Not BAD, just bad

I'm trying to do more cooking on weeknights these days (in the vain hope that someday we'll break our takeout habit) and am meeting with results that, while far less hysterically awful than previous attempts at culinary perfection, are just...not good. Tonight's dinner was a case in point. A crock pot recipe for cashew chicken that should have been good. Chicken, broth, snow peas, bamboo shoots, cashews, what's not to like? Okay, so it took four hours to cook and I didn't start it until after 5:00. And, okay, I may have forgotten to make the rice until after 9:30, but who cares. Homemade cashew chicken! Good!

It was the blandest, boring-est, waste-of-calories-est meal I've ever eaten. Total disappointment, especially for poor Juan who put in a 16 hour day at the hospital only to come home to crappy food and a wife who wouldn't STFU about how much dinner sucked.

So, in case any of you were wondering whether or not I still suck at all things domestic, the answer is yes. Yes, I do.

Nice Time

I have a confession to make--I lied last week when I wrote that Luke and I would be spending Spring Break lounging around the house. We did, but not our house. Instead, we flew to Utah and stayed with my parents for five days. The reason for the deception was that my very good friend Marcie (who reads this blog--hi, Marcie!) is having a baby in June and our friend Michele and I conspired to throw her a surprise baby shower last week complete with a surprise special guest--me! I couldn't exactly talk about my trip when she didn't know about it, ergo the lying. I'm sure you'll all forgive me someday for it.

The shower went well, Luke played wonderfully with Michele's 4 month old daughter, and my parents hardly let me hold him the rest of the week since all they wanted to do was play with their grandson. I can't say I'm feeling much more rested today than I was a week ago, though, what with Luke's refusal to nap longer than 30 minutes or go through the night without two or three wakings.

Since today is mostly just recovering from the excitement of our trip (U2 in 3D! IKEA! Visitors galore!) I'll leave you here with a few pictures of the boy on Easter when Arcadia suddenly had a personality transplant and decided to be very patient with him.


Well hello, this is something unusual


Okay, okay Daddy I see how to pet the kitty. Let me try!


I'm good at this!


And look, there's even this handy little tail for me to grab and put in my mouth! Mmmm.... kitty fur!


Wait, where are you going kitty?

I still suck, but somewhat less than yesterday

Yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It started at 6:45 in the morning when I went to the garage to pull some breastmilk out of our chest freezer. I've been dipping into my freezer stash (mass quantities of frozen breastmilk left over from my maternity leave for those who've never had to stock one) and discovered only three bags were left. Three bags, or six ounces total, out of a stash that had once been close to 300 ounces. Since those six ounces combined with the twelve I had managed to pump on Monday only equaled 18 and Luke needs 24 while I'm away, I had only one option: formula.

Now, formula isn't the devil. It's not even close, and all along I've known that this day was going to eventually come. I've been back at work for over 4 months now and can only pump twice during the day--getting 24 ounces in two sessions just isn't realistic. Still, I had to battle a lump in my throat when I pulled out a dusty can of (not yet expired--I checked) formula we got as a sample when Luke was a newborn and walked across the street to the nanny. She was very understanding and assured me repeatedly that he was going to do great, but I still felt like a failure. I wanted so badly to make it through Spring Break next week without supplementing and I was this close to making my goal.

Anyhow, that put me in a funk the rest of the day, which wasn't helped by the dozens of kids who either A: didn't do their midterm projects, B: did the project wrong because they didn't read the assignment sheet carefully, and/or C: waltzed into my room five minutes before my final deadline to hand in make-up work wanting to know how they could pull their 35 up to a 70. Needless to say, I did a lot of yelling.

I finally shoved the last kid out the door with a reminder to DO HIS WORK ON TIME FOR THE NEXT REPORT CARD and made it home around 5:20. Luke and I played for awhile and then it was time for him to eat dinner. Dinner these days is one jar of baby food and three tablespoons of oatmeal cereal mixed with breastmilk. He'd been balking at cereal for a few nights, but I honestly thought it was because he was full rather than because he changed his mind about liking it. Wrong. After three bites (and I should say here that I think I'm mostly to blame for this since I realized after the fact that I made the cereal thicker than he's been eating it lately and I suspect he didn't like the texture) he gagged and then vomited everywhere. His high chair, the floor, me, the dog, you name it. Poor baby!

Naturally I panicked a bit since this was the first time he's truly thrown up, so after consulting Baby 411 and scoffing at their suggestion to give him only Pedialyte for the next few hours (at bedtime there ARE no more hours, plus we had no Pedialyte in the house and Juan was still at work) I threw him in the tub and nursed him to sleep. Then I called my husband and my mom, in that order, needing some TLC.

Today has been quite a bit better, but I think what I really need is a vacation. Good thing Spring Break is coming up next week and I can spend the whole 9 days laying around the house, playing with my boy, and trying to remember that the good days vastly outnumber the bad ones around here.

Mother of the Year

I suck.

The end.

No, really.

Seven Months

Luke turned seven months old yesterday, in what truly was one of the crummiest Mondays on record. He didn't sleep Sunday night, and then when I got to school I discovered that someone had stolen my classroom laptop over the weekend. Oh, and I forgot the breast pump at home.

Needless to say, I was not a fan of the seven month birthday, but today (after filing a police report, getting a loaner laptop at school, and experiencing a rare uninterrupted night of sleep) things are looking much brighter. Plus, my adorable boy has started smacking his lips and saying "Bah!" which we can now add to "Gah!" as his favorite syllable.



We're also moving ever closer to crawling as Luke has started getting up on his hands and knees unassisted. He knows he can get most places by rolling, but he's bound and determined to move forwards as well as sideways.



Sitting is also getting better every day, and while he really likes having someone to lean on, he's starting to discover how much fun he can have on his own. He looks so proud of himself when he manages to stay balanced while reaching for a toy--it cracks me up and melts my heart at the same time.



Overall, I'm giving a big thumbs up to seven months!

Hold onto your hats (errrr...nunchucks)

Remember all those news stories about people throwing Wii remote nunchuck controllers that came out a couple years ago? Remember laughing hysterically at the thought of perfectly capable, competent adults getting so involved in a video game that they actually threw the game through their TV? Well, Juan almost did that tonight, only instead of throwing it through the television he managed to almost break his elbow and the remote at the same time after swinging it a little too close to my armchair during a rousing game of Wii Bowling. He bowled, connected with the chair, the nunchuck went flying (it landed behind the dog's crate) and a number of curse words were yelled rather loudly while he clutched his elbow.

So, the moral of the story is: use the little rubber handgrip things that come with your Wii remote so it doesn't get broken if you happen to hurl it into space while playing. Also, don't gloat over your wins at Wii Tennis and Baseball after doing something like hurling your Wii remote into space while playing or else your wife might blog about it.

Please skip if you have a weak stomach

Jasper had a grooming appointment this morning, so Luke and I got up, dressed, and ready to go fairly quickly compared to most Saturdays. I left Jas outside for awhile figuring that he'd be cooped up indoors enough today what with the hair cutting and drying, but what I didn't figure on was that he'd find poop to roll around in while he was out there.

Poop. All over the dog. ALL OVER THE DOG. This was no little poop he picked, and he was quite literally covered from head to paw.

After spending several minutes covering the baby's ears while I cursed whatever gods decided to ruin my morning, I decided that A: we didn't have enough time to hose him off before going to PetSmart, and B: I'm paying the groomer good money to wash my dog, so they might as well earn it! I covered the passenger seat of my car with a sheet, said a few prayers, and drove like a maniac before the smell made me puke.

Naturally there was a line to check in when I arrived, and naturally I got dirty looks from all the other pet owners whose clean dogs wanted nothing more than to rub up against my unbelievably filthy one. I wanted to explain to everyone that this literally JUST happened right before we left for the groomer, but figured that a quick dropoff and exit was my best bet. After apologizing profusely to the groomer (and making a mental note to tip her extra when I go back this afternoon) Luke and I practically ran out of the store. Ugh. I'm sure they're making a note in our file as I type "Owner brought dog in covered in poop, charge her double next time" and I can hardly blame them.

Of course, it could have been a lot worse. He could have rolled in the poop right after he was groomed.

Good, Bad

Good:

-Getting out two hours early from TAKS testing because I happened to be testing with the only group of kids who were allowed to leave the building as soon as they finished their exams.

Bad:

-Getting stranded at school until 30 minutes after the final bell because no one else was available to check in dictionaries.

Good:

-Coming home to a happy baby

Bad:

-Coming home to a completely exposed roof because the roofers (who will henceforth be known as the Fucking Roofers or FRs) went AWOL today and left huge rolls of felt, shovels, and other assorted crap on our half-demolished roof.

Good:

-Nice, temperate weather all day

Bad:

-Rainclouds looming while the roof stands exposed because the FRs went AWOL

Good:

-Quick response by the roofing company managers to my call about the FRs, the exposed roof chock full of random crap that will doubtless be blowing all over the neighborhood when the wind picks up, and the looming rain.

Bad:

-Quick response requires a new roofing crew to come finish up the job the FRs left half done in the middle of Luke's bedtime.

Good:

-box full of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer

Bad:

-box full of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer that I will probably be stuffing my face with after Luke can finally go to bed.

Verdict:

The day appears to be a wash

Random list of things on my mind

We've been going through a bit of a household purge/upheaval over the last month. First we got confirmation that the roof needed replacing (lovely), then we decided to buy a dining set and replace some ruined couches (courtesy of the lovely Miss Arcadia who's lucky not to be skinned alive over the cost), and then our nearly new TV set developed an unbearable high-pitched squeal that we can't turn off. The TV is probably a goner if what I'm reading on Samsung sites is correct, so that's likely another big purchase on the horizon.

Maybe I'm strange, but all of this change (new roof, new furniture, new TV) is making me twitchy. I like things to stay roughly the same from day to day, and suddenly I'm looking around my house and realizing that I hardly recognize it. It's a little disconcerting.

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It took me nearly 45 minutes to vote in the primary this morning even though I arrived promptly at 7:00 am. Our precinct had the slowest poll workers ever manning the Democrat table, and at one point none of the six Diebold machines was being used while all four poll workers took their time v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. highlighting the names of people at the front of the line and filling out caucus receipts. If I hadn't wanted my "I Voted" sticker to use as an object lesson for the seniors who aren't registered to vote yet, I probably would have just walked out at that point and gone back after work. Note to the Texas Democratic Party--don't assign 80 year olds to man the polls first thing in the morning on election day unless you want 50+ cranky people who need to get to their jobs filing complaints with the Secretary of State.

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When my husband falls asleep on the couch and starts snoring it sounds exactly like there's an out of tune radio on somewhere in the house. Very disconcerting, especially after dark and especially when he claims that A: he didn't fall asleep, and B: he doesn't know what noise I'm talking about. I honestly thought I might be having auditory hallucinations for half an hour until I realized what the noise actually was.

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The English Language Arts TAKS test is tomorrow and I'm nervous as heck about how my students are going to do. We've been prepping for it for over a month and I know there are still kids who are going to look at the open-ended prompts and totally forget how to write their responses. Stupid TAKS. Stupid kids who don't pay attention in class. Stupid me for not starting test prep before Christmas.