Yesterday at the zoo, they had a bathroom with kid-sized toilets, and Emma was beside herself with joy because she got to go into the stall to potty by herself. When she was done, she ran out of the stall with a big grin on her face and exclaimed, "Mo-om! I flushed with my FOOT! Just like you showed me!"
It was a proud moment for me.
I normally hate stuff like this, but this is really important to me.
In August 2004, my good friend Wes died of MS. Every year, his mom gets a team together for the MS walk to honor him. Our team goal is $7000, and my personal goal is $350 (and I am hoping to surpass that, but it will be tough).
Wes was a lot of things. He was loud, and funny, and boisterous. He was a drama queen sometimes, and he could be a real pain in the ass. But mostly, he was ours, and he was taken from us too soon, and the pain of watching someone that you love die from this terrible disease, watching it eat at their body...if we can help stop it so that nobody else has to suffer, then it is worth it.
I watched my friend slowly lose his motor skills. He went from a healthy, normal guy, to a guy who needed a crutch sometimes, to a guy who was wheelchair bound and living in an assisted living home. I remember going to visit him one day after he'd been in his wheelchair for a while, and he was walking down the hall with a walker. It was really exciting, because we thought he would never walk again. But it was the last time that I ever saw him walk.
If you have anything extra...even if it is just $1, please go to http://mswalk.com/trixie to make a donation. It would mean so much to us.
It's 6:30am and I've already ruined my outfit. I had an altercation with a
printer, and although I suffered the loss of my skirt (and my dignity), I
owned the printer in the end.
I wonder if Starbucks is open.
I just spent like an hour and a half surfing the internet, which is wierd, because I don't really get a chance to do that anymore.
Things have been really busy around here. We are finally moved at work, and we are trying to get settled into a new routine. For the past 3-4 weeks, I have been going in to work later in the morning, because the old office did not have heat, and it was too cold in the mornings. I am not shitting you, there were some days when I would get into work and it would be below freezing. I would go to work wearing 2 long sleeved shirts, a polar fleece, a coat, mittens, scarf, and a hat, and then I would wrap up in a blanket. It totally sucked. So I started going in to work later in the morning, which meant that I had to stay later into the evening. By the time I got Emma, made it home, cooked dinner, and ate, it was time to go to bed. I was spending no time with Emma, and I had no free time to do anything. Weekends have all been spent running errands and catching up on chores.
Emma has been acting out. I know that she has been really unhappy, because I've barely had time to spend with her. We've gone through a really rough patch, with her talking back, being defiant, and me being incredibly impatient and snappy with her. I can't tell you the difference in her since we've moved into the new office and have gotten into a better routine. It's like night and day.
The location of my office has really helped too. Before, we were both leaving the house at 6:00 for me to get to work. It got us out early, but it made for a lot of rushing around in the morning. Then, when we hit a cold snap, we started going in later, which meant a less hectic morning routine, but no time to spend together in the evenings. At the beginning, Emma was always the first kid at school, once we switched to a later schedule, she was always the last kid there. It really sucked.
So now, I get up really early while she is still sleeping, and I go to work. My work is literally a 90 second drive from my house now. I work for a couple of hours, and she gets some extra sleep. My parents wake her, and she gets up and gets herself dressed, brushes her hair and teeth, and eats breakfast. When my dad leaves for work at about 7:30, he calls me, and I run home to get her so that he can leave. Then I take her to school, and go back to work. So basically, I just take my lunch break in the morning instead of at noon. And then I just eat at my desk and work through lunchtime. I get off of work and have just enough time to run home and pack up a bag for the park or the beach, or to pick up a snack and change clothes, and then I get to school just as naptime is over. So I show up with a snack, and I get a happy, well-rested kiddo. Then we can run errands together, or spend a couple of hours at the park before dinner. It's working really well.
We've all but dropped out of our playgroup. With things being as hectic as they have been, I haven't had the time or the desire to do any playgroup stuff. The more I've been away, the more I realize that I really just don't like the group. I really thought about dropping out, but there are a couple of people that I really do like, and I'd hate to lose contact with them. And no matter how much you say you'll keep in touch with people, really you never do. So we're sticking around for now. I did find another group that I like much better. Two, actually. One is a book group (and one of the people that I really like from playgroup joined with me!), and I really love it. It's a lot of fun and everyone has been great. There's also another playgroup, and it's not nearly as active, but I really do like the people in the group. I've been in the group for a while now, and we've only been to 2 events with them, but I've enjoyed them both. At the last event, I found someone that I really clicked with, which is cool. I am finally starting to feel like I have come into my own. For so long, I felt really lonely here. But now I'm busy, and I have found some social outlets. Nobody that I'd consider a close friend, but definitely some people whose company I enjoy when I have the time. And I have close friends in other places, so I am ok with that.
In the last week, this is what Emma has learned at her fancy-schmancy preschool:
This, too, can be yours for the bargain price of $189 a week.
Mom, I wiping my boogers on my shirt.
Don't wipe your boogers on your shirt. Were you born in a barn?
No I born in Alaska.
People in Alaska don't wipe their boogers on their shirts.
Well, I was born a long time ago.
So, January is almost over, and I am sort of not doing so well on my New Years Resolutions. I was doing pretty well juggling all of this stuff with a new work/school routine, and then Emma got sick and we were home for a week and I turned into a bum. I ended up going off my budget, which was the worst part.
I have been reading a lot, but I have deviated from the 100 banned books list a bit. Which is no big deal, because the purpose of making that list a new year's goal was really more about reading books than anything else. I would have loved to read 2 books a week, but it's not happening.
As the end of the month draws near, I am evaluating where I am, and where I want to go. I am tired, in a funk, and trying my best to figure out things around me. And right now, I am even boring myself.
I am so tired of sickness. Emma has been running a fever since last night. No sore throat, no aches, no nausea, just a fever. She looks awful, pale and run down. She slept 12 hours last night, and would have probably slept longer had I not gotten out of bed to pee. She laid around most of the day. She's wound up now, but she still has a fever.
Her bloodwork should be back soon, hopefully tomorrow. Once we have those results, then we'll see a pedatric gastroenterologist, and then from there it looks like we will be doing a biopsy on her intestine to check for celiac disease. This is all dependent on her IGA levels, I think. There's also a chance that we will go to an ENT to see about having tonsils/adenoids removed. She gets tonsillitis way too frequently. I just want all of this medical stuff to be done, and I want her to be fixed.
I had all this other stuff, but the phone rang, and Emma was singing, and trying to do cartwheels, and I lost my train of thought. She is sedate now, laying next to me with her babies, and her fever has gone up. My mom asked her if she was going to school tomorrow, and she said, "No, I staying home with my mama." I love it when she calls me mama. She seems to be using it more than mommy lately.
Tonight I asked her if she was going to have babies when she grows up, and she said yes, and that she is going to wait for the doctor. I told her that she doesn't even have to use a doctor if she doesn't want to, that some people use midwives, and she really liked that. But then she decided that she just wants someone to knock on her door and leave a baby at the doorstep, like on Meet the Robinsons. Works for me.
I laid awake and thought about this last night.
I cleaned out my neighborhood finally. There were a lot of deleted usernames in there. I'm not sure why, but most of the people I know went back to LJ, and I am so not a fan of LJ.
Speaking of LJ, I cleaned that out too. Most of the people on my flist over there don't post anymore. I can't remember the last time I posted. I cleaned off my list over there, and pretty much only kept the communities and about 2 people that I actually read, and my BFF, because LJ is the easiest way for me to get ahold of her.
I am kind of fired up today. I'm getting really sick of internet relationships and this whole passive-aggressive way of deleting people from your LJ or your MySpace as a way of telling them that you are not their friend anymore. It's like deleting or threatening to delete yourself from a MB, not because you want to leave, but because you want everyone to know that you want to leave.
With that, if you make a habit of deleting your Vox or your LJ account every 6 months and then coming back, without so much as an email or a quick explanation, don't expect a spot back on my list. I'm not in the habit of letting people in and out of my life whenever the mood strikes them. I'm not into disposable friendships, and quite frankly, it hurts when other people are.
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