Scholastic books

I am a self admitted nerd, and rather proud of it. I don't think of myself as a nerdy nerd though. As a child, one of my favorite things in school was ordering books from the scholastic books flyer. I loved those little newspaper-type pages that we got once a month or so. I would go through it the day we got one and circle with a colorful pen the books I wanted. More often than not, more of the books were circled than left uncircled. So imagine my joy when, in late October, Matthew came home from daycare with a scholastic books flyer!

Once again I was able to go through and circle the books, but this time it was choosing the ones I thought he would like. Once again, I had more of the brochure circled than not. I handed it to David and said "why don't you look at what I've circled and pick a few?" This is eerily similar to the way I used to hand it to my mom at the end of that school day so she could narrow down my choices and order me a few books. I really love books, and so far Matthew seems to also - but really, how many books does an (almost) 2 year old need? David picked up the first shipment from the scholastic orders earlier this week, and of couse that meant a new brochure. I am resisting the urge to circle everything on it! We put up the first shipment to use as Christmas gifts / stocking stuffers, but maybe I can give those to him. We should have more by Christmas anyway! :)

I may just breastfeed forever

This isn't really about breastfeeding, but last night I discovered one of the unexpected benefits of it. Since Scarlett needed to nurse after we finished eating supper, David gave Matthew his bath. As I sat with Scarlett, I heard David almost shout "here, sit on the potty", followed by the sounds of commotion. Finally I heard Matthew fussing "no potty" and David telling him to wait while he cleaned the tub. So I can kind of figure out what has happened. David sticks his head out of the bathroom and asks if Scarlett is still eating. I said yes so he walks out of the bathroom & starts going through cleaning supplies, grabs a bottle, and heads back into the bathroom. A few minutes later he comes out and says Matthew peed in the potty, but he wasn't sitting behind the "guard" so it went everywhere. He also says Matthew pooped a little in the tub. Of course I realize then that if I hadn't been feeding Scarlett I would have been the one to get the mess in the tub. Sweet girl you might just nurse until Matthew moves out of the house. :)

The good news of Matthew pooping in the tub is that it was obvious he was about to do it, David just wasn't fast enough. He said Matthew actually stood up in the tub and then squatted down, so when David made the connection, he sat him on the potty. Unfortunately it took David a few seconds too long to make the connection. Then Matthew wouldn't poop on the potty, he only peed. So, not sure what this means for potty training, other than I know that at least some of the time, Matthew KNOWS he needs to poop before he does it. I think we need to be diligent about watching him and putting him on the potty when he assumes the position. But what do we do when he doesn't follow through and poop? Last night I figured he'd finish pooping as soon as he got a diaper on, but he didn't. He didn't poop again until this morning...I know "they" say holding it in isn't good for children, so how do we get around it?

the haircut

I had an appointment to get my hair cut the Friday we arrived in Georgia. Unfortunately as we got to my parents' house, my sister called to tell me the guy called her and had to cancel. One of his clients died and he had to go to the funeral home to fix her up. So I called another lady in town - she used to cut my hair way back when, so I thought she would do a good job too, not as good as the guy, but I was tired of waiting. Every time I schedule with him something happens, so I figure it's just not meant to be for him to cut my hair. She kind of freaked out when she found out I wanted to cut it all off, but I am so happy with it. She could not cut one ponytail - she had to separate it into 4 ponytails to cut it off. My hair is deceptively thick. What amazed me was how long it still seemed after she cut off the ponytails and how much hair was on the floor when she was completely done!

I can shower, wash & condition, blow dry, and do makeup in less time than it used to take me to shower, wash & condition, and comb it out! It is great. My only complaint is that I think I need some product to give me a little volume...somehow when she fixed it, it looked great & she didn't use anything in it, but I think I need to. I can't do it quite like she did. Here are some pics:

The front (forgive the crazy expression on my face - I don't do well taking pics of myself):


The back - I really love the back, although I don't think it looks as good in the pic as it does in the mirror:


The ponytail - I measured it and it was a good 16.5" from the start of it to the bottom of it, not including some of the longer pieces at the bottom:

Finally home

Finally home, and wow what a trip. We put about 3000 miles on the car over the last week and a half. We left here Thursday morning, not as early as we would have liked, but we were off and running. It was a pretty dreary day, which is good and bad. Good because it makes the trip go faster, since we can't really stop to let Matthew play at parks. Bad because we can't stop and let Matthew play and he gets antsy in the car. Matthew and Scarlett were both really good in the car all day - we stopped for a few short breaks to change diapers, get food (although all food was eaten on the road), pee...that sort of thing, but around 5:30pm we decided we should really let Matthew run around a little, so due to the weather we decided to find a shopping mall and hope it had a play area. Unfortunately the one mall we found (we were in the middle of nowhere West Virginia) did not have a play area. Good thing Matthew didn't seem to mind! We found an area where they did have a few (3 I think?) of the "quarter rides" that you put money in and they do something for a few short minutes. Matthew ran from one to the other and climbed up, down, and around them so we didn't bother putting quarters in. He had a good time just climbing. We sat in the food court and ate supper, I nursed Scarlett (poor girl had to take bottles all day except for first thing in the morning) and we got on the road again. We finally stopped at a hotel about 2 hours from "home". We packed smart and had put the essentials for one night in a separate suitcase, so we only needed to unload a few things. I think we were all asleep by 1:30.

The next morning we got up a little later than normal and took our time leaving the hotel. We had to find a Hardee's for breakfast - this is one of David's "musts" on any trip down south - the nearest Hardee's is about an hour drive from us and they don't even have chicken biscuits! We got "home" around lunch time so we had the house to ourselves for a few hours before my mom got home from school. That was kind of nice - we were basically lazy. I was supposed to get my hair cut, but the guy had to cancel due to another client's death - he had to go to the funeral home to fix her up. Not to be disrespectful but David said you'd think he would be more concerned about keeping his repeat business happy! That's my smart ass husband for you!

My mom got a birthday cake for Matthew and Belle, since Thanksgiving is about halfway between their birthdays. It had 2 candles on each end, but when they lit the candles Belle quickly blew out the ones on her end and then stood up to reach Matthew's and blow them out too. We tried relighting them but Matthew didn't care and Belle did it again. She's such a cutie. Matthew did like licking the icing off the candles - he quickly figured out that it was good to redip them into the cake too and spent several minutes getting more icing on the candles then licking it off. I guess Matthew has changed since Belle saw him because she points to him in pictures and says his name, but all she would say when she saw him was "that boy". She knew Scarlett immediately though, running in the house towards her and saying "hey ca-ca".

We left Sunday to drive some more - to FL this time, to see David's mom. The children were good on this drive too. We were kind of back and forth in Florida, visiting David's mom and his dad - it ended up being a lot of time on the road and I think both kids got tired of their carseats! Hell I was tired of it too! Matthew also got a little sick while we were there - he had a terrible cough and fever for a few days. I gave him Tylenol for the fever and some cough medicine (I don't care what "THEY" say, even if cough medicine doesn't cure you, it sure as heck can relieve the symptoms!) and that seemed to help a lot. The fever only lasted a couple of days, the cough lingered but is much better now.

Friday night I was really dreading the ride home. I knew it would be at least another 2 full days of driving and possibly more, if Sunday traffic was as bad as I've seen it in the past. Fortunately I was just wrong in my pessimistic attitude and we were home by 6:30 last night. I am very thankful to have children who are good in the car. We've also found several great parks along the way, and yesterday the weather was good (cold but clear) so we were able to let Matthew play for a while. Anytime we find a nice park we save it in the GPS favorites so we can be sure to find it again.

We were also able to sneak in a date night while in Florida. I was kind of reluctant to leave both children home with David's mom, just because her house is not at all child-proofed and for us to have time to have a real date, we would be gone long enough that Scarlett would have to be fed. Here it is sometimes difficult for me to watch Matthew while I nurse her, and our house is pretty child-proofed - I can at least gate off the area that I know is safe. Add to that Scarlett still not liking the bottle and I figure it's too much to ask of one person. So we waited until Matthew was in bed then went to a movie. We saw No Country for Old Men. It was a good movie but I didn't care for the ending. It was nice to have a night out though - I think that's 2 in 2 months!

Happy Thanksgiving

I know, I'm over a week early, but we are leaving town today for a 20 hour (yikes) drive to visit my mother in law. We are breaking the trip up, staying with various family members for a couple of nights here and there, hopefully that will make the drive less stressful. I also hope we only have to spend one night at a hotel, but I would guess it will be at least 2. I should be back the Sunday night after Thanksgiving.

I hope you all have wonderful Thanksgiving holidays - while I'm dreading the trip, I know I have so much to be thankful for. I am blessed indeed!

On a related note

Yesterday I mentioned what great customer service I've experienced when shopping with Zappos. On a related note, today I'd like to share about GoodSearch. I've added a button to my sidebar that will hopefully remind people to use it. GoodSearch is a search engine that will donate to a charity of your choice every time you perform a search through it. It also has a shopping feature that takes you to a variety of online retailers, including Zappos (who donates 6% of your purchase to your charity), Target, Best Buy, Old Navy, Gap, Walmart...the list goes on and will soon include Amazon.com! Each retailer donates a percentage of your purchase amount to the charity.

This is a great easy way to have money donated to your favorite charity, or the charity of the day selected by GoodSearch. The search engine is powered by Yahoo! so I typically get great results.

Good customer service can still be found

Yes, that's right - good customer service still exists. This is going to sound an awful lot like a big ol' ad for Zappos, but they really have wonderful customer service. First, they offer free shipping - I think the standard is 2-day, but every time I have ordered from them I have gotten "free overnight shipping". Second, they offer FREE return shipping! YEP, that's right - if you order something and it doesn't fit, you can go right to their website & print out a UPS return label (you can also do USPS labels but I have not used that option). Third, their prices beat a lot of other sites that I've comparison shopped on. Fourth, they allow you to return anything within 365 days of purchase (yep, 1 year unless it's a leap year!). Fifth, did I mention FREE shipping on returns?

Earlier this year for David's birthday I ordered him some boots. I had no clue what style he would like, but I knew he wanted some, so I figured ordering from Zappos.com was a safe bet - I could return them if he didn't like them, and we could go shopping somewhere else. Turns out he loved the style but I got the wrong size. Me being me (that means lazy) I waited months to try to exchange the shoes. I finally started the process last Thursday, only to realize the boots were more expensive now than when I ordered. I was planning to just return the one pair and buy a new pair in 2 separate transactions, but I decided to call them in the hopes that I could do an even exchange. They were very easy to work with, they took my new order and emailed me a return shipping label for the pair that didn't fit, all while honoring the original price. I thought they told me that the new pair would ship when the received the return, but low and behold Friday MORNING the doorbell rang & there stood the UPS guy with a Zappos box. The boots were here less than 24 hours after I called them! And I hadn't even dropped off the box I was returning yet! How's THAT for service?

I will add that Matthew just LOVES David's boots. So much so that he had to try them on, and walk around in them. I don't even think his feet touch the sole of the shoe on the inside, but somehow he managed to walk around the family room wearing them. I think Santa might bring Matthew a pair of boots!

On another note, we took Matthew shoe shopping Sunday and he did great. Usually if I try a pair of shoes on him he screams and doesn't want me to take them off. Somehow Sunday he didn't mind me trying pair after pair on him though - and he didn't get upset when we left the store empty-handed. Yes, he has a shoe fetish already. I usually just buy shoes that I think will work and try them on him once we get home!

so tired

I have been holding back frustration lately, or trying to anyway. David has been putting in really long hours at work and it is getting so hard - I am finding a whole new appreciation for single parents. We are blessed with 2 really good children - so far they are both pretty laid back and easy going. But the past couple of weeks David has not been home in time to help at supper and bedtime every night. I can handle it on my own but when I'm so used to him being there so we can split the duties it is hard not having him. It's also easier when I know in advance and can mentally prepare. Lately I've been finding out at 5:30 that he wouldn't be home "on time" and finding out in the middle of cooking supper just stresses me out.

When he has come home in time for supper, he has gotten on the computer as soon as both children were in bed and worked late into the night (or early into the morning). In our 10 years married we have maybe not gone to bed at the same time 10-15 times when we were both home. It has been a time that no matter what was going on, we had an opportunity to talk and reconnect. In the past 2 weeks he has stayed up so late working that I've gone to bed 3-4 times without him. On top of missing out on that reconnect time, he's so busy with work even when he is home that I am missing out entirely. I get so little adult interaction that I really depend on spending my evenings with him and lately I haven't had that.

Last night was the icing on the cake though - he told me yesterday at lunch he would be working late, but didn't think it would be too late. The hours wore on, and that wouldn't be such an issue, if it weren't for the fact that I have a really hard time going to sleep in our bed without him there, and I could not sleep. It didn't matter how long I tried, sleep would not come. To make my long whiny complaint a little shorter, he finally came home at 5:15 this morning! So here I am, starting my work day with no sleep, well unless I count the 10 minutes I dozed while Scarlett was nursing.

Oh yeah, she went to bed around 8:45 last night - I didn't hear a peep out of her all night - I had to wake her up at 6:45 this morning to get her ready for daycare! Ah, progress!!

I just really miss David - even when he's home he's not here, and these long nights are getting to be too hard. I need him. I need him in so many ways...I need him to give Matthew a bath, or to play with Scarlett while I clean up after supper, or to sit on the couch and watch tv with me, and to kiss me goodnight. He promises the long hours will end soon, I pray he's right. I'm ready to have him back! Meanwhile, I'm trying to be supportive and not nag him, but each day it gets harder. I know it's hard on him too.

my ponytail

I have been growing my hair out for a while, planning all along to cut it short and donate the ponytail to Locks of Love, but my sister (who happens to work for the American Cancer Society) told me about the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. They collect hair and have wigs made for cancer patients. So I figured I would donate to that instead. It doesn't really matter - either way the hair is going to a good cause.

I really started my plan because David likes my hair long and I like it short - I wanted to cut it but he was complaining. I have done the whole "it's MY hair" thing in the past, and I really don't worry about what he prefers (for my hair anyway) but I thought it would be an easy compromise. I told him that I would let it grow until it got long enough to donate, then I would cut it short. I figured this way he couldn't give me a hard time about cutting it.

So anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to urge any of you that might have long hair, if you ever decide to cut it, please consider donating your ponytail to one of these groups. It has to be the easiest thing you can do for a charity, it makes you feel good, and most importantly, it helps someone out there that's going through a rough time. I haven't made my appointment to cut mine yet, but once it's done I'll share before & after pics!

Rambling, rambling

I'm gonna start by saying how much I HATE standard time. I HATE HATE HATE it! I hate how early it gets dark in the evenings. I really wish we could just stay on daylight savings time all year. I guess I should be thankful to Congress for extending it, huh?

Now that I have that rant out of the way, I'll talk about my children. (Of course, what else did you think I would talk about?) Matthew is so funny sometimes, without even trying, and I just know we're going to get some questions about some of it one of these days. Since Scarlett has gotten better about taking bottles at daycare but still isn't great about it, I've been trying to have David give her at least one each day over the weekend so that she doesn't go 4 days straight without having one. On Fridays and Mondays I don't worry about it - if she won't take it from someone else she sure as heck won't take it from me, and it's just not worth the time. Anyway, Sunday afternoon David fed Scarlett and I started getting the milk machine ready to pump. I moved the motor and tubes to the couch and went to get the bottles & flanges. When I came back, Matthew had the tubes and was saying "booby pump, Matthew pump" - over and over again. He got upset when I took the tubes so that I could put everything together & pump - he kept trying to grab the bottles and put them up to HIS chest. I finally went and got him the manual pump that I have just so I could pump in peace. David & I were cracking up over this. Then today, I was changing clothes and he was in my room - he grabbed my nursing pads and was saying "boobies" holding them to his chest. I hope I'm not warping my son by exposing him to all of these nursing adventures! I can only hope that 1) he forgets this entirely and/or 2) he is very supportive of his future wife about breastfeeding.

Scarlett meanwhile, is taking the bottle better! I know, I already said that, but if you understood my frustrations, you would understand why I keep celebrating it! I am hoping that she will increase her intake during the day and STOP waking up at night. Last night she went to bed at 8:30, woke up to nurse at 11:15, was back asleep at 11:30 and I had to wake her up this morning to feed her before daycare! This is a huge step - she had been sleeping through the night for a while but once she started daycare she started waking again, sometimes more than once! That's hard when I have to work the next day.

Matthew also said "zebra" this morning. I was dressing Scarlett and he was studying her pants. I told him they were striped like a zebra. Then when I put her shirt on and he saw the zebra, he pointed and said it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised - he can repeat pretty much anything we say (we've heard "shoot" and "crap" but nothing worse....YET!). I still don't know why he refused to say "trick or treat" last week - oh well.

Matthew seems to take after me in his love of Reese Cups. He has a lot of Halloween candy, and we have been offering him a piece every night after supper. The first night David asked him if he wanted candy & he said "Reese cup" plain as day. I was amazed. Since then if we offer something he will take it, but if we ask what kind he wants he always tells us "Reese Cup." Maybe he is mine after all!

My final thought for the day - so many times in the middle of a moment I think to myself that I need to blog about that moment, but when I sit down at the computer it's like I can't remember those moments. I guess even a rookie gets writer's block?

Halloween rules?

Last night was the first time we've taken Matthew trick or treating. Last year we were on an airplane during the TOT hours. This year Matthew's daycare had an event Tuesday afternoon - they called it "Trunk or Treat" and basically the parents parked with trunks open, candy ready, and the children went around the lot trick or treating. It was nice to get to see so many of the children in their costumes, and I think Matthew enjoyed it. Then last night we got them in their costumes again and went around to a few houses in our neighborhood. In our town we have pretty informal neighborhood associations, that plan occasional events, and it's strange to me, but the people who live across the street are a different association than we are. That's ok - they are still friendly when we see them out in their yards. One house has really beautiful grass so we asked them for advice on some areas of our lawn that needed work, you know, nice neighborly stuff.

So when we started out last night, the first 4 houses we went to were not passing out candy! WHAT? Who doesn't pass out candy on Halloween, yet stays home with their lights ON? Anyway, we noticed a lot of houses down one of the side streets were decorated so we decided to go to those. That worked out a lot better. Matthew got the hang of knocking on doors but he didn't understand he shouldn't go inside the house! He also wouldn't say "trick or treat" no matter how much I tried! He did however, say "tank you" to everyone, sometimes more than once! At one house the woman's cat was at the door and he started saying "kit cat" - so she thought he really liked the KitKat she gave him & gave him a handful more! He walked a lot more than I expected him to, only occasionally asking us to carry him.

As the evening went on, more and more people were just hanging out on their porches and got to be pretty talkative. At one house I felt like we were in the wrong neighborhood - when she found out we lived ACROSS the main street she talked about trick or treating on the streets BEHIND our house. I guess I need to learn the rules...you see, I grew up in the boonies and we had to DRIVE to TOT. There were no neighborhoods. We went to town and only went to houses where we knew the people - either from church or from them working with our parents. And yeah, we seriously drove from house to house. Since David & I have been married we've passed out candy to a lot of children we didn't know, so I know it's OK to go to a house where you don't know the people - but what are the boundaries? I mentioned to my mom before we went that I felt bad going to neighbors' houses when I don't know them, but she pointed out that I won't get to know them if I don't go, so I thought that was a good point and figured what the heck - I really just wanted Matthew to have fun - and he seemed to. He was dressed as a monkey and would make monkey sounds at people. He finally started saying "teat" when we went up to them too. So, he said "teat", made monkey sounds, said "tank you" and "bye". Occasionally if someone asked about Scarlett he would say "shish-ter....ye-ah" (ye-ah is how he says banana).

We got home and had some trick or treaters ourselves. The first people that came by appeared to be in their mid-twenties but they were dressed in great costumes and we were worried we had way too much candy, so we gave them 5 baggies each! David still ended up taking a lot of bags to work today!