Get well soon, Big D

I know. Totally lame, I am. But I was busy with playing Santa and then home to Chicago for New Year's and the cat ate it and I got a flat tire and blah blah blah.

So Happy New Year, y'all!

It was good to be home. I miss my family and friends and I miss Lake Michigan. It probably wasn't a good idea to ever move away from the Lake. It was my anchor growing up. No wonder I feel so rudderless here. How am I supposed to have a sense of direction when my absolute East doesn't exist?

As you can see, it's game, set and match on the girly shite with Annie. Sigh. I even let her buy The Little Mermaid yesterday at Target with the money her Grandma and Pop-Pop gave her for Christmas. Later, Brian and I had to call her Ariel. I know when I'm beaten. But I am signing her up for Spring soccer this week; the dark side shouldn't go unchecked, after all.

I still had trouble making amends with all the STUFF my girls got for Christmas. It makes my stomach hurt a little to think about it. There's the things that Santa brought, of course. Then between the 2 of us, Brian and I have 10 siblings. Plus the grandparents. Just so much stuff. I think that's why I might be overreacting a wee bit when Annie asks for ANYthing these days. I just never want her to take receiving gifts for granted. But she's only THREE, says the devil's advocate that rents in my brain. She doesn't know from spoiled. The whole thing left me feeling unsettled and I am still trying to work out why.

Dallas had surgery the day after we returned home. She had had these fatty growths for almost as long as I've known her. They might appear, disappear and reappear over a period of time, but none ever grew to be too large until recently. Three pretty big ones came and didn't leave plus one hard one, lime-sized, on her tummy that we really didn't like the looks of. The vet ended up removing 6 sizable lumps and biopsied the tummy one. I already kind of know that it's malignant, though we won't find out for sure for another week or so. I don't say that lightly, but part of loving Dallas so much has always been trying to brace myself for eventually losing her. She's a big dog and twelve years old and I can do the math. Since we had everything removed though, I think we bought (and paid dearly for, money being no object with regards to our beloved D)her a couple more really good years. OH, Plus? We got her teeth cleaned and it's a miracle...she has like no breath at all! Her breath used to smell like the inside of Nickerson's Fish Market but now it's the carbon monoxide of breath, totally odorless. But poor dear is all staples and bald spots.

Timely, then that I got Brian a woven blanket with Dallas' image on it for his birthday, which is tomorrow. Well, Dallas and I went in on it. It looks pretty good, though the picture I submitted was a little dark, in retrospect. Tomorrow I will make him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting because that's what he wants and he obviously doesn't know any better because anyone who knows anything knows that white cake wtih chocolate butter cream icing is really the finer cake.

The Babysitter Cometh

We finally gots us an outside babysitter! Once Brian's niece went to college (a full year and a half ago) we were really strapped for sitters and consequently, didn't go out. Ever. Anywhere.

We managed to hook up with the daughter of our old next door neighbor. She is a junior, will have her license in 25 days, and looks to be just awesome with kids. I like her because she jumped right in to play with Annie the other night. Oh, and she assured us that she doesn't go out much because either her friends don't want to do anything, or they want to drink which does not interest her. Are y'all jealous yet?

But wait! There's more! She has already told her mother that she does not want to go away to college so we are talking at least 5 more years of availability here, people. And, come summer, she wants to get a job at Annie's "school". But we will have already staked our claim to her by the time other parents come sniffing around.

I never thought finding a sitter would be so hard. I see why it is though. While I was babysitting at 13 (making a whole one dollar an hour), I must have been a horrendous sitter. I always liked kids but I am fairly certain I wouldn't have picked up after us and if anything bad had happened, I don't know if I was qualified to handle it. In short: I wouldn't want me or anyone like me to sit my kids. Once when I was sitting the Smiths, they were so bad that I called up my dad and had him act like he was Santa and threaten them with coal. Another time, I was babysitting for a neighbor's grandchildren. After they fell asleep I remembered that they had a daughter that died and I got it in my head that she died in their house. Then I heard noises coming from the room the baby was sleeping in and no one bothered to tell me that they had a cat rattling around upstairs and I had to call my sister to come over and keep me company.

I used my first Santa threats on Annie yesterday. She is going through a bad phase of collapsing and whining every time she doesn't get her way. By 10 a.m. yesterday morning she had had three such collapses and I played the Santa card. These collapses make me INSANE. She comes off as such a spoiled child when she does it, and that's one thing I simply can't abide by. And she is starting to act bratty in stores when I tell her she can't have something. How did that happen? I have been so careful to not get her everything she asks for and yet she acts as though she'll die if she can't have something. It makes my blood absolutely boil.

Oh, hey, don't take your kid to see Happy Feet. Out local rag attributed its PG rating to "minor peril" but the movie was scary! And dark. And NOT funny. The animation was at times quite breathtaking but it is not a movie for the very young. Plus (middle age lady alert), when did movies get so LOUD?? Good lord, my teeth were shaking. Even in parts of the movie that weren't scary, the music builds to such a crescendo at such high decibals that my heart was pounding. Turn it DOWN, ya whippersnappers!

Annie usually loves the movies, too. She perches her popcorn on her lap and methodically plows through it, only pausing for an occassional wave of the hand that indicates she is ready for her beverage to be brought to her lips. Heh-can't imagine why she's spoiled! I could tell the movie was making her uneasy, though she held it together. Until we went to the bathroom in the theatre afterwards and the freakin' hand driers sounded like goddamn freight trains and then she sort of broke down a little on the way out. I promised her that next time we'd go to a more gentle movie. A friend suggested Charlotte's Web but I know what happens at the end and no thank you.

You oughta see my pictures & other musings

Cool!! Not sure if it's the new Beta Blogger or if it's because I am using laptop but I can now add photos where I couldn't before.

I have been travelling the web ring of Crazy Hip Moms (see my links) and am a little overwhelmed by the amount of blogs out there. So many are so good, but who has the time to read them all?? I will bookmark those that I really dig. What shocks me is that some blogs are part of like ten rings. Is it true? Is everyone blogging?

Today I am being a real bon bon SAHM. Mary is having a long nap. I knew she would because she cried from 6 a.m. until I went and got her in her crib at 7 and when she wakes up early, her morning nap always kicks ass. So I am online and watching Regis and Kelly. Decadent! I did my morning job search and I don't know if it's because it's the end of the year or what but the jobs are drying up before my eyes. I can't even find resume worthy jobs. It' s very discouraging. I have to make a certain amount of money because daycare costs are going to be so killer, plus I need benefits since Brian's job is so very starty-uppy. But I don't want the kind of high-stress job I had before because that's not where I'm at right now. I won't travel, won't commute far.

So for now I am neither here-nor-there. I can't fully enjoy this temporary SAHM position because I feel like a pretender; an imposter, and a poor one at that.

I am getting Christmas shopping done though. How sick is that? I am pretty much finished shopping for Annie and Mary. Ostensibly, I started to take advantage of a great deal that Amazon was offering. But then yesterday I was out running errands and I got Brian's Niece G her present at Target. And then I got this inkling of panic like Oh my gosh-I have so much shopping to do! Ridiculous, right? But this is how we are being trained-to start spending money and decorating as soon as the last Halloween pumpkin is smashed. The girls and I strolled over to Mrs. M's the other day-she was outside putting up her lights. Then she gave us a sneak preview of her Christmas village. Now, Mrs. M.'s Christmas village is not a few buildings on a coffee table. It takes up the whole front end of her family room and has a working train, skaters that skate, skiers caught mid-jump and on and on. I am not really the collect-y crafty type but this thing is really breathtaking. At least in December it is. In November, I could only enjoy it through Annie's wide-open eyes.

Sometimes I'll hear or see something and think, "Hot damn! The milk of human kindness knocks me on my ass". Or bottom, if you prefer. I was looking at Mrs. M's creche and she showed me this pretty pewter angel "flying" above it. As it turns out, our brand new neighbor had run into Mrs. M. on the anniversary of her adult daughter's death. After, she showed up at Mrs. M's with this angel, inscribed with some killer words about how if you hold something in your hands, you will hold it forever in your heart. And Mrs. M. is reading it aloud and I am trying. hard. not to cry because what new neighbor knew and what I know is that losing a child is a horror greater than what we can imagine, regardless of their age. And new neighbor was so moved by her sympathy to get this so-perfect angel.

The milk of human kindness is also why I'll continue to entertain playdates with the twins and their mom even though the twins are really hard. When I was on bedrest with Mary in my belly, the twins' mom, whom we only chatted with in passing at daycare, left a note in my mailbox with her phone number offering to do anything to help. I was feeling so lonely and homesick for my family at the time, and it was so full of milky kindness (oh, ew) to have someone make such a gesture of caring. So even though her kids are tough and she and I don't have much in common, I would always want to be friends with someone capable of such kindness. Plus, Henry bit boy twin's face the other night and she was WAY cool about it, and she's not even a dog person. But "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Henry?" is a post for another day.

How funny would it be to get like a hardcore glamour shot done of myself and include it with our Christmas card?? And then not include pictures of the kids? Hm. I'll have to think about this. Well, the kids' pictures would be on the card, as is our tradition. I think this'll be out 7th year of superimposing our faces where they don't belong-I'll attach one here, from the year that Annie was a wee bird. I am sure no one appreciates it as much as I do, but there's something to be said for entertaining one's self.

My sister reports that the Chicago Lite FM station has already switched to all Christmas all the time. Fa la la la la, la la la Blargh.