Saturday, December 18, 2010

My head is too small

Remember the "My Brain Is Full" entry a ways back? Yeah, that's what's been going on. People to see One Last Time, chipped paint to take care of, children to keep alive, et cetera. It also means my funny bone is mostly gone, but I'll update just because a few of you have asked. Once I'm less overwhelmed, I'm sure I'll have all sorts of things to say. Probably more than you want to hear.

Emmy is thisclose to walking. Grace was thisclose to walking for months, but she's certainly more cautious than Emmy. I don't think Emmy will wait until she can walk perfectly. She's perfectly happy crashing into sharp objects all over the place. I catch her halfway up the stairs several times a day. Blockading them with chairs doesn't work anymore. She just slides right under. I'm so glad we're moving soon. Carrying her on my back all the time is good for me, but it's also tiresome.

Speaking of Grace, she is suddenly... normal.

She's still shy, but she smiles at and flirts with anyone and everyone so long as one of us is close at hand. She asks for vegetables. She picks up mushy food. She doesn't throw a fit if I wait until the end of breakfast to wipe the yogurt off her face and bib. Screaming during hairwashing has gone from Psycho to barely a yelp. She ate seven large, weird-looking mushrooms (in sauce!) at dinner today. I don't know what happened, but I'm not going to question it.

We found a good home for the cat. Jeremy dropped her off today. Huuuge weight off our shoulders.

That's all. I'm kind of fried. I'll be back soon. We move in two weeks, and then I'll never shut up.

Monday, December 6, 2010

The grass is greener

Please don't take this personally, but I hate all these Facebook status memes floating around. Even the funny ones. I don't know why. They make me so crazy. I think maybe it's because the "serious" ones made me so irate in the first place that even when the satirical ones came along, I only had space in my cold little heart to put them on the same shelf as the serious ones. But every time a new one pops up, I want to kick a puppy.

The more I think about this apartment we're moving to, the more I think I may never want to move again. Washer and dryer included, ground floor, single level, attached garage, open kitchen/dining/living area, no yardwork. I HATE our setup now, even though it's one of the things that attracted me to the house in the first place.

I wanted a kitchen separate from the rest of the house. Now that I have it, I hate it. Our old apartment had a tiny kitchen right in the middle of the unit. Now, it was a very efficient use of space; instead of putting a useless hallway to the bathroom and bedroom, they put a kitchen in. But it took forever to get anything done in there if there was anyone else there, and it heated up the entire apartment. So I thought I wanted a kitchen separate from the rest of the house.

Now that we have one, I know better. Our kitchen is not conducive to play time. It's always cold (or super hot) in there, and the floor is always freezing. So the girls prefer to be out in the living room and dining room. This is kind of nice; I can get things done in the kitchen without small people under my feet, but it also makes me feel a bit isolated. If Jeremy's home, he's stuck in the living room with the kids while I'm cooking. If he's not home, the girls are playing by themselves in there or long stretches of time. I'm all for independent play, but sometimes I spend a loooong time in the kitchen cleaning, cooking, preparing snacks or meals ahead of time, whatever. It just seems so neglectful.

Speaking of Facebook and bad parenting, a friend posted this:

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I don't know why it bugged me so much. I don't typically take other people's parenting choices as an attack on my own. I really don't care what other people do with their kids, so long as they're not abusing them.

I'm not a "babywearer"; I mean, I tote Emmy around in the Ergo a lot, and I did the same with Grace in the sling (which Emmy loathes with every little muscle in her body), but it's purely utilitarian. My children are too heavy to babywear all the time, even with a good carrier. I breastfed, but when it wasn't working anymore... meh. We're switching to cloth diapers, but it's almost entirely to save money.

And I'm enthusiastic about the things that have worked for us, too. Early sleep training, swaddling, to name a couple. Both of these are things some people strongly dislike. That's fine. It's worked for us, and it doesn't have to work for them.

But it was sounded so smug, as if to say, "I'm a superior parent because I do X, Y and Z!" Even if X, Y, and/or Z are better for kids, that doesn't mean that the other millions of parenting choices we make every day don't even us all out. I know someone else who does all these things, but the house is filthy (we're not talking just clutter and unvacuumed floors; it's much worse than that). It is, in my opinion, a horrible environment for a child to grow up in.

Feh. This is not a person who is typically smarmy and judgmental about such things, so I should probably just let it go.

My sister dear is expecting another baby. I am positively giddy about this news. I am excited to have a cousin in the family who will be close in age to my own. And I'm excited that it will be the branch of the family that's closest to us. Not close close, but at least Colorado and Utah share a border.

Speaking of which, I need to call her.