Gametes In Love

Use the force, Luke! Use the force!

Taking care of his crack-berries 🙂

… while of course S2 supervises

Woa! Did you see the size of this pot?

As our backyard’s been approaching the last stages of being done, I took advantage of the break from rain we got 2 weeks back and planted our veggies. I wanted to get them in the ground. To be honest, I know squat about gardening, so whether it was early or late in the planing season is beyond me. But also given that this has been an exceptionally strange weather year so far,  even if it was the right time of the season, could very well be pushed out.

To be clear, the veggie garden is by no means a way to sustain ourselves. I just want to illustrate to illustrate to the kids 1) how long it takes to grow food; 2) the care that a garden requires. Clearly these are lessons that are lost on a 2.5yr old and a 5m old, but hey, maybe over time something will sink it.

So… 3 tomato, 1 zucchini and 6 strawberry plants later, I’ve gots me a veggie patch. Tomatoes are my favorite, G thinks strawberries are like crack, and I can convince myself to make a zucchini bread or two this summer 🙂 S is more of a salad dude, but he’s out of luck for now.

G and K didn’t take a great part of the actual planning, but K was really into watering, and G was an expert in measuring just how far apart the veggies needed to be.

We ran into some worms at the end. The kids thought those were pretty darn cool.

So… now we wait for our veggies to sprout. Should be ready in another week or two, right?

So… I may or may not have committed a mistake in my attempts to teach G about rhythm and music. You see my son now wants to play the bongos. This on it’s own would be a pretty cool thing… except he wants to play the butt bongos.

G and I like to wrestle (probably more so than S and he do). Some time ago, in one of our wrestling matches I flipped G over my lap and told him I wanted to play the bongoes and I proceeded to drum on his tushie. He thought it was the funniest thing ever. Of course this results in experiences like tonight, when G runs into our bedroom, saying “Mama, I wanna play bongos. I wanna play bongos on your tushie.” Awesomeness!

I guess our next lesson needs to be on boundaries and whose bongos he’s allowed to play. It would probably be inappropriate for him to show off these music skills at daycare, huh?

This is a small photo dump from my trip down to Monterey with G a last month (or was it the month prior?). It was a loooong drive. I hadn’t been there in years, and let me tell you, 2 hours with a toddler in the car makes a car journey seem longer than it would be otherwise. He did pretty well, but still, spending your day sitting in a vehicle for 4 hours is not his idea of a good time.

He dug all the fish though and really got a kick of watching all the scuba divers doing feedings. His favorite was watching the sharks be hand-fed (well wand-fed, really). I was just happy I was on the other side of the shark-infested glass 🙂

G. Or at least he’s been trying to.

Ms. S asked to speak to me at pick-up on Monday. I thought to myself “Uh-oh! What did he do?”, but she was super happy and impressed that G was writing his name. While she hand-holds the other kids, he didn’t want any help doing it.

Check it out. If you squint hard enough, it does look like his name.

The big squiggle in the front does have a G in it. There are the loops for the f’s, an i, and even a block at the end to be n.

I’m a proud mama. My kid is either a genius or I’ve been staring at this for too long 🙂

G got a new friend via post last week, courtesy of Grammie. His name is Tiggy. Tiggy Brachiasaurus. G picked out the name himself. Tiggy is now a permanent fixture in G’s bed.

Interestingly enough, though, every other friend amongst hist toy collection he is also naming Tiggy.

Someone needs to teach G the concept of unique identification. Meanwhile, meet Tiggy.

I think I’ve discovered the secret to amazing hair: have your toddler drool on it all night long.

I’m actually not kidding.

G right now has a bit of a head cold. (Cross my fingers) he’s not sick, sick, but he has a stuffy nose. Since he refuses to BLOW his nose, it means that he wakes up at night stuffed up and doesn’t know what to do about it. He went to bed the other night super whiny and wanted me to go to bed with him (which I did). It was a rough night. He woke up often, stuffed up and coughed. We finally tackled him and used the Nosefreida on him (which by the way, on a kicking toddler is no fun), and then he was able to sleep. Sleep on my head.

I woke up with his face in my hair, mouth agape, “styling” my locks through the early hours of the morning.

Of course, since it was 6, we needed to be out of the house at 7, and I had myself to get ready, and infant to nurse/change/dress, and bags to get in the car, there was no room for a shower. Yes, hold your disgust please. This is called being a parent, Okay?

BUT, my hair looked awesome!!!! If this is what bed-head looks like post a night of toddler drool, I’d almost sign up for that daily. It had lift, the ends were curled up at the bottom, and it fell “just right” in a way I could only replicate if I spent a good long time with gel, blow-drier and a curling brush. Things I’m not doing in the morning these days, to be sure.

I really should’ve taken a picture.

2 years, 6 months and 3 days = the grace period I got before the “But whyyyyyy?” stage began. Aaah, March 3rd. The day that will go down in infamy as the day Mommy started loosing her marbles. We went on for days and days of repeated “Why?” questions. I thought we had gotten a bit of break there, but alas, S confirmed that he’s just transitioned his questions to him.

Before I was a parent (ah, those idealistic days!) I had thought “No, I really WILL tell them why the sky is blue!” Now that I’m here, and the Why’s have began, it’s not as romantic as I had envisioned. Oh sure, the Why conversation begins innocently enough:

G: Momma, what they doin’?
Me: They’re pulling the wooden planks off the truck?
G: Why?
Me: So that they get on the driveway.
G: Why?
Me: So that those guys can build the deck?
G: But why?
Me: So you can play in the back yard.

The thing  is, you don’t realize you’re in a why-loop until about the 3rd (or so) question in. I’ve tried the “Well, what did I say last time you asked why?” and “What do you think?”, but he’s 2, so really I only immediately get asked “Why?” again with no pause for him to answer himself.

My friend R reminded me that it only gets worse over time, and that she asked a lot of “Why?” when she was a teen. Come to think of it, as did I… so I guess I’m in this for the long haul. I better start rehearsing that ever-favorite parent response “Because I said so!”

Yeah, I’ve kind of slacked on the photos thing, so I’ll be catching up over the next few days. Here’s a bunch to get ya’ started. S2’s 3m photos w/ Kelly M Photography.

I can’t say that G was being particulatly cooperative that day. You see, while we were calmly trying to sit for photos, we had a flash of toddler behind us at all times. While I’m glad to know that he’s not discriminating solely against MY lens, I now fear that we’re cursed with a period of few good family shots together. Arg!

Well, more like my afternoon, really, but given how long it felt, it counts as a day.

What you need to know before I begin my tale is that S is away on a business trip for a work conference. Otherwise, this day would not have been nearly as maddening.

2:07 Get a call from daycare. S2 has suspected pink-eye. I guess that would explain the crusty green snot on his eye the morning prior. Seriously, I thought he had snorted out a booger, and it had somehow, magically jumped over to his eye, landed in his lashes and gotten crusty.

2:13 Call pedi’s office to ask for an appointment. Told to wait for nurse to call me back to assess situation and determine if appointment is needed. Why do they bother with this? There hasn’t been a single time when the nurse advised me NOT to come in. Just give me the damn appointment and I’ll see you soon! Incidentally, I start to suspect ear infection. G’s first eye goop was ear infection related, and given the recent cold in our house, it was possible.

2:40 Arrive at daycare to pick-up munchkin. Of course he’s in a great mood, cracking up all his teachers. Pack him up and head for the car. Return because I forgot to look at his day-sheet (noting last nap, diaper and bottle). Return 2nd time because in my last stop, I forgot his milk bottles, and remaining 2 bottles of milk. By the way, last time he ate was at 2:30.

2:55 Back at home. Hang out with munchkin, read some books.

3:18 Call pedi’s office again. It’s been an hour since my innitial call, and no nurse call-back yet.

3:30 Nurse calls. Guess what? Needs to be seen. Appointment set for 4:45

4:05 Change diaper. Give Prevacid, just in case our evening runs late.

4:40 Arrive at doc’s office. Get ushered to waiting room right away. Score… only to be told doc is running late. Redact score.

4:45 Doc comes in (not bad, actually). Assesses pink-eye right away AND thrush (something I had been on the fence about) and writes script for 3 meds. I ask that instead of sending the prescriptions to our regular pharmacy she send them to the one in the town south over, because they have a 24-hr drive-through pharmacy, and getting 2 kids out of the car by myself did not sound like an experience I needed to have. She agrees, and sends in script.

4:57 Appointment over. Debate whether to pause to feed S2. It’s now been 2.5 hours since he last ate. He normally wants to eat every 3, and since he wasn’t fussy, I decide to wait.

5:15 Arrive at daycare. Get G in car. Relatively painless. Debate again if I should pause to nurse S2. It’s almost been 3 hours. However, if I do, it will add 30 minutes to us being able to leave and get on w/ our day, and the 6-8pm time-slot is the worst. Decide to just drive get the meds, get home, and get it all done.

5:34 Converse with pharmacist over drive-through window. Discover that medication is NOT ready. They hadn’t even started filling it yet. Wait time is 20 minutes. Ensue irritation. 20 minutes is not enough time to do anything. By the time I get home, I need to immediately turn around to go get meds again. So I leave to aimlessly drive around. G asks for Dinosaur Train on my phone, and knowing I have to keep him happy for 20 minutes, I oblige.

5:54 Return to pharmacy. Pharmacist then tells me they tried to call me. They called the house. Clearly I wasn’t there to receive the message. Oh, and they called to say that the pink-eye med (the important one of course) had it’s script written wrong. The doc had forgotten to write the dosage. She wrote the amount (24), but not the dosage, so pharmacy was unclear what to fill. I asked, if I could be given the lowest dose possible, of course to be denied. Asked to wait for them to call doc a second time, since they weren’t getting a call back. No kidding!!! Office closes at 5. You’re in after-hours land now, honey! Now asked to leave the line, oh, but if I wanted I could come wait inside. Are you Effin serious woman? Come inside with 2 antsy kids, for an indeterminate period of time while I wait for a pediatrician’s office to call you back maybe in 10 minutes, maybe in 3 hours… right at dinner time? Maybe you’re missing the point of why I wanted to come to your drive-through location to begin with? And don’t tell me you understand, because clearly you do not!

6:10 Call pedi’s office myself. Talk to after-hours call-line. Tell them that I don’t care what they do, how bad they “feel” for me, but I want the script called in correctly YESTERDAY. Told they’ll fax the Seton office for correction. Fax. Fabulous! ‘Cuz that is surely the speediest way to get someone’s attention. Oh yeah, and G is now screaming in the back-ground because he’s tired of being strapped into a car-seat and want to get up. Shrieks every 20 seconds or so for good measure. Ask for his daddy. You and me kid. You and me. Hopefully the after-hours call guy heard it all, because THIS is what I have to deal with.

6:13 Arrive back home. Get G dinner. Oatmeal. Quick: yes. Easy: yes. I dare you to judge me! Change S2’s diaper and get him eating too. Poor kid has now been starved for 4 hours, and despite the fact he hasn’t said a peep (‘cuz he’s pure awesomeness), I feel like a terrible mother.

6:40 Call A&B to ask for back-up depending on when prescription is done. My plan is that if it’s done before G’s bed-time I’ll get both boys back into the car to get it. If it’s done after his bed-time, I’d like one of them to come to the house and just stay with the kids while I run and get it. I could’ve asked for them to pick it up, but with the way this whole situation is going, the new pharmacy branch could very well ask for my insurance card, or God knows what else, so it would just be easier for me to go get it. A&B agree, because they too are pure awesomeness. Mean-while back at the “dinner” table, G now has oatmeal is his hair… but at least he’s eaten every morsel of the 2 oatmeal packets he got. I give him a treat (piece of chocolate), because despite this whole thing, he really has done well for me tonight.

7:02 Script is ready. Of course, now G is watching Dinosaur Train and refuses to leave. I wait for 11 minute segment to end, and pile both kids into the car.

7:40 Prescription is now in my bag. I paid $58 for all 3 meds. Pink eye drops are $50. WTF?!?! I would normally ask what the hell is going on, could I get a generic instead, but at this rate, while I’m irritated, I just want to get the hell home, put drops in my kids eyes, and (try to) forget about this whole thing.

8:30 Back home, give S2 a bottle of formula. He downs 4 ounces and knocks out. Next up is G. We both pass out by 9 in his bed, where I slept for the rest of the night. Sometime before falling asleep I realized I had forgotten to eat myself, but I wasn’t hungry, and quite frankly, didn’t care.

The whole time I was in the car following the “script is written wrong” notice, I was so angry. And stressed. A part of me wanted to cry, while the rest of me was just amused that this was all happening because of a simple prescription. I can handle this, and in the grand scheme of things it’s SO not the worst thing to deal with.

Still, I was mad. I was mad at S for being gone. I was mad at the doc’s office for writing the prescription incorrectly. I was mad at pharmacy for not filling the script when it first came in (because THEN they could’ve fixed it by the time I got there). I was mad to have to go home and have to turn around and do it all again. And I was mad at every person who said the “understood” because clearly, they weren’t sitting in MY car with MY screaming and hungry kids.

It doesn’t normally bother me that our parents are not close by. I know that they would all help out if they were close (because they too are amazing). I regret it only because they’re not around to see the boys grow up, and the boys miss out on important time with their grand-parents. It’s selfish of us, in that respect to live that far away. But I never, NEVER look at either of our parents as possible baby-sitters. Just… at times like this I wish they were closer, because a quick call for “Hey, can you stay with the boys while I run out for a prescription?” would diffuse this whole situation. I miss MY village!

I will say though, that I am proud of myself for not crying or snapping at anyone. As much as I wanted to, it was not anyone’s individual fault. So… small wins for personal strength.

Oh, and as a reminder and to put things into perspective, Japan was hit with an 8.9 earthquake last night. People lost their homes, and worse still, loved ones. My day? Not so bad!