Full day of panties with only one accident. This is after months of her yelling and/or crying if we asked her to use the potty. *cross fingers*
It’s a process
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Having trouble settling.
I have a rather spectacular amount of work I need to do and very little motivation/energy to do it. There are a few problems that are intersecting here to make this situation harder. Shanna is… even more festive than she was for interfering in my working. Woo toddlerhood! I am an extrovert so I really thrive on being around people, but the physical load involved in going out somewhere and managing Shanna kind of eliminates the benefit of being around people. This blows.
So I would really love it if someone would come over and talk to me while I do work in my house. I feel way more motivated to work that way. I don’t particularly need help, although there are particular chores I wouldn’t turn down help with, but mostly I would just love the adult company. 🙂
Oh, and dear god I need to get some of that meat out of my freezer. Please contact me if you have any interest in the grass fed beef. Laura isn’t so thrilled about storing my 1/4 until this 1/4 is sold. (I don’t blame her in the slightest but I really max out at 1/2 a cow in my freezer.)
Toddler ‘tude
Some of Shanna’s recent amusing displays of attempted control over the universe:
(When you are trying to do something she doesn’t like, say brushing her hair) “I’m not interested in that.”
(When you are trying to get her to get in the car and she doesn’t want to) “I don’t think that is a good plan.”
(When you are trying to get her to eat healthier food instead of sugar) “Actually, I think sugar would be a good idea.”
Recently we were playing with her little kitchen and she made a plate and I asked if it was for me, she said: “Actually, this plate is for Daddy. So you can’t have it.” She did eventually make a plate for me too.
She now tells Noah that she doesn’t want him to go to work.
At random times she will tell you with great emphasis that shots suck and she doesn’t like them.
If I am grumbling in traffic she calls out, “What a douchebag!” I have to struggle not to giggle.
She is developing strong opinions about clothes. She varies on whether she wants pants or dresses, she loves shorts. She likes polka dots. She is willing to wear pink if it has a message she likes (she has a pink shirt that says “You are my sunshine” and that’s one of her favorite songs) but overall she’s not into pink. I confess bittersweet sadness about this. On one hand I’ve worked pretty hard to ensure she doesn’t feel shoved into pink. On the other hand… it’s my favorite color. 🙂 Polka dots are just the bomb.
She walks up to people in random public places and announces, “I am Shanna! I am cute!”
When she wants one of us to leave a room we are in (usually one blocked by a gate) she says, “I have an owie! I need kisses!”
And every single exclamation point is pronounced. It’s cute.
I am trying like mad to get her to stop spitting in the house. Ugh. I don’t know why she picked up this habit but it is driving me nuts.
And last but not least: toddler nursing is the payback for the early hard sucky days. I love having her cuddle in and tell me, “Mmmmm boobies. Milk is better than Jamba Juice!” before she launches herself at my breast. It’s awesome. <3
Good stuff
Do you know what is awesome? Being a grown up and working out issues. It’s… kind of like getting an awesome bavarian cream in the middle of a donut you didn’t think had filling. Completely fabulous.
Meat!
So I picked up the cow yesterday (that was with the help of two wonderful ladies). I have 1/4 of a cow to sell. 😀 This big ass chunk of meat is 1/2 ground beef and then a mix of all the cuts in a cow. I would love to set up some appointments for people to come shopping in my freezer. 🙂
As awesome as I anticipated.
My sister ran up and kissed me on the cheek and said, “I at least still love you.” (Cause of course I don’t love her.)
My mother thanked me for coming in a pretty sucktastic tone of voice. (I let my mother down so why wouldn’t I let my niece down?)
My uncle told me that I should come to his house at least once a week because ‘the women work more when you show up’. (I totally want to harass the women in my family to do more work for the lazy piece of shit.)
My niece’s father repeatedly groped my belly and kept making really strong sexual innuendo about how pregnant chicks are hot; this was overt enough to make Noah uncomfortable. (This guy tried to fuck me when I was eleven.)
My cousins didn’t really speak to me. (They are pissed that I offered to host Christmas so my 70 something year old aunt didn’t have to do all the work.)
Luckily I got to see two awesome women who show me what family actually is earlier in the day. I’m really grateful that I have such an amazing chosen family.
Random weekending
I love getting to spend three days in a row with Noah. <3 Mostly we puttered and got house chores done but we had a few breaks for fun. Two things in particular: we took Shanna to Build a Bear because she has often expressed that she wants a bear that is -just hers-. All of her stuffed animals are hand me downs and I think she is tired of hearing that 'x' thing was Mommy's or Aunt Jenny's or Daddy's or... :D So she picked a blue bear and named him Blue. Alrighty then. :) And she did animal role play for the first time. I thought that was pretty cool and noteworthy. She picked a duck, specifically the anthropomorphic Elmer from The Sissy Duckling which has been one of her favorite longer books since she was too small to sit through a long book. 🙂
Pregnancy is all festive and such. I feel ginormous. As I see pictures of other people who are at about the same stage of pregnancy as me I feel confirmed in feeling ginormous. Why am I so much bigger than average?! Oy. Still not gaining weight. I’m currently reading Bradley’s, Husband-Coached Childbirth and it has some good pointers once you wade through all the obnoxious Christian references.
Today is going to be way too busy. I’m tired already. There will be over 100 miles of driving today. Ugh. But I’ll get to see my niece graduate from high school. That will be a good thing. I’m really glad she made it.
This is why I think I need a month of not leaving the house.
How’s that for a subject? Yesterday I went and spent time with my cousin. She is getting ready to move back to Kentucky and I won’t see her for many years. It was nice to see her as at this point in time she is the bio-family member I am the closest to and that I like the most. Which is kind of sad because I have distinctly mixed feelings about her. (She’s nice and she means well, but she is a serious whiner and she’s rather dumb.) We walked around downtown Los Gatos for a few hours because the house just isn’t kid proof. They have a house full of sick old people and they have medication bottles everywhere combined with the fact that they have a bunch of animals and the house is dark and dim and gross because no one cleans very well. Not the best place for a curious toddler in my opinion.
We walked for probably 2.5 hours. Not that long, but we did cover a fair bit of distance. Today I am totally freakin wasted. I have no energy at all. I have this long list of chores I want to be working on but I just can’t bring myself to work. 🙁 I need to pick up a friend at the airport in an hour and a half and I don’t think I’ll get anything done before then other than eating lunch. Ugh.
I want many days of hanging out in my house so I can rest and do some freakin work.
Dear Lazyweb
So I’ve been limping along sans working laptop for a while and it displeases Shanna mightily because I go in the office and she can’t paw at me. ha!
The things I want from a laptop are pretty simple:
very light
able to be dropped, probably repeatedly
decent battery life
I web browse and chat (IM). I run itunes and occasionally watch movies but I really don’t need a big screen given that most of the time I watch the movie up in the corner while I continue to IM and web browse. 🙂 I don’t program or do anything else processor heavy. I’ve used a Mac for the past few years because I got used to the free one I got from work and just continued after that. I’m not part of any computer religious wars and don’t really give a shit about them. I just want hella sturdy and functional while being light. 🙂
Any tips?
Slightly delayed schmoop
Yesterday my daughter turned two. At this moment in time I am going to do a little babbling on about her. If you dislike parental bragging, skip this entry. If you are just not really into kids, skip this entry. I get to do this every so often. 🙂
Meat!
Apparently my pickup date is June 1st at 3:30 pm in San Jose. Would anyone be willing to be there with me so that I definitely don’t have to lift anything? 🙂
Because some folks aren’t on facebook.
In today’s edition of “My Cute Kid”
So Shanna’s birthday is on Monday. We are having the aunts and uncles over for dinner on Sunday. I asked her if she wanted a cake for her birthday and she was completely adamant that she wanted cupcakes. Fair enough. Then we get down to that eternal battle… vanilla or chocolate. I tried to talk her into vanilla by explaining that vanilla is my favorite. She categorically refused to consider not having chocolate. She explained to me that it is Daddy’s favorite. Right. I can see how the wind blows around here.
I got started with the process while she was still napping. Basically what I did was premeasure everything into small bowls so that she could do all the combining herself. She was really excited about doing that and was looking forward to it all day. When she woke up she came out and we got started in earnest. She did a fabulous job. I was quite impressed. She didn’t grab at anything (one of our more frequent counter issues) and she was extremely careful when she poured. In fact she did substantially better than me because I got flour everywhere. When that happened she told me in a very stern tone of voice, “Mommy! You need to be careful!” I was torn between glaring at her and giggling so I gave her a very tiny dirty look while I smiled. “Yes honey, I need to be more careful. You are right.”
When I finished putting the batter in the cupcake shells she acted like she died and went to heaven. She got to lick the beater and the bowl. I think this is her favorite part. 🙂 Now the cupcakes are in the oven and a friend is making me vanilla cupcakes this weekend because I whined on facebook. Hilarious and awesome. Yay!
Tomorrow I get to put the finishing touches on Shanna’s play kitchen. There is no doubt in my mind that she is ready for it. I think that her helping in the kitchen is going to expand tremendously at this point because she is far more mature about it than I thought.
ETA: I totally forgot to say the super cute part! I often absentmindedly sing, “There Are No Cats In America” from An American Tail. Shanna is now wandering around singing “There are no cats in Mary with cheese”. I can’t stop giggling. 🙂
In non-cranky news
Dear god I’m huge. Getting around is getting difficult. But! Baby is happy and healthy and that’s awesome.
I am going over to Alex’s to paint Shanna’s kitchen today. I will hopefully get that bit done today so that we can finish the rest of it very quickly cause uhhh her birthday is Monday. Oops. 🙂
Holy shit. Her birthday is Monday. Expect tons of schmoop coming about that.
May has been fucking psychotic and I think that June is going to be a month of staying home and pidddling around with getting the house ready. I won’t want to have to do that at the last minute and there is a lot that could use adjusting before the baby comes. I can feel nesting hitting rather hard.
Well howdy
No wonder I’ve had a few people call/IM me to see if I’m ok. I don’t skip a week on lj very often without saying, “HEY I’M GOING OUT OF TOWN”. Uhm… yeah.
So I’m still feeling fairly depressed. It’s not fun. I’m trying to deal with the individual issues as they come up. Lots of crying. But I’m not the kind of depressed where I feel suicidal or like cutting so I consider this pretty manageable. The therapy appointment is for the 28th cause that’s when she gets back from a conference.
I’m exhausted and fussy. My house is a complete and total mess and I’m having a really hard time caring. I have way too much shit to get done and I will only be home for a whole day one day for the rest of the month. I’m really really tired. I feel like my ambition is maybe not at an all time low but it’s pretty pathetic.
I’ve had a great visit with my midwife this week and a really good conversation last night with a friend wherein she basically said, “Yeah we aren’t having issues so it’d be good if you stopped thinking I hate you.” (only minor paraphrasing, I swear.) It’s a really good thing that people are so patient with me. I appreciate it lots. I also appreciate that regardless of my depth of current self loathing my friends continue to whack me in the head and say, “Yeah, well I like you; so shut up.” It’s all useful and shit.
And I have the coolest midwife ever. Completely supportive and awesome. No weight gain but my uterus is now measuring several weeks ahead even though I’ve been exactly on target so far. I’m working on my issues around childbirth and I’m pretty sure I’m hiring a doula. There is a particular chick I’ve known/been talking to for years whom I really like and that seems like a good plan. I really really really need a level of support this time I didn’t get last time. I’m all kinds of emotionally delicate. It’s kind of funny that I was physically fucked during my pregnancy with Shanna but I was 100% confident in how I would handle labor. This time I’m not awesome physically but head and shoulders better than last time and I’m completely freaked about labor. Brains are weird.
I hate this so much.
At some point in the last couple of days I’ve realized that some of my recent flare ups of moodiness are really because I’m depressed. I hate doing this. I hate feeling this way. I hate the complete overwhelming feelings of helplessness and being defeated and useless and worthless. I feel so very alone.
Called the therapist I saw after the miscarriages. I’m waiting for a call back. I’m so tired of being broken.
the drama
My sister called and I rolled it to voicemail. I really don’t want to have a conversation with her before my niece’s graduation because she will make the whole day hell.
She wants to know what is going on because I am ignoring her. She also wants to know why I blocked her on facebook and what is going on with my pregnancy.
I…
This sucks. 🙁
Body changes
I reach a stage in pregnancy where I have zero interest in having any clothing touch my skin. I’m there. I’m actually thrilled that I am going to be in late pregnancy during summer. I really really wanted to go out today in a lycra tube top and a loose skirt. That sounds like the appropriate amount of material in contact with my body. But the high is going to be 62 and there will be scattered showers. Damnit. I’m not quite warm blooded enough for that combo. Life, she is unfair. 🙂
Home again, home again, jiggity jig
Home. Tired. Acid reflux sucks. The new battery for the G4 didn’t fix the problem so still no laptop.
And uhm, I’m going to go sit on the couch and be a slug. Cheers.
Oy.
What I have done today:
Put our blankets and pillows in the car.
Eaten two meals.
Played on the internet.
Taken a bath.
And I can barely keep my eyes open. I’m totally wasted. Yeah, it’s time to go home. Luckily Jenny is in the air right now. I pick her up from the airport in ~3 hours and 40 minutes. She will get some time to stretch and then she will start the drive home. I owe her big time.