Just need to vent...

Despite crappy weather today, RP and I had a great time indoors. She played her favorite computer game this morning while I got ready, as I was slow-going due to being down for the count with nasty sinus issues (I won't bore you with the details -ick!), and then she wanted to watch a movie. Given her new interest in superheroes I convinced her that "The Incredibles" would be fun to watch, and despite the fact that she was NOT into it at first, she was glued to the TV by the end (and even hosted a tea party in the bathtub tonight as Superman!). She ate a great lunch, took a long nap, and we had a fun pillow fight after nap time which helped to wake her up and get her giggling... which makes me smile. She worked on a craft project before dinner, then helped me make pizza for dinner which is always a fun event. We wrapped up the evening with a long bath (including the aforementioned tea party!) and a long book before bed. All was well.

Around 9:00 I heard knocking, and proceeded to yell up the stairs at RP to knock it off and get to sleep, as she has been known to lollygag going to sleep these days and I thought she was kicking the wall, which she has done in the past. She then proceeds to yell down to me that it wasn't her, and that it was the puppies knocking on the door (cute, but not sure where that came from). Since the dogs were sleeping at the foot of the sofa where I was sitting I knew it wasn't the dogs, but I also knew where the noise was coming from. Yes, the damned next door neighbors.

My next door neighbors have been the biggest bane of my existence almost since they moved in - 5 or 6 years ago. A young engaged couple when they moved in, they built the biggest model house that the builder offered but had no furniture (or window treatments in it, which is how I knew there was no furniture) for a LONG time. What they DID put in that house right away was a huge stereo system, with the capability of blaring music so loud MY walls shook. I put up with it for at least the first 2-3 years before one night I got so fed up at 3 a.m. that I called the cops... and shook with fear the entire time. I am a single woman living alone, and some of the people I've seen coming and going over there are pretty shady looking. I have now called the cops a handful of times on them (and yes, one other ridiculously noisy neighbor - another story for another day), and have even had a run-in with the wife over there because they just refuse to recognize that they are bothering anyone (I went out to ask them to turn down the music that had woken RP this past winter and she made a snotty comment about calling the cops - which is exactly what I'm going to do the next time I have issues with them. I'm done playing with these fools.). I grew up in a nice, friendly, QUIET neighborhood where everyone got along, and I really wanted to like my neighbors when I moved here. Now I just hope to tolerate them and not have a heart attack or stroke before I can either sell or rent this place out. Yes, seriously.

I worked hard to be able to afford to build this house. I then worked hard to maintain this house and make it a home. I want RP to be able to enjoy her home, and if you took my neighbors out of the equation I actually love my house, and my yard. It's roomy enough for RP and I and our three fur-babies, we have a roomy fenced-in back yard that is great for the dogs and an active toddler, and we have room to spare to have guests/overnight visitors on occasion. Sure, there are things I wish I had more/less of and things I would do differently if building again, but this has been my home for over seven years now, and I want to enjoy it with my daughter.

But I can't. I find myself looking for reasons to leave and enjoy things elsewhere, particularly if I know the weather is going to be nice over the weekend. Why???

• The crazy neighbors that live next door have gone from being an engaged couple to a married couple with a toddler (just a few months younger than RP) and now apparently a baby. I say "apparently" because there is now an entire second family living in the house with them, and I can't tell who belongs to whom anymore. This second family brought along their dog, making it THREE bully breeds that now live next door, and despite their fenced in BACK yard, they insist on letting the dogs out in the FRONT yard to "take care of business," sometimes doing so in MY lawn. For this reason I very rarely let RP play out front or take the dogs for a walk - something we are all missing out on. I checked municipal code tonight and there is a city ordinance that without a kennel license you are allowed only two dogs in a home in this city, and all dogs must be kept on a leash at all times - both things I will be keeping in the back of my mind moving forward.


• The same crazy neighbors like to have parties. Lots of parties. I could care less if I didn't have them parking up by my driveway, tramping through my lawn, and allowing their kids to play on my driveway and trample through my landscaping. I lost my mind at the beginning of April on two kids from a party next door who were playing Frisbee across the two yards, and the kid kept trampling on my shrubs that were trying to come up. The parents were outside WATCHING and yet said nothing, which pissed me off even more. I had to yell at them three times and even then they kept coming back in my yard.


• Even without the parties the neighbors have no sense of boundaries. Last summer they consistently set their kids' pool up in the front yard - halfway into my yard, and under RP's window. RP and I were still trying to settle into routines and the chick next door has the loudest voice I have ever heard - I can seriously hear her conversations from outside in my family room with the TV on and AC blowing, and of course her kids are just going outside to play at 8-9 p.m. when I'm trying to get mine to drift off to sleep - next to impossible when you've got kids screaming at each other right below your window.


• Just to not pick on the people next door (although, like I said earlier, they are the biggest offenders) there are others in this neighborhood who are noisy and inconsiderate. There is a house on the street behind mine where the dad/husband thinks his garage is his own personal nightclub and he blasts music from it for hours at a time, and at all hours of the day/night. The people across the street from me have at least one party a month, and every time they do the party seriously lasts for two solid days. After every party I have tire tracks in my front yard because apparently parking on the street is hard and they just HAVE to get at least one wheel up on the curb and into my yard, my landscaping bricks are knocked down around the tree in the boulevard (I've honestly stopped putting them back up - what' the point?), and they have about 70 kids running screaming (yes, literally) through this neighborhood until at least 2-3 a.m. when the weather is nice. There's more, but my fingers are honestly worn out from typing it all!

This brings me back to what brought on the rant tonight. The knocking RP heard was the next door neighbors beginning their construction project at 9:00 p.m. in their garage. I don't know what the project is, nor do I care. What I do care about is that they woke up my child for the umpteenth time in her 15 months home, and I am physically and mentally tired of it. I feel bad for RP because I would love for her to have friends in the neighborhood she can play with and share her swing set, sandbox, and other toys with, and ride up and down on the sidewalk on her bike with. That can't/won't happen here - it just isn't safe, and that makes me sad....

Hangin' with RP

Not too much new is going on here, sad, but true. I have now been unemployed - well, unemployed from a job outside of the home anyway - for almost five months now. I have to say time has flown, yet working downtown seems like such a distant memory at the same time. I will say that being a SAHM with RP has proven to me that being a Mom IS a full-time job, and it only gets busier as they get older.

This past weekend RP and I went to visit her godparents who live about two hours away. I have to say that RP does a reallygood job on road trips in the car so far, even when I don't hook up a DVD player to keep her in a "Curious George" coma while driving. We had a fantastic visit and RP got to feed the ducks/geese on the Mississippi, although it was AFTER they were fed that we adults, who had been too busy jabbering on the way there to notice anything but the water and the bike/walking path, saw the "Please do NOT feed the water fowl" sign. Whoops. Yes - the three of us led RP into breaking her first law. Great.

We then headed for lunch at Olive Garden (RP's first time there, which means I haven't been there in over a year - wow!), then on to "Jungle Bungle" for some time running around like a crazy person in there, which is exactly what RP did (and came out one sock short, just to prove the point!)! RP obviously had a good time because the next day she was REALLY mad that "Uncle Cake" and "Aunt Teesa" couldn't play again, or why we couldn't just zip back to their house for a play date, and I, of course, totally wish we could since RP's godmother and I have been best friends for over 30 years now.

After a great weekend, RP and I settled back into our normal weekly routine, and while she was at pre-school on Wednesday I signed her up for a gymnastics class which is set to start on June 6 and I can't wait. I'm not sure she understands what she is in for, but I think she's going to love it, especially since she has been somersaulting on her own for about seven months now and loves to jump, jump, jump - and if she can jump off something high, all the better. I made the crazy mistake of asking the woman at the gym what all they learned in the three-year old class (figuring it was learning to walk on the balance beam, dive into the foam pit, etc.) and was a bit shocked when she replied, "Oh, all the basics. Forward and backward rolls, cartwheels, hand stands - you know, the basics." At three? Really? Holy cow! Additionally she told me they start learning not only the balance beam, but also bar work on a miniature set of bars. Wow. As excited as I am for her, I am going to be a nervous wreck every week, praying that she doesn't break an arm, or her neck.

I have a feeling this is going to be a very busy summer for us, even if I still remain unemployed during it. I'm waiting to hear back from a local college on how many credit hours it would take for me to complete my teaching degree, since the last program I was enrolled in was cancelled for the fall, and still actively looking for employment while working a part-time job and having a three-year old enrolled in pre-school one day a week and now gymnastics one day a week. If it sounds like I'm whining or complaining, I'm not - I'm actually really looking forward to it all. If anything, this unemployment time has allowed me to spend some serious quality time with my beautiful daughter, and because of that I'm cherishing every moment, and every experience, with her that I can, as I know that very soon that will all change.

Too quiet

Yes, you heard me correctly - this house is MUCH too quiet right now. Has been all evening. I had to work today and again early tomorrow morning, and Nana and Papa were dying to get their RP-fix in, so RP is hosting her own slumber party at Nana and Papa's house. She LOVES spending time with Nana and Papa and I won't lie, a little break is a good thing for Mommy too.

RP hasn't spent the night away from me since I had the flu in late January/beginning of February, and it's weird for it to be so quiet in here. I worked all day, then ran to Carter's after work to try to find a couple of plain white t-shirts for RP, which were proving to be pretty elusive to find until today (don't ask me why but every kids-wear designer seems to believe that little girl's shirts need to be full of pictures, catchy catch-phrases, and/or lots and lots of glitter. If any of them are listening, I'd like to offer this piece of advice: Please stop. My child is a child - not a hoochie, and not a walking billboard. The occasional screened or embroidered shirt is fine, love 'em in fact, but there is also something to be said for articles of clothing that are plain and simple. Finding a plain white t-shirt for a three-year old should not be as long and arduous as the hunt for Bin Laden for crying out loud), then came home to water my outside flowers and have dinner. I chatted briefly with RP on the phone to see how her day went and tell her I loved her before she went to bed, but she paused from playing her "Goofy Game" with Papa for only a minute to tell me about the ice cream with chocolate sauce she had for dessert tonight before she was off and running again. Clearly she was having a good time, which was confirmed by both Nana AND Papa.

It seems as if I have a laundry list of things I need to get done, and I keep telling myself, "If only I had a day by myself to do this, I could get so much done." Granted, I didn't have an entire day, but the prospect of an evening alone conjured up many visions of what I COULD get done this evening, things I could finally check off on the old to-do list. Do you know how many of them I actually GOT done tonight? Yep, you guessed it - none. Not a damned thing. Not that I didn't want to, it just seemed that I couldn't peel myself off the couch to do them. My excuse - I absolutely needed to watch the season finale of "The Office," and by the time that ended it was just too late to start any projects. Lame? You betcha. Necessary? Absolutely.

This house is just too quiet with RP gone. While she goes to bed at or around 7:30 these days, I have gotten used to hearing her read to herself after prayers are said and not one but TWO books are read to her. I've gotten used to yelling up the stairs at least five times a night, "RP, you need to get back in bed and go.to.sleep.," and hearing her little voice pipe up, "Otay Mommy." I'm glad she is having so much fun at Nana and Papa's house, and I'm glad that they are having fun hosting her slumber party tonight. Yet, I'll be even more glad when she is nestled back in her own bed tomorrow night, and yes, come Saturday morning when she is sneaking up the puppy stairs to snuggle in bed with Mommy before Mommy wakes up and our day together begins.

Ask a stupid question...

Well, the saying goes, "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer." I tend to disagree.

RP is in full-on throes of three-dom and therefore at times seems to have an issue listening. I have been teasing her for weeks that I was going to get another hearing test done when lo and behold they had them done at pre-school last week and she passed. With flying colors. Clearly, the issue is not with her hearing me - it's in the listening to what I've said (or usual what I've told her to do or not do as the situation would have it).

Yesterday I asked RP no less than three times to do something - at this moment I can't remember what on earth it was - and she consistently tuned me out. This had been happening all day, with her either feigning that she didn't hear me, or with her dragging her feet to do what I asked. Last night before she went to bed I told her we had to have a big-girl talk, and I sat her on my lap, facing me.

I asked her if she was a good girl. She nodded her head vigorously that yes, she was indeed a good girl. I asked her if she knew what it meant to listen. Yep - she nodded again and even pulled on her ears to emphasize what this meant. I asked her if she thought that I thought she was a good girl, and if she knew how to listen. This question caused her to pause, but then she smiled and nodded again - yes, she was a good girl. I asked her how I KNEW she was being a good girl. At this question a confused look came over her face. She thought about it for a minute, then put her hands up in the air, looked me dead in the eye, and said: "Because I'm not in the naughty corner Mommy!"

I had meant for this to be a serious conversation regarding listening, behavior, etc. and so forth, but even I couldn't help laughing out loud at her logic. How could I argue - this was, in fact, true to an extent. Sometimes I talk to RP like she is much older than the three that she is, and for the most part this works for us. However, on days like yesterday, I realize my question, and expectation of her response, was just plain stupid - and her response was spot-on in putting my expectations back in check. So, sometimes when you ask a stupid question you get a really good answer. Or at least I did!

Mother's Day, Yicker bugs, and big girl beds

Yes, I have been woefully remiss in updating my blog for a few weeks now, thanks in part to my new part-time seasonal job which is literally kicking my butt, and in part to Blogger being down for editing every time I have found time to log in. Sigh.

Mother's Day this year was a three-day event. RP's Nana had to head up to Mayo Clinic on Mother's Day for a week of tests, so we went out to dinner on Friday night with Nana, Papa, and RP. It was a nice, casual event and RP was very well-behaved which is always a benefit! Saturday I had to work all day so RP went to Nana and Papa's for the day and we exchanged gifts after I got off of work. RP surprised me with a lovely Yankee Candle which smells oh-so-yummy but makes me long for summer once and for all!

Sunday RP and I went to pick up some flowers and spent the day working in the yard. It was a gorgeous day outside and we literally spent hours digging up a new area for a flower garden and planting flowers and seeds for this summer. During the gardening process I discovered an entire ant colony forming in my "old" flower garden, so we had to make an extra trip to Menard's for ant killer, and RP then became my lookout for anything that crawled or moved - and she was QUITE effective!

After spending a day hunched over the flower gardens and lugging around dirt and flowers, I was exhausted and sore on Monday, but decided that RP was ready for the big bed to come out of the basement and into her room. I managed to haul a full-size mattress and box spring up two flights of stairs by myself and had it all put together by lunch time. I was really prepared for a "Wow" from RP, but apparently her recent stints sleeping in big beds (from vacation to crawling into bed with me in the morning to nap time at Nana and Papa's house) made this a semi-non-event for my munchkin, who only looked at her room torn up and threw her hands up in the air with a "Mommy, what are you DOING?" comment and look of confusion on her face. She warmed to the idea of napping in her new big bed and now LOVES it, although I'll say for the record that a bigger bed now allows for her to store more things in bed with her and daily I pull out multiple books, stuffed animals, dolls, and other items from the bed before I can make it in the morning!

RP went to school all day on Tuesday so I could work, and after school she and I went out for dinner - the Mother's Day dinner out that I was too tired and sweaty to have on Sunday, or even on Monday. Since RP had school on Wednesday, then again on Thursday (along with her spring school recital) we decided to stay at Nana and Papa's house on Wednesday night, so Tuesday night was spent packing up one adult, one child, and two dogs for a 12 hour stay. I think it took almost as long to pack us up as the amount of time we spent over there, but it helped tremendously Thursday morning when we got an extra 30 minutes of sleep!

RP and I spent Wednesday afternoon outside at Nana and Papa's house planting flowers for Nana. For some reason, RP has now become scared of everything that moves outside and every 39 seconds screamed "YICKER BUGS!" while pointing in the air and running through the yard screaming. I'm not entirely sure what a "yicker bug" is - we have ruled out ants, spiders, and bees at this point - but she saw them everywhere and screamed continuously for two days about them. This is the same child who now stands at the top of the doggie steps that lead up to my bed and throws herself off of them, screaming in delight, and who dives over other kids at pre-school to barrel head-first down the slide. She is afraid of nothing - well, except yicker bugs apparently...

All that having been said - what a great Mother's Day weekend it was, yicker bugs and all!

Out of the blue...

So after I updated my blog last night about our family Easter celebration I was playing around on the computer when I noticed that people on Facebook had started to post that there was some big news buzz going on and there was speculation that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Of course I had to check further so after getting to a couple of news sites it did indeed look like that was the big story and that the President was going to have a press conference, so I headed downstairs and waited for almost an hour to confirm what had already been speculated.

It's hard to believe that after almost ten years the man responsible for plotting the 9/11 attacks is finally dead. Don't get me wrong - I don't wish death on anyone... usually. I figure I'm allowed to make one exception, and this is it. Hearing the press conference gave me the chills and flashbacks to 9/11, and today's news coverage was full of images and recollections of that fateful day that literally made me sick to my stomach.

While I was no where near New York, Washington, DC, or Pennsylvania on that day, I had just been in New York City two weeks prior and remember joking with the co-worker that I went with that next time we were in town we were going to go to the World Trade Center's famous "Windows to the World" restaurant for dinner. I worked for the New York Times call center at the time and was out at our sister location in New Jersey (literally across the GW bridge from NYC) quite frequently.

I still remember driving to work that morning, bored with what was on the radio and flipping on the CD player instead. Because of this, I missed reports of the first plane hitting the WTC tower on the radio and was greeted outside by two of my managers who broke the news of the "accident" in New York. Of course I rushed upstairs to check the internet, but information was sketchy and since we didn't have a TV in the office at the time, we relied on news reports on the internet and the radio to keep us posted, and it was about 5 minutes later that the second plane hit. Our phones, which were normally ringing off the hook, were eerily quiet and just kept getting quieter and everyone realized that this was no accident, but a deliberate terrorist attack on American soil.

We closed our offices early that day and sent people home to safety (as we really didn't know what else to expect) and to be with their families. I lived alone at the time and remember having every TV on in my townhouse and I sat glued to it for hours, listening to the reports, watching the footage, and crying and praying with the rest of the country. Stunned does not even describe it, and I still get the chills thinking about it. Suddenly the world seemed much more harsh, and I'll admit that I slept with every light on in the house for weeks - every single one - for no apparent reason, other than it was what I felt compelled to do at the time.

September 12 had me out of bed and at the office before sunrise. Like I said, I worked for the New York Times and we KNEW it was going to be a chaotic day, and I was trying to get ahead of what was going to be a very trying day. After watching the sunrise with the IT staff (who were the only other people there that early) and meeting with the supervisors to form some sort of game plan for the anticipated call volume, we sat and waited for the phones to ring. They didn't ring off the hook like we expected (at first anyway), but the calls we received were heartbreaking. Everyone was calling for copies of the 9/12 paper so they could read the latest on what happened and we took calls from people who had gotten out of the towers before they fell, families who had loved ones missing in the towers and were looking for any information they could find to help foster a glimmer of hope that they would be found alive, and first responders who lost colleagues when the towers collapsed. Everyone in the office was a wreck - myself included - and I remember walking up and down aisles with boxes of kleenex as everyone was crying as they were talking to the callers and hearing their stories, their hopes, and their losses.

To this day I still have the September 12th copy of the NYT wrapped in plastic in a Rubbermaid container, along with several other newspapers and magazines. I saved them as a first hand testament to what happened that day, and planned to share them with my children when they got older. I still plan to share them someday with RP, and I pray that she never has to endure an event (or worse - eventS) like that in her lifetime. Is it too much to ask that we all just get along?

Easter, Part Two

Yes, that's right - we celebrated Easter, Part 2 today. My brother and his family came down today and we had a combination Easter/Mother's Day celebration which was really nice, although it would have been nice if the weather had been a bit more cooperative this afternoon as it was really windy and downright nippy!

RP loves spending time with her cousins, and it sometimes makes me really sad to watch her play with other kids because while they all have each other to play with at home (and yes, fight with - been there, done that with a sibling!) her playmates are pretty much me and the puppies here at home. No, no, no - this doesn't mean I'm thinking of doing the process all over again. I won't lie - I've thought about it. A lot. I love kids and growing up with a sibling was great (just don't tell my brother I said that!) and it would be wonderful to give RP that same opportunity, but right now I just can't. I'm smart enough to know that looking into going through another adoption right now is not feasible, what with being unemployed and all, and there are times when I was working full-time that I felt bad that the daycare people and RP's grandparents spent more time with her during the week than I did. Adding another child to the mix would split what time there was between two, and I don't want to end up feeling guilty that I don't get to spend enough time with either of them.

That being said, RP had a great time with her cousins today despite the fact that she didn't take a nap and had her moments today. It was so cute to watch them all playing together, even when playing turned to disagreeing. All in all - what a great day!!!