Reality check

In my life BC (Before Child) I used to get grossed out easily. Touching raw meat, cleaning up after the cats, even pulling the seeds out of pumpkins were all things that made me feel like I needed an immediate shower.

Now, however, I find that I can utter phrases such as "We don't need to change her shirt - she only peed on it a little bit," with a straight face and mean them. This has come in especially handy because in the past two days Liza's had a diaper rash that was sufficiently virulent that we've been letting her run around pants-less for as much of the time as possible, with predictable results.

Her score so far is: hardwood floors=3, wool rug in her room=1, bathtub after she'd finished her bath=1, crib=at least 5, but who's counting at 4 am? Plus she gets bonus points for one episode where she peed on the floor, then managed to step in cat puke and track it all over the upstairs while I was cleaning up the puddle. She also gets points for artistic merit for the time she peed on the floor just after she had taken her bath, then slipped in the puddle and ended up rolling around in it, necessitating another bath.

And lest you think that I'm the only one who treats a little pee as nothing to worry about, check out my daughter, who pees in her sleep on the towel on top of her mattress. Rolling over into the cold spot wakes her up, so she starts crying and trying to get back to sleep. By the time we manage to grab a fresh towel and get to her room, 99% of the time she is snuggled up to the towel, face down with her naked ass in the air and her face pressed into the puddle as if it has some magic sleep-inducing properties. We literally have to wrestle the soggy towel out of her half-asleep grasp in order to get the bed changed and get her back to bed.

Personally, if she'd drift back to sleep on her own, I'd be willing to let Liza snuggle with her own bodily waste for a few hours ... but I imagine it would be hard to treat a case of diaper rash on a kid's face without someone noticing and calling the cops, right?

"Um, you're not going to post that on your blog, are you?"

Damn right I'm going to post it, it was hilarious. I will preface this by saying that my husband is the least bigoted, least biased person on the planet ... he just can't pass up an opportunity for a good joke.

So Jason and I were driving around town last weekend when we saw two people on those motorized scooter/wheelchair thingees that disabled people use to get around. We've seen these two before, usually together with a third guy, tooling around town at 4 mph like some sort of slow-motion parade. While I honestly try not to laugh at the misfortunes of others, the sight of them heading down the sidewalk with a case of beer in each of their laps gives me a case of the giggles.

J: "Aren't those the folks who came to our yard sale this spring?"
G: "Yup."
J: (imitating the Kentucky accent the scooter guy had when he came to the sale) "'Y'all got any guns ... or knives ... or fishing stuff?' It's like they're a gang or something. You know what they should call themselves? The Crips."

See? That still makes me laugh so hard I just woke my daughter up.

A trip down memory lane

I was reading though some of my old files this afternoon and found this, written in December as Liza was starting to try to self-feed. Boy, she's come a long way since then, as have the Cheerios, which she can now fling as far as her room upstairs, which involves going around several 180-degree turns that bend the laws of physics. Anyway, here's where we were a few months ago:
*****
Babies of America!

Are you ready for the fun and adventure of self-feeding, but find all that chewing and swallowing a little tedious? I did, too, until I developed my innovative method for making meals fun again. And I share these secrets with you in my new DVD, 457 Ways to Not Eat Cheerios.

This DVD will revolutionize your eating habits. Never before have so many techniques for not eating been collected in one location. This DVD contains tips for all levels of expertise from beginning babies to expert eaters, including:

# 1 Stare at the Cheerio without making any move toward it.
#14 Flail blindly at the Cheerio while looking in the opposite direction.
#56 Rake Cheerio into hand, then release it as your hand comes to your mouth.
#211 Carefully pick up Cheerio in a pincer grip and bring it slowly toward your mouth. Just when you’re about to put it in, get distracted by something else in the room and flail wildly with your arms, flinging the Cheerio into space.
#389 Use sticky glop on fingers to adhere Cheerio to your hand, then bring it to your mouth. Insert hand and Cheerio into mouth. Allow Cheerio to remain stuck to your hand as you remove it from your mouth. Allow Cheerio to fall off your hand several minutes later (preferably onto a clean surface). Variation: After removing your hand from your mouth, pretend you think the Cheerio has already fallen off and bang your hand loudly on a flat surface, pulverizing the Cheerio into inedible dust.

Using these techniques I have managed to sit through meals every day for more than a month while actually feeding myself only two Cheerios! And the tips aren’t just for Cheerios – they can be adapted to work on virtually any finger food your parents put in front of you.

This DVD is thoughtfully designed for babies of all ages and skill levels. Burned onto high-grade DVD material, this is one reference disk that’s designed to last even longer than that cup of Cheerios your parents have been trying to feed you for the past three weeks!

Act now and I’ll include two special bonuses: my groundbreaking pamphlet “25 Easy Tricks To Gross Out Your Parents,” and a signed copy of my bestselling how-to book, Marathon Crying: How To Outdo Yourself and Outwit Your Parents. Learn how to poop straight up the back of your diaper, covering your mother’s lap without touching your own pants … and find out how to keep your motivation when you’re in your third hour of late-night crying and you’re tempted to give in to sleep. It’s all included – but only if you act now!

Send $29.95 plus shipping and handling to:
Liza Woods
PO Box 000, Department D
Richmond, KY 40476

Chipotle - not quite as good as you think

http://www.chipotle.com/images/nutrition.pdf

Let's see, my regular order is a:
barbacoa 285 calories
fajita 100 calories
burrito 330 calories
half the rice 120 calories
w/ cheese 110 calories
sour cream 120 calories
guacamole 170 calories
corn salsa 100 calories
tomatillo salsa 28 calories

Which means that if I eat the whole thing, which I almost always do, I'm ingesting more than 1300 calories. Mother of god, that explains a lot. Note to self: order the salad next time. Better yet, order a double whopper with cheese ... it's got fewer calories. If you'll excuse me, I've got an appointment with an exercise bike ...

gaaah ... more cute shoes

My god, they just keep coming. Anybody heard of Soft Star shoes? I'm hesitant to spend $65 on a pair of shoes if I'm not sure they'll stay on Her Royal Tootsies, but MY GAWD, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THESE:

http://www.softstarshoes.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=487&CFID=31781850&CFTOKEN=47295425

Yes, those are indeed soft leather cowboy boots. Must ... not ... give ... in ... to ... temptation ... (yet) ...

Give me a child until he is seven ...

Jason and I have been watching a series of British documetaries that follow a series of children over the course of more than 20 years to see how their initial class and education differences play out in their lives. The first film, 7 Up, was absolutely fascinating, with its upper class twit 7-year-olds saying they read the Times for the stock numbers, and its East End kid with the barely understandable accent and a clear vision of wanting to be a jockey when he grew up. The directors of the initial film visited the children every seven years, making 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, and 43 Up. We've made it through 21, and have 28 sitting on top of the tv waiting for us to have time to view it.

The series is really interesting, as you can see how the kids change (or don't), and how their "station" in life changes (or doesn't) over the years. I can't say it's the best-filmed documentary, and the fact that each of them was designed to be somewhat stand-alone means that there's a lot of repeats of early footage in the later films. Most annoyingly, the voiceover repeatedly intones the wisdom, "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man," I guess to indicate that the kids' basic personalities and futures are pretty much set by the time of the first film. While I sort of agree with that, the all-American, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and rise to riches from rags part of me wants to say that none of the kids are stuck where they start ... their future shouldn't be absolutely determined by what they do at age 7.

Over the last couple of days, however, I've started to think that maybe there's something to that idea of traits that are set in stone at a very early age. At Liza's last OT appointment, her therapist was discussing some of the stuff we'll need to continue to work on even once Liza has been discharged from the therapy program. According to Denise, a lot of the quirks and problems that Liza has are ones that will probably follow her for the rest of her life ... she may always lag a little behind physically and then burst ahead to catch up with her peers. She may always prefer harder physical treatment to softer movements (she prefers to be bounced or jostled - hard - to being rocked or soothed, and her recent favorite game is for me to roll a big playground ball so that it whacks her in the head, which sets off a round of giggling and "more more more"), so she will probably prefer contact sports like soccer over less-contact-sports like softball. Denise described some of the challenges her other patients have faced as older children, and how their parents have used the techniques they learned when the children were babies to help them deal with the older problems. It made a lot of sense to think that we haven't "fixed" Liza, we've just helped her adjust to her current developmental level, and that we'll need to keep working with her as she grows up. And the idea that the types of movements and soothers that she likes now will still appeal as she grows older makes sense, as disturbing as it is to hear that my daughter is likely to always "like it rough."

I was also thinking about this idea of "give me a child until he is seven" today as I read through the folder of my old report cards and standardized test scores that my parents dug out of a drawer. The comments from the teachers especially drove home how much of my personality was intact at a really early age. "Uses sense of humor to deal with conflicts." "Finds open-ended problems difficult and frustrating." "Prefers concrete problems with a concrete answer." "Needs to improve working with others in a team." "Needs to spend more time on classwork and less time goofing off." "Does exactly what is required of her, but no more."

Thankfully I've stopped crying when confronted by those stupid logic problems my gifted and talented teacher used to torment me with, but other than that, a lot of what the teachers commented on is still with me, for good or for ill. Looks like I'm going to need to bust my butt over the next few years to make sure I get Liza shaped into what I want her to be 20 years from now.

The other thing that struck me as I read through the teachers' comments was that all of my early teachers - up through about third grade - talk about my great sense of humor and charming personality. But neither is mentioned after that, although a couple mention my stellar work ethic in 6th grade. I don't know if the teachers had more important things to write about, the hormones were kicking in and I was becoming more sullen, or if I was starting to show very early signs of the depression that wouldn't be diagnosed for another 20 years, but it was something that really jumped out at me.

I have fond memories of my early school years, but I don't remember a lot of good stuff from 4th, 5th or 6th grade. Those were the years I was too tall, too fat, too smart, and too dorky to fit in anywhere ... even the kids who played Dungeons and Dragons at recess wouldn't let me join in, if that gives you any clue to my social status. I'm easy to find in the class photos, always in the back row with the bad perm, chipmunk cheeks and huge glasses. I wore cowboy boots and clothes my mother made for me, and remember that the only "cool" shoes I could find that fit the summer before 7th grade were pink leather docksiders. I did not have the personality to pull off pink docksiders ... I'm not sure anyone does, actually.

Anyway, it was interesting to read back through all that stuff in light of the documentaries, and to think about what the documentary folks might have predicted for me. What about you? What did your teachers write about you? Is it still true?

Practicing my editing skills

My broadcast journalism professor would be horrified at the quality of the video I'm sharing ... a prepared journalist is always supposed to be checking out angles and lighting and such. But a prepared Mama is lucky to have her camera nearby when the kid does something cool, so you're stuck with this. At least I found the video editing software that came with my computer, so I could cut out the most boring sections!




If the embedded video doesn't work for you, try the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu-_LVTtUhQ

She's all grown up ...

What happens when I let Liza run around without a diaper to air out her rashy bottom?

Awwww ... baby's first wedgie!

And here she is, trying to flirt despite the fact that her pants are so far up her butt that I think you can see them in her throat ...

Robeez

I am a huge fan of the Robeez baby shoes, which have soft soles and such good design that even Little Miss Manual Dexterity can't get them off, but I can whip them off with one hand because I know the Secret. They've been great while Liza has been learning to walk, because they protect the tops and bottoms of her feet without impairing her ability to balance and stride natually. Plus, they're ridiculously cute.

Liza has two pairs right now, a pair of white sandals, and a pair of blue-and-white ones that look like hip athletic shoes. As the weather cools off we'll have to retire the sandals, which have born the brunt of Liza's crawling across filthy carpets and have been washed half a dozen times with no apparent ill effects. The sneakers will probably fit into the fall, but I need to start thinking about which style to get when it's time to move her up a size, because her current pairs are getting less baggy every day.

Here are the contenders, at least for right now:
The Mary Janes: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=416&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The pink saddle shoes: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=414&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The white saddle shoes: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=415&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The same trainers she already has: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=47&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The wicked cool (but masculine) dragon shoes: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=422&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The girlie trainers: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=430&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The red flowers: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=177&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The red monkeys: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=11&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

The moderately masculine geckos: http://www.robeez.com/product.aspx?ProductID=28&deptid=3&PriceCat=2&Lang=EN-US&RefID=mf_lnch_3

Gaaah, too many cute choices! I think I need to look through Liza's wardrobe for fall and winter and see which colors would go best with her outfits. Because there's no point having cute pink trainers if all of your clothes are red. At least now that Liza is walking more I won't have to worry quite so much about how badly the tops show dirt ... her white sandals got pretty grungy after five minutes of crawling in the convention center. Nothing that a diaper wipe couldn't handle, but still, who wants to be worried about wiping off shoes if they don't have to?

So come on, loyal readers - which styles do you prefer? Cast your vote by buying them and sending them to us (in the 18-24 month size, please) [yeah, right], or by leaving a comment.

And yes, K, I know you're probably going to vote for the monkeys ... I don't suppose one of your street artist buddies could work on a canvas as small as a plain leather Robeez shoe, could they? Because that would be SO cool ...

Side trip

Aquarium junkie that I am, I viewed the car trip home on Sunday that took us right through Cincinnati when Liza was awake and happy as a sign, one that read "Drag your husband to the Newport Aquarium before he realizes how much it's going to cost."

The Newport Aquarium is a nice enough destination, as aquariums go, large enough to have nice exhibits but small enough that you can do a once-over in around an hour, if you keep moving. I'm a sucker for even crappy aquariums, so we would have gotten there eventually, but the real draw on Sunday was a new exhibit they have open this year ... a touch tank full of sharks. Yes, real sharks, with real teeth, where you can stick your hand in the water and pet them. True, the largest shark is maybe four feet long and probably would choke if it bit off more than a couple of your fingers, but it's still a pretty cool idea. In case you were wondering, they feel like fine grit sandpaper ... not smooth like a dolphin, or slimy like a fish. And yes, I touched one of the large ones, not just the little 12-inchers hiding near the water jets.

Liza was better behaved this time than she was during our trip to the aquarium in Baltimore, where I had to sing the same lullaby continuously while constantly moving or she started to shriek so piercingly that I feared the tanks would start cracking. Like the Baltimore aquarium, the Newport Aquarium doesn't allow strollers, so we were stuck with the hip carrier that I've decided Liza hates, because she once again started complaining as soon as she went in. That lasted for about 10 minutes, and for the rest of the hour or so we spent there we either carried her without the hip hammock or let her walk between us, holding our hands.

Liza wasn't so upset this time that she ignored the fish ... she wasn't so interested in any where we had to hold her to look at them, but she liked the tanks where she could stand on her own and bang away at the glass. Yes, I've become the type of parent I used to sneer at, the one who prefers to let her kid bang on the glass rather than listen to the screaming that is sure to happen when they're told to stop.

Liza's looking at a tank full of all the types of fish featured in Finding Nemo, which the aquarium staff thoughtfully flanked on both sides with park benches so the kids could get up close and personal with their cartoon buddies. Liza's never seen the movie, but apparently that wasn't a prerequisite for finding the exhibit entertaining.

Nemo was cool, and she liked walking through all of the underwater tunnels, and she liked the exhibit with the big turtles that swam right next to the glass where she was standing. But her favorite thing in the whole aquarium?

The red velvet bordello-esque round couch in the center of the room full of jellyfish exhibits. The kid could have cared less about the jellyfish, and she didn't even want to look at the uber-cheesy jellyfish chandelier over the couch. All she wanted to do was circle that couch over and over, petting it. And by that point our arms were so tired, Jason and I were ALL about letting her do that.

In deference to the fact that the admission to the aquarium set us back almost $40, I didn't even think about getting souvenirs (although the toddler shirt with the smiling toothy shark saying "Teething bites" was tempting). Since Liza doesn't seem to be that interested in the fish right now, I doubt we'll be heading back to that aquarium again soon, but it's definitely on my list of things to do when she's a couple years older. After all, how many places can you go to pet a shark?

Back from the Northern Trek

As I mentioned in a previous post, my cousin's daughter got married this weekend. Not only did this make me feel ancient (but ... I remember when you weren't even born yet!), it also gave me a perfect excuse to show Liza off to all of my far-flung relations, most of whom we only see every four or five years. My cousin and her daughters flew in from California, my parents drove in from Delaware, and we made the trek north on I-75 for about an hour longer than Liza really wanted to be in the car.

The ceremony was lovely, the bride was beautiful, and the rain let up long enough for the guests to enjoy the bridal party's exit without getting soaked. Here's Liza and I, being threatened with execution at the hands (teeth?) of a giant carriage horse:

We had a couple of hours to kill between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the reception, so we tried to run Liza around a little so she'd take a nap before dinner.

Liza was determined to set foot in every square foot of Michigan, I think, judging by her willingness to walk ... and walk ... and walk. Between the walking and her trying to throttle me with my own necklace, Liza had a full day:

From Sunday's job ads

It's better to buy used, because, you know, the value of those NEW salespeople depreciates so quickly. snort

Seller's remorse

Do I really want to sell my quilts on a site that also sells these:

Yes, that's an oak toilet seat, covered in dogbone print fabric and braided trim attached with nailheads. For $70. Don't believe me? Check for yourself:
http://www.etsy.com/view_item.php?listing_id=385272

gaaaah...

making up for lost time

Yes, I realize that I said I was going to post more frequently, and then dropped off the face of the earth for a week. Here are some of the things I should have mentioned in the past week:

• http://sparetherock.com/ A low-power FM station in Massachusetts has a kid's show every Saturday morning. The show's guiding principle: "Based on the radical notion that music for kids shouldn’t want to make parents gouge out their ears." It's a mix of actually listenable kids' music, plus rockin' music that no kid should grow up without. Magic Carpet Ride, anyone? You can sign up for a podcast of the show, or you can download MP3s of the shows and either listen on your computer or burn them to CDs. I just downloaded the most recent three or four shows to take with us for our car trip next weekend.
• Congratulations to my cousin David and his wife Cynthia, who have adopted a baby boy! I'm not sure who is more excited, the parents or the grandparents, who stopped by our place earlier this week on their way down to see the baby. Baby Miles is still having some breathing issues and hasn't come home from the hospital yet, so send some good thoughts in the direction of North Carolina, everybody.
• As I mentioned in a previous post, we sold three of our Hard Rock Cafe glasses (Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe) on eBay for $120. Considering the fact that Jason wasn't too thrilled with the initial idea of selling them, and he was surprised that we even got a starting bid of $10, I think he TOTALLY owes me dinner someplace nice. Or at least fewer nasty looks when I mention bidding on more kids' clothes ...
• Football preseason has started. Whoop-de-freakin-do. Well, at least I have an excuse to get lots of quilting done in the evenings a couple of nights a week.
• I spent a lot of time last week rooting out more ivy (bwahahahah! The Duchess of Destruction returns!) and trying to turn what was once an ivy- and bamboo-infested disaster area into something that wouldn't turn off potential homebuyers if we ever put the house up for sale. Here's what the area that didn't get done looks like:

Two completely packed trashcans full of weeding and pruning later, here's the "after" in the section I worked on:

• I have a shop on etsy.com, an online marketplace for handmade goods. Right now it's small, since I just started it yesterday, but at least it's a start. If you'd like to check it out, you can find it at: http://LazyMamaDesigns.etsy.com . I'm open to feedback, so feel free to trash (or praise) the site all you want. And check out the other stuff that's for sale, too - there are lots of cool items from lots of cool people. Support crafters! Buy stuff! Get ideas you can rip off to make your own versions for a fraction of the price!
• And, oh yeah, LIZA STARTED WALKING! Last week at Liza's OT appointment the therapist predicted she would start walking before our next appointment, to which I replied, "She'd better, because we've got a wedding to go to the following weekend, and I don't want people pitying my still-crawling daughter if I can help it." Wouldn't you know, by Thursday the kid managed two steps (after about five minutes of encouragement from both parents), on Friday she managed four steps without any encouragement, and today we ran her back and forth between us a dozen times or more, increasing the distance up to about 6 feet. She even managed a 90-degree turn during one lap, which I thought for sure was going to end up with her piling face-first into the carpet, but she did just fine. My little baby, she's all grown up ...

eBay purchases

I've been spending WAY too much time on eBay, and not just because I've been selling off my grandmother's stuff. No, I've been selling off some of our stuff, too, and buying a few things for Liza's wardrobe for this fall. The $120 we got for three Hard Rock Cafe beer glasses just about pays for all the Hanna Andersson stuff I've bought for her, so I don't feel like I'm doing too badly. And the Hanna stuff is just too cute to NOT buy, even if it does sell for a lot more than my usual consignment purchases. Not familiar with the wonders of Hanna Andersson? Check out their web site: http://www.hannaandersson.com/division.asp?mcn=1&gpId=156

Here's Liza, modeling some of our recent purchases, which include one of their signature "Hanna" play dresses with matching leggings:

We also got a playdress with matching tights:

Oh, and did I mention that the tights have a secret?

Yes, Susie, these are the "monkey butt" tights I was obsessing over when you were out here. They're part of the "Jungle Journey" line that Hanna had last year ... each year they come out with the same general pieces in a different theme. This year it's barnyard stuff, I think, while last year was Jungle Journey and the year before was By the Sea. The things are so cute, and if you miss out on them while they're in the catalogs, your only recourse is to get them on eBay. I'm still trying to track down the Jungle Journey hoodie jacket to go with her dress, and there are some other lines I might see if I can get a decent price on.

I have a confession to make - I've wanted a pair of the By the Sea pants for my kid since before I was pregnant. Half of the reason I had a kid was to have something to dress in the By the Sea pants with crab embroidery ... and then they stopped selling them. As if having to live down the monkey butt tights wasn't enough, check out what I got Liza in the next size up, so it should fit later this winter and going into spring and summer:

The By the Sea pants with the crab on the ass, just like I wanted!! I had to roll up the pants twice to keep them off of her feet for the photo, but the waist fits now, so she could even wear them this winter if I really wanted to push it.

The bad news about this stuff is that the used pieces of discontinued lines sell for as much (sometimes more) than new pieces of their current lines. So while I can buy, say, a new jacket for $35 at the Hanna web site, I might have to pay $38 for the Jungle Journey one, if I get sucked into a bidding war. I've decided to put my foot down and say that I don't need any of this stuff badly enough to pay more for used than I would for new ... after all, she's only going to get to wear each outfit a handful of times, thanks to my penchant for buying way too many clothes for the kid.

The good news is that the used pieces of the discontinued lines sell for as much (sometimes more) than the new pieces of their current lines. That means that as long as I am buying in-demand items, keeping them stain-free and in relatively good shape, I'll probably be able to sell them for almost as much as I paid for them when Liza finally outgrows them. Even if I lose $10 or $15 on the transaction, that's still less than I would pay for a new, less cute outfit from Target. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Plus, I get to put a crab and a monkey face on my daughter's heinie. Woohoo!

FINALLY!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ms67tDmAUE


Even if you have a pokey old dialup connection, you should take the time to download this extremely short video, because MY DAUGHTER FINALLY WALKED!

YouTube recommendation

If you've got a few minutes to be astounded by how much free time some people have, check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI




It's pretty cool. Not as cool as Mentos and Diet Coke, but close.
(in case the embedded thingee below doesn't work, it's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EomlECEV1eE )

Consignment haul, part 1

For a grand total of about $130, I got:

A whole lot of clothes, including a snowsuit for $10 (back left), and a really cute Halloween outfit:

for $5. Speaking of Halloween, check out the black pants in the bottom left of this photo (and the bottom right of the first photo):

Yes, I bought my daughter PLEATHER PANTS!!!! They're totally going with the rasta hat as her Biker Baby Halloween costume ... plus, they look like they're waterproof, so I'm thinking of using them as emergency snowpants, too. The other outfit in the photo above is my best score - two shirts and a pair of corduroy pants, all from Land's End, all for $6. Heck, yeah! Almost as good a deal as getting this:

fleece top and matching leggings for $1. Yes, you read right - one dollar. And people wonder why my kid has such cute clothes ... it's because I can't resist a ridiculously good bargain, and the ladies who sell at the consignment sales generally have pretty good taste.

Oh, and here's the rest of the haul, also included in the original $130 figure:

You'll notice that Liza is horrified by the idea of new toys and wants nothing to do with them. NOT. I still need to throw them all in the tub to clean them off, but she's going to love some of this stuff. And if she doesn't, dude, I think the most I paid was $5 for the baseball toy. We can afford for her to not like some of this stuff, unlike when we go and shell out $14 for a spinny top thing that she still can't figure out how to work.

Now, I'm off to get some shut-eye so I can be up bright and early to hit the half-price day at the consignment sales tomorrow morning ... there were a few things I bypassed because they were too expensive at full price, but I'll jump on them at half price. Because you know, my kid needs more clothes, and more Little People playsets, and more Sesame Street videos, and ...

Home lessons - part 1

Over the course of our marriage, Jason and I have lived in two apartments, three houses, and a couple of temporary hotels and/or furnished apartments during moves. Each of these has taught me something about being a homeowner, something I didn't know 11 years ago when I first went out on my own. Here are some of the lessons my homes have taught me:

1. When you strip off ugly wallpaper, at least 50% of the time you are going to find a wall that's so nasty you'll wish you'd left the ugly stuff up.
2. That's where sponge painting comes in handy.
3. Even if the house was built in the 1950s, that doesn't mean all the wiring is up to date ... there's always the chance that somebody's uncle Guido came in and "helped" add some new lights, using technology that was state of the art at the beginning of (last) century.
4. When you are trying to buy a house, almost every house in your price range can be described as having one or two unfortunate traits in common. For example, when we bought our first house, we were in the "shag carpet and/or waterbed" price range, because almost every house we looked at contained one or the other (sometimes both).
5. That thing living under your deck may not be a bunny ... it may, in fact, be two adult raccoons and six kits, all of which have to be dragged out screaming and crying before being euthanized.
6. Just because your yard looks level when you buy the house doesn't mean that it is. We hauled 19 bags of leaves out of our first backyard, and found out one corner was almost a foot lower than level, and we hadn't noticed before because that's where all the leaves had collected.
7. Need to sell a house? Call on St. Joseph for help. It worked for the lady who sold us our first house.
8. And if that doesn't work, call my mother and get her to give you a transplant of one of her friend Grace's ostrich ferns. Twice we've planted them, and neither time have we stayed in the house long enough to see them the following spring.
9. When you use the wet/dry vacuum on the "wet" setting, it's important to a) empty out the dry stuff first, and b) remember to empty out the water afterward. Otherwise, a few months later you'll realize, So THAT'S where the smell is coming from ...
10. Paint the trim first, then paint the walls. If you make a mistake it's easier to wipe latex paint off of the trim than it is to wipe oil based paint off of the walls.
11. Textured ceilings are evil. Practical for the builder, I'm sure, but evil for the homeowner, who gets stuck trying to shave off the bumpy bits so they can install crown molding, and has to be extra careful when painting near the ceiling because there is NO way to get paint off of the textured stuff.
12. Install a chandelier by myself? Rewire a chandelier? Patch huge holes in the wall? Relight the pilot light in a gas water heater? Singlehandedly rip out 400 square feet of carpeting and install most of a laminate floor in the same day? Yes, I can do that.
13. My dad can reglaze old windows while standing on a ladder in the steaming sunshine. Not that he wants to do it again, but it's good to know that he CAN.
14. Yes, it is possible to shoehorn a powder room into a space that is less than 3 feet wide, but it's a bitch to paint it.
15. Ivy is evil, and Virginia creeper doubly so. The best way to rid the world of evil is to douse it with Roundup, wait a few weeks until you have tricked it into thinking you've forgotten about it, then go in and rip its weakened little tentacles out, one by one. Curse the day that ivy was invented. Then take a spade and turn over all the earth where the evil used to live, ripping out any roots you uncover while doing so. Then hoe all the turned over earth, ripping out any roots that rear their ugly heads. Curse whoever planted the ivy in your yard. Plant your replacement plants, ripping out any existing roots you find (trust me, they're there, so keep ripping). Put down mulch, then use at least double the recommended amount of Preen. Be vigilant for the next, oh, forever, about ripping out the returnees. Curse the day you decided to rip out the ivy in the first place.
16. Or, forget all of the steps in #15 and just move. Works for me and cleaning the oven, which I have never, ever, done, not once in 11 years of adulthood. There are benefits to moving every couple of years, you know.
17. If the disclosure sheet on the house you're planning to buy mentions that the basement gets "a little damp in heavy rain," what that actually means is that when you get the first heavy rain of the spring, you're going to spend all of the storm in the basement with the wet/dry vac, trying to suck up the water that's flowing from one corner of your basement toward the pile of cardboard boxes you haven't unpacked yet. I've about come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a dry basement. The International Space Station probably has an area the astronauts consider their basement, and I bet it's got water issues, too.
18. Floors will squeak loudest in all of the locations where you need to walk to put a sleeping baby to bed.
19. If you paint two walls of your bathroom and look at the drying paint and say, "huh, I really don't like that much," for god's sake quit painting and go find a better color. You are not going to like your minty fresh bathroom any better two years later, and it will be even harder to convince yourself to repaint it at that point.
20. If your house is 95% hardwood floors and 5% hard-to-clean wool area rugs, guess where the cats will puke 90% of the time? We're on our second can of carpet cleaner, and that's all been used one 2-foot square at a time.
21. Nobody ever paints the tops of the trim around doors.
22. The expensive streak-free paper towels combined with the expensive streak-free window cleaner really does mean you don't end up with streaky windows.
23. Just because you can get the mattress through the door and up the stairs doesn't mean you can get the box spring up the same way.
24. Sometimes one person or one family is the catalyst needed to pull a whole neighborhood together, and when they move away the neighborhood drifts back apart. I am not that person, but I know her, and I was privileged to live across the street from her for more than a year. We miss you, Joy.
25. All it takes is one person painting their living room red, and the rest of the neighborhood follows suit. There are five or six of us on our street now ... I'm such a trend setter!

Oh, there are so many more, but I think this is getting too long for one post. If I remember, I'll post on this again later. In the meantime, what have you learned from your homes? Talk amongst yourselves ...

oobleck

Many thanks to my former coworker, Mary Ellyn, for the link to learn how to make oobleck, as illustrated in this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5098579066130741445

And yes, that noise at the end is my daughter wiping out and hitting her eyebrows on a shelf on the way down ... the bruise should fade in a day or two (or 14).

twinkle

Liza isn't much for displays of affection ... she tolerates the kissing and the cuddling and seems to enjoy it, but she rarely wants more than we force on her, and she never initiates the contact with us. So while she'll hug us when we ask her to, she never comes up and hugs us spontaneously (unless you count her recent trick of crawling over to wherever I'm standing and forcing her head in between my calves ... she reminds me of one of those dogs that has to lean on you whenever you're around). This is okay, because I think having a constantly nuzzling child would annoy me after a while, but an occasional hug or kiss would be nice, thank you very much.

Recently, however, I've found a way to weasel some "sugar" out of her. She's been resisting going down at bedtime for the past few weeks, and when she does, a lot of nights Jason will go up and get her calmed down. Usually this involves getting her to lie down again (because she's hopping up and down in her crib while she whines) and then sitting by her crib, singing songs until she's ridiculously drowsy. I've started a variation of this routine at naptime - when I initially put her down to sleep I now sit by the crib and sing a few rounds of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" until she looks drowsy.

While I sing, I stick my hand through the bars of the crib and lightly stroke her arm or hand, whatever is closer. It's sweet enough that as soon as I start stroking her arm, she quits fussing and looks at me with her eyes at half mast, and you can virtually see them cranking shut, one micrometer at a time. But what's even sweeter is that when I stop stroking her arm, she reaches out and grabs my finger and holds on ... sort of like those dogs who will convince you to pet them by coming up under wherever your arm happens to be in hopes that you'll scratch them out of reflex. It's the first time that she's shown any indication that she wants me to continue any sort of display of affection, and by god, I'll keep stroking until my arm falls off, if that's what she wants.

consignment craziness

The churches in our town hold two days of children's clothing consignment sales, one in the fall and one in the spring. While I've been an avid shopper of these since before Liza was born, this is the first time I've participated as a seller. And boy, is it an eye-opening experience.

First of all, the ladies who run the Little Ones' consignment sale for the Methodist church are so organized it makes my head hurt. When the day came to register for seller numbers, they managed to handle 150 people in slightly over an hour, including the women who had been in line since 6 am or before so they could make sure they got a good spot in the check-in process. I got to the line at 9:15 (it opened at 9) and I was seller number 128 out of a possible 150 ... 10 minutes later and I would have been out of luck. Once I got to the head of the line, it was even more organized ... they even had color-coded lines on the floor to direct people to the right booths, for god's sake.

In order to keep the sale itself organized, each seller has to do things EXACTLY the same way ... the organizers dictate what type of hangers to use, how to hang the clothes on them, where to put the safety pins, even what font to use on the computerized inventory list. Anal? Yes. Maddening if you screw something up and have to fix it? Yes. Necessary if you're going to bring any sort of order to the sale of more than 20,000 pieces of merchandise? Yes.

Today's check-in of the merchandise was no different. The ladies have thought of everything, including someone to help you pile all the stuff onto hanging racks and wagons and carts and whatever else you need to get your goods out of the parking lot and into the church basement. I only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before they were ready for me ... one lady to inspect each of my items for stains/tears/excess wear, and one to check the tag against the inventory. They only rejected two of my items, and those I went ahead and donated to the charity pile they have for after the sale. I had some seller spaces left over after my merchandise was finished, so one of my friends sent some of her baby and maternity stuff to sell, too. If every item sells for the price we have listed (which it won't, especially since the second day of the sale everything is 50% off) we'll make $296 between us. Not a bad take, considering all I had to do was spend a few hours sorting and hanging and tagging.

The real eye opener wasn't how organized the sale is, but how jam-packed with stuff the sales floor is today. For past sales I have gotten there around 10 or 12 on the first day, when things weren't so crowded you couldn't move, and I was pretty impressed at the amount of stuff available then. But people who work the sale get first crack at stuff the day before the public gets in, and people who sell at the sale get second crack a day early, so I was really only seeing the dregs of what all the ladies in the know had left behind.

Turns out, the ladies who work and/or sell buy a LOT of the stuff. For example, during past sales I've seen one or two Boppys for sale. Today there was a pile of like 10 of them. Usually I see one or two high chairs and things like Exersaucers ... today there was a pile of Exersaucers that was waist-high, and more were coming in as I was leaving. The clothes racks were so full that it took two people to hang up the new stuff coming in - one person to hold back the clothes already in place, and another to quickly jam the new stuff into the opening. I totally have to bring my camera tonight, as the place is impressive ... it looks like a Babies R Us exploded all over the church basement.

As I was checking in my stuff, I was eyeing up the other sellers' merchandise, trying to spot the good stuff. One lady in front of me had priced all of her daughter's 24-mo and 2T outfits at $1 each. That's like 1/15th or 1/20th of what they probably cost new ... even if they're not in great shape, a kid has to have some grubby clothes to fingerpaint in, so I'm definitely going to be looking for her stuff. And another lady had a foot-tall stack of wooden knob puzzles that are totally going home with me, if they're still there when the seller's hour opens at 7 tonight.

Plus, one of our neighbors sells at the other church's sale, and she ended up with an extra pass to that seller's hour ... so I get to hit both sales before the rest of the public! Heaven! Wish me luck ... I'll let you know the haul (and the damage) after I return.

Oh .... my .... god ....

Well, it finally happened. For the past three months Liza has indicated she was finished with a meal by throwing all of her leftover food onto the floor, one piece at a time, while humming the inane "clean up" song I sing when I wipe off her hands and face. It was cute the first, oh, 100 times she did it, but I was getting tired of scraping peaches off the floor.

Today, however, when she looked like she was finished eating and about to start flinging, I asked her, "Are you all done?" And my daughter, perfect precious pearl that she is, emphatically made the sign for "All done" with such vigor that she damn near levitated out of her seat, all the while grinning maniacally and humming the clean up song. Holy cow, the kid is finally communicating!

And today when we've looked through her board books that show babies doing the signs for various meal- and bed-related activities, she's made pretty close approximations of about half of the signs, which is 10 or 12 more than she knew a week ago.

And after last week's experience telling me that every animal in her book said "Meeee-oooow," today she looked at each animal and said "baaaaaaa."

And today when I cut one of my dahlias to bring inside and show her, she touched it gently, just like I told her, and looked really surprised when I showed her that yes, this is a flower, and so are those things embroidered on her dress. When I asked her a few minutes later to point to the flower, she crawled over and stroked the dahlia ... despite the fact that she's probably never heard the word "flower" before today.

Not only is the kid tall, but she's a genius, too. Why do I have the feeling that she's going to be one of those kids who, once they start talking, don't ever stop talking except to sleep? I am so very much looking forward to 18 years of "mommy did you know that ants have 6 legs and spiders have 8 but cows only have 4 and people only have two and why don't we have six legs like the ants? I think that would be cool, even if it would be hard to find that many shoes that fit. Why don't we buy six shoes just in case I grow more legs tonight, mommy? Mommy? Why is that pillow over your head like that? Do you want me to go get your bourbon again, mommy?" Heck, anything is better than the screaming from this time last year.

Princess puddinghead

Today at dinner, Liza declined to eat any of the quiche we were having (going so far as to scrape it off of her tongue when some of it accidentally got into her mouth), and she was only moderately interested in her sweet corn. But the chocolate pudding? Oh, yeah!

Looks like we don't have to worry about her missing out on any of those important pudding-y nutrients, like, um, calcium! Or anti-oxidants! Or sugar!

Not that I'm worried about her eating habits or anything. This is the kid whose idea of snack is about half of a Fig Newton and as many grapes as she can weasel out of us. Juice? eh. Milk? Just hand her the gallon jug and she'll be happy.

Liza had her 15-month checkup yesterday (as well as her next-to-last round of shots for a couple of years ... hooray!). She's right at the 50th percentile for weight, and she's off the chart for height (that's 33 1/2", in case you're wondering). The nurse looked surprised when she measured Liza, and she mentioned that usually you can tell how tall an adult will be by doubling their height on their 2nd birthday. "If she stops growing for the next nine months, she'll still be 5' 7" tall," the nurse said. "If she doesn't make 6', she's not trying hard enough," was my response.

Actually, I'd be happier if she ended up slightly smaller than I am (in oh-so-many dimensions). It would be nice if she could shop for pants without having to worry about how short they look on her, and I REALLY hope her feet stop growing when she gets to be a 10, because being a 10 1/2 or 11 pretty much sucks. So think small(er) thoughts for my baby, okay? We don't need anymore Amazon women in the family.

Urban dictionary

I have just rediscovered the wonders of Urban Dictionary, a place that no only can define "ear worm," but can provide several definitions of "muffin top," including one with photos!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=muffin+top

I think I need to start checking this site daily and hitting the "random" button, just for fun.

Ear worm

There are times when I really wonder what kind of neurochemical bullshit goes on in my head to result in me having, for example, the "Lonely Goatherd" song from The Sound of Music stuck in my head all ... day ... long.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go bang my head repeatedly against something very hard until the damn yodelling stops. Wish me luck!

btw, here's a definition of ear worm, just in case you aren't familiar with the term: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ear+worm

Lazy Mama tip of the week

No matter how often I vacuum and/or mop the floors, our house still has a lingering sort of "a baby lives here" smell, a mixture of spilled milk, cheese goldfish crackers, and an occasional whiff of diaper. Sure, I could go buy some of that Febreze stuff, but that costs money and takes extra time. And burning scented candles is a no-no with the kid and the cats around.

So instead I've started to use good-smelling stuff I already own to perfume the air that comes out of my vacuum cleaner. Today I changed the bags in both vacuums and added about 1 tablespoon of some bath salts Jason bought for me three or four years ago (because baths? Who has time?) to the empty bags. I just vacuumed, and the place smells wonderful! I'm guessing this will work with other things, too, like dryer sheets (fresh or even used ones) or cut-up nubbins of old scented candles. And the best part - it's free, uses stuff I already have, and it takes zero extra effort to make the house smell good.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go sprinkle some of this stuff in the bottom of the Diaper Genie ...

Thank you, Susie!!

This is a week or so late, but I'd like to send a public thank you to my mother-in-law Susie, who came to visit last weekend just after Jason returned from Jamaica. Not only did she babysit for us so Jason and I could go out together sans baby for the first time since November (oh, how I wish I was exaggerating), but she uncomplainingly came to my family reunion that Sunday. This whole experience probably sucked for her for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

• I baked two pies to take with us, and the whole house smelled like pies on Saturday, but I wouldn't let anyone have a piece until we got to the reunion. That alone is a hanging offense in some countries.
• The reunion was at a location four hours away from our house, so Susie got to spend 8 hours in the backseat of our car. Susie is the same height as me, so backseats and her are not a good fit.
• The reunion was in an unairconditioned building, on a day when it got to be 98F outside. There were some fans to move the air around, but all of us were picking out our outfits based on how badly they would show sweat stains.
• Our family reunions are so big (66 people this time) that we all have to wear nametags, which we make so that people can tell who we're related to. So mine has my name on it, and my mother's, and my grandmother's. Susie had to somehow put on there that she was my mother-in-law, and not actually related to anyone. I told her she should just put her name and "I came for the food," but she wouldn't play along.

So Susie gets MAJOR points for going along, pretending not to mind, and not complaining about it even once. I totally owe her some more painting at her house next time we're visiting.

Oh, and did I mention she's an awesome photographer, and having her there allowed us to get all of my grandmother's descendants in one shot? Well, except for my cousin Jeff, his wife, and three of their kids (one made it; the rest were being carted to tennis camp that day). You can just imagine them in the sorta blank area at the right side of the shot. Here's the Bohl family, or at least my grandmother's branch of it:

Can Swan Lake be far behind?

I present to you our resident prima donna, Princess Poopypants!

Dolt that I am, I didn't even notice that this swimsuit looked like a ballet costume until today. I asked Jason the Usually Unobservant about it, and he said, "I thought that was why you bought it." Um, not so much, but now that I see it, she's totally wearing it with the rasta hat for Halloween. I'll make it work somehow, even if I have to write a Jamaican ballet myself.

Park princess

See this?

This is my daughter, playing on the playground equipment without me having to carry her up to the top of the slide.

True, she still tries to go down the slide face first, and she leads with her chin on the dismount, but we're making progress. If it weren't so darn hot, we'd have a chance to practice more often.

Liza, I'd like to officially apologize for giving you hair that sticks out on both sides of your head so freakishly, making you look like Farrah Fawcett after a particularly bad hair night. It's cute right now, honey, but you'll be wishing for a buzz cut by elementary school if it doesn't fix itself before then.

produce princess

Proof that living in Kentucky does, indeed, turn your baby into a shirtless, raw-corn-eating hillbilly:

Because obviously, she couldn't have inherited this habit from either of her parents. Right, Jason? Um, Jason?

It's Liza's fault, grandpa

Liza was busy pulling stuff off of my office shelves this morning, and she found one of my photo backup discs. It included the shots I took when I went to Holland on a business trip and my parents met me over there for a vacation afterward ... which is when I took this:

Photographic proof that my dad is the coolest dad EVAHHHH!

Farmers' markets

Saturday we visited the Lexington farmers' market, a lovely outside affair complete with Yuppies walking their tiny dogs and children. It is set up on a wide sidewalk on one of the downtown streets, and it's several blocks long. Like the West Side Market in Cleveland, it featured some sellers who obviously buy wholesale produce ... good quality produce, but it obviously wasn't from Kentucky. There were also plenty of local farms represented, too, included five or six places that specialized in flowers. One stall was nothing but huge oriental lilies ... you could smell it from half a block away. And a bunch of places had inexpensive bouquets made up out of garden flowers ... zinnias and glads and snapdragons, that sort of thing. They really reminded me of some of the arrangements my grandmother used to make when her garden was in full swing. Unfortunately, we had other errands to run after the farmers' market, and I didn't think the flowers would hold up well in the cooler we had for the veggies, so I left them behind. I didn't leave behind the Silver Queen corn one of the local farms was selling (heavenly!) or the heirloom tomatoes, or the golf-ball-sized blackberries from another stall, or the local freestone peaches. I've eaten more veggies and fruit in the past few days than I did in the two weeks before we went to the farmers' market, and I can't seem to wipe the tomato-and-corn-induced grin off my face.

Our town also has a farmers' market, which is held Tuesday and Saturday mornings at the parking lot at Lowe's. For the last two summers I have consistently forgotten to go there, resulting in me actually making it to the market maybe twice, and one of those times was when my neighbor pretty much dragged me out of bed to go buy tomatoes. Since I had such good luck at the one in Lexington, however, I have decided to make it a priority to go to the local one, and I reorganized my schedule so that I will be doing my grocery shopping on Tuesday mornings, just after I hit the farmers' market.

This morning we made our first pilgrimmage there, Liza and I, and boy, is it different from the one in Lexington. Lexington has mostly larger farms and orchards (like the place where I got the peaches for the reunion pies) and a smattering of ladies wearing cruelty-free shoes selling herbal soaps and honey. Some of the stalls were from farms from surrounding counties, places far enough away that I'm not entirely sure where they are in relation to us. Our local farmers' market, on the other hand, was staffed entirely by good old boys in pickup trucks who obviously just drove out of the holler to come sell corn and taters to the city folk. Teeth were optional, as were home-rolled cigarettes and big leather wallets attached to their pants with a long chain. All of them declared Liza the cutest child on the planet ("Look at that hair!"), and I doubt it was just because they wanted to make a sale.

The one thing I hate about farmers' markets is that most of the time, a lot of the stalls have the same produce. At the one here in town and the one in Lexington, all of the prices were similar for similar items, so you couldn't even make your purchasing decisions based on cost. So I have to decide - do I buy my corn from the guy with the fewest teeth, the most teeth, or the biggest pile of corn? Do I buy my heirloom tomatoes from the guy with the good selection, even though he keeps trying to sell me $8/lb homegrown woodear mushrooms to go along with them? Do I buy something from the people there with the weeks-old baby, just because I feel sorry for them? In the end, I picked out the shrewdest-looking old lady customers and followed them around, buying from the stalls they picked.

And, as always, I came home with waaaaay too much stuff. Today's haul included more Silver Queen corn (the kind my grandfather used to grow ... nothing else tastes right to me), four kinds of heirloom tomatoes, green peppers (4 for $1), tiny yellow crookneck squash (6 for $1), and a basketball-sized watermelon.

I had planned to write more, about how when picking heirloom tomatoes you want to find the most gnarly, deformed looking ones you can because they inevitably end up being the best tasting, and how our daughter keeps trying to eat corn on the cob without using her hands, but those blackberries aren't getting any younger, and I still have to figure out what to do with them. Peach/blackberry pie, anyone?

The strange, strange world of eBay

As you may know, I've been working on selling some of my grandmother's unneeded stuff on eBay, trying to see if we can make any more money for her there than we would at a yard sale. It's strange the stuff that sells (a pair of blue women's gloves) and the stuff that doesn't (a very nice long silver necklace).

For example, in the stuff that I just posted recently, I have more than a dozen people watching the auctions for vintage sequins that my great-aunt bought wayyyy too many of in the 70s and 80s. But the cookbooks I put up from my own stash - not much interest. I got a bid right away on this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=018&item=280010652908&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

(a brochure from the Modess sanitary napkin company about the wonders of menstruation)

And more than 450 people have viewed this, but so far there are no bids:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=018&item=280010411003&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

(a catalog my grandparents received when they ran their Western Auto store)

Now, maybe it's just me, but while both of these items are cool to look through, I wouldn't pay anyone money for them. Maybe for the "tips for dealing with polio" card we've got for sale, or the "what to do in the case of an atomic attack" brochure ... you know, useful info like that : ) It will be interesting to see what ends up selling out of this batch ... only two days until the first of the sequin auctions expire, so I guess I'll know soon!

In the meantime, if you want to see the full list of what we've got for sale, check out the following link:
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZ0susannah

I'll be posting new stuff every day or two, so check back frequently if you want to contribute to my grandmother's savings account!

Statement my parents probably never expected to hear me say:

"I think I still have some goat stuck in my teeth from lunch yesterday."

Insanely productive day

Liza was kind enough to take nice, long naps today, so first I worked on a table runner as a gift for my cousin's daughter, who is getting married next month:

And then, since that was finished and I was chock full of inspiration, I decided to make two baby blankets for Jason's cousin's twin girls, born last month. Here's the first of them - it still needs to be bound, but the top and quilting are done:

Both of these projects need to be thrown in the wash to fluff up the raw edges - that's why I was able to finish them so fast, they're pieced and quilted at the same time. Anyway, I'm insanely proud of how the baby blanket is turning out, and I think the coordinating one will be every bit as precious as this one. Can I just say, GO, ME!

who you callin?

I don't know which is scarier - that the Berea Citizen newspaper would print this ad, or that the phone number listed shows up as the Demon Busters church in Berea when you google it. No, I haven't tried calling despite all the times Liza's head has spun around like a top while she throws food on the floor and screams for her daddy.

Thanks to my neighbor Rodney for bringing this to my attention earlier this summer.

Anybody want to buy us a present?

Here's a suggestion:

http://tiffanyard.com/nerd.htm


MLF - are you paying attention? Your kids NEEEEEED a set of these uber-geeky flashcards. What am I thinking ... y'all probably have made your own already, right? : )

HE'S BACK!!!

A little lopsided and cross-eyed, maybe, but at least he doesn't pose a hazard to my child anymore, and the huge gash on his forehead is barely noticeable. Tomorrow he gets a bath, and by this weekend, Monkey Do should be back in action!

mutilated monkey mien*

When I was about three years old I received a monkey stuffed toy for Christmas. Here's a shot of me and "Monkey Do," as he later came to be named:

Over the last thirty years, Monkey Do has been my constant companion. He was always in the pile of stuffed toys in my room, eventually acquiring one of my old t-shirts and a pair of my old underwear for the sake of modesty. When I went to college, Monkey Do went with me, and there he acquired a black bucket hat with a giant sunflower pinned to the front. He managed to survive 30 years of rough handling with only one problem - his eyes fell off. They were the plastic kind that were somehow glued or attached on the inside of his head, and eventually they loosened up to the point where I could take them out entirely.

This was cool when I was a kid and in college, because I could adjust his eyes so that he was cross-eyed or looking over both shoulders at once. But now that I have a kid to whom I'd like to give Monkey Do, all I see when I look at those eyes is a choking hazard. The eyes had to go and be replaced with something that wasn't going to fall off, a task I've been putting off for years.

Yesterday I finally opened up Monkey Do's face so that I could fix his eyes. You have no idea how hard it was to take a seam ripper to his forehead - it was like how I imagine it is for medical students when they have to make the first incision to dissect their first human corpse. A few months ago there was a slight incident involving one of my old stuffed animals dissolving in the washing machine and ruining most of the rest of them, so Monkey Do is really the only one I have left that I care about. Sticking that sharp thing in between his eyes almost caused me physical pain, that's how hard it was. It didn't help any that when I was telling Jason about how hard it was, he commented that "it must have been hard to give him a vagina in the middle of his face." Insensitive as the comment might have been, he's got a point:

So now I have to spend the next few nights with my hand inside Monkey Do's head, embroidering new eyes on his face. Hopefully he'll look decent when I'm done, and hopefully I'll be able to sew his forehead back together and leave him looking less like Frankenstein's monster and more like his old self. If not, I guess he'll have to wear my old fencing mask or something.


*the title refers to a song we used to sing as kids, which went: "Great big globs of greasy, grimey gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, little birdies' dirty feet. Ten gallon pails of all-purpose porpoise pus, hanging on the outhouse wall." Yes, we were sick, sick children.

When Jason is allowed to pick out souvenirs on business trips

... we end up with Rasta Baby:

Yes, that is indeed a skullcap in Africa pride colors, with attached dreadlocks. I'm thinking that if we find a tie-dyed shirt and some ripped jeans, and we've got her Halloween costume for this year taken care of. Don't mind me - I'm just jealous because all I got from Jamaica was a package of cassava pancake mix. I guess I'll just have to crochet my own rasta hat if I want to match her :)

I've become the sort of mother ...

who, when fishing around under the seats in her minivan, trying to find the dumb DVD to return to the library, instead finds three half-finished sippy cups of water.

At least now I know why we didn't have many cups left in the kitchen ...

Oh thank you god the whining stopped ...

... and it's only two and a half hours after I "put her to bed," including one extra session of books and singing, one long walk around the park, and one interminable "God Loves You" DVD from the local Mothers Of Preschoolers group. She made it through "six days" of the creation story told using cutesy vacation bible school songs and hand puppets made of velour gloves with eyes glued on (oh, how I wish I was kidding), and on the seventh day, I told her God went to sleep and so should she. I think somewhere about day four her brain shut down in self defense, so for now at least I'm safe from the whining.

I do think I know what triggered this, though. It's all Jason's fault. No, seriously - hear me out on this. He's been gone on a business trip - AGAIN - since Monday. Usually when he's gone, Liza will spend a little time each day saying "dadadadadadadadaaaaaaaaaaa" and I tell her that Daddy is on a trip and will be home soon. Well, this weekend, every time Jason left to run an errand, she would follow him to the front door, then stand there crying and banging on the screen door while he drove away without her. She was usually pretty easy to distract afterward, and Jason thought it was sort of cute.

When she started talking about him this morning, I told Liza that Daddy was on a trip, and would be home tonight. That was my mistake, because Daddy won't be home until long after Liza's supposed to be in bed. I guarantee you, that kid understood the gist of what I said, because she spent the whole time we were home occasionally saying "dadadaaaadaaaa" and whining aimlessly around the house. A couple of times when she did that, I told her no, Daddy wouldn't be home until tonight, after she was in bed. I swear, I think she understood that, too, and didn't want to go to bed because she would miss seeing him. The kid won't say 'Mama' if you pay her in chocolate and kittens, but Daddy goes to Jamaica and all hell breaks loose.

That's it. Next time, I'm going to the tropical island, and Jason can stay home with the whiny kid and get ready for his in-laws to visit.

Reasons I am fairly certain I am residing the the 7 3/8ths circle of hell

1. I stayed up way too late last night ... er, this morning, watching a really dumb movie, then trying to figure out the dumb movie, then making fun of the dumb movie. Then I couldn't get to sleep because I was still trying to figure out what the hell the blue box thing was supposed to represent. Stupid blue box. Stupid David Lynch.
2. I got sniped on eBay, not once, but twice, by people who swooped in at the last second and outbid me for adorable little Hannah Andersson outfits for my daughter. Stupid snipers. In retaliation I spent most of Liza's morning nap finding more outfits and bidding on them in hopes that I avoid the sniping on at least one of them.
3. My daughter has turned into a challenging eater. Not only does she not like the same thing two days in a row, she's prone to throwing her food - all of her food, even the stuff she likes - on the floor, on the wall, at the cat. She's been doing this for weeks, only now it's gotten to the point where her some total of food for today was: about 1 1/2 bites of waffle, about 3 cubes of tropical fruit, most of 2 cups of milk, about 1 bite of peanut butter sandwich, maybe 3 bites of yogurt, about half a dozen graham cookie sticks, three bites of peach and maybe one handful of pad thai. The rest of all of that ended up on the floor ... you know, the floor that I just swept because my mother-in-law is coming to visit tomorrow. I've tried varying her diet, I've tried giving her the things she used to love, and I've tried being nonchalant about the situation. She's barely eating, which I know is normal and won't kill her, but if she throws one more gloopy thing on the floor I may have to throttle her with my kitchen towel. Grrr.
4. Liza has decided that playing with the cat food is really fun. Specifically, she likes shoveling the dry food into the cats' water dish, sopping up every last bit of water into nasty waterlogged pillowy pellets. This morning she got into the cat food, so I barred her from the room while I cleaned it up. Apparently my timing was bad, because when I got done there was a puddle of cat pee in the middle of the hallway. While I cleaned that up, Liza got back into the cat food and spread it all over again. I locked Liza in her room, cleaned up the cat food while she screamed like a death row inmate, and put a temporary barrier in front of the cat room (the cats can get over it, and Liza hasn't been given the chance to figure out how to go around it yet).
5. Then I got to try to clean up the dried cat puke on the new rug in Liza's room. Anybody need two cats?
6. Liza's morning nap made us miss story time at the library today, so not only did I miss out on talking to actual grownups, but I forgot to return the dumb movie, too, so now not only did I sit through two hours of crap, but I have to pay $1 for the privilege. Grr.
7. After the food throwing and the cat food incident(s), I decided the only way to get through the day was to get out of the house, so we went to an orchard outside of Lexington to get some local peaches. Only I misjudged where the exit was on the ring road around the city, so we started on the exact opposite side of town from where we needed to be. And then it poured rain. And then we got to the orchard and they didn't have much selection. And then it poured rain again, so we sat on the porch at the orchard store and ate one of the peaches we had bought ... and decided that we prefer the Georgia peaches I bought yesterday at Kroger. So we spent like 2 hours of driving (during which she refused to go to sleep and whined almost constantly) to get so-so fruit.
8. At this point I decided to invoke a little retail therapy, especially since I had to drive right past the exit for the mall on my way home from the orchard. Liza whined the whole way there, and the whole time we were in the mall, even when I gave her a piece of my Auntie Anne's pretzel. The good news: I found beach shoes for the baby, suitable for wearing in September when we go to New Jersey for a week, provided her feet don't grow enormously in the next two months. I also found ridiculously sale-priced pjs at Baby Gap - the long sleeved cotton knit ones for fall/winter/spring were on sale for $7, which is much preferable to the normal $19 I refuse to pay for pajamas that only use 1/3 of a yard of knit fabric.
9. So then we headed home, and Liza cranked up the whine to full volume unless I was singing. Continuously. Just about the time I decided it would be better to head straight home instead of hitting the frozen custard store that I ALWAYS visit when I'm in the area, Liza fell asleep. That's right, it took her FOUR HOURS to finally fall asleep, given that I first put her in the car when it was about her nap time, anyway. And she fell asleep 15 minutes before we got back home, of course, not when I was doing the long drive earlier in the day and she could have had an hour nap. Oh, no, she had to watch the traffic then and save the nap for when she wouldn't have time to actually sleep.
10. Did I mention the pad thai throwing? That's almost as bad as wasting a biscuit, as far as I'm concerned. Worse, maybe, because Thai food is more expensive. Ungrateful brat.
11. And now, despite the fact that she's been mostly without a nap for like six hours, and spent most of dinner trying to grind pad thai noodles into her eye sockets, and has had the requisite number of books read and songs sung, she's up there in the crib, you guessed it, whining. She's not teething, she's got a dry diaper and a rash-free bum, she's got her blankie and her mobile, and she's tired. She may be hungry, but she certainly doesn't act like it, and I refuse to clean the kitchen floor one more time today.

I'm not sure I have enough chocolate or bourbon in the house to deal with this much longer. How long does this whole whiny toddler thing last? Like, a year? Oh, god.

I hate it when Jason's right about a movie

First, he willfully avoided "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," a film with which I proceeded to torture my parents on their last visit here. (see plot summary here, if you dare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch ) Yes, Dad, I know that between this and the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" incident a few years ago, I now owe you big time, and cracks about your propensity toward bush-trimming and window-washing aren't helping things any. Have I mentioned recently how awesome my dad is? Dude, like SOOO awesome. Carves things, fixes things ... and, he does windows!

Homosexuality, trans-gender issues, unsuccessful sex change operations performed in Eastern Block countries ... Hedwig had it all, only not in a good way. "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" it was not. Oh, did I mention the hard-rockin' soundtrack that was the only highlight of the movie? If you don't listen to the lyrics, it was actually pretty good.

Now Jason dodged the "Mulholland Drive" bullet, missing out on a David Lynch film so twisted, even the experts' review/plot synopsis I just downloaded starts off basically as "What the fuck was that???" It makes "Memento" look like a walk in the park ... at least by the end of that movie, you know what the rest of it was about. With "Mulholland Drive," it starts off where you think you know what's going on, but by the end you have no clue. Strange creatures who frighten people with bad eyebrows to death in fast-food parking lots? Check. Mysterious cowboy dude who appears mystically to deliver sage pronouncements? Check. Hot girl-on-girl action? Check. Odd people doing odd things in surreal environments? Yup. More hot girl-on-girl action? Yawn.

If you haven't watched it, don't. And if you did, and still don't know what the hell happened, here's a pretty concise synopsis of it. It's seven pages long.
http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/10/23/mulholland_drive_analysis/index.html

Someone make a note of the following pronouncement:
I, GRETCHEN WOODS, SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO NEVER WATCH ANOTHER DAVID LYNCH MOVIE, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF "DUNE," WHICH IS PRETTY GOOD IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE BOOK (MAINLY BECAUSE KYLE AND STING ARE HOT).

So now they tell me ...

http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/07/spin_him_right_.html

If you've got babies, visit the link above to find out how swivel chairs can improve their brains. No, I'm not joking. I'm starting Liza's swivel routine today ... now, where's that Dramamine?
*****
On another topic, when did my daughter become so contrary? She spends a week doing nothing but plotting how to get up the off-limits stairs, past the flimsy make-shift baby gate that we put up when she unexpectedly learned to do stairs. So I finally take the time to install the permanent gate, and, no joking, two days later she decides she's over stairs and won't climb them, no matter what good stuff is at the top. So now I have a lovingly installed baby gate at the bottom of my stairs, which I leave gaping wide open in hopes that Liza will change her mind and start doing stairs again. Apparently, I can't win.

Know what happens when you cut through the extension cord with a hedge trimmer?

Not much, unfortunately. I was expecting sparks, or pain, or cardiac arrest. Instead I got to push the "reset" button on the GFCI outlet and add "extension cord" to my shopping list for this weekend. How anti-climactic can you get?

And I think along with "Mistress of Death," one of my gardening nicknames should be "The Bush Butcher." What should be a quick trim turns into "oops, need to even that out a little over here, and whoops, now this side's off a little, and geez, now the whole thing is kaslonchwise." And you wonder why I take my daughter to a hair dresser rather than cutting it myself? Poor kid would look like a cueball by the time I was done, if the pathetic-looking bushes are any indication of my prowess. I think in the future I'll just have my father visit twice a year, once in the early summer and once in the fall. He likes power tools, gets the bushes trimmed evenly without scalping them, and has never been known to cut through the extension cord. So Dad, can I schedule you to come in October sometime? : )

Additional proof of the preciousness ...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4916567370554070468

Oh. My. God. Not only can she sing, she can wave!

just when you think ...

... you've got the house childproofed, you find this:

Maybe "pulling out all the tissues" was one of the tips in the "Happiest Toddler on the Block" book she was apparently reading while I unloaded the dishwasher. Of course I forgave her - how could I not forgive a kid who looks like this?

I dare you to prove she's not the most precious pumpkin on the planet. Go ahead - try. You won't succeed.

Note to self - time to child proof the toilet paper, too.

Origins, part 2

Okay, first a definition: a gaming convention is a convention at which games of all types are played and sold. In this case, it's a five day event in Columbus, Ohio, sponsored by the Game Manufacturers' Association. It's been running every summer since 1975, attracting tens of thousands of people from across the country. It features everything from traditional board and card games (like the poker tournament Jason did on Thursday) to role-playing games (like the Tunnels and Trolls dungeon crawl Jason did on Sunday) to miniature strategy games (like reenactments of historical battles, complete with detailed troops and weapons and tanks and everything). It's a chance to play old favorites with new people, and a chance to try out new games relatively cheaply before buying them. AND there's a huge vendor area, where you can buy pretty much any game, accessory, snarky t-shirt, etc. that you can think of.

Like I said, Jason had a poker tournament Thursday night, and meanwhile Liza and I met Sybil and Penelope to play some Munchkin. Liza was a bit cranky from the four-hour car ride to get to the convention, but she perked right up when she saw the acres of carpeted floor and dozens of stairs she could attempt to climb. I spent half an hour playing my cards while watching her out of the corner of my eye as she took off at a fast crawl across the floor. She'd get 40 or 50 feet away before I went to get her, unless she was headed for the revolving doors or the escalators, in which case I had to intervene a little sooner. Here's a shot of her in action at the con:

We realized pretty quickly that although the convention center is vaccuumed pretty regularly, apparently they last shampooed their carpets in 1978, because Liza and Penelope were both getting grimy really fast. After only an hour or so of crawling and playing on the floor, Liza's hands, knees, and the tops of her feet were absolutely grey ... it was definitely necessary to wipe her down before she ate dinner, and every night was bath night to get that crud off of her.

Friday I had purposely left open on my schedule, since Jason had some games he wanted to play that wouldn't allow him to look after Liza at all. So Sybil and I let the girls sleep in late, then took them over to a park in downtown Columbus that features - get this - a topiary recreation of the Georges Seurat painting Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte. If you stand at a certain place in the park, all of the bushy people, boats and monkeys are in exactly the same locations as in the painting. It was every bit as thrilling as it sounds:

It was a nice park to stroll through, and you certainly couldn't beat the price. But I was a bit disappointed in the fact that the figures aren't complete - the tallest of the bunch are still topped by un-topiaried metal framework that will eventually support the yew bushes that make the figures (check out the umbrella the lady on the far right of the scene above is holding). I mean, they've been growing for almost 20 years now - you'd think it would be done already!

Later that day we participated in an Apples to Apples game that was somewhat ruined by an overly enthusiastic game master (the person running the game) who insisted on commenting on every single card that was played. Grr.

By far the best event that I played was called Clay-O-Rama where the participants make creatures out of Play-Doh and then battle them to the death. And I'm not just saying it was fun because I won (which I did), but because there are few things more fun than being able to fling blobs of clay across the table and pound the living crap out of my opponent's creature with my fist if I make the shot. Hoo-ahh!

One of the highlights of any gaming convention is the dealers' hall, where game manufacturers show off their newest products and companies of all types try to sell you stuff. Experienced convention attendees seem to have a sixth sense for which booths have the best "swag," that is, free stuff they give you for trying out their games. Matt and Sybil came home with two enormous boxes of Pokemon cards for their boys, just from sitting through the demo and playing one hand with one of the booth staff. Not a bad return on their investment of time, I'd say.

Since we still have most of the swag we picked up two years ago (unopened in a drawer somewhere, gathering dust), I avoided the free stuff and instead spent my time in the dealer room in search of several specific items: 1) a pair of fuzzy d-20 dice for Jason's rear view mirror, 2) a new game to take home that doesn't suck when played by only two players, and 3) at least one funny t-shirt.

The game I picked is called Blokus, and it's sort of like playing Tetris head-to-head with another person, only on a board instead of a computer. The best part is that it's designed for two people (at least the travel version I got is), so it doesn't suck when it's just me and Jason available to play it. Plus, I'm pretty good at it, especially when my opponent is either sleep deprived or partially inebriated :)

I ended up getting two shirts, partially because I couldn't decide between them, and partially because I felt bad for the lady who was selling them. One of them is a grey cami with this slogan:

And the other is a tan t-shirt that proclaims my new personal slogan:

I love the tagline: A kiss may be grand but it won't fix the plumbing ... It doesn't get much truer than that.

Okay, I've got more to post, but I've got some housework to do. Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday!

PS - Sorry, Michael, but K's Mom is right - I've already got the mandevilla started in a pot next to the patio railing (left side in the photo). It remains to be seen whether it will actually climb this year, as this same plant has been remarkably short in past years. If it doesn't climb this year I'll give up, throw it out, and try with a new plant next summer.

Origins, part 1

Jason, Liza and I just got back from Origins, a gaming convention in Columbus, Ohio. We met our former next-door neighbors and some other friends there for four days of gaming, bad convention food, and chasing babies around on filthy convention center carpets. I have plenty to talk about, but for now, here's all you're getting:

Hilarious (to gamers, at least) caricature courtesy of The Great Luke Ski.