Through Someone Else's Eyes

Sometimes it is refreshing to see things from another person's perspective. For example...

• Sitting on bails of hay in a farm trailer being pulled by a rusty tractor with a large, meaty-handed man at the wheel. Passing through fields of dry cornstalks, a miniature train cruising by, red and orange leaves falling from the trees. Surrounded by kids and parents, cradling the pumpkins they've just selected from the pumpkin patch. A source of unexpected bliss, which as cynical and sleepy adults, SNG and I recognized upon seeing this little reflection of the soul:

• Arriving at the polling place on a Saturday, waiting in a line, and for the first time in your life, having a say in who runs the country. A friend of mine and her husband, both from China, have lived and worked in the US for over a decade. They have two children, both US citizens. After a ridiculously lengthy process and a class-action suit, last summer they finally completed their citizenship process. This week they voted in a national election, for the first time ever in any country. They are my age. Think on it a minute: for the first time they have a real voice in deciding the direction of government. It is easy for those of us who grew up here to take for granted. Some people, who could, don't bother to vote in general elections at all. Seeing this simple act of individual power from the perspective of someone who has never had it is humbling.

I voted today. Regardless of my choice of candidate, regardless of yours, I hope you have made your plan to go and vote, if you are eligible. In the end, whether you canvassed or made cold calls or donated money to a party or a grassroots organization or just sat on your couch watching reruns on Corner Gas, in the end, you have the same power as I do. It's more than some people will ever have in their lifetimes.

And just as lagniappe, this article gave me pause today. Sort of like realizing that your high school principal is a real person and not just an archetype, this lends a refreshing humanity to a topic that is far too easy to generalize.

State Fair

We went to the state fair this morning with Dianaverse, PIC, c-baby and LeBon, and it was a blast. E-baby enjoyed the animals that were being shown, the flowers on exhibit, the kettle corn, the cotton candy (OH, that COTTON CANDY), the music, the bright colors.

E-baby was a real tropper about not touching any of the animals, and was pretty much OK with just looking and pointing and asking about "their mommies" and "their daddies," so when we found the Petting Zoo area of the fair, we indulged her. Also, c-baby wanted soooooo badly to touch the animals, which makes sense as she used to live near lots of animals that she was allowed to pet regularly. Poor kid, it was like they were holding out on her!

The petting zoo mostly had small goats, but also a couple of camels, some calves, and lambs. She had never had an animal eat from her hand before, and it was CRAAAAAZY COOL to her when she was able to give little disks of carrot to them. I have to admit I was watching her really carefully to be sure the hand never went toward her mouth/eyes/nose, but she never so much as scratched her head. All of us cleaned up really well afterwards, and I think she liked the tiny sink as much as the animals, because she washed and dried her hands three times.

Around time to go home, I won a teddy bear for her that has been named Cotton Candy, and he is e-baby's new best friend. Instead of falling right asleep at nap time, I could hear her in there giving Cotton Candy the low-down on her crib and its various amenities (blanket, chupons, pillow...).

Tangentially related to the fair-- the silver lining to apartment living is that we're right next to where they set off the nightly fireworks show at the fair. Every evening at 9:45, we step out onto the breezeway to front-row seats.



I'll have fair pictures up soon. Check back tomorrow when I can get some sleep. 'Night night!!

Airport Open House

Our area is moving into the big-time by taking the previously odd terminal system and converting it to an inexplicable terminal system and eventually replacing the entire airport, bit-by-bit. When we moved here, construction was underway to rebuild and renovate Terminal C. Terminal A (a.k.a., The Bus Terminal) was very old and decrepit. After completion of the Terminal C renovation, Terminal A was renovated. BTW, there is no Terminal B. No sooner was the Terminal A renovation finished than the airport closed one half of Terminal C, demolished the Admiral's Club, and renovated the closed section. Admiral's Club became Admiral's Hallway, with fabric dividers between the lowly people whose companies paid an exorbitant annual fee and the lowly travelers whose companies do not. The closed section reopened, a new Admiral's Club opened, and the other half was demolished just in time to begin construction on Terminal 2.

Yes, that's right. A, 2, C.

As soon as Terminal 2 opens this month, the recently renovated Terminal C (and its new and miniaturized Admiral's Club) will be demolished, to be replaced by the Other Half of Terminal 2. Then, Terminal A will be demolished to make room for Terminal 1.

Confused? Try living here!

Terminal 2 had to be given a totally different kind of name because it cost so darn much money and it is so much bigger and fancier and prettier, that it can't possibly even be listed in the same data type as Terminals A and C.

All of this serves as segue to my story of what we did last weekend. Saturday morning was the Open House for the new Terminal 2, with free vendor samples, tours, activities for kids, TSA agents sporting brand-new royal blue shirts and being as surly as ever explaining the 3-1-1 rule (again!), K-9 officers with their own collector's cards, someone in a Curious George costume, and lots of moving walkways for people to test-ride. SNG, e-baby and I went and PIC and c-baby met us there. The kids loved it, and I was happy to have a sneak preview at my new future home-away-from-home. I didn't get to see the new Admiral's Club. I am afraid that maybe there won't be one. Or perhaps it will be temporarily located in the "family restroom" until The Other Half of Terminal 2 is finished.

And speaking of airlines, I am in Indianapolis. just for one night, but leaving on a Sunday morning really put a cramp in my mood. E-baby took it much better than I thought she would. She told me bye-bye, gave me kisses, and was really just excited about the prospect of daddy taking her to the playground as soon as they dropped me at the airport. We had a video call this evening, and she showed off several tricks. No tears. Still, I can't wait to get home tomorrow night.

Here are a few pictures from the open house:

Sick, Sick, Sick

I caught some creeping crud thing from e-baby this week. She had a fever Tuesday and stayed home on Wednesday, and I'm staying home today. I felt worse yesterday, but with all the coughing and the high risk of losing my voice (again!), and with teaching in Indianapolis on Monday, it's better to just keep my crud quietly at home.

I go sleep now.

I Have Learned This Lesson Before

This morning, e-baby and I went out to play with c-baby and PIC. The girls ran themselves silly at the playground, and afterwards we went out for lunch. When we left, it wasn't all that late, but it was getting close to e-baby's nap time. She was asleep around the time we left the restaurant parking lot. With the drive to PIC's house and the drive home again, it would have been impossible to keep her awake, but I held out hope that I'd be able to get her upstairs without waking her up, and she'd still get a nap. HA! Not on a bright sunny day. So for the next 90 minutes, e-baby screamed like her hair was on fire. No words, just hyperventalating, panicky, eyes-half-closed screaming. We eventually gave up on sleep and put her back into the car. SNG dropped me at Target, and e-baby settled down on the way there. They drove around aimlessly for another hour while I shopped. She, staring into space (but not sleeping) and he wondering just how far you can go on Holly Springs Rd before it becomes something else. She was never back to normal the rest of the day, and I think her missing the nap took its toll on me-- I am POOPED. She was asleep by 8:00, though.

I am newly obsessed with this stuff. In the past, Crystal Light hasn't been one of my favorite things. IN fact, I usually don't care for it-- it tastes too much like artificial sweetener. But this one is just SO GOOD. And best of all? It mixes to a shade of red that can only come from nature or a laboratory.

Speaking of consumer goods, about a year ago I mentioned to my dentist that my teeth were cold-sensitive and always had been as long as I could recall. He gave me a sample of Brand X sensitive toothpaste. I loved it. I couldn't find it at the store. So instead I got Brand Y sensitive, and it was OK. Not great, but OK. Fast-forward to yesterday. I decided to try for the Brand X again. No luck on the Sensitive, but they did have Brand X Total Nighttime, which claims to make your teeth whiter, less sentitive, less plaquey and tartery, straighter, pearlier, bite-ier, and to eliminate morning breath, along with whatever else they could think of to attribute to one single active ingredient. I took my bountiful promise home and tried it out before bed. No sooner had I rinsed and spit when I realized that ever bit of mucous membrane that had contacted the toothpaste was swollen and painful. It didn't go away. I woke up feeling like I had a terrible sore throat and the insides of my cheeks, lips, roof of my mouth all felt like I'd gargled with Drano. I compared the tube to the other three varieties of toothpaste I have (yeah, variety is good) and none of them used the same type of flouride, true, but the "inactive ingredient" list was fully twice as long as anything else I already owned, so who knows which thing I'm allergic to. I just know I'll never use it again.

At Target today I found the Brand X Sensitive like my dentist gave me. It is good. The mouth lye has been banished.

Wanna see pictures from the birthday party? Finally, here they are. Thanks, Dianaverse, for all of the cute pictures!

No One Here But Us Owls

There's really nothing going on and I'm just blogging to keep in practice. E-baby's birthday party last weekend was a blast, and it seemed like everyone had a wonderful time start to finish. I have pictures, but I haven't posted them yet. Yeah, yeah, I'll get around to it before the next birthday.

Minor headline news is that I'm still doing fine, gestationally speaking, at 20 weeks (half-way there!) and am pretty much on track with the weight and not so much on track with the exercise; e-baby is an owl this week (and I'm her mommy-owl, and SNG is her daddy-owl, and little owls have a special way of walking, sort of a short-strided penguin waddle with the knees locked straight while saying, of course, "hoo-hoo!"); Bob the Builder is hanging sheetrock in our house next week; we had dinner dates with friends 2 nights in a row (both were lots of fun, both with e-baby).

Next week is the last week I'm home before a trip to Indianapolis. I hate that I'm leaving on a Sunday at noon. I can't even put e-baby down for her nap and sneak away. The week after that I go to DC, but those are the only two business trips until December.

Ummmm, so really, not a whole lot going on.

Two-year-old update

E-baby had her two-year appointment today, and she's consistent with the last 18 months of data: 25th% percentile for height and for weight, 100% score on her cognitive, social, problem-solving and communication skills, and 90% score on fine and gross motor. In other words, she's still my clever little elf. And she can still wear her 18-month clothes. It looks like she'll probably end up a wee bit taller than her mommy: the growth trajectory predicts 5'3". At her age, my own growth chart predicted 5'1.5" (I'm 5'1"), so it was pretty darn accurate.

The CRAZY LOON behavior has tapered off since Tuesday, although something has definitely changed. She is just more, I dunno, connected to the world now. She talked about more stuff, she sings longer songs with more versus, she says more to strangers, and she's clearly much more stimulated than before. I think this move to two-year-olds was, if anything, overdue. I'm loving it, although I have to watch her a lot more carefully since she's likely to test her limits at any moment.

Other stuff-- the house is really coming along. Go check out SNG's blog to see pictures. His Cell Phone Pics link on the left has more pictures of the construction.

It's been blissfully overcast, cool, and windy this week. Am I nuts? No, I love that kind of weather. But I think a warm front is coming soon. That's perfect because e-baby's birthday party is this weekend and I'd love to use the pool.

Happy weekend!

Happy Two-Day!

Happy Birthday, e-baby!

She started her 2-year old class full-time yesterday and had a great day, but one day was all it took for my sweet, gentle little girl to become a rowdy, bawdy, feet-on-the-table raucous two-year-old. It's like someone replaced her with a clone who doesn't care if you approve of what she's doing now, and in fact if you DON'T approve, so much the better. In two hours after school she:
* jumped on my head in a classic mid-south wrestling move
* flipped upside-down from a chair many times while holding my hands
* tried repeatedly to put her hand through the window screen while looking me straight in the eye as if to say, "What are you going to do about it, lady?"
* put her (full) glass of water into a ziplok bag with a whistle and a crayon since, you know, they were all in the same room
* mashed a banana into the carpet
* poured milk all over one of her dolls for fun
* walked onto (and stood on) the book I was reading on the floor an did a little tap-dance
* dropped hair accessories into my water glass so she could go "fishing" for them
* chewed on wet hair accessories while humming Old MacDonald

Mind you, she's long since learned how NOT to mash banana into a carpet and not to pour anything on her dolls, is not a kid who puts things into her mouth in general, and this is just experimenting with misbehavior. I know that right now, letting things slide without correction would be a terrible mistake, so I spent the whole evening saying "No ma'am, that is NOT ok. Please put down..." "Only food goes into your mouth" and "No, you need to help clean up the mess before you can..."

I suppose that it's all part of becoming her own dog. The gentle girl is still in there somewhere, and once she plays out this new obnoxious identity, she'll settle into something in-between. In spite of being chided for this or that, she's very interested in impressing me with her new tricks. I think she wants to know which of her newly-acquired behaviors from the older kids at school are OK to do at home.

My favorite new 2-year-old trick-- she finally understands that looking UP instead of DOWN keeps water/soap from dripping into her eyes when we wash her hair. Seriously, this is huge. The girl was BORN terrified of water on her face and has NEVER peacefully complied with a hair-wash until the last 2 weeks, when all my explanations of "look UP at the CEILING and you won't get water in your face" finally reached neural terra firma. I don't know whether it's better reasoning skills or just having the swimming pool that did it, but I don't really care. It's just great to know that she will not, in fact, spend her adult life with greasy hair because she's too afraid to wash it herself.

So Happy Birthday to my most wonderful, delightful, intelligent, witty, talented and mischievous girl. I can't wait to see what this year will bring. I love you more than you can ever imagine.

Renovation Update

Well, it's only a few weeks into this renovation and already I can see the whole thing coming together. Everything has been framed, which is the most expensive part of the job. We still have glass, sheetrock, tiling, paving, carpeting, windows, doors, roofing, electrical, plumbing, and painting (inside and out) to go. It's crazy to think that some people do these kinds of projects themselves. Of course, those people are licensed contractors and they spend a year on the job.

This week I picked out the tile for the upstairs bathrooms, SNG and I picked out stone for the front porch, and we bought new lights/fans for inside the house. We planned the locations of our lightswitches, cable outlets, electrical outlets and phone jacks. We also talked over the new back deck and discovered that a patio would cost less, last longer, and look better. So we're having a patio installed in the back in place of a new deck. SNG will have to rebuild his firepit to match the classiness of it all.

We finalized the outside paint colors but still need to settle on the inside paint. We'll probably use the same color that was already there, since as neutral beiges go, it's our favorite shade.

Oh, and we made all our final decisions on reupholstering the living room furniture. We'll have a beige seude-ish fabric, and we're also having a PURPLE! slipcover made from a corduroy-ish upholstery so that when we get sick of nbeutral colors, we can have PURPLE! living room furniture. And you know, sometimes you need a shot of PURPLE! in your life.

Right now the house is completely uninhabitable. It's definitely not safe for little people to run around. I'm not really sure it's safe for grown-ups without steel-toe boots and a hard hat. I'm glad we moved out. I can't wait to move back in.

The main thread through all of this, though, is that the renovation is turning out to be even more exciting and wonderful than we expected. It's also more expensive, which goes with the "oh, let's also do this!" territory. So we'll be eating ramen and wearing sackcloth shirts, but we'll have an awesome house.

Here is the rear of the house. The new playroom is upstairs, and on the left you can see the living room doubling in size:

All around the rear of the house will be a new patio. On the lower right of the rear wall you can see a sample of the paint color we chose (beige, house, dark blue shutters)

A new front porch will keep rain out of the front door, put the stoop level with the door, and have a nice stone finish:


Inside the living room addition:


The vaulted ceiling above the breakfast area (a.k.a. Kitchen Stadium) will now a be a LARGE closet upstairs. The catwalk has been being doubled in width since this picture was taken so you can get to it without walking the plank:


We don't have pictures of the new bathroom, but it will turn the big room over the garage into a sweet guest suite. Thanks to SNG for the cell phone pictures.

It's A

SPROUT!

Update

It's been a good week, apart from catching a cold along with e-baby, she staying home one day last week and me losing my voice on Thursday. Otherwise things are humming along nicely.

* This weekend, PIC's parents, brother and sister are all in town for a visit so we joined them for a toddler playdate and a dinner outing last night. At first, e-baby was a little shy about seeing all these loud, boisterous, smiling faces at c-baby's house, but she warmed up when people started singing to her. Nothing lubricates her personality like some good dancing. At dinner, c-baby hid behind SNG's chair to play peek-a-boo with her Mimi, e-baby entertained the troops with her french fries and orange slices, and afterwards everyone had some frozen treats. Well, all except c-baby who was busy making up for any time last week that she might have forgotten to run around full-speed and squeal with delight. It was all so wonderful and cute that I couldn't stop planting kisses all over both of them. I think everyone else had the same feeling. I can't wait until they all come to town again. The first thing e-baby said as we pulled out of PIC's driveway was "I had good time!!" You said it, kid.

* I spoke to Bob the Builder Friday and he said that the job will be finished by mid-November. Wooooowoo! That's faster than he or we had initially expected, and it couldn't be better news to me. So it looks like we'll have Thanksgiving in our "new house." SNG stopped by the house and they've finished framing the new living room space. He said that from inside, the new space looks like they've uncovered the other half of our living room that was always missing.

* I set up our new web camera yesterday and got all synced up with my parents so that e-baby can have videoconferences with them. After a couple hours of "I can see you- can you see me yet? No? Well let's try changing this thingie," e-baby talked to both of them.

* We've gone swimming both mornings this weekend. It's a great way to wear out the kid so she'll go straight to sleep, but it works a little too well. She doesn't want lunch, she doesn't want to clean up the chlorine, she wants to go to sleep. Now. So she's sleeping. Boy is she ever gonna be hun-gry.

Thirty Five

According to my doctor, I am mature starting today. I think it's funny that according to the same criteria, men are not mature until age 70.

Mature means that I got to have a special appointment with a genetic counselor and had extra ultrasound pictures of sprout, which was fun. BTW, everything looked superfantastic with Sprout's genetic indicators, so he/she seems to be of good sturdy (albeit only half-mature) stock. In a week from today we'll have a better idea of whether it's Sprout or Sprout, although whatever the case, he/she better hope to look good in pink butterflies because I am s-i-c-k of shopping for (read: spending more money on) baby clothes.

Tonight, I'll let e-baby help me blow out a candle and eat some cake before her favorite babysitter takes her while SNG and I go to a fancy French restaurant that does not offer crayons or a special menu with word search games on it.

Moved!

We moved into our temporary place over the weekend. E-baby thinks it's wonderland. There's a pool, and her room has lots of beautiful decorations that she got to install (with a lot of help from the babysitter), and we are using her tiny table and chairs for most meals instead of the full-size dining table. Poor SNG has his knees in his chin, but she and I are quite comfy.


Oh, and we had doughnuts for breakfast on moving day. You say bribery, I say marketing.

I Won't Say Why I Am Telling You This

But "on-boarding" is not a synonym with "orientation." In fact, it is not even a noun. Or a word. *sigh*