pre-Halloween update

October 30, 2008 at 6:25 pm (holidays, weekends)

It has been a busy last two weeks. Most of it is work-related stuff, but we did get to have some good ‘fun time’ this past weekend. We actually went to 3 parties in 36 hours Saturday and Sunday and braved one 14 yr old birthday party through a power outage (the last picture on this post is from that event!)

For the medical update: the wife does not have a broken ankle. She actually never went to the ER or the doctor’s office. Since my insurance is an HSA plan, she waited to see if it got better before paying for a doctor visit and x-ray out of our account. Needless to say, she still doesn’t feel 100%, but she’s walking somewhat close to normal again.

We’re gearing up for Halloween in our household. I can’t remember ever being so excited for Halloween before. I can’t wait to trick or treat with Shmoo!

I need to carve one more pumpkin tonight after work. It’s funny how I picked all sorts of intricate stencils about 2 weeks ago and after doing the first pumpkin with “Animal” from the Mupp.ets, 2 hours and five hand cramps later, I decided to do much simpler designs for the remaining carvings.

I might have mentioned this before, but about a month ago, we had a professional photographer come to the house one night to take pictures for the Love Makes a Family – CT website and media materials. In return for us agreeing to our pictures being used by LMF, we were to receive the digital photos and a CD.

Since we have never had a professional photo shoot and don’t really have more than one or two family photos, I was excited for a chance at potential holiday card material. The afternoon photo session was a little chaotic – we were home late for work, tried to get pictures down outside in the cold before the sun went down, Shmoo wouldn’t smile, then he wouldn’t stay still, etc. I will post some pictures of the “bloopers” soon, but here’s the one that just might be the keeper.

As for progress with the Shmoo, he is doing well. He is starting to talk a little more, repeat more words. He now overuses the word “no.” Sometimes, he’ll mull it over for a minute, “ummmm…..no.”

Now that he will watch TV, all he wants is “Elmo!” And regular Sesame Street is not enough. It must be Elmo. Argghh. I guess it’s time to consider getting a DVD player that works and a TV for his playroom.

He still loves ring around the rosie. He just gets up and runs in a circle going “ree-ohh, ree-ohh, ree-ohh” and then says “down!” as he slams himself on the ground.

Along with this, he gets the zooms (as puppies often do) and runs through the hallway and bathroom, around the kitchen table or anything else.

This weekend, my parents will babysit him for the first time. They live almost 2 hrs away and are always busy, so it’s never worked out for them to watch him before. We always feel bad leaving him with someone because he isn’t the easiest kid. But we do realize that he’s much easier for other people than his mommies. I think my mom can handle it, though. She used to provide discipline workshops to parents and most importantly, she did survive my brother’s childhood (as did my brother).

Here’s the dragon costume that we bribed him with chocolate to get him to wear. Hopefully, he’ll put it on for tomorrow night.

My mother’s been dying to cut his hair since Shmoo had these ‘wings’, so my wife finally gave him his very first haircut. It took about 90 seconds – there wasn’t much hair to trim. He was cooperative because Elmo was on and he was very tired.

Shmoo and “Ni-Ni!” (his cousin, Nicky)

Shmoo and his BFF – how freakin’ cute are they?!!?

The slide at the Halloween party that led to the infamous ankle injury.

The end of the party shot (post snow cone, post-rain storm, post chocolate consumption)

Hope everyone has a Happy and Safe Halloween! Can’t wait to see pictures of all the kids (and adults too!) in their costumes!

16 Comments

(W)rite to Citizenship!

October 29, 2008 at 2:56 pm (marriage)

Please join me in Write to Marry Day! See Mombian for details!

Last night, I attended this incredible seminar at Wes.leyan in Connecticut regarding the CT Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.

It was an amazing event put on jointly by LMF-CT and GLAAD as an informational session and the attendance was amazing! Two of my favorite lawyers on the planet spoke and the entire room was just filled with electricity!

Our state, our amazing state, is the newest in the nation to confirm that its citizenry should be treated as equal citizens.

That’s what this is about – equal citizenship.

Connecticut made a positive stride back in 2005 with civil unions. It was a step forward, but it wasn’t enough. Civil unions provided that gay couples had the right to “equal protection” of the laws, meaning that they should be guaranteed the same rights (under state law) but people were afraid to use the word “marriage.”

This recent decision confirmed that gay couples shall not be denied the benefits of citizenship and civil unions are not enough. Denying them ‘marriage’ is unconstitutional!

As I looked around the room, listened to the speakers, listened to the audience members and interviews, it struck me how happy everyone was. Couples were announcing their impending ceremonies, sharing stories of pregnancies, sharing stories of problems faced due to the lack of legal recognition or confusion over what “civil union status” was. (We had our own story that led to frustration at the hospital when Shmoo was born. I actually went to the state capital earlier this year to tell our story!)

Marriage is something that is understood by everyone. You can say “I am MARRIED!” and everyone will understand. You can turn blue trying to explain what a ‘civil union’ is!

The couple sitting behind me had been together for 32 years! 32 years and now they can finally get MARRIED!

I sat there wondering how anyone who could eavesdrop on this group of people could think they should not be granted this basic human right. How could anyone possible say that this couple of 32 years should not get married because it will be a detriment to the society as a whole?!!?

Everyone in that room was celebrating their right to live their lives as citizens, just like every other citizen of the state – to live their lives without daily battles for recognition as a couple or as a family.

There is still a long battle ahead. We still have absolutely no legal rights as a couple outside of our state boundaries. Federal laws that govern immigration, the tax code, health care, etc. will not recognize our marriage (thanks to a silly law called DoMA).

I am keeping the faith that other states will follow suit.

As in California, we too will be forced to fight a continuing battle. On November 4th, QUESTION 1 on the ballot will provide a vote for or against a state constitutional convention. Voting NO! will ensure that small factors of the public can’t convene to change the state constitution! Anyone in CT, please remember to vote NO! on Question 1 in 6 days!

And for those in California, VOTE NO ON PROP 8!

Every citizen has the right to be treated as a person, as an equal citizen of the community in which he or she lives. We must continue to pursue equal citizenship until every state and the federal government follows suit.

Many thanks to Dana Rudolph at Mombian for organizing today’s blogging event!

5 Comments

the dragon and the pinata

October 27, 2008 at 2:58 pm (holidays, video)

Sorry for the radio silence. We’ve had a lot going on lately. I’ll update more in the next day or so.

I’m slammed at work and my poor wife is at the E.R. right now with her mother getting x-rays on a possible ankle sprain/fracture. She had a mishap with the inflatable bouncy slide at a Halloween party last night. Poor thing. I feel terrible.

Here’s a quick video of the boy from the party. I have more picture but will need to upload them and I also don’t want to post pictures of the slide until the wife doesn’t feel traumatized by the pictures.

Hope all is well with my blog friends.

6 Comments

5 friends (uncensored)

October 19, 2008 at 3:45 pm (election)

8 Comments

small raft, raging river

October 16, 2008 at 6:44 pm (economy)

This economic mess that is going on right now is becoming scarier and scarier. Not only in the aspect of our future, really the desperation of other people.

Bad financial times add stress. Stress to relationships, stress to job security, everyday costs, etc. I think we’re all feeling it.

But some people are falling into a desperation that is becoming dangerous.

  • Last week, a man in California killed his entire family and himself due to his financial failures. He felt that killing his family along with himself was the “honorable” thing to do.
  • We all have most likely read about the 90-yr-old woman in Ohio who shot herself while a foreclosure notice was impending. Thankfully, she survived and the loan debt was forgiven. (I think it’s great that the mortgage was forgiven, but I’m a little nervous about what this might lead to.)
  • A housewife in Virginia (I think) committed suicide due to her inability to pay the mortgage. With her suicide note, she left a life insurance policy and directed her husband to pay the mortgage with the proceeds.
  • Other stories are coming up in crime news and blogs attributing violence and suicides to people’s financial stresses.
  • Domestic abuse shelters are being crowded due to an increase in domestic violence.
  • Bank robberies are climbing at what I feel is an astronomical rate. We live in an area with very low crime levels (not my neighborhood, per se, but the surrounding area). We’ve had 6 bank robberies in our surrounding towns this year alone. One recent bank robbery was in a very small, secluded town and was so professional and so violent that the bank has a town cop on duty during bank hours now to prevent this robber’s return.
  • At a local corporation, in another small CT town, an older gentleman (maybe 70 or so) was laid off as a contractor a few months ago. He recently returned to the property and committed suicide in the parking lot. I can only imagine that his reasons included financial strain after being unemployed in an impossible market.

People are feeling strained and desperate. I cannot begin to understand how this turns to violence for so many people, but I guess it seems like a logical means to an end for someone who just wants to put food on the table and has no other options.

But there are other options. There are crisis hotlines. Shelters. Food stamps. Job seeking assistance. Anything. I hope that more people who are near the verge can see that the desperation is impending and take steps to find a better way out.

We all have issues. Every one of us faces difficulties in one way or another on a daily basis. Trust me, when I took the route to go on meds, I was shocked to find out so many people I know took meds or used frequent therapy, people who I always thought had their shit together without any help.

I think pride gets in the way too often. I’m guilty of it myself. Good thing I have a well-grounded partner who knows how to keep me from drowning.

I sincerely hope that if anyone I know feels like he or she is drowning that they know to reach out.

We’ll all drowning together, maybe we can climb on the same raft.

9 Comments

toddler-dom part one

October 15, 2008 at 1:46 pm (Toddler things)

Sometimes, this kid amazes me.

Shmoozer has this little baseball tee in his toy bag. I posted a video a while back showing how good he is with it. He doesn’t play with it that often, but he can be inspired to drag it out.

Last night, we were in the living room watching TV. I flipped the channel to baseball and he stopped what he was doing, pointed at the TV and said “that?”

With that, he toddled over to his toy bag, pulled out the baseball tee, the bat and searched for a ball. As soon as I pulled out the ball, he clapped his hands and went about hitting off the tee.

Time and time again, he would point to the TV, say “that” and then show us that he could play baseball too. What a kid!

While life with a toddler is fun, I have some moments of frustration.

One of these moments came at 7:45 this morning. I really want to leave for work around 7 am, but it wasn’t happening.

By 8:02, I was exasperated, failing in my search for the car keys. Of course, I have absolutely no idea where my spare keys are.

As I tore through every place I could think of, I heard Lo yell “FOUND THEM!”

Where?

Anyone with a toddler may have already guessed.

In the garbage.

I can’t believe I didn’t think to look in there.

(I actually believe Shmoo’s BFF K* is the culprit on this one. We spent 15 minutes last night searching for his dinosaurs which were eventually located in a garbage can in Shmoo’s closet)

9 Comments

columbus day recap

October 14, 2008 at 5:43 pm (weekends)

Thank you everyone for your excitement over the CT decision. I think it hit me over the weekend how big this is. I guess I was a little stunned on Friday, I really had no idea what to expect. Now, we are waiting to see how the logistics will work out. Love Makes a Family is an amazing organization here in CT and they have done so much to make this happen.

As 4thborn said, everyone we can reach out to in CT must vote NO! against a constitutional convention on the November 4th ballot. We don’t want to present an opportunity for the state constitution to be amended in the form of a “definition of marriage as a man and a woman” amendment.

In the meantime, my wife (who is not known for being the most romantic person on the planet) had this to say…

“Does this mean that we will have another anniversary that I won’t remember??”

Is she awesome or what?

As for another crazy, fun-filled weekend….

Saturday and Sunday went by in a blur. I couldn’t even tell you what we did but I didn’t even get much football watching. At least I could get Lo to watch some baseball with me.

On Monday, I had both the Shmoo and his BFF for my optional day off since day care was closed. This day off still doesn’t count against my 19 remaining vacation days.

As for the day spent with the two boys…well….it definitely made me think twice about having more than one kid.

I’m exhausted.

It actually went pretty well, despite the odds. I think everyone we knew was worried I could handle it. Well, I handled it. With minimal tears. By me.

We did have one major meltdown when Shmoozer woke up from his nap and wanted to play outside. His BFF (K*) had just spent the better part of 2 hours watching Bar.ney and Sesame.Street and I felt that playing outside was a reasonable alternative. K* had a full-on meltdown because he didn’t want to go outside (he’s not an outdoors kid at all). He wanted to watch TV. Then Shmoo had a meltdown because we weren’t going outside. They both got a Time Out on the steps – both of them screaming in unison. Afterward, we didn’t go outside or watch TV. We played in our new playroom and they even played legos together for about 45 minutes. This is a huge chunk of time for Shmoo to play with ANYTHING.

I’m posting some pictures from yesterday and the weekend.

Yes, my kid is wearing a Dod.gers sweatshirt in one of these pictures. We are rooting for the Dod.gers as a form of sweet revenge on the Yanks for treating Joe.Torre the way they did. Not that I’m going to disrespect my Yan.kees, but I can be a little sensitive. If LA doesn’t make it to the big dance, I might actually have to root for the Phill.ies – remember, I was surrounded by those crazy fans during my law school stint.

Life still hasn’t slowed down much. I think that I was looking forward to September/October for the “summer is over, life will return to normal” kind of schedule, but I was being overly optimistic.

We’re definitely turning down more social things lately. It’s a big step for us to admit that we need some down time and that we just don’t need to be going everywhere and doing everything. But it still doesn’t seem to have much impact on our down time.

I’m caught between wanting work to slow down a little and needing it to speed up to maximize my hours.

Work is work. I’m not happy but I don’t have a choice. My one shining ray of light was a potential job that seemed to be perfect. I couldn’t help myself from getting excited about the prospect of it. Only the current economy took the job off the table and I’m back to the place where I’m stuck between trying to be happy that I have a job and spending each day fighting my frustration.

My boss, who I’ve attempted to explain the personality quirks with my readers before, is being incredibly over critical lately. Only of me. And it’s not rational critiquing , it’s incredibly neurotic stuff. I can’t help but feeling I’m just treading water. Again. And again.

I’ve tried to add some pictures to this post by going back to flickr instead of photo.bucket, but I’m not sure if I have the time or the patience to mess with this. Oh well, I tried.

9 Comments

decision day

October 10, 2008 at 2:04 pm (gay marriage)

Today is decision day. The Connect.i.cut Supreme.Court hands down its decision on gay marriage.

UPDATED**************

VICTORY!!!!

CONNECTICUT SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF SAME SEX MARRIAGE!

Love Makes A Family is keeping tabs.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make this happen!

For the legal geeks, the decision can be found here!
I’ll provide a summary when I finish the novel!

15 Comments

10 yrs past and pig wrestling

October 7, 2008 at 10:20 pm (randomness)

Not too long ago, I promised to blog more. It wasn’t one of those false promises to my readers, it was a promise to myself for therapeutic reasons.

We can all see how well that has been working for me.

Let’s see – what’s been going on.

My college reunion, the 2 minute version.

Reunion weekend came and went. I went up Friday night to hang with my old roomie. About, I don’t know, 10 beers each, 4 appetizers and 2 baseball games later, we crashed in our hotel room about 2 am. Saturday was a little sluggish. But we made it to campus, spent some cash in the bookstore and lounged on some Adirondack chairs in front of the gorgeous library that wasn’t there 10 yrs ago, watching the reunion-fest go on below us. Eventually, we called the wife and had her bring the Shmoo up for the festivities. As we walked around the outdoor events, we ran into various former classmates and their respective offspring. I remembered less than ½ of the names of the people who remembered mine (man, I suck). And by 4 pm, Lo turned to my old roomie and me and said “you two both really came up here to visit with each other. Why not blow off the reunion-bar-party and head back home with me to drink at home and watch football.” That was that. We couldn’t fathom heading to a packed bar feeling as lazy as we were, so we headed home, split a 12-pack (3/4 of which I drank), watched football and baseball and crashed again by 2 am.

I saw people I wanted to see. I did feel a little guilty about missing the bar party but almost none of our big group of college friends were even going. I had a great weekend with my old roomie and it was just like old times.

On Sunday night, we had a Dex.ter watching dinner party with a new/old couple of friends. (Long story for another day)

Also on Sunday, we noticed two spots on Shmoo’s face. They looked a little like pimples but we weren’t alarmed.

Note: earlier in the week, Shmoo’s daycare had sent 7 toddlers home with roseola. Shmoo did not get it (KNOCKING ON EVERY PIECE OF WOOD I CAN FIND)

By Sunday night, we noticed one or two more spots.

By Monday night, he had a total of 7 pimple things.

Face, hairline, behind his ears, hands.

I called various other experience moms, did online research and rifled through our “Todd.ler 411” book.

He did have his first round of chicken pox shots, so maybe this was a mild form of chicken pox? The symptoms could also mean measles….he had shots for that, right?!?!

Uh oh.

I got up before the butt crack of dawn to get to work early enough to leave by 9:30 am. Meet the wife at the baby doc to have the kid checked out. When we mention the possibility of chicken pox, they tell us to wait in the side hallway – they don’t even let us sit in the “sick” waiting room.

Once we got in and Shmoo saw the patient room, he screamed bloody murder. Loud enough for the kids in both waiting rooms to turn pale. He screamed through the entire body inspection like we were cattle prodding the poor kid.

Nope. Not chicken pox. Maybe bites?

No cause for alarm, send the kid back to day care.

We feel like asses. The doc gives Shmoo a sticker and a pretzel and he’s happy for about…ummm…2 minutes. That’s when we realize we should get the flu shot while we’re there and we head back to the same patient room.

Redo the whole pig wrestling-cattle prod incident and go on our way.

I get to drop the Shmoo off at daycare. Fast forward through another pig wrestling-cattle prod incident.

Work is chaotic lately. Life is chaotic. It would have been a much better day today if I’d stayed home with Shmoo…

Tomorrow night, we’re having a professional photographer come take pictures of us for Love.Makes.A.Family-CT ads. Interesting…

I still have about 19 vacation days left. Wish I could use them….

I’m exhausted.

10 Comments

like I’m 21 again

October 2, 2008 at 9:26 pm (weekends)

Tomorrow night, I head up to my old stompin’ ground for my 10 yr college reunion.

Pough.keepsie, baby.

I am heading up a night early to sit with my old roomie and have some good ol’ fashioned beer, smokes and political discussion.

She’s a conservative Republican – but shockingly, we never yell, we just agree to disagree. (Or we agree that I’m always right).

Two nights away from the family, partying like I’m 21 again.

I’m looking forward to seeing all of my cool-ass sorority sisters (shocking that I was in a sorority, right? a girly one at that!), boyfriends (I was so niave then), female crushes (tee hee) and just plain buddies.

I had planned on being about 20 lbs lighter by now. hmmm…and my face is breaking out in a major way. ugh.

Regardless of how crappy I look, it will be fun!

Let’s see how I feel on Sunday…

BTW – I just had to share this. If you are a Palin fan and I’ve offended you….well, get over it. LOL

Print out your Palin Bingo cards for the debate tonight!

One more thing, I was looking into a potential job that I was really excited about. Knowing me, I tried to not tell too many people or get my hopes up too much. I found out today that they put a freeze on any hiring due to the happenings on Wall.Street. sigh. I guess that light at the end of this tunnel just got blown out. But I’m okay. Moving on.

9 Comments