Tonight's the night!

Grey's Anatomy returns! I'm finally going to be getting laundry done around the house again, since the only way I can convince myself to fold laundry and put it away is to watch Grey's Anatomy while I do it. I managed to replace Grey's with Army Wives over most of the summer, but since Army Wives wrapped up about a month ago, I've had a huge stack of laundry just waiting on the return of something worth watching. Husband will be glad to have things back in his dresser and not have to go down to the laundry room and the piles of clean, but not folded and not put away, clothes.

In other news, I interviewed a new babysitter today - she's a pedi.atric nur.se, which is a great plus, and she works 3 12-hour shifts a week, leaving her with 2 weekdays open to babysit. My first impressions of her were pretty good, so I'm hoping her references check out and that she does well with J. I really need someone who can sit during the week, since I often have meetings, etc. at times other than when J is in his paren.ts da.y ou.t program.

Husband is working late tonight, so I'm going to indulge in my favorite, no-need-to-cook, meal: a totino's supreme frozen party pizza. It's about 1.5 million calories for this entire thing, and it has no nutritional value, but I eat and love it! Husband thinks they are disgusting, so I can't cook them when he's around or I have to listen to him criticize my $1 dinner.

J's new word

I've taught my son a cuss word. I never even realized I said it as much as I did until he starting using it. It's almost funny, because he actually uses it "appropriately". So instead of hearing "uh-oh" when he throws his cup off the tray, it's now "sh*t". I think it's the first word he's said that came out correctly the very first time he said it. Every other word, he had some approximation for it for a few days/weeks until he finally got it - "elm" became "elmo", "ba" became "ball", "da" became "dog" and "dad", "ez" became "cheese" and so on. But sh*t? Came out clear as day first time he said it. And my verbal response when I heard it?

"oh, sh*t"

I didn't even realize I said it. But now I've been noticing that I say it ALL the time. I had hoped Husband wouldn't hear it from J, but then this weekend, J lost his baseball under the couch and couldn't get to it. So he said "sh*t". And Husband turned to me with a shocked look on his face and asked if that word was what he thought it was. And of course it was.

I'm hoping that if we just don't make a big deal out of it (and I stop using it myself!) then he'll forget about it!

Bunko

First of all, thanks for the supportive comments on my hair - I'm really starting to warm up to wearing it wavy (in fact, it's almost 3 pm and I still haven't put it up in a ponytail today!) and it helps to hear that it doesn't look too bad.

In other news, I am LOVING being a mom of a toddler. At least once a day, if not more, J does something that totally cracks me up - lately it's been his obsession with baseball. Husband put up all his old framed Sa.int L.ouis C.ardina.ls baseball memorabilia on J's walls (his room is primary colors and so the Car.dinal red stuff looks great in there) and also bought J a baseball and glove for his first birthday. He's taught J how to put the glove on and "pitch" (complete with wind-up), and then last week he taught him how to hold the toy plastic bat with both hands and put it up by his head. J now walks around ALL day with the bat and glove and the ball, saying "ba-beeeeeeeee", which is his word for baseball (regular balls are just "ball"). J recognizes the Car.dinals logo everywhere - he went up to a woman at the children's mu.seum last week who had a red Car.dinal and bat on her shirt and, all while yelling "ba-beeeee", touched her bo.ob where the baseball bat was on her shirt before I could get there! Oops. Fortunately, she thought it was funny once I explained that he gets excited whenever he sees something that's Car.dinal baseball and that he was not going after her bo.ob (even though ba-beeeeee does sound like boo.bie!)

Finally, I want to start a Bu.nko group up with some friends. I just learned how to play at my MOP.S group, and I think it'd be fun to do on a regular basis. Any of you have experience with this and suggestions on what would work/what doesn't work?

calling Husband at work

J's napping right now, and although I am technically "working", I've also been reading the local news headlines. One in particular caught my eye - about a car that hit and critically injured some lunch time diners who were outside at a restaurant that I know Husband frequents for lunch. So just to make sure that it wasn't him that was hit, I called up to his office. He didn't answer his office phone, so I tried his cell, which he did answer but with a really irritated tone of voice. He rudely asked "what do you want" and when I proceeded to tell him why I was calling, he said "no, I'm obviously fine, I'm in my office and I have to go". And then hung up.

So this interaction made me irritated! I don't call him at work all that often - maybe once a week, and then usually only late in the day (around 5:30) to find out when he'll be home for dinner if he hadn't told me already. Obviously, he only answered the phone because he may have though something was wrong and then was irritated when it was something he deemed as me being paranoid and not a real issue.

I would think he would be glad that I cared enough to make sure he hadn't been him that was eating there when the car hit the restaurant! Instead, I think he's thinking that I have nothing better to do than read the newspaper while he's working hard - so I've managed to just further perpetuate his ideas that I do nothing all day. Ugh.

On a more positive note, it finally got cold enough last week for a big pot of chili! I love winter food - stews, crockpot meals, chili, soups, etc. This batch turned out really good and we've been enjoying the leftovers. Here it is, with all the yummy toppings I love on chili (fritos, cheese, sour cream, and green onions):

Amy

For the past few months, I've been reading Amy Wilhoite's blog. I'm not sure how I first found it, but I'm glad I did as reading her words have provided a light into the life of a faithful and peaceful Christian, even in spite of difficult circumstances.

Amy died this week, and even though I never met her, I have been grateful for the faith she has demonstrated to so many, myself included. She was right around my age, with a son around the same age of J.

Please pray for her family, and especially her husband and son.

Hair

Has anyone been watching the new extended version of the T.oday show on N.BC? I watched the extra hour for the first time today and found myself enjoying it - it's definitely geared towards the stay-at-home mom (I guess they are the biggest demographic watching tv late morning on a weekday), but I found the segments were surprisingly good. And I was glad that Ann Curry wasn't too involved with it - I don't care for her AT ALL.

Anyway, they did a segment today on how everyone wants what they don't have when it comes to hair style - curly or straight. I've been thinking about this alot, because I have naturally wavy (not curly) hair that I have always blown out straight and then spent 20 minutes with a flat-iron to get it perfectly straight and flat. There was a time in college when I could achieve a pretty decent straight and bouncy look with using those fat hot rollers instead of a flat-iron, but then my hair texture changed or something and the fat rollers didn't work as well, so it was back to the flat iron. So except for the hot rollers and a few days here and there in college and grad school when I just went out with it wet in a ponytail, the blowdryer/flat-iron has been my routine for the past 16 years (wow - that's a really long time! totally unrelated, but the thing about getting older is that it shocks me how long ago I was in high school - it stills feels like it was just a few years ago, but 16 years is a LONG time.).

But lately, I've been rethinking my hair. In part, it's a practical issue - I just don't have the patience or time to spend 40 minutes on my hair - but it's also part of me just wanting to accept my hair the way it is and not fight it. I have wavy hair - not curly, straight, or flat hair - and even though it is thick and frizzy sometimes, it's the way my hair is and what it does. So for the past 6 weeks, I have given up on the flat-iron. I still blow-dry, but only for about 5 minutes and with the diffuser on. I think just let it air-dry and go. It looks pretty good until about 4 pm, when it starts to get really limp and then I pull it up in a ponytail.

But I'm loving the ease of it and the ability to only spend about 10 minutes on my hair. And it's nice to just accept it as it is. Here's a picture of my flat-iron straight hair and a recent picture of it just as it is:

I love how shiny it looks when its straight, but I don't know if its really worth all the effort. I've gotten a few compliments on the air-dried look, but I'm still not sure. Thoughts?

Potty Training and Hawaii

Two things going on right now -

#1. I've been thinking alot lately about when and how to start potty training J. I've seen a few other folks with kids of similar age talking about this lately, here and here, for example - and J has shown some signs that he's thinking about it. He's very interested in the toilet, in helping when we're on the toilet, he's extremely predictable with his #2 (I know that's such an immature way to refer to it, but I hate any word that can be used to describe it and I feel weird talking about it anyway!), he wakes up dry from naps, and he shows signs when he's got a wet/dirty diaper (although no words for either yet). The friend that we visited with this week was telling me that she's heard that you either train them before 2 or after 3, but not in between. Her sister-in-law trained her boys when they were 18 months old, and said that the only "readiness" indicator was that they were on a predicable schedule for when they went #2. Which J is. So I was thinking that it might be worth trying.

I really don't mind diapers though, and I hate the idea of accidents or making him not want to do it because we push it too soon, and I have NO idea how to even start. I'm sure there are a million books I could read, but I don't know which. I don't even know what kind of potty to get or if we should just teach him on our seat (we have a really small bathroom too, so I don't know where we would keep the potty!). And are you supposed to teach little boys to p.ee standing up or sitting down?

I'm thinking I could just do what I did with sleep training - which was spend way too much money on books, waste time reading them, decide they were all crap, and then just do it more by my own intuition than some published protocol. It worked fairly well - he usually goes down without any problem for nap and bed, although once or twice a week he has trouble falling asleep and/or wakes up during the night. But he general he did really well getting over the "let's wake up and hang out with mom and dad three times a night" stage that lasted from 6 months to 11 months.

Thoughts?

#2. A good friend of mine is in town from Hawaii this week! She came over for lunch today, with another mutual friend of ours and her two kids, and we had a blast. It was so great to catch up with her - she's younger than my other friend and I, and still single, and we always loved living somewhat vicariously through her stories of dating, going out until 3 am, buying yourself clothes or whatever you wanted, and feeling like your life was still a blank slate. I know that when you are in that phase it actually seems more frustrating sometimes than when everything seems more "certain" - marriage, house, kids, etc - but she is someone who really embraces each phase of her life and lives it to the fullest. And so it's neat to hear her talk about how much fun she is having!

Ah, to be young again. :)