2007 January

Turning Forty? Actually, not that bad.

January 31, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 13 Comments

I had a surprisingly good day yesterday. I’ve been building it up in my mind for so long, how I was going to turn Forty, and how that would mean I was so old, and not knowing if that would mean a whole day of being completely bummed out. Instead, I ended up having a pretty darn good day.

I went to my favorite coffee place for a birthday Mocha and Cinnamon Roll, then spent some time reading blog comments, then went to lunch with my best friend at Red Lobster, followed by some thrift-store shopping. Here’s a photo the waitress took at Red Lobster, you can see Kaitlyn’s black eye that she got running into our computer table on Saturday.

When I got home and checked my blog post, I found that I already had over a hundred comments wishing me a Happy Birthday! Thank you so much everyone who mentioned it on your own blog, or emailed your friends, because you made me feel really, really special. I honestly thought I might not even get forty comments!

Chris took us out for dinner, and I picked Red Robin because I knew the kids would like their food and I also knew I would get a free birthday dessert. I did not intentionally choose two restaurants with the word “Red” in the title. The photos are on my Flickr page, but here’s my favorite:

Best Dad in the world

So now I am 40. I have to check a different set of boxes on questionnaires, and it’s only ten more years until I can join the AARP. And yet, I still feel like I’m in my twenties, and I guess that’s what really matters.

Filed Under: Health ·

When I woke up this morning, I was Forty. Felt the same.

January 30, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 126 Comments

Well, I made it to Forty. Thanks everybody who already left me a birthday comment, and especially thank you LANNA, for sending me a birthday card that made me bust out with a much-needed laugh. I’ll be checking in throughout the day for more comments, and keeping my fingers crossed that I get to forty. Here’s the tally so far:

LEFT ME A COMMENT, SO THEREFORE A TOTALLY AWESOME PERSON:

Meno

Roo

Sarah (save that shot for 8:00 PM, okay?)

Suebob (she also “sang” me a birthday song, in SPANISH!)

Teebs

Only thirty five comments to go! I’m feeling the birthday love already.

Janssen

Mamatulip

Lori (no URL)

Lisa

That’s nine comments! Thank you for the good wishes, everyone!

Edited to add: Oh my God, you guys! I just got back from lunch and thrift-store shopping with my best friend and LOOK how many comments I have already! See what happens when Goon Squad Sarah and Miss Zoot mention your birthday in a post? And CPA Mom emails everyone in her address book? *Sniff* You guys are awesomely awesome! Please keeep ‘em coming, let’s see if I can get to 100!

Edited again to add: Dudes. See how I was going to publish the URL of everyone who left a comment? Counting the comments on yesterday’s post, I have ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN comments. I can’t believe it! Thank you so much for all of your good wishes (and to let me know that forty really isn’t that old), you’ve really made my whole day. And now, my husband just got home from work and he’s taking me out to dinner! I’ll be home in time for American Idol at 8:00, stop by Mamapop! if you want to play along with the open message thread. More comments, more!

Filed Under: I Like Meeting People, Personal ·

The one where I had no TV or Internet all weekend.

January 29, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 24 Comments

***Don’t forget, tomorrow is my FORTIETH birthday! Please stop by and leave me a Happy Birthday comment, the post will stay up until I get at least FORTY comments. If you want to toast me with a glass or shot of something, just please make sure your kids are not around lest Meredith Viera jump out from behind your sofa with a Today show camera crew and ask you if you really NEED that alcohol. I’ll probably start drinking around 8:00 p.m., while commenting on the American Idol Open Message Thread over at Mamapop!. Because that show is SO much better when it’s a drinking game too.***

So, in other news, I wanted to reply to everyone who commented on my post about the Today show, but on Friday night we lost our cable. No cable signal, no Comcast “High Speed” Internet access. For the WHOLE. WEEKEND. We had to do stuff like watch DVDs, read books, swim at the Y. And while it is, in fact, possible to live without TV and computers, I have to admit I was about to go out of my mind when the Comcast guy showed up this afternoon. Turns out, a weird vine-thing growing on our neighbor’s tree had wrapped around the cable and pulled it right out of the connection.

Also helping me not commit cablecide was the fact that for my birthday, my Dad and Stepmother bought me a one-hour massage at a day spa, and since my Stepsister was the masseuse, she kicked in another thirty minutes. So I got a NINETY MINUTE massage today. It was heaven. Then we went to lunch and I ate a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream (what? it’s my birthday).

As much as I would love to sit here on the computer for the rest of the night, I have to take Nathan to Cub Scouts which means I’d better make some dinner or something. Hope to see you all back here tomorrow, I’ll put the Birthday post up first thing in the morning, then show me the love with those comments!!

Filed Under: Health ·

Why don’t I get invited to Cocktail Playdates?

January 26, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 20 Comments

This morning on the Today show, Meredith Viera interviewed Melissa Summers, who writes the blog Suburban Bliss. Melissa invented the word “momtini”, which the Global Language Monitor calls the Ninth Most Politically Incorrect Term for 2006. The graphic of a momtini is a martini glass with a pacifier in it, which is obviously a joke! A funny joke! Because Melissa would obviously have never really dipped one of her children’s pacifiers in alcohol! At least not until right before bedtime! (Also a joke).

The segment, called “Today’s Woman”, opened with an interview with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, who writes the blog Baby on Bored and is also the author of Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay. Stephanie was shown with two friends and their children in (presumably) her backyard, drinking a glass of white wine while the kids played on a swingset. Was she drunk? Of course not. Was she enjoying a legal, adult beverage in a controlled situation? Yes. If it had been a group of Dads watching the kids play (aww, you’re babysitting! how cute!) while drinking a beer, I doubt it would have been as big of a deal.

Next up was Melissa and Dr. Janet Taylor, a professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Mother of four. Dr. Taylor thinks Mothers should find another way to feel relaxed and be social without drinking. Hey, I know, we could smoke some pot instead! (Joke)
Have you ever been to a Family Reunion, a barbecue, a picnic? Was there beer or wine? If so, you were drinking during the day with children present. Were they in any danger? Of course not. It is ludicrous to suggest that a Mother is going to become so impaired from one glass of wine that she will become unable to function as a parent. As Melissa pointed out at the beginning of the interview, you have to make the distinction between social drinking and problem drinking. If you do become impaired from one glass of wine, then you probably shouldn’t drink while your children are playing.

Meredith also asked Melissa if she would have a problem with a group of babysitters drinking while working, and Melissa said yes, because they are doing their job. Her husband, she pointed out, doesn’t go to his job and drink while he is there. And then I thought it was going to go into that “well you are a stay at home Mom so you ARE on the job” territory, but it didn’t. Do I think as a SAHM that I should have to adhere to the same rules as someone who is working in an office? That’s a good question. There are a lot of different kinds of stresses involved with being home with children all day, and if a glass of wine at 5:00 helps a Mom relax and not be pulling out her hair when her husband gets home, then I have no problem with it. Even if you are a working-outside-the-home-Mom (WOTHM?), what’s wrong with inviting some friends over for a cookout on a Saturday afternoon and having a beer or a glass of wine while the kids play in the backyard?

Nothing. That’s my opinion. Here’s what Meredith O’Brien had to say today over at BostonHerald.com, and for a look at other Mothers who get together and enjoy a cocktail during playdates, read what the New York Times thought about the momtini. What do you think? Do you see a problem with enjoying a glass of wine during a playdate? Why or why not?

Filed Under: Stuff I think about ·

My husband went to the Mall of America, and all I got…

January 24, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 26 Comments

is an iPod Shuffle!!!!!

How awesome is that! Pretty damn awesome, I’ll say. He went to the Apple Store with all those cool gadgets and only bought something for ME. He says it’s my “pre-birthday” present. My actual present will have to wait until the day after my birthday when he gets paid, because I went and spent all the money from this paycheck on stupid stuff like heat and water and electricity. Don’t you think you should get free utilities for the month of your birthday?

So now I have to load my iPod with music. Unfortunately, our home music collection is mostly Classic Rock, Jazz and Classical, which doesn’t exactly put pep in my step when I’m walking around the track at the Y. What I need is fun music with a good beat, and that’s where you come in. In your comment, tell me what music you like to work out too. Send me a link to a playlist if you want. To give you an idea of what I like, here’s what I have so far:

“Can’t Get You Out of My Head”-Kylie Minogue

“If You Want To Be My Lover”-Spice Girls
“Here It Goes Again”-OK Go

And that’s it so far. I’m looking forward to your suggestions!

P.S. I’ve been uploading a lot of photos to my Flickr page, have you checked them out?

Filed Under: Health ·

Here’s how YOU can make my 40th Birthday special!

January 22, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 17 Comments

I’ve mentioned that I’m turning Forty on January 30, right? While my initial thought was to pretend it was just another birthday and no big deal, really, I’ve changed my mind.

I’m turning FORTY! That IS a big deal! Assuming I live to be 80, gods willing, then I am entering MIDDLE AGE. I have Forty years of Life Experiences behind me, and that deserves recognition, dammit!

So in honor of my special day, here’s what I would like you, my bestest bloggity friends, to do for me. On January 30, I will put up a Happy Birthday post, and I want FORTY COMMENTS on the post. That’s it! I don’t think Forty comments is too much to ask, is it? Let me feel the love, people!

Kaitlyn will be watching for your comments.

Filed Under: Personal ·

Reason #1932 why my boys are awesome

January 20, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 8 Comments

My husband is in Rogers, Minnesota helping his company set up new offices. As the PC guy, he has to physically set up every workstation, and his coworker, the Network guy, connects all the PCs to the network. They have been working ten-hour days since last Wednesday, and are scheduled to finish up tomorrow and fly home Tuesday. Their hotel is right next to a huge water park, but it’s not open at night when they could actually go. Tomorrow, they are going to the Mall of America. Chris said to me on the phone “well, depending on how long we spend at the Mall, we might hit the water park later tomorrow.”

I said “Honey. Have you looked at the Mall of America website? It has four floors with an AMUSEMENT PARK in the middle. The four anchor stores are Sears, Macys, Nordstrom and BLOOMINGDALES, and they are FOUR STORIES HIGH. You could spend a week there, easily.”

Or maybe that’s just me. I could use some retail therapy after the last few days. This parenting by myself gig? I am so over it. Yesterday we went to the library, and I was showing Kaitlyn some Eric Carle books when I caught a poopy whiff. Our tiny Township Library has a bathroom but no changing table, so I took her into the corner of the kid’s section and laid her down hoping to quickly change her before anyone saw us. Yeah, and that would have been an excellent plan except she had diarrhea and it had soaked her bodysuit, her pants, even her socks.

The first lesson MOST new parents learn about taking a child out in public? Pack extra clothes, but who does that for a quick trip to the library? So after I stripped her and wiped her down, stuffing her clothes, wipes and the diaper into a plastic bag, then what was I supposed to do? It was 25 degrees and windy, and I needed to get her out of the library to the car and then the few minutes home. Luckily for her, Nathan had a t-shirt on under his sweatshirt, so she ended up wearing Nathan’s t-shirt with a blanket wrapped around her legs. She hated every minute of it.

SO, this evening I take the kids to the Mall because I needed to get out of the house and didn’t feel like cooking, and what do you think happens? Kaitlyn’s diaper leaks (at least it was just pee this time) and soaks her pants in the back. Do you think I had a change of clothes? Did I learn my lesson from the library?

Yeah, that would be a no. Her pants were the stretchy legging type, so I just turned them around so the wet part was in the front and at least she wasn’t sitting directly on it. As a special bonus, I lost track of time. You see, Kaitlyn is one of the most consistent sleepers ever. She wakes up at exactly 7:15 every morning, takes two naps, and falls asleep between 7:15 and 7:45 p.m. every night. But tonight it was 8:00 p.m. and we were at Barnes & Noble, which does not fall into Kaitlyn’s schedule. So, she started to whine. And fuss. Loudly. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, I still had to wrestle her back into the evil snowsuit of evil which I had dressed her in to protect her from the bitter cold and wind.

I told you that whole long story to get to this part of the story, the part where my boys are awesome.Â The best way to calm Kaitlyn down is to sing to her, preferably something from the “We Are The Laurie Berkner Band” DVD. As I was sitting on the floor in between American History and Travel, working Kaitlyn’s kicking legs into the snowsuit, the boys sat down next to her and we all sang “The Goldfish”, and not that quietly, either. I really don’t care if anyone else thought it was weird that we were singing in public like that, we were doing what we needed to do for Kaitlyn. We kept singing after I got her strapped into the stroller and started making our way to the door, and we were still singing in the parking lot. With all the stress we have been under having Chris gone and me being generally impatient, too critical and too quick to yell, it was nice that we had that moment, unique to us and part of what makes us a family.

Filed Under: Family ·

Thank you and good night

January 18, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 9 Comments

Everyone who commented on my last post, who emailed me with further words of support, thank you. Thank you so much for holding me up when I felt so down. Thank you for telling me your foot-in-the-mouth stories, and for all the virtual pats on the back. I am happy to report that the aforementioned designer did read my email, and that all is forgiven, and we are, as she put it, moving on.

That’s really all I have to say tonight, my brain is somewhat frazzled after a long day of Kaitlyn duty. My husband will be in St. Cloud, Minnesota until next Tuesday, and you know what I have learned? I am a SLOB. A messy, dirty, piling-up-of-stuff SLOB. And one year olds? Like to dump out the contents of purses, diaper bags, laundry baskets, and anything else that contains things and scatter everything across the floor. Then they crawl away because hey! something shiny!, leaving Mom to pick everything up and put it back in it’s rightful container. Again, and again, and again.

And so, I’ll leave you with this photo, of the outfit Chris put Kaitlyn in for bed the other night. Awesome.

Filed Under: Parenting ·

No clever title #2-The one where I’m an idiot.

January 17, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 22 Comments

I tried switching to a new blog theme all by myself. I picked one based on it having a color scheme that I really liked. I did not look through the files carefully first to see how easy it would be to work with. I picked a theme that turned out to have code that was hard to work with, making it pretty much impossible for me to add things to my sidebar by myself. I started emailing blog friends who also do design, asking them to take a look and tell me what I needed to do.

Selfish Move #1- These people run businesses. They have clients who pay them to do this. I was asking for free advice and help. I am not special, and I should not ask anyone to work for free.

Three designers looked at the code and told me they couldn’t work with it. The third designer, a blogger who I admire for her courage and strength as well as whom I think is wicked funny, suggested a price for which I could have her modify the theme you see here now by changing the color scheme to match the other theme. Instead of gratefully thanking her and letting her know that I would contact her if I decided to do that, I replied with a not-at-all-thought-out comment meant to snark on the creator of the theme with the unworkable code.

I inadvertently, STUPIDLY, insulted the designer. It is completely my fault. I dashed off the email reply and hit ‘send’ without reading it through, without considering how it could be misinterpreted. I didn’t give it another thought until I got a reply from the designer letting me know that I had, in fact, insulted her, and that I had treated her in a way she didn’t deserve. By the time I got to the last sentence, tears were pouring down my face, and I was shaking all over. How could I have been such an idiot?

I replied to the email with a probably desperate sounding plea for forgiveness, trying to explain what I meant without insulting her again, and now I’m sitting here refreshing my email and wiping the tears away, wondering if I permanently severed a potential friendship with someone I think is fabulous, someone I have always hoped would think of me as a friend.

There are two reasons, then, for this post. One, to publicly apologize to all three of the designers that tried to help me with my code ( you know who you are) if I in any way insulted them when I was fishing for free advice. Also, if the designer I did insult deletes my email without reading it, but then happens to stop by here (which is wishful thinking, I know), I want her to know how sorry I am. This is tearing me up inside. I have had a big mouth my whole life, and it is killing me that my words hurt someone.

The second reason for this post is to show that I am abandoning that other theme and coming back to this one. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, anyway. Izzy did this blog design for me FOR FREE, for which I have never paid her in any way, a situation I plan to rectify as soon as possible. Nancy spent I don’t know how many hours drawing the table graphic in the upper right corner, FOR FREE, for which I have also never paid her in any way, which is another situation I plan to rectify as soon as possible.

Selfish Move #2- Abandoning something that other people did out of the kindness of their hearts without so much as a second glance. I don’t know what I was thinking, and I apologize to both of them.

The designer I insulted is someone whose blog feed I subscribe to, and I read and comment on every single post she writes. I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know if I should keep reading and commenting or if I should just go away. I know I shouldn’t ask this, but if anyone reading this has ever had a similar situation (not that I hope anyone has), can you tell me what you did? Did you keep going back to the other person’s blog or not?

Oh god. I am such an idiot.

Edited to add: First thing the next morning, I got a reply from the designer. I am happy to report that all is forgiven, we have kissed and made up (well, emailed and made up), and we are, as she put it, moving on. Thank you everyone for all of your kind words!

Filed Under: Personal ·

Can I get a re-do?

January 17, 2007 · by Elizabeth · 7 Comments

By 8:30 this morning I was already wishing I could get in bed, curl up under the covers and stay there until, oh, say next week. I was up until 1:00 a.m. keeping Chris company as he packed for his business trip, including an hour and a half of looking for the battery charger for his camera, which has disappeared into that same room that also swallowed Ryan’s school pictures and a multitude of remote controls.

He took my camera instead, which means I have the use of his at least until the battery wears out. On the plus side, it is a Canon 10D, so it takes good photos, but it has a 72mm lens on it so that means no photos up close or while anyone is moving. Also, no battery charger means no flash, because it sucks up too much battery power. So be prepared for dark, far away blurry photos from me for the next week, ‘kay?

Anyway, after finally going to bed at 1:00 a.m. (and convincing my Chris that no, we shouldn’t have sex even though he is leaving for a week, because it was ONE IN THE MORNING), Kaitlyn woke up at 3:45 a.m. OF COURSE. She has a little diaper rash, so instead of just letting her whimper and fall back asleep, I got up to change her. We sat on the couch for a while after that while she snuggled against me being generally adorable, and I leaned over against her and fell asleep face down on her cheek. Wearing my glasses. Ouch for both of us.

I crawled back into bed at about 4:15 a.m., only to have Chris’ alarm go off at 5:00 a.m. so he could drive to Detroit for his flight. He’s going to St. Cloud Minnesota. Where I’m sure it is just as frigidly cold as it is here. And he forgot his gloves.

At 7:15 a.m. Ryan woke me up by standing outside the bedroom door and calling out to me. It’s a good thing he did, as I had not set any kind of alarm to wake myself up (usually Chris and I get up together) and would have happily slept in all morning. I stumbled out to the living room with my eyes literally half-closed, and mumbled something to the kids about getting ready for school. Then I went out to start warming up the car (it’s a frosty twenty degrees here this morning), and found that two of the van’s sliding doors were frozen shut. GREAT. I have a vague memory of making Kaitlyn a bottle and wrestling her into her giant purple evil snowsuit of evil, and hollering for Nathan to come back inside as he was standing in front of the van with no mittens or backpack.

When I’m tired, I have no patience. And it’s my kids who suffer. I yell, I complain, and I say things to them that aren’t fair. It’s not their fault that I didn’t get much sleep, and I know they are doing their best. I’m the one acting like a whiny brat, and I feel like crap about it. It’s going to be hard enough as it is having Chris gone for a week, getting no break from the kids at all. If I can’t pull myself together and just do what has to be done, we will all suffer.

Fortunately, we also have moments like this, when we are having fun and enjoying being together. Click to watch what keeps me going on a daily basis: (and let me know if you can’t see it)