Good News/Bad News

As I mentioned in another post, we had an ultrasound on Friday.
It was one of those good news/bad news things.

The good news, is that we confirmed her gender.  She is definitely a girl!  That is much better than the last time when the tech wasn't really sure.  That makes it much easier to just move past the idea of having a boy and be happy with the idea of three girls, and I am.

The bad news is that while almost everything else seemed to look really good, the tech seemed to be very concerned about her weight.  I generally have large babies.  By that, I mean both their overall weight and length is high on the height/weight chart at birth.  The Big One weighed 9lbs 6oz and was 22 inches long.  The Little One was 21.5 inches long, and weighed 9lbs 1oz.  Neither one anywhere near being called small.  During the ultrasound, though, the tech kept asking questions in reference to The Littlest One's weight.  According to the tech, her waist is "very trim".  The tech just ask so many questions that she was freaking me out.  Things like, have I gained any weight and then is it enough weight.  I was absolutely able to assure her that my weight gain wasn't an issue for in this case.  She ask a few more questions, and seemed in general to be concerned herself.  Everything else was fine, but she is too skinny.
I'm really not sure where to go with that.  While both of The Girls were big, they weren't chunky even at that weight.  Their length evened out their weight, and made them both long and thin, but not too thin.  My Husband and Mom both think this baby is just going to be long and thin, maybe a little more thin, but I'm still concerned.  I think it is normal to be concerned.  I'm a mom, and that is what we do.  My Husband is definitely on the "I'm just too dramatic" train and wants me to chill until we find something else out when I see the Dr on Friday.
I can try not to, but I am sure I will worry.  That, again, is just what we do as moms.  I'm hoping for another long skinny but healthy baby, and nothing more or less.

The Offensive Penis

I'm not totally sure, but I think I offended someone today by saying the word penis.
That's it.  I just said it.  I didn't have a picture of one to wave around, or talk about my personal feeling in relation to a penis.  No.  It was actually quite simple.  I mentioned the picture of Katie Holmes giving Suri a penis gummy.

(image from TMZ)

It didn't seem like a big deal to me, the word penis, not giving your child penis gummy things, which I do kind of find a bit alarming.  

I was at a potluck party today with my moms group.  One of the women mention Suri and Katie.  After she was done, I brought up the photo.  I Actually said the words "gummy penis".  The woman standing beside me left not a minute into the conversation that ensued.  She immediately went to sit by someone else, and it seemed pretty obvious to me.  Every other woman right around me and I were really into the discussion.  We all found it rather dense to do something like that if you don't want the public to see when you know every minute of your life in photographed.  Then again, we all felt it rather dense to give that box to your child to begin with. 

Now, I don't think what she found offensive was that we were being judgemental of a celebrity.  People do that all the time.  That's part of why we love celebrities.  We love having the ability to tear them up, too.  We certainly weren't bagging on the child, just the mom.  

So, it had to be the word penis being thrown around.  It had to make her uncomfortable.  I'm not sure why, but it did.  Perhaps she is just very modest.

The conversation evolved into what we can't do any more, stores we can't visit because our children are with us, and eventually into dealing with little boys and their own penis issues.   To me, this is what a great moms  group is for.  You need to have other adults that you can have adult talk with.  I certainly can't show that photo to my children, and definitely can't discuss why it isn't right with them.  I need other moms who are grown folk, and like to talk about grown folk things.  We all do. 

I have to tell you, I don't think my actions should have been offensive.  I don't feel like they were inappropriate on their face.  There were no children around to repeat what we were saying.  We were discussing a parenting choice.  I really don't think the word penis should be offensive by itself, either.  I mean, we all have kids, and the vast majority of us have gotten pretty up close and personal with one to get them.  So, let's all be grown ups.  If we are talking about anatomy, then you don't get to be upset.  Its just a body part.  Deal with it.  Penis.  Penis. Penis. Penis.  And just to make sure I'm not sexist in my grown up body part talk....vagina.  

We Did It!!!!!

Throughout this whole Girl Scout Cookie ordeal, we have had a goal.  One of the things we, as leaders, try to teach the girls is about goal setting, and planning to reach them.  When we sat down with our troop, the girls collectively decided that they wanted to sell 3,000 boxes.  That is a whole lotta cookies for 6 little girls.  We had them do the math, and that meant each girl needed to sell 500 boxes.  While there are lots of little prizes that the girls can earn for selling cookies, 500 boxes is the first big one.  When you hit 500, you get to go to camp.  Each of our girls wanted to do that.  They decided they could.  Honestly, I wasn't sure, but our leader said we could do it.  So, we all set our goals.

When I talked to The Big One alone about her goal, she was adamant that she wanted to hit 500.  She really, really wants to go to camp.  If we had to pay for a camp, they aren't cheap, either.  They are a few hundred dollars to start with for the cheaper camps.  So, if she wanted it, she would have to earn it.
She has worked really hard during all this.  She did walk-a-bouts with her cookie mobile wagon just about every weekend.  Sometimes more than once a weekend.  She did every booth sale we could get to.  The child has honestly worked for her goal.

Of course, her mother and father have worked pretty hard, too.  We are the ones going to the booth sales with her.  We have to take her one the walk-a-bouts.  In particular, her father has busted his rump moving cookies.  They have a new nickname for him at work in regards to selling cookies.  I don't want to post it, after all, I don't want to use that kind of language in relation to Girl Scouts, but I will say that he is being likened to a special kind of "working girl" who would sell cookies.  One variation of the two words in his nick name might both also have a double "o" vowel if you need yet another hint.  The point is not how crass the people he work with are though, in fact, they are realy to thank for supporting her.  So, if they want to call him some endearing term like that, I'll let them.

We had decided that we wouldn't focus on the prize throughout selling, but keeping her focused on her job, by not telling her how many cookies she had sold until the end.  We told her to work as hard as she could no matter what her progress.  We would tell her after everything was all said and done.
I was so nervous about trying to meet her goal, and I didn't want that for her.  The last weekend before booth sales, her leader and I decided to take a huge risk.  As I was counting up the sales we had left, and the number of boxes we had  to take to each one, I realized that the troop didn't have enough cookies for both of them to make it their goal.  So, I went and picked up 14 cases as the very last moment.
Half way through that weekend, I realized that she made her goal.  I started crying.  I do that a lot, I know, but I was so happy for her, and so proud of all the hard work.  I told My husband and thanked him for working so hard, too.  Together, we all did it.
I still wasn't going to tell her until the money was in, and the camp was selected, though.
Finally, yesterday I finished everything up.  Got my paperwork in, and money all done.  I submitted my report on what the girls earned, and selected their camp dates.  So, this morning, I showed her what she ended up at on the computer.  She read the screen, said the number out loud, and then started screaming, jumping in place, and then turning in circles all at once.  She was also chanting about going to camp.  It was awesome.  She and her friend who also sold enough to earn camp will be going together.  They may not get to be together in the same tent or cabin, but at least they will each have a friend at camp.
I'm thrilled.  She is thrilled.  I'm so excited that she earned her very first sleep away camp.  I know that this is something she will remember for the rest of her life.  I hope she loves camp, and cherishes the experience always.

Thank you to everyone out there who supported her, and really to anyone who bought cookies from any Girl Scout.  You have helped to make the day of not only The Big One, but many other happy kids out there.  The money you spent will go on to great thing, not just for camps, but community service projects that will hopefully make a difference in your own community.  You are all fantastic!

Get Your Hands Out Of Our Educational Cookie Jar

Today, I am pissed off.
I am pissed off at the government officials of this city, the state, and the whole nation.
I am sick and tired of education being on the front lines of spending cuts.
Elected officials, get your hands off the money that fund our school systems.
Its time you started looking else where.
Leave our teachers alone.
Leave our schools alone.
If you can't give them more, definitely don't take anything away.

Schools are a huge budget item.  Its easy to say we have to cut when the money going in is such a huge chunk, but that doesn't mean there is fat to trim.  Your cutting muscle away now, and I think it is high time you just left it be.

No one out there can tell me there aren't other places to cut.  There are.  It is a matter of choice.  You don't want people pissed off because you cut social services, but people on food stamps can now buy crap in gas stations.  Come to my house, look me in the eye, and tell me there isn't waist there that could be cut.
How about we stop funding people who live here illegally, and don't pay taxes.  I know, I must be a racist for attacking illegal immigrants.  Right?  Wrong.  Legal immigrants, like my own great grandfather, are more than welcome here.  Come over, get a job, pay taxes, and use everything this nation has to offer.  However, don't scam the system and keep us from being able to take care of the tax paying citizens and their children that live here.  And just to reiterate, no, this does not make me a racist, it makes me practical.  There are so many other places we could cut.  How about we quit paying your salaries when you don't do the job ask of you.  I am all for withholding salaries of elected officials if there is no budget approved by their deadline.  Let's see how much money that saves us, and how much faster they can suddenly work together then!

California is a state with an economy the size of some small nations.  There is no way we need more income.  What we need are competent people who understand that cuts have to come in places that people may not be happy about, but our state's piggy bank will be.  You have to get rid of the corruption that gives people money they never earned, and shouldn't have to begin with.
You have to take a realistic look at what is necessary, and what isn't.
Somehow, though, people in power forget this.  They are too concerned with keeping their own place of power, and far less concerned with making the choices that are best for the people.

Shame.  Shame on all of you who want to run to cut education and essential services first.
I think its up to us, the people, to keep tossing them out year after year, election after election, until someone who will actually do us right is in there.  I don't care what party you came from, if you can't do the right thing, you need to hit the pot hole filled road.  It could have been a much better landing for you if you hadn't wasted all the money we needed to fix those pot holes on frivolous crap, but so be it.  I hope your rear hits a chunk of loose asphalt on the way down. Harrumph.

Neighborly Update

I think it is time to give an update on my new neighbor situation.

The past has been difficult for us with neighbors.  The last set were quite possibly the loudest people on the face of this earth, or any other earth that might exist as well.

So, when the new neighbors moved in, I was a little worried due to our bad luck with neighbors in general.
In fact, I wouldn't say that my first impressions were totally fantastic, but you know the old sayings about impressions and assuming, and sometimes you should actually pay attention to their meanings.

The first thing I got to see about these neighbors would be their cars.  I want to try to describe their cars to you, but it may be difficult.  Bear with me.
I believe the car that I see parked in the garage is an old school, probably late '70s, Chevy Caprice.  Think really old school cop car.  It has a multi toned purple metallic paint job.  Its very pretty and glittery in the light.  The wheels on it are huge.  We aren't talking normal huge here, either.  I believe them to be 28s or 30s, if you know tires sizes.  If you don't, they are seriously as tall as my nearly 4 year old daughter.  Really.  They are.  I mean, those wheels are at least one and a half times the size of the wheels on my full size truck.  The rims are also massive.  They are a really nice chrome, with a great design that leaves lots of room between the spokes, with holes big enough for the same nearly 4 year old to climb in between.  I don't know that there is another way to describe the wheels on that thing, than ridiculous, perhaps redonkulous, but that would be it.  Lest anyone wonder, yes, it does have a sound system in it.  I had seen this thing rolling through the complex before it moved next door, and I can assure you that it can bump.  I can also tell you that they like some seriously straight up gangsta rap with lyrics that might make even me, who appreciates the fine art of a well placed f-bomb, blush.  And something I just learned yesterday, by peering into their garage as closely as I could without making a total fool of myself, is that the car also has some bright blue neon or led lights inside.  Its very pretty.  All this made me a bit wary.
Their other car, in case you were also wondering if this particular ride was their Sunday car, is a big old Cadillac hoopty.  For those who don't know what a hoopty is, its is generally a massive boat like car in very poor condition.  I consider this a hoopty since no less than three major openings on the car, the trunk, hood, and a door, are all covered in bondo right now.  This car may be on its way to slowly being pimped out to be much more like the one in the garage, hence the bondo stage, but I'm not sure because I think asking might cross a line.  Anyway, the music situation alone made me a little scared.  I don't need all that all up in my house at any hour.
 
With serious fear of jinxing myself, and while knocking on wood, I have to tell you that I have been more than a little pleasantly surprised.  Thus far, all is quiet on the neighborly front.  I hear them probably as much as they hear us, maybe even less since The Girls are always outside when home.  I think all of their kids are little, and they probably sleep in, where as we are up at the butt crack of dawn to get ready.  We probably wake them up, though not intentionally.

So far, I have only heard their music twice.  Once, I heard some music while moving in, from inside the house, but I haven't heard that again.  The other time wasn't bad at all.  I went outside, and into the garage, and I could hear some of that same music they are generally bumping, but the volume was so low, and most of the components that create the actual bumping in the car turned off, that they may as well have been playing some Barry Manilow, if Barry Manilow if Barry Manilow had grown up in the hood and should wash his mouth out with soap.  Seriously, though, it was nothing.

I like them.  They keep to themselves.  They move their trash cans away from the garage doors as soon as it is gone.  They don't bug us, and we don't bug them.  I couldn't ask for more.
I just hope it stays this way.  I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind being friends with them, but, I'm pretty content with just the quiet neighbor situation for once.

The TP Fairy

There are certain mythical, magical creatures that people in my home believe in.  Of course, we have Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny.  The tooth fairy is in there, too.
There is, though, one fairy, that I am the only one in the whole house who knows the truth about.  Everyone else seems to believe that there is a magical toilet paper fairy who comes in after you are done, and quietly replaces the empty roll you left with a nice new one.  I'm not quite sure how the TP Fairy works, how it knows to come in at just the right moment, which bathrooms need paper, or even how it gets into the house, but it must work.  They all, after all, seem to believe in it.
I know the truth, though, because I am the TP Fairy.

Apparently, no one else in the house seems to understand that it is an actual, mere mortal job to physically pop the little empty holder roll off, place a new roll on, and put it back in place.  It must take magic to make that happen.  I can assure you that it doesn't.  I just do it quietly, and frequently, in the bathrooms that I never even use.  In fact, I am a creature of habit.  I almost always use my bathroom, upstairs.  I don't even like the downstairs bathroom.  It's always cold in there, and frigid toilet seats are not pleasant.  Some how, though, the TP Fairy is still supposed to be away of the levels of tp in that bathroom and the hall bath used only by The Girls.  To be perfectly honest, if I am slipping on my game, I'm pretty sure they don't even tell me right away when they run out, unless it is a number two situation, which I happen to think is totally gross, and one of the reasons that I am always replacing their rolls.  Also, they are still children, although The Big One is absolutely capable of taking care of this, if she would.

However, my bathroom, and my husband, are a totally different situation.  I've tried to gently break him of the notion that there is no TP Fairy.  When I see the roll running low, I go ahead and sit the new roll out on the counter, as a gentle reminder that it can be changed and everything you need, like your hands and the new roll, are available for him.  Yet it still doesn't happen.
I think he believes there is a TP Fairy loop hole, kind of like a way to worm your way off the naughty list.  I'm pretty sure he thinks that if he leaves one square, the one that has the glue on it, on the roll, it isn't totally empty and he doesn't have to change it.  Loop hole found.  Not something he has to do.  If I want it on the roll, I have to do it.  Otherwise, the new roll I put out would actually sit on the counter or back of the toilet and be used.  Believe me, I know.

I really want to go on a TP Fairy strike sometimes, and just quit replacing everything.  The problem is, though, that I would never again have it on the roll anywhere.  I think it might be a bit rude to have guests in my home look at an empty roll every time they came over, too.  So, simply not doing the task anymore, just won't give me the desired outcome.

I really think it is time to have "the talk" with everyone and let them know the truth about the TP Fairy.  It is time for her job to be done, and for them to start being a part of that task in this household.  I think they are all, the husband especially, ready.  I know I am.
Next, I'm gunning for the Laundry and Dish Washing Fairies.

I'll Be In The Slow Lane

Yesterday, while driving home from a play date, I was passed by a Toyota Yaris.  If you don't know what kind of car that is, think Geo Metro.  Were talking tiny and no power, but really good on gas.
There was a day where I would have absolutely had a fit over that, and honestly, would have sped up just to pass it back up, and reclaim some of my pride, had it managed to slip by me.
Yesterday, though, I just let it go.  In fact, I was intentionally driving slowly, in the slow lane.

You see, I was trying to coerce a nap out of The Little One.  Driving has always produced naps for us, even when all else failed.  At this point in our lives, naps are a highly prized commodity, too.  The Little One is nearly four years old.  Naps should have been gone long, long ago, but this child, in a stark contrast to her older sister, will still willingly take them, in the right conditions.  She also still needs them many, many days.  I have nearly perfected the conditions for a great nap experience for it.  IT starts with an earlyish play date.  Actually, any really early play date can bring about a nap, but one timed about 10:30 is just right.  It is then followed by lunch with friends somewhere fun.  By the time we are done playing, eating, and then hitting the potty, she is so primed for a nap, I don't think the setup could be much better.  So, where ever we are, I try to drive home slowly enough to allow her the time to fall asleep, and not to slowly that she realizes I am drawing out the drive, when only leads to questions.  Occasionally, we have to drive a different way home, or go around the block, just to extend the drive, but once her head falls onto her shoulder, and those eyes close, I know I am golden.

I don't even care that we have to sit in the car.  It makes me so much more thankful for a smart phone with a Kindle application, Angry Birds, and a phone charger for those two battery suckers.  I just pull into the garage, where we can sit in the shade and away from bad weather, roll down the windows, and relax.  I know I am in the car, but it is a quiet, peaceful break where I actually get to read un interrupted.  You can't ask for much more than that once you have children.  I always carry water with me, too.  So, I am seriously set to go.  If the day is really nice, we may go sit in front of The Big One's school for 30 minutes before pickup while The Little One naps.  It really doesn't matter where, as long as she naps, and I get my quiet, everyone wins.

So, if you pass me in the slow lane, be sure to check out the back seat.  I've probable got a preschooler with a head nodding back and forth as she slowly succumbs to the force to sleep in the car, and in the front seat, I probably have a smile on my face in anticipation of the next 30 minutes or so of serious quiet and relaxation, in my car.