the flippity phoney phone 3000

Today's post title is in tribute to Joanna's post today regarding the use of Wubbzy-isms.

In short - we need new cell phones. I hate cell phone shopping. There are so many options. My analytical self thinks that everything should always fit into a spreadsheet and a clear answer should ultimately emerge. I have visited three cell phone stores/carriers and I don't know what to do.

On one hand, I think all I really need is a simple phone that can make calls and send text messages. But, I want a qwerty keyboard to make typing my texts easier. And if I'm going to go that far, then I want a phone with a good camera so I can send pix.

On the other hand, I have been playing with my husband's Ipod touch and am quickly becoming a junky. There is now a regular battle over who gets to the play with the Ipod...me or the two year old. He usually wins. cheater. I love having internet access and all those apps! I could so easily become an app junkie. My credit card would like that. So this all leads to me think I want an Iphone. The only problem with that is that I don't want to pay the monthly costs that AT&T charges. I can get a 3G service through another provider for less than that but not with the Iphone.

I likey the iphone. What do you use?

more water

There's still water coming out of my nose. And the yoga I did at lunch? It reminded me that there's still a lot left in my sinuses - the minute I dropped into a sun salutation with my head hanging down, there was enormous pressure. Never gonna netti pot again.

Did you remember to wear green for St. Patty's day?

netti pots, nasal passages, and the fires of hell

This past weekend my sinuses started acting up again. It's allergy season in north Texas. I thought I could brave through this one, but after blowing my nose yesterday I realized that there was more going on in my head than I realized. We had to make a Target run yesterday for an assortment of groceries and I grabbed a few bottles of nasal saline solution. After we settled into some semblance of a before bedtime routine, I grabbed my saline bottle and headed to the bathroom to rinse out my nose.

I flooded both sides of my sinuses with little to no fluid getting across to the other side.

"Ah ha!", I thought, "My sinuses are blocked! damn."

I set the saline bottle back under the counter and commenced to blowing enough water out of my nose to make Hoover Dam look like a wuss.

"Geez! Where's all this water coming from?" more nose blowing.

"Sweety? you okay?", my husband called from his seat on our bed where he's scanning the internet and the baby is watching Wow Wow Wubbzy.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think my sinuses are plugged up and now they kind of sting."

So I keep blowing my nose and go to the kitchen to get a drink of water, only to realize that the more time that elapses from my last sinus rinse the more my sinuses go from stinging to burning.

"Oooooohhh crap! This hurts!" As I walk around the kitchen in circles wondering what I just did to my head. "Maybe I should sneeze"...so I stick my head under the brightest light I can find...achoo! achoo! achoo! more nose blowing. "THIS BURNS!!!"

At this point, I know exactly where my sinus cavities are in my head because I can acutely feel every surface of them burning as if I had snorted jalepeno juice...and I'm STILL blowing water out of my nose. "Maybe if I hang my head upside down..." and I fold in half and strike a yoga pose that would make Denise Austin proud. About this time, my husband walks in with K-man who is wanting more "nilk".

Him - "Are you okay?"

Kelton - "nilk! nilk! Maaaaa!!! moy nilk!!"

Me with my head hanging upside down, "Yeah! why?"

Him - "Because you're upside down"

Kelton - "maaaa!!! cars? cars? nilk!"

Me, a little irritated - "I'm FINE! My sinuses are BURNING!"

Him - "What did you put in your nose?" (Like I'd put something up there that wasn't supposed to be there???)

Me, more than a little irritated because now not only are sinuses burning but my ears are clogging up and my head is pounding - I hissed out "Ssssaline sssssolution!" as I flipped my head back up and glared him through my agony.

Him, eyes popping wide open and grabbing our child - "oooo...oookay!" and he hustles out of the room.

By now, my sinuses are in the full throws of assaulting the so-called saline solution I had put in them, which meant that snot was filling every available cavity and the tissue was swelling. Oh the pain! The burning! the swelling! the pounding in my ears! Who the hell puts water in their nose???? Not me! never ever ever again!

I staggered back to our room and stared at my guys through teary eyes - not from crying, mind you, but because I couldn't stop them from watering by now. "I'm gonna take a shower". "Okay", he says, as he makes a strained attempt to keep from staring at my face. "are you okay?" "I'M FFFFFINE!!" as I stagger back to our shower in the hopes that hot steam will reconcile my sinuses back to something remotely bearable.

The hot steam did wonders as did the flaming hot wash rage I kept plastered on my face. From there, I crawled into bed wondering if I did permanent damage. I woke up this morning and blew my nose for 5 minutes. The stinging is gone. The pressure is still a little there. And the bottle of saline solution?? It's in trash.

gardening gloves to rubber gloves

For the first time in several years, this past weekend felt like a "normal" weekend. K-man is finally old enough to kind of roll with the flow, so we can go and do things without having to adhere to a strict schedule. He still takes naps during the day, and I have absolutely no intentions of changing that any time soon. I love me my naptime on the weekend.

We spent most of yesterday in our yard in the sunshine. It felt so good to be outside and soaking up some rays while planting for spring. K helped me plant strawberries in the hanging baskets on the front porch and he attempted to help me plant lettuce in the backyard. However, after he kung-foo'ed a poor little earth worm I was trying to show him, I decided that maybe his time was best spent playing with the water hose. At least that seemed like a good idea until he figured out how to operate the sprayer and I ended up wet while he doubled over in laughter. Methinks my child is mischievious.

We also got the house clean - a HUGE accomplishment. Our house is all slick flooring so cleaning requires two trips...one with the swiffer and one with the steam mop. I love the steam mop...it's quick, it's easy, and it disinfects. Do I sound like an infomercial yet?

my friend - Le Steam Moppe

I also managed to get the bathrooms cleaned and organized. How is it that the rugs in the bathroom get dirtier than the rest of the house? My favorite bathroom cleaning product aside from my good ole vinegar formula is the toilet cleaner by Scrubbing Bubbles...the one where you can flush the cleaning head and it doesn't leave you with an icky potty brush sitting around growing mold. ahem. Not that I'd know anything about that.

a clean potty is a happy potty

what have we done?

We looked at each through bleary eyes - I was dodging left hooks and he was deflecting round-house kicks. The sleep deprivation was getting to us and we were both subjected to this beating on our own turf. We were losing, there was no question about it.

"What have we done???", I slurred out while ducking my head.

"I don't know but we have to stop this!", he stammered out and he protected his manhood from a perilously placed knee.

And then the giggles started...small little giggles that erupted into waves of cackling laughter. He was getting the best of our attacker! At last! K-man couldn't assault us in his sleep as long as his "Da" was tickling him! Two nights in our bed was all it took for our two-year old to realize that sleeping between Mama and Da was a pretty darn good thing - at least from his point of view. For us, well yeah it is sweet when your growing baby wants to snuggle in between you, but it's all of the wiggling and tossing and kicking and punching that wears us out. That and the fact that for two night the most he would sleep in his bed was 2 to 3 hours before waking up and screaming like all bloody hell had broken loose. We have determined that we would be bad prisoners of war - no torture for us, thankyouverymuch - just take away a few hours of sleep and we'll sing like a bird if you'll just let us go back to bed.

We really are not sure what started all of this. Perhaps the little guy is going through a phase or maybe he's had some nightmares. We really can't tell one way or the other, but four nights ago we started this whole not-sleeping thing and we naively let him in bed with us just so that we could sleep. Oh man was that wrong! In an attempt to get him out of our bed, Hubster spent three hours the other night converting his crib into a toddler bed. I watched from afar as he worked and sweated through this labor of love....or maybe it was a labor of love of sleep, whatever. I reminded him about what time it was and how late it was getting and that the side bar goes there and wasn't he going to put that up higher. I entertained and distracted our little man with cartoons, milk, waffles, cars, and rockets. I bit my tongue about asking Hubby if was going to sweep up the mess he was making. And finally...finally...it was finished...so I changed the sheet on the mattress because it made me feel better - like I had contributed. And then we let K-man have his first look at his revised bed...and he loved it! On it...off it...on...off...on...off...piled a bunch of books on....threw a bunch of books off...on, off, on, off....craaaaaaap.

The "new" bed went over like a rockstar party - only who wants to sleep at a party? Eventually...eventually...we got him to bed and then we got to bed and we all slept for 5 hours straight. At 5:30 in the morning, we heard "Daaaaaaaaa"....*quiet*....."Maaaaaaaaa". So we put him in bed with us and snoozed a little while before getting ready for work. Last night, there was more coercing to actually stay in the bed he likes so much. This time, we made it for 8 hours straight until at 4:30 this morning I was jerked awake. I have no idea how I knew, but I knew the instant our little guy stepped inside our bedroom doorway. There he stood...all 36 inches of him covered in blue snowman footy pajamas with his hair sticking in all directions and his little hands clasped in front of him - outlined by the small light coming from his room. He was waiting...watching...wondering. I called out to him, "Come on Baby...come get in bed" and he pitter pattered over to my side of the bed and I hoisted him up to snuggle between us. A few minutes later, he leaned over close to my ear...."Maaaaaa"....."Milk?"

*sigh* Who can resist that? The crib is gone. I wish I had taken one more photo of him sleeping in it. But with this change comes those days I knew were ahead of us when he can come into our room on his own in the morning and snuggle. It's always about a give and take...and I'll take every moment that I can.

Wonder Wood

When Hubby and I got married we were showered with many gifts. Some expensive, some not, some heartfelt, and some wooden. Like the set of wooden spoons I received for the kitchen. They were a bundle pack from Wal-Mart that I later learned cost about $3.50. I loved them. There's something about fresh unadulterated wooden spoons that makes me want to cook something slow simmering in an enameled cast iron pot.

Being brought up in a good Southern home, I learned that proper care of wooden spoons entails hand washing. Not that I had any choice growing up because our dishwasher had two feet, stood in front of a sink, and looked back at me every morning from the bathroom mirror.

Which brings me to marital bliss in the kitchen. My wonderful loving husband was doing dishes one day and put my sacred (cheap) wooden spoons in the dishwasher. *gasp!* I did not learn of this grevious offense until I unloaded said beast the next morning to find my spoons spotlessly clean. Bemoaning the fact that my spoons were harmed for life, I remembered one of the lessons from our marriage books about forgoing the small offenses and showing love. I lovingly put my very clean spoons back in their container on the counter and thought, "Oh well. They cost $3.50 for all five of them. I'll go back to Wal-Mart when these start leaving splinters in the food." That was over four years ago and my spoons are still going strong with nary a split. How was I supposed to know that Wal-Mart sells Wonder Wood???

Yoga

I've never been to an official yoga class. I've never had a whispy flowy yoga instructor come up to me in mid-downdog to correct my posture. I have, however, now logged many many hours of yoga via the dvr and my dvds. And I love it. It stretches you...challenges you...makes you say bad words to the tv...trims your waist and makes your leg muscles a little more pronounced. My husband even notices and comments. Now, if that ain't motivation, I don't know what is.

The first time I tried yoga was a few years ago in my post-partum world of *whiny voice* "where's my sleeeeeep???" I wanted to exercise so badly but was so incredibly tired that the only thing I could manage was a one-hour yoga session courtesy of the tv station I had flipped to. And I was hooked! I now have a stack of dvds on my office desk where several times a week during lunch a few friends and I shut my office door and curse our yoga instructor through a 30-minute power yoga series. Then we moan and groan about how the positions stretch this muscle or pull that joint. The next morning we all smile at each other and say, "Hey! that worked! Let's do it again!".

The other benefit I've found aside from the physical is the mental calming and clarifying that comes with any exercise. Well, any exercise where you're not wheezing a lung onto the pavement...that's not calming at all. A little session mid-day and I actually have more energy, my lunch tastes better, and I find I'm much more focused on the task at hand.

Do I sound like an infomercial for yoga? (never mind the fact that Jack La Lane still has me sold on his power juicer from just ONE infomercial) If I do, it's only because I really like this form of exercise that can be done just about anywhere and you don't have to hit the locker room showers afterwards. And if you're doing it at home? Bonus! My toddler thinks mommy is playing a really fun game...try downdog with a 2-year old on your back!

Me me me me

Is blogging narcissistic? and did I spell that correctly?

I was reading an article about the surge in my space, facebook, and blogging, and the author deemed our society as being self-centered because we spend all of our time talking about ourselves. To an extent, I agree...our society as a whole is probably more self-centered/selfish than perhaps our ancestors from four or five generations ago. They spent more time helping one another and loaning each other their mules and butter churns. In this day and time, we are more self-sufficient from each other but more dependent on our societal structure. I digress...

I have to take exception to the assumed narcissim (sp?) in blogging and most of facebooking. I can't speak to 'my space' because I never could figure the damn thing out. I blog. I facebook. And I do it to share what's going on in my life in the hopes that somewhere out there in cyber never never land that someone can read it and go "Oh my gosh! Me too!". Then they can leave me a comment and I'll realize I'm not the total loner doofus I thought I was....there are two of us...or more! As a wife, it's knowing that other women out there know and understand the intricacies of marriage. As a daughter, it's learning that I'm not the only going, "Damn! I'm turning into my mother!" As a mom, blogging is a means of connecting to other mothers going through similar experiences...sharing our fears, our frustrations, and our lessons - hopefully saving someone else from some hardships because they learned from what we went through. Is that self-centered? I don't think so.

Craziness

So much in my mind and so little organization to it...like my life at times. I'm scamming today and taking the easy route...bullet points!

• I turned 30 back at the end of November. I don't feel 30. I feel like a 17 year old trapped inside a 30 year old's body with 15 pounds of "baggage" to lose, never getting enough sleep, fighting a daycare cold every odd month, and wishing I had more drive to focus on where my life (our life) is going.
• I feel like I've spent the past few years on cruise control because it's been all about having a baby and then adjusting to his needs and learning how to care for a baby with severe allergies.
• I'm ready to shake things up a bit....just give me some more sleep.
• I'd like to hit a solid exercise regime...but then something inevitably happens and I'm either trying to catch up on sleep or fighting another cold.
• I hate daycare.
• K-man's allergies seem to be subsiding but then the damndest things will happen and he'll break out in eczema all over again. For instance? The grape flavoring in his last antibiotic...made him itch like a mad man and turn completely bright red on the face. Or the 100% juice capri sun I bought him...he made it a quarter of the way through before itching all over.
• He can have strawberries as long as their cooked and not fresh...but if fresh, not more than 2. He can have raisins, but not everyday and not more than once on the day he has them...or else he itches all over. He can applesauce occasionally but if too frequently it makes his tushey itch and he wiggles like a little catepillar on the floor.
• Two year olds are fun and challenging and entertaining.
• My husband is having to work most weekends. I hate it. I miss the family time. I know he does, too.
• My nails are really long and pretty right now. I guess that's why two of them chose to break off at the base this morning. b*tches.
• I want to blog more...facebook has lost its starry appeal.

Blogging from work...time to go home!

White Christmas

We had snow for our Christmas in Texas! My mom and I got outside and built a snowman, then we got a family picture posed with ole Frosty. There was a lot of wrapping paper, little boy giggles, and way too much food!

Happy Wishes for 2010!!