Something BIZARRE is Happening

November 30th, 2008

I am ALONE. In the HOUSE. ALONE. BY MYSELF. Stevel has taken the kid to the park for a bit. He told me to use this time wisely and to “be done” with whatever over-ambitious organization project I decide to take on by the time he gets back. I assured him neither of those things is likely. The feeling is so amazing, not because now I can finally take that bubble bath and eat bon-bons while watching decadent TV. Truth be told, I have that opportunity every day while she naps. But every day while she naps, I am suddenly on deadline. I have 45 minutes, or two hours, or whatever nap it is, to complete six loads of laundry, eat lunch, pay our bills, e-mail a student, call the plumber, take out the trash, the list goes on … a list of things that become ten times more complicated, ten times more time-consuming, when there is a Slimy Shadow along for the task. A Slimy Shadow whose primary goals are to (a) try and choke herself to death on any and all small objects she can find and (b) whine every second we are not making eye contact. It is much, MUCH easier to just sit on the floor and make eye contact with her than to try and get some small chore done. So anyway, where shall I start?! This is so exciting—should I make the beds? Clean up after the pets? BLOG?

I wish I could blog about all of the things actually going on with us right now, but this isn’t the place for that. We are exhausted.

Meanwhile, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving here at No. 6. David cooked a fabulous dinner, with Patricia’s help, and we had friends to share it with: Raji and Thippewhan; Christine; Jeff, Megan, and half-baked Winston Hill; The Selan Brothers, Junior and Junior Jr.; Jeremy Sr. and Melissa; ourselves, and David. Eitan also stopped by earlier in the day with Charlie Waffles. There was some Rock Band II, of course, and a little Little Big Planet. Lots of techie conversation. A few of us took Violet for a walk after dinner, very fun.

In other news, the day for which I have been waiting for YEARS has finally arrived! There was a Black Friday event at the Three-Bs (a horrible place of many horrors), and I was able to purchase a Dyson DC24 for 20-percent off! It is now the case that, should we ever arrive home to find that No. 6 has been ransacked by burglars, I will rush to the cleaning closet to see if My Baby is OK. Then I will perform CPR on my husband in front of his empty desk.

All right, yeah yeah, fine, I know what you really want.

Steve Needs a Weekend

November 25th, 2008

Steve spent last weekend driving to Tucson and back—14 hours of driving. Then, this weekend, he got the hiccups Saturday afternoon. VERY BAD HICCUPS. And they did not go away. Finally, Sunday afternoon, I decided 24 hours of hiccups was dangerous, so we went to a walk-in place so he could see a doctor. He got a shot of something in the butt and a Valium. Came home and slept, and they finally went away. But the poor guy deserves a break, don’t you think?

Brief

November 14th, 2008

I got worse after that post. Then I got well. A 24-hour bug. Violet got it too. Stevel got his own version of it. But we were all fine very soon.

I don’t have much to say right now. Perhaps at a later date. Meanwhile here are some new photos.

Election Day Smiles

November 7th, 2008

Photos from Jeremy and Liss taken while we all awaited the wonderful national results on Tuesday …

I think I have the flu. Someone shoot me. Or hug me. Or make me well?

The kid does have a crib in our room BTW. She just doesn’t want to sleep in it. But she does. Sometimes. Other times not so much, ’cause it’s hard for ME to sleep with a kid standing up in a crib screaming in my room. We’ll work it out. We have to, because it’s become dangerous for her to sleep in our bed. Last night she almost fell off the side; I caught her under the arms at the last second. And Steve reported that he woke up in the middle of the night just in time to see her crawling toward the foot of the bed; he scooped her up about a centimeter before the edge. Does it sound to you like WE are getting any sleep? She seems to be just restless in her sleep. She falls deeply asleep on one of us and then as soon as we lay her OH SO GENTLY YOU CANNOT IMAGINE HOW GENTLY into her crib BOOM! Screamin’. And yes, I have been trying the “self-soothing” (aka let-her-cry-herself-to-sleep) thing during the day with her naps. Sometimes it works. Other times after 45 minutes I have two choices: Pick her up or start drinking Drain-o to self-soothe MYSELF. My sense is that she is feeling some stress right now. Maybe I will make her an appointment with my psychotherapist. “Ga? Pbblbbt? And how did that make you feel?” I do have some highly recommended books about sleeping and babies. Maybe I should read them or something.

Party till the Cow Comes Home

November 2nd, 2008

Halloween involved dressing Vibble up in her cow costume, which I admit was wholly for my benefit. We took her to the carnival at the Santa Monica Airport, where we walked around for half an hour so she could see all the kids having fun (she likes to watch kids). Then we went to Swingers. She was so adorably cute she got a lot of attention everywhere we went. Stevel wants this to be her Thanksgiving costume and Christmas/Chanukkah costume too, ’cause why not. But I think she may outgrow it. I just want her to outgrow her sleeping issues. Going on one month now, and if she continues to refuse to be put down in her bed without screaming WHILE ASLEEP, and if she doesn’t stop using the time in our bed all night to pull my hair and punch me WHILE ASLEEP, so that when we all wake up, Stevel and I look like zombies, while she is perfectly chipper, then _I_ am going to start sleeping in HER bed, got that, Vibble?