Winter Picnic

Brigid and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather yesterday to visit the duck pond across the street from our library. And other than getting hissed at by a couple of ducks that may have been guarding a nest or something, we had a pretty good time...

Did you know that peanut butter and jelly tastes soooooo much better when you eat it outside?

Because it totally does...

This is why parents should make the decisions...

Steve took Brigid grocery shopping last week, and they came home with this:


Because, according to Steve, Brigid really wanted it.

Now might be a good time to start practicing saying 'no'...

Costco Run

I met Steve and Brigid at Costco for lunch today, because I needed to restock on my special Costco supplies, like spinach and string cheese and black bean burgers and bread. My list was pretty short, so I was confident we could get in and out for under $100, which is a major accomplishment in my household, similar to making it through Target for less than $50.

And then we made the mistake of walking the middle aisles.

Those stupid middle aisles get me EVERY TIME!

You see this chair, here? It might be the most perfect beach chair, ever.


It has backpack straps. It has a cupholder AND a cellphone holder. It lays ALL OF THE WAY BACK! FLAT! There's even a cooler on the back, for crying out loud.

And obviously, it's perfect for watching tv in the family room.

We bought two. And I did not get out of Costco for under $100. But I'm ok with that...

I wonder if this will fit in my carry-on when we fly to the Dominican Republic?

Baby's first Chuck E Cheese visit

There just so happens to be a Chuck E Cheese about halfway between my office and my house. And because I am a seriously crazy germaphobe, we've never been before.


Until yesterday, when my mother-in-law decided it was too far to go to the movie theater she'd been planning to take Brigid to that afternoon, and too cloudy/rain-prone to take her to the park. Being only ten minutes away, I wasn't about to miss out of the fun...

I remember the place being a lot bigger (which I guess is pretty common when you revisit childhood locations0, with a lot more games, but that didn't seem to stop Brigid from having an excellent time.

And really, I had a pretty good time, too, although next time I'll need to remember to take the appropriate shoes with me.

It's just too hard to get into the proper stance for whack-a-mole in heels...

The Little Things

Almost two and a half years ago, as we were getting ready to welcome our little (soon-to-be rotten and spoiled and full of trouble) bundle of joy into the world, my husband handed me a pack of hair-ties.

'All of the websites said I should pack extra rubber bands for your hair, in case you forgot to bring some but really wanted one.'




I'm going to be really sad when they're all gone...


(He also brought Oreos along as an incentive for me to get on with the whole baby delivery aspect of things.

Stand back, ladies...he is all mine!)

So, yesterday was a day...

Brigid and I went for a little drive yesterday, to visit Jen and Elizabeth.

And we had a fantastic time!

Not that this is a surprise at all, or anything, because when there are princess dolls to be played with, and macaroni and cheese to be eaten, you really have no choice but to have an awesome time. But still...Jen is great to talk with, and even though Brigid seemed a little overwhelmed at first (which she always is around new people...), she warmed up to Elizabeth by the end of the day, to the point that when Elizabeth talked to her, B no longer felt the need to duck her head and run to my side.

In fact, I believe her exact words were 'go away, mommy', but whatever...









So, everything was fun, and we left around 2pm, and Brigid was happily eating a cookie in the backseat, and I'm thinking about how I can get her home and down for a nap by 2:45 at the latest, and then...

AND THEN!!!





Why, yes, that is a very bad picture showing how the majority of my tire separated from itself, while I was still almost 30 miles from home. I had noticed that something didn't feel right, and I was in the process of pulling onto the exit ramp when it went, so we weren't stuck on the side of the interstate of anything. But we weren't exactly at a gas station, either.

I do have roadside assistance, which is nice, except for the part where they originally quoted me a THREE HOUR WAIT to get someone out to me, before calling me back to tell me they'd found someone who could be there in 45 minutes. I thought about changing it myself, but Steve didn't want me putting the car up on the jack with B in the backseat, in case I did it wrong and it all came down (he has a lot of faith in me, doesn't he?), and I couldn't get her out of the car to do it, so we waited.

But while we waited, a very nice gentleman stopped and offered to fix it for me. And I let him, because he seemed nice enough as he told me all about his four-year old daughter, and we were on a relatively active exit in the middle of the day, and I was concerned we were going to get hit by a car at any minute. And I was growing tired of watching the turkey vulture enjoying his lunch of roadside death.

Plus, I had pepper spray in my pocket (because in an odd case of coincidence, my mother and my mother-in-law decided, completely separate from each other, that pepper spray makes an excellent Christmas present, so I keep one in my car at all times...).

And then I drove 55-ish all of the way home, on a mostly 65MPH highway, which earned me a lot of fans in the greater Atlanta area.

And now, because these are the things that always happen to me, I am never allowed to travel more than 10 miles from our house, alone, ever again.

The end.

The guilt starts early around here.

Steve and I are scheduled to go away for a week in March, to celebrate my sister's wedding on a beach in the Dominican Republic. Just Steve and I. Alone.

No Brigid.

We've been away from her before, for various other wedding weekend excursions, but this will be the longest I've been away from her since she was born. And while I am excited about the prospect of spending a week on a beach without planning my schedule around various naptimes or trying to get sand out of a swim diaper, I am also already starting to feel the parental guilt about leaving my child on her own for AN ENTIRE WEEK!

In our house, with her grandparents/aunt. But still...alone for a week!

The other night, while we were getting her ready for bed, Steve asked her if she was excited about spending a week with Grandma and Grandpa, while we were gone. And her response?

No go. No go, mommy. Daddy go.

She is soooo screwing with me, isn't she?

My House is Haunted

My husband thinks I'm crazy. But he wasn't up at 11:00 last night, with our wild-eyed daughter, who happened to be laughing at the wall.

Laughing. At the WALL.

See, Steve put Brigid to bed last night, mostly against her will. As exhausted as she seemed when we started the bedtime process, that child did not want to go to sleep when it came time to turn out the light. After an entire CD of Disney Princess songs, several books, and some time spent sitting with her while she started to drift off, Steve didn't excape her room until close to 10PM, and even then, we could still hear her kicking the wall next to her crib from time to time, just to let us know that she did not agree with our decision-making process at all and that she was lodging a formal complaint against this whole sleeping thing we were so fond of pushing on her.

We went to bed ourselves shortly after that, since it was already so late. Steve was exhausted (because fighting with your toddler over sleeping arrangements for almost two hours will do that to you...), and fell asleep around 10:30, while I was up reading until closer to 11. So, when Brigid started screaming for us around that time, I was the one who answered the call.

I'm still not entirely sure what was wrong with her. Her stomach didn't hurt. Her throat didn't hurt. She didn't want a kleenex or a glass of water or a missing toy. She didn't want me to pick her up. All she wanted was a hug, which I gladly gave her. And then...

AND THEN!

She was standing at the edge of her crib, closest to the door, when she looked past me with the most bizarre smile I've ever seen her smile. It was a creepy, creepy smile. Then, she pointed at the door.

And all I could think of was that terrible True Blood story arc, where the baby sees the ghost talking/singing to him all of the time, or EVERY SINGLE ONE of those stupid Paranormal Activity trailers, where the kid knows shit's just not right in the house, but the adults don't seem to catch on quite as quickly.

And then I made her turn away from the door, because if there was something there, I didn't want her talking to it in the middle of the night/setting it out to attack her poor, unsuspecting mother.

I'm pretty sure, thinking back on it, that she just thought the shadows her nightlight was casting on the wall were funny. Or maybe she was asking to sleep in our bed. Or maybe she wasn't even smiling, but it just looked like it in the semi-dark room.

Or, maybe our house really is haunted.

Where are the ghostbusters when you need them?

We'll all laugh about this someday...

As alluded to yesterday, Brigid has been having some issues in the 'movement' department.

(I know, I know. Two poop related posts in a row! I think this officially makes me a mommy blogger, or something...)

We thought, after this weekend, it was all cleared up, but apparently, we thought wrong.

Yesterday, around lunchtime, my mother-in-law called me to say that she thought Brigid may have a UTI, because she was grabbing at her diaper and SCREAMING at various intervals throughout lunch. She asked B if it hurt to potty, and B told her that it did, so I called the pediatrician to see if they had any openings in the afternoon, when we could get her in and get her checked. They scheduled us for 2:15pm, and off we went to see if there was anything wrong.

One very upset toddler and catheter combination later (seriously, Stephen, YOU OWE ME BIG TIME FOR PULLING PARENT DUTY ON THIS OUTING!@!#@), we were informed that everything was clear, and she was just the victim of a little external irritation that we needed to watch, if only to make sure it didn't get worse.

And everyone went home happy, right?

Oh, wait...no. That's actually when my pediatrician mentioned that she 'felt something in Brigid's abdomen' that she wanted to have checked right away. She thought B was most likely just constipated, but to be on the safe side, she wanted to send us for X-rays to make sure it wasn't anything serious. Comforting, no?

Well, off we went to the imaging center at the hospital, and one short hour and a couple of X-ray scans later, we were sent home with the knowledge that our pediatrician would be calling that evening with the results. And call, she did, with the announcement that Brigid was, in fact, still constipated, and we just needed to get some Miralax into her body and some additional fiber into her diet.

So, if you're keeping track at home, that's two trips to the hospital in the last month, with two series of X-rays taken, and two different diagnoses of ear infection and constipation.

Sometimes, I just feel like we're doing it all wrong.


(I am actually very happy that our pediatrician treats everything with the utmost caution. I really am. We would switch pediatricians in a heartbeat if we thought she was brushing off our concerns with no regard. And I am beyond grateful that nothing serious has been turned up in either instance.

But still...two series of X-rays. For an ear infection and constipation. My insurance company hates me right now, don't they?)

You did what?

When I was a kid, my parents and I were on our way to...somewhere. West Virginia, to visit family, maybe? I think that sounds about right, but I honestly don't remember. Like I said, I was a kid.

And this is an excellent way to start a story, am I right?

Anyway, while we were driving, my sister, who was still in diapers at the time, had one of those 'you need to pull this car over right now, because if I have to sit in this stink one more minute, there will be hell to pay' kind of moments, resulting in my dad doing exactly what was required by pulling that car over immediately. After asking my mom where, in particular, she wanted to do the big change, and being told that anywhere was fine, my dad pulled into a cemetery.

And until this day, that has held up as one of the most inappropriate diaper changing stories I've ever been a part of. One which even spawned a 25-ish year old saying in my family that a cemetery is not, in fact, anywhere. One which was not even outdone (in my mind, anyway) by the time we changed Brigid's diaper in the parking lot of the Jim Beam distillery, because have you ever been to the Jim Beam distillery? There is literally NOTHING else around. We had no choice. I'm pretty sure there were other options, outside of the cemetery.

I mean....a cemetery. Really.

-------------------------

Last week, Brigid went a couple of days without a movement, for lack of a better word, and we were starting to wonder if we'd need to take a little action to help things along. She spent Thursday night, starting around 3am (so, I guess, Friday morning, actually), complaining of a stomach ache, to the point that Steve, who didn't have to work on Friday, spent the rest of his sleeping time lying on the floor of her room with her, rubbing her stomach until they both fell back asleep. But after that, she seemed fine, so we figured we could still wait it out.

Then, Saturday rolled around, and Steve volunteered to take Brigid with him when he went to the boat show with his father and brother, so that I could run some solo errands. And I was informed, when they returned, that the strike was over.

It had, in fact, ended at the exact moment they were touring a $600K+ houseboat, at which time Steve decided that the best place to change the FOUR DAY IN THE MAKING DIAPER was on the bed in one of the houseboat's bedrooms. So he did.

Congratulations, Steve...we have a new winner.

Christmas in Georgia

I did promise a week's worth of Christmas, did I not?

After our time in Indiana, we circled back home, via Steve's parents' house in north Georgia, where we stopped to pick up the dogs and open presents with the other side of the family. Brigid came home with a lovely wooden easel that I was very excited for her to get, until we got home and put it together...

...and I realized it was going to be up to us to keep her from coloring on the chalkboard with the dry erase markers and from coloring on the dry erase board with crayons, and ruining the whole present in the process.

Chalk it up to just one more parental stress no one warns you about before you have kids, I guess.

Snow Days

Well, we didn't quite have the white Christmas in Indiana that we would have liked, but my dear home state came through for us with a little surprise a few days later:

Apparently, it's fun to shovel the walk when it's not something you have to do 5-6 times every year...

Indiana Aunties!

This is Aunt Mary. She was the baby of the family for sixteen years, before I up and ruined her life by making our parents grandparents. Now it's all Brigid, all of the time, and poor Mary can barely even get her tennis pictures and newspaper articles posted on the fridge, unless they're being held up by magnets with my kid's face all over them.

She is not happy about this turn of events.

This is Aunt Jess, with Aunt Mary. She was the baby for nine years, before Mary came along, and I'm really not sure she's over that whole event, even now. All of the pictures of Mary's first birthday include a very sullen Jessie, sitting on the couch, plotting a way to overthrow the festivities.

She thinks payback is both a bitch and pretty entertaining to watch, too.

My sisters are awesome.

(PS: Both of my sisters love each other. And me. And Brigid, for that matter. But this will not stop me from mocking them both relentlessly for anything and everything I can think of, for all time. Because I am the oldest, and they both deserve it. So there.)

Christmas Morning

Nothing like a little Christmas recap, almost three weeks after the fact, huh? I pulled the pictures off of my camera this weekend, finally, so expect a lot of catch-up this week...

We spent Christmas morning at my parents' house, which is always my favorite way to spend the day. My baby sister is a senior in high school, still living at home, while my middle sister lives a couple of miles down the road, and her and her fiance drive over early so we can all spend the morning together. There's coffee, and breakfast casserole (which my mom started adding to the morning tradition when we were kids, after one too many Christmas breakfasts of nothing but chocolate let to one too many Christmas afternoons of nausea), and presents, and music.

Oh, and there are Christmas poppers, with paper crowns, which might have been Brigid's favorite part of EVERYTHING. She's obsessed with the darn things...

(Ok, not her favorite part of everything, really, since the talking Belle doll my mom and dad got her, combined with the Disney Princess beauty set my sister got her, have gotten a lot of playtime since we got home, but still...she loves those crowns.)

 

And these would be all of the pictures I got of the day itself, as Brigid started crying on the way to my grandmother's that afternoon, stopped for a very short time while we were there, then started up again on the way to my aunt and uncle's for dinner.

At which point she threw up on Steve, my aunt and uncle's guest bed, and their couch, before we hightailed it on out of there and headed back to my parents.

Christmas with kids.

What are you going to do, right?

I see a Rhodes Scholarship in our future...

Because, obviously, my child is a genius.

Notice a pattern?

Brigid has obviously inherited Steve's idiosyncrasies, in addition to his looks, because I can NOT keep socks on that kid's feet. She doesn't like socks, she doesn't like slippers, and she's even a little iffy on shoes sometimes. Steve is the exact same way, which is why I find socks spread all over the house more often than not, both large and small.

I, on the other hand, hate cold feet. Slippers, socks, whatever...my feet will stay covered, thank you very much. I even sleep in socks, sometimes, because if my feet are cold, it's not going to be a restful night for me. And it's very attractive, let me tell you...

Once again, I am reminded that if I didn't play the key role in bringing this bundle of joy into the world, I'd question where she actually came from, because other than her sweet tooth? I've got nothing...

The Decision That Launched the Plague

Indianapolis has an amazing children's museum. One of the best, if not the best, in the country, as a matter of fact. I grew up taking field trips to the museum when I was in grade school. And then I spent a summer working for the CFO of the museum when I was in college. I have a lot of wonderful memories of this museum.

I LOVE this museum.

So, obviously, I wanted to take my daughter to visit the place, so she could experience for herself some of these good times that I had when I was a kid.

We all (and by all, I do mean ALL...me, Steve, Brigid, my mom, my dad, and my little sister filled every seat in the Durango for the drive) headed down the day before Christmas Eve, and really, other than a little fall in the play area, which caused a minor meltdown that we were able to solve with a trip to the sand table, Brigid really seemed to enjoy the place. It was a little overwhelming at times, but she loves a good sand table, she adores any kind of carousel, and she's never been in such an awesome play house before.

Two things of note, though...

1) Of course, I forgot the camera. Again.

I swear to all that is good, I am going to have that stupid thing surgically attached to my hand someday, because this is all getting ridiculous. My sister remembered her camera, of course, and I took plenty of pictures with that, but when I can actually see those pictures off of the camera remains to be determined.

Seriously Mary...email me!

2) Do you know how many germs are contained in a large building, full of children, all touching EVERYTHING in sight, in the middle of cold and flu season?

I'm guessing there's a lot.

And I'm also guessing this was the source for the Christmas Day/Week sickness that followed.

Live and learn, I guess. At least we've got the memories...

Oh, hello there...

So, Christmas. New Year. Stuff happened. Good times.

I will work on some holiday recaps very, very soon, but in the meantime, did you know that trips to the ER now come with free crowns? Now you do...



Brigid was fine, I swear. But she did come down with a cold, and she kept waking up with 102-103 degree fevers in the middle of the night, and the coughing sounded just terrible, and she seemed like she might be having trouble breathing, so we called the pediatrician, who suggested we bring her in immediately to make sure the cold wasn't in her lungs (which is a complication of the heart condition). 

But we were in Indiana at the time.

So the pediatrician told us to take her to a children's ER or urgent care to get it checked out. One chest x-ray (and goodness knows how much money, unfortunately...), we left with some kleenex and a prescription for antibiotics to fight the ear infection that was causing the fevers.

Yes, we took our two-year old to the ER for an ear infection.

I hope they enjoyed laughing at us after we left...