Happy Halloween!

Our 3rd anniversary was great — we are not the flowers-n-candy type, but our day started awesomely as I got an electric griddle and a new showerhead, and Dave got Dracula boxers, high-end long underwear pants (for when he does OT games), and a bathmat for the sink, which was really a gift to both of us. THe bathmat you step out of is always migrating back and forth from the sink, as Dave likes to be on the mat when he shaves, but I get irrationally annoyed at always dragging it back to the tub, so now he has his own pink and green chenille braided mat, JUST FOR HIM, to stand on while he shaves, and the tub mat can lie in it’s own place without being disturbed. ANd yes, it’s pink and green, which aren’t our favorite colors, but our sink and tile is pink, and the mat was so cheap with my discount at the outlet, that the bargain factor would please dave more than a nicer color would, so there you go. Also, my Amazon order hasn’t arrived yet, but he’ll be getting the Monster House DVD when that shows up.

And with my electric griddle, which I’ve desperately wanted for years — our pans + electric stove = shitty pancakes, every time — was put to use, immediately, where we each had pancakes AT THE SAME TIME (another problem with cooking pancakes in a frying pan, the cook eats last) and they were perfectly cooked, totally delicious, and it was awesome. We have big plans for Sunday Pancakes as a new tradition ’round here.  The showerhead is unbelievably awesome, too. Ours has slowly disintegrated to the point that it felt more like showering under a garden hose than a showerhead, and since we have a high threshold for shitty showers (as anyone who’s been reading for years willr emember, our last apartment had ridiculous shower problems that at one point had me driving in and showering at my MOTHER IN LAW’S) we’ve been letting it go, but to take Ingrid into the shower, we knew it had to change. I wasn’t expecting an awesome shower head, just a New One, but nooo, Dave got us this freaking awesomely huge one, that makes me feel like I’m in a hotel shower.  ANd Dave said, when I opened it, "Now, I don’t have a problem with ours now, but I know you do, so I hope you like this one." THen he took a shower with the new one and said "Okay, I had a problem with the old one, I guess."  So, our morning was hot, perfect pancakes, good coffee, and great showers.

We decorated and made up treat bags today, and then decked Ingrid out and took her to visit her in-town aunties and grandmother, and also Andy’s mom, who fits on the spectrum in there, too. They all gushed over her, of course, and were relieved that we hadn’t "covered her in blood and gore" which is what they worried we’d do when we told them she was "NOT going to be cute, but SCARY!" and wouldn’t tell them her costume.

We finished decorating, and this year we didn’t do costumes or kid-scaring, and our last group had obvioulsy been veterans of our house, because the little boy was creeping up the driveway saying "I’m NOT SCARED! YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET ME THIS YEAR!!!" and then lame-o dave answers the door in jeans and a flannel shirt, not evenhis zombie costume.  We also had our friends stop by with their daughter in her dragon costume, and we got some pics of the VERY SCARY GIRLS that are NOT LADYBUGS OR PEAPODS, NO! which was awesome. Especially since we don’t think they even realized they were being propped up next to another baby for the first round of photos — Hell, Ingrid gets propped up against all kinds of stuff for her picture, so what difference does a purple dragon make? Then we rearranged them, and they saw each other and were sort of… confused. It was great.

Andy came by after that, and a totally fried Ingrid fell asleep while he was here, on my chest. We wiggled her into a sleeper and sleepsack and got her off to bed, later than usual, but for a first Halloween, we did pretty good.

Pictures start here.

Ahhhh….

Dave took all of his vacation, 2 weeks, when Ingrid was born. So, when HR called him in to say "hey, you have 2 vacation days to use before December," he said "No I don’t." The HR lady said "hmm, well, maybe there was a glitch WINKWINK because you have two days left." Well, then!

As such, dave has taken today and tomorrow off, to celebrate Ingrid’s first Halloween, and our 3rd anniversary. I can’t evenbelieve it’s been three years! Or that I’ve known him for 6! Weird.

We spent today just doing stuff… we went to vote early (they moved our polling place to a more inconvenient spot than "across the street," dammit) and we were the only people at the polling place, aside from the clerks. One of the clerks, however, was the notary that married us, and he was excited to see us and meet Ingrid. He’s only married 4 couples, and I worked with him for years, which is why I asked him to marry us. Not only totally civil and not religious at all, but also a funny, strange guy.

We got other errands done, I got to go to the PO, unfettered, and then later to the new LLBean outlet. Which, OMG, seriously, I saw things I *JUST BOUGHT* for cheaper than my discount allows, and I get a standard 25% off the outlet sale prices. For instance, that stocking I hemmed and hawed over? I ended up buying it, with my discount it was 13 bucks. At the outlet, it was 10, and I would’ve gotten 25% off that, so I could’ve had it for 7.50. Or, a fleece I just got for 35, from 60, was on sale for 20, and I’d have paid FIFTEEN AMERICAN DOLLARS for it. But, it would feel unethical for me to exchange and rebuy that stuff cheaper (esp since I DO get a discount on firsts) but still. Holy cow. Ingrid and I have a new weekly field trip destination.  As it is, I got a small braided foor mat for our bathroom, and some highend long underwear pants for dave, for um, 16 bucks total. Both are anniversary gifts — the rug, because we are always jockeying the one in there now from tub to sink, and it’s just… annoying, but Dave likes to have a rug to stand on as he shaves and such, so he gets a chenille rug. It was pink and green, but then again, our bathroom has a pink sink and tiles, but Dave will happily stand on a pink rug that retails for 50 bucks, and that I got for 7. 🙂

Ingrid seems to be just amazed that Daddy! Is! Here! all day long, and she just freaking ADORES him, so that’s cool. She also slept pretty well last night — I dream-fed her at 11 when I got home, and then she woke up at, god, I don’t even know — 6? — and cooed in her crib for a while, and then had an audible poop, so I got up and changed her and brought her to bed with us. I was all kinds of engorged, as the dreamfeed didn’t drain either breast (and I put her on BOTH, which I never, ever do, but I was rock hard after working for 6 hours and not pumping…) and all day has been spent recalibrating, it feels like.

I also applied for permanent part-time at work, which could mean super-duper part time (work some every month, but not more than 1000 hrs each year) or guaranteed 20-29 hours a week. It’s a really easy job, with great perks (especially with an outlet in town, where they just GIVE stuff away!) and, you know, until I get a Real Job, or Childcare, might as well ride this train as long as I can.

So, yeah. A good day. Tomorrow we costume up Miss Ingrid and take her to see her grandma and aunts in town, and then we’ll hand out candy here. We have decorations out, with more going out tomorrow, and the windows getting ‘boarded up’ tomorrow afternoon. Maybe THIS year, I’ll get a damn PICTURE. Sigh.

urgh.

Side effect of multiple vet trips for or cat, appears to be …. fleas. FUCK.

We have yet to see any bugs at all, but the stuff in her fur was positively IDed as "flea dirt." She’s an indoor cat! Goddammit. Hopefully the Frontline kicks on soon….

3 Book Things

1) Totally Geeky, but I am soooo freaking happy that Amazon has finally worked titles into their product URLs, because it’s been a pet peeve of mine for ages to see "I’m reading this book" and have the this link to Amazon, with a URL of randomly generated letters and numbers.

2) Ingrid has this book (Ha! Okay, it’s called Sweet Dreams), and it’s a taggie book, but of all the strategically placed tags ON the book? Which one does she choose to chew on? Yeah, the actual tag. Of course.

3) I think that this book will be my new baby-gift book from here on out, as it shows all kinds of families, all kinds of feeding, all kinds of carrying, etc. Of course, this pisses off the conservative christian wingnuts, which makes it an even better book to own. It shows a 2-mama family, and 2-daddies, and that’s cool, as well as adoptive families, multicultural families, and even babywearing!  It’s also cool with the breastfeeding thing — I don’t like the breastfeeding books that are all "mama makes breastmilk! and if babies don’t get it, they aren’t loved and will be C students, if they are lucky!" — and this covers just about every possible baby situation, without making any specific family or choice seem freakish. It’s great. And it comes in the flavors of Hardcover or Boardbook.

Good Day

Today was good. We got up early, got ourselves to Mother Goose, and
Ingrid loved it (as always) and I saw someone from my prenatal aqua
class, and another mom took my number and email address.  From there,
we went to LaLeche League. Now, I debated it LONG and HARD, especially
while waiting for a modular home to pass so I could cross over to High
Street to get there, because I was really bummed by my first meeting. I
swear to god, did someone like, tip off LLL and pass my comments on to
the regional director, or what? It was weirdly totally different. For
one, no goddamn word find. For two, NO mention of "Artificial feeding,"
just "bottle feeding," and for three, the leader brought SLINGS to
show, when last time, everyone seemed amazed by my KKAFP. Seriously, it
was totally different, and enough to make me feel like LLL Henchmen had
been contacted.

So, that was good, and the leader started showing
off her various slings — all of them ring slings, and all of them
hideous. Well, one was a Maya, so that wasn’t so bad, but the HEAVILY
PADDED, FLEECE LINED, AMERICAN FLAG ring sling was awful. Just awful.
And it so happened that I had Ingrid all wrapped up in the
Storchenwiege, because I knew she’d be tired after storytime, and
wrap-naps are easy on her. I wrapped her when we arrived, and one of
the women said "wow, that’s a lot of fabric!" and i just smiled and
said "yeah, but it gets eaten up really quickly" and wrapped her up.
Then she started saying that she couldn’t use a sling with her baby
anymore, because he was so big (at 7months) and I was biting my tongue.
Finally, I said "have you tried a two-shouldered carrier? it helps
spread the weight…and, actually, let me go to my car."

I
brought in my sling-bag, and took over the LLL leader’s display of
Crimes Against RingSlings, and pulled out the KKAFP, and the meitai,
and my other pouch… and then Ingrid woke up, so I handed her off to
the leader, unwrapped, and showed the mom with the ‘too-big’ baby how
to wrap up her guy, and she was absolutely STUNNED at how comfortable
it was. STUNNED. She left with links to TBW and my website and
mamatoto, and damn if it didn’t feel GOOD to have that babywearing
advocacy moment. Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. But it is SO. COMFORTABLE.

ANyway.
After that we came home, had lunch with dave, etc etc and I went to
class. My weekly class that meets, that isn’t practicum, is a middle
level course. The prof is really well-known guy in the field of middle
level, which means nothing to most of you, but he’s probably in the top
10 of the Middle Level Elite. Super nice guy, too.

Class is
going well, he really loves my responses, and I keep joking about how
jaded I am (which, technically, aint a joke…) but with every class, I
sort of…. miss middle school. For instance, today we were talking
about wellness education, and one guy showed his kids Supersize Me,
which reminded me of my fat/sugar lesson, so I described it quickly
"… and we measured out grams of crisco and grams of sugar for the
kids’ favorite snack foods, and then stapled it to the wall…" which
made everyone crack up, because 2/3 of the way into the semester,
apparently, I am the only one who would staple baggies of fat to the
wall.

After class, the prof stopped me and said "we really need
to talk… to find out what happens at the end of the semester." I
laughed and said, "I told you! I’m going to be the best ed tech ever!"
"well, that’s fine, but really — you need to be out there, working
with middle schoolers. You really do."

That? was cool. The more I
hear other people talk about their experiences and stuff, the more i
realize that dammit, I AM a good teacher. I WAS a good teacher. I
really was.  Even now — a student in the class now teaches in MY old
classroom, and she was talking about teaching a particular unit, and I
told her what worked for me, and she loved it. ("Don’t tell Principal!
He’d die if he knew I was still influencing that wing.") I’m feeling
like, maybe, maybe, I could do… something… in a school again.

And
on top of that, our friends are back from their honeymoon, saw the pics
online, and the wife cried and said "I don’t care what the real
pictures look like, I LOVE these ones."  Dave dropped off their real
gift after work, and they came by an hour later with a silk elephant
from Thailand for Ingrid (with the comment "this isn’t really a toy,
but more something you… have") and $100 for us, that Dave tried to
refuse, but they insisted he keep because of all we’d done for them.

So,
to recap: storytime rocked, I spread the wrap love, major props from
important ML guy, made a bride cry with my pics, OH and?

Dreamhost had backups and my website is totally fixed now.

KICKASS DAY.

Good Day

Today was good. We got up early, got ourselves to Mother Goose, and Ingrid loved it (as always) and I saw someone from my prenatal aqua class, and another mom took my number and email address.  From there, we went to LaLeche League. Now, I debated it LONG and HARD, especially while waiting for a modular home to pass so I could cross over to High Street to get there, because I was really bummed by my first meeting. I swear to god, did someone like, tip off LLL and pass my comments on to the regional director, or what? It was weirdly totally different. For one, no goddamn word find. For two, NO mention of "Artificial feeding," just "bottle feeding," and for three, the leader brought SLINGS to show, when last time, everyone seemed amazed by my KKAFP. Seriously, it was totally different, and enough to make me feel like LLL Henchmen had been contacted.

So, that was good, and the leader started showing off her various slings — all of them ring slings, and all of them hideous. Well, one was a Maya, so that wasn’t so bad, but the HEAVILY PADDED, FLEECE LINED, AMERICAN FLAG ring sling was awful. Just awful. And it so happened that I had Ingrid all wrapped up in the Storchenwiege, because I knew she’d be tired after storytime, and wrap-naps are easy on her. I wrapped her when we arrived, and one of the women said "wow, that’s a lot of fabric!" and i just smiled and said "yeah, but it gets eaten up really quickly" and wrapped her up. Then she started saying that she couldn’t use a sling with her baby anymore, because he was so big (at 7months) and I was biting my tongue. Finally, I said "have you tried a two-shouldered carrier? it helps spread the weight…and, actually, let me go to my car."

I brought in my sling-bag, and took over the LLL leader’s display of Crimes Against RingSlings, and pulled out the KKAFP, and the meitai, and my other pouch… and then Ingrid woke up, so I handed her off to the leader, unwrapped, and showed the mom with the ‘too-big’ baby how to wrap up her guy, and she was absolutely STUNNED at how comfortable it was. STUNNED. She left with links to TBW and my website and mamatoto, and damn if it didn’t feel GOOD to have that babywearing advocacy moment. Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. But it is SO. COMFORTABLE.

ANyway. After that we came home, had lunch with dave, etc etc and I went to class. My weekly class that meets, that isn’t practicum, is a middle level course. The prof is really well-known guy in the field of middle level, which means nothing to most of you, but he’s probably in the top 10 of the Middle Level Elite. Super nice guy, too.

Class is going well, he really loves my responses, and I keep joking about how jaded I am (which, technically, aint a joke…) but with every class, I sort of…. miss middle school. For instance, today we were talking about wellness education, and one guy showed his kids Supersize Me, which reminded me of my fat/sugar lesson, so I described it quickly "… and we measured out grams of crisco and grams of sugar for the kids’ favorite snack foods, and then stapled it to the wall…" which made everyone crack up, because 2/3 of the way into the semester, apparently, I am the only one who would staple baggies of fat to the wall.

After class, the prof stopped me and said "we really need to talk… to find out what happens at the end of the semester." I laughed and said, "I told you! I’m going to be the best ed tech ever!" "well, that’s fine, but really — you need to be out there, working with middle schoolers. You really do."

That? was cool. The more I hear other people talk about their experiences and stuff, the more i realize that dammit, I AM a good teacher. I WAS a good teacher. I really was.  Even now — a student in the class now teaches in MY old classroom, and she was talking about teaching a particular unit, and I told her what worked for me, and she loved it. ("Don’t tell Principal! He’d die if he knew I was still influencing that wing.") I’m feeling like, maybe, maybe, I could do… something… in a school again.

And on top of that, our friends are back from their honeymoon, saw the pics online, and the wife cried and said "I don’t care what the real pictures look like, I LOVE these ones."  Dave dropped off their real gift after work, and they came by an hour later with a silk elephant from Thailand for Ingrid (with the comment "this isn’t really a toy, but more something you… have") and $100 for us, that Dave tried to refuse, but they insisted he keep because of all we’d done for them.

So, to recap: storytime rocked, I spread the wrap love, major props from important ML guy, made a bride cry with my pics, OH and?

Dreamhost had backups and my website is totally fixed now.

KICKASS DAY.

Good Day

Today was good. We got up early, got ourselves to Mother Goose, and Ingrid loved it (as always) and I saw someone from my prenatal aqua class, and another mom took my number and email address.  From there, we went to LaLeche League. Now, I debated it LONG and HARD, especially while waiting for a modular home to pass so I could cross over to High Street to get there, because I was really bummed by my first meeting. I swear to god, did someone like, tip off LLL and pass my comments on to the regional director, or what? It was weirdly totally different. For one, no goddamn word find. For two, NO mention of "Artificial feeding," just "bottle feeding," and for three, the leader brought SLINGS to show, when last time, everyone seemed amazed by my KKAFP. Seriously, it was totally different, and enough to make me feel like LLL Henchmen had been contacted.

So, that was good, and the leader started showing off her various slings — all of them ring slings, and all of them hideous. Well, one was a Maya, so that wasn’t so bad, but the HEAVILY PADDED, FLEECE LINED, AMERICAN FLAG ring sling was awful. Just awful. And it so happened that I had Ingrid all wrapped up in the Storchenwiege, because I knew she’d be tired after storytime, and wrap-naps are easy on her. I wrapped her when we arrived, and one of the women said "wow, that’s a lot of fabric!" and i just smiled and said "yeah, but it gets eaten up really quickly" and wrapped her up. Then she started saying that she couldn’t use a sling with her baby anymore, because he was so big (at 7months) and I was biting my tongue. Finally, I said "have you tried a two-shouldered carrier? it helps spread the weight…and, actually, let me go to my car."

I brought in my sling-bag, and took over the LLL leader’s display of Crimes Against RingSlings, and pulled out the KKAFP, and the meitai, and my other pouch… and then Ingrid woke up, so I handed her off to the leader, unwrapped, and showed the mom with the ‘too-big’ baby how to wrap up her guy, and she was absolutely STUNNED at how comfortable it was. STUNNED. She left with links to TBW and my website and mamatoto, and damn if it didn’t feel GOOD to have that babywearing advocacy moment. Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. But it is SO. COMFORTABLE.

ANyway. After that we came home, had lunch with dave, etc etc and I went to class. My weekly class that meets, that isn’t practicum, is a middle level course. The prof is really well-known guy in the field of middle level, which means nothing to most of you, but he’s probably in the top 10 of the Middle Level Elite. Super nice guy, too.

Class is going well, he really loves my responses, and I keep joking about how jaded I am (which, technically, aint a joke…) but with every class, I sort of…. miss middle school. For instance, today we were talking about wellness education, and one guy showed his kids Supersize Me, which reminded me of my fat/sugar lesson, so I described it quickly "… and we measured out grams of crisco and grams of sugar for the kids’ favorite snack foods, and then stapled it to the wall…" which made everyone crack up, because 2/3 of the way into the semester, apparently, I am the only one who would staple baggies of fat to the wall.

After class, the prof stopped me and said "we really need to talk… to find out what happens at the end of the semester." I laughed and said, "I told you! I’m going to be the best ed tech ever!" "well, that’s fine, but really — you need to be out there, working with middle schoolers. You really do."

That? was cool. The more I hear other people talk about their experiences and stuff, the more i realize that dammit, I AM a good teacher. I WAS a good teacher. I really was.  Even now — a student in the class now teaches in MY old classroom, and she was talking about teaching a particular unit, and I told her what worked for me, and she loved it. ("Don’t tell Principal! He’d die if he knew I was still influencing that wing.") I’m feeling like, maybe, maybe, I could do… something… in a school again.

And on top of that, our friends are back from their honeymoon, saw the pics online, and the wife cried and said "I don’t care what the real pictures look like, I LOVE these ones."  Dave dropped off their real gift after work, and they came by an hour later with a silk elephant from Thailand for Ingrid (with the comment "this isn’t really a toy, but more something you… have") and $100 for us, that Dave tried to refuse, but they insisted he keep because of all we’d done for them.

So, to recap: storytime rocked, I spread the wrap love, major props from important ML guy, made a bride cry with my pics, OH and?

Dreamhost had backups and my website is totally fixed now.

KICKASS DAY.

Puuuuke

Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I just totally hosed my hosted website, which makes me want to CRY. I have all the html and stuff, but the whole blog part, which was the backbone, is GONE. G-O-N-E GONE. I emailed support, in the desperate hope that it’s in the ether somewhere, but FUCKING FUCK. I want to puke.

ughhhh.

Childcare, again

So, after posting about needing to update with the uni childcare, today, I got an email from the new center opening right around the corner, the one that name drops Montessori and Piaget and Emilio Reggia.  Subject line is "CenterName  Invitation" and my heart skipped a beat, and the email started with "Dear Centername Families," and goes on to invite us to a meet&greet, where we can ask questions and hear more, and blah blah blah. It sounds informational, but if we’re a "centername family," then does that mean maybe we’ll get one of the first spots? I mean, I applied within HOURS of the sign being hung, and I may or may not be on the priority list instead of the public list, but even if I was on the PUBLIC list, I’d have to be near the top.  My other options have priority/public lists, and I’m public for both of those, and have been on there for AGES. The center in town that has a public list has people on there that haven’t even conceived yet, and I am so not kidding. I’m no longer technically* a student, so I’m on the public list there as well, but damn, I have to be in the top tier of the BRAND NEW PLACE’s public list.

Having childcare THAT close would KICK. ASS. I’ll figure out work around it; shift to days, move to subbing, whatever. Dave wouldn’t even have to stop to drop her off, just slow down a bit, it’s THAT convenient. Cross yer fingers, ey?

Also, Ingrid is so tall, she’s figuring out how to pop herself out of her Bumbo. (Almost, we are attentive parents and won’t let her, of course. We’re starting to consider high chairs — I like the idea of the Graco Contempo, or the Chicco Polly — that standing slim fold is tempting. We don’t really have enough chairs to do a booster, easily, so we really need a chair. Oh, and we have no IKEA. Any recommendations?

Sigh

the dream that I didn’t want to wake up from this morning involved a secret multi-million dollar trust fund in Ingrid’s name, that then led to discovering a similar trust find in my own name.

This is what you get when you are worrying about career, money, etc, the same week that Dr Izzie Stephens clips an 8.7 mil check to the fridge to ponder it for a while. Sigh.