Soccer practice -- involves walking off the field?!

Sometimes I turn to Daddy to step in on parenting dilemmas.

I picked up Natalie for soccer practice and was thrilled to hear that she had "excellent listening ears" all day. I thought that this would bode well for soccer practice, combined with her excitement about Saturday's game, and the pictures she was showing her friends, etc. Got her all dressed in many layers, got her shin guards on, the long socks, the cleats -- and she was showing her friends her "soccer outfit", and she seemed very excited to be going to practice.

We get to practice a little early (5 minutes) and we sat on the bleachers waiting for her coach. At practice I have to amuse Nicholas -- not an easy thing to do. Coach shows up and Natalie heads out with her team. About 10 minutes into the practice, Nicholas is tired of sitting and asks to "walk around". So I take him for a walk away from the field. We start to head up some stairs, and I see Natalie following us, calling "Mommy, I want to go to the playground" -- a good 50 yards away from her coach, team, and practice field! So Nicholas and I turn around to go back down the stairs, and I tell Natalie to go back to her team. She says, "I want to go home." I tell her that she cannot go home, that she has to stay at practice, that she just can't walk off the field like that, and she says she doesn't want to play soccer.

Now I am admittedly starting to see red. I send DH an email saying that she just walked off the practice field. By now we are near her practice field, and I send her back on to the field. She stands there and won't go back to her team. So I tell her we are going home and she can tell her coach that she is quitting soccer. She refuses to move.

I tell her we are going home and we head towards the car and I tell her I really don't like that she is a quitter. She says she is not a quitter and she wants to go back to soccer.

We turn back around to head towards practice and she manages to get back on the field. 10 minutes of hardly participating, and then she says she needs to go potty.

Like there is a bathroom next to the field. (!)

So off we go again -- back to the car -- and I told her she could wear one of Nicholas' diapers to do her thing. I did not think that this would go over well, and no, it did not.

We managed to get her back on the field again. She is standing around looking at her teammates practice.

I am seeing red again so I call DH on the phone and tell him to talk to her.

We went round and round with her for about 10 minutes. No, you can't go to the game on Saturday if you don't go to practice today. No, it is not fair to your teammates if you just walk off the field. No, you can't just walk away from your coach. Etc., etc.

She gets back on the field again and this time she practices. A little. For about 15 minutes total.

I didn't know what to do at this point so I tried the "positive reinforcement" approach and took her and her brother out to dinner at their favorite restaurant, Silverado. I told Natalie that we were going out to dinner to celebrate that she was not a quitter and she went back to practice and listened to her coach. I have no idea if this was the "right" thing to do, but I was running out of ideas. And we discussed at dinner that she would NOT walk off the field and she would NOT walk away from her coach and she would NOT let her teammates down.

Heaven knows if all of this will make any sort of an impression.

Spring Soccer - week 1

The day we all have been waiting for -- the First Soccer Game!

Here are pictures from today.

We are in the Braddock Road Youth Club Soccer league, and, believe it or not, there are 12 teams in the Under 5 (U5) division. Each team plays a "no scoring" game each Saturday, where the teams are divided up so that there are two games of 3 on 3 going on at the same time. This was the children get lots of time touching/kicking the ball, and there is not a lot of "bench warmng".

Natalie got hit in the nose by a soccer ball BUT SHE WAS A TROOPER and took a short break, got some water, and went back into the game.

The trick is to get the children to score into the right goal, and to keep them on the field -- after a while they don't see the lines and just keep going after the ball!

The coaches and assistants do a tremendous job with the kids. I am VERY impressed with the league and how everyone is there for the kids.

We ALL had a blast today!

Uniform night

We went to "uniform night" to pick up Natalie's soccer uniform. Two shirts (royal blue and silver/gray), two pairs of socks, and a pair of black shorts -- size XS. There were only two other "packages" there in size XS , so I'm glad we got there rather early (6:15 pm) as otherwise she might have been without a uniform. (That just would not do for her! :-) )

And about churches -- I sent out an email to a couple of email lists that I am on -- I asked about family-friendly churches:

I am looking for a toddler/pre-schooler friendly church community in
northern Virginia. I really do not know what denomination, but I'm
guessing it would be along the more "liberal" side of things (i.e.,
our beliefs center on evolution vs. creationism; we are supporters of
social justice). I'm looking for church communities that people really
LOVE and are family-centric.

Well, that was a good thing to do! It seems that there are many families in a similar predicament, and many of the families are either Catholic or former Catholics. So, for all those that emailed me -- thank you! And here's the list of most-often-recommended family-friendly churches in the northern Virginia/DC area (listed in order of "number of mentions" by email):

1. Our Lady Queen of Peace, Arlington VA
2. Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Arlington VA
   
3. St. Aloysius Church, Washington DC
4. Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Washington DC
5. St. Francis of Assissi, Triangle VA (about 30 miles south of Washington DC near Quantico)
6. Falls Church Presbyterian Church, Falls Church VA
7. St. Peters Episcopal Church, Arlington VA
8. St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Annandale VA
   

Also, two Intentional Eucharistic Communities were recommended -- these communities do not meet at a formal "church":

1. NOVA Intentional Eucharistic Community, meets at Kenmore Middle School, Arlington VA on Sundays at 10:15 am during the school year
2. PAX Community, McLean VA

I think we are going to give Our Lady Queen of Peace a try. Just have to see which has a good "fit".

Totally fed up

Based on where I live, my ordered-to-be-there parish is St. Michael's Church. If it is possible to despise a church I do. There is no "family friendliness" about the place. As the mom of a 4 year-old and a 2 year-old, I cannot take my children to Mass there because there is no place to take the children when one or more of them "fusses". I have been known to drive to Alexandria to attend Mass at Blessed Sacrament that has more of a family-friendly setup re: Mass. But I have enrolled and paid for my 4 year-old to attend CCD on Sunday mornings.

Now this (see below) is in the Bulletin at St. Michael's.

I am taking this opportunity as your Pastor to write to you, my parishioners, about a recent event that has happened in our Diocese. On March 25th, our Bishop gave permission for the use of girls and women to serve Mass in the parishes of the Diocese. When the Holy See allowed girls and women to serve Mass in 1994, it also reminded the bishops and priests of the Church through the world of the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar. Our Holy Father of blessed memory, Pope John Paul II (in his Holy Thursday letter to priests in 2004), even remarked how altar boys "“represent a kind of garden"” of priestly "“vocations,"” and that their service at the altar can be an invaluable experience of education in our Christian faith that becomes a sort of "“preseminary."” Here at St. Michael'’s we have been blessed over the years with many young men who served at the altar and have been ordained as priests, including Deacon Phillip Cozzi, the latest of the many of our parish'’s "“priests sons"” who will offer his first Mass of Thanksgiving here in June.

Because of the noble tradition already set in place here at St. Michael'’s, and the many vocations to the priesthood that have been fostered through this practice, we will continue to allow only boys to serve at the altar. In doing this, I ask all parishioners to pray for an increase of vocations to the priesthood, and that the Lord of the harvest will shape and form those men He calls to follow Him in the Sacrament of the Holy Orders to be priests after His own Sacred Heart. St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us!

I am so unbelievably mad that I'm ready to just leave the Catholic church altogether. NEVER have I seen such an attitude!!!!!!! This is so VERY FAR from what I experienced while growing up/living in Massachusetts!

I have already posted to the DC Urban Moms list begging for advice on what church I might be able to join. The overall consensus there was to drive to DC and join a parish there. IS THIS MY ONLY OPTION??? I am so very, very upset. I am hanging on to my Catholic upbringing with a slenderest of threads now, and I'm so tempted to toss it all away and go to the Unitarian Church (or something like that) starting this weekend.

After dinner sweet talk

I just snuck upstairs to our loft bedroom -- where the "office"/guest room is -- and I'm listening to/overhearing DH talk with the children downstairs. Both children -- one at a time -- requested "cuddles with Daddy". Nicholas said, "I would like cuddles, please -- I'll lie on your arm" and Natalie said, "Make room for me, please." So the three of them are all snuggled together on the floor.

Listening to the love of those sweet little voices -- it's magical!

Pot luck dinner

Friday we went to the pot luck dinner and family music night -- here are two quick pics (unedited) trying to give you a sense of the fun we had. Here's Nicholas sneaking some water to drink and here's Natalie with DH having fun with the table decorations.

Schedules

I admit that I'm somewhat of a geek when it comes to "technology stuff". Add that trait to my tendency to plan and, well, I end up using electronic calendars a lot. As in a whole lot.

I think I may have crossed the proverbial line now as I'm scheduling appointments in my electronic calendar -- and adding DH to the schedule list, too.

It probably sounds very weird -- but with all that we have going on, it's the only way to anticipate what is coming up for "the next few days".

Between dance class and soccer and swim class and the civic association and the PTA and the parents group at pre-school and community things -- life "after work" is downright dizzying! And that doesn't include other "family things" like birthdays and weddings and such.

Sorry, DH -- more email appointments are soon to come!

Diocese of Arlington changes policy on altar girls

The Diocese of Arlington has awakened to Vatican II -- um, I mean changed its policy on altar girls. Well, it can't be said that the Diocese doesn't take their time in deliberating.

As Call to Action of Northern Virginia suggests, read the policy statement on the Diocesan web site for specifics:

"...Since 1994, our diocese has permitted girls and women to serve at the altar in several settings: university and college campuses, convents, nursing homes, retreat houses, hospitals, and home Masses. In desiring to make available those legitimate options endorsed by our Church, I am expanding our previous permission to include our parish and high school communities.

Some parishes have actively requested the liberty to allow female altar servers; others have not. The Church’s permission in this arena, accordingly, allows for a legitimate diversity of options. The decision to allow female altar servers lies at the discretion of the local pastor, in consultation with his parochial vicar(s), deacon(s), and parish pastoral council.

The Church – which has allowed the use of female servers for over a decade – has stated that girls and women, like their male counterparts, are allowed this opportunity to serve at the altar and thereby deepen their faith, an experience which can facilitate a young woman’s discernment of the Lord’s call to religious life or a young man’s discernment of the Lord’s call to the priesthood or religious life."

As DH said to me, time to shake the apple tree a bit at our mandated-based-on-real-estate "parish church".

Dare I post this -- feeling better!

Yes, the Scourge appears to have left the house.

Natalie has been feeling great since Sunday with no signs of pneumonia or whatever was in her. She took her last dose of Zithromax on Monday and (*knock on wood*) has been normal, as normal can be with seasonal allergies.

I have been battling The Fevers: Version III since last week but FINALLY feel better today. I also got a couple of hours of work done at 1 AM, so most everyone would say that I'm much more normal now.

Natalie's first soccer practice was cancelled yesterday. Evidently the county decided to close all the fields for some unknown reason, so her first soccer practice will be next Tuesday instead. It was pretty cold out anyway, so it's probably for the best.

Have to share a True Story from my dad -- he's been working on getting rid of cable TV where he lives (Massachusetts) to switch to satellite. He had to switch internet providers first, and he waited until the satellite people could come by to get the install done today. I get this message in my inbox:

Direct tv CANNOT BE PUT IN BECAUSE OF THE TREES. Going back to all comcast.They will be here on April 6 to do that. Still on verizon till then. I spent 45 minutes with comcast to get all this all going.They will call verizon onthis. WHAT AMESS TO DO.

Nice customer service on the satellite provider's part, don't you think???

On that happy note -- check out today's Washington Post article on the supposed joys of buying a "bundle" of services from telecommunications providers.

Another visit to the Pediatrician

Yes, another visit to the pediatrician today -- another (great!) doctor in the practice. (Have I mentioned that I love our pediatric practice? If you are in northern Virginia and want a great pediatric practice, drop me a note and I'll tell you all about them.) We went to the pediatrician after Natalie had a 103 (!) fever. Of course I was not in the office but on the way to a meeting on Capitol Hill, and DH could not go pick her up because today is The Final Day for Appropriations (and he worked until some insane hour last night trying to get everything done), and my friend at my office who is my backup was at a dental appointment -- so I recruited another friend in my office who is a single guy, no "kids experience", etc. -- and he was AWESOME! I owe him so big.

Anyway...

The doctor checked her over. She has an ear infection now (as compared to Tuesday) but the doctor said that was not the cause of her fever. He listened to her heart several times and said that her heart rate is very fast for "just a fever". Based on her heart rate and her look (no arabesques) that he is concerned about pneumonia. However, she has no difficulty breathing.

She is starting on Zithromax today for her ear infection. DH will be home with her tomorrow. She's watching Cinderella right now and enjoying a fudgsicle.

She is such a trooper.

The Pediatrician

Yes, we visited the Pediatrician. I made the call first thing in the morning and got an appointment for 1 P.M. Of course I got a call around 11:15 A.M. from the preschool teacher that her temp was already at 100. (!)

So we saw the doctor at 1 P.M. The doctor asked Natalie how she was, and, as she did her best Angelina Ballerina-like arabesques in the exam room, she said "I'm good". Both the doctor and one of the Inova Fairfax residents smiled at her -- and I think the resident was holding back some giggles.

Short version: ears, nose, throat, chest are all fine. Doctor's recommendation: if she is her normal self (doing ballet moves) and she has a fever, don't give her anything (Tylenol, Motrin). If she has a fever and is lethargic, then call and have her seen by one of the doctors.

And yes, keep her on Claritin if she has a history of seasonal allergies, as the allergy season will be 2 months + this year thanks to the early "bloom" of the trees.

The doctor asked if anyone else in the household is now sick. I said, "No, we are all doing great." Silly woman I am -- talk about tempting the fates. Yes, I think I've got it now, too. (cough cough hack hack)

Home Today

I'm home with my daughter today.

Yesterday afternoon her temperature shot up like a rocket -- easily over 102 -- and I gave her some Motrin to bring her temp down. She pleaded to go see Curious George and her temp was down, so I brought her and Nicholas to the movies. After the movie, we all went home and her temp seemed to be going back up again, so I did the "alternate with Tylenol" approach that her pediatrician had told me to do ever since she had a febrile seizure as a baby. Well, her temp continued to rise. Even DH (who got home at 7:30 P.M. from working all day on a Sunday) agreed that she was HOT. So we opted to get her into a bath, and she was so very uncomfortable. Alternated with Motrin a bit later, and her temp continued to climb. She was well over 103 and I didn't bother taking her temp because I knew it was really high. I had her sleep with me so I could watch over her. It was 73 degrees in the house thanks to the warm weather on the East Coast yesterday, and she had winter pajamas with a comforter pulled up to her nose and she was shivering.

I seriously thought we were going to have a trip to the ER last night.

This morning she was up at 6:30 A.M. and she was her chipper self! She said "I feel much better, but my sniffling is still there and my cough is there, too." Seasonal allergies I think, but I'm not sure.

I have a call in to the pediatrician about the allergies. I'm just glad she is BETTER. I was pretty worried last night.

Sleeping angels

It's 2 PM and both children are sleeping. I sneak peeks into their rooms every so often -- they are so beautiful!

DH is working today -- yes, Sunday -- as this week is his appropriations deadline week and he has some huge number of letters to get onto some huge number of forms. I called to check in on him about a half hour ago -- he had about a third of them done, and that's from working on them since 10 A.M. today.

The kids and I went to swim class. Somehow I managed to get all three of us changed into swim gear and get Natalie off to her class with the right teacher and get Nicholas and I off to the other class. Who needs DH, right??? ;-)

We came home for lunch and I told them the only way we could go see Curious George at the movies is if they napped. So far, so good -- of course it's only been an hour.

I haven't spoken with my parents yet this weekend -- they went to the New England Spring Flower Show in Boston yesterday and today they are at a band (US Army Band? US Marine Corps Band? Not sure) concert this afternoon. I want to know what the flower show was like, particularly on opening day.

Yesterday we tried to go kits flying in the afternoon but we had pretty variable winds. Maybe we'll try again later today, if the thunderstorms stay away.

DH said he would be home by 6 P.M. so we could all have dinner and we could get baths done. We've got dueling priorities for Sunday night TV now with The Sopranos back for this season. Thank goodness for DVR!

Breakfast with Buzz Lightyear -- another year

My son has a fixation on Buzz Lightyear. Yes, the Tim Allen-voiced character from Toy Story/Toy Story2. Nicholas is so cute about it -- "To Finny and Yond." (Translation: To Infinity and Beyond -- and what in the world is that supposed to mean, anyways? Pixar? Disney? Anyone?)

Well, we -- um, I -- have been planting myself over at the DisBoards to get on the latest rumor mill about a BOYS character meal at Disney-MGM Studios in Florida, knowing that a casting call went out for "Sarge", for this new character meal. All sorts of rumors started, including who would be part of the meal (Breakfast and Beyond was the name, including Buzz and Woody), when it might be possible to make reservations (ADRs) for this meal. Then February 28 came and went, as did March 1 -- and no ADRs and no official word from Disney.

The latest rumor is that there has been a delay in the meal and now it will not be until sometime in June -- after our trip to Disney. :-( I'm so bummed. Still holding out a little hope, but definitely not counting on it any more.

On Balance - Juggling Work and Family

Leslie Morgan Steiner has launched a new blog over at washingtonpost.com. She also has a new book out (an anthology) titled Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families. I am a little frustrated with the title because it sounds like it focuses solely on moms again vs. including dads, but I will withhold judgement until I actually read the book. I heard a little bit of her appearance on today's Diane Rehm Show and, from what I heard, I will surely read the book. I just wish that a little more attention was paid to dads -- especially as working dads.

Spring is almost here

Yes, the robins have taken over our front yard so Spring must be near!

I'm feeling much better -- finally. DH is in the midst of his "crazy season" with appropriations. This year they have compressed the schedule so he is only crazy for 2 weeks instead of 2 months like last year. His final deadline is on Friday March 17, so he'll be "normal" again the following day.

As an example of his schedule -- he had to be at a fundraiser last night until 7 pm so he got home at 7:30 pm. I had a civic association board meeting at 8 pm and wasn't home until 10 pm. He had a briefing first thing this morning so he had to leave the house at 7 am.

Nicholas started in the 2's classroom last Thursday so he is in his "big boy" classroom now. He is very excited! Both of them start swimming classes again this coming weekend.

We got Natalie a baseball (tee ball) glove and bat this past weekend. Also have the tee stand. Her glove and batting gloves are PINK! Have to get her a helmet, too.

We are planning on going kite flying this weekend. DH has to work one of the afternoons so if the forecast holds, we'll go kite flying Saturday afternoon and I'll take the kids somewhere (???) Sunday afternoon. I might take them to the movies to see Curious George.

Now let's just have the weather forecast hold...

Green Eggs and Ham...and bacon, and cleaning, and working

Natalie was in tears while I read Green Eggs and Ham. Why? Because her friends were sharing her Mommy.

I did get quite a welcoming -- 8 little faces shrieking "SHE'S HERE!!!!" as I walked towards the classroom door. And the kids were all great. Except for Natalie. She went into TOTAL meltdown. And when I was done reading the story, she didn't want me to leave.

*sigh* Not a fun way to return to the office.

And speaking of offices...looks like Mr. Tierney has done it again in his NY Times piece. Amanda posted about it a few days ago and I read about it on Elizabeth's site. And Bitch PhD summed it up -- we are just darn tired. And are working dads equally tired?

And, for the record, I'm happily married. I'd appreciate it a little if DH could be home earlier so I didn't have to listen to "I'm hungry" calls at 6:10 pm until 7 pm, but, like he told me tonight last night, he has to be in the office from 9 am until 6 pm. No options.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

March 2 is Dr. Seuss' birthday and I'm going to my daughter's pre-school in the morning to read Green Eggs and Ham. I'm not sure who is more excited about it -- my daughter or all her friends that she told at pre-school today!

My Little Man is getting ready to move into the 2's class in mid-March. He's been 2 since December, but he has no spot to move to -- until one of Natalie's classmates left the program because Mom is switching jobs. So a spot opened up in pre-school, which started the whole "domino effect" thing. So Nicholas doesn't have to wait until June to move like we had first thought.

DH is staying home on Friday as the kids have an in-service day. We try to swap off as much as we can, so I covered the January in-service and DH will cover this one. They should all have fun together. In the meantime, I am meeting the literacy coordinator at our local elementary school that day to get a sense of how they handle varying pre-reading/reading issues in the classroom. The decision between public and private Kindergarten is maddening, I tell you. Just what does one really get for $17K a year? Or, as someone suggested to me today, is it what you get or what you are avoiding for $17K a year?


DH is in work madness until Saint Patrick's Day. I kiddingly told him, "I'll talk to you in 2 weeks" -- but that really isn't so far from the truth. Looks like I will have exclusive parenting duty for the next two weekends.

PLEASE let there be nice weather this weekend!!! *grin*

Light posting

Yes, I know -- very light posting recently because I have been sick. As in REALLY sick. As in Fevers: The Sequel. Blech.

We did go see Clifford The Big Red Dog at the Warner Theatre this weekend. It was fun and both kids were wide eyed through most of it. I just love bringing them to live theater -- even if it is Clifford -- because it is an important "arts" element for them to learn to appreciate.

More tomorrow.

The citizen outreach meeting

Yes, I went to the citizen outreach meeting tonight. I am so very sick right now but went just the same. I have actually been sick since Thursday, but spiked a fever Friday, through the entire weekend, and now I'm down to 100 degrees.

But I went to the meeting. To learn that this process is so VERY long.

This weekend I was buried with stuff for work but I managed to take some time Saturday to not only take Natalie to dance class but for all of us to go to the MCI Center to see Disney on Ice: Princess Classics. We all had a great time! Nicholas had just enough right after the intermission, and DH took him back to the car (inside the MCI Center parking garage) where Little Man fell asleep after about two minutes. Natalie, on the other hand, was enraptured throughout. And the second half of the show was all about Cinderella. My Little Princess was SO happy!

Sunday was me stuck working as well as Monday. Except I went to the doctors on Monday. Yes, I have a fever. Who would have guessed?? (sarcasm off)

Next up -- a few of us are planning a neighborhood egg hunt. If you have any tips on organizing an egg hunt, please send them my way!

Civic Association

We had an "emergency meeting" of our civic association board tonight. (I have some sort of title -- "Director of Communications" or something like that. Of course we can't even locate our by-laws, so we are in a little bit of disrepair. *giggle*) There's a proposal to tear down a small strip mall and replace it with 75% residential housing units (rental apartments) and a new shopping center. Of course we just happened to hear about this, and it was AFTER the public hearing last November. So next Tuesday there is a "public outreach meeting" to communicate what in the world is about to be festooned onto us. And we are going to be very vocal with our District Supervisor to let her know we are none too happy about how she begged and pleaded that the civic association be re-established so citizens would know what is going on the in the District, but then she does not even communicate anything to the civic association!

More later...

The birthday party -- and first time skating

Natalie skipped dance class this morning so we would have an easier time making it to C's birthday party at the skating rink. Natalie has been talking about this birthday party for weeks. She was ready with her new Cinderella bicycle helmet, too.

I'll have to figure out a way to get the video I captured on the Treo onto the blog -- it was VERY fun. She did great -- mostly falling down, but she was LAUGHING through it all. Then she resorted to licking snow off her gloves! She was very proud of herself -- as well as she should be.

Next weekend we're going to see Disney on Ice with the princesses. I think she'll have a new-found appreciation for skating.

We are under a "heavy snow warning" until tomorrow morning. I had wanted to bring Nicholas to the train show, but I think we'll skip that and play in the snow instead. It's not like we have had a great deal of snow this winter. Actually, the last time we had snow was early December, which technically wasn't even winter!

Maybe Natalie will start skating lessons in the fall -- we'll see!

Kindergarten Information Night - Bailey's Elementary

Tonight I went to "information night" at Bailey's Elementary. Bailey's is "the magnet school" that everyone talks about in Fairfax County. So DH got home at 6:25 pm tonight so I could be out the door at 6:30 pm to attend the information session.

The school principal did a brief presentation and then said "anyone interested in full immersion Kindergarten, go over that way" into the corner. There must have been 70 people that were herded towards one of the Kindergarten classes. But they never made it clear that two of the Kindergarten classes are full immersion, and there are another SIX classes that are "plain ol'" Kindergarten classrooms. I think this confused lots of parents. It wasn't clear to me until over two hours later after Q&A with the principal!

We visited the various "labs" of the school. I am particularly interested in science education, as I think science education is getting shortened up right now thanks to Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOL) and other "mandatory testing" requirements. The science teacher is amazing at Bailey's! What a fortunate school to have someone like her there! But she focuses on older children. So if we were to send Natalie there, I am honestly not sure how much she would gain from the school. Plus she would have to be out of her neighborhood (which is something I absolutely hated about going to a "gifted & talented" program when I was in 4th through 6th grade) and, since we are a household with two working parents, any playdates would be relegated to the weekends. And that is just not fair to Nicholas, either.

I think we are going with our neighborhood elementary school. Our Kindergarten orientation is in April. I think we'll just have to figure out ways to augment science education into "after school" stuff.

2 AM musings

Around 2 am this morning, my daughter was at the side of my bed.

"Mommy? Are you awake?"

"Yes, sweetheart, what's the matter?" I mumbled.

"Mommy, I only want to wear dresses at Walt Disney World and not shorts. Boys can't wear dresses so I want to wear dresses."

"Okay Natalie," I replied.

"Thanks, Mommy. I love you." And she kissed my cheek.

"I love you, too, angel. Go back to bed."

"I will Mommy. I love you." And back to bed she went.

Sparklers

We went to a belated "family-oriented" New Year's Eve party last night -- it was rescheduled from New Year's Eve due to the hostess having a pretty bad cold/flu thing going on for the beginning of 2006. We took Natalie and Nicholas out for a long ride before the party so they would sleep. (Little Man is a nap refuser on the weekend.) We all had a great time.

Natalie had her first experience with sparklers. Initially she was afraid of "fire" but after 10 minutes or so of all the children (including some 2 year-olds) holding sparklers with their parents, Natalie really liked it and was holding two sparklers at a time (with Dad nearby). Nicholas was not really interested in the sparklers -- much more into Thomas the Tank Engine. (No shock there.)

Nick was starting to get a little cranky, so we left around 7:30 pm, and then headed home to watch Herbie Fully Loaded. It was a much better movie then I thought it would be! I was a little hesitant to add it to our queue in NetFlix, but I'm glad we did. Even Nick was laughing hard in parts of it. Jeff Gordon was actually quite good in his cameo, too.

More on Jacob Robida

Thank goodness he has been stopped.

Jacob Robida

Wow -- the whole Jacob Robida thing is way too freaky.

1. His mother is the sister of someone I went to middle school/high school with. (I saw her when visiting my parents a couple of years ago -- I had brought my daughter to the local park and "S" was there with a little girl 2 months older than my daughter -- except it was her GRANDCHILD.)
2. DH went to middle school with a "J" Robida (back in the early 70s), who "got into trouble" because he had a Nazi flag on the end of his pencil. DH thinks that "J" is the dad.

This whole thing is frightening. Doesn't help that the parents are clueless idiots.

All Thomas or cars, all the time

Nicholas is big into Thomas the Tank Engine right now. He sleeps with one train in his right hand and one in his left hand. When he wakes up, he wants to know where Thomas is. If it is not Thomas, he wants to know where his cars are. (He has roughly ten of the small 64 scale cars.) It's all Thomas or cars, all the time.

He's in the toddler classroom and has not moved up into the 2's room yet because there is no spot to go to yet. (The plague of a December birthday.) But today, one of the children in the 2's classroom was out, so Nick could go "visit". He spent the morning all the way through lunch there. He got to serve himself his lunch. He played with all sorts of new toys. He set out his own cups and plates. At nap time, he went back to his classroom for a rest. He told his teacher all about the things he did -- playing with fire trucks, and puzzles, and books, etc. He was all excited!

My little guy is such a big boy now!

Decluttering, continued

On weekends we declutter. We have been trying to do a little bit at a time. It's to the point now where Natalie knows that it's "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere" time on Sunday afternoons and she gets a trash bag to start wading through stuff.

Elizabeth posted about the "excesses" of it all at Half Changed World today. We are living proof of it, especially post-Christmas. With Nicholas' birthday just 12 days before, the toy explosion turned into a true mountain. We have finally unburied ourselves from the toys in the living room and in Natalie's bedroom, so now we only have one bedroom and the dreaded playroom to tackle.

All this decluttering forced me to make some changes in birthday-gift buying -- out of sympathy for friends that are also parents of young children.

Natalie has been invited to a skating party for C's birthday in a couple of weeks. I just LOVE the idea of a skating party -- physical activity is always a great balance to cake and juice. But I was facing the "what do we get for a gift?" dilemma.

Then I decluttered this weekend.

The gift will be books. Two books. Not four. And no, not one. But two.

And I get to put my "we really like these books" list to good use at the same time.

Drop-off madness

Nicholas, my little guy (AKA Mommy's sugarplum), wailed for 20 solid minutes on the ride in today. He kept repeating "No see (insert name of someone in his classroom)" over and over again. When I dropped him off, he was glued to my leg. Much like he has been glued to me at home for the past three days -- no, daddy is not an option -- "Walk away, Daddy" is the order from Mr. Nicholas. He was crying so much that Mommy Guilt set in and I was tearing up.

Thankfully "this too shall pass" and he was fine within a minute of my leaving. But wow -- talk about an emotional start to a Monday.

I'm on several "moms' lists" including a great "working moms" list for the DC area -- DC Working Moms. It seems like everyone that has a 2 year-old is riding this "mommy-centric" wave or has ridden it recently. Oh, just to get to June when he'll be 2.5 years.

Dentist update

Natalie went to the dentist on Wednesday. She had her teeth cleaned, another fluoride treatment (like she had 6 months ago), and she also had x-rays done. (!!!) The dentist looked at her teeth and Natalie was proud to say that she had stopped sucking her thumb during the day -- the only time she sucks her thumb now is at naptime and at night to go to sleep. The dentist gave her a big High Five! The dentist told me that there was no problem with her sucking her thumb now, especially since she had stopped during the day, and that her teeth alignment looked perfect. (YEAH!)

The next day, one of the teachers told me about this cute exchange at naptime. Natalie was lying down on her cot sucking her thumb and then jumped back -- "no" she said. The teacher asked her what was wrong. She said, "The dentist said I can't suck my thumb." So the teacher suggested that she snuggle her blanket way up high so she wouldn't suck her thumb. Natalie tried that and said, "But now I have two hands! Normally I have one hand to twist my hair and the other hand to suck my thumb." So the teacher suggested that Natalie twist her hair as she always does and the teacher would rub her thumb until she fell asleep. So Natalie tried that for a few minutes but that wasn't working either. She started to get a little upset, but the teacher said, "Natalie, I'm sure your dentist would say that you could suck your thumb now because you really tried not to suck it today." So Natalie sucked her thumb and was asleep in 2 minutes.

Update on Mom

Mom went to see the new doctor today -- a neurologist who specializes in dementia/Alzheimer's patients. She's been pretty uneasy about seeing the new doctor, but once she got there, she really liked him. He's trying a new "recipe" of meds with her, small changes/tinkering at a time. When I talked with her today she seemed MUCH more relaxed about things, and I think she is sleeping better, too. I think my dad is also sleeping better. There is NOTHING better than one night of good sleep -- other than several nights in a row of good sleep.

Proof that email advocacy works

Check out today's Washington Post story about the "Home Serenity and Tranquility Act" introduced in the Virginia General Assembly. One of the folks at the Virginia Youth Soccer Association heard about the bill on Thursday and, according to the Post story, over 1,000 emails have already flooded in to the bill's sponsor's office.

And where is the bill now? According to the story:

The bill was assigned to the House Courts of Justice Committee, whose chairman, also a Fairfax delegate, said he plans to kill it first thing Monday.

Nice eadvocacy work, folks!!!

Added to the NetFlix queue: The Smartest Guys in the Room

I just added "the Enron movie" to our NetFlix queue.

No, I did not get to see the movie when it made its way to theaters -- the last time I saw a movie in a theater where the movie did not have animation was in 2001. So I have been waiting for this to come out on DVD. I read a review of it over at The Moderate Voice and it looks great. I loved the Frontline piece that aired before everything collapsed at Enron, so I'm anxious to see Jeff Skilling again. *evil grin*

More on Great Wolf Lodge

Great Wolf Lodge has this deal where you borrow a waterproof digital camera for the length of your stay and they sell you a CD with all your photos in a slide show for $25. Sure beats risking your own digital camera in a water park!

Here is a sampling of some of the photos:

• Natalie on the raft in the wave pool -- if she could have, she would have spent the entire weekend in the wave pool

• Natalie on the raft leaning way back to get her hair wet

• Another picture of her on the raft

• Dad with Nicholas in the wave pool

• Nicholas smooching Mom

• Natalie swimming in the toddler pool -- this is with life vest on; she swam for a good 15 yards!
  

• Natalie sliding down the toddler water slide
  

• Brother and sister enjoying lollipops

Jack Bauer

Yes, we are back to normalcy -- Jack Bauer has returned.

Ran across The World According to Jack Bauer in my travels -- VERY funny stuff!!!

Oh -- and for those with little ones -- Great Wolf Lodge is wonderful! Just be sure to do your own grocery run as the food is -- well, it's not great.

Delurking week

I learned from Half Changed World that this week is Delurking Week (created by Paper Napkin). So please say hi and let me know if you share disdain for how some toy companies wrap their toys in what seems like miles of twist-tie wraps. (Or just say hi.)

Field trip day

Today was field trip day -- we went to the Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs and see their mammal exhibit. We had a GREAT time! We took the Metro from Virginia to the Smithsonian stop. All of the children were very well behaved with their listening ears on. We arrived a little early so the teachers gave out snacks to the children before we went in to the museum. Then when the museum opened, we went through security ("bag check") and first saw the elephant in the rotunda, then spent time touring the dinosaurs. We made our way over to the mammals after that.

With all the transportation time and the need to be back for lunch, we still managed to hit the highlights. And it was great to be with Natalie as I could add emphasis in areas that I think are important. For example, there was someone working in the Fossil Lab and I could mention what that person was doing and why it was detailed work and such.

The parenting dance

I'm on a couple of parenting lists that recently have had lots of discussion about two "working outside the home" parents managing home life with one or more children. I have to say all the posts have been great to read because I have been fretting a bit about how in the world we are going to manage in the fall when Natalie starts Kindergarten.

Currently I handle both drop-off and pick-up, which does make a little bit of sense since my office is a block away and DH's office is the absolute other way in DC. It doesn't make it easy, though. It's still an additional 40 minutes of "on-the-job duty" of fastening car seats, controlling arms so that a toy doesn't go airborne, keeping peace in the car while we drive, getting children out of the car and keeping them safe until we get into the lobby, get them in classrooms and coats hung up, talk to teachers about the night, etc. Then add a similar 40 minutes at pick-up time. Times 5 days a week. Yes, that's an additional 6 2/3 hours -- or almost an additional WORK DAY -- each week.

DH gets it easy.

Dance class...redux

Dance classes have started again and today is our first class for the winter and spring session. This time the class is for the four and five year-olds. Natalie is THRILLED to be in something for the five year-olds. She keeps asking when her birthday is (August) so she can be five.

I know she will have two friends from pre-school in her dance class, and maybe even three friends. As I type, she is "practicing like Angelina (Ballerina)" by spinning around the floor and trying to do leaps. It is very cute!

I wish parents could stay outside the door to "watch". I'll just have to hear all the great details when her class is done. Thankfully she has the same teacher as her last class -- that way she will be more comfortable in the class.

Stroller wars

The stroller wars have started.

On Tuesday, Nicholas (the oldest child in his toddler room) found two new doll strollers that were brought into his classroom. He spent all day pushing the stroller around! His friend G spent her day pushing the other stroller around. They had such a great time!

Yesterday, Natalie went with me to pick up Nicholas -- and she got to see the new strollers in the classroom. Now SHE wanted to push the stroller around. She tells me, "Mommy, you know the pink stroller that is up in the attic?" (The attic, where we circulate out toys so we don't look like a toy store annex.) "Mommy, I'd like to play with that when we get home."

My mistake was saying "yes". Because I only have one "pink stroller in the attic".

So I brought down the pink stroller from the attic. Natalie ended up watching the clock to see just how long her "turn" would be with the stroller. Nicholas, in the meantime, is nearly hysterical. HE wants the stroller.

So I go down into the playroom and bring up the pink plastic stroller.

Now we have the pink stroller and the pink plastic stroller. The war shifts into who has what baby. Natalie has her Bitty Baby in the pink stroller. Nicholas has the Not Identifiable Baby in the pink plastic stroller. He wants Bitty Baby.

Natalie knows that Bitty Baby has to be taken care of "extra special".

Nicholas tugs at Natalie's dress.

Natalie screams.

I'm ready to move BOTH strollers back to the attic. Instead, I get Red Shopping Cart from the playroom. And two more babies.

This bought me 10 more minutes -- until bathtime. While DH handles baths, all strollers, carts, and babies were put away in the playroom. Except Bitty Baby, who went back to the cradle in Natalie's bedroom.

We'll see what happens from the Stroller Front tonight when we get home.

Happy 2006!

Best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year have not hit on all cylinders on the "healthy" part -- I've been down with a cold all weekend. (And no, it is NOT the flu!)

We were supposed to go to a friend's house for a family-friendly New Year's Eve party, but she had to cancel on Friday because -- you guessed it -- she's down with a whopper of a cold, sore throat, laryngitis, etc. Both of her daughters made it through okay -- it's the moms that are left flat on their backs.

Anyway, we put together a small "just for us" party for home, with lots of munchies and such. I had a fever and just felt yucky. So we welcomed in the New Year (Natalie was asleep by 10 pm and Nicholas was asleep by 11:15 pm -- I followed closely behind at 12:30 am) and got some rest, too.

On Monday, we took down the Christmas decorations (on the 9th day of Christmas -- so much for the 12 Days of Christmas, but out tree was really starting to drop needles) and put everything away. We did some laundry and organized some toys. And we had lots of fun playing with the kids and trying to let me get some rest.

I'm feeling a lot better today than I did on Saturday, but not at 100% yet. I'm not even at 75% yet. But I'm hoping I am better tomorrow -- especially so I can go to work. I have so little paid time off that I need to save every day I can for the inevitable coughs/colds of the children and for the litany of school days off for the County. Yes, my baby girl is going to start Kindergarten this year! *sniff sniff* Have to start planning on hoarding paid time off.

Anyway, happy and healthy New Year's wishes to you!

A Belated Merry Christmas

Belated Merry Christmas to all! (Light blogging due to family being in town.)

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas! Mom and Dad arrived on Thursday and all went well at the airport. DH picked up the kids and we all went out to dinner at a fun family restaurant in Springfield VA called Paradiso. They have a kids room where all the children eat dinner at picnic tables and watch a movie while the adults eat in the family room outside, with a big window between the two rooms. A nice way to catch up with adults and for the children to have fun, too.

On Friday, DH went to work while the rest of us went to the Tysons mall. We had lunch and then headed home for gift wrapping. We picked up some pizza for dinner and watched The Polar Express for family movie night.

On Saturday, my parents stayed home to wrap presents while the rest of us made our mad dash run to Wegmans for groceries and to pick up our holiday ham. Then I took my parents out with the kids for lunch at Chicken Out before heading to Lady Bird Johnson Park to see water-skiing Santa. We caught a very very short glimpse of Santa -- better to see him on the web site! Well, the excitement must have caught up with Nicholas, because he fell asleep on the way home and slept...and slept...and slept...right through to our planned departure time for church at 3 pm. So we stretched it until 3:30 pm. Then 4:00 pm. Then 4:30 pm. Then we decided to skip it altogether. Saturday night was dinner at Silverado early (5:20 pm) and then putting out presents under the tree.

Sunday morning was an EARLY awakening by my daughter with the announcement that Santa had brought things in addition to the presents we had put under the tree for each other -- and she asked permission to go downstairs to look. (We have a split level house so she can see from the stairs but not REALLY see from so far away.) She found a rocking horse, a Cinderella doll set, an Alice in Wonderland dress, a box of Princess wigs, and a turtle suitcase. Her brother found a Plasmacar, a GeoTrax airport, a GeoTrax fire and rescue station, GeoTrax rescue equipment, and a turtle suitcase just like his sister's. We spent the morning opening up presents, and then DH cooked up an awesome breakfast -- Baked French Toast with strawberry and blueberry sauce. YUM! We were so full from breakfast that Christmas lunch got shifted to Christmas dinner. As my Mom said later, it was a very "old fashioned" Christmas -- lots of fun watching the kids and no stress.

Monday we were silly enough to go back out shopping at Tysons. Picked up a few things on sale, but were not so silly to be at the Nordstrom men's sale at 7 am -- a 10 am arrival was fine with us. We picked up lunch at zpizza -- it was a different spot to try, but I wasn't "wowed" by it. I tried to finish up laundry -- I had somehow managed doing 13 loads of laundry on Christmas day, mostly for all the new clothes the children now had. Both children were pretty tired so they napped in the afternoon. We went to dinner again at Paradiso -- my parents are Italian food fans so it is an easy choice -- and called it a night early.

On Tuesday, DH went into work and we got the luggage loaded into the car and headed first to Pentagon City mall ("The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City"). My dad was looking for a store that used to be there called The Impostors Faux Jewelry -- but it wasn't there any longer. (I hardly ever go to that mall any more because the stores I shop at are not there, so I had no idea.) We picked up a few things on sale and then readied to do our airport drop-off. Of course there flight was very delayed -- as in 2 hours later arriving from Nassau, Bahamas. The airline did not tell them much, either -- even changed their gate on them and made no announcement. But they made it home finally, and received a phone call at home from US Airways "apologizing for the inconvenience". How nice. While they were at the airport, DH and I were organizing closets for donations to charity. Not sure how many bags of clothes we ended up with -- maybe 7?

Yesterday was back-to-work day for me and DH's day off. He did the bags of clothing drop off and ran some other errands. With Congress being out for the entire month of January, here's hoping he has a reduced hours schedule then, too -- sure helps to get errands done and makes up a little for the very long hours he puts in when Congress is in town.

All in all, a fun Christmas. I think about some friends and family that are not here this Christmas and I hug my children a little tighter. I'm glad that my parents got to spend some good time with the children, too.

Arrival Day

Like everyone else during the holiday season, I have been busy readying for today. Today is Arrival Day. My parents' arrival, that is.

Yes, Mom -- the one that has not been on a plane since 1993 -- Mom agreed to fly down here from Massachusetts. As I explained to her, the flight is not that long -- she has been to longer Masses at church. But with Mom's condition -- who knows how today will go.

I phoned my parents on Monday at lunchtime, and my mother was ready to draw and quarter my father because -- according to her -- he had told her that they would be visiting us for Christmas but he had not told her that they would be staying overnight. I talked to her for about 20 minutes to try to calm her down, but she was ready to jump all over him. I feel so bad for my Dad -- mine is just a 20 minute phone conversation, and not having to be "on" 24 hours a day with no downtime.

Although I am diametrically opposed to just about every stance of her politics, I always felt such admiration for Nancy Reagan for what she did for her husband. That is just very tough stuff.

So we'll see what happens over the next six days. The LAST thing I want to have happen is something "weird" that sticks in my children's mamories. But I also want to give my father some sort of "downtime" from all this. Maybe I can share the load a little with him for a short time.

An angel has left this Earth

A dear friend left this world this week. It has hit me (and many others) quite hard.

Sheila was a very spiritual person, and frequently turned to St. Therese ("The Little Flower") for support. I have been seeking solace in St. Therese these past few days and learned more information about St. Therese. St. Therese was canonized as a saint by Pope Pius XI in 1925. He then declared that St. Therese would be co-patroness of the Missions (along with St. Francis Xavier) on December 14, 1927.

I like to think that St. Therese called on Sheila on December 14.

Post-birthday synopsis -- the evils of toy packaging

Well, the Birthday Day is done. We had a party in the Toddler Room complete with cupcakes from Heidelberg (YUM!) and Elmo plates and napkins. And fire chief hats as party hats.

Then we came home and had Nicholas' favorite food (pizza) and chocolate cake with ice cream. Then we got to the presents. Natalie seemed to really want to help open everything. First up was Natalie's gift to her brother -- a John Deere set with tractor, pick-up truck, and farm animals. Of course every bloomin' thing is wired in place. Grrrrr. No points for John Deere.

Next up is the LeapFrog Fridge Farm Magnetic Animal Set. Thankfully no wires, and batteries ("for demonstration purposes only") are included. One point for LeapFrog.

Next up is the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnets. Thankfully no wires, and batteries ("for demonstration purposes only") are included. Another point for LeapFrog.

Finally, the Geotrax "deluxe starter set" - purchased direct from Fisher-Price. I actually lost count of how many wires I untwisted after counting to 30. And it cannot be for "display purposes" because they do not sell these in stores!!! Many many grrrrrrrrrs and no points for Fisher-Price. (Although the train itself is very cool once you get it all untwist-tied!)

So, on the lovely note, I looked on Technorati to see if anyone had been blogging about this packaging lunacy -- and yes, Blogging Baby has a great post about this article in the Olympia, Washington Olympian about the hazards of toy packaging. VERY funny stuff!

Happy Birthday, Sugarplum!

Happy 2nd birthday, my little man!

I cannot believe two years have flown by so quickly! It seems just yesterday that I was waddling around the MCI Center at The Wiggles concert trying to find your sister who decided to go "exploring". At the time, I had no idea how my heart could get any bigger to love another child more than I loved Natalie. But it happened. And you stole my heart the first moment I saw you.




And I love you and Natalie more and more each day.

Thank you for being in my life, Nicholas. Thank you for coming in to my life and throwing my entire world upside down. This journey with you has been so incredible!

I love you, sugarplum!

Back from Baltimore

We just got back from Baltimore!

Friday I stayed home with the kids for a "snow day" and packed for our short trip to Baltimore. We went to celebrate Nicholas' birthday -- my little man will be 2 years old on Tuesday (*sniff sniff*) so we celebrated his birthday just like we did for Natalie. We went to the National Aquarium and to Port Discovery. We stayed at the Renaissance Harborplace -- very nice, but self-parking at $21 a day? What is up with that??? Well, I did get the room for a deal on Priceline -- so I won't moan too much.

Anyway, we had a blast. The new addition to the aquarium is VERY nice. Inner Harbor is a great deal of fun during the holidays -- very festive with the lights and decorations, people caroling along the waterfront. Lots of fun.

The pavilions at Inner Harbor could teach their retail sales help a little bit on the "May I help you?" front. DH went into one of the stores and he was nearly accosted by one of the clerks -- "What can I help you find today?" before he even made it completely inside the store. He said, "Nothing" and walked out. I HATE when I get followed around like that. Send me straight to buying online!

Pictures from The Nutcracker

Two pictures from our visit to see The Nutcracker:

What a little sleep will do - quick post

DH arrived back on Friday so I was in bed and asleep at 6:15 PM. *AHHHHHH*

Saturday Natalie and I went to the Nutcracker and had a great time. This year's production had lots of new choreographic twists to it -- VERY well done!

Sunday we went to get the kids' pictures taken -- it was a great photo shoot but My Princess was a little cranky and let everyone know about it.

I'll fill in more later...

What Kind of Freaky Mother are You?

Who knew?


You're a punk rock mommy! DIY is probably your
motto, because you're a punk mama at heart.
Your kids are getting your independent spirit
and guts, and learning to solve problems
themselves. You love it when they show their
independence, even when it's breaking your
heart.


What kind of a freaky mother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Today is Friday...

Today is Friday, Today is Friday, Friday is fresh fish...

Ooops -- slipped into the Eric Carle book for a moment. Must be the lack of sleep.

Yes, today is the last day of solo parenting. United Airlines, no mess ups with flights from San Jose this afternoon, thank you very much.

Our parents' group at preschool did a fundraiser to raise money for bonuses for the teachers -- we sold wreaths this week and it turned into a pretty nice fundraiser ($800 profit). I put the wreath in my car Wednesday night and opted to store it outside instead of in the house so that it would be in better shape to hang on our back door. Well, I was up until midnight on Wednesday night (actually more like 1 am Thursday) doing laundry and was up at 5 am Thursday cooking. (Yes, I was making a casserole for dinner at 5 AM Thursday.)

As we were leaving at 8:20 am Thursday morning, my daughter says, "Why is the wreath over there in the carport, Mom, and not hanging on the door?"

I nearly lost it. But I am happy to say I bit my tongue.

But REALLY!

Little Man seems to be doing much better. He's been on the Albuterol since Monday night and he was supposed to be on it for 3 to 5 days. I think I am going to stop that medication today as the wheezing is gone. He'll still be on the Omnicef for another week for his ear infections, but he really sounds so much better.

Of course my daughter now has sniffles, sneezes, and coughs. Perfect timing for Daddy's arrival and for the possible first snow in DC sometime this weekend.

Dad and mom see the attorney this afternoon. I think my dad managed to do the living will part but not my mom -- dad said she broke down in tears just reading the paperwork, and said that my brother and I would know what to do. Sheesh.

My advice to all -- do everyone a favor and complete a Living Will WAY before you are eligible for a AARP card.

Double ear infection

My Little Man is not feeling well.

I left work early yesterday to take Nicholas (and that means Natalie had to go, too) to the pediatrician. Nicholas has a cold with some chest congestion and wheezing and I wanted to be sure he was okay. (Natalie has a history of febrile seizures and those tend to run in families.)

We saw the nurse practitioner and Nicholas has two ugly looking ears. He's on Omnicef once a day for the ear infection and liquid Albuterol three times a day for the wheezing. I stopped by to visit him at lunchtime today to give him his 2nd dose of Albuterol for the day.

I have dinner cooking in the crockpot --we're having spaghetti tonight, by request for Natalie. My laundry should be washing as I post because I have the "delay wash" all setup. Still have to take clothes out of the dryer as I did not get a chance to do that last night, but I'll manage that tonight when waiting for the water to boil for pasta.

My hat goes off to single moms everywhere. Trying to do this with one child isn't too bad, how anyone does this with two children for the long haul is beyond me. And for those single moms with more than two children -- let's just say I am in awe of you!

Speaking of crockpots -- check out Slate's article on great slowcookers!

I survived Day 1!

Yes, I made it in to work on time and with children and gear, too!

I called the pediatrician office first thing this morning -- Nicholas still has a cough and I want him checked out today. So we have an afternoon appointment.

I spoke with Mom and Dad today -- Mom is excited about coming down to see the kids but is not too keen on the airplane ride part of it. I told her that the flight is short -- she's been to longer Masses at church. I think that made her giggle. :-)

I'll update about Nicholas when I know more. Tonight is make our own pizza night for dinner so it might be a late update.

Daddy goes to California

DH is enroute to California for the week. This is a rare occurrence for him to have to travel (and for so long), so it is a little bit of an adjustment for the family. Here's a copy of the email that I just sent him (so he can read it on his Blackberry):

After dropping you off at the airport, with both kids asleep in the car, I went straight from there to Harris Teeter to get groceries for the week. (Yes, I had a list and a menu "in my head" for each night.) By about the Beltway interchange, Nicholas had woken up and seemed confused why I was driving instead of "daddy". But I told him all was okay and he went back to sleep.

As we got close to Harris Teeter, I asked Natalie (who was asleep) if she was ready to help me at the grocery store -- and that we were going to get strawberries, and some ice cream, and some cookies, and dinner -- maybe we could make pizza this week, etc. Just tried to keep it "light". She and Nicholas were all excited, and she said that she was going to have "good listening ears" and help in the store.

So we got the racecar shopping cart (WOOHOO!) and did our grocery run. One of the workers brought two balloons for the kids -- they were thrilled! Then we had to stop at the "dinosaur" (dragon). Well, there was an "Out of Order" sign on it. Natalie was okay with it, but Nicholas was hysterical. :-(

We made it out to the car as he was sobbing -- and it started to rain. Got both kids and balloons in the car, loaded the car up, and headed for home.

Got the kids in the house with balloons -- Nicholas is better now. Got the groceries in the house. Saw the condition of the fridge -- YUCK -- and fixed that while they watched "Old MacDonald" downstairs. Got the groceries put away and got dinner on the table. Nicholas sees "Daddy's car" and wants to know where Daddy is. "Daddy, where are you?"

After dinner -- started putting lights on the Christmas tree. Three sets of lights are blown, so got most of the lights on and started doing bead garland together. We'll finish that after I get more lights tomorrow. Nicholas asks, "Where's Daddy?" I've been saying that Daddy is on an airplane to California. Now I add "Daddy had to go to work in California, so he won't be home tonight." So Nicholas said, "Daddy at work on airplane."

Now we move to bath. Nicholas still asking about "Daddy -- bathtime". I tell Nicholas, "Daddy is not here." Nicholas says, "Daddy at work on airplane." Got them all set, made the offer for everyone to pick the bed they want to sleep in. Natalie wants to sleep in Nicholas' bed. Nicholas wants to sleep in Mommy's bed. So that's what we did.

Nicholas STILL asks, "Where's Daddy?" I hugged him and said, "Daddy is not coming home tonight. He's on a plane to California for work. He loves you and will see you on Friday." With that he rolled over, scooted his back towards me, and fell asleep.

Love,
Boo

So far so good. I have everything ready for work tomorrow. Let's see how close I am to my "real schedule" without Dad around.

And can I just say I am loving the look of my refrigerator tonight? It was FUN to get it so clean and so QUICKLY, too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week has been pure madness.

Every spare moment has been focused on Mom. Dad met with the attorney on Tuesday so that he can get health care proxies, power of attorney orders, and a trust setup for their house. That afternoon, Mom went to see the PA at her doctor's practice -- the visiting nurse took her blood pressure on Monday and it was 190/90. Her blood pressure was fine on Tuesday -- Mom thought that there was some sort of "plot" to move her into a nursing home. She sees her new neaurologist on January 12 and does not see her primary care physician (a cardiologist) until December 12. My parents will be spending Christmas with us and this is only week 2 on Aricept for her.

We had a nice Thanksgiving at home. At one point we had planned to go to Richmond to go to the children's museum and the science museum, but I'm glad we did not go as both children were not feeling all that well yesterday. Nicholas has a constant runny nose and Natalie had a low-grade fever yesterday.

We took the final gates down yesterday (!!!) after the electricians came to do all the work on lights on Wednesday. We now have timers on all new exterior lights, a motion sensing floodlight in the backyard, and new lights in the children's bedrooms and the kitchen. Yesterday and the security system folks came and moved our security box, too -- a very productive week!

Today we did The Big Clothing Sort and donated 7 bags of things to the Salvation Army. Tonight we went to see the drive-thru Christmas Lights out in Upper Marlboro, MD -- VERY nice and we plan to go back with my parents when they come to visit.

Oh -- the Christmas cards also arrived. I'll share the picture early:

The week from Hades

Figures that four days of heaven would be followed by four days from -- well, you know.

I have been putting major house into the charity event that I am the reluctant co-chair of -- plus my co-chair announced last week that she is leaving and moving back home to the mid-west. Plus there is just so much work involved with this charity drive thing and, no matter how many people you have that ARE really pulling their weight, there is an awful lot to do.

Today (Thursday) is the first day that I could literally take a breath. And it did not help matters that our neighborhood's civic association had a meeting on Tuesday night. Plus it appears that I am on the verge of battling mastitis and my mom is not doing all that great.

More on all this tomorrow...or maybe Saturday. I made an appointment for myself to get highlights on Saturday -- 2 hours away for ME TIME and away from everyone. Well, except my stylist, whom I love. I can hardly WAIT for Saturday!!!

Four days of heaven

It is Sunday night, and DH is trying to get Nicholas to go to sleep...oh yeah, good bloomin' luck on that.

I had four days with my children. It was HEAVENLY!

Thursday we went to the Air & Space Museum. Such a cool thing being so close to the Smithsonian. Anyway, we went by my office and took the Metro from there, and headed over to Air & Space. Natalie's requirement was going to the planetarium to "be in the dark and see the pictures of the planets on the ceiling". Well, I heard about the new IMAX movie "Magnificent Desolation". It's a 3-D movie of walking on the moon. So I asked her if she wanted to see the movie or go to the planetarium. She wanted the planetarium. Well, we arrived around 11:20 am and I knew the IMAX show was at 12:25 pm, so we had lunch first, then went to see a couple of exhibits (How Things Fly and Air Transportation) and then headed over to the IMAX theater. Perfect timing! Went straight in and got our 3-D glasses. Nicholas wasn't sure about the glasses part but Natalie was totally into it. It was a GREAT movie and we all had so much fun! The fastest 40 minutes I've ever seen with them!

After the movie, we went to the planetarium and caught that show. It was okay, but not nearly as good as IMAX. Nicholas started to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" towards the end of the show.

We went through more exhibits and called it a day at 2:30 pm. Neither of them had napped yet and then both of them fell asleep on the walk back to the Metro (thank goodness I brought the double stroller!) and we made it back to my car at my office. When I was buckling Natalie into her car seat, she asked me why we didn't get to ride the train back from the museum. *giggle*

On Friday, DH was home for the day so it was the beginning of the Attack the Leaves in the Yard weekend. We bagged 13 bags of leaves on Friday. By the end of today (Sunday), 29 bags were filled with leaves and set curbside. We have easily another 20 bags to go in the backyard alone, and we have another tree to "drop" its leaves.

Saturday and today were typical weekend days, but somehow we just managed to get so much accomplished this weekend. The programmable thermostat is now installed. The chimney sweep came and did his inspection. The fireplace accessories are by the fireplace. Lots of clutter has been dealt with. All the new exterior and interior lights are not only ordered but actually here -- all I need to do is mark what is going where so the electrician has an easier time of it. Our leaf blower actually works. :-) My beef stew is cooking for the charity event on Wednesday.

It's frightening, but somehow we just got tons done this weekend. Maybe I need more long weekends like this!

Oh -- news about my mom. Friday morning was her first REALLY good morning. She went to sleep at 8:30 pm and got up at 6:30 am. She felt so good, she went shopping with Dad to get greens/decorations for the house. That made me feel so good!!!

Charitable giving

Well, my "big week" is almost here. Our "Concern for Community" week starts on Monday. So here's a link to one of the organizations that receives assistance through the United Co-op Appeal -- NRECA International Foundation.

Pre-school has an in-service day tomorrow and DH is up to his eyeballs in Congressional stuff, so I' m taking the day off to be with the kids. (WOOHOO!) So we are planning on going to the Smithsonian tomorrow. Should be lots of fun!

I did some reading on Aricept -- full effects of the drug do not occur until 6 to 8 weeks after starting on the medication. So I called and told my dad that. When I spoke to my mom this afternoon, she was in tears with me on the phone because she is so frustrated calling my dad my brother's name. She feels it is very insulting and she is so disappointed in herself. *sigh* -- this is so VERY hard.

Dad bought a George Foreman grill and a crockpot. I sent him his first recipe today. I am thinking about putting together a ring binder of large print recipes for him for Christmas. I think they might really appreciate that as a gift. So if you have any great recipes that have only a few ingredients, please share them!

Now I am on the search for a flu shot. Both kids got flu shots yesterday morning, but our work-based flu shot clinic was cancelled due to shortage of vaccine supply. So I guess I might be in line for a flu shot this weekend. We'll see...

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad

Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad! 57 years ago (but who's counting?) was your wedding day at Sacred Heart Church. I hope you have many more years together.

On a good note, DH's mom was released from the hospital today (yes, both moms were in the same hospital at the same time!) and she'll be going to a rehab place for a little while before she can go back home.

My mom was visited by a nurse today and my dad could take a short break from care-giving. The nurse will return next week to check on my mom.

We made a appointment with the attorney for November 22. I'm going to email my dad with questions he should ask and papers he should bring with him.

Mom sounded a bit better this afternoon. I didn't call tonight as it would have been too late.

Congratulations to Governor-elect Kaine!!!

You MUST check out this post on divas...

Mindy has this Diva thing NAILED!!! Oh, to be mom to a 4 year-old diva...

Oh, what a week...

Sorry I have been away. It's just been a little crazed in my life.

It all started Friday morning. As I was heading out the door, my sister-in-law called -- my mother was being taken to the hospital by ambulance because she was weak, dizzy, and had numbness in her hands and fingers. And wait -- there's more.

The day before, she "saw" a woman in her bedroom -- the woman told her that my father was not eating. Something happened and my mother walked to my brother's house -- somehow managed to get there -- and was sitting out on his porch at 9 a.m.

Evidently my mother decided to stop taking her "memory pill" (for dementia) a month ago. Thursday night, my sister-in-law urged my mother to take the pill again.

So -- back to Friday. My sister-in-law spent the day at the hospital. I was spending time making long distance phone calls trying to reach my mother's doctor. He's out and will be out through the 18th. So I pieced together what I could and faxed my mother's doctor with the details. In the meantime, my mother is having all sorts of tests -- all come back negative. But my mother is still exhausted and feels like she has been run over by a truck. Maybe there is a medication reaction with the memory pill? The hospital staff says no. Mom tries to stand up and she is very woozy.

They keep her there overnight to get her rehydrated. She is discharged Saturday morning. Yet she is still woozy.

So my father is running ragged trying to care for her. They had talked with a nutritionist before discharge so they both knew how much she needed to eat. So Dad is off to the grocery store to get food but he is afraid to leave Mom alone. Neighbors sit with her while he is gone. She eats very well on Saturday.

Sunday morning she is still very sleepy and now has ringing in her ears.

Dad is going to stop the memory pill again. He wants to go to the neighborhood pharmacy to ask about side effects. I convince him to call the doctor-on-call at the medical place my Mom's doctor is at. He gets a call back -- the memory pill is the cause and don't take anymore of them.

So why didn't the hospital say that?

She eats well on Sunday. Plan is to call Monday morning and get into see the nurse practitioner or the physician's assistant as soon as possible.

Monday morning, she is still pretty woozy. She has a 2:15 PM appointment with Minnie, the P.A. that she really likes. She went with both Dad and my sister-in-law. Minnie says, "You look really tired" and Mom says she is. Minnie puts her on Aricept. My sister-in-law is trying to get a visiting nurse or a home health aide in to check Mom's blood pressure and to help her get bathed and such. I found an attorney who happens to be a friend of my sister-in-law's to help my Dad through the health care proxy issues he faces.

I tell you, it is hard to be so far away and also help out in some form.

Some venting

You know....it's true when people say that only you can allow yourself to be used. But it seems that there are more and more people attempting to do the "using".

An example -- I have been "volunteered" to be a co-chair of a charity event. (It's one of those "you can't say no" things.) I have been REALLY hauling on this thing as it is now less than 2 weeks away. Everyone else on the committee -- and I mean EVERYONE else on the committee of 11 people -- seem to have more pressing things to get done. I, on the other hand, have been putting in 30+ hours a week on this stuff and other things have been back-sliding. Well, guess what? I took today to primarily work on this charity event thing and tomorrow I am officially off-duty. I am spending the day working on Real Stuff and I am delegating so that everyone else handles it.

I'm tired of being the bailer.

Happy Halloween

Wow, things have been incredibly busy the last week! All thanks to Halloween!

Our neighborhood civic association has been -- well, "dormant" is the best word to use, I suppose -- over the past several years. A group of neighbors has helped revive it and, on September 29, we had a General Meeting and officers were elected, etc. (No, not me -- I have way too much to do and there was no way I could commit to something like that.)

Well, I volunteered for a few things -- which included the development of flyers, brochures, etc. That included a flyer announcing our neighborhood's Halloween costume parade on Saturday October 29. A team of volunteers (numbering about 4 or 5, I think -- again, not me!) leafletted our neighborhood of about 900 single-family homes last week. I was a little concerned about the weather, but it was absolutely beautiful on Saturday afternoon -- and we had roughly 40 children show up in costume for our parade! It was great fun! My daughter -- um, Princess Belle -- walked the whole parade route not only in heels but also without a wrap over her yellow ball gown! My son, on the other hand, pretty much stayed in his Mommy's arms for the entire route -- 34 pounds of Mickey Mouse can do a number on Mommy's back!

So today we'll do a visit (in costume, of course) to my office and then head home for trick-or-treating.

First I have to get through some stuff at work. I'm the co-chair for our organization's annual charity drive and we have "the presentation" to do today before senior management. That's at 1 p.m. so once that is done, then I can focus on Halloween.

Why did I pick Halloween as the day to do a presentation before senior management? Oh yeah, it was the only day that fit most everyone's schedule. *sigh*

Happy Halloween!

Blogmaster

See Erick's post on his blog for news.

Hurricane Wilma's second landfall

Hurricane Wilma just made landfall this morning and it must really stink to be a on-air meteorologist. Wilma came ashore as a strong Category 2 and of course the media is complaining about how no one knew that it would be "so bad".

All I want to say is *hrumph*.

WFOR has some pretty decent live coverage.

Hurricane Wilma

One of the weather boards that I frequent is the Eastern Weather Board. What's great about the board is that there is a mix of professional meteorologists and amateur "hobbyists", and folks post very detailed analyses of weather models and such. If someone is "into" the weather, it's a great place to just read and learn.

What has been interesting for me is to watch the "tone" of the board over this hurricane season. I have been part of the board for a couple of years, so I'm accustomed to seeing the "bring on the heavy snowstorm" frenzy and the "bring on the hurricanes" chants. What HAS been different this year -- due to the catastrophic damage of Katrina -- is the more measured response when some continue the "bring on the Cat(egory) 5" ardor. It's great to see posts that remind everyone that a Cat 5 in a shipping lane is all find and dandy, but a Cat 5 making landfall ANYWHERE (including the Yucatan) is not such a good thing.

I wish the media would learn a little from the Eastern Weather Board.

Oh, and one more thing...go check out Cecily's post and wish her a Happy Anniversary. Just don't use the C word. :-)

Regression

I got up a little early this morning because I didn't have a lot of room in bed -- yes, DS made his way into our bed last night. And imagine my surprise when I took a step across my bedroom floor and spotted my daughter spread out across our bedroom (hardwood) floor in her Dora sleeping bag.

I replied to Sharon's comment that DD tried to bite someone at preschool yesterday. We are now over 6 weeks since DD has been in her new pre-K classroom, and the two-year-old-like behavior is still going on. I have already spoken with our pediatrician about this, and have read what seems like every parenting book out there on the subjectss of whining, hitting, biting, and fancifulness. DD's teacher absolutely shares our concern and has been trying a positive approach (rewarding when using words, when playing nicely with friends, etc). But the misbehavior continues. And now we seem to have regressed to sleeping in the sleeping bag in Mom and Dad's room.

I'm frankly not sure what the next step should be. *sigh*

Way too much rain

The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for Taunton, near my hometown in Massachusetts. The Whittendon Pond Dam is on the verge of failing, and emergency management officials have evacuated 2,000 people as of last night. News reports state that the 100 year old dam was inspected two year ago and declared in fair condition.

As for here in our "new" home state, the roofers are almost done -- just the carport remaining. And yes, DS did wake up in the middle of the night again, so we do not have a trend for sleeping for 7 hours at a stretch. And I have a community association meeting tonight. *yawn*

Roofs

The roofers have started their work. *wump wump wump*

They have been a little delayed thanks to the rain in the area *wump wump wump* but managed to get about a third of the roof replaced on Friday *wump wump* and another third done yesterday. *wump wump wump* DS ended up with NO NAP due to the noise. *wump wump wump* So he had a late dinner *wump wump wump* and went to bed (with DH's help) in his big boy bed at 9 PM.

He slept until 4:20 AM.

This is the first time in 22 months that he has slept so long without needing "Mommy". Mommy got to SLEEP. What a GREAT concept.

And of course Mommy was so shocked by it all that I got up and posted it here. DH is getting DS back to sleep now.

Call me stumped

Yes, just call me stumped. Pass the Clueless Parent Award this way, please.

For the life of me I cannot figure out what is going on with my daughter. I thought we nipped the transitions issues, and now she is right back to her 2 year-old status, this time for teasing her best friend at preschool. My daughter is just plum MEAN right now. And she is hyper-sensitive about EVERYTHING.

I think I have read through at least a half-dozen parenting books, and I tell you, I think there is a book out there that gives the proverbial "there there" pat on the shoulder to every form of parent. But there are no SOLUTIONS.

The director from preschool offered to meet to talk some more. I told her I didn't know what to talk about because it is so darn frustrating. I don't know what to do at this point. I am seriously considering holding her back from Kindergarten next year, because this sort of stuff is NOT acceptable. (I sound like that Super Nanny lady!)

And on the toddler front, my son is still hitting children. At least he stopped biting, but now he is hitting. And getting him down to go to sleep takes HOURS. DH has been in with him for over 90 minutes now just to get him to go to sleep in his toddler bed.

Madness, I say -- absolute madness.

We now have a shed

Yes, the shed people/installers came today. The ground had dried up enough and our handy-dandy little "flags" held up in spite of A River Runs Through It going on in our backyard.

I had my minivan cleaned today -- as in detailed. Wow, does it look BEAUTIFUL! I took the double stroller out and the two car seats out, and the man worked his miracles! He started on it at 11 am and he finished at 4:15 PM! It really looks beautiful. I was anticipating having to buy new floor mats, which are pretty pricey in a minivan. But it really looks like a new car!

DH stayed home with the kids today as I don't get Columbus Day off as a holiday. The commute in today was SO LOVELY -- 15 minutes from my driveway to the elevator in my parking garage. If that is not an incentive to establish flextime, I don't know what is.

That's about it here -- heading to bed to catch up on some sleep...

Bring on the RAIN!!!!

Thanks to the remnant of Tropical Storm Tammy, the metro Washington DC area is forecast to get a whole lot of rain tomorrow and into the holiday weekend.

Thank goodness! Our new arborvitae need the rain -- they were just replanted by Merrifield Garden Center last Saturday. (In late June, we had Merrifield do a series of plantings and four of the trees were pretty brown at the beginning of September, despite a very regular watering schedule. Merrifield replaced the lot of the arborvitae at no charge.)

Of course our roof is scheduled to be replaced this weekend, too. Well, that isn't happening on schedule, that's for sure. DH just called the roofer to figure out what to do about the many pounds of roofing materials sitting on top of our house right now -- especially with 4+ inches of rain forecast for the area.

Homework

This has been a hectic week. All kinds of goings on at work, plus our community association meeting took lots of time last week, and that was AFTER our annual fall sale at my children's child development center.

I did manage to get some mums planted this weekend as well as some winter pansies in the windowbox. We have been having a running battle with a local trash contractor -- DH reported them to Fairfax County's consumer affairs department thanks to their handy dandy online form. We're now at 27 days without picking up yard debris -- and yet another supervisor "absolutely promised" it would be picked up tomorrow. We'll see -- just don't hold your breath!

We went to "curriculum night" at preschool tonight. The teachers did a great job describing how they are teaching children in the pre-K program. They also answered all of the parents' questions. VERY well done.

The shed installers rescheduled from today until Saturday. The roofers rescheduled from Thursday to Monday (Columbus Day). Sure glad I'm not a general contractor!

That is a quick summary -- I'll fill in more tomorrow!