Stimeyland

I Think the Gerbils Are Pissed at Me

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:04:00 +0000

But first, this:

That there is gerbil photography at its finest. Or its Stimeyest. Whichever.

So, Heather, you should stop reading now. Your gerbils are fine and all, and Alex is being disciplined, but the following images may be disturbing to you.

Is she gone?

Okay, good.

I have strict rules against picking up the gerbils, but I'm not against petting them now and again. I do try to limit petting to short sessions and only one child at a time because I'm terrified of scaring them (the gerbils, not the children) into heart attacks, and I don't want to have to explain that to the gerbils' mom, Heather.

She's standing right behind me isn't she?

Dammit.

Anyway, I'm very caring to the gerbils and very concerned about their heart health, so don't think I condoned what happened shortly after this morning's gerbil feeding/paper towel tube giving/short petting session.

It all started after Sam petted a gerbil and then Jack wanted to and Alex said, "But his arms are too short." (They aren't, by the way.)

Hmmm...I wonder what Jack is so happy about here:

Maybe it's the same un-condoned activity that is happening here:

And don't for one second think that my paparazzi-like behavior implies approval of Alex's actions. Because it doesn't. Between shots I did a lot of jumping up and down and yelling, "Put him back, RIGHT NOW!!" Which, now that I come to think of it, was probably not very calming for the gerbils and their pea-sized hearts.

I'm guessing you all fall into two—no three—camps on this. Camp 1: No big deal. I'd take my gerbils out of their biosphere all the time. Camp 2: This is shockingly inappropriate treatment of gerbils. Camp 3: Heather.

Next—an elaboration of the situation:

A) Super fast, squirmy rodent. Think of his little heart and its tiny arrythmia.

B) I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that THIS IS NOT ME.

C) Joyous, but careless child, who is not even looking at the damn gerbil.

D) Predator.

E) Safety.

And now a completely discombobulated gerbil.

Gerbil says, "You guys are assholes."

You can come back now, Heather. I'm thinking about torturing the tadpoles next, so you can stick around for that.

Sabotage

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Jack comes out from his bedroom where he's supposed to be asleep.

Jack: "I need to make a tripwire."

Alex: "Okay. Where do you need to make it?"

Really, Alex? Of the dozens of possible responses to that statement, that's what you're going with?

Then, a few minutes later, Alex came in to see me and say, "Just to let you know, the children have set a tripwire to capture you." Then he wandered off with a shrug, remarking casually as he walked out of the room, "You should go check it out."

Like I'm falling for that.

Merry Christmas!

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:34:00 +0000

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you're having a lovely day. And I hope that even though I used my bad scanner, you can see that I chose a photo for our holiday card that includes three children in dirty shirts, one child who isn't looking at the camera, and one kid with a black eye.

It kind of seemed like us though.

Much love and happiness sent to you from Team Stimey today.

A Semi-Long Post With Photographic Details of How We Spent the Day

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:51:00 +0000

Note: I'm kinda phoning this post in. Feel free to skip it if you're not my mom. It's like Christmas is making me soft or something.

Well, first, I took a nap at like, ten o'clock.

Then we went sledding. This next picture shows literally ALL of the sledding that we did.

We seem to have miscalculated the snow depth/child weight sledding differential.

But the slide still worked.

But then there was a lot of foot dragging and yelling and complaining about walking in the snow. Not by me this time. (It was Quinn.) For the record, we are a five-minute walk from the park. So it's not like we were walking the Iditarod or anything.

Then we made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Santa. And for us.

Jack licked the bowl I used to melt the butter in. That kid loves him some butter.

Then I took another nap.

And then a lot of time passed and we did some stuff and we ate dinner. Then Jack jumped up and moved the screen in front of the fireplace so Santa would be able to get through. And then Alex and I both died of cuteness right there.

I bribed the children into sitting in front of the tree to get a cute photo.

This isn't the worst one or the best one, but it was the funniest one.

So I took this glamour shot of my dog in front of the tree.

Take THAT, human children!

Of course, you can't forget the reindeer dust. (Oatmeal to feed the reindeer and sprinkles so the reindeer will see the sparkles from the air and know where to land.)

I think that makes us all ready. Sam moved the Lego table with all the advent calendar stuff into the living room so Santa could see it. We made chocolate milk. We laid out cookies.

We Alex read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the munchkins.

Then we sat up for the next sixteen hours waiting for our kids to fall asleep.

You know why I have all this time to blog? It's because they refuse to sleep. In fact, Sam is in the TV room right now complaining about how it's hard to fall asleep.

Alex: "Pretend you're in a field with a big fence. And on one side of the fence are a thousand dogs. Picture them jumping them over the fence."

Sam: "I only see one dog."

Alex: "Then picture him jumping over the fence a thousand times."

Well. You can imagine where this went from there.

Wish me luck. I may be up late.

Also, Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Enjoy Your Friday!

Gerbilpalooza!

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:23:00 +0000

Alternatively Titled: "You Have To Try to Pass Along the Crazy When Your Kids Are Young, Or You Run the Risk That It's Not Going to Stick."

Are you talking to me? 'Cause I'm the only one here.

Seriously, isn't that just about the surliest motherfucking gerbil you've ever seen?

My friend Heather lent me her gerbils for a few days. She brought them over today, along with some cookies. It's like she thinks I'm doing her a favor by petsitting. I'm not sure she understands quite how pathological I am in my adoration of these little guys. If you haven't noticed, I am highly amused by them.

Screw you, tadpoles! I have cuter animals to take care of!

As soon as Heather left my house, I took out my camera to document the gerbils' arrival. I really don't know what's wrong with me. It's like a sickness. It's just so much fun to take their photos. Does it make me sound crazier if I tell you that I think they like it? Because I think they do.

They especially seem to like flash photography. They're media whores.

But here's the thing. Guess who asked to get out his DSi to take a photo of the gerbils so he could have one for himself?

Yes. My first born.

And do you see how that gerbil is posing? I am NOT making this shit up.

Furthermore, Sam made a Christmas tree for them so that they could celebrate the season.

Oh, crap. I hope they're not Jewish.

Sam was inspired by the other art taped to the back of their cage. Heather's daughters made the three pictures there. They, in turn, seem to have been inspired by Jack's "Home Sweet Home" sign that he made for the gerbils the last time they were here.

To her credit, Heather has left the little sign up.

Probably mostly because she knows that you don't fuck around with a crazy person, but still, I think it's nice.

So does whatever this guy's name is:

Hi! My name's Robert! Or Noki! Who the hell knows?

I can't tell them apart. Is that bad? I do know one is fatter than the other, but I don't remember which. I think that the surly one up top is the fat one. Which seems weird, because I know fat people are jolly, so don't you think fat gerbils would be as well?

Anyway. Strap in. I've got these guys until 2010.

How I'm Using My Snow Days

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:17:00 +0000

My school district just started this alert system you can sign up for where you will get text messages if school is closed, or kids are unexpectedly being let out early, or any other sort of thing a parent might want to know when they're out and about. Great idea! I signed up immediately even though I don't have a texting plan because I figured I could swing the 20 cents every month or so.

Since I signed up last week, we've had crazy amounts of snow and tomorrow is our third no-school snow day in a row, which means that I've already had to pay for nearly two dollars worth of text messages since Sunday.

Annoying. And also kind of ironic considering I've been pretty much home-bound and really not in need of text messages.

Regardless of the ease with which I've learned about the snow days, I'm becoming increasingly more annoyed with the school closings. Monday I was completely stoked that everything was closed. Today I was okay with it, especially because I planned all kinds of fun snow-day stuff to do. Wednesday? Come on already. I had plans! There was supposed to be a Wall of Fame ceremony! What the fuck am I going to do with all these gift cards burning a hole in my pocket that I can't give to teachers until January 4th?!

See, Monday I ran a bunch of errands. I bought all those gift cards. I acquired Sam's pencil sharpener. I took Jack to speech therapy because their weather policy says they're open unless they notify you that they're closed. I left a kinda upset message on my speech therapy office's voice mail because it took Jack and I an hour to get there to find a locked door.

I was ready to make Tuesday fun day. On the way back from "speech therapy" on Monday, Jack and I created a list of things to do today: (1) bake sugar cookies, (2) build a snowman, (3) play Wii Fit Plus, (4) decorate sugar cookies.

The baking of the sugar cookies went fine except for the fact that I couldn't find my Christmas cookie cutters, so we had to make dinosaurs and flowers.

The snowman went well except for the fact that the snow was too powdery to roll into snowman form, so we had to create a little mountain for his bottom part. But he still turned out kinda super duper awesome.

Except his head was too small to put a hat on him.

After the snowman, we played Wii Fit Plus. (Sigh. Disclosure: Nintendo gave us Wii Fit Plus for free. Do I really have to do this every time I mention this game? Because it could get tiresome. We play it a lot. It's apt to be mentioned often.)

Art imitated life except for the fact that Cassidy is a lot lazier in real life than when she's on TV.

We decorated our sugar cookies next. Quinn decorated (and ate) three. Jack decorated three (and drank a bottle of sprinkles and licked the frosting off one cookie). Sam decorated like a machine. A very sticky machine.

Afterward, Quinn was oddly excitable. If only I could piece together cause and effect.

Shortly after Quinn started using the couch as a trampoline, I left the house for three hours to get my hair done. (Alex was home sick, so I was able to go.) I really hate getting my hair done. It's like a multi-hour forced socialization with someone I see twice a year. It totally freaks me out.

But I'm happy about my hair.

Let's see. That wraps up Tuesday. What's on tap for Wednesday? I got nothin'. Except my buddies the gerbils are coming back for a pet-sitting stay. So that will take up 45 seconds or so.

I'm off to go wrack my brain to figure out what to do with my kiddies tomorrow. I may try to make it involve actual trampolines.

SNOWPOCALYPSE!!!

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:10:00 +0000

The guy on the news referred to the snowstorm as "snowpocalypse," while on Twitter, people were referring to it as "#snOMG." In Stimeyland we referred to it mostly as, "Holy Christ, is it still snowing out there?"

That's Jack. I'm 93...94% sure of it.

So, yeah, it snowed this weekend. Like, a lot. I'm not going to quote you inches or anything, but all I know is that this morning, the day after the snow, when Alex was suffering from a Man Cold and I had to go shovel the driveway, it seemed like a lot.

Here's Alex yesterday, when his illness seemed less severe, in his ridiculous winter hat.

I will post a photo of this every year because I think it's such a humorous hat.
Except for the beaver that was skinned for it. (I know, I know.)

You know how there's that story about the people who have heart attacks when they shovel their driveways because they're so out of shape and the snow is so very heavy and their husbands are too busy lying on the couch to help? That was almost me this year.

I have a long driveway. No, it's not like a mile long or anything, but when you pile more than a foot of snow on it, it seems really long. Sam was going to help me shovel the sidewalk, but he couldn't find it, so he gave up.

So I was out there in my hat, gloves, and t-shirt (shoveling snow is hot work, people!) shoveling away while every single person in the neighborhood commented on the fact that I was shoveling and not Alex.

Later, Alex told me he'd go to the store if I'd clean off the car.
I told him he could just go ahead and drive the car with its little snowhat
and fuck you very much, by the way.

To his credit, Sam did help by shoveling off the picnic table and the iron monkey that stands on it.

Yeah, it's weird. Alex has a thing about monkeys.

I gotta tell you, the snow kinda wrecked my weekend. I had a whole list of things I was going to do, starting with an early-morning haircut on Saturday, which I had to cancel. If you've seen me in person with my hair down in the past couple months, you would probably agree that I sorely need that haircut.

Plus, I had some last minute shopping to do—teacher gifts and whatnot. Also I have to buy an electric pencil sharpener for Sam because he has one fewer gift than everyone else. And I know an electric pencil sharpener might not seem like the most exciting gift in the world, especially when you consider that Quinn's comparable present is The Legendary Sword of Heroes (with authentic battle damage), but I think he's going to like it. But it's still living at the office supply store and now I can't even go get it tomorrow, because school is canceled and my kids will be with me and so, yeah, snowpocalypse indeed.

But the kids had fun.

In this next photo there are a few things you should notice. Thing the First: Quinn is standing on snow behind a chair. And his feet are at the same level as the chair seat. There's that much snow. Thing the Second: Jack is making a snowball. Thing the Third: That is Cassidy, a.k.a., The Target's, tail there in the photo.

Thing the Fourth: I took all these photos through a
glass door from inside the house.

Here is Cassidy wistfully looking at the door to the house after she's been used for target practice.

Because I am benevolent and kind, I let her in.

Sam continued his house maintenance by knocking "the hugest icicle in the world" off of the rain gutters.

Now if I could only get him to clean inside the rain gutters.

If only he'd seen the icicle on our balcony when we lived in Alaska. That thing was huge. And it formed a stalagmite underneath it, until it became an entire column of ice connecting the balcony to the roof. It was badass.

Meanwhile, Quinn and Jack traversed the yard making and retracing paths with their footsteps.

Eventually Sam and Quinn came inside, but Jack stayed in the yard, marching back and forth and punching through the snow with the handle of his shovel. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was looking for treasure. I don't think he found it. But he had a good time.

And when he was done, he had hot chocolate. Which is kind of like treasure if you're six, don't you think?

Late Breaking News: Alex just walked in the room and told me that his work seems to be canceled tomorrow, along with the kids' school. So I can go buy that pencil sharpener tomorrow after all! Well, hallelujah! Let the sun shine!!

Have a Happy Snowpocalypse!

"Volunteering"

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:26:00 +0000

You all know that I volunteer in Jack's class every week. Well, maybe you do. Anyway, I volunteer in Jack's class every week. About a month ago, his teacher started asking me if I could maybe come in on December 18th for the Holiday Rotation.

Now, I didn't know what exactly a Holiday Rotation was, but she seemed a little desperate and it involved making latkes from scratch and she was all, "You have your little one too that day? I don't care, bring him in."

So Quinn and I arrived at the school on Friday morning ready to volunteer.

If you look closely at that photo, you will notice that Quinn's sticker says "Volunteer," complete with quotation marks and everything. Normally I think the quotation marks are a little weird, but in this case they were very accurate. Because Quinn? Didn't really do much volunteering. He really did much more "Tagging Along" and "Being a Problem."*

Jack's teacher had warned me that whatever I wore would end up smelling like Fried. Fortunately I remembered to leave my couture at home.

Now what, you may ask, is a Holiday Rotation? Well, it involved the six first grade classes moving from station to station to do three different holiday activities.

Station One: Latkes

Jack's teacher straight up made potato pancakes from scratch in the classroom. They were really good. Watching her fry them up in hot oil brought back a memory from my first grade year when my teacher was frying something up and a kid knocked the pan over and he ended up in the hospital. So I was ready to form a human chain in front of the frying table to prevent such a thing from happening again.

Fortunately, the teachers are smart, which is maybe why they're teachers. One teacher read, like, the longest book in the damn world about Hanukkah while Jack's teacher cooked.

Quinn actually sat in a chair and listened to the whole story. If I could just get that patience to transfer to his preschool circle time. In that class, the teacher has had to put little pieces of tape on the floor to "remind" the boys where they are supposed to sit.

Maybe they should give him a rocking chair there.

Jack liked his latke. Quinn did not. But, *I* liked Quinn's latke.

Station Two: Snowflakes

Mrs. Awesome Cook seemed to have everything under control in Latkeville, so when Jack's class headed to the next station, most of the other parents and I went with them. There, Quinn "Volunteered" by yelling about wanting to glue some sequins he found to a piece of paper.

Jack's super-adorable math teacher was heading up this class, which involved a story about SNOW, scissors, and glitter glue.

Even better than latkes...

Station Three: Candy Houses

...but not as good as a plateful of graham crackers, frosting, and candy. Quinn "Volunteered" to participate in this station.

Jack's little buddy T was really cute. He's a lot like Jack, and when the teacher told them to put their houses** in a plastic bag and put them in their cubbies, he was all, "But I want to eat it. But I want to eat it." I guess he forgot about the handfuls of candy that he, Jack, and Quinn ate out of the bowls on their table.

I do have to take this moment to give props to elementary school teachers, para educators, and anyone else who enthusiastically and happily works with six year olds all day every day, because I barely helped out and I was exhausted when I got home. Honestly, I did more chatting and laughing than helping.

I'm also really grateful to those teachers who obviously know that sometimes first graders just need to have some fun and take a half day to cut out snowflakes and have someone read to them.

* Okay, he wasn't really that much of a problem. But "Being a Problem" is funnier than "Sitting Quietly and Playing with My iPhone." Wait. That's actually kinda funny too.

** Now, I think this was a really great idea, but "Candy Houses"? Really? Although I guess "Candy Sidewalk" doesn't sound quite as good.

In Case You're Not Sick of Me Yet

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:44:00 +0000

Hey, did you know that I have a new column in the Washington Times Communities online? Check me out at Autism Unexpected, where I'll be writing all about a couple of my favorite subjects—Jack and autism. (Thanks to Jessica for hooking me up with this.)

You can also find me on the 15th of each month over at Hopeful Parents. Again, I'll be writing about Jack and autism.

Coming soon: individual blogs about my other kids. And one for each of my pets. And what the hell? One for each of your kids too. I'm just going to do all the writing in the blogosphere.

His "X Factor" is High

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:20:00 +0000

As if the Christmas tree lot wasn't exciting enough, Jack also made the front page of the local paper.

I picked up the paper just before going to get my guys from the bus stop yesterday and kind of made an ass of myself showing it to everyone up there. But Jack! In the paper! Even if it's just the back of his flat little head.

Jack's media appearance was made even better by the arrival of an email from a friend of mine this morning, which read in part:

"...guessing you're already aware of this but the current issue of [the local paper] prominently features a cover shot of the back of your middle child's head as he is, i think, about to get eaten by a bear. or possibly just made aware of fire prevention techniques."

Next up: Nightline. Seriously, Jack has gotten more press than the rest of Team Stimey put together.

He's a Good Kid

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:08:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, Sam brought home some Scholastic book order forms from school. I looked through them, but there wasn't anything I particularly wanted to buy, so I put it in the recycling bin.

A couple of days after that, Sam asked where I'd put it. I assumed he just wanted to look through it and was going to ask for a book. I dug it out of the paper bin and gave it to him. Not too long after, he showed up with the order forms partially filled out and $49.

See, he'd been saving up his birthday money and allowance and now had more than $100. And he wanted to use a big chunk of it to buy books.

For Christmas presents for his family.

Of course, the first thing I did was melt, because, well, how amazing in so many ways was that?

Then I tried to convince him to save his money and that if he wanted to buy us gifts, I would take him to the dollar store so he wouldn't have to spend so much. That led to a long, emotional conversation during which he made the very astute point, "Why can't I do what I want to do with my money?"

I had no answer for that. So I helped him do a little bargain shopping and we found some better deals on some books on Amazon, but he still ended up spending nearly $50 on gifts for Jack, Quinn, Alex, and me. AND he insisted on going to the dollar store to buy additional gifts for all of us as well.

Through all of this, there was no, "Aren't I nice?" and no "Now Santa will see how good I am," or any other self-interested action.

Except for when I had to cut him off from reading the book he bought for Jack so he could wrap it.

Just a second, Mom.

And wrap it he did. He picked out the paper, he picked out the ribbons, he taped the packages all up. He carefully chose tags based on each person's personality. He broke my heart (in a good way) with all the joy he took in buying and presenting these gifts.

How unbelievably sweet is he? Every once in a while it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, Alex and I aren't totally fucking up our children.

Has Anyone Ever Had a Good Trip to the Post Office?

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:55:00 +0000

Pretty much every single person I buy holiday gifts for that doesn't live in my house lives far away across the country. Evidently the places they live are called "Zone 7" and "Zone 8," according to the post office. I don't know what that means, except that I should have mailed my packages weeks ago to save me a gajillion and six dollars on shipping.

Parcel post would have been the way to go.

Priority mail is what I had to do.

Next year, around November 1st, remind me to do my Christmas shopping and get it mailed before Thanksgiving. I might even send it by Pony Express.

Regardless, Team Stimey and I headed out on Saturday to the post office before we went to get our Christmas tree.

"Why," you may ask, "would the whole family head out to the post office two Saturdays before Christmas?"

"That," you might think, "is crazy. Even for Stimey."

Well, the truth of the matter is that I needed all of Team Stimey's help to carry all my boxes into the post office.

Alex was a big help, except for the fact that he put one of the
boxes on a newspaper stand outside and left it there.

When you look at size of person to size of boxes, Sam wins for most helpful.

Quinn? Not so much.

And poor Jack was immobilized because his pants kept
falling off because he's thin and malnourished.

But, happily, everything is now mailed, so the trip counts as a total success.

Except for the fact that Alex thought I put money in
the parking meter and I thought he did.

All in all, that was maybe the most expensive trip to the post office I've ever made.

You Know What I Like?

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

I like that even Lego cops have mustaches.

*****

Edited to Add: If you are so inclined, check out the Nickelodeon ParentsConnect online baby shower event this Wednesday, the 16th. Here is a post Jessica (who works for them part-time) wrote about the online event, at which you can win lots of fun stuff!

I Will Now Accept the Onset of Christmas

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Now that we are less than two weeks from Christmas, I have given ~~everyone~~ my family the go ahead to get ready for the holiday. And we all know what Step One in readying for the holiday is. That's right, getting a Christmas tree.

So, off to the $35 Christmas Tree Lot we went!

We tried to park, but the tiny lot was full. I suggested we park down the street a little and Alex completely flipped out. "I am not parking down the block! We're leaving! We'll come back later!"

It was weird. Even for him.

But I pointed out that we had three kids in the car who might not take so kindly to the sudden cancellation of Christmas Tree Day, so he found a nearby spot to squeeze into as he continued to throw a hissy fit about the poor parking jobs of the other customers. And then we almost got into a fist fight when he tried to mug me for my piece of paper on which I was writing, "and then Alex got all huffy about the parking spot..."

He just doesn't understand the import of proper blog reporting.

Anyway.

We always go to the $35 Christmas Tree Lot because even though their gimmick is that they offer $35 trees, they hope you'll be dissatisfied with those and buy one of their many beautiful $85 trees. Unfortunately for them, we are perfectly happy with their $35 trees, of which there were many.

Oh, wait. There were none.

Refusing to fall for this gambit, we decided to try a different lot and headed over to one run by the local rescue squad. It was totally the right decision. First of all, they had a large selection of $39 trees. After a vigorous debate twixt Sam, Jack, and Quinn, we decided on one.

Look how Alex gave Sam the heavy end.

But tree selection wasn't the only reason this tree lot was better. This lot, run by firefighters, had...well, firefighters. And firefighter hats for the munchkins. And chocolate candy instead of just candy canes. AND coloring books and rulers and pencils and it was all worth the extra $4 per tree.

And are those bottles of lighter fluid behind Sam?
Seems weird at a firefighter tree lot, but whatever.

And you know what else? Smokey the Bear was there.

And that dog? She's a rescue dog. She helped at Ground Zero on 9/11. The $35 Christmas Tree Lot doesn't have any Hero Dogs.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Smokey the Bear, so I was delighted to see him. Quinn really wasn't. He waved at him—from a distance—but there was some screaming and resisting when I suggested he actually stand next to the giant bear wearing a hat and grandpa jeans.

Evidently he had reason to be worried. That bear stole Jack's hat. And then teased him with it.

And yadda, yadda, yadda, Sam won the game of Eeney Meany Miney Moe and got to put the star on the tree.

If I were Alex, I would have fixed it so the lightest kid won.

And, without further ado, I present unto you...

Christmas.

Laugh or Cry, People. Laugh or Cry. (Maybe Both.)

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:44:00 +0000

I regularly have people tell me that they always see me smiling and laughing; that even when things are hard, I am usually cheery. And it's true. And mostly involuntary. It's because I have an informal rule that I think about a lot when I think about my attitude toward life. It goes thusly:

Laugh or cry, people. Laugh or cry.

And my implied answer to that is "laugh." It is almost always the right decision. Although sometimes you do have to do both.

I'm cracking lately. I've been dropping balls right and left. So far nothing too important and nothing that can't be made up, but it's like my brain is a complete sieve. Honestly, if you make an appointment with me, you should definitely call me shortly before I should be leaving for said appointment to ensure that I remembered it. And then you should remind me where we're supposed to meet.

Plus, if you sent me an important email and I haven't gotten back to you, you should resend it because I KNOW it's saved in my inbox and I plan to get back to it tonight, but sometimes "tonight" turns into "tomorrow night" turns into "the next night" turns into "if you ignore something long enough, eventually it becomes a moot point."

Oh yeah, and if I owe you a writing assignment, I swear, it's the next thing I'm doing. And if you're my boss, I mean I'm doing my work next. Pinky swear.

Also? If you say something nice to me, I just may burst into tears for no discernible reason.

It's true. I did it several times today at Jack's school. I mean, there were reasons, but still. (I also did some laughing. 'Cause I'm such a fucking buffoon.)

I decided to take some time today to not think about all of that and actually do some quality, fun parenting this afternoon. I'd promised to take Quinn to an open gym yesterday and had entirely forgotten. (See what I mean?) But I remembered this place that Jessica had mentioned on her site and decided to try it out.

We had so much fun. Quinn and I spent two hours together climbing, bouncing, doing puzzles, and laughing. Well, he did that and I mostly followed him around, but I did do some tickling and I also did a lot of laughing.

It was excellent therapy.

Plus, sometimes, given the company I keep, there isn't even a contest between laugh and cry.

The answer is obvious.

Edited to add: I would like to state—equivocally, certainly, definitely, ABSOLUTELY—for the record that this is NOT pregnancy brain, thank you all very much. THAT will not be happening. Even if I have to move to a convent to ensure that it doesn't.

The Nurse Asked if Jack Had Been Sick in the Past Two Weeks and I Had to Tell Him That He'd Thrown Up in the Parking Lot.

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Yesterday Jack and I headed up to Kennedy Kreiger to see a developmental pediatrician. Jack hasn't had a thorough evaluation for a couple years, so we want to see where he is now and get some Jack-specific treatment recommendations, and this was our first step down that road.

The doctor was fantastic. She was attentive and thorough. I think this is going to be a really good thing for Jack. I mean, she even noticed that he has a flat head that dates back to his baby days. NO ONE notices that. I'm not entirely sure that Alex has noticed that.

Unfortunately Kennedy Kreiger is an hour away from us and our appointment was at 9 a.m. And because someone had neglected to email my intake forms to me, I was not entirely sure that we would have an appointment or be in the right place when we got there. So we left a little early, like 7:30.

And here's the thing about Jack and early-morning car rides. If you put that poor kid in a car before 8 a.m., he's gonna puke. Something about morning rides makes him car sick. I gotta give him props though, because he made it all the way to the Kennedy Kreiger parking lot and waited until after I stopped the car before he threw up.

Poor guy. His sad little entreaties of, "Hurry! Hurry! Are we there?" were pitiful. And I don't think it helped that I passed the entrance and then had to pull a 3-way U-turn to get back. Come to think of it, that might be what sent him over the edge.

I wasn't sure exactly which of the buildings I should park in front of, but chose the nearest one and the one that said "AUTISM" in biggest letters on the front. After puking and clean up, we went inside and, happily, we'd chosen wisely.

Everything went smoothly inside the building save Alex's weird near-constant calling of my cell phone. I think he called four times in the two hours we were there. I ignored the "brrrrzzzz...brrrrrzzzzz...brrrrrzzzz" of the phone over and over until the doctor went to make some photocopies. Then I called Alex back to see which one of our two remaining kids had broken something.

"Hi! Are you done?" he cheerfully asked when he answered the phone. See, I'd told him it was a 90-minute appointment (which they'd told me), so he called at, oh, say, 10:31. And 10:45. And 11 o'clock.

After shaking him off, I continued with our appointment. Jack was a rock star. He did great.

After we left, I stopped at a gas station where the candy bars were behind bullet proof glass and you had to ask the cashier to get you your bottle of water and pass it through the security window. And then MapQuest sent us directly into what—based on the number of broken windows and boarded up doors—I believe was a really bad section of Baltimore. It was as if I were driving through The Wire.

And then suddenly I was passing the Poe house and the Ravens' stadium and we were on the freeway on the way home, Jack happily snacking on graham crackers and highly secure water in the back seat...

...which he threw up onto my carpet seconds after walking into the house.

"You shouldn't have given me all those graham crackers," he told me reproachfully.

But ten minutes later all was well and everyone was happy playing hooky. Except Alex, who had to head off to work, and Sam, who had been sent to school at the regular time.

And, yes, I am aware that I've written a post about going to the developmental pediatrician without talking about the developmental pediatrician. I like to keep you on your toes like that.

A Milestone

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:05:00 +0000

Hi everyone. I'm weirdly exhilarated. Do you want to know why?

'Cause of this:

That's my blog.

And what's that at the very bottom?

Oh, just this:

That's right. Feel free to celebrate in any way you find appropriate.

I would find it appropriate if you all sent me gifts, but you may not feel the same way. You may feel that I should send you gifts. And you know what? If I could send a gift to every one of you who brought me to 100,000 visits to my little inconsequential blog, I would. And then I'd move into my poor house with my kids.

I know you're dying to know who the 100,000th visitor was. And if I knew how to use Sitemeter to look up IP addresses and visitors and, frankly, anything other than what Google searches brought people to my blog, I would.

Fortunately for tracking purposes, I had to cheat to get the last few people to my blog. Last night, I was sitting around hitting the refresh button (which, sadly, doesn't raise my visitor stats) and waiting to see when I'd hit 100,000.

I know. I am EXACTLY as lame as you secretly thought I was.

I tweeted the post that I'd just written and that brought a few people to my blog, and for a few minutes I thought I'd get there. My stats slowly rose. But then, at 99,998, they stopped cold and I started to worry that I was going to be up all night pathetically refreshing my blog in the vain hopes that two people would drop by.

So I did what anyone who is—as my sister called me the other day—an internet slut would do: I turned to twitter.

And to my rescue they came!

Based on very scientific self-reporting on Twitter, Megan at An Acorn Dreaming was #99,999 and Niksmom was #100,000. Ange at Tis My Life juuuuuust missed Stimeyland fame by claiming that she visited my blog shortly after the other two claimed to have visited my blog.

See? Scientific.

Well, now I have to go figure out a new goal. Something like getting a high score on Tetris or succeeding in making the town's biggest tinfoil ball.

So...About the Tadpoles

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:03:00 +0000

It's not my fault, guys. I swear. It's not my fault.

I didn't buy the tadpoles. Well, I did buy the tadpoles, but I didn't buy the tadpole habitat that necessitated my buying the tadpoles.

It's Dagobah.

See, someone gave the thing to Sam for his birthday. To their credit, they called before they showed up with it to ask if it was okay. Unfortunately, (1) Alex answered the phone and (2) they called an hour before the party when we were all distracted and impressionable.

The only reason we're keeping it is for you people, you know. To entertain you with the stories of my distress.

Well, that and the scientific value of letting my kids learn about tadpoles and frogs, which, it turns out, are the same thing. Huh.

I was even kind of okay with them until you guys started commenting on my other post about maggots and mealworms and tadpoles that never turn into frogs. And I started to think more about the crickets I was going to have to feed those tadpoles ~~when~~ if they turned into frogs.

And then I started to get nervous and remembered how I used to work for a pet supply store where the only animals we sold were crickets and how I used to live in fear that someone would ask for a bag of crickets while I was the only one at the register because it's completely unprofessional to scream and jump around when someone says, "I'd like five crickets, please," but have you ever tried to select five crickets from a terrarium full of the little monsters and I think it's on me...is it on me?...oh my God, I THINK THERE ARE CRICKETS ON ME!*

Leticia from TechSavvyMama did ~~warn me not to put them in with fish~~ suggest that I feed them to fish, which is a great idea until the tadpoles are gone and then I have to find something to eat the fish. And I think that frogs might eat fish, although I'm not sure, so I could get frogs (ah, the irony), but then who's going to eat the frogs? So I followed that thought through all the animals I'd need to its logical conclusion and who's going to eat the crocodile, Leticia? Did you think about who's going to eat the crocodile?

But then sometimes because of the contours of the tadpole habitat, it's hard to see the little guys (named Yoda and Skywalker, by the way) and I start to get hopeful and think, "Are they dead? Can I cancel my crocodile order?" and then they calmly swim into view.

I do have to say that they're kinda cute.

And, yes, I do understand that tadpole photography is
even nerdier than gerbil photography.

A few minutes ago I found the two of them cuddled together in the shallow water on the shores of Dagobah. I tried to take a photo, but it seems that tadpoles are easily spooked.

And if one day they get less cute, it turns out they are incredibly easy to kill, and the irresponsible instruction sheet even tells you how to do it. Evidently, these guys need to live in distilled spring water or bad things happen.

God forbid they ever try to live in a pond.

I'm sure there will be more on the tadpoles because, well, because how could there not be? But right now I have to go inspect their mini-Dagobah because you're not supposed to feed them if they still have food in their tank, so I didn't feed them for a couple of days and then it occurred to me that the bits on the bottom of the tank was probably tadpole poop instead of bits of food and my poor little guys were probably starving.

So now I have to figure out how to walk the fine line between starving tadpoles and overfeeding them as well as contemplate how to clean their tank of all the tadpole poop. Or excess food.

It might be an all-nighter, people.

* I know I've used this joke before, but it's sort of the regular state of terror in which I live. I'm sure you'll see it again.

Damn It All, Christmas Has Begun

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:43:00 +0000

I am a firm believer in not starting Christmas too early. I absolutely refuse to put up a Christmas tree or decorate my house more than two weeks before Christmas. Mine is always the house where other kids come over and ask why our tree isn't up yet.

Well, it's because you don't put the tree up before December 11—at the EARLIEST—thank you very much.

I mean, I'm not a grinch or anything. I do shop before then and we have an advent calendar and all, but I much prefer two weeks of holiday fun than a month of drawn-out yuletide, not to mention trying to keep my kids and cats from climbing the Christmas tree for four weeks.

Jack did try to sneak in a little holiday decorating of his own by creating a "snowman" in his bunk bed one night.

Materials: hat, light saber, mittens, blanket, and a pumpkin
that has been hanging out in our kitchen since October.

Today he had the opportunity to make a real snowman (he didn't, but he had the opportunity) when the first snow of the season fell.

We all played in the snow first thing in the morning and then ended up in the living room sort of staring at each other and wondering what to do with the day. Alex suggested we go see Santa, which is a MAJOR and OBVIOUS violation of my Two Weeks Before Christmas Rule, but in the interest of being able to shop for gifts from Santa, I agreed.

Plus, this way, there isn't a danger of a kid changing his mind about what he's going to ask Santa for when there are fewer shopping days before Christmas.

So, off we went!

You should have seen Quinn's smile when he first glimpsed Santa. It was magical.

But instead, I've given you a photo of his back. You're welcome!

I'll also give you this sorta weird but sorta awesome photo of my kids on Santa's lap. (Or at least on his bench.) For some reason the photographer told my kids to give Santa the thumbs up.

Who's jolly, brings us presents, and is surrounded by thumbs?
THAT guy!

And then here is Quinn misbehaving directly in front of Santa:

That kid's got some nerve.

So I guess Christmas has begun in Stimeyland. But I'm still not putting up a tree until next weekend.

The Doodle's Doppelgänger

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:27:00 +0000

I have this dog named Cassidy, although through a long string of nickname changing, she is often referred to as The Doodle. Here is her photo:

She was pretty stoked in this photo because she had
just consumed her annual Thanksgiving turkey neck.

She's cute, right? She's obnoxious as hell, but that's totally a different post. Suffice it to say that epithets get hurled in her general direction more than you might suspect. Usually at midnight when she is in the very back of the yard barking at squirrels.

(SQUIRREL!)

A couple of years ago, Alex went on a business trip and arrived home clutching a page he'd ripped out of the in-flight catalog. On it was a dog crate that was for sale. He was not interested in purchasing the dog crate. He was interested in showing me the photo of the dog model who looked Exactly. Like. Cassidy.

Naturally resentful that our dog was sneaking out and making the big bucks in the dog modeling world without telling us, we punished her with an elaborate system of passive aggressiveness and favoring the cats over her.

Ever arrogant, she didn't notice our campaign.

Well, it turns out she is at it again. Look what I found in the catalog that came to my house today:

I KNOW!!

She's dog modeling again. And this time it's not even dog-related. She's modeling convenience store holdup gear, for the love of God.

I just want to know where she's squirreling (SQUIRREL!) away her wages.

Teaser

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:49:00 +0000

Yeah, sure. There's no way this is going to end badly.

I'm having flashbacks to the ants already.

If you weren't around for the Great Ant Debacle of Aught Eight, you can catch up with the following links:

I, For One, Welcome Our Insect Overlords

Anthology of Interest I (scroll past the first couple of (non)interesting tidbits)

Prison Break

The Ants are Free!

Wherein Stimey Acts Even Crazier Than Usual

The main difference between these tadpoles and those ants, I think, is that tadpole corpses (or, lordy, FROG corpses) will be harder to get rid of.

Happy Turkey Day!

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:41:00 +0000

Quinn's Turkey

Even the turkey seems to know Quinn put the feathers on...weirdly.

Jack's Turkey
Made of Oreos and candy corn!

Sam's Turkeys
Plentiful and stubbly!

Alex's Turkey
Why, yes, he does cook!

Stimey's Turkey
And I'm thankful for him!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

The Lie

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:36:00 +0000

Today, after he got home from school, one of the first things out of Sam's mouth was, "Is Santa Claus real?"

I casually walked him a little distance away from his brothers and asked him why he was asking.

"Some of the fifth graders on the bus were talking about it," he said.

"Do you think he's real?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"Me too," I said.

And that was it. Well, except for what seems to be the seed of an elaborate plan to somehow catch Santa in the act this Christmas Eve complete with instructions to "tell Dad not to go in the living room on Christmas Eve, and you too. And I'll tell the brothers not to go in there unless they have to get to the bathroom."

I'm curious as to what he's planning. I'm worried that it may involve snares.

Part of me thinks it adorable and sweet and a sign of his impending maturity. And the other part is all "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck." I vividly remember reading Maria's post last year about how she never started the whole Santa myth with her daughters and incredulously thinking, "You can DO that? Why didn't someone tell me that eight years ago?"

Because, honestly, I want to come clean. But I'm in too deep. The lies have stacked upon the lies and now it's not just Sam believing in Santa Claus, but it's Quinn believing in the Easter Bunny and it's Jack believing that a giant tooth called the Tooth Fairy leaves him money under his pillow when parts of his body fall out.

I wanted to be all flat-out, "No, Sam. Santa Claus is not real. We made him up because that is what the whole damn world does, and it's fun and please don't wreck it for your brothers or your classmates, and it's okay, just because we lied about that doesn't mean you can't trust us, and Santa is really more the spirit of Christmas and the embodiment of our love for you than an actual person, so really he does exist, right? But, no, he's not real."

But I didn't say that because I didn't really want to snap his little heart into sixteen pieces five minutes before I had to drag the whole family out of the house to go to Jack's speech therapy.

Anyway, before I ask to hear your stories of Santa and the devastation he wreaks on the 8- to 10-year-old set, I leave you with this awesome response to my tweet about the conversation I had with Sam:

I love twitter.

So, bring 'em on. I wanna hear your stories of The Lie and the devastation that followed. (Or is coming. Because, yeah, it's coming. You can almost feel it, huh? It's like a 500-pound reindeer lightly pressing his left front hoof on one of your shoulders and you just know the other 499 pounds are going to come down on you soon. And at an inopportune time. Oh...it's coming.)

Can Wii Have Fun? Yes, Wii Can!

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:41:00 +0000

I have been fortunate to be able to attend many blogging events in the past couple of years, but I've never been the one who gets to actually host one before. But in my new capacity as a Nintendo Brand Enthusiast with Brand About Town (see bottom of the post for disclosure), I was lucky enough to be able to host a Wii Fit Plus party for some of my good friends!

Yay, me!

I wish I could have invited each and every one of you to this party. I actually had a lot of private angst over my invite list. We ended up with a wonderful group of women from both my blogging and my non-online circles.

We met at the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, where I immediately embarrassed the friends I carpooled with by taking a lot of photos of the outside of the building. Evidently, they haven't been to a lot of blogging events with me. 'Cause I'm the photo queen. On a related note, you can all go see the Flickr group for the party here.

The great thing about the gallery is that three of its walls were made of glass, so all the passersby could look in and see us being silly.

At one point I had to engage in a making-faces contest with some small children. Because I am evidently six years old.

The Brand About Town people definitely wined and dined us. I gotta say though that their green smoothies freaked me out a little bit. (And I wonder why my kids are so insane about what they eat.)

I drank one of the strawberry smoothies.
Which was by far the least scary smoothie.

Here we are learning about the new features of the Wii Fit Plus. I will not go into them here, but if you are so inclined, you are welcome to read about them in my review, which is posted on my review site.

We split up into groups to play, based on the highly scientific drawing-a-rock system.

I was "believe," as in "I believe I will make smart-alecky
comments throughout this event."

We started with yoga, which I do not normally do. Here is my friend Heather doing what I refer to as The Charlie's Angels Pose.

Here are Leticia and ALW flapping, flapping, flapping for all they're worth, trying to score points in a flying game.

Naturally, all *I* was trying to do was balance my camera and my glass of wine.

It was so wonderful to see my friends. It was also wonderful to see my friends grin when the Brand About Town people gave them each a Wii Fit Plus with balance board.

Above you see Jill, me, and Leticia in the front row and ALW, Robin, Susan, Kate, Andrea, Sue, Sandie, Kimberly, Joanne, Heather, and my non-blogger buddy M in the back row. My friend E is not pictured because she had to leave early because her husband locked himself and his kids out of their house and car. E's husband? You're on notice.

Thanks to Nintendo, Brand About Town, and all my friends for coming. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Also, I'll be giving away a Wii and Wii Fit Plus with a balance board on my review blog soon! Stay tuned for that announcement!

Disclosure: I was not compensated for hosting this party. However, I also did not have to plan or pay for it. As a brand enthusiast, I am sometimes sent free things, which I review on Things. And Stuff., my review site. While my guests were each given a Wii Fit Plus with a balance board when they left the party, I walked out with a (fabulous) Wii Fit warmup jacket. (Which was promptly stolen by Jack.) My guests also each got a jacket.

(He insisted on holding a Wii remote and standing on the balance board
while I took his photo. Seriously, HE should be the brand enthusiast.)

On Peanut Butter and iPhones

stimeyland@gmail.com (Stimey) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:33:00 +0000

So. Recycling.

A couple of you wanted some further information on my bold statement that you don't need to wash out your peanut butter jars before you recycle them. Now you should remember that I am often a little hit or miss when it comes to "facts" and "truths," so you should take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. (Or a dab of peanut butter, if you prefer.)

What happened was that I asked the guy about things like mayo jars and peanut butter jars and if I needed to clean them out. And he said, "Rinsing them out usually doesn't do a lot of good, so use a spatula to clean them." And then he told me that metal recycling gets heated to 2000 degrees when it is recycled and eliminates all traces of labels and food, so you don't have to clean those out.

So I'm going to generalize that to say that you should try to get big chunks of food out of jars, but that it's okay if a little residue is left because the recycling process should take care of it.

And remember! I am totally making this up.

(Although I did check one or two websites that seem to back me up.)

Does anyone have actual information on the subject?

*****

In other news, I am on my third iPhone in as many weeks. My original one stopped picking up wifi signals. So I took it in a couple of weeks ago and they had to give me a new one because the one I had was "unfixable."

Then, last night, one row of the keyboard stopped working in every app that uses a keyboard on my brand new iPhone. So I took it in and the guy was all, "Oh, it's probably just a loose cable. I'll go fix it." And then he came out a few minutes later to tell me that he had to give me a new one because it wasn't the cable and this phone was also unfixable.

I'm going to see how many iPhones I can go through before my warranty runs out.