jessica

twenty-nine days.

our hawaiian vacation begins in twenty-nine days. this is us the last time we were in hawaii:




oh, and we could use a housesitter. our fish will get hungry.

for those who might contemplate robbing the place while we're gone: take all the crap you want.

just for cuteness' sake.

now we have lights... so camera... and action!

thought for thursday: everybody wins

i am going to re-post an abbreviated version of my tft. i think this new typepad ate my looooooong post. maybe that's a good thing. 

it's PC nowdays to let all kids win. let them all have a medal. make sure everything is "equal" and "fair".

is this a good thing?  how about in 20 years down the road, getting their jobs, then at their job, when life is sometimes all about competition. will they show up expecting to win?  that they will be equal to everyone around them?

i run into this a lot, especially during hockey season. at some of the games, no scores were kept. it was fun, the kids enjoyed themselves.  what happened at the games when they changed it up and played to win?  ALL of the kids tried harder. were proud. even the kids that weren't the "best" tried their hardest when there was competition.

derek jeter tells men's health magazine:
“You know the showcase at the end of
The Price Is Right?
When I was 5,
he used to beat me at the showcase every day
before afternoon kindergarten.
I’m 5 years old!
I don’t know the prices!

But he taught me a lesson:
No one’s going to let you beat them.”

No one’s going to let you beat them.
Not at baseball, not at business, not in anything.
Play to win.

tell me your thoughts. and experiences.  moms, dads, aunts, uncles.  you teachers out there.

other thought provokers on thursday:  cass, jenny, denise, helmet, jessica , and kristi.

here's the little trooper now.

  

morning timeline.

let me outline my morning for you.  hopefully you will get a chuckle, because i have yet to smile about it. keep in mind, the bus comes at 7:50 a.m. and school starts at 8:35. we have an appt. for monkey girl in the next town at 9 a.m. for allergy testing.

• 6:35 - wake up with a start because i must have turned off alarm.  have to go pick up j-man from his dad. (meet time = 7 a.m.)  i am not late. right on time. do not dress, or comb hair. just brush teeth.
• 6:40 - wake and change baby. grab drink for baby.
• 6:45 - get baby loaded into carseat and notice that there are things hanging from garage ceiling that weren't there yesterday.
• 6:48 - come to conclusion that after hubs left this morning and closed garage door that entire thing crapped out. and spewed parts all over my garage.
• 6:50 - panic because garage door is broken and i can't leave. call hubs who is about 20 min away. he decides to turn around and help.
• 6:52 - 6:55 - climb on top of my car and try to fix the opener.
• 6:59 - manage to unhook automatic contraption so i can manually open door. door will only open about 1/3 of way before it stops
• 7:01 - try to soothe crying baby
• 7:02 - call j-man's dad and say we will be late
• 7:05 - make futile attempt to wash grease off hands and clothes with baby wipe
• 7:08 - hubs shows up
• 7:12 - wait anxiously while hubs tries to fix opener. hubs decides he has to use bathroom.
• 7:13 - transfer baby to hubs' car to go pick up j-man. hubs tells me i will need to get gas. he is not kidding.
• 7:15 - low fuel light comes on
• 7:19 - pull into holiday gas station. swipe first credit card. "see cashier" comes up on the screen. crap.
• 7:20 - leave holiday gas station.
• 7:24 - pull into SA gas station. swipe second card. it works. pump gas.
• 7:28 - pull out of gas station.
• 7:32 - pick up j-man. 
• 7:33 - talk to hubs on cell phone. he has fixed door and will meet me to change cars.
• 7:41 - meet hubs. buckle kids into another car. hubs tells me i will need gas. again.
• 7:42 - fuel light comes on.
• 7:46 - pull into an amoco station this time. swipe card that worked at last gas station. "see cashier" message appears. i am starting to feel like a criminal.
• 7:47 - leave gas station because i am beyond late and ready to murder someone. and i am not going to GO IN. that's what those damn pay at the pumps are for.
• 7:49 - pull into second SA of the day. again "see cashier". this time i am so upset i decide to do just that. i tell jman to sit there, i will be back in 30 seconds. the poor cashier didn't know what hit her. she apologized up and down for the pump's error. until she swiped my card. DENIED.
• 7:52 - fuming, i pull out of that gas station WITHOUT gas (no cash, no other way to get gas).  i dial hubs and nearly have a meltdown. try to keep it together because j-man is impressionable.  drive home on ZERO GAS. about seven miles.
• 8:01 - arrive home, open garage whose door works. niiiiice. first good thing to happen today. at the same time, dialing the # for WELLS FARGO on the back of my card. tell j-man to watch the baby while i take a 5-min shower. at this point i do not care if he is late for school. but we might make it yet.
• 8:05 - am told by the dude at WF that my account was flagged for fraud. reads off that was denied at amoco, SA twice... tells me that since gas stations are the #1 place ppl who steal credit cards use them, they flagged me. because i tried to fill up two cars within like nine minutes. i guess i can sorta understand. but i am not happy. he reactivates my card. asks if he can do anything else. i said he could come to my house with a gas can because i had to drive home with no gas. he laughs nervously and apologizes.
• 8:08 - get in shower
• 8:12 - get out of shower, dry off, yada yada.
• 8:19 - wipe down baby and dress her so she looks presentable at the doc
• 8:24 - make sure j-man is presentable for school and all is ready to go in his backpack. apologize 1) that he can no longer have peanut butter sandwiches for lunch (his staple) at least for now, and 2) that he will have to have hot lunch. which he hates.
• 8:27 - load both kids back in car. drive like a banshee to make it to school so i don't have to spend any time writing a note explaining my morning. maybe i could have just given them my blog address. they'd excuse him then for sure. make up excuses in  my head for the officer who is sure to stop me for speeding and then probably arrest me for running away from my credit card fraud.
• 8:34 - pull up to the school. might be a record. tell the j-man to have a good day and push him out.
• 8:38 - pull into coborn's gas station. thank allah that card works. stop at 15 gal because i feel poor.
• 8:44 - mcdonald's drive through. whattya know. they mess up my order. oddly i am not fazed.
• 8:57 - show up for our dr. appt. baby craps big time as we walk into the office.
• 8:59 - wrestle with her to change the oozing mess on the scale (suggested by the receptionist). tear off the paper myself because we left quite a mark.
• 9:02 - nurse shows us to room, takes temp, writes notes about allergic reaction, blah blah. leaves.
• 9:20 - dr shows up. talk about food allergies, family history. i am in a daze. but the jist of what he's saying is that they are going to do blood tests. 
• 9:29 - lab tech comes in with nurse. looks at baby's chubby arms and furrows brow. says she will 'do her best to find the vein'. vein? i was under the impression they were maybe going to prick. crap. i did not realize they are going to take VIALS full. nurse instructs me to hold baby down. tech finds vein, fairly easily. baby just stares as if to say "what the heck"... does not cry, whimper, or anything. seriously, if she had, i might have had a breakdown right there. because it was the longest morning. they take about half her blood. slap on a cotton ball and band-aid. tells me the doc will call in a couple of days. we are free to go.

we are home now.  i need a nap.  hope you are all having a non-stressful tuesday morning.

aller-geeze

let me set the scene.  i am rusing around late last week trying to get us all out the door. the j-man has baseball and i am barking orders (find your cleats! where's your glove?) and trying to him a sandwich made and the baby ready...  i give monkey girl a few bites of the sandwich because i know she is coming up on wanting a snack and we don't have much time.  we get loaded, strapped, buckled into the car with all of our accessories and off we go.

it's about a six minute drive to the ball field. we pull into the parking lot and i make sure j-man has all of his stuff and send him off ahead of us.  then i look at monkey girl as i start to unbuckle her.  hmm. she must have rubbing her eye, i think as i glance at her face. then i see more red.  blotches. everywhere.  the eye that was red is also swelling. she has what appear to be hives all over her face. as my anxiety about the poor girl's face mounts, it hits me. maybe it was something she ate?  what did she eat?

scanning my brain, i think of the last thing i fed her. bread with peanut butter. maybe that's what it is?! ***

i strap her back in, fly home, calling hubs on the way and saying "there is something wrong here. i think we might need to take her in"...

we stop back to the ball field and let the coach know that we are going to urgent care and one of us will be back by the end of practice to pick up the little slugger.

at urgent care, the doc says "yep that's probably what it is. get her some benadryl and make an appt... and watch her breathing. if she has ANY respiratory issues bring her in immediately."  monkey girl is a little fussy and appears uncomfortable.  it took about two hours for everything to return to normal. poor baby!

*** i am going to insert a bit of  defensiveness here, because i've heard it a lot already from people. before you go all "bad mommy" o nme... please don't say "i thought you were supposed to wait until they are two or three to give them peanut butter".... i have talked to her pediatrician and he says that as long as there are no similar allergies in the famiy, we're good to go after a year. in fact, before all the peanut allergy stuff was so prevalent, j-man had peanut butter at a year, also upon doctor clearance. there is no confirmation anywhere  that giving peanuts or peanut butter to children before any age can cause allergies.  even the doc (not our regular doc) we saw said that we could not have avoided it if this is what it was.  either you are or you aren't.

we have an appointment tomorrow morning to see what's up. it's just with her regular doc, who will likely have to give us a referral to an allergist. they can draw blood at the clinic but that's about it. ugh.

so, against all odds, please pray for us, cross your fingers, send good thoughts that it's a fluke. something else. because the allergy thing, that would be just not good.

i'm a happy girl

needs trim and lighting fixtures... but we're in business!

okay, minus one

i have a $5000 printer, purchased years ago,  that needed to be moved from upstairs (that's where my office originated) since the ex-boss took her computer equipment and her fancy printer. it is probably 2 1/2 feet square and weighs about twice as much as i do.  it made it safely down the stairs (i should have taken photos) and down the hall and oooooh around the corner into the new office down here....

and he dropped it. it made a nice crunch.

i didn't know whether to cry or to laugh. i just stood there, stunned.

i'm hoping that replacing the bottom paper tray will do the trick.

now why would he turn down help from his hulk of a wife?  who wouldn't be much help anyway, but, you know.

another point (or two) for the hubs

what happens when you have a trip booked to hawaii through orbitz travel and the airline that is supposed to actually take you the last leg of your trip across the ocean to that tropical paradise files for bankruptcy? 

you'd think that orbitz would book you on another flight. after all, they have done flight switcheroos THREE TIMES up until then.  i've got the email pile-up to prove it. so then, what's the big deal?

apparently it's up to YOU make other arrangements.

but what happens if you call and they keep giving you the run around: call this airline. call that airline. call orbitz because "it's their responsibility to rebook you". ??

after what feels like forever on the phone with any one of three parties, orbitz wants to charge another $1000 EACH for rebooking you on another airline.

what happens when you give the hubs the phone in exasperation because you just can't take it anymore and are willing to just shell out the 2K because you're sick of it all and just want to GO ON VACATION?

i'll tell you what happens. he spends another two hours on the phone, uses phrases like "contact my attorney"  and "cancel my reservation" (both of which i am frantically gesturing NO!!) but he is playing the game and winds up with everything juuuuuuust hunky dory.

i hope.