Happy Halloween

Wow! I just managed to set up my blog acocunt-so cool. I'm a blogger now! It's scary that at 31 I am behind the times, in so many ways. But now, I've joined the ranks of younger, and older folks, who are way more hip and techonologically advanced than me.



Caroline is fast asleep in the car. Yes, I leave my child in the car when she falls asleep. It's the only way I can get things done, and thanks to Global Warming I should have several more weeks where I can do this. I've gone so far as to get a monitor for the garage so that I can hear her if she wakes up. See, I'm not a bad mommy.



We went to Jamie's office to show off Caroline's 2nd halloween costume >Last week she was a lady bug, today a ballerina. She had lots of fun running back and forth in the sales office, and eating Grandpa's pear. Her Aunt Mary even had some Halloween treats for her. What a lucky girl.



I got my treat at the Starbucks drive thru in Woodbridge on the way home. A light java chip frappuchino. I decided I'd have this instead of any Halloween candy today. And the sad part is that the limited caffeine from this drink had the same effect on me as a double espresso might have on others. So my fingers are stumbling over each other and my mind is working 3 times as fast. I guess I'm also on a high with "free time".



What's there to say right now...



Life is good. It scares me to say this, bad things usually happen when I say this, but I have to keep saying it because it's true and when bad things don't happen it changes my assumptions.

Mom is doing really well, she's gotten a very good report back from her post-treatment CT scan, and may not even need radiation. This is fantastic news! Thanks to all of you who've been thinking of her, praying and sending good thoughts.



Caroline is superb. Each day is better than the previous one. She is such a love. And funny too. I'm really having fun and feeling so grateful to be at home with her right now. (It only took me a year to stop feeling guilty!)



We're enjoying swimming lessons and a music/sign language class. Caroline enjoys both immensely. We now have a wonderful babysitter, Carrie, who comes and watches Caroline for a few hours twice a week, and this is giving me a much needed break. I've managed to tackle some projects that have been weighing heavily for quite some time. I have a few more to go, but I'm making progress. And boy does it feel good. I will admit I've spent too much of my "mommy time" running to Target to buy or return things. I think this might be a part time job for Mommies-the buying and returning of items at Target. Well, I'm quitting. With all of you as my witnesses, I am not going to set foot into a Target for the month of November....okay, there I go with my all or nothing thinking again, how about I won't set foot in Target for a week, and will not buy anything that might need to be returned. NO RETURNS! But the beauty of returns is that when the credit card bill comes, it looks like I've earned us money, rather than spent it. Although the debit section is always greater than the credit section. Oh well. I try ; ) Oh...I guess on my list of stores to refrain from shopping at, I better include Baby Gap. But it's so hard to resist. Have you seen their sales?! Clothes for less than $10, and then I get these coupons in the mail (mind you the coupons are rewards points for spending so much money on my Gap card, but who's counting?)

Okay, so maybe less shopping next month, and more writing and reading and exercise, if I can remember what that is. I do have a gym membership, but I've been hesitant to put Caroline in the daycare there, and it intimidates me. So instead I pay them monthly on the off chance I might get up the courage to go on my own. I did go last week. to a yoga class. it was pretty good except I wasn't in a peaceful serene place, instead I kept thinking about what it would be like to bring Caroline and put her in the daycare, and about how out of shape I am. Needless to say, I might need to work on quieting my mind a little....



Since my child is still sleeping (yes, in the car) I will go do something else productive...laundry!



I'll post some pictures of Caroline in her costume once I get them....promise!



Wishing you all a Happy Halloween!

A day of firsts

Friday, October 26th, 2007

So, I’ve wanted to start a blog for some time but I keep getting hung up when they ask for a title, and then a url. Is this MY blog, or Caroline’s? I don’t know. But this will be a place for me to share my days, our adventures, the bumps and the bruises, the successes and failures, the obsessing thoughts, the dreams, the aspirations…there won’t be time for much editing, so spelling grammar and tense will be all out of whack but it’s a way to share with all of you…

Today’s been one of those days where all my values of motherhood have been thrown out the window and I’ve felt like a completely incompetent mother, over and over, and it’s only 2PM. Which is why I have chosen this time to start my blog on motherhood.

Today we set out to the Trumbull Mall to meet a friend and buy Jamie his birthday presents. It was not a plan made in advance, more of a spontaneous one. I can handle these now. I look at the time, try to calculate how long until Caroline will want lunch, and pack accordingly. I change her diaper, fill up the diaper bag: diaper, wipes, lunch, snacks, water for bottle, seltzer for mom, wallet. No cash, but they must have an ATM there. I momentarily wonder if I have enough for Caroline’s lunch, but decide I’ll be fine, she never eats much anyway…

We start out at Macy’s since I have a credit there. Turns out they’re having a great sale on kids clothes which I hadn’t known, but given we have time before Lisa arrives, I browse. I choose an outfit and a shirt, and head over to pay when I realize Caroline has dumped her water all over herself and the stroller. Not her fault, I didn’t put the valve in the sippy cup, thinking she didn’t need it any more. WRONG! So, the outfit I buy (which I intended to use a gift card for but couldn’t locate) will become the “back up outfit” as that’s one of the items that were left out of the diaper bag. We head to Lord and Taylor with their newly redone clean restroom where I change Caroline into her new outfit.

First rule broken: Never put child in new clothes before washing. But what am I going to do? So she’s probably coming in contact with all sorts of terrible trace chemicals, but I try not to think about it. Dry, we head out into the mall. Caroline seems antsy and it’s almost 11:30AM so I see if she’ll have some lunch. I open the jar I’d brought, a yummy organic sweet potato and chicken puree (Earth’s Best’s NOT mine – guilt guilt) she takes one bite, and waves her had at me politely to say, not thank you. No problem I think, she’s just not hungry yet. Well, we connect with Lisa and Julia (age 4) and Jack (age 2 months) and shop some more. I feed Caroline her organic cheese cracker snacks as she’s antsy and I guess hungry. We all head to the food court. I figure NOW Caroline will enjoy the yummy organic food I’ve brought for her, but I am wrong. Again, the polite wave to say, “No thank you Mommy”. I start to panic a little, but figure one of these places must sell yogurt. (I’m kicking myself for not bringing some as I thought about it on the way out the door, but she turned it down earlier today and I felt lazy, so I didn’t-BAD MOMMY!). I manage to stuff some cheerios and dried fruit into Caroline as she eyes Julia’s chicken nuggets from McDonalds. Julia and I both think Caroline wants them, and the chocolate milk, but I am not about to give her any! I always swore she’d never get McDonalds, at least not from me. It was to be a special treat with Daddy that Mommy won’t know about, when she’s older, say, 16.

I wait for Lisa to return with her food, as I tend to Julia, Caroline and momentarily Jack as he starts to squirm looking like he might wake up. Once Lisa is back, I go from station to station looking for yogurt, but none seem to have any on display. I even looked at McDonalds, but didn’t see any. I am too stressed out by the germs of a food court to buy anything for myself, and would prefer not to get anything for Caroline, but know she’s hungry. I settle on some steamed white rice and veggies, which Caroline spits out over and over. The elderly couple next to us finally looks at me and says, “I don’t think she likes her lunch” THANKS, I wasn’t sure.

Lisa remembers McDonalds does sell yogurt, so against my beliefs; I buy the yogurt (using change because I had no money, had to borrow money from Lisa for the first meal). I taste it first. Sure doesn’t taste like the organic plain yogurt we’re used to, more like custard..custard has egg in it, I better check with them. They assure me it’s yogurt, not custard and there’s no egg in it. This kid is starving and I’m the worlds most unprepared parent today so she gobbles up the yogurt, and a tiny bit of strawberry. I think, “Shit, I’ve never given her strawberries and they’re an allergen…at least I have the epipen if she’s allergic to them.” Luckily she seems okay. Soon enough, lunch is over.

We stroll around the mall a little and let Caroline walk with Julia and of course her hands go to every germy thing you can imagine. Ugh! Julia walks obligingly up to Lisa for her Purell, Caroline doesn’t know the difference but I chase her down, wipe her hands and throw her back in the stroller. Soon I realize the time and that she really needs to nap, but she’s still acting hungry. So, I go to make her a bottle, and the ½ pint Poland Springs water I brought doesn’t open. (We bought a case with several defunct bottles, been meaning to email Poland Springs about that but that will have to wait another day.) We start to have a meltdown and I turn to Lisa and say, “We gotta go”. Meanwhile, I have not bought ONE thing on the list for Jamie’s birthday, nor brought the return I had, but did manage to buy more clothes for Caroline.
Now I am home. My daughter is asleep in the car in unwashed clothes, never having gotten to drink her bottle since she dropped it as I was driving. It’s probably leaking onto the seat…oh, the smell of formula. The few bites of white rice and fruit from the mall are sitting in my stomach in a way I can’t describe but it feels as though I ate much more than I did. I should go now, and tend to my house, which is a disaster, and think about what nutritious meal I can provide for my child when she wakes.