Happy New Year: Part 2, The Photos

Like many other newer parents out there, we'll be having a fairly normal, casual evening at home with the boy. Note that I did not use the word "quiet."

Already, there has been some carousing,



a bit of heavy drinking,



and some fairly riotous behavior.


Not to fear, though, the raucous reveler passed smooth out before things got out of hand.


He wanted to make sure that you saw this, though:


Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2007.

Happy New Year: Part 1, the Not-So-Literary Meme

I was tagged by Kristin, and that's a very good thing, because after the holidays, my brain has been MIA. Kristin laments that her reading material is "nerdy and boring" and hopes that the others and I will have something better to offer. Well, Kristin, I hate to squash any positive impression that you had constructed of me, but unless by "better" you mean "boring beyond all comprehension?" Yeah, not happening over here.

The meme goes like this:
Find the nearest book. Name the Author & title. Turn to page 123. Post sentences 6-8. Tag three more people.

So you want to know what the closest book to me is? You really want to know? Well, actually, it's a Spanish-English dictionary. But I really didn't think that's what you had in mind. The next nearest? A phone book and an English language dictionary. Again, not exactly what memes are made of.

Then, finally, on my husband's desk, across the room from mine, I found a bonafide book. This is one that we've both read, one that we reference every now and again, and one whose philosophy we try to adopt in our own daily life together.

It's The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey. This book rocks. Well, that is, if you're in the market for getting your financial butt into shape. Otherwise, you'll hate it. So, yeah, page 123, sentences 6-8:

"So you must draw a line in the sand and say, "I will never borrow again." As soon as you make that statement, there will be a test. Trust me."

Oh, geez. That was JUST what I needed to read after holiday shopping.

OK, so if you're game and need something to kick-start your after-holidays writing, consider yourself tagged.

Yuletide Suckage

How Al spent his Christmas vacation:

Actually, this is how he is spending his after-Christmas vacation. Not pictured here is the TWO-HOUR wait in the doctor's waiting room, nor my semi-public breastfeeding (because oh good gravy, either I whip out a boob or the kid has a complete and utter meltdown) nor the fever-induced vomiting spree that occurred last night.

The boy is much better today. That kick-ass cough syrup completely knocks out the cough and congestion, but it also makes the kid just a smidge hyper. Frankly, though, after two days of listlessness and lethargy, I'm happy to witness some climbing and yelling and pointing and preaching (yes, I swear, he preaches).

So yeah, the Christmas Crud. We're rocking it.

And frankly, that's about all we've rocked this holiday. Blame it on my being a mom for the first time and finding that holiday shopping on top of everything else is just a tad much, or whatever, but y'all, I dropped the ball this Christmas. I did not purchase a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament, nor anything remotely up to standard for my most excellent mother, nor the gift that the Mr. really wanted because after he had said he wanted it last year, he told me he didn't want it this year, and come to find out? He really did want it. Lucky for us, his birthday is a mere month away. All that, after he gave me the most fabulous present in the history of Christmas.

I'm not worthy.

However, these little gifts were quite the crowd-pleasers:

And I'm pretty sure that all has been forgiven after the Mr. slept peacefully all night, while in an attempt to ward off more fever spikes, I set my alarm to wake up every 3 hours to administer alternating doses of ibuprofen and acetametaphen (I don't think that's spelled correctly, and I'm way to tired to look it up. No, I'd much rather just type this stupidly long parenthetical explanation about how I'm tired. And also lazy. You know, I also pick lint up off the carpet that the vacuum has trouble picking up, and then I flick it back down to try to vacuum it up again instead of just walking my fat ass to the trash can and throwing it away.)

Happy Holidays, y'all.

Merry Christmas to all...

...and to all a good night.

Wishing you and your family a peaceful and joyous Christmas.

Love,
Jeze, the Mr., and Al.

Not Gloom and Doom.

Contrary to what you may have gathered from yesterday's post, I am handling our daycare situation with a fair amount of tranquility. No, really, I am. Because here's the deal: In the grand scheme of things, the daycare sitch is just a bump. It's all good. Al and the Mr. and I are healthy. We are safe. We are happy. That's all that matters.

Not everyone is as fortunate. Not everyone can count a phlegmy cough as their child's most worrisome ailment. So you know what? I'm grateful that we have daycare issues. I'm grateful because that means that we have a healthy, playful baby, and I have a job that I love, and the Mr.'s work is steady, and we have a lot of good stuff on our plate.

I also realize that there are parents who have much greater worries. Parents who watch their children suffer. Parents who are in awe of their own children's ability to handle a bleak outlook of a future full of pain--physical and emotional--or worse. Of all the awestruck moments a parent experiences, that should never be one of them.

So, I'm taking this opportunity to say that I'm thankful for my worries. And I'm hopeful and prayerful for those with real worries.

But there's more that we can do besides hope and pray:

"Tis the season to give. In honor of Her Bad Mother and her nephew Tanner, Her Bad Auction is raffling off over 30 amazing items to help raise money for Muscular Dystrophy Research."

Read more about Tanner's story

May your worries be light.

Wheeeee!!!! It's MY turn...

...to sing the daycare blues.

The daycare--nay, school--that Al has attended for the last several months, where he has grown and thrived and learned to squeal like a girl (thanks a lot, little Lauren), where the teachers (who ohmahgod I love so, SO, much) love him so much too, the church daycare that I have more than once referred to as Al's "third parent?"

Is closing.

But don't tell anyone, because I'm not even supposed to know.

It'll be in the summer.

It sucks.

How-To Tuesday: This is way better than the angsty, we're-all-going-to-die-happy-holidays post I was working on earlier today.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a how-to, or a product review or just a plain ol' project report, but I tried something tonight that some of y'all might be interested in.

Erika said that her son's grandparents are getting these for Christmas, which, ohmahgod how freaking cute. BUT, I don't live in the Chantilly, Dulles, Reston, Oakton area (not even close!), and I'm also pretty cheap (OK, very cheap), and I would really like to try to make something like this for Al's grandparents and great-grandmother.

So.

One night last week, I started with the basics. I mixed up a batch of plaster of Paris, poured it into a shallow pan, attempted to straighten Al's fingers long enough to press his hand in the wet plaster, only for him to squish and smush the plaster between his fingers. Have you ever tried doing any kind of handprint project with an 11-month old? His daycare teacher manages to do one or two hand- and foot-print projects each month, and I'm not so sure she's not drugging them in order to get those little hands to stay open.* So, anyway, plaster of Paris? Not gonna happen.

So then I tried salt dough. I've had pretty good luck with this medium over the years, and I thought the thicker consistency might be easier to work with. It was. But in order for a small Christmas ornament with only one handprint to dry before Christmas, I had to make them only a smidge thicker than the handprint itself. Once the handprint had been pressed into the dough, the hand portion of the ornament was very thin. After baking, a few cracks appeared, and in the words of the Mr., the only thing worse than never having a model of Al's sweet little almost-one-year-old handprint would be to have the model break into pieces fifteen years from now (or less).

So, we brainstormed ways that we might be able to pull this off with plaster, and maybe have something a little more durable for ourselves. We drew on our knowledge of Mythbusters props, and we were pretty certain that latex would be the answer. Isn't latex always the answer? We imagined that we would somehow fashion a latex model of Al's hand and use that form as the "hand" to make the prints. That way, Al wouldn't have to even participate but once, and we'd have a genuine replica of his little hand.

So off I trekked to Hobby Lobby. They had the liquid latex, but I still wasn't sure what we'd used to make our mold, and it had to be brushed on, thin layer by thin layer, over a course of many, many long minutes. Riiiiiight.

And then, I spotted this stuff. And this stuff that went with it. The picture on the package even showed a baby having his hand molded!

We waited until Al went to sleep for the evening (we had already decided to do this even BEFORE we saw the package illustrations), and we mixed the mold putty and went to work on his hand and foot. Tomorrow I'll pour the resin and see how our little models turned out. The molds look pretty rockin'.

If you decide to use this stuff, just be aware that the putty starts to set up in 5-10 minutes. After it's mixed, that's about all the cushion you've got for getting it pressed onto the kid's parts.

I'll let you know how the rest of the project turns out.




*NO, she is not drugging them. She's just damned good.

Where I Go All Mommy-Blogger on You

Friday evening, I hoisted Al up onto the changing table to relieve him of one particularly spongey Cruisers #3. As I wiped and velcroed and tugged and buttoned, he chattered away while he played with his Farm Animals mini board book.

Al: Eye. Sss. Eye. Sss.

Me: Hey, you're saying the /s/ sound. That's a new one. Good job!

Al: Eye. Sss. Eye-sss.


Wait a minute. Eyes? Ice?

No, not "ice." Listen again.


Eye-sssss.

Oh, holy hell. He's saying "Alex."

How-To Tuesday. Again, With the Rice.

Today's how-to will be presented in the form of a Personal Narrative:


One afternoon several years ago I was having lunch in the teacher's lounge with a co-worker, Teresa, who was from Spain. I mentioned that I owned a coffee grinder, and she asked a very unusual favor of me:

¿Tienes un molinillo? ¿De veras? [You have a grinder? Really?]

Pues, sí. [Well, yeah.]

Entonces, ¿me haces un favor? [Then, will you do me a favor?]

Depende… ¿Qué es? [That depends. What is it?]

¿Me mueles una taza de arroz? [Will you grind a cup of rice for me?]

¿Eso es? ¿Para qué? [That’s it? What for?]

Para la piel. Lo uso para exfoliarme. [For the skin. I use it to exfoliate.]

No shit?

No shit. So you’ll do it?

Sure thing.

That night, I went home, plugged in my coffee grinder, and ran a cup of rice through it until it was finely ground. I quickly learned that grinding rice in your coffee grinder is an excellent way to clean it, so that first brown batch went straight into the trash. I carefully poured the next batch of fine, white, powdery rice into a baggy for Teresa, and then, I ground one more cup. That portion, I poured into an old empty margarine container that I took upstairs to my bathroom. Into my hand, I pumped a bit of my regular facial cleanser (a. k. a. liquid hand soap, because I'm fancy, you know), and then I sprinkled some of the ground rice on top of that. I mixed it up into a paste, then washed my face with it. When I was finished, my skin was the absolute softest it had ever felt. To this day, I regularly grind my own rice for various exfoliating purposes--course for feet, fine for body, and extra-fine for face and hands. I've yet to find a product that is quite as effective. Or gentle. Or cheap.

The next day, I plopped that ziplock baggy full of white powder in front of Teresa's lunch plate, and in front of our older, more conservative, ABC-vest-wearing teacher-type coworkers, I said to Teresa:

"That is some good stuff right there. And there's plenty more where that came from."

Not even Dr. Google can help me on this one.

Last week was a shit week. Things were tense at work, and things were tense here, and on Thursday, when Al spiked a 103-degree fever, I was secretly a little bit glad that I would have to call in on Friday and spend the day wrapped up in a blanket with The Boy.

We did exactly that--that is, after we made our 9:45am appointment with Dr. Grandpa. By the way, Al is never happy at the doctor's office. My otherwise easy-going, happy little critter melts smooth down every time we go the doctor's office. But at least I'm not ruining a good mood by having him prodded and poked. At least it's only a mediocre (at best) mood that's getting shot all to hell.

But yeah, after the doctor's appointment, we came home and got caught up on the DVR and watched some Food Network and napped. For hours. It was exactly what the doctor ordered, or it would have been, had the doctor ordered a day of slothfulness as opposed to Omnicef for suspected bronchiitis and almost-infected fluid in the ears and a fiery red throat.

I'm pretty sure we were dealing with a virus, because Al's fever didn't break until late Saturday night. And now I'm wondering if maybe he had roseola, because yesterday, he broke out with a rash covering most of his trunk and some places on his face and legs. He's getting much better, though, and his rash seems to be clearing.

Except it's probably not roseola, because I have not had a fever or any respiratory illness.

Yet, I am covered--COVERED--in the same kind of rash.

Did I mention that I am covered in this stuff? And that it itches? And that it is heinously ugly?

It looks and feels a lot like prickly heat, but it isn't just in one spot. No, I really mean it--I have got this stuff everywhere. I'm pretty sure it's even on my scalp, because my head itches like the rest of me. I took some children's Benedryl to see if it would respond to the antihistamine, in case it was allergy-related. That was an hour ago. So far, nothing.

OK, y'all. This is the inside portion of my arm. Lovely, no? Anyone care to make an armchair diagnosis? And let me remind you that this is what my ENTIRE BODY looks like.

Mmm. Sexy.