Valetine’s Day – Day Care Edition

It is Valentine’s Day tomorrow. A day where men get in trouble, new relationships are solidified or ended and feelings are crushed throughout the world. For the young among us, it is a time to get bags full of candy and pencils and stickers and … wait, what?

Maybe it is just because I am too old to remember, or because I am repressing memories of rejection en masse but, the vague recollections I have of Valentine’s day as a child, were getting a few cards in a paper lunch bag taped to the front of my desk. Granted, I have NO memories of Valentine’s before grade school but I experienced that today dropping the kids off.

At first, we were just planning on giving out the little cards that come with a sticker. Thought that was going to be good enough. When I picked up Tori yesterday, a few friends already had passed out some Valentine’s. With packets of Goldfish, and a little gift bag of a few things. I called Mrs. Voices and told her to stop at the store. Glad I did. When we got to “school” this morning, little bags of goodies abounded.

A friend of mine called it the “Valentine mompetition” and I heartily agree. What I do remember is getting the cards, maybe a box of chalk hearts … not an entire swag bag worthy of the Oscars. All I know is that I told Mrs. Voices … “I don’t want to be THAT parent that totally cheaps out.”

It seems to be just the evolution of things. It also happens at birthdays. The kids have a party, give out goodie bags, but then also give out bags of treats at school as well. It must be because of the whole, “must include everyone” mentality. To make sure that no one gets left out.

While writing this, I have decided that it is because I am getting cranky as I age. Let the kids have their fun Bob. They are kid’s for cryin’ out loud. If you want to be the cheapskate so be it. At least their mommy is cool.

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I Need Better Virus Protection

This week, the voices have been one by one succumbing to the dreaded Norovirus.  For those of you without children, and those of you newly with children who have not yet experienced the wonderfulness of this particular ailment … it ain’t fun.

Basically, it is 1-2 days of sheer unpleasantness. If you are lucky, it only affects one hemisphere. If you are unlucky, it affects both. It is quite vicious as well. It dehydrates you pretty good. Problem is, you can’t keep anything down for the first half of it. I felt worse than I ever have from any food poisoning and almost as bad as when I had the flu a few years back.

If you are fortunate to have a little one with this … no, you just have to learn for yourself. I will say though be VERY mindful of dehydration. My niece had to go to the hospital when she had this some years ago.

That’s about all I wanted to say. I had to get this out there because I feel like crap after 2 days of a 2-3 day virus. No one is immune. Resistance is futile. And if 1 person in your house gets it … you all will.

Happy holidays!

 

Just as a reminder, this is not “the flu” Flu is a respiratory ailment that has nothing to do with puking or the squirts. You won’t get over the flu in 2 -3 days. You will be hurtin’ for 2-3 weeks. Just sayin’. I used to make the same generalization all the time until I myself had the flu. Never made that mistake again.

 

Santa Clause Came To The Mall

Actually, I think his name was Phil. Tori had her picture taken with Santa last week at school. She smiled and it was one of the best pictures she ever took. It was a rushed affair though, so she was sad that she wasn’t able to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. Because of this, and because I needed a bribe earlier in the week while Jackie was out of town, I told Tori that we could go see Santa this weekend at the mall.

There were other reasons we needed to go to the mall. Since I have lost so much weight lately, I needed to get my wedding ring re-sized before going to Vegas in January. We also needed to go see Santa so that Dude could get his picture taken since he wasn’t at school that day. Anyhoo … if you haven’t heard, or don’t live around here, it was snowing today. Now, I am in the NW burbs of Chicago. It isn’t like we don’t get snow. However, whenever the first significant snow falls, the only people on the road seem to be recent transplants from any state that never has snow. If you don’t know how to drive in snow, I don’t think les of you … JUST DON’T DRIVE IN THE DAMN SNOW!

The up side of the unexpected levels of snow is that the mall wasn’t that crowded and the line for the big man wasn’t that long. Granted, the mall we were at I don’t think is EVER really that crowded but it IS Christmas time. You couldn’t tell that the line for Santa wasn’t long though. We got there while he was on break so there were upwards of 15-20 people in line. That is including kids. So, 10 adults maybe? This required 3 mall security personnel. They all looked very serious. I am not sure what they thought was going to happen. A riot maybe? The guy on the Segway got out of there after they controlled the line.

The line went pretty quickly. Tori was so excited when it was our turn that she barely waited for mommy to talk to the lady doing the pictures that we were going to do our own pictures and just using Santa for our free backdrop. Tori ran up to Santa and as she was climbing up onto the bench, said “Santa … I want a … a … a … art easel for Christmas!” There was no way she was going to miss out on it this time. Especially after putting up with that damn elf every day.

Alex cried. And cried. And reached for mommy. And cried. The picture was kinda cute though that they took. Tori was the Nero of the Santa pics. She smiled and laughed as Dude man cried. It really is kind of a great picture.

After the pictures were done, Tori got down off of the bench as me and Mrs. Voices when tot look at the pictures on the screen. What we didn’t see was Tori going over to the stack of oversized prop presents and picking them up and shaking them. She was just about to start unwrapping one when I finally saw her and stopped her. She thought she was in trouble and started crying. Dude started crying again because his big sister was crying. I told her she could ride the mall train. It cost me $12 to get her to stop crying.

While we were waiting for the train to get done dealing with a birthday party, Tori decided to take in the sights of the mall. She was fascinated … with everything. She thought it was the best thing ever. Like the last time she was at a mall. If I ever take this kid to someplace like Mall of America, she may overload and her head might explode. I would include a picture of the cute picture … but it is in my car. It is 10:30. I don’t want to go back out in the cold to get.

 

That’s What I Said?

The friends of mine with kids will know exactly what I am talking about. The ones that are expecting kids, this is fair warning.

As Tori is getting older and repeating EVERYTHING these days, we are paying closer attention to what we actually say. Because of this, we are paying closer attention to what we say … and sometimes it is down right wrong sounding. We have found that there are a lot of things that you say when talking to a child of limited vocabulary, that sometimes sound just plain dirty. Half the time I am expecting Michael Scott to jump out from around the corner and scream “That’s what she said!” Sometimes Mrs. Voices takes care of that for me. You can’t argue that some the things you say to a kid would have an entirely different meaning to most adults who think The Hangover and Borat are funny. Here are some examples:

• Stop playing with your button.
• Stop pulling on that.
• Get your finger out of there!
• Let me look in your pants.
• Did you rub that all in your hair?
• You have to hold it straight up and down when you suck.
• Baby girl, you are all sticky.
• Take that out of your mouth.
• You don’t want to taste daddy’s cheese?
• Put your balls away.

 

These are just a few that I have caught myself saying lately. Parents out there, please let me know some of the good ones that you have said and then thought “Did I just say that?”

I Really Didn’t Think It Through

I had big plans for this 3 day weekend. Was going to do a lot of cleaning, a ton of yard work and a mess load of laundry. Then Tori was up all night Friday and Saturday night with what we found out to be ear infections in both ears. Needless to say, the days were spent catching up on the sleep we didn’t get at night. Saturday we got a good amount of shopping done that needed to get done. Sunday saw SOME of the cleaning accomplished. Jackie also took Tori to the Dr. so that we could confirm the ear infection and got some drugs. Today, I didn’t think things through.

I woke up and gave Tori her medicine. Then I decided that I should mow the lawn. I got dressed and went and got some gas for the mower. I got all settled and started mowing. It was already 85 degrees. I got about 2/3 of the mowing done. Maybe only half. The heat was bearable for the most part. The humidity was bad but I have done yard work in worse and survived. What I didn’t take into account was all of the factors combined: Heat, humidity, being awake for 3 days and being far more out of shape than I should be to try to do this. Yard 1 – me 0.

Well, off to do some food at gramma and grampa’s.

All I Can Ask Is Why?

Ever since Alex arrived we have been trying to keep Tori’s routine as unchanged as possible. There have been a few things that have changed a little but for the most part we have kept things the same as before. To that end, I took Tori to day care this morning. That has nothing to do with anything other than I felt like telling you all. Anyhoo, when I got home, I had to take Mrs. Voices to the drop in clinic at her Dr. because she has pink eye, in both eyes, and we know no one who has it. WEIRD! Once she got her prescription, we still have a few things we need to get for Alex … crib mattress, diaper bag and a few other incidentals that come with having 2 little ones so close in age.

We were looking at a local baby store and I noticed the prices on some things. Now I know that there are parents that have to have the absolute best of everything. For me, a stroller is a stroller and if you spend a shit ton of cash on a stroller that doesn’t convert or anything is purely status for the parent. The prices for these things are ridiculous. Why in the name of all that is holy does a baby … sleeping in a  crib …  need a mattress that costs $400? They are not going to know the difference. Also, a baby does not even weigh enough to make a memory foam mattress even make sense!

Baby furniture is also a rip off. Most of the furniture is smaller, so why does it cost twice as much as grown up furniture? And clothes … don’t get me started on clothes. An entire unemployment check (well, maybe not that much) for an Easter dress that Tori will wear only once? It would have really been nice if my former employers waited at least another couple of paychecks before they decided to make up reasons to fire me. I wish I could be a Mr. Mom but financially these days, it just isn’t feasible. I promise this will be the last time I bitch about being fired … maybe. Yeah, I am bitter.

 

2 Weeks And Counting

We are around the two week mark. It is actually about 17 days or so. I am not counting down to St. Patrick’s Day. I am counting down to the arrival of Tori’s baby brother. If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been around much lately. We have been doing a lot of last minute prep and we have all collectively been fighting colds and tiredness. I think overall Tori has been the healthiest the last few weeks up until this week. Last night she spiked a fever of 103. It went down but it is back. Poor little bug. She is having a rough time breaking it. This is her first real “sick” with fever this long. I have been spoiling her a lot lately and since she is a smart baby, I think she is deliberately keeping her fever up so that daddy spoils her more than I usually would.

I went off track. 2 weeks until the new arrival. I am already exhausted. Mrs. Voices is exhausted, and she should be. We think we are at a place though where the baby can come and we would be ready. Tori is moved into her new room and I just have a load of laundry or two left for the bassinet and what not for the little guy. What we still aren’t done with yet, is picking a name. We are getting closer though. We are finally starting to come together on some names. We are not going to have any of the names I really want but, I guess that is ok. Is it acceptable to wait until he can talk and just let him pick his own name? That might be even worse.

Hmm. I am really at a loss for what I was going to write about next. Well, just want to let you know I am all still here and just be ready for exciting news to come soon. No, it won’t be that I got a new job paying me millions of dollars. If I ever do have millions of dollars, just remember, I will not forget all my loyal readers and I will send you all at least a dollar. Generous ain’t I?

No TV … Day Three

And hopefully the last. I am not saying I am addicted to TV … but I think I am addicted to TV. While it has been a good few nights without the box blaring in the background, or the foreground, I am finding that me not having something to draw my attention is a bad thing for one main reason. Tori. I never ignore her, in fact I play with her all the time when the TV is going. The problem is, without the TV grabbing at least some of my attention, I find various ways to amuse myself at her expense. Last night, it entailed giving her a piece of spaghetti. Someone told me to give her that and now I know why. OH EM GEE! She was soooo cute. At first, she couldn’t figure out how to get it in her mouth since it kept sliding out. Then, she got frustrated with that and decided it was what she calls “pretties”. That is jewelry to her. She tried to wear it like a necklace. I finally broke it into smaller bites for her after I felt she suffered enough. I would have taken video of it to share but a) I was laughing too damn hard b) I was cooking and cooking and laughing that hard can be rather dangerous, at least for me.

Tonight, my amusement consisted of making the little parrot and myna bird go through a myriad of songs, dances, recitations and otherwise cute stuff. We do have some on video but I will have to see if Mrs. Voices will let herself be on video published to tens of people, and I have to see how goofy I sound. I heard her showing Tori a video earlier and my voice is just AWFUL! Strange that I want to do voices for a living huh? Maybe that is why I do so many because I think my real voice is comical in itself.

Anyhoo, the little middle voice has gone to bed, we are eating our Paczkis and I will be getting the spreadsheet out tomorrow to figure out how much in therapy for Tori this no tv thing is going to cost me.

Watch What You Say

I should re-title that, “I Should Watch What I Say”. This is our first full day without a TV downstairs. Don’t get excited, we are NOT making some grand gesture by getting television out of our lives or anything like that. It is just broken. It is being fixed on Wed. The nice thing is that we played with Tori a little extra, I did a lot of cleaning and stuff, and I will have a lot of things to watch on DVR when the TV gets fixed. The bad thing is, I think my brain is wilting from actually having to think on its own. I am saying things I really shouldn’t.

The first thing was when Mrs. Voices was going to the store. I asked her to pick me up a new pack of undershirts, which I sorely needed. I told her what kind and size and she asked if I still needed the big size that I have been wearing forever even though I have lost a considerable amount of weight over the past 3 years. I told her I still did because I need the length due to my freakishly long torso (I am just about 6’2″ and I only have a 30 in. inseam). I explained that with the smaller size, they shrink and I don’t have the ability to tuck them in properly. I then proceeded to say “and you know how I like to tuck”. This was not the thing to say to a woman who never misses an episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Needless to say there was making fun of me involved after.

The second thing I said was when I had Tori in the kitchen with me teaching her how to cook. Yes, she LOVES to be with me when I cook. She will stand at the gate and yell “COOK!” when I am in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it was only a frozen pizza tonight. Still, she was enthralled with the process. By the time I am a drooling, slobbery, senile mess she will be ready to cook for me. But I digress. She has a bit of a runny nose, big surprise, and I tried to wipe her nose with a Kleenex. She sniffed and I said “Tori, your nose is gross, do you want me to suck it?” Now, anyone with small children will know what I meant, but in the back of my head, there was still that gross factor and image of me sucking her snotty nose.

There was one other thing that I said today, but, with my brain not being that active, I have forgotten it from the time I started writing this until now. Man, that sucks. As I recall it was pretty darn amusing. Oh well.

To make your day a little brighter, here is a video of Tori that Mrs. Voices took today. She was dancing with Elmo (Tori, not Mrs. Voices) and then decided to talk to herself in the camera. I may be biased but she is so damn cute!!

 

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I wore a tie to work today. I normally do not dress anywhere close to that nice. I usually wear jeans and a collared shirt of some sort. Even on client days I wear khakis. Today it was slacks, dress shoes, tie … the whole nine yards. Why? Why not. It was Valentine’s day and I decided I would look nice for my wife who would see me for 30 seconds as I left for work and wouldn’t see me since I would be changed into different clothes by the time she got home. That and me and another guy at work wanted to see how many people would ask us if we had job interviews. I told people I was going on a mob hit later in the day. It actually felt nice to dress nice. It gives a certain respect the client meetings we had today as well. That is something that I can honestly say I think is lacking from today’s yutes.

A few years ago, I was between career assignments and was going on numerous interviews. I always wore a suit. It was in the middle of the summer and in was 90 plus degrees. I always wore a suit. I am wondering if I maybe didn’t get some of the jobs I interviewed for because I was over dressed. A lot of the people I interviewed with, wore jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts … I very often times felt uncomfortable. I have seen a few interviewees coming into our office for job interviews and they aren’t even wearing a polo shirt. The dress like they just came from a head shop and decided to apply for a job. I feel that is a lack of respect. That and the whole “business casual” has just gone to “casual crap”. I just don’t think that ripped jeans and t-shirts should be worn when you hold a certain position or if you are giving a presentation. Shorts should never be worn at work unless you are a lifeguard or a mail man/woman. Enough of that.

While I am ranting about respect, how about respect for the flag. I am NOT some conservative or liberal whack job. I just don’t think that the flag should be lowered to half staff for a celebrities funeral. Yeah, New Jersey is doing that Saturday. Along those lines of respect, her fans are all ticked off that there isn’t going to be a public memorial. Now, I don’t care one way or the other but, I have always felt that a wake/funeral should always be for friends and families unless maybe you are a head of state or someone ultra super important to the world. Not if you are a drug addict. Yeah, I said it. I can’t respect someone who does that to their life especially when they more than have the means to get help. I understand it is a disease. That doesn’t mean it isn’t controllable. Even with that feeling, I think that is any family, wants to grieve, they should be allowed to do it in private if they want.

Well, that became a downer really quick and way went off the rails.

On a lighter note, I finally got Tori’s new bedroom painted. With any luck, this weekend will have everything moved in to the new room and I can start getting the rest of the house clean and ready. The new little guy is due 4 weeks from Friday! FOUR WEEKS!!! St. Patrick’s Day! That is not far off at all. I am feeling the stress but of course I know it is all worth it. I mean, I will get a few days off work after all.