Happy Halloween, Part I

I haven't yet had a chance to take some photos of the girls from this morning in their costumes, or pics of our carved pumpkins. This photo was taken Tuesday before attending a Halloween festival. More photos to come later this evening....but for now, here's my beautiful butterfly Bea and pretty princess Olivia.



Happy Halloween, everyone!

Proof

Sometimes I start posts and never finish them, or sometimes I just don't publish them at all. I was looking for something in my older posts and I came across this one that I had titled "the brown-eyed beauty has claws" from about 14 months ago. We always say how Bea is so happy all the time, and that she was always happy. I must have blacked out those times when she made things a little difficult. I guess those times are few and far between in comparison to Olivia. Though, I do have to say that O's attitude has changed A LOT over the last few weeks.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from the blog post that I did not publish. See if you believe it. I don't remember my little happy-go-lucky Bea ever acting out of line, but she did, and reading this I do remember some of it and can distinguishly hear her voice saying some of it:

"Usually I am greeted with a hug and smiles, instead I was ignored. And, she makes it a point to say "Hi, Daddy" when he has already picked her up from daycare and spent some time with her. So, I interject with "Hi Bea!" The response I got made me stop in my tracks. It was "No, I didn't say hi to you. I said hi to daddy!" Oh, lord. And it gets worse...

At dinnertime, I am helping Josh by getting her drink and I kindly ask what she wants - water, milk or juice. She ignores me. I ask her about five times. Finally, I get an "I want lemonade" response. So I get her the lemonade, and as I am putting it in front of her, she says to me, "Mama, you're in my way." Excuse me? This isn't even the end of it...

Around bedtime, she puts a piece of plastic from a plastic bag into her mouth which she knows she shouldn't. I tell her to take it out, as I usually do, and normally she spits it out into my hand or throws it in the garbage. Instead, she runs away from me to her bed. I go after her and put my hand in front of her mouth and ask her to spit it out. What does she do? She pretends she is going to and then all of the sudden I see her chewing and then she does one of those big swallow type motions. Yep, she swallowed it."

She still has these types of moments, but it is short-lived.

Stay tuned for Friday...I'll be posting pics from last night's Halloween Festival at my mother-in-laws school, our pumpkin carvings that will take place this evening, and costumes. There could be multiple costumes for each child. Just a warning in advance...

Did the Washing Machine Throw Up?

I think that I learned a mighty big lesson this weekend. That lesson is to check everything before putting it in the washing machine.

When unloading the washing machine yesterday, these mysterious gel-like substances started appearing in the clothes. They were almost like little styrofoam balls, but they were clear and jelly-like. The further I got down to the bottom of the machine, they were more frequent. I started to wonder what in the world it could be - I go through all the pockets when I do the laundry, but this was strange, and what could produce something that looked like these little gel balls?

When I got to the bottom of the machine, I found the culprit. A pull-up had somehow not been taken out of someone's pajama bottoms. It had gotten thrown in there and stayed inside those pajama bottoms somehow. Generally, those are removed before they make their way into the laundry basket, and being that it had gone unnoticed, I figure that the girl who had used that pull-up had not done any sort of pee damage to it, making it dry and not heavy, and therefore, it got tossed in.

Upon finding the culprit, I exclaimed to the family what I found, and they all looked at it in disbelief. It was a strange sight, I have to say. I then sort of chucked it onto our already dying front lawn because I just couldn't hold it any longer and didn't know what to do because these gel balls were falling out of it like wildfire. It was just so, um, unpleasant.

As it layed there on the dying grass, I couldn't help but think it looked like a sad little pull-up that had somehow been filled with shaved ice. See for yourself:


The moral of this story? Check everything before putting it in the washing machine. Seriously. I have now dealt with two washing machine debactles: crayons and pull-ups. I put that load through two more times just to be on the safe side and was happy to find no more gel balls.

If there are any practical jokers out there who are looking for a new trick, here's and easy one for you to do. Take a pull-up, put it in the washing maching, then find a paper snow cone cup, fill it up with the contents of the pull-up, and add some food coloring. Fun times there, I bet. Just make sure that pull-up wasn't used before you put it in the washing machine.

A Question of Death

Shoot. I hope I didn't scare you with the title. No one is dead around here (other than my sad, sad knees that are still recovering from the half marathon).

The other night I received the most difficult question yet coming from a 3 year old:

Do we all die, mommy? (My answer: Yes.)
But why do we die? (My answer: I don't exactly remember how I answered. Something about how we start as babies then get older and learn stuff, and we go when we are done learning.)

I think after a while of trying to put words together for the answer I stopped and asked her why she was asking about it. She seems to be using the "D" word a lot lately. I don't think it is cause for concern. She's curious. But when she's playing she will mention that one of her toys is "dead". And I don't know, it makes me uneasy. And I've been correcting her on the toy being fake so it can't die. Who knows what is right or wrong with these answers...I'm just kind of playing it by ear since you never know when it's coming.

I just wonder...what other questions is she going to ask that are going to stump me? I'm also wondering if there is a book that has been written that has these difficult questions with a blanket answer...if not, it's a hell of an idea.

Speaking of death, I just had the death of my 34th year in the world take place on Monday. Another year older. I wrote this post about the last year and some of my accomplishments, but I wasn't at all impressed with it...just think I could have done a lot more. Anyway, with the birthday thing happening, I've been busy and haven't had much time to post but will hopefully be back on track soon.

Wait. Don't I always have some procrastination answer?

Anyway...my birthday was Monday. And that is why I've been so quiet.

Buh-Buh Graduation

Time for a little Pomp and Circumstance. Time to pop the bubbly wide open. Buh-buh's don't live here anymore (well, all but one...more on that later)!

Some of you are probably scratching your head saying "well, these people don't have babies...they have toddlers." DING! DING! DING! Your answer is correct. There's only one child here that refused to give it up, and that child was Olivia. Wait a minute. It is possible that her parents (i.e. - Josh and Jenna) didn't want to give it up. Or wait another minute. It's possible that they were just lazy. Mentioned many times in the past is Olivia's temperament: drama queen. Never knowing how she is going to be from one minute to the next is excruciating. Deciding on the proper time to take away the buh-buh was difficult, and we thought it out about five times prior to this. Something always seemed to get in the way: Olivia is not feeling well or Olivia might just gauge my eyes out at the mention of us saying we don't have one for her, or eh, it is just easier to give her the damn thing in order to keep the peace.

Anyway, we'd had it. I'd had it completely. She was reverting to wanting to be a baby again. Peeing in her pants every single time (thank goodness the poops made it in the potty). She was saying that she was a baby. Wanted to be held like a baby. And while she is still the baby in our family and I really wanted to hold on to her babyhood, it was more than time to let it go. After all, she is turning 3 this February. That was enough. I was done. And we made that decision last Thursday to take them away on Friday after daycare. In the past we'd give her a head's up about the buh-buhs (on those attempts which did not exactly work), but this time we didn't tell her and just sprung it on her on Friday when she asked for one in the evening.

We were nervous about the reaction. Would she scream at us for hours on end? Would she cry all night long? Seriously, will she come gauge my eyes out while I'm sleeping? Basically, the reaction was this: NOTHING. And the look on her face was: CONFUSION. We did receive some whines and a little bit of crying throughout the weekend along with some grumpy attitude, but it was easy. And we are kicking ourselves for not just doing it sooner.

Then we did what we did with Bea. The heaven story. People, the heaven story has gotten us through the removal of buh-buhs and diapers. And we will probably use it when the time comes to get rid of lovies and blankies. Read about the heaven story here. It saved us. I'm not sure of anything else that would have worked. The next day the buh-buh fairy brought Olivia like her hundredth play baby in exchange for the buh-buhs. With Olivia, we even bypassed the "safe" Nuby sippy cup that seriously could pass for a bottle. She's on the straight-up sippy cup now.

So, what happened to all the bottles and Nuby's? Josh threw most of them away. I have one of the Dr. Brown's saved. Just the bottle part of it. The ounces are clearly labeled. I've found a good use for the bottle in making mixed drinks. You know...an ounce of tequila here and an ounce of pomegranate juice there...the bottle makes it easy to get the right amount of ingredients for cocktails and to do the mixing all at once...I bet you didn't see that tip coming!

Anyway, congratulations Olivia (with new baby from buh-buh fairy)! You have officially graduated to being a little girl:

Out With The Old, In With The New

Last week I seemed to have mentioned the purchase of a new car on our end. And then suddenly I didn't have time to write about it.

We are so over the Corolla (nicknamed the Crapolla; and for short, the Crappy):


The car has done Josh good, but it has definitely seen better days...like back in 1992. It's taken him on his long commute every day for the past two years, but let's face facts. The car, well, not very presentable when let's say one must take clients out to lunch. He has dreamed and dreamed about getting the Subaru WRX for a couple of years, and now he's got it:


Two out of four of his beauties:


Again, two out of four of his beauties:


For anyone out there who knows Josh, you're probably thinking this car is so him. It is.

I've driven it only twice now, and both times I received a lecture beforehand to be extra careful. And, well, I'm kind of known around here for not seeing telephone poles or bushes and such.

Finally, I couldn't end this without a picture of one of my little pumpkins with her little pumpkin:


We are off this weekend to the pumpkin patch and to get our Halloween costumes...

I DID IT

I promised a post today on the marathon, and I am so tired right now that I can barely muster it up. I finished the marathon, yes. 13.1 miles total. I am pretty sure I didn't come in last. They time you as you cross the start line, and you are assigned a corral (kind of like cattle) to start from. I was in the final corral, so I was at the end of about 13,000 people.

There was definitely a lot of excitement in the air when we arrived at, oh 7:15 am. We stretched, had a banana (on top of the homemade french toast that Josh made us for breakfast). Then we ended up in our corral.

At about 7:55, the national anthem was sung, and then the race started shortly after that. By the time we got to the start line, it was already about 8:15. We hauled some ass the first mile with some major fast walking skills and had a pretty good time with just the walking. We wanted to make sure we were fairly warmed up so that we could do some good running. At mile 2, we began to run, and we did great. Then I had to pee. So we had to stop. We made up our targeted mile time quickly, and kept a pretty damn good pace. We alternated between running and walking. As we approached mile 5, the course becomes two sided, and would you believe this - the first runners were already finishing with one mile left? (Also, before the start of the race, the announcer had mentioned this one runner who had completed the 13.1 miles last year in under an hour...Crazy? Mmmm, yeah.) Anyway, that was somewhat of an inspiration and we kicked it into somewhat high gear.

All was going well, and we were approaching my neighborhood, so I was really excited and hoping to see Josh and the girls. Somewhere between mile seven and eight, my legs decided that hell no, they were not happy and what in the name of you know who summoned you to do this to yourself? Well, I did, legs. My shins hurt. My calves hurt. And my knees. Oh, my knees. I was stiff from the knee down. I kept telling myself to work through the pain and that soon enough there would be a medical station that would give me some Tylenol. Sooner than I thought, there was one. Only, they had just ran out of the Tylenol, but LUCKY ME, there was another station just two miles ahead. I worked through the pain....

Then, as we approached our neighborhood at around miles 9 and 10, I looked everywhere for my family. We didn't see them at all. Then I thought well maybe they would be at the finish line....

Right before mile 11, there was another medical station and I got me some Tylenol, but I thought by the time I finish, it will just be kicking in. I was kind of mad. In any case, I walked a fair amount after mile 8. Every now and then I would get a jolt of adrenaline and get kicked into high gear. I mean, I was still passing people!

As we neared the finish line, I started a very slow jog. All the people. It was so amazing. Everybody was cheering, and there were many cheerers along the way saying "you can do it" and "great job - you're doing so well". And then crossing the finish line. I think I cried briefly - for the pain and for actually finishing. Unfortunately, we missed seeing Josh and the girls and they missed seeing us. Probably by seconds.

So, I finished. We finished. And we made good time. And I can pretty much guarantee that I was not in the bottom 10.

Marathon Update

Sunday, it's on.

I've been on the treadmill every day since Saturday (I took ONE day off, and that is it). My time has improved pretty much each time. Despite a painful blister on Monday, some new running shoes and muleskin have fixed me up just fine.

My friend arrives into town tomorrow morning and we will be driving the course right after I pick her up. I received a call from her this morning. Turns out she has not been training the last couple of weeks. I suddenly feel a little bit better about this. I won't be holding us up, and lord knows, if she wants to take it easy, I'll be right there with her.

We're going to finish it, no matter what. Our pact has been made. And do you know what awaits us at the finish line? Well, hopefully a small cheering section, but they are also GIVING AWAY BEERS. I think only one per person, but anyway. I just wonder if that is such a good idea with all that excercise, but I don't care...I'll be drinking that beer in about 1 minute flat. I may not have the fastest running time for this marathon, but I will have the quickest beer drinking skills.

Anyway, stay tuned for Sunday. I plan to post a play by play of the marathon action then.