Thursday, January 27, 2011

Over the Hump

It has been cold this week. Really, really cold. Not only that but I've actually been suffering from a cold virus at the same time and the combination has been pretty unpleasant. It started last Friday and by Tuesday I was certain that a) it would never be warm again and b) I would never be healthy again. Today I have been proven wrong as it is a balmy 34 degrees (much better than -6) and I feel almost perfect. Yay!

In the meantime Aiden and I were holed up in the house except for a few errands and a trip to story time at the library. While we were home he did his best to amuse himself while I sat on the couch and groaned in agony. This is what he came up with:




Hopefully now that I'm feeling better and since Sean has the weekend off, we'll be able to have some fun with him!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Our Sunday Is Your Friday, and Other Nonsense.


So, Sean is finally done with his first night shift rotation. To say that I am blissfully thankful would be an understatement. You see, it started off really great. We realized that instead of Sean coming home from work really late in the evening and thus missing dinner with Aiden and I, he was now home for 2 meals with us! We'd share a big breakfast together when he came home and he'd have dinner with us before work. Lovely! He also ended up getting a couple more hours of sleep than he would if he were working a regular day shift.

We soon realized however, that after seven days of this night shift nonsense, the benefits definitely don't outweigh the negatives. Sure, we share two meals together. We also don't have a single moment alone as Aiden is awake both morning and evening. Those extra hours of sleep he gets during the day? Doesn't matter since it's still miserable to stay up all night.

Not only that, I realized it's not fun to try and keep Aiden from making too much noise while Sean's asleep. It also means no noisy chores like vacuuming or really any kind of cleaning upstairs at all, and I realized that I hate being alone seven nights in a row.

Also, seven straight days of work, whether day/swing/evening, is a long long week. By Tuesday night, his last before a two day break, I was miserable and so was he. And now it's our Sunday evening. Yes, I realize it's Friday evening, but Sean's week starts tomorrow.

This is definitely going to take some getting used to.

We did have a lovely two day break together though. We visited friends, got hit with another snowstorm (although I don't think it's ever really stopped snowing between storms so it's like a really big two week storm) and tried our best to do a whole lot of nothing while we both recovered from this new schedule. Hopefully we start figuring out what works best for us and how to maximize our time together. At least this next week is regular day shifts!


Saturday, January 15, 2011

I Also Left My Brain In the Car

This post has no pictures. Sorry to disappoint, but at the end of it you will understand why, and probably be grateful.

We've been having a great week. Sean's night shifts have been going shockingly well, my BEST FRIEND LAURA showed up on my doorstep Thursday morning after covertly flying across the country and swearing all of my other friends to secrecy. Generally, life's been awesome. So naturally, this morning was necessary to balance out the ease with which we've been getting by.

I decided I'd take Aiden to the local museum where they have a huge Lionel train exhibit set up. So I said goodnight (or goodmorning?) to Sean who'd just gotten home from work, buckled Aidy into the car seat and we headed out.

At the very bottom of the driveway I heard a "THUNK" and since I could see the recycling bin but not the garbage one, I realized I must have whacked it with the ginormus SUV. I was half in the road, half in the driveway at this point and tried to pull forward but the combination of leftover ice and the steep grade of our drive meant that not even the 4WD could get that sucker moving forward.

I knew it'd only take a second to move the bin so I turned off the car, tossed the keys on the seat and hopped out. As I righted the garbage bin I heard a soft thump and hurried over to see that the angle of the car had caused the heavy door to just barely shut. I yanked on the handle to no avail: even though I could wedge my fingers between the door and the body of the car the latch had engaged and somehow the door was locked. All of them were locked. The trunk was even locked.

So my mothering instincts kicked in and I totally panicked. My car was halfway in the road, with my baby strapped in. All I could think of was some car racing down the road smashing into it. Once I reminded myself that I lived on a quiet stretch of clear suburban road and it was Saturday morning, I calmed down.

I decided to run inside and find the spare keys. Except my house keys were on the seat of my locked car. Right. Aha! Sean was home! I ran up to the house and rang the bell. I banged on the door. Nothing. Sean, you see, enters a coma-like state upon falling asleep and it was going to take more noise to wake him up. I knew that if I could just get the dog to bark that he'd wake up (we've discovered that when Bo does bark it's shrill enough to pierce your eardrums). I pounded on the door and rang the bell for a good ten minutes before an angry, bleary-eyed Sean came down (and Bo never even barked. What the heck).

And where were his set of keys? IN THE CAR. So, since my brain was addled with panic and he was running on ten minutes of sleep, we decided that the only thing to do would be to break into the car and rescue our baby. Wire coat hanger in hand, we headed down the driveway.

However, growing up in a sleepy neighborhood in a peaceful town where we had loving parents and enriching extra curricular activities kept us from learning the secrets of grand theft auto and we totally failed at unlocking the automotive prison. So, logically, we resorted to blaming each other. We had a refreshing five minute spat in the sub-freezing winter air about who was really at fault and who was currently suffering more. Once that was out of our system we decided Aiden was probably suffering the most.

I peered through the tinted windows of the SUV and attempted to communicate with Aiden, who I assumed was equally frozen from the temperature and sheer terror. I was wrong. He casually waved at me and smiled slyly. I asked him to try and undo the top of his carseat (which he KNOWS how to do). He just shook his head and smiled. Sean asked. Aiden rolled his eyes, stretched, and crossed his legs. I KID YOU NOT. I pleaded and begged and Aiden would wave or make goofy faces.

Finally we made the emergency call to AAA. We weren't actually members so they mercifully charged us DOUBLE and proceeded to wax poetic about the benefits of upgrading our four second old plan to platinum level, despite the fact that Sean had just informed them we had a toddler stuck in a car sitting halfway in the road in frigid temperatures. But please, do go on about your superb towing services.

Twenty minutes later, while my toes slowly lost feeling and Sean lost more and more sleep, we received an automated phonecall telling us not to give up hope, the lock smith would be there soon.

In relief I rested my forehead against the car window. Then Sean pointed out the "Emergency Roadside Assistence" phone number in the corner of that same window. The one that would've gotten our car unlocked for free since the car is still under warranty. WHOOPS.

Finally, an hour after the ordeal began, Aiden was sprung free. Sean returned to bed. All I wanted to do was take a hot bath and apologize to Aiden forty thousand times. My plans would have to wait as the first thing he said to me was "Ugh. Come on Mommy. Choo choo show!". So off we went.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Snow Much Fun

(I wrote this post this past Sunday as a reflection on the fun we'd had being 'snowed in' and I forgot to post it. And now? Now we're looking down the barrel of ANOTHER snow event! It's officially January)

This past Friday night/ Saturday morning we had a snow storm. Now, I feel like the past three years or so we've had two to three day long snowstorms and storms that drop both ice and snow and knock power out, so this storm, which left us with about 8 inches of powdery snow and a pleasantly sunny Saturday in which to dig out seemed kind of quaint and not particularly threatening. Nevertheless, the weather reports made it sound like a very chilly and very white Armageddon was coming. So Friday morning I headed to the grocery store to pick up the essential life sustaining supplies we'd need in case the storm was truly awful: hot chocolate and bagels. I also dug out a few of our favorite movies..just in case.

As I mentioned, it was a lot of snow, not really a storm. We curled up inside with our movies and books and I kept coming up with reasons to refill everyone's mug with hot chocolate. Oh, who am I kidding, you don't need a reason to have a refill of hot chocolate.

That evening Sean's father and sister came over to go sledding with Aiden and it was so adorable. He had such a fun time and talked nonstop about it all night. Of course, I completely failed to take any pictures of the sledding fun.

I did manage to get a few shots of Aiden playing with Bo. By 'playing' I mean 'attempting to stalk'. Somehow, Bo got away every time.







Sunday, January 9, 2011

Man Cold

You guys, both Aiden and Sean have....man colds. It's similar to a cold a women gets except....much worse. The whole earth must come to a screeching halt to tend to the needs of a man suffering from a man cold.

Sean's started last week and he's generally been in good spirits as long as I ensure he's always got a cup of hot tea with honey. And fresh baked goods. And as long as I stop every few hours and say something along the lines of "honey...how are you holding up? Are you SURE you're okay?".

Aiden woke up with it today. It's kind of funny to see how he acts when he's sick because he tries to get away with murder. He's completely stopped speaking, merely moaning and grunting and pointing at what he wants. He decided he wanted a cookie and groaned until I brought him one, hoping it would make him feel better. When I handed it to him part of it crumbled and he looked up at me with a frown and finally said "ugh...It's broken!".

Yes, I'm on high alert over here with the sick men. I just hope none of the other men in our family catch it.


My friend Tierney told me about this video and it's pretty accurate:


Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Puppy!...I Mean, Year!

So, our new little puppy is here and is currently asleep on my right foot. He's an adorable little sheltie, only 12 weeks and not quite 4 pounds. We picked him up on Friday after driving for hours and hours up into northern New York, through the candy cane forest, over the sea of swirly twirly gumdrops (okay, yes, that's from the movie Elf), and onto the ferry across Lake Champlain to Vermont. Then we drove an hour more into the country and down one long unplowed dirt road to reach the home of his breeders.

They told us that they were selling him because he was unfit to be a showdog like his three sisters. Apparently a puppy that doesn't bark or jump or nip and just likes to curl up in your lap makes a bad showdog but a very, very good house pet. Sometimes I wonder if he's actually a kitten and not a dog at all.

It's been a surprisingly easy transition. He's half house trained, but he doesn't bark at night and although he does like to chew he never nips at us. He's a doll.

His name is Bo. Actually, Aiden named him Rainbow but Sean and I decided to spare the poor puppy's manly pride and call him Bo.

Here he is: