I was way off. Oliver woke up at 8pm, watched Parks and Recreation with us while he pretended not to be tired, and I finally got him back to sleep by ten or so.
And do you know what? I was in bed until nine am this morning. I wasn't asleep, but I was in there. I woke up at five (shoot me), peed, fell back to sleep. Woke up at six (shoot Bentley), fell back to sleep after like an hour, and woke up at 8 and laid there listening to everyone stir and shuffle as their bodies woke up. So, fitful, yes, but at least my body didn't have to face the morning before it was good and ready.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Run Ragged.
Joe is home from his bachelor party weekend at the coast, where he had a fabulous time bonding with his buddies. Oliver is home from near two-day bender at Grandma's. Balance is restored. Almost.
After an epic battle involving poop, holding it, and the toilet (Oliver won, still no poop, despite bribes aplenty), the three of us retired to the sofa for some late afternoon tv watching.
Oliver was using Bentley as a mattress pad and Bentley must have proved to be comfortable because Oliver started slipping off to sleep. But not before he lifted his head and told us to turn the tv off because he was trying to sleep. (I quote: "Turn the tv off please. I'm trying to sleep,") It was only 5:15pm.
I tried to get him up and running for at least another two hours, but he was not having it. He actually requested that we take him to bed. So we cuddled him up in his shark pj's and read some books and sleep swallowed him up before 6 o'clock.
I just hope he really had some catching up to do, and that he sleeps until his regular wake up time. Because if this is just a nap, then he will most likely be up again at ten pm wanting to hang out. Which, I guess, is fine by me. He's my favorite person to hang out with besides Joe, so I wouldn't mind that so much.
It's the possibility of him sleeping through the night and waking up at 5am that chills me to the bone. That is still the middle of the night for this blog poster-dance teacher-winner of the Most Likely To Be Asleep Award in college. It will never. NEVER. Be morning time.
I will be laying my head down on my pillow tonight and crossing my fingers. And some toes, probably, too. Sweet dreams, Boy.
After an epic battle involving poop, holding it, and the toilet (Oliver won, still no poop, despite bribes aplenty), the three of us retired to the sofa for some late afternoon tv watching.
Oliver was using Bentley as a mattress pad and Bentley must have proved to be comfortable because Oliver started slipping off to sleep. But not before he lifted his head and told us to turn the tv off because he was trying to sleep. (I quote: "Turn the tv off please. I'm trying to sleep,") It was only 5:15pm.
I tried to get him up and running for at least another two hours, but he was not having it. He actually requested that we take him to bed. So we cuddled him up in his shark pj's and read some books and sleep swallowed him up before 6 o'clock.
I just hope he really had some catching up to do, and that he sleeps until his regular wake up time. Because if this is just a nap, then he will most likely be up again at ten pm wanting to hang out. Which, I guess, is fine by me. He's my favorite person to hang out with besides Joe, so I wouldn't mind that so much.
It's the possibility of him sleeping through the night and waking up at 5am that chills me to the bone. That is still the middle of the night for this blog poster-dance teacher-winner of the Most Likely To Be Asleep Award in college. It will never. NEVER. Be morning time.
I will be laying my head down on my pillow tonight and crossing my fingers. And some toes, probably, too. Sweet dreams, Boy.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Forsaken
Joe is out of town this weekend, and I was looking forward to a big weekend of MomandOliver fun. On Friday, before Joe left town, he went to his mom's to change the oil in the car. Oliver tagged along. And there he stayed. He decided that Aunt Chris, Joe's sister visiting from Sisters, was way more interesting and cool. She was going shopping. At the STORE. Where they have STUFF.
So he was commandeered by Aunt Chris and Grandma and taken to WinCo, where he was allowed to walk on the ground and not trapped in the cart. Apparently, he doesn't dart away at the speed of light while at the grocery store with them. When I let him walk with me at the grocery store, he typically dissolves into thin air the instant his feet hit the tile and my heart lurches into my throat and I instantly become constipated with the fear. And then one nano-second later I find him (probably only three feet away) and into the cart he goes. I bribe him with a giant bag of Cheetos that we open WITHOUT PAYING FOR THEM FIRST and let him munch on those during the trip.
Anyway, I went over to Grandma's to pick him up around 4pm, and three hours later I was leaving again, alone. He refused to leave, and Aunt Chris said he could stay and sleep with her. Sigh... Off I go toward home and the certain doom of a fitful sleep.
I know he's only three, but knowing he is there provides me with comfort if Joe isn't home. Maybe it's because nothing scares me if I know I have to protect a child. Plus, he is snuggly beyond reason. But with no one home at all, it's electricity city.
All lights are on. All of them. And the tv. I even sleep with a reading lamp on. I'm a chicken with a capital C.
It turned out okay, though. I mean, I woke up alive and well and not missing any body parts. And there was only one spooky instance where I was watching Ghost Whisperer and an eerie sound occurred. I thought it was the show, but the sound got louder and louder even when I turned down the volume on the set. My skin mo' fo'-in CRAWLED. What the hell is that?
It was Otto. He was asleep and decided in his dream to do some howling. Only it was this weird, dying, guttural moo sound instead of a traditional howl. Very lamenting. Very goddamn scary. I had to go over and gently nudge him so he would snap out of it.
On to today, I called to check on Oliver and apparently driving to Scappoose with Aunt Chris delivers way more street cred than coming to the studio with MOM and watching the hip hoppers. God, I am so lame. Next I will be asked to walk two steps ahead of him at the mall.
So he was commandeered by Aunt Chris and Grandma and taken to WinCo, where he was allowed to walk on the ground and not trapped in the cart. Apparently, he doesn't dart away at the speed of light while at the grocery store with them. When I let him walk with me at the grocery store, he typically dissolves into thin air the instant his feet hit the tile and my heart lurches into my throat and I instantly become constipated with the fear. And then one nano-second later I find him (probably only three feet away) and into the cart he goes. I bribe him with a giant bag of Cheetos that we open WITHOUT PAYING FOR THEM FIRST and let him munch on those during the trip.
Anyway, I went over to Grandma's to pick him up around 4pm, and three hours later I was leaving again, alone. He refused to leave, and Aunt Chris said he could stay and sleep with her. Sigh... Off I go toward home and the certain doom of a fitful sleep.
I know he's only three, but knowing he is there provides me with comfort if Joe isn't home. Maybe it's because nothing scares me if I know I have to protect a child. Plus, he is snuggly beyond reason. But with no one home at all, it's electricity city.
All lights are on. All of them. And the tv. I even sleep with a reading lamp on. I'm a chicken with a capital C.
It turned out okay, though. I mean, I woke up alive and well and not missing any body parts. And there was only one spooky instance where I was watching Ghost Whisperer and an eerie sound occurred. I thought it was the show, but the sound got louder and louder even when I turned down the volume on the set. My skin mo' fo'-in CRAWLED. What the hell is that?
It was Otto. He was asleep and decided in his dream to do some howling. Only it was this weird, dying, guttural moo sound instead of a traditional howl. Very lamenting. Very goddamn scary. I had to go over and gently nudge him so he would snap out of it.
On to today, I called to check on Oliver and apparently driving to Scappoose with Aunt Chris delivers way more street cred than coming to the studio with MOM and watching the hip hoppers. God, I am so lame. Next I will be asked to walk two steps ahead of him at the mall.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Mom of the Year Award Winner (revisited)
So I usually write about my foibles and Eff-ups as a mom just because I need to get it out there. And because I figure it would provide a nice good dose of "Thank God I am not the only one who has barely kept their kid alive" type feelings in my friends who have children. A prime example would be here.
This morning, Mister Oliver woke up coughing a few times. It was that short, strange barking cough that gives any mom the damn willies. It's just not natural. And it usually means that a cloud of sleep deprivation for everyone in the house is about to descend on us and take residence for about a week.
Once he was up and around, however, there were no more coughs and he seemed fine. I had a tiny sliver of good sense that said, "Evie, you need to keep that boy at home today and make sure he takes it easy". But then the giant log of stupidity reminded me that Joe was to be gone all day and all night at the studio (still working on the Rusty Nail Project) and I didn't want us to be cooped up in the house from morning until bedtime without any sort of fresh air or distractions. Today, I wanted to be Fun Mom. Plus, the three weird coughs stayed merely a memory...
So I called up Miss Jill and invited her on a "hike" around Mt. Tabor. I thought the fresh air would be great for Oliver and give us something fun to do together besides play with Thomas the Tank Engine.
We scooped up Jill, decided we needed to have energy for our "hike" and stopped for lunch first. Then, we meandered up to the section of Mt. Tabor by the amphitheater, parked in the parking lot, and "hiked" over to the playground so Oliver could climb stuff and Jill and I could sit on a park bench. He started to get curious about what else was around us, so continued our trek to check out the amphitheater and followed that with a leisurely stroll down a park path, leading us back to the playground. This time, we sat at a picnic table and Jill and I mused that "doing stuff is tiring".
When Oliver had his fill, we loaded him back in the car and that's when it hit us like a ton of bricks. Poor little buddy was clutching at his belly and whimpering, and asking for his daddy. Obligingly, we drove to the studio where Oliver ran up to Joe and got swept up in Joe's arms, where he basically went limp and laid his head down on Joe's shoulder. We took turns holding him this way because he couldn't decide who was more comforting. It turns out neither of us could magically make him feel better.
Also, he was on fire. Burning up. Oh great. I'm an idiot. Why didn't I keep him home? In an effort to get him home and on the couch, Joe took Jill home and I headed straight for home with Oliver. His face was pale, and he started to doze off.
Basically, in my effort to make Oliver's day really fun-filled and healthy, I over did it and caused him to take a header into Sicksville.
Once home, I got him all snuggled into the couch with his favorite blanket (he also requested to be pantless) and encouraged him to drink his "Super Juice" bubble gum flavored Motrin. It went like this: PLEASE DRINK IT! YOU'RE SICK. IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER. PLEASE!, while Oliver shrunk himself into a tiny armadillo-like ball and covered his mouth with his hands while screaming muffled words like "I'm NOT sick!" and "You're damaging me mentally and emotionally and I will probably need therapy when I'm thirty because you chased me with this plunger of pink goo when I was three!" After some sort of bribe, he downed it and I left him to rest and let the medicine do it's thing.
It's been about 20 minutes. He's now jumping on the couch and into my lap, and back on the floor and flitting around his train table, and now I am apparently in charge of making cookies for him.
I guess it's all about extremes with children. So I'm just going to go with that philosophy and punish and reward myself at the same with a batch of fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies.
This morning, Mister Oliver woke up coughing a few times. It was that short, strange barking cough that gives any mom the damn willies. It's just not natural. And it usually means that a cloud of sleep deprivation for everyone in the house is about to descend on us and take residence for about a week.
Once he was up and around, however, there were no more coughs and he seemed fine. I had a tiny sliver of good sense that said, "Evie, you need to keep that boy at home today and make sure he takes it easy". But then the giant log of stupidity reminded me that Joe was to be gone all day and all night at the studio (still working on the Rusty Nail Project) and I didn't want us to be cooped up in the house from morning until bedtime without any sort of fresh air or distractions. Today, I wanted to be Fun Mom. Plus, the three weird coughs stayed merely a memory...
So I called up Miss Jill and invited her on a "hike" around Mt. Tabor. I thought the fresh air would be great for Oliver and give us something fun to do together besides play with Thomas the Tank Engine.
We scooped up Jill, decided we needed to have energy for our "hike" and stopped for lunch first. Then, we meandered up to the section of Mt. Tabor by the amphitheater, parked in the parking lot, and "hiked" over to the playground so Oliver could climb stuff and Jill and I could sit on a park bench. He started to get curious about what else was around us, so continued our trek to check out the amphitheater and followed that with a leisurely stroll down a park path, leading us back to the playground. This time, we sat at a picnic table and Jill and I mused that "doing stuff is tiring".
When Oliver had his fill, we loaded him back in the car and that's when it hit us like a ton of bricks. Poor little buddy was clutching at his belly and whimpering, and asking for his daddy. Obligingly, we drove to the studio where Oliver ran up to Joe and got swept up in Joe's arms, where he basically went limp and laid his head down on Joe's shoulder. We took turns holding him this way because he couldn't decide who was more comforting. It turns out neither of us could magically make him feel better.
Also, he was on fire. Burning up. Oh great. I'm an idiot. Why didn't I keep him home? In an effort to get him home and on the couch, Joe took Jill home and I headed straight for home with Oliver. His face was pale, and he started to doze off.
Basically, in my effort to make Oliver's day really fun-filled and healthy, I over did it and caused him to take a header into Sicksville.
Once home, I got him all snuggled into the couch with his favorite blanket (he also requested to be pantless) and encouraged him to drink his "Super Juice" bubble gum flavored Motrin. It went like this: PLEASE DRINK IT! YOU'RE SICK. IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER. PLEASE!, while Oliver shrunk himself into a tiny armadillo-like ball and covered his mouth with his hands while screaming muffled words like "I'm NOT sick!" and "You're damaging me mentally and emotionally and I will probably need therapy when I'm thirty because you chased me with this plunger of pink goo when I was three!" After some sort of bribe, he downed it and I left him to rest and let the medicine do it's thing.
It's been about 20 minutes. He's now jumping on the couch and into my lap, and back on the floor and flitting around his train table, and now I am apparently in charge of making cookies for him.
I guess it's all about extremes with children. So I'm just going to go with that philosophy and punish and reward myself at the same with a batch of fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Great Remodel of Oh Nine. (or, The Dear God, I Hope No One Steps On A Rusty Nail Project)
As with every child, we must at times step back and allow them to grow up. I am doing this with my firstborn, Vega Dance+Lab. When we first moved in, there was no graffiti mural, there was no mirrored wall, there were no awesome JBL speakers, and I didn't even have an iPod.
So accomplishing the above things has been a source of pride and happiness as each new item or change occurred to make the studio better. Husband has had his sights set on fancying up the downstairs lobby, however, since the day we laid eyes on it. But since there were bigger fish to fry in this warehouse space-turned-dance studio, like the mirrors and stereo equipment, etc., we basically achieved the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig as far as the lobby was concerned.
Upon moving in, all of the lobby walls were faced with white pegboard, and there was a bare concrete floor. The ceiling was sheeted with black plastic. People often asked if it was comprised of lawn and leaf bags. (No.) So, we painted the floor an aqua color, and the pegboard walls a cocoa brown. Well, it was supposed to be a cocoa brown. It ended up looking more mauve and I have hated it ever since. Mauve. Brown-mauve.
There was this little storage area under the stairs that lead up to the studio, and once upon a time, Husband used it as his office. He tried painting it bright yellow to combat the effects of not having windows. In the end, it just served to contribute to his Always On A Computer pallor and he moved out. The natural evolution of that room, of course, would be to become a catchall room for my crap. Costumes, files, craft supplies, books, old phones (???) and a family of raccoons. Seriously, this room was dangerous. I used to go in there to change my clothes, but slowly over time, the piles of Very Important Things With No Official Home grew exponentially until it looked like Monica Geller's secret shame closet.
We are now in the process gutting the entire space, and if you have seen it in person, it looks SO different now, even amidst the dirt and debris and random stray nails. There are boards everywhere where walls have come down, doors taken out, and the Room of Doom is wide open. It's not even a room anymore. There has been zero beautifying done yet, but already, the space is more grown up.
This is all in prep for adding tanning bed rooms (we bought some commercial tanning beds - crazy!) and to form a more mature and welcoming retail space. Whoa. I'm becoming official. And it's all because of Joe. That man has been working his tail off. (And that's too bad, because I rather liked his tail.) There was one morning that he woke up at 3:30am and decided to go in and work on the space. And another night where he stayed there until 5:45am working on it. He just barrels through and doesn't complain. I, on the other hand, do not function with weird sleeping hours like that. I'm likely to start acting like Dan Aykroyd as Louis Winthorpe III in Trading Places, when he was betrayed and destitute and walking around in a Santa suit, grunting at people and stealing hunks of meat from the holiday buffet and hiding them in his beard. It finally got to him that Billy Ray Valentine stole his life and his butler and brought prostitutes into his home for a party, and his only was friend was also a prostitute (because she would never lower herself to STEAL) and he just cracked, man. That right there, that's me when I don't get enough sleep.
Today is the worst day in terms of debris, so I actually had to make of those annoying door signs saying "pardon our dust". It's not clever OR cute, and I tried to think of a better way to say it than that, and truth is, you can't. Because what the sign really means is "Please do not trip over a two-by-four and start gushing blood from your shin because most likely it will get infected and we don't care to pay for the treatment you will need to clear it up". But that might deter folks from actually entering the building. So with great reluctance, I typed WATCH YOUR STEP (and pardon the mess.) See? See how I changed the word "dust" to "mess"? That took about 45 minutes to come up with that one.
Here are some photos!
From the front door:
The far back corner (northeast corner):
The North wall:
The Ex Room of Doom:
So accomplishing the above things has been a source of pride and happiness as each new item or change occurred to make the studio better. Husband has had his sights set on fancying up the downstairs lobby, however, since the day we laid eyes on it. But since there were bigger fish to fry in this warehouse space-turned-dance studio, like the mirrors and stereo equipment, etc., we basically achieved the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig as far as the lobby was concerned.
Upon moving in, all of the lobby walls were faced with white pegboard, and there was a bare concrete floor. The ceiling was sheeted with black plastic. People often asked if it was comprised of lawn and leaf bags. (No.) So, we painted the floor an aqua color, and the pegboard walls a cocoa brown. Well, it was supposed to be a cocoa brown. It ended up looking more mauve and I have hated it ever since. Mauve. Brown-mauve.
There was this little storage area under the stairs that lead up to the studio, and once upon a time, Husband used it as his office. He tried painting it bright yellow to combat the effects of not having windows. In the end, it just served to contribute to his Always On A Computer pallor and he moved out. The natural evolution of that room, of course, would be to become a catchall room for my crap. Costumes, files, craft supplies, books, old phones (???) and a family of raccoons. Seriously, this room was dangerous. I used to go in there to change my clothes, but slowly over time, the piles of Very Important Things With No Official Home grew exponentially until it looked like Monica Geller's secret shame closet.
We are now in the process gutting the entire space, and if you have seen it in person, it looks SO different now, even amidst the dirt and debris and random stray nails. There are boards everywhere where walls have come down, doors taken out, and the Room of Doom is wide open. It's not even a room anymore. There has been zero beautifying done yet, but already, the space is more grown up.
This is all in prep for adding tanning bed rooms (we bought some commercial tanning beds - crazy!) and to form a more mature and welcoming retail space. Whoa. I'm becoming official. And it's all because of Joe. That man has been working his tail off. (And that's too bad, because I rather liked his tail.) There was one morning that he woke up at 3:30am and decided to go in and work on the space. And another night where he stayed there until 5:45am working on it. He just barrels through and doesn't complain. I, on the other hand, do not function with weird sleeping hours like that. I'm likely to start acting like Dan Aykroyd as Louis Winthorpe III in Trading Places, when he was betrayed and destitute and walking around in a Santa suit, grunting at people and stealing hunks of meat from the holiday buffet and hiding them in his beard. It finally got to him that Billy Ray Valentine stole his life and his butler and brought prostitutes into his home for a party, and his only was friend was also a prostitute (because she would never lower herself to STEAL) and he just cracked, man. That right there, that's me when I don't get enough sleep.
Today is the worst day in terms of debris, so I actually had to make of those annoying door signs saying "pardon our dust". It's not clever OR cute, and I tried to think of a better way to say it than that, and truth is, you can't. Because what the sign really means is "Please do not trip over a two-by-four and start gushing blood from your shin because most likely it will get infected and we don't care to pay for the treatment you will need to clear it up". But that might deter folks from actually entering the building. So with great reluctance, I typed WATCH YOUR STEP (and pardon the mess.) See? See how I changed the word "dust" to "mess"? That took about 45 minutes to come up with that one.
Here are some photos!
From the front door:
The far back corner (northeast corner):
The North wall:
The Ex Room of Doom:
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
There must be bats in my belfry.
Another conversation with Oliver...
Oliver: Mama, I want to tell a story for you.
Me: Okay! I'm listening! Go!
Oliver: Well... you say "Pick one".
Me: Got it. Pick one!
Oliver (shrugging his shoulders up and holding out his empty hands): Um, I don't HAVE any stories!
He looked at me like I was insane. As if I had asked him if he still had the sweater for my pet iguana in his pocket instead of asking him to "pick" a story that HE wanted to tell me in the first place. What iguana?
Exactly.
Oliver: Mama, I want to tell a story for you.
Me: Okay! I'm listening! Go!
Oliver: Well... you say "Pick one".
Me: Got it. Pick one!
Oliver (shrugging his shoulders up and holding out his empty hands): Um, I don't HAVE any stories!
He looked at me like I was insane. As if I had asked him if he still had the sweater for my pet iguana in his pocket instead of asking him to "pick" a story that HE wanted to tell me in the first place. What iguana?
Exactly.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Check up Year Three
Today we took Oliver to the doctor for his Three Year Checkup.
Stats: 34 pounds, 37.5 inches tall.
Do you HEAR me? My kid is gaining on me. He will be as tall as me by the time he's five years old. Doc says he's gonna be a tall kid, at least as tall as his dad, but that was his safe guess. He said probably taller.
Next came the hospital gown. I do not care to see my beloved child in a hospital gown. Yes, it had Taz and Tweety and Bugs Bunny on it, and it was to give our doctor easier access to scope Oliver out for whether or not we were beating him, but it gave me the creeps. We pretended it was a cape, though, and all was well.
Then he got a flu shot, which was a nasal spray. One up each nostril. And just when his eyes were watering and he was recovering from that surprise, *stick!*, he gets a shot in the arm.
Joe had no idea Oliver was getting shots today, so he instantly decides to take Oliver to St. Cupcake for a Bravery Reward. (I was pretty brave, too, so I got myself a cupcake. Okay, two cupcakes.)
But then, THEN, I decide we need to go to the grocery store today. And do you know what my husband did? He did this:
"Hey - I am making a list for the grocery store. Is there anything I should put on there?"
"I am eliminating all junk food. I am tired of Oliver eating like POO.If you need anything special, we can hide it in the attic."
This from the dude who got his kid a fatty, sugary treat for a lousy shot in the arm. A shot he doesn't even remember he got. And the statement was made to a woman who already had the following on her list:
cottage cheese
apples
bananas
activia yogurt
milk
bread
eggs
But according to Joe, my list probably had things like frozen pizza, hot pockets, ding dongs and Mountain Dew on it. You might be able to imagine how I wished I had a cast iron skillet and how I also wished that you could G Skillet instead of G Chat over the internet.
Maybe I will check the attic. Apparently, I will be keeping all of my pork rinds up there from now on.
Stats: 34 pounds, 37.5 inches tall.
Do you HEAR me? My kid is gaining on me. He will be as tall as me by the time he's five years old. Doc says he's gonna be a tall kid, at least as tall as his dad, but that was his safe guess. He said probably taller.
Next came the hospital gown. I do not care to see my beloved child in a hospital gown. Yes, it had Taz and Tweety and Bugs Bunny on it, and it was to give our doctor easier access to scope Oliver out for whether or not we were beating him, but it gave me the creeps. We pretended it was a cape, though, and all was well.
Then he got a flu shot, which was a nasal spray. One up each nostril. And just when his eyes were watering and he was recovering from that surprise, *stick!*, he gets a shot in the arm.
Joe had no idea Oliver was getting shots today, so he instantly decides to take Oliver to St. Cupcake for a Bravery Reward. (I was pretty brave, too, so I got myself a cupcake. Okay, two cupcakes.)
But then, THEN, I decide we need to go to the grocery store today. And do you know what my husband did? He did this:
"Hey - I am making a list for the grocery store. Is there anything I should put on there?"
"I am eliminating all junk food. I am tired of Oliver eating like POO.If you need anything special, we can hide it in the attic."
This from the dude who got his kid a fatty, sugary treat for a lousy shot in the arm. A shot he doesn't even remember he got. And the statement was made to a woman who already had the following on her list:
cottage cheese
apples
bananas
activia yogurt
milk
bread
eggs
But according to Joe, my list probably had things like frozen pizza, hot pockets, ding dongs and Mountain Dew on it. You might be able to imagine how I wished I had a cast iron skillet and how I also wished that you could G Skillet instead of G Chat over the internet.
Maybe I will check the attic. Apparently, I will be keeping all of my pork rinds up there from now on.
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