Out of the Mouths... NYE Edition

We're quiet New Years' Eve around here. We do our partying New Years' Day instead, and that's a geek party - board games and potluck. And our older two are at their respective other parents' houses this weekend.

So we're sitting here quietly. The Hubs has just finished a game on his computer, I'm typing away on Google Plus, and Lizzy is eating an apple caramel sundae from McDonald's (so her mouth is full and she's been quiet - which is rare - for a full five minutes).

"Nobody laughs at my jokes," says she.

Out of the blue. No warning, not even a whiny "Mo-om" or "Da-deee". Just "Nobody laughs at my jokes".

Of course, the Hubs and I immediately crack up.

And she is not amused. Because this is not a joke. Now we're mocking her.

Which just makes it funnier.

The Fortune Cookie Lies

I didn't get the job; they "went with another candidate". By now I hate that phrase, but at least it's polite, rather than the extremely rude practice of completely ignoring the candidate. So when my fortune cookie said, "You are acceptable to everyone" I thought that no, apparently I'm not. Although I am fully aware that it's not that they don't like me, they just like someone else more, it's hard - after all these months - not to feel every "we decided to go with another candidate" as a personal rejection. And so I was all prepared to be depressed and morose and so forth (and drunkblogging has a certain appeal), but a good thing happened today too, which somewhat countered my blues; I received my unChristmas present.

First pic with new Windows Phone!

It's lovely. I'm enjoying playing with it. This one has a flash in its camera; that alone is huge in our rather dimly-lit apartment. I've got Google Plus through the browser, and Facebook through the phone's own software, and I'm working on downloading other things, like ringtones and so forth (or transferring them from my previous account/phone if that's doable). I am having a blast.

And tomorrow I'm meeting my mom to take the Christmas things back to storage (and probably play with my new toy; she has one and knows how to use it), and then the Hubs and I will be cleaning house for our annual New Years' Day potluck gaming party. We've scaled it back quite a lot this year because we have neither the cash nor the space to go all out, but we will still do it. And that will mitigate the jobless blues some too.

Post-Holiday Blues, Redux

Link-heavy post!

It's not just the kids. The Hubs is an emotional yo-yo; he's up because his story was published (we got the books today!) and he's a generally content and happy person, and down because our eldest went back to her mom's today, he has an earache, and the house is still a wreck from the holidays. I'm grouching because I'm still   jobless and this very cute toy of Lizzy's is driving me up the wall, but happy because, well, good Christmas and all that.

I think this is fairly par for the course - the holidays are stressful and tiring every year regardless, it's winter in Seattle, etc. And of course, taken logically, none of this is cause for snappishness or angst. I mean, did I really expect to get a job this week? When I know everyone and their brother is on vacation? No, of course not. But holiday blues have little to do with reason, and a lot to do with just sheer fatigue. Not sleepiness, but tiredness; there's a difference (as I have often tried to explain to my 9yo, alas, in vain).

However, the cure for tiredness is the same as the cure for sleepiness - it's sleep. When Leanna is here - especially during school holiday - I'm inclined to let them stay up pretty late. And of course there's the getting them to go to sleep after lights out, which is a separate issue entirely. And they are apparently constitutionally unable to sleep in as of yet in their lives; I understand that happens in about three years (when Leanna is 14 and Abby 12). Tonight we're going to treat it like a school night; Lizzy at 7:30, Abby at 9, me at 11 (maybe) and maybe that'll do the trick.

Post-Holiday Blues

They are so tired. Leanna is grousing that she has to take a shower and wash her hair. Abby is bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. And Lizzy... Lizzy had a meltdown of epic proportions today.

It started innocently enough. We brought in the new TV Hubs' parents sent money for, and the kids were all very excited. A new TV - and combo DVD/VCR, courtesy of Abby's dad - just for them (don't worry, Anti-TV Folks - we keep a lid on content and frequency, though it's loose during school holidays). With working remotes and everything. They settled down to watch a movie... and Lizzy lost it entirely. Leanna was in her seat, Abby wasn't helping, she wants to sit on Leanna's bed rather than her own, she hates the new TV and whhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy can't we keep the old one (it's broken) or fix it (we don't know how) or get a fix-it man (uh... because it's too old. Yeah, that's it). And during all this she's having a full-on tantrum, shrieking and kicking and arching her back, the works, and you can hardly understand her for all the sobbing and wailing.

My first thought it to put her in the time-out corner. There are two problems with this: 1) the time-out corner is full of Exciting Christmas Tree and 2) this quickly escalated from fussiness to total hysteria; she was not just being disobedient and by this point she was physically unable to stop. So we went for the other option we use when she's lost it; we "hold her tight like a baby". This is a cradle hold, with arms and legs tucked in so she's not flailing and injuring people (including herself), and while she hates it, it does calm her down (and my biceps are steel now. Ow). Today it took about half an hour, which almost never happens. I mean, we have to do this, oh, about quarterly, and usually it only takes a few minutes for her to chill to the point where we can talk about it. Not today; she was too wound up.

But she finally calmed down, and it transpired that she already misses the old TV, although she can't express why. Hubs pointed out that really, the kids have had that TV pretty much since she was born, so to her it's sort of part of the general background, and is something stable. Good point, given that we've also been using its screen saver function as a nightlight for months now. Poor baby.

But now she's happily curled up next to me on the couch, all three girls are showered and brushed, and all is right with their world. Now, if they'll just sleep at a decent hour - I could turn out the light now, at 6:30 and they still wouldn't sleep until after midnight - maybe we can avoid this sort of thing tomorrow.

Another Favorite Word

Having used this as a blog post topic before, I've found another word to play with.

So I've been hanging around with my online friends today, and some of them are having really hard times. One has a husband in the hospital for the next few weeks, one is undergoing a messy divorce, one has a son who won't talk to her because her politics differ from his. It kind of makes me feel like a petty jerk to fuss about my lack of job and funds, when I have a loving husband, basically healthy and happy kids, an a roof over my head.

But fuss I did, on a private board I share with some of these people - we've been online friends for over a decade, and since there are very few of us there, we've had a chance to get close in spite of physical distance, in a way one usually doesn't with the bulk of people one meets online (example: I have a lot (2000+) of online friends, but only a very few of these (~40) are in my Google Plus Friends Circle). So I was fussing - even saying I felt like a petty jerk because everything they deal with is so much more than my mere joblessness - in this private space, and one of my dearest friends on there pointed out that it's not all that petty, really, because it's "the kind of stuff that over the long run titurates you: tituration (n): reduction to powder by friction or grinding".

This is pretty much how it feels over the past nearly-nine months - as though our money situation brought on primarily by my jobless situation is grinding.

Tituration.

It's a pretty good word.

And to All a Good Night

Busy busy Christmas.

In the past - on those years when the other parents have had out eldest two for Christmas morning, we've done our gifts (except stockings) Christmas Eve day. Santa only brings stocking gifts to our house. Given today's busy schedule I think I prefer it that way; today was nuts. Although a good time was had by all (for the most part; there were the usual kerfluffles involved with five personalities and a long day and lots of food in short spurts and more family than we usually have time with in a month or more).

Oh, nothing major, but Leanna is at that age (11) where every incident of teasing is grounds for major offense being taken (especially when it involves "inappropriate cow parts", as Leanna persisted in calling them - see below). Abby (9) is in the counting gifts stage, and Lizzy (4) - although happy with what she got is so excited she can barely function. Both of the older two are at the stage where nothing is quite enough. If I allow them two pieces of Christmas candy, they are sad they can't have three. And Lizzy has hurt herself three or four times in the past 24 hours.

We got Leanna as usual on Friday evening, and then on Saturday afternoon we went to Auntie's for dinner, grossed out the older two in the car on the way to Leanna's mom's house afterward (the chat went from the Christmas Star through stars and galaxies and whether there is life on other planets and whether we could eat food on other planets and how there's gross food right here on Earth, which led to Rocky Mountain Oysters and Abby needing to exit the car at Leanna's mom's in order to avoid carsickness). Then we met Abby's dad here at our place and left carrots and a cookie and milk out for the Fat Man and his friends and wrapped the last few gifts and went to bed.

Christmas morning we (Hubs, Lizzy and I) went to Grandma's house for breakfast, came home and waited for Leanna's mom to bring her to us after church, ran up to Abby's dad's (about an hour drive on a normal day, about 40 minutes on a holiday, but during a sudden windstorm and rain hard enough to make Laston-the-Texan pay attention), hung out there for about half an hour, went to my cousin's house for Christmas Day Dinner as usual, ran to my mom's to do gifts with her and my sister's family, and then home to do our own gifts including stockings.

Whew!

And even though we are poor this year, our kids made out like bandits. This was in large part due to grandparents sending us money and saying, "buy them something from us," and also because we found a really great deal on the bead style of charm bracelets on amazon.com (the bracelets themselves were like $10 apiece, and the beads we got in bulk - 100 of different styles and colors for $20). They got each other stuff, and got us stuff and really, some of this is actually beautiful. Abby made me a snowflake ornament out of beads at girl scouts and Leanna got her dad and me a game, and Lizzy made us a snowflake ornament at preschool. Abby got Lizzy that package of ranch dip mix, which - when explained to her - caused Lizzy to shriek with glee and leap up and hug Abby because it was "PUH-fect!" Abby got Leanna some ZhuZhu Babies and got Lizzy some Lollypop Dolls (her dad gave her money to shop for us in addition to the stuff she created at Brownie scouts. Leanna got both her sisters baby dolls. Aunt Laura - as always - got the girls inspired gifts (off their wish lists for Leanna & Lizzy, and a Powerpuff Girls journal for Abby). Grandma Cheryl too. Aunt Steph got lovely earrings for Leanna and little outfits for the other two. Their biggest gift is locked in our apartment office until Tuesday but they'll get a chance to play with their toys before that comes in!

And me? I got a game and a voucher for a massage and a box of fancy cookies, and a book I recall from adolescence, and some pretty earrings, and quite a lot of chocolate, and Hubs & I got a gift card to Bone Fish Grill (and I presume an offer of babysitting so we can go to BFG without the children as decreed by my mom, the gift giver).

A good holiday, in spite of the rush. Next year we have the older two for Christmas morning. I think the following one, we'll go back to celebrating the gift-giving part of things on Christmas Eve morning. Since Santa only brings us stocking gifts there's no reason not to.

You Can Lead a Child to Bed...

...but you cannot make her sleep. Especially when she's excited about the holiday coming up. And when she they use logic such as "we have to stay up late tonight so we can go to bed early tomorrow and not get waked up by Santa Claus when he comes". I gather this means that if they're completely exhausted by staying up late the night of the 23rd, by the 24th they'll be so tired that even reindeer and fat men won't be enough to wake them.

That doesn't really help us today, however, since Abby (9) and Leanna (11) got about five and a half hours of sleep last night. I was willing to let them stay up until 11 or so, which is when I put Lizzy to bed (she had been asleep since eight-thirty). Then I told them to quiet down and sleep - tomorrow's a big day. Not so much. They did keep it to a dull roar, though and that was more or less sufficient. I dozed off in front of the TV and when they started getting loud they woke me (and Lizzy) up.

At 2:55 AM.

Abby made this at Brownie Scouts

Guys, that's too late for me, and I'm an adult. At 11 and nine (and four) there is no possible way that's enough sleep for you. So we're all kind of cranky this morning (except the Hubs, whose "gift for the whole family" is in his hot little hands), although that should be mitigated somewhat by the lack of stuff that must be done today, aside from packing Abby's bag and wrapping her present to her dad). It's pretty much just getting cleaned up for Christmas Eve dinner for everyone, and toasting almonds (to be added to the salad after Abby is served) for me. And maybe we can get them to nap in the car on the way to Auntie's house for Christmas Eve dinner.

So right now the dishwasher is running, Hubs is playing with his our new toy, the older girls are watching Into The Woods, and Lizzy - being Lizzy - is bouncing from lap to lap.Good times.

Holiday Prequel

All three kids are shrieking with glee in their bedroom, playing with the Zoobles Abby received for her birthday two weeks ago. They're broken two of the accessories, but well... that's why Momma bought the super glue, isn't it? When Abby says, "Mom, we got another toy for the microwave!" fear not; on top of the microwave is where repaired toys are kept until the glue dries. Nobody is baking them.

The house is (finally) mostly clean. Oh, I need to do some more laundry and run a vacuum over the carpets but otherwise this is the cleanest it's been in awhile. And we aren't even hosting Christmas (although we will have a very toned-down version of our usual New Years' Day potluck. But even I'm not optimistic enough to think this will last until then!)

Lizzy just came out and told me the big girls need "panic paper". I wonder what that means?

We're all full of hamburgers and salad and chips (crisps for my overseas readers) and Grandma's Sherry Spice Cupcakes (yum!).

Ah... they wanted "a pen and paper", not "a panic paper". Light dawns.

So at eight we'll do our usual weekend-with-Leanna routine, which means Lizzy comes out here to watch "baby shows" with me until she falls asleep, while the older two clean their room enough to pull Leanna's trundle bed out from under Lizzy's bed, and move it far enough to let me put Lizzy in her bed after she crashes.

And tomorrow I'll make them bacon and waffles for breakfast - I cheat with Eggo - and then the day will be a matter of cleaning their room, cleaning them, and making things ready for Auntie's house for our Christmas Eve dinner.


Life is good.

WANT

I had a job interview today. I want this job. I really really want it. It has everything I want in a job - interesting work (customer service and online research and a little training), similar corporate values to my own, a compatible schedule... it's exactly what I want and I hope they liked me as much as I did them. Any company that means it when they say "customer focus" (which they certainly seem to) is okay by me! They couldn't do as in-depth an interview as they wanted to today because several people were unavailable due to holidays, but I think I may have made it to the next round. I should know sometimes next week whether when I go in for another round of interviews. Wish me luck.

In the meantime, I doubt if anyone else will schedule interviews for me; this time of year is just (as shown above) too complicated for that. And I don't have school until January 2nd. So aside from housecleaning and spending time with the kids (and the daily grind of looking for a job), I'm kind of at loose ends, especially after everyone is in bed at night. I'm up to date on Doctor Who, working on The Sarah Jane Adventures with Abby, and as up to date as I'm going to get on Torchwood for now. I'm going to list some stuff I'm interested in here (and that is available on Netflix Instant Play or other freebies on my roku box like Amazon Prime Streaming) in the hopes that some of my readers can give me recommendations.

I like weird settings but people stories, I'm content with Monster of the Week as long as there's character development, and I'm not a fan of gratuitous violence (although violence itself is not a problem; I just can't take - say - Tarantino levels). Knowing that I enjoy (and have seen) the Whoniverse, Star Trek in all its incarnations, Red Dwarf in small doses, Farscape, anything by Joss Whedon, The Dresden Files and Blood Ties (both books and shows), and anything in the Stargate universe, (among others, natch) what do you recommend of the following list?

• Sherlock
• Merlin
• Camelot
• Robin Hood
• Seaquest DSV
• Lexx
• Jekyll

Now, if you mention something you loved and I shriek, "seen it!" please do not take offense; none is meant. But if I listed everything I've every watched and enjoyed on TV, we could be here all day.

Ideas?

Deep Cleaning

That's today's task. We're taking a break at the moment, having cleaned out behind the kids' bookshelves and done their beds and started on the rest of their room (since we pulled a bunch of junk out from behind that bookshelf, there's more to clean now than there was before). The plan was thusly: I work on laundry and the master bedroom and the kitchen/dining/living areas, the kids do their bedroom and the guest bathroom, and it's going pretty well, although it's in the breaking-eggs stage of this omelet.

Abby is disappointed that her friends aren't available to help (Kiki is out of town for the holidays and Ash & Tris have family in town for the holidays. The other regular is at day camp). Abby is fretting that she won't have time to finish it all so I told her it does not all have to be done today. I have Thursday morning to work on stuff (most likely gift-wrapping and general tidying), and we have all day Friday as well. So I think she's freaking out over very little. She is her mother's daughter after all. She went off to see if one of the less-frequent visitors wants to "earn Treasure Box and Christmas cookies" by helping clean up. This kid is a boy who's great one-on-one but kind of mean in a jerky-elder-brother way when in a group. He's the one who "threw rocks near me" in the creek last year, encouraged other kids to "poke the baby Jesus with a stick" at the school-bus stop (where there is a Christmas tree lot and a Nativity scene), and is inclined to sing "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" at other children. But when he's not filling the jerky-elder-brother role (a.k.a. when there's not a mob of kids, especially younger boys to show off to), he's a good kid and a hard worker for his Treasure Box goodies. He can come over to help once he's back from the store.

This is pretty much how non-school-days work here.

Do Cows Freak?

Nine-year-old Abby wants to know. Because I got my grades back from my second session at the University of Phoenix, and they were good enough for me to exclaim holy freakin' cow (because holy sh**berries, Batman is inappropriate with the kids in the room).

I got an A-. In both my classes. With a one-point spread - there are1000 points available in each class for the whole nine-week session, and I got 937 points in Critical Thinking and 938 in Introduction to Communications. Go me!

I was pleasantly surprised that I aced the final project in Critical Thinking - that was the class wherein I was having trouble at midterm time - because while I recognize a rhetorical device or a fallacy when I see/hear one, I have real trouble identifying the different types of them. Go me!

As for Intro to Communications - anyone who has ever met me or who reads my blog or my Google Plus posts will probably not be surprised that I was dinged points for being too wordy. Me? Perish the thought. Never happens. Not this chick. Uh-uh. Can't be. Not me. So that, plus a whoops on the font spacing (yeah, yeah, I keep forgetting to use the University's style guide rather than the AP's) brought me down enough points to give me an A- instead of a straight A. But I'll take it! Go me!

And now I am officially done with school until January 2nd, when I begin the next set of classes. If I get the job I'm interviewing for on Thursday (please send Good Stuff!) then I'll have that to learn instead (this one looks totally like my thing and I want it. Badly.). Sounds pretty good all around.

Been a Few Days

It has been a busy few days here at Chez Gamers' Babes.

Abby went with her dad and some friends to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium for ZooLights. That's a long drive (and a lot of over-stimulation of the senses) for our motion-sickness-prone girl, and the ride home was apparently Not Pretty. But she had a wonderful day, and once she was all cleaned up, she had a lot to share about the fun time they had. Mostly she shard it with me on the way to meet her grandpa (my dad) for their annual excursion to the Nutcracker. Because Abby has a December birthday, Grandpa takes her out for this special treat every year, rather than subjecting himself to - say - Chuck-E-Cheese in the company of a dozen over-excited school-age kids.

I spent the weekend completing my second term at the University Of Phoenix. Assuming my final projects did not suck, I should come out of this session with at least a B. I feel pretty good about that, but man was there a lot of last-minute fuss!

This week promises to be busy, what with house-cleaning and gift-wrapping and so forth (and a job interview on Thursday! Wish me luck), but we can do it.

Oh for Heaven's Sake!

Remember back a month ago, when my laptop went kablooey? It did. And my dear friend Nate has come over to install the new part (video inverter), and then again when another part down the chain (the LCD cable, which was making interesting crackling noises) was broken, and then again today because the back-light was also broken. The new back light came in earlier this week, Nate came over today whilst I was taking Abby to her dad's (Hubs and Lizzy were here) and...

...the replacement back light is apparently also broken.

Well, expletive.

Apparently it's been that kind of week for Nate as well; just Not His Week when it has to do with mechanics or electronics.

So now instead of having my own laptop back (so this loaner can go back to my mom so the kids can use it for the software Grandma got them for Christmas), I have to call for an RMA in freaking December so we can get a new part (also in freaking December, so who knows how long that will take) so Nate can come install it for me (I have the skill but not the confidence, and I do not have the tools).

Oh for crying out loud.

You Could Die From the Cute

Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa Wall

 I've mentioned before how much I enjoy the multiculturalism of Lizzy's preschool. Today's holiday concert ("and feast, mama!") was a lovely example.

December Wall

Keep in mind that these kids are between three and six years of age, so the one little boy who needed his mom to sit with him due to stage fright is totally acceptable; they are little kids. Also many of the songs have been edited for length. This explains why Lizzy kept telling me I was singing "the wum-pa-pum-pum song wong", because they don't sing all three verses of The Little Drummer Boy at preschool; the vast majority of the kids haven't got the attention span for it. They sang several Christmas tunes (only the first five Days of Christmas in what they called Partridge In a Pear Tree, for example), several I'd classify as "winter" themed in English and Spanish ("Cascabel, cascabel, música de amor"), and a very cute version of The Dreidel Song, wherein one little girl played the dreidel itself, spinning around and falling down with the paper dreidel to show how it worked. Then Miss Ginny - the head teacher - read them The Night Before Christmas, with asides to explain the things they did not grok. My favorite of these went like this...

Miz Liz

Miss Ginny: You see, a long time ago, mommies and daddies both used to wear long nightgowns and caps or kerchiefs to keep themselves warm at night. Do any of your mommies or daddies still do this?
Small Girl: My daddy just wears his underwear to bed!

And then the whole group sang: "We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Happy Hanukkah, we wish you a Joyous Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year!"

Lizzy in her Antlers
and Red Nose for
Reindeer Hokey
Pokey

We all trooped upstairs for "the feast" as Lizzy persisted in calling it - we do potluck. There was a nice little book exchange where the children who brought a book in got to take one home from another child (and Lizzy, dear sweet person that she can be, made a thank-you note for the little boy from whom she received a book), and each child got a book from the preschool staff as well.

And according to the children's wishes, we will all have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a joyous Kwanzaa, and a happy New Year.

Holiday Musings

This is a post about the holiday season. No spoilers.

Abby with Santa 2006

I'm actually the person who naturally says Happy Holidays unless I know someone's religious preferences ahead of time. I am not offended by a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah, and I never have been. I don't understand the defensiveness that occurs in many people about the greetings given and received this time of year. It may be that's because I'm what my Jewish brother-in-law and I have agreed is "culturally Christian" but I am in no sense religious about it. We have a tree, but our usual tree topper is not particularly Christian (marketed as "Celtic Angel", but I think she's meant to be St. Bridget), and we often put origami Stars of David on our tree. We have a Nativity scene but we only put it up about half the time, and it's more because it's pretty than because of the story attached. We love us some Christmas songs, but again, it's more the music than the content.

Leanna with Santa 2006

We have neighbors and friends and family in all flavors - Atheist, Agnostic, several flavors of (neo)Pagan, Jewish, different denominations of Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Muslim, Hindu, you name it. Our own taste in decoration leans more toward a winter theme than a Christmas one. We celebrate Christmas but give a nod to other major traditions. Santa puts chocolate gelt in our stockings, and the Easter bunny puts them in our baskets. We read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Hanukkah Lights pop-up book. We watch Happy Holidays from Sesame Street .We (about every other year) take the kids to the mall to sit on Santa's lap. Abby explained the Hanukkah miracle to me last year by stating that "a miracle is magic when God does it for you" (she's make a great AD&D Cleric, no?) Lizzy's preschool has a concert tomorrow wherein they will sing songs from many traditions, as well as one that incorporates three traditions in one song. As a group we're a pretty ecumenical bunch.

And that's okay too.

Caught It!

Caught this cold before it turned into something dire, that is.

I have asthma (now called "airway reactive disorder", but it's asthma), although it is generally only triggered when I am ill or if I get a face full of allergen. And because I am a mom, I'm exposed to a lot of colds. So my usual shtick when I get a cold is just to ignore it unless one of two things occurs: it gets into my lungs or I get a fever. Either of these symptoms is usually a harbinger of a secondary bacterial infection - bronchitis, sinusitis, pneumonia - so when these symptoms occur I go off to the doctor, just so we don't have a repeat of the Great Meltdown of March 2011. Or November 2006 for that matter. Having gotten Lizzy's cold, I was doing my little ignoring it bit until last night when my chest started aching, so this morning, I went in.

And the doctor congratulated me for getting it before it got bad. Gave me a breathing treatment and recommended the usual cold remedies - fluids, rest, refill your asthma inhaler. Not so bad after all.

Again!?

Miz Liz has a cold. This is not a horrible thing - there's no fever, nothing but runny nose and post-nasal cough and Spoon Droppage. And no sleep because OMG-her-nose-is-wunning-again!!!!!!

But it's the second cold in three weeks. The third cold in the past six weeks. I'm sure it's because she's in preschool - three-and-four-year-olds are both affectionate and unsanitary - but it's kind of getting ridiculous here. Our local drugstore is going to run out of facial tissue and baby wipes at the rate we're buying them up.

My patience is being used up fairly quickly too. I don't lose patience with her the first day or so, because she's miserable enough to just lie here and sip weak herbal tea and watch Blue's Clues, but when her energy levels start ramping up to their norms while she's still overtired and grouchy... I have little tolerance for the whining and the constant Mommymommymommymommymommymommy-watch be twuhl and thed fall dowd because by dose is wuddy shenanigans. Gah.

She is a very dear little person though. She's fussy and tends to revert to babyhood when she's sickish, but she really is the nicest little thing, in spite of her... odd and disgusting habits (today she wiped her nose on the living room rug "because it's the bestest way to scwatch wheah my nose itches"). She's kind for her age, and sweet, and if she's a little whiny I can cope. I won't enjoy it, but I can cope.

Abby's Ninth Birthday

Aside from the fact that I can't believe she's nine, today was a really good day. Leanna got to leave the hospital again (she had gone back in for observation as noted here).We had Abby's idea of the Perfect Breakfast (blueberry waffles cut in strips and served with whipped cream for dipping, plus apple slices, apple cider, and bacon) and ran a couple errands, then attended the party her dad had set up at the Skate Deck. They throw a good party.

Happy Birthday Cake

There were a couple of minor issues at the party - one kid was just way overstimulated between the wobbly feet and the darkness and the black light and the strobes and the pounding music - and the birthday girl has a literal bruise on one buttock (no pictures of that one!) but otherwise a good time was had by all. Part of this is that the Skate Deck has a couple bouncy houses at one end, which is where the kids who get tired or scared of the skating floor go hang out and bounce. Lizzy spent her time in there (after I finally got the skates on her and she announced that she didn't want to skate, of course). Abby and her friends took a few rounds on the skating floor and then went to the bouncy house area. I took some rounds myself, as did Abby's dad and a couple of the other parents, but whew! It's been a long time since I was last up on skates, and I've never been up on them at the weight (or age!) I'm at now. My feet may never be the same!

Ash and Abby eat ice cream

All this skating and bouncing was after the pizza and cake and soda  and ice cream cups and gifts bits, which were also a huge success. Abby's future husband Greg got her a miniature pillow pet on a keychain - it exactly matches her full size one, because he knows her that well. Monster High dolls and Zoobles were much in evidence. Abby is thrilled.

And since one of our guests was Greg, whose mom is Tiffany of Meadowbelle Fudge, we got ours delivered today. Oh Em Gee - this is some Nut-Free Fudgy Goodness, this is.  I approve.

Friday's Frenetic Follies

Poor Leanna. She's been recovering from her tonsillectomy (and adenoidectomy and tooth extraction) and because she's a big girl it's taking her longer to get over it than it does smaller children. So we were not expecting her for this weekend (or for Abby's birthday party) and some of today's Frenetic Follies consisted of phone calls back and forth between me and Leanna's mom, determining whether she could come over this weekend (no) or just for the party (also no), and reassuring Leanna that truly, it's okay; we'll miss you but everybody understands that you are too sick to be rollerskating. Although Lizzy, four, thinks that Leanna isn't coming this weekend because she has "tonsil germs" (we told her Leanna's tonsils were sick and she extrapolated from there based on her own recent experience with cold germs).

Lizzy eats tekka maki! And likes it!

And I went to Abby's classroom to bring her lunch and birthday goodies for her class, then picked Lizzy up and did the grocery shopping, came home and did a load of laundry, finished my homework, and tidied the kitchen. Laston started home from work, we got a call from Leanna's mom saying she had to go back to the doctor because the back of her throat was bleeding, he went to help with that, he got home, Abby got home from school, and we went out to dinner (we love the "Sushi Belt Place"!) with our ringers on "outdoor" settings ready for word about Leanna's throat.

And OW - apparently she coughed some stitches loose where they took her tonsils out, and the poor kid is back at Children's Hospital for observation tonight. Send Good Thoughts, won't you?

Little Girls Grow Up

Abby is almost nine. She'll be nine this coming Saturday, in fact (and how on earth did that happen?) and she's a peculiar mix of almost-teenage and little-girl. Sometimes she does very adult things, like making observations of the world around her far beyond her age, or teaching her Scout Troop to use an epi-pen. And sometimes she's upside-down on the couch just because she can, or begging for just one more episode before bed.

But my favorite times are when she's actually in between - when she does or says something grown-up but with that childlike skew to it that proves she's still a kid. The latest was last night, when she made her four-year-old sister a gift she clearly put thought into; she knew Lizzy would love it. And it turned out to be Ranch dip mix. Or earlier this week when she told me she knew how I felt when I'm having trouble getting that she's almost nine because she feels the same way about Lizzy. She said (sighing in world-weary fashion), "Yeah, mom. I get it. 'Cause it feels like Lizzy should be only one... like she was before she was so annoying".

She does love her little sister, but she's also that that age where Lizzy - nearly five years younger - is the most annoying and irritating person on the planet. Also, unfair grownups are always taking Lizzy's part. Did I get away with all that when I was four? Yeah, probably, except that Leanna was still enough of a novelty (they met what Abby was just three and Leanna was five-and-a-half, and Leanna is not here 24/7) that you wanted to impress her, not annoy her. And you're just a different person than Lizzy is. Don't worry, kiddo, you have the privileges to go with those responsibilities, and given Lizzy's impulsiveness, she probably won't earn those until she's a lot older than the seven or so at which you did.

So as I finish writing this, Abby is doing her math homework ( 'we learned rounding!") pretty much at the top of her lungs. Nine. And normal.

It's the Most Dangerous Time of The Year

I'm not talking about my waistline, although that's true. Nor am I talking about New Years' Day traffic accidents. Here at Chez Gamers' Babes, it's all about the allergens.

I'm mildly allergic to cows' milk. This is not lactose intolerance - although I have that too - but an actual sniffly-sneezy-itchy allergy to whey, the primary protein in milk. Sheep or goat, fine. Cow or buffalo, notsomuch. I can usually manage a serving a day (provided there are no other allergens in my system, such as dog dander, alder pollen, or spider venom) without ill effect. And I'm - y'know - an adult, so I can swallow a Benadryl and take my chances. I have a pretty good handle on it.

And then there's Abby and the Nut Allergy of Doom. She is anaphylactic to cashews and pistachios (we discovered the allergy with a can of mixed nuts; she ate the cashew and bang! Hospital time). She gets sniffles and itchy skin to the point of scratching it all off with all other "true tree nuts" and with mangoes. That's almonds, hazelnuts/filberts, walnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, macadamia, and pine nuts. Coconut and other palm-based nuts are not truly nuts, (nor are peanuts), but we tend to avoid them for her because they're often cross-contaminated. She did manage a fun-size butterfinger (peanut) this halloween with no ill effects, but she didn't like it well enough to take the cross-contamination risk again. We thought she was having a reaction to the "may contain traces of tree nuts..." in candy corn, but it turned out to be traces of almonds in her chocolate soy milk (safeway.com no longer carries the Silk light, and the regular "may contain...". I have an email in to Silk). So we're very careful. And vigilant; things like a knife used to cut pumpkin pie after it's used on pecan can invite disaster, and unless one is aware of it, one has no way to know. Abby herself is pretty good about it (she even taught her Brownie troop when and how to use an epi-pen), but she is only not-quite-nine after all.

Enter Tiffany, mother of Abby's future husband Greg (if Abby and Greg have their way; they are only nine), and allergen-aware Fudge Confectionery Chef. She makes fudge every year (assorted flavors, all gluten-free (even the Cookies-n-Cream!) and all but Peanut Butter nut-free as well) and this year she's selling some (click this link!). And she is so conscious of the cross-contamination potential that she makes the Peanut Butter last of all, after the rest are packaged safely out of the way. This is huge - even the professionals aren't usually that careful.

We're ordering three pounds. Which gets back to the waistline issue. But that's a separate post.

ETA: I just got off the phone with the White Wave people - who make the Silk products.They test the equipment and the products before, during, and after production, and they destroy any product that is contaminated.

But of course there's always human error.

And they saw that if she ever has any reaction - no matter how mild - to any of their products again, to please call them and they will take down numbers and have their quality control people check that batch.

So they take it very seriously.

I heart them.

What Was I Saying?

I have not posted here since Thursday evening, and it's now Sunday. This is Very Unusual. Nothing calamitous has occurred (in the Real World, anyway) to prevent me; I just haven't been writing for other than school this weekend. As we're finishing up Week Seven of Nine (ha!), the papers are getting longer and more involved, so more time goes into researching and writing them. After Week Nine I have a break until the first of the year, when I'll be taking Environmental Science and Research Writing - yes, it's a real Associate of Arts, so science classes are required. I've also been spending the evenings after the kids go to bed watching Torchwood - and some of that is fairly intense stuff I needed to process before I could switch into other writing modes.

And really, this weekend has been a lot of short little things - no big topics. Abby had a meltdown because she said I'm "no fun anymore" but really, it turned out she just wanted some mommy-time when we were just chatting and at nine PM could not express it. Lizzy feels that Pixie Dust is the best way for "not-a-astwonaut" girls to fly in outer space. Leanna's at home recuperating from her tonsillectomy. We had four kids here watching Pink Panther shorts from the sixties and adding their own dialogue, which was hilarious. I discovered that Abby's favorite brand of chocolate soy milk "may contain almonds" - and does. On that note, she can now swallow "grown up pills" (at least those the size of a Benadryl). I got some good news as regards my moving to the next interview level with a couple of jobs. I made arrangements to meet a friend who has more episodes of Doctor Who than are available on Netflix Instant Play and I'm gonna bring him some soup. Abby had a sleepover at her friend's house last night and her own (ninth!) birthday party next Saturday. We're going to have tree-decorating at my mom's today.

Nothing big. Just a normal weekend.

OH Yeah... I ROCK!

Apparently I am the Coolest Parent Ever... at least to the younger-sibling set at Abby's gymnastics class. There's a  balcony above the gym for people waiting on their kids, and it's full of younger siblings (I wouldn't dare bring Lizzy - she's too wild and she'd end up taking a header down the stairs). It's a big gym and I can't watch Abby herself the whole time; often she's nowhere near me. Because I don't use a phone for games or email or texting while waiting for my kid; I bring my Nintendo DSLite along. So I pulled out the DS, popped in the Final Fantasy IV DS game, turned it on, and adjusted the volume so as not to bother other people. I became quickly aware of a presence behind me and to the left, so I glanced up.

It was a little boy - looking to be about five years old, hovering near my left shoulder. When he saw me looking at him, he asked, "Can I play next?" I smiled at him and shook my head. "Why not?"

"Well, I don't know you."

"Oh. Hi! I'm Grayson and I'm almost five. Now you know me. Can I play next?"

I looked around for an adult attached to this kid. A man I took to be his father was watching us, laughing silently, but obviously ready to jump in if I needed help. So I said, "Nope. This is my toy - even my own kids don't get to play with this." The father laughed harder. Grayson leaned - hard - on my shoulder and stage-whispered into my ear.

"But I'm really nice."

By this point three or four other little boys came to investigate, and Grayson's father was almost doubled over with laughter. None of the other boys were quite as close as Grayson, but still, I'm not used to kids who are complete strangers to me hanging off me; usually it's only my own and those of my closest friends. Grayson's dad recovered himself and collected his child, half laughing and half apologizing, at which point the other boys all wandered off to their interrupted game.

Me? I got to the summit of Mt Hobs. And I got a blog topic out of the deal.