Conversations

I know, I know... so much time passes between posts these days. I would like to lie say that this is going to change soon. Honestly? Those "I'm gonna get back on the ball!" posts annoy the crap out of me almost as much as the obligatory "this is my blog and it's going to be awesome!" posts. Chances are good that things will be spotty for a while yet.

Although I've considered writing a bunch of posts to catch you all up (because I am sure you've been waiting around for just that thing), that's not going to happen. 

Okay, so I tried to write something and it turned out awful enough that I'm surprised it's still in my drafts folder.

Instead, here are some snippets of my life over the past few months (in no particular order):

Tonight while rocking Madelyn (and convincing her that it's okay to pretend to nurse through my shirt if I'm wearing a bra, but on braless nights such as tonight she shouldn't because it tickles like crazy) the topic of school came up. "When you're five you'll be in kindergarten. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes." (This is her standard answer for everything.)

"What is it?"

"It's a school with plants."

"It is?"

"Yeah, kinder garden."

Of course.

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Fynnie, who is still nursing. She calls it Booboo and recently took a second to pop off, pull back and say, "Booboo, I think you're perfect."

That's right, I'm 41 (and three quarters), have spent over six year of my life nursing (OH MA GAW!) and someone still thinks my breasts are perfect. That's totally what I'm taking from this.


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On the other hand, against all odds, my nipples are ridiculously ticklish. I learned this because of Fynn's new thing, which is to attack my chest with wiggling fingers while yelling, "Tickle tickle, Booboo!"

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And yes, that thing with Mad. She's going through a struggle with becoming independent and trying to climb back into my womb.

Tom and I are going to be taking a parenting class in a couple weeks. It's put on by someone at my work. I told her, "We're not taking it because of the two year old. It's the four year old, oh my freaking god!"

To which she responded, "It's not the terrible twos, it's the fucking fours."

It's good to know we'll be guided by someone who understands.


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Sometimes it is the terrible twos. Take this conversation over dinner one night, for example.

Madelyn said,  "I need more," so I refilled her bowl.

Fynnie, who still had a full bowl, said, "I need more, too!" 

I took her bowl away, moved food around and brought it back, only to have her yell, "That's too full!"

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Last fall Mad had this observation, "The firework booms its paint into the sky with beautiful colors, like a tear coming out of your wet eye from crying."

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Yesterday I realized something critical about my special blend of two flavored coffees, one regular and one decaf. They are both decaf.

This explains why I didn't get to sleep until 2:00 in the morning the other night after stopping at Starbucks on my way to work.

On the other hand, now that jig is up, I'm not sure how I'll make it through tomorrow morning. 

Oh, yes, I do. I made a pot of my other coffee, which truly is part decaf and part regular. It's not as yummy as the flavored stuff, but it'll certainly do the trick.


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Fynnie and Mad know how much Mama loves her coffee. Fynnie has begun asking for coffee in her cup. Thankfully, she's willing to pretend that water is coffee.

But the other night as I was moving her from my lap into her bed, she must have been in the middle of a dream. Arms and legs flailing wildly, she insisted that I put my coffee "right there!" Right there would have been the wall next to her bed, in case you were wondering.

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During last week's staff meeting with our new boss, I heard the best, most Dilbert-worthy quote of all time come straight out of her mouth, "We need to be compliant with whatever I was just talking about." Yes, yes we do.

Taking My Proud Moments Where I Can Get 'Em

Corey's 15 and in need of something to fill his time while we wrap up the independent study program. Let's face it, the kid needs to be supervised, but there are no babysitters for people his age who aren't immobile or ill. So he needs a job. At his age, the best bet is volunteer work. His availability is awesome, he could develop some outside relationships and *trumpeting fanfare* he could learn something.


My job, for the better part of the past decade and a half has been related to pre-employment and basic job skills. So I'd be the ideal teacher of this information for you. Or your spouse. Or your kid. Or that crazy lady down the street. But not for my son.


I asked my coworker, Jill, if she would work with him and she agreed. They met, oh, about two months ago and laid out a plan of action. Of course, very little of it has occurred since then. Jill sent out a reminder email the other day, which Corey just got to read. He was then compelled (ahem... by his mother) to finish up some of the tasks. One of the "easy" ones is getting references.


He made a list of people to ask. I nixed the teacher he had from third to fifth grade as too long ago to be relevant. Then I made him actually dial the numbers and talk to people. The first one didn't go well at all. He called his instructor and apparently started off with, "My mom said I should call...," which resulted in Derek asking if he could speak with me. So I had to explain it all to him. Then Corey and I role-played asking the next person. Twice. Corey was pretty nervous, but he called her and got her to agree to a letter of recommendation.


Too bad he'd forgotten to get her contact information to use her as a reference. So he spent nearly 10 minutes trying to get out of calling her back, but eventually he did do it. As if it wouldn't be embarrassing enough to forget that in the first place, the person he was calling works at my mom's church. As does Mom. Grammy answers the phones there, in fact, so he had to go through her twice, too.


But *more trumpeting fanfare* he did it! Woohoo! I couldn't hear the whole thing, but what I could make out sounded great, even the second time around. I'm pretty pleased.


In other news, the house hunt is taking up nearly all of my free time. We went out last week on Monday and saw 22 houses, three of them twice. Why so many? The area we're hoping to buy in is about 45 minutes away. So we try to get our realtor for the day and knock 'em out like crazy. I love our realtor, Dave. He has three rules:

• If we pull up and you don't like it, we leave.
• If we go in and you don't like it, we leave.
• This is a cursory inspection, so we're not opening every cupboard and drawer.

Well, there's really a fourth rule, too. He has veto power. If he doesn't like the area or there are too many things wrong with the place, he vetoes it. Why does that work? He knows our taste and sensibilities pretty darned well.


Last week we found the house. Fricken huge, new paint and carpet, two years old, great neighborhood, views of mountains, desert and even some "city" lights. Bedrooms and bathrooms for all the people we now have and all the people we hope to have (including company). Ginormous backyard. Dual a/c. Ahh, yes. Love, love, love. We knew immediately where we'd put the Christmas tree.

But we wanted to check out the neighborhood in the evening when residents would be in residence. That couldn't happen again until Thursday night. We submitted our offer first thing Friday morning. That afternoon we learned we'd been beat to the punch.


We probably could have increased our bid or something, but it was at the top of the amount we want to spend, and there some 4000 homes in the region to consider. We hope the new owners are as happy there as we would have been. We hope we find something just as wonderful and happy-making when we go out on Saturday after my classes.


Tom and I compiled a list of 26 homes we're hoping to see. Since we're starting later in the day, we might not be able to get to them all. Homes are rather difficult to check out in the dark. Wish us luck!