Tag: calgon moment

Summer Colds

(image)

Summer colds rank up there with broken air conditioning, a hole in the inflatable pool, and ice cream that melts too quickly to enjoy it.  In other words, it really, really sucks.

Saturday and into Sunday, little V was running a high fever.  She was listless, droopy, and clingy. Her skin was angry and hot to the touch.  She had a runny nose, runny eyes and I was keeping my fingers crossed that it was just some teeth trying to break through and nothing else. After talking to the doctor on call, who assured me it just a virus that would pass by Monday, we rode out the rest of the -ick as best we could.  Babies and wee ones can’t expectorate (that’s fancy talk for hock a loogie), so my job as a parent is to spray saline in those tiny nostrils to loosen the gunk so it’ll slide down her nasal passages and (I guess) be absorbed by her body.  Saline spray + baby nostrils = wrangling cats.

We wrangled, V and I, as I lay an arm across her chest and tried to steady her head with my other hand. She wanted no parts of it, despite my soothing and pleading.  Telling a one year old “Let me help you” and “This will make you feel better” is pointless.  They see you coming at them with something other than food or comfort, they are out of there. Blessedly, I got her situated, and she knew that it was too her benefit because when she took her first unobstructed breath, it was like, “Ohhhhh, I see what you did there.”  Of course, her short term memory is just that — short term, because it was the same struggle for the next dosage.

Here we are on Wednesday and I’ve got some kind of summer foolishness percolating in my throat.  It’s been hibernating since the week-end, I’m pretty sure. I’m trying to douse it with cough drops, Tylenol, and Dimetapp. I asked the pharmacist at the Rite Aid for some OTC remedies and he suggested the Tylenol, pitching my water bottle since leaving water bottles in the hot car can be a breeding ground for bacteria.  He even suggested gargling with salt water.  Which I did.  You know it’s bad if I voluntarily gargle with salt water.  What I need is rest and fluids, one of which comes far more easily than the other.

I’m trying to find the silver lining in it all:  At least V is on the mend. At least the M & C didn’t get it.  At least it’s not strep.  Better to have a sore throat now than something worse later on in the summer.  Yeah, I’m not really doing that well at convincing myself either, but that’s how I’m occupying my time between bouts of Tylenol and gargling.

Continue Reading
IN: ON: June 27, 2013 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
Continue Reading

List

(image)

I’m a planner. I like to make lists. I like to cross things off of my lists. I like to make a list and transfer non-congruent items from one list to another list so that like items are grouped together.

It’s a little OCD. I know that and I’m cool with it. I’ve got a list of reasons why (kidding).

I was on Twitter the other day, which in and of itself is an action I still can’t believe I’m about. Anyway, my girl Yo twatted twittered tweeted that an entry on her bucket list is to “dive off of a yacht”.  I love everything about that and all that implies.  It’s not like you’ve got a yacht in your backyard, right? Well, maybe you do.  For us mere mortals, in order to get to a place where you are diving off of a yacht, you have to consider all of the dynamics that get you from where you are sitting right now, to looking over the edge of a luxury sea vessel, about to do a Greg Louganis into the ocean.

Seriously, I read that tweet and was completely overcome by a feeling of delicious luxury and indulgence as I pictured myself doing a swan dive from the bow (prow? — let’s call it the back).  In my head, I’m a bronzed, bikinied, vision of aquatic strength, but we all know, I’m more likely to take a running leap and cannonball into the ocean.  Whatever, I’m sure I’d be all Andy Samberg about it.

(FYI, these lyrics are NSFW)

But back to the idea of yacht diving and it’s place on a bucket list.  When the movie of the same name featuring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman came out in 2007, there was a considerable upswing in conversations about the creation and fulfillment of bucket lists.  In 2007, I was a 26 years old, a new mom,  so ideas of squeezing in lots of stuff in before I die wasn’t high on my list of priorities.  I ended up seeing the movie several years later, probably one lazy afternoon as I plowed through several buckets of laundry.  The premise, for those of you who don’t know, is about two terminally ill men who take a road trip to fulfill some longstanding adventures before they “kick the bucket”.  A Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman road trip movie? Not bad.  Still, I didn’t feel compelled to make a list of my own.

The hubs and I created a board several years ago of things and experiences that we’d like to have.  It didn’t matter if we didn’t achieve these goals before we die; I doubt me and my halo would be floating  on a cloud with my lip poked out.  The board we dubbed the “S#*! I Want” board. Classy, right?  It was kind of like an art project. The hubs and I sat down with some magazines one day and just cut and pasted things shit things we’d like to experience.  The hubs put a picture of the US Open because he’d like to take his dad to all of the Grand Slams.  I put a picture of a piano because I’d like to learn how to play.  He put a picture of some gold bars to represent financial security.  I put a picture of the Rosetta Stone language system because I’d like to be fluent in French (quelle surprise).  The tri-fold board stayed in our closet and we would look at it from time to time, checking off images if we accomplished them.  We shared the idea of the board with some friends, one of whom made one and began steadily ticking things off, much to her and our delight.

When we moved, the board came with us.  Over time, with the demands of work, children and daily life, it just sat, a cardboard sentinel keeping watch over our clothes and shoes in the closet.  As we settled into the house, the board was soon hidden behind stacks of winter clothes and blankets, or summer clothes and beach bags, depending on the season.  Pretty soon, all that you could see of it was the uppermost left corner and a meticulously cut, pasted on image of a pair of red-soled Bianca’s (guess who pasted that up there?). Fast forward to several months ago and the great closet re-do.  When everything came out of the closet, so too did the board.  The hubs and I looked at it, running our fingers over the things we’d seen and done, as well as those things that were still left to do.  Somehow, by some unspoken agreement, we decided to say good-bye to the board.

While the hubs may have outgrown the need for a physical reminder, I still like the idea of having something to reference when I’m feeling like the light at the end of the tunnel is the express train to CrazyTown.  So, I’m making my own bucket list, and because I’m all craft-tastic, I got on Pinterest and found this. . .
(image)

Part of me feels like this list is going to be personal, that it should be kept private, but I do love a Pinterest craft challenge! I suppose having some ideas (beyond yacht diving) to put in the bucket would help. 

I guess I’m going to have to come up with a list for that.

Continue Reading
IN: ON: October 25, 2012 TAGS: , , , , BY: Hilary
Continue Reading

Getting Schooled

I encourage the girls to spend time playing either on the own or together. Usually after a busy day of school, some kind of after-school activity, miscellaneous running around and the like, we get home in that magical witching hour of post-homework/pre-dinner.  It’s a crap-tastic time filled with whining, huffing and puffing, and eye rolling.  And then, there’s the routine that the girls go through.  I kid (no, not really. No, really).  
In any event, once all the school related stuff (making lunches, homework, assorted notices filled out or filed), has been taken care of, I need to move onto the next phase of the day: dinner time. Usually, I have a plan in my head of what’ll be on the menu. If I’ve really been on my game, I’ve already got some kind of protein defrosted or some vegetables in various stages of being cut up.  It’s when I’ve got my hand up a chicken’s keister trying to take out the giblets when Mo and Co tromp into the kitchen to announce how bored they are.  
They’ve got book — theirs and the ones from the library. 
They’ve got dolls.
They’ve got markers, crayons, colored pencils and pads upon pads of paper. 
They’ve got LeapFrog reading systems that will READ.TO.THEM.
They’ve got sidewalk chalk, jumpropes, and bubbles so that they can GO.OUTSIDE.
But no, they don’t want any of that.  They want me to entertain them. Oh, and did I mention that they’re hungry? 

Here, watch Mommy do some soft-shoe while she de-bones a chicken and blanches some asparagus. 

Anyway, in order to distract them from oogling what I’m making and then issuing proclamations of “I’m not eating that!”, I told them to go upstairs and play. 
Cue the girls going boneless, sinking to the floor as they strike up a chorus of “Do we have to?” and “I don’t want to” and “Why do you get to watch TV all the time and we never get to do anything fun.”
I’m not really interested in outlining the ways in which they live a cake-walk existence, but I do want to nip this rudeness in the bud.  So, while they pause for breath between rants, I very firmly, but very gently remind them that I’m not one of their little friends that they can talk to any which way.  
“And for the record,” I tell them, waving chicken parts in the air to emphasize my point,” I know that you would never talk to your teachers that way, being all rude and disrespectful, so please don’t do it here.”
“Now, go upstairs until I call you for dinner.  And work on those disrespectful attitudes.” As they stomped up the stairs, I called after them, “Oh, I know! Go play school and practice in your workbooks!”  Yeah, they’ll love doing that.  
Some how, oh miracle of miracles, they stayed upstairs busily entertaining themselves.  Dinner got made, the table was set, the plates put in the places.  When I called them down to eat, they came enthusiastically without complaint.  As they headed to the table, Morgan handed me a piece of paper and said, “Oh, here. We were playing school. It’s a note from Co’s teacher.”
I’m going to need a straight-jacket and a rubber room before they’re out of elementary school.
Continue Reading
IN: ON: April 30, 2012 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
Continue Reading

Just Not Write Now

Between the move, the putting together the photos from the wedding Kendall and I shot this week-end, Gram’s 90th birthday in MA, the Rebel Race in MD, and the end of school for the girls, I am riding the express train to CrazyTown!  Hardly have to time to compose my thoughts, let alone get them from brain to blog, so please excuse my absence.  In the meantime, check out my archives or some of my favorite bloggers, both listed at right. 
Continue Reading
IN: ON: June 6, 2011 TAGS: BY: Hilary
Continue Reading

Cause and Effect

Mommy will help you strip the sheets off and carry them downstairs to the laundry room. She’ll even get your load started by turning on the water and adding the soap. After that, you’re on your own. 
First, separate the flat sheet from the fitted sheet.
Throw it in the washing machine.
Take the other one and throw that in, too.
 Throw that in there.
Stuff it all down and try to close the lid. 
Very sweetly, ask Mommy for some help, which, of course, she will give. 
 Then promise not to take off your Pull-Up in the middle of the night, 
“just to see what will happen”, 
ever 
again.
 
Continue Reading
IN: ON: August 13, 2010 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
Continue Reading

Get Lost! No, really. . .

Aside from those two little throw-away entries the other day, I’ve been pretty negligent of the blog lately. It’s not like I’ve been off scaling Mount Kilimanjaro or skiing in the Swiss Alps, or even using the tickets to that thing I love.” I’ve been at home. Reading books, and. . . watching television.

The book is ruse; I only use it to pass the time between commercials.
Since leaving school, I’ve often been asked, “What are you going to do now?” Quite surprisingly, I’ve answered, “Nothing. I’m just going to do nothing”. In fact, the first day post-school, I dropped the girls off at their respective institutions, came home, brewed some coffee and sat. I sat, sat, sat. No TV, no book, no texting, no laptop. For about 45 minutes, I just sat and existed.
Lord, it was the hardest thing ever.
In my head, I ran through list after list of things I needed to do or could be doing. After about 15 minutes of listening to my id, ego and superego hash it out, I told them all to shut the hell up. I just gave in to the morning quiet, sipped my coffee and thought, “So this is what people think SAHMS do all day.” I could get used to this.
And then, I turned on the television.
The TV has been my undoing. I don’t consider myself a big TV watcher; I can count on one hand the shows that I watch (Nip/Tuck, Big Love, Big Bang Theory). Plus, we only have one TV, and two very small TV junkies (you know them as Mo and Co), so there isn’t a lot of watching going on unless I want them to look like this:

But, seeing as I’m an adult and can control myself (cue sarcasm detection device), I can have the TV on whenever I want. As a result, I have been glued to the television trying to catch up to the current season of “Lost“.

Seriously? Have you seen this show? Am I the only person on the planet who is late coming into this? Why hasn’t anyone told me that I would get sucked into a vortex of my own. I blame Christy — she blogged about it (and for the record, my vote in no particular order would be Jin, Sayid, and Desmond). Basically, my curiosity was piqued with a excavator and here we are.
I’m feeling like this show has my attention the way a certain *ahem* series of vampire novels did. I’ve turned into a dog on a bone with this. Somehow, I’ve downloaded all available seasons from Netflix. I find myself getting up early under the premise of folding laundry so that I can watch another episode. I make sure the girls get their afternoon quiet time so I can watch an episode. When DH comes to me, apologetically saying that he has to work late tonight or take a conference call after dinner, I gently kiss his face and say, “Don’t worry about it,” before scooting off to watch another episode.
I need help.
I think I’m going to unplug the television.
Who am I kidding?
I can watch it on Hulu.
Continue Reading
IN: ON: February 13, 2010 TAGS: BY: Hilary
Continue Reading
1 2