Snow Day

12/27/09

It’s cold.

Seriously, like, really f’ing cold.

This morning it took the will power of a king to get me out of bed and to work at 7. Then home by 11 to relieve the husband for child duty so he could go to work as well. We both had HUGE proposals due. Lucy’s school was cancelled. Drama all around.

But now I’m home. And I’m taking advantage of this random afternoon away from the place of employment to finally take down my Christmas decorations. I know, right? I’m one of “those” people that still has her tree up. My parents used to leave theirs up for months and months when I was a kid. It was not unusual for us to have a tree up at Eastertime. So really, I’m ahead of the curve. Right? Right.

And yes, our outdoor lights are still up. Trent has said that they will not come down until the temperature reaches at least 35 degrees.

So if you visit us in April, be sure to comment on our beautiful holiday lights.

12/29/09

In the meantime, you can find me here. With some ugly, fuzzy socks. Probably in my flannel jammies with the reindeer on them. And a few blankets. And mittens.

12/18/09

Seriously, it’s really f’ing cold.

Relaxation

Last night, after a trek across the blizzardy Kansas prairie to get to a family Christmas engagement, we arrived home exhausted and ready for day-long naps. It’s so funny, we spent our entire Christmas Eve and Day at home, snowed in, and happy as clams to be hibernating through the holiday, and when we were forced to leave our house for a mere 27 hours, it almost killed us. I think we are officially in winter mode. Give me the remote, a fire, some hot cocoa (and Bailey’s if the night is just right) and I’m good. We have built up such a collection of movies not yet seen, we may be here until March. Goodbye cruel world, we’ll see you when the temperature hits 60 degrees!

So last night we get home and Lucy, totally spent from the whole Christmas extravaganza, starts screaming. I can’t remember why now, but I’m sure it was either that we made her take off her jammies or put on clean underwear or turn off Thomas the Train….life is hard for that kid. She screamed and screamed until her face was bright red, and then she crawled on to the couch with her daddy to watch football. Somewhere along the line she guilted him into changing the channel, so they both sat there, under piles of blankets, watching the Sound of Music. That’s when I decided to make a break for it.

I took our little TV/DVD player from the kitchen and put it in the bathroom, filled the tub with hot water and bubbles, popped in a rom-com I’d received in my stocking and turned out the lights. This was gonna be ah-may-zing.

I sat down in the tub and immediately realized something was wrong. The water was lukewarm, barely warmer then the air. I like my baths scarily hot, so this certainly would not do. Then, as I emptied out half the tub and started to refill with hotter water, I heard little feet coming up the stairs. Lucy came bursting into the bathroom with Trent right behind her, and within ten seconds had completely stripped down and was climbing into the bath on top of me.

“What are you doing mama? I love baths! Oh, bubbles! I want to take a bath with YOU! Yay! You’re my favorite mommy in the world world and my very best friend!”

As she jumped in, the (still cold) water sloshed out and Trent scolded me for having electronics on the floor. Well, when it was just me in the bath, there wasn’t much danger, was there? He quickly unplugged TV and took it out of the bathroom, turning on the lights on his way out.

There I sat, in cold water, getting soap splashed in my eyes by a three-year-old. After about five minutes I decided this was ridiculous, and got us both out (Lu screaming, of course, because she wanted to play with the bubbles longer). Trent had checked our water heater, and it had gone into “vacation mode” during our holiday absence. The hot water would be back on by morning. I took the wet, screaming child in my room, wrapped both of our cold bodies up in towels and blankets, and proceeded to read an hour of princess books before she went to bed.

Then I went to get a nice glass of wine….and we were out. With the million holiday parties we had to attend this year, we’d given away every bottle, finishing the last one with Christmas dinner.

So I went to bed instead.

Relaxation = FAIL

Someone in this room needs a Nyquil IV drip

5 Things That Are Annoying Me Today
1. My nasal voice and the throbbing above my eyes (f’ing colds and their f’ing mucus).
2. The fact that every pregnant person I know is having a boy so I have no reason to buy this (any takers?).
3. The fact that Glee is over until April.
4. Facebook…it bugs me. I don’t like it anymore. But I’ve been told it’s “social suicide” to quit.
5. The four proposals I have due at work, which means I probably won’t be able to take any extra time off for the holidays.

5 Things That Are Cheering Me Up, Despite My Best Efforts to Stay Crabby
1. The new season of Chuck is quickly approaching and it’s supposed to be awesome!
2. This video of Glee’s Mark Salling serenading his cast and crew. Half the reason I love this show is that it’s actors seem so down to earth and genuinely appreciative of their success. Check it:

3. The fact that my boss just “punted” a proposal because I don’t have time to do it. Yay for deadlines that no longer exist!
4. I finished my Christmas shopping!
5. NYC + KC is still going strong….over 300 days completed, I’m as amazed as you are!

Day Two Hundred and Fifty Five

Day Two Hundred and Eighty Three

Day Two Hundred and Sixty Five

Now, can somebody please bring me a cookie and some hot tea? And a personal assistant? And a full sized cutout of Edward Cullen? Please and thank you.

Parenting Dilemma No. 374

Having a daughter has to be the hugest trip in the world for a woman. I mean, with boys, there is always a sense of mystery. I can’t identify with what a boy goes through when he is young. But a girl. Whew, can I ever identify with that. The dolls and the tomboy-ish tendencies and the mean girls and all that pink. Okay, so I wasn’t really a “pink” kind of girl, but in general, Lucy and I are fairly similar. She’s more outgoing than me, prettier (she got her daddy’s eyelashes, lucky kid) and definitely more enchanting. I feel like the traits she got from me, for the most part, are what make her totally awesome. She’s funny, sarcastic, silly, nerdy, kind, a good friend…all things that I hope I have passed on to her and that she will continue to cultivate and use throughout her life.

But along with all of those lovely things has been one teeny, tiny, little problem. Lucy is a hair twirler. And it’s all my fault.

When I was a kid, most of the negative attention I got in terms of nasty habits was in response to my semi-constant thumb sucking. I twirled my hair too (and still do, at times), but I sucked my thumb until I was twelve, and my teeth and dignity paid the price. My parents were more concerned about how much braces would cost then how awful my hair looked due to how much I’d yanked out. Lucky for me, my niece was also a thumb sucker, but her mom (my sister) was able to break her by the time she was in kindergarten, so when the time comes for Lulu to stop, I’ll have a template, a plan to go by. The hair twirling isn’t so easy.

I know it shouldn’t be a big deal. And it’s not, really, but I can’t help but feel like I’m failing her. It’s a crutch, a neurosis that is difficult to break. She does it when she’s tired or bored and sometimes when she’s just sad. I send her off to school every day in cute little pigtails, and by the time I pick her up, her fine, blond waves are waving loose in the breeze, resembling a mullet more than any three-year-old’s hair ever should. When she absentmindedly pulls out her hair ties, she takes chunks of hair with them, and every time she twirls her loose hair, it gets caught up in tangles that have to be cut out. Along with her naturally fine hair, these missing chunks are making her look, for lack of a better word, totally ridiculous.

And then I start to beat up on myself. Why do I care so much? Who cares if her hair is silly looking? Am I actually that vain?

And the answer to that question is, unfortunately, partially yes. I think it’s human nature to want our kids to be adorable and not being able to control that is hard. The deeper issue, of course, is getting Lu to release that mental crutch so she doesn’t have problems later (kids with issues like thumb-sucking/hair twirling/fingernail biting are more likely to become smokers as adults…in fact, the only time I stopped twirling was my two years as a semi-smoker in college). So we’re doing our best. Catching her mid-twirl and identifying what she’s doing so it isn’t an absent-minded thing. Sticker reward charts for leaving her pigtails in all day. Giving her ribbons to rub between her fingers when she’s tired or nervous. I guess it’s working, although I really don’t know. She does fairly well at home, but goes to school and has a pretty hard time. Her lovely teacher is trying to help, but there is only so much she can do with a class of ten kids to oversee.

I guess what I’m asking is, any advice? Anyone out there dealt with this sort of issue before? Should I just shave her head? She could always be psycho-Britney Spears circa 2007 for Halloween!

More Music Friday – The sun is up, the sky is blue

This week the big music news was that the Beatles entire catalogue was re-released, totally digitally remastered. I remember back in the mid-nineties, when they released the Beatles Anthology, and I begged for it as a Christmas gift. My dad would always laugh at me, saying my music taste was a bit strange for a ten-year-old, but on Christmas Day, I found the first discs of the Anthology under the tree, and spent hours listening and reading all the liner notes. I would tell my dad I was just trying to understand the music of “his day,” but he’d just scoff and say he already had two kids, a wife and a mortgage by the time the Beatles got famous. Then I’d tell the old man that he was losing it and should probably have some prune juice with that side of sarcasm. We have a special bond, my pops and I.

I haven’t yet purchased any of the tunes in the new set, but I probably will at some point. I listened to All Songs Considered this week, and they played the old tracks next to the new ones, and the difference really is incredible. None of that crackling background fuzz here, just full clarity and amazing harmonies. I actually got chills.

I can’t write today’s post without noticing the date. I’ve written 9/11 tributes and stories here before, but today I figured I’d just post my personal favorite Beatles song. It’s from The White Album and was released in 1968. For some reason, when I hear this song, it evokes an emotional response that ranges from happy to sad to depressed to joyful to hopeful, which is how I usually feel on 9/11. Watching all the stories and reading touching tributes online, I hear this song in the background. Whispering. Giving me permission to remember the sad, but move on with hope for good things to come.

“Dear Prudence let me see you smile
Dear Prudence like a little child
The clouds will be a daisy chain
So let me see you smile again
Dear Prudence won’t you let me see you smile?”

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