mamajoan | Entries tagged with random

A few days ago I was parking my car in a parking lot near the field where I was to meet my mom and the kids for Little League. It so happened that the building I parked in front of houses our veterinarian's office. On the steps of the house next door to the vet's, two little boys were hanging out.

As I got out of the car, one of them called, "Do you have a dog?" I replied no. "Do you have a cat?" I said yes. I then went to open the back of the car to get out Ruthie's bike. Both boys jumped down from their steps and came over to look in the back of my car. Clearly they thought that I had a cat in there (although the vet office was closed at this time of evening). I explained that I didn't have the cat with me at the time. They were disappointed.

"You have a messy car," one of them observed. I agreed that yes, I do. Then he starts quizzing me about the bike. Whose bike is it? What's her name? How old is she? After which he told me how old he was (5) and how old the other kid was (7) and how old his siblings were. Then he asked me how old *I* was and told me how old his mom and dad were. Then the two of them followed me all the way to the corner, chattering away. It was so funny. Ruthie is totally like that with strangers too -- I'm always telling her "you don't have to tell them your life story."

On another recent occasion, we were getting out of our car and walking into our house when three young women approached to ask for directions. This was on Easter Sunday and they were wearing party dresses. They wanted to know where Trull Street was. I was all, "ummm, uhhh, I don't know that street" because I totally suck at street names. (I can navigate fine, mind you. I have a really good sense of direction. I'm just bad at remembering the street names. It's all "that street that's one way the other way" and "that street we take when we go to such-and-so" and "that street where so-and-so's mom used to live.")

So I was awkwardly trying to say that I wasn't familiar with the street, when Isaac pipes up! "Oh, Trull Street, that's the next one over," says he. "You just go up there" (pointing to the big intersection) "and go that way, and it'll be right there."

Then I went inside and Google Mapped it, and sure enough, he was right! wow. who knew??

Briefer kid-funnies:

* Isaac came up to me and rubbed his face against my shoulder. me: "Are you sleepy?" Isaac: "no, I just kicked myself in the eye."
* Ruthie, sitting on my lap, rubbed her eyes. me: "Are you sleepy?" Ruthie: "No, I'm just exhausted." (pause) "What does exhausted mean?"

I was going to write more, but suddenly it's late and I can't remember any of it. heh.

Current Mood: tired

I mentioned here recently that Isaac has gotten interested in US geography, and grandma got him a placemat with a US map. Tonight he started quizzing me on the state capitals. I thought I did pretty well, considering that it has been about 25 years since I last needed to know most of that stuff. ;) Just like when I was a kid, I got tripped up on North/South Dakota and North/South Carolina. I completely blanked on Richmond, Virginia, and a few more took some serious cogitation and the occasional hint from Isaac ;) but overall I think I performed decently. ;)

Isaac was interested in my mentioning which state capitals I've visited. He seemed especially surprised that I've been to Austin, Texas. What? A girl can't go to Texas to visit her evil twin (

xochiquetzl)? :)

I found it interesting that even after all these years, I still remember Frankfurt, Kentucky with the mnemonic of Kentucky Fried Chicken/hot dogs. And I remember getting mixed up with Columbia, South Carolina and Columbus, Ohio. And, I still remember Jenny (don't remember her last name though) who in 4th or 5th grade was a classmate who had moved here from Baltimore, and always answered Baltimore when she was asked the capital of Maryland, even though she knew it wasn't right. And Concord, New Hampshire still makes me think of my cousin Max, whom I haven't seen in ages (though he did accept my Facebook friend request) because he was born there and I remember it so clearly.

Montgomery, Alabama was another one that gave me trouble, and after Isaac prompted me to it, Ruthie took a liking to the sound of "Montgomery" and marched around chanting it to herself for a few minutes. :)

Current Mood: nostalgic

Isaac: "Mama, I'll say something and you say the opposite."
Me: "Okay."
Isaac: "Um...I'm a bird."
Me: "I'm not a bird."
Isaac: "No! That's not what you say!"
Me: "Well, what's the opposite of bird?"
Isaac: "Dog!"
[...]
Isaac: "I'm a person."
Me: "I'm a horse."
Isaac: "No!!! You say 'I'm an animal'!"

Current Mood: amused

This morning in CVS, I spotted a display of Father's Day cards that made me do a quite literal double-take.

The card that first caught my eye featured a picture of James T. Kirk (Young Shatner edition from the '60s) and words along the lines of, "You're the best dad in the known universes." Then when you open it up, it plays the Original Trek theme music, and on the inside is written, "...and the unknown."

Okaaaaay...well...I suppose it's cute? I guess? But do you really want to be using notorious intergalactic philanderer Kirk as the imagery on a "you're a great dad" card? I mean if the message is "you're a better dad than this guy," um, hello damning with faint praise? Hee hee! Or maybe the message was just intended to be "Here's the guy who traveled to all those other universes where the dads are less cool than you." ;)

No, I do realize that all it really means is "we needed another cute slogan and this guy represents outer space and then we can say something cute about universes." But still, yeesh.

And then while I was standing there marveling at this, I noticed another card on the display. It featured a picture of Tom Hanks in "A League Of Their Own" and on the front said something like "Dad, when it comes to knowing all the wisdom of the world..." and then on the inside "...you're in a league of your own."

I dunno, is it just me, or is it kind of weird to make a Father's Day card using imagery and phrasing from a girl-power movie about women excelling in a traditionally masculine field of endeavor? Or am I veering dangerously close to the kind of territory that makes people say feminists have no sense of humor? ;)

I could be wrong. Maybe this is exactly the kind of card that someone like

maggiesox would buy for her dad (may he rest in peace) and maybe I'm just clueless due to the whole not having a dad thing. But well, it just caught my eye.

Current Mood: contemplative

There are several blind or visually-impaired people living in the Davis Square area, who use guide dogs. I occasionally see them going about their business when I'm going about mine. Once or twice I've even ridden the bus with them and their dogs.

A few days ago the kids and I were in Davis, and it was one of the first really beautiful weather days we'd had so far this spring, so there were LOTS of people out and about (including

lbmango, into whom we bumped that day). Of course, in addition to people, there were also lots of dogs out and about, so Ruthie was in toddler heaven because she's in a major dog-loving phase. So she was basically dashing from dog to dog in a high state of excitement (and btw I have been working hard on her to say "Is it okay if I pet your dog?" before petting, which she is doing pretty well with, but that's a whole other post).

I noticed two blind people standing in the square chatting, with their seeing-eye dogs sitting next to them. So I just told Ruthie, "no, we can't pet those dogs, they're working," and she gaily skipped on to the next dog, and I thought no more of it at the time.

But later it got me to thinking. If two blind people pass each other on the street, how do they know? I mean, if a blind person and a sighted person who are friends/acquaintances pass on the street, the sighted person might say "Hey Bob, how's it going?" by way of calling the blind person's attention to his/her presence and initiating conversation. But if they're both blind, they would never know that they just walked right past a friend. Unless maybe the dogs recognize each other and bring them together somehow?

I dunno. These are just the weird things that I think about when left to my own devices. ;)

Current Mood: curious

This guy is my new hero. :)

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson have a different objective in mind as they motor across the country this spring in their '97 Nissan Sentra. [...] They seek, in short, to do for America's public signage what spell-check software has done for interoffice e-mail: smarten it up and make it easier on the eye. Their weapons: Wite-Out, markers, ink pens, tape, and nerves of steel.

Check out the blog for awesome examples and hilarity. Onward grammarian soldiers! :)

I forgot to mention in my "random things" post yesterday that I was very glad I hadn't gotten around to putting my old nonfunctional inkjet printer out with the trash this week, because there was a post on freecycle from an MIT student seeking nonworking inkjets for middle-school girls to take apart as science projects. Awesome!! So I shot her an email and she promptly came over the other night and took it away. I am pleased.

Also, I wanted to recount ( this rather bizarre episode that happened the other day )

lol, life is weird sometimes.

Current Mood: groggy

Well, mostly anyway.

The big news of the day (yesterday that is) is that Isaac's preschool is moving to a new building, two doors down from where they are now. It'll be a MUCH nicer, and bigger space -- which means they'll be opening a toddler room! Which means I have to decide asap whether to switch Ruthie over. I'm on the fence, because on the one hand it'll be a lot cheaper than what I pay now, and oh the convenience of having both kids at the same place! But on the other hand it's another transition for Ruthie, and may not be convenient any more once Isaac starts school. And they haven't even hired the toddler-room staff yet, which makes me a little nervous. What if they hire someone who sucks?

Today we went to IHOP for lunch, which was awesome. I love IHOP. I am still doing this weird not-feeling-hungry thing, although for the most part I've been forcing myself to eat at my normal eating times. Who knows what's up with that? not me.

Isaac is doing unbelievably well with his reading lately. At the doctor's office the other day for Ruthie's checkup, I picked up a random magazine and flipped to a random page where there was an ad that began, "I just feel down all of the time." (ad for an antidepressant) Isaac read that entire sentence without any help!! ZOMG. I was super-impressed and so was the doctor.

Ruthie, btw, weighed in at 26 pounds and 32 inches tall, and is perfectly healthy. She didn't get any shots, on account of the doctor not having our records from the old dr yet; but she did get blood drawn to test for a few things, and needless to say she didn't care for that at all. But as usual, she bounced back a lot faster than I did. heh.

last night Ruthie was asking for milk yet again and I said, "what about eating? don't you want something to eat?" and she went, "No something to eat! Something to drink!" That's a child who knows her mind, you better believe it.

woot.com is down at the moment, this is very sad :(

I made it to a hundred pages of Archangel Protocol and although the writing is still awful, the story is at least moderately holding my interest. I'll stick with it a bit more and see what happens. I'm also about halfway through Our Babies Ourselves, which continues to feel kind of like preaching to the choir, but has some interesting bits.

I think that's all the minutiae I have for the moment. But I haven't posted kid pix in a while, so ( clicky clicky for cuteness! )

Current Mood: enthralled

Well, my car is allegedly fixed (again). The mechanic left a message this morning that he had replaced the starter. (to reiterate: HA!) He didn't mention how much it was going to run me, so I get to remain blissfully ignorant for another few hours.

I made an appointment to visit another school on Thursday. Then I emailed my project manager, who has kids in the Somerville system and has been one of my main sounding boards / sources of info during the process, and told him that I will be in late Thursday and that if after that day he hears me thinking about looking at any other schools, he should put the smackdown on. ;)

I remembered one of the other cute things Ruthie does that I wanted to post about. It's when she leaves the room (or goes to the other end of it) and then comes back and announces, "I back!!" LOL, well it loses something in translation but trust me, it is adorable. Also Ruthie has discovered how much fun it is to tickle her brother. ;) Isaac is very ticklish and if Ruthie sees him naked or partially naked (e.g. at dressing/undressing time), she will run over and tickle him while chortling in delight. Then he giggles the helpless giggle of the extremely ticklish, and it's all good. :) Also they are always hugging each other, and how is it that I never have the camera handy at those moments?? yeesh!

When I arrive at daycare at the end of the day and Ruthie runs over to me and I lift her up, she puts her little hands on either side of my face and holds me there and just looks at me for a moment. And then she'll say, "Ruthie's mama!" :)

The subject line is an oblique reference to a technical spec that one of my coworkers wrote, which originally began with a very confusing sentence fragment.

Random poll:
[Poll #1152514]

Current Mood: dorky

Brr!! It's cold today! This morning when we left the house it was eleven degrees F. It's all the way up to 19 now. With a wind chill of ten below. Whee!

I had great difficulty getting the car doors open this morning. Ruthie's door wouldn't unlock at all so I had to put her into her carseat through Isaac's door. yow.

When we got to Isaac's school, just as I was getting him out of the car, I saw one of his friends go by with his mom. I quickly signaled to the mom to take charge of Isaac -- which she has done for me before -- she was happy to do it and I was happy to not have to take Ruthie out of the car and then put her back in. I just hopped back in and drove to her daycare. On a day like this no way did I want to stand around waiting for the bus. (Did I ever mention here that I emailed my alderman a while back, asking him to look into the possibility of putting up a bus shelter at our bus stop? There is NO shelter there at all, nothing to shield one from whatever weather happens to come by. He emailed back saying that he'd look into it, but then nothing. I should follow up.)

Anyway, we got to daycare okay, but did I mention brr?

In news of the stupid, I'm shaking my head over a post just now on the Boston parents' email list. Someone had posted asking for suggestions of gay-friendly venues to hold a wedding and/or wedding reception. The poster specifically said that she had had a few places turn "chilly" on her after they found out it was a same-sex couple. Someone else just replied mentioning a place and saying "I would guess that they would be gay-friendly, although I can't imagine why any place wouldn't be!" Um, clearly you suffer from a severe lack of imagination, then. Sheesh.

In other news of the stupid, I just got a Skype from "Online Notice" telling me that my computer has malware and I should click here to fix it. Please! How dumb do I look? Skype spam now of all things. Double sheesh.

Current Mood: cold

Well, we survived yesterday. It wasn't the best day ever, but we got through it with minimal drama, which I think is the best that could be hoped for considering how it got started.

I'm not sure what happened last night. I "lost" a few hours somewhere. We were doing the whole "no nursie when it's dark outside" thing, which makes Ruthie furious so she alternately screams and sobs, and then falls asleep for brief periods, etc. -- and at some point I woke up and looked at the clock and it was about 2:45am, and then some time went by and I looked again, expecting to see something in the neighborhood of 3:30, but instead it was 6:30. So I'm not sure what happened there; possibly I actually got a few hours of sleep? Hard to say. ;P

(I certainly slept at least a little bit, because I remember bits and pieces of a very odd dream involving

dchenes and also something about my kids being trained as witches. buh?)

I did manage yesterday to make two new recipes! ( cooking update )

I also finished reading The Sunday Philosophy Club which was okay, and now am reading the next installment of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

Then this morning ( there was some car-related drama )

Oh, and I don't think I mentioned that on Saturday while we were riding the bus all over creation just because Isaac wanted to ride the bus (insert massive rolling of eyes here), a guy tried to give Ruthie this ridiculous bright-pink stuffed animal. I think it was supposed to be a puppy. The guy was saying something about how he bought it for his daughter but now he and his ex-wife were having a spat. I said he should save it to give to his daughter. He said he isn't allowed to see her any more. So then I just said that we already have way too many stuffed animals (which is true) and thanked him, but no thanks.

Anyway, that was weird and uncomfortable. And I'd like to say I feel for the guy, but really, offering a stuffed animal to some random toddler on the bus? Is it just me or is that kind of creepy?

On the same bus ride, there was a little girl about Isaac's age who asked me if she could "see" (i.e., hold) Ruthie's teddy bear. I told her I didn't think that was a good idea. Ruthie can get kind of freaky if someone else tries to play with her bear.

Ruthie's way of saying "noodles" sounds to me exactly like "nursie," which is confusing. Isaac swears that they sound like two totally different words to him. (Have I mentioned that often lately I have to ask Isaac to translate what Ruthie is saying? I generally am pretty good at understanding Ruthie's words but sometimes when I can't, Isaac can.) Isaac has also started asking me how he said various things when he was a baby. I guess I started this recently by telling him that when he was a baby he called noodles "noo-noos." Now he'll randomly ask, "mama, how did I say marker when I was a baby? How did I say cheerios when I was a baby? How did I say box that the crackers came in when I was a baby?" LOL.

Current Mood: hungry

This is possibly the weirdest news item you'll see this holiday season.

A Connecticut woman was charged with sexual assault for allegedly groping Santa Claus at the mall as she sat on his lap. Umm...nuff said?

hee hee. poor Santa.

Current Mood: amused

1. Ruthie's daycare had a flyer posted, saying that one can sign up one's child for "entertainment and activities" -- I forget the exact phrasing they used, making it sound like a special activity, but basically it boils down to, for $40 they'll babysit your kid of a Saturday morning so you can do your Christmas shopping. They phrased it much more high-falutin'ly than that.

Anyway, the flyer said that this will take place on November 31st. Um. No?

2. I logged on to OKCupid on a whim. (if you're not familiar with it, it sort of started out as a geek-dating site, but now is a bit more mainstream, but basically it asks you a zillion questions and then uses a complex algorithm (or so they claim) to match you up with fellow geeks.) I created an account ages and ages ago when it was the new "thing," but I hadn't actually used it. Anyway, so tonight on a whim I logged on and asked it to show me my best matches within 10 miles of me, between ages 25 and 45, sorted by best match and proximity to me. The FIRST person who showed up on the list was my kids' sperm donor. Yikes! And just a little farther down the list was his long-term girlfriend. (And just a little farther down from that was

lbmango!)

I'm not sure whether I'm amused or horrified. heh.

3. Work has been stressful this week but I don't really want to talk about it.

4. But on top of all the rest, I have had

hopemcg and

meglett on my mind all day. Please send them healing thoughts as they are going through such a loss right now.

Current Mood: tired

Yesterday in Harvard Square a nice middle-aged touristy couple with British accents stopped me on the street to ask for directions...to Ben&Jerry's. LOL!

( Shopping vs. Singing )

I haven't posted here much lately about the whole Ruthie sleep situation but, suffice it to say, it continues to be an issue. Part of the problem is that it's hard for me to see much point in putting a lot of effort into changing the sleep situation when there are important baseball games most nights. The games start at 8pm and go into the wee hours, so I'm generally like, why bother trying to change up Ruthie's sleep when I won't be taking advantage anyway?

So our pattern lately has been that I lie down with her in her bed while Isaac lies in his bed, and we listen to music and she nurses to sleep, whereupon I disentangle myself and go do whatever (watch the game, etc.). She'll sleep in her bed for around two hours, give or take, and then wake up. Then I nurse/rock/etc. her back to sleep and put her down in my bed. Then I finish watching the game, and when it's over I go to sleep on the couch, until Ruthie wakes up again another 2-3 hours later and I get into bed with her.

It's a stupid, pointless, ridiculous pattern, but it'll work for us at least through the World Series. After that my plan is to work on getting her to sleep through the night without nursing. Or at least with less nursing.

Anyway, last night the babysitter took care of the getting-Ruthie-to-sleep-in-her-bed part, and when she woke up I rocked her back to sleep without nursing (shocker) and put her down in my bed as usual. Then since there was no game, I just bedded down on the couch, around 10:30 or 11pm. And, as usual, I got up when I heard Ruthie doing her outraged "I woke up in bed alone! oh the humanity!" cry.

But to my surprise, when I sprang up from the couch upon hearing that cry, the clock said 6:15! Wow. We must have both been pretty tired. So, yay for sleeping through the night at least once. I have no illusions that it's suddenly going to become a habit...alas....

Current Mood: hungry
Current Location: office

Ruthie, 99% asleep, was rooting around looking for the nipple and couldn't find it. In her sleepy daze she murmured quietly, "uh-oh!"

As I was buckling Isaac into his carseat this morning he announced, in tv-game-show-announcer voice, "You're...my...MAMAAAAA!!!!" (LOL) "Yep, and you're my Isaac boy!" replied I. "And I love you a really lot!" he continued. Whereupon I was almost all set to melt into a puddle of ooze, but then he added, "And I love grandma a REALLY REALLY lot!" *facepalm* ;)

Speaking of Isaac, today was a red-letter day for him: he dressed himself completely, from head to toe! Meaning, he removed all of his pajamas (including pull-up) without any help from me, and put on underwear, pants, shirt, sweater, socks, and shoes, all by himself. Plus his jacket when we were ready to leave! woohoo. He's almost ready to start supporting me! ;)

( money stuff, some good and some annoying )

In other news, I don't think I mentioned that as of last weekend I accomplished my goal of reading 25 books in the 6-month period from April 16th through October 16th. Actually, as of this past Sunday I had read 26 books, and I'm now about 1/3 of the way through Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon, so it's looking like I might make it to 27 by the 16th. I am pleased. :) Those last two books, incidentally, were The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell, who is my new goddess, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, which I read for the bookclub that

mofic started up. I enjoyed it a lot. I have been telling people that I found it extremely engaging and incredibly moving. :) Highly recommended.

I've also been thinking about a post that

plaidder made recently about some of the books I've read recently, notably Octavia Butler's Kindred and Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart.

plaidder said some interesting things about themes of slavery, particularly sexual slavery, in fantasy novels along the Kushiel lines; and I have been wanting to post in response but, you know, who has time. Still, it's interesting stuff to think about and it occurred to me that the Naomi Kritzer series I've been reading, starting with Freedom's Gate and Freedom's Apprentice, addresses some of those themes as well. So, uh, this sentence shall serve as a placeholder for more on that. sigh.

In unrelated news, playoffs begin tonight! (Okay, they began yesterday for those wacky National League folks, but whatever.) My mom and

metafrantic are going to tonight's game, sigh, pout. ah well. I'm not all that jealous. It's going to be freezing. ;) GO RED SOX!

And in closing, let me just say that I have a headache, no thanks to

boniblithe for posting this link. I've been staring at it for ages now and I cannot see the woman turning anything but clockwise. Which way do YOU see her turning? How the hell does this thing work?? edit OMG!!! Now that

evil_macaroni gave me the hint, I can totally see it! Now I can see her going either way! Totally freaky. I'm going to have nightmares about this shit.