Heidi Chronicles

Kid Update 2008 - January

Filed under: Blah Blah Blah, Friends, Murphy & Macey, Post Pregnancy, Terrible Mother — Heidi at 11:03 pm on Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Yeah, I’m WAY behind on this kind of thing - not to mention my normal posting. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks around here. I don’t know what else to say.

I’m trying to backblog, but I may just have to summarize. Keeping track of all of this crap is hard work!

Anyway, since I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, I’ll just throw out some quick info about the kids off the top of my head.

Elena…

talks non-stop. If I counted, I bet she says well over 200 words at this point. It’s amazing. OK, so they may not be exactly clear to the untrained ear, but I know what she means when she says them. I don’t have time to list them. Maybe I’ll make list for kicks when things slow down.
jabbers in gibberish non-stop.
can name five +/- letters of the alphabet and loves to sing the Alphabet Song.
loves, Loves, LOVES on you when she feels like it.
pushes you away when she doesn’t.
adores her brother and wants to do EVERYTHING he’s doing. It’s hard to explain to her why she can’t play with marbles when I had to have L spit two and a Lego out of his mouth when I went in to say good night.
has developed an attachment to two pink, fleece blankets. If only I could get her to love Stella, and Sophie (I want them to be her bedtime friends).
throws a terrific fit when I take anything away from her. “NEE-YEW” is her word for “no.” It’s a common one around here.
absolutely positively does things to spite me.
sneaks around to get into things she’s not supposed to.
climbs on chairs. I finally put all of the kitchen chairs on their sides and shoved them under the table as far as I can get them. (A thought I was crazy and he put a chair upright. Then HE had to deal with it. After four times, he was tired of it too. So, on the floor they go.)
loves to color. It only lasts about three minutes until she tries to eat the crayons, but she’s got a good start.

Liam…

counts without using his finger to touch each item.
chatters up a storm with a fantastic British accent on some words.
counts to 30 skipping only 15 and another random number in the 20s.
“reads” to himself.
reads familiar books to me.
“writes” notes and lists - I translate.
writes the alphabet - although generally not in a straight line, but rather each letter on top of the other.
knows the alphabet and the sounds each letter makes. (Thank you, LeapFrog.)
can’t decide if he’s a lefty or a righty. His teacher said they’ll give him a couple of weeks and then he’ll have to choose. His fine motor skills are suffering because of it. I think he’s a lefty.
loves his sister, but picks on her and takes things away from her which really pisses her off.
dislikes his sister and pushes or tackles her.
tries to help with his sister and inadvertently cuts off her air supply while trying to lift her on the sofa or carry her.
tries to discipline his sister, which she does not like
life goes on without Taggie and Yellow Kitty, but we don’t attempt bedtime without Milo - L uses him as a pillow.
stalls at bedtime…telling me he’s angry because he’s hungry, he wants his milk, etc.

Ok, I’m getting tired. I’m going to have to try to do this more often because so much changes in a couple of weeks - sometimes even days!

I hope you’re all having a good January. I’ll be back when the flood subsides - with pictures!

Comments (2)

Breakin’ the law…breakin’ the law.

Filed under: Blah Blah Blah, CHBM, Friends, Health, Murphy & Macey, NaBloPoMo, Post Pregnancy — Heidi at 11:59 pm on Thursday, September 20, 2007

Many of you know that I’m not a Wal-mart shopper. I avoid it if at all possible because they treat everyone they come into contact with like shit. But when it comes down to brass tacks, if I need something and it’s the only place I can go, I suck it up and make the trip.

Such is the case where my parents live. So today we loaded everyone in the car with the stroller and headed out.

Yes, we took the stroller. You know why?

It’s sick and wrong, but when I’m in town and we go out to the Forbidden City, I’m there for as long as the children can stand it. I can spend a good two hours just pooping around checking out all of the stuff I’m not supposed to be buying…and then I usually buy stuff.

I don’t know if it’s the act of doing something I know I shouldn’t or if it’s just because there are a few things I really like about Wally World (Yes, I know this is disgusting.), but whenever I come to stay with my parents, I go hog wild and stock up on everything that I’m “not allowed” to get when we’re in KC. I can’t help myself…it’s justso cheap.
Anyway, today it was a couple of outfits and a pair of shoes for E, a sweater vest for L, and a sweet pair of shoes for me. I’m a complete sucker for the George line of clothing and now they have this Metro line that had me drooling over shoes.

AT WAL-MART people. What is wrong with this picture?

Oh well…what’s done is done, right.

The funniest part of the whole trip was walking back out to the car after listening to L yell that he wanted Grammy to push him in the cart for an hour and a half and seeing that he had left the back door of the Taxi WIDE open. Not just a crack…we’re talking open like if the car next to us had tried to leave someone would have had to close it in order not to take off their rear view mirror.

Ironically, I had made sure that I locked the car - twice - as we walked into the store upon arrival. I just never checked to make sure that all of the doors were closed. Fortunately the fam lives in a small town where people are nice and when a door is open in a parking lot they just ignore it. (If it were me, I’d close it for the idiot who left it open. But that’s just me.)

The car started and nothing was missing, so we just headed home - after I told L he could either sit in his car seat or he could get out of the car so the rest of us wearing our seat belts could go home and have lunch.

He’s starting to take his choices a little more seriously. I whipped out a great one at nap time…either he was quiet and still while laying in bed with me or he could go downstairs in the dark bedroom with the door shut and be awake. It didn’t take much time spent in the dark bedroom for him to determine that he’d rather sleep with me.

And I did nap today. I needed it. E has been up every couple of hours the last couple nights and I’ve been sleepy during the day. I had been chalking it up to teething, but this afternoon she had a fever.

I don’t want to risk taking an ear pained child on an airplane in a week, so I’m taking her to the doctor tomorrow morning. Seriously…if she has another ear infection I’m going to disown Aaron. He’s the one who had to have tubes when he was a kid. My ear genes certainly aren’t defective.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy. I haven’t had the gumption to get anything of consequence done. I even bailed on our plans to go to Target (in another town, obviously) this morning. I just couldn’t function.

This evening the kids played outside in buckets of water after L thought he tricked me into it by saying that he needed to go see how his tricycle was doing. It didn’t take long for Mr. Tricycle to end up in Toy Time Out. It seems that Mr. T has a mind of his own and ran into Elena “all by itself” as told by Liam, who happened to be sitting on said Trike during said incident.

That said, L has really had a good day today. I feel like he’s finally settling down. He went down easily for nap after threatening him with the dark room, and this evening he went right to sleep at bed time. He’s been very sweet and full of hugs, kisses and “I love yous.” And, I’ve noticed that he hasn’t been attached at the hip to Milo, Taggie and Special Blanket. I think he’s feeling a little more secure that I’m not going to leave him here. (He should. I’ve played with both of my kids more in the last four days than I have in two months. It’s been really fun.) He’s finally calm and its making me rethink my plan for going back to KC for the weekend before we leave on the 2nd. Dealing with him and the transitions just wears me out. I really want to see everyone again, so I’m just going to have to decide if it’s worth messing with him again. It’s just so hard on all of us.

Luckily, if we don’t head back much before we leave, I’ve greatly enjoyed the time here with Mom and Dad. Mom and I have been working on Peppernuts since I won’t be around to do it in November. They take forever to make, but we’ve been laughing our asses off as we work. It feels really good to laugh about completely ridiculous things.

AND, Heather is going to be here tomorrow with Ethan. Em is staying with Brian. I’m so glad I get to see them again before we leave. Hopefully E will feel better and we’ll all be able to enjoy a quiet weekend…with many nights of good rest.

Oh, and one more item of note for the record. I have cut back my meds to 300mg of Wellbutrin/day (from 450mg) and I haven’t had Zoloft (200mg) in three days. I seem to be handling everything fairly well, I think. But don’t worry, I have my mom keeping an eye on me so if things do get out of hand she’ll tell me and I’ll reevaluate.

It’s way past my bedtime and E is going to wake up in a few hours in need of some more numbing ear drops, so I should get to bed.

Boooorring.

Comments (5)

I get by with a little help from my friends.

Filed under: Bday/Anniv/Holiday, Blah Blah Blah, Family, Friends, Garden, Medicated, Mommyhood, Murphy & Macey, Post Pregnancy — Heidi at 11:59 pm on Thursday, May 31, 2007

Yesterday it was Jen, Jules and Ethan keeping L & E busy so I could get the super-hot, high-priority stuff done. Today it was my mom.

She came in to town a day before Market started (on her anniversary) to help me with the kids so I could get ready to go to Portland tomorrow. Since I didn’t have enough laundry done to pack properly until later in the afternoon, she ended up herding the kids so that I could make final preparations for a virtual baby shower I’m hosting next weekend.

I’m sending cookies to everyone, I’ve set up a blog with a few “games,” and Michelle and I have been trying to figure out how we can do a multi-person chat with the capability to upload pictures.

Since neither of us is super into chatting, it doesn’t surprise me that we didn’t find anything. But, you know, that’s usually the way it is for me. I generally have an idea of what I want to do and I can figure out ways to do the tasks individually, but no one has integrated them (for free). I’m obviously SO ahead of technology.

Anyway after much research, Michelle, AJ and I had a nice little chat in a private room that I was able to set up through Chatzy. Naturally AJ asked about boobs or sexy laydeez or something and we both ignored him.

It was only later that I realized the significance of his comments. Neither of us had any idea that it was Michelle’s very first time in a chat room! It just wouldn’t be right if someone wasn’t inappropriate, you know?

Ahhh, the inappropriate chat room. It reminded me of those days of the Wild West Internet and the first time I discovered chat…in 1996.

I was a computer lab monitor on Wed. nights (it got me out of Chapter) and I basically spent the four hours watching hilarious conversations unfold and trying not to laugh out loud; SO much more interesting than Chapter.

But I digress.

When the kids BOTH went down for naps, Mom helped me clear out the paper version of Heidi Chronicles. She and Dad have offered to let us store some of our stuff with them and obviously I can’t part with the Chronicles, so I sent it home with her for safekeeping.

It kind of felt like I was one of those 30-something kids who moves back in with their parents after things didn’t turn out the way they had planned. I’m sure M & D thought they were getting rid of all of this stuff the first time they moved it out of their place. Poor Pat and Larry.

It was strange to be packing things up knowing that I was doing it because we’re leaving the country, but I was so into the project that wasn’t really thinking about it. It didn’t sink in until I was driving to meet Mom for dinner and I realized that I have to sell my car.

It’s going to be difficult to get rid of my “reminder” items.

It’s not so much that I’m m attached to that car. It’s more that the car is a triggers a lot of memories for me. Every day when I open up the door to the garage and se my car, it makes me happy. It was the first new car I ever had. It reminds me of how Aaron worked really hard wheeling and dealing to make sure that we were getting the very best price on it. And how we left the dealership without it. And how I cried on the way home thinking I wasn’t going to get the car, not realizing that it was a strategic maneuver on Aaron’s part.

It also reminds me of the time we hit a deer and I thought it was going to get up and chase us down to do more damage to the car. (Maybe I’d had a little to drink that night.)

And it was the car that brought both of our kiddos home from the hospital. (Awwwwwwww….)

I know it will be ok, it’s just going to sting a bit.

And then when mom and I were talking at dinner and she was telling me how excited she is for us, I just got butterflies in my stomach. Up until then, it had been like I was watching myself as though I was another person. When it really hit me, I wanted to put my hands over my ears and hum as she was talking - I can only comprehend a little at a time right now. When I start thinking about the big picture, it’s just too overwhelming.
A big part of me is really excited about the adventure that awaits us. Both Aaron and I have always wanted to live abroad. - it will be such an amazing experience. But I honestly never expected it to happen – at least not to me.

And then there’s the day-in-day-out part of me thinking about how isolated we’ll be at first. And how we’ll live in this teeny tiny flat where I can’t hide out anywhere to get some space. And how I’ll have to figure out where to shop for groceries - and figure out the metric system.

That part of me (particularly the metric part) is scared shitless.

But I don’t think being scared is a bad thing. I think that anyone who’s going to play 52 Card Pick-Up with their life should be a little nervous about it.

Anyway, here’s to the Chronicles Family’s Big Adventure.

Comments (3)

A Damn Good Day.

Filed under: Aaron, Blah Blah Blah, Elena, Family, Friends, Liam, Mommyhood, Post Pregnancy — Heidi at 9:51 pm on Tuesday, January 23, 2007

I know you won’t believe it, but I got out AGAIN today to run errands - from 9-2!!!

AND, I got a pedicure. (Be warned…I have scary feet.)

I also I went shopping for clothes for myself. At Target.

Thank goodness for family close by. Aaron’s mom kept the kids for my pedicure and quick trips to Party City, Babies R Us, and the bank. (Yes, I went into the bank in those flimsy little flip-flops they give to people who are idiots and don’t bring their own to wear after their pedicure.)

I got most of the stuff done that I needed to do for Ang’s shower this weekend, so that was a weight off my shoulders. (I wish I could post pics, but Ang reads so I have to keep it under wraps until afterward.)

Then I picked up E and she and I went shopping for clothes.

See, I’m in a bit of a bind: I need something to wear to a party on Saturday evening and I don’t really have anything that’s fun-party-evening-wear (that fits).

Ummmm…I stay at home with my children. That means I have a track suit appropriate for every day of the week, a t-shirt to wear under it (long and short sleeve), my around-the-house jeans from 2002, and my fancy-going-out jeans from 2005.

None of these options screams birthday-party-for-prominent-person-in-legal-profession to me. But you know, I don’t have any reason to have anything else in my closet. Other types of clothing just aren’t suitable for motherhood.

Dresses aren’t generally conducive to breastfeeding - particularly in places that require one to nurse on a toilet;
Skirts make it difficult to crawl around on the floor pushing cars without some sort of scary underwear incident;
Sweaters and nice shirts - particularly black - don’t hide spit-up like they should. And I don’t recommend stain stick for dry clean only;
And the shirts and pants that fit before I got pregnant the first time? well, they don’t like my boobs, hips or butt now, so things stick out in places they shouldn’t creating stress in the clothing where it’s just not pretty. And it’s so embarrassing when your two-year catches you doing the Jean-Stretch Squat in your bra and says, “Mama’s tummy is ovah hew pants! It IS ovah hew pants!”

Yeah, yeah so I’ve been complaining to AJ for awhile about not having any nice clothes that fit and now it’s come down to the wire.

I have. to. find. something. to. wear. to. this. party.

Ok, I do have this one outfit that would probably be appropriate,

but it’s on its reunion tour now…it’s getting desperate and willing to try anything, you know?

(Important Note: Fortunately there was only one person aside from the four of us who overlapped these two events - and she will never judge.)

It really wouldn’t be such a big deal, but a friend of ours who is an Image Consultant is likely to be there and I don’t want her to think I’m out of the fashion loop these days.

Oh sorry…for a moment I forgot who I am. I’ve never been “in” that particular loop - any day.

But I suppose I’ll get Aaron’s opinion and if he says it’s ok, I’ll wear it. (Said Image Consultant has previously complimented him on his choice of clothing.) He’s usually a good judge.

But honestly Anne, if I end up being the fashion train wreck that everyone at the party talks about, please take me aside and help a girl out. Any advice would be welcome. (Actually, I’d really love to talk to you further about your career. It’s so interesting.)

I mean, I just bought the things that were hanging in the same general area at Target. That’s fail-safe, right?

Comments (8)

A Pain In My Ass

Filed under: Blah Blah Blah, Post Pregnancy, Ugh — Heidi at 1:44 pm on Sunday, January 7, 2007

Ok, first of all, those of you who immediately thought based on the title that this post is going to be about Liam…SHAME on you. Granted, occasionally - or perhaps slightly more often than that - he is, but this post is about yoga - NOT the Lammer.

So.

As a previous yoga-doer (Ahem, that’s a technical term.) I have experienced first-hand the pain that comes with practice.

However, it’s never been this bad. Oh, I’m sure I’ve hobbled the next day, but definitely never just after taking a class.
I went to the seemingly innocent yoga class offered this morning at 10.15. It was packed, but the instructor was wonderful and I was enjoying myself through Warrior I and Warrior II - and even Triangle, which I don’t care for.

However, as I lay in Pigeon pose (one of my faves), I felt a familiar shooting pain.

Ack! Could it be? Yes. It. Is. THE SCIATICA IS BACK! Shit.

With a little contortion, I managed to get out of Pigeon and finish the class, but I was barely walking when it was over.

I stayed after class and limped to the front to ask the instructor if there were any stretches I could do to help. She was very understanding and she gave me a few stretches to try. She told me to take some pain medication when I got home, and, if it doesn’t go away, I should go to the doctor to be sure that I don’t have a herniated disc.

I did as I was told and it’s now an hour and 45 minutes later and the pain is still going strong. It’s never been constant like this before…only sharp little bursts.

AND I think I have it on both sides. But it’s worse on the right, so even if the left side is in pain, I’m not really all that aware of it.

I never had problems with this before I was pregnant with Liam and it went away after he was born, so WHY DO IT HAVE IT NOW? In the middle of a yoga class. With at least 50 other people in the room.

I know why…it’s because I’m almost 32. Yep. Fewer than 30 days to 32.

This is just a friendly little reminder that I’m no longer 25.

Holy crap, I’m in my mid-30s. This getting old shit really is [insert title here].

(Disclaimer: if this post is poorly written it’s because my brain is focusing on my butt right now. There’s very little energy for lucid thought.)

Comments (10)

Life (In London), Medicated

Kid Update 2008 - January

Breakin’ the law…breakin’ the law.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

A Damn Good Day.

A Pain In My Ass

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