Monthly Archives: October 2012

Frankenstorm

Deep Thoughts, Life Lessons

I really love natural disasters. Definitely not the part where people get hurt and dreams get shattered, but I enjoy the sensationalism of it all. I equate calamities like Hurricane Sandy with events like the Olympic Games. Nothing brings society together better than potentially devastating weather events or world wide athletic ceremonies. It’s like for a small time we all stop focusing on our own problems and  concentrate our collective attention on something greater than us as individuals.

For this reason I have spent the last 48 hours glued to the TV, flipping between 24 hour coverage of the storm on the Weather Channel and 24 hour coverage on our local channels.  Hanging on every word of every press conference, tracking wind speeds here.

At one point my husband walks into the living room and informs me that there cant possibly be anything that I don’t know – that meteorologist should start calling me for updated information.  I had to hand him the remote as I admitted that he needed to change the channel because I could not physically do it.

For all intents and purposes Hurricane Sandy was a non-event in my small section of Philadelphia, but that doesn’t detract from anything except maybe the let down that there wont be another 48 hours of aftermath coverage. Of course if it was bad enough to have two days of aftermath coverage chances are I wouldn’t have electricity to watch it.

I am contemplating a generator for Christmas…

And it did rain – for a week and a month and a day…

Uncategorized

We have battened our hatches and checked our supply of tea and dry matches.

We’ll string up some hammocks and build some platforms for spare beds and chairs.

We’ll get right to work on a big pot of stew –  put on the kettle and butter some bread

~Dorothea  Warren Fox

Be safe everyone!

Mommy’s Little Helper

Examples of great parenting, ,

One of the most amazing things about my daughter is her stoicism, she is unlike most two year old that I know in that she does not complain when she is sick, or in pain. She falls and more often than not gets right back up and continues on. When she gets sick we often don’t know it until it gets out of hand and her doctor looks at us like a DPW worker when we do finally take her in to get checked out. This was exemplified last week when Lucy was complaining that there where ‘bubbles in her ears’ and we laughed and said everything was fine and she probably just needed all the wax cleaned out.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning when her daycare called because she had a 103 degree fever and a trip to the doctor confirmed she had a ‘raging ear infection’ one so bad that her doctor was surprised Lucy hadn’t been crying in pain for days… Hardcore antibiotic treatments and the ear pain started to go away but they did nothing for the lingering, hacking cough that accompanied the infection.

The three of us had two sleepless nights rocking Lucy and trying to get her to drink some water to help her unrelenting cough. By Friday morning we were all tired, cranky and on our last thin nerves. And then my husband, my glorious husband discovered children’s Nyquil – safe for children two and over. I don’t know where he got it, I don’t care that the entire box is printed in a mix of Mexican and Cantonese. I didn’t ask any questions.

Channeling her inner ancestry and all of the generations of substance abusers that came before her, Lucy loves medicine, she gets so excited whenever she’s allowed to drink cherry flavored syrup or gets drops in her eyes. She was just as thrilled with this third world, back alley Nyquil as we were.

And it worked. She got drugged every four hours through the night for the next three nights until her cough had gotten better and she was able to sleep on her own.

She’s better now and doesn’t seem to be permanently scared in any way. She not shaking with withdraw or anything. I am adding this new remedy to the basket of goodies I buy all my friends when they find themselves with child.

Happy Day.

A brief mid-life freak out

Life Lessons, Stuff that sucks

I’ve never worried too much about getting old. I grew up in a large family where, no matter how you ran the numbers, I always ended up being the youngest; always sat at the kids table. I’ve been referred to as “Babydoll” and now, “Aunt Babydoll” for as long as I can remember.

Every birthday I think – it’s okay, I might be 30 but I am still younger than… fill in any family name here.

This all changed yesterday, when upon my arrival at work, I went to bathroom and found…

wait for it…

my first gray hair. Gray hair? WTF? Babydoll’s do not get gray hair.

What’s next spider veins and age spots? Is it one quick slide from here to liquefied diets and adult diapers?

I don’t want to appear melodramatic but I’m not sure there is that much time left between now and when I find myself being fitted for a new set of teeth.

Ah!

Newsletter: Month 26

Newsletter, ,

Lucy,

You no longer need help to walk down a flight of stairs, you can climb up into my bed without any assistance. When your Dad and I do something you don’t like you wag your finger and say “enough of that”. You want to know what every thing is – and when I tell you, you always like it: “What’s that Mommy?” “That’s a pot holder” “I like pot holders.” or “what’s that Mommy?” “That’s doggy poop” “I like doggy poop.” Once while we were out to dinner you asked Daddy what the check was and he said “This is my credit card, it’s how we pay for stuff” and you said, “I like paying for stuff.”

oh... cuteness!

You are obsessed with cheese – you can eat the ricotta lasagna mix straight from the bowl like most kids would eat cake batter or cookie dough. You love singing the ABC song, you sing it on average about 583 times a day.

This is the reason there is so much hair in the lasagna...

You have a teacher at daycare named Kayla and you are obsessed with her too, you are always telling us that you like Kayla, or wonder what Kayla is doing, or sing happy birthday to Kayla whenever we lite candles. We’ve started lighting a candle during dinner for no other reason because it is fun and you like it and you automatically assume that it must be someones birthday – usually Kayla’s, or Lucy’s.

Cheese

You took a Daddy/Daughter trip to North Carolina this month, you spent a week with your grandparents and when you returned you seemed to have aged by years. You had a wonderful time and are still talking about it.

Shall we discuss my retirement savings?

You can count to 10 now, without making mistakes, and sometimes even make it to 20, but not always. You have become interested in potty training, or more precisely wearing the Hello Kitty underwear your grandmother got you. One morning this month, you got right up and peed in the potty, I put you in a pair of panties, but they only lasted about an hour when you peed in your high chair during breakfast and then tried to climb in my lap and give me hugs.

Where's my panties?

We had our second annual block party and you spent 12 straight hours in the bouncy house, when it left I told you that it went to live on the moon, so you would stop asking me where it was and why we couldn’t go visit it. We went on our first picnic which you thought was great  and in general have had so much fun and so many laughs this month, you are amazing – you make the sunshine brighter and the world seem better.
Bouncy House!!!

I love you, Mommy

Silver Lining

Life Lessons

There are many loathsome soul sucking reasons to dislike my job. Mostly its the people, the location, the mission… well its almost everything. But I believe the universe knew what it was doing when it compelled me to turn down a job at an established, accredited, nationally ranked University to work in the ghetto teaching “college” students where the control, alt and delete button are all located. And this reason is a certain little MINDBLOWING tradition –  I call it the cupcake sandwich.

It works like this, you have a cupcake, you know like this:

cupcake

And you could eat it and it would be good and you would move on and thank  your lovely neighbor who made it for you.

OR…

You could cut it in half and turn the top upside down and make a cupcake sandwich:

cupcake freaking sandwhich!

And in an instant you have the equivalent of a cream filled donut. No longer will you have to endure a full bite of only frosting or only cupcake. Suddenly equilibrium is achieved!

Oh happy day, happy day.