Friday, January 30, 2009

Earthquake!

Everyone under your desk!

I wonder if that is still what they tell school children. We used to have earthquake drills in elementary school where they would yell "Earthquake, earthquake" over the loudspeaker and you had to get under your desk, face away from the windows and cover your head with their hand.

This morning I woke up to the bed shaking. I thought, maybe it's an earthquake but figured it was most likely my imagination or something strange about coming out of a dream. But no! It was a real earthquake. I used to really want to experience a "big one" but now that I have kids, I have to say I really would just prefer boring, normal life.

In other news, I decided against Lasik and went for contacts. I'm not super big on sticking my finger in my eye, but otherwise it is going ok so far. My optomitrist said we'll probably have to play with the prescription some to find one that will sit on my eye correctly. I have an astigmatism so its tricky, I guess.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

I wish I had a baby mind reading device

So, even though both of the kids talk, quite a bit actually and sometimes to the point of being annoying, they rarely tell me anything useful. If you ask them directly about something, they will almost always instead tell you about one of their toys. You can ask yes or no questions, but you can easily get them to tell you that aliens pushed them down the stairs and made them cry. It goes something like this.

Mom: Why are you sad?
Child: Crying
Mom: Did you get hurt?
Child: Shakes head affirmatively
Mom: How did you get hurt?
Child: Crying
Mom: Did you fall on the stairs (lets assume here that you heard loud thumping coming from the stairs)
Child: Shakes head affirmatively
Mom: How did you fall? Did you trip?
Child: Shakes head no
Mom: Did someone push you (already suspecting the sibling)
Child: Yes, they did.
Mom: Who
Child: The bad people
Mom: What bad people?
Child: The ones like Buzz Lightyear
Mom: What do you mean? Like toys?
Child: No. They fly.
Mom: Spacemen?
Child: Yes, flying spacemen pushed me and it hurt. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Anyway, Kiera is still screaming when being put to bed (not every night mind you) and waking up at night. I was up for an hour with her last night. I have no idea why. Is she going through some kind of new phase of separation anxiety? Is she just really tired? Did I cave incorrectly one night and now she knows my weakness? Is she in pain? Is she scared? If only she could actually tell me what the actual problem is. Of course, maybe she is, maybe all she really wants is for me to rub her back all night long. Sigh. Yet another point of contention for Jeff and I. He thinks we should let her scream indefinitely, I am not so cool with that. We let her cry for 30 min tonight, he went in and rubbed her back, she cried for another 5 min and went to sleep. Let's hope she stays asleep tonight. Jeff and I are going to kill each other if we can't get a decent night's sleep.

On the bright side, I had the kids to myself on Fri night so we rented a movie and made popcorn. It was fun for me and them. But really how can you go wrong with hot, buttered popcorn?

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

that girl has a set of lungs

Last night I accidentally woke up Kiera when I was checking on her before going to bed myself. This resulted in her refusing to go to bed for almost FOUR HOURS! Ok, I probably should have let her scream for a while sooner but here is my defense:

a. She has only very rarely cried herself to sleep and only when it is wimpy cries
b. I was really tired myself and not thinking clearly
c. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. I am not exaggerating. We're talking full lung power, hysterical, you are torturing me and you are the worst mommy in the world screaming. Not to mention rattling her cage when left unattended.
d. I didn't want her to wake up Bob. I don't know why I ever worry about this since he could probably sleep through the end of the world.
e. It is really hard to listen to anyone, especially your sweet, little baby scream like a banshee.

Anyway, eventually I put her down and she screamed for about 20 min at which point I went in, rubbed her back and she fell asleep. And yes, I'd tried that several times earlier. Jeff got super pissed at me which I can understand since I was pissed at myself. But we kept arguing about what to do with her and every time the other would get fed up and decide to let her cry, the other would go in and pick her up. Well, at least I can look forward to sleeping tonight. We are definitely entering 2 year old territory and I think she's going to be a lot harder because she has very strong opinions. But I like that about her so I'll try to be cool and roll with it.