs into one of them. She has figured out to crawl faster if I am after her on the stairs, to get away. She seems betrayed that her big kids aren’t home all day. She whined and fussed and demanded to be held, then released, then held again. And as soon as Henry got home (Miranda and I were late), she stopped. She played contentedly in whatever room he was in.

She had a terrific birthday. She had her shots the next day like a trooper. Some recent pics.

I feel pretty

Walking is easier if you carry something. Who knew?

cake?

cake!