Lori's Blog

That's My Girl IV

The closest thing Gracie has to brothers are her friends Luis, Victor, Aiden and Bash.  Since she is out numbered, she plays the boys games.  At least they let her be the Pink Power Ranger.  Gracie has deemed me the Green Power Ranger, Daddy is Yellow and Sissy is Blue.  We have not come up with our cool outfits yet and we still need her to teach us her moves.

 

Hanging with G

So this is week two of Lori and Gracie full throttle.  No more keeping GG home when she is in a good mood and then dropping her at the babysitters when she is in tantrum mode. She is all mine.  An absolute blessing, yes.  I know there are many Moms that have to work and would rather be home with the kids so I am lucky....right?   "What ever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might".  Been perusing Ecclesiastes and among some other verses about my lot in life and toilsome troubles.. but this one seemed to inspire.  So, though my hand would prefer to find a manicurist, I am embracing the stay at home Mom role.  In my striving to do it with all of my might...we went to the park to play. 

Yesterday it was Bergamont park by Mark Twain Elementary and King High School-ish a block off of Van Buren at Cole.  It was a great park but no one was there.  Only me and GG which I thought was weird.  Where was everyone?  It has older but great play equipment and a great track for the trike and grass and trees with shade...but no people.  We went again today and again at 10:00 am no one.  We decided to try Orange Terrace Park and there were tons of kids and Moms and Dads, playing, running, screaming and crying just like a park should be.  The parks are within a mile and a half of each other.  True, Orange Crest is booming with homes and the park is easy access but Bergamont park is surrounded by homes and close to schools so why was not one single sole there? 

A stay at home Dad with his triplets and a baby (yikes) at OT park gave me the scoop.  Apparently it is where drug deals go down and at a certain time of the day the bad element from King and surrounding areas go there to smoke pot and get in fights.  WHAT???  He said it was common knowledge that after school fights were always set up to go down at that park and that he stopped going there when some kids were smoking pot near the playground and when he asked them to please move they told him no and to go ahead and call the police, that they would not do anything to them anyway.  Again I say...WHAT?

So like, apparently, all of the homeowners and parents in the area I will just go to Orange Terrace Park and ignore the fact that unsavory goings on are happening there.  My brother in law works at King.  I am going to ask him if he knows anything about this.  I will let you know.

Punky Brewster 2008

 

Gracie stars as the cute, rambunctious and color-coordination-ally challenged Punky.  Dan as the much younger and hotter Henry, yet just as sweet.  And Addie as Brandon the lovable and reliable Golden Retriever...updated for the millenium as a more trendy Chocolate Labrador.

I don't feel good.

I have not felt good for almost 2 weeks now.  I had an ugly cough thing and now it is just body ache and general funk.  I have not felt like typing. Maybe I will feel better next week.

PerryAnn is Swimming

I am so excited that PerryAnn joined the Lancer's Youth Swim Team.  They meet at CBU pool which is convenient and it is a really nice facility. Yesterday was her second practice.  Gracie and I went to watch her swim and it was so much fun sitting with the Mom's and Dad's pointing out which one was "mine".  PA has never been overly active and we have tried it all...soccer at 7, dance at 8, voice and piano at 9, gymnastics at 10, guitar at 12, tried out for softball at 12 & 13 and now at 14...could this be it, could this be "her thing"???  Geez, I hope so.

Maybe She's Not Ready

We bought the Little Mermaid big girl panties.  We bought the child size toilet seat and the Winnie the Pooh step stool.  I even have the Dora feels cold when you go Pull Ups.  Something tells me she may not be ready.

Zimbardi Sheets

 

There are certain qualities that Dan and I brought to our relationship that were very different from each other.  Vast expanses of differences.  There are certain traits, both positive and negative, that we have picked up from each other in the past 7 years.  I am a slob and I think I have made my husband a bit more slobbish than he was when we married.  He now loves avocado, something he had never eaten until he moved California.  I now hiccup like him.  I never had loud hiccups and Dan's are very distinct and I swear I now hiccup in the same distinct way...I can't control it.   I think that one of the biggest differences we have, besides the constant need for circulating air or Bruce Springsteen, is something we call Zimbardi Sheets.

There is no debating that I lack in some home ec. skills, I took typing, but I was always very particular about my sheets.  In college, no one was ever allowed to sit on my bed and I honestly can say friendships were tested over coming into my dorm room and seeing someone sitting on my comforter.  And don't even think about touching my pillow. Even PerryAnn was not allowed to sleep on my pillow. I would wash my sheets at least once a week with Clorox and make the bed using hospital corners.  At night, I would pull the sheets down just enough for me to climb in and make sure all other sides were still tucked.  It was honestly a bit of an obsession. 

Dan (a wonderful and adoring husband, don't get me wrong) with his need for constant air blown directly on him from all directions at all times likes his sheets to be free...free like the wind.  He does not like them tucked at all and actually will bunch them up so that his feet are sticking out and his limbs are released from all sides and any sort of sheet captivity.  Picture a toga and that is how it looks.   "They're Zimbardi Sheets" was Dan's gleeful explanation for the hows and whys of his sheet management policy.  I think he said it expecting my response to be a just as gleeful, "oh, ok, well ZIMBARDI Sheets, why didn't you say that in the first place...that makes all the difference...no one said they were "ZIMBARDI" sheets...I would be honored to sleep entwined in ZIMBARDI sheets".

So you see the issue.  I used (key word "used") to have a rule that turned into a plea that became a request that morphed into a favor that ended up an afterthought, that the first person in the bed at least straightened the sheets (I gave up on the hope that they would stay tucked all night). This is so that the other person would not come to bed later and then in the dark have to push and pull the sheets and have to untangle them to get their portion.  The rule never seemed to stick and I found myself giving up on my need for complete fabric enclosure.

I realized the night before last when I woke up with the sheet completely wrapped around my head and chest and the blanket on Dan's side and the comforter tossed on the floor that I have now embraced Zimbardi Sheets.  I no longer fix the sheets daily to be perfectly tucked. I survey how they were left from the night before and just take what I need.  I don't know when this happened but I think it has been awhile.  I can't remember the month or year that I gave up that ghost but I think it must have been more of a gradual process.  Our differences are becoming less and less.  I can honestly say I don't think I will ever love Springsteen but maybe we will start looking like each other or does that only apply to your dog?  They are both cute.

He Bought Me A Size 2

For Mother's Day, Dan and the girls bought me a really nice dress from Ann Taylor Loft.  A place I love to shop because they have cute clothes that are stylish and age appropriate but not matronly or dowdy.  They are also really expensive.  Not Nordstrom nice ladies dresses expensive but close, so I don't shop their very often.  This story is not actually about the dress but about the fact that my loving husband bought me a size 2.  I completely believed that he thought I was a 2...I have lost a bunch of weight on Nutrisystem and he may have not realized that a size 2 is what PerryAnn wears...until a little under the breath comment was made, a comment that I could have easily not heard had my head been turned slightly, a comment that reveals the true motive behind the size 2, though Dan will never admit it.  A comment made to Jake and Becca in the bleachers at church, after the service, as we were all filing out...the comment: "I made the mistake a few years ago of buying her work out clothes, a move that did not go over very well"  was his comment. 

So I decided to throw my husband under the bus and tell you the story entitled What not to do when your wife has just had a baby at 36, has a bit of post pardum depression, a baby that has acid reflux and cries 23 out of 24 hours of the day, works full time and has a husband that travels and newly budding and (in my opinion) consuming "bro-mances " with a men's church group.  Enjoy.

For my birthday in September of 2005, 2 1/2 months after Gracie was born, my adoring husband bought me 4 Tae Bo work out DVDs (2 were duplicates), 2 jump ropes (one in beginner and one in advanced...like the rope would know) a yoga outfit in LARGE and the color black and a TV (yes, a television set with DVD and VHS capability so it could be solely dedicated to my workouts alone...God forbid if I would have to share my potential work out time with The Wiggles).

The painfully funny part of the story is that he displayed the "gift" in our bedroom like he was merchandising for Merry Go Round (clothing store he worked for in his early 20's).  He placed a chair a few feet from the opening of our bedroom door and had the TV on it with the DVDs fanned out on top, the jump ropes on either side of the TV leaning on their side and the yoga outfit in LARGE folded nicely in front of the TV, also on the chair.  Then he left it there for me to find when I walked into the room. 

Cue my walking into the room, tired, ugly and fat with baby throw up on both of my shoulders and in my hair, poop under my nails, not showered that day and a smell that just was not sexy.  I look at the "gift" and immediately think my husband must be trying to tell me something. 

What I heard was "YOUR FAT, LOSE WEIGHT".   

I know that what he was actually saying was "I love you, you are beautiful to me no matter what but you have been crying over how much weight you have gained so as the problem solver in this house, I have set you up for weight loss success by buying you a vast selection of Tae Bo DVDs that I know you like because you have mentioned it and a television so you can work out in the privacy of our bedroom and I got you a couple of jump ropes in various levels since I know you may need to jump to advanced right away and I got you a large yoga outfit since they are generally a little on the tighter side and I know you are uncomfortable right now in clothes that feel tight".

But again, what I heard was "YOUR FAT, LOSE WEIGHT". 

I left the stuff in the middle of the floor for I think 2 or 3 weeks. I never touched it. (I know I was the ungrateful jerk) He even asked me if I saw my gift and I did not blast him right then because I was thankful that he bought me something and I did not want to be a jerk so I said ...yeeaahh...thhhanks.  Oh, but he got it later.  At the first moment of distress I laid into him with "You think I'm fat...blah, blah, blah.  You don't buy a woman size Large...blah, blah, blah.  I know, Poor Dan.  I still have never worn the outfit, initially out of protest but now it doesn't fit.  I did use the DVD's but never when Dan was home so he would not feel victorious (I know...I'm a jerk) and the TV has been used for more than workouts.  The jump ropes were used once (but what goes up must come down and it was not pretty) so Gracie attaches them to her toys and drag them around the house.

So the size 2 dress did not fit and we went back to Ann Taylor to grab the dress in a size that did fit so I could wear it on Mother's Day.  They did not have it in my actual size so I tried on a bunch of other dresses that did fit and Dan ended up buying me 3 dresses instead of the 1.  What a great guy, Huh?

That's My Girl III

She is learning from her sister that your style is your own so go ahead and own it.  We lost the matching yellow croc a few weeks ago.  We showed up to a BBQ  and she only had one shoe on and we have not found the other one yet.  We went to Target to get new shoes since she has been wearing her tennis shoes lately with no socks and the smell that came from that pretty little girl's feet the other night was unbelievable.  PerryAnn did not believe me when I said they smelled horrible so she took a big wif, nose to toes and fell backwards on the floor laughing, the smell was so fierce.  At Target, Gracie had to have the Dora "knock off crocs" like Lily McCoy.  (I suppose there is some conformist in her after all...Lily McCoy is pretty cool, though).  So we are heading off to church this morning and GG is insisting on wearing her yellow croc with the new one.  I even think she hid the other pink one so she could wear the yellow.  The funny part is that they are both the left foot so not only is she wearing unmatching shoes but one is even on the wrong foot.    

Top Ten Reasons Why Mother's Day Rocks!

10. Guilt free couch time.

9.  The kids are overly nice and pretty much do what you say the first time.

8.  Random people acknowledge your "Mom" status with a kind "Happy Mother's Day".

7.  I can get all of Gracie's diapers changed, all day by anyone other than me.

6.  If I want, PerryAnn will wear the I (heart) Mom t-shirt that I bought her at Old Navy in 2004 and made her wear every Mother's Day since she was 10. (Of course she finally realized last year that I couldn't really make her wear it anymore and it was getting sort of tight,  but I know that if I want her to she will).

5.  Gifts from Dan and the girls. (this year 3 dresses from Ann Taylor Loft and a pair of matching shoes plus a book PA bought with her own money...I must have been good this year.)

4.  Hand made dried flower pictures and hand print cards...Better than Ann Taylor any day!

3.  I get Perry Ann on Sunday, a day she is normally not with me.

2.  The men cooking!!!

And the #1 reason that Mother's Day Rocks...

1.  The men doing the dishes!!

As a side note:  My husband, my Father and my Brother in Laws are incredibly awesome.  I am not just stating that in case they read my blog (Hi Guys), they really are the most loving, giving and amazing men that I know.  Anyone who knows them will agree with me.  God blessed our family HUGE when He brought all of them into our lives and though all of us girls sat on our booties all day and loved that the guys took care of us, we know how special they are. It may not always appear as though we appreciate them and all of the past years of heckling and critiquing from the comfort of dining room table was really all in fun, I promise.  I can speak for all the Barnett girls when I say we love and appreciate them every day of the year.