Black Friday madness

We got all swept up. We'd never experienced it before. In the wee hours of the night, I got the itch to see what the fuss was all about. So at 11:30 pm, we packed in the car (Crazy, Uncle P and I) and drove off 50 miles to the Vacaville outlet mall. They have a furniture outlet store there that Crazy and I LOVE. It took us 40 minutes to find parking, and when we finally did, we hurried off and made a game plan. There were so many people there! I was shocked and appalled, we're in recession people! Anyhow, I had made a mental list of things that I wanted to get taken care of for a while now...and I was there to hopefully check off some items. We found a lamp for Oliver's room to replace the crappy lamp we had in there for a long time. We purchased drapes to replace the red and white toile we had in the room. These are just heavy light colored drapes, and purchased some yellow silk drapes for our room. We got 30% off our entire purchase. Yah! Crazy later ordered a new router from Apple and is in the process of trying to convince me that we need a new pc laptop and a mac mini. I don't see the need for either.

We saw a house last week that made the itch even worse. This was a 2 bedroom 1 bath home that was in our price range, in a cute neighborhood. The house looked really quaint and taken care of. We thought and thought about the possibilities of this home. I just couldn't see that the house would gain much value being 2 bedroom 1 bath and I had a hard time thinking about putting everyone though an addition of a master bedroom suite. There is about 25k worth of pest repairs...but Crazy loved the house. This is when I realized that I need a 3rd bedroom or a bonus room. So we are back to square one. Nothing is available and we suck. I stare and look at housing websites daily and am so frustrated that we haven't seen anything we LOVE aside from those townhomes in that development.

All in one night

We are exhausted! Oliver is the energizer bunny. Here's a few photos from tonight.

Prime Rib anyone?

So I had planned 3 different meals for 3 different days. Crazy thought it was too much food, but after looking at the lonely little turkey carcass in the pot, he knew that my brothers were seriously talented. We made prime rib today. The darn thing cooked for almost 3 hours. We had left over brussel sprouts and green beans, cauliflower and spinach as accompaniments. I also made turkey soup, but it was too salty for words....Needless to say, its all gone, except for 2 ribs of steak left. We have plans for those leftovers, in the name of steak sandwiches with horse raddish sauce, spicy arugula, juicy tomatos and crunchy bread.


We had to go grocery shopping tonight because our house guests ate everything. We went to the store and saw this extremely cute hat. I would LOVE for Oliver to let me put a hat on him, but he refuses to let me put a hat on him.

Turkey day 2008

I can't believe this is Oliver's 2nd turkey day. This also happens to be Auntie A and Uncle B's first wedding anniversary. Congrats to them. The first year is always the hardest in a marriage.

We'd been preparing and preparing for guests for the past couple of weeks and after 2 days we were exhausted. But in a good way. I planned and purchased copious amounts of food. Crazy kept telling me to quit ordering so much food and that there was no way we would be able to eat all the food that I insisted we purchase. What he didn't know was that we have some serious talent in my family. We had our turkey meal around 4 pm on Thursday and by the end of the night, almost all of the meal was gone.

Here's a photo of Oliver and my mama staring at our meal. We had an enormous bird that was 15# and took about 3 hours too cook. We had sauteed green beans, brussel sprouts, roasted potatos, mashed potatos, dressing muffins and lemony turkey gravy.





Here's Uncle K and Uncle P. As you can see Uncle K is going through his FOB phase, while Uncle P is going through his I think I'm still hot phase.

Oliver demanded his own spoon and attempted to feed himself.

Busy Busy Bees

So as I said a couple of days ago, we are in the process of preparing for guests in the coming week. We are also in the process of thinning out our furniture and preparing for our future move....when we find a home that isn't in the ghetto.

So it began late last night when I got the idea of getting rid of one of our book cases. This bookcase was given to us when we first moved to the area 8 years ago. Its hideous and only half full. Another bookcase we had purchased at an estate sale many moons ago in Kansas for a ridiculous price, I can't remember the price, just that it was ridiculously cheap. Anyhow its a beautiful little book shelf made of cherry or a nice type of wood, and custom made. So we went through the books and choose which books we would keep and which we would get rid of. Crazy went through his books and choose what to keep and merged the books into two book shelves. If any of you know, you'll be shocked because Crazy is a HUGE bibliophile. He LOVES reading and books. I tease him about it constantly, especially his odd habit of keeping an assortment of reading materials in the bathroom. Gross.

Anyhow, by 2 am, Oliver awoke enough to ear the commotion and asked to come out to share in the festivities...and after a bagel and some time flipping through books Oliver was put down for the rest of the night. At about 3:30 am, we went to sleep. The car was packed full of clothes for donation as well as books. Crazy dropped off the books at the friends of the library charity and the clothes off at the salvation army. We also gave away our dressers to the single mom downstairs and the desk to our neighbors next door. We also got our dresser delivered this morning....Oliver was intrigued...







Crazy then moved all the furniture off the carpets as we had scheduled to get our carpets cleaned today. Oliver and I went on a stroll to the grocery store to get out of Crazy's hair as he dealt with the cleaners. We then came back and soon headed off to have some Vietnamese Pho. Oliver ate like a little piggy, and then we were off to trader joe's to purchase his snacks for daycare for the week. When we got back, it was a rush of putting things away then a long video conference with Auntie A. Oliver was having a nice snack of Snapeas and freeze dried strawberries with soy milk. He then tortured Kylee for a while while Crazy was busy putting everything away and I organized items in the living room/dining room/kitchen. Can I just say that I've run the dishwasher at least 5 times in the last 24 hours? Anyhow Oliver soon fell asleep in his crib and Crazy and I folded our clothes to be put into our new dresser. He's now hanging clothes up and we are getting ready to go to sleep for the night. Its been an extremely busy day for Crazy. He deserves a gold medal for all the work he's done today. :-)

We have a meeting with our realtor tomorrow morning to look at 3 homes. I don't think anything will come of it, but we will try to take it easy tomorrow. Crazy will have to work tomorrow night so hopefully I can pull my weight and take care of bidness when Crazy is in the office.

We're a genuine family

Its so strange how all of a sudden I look around, and we are a family. I mean when did this happen? As we are preparing for the holidays, I am just shocked at how different things are this year as opposed to last year. We are making plans for the holidays first of all. I think responsible people do this, and I don't know how we got here. But here we are.

Oliver is starting to recognize us in a positive way. I should start off by saying that I had a rough night of sleep last night. A lot of things happened, mainly our conversation about what type of home we'd like as opposed to what we can afford. It was kind of a stretch for me to think about purchasing a home in the burbs as opposed to buying a condo right smack in the middle of everything. I've always lived in the urban type environment and so its hard to think that I will purchase a home in the burbs. Then I started to think about our finances, which pulled me out of bed to check in on my trading account...which then lead me to call the company that I have my trading account with at 1:30 am, which lead to a discussion with the customer service person about being a mother...and then a benadryl later I was out like a light. We have lost over half our stock value this year and I'm sad to not trade any more. Virtually every stock that I purchased before or a couple of months after Oliver was born has lost value. Not just a little bit of value, I mean LOTS of value. It will be years before I even see what I put in back.

So I'm thinking about Oliver's impending toddlerhood. Is the place he's currently going to going to help propel him into a the type of education we want him to have? Should I look for another school? Should we put him in Montessori? How important is it to us that he learn Chinese or Spanish? The school he goes to now encourages and talks to him in Chinese, and since I don't speak it as often as I used to in my youth, I'm trying to talk to him in my limited Chinese. Crazy wants to put him into Chinese classes during the weekends, somehow I don't know how much it will help if he doesn't speak it regularly. Then there's a matter of outside activities. Should we enroll him in karate, gym classes, swim classes, art classes? If so, when should we start this? When should we start potty training? Crazy doesn't want to discuss it until after Oliver turns 2 and I agree, but I'd like to plan things out. Crazy feels that potty training is really stressful for a child and so doesn't want to discuss it until Oliver can form sentences and tell us how he feels. I agree, but I still want to discuss it all to death.

Oliver is in better spirits this week. The weekend was horrendous, but he seems to have gotten over it. No one ever tells you how stressful and soul crushing a crying child is. Oliver cried all weekend long and as usual refused to be comforted. The past few days we've given him a lot more freedom, so he just wanders around and around our small apartment getting into things that he shouldn't. But he's in a good mood, and for that I'm grateful. He's starting to get his upper canines in. The bottom looks a bit swollen, so I think we may have all his canines before the year is up. The past few days he's been bringing books and then asking to climb into my lap so that I can read to him. Tonight he brought over a book that his grandparents gave him about a sleepy baby. He picked it up, handed it to me, then held out his little arms and said "up" and after he was situated and I started to read, he just stroked the parts of the books that were plush. Its one of those touch books. I don't know how people read to their kids when they are so young. I remember when Oliver was younger, I'd read to him and he'd just get restless and we'd end up struggling over the book. Now he sits or lays quietly on me and pays attention to the book instead of trying to grab the books out of my hand. Let me tell you, its quite refreshing. He brought over 2 books tonight at different times. The first one was a Dr. Seuss book and the 2nd one was a touch book.

He's starting to mimic words now. So whenever we see something I'll say it and clearly enunciate to him what it is and he will try to say it. We've got a lot of words down and working on adding to that vocabulary. He says "Dadeeee" a lot these days. He'll point to things and say "Dadeee", I don't know what he's trying to communicate but its sure cute to hear him say these things. Did I tell you that he's now doing hugs? He will hold his arms out and wrap them around your legs and squeeze. I love it when he interacts with us. My girlfriend said that it seems like I love kids, especially because I deal with her daughter so well. I laughed at the comment, because the truth of the matter is, I am not quite fond of babies and the main reason is the whole communication factor. I just need you to tell me what is wrong and I will fix it. Her daughter is 7 years old, so if I'm watching her and ask her if she needs anything, she will tell me.

Tonight Oliver was wandering around and at some point, he turned and saw me looking at him. He walked towards me and his entire face lit up and he flashed those pearly whites at me. I know I'm biased, but I honestly thought I was a shitty parent, simply because he isn't all that attached to me. But tonight, he looked me in the eyes as if he recognized that I am his mama. It was pretty cool. Although, its still weird to think I have a child now. I just can't believe I'm a mother. I look around me and am shocked that I'm a mother, cause I still feel like a spring chicken. I look around and see women in their early 20s with children and I wonder to myself why they would want to push themselves into adulthood so fast. I thoroughly enjoyed my 20s and I firmly believe that I didn't have the patience it takes to raise a child in my 20s. I just don't understand what the rush is for people to have kids.

The bendryl is starting to kick in. Good night people.

I should have included this

Last Friday when we dropped him off at daycare, I waved at him and said "Bye Oliver", and he turned around and waved "bye." Then I bent over to his level and said, "Oliver can mama get kisses?" Guess what happened? He walked up to me and put his face up to mine and then said "MA!"

He repeated this Monday morning. :-) He loves me!

Photos from tonight

Crazy had to work tonight so Oliver and I had the night to ourselves. After eating his dinner he decided he wanted to create a bit of mischief. He took all his shoes and threw them on the other side of the little brown stool behind him. Thanks Ollie, mama really had nothing else to do but to fetch 3 pairs of your shoes from there. In case you were wondering, yes that is a bug in his nose. If you had not guessed it, the no hair cuts won over the shave him bald one. So here he is, with the shaggy do.


Do you not LOVE the cute little green T that we picked up in the North Shore? Its from a company called Keiki Kruisers. The tshirt shows a lizard and the Hawaiian pronunciation is "Mo'o" or rather mo..o. Or rather what we say in the ghetto, "muh Oh". I knew my ghetto talk would come in handy one day. Lucky for you guys.


He was starting to wind down and pulled the pillows to the floor for his resting pleasure.



Notice that when he fell asleep he just used one pillow? Yes, he knows how to get comfy that kid.

We be in da ghetto

Yes, that's right. We can't find anything that suits us because I feel that at some point, we should move *out* of the ghetto. Isn't that what buying a house is all about? Well apparently, our budget once again puts us in the ghetto. We looked at a few homes...out of 10 homes my realtor perused on Saturday, he showed us the "best" 3 homes. Ugh. I hated being so far away from the train station. Why can't I just say screw it and move to a condo? Because I can't afford the $500 condo fees on top of my mortgage, especially if I can't afford to move my butt into a 2 bedroom. So I'm screwed living in the ghetto. Booo hooo hooo.

Oliver was CRANKY today. He spent the entire morning crying and refusing any food I offered him. He just walked around the place crying and refusing to be held. He cried and cried and cried. It really made me not want to be in the house. Crazy had at this point shut himself inside a bedroom sleeping, while I had to deal with a screaming child that refused to be consoled. I hate being a mother at times like this. He was tired and needed a nap. After we came back from the open homes, Crazy gave Oliver a bath and put him down. He slept for an hour before he woke up again. This time he was moaning in his bed, when I came in, he refused to get up. Crazy brought him out and we offered him the spaghetti that I had just prepared for him today. He ate a spoonful before he refused it. In a stroke of genius, I insisted that Crazy scoop some vanilla ice cream for him. He cried and cried, while I tried to give it to him, then I held him down and shoved the spoon in his mouth...he tasted it and then decided he'd like some. So he ate some ice cream and afterwards he was sweet as pie. No more crying, he just sat quietly on the couch between Crazy and I and smiled and let us stroke his belly and body. He was so mellow afterwards, so I'm guessing he has a sore throat, same as Crazy. An hour later I was able to change his diaper and put him down without much resistance. He went into his crib, curled up as I pulled his blanket around his body. Crazy had already turned on the heater as well as the white noise maker. So I turned his frog on and rhythmically patted his butt until the stinkyness of his used diaper made it impossible for me to remain in the room.

Anyhow, we went to look at some homes in a suburb in our city today. This area had mostly craftsmen homes and spanish inspired homes. I was not impressed by anything we saw today and we drove around the area and have some leads. I can wait it out for a few more months, even though we are literally over flowing the place again. I have once again purchased some storage containers so we can sort through stuff and put it all neatly away in storage containers. We need to sell our desk (solid walnut) and 2 dressers so we can rearrange our bedroom for our new dresser (pictured below) and the leather chair that is in Oliver's room. It'll give him more space to romp and store his toys. I am making it my mission to buy a new lamp for Oliver's room and just get rid of stuff we have. I have two reasons to do this. One it clears it out and two, it will make it easier while we receive guests over the holidays. I guess I'm neurotic about having things if we don't use them. Crazy and I have to clean our closets and get rid of clothes we don't intend to use any longer and donate everything. I've slowly started to clean out Oliver's old toys and clothes. I give them to the woman next door who's got a child that's about a year younger than Oliver. Meanwhile, it would be nice to utilize the furniture we have.

Oliver and Crazy are both sick. Oliver spent the last 2 days crying. I mean it. I wish he could express to me what he feels instead of me having to guess it. We were at a furniture store on Saturday about 45 minutes from our home, and Ollie just couldn't hold back. He cried and cried and refused to eat anything. He drank his milk and water, but refused food. We had to leave the furniture store because he was crying so hard. We went for lunch afterwards, and he refused any food. He just cried and when we offered food to him, he'd throw it on the floor and continue to cry. Cry cry cry. I thought I was going to loose my mind. The furniture store trip was successful in the sense that I have some clothes for my bed. Woo hoo! I bought a duvet, matching pillow cases and some pillow shams. We got 20% off our total purchase price, which totally ROCKS!

I later went online to buy this. We haven't had new dressers EVER. We bought some used ones when we moved here and now we can finally "upgrade". Do you love it? I got it 20% off as well, which was decent for the price.

Don't be jealous Auntie A.

My holiday gift for the Crazy clan is a flat screen TV. The last TV we bought was when we moved in and it was cheap. We got rid of that a few years ago, but got a freebie from Uncle P years ago so never had a need. So now that flat screens are as cheap as they are, we will get one for the holidays. I eventually want to get a 2nd one for our bedroom, but that will have to wait. We've got our eye on something right now, but am waiting on a holiday deal before we make the purchase.

I think I've settled it with myself. Turkey for the Thanksgiving holiday....and turkey for the Christmas holiday. I'm still unsure of whether or not we will celebrate Christmas with Oliver since neither Crazy nor I are religious. I'm not sure if I want to get into the habit of buying gifts for Oliver for a religious holiday, when Crazy and I don't partake in religious festivities. I don't mind celebrating Birthdays, but I'm not sure that I want to celebrate Christmas. It doesn't hurt to get presents, I always worry about him being a spoiled brat, especially since it seems as though he has a lot of toys and every time my girlfriend's daughter comes over she always says "Oliver has lots of toys!" I don't know, you can still buy him a toy if you celebrate Christmas, but I'm not sure if Crazy and I will do it. He has everything he can possibly need and if we need anything else, we always go get it. But its always so fun to see the faces of kids when they open presents. I don't know, its something Crazy and I need to discuss.

I shoulda taken a photo

Damn when it gets that funny, pick up the camera!

Oliver isn't feeling well today. He woke up this morning at 5 am with a bit of a fever and after eating a bagel he wanted to PARTY. Except it was 5 am, so I turned on the TV to whatever disney channel is and let him watch it. I tried to stay awake, and slept through some of it. When I checked him at 7:50 am, he didn't have a fever and was acting like he normally acts. So we packed him up and sent him to school. Does that make us bad? I think it does. Anyhow, he vomited at school and whined all day. The director joked and said, "he whined so much I couldn't get anything done!", to which I responded, "Well, you get paid to listen to him whine...."

We took him home, and he promptly fell asleep in my lap. I had the bright idea of going to Safeway to get some tomato bisque. I forced him to try it, by force, I mean I held his arms down when he shook his head then shoved the spoon into his mouth. Then he asked for more and more and more. When he was eating his buttered toast, he promptly vomited. Damn, so close. I should'a had a camera.

He promptly got a bath afterwards and lubed up for his pajamas. I think he's earned some trader joe's pirate booty before he goes to bed since he's had nothing that "stayed" with him today.

Tomorrow is the wicked veterans day. While I do appreciate the military, Crazy served 9 years, it totally took us by surprise. Low and behold, I had scheduled two meetings back to back, which is about 5 hours...grrrrr. As I mentioned earlier, Crazy is busy with a project at work and cannot take any time off, so I begged Paco's mama to help a sista out. She's watching him in the morning and will be relieved by 2 pm by yours truly. Wish us luck.

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I forgot to include what happened tonight. Oliver and I split the container of tomato bisque. So when I ate mine and looked over at his half full bowl, I asked out loud whether or not I should eat it...because he's sick. I'm not feeling well at all, but....I still had to ask. So Crazy told me that earlier in the night he offered Oliver a turkey and 16 bean soup that I made last night. Well what happened was Oliver took a bite, then vomited it out into the bowl, and Crazy ate it. I guess, when you become a parent, things like not eating vomit doesn't really matter any more?

Week in Review

So last week I had a discussion with the director of Oliver's daycare. One of her staff that works with the infants loves Oliver to pieces. At night when we came to pick Oliver up, she would tease him and make him cry.

Let me give you a few scenarios. He's really attached to her, and she spends the majority of her day with him. As she's quite taken with him, she tends to give in on most things he wants and just spoils him ROTTEN. So because he spends more time with her than he does with us, he's quite attached to her. So when she sees us come to pick Oliver up, she will run away from him, then when we pick him up off the floor as he's sobbing his heart out, she will come back and order him to come to her.....so this will create more tears and more sobbing. It was funny at the beginning, but Crazy HATED it. Then day after day, week after week, each and every time we showed up to pick him up, this would happen. I was getting more and more irritated by this. So I decided to have a discussion with the director and asked her if she could ask her staff to not do this as this only added more drama to the crying. I told her that I just couldn't imagine that she thought it was funny to see him crying night after night. I already know Oliver prefers this woman to me or Crazy because she spends more time with him than we do, but does she seriously have to rub our nose in it every damn day? Ugh. So the director had a talk with that particular staff person and she has since stopped making him cry when we come to pick him up. We still bring food to lure him away from daycare, and some days it works better than others.

Its frustrating. I have to work, because we want to purchase a home, but does that make me a shitty mom because I can't stay home and spend quality time with him daily? I mean its hard enough to work all day, pick him up, make dinner and feed him, then prepare him for bed, then clean the kitchen and do all the chores before we can go to sleep, then wake up in the morning to continue the rat race. I work so that we can afford to live in the ghetto and maybe one day buy a house. I'm sorry, I'm just frustrated.

Here's a photo of him Saturday night. He just had a bath and fell asleep in his play pen.


So Oliver is talking up a storm now. First we were concerned that Oliver refused to speak and didn't really say anything reliably...now its a completely different kid. He speaks with purpose and has opinions about everything.

I am getting over a cold and feeling a bit fuzzy after the medication Crazy gave me. He's working today and tonight. :-( November is going to be really busy for him. So if you call and he doesn't give you his full attention, please know its not you, its that he's just really busy at work.

Oliver is coming down with something today. He's basically refused food all day, and will only eat a few bites of anything. He was really fussy tonight, vomited in his bed, then fell asleep when Crazy changed his pajamas and put him down. Did I mention that Crazy is the best father ever? He's got so much patience with Oliver.

I went out and got a spa day today. It was so awesome. This is the first time I've ever gotten a massage, back scrub and facial. The massage was a deep tissue one and oh my god, it felt good. I then got my facial and a back scrub. All of it was good. Such a girly thing and I promised myself that the next time I am pregnant (if ever) I will make sure to get regular massages. It just felt so good. It was a bit pricey though, but so worth the money. I've never splurged on myself so it was seriously money well spent. My face is so smooth!

The economy SUCKS right now. The company has decided to close its doors for a week during Christmas, and its the first time they've ever had to move to such drastic measures. Its good because that means that I get to spend the week with my little family and our Australian visitors. Poor Uncle B, I will be playing more and more Men At Work that his ears will bleed.

I should talk about what's going on with the housing arena. We saw another townhouse at the development yesterday while Oliver was at my girlfriends house for a couple of hours. I LOVED it. It was in foreclosure and was a 4 bedroom, 3 bath. This house would be perfect for our little family and had space to grow into. It was an foreclosure and we knew it would go for a lot more than the listing price. I would love to put a bid on it, but I felt it was fruitless, so there was really no reason for us to bother. I sent some people links of a house we had looked at a month ago. We did a drive by at 11 pm and just didn't feel like it was a house that anyone would want to purchase from us in 3 years. So, despite the fact that someone lovingly restored this house, we had to pass. So, because of the shitty economy, we've decided to lower our budget so that we could afford a home on one person's income instead of two. This will leave us with a two bedroom one bath home. Wish us luck, cause we will definitely need it.

Halleluah!

This is the reason why I love being an American.

We as a country have come so far. I had feared that people would stay home instead of going out to the polls this year. I had feared that the religious right would take a hold of the country and will just FUCK things up with their religious agenda. I'm sorry, I had to say it. No, you cannot tell me what I can or cannot do with or to my body. We voted this morning and then went to get us some free coffee, then went for some free doughnuts. Oliver got himself a complimentary doughnut for being with a papa who voted. Ollie was beside himself as he swallowed that doughnut. He couldn't stop babbling all night long.

I am crossing my fingers tonight that when I wake up in the morning, human beings will have equal rights to marry their spouses in this state. I remember when I was in college, one of my friends from grade school came out of the closet to me. Although I had always known he was gay, it was still shocking for him to feel comfortable enough to come out to me. He said, "if I had a choice, I would never choose this...." Strangely enough I understood him. No one chooses their sexual preference, you are just born with it. I don't really care what people do in their bedrooms, as long as they obey the laws and pay their own share of taxes, we all have EQUAL rights. EQUAL RIGHTS. Everyone has the right to marry who they love. A vagina and penis does not a marriage make. I hope in Oliver's generation, that it won't even matter.

I recall wondering whether or not my son would one day tell me that he was or wasn't gay and I thought to myself, I don't care, I will love him anyway. I remember a book I recently bought Oliver, called "I love you anyway" (I think) about a mother talking to her child. The gist of the book was that the mother didn't care what the child was, she was the mother after all and she would love her child no matter what.