When Will a Trip to the Vet Stop Making Me Cry?

Today I had to take Robbie to the vet for his annual check-up and vaccinations. I haven’t been back to the vet since we had Lucy put down in December. When I called to make the appointment I was given the choice between the two vets at the clinic and instinctively I picked Dr. Chase, since he was the one who worked so long and hard with me about Lucy. He was the one who was with me.

I didn’t think too much about it until I walked into the clinic. God, it was so hard. So many memories of that day, of those two days spent worrying about her before having to make that final trip with her. Dr. Chase was great, though, in fact they were about to take me and Robbie into the same room where we were with Lucy and he quickly steered us to another room.

It’s amazing how it has really only been three months since we lost her and sometimes it’s as though we never had another dog. I haven’t thought about her in a while actually but today was really hard. This weekend Robbie will be going to Tailwaggers for the first time without Lucy. I’m not sure how I will deal with it when the van pulls up and only Robbie gets on.

I’m One Zealous Copier

Last week, while I was happily working away, moderating my little heart out, I broke the C key on my laptop keyboard. I guess the strain of all the copying and pasting I do while working was too much for it to handle and it just broke in half. Luckily the button itself still worked and I could still work without having to resort to <shudder> actually using my mouse and the menus to do my copying and pasting. But I wonder why the V key, also integral to the copy-and-paste routine didn’t break? I hope it’s not lying in wait to bust on me any minute now. Thankfully Jake took my laptop to the Mac store today where a Genius gave me a new key. I guess he just had some spare Cs sitting around. Maybe this is a more common problem then I realized.

But it made me wonder something. I don’t use key stroke commands for most things - I don’t use them to save, print, bold, underline…. any of that. I only use Command A,C, X and V (control for you PC users) for select all, copy, cut and paste. And the thing is that I HATE to use the mouse any more than I have to. I’m always the girl who wants to be able to tab through or hit the enter key rather than clicking with my mouse. I get irritated when websites don’t allow me to do that. So why don’t I use the keystrokes for more commands?

Which are you? Keyboard or mouse? Or a hybrid, apparently like I am?

Welcome to the World, Little Ones!

Y’all, go over and visit Carey at uterus x 2 please. She and Steph welcomed their twins, Bennett and Kate late last night/early this morning.  This brings their family count to three wee ones, as they welcomed Hudson a little over four months ago. What a joy to celebrate new babies!

Super Duper Special Bonus Post

Did anyone else think that Britney was kind of cute and funny on Monday’s episode of How I Met Your Mother? Granted, playing a silly airhead isn’t really a stretch for her but she did ok, I thought.

A Product Review of Sorts

When I was last at the dentist, the hygienist gave me a gentle slap on the wrist when I told her of my unbridled love of Listerine. She told me that the alcohol in it dries out your gums. That doesn’t sound good, does it? She told me instead to use Crest Pro-Health rinse because it’s just as effective but contains no alcohol. Since I’m uber sensitive about my teeth lately, you know, because I’m spending like five grand to fix my jaw and bite and smile, I’m inclined to do what she tells me. Except floss my teeth. Don’t look at me like that. I last flossed my teeth on Christmas Eve when Jake was sick and Bridget was in bed and I was staying up late to work. But seriously with braces it takes me 45 minutes to floss. I’m not exaggerating either - I timed it. I don’t have 45 minutes at night to floss, but next time I do, you bet I’ll get right to it.

Pardon my tangent.

Anyway, I started to use this rinse and I can’t decide if I like it or not. It still stings a bit, but not quite as badly as the Listerine. But honestly, isn’t the pain of Listerine like a dental form of self-flagellation? Like a little bit of masochistic  bedtime behavior that you’re not embarrassed to tell your family about.  This stuff leaves the weirdest taste in my mouth. Or maybe it’s more of a feeling than a taste. It’s hard to say. And it lasts for hours, this taste/feeling. No matter what I eat or drink, my mouth still feels sanitized. It’s good in some ways, namely it really makes you not want to eat since everything is going to taste weird.  Which is good if you want to reduce your caloric intake. But eventually you could get scurvy and lose all your teeth which would defeat the purpose entirely. So instead, I just use it at bedtime, rather than both at bedtime and in the morning.

The best thing about that is I have excellent morning breath. It’s amazing. Like crazy fresh morning breath. To the point that if I were to forget to brush my teeth in the morning, you probably would not ever know it. Not that I would ever do such a horrific thing. I mean who does that? Forgets to brush their teeth. Sheesh. Gross. OK so I’ve done it a time or two in my life. But not in the last year.

So weighing pros and cons - an odd feeling-taste that makes you not want to eat or drink versus the excellent morning breath.  Help cut caloric intake versus getting scurvy and losing all your teeth. I’m still on the fence. I’ll have to get back to you.

This was really helpful, wasn’t it? You don’t have to thank me. I help because I love.

Drudgery

I don’t know why it is but all of a sudden, I am so fucking tired of washing that damn high chair tray. I feel like I am constantly washing it. Oh wait, that’s because I am constantly washing it. Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner…. We use the snap off tray as a second tray so theoretically we’d only have to wash every other feeding. But sometimes Bridget makes such a mess on the top tray that you pop it off and use the bottom tray for the rest of the meal. She really likes that with most of her cups, if she turns them upside down and presses, she can create a lake of milk on the tray. If we don’t watch her like a hawk, we’ll turn around and find her splashing milk everywhere. So sometimes (very often) I have to wash both pieces after every meal. Thank god for our dog, newly nicknamed The Cleanup Crew.

I think this chore may have replaced putting away laundry as my most hated chore of all time. At least until the high chair years are over and then I can go back to hating laundry way more.

What’s your most hated chore?

This is One Part of Going Green I Can’t Stomach

I’m no tree hugger. I am an avid user of disposable diapers. I like my convenience products and I give no second thoughts to their packaging. But I do try to do what I can. I am the energy police around the house, constantly nagging at Jake to turn off lights and ceiling fans when he leaves rooms, and not run the water for so long, and I recycle everything that the city I live in will allow me to recycle.

But lately I’ve decided I need to try to do more, and to that end I’ve tried to embrace this whole not flushing the toilet after every use theory of water conservation. You know, if it’s yellow, let it mellow.

Is it just me, or is it really startling when you go to pee, to lift the seat and see a previous um, offering? I can’t help it. I like a fresh bowl. I’m like that really weird little guy from Ally McBeal. It freaks me out. Seeing my own pee there is hard enough but seeing someone else’s pee hanging out makes me gag. This is why I hate public restrooms and will go to great lengths to avoid using one if possible.

This week, the first week of my experiment, Jake has been out of town so it’s only been my own pee that I encounter. I think I may have to abandon this plan. Jake I DO NOT pee in front of each other. If I can’t handle hearing him pee or seeing him pee, how on earth could I handle stumbling across his pee staring at me in the bowl? Will I ever get over this little hang up of mine? Can I get over it in time to save the planet?

I’m sorry for this post. I know it’s vile.

Here We Go Again

I had my appointment with the breast surgeon today. Nothing real surprising, except that in the time since most of the tissue was removed a little less than 3 weeks ago, the damn thing has grown again to almost the same size. So any hope I had of hearing that maybe I didn’t need to do it at all or maybe I had some time before having to get cut on again flew out the window.

So I am going next Wednesday. Fun. I was ok until the nurse told me that I couldn’t lift anything over 10 pounds for two weeks. I said “That might be a problem, because I have a toddler.” That was when I started to cry. How am I going to make it two weeks without lifting Bridget? I am not, that’s the simple fact. So am I going to make myself worse?

I can honestly say that I am at a loss as to how I’m going to do this, take care of Bridget and the house and all the other crap in my life. But regardless, the phyllodes bitch is coming out next week. As hard as this is going to be, I can’t go through this every time the damn thing comes back.

My Heart Just Exploded in My Chest

I was just putting Bridget to bed.  We’d had a really good day, very few tantrums in spite of not so good napping. Bed time had been a bit of a challenge - she was not happy that I wouldn’t let her brush her teeth by herself (I always do it first and then let her play with the toothbrush but that was not acceptable tonight) Then she wanted to read every single book except the one that was in my hand at any given moment. She’d go get a book, settle into my lap, let me read about a page and a half, then throw the book on the floor and say “bye bye!” It quickly became obvious that she was just tired and ready to go to bed.

As I was holding her standing by her crib, she leaned in, gave me a big, wet toddler kiss and then threw her little arms around my neck and squeezed for all she was worth.   So stinkin’ cute. But wait, it gets better. After I put her down in the crib, as I was stroking her hair, she reached up, grabbed my arm and held on tight to it, then gave me the sweetest little gentle pats on the arm.

I confess that I got teary standing there with her. It was one of the best mommy moments I’ve ever had.

Happy Easter!

OK, so I don’t technically believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. But I also don’t believe the son of god was born to a virgin on December 25 but I still celebrate Christmas. Wanna make something of it?

But with a kid as young as Bridget, there are limited ways in which to celebrate Easter as the Hallmark Holiday we treat it as. She is way too young to appreciate an egg hunt. I boiled some eggs on Friday with the intention of coloring them, but then thought that was a waste of my precious time. We’ve been eating the eggs.

I did take great delight in making Bridget a basket. Instead of a chocolate bunny, she got a stuffed monkey wearing rabbit ears, two books, plush Peeps, a headband that looks like a flower and some plastic eggs filled with jellybeans. I also put in some tiny solid chocolate bunnies and chocolate carrots - but those were mainly for Jake. She had a great time pulling stuff out of the basket, and especially loved the plastic eggs because they made a great noise when she shook them. She did even want to sample a piece of a chocolate carrot, which is not like her. She’s not normally a fan of sweets and in fact spits ice cream out of her mouth.

All in all a good time was had by all of us if only for a few minutes. Then we had the traditional Easter dinner of King Ranch Chicken.

So if you celebrate religiously, Hallmarky, or not at all, I hope you had a good day!