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The Past 18 months...
I have not posted in about 18 months and change. I considered posting a long, detailed explanation, but that would have aggravated me.
So, I have described it, instead, in rhyme! I have taken some liberties with details; however, this pretty well covers my past year and a half.
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Posted by geekmom on Wednesday, August 11 @ 19:15:06 CDT (430 reads)
(Read More... | 1580 bytes more | Score: 0) |
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Too Busy to be Here
I have been away for a while, due to the collapse of my business, my desperate (and futile) search for clients, my desperate search for ANY work, and most recently, my desperate attempt to keep the job I lucked into (and keep it from driving me mental).
I have turned off comments, as it appears my blog has become a spam farm. NOBODY will be able to comment until I get this resolved, and maybe not even then if I can't keep it from happening.
We'll see how it goes as it goes. Now, I have to get D and work on changing clothes around, starting my laundry and folding and putting up her clothes.
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Posted by geekmom on Sunday, August 08 @ 14:16:06 CDT (377 reads)
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Bad Choice Theater
Ah, it was a glorious day outside. Nice and warm, with just enough wind to make it comfortable. So, of course, I spent a large part of it bathed in electrons from my magic box (I give it time and electricity, and my clients give me money).
I decided early on that (barring massive client issues) I WAS GOING OUT TO THE PARK. Dee has been having a good week, so I figured I'd get my work done early, she'd get home, do her homework, have some lunch, and we could go out for a bit before her playdate.
Yeah, that was the plan. However, (bad choice #1) she decided to play in class instead of doing her schoolwork, so she had to do that work before we did anything. After she finished, I sent her to her room with the instructions, "Pick up the room, and I will come to check in a little while to decide whether you can come out yet."
Bad Choice #2: When I went to check, the amount of stuff on her floor had doubled, and she was playing with a bank. "Oooh, Miss Dee," I said sadly. "The room's not clean, and I have to run to a meeting. You have to stay in your room while I'm gone, and if it's clean when I get back, then we'll discuss whether you go to the park with me."
Bad Choice #3: After the meeting, I called to let hubby know I would be home in about 25 minutes. When I got back, I had trouble opening Dee's door because of the toys piled in front of it. I shook my head at Dee, then went to warn Daddy that that corner of the house was likely to be Drama Central for a bit.
Bad Choice #4: The news that I would be taking the dogs for a walk to the park without her was met with howls and sobbing (mostly variations on "it's not FAIR!" Due to the drama, she got to remain in the room while I was gone.
Bad Choice #5: When I got back, she still hadn't done much and fussed that she couldn't do it all herself. As an assist, I went into her room and walked her through cleaning, asking "Do you want to pick up books or babies first?" and so on. Because Mommy had to supervise, though, she lost one of her games at game-time.
After game-time, we did final homework and tooth-brushing. Just when we thought the curtains were closed, we had Bad Choice #6. After all else has been done, Dee is supposed to go tell Daddy that she's ready for story time. Instead, she dawdled her way down the hallway and stood in his office looking around. This cost her one of her stories.
Finally, we got her in bed, talked about her day and had lullabies.
Crap. Just looked down the hallway, and the light is on, so it looks like Bad Choice #7 (Getting up to play in the bathroom) has occurred, and I need to go deal with that.
Please stop the ride; I want to get off.
Update: The initial "light in the hallway" was just her going to the bathroom. However, she got up two more times after that (Bad Choices #8 & #9) and during one of those choices brought pretzels, crackers and her scissors back to her room (Bad Choices #10, #11 and #12 where she proceeded to eat in bed (Bad Choice #13) and cut the bow on one of her dolls and gods knows what else (Bad Choice #14) while she waited for us to go to bed instead of her going to sleep (Bad Choice #15).
With me so far?
Once we went to bed, she got up and came and got in bed with us, then fussed and refused to move when I told her that she needed to go get in her bed (Bad Choice #16). Once we were back in her room, she threw a tantrum (Bad Choice #17) that lasted a good 10-15 minutes.
After needless amounts of drama (and screaming that the neighbors surely heard), she finally went to sleep. Sometime later in the night after I went to sleep, she came and got in bed anyway.
Bleah. Now I have to do consequences for the food and scissors when she gets home, and that's assuming we don't have another note from school to deal with.
I can't verbalize how much I want to be done with this.
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Posted by geekmom on Thursday, February 26 @ 14:59:18 CST (815 reads)
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Dee's latest obsession
Dee goes through cycles with TV shows; she will want to watch a particular one almost exclusively for weeks, and then she's over it and onto another. Her current obsession is Avatar, The Last Airbender. Wikipedia has several pages on the cartoon, so I can at least keep up with Dee's references.
As of late, she has decided that she's a waterbender, and when she's six years old (or on the 1001st day of school -- it varies), she is going to have a pool party and show her friends that she's a waterbender. Other than periodically asking if waterbending is real or pretend, I just grin and nod a lot. For the record, so far the answer has been "pretend" followed by an exasperated look.
Last night, she went off into her "I'm a waterbender" spiel, and I pointed out that it was okay to pretend, but there would be NO pretending or "practicing" waterbending at school or inside the house, as she didn't want to get in trouble for playing in the sink or water fountain. I mentioned this, because it occurred to me that the "pour the water out of the bathtub onto the bathmat" incident last week may have been waterbending practice.
Dee grinned maniacally. "Yes, master... I mean, Yes, Mommy!" I sigh; hubby grins.
Behind me, hubby starts giggling (never a good sign) and tells Dee "You know, Dee, I'm an airbender!"
Dee's eyes open wide. "Really?"
"Yeah," he says. "Pull my finger!"
Dee shrieks and jumps up in bed while I facepalm and try to stifle, and hubby tries to get Dee to lay back down in bed.
Once we get her to lay back down, I try to use my serious Mommy voice. "Dee, Daddy is not an airbender." I glare at hubby and tell him "You need to hush, now!" while Dee just cackles.
"Dee, honey, Daddy is not an airbender. There's a big difference between bending air and breaking wind." They both laugh, and I know that this is going to be a conversation with a teacher or friend at some point, starting with "This is going to sound weird, but ..."
It's a sad state of affairs when, in a household of 5 living things, I'm the sane one.
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, February 23 @ 02:17:37 CST (815 reads)
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The creeping crud hit home
Here at casa de GOAM, the creeping crud has hit me and hubby. It hit him two weeks ago, then hit me Tuesday morning. Symptoms have been fever and massive sinus and chest congestion. At the height of it, I started seriously wondering if it was possible to blow out one's own body weight of snot.
Yah, it's gross, but after 5 days of this, gross is what I have. It does seem to be on the downturn now, as I can be up and around without sounding like I'm hacking up a lung. The worst part of was actually the sore throat, and there is really nothing good for a sore throat, medicine-wise. In pain, I turned the internet and googled "throat on fire sore throat remedy". The results? Salt and water -- two of the most common things imaginable. Even better, it worked! A good salt water gargle, and I could breathe and swallow without wanting to cry.
Highlights from the week of "hack-hack-wheeeeeze!" include:
- Having to explain to multiple clients how my ill health impacts their projects. The upside of full-time employment = you only have to call in sick ONCE. Still not worth going back, but it is an upside.
- Dee asking me, "Don't cough on my moon sand, mommy! You'll make my moon sand sick!"
- Me tapping on Dee's door after her bedtime asking her "stay in bed and be quiet please"; followed by her banging on my door after an explosive coughing fit and asking me to "keep the noise down."
- Dee finally getting happy faces from school (after over a week of notes)
In other news, we got Dee's Tinkerbell video exchanged for a working copy and watched that about a bazillion times. I was not overly thrilled with the idea, figuring it would be more of Disney's "pretty pink princess" pablum that so aggravates me, but I also figured that being on cold meds might at least make it watchable.
I have to admit that I was quite pleasantly surprised. The theme was to follow your talent instead of trying to do what looked cool/fun/pretty. When we got to the end, I realized that, in the fairy world, Tinkerbell was a geek girl! That, plus some incredible music by Lorenna McKennitt (one of my favorite singers), made this a movie I actually enjoyed. Hopefully, it wasn't just the cold meds... ;-)
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Posted by geekmom on Saturday, January 31 @ 08:04:49 CST (762 reads)
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GOAM and the absolutely no-good day
Hrrrg. I should have stayed in bed today. I felt out of sorts and considered it; I should have gone for it. I actually did okay until I had to pick up Dee.
She had yet another note from teacher (she's batting 1000 for the week) about her behavior, so she was grounded to her room again.
Her dance class was moved but I could not remember if it was to 12:15 or 2:15 and could not get a hold of the teacher until 12:00, so of course it was at 12:15.
We took off for the class and of course I got pulled over for speeding and of course the wrong insurance card was in the van, so I got a ticket. Then we get to the class, and she'd left her dance bag at the house (which I didn't notice because we were late), so we had to turn around and go home. At this point, I bailed on the class, because I was in no frame of mind to go out again.
We came home amid much fussing, and she went back to her room while I tried to do some more work. Actually, I was trying to line up work and get assignments from existing clients, so that maybe I could bring in enough business that my husband doesn't have to work at retail hell to make ends meet, but I digress.
I spent an hour on the phone with a client getting a work assignment and went to check on Dee, only to find her room empty. I checked the bathroom and found Dee's clothes, but no Dee. I checked the bedroom and other bathroom, and then the living room. No Dee. Looking at the front door, I noticed that it wasn't locked.
Fuck.
So I tear around the house yelling for Dee and looking in all the corners and crevices where she is wont to lie down and go to sleep. After five or six minutes, I start tearing the house apart from front to back, yelling for Dee.
When I hit the main bedroom, I notice a little tuft of hair. The little #$@!! had curled up in a ball about the size of a beachball and burrowed under the blankets, looking for all the world like there was no one in the bed.
Having determined that she was not running around naked outside somewhere, and having officially expended the last of my stress tolerance, I went to the kitchen, had two sodas and half a bottle of salsa.
It's not the healthiest thing, but the fire in my stomach takes my mind off of other issues.
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Posted by geekmom on Thursday, January 22 @ 09:16:30 CST (699 reads)
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Why Dee Can't Have Markers. Ever. Forever.
Last week (I'm only recently calm enough to coherently blog about it), Dee got into massive trouble.
She had come up to my office and was asking me to play with her. I was in the middle of emails for a client, but I told her that I would be there in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, I peek in the living room and don't see her, so I head down the hall to check her room. En route, I find her in the bathroom, scrubbing her arms. This is never a good sign, and in this case, she looked like a Pict, or maybe a tribal Smurf.
Me: Dee, why are your arms blue?
D: I don't know. (obviously falling back on the classic defense)
Me: You want to try that again? (asked with appropriate mommy-face)
D: I wrote on my arms with Expo marker.
Initially, I was not horrendously upset about her writing on herself ... she only has washable markers, and she dislikes the effort to clean everything up enough that we hadn't had a marker incident in months. However, the Expo markers are not washable -- they are dry-erase; and I had a sick premonition of where this was going to lead.
Me: Dee, what else did you draw on?
D: On the couch.
Crap. "Okay, show me what you did." Abandoning the attempt to get the remaining blue off of her arms, we head to the living room, where I discover that she has, in fact, drawn on the couch.
And a pillow.
And the wall.
In three places.
And another wall.
And her Lego table.
Me (taking all this in and displaying remarkable calm): Dee, what else have you drawn on?
D (looking scared): The TV.
The TV.
I look over at the TV.
The brand-new $1800 DLP television.
Which she has in fact marked on.
All over the screen.
In a half dozen different places.
Little scribbles here. Scrawls there. And great looping circles right smack freaking dab in the middle.
Also, for good measure, she has written her name on the entertainment center.
While I stood in the middle of the living room, eyes closed and trying not to scream, I had four thoughts in quick succession:
Thought #1: Fuck parenthood; I should've gotten a puppy.
Thought #2: I can't kill her; I'd be the first suspect, and I'd never get away with it.
Thought #3: Dee needs to go to her room until I calm down.
Thought #4: Hubby is going to blow a blood vessel.
I breathed for a minute to be sure I could speak without yelling.
Me: Dee, you are in more trouble than you have ever been in your entire life. Go to your room right now and stay there until I say you can come out.
I frog-marched her to her room and shut the door. Hubby passed us on his way to the kitchen, so I followed him in to where he ws starting to get himself a sandwich.
Hubby: So what did she do this time?
Me: You need to put the sandwich down. (Hubby raises one eyebrow). This is really bad.
When he put the sandwich down, I explained what happened and showed him the mess. Several obscenities later (on both our parts), he was cleaning the television, and I was cleaning the marker (and the paint) off the walls. Fortunately, the marker came off the television and the entertainment center without any problem. Unfortunately, in the process of cleaning the wall, I discover that she also wrote on her special tennis shoes with the blinking lights.
With the living room restored to close to normal, it was time to explain the consequences of her actions to Dee, of which there were several.
1: Markers are put up for the indefinite future.
2: The "flashy shoes" are marked up and can't be cleaned, so she just has to wear marked up shoes.
3: She is not allowed in the living room alone until further notice.
4: She is grounded to her room for the rest of the week.
It took a couple of days for the "grounded to her room" to really sink in, but it appears that she has gotten the message.
She got into additional trouble Thursday, as she appropriated a story book out of her classroom without asking, leading to our having to go back up to the school for her to return it to the teacher and apologize for stealing it. That earned her another lecture, the removal of additional toys from her room, and an extended time-out in the bathroom (as that is the only room in the house that can be easily "de-booked").
Overall, bleargh.
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, January 19 @ 13:59:08 CST (725 reads)
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2nd Hand Giggles
At her Little Gym class today, Dee broke in a new instructor... and by "broke in" I mean "broke her mind".
We arrived to discover that she was the only kid in the class. The instructor told Dee that she would be the only kid, to which Dee responded "No, my sister's here, too!" The instructor starts looking around, and before I can recover from the facepalm, Dee declares, "You can't see her. She's invisible!" I use the facepalm to try to stifle the giggles as the instructor catches on, and the owner chortles behind the desk. We've been going there for over a year, so the owner is quite familiar with Dee's creative weirdness.
The instructor decides to plow ahead with it. "Oh, okay. What's your sister's name?"
Dee grins. "I don't know. I haven't decided!" She thinks a bit while the adults have a good giggle. "I know! Her name's Aelita!
That established, the instructor, Dee and Aelita go into the gym for class. I, in my yearly ritual, attempt to go to the bank on Martin Luther King Day, and as usual, discover my error standing in front of the (closed) bank doors. I've done this every year that I can remember (with the occasional substitution of the post office for the bank) ... apparently, I just have a blind spot.
When I get back, I chitchat with the owner, and then sit and read until the class is over. At the end, the instructor comes out while another teacher goes in to do the closing. We discussed Dee's attention span (minimal) and creativity (off-scale), and the instructor relayed an event another instructor, T, had told her about:
It was a pirate theme, so they were running around for a bit; and when it was time to stop, T asked the kids to "drop their anchor". Dee, however, just stood there with an odd expression.
T: Dee, what's wrong?
D: It won't work. My anchor only understands Spanish.
T: O-kay.Can you tell your anchor to drop in Spanish, then?
D: Of course not, silly. I don't speak Spanish!
At this point in the story, I'm leaning on the counter giggling helplessly. She said T tried using gibberish instead of Spanish, but Dee kept calling him on it.
This, in a nutshell, is how my weeks go. I have at least three rounds of either surreal performance art or non-sequiter theater each and every week. I'd probably have more, but she has school and Little Gym teachers' minds to play with too.
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, January 19 @ 13:09:19 CST (519 reads)
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Dee's Brief Encounter with Zack and Cody
Dee's cousins watch a lot of TV; whenever we go over to their house, there is always at least two TVs on -- one in the living room and one in the playroom. There third TV (in the boys' room) may or may not be on. This in itself isn't so bad, but the older cousins usually pick the program, and they are a couple of years older than Dee and her youngest cousin. This has led to Dee wanting to watch shows such as Zack and Cody or Hannah Montana.
I don't consider these bad shows; they're just for an older audience and might have behavior I don't want Dee modeling. After watch Z&C at her cousins' over Christmas, Dee kept asking to watch it here. I did some research, actually watched an episode (gods help me), and decided to give it a try.
As I expected, she watched part of it and then played in the living room with it on. The next day, hubby asked her to do something, and her exact response was "Shut it!" She was immediately sent to her room, I was appalled and hubby was livid.
After her time-out was done, we explained how rude that was and she apologized to her daddy. I asked why she said it, and she said that it was funny. I asked why it would be funny and did she see it on a show or hear it at school. As it turned out, it was on Z&C, which ended that show's brief run in our household.
I realize that there may have been context and consequences on the show, but all Dee got out of it was "They said 'shut it' and everyone laughed, so it must have been funny!"
Right now, we try to keep her TV time down to under an hour -- fortunately, a houseful of toys, two dogs and a computer and PS2 go a long way to keeping her off the TV. At least on the computer and PS2, she's interacting; and she doesn't have the patience to sit and vegetate in front of the game system for more than 5-10 minutes!
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Posted by geekmom on Wednesday, January 07 @ 16:39:32 CST (845 reads)
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The Gloves Come Off
I was messaging with a friend and had the following conversation:
(4:08:36 PM) S: Sometimes you just can't talk the girl out of doing things
(4:08:42 PM) GOAM: heheheheh
(4:08:57 PM) GOAM: which is why dee went to school this morning in tights instead of warm pants.
(4:09:21 PM) S: Did she want to change once she got back?
(4:10:32 PM) GOAM: no, but she came home with gloves.
(4:10:41 PM) GOAM: we're not sure where the gloves came from
(4:10:49 PM) S: lol
(4:11:04 PM) GOAM: she says she found them "in the middle of the floor"
(4:11:28 PM) S: are they nice?
(4:11:46 PM) GOAM: not really, just basic knit gloves
(4:11:57 PM) GOAM: we're sending them back with anot
(4:12:22 PM) S: I'm sure some other mom is wondering where the hell these went! :)
If your kid came home without his blue knit gloves, they should be in Lost and Found sometime tomorrow!
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Posted by geekmom on Monday, January 05 @ 14:02:35 CST (480 reads)
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