17 posts tagged “meetups”
I am 19 weeks pregnant now. That means I am halfway there. Those of you wondering if I failed math in school, rest assured, I am right. See, 19 times 2 is 38. And that's as far as this baby is going to go. I don't want another preemie, I don't want another induction, but I think 38 weeks is a nice respectable amount of time. I don't consider it early. So 38, here we go.
I drove to work in the dark today. I hate doing that. It makes it seem so late and just so *wrong*. I should be home snuggling with someone.
We met friends at the State Museum today and it was just we needed. The kids seemed happy to just walk around be pushed around while we moms chatted. We rode the carousel and lunched at Subway and despite the fact that my daughter spilled milk all over herself (my fault) or my son needing to go to the bathroom on the first floor AFTER we had just left the bathroom on the 4th floor, it was a lovely time. It's stressful taking children out especially two of them--my husband would never do it--but it's worth it.
A couple of weeks ago we were using the iChatting with my brother and his wife and he started doing funny things with his video--distorting his face and then riding roller coasters and things like that. SkyWalker was beside himself laughing so much. We've had to call up at least once so he could do it again. Then I discovered that we could do it ourselves with Photo Booth. This has been the greatest thing since cheese doodles. SkyWalker has taken OVER 100 pictures of himself with distorted faces or different backgrounds. He cannot get enough of it. It *is* pretty funny. The Princess even gets into it and laughs with her brother at all the funny faces they can make.
Speaking of cheese doodles, I have procurred some white cheddar cheese doodles. These are indeed the greatest things since, well, cheese doodles.
The bigwigs are on their way to vote for our new head honcho here at the library. I wonder if "will screw the staff the most" was one of the criteria. We shall see....
Gah.
The more we get together together together The more we get together the happier we'll be. Because my friends are your friends and your friends are my friends. The more we get together the happier we'll be.
No, really.
The hideous wallpaper in the kitchen (if you look closely you can see the blue counters):
Before & After:
Even without being painted the walls look so much better without that wallpaper!! I am nowhere near being done in the kitchen though. My goal is to finish that and then have someone else do the rest:
Who puts wallpaper in the shower? Who DOES that kind of thing??
I had to laugh at how many people suggested yellow for our kitchen... When Vader first laughed at light green he said "Well, it's not as bad as yellow." It's going to be fun in my house when we have to make a decision.
We had lunch at the park again. We're enjoying it so much. SkyWalker doesn't really talk to anyone, but he laughs at the other kids and he's not running away from them. He felt comfortable enough to pull his pants down and pee in front of everyone. Twice. The second time his little train buddy stood right next to him and was fascinated with his progress. They looked like they were standing at urinals... in the middle of the grassy park. Good times. We're getting used to going to the park every week. I don't know what we'll do in the winter... I guess go to the library. ;-)
Speaking of which... I try not to talk too much about work because that's not who I am anymore but this just is so overwhelmingly ridiculous... instead of hiring another children's librarian to help do programs and improve services to the town, the board has decided to pay a "guard" to deal with the teenagers who hang out here after school. I'm assuming that's what his responsibilities are but I'm not sure since there still has been NO memo notifying us of who this person is and why he's here. That's another post. Anyway, the town taxpayers are paying this man (a hall monitor from the school) to sit outside the building and sun himself for a few hours. Is that not a colossal waste of money?? A librarian would be working! I am so glad I am not a taxpayer in this town. This in addition to the unnecessary 9-5 hours on Saturdays in the summer... at a time when taxes are going up and up, gas is going up, everything is going up, to be wasting taxpayer money is just so wrong.
We have another playdate at our house tomorrow. I didn't even attempt to clean today since I know it will all be a mess again. I'll do the guest bathroom tonight or tomorrow morning and try to get the kitchen organized, but with two little tornadoes throwing toys around the living room there was no point in doing anything today!
We went to the town park again for our picnic lunch. We've been doing it (or trying) every week. Last week it rained so we had our playdate at an apartment instead. SkyWalker and the Princess played with trainboy and did really well. We met him and others at the park today. It was a beautiful morning. SkyWalker ran around and was near other boys even if he didn't talk to them. There were 4 other moms there and it was great. We all talked about how hard it is being away from family (one is from Ireland and has left her family there while her husband's family is just 20 minutes away and is not helpful at all! She has the best Irish accent.). One's best friends have all just moved away and so she's starting from scratch building a new network of friends. It was so nice to just sit and talk to people in the same boat. And the Princess! She crawled away from me MULTIPLE times to climb up on the playset. It was hilarious. At one point she and trainboy were "playing" together. And then something happened and she was crying and he had to apologize and said "sorry baby" in his 2 year old voice. SkyWalker was too busy elsewhere to notice, but he did seem to really enjoy her trying to play too. It was just the perfect morning.
Some of them will be coming to the house tomorrow for our playdate. I have gotten the bathroom cleaned but I'm not going to go cooky-crazy. A large part of our conversation today was how hard it is balancing things and how it's better to have happy kids and a messy house. I hope they meant it!
I just did the best thing. Ever. One of my former teens is back in town on break from college. She's EMT certified and has loads of babysitting experience. She's going to come over once a week, for 2 1/2 hours, and play with the kids while I clean the house and strip wallpaper and do things that I don't want to do with them hanging on me. It'll cost me $20 and lunch but it will be SO WORTH IT. I'm hoping that the kids will get used to her and then by the end of the summer maybe, just maybe, Vader and I can leave the house without them. MAYBE.
I hope my DVR doesn't screw up LOST tonight.
Before I forget them:
SkyWalker has been very lovey lately. He's constantly telling me that he loves me (and the Princess and Daddy and the dogs). He'll say "I just love you" and I'll say "I love you too." and then he says "I love you too!" It's very sweet. Yesterday he looked at me and said "I just love you all day!" It was the funniest thing ever.
I dropped my car off this morning to get it inspected and an oil change and I got a ride to the library from one of the guys. I thought I was going to have to walk and run in at the last minute. Instead I got here 30 minutes early.
The meetup playdate went well yesterday. SkyWalker hid in the bathroom at first. I had 5 moms each with one kid. The oldest was a 2 year old boy who loved trains. SkyWalker did not play with him. But he did sit next to him at lunch time. There was a 17 month old girl who liked looking at all of our toys and playing SkyWalker's guitar. A 12 month old boy who had a bit of a mad scientist look with crazy hair and wild eyes who SHRIEKED at me (in a funny way, not a whiny way) the entire time. It was hilarious. Then the 10 month old the Princess played with at the library and the museum. And then a 2 month old. Who weighed 8 pounds. He was 4 lbs 11 ounces at birth, only one week early. I thought SkyWalker was small! I was a little stressed because SkyWalker was so antisocial and because the Princess cried every single time I put her down. She just wanted me to hold her. It was so odd. She's a mama's girl, but it was different. She was off the entire day so I think it had more to do with her top teeth coming in. We wound up having lunch, or at least the kids had lunch. I had a turkey sandwich but none of the moms actually ate anything. They must have some eating secret... if I don't eat when my kids do I don't get a chance to eat. I'm looking forward to the time the Princess drops her morning nap and we can do things earlier without needing to worry about lunch. The dogs were in the bedroom since it was wet and rainy outside. They only barked when people came and left. Otherwise they were pretty good. I was hoping we could play outside but it was too wet. Although there were mostly little ones and we only have 2 infant/toddler swings... I hope we get some older kids for SkyWalker to play with. Had he not been a nut he probably would have enjoyed playing with the 2 year old. After he hid in the bathroom he decided to play downstairs by himself. We all went downstairs, he came upstairs by himself. Then he ran around the house with his trucks. Part of the reason I decided on having lunch, besides trying to quiet the Princess down, was to get him to sit down and maybe socialize.
I've been thinking that once Vader is through this week (he leaves tomorrow for the trial) that I can breathe again and things will change. He says he knows he needs more than 2 days for the trial, so he had me take this week (my two nights) off from work just in case. He just told me that the other attorney told him she's booked for the rest of the week so there's a good chance that the trial won't even be done. There's a chance that she's bluffing to try to get it postponed because of the MOUNTAIN of documents that he sent her that she has to go through. Anyway, once the trial is actually done he has to write the brief. He has THREE huge boxes of paperwork. He has a month to do the brief and knowing him it will take that long. I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't even tell it's a tunnel right now. It just looks like a big dark hole. I might have to chuck a birkett.
The library is now open so it's off to work I go.
( chuck a birkett )
Last week we had a meetup at the state museum. The Princess went on her very first carousel ride. She seemed to enjoy it, as did SkyWalker (also 10 months old when he went on HIS first carousel ride). The meetup was fun and it's nice to do these things with other people.
Later that day the Princess had another first.... she crawled all the way up the stairs! She got to the top, turned around to look at me like "That's right yo!" and then realized "Crap, where the hell do I go from here?". I brought her back downstairs. She crawled right back to the top. SkyWalker was over a year when he did that.
She is also decided to stop being a baby and get her hands on some real grub. I haven't given her a baby food jar at all this week. She's eaten fettucini alfredo, grilled chicken, oven baked chicken, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, as well as her vegetables because she is a good child. I wonder how she's done tonight with Vader. She's still nursing 3-4 times a day. She's a bit behind with the sippy cup. I give her water but she doesn't really know what to do with it. I don't know how breastfeeding moms are supposed to do sippy cup training. I don't give my kid a bottle, I give her a boob. And I'm not replacing my boob until I have to. I split her bottle tonight so Vader can give her the sippy and then her bottle later. I'm sure she'll get the hang of it once we switch to whole milk and I stop boob-feeding during the day.
Last week I was sure I was going to get a cleaning lady because I just couldn't keep up with the bare minimum of cleaning. This week I have washed all the windows, including the outside ones I could reach, washed the living room floor (!) with the floormate thingy (!) and cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms. We're having our first playdate at our house on Friday and it looks like rain so I'll have babies crawling around the living room. Unless I can keep everyone downstairs in the office/playroom. I hope there's someone for SkyWalker to play with since he is why I am doing these meetup things.
I'm not sure if I actually came out and said this or not, but I started my own meetup. The one I joined before is great, but there are 90 moms in it and a lot of the events are kinda far from us. So I decided to go completely against my nature and started one for over here. I have 21 moms now. We've had a few meetups and it seems to be going well.
SkyWalker was very funny today. He told me "Don't you dare run out of napkins!" at lunch time. I should really jot things down when he's saying them because it's hilarious and then by the time I post I have forgotten most of what he said.
Part of the wallpaper in the kitchen is peeling off. I have this really strong urge to just start ripping and see how far I get. What's the worst that can happen? I'm either paying someone to take it all down or I'm paying someone to fix what I mess up right? I just want to see how much I can get off. It almost seemed like it would just pull off.
Yesterday I had to drag my kid out of the library screaming. He didn't want to leave but the Princess was cranky. GAH--interrupted by North Greenbush Granny knocking on the door! GAH! Anyway, we left the library and we didn't even get out of the parking lot before he was completely fine. He's the bipolar one. He begged me to go to Denny's but we couldn't. I did get Burger King for him and the Princess though. Which means driving past Littleman's former home. I try to avoid that as much as possible. He once again said "That Littleman's home?" I said "It used to be. He doesn't live there anymore remember?" which is what we said last week. He said "Who lives there now?" I said "people. Do you remember where Littleman lives now?" He didn't answer. I repeated. He said "Don't tell. I don't want to talk about it." It was funny in how mature he sounded, but really really sad.
Gah. I didn't even get to my yogurt. The ONE time I forget to put the sign on the desk.
