- If you see me speed-walking to the elevator, it's because I'm trying to catch that one, not because I'm trying to break the World record for speed-walking a distance of 8 feet. Hold the damn door! It's not going to clamp down on your arm and sever it off. (well, it probably won't)
- If the doors are already closing and I know you see me, at least pretend to try to press the "door open" button. Give me the "scrambling for the button, worried expression" routine. I don't even care if you intentionally press the alarm to make it appear you were fumbling.
- If I do this to you, I didn't see you.
- Don't push past, especially a woman or child, to get into the elevator first. Chances are they are still getting on that same elevator and now your little body-check has you riding with people who hate your guts.
- If the elevator looks too crowded, it IS. Please don't press your body heat against others.
- If you cram too many people in the elevator and then it does that little "jump" thing before the doors close and I freak out and say "OK LET ME OUT OF HERE" I'm not kidding, let me out so I don't freak out for the rest of the ride.
- If you are a smoker, take the stairs. Even if you stroke out on the way up, it's still worth it. You smell and you make the elevator smell too.
- If you have eaten garlic, onions or shit in the last day or so or if you even marginally suspect you could have bad breath, do NOT speak in the elevator.
- In fact, there is no reason whatsoever that you can't ride the elevator with others in total silence. I think a lot of people don't realize this.
- God Bless you if you have a cell phone signal in the elevator, but please refrain from having your loud conversation in there a midst the rest of us. We sure as sugar don't care about your personal matters and news flash -just because you say "oh no he dih-int" does not change that fact that he surely did, and thanks to you and your too-loud-of-a-talker cell phone friend, we all know the whole story.
- It is completely acceptable to fake that you forgot something and leave the elevator so to avoid an annoying or smelly person.
- If someone says to you "oh damn, I forgot something" and they leave the elevator, take it as a hint that you better invest in some Altoids and antiperspirant and try to avoid ever conversing with anyone again in a confined space.
- If you accidentally make eye contact, conversation is still not necessary. A forced smile with pressed lips and a glance away for the duration of the trip is recommended.
- Avoid catch phrases. If all the floor numbers are lit, no need to say "I guess we caught the local". We've heard that one before if you can believe it. "I guess I'll take a ride" is not necessary when you enter an elevator that is going up in spite of you wanting to go down. When you stepped in anyway after the smoker barked "this elevator is going up, hun" it was pretty well assumed by everyone that you would indeed being going for the ride.
- If I say "how are you?" know that it's just a pleasantry and I'm expecting a simple one-word response. If your life is a living hell, see a therapist, not me. I'm just trying to get to the cafeteria, not hear your life story and provide counsel over the next few floors.
- If I have my food with me, don't say "gee that food smells good - at least if this elevator gets stuck we have food!". The reasons why this is wrong are three-fold. First and foremost, what would make you think I would share my food with you? Number two, please don't bring up the possibility of this elevator getting stuck while we are already inside of it marinating in your exhaled breath. Third, how long would you expect that we would be in here that we would have to resort to parceling out my chicken salad to survive?
- Please don't ask me to push the floor number for you. I'm not the bell hop and the elevator is five feet wide, I think you can manage.
- When it's time to get out of the elevator, the people waiting to get in should stand aside and wait for it to unload first. Don't stand directly in front of the elevator doors unless you actually want to be trampled.
- DO NOT get into the elevator before the other people get out, that is just ridiculous and you look like a moron who cannot grasp common social conventions.
- If you feel the sensation of a bodily functin of any kind building, REFRAIN. Even if the refrain causes pain, discomfort or even death.
Friday, August 31, 2012
20 Rules for Elevators...in no particular order
Friday, August 24, 2012
Airing my Dirty Laundry
Before I get started here, I only hope to God that I'm not alone in this one. This is something that affects my life daily and bothers me deeply. It has been responsible for arguments, tears and missed engagements. What I'm talking about here is impossible task of finishing the laundry.
Most of us can relate to how hectic modern life has become. Everything is rush rush rush. We are so severely overbooked at all times that there is no time to even stop and think of your next move before you realize you're going to be late for it already. For me, working full time and having 3 children and 3 pets doesn't help matters. If ever I actually get a day off that I don't have 15 places to be, I can't use that time to relax. No way. I have to clean and do laundry. I don't necessarily mind doing either of things to be honest. If I could have the house to myself without interruptions or children in the way, I actually might enjoy the cleaning and laundry. But it doesn't work that way.
Our laundry day is whatever weekend day we are actually home. Efforts on "Laundry Day" are often hampered (hope you noticed the pun) by always having to share the day with other days such as "Cleaning Day", "Fix Things Day", "Find Things Day", "Shopping for Food and Gifts Day", "Drop Everything to go Help a Friend or Family Last-Minute and Leave the Ladder and Live Wires Dangling Day". Ok that last one was a bit over descriptive, but trust me, it's fitting. The point here is that we have a lot to do in a short amount of time and with a lot of distractions.
After our coffee and breakfast, we plan and strategize and pick our chores. We do our best to occupy the children in another room so we can get things done. However, with MY kids, they refuse to ever just go play - particularly if it's imperative for me that they do so. As soon as they hear us turn on the sink, pull out the broom or hear the spritzing of Windex, they come running (that is to say if they weren't literally hanging off us already, which is most often the case). I should not complain that the kids want to help, and I do my best to try to give them their own chores to do. I try to satisfy them by giving them each a baby wipe when I have the Lysol wipes and ask them to clean up everything - and they do. But 2 minutes into it, my son is asking for another one and my daughter is scrubbing her face with the same one she just used to wipe down the garbage can. My son begs to wash dishes - but moments later, the whole area is flooded and his chair slides out from beneath him (or his sister pulls it out) leaving him dangling from the counter. They want to sweep the floor so I give them each a broom and moments later they are wrestling because they both want the big broom - which is now being swung around through the struggle and almost crashing through the china cabinet! So my point with this is that allowing the kids to "help" is good in theory, but it almost never allows me to get anything done, and almost always makes 10 times more work than there was before.
It's always about an hour in before we realize we should have thrown in the laundry first before doing anything else. You think we would have learned by now. Whoever is on laundry duty will struggle to open the laundry room door usually while holding too big a pile of clothes. Random socks and underwear have been lost in the journey from the bedrooms down to the laundry room. You could follow the trail of unmentionables straight to the washer. Once in the laundry room, you realize there are still clothes in the wash from last time and now they stink. Drop all these clothes on the floor and rewash what was in there. By now we have -1 loads washed and it's nearly 11. The living room is sort-of clean in spite of spending an hour in there. The efforts to clean the hardwood floors are consistently hampered by children running through eating and spilling things even as I'm mopping. The kitchen is looking ok, but that pile of papers and mail just keeps growing and I don't know if I even want to attempt it right now. Surely that can wait until next week. Tuck it away somewhere for now.
Now all we have to do is clean 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and the dreaded den. The den is also the play room and in spite of it seeming like my kids never want to be out of my hair, they manage to absolutely destroy that place regularly. We've spent many-a afternoon sorting and throwing away broken and unused toys. We've bought containers and buckets for organizing, but it never seems to do any good in the long run. You can't even walk through there, it's awful. To further complicate matters, this is where the dog likes to have his "accidents". Before I can even let the kids play down there, I have to first try my best to canvass the room and check for doo-doo. He doesn't do this every day, he IS housebroken, but every now and again if he gets mad at us he will take care of his business. Because this skeeves me SO badly, we have deep cleaned that carpet many many times and in the 5 years that we have lived there, we've gone through 3 carpets. Even after it's clean, I just can't shake that icky feeling knowing that at one time there was poop there.
But anyway, we could get started on these rooms but now the kids are claiming to be starving and ready for lunch. This is in spite of the fact that they had pancakes for breakfast, 18 refills each in their sippy cups and have had at least 30 snacks apiece. We make lunch and get everyone at the table. They barely touch it but still manage to make a huge mess. Now the kitchen has to be cleaned again before we move on. Whoops, forgot about the laundry. Toss in a new load and dry the stuff that had been waiting in the wash for a week.
OK, I'm going to go clean the bathroom now. But wait! I'm out of ____________. You can fill in the blank, but somehow there is always something that I need at that moment that I can't proceed without. Husband volunteers to run to the store. But if he's going to the store, I know he may as well pick up these other 45 items that we need. My husband is very familiar with what is going on so as I get this together, he hits the couch with a nice cup of coffee and watches some show about building cars. An hour and a half later, after checking sales circulars, clipping coupons, throwing out old coupons and checking our bank account online, I send him off with a list as long as my arm and 3 coupons. He' going to have to go to two different stores though, because Shoprite has all this on sale, but Acme has meat 4 for $20.
The mess from the coupon sorting is all over the table, but that has to wait because the very moment he sets foot out the door, some ridiculous catastrophe happens. Someone falls down the steps, swallows a lego or is bleeding, injured or in imminent danger in some shape or form. After diffusing that, putting on ice and band-aids, wiping up the blood or sending everyone to their room (always futile effort) it's now time to switch the laundry again and bring up the clothes from the dryer. Now the kids want to help again. They are pulling the clean clothes from the basket and throwing them all over the floor. I fight with them to leave the clothes alone, but they know daddy's not home and I can't possibly enforce with both of them at once so they take full advantage. It takes me flipping out to get their attention. They finally leave me alone and before I have 3 items folded, my daughter has stripped down and peed somewhere. If I'm lucky enough that it's in the potty, I usually find out she's done so as I see her walking across the hallway with the full potty splashing all over the place on the way. Now I have to clean all that up.
As I finally get the clothes folded, my husband is pulling up and it's going on 3pm. I leave the folded clothes on the couch and go out to help him with the grocery bags. The next 30 minutes will be spend putting away the groceries, fending off the children and making them Nutella snacks to get them out of the way. We put the groceries away together as we listen to each others horror stories of what happened while he was gone - each believing ours was the worse scenario. By now, the Nutella has been "accidentally" smeared on the walls and furniture from the kids having it all over their faces while climbing on the couches a-midst the piles of clean folded clothes. I refold the clothes and get the piles upstairs in my room (to be be safely stored until they can be distributed later) just in time for my husband to bring up another load to be folded.
Seeing as how it's getting so late, we better think about what we are making for dinner. Then the phone rings and someone says they are coming over. I do a quick sweep of the house and with my arms full of the rest of the folded clothes and random items that I found laying all around the house, I dash up to my room to get changed out of my pajamas. Although I feel strongly that your bedroom should be your sanctuary, I have yet to figure out how to accomplish that. My bedroom is the catch-all storage room and laundry triage. It's just insane. With five people in this family, 2 of which make every meal an opportunity to destroy their clothes and one potty training, you cant begin to imagine the amount of clothes stored in my room. I have baskets full of clean folded clothes* everywhere. Anyway, I'll have to attempt my room later, I just don't want anyone to come in this house with it looking such a mess!! By the time I get back downstairs, the guest has already arrived. Imagine their surprise when they ask what we were doing today and we said we've been cleaning all day. In spite of the work, this place still looks a wreck!!
In a flash it's time for dinner and it's a repeat of every other meal. Everyone clamoring for food saying how hungry and thirsty they are and then sitting at the table making a mess. Another huge mess to clean and it's now after 6pm. The daylight is fading so we decide to catch at least a few minutes of light and go for a walk. Best part of the day, hands down. When our walk is through, we return home covered head to toe in mosquito bites and with the dinner mess still there. Clean the kitchen for a third time, and it's getting late and we are tired. We've only done about 3 or 4 of the 30 loads of laundry that needed to be done and both bathrooms, the den and 3 bedrooms have not been touched. More than likely these rooms are even worse than they were this morning from the kids tearing the place up while we tried to clean.
In spite of our best efforts, we failed miserably once again at getting even close to caught up. The laundry will have to be sorted again tomorrow because we just messed up the piles by moving them off the bed and onto the other piles that were waiting from last week. In our defense, we passed out on the couch and it's now 2am - no one is going to be putting away laundry at that hour. Maybe tomorrow before the 2 baby showers and 5 birthdays that we still haven't bought gifts for we might be able to try to pick back up where we left off. I won't hold my breath.
*when I say "clean folded clothes", I mean these clothes had been cleaned and were at one time folded. They were then placed in baskets to be put away but never were. By the end of the week, the line between what is clean and folded and what is dirty gets increasingly blurred...and don't even get me started on socks.
Most of us can relate to how hectic modern life has become. Everything is rush rush rush. We are so severely overbooked at all times that there is no time to even stop and think of your next move before you realize you're going to be late for it already. For me, working full time and having 3 children and 3 pets doesn't help matters. If ever I actually get a day off that I don't have 15 places to be, I can't use that time to relax. No way. I have to clean and do laundry. I don't necessarily mind doing either of things to be honest. If I could have the house to myself without interruptions or children in the way, I actually might enjoy the cleaning and laundry. But it doesn't work that way.
Our laundry day is whatever weekend day we are actually home. Efforts on "Laundry Day" are often hampered (hope you noticed the pun) by always having to share the day with other days such as "Cleaning Day", "Fix Things Day", "Find Things Day", "Shopping for Food and Gifts Day", "Drop Everything to go Help a Friend or Family Last-Minute and Leave the Ladder and Live Wires Dangling Day". Ok that last one was a bit over descriptive, but trust me, it's fitting. The point here is that we have a lot to do in a short amount of time and with a lot of distractions.
After our coffee and breakfast, we plan and strategize and pick our chores. We do our best to occupy the children in another room so we can get things done. However, with MY kids, they refuse to ever just go play - particularly if it's imperative for me that they do so. As soon as they hear us turn on the sink, pull out the broom or hear the spritzing of Windex, they come running (that is to say if they weren't literally hanging off us already, which is most often the case). I should not complain that the kids want to help, and I do my best to try to give them their own chores to do. I try to satisfy them by giving them each a baby wipe when I have the Lysol wipes and ask them to clean up everything - and they do. But 2 minutes into it, my son is asking for another one and my daughter is scrubbing her face with the same one she just used to wipe down the garbage can. My son begs to wash dishes - but moments later, the whole area is flooded and his chair slides out from beneath him (or his sister pulls it out) leaving him dangling from the counter. They want to sweep the floor so I give them each a broom and moments later they are wrestling because they both want the big broom - which is now being swung around through the struggle and almost crashing through the china cabinet! So my point with this is that allowing the kids to "help" is good in theory, but it almost never allows me to get anything done, and almost always makes 10 times more work than there was before.
It's always about an hour in before we realize we should have thrown in the laundry first before doing anything else. You think we would have learned by now. Whoever is on laundry duty will struggle to open the laundry room door usually while holding too big a pile of clothes. Random socks and underwear have been lost in the journey from the bedrooms down to the laundry room. You could follow the trail of unmentionables straight to the washer. Once in the laundry room, you realize there are still clothes in the wash from last time and now they stink. Drop all these clothes on the floor and rewash what was in there. By now we have -1 loads washed and it's nearly 11. The living room is sort-of clean in spite of spending an hour in there. The efforts to clean the hardwood floors are consistently hampered by children running through eating and spilling things even as I'm mopping. The kitchen is looking ok, but that pile of papers and mail just keeps growing and I don't know if I even want to attempt it right now. Surely that can wait until next week. Tuck it away somewhere for now.
Now all we have to do is clean 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and the dreaded den. The den is also the play room and in spite of it seeming like my kids never want to be out of my hair, they manage to absolutely destroy that place regularly. We've spent many-a afternoon sorting and throwing away broken and unused toys. We've bought containers and buckets for organizing, but it never seems to do any good in the long run. You can't even walk through there, it's awful. To further complicate matters, this is where the dog likes to have his "accidents". Before I can even let the kids play down there, I have to first try my best to canvass the room and check for doo-doo. He doesn't do this every day, he IS housebroken, but every now and again if he gets mad at us he will take care of his business. Because this skeeves me SO badly, we have deep cleaned that carpet many many times and in the 5 years that we have lived there, we've gone through 3 carpets. Even after it's clean, I just can't shake that icky feeling knowing that at one time there was poop there.
But anyway, we could get started on these rooms but now the kids are claiming to be starving and ready for lunch. This is in spite of the fact that they had pancakes for breakfast, 18 refills each in their sippy cups and have had at least 30 snacks apiece. We make lunch and get everyone at the table. They barely touch it but still manage to make a huge mess. Now the kitchen has to be cleaned again before we move on. Whoops, forgot about the laundry. Toss in a new load and dry the stuff that had been waiting in the wash for a week.
OK, I'm going to go clean the bathroom now. But wait! I'm out of ____________. You can fill in the blank, but somehow there is always something that I need at that moment that I can't proceed without. Husband volunteers to run to the store. But if he's going to the store, I know he may as well pick up these other 45 items that we need. My husband is very familiar with what is going on so as I get this together, he hits the couch with a nice cup of coffee and watches some show about building cars. An hour and a half later, after checking sales circulars, clipping coupons, throwing out old coupons and checking our bank account online, I send him off with a list as long as my arm and 3 coupons. He' going to have to go to two different stores though, because Shoprite has all this on sale, but Acme has meat 4 for $20.
The mess from the coupon sorting is all over the table, but that has to wait because the very moment he sets foot out the door, some ridiculous catastrophe happens. Someone falls down the steps, swallows a lego or is bleeding, injured or in imminent danger in some shape or form. After diffusing that, putting on ice and band-aids, wiping up the blood or sending everyone to their room (always futile effort) it's now time to switch the laundry again and bring up the clothes from the dryer. Now the kids want to help again. They are pulling the clean clothes from the basket and throwing them all over the floor. I fight with them to leave the clothes alone, but they know daddy's not home and I can't possibly enforce with both of them at once so they take full advantage. It takes me flipping out to get their attention. They finally leave me alone and before I have 3 items folded, my daughter has stripped down and peed somewhere. If I'm lucky enough that it's in the potty, I usually find out she's done so as I see her walking across the hallway with the full potty splashing all over the place on the way. Now I have to clean all that up.
As I finally get the clothes folded, my husband is pulling up and it's going on 3pm. I leave the folded clothes on the couch and go out to help him with the grocery bags. The next 30 minutes will be spend putting away the groceries, fending off the children and making them Nutella snacks to get them out of the way. We put the groceries away together as we listen to each others horror stories of what happened while he was gone - each believing ours was the worse scenario. By now, the Nutella has been "accidentally" smeared on the walls and furniture from the kids having it all over their faces while climbing on the couches a-midst the piles of clean folded clothes. I refold the clothes and get the piles upstairs in my room (to be be safely stored until they can be distributed later) just in time for my husband to bring up another load to be folded.
Seeing as how it's getting so late, we better think about what we are making for dinner. Then the phone rings and someone says they are coming over. I do a quick sweep of the house and with my arms full of the rest of the folded clothes and random items that I found laying all around the house, I dash up to my room to get changed out of my pajamas. Although I feel strongly that your bedroom should be your sanctuary, I have yet to figure out how to accomplish that. My bedroom is the catch-all storage room and laundry triage. It's just insane. With five people in this family, 2 of which make every meal an opportunity to destroy their clothes and one potty training, you cant begin to imagine the amount of clothes stored in my room. I have baskets full of clean folded clothes* everywhere. Anyway, I'll have to attempt my room later, I just don't want anyone to come in this house with it looking such a mess!! By the time I get back downstairs, the guest has already arrived. Imagine their surprise when they ask what we were doing today and we said we've been cleaning all day. In spite of the work, this place still looks a wreck!!
In a flash it's time for dinner and it's a repeat of every other meal. Everyone clamoring for food saying how hungry and thirsty they are and then sitting at the table making a mess. Another huge mess to clean and it's now after 6pm. The daylight is fading so we decide to catch at least a few minutes of light and go for a walk. Best part of the day, hands down. When our walk is through, we return home covered head to toe in mosquito bites and with the dinner mess still there. Clean the kitchen for a third time, and it's getting late and we are tired. We've only done about 3 or 4 of the 30 loads of laundry that needed to be done and both bathrooms, the den and 3 bedrooms have not been touched. More than likely these rooms are even worse than they were this morning from the kids tearing the place up while we tried to clean.
In spite of our best efforts, we failed miserably once again at getting even close to caught up. The laundry will have to be sorted again tomorrow because we just messed up the piles by moving them off the bed and onto the other piles that were waiting from last week. In our defense, we passed out on the couch and it's now 2am - no one is going to be putting away laundry at that hour. Maybe tomorrow before the 2 baby showers and 5 birthdays that we still haven't bought gifts for we might be able to try to pick back up where we left off. I won't hold my breath.
*when I say "clean folded clothes", I mean these clothes had been cleaned and were at one time folded. They were then placed in baskets to be put away but never were. By the end of the week, the line between what is clean and folded and what is dirty gets increasingly blurred...and don't even get me started on socks.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Baby Girl is P!ssed
So, potty training is fun right? As I remember it with my oldest, as soon as he turned two, I put him on the potty and said "you pee and poop on here now" and at that moment it was done. No accidents or wet beds, no fancy pull-ups or struggles to convince him. He took to it like a fish to water. Well, I'm pretty sure that's how it went. Someday when I'm on the shrink's couch and all the repressed memories are unleashed, perhaps I will learn otherwise. Regardless, for now that's how I remember it and I'm choosing to stick to that memory.
My little ones on the other hand are a bit more difficult. I remember my little boy using the potty to pee most of the time with the occasional accident. Pooping was a different issue. He refused, REFUSED to poop on the potty. He much preferred to mess himself or just hold it in for days in some cases. It wasn't good. There were quite a few times that I sat in the bathroom with him, both of us in tears, pleading with him to please, for the love of God just poop!! I knew he had to go. HE knew he had to go. Just the same, he clenched and pinched until he was off the toilet and then retired to his room to crap his pants. Many times, he would have the "rabbit dropping" kind and it would just roll out of his shorts and he would go about his business. I wonder how many times we screamed at the dog for doo-doo that wasn't his? This could have been prevented by him wearing underwear, (the boy, not the dog) but to this very day he takes them off every chance he gets. I don't understand it. Maybe it's a boy thing.
It was difficult enough dealing with the frustration of it all, but I was pregnant with my daughter at the time so just cleaning up the messes was difficult. Since I'm small, I carried HUGE with each child so even bending down to pick something up was practically impossible. Fudge nuggets rolling out of shorts was something that was more than just disgusting, it was nearly impossible to clean up without a great deal of effort, discomfort and even pain.
I wanted this kid potty trained before my daughter was born and just before her birth, he finally broke down and pooped on the potty! (Truth be told, I think it fell/was forced out accidentally while he was struggling to get off the potty and I was holding him on it). It took just once or twice before he realized that pooping on the potty was not scary and not dangerous in any way. At last we are on our way!!
Then my daughter was born.
After she arrived in our home, all bets were off. For as much as he absolutely adored his baby sister, he definitely felt the sting of being bumped from the spot of top priority. He completely reverted to not being potty trained at all. All that work, struggle and tears was for nothing. Eventually he came around obviously, but it was rough, let me just tell you.
Now it's my daughter's turn for potty training already. She's doing very well actually. Well, for the most part. OK it sucks but some days are better than others. She generally will tell me that she has to pee after she has already peed a little. I won't yell at her for that, she's still learning and she finishes on the potty so that's not so bad. We do go through probably 10 different outfits a day, but it is just part of the process. I've given up on the Pull-Ups already. First and foremost, they defeat the purpose because they are basically diapers with the added inconvenience of being damn-near impossible to put on. Second, she takes them off faster than I can say "don't you DARE take off that Pull-Up". Luckily, and unlike her brother, she get's totally disgusted when she is soiled in any way so that does seem to motivate towards the notion of going potty. She will not tolerate sticky hands, crumbs on her feet, food on her face and most of all, messed pants. If she has an accident, she walks in with this look of disgust and bordering on panic. And when I say she "walks in" I mean she waddles with her feet as far apart as possible, knees slightly bent and hands up with fingers spread out, them waving around or shaking back and forth. She just doesn't like it.
The other day I was bragging about how great she is doing. I was a proud mama. She's only just turned 2 so I'm pretty pleased all considering. Then a few minutes later, I realized she was not playing in the den as I thought she was. I heard her faint voice coming from upstairs. It was slightly echoing...where the hell was she? Oh My God, she's playing in the bathroom!! Eww! I ran upstairs to drag her out and I found her soaked head to toe and proudly proclaiming "I peed!!". She peed alright. She stood on her step stool to play in the sink and then peed all over. Considering she had just peed less than an hour prior, you can imagine my surprise to find that she let go of what appeared to be 10 gallons. By the time I got up there, she was literally splashing in it! She was smacking the step stool with her hands and making it splatter all over the bathroom and herself. Her entire body including her face was splattered. As her hair fell and stuck to her face, she used her dripping hands to slick it back. I called for help but in spite of the fact that there were five other people in the house, no one responded. I ran across the hall to grab a towel to put her in the bath. It took my only 1 second from the bathroom to her bedroom, yet that afforded her enough time to "paint" the toilet, floor and sink with the pee-pee hands! My husband finally came upstairs as I was peeling her soaked clothes off and then he, for some reason, decided to move the only clean towel I had left from the spot that I placed it to right on top of the toilet seat that was dripping with pee. Granted, he didn't realize the toilet seat was dripping with pee, but I'm still not sure what made him feel the need to move it at all.
I suppose it's all just a part of the joys of raising kids. Some day when she's old enough to be embarrassed, I will read this to her. Her reaction should give me some good future material. Stay tuned for my blog entry, "Baby Girl is Pissed II" coming in 12 years. Until then, I'll just have to keep everyone updated about the rest of the catastrophes that are sure to happen in the mean time.
Now if only I had read these advertisements, I'm certain all this could have been avoided!!
My little ones on the other hand are a bit more difficult. I remember my little boy using the potty to pee most of the time with the occasional accident. Pooping was a different issue. He refused, REFUSED to poop on the potty. He much preferred to mess himself or just hold it in for days in some cases. It wasn't good. There were quite a few times that I sat in the bathroom with him, both of us in tears, pleading with him to please, for the love of God just poop!! I knew he had to go. HE knew he had to go. Just the same, he clenched and pinched until he was off the toilet and then retired to his room to crap his pants. Many times, he would have the "rabbit dropping" kind and it would just roll out of his shorts and he would go about his business. I wonder how many times we screamed at the dog for doo-doo that wasn't his? This could have been prevented by him wearing underwear, (the boy, not the dog) but to this very day he takes them off every chance he gets. I don't understand it. Maybe it's a boy thing.
It was difficult enough dealing with the frustration of it all, but I was pregnant with my daughter at the time so just cleaning up the messes was difficult. Since I'm small, I carried HUGE with each child so even bending down to pick something up was practically impossible. Fudge nuggets rolling out of shorts was something that was more than just disgusting, it was nearly impossible to clean up without a great deal of effort, discomfort and even pain.
I wanted this kid potty trained before my daughter was born and just before her birth, he finally broke down and pooped on the potty! (Truth be told, I think it fell/was forced out accidentally while he was struggling to get off the potty and I was holding him on it). It took just once or twice before he realized that pooping on the potty was not scary and not dangerous in any way. At last we are on our way!!
Then my daughter was born.
After she arrived in our home, all bets were off. For as much as he absolutely adored his baby sister, he definitely felt the sting of being bumped from the spot of top priority. He completely reverted to not being potty trained at all. All that work, struggle and tears was for nothing. Eventually he came around obviously, but it was rough, let me just tell you.
Now it's my daughter's turn for potty training already. She's doing very well actually. Well, for the most part. OK it sucks but some days are better than others. She generally will tell me that she has to pee after she has already peed a little. I won't yell at her for that, she's still learning and she finishes on the potty so that's not so bad. We do go through probably 10 different outfits a day, but it is just part of the process. I've given up on the Pull-Ups already. First and foremost, they defeat the purpose because they are basically diapers with the added inconvenience of being damn-near impossible to put on. Second, she takes them off faster than I can say "don't you DARE take off that Pull-Up". Luckily, and unlike her brother, she get's totally disgusted when she is soiled in any way so that does seem to motivate towards the notion of going potty. She will not tolerate sticky hands, crumbs on her feet, food on her face and most of all, messed pants. If she has an accident, she walks in with this look of disgust and bordering on panic. And when I say she "walks in" I mean she waddles with her feet as far apart as possible, knees slightly bent and hands up with fingers spread out, them waving around or shaking back and forth. She just doesn't like it.
The other day I was bragging about how great she is doing. I was a proud mama. She's only just turned 2 so I'm pretty pleased all considering. Then a few minutes later, I realized she was not playing in the den as I thought she was. I heard her faint voice coming from upstairs. It was slightly echoing...where the hell was she? Oh My God, she's playing in the bathroom!! Eww! I ran upstairs to drag her out and I found her soaked head to toe and proudly proclaiming "I peed!!". She peed alright. She stood on her step stool to play in the sink and then peed all over. Considering she had just peed less than an hour prior, you can imagine my surprise to find that she let go of what appeared to be 10 gallons. By the time I got up there, she was literally splashing in it! She was smacking the step stool with her hands and making it splatter all over the bathroom and herself. Her entire body including her face was splattered. As her hair fell and stuck to her face, she used her dripping hands to slick it back. I called for help but in spite of the fact that there were five other people in the house, no one responded. I ran across the hall to grab a towel to put her in the bath. It took my only 1 second from the bathroom to her bedroom, yet that afforded her enough time to "paint" the toilet, floor and sink with the pee-pee hands! My husband finally came upstairs as I was peeling her soaked clothes off and then he, for some reason, decided to move the only clean towel I had left from the spot that I placed it to right on top of the toilet seat that was dripping with pee. Granted, he didn't realize the toilet seat was dripping with pee, but I'm still not sure what made him feel the need to move it at all.
I suppose it's all just a part of the joys of raising kids. Some day when she's old enough to be embarrassed, I will read this to her. Her reaction should give me some good future material. Stay tuned for my blog entry, "Baby Girl is Pissed II" coming in 12 years. Until then, I'll just have to keep everyone updated about the rest of the catastrophes that are sure to happen in the mean time.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Microwaving Pot for Lunch: An Occupational Hazard
Work lunch. It's always a problem for me. I never have time to prepare the great American white bread sandwich, yet I never have money to buy anything either. It's too long of a day to just starve so I usually end up bringing whatever was left over from last night, no matter how impractical - or in this case, stinky it may be.
In spite of my not liking to use the microwave, it's the only option here at work aside from eating your ravioli stone cold. Like most employers, they don't provide us with full blown ovens. We don't even have toaster ovens for that matter. I've heard they are a hazard - some nonsense about burning the place down, I don't know. I, for one, would be willing to take that chance rather than microwaving my grilled shrimp into pink rubber commas.
The microwave at work is radically different from the one I have at home. At my house, to warm up a single chicken nugget, you would have to put it in for approximately 27 minutes.... and then turn it and put it back in for another 2 hours. I told my son the rule of thumb is to read whatever the package suggests and multiply that time by 70. Some may say it's time for a new microwave, but since we rarely use the thing I feel like I should keep it to get my money's worth. I put out close to $70 for that thing at Bradlees 13 years ago. It had better last another 10 years at least.
The work microwave, in stark contrast to my home microwave, seems to be super-powered. In spite of it's reputation for being a safe and work friendly means of warming things, it still poses its own risks and hazards. This thing here is so strong, you could put in a Thanksgiving turkey and a minute and thirty seconds later, that sucker is done. (Imagine that, dinner in a buck thirty! Maybe I should consider getting a new one at home!) Popcorn routinely bursts into flames around here leaving behind the smell of charred butter for hours. One poor soul tried to warm up a WeightWatchers cookie of all things, and it set off the alarm system. The entire building had to be evacuated. When we came back in, they were gracious enough to take the remains of the cookie out and demand to know who made it. Poor lady just wanted a warm snack without being publicly humiliated. Guess that just wasn't her day. So yea, you're taking your life into your hands just trying to warm up some grub around here. And if the threat of fire wasn't enough, there's something even worse: the stinker uppers.
Working in a culturally diverse environment, lunch time affords us all the glory of smelling everyone's ethnic cuisines. Problem is, even if it might have smelled good when they made it, it usually stinks up the joint when it's warmed up for lunch here. The stinks vary from potent to unpleasant to downright offensive. Since we are fabulous cooks in my house, I'm certain I have never perpetrated this assault on the senses the way others routinely do. Until today, that is.
Today I warmed up my grilled shrimp skewers left over from last night. I knew the risks of microwaving shrimp, and I prepared myself. I knew I would be in for a lot of chewing and potentially even having to chase down a bouncing shrimp in the likely event I lose control of the plate while walking. But this time I was completely unprepared for the complication at hand. It was the smell. As it turns out, and believe me this is certainly news to me too, grilled shrimp when microwaved can take on an aroma that is not unlike that of marijuana. Now I'm not saying all shrimp when microwaved will smell like an Occupy rally but something about how my shrimp was seasoned or something definitely seemed inspired by the infamous herb.
Working in a very professional and corporate environment, its really quite embarrassing to have hints of the ganga wafting out of your cube. Bad enough I was hardly keeping my eyes open from a poor night's sleep last night. If anyone walked by they would have seen me reclined in my chair with my eyes half closed, munching on shrimp at two in the afternoon and reeking of pot. Who would have thought trying to have a nice low carb, high protien lunch could potentially paint me as the company stoner?
In spite of my not liking to use the microwave, it's the only option here at work aside from eating your ravioli stone cold. Like most employers, they don't provide us with full blown ovens. We don't even have toaster ovens for that matter. I've heard they are a hazard - some nonsense about burning the place down, I don't know. I, for one, would be willing to take that chance rather than microwaving my grilled shrimp into pink rubber commas.
The microwave at work is radically different from the one I have at home. At my house, to warm up a single chicken nugget, you would have to put it in for approximately 27 minutes.... and then turn it and put it back in for another 2 hours. I told my son the rule of thumb is to read whatever the package suggests and multiply that time by 70. Some may say it's time for a new microwave, but since we rarely use the thing I feel like I should keep it to get my money's worth. I put out close to $70 for that thing at Bradlees 13 years ago. It had better last another 10 years at least.
The work microwave, in stark contrast to my home microwave, seems to be super-powered. In spite of it's reputation for being a safe and work friendly means of warming things, it still poses its own risks and hazards. This thing here is so strong, you could put in a Thanksgiving turkey and a minute and thirty seconds later, that sucker is done. (Imagine that, dinner in a buck thirty! Maybe I should consider getting a new one at home!) Popcorn routinely bursts into flames around here leaving behind the smell of charred butter for hours. One poor soul tried to warm up a WeightWatchers cookie of all things, and it set off the alarm system. The entire building had to be evacuated. When we came back in, they were gracious enough to take the remains of the cookie out and demand to know who made it. Poor lady just wanted a warm snack without being publicly humiliated. Guess that just wasn't her day. So yea, you're taking your life into your hands just trying to warm up some grub around here. And if the threat of fire wasn't enough, there's something even worse: the stinker uppers.
Working in a culturally diverse environment, lunch time affords us all the glory of smelling everyone's ethnic cuisines. Problem is, even if it might have smelled good when they made it, it usually stinks up the joint when it's warmed up for lunch here. The stinks vary from potent to unpleasant to downright offensive. Since we are fabulous cooks in my house, I'm certain I have never perpetrated this assault on the senses the way others routinely do. Until today, that is.
Today I warmed up my grilled shrimp skewers left over from last night. I knew the risks of microwaving shrimp, and I prepared myself. I knew I would be in for a lot of chewing and potentially even having to chase down a bouncing shrimp in the likely event I lose control of the plate while walking. But this time I was completely unprepared for the complication at hand. It was the smell. As it turns out, and believe me this is certainly news to me too, grilled shrimp when microwaved can take on an aroma that is not unlike that of marijuana. Now I'm not saying all shrimp when microwaved will smell like an Occupy rally but something about how my shrimp was seasoned or something definitely seemed inspired by the infamous herb.
Working in a very professional and corporate environment, its really quite embarrassing to have hints of the ganga wafting out of your cube. Bad enough I was hardly keeping my eyes open from a poor night's sleep last night. If anyone walked by they would have seen me reclined in my chair with my eyes half closed, munching on shrimp at two in the afternoon and reeking of pot. Who would have thought trying to have a nice low carb, high protien lunch could potentially paint me as the company stoner?
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