Thursday, April 29, 2010

Mysterious Ways Indeed

Wow, long time no blog over here! I promise to get the rest of the pics from my week with Bug up soon. We had such a great time and I can't wait until she and lil Bean come stay with me for two nights in July - Double the Fun!

But I wanted to tell you guys about the awesome event that happened to me today. I'm so stinkin' thrilled!

First, you should know that I am HORRIBLE with money. My finances have been a mess since I graduated from college and was actually put in charge of my own bills. Truth be told, no one ever really taught me about money management. So, I sucked at it for a very long time - and I've been trying to dig myself out of that hole for the last 3 years or so. I live pretty much paycheck to paycheck and only recently even opened a savings account again. Since about February I've been doing slightly better. My bills are getting paid on a regular basis, I'm overdrawing my account less frequently, and I actually have money in a savings account! Yay me!

So then yesterday I went to the auto repair place to get an oil change. I was pretty excited that a $40 oil change wasn't causing me all kinds of stress over whether or not I could eat for the rest of this month. I was totally patting myself on the back for being so good with my money.

Then, the mechanic told me I need $400 new brakes and rotars.

UGH! I was so ticked off. It wasn't just that I needed to spend $400 - it was that it would pretty much wipe out my savings. The savings that was allowing me to not worry as much about paying my bills. The savings that was supposed to allow me to take a real vacation sometime this year. The savings that have helped to have less anxiety - which is greatly needed in my life.

To say I was upset would be an understatement.

But today I got a phone call from my old, old, old job. During a brief period of unemployment I'd got back to work at the preschool that I'd worked at during college and gradschool. Apparently, at some point during those couple months, there was a paycheck that I never cashed. So, they told me that they could reissue the check and I could come pick it up.

I wasn't too excited.

I expected it to be no more than about $80 - my daily rate of pay for substituting.

I mean, there has never been a time where I wasn't depending on every paycheck to get me through the week - especially since I was unemployed at the time!

I picked it up a few minutes ago.

It covers my brakes.

Completely.

Almost to the penny.

God is good.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A Bug, a Bean and a....

BOY!!!










After six granddaughters in my friend Lisa's family - each born once a year since 2003 - the newest baby is a boy! Its been a running joke in the family and all the siblings have "fought" to claim the title of "first boy" in the family! (I think it has something to do with Grandpa being a farmer - he needs some help out in the fields!) I'm so excited for Lisa and her hubby! And, we've decided it might be possible that Bug is a little psychic - she's been telling everyone for weeks that they baby in her mommy's tummy is a boy! She also thinks his name should be Pablo... I hope her heart isn't set on that one!



I can't wait to meet Baby Boy!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Randon Conversations

So, last night I went out to dinner with my bestie Kass and her newest "guy she's seeing" (she refuses to use the word boyfriend). We were having a great time and were sitting around after dinner chatting.

Somehow we got on the topic of random thoughts that enter you mind - like when you are looking out the window of a really tall building and for a split second you mind flashes to what would happen if the window plane fell out? Or when you are driving on a bridge and you wonder what would happen if your car swerved out of control and flew over the railing? (Gosh, I hope those of you reading this blog also have these thoughts... otherwise we will seem crazier than I intend... )

Anyways, I mentioned that I went to the aquarium a couple months ago and had a random thought as I was watching the dolphins swim in the underwater viewing area.

What if the glass somehow broke and all the water and dolphins came rushing out over all these people?

To which Kass jumped in to say that she totally would have that same thought and we laughed for a minute about the various terrible parts of that scenario - the rushing wave of water, all the people bumping into each other, the possibility that a dolphin would bite you...

To which her guy Ray jumped in and insisted that a dolphin would NEVER bite someone.

We totally disagreed - we both think that a dolphin's natural instinct when confused and threatened would be to bite someone. Not try to attack and devour them! Just, in the chaos of flailing limbs and thrashing bodies.... they might react out of fear.

Ray absolutely insisted that would never happen. We took a poll of the waitresses and bartender - the stock response was something along the lines of, "Awwwww... but dolphins LOVE people! They'd never hurt anybody! They'd probably carry you to safety on their dorsal fins!" Seriously people? This is not Flipper we are talking about! This is an animal that is used to living in a calm, contained tank - suddenly flushed out a broken window into a crowd of terrified people. Pretty sure its not going to be thinking about MY well being!

Anywho - so I posed this question on Twitter and Facebook:

JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION - don't give alternate options!! You are in the downstairs "underwater viewing" area at your aquarium watching the dolphins swim around underwater. All of a sudden the glass breaks and out rushes all the water and the dolphins. Do you think it is a POSSIBILITY that - in all the chaos and confusion - a dolphin might feel threatened and bite/snap at a human who was flailing around?


Thoughts? Please discuss.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Bug: Day One, Part Three!

We got home and rested most of the rest of the afternoon. And by "rested", I mean she watched Princess and the Frog again while I attempted to rest my eyes.

We went out to run an errand and play at the McDonald's playland for a little bit and then I told her that I had a birthday surprise waiting for her back at home. We made a deal to go home, take a short bath, have her bday surprise, and then bedtime. She tried to guess what her surprise was all the way home and through her bath. (In which I let her use all my kitchen utensils and measuring cups to make up for the lack of real bath toys.)

While she finished up playing in the bath, I got her surprise ready:



I got her out of the tub and into PJs and then made her wait while I lit the candles.

Her face when she walked out was perfection:


And we ended the day pretty much the way we started it - eating in bed! This girl is a total homebody and would probably be perfectly content if we did this for the next 48 hours. But I have other plans in store for us - and of course, I will be blogging them!

Bug: Day One, Part Two!

So, after breakfast and hanging out in bed for a while, then it was finally late enough to start getting ready for our day. We got up, put on swimsuits and coverups, and hit the road!





A short stop for a donut and we were at my friend Jill's house to pick up her and her daughter Megan for the water park!

I was a little nervous about how Bug would do - she is NOT the adventurous type. (Classic "slow to warm up" temperment since BIRTH) But she was awesome - so brave, so excited, and SO MUCH FUN.


Just the fact that she was in the water without me is a HUGE deal!

Much less all the slides she went down...

And all the other fun!

Megan, who is almost three is a complete wild child - but such a sweetie too!

This look says.."I'm fading fast".

But she insisted on "one more" dip into the lazy river... which isn't so "lazy" when you are the one pushin the innertube "as fast as you can" around the bends!

About an hour later it was really time to go and Bug was requesting to "go straight home" which is code for, "Please get me somewhere quiet, FAST".

And this was her about 5 minutes after we got in the car:



Note the arm still stuck in the Goldfish bag...

Mission: "Have enormous amounts of fun" was accomplished.

(Stay tuned! The day isn't over yet!)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Bug: Day One, Part One

O. M. Goodness.

I am sure that I have exceeded my usual word quota today about 10x over.

She's not even super chatty nor is it because she needs a lot of redirection - the exact opposite is true! I guess its just a natural byproduct of having another person around... but I swear my vocal cords, tongue and lips are tired! And so is the rest of me!

Bug got here late last night, I went and picked her up where her Mom and sister are staying at about 8pm. By the time we got back here, got in PJs, and settled into bed it was well past 10pm. But she was in love with my dogs and the feeling was pretty much mutual:




So after watching some of "Princess and the Frog" and a bedtime story... she was asleep pretty quickly.

Until about 5:30 this morning - which is obviously when her cough medicine wore off.

It took me a few minutes to figure that out because I actually hadn't heard her cough last night before her mom gave her the cough syrup. But when she started coughing this morning I started debating waking her enough to give her more. When I checked the bottle to see if she could have more yet, I discovered it was due to wear off practically the same minute she'd started coughing. Never realized how accurate those timeframes were!

So, at about 6:15 she rolled over and flung herself over my body and opened her eyes. I took that as my cue and gave her more cough medicine. I hoped that if I was really quiet she'd go back to sleep for the last 45 minutes before my alarm was set to go off.

No such luck.

In about 10 more minutes there were simultaneous requests for water, breakfast, and to finish watching her movie. So, I complied to all three:


And here she is watching her movie in bed while I make her breakfast - which she ate in bed.

Must be nice to be the Princess! :)

(To be continued!)

Saturday, April 3, 2010

In which I am Judgemental and Ranty

I apologize in advance if this offends anyone reading this blog. You know I love ya all as much as one could possibly love people she mostly knows via blogs on the Internet. Suffice to say - A LOT. But I went shopping this weekend and seriously almost threw a tantrum in the aisles. I refrained, but now you guys are getting it.

Backstory: Remember this cutie?




I've been buying pretty much all of Bug's clothes since she was a baby. She has a million cousins and gets tons of hand-me-downs, so her parents rarely need to buy her clothes. But I, being the fabulous auntie that I am, have always loved buying her new clothes. When she was a baby I shopped for whatever was cute. As she's gotten older I call her mom before I shop and ask what she might need. Perhaps the hand me down stash was short on jeans or lacking in cute summer dresses - ya know? I just like my shopping to be purposeful - it helps me rationalize the heaping amounts of money I spend on her. Bug is used to always seeing me with new clothes in hand - and I have no problem with maintaining that expectation! It was so easy to shop for her when these were my options:





But now all of a sudden she's made the jump from "toddler" to "girls" clothes. I tried to go shopping this weekend and literally left the store without buying a THING - which has never happened in the history of Bug's life.

The problem? Apparently, "girls" clothes at my favorite store (coughtargeycough) are for girls ages 5 - 12/13 years old. There is no distinction between what is appropriate for a kindergartner or a middle schooler! And in my personal opinion - THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE! But in their minds, the only thing that needs to change is the size.

Now, I am not a prude - but I do believe that kids grow up too fast these days. I am also not one of those "there are pedophiles everywhere!!" people - but I don't think we don't need to give anyone more reason to look at a little girl and think of her in a sexualized way.

So, here is just a few of the options that I looked at this weekend - at first glance they may not look so bad, but let me tell you why I had a problem with them:




Top row: See that first green dress (and the blue one just like in the middle?) - it seems pretty basic at first. I don't even have a problem with strappy summer dresses - five year olds get hot too, riht? But here is my issue - see the cris crossed bodice? I look at that and see a place where cleavage would be if you put it on a 14 year old. I think 5 year olds are at the perfect age to be taught about modesty and privacy. How am I going to teach Bug that certain parts of her body are private if she's wearing a dress that could easily gap open and show "the parts covered by your bathing suit"?

The pink and gray dresses are less bothersome in the modesty department - but instead look like something just shy of what I wore to my Jr High "Spring Fling" dance. The sparkly shrug and the diagonal cut skirt are too "kiddie club wear" for me. Maybe okay for a 12 or 13 year old - but not so much for a preschooler.

Bottom row: I almost bought the first dress, but I there was just something about it that I didn't like. It wasn't until I was looking at it online today that I realized what it was - the darts/gathering at the bust. Again - my 5 year old goddaughter doesn't HAVE a bust! And I don't want her wearing anything that hints at one either. On a pre-adolescent it would be modest and cute - not so much for a kid off to kindergarten in the fall. The next dress had the same issue.

And then came the black/floral number - the one with the sparkly belt. I almost could have convinced myself that the sequins were fun and not trashy - except then I noticed that it has a KEYHOLE cut out of the back! Seriously? I don't want to encourage my elementary schooler to be trying to find innovative ways to show some skin! And my biggest problem with the last one was that there was a nearly identical dress in the women's department - halter and all. I'm thirty - she's five. We don't need to be wearing the same dress.

So, I'm sorry if any of your children have any of the above mentioned items. I do not mean to offend. I know I can't keep her a baby forever, but right now I feel like she is being encouraged to jump from "toddler" to "teenager" - there are about 10 years in between for a reason!

Don't even get me started on how everything that wasn't a dress had a D*sney Princess or Hannah Montana on it. UGH.