America's Most Wanted

Image Credit: America's Most Wanted

Dh and I watched AMW Saturday night. Yes our lives really are that exciting. I can't help loving that show. It's crass and tacky yet terribly endearing. I find myself inexplicably caught up in its enthusiastic let's-catch-those-motherfers-together vibe. I study each villain's face so I will recognize them if they start lurking at Winco (yeah right).

However, AMW will never hold the same place in my heart as Cops. I frickin love that show and I really can't explain why. I just love it. I guess I'm a snooty voyeur. I laugh my head off at the WT on display. I was a little chagrined when they came to Oregon and the clip was about a guy whose car was about to be impounded. His gf ran into the strip club she worked at, quickly did a dance and came out with the money to stop the car from being impounded. Classy.

A Milestone

Yesterday I completed a Sunday NYT crossword for the first time ever! Woo-hoo!

Social Networking

I teach 15-year-olds about the New Testament at church every Sunday. The class is coed. Close your eyes for a moment and remember how you acted around the opposite sex when you were 15. Yes, very little learning about the New Testament takes place in my class. I feel good if I touch on the main points of my assigned lesson and if less than 5 minutes is spent discussing who is hotter - Jennifer Garner as Electra or Jessica Alba as the Fantastic Four girl (why does Michael insist on asking that question every week???) (and hello, Jessica Alba. Like you really need to ask).

This Sunday Michael asked (he always adds such insightful comments) why everyone on Myspace pretends to be older than they are. I mentioned that when I put a fake birthdate on my Myspace page, it said I was a Scorpio. (Rude) Well, my class freaked out. "You have a myspace page?!?!?!" they yelled in surprise. Suddenly Stacy proclaimed, "I'm going to add you as a friend! What is your nickname?" Since Stacy babysat for me a few weeks ago and spent the entire time on Myspace (yes, I checked the Internet history), she already knew it. Didn't think too much of it. I spent the rest of the hour trying (in vain) to discuss the Resurrection. The kids were not interested. Everyone was high on Harry Potter.

The next day, to my amazement, I received a friend request from Stacy. A few hours later, one from Michael. Then Stacy's younger sister (also one of my babysitters). Since I honestly joined Myspace just so I could see my friend's private page, my page is verrrry basic and I only had a few "friends." Now half my friends are in their young teens. Ha ha So did they friend request me to beef up their own friend numbers? Or can I put away my cynicism for a minute and just allow myself to think it's cute? I think my affection for my insane class is adversely influencing me.

* * *

Btw, my husband has been canning tuna for two days straight. I try not to go in the kitchen at all. The last time I did, I picked up a pan and it was stuck to the counter in sticky raw tuna juices and I started hyperventilating. Both kitchen and dining room are trashed. Dh has dirtied every kitchen towel we own. The house is starting to reek of tuna. BUT. He opened a new can and we tried it. SO delicious. Plus, he's doing all the work. So I'm not complaining. (Did it sound like complaining? It was more like a series of...statements.)

Sigh

Finished Harry Potter Sunday night. Marvelous.

I'm hosting my Bunko group tonight, so yesterday was spent baking and cleaning. Made these and Biscuit Sandwich Cookies (the MSL July cookie of the month) and today I'm making this.

Right now I'm reading this. And dealing with tantrums. Baby E doesn't want to be taken out of her highchair. She just wants to eat 5 million blueberries per meal. She doesn't want her diaper changed. Yesterday, on two separate occasions, I had to put her down on the floor of the dining room and just sit at the table reading a magazine while she took ten minutes to calm down. She's not even 14 months old, so what the heck.

Thursday I went shopping ALL DAY with my friend while Dh hung out with Baby E. We were both child-free for the day and almost delirious with the freedom. Despite having a large budget, I only could only find a few tops I wanted. Most annoying. Why are so many clothes so ugly right now?

Yesterday Dh managed to get a guy with a big, nice boat to take him out on the ocean tuna fishing. Rainbow's husband went too. (Isn't she nice? She just had a baby on the 13th and let her husband go tuna fishing all day!) They caught 12 fish and now 12 enormous steaks from four fish are sitting in a cooler in our garage. Dh came home covered in tuna blood it was so disgusting. He REEKED. I've washed his clothes twice and my laundry room smells strongly of fish still. Yuck. But YAY! for many, many tuna steaks.

Baby E

Yes, I bought her this shirt, and I put it on her. Boo-yah.
Baby E is fascinated by all technology and loves to try to type when she thinks Dh is not looking.
My friend Rainbow had her baby on Friday the 13th. A little girl, and soooo pretty. Yay, Rainbow! This is her fourth baby and she is happy to say she is DONE having kids.

Eww

Last Wednesday I woke up to the baby crying from her crib. It was around 7:30. As I got up, I noticed a strange smell in the house. 'Oh,' I thought, 'must be that tuna pasta I put in the trash last night.' I put the garbage sack on the front porch. The smell was still around, and quite strong. I went into the baby's room...


She was covered in her own vomit.


It was so freaking disgusting. I gagged at least four times. I prayed desperately, "Please, let me get through this without throwing up. Please." I don't do well with vomit. I'd even told Dh previously that when Baby E throws up, he's going to have to take the day off work to see to her. Unfortunately, he was out of town at a conference. A tiny part of me briefly wondered if I could just clean up the baby and leave the rest until he got home that night. Then I decided the smell was way too strong to let it all sit that long. Otherwise I totally would have. Ha ha


So. It was just me and the puke.


Poor Baby E. She had rubbed it all in her hair, all over her body. I had to bathe her twice, wash the sheets twice (oh yeah, and pick the chunks out in between washings), scrub down and disinfect the crib. The baby still smelled after her scrubbings, so I spent the rest of the day periodically wiping her down with wipes, scrubbing her hands with soap, Q-tipping her to the point of crankiness. I couldn't tell if she actually smelled, or if I was imagining it.


She had no fever, nor did she throw up again. An hour later, as I nursed her, she paused to chuckle when the neighbor's dog barked. She laughed, played all day. I don't know what caused the explosion. I have a few ideas:

• The previous day was ultra hot (for western Oregon): 102 degrees F. We went to the pool, but it was a lot of time in the sun. Maybe too much??
• At the pool, a friend gave me the rest of a cheese stick which I fed to Baby E. It was a little hard. Not gross hard - I mean, I felt comfortable feeding it to the baby...
• It was just one of those crappy, freak incidents that happen when you have a kid.
• She had a strange, one-hour flu.

In what may or may not be related, Dh had a one-day flu on Friday and spent the entire day in bed, trying very hard not to puke. And I spent yesterday in bed, feeling rather nauseous (I have a pretty strong stomach unless I actually smell puke, so puking flus don't usually do too much to me). I think it's rather convenient that Dh had this flu before me, since he is not always very sympathetic of my colds (I have the weak sinuses to make up for the strong stomach). He tended to the baby all day and only complained once. Amazing, I tell you. Interestingly, the baby nursed three times that day. I think she missed me.

Fortunately this recent spate of illness did not interfere with Date Night, an event I'd been looking forward to all week. On Saturday, we went out for a bite to eat and then saw the Harry Potter movie. Quite good. And so nice to just be away, just the two of us.

Oh and my husband won't like this, but I'm posting it anyway. I am rather particular about my kitchen. The entire rest of the house can be trashed, but if the kitchen is reasonably clean, I can cope. If the kitchen is messy or dirty, however, I get very anxious and start cleaning until it is acceptable. Only then can I relax. This background is provided so that you understand that on Sunday when I went to bed, the kitchen was clean. When I emerged from the bedroom Monday evening (sick all day), this is what I saw:



Sigh. I told Dh this is why I try to limit his time in the kitchen and extracted a promise that he would clean it up before he went to bed. Which he did, to Dh specifications. Then I finished cleaning it up this morning.

Stop Wasting My Time

Sunday I sat in church listening to a woman my age speak. Her talk started normally enough. Then something happened that sent steam billowing from my ears. She quoted almost an entire children's book. Worse, a children's book in the most inane rhyme I've heard in a long time.

This is not the first time I've heard children's books quoted in full by women in my church in place of actual lesson/talk preparation. I've sat through more than one lesson where a woman stood in a room full of other adult women and read a storybook. Showed us the pictures and everything.

This makes me so mad! My church teaches that men and women are equal. That we have different tasks and abilities but that in God's eyes, we are equally valuable and needed. No man would ever dream of reading a storybook to a class, or of quoting an insipid poem to the congregation. It would be an insult to the intelligence of his audience. The class/congregation is full of adults. So then why, oh why do women think this is okay? It's ridiculous.

I'll grant many women in my church are stay-at-home moms. They spend a lot of time with little children. They read those poem-parables all the time to their kids. However. Reading your little children a storybook is fine. Reading adults a storybook is a waste of their time. When my daughter goes to bed, I don't sit around reading her books. I want to edify, challenge myself, learn new perspectives, new ways of thinking about things. So I read adult books.

1 Corinthians 13:11 - When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

I have spent a lot of time learning more about the gospel, growing past the childish things. I'd like that to be acknowledged by hearing about the meat of the gospel when I go to church, not having more milk sloshed in my face. If women in my church want to be treated as equals, I really hope they will start acting like equals of men.

First Naughty Moment

Baby E loves to pull my bookmarks out of my books. I've started (trying to) memorize my page number due to her bookmark-theiving ways. The other day she was playing with my bookmark and stuck it in her mouth. "Don't put that in your mouth," I said, pulling it out of her mouth. She stuck it in again. I repeated myself. This time she got a terribly mischievious look on her face and slowly....licked the bookmark! Struggling to keep a straight face, I pulled the bookmark away from her mouth and said, "Don't do that." Sure enough, she licked it again, looking at me with the most hilarious expression the entire time. "That's it!" I announced loudly, and repossessed the bookmark. What an imp.

The binky...it needs to go....as soon as this recent bout of teething is over. I swear.

Dh rented Ghost Rider while I was gone. He is always up for watching movies over and over and over again, so we watched it together last night. Oh man. SOOOO bad. So bad, it's good. You know what I mean.

Since My Return

I came home with one more suitcase than I left with. That always seems to happen to me when I visit my family. This time it was mostly because Mom had fun at a big sale at KMart getting 2T girl clothes for Baby E to grow into. And I stocked up at the Distribution Center. Since I could barely carry the luggage I originally had, I had no idea what I was going to do upon returning to our very small local airport. I stacked up three suitcases on a row of chairs and was going to leave them there while I went to get my car with the baby and what I could carry. But God sends His tender mercies - a friend of mine from church just happened to be at the airport picking up a rental car for her own trip to Utah. She helped me load up my bags.

Dh called as I drove home. He was away on a motorcycle trip, seeing the sights on the Oregon & California coasts. He announced he was coming home early from his motorcycle trip because he missed me and Baby E. I really love that man. He arrived home at 1 am and I was very happy to see him. He had left yellow tulips and chocolates to greet me when I got home from the airport. I looooove tulips.

It's been really warm here, but since I came from Utah (103 was the peak there, I think), I'm doing okay. It's only in the 80s here, but humid. Thank goodness for that portable air conditioner we have in the living room. We bought a fan for the baby's room since I couldn't seem to get it below 77 in there, and mostly it was at 80. Too hot. We took the baby to the park yesterday. Despite enjoying the swing before, this time she was crying and literally shaking with fear. I don't get it. She did have some fun trying to climb around. After E went to bed, Dh grilled up some burgers and I convinced him to watch "Lifeboat" with me. It's an old black-and-white Alfred Hitchcock. We both liked it.


I finished Catcher in the Rye this morning. Somehow I made it to 26 without ever reading it. I really liked it. Though it had too much swearing. Ha ha

Back from Utah

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. If I ever EVER talk about going on a trip with Baby E by myself, slap me until I agree to never mention it again. I went to Utah to vacation with my family for a week. I left last Friday, I returned Thursday, exhausted and drained.

Good things about my trip:

• Hanging out with my family, especially my brothers Pat & John. They are really funny and we laughed our heads off.
• Hanging out with L. She is cool! She drives a BMW now. How posh. We had a lot of fun talking on a long walk around the golf course behind the resort.
• Swimming in a crater. The water is always 95 degrees. It was really amazing.

Bad things about my trip:

• Baby E went to bed late almost every night. This meant she woke up EARLY almost every morning. Doesn't make sense, does it. Well, it's true. The nights she went to bed late, she woke up in the morning around 6 am. (tooooooo early) The nights she went to bed on time (all 2 of them), she slept until 7 (acceptable). Since I went to bed at midnight every night, and slept well zero nights, this added up to an exhausted me.
• Baby E was overwhelmed and extremely clingy all week. As in, couldn't go more than two feet from her without her freaking out. Couldn't eat breakfast, couldn't get dressed, without Baby E crying. The child just does not travel well and I see no reason to torture myself again by pretending that "maybe she's outgrown it by now" (which is what I thought just before this trip).
• Trip was extremely disorganized and a lot of time was wasted. When you go on a trip with 11 people, you expect some of this though.
• We spent a lot of time dealing with my sister E's crap. A LOT OF TIME. It really annoyed me that I spent ANY of my vacation sitting in the back of a rented minivan while my dad powwowed with the mechanic fixing E's crappy car. And picking her up at work and driving around for her while she whined about how broke she is (yet bought a $200 guitar in the past month). She lies to everyone and we are all getting really frustrated about that. Too much time spent on E's drama.
• My mom's favorite outfit was stolen when she asked my little brother to put it next to the car right before our picnic. The dirty thief also stole the bread and chips for our picnic. RUDE. My mom freaked out because it was her absolute favorite outfit and do you know how hard it is to find pants that fit and are comfortable?????
• I spent half the week on a 4-inch-thick mattress. Yuck.

I need a vacation from my vacation.

However, I think it was all worth it just to hear my crazy uncle Geno say to poor trapped L at a dingy restaurant in Heber City:

"Well, you know what happens when you live in one of those communes?"

L shakes her head.

"You get AIDS."