Archive for the ‘Everyday Stuff’ Category
We’ve had some kinda really bad news this week. Most of which I can’t talk about here since the information doesn’t belong to me. I’m just not happy about it. At all.
We’ve had sorta good news in that we finally got our homestudy sorted out and sent our immigration paperwork to be approved for the eighty-twelfth billionth time. We started the homestudy renewal in July, btw.
We had a really surprising phone call with some news I don’t quite know what to do with. Good? Bad? I don’t know yet.
I realized I’ve been to the doctor more times since I turned 40 than I went in the 39 years before that. I came to this realization while sitting in my neuro’s office getting 30ish shots of botox in my head, jaw, and neck after I waited in a completely empty waiting room for over an hour – leaving me lots of time to be introspective about how you really do fall apart after 40. Oh yeah, and my doc thinks that popping noise in my neck might just be a touch of arthritis setting in. Thanks for making me feel even older, doc.
Ava’s having some behavior issues at school that are just wearing me out. There are two main challenges: The first is that she’s extremely strong willed and doesn’t want to listen to her teachers – so she just doesn’t sometimes – and the second is a personality conflict between Ava and another kid that’s causing some minor physical aggression. I’m just about at the point where I want to say just let ‘em take it out onto the playground and work it out between themselves because I’m, frankly, getting tired of the dreaded blue note showing up in her take home folder. It’s funny because these two tiny (the smallest two in the class) girls are clearly struggling for alpha status. The other little girl tells people all the time she’s a “Barbie Girl.” I tell Ava that she could end this by making it clear to everyone that she’s a Warrior Princess (think Mulan) and this should end the whole argument since everyone knows Mulan could kick Barbie’s rear end with one hand tied behind her back.
I am joking, somewhat. It’s just been really difficult in trying to figure out the right balance of disciplining Ava for misbehavior at school (that she’s already been punished for there) while understanding (not that I’m justifying) that much of what she is doing is developmentally appropriate for her age group. She’s definitely not the only one who isn’t a “good” listener but this frequent catfighting (kitten fighting?) thing is kind of shocking/annoying/trying my patience. Besides, her behavior as of late has really shown us that we have no freaking clue as to what we are doing as parents. Seriously, none. At all.
So, what DO you do? We tried putting her to bed early (really early) as a punishment since it cuts her time down with us, which is also a pretty awful punishment for me since I miss her and want to spend time with her – well, mostly…except for Tuesday, Wednesday, and especially Thursday of this week. But an early bedtime really isn’t that effective as a punishment when she cries for a few minutes and then promptly falls asleep and stays that way all night. I mean, YAY for sleeping, of course – but it clearly wasn’t so much of a win considering our original intent.
1. The way Ava says “I loves you, Mama” 10 times or more a day and gives at least twice that many hugs.
2. That she opened her own juice box and goldfish bag all by herself yesterday.
3. Listening to her sing – loudly – as we walked through BJ’s warehouse: “I love my Mama, she’s so awesome, my best friend forever, I love Mama.” There was no way I was going to shush that song even if she was singing it at tip top volume.
4. How she still clings to my legs and hides her face when she’s slightly unsure of a new situation…but only for a minute and then she usually jumps right in.
5. That she runs to the windows and waves to me every single day when I drop her off at daycare.
6. That she called me a “fashion phenom” last week. For the record I was wearing a Sesame Street t-shirt which, I guess, is the height of toddler fashion.
7. The stranger that approached J (while he was wearing his uniform), Ava, and me at Costco (what is up with us and warehouse shopping?) and shook J’s hand while thanking him for his service – then turned to me AND Ava and thanked us both for our service as well. I nearly cried. It’s nice to know that someone recognizes the role that military spouses and children play.
8. That she can write her first and last name at just over 4 years old (along with Mama, too). She also just signed her first card – love, Ava – all by herself. She can’t do her middle names yet but I blame that on us for giving her so many.
9. How much she loves gymnastics and goes at it unhesitatingly. That girl can work the bars and the rings like nobody’s business and nearly gave her mama a heart attack when she took on the big beam by herself – dismount and all.
10. How my baby still needs a 2 hour nap each day and 11 hours at night and loveslovesloves curling up with us prior to sleep to tell us what her favorite part of the day was. Today her favorite was vomit – which she did copiously after stuffing way too much pizza into her mouth at dinner. I suggested puke might not have been her favorite and she changed it to “when Mama sits for a minute” which is when I sit in her room and read until she falls asleep. Made me happy that she still wants me to “sit for just a minute.” 
And a bonus:
11. How she answers her own questions – something like this: “Mama can I have some candy <insert toy here if you’d like> no not right now maybe later.” Alllll one sentence with no punctuation or hesitation. Apparently in her world it seems we say no a lot so she often just answers herself. LOL. Makes my job a bit easier sometimes.
January and February (so far) have been rough.
Let’s see:
Ava has had two separate doctor visits and two courses of antibiotics.
J has had a doctor visit (unheard of for him) and one course of antibiotics.
I have had several doctor appointments, one of which culminated in an appointment in March for eye surgery (a repair – not anything cool like LASIK) and another that ended up with an injection of steroids directly into my ear in a desperate attempt to counteract the hearing loss and tinnitus resulting from my ear infection last October.
We’ve all been ill – pretty much constantly since the first of the year. Colds, fevers, ear and sinus infections, conjunctivitis? Yep, we’ve had ‘em all. J is almost well at the moment (post antibiotics) and Ava and I are at the tail end of yet another cold. I suspect we’ll all be sick again by Monday.
On top of the sick there is work. J’s schedule shifted so Ava is spending a little more time at daycare than before, which is something that none of us is happy about. Add his school schedule (two nights a week) to this and my free time is basically nil since neither of us has anything close to a 40 hour a week limit anyway. Despite the shortage of hours in the week, Ava still has to eat dinner and take baths and we have to play/read/hang out so there go a few more hours each day. The best part of my day, truth be told. And bedtime? We’re having a bit of anxiety at bedtime so I end up sitting with her until she goes to sleep. It’s a litle bit of downtime for me honestly, but there goes another hour.
Oh wait. I forgot her social life. There are random birthday parties, dance class on Wednesdays, library story time on Thursdays, and gymnastics on Saturdays. We try to fit in the museum whenever we can and of course, we mustn’t forget the Chinese New Year celebrations (still not done) as well.
Did I mention that we have animals to take care of? Three dogs and two cats to be exact. They have to be fed and walked and bathed and loved on, too.
Let me also remind you that we are a transplanted military family so we have no immediate or extended family support system here. I do not have anyone that I can just drop Ava off with for a quick trip to the grocery store – she is with me or J every minute that she’s not at daycare. Of course we have friends we could call on in a pinch but that would happen on an emergency basis only. Frankly, we want her with us even if grocery shopping with a 3 year old takes twice as long as it would otherwise.
So – that’s why the posts have been sparse of late. I do appreciate the folks who have stopped by and wondered where we’re at and hopefully you’ll hang out a bit longer until things even out a little bit here. At this point I’m just hoping for (am desperate for!!) a non-runny nose and 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep for a couple of days in a row.
Wouldn’t touch ‘em last year.
Couldn’t keep her out of ‘em this year.
She started small. In fact, having her gather up her own pile of leaves, one by one, kept her busy while we (and by we, I mean J) moved some overgrown azaleas from the front yard to the back.
(Note the Dapper Snapper on the back of her pants – best invention EVER. When she puts on pants and they’re too big – which is often – she always asks for her ‘safety belt.’)
She’d pile them up and then toss them about…
just waiting for Dad to finish up so he could sweep the yard. And oh, how (im)patiently she waited for him. She sat with me on the front porch and excitedly screamed his name every time he passed by, all the while waving wildly, until he had a couple of humongous piles of leaves.
There was no hesitation.
Takeoff:
The Approach:
Crash Landing:
Do I even need to tell you how much she loved it?????
Especially being covered up with leaves. Asking Daddy to do it again and again and again.
And again.
What a blast she had.
As did we!
I am so lucky to have these two marvelous people in my life and to share these moments with them.
We’re having our Thanksgiving potluck at work tomorrow and I signed up to bring dessert. My brother makes a mean peanut butter pie so I thought I’d give it a shot by googling some recipes and figuring out what might work.
I made this one:
Ingredients
- 1 (8 ounce) package PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened (I used low fat)
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter (also reduced fat)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1 (8 ounce) tub COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided (and once again, low fat)
- OREO pie shell
Directions
- Beat cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar and vanilla with mixer until blended. Stir in 1-1/2 cups COOL WHIP; spoon into crust.
- Freeze 4 hours or until firm. Remove from freezer 30 min. before serving. Let stand at room temperature to soften slightly. Top with remaining COOL WHIP.
I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out since I ran out of regular peanut butter about half a cup in and had to substitute whipped peanut butter. I upped the amount a bit since I figured the whipped was at least half air and I needed to compensate. Planning ahead when cooking is clearly not my forté but I will say that the remnants from the bowl were pretty darn good so there might be hope yet. Oh, and I’m not planning on freezing it either. I’ll let it set up in the refrigerator overnight.
I also discovered that when one owns a giganto Kitchen-Aid mixer it is probably better to use that when creaming peanut butter instead of using the wimpy little hand mixer. Said mixer, by the way, works a whole lot better once you actually plug it in. Guess that’s why it’s called an ELECTRIC mixer.
In case it’s not clear from my post, I am not the primary cook in the family. That duty and honor is best left to J (most of the time – maybe not so much tonight when he decided to make about 40 gallons of chili in a 5-gallon crock pot).
(And frankly, he’s not very good at grits either. Poor little deprived New Yorker that he is.)