Look at this kid.
What a goof.
And he looks like such a toddler now. When did that happen?
In mobile news, he’s taken one or two steps here and there on his own, but it always seems to be by mistake. We keep thinking that it will be any day now…
norwegian baby
January 29, 2008 at 11:21 pm (babies babies everywhere!)
I have some wonderful news!!
I wanted to do a quick shout out to Marlis!!
We have a little Norwegian baby boy! Born last monday! After only 28 hours of labor! (Thank goodness for drugs!)
3680 grams and 51 cm long – whatever that converts to.
And She named him after my grandfather (the most wonderful man in the whole world).
Congrats to Marlis and her little bundle of joy!
I can’t wait to meet him! Or just see pictures of him! (hint, hint)
unfocused
January 29, 2008 at 11:18 pm (some venting)
We’ve been a little distracted and busy. I have some me-mes/tags I need to get to, and I will!
I’ve been a little extra stressed lately. Not that it’s all job stress but I am on my 8th or 9th rewrite of client memo involving easements for hydrogeneration facilities for my impossible to please boss. yuck, right?!? Needless to say, I’m discouraged and frustrated. I feel dumb and keep wondering why I decided to go to law school instead of just remaining a high school teacher.
Bitch. bitch. bitch. I just need a little “mommy” time and it’s not happening. I want to complain about the current state of things, but losses that have been happening to my friends in the past few days have been keeping my perspective together.
ode to laura
January 25, 2008 at 11:07 pm (you made a funny)
On occasion, my friend Laura and I are on the same brain wave. It is usually far too advanced for Lois to follow and she just rolls her eyes (like the front seat/back seat thing – #6 on our “us” list).
Like, Lois just cannot understand how we continuously find every other line in F*inding N*emo as hysterical as we do, even on our 39th time watching it. Nor does Lois appreciate our invention of the “Floon” (making a flute out of the straw/spoon thing from a McFl*urry).
Laura and I like to think it’s because we are so smart. And it’s because we are so smart that we are able to appreciate wonderfully written advertisements as well.
For example, we both think that these two commercials are flippin’ hysterical:
#1
The best part about the Chevy commercial is that in Part II, she gets up and slams into the car again. When we are watching tv together, Laura and I will rewind this ad and watch it over and over again (ah, the magic of DVR) and laugh just as hard every time.
#2
We love the “door open” part of this commercial.
I hope Laura is reading the blog today, because I know she’ll appreciate this.
So, I had a “open door” moment this morning. It was almost disastrous.
I stopped in the post office on my walk to work from the parking garage to buy stamps. It was ass bone cold by the way.
As I was leaving the post office, my hands were completely full. I had my work bag, my lunch bag, a plastic bag with useless crap and my gloves in one hand and my D*unkin D*onuts toasted almond coffee in the other. I thought I was managing it all pretty well considering I could have definitely used one more hand.
The post office has two sets of doors. The interior sets looks IDENTICAL to the outer set of doors. However, the interior set of doors is ELECTRONIC.
Do you see where this is going?
I walked right through the first set of doors because they opened for me.
Then, I walked right into the second set of doors. Crap. WTF?
Needless to say, I did not knock myself out – and DID NOT EVEN SPILL ANY OF MY COFFEE. I did kinda sorta catch myself before I had a full force splat. But it was still not pretty.
Thank god no one saw me. Although the people around the corner in the post office probably wondered what that BANG was that was followed by a “oh, fuck.”
noisy kid
January 25, 2008 at 3:00 pm (video)
I still think he’s just a funny kid.
And I know that when he’s mad, he’s mad. But I think he’s so happy when he’s happy – I just love that he’s a spirited child!
Here’s a video of a typical night with the boy. (ignore the Mets logo on his pants. I was not responsible for dressing him)
And a bonus video of Andrew and his BFF!
makeshift diaper
January 24, 2008 at 3:49 pm (what bad mommies we are)
Here’s another “we are not mothers of the year” story. (I think Auntie Suz was horrified when I told her this one)
On Tuesday morning, I ended up taking the day off and brought the boy to my office with me to pick up some work and let people see him. My office is about 40 minutes door-to-door when you take out having to park in the garage and walk for 3 blocks. (This is important later in the post)
We left the house around 8:15 am and I stopped at a DD drive thru to get coffee near work since the boy was still sleeping. Our 30 minute visit turned into an hour and a half. I fed him breakfast, he ate 2 handfulls of cheerios from one of the senior partner, he found chairs to push around the hallways and light switches to play with. All in all, it was pretty successful.
Not long before I was trying to pack him up, I went to change his diaper. He was fairly wet but no poop. I changed him and two more friends stopped by my office while he was sitting on the floor pulling papers out of files. (my office is a file-overloaded pig sty)
As we chatted briefly, the smell hit me. C’mon kid….a big poop 30 seconds after I change your diaper??? Can we work on this timing thing.
I checked the cooler bag where I got the first diaper.
nada.
Went to my car parked out back in the big wig parking lot.
zilch.
Rummaged through the diaper bag. Surely there would be a diaper in the diaper bag.
nothing.
Drove my car to the parking garage to sift through co-worker friend’s minivan for a diaper while minivan friend watched him (along with the cheerio giving senior partner who decided to teach him to throw cheerios which I am still finding around my office).
zero.
Drove one or two blocks around to C*V*S*.
closed.
Got back to the office and commiserated with my minivan friend. She has a one year old. What would she do? He can’t sit in it for 45 minutes, he has diaper rash. I could stop on the way home, but I have to take him out of the car again in 15 degree weather and change him in the back seat.
Since he had done a major poop and a major pee just moments before, we decided that we would chance it and let him go commando. Well, sorta commando.
I took a short sleeve onesie out of his diaper bag and made a makeshift diaper out of it, buttoned up his onesie shirt and put his pants back on. Threw him in the car seat and prayed that he didn’t have another 5-star horrible poop on the way home(he’s been having horrific poops for the last 5 days. I mean landfill material.)
We made it home! Whew.
I ran him into the house, plopped him on the couch and prayed for the best. He was dry. I couldn’t believe it. I reached for the diaper basket under the coffee table.
Nada.
Zilch.
Nothing.
Lois was coming up from the basement and reminded me that she moved it upstairs for the open house. ugh.
I picked him up and let him stand there, holding onto the coffee table, naked from the waist down. Flapping in the breeze.
“Don’t do anything for the next 15 seconds, okay pal!”
I went ran like a bat out of hell to grab a diaper and was back to him in probably 15 seconds.
He was standing in a very large puddle.
But he was smiling!
sigh.
the Connecticut two step
January 23, 2008 at 4:40 pm (Job, a mobile meatball)
Somebody took 2-3 steps yesterday!
I actually got to witness it too because I used Lois’ cold as an excuse to be with the boy all day. I brought him to the office to show him off in the a.m. and then brought a huge stack of work home to do at the kitchen table (which went untouched).
We were trying to get him to walk between the two of us as we sat 3 feet away from each other. At the last second, we would let go of him.
Of course, he didn’t know he did it and after a few attempts, he became Mr. Jellyman Legs and had no interest in trying any more. And we’re not going to push it!
- – -
On another note, things are a little uneasy in the office lately. Many associates and support staff are frustrated with the lack of appreciation from the powers that be.
Everyone got their paychecks for the first real pay period in 2008 and saw what their annual raises were. Let’s just say they are a percentage increase that is well below 1/2 of what a cost of living increase would be.
My paycheck differential is $20 per month. I hate to be ungrateful, but why bother?
Other associates that I am friendly with are trying to balance giving up weekend days and late nights for work, missing their families, for a $20/month raise. People are very frustrated that the firm will spend more on a partner lunch than a raise for a valuable employee.
And there is such a high turnover for associates. I’m very surprised no one has thought about the cost of retaining versus having to constantly rehire.
I need to stick it out here but I think I’m going to see more of my friends depart in the months to come. Either that or there will be a major coup here.
waiting to TTC
January 22, 2008 at 8:59 pm (TTC)
I may just be extra sensitive lately. I’m not sure.
But it sure seems like a lot of people are asking us when we are having our 2nd child.
Is it because people just expect us to be thinking about it as we near Andrew’s 1st birthday? Or is it that it is so apparent that we are thinking about it?
We are thinking about it. I am actually temping. (And what a chart I have. It looks more like a lie detector test than a fertility chart.)
But it’s almost like there may be one major thing holding us up.
Selling our place.
If we get an offer on our condo, it seems like so much is doable. The financial aspect of it is huge. Moving to the new town will allow us to have lower bills and a bigger place. We’ll be splitting food, utilities, cable, phone, property taxes and the mortgage payment with my mother. We can probably start saving money again too.
We completely drained our savings account in the time Lois went on bed rest all through the time she started working again. Being able to get back to a place where we are not entirely living paycheck to paycheck will be really nice.
Plus, with this freedom, Lois won’t feel pressured to have to work full-time and we can have Andrew in day care more and less with my MIL (my grand plan in all of this is less time Andrew has with Mema – more on this later in my big MIL rant post).
There are one or two other reasons that we are not trying this month. A small consideration is the fear that we have a second high maintenance child. Andrew was very difficult and is still pretty high maintenance a.k.a. spirited. Do we want to make sure he has grown out of this stage?
But I am anxious to start soon for several reasons.
- I don’t want our children to be too far apart in age. I think Andrew needs a sibling because he does require so much attention, may need to share the spotlight and may need a playmate as well.
- Lois doesn’t want to wait too, too long since she is (ahem) 40.
- I’m ready. Even though I wanted to lose a lot more weight before I started, I am emotionally ready.
- Another thing is the job situation. I think I made a decision that I need to stick with this job for another year or two. I need to get into another area here that will make me more marketable when I do want to leave here. A close friend here will leave soon and she thinks I need to try to get into her work. I know I can go through a pregnancy and maternity leave here without too much of a hassle and can work from home if necessary. I don’t want to be looking for another job knowing I am trying to have a baby, so this is my grand plan.
As I said, I am charting this month and next month, so we shall see how it all plans out. Maybe March?!?!
my trip west
January 21, 2008 at 6:21 pm (vacation)
It’s official.
The trip westward has been booked.
I will be going to So. Cal. (L*ong Beach) to visit my family. Mostly to help my grandmother take care of my grandfather. And since I don’t want to add any stress to their lives right now, I am making the trip solo. No wife. No boy.
I’m disappointed that they won’t be joining me, but it just means that I’ll have to plan a follow up trip later that includes them.
And I am going to make a stopover in a certain area for a couple of days on my way out there!
SLC baby!
I’ll be in the SLC area from the night of 2/21 to the afternoon of 2/24! Wahoo!!!
Not sure yet if I’m bringing any ski apparel. But I am booking the rental car and the hotel today or tomorrow, so all the pieces are falling to place!
Can’t wait!!!
northeast bowl
January 21, 2008 at 12:36 pm (weekends)
Even Lois watched football with me yesterday. What a turnout! And even Lois is excited about the Sup*er Bo*wl. This area consists of either Pats fans or Gi*ants fans (rarely do you find a J*ets fan – LOL!!)
Our weekend was an absolute blur.
Saturday was the UC*onn women’s basketball game in which they blew out Cinc*innati. I dragged Aunt Laura with me and we met up with my parents and my oldest nephew. It was awesome. Our seats were ON THE FLOOR and my mother just smiled when we asked her how she got the tickets. The tickets that were ON THE FLOOR and that she wouldn’t let us pay for.
Saturday night, Lois’ parents had the boy overnight so we could clean for the open house. After some shopping excursions and burgers at D*enny’s (yeah. I know. Not even our 4th choice but it was 7:30 on a Sat. night. Every other place was an hour wait) we headed home and went to bed.
Sunday morning, up at 7 am, cleaning until 10:45 am when we ran out the door to go to the baby shower. Fast forward through the baby shower (there is some material here I’ll save for later) then Lois dropped me back home by 3:45 so I could catch as much of the Pats game as possible. Thankfully, I hadn’t missed much. whew.
The open house went well, I guess. We weren’t expecting too many people since it is Jan. It was a playoff football day and it was absolutely bitter cold. Supposedly, 5 couples came through. And we have someone coming today to look.
I’m off to work, I do have to find time to vent about my MIL. I did spend 2 hours in the car with her plus 3 hours at the baby shower. I think I had my intake for the week. My self control sometimes astounds me.
