Dental Disappointment

How sad, my dentist let me down today though it was to rescue someone else. I got to her office in PA and no one was there, so after 15 minutes I headed home where I had a phone message that they had to cancel me at the last minute because someone else had a dental emergency that they had to attend to in their Sunnyvale office. I guess I left the house just a little too early to get it. Bummer for me, but good for the person in major pain in Sunnyvale.

Ants Part III

While we have managed to keep the ants out of the babies areas and more importantly OFF the babies, we have still been suffering incursions in other parts of the house. The battles are unique and vary in creativity and despite the best efforts of my hubby they continue. Todays advancement by the ants was quite humorous not because of the ants, or the location, or the method by which they invaded our kitchen, but because as Bill was annihilating them Sammi was playing with a musical book she got from her grandparents which just happened to play, "The Ants Go Marching". Even Bill couldn't help but see the humor in that.

Words no one wants to hear themselves say...

"Stop stuffing your sister in the couch" and "Do not pull your sisters hair while she's stuffing you in the couch"

What's wrong with this picture?

At work this weekend I found out about a class I would really like to take, so I emailed my manager as well as left a note in her inbox. She called me back to say I could take the class, but it would have to be in addition to my regular hours since the schedule was already posted and they couldn't take me off,and because the request for the class was due August 1st.

Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But here's the kicker:
1. The notice offering the class wasn't even posted until sometime last week (week of Aug. 14th.
2. The flyer said people from my department had priority for this class.
3. The flyer also said that we would be taken off the schedule for the class.

So, the only good part is that I will get lots of overtime to attend this class and my department will have to pay it. Fools!

Marshmallows...for those who are interested

Marshmallow candy dates back to ancient Egypt where it was a honey-based
candy flavored and thickened with the sap of the root of the
Marsh-Mallow plant (althea officinalis). Marsh-Mallow grows in salt
marshes and on banks near large bodies of water. It is common in the
eastern United States.

Until the mid 1800's, marshmallow candy was made using the sap of the
Marsh-Mallow plant. Gelatin replaces the sap in the modern recipes.

Just call me Snooty Farklefanny

Sometimes when you have a stressful day or week, you need some silliness to break up the day. And, if we are honest, we have a lot more stressful days than not.

Here is your dose of humor...

A. Follow the instructions to find your new name. (We had great fun with this at work last night - of course we get deliriously silly in the middle of the night so it might not be as funny in the light of day.)

B. Once you have your new name, forward it to friends, family and co-workers. Put it on your cubes, offices, badges, or any other form of identification.
And, don't go all adult - a senior manager is now known far and wide as Dorky Gizzardsniffer.

The following in excerpted from a children's book, "Captain Underpants And the Perilous Plot Professor Poopypants" by Dave Pilkey, in which the evil Professor forces everyone to assume new names...

1. Use the third letter of your first name to determine your new first
name:

a = snickle j = doofus s = snooty
b = doombah k = funky t = tootsie
c = goober l = boobie u = dipsy
d = cheesey m = sleezy v = sneezy
e = crusty n = sloopy w = liver
f = greasy o = fluffy x = skippy
g = dumbo p = stinky y = dinky
h = farcus q = slimy z = zippy
i = dorky r = dorfus

2. Use the second letter of your last name to determine the first half of your new last name:

a = dippin j = monkey s = lickin
b = feather k = flippin t = snickle
c = batty l = fricken u = chuckle
d = burger m = bubble v = pickle
e = chicken n = rhino w = hubble
f = barffy o = potty x = dingle
g = lizard p = hamster y = gorilla
h = waffle q = buckle z = girdle
i = farkle r = gizzard

3. Use the third letter of your last name to determine the second half of your new last name:

a = butt j = honker s = fanny
b = boob k = head t = sniffer
c = face l = tush u = sprinkles
d = nose m = chunks v = frack
e = hump n = dunkin w = squirt
f = breath o = brains x = humperdinck
g = pants p = biscuits y = hiney
h = shorts q = toes z = juice
i = lips r = doodle

Thus, for example, George W. Bush's new name is Fluffy Chucklefanny. Tell me your new name.

New Food Experiences

Ok, it's taken me a while to get around to blogging this,but here it is.

We went to La Fondue on Monday with Rich and Angelica because they are moving back to Germany, Bill had never been there, and we had decided long ago that we had to do that before they left.

By the time we were getting food it was past the girls bedtime. Sam couldn't hold out through dinner and fell asleep before dessert was served. Riley, on the other hand, was determined to stay awake. (She's been like this since birth - my little night owl. We believe she thinks she's going to miss the party we have every night after she's gone to sleep.) Anyhoo, dessert came, chocolate fondue of course, and with it little plates with strawberries, grapes, bananas, apples, marshmallows, snickers bars, rice crispy balls, and cream cheese balls rolled in cinnamon. Riley saw all of us taking things off the tray to eat, so she reached over and took a strawberry. That was pretty good so it was followed by a grape. Apparently after that the large marshmallow looked good, so she grabbed one of those. Of course I forgot to mention here that she was sitting with Bill all this time, so I was unaware of the happenings. Next thing I know, Bill mentions that she has the aforementioned marshmallow. When confronted, his first line of defense was, "I didn't give it to her, she got it herself." When that didn't work it was followed up with, "I wasn't holding her, she was standing on the booth next to me." As he's mentioning all this, he is dipping his own marshmallow into the chocolate which Riley is carefully observing. She asks him for some but is told it's for Daddy not Riley at which point she throws down her marshmallow, and goes for his, gets a little chocolate on her fingers which she loved (she is her mommys daughter). Next thing we know everybody is dipping stuff into chocolate for her.

Sooooo, her suspicions were confirmed - we do party every night after she goes to bed. Back to regular food. The support group may resume their meetings after they pick their jaws up off the floor. ;)

I know you've heard this rant before, but I just have to say again, "Why must girls be pink, poufy, and trained for housework?"

Ok, maybe I'm a little over sensitive to this subject since I have little girls, but in reality I view them as little people, free to make their own decisions on who/what they want to be.

This came to mind again today because I was casually watching another of those home improvement shows where they were redoing a little girls playroom. The entire room was done in bubblegum pink which is ok for some people I guess, but the rest of it all got to me. They had a kitchen corner with an "adorable" refriderator, a "cute" little stove and an ironing board because "every little girl needs a place to do her pretend ironing." I was thinking, "Lets pretend I didn't hear that degrading sexist remark." How about the little boys out there? Don't they need nicely pressed imaginary clothes too? Or are the little girls supposed to take care of that for them. In addition to the kitchen, they had a tea party area, a dress up area, and a dance area, but nowhere did they have a single piece of sporting equipment, a truck, a car, or anything to build with. I can't believe in this day and age that we are still sending this kind of message to girls.

So once again I must say, "Rise up out of your cribs baby girls, throw off those pink blankets, rip off the ruffles and bows, and go out and bruise your knees climbing trees, get stitches in your chin from falling off your bike, get a black eye playing baseball, but don't ever let them tell you it's not ladylike to behave that way. I say it's not ladylike to not behave that way.

Newsflash: Pine Sol Spray and Mop does not get blood stains out of white jeans...

For you guys out there, and the squeamish at heart, I apologize now.

This month was not kind to me in that "monthly" kind of way. As a result, I ended up with some very stained jeans. Being tired, cranky, and crampy I was not paying as much attention as I should have. Instead of grabbing the bottle of Oxyclean, I grabbed the bottle of Pine Sol Spray and Mop (which is almost identical to the Oxyclean bottle), so instead of nice clean pants, I now have nicely stained shiny pants.

The good news is that after the washing, I treated them the correct way and all stains came out. Yeah me.

Disasterstrikesinminutes

NothatIhavetosaythistoanyonewithchildren
(oreventhosewithoutchildrenforthatmatter.)Inanycase,IwasindesperateneedofashoweryesterdaysoIputthegirls
signlanguagevideoonwhichtheylove),
waitedtilltheyweretotallyengrossedandthenmademywayto
aluxurious4minuteshower.

Apparentlysensingtheyhadabriefperiodoffreedomtheytookthis
opportunityto"explore."Sadlythismeantpushingtheirchairover
towherethecomputerwas,climbingup,andwreakinghavoc.
TheyIM'dafriendofminewhothoughtitwashilariouswhenshe
realizedthegirlswere"IMing"her.Sentthemrepeatedmessages
"togetMommy"-liketheycouldunderstandthat.

Inthemidstoftheir"searchforknowledge"Rileysomehowmanagedto
removethespacebarwhichwehavenotbeenabletoreplaceorfix,
thusthismessagewithnospaces.Iguessit'sbacktoDellforour
not-so-happy-little-laptop.

Wow! Another exhausting weekend at work.

We have a whole new group of new grads and work, and I have once again been charged with the task of indoctinating one of these innocents into the exciting non-stop world of the night shift.

On the one hand, it sounds very beneficial to me (the preceptor) as I have a "grunt" to do my job. In reality however, it is very mentally draining and I end up far more exhausted after a weekend with a fairly simple assignment than I do when I have a very critical baby on my own.

Our hospital paid $3M for this new training program and so far I can't see where it's any more beneficial than our old system, or where it's really different for that matter. (And yes, that was $3M with 9 zeros if I were to write it out.) They probably would have reaped a lot more benefit if they had taken even a third of that money and used it to bonus their current staff or hire experienced nurses not requiring this training, or upgraded equipment or facilities, or any other myriad of things that would have paid them back tenfold. But they didn't, and so I teach to the new program.

More Baby Antics

Boy am I in trouble now. Today I left the room to use the restroom and while I was there I heard a knock on the door. So I'm rushing about my business and there's another knock. So I rush out to open the door and in the corner of my eye I notice movement up high (3.5 ft. off the ground). As I am opening the door to let my Dad in I realize the movement is Riley who is happily dancing on top of the wine cabinet. She is being closely followed by Samantha who is on the chair near the cabinet and halfway up herself. They were quite pleased with themselves to say the least.

Credit Card Madness

I received a call today from one of my credit card companies. According to them I am 33 days late on paying my bill. Now I know, you're thinking to yourself, "So pay the bill, what's the big deal?" Here's the big deal.

In May I had a zero balance, nada, nothing due. I also requested that they cancel this particular card as the interest is ridiculously high. Not only did they not cancel it, but they charged me a $50 annual fee!! To add insult to injury, they have now charged me 2 months of late fees bringing my total to $118 (how they figure that, I don't know.) In any case, it took me 15 minutes to get to this point. Here is a brief snippet of the convo up till then.

Credit Card Billing Guy (to be known as CCBG): Did you know your credit card is 33 days overdue.

Me: No, how could this be when I cancelled it.

CCBG: I do show you had a zero balance in May, but you still have to pay the monthly minimum.

Me: On what?

CCBG: There is a $35 minimum monthly payment on that card.

Me: On what? There is no balance on that card, what am I paying on.

CCBG: There is a $35 minimum monthly payment due every month.

Me: This isn't making any sense. How can I possibly have a $35 minimum payment due on a card that I cancelled with a ZERO balance.

CCBG: I don't know, I can't access your account right now.

Anyhow, the net of it was, he gave me a long distance number to call to talk to customer relations to have the charges reversed (that I didn't authorize to start with) and to have the account closed. How lame is that?

And I didn't even have the pretty platinum card - maybe that was the problem.

Just when you think you have the upper hand

Apparently my girls are too smart for my good. We have a wine cabinet with a door behind which we store our table linens, candles, and candlesticks. Since these are items we don't want the girls getting into, I wired the door shut. Before I know it, Riley is standing there with the knob in her hand which I believe she and Samantha worked together to get off the door. They are also holding some brass candlesticks and some taper candles.

So, I take the knob, replace it very snugly, and go about my business thinking I have out maneuvered them for the time being. "For the time being" were apparently the operative words here. Since they couldn't get the knob off, they took the next 20 seconds and just dismantled the wire tie I had that was holding the door closed.

So much for security. Back to the drawing board for me.

P.S. If you don't here from me in the next 24 hours, it's because they've taken the cabinet ties and have restrained me while they are running amuck in the house, that is if they haven't found the car keys by then. Please come rescue me.

Lesson learned, but was it the right one?

Today I gave the girls each a stick of string cheese. Riley starting taking bites off hers right away. Samantha, as is her style, bit right through the middle, so now she had two pieces. They both went to sit on their little couch while I checked email.

Then the howling began - Sam was screaming bloody murder. Thinking she had been bitten by Riley again I jumped up only to catch Riley giving me a guilty look as she handed one of Sams pieces of string cheese back to her.

To tired to type

Oh so tired. Babies please nap a LONG time today.

Official end of vacation - ugh!

Tonight I officially go back to work. I have to say I am not looking forward to it but then again, who is? I should be sleeping, but I can't. That's going to make tonights shift all that much more difficult. 7:00 A.M. tomorrow can't come soon enough.

Delayed blogging

You may have experienced a small disruption in your service from this blog site. Do not attempt to adjust your reception. We found it was a serious problem due to the MILWASHERE bug. The problem has been fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We now return you to your regular programming.

Drive by stalking, part deux

Woo hoo!! Stacey, the babies, and I got stalked at lunchtime today by Andrea. The babies had a blast climbing all over her, and cried when she left. I think she even got a couple of kisses out of them.

The Dentist, part deux

Ok, I know you all are sick of hearing about my dentist, but I think I'm in love with her. Today I had the crowns put on that I was fitted for before. It's a little bit of a lengthy process, but not too bad. Half way through, she stopped so I could close my mouth, and she massaged my jaw a little before she continued. Also, when she asked questions, she took everything out of my mouth so I could actually answer. Oh yeah, I almost forgot - she also stopped to put stuff on my lips when they became dry from sitting there with my mouth open. This is the way all dentists should be.

Work day - 1st after 3 weeks off

Today I had a workday that was my first day back after almost 3 weeks off (I did have that horrible class in the middle of my time off, but I'm trying to forget that.)

In any case, this was a NICU retreat to discuss how to make our unit better. Good idea in theory, and there were some good presentations, however that was the problem. Too many presentations, not enough discussion. Hopefully what was discussed will come to fruition.

On another note, no calls from sleazy Oscar today. Woo hoo!!

The phone calls

OMG, as predicted by Andrea and confirmed by Liz, the phone calls have begun. Oscar (aka: sleazy car salesman), if you're out there - I'M NOT INTERESTED. Get a clue.

New tooth alert!

Riley has finally cut another tooth - the edge of her upper left molar is now out. She did her best Homer Simpson moaning again when I was rubbing it for her. She stood and enjoyed it for 2 to 3 minutes, then smiled at me and went about her playing. So, that's 9 teeth for her now (still 16 for Sam).

Oh yeah, I forgot the begging part

Salesman: I've spent 2 hours with you, can't we make a deal?
Me: Not unless you give me fair value for my trade-in
Salesman: I've done the best I can, we're already going to take a loss on it.
Me: Sorry, I appreciate your time, but this just isn't going to work for us.
Salesman: Come on, we've spent two hours together, this is a good deal. Can we just do it.

(What? Does he think he works for Nike?)

Buying a car...just like it used to be.

Today, inspired by the GM employee pricing promo, Bill and I went out with the intent to purchase a new car. We Whad looked around a little previous to this and wanting a smaller car than what we have now, figured it would either be the Trailblazer or the Equinox (ugly car.) We test drove both, had them side by side and had finally decided that it might be the Trailblazer (TB) for us. Then the final test, the child car seat. Tried it in the TB, wouldn't fit properly, no way, no how. Sighed deeply and tried it in the Equinox and of course it fit fine in there, so the Equinox it was. Now this particular Equinox was semi-fully loaded. (I know, it's an oxymoron) including "Front License Plate Frame" and "Tail Gate Ajar Dashlight". I was totally shocked and amazed at what they had listed on the window sticker. In any case, one of the things it did have was a DVD player. Now anyone who knows me knows that a DVD player is one of the last things I would want in a car. However, if it happened to be on the one we were looking at, I would deal with it. I even told the salesguy that. The kicker is that when he brought us the quote for the car, it had as the second line item, in big bold letters. DVD PLAYER $1,995 additional. The guy tried to convinced me it was a good deal and that I should want it. Puhleaze!! IF I wanted one, I would go to Frys and pick up a portable one I could take anywhere for a few hundred, NOT the bargain price of $1,995. He also tried to give us only a $1000 for the Jeep (low blue book is 5k). Then pulled the, "Let me check with my manager" bit. We'd finally had enough, decided we could do without a new car for now, said thanks but no thanks, and took our happy little Jeep home. Maybe we'll try again in a few months.

Cute thing #2 today

The screen saver on our laptop randomly scrolls through the pictures in our database. Today, I was playing with the girls on the couch when suddenly Sam turned around and started pointing and squealing with delight. It was a picture of Andrea that she was looking at. Apparently recognition was made.

Eating Apples is fun

Sam learned something new yesterday - it was quite cute (of course I have to think that.) We have this wooden apple that splits in 4 pieces (it velcros together) that Liz and the girls were playing with. Liz gave them each a piece and then proceeded to hold it up to her mouth and pretend to eat it, sound effects and everything. Sam actually copied her, holding the "apple" piece to her mouth and making the same eating sound effects. She was quite proud of herself too, and did it multiple more times. Thanks Auntie Liz for inspiring the learning.