Bracing myself

In about 60 hours, Ken will leave for his annual 4-day canoe trip on the upper Delaware River. I recall last year's trip being a blur for me because I had a newborn (Henry) and a 2.5yo (Padraic) and was still trying to figure out exactly how to juggle both their needs by myself. To make matters more interesting, Ken's trip was Friday through Monday, and Padraic didn't go to day care on Fridays or Mondays. So it was four solid days of Mommy + the boys. I seem to recall coming close to losing my mind on days one and two, but somewhere around the end of day two or beginning of day three I got into a groove. To the point where when Ken returned, I wasn't as ready to flee as I had expected to be.

Let's hope that is the case this time around.

Our schedule will be different this year, anyway. Ken leaves on Thursday morning and gets home around suppertime on Sunday. So I just have to get the boys to day care and myself to work on Thursday, and then during the workday I need to make sure I retain some bit of sanity to use that evening until the precious hour when both little doodles are snug in their beds. On Friday I'll need to get Padraic to day care, but heck, I'll throw on sweats and a baseball cap, grab Henry out of his crib in jammies, and just head on up there and return home quick as a bunny. Then I'll have my usual work-at-home day with Henry and go get Padraic in the midafternoon. Friday evening will probably seem looooooooong. We'll survive.

Saturday we are meeting up w/my parents and sister partway out the good ole PA turnpike to have lunch and celebrate my dad's upcoming b'day. (He'll only be 56!) That oughta be fun and keep the boys amused for several hours. The drawback is that they tend to sleep in the car, which is good for while we're in the car; not so good for once we get home and Mommy is tired but they are not. We'll work it out.

Sunday I plan to do not a thing outside of this house, unless absolutely necessary. OK, maybe I'll splurge and take the boys out for McD's or ice cream or something. If I am feeling really bold, I might take them to Linvilla Orchard and let Padraic pick out a pumpkin that doesn't have a hope in hell of making it to Halloween (but it would still be fun to get it). We'll see. A lot depends on the weather and how thinly worn my nerves are by then.

Ken and I are such opposites at the childcare thing. When I travel for work, he thinks the hardest days are the ones where he has to get the kids ready for day care and then get himself to (and through) work. I think it's harder to spend the whole day trying to come up with things to keep the boys entertained and that don't make me bored out of my own mind. This is why we make such a good pair. Or at least one reason why.

Anyway, so I am bracing myself and starting to plan for what supplies we might need for the four-day Daddy absence. Number one on the list? Chocolate. In its many forms. Bars of chocolate. Hot chocolate mix. Chocolate ice cream. From there, I'm not sure. I think we probably should have diapers for Henry, but other than that, just chocolate.

Bye, bye, Wachovia

I've been waiting for this news for a few months now, and the day has come: Wachovia has sold its assets (and liabilities up to $42bil) to Citigroup. So I guess our next mortgage payment will be going to Citigroup, which Ken jokingly says cannot be since then he'd be indirectly supporting the Mets. Well, who cares, now that they're out of the pennant race anyway? ;)

I continue to have unsettled feelings about the economy, the bailout that's in process, and the volatile oil-price situation. We're on track to be free of all debt (credit cards, student loans, car payments) but our mortgage by sometime in 2010, but what happens in the meantime? What happens to the home improvement project we'd wanted to do in the spring? We have a great credit rating, but should we even risk taking out a home equity loan? Should we just putter around next year, doing smaller projects around the house so we feel better about our home but only use money that comes directly from our paychecks, not from a creditor?

The one thing I do feel good about is that our "life savings" (wait a second while a giggle....ok, moving on) is at the credit union, which is financially sound since they didn't take part in any subprime mortgage lending. I'd get rid of my accounts at Commerce Bank (which recently merged with TD Banknorth), but it's the only way to keep cash available locally and seven days/week. It's nearly impossible for us to get to a branch of the credit union since the closest one is in South Philly near the stadiums, and we're about 20mi from there. Plus, they keep bankers' hours, while Commerce has at least some hours every single day. Very nice. I know our money is FDIC insured (I mean, let's be honest, we're waaaay below 100,000), but still, if a bank goes under, it's bound to cause a ripple effect in our lives while we put the money elsewhere and change over our automated payments. I don't really know what Commerce/TD's status is right now in the financial world. Guess that's some research I need to do.

Meanwhile, we still await the gas line we need for our new home heating efforts this winter. Maybe the steam pouring out of my ears will get us through until they show up to install the line, though.

It isn't fair

My friend Kate's niece, Peyton (welovepeyton.blogspot.com), who is suffering from a rare form of infant leukemia, now has a dangerous fungal infection. Definitely in her nose tissue, where her feeding tube has been, and possibly in her eye, brain, and lungs. I've never met Peyton or her father, Dru, and I've only met Kate's sister--Peyton's mother--a handful of times in my life, during our college years and again over the weekend of Kate's wedding, so why do I care so much? Well, because she's a mom and I'm a mom.

Those of you with kids will understand when I say that being a parent is like having your nerves and emotions living on the outside of your skin. Everything that goes wrong with your kid or someone else's kid is akin to having someone run a cheese grater over your body. It hurts. It just freaking hurts. You might cry at a news article about a child being abused by caregivers. Those commercials for children's charities overseas, where you see starving children in dirty villages, will make your heart cringe. Life becomes more precious when you're a parent and have someone else's life to watch over.

Babies are born with the expectation of so much potential, a lifetime of holiday memories, milestones achieved, photos in the ever-growing albums to be pored over at graduations, weddings, births of their own children. Birth should not bring about the horrifying experience that Peyton, her parents, and everyone who loves her is going through. And mostly what her parents are going through. Because although so many people love Peyton, the people who brought her into this world are the ones who are suffering most. Count on it.

It isn't fair. This little girl should be at home with her parents, enjoying the nursery they surely set up for her and getting to know her big cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, friends. She shouldn't be in a children's oncology ward, fighting for her life.

I don't know if prayers will be enough. I really don't. But I hope that they are. I want Peyton to get the miracle that she needs. I want her parents to be able to smile and see their little girl grow up. If you're the type to pray, please do. If you deal with the universe in another way, keep Peyton and her family in your thoughts the way you feel is most appropriate. If you have money to donate, send it to St. Jude's or another charity that helps sick children, or reach out to a family in your own community that is staggering under the weight of medical bills for a child who shouldn't be sick but is. Please.

Random thoughts

Ever want to feel really, really wanted and needed? Register as an Independent. You'll get more phone calls and knocks on your door during an election season than you'll know what to do with.

Henry still isn't interested in walking on his own. He'll cruise around like a little devil, but he will not let go and take that first step. He's now surpassed his big brother in terms of being a holdout. Who wants to place bets on whether he'll walk on his own before 15 months (October 11)?

After feeling like hell for 48hrs, I got an amazing night's sleep last night, and even though I'm tired today, I can't complain. It often takes feeling like crap for me to realize how good I actually feel on a regular old day.

My annual review at work is approaching, and (gasp) I haven't met all of my goals. That will be a first, and I'm not liking it. Nothing I can do about it except try harder next year. And try to learn some mental telepathy powers so I can force authors to do my bidding. LOL.

I like wearing cozy sweatshirts and comfy warm pjs when fall first comes, but the charm is going to wear off in about two weeks. Then I'll want the nice hot summer back. Winter can go bleep itself. I am not a fan of cold weather and the white stuff. And trying to buckle kids into car seats while your (inclined) driveway is a patch of ice? Talk about fodder for America's Funniest Home Videos. Good thing we leave for work before many people in the neighborhood are even awake.

In my next life I want to be a beagle that's spoiled as badly as we have spoiled our beagles. Especially the part about getting to sleep 25hrs per day. That part must really rock.

Is it evil to use the earlier sunset as an excuse to get the kids into bed at, say, 6pm? ;)

Side effects may be more prominent than they appeared in the little pamphlet

Have you ever, like me, found it fun to mock pharmaceutical commercials for their full-speed babble about all the horrible things the drug will do to you while so-called fixing your original complaint? Jeff Foxworthy has an awesome tribute to side effects (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeff_Foxworthy), and he is pretty close.

I took a new medication Sunday night (for a female issue...you don't want the details), and instead of experiencing the first-tier side effects like, say, headaches and mild nausea, I got to enjoy the second-tier side effects of staying up allllllll night long vomiting and having the shakes. Clearly, this is not the medication for me. I have not taken it since Sunday night, but, oh, it is not done with me. I am home from work today (thank God I telecommute on Mondays so I at least didn't waste another day off on this crap) to continue recuperating. I was up most of last night, though I was able to fall asleep for restless little jags starting around 3am, which, sadly, is a massive improvement over Sunday night.

I guess I'll be grateful that I didn't have the "holy crap, get to the ER right now" third tier of side effects, but when you're vomiting up individual Cheerios that you'd been hoping were innocuous enough to make it past the bouncers guarding your stomach, that distinction starts to make a lot less difference than you might think. I was at least intelligent enough to put a call in to my dr's 24hr answering service and talk to the dr on call, who calmly informed me that some people react strongly to this particular medication. No shit, Sherlock. He also informed me that what I took was a "very small dose" (and again, thank God for that) and that the symptoms would improve eventually. Again, gee, thanks. I mean, while there is some reassurance in not having a medical professional tell you to high-tail it to the ER, that fades pretty quickly when you hang up the phone and go barf for the billionth time. I felt better when I had morning sickness with Henry, and at least that was for a more worthwhile reason.

So I'll be trying to catch up on my sleep today while the remainder of my "very small dose" works its way out of my system once and for all. Then I'll give my dr a call when her office opens and see what the next step is. I can tell you what it is not: Taking any more of those horrible little pills. Next time you get a prescription and read the pamphlet, consider how you might feel if you did get some of the worse side effects. Better yet, ask your dr more questions about the drug before you agree to take it. That was my first mistake. I only learned of the first-tier side effects and went no further until it was toooooo late. Lesson learned, I can tell you that!

He kissed me!

The greatest joy of my life is that Ken and I have two little boys. They are not always in a good mood (and neither am I), but they bring me joy on a daily basis. Today's best moment was when Henry kissed me for the first time. I feel silly, but I'm welling up with tears just thinking about it. It was one of those amazing but awkward kisses from a baby who keeps his mouth wide open and just plants it firmly into the side of your face. Or nose. Whatever happens to be in the way. I've had a few rough days lately, but that little moment really brightened this one for me. I couldn't get him to repeat it, but I know it's only a matter of time. Just like him deciding to walk on his own. Just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, his big brother continues to grow at such a fast pace, both physically and in maturity, that it astounds me to think he was once a tiny baby in my arms. If I try to pick him up now, that nasty shoulder injury acts up, and that is such a shame. I am not old enough to be falling apart at the seams and unable to carry my children. But even if I can't carry Padraic, I can still hold him, and I try to get in as much snuggle time as I can. Because at what age is it that boys stop wanting to snuggle with their moms (or dads) and start to be macho and independent? Please, please say it's a long time from now. I'll be proud to see them grow into young men, but my heart will ache when they stop showing the affection they do now both spontaneously and when encouraged.

Time

I spend a good part of each day striving to be efficient, on time or ahead of it with tasks, and so on. Given the effort I expend on things like meeting deadlines at work, making dinner as soon as possible after work to avoid having the whole family starve to death, keeping enough clean laundry in our dressers to avoid having us go to school and work naked, I admit that I am pretty miffed when other people don't follow through in the same timely fashion with things. In fact, lately I feel like I am running a race that no one else is even aware of. Why do I even bother? Probably just because I would feel disappointed in myself if I slacked off, but apparently others do not have the same kind of feeling about tardiness and foot-dragging that I do.

The main focus of today's rage is how freakin' long it has taken to get not all the way through the process of having our house hooked to the natural gas line. The utility company filed the necessary permit paperwork back on June 19. By August 19, not a single thing had happened, and we started banging down doors, so to speak, to find out what the hell was taking so long. A week later, we arrived home to find that the one-call had been made because there were spray painted markings in the street and on our front lawn, pointing out where all the hidden utilities are. Good, we thought. According to Ken, you need to do a one-call within 10 business days of starting the work you're planning to do. I thought we were nearly home-free.

Except today is business day #10, and no one has come to tear up my lawn yet and install the gas line. The nights are getting down into the 60s, and soon we will want to turn on the heat to keep the boys from turning into kidsicles in the middle of the night. Ken and I will be fine since we each end up with a beagle glued to us while we're sleeping anyway, but it would be awfully nice to raise our children in a home with heat this fall and winter. If gas weren't so flammable, I swear I'd be out front with a shovel right now, doing it myself.

What's worse?

What's worse than having to get up at 4:30am to catch a flight to Raleigh? Waking up an hour before even that horrendous time and not being able to fall back asleep. Geez, Henry started sleeping through the night a month ago...what the hell is my problem?

Actually, some early-morning insomnia has crept into my life in the last week or so, and I am not a fan. As it is I usually don't get to bed and really get to sleep until 11pm, and on a morning that I have to go to the office, I have to get up around 5/5:15am. (And yet I recall a time in my life when I thought 7am was ridiculously early.) But lately, if something (or someone) wakes me up in the wee hours, I am up for good. It's not a lot of fun to be the only one up in a household of six (I counted the doggies, too, who are currently snoring away on my side of the bed) while it's still dark outside. I know I'll be exhausted later today, and I hope I can snooze on the plane in both directions.

The good news is this: I will be home to tuck the boys into bed tonight. This fun little trip to Raleigh is just a day trip. 7:30am flight down; 6pm flight home. That is, as long as USAir doesn't screw up like they usually do. I try to avoid USAir as much as possible, and I'd been planning to take Southwest for this trip, but (a) my boss is coming on this trip, too, and she wanted to take USAir, and (b) I had a credit on USAir to use up before November 8 and this is my only trip until then that requires a flight. Since I was using up a credit for a flight I should've taken to San Francisco in January, I didn't nearly break even (USAir ended up with the residual $200+), but at least I got to use part of the leftover funds, and besides, it's not my money.

So the kids' clothes are laid out to make life easier on Ken later this morning--I leave the house around the time he'll be waking up but before the time the boys usually get up--and the crockpot is set up to make pulled pork...well, a human has to do the pulling part, but it'll do the cooking the pork roast part. Ken just has to plug it in and set the right program (fingers crossed) so he and Padraic will have dinner waiting when they get home from work/day care tonight. I don't see Henry eating pulled pork, and really I don't want to see what those diapers would look like, so he'll get something more baby friendly. And then I'm hoping he'll manage to stay awake until I get home from the airport around 8pm, again if my flight is on time.

After today I'm hoping for a little normalcy for a few weeks, until I have to travel to Washington, DC in mid-October. That trip ought to be kind of fun, though, since Ken and the boys are planning to drive down with me on a Saturday so we can do the National Zoo if the weather cooperates, or the Air and Space Museum if it doesn't. They'll drive home on Sunday once my conference starts, and then I'll take the train home Wednesday afternoon/evening. Somewhere in there I hope to get out to Fairfax to see my Aunt Kris and Uncle Rob and their girls. Last time I was in DC, they had gotten whomped by the flu, and we had to cancel our plans to get together. I know how that goes. Ugh. Virus season. Don't get me started.

Well, instead of boring you to tears any longer, I'm off to take a shower. Might as well indulge in a nice, long shower since no one else needs any hot water for hours, and I have plenty of time to get ready. Sigh. Wish I were snoring like the beagles.

Batten down the hatches!

How very comforting to awaken in the morning to the news telling you that two major financial institutions in your country have just gone belly up. Holy shit, people. Our economy is not just struggling, it is in a full-on tailspin. How far can our government stretch if this process continues? So far the feds have had to enact some bailouts, and other financial institutions have bought out previous competitors to keep things somewhat moving. But there has to be a breaking point, doesn't there? Where everyone just throws their hands up and goes home for the day?

I find it all completing unsettling, and so I am battening down the family financial hatches even tighter than I had before. That kitchen renovation that we'd been dead set on starting next spring (after I'd suggested pushing it back a year for each of the past four years)? Maybe not going to happen after all.

No, we don't have stocks and bonds with the large investment houses, but the economy is crumbling in large and small ways that affect us all. I'm starting to think I should read up on how my grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations survived the Depression, just so I'm prepared when things really go down the crapper. Having three months worth of income stashed away for an emergency no longer seems a high enough benchmark. Ken and I both have fairly good job stability, but never say never when it comes to layoffs or places just plain going out of business. I'd much rather be prepared for bad times--an ant, not a grasshopper. It's not as if we've been wasting money; we budget pretty tightly as it is. But now I'm doubly intent on avoiding any unnecessary spending and increase our savings as much as we can.

Do you think it's too early for Padraic to get a paper route? He has a tricycle and a wagon. OK, just trying to toss some levity into this downer of a post. Seriously, though, I feel like Ken and I are already pulling our full weight apiece, and we have good jobs, but that's not a guarantee of a comfy lifestyle anymore. Constant vigilance of your finances can be a huge stressor and brain drain so I know I can't go over the top with worrying, but I do hope after the election things will begin to turn around. I'm trying hard not to envision what it'd be like if things got worse.

Murphy's Law Post #1

You can see from the title of this post that I am planning ahead. Think I'm a pessimist? No, just a realist. When your last name is Murphy, Murphy's law is just part of life. As my father-in-law often says, "Our family members must've done something pretty bad back in the old country."

I do have to say that in the 9.5 years Ken and I have been together, I have been witness to a higher than normal incidence of bad/stupid/unlucky stuff than I can recall from life pre-Ken. The most mundane task or trip can turn into a struggle. Everything usually works out OK in the end since Ken--having lived a lifetime as a Murphy--has developed quite a bit of ingenuity for getting himself out of a jam. In comparison to some past experiences, yesterday's episode of Murphy's Law is quite tame but frustrating nonetheless:

If you've read my earlier posts, you know that yesterday Ken, our neighbor Todd, and Ken's friend/coworker Mike spent the day splitting wood at Mike's in-laws' property. Let me start by saying that everyone made it home safely, limbs, eyes, etc., intact. That was my first worry, to be honest. Ken is mechanically inclined so I knew he'd be able to work the logsplitter with no mechanical issues, but he is accident prone, which causes me great fear when he works with such unforgiving machinery.

Because there was going to be so much wood resulting from this expedition, Ken not only took his F150 on the journey but also stopped along the way to pick up his cousin John's beat-up old metal trailer, which is a handmade (not by John or anyone he knows) piece that looks for all the world like it was meant to haul coffins. Definitely crypt-shaped, though it's also perfect for holding a motorcycle, and I think that's why John acquired it in the first place. But I digress.

Ken, with Todd riding shotgun, picked up the trailer and met Mike at the location of the downed trees. The three spent the day splitting the wood, stackinng one cord onsite for Mike to retrieve later, and gradually piling the remaining wood in the bed of Ken's truck and in the trailer. Early estimates of the total amount of wood had been one-and-a-half cords, a nice half-cord for each of them for merely the cost of renting the splitter. In the final analysis, there was more like three cords of apple, oak, and cherry, nicely seasoned from sitting outside for a full year since being chopped down in the first place.

With the truck and trailer fully loaded, and with the end of the rental period for the splitter approaching, Ken and Todd hopped in the truck and headed home. All seemed well, and I talked to Ken as they were getting ready to leave around 3:45, and he was planning to be home in a little over an hour. Around 5:00 is when Murphy's Law kicked in. Ken was not home yet, and I was getting worried. I tried his phone once, and he didn't answer, but since he was in Jersey and you can't talk on a cell phone while driving in that state, I tried not to get more worried. At 5:30 he called me to report that they were about a mile from crossing the bridge into PA and that a tire had blown on the trailer. Egad, now what, I thought? No problem, Ken said. There is a spare tire for the trailer, and he had a jack and tools in the truck to change it.

Except, as it turned out, Ken didn't have a spinner in the truck and so couldn't get the damaged tire off the truck. The only choice they had was to limp down the road to the tool booth area by the foot of the bridge and ask for help from a state trooper. The troopers didn't have the right tool, either, but the tow truck driver, who is on-call at the bridge to help clear the lanes of traffic pronto if ever there is the need, did. And he even pulled his truck behind the trailer and used his forks to lift it so Ken wouldn't need to use the hand jack. Sweet. So Ken got the lug nuts off the wheel while Todd dug out the spare tire.

Around the time Ken realized the wheel wouldn't come off the trailer is when Todd found the spare. And it was flat. Let's pause and remember the wording of Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it will.

Their only choice: Ride the rest of the way home with a blownout tire on the trailer, and the trailer listing slightly to the left as a result. The finally made it home around 6:30, looking for all the world like a set of tinkers who had spent the day trolling for crap to throw in the truck and trailer. I kinda think the whole rig was overloaded, but I'm just glad they (a) made it home before dark and (b) made it home alive.

I realize this is an awfully long post about something fairly insignificant. Maybe you'll pity me just a little if I tell you that similarly long stories result from almost everything Ken gets himself involved in. Changing brakes on one of our vehicles? A hour-long job will turn into 5 hours and two trips to Pep Boys. Changing the faucet on our kitchen sink? That one took 4 hours, a cut to the hand, and three, THREE trips to Home Depot. So we won't even talk (for now) about the summer Ken built our detached garage in the backyard. "Oh, hon, it'll only take two months." Yeah, right. And maybe he should've taken my name on our wedding day!

Silly things

By now you've realized, I hope, that you won't find lofty, inspired ideas in my blog. Sorry to disappoint you, but I think I fried my brain in grad school--not with drugs but with overanalyzing every damn thing in the world--and now I'm just puttering along with my pedestrian thoughts. And I'm fine with that.

--I just watched two of NKOTB's live reunion performances on YouTube (I swear I didn't go seeking this stuff. I was led there by a tantalizing headline that in the dumbed-down state I currently live in I couldn't resist), and holy crow, Jordan Knight is still hot. They didn't sound that great, to be honest, but boy, watching them brought me back to my tweenhood. I wasn't a raging fan back in the day, but I did know their music and I went to a concert at Hagerstown (MD) Fairgrounds with my friend Tiffany when NKOTB was opening for, um, Tiffany. We had 2nd row seats and caught a sweaty towel that Jordan threw. Oh, be still my beating heart. I think I finally threw it out in the early 90s, though I can't recall exactly what did happen to it.

--With the winter approaching, something I dread every year since if you didn't already know I hate winter, Ken is spending the day with our neighbor Todd and friend Mike, splitting firewood on Mike's inlaws' property. They just want these downed trees gone so the cost of this expedition is about $25, whiich is Ken's share of the rental of the logsplitter for the day. Not too shabby given that he should come home with 1/2-3/4 a cord of wood. The only thing I like abot winter is being able to use our fireplace so that gives me something to look forward to.

--Later this morning our good friend and fellow working mommy, Tori, is swinging by, and we are headed off to the St. Tim's consignment sale to shop for bargains in fall/winter clothing for our boys. I first went to this sale on a whim last fall, expecting to find banged-up clothing that Padraic could use at day care or to play outside on messy days. But to my surprise, a lot of the stuff people sell there is like-new, and the prices are irresistible. Especially since Saturday is half-price day. Wheeeeee! And this time around I've become a consignor and brought the boys' 6-12mo clothes to move along since Henry is solidly in 12-18mo now, and we are done, done, done with the baby makin'.

Those are my enlightened topics for the day, my friends. Really, that's all I've got. Tune in later to watch paint dry!

Please help Peyton if you can

My college friend Kate's niece, Peyton, was born last Thursday with a rare form of leukemia. She's enduring transfusions and chemo, and she and her parents could use your support, whatever form that may take. Kate tells it better, so please visit the blog she's set up for Peyton at www.welovepeyton.blogspot.com. Thank you.

An amazing day

Padraic and I stayed home together today because we had ill-timed dentist appointments smack dab in the middle of the day. I worked a half day from home to keep from falling further behind (took yesterday off due to extremely not-nice stomach illness), but otherwise we got to do a lot of fun things together.

You wouldn't think a dentist appointment could be fun per se, but Padraic was a delight. First, we have the world's coolest dental office: a huge tropical fish aquarium in the lobby, all dentists and technicians wearing wireless earpieces to communicate with each other, and even heated massage chairs for the grownups to enjoy during procedures. Ahhhh. It's like a mini spa...well, sort of. I still had to get gunk scraped off my teeth. Yuck.

But Padraic had a great time with his first-ever checkup. They let him wear cool kids' sunglasses to keep the bright light and any splashing water out of his eyes. And they raised and lowered the chair several times so he could feel like he was on an amusement ride. I really had no idea how he'd react to someone poking around in his mouth, but he's a flirt, and she was cute, young, and blonde, so he had no problems. He just reclined in the super-cool chair with his super-cool sunglasses and let her work away with the Tickle Brush and Mr. Thirsty. Then he got to pick out toothpaste (Spongebob), a toothbrush (Cars), and two toys from their prize box. And being cavity free, he got entered into their prize drawing for a gift certificate to Toys R Us.

After the dentist I treated him to a Happy Meal, and since he couldn't decide on a cheeseburger or chicken McNuggets, I got two Happy Meals to let him choose when we got home. Um, he ate both. Thank goodness they now have those apple slices instead of fries! Meanwhile, I thought I was going to get to indulge in a McD's cheeseburger (one of my guilty pleasures), but he snarfed it down right before my eyes.

Then I had to work some more, including a conference call, so Padraic played in his room. After which he helped me run clothes to the consignment sale (bye bye 6-12mo clothes that neither of my growing boys will ever wear again) and got to play at the church's playground until Ken was ready to snag him on the way home from picking up Henry. I had to go straight to physical therapy. But that's another story for another time. Bah.

All in all, it was a fantastic day with my big boy. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to spend one-on-one time with Padraic since it's Henry who stays home with me Mon/Fri these days. Once Padraic has moved into the four-year-old room in Jan/Feb I plan to switch and send my little baby to day care fulltime and keep my preschooler home w/me. I'll miss Henry, but it's about self-preservation. If I can't get work done because I'm chasing a toddler, I could lose the privilege of working from home, and that would be bad for our family in many ways. So it's better to make the decision myself. It'll give Henry some great social time, and it'll give Padraic and me some more quality time together before he starts kindergarten.

Well, I'm beat, and tomorrow will be a crazy day. Henry's adorable, but you can't reason with him and he's got a stubborn streak as bad as my own. I need to go get my sleep cuz I'm going to need it!

The monster returns

Avert your eyes, those of you who are not comfortable with personal details. Don't say I didn't warn you....

After 23 blissful months without her, my period has returned. I'd been hoping to make it at least until October so I could say "I've gone two whole years without my period," but she had to go and ruin it all. Not that I think this is going to come up in conversation a lot, but two years is just a lot easier to say than 23 months if it ever did need to be said.

Yes, I am overthinking this. I'm already counting ahead and realizing that next month she will arrive at the time of a business trip I'm taking (gee, thanks, Mother Nature).

I guess while Padraic and I are out running errands after I finish working from home today, I'd better reacquaint myself with the aisle at the drugstore that contains Pamprin, or whatever wonder drug they've come out with in the last two years (ahem, 23 months) that can get rid of the crappy way I'm feeling right now.

My dogs' inner monologues

For better or worse, even when I am home from work I am never alone. We have two beagles, Bailey and Tully.

Bailey is a sweet girl who came to us in June 2002 via a short stint as a Philly firehouse dog after being a stray whose family could not be found. The firefighter who took her in tried very hard, but given her disposition back then I have a feeling her family did not WANT to be found. She was roughly 9mos old, in heat, and very, very active. The vet pegged her b'day as roughly September 2001, and so we choose to celebrate it on September 11 to honor her time among firefighters and to bring a small bit of joy to an otherwise ominous anniversary day.

Tully we adopted in March 2006 from the beagle rescue that we used to volunteer and foster dogs for (www.brewbeagles.org). We thought Bailey could use a buddy since before we had kids she was very used to having a second beagle around to play with, even if who that actual beagle was changed sometimes week to week. Tully was born at roughly the same time Padraic was in January 2005. We hope that causes them to bond some day so Tully will leave us alone. LOL.

Anyway, it's a joy to have dogs, sure, but the sure can be a pain in the ass, too. Here, for example, is what I am assuming their inner monologues to be today (and most days):

Bailey: You know what? I think I'd really like to be outside. [Goes to Mommy, whines, paws, and looks generally about to burst at the seams with pee.]

[Mommy gets up, goes to back slider door, and opens it. Bailey runs out. Tully remains on couch or floor in living room. Mommy closes door and heads back to couch. Sits down.]

Tully: You know what? I think I'd really like to be outside with Bailey. [Heads to back door and starts scratching at it, making ominous signs of possibly peeing on it if it is not opened quickly.]

[Mommy sighs, gets up, goes to back slider door, and opens it. Tully runs out. Mommy shuts door and sits back down on couch.]

[Eight seconds elapse.]

Bailey (still outside): You know what? I've been outside now for almost 15 seconds. I think I'd really like to see what's going on inside. [Goes to back door and barks. Loudly. And insistently.]

[Mommy gets up off couch and lets Bailey back in. Checks Tully's location. He is happily sniffing a part of the yard nowhere near the back door. Closes door and goes back to sit on couch.]

Tully (still outside): Hey, where's Bailey? She must be inside, and that makes me want to be inside!

[Tully runs to back door and leaps and barks at it until Mommy, whose butt has just hit the couch cushion, lurches back up off the couch and goes to the back door to let Tully in. Tully comes racing in, and meanwhile...]

Bailey: Hey, Tully is coming inside, but you know what? It'd be totally rad to be outside!

[Bailey runs out the door that has been opened for Tully to enter. Mommy closes the door, sits back on the couch, and Tully settles on the floor.]

Tully: Hey, where's Bailey? Dude! She is outside!.....

End of play and end of Mommy's patience. You can see how this gets to be a loooong day. You're probably wondering why we don't have a doggie door. Well, here are a few reasons:
(1) It's not safe for dogs to be left unsupervised in their yard so we don't really want them choosing to leave the house on their own.
(2) Since we have only a slider door onto our deck for egress to the backyard, mounting a doggie door within it would lessen who secure our house is to potential burglars.
(3) Unless we would get the kind of doggie door that comes with electronic collars so it only opens for our dogs who'd be wearing same, all sorts of critters could join us in the house.
(4) The kids could get out!

So I just suck it up and keep opening and closing the door for these canine crazies. Ken is less of a sucker than I am, and he'll flat out refuse to let them out/in a lot more often than I refuse. And I'm sure they take advantage of me for it. Kinda like kids once they learn your weaknesses.

I thought we had more time

I've been saying to Ken lately that we have about 5-6 weeks of good health left to our family until virus season hits us full force. With one kid in day care, you bring home a host of unfamiliar germs to make the rounds in your family. With two kids in day care, you are seriously screwed. If we charted out how many people and their germs the kids come in contact with directly and indirectly throughout one day-care day, we'd surely be disgusted, but such is life. We experience the same things at our offices; it's just that the situation is compounded now that our family is bigger.

I am grateful for the day-care center we switched to when Padraic was 14 months since they take germ battling seriously. Henry is still in the infant room, where anyone who enters must wear hospital booties over their shoes so as not to track outside germies onto the very floor where the little ones will be crawling and picking up things to put in their mouths.

And the whole center does a full-on sanitizing every single night. All the crib/cot sheets are washed, and all the toys are cleaned with a bleach solution. Every. Single. Night. A cleaning company does a surface cleaning every night as well, and then every weekend they return for a deep cleaning. Kids with fevers of 100 or higher get sent home within the hour, and they cannot return until they've been feverless for 24hrs. I can only imagine how many more illnesses my family would struggle with throughout the year if it weren't for these precautions. Because even this system isn't perfect protection against getting sick, and we can't wrap the kids in their own bubbles before sending them off into the world.

Anyway, as for the title of this post, which I have digressed from, I thought we had until mid- to late October before we'd all start getting ill, but I was wrong. Henry has just gotten over what we initially thought was a bout of teething w/some yucky diapers ensuing, but turns out it was a stomach virus. You know how I know? I got sick as a dog yesterday afternoon at work, and it's only gotten more interesting in the meantime. So I am at home, sipping tea to get rehydrated, and then I am off to bed. Ugh, ugh, and more ugh. Perhaps it is time to order some bubbles.

If I seem to complain a lot...

It's only because I don't complain aloud very much in real life, and this blog proves to be a good outlet for the things I'd never say aloud. I have it ingrained in my personality from my upbringing that I should try to get along with everyone and every situation, without complaining. I've gotten to the point where at least I will point out a wild injustice, or I will advocate for something I really need, but overall, I smile and nod a lot. Just so you know if/when I seem to be a big ole complaining jerk on here.

I'm going to come clean

This probably sounds like blasphemy coming from a mommy's mouth, but after a day cooped up in the house because of the rain, I have reached the point of uber-boredom and must say it: I don't like playing with kids' games/toys. There, I said it. I envy people like my dad, who are an endless supply of childlike fun and make up games on the spot that cause my boys to collapse into giggle fits. And can sit for hours, enjoying whatever stash of toys we have on hand. But building train tracks or racing HotWheels (pretend there's a registered trademark symbol here...LOL) makes me want to lose my mind.

I am now the grownup version of the kid whose kindergarten teacher laughed at her for saying, "I don't want to color. I don't like coloring." As if ever kid has to like the same things. Certainly, my classmates seemed to like coloring (btw, it was a coloring page of The Letter People...extra points to you if you remember who they are). So I was clearly the oddball in the group.

I don't think it has anything to do with having boys and their ilk of toys, rather than girl toys, either. I didn't play with dolls much as a kid. I remember my mom being very frustrated with our pleas for help in putting shoes on our fake Barbies. I don't recall returning to those dolls very often. The things I most remember are playing made-up games with my sister. Oh, my parents certainly had it rough at first with us being 13mos apart, but once I was old enough to play with my sister, then they got to sit back and watch us entertain ourselves. I keep reminding myself that some day Padraic and Henry will be the same way.

Yet I wish I could find a way to enjoy it just a little bit since playing with my own kids should be fun. Right? The things I do enjoy are reading with them and helping Padraic with his letters and numbers. If you're thinking by now that I'm a big nerd who doesn't have a fun bone in her body, you are probably on target. I was born w/o a creativity gene, so all I can build with blocks is a larger block, and all I can build with train tracks is a circle or oval. While Ken practially recreates the Eiffel Tower and the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

If I look into the future, I see me being the homework helper and Ken being the fun dad. I guess there's nothing wrong with that...as long as he steps up when it's time for the science fair. I am, after all, also the one who opted to write a 30-page paper for Chemistry class my junior year of high school, rather than do a science fair project. NERD!

Utilities can be exciting

I'm being a bit facetious, but Ken and I were pretty excited to arrive home from work yesterday to find our street is marked with various colors of spray paint, delineating where all the utilities are under the pavement. Why is this so exciting? Because it means that finally, after 2.5mos of waiting, our permit has gone through and the company will be coming in 10 working days or less to install a natural gas line from the main out in the street to our house.

This past March our oil heater went on the fritz and we decided this was the key time to investigate what it would take to switch our house over to natural gas. As it turned out, the process was not all the difficult. We filled out some paperwork for PECO, the utility co that supplied natural gas service out here in the 'burbs, and they told us what the charge would be for installing the line and how many appliances we'd have to switch to natural gas to get the best installation price. [I think it's horrible how they hold you over a barrel re: the number of appliances you need to switch over to avoid a higher installation price. They are, of course, forcing you to use more gas so they can make more money on a monthly basis in the long run.] In the final analysis, if we were to switch the heater, water heater, and dryer to natural gas, it would cost us only about $550 to have the line hooked up. Since Ken used to work for an HVAC supplier, we got the gas heater for the price a contractor buys it for before raising it astronomically to make a profit, and our neighbors' nephew works for a plumbing supply company so we got a tankless water heater for a steal. For the dryer, we figure we'll buy a gas dryer new and then will put our electric dryer on Craigslist to make a little bit back on it since it's only a few years old.

I'm psyched to the hilt about the tankless water heater. Our electric bill should go down once we no longer have to keep 50gal of water hot round the clock, even when we're all out of the house. And we should shake the problem we've had every winter so far where the first person to take a shower in the morning has enough hot water, but the second person starts to run out after a few minutes. Plus, the darn heater is about the size of an average microwave, and the technology is just totally cool. Ken, of course, knows how to install all these various things so that is a huge help in financial terms, though not so much in terms of time. Every one of our home projects ends up taking roughly twice as long as it should, but in the end it all works out. I always have to buy my tongue and focus on the positive, if long-in-coming, result.

So this winter we won't have to worry about oil deliveries, the scummy bottom of our oil tank that gums up the heater and causes it to shut off at the absolute worst times, and all the other fun things that we've enjoyed with oil heat for 6 years. And some day when our 3yo electric range goes belly up, I'll finally have a gas stove to cook with. Something I've always wanted but never had.

Of course, we'll still use our fireplace a lot this winter, and actually next weekend Ken is heading to a friend's inlaws' land to chop up a whole bunch of downed trees that they're letting us haul off for free. He estimates they'll come home with over a cord of wood. I think we usually use a half cord during the winter, if we do a fire maybe 3-4 nights a week, sometimes all day long on the weekends if we're just going to be home puttering around.

Part of me hates to think of impending winter, and the rest thinks it'll be nice to have a change of pace. We tend to get more done around the house since there's little to do outside and no yard work to speak of (yippee), and Lord knows our interior could use some cleaning up and decluttering. And we'll have plenty to keep us busy with planning out the building of our new kitchen that we hope to start next April/May. As much as I hate spending significant sums of money, I am going to love to have a kitchen that is laid out how I want it and has a dishwasher. Hallelujah!

Many random thoughts

Padraic enjoyed watching a football game tonight. I have to laugh because it's adorable to hear him yelling commands at the players, even though he knows nothing about the game. Are boys just born knowing how to watch a football game? It's like watching him play with cars before he was 1yo and noticing that he already knew what noise they should make.

One thing I have had to teach him lately reminded me that the whole world is new to kids. We had gone to DQ the night of the almost-accident, and Padraic's chocolate-dipped cone was too big to let him eat at once. So we put the leftover half upside down into an empty paper cup and tucked it into the freezer when we got home. We pulled it out the next day after he'd been good and earned a treat, and when I pulled it from the cup, the ice cream that had been above the cone stayed stuck in the cup. I figured, no big deal, it's still too much ice cream for a 3yo anyway, and I handed him the cone that had ice cream level with the top. He looked at me with confusion and muttered something ending with "...small." It took me a minute, but I realized he didn't know you can eat the cone. Once I explained that, he lit up in a nanosecond and dove right in. It was neat to think that I just taught him one of life's great joys: you can eat the cone and all the creamy goodness inside at the same time!

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Our weekends are packed to the gills from now until late October, and I'm going batty just thinking about it. Two weddings (on the same day, oy), two christenings, Ken's canoe trip, my business trip to DC, a crabfest with neighbors, a consignment sale where I'm moving some of the boys' clothes along to new owners, the list goes on. This weekend is the crabfest on Saturday and one of the christenings on Sunday. It's supposed to pour on Saturday so we tried to convince the host of the crabfest to postpone to another weekend (not that we're really free on another weekend, but we'd figure something out), but he insists, even if it means cracking open messy crabs at their dining room table, instead of outside. It could be a real disaster, but we can only wait to see.

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Henry is getting closer to taking his first steps. He at least knows now that when someone holds his hands to help him stand, he can move his feet to make forward progress. Maybe this weekend we can convince him to let go and take a step or two. My neck and shoulder will be ever so grateful when I no longer have to schlep this 22lb child everywhere. Of course, my lower back will get a big workout with all the bending over to help him keep vertical. Darn that gravity, anyway.

Extracurriculars for children?

While doing some (ugh) yard work (ugh) tonight, I witnessed my neighbor playing catch with his 6yo son who is on a softball team. Or whatever you call it that a young kid plays that involves a ball, a bat, and running bases. Is it actually called baseball? I know it's not T-ball, anyway...I digress.

It got me thinking, as I do a few times a year, about whether we should start Padraic in any activities between now and kindergarten. By 3.5yo our neighbors' son had already been in T-ball, and also had swimming lessons. And then when he turned 4yo he did spring soccer, and this year and last year have been base/soft/whatever-ball in addition to the continuing swimming lessons. Comparing Padraic's life to his friend next-door's makes me feel like our little guy is getting shafted. I mean, we've meant to take him to swim lessons but (a) I hate swimming bc it involves being cold and wet (I get this from my mom, people...she'll tell you) and (b) Ken was thinking of taking him but hasn't been able to figure out a time when he could commit to several weeks of lessons on weeknights. So we've taken Padraic to exactly nothing so far in his formative years.

Then I get to thinking, Hey, I didn't have a single extracurricular activity until I was in junior high, and I don't think I'm horrendously damaged by that. (I made up for it in high school by participating simultaneously in nine extracurricular activites. My poor parents.) I guess, then, that when I think it over, I lean more toward the letting kids be kids side of things. It's tempting to let him try 4yo soccer next spring, especially when his godfather is a soccer coach, but we'll see. Besides the time commitment that I don't want to make unless we can, um, commit, I admit that I am loathe to meet "those" parents that you hear and read about. You know the ones I mean. The ones who think their little Timmy is going to be an all-star and your little talentless-by-comparison twerp is messing it up for everyone. Oy. I think we'll just wait until Padraic can have some input into what he wants to do. After all, the activities would be for him, not for us.

Out of the mouths of babes

Hysterical. When Ken and Padraic came back from the neighbors' house last night, they brought me a gift since I hadn't been able to join them. I opened the door to find my husband and son, the littler one beaming with pride as he held aloft a plastic bag and yelled, "Mommy, I have crabs!"

Not something you expect to hear from your 3-year-old. ;) Priceless.

Too much togetherness

You all know I love my boys dearly, right? OK, please remember that while you read this post.

We're at the end of the 3-day Labor Day weekend, and I am at my wits' end with parenting. Except for yesterday afternoon for roughly 4hrs, we have been at home the whole damn weekend, and it has made me batty. Henry is cranky from teething and has the constant poops from it, too (hence the staying close to home so much), and Padraic exhaustively says sentences that start with, "Mommy...." I will soon lose my mind.

Ken gets out of most of the fun because (a) neighbors are always calling him to help w/something, and he can slip out the door to go do whatever they need help with and (b) the boys do not ask for him like they demand my attention constantly.

Henry is settling in for bed now, and Ken has Padraic next-door at the crabfest I should also be attending but can't bc just on the off chance that Henry's poops are from germs, not teething, I can't have him near the hosting neighbors' 2-month-old son. This sucks. Last night Ken got to go to the first round of this get-together, too, while I sat home with the sleeping boys. It got so rowdy next-door that they kept waking me up, that is, until roughly 1am when Ken finally came home and things went quiet over there. Must've been a good time, though I'll never know.

Is it wrong to be so looking forward to dropping the boys at day care tomorrow and going to work? The entire rest of my 4-person department is on vacation so I will be blissfully alone for 8 whole hours. It just may give me time to store up some energy for tomorrow night, when Ken will once again be hanging out with the neighbors, this time for his Fantasy Football pool. Must be nice.