Monday, October 24, 2005

Dizz Knee Land

We're getting really excited here about our Disneyland trip next week...yesterday I spent way too much money on eBay - but I got four tickets to Mickey's Halloween Treat! It's a special trick-or-treat party they're having at California Adventure. It's three hours, from 7:30-10:30 on Sunday night (after regular park hours; it closes at 6 PM that day). There are several "trick or treat" stations where you get candy, and a bunch of photo opportunities with the characters. Some of the rides will be open, and I heard that you can play the carnival games for free (they give out candy as prizes, rather than toys). Whee!

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Thursday, October 13, 2005

The end of babyhood...

I finally gave up the last little teeny tiny part of me that thought that MAYBE someday I might have another child. I sold my glider (rocking chair) on craigslist tonight.

I had no problems getting rid of Rugrat's crib, his changing table, his stroller (well, actually, that filthy thing is still in the garage because I couldn't even GIVE it away). Baby clothes? Gone, for the most part - I kept a few things for sentimental reasons, but handed down the rest of his barely-worn, gorgeous baby clothes. I was the first one to have a baby in my group - everyone else came after. And almost all of those babies were boys, so my hand-me-downs were always in demand among the sisters-in-law and friends. Baby toys were disposed of too, given to cousins or donated to charities.

But I held on to the glider. I had such lovely memories of holding my little infant Rugrat, nursing him, rocking him, singing to him. Sitting upright, rocking in the middle of the night, asleep - both of us. It's amazing that you can actually continue to rock the chair and be sound asleep at the same time, but I'm sure I'm not the only mother who's done it. When he got a wee bit older, we'd snuggle up in the chair to read bedtime stories.

Time marched on, and Rugrat got too big for us to share the chair anymore (without my legs falling asleep, that is). So the chair sat, unused, in his room until we moved two years ago. Then the chair migrated to MY room. I had some fleeting idea about it being a "reading chair" because it's so comfortable. But when I read in my bedroom, I read in bed. And the chair ended up just holding stacks of clean clothes.

Why did I keep the chair for so long? I kept thinking that someday I might meet someone and get married. And someday we might decide that it would be totally cool to have a baby together. And if that happened - if I somehow changed my mind and thought, "OK, it would be fine to have another baby. I could totally live through another twelve months of being a braindead zombie. I could totally put up with a few more years of diapers and tantrums and whining and picky eating and the nonstop physical and emotional drain," if I REALLY TRULY believed that...then I'd want to have a glider. So I held on to it for way longer than I should have.

And now it's gone. That last little bit of Rugrat's infancy. That last little link to breastfeeding, which was totally the best (and worst) part of the first six months of his life. So I'm a little sad. But still, it's good to move on.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Rugrat, Babydaddy and I went to see this movie yesterday. I love W&G - I've seen all three of the earlier movies - and I wasn't disappointed with this one. It was really cute. My favorite thing was Lady Tottington's very veggie dresses. I didn't notice it until near the end of the movie, but some of her dresses were meant to emulate vegetables: at the competition she was dressed as a carrot, and in the final scene she was dressed as an ear of corn. Adorable!

Zippity doo dah

Dad & stepmom came over on Saturday for my birthday. I ran off to a seminar at the library on starting your own small business, and while I was gone, they started changing the switches and electrical outlets in the house. I don't mean that they started rewiring them so as to completely confound me, but that they switched the actual switches and outlets from nasty almond to a lovely, clean white. So...whee! I have all new outlets & switches, including GFCIs in the kitchen & bath (which were not there before, despite the violated building codes). Bitchin' birthday present, even if dad nearly gave himself a heart attack doing it all in one day. Seriously, I was hollerin' at him to TAKE A FRIGGIN BREAK ALREADY by the time he started on the upstairs rooms. He was turning purple and huffin' and puffin' every time he had to get back up off the floor.

I also got a fabulous birthday dinner of boeuf bourgignon and garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach with pine nuts and sultanas (golden raisins). And dessert: creme brulee. Who can resist that? In addition, I marinated myself in pinot noir and a good snort of that fabulous $200 scotch. Amazingly enough, I was NOT hung over the next day (may have something to do with the fact that I basically passed out at 9 PM and slept TWELVE HOURS).

And now I am 32. I was thinking the other day about how I could be on that old television show Thirtysomething now.

Haircut tonight! Will celebrate with something a little different - very long bangs (or very short layers) and at least four inches off the ends. My hair has gotten unwieldy, y'all. The last time I actually styled my hair (blow dry, curling iron, etc.) it took forever. I have at least four inches of incredibly dry ends that resemble straw. AND I woke up in the middle of the night a few times with my hair wrapped around my neck and trying to strangle me. I don't want my hair to be so long that it's strangling me. Seriously. And when I'm not laying down, the hair occasionally will wrap under my armpit and my head gets yanked to the side. That's just too long.

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

My favorite day of the week

...is now officially Wednesdays. Between Lost and Veronica Mars, plus a healthy helping of my newest favorite train wreck, America's Next Top Model...I am just in heaven.

Saturday...meh. Wednesday is the new IT day!

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Yum!

Mmmmm...made the greatest dinner tonight! Roasted tiny potatoes and butternut squash soup. Thank god for Williams Sonoma!

Oh, and La Bicyclette merlot. Cheap and tasty, at $10/bottle!

Sunday, October 2, 2005

"Spring" cleaning

Today I spent three hours weeding in the backyard and planting spring bulbs. Almost 250 spring bulbs, actually. I planted:
  • 90 crocuses
  • 88 tulips
  • 36 daffodils
  • 22 hyacinths
I'm exhausted. And I didn't even do what I was REALLY supposed to do, which is to grout the tile in the entryway. Why didn't I do it? Because my friggin' drill doesn't fit the whirlygig mixer-thingy I got to mix up the grout. How is that possible? Aren't they a standard size? I dunno, but Babydaddy said I would need a corded (as opposed to cordless) drill anyway, because you have to mix the stuff for five minutes. Yeeeaaahhh.

So, no grout yet. But I will have an abundance of spring flowers this year. :-)