Three Times a Lady

Annika and I had our hair cut on Wednesday. She had her hair washed in the sink instead of just sprayed wet in the chair. She told me ahead of time that this was the plan - she's a big girl now.

So, armed with the new haircut and styling knowledge, I blow-dried my hair for work on Thursday and Friday and again yesterday to go to the party at my parents' house. Three times? That is equal to the number of times I've blow-dried since Annika was born (in 2003). Maybe, just maybe I can make a little more effort in that department.

In running news, I did my last training run for the BIG RACE today. I was very worried about my conditioning because I hadn't made the time to do any longer runs yet - 3.3 miles was the longest. This morning, I did the loop and then ran to the house my parents are buying and back - 5.2 miles. Here are my mile times (approximate based on where I thought the miles ended): 9:23, 9:15, 8:53; 8:03; 10:43. Clearly that last mile split was incorrect - should have been more like 9:25 for each. Doug had said all along that as fast as I can do the loop, the 6 miles should be no problem but I needed to prove it. I'll be much more relaxed on Tuesday knowing that the distance is within my capability.

Band-os

So, I've not let this information slip before, but I used to be in the band. No, not a band, THE BAND - the marching band in high school. It was very illuminating and ridiculously time-consuming but also a great community. I quit after sophomore year because I thought that I would be cool instead of in-the-band. Why mess with fate? It's my destiny to be un-cool.

Anyway, Annika has displayed an interest in the marching band because they practice outside the high school in the fall and we see them when we drive by. Last year we watched a few practices and Jen and I took her to see the Battle of the Bands at the GA Dome. We had hoped that it would be the "march off" of the black college bands (like in the movie "Drumline"), but it was just a "play off". Still - it was great fun and good family entertainment. Those bands rocked the house - too bad we didn't get to stay for the finale, which was the drum-off. The trash-talking was hilarious!

My friend Lotzie called this week to say that the Drum Corps International southeastern region championships will be at the Dome next month. If it fits in the calendar, a bunch of us are going. I'm also going to be on the lookout for the black college march-off because that would be so great.

Oh, and there is a band curse. In addition to the heavy wear on the outer edge of my shoes (from the glide-stepping), I must get in step to all music - even while running. So, if you see my on my jog and I'm skipping and hopping, just know that I'm trying to get the downbeat on the right foot.

Test Your Citizenship Knowledge

Here is a link to an MSNBC quiz to test your knowledge of the questions on the citizenship exam:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13442226/

Due to some expert guessing, I got a 90.

The Emperor's New Dry Cleaner

So, I always wondered about the dry cleaners - whether they really tried to clean the clothes or not, because it seemed like they weren't actually washing my clothes. Granted, I'm a sweater, so my clothes need to be washed more than the average girl, but . . . I thought I was just going to the "wrong" cleaners because they would come back stinky.

Recently, my current cleaner (which I really like) gave me a beautifully pressed shirt that had dried baby food on the cuffs. If they WASHED it before they pressed it, wouldn't the baby food come off? I think so. I've often noticed the lack of washing with the dry-cleaned items, but I thought that the shirts (cotton, button down) and slacks were at least laundered. NOPE. What is the point of the cleaners if you have to wash your shirts before sending them so you can spend $4 ($0.98 for men) for them to iron them. Stupid.

I'm going to have to make time to iron, now. Ugh.

Reciprocity

Doug is a firm believer in reciprocity (said with the same tone as Big Daddy says "mendacity!" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). Reciprocity, karma, what comes around goes around, etc. . .

Anyway, when I worked at the law firm, we had to keep track of our hours so that our clients would be billed for the time spent on their cases. This was very difficult for me because of the many times I would interrupt work on one matter to answer the phone, answer email, talk to someone, work on another matter or look up something. I would forget to write down one of the starting or ending times and then have a hard time piecing together my day. Then, when I worked for the company, there was no billing (pshew!). Now, however, my contract says I must bill for my time every two weeks.

Reciprocity, baby.

More Fun

There is a hilarious post on Cookie Madness today. You just have to read it. So cute. : )

Since I am solo parenting this evening and Doug's sister still has Annika's book of DVD movies, I decided to take a page from Doug's book and head to Blockbuster to get some children's movies for tonight and the weekend. NOTHING was in stock so Dagny and I left disappointed. We will try another store during the after-lunch happy time. Those of you with babies understand that we can only do errands during the happy time. Anything else results in screaming. Happy time is precious.

Noodling and Running

In the last two days, I've read an article about urging me to be my "best" at everything I do and also discovered that a friend from college is a member of a secular religious order and leads pilgrimages to Italy in his spare time.

The article hacked me off because I am defensive about doing too many things and nothing terribly well, and then I just felt inadequate when I read about the religious order. Am I doing enough to be a good mother to my girls? Am I doing enough work on my non-office days? Am I supporting Doug enough in his work? Am I keeping our business and house affairs in order? Am I doing enough to be a good catholic? (probably not, since the priest remarked to the deacon after we said hello at church on Sunday, "who is that woman? I've never seen her. Does she come to church?")

I don't have the answers. It's easy for me to think that I'm doing plenty of things and doing them well enough. Then again, it's a sure bet that I could be doing more, but better . . . maybe not so much. It's easy to exhort others to do their best, but really I think it boils down to choices. There are only so many hours in the day - maybe I can make better choices on what to do with my hours.

In the non-noodling section, I made a new post-Dagny world record for around the block - 23:42 (8.46 minutes per mile). This was due to some good tunes and the fact that I had to catch up to and pass "the running lady" who was in front of me on my first big hill.

No Sugar?

So, I've been keeping up with the very cool lunches on The Vegan Lunchbox (currently out for summer break) and have learned some neat recipes and food ideas. The lady that writes the lunchbox is currently writing about her battle to kick sugar on her personal blog using the Eat to Live plan. I think my link to the personal blog might be to the comments, which is fine because I've been thinking a lot of things along the lines of what vibrantredhead said.

I've got nothing against anyone who wants to eat healthier or more nutrient-rich food; a diet is a personal thing. However, at what point does a diet cease to be about the food or the body and become a "lifestyle"? Less and less people are going to church these days and more folks are embracing alternative food strategies. Coincidence? Is it really so different to omit all sugar, salt and gluten from your diet on the advice of one doctor than to hear a sermon from a priest, minister or rabbi and then sacrifice meat/tithe/fast/etc?

I'm not saying that I eat the healthiest diet or that I even know what that would be, but it seems to me that so many people (especially those with books and/or memberships to sell) are willing to tell us that they have THE ANSWER and it has to do with complete rejection of various food types. And people buy in because we are just looking for someone to show us the way.

What Kind of Fool?

Annika has camp this week so on my non-office days, Dagny and I are on our own. Today we trekked to Sams Club for the essentials. $300 later, we will never run out of dishwasher soap, liquid dish soap, trash bags, formula, black ink for the printer or chicken breasts. Unfortunately, we were already stocked on all of the listed items except the formula and the chicken. We needed colored ink instead, but I can pick that up when I return to Sams Club for diapers and wipes next week.

Anyway, as if the ridiculously "not what we needed" shopping weren't silly enough, I discovered (after I removed the poopy diaper) that my diaper bag contained NO DIAPERS. So, Dagny rode home commando.

One day I'm going to get it together.

A Good Week

This morning Dagny's first tooth came through. You can't see it unless you peer into her mouth, which she detests, but it is there. It's hard to believe that she is old enough for teeth!

I ran three times last week - 8.4 miles not counting warm-up/cool-down walking. This week, I will abandon efforts to go faster and start to add distance so that I can finish the Big Race in three weeks. After that, a different training method may be in order.

Teach the Children Well

A friend of my youngest sister is in professional school at my alma mater. This past year someone in her class posted on her blog a diatribe about her professor - using vulgarity and generally being ugly. As Emily related her friend's description of the prof, I realized it was someone I knew and respected.

I've been thinking a lot about this incident (long past, now) but how do you teach your kids to have respect for others and behave like good citizens? Yes, lead by example, but my parents tried to do that and I was still self-absorbed, shallow, and immature. How much "life-wisdom" can you tell your kids and expect it to sink in?

Education has been a hot topic amongst the moms lately on our forum and on Dogwood Girl's blog. Seems like we have all had the crappy teacher or professor here or there, but no one ever says, "hey - I learned a lot from Dr. X or Mr. Y or Prof. Q". So, I may not have learned much of the subject at hand, but following are the names of some folks who gave of themselves and taught me something whether I wanted to learn it or not:

Bob Brussack
Paul Kurtz
Kathleen B. Adams
Heather Biola
Michael Wells
Neil Nichols
Ray Phillips
Brown Russell
Ken Simpson
Dorothy Lewis

The Glamorous Life

Some glamorous tidbits so you can share in the excitement:

1. A shopping trip might be required (SIGH - I hate shopping) when you have to touch-up your shoes with magic marker before going to work.

2. If your laptop keeps overheating and freezing up, pencils under each corner will help it stay cool. Pencils are better than pens because they have sides and don't roll around when you type.

3. Smoothies are not so hard to make and are a good way to use up the berries going bad in the fridge. Annika is not convinced.

4. When eyes are too tired for contacts and glasses are required, the sunglasses can be applied directly OVER the regular glasses.

5. Magic marker mentioned in #1 comes off if you have to chase the dog across the dew-soaked yard.

6. My parents are thinking about moving into our neighborhood. It will be good, I know it will.

Not so glamorous, but very fun news is that Dagny appears to have learned to sit up by herself. I did not see it happen, but when I went to get her out of the crib, there she was - smiling at me.

Annika has roseola so she feels crappy and we can't go anywhere where little kids might be. I know I've said it before, but I really don't mind staying home except that it is hard to get errands done. All of the rush-around pressure is gone.

Another Cool Blog

This afternoon, Doug and I watched the Pillsbury Bake-Off on the Food Network while the girls napped. The lady who won has a cookie blog where she posts recipes (and photos) of all of the goodies that she makes. How cool is that?

On the running front, only two days of running this week. That's a grand total of 5.6 miles, not counting warm-up/cool-down walking. Very disheartening. I'm getting concerned that I won't be in-shape enough for the BIG RACE that is coming up in July and the longer race that I wanted to attempt for Thanksgiving, forgetaboutit! While I wasn't running, I found a lot of cool running blogs - you can find them here. Since I'm really turning into Vera and the bake-off made me cry, I felt free to post lots of encouraging comments to the other bloggers.

Tacky

Today was my first outing alone with Annika since Dagny was born. Since the party was during Dagny's nap, I called our favorite high school sitter and off we went to a birthday party at Monkey Joes. It was great fun; we slid down every slide, went through every maze, and jumped to our hearts' content. I am whipped and will be sore tomorrow, but I think Annika had a good time and enjoyed the one on one attention.

After the party, we went by the bank for cash and then to the Loft to buy Grammie a birthday present. Our errands completed, we breezed into Learning Express to browse the toys before heading home. As Annika perused the wind-up toys by the register, I noticed large plastic bins full of toys on shelves above the counter; they were labeled with kids' names, ages and the words "wish list". No way, I thought. Since my transformation into my mother is nearly complete, I turned and asked the total strangers next to me, "are those registries for kids' birthdays?" "Yes," they replied. Unable to contain myself, I blurted, "oooohhhhh, that is TACKY."

Now, I'm not Emily Post or any kind of arbiter of style or manners, but how disgusting that people create a birthday registry for 4-6 year olds. Frankly, I'd rather not have kids obligated to bring our kids gifts to their parties at all, but a registry? Gross. It's ugly enough that we do stuff like that for weddings, but I can understand the whole "creating a new household" theory. There is no excuse for a kids birthday registry.

All the more reason to stick with our neighborhood toy store, which has all of the same toys anyway (plus the cool Melissa & Doug toys) and gives me personalized present advice instead of the "two-year-old toys" signs. And, they have snappers, which, I learned while searching for a link to describe them, are legal in Georgia. : )

I've Been Under the Desk

I've been under the desk to plug in the camera, so here are some photos from this weekend and this morning. I'm going to try to edit them as Dorothy explained last week, but don't hold your breath.


Sophie and Dagny live it up at the pool on Saturday. I have many photos of Dagny stealing the toys from Sophie. Once upon a time, I was an opponent of bikinis for babies - now, I understand that there is a difference between a "bikini" and a "two piece" and it's WAY easier to change a diaper if you can remove only the bottom half of the outfit.

Shelley sees me and comes to the top to see if I'm going to drop any pellets into his bowl. He knows who is in charge (NOT!). Annika named him - we don't know where it came from. Probably the same odd imaginary place as "Dogarita", Dogarita's Daddy "Annie" and the two Joses, one of whom is Dogarita's baby sister.

Bettas are meat-eaters and prefer live prey. Unfortunately, poor Shelley gets Betta pellets instead of live anything; he seems to be enjoying them just the same, though.

Annika can be seen here brandishing the illegal water gun at the pool on Saturday. That's right, not only did I get busted for bringing my own water in (who doesn't bring their own water everywhere they go?), but water guns are now outlawed. Fight the power Annika.








Dagny was thrilled to be at the pool even though we weren't anywhere near getting in or even in swimming attire yet. This was her first visit to the big pool ever. She LOVED it. She rode in the inflatable boat, walked around in the baby pool, put her feet in the mushroom fountain, allowed me to throw her into the air and bounce her all over the pool. Then she napped like a champ so I could do the mountain of laundry we just created.

The Fish

No, not the bottle that Doug and Mike used to drink out of - our new pet, Shelley. Our friend Mark is selling Betta Bowls and thus now we have such a bowl and a fish who lives in it. Not that I wanted any other thing in our house whose well-being is my responsibility, but Annika loves him and so he stays. I'll post a photo this afternoon.

Anyone who thinks that fish are somehow less smart or less "animal" than other pets (I'm thinking in terms of eating them, here) is wrong. Shelley comes running to the top of his bowl when he sees me. He knows that I am the keeper of the food.

First Day Back

Today was our first day back in the neighborhood pool. It has been open for a few weeks now, but I've managed to keep that fact away from Annika. But today, there was no stopping us. After 30 minutes of prep (sunblock application, bathing suit application, food packing, toy packing, towel hunting, etc) we finally got to the pool.

Annika had a great time and even jumped off of the diving board (with Dad). Dagny enjoyed her first dip in a pool but cousin Sophie was not convinced that the pool was a good thing.

Photos later. We are all too exhausted to get the camera hooked up.

Caveat

So, I was thinking about my previous post while Annika and I were showering this morning. I don't think that I made it clear but I'm not trying to say that everyone must have children to be happy.

I'm just saying that I'm glad that I did - it has made me a better person, much like being with Doug makes me a better person. However, everyone is different and children might make some folks stressed or crazy or whatever or some just might not feel the need for them and that is perfectly OK. Everyone makes their reality with the roads they choose (or don't choose) and the important thing is to accept and enjoy the road you're on. Or, as my Grammy would say - "bloom where you're planted."

Lifestyle Change

I have some friends who are wrestling with the decision of whether or not to have children. They all love the children, but are concerned about the lifestyle change that will come with a baby.

All I can say is - the lifestyle change is huge. I never imagined that I wouldn't be able to stop at Starbucks, enjoy my newspaper, or take a jog - that the time to do these things would be a luxury. I never realized that I would miss working - the talking to adults, the feeling important and useful and the money. I didn't think that I would look back on my pre-pregancy body wistfully and couldn't fathom that pregnancy and childbirth would make parts of it not work right. I've never felt so adrift as when we were trying to figure out how to get Annika to eat or sleep - our lack of knowledge and confidence was so humbling. I didn't know that children would stress my sanity and our marriage in monumental ways.

However, now I stop at Starbucks when I feel like it and when it fits in our day. It's a treat for me and for Annika. I read some of the paper during meals or while the girls are napping and I run early in the morning or not at all. I figure that I will fit in the exercising back in soon - now that I'm getting more sleep. I'm working again, and it is fun but it is also a stress - packing the three of us up for two meals and all day is a lot of work, so I appreciate the freedom that came with not working. The intellectual stimulation and the money provide a different kind of freedom. I've resigned myself to the need for sturdy and expensive foundation garments at all times and we are still considering whether I'll get the repair surgery for my bottom. Doug and I have developed a system of days/nights "off" that works for us so that we don't resent each other. I'm doing much better at appreciating what Doug does and not wishing he would do something else and not spouting off whatever my raging hormones are making me think. Yes, things have changed here. We can't travel on a moment's notice and lately I've been cleaning up an awful lot of pee.

But I wouldn't go back to my old life now that I've met my girls. Even when they are sick or whiny or defiant, they are still a joy to be around and I'm so lucky to be able to watch them grow and learn new things. And the hugs and kisses! What I'm saying is that my life is different now, but it isn't changed in a bad way - yes, I have less free time and yes, I have more chores and expenses, but I have so much more.

Slip n' Slide

So, anyone who can tell me how to manipulate where the photos show up in the blog will be treated to free dessert. I picked the photos in order so that you could see the progression of Annika trying out the Slip N' Slide and changing focus to "here are some flowers, Mommy" but alas - you will have to take my word for it because the photos are all out of order. And, the photo of Dagny's first time in the "real" swing which I was saving for last is stuck right there in the middle. Thanks Corinne, for the beautiful purple sweater which was required by the cold snap last week.

The Slip N' Slide was on sale for $7.99 at Target last week, so I thought - AHA! Perfect toy for Annika to play with while Dagny and I watch. Little did I know that instruction in the art of Slip N' Slide was required. I told Annika how to crouch down and spring forward onto her tummy with her arms out like Superman - nothing. She kept putting her knees down. I realized that she doesn't know who Superman is so I demonstrated (fully clothed) but managed to not get soaked. No dice. I finally had her lay on her tummy on the slide and then I pulled her quickly down the slide and let her go. That worked quite well until she got water in her eyes. Then, Doug showed up and told Annika to slide down "like Superman" (we think alike). He finally picked her up and slide her body down the slide (more like a throw), which also worked great except for the water in the eyes - hence the sunglasses in the photos. They work like goggles. Next time, all goggles-all the time. In a fit of desperation, I gave Annika the full-on demonstration - in my clothes (much to the amusement of the golfers going by at the time). It was really fun, but she was not convinced and that is why there is a photo of her bringing me flowers to distract me from the stupid Slip N' Slide.

Oh, and - I think she is allergic to grass because her eczema went crazy that afternoon and even her feet broke out.