Saturday, September 27, 2008

Bling Bling Baby and some other stuff

I am once again wearing my wedding ring. I took it off shortly into my pregnancy because of weight gain and swelling. Gavin is almost a year old and ring didn't fit still, even though at one point I weighed 10 pounds less than when I got pregnant. What can I say? I have puffy sausage fingers. But now my puffy sausage fingers have a little bling.

It was with a mixture of defeat and eagerness that I took my beloved ring to the jeweler on Wednesday. I was eager to have my sparkly bauble back but at the same time I was waiving the white flag of defeat by having the ring re-sized (up 1.5 sizes).


My jeweler told me to take the ring to Ben Bridge or Zales in the mall because they have jewelers in the store and could fix it quickly. The Ben Bridge people told me it was going to cost $95 to have the ring re-sized so I took it to Zales and they told me it was going to cost $200. Tough call. Also, Zales was going to charge another $200 to secure the stone because it was visibly loose (I dropped it on the kitchen floor that very morning). Ben Bridge was going to charge $50 to secure the stone. Another tough call.


After I dropped the ring off at Ben Bridge I decided to check out the new and improved Southcenter mall. Wow. It was under construction for a long time and I like outcome. Hmm, now that I think about it I may have liked it so much because it was in the middle of the day on Wednesday and there wasn't a horde of teenagers clogging the walking paths.


The sales people at the clothing stores all looked like teenagers, though. So young! I was, and still am, on a mission to find a purse that will take the place of carrying both a purse and a diaper bag. I went in and out of most stores. I found a lovely messenger bag that would have worked beautifully at Macy's but it was more than I wanted to spend at $78. For a messenger bag? I think not. If I didn't have an obscene number of purses as is it would be easier to justify buying but I can't. Especially now that Ryan's work with his friend is drawing to a close and his work with the city begins. Ryan's friend paid him every month but the city may not pay Ryan until the work is done, 3 months from now. Not to worry, we have a small stash to pay bills but I don't think buying another bag would be the most prudent thing to do. Although I would be helping the economy by buying a bag. Just doing my American duty!


My tour through the mall made me want to cling to Gavin and his babyhood all the more. The stores that obviously cater to young teens were borderline obscene. And dark, and loud and smelly. I never, ever, set foot in the stores that blare music and have just enough light so you can see the clothes on the rack in front of you but not enough to the clothes on the rack across the aisle from you. Since I was on a quest for a messenger type bag I had no choice but to visit these scary, scary stores. The music was so loud that WELCOME. IF I CAN HELP YOU FIND SOMETHING LET ME KNOW!" I responded, "I'M LOOKING FOR A MESSENGER STYLE BAG." The sales person carefully studied my lips as I was shouting as another tool to help them decipher what I was yelling - the music was that loud. I didn't complain about the music because I'm in the over 20 crowd that clearly doesn't belong in those stores; and I really don't belong while pushing a stroller with my little guy. If the music wasn't so loud I would have turned the excursion into a learning experience.

Me: "Gavin, do you hear that music? It is too loud. Value your hearing."
Gavin: "Ma ma ma ma! Di di di di!"
Me: "Those posters on the walls objectified women and young men. Women are to be valued and respected. You, too are to be valued and respected and you have value and worth even when you keep your shirt on."
Gavin: "Da da da da! Eeeeee!"


I could not get over the clothing in the stores that catered to teenage girls. The underwear was sexy, if not a bit slutty and the skirts were short and bit on the slutty side. Same goes for the shirts. I know that I have a boy but there are going to be girls all around him wearing this stuff! And it's not just the girls clothing that gets me its the advertising for the boys (mens) clothing; the guys with their washboard abs, wearing their pants partially unzipped with a scantily clad woman fawning all over him. Can't they at least try to be somewhat subtle with the sex sells?

Another shocker, a book that was compiled of advice for teenage girls from a regular column in Seventeen magazine. It was all about sex. I know kids are having sex at younger and younger ages and I'm not opposed to sex ed (heck, look at Bristol Palin) but can't we encourage the kids to delay gratification? It seems like a lot of parallels could be drawn between how we, as Americans, want everything NOW and our economic crisis. Wall street is just a reflection of our greed in mainstream America.

This could get me a lot of flack but I don't care. Yes, I know the CEO's are greedy little bastards but you know who else is greedy? Me. I want a specialty coffee drink, I want $100 shoes, I want a cheap shirt so I can have 3 shirts instead of one really nice shirt. I want a nice house with nice decorations. I want my son to have cute clothes and a cute Halloween costume. It's not bad to want all of this stuff but when we put those material wants above all else and we spend more than we make then we create a life that is built on one huge lie. Then our neighbors see what we have and they want what we have while we in turn want what they have so we are constantly consuming and consuming and are never satisfied. We want more, more stuff to fill the void that grows larger and larger as we try to cram it full of useless stuff.

Now that I re-read what I just wrote it seems I took a huge leap from the sexualization of kids to the current economic crisis without connecting the dots as well as I think they are connected in my head. Too bad you can't jump in my head because it is crystal clear up there - to me. Eh. I would try to write more to connect the dots but the dog is looking like she's going to barf and Gavin just went down for a nap so I should finish this post I've been working on for a couple of days now and go get some housework done while I have some free time.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Going on Strike

It is day three of the strike and there is no end in sight. It is with much tears, crying, and whining that the strike is being enforced. Never mind there the one who is on strike has red, weary looking eyes that are rubbed frequently nor that the striking party's bouncing nature, if you will, takes a serious turn south just before the eye rubbing commences. All signs point to a state of fatigue, tiredness, a state that shouts: "I need a nap!"

Being the dutiful, loving mother that I am, I give my precious baby boy some warm milk for the tummy (which I should probably not be doing before nap time because it is just ingraining the whole eat before bedtime thing which I know is not good... but one battle at a time, please), and gently lie him down in his crib. And as I oh-so-gently place him in his crib he arches his back and screams.

As he grows I know that his nap schedule will change. This is a fact that I can accept. I have accepted that he no longer goes back to sleep a mere 30 minutes after waking up in the morning. I can not accept his refusal of the first morning nap when he is clearly tired. What else am I supposed to make of a crying, grumpy, eye rubbing, ear tugging baby boy?

I'm hoping most of this is just related to teething since the little G is has 3, maybe 4 teeth, busting through right now. Tylenol and medicated teething swabs help a night and I just numbed up his gums on the side he sticks his tongue to chew on (it's super cute, btw). Keep your fingers crossed! Well, it's been about 15 minutes since I swabbed his gums and now he is at least lying down and not hollering. He is talking though.

He's saying, "A di. A di. Bwaa. A-dah, eh, A-dah. Da. A-yay."
Translation, "Neener, neener, I'm not going to sleep mom, even though I'm tired. You can put me in my crib but you can't make me sleep. Why don't you come get me out the crib and go to the gym all of 10 minutes away so I can fall asleep on the car ride over."

Really. Yesterday to let me know he was not going to take a nap he screamed and screamed and screamed some more. Between screaming sessions I went in to comfort him and to make sure he was ok (he even got some Tylenol and a teething swab). Nothing. On one of my trips in he had a poopy diaper (I knew the second I opened the door to his room). I can't blame him for not wanting to sleep in a dirty diaper - but I can take issue with him not sleeping in the fluffy clean diaper I put him. Nothing. No sleep, not even close. More weeping and gnashing of gums and some teeth was to be had.

I had enough of trying to get him to sleep, and I couldn't take anymore screaming so I packed my gym bag, grabbed the G man and we drove all of 10 minutes to the gym. He fell asleep on the car ride over. !

! Can you feel the frustration? How is a car seat more comfortable than a crib with a nice mattress? I took him to the kiddie day care and laid him down in one of their cribs but he didn't sleep. He did however get to crawl and play for a solid 90 minutes which led to a 2 hour nap when we got home.

The way this is shaping up he's not going to sleep. He is standing up again. I think I'll load up the car with the Exersaucer and Johnny Jump Up to return to Ryan's former co-worker who so graciously lent them to us. Hopefully he will sleep in the car so he won't be a total grumpy pants at our PEPS (mommy group) this afternoon.

I love being a mom but I do not this fighting over naps business. Why fight a nap? A nap is one of the most beautiful, underrated pleasures in life. I should have been born in Spain so I could enjoy guilt free siestas.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Not For the Faint of Heart

At this very moment I am on-line looking for a purse. I don't feel like going from store to store to find one. Ebags didn't have anything, Overstock had nothing, craigslist had nothing and freecycle had nothing. OK, they had purses but I'm looking for one I can wear across the body and one that is HUGE so I can carry one bag instead of a purse and a diaper bag. The diaper bag I use is a small backpack and its not exactly my style.

So why am I telling you about something as mundane as shopping for a purse? I'll tell you why. The results on e-bay were too many so I sorted them from priced lowest to highest. That wasn't helpful since there were a ton of little $0.99 coin purses. So I sorted high to low and was going to go that route.

Warning: If you have a bad heart (or you are a guy) STOP READING!!!

I saw a purse, a purse, a purse, a purse, a purse, a p-u-r-s-e that had the buy-it-now price of
$78,000.

FOR A PURSE!!!

You could buy a home in some parts of the country for that much money. You could feed an army for that much money. You could buy 78 overpriced at $1,000 purses for that much money. You could buy a couple of cars for that much money. You could (almost) add another story to your house for that much money. You could pay for 7.8 expensive $10,000 weddings for that much money. You could take the ultimate vacation (with your entire family and all of your friends) for that much money.

Maybe the person who buys the $78,000 purse would think my idea of an ultimate vacation for family and friends would be slummin' it.

Who buys a $78,000 purse? Really? Who?

Well, I'm not going to find my $30 or under purse if I keep writing and looking at $78,000 purses. At least they were cute. (Oh, yeah. There was more than one outrageously priced purse).

*****

I just logged on and showed Ryan the purse and I didn't put the right price down. The purse is not $78,000. It is $78,999. But what is an extra $999?

Friday, September 19, 2008

You Can Move to Seattle, Part II

I don't think I have much more to say about moving to Seattle but I said I would write part II of the post so, here I am writing...

When you do move to Seattle you can visit the Bal Mar in Ballard. My friend Krissy just celebrated her big Three-oh with friends at the Bal Mar; we went there this time last year, too and I remember it quite vividly because it was a warmish day and I was pregnant and none to happy about my state of ginormousness (no, it's not a word - yet) nor was I pleased that I could not enjoy one of their super cool cocktails, one of which is I'm a gimlet that I recall Krissy ordered.

Two other girlfriends who celebrated the big Two-nine with Krissy last year enjoyed cocktails are now in the other camp: Camp Preggo. I am SO happy I'm not in that camp right now. I can walk, I can eat brie, I can sleep (Gavin permitting), I can go more than 90 minutes without running to the bathroom to pee, I can breath (I really took breathing for granted before being pregnant).

Tonight I tried I'm a gimlet. I don't know what a gimlet is or why I would want to be one but the drink sure is tasty. It's like a mojito minus the sweetness. Yum. It's a tad strong, though and of course it was made even stronger by my empty stomach. So, word to the wise: eat first, drink second. But, really, who doesn't know that?

*****

I've been on Beacon Hill almost three years now. It's hard to believe that so much time has elapsed here. The house feels like home but the neighborhood doesn't give me a homey vibe. I know my neighbors and they are nice but it's not the same as West Seattle. This is definitely a neighborhood in transition. There isn't much to do up here although there are more places within walking distance than in our old neighborhood. There are three coffee shops, a library, and a smattering of places to eat that all close early and aren't really places where you would feel comfortable inviting friends and hanging out at.

As of November 1st I will have lived in Seattle for 7 years. SEVEN! Can you believe that? It's hard to believe that I've been up here half as long as I lived in Vancouver (14 years). Seattle is becoming my third home. Ryan and I were driving past a cemetery the other day and I told him that if I went before him he would have to spread my ashes in three places.

At Sunset Beach in Coos Bay (technically it's in Charleston) because my dad is buried in Coos Bay, in the Columbia River in Vancouver because that is where I spent the bulk of my growing up years and in the Puget Sound because that is where I'm at now. He balked not at the idea of me dying (because we were talking way out in the future) but at the idea of having to drive me in ashen form to Coos Bay and Vancouver. I often joke that it is a miracle that Ryan dated me while I was in Vancouver and he was in Seattle because he hates driving that much. He really loved me to drive almost 3 hours to see me.

So, here my wishes are in writing although I really doubt this blog will be in existence or if blogs period will be in existence in 60 or 7o years when I kick it. 70 years. I would be 101. Gavin would be 71! That's crazy! OK, I can't think about this anymore. I don't want to think about my little guy who is turning one next month as a 70 year old; it makes me sad to know that he is growing each day and turning into such a little boy. Of course, I would be really sad if he wasn't growing and developing.

What do you know? This post is being interrupted by a crying baby. I'm kind of glad he is waking up because I went out tonight and didn't get to kiss him good night.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

You Can Move to Seattle Now

The storm has passed and it is now safe to move to Seattle. The storm was, of course, my temper tantrum over the less than stellar weather we were having. The clouds parted and the sun shone brightly again on Seattle turning it into the sparkling gem we all love and adore.

Today felt like the first day of Autumn. It was gray all day and the air had a cool bite to it but that's ok because we were given a few good summery days. My arms are open and ready to accept the rainy and blustery days ahead.

Fall is actually one of my favorite seasons. I have so many fond memories of overcast, wet Autumn weekends as a child. Mom would take us to the neighborhood club and we would go swimming for hours and walk home with wet hair and to warm us up mom would make hot cocoa and we would bake cookies. Instead of a fence we had a long row of arbor vitae in the back yard that created a lush green appearance in our back yard. The green grass was bordered by the green arbor vitae and was partially canopied by towering Evergreen trees; the back yard positively glowed green.

That glowing backyard and the plains are two of the things I miss about Vancouver. I didn't think seeing flat lands would be something I missed until I came up to Seattle, built on hills and in valleys and in the shadows of two mountain ranges. It is nice to be able to see beyond your nose sometimes.

I miss the Columbia River Gorge and the beautiful hikes to be had there. Sure, there are lots of places to hike up here but that would involve going out and looking for them. I had a friend in Vancouver who was always up for a drive to the Gorge, actually she was the one doing the calling and urging.

This post is being interrupted by a crying and I suspect hungry baby. I'll write part two tomorrow. Or not. I'll write it when I write it.

Monday, September 08, 2008

FINALLY

In the evenings after Gavin goes to bed you can usually find me on-line writing, reading, surfing the web in general. Lately I have been attempting to make a photobook. There are so many sites and they all send me coupons that are really specific.

Free shipping! for new customers on first order

45% off all orders! on all orders $100 or more

Save $25! when you buy an 8x12 book with premium leather cover


Save $50! for new customers on first order of 8x12 book with premium leather cover that total is greater than $200


For weeks now I have been attempting to make a photo book for Grandparents Day. Yes, there is a holiday for Grandparents - it's this weekend so sorry, grandparents, your photo books are going to be late. But don't blame me - blame snapfish and picaboo and Costco but mostly snapfish.


I have a feeling the problem isn't 100% Snapfish; I just may have a bit to do with the problem. Shocking, I know.

After spending hours upon hours upon hours uploading all of my photos from the external hard drive - and I mean all photos, starting with the digitals ones going back to 1999 - I then start to experiment with the kind of book I wanted to make while keeping it within my budget (3 sets of grandparents plus one aunt who is like a grandmother to Ryan - it adds up).

It took me a while but I got the hang of how to make a book. I was able to select the photos, arrange them and wa-la, a book was made! Now that the book was made the only step left in the long drawn out exhausting, tear inducing process was to pay for it.

All I had to do was pay for the stupid book. Enter in my credit card information and click 'submit'.

I'm a smart cookie. I entered my credit card number, expiration date, secret code, all of my billing information then I took a deep breath and was ready to be done with the making of this book and clicked on 'submit'.

A message in red lettering pops up on the screen telling me that they could not process my credit card. I double checked the information and resubmitted it only to have the same annoying message pop up and scream at me. (Red lettering is equal to screaming).

After checking the number again I took a closer look to the the icons next to the credit card number field. Visa, American Express, Something Else and Something Else.

Do you know what was missing? MasterCard!

Snapfish doesn't take MasterCard!

I was livid! How dare Snapfish not take my one and only credit card? Why isn't there a huge disclaimer that pops up BEFORE you make a photobook that all of your time will be a colossal waste of time if you happen to have a MasterCard.


******

Here it is a week later. The books are done; I think I used Shutterfly, shutterfish, shuttersomething. It went just fine. They cost a little more but if I would have started with them it would have been so much easier.

Does anyone out there have a company they like for photo printing and the like?

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Tropical Storms and Stormy Toddlers

Today I experienced my very first Tropical Storm as did Ryan and Gavin (I don't think his baby calendar has a sticker for 1st Tropical Storm). Tropical Storm Hannah rolled through Great Falls, Virginia last night and stayed through the early part of this afternoon. Last night we had tickets at Wolf Trap, an outdoor theater, to see Les Miserables. My sister-in-law bought tickets for Ryan (and me) for his birthday and for her mom and step-dad for her mom's birthday.

The theater was quite amazing since there is outdoor seating and covered seating as well. My sister-in-law bought covered seats since it was predicted to rain that night. Good call on her part. It didn't just rain, it rained. It was a veritable deluge. The poor folks on the grass got soaked! But the show was so great they stayed through the rain. Unlike the rain we get at home it wasn't cold, the air was warm and the rain didn't chill.

Just before we took our seats I gave a brief synopsis of the story for the group and Ryan filled in the gaps. Last night was my third time seeing the show and it was Ryan's fourth and I can say without hesitation that we would go again in a heart beat. It is our favorite show. "Cats" is our least favorite show.

If you have never seen Cats, don't bother. Blech. B-o-r-i-n-g. Correction. It is B-O-R-I-N-G!
We stayed for the first two hours of the show and left at intermission.

OK, maybe the first part of the show was less than two hours but it felt like an eternity. We couldn't follow the story, the music, eh... except for "Memories", it was the last song before intermission.

If you have never seen Les Miserables you should GO, GO, GO, now! Get the music beforehand and familiarize yourself with the music, read the book, watch the movie. It is FANtastic!

But back the fierceness that is Hannah. The thick of her storminess came late this morning, just in time for my niece's birthday party. Local streets were flooded, power went out but we didn't notice because my sister-in-law's has a generator for such events and flash floods were predicted. If there were flash floods we didn't see any. It got pretty windy but I've seen windier conditions. The rain was pretty heavy so we were all quite impressed which puzzled the local East Coasters.

Ryan and I were sitting in the screened in porch listening to the cacophony the pouring rain was creating when someone stepped out and made small talk with us. I told him we were just enjoying the downpour since we don't get much rain like this at home. You could see the question on his face before he asked, "Don't you live in Seattle?" My brother-in-law asked the same thing, "Don't you get this all the time in Seattle?" Nope. Ours is a more constant drizzle, we don't often get the rain that blows in sideways by the bucketful.

Other than the tropical storm today we've had it pretty good as far as the weather is concerned. It has been hot, high 80's, low 90's and there has been humidity but not taking a bath humidity. It was pleasant enough that we were able to go the Great Falls National Park yesterday (long before Hannah rolled in) and walked high above the Potomac River where George Washington rode his horse and devised a plan to make the river navigable to increase trade and solidify the ties between the then sovereign states. His company made canals to circumvent the impassible portions of the river and locks to get boats and ships from the top of a fall to the bottom of a falls. I was a good tourist and read the placards.

Great Falls is very impressive. You can't think of Multnomah, Silver or Snoqualmie Falls as a comparative falls as they have an impressive height from which they cascade down. Great Falls can't hold a candle to the Northwest Falls height but the 'our' falls have nothing on Great Falls in terms of width. The Potomac has a great span, I would say you if you lined our falls side by side to cross the Great Falls you would need at least five of them.

On Thursday we drove in to D.C., less than a thirty minutes drive, and toured the National Crime and Punishment Museum. I would recommend this museum IF you have already been to D.C. and toured all of the free museums AND if you find Law & Order (pick one), CSI (pick one), Cold Case, Without a Trace, any crime show really except Matlock. If you like Matlock you probably aren't going to be up for hoofing it around D.C. anyway. I would not recommend buying the audio portion of the tour as it is really lame. After going through the EMP (Experience Music Project) in Seattle and listening to that audio tour nothing compares.

Friday we went back to D.C. with my Karl and Suzanne, (FIL & stepMIL) and went to the International Spy Museum. I would highly recommend this museum, even if you have not been to all of the free ones. We saw a camera that could take a picture of a document and reduce its size to that which would fit in punctuation, like this period: . Really. An entire document. The camera was called something along the lines of a dot camera, pretty creative.

So here I sit after the storm, after the party filled with toddlers who turn stormy after food, fun and candy and cake and ice cream. Gavin ate a dinner of oatmeal with mashed up blueberries and raspberries and bananas and one prune - just one prune. It was such a messy, sticky affair and as a result he got a bath tonight where he is really getting the hang of splashing the water. Fun for him, wet for me. OK, I have fun too, even when he stands up and hangs onto me with his slippery wet self.

He is now asleep and I'm ready to crash even though it is only 8:49 pm. My sister-in-law and her family are upstairs putting Erika to bed and they have Anna, the new baby we are here to meet. Ryan, his mom and step-dad are playing Hearts in the kitchen and Ryan's dad and step-mom went to a park. That leaves me alone in the living room and do you want to know what that means?

I JUST TURNED THE TV OFF!!!

Woo-hoo.

We are in someone else's house so the TV doesn't bother me too much but when it's at my house and people are visiting it drives me bonkers but I never want to say anything because they are my guests and they are usually on vacation so why shouldn't they watch TV?

That is one other reason I want to move the TV downstairs. That way if someone wants to watch TV then they can go downstairs and watch to their hearts content and I can stay up stairs and not have my ears subject to the constant noise of the TV. That and I tend to get sucked into the programs.

Everyone eventually returned to the living room, I finally had a chance to hold Anna while she slept. Ryan programmed Kristi & John's new cell phones and I went into the kitchen to finish this post. I guess I'm being anti-social right now. Oh, well. We can't all be together all of the time.

Tomorrow is Anna's baptism and another party. It should be great since the storm is passed and the sun is set to shine again. Maybe we can play some croquet although I'm a bit afraid to go out in the grass because the have ticks out here and copperhead snakes.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Journey of Self Discovery

Does 10 1/2 months seem awfully early for a baby to discover his nostrils? I think so. It has only been a day or two and the little G thinks it is wonderful that God gave him such a great play thing right on his face! As much as I want to discourage nose picking it is pretty cute to see him with his finger pointing at his nose . Ryan really thinks its cute and is trying to catch him with his finger up his nose for a great picture.

***

We finally got a good nose pick shot in the train at SeaTac so now I've moved onto discouraging his nostril expeditions. How does, "Gavin, we don't pick our noses," sound? And I do say 'we' because he has taken in interest in Mommy and Daddy's noses as well. I imagine our noses are much better for exploration because his fingers are so little and our nostrils are cavernous compared to his but I don't care how mean he thinks I am, my nostrils are off limits.

Hopefully by discouraging it now we can avoid the really gross nosepicking when he gets older and has better fine motor skills. Wishful thinking.