So I can’t decide if I’m doing the whole NaBloPoMo thing this year or not. It was fun last year and I actually made it through the whole month, but in retrospect there were alot of veddy veddy super lame-o posts that shouldn’t have counted for a days posting. Hmm…maybe I’ll pick a theme for the whole month, just to make it an actual challenge and perhaps a little more read-worthy. I need to think on this a little more before I finally decide. One thing is for certain though–I am going to be moving from here at Blogger to WordPress pretty soon in the near future. If I do the NaBloPoMo thing, I’ll have everything moved, set up and ready to go before November starts, just to avoid confusion mid-stream. If I don’t do NaBloPoMo, I’m still moving and hopefully it will still occur before November. If I have set up everything correctly, you won’t have to do anything different–you’ll just be re-directed to the new place (www.youmeandababy.com) which is still very much a work in progress.

Okay, enough randomness for now. My bathtub and bed call and I cannot ignore their siren song any longer.

This morning was particularly strange though–I dreamt that I was at the Dr.’s for my annual lady bits exam. Not anything out of the ordinary, I just dreamt that I was in that fabulous open-backed gown hearing my Dr. say “…now just put your feet in the stirrups and scoot on down this way.” The ironic thing is that I actually just had this exam about two weeks ago (end results: a) I am still apparently a girl b) everything appears to be in good working condition and c) everyone at the practice wants to know when we’ll be adding a sibling for Owen). Call me crazy, but this particular appointment, while not the worst thing in the world, is not exactly my favorite thing when I actually have to go to the real appointment, let alone have the actual exam and then get to go through it all again by dreaming about it.

Maybe I’ll get really lucky and tonight I’ll get to revisit that trip to the oral surgeon’s for my wisom tooth extraction.

1) “Pacifier Pick-Up”: Find and grab the pacifier from it’s random location in the back seat while attempting to keep one eye on the road and not swerve like a drunkard on the highway.

2) “Sippy Cup Search”: Also fun and in the same vein as game #1 is this little gem. Just follow the damp trail (because the leak-proof sippy has managed to leak and inevitably was filled with some liquid other than water) and you’re sure to find it and manage to keep the car on the road at the same time.

3) “Feeding time at the Zoo” : Remove lid from small cereal bowl thoughtfully packed with child’s favorite dry snack. Attempt to offer to child so they can take a handful. Curse under breath when child grabs entire bowl and because your arm is at such a goofy angle in order to get said bowl from the front seat near child in back seat in the first place, said thoughtful snack explodes in every direction all over entire backseat. Repeat when child starts to howl because they cannot deign to pick cracker/cereal/fruit snack out of car seat and eat. Bonus points for playing this game after dark.

4) “Is that the loudest you can scream?”: Pull out this oldy but goody if your car trip is longer than 2 hours. Even though you’ve only been on the road for 2.5 hours and already made two pit stops so someone can get out of their seat and stop the never-ending howling at the indignity of having to be strapped into a comfortable car seat with sippy cup, snack and comfy blanket at the ready, said small person will still want to see what maximum decibel level can be achieved within the confines of the vehicle. Even though encouraging said small person to crank the yelling up another notch (“Seriously–is that the loudest you can yell? Surely you can yell louder than that”) might cause your ears to ring for the rest of the afternoon, it will be well worth it when the small person tires of the game and blissfull quiet reigns again. Bonus points if small person exerts so much energy yelling as loudly as they can that they fall asleep mid-game.

5) “Look at THIS!”: For when you’ve managed to show off/pass back all real toy options to the small dictator passenger in the back and they’ve all been angrily tossed aside to the furthest (unreachable while driving) corners of the backseat and you’re forced to make toys out of random objects you can find within your reach in order to keep the unhappy shrieking to a dull roar. Old snowscrapers will provide minutes of blissful peace and quiet while your child tries to determine what this new treasure is. Extra bonus points if you can keep your child from immediately and repeatedly licking said non-toy.

My conversation actually went really well–for all my stressing there was no confrontation, no real awkwardness and I was actually able to get my point across with no difficulty. The other person even respectfully saw my position and understood where I was coming from.

Having my night ruined by lack of sleep and a few other things going on in my life at work right now made me really think today about fear. Specifically for me, why is fear such a negative motivator in my life. Why do I allow fear (fear of the what-ifs, what-abouts and can’t-deal-if-this-happens) to keep me from going out on a limb and being brave and exciting and if things don’t work out or end badly–oh well and life goes on and I’ve learned a lesson for next time? I’ve always been cautious but in the last few years I’ve gotten to the point where I can seriously see myself eventually becoming one of those people who never wants to leave the house.

I can’t decide which is worse–regret for missed opportunities because I let fear get in the way or living constantly with worry and fear and pulling my world constantly smaller and tighter around me until there’s no more.

Also unfortunately in the last week, we’ve hit a new ugly milestone in the toddler development department. My child who, other than at bedtime and when overly tired, had a pretty consistant sunny happy disposition has now discovered the tantrum. The pendulum swings pretty quickly from sunny to demon spawn acting out and the most innoculous things seem to be the trigger for these episodes. Earlier in the week it was due to the fact that I unwisely chose to change someone’s nasty stinky diaper to a clean fresh diaper when His Highness was not wanting a diaper change. Yesterday, the fuse was lit because I told someone that we were done flipping the light switch (after we had spent the 10 minutes previous going from room to room doing the very same). I feel badly and relieved that Owen only throws a massive tantrum for me. I’ve learned, quickly, that the only thing I can really do is to talk very quietly and then ignore him until he works it out. If I try to rub his back, otherwise soothe him or re-direct the fury to something else, well basically that’s just the equivalent of cranking the intensity knob clear up off the charts. I realize that all this is normal and just par for the course. It has to be incredibly difficult to be frustrated, realize you’re frustrated and be totally unable to communicate clearly enough to be understood what has you so frustrated so that it might change. We’ve been working on sign language for a while now, hoping that by at least having some way to communicate, it might help but so far not so much. Perhaps once Owen stops looking at me like I’m the crazy lady who just keeps flapping her hands and realizes that those flappy hands have a better chance of getting him what he wants we’ll get a little further.

In the meantime though, I’ll just take deep breaths and realize that eventually this stage will pass. There is one benefit to a massive meltdown though–it wears Owen out enough that he has absolutely no fight come bedtime and he actually sleeps deeply for a six-hour stretch at a time. That thought alone is enough to get me through when I can see a tantrum brewing in my near future.

However, I have two things on my mind:

1) Who is Trena Stretch and why do people who are searching for her (him? it??) keep coming to my blog? Not that I mind, (seriously, please come on in, take your shoes off and stay a while!) but I have no more answers after doing a couple of searches and it keeps popping up as the referring link.

2) I was reading an article in Parenting today about how it is becoming more and more common to send your 4 year old to a prep/tutoring program. This just totally bugs me. Not that I want Owen’s intelligence to be comparable to say, the IQ of a box of hair, but at 4 (or 14 months for that matter) I’m not exactly worried about his potential for getting into an ‘A’ school.

Discuss.

Hey, I just wanted to let you know how much you suck. Really, I hope that the $7 in small bills and change and $6.50 in postage stamps was worth it. Oh wait, that’s right–you did also manage to charge a whopping $1.61 to my debit card before I cancelled it yesterday.

By the way, my husband saw you today on the video from the store where you had the nerve to sign my name to the charge slip. I usually try really hard to not let things upset me, but every time I have looked at the photocopy of the receipt where my name is written in your terrible handwriting, well, I get very very angry. I don’t have high hopes that we’ll ever be able to catch you, but know this–when you act like a total low-life slug? The universe has a way of evening it out and making things right.

Way to go on making such a poor decision and really making it a tough couple of days for me. It wasn’t at all like you opened that wallet and saw that pretty much my whole life was contained in the wallet. How hard would it have been to see my work badge (with my picture on it no less) and anonymously return it to the receptionist’s desk?

Just know that I’ve been in that situation where money has been beyond tight and I could have really used a few dollars and then some for even the most basic necessities. However, the major difference between you and I (and I like to think of it as a separation between evolved human being and parsitic waste) is that if I came upon someone’s wallet–personal property that didn’t belong to me? I would totally turn it in without a moment’s hesitation or without trying to take anything that didn’t belong to me. I guess something like this just goes to show the difference between you and I.

Love you like a cold sore,

Trena