I'm Still Alive

I swear, not being able to blog from my work computer means almost no time to blog at all! And it would take too long for me to use my iPhone keyboard to type you a full entry!

So this is my first post as a "secret blo

gger". My mom still hasn't said anything about it being blocked, which means she must not have tried to check it lately. I'm planning on telling her that a student found it. I'm still pretending like I have no idea what she said about me behind my back. While it bothers me a little bit, I'm pretty much over it. If she doesn't want to share her issues with me, it just makes my life that much easier. :P

Max:

So Max has been keeping us pretty busy:

• I feel like he's constantly got a cold right now. Ick.
• He's been teething. He's now up to 7 teeth! OY!
• He's wearing age 18-24 month clothes. They're a bit big, but by January they'll fit just right.
• At his last well-child check he was in the 99th percentile for height. If we were to calculate his adult height right now, he'd be 6'6" as an adult. LOL! Let's hope it's a few inches less than that. But not too much shorter.... ;)
• He's crawling like a pro and pulling himself up on everything. He's just starting to get the concept of taking steps. We've been putting shoes on him every day for stability.
• He waves hello to dogs, lawnmowers, and mommy and daddy. Everyone else is chopped liver. :)
• He seems very close to saying "dog". He says, "Doh". He also seems to understand Mama and Dada are actually us. And he says "Baba" for bottle.
• We carved pumpkins last night. Max loved the "goop". :)
• He likes to try just about everything we eat. He loves chicken nuggets...sort of. He'll gobble them up, chew on them for a few minutes, and then spit out whatever is left. Kinda gross, but also kinda funny.
• We are taking him trick-or-treating tonight to our neighbors. He is dressing as Dr. Erdahl. A friend of my mom's bought him the outfit when he was born. It's a 2T. I can't believe my baby is almost 1 and is getting ready to celebrate his first Halloween!!!!!
• I'm in the process of planning his first birthday party. I'm afraid not much family will be able to come. If you'd like to attend, let me know. I'm not planning on sending out many "friend" invitations. But you're always welcome. I'm thinking of theming it around dogs. Since he loves them so much. Now to decide if I'm making my own dog cake....hmmmm...

Me

• Leaving for Washington D.C. in less than a week. We leave on Tuesday morning at 6 am. We have a group of three boys that didn't make the deadline for turning things in for the trip. One of the moms has decided that she's going to drive them herself. They are going to follow our buses. RI-DIC-U-LOUS! I can't believe these parents are allowing this. You didn't get your money in on time, therefore, you can't go. They're all getting 4 days of unexcused absences and will be forbidden from speaking to the rest of the kids on the trip. What fun is that?
• I've been feeling overwhelmed and exhausted all the time lately. I don't hate my job, but I can't say I love it right now either. I hate that I don't get to spend my days with Max. He's doing find at daycare, but it makes me sad to think I'm missing these days. I have to find a way to job share next year. My fear is that it won't happen.
• We've been officially trying for baby #2 since about July now and still no success. I can't say that we're trying TOO hard though. Every month I say I would be surprised if I was actually pregnant. We're going to get really serious around Christmas. Jessica is trying for baby #2 and Natalie is too, and I'd really like to be pregnant at the same time as someone and have kids that are close in age. Please don't ask how things are going though in the future. We're planning on hitting up the fertility guys in February if we don't get pregnant on our own. I'll let you know when it happens.
• I've been feeling like my house is "old" lately. I am itching to do some remodeling and redecorating inside. I think this winter's goals are to take the wallpaper down in the laundry room and the powder room and to give them both a more modern look. I also want to gut the sink and floor out of the powder room too. I'd also like to paint our bedroom and bathroom and update the fixtures. Really, I want to gut the whole bathroom upstairs, but that will have to wait for a couple of years. This short term fix should do for now.
• Our next major purchase HAS to be a king sized bed. Kendall and I both have back aches on a daily basis and we've slept on too many kings lately to keep sleeping on our queen. We want more space. :)

Hope this is enough of an update for now! Probably get

back to you in a few weeks. Here's a picture of Max with the pumpkin goop!

Excited

Okay, so this might sound weird, but I'm already starting to get excited for November and December to come around. I'm definitely a fan of fall and winter weather, I look forward to school delays and cancelations and I find my best clothes come from those seasons. But this year it's all about Max.

For the last year and a half, I have imagined what it would be like to have a child at the holidays. This time last year, I was still pregnant. Big, miserable, sweaty, huge legs and feet, and ready to pop the little guy out. Even the day after Thanksgiving, I was out hoofing it with a giant belly. And I know that I "had" Max last Christmas, but he was like 3 weeks old and a little blob. A cute little blob, but still a blob. But now, the holidays are really just around the corner. And I can't wait!

I imagine the delight on his face as he eats his first bites of turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I imagine him watching us from his car seat and clapping to the Christmas songs while Kendall and I sing along in the car. I can see us chasing after him as he almost pulls down one of the 4 Christmas trees we have in the house. And I can almost imagine how amazing it will be to tuck him in on Christmas Eve and hide his presents from Santa under the tree for the first time.

I know that we still have 107 days until Christmas, but I'm already feeling the holiday spirits come on me, knowing that FINALLY we will start our own holiday traditions with our little boy. :)

Just One Question

When the frick in this hot weather going to go away??????

For those of you working in air conditioning- No booing this question. Because it's flippin' nasty in my school building!!!!!

Politics

Let me start by saying I don't think Obama is a socialist who is trying to take over our country. I don't believe in the Obama Army. I don't believe he's trying to push a bill through Congress that gives him control of the Internet like China's dictator has. I don't think he's a Nazi. And I think people who do believe these things don't do enough research to get the real answers. So this week has put me in two situations involving politics and President Obama that annoy me.

1. My mother-in-law wants to go to a Tea Party on Saturday. That's fine. It's your constitutional right to bitch. But I've already voiced my opinion to her that I don't agree with her political opinions. And yet she felt the need last Sunday to tell me that she feels we should be going to this tea party too. She even tried to show me the flier. I just ignored her. I didn't know what else to do short of saying, "I don't think Obama is a socialist Nazi who is trying to become a dictator." I get so annoyed with the fact that she just won't respect that I have extremely different views on the world than she does. *sigh* If I end up in a concentration camp, then she can tell me, "I told you so." Until then, please stop pushing your politics on me! It won't work

2. Our building principal sent out an email about Obama's address to school children that is coming up on Tuesday. He told us that if we were going to allow students to watch the address we needed to send home a letter to each parent and have an alternative assignment ready for any student whose parents didn't want them to watch the address. I guess several parents have already called the building saying they won't send their children to school that day if teachers are showing it.

Here's my issue- we show Channel One (a student news program) every day. Does the principal not think that Channel One will be covering this address the day AFTER he gives it? Will we not be showing Channel One that day? Isn't that censorship??? Will parents be keeping their kids home from school any time President Obama is on Channel One? Since he's going to be the president for the next four years, don't they think he's going to be on the news quite a bit?

Furthermore, did these parents do any research? The White House has specifically said that it is not about his political agenda, it's about studying hard and staying in school. Bush senior gave an address like this 8 years ago. Ronald Reagan gave a politically charged speech to students about taxes during his term. I somehow doubt Obama is going to ask children to stand up and unite against Republicans. I'm not worried about some secret subliminal message. What is the hoopla about? One sentence in a lesson plan from the Department of Education that said, "students draft letters to themselves discussing 'what they can do to help the president'"? I don't think they meant join the "Obama Army". I think they meant, how can they help him further his educational agenda for children to stay in school. I read the lesson plan. It's not bad. I think it's unfortunate that people have put anything and everything that this administration does under a microscope, looking for things they can jump on.

When I told our building principal (who's a Republican) that Bush senior and Reagan had both given addresses like this in the past he said, "Oh." Idiot. This is the same man who told me I couldn't wear my Obama t-shirt to school during the election, when just four years before he had worn his Bush/Cheney polo to school almost every week.

I think what really outrages me is that it feels like he's only doing this because he hates Obama. He didn't even send the email about getting parent permission until TODAY. How does that give me time to draft a letter and get it to parents before Tuesday on a LONG WEEKEND? I think the parent phone calls are a convenient excuse.

Whether you agree with me or not, I just felt the need to vent these things. I find our current political climate very frustrating and hostile. I question what the country's sentiment would be right now if McCain had been elected. Would we really be in some magic kingdom where everything was fixed? I don't think so. What I'd really like to see happening right now is less resistance and more willingness to work TOGETHER to find solutions. That goes for the Obama Administration and the Republicans.

Monday Monday

• It really irritates me when people call me up (telemarketers) and act like they immediately know more than me about a topic. For example, we keep getting these phone calls from a bunch of different companies that buy your time share weeks in case you won't use them. They try to give you a song and dance about how you'll make 10K by selling your time. Now even an idiot would know you're going to get taxed on that money. So when I asked the guy today how I was supposed to get around that, he snottily replied, "Well it's not like your going to make 30 grand off this transaction," I snottily replied back, "Yea, but when you're already in an upper tax bracket, every penny counts. And 10 grand is a lot of pennies." That shut him up.
• Which leads me to my next point- you can't always judge someone based on what the own. It goes both ways. Just because someone drives a BMW, it doesn't mean they're loaded- they could be eating Ramen to drive that car. And just because I only paid for a small time share doesn't mean that I'm some desperate idiot who can't afford their vacation plan and needs to sell it to you when I can bank it for two extra years with RCI. Grrrrr....
• My poor baby is sick. I'm confident it's from that breeding ground of disease known as daycare. In the two weeks he's been there he's already had a bout of diarrhea and is now at home with a cough, fever and double ear infection. *sigh* I had to leave work early to get him. I can't afford to keep doing this if I want to have another kid.
• Speaking of work- my morning kids are going to be a total pain in my butt, but my afternoon kids are starting to ROCK. I hope it's enough to get me through the year.
• We took Max to the zoo for the first time yesterday. Got to see the BABY ELEPHANT. Super cute. :) I'll leave you with some pictures from the trip.

Max loved peeking at us through these holes

.

He got to see lions and tigers AND bears. Oh my!

Hello baby elephant!!!!

We thought it was hilarious that he wanted to pet the fake statues in the zoo. He also enjoyed pulling the hair on the goats in the petting zoo. Sooooo glad that the goats were patient!

Poor Farley

My mom had to make the difficult decision to put her dog down today. He has been blind for quite a while now because of glaucoma, and the doctor warned her that his eyes would just get worse. So bad in fact, that the pressure would be painful and his eyes would eventually bulge and possibly pop out of his head. (Yea, gross. I know.) So she asked for the symptoms. The vet said he'd start rubbing his eyes a lot when they started to hurt. And last week, he started rubbing.

So instead of being selfish and dragging it out until his eyes were unbearable, she made the decision to put him down. She went to the vet tonight and my brother went with her, and they hugged him and kissed him and held him while he slowly went to sleep. Very sad. Very peaceful. Very hard on my mom.

I'm not quite sure what she'll do without him. She's so sad right now. I'm sad right now. Farley was a good dog. He went through some crazy times with my mom. And now she's alone. And that makes me sad. I wish I could do something. But being three hours away makes it hard. So I'm posting some pictures and videos of Max on my Mobile Me account through Mac and hoping that it helps cheer her up a bit.

I'm not sure when she'll get another dog, but I hope it' sometime soon. Not to dishonor his memory and place in her heart, but she needs something to come home to every day...and she's already told me a dog is easier than a man. (haha) So keep my mom in your thoughts and if you're the praying kind, keep her in your prayers. Because if you've ever been a dog person, you understand that a dog isn't a pet. It's a family member. And your heart feels a little empty when that friend is gone.

Poor Max!

I've been getting ready for school all week and taking Max to daycare. He hasn't seemed to mind it. The people there are really nice and almost all of the employees know him by name and tell me how happy and friendly Max is. It's very nice to hear. Even when he's tired or teething, he's still a smiley baby when he's there.

Yesterday I got a call that he had a slight fever and green diarrhea. I went to go get him and since then he has had crazy poops! He keeps leaking out the sides of his diapers! His little bottom has this horrible red rash all over it. We've done Desitin and Butt Paste and neither is relieving it because he just keeps pooping!!!!

On top of that, his two top teeth are coming in at the same time. They're so close! Definitely moving faster than his bottom teeth did.

But between his sore gums and his sore bottom, the poor kid is RAW and sleeping a lot. Last night he went to bed at 5 and we woke him up at 9 to put on his pjs and feed him. Tonight he went to bed at 6 and will get woken up at 9 again. My poor baby!!! At least we got this out of the way before school starts next week!