Monthly Archives: November 2008

Ingrid at 2.5

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One of my online friends just did a post about their 3 year old, and I've been inspired.

Ingrid at 2.5 pretty much rocks.

This morning, she slept through til 7 in her own bed. That happens once or twice a week, the other nights there's a nightwaking anywhere between 1-5 where she ends up with us. (Which, we're totally okay with, as we're committed cosleepers at this point, and know that all too soon, she won't want to cuddle with us AT ALL.)  I had her fetch my PJ pants and slippers. ("Famlingo pants, mommy?") and we came downstairs to make muffins together. (The last time we made muffins, she didn't quite get it, and when I pulled the finished product out of the oven, her eyes got huge and she said "MAMA! LOOK! CUPCAKES!!!!") She put the liners in the muffin tin, dumped in the milk and egg, helped me stir, and helped sprinkle the sugar crumbles on top. "Is it gon' be YUMMY, mommy? Yeah?"

She's speaking in complete sentences, all of a sudden, it seems. When we were at my folks' for early thanksgiving, I'd send her up in the morning so Dave and I could sleep in. When we aren't around, she's a little quicker to talk to other people, and my parents were blown away when one of the first things she said was "That cat is looking at you."    

She's working on figuring out the potty — she really, really wants to wear underpants, and is having lots of near misses — she's figuring out what it means to pee, and will announce her pees…. as they happen. She pooped on her little potty a few days ago (the last poop we've seen) after lots of tears and fear and me saying "do you want a diaper?" and her insisting she could use the potty.  It was this huge feat of courage for her, really, and she was so PROUD when it was done. "I made that big poop! It came out my bum!"

She has some words that I love — Christmas Tree is Kimasymsys Tree, Sesame Street is Semasee Street. Instead of "little while," she says "minute-while." ("I'm going to go in me bedroom for a minute while!") There is a difference between a cuddle and a snuggle, in Ingrid's world, but I've yet to figure it out. "NO CUDDLE, mama, SNUGGLE." She observes EVERYTHING, pointing out the grocery store and the airport and any animal that passes by. She saw Petco from a huge, huge distance, and wanted to go see the "cat and dog store."

When we went to the grocery store last night, Dave and I were talking about things-not-Ingrid, and continued our convo as we got out of the car, and poor Ing thought we were forgetting HER, and started calling "I'm in the car! I'm in the car, Daddy!" She loves circling the airport ("air-pert") after a grocery run (they are across the street from each other, and it's mostly on the way home…) and looking for planes. She could give you directions from a handful of places back to "Ingrid's House," if she was in the backseat.

A few weeks ago, I wrestled with our ISP a little bit before they relented on replacing our modem, but I had to get there by 5, and it was 4:45. We live, literally, around the corner, so I said "'kay, ingrid, we're going for a ride!" and hustled her into the car. Now, every time we drive by the ISP office, which is every day, as it's between daycare and our house, she says "There's the ride, mama! There's the ride, right over there!"

Tonight at dinner, I put lasagna on her plate. She didn't want it there. "Spit it out, mama! SPIT IT OUT!"

Chocolate is three distinct syllables, and she loves it.

Two weeks ago, in the space of a week, she figured out how to use the footstool and her brute strength to access basically anything in the kitchen. She can now open the fridge, and the pantry, and get her own stuff. (THere are pros and cons.) Today, she wanted "cereal on a plate!" and took her plate to the kitchen, got into the pantry, got the cereal, took a handful or two, closed the box, put the box back into the pantry, closed the door, and came back to the living room. Whoa.

She watches some TV now, after spending 2+ years with only Saturday and Sunday morning Sesame Street as her tv diet, and then, she didn't care too much, but it bought us a little time to drink our coffee — the parenting version of "sleeping in." The Roku has allowed us to access some decent (ad-free!) stuff, and she is now totally devoted to the movie Annie. She sings the songs, she wants to see it, she loooooves it. She likes Sesame Street okay, too, but Annie is her heroin. She also loves King of the Hill, and specifically Bobby Hill, whom she calls "Da Boy!" If that show is on, it's "where's da boy? where's da boy? [scene with Bobby] dere's da boy! dere he is!" Also, America's Funniest Videos, which Dave has determined a post-bath family ritual now. She bathes at 7, and we watch the end of "People all fall down show." She LOVES it.

Other phrases: if you walk in from going to the store "DID you have fun at the store, mama/daddy?" Sometimes, randomly "Have a good weekend!"

One morning in bed: "Daddy a Zebra. Ingrid a walrus and a fish." –"What is Mama?" "Mama."

She's starting to love on her babies and stuffed animals (finally, we have enough!) and the other day set up two stuffed animals at her table, gave them each playdoh and pieces of fake food. SWOON.

On daycare, she says she likes "Art" and "kindermusik." When I went with her on Wednesday to kindermusik, she was slow to warm to the class — I think she was a little confused since I was there — but all weekend she's said that her favorite part of kindermusik is "Owen." Who, because I went to a class this week, I know is a kid in the class above hers. Like a Senior to her Sophomore status. Whoa.

She loves to help — helped me with the muffins this morning, and helped me clean this afternoon. I was doing surfaces with a rag and some method cleaner, and she went to the kitchen to get her own washcloth (oh, right! Washcloth is pronounced "Lockoff" which we have changed to "the russian General Lokov" which is now abbreviated at bath time to "we need the General!" when they need a washcloth.) and then helped me wipe down surfaces.

I boxed up a bunch of her baby toys, which is so bittersweet. I love the big girl she's becoming, but I am mourning her babyhood. She calles her baby dolls "Little Stister" these days, and I just long to have a second, but we are holding off for a bit. If money were no object, it'd be a no brainer. As it is, we just have to wait a little longer….

It's been such a great 5 day vacation (that I didn't have to use any time for! Banking that, in hopes for a second..) and I just wish we could 'retire early' and hang out like this all the time. It was low key, but we got so much done, and we had so much fun just being together with no commitments. I'm excited for christmas, for Ing to be even more into it this year, and to see how she likes Christmas morning and her toys (which I'm pretty sure she'll love — the Ikea easel I got over a year ago, that's never been brought up, and a "my first dollhouse" that one of her friends got, and she loved, and she is still gravitating to dollhouses in toy stores) and to just hang out and have fun. I can't wait.

OH, one more thing: She's so well-mannered! She says please and thank you (actually, Shank You, which cracks me up and makes me think she's going to stab us in the neck with a modified plastic spork) and "Scuse me please!" when she wants to get by. She gets M and N confused a bit, so loves "Newsik" (music) and also has some L/R confusion, and I'm bl
anking on the specific word, but might say "Gleen" for Green.

Not Just Boogies

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Thanksgiving was fine — weird, but fine. We went to my SIL's house, where they had more than 30 people wedged into their rather small house (first floor is about 500sf, and the kitchen was off limits) where, when I walked in, my glasses fogged from the heat of the crowd. No one could move without rearranging like that game Rush Hour, and I actually had to have Dave drive me home to get my inhaler, because it was starting to trigger an asthma attack. I'm not normally claustrophobic, but this was insane. Lots of complaining, but even me-who-had-to-leave-for-a-bit knows that if "there's not enough room!" is the biggest complaint about Thanksgiving, we're pretty damn lucky. (Although all agreed that we've outgrown such gatherings, with my BIL's kids and families, and SIL's family and kids, it's a fuckton of people.)

Some cute things:

Ingrid loved it. She warmed up pretty quickly, and when I summoned Dave to take me home for my albuterol, and headed for the door, it was near the card table that she was sitting at, happily coloring with the big kids, and she said "NO, Mama, go BACK!" (Meaning, get the hell away from funtown!) We left here in the safe care of every other local relative she knows, and she had a blast. When we got back, we had dinner, and while we were gone they opened the windows and doors and my glasses DIDN'T fog upon return, but then they closed them for dinner, and I got woozy again, so I ended up sitting on the couch in front of an open window. (In the living room, the couch had been pushed to the wall, and there were two long folding tables and the card table, and it was like a packed church hall or something. I really can't do it justice.) Anyway, while I was there, I was sitting next to my grandnephew Jacob, who is 4, who was eating a plate full of Cheetos for dinner. Ingrid came over and wanted some, and we don't really do Cheetos, so I said no, and she wandered away, but what I hadn't realized was that Jacob had also wandered off, and when HE returned he had a new plate and the bag of Cheetos and said "Where's Ingrid? I got her some chips!" Such a sweet kid, he is. I said "oh, no thank you, she's all set, but that was very thoughtful of you!" Fast forward an hour or so, it's after dinner and I'm standing with some family in the kitchen, and Ing approaches with a plate bearing 6 Cheetos. She holds the plate out, pleading with her eyes, and I lean down and she says "Can I have some chips?" with such longing and so earnestly, that I cave. She BEAMS, and spends the next half an hour carrying that plate around, savoring her Cheetos.

We've also been working on pottying here, as she suddenly really wants to be wearing underpants, JUST UNDERPANTS NO DIAPER! She's doing pretty good — at this point she's basically holding it until she has a diaper (ie, before nap, or before leaving) and she's really despising having a dirty diaper. At the party, she came over and tugged on my hand and pulled me down to whisper "I need a clean diaper!" which is a totally new thing. She even has had two weird naps on me, downstairs, and stayed dry through those. She hasn't actually peed on the potty yet, it's like there's this little barrier to that — she'll sit, but not pee. But as soon as a diaper goes on, she pees. We have three more days with NO PLANS, and we're going to be doing a lot of sitting, I think. Bizarre moment #2 of today, the boogie-stuck-in-teeth being #1, is me sitting cross legged on the bathroom floor in front of Ingrid sitting on her potty, with me leaning forward to hold her in a hug, because she asked for it. Out of fear? I don't know… but we're working on it.

So, yeah, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving

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You know you're a mother when you have to fish out the booger that your kid tried to eat, but got stuck between her teeth like corn on the cob, and is making her insane.  You especially know you're a mother when you're more thankful for the kid than grossed out by the booger.

Bargain Idea!

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I really wanted to do a new year's card this year, but damn, they get expensive! But then I thought, wait, last year I did a 5×7 photo card, and I liked it for the size and all, but… it was just a 5×7 photo that looked like a card, really….

So, instead, I took one of our family portraits, uploaded to flickr, opened it in picnik, and designed the card using their borders and text options, and saved it back to flickr, where I'm going to order only as many as I need, for 59 cents a piece, as opposed to $1+ per card, and then only available in batches of 25. WORD UP.

I'm picking up a 'proof' tomorrow at Target, just to make sure it looks okay, and then I'll order the rest tomorrow.

Just thought I'd pass that tip along….

(Oh, and flickr friends, that "holiday card" you see is not our actual holiday card. I did that to freak out my mom. :))

Flashback

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When I was 21, almost 22, one of my best friends from late high school/early adolescence died of a heroin overdose, and it sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. When JT died, Aton was my salvation. When Aton died 18 months later, it was devastation.

Anyway. JT had had a hard adolescence, struggling with his addictions, and when he died, I wrote his mom a letter, that, honestly, I can't remember much of now, almost 12 years later. I know I tried to reassure her that he knew his family loved him (it was clear) and that he loved them (again, it was clear, if muddy through the turbulence) but I don't remember much more. I was at their house when their new house was set up, and I remember their rabbit was named "Dinner," and that his brother shared the same name as a major rock star (full name) and that his sister thought she was trilingual because she knew "French, English, and Pig Latin." They had the same dishes I did, growing up, Hearts & Flowers, and his mom's name was…. Ingrid.

When Ingrid's name struck me, when I was pregnant, it just hit like lightning and fit, and that's why I was so insistent upon it, why it just seemed so Right. And I knew it was JT's mom's name, but while some names would be ruined by folks, this one wasn't. She is a good person. (Actually, she and her husband used to socialize with my mom when she first moved North, which is kind of interesting…) I named her, that was that.

Last week, my folks were down here (or somewhere) and a woman came into their studio to get some framing done, and asked one of the employees if my dad still owned it (yes), if my mom was around (no), and if I had ever finished my degree (yes). She mentioned that I was a friend of her son's, and the clerk said "oh, well that's her daughter Ingrid right there" and gestured to a giant photo that hangs as a sample on the wall, taken this summer. She apparently got a … look across her face, and said "excuse me?" and T said "that's Ingrid S, Gretchen's daughter."

When I heard the story, I asked if she'd left her address, because I really WOULD like to write to her, to let her know that some of us turned out pretty okay, and that I think of her, and JT, often. This week, she came back to pick up her stuff, and my mom was in, and they talked. Apparently, she still reads and rereads that letter I wrote, almost 12 years ago. The same-name-as-rock-star had some "hard times," but is now a civil engineer. The trilingual is in medical school. And I don't even have to hear from my mother that she mourns JT every day.

So, I want to write to her. I think of her all the time, especially having given Ingrid her name, I feel more sad for her, now, knowing what she lost. All that grief of my 20s was hard, but now? My god. Those guys were my friends, Aton, even more, and they were also someone's baby. When Ingrid wakes at 2am and wants nothing more than to snuggle down between Dave and I? Cool. Someday she won't want it. I will never, ever wish I had snuggled my kid less — whether that comes through my hippie-ass breastfeeding/babywearing/cosleeping practices, or just in the "Big Hug! SQUEEZY HUGS!" that she asks for and receives when I pick her up from daycare. I am blessed with each and every one.

How do I convey that to Ingrid the mother? That I have never, ever forgotten their family, that Ingrid isn't JUST a "pretty name," to me, but this little thread back to those dark, dark days, reminding me of how far I've come, and how much others have lost. I just don't know how to put it into words.

Kindle Lust

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Any of you have a Kindle? You know, the ebook thingie from Amazon? It seems cool.

One of my colleagues got one a few months ago to "test it out," and I found out by happenstance, and when I did, I begged him to let me touch it. I played for less than five minutes, and yes, it was pretty neat, but not, you know, three to four hundred DOLLARS neat.  Especially since it doesn't do library books, and I am more of a borrower than a buyer. (If it were like a Roku for library books — a $100 device with unlimited access, etc, I'd be STOKED. I do love the roku, seriously.)

Fast forward to Monday, when said colleague sees me in the hall and says "hey, you want that kindle? I hate it." He would rather read on his blackberry, just doesn't like it, learned what he needed to and was wanting to pass it on, so I was like OH, HELL YES. Only much more professional and calm, like "yeah, I'd love to have it, I can show it to faculty." (Um, yeah. Ahem.)

So anyway, now that I have had a Kindle dangled in front of me, I'm looking at the Kindle store and making plans on books to uh, test out on it. Obama's two memoirs are under 5 bucks, as is the Red Tent, which everyone tells me I should read, but I've resisted for so long that if my mom saw me holding the book, I'd just get some "I told you so!"

And I don't HAVE it yet. I have the box, and I've added it to my shelf o' tech boxes, that are, amazingly enough, great conversation starters to people coming near my cube (it joins a MacBookPro box, and two Flip Video boxes) but DAMN, I want to get some hands on with the thing. Here's hoping my colleague unearths it at home this weekend…..

Under the wire

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I didn't post anyplace else today, so here I am!

Here's my vent: holidays. The unconfirmed but probable schedule for holidays this year is that we have Thanksgiving and the day after (that IS confirmed), Christmas and the day after, and NY and the day after off this year. All good, except we'll have to work Christmas Eve, and my boss is very, very, Company First, and has already told us we are not allowed to take a vacation day because we will be SO BUSY at that time.

And, we won't be. Moving stuff online means we won't be, and even if it weren't online, NO ONE ELSE will be around that day, almost guaranteed. It's up to the offices at that point, and most are just going to close but waaah, employees will need to take a vacation day, but we are Not Allowed to use vacation for that day. It sucks. I'm doing a little sleuthing and am going to pitch that our front desk person (who started this summer, was married in July, and has a million family obligations AND is very devout in her Christianity) be able to take the day off, and that I can do a half day or work from home or something. The main thing that I would be doing is helping faculty navigate online grading, which I can do over the phone, and WOULD be doing over the phone, because NO ONE will be around that day. I KNOW this.

But, my boss will probably say no, because she doesn't even like that I take a lunch (no lie) and don't just eat cold spaghettios at my desk like she does every day. Again, not a lie. Even our student workers were shocked that we'd be working that day, and that none of them even expect to see ANY grades until after Christmas, let alone be able to see ALL of them. Anyway. Whine whine whine. Bedtime!

Thyroid

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Figuring out the thyroid thing, way back on Ought Five, was HUGE for me. I kept it in good check for a long time, it got wonky again basically when I stopped waking up at night to nurse Ingrid and I started missing pills, but I've made a really concerted effort in the last few months to get my pill in, every day. I have taken to eating breakfast at work, so that it goes down on an empty stomach, and I keep a few pills at work in case I forget to pop one before I leave the house. Still, though, I've been feeling crappier and crappier. I had my TSH tested about 6 weeks ago, and it was above 2, but I figured I'd just wait til I saw my doc at my annual appointment to discuss it. That was last week, and I had my blood drawn today for another check, and I'm really interested to see what the number is. I mean, I was ready to take a nap while doing my group power class, tonight, just bone tired. That along with my skin drying up, my hair falling out more and graying more, GI issues, etc… man, I really hope a tweak of my meds helps.

Anyway, in other news, driving home from the Y, I heard about Obama's grandmother and almost cried. What a sad way to spend the day before the election. I really hope she read 538.com.