After three weeks of trying and two and a half hours with a computer engineer…

We have wireless!

I’m sitting on my couch, watching the Cubs!

And connected to the outside world!

I planned on tackling the elliptical machine again tonight… but this is much more fun!

Perhaps I’ll have a margarita to celebrate. And send one to Dave’s engineer co-worker who spent the entire evening away from his wife and two kids so that I could sit in front of the television and blog.

Oh and work. For my actual job. Because that is the real reason we got wireless. Wink wink.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

Some of you may know that I live in Indianapolis. For those of you who didn’t know that, I live in Indianapolis. Every May, starting with the half-marathon the first weekend (all the cool kids simply call it  “The Mini”) and stretching until the Indy 500 on Memorial Day weekend, much of the city is festooned in checkered flags and various racing paraphernalia.

The Zoo hosts an event, there’s a parade and lots of alcohol-saturated VIP events. The first year we lived here, Dave and I attended qualifyinglaps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and had a pretty good time. For $20 (TOTAL FOR BOTH OF US), we got hot dogs, sodas, chips and a seat pretty much anywhere we wanted because no one goes to qualifying.

But this year, the race took on a whole new meaning for us, beginning in late April when R’s school asked us to bring in a plain white T-shirt for the “Little 500.” We had no idea what this would entail. Last week, were asked to indicate whether R’s parents would be attending the event, whether we would be staying for lunch and whether R would stay for the afternoon. Still not really sure what was going on, (and since Dave already had the whole day off to attend grown-up festivities at the track), I put in for a half day off and we made it a whole-family affair.

Last Wednesday, we were given instructions on where to leave R’s “decorated” bicycle and helmet on Friday morning. OOOOOO - it’s a bike race!

And a bike race it was. Each class had a theme, with t-shirts and a banner to match, and got to march around the simulated, parking-lot race track in a parade. After a bit of a rain delay - and an adorable version of the Pledge of Allegiance by the four- and five-year-olds, each class “raced” on their bikes. Of course there were no winners.

R was thrilled to simply be chosen to carry the banner. She was so excited and happy to have Mommy AND Daddy at school to eat lunch - and have fun - that she didn’t want to take a nap when we got home. But here, you can see for yourself:

  

 

 

 

Did you know the Cubs hosted Michael Barrett Bobblehead Day four days after he was traded?

Have I ever told you about my family’s jersey curse?

We are cursed. In the realm of sports jerseys. The home I grew up in was not particularly sports-loving. My dad watched sports a lot and even played basketball and softball in leagues when we were young, but I can’t say my mother was ever interested in athletics competition. The love of sports – and not the aptitude for athletics – was passed on to my sister and I (completely and totally skipping my brother by about 50 football fields har har har).

Lisa and I love to watch sports – football, baseball, basketball. I’ve written about my passion before. It naturally follows that we identify with certain teams and, eventually, certain players on those teams. Sometimes, it’s enough to lead us to purchase a jersey.

The curse began in 2003, the year my sister broke down and bought a Marty Booker authentic jersey just weeks before the Chicago Bears opened their season. And, it turned out, weeks before Booker was traded to the Dolphins. Curse #1. Fortunately for her, she moved to Fort Lauderdale soon after, and her jersey was actually supporting a local player. Unfortunately for her, she moved to Pittsburgh last year and, prior to the move, donated the jersey to Goodwill. Just months before Booker was traded back to the Bears. Curse #2.

Last year, after doing a careful situational analysis and several seasons of debating the likelihood of a future trade, I broke down and asked for a Chicago Cubs Michael Barrett jersey for Mother’s Day. I considered asking for Carlos Zambrano’s numbers, but the lifespan of a pitcher with a single team is not something to bet on like that, so I went with Barrett. Four weeks later, he and Zambrano got into fisticuffs in the dugout. Two weeks after that, he was traded to the San Diego Padres. He is currently injured and playing in the minor leagues. Curse #2.

When Dave and I moved away from SmallTown, Indiana to the big city, he left behind a community that pledged allegiance to his beloved St. Louis Cardinals to join a city that bleeds Cubbie blue. To make it up to him, I purchased a Scott Rolen jersey. Rolen was traded to the Blue Jays last year. Granted, it took nearly four years for the curse to catch up with him. But there it was. We theorize that because he simply married in to the family, the effect isn’t as strong.

My sister says she’s putting out in the universe statements like she “absolutely doesn’t want a Sidney Crosby Penguins jersey” and she “really hopes Ben Roethlisberger gets traded sometime soon.” Just to see if the reverse happens.

Winken, Blinken and nodzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Why is it that just when you feel you’re getting the hang of this parenting thing, that maybe Super Nanny should start taking some tips from you and you’re starting to pull a muscle from all the patting yourself on the back, something always comes up to turn the back-patting into forehead-slapping?

The little sleep problem I mentioned last week, then in only its second week and still seeming like “just a phase,” has not dissipated. We seem to have reached the root of it: She’s tired, her bedtime is appropriate, she has a well-established night-time routine. But she suddenly can not bear to be separated from a parent.

Last night, Dave’s night to put her down, she wanted only Mommy. So I took her to her room, read her the Bearnstein Bear’s Papa’s Day Surprise for what felt like the five cajillionth time since we brought it home from the library two weeks ago (my GAWD could that book BE any longer?), and snuggled with her for five minutes. I laid her in her bed, and as I went to leave, she lost her mind.

The only thing that would calm her was me lying down on the floor next to her bed – where I had spent all but two hours of the previous night. She fell asleep in less than ten minutes and I was able to make a hasty exit. But less than three hours later she was awake, needing comfort, needing to be held, needing Mommy.

We slept in the guest room. I was so tired after the night before that I just wanted rest. I knew that if we lay down together in the guest room, she would fall right back asleep and stay that way until morning. I was right (or rather, Dave was right, he learned that little trick one night last week).

Something has got to give here. I’m not quite as sleep deprived as I was in 2006, but I’m starting to feel crabby all the time and nearly drift off if I close my eyes at my desk just for a minute. I’ve always been covetous of my shut-eye, which was what made the first few months of R’s life so excruciating. Now, I know what the problem is, I just don’t know how to solve it.

Sunnier days

Not sure what the whole painting-the-shovel thing was about. Before the shovel was available, she would paint her hand. Future in pottery painting perhaps?

Look, Mommy, at how creative and talented and MESSY I am. Also: adorable
 And finally: the artiste at work. Much concentration required.
It’s so cold and grey and drizzly outside. These pictures make me happy. Even though she has decided that she is not much interested in sleep anymore. Last night, after nearly 2 hours of our “bedtime routine” (i.e. bath, books, bed), Dave brought a triumphant R downstairs. She looked at me, smiled broadly, raised her arms over her head as though she had just won the Tour de France and announced, “Mommy! I’m BACK!”

Apocalypse now?

What is cnn.com thinking?

Never mind. I know. $$$$.

I am so disheartened by the news business right now. I’m curious how they choose which headlines will be t-shirt fodder.

Never mind. I know. The more salacious the better.

Even worse? Send us your picture wearing your shirt. Tell us your story. Give us content so we don’t have to do real work. Get on the “social-networking” bandwagon with people desperate for their 15 seconds of fame.

Pump up our Web site numbers! Make a little money! Sell our souls to the corporate gods. Again, I know. The news business went corporate long ago. Look at me! Selling out for a higher salary and an office with a view.

I can still be sad about this.

 

At least it forced me to clean it out

Christina showed us all the contents of her purse earlier this week, and I was instantly inspired to try it myself. When Sarah did it too, my fate was sealed.  After all, I wasn’t sure what was in there myself. My bag, purchased in Chinatown in New York City in 2004 (I never said I was an accessories maven), isn’t as big as many these days, but it holds a lot.

Enjoy the lovely painting done by R as the backdrop.

First, the pile off to the left there contains a variety of items I threw away, including approximately 11,000 grocery lists and receipts for Super Target. Interestingly, it also contains a prescription bottle of Naproxin from when I had thumb tendinitis. Expiration date: May 26, 2007. Also in that stack was my plane ticket for my connection from Atlanta to Savannah back in February and a plastic container from the cheese samples R ate at the grocery store on Sunday morning. And all the political paraphernalia acquired before I went in to vote on Tuesday.

The other stack? Beyond the normal cell phone, keys, BlackBerry and wallet, I have the mom staples of fruit snacks, baby wipes, a Sesame Street juice box, hand sanitizer, three suckers, a plastic Boots action figure from R’s second birthday cake and (call me Kelly Ripa) a tide-to-go pen. I also have the woman must-haves: tampon, maxi pad, lip gloss, hand lotion, pens, cough drops, cold medicine, pack of gum, etc.

Among the more random items: wine cork from a dinner in Las Vegas (January 2007), a ticket to the August 5, 2006 baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers at Busch Stadium (R’s first MLB game), three suckers, a press pass to a Barack Obama event in Indianapolis, a Wendy’s gift card from the summer they introduced the Baconater and were cris-crossing the country giving away free hamburgers and they coerced me to put on the Wendy’s wig and pose for a picture that ended up on their Web site all for a lousy $5 gift card and a picture of Dave and I on our first canoeing trip to the Ozarks as we came triumphantly out of a “rapid.”

That’s pretty much me - sentimental and practical all in one. One thing I don’t carry that I wish I did? A little pad of paper. That would really help when I get blog post ideas whilst driving home from work.

that’s the ticket

So I had planned some sort of inspiring, awesome post about how great it is that my primary vote finally counts for something and I waited in line for 40 minutes to fill out my ballot but that’s okay because democracy rocks and all sorts of power-to-the-people stuff. You know, something like what Frema wrote.

But then my candidate did not win my state, and some of the luster just rubbed right off Election Day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sour grapes (okay, maybe a little bit – I haven’t picked a winner in a presidential election since 1996), and I know my little state’s results don’t mean a whole lot empirically. Especially in a world of delegates and, what’s this now, SUPER delegates? And you say they’ve been around since the Eighties? REALLY?

It did feel good to wait in line to vote. Normally, when I go vote before work I’m in and out in less than five minutes. And to have to wait, at 6:15 a.m., for the privilege to cast my ballot, was actually kind of cool. I waited in the gymnasium of an elementary school with a factory worker, a CPA, a stay-at-home-mom, a student and two school teachers. No one complained about waiting. We all commented on the abnormally long lines.

In graduate school, when I was young and idealistic and even more passionate about exercising my civic duty, I wrote my master’s thesis on increasing voter turnout. I rhapsodized about the virtues of mail-in voting (with Oregon as a model) and the future of possibly voting on the Internet. I guess what it really takes to get people out to the polls is a candidate they believe in. Why can’t we have that come around more often?

Everybody together now: oooooo, a BABY!!

Little I, snuggling his Mama. I’ve been told all he does is eat and sleep, and he occasionally has to be woken up for a feeding. This was not my new mother experience.

See, sleeping. I is a very good, if a bit jaundiced, baby.

Stay tuned for a more meaningful post about how I got to actually vote in a primary that counted for something. It was awesome.

PS Do I need to add a new “I’m an aunt” category?

Girls weekend

Dave took off for a bachelor party this weekend, leaving R and I to fend for ourselves, and I have to say, I was looking forward to it more than a little bit. And circumstances did not disappoint.

First, we spent some time at the library Saturday morning. R was enthralled, just overwhelmed by the sheer number of books. She climbed up and down off benches, picking books off the shelves, looking through them, ‘reading’ them to me, putting them back and picking more. I chose four for her to take home (which she now refers to as “mines books”), including Guess How Much I Love You. Now she runs around saying, “Mommy, I love you this much!” and I can’t think of a better outcome from a trip to the library.

When she woke up from her nap (and to a 20-degree temperature drop and suddenly cloudy skies), I packed her up to go downtown to see Whales and Dolphins 3D at our IMAX theater. While the 3D glasses didn’t last very long, the novelty of wearing glasses “like Mommy” and munching on popcorn “in the dark” helped keep her behavior under control for awhile. And, she pointed out gravely, as we watched a fin whale move toward us in the darkness, “Whales eat my popcorn, NO.”

We ordered pizza and consumed it on her princess table whilst watching Dumbo, then she sang “Happy Birthday” to her great grandma to be captured on video and emailed. She went to bed tired and happy, and woke up at 7 a.m. ready to go again. We had a nice breakfast of pancakes and bacon then went grocery shopping together.

After her nap, I let her paint with her new easel outside on the back deck. She was lovely and priceless. When her daddy got home, they snuggled together in his recliner watching Dora the Explorer. It’s times like these that I want to remember – nothing special, nothing exciting, just the pure joy of discovering the world with a toddler and sharing it with my husband.