Random Sunday: Incognito, Grass, and Training

I know.  I have been off the grid for the most part for a while.  I have been working on a couple of projects that had back to back deadlines.  I cut those deadlines close but both stories were turned in on time.  Now it is time to wait and see if they make the cut to be published.  I will probably celebrate enough that a blog post will not be necessary if they do get published (I promise, I will post about it if either of them are selected for publication, including all the details of where and when they will be out).

My son was so funny this weekend.  We went camping, which he loves to do.  He was having issues this weekend with the wet grass on his hands, particularly when he tripped and needed to pick himself back up again.  Yet, he loved to pick up the various caterpillars we saw throughout the weekend.  He also held a leopard frog and a dragonfly over the weekend.  He loves water, so the wetness of the grass should not have been the issue.  So, what is it?  Maybe it is the prickliness of the grass?  Or the dirt?

I have to say, I actually enjoyed the quarterly staff training I sat in today more so than I have in the past two years.  I love my supervisor, who is running the training.  It is much more comical than previous ones.  He acts out the sarcastic responses to the different policies, such as staff safety, client searches, etc.  Then again, my supervisor cannot not do these kinds of things.  Which made the training on confidentiality, HIPPAA, mandated reporting, and the like a little more interesting since we have to sit through them pretty much every quarterly training.

Random Sunday: Nagging, Tomatoes, and Yoga

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like everything is nagging at you?  Today was one of those days for me.  Not that it was a bad day today.  It just felt like I couldn’t keep up.  From trying to get out the door to church this morning to cramming in last minute stuff before crashing tonight.  Even Mickey Mouse tapping his foot on my watch feels like he’s going “Come on, come on.  Hurry up”.  And when I start feeling pressured from a digital image of a cartoon mouse tapping his foot, I gotta take a lesson from that.  The only question that remains is, what lesson should I take?

Tomatoes.  I love attempting to grow tomatoes.  The problem is we moved the end of June last year.  Add to it I was still finishing the last of my Master’s, I didn’t get a chance to try to grow any last year.  Plus, we don’t really have a yard for a garden or anything now.  So, we are attempting to do container tomatoes on the deck.  My son and I planted the seedlings today.  He had a blast watering them with his new Mickey Mouse (here’s the flippin’ mouse again!) watering can.  The poor kid has no clue how much water is needed to water plants, but he loved it.  I’ll let you know if we succeed in getting tomatoes.

It was a first tonight!  I have been working on my certification for teaching Yoga Calm to children.  In the process of working on it at home, my son has discovered yoga and loves to practice with me.  Yes.  He does have the typical three-year-old attention span so we don’t get very far half the time, but he keeps coming back for more.  Well, today we were showing my mom and my husband the latest pose I’d taught my son.  We got my mom to give it a try.  Then, a little later at home, my husband was even trying the pose!  I’d love to see if they’d be willing to continue since yoga is so good for you.

Random Sunday: Work, Allergies, and Ants

Work.  Even though I love my job, I hate how much time I lose dealing with work.  I want to write.  I want to work on my quilts.  I want to spend time with my son.  I want to work on learning my photography better.  I don’t feel like I get enough time to do these things sometimes because I have to work.  However, I really don’t want to give up my job either, because I love working with my kids at work, too.  If I had my son’s energy, I’d wish for longer days so I could fit it all in.  I don’t, though.  So I guess I’ll have to wing it and do the best I can with what I have.

Allergies.  I know I’ve been ranting about them quite a bit lately.  Here I go again.  I really hate them.  I’m still fighting the crud going on with my son.  I am so hoping to figure that out as scratch tests are likely up next on the list of things to do.  Maybe it’s just me, but scratch tests with a three-year-old just don’t’ sound like fun to me.  And now mine are bugging me again.  I know we were outside a good part of the afternoon this afternoon, but come on!  Can’t I breathe for a little while without issues?

Riddle me this.  I was finishing cooking dinner for me and my son tonight.  I opened the dishwasher to put some dirty dishes in and found several ants.  Big carpenter variety.  You know, the ones that are like a half an inch long each?  Disgusting.  I know.  What I can’t figure out is how the stupid things got into the dishwasher to begin with.  It was latched closed.  Did they hitch a ride on some dirty dishes without anyone seeing?  Did they climb up the drain?  How did they get there?

Random Sunday: Home Improvement Projects, Sprinklers, and Naps

So I'm a little late with this because I wrote it in my journal, but then fell asleep before I could actually post it yesterday.  Without further excused or adieu, here's Random Sunday.

                There is this rule with home improvement projects.  Those of you who do not own a house may not understand this.  Trust me, though.  It’s true.  No project can be completed without at least two trips to the local hardware/home improvement store.  Yeah.  Today was no different.  Two trips to get enough materials to complete the edging for one of my new flower beds.  I still need to get better soil to add as I live on a sand plain.  Literally.  This project met that rule.  Can’t wait to see how many trips it takes for the next flower bed.

Somewhat related – I was messing with my lawn tractor water sprinkler today.  You know, the kind that slowly walks itself down the length of the hose while it waters.  I’d been having issues with mine.  Figured out today that it was because I’d aimed the spinney arms wrong when I put it back together after we’d moved last summer.  I felt kinda stupid when I figured that out.  Especially when it was illustrated on the sprinkler how to put it together so it worked right.  Yep.  Works well once I fixed that.

Naps.  I love them and I hate them.  My son is hitting an age where I can’t win.  He gets cranky and tired fairly early if I let him skip his nap.  If I force the issue, he’s a pain to get to go to sleep at night.  Why does it seem like such a Herculean task to regulate one three-year-old’s sleep?

Random Sunday - Musicals, Thunderstorms, and Mud

My son was in a musical for church this Sunday.  Now, keep in mind, he’s three years old.  What I found particularly cute and funny was his performance.  He’d been practicing his part of the musical for several weeks now.  Instead of going through it like I know he can, he stood up there goofing around instead.  Not naughty, just looking around and waving and taking his shoes off and starting to pull one arm out of the sleeve of his shirt and the like.  It was great humor even though my son was the only one up there doing it.

I love the rain.  I woke up early this morning to the sound of thunder rumbling around and it was perfect.  Not the dangerous storms where damage and harm are done.  This was the kind of storm that you think of when you think spring showers.  I love these storms where the thunder bounces around the clouds and echoes in my body.  The lightning stays up in the clouds and illuminates the contours of the darkened clouds.  These are my favorite storms and what I got to wake up to this morning.

I had an interesting adventure this weekend.  My family and I love to go hiking and such in the state parks.  Well, we went to Moose Lake State Park and did the Rolling Hills trail.  Because it’s about a two-mile hike, we brought my son’s jogging stroller along so he didn’t have to actually hike the whole thing along with us.  I discovered that there were some low spots in the aptly named Rolling Hills Trail.  These low spots also happened to be where there were a number of trees with roots now exposed due to the water and mud.  This does not make for a good combination with a stroller.  Several times it took two of us to get my son and his stroller through those spots.  I felt bad putting his stroller back in my aunt’s brand new minivan.  At least the mud had mostly dried by then.

Random Sunday - Sore Muscles, Bikes, and Taxes

I got a Random Sunday up on time!!!

Ugh.  Am I sore.  Spent most of the weekend raking leaves up off my flowers and such.  17 paper lawn and leaf bags plus a large garbage can (think about 4 feet tall) later, my leaves are all gone.  Did most of it by myself as well.  My mom came and helped me with the last 7 bags this morning.  Then my mom, my aunt, my son, and I went on a 3.75 mile walk.  Yep.  I’m crazy.  But it was fun.  I’ll pay for it in the morning with sore muscles.  I can feel it already.  I hope the chamomile tea works.

Okay, so this next thought is at least tangentially related to my last one.  At the moment, I hate bike racks.  You know the kind that strap to the back of your car to help carry bikes to selected biking location?  Yep.  Those.  Haven’t used ours in a couple years.  So I can’t remember how it goes on my car, never mind the fact that I have a completely different car from the last time I used it.  I’m really hoping my hubby can figure it out.  I want to go get my bike from storage and start taking my son for rides in his trailer.  Which will result in many more sore muscles.  Again, though, worth it.

I particularly hated tax season this year.  I generally dislike it because I hate doing our taxes.  It’s just such a pain in the behind to sort out all of the various things needed by the respective governments in order to file the taxes.  This year was particularly nightmarish because Minnesota chose not to renew some of the tax break things that the Federal government did.  This led to me having to recalculate some things by hand.  The instructions were so much less than stellar it was crazy.  I ended up giving up and hoping I did it right because what I did was about the best option I could come up with as a result of the poor instructions.  Here’s to hoping I don’t get audited. 

There's still time.  Take the Don't Panic Picture Prompt dare!

Random Sunday: Allergies, Warranties, and Politics

I know.  I know.  I'm late again.  At least I got Random Sunday up again.  Actually, it really was written yesterday.  I fell asleep trying to get my three-year-old to bed last night and didn't feel like posting it when I woke up to realize I'd fallen asleep at 11:45 pm.  Anyways, here's this week's Random Sunday.

I have yet another reason to hate allergies.  I’m talking the seasonal kind in this particular context.  You know.  The ones that make you sneeze and snot and eyes water at random times during the year depending on what particular plant is pollinating at that moment.  My poor three-year-old is really struggling with them right now.  I’m kinda wondering if they’ve turned into a respiratory infection on him.  And, being three, there is a very limited selection of options to treat his allergies.  As in almost nothing.  The poor kid is literally losing sleep over it.  Thankfully he has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and hopefully things will get better.  Yeah.  I hate allergies.

What’s with jewelry companies?  I took my locket that my husband gave me for my birthday eight months ago in because it wouldn’t stay shut.  They proceeded to tell me that the diamond is covered under a lifetime warrantee, but the locket itself is not.  Therefore, I will have to pay to have it fixed.  Now, please keep in mind that the diamond in this locket is no bigger than a pinhead.  Literally.  It’s so small that my sister didn’t realize there was a diamond in the locket when I first showed it to her.  Now, how silly is that warrantee policy?  My husband would have had to purchase an additional warrantee in order to have had the locket itself covered.  Silly, I tell you.  Silly.

I’ve been watching some of the stuff going on with the current presidential campaigns recently and I’ve come to a conclusion that I came to years ago.  Not much has changed.  I hate politics.  Not just the presidential campaigns and such.  It’s the stuff that creates the divisiveness in churches, in the movements for different groups’ civil rights, the stuff creating chaos in the school systems, and the general fractious and fractured state of our world.  It makes me wonder.  What will it take for us to finally recognize we are all way more alike than we are different?  And when will we start acting that way?

Random Sunday - The Weather, Insomnia, and Easter Egg Hunts

Yes - I know it's Monday.  What can I say?  Between Easter and a now sick toddler, things got a little off around my house.  Anyways.  Here's this week's Random Sunday.

Ugh.  I am so glad it’s starting to get warm, but I’m getting sick of the volatile mood the weather has been in lately.  I mean 50 degrees one day and 25 degrees the next?  Come on!  I can’t adjust that fast!  Just get warm and stay warm already!  It probably doesn’t help that I’m also sick of being cold all the time.

While I’m on a complaining tangent, can I also add insomnia to the list?  I had to get up at like 5:30 am Sunday morning to be at church by 6:45 am for music rehearsals before Easter Sunday service.  Despite the sleep medication I took, do you think I could sleep?  Nooooo.  I was up like a dozen times.  Well, maybe not quite that many, but I know I was up more often than I was asleep, or at least it felt that way.  I did take a nap that afternoon, which wasn’t really that much.  Then, do you think I could sleep Sunday night?  Of course not!  Ugh.

Okay.  Off the complaints.  My son was so funny today.  He’ll be four this summer.  Today we did an Easter egg hunt with him.  We tried last year, but he was a little too little to understand what to do then.  This year – he got it.  But, he has no real clue how to look for the eggs.  He walked by Easter eggs multiple times, totally oblivious to them.  Then he was so totally surprised when he did find them.  He was so adorable!

Random Sunday - Stubbornness, House Cleaning, and Technology

                I’ve really not done well lately at writing anything but responses to prompts.  Bringing Random Sunday back is one attempt at starting to do that.  So, without further ado, here’s this week’s Random Sunday.

                Man.  My mom got her wish.  My son is turning out to be one stubborn little boy.  Not that different than his mommy.  Which is not working out well when it comes to the whole potty training thing.  He is so close to being potty trained, but just won’t finish.  Wonder if my mom is regretting her wish for me to have a child just like me.  Maybe I can ship him off, figuratively speaking as we live less than a mile from my parents, to my mom and let her have him for a while.  Yeah. Right.  Not going to happen.

I’ve noticed something.  It seems like no matter what I do, I can’t keep my house clean.  Not like I’m a fastidious housekeeper anyway.  But seriously, I get tired of tripping on stuff all the time.  And no matter how often I pick things up, there’s still more there.  Does the stuff multiply in the dark?  Or does it spawn from the odd socks lost in the laundry?  Whatever it is, I wish it would stop. 

I got the new Apple Watch as my graduation present.  Well.  I bought it with the money I got for my graduation.  Figured it was an acceptable thing to get myself for finishing my Master’s.   Now, while I wanted it and am loving having it, learning new tech drives me nuts.  They change things just enough that they don’t quite work the same as what I already know, but keep it similar enough to make me think it’s the same.  Very frustrating even though I’m having fun playing with the new tech and willingly went there.

Random Sunday – Crochet, Poo, and Work

Wow.  That particular title combination doesn’t look so good, does it?  Trust me.  It’s not as bad as it seems.  Stick with me.

I am braving a couple new crochet projects.  Well, one is started and the other is on the list.  The one I got started is an afghan for my cousin, who is getting married in March.  It takes a Q hook, which is by far the most ginormous hook I’ve ever used.  And, it uses 3 different skeins of yarn – all at the same time.  So far I think it’s coming out alright.  The second one is for my husband.  It’s amigurumi Star Wars figures.  Basically, think crocheted stuffed animals, only they’re figures from Star Wars.  The original trilogy.  I’ll let you know how those go once I start them.

Poo.  Yes.  Number 2.  It is a big focus around my house this last week.  As in my three-year-old has not gone.  In over a week.  We get little “eggs” in his pull up every day or so, but that’s it.  My husband and I have been debating about whether or not we wanted to try some prune juice with him.  I’m not sure I want to try to convince my son to drink the stuff.  We’re sticking with the white grape juice for now.  And lots of conversations trying to convince a three-year-old to go potty.

Work has been nuts lately.  I work in a boy’s residential treatment program.  We just changed our license so there are several changes to how we do things that are really throwing me off.  I have struggled to write much this last week because I spent quite a bit of time working on work stuff instead or am so burnt out by the time I get home from work I can’t muster the energy to write.  This week will be better, though.  I’ve got several ideas of how to make things better.  I hope.

Random Sunday – Faith, Exercise, and To Do Lists

Let me start this part with a disclaimer.  These are simply my observations and not meant to insult, cause an argument, or anything else of the sort.  They are just things I’ve noticed.  With that said, it’s interesting how people in general treat faith now.  It seems like things have become so very black and white.  Either you believe in some religion or you believe in science.  Either you believe in helping others to a crazy extreme or you focus on yourself to a crazy extreme.  What happened to the grey in the middle?  Why can’t someone believe in science AND have faith in a higher power?  Why can’t we help others in appropriate ways without going to either extreme?  I’m just wondering why there has to be a choice of one OR the other.  While I’m no expert, I do think that seeing the grey would help solve a number of issues going on in the world today.

I’ve been trying to exercise more now that I’m not wrapped up in completing my Master’s degree.  First, let me just add that I didn’t realize how far out of shape I was until I started trying to do something about it.  So, needless to say, I’ve been pretty sore in the days after a workout.  Well, my son (who is 3 and so busy he really doesn’t need more exercise) doesn’t get that.  He keeps telling me he wants to do five more.  Even under his looser interpretation of five meaning more, I still think he’s trying to kill me sometimes…

We moved this summer.  We bought an actual single family home rather than the mobile home we’d had until this point.  And I’m learning to hate to do lists.  It seems like it doesn’t matter how much we get done, there’s always so much more left to do on that list.  I wonder if the to do list is in cahoots with the hangers and odd socks that multiply when I’m not looking. 

Random Sunday – Chamomile Tea, Why, and Cars

I have always loved tea.  Can’t drink coffee.  Gives me horrid heart burn every time.  For whatever reason, tea – even black tea with lots of caffeine – doesn’t.  I am slowly learning another reason why I love tea.  I’ve always been told by my mom and my sister, who has a degree in holistic healing specializing in herbal supplements, that chamomile tea will help with muscle soreness.  Well, I’m trying to get into a little bit better shape now that I’m not eyeball deep in my master’s degree anymore.  Yeah.  I’m way more out of shape than I thought.  Chamomile tea is starting to be a life saver.  Try it.  Trust me.  It works.

I started this blog not long before my son was born.  He’s now three and a half.  And he’s hit one of those so very frustrating toddler stages.  Why?  Any parent out there knows exactly what I mean.  I even have a degree in child and adolescent development, so I really do get what’s going on with why.  Right now, though, there are days I swear he asks me why 487 times.  And those are days I work and only see him for a few hours while he’s awake.  It gets worse on weekends when I have the whole day with him.  While I love his curiosity, I can’t wait for him to outgrow this.  Or find someone to pay me a dime for every time he asks why.

Today wasn’t a good day for me and cars.  And I’m not sure my husband helped.  My car, which I have to say is probably my favorite car I’ve ever owned, decided to give me a “Reduced Engine Power” and “Service Stabilitrak” warning lights – while we were driving down the highway to my son’s doctor’s appointment.  My husband, in his infinite wisdom, googled the issue after we got home and I headed off to work.  He then checked everything over in my car and started it a few times.  All of the warning lights went off.  So he figured there’s nothing anyone can do and we should just keep driving my car without checking further.  I’m not sure who I’m currently more frustrated with on that score – my car or my husband.  Needless to say, we have an appointment with our regular mechanic tomorrow morning to have it checked on.

Random Sunday – Potty Training, Fitbit, and Vacations

I have to say – potty training has been quite an adventure so far.  Let me start by saying we kinda accidentally started potty training my son even though he’s not quite two.  See, he has this bad habit of basically planking every time he needs to do something other than pee.  The end result is that he really has a hard time going and ends up getting a little bound up.  So we started putting him on the potty in the hopes of getting him to relax the right muscles and make going easier.  It worked.  A little too well in a way.  Now he won’t do that in his diaper.  This leads to incidents like this weekend.  We were visiting a quilt shop in Marshall, MN when he yells about as loud as he can “Mommy!  Poopy!” in the middle of the store.  Not much other choice than to find the closest bathroom.  He did go, by the way.

I am really excited.  I’ve wanted an activity tracker for a while now.  For my birthday, my hubby bought me a Fitbit.  I am loving it!  It helps me keep a decent count of my steps and activity without much thought to it.  And it’s there just enough to remind me to get up and move a little more often.  I’m hoping it will continue to push me to keep moving so I can get into a little bit better shape – which is a goal I’ve had for a while now.

I love vacations.  Even just the weekend getaway type.  The part I don’t like is having to come back and deal with the mess.  Especially when I didn’t get back until late so all I really had time to do was throw everything in the door, clean me and my son up and go to bed.  Then I jumped back into ten hour days at work.  By the time I get home I am exhausted and don’t really feel like cleaning.  I know.  Talk about issues.  It could be worse.  Hopefully, though, I do get the last of my mess cleaned up soon.

Random Sunday – Late Again, Insomnia, and Frogs

Yeah.  I know.  It’s Tuesday evening and I’m just getting Random Sunday up.  In my defense I was out of town all weekend.  Monday was rather nuts trying to clean up the mess and get back to work.  To give ya’ll fair warning, it’ll probably happen again this weekend as I’m leaving again this weekend.  It will be an adventure because I’m taking my two year old son half way across the state on my own.  Granted, my parents will be meeting us there, but I’m on my own for a while with him.  It should be fun!

I hate insomnia.  I’ve dealt with it some for several years now.  But last night really got to me.  What made it even worse was that about an hour after I finally fell asleep, my son woke up with a bad dream and couldn’t find his bear.  When I went and got him he didn’t want to lie back down in his bed.  Seeing as my husband now works overnights and I wanted to go back to sleep REALLY bad, I tucked him into bed with me and we both went back to sleep.  At least we both got a little more sleep that way.

I know a year or so ago I commented about how many tree frogs were around my house.  I found one this year.  He’s been hanging out on the light by my front door.  I’m guessing he’s having dinner most of the time when I go in and out.  He was missing tonight, though.  I’m hoping nothing happened to the little thing.  He’s a cute little tree frog.

Random Sunday – Naps, Toads, and Time

I know I have officially adopted parental ways.  No, seriously.  It’s not like I haven’t been a parent for almost two years now.  But, this is one of those hallmarks that any parent with a toddler is very familiar with.  It’s called How Much Can I Get Done When My Child Is Sleeping.  I have to say I was pretty impressed with myself.  I got most of the living room picked up and a nine block wall hanging quilt top, complete with sashing and a border, assembled before my son woke up.  I even got far enough to begin the quilting part of it.  Which is a really good thing as I am aiming to have it done for Saturday…

I don’t know what it is, but the last couple times I’ve been over to my Mom and Dad’s, there are a bagillion tiny little toads in their backyard.  I’m talking the things are so little they’d sit comfortably on a dime.  My son gets all excited over seeing them.  The only drawback is that either you don’t walk in the backyard or you pray the grass protects the toads because you can’t see the things until you’re basically walking on them.

As I’m getting ready for my son’s second birthday, which is in less than a month, I am realizing time is just flying by.  Not only is my baby now almost 2, but I’m officially hitting the half-way point of my master’s as well.  I am hoping that once summer is over, and summers are always busy for us, I can take a little time to slow down some.  I don’t feel like I’m missing anything right now but I want to be able to take a little more time to enjoy it than I can at this point.

Random Sunday – Weeds, School, and Heat

I bucked up and fought the battle against the weeds today.  See, this summer’s been so nuts between me not having time and the weather not cooperating that my poor gardens have not been weeded at all yet.  I know.  I’m rather embarrassed to admit that.  But I took on the challenge today and got the vast majority of it done.  The funniest part about the whole episode to me was my son.  He was outside playing while I was weeding and my husband was doing other chores.  I tried to get him to help me.  He wouldn’t pull a weed.  No way.  So I tried to hand him one I’d pulled to put in the bucket instead.  He took a grand total of one weed and put it in the bucket.  Then he wanted me to do it.  Yet he managed to get so grubby dirty it was pretty funny.  I’m glad he’s very washable because, boy oh boy was he a dirty little almost 2 year old today.

I started my new class last week for school.  Already the instructor has posted a 7 page guide about how to write discussion posts.  Yes.  The writing for a few of the posts was that bad.  Come on – one person attempted to write something and (I’m hoping) the spell-check auto-corrected it to syphilis.  From what I could gather of the sentence in which this took place, the word attempting to be used should have been a verb.  Last time I checked syphilis is not a verb.  How you get it is, but syphilis is not.  Multiple other areas made no sense at all.  And there’s more than one post like this.  This is grad school, people!  Step up your game a little!

I think we’ve gotten the first heat advisory issued for tomorrow.  It figures.  I was going to take my son out to the playground since I only have to work 2 hours tomorrow morning.  Now we have to come up with a fun inside activity instead.  It should be interesting as Daddy has to start his overnight shifts tomorrow night and will be sleeping in the afternoon.

Random Sunday – Hangers, Cleaning, and Dinner

When we’re home, Sundays have become days we do chores.  One such chore is laundry.  With this next statement, keep in mind we've been gone quite a bit and/or had major events (like my brother’s wedding) on weekends.  So, we finally caught up with laundry this weekend.  Only to discover that the hangers have disappeared.  Now the scary part to me is that they have not reappeared as odd socks.  Which makes me wonder what have all the hangers morphed into and when will I discover them?  Seriously.  I haven’t bought a whole bunch of new clothes that need hangers, so where have they gone?

I decided I was going to do a bunch of cleaning today.  Specifically, I wanted to get my office space cleaned up.  It had become a catch all for anything that couldn't be out in the “public” areas of my house.  Needless to say it got rather piled up on my desk.  But, I feel much better now because I am sitting at my desk working on this and the surface is pretty clean!  It’s also amazing what you find when you start cleaning like that.  But that’s another story.

I’m trying to figure out what goes through the mind of an almost 2 year old at dinner time.  For a discussion point, tonight’s dinner was corn and pork chops.  My son thought he was dying of starvation and was begging for his milk before supper.  Now, I might be mean, but I didn't give him any because I know if he drinks a bunch of milk before supper he won’t eat well.  So I got his corn ready, got him into his booster seat and he started chowing down on the corn.  Then, when my husband poured milk, my son was dying for milk again.  A bit of patience would do this child wonders.  He got his milk.  Then he ate a couple bites of the pork chop.  For no apparent reason, after that he wouldn't eat pork chop.  He’d spit it out every time we tried to get him to eat a bite – regardless of who put it in his mouth, including him.  He ate a good helping of corn instead.  When I had wiped his hands and face to let him down, he started eating the pork.  Can someone please explain?

Random Sunday – Mosquitos, Naps, and Laundry

Holy Moly, Rocky, were there mosquitoes out this weekend.  I swear, there were so many mosquitoes out I think they would have literally carried my son away had they been given a chance.  We all stayed inside at one point because of them.  My sister, who was actually in a totally different part of the state, said she thought she might need a blood transfusion due to blood loss from the suckers!  Okay.  Maybe it wasn't really that bad, but it was certainly not pleasant and I have the mosquito bites to prove it.  How was it where you were?

I was really impressed with my son today.  He took a 3.5 hour nap on the way home.  Considering the car ride ended up being about 7 hours, this was quite impressive.  It helps he didn't sleep well last night and didn't take a good nap yesterday.  It also helps that he has been so busy running around and playing all weekend.  The more impressive part is that I had to wake him up at that point because it had gotten late enough I didn't know if he’d sleep tonight if I let him sleep much longer.  Makes me wonder how long he would have slept on his own.

I have determined that, while I love going out of town for different things, I dislike coming home.  There are several things that play into this dislike.  But the one of which I am discussing today is the laundry.  There is a ginormous pile of laundry to do now.  Plus what didn't get done before we left.  My house is seriously in danger of being taken over by the laundry at the moment.  I’m really hoping to have it done before it does.  Wish me luck.

Random Sunday – Dust Pans, Toys, and Headaches

What is it about dust pans that attract toddlers?  Case in point – I was trying to sweep my kitchen and dining room floor today before my mother-in-law got here for lunch.  And, where is my son?  He stole the dust pan and was following me around trying to pick up the dirt off the floor.  This would ordinarily be a good thing, except he’s 22 months old and didn’t wait for me to sweep stuff up into a pile.  Then he took off with the dust pan.  My husband had to chase him back into the kitchen with it because, of course, my son vanished with the dust pan when I did need it.

Speaking of my son, I have to say I’m rather glad a bunch of his toys are from garage sales and other second hand sources.  Why, you ask?  Because of what happened tonight.  I was running his bath and trying to pick up a few things.  He took his bus, that lights up and sings, and threw it in the bath tub.  Needless to say, it’s now sitting in a bucket of rice and many prayers are being said that it will work again.  After all, it is favorite toy.  Figures.

I thought I had lucked out after I had my son.  I thought things changed enough that I wasn't going to get the headaches I used to before I had my son.  I've been discovering lately that I don’t think I got off that lucky.  Which sucks.  I’m now hoping the headaches are not quite as frequent and bad as they used to be.

Random Sunday – Cars, Cake, and Mosquitoes

Yep.  I’m a little late with Random Sunday – again.  But, considering what’s been going on the last week or two, the fact that it’s up at all is an accomplishment.  One of those issues is my car.  Can I just say at the moment I hate cars.  Maybe it’s more car problems and stupid auto shops that jerk me around.  So, here’s the story.  My car had an issue.  Go figure, it has over 100,000 miles on it.  Not surprising.  So I took it in, not to my preferred shop due to the aforementioned craziness in my life, but to another shop.  Over 24 hours later THEY HADN'T EVEN LOOKED AT IT YET MUCH LESS STARTED TO FIX IT!!!  Can you tell I’m a little irritated?  Now I’m not entirely certain I even trust that they fixed it because my car was still having the same issue for a little bit after supposedly being fixed.  I have an appointment with my normal shop, which I trust completely, on Friday.  You may get another update on this next week depending on what happens.

I love cake.  That’s why I hate cake.  My brother got married this last weekend (more of the aforementioned craziness).  His wedding cake was amazing.  But it’s started me on this thing where I want cake all the time.  I go through that every once in a while.  Maybe I’m nuts, no I probably am, but I do.  And given the fact that I’m trying to get into a little bit better shape, this cake thing isn't helping!!!

Holy cow are the mosquitoes horrible this year.  Not surprising since we've had a ton of rain and there’s standing water everywhere.  But I can’t even let my son outside hardly because he gets so bit up it’s ridiculous.  I want to be outside, too, but there are so many mosquitoes I don’t want to risk life and limb.  I’m praying for something to change and kill off those flying hordes of blood sucking insanity inducers.