Monday, January 28, 2008

First haircut


Two years and she finally needed a haircut. I was sick of her wispies getting caught in zippers. Here she is telling Grams all about it.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Being slightly hungover with a two year old is like being really hungover without children. The problem with long lines at bars at huge parties are twofold: you are compelled to get 2 drinks once you reach the bar and you are not eating while you are in line. We did have a lovely time at the ski sweater ball, however, in spite of being underserved and overserved - at the same time.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

We were tagged by Beck and Bri at Unwellness.

The Rules
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share 6 non-important things/quirks about your kid
4. Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs
5. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Let the fun begin!

1. Lulu has been referring to her Dad as "Pirate" and herself as "Mermee."

2. She is fascinated by Santa and his Snow-deer.

3. In order to travel anywhere I must have a stash of toys on the passenger seat, one for every ten minutes. Lately she asks for her "Ninoculars" first.

4. Lulu likes to sit on potty, flush the potty, visit the potty, say hi to the potty but not use the potty.

5. Lulu caused a bench clearing brawl at day care yesterday.

6. She loves to share her birdie.

I tag Vicky at Sweet Happy Life. Twice. Once for each kid. And I tag Domino so she will resurrect her blog.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Without sharing personal experience

"Without sharing personal experience, what are your views on abortion?"

I work at a family planning non-profit that also offers abortion services. You've heard of us. We ask this question of every person we interview for a job, since being pro-choice is a job requirement. Even with the caveat, "without sharing," people share.

Until I started working at my current job I only knew one person who had had an abortion. She was a high school classmate and we were seniors then. I don't know who else she told. I think she told me since I was vocally pro-choice. But knowing she was pregnant confused me. I knew that women should have the right to choose whether or not to have children. I just didn't understand how she got pregnant. She was smart, for one. And I thought just about the entire senior class was on the pill. I was. I realize now that a lot of the girls I grew up with didn't have the information my feminist mom gave me. And the only really difference between my friend and I was that she was unlucky enough to get pregnant. There but for the grace of god go I, and all that.

And that was it. Abortion was an abstract. A comforting option that no one I knew ever needed.

Except there were abortions going on all around me and I never knew it. One quarter of pregnancies ends in abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, if the current rate continues nearly 1/3 of women will have an abortion. Don't believe it? Come work where I work.

People tell me their abortion stories all the time now. I see patients walk in our doors on procedure days. I work with our donors, so it is not uncommon for me to hear stories of both illegal abortions before Roe and legal ones after. And these stories come from all kinds of people. And every story reaffirms for me why abortion is important.

Here's mine:

Bebe Lulu was the most planed baby ever. Charts. Temps. Calendars. Attempt at a December tax deduction. What I didn't plan, being a clueless first timer, was sleep deprivation and loss of judgement. Let's just say that when you are squeezing in some intimacy in ten minutes AFTER the baby should have been awake, and you slept very little, the distance from the drawer of the bedside table to the actual bed is far indeed. The poor condom never had a chance. I knew the next day that I was ovulating. Knowledge gained from charts. Temps. Calendars. I hoped. I prayed. It never dawned on me to walk my ass downstairs from my office to get EC. Not two weeks later one of my co-workers took one look at me coming out of the bathroom and said "your eyes." She knew was pregnant before I did. (she's right about the eyes...when I'm pregnant they go all soft and puffy.)

That night I took a test. And it was nothing like the test I had taken some 14 months before. I wanted to fail more than anything. I knew what I would do before the pee hit the end of the stick.

It wasn't a decision I struggled with at all. I had a five month old. I was exhausted. I didn't have the energy or money to have a second baby right away. Bill agreed. The hardest part of the process was making that trip downstairs to the medical office and asking a co-worker how I could start the process.

It took me thirteen years to figure out how my friend got pregnant. But now I understood.

I've never felt regret, or even sadness, about my decision. I just knew that I owed it to Bebe to not let my laziness get in the way of her full share of being the baby. I wanted to be able to enjoy her as much as I could. And just as having my daughter reaffirmed my belief in choice, so too did having an abortion.

What I do have a regret and sadness about is something that happened three months later. I felt distinctly pregnant. So I took a test at work and it came up positive. One of the nurses at work felt like it could be residual hormones from after my abortion, so she sent me to the hospital for a blood test. I started to feel a little bit of excitement. Bebe was sleeping and our budget wasn't totally destroyed. The blood draw was quick. The hcg level was neither high nor low. It made sense for where I was in my cycle, if I was pregnant. The nurse sent me back two days later to see if the number was going up or down. As I sat in the chair, getting my blood drawn, the nurse in the lab asked, 'Will this be your first?" "No," I answered. 'My second." "Oh, congratulations!" They were not in order. The second draw showed a much lower level. A week later I bled. My co-worker nurse and I agreed it was mostly likely an early pregnancy loss.

Its not this loss I regret (though I did feel sadness). What I regret is not having turned to that nurse in the lab and said: how can you presume I want to be congratulated? How can you know what I want here? How can you not understand the complexities of pregnancy and families and bodies? How can the one piece of paper in front of you, ordering a beta test, lead you to think anything about me and what I want or what might happen to this body of mine and all it holds inside?

That's want I wanted to say to her and what I want to say to the protesters outside of my office. Life is not black and white. There's no line in the sand between mothers and women who have abortions. There's no good girl and bad girls. There are just women who make choices.
After a week of inward bitching about Bill's nighttime cough I get it. Darn.

This weekend Eva went ice skating for the first time, snuggled with visiting grandma, tortured the Momo (our ex-dog, now dog o' my mom), a pronounced everything Delicious! She also adapted the word reindeer for winter...Santa has Snowdeer now.

In the meantime, it's cold as a witches tit and Bill is out of town. I always think of a million things I will do in the evenings when Bill is away. (When he's here we hit the couch at 7:30 and watch dvds or snooze in our books.) And I never ever do them. I try to remind myself of this when I am feeling like I have no time to myself. That when I do have time to myself I don't use it anyway. But I guess that doesn't mean I don't need it.

And also, please keep my co-worker D in your thoughts. She may have had a stroke this morning. And tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the death of my extraordinary friend and colleague Cyndi. You can imagine what we were feeling this afternoon at my office.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Pee-ved. An Update!

He admitted to his bad bad behavior, not knowing that two other line mechanics had already gone to the supervisor. He is suspended, pending further investigation.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Apologies

I got a personal call from the customer service supervisor at the utility company. He took a full description of the pisser. They've narrowed down the crew and he thinks that the offender will be discovered tomorrow, either through my description or at the team meeting they have called.

This is the third awesome customer experience I have had in the last two weeks. I read a lot about customer service, as I am a marketer and fundraiser. The buzzword is "delight," as in that's what you should do to your customer. the gold standard is that employees at any level should be empowered to delight, without having to go to a supervisor or make a production over it. The other two awesome experiences weren't that ideal, but they were pretty darn good, and since one was at a place not known for service, it was extra impressive.

1. I bought my car on Monday. On Thursday, after dodging downed branches after a windstorm, I arrived at Bebe's day car without one of my hubcaps. I called the dealership and left a message for my salesman (I feel he is mine since we talk a LOT since title hunting for Trixie has been a pain in the ass. But title has been located, deep in heart of Texas DMV. And he's mad it so easy for me.) he called me back and asked me to come in so they could look. he checked it out and said "he'd see what he could do." I had no intention of paying for a hubcap, so I assumed they'd give me one. And they did. When I got him he had left a message saying to swing by and they'd pop one on the next day. (The ideal would have been to give me one when I stopped by, but there was no one in parts, and my salesman wasn't sure if they had one in stock anyway.) Anyway, that was enough to make me recommend that dealership: Garrand's.


2. As part of car buying I needed to fix my drivers license so it called me what everything else calls me (first name, middle name, married last name instead of First Maiden Last.) The supervisor waved the id requirements, took my picture himself, and when we we discovered the computers were down told me he would process the paperwork himself when the computers were back up. He would mail the interim license out when done, and I could keep my old license to use as id (he was supposed to take it.) Of course the computers didn't come back up til the next day, and my new photo was gone from the system due to a nightly purge. He called me at work to let me know. No problem. I went back in, he spotted me at the door. Took me right over to the camera. Took several pictures til I was my most gorgeous, and opened a new window to complete the transaction.

And no one pissed on anything.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Outrage

Dear NY*SEG line crew member,

To start you should know that that pole is certainly not the biggest I've ever seen, and is really nothing to brag about. And "pole" jokes in which you are referring to your penis are so fifth grade. Everyone knows the only poles worth anything are stripper poles. Dumbass. But also, I am sure you thought pissing against your giant orange truck in the middle of town was manly and impressive to your co-workers. I, however, was unimpressed. In fact, my only impression was that it's gonna suck for you that I wrote down the number of your truck and gave your company a full and accurate description of you, your words and behavior! Cheers! Enjoy the sexual harrassment training, asshole! Then again, I am sure a jerkoff like you slept through the part of your orientation when they tell you never to piss on the sidewalk in front of a two year old!

Sincerely,

Bebe Lulu's Pissed OFF Mama

Sunday, January 13, 2008

He Dreams of Genie

I often joke about my husband's love of Christina Aguilera. He contends that she is a "true artist" and that he likes her voice, not her tatas. He gets all riled up and defensive when I malign her, his love is so deep. So I knew the moment I told him that our Bebe and her brand new Max share a BIRTHDAY would be priceless. I was not disappointed.





Today was sunny and bright and warm enough to want to be outside, so Bill took his daughter (and me) to work (on his day off) and we rode the gondola. It was truly gorgeous and not uncomfortably cold and windy. We went back down and stood at the facelift, where Bill is usually stationed, and Bebe stared at the skiers and snowboarders getting on the lift. And I mean stared. For about ten minutes.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

What a Difference a Year Makes


Bad Mommy

Reason number 2,452 that I am a bad mom: no birthday party.

I don't really think I am a bad mom for not throwing my two year old a big bash. If we had family close by, we certainly would have folks over for dinner and cake, but I felt no need to invite a: my friends or b: Eva's day care friends, when the former are adults and the latter celebrated yesterday over cupcakes. But still, I do feel like we should have done SOMETHING special. I guess we are: We will have cake and presents tonight, and she got to pick a new book at the bookstore this morning. And the phone calls have been coming all day. But maybe I am a bad mom. Oh the self doubt. I supposes angst over this is better than angst over not feeding her or over leaving her home alone while we go out drinking. So it can't be that bad.

In related judgmental parenting news, Bill told me that one of his co-workers was glad he wasn't at home yesterday, since his wife was piercing their one year olds ears. Herself.

Friday, January 11, 2008

One out of four two-year-olds are incapable of staying still for more than 5 minutes, even when entertained by fine acoustic music. And mine is the one. We went down to the first Coffeehouse performance at JEMS because Larry, whose band played our wedding, and Drew, who used to mow our lawn, were playing. But Eva's fascination with the potty (looking at it, flushing it, etc., not peeing in it) meant I spent the evening in the lobby and the bathroom.

Plus the woman on the evening Weather Channel show is revealing way too much cleavage.

Tomorrow is Eva's birthday!

Thursday, January 10, 2008


Bebe Lulu loves to play with her new keyboard.

Monday, January 7, 2008

New Car Smell

I love the smell of phthalates in the morning.

And also having four whole doors. And power windows and locks. And floor mats! It's the simple things really.

Alex Guiness, the black Versa with tan interior, has arrived at Chez Lulu. And Lulu loves it.

Sunday, January 6, 2008


(Having troubles getting both pics in one post!)

My grandma passed away a year ago today. Yesterday Eva and I were playing with my camera and "we" took this picture. (She pretends to push the button.) When I looked at it, I immediately recognized the similarity to a picture of my Grandma, for her college graduation, from those on display at her funeral. So I stole the picture from my cousin's facebook. I know, Grandma, I'm sorry.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Balancing Act



Lulu is like a trained monkey, I swear. She and Bill have been working on this trick for a few days. She steps into his hands, he lifts them into the air, and she balances. It's hard to capture on film because when she sees the camera she yells "PICTURE!" and jumps off.

Friday, January 4, 2008

oops

It's not the new car buying making me nervous. It's my decongestant. Either that or a panic attack. But I am pretty sure it's my decongestant.
New car on Monday!

I've already named her, of course. Alexandra as in Alex as in Alec as in Alec Guinness as in Guinness, the beer, as in Black and Tan as in her exterior/interior.

I don't think Trixie is mad, as she mysteriously shut OFF the check engine light long enough for the trade in inspection. They offered $1000. Of course the light is back on now.

I'm so nervous over new car buying that I could vomit! YAY!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

After three years of bitching and moaning, we finally wised up and have made plans for a warm (to us) April vacation. April 5th -12th we have a house in Cape Hatteras. I'll probably come back an asshole with an OBX sticker on my car. The best part? The week's house rental is costing us $65. No, I didn't forget a zero. Consider it earned on New Year's Eva with the rental house firecrackers and any time folks made a 3am ruckus in the hot tub that lives ten feet from our bedroom window. The Hatteras house is one of the vacation rental empire headed by C and R, who have the house next door.

In other news I now feel half human and Eva is coughing like an 80 year old TB patient.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Right now...

...Bebe Lulu is rattling her cage (I mean crib) and singing "Happy Birthday." She knows that song??
...Mama Lulu is hoping she will nap soon, so MAMA can nap as well. Home sick with a killer cold.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Let this not be an omen...

Our New Year's celebration lasted one hour and seven minutes before Lulu lost it. Inconsolable. No steel drum band for you!

We headed home and tucked her in before nine. And then we hit the sack before ten. Only to be rudely awakened at midnight by firecrackers from the vacation rental next door. This after Bill left a nice note from Lulu explaining that she has a cold and is scared of fireworks, so please refrain! (We were forewarned by a very brief practice session the night before.) Of course she lost it. Turned inside out, since it was RIGHT outside her window. And then she was awake. Actively awake. Whiningly awake, Demandingly awake until two. And then again at four. 'Til now. She's coughing and snotty and now my throat hurts.

2007 sucked. Please just let this morning be an aftershock from that, not the theme for 08. Thank you.