Open for Business

It is officially spring because the South Hadley Gray Tree Frog Spa and Resort is now open. This morning Tai ate his breakfast while watching this little guy hop around inside a Tupperware container.

Minh has just about perfected his catch-and-release system, which includes a Free Souvenir Photo for each satisfied customer (see below).

Oriental Iris

So...here's the new-and-improved master bathroom. Let me walk you through the highlights:

(1) The fan in the ceiling light can no longer be heard three towns away.

(2) The medicine cabinet doors can now be opened without moving items off the vanity.

(3) The walls are a happy shade of purple.

I am pleased.*

*Though I hope to never paint another bathroom as long as I live.

A-Minus

Tai has not nursed in over three weeks. I think it is safe to say that he is officially weaned.

Even if he were to try to nurse, at this point there's nothing there (as evidenced by the fact that my A-cup bras are a tad too big these days.) Seriously? A-cups are too big? Seriously. It must be time to get pregnant again -- to get my figure back :)


PS - More evidence that we live in The Happy Valley .... Tai, at 15 months, is the first kid in his class at "school" to kick the booby habit. I am such a mean mom.

Fixing a Hole

More like Painting a Hole, actually. Yes, despite my previous resolutions, I find myself starting another painting project. But it's not my fault. Honest. Some minor home improvements have left holes in our walls and Minh has just finished patching said holes. So now my bedroom and bathroom have a distinct absence of paint in a couple areas.

The bedroom is one of the rooms I ambitiously glazed with a "faux finish" a-la Home Depot Commercials when we moved in. So re-doing that will be a little bit of work (but I've already had to fix the bedroom walls TWICE since I first painted, so I am a pro at it by now). And it's a very small area to paint, so it should be easy-peasy.

The bathroom is turning into a slightly larger project (don't they all?) The re-located medicine cabinet has left a relatively small area of wall without paint, BUT:

(1) We have no more of the original paint color, and
(2) I never liked that color anyway.

So....it's time to re-paint the entire master bathroom. I can't believe it myself. But yes, rather than purchase a quart of the old color that I never really liked and touch up the walls in about 10 minutes, I've decided to go with an entirely different color. Not red this time. I learned that lesson already.

This time, I'll paint the master bathroom the same color as our bedroom, minus the glaze. So, while the bedroom is a hazy-swirly-glazy lavender, the bathroom will be a slightly darker version of the same thing. Make sense? In theory it sounds great. But I may change my tune when I'm up to my elbows in Oriental Iris.

Brunch/Lunch

Sunday we went to some friends' house for brunch and they really went all out. We were impressed with everything from the juice served in wine glasses to the vast array of wholesome foods for us and our son. They went to great lengths to make sure everything they served would be tasty and healthy for Tai. And Tai did enjoy it all -- organic eggs, pancakes, fresh tropical fruit, etc. We ate and played and had a lovely visit.

On the way home, we stopped in at Costco to pick up a few things. By this time, Tai was just about due for lunch. I have two words for you:

Free Samples.

Tai tasted every single thing they were handing out at Costco, starting with the coconut cream pie (what balanced meal doesn't START with dessert?) After that wholesome organic breakfast, Tai's lunch consisted of:

coconut cream pie
Mediterranean pasta salad
kielbasa on a a toothpick
potato salad
organic raisin bran
chicken taquito with guacamole
dehydrated Fuji apples
and raspberry sorbet (to cleanse the pallet, of course).

Suddenly, I'm a little less worried that we're turning into Happy Valley Hippies.

Mexico, Our Yard is Not

Last week we heard of a family who hired a college student to come along on their vacation to Mexico to help take care of the kids. Imagine that? Being able to afford a trip to Mexico and bring along a third-parent-for-hire....must be nice.

But we're heading down that road too, in our own special way. Last weekend we hired a babysitter to watch Tai for 3 hours so we would do yard work. But really, I would have preferred to pay someone $30 to trim the damn hedges!

Dexter

When you have a young kid, renting TV series on DVD instead of movies makes a lot of sense. It's much easier to squeeze in an episode or two here and there than set aside time for a full length movie. Of course, this whole rationale is completely blown when you watch four 45-minute episodes of a show all in one day.

But we just couldn't help ourselves. Dexter is fantastic. Originally a Showtime series, it's about a vigilante serial killer who only targets people who have committed heinous crimes themselves. it doesn't sound that great when I try to explain it, but it's incredibly well written and the actor playing Dexter is just perfect. I highly recommend it.

I anxiously await Disc 2...

Will Walk For Cheese

Tai has 5 months to practice walking in a straight line, holding a small pillow. That's right, in early September Tai will play the role of ring bearer in a wedding. We're confident that if I "release" him at one end of the aisle, and Minh stands at the other end (perhaps with some delicious cheese in his hand) we can get Tai to transport the rings down the aisle.

He's already a fantastic walker, as long as he can wander around in the direction of his choosing. The other day we "took a walk" down to the end of our street (about 200 feet) and it only took 15 minutes.

But by September he'll be nearly two (!), so it'll be a whole different ballgame....

The New Gig

I've been working at my new job for a few weeks now, so I figured I owe everyone an update on how it's going. The only tricky part is that my boss has been known to read this blog (before she was my boss!) So I'll start with the great things about my new job:


(1) My amazingly wonderful boss.
(2) Foam soap in the bathrooms.
(3) The view out my window.
(4) The fastest microwave ever. I swear, what would take 2 minutes to heat up in a normal microwave only takes 45 seconds in this one. I've been very productive with all that extra time on my hands.
(5) A wider selection of Post-It Notes.



But no job is perfect, and there are some drawbacks to this one:

(1) The long walk from the parking garage to my office. It takes 4 whole minutes! I could microwave a Thanksgiving turkey in that amount of time.
(2) No longer having lunch with Minh four days a week.
(3) No longer being able to pop into Target or Trader Joe's on my way home.
(4) Data files with 500+ variables (I don't want that much data on anyone!)

I'm certain I'll continue to discover more pros and cons to this new gig during the coming months (and years!). I'll be sure to keep everyone posted....

Let The Weaning Begin!

Tonight I officially began weaning Tai off the boobies. Yes, after almost 15 months, I am ready to be done nursing. [If you are someone I gave funny looks to when you nursed your baby for more than 8 or 9 months, insert smug comment here. I deserve it.]

After plotting and planning for a couple weeks, wondering how best to approach it, I found some useful advice in a book a friend gave me. Mind you, this was a La Leche League book, so the vast majority of the text is dedicated to why you should not "force" your baby to wean, but let it happen naturally, usually between the ages of 2 and 4. (Hey, extended nursing works for some folks, but I think I'm just about at my limit.) Finally, about 100 pages into the book, they give up on convincing you not to wean and give some pretty reasonable advice about how to approach weaning (if you must).

The book offers a couple different tactics and I've selected one called "don't ask, don't tell". Oh, wait. That's an entirely different issue. What I meant to say is "don't offer, don't refuse." The theory is that if Tai asks to nurse, I let him. But I don't offer unless he asks. He's been nursing just twice a day for a couple months now and it occurred to me that each night at bedtime I just automatically whip out the boob as part of our routine. So tonight I waited for him to ask for it.

And he didn't.

I rocked him and sang to him and he sucked on his pacifier, and he fell asleep on my arms. Now we'll see if he wakes up in a couple hours asking for milk. If he does, I'll oblige. And we'll go from there....

The Slippery Slope

We took Tai to Friendly's for the first time last night. And it was awesome. I hadn't been inside a Friendly's in more than 10 years, and it's a whole new place when you have a kid.

Tai was thrilled to visit all the other people eating, sit in the high chair and eat greasy food, indulge in some ice cream, and even be given his very first balloon! We all had a wonderful time and dinner plus dessert for the three of us was only about $25. Amazing!

After dinner we went food shopping and Tai burned off his ice cream high by toddling around the store, with his balloon tied to his overalls. At one point, he was standing by the entrance, waving his balloon at everyone who came in. Maybe he is destined for a career as a Wal-Mart greeter?

The fear now is that we have begun the steady descent down the slippery slope toward all-too-frequent Friendly's dinners. It's easy, fun, and cheap, but our bodies can only take so many bacon cheeseburgers....

Sleepy Lunch

The meal must be pretty lame if he can actually fall asleep while eating....

Dinner for Two (Just Two)

Yes, my husband sometimes requests Filet-o-Fish sandwiches for lunch, but he enjoys fine dining as well. Saturday night Minh surprised me with a babysitter and dinner reservations at a grown-up restaurant.

Amazingly, he actually kept the secret all week and pulled off the surprise. He only "blew it" about 90 minutes before the babysitter was due to arrive and I was thankful for the notice so I could vacuum the house and change out of my sweatpants.

Having only done this a few times before, we barraged the babysitter with way too much information about the house, the pets, the baby, etc., and contingency plans for at least 6 possible scenarios. I like to think our over-explanations are endearing. But she probably thought we were neurotic.

After convincing the sitter that we are certifiably nuts, we headed out and only briefly broke out singing a catchy children's song in the car before we caught ourselves. Dinner was amazingly delicious, the pace was leisurely, and the conversation was "grown-up". The real mark of a big night out? I had two glasses of wine with dinner. Livin' it up, baby. Livin' it up.

Love Nuggets

It's Valentine's Day. And that means McNuggets.

Minh and don't really celebrate Valentine's Day, but we have been going out to lunch on Thursdays. And this week he requested that we go to McDonalds so he can take advantage of their during-lent-sale on Filet-O-Fish Sandwiches (2 for $3).

I, myself, do not enjoy the Filet-O-Fish, but am loking forward to a feast of McNuggets. Can you smell the romance in the air? Or is that just the french fries?

How Hillary Won Massachusetts

Minh and I did not vote in Super Tuesday's primary. A serires of unfortunate events precluded us from getting to the polls and casting our votes for Barack Obama. It's all Tai's fault.

After standing idly by as Tai got more and more sick all weekend, we finally took him to the doctor on Monday morning. We went to their "walk-in hours" and the sign on the door indicated that those hours are only for "acutely ill" patients. As we walked in I thought, "well, I don't know if he's acutely ill." Forty-five minutes later, we were escorted out those same doors and into an ambulance by paramedics.

OK, I guess he was acutely ill.

Tai has RSV, which caused bronchiolitis. The big rush to get to the hospital was because he was having trouble breathing and very dehydrated. After 3 treatments with a nebulizer, 6 hours in the ER, one overnight in the hospital, and an IV full of lots of good stuff, we were discharged. This got us home around 6pm Tuesday night. (OK, the polls don't technically close until 8pm, but come on!)

Minh has speculated that Tai was not actually as sick as they led us to believe, but that the doctors were all Hillary fans and they pegged us as Obama supporters when we walked in. So they "needed" to keep Tai overnight "for observation" just to ensure that Obama did not win Massachusetts. The worst part is, Obama only lost Massachusetts by 2 votes! (OK, not really but it was a close race.)

I myself have a couple alternative theories as to why all this happened (apart from the obvious one that Tai picked up the virus at daycare and his overly-laid-back parents did not get him to the doctor soon enough.)

(1) It was all just a ploy on Tai's part to be allowed to suck on his pacifier all day long and watch unlimited cartoons. If it was all an act, he had everyone fooled. And he did indeed get to "nuk" and watch TV to his little heart's content.

(2) Minh somehow caused the whole ruckus in order to replenish his stash of stolen medical supplies. We now have a decade's worth of medical tape in the house. (Side note: remember all those prenatal visits he went to, playing the role of supportive husband?...He really only came along to steal latex gloves. When that supply runs out, I'll know it's time to get pregnant again.)

Whatever the reason, we did indeed have a crazy week and Obama never got our two votes. But Tai is nearly back to his old self, as evidenced by his re-discovered love of chasing the cats around the house. Here's hoping for a relaxing weekend....

I Have Sexy Underwear

Last night Minh went and played poker with Tai's friend's dad and a bunch of his friends (see if you can follow that!) Anyway, while he sitting in an unheated basement losing $40, Tai was asleep and I had the place to myself.

Naturally, I spent my time cleaning out my sock and underwear drawers.

What? Yeah, I don't know what came over me. It's not a task I particularly enjoy, nor one that I had on my mental "to do" list. I'm not even sure how it happened. Suddenly, there I was sorting through mountains of underwear, all of which is BT and some of which is from the previous millenium. Not kidding.

But, shoved behind the pile of "everyday wear" and underneath a jumble of maternity underwear, I actually found some nice stuff. You know, the kind of stuff you wear before you get pregnant.

So now the maternity underwear and nursing bras are all safely tucked away for "next time." And my underwear drawer now resembles the drawer of a younger, sexier, me. Now I just need to find occasion to wear some of it. :)

It Must be the New Shoes...

Look at him go!

A Net Gain of 6 Words

Everyone knows that your salary is proportional to the number of words in your job title, right? That's why I've decided to trade in the pithy title of "Research Manager" for my new and improved identity of "Assistant Director of Institutional Research and Educational Assessment".

Yeah, that's right, eight words. Count 'em.

Unfortunately, my husband (who, by the way, thinks I have an unnatural propensity for abbreviating things) has taken to condensing my new title into the acronym ADIREA, which sounds kinda like "a diarrhea" when pronounced. Lovely.

So yes, in case you have not heard, I'm starting a new job in March. If my "here's my new email address" message somehow did not get to you, drop me a line and I'll let you know how to get in touch with me from now on.

The Nudist

Most of you know that our cat Nibbles is transgendered (post-op). But what you may not know...what we ourselves did not know until recently... is that Smudge identifies as a nudist.

We woke up one morning and he was naked. OK, that happens. Probably a by-product of some energetic wrestling with Nibbles overnight. So we put his collar back on and went about our business. Mere hours later he was naked again. "Hmmmph," I thought, as I examined the collar. "Is it broken? Is it bothering him -- too tight? too lose?" We put it back on him again. He took it off again.

This little dance continued for 2 or 3 days until we gave up. I think it's been about a week now that he's been prancing around the house absolutely naked. And I swear I detect a little more of a spring in his step.

I haven't completely given up yet though. I intend to buy him a shiny NEW collar and see if that does the trick. I wonder if he might just be sick of yellow (it's so last season) and craving a new look for himself. But if that doesn't work we may have to give in and accept his new lifestyle.

The Power Mullet is Gone

Tai had his first haricut this past Saturday. The power mullet is no more (except for the lock we have stashed in his baby book).



He did really well sitting still for the haircut and, for the most part, it looks pretty good. The only thing we really take issue with is the lack of sideburns. The overzealous hairdresser buzzed them clean off with her clippers and now Minh says that Tai looks a bit like Billy Bob Thornton in Slingblade (see pictures below). Maybe we can enter him in a Look Alike contest and make some cash off of this situation?