Voyages in Parenthood

Someone I went to high school with was elected as a State Representative last fall. It occurred to me, and I mentioned this to Brock, that I still feel like a kid, and this freaks me out sometimes to realize that I'm not a kid, that I AM old enough and mature enough to have an old class mate be a state representative. That I AM old enough to be someones parent. That I AM old enough to put young people in their place. It's weird; I keep waiting for the moment when I don't feel like I have to sit at the kids table any more. Does anyone else feel like that?? However, I will NEVER feel old enough to be called MAM or MADAM. No sir, no thank you!

I haven't had bouts of insomnia since I was in the throes of the last months of pregnancy (and no, I am not pregnant). Until the past few nights - I have woken up in the middle of the night and after many minutes to a half hour of trying to get back to sleep, have found myself at the computer doing work or searching for the symptoms of meningitis! Okay, so I got a little paranoid last night, but I KNEW something wasn't completely right with my little girl. Her nose had been running for about a week or so (I can't keep track - it seems to be running ALL THE TIME!) and last night she started coughing in her sleep. She coughed much of the night (At least, she coughed on and off for the two hours I was awake last night!) It didn't sound good. I started to get concerned that something might be wrong with her. She felt cool to the touch last night and in the middle of the night, so I wasn't completely worried. But I think the lack of sleep caused my paranoid little brain ...

What a weekend we have had! Thank goodness we have an extra day to relax and get rested! Friday afternoon the Grand-parental units arrived! Grandma and Granddaddy came to visit us for a couple of days and we had a really nice evening sitting on the patio and enjoying some good food. We got to bed early because on Saturday, we went to the Zoo! Saturday morning, Mom-ma and Pop-pa Daddy, as Leda has taken to calling Grandma and Granddaddy, came over for breakfast and then we all headed down to the Philadelphia Zoo . This was Leda's first trip and mine and Grandma's first trip in a REALLY long time! Earlier in the week, the weather was supposed to be in the 70s, very nice. As the week wore on, the temperature kept creeping up and Saturday ended up being REALLY hot - about 87 degrees when we left the zoo around 2! The humidity wasn't too bad, but it was bad enough for the end of May! The animals weren't too interested in doing much but lying around. But at least we got to se...

It's not bad and didn't require us going any further than our next-door neighbor's house... Leda and Daddy had a test of wills this evening. Daddy asked Leda to stop doing something and, as is her usual response as of late, she said, very clearly and distinctly, "No!" as if she knew what was best for her and not us. Well, being that she had already had about three time-outs by this time (and all in the span of about an hour and a half), you can already imagine what the outcome of that NO was - Brock grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in the direction of the house for her fourth time out. One of the things our next-door neighbor, who is the Dr. ER to whom I allude to, mentioned to us when Leda was just a baby, was something called "nurse-maid's arm." This is something that occurs when a child is picked up by the hands or swung around by the hands (something Brock looked forward to doing as soon as she was two, because Dr. ER told him not to do it b...

Apolo wins Dancing with the Stars! Wooo Hooo! I gave him all but two of my votes the whole way! (those two votes went to Layla Ali - I really wanted to see it go between Apolo and Layla - she rocked!) Woo Hoo! Off to bed! ;-)

The last day of the Dogwood Festival is the Dogwood Parade. When I used to live downtown, I lived on the third story and I used to watch the parade come down my street from the comfort of my own living room. Saturday, Brock, Leda and I watched it from the middle of Bridge Street! Leda had a great time - eating candy! Every float, truck, car - just about everyone in the parade - throws candy into the crowd. It's gotten so that kids bring bags with them to the parade. Of course, the sight of our adorable little girl sitting there watching the parade go by meant we had more than enough candy! Brock kept giving it to another family with bigger kids across the way. But Leda got her mits on a few pieces of candy. We let her being that it's okay to be a kid once in a while! ;-) Leda didn't seem to interested in most of the parade (except the candy part) but she did stare down the Moose from the Moose Lodge - thought that was the weirdest thing she ever saw! We also saw Sally Starr...

This week is the Dogwood Festival and Brock and I and Leda headed out to the fair this evening to meet up with Dave and Annie and Danny and Bob and Lee (Dave's parents). There was riding on rides, there was eating of food, there was only one funnel cake eaten - and for those of you who know my husband's NEED for 10,000 funnel cakes in one sitting (yes, I am not kidding, and yes, it's sick how freaking skinny he can stay and eat that crap!), one funnel cake has got to be a record. We have discovered our child's love of rides. She definitely takes after her Mommy on liking to ride the rides, except for the fact that she likes the Ferris Wheel, which Mommy refuses to get onto - not with the case of fear of heights I got and the fact that no matter what I GET STUCK AT THE TOP EVERY FREAKIN' TIME! She had an awesome time, and she was just so darn cute! She had a lot of fun with Danny, too! I think it's a love connection!

I heard this afternoon that our niece Sarah's guinea pig passed away last night. She was a good guinea pig from all accounts. We met Callie several years ago when we went out to visit. So our sincerest condolences go out to Sarah. Losing a pet sucks. And we are so sorry you lost Callie. We love you, Sarah!

Last night while I was on the phone with my boss, Leda unscrewed the knob from the light swtich on the table lamp. She handed it to me and announced, "I broke it, Mommy" so proudly, I almost cried! As I was trying to put it back on the light, while still speaking with my boss and attempting to keep the child from getting in my way and NOT blinding myself by the light (oh, good Bruce song!) since she had unscrewed it WHILE THE LIGHT WAS ON, I said to her (jokingly*), "Ima gonna beat your butt" while laughing (pretty much because my boss on the other line was laughing at me). Leda stopped and looked at me and said, in all seriousness, "No butt beat, Mommy." I laughed and gave her a big hug and told her "Not today!" ;-) *NOTE: I would never beat my child - just wanted to announce that in case anyone would think to report me to child services! If you want something to report us for, come over to our house around 5 in the evening when our child is beg...

(Sung to the tune of a little brat of a kid who has something you don't)... We got Jimmy Buffett tickets, we got Jimmy Buffett tickets. Na na na na NA NA! ;-) We have to go to New York City to see him play, but we got Jimmy Buffett Tickets! We had to pay an arm and a leg, but we got Jimmy Buffett Tickets! Will probably be the last Buffett concert we go to if ticket prices stay at or go higher than they are now - wow! But in September we will be heading to Madison Square Garden to see Jimmy and bask in all that is Margaritaville! Wow - three big concerts this year and not one in Philly - The Police in Hershey, Big & Rich in Bethlehem, PA and Buffett in NYC. Gonna be a great summer!

Yeaaaa! Daddy's home. Brock got home last night and we had time for a nice dinner outside on the patio and Leda got to show off her amazing verbal skills to her daddy. She's talking up a storm these days! Leda must not have known it was Mother's Day yesterday because I didn't get much sleep the night before! Up every hour and a half yelling for the "pink baby bottle" or the "white baby bottle" - which ever had fallen out of bed at that hour of the morning... ...Back track... Leda loves to feed her baby dolls their "baby bottle." So much so, that she will not only take the baby to daycare, but the baby bottle as well. Last Friday, she took the "pink baby bottle" (and she calls it that!) with her and we thought it got lost at daycare so when I got her home on Friday night, after listening to "I want the pink baby bottle, Mommy" ALL THE WAY HOME and then some, I dug deep into the toy box and found another baby bottle. This ...

As I was on my way to pick Leda up at daycare, I put on WOGL - the oldies station in town. This has been the oldies station in town for as long as I can remember, btw. Anyhoo, Michael Jackson's Don't Stop til You Get Enough was playing, so I turned it up and started doing a little in-the-car-seat-dancing, and thought to myself, Self, this was before Michael Jackson got all weird. Then I thought, well, no, actually, this was just a lower level of Michael Jackson weird, before he went all, off the charts weird. The next song that came on was Vehicle by Ides of March. This was one of the songs that Rhythm and Blue Fish used to sing a hundred years ago when we used to go out every weekend to a bar where they were playing. So I turned up the radio even louder and jammed. Then I think the next song was something that came out the year I graduated high school. It was just about then that I realized that the oldies station that has been around since BEFORE I graduated high school was ...

Did that just happen? Seriously? I think I just watched the weirdest episode of Lost yet. And, believe me, it's been pretty weird. Yes, I am addicted to Lost, and tonight's episode just had me literally sitting there with my jaw on the floor for about 5 minutes after the last scene. Literally. Seriously, I can miss just about anything on tv these days (well, except Apolo dancing) but not Lost. And, wow, they just blew me away. Wow. Off to bed now! ;-)

Well, decision made, I'm staying home this weekend. Decided that I had to be a responsible mother and not drag my child hundreds of miles west for one day of hanging with some cool people and then turning around and driving back home. I mean, I guess my days of picking up and heading off on a road trip are behind me. Can I tell you how much that sucks? So Leda and I will stay home and probably head downtown to the Celtic festival on Saturday. I think I might (MIGHT) attempt to plant a garden. Maybe figure out how to hang the lights I bought a year ago out on our patio. Clean the house? (NO WAY!) Oh, and yeah, I hit 300 posts three posts ago! I meant to celebrate, but I was too darn tired!

I came to two realizations today: 1. I haven't once had to say "Brock, you're snoring, roll over" in the middle of the night (much less the 10 or so times I usually have to say it in order to accomplish the task), and, 2. Leda and I have not (yet) eaten Boston Market for dinner.

...You Rule! Seriously, if you are a single parent (or ever were at any point in your life - hi Mom!) - You Rule! How incredibly hard this parenting-by-yourself-crap is! You really don't get how much your other half does until you have to do your own stuff AND the other half's stuff AND take care of a 2 year old at the same time. And wow, you never get a minute to relax when you are a single parent. You don't have the time to go hide in the bathroom for 15 minutes or run out to the ATM to grab some money for the pizza delivery guy without packing the kid into the back seat first - and then, you get there, you can't well leave the kid in the car, so you have to take her out of the car just go get some cash! Thus, the reason why you grab some Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream while you are at it! Okay, that was a little TMI, but, whatever! I've been a single parent for a week and I don't like it one bit! I love my daughter. I truly do. And even though thi...

Leda is not used to going to day care EVERY day of the week (of course, the closer to One Lap the more time she spends in day care - 4 days instead of 3 days). I especially don't think she's too happy with the schedule change. She's used to getting up when she gets up (usually by 7:30 anyway) and having a leisurely morning, a little breakfast, a little Pinky Dinky Doo and Dora and off to day care around 9 am ish. Well, not this week. Mommy gets up at 6:30, jumps in the shower and gets ready and then gets Leda up around 7-7:15 at the latest. She get's dressed right away, has breakfast, and then about 10 minutes of play while Mommy gets everything together and out the door by 7:50-7:55 (at the latest!) so I can be back in the office by 8:30. Yesterday Leda started in with, "no go bye-byes, Mommy" when I told her it was time to go. I practically had to drag her out to the car (that sucked!). This morning, we had a little cuddle time because I was ahead of the gam...

This made me laugh out loud - And she's so right!

This past weekend, Brock took some time from packing his bags and making lists for One Lap to wash the cars. He decided it was high time to put the kid to work - I mean, that's the real reason we wanted a kid - cheap labor! Yes, she was soaking wet! And, since it wasn't THAT warm yet, she got changed immediately! But she had fun! ____________________________________________________________ Everything is looking so good around here! And the air smells so good - It's one of those amazing things about spring - one day there's barely a bud on a tree, the next day everything is blooming and the air is full of all the good smelling things like lilacs and flowers and growing grass! I took a 10 minute break this afternoon to stand on my patio and look at my tulips, which this year are just bountiful - and they are all about to bloom! Just before Leda went down for bed, we spent a few minutes taking the dog for a walk and the air was just fragrant with the lilacs that are about ...

Well, Leda and I are on our own for awhile - Brock has headed off to Cannonball headquarters to prepare with his dad for this year's One Lap (starts this Saturday). So I am on my own with a two year old. That may not sound scary to you, but it scares the heck out of me! Nah, I'm fine. I figure by the weekend I'll have figured out the routine and by Monday, Leda will figure out a way to screw it up - it will be a blast! No, really, so far, we are okay - could be better if I wasn't contemplating changing doctors. Let me tell you a story... I love my doctor. No, really, I LOVE my doctor. He's the best doctor in the whole wide world. Not lying. I've been seeing my doctor since I was about knee-high to a grasshopper - I remember this guy when he didn't have a gray hair on his head! I remember thinking way back when that he'd make a good step-dad for me and my sister! He liked my Mom, my mom liked him - too bad he was happily married! When I knew I was pregnan...