3.31.2006

what a fool believes

we won the lottery!

and other assorted april fool's jokes.

I'm feeling a little guilty right now because I totally sabotaged my friend jarrett's cubicle this morning before I realized he was having a bad day. first, he forgot his pass to get in, and then, after we got breakfast, he had a nasty ketchup incident. meanwhile, I stole all of his pens, turned most of his pictures upside down, disconnected his mouse...and a few other things I don't think he's seen yet. meanwhile, he's sitting in his cube in an undershirt, waiting for his polo shirt to dry, as he went into the men's room and thoroughly soaked it. the shirt is currently hanging over his cubicle wall, drying. and here I am, fucking with him.

and I can't stop laughing.

anyways, I haven't really thought of anything good I can do for sean and trent. I think if I did something to sean's car and he found out as he was getting in it at 5:15am, I might not get the exact response I'm looking for. and most of the things I can think of to tell trent to trick him into believing something are mean - either because it's something great that isn't true, or it's something horrible that will just be depressing and not funny even when it's revealed as april fools.

so yeah, this is how I get my kicks sometimes. ask sean. I torture him. usually when I'm bored and he's in the shower. my favorite is sneaking mouthwash in the water when he's in the shower (innocuous - he just gets freaked out over the minty smell in there, which is magnified by the hot water) or climbing up and squirting him with body wash or toothpaste from up high. once, I reenacted the psycho scene while he was in the shower, with a real knife. that didn't go over well. but blinking the lights on and off and then leaving them off while he's in the shower is always a hit.

I wonder if I'll ever outgrow this. I am certain sean wishes I would.

so anyways, you got food on your shirt. april fools!

3.28.2006

bummer

I went on a little vacation to virginia beach. it sucked. I'm back. I took pictures. I will post them shortly, I think. maybe.

I tried to give blood today but was told my iron levels are too low.

fucking MIM.

my bra shrunk when I accidentally put it in the dryer.

work sucks, did you know that? I mean in general. having to work. it sucks.

sorry I'm not more chipper, like, ever. I feel bad because I feel bad. I'm back from vacation and I should not only be witty, but downright CHIPPER at all the free time I had. la la laaa la laaa. I was never one to be good at blowing sunshine up people's asses so I guess most of you aren't surprised.

I'm going to take a deep breath and count to ten and find one positive thing to write.

one
two


three

four
five

siiiix
seven...

...

eight...

nine...

nine and a half....

....

.......

ten.

okay, here it is. I'm happy about not having to be happy all the time. the internet is full of people acting like their shit doesn't stink or that they are happy all the time, so much so that I can't even think of only 2 blogs to link to as examples.

anyway. let's talk about potties for a second instead.

we got bella a potty yesterday. she likes it so far. she likes to open the lid, sit on it, and get up. over and over and over. we let her on it without clothes to try actually peeing or pooping in it, but it was not to be. I just want to get her used to seeing it there, so if she wants to try, it's ready for her. then it isn't quite so scary.

she's been very watchful about what we do in the bathroom. she's been staring at sean's boy parts and she's been pointing to my cooch, which is embarrassing and uncomfortable, but because we don't want her to grow up with body issues and/or shame, we act like it's totally natural. and then quickly cover up.

the other day, she was playing (as she usually does) with a giant box of tampons I got from costco. she likes to take them out of the box and then put them back in. this time, though, she tore one open and took out the tampon itself. and then bent down and put it between her legs. I was....well, it's all I can do to even tell this story now. I was laughing and horrified. of course, I gave the tampon to her once sean was home so she could do the same thing and he was laughing and horrified too.

so. talk of the shitter followed up by talk of the shitter. sorry folks. you'll have to get your happy emoticons from somewhere else today, I'm sad to say.

3.24.2006

for all the babies in all the world

I just witnessed something awful. it's almost 11pm on friday night. justin, our neighbor to the right, recently had a girlfriend move in with him. I haven't seen much of her or her child - just have seen the stroller and various toys. apparently, all day they've been having a falling out...if that's what you want to call it. what I heard was justin being loud and screaming and cursing and stomping and banging - and the girlfriend too. while the daughter, a little girl probably not much older than bella, cried, tried to play, and mimicked the adults.

he just threw her out and she took the girl into the street. the woman called justin a fucking asshole, and the baby repeated it. she came back a few times to argue some more and get more of her things, while the baby shivered with her coat not zipped all the way and no socks on. at one point, the woman was mad at justin for not letting her in the house so she violently kicked at the door, which was when I opened my door to let them know that I was there. I kept wondering if I should offer to take the baby into my house while they sorted things out, or if that would be worse. and unfortunately in our stupid town, even though the police have nothing to do, it takes them upwards of a half hour or so to get to any domestic disturbances (we know from experience) and it appeared as though the woman was getting her things to leave.

she came back with an older woman - probably her mother. the older woman shushed the baby while the baby looked into justin's house and said hello to the kitty just like bella does. she pointed to things she thought were interesting out on the porch while justin and her mommy said unspeakable things, accused each other of doing too much coke, and came close to blows. finally, the woman got all of her things in the car and jerked the baby into her carseat and left.

the baby wasn't much older than bella, and she is so innocent. I know I should have either called the cops immediately or maybe I should have told them to be careful of the baby or maybe I should have just gone to sleep and put it out of my head. I keep seeing that little girl and thinking about how many other times she's been in that situation and how many more times she'll be in that situation and how many other babies are in worse predicaments right now...and it's more than I think I can bear at the moment. I have never in my life wanted to reach out and hug a baby who is a stranger to me more than tonight and yet there I stood, clutching the phone, not dialing, not keeping the door open...not doing anything, just frozen, watching this baby with snot running down her nose from crying seeing the kitty at justin's house and forgetting for a minute that the chaos was happening and just wanting to pet the cat...but not being able to because she's outside on the porch with her coat unzipped and no socks held by her grandmother who is telling her to be quiet and stop being a baby.

the world is more than I can bear sometimes.

3.21.2006

picture pages

these pick up right after I last left off with pictures - from as far back as january. I know. shut up.

bella chooses which shoes she wants next:
Image hosting by Photobucket

she loves dance dance revolution:
Image hosting by Photobucket

new obsession - mini marshmallows (mawoahs):
Image hosting by Photobucket

eggerts, and yes, these are that old that this is from baby disco:
Image hosting by Photobucket

driving mr. noah at the PTM:
Image hosting by Photobucket

in front of the fridge, yo:
Image hosting by Photobucket

trent is half backwards man:
Image hosting by Photobucket

surprise!
Image hosting by Photobucket

junk food junkie

last night, sean went on his quarterly beer run up to The Best Beer Distributor In The World with his friend, buying cases and cases of microbrews and imports for distribution to about 25 guys. so it was me and bella.

she was awfully whiny. she only really stopped when I asked her if she wanted a snack.

she's got a pretty big vocabulary (which is going to be something I look back and laugh very wryly about, I think) but amazingly, and horrifyingly, alot of it revolves around food. now, I should preface this by saying she does say broccoli and cheese and pretzels, which are not that bad. however, she only needs to see the paper liners for cupcakes and she squeals "CUPCAAAAEE!!"

last night was no different. when snacktime came, she went through all the different snacks to choose from. cookies, pretzels, crackers, and "cream" - aka ice cream. we settled on cookies, or rather mini nilla wafers in a scooby doo box. I made the mistake of leaving them out last night, and this morning when I brought her downstairs to get her "coke" (coat) on so we could leave, she saw the box. and kept screaming "cookie! cookie!!"

she wouldn't leave without it (and I try hard to avoid tantrums) and she didn't necessarily push to EAT them, just to HOLD them, so I let her take the box to daycare. and she screamed if I took it away even for a second to buckle her into our out of the carseat, so she was pretty serious about it. she took them into daycare with her, but luckily, when she saw her friends, she let go of the box and went over to eat waffles.

I wonder if she'll use that box as her "lovey" now. as long as it stops being my boob, I'm cool with that.

3.17.2006

I'm not irish, but my husband is, so I do have a little irish in me from time to time.

the irish-american culture is fascinating. I don't think anyone identifies so strongly to their roots as irish americans. and we're talking like 7 or 8 generations away from ireland, still they identify so strongly to being irish. or part irish.

my father was conceived in italy but was born in america. his father didn't come over until after he was born. my great grandmother only came over after many years and when she did, she refused to learn english. my dad, on the other hand, refused to speak italian.

my parents both grew up in south philly where an interesting intersection of irish folks and italian folks makes for alot of brawls. in some of the more isolated parts of south philly, it's their own brand of gang violence. the irish and the italians do not like each other at all, for no other reason than the fact that their parents felt that way because their parents felt that way because their parents felt that way.

without going into much more detail, suffice it to say that it wasn't the best news back in 2000 that my new boyfriend's name was sean milligan. but my family has tolerated sean's irishness pretty well, I think.

the funniest part? my mother's family is partially irish. "do as I say, not as I do."

happy st. patrick's day!

3.15.2006

2 things real quick

1, bella is getting tubes next thursday. now instead of freaking out about giving her medicine and her being sick, I can freak out about her having minor surgery and anesthesia.

2, happy birthday katy!!! I feel priviledged to have met you in the flesh, and I can say that you, indeed, rock. and rock hard.

that is all for now. over and out.

oh, ps. you all are such a wonderful and supportive bunch of people. I do appreciate it even though it doesn't seem like I do.

pss. steve is not just sean's friend - he's my friend too. don't be afraid! say hello!!

3.14.2006

surprise! a long post.

This weekend, we had a surprise 13th birthday party for trent. I know I didn’t mention anything about it – I think subconsciously I thought that if I mentioned it, it could possibly get back to him and I really wanted it to be a surprise. It was poker-themed, which makes me a horrible mother. In fact, on Friday, the local radio news station was playing this story about kids being addicted to gambling over and over again and I just felt awful. Oh well.

Instead of typing out everything that went on, I’m taking some excerpts of emails I sent to my email crue, lovingly called “tender morsels” (consisting of Nicole, mark, jen o, tracey (aka scuttleslut), and tom.)

he was surprised, which surprised me. there were about 23 kids there, including girls. we sent bella away with a friend of sean's, and it was only the 3 of us adults against all those kids. we ordered 5 pizzas and cut up 5 hoagies and had some chicken fingers and chips and whatnot, and hardly anyone ate anything. they were all too busy. as soon as trent came in, we started the games. they didn't let brett or sean up all night. I had to make them let me take a break twice to clean up all the soda cans and debris and to let the poor dog out.

they loved it. I think trent liked it too, but he's not especially emotive about things like that. at the end of the night, we asked them all what their point total was, and the one with the most points and the second most points got to pick from 3 best buy gc's of different values. the winner chose randomly the highest amount - $25. but the second place girl was complaining that she wanted me to just give her the one with the most money. and not in a cute way. I told her to pick, she got the lowest amount, and she bitched and complained, loudly, for the rest of the night. luckily she was only there for another 20 mins. (she also wanted cake as soon as she came in, and sean told her we had to wait, and then we didn't have time to cut the cake until about 9:45 and the party end time was 10pm. sean asked her if she wanted cake now, since she waited patiently all night, and she goes "uh, WHY would I want cake when there's only TEN MINUTES LEFT?? duh.")

so other than super bitchy bitch face, it was great. it's good we have a dog though, because on sunday, maggie buried her face in the couch and unearthed an entire piece of pizza that had been chewed up and spit out into a napkin which was folded nicely and shoved into the couch.

oh, and you should have seen our middle room. I moved all of bella's toys upstairs, and a bunch of stuff to the basement, and we had 3 folding tables - one long one for roulette, which I manned; one small one with a poker table top on top for texas hold em, which brett manned; and one medium one for blackjack, which sean manned. and there were 5 colors of chips, which seems like no big deal, until you can't remember if it's the blue ones that are 25 or the green ones, and you have to make change RIGHT NOW while a kid is screaming in your ear.


So that was Saturday. We were exhausted. On Sunday, some strange force overtook me and I started rearranging our furniture. I had decided that since we already bought a king sized bed specifically because bella sleeps with us, it was not necessary to keep up the rouse that she needs a crib, so until we make it into a toddler bed, I put it in the basement. Or rather, sean did. But while I was looking for the hardware bag for it, I cleaned out her closet, rearranged all of her toys, and cleaned out her old clothes. What a day.

On the bella front: last Tuesday, she had an appointment with a new pediatrician. He confirmed that her ears were infected again, and that had they been left much longer, they would have perforated. He put her on zithromax, which is a powerful antibiotic, and told us that the other doctors hadn’t been giving her the right kinds of medicine. On Friday, he wanted to check her ears to see how the medicine was working, and since it hadn’t worked at all except staving off the perforation, he gave her an injection of antibiotics. That’s the action of last resort. we took her in on Saturday to be checked again, but it wasn’t cleared up yet, so she got another injection. Yesterday, sean took her again to be checked, and for the first time in a long time, her ears are looking good. Tomorrow, we go to children’s hospital downtown to see a different ENT. I’m hoping the tubes are scheduled soon so we don’t have to go through another round of medicine or injections.

Because our appointment is so early, I asked Nicole and mark if they’d mind bella and I crashing at their house tonight, and they graciously said yes. so tonight, I’m off to casa de noah, land of both cheese and cheese haters.

Wish us luck.

(oh, by the way – the capitalization. No, I haven’t embraced the shift key. I typed this up in word instead of the blogger thingie. Stupid auto cap.)

3.07.2006

it's just not working

first, kid news. trent got a haircut and he's looking very dapper. I have a sneaking suspicion that he's procrastinating on a project. bella is adorable as usual. she's very interested in saying hi and bye to things. hi, dog. hi, kitty. hi, dada. hi, trent. hi, baby. all while waving. it's cute. also, we went to the local ear nose and throat doctor, who told us to call him next time she has a substantial infection (her ears are mildly infected now) so we can schedule the tube procedure. he wants to see if she can wait it out till spring when ear infections tend to subside naturally. we'll see.

next, house news. I don't know what's going on. I'm too afraid to pull the trigger on a full-on addition. I think we're going to get a contractor out to give us advice and then figure out how much we need, see how much it costs, and then go from there. we'll see.

finally, brain news. I feel like a big fuckup for even mentioning it but it's what's on my mind and this is my goddamn blog, so.... and it's so like, look at me, see how fucked up I am, pity me, validate me. pathetic. I know we "all feel this way from time to time" and writing about it on some blog isn't going to help, no one is going to help, I have to do it myself and I need to get around to sucking it up and just fucking whatever already. I'm in the valley. between peaks. it's dark and uncomfortable and all of this sounds like bullshit. my life is unravelling but of course it will all be better once I get over it and then it will just sit there and wait till the next valley.

whatever. I'm not even going to go further. and please, I know you all mean well, but you don't have to try to make me feel better. it will just make me feel more stupid and vain and whatever. instead, tell me what kind of bread you like best.

3.02.2006

hb, j!

happy birthday to JENO!

to say happy birthday, here are all the things I can think of that rhyme with jen.

hen
pen
sven
men
len
fen
ben
yen
zen
den
ken
ten

happy birthday, jen!

3.01.2006

doca, hee, moo, fay, noon, fee, BEEP!

that's what bella says when she wants milk heated up in the microwave. the gibberish in the front is us counting down the seconds until the beep. it's done while pointing with her tiny little index finger at the digital display on the microwave. she also thinks that all appliances work in this way, so when she sees us put a piece of bread or her waffle in the toaster oven, she does her countdown and BEEP. it's like her cuteness button is stuck in the pressed position.

and I am "happy" to report that trent is, indeed, a teenager. we go from happy to angry in milliseconds. from pissed off to content in the blink of an eye. from pretty smart to really dumb with the snap of his fingers. it's hard to deal with - already. already!! I just try to take a deep breath before I respond to him. he really knows how to push my buttons sometimes and I have to remember who the adult is - meaning that I am, but more than that, that he isn't.

and...well...I don't have much else to report at this time. sorry this post is kinda lame.