There were two adults, one carrying a large Amazon box, the other carrying work and diaper bags, a toddler who refused to be carried, and one cat who leapt into the hallway for some exercise.
That is how we started our evening- the entire family running up and down the hallway.
Those of you who know me well know of my propensity to bitch and complain incessantly about minor inconveniences that really aren't that bad when considering the big picture. Well, this blog post is a continuation of that theme, with a decently happy ending. I just wanted to make that clear now, so that anyone sick of my whining can quickly stop reading and go about with their day.
I was hoping to get to the fancy Whole Foods down in Lincoln Park today, first because I needed to get us some food (hence the grocery store part), and second, because on Wednesdays I saw that there is singalong time at 10 am with teachers from the local Bubbles Academy. The Whole Foods is about a 10 minute drive away this time of day. Sweet, I thought, we'll go and be silly, then we can quickly shop, and then come home.
Now, a critical aspect of getting this plan to work revolved around Ellie's nap schedule. We are currently in between the two and one nap-per-day phase. Some days we do two naps, others we are fine with one. I've just been trying to arrange our schedule as best I can so that either of these nap options can be accommodated. For the most part, that is. If we succeeded with our Whole Foods singalong trip, it meant we would only do one afternoon nap today. It was me dictating the rules- a fatal error in a household run by a toddler.
Things seemed to work out in the hours leading up to the singalong time around here. Ellie got up really early this morning (imagine Ellie crying from her crib and then Major yowling full blast in the kitchen. No need for an alarm clock here on Roscoe Street!), and chilled out in her crib with bunny for a bit after we fed her breakfast and she had played. She might have even slept a few minutes, but I wouldn't know for sure as I had crawled back into bed myself at that point. She had a snack, I gave her a bath, and before I knew it, it was about time for us to head down to the car. Even more impressive? Ellie and I were both all ready to go. When does that ever happen? Seriously?
I got us down into our garage, got Ellie in her car seat. Went around to the drivers seat, put the key into the ignition, and the blasted key wouldn't turn. I'm not saying the car wouldn't start- the key would not turn.
Our Honda has this propensity for the steering wheel to lock in the parked position, especially if the tires are turned, and this makes it impossible to turn the key in the ignition. It has happened to me in the past, and what you do is jiggle the wheel back and forth so the tires straighten and then it unlocks. Well, this morning, I jiggled, and then the jiggles turned into aggressive jerks turned into curse words and unanswered phone calls to my husband where I was ready to yell into the phone, "Why in the HELL won't this steering wheel unlock?!"
He was lucky he was in a meeting.
The frustrating thing is, I know what will happen. I will try the car again later this afternoon, perhaps, and the wheel will turn like butter and with ease the car will start. Or it will present no problem when Jim tries it this evening after he gets home from work. How many times does this happen to me? The stubborn lid on the marinara sauce, the button to collapse the stroller, the fastener on the seat belt in the grocery cart I had last week (I thought I was going to have to leave Ellie at the Jewel). Then someone else comes along, and, zoom! Easy as pie!
But anyways, I digress, as usual.
To make the situation even more pleasant, Ellie started to fuss and cry from her car seat. It was the point of no return, I-am-a-cranky-mess-let's-just-go-home type of fussing. So I just rested my forehead on the steering wheel, and calmly thought, I am not going back upstairs until I have done our shopping.
And so I got Cranky McCrankerson out of the backseat, parked her back into her stroller, slung the diaper bag across my shoulder, and we set out for our local Whole Foods, which is within walking distance (see, you guys, it's not like there wasn't a solution! We have a Whole Foods just down the street, and I was fully prepared to blaze through it with my overtired and possibly disruptive child, so help me God. Just let me buy some chicken breast).
Well, here's the ending of the story. I rounded the corner onto School Street, peeked in the window at our Whole Foods, and, Oh my gosh! A lady! With a guitar! and a bunch of little kids dancing around her! Our own Whole Foods had singing time. Who knew?! We went inside, Ellie bopped her head a couple times to the Hokey Pokey, then put her head on my shoulder. We did our quick shop, and then Ellie promptly feel asleep in the stroller on the walk home.
So, what did I learn? Ellie was too tired to have even fully enjoyed the singalong time at the Lincoln Park Whole Foods even if we had made it there. It all turned out just fine, and now we are home, and I finally have my chicken breast to add to our salad for tonight, and Ellie is still napping.
Of course, there still is the issue of me not being able to operate the car. But we'll just wait for Daddy to help us figure that one out :-)
I am sitting in the dark on the kitchen floor.
No, seriously, I am. I am sitting in the dark on the kitchen floor, while behind me drums the tinny beats of the clothes dryer and the whooshing of the washing machine. I am trying to return to myself, talking myself down from the ledge of hypertension that surged through my blood vessels in the two hours before the child's bedtime.
Why did God create family mealtime at the moment when children (and parents) are at their thinnest? I ran into the kitchen, sliced the onion, ran back into the living room, did a dance and played with blocks, ran back into the kitchen, pounded some chicken breasts (a bit harder then I really needed to, in hindsight). Minutes before this time, as I took just 30 seconds (honest you guys, it was like 30 seconds) to write a thank you note, just around the corner from me was my child, scooping handfuls of cat food from the bowl and shoving them into her mouth. She seems to really LOVE cat food. It was 30 seconds...AND, I had, moments before, set the cat food UP, onto the second step of the cat's condo. And you know what, that little stinker was like, "It's all good, I'll just climb this doo-hickey and get my cat food that way!" And that's where I found her, knee up on the first carpeted step of Major's condo, diving into his bowl of food like it was popcorn.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6....
I read a really great article from Poets & Writers magazine about meditating before writing. The author of the post sits cross-legged on a pillow every morning, and clears her mind by continuously counting backwards from 10. If any other thoughts muddle into the sequence, she starts from scratch. Only when she can get through numerous cycles with a clear mind does she finally sit at a table and write.
I am wondering what my blood pressure is right now.
The cat food incident was just the start of a series of calamities, which included the same aforementioned precious child pulling my tepid (thankfully) mug of tea off the side table with a graceful sweep of her arm that was just so matter-of-fact, so, "well, this is what I'll do next, I guess!" in its intentions. Just before that (in between the cat food, prior to the spilt tea- are you following?) was our coloring activity. A sweep of crayon on scrap paper, then a sweep of crayon on the rug. "No honey, not the rug. On the PAPER. See? THE PAPER." Pudgy hand switched to the green crayon. Sweep of crayon on the paper, sweep of crayon on the rug. "No darling, not on the rug! On the paper, sweetie!"
I am particularly pleased that Jim and I have, for the most part, stuck with Ikea and Target for our rugs and prefab furniture. Because it means that I honestly don't care that we now have Crayola wax smeared on our rug. But I always remember the time I babysat for this filthy rich couple, I'm talking crazy, crazy rich (like, pile of unopened gifts in the playroom because the kids had a gazillion other toys and felt no thrill at the thought of any more toys, imagine that?) and the boy started drawing on one of their nice dining room chair cushions. And I said, "Oh Tommy! Here, let's draw on this instead," just as the mother walked into the room, and she said, "No, Lindsay, it's fine if they draw on those! We can always get new ones!" I could not believe it at the time, and remain not-okay with this principle today. Ellie is still too young to go to town with her crayons, even though she does get off to a good start and has produced some lovely works thus far. But I would like her to not have it infused into her head that we can color anywhere we like. Anyways, I am acting like this Crayola-rug incident was a big deal. It really wasn't, so I'll move on.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5...
Following the tea spill, and the sarcastic text to Jim about it being a lovely time to run out of paper towel, followed by another text asking, "Oh my God are you on your way home now?" after the child tried sticking her head through the wooden design on the back of a dining room chair, I finally returned to dinner preparations. It was not a complicated dinner (and a rather good one, might I add), but it was made harder since I was allowed to only do pivot turns between the stove top and the sink whilst my supporting leg remained wedged between the amazingly-tight grip of two chubby little toddler arms. Finally Jim got home, and we ate, but not before Ellie took her first plate of food while we ran around getting silverware and napkins and threw it onto the floor. With another attempt of frisbeeing her second plate of food, we called it a night, did our pj's-set-the-timer-read-a-book routine, and put her to bed.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4...
It was not even a bad day. And now, where I sit in the darkness on the floor, I don't feel that things are bad. But there are moments now with this kiddo where she is moving in super fast motion whilst the rest of the evening unfolds in super slow motion and she is always two seconds ahead of me. We had a good day together, we started a 10 week toddler class at a center near here, which she seemed to enjoy (though she broke away during the singing circle time to go play with all the naked baby dolls across the room, because that is waaaayyyy cooler than puppets and rainmakers). But I am beginning to realize, now that we are a good 14 months old, that we are in need of structured activities every possible second. Because after Ellie got up from her nap this afternoon, she didn't want to just sit and play with her toys, even though I really WISHED she could just sit and play with her toys (hence my futile attempt to drink a cup of tea. Silly me, don't know what I was thinking there!). And, I have to say, I busted my butt TRYING to come up with activities myself. I pulled out some jello that we made over the weekend. She enjoyed playing with it yesterday, but today, no dice. It was too cold, and wiggly, and jello-y, I guess, so that didn't work. Then I tried the crayons, and well, we've already been over that. I tried really screechy and horrible nursery rhyme music and even prepped a tower of blocks for destruction. Not. Good. Enough.
This was all after 3 pm, people, just for a frame of reference.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3....
Last week I chose to sit on the floor in the closet for this exercise. But today I am enjoying the kitchen. Jim is in our bedroom putting away the other loads of laundry that I managed to do earlier, and like I said, the hum and churn of the washer/dryer is actually quite comforting, though every few minutes (like just now, did you hear her?) Ellie lets out an unhappy squeal from her attached room. I swear, every plate I washed and set in the drying rack, particularly a small ceramic tea bag holder (after Jim and I sat back down to enjoy the rest of our cold dinner), slid onto it's side, or crashed back INTO the sink on top of another ceramic plate, while just on the other side of the wall I was expecting my incredibly exhausted child to calmly drift off to sleep. Did one of you set that up as a joke? Am I on Candid Camera?
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2...
"Um..." I open my eyes and find Jim standing inches from me, a mischievous grin on his face, "I was wondering if perhaps you were moving the fridge over to the other side of the room just then? Or switching it with the washer?"
It makes me laugh. I slug him and haul myself up onto my feet. "It was this piece!" I hold up our small ceramic tea bag holder, the main instigator of all the ruckus. "Blame this piece!"
My countdown never made it to 1. But my hand did make it to a glass of wine.
So.....other mamas out there, I need some help. What do you do with your toddlers on a January day?
There is nothing like coming back home to your trusty cat
Ellie and I went to the park today on our way home from Walgreens. It was very mild out and surprisingly there was only one other child there. Of course, it was early afternoon and probably naptime for all the other children in Roscoe Village (meanwhile it is now past 5:30 and my child is flopping around in exhaustion on the floor...).
Jim surprised me this weekend with NEW iphones for us. Such a treat! We've been playing around with the cameras in these things, and I was texting pictures to Jim from the park. At one point he replied by saying that there are moments when he still can't believe that Eleanor is in our lives. I couldn't agree more, and I felt the same way watching her toddle around the playground.
We had friends over yesterday and it was actually difficult at times because Ellie was in need of a nap and into everything she could get her hands on. We were trying to decorate a gingerbread house, and it was just too much, even with Jim and me tag teaming our toddler supervising. We still enjoyed having everyone over, but in hindsight I should have just smeared frosting on a gingerbread man and called it a day in my decorating efforts :-). Then Ellie and I have a day like today, when we have great moments playing together AND I still manage to get things done (I made tomorrow night's dinner this morning, for example). I can't help but feel like the luckiest lady in the world to have such an amazing little girl in my world.
And I work very hard to not post every picture I take of my daughter on Facebook, just so you all know. :-)
A few weeks ago we snatched up a groupon deal for a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin. $116 got us a one night's stay, and included in the deal was a $50 room service/restaurant credit. It was a bit of a gamble, deciding to spend a night away from home (after all, there is no crib like one's own) and in a time of many variables (from Ellie's point of view- "I'm happy, I'm crabby, I'm sleepy, I'M NOT SLEEPY!"). Jim and I have thought back over the last few months and have decided there are several things we should have just bit the bullet and DONE over the summer, like going to a Cub's game with Ellie in tow, for example. So, that was one force driving the decision to buy this groupon deal- we were willing to take a stab at an adventurous weekend. Another pleasing aspect was the fact that it was for Madison, Wisconsin. In the five and a half years that I have lived in Chicago, I had yet to venture the hour north into Wisconsin territory. Pathetic, yes, and I was ready to change that.
So last Saturday we hung around here until it was time for Ellie's nap, then loaded up the car and trekked north. We had a most fabulous time. We strolled around near the capit0l building, did some window shopping, ate some Italian food, and swam in the hotel pool. I think what made the trip successful was that we didn't try to make it any more elaborate than we three could handle. So while for some, driving 2 1/2 hours to casually walk around downtown Madison might seem like the most boring thing one could do, for us, it was great! And what we saw of Madison was lovely.
A challenge with being in a new area with a toddler is that it can be hard to determine what restaurants are baby friendly. We restaurant-shopped until we saw some kids sitting in high chairs at the Mia Francesca (which also exists here in Chicago, but oh well) and had a really yummy dinner (the kid loves pasta. Who knew?). Miraculously, Ellie slept well in the hotel's pack and play, waking just once in the middle of the night and quickly falling back to sleep. Jim and I ordered drinks to the room after she fell asleep and spent the evening watching college football (perfect, since we didn't want the TV volume to be up too high).
The next morning we went to the Madison Children's Museum, and then we drove home while Ellie napped. It was even the easiest trip back into the city that we have ever had. So, lesson learned. Every so often, it pays to take a chance.
Why hello there.
It has been a while, and in that while my husband and I dabbled in the world of "what else can we do with my blog?" and basically, as you can see, we are mostly back to where we started. Okay, well I changed the background, but only because it seemed slightly pathetic to have made the attempt to create something fancy and to be completely back to square one with the boring page we started with. So, here you go. We are now orange.
There are other blog hosting sites that have some really cool premade designs (because hell if I know how to do any of that on my own!). We got really close to importing the site into another platform, but couldn't figure out how to get the photographs to transfer over. Then we just gave up after I slunk about the house with a newly developed tic because I had no way to create a blog post. It was as though we decided to upgrade our living room furniture and spent many afternoons saturated in the task of finding a gorgeous coffee table in the right finish, only then to consider that in the center of the room currently sits a large inflatable duck bathtub converted into a plastic ball pit, so we might as well just stick with our scratched Ikea stuff. That is basically what happened when we tried to fancy up this website.
Oh well, we tried. And maybe we will try again some day in the future. I have come to the conclusion that I will never, I repeat never, get up to speed in the world of technology. I am a broken covered wagon stuck in the mud and choking on the exhaust of the Formula One race cars zooming past. If anything ever breaks in this house, and Jim is away, then it will just have to stay broken until he returns. This is why I keep buying notebooks when they go on sale- for the day when my laptop breathes its last and I can no longer use Word.
Since I last posted, we have been pretty boring so you didn't miss much. The baby turned 10 months old last weekend so I have her 10 month letter to post. We spent a day in Kalamazoo with my family which was nice, and my husband celebrated a birthday. Major keeps meowing, and trying to change the baby's diaper is now like trying to catch an eel with my bare hands. She now also shakes her head "no," and points to what she wants. The pointing is cool. I don't think we are ready for the "no" part yet, though! The most glorious part of everything is that it is finally fall, our favorite season. This means slow cooker meals and soups and long sleeves. I transitioned my closet over to fall and winter clothes yesterday. I am so ready!
Hope everyone has a good start to their week!
There are times when I really don't give a cat's ear if our house is messy. Contrary to what you may think, I actually embrace these moments because, well, they confirm that I am not a crazy lunatic clean freak. I may sometimes ACT like a crazy lunatic clean freak, but overall I don't think I deserve such a label. The state of one's home often reflects the state of one's mind, and on days when I am trying to get too much done while at the same time making sure the baby is not ingesting any chemicals, then suddenly the junk mail and three day old newspapers littered over our kitchen counter simply put me over the edge.
And when this happens, it isn't pretty.
But lookie here, at the state of our house this very minute:
Here is the beautiful thing- I. Don't. Care! Maybe it is because of the 3 day weekend, and knowing that Jim will be home with us tomorrow. Or maybe it is because no one is due in for a visit in the near future. Whatever the explanation, I have really enjoying being a big slob this weekend.
The dining room table has even been taken over by computers today, which looks absolutely atrocious. What we wouldn't give for a little cozy office, I tell you. We plan to do some furniture rearranging tomorrow, so our desktop computer will hopefully have a new home.
Speaking of a new home, one of our projects at the moment is working on this blog, so I won't be posting on Wishful Slacker for a few days. We hope to have it up and running again next weekend. We have other important things to do around here, like flipping our mattress and making Snickerdoodle cookies and once again keeping the baby away from chemicals (God, it's everyday with that one! What gives?!). And maybe, just maybe, if the mood hits, I might tidy up.
(But hopefully I won't.)
By the way, everyone keeps their Gerber baby cookies near the Smirnoff, right?
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