deeper than normal

2-25-10

Good morning world!

I am feeling a smidge out of sorts right now. Not bad, just kind of thoughtful and deep in my head. I got an email from an old friend of mine (it was sent to a lot of her Facebook peeps) asking for donations towards the marathon she was doing in honor of her son, Griffin, who passed away 5 years ago on January 4th. He would have been 12 this year, and she was asking for $12.

I used to work with Griffin’s parents back at Earthlink. Super lovely people and always nice. Of course, through the magic of Facebook, I re-connected with them and learned about what happened to their first born son. I was directed to their Caring Bridge site, where Monique, his mommy, had journaled the last 18 months of his life. I had read them before, and from time to time, I read them. I felt the need to re-read it a bit this morning after her email. I am just so impressed with her strength and spirit during all of this. She lost her son, her mother and had a baby all in 15 months. That is a whole mess of emotion. Yet she still does marathons for the cause to find the cure to childhood cancer.

It is one of those things where I don’t know how any mom can go on after the loss of their baby. I know more women than I would hope that have had to go through this horrible experience. All of them are amazing women and have always shown such poise and strength. I guess today, I just wanted to feel that inspiration of knowing strong women who really in the face of sadness, they have stood tall.

Don’t worry, nothing is wrong with my boys or anyone in my life. I don’t feel depressed or anything, I just feel almost like perhaps I should do something for someone else. Not that I have time, but I wonder if I could volunteer at the hospital or something and work with the maternity ward. Everyone has a cause in their blood, and recently I have been thinking that mine is 100% something to do with mommyhood.

This came to me in an interesting idea for a writing piece I have yet to write. I had noted how, even though work annoys the shit out of me at times, in the last 3 years I have felt so much better about being here. I have spent 9 years at this company, and not always in the best way. In the beginning, I always felt so, well, outcast. I brought a lot of that on myself. I identified myself with being the youngest in the department. I liked being one of the only white folks. I liked that I had an entirely different outlook on life than most of my colleagues. I wore combat boots and dresses. I was in so many ways, the Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club, but it was the Ghetto version. I always had one person that seemed to “get” me. Sadly, each of these people ended up being let go. I was really close with this woman, Kitty, when I first started. She got let go in a mass of terminations my first year. I was close with Hope for a couple years, yet sadly, she also was fired. In fact, her termination is what led me to take off 6 months under the “doctor’s orders’ while I was pregnant with Dax. I came back, and was still not feeling it. I ended up befriending more people though this time. Sure, I won’t point out that my dear Tammy was laid off (seriously, don’t be friends with me here, I am a curse!), but more specifically, I no longer identified with the rebels in the department. I had at one point connected with the other girl here, Bertha, who was my age. That was fine until she left the company not long before I came back after my hiatus. My newest friends here, though, all seem to have something in common. They are all moms. It is amazing that there are people that for years annoyed the shit out of me, yet the minute momness sunk in, I could talk to them about anything. Sure, their ebonics and sometimes incredibly ignorant views are frustrating, but I can always go back to the common ground. I finally found my niche.

Ok, enough with the random deep thoughts with Gena.

Bobby’s birthday was good. It was chaotic yesterday. From work being so hectic I couldn’t write anything, to getting home and being on the go, I was beat when I finally got to bed.

Ken called me right before I left work to tell me that his folks wanted to schedule a quick video chat to say Happy Birthday to Bobby, but that we needed to do it by 3:30 since his mom would be leaving for singing pretty early. Ok, no problem. We had plans on meeting Ken at Toys R Us for Bobby’s free balloon and crown at 5, so we could easily fit in the call. I also needed to stop by Target before Toys R Us, but we should have plenty of time.

Ken called me when I got home to tell me that he had meant to bring Bobby to the science class with him. I pointed out that they were probably doing birthday stuff at daycare, so it was fine. Ken asked if after the video chat if we could come to the class since the instructor brought a bunch of cool bugs for Bobby to see. Ok, so that put a little bit of a kink in the plans. I ended up getting the kids at 3, doing the video chat (which sucked because Dax didn’t want to be on camera, and really, both of them just wanted to play with the balloons we had filled Bobby’s room with). We then left to go to the bug class.

The class was fun. They were making stick bugs, both out of sticks and pipe cleaners, and then edible ones out of pretzels. The boys had fun doing all of this. They also liked looking at all of the bugs and did really good being quiet.

Then Dax did this thing he does from time to time where he gets this odd forced smile on his face. I ask him what is wrong and he will say, “Just nofing” and shrug, clearly trying to stay brave about something. I offered him a hug and he quickly took me up on the offer. He held on so tight. He never told me what happened, and he never actually cried, but clearly something had spooked him. I hate feeling so helpless in those situations. Luckily he came out of it in about 10 minutes, so not too bad!

After the class, we went to Toys R Us and Bobby really liked them saying Happy Birthday to him over the PA. We looked at toys and just wandered around a bit. We then headed home. Ken stopped and got he and I chicken bowls and I made sandwiches (Bobby’s request) for dinner. After dinner, we sang to Bobby and had him blow out a candle on a cupcake and let the boys play for a half an hour in the balloon room.

Seriously, the balloon room was a bigger hit than I expected. They loved that. I guess I know what we are doing for Dax’s birthday! Placing the balloons, though, was a different story. Poor Ken had to sneak in their over the course of a few hours since Bobby kept waking up. He said he finished around 1 am. Bobby woke up at 2, shuffled into our room and very calmly said that there were a bunch of balloons in his room. He was up off and on through the night, which was uncool for Ken.

As if taking care of a very excited kid all night isn’t enough exhaustion, Luna decided she needed to be annoying. The last few nights she has been getting up at about 2, and then proceeds to whine and scratch at her crate door until one of us lets her out to pee/drink. The problem is, I think that she now knows she can do this and that she will get to go out, so she has been doing it every night. We really need to not give in to this. Part of crate training is that they can handle the crate for the over night. Her puppy bladder has handled it just fine up until this week, so now I think she is just getting spoiled.

Speaking of crate training, Lycos is a sneaky little bitch! LOL! Recently, we noticed Lycos had gained some weight. This is very unlike her, and both Ken and I chalked it up to everything from maybe she just looks bigger compared to Luna’s puppyness or even that she just hides a lot more in order to keep away from Luna. Plus, she is 10 now, and we had assumed her slow to get up in the mornings was from being a stiff old dog. She had been being so good we even let her sleep in her basket instead of her crate each night. All seemed good.

This was of course until Ken caught her in the puppy chow.

Ken found her munching away in the bucket of Luna food. She had clearly been sneaking out of her basket, using our misplaced trust to her advantage. She would then proceed to gorge herself on the yummy that is fatty puppy chow, go back to bed in the basket, a very fat dog. It was like Thanksgiving meals every night for her, and it was taking its toll. Silly dog. Lycos is now back in Bobby’s room, where she has always seemed to be happy, and she is in her crate for now.

I have a lot of work the next couple days. We are going to the land of Costco to get provisions for the party on Saturday. Luckily is isn’t a big trip, but Costco is always an adventure. Note to other parents, if you want your kid to be completely content and good the whole trip? Get them a smoothie. My boys love that crap and they will sit and suck on it until the end. Be prepared for a bathroom stop at the end, but totally worth it.

I also now have dog prints on my freshly cleaned kitchen floor. Damn you rain. Luckily, they come up easy enough. I also have a smidge bit more cleaning. I cleaned the bathroom and maybe I can convince Ken to do the flooring on that tonight. Plus, I moved some stuff to the shed for Ken yesterday before I had to leave. There are a couple boxes of wires that need to be stored, and we need to clear off our desks a bit, and then we are set. Of course, I will need to clean the boys’ rooms again Saturday morning along with my decorating efforts, but that is minor. This is all coming together!!

I am still liking my new hair. The cut is surprisingly forgiving. This morning, I didn’t get as good as a blow drying job done because it was just too humid in the bathroom, but even with my hair not perfectly straight, the messy just seems to work just fine with the style. Maria was so impressed with it, she asked where I had it done and she may go to the college herself. LOL! Although, that does add to my feeling that it is a Mexican cut.

There is something wrong with my foot. There is a spot on my left foot that feels sprained. It seems perfectly reasonable for it to be some kind of Wii related injury. Hell, it could just be some random tripping over a toy. I noticed it gets really stiff and sore when I am just sitting around so when I get up, my whole foot dies. Then when I walk a bit, it relaxes. It isn’t swollen, nor is it bruised looking. My first fear was a blood clot, but based on the symptoms I read, that is not the case. It is annoying, though.

I am worried that poor Dax is a little old man before his time. His leg that he broke seems to bother him when it is cold out. Now, he could just be getting nasty growing pains since it is near the growth plate. He also only complains when he is tired or if we have been walking a while, and even then, he doesn’t limp or swell up or anything. I am bummed if this is a knee injury that would effectively end any kind of athletic skills later. I think we need to call his doc to see about a follow up to make sure it is still healed correctly.

Luna played with a balloon last night and I was impressed that not only did she not pop it, she managed to pick it up twice in her mouth without it popping. Crazy dog.

After spending 2 full days of crazy work, I have been so lazy this morning.

My new look that I seem to be gravitating towards is a combo rock star/hippie. I am loving long flowy skirts and comfy jeans along with my converse or sandals. Then I have my rock star hair and darker makeup to add a bit of edge. It is a strange combo, but at least I can say it is all my own!

I am looking forward to next week when everything settles down. I have been Wii free since our trip because I have had no time. I have been either cleaning or running errands. I would like to work out, but right now, I know that I need to concentrate on the tasks at hand for this weekend and then I can do some other stuff. I figure, based on my calculations, the next big thing to “do” after this weekend isn’t until really Easter. I love doing Easter baskets, so those are always fun. With my folks being out of town on Easter, it does mean that we will have a very mellow just the four of us morning, and since we don’t do church or anything like that, it is likely it will be a pretty blasé holiday. It is also the weekend of our anniversary, but I don’t know that we will do anything that weekend. Perhaps the weekend before or after we will hit up my folks to have them stay the night (with of course the guilt trip that they were gone for a week and missed out on seeing them) at their house and Ken and I can find a little local hotel that has a hot tub in the room (I don’t know why this is so appealing, but we did it before and I loved it) and chill for a night. I had other plans, but they fell through sort of, so I am not going to go crazy on it. But either way, there are no plans in March, which rocks! Maybe it is a perfect time to get to work on the Spring Cleaning projects we have. Especially since it gives us 4 weekends to really work. Woo Hoo!