Ongoing events

It's snowing again. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Julia has a fever today. She was a little hot last night and this morning, I felt her forehead and knew I wasn't going in to work this morning. Greg suggested taking her to daycare and seeing how things went, but I said uh uh.

Because I work in town, I get the first call when either one of our girls is sick, either at school or daycare. Unless it truly is something that comes on suddenly, I hate that feeling of being a bad parent for trying to keep to my normal schedule.

Within a couple of hours, she was up to 102.6. She seems to have a little sniffles thing coming on, so hopefully that's all this turns out to be.

In the meantime, Allie is getting ready to do a parade around the hallways in school for Chinese New Year. All of the first graders get to participate in carrying a giant dragon around the building this Friday.

It's also "National Read Cat the Hat Day" on Friday, so she's supposed to wear her goofiest hat while her principal reads the story over the loudspeaker. Hundreds of schools nationwide are participating at the same time, 2:36 p.m.

I guess I could try that over the P.A. at work----

Don't I have another topic?

Yesterday, Allie joined an exclusive club at school. In gym class, she spent 10 seconds doing a tripod balance, so she got to join the "Upside Down Club."

What's a tripod, you might ask? It's when you stand on your head and balance your knees on your elbows, which are at a 90-degree angle. I don't think I can describe it any better than that. Maybe we'll try to get a photo at some point.

Speaking of photos, Greg is adding photos from our winter adventure this weekend. Now you'll be able to see what I've been complaining endlessly about. Click here to take a look.

It's never going to end

Since I last posted, I have shoveled twice more.

This morning, I shoveled the driveway of about an inch of snow so the passage of our cars wouldn't leave tire tracks that'll last until April. And this evening, I shoveled the sidewalks again, which were incredibly slippery by the way.

It snowed for about another three hours this afternoon, which is completely disgusting.

At work, we had so much snow drift off the flat roof that all the entry doors on the west side of the building were completely buried. The drifts started at about 10 feet up and extended at least 12 feet or so from the building. Some lucky souls had the fun of digging out narrow little pathways so all the rest of us could get inside to work.

There were a number of semi trailers parked at receiving docks next to the building. Because they were closer to the roof, these trailers actually looked like they got more snow on their roofs than the entry doors got. The roofs on the trailers are damaged from the weight of the snow.

We have a large parking lot full of product and I understand that the entire day was a series of pieces of equipment getting stuck in various places and having to pull each other out. My company owns a front loader, but we only have one and we have five plants in this city alone. We couldn't possibly get everything done that needed to be cleaned up.

Did I mention that we're supposed to get another storm starting Wednesday night that may bring us another 6 inches of snow? I think I'm going to cry.

Aching, aching muscles

Well, it snowed some more. A lot more. About 9 inches more and it got warm, so the snow got very wet and heavy. At 8:45 this morning, the city plows came to our cul de sac and completely filled the end of the driveway. Without exaggeration, the pile was about three feet high and five feet wide. It was chunky and heavier than hell and the banks on either side of the driveway had gotten so high that you had to take a shovelful and throw it up and up.

Into this environment came me and Greg, already sore from yesterday's shoveling. And we shoveled some more, me for another hour and Greg for longer than that. We got so warm that my glasses kept fogging up on my face, even though it was only about 30 degrees out.

It sucked. It really, really sucked. When we came in and sat down, we were hot and sweaty. After we sat for awhile, we tried to get up and began to really feel the pain. By the way, Greg did get the snowblower fixed and he successfully used it for about four paths up and down the driveway this moring before the transmission left us for good. So we had to shovel.

Later in the afternoon, Allie wanted to go out and play in it, so we went out together. Did I mention it kept snowing after that? Yep, we got about another 1/2 inch by afternoon, so I shoveled that. And it's snowing now--we're supposed to get another 2 inches or so tonight.

I took pictures of Allie on top of the snowbank by the mailbox. She's way over the height of the mailbox. I told her I was sure that these were the biggest she'd ever seen snowbanks in her life. They're the biggest that I remember in a long time.

They can start melting any time now!

I'm whipped

It's 11:45 a.m. and I've been ready for a nap since about 9:45. We got socked with snow last night. Majorly socked--at least six or seven inches in the driveway and I swear more than that on the sidewalk, where the plows must have thrown enough from the street, over the grass strip, to make it about eight inches deep.

And our snowblower has been broken since the first winter storm in November. The other snowstorms we've had have all been light, fluffy snow, the kind of snow that you could sweep instead of shovel, if it weren't more than a couple of inches deep.

This was wet, heavy snow that you had to pick up in shovelfuls. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny little shovelfuls. Hundreds and hundreds of back breaking, arms hurting, stopping because you're gasping for breath shovelfuls.

And it's not over. It's going to start again late this afternoon and it's going to snow, and snow, and snow. Then snow some more, until we're supposed to get up to maybe 11 inches more.

I really don't think either Greg or I have it in us to shovel 11 inches more.

Greg is going to try fix the snowblower again in a little while. We're planning to buy a new one this spring but we have to get to spring first. I really, really hope he's successful.

Please pray for us.

What are you worth?

I'm working on getting someone promoted right now, trying to get my company to pay her what she's worth.

Do you think you're paid what you're worth? I don't want to know how much you actually make, just if you think that you're worth more or if your pay is about right. I don't know that anyone would say that they're overpaid.

As for me, I think I'm paid about the right amount. I work really hard, so I don't think I'd like it if I figured out how many hours I actually put in. Also, my boss has this philosophy I don't particularly care for, that managers shouldn't submit requests for reimbursement of mileage. That philosophy costs me at least $50 every week, which does add up.

But, I make a lot more money than I did when I started with this company, so I'm OK for right now.

How about you?

Still adjusting

You know, I didn't say cats were smart. Though I do think there are cats that are smarter than some dogs.

We have a two-story entryway, with some windows high up, stairs on one side, and the railing up above where the upstairs hallway starts. Simon decided awhile ago that he liked to walk up the stairs on the wrong side of the railing, by clinging to the carpeting edge. I tried not to have this give me a heart attack.

Last night, Simon was laying (lying, whatever!) in the hallway upstairs, with his head, shoulders, and front paws through the railing and hanging into thin air. I think he was looking down below at his brother.

It was the girls's bedtime and I went into Julia's room to tuck her in while Allie looked over the railing to see what Simon was looking at. The next thing we all heard was a loud thud, and Allie screaming that Simon fell.

Yep, the inevitable happened. We think he twisted around, tried to adjust himself with his non-existent claws, and slipped. Either that, or Allie pushed him. I prefer to believe the former.

Regardless, he fell a good 10 feet and landed on his side (not his feet) on the hard vinyl-covered floor. He missed the front hall carpet, which I suppose would have been softer by a miniscule amount, by about two feet. He immediately ran into the dining room.

Much knashing of teeth followed, as we debated whether he was hurt and if he needed to be checked out by our vet. He's acting OK, so we just watched him carefully. Today, we know he must be sore. We still had a little painkiller left from the declawing last week, so we gave him some of that this morning.

Rabies used up one of his nine lives with us when he hid for 8 1/2 hours on his first day here, giving us fits. Simon has now used up one of his nine lives. It's a good thing they're still kittens--but they're making me feel older by the day.

Ridiculous

I am doing three full-time jobs right now at work, plus part of a fourth. It's stupid. It's absolutely retarded.

I'm doing my own director job, pretty half-assed, actually. I'm doing a manager job while I try to hire a replacement (I'm interviewing my second candidate tomorrow). I'm doing one big task of an entry-level job because I can't fill the position yet (because we don't need someone to do all of the tasks right now). And for the next week, I'm doing an administrator job while someone is unexpectedly gone.

I seriously need to take some action and I know it. I need to get someone else to do the one big task (maybe I'll work on training someone for that tomorrow). I need to finish interviewing for the manager job--I'm working on that one. And in a week, the administrator will be back, I pray.

Then can I have my life back, please!

Oh my aching neck, I'm anticipating

We did it. This morning, our whole family went out to breakfast and then to the hardware store. And we bought paint. Then we came home and emptied the dining room, taped the molding, and painted the entire room is just a little over two hours.

Another room in my house isn't white any more! It's a brownish tan color that we've decided we really like. In the daytime, the big window in the room makes the color look not too dark, and at night it's kind of intimate. I'm pretty happy, despite the fact that my neck is likely going to quite sore tomorrow because I painted all of the edge around the ceiling and I am not a tall person.

The kittens are doing quite well, despite Simon's tendency to want to stick his nose into the gallon of paint today. We gave them some medication this morning, but they've been jumping and playing a little, so I think they're recovering well.

Allie was our official helper today, taking off and replacing the plates on the light switch and electrical outlets, among other assistance. Daddy warned her that getting a screwdriver into an outlet would result in her death, but she did just fine. Julia mostly stayed out of the way, though she did manage to get paint from somewhere onto her knee.

All in all, a little more productive Saturday for the Lee family than usual.

Raining cats and dogs

I am not a dog person. My family never owned a dog when I was a kid, so I've never gotten the hang of it. I'm used to standoffish cats, who are really showing they love and trust you when they come over and sit on your lap. I'm slightly contemptuous about the fact that dogs will basically slobber affection on just about anyone who has a dog biscuit.

Greg loves cats, but he has very fond memories of a black lab his family had when he was a kid, as well as other earlier dogs. I don't know if we'll ever get a dog, but if we do it'll definitely be Greg's dog.

In the meantime, we have our two new kitties, who returned to us today after a night away at the vet. Yesterday was their mutilation (declawing). They seem to be doing very well, but they're on drugs, so what can you expect. The vet gave us enough pain medication to last three days or so, if we stick to the recommended dosage. This is also assuming that Greg doesn't decide to try some of it. You think I'm kidding, but Greg has eaten various kinds of pet food, so I wouldn't be at all surprised.

A few years ago, the next door neighbors that we really liked moved away to the country and we got new neighbors. These neighbors have two medium size dogs who are outside in the backyard quite frequently since the neighbors don't ever walk them. They have an invisible fence, so the dogs never trespass into our yard, which is good since they probably have quite a bit of poop saved up for those visits to their backyard.

The new neighbors moved in during winter, so we didn't really get to know them or their dogs until several months later (we do live in Wisconsin, you know). I still remember that first warm spring night when we were able to sleep with the windows open to the night air. Greg and I were sound asleep at maybe 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. on that Saturday morning when we were very rudely awakened from sound sleep by loud barking that sounded like it was in our bedroom.

Makes ya jump, you know. Yes, it turns out that the dogs were taking their morning constitutionals around their backyard and our bedroom is closest to that yard. The dogs look across our yard to the busy street beyond and whenever someone walks by with their dog, which happens every, oh, six minutes or so, the neighbor dogs bark. Loudly. Early in the morning until late at night.

In fact, they barked just a moment ago, which prompted me to include them in this post. I like to sleep. Some morning, when Greg isn't around to stop me, I might just take his gopher-killing BB rifle and have myself a little hunt out the window of our bedroom on those noisy critters. I'll bet if I only pumped the gun two or four times, the BB wouldn't even break the dogs' skin. Just scare the crap out of them and make them think twice before they barked again. Hmmmm.

Paint me

I am a coward. Yes, it's true, I'm afraid of color, at least on walls.

Greg and I have lived in our house for 8 years now. It was new when we moved in, so every room was white. We haven't made much progress in changing that.

We painted Allie's room yellow before she was born and it's still yellow, though I'm sure she'd love it if we agreed to paint it pink (ugh). We painted Julia's room a fern green before she was born. She'd probably like purple now (double ugh). And after I mentioned to Greg that I thought a photo in a magazine was cool, he surprised me by painting our downstairs half bath a beautiful bright blue color.

That's it. All the other rooms in the house are still white. Oh, we've talked about painting the dining room a darkish tan color. We really need to paint the kitchen and the front entryway (which is open to the stairs up and the upstairs hallway) and which continues through to the living room and downstairs hallway. Both the bathroom that the girls use and our bathroom also really need to be painted.

After the disaster of what my workplace used to look like, I'm afraid of even choosing a color. Plus I'm lazy. I don't mind painting at all when I'm doing it, in fact I helped quite a bit with the painting at work, but somehow Greg and I never get around to changing anything at home.

Do any of you have a paintbrush that'll travel?

Thrice a bridesmaid . . . no wait, four times

I stood up in three weddings before I was married and one afterwards. The first wedding was my sister Pam's, and I think we should have known things weren't going to work out 12 years later based on the dresses we wore. We wore pastel purple dresses with trains and ruffles on the back of the skirt. We also wore hats, little round yamukah-type things on the top of our heads that had little bits of fishnet attached. Yes, it was the 80s.

The second wedding I stood up in was my friend Leanne's. She and Brian are still together 20 years later, despite the mint green tea-length lace-covered bridesmaid dresses we wore. I guess that the ugliness (by today's eyes) of the dresses isn't really an indicator of the couple's future. I'm not really eager to dig out any photos of that wedding, however.

The third wedding I stood up in was my friend Donna's. Until my own wedding, that was the most fun I'd ever had at a wedding. We bridesmaids wore lace-covered deep purple dresses that had short hems in the front tapering to longer hems in the back. Yes, it was transitioning to the 90s. I think the bouquets we carried had black flowers, which again should have been an omen of the marriage's eventual success.

Then I got married. I'm still in love with my wedding dress, but this was towards the end of the 90s, so things had tamed down a little fashion-wise.

Lastly, in 2003, I stood up in my sister Claudette's wedding. We wore deep blue long dresses, pretty similar to the outstanding bridesmaids dresses I chose for my attendants.

I still have all of the dresses and I anticipate that one day, my girls will wear them to play, like I did my mom's bridesmaids dresses long, long ago. Do you have any wedding fashion memories to share?

Ten years and counting

More than 10 years ago, I went shopping for some things for my trousseau. Greg and I were about to get married and I wanted some new clothes for our honeymoon. Since we were headed to San Francisco, my shopping included a couple of sweaters.

In one of Greg's favorite pictures from that trip, I'm wearing a red wool cardigan sweater. I still have it. It's my wear-around-the-house-almost-the-entire-winter sweater. If you're family and you've been to my house in the last seven or so years, you've seen it.

Why wouldn't you have seen it for the first three years of our marriage? Because I probably mostly wore it to work. Why don't I wear it to work any more? Because it has an absolutely huge hole in one elbow.

The hole in the elbow drives Greg nuts. Tonight again, he asked it he could patch it or try to sew it together or something (that whole Renaissance man thing going on again--see my birthday message from last September 13). I told him no, because either would change the way the sweater feels.

Because it's wool, I never wear it without another shirt beneath, so it's not like I get a draft on my elbow or something. It has wonderful memories attached to it. So yes, I can afford a new sweater to wear around the house in the winter. Am I going to get a new one? Nope.

It's Saturday, and we got hooked on a new show

Most Americans are probably somewhat familiar with a show called Most Extreme Elimination on Spike TV. It was imported from Japan. The original name of the Japanese show was Takeshi's Castle, I believe, and it features ordinary Japanese people humiliating themselves, often while wearing bizarre costumes, as they attempted to complete an difficult obstacle course of stunts. That show was funny, if sometimes painful to watch. People really cracked their faces, legs, and other body parts sometimes, before they fell into pools of nasty-looking muddy water.

At some point, someone must have decided that it might be interesting to have the same basic premise but let genuine athletes give an obstacle course a try. Thus the show we saw this morning, which was called Ninja Warrior. It's Japanese name was Sasuke. This was a great show!

One hundred people of various backgrounds attempted to complete Stage One without falling into the same type of muddy pools of water. The Stage One obstacles included a series of slanted blocks that you had to bounce between, a large log bouncing down a slanted channel that you had to grasp with arms and legs and roll along with, a turning screw like thing that you had to run across, an obstacle where you had to use a rope to jump out over water and then swing back to land underneath the first platform, a vertical trampoline used to body-bounce from one ramp to another, a cargo net obstacle hanging over a pool of water that you had to be careful not to touch, a semi-circle ramp that you had to run up and climb over, and a rope swing to a large wall that had to be overcome. At the top, if you made it, you hit a button. The contestants had 100 seconds.

In the first episode that we watched, seven men made it through the first stage, including a firefighter, a medical worker, a gas station attendant (wearing his uniform, if you can believe that), and an army officer. Those men went on to other stages, most of which involved obstacles requiring extensive hanging from their hands.

It was heartbreaking to see these guys, who do all the competition over a one or two day period, fall in the water because their arms can't take anymore. The announcers would go on about how the lactic acid must really be building up in their muscles by now and then the men would fall. In another episode, 16 men made it through the first stage. Eight made it through the second set of different obstacles, and all eight failed in the third stage.

There has only been one man in the history of the show who made it through the fourth stage (that's in 15 years--or maybe 15 cycles, it wasn't clear). He won 2 million yen, or about $17,000. And a hell of a lot of bragging rights. I think we watched the show for at least two hours.

It must be Saturday.

Salty or sweet

I love popcorn, and potato chips, and Doritos, Fritos, and Tostitos.

I love chocolate and gumdrops (Dots, cherry coins) and Sweet-tarts.

Why is it that sometimes when I'm looking for a snack, only something sweet will do, and at other times, only something crunchy. I understand that for me it's more common to look for something salty and women for something sweet. Does that hold true for you?

Responsibilities

Tonight when I got home, Allie greeted me at the door with this sentence. "Mom! We have 8 things to do tonight!" She started reciting them as she stood in the doorway from the garage to the house, ignoring the fact that it's still only 10 degrees out and Julia was waiting behind her to hug me hello too.

Tonight, we were supposed to eat dinner, get Allie's homework done, finish decorating her Valentine's Day card box for school, do her valentines for all of her classmates, give her and her sister a bath, read her library books, study the words for her spelling test tomorrow, and count out 100 pennies for the math she's going to do that's associated with the 100th day of school.

We got six done. I guess she's going to have to rely on the same method her parents used in college for the spelling test--cramming!

Allie's birth story

I'm shamelessly stealing this blog idea from other websites today, but since Allie just had a birthday last week, it's timely. Warning: Long

When I was pregnant with Allie, Y2K was still a real fear. I hoped that I wouldn't go into labor early, because everyone was saying that hospitals would be full of equipment that wouldn't work as of January 1, 2000. That date came and went because I wasn't actually due until early February (the 12th, I think? I can't believe that I can't remember). The last four weeks of my pregnancy, I had some pretty severe leg swelling. My legs were huge, red and tight and they hurt all the time, no matter if I had them up or down or sideways or if I soaked them or anything. My doctor had no advice at all. I asked if I could take Tylenol and they said they'd never heard of anyone with legs that looked like mine being helped by Tylenol, but if I wanted to try it, go ahead. It didn't help at all. Nice to know your doctor knows what they're talking about, right. Huh.

Because my legs were so bad, my doctor said when I got to 38 weeks, we could schedule an induction. Greg and I were fine with that, and the day that made sense was Super Bowl Sunday. My doctor was on call, so I'd get her to deliver my baby instead of one of her partners. We were supposed to call about 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 30 to see if they had a birthing suite available and if so, we were supposed to head into town. The drive takes about 25 minutes.

I was awake early and so was Greg. Knowing your going to become a family that day will do that to you. It was snowing pretty heavily (and it snowed all day), so when we found out a birthing suite was open, we started out driving pretty cautiously into Madison. We had done this drive lots of times before, for the Confident Homecoming series of childbirth/childcare classes we'd taken at the hospital. Despite that, Greg was so nervous that he missed our exit.

We got to the hospital and walked in from the parking garage. We got a great parking space, right by the door. Greg wanted to get me a wheelchair because of my legs but I said I'd walk. After all, I wasn't in labor. People smiled at us on the way in.

We got checked into our suite and I changed into the infamous hospital gown, which actually had a back. My room was really nice, but I knew I wasn't going to be laboring in the tub or walking in the halls because of my legs, so all I really needed was the bed. After some preliminaries, the nurses started me on Pitocin. It was about 8:00. My doctor stopped by at some point, and eventually the nurses discovered that the Pitocin needle had fallen from the IV attached to my arm when I braced on that arm, so I wasn't getting any medication for probably an hour. That was annoying.

I had some contractions, but nothing that made me catch my breath. Greg and I read the paper, tried to watch the DVDs of "Chef" that he'd brought along, watched other TV, and were pretty bored. Nonetheless, things did progress. I'd been dilated to about 3 cm for two weeks already, so I got to 4-5 cm pretty rapidly. At noon, my doctor returned and asked if I wanted my water broken to speed things up. I said sure! That felt weird, but it did succeed in making things move along and it didn't hurt.

By 2 p.m., I was having some pretty dramatic contractions. I am not a very tough person, so I asked for Numorphin, a drug that was supposed to take the edge off the contractions. Instead, it made me sleepy between contractions and didn't do crap for the contractions. That injection lasted about an hour and when it wore off, I asked for and got an epidural.

I loved that epidural. It was amazing. Greg actually got pretty upset when I was first getting it, because the hospital let a resident anethesiologist try to do it first and they poked, according to Greg, in five different places trying to get the needle placed. I didn't care a whole lot. Needles don't bother me and I was busy trying to breathe through contractions at the time. And when it kicked in--heaven. Being a wimp, I always wonder when I hear stories of moms who give birth without drugs. You know, the prize is the same for them as it was for me at the end, and I got to enjoy the process a whole lot more.

The nurses recommended that I try to get some sleep and I think Greg and I both dozed a little. Things continued to move along and by 6 p.m., they said I could try to push. This is when things started to go bad. Pushing made my blood pressure drop, which meant that after every episode of pushing, I got nauseous and threw up. Pushing also made Allie's heart rate go up, which was a little worrisome. I pushed and threw up, pushed and threw up, pushed and retched helplessly. It was pretty awful. This went on for three hours.

Yep, you read that correctly, three hours. I got desperately thirsty but I wasn't allowed to drink anything because of my retching. Eventually, my doctor checked me and determined that Allie's head was turned a little bit and therefore stuck. She stuck her entire hand inside me, pushed Allie's head back up a little, and rotated it to the correct position. Then they told me to push some more. All righty.

So I pushed some more and retched some more, for about another half hour. Nothing was happening. My doctor came back and said that I hadn't been able to push Allie's head down even as far as it had been before, so it was time to give me some help. She and the resident got out the suction cup thingy, and they both proceeded to spend about half an hour trying to get the suction cup affixed, having me push, and then flying backwards when the cup wouldn't stay on Allie's head. They'd told us before they started that it could be a pretty funny process and it was kind of, but not really, because Allie's heart rate was still elevated enough that they brought in the special care nursery people with an incubator, ready to whisk her away if I actually succeeded in getting her out.

I did not succeed in getting her out, so about 10 p.m., my doctor said they wanted to do a c-section. I had been very calm through the whole process. Greg said later that he completely expected me to scream at him throughout and that just never happened. By the time the c-section was proposed, I was ready to just have this baby, so I calmly said OK, when are we doing this.

Allie was born at 10:27 p.m. on Sunday, January 30, 2000. She was pink and fine, unlike her mother who threw up again on the operating table. I saw her and then I don't remember a whole lot until I was being cooked like a french fry under two heat lamps but still shivering in recovery. And I remember the nurses pushing me to try to nurse, when I still couldn't move my arms or legs. Greg was sitting in a rocking chair next to me, holding Allie. I think he held her for the first hour or more of her life. He said later that no one told him he could put her down.

We got back to my room (the discount floor now, since I was just a recovering c-section surgery patient now instead of a birthing suite mom) by maybe 1 a.m.ish? I remember that they wouldn't let us get any sleep that first night. The nurses continually checked if I was having pain (that was nice), how much I was bleeding, what my vitals were, how the baby was, and on and on. By morning, we were exhausted.

And ecstatic. I couldn't wait for family to arrive to meet our beautiful Alexandra Grace. She's still beautiful, still our Alexandra, but now she's 7. Now you know how it was when you were born. Happy birthday again, sweetie!

I just don't know

OK, here's a question to consider. Would you stay with your spouse if he or she had a sex change operation?

Earlier, I was watching part of one of my favorite shows, "Little People, Big World," which is about a husband and wife who are little people. They have four kids, three of whom are average size (don't say "normal" size) and one of whom is also a dwarf. The word "midget," by the way, is frowned upon.

Tonight, that show was followed by another show about a family who are all dwarves, and then this show came on, which is called, "My Unique Family." I've seen the previews for this show, which highlight a family that is raising their children as Wiccans and another where the family members have hand deformities.

For some reason, they didn't preview this episode, in which a father of two children has decided to change gender. Her wife, Chris, now talks about her partner, who used to be Jeff and is now Jennifer. Jennifer has been taking female hormones for several years and even though it's only 15 minutes into the episode, Jennifer has already shared that soon she's going to have her first genital surgery, to have her testicles removed. She says she'll be able to decrease the amount of hormones she's taking, which seems healthier. Well, I guess that's a good thing, right?

The big question for these two, apparently, is how the former wife is adjusting to being married to someone who has become a woman during their relationship.

I love Gregory, but this is an unbelievably big question. I have no fears that I'm going to have to deal with this situation, of course. But what would you do?

Naughtiness, Lee style

Allie got many new things for her birthday, including a diary that opens with a spoken password. It's not too discriminating. I don't think I'm giving away too much if I say that Allie's magic word is "flower." You can get the book to open, though, by saying "flicker," "flores," "fleur," and a lot of other "f" words. So it's actually open almost all of the time. It has a spoken greeting and farewell, and Allie says "It speaks British!" because the manufacturer obviously thought little girls would think it more magical if the voice didn't speak with a southern drawl or a midwestern nasal tone.

Tonight, Allie was at the kitchen table doing one of her new art projects and Julia grabbed the open diary and started to look at it. Of course, Allie couldn't have that, so she came over, grabbed it away, and closed the book. Julia immediately protested and I told Julia that it was Allie's book, so she had to give it up.

This did not go over well with Julia, of course, and before I could tell Allie that it would be nice if she would share, Julia threw a gift bag at her in a fit of pique. I told Julia to cut it out and she said, "No!" I said, "Julia!" in a warning voice, and told her she needed to say she was sorry. She said, "No!" again and I got in her face and told her she needed to be nice or she was getting a timeout.

She said, "Hmph!" in a completely unrepentent voice and I told her that was it, she was getting a timeout. We do those (pretty infrequently, actually) on the lowest step of our staircase in the front hall. I put her out there, got in her face again, and told her I wanted her to think about how naughty she was being or she was going to go to bed immediately. She said, "Hmph" again and that was it for Greg.

He came out of the living room, grabbed her, and hauled her up to her room. She spent the next 7 or 8 minutes alone in her room, screaming for us. This is not actually a very bad punishment because, firstly, the light was on. Secondly, after we close the door, she obviously can get off the bed. Next, her room is loaded with toys of every description, as well as various comfort items. Usually, she stops crying almost immediately, but I think she realized that Daddy was really mad.

All was forgotten in about 10 minutes and life returned to normal. Dispute over until, oh, 30 minutes from now.

How can it be?

How can the party be over already. It just started!

Allie opened a large pile of presents, Julia opened the two little gifts that Aunties Cat and Pam were kind enough to bring for her, we played homemade Pictionary until no one wanted to play anymore, we ate a great luncheon (it was too much food to call it just lunch), we cleaned up, we played more Pictionary, Julia took a nap, we played Allie's Uno Assault, we did massive hits on the pinata until it finally broke, and they were gone.

Last year, we got a pull-string pinata for Allie's birthday, which was pretty fun. This year, we got what we thought was a traditional pinata, something that would break in maybe ten hits. Uh uh. This thing was a solid, corrugated cardboard tube that Allie couldn't even make a dent in. She took off her blindfold since we didn't want her to give herself a rotator cuff tear from the repetitive motion, but still nothing was happening.

Finally, Greg got the thing softened up and Allie broke it open a little. Unfortunately, by then the contents were seriously shredded. Many of the little plastic toys inside were cracked or broken and a lot of the candy was also in tiny little pieces. So much for that.

And now Allie's birthday is officially over. Only five months and 26 days to wait until Julia's birthday!

Party time!

It's Allie's birthday party this weekend, though it's going to seem a little bit like Thanksgiving. Greg and I have decided that we really need the room in the freezer that's taken up by the turkey my company gave me for Christmas, so tomorrow we're having turkey, mashed potatoes, baked beans, etc.

Greg says it's not the same meal as Thanksgiving because we're not having carrots. I suppose that's a good point, because I haven't been baking any pumpkin pie either.

So Grandma, Grandpa, and Auntie Cat are here and tomorrow is the Dog theme party. We have a dog centerpiece, dog bone confetti, dog plates, dog cups, and a multitude of presents. She is going to be even more spoiled than usual tomorrow.

My dad made the comment that the weather is the exact opposite of Julia's birthday, which is exactly six months from Allie's. Last July, it was 95 degrees out, and this weekend it's supposed to be -5.

Yes, folks, that's a 100 degree difference in temperature. I think I'd rather have the cold weather, personally. You can always bundle up. Yes, I'm rationalizing.

Kitty love and future plans

It's pretty much impossible these days to adopt a cat without getting the "declawing" lecture. That's right, no one wants you to declaw a cat anymore. You get the story of how it's mutilation and major surgery. You're supposed to live with ruined furniture and accidental scratches to your person (some pretty nasty) and holes in your sweaters and clothing. Live with it for, say, 15 years.

Well, you know, we're not planning to do that. Live with ruined furniture, scratches to our unknowing daughters, and holes in clothing, I mean. We're planning on getting the kittens declawed shortly, about the time they turn six months old.

We bought them scratching boxes that they're enjoying, but almost every night, Simon comes and jumps up on our bed to get some love. I don't pet kitties in the middle of the night (why set them up with that expectation, are you nuts?). So Simon crawls under the covers between me and Greg and settles down by my knee. He then proceeds to knead with his front paws, sending needle sharp little claws into me while purring madly.

And then I move my knee away, dig him out from below the covers, and set him or push him onto the floor. I'm nice, too, about doing that--compared to Greg who has been known to throw cats away from him. Won't it be nicer for everyone involved for the cats to be loved more thoroughly?

After the whole mutilation thing is over, I mean.