A trip to the dollar store

I know when I go into the dollar store that I am likely to encounter some interesting folks and today I did. I was there to get some things for baby Doodle's birthday party and while I was there I found some not-so-bad gardening gloves. The gloves were right next to the fake nylon and plastic flowers. There was a young woman shopping with her grandmother for some beautiful unrealistically colored fake flowers for her wedding or engagement party or some other important event. They discussed what flowers to get and the grandmother suggested getting tulips because "they are in season." In season! Who cares?!? They're FAKE! They also put a few glass vases in their cart.

Then, while I was waiting in the check out line some stranger two people back exclaimed to the group of us that there was a very nice looking Lexus in the parking lot. She wondered who it belonged to. The fake flower grandmother spoke up immediately to claim it as her granddaughter's. Why, why, why would someone who owns a noteworthy Lexus buy fake flowers at the Dollar Tree for her wedding or party? Interesting indeed.

random thoughts III

I have found two babysitters and am so happy about it. They both live in my neighborhood and are in their 20s and working at regular full-time jobs. I'm so looking forward to getting some regular breaks.

Yesterday, some friends of ours came over for lunch. They have a six and a three year old. They just moved back to DC from Miami last week and were in PA visiting our friend's mother. As they were leaving the father told the three-year old that they were getting back in the car to go back to DC. The kid said, "is this Florida?" It was so cute. Baby Doodle had a great time staring at the big kids and trying to interact with them.

Last Saturday, baby Doodle, who had shown absolutely no interest in the stairs, climbed the entire flight from the first to the second floor! He's getting so old -- he'll be one on Sunday (April 1). I can't believe it.

sometimes your best isn't good enough

Mr. Doodlebug is often doing things around the house or with baby Doodle that are half-assed, in my opinion. And when I call him on it he says (in a tone that says "what more do you want from me?!?"), "I did my best. It's impossible to do better than my best." When he first started saying it I thought it was kind of funny because he would say it as a kind of joke. But now it's getting on my nerves. It's almost like he purposely doesn't pick baby Doodle's clothes up off the floor when he gives him a bath so that he can say that he's done his best and how dare I ask him to do anything more than that.

If Mr. Doodlebug were the one staying home with BD and I were to come home at 6:00 p.m. every night I would be coming home to a pig sty that I would then have to clean up.

All of that said, Mr. Doodlebug is a very good dad to BD and loves spending time with him including bathing him and other chore-like tasks. He's also a very good husband and I'm grateful for all he does around the house and with baby Doodle. If only he did things the way I do them!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Wednesday the high temperature was 79 degrees and it did indeed reach 79. Baby Doodle and I went for a long walk with Girlfiend and the Fiendling and we played at the park for a while too. It was like summer. It was light out until after 7:00 p.m. and the temperature was downright balmy. Our tulips and daffodils came up and the crocuses bloomed.

Friday it sleeted, snowed and rained, and then froze. We have three inches of icy snow covering our yard, stairs, car, well everything outside. The high Friday was 31 degrees!

Today is Saturday, St. Patrick's Day. We tried to go out to Ikea to play in the cool kids' display rooms but our car won't budge. Mr. Doodlebug shoveled it out. We both chipped away at the ice patch under the front driver side tire but we still were not able to make the car move.

I don't know why I become so convinced that it's going to be warm until October just because we have a few warm days. I know it's March and March is so unpredictable. But every year I'm fooled.

Here are our flowers. Hopefully they'll survive this untimely storm and we can go back to spring again.

The reason I haven't been writing much

I had a melt down the other night. I hadn’t been in a good mood in about a week and Mr. Doodlebug was getting tired of my curtness. I think day after day after day of taking care of baby Doodle without a break for almost an entire year is starting to grate on me.

Baby Doodle was a very good baby – he still is – but lately he has been clingy (he cries whenever I put him down), whiney, and tired but won’t sleep. We have had a great night time routine for months now. We put BD in his pajamas, let him play for a little while in the family room and read him a few books. Then I nurse him and carry him to his crib, still awake, where he lies without making a peep until he falls asleep. We’ve been following our same schedule, but now when I put him in his crib he screams and crawls to the end of the crib closest to the door, pulls himself up and cries until someone comes in and lays him back down. Tuesday night he cried for an hour before I went upstairs.

It is truly depressing to have everything we’ve been working on for so long just go out the window. It’s depressing, too, to have a clearly unhappy baby who’s not getting the sleep he needs. Last night, I let him cry for about a half hour then I went up and rubbed his back until he fell asleep, which didn’t take long because he was exhausted.

Today, we went to our weekly playgroup. Baby Doodle was tired when we got there, but I thought he would rally once he saw all the new toys. How wrong I was. He played with the host’s daughter until two of the other moms and their sons arrived. Then he wanted to be held. I held him and gave him some fruit. Then he cried when the fruit was gone and wouldn’t stop crying. So we left about a half hour after we got there. That, too, was depressing. It’s one of the organized, weekly activities we do that I really look forward to and we had to cut it short because of BD’s mood. I know that will not be the last time – we have yet to enter toddlerhood.

When we got home I fed him lunch, then spent 45 minutes lying next to him on the guest bed. I had to struggle him down on the mattress eight or nine times to keep him from getting up and crawling away. He was extremely tired but wouldn’t close his eyes. Finally, he succumbed to the exhaustion and fell asleep. He’s upstairs on the guest bed now and if he crawls off the bed onto the carpeted floor so be it. I can’t spend my days lying next to him while he sleeps – and the crib, forget it.

My solution is to find a babysitter who can babysit BD once a week for two hours to give me a break. The last two breaks I’ve had from him I was at the dentist, and the time before that was in December! I’m dying here.

I'm the home repair person in our house

Why do home projects always take longer than you expect? Last night I put three hooks in the ceiling of our dining room. I already have one plant hanging and plan to get the other two this week. I bought an electric drill and a whole set of bits and drivers and other stuff I'll probably never use. What I thought would take me about a half hour ended up taking me two hours.

First I had to figure out how to use the drill. Then it took me about 45 minutes to figure out how to put the given screws through two inches of sheetrock and then wood. The second screw was just sheetrock so that went smoothly. Then the third was more sheetrock-wood combo. The hooks are pretty secure and the plant I hung from the first hook hasn't fallen yet, so I think we're set.

This afternoon I raked the dead leaves out of the garden and trimmed the trees. They were growing out of control and blocking the ground covering from getting any sun. Baby Doodle was surpringly good except for when he dug up some moss and ate the dirt under it. I can't wait for all the boyish things BD is going to get into . . .

Money Woes

It is totally worth it to have one income and get to stay home with baby Doodle. I love raising him and I like to think he's better off with me than in day care -- of course I don't begrudge the parents who put their kids in day care or have a nanny, to each her own. That said, we don't have the kind of spending money we used to. That is mostly due to the fact that I'm not working, but the outrageously high gas bill we just received ($750 for ONE month) and the improvements we are making to our house certainly make things more difficult. I can't wait for spring to arrive so we can go back to paying $30 gas bills, and BD and I will be able to more freely go for walks and be outside. I'm not looking forward to weeding. I've noticed some vines already making their way out of the ground.

Sir Eats A Lot

I am a little worried that baby Doodle is going to be an overweight kid and adult. He LOVES food. Tonight for dinner he had about an eighth of a head of cauliflower with tomato sauce, about 12 grapes and some pasta that I had cut in half to make it last longer. I fed him the cauliflower on a spoon. Immediately after the spoon left his mouth he would whine for more (staring at the plate and saying mmm, mmm, mmm faster and faster until I fed him more). I gave him the pasta on the tray of his seat and let him feed himself. I did a few dinner dishes while he was eating the pasta. When I was almost finished rinsing the dishes I thought, wow baby Doodle is doing quite well with the limited amount of pasta I gave him. He must be eating at a normal pace. Then I turned around and noticed that he had reached the big tupperware of pasta and had eaten almost every noodle. That is what was keeping him so occupied. I worry that he doesn't feel full, or doesn't care that he feels full and just keeps eating.

I also think this would be the thing that is less than perfect about baby Doodle -- he'll be fat -- and I am afraid of being fat.

I don't know why I watch TV

Mr. Doodlebug and I have been watching American Idol. We saw most of the season in which Ruben Studdard won, but haven't watched other seasons. Simon's comments are definitely the most accurate and constructive. Paula's comments are always positive, sometimes they're about the physical attractiveness of the contestant if she can't think of anything good to say about their performance. I believe Paula was drunk during last night's show. She must have had rum mixed with her Coke in those conspicuously placed Coke glasses.

After American Idol a new show came on called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. They could not have chosen dumber people, which I am sure was not an accident. One of the questions was, "What country has the longest border with the United States?" The contestant was from San Diego and therefore thought that Mexico had the longest border. She said she always hears about the border control problems with Mexico so they must have the longest border. The fifth grader who she chose to help her out got the question correct, of course, and saved her ass.

I will not be watching another episode of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. It's crap.