Walmart is not good for PMS

Most people who know me know that I despise Walmart. I think the corporation is a souless money-machine masquerading as a neoconservative, down-home, neighborhoods-first hero. Essentially, I think they are a big Wolf in Sheep's clothing. Oh, and I generally find the stores to be dingy, poorly lit, and organized as if someone Ainslie's age was asked what should go where.

BUT--they just built one exactly one mile from us. I resisted for over a month--but it was inevitable. When you are down to 1 cup of milk and half a roll of TP in the house and the weather sucks and you just made the much longer drive to Target yesterday, what are you gonna do? Now, today's visit wasn't my first. I am ashamed to say it was my fourth. Each time I've been in there I have left with roughly half the items on my list because they either didn't have such an inoccuous item as Suave hair gel, or the price was significantly higher than I pay elsewhere.

I digress. PMS both sucks and blows, as many of us are aware. Ainslie has taken to getting up at 5:45, I have cramps, it's the first day of Spring but a blustery, raw, 35 degrees and I'm generally disgruntled.

We enter Walmart. Amazingly, they had everything I needed, except a flagpole (our metal one literally blew in half during the wind storms last week--thank goodness it didn't break the window.) I even bought Ainslie some black patents because they were cute and significantly less expensive than anywhere else. Then we went to check out.

Tell me--why are some stores consistently slower on the checkout than others? Can you feel the hormones flowing yet? FIFTEEN freaking minutes in a line with 2 people with a moderate amount of items. Ok, we get out. Breathe. We get to the car. The wind is howling and I'm trying to get Ainslie out of the cold without damaging anyone's car with the cart. The *&^%^$@$#^% buckle on the cart is broken. It's freezing cold and I can't free my child from the shopping cart. Back in we go--by now I'm talking like a crazy cat lady in my outdoor voice about how much I hate Walmart. You know how everything is just that much worse when the progesterone is surging? Finally, we find someone to help us. Finally, she admits she needs scissors. Ugh.

Ok. Any store could have a faulty buckle. Between surges I can admit that.

The best mirror

I don't think you can ever find a more accurate mirror than a toddler. Nothing will show you how you really come across better than a person with no penchant for deception and a straightforward sense of mimicry.

I never knew how my speech is cadenced until I heard Ainslie repeat things I say. I never even realized some of the things I say, and the way I say them. Apparently, in talking to her, I have a tendency to be redundant. I say this because she often says, "Yes, ok," or "Yes, uh-huh, " or "no, uh-uh." I must hesitate sometimes when deliberating her requests, because she's taken to answering with, "ummm..."

One funny anecdote. Last night I was getting her ready for bed, and every reply to me started with "ummm."

Me: Ainslie, do you want pink jammies or purple jammies?
A: Ummmm. Purple jammies.
Me: Which foot do you want to put in first?
A: Ummmmm. This foot. Right here.
Me: Ok, do you want to zip it up?
A: Ummmm, ok!
Me: Do all of your answers begin with Ummmm?
A: (deadpan) No.

The moral of this story is to be very, very careful. They watch. They listen. She attempts to do everything I do. I don't want to show her my impatience with running on Toddler Time, because I do not want her to immitate me being impatient with her. I do not want to be critical of her attempts at new things, because I do not want to see her hestitate to try. I do not want to criticize anyone's appearance (even my own) because I never want her to find fault with hers. Thank goodness she is also a quick mirror--so if I see myself making mistakes I can try to fix them quickly.

One of the Big Questions

This has been weighing on my mind for months now, and I really don't know who to talk to about it.

Why doesn't Little Bear wear clothes? Mother and Father Bear both wear clothes, normal clothes, like you'd expect a bear to wear. Mother wears a dress and apron and Father wears a 3-piece suit, which makes perfect sense, since he is a fisherman by trade.

Once, we saw an episode in which Mother Bear was going through the attic and came upon Little Bear's baby clothes. Wait a minute! You mean they used to dress him, and then they stopped? Why? Given that most of the show's viewers are humans, and not bears, I wish the writers would address some of the finer points of Bear culture and garb. I'd just like to know.

Whine. Worry. When?

I used to think roller coasters were fun. Maybe it is just age, or a Type A personality that shows itself a little more all the time, but I'm sick of waiting for things. Show of hands: Who is good at waiting for the next phase of life to unfurl? C'mon, no matter how much you believe that you shouldn't worry and that things will be as they are meant to be, who is actually good at it?

Where has the girl gone who used to feel measurably more optimistic just singing along with "Something's Coming" from West Side Story? When did I start worrying so much? When did I start to believe that nobody can do things as quickly or as well as I can? Am I alone? Do we all do this?

Specifically, Will We Move? When? When can we fix the things that need fixing? Will we have another child? When? Will we be able to replace my car? When? Will Spring come soon? Will it rain tomorrow?

Do I KNOW that it is not my job to worry about these things? Yes. But. Well, c'mon...raise your hand!

I am That Mother

I am , unabashedly, That Mother. You know, the one who thinks her child is IT. Brighter, better looking, funnier, stronger, more coordinated, more advanced, more Everything than other children. I hate Those Mothers. I have wanted to slap Those Mothers, and here I find myself smiling and nodding when other mothers tell me that Ainslie is a good jumper for her age because she clears the floor with both feet, as I nastily think to myself, "and she has for months and months." I find myself feeling sorry for the moms of children who can not point out "Two birds on top" of the Shell sign as we drive by. I shake my head for the poor mothers with 21 month- olds who can not yet point out most of the letters of the alphabet and make the correct sound. How on earth do people parent children who are not good at pretending Kitchen, Baby Ainslie, and the Stuck Game? How hard it must be to get all the way through a shopping trip without someone commenting on your child's radiant beauty!

I am blessed and lucky. Ainslie has been nothing but easy, and we get each other. I think she even gets the competitive streak that I try to hide from her.

Of course being That Mother is not socially acceptable, and allowing Ainslie to act like That Child would be completely grotesque, but after waiting so long for her and having those painful years to plan all the experiences I wanted to give her, I think I'm somewhat entitled to some of my smug satisfaction in her perfection.

On the Right Path

Do you ever have periods of your life when you feel you are Being Led? It's funny, me quitting my job was scary, but little monetary "good things" kept happening. I got a ton of consulting work last summer, then we got a sizeable escrow refund...then the crap hit the fan a few weekends ago up to and including Craig losing his job. BUT, again, I have some great-paying work, Craig is free to stay with Ainslie, we are getting a REFUND from the IRS (which has never happened in our married lives), and we are planning to move to Springfield.

I have so much to do to get this house ready, especially if Craig starts a job soon (he's already got 1 interview!) and I can't even start until March because I'm just not home, but I don't feel overwhelmed; I feel strangely energized.

I think we are on the right track here. I think we are making the choices we are supposed to make. Like my friend Tammy, I am re-reading the Mitford series, and oddly, I find facets of the story speaking directly to me. Phillipians 4:13, for Pete's sake!

They're ok without me!?

This month is going to be long. I'm traveling 14 days between February 1 and March 2. One of my babysitters is newly pregnant and may have to back out of some of the dates; my mom will be home with Craig and Ainslie for extended periods. My heart is in southwest Chicago, playing happily with other people. How did I ever find the strength to leave her every work day? Of course, she is fine--she is getting to play with Daddy and Xander, and in the next few weeks, Grammie. We've been having this conversation a lot lately:

Ainslie: Mommy airplane?
Me: Yes, mommy has to go in an airplane.
Ainslie: No Ainslie Airplane. Mommy airplane.
Me: That's right, mommy has to go by herself. Who are you going to play with while I'm gone?
Ainslie: Xander. Suzi. Xander toys! No Ainslie airplane.

Bless her heart, she almost understands!

So, here I am, halfway through Trip 1 and they are Fine. I'm so relieved. I miss her so much. I got to hear, "Awoo Mommy." last night. Awoo too, Baby, more than anything!

One small dream fulfilled

In the midst of all the crappy stuff that's happened this past week, I got to do something with Ainslie that I've always visualized doing with my children--we baked! It helps (in this particular instance) that she is very much into "Help Me" (which in her mind is turned around--she is saying, "Me Help.") right now and wants to do whatever I'm doing. She stood nicely on a kitchen chair and ate a snack in between helping me stir. We sampled our frosting along the way to see when we had used enough powdered sugar.

As much as it always irks me a bit to see myself slowly turning into my mother, I have such great memories of doing the exact same thing as a child. Sitting on the yellow folding stool, cutting out cookies, then slowly transitioning from being the helper to being the supervised baker.

It's not that I'm a fabulous chef (the cake was from a mix, but we made our own frosting AND pudding to use the yolks--again, just like Mom!), but there is something comforting to the soul about repeating traditions with your children. Sure, my car may be near death's door and we had a purely HORRIBLE weekend to recoup from, but for that 30 minutes or so, my little girl and I made dessert and it was sweet.

Lord Help Us, We're Getting Dumber

Forget about all those reports that say American schoolchildren know less than their foreign counterparts—you don’t need a report to see that people in this country are losing brain power by the second. This is probably going to be an Everybody Should Be More Like Me entry, so if you read on, at least you were warned.

First of all-- television. It would be hypocritical of me to say that we shouldn’t watch tv, because I personally love the dang thing, but really, over the past few years, 8 out of 10 new shows is a reality show. How creative is that? Fear Factor? Come on! For the few moments I’ve ever spent watching that, I could feel myself becoming dumber. Trading Spouses? You have GOT to be kidding. Do we really need to watch more people make fools of themselves trying to find love on a glorified game show? Meanwhile, Arrested Development, one of the funniest shows ever written, is apparently over the heads of many Americans. The scripts are tight and full of double and even triple entendre, and nobody watches. Why? Is Fear Factor Blind Date Edition on at the same time? Arrested Development runs away with an Emmy and can’t stay on the air, but Fox’s new, post-Arrested lineup includes both Skating and Dancing with minor celebrities.

Then there is public school, or rather, the people who pay taxes to support them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of a public education system. I would like to use one, but because I love my child, I can’t send her to a Chicago Public School. If we lived somewhere where the children actually learned, and didn’t have to wear bulletproof vests, I’d send her to a public school without a problem. What kills me, is that in cities that support public schools, there are people complaining that they shouldn’t have to pay taxes toward schools because they don’t have children using them. SO YOU WANT TO CREATE MORE STUPID THUGS????? Do you want these uneducated people to grow up to live on welfare and have the house next door to you converted to Section 8 housing? Does this somehow SAVE you money?

Hmmm. Well, we’ve backed ourselves into a bit of a corner with the whole Iraq deal. Gas prices are up to stay (a situation the rest of the world has been enjoying for a decade.) So, wait, by Jove, we’ve got it! Don’t worry about being more fuel-effiecient, let’s just drill in Alaska, in one of the last pristine places on earth! The best part is, it’s already ours!

I s’pose this close to New Year’s, I should still be feeling more optimistic, huh?

Potty chair 0, Alphabet 2

All the way home from K-Mart, we talked about the Potty Chair and how we were going to use it. We talked about the Dora underpants we would consider buying next time we went to the store, we even called Grammie from the car to tell her about Boppy Chair. When it comes to toilet training, Ainslie seems to be more about theory than action. We’ll keep trying. She likes to sit on it, on the floor (we got the 3-in-1 thing), fully clothed. Maybe in a few days we’ll work up to sitting on it with her pants off.

Meanwhile, this past week I resolved to teach her 2 letters and their sounds each week. She has completely mastered A and B! Yay! Ask her what A is for and she will tell you it is for Neenee and bapple! B is for Baby, bubbles and bath! She will pick them out of her Letter Factory magnets (best toy ever) and…ok, this was a TOTAL fluke, but she asked me to draw a B on her magnadoodle, so I did, distractedly, and upside down, then I told her to draw one (I was folding laundry and not really totally engaged) LOOK AT THIS:

Mine is the big one (remember I was doing it upside down, my penmanship is somewhat better usually ;-) ) but HOLY COW—she drew the one inside it! Of course I kept asking her to draw more Bs and of course this was a fluke, but I am still so amazed.

So, I figure, at least when she does learn to potty, she can read to herself.

My Letter to Oprah

Hope we get on, girls!

Most adult women make new friends through shared interests and experiences. My special group of wonderful women friends is no exception. What is unusual is that we didn’t come together over a hobby or a job, we speak to each other just about every day, there are well over 100 of us, and most of us have never met face-to-face. We came to know and love each other out of grief, longing, and frustration, and now are able to laugh, cry, and celebrate with each other. Some of my best friends in the world are women I met online after miscarrying my first child.

It’s an unusual circumstance, but I’m so blessed and lucky to have found this group. Miscarriage and infertility are topics that still aren’t talked about much in our society. Although 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, people still don’t know how to speak of it. The sad thing is, for many women, it’s completely devastating. I needed someone to talk with, to cry with, to find hope with. Many of us have wonderful husbands, but I believe that an intrinsic part of being a woman is feeling that loss more acutely than even the most involved father can.

I found these friends online, and I can’t even distinguish in my heart and head anymore that these are “online friends.” We are simply friends, and we have held each others’ hands, wiped away tears, and brought each other to our knees with laughter. We have waited and hoped together cycle after fruitless cycle, and celebrated with great fanfare at the birth of each precious child. We provide sage advice and comfort when parenting or life in general, gets a little too tough.

These women have known as much about my reproductive organs as my doctor. They know all the names we were considering for our baby, they know my favorite colors and foods and who I voted for, even though I’ve never hugged many of them with my actual arms. We don’t always agree, and of course there are struggles to keep the peace from time to time, but we are well and truly bonded by experiences that will hold us together in our hearts forever. The Women Of PALP (Parenting After a Loss) are an extraordinary group of girlfriends.

Talking is Fun!

Me: (asking rhetorically) Oh, Ainslie, what shall I feed you for supper?

Ainslie: Deedadee-aahs! (Quesadillas!) Boop! (Soup!)


Me: Can you say, "The duck is stuck in a truck, oh yuck!"
Ainslie: Guck guck guck. Guck!

And my new favorite--I was going to the back door to let the dogs back in.

Me: (Singing in my best gangsta style) Who let the dogs out?
Ainslie: (sitting in her high chair eating a pbj, shoulders moving funkily in time) Ch...ch..ch...ch Mommy!

Me: (laughing hysterically) Yes--Mommy let the dogs out!

We continue our gangsta dance party. Ch...ch...ch

Gloria in Excelsis Deo, indeed!

Ainslie loves the song Angels We Have Heard on High for the same reason I’ve always liked that song—the Gloooooooooooooooorias are fun to sing. I’ll sing that part and she’ll say, “More!” and then sing with me. Listening to her sing her ahhahhhaahhhaahhh along with me, the full impact of the Latin words hits me.

For so many Christmases, I was sad. Mourning the loss of our first baby, who would have been due December 8, 2001, then mourning the fact that we were still not expecting a child. Hearing the story of Mary being approached by Gabriel, being told that she was blessed among women was excruciating. Why couldn’t I be blessed too? Even last Christmas, I had just been surprised by a pregnancy, only to be disappointed again.

This year, I am so very grateful. I have realized that I AM blessed among women, and among mothers. I have this precious, precocious little girl, and I have time to lavish on her in her toddlerhood before that prayed-for sibling comes along. Once again, I sat in church during Advent near tears. Ainslie stood beside me on the pew watching the kids’ choir sing their songs, then watching the handbell choir, and of course, narrating the goings-on of the congregation throughout the sermon. The closing hymn was Angels We Have Heard on High—her favorite! Since we had been singing it in the car a scant hour earlier, I figured she’d be thrilled. Instead, she hollered, “No! BaaaaaBaaaa.” Translated, she was stating her preference for Baa, Baa Black Sheep.

Glory To God in the Highest, Indeed!

This is a democracy?

President Clinton lied about his sex life and got impeached.

This guy lied about why we went to Iraq, he won't get us out of Iraq (but that's another rant), he's instructed people to be spied on in many aspects of daily life in the name of Patriotism (which, of course, is something we were trying to 'free' the Iraquis from), he had to be goaded by a member of his own party to enact an anti-torture act, he basically denies that Global Warming even happens; and Nothing? No retribution? Unbelievable.

Don't get me wrong, I still loathe and despise the idiot, but now in addition to the anger, I feel so sad that our country is in his hands, and so nauseated to think that some people still defend his actions and refuse to admit he is anything less than perfect.

Finally, someone wrote a song with my name in it.

You know, there really aren't any songs talking about how cool or wonderful Carla is. There's Amanda, Sarah, Rhiannon, etc, but no Carla. Well, Ainslie has fixed that, sort of.

She is still on a big Veggie Tales kick. Dawn (or before) to dusk, it's Broccoli, broccoli, broccoli. She knows Bob and Larry and will now say them by name, but overall, it's Broccoli. She sings the theme song too:
Broccoli,
Broccoli,
Broccoli,
Broccoli.

To break things up a bit, I started substituting other words, like:
Ainslie Jane
Ainslie Jane
She's my girl,
Ainslie Jane

Ok, it doesn't rhyme, but after so many verses of Broccoli, you get desperate.
So, this morning, driving to Office Depot I get this:

Mommy girl,
Mommy girl,
Mommy girl,
Mommy girl!

Aw shucks, kiddo.

A new game for the Ellen DeGeneres show

OCD or Under 3?

Really, if I didn’t know it was normal behavior, I’d think it wasn’t normal behavior.

First, there is the ever-popular Move a Group of Objects From One Location to Another game, in which, as you may have surmised, the toddler transfers a group of refrigerator magnets, boxes of paper clips, baby blankets or Christmas tree ornaments from the refrigerator, office drawer, play area or Christmas tree to an undisclosed location, frequently the same wicker basket. There are some rules involved in this subtle game—
There must be no more than one object per hand at any time.
No adults may help or interfere.
If there is already something in the wicker basket, it will be unceremoniously dumped out as the game commences.
The game ends when the player decides it ends, or when she is offered a cookie, in another room.

Then there is the Baby Night-Night game, in which Baby (a doll, named Baby, of course) is put to bed, then put to bed again. And again. And again. Baby may sleep anywhere the Player chooses to lay her down, and apparently, can sleep through anything, even being plunked down on cold hard tile floors. Many (and I can’t emphasize this enough), MANY blankets are required for this game. Variations include Doggie Night-Night and Purple Bear Night-Night.

If these aren’t OCDesque enough, allow me to bring out the Big Gun; the Eye Obsession. We have this conversation AT LEAST 5 times a day, beginning first thing in the morning, during the diaper change, practically verbatim:

Ainslie: Mommy. Mommy.
Me: Yes, sweetie?
Ainslie: Eyes?
Me: Yes. Mommy has eyes.
Ainslie: Daddy eyes?
Me: Yes, sweetie, Daddy has eyes.
Ainslie: Lily eyes?
Me: Yes. Lily has eyes.
Ainslie: Mike eyes?
Me: Yes. Mike has eyes.
Ainslie: Melmeh eyes?
Me: yes, Elmo has nice big eyes.
Ainslie: Neenee (what she calls herself) eyes?
Me: Yes, Ainslie, you have pretty blue eyes. Everyone has eyes.
Ainslie: Goo Doggie (Blue) eyes?
Me: Yes, Blue Doggie has eyes.
Ainslie: Ilma (Wilma, the cat) eyes?
Me: Yes. What about ears? Does Lily have ears?
Ainslie: Lily ears. Da. (She speaks Russian. Da=Yes) Eyes? Eyes?
Yes, it’s funny, yes, it’s normal, but how much would it scar her if I screamed, “MOMMY CAN’T TALK ABOUT EYES ANY MORE TODAY?!
She knows all of her body parts, by the way.

So c’mon Ellen, bring me your best adult OCD’ers. Bring ‘em on.

Snow haiku

Oh, how I hate snow.
White then gray then brown slush-crap.
Piled up until March.

Thanks be to my friend Jena.

The 23rd Qualm

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.

He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.

He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness. He restoreth my fears.

He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office.

Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me. Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the pretence of thy religion. Thou annointest my head with foreign oil. My health insurance runneth out.

Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term, And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

How Many Fingerfuls in a Teaspoon?

I thankfully found out this morning, that there are many, many fingerfuls (or is that fingersful?) of Vick's Vaporub in a teaspoon. You see, after catching Ainslie going back for what I hope was only the second fingerful of the stuff in the humidifier well, I ran downstairs, typed "toddler ingest Vicks" into Google and got scared to death. Did you know that even small amounts of ingested camphor can kill a person? So, I posted for help on PALP, then called the doctor and poison control. Apparently, this is a fairly common occurence in the winter time...although there will be no more Vapo with Ainslie's steamed air. So, "if she ate less than a teaspoon she should be fine."

Well, a teaspoon doesn't seem like much to me. I could easily fit a teaspoon of say, peanut butter, on my finger. So--I grabbed Ainslie and a measuring spoon, went back upstairs, grabbed the offending tub of Vick's and started swiping. Phew. After several swipes, I wasn't even close to filling the teaspoon. I wish my hair would turn back now, and I hope I can get those 10 years added back on to my life.

I turned my back for a second.

And don't even think about the suction-thingy.

As much as it sucks to have to constantly squeegee snot from a toddler's face, it must suck way more to not know how to blow your nose. Poor girl.