Things I Hate

I read a blog that does a "things I love/things I hate" segment periodically and I really find it funny. Since I've been stranded in teething hell for the last two days, I'm kind of in a negative mood. Hence the "Things I Hate" title.

1. Teething

Don't let this smiley face fool you. The last two days have been fraught with screaming. If it isn't teething, I'm afraid I may have to call the Catholic Church and demand a priest be sent out to preform an exorcism.

2. Fevers

Spencer has been plagued with something viral for the last few days and I am over.it. I am grateful that Jake took the brunt of dealing with his illness overnight.

3. Misbehaving Dogs

Not our actual dog

Turns out that him digging in the trash (yes, he's figured out how to get the lid off the trashcan) is the least of our problems. He also eats all the food off the counter and poops in the garage (which leaves our house with a beautiful eau de poop smell). I came home this afternoon to find he'd eaten the last brownie off the stove. The brownie I was saving for after the boys went to bed tonight. Nice.

4. Staying Home

I am d.y.i.n.g. to go somewhere. Specifically, I'm dying to go to the Pacific Northwest (although I hear they are having a heatwave now, so I'll wait until their temps settle back down to normal). I've always wanted to go. In fact, when Jake and I took our Alaska trip in 2004 one of the places we toyed with going was Seattle. Well, I've wanted to go ever since. My desire has been exacerbated as of late since Jake is en route to Ft. Lewis (via Seattle) as I type. Of course, the fact that Forks (which is where the Twilight story takes place) is a mere 2 hours from Seattle has nothing to do with it. ;-)

I think that, at this moment, those are all the things I hate. The list is constantly rotating, though, so I may have to come back and add more later.

God Love PBS <3

Because I sure do.

I tend to think of myself as an environmentalist. I'm not the perfect environmentalist; I forget my re-usable bags sometimes and use plastic baggies way more than I should. But I do what I can in this day and age to reduce my family's impact.

There is a show on PBS called "Superwhy" in which the characters try to solve problems by changing around stories from books. It really is a cute little show. One episode focuses on a little frog named Tiddalick. He lives in the (I assume) Australian Outback alongside a kangaroo and a koala (I think). When it rains, all the holes fill up with water and everyone generally gets some to use for whatever they need. The kangaroo wants to take a bath and brush her teeth while the koala wants to water his plants. Tiddalick likes to play in the water and, so the story goes, jumps in all of it, wasting it, so that his neighbors don't get any.

So the neighbors have to go over with Tiddalick why this is a bad idea, to waste all the water. Apparently, Spencer has really internalized this message (and I know I've mentioned wasting water a time or two).

A moment ago, I was loading the dishwasher. I was about to put something down the disposal and had the water running. Spencer runs in, sees the water running and shouts, "Mommy, I think you're wasting water!!" What a chip off the old block. ;-)

Friday Fun

Just some videos to perk up a Friday. TGIF! Jake has been in Little Rock doing his Army thing since Wednesday and took Spencer down to visit my grandparents while he worked. They'll be home in 2 days; I can't wait!

Wordless Wednesday

No One Cries Alone In Jack's Presence

Maternity leave officially came to a close today. I am so grateful to my wonderful boss and co-workers that made it possible for me to take a full 4 months off work to tend to my new babe.

I'm a firm believer that one of the biggest reasons breastfeeding rates are so dismal is because women in this country aren't granted decent maternity benefits. If I was Canadian, I'd be getting 60% of my pay for a full year. (Well, I probably wouldn't as I only worked part time, but you get the drift.) That is amazing! As a veteran pumper (with Spencer), I know first hand how bad it sucks (pun intended, ha!) to not only have to set aside time to pump, but then you actually have to feed the baby and wash all the bottles and pump parts. It is super time consuming. And to top it off, some women don't respond to a pump very well so it is possible that, upon returning to work, their supply will drop off dramatically.

But, I digress. This blog topic is not supposed to be about the US's craptastic maternity benefits.

It is, however, about my first day back to work.

I am so fortunate to work at a place where I can bring my kids. Spencer spent all of last school year with me as his teacher and will be moving up to the 4 year old room this year. For my return, I made a deal with my boss that moves me from working with 3 year olds all day to working in the baby room.

This is a huge plus for me and Jack alike. I don't have to swap classes with anyone when he's hungry and I certainly don't have to worry about pumping. He still gets to hang out with mommy all day and can still pretty much nurse as much as he wants, when he wants.

However, for one baby in class, today was a very bad day.

Cole is one of the sweetest babies you'll ever know. He just turned one and is usually a barrel of smiles and giggles. His mother, Kibbin, has worked in the baby room since he was a newborn, so he is used to being with her all day. All the pleasures that Jack is now enjoying used to be Cole's.

Kibbin has relocated to the 3 year old room now. She has another son who is 3 and she'll be spending this year with him. But this is very black news indeed for Mr. Cole.

Cole spent most of today in tears. There was nothing I could do. I wasn't his mommy and that's what the poor guy wanted. If he couldn't have mommy, nothing else would do. He decided that he would just lay on me and cry, cry, and cry some more. As I held him, he cried. If I put him down, he cried harder. Maybe some food would help? More tears ensued. I could not make him happy.

Jack was dazed and confused by this noise, to be sure. He is actually pretty sensitive to noise and is a VERY light sleeper. I feel terrible at the number of times a day I have to "shush" Spencer (I'll contribute to his therapy bill for that, I'm sure), but Jack wakes up at some of the smallest sounds you can imagine.

So when poor Cole realized his mommy was gone, GONE!, he started to cry. And in response, Jack started to cry. Liam even cried a little, but sweet little Lucy managed to maintain her composure through it all. Thank goodness for Lucy.

When Cole would stop crying for a minute, so would Jack. But when Cole started back up, so would Jack. At one point during the morning, I had Cole straddling my left leg with his head on my chest and Jack straddling my right leg with his head on my chest. They both fell asleep that way, I wish I'd have had a camera.

I managed to get Jack into a bouncer w/o waking him up, but the minute Cole's body touched the crib sheets he was awake and forlorn once again. And so was Jack.

We went on like this until around 11:30. Cole finally zonked out and Jack, after a very fretful nursing session, did the same. And they both slept, along with Lucy, for quite a while. I took Liam with me out into the hall to have lunch and a break.

Jack missed his morning nap due to all the chaos and spent about 2 hours asleep in the swing. Cole woke up after a little over an hour and, since the 3 year olds were napping, got some quality snuggle time with mommy in the hall.

Really, it was a good day. Hopefully Cole will be a bit more used to me by next week and we won't have so much sadness in our little part of the world. That's my goal: less sadness, more sleep. ;-)

No Poo

And it isn't what it sounds like! ;-)

I stumbled across a thread on one of the forums I frequent about doing no poo (AKA not using shampoo). I was only mildly intrigued at first, but as I continued to read about various experiences with this method I became very interested. The women who do this method swear that their hair is so much nicer and easier to manage. Goodness knows I could use some easy to manage hair, especially dealing with it in the southern summers. The humidity brings havoc to my hair, making it stick up in about 800 different directions. There is nothing I've discovered, so far, that can tame it. I figured this was worth a shot.

I looked up a bunch of different no poo sites to see what the recommendations were. Most people do a "wash" with baking soda and water and then "condition" with vinegar and something that smells good to cover the vinegar scent (vanilla and cinnamon were what I went with).

So yesterday I mixed up two different bowls of stuff and headed for the shower. (As a side note, you should really not mix with cold water. Quite the shock when you pour it on your head.)

I put the baking soda mixture on my hair, massaging it into the roots, and left it for a few minutes. After rinsing (another aside, don't let that mixture run into your mouth. Yuck.) that out, I put the vinegar mixture on. After rinsing it off, I could actually tell that my hair had been conditioned, although it certainly didn't feel like it would with a commercial conditioner.

The real test was going to be drying and flat ironing it. But, remarkably, I couldn't tell a difference once my hair was all done.

The no pooers say that it takes your hair several days to scale back oil production. Apparently, commercial shampoos strip the natural oils from your hair so your body goes into oil super drive. I haven't noticed an overabundance of oil yet, but I'm on the lookout.

So today is day 3 of no poo. After a few weeks I hope to have pictures.

(And, yes, Jake thinks I'm crazy. I told him I'd buy him a bottle of Pert Plus. LOL)