makes you wonder about our home's construction, huh?
I came home tonight, at 8:15 pm, which is pretty close to Gabe's bedtime, to discover that I was locked out of the house.
You see, I left this afternoon through the garage because the stroller was in the garage and I needed to put it in the car. I checked and double checked that I had the front door key before I closed the garage door and snuck out underneath, because, come on, I'm no idiot. I failed to check, however, that I'd removed the FREAKING CHAIN from the front door.
So I get home late, laden with bags, and a cranky child, and dogs barking crazily inside, and horrific morning sickness, and crazy pregnancy hormones, and discover that we're locked out because the safety chain lock thing is keeping us out. The garage door opener is sitting in Josh's locked car at the Boston airport, while Josh is in Seattle with the keys to his car.
What to do? With my cranky toddler in tow, I find a stick in the backyard to see if I can somehow fashion a hook to push the inside chain off the track to let us in. Shockingly, my stick idea doesn't work although I made a valiant attempt and skinned half of my hand off while trying. Then, I try my keys in the side and back doors, even though I KNOW they don't open those doors because we specifically fashioned the door locks that way. I look around for an open window, even though I don't have a ladder to access the windows, but whatever, I'm not thinking straight at this point. I called Josh in Seattle, but another big shock, he can't really help from 3,000 miles away. In fact, he told me he was busy in a meeting but would "try to brainstorm in the meantime". Gee, thanks.
I return to the front door, examine the situation again, and decide on the most logical thing my pregnant brain can come up with. I'll kick down the door. KICK DOWN THE DOOR. And do you know what? I actually did it. I kicked our front door hard enough and long enough that I took the entire molding off the door, where the chain was attached, off the wall. Yup.
And then I calmly took the rather large piece of molding, with chain still attached, and large nails sticking out, and placed it on the dining room table for Josh to deal with. I vacuumed up the chunks of paint and wall that littered my entryway, dressed my child for bed, put him down, and ate a cupcake, because damn it, I needed one.
Never in this whole situation did it occur to me to ask the neighbor for a bolt cutter to cut through the chain, or even to go to the hardware store to buy a bolt cutter to cut through the chain. Nope. The logical thing to me was to kick down the door. Not call a locksmith, or the fire department, or whomever you call in situations like these. I kick down doors. With toddlers watching, because I like to set good examples.
It is any wonder that he keeps kicking the dogs? Also, please send more cupcakes. I'm going to need them tomorrow when Josh sees the front door.
Labels: ridiculosity
tao of fertility
On the baby-making bandwagon? Thinking about it in the near future? Check out the
Pumpkin Products blog for information about
The Tao of Fertility, a book about Chinese medicine and infertility.
Plus, I'm giving away a free copy!
Labels: bloggy business, products
I throw up in the downstairs bathroom, just in case
A few weeks ago, we had a warm day and after the endless winter we've been enduring around here, we opened the windows to enjoy the fresh air during the night. In the morning, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and encountered these beasts roaming around my bathroom:
4 were running around in the tub and tile around the shower, 3 were running around the rest of the bathroom, and one on the ceiling. As I was doing a final sweep of the room, I saw the piece de resistance. The MOTHER OF ALL ANTS was lounging about, of all places, on my towel. The towel with which I dry my body. The towel with which I was about to wipe my face. MY CLEAN FLUFFY WHITE TOWEL.
These ants were huge. Large, very very large. I'd say the length of my thumb nail. And they weren't bashful. Even when I turned on the shower to flush them down the drain, even when I approached them with a wad of toilet paper to smoosh them, they didn't back down. Now, we don't have ants like these in California, or at least I've never seen them. We have small, respectable little ants that eat your food or break into your house in teams to steal your sugar, but we don't have these monstrosities.
I took immediate action. We closed all the windows, taped off the bathroom vent with saran wrap to make sure they weren't coming in another way, and I searched the rest of the house to see if we had any intruders. We had a few. Two in the downstairs bathroom that were huddling near the sink, one hanging out near the coffee maker, one running around on the ceiling of the kitchen, and one brave sucker on the couch where I enjoy my breakfast. Thank goodness I saw him before he came too close to me, or we'd have had some serious pesticide bombings in that living room.
Closing the windows and saran wrapping the vent made a big difference. We didn't have any invasions that even closely resembled that day when the whole family came in at once. I've decided, however, that these ants are engaged in intimidation tactics. I'm not joking.
The ants are coming in one by one, through some secret entrances that I haven't discovered yet. They appear out of the blue in the middle of my shower, hanging out on Gabe's body wash. One comes running out of my medicine cabinet in the middle of my nightly routine. Worst of all, yesterday, one was hanging out on the toilet paper. I repeat, the toilet paper, with which I wipe my girly bits. Now tell me what that is, if it isn't intimidation.
I initially panicked, thinking these were carpenter ants that were consuming our house shingle by shingle, but according to my neighbors, these ants have been around for 30 years, breaking into the houses every Spring and slowly trickling away as the Summer begins. I forced Josh to go buy a tree cutter and remove every branch that was within ant jumping distance of the house, and we're sleeping with windows shut until we come to some sort of truce. I'm reluctant to put out ant poison, although I did break down and buy it, because of the many small people in this house who I'd like to protect from unnecessary poisons.
So for now, I'm checking the toilet paper 3 times before I use it, I keep my towels in our bedroom, and I find myself creeping around our bathroom terrified of running into another one of those guys. I know they can't hurt me, but there is something about their enormous beady bodies that creeps me the frick out. Really. I'm not normally a person prone to running screaming from a bug, and I've been known to kill spiders more often than my husband (especially after the whole
bullet ant incident*), but I have serious issues with these ants.
I wonder if I can come up with some form of warning system. Maybe I should leave a pile of their murdered compatriots to encourage them to find another home?
_______________________________________________
*By the way,
that entry still makes me laugh out loud, 3 years later.
the gauntlet has been thrown
The grandparents have expressed concerns that when 002 arrives, I'll be even worse at sharing photos with the family than I already am. I'm pleased to report, however, that I may have discovered a solution to my laziness!
Check out the
review blog,
Kinzin or
Parent Bloggers to find out how I can continue being disorganized and put in no effort, but still meet the needs of all the grandparents!
Labels: bloggy business, products
002
Thanks for the congrats! We're still reeling from the news over here. Or at least, I am. Josh seems to have taken it in stride, even though I'm completely in shock.
The nausea has taken a turn for the worst over here, and last night I started actually throwing up. Gabe is sick with a cold, and he woke up at 2am crying for us. I made it down the stairs and into the kitchen to put together a cup of milk for him, and as I pulled the gallon of milk from the fridge, I realized that I was going to throw up right that instant. I had to scream for Josh from my huddled position on the bathroom floor, so he could take over with Gabe. It was pretty bad. Up until then, I've been crippled with a nausea that keeps me prone on the couch, but no actual throwing up. Not anymore, I guess.
I'm trying anything and everything, wrist bands, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, lemonade, chips, ice cubes, water with lemon (gag), juice, sports drinks, cereal, milk, popsicles, ice cream, but nothing works. Nothing. I guess I'd forgotten just how awful morning sickness is, not to mention that this time around just seems to be substantially more vicious than it was with Gabe. Sleeping is the only time when I'm not nauseous, so I find myself wanting to linger in bed for as long as possible every day.
The due date for 002 (get it? because it snuck in?) is December 19th, so the babes will be almost exactly 2 years apart. I may just end up with a Christmas baby this time around, since I was late with Gabe and I don't have high hopes for this one coming any earlier. First things first, though, I'm just trying to survive this first trimester and hoping the nausea will pass soon. I'm praying the nausea will pass soon, because I can barely take care of myself these days, much less Gabe too.
Thank goodness Gabe is especially cute these days. It makes it easier to keep smiling.
Labels: buddha belly
even the computer smells funny
When I got into my top choice for law school, I was shocked. Really, really shocked. The acceptance letter came in a thin envelope, and everyone knows what that means. Applying to the school had been such a stretch that I wasn't even particularly stunned about the thin envelope, and as I sat in the campus mail room, I considered throwing it away without even opening the envelope, to spare myself that additional twinge of seeing the actual words written out. I settled on sliding open the envelope over the gray trash barrel, and I barely slid the letter out, opened the top flap, and almost lost my lunch as I read "We are pleased to inform you..." I spent the next two hours blubbering into the phone as I read the letter to my mom, and Josh, and his parents.
When Josh proposed, I was also shocked. We'd been dating only 2 years, and had just entered the foray of long-distance dating when I moved to Connecticut and he remained in Boston. I'd come up for the long weekend after my first semester finals, and he woke me early on a Sunday morning and began professing his love to me. A proposal was the furthest thing from my mind, and I was terribly annoyed that he was waking me up so early to state the obvious. I rolled over to give him a dirty look, and then I saw it, the look on his face, the box in his hands. So I made him start all over again because I missed the proposal the first time through. I was seriously surprised, and seriously wasn't expecting to even talk about married for another year at least. He definitely succeeded in blowing me out of the water.
Over the years, I've had many other moments of surprise. When I got a job offer I wasn't expecting, when I got a high or low grade in a class, when Gabe said "mama" for the first time, when my car broke down on the highway in rush hour traffic, when a childhood friend finds me on Facebook after 20 years of not talking.
This, though, this takes the cake. I spent a week thinking I had some horrid form of the flu. Some vicious flu that made you weak and lightheaded and achy and nauseous. A virus that made it difficult for me to even sit through Gabe's music class because dancing in a sitting position was too much exertion for me. Turns out, I didn't catch the flu. I caught the pregnant bug.
I'm totally pregnant.
And it was very much a surprise, a surprise that had my heart pounding in a way I have never experienced, and had Josh staring at me dumbfounded when I blurted it out to him. Don't get me wrong, we're excited and happy and anxious, but we were definitively holding off on trying for another 3-6 months, at least. We were actively preventing. Turns out the best laid plans, blah blah blah.
It's early, I'm about 6 and a half weeks, almost 7, and we saw the wee little flicker of a heartbeat yesterday on the ultrasound after I called my doctor to tell her the unbelievable news. I'm also horribly, terribly, disgustingly nauseous and dizzy and sick in a way I wasn't with Gabe. I am barely making it through the day, and nothing seems to help. Not crackers, not nausea reducing wristbands, not eating throughout the day, not drinking water or juice or flat soda, not lying still, not walking around, not special prenatals that claim to reduce morning sickness, not anything. I was sick with Gabe, but it started much later than this has, and if you have any crazy advice that worked for you, I beg you to share it, even if it sounds totally wacky. I'm willing to try anything at this point.
Despite the nausea, we're really excited, and yesterday I looked at Gabe from my position on the couch and wondered if it is even possible for us to make another as amazing as he is. It isn't, right? It can't be possible. I have to wonder about the timing of all this, too, given all the drama going on with my parents. I almost feel as if this is an imposed distraction, something to take me away from my place in the middle of all the problems. We're definitely lucky, that's for sure. In the meantime, we'll be keeping all fingers and toes crossed for a healthy pregnancy.
Now if only I could stop gagging, everything would be perfect.
the travel never ends
Gabe and I arrived late last night from another trip to California, where we've been for the last 10 days. It was a looooonnggg trip, and both of us are relieved to be home. I could tell by the way Gabe kissed each of his toys as he pulled them out of his toy basket, and the squeals of glee when he saw the dogs. I could tell how relieved I was by the way I threw myself at Josh when we got off the elevator at baggage claim. What can I say? It was a long trip, followed by a long flight with Gabe on my lap the whole time. I'm shuddering just thinking about it.
We were in California dealing with some family issues, and also attending the wedding of a law school friend. The wedding was this past weekend, and I had the best time I've had in quite some time. My law school girlfriends and I met up at the wedding locale and went out on Friday and Saturday nights until the wee hours of the morning. My mom took care of Gabe while I lived it up at restaurants and tourist spots and karaoke bars. Why did no one tell me how fun karaoke is? I don't think I've laughed that hard in months. I spent most of the time during karaoke doubled over in tears from all that laughing.
I really needed the release, because the truth is that things on the home front aren't great. My parents appear to be in the process of separating, and there are painful, raw emotions running all over the place. I don't want to talk about it much, because it is complicated and difficult and I'm very sad about it, but that is what is going on.
Gabe, as seems to be the norm around here, is sick again. He has been up coughing for the last few nights and was running a low-grade fever for several days. Tomorrow we have his 15 month visit, and I'm hoping they can shed some light on what is going on with him. Besides this sickness, though, he is cuter than ever. Now I understand how you can stand to see your baby grow up, because the person they turn into is just as adorable as the wee babe they were! He is scrumptious.
He is running around like a maniac, climbing on everything, jabbering nonsensically in the cutest possible way. When he wants you to sing him a song, he moves his fingers as if he were singing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider". He does that sign ALL THE TIME. Once I've shown him a trick once, he almost always remembers how to do it the next time. He can throw things in the garbage, put toys away, give hugs and kisses on command, go up and down stairs, feed himself with a fork (somewhat), open and close doors, retrieve things by name, throw a ball and kick a ball, share a bite of food with you, and the list grows constantly. It is a lot like living with a tiny monkey that learns things instantly, a little like a sponge. And it is so much fun.
So despite all the sadness, life is still really great. We are still really lucky. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying life at home while the three of us are together. At least until we have to leave again for Florida next Tuesday. Ugh, someone shoot me now.
Labels: gabrielicious, growing pains, travel
my split personality
So... It went well. I'm totally conflicted about this situation, so it's hard to get very enthused about a potential job, but I'd say it went about as well as it could have gone.
Apparently there are a few different options at different law firms that might work, but most of them want me to come into the office, rather than work out of the home. This leads to the always present problem of working out the economics of having to hire a babysitter or finding a daycare. The starting pay for contract attorneys isn't that high, although they assured me that the rates go up as you go along. Josh and I need to work the numbers, because it is possible that tutoring in the evenings and on weekends might even pay more than doing legal work because I wouldn't need childcare. How crazy is that?
My headhunter did make one comment that introduced a whole new idea into the mix. She has tons of contract work that requires a full-time commitment, but they are short projects. One week, maybe two, tops. It is conceivable that I could go in for one intense week per month, or two intense weeks over a couple of months, rather than a smaller amount every week. I don't know why, but that resonated with me. I might find it easier to leave Gabe for 40 hours in one week, knowing that I wouldn't have to leave him again for another 3 or 4 weeks. Is that nuts?
Basically, I'm waiting to hear the final word back from the headhunter, and in the meantime, I'm scouring my own brain to see if this is what I want. Do I want to take a break from law and jump somewhere totally new and fun? Or am I not ready to make that decision? Should I do contract work just to keep law on my resume and figure it out as I go along?
Ugh, decisions, decisions. For now, I'm taking a break from thinking about it and snuggling this adorable boy on the floor while he points at everything in the room and calls it a "cahhhhrrr". Maybe a babysitter could teach him some new words?
Labels: to work or not to work
