Um, yeah. So NaPoBloMo has sort of fallen apart here at the end for me. I just forgot to post again on Monday and figured "screw it" yesterday. So, I guess that's how it goes: I start off strong with the best of intentions and then fade out at the end. Boo.

 
Happy 2nd birthday to our dear, sweet friend! We're sad that we aren't with you to celebrate today, but we'll see each other again soon! 

OH CRAP.

Can I get a re-do on the 25th?

I don't know when Thanksgiving became Black Friday Eve, but here in Atlanta, where we are visiting my dad and step-mom, the news was full of stories last night about people camped out at stores waiting for them to open at 5 this morning. A bit ridiculous.

Traveling, eating, napping, repeat.
It's been a fine day.
Hope yours was, as well.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Know how many extremely crunchy noodles there are in a box of Stir Fry Rice Noodles?
A bazillion.

Know how I know?
In the 17 seconds that Olivia was alone in the kitchen, she got said box from the pantry, dumped the contents on the floor, and danced, jumped and slid all over the noodles.

Know how helpful a toddler can be when you are trying to pick a bazillion times a kajillion noodle particles off the kitchen floor?
Not the slightest bit.

I did at least clean the mess up before coming in here to blog about it.

A note from Olivia's teacher at PDO informs me that she was "happy, talkative, and active," and that she "had a great day! She really seems to be starting to adjust. She was a lot of fun today."

Hallelujah!

Much as I look back at the me of ten years ago and ask, "How can you smoke all those cigarettes?", I wonder how I once watched so much TV. Don't get me wrong...I know that there are some shows I could get into if I had the time and didn't feel like a red light and screeching alarm went off right over my sleeping daughter's head every time my butt hit the couch, but so much of what is on television now just makes me anxious. I just saw about 20 seconds of "Prison Break" as I cut through the living room and I swear it was enough to give me nightmares. I have an overactive imagination and enough anxiety about evil and random violence to do me without adding in someone else's Monday night bloodbath, thank you very much. Who needs it?

The weekend ends with a bang. And a bit of a crunch.

So if yesterday taught us about leaving the house with a clear objective in mind, today's lesson was about meandering aimlessly. Which we actually weren't by the time we were rear-ended. We were headed to Target. (And who were we kidding - where else would we be going?)

We had pulled off the freeway and almost into certain doom when Marc came close to pulling out into traffic. There was no lane from which to merge so he stopped suddenly when he realized his mistake. I checked my rear view mirror - there was the obligatory ginormous Southern truck behind. We sat long enough for traffic to clear and just as Marc lifted his foot from the break....BAM!! It was a hard hit. I knew the truck behind us had been stopped. Had someone hit him hard enough from behind to knock his tonnage into us? No. Apparently he had also been watching the traffic, but thought that we had pulled out. When everything cleared, he saw his chance and hit the accelerator. We were in his way. I got O out. She was bug-eyed but didn't cry or get upset. In fact, she seemed really excited to see the guy who hit us when he climbed down out of his truck. (He was, by the way, very apologetic.) I was shaken up - not only was my head already hurting, but I was sandwiched a few feet between a ditch and rivers of raging traffic with my baby in my arms. Marc insisted on calling the police, though the damage to both cars was minimal. They weren't terribly long in coming and we were all soon on our way. I was by this point mired in catastrophic thoughts about death and carnage and how it all comes out of nowhere and what it really might feel like to be crushed to death by any given idiot with the wherewithal to get a key in the ignition.

And none of this touches on the worst of it: even just the smallest thought of something happening to Olivia.

So it's happening. Negotiations are wrapping up., contracts are being signed, ownership is being exchanged...our debt is growing! But it's good debt. We're finally buying the house and I could not be more tickled. We've been living in the house, leasing it for about six weeks, so I have started to get settled, started to make plans. I really like it here and I am glad that we are going to stay for awhile.

I miss reading. And thinking. I am definitely not as sharp as I used to be. For example, I just misspelled definitely and had to use spellcheck to fix it.

I still read. Novels (slowly), magazines, blogs, news. But I don't feel like I absooooob things like I used to.

I read this great post this morning, but didn't get to really enjoy it like I wanted, peruse all the insightful comments, and really soak it all in.

I know that this was written in response, but I haven't even had time to begin it.

Hearing this story on NPR tonight made me want to read some poetry.

But not tonight. Tonight, I'll pick up the kitchen and ready myself for tomorrow. Pack O's bag and fold clean clothes. Answer a couple of emails that have been languishing in my in-box. Then I'll climb into my cozy bed, open a novel, read two pages....and promptly fall asleep.

Oh god, is it really only Day 15? All in all I have been enjoying posting every day (some more than others), but I am tapped out right now.

I could go back and revise one of my drafts that never got posted? Nah.

I could post more pictures of O? Maybe.

I could talk about our day? Rain, peanut butter crackers, three poopy diapers, rain.

Marc's illness? I tried to get him to guest-post for me, but he declined. (He feels a little better, though.)

Lists?
Links?
Analyze my dreams?

See, I got nothing.

Oh wait...Marc just muted the TV to tell me that his current favorite breakfast is two hard boiled eggs and toast...with some jelly.

There you go.

My fella's sick, so I'm busy fetching water and soup and Aleve. No time for blogging.

Here...look at the pretty flowers. Ooh, pretty.

Let's Call This Song Exactly What It Is

I apologize for yesterday's post. The nadir of my NoMoBloPoMo showing, perhaps. There were supposed to be more confessions, but in the middle of spilling it, I thought, "What the hell am I doing?"

I will come clean on this though: For...I don't know...ten minutes maybe, this morning while listening to an NPR story on the Iraq Study group, the bi-partisan panel meeting today, I seriously thought that they were saying the Rock Steady group. I could not wrap my mind around it. How had I missed this? Was it for real? What were they trying to get across? I'm all for some Aretha, but this just seemed a strange place to try and bring the funk. Maybe I was wrong...I listened closer. Finally I decided they were saying the Iraq Steady group. Not quite as odd, but just as stupid. I mean, we get it. Jeez. Iraq Steady. Give me a break.

Random Lists of Random Stuff in No Particular Order, or It's Sunday and I'm Too Tired for a Real Post

Things O did today that surprised me
- Said "two" after I said "one."
- Remembered, upon pulling a little plastic cup out of the cabinet, that she had once used it months and months ago to rinse when brushing her teeth (also known as sucking all the baby toothpaste off the brush), and said, "teeth" over and over until I remembered also.

Ways O visited physical discomfort upon me today
- Hitting
- Pinching
- Putting her finger in the corner of my eye while I was sleeping and pinching the skin between my nose and eye

Today's confession
- I almost pinched her back.

The Night Crazies...

When O realized that we were back at Parent's Day Out yesterday, she flipped. I couldn't let go of her, couldn't imagine just putting her down and walking out the door. Not that I could have done so - she was clinging to me with her head wedged in my armpit. I realize this has all been too sudden for her. I wanted to stay with her, let her get a little more familiar with the situation before expecting her to be on her own. But I was expected at work. I called my mom and asked her to come spend the day with O. By the time she got there, O had warmed up a bit, but was still firmly planted at my side. She was excited to see her Nan (I think she thought Mom was going to rescue her), but she was also interested in what was happening around her.

Mom stayed with her and as the day wore on, she got somewhat more comfortable. She played a little with play dough, she danced a bit, she colored the cat you see here (When I pulled it out of her bag yesterday, I nearly broke down.) She didn't go far from Mom and she asked for me some, but she wasn't crying.

So we'll try again next week and Mom will go with her. Another benefit to all this is that Mom is able to see how things are done at the program. She was comfortable yesterday with the teachers and how they interact with the kids, so that made me more comfortable. Hopefully soon O will be comfortable and this will work out after all.

I've been getting some emails, so let me clear this up: It was Olivia's crying that prompted the staff at PDO to suggest she go home, not mine. I did get a little teary, but I didn't fall apart. To fill in more back story...I have gone back to work part-time with the company I was working for last year. My boss and co-worker there have been great...very flexible and happy to help me work whenever I can. The plan is to do about 16 hours a week; O will be with her Nan and at PDO. Or not...

She was doing fine when I was leaving, even when I told her "good-bye," but soon after, I guess she realized that I really was gone and she really was surrounded by a bunch of people she did not know. Apparently that's when the crying commenced for real.

We're going back over there today and will try again, but I don't think that I am loving this program. The teachers are nice enough, but that's sort of where it stops. I have tried to talk with them about Olivia, just some kind of conversation about who she is and how she ticks, but I can't seem to really get their attention. It's like they think they already know children, what new tricks could O possibly have? It makes me feel like they are really going to invest in her, can't make any effort to help us make this transition. I don't think I'm asking for too much?

Now that's more like it. It doesn't take away the sting of that other November morning, but waking up to this news was good.

This just in: Tester wins in Montana. OK, Virginia, what you got?

OK, so Parent's Day Out? Not so much. For now I'll just say there were some tears and then there were more tears and then they asked me to come pick her up. I'm so tired...I'll go into more tomorrow (ohh, a teaser...now you have to come back!), but I will leave you with this little bit of totally unrelated cuteness:

Olivia has taken to saying "Thank you" in many of the socially appropriate places, which is nice. Most of the time it comes out sounding like a very sweet "Hate you."

Parent's Day Out: Take Two

So tomorrow is the day. I'm back to work and O goes to Parent's Day Out for the first time. I'm anxious, having second thoughts, but feeling like it's a train in motion, impossible to stop at this point. It's just an adjustment; she'll probably end up loving it. But I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a challenge for everyone involved.

Send us sweet thoughts.

She's not a baby anymore.


She's talking up a storm. When she can't tell me what she wants me to know, she will show me, using her hands or mine. When she wanted me to buckle her bear into the car seat yesterday, she grabbed my hands and pantomimed what I should do. She still sticks close by and calls "Mama, Mama!" if I get too far away, but is getting much more independent, telling me "No" when I offer help with the steps or her clothes. This morning I came into the living room to find her dancing by herself to a CD that I had put on. I am so excited to be able to communicate more with her. I can't wait for her to tell me what she's thinking.

So the day that I was dreading has arrived. The day when I can no longer venture to the bathroom unaccompanied. Not because O just has to be with me at all times - no, it's because she is now supremely interested in That For Which She Already Has Several Names Thanks to Her Dad and His Amusement in the Scatological. (Alish's kid hums "A Love Supreme," mine says "doo-doo.") "What's going on in here?" her look implores as she pushes open the door. "What's going on?" as she peers up at me on the perch. Or best yet, "What's going on?" as she crouches down and with her little hands attempts to push a cheek up from the seat.

I find this less than conducive to doing what I need to do.

I find cooking demoralizing. I want to enjoy it and I want to be good at it, but I'm just so not. I can't even follow a simple recipe. I got it in my head tonight that I would make a dish from an Italian cookbook that we picked up somewhere. I was in over my head from the start. I know...it's just pasta, but I'm seriously lacking in skills. I started on something simple with tuna. But I misunderstood the basic concept of what the dish would be. And misread an ingredient. I ended up with this nauseating tuna butter that I was supposed to "toss" with our pasta. Marc (who can cook really well, thank god) was game to try it - he ain't scared of no food, now - and I had some after seeing him do so to little ill effect. It was OK. But I won't be trying it again. Even with the right measurements, tuna butter is not really a dish that I need to perfect.

O and I went to visit a Parents' Day Out program on Tuesday. I had an immediate "Whoa, I don't think I am ready for this" as soon as we walked in the door. I don't think I am ready to worry about my kid catching your kid's cold, or your kid hitting my kid, or the teacher neglecting my kid when she needs attention. I'm not ready to worry about whether someone could just walk in off the street and pick my daughter up and go. I'm not ready to relinquish her to a school or a daycare or the cold, cruel world.

OK, enough of that. The program was fine, I suppose. I asked all my questions and received satisfactory answers. The staff seemed nice; the facility looked clean. But I just keep feeling like more needs to be done before I just up and leave her there. Do I just have to trust that everything is going to be fine, like they said? Should I have asked to speak to some of the other parents? Yeah, I totally should have done that. Am I worrying this to death?

The upshot is that I need to work for at least a few hours a week and I need for someone to take care of Olivia while I am working. This place is convenient and has an opening and I didn't see anything that looked like egregious neglect or filth or abuse. But I also didn't see anything that made me declare that I felt like this was the best place for her to be. Oh, are we back here again?

Today was to have been her first day. I had her bag packed and her clothes laid out. But last night she started sneezing and coughing and her nose was running like a faucet. Looks like she caught your kid's* cold already.

(*A rhetorical "your kid." I'm not talking about your kid - your kid is fabulous!)

Halloween: The Hangover

This is O at 5:45 this morning still wearing her costume (Damn you, Ben Franklin, and your stupid daylight savings). She had a great time last night; we all did. I love it when I think that she is not going to enjoy something and she proves me dead wrong. It's usually all I can do to get her to leave a hat on her head for a nanosecond, but she loved her costume. She loved the trick-or-treaters, loved giving out candy, loved going around to the neighbors, and really loved it when she finally figured out that they were giving her stuff. Marc and I had a great time decorating and hosting as many of the grandparents as we could gather (we missed you Grandaddy, Nanya, and Mimi!)

We even managed to make it out of the evening relatively candy-free. And please, if you feel like lecturing me on how I am not allowing her to have fun because I didn't stuff her full of KitKats, refrain. She had all kinds of fun and missed out on nothing. Besides, I'm having enough trouble getting her to eat something besides raisins and fig bars as it is.

(Woo-hoo! Day One! I'm so kicking your ass, NaBloPoMo! )