4th of July Update

• Spent most of this week helping my MIL move.
• DB took LB to my MIL's house on Saturday to let me study alone at home. It was sweet.
• When they came home at night, we took LB to the roof to watch fireworks. A typical freezing, foggy San Francisco July 4th. Though the fireworks are small from our vantage point, we can see several shows throughout the Bay Area, including the really nice one in Oakland. This was the first time we let LB stay up late to watch fireworks, and I think she enjoyed being outside in the cold night much more than she enjoyed the fireworks. She just likes it when we do different stuff.
• I've been studying. A lot. On Wednesday, I have my chem final, and it's my last day of chemistry! Yay!
• I've been getting online tutoring sessions over Skype with a physicist friend. That was a little surreal. You know, very much like a Jetsons moment. I became really aware of how much learning has changed since I was in college.
• I'm completely addicted to the Veggie Chips from Trader Joe's. I'm not even joking, but we are eating like a whole bag a day. And then I had to go and add onion dip into the mix, and I'm a lost cause. Someone's going to have to stage an intervention.
• LB is CRANKY. Like, a huge, giant pain in the ass. I have no idea what the FUCK is wrong with her. She is waking at night, crying and upset. During the day, she is prone to meltdowns at the slightest provocation. I'm starting to wonder if it's because she misses meat? Which brings me to...
• Still vegetarian. So far, not an issue, except when I eat out with other people. That lunch I went to where LB had to join me because DB had a fire to deal with? That was hard. We ordered 2 appetizers- fried calamari and figs wrapped in prosciutto. I should have said something, but I didn't want to be "that person" who makes everything about her vegetarianism. But in retrospect, I should have, because when my group found out, they felt really bad about not ordering someone vegetarian, and we all would have felt better if I'd just been honest. Well, this is still new to me, so I'm still learning my way.
• DB and LB are still sleeping because they were up together all night with another of LB's midnight meltdowns.
• I'm hungry. I may have some Veggie Chips.
  

Burning Down the House

I had plans today to have lunch with some of my LC program classmates. 5 of us took out an LC that we had all worked with, to thank her for putting up with us and all that. DB was supposed to watch the kid, maybe have some lunch themselves, then go home for a nap.

About halfway into my lunch with grown ups, the waitress tells me that my husband is looking for me. I go up to the front, and there they are, husband and daughter looking a little raggedy in this upscale restaurant.

DB informs me that there's a fire at one of the buildings he manages, and he has to leave LB with me. And that is how LB joined in on my grown up lunch. Everyone was cool about it (I mean, they're lactation consultants. It's part of their job to like kids, right?), but it still sort of sucked. Overall, LB was well behaved, but her lunch consisted solely of 5 plums and 2 salt water taffies. I put up a meager fight about the food, but really, this was not the place to argue with her.

The building is fine. A tenant left a cigarette on the windowsill, and the bathroom needs repairs, but it could have been worse. Of course, I was happy to help DB out, as fires are always such stressful situations, and he was kind enough to say he felt bad that he had to interrupt the one lunch I've had with friends in a year. And yeah, I guess that is a bit of bad luck on my part. But I'll take that over a fire in my home any day.

The Holy Trinity

LB: My name is Allah!
Me: Oh yeah? My name is Buddha.
LB: What your name, Daddy?
DB: I'm Jesus.

New Blog Names

I know that I put out a call to arms about a new blog name months ago, and you guys put the effort in, but I couldn't see myself writing under a banner about breastmilk, professional pants, or anal suppositories. Let's try again.

• Things I May Regret Writing When My Daughter Learns To Read. Or maybe just: Things I May Regret Writing About My Daughter.
• Don't Want Mama (or other things my daughter says to make me hate myself)
• The Pajunk and the Uvula (???)

I read online that I shouldn't change my blog name, since it destroys my brand. But surely they couldn't possibly be talking about me. I'm leaning towards the first one, since it's pretty self explanatory, and I think it clues people in on the kind of language that's used here.

I've been reviewing some GRE words, hoping that there is one single word that encompasses "Vegetarian. Lactation. Foul-mouthed. Entertainment," but you'll be surprised to know that thus far, none exists. I bet the Eskimos probably have such a word.

Roomba Rides Again

About 3 months ago, my Roomba stopped working. I was distraught. It hadn't even been a year since I purchased it. I called the Roomba company, and after a few questions and tests, they concluded that my battery was dead. After less than a year? I couldn't justify purchasing a $50 battery every 9 months. I was prepared to write a scathing blog entry about what a waste of money the Roomba was, but I couldn't bring myself to hate it. I simply love it too much. I decided to buy a new battery.

But, the Roomba was purchased during more prosperous times. This year, things are much leaner, so I waited. Around Mother's Day, DB bought a new battery for me. I charged it, with much anticipation. But while the charging lights worked, after 24 hours, there was no power in the Roomba. I wanted to cry.

I called the Roomba company again, begging for some way to fix it. After more questions and tests, they told me the unit was broken. They tried to sell me a new body and motor, but I told them it took me 3 months to have enough money to buy the battery; there was no way I could buy a new unit. They put me on hold, then told me that as a one time courtesy, they would send me a completely new unit. For free.

And it's zooming its little heart out right now. Music to my ears. I'm even using the first, original battery, which was never broken to begin with. And the new Roomba came with a battery too, so now I have 3. And I have all the parts from the old Roomba, the brushes and what not. Which could be useful, I guess.

So overall, the Roomba is clearly pretty cheaply made and is not built for long term use. That is a bitter disappointment, considering how expensive it is. But, its customer service and retention plan is excellent and more than makes up for its so-so quality. And let's not forget that its daily function and convenience is still amazing. It cleans well and cleans frequently with minimal effort on my part. That is still there. But, if this thing breaks again in 9 months, and they don't send me a new one, I probably won't buy another. I can only stand so much heartache.

Enchanted

Over Father's Day weekend, we had free movie channels, so I DVRed a bunch of movies to watch at my leisure. Among them was Enchanted, the preteen chick flick about fairy tale characters who end up in New York. I turned it on the other day, thinking LB would watch the beginning of the movie, which is in animation, but I figured she would zone out when it became live action.

DB is constantly suggesting we take LB to the movies, and I always veto it because she can't even sit through one movie at home. Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, Chicken Little; we've tried a bunch of them, and she always loses interest within 45 minutes. We've had the same experience at the movie theater, only it's 1000 times worse because she's crawling all over the seats and the floor. I hate taking her to the movies.

So it was a huge and pleasant surprise that after 45 minutes, she was still sitting quietly next to me, watching the movie with her full attention. She especially enjoyed any parts with singing and dancing. I was really impressed that we had found a movie she liked so much.

Later, I told her to tell Daddy about the movie we saw, and here's what she came up with:

LB: A dragon fall down.
Real scene: A dragon fell off a building.

LB: The daddy slide and fall down. The mommy catch him.
Real scene: The Patrick Dempsey character slides down the roof and falls, and the Amy Adams character catches him.

LB: The other mommy has a shoe.
Real scene: Patrick Dempsey's fiancée (not Amy Adams) finds Amy Adams's shoe, a nod to Cinderella.

I mean, that's not bad, right? I'm extremely impressed by how much of the movie she understood. And I'm tickled that she thinks of the characters as the Mommy, the Daddy, and the Other Mommy. But obviously, she would, since her whole world is Mommy and Daddy, so why wouldn't they be Mommies and Daddies too.

Right after the movie ended, she asked to watch it again. But I have WALL-E recorded too, so maybe we'll try that next.

I Love My Daddy Because

For Father's Day, I made DB this book idea that I ripped off from this blog. I read about it last summer, and I thought it was totally adorable. It's this board book called "I Love My Daddy Because," and you cover up all the preexisting pictures of animals with printed photos of your kid and her dad. I had bought the board book last summer, thinking I would make it for DB's birthday, but my lazy ass never got it together. Then I thought maybe Christmas, but I was already making those stockings for Christmas, and that would have just been entirely too much crafting for one year.

I'm kind of glad I waited a year to make this, because some of these captions were really difficult to match with photos I had, and waiting a year gave me more photos to choose from. I printed the photos in 6x6 size at Ritz Camera. On some pages, the original picture peeked out from behind my 6x6 photo, and that's where you'll see the weird stickers and handwritten notes. I struggled a lot with what adhesive to use. I'm not a scrapbooker, so I didn't know what was available. Fortunately, DB recently bought some photo dots to use for something else, so I had an entire role at my disposal, and that worked beautifully.

Anyway, here's my adorable result (Sorry the photos are so shitty. They looked ok on the camera):

Iron Anniversary

When I was planning our wedding, I was careful to pick a date nowhere near our regular gift giving holidays. I settled on June because it was 4 months from my birthday, 2 months from DB's birthday, and 6 months from Christmas. I never even considered Father's Day.

So, 6 years later, I find myself celebrating my anniversary on Father's Day. Or rather, celebrating Father's Day on my anniversary, which I suppose now will occur every few years. Any other year, we probably would have celebrated our anniversary on Saturday, but since DB was supposed to get his cast, we didn't make any plans.

Then on Saturday morning, my MIL called to say she had been bitten by a puppy, bleeding puncture wounds and all. She refused to go to the doctor, so we drove down, and DB took her to the emergency room. The doctor told her to expect a very serious, painful infection, so we decided to spend the night and keep an eye on her over the next day. As of Sunday, she seemed fine, so we had a laid back Father's Day, consisting mostly of brunch and frozen yogurt, then went back home.

So that was our romantic anniversary. We did manage to exchange gifts. Like every year, we give traditional anniversary gifts (among other gifts) and the 6th year is iron. DB gave me an iron horseshoe. I gave DB the "Iron Man" DVD.

P.S. I just realized I didn't blog about Mother's Day. We went to Santa Cruz.

Costco Stoli

In an effort to fit 2 frozen pizzas in the freezer, I am selflessly finishing the Costco sized Stoli that was taking up space in there. It's a tad bit more than I should consume in one sitting, let alone in one glass like I am currently partaking, but it should make for a more interesting night.

Father's Day and anniversary stories later.

Where My Fishie?

It took 3 days, but LB finally realized her fish was gone. Out of the blue yesterday, she said:

LB: Where my fishie?
Me: (Completely caught off guard) Uh... what?
LB: Where my fishie?
Me: (Scrambling for an answer. What the hell did DB say the story was?) What? A swishie?
LB: No! My FISH. My FISH. GOLDIE.
Me: Oh! Fish! Well, we were only babysitting Goldie. Goldie had to go back to his owners.
LB: (Pause) He with his mama and daddy?
Me: Um, yes.

And that was it. She hasn't asked about him again, and she doesn't seem too sad that he's gone. I think I dodged a bullet there, but I still feel really guilty and sad for her.