4 Happy Family

I haven’t posted a video in a while….actually haven’t posted at all in a while. Here you go

Holy Crap. I can’t believe it has been that long since I last posted. Obviously things have been crazy getting ready for kid two and life and so forth. Here is a grainy, out-of-focus picture to make up for it.

Maya had her big class celebration today fot St. Pat’s day. We had a birthday last weekend with an Irish theme and Courtney brought one of the bar giveaways home for Maya to wear which was a necklace of plastic shamrocks. The kid loved it (along with her hat in the not-so-flattering picture below).

It seems that Maya’s teacher was at a celebration that featured the same trinkets. She came up to Courtney after class today and told her that she and Maya were wearing the same necklace….but she had cut off the Miller Lite site hanging at the bottom of the necklace (which Maya’s still had on to Courtney’s chagrin).

A little while back I set off the smoke alarms by cooking asparagus with bacon in the oven’s broiler. Freaked Maya out something crazy. The detectors are the talking kind and it took a couple of days to convince her that there wasn’t someone living in the house (that day at school happened to be “stranger-danger” day – a perfect storm of freakedoutness).

It was getting to the point that she would be cautious going into some of the rooms because she was terrified of the smoke alarm. (Also it was never her that was scared, she was scared for the dog Polly or she would say “Snowman doesn’t like it”) We made a mini-breakthrough last weekend when I took one off her wall and she held it being careful not to press the button. I was able to mute the speaker and have her press the button and she seemed good. Ah, the joys of parenting. Where the hell is the chapter on smoke alarms, Dr Spock?

Courtney had a couple of girlfriends over yesterday complete with their gaggle of kids. They have fun running around and pulling everything out like kids like to do. After calming Maya down and putting her sleep we were popping open a bottom of wine when we noticed that “Little Brother” – what we call the baby monitor (I know poor 1984 reference) was going crazy.

Always buy the monitor with the sound bars that increase when noises are louder. We turned it up and there was a very loud and shrill: BEEP – BEEP – BEEP. Apparently one of the kids had set the alarm clock and it just happened to be going off right after she had presumably fallen asleep. Now, this is not your normal alarm click noise, this is one of the ones that they sell for college dormitories to wake hungover students up in time for their 10AM class on Leisure Ethics seminar.

Knowing that there was going to be a freakout, I went upstairs and she was sitting bolt upright in her bed. At first she thought it was the smoke detector but we talked her down and explained one of her friends played turned on the alarm and that they did not mean to scare her. The poor thing was petrified and she fell asleep in our bedroom for the second time in her life.

When we tried to move her when we were going to bed she woke up and freaked out, as in trembling, so we decided to let her sleep with us; which she won’t do. Maya likes to play and be active. We tried to deal with it for about 90 minutes as she would seem like she was falling asleep, but it wasn’t working and we had to put her back in her room crying that she was scared, but in her “I know you are a sucker” voice. She fell asleep so quickly after crying that we went back in to check to make sure everything was OK. Which it was of course. So tired….

It’s a good cause and I want to see what I am going to look like in 6 years.

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From Rob:

St. Baldrick’s Foundation - I’m Shaving My Head!!!

Every year my office sponsors a shavee for the St. Balrick’s Foundation and I volunteered to be that shavee.

St. Baldrick’s is the world’s largest volunteer-driven fundraising event for childhood cancer research. Thousands of volunteers shave their heads in solidarity of children with cancer, while requesting donations of support from friends and family.

At a St. Baldrick’s event, something amazing happens. People who normally shy away from the very thought of childhood cancer find themselves compelled to support this cause after looking into the face of these brave children who are smiling broadly as their friends and family members proudly display their newly shorn heads.

Volunteers and donors see it can be fun to support a serious cause. Young cancer patients and survivors see how many people care. And researchers see St. Baldrick’s funds helping to find cures!

I’m trying to get as many people as I can to help sponsor me at this event, which is being held at Helen Fitzgerald’s in St. Louis on March 7, 2009. If you would like to sponsor me and donate to this wonderful cause, you can do so here.
I’m starting out small - my goal is only $250, but I want to raise much more than that.

Also, if anyone is willing to join me, we can form a team! If you are interested, or if you have any questions, let me know.

Thank you!
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Unscrunched Original Version

Finally had some decent weather this past weekend. I took a personal last Thursday so we could go get things taken care of to update our paperwork for adoption #2 to the Marshall Islands. This consisted of going to two separate places for state and federal fingerprints and getting a medical check up and blood samples. Ah, it is so nice to have government intruding in all aspects of your life to “prove” that you are a good candidate to watch a kid. It is really hard to watch the news some times when there are stories of these idiot parents and how they treat/abuse/neglect their children.

Friday was pretty interesting. I worked from home that day because Maya’s school was celebrating her “half” birthday. Maya actual day is August 1 and since it is Summer and no class, the school is accommodating to try and be inclusive. Normally, I would see this as the continual marshmallofication of kids, but since it is mine I saw it not only as nice, but a requirement.

At the co-op school there is always a parent helper in the classroom and since it was Maya’s birthday C got the honor. For the celebration the family brings in a treat (not-homemade) to share with all of the kids. The birthday kid gets a crown, a book drawn by her classmates and is pretty much the center of attention for the day.

C asked her what treat she wanted for her special day and she, of course, said snowman cookies, I think I have mentioned it before, but this kid has become absolutely insane about snowmen. Courtney spent about 2 days and a handful of hour driving from store to store looking for those tubes of cookies with the snowmen in the middle. Hoping to find anything leftover from the holidays so she could satisfy the store-bought goodness that the school wanted and maybe save a couple of bucks by getting something on clearance.

Unfortunately, it did not work out. Seems most places are already displaying their swimsuits or decorations for Easter and because of this holiday creep there were no cookies to be found. So plan B was go to the bakery and have them make snowmen cookies for us.

Baker: “No problem, we can make and decorate snowman cookies.”
Me: “That’s great! You really are going to make someone happy.”
Baker : “OK, that will be $25.50.”
Me: “What? Did you just say $25.50 for 13 cookies for a 3-year old? That is American currency you are expecting, right”
Baker: “That’s is right.”
Me: “Wait a second. I did not accidentally say some code word that causes you to put a packet of cocaine in the box with the cookies. Right?
Baker “Sir, do you want the cookies?

OK, OK. So, that was a dramatization. I did not even order them, I just picked them up for her and brought them home. I bristled when Courtney told me how much they were, but she followed it up with a “Don’t you want to make your daughter happy?” and the even more assertively implied “If you think I am drivind around to one more place looking for cookies to save a couple of dollars you are absolutely out of your mind.”

Picture of the damn snowman cookies

The morning of the big event I worked out of the Starbucks by our house. I could not go to the school until snack time so I was able to get a lot done. Libertyville Starbucks is a curious place, It was packed with trophy wives and ex-trophy wives that had reached their expiration date. No joke, one conversation I overheard was about how to cover up an affair and if you do get caught where to go for legal representation. Yikes.

Made my way to the school in time for the little celebration. Maya was super proud and excited to have the day devoted to her. Worked the rest of the afternoon from home. It is funny that I always get more done when I work from home, so that felt good.

Saturday was kind of a rough day. We are finishing up the rest of the paperwork “redo” for the adoption so we had to finish fingerprints and Courtney needed to get her blood drawn for the medical portion. Turns out that Maya’s hives may be due to allergies (early indications are eggs and animals) and they wanted to have blood drawn from her.

All week we talked it up and how it would just be a little pinch and she needed to hold her arm still and so forth. She was freaked but seemed to be a good little trooper until we got there and lost it. Courtney and the tech held her in place while they drew six (6!) vials of blood. She was excited to get a band-aid with a cotton ball underneath it and we were all glad it was over.

Being the total suckers that we are, we took her to Chuck E Cheese at 9AM (No idea they were open this early) so she could play $2 worth of her favorite Popcorn game. (45 seconds of ping pong balls bouncing around and you have to catch them -no pizza thank God). We got home and she bundled up Snowman and took his blood and told him that it was OK and that it did not hurt and we gave her a wad of toilet paper to put on his arm under a band aid. Too cute.

We rounded off Sat by going to the roller rink again. This time she told us that we had to sit down while she skated around. I was having a hard time freaking on her being out there by herself. The birthday parties were having cake so we were the only people out there. Maya would yell from across the rink that we had to stay on the bench and watch her. Which we did.

She was so proud and confident and I could only hope that she stays like that throughout her whole life.

The big thing she was also into there was the fact that there was a “girl skate” only to the music of “We are Family”. She reveled in the fact that I had to leave the “stage” as she calls it and go to the sideline and watch. This was OK with me, though.

We went out for drinks on Sat with a couple of friends while their daughter watched Maya and then I spent Sunday moving furniture. (I was already sore from running on Sat. morning so I was wrecked but Sun night.) All in all, a good weekend. I think it is even getting a little bit warmer because I put on a lighter coat and was still comfortable. –In your face, Mother Nature!

Last Sunday we went down to the South Side of Chicago for the annual Chinese New Year parade and celebration. We went with our good friends and former neighbors the McClurgs and other friends of the family.

The parade was a lot of fun. Maya was really into the costumes and the bands and poppers spraying confetti. The dragon costumers were her favorite and she liked the way they danced around and interacted with the crowd.

After the parade we went out for a traditional Dim Sum lunch. We went to the Happy Chef based on reviews and was incredible. It took a little for our friends to get used to being served food that might not normally be on their palate, but they seemed to get into it eventually. It really was amazing stuff.

Sometimes good things sneak up on you without any expectations. We had a really good family weekend thanks to a broken toilet and the flu virus, For once, these things actually did not happen to us. After putting the kid to bed we had sushi for dinner. It had been a really long time since we are in save for adoption mode, but sometimes you choose not to stomach anything you have in the fridge so we ordered pick up and split a bottle of wine.

Maya let us sleep in in the morning. Checking my E-mail and my FB updates I saw that a friend of ours that we were supposed to have dinner with was having toilet problems. They live in the city and we were going to check out their place. Turns out they had a major debacle and would not be able to host. That, coupled with another couple cancelling our sleepover because the family was sick meant that we had a completely free Saturday.

We were supposed to go ice skating downtown and had built it up to Maya all week so we changed gears and decided to go roller skating at the local roller rink. They had an open skate from 3-5. We brought our roller blades to be safe, but your $5 rental fee included the chance to rent authentic 4-wheel roller skates. I love Courtney but sometimes when she gets nostalgic I know that I am going to end up with Athlete’s foot.

The skates were vintage meaning that through the decades they probably have had more feet than a carpenter’s tape measure. (Ouch sorry for the bad mixed metaphor. It is early). The rink had that dingy high-school make-out vibe and the walls were thick with the smell of teenage angst, hormones and knock-off cologne. Maya was fascinated with the lights and the loud music pumping out Top 40 hits that all the tweens seemed to know by heart.

The scariest part was seeing some of these kids. Time and becoming a parent really clouds the hormone-riddled realities of youth. Watching these little girls (yes, little) skating around and texting at the same time while flirting with boys was insane. I could not believe it. Of course the boys were typical, skating as fast as they can, acting like they were going to run into the girls causing them to shriek.

Then the music started playing something other than then Chicken Dance and the girls began to gyrate on skates. These young little flowers were imitating the moves they see on TV and it terrified me. It was suggestive, sexual and just plain wrong. I am no prude, but holy shit that was creepy. There is a reason they do the chicken dance in the Midwest; “No one has ever gotten felt up through polka!” Yikes.

As for the skating itself, Maya loved it. She was timid at first making sure we were both holding her hands, but by the end of the day she was going by herself (not wanting anything to do with us in typical tween fashion) and even was skating backwards by the end of the session. By skating , I mean taking little ginger steps , not actually rolling.

It was so fulfilling to see how proud she was of herself and when I or Courtney would roll by she would hyperactively wave at us and say “Look at me”. It really was one of those “moments” that makes being a parent great.

Next, we headed over to this place called Bill’s pub for dinner. Normal little bar-food place. The cool thing was that they server you peanuts and you get to throw the shells on the floor. Obviously, when you walk in, they have a big sign saying that they proudly serve peanuts as a decade old tradition and to proceed with caution. (I also recently learned that there is a peanut table at school for kids with allergies – who knew?)

Well, give a 3YO the chance to shells on the floor and she will be all over it like a fat kid on cake. We had to explain what the difference is between dropping shells and flinging them into the hair of the people at the table next to us are two separate things. Good pizza. Great atmosphere.

Of course we had to finish it off with the 12-minute trip to Chucky Cheeze so that she can play her new favorite obsession. It was on the way home so we decided to let her play her popcorn game. It is just this stupid little thing where you move this basket around for 45 seconds and try and catch ping-pong popcorn. So for $2 we can give her 6 minutes of joy. She just stands there and holds the handle with the goofiest grin on her face. Worth the price of admission (which is a handstamp that can only be visible under a black light matching your kid to you. I am buying into the conspiracy that Chuck E Cheeze is tagging us for future world domination. Also, if you serve food, please don’t have your mascot be a rat.)

Obviously, she was wound up beyond belief and we tucked her in and she was out right away. We just kinda lazed around and went to bed because Sunday we were headed downtown for the Chinese New Year parade and Dim Sum. That’s another post.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at this one.

If we get this we will make sure that she gets a Fisher Price “My First Rewards” card that racks up personal information about her bathroom habits and comps her appropriately. I have a feeling if she used this and made a “jackpot” the ensuing noise would probably scar her for life (and that is our job, right? )

Speaking of being housebroken; Maya has really been excelling at using the potty lately which has been great for us. We are going to the Chinese New Year parade downtown this weekend and looking forward to some traditional Dim Sum. Everything is still Stepford Wife frigid up here with Spring not even a sparkle in old man winter’s eye, but we are moving on.

Started running again which has been helping, just miss being outside without feeling like I have to rub a pint of petroleum jelly on my face. Enjoy the weekend.