Livin' La Vida Loca

Why do cars limp along like injured bunnies the day after a snowstorm, even when the roads are just fine?

Why do I have to deliver the kids to daycare by myself when I am well when Pants is sick, AND when Pants is well and I am sick?

Why won't Pants just ask his brother to look at the damn car already, or let me make an appointment? And the snowblower!

One day, I will actually get to spend a day working on my house. One day.

Hello again

It's been quite awhile in posting, but I took some time out. To clean, you ask? To parent? To finish projects? That's just crazy talk! I've been catching up on the Amazing Overshare, now linked from here because it is so funny. So wrong, but so funny.

Meimei is still not sleeping alone, for those of you wanting to do me bodily injury. She naps on her own for a short time, but not as long as she should, and she doesn't fall asleep by herself as much as I was hoping. And she still sleeps with me. Eventually, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and do it, but I'm not ready yet.

Meimei has now gotten her second tooth and is eating rice cereal each day for one of her meals. We are also eating bananas now and will try sweet potatoes next. She has gotten very good at eating and the food mostly stays in her mouth now. She is very infatuated with the cat and will track her all over the livingroom.

Kitten is starting to get her 2-year molars and it's getting cloudy with a chance of tantrums. Two days last week she refused to eat almost everything. She's constantly chewing on stuff and is testing more than ever.

I ordered a plain wooden stool on clearance from Target (I walked by the damn thing in the store, on clearance, 10 times and didn't want it until I couldn't get it any more) and a kitchen timer so we can have a true naughty stool. We have started yelling a lot to get our point across, because at first it was effective, but now I can see her pushing it farther and farther and we're yelling more and more and louder and louder. I don't like it and I think we can control the problems without the yelling. The yelling seems to feed it, like she is trying to get us to do it after a while.

Um, sorry, have you seen my $12 Billion?

"I know that $12 billion seems like a lot when you stack it up on palettes..." Yeah, I know that a few years in congress seems like a lot when your constituency is waiting to vote your ignorant ass out...

So the government cannot account for the $12 billion in cash they sent over to Iraq to boost the economy. The Iraqis say it's because of their poor bookkeeping and payroll systems. Those wacky Iraqis.

In totally unrelated news, I have my fourth cold this year, about 3 days behind Kitten's cold. Meimei is about 2 days behind me, but Pants decided to buck the system and got the flu instead. I guesstimated today (in the cough and cold aisle of Downtown Target) that we have spent nigh on $80 on assorted infant and adult cold medications this year alone. It's not even the end of February.

And yet I soldier on, attending work every day (can you hear the sighing?). Except those two days when I got the sinus infection. I'm just waiting for this one to turn that corner so I can pull a vacation day, drive the kids to daycare, hit the clinic for my Penicillin substitute, drop some Q, and watch Law & Order until I drift into a drugged stupor and start speaking to Buppy.

Holy crap, Batman!

Apparently, Meimei just needs to be put down by herself when she is still awake. She is finally asleep in her crib, all by herself. I am so trying this all this week!

I just had no idea it would be this easy. Hello, momma? I'm the easy kid. Nothing will ever be difficult with me, so try the easy solution first. Thanks, buh-bye.

My little manipulator

Meimei will not sleep in her crib. I have tried now for two nights and she wakes right up when I put her in her crib, even from dead asleep. I am fighting the realization that I will soon have to put her in her crib and let her (gulp!) cry it out. I'm just not ready to do it yet. She's too little. She's too happy.

I think I was more ready with Kitten because she was such a screamer. I was used to the noise from her. Also, she was pretty happy sleeping in her crib, she just needed some help getting to sleep.

Meimei just doesn't seem to want to sleep. Not ever. She rarely looks tired. She rarely acts tired. Doesn't the child need to sleep? What's up?

Oh, and Meimei got her first tooth. I put my finger in her mouth last night to check, because I do that every week or two, and there it was. We didn't even know it was coming! Man, kids are different.

Acting like I always have $7000 in my checking account

Ok, we got an obscene amount of money back from the government. Like, it's pretty wrong to get that kind of money back. It happened once before, but only because we were able to claim the adoption credit after paying out $6000 and waiting a year, even though we didn't finalize an adoption.

And yes, I already changed my deductions so I keep more money during the year instead of getting it back at the end.

Anyway, the really sad part is that even with the tax money and BOTH of our bonuses, we still won't be able to pay off the total amount of our credit. Some of the money is going to get ahead on our bills, and the appliances are totally paid off. But because we charged up the card while I was out, we won't even get it all done. Most of it, yes. But not all.

Scary.

Pics of the fam

Road personalities

Here are the people who suck at driving:

Bitch who sees my blinker to move into a perfectly acceptable space that someone else has just vacated, but who speeds up into that space like she owns it, although I have already signaled my intention to take said space.

Asshole SUV driver and truck butthead who speed from my lane into the right lane and whip by me. You are not turning, jackasses, you are speeding up to pass me and the four people in front of me before that lane merges back into mine. This is when I would like one of those boxing gloves that you can point at someone and pull the trigger and it punches them several feet away.

Dude who I can barely see in my back window (damn double stroller) because he is driving far too close. Um, hi, we're going 60 on the freeway. One alteration in speed and we are both going to have a very bad day. But then maybe the hatch on my Toaster will get fixed. I hope your insurance has to pay for it.

Scared chick who is driving 50 on the freeway on their way downtown for the convention du jour. I know I am a downtown driving snob, and that it's easy for me only because I do it every day, and I remember how nervous I was driving downtown that first day. But please. If you're this nervous, try avoiding rush hour.

Psycho mini-van driver who does not obey any traffic rule or herd movement instinct. Are your children in there? You concern me.

News around el Casa del Pants

Kitten's news:
Is no news at all. The tantrums have stopped and she has accepted the 2-cheese limit. She didn't wake up last night, but we expect the night waking to continue for at least another month - she just doesn't take change well. She has stopped fussing at daycare too. And we did laundry, so is wearing matching socks again.

Meimei's news:
Still fighting the cold and still sleeping with me at night, but she has been napping in her crib pretty well. She was up coughing half the night last night, but seems better tonight. Still a dream at daycare, apparently, and still cute as a bug, even while hacking up phlegm.

Pants news:
None really. He is fighting off his cold and begging to rub feet since the girls are both in bed. And no, Jay, that's not something kinky.

My news:
Still fighting the cold also, although it seems better today. Working at 8 is really taking a toll on me, I can't believe the half hour makes such a difference but it does. Other than that, I have a foot rub to get.

More fun with Pants

You know that commercial where the kid keeps putting stuff in the under-floor storage in the minivan because it's a "safe" spot?

Pants thinks it would be much funnier, and much more true-to-life, if the mom opens up the cover and the frog is laying on top dead and crispy.

Fun with Pants

Pants wants to create the following bumper stickers:
God knows you don't use your blinker
How Would Jesus Drive?

Waiting for the Frogs

I've decided to paint my door with lamb's blood, in hopes that the next plague will just pass over.

Let's review:

Kitten got a cold the first week of January. I caught it that weekend.

Meimei got a cold at the end of the second week. I came down with it the following Monday. It turned into a sinus infection by Tuesday and by Friday, it had hit my chest and sat there for a good 5 days or so.

Meimei came home this last Friday with a fever and she has contracted yet another cold. This might be the one Pants has had, but she was coughing so hard this morning that she threw up three times. We are home today so she can rest. I thought it was unfair to dump her on daycare when she is this needy.

And, of course, I have contracted this cold as well. So this is my fourth week of illness. I think I kicked the sinus infection, but there's still time to develop another one.

I'm fat as hell

And I have decided I can't care right now. I tried, I just can't. Not until both kids are sleeping all night, alone, in their own beds. We have taken several steps back this month, amid a couple of steps forward.

Meimei will now not sleep at night in her crib. While she was sick, she would wake up after about 10 minutes in there, and because I was sick, I just brought her into bed with me after the second or third time each night. Now, although she sleeps alone for naps both at daycare and here, she will not sleep alone at night. Oh, how quickly we backslide.

Kitten has continued to have fits, and the one the night after my last post was worse and much longer than the one I wrote about. It nearly lasted the entire two hours she is home and awake at night. Tonight she was on the verge for awhile but only had one where she really just laid down and kicked. It doesn't help that Pants and I can't get on the same page on how to handle them. I say we absolutely stop dealing with her when she gets that far, stop looking at her even, but he thinks he can get her out of it. Tonight he did, but he hasn't been terribly successful the last couple of nights.

On the better news front, Kitten did not wake up tonight half an hour after we put her down. Oh crap, can she hear me typing? She just started crying, I'm am NOT kidding. Ok, it sounds like it was just in passing. Anyway, she hasn't gotten up tonight, although last night she was crying down there for almost 15 minutes after I went down to hug her and put her back down. Maybe she has gotten the point.

Now if only Meimei would get it.

On second thought, I might start caring about my weight if my hair grows back in.

All natural

"Where are my veggies? I thought we were eating those, not the other kind." Motions with disdain to the garlic cauliflower in the bowl on the table. "Oh here they are." Finds plastic container of precut vegetables under own arm.
"The cauliflower isn't good enough for you?"
"We should be eating veggies with dip. The way God intended."
"If God had intended us to eat veggies with dip, they would grow that way."
Again brandishing container, "Clearly, God and Cub want me to eat them this way."