Everyone pleeeease go do the
This year has been exceptional for me... I feel very lucky. I can only imagine what next year will bring!!!
For all those who celebrate it... Merry Christmas!!!
*hugs her monitor in an effort to send out hugs all over the internet*
now to get some sleep before the present-giving and eggnog-laced coffee...
Gestational diabetes. Gave birth! Beautiful baby boy!! Husband's knee fixed. Remodelling continues. Growing philisophically. Loving motherhood - WOW!
Learning.
Growing.
Being.
I almost forgot to put this up... I'm trying to think of what mine will say:
I found this while reading another blog -
The mall is evil.
After two hours of rushing down the walkways with a stroller and diaper bag, trying to dodge between the people stopping to browse the windows, chat on their cell phones, not looking where they were going, or just not caring who they shoved out of their way so long as THEY got where they were going... I left the mall feeling out of breath and disheveled, but victorious. I had found everything I had gone there for and survived. The victory was short-lived, however, as I then proceeded to spend another hour just trying to get out of the parking lot onto ANY street that would take me in ANY direction away from the wretched place.
I am generally required to go to the mall a minimum of two times per year. Usually one of those times is for someone's birthday, and the other is at Christmas. There is always at least one gift that can't be purchased until the last minute and can ONLY be found at the mall. If I'd had the list earlier or decided on the gift sooner I could have bought it online and saved myself a whole lot of hassle, but no... it gets me every year.
The mall is filled 80% with bright, shiny, sparkling things I have no need of, 15% with bright, shiny, sparkling things I find myself desiring, and 5% with things I might have need of purchasing at one time or another. And there's a good percentage of that 5% that I could purchase elsewhere if I have the opportunity to. It's that 15% that's the main problem... The bright, shiny, sparkling things that make you say "ooooh, that would look so cool in the living room" or "I bet that would look awesome on me!" or, worse yet, "So-and-So would LOVE that!!!". And Christmastime is the worst, as you are often in need of a gift for So-and-So. The trouble isn't that it's something they'd love, it's that you already bought a gift for him/her and now there's this bright, shiny, sparkling one just calling out to you like a caged puppy.
I generally try to give my gifts from the heart. Sometimes, you just have to pick something from someone's list and go with it, hoping it's what they really DID want, and not just something they added on the list as "something I could use". I don't need more "stuff" necessarily. I've got a few items on my own list that are qualified as "stuff" because I really do need them, but most of the items on my list are music cds or movies on dvd. I love listening to music - it's art to me, and something I can drift off into (or sometimes it will carry me away). I enjoy watching movies, and certain ones I do want to own - mostly the disney ones, as I want to share them with my son as he gets older. I don't suppose most grownups put "Finding Nemo" and "Bambi" on their lists, but I did. This year I also put in the materials for a specific art project I want to do. I had an idea for a clay sculpture I want to have and I plan to make it myself. These last items, to me, aren't "stuff". They are experiences I want to have. The hand mixer and toolboxes and slippers on my list will be of great use to me and I will enjoy them... but, in the end, they are just more stuff. I'm in a "weeding" phase at the moment, de-stuffifying my life little bits at a time. It's hard to let go though...
I went through the Christmas ornaments this year as we decorated the tree, and got rid of some of them. They were old, ugly, and had no meaning left to them anymore. Some of them, I know, once had stories to them - who gave them to me, how old I was, etc., but with my mother gone I have no one to recount those stories for me anymore. I don't remember them all. I've kept the ones I DO remember, and many of them made it on the tree, although some just looked too old and beaten. And so, there is still a box of ornaments that went back into the garage to be "saved" for an indefinite amount of time. More "stuff" I can't seem to let go of yet.
I look around and realize I am, most undeniably, a pack rat. I come from two generations of pack rats and I have all their stuff too... I have stuff from my grandmother's home and my mother's home as well as stuff I've accumulated all on my own over the years. I'm even paying to store stuff, I have so much of it. So, every time I weed things down to a more reasonable level, I bring more boxes from storage and start over again... I keep wondering where it will end.
And I'm not the only one... I wonder if it's a "nature" or "nurture" thing... My grandmother was a pack rat, but my mother was adopted and was a pack rat too. I'm a pack rat, and I can tell that
Oh yeah, back to the shopping then... I almost forgot to mention the Toys 'r Us experience today. I don't think I've ever seen more than five cars in this particular Toys 'r Us' parking lot until today - when I almost couldn't find a parking spot! Inside, it wasn't bright, shiny, and sparkling, but TOO bright, LOUD, and intimidating.
Now, usually, if I see something for my son I have to argue with myself and only buy it if it's a reasonable price and we can afford it at the time, etc, etc, etc... Today, I had a "go" on toys - I needed to get him something for Christmas. I was ALLOWED to let myself buy fun toys and I had a very hard time finding things for him. Most of the toys were so complex, loud and overly interactive that I wouldn't buy them. Some of them seemed like they would probably SCARE me, were I my son's age! I kept looking for some of the "simpler" toys that I had as a child. Where did they go? Even the standard wooden blocks seemed to only come with a Winnie The Pooh wagon that TALKS to you! I don't want all the toys talking to my child - that's MY job, for crying out loud! We had a hell of a time going through the stuff to make up a list for him in the first place, and I put all the best items on that (which meant I needed to pick different things to not duplicate). I'm having serious issues with the toys on the market today. I have one catalog I received in the mail that sells some of the toys I remember - bristle blocks, lincoln logs, tinker toys - as well as some other toys that promote learning without using a "gimmick" in some form or another. I read an article in
I did finish the rest of my Christmas shopping today though. Tomorrow - I wrap.
(by no means will this actually be "daily", but I happen to have one today...)
You can get hair out of a hairbrush (at least ones with bristles all the way round the brush) easier if you do it underwater. Wave it back and forth and the hair loosens up. If you take it out of the water it gets all nasty and harder to get off, but it's WAY easier under water. If you happen to be in the bathtub at the time though, don't forget to rinse it off on your way out (eww, soap sludge leftovers in your hair? What was the point of washing it then?)
I thought of this from a tip my husband found for our son - it's easier to wash a baby's hair with his soft hairbrush - swirling it around in circles helps get the soap rubbed in and his scalp clean without annoying him. I thought, "why can't *I* do that too?" and did. Works nicely with conditioner too. Today, I was in the tub instead of the shower and went to rinse the brush clean of some soap in the water and noticed the hair coming off...
P.S. - another tip for mothers - Suave makes a conditioner/detangler for kids. Works great and seems to be tear-free. My little boy was getting the nastiest tangles in his hair ALL the time and now they hardly ever happen. I had asked my pediatrician if it was alright to use conditioner on his hair (since I saw baby shampoo but no conditioner on the market in the baby aisles) and he said I was the first person to ever ask him that. LOL. Either I'm being too cautious and all the other mothers slather their kid's heads with conditioner all the time... Or I'm one of the few who thought of it. Obviously SOMEONE else out there did or there wouldn't BE a product like Suave has.
Shit. I'm rambling again.
Note to self: Add to the "to be posted" list: Amy's big S (STACK of clothes to sort - nothing perverted)
Gotta go now. more another time.
So, I blog all the time.
The trouble is - I don't actually TYPE them, but frequently have this running monologue in my head that won't shut up. It can often lead to problems sleeping at night. I've found that I can shut it off while doing Tai Chi, but I can't do that before bed as it leaves me feeling all juiced up and ready to DO stuff. If anyone knows of a decent way to achieve that zen-state in shutdown-for-sleep mode (something that doesn't take a long time to do though) please let me know. So far, the only thing I found that made me totally want to sleep was breastfeeding. Of course that may have been due, in part, to the fact that I really didn't get a whole lot of sleep to begin with during Jareth's first month when I WAS breastfeeding, but it seemed like any time he latched on I had to keep myself from nodding off.
And here, I found myself, playing a game of solitaire, listening to soft music, hoping it will wind me down and lull me off to sleep at 2:30 in the morning... But I keep blogging in my mind.
I know I've got at least three or four blogs I've wanted to put up here over the last week and a half, but I've not had time to type them out. Instead, I create these wonderful posts in my head and then promptly forget most of the cool stuff I came up with before I can actually type it on the computer. I have that problem with poetry sometimes too - I'll have these great rhyme things going on and then I totally forget which two words I'd picked out that worked so perfectly together 20 minutes before. That's the REAL reason I have little pads of paper and pens all over my house. I don't get enough actual phone calls for them to be message pads (telemarketers don't count as worthy of message pads).
So the blog posts hopefully upcoming (before I forget the topics altogether):
1. The Dr. Seuss meets Hollywood rant.
2. Product Overview #1 (re: cloth diapers)
3. Product Rant (part 1 of "101 Unecessary Products")
4. My Own Path - my philosophy on life and it's meaning
5. Movie Review #1 - Pirates of The Carribean (Wings UP!)
I also keep planning to make time to work on adding links and stuff to the blog. All the other blogs look nicer than mine. Even my
I need sleep. I think I'm about to start REALLY rambling... g'night! (g'morning?)... Whatever.
Tis the season to be shopping
Fa la la la la la la la la
See the salesclerks all go hopping
Fa la la la la la la la la
Buy we now our gay apparel
Fa la la la la la la la la
Bastardize the yuletide carols
Fa la la la la la la la la
Max the Visa buying presents
Fa la la la la la la la la
After New Year’s live like peasants
Fa la la la la la la la la
Hope your holidays are festive
Fa la la la la la la la la
Don’t forget to get my gift !
Fa la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaa
(I couldn't help myself... Have a Happy Holiday Season everyone!!!)
Well it's out. It's bought. It's installed. I now have a dragon in an online game. I may not be posting quite as frequently for this next week as I hoard every free moment to log onto Horizons. It looks like it's as fun as we'd (myself and my husband - see
"Hi, my name is Amy, and I'm a computer addict... sometimes I forget there's a world outside my house...except when we run out of soda pop and unsalted pretzel twists..."
Anyway, I have about three to four blogs half-composed in my head, but they may be a few extra days in coming. Thought I'd warn anybody actually reading this.
*smiles and waves*
Don't worry - it can't steal ALL my time. I've got a little boy to smile at and play with too! And I'm not finished with all the Christmas shopping yet... but that's for another blog.
All computers are created equal in the eyes of the plug.
It's interesting to see how much a person can change over just a couple of years, and, sometimes, how much they don't. I've just gotten through posting my older commentaries into the archives and I took the time to read them while I was at it. I've definitely changed on some levels, but I have to be amused by my Time Management (06/18/2000) post.
I talked about feeling unable to organize my time such that I could get the projects on my list accomplished. I talked about a box of writing that needed typing in, some boxes of pictures to scan into the computer, and even my wedding album needing completion. That was over three years ago. Wanna guess how many of those projects are finished today? None. Nada. Zip. Yep, they're still on the list, which is about thirty times longer than it was back when I wrote that. Although I think I did break out the wedding album and write in all the commentary - I just need to get a fresh reprint of the pictures for it.
Nonetheless, I've learned something recently that may help me finally get some of my projects done... There's a lot a person can do in One Minute and Eleven Seconds...
That's the amount of time that I cook a Hot Pocket. For anyone that's never had one, it's a little bready pocket that usually has meat, a cheese or sauce, and sometimes some veggie inside. They come frozen and you heat them up in the microwave. I used to eat one as my lunch all the time during the first three months of my son's life. I didn't feel like I had time for anything else. Nowadays, I'm making time for a sandwich and an apple and some cheese. The thing I learned, however, is that a LOT can be done during the time it took to cook that Hot Pocket:
Set up formula in a bottle & Check the mailbox and sort any mail received.
Set up formula in a bottle & use the toilet and wash hands.
Change a poopy diaper and dispose of it's contents. (assuming child doesn't want to "play" too)
Empty about half the dishwasher, putting dishes away neatly into drawers and cupboards.
Feed the cat her canned breakfast, changer her dry food and water, and scoop her litterbox.
Now it's possible that some of the above might take me more time occasionally. We're assuming the kid DOESN'T want to play, you don't need TIME on the toilet, the cat ignores you completely, the dishes go in the usual places, and most of the mail is junk. But really, there IS a lot you can do in that little amount of time.
Now, I thought, what if we could just break the whole DAY up into segments of One Minute and Eleven Seconds? Can you IMAGINE just how much we could get DONE????
Of course, we'd probably kill ourselves from over-exhaustion, so I'm NOT suggestion anyone try to spend and entire day doing that. But just adding a certain amount of them, spread out throughout the day... Well, yes, I AM getting more done around here now.
So I HAVE learned something since then. I'm one step better at time management. I'm certainly not perfect, but there's some improvement.
This is a good thing.
Of course, I've moved twice since that first post on Time Management... I wonder where that box of writing IS now?
hrm. I'll get there eventually.
I have a son. He's my first child and he's now almost 7 months old. His name is Jareth. Today his second tooth forced it's painful way through his tender lower gum where it's jagged top now rises to join that of the less-than-two-week-old first tooth. The last one broke skin while he was sleeping, so both he and I were unable to experience the agony that is teething. We dealt with the rash that seems to attack his poor bottom during the experience, but we had not yet dealt with the true growing pains... I dosed him up with a little bit of infant non-aspirin drops, swabbed his gum with teething pain stuff, wrapped his little hand around a teething toy and hugged and rocked him while he cried. Can you just imagine being him? These hard, sharp things tearing their way through your mouth? No wonder we surround infants with soft warm comforting things - just getting through that first year is HARD !!
I've been watching him. The world is a very different place through an infant's eyes. It's full of wonder and warmth - hands that hold him, arms that hug him, soft and soothing voices... It's also full of the unknown - He sees everything for the first time and his eyes light up with curiosity. He wants to see and touch everything he can. Sometimes I can see the frustration in his eyes that he can't get to everything to touch, smell, taste, and to hear if it makes noise when he shakes it. He's figured that out now - if he shakes them, some things make noise - most make noise if he bangs them on something else too...
The world is also full of big, scary things! - loud noises that sneak up on you when you least expect it (after all, you were busy playing with that big blue button on your walker and you had just figured out that it pressed DOWN! - when suddenly that big bad NOISE started and scared you!!!) and bright lights turn on suddenly sometimes, and then there's that lumpy, icky feeling you get in your pants sometimes...eww...
Oh, and there's another thing - learning digestion. That's been plaguing him since that first week - his little tummy dealing with this "breastmilk" thing first, before we found (after a month of tears and "gas drops") that he had less troubles with formula. Nowadays he's got all manner of digestive grumblings as he goes through new and exotic delicacies like "single-grain rice cereal", "peas", "potatoes", and that yummy new substance we call "apples". It's interesting how little things change in color as they go through an infant's digestive system...
His body is changing so fast - and his mind even faster. I've watched him figure out his hands and he's still working on perfecting the dexterity of individual fingers. His world is both fascinating and frustrating to him. He's got a little of the stubborn streak in him (yes, that's from MY side) and sometimes it seems like he's trying SO HARD to get there that he's going to hurt himself trying. I only hope I'll be able to convey that I don't want to ever hold him back, but would rather help him figure out how to get there if I can. Right now, he's trying to figure out crawling. He keeps getting closer each time before he flops down and makes unhappy noises in his frustration. "I didn't get it that time either... Someone come console me!!" Fortunately, his daddy's and my arms usually do the trick at reminding him that it's all okay.
I had no idea what motherhood would be like... I had NO idea.
My husband, Brian, is my world, and Jareth is the sun that lights it.
It's all part of the experience - The joy, the pain, the smiles, and the tears - It's ALL part of the experience.
and damn but I'm loving it.
(I apologize in advance... I can't seem to stop myself today)
The Blogger is free; I shall not want.
It maketh me to speak out from within my soul; It leadeth me forward in contemplation.
It restoreth my spelling; It leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for my own sake.
Yea, though I surf through the servers in the shadow of the internet,
I shall fear no flaming; for blog art with me; thy simplicity and spell checker they comfort me.
Thou preparest a posting before me in the presence of mine typing; thou fillest my head with ideas; my server runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days that I post; and I will dwell in the links of the webrings forever.
Now that I have one, what do I post? I've reached a point in my life where I feel I've found my path but sometimes it's tremendously overwhelming. Other times its superbly overwhelming! Either way, I somehow feel I must fumble through with the clumsiness of language to try to explain it...
Then again, maybe I'll just rant a bit and give my own movie reviews...
*shrugs*