Wanderlust

Technical Difficulties... please, standby.

Many of you might be wondering what the heck is going over in Utah and why we have been so remiss about posting. Many of you may not give a shit, and for those of you, you can go back to your regularly scheduled programming. The reason our site has been eerily silent has nothing to do with noxious air of suburban spring, the amazing truth of Jesus Christ that has rendered us speechless, or that the Mormons have finally convinced us that polygamy is a wonderful idea and we've been busy searching for a third wife. (I've already reserved second wife spot for Angelina Jolie when she comes to her senses and realizes Brad Pitt is gay). Nope. We've been having an onslought of technical difficulties so fearsome that I am trembling for our future.

I've been having a decidedly clumsy month as well and have managed to break quite a few things, both in the electrical and non electrical department. George told me the other day that when the cell phone rings at work and he sees it's from me, he mentally braces himself before he answers. "What did you do now?"

Here, in no particular order, is a somewhat complete list of the objects that have been injured, altered or rendered useless in the last month. I am not responsible for ALL of them... just most.

1: Truck: While the truck's back pinion is in serious jeopardy, this has been a long standing problem. This month I added to the two cosmetic dents the truck received last winter when George decided to kiss some tress in a snowstorm by scraping the hood of the cap along the handle of the garage door. There's no automatic opener on the truck side and I have to manually lift the door. Apparently it slid a bit and when I backed out, I drug the edge of the handle along the top of the cap, chewing off paint and fiberglass. Oops.

2: Shovel: A fore mentioned shovel broken while trying to dig posts out of backyard. Also see post entitled George is a dumbass.

3: PVR: Our Dish version of TIVO has been acting possessed recently, seizing up like an epileptic on a regular basis and forcing us to panic as we try to desperately retrieve South Park episodes before it eats them alive.

4:Spoon Rest: The red ceramic rest George just bought me this past Christmas that we had a hell of a time trying to find. I dropped it.

5: Humidifier: We bought one cheap for Owen's room at a Target end of the year sale. It is up for debate who the exact culprit of breakage is on this one, but the seals were damaged by lifting it up incorrectly and it spewed water for two days all over Owen's floor before I realized it was leaking.

6:Our server: You may have noticed that the webcams sporadically are inoperable. Our server seems to dislike its life and has periods of depression where it just shuts down. We think Miles said something mean to it.

7:Thermopen: This superduper expensive meat thermometer that I bought George for Christmas was damaged by the dumbass who put it to dry next to the dish drainer and then was later shocked to find that it actually had water inside it . Hmmm...

8: Two pairs of pajama pants and several pairs of socks: These have gone to the wayside, falling culprit to years of wear and simultaneously giving out this month.

9: George's monitor: It wavers, it flickers, it gulps and it teeters on the edge of absolute darkness. I'm certain when it finally gives in to its inevitable death in the coming month, George will cry.

10: My laptop: Owen spitup on it.

So when we get this all sorted out, we'll get back to you.

Letters to the O

Three Months

Every month when I sit down to write these vignettes, my heart aches a little over how much you've changed in just a few weeks. It seems that one day, all at once, you'll be your own little boy with a loud voice and endlessly grabbing hands and my smiley, good natured baby will suddenly be gone. Ah, how I'll miss you then. Although I hope there will be some benefits to offset the loss, like less poop for instance. That would be a good start.

It is certain that your father and I have done absolutely nothing to deserve the happy, easy going baby that you are. Yes, when we forget to feed you for days or set you on the floor and allow the dogs to tongue bathe you, you do cry but beyond that you seem unflappable. You frequently voice your happiness, as well as your displeasure, in boisterous, high pitched baby talk and often, when I come in to rouse you from an unusually long nap, I find you awake and grinning. Most eery is when I come in and find you staring and vocalizing at the green light of the monitor perched in the corner of your crib, as if you know it is this little device that serves as your portal straight beyond that bedroom door and into mommy's ear. You've begun to stare at other things too with complete recognition, specifically my breasts. As if to say..."Ah... there's those beautiful things full of milk again." Such a boy.

Your hands have reached full dexterity and you can pick up objects and grasp with ease, although you seem completely bored with this fabulous new power. I do adore the way you grasp my thumbs when you're sitting in my lap reading books, sucking away at your pacifier and seeming the most blissfully content baby ever seen. Often, after you've fallen asleep drooling on my chest, I'll go to set you down in your crib only to find that a piece of my shirt is crumpled in your tiny, closed fist and we are inextricably intertwined. You pet me now when you nurse, your arm around my back, and I'm never sure who finds this more soothing- me or you.

We get into the bath together and you adore being surrounded in bubbles, floating on the warm water's surface in the safety of my arms. You've even begun to kick your legs and do a remarkable impression of a baby trying to swim. I sometimes think if I let you go, you'd just swim away on your own power. I blow bubbles with the bubble wand and let them float in the air just above your head and you giggle and take huge gulps of air when they hit and break in your face, as if you've narrowly escaped imploding with delight.

Now that the weather is somewhat cooperative, we walk almost every day. I like to refer to you as the "Pimpster" when you are in your stroller. You sit at half recline, both arms extended, a satisfied smile as you bump down the sidewalk. Oblivious to that strange woman at your back, who pushes and puffs up the hills. You make it look so effortless to passerbys. "This is my ride, bitches."

You've grown out of all of your newborn clothes and moved, exactly on time, into your 3-6 months duds. This is mostly because of your height (although do you notice when we refer to babies, we call it their length because they're always lying down) and your boat feet. I've packed away those little sleepers and tiny socks with regretful little sighs. Soon will come the day you won't need me to wipe your butt anymore. And seriously, unbelievably, I'll be sad about it.

Daddy was holding you the other day and I walked into the room and stood by his shoulder. You turned your head the second you saw me and gazed at me and your daddy said,
"Wow... he REALLY loves you. You can tell by the way he looks at you."
And I looked down into your wide, warm eyes and open smile and saw it there. Absolute trust. I've never felt so humble.

God didn't get the memo...

It's spring already so you can turn off the snow!
What an asshole.
Who deserves snow in (practically) May? Seriously, not even the Mormons have been that bad.

Censorship in Your America

Most of the affeciandos of this blog probably watched the South Park episode this week where Comedy Central refused to air an image of Mohammed in the cartoon due to what they claim are "public safety concerns" (otherwise known as "What's wrong in the state of Denmark"). I guess I didn't think I would ever see the day when this sort of censorship was commonplace in our country and I'm glad the South Park writers aren't going to let it go by without calling it out by it's real name. Why don't you stop by Comedy Central's website and send in your opinion of their decesion?

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XIII

Isolation Island

If there was a mommy reality show, I'm pretty sure this is what the network execs would call it. After your little bundle of joy is born, you become a member of the mommy club and begin to descend into the depths of social withdrawal. It's not like you're a social pariah or anything. That's reserved for people who know all the words to every John Denver song. It's just that the first two years of babydom seem more like voluntary house arrest.

For those of you who don't know me well, you make be shocked when I admit that I'm not really a people person. Yes, it's TRUE! I don't even like talking on the phone and the idea of chatting makes me vomit, especially if it concerns nail polish. I'd be perfectly happy holed up in a cabin in the woods somewhere, plotting my next assination attempt in front of a roaring fire on my buckskin rug. Call me bat-shit crazy. The life of a hermit, a nun and the psychotic, committed mental patient have all appealed to me at one time because they were areas of society so blessedly clean of that emotional mess that comes with people. I could mumble to the walls and pretend to pick bugs out of my fur without interruption.

Now that I've living squarely in the SAHM category, I find a strange phenomena occuring. I wouldn't go so far as to say I MISS people. That would be rather too large a step, right into the world of pleasantries where I feel utterly lost. But the sting of isolation is starting to get to me. I noticed this at work the other day where I spent the entire afternoon talking the ear off of a college age LDS girl. She is, naturally, pregnant and I found myself prattling on and on with baby advice in the most nauseating manner. I tried looking at her and imagining her in her MORMON underwear in order to break the chatting trance that had overcome me, but it didn't work. My mouth just kept going on and on and on. I find myself whipping around in the grocery store when Owen does something cute just to see if maybe that old lady by the produce saw it too and we can talk about how insanely in love with him I am. George comes home with tales of work and all I want to do is trade tales of poop in return, when really, we'd both be better of NOT talking about diapers during dinner.

Isolation Island isn't all that terrible, because Owen (and Miles and Timber, who blessedly don't speak or CRY) is stranded here with me. I spend my day discussing political events while he smiles and ask questions. But I know the day will come when we'll have to leave Isolation Island because I won't be able to use the word FUCK anymore without having it repeated back to Owen's preschool classmates like a chatty Kathy doll. And I depserately need at least one place in my life where I can say FUCK really loudly and offend at least one MORMON.

Cell Phone Usage

Just for shits and giggles, I recently checked my call timers on my phone. I found this to be my total call on this phone -->

3101 calls
218hrs 20min 32sec

Wow, I wasted way too much time on the phone. But in my defense, I do make a lot of calls on the way home from work. It makes the 30-45 minutes drive go by quickly. Also, since I have Verizon family plan, all calls to Kaz or anyone with Verizon are free.

So what are your call timers like on your phone?

Yard work

Yesterday Kaz and I did yardwork. It was a pain in the ass, but it was also fun to be outside and enjoy spring time for the first time this year. We even got a little red in our arms from the sun! The backyard is Mile's and Timber's domain, and it is funny how excited they get when we are back there. The are like, "Hey this is my play yard, lets play!!!". Kaz picked up poop that has accumulated for the past 10 years. Well, maybe not that much, but with the snow and rain, it's been really hard being motivated to pickup poop.

I worked on this dog house / outside kennel. It is made of chainlink fence, a concrete pad, and a heavy and insulated (there is some foam type stuff between two layers of ply wood for the sides, top, and bottom) doghouse. There is also the vine type plant that has taken over the entire structure. When I say taken over, I mean that the vine has grown into the chainlink fence where I had to cut the chain links to get the vine out. Half of the vine has been dead for quite some time, the other half is quite big. It seems this place hasn't been used for dogs in years. Maybe ten years I don't know. But is was a complete mess.

So we decided we were going to remove it all and place a park bench type thing on the concrete and use some latice behind it for the vine type plant to grow on. It's our first real landscaping we've ever done. It's cool because we own the house and now we are actually doing things for the house we own.

In the course of cleaning it up, I tried to remove the posts on the four corners of the chain link fence with a brand new shovel. I broke the shovel within 2 minutes. The post are in cement, and I was trying to dig them out. Apparently shovels are like hand tools. You get what you pay for. If you want something that will last, buy something worth it. So now everything is cleared out except for the posts. I guess that will be this weekends project, in addition to puting up the lattice. Hopefully it will end up looking sweet and my house's value will go through the roof. At least that is what I keep telling myself...

I am one of THOSE people...

You know THOSE people who never take down their Christmas lights because by the time they get around to it, it's October and it seems like a waste of time to take them down and put them back up a month later. I scorn THOSE people. I've even been known to go around the day before New Years if I was going to be out of town and box up all the Xmas stuff just to avoid being one of THOSE people. And I also loathe THOSE other people, who purposefully set their clocks (or their morning alarm) ahead five minutes to avoid making themselves late but they're always late anyway because they look at the clock, and think to themselves, "that's okay, I still have five minutes." And yet...

I was in the truck yesterday and happened to look at the time on the stereo display and was shocked to discover that it was the correct time. Because, you see, I've been mentally subtracting an hour since the fall and now that daylight savings time has rolled around again, I felt somewhat pleased with myself that I didn't have to reset the clock because now, months later, it's finally right. I caught myself in the middle of this thought and realized, dear God, I AM one of THOSE people.

Spring is in the air.

I can always tell it's spring (beside looking at the calendar) when I can hear the birds singing in the early morning. I can also tell by the sweet smell of the air. That smell of the trees and plants starting to grow again. A couple of nights ago, we slept with a window partially open. It was great. The bedroom smelled so great, and in the morning there was a slight spring chill, not the winter chill that's been here too long.

This morning I opened the garage door, and I heard the birds chirping away. Since the ground was wet, I could smell that spring smell filling the garage. Spring is definately hear. So it was a totally surprise when I pulled the car out of the garage and it was snowing. Snowing hard. I guess spring is not totally here yet...

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XII

THE ONLY TIME IN MY LIFE I'LL GENUINELY WISH I WAS AN OCTOPUS...

You've heard it a billion times- "there just aren't enough hours in the day." While this cliche has certainly rung true plenty of times in my own life previously, I now get to enjoy the reality of the mommy version of this cliche.

"I just don't have enough hands."

Yes, I have the standard two like most homosapiens. But once you become someone else's food source, personal maid, and lifeline, your hands (along with your boobs) suddenly aren't your own anymore. And I miss them. Sure, I could stick him in a carrier or a sling and get the use of my own two hands back, but they wouldn't be enough anymore. It would be like my breasts shrinking from there current size D back to the old B cup. Seems inadequate all of a sudden. Because now that I've become a mommy, I've decided the optimum number of hands to possess would be about eight.

One: Obviously to hold onto the little pain in the ass so he doesn't fall on his head and retain permanent brain damage more significant than the kind he already has.

Two: To perform same task as above, although once he is able to hold himself upright and control his bobblehead, I'll take this hand back and use it to clip my toenails, a task I haven't managed to accomplish since Owen's birth.

Three: This hand is exclusively for the amazing amounts of laundry generated and the time it takes to sort, load, fold, and put away said laundry.

Four: I'd like to reserve this hand just for diaper changes. Why? Because they're gross.

Five: This one is for cooking dinner, doing dishes and all other food related activites, including, once in awhile, actually consuming something myself.

Six: I have to reserve an extra hand for talking on the phone because no matter how much you plan it, people always call when your baby is screaming, your dinner is burning, or your pants are around your feet.

Seven: This is just to rock Owen to sleep and to master the art of laying him down in the exact position he fell asleep in, because otherwise the bastard wakes up because he knows you've snuck off to sip tequila again.

Eight: And this hand, sacred before all others and at the right hand of God himself, is the pacifier hand. Because nothing says shut the fuck up like a big, rubber nipple.

Losing Your Load

Check out this news story regarding a massive traffic jam in Salt Lake City suburbia. George, who was late to work after a touch of a tummy ache, turned around and came home when he discovered his route to work had become a parking lot.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=185546