January 2007 Archives

Bill and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. We both agree it's a Hallmark holiday. Despite that, each year we do a little something for each other, even if it's just saying "Happy Valentine's Day!" followed by lots of making out. Did I just write that?

Anyway, I know we don't typically buy gifts for one another, and I'm not usually the type to leave hints or anything, but for this year I would really really love to find this little teacup in one of our cabinets:

I can't imagine waking up to a cup of tea (or coffee) and not smiling as soon as I saw this little cup.

ANP, I think it would be a nice addition to your collection. Don't save it for a rainy day, either.

Maddie is almost, pretty much potty-trained. Halleluah! Seriously, this has been a 1+ year long struggle. Potty training, by far, has been the most challenging act of parenting I've experienced. Even more so than getting your child to sleep through the night. You know that will happen eventually. But with potty training, well, you hope it will happen eventually, but you also imagine yourself to be that one parent whose kid is still in diapers in kindergarten. And I did everything by the book with Maddie, as well as some other methods, but in the end it all ended up to be a matter of will.

Three weeks ago Maddie's best friend Grace came over to play. Maddie saw her go potty and immediately, from that moment on, started going potty herself, by herself, without any prompting and without almost no accidents. She had known all along, but she wanted to do it on her own schedule. How does that bode for her teenage years?

While we're on the Pee and Poo subject, take a look at this. Aren't these the toys you've always wanted?

Two days ago our heating unit started sounding kinda funny. Funny, as in, thump thump thump. We called the repair place and they said they couldn't get out until today. Yesterday afternoon the thing broke completely. We called again and they sent a guy over who gave us the wonderful news:

The Good: The unit isn't completely shot. We just need a new motor and wheel.
The Bad: We also need a new thermostat since our original 1970s one is probably what caused this problem in the first place.
The Ugly: All of this is going to cost about $1000+

All of this, right before we get our tax return. We have big plans for that return this year, but it looks like home repairs will be eating up most of it again for the 3rd year in a row.

Wanna know something even better? Our dishwasher just died as well. I spent the last 45 minutes washing all of our dishes by hand (ok, so we were a little lazy and had a sink full of dishes as well as a full dishwasher.) They won't be out to take a look at it until next Tuesday. I'm not sure if I can go that long without a dishwasher. I haven't lived in a place without one in almost 10 years.

Yes, I'm a whiny baby.

I typed a really really wonderful post on this yesterday. Hotlinks and everything. Then Movable Type went kaplut! and I lost everything. It's taken me until now to get the courage to type the post again. I'm seriously feeling some aggro towards MT right now.

Via Deb at Create a Connection:

I grew up in Crown Point, Indiana, about 40 minutes from Chicago.

1. Your visitor wants to see something historical. Where would you take her and why?
I'd take her to the Lake County Courthouse in Crown Point. In the 20s a notorious mobster, John Dillinger, escaped the courthouse jail by carving a gun out of a bar of soap and coloring it with black shoe polish. (I never said the residents of Crown Point were very smart.) The courthouse was also known for granting marriage licenses without a waiting period. Throughout the 20s and 30s various famous people got married there: Valentino, etc.

2. She wants to see something hysterical...well, mildly amusing anyway. She'd even go for cute, quirky, odd, or unique. Where would you take her and why?
We'd visit the giant rootbeer mug in Valparaiso, a few minutes from Crown Point. It's, basically, a giant root beer mug that stands alone in a parking lot near a bank. It used to stand next to an old drive-up diner, Hannon's Root Beer, which has since been torn down. It was the kind of place where the servers would come up to your car on rollerskates. We ate there a a lot when I was a kid. Their rootbeer floats were the best. It was owned by one of my third grade teachers. Since seeing your teacher outside of school was always an amazement when I was younger, I always thought it was an adventure to try and see if she was at the diner when we visited.

3. She wants to take some beautiful and/or interesting photos to fill her albums when she gets home. Where would you take her?
Definitely the Indiana Dunes! I spent a lot of time there in high school and college. You can hike up these gigantic dunes and then roll all the way down. There are also various trails. It's right on the shore of Lake Michigan, which, if you ignore what you've heard is in the water, is actually quite beautiful. The lake's so big that you can't see across it and I always imagined it was the ocean (what's a Midwestern girl to do?) If you stand on the shore and look to your left you'll see the Chicago skyline right on the water. To your right is, well, a nuclear power plant, but continue looking to your left and forward and you'll see the beauty. Lots of time was spent hiking up Mt. Baldy or sneaking out at night with friends so we could see the skyline of Chicago at night.

The amazing thing about the dunes is that they are constantly moving. I was always amazed by the houses with prime shoreline property that were either, being swallowed by the dunes or falling into the lake.

Also, the wildlife is amazing. Once I was hiking with some friends. We turned a corner in one of the valleys. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by hundreds of butterflies rising into the air. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. To this day it is still one of the most beautiful sites and experiences I've ever had.

Nearby are natural prairie lands which are actually becoming endangered in the US. There are few natural prairies left. One of my internships in college was doing research to help restore the ones in Northern Indiana. For one summer I spent my weekends going out to count and tag the wildlife in an effort to measure how the local land development was affecting these protected areas. Exciting, eh?

4. She'd like to buy a souvenir that will remind her of your area every time she sees it. What would you suggest and where would you go to get it?
We'd get a South Shore Line poster from the Indiana Dunes Preservation Society. During the early 1900s there was a move towards tourism in Northwest Indiana. Artists were commissioned to create prints depicting various stops on the South Shore Line, the railroad that runs from Chicago to South Bend. It's now a major line for commuters to Chicago. The posters are gorgeous and some are in the art deco style of the period. This one hangs in our living room. Bill is from the South Bend area, and Crown Point is one of the stops on the way to Chicago, so the poster represents the connection between where each of us grew up. Also, this particular one features Notre Dame football, one of Bill's favorites.

5. Wow, it's been a long day and you're both ready for a snack, or maybe even a meal. Where would you take her to really get the flavor of your area?
Broadway Cafe in Valparaiso! It's one of those pseudo-50s diners where the menu is 10 pages long and they serve everything from American, Italian, Mexican, Greek, Polish, German, and gigantic cakes and sundaes. It represents the area well: Northwest Indiana was a major area for immigrants to move to because of the available work in the steel mills. Many a night was spent there having a piece of pie and an endless cup of coffee. The waitresses didn't mind if you stayed all night just talking and taking up space.

Drink more water.

I used to drink only water. I would drink milk once in a while, but usually only water.

Then I had kids and many many sleepless nights.

Now I drink soda or coffee. Occasionally milk or juice. RARELY water.

It's my morning to sleep in. Bill and I try to take turns on the weekends (when we can) so the other one can sleep in a little. It's my morning to sleep in. Josie climbed in bed with us at 6:30 this morning and immediately nuzzled up to me. Sweet and warm and her little chubby cheeks are even chubbier when she's sleeping. But I was at the edge of the bed with no room to move and I was extremely antsy. Hence, I'm writing this at 8:30am and it's my morning to sleep in.

Update:
I would like to point out that my inability to sleep in had nothing whatsoever to do with Bill. I was just too antsy to lie in bed. (See, honey? Now everyone knows it wasn't your fault. I never meant to imply it was.)

Yes, you can play with the puzzles. Do you have to go potty? No, stop licking your sister's feet. Don't you like chicken nuggets? We can't have popsicles for dinner right now. Do you have to go potty? You're being a very good sister. I like when you play together nicely. What's that? Yes, that's my name but you should call me Mommy and not Alecia. We can't go outside right now because it's raining. Put your glasses back on. Do you have to go potty? There already IS chocolate in this milk -- I put some in, see? It's her turn now. Count to 20 and then you can have a turn again. Stay out of Mommy and Daddy's office. You can pet Kitty, but don't pull her tail. Why don't we play with Play-Doh? Yes, but you shouldn't eat it. I made a hot dog but it's not really food, Josie. No, Mommy was just pretending to eat it. Please don't eat your boogers. Do you need a tissue? I know you love your tutu, but maybe we should wear something warmer before we go outside. That's a great drawing! I really like the dog you drew. Oh, I mean I really like the cow you drew. Well, grapes are a better snack than Pez. Daddy will be home later on this evening. Maybe he'll want to play Polly Pocket when he comes home. We can ask him. Is that the doll you wanted? Then give that one to Josie. Jo, if you don't like it you can just put it on the couch. No, just put it on the couch. No, well okay put it in the bathtub. I'm going to tickle you!! Ouch, don't throw toys at Mommy. Please be nice to your sister. Do you need to go potty? I think you need a time-out. One, two... Don't make me count to three. Okay, then. Good girl. You can watch ONE Dora show. Only one. Then it's quiet time. I'm using the bathroom! I'll be right there! Where did you find the lotion? Do you really think you need it in your hair too? Yes, I understand your hands were dry, but let's ask Mommy next time, okay? I love you guys.

Today I slammed my hand in the bathroom door. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. That's because my wedding ring caught most of the action.

I didn't think anything of it until I looked down a few minutes later to see something sparkling and moving. The diamond in my engagement ring is now loose because two of the prongs holding it in have been bent. I'm both annoyed and relieved at the same time. I've heard stories from friends who have lost the stones in their rings. Even if I had noticed it missing right away, there really is no way I could have found it in the state our house is right now. Ahem, need to clean, ahem.

I've got it sitting on my desk here until I can take it by the jeweler's tomorrow. It's odd not having it on my finger. I've worn it constantly since we were married except for each of my pregnancies with the girls when my fingers ballooned up as big as my ankles. Even then I wore it on a chain around my neck. It just feels weird right now. I keep doing this little finger thing I always do where I kind of use my thumb to turn the ring to face the front of my hand.

Of course this wouldn't bother Bill at all. My loving husband hates to wear jewelry and still hasn't gotten used to wearing his ring. Granted, he plays volleyball and works on the computer a lot, but he always forgets to put it back on afterwards. One time I found it on his desk while he was at work. I kept it in my jewelry box for two weeks before he noticed and asked about it. It's a running joke between us. Let's see how long it takes before he notices I'm not wearing mine.

As I mentioned in the sidebar, I've read two of Jodi Picoult's books. My first was Plain Truth, and most recently The Pact. Both were great and I think Picoult has a gift for creating well-rounded characters, for realistic dialogue, and for taking a controversial topic and covering many sides of it.

My one caveat with both books is the endings. In each case, the ending happened suddenly with no resolution of loose ends. I'm not talking about a happy ending. I love foreign movies so I don't expect happy endings. Picoult does a wonderful job of slowly revealing important clues and plot points to the readers. She does not, however, bring them all together in the end. For example, in The Pact, one of the key elements to the reason for the suicide of one of the characters is never mentioned again after the the 4th chapter. The other characters in the story don't even learn about it at all, though the other reasons for her suicide are slowly discovered.

It just feels as if Picoult writes a wonderful story and then either grows tired of it, or is obliged to meet an editor's deadline, so she wraps everything up in a few sentences. As I said, I'm starting on another of her books soon, so I'm hoping the problem with these first two was just a coincidence and not an indication of her writing style in general.

PS. I just found out that Lifetime made TV movies of both of these books. Unfortunately, they're not showing either anytime soon, but I am curious about how good the movies are.

The difference between a 2 year-old and a 3 year-old:

A 2 year-old will go back and finish watching Dora the Explorer on the couch in the living room, after unsuccessfully trying to open Mommy and Daddy's bedroom door on a lazy afternoon.

A 3 year-old will try to open the door, make you think that she has gone, and then magically reappear having snuck through the hallway door into your closet door and then into your room, wherein she announces "Hi, Mommy and Daddy! What you doin'?"

I realize my posts have been a little, well, depressing as of late. I'm not channeling some angst-ridden teenager. The holidays have just had me remembering a lot of things, especially now the the girls are getting older.

It's good, though. Things have been rumbling around in my head the past few weeks and it's good to get them out. It's cathartic. I've written it all down here so I don't have to think about it anymore. It's now an object completely separate from me that I can look at from a distance with a different perspective.

Ahhhhh.

Now on to more cheerful subjects...

I'm starting a meme of sorts. A friend and I were talking about our 3 year-olds and what they'll remember from this part of their lives. That got us started trying to determine what our earliest memories were. I figured it would be an interesting topic for blogging as well.

What is your very first memory?

The first memory I have is when I'm about 3 years-old. My grandfather drove a big rig back then. He only worked locally, so he'd park his truck in the field by the house. He and my grandmother lived on land that had been in my family for years and years. My mom lives there now, in the same house her grandfather built by hand.

Anyway, it was in the fall and my grandfather had borrowed a flat-bed trailer to take all of the local kids on a hayride. I don't remember specifics except that I rode in the cab with him for most of the time, standing on the seat beside him. He drove to a bonfire where everyone ate s'mores and hot dogs.

My grandfather (my mom's stepdad) and I were pretty close when I was little. My mom lived with him and my grandmother after I was born. I was 3 when she married my stepdad and we moved to Indiana. I remember that I spent most of my time sitting on my grandfather's lap in the rocking chair, or standing beside him on the seat of his truck. Sometimes it would be his dump truck if he only had to do a delivery in-town. (For a while, he delivered stone and sand to and from construction sites) He would introduce me to the construction crew and let me look at all the different tractors.

Other times we would be riding up to the local gas station so I could pick out a little treat -- usually a piece of candy or one of those cheap little plastic toys.

Sometimes we would drive out to see his parents, who lived in a town about 40 minutes away. The trip was always the same, always stopping at the same shop for ice cream, always saying the same thing when we passed by Rock Mills. We would always pass a used car lot too. For as long as I can remember there was a bright red '62 Cadillac convertible that sat on the corner of the lot. He would always say that I should drive a car like that when I turned 16. That was a good car to have, he said.

My grandfather died when I was a junior in high school. He had gotten lung cancer and passed away only two months after his diagnosis. I was living away at school at the time when my parents called saying that they were picking me up and we were driving to Alabama that day. We got in late that night to find him withered away -- he looked so little for a man that stood about 6'2" -- and mostly incoherent. He came to for a few minutes and recognized us and smiled before he drifted off again.

The next morning my mom and dad took turns sitting alongside his bed in the living room. My grandmother needed a break to get some rest. At one point they needed to do something so they called me in to take their place. I sat there and just a few minutes later my grandfather woke up. He looked out in front of him and raised his hand as if reaching for something. He kept straining to reach whatever he was seeing. Then he smiled and relaxed back on his pillow. A few seconds later, his eyes flashed open and he took a gigantic breath. He held that breath for what seemed like forever and then he let it out in a loud sound that I could only interpret as a belch at that time. (Later, I would learn it was the death rattle.) I sat there in shock, not sure what I had seen or what I should do next. I remember walking into the kitchen to tell my parents what I'd seen. A few minutes later they announced that he had passed on.

Although I had never seen anything like it, I felt a sense of calm during that moment. Maybe it was the fact that he was in so much pain up until that point. Maybe it was that look on his face, that smile at whatever he'd seen. Maybe it was the fact that I had been there with him when it happened. Either way, that was the first death experience I'd had as a child and I think it set the precedent for how I would later deal with death. Years later, when other family members, and even some friends, passed away, I remember experiencing that same sense of calm. Pain, yes, and definitely tears of longing, but a sense of calm. In an odd way, it was almost like a final gift he had given me. He had allowed me to share in his final moments and see death for what it was. The idea of death being something completely physical with a hint of mystery was much more comforting to me than thinking that something completely unknown could, on a whim, suddenly come and take away something you love.

While all of my later childhood memories involved my mother and stepdad and siblings, my earliest ones were of me and my PawPaw.

I got the latest Pottery Barn Kids catalog yesterday. Sigh. I saw this and immediately fell in love:

I have always been intrigued by family trees. I was especially inspired after I originally saw this years ago:

Despite the price, I would eventually like to frame something similar to the PBK one. I started daydreaming about getting photos together of Bill and I, the girls, the grandparents, the great-grandparents, etc. My mom's family has been traced all the way back to before the Civil War, where one of her ancestors fought alongside General Lee. (Not a proud moment, but moving on...) And then I thought about the picture I'd put in the spot for my father, and I came to a screeching halt.

I'm not sure what to put there. My biological father was out of the picture before my mom's pregnancy test even had a chance to turn blue. My stepdad, whom she married when I was two and who consequently legally adopted me, left our family about 10 years ago, denouncing me as his daughter as he walked out the door. (Actually, he snuck out the door while my mom was in the hospital, but moving on...) So, I'm stuck. Do I leave a question mark in that space? Do I just write the word "asshole?" (I'm really over it. Really. That's just the family nickname for him.) I really really want something like this, both for myself and for the girls. I think it would be something they would appreciate even more as they get older. But how do I explain it to them? My mom just remarried last year to a wonderful, kind, gentle soul, but he has kids and a family of his own and it doesn't seem right to just take his family and ancestors and just plop them into the absent space in ours.

I'm sure children who were adopted also face this, but honestly it has never occurred to me to even think about it until now. What should I do other than abandon the whole idea?

I just saw this and I'm LOVING it.

Dr. McDreamy/Dr. McSteamy Morphing Mug

It's a McDreamy mug that turns into McSteamy when it gets hot. Get it? LOVE it. All you Grey's Anatomy fans are with me on this, right?

Speaking of Grey's Anatomy, I love that show and I still can't figure out why. Logically, it should just be like any other soap opera-type show that features doctors. Yeah yeah yeah. Want the girl, get the girl, lose the girl, etc. But emotionally, this show has me by the balls tear ducts.

Thanks to Grey's I now can no longer listen to either of these songs without bawling.

Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars"

The Fray's "How to Save a Life"

Seriously, if I hear them in the car, I have to really work to hold it together. Seriously. (Get it? huh? huh?) I was sitting on the couch with Bill one night when I saw the opener that featured the music video for The Fray, with clips taken from Grey's. Halfway through the video I was crying so hard that I was sobbing and gasping for air. Bill thought I was crazy. Since then, I can't seem to separate those images (of Denny dying...gasp) from the music.

Speaking of Denny, I just found out that Katherine Heigl and the rest of the Grey's cast received a SAG nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series . This, along with her Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress, makes me very happy. I was hoping her performance this season and last would get her recognized in some way. Seriously (again) I think she's a great actress and I just might have a girl crush on her. Oh yeah, and I swear the Grey's writers are intentionally trying to get people to simultaneously sob and laugh at least once per episode. I love it.

I know how sappy this whole post sounds and I want you to know I have never felt this way about a TV show before. It's my first time, and I've ridden the emotional roller coaster with this one so it has a special place in my heart.

The girls make snow angels in the stuffing from the sofa cushions.

Happy 2007, everyone!