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See how cute all those little “z”s are?  It’s not cute when your husband snores so loudly that you hear it in your dream and wake up.  Sometimes it’s a noise in my dream, like a car engine, or someone talking, but sometimes it’s just the snore sound.  I hate spring allergies.

Oh, and in case you are keeping score at home–I have bangs again.  I know that I had sworn I never would have bangs again, and that I was growing my hair out to all one length just like Angelina Jolie’s, but my hair looked like crap like that.  Just crap.  So, I’m not firing the people responsible for protecting the front of my hair.  The bangs are cute. 

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

We’re going on vacation next weekend.  It’s the first time we’re leaving the baby for more than a few hours.  This weekend, our sitter, my niece, is coming over to practice spending the night with a baby that doesn’t sleep.  I’m so stressed out I can hardly think straight.

To add to everything, we not only have a cat with a broken tail, we have a cat with diabetes who needs twice daily shots.  The shots have to be given with food, so you have to try and make her eat.  She’s 18 years old, and sometimes forgets what food is.  Also, we have yet another cat who eats anything left out.  So, we have to feed him locked away in the bathroom while the other cats eat.  Then, we have to put any uneaten food away, and lock him in the bathroom later on and offer the food again.  Lather, rinse, repeat, until broken tail finally eats, and diabetes gets her shots.  It’s maddening.

At least the dog is off to stay with a friend–I hope, because he hasn’t emailed me back.  His roommate says it’s on, but I’m nervous about it.  The dog is a complete houdini, who runs off alot, so I’m worried about that.  He ran off *just 2 nights ago*, but we found him that day.  He booked out the door that doesn’t shut right and I didn’t even notice he was gone for half an hour.  It was raining, and the baby’s bedtime, and I walked around in the rain for a while, leaving my son’s bathtime up to the men, and then my husband drove around and finally found him.  Now he needs a bath.  Well, he needed a bath 2 days ago, now I’m just used to the smell of dirty dog (who sleeps in my bed).

I also need a hair cut/color, a mani pedi, to buy a ton of products in 3 ounce or less sizes because we are just carrying on our bags, to clean the house, to shop for groceries and to write up a chart of my son’s/the cats’ schedules.  I have only enough vacay at work to leave on Friday.  I’m seriously freaking out.  I have to take at least another half day using sick time, the last of my sick time.

And, I don’t want to go.  I don’t want to leave my kid.  I only see him a few hours a day as it is.  The weekend is the only good time I have, and it’s still limited because I have to clean and run errands and do all the stuff I can’t do during the week.  Every minute is precious and I feel I’m wasting it by going on vacation.

But the sleep, the child-free, monitor-free bliss of hotel sleep.  I’m torn in two by everything I’m feeling–the stress, the fears of leaving my son/pets and not being there if anything goes wrong, the excitement of going on vacation (and sleeping) and the horrible, crushing guilt of it all.  Lord, save me from the guilt of having a dirty weekend in Vegas.  Let me realize it’s the best thing for me and for my kid. 

Cat. Tail. Broke.

On Friday, I was putting the kid to bed (ha!) when there was a crash from the first floor.  I saw a blurry streak of fur run past the nursery door.  After getting the boy off to sleep, for however short a time, I went downstairs.  Nothing was knocked over or broken.

There was no sign of the cat, Miss Fiona, until Saturday night.  I got up to go the the bathroom and she was behind the toilet.  For such a prissy, fussy little thing, well, being near a toilet is just unheard of.  I pet her, and my husband carried her upstairs to her food bowl.  Sunday morning, same thing, behind the toilet. 

I carried her out to the kitchen, and she jumped up on the kitchen counter and stayed there, not moving.  That’s when I noticed that what especially wasn’t moving was her tail.  A call to the emergency vet, a long drive to the emergency vet, and an x-ray later and her tail, it is officially broken.

She gets to keep it for now, but if it’s not healed in a month then she has to have it amputated.  It’s extra sad, because she really works that tail.  It’s very expressive and to see it limp and touching the ground (she even stood on it at the vet’s) is just heartbreaking.  The vet bill, especially coming two weeks before our vacation that we can’t afford, is also heartbreaking. 

Dear Lost, it’s not you it’s me

I have broken up with Lost.  Yup.  Splitsville, baby.  It’s all over but the shoutin’ (and the ice cream eatin’).

Let’s face it, Lost has always been the abusive boyfriend of TV shows.  You spend hours and hours analyzing your relationship, going over everything he said, how he looked, boring your friends with ages of pointless discussion after which the dude just throws you a curveball.  Yeah, yeah, he leaves you hanging, sends mixed messages, doesn’t call when he says he will, does completely stupid things and then, every once and a while, does something completely perfect (The Constant, I am referring to you!) and you fall in love all over again.

But those perfect moments are occurring too far apart for me.  Most of the time, I fast forward through the show–passing over Jack’s “smell the fart” acting and mopey, dopey face, pausing only on shirtless Sawyer or shirtless Jin or shirtless Sayeed.  Oh yes, the sex is still good!  Sometimes, I delete the whole thing off of Tivo and just read a recap.  I don’t have room in my life to waste an hour hating every. single. character. and trying to keep up with every dumbass choice they make.  I’m not spending another second playing Highlights Hidden Picture with the smoke monster (honestly, how lame is a smoke monster?  that whispers!  ooooohhhhh it’s Ouiji board spooky!).  I’m not keeping up with stupid fake websites for companies that don’t exist.  I just don’t care anymore.  I hope, hope, hope they are all dead, or in Jack’s coma brain, or something.  I’ll find out when the show’s over.  From TWOP.

So, I’m out there, dating other shows, looking for Mr. Right.  It’s tough, you know?  I don’t think I’ll ever get over Buffy/Angel.  I keep running back to them every year or so, and having the occasional dirty weekend with Firefly or Farscape.  BSG, well, he makes me cry too much–damn EMO drummer.  Dr. Who?  Torchwood?  No depth–all fast cars and hotness.  And Bones?  Well, he’s only around because he looks like Angel.  Desperate Housewives is too girly–totally metrosexual and I think he might be gay.  Ditto Ugly Betty. 

If you’ve got anybody to fix me up with, just let me know.  He must be complex, but with a sense of humor.  Sexy, but deep.  Well read and versed in pop culture.  Not too young, not too old and not too real, either.  I swear to be loyal and true, until he jumps the shark and starts to suck. 

UGH!

This weekend some dickweeds spraypainted “KKK” “SS” and other lovely stuff around my neighborhood.  I know that it’s probably kids.  And I know that it’s not *all* kids, but it’s so ignorant that I just want to move.

I don’t want my kid to be around racists, or to play Grand Theft Auto, or to spray paint anything.  But I know he will.  It’s my job to teach him to navigate this world and be a good person.  I just don’t think I’ll ever be ready to see my little boy grow up.

I hate nighttime

Last night I got about two hours of sleep.  My son, who has really been sleeping so much better since we started “sleep training” him, was up a lot.  Sometimes he needed me, but sometimes he went back to sleep on his own.  Either way, his crying woke me up.  Add to that springtime allergies and a snoring husband and it was an awful night.  Oh yes, and I had forgotten, the cat had somehow gotten shut out in the garage, and she was crying and crying.  I tried to find her a few times, but never thought to look outside!  I figured it out some time after 1 a.m. 

Nights at our house are such a crapshoot.  Take one bad sleeper who is prone to late night anxiety attacks and add snoring and a baby who is up all the time and there’s just no sleeping going on.  it’s gotten so that I hate going to bed.  I get so worried about my son, and I get stressed wondering what is going to happen, and I just can’t relax.  I’m so tired, but the fear of what the night might be like keeps me from going to bed.

It’s worse now that the babe really does sleep through the night most of the time.  When he was up every two hours, every night, you knew what was coming and could come up with a plan of action.  Now, he goes for days sleeping from 8:30 to 6 or even later, and then there will be a few days of up all night, and then back to sleeping through.  It’s maddening.

I will say, that we truly are teaching him to go back to sleep on his own, and that we only go and comfort him when he’s really worked up.  It’s making a difference, but we’re still not sleeping.  I don’t expect a kid to always sleep all night, and I know that there will be years of this, and worse! when he figures out how to get out of bed and crawl into mine, but I’m not sure how to deal with my new found night phobia. 

Step, step, thud.

The babe is really getting the walking down and in so doing is gaining confidence.  More confidence than skill.  My heart really cannot take all the falling.  He tries to go so fast, and carry so much stuff, and maneuver around, and he just falls all the time.

On Friday, when I picked him up from daycare, he had a huge scrape on his forehead.  They were even icing it down.  Then, in the few minutes it took for me to get all his stuff, he fell *again* and scraped up his nose.  I know all this is normal, but it’s just so scary.  Every fall I worry about his noggin.  He often just shrugs off even the biggest thuds, so when he does cry and need hugging, I get even more worried because I know it must have really hurt.

Today is the first day it’s warm enough to wear shorts, and now I get to worry about his head and his knees.  I should have just let him sweat it out in long pants!  He’ll be running soon, so I know I have to get over my fears, but I’m not so certain the mama will ever stop wanting to hug him with every fall.

Earthquake ‘08

This morning there was a tiny earthquake.  Maybe you’ve heard.  I had been awake for about 2 minutes, and was staring at the coffee pot trying to remember how to make coffee (like I do every morning) and one of the cats starting running up and down the stairs just freaking out, and stuff was jiggling, and my husband came running out of the bedroom in his underpants yelling, “was that an earthquake”, and our *other* cat had a seizure that took all my limited attention.

Yes, a seizure.  He sort of froze up and he felt like a taxidermed cat.  It was way scary, but he came to pretty quickly.  We were just freaking out, and the whole time I was saying, “Shhhh, don’t wake up the baby!” because that is my sole focus at all times when he is sleeping.  I was also thinking to myself, “God, please don’t let the power go out until I’ve made coffee.”

Then it was all over, and the cats normalized, and the dog finally came inside (I had let him out to go potty, and he wouldn’t come back in.  He’s the smartest of all of us.  The middle of the backyard is the only place where nothing could fall on you.), I made coffee AND, drumroll please, the baby didn’t wake up.

So, how was your morning?

Do you smell something?

So, I play the same game as many other parents.  The “Do you smell something?”  “I don’t smell anything.” game.  Yes, the diaper stink is wafting about, and everyone is ignoring it because no one wants to actually change the diaper.  Well, for the first time ever, the boy has diaper rash.  It’s horrible.  It appeared out of nowhere–no rash in the morning;  huge, ugly, scary rash by evening.  He doesn’t seem bothered by it, but it looks terribly red and painful.  We’re loading on the butt paste but it’s taken all week to even start to fade.

From now on, I smell something.

Ha Ha Parade

My son has made up a new game.  He walks around the room, doing this weird fake “ha ha” laugh.  It’s sort of Woody Woodpeckeresque.  I have no idea how or why he does this.  It is incredibly hilarious and not a little creepy.  He must have seen something on a cartoon, or maybe the “ha ha” part started off as a one year old’s version of singing??

When I went to get him from daycare, I walked in and one of the teachers looked at me and just went “ha ha, ha ha ha”.  Oh yes, he’s not just acting crazy at home, he’s wandering around the playroom “ha ha-ing”.

And, he has a string of other babies following him.

I’m in for a lifetime of embarassment with this one.