Bad carrot
My next question is... what is the statute of limitations on a bag of baby carrots?

I am eating some from a bag that's been in my fridge for a good three weeks, if not a month. They're not moldy, and they're not slimy, and they seem to taste fine, but I get skeeved just thinking about expired produce. If there's so much as one rotten spinach leaf in a bag of fresh spinach, the whole thing makes me want to hurl.

I guess my answer is, if I don't die this afternoon, the carrots are ok.

Bad mom
Is it wrong to watch, in its entirety, "Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker" while your 10-month old son is in the room?

If yes, then ... *scoff* Who would DO that? What a bad parent!

If no, then ... I totally did, Saturday morning (what was it doing on Saturday morning anyway!). I still think it's funny, even though I know all the jokes even before he says them.

First word
I don't know if "uh-oh" qualifies as a word, but it's Doodle's first. He said it multiple times yesterday and would say it repeating after me. I don't know if he understands the concept of "uh-oh," but he may have picked it up somewhere. We try not to play the uh-oh game at home, which is where a baby drops something and an adult overexaggeratedly squeals "UH OH!!!!" to the baby. However, it happens at grandma's house a LOT. And I know the kids at day care know what it means. So there you have it. Not "mama", not "dada," but "uh-oh." I hope this doesn't have some deep-seeded meaning.

The rules of Cleveland sports
In my 30 years of living in or near Cleveland, I've come to learn that there are a few things you can count on while rooting for the city's sports teams.

1. Just when you think they're going to be good... they suck.
Case in point: the Indians were supposed to have a good year this year. And they're totally not. We either have good pitching and no hitting, or good hitting and no pitching. We can't get that pitching/hitting combo that would make us the team to beat in the AL Central. Instead, we're chasing Detroit and Chicago. No offense to you, GT, but Detroit is that one team that we're always able to say, "Well, at least we're better than Detroit!" and we can't even do that this year.

2. Just when you've given up hope, they start doing good.
Case in point: Sunday's Indians game. When we saw the pitching matchup (Detroit's Kenny Rogers, who the Indians never have done well against, vs. our Jason Johnson, who, let's be honest here, my grandma could hit), I said to my husband, "That's a guaranteed loss." So what happened? We won, 9-0.

3. They'll only be good enough to build up your hopes only to have them dashed in heartbreaking fashion.
Case in point: the Cavaliers in the playoffs. No one thought we'd even win one game against the Pistons (again with Detroit!) and we took it to game seven. Sure, we got killed in game seven, but who thought we'd even be there!

4. Cleveland is the new Detroit.

Idiot alert #748
This morning I e-mailed one of the VP's in our company a PDF proof of a flyer that I downloaded from one of our partner companies' sites, and basically it was a template that I just needed to add our logo and contact info to. No biggie, right? I slap the company logo on there and e-mail it for approval. I get an e-mail back from her which says, "I don't see the [vendor] logo on there."

Now call me stupid, but when someone says "I don't see the logo", I'm thinking, oh crap, something is wrong with my Acrobat Distiller, that it has taken this logo and banished it to the far reaches of the earth. And that happened to me yesterday, where I created a PDF and a huge graphic disappeared, for no apparent reason at all. So I was thinking that this happened again, even though when I opened the PDF, I could see the logo in question, plain as day.

So I wrack my brain and decide to open the PDF in Photoshop, convert it to a TIF, bring the TIF into InDesign, and then convert it once again to a PDF. That way there would be No Logo Left Behind. I e-mail it to her again and say, "Can you see the logo this time?"

She writes back, "I still don't see it on there."

OK, so by now, I'm one nanosecond away from calling the techies in to examine my computer. But I decide to call the VP instead.

"So you can't see the logo?" I ask. "This is really weird, because I can see it on my screen."

Well, it turns out that there are two versions of the vendor's logo, and she wanted the other one on there. But instead of saying, "Can you put Logo B on there instead of Logo A?" she wasted two hours of my day by making me think that a logo was turning invisible.

Say it with me. Mor-RON!

Soul patr-pfffft!
I'm sorry, was that DAVID HASSELHOFF in the audience... CRYING???
Right up until then, my favorite moment was Covais doing Tom Jones.

American Idol finale checklist drinking game

• Strategically-placed b-list celebs in audience
• Idol rejects in audience looking happy to be sitting where they're sitting
• Gratuitous use of gospel choir
• Horribly-written, cheese factor singles with predictable key changes
• Footage of parents, auditions
• Special surprise guest

Feel free to add any I've forgotten.

I think I just peed myself
If you haven't seen the video of the Evolution of Dance, do yourself a favor and go here. This is one of the single most funny things I think I have ever seen.

From the IBL files
It's been a while since I have posted about Incompetent but Likeable. Believe me, there's been plenty of blog fodder. Yesterday, for instance, he came over on at least three separate occasions to ask me how to use the office's digital camera. Prior to handing it over to him the first time, which I did begrudgingly, I set it up so that all he had to do was remember how to turn it on and remember which button to press to take a picture.

However, being who he is, he turned dials and flipped switches and had it all discombobulated. So I reset it and gave it back to him with the express instruction not to touch anything.

He managed to snap this lovely photo of me in my cube while I was giving him the camera tutorial. The reason why it looks like I'm a squirrel storing nuts for the winter is because I'm eating a jawbreaker. You can see my cube as well and I think I've managed to blur out any company logos that may have appeared...



Immediately after, while walking away, he managed to snap this beauty.

And this is why I don't smoke anymore
I just ate an entire pack of candy cigarettes in like, under two minutes.
Why?
Because I have a meeting coming in any time now. That's why. God forbid I should leave that task undone before my meeting starts.

The tribe has spoken
OK, so my least favorite Survivor season to date is over, and Aras won. The finale was disappointing, in the respect that no one really hated anyone's guts at the end of the show, which always makes for better television than the "sea of forgiveness" that was shown last night. However, Shane, hands down, has the best facial expressions, EVER. Maybe because he's crayzay.

One thing I've always wondered... at the last Tribal Council, after Jeff Probst absconds with the votes and is helicoptered out of Dodge (cue montage of Jeff doing mi:iii type maneuvers to get to Madison Square Garden -- I'm always disappointed when they don't have him doing this), then what happens? Are they just like, ok, go home? After what I am sure is a very stressful night for the two finalists, for it to end so abruptly, just seems strange. I don't know.

In other news: June 21.

Not fair
Survivor ended in a cliffhanger last night. Who's going home?
I guess we'll have to wait til Sunday. Unless you believe the rumor about who wins, allegedly.
I think Terry should win, but won't.

Double Bleh
Who said "stomach virus"? Damn them!
Riiiiiight. It was me.

So I came home from work a little early today...

That's OK. When forced to make a decision between having a stomach virus and watching that Journey video from a couple of posts ago, it would be a close match, but I'd still choose a stomach virus.

Not to mention, for a few brief hours this morning I thought that maybe, just maybe, I was pregnant again. And I was all McCaulay Culkin, face close up, huge scream, but just silent inside my head.

I'm 99.999999999% sure I'm not. But that would be very Britney Spears of me, wouldn't it?

Bleh
I'm fairly certain that Airborne, the orange flavor, is one of the most vile substances that I voluntarily put into my body. I had a nice tall glass of it this morning, because it's my turn to nurture the family cold. I've been on deck for about a week and I am finally at the plate. The plan is then to pass it to my husband, who keeps it for a week or two, and then back to the baby, who prepares it for me. Throw in a stomach virus every once in a while, and there go the rest of my PTO and vacation days for the year.

Kentucky Fried Me
In my effort to get a tan this summer that does not come from a bottle, or from a bed, I ate lunch outside today. As a result, my face and one arm is burnt. I'm foxy.

Make it stop, MAKE IT STOP
I'm pretty sure this is one of the levels of Dante's Inferno. I lasted maybe 20 seconds into the performance before I had to run screeching from the computer screen.

I'll take Gordon Lightfoot coming out of Bad Lady's radio ANY DAY.

The Joel
So, more on Doodle's obsession with Joel McHale...
We were watching "The Soup" again last night, and playing on the floor with the kajillions of noise-making and LCD-happy toys that we have amassed in his 9 1/2 short months on this planet. Every so often, Doodle would look up at the TV and see Joel and just crack up. And Joel wasn't being particularly funny at these moments. Joel was just talking. So, you tell me... what is it with Joel that Doodle loves so much? (Seen here with Lou the dog)

Cute little fart
I was at the post office with Doodle this morning, and in front of us in line were a little girl with her dad. I'm going to ballpark her age at about 3 or 4 years old. There was a poster on the wall with some of the new stamps available. The first stamp was a female author whose name escapes me, and the third stamp down was a famous landmark or castle of some sort.

"Dad, is that Cinderella?" the girl asked, pointing to the author's picture.
"No," he said.
"Who is it?"
"I don't know."

Then, she pointed to the castle. "Is Cinderella in that castle?"
"No," her dad said.
"It's not Disney World?"

She turned and saw Doodle then. "Hi baby!" she squealed, coming close to Doodle's car seat and peering in at him. She waved to him and Doodle smiled at her and kind of waved back.

"Can you high five, baby?" She asked, and high fived his little hand.
He smiled and made a noise back at her.

"You're cute, baby," she said.
"Are you flirtin'?" I asked Doodle. "You little flirt!"
"Yeah, you cute little fart," the girl said to Doodle. "He's a cute little fart."
"Yes he is," I said.

Then she waved goodbye to him when her dad finished at the post office counter, but would not leave until we left. I guess my Cute Little Fart has that effect on women.

Every day, we're a-gettin' closer...
This is an exciting time in the life of The Doodler. He is making that transformation from baby to toddler ever-so-slowly, but with marked progress. Here are a few examples...

In the category of Things Which Doodle Can Do That Doodle Didn't Do Before:

1. This morning, I went to get him out of his crib, and he was sitting up. Curious. And also, HOLY SHIT. I'm not ready for this.
2. He is beginning to respond in conversations, or at least, in my mind he is. For instance, I asked him today if he wanted a bottle, and he said "mum mum." Then I repeatedly said "ma ma" to him, which probably annoyed him as much as I think it did, and he repeated "buh buh" back to me. So, we're getting there.

In the category of Images on the Television Which Doodle Enjoys:

1. Elmo (gah!!!!)
2. Jeff Probst (mmm hmm)
3. Joel McHale (host of E!'s "The Soup") - we have concluded that Doodle thinks that it's his dad because they kinda, sorta, in a squinted-eye kind of way look alike

In the category of New Things Which Doodle Eats:

1. Graham crackers
2. Gerber Puffs (actually I eat these too. You wouldn't think that a sweet potato puff would be good, but, it is surprisingly tasty.)

In the category of Needs Improvement:

1. Sleeping. We still wake up several times during the night, and for the past 3 nights in a row, he's woken up around 1 a.m. rarin' to go. I haven't seen Conan O'Brien so much since I was in college.
2. Did I mention sleeping?

As a small aside, the Cavs eked out a win last night in overtime. I cannot take the nailbiter games.

Attention OU Alums
I just put a fraud alert on my credit due to this. Hopefully nothing will happen, but, you just never know. Not that anyone wants my shitty credit. I'm just sayin'.

If you are an OU alum, it's worth checking out.

April Month in Pictures
Here are some recent pics taken this past month...

Doodle in his walker


Doodle in overalls


Doodle on floor near the STEERING WHEEL OF EVIL


Look at those blue eyes...


Oh yeah, we're here too... getting ready to go to the black tie event for my work


It's a hard life being The Dom


We love to ring the windchime


Doodle showing off his new sitting up by himself skillz


Spring finally arrives in NE Ohio

Careless whisper
I don't care how much of a drugged up, parked-car hittin' loser George Michael is today... I still think Wham!'s "Make it Big" album is the bomb diggity. And if loving Wham! is wrong, I don't want to be right.

My faith in humanity is restored... for today at least
Dear American Idol fans who didn't "Pick Pickler" this week...

THANK YOU.

From the bottom of my heart.

A word of warning to drivers on Rt. 8 northbound
Within the past week I have done my nails TWICE on the way to work. Yes, I have become that person. The one you see in your rearview mirror and think to yourself, "Is that chick doing her NAILS?" And then you speed up so you are nowhere near my car when it veers into a concrete abutment.

I have no excuse, other than nine months straight of sleep deprivation. It's finally gotten to me. Now I'm Crazy Doing the Nails on the Road Lady.

Fed Up
At the end of a long day, I amused myself by watching parodies of K-Fed's PapoZao clip. Here are my favorites:

Pina Colada K-Fed

Peanut Butter Feder Time

P.S. I just got my first creepy MySpace message.
Ew.

Oh, we are SCREWED
I have done my best to make sure that the likes of Barney, the Teletubbies, and their ilk do not infiltrate my little boy's brain. However, yesterday, we had Sesame Street on, and Doodle wasn't paying attention. Rather, he was in the process of doing his favorite thing of late, which is a) grab one thing. b) grab another thing. c) bang thing 1 and thing 2 together.

Then it happened.

Elmo came on the screen.

And Doodle must have heard the subliminal voodoo message in Elmo's words because he stopped clanging thing 1 and thing 2 together and looked up at the tv. Upon seeing Elmo's furry red loveable M.F.-ing face, he smiled and giggled. Then he stared, mesmerized, at the television for the entire duration of the Elmo segment.

I do believe we are in for it.

Ah, spring
Spring. The time of the year for tulips and daffodils, Easter eggs, sinus infections and hairballs. Yes, hairballs. On Friday night, BOTH my cats contributed to the hairball population. Molly was first which spawned my usual "NOT ON THE CARPET! NOT ON THE CARPET!" which of course was ignored. Dom was kind enough to do it on the easy-to-clean Pergo in the kitchen. Saturday Molly followed up with another one, on the carpet no less. Dom did some hacking but nothing came out. Then Sunday Molly trumped herself by making a deposit on the top step of the upstairs while I was upstairs with the baby. Getting downstairs with the baby and avoiding the pile was a feat.

The thing I've never understood about hairballs is, they're not really ball-like at all. They're more like, I dunno, hair sausages. Right?

Who's there?
There's this lady who works here who has this habit of, upon entering someone's cube, SAYING the words "knock knock!"

Even if she is already in your cube and she is looking you in the eye. She will still say it. She doesn't even actually knock on the cube wall. So. Irritating.

A post just to say here I am, my baby has the shits
I have been rather preoccupied over the past three days with a massively pooping baby. He has rotavirus which he without a doubt picked up from daycare. However, God forbid he be let back in to daycare without a doctor's note. So two personal days later, here I am back at the office. My husband is taking his turn today, my mother-in-law has tomorrow, and then my mom and I are tag teaming on Friday so I at least have some time in the office this week.

Other than being a poop machine, Doodle seems to be in great spirits. Yesterday we played all day and went for a long walk around the 'hood. Actually it was a beautiful day in N.E. Ohio, with temperatures pushing 70 degrees. You can't ask for better than that in April.

I missed Idol last night but DVR'ed it. I will probably watch it this evening. Although with Queen songs on the menu, I'm skeptical at best about how it will go. However, Pickler needs to take her ballsies and calamawri and sall-mon and go back to the trailer park she came from.

Another show that I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I am now hooked on is Blow Out. After seeing the guy on The Soup lambast Jonathan Antin every week I had to tune in and see what a toolio he really is. Although, there's something strangely likeable about him, as in that goofy friend everyone has who has no idea that they're stupid.

I went to a fancy party on Saturday night, maybe if I have time I'll upload a pic of my husband and I in our finest toggery.

Secret
Last weekend, I attended my cousin's wedding shower. It was mostly comprised of her fiance's family, and so I pretty much knew no one in the room. My grandma was there and so by default, as my cousin was obviously tied up, and my aunt had to be front and center as the mother of the bride, it became my duty to keep my grandmother out of trouble.

Easier said than done. She's known for her malapropisms, and now that her memory seems to be going, she constantly is asking the same questions over and over again. It's trying, to say the least, to spend any large amount of time with her. I love her, don't get me wrong, but I'm exhausted after her visits.

She was particularly bad at the shower. Not only did she constantly interrupt my cousin while she was opening her gifts with, "Who's that from? Is that one from me? What is it?" But she kept asking me if I knew where my aunt was, where my cousin was, why wasn't my cousin's friend Kelly there, etc.

But the topper was, during the gift opening, when she leaned over to me and asked, "Do you want to know a secret?" Keep in mind that my cousin is oh, maybe five feet away from us. I lean in closer to her. "When your aunt had your cousin, she wanted to give her up for adoption," she told me in a not-so-whisper. "I've never gotten over it and if your aunt knew that I remembered that she would die."

Oy. Vey.

I just hope to God that my cousin didn't hear her. I don't think she did, because there was a low chatter in the room. What on earth possessed my grandmother to reveal that family secret to me at that particular point in history, I'll never know. It's a horrible nugget of information, one that I would never repeat (except on my blog, but other than that). Let's hope that on my cousin's wedding day there are no more revelations like this.

Well... THAT was awkward
So the CEO big dog of my company took my whole department to dinner last week to celebrate the good year that we had. We go to this nice restaurant, and before dinner, he wants everyone to go to the bar so that he can talk to everyone and mingle and whatnot.

I'm standing with the Big Dog, Bad Lady, and one other female co-worker, when this grizzled old man approaches us with a goofy grin on his face. He holds out a business card which has the numbers 1 through 4 on it. "Pick a number," he says to Bad Lady.

"Three," she says.

He flips the card and it says "All sex maniacs choose 3!"

And then he walks away.

Yeah. Try and recover from that one while you're attemping to schmooze with the CEO of YOUR company!

Photo op
So how do the cats get along with Doodle? You be the judge...


Picture of baby? Cute.


Picture of baby PLUS BUNNIES? Uber Cute.

Reality show clip time

• Over the weekend I caught up on some of the reruns of Survivor Pearl Islands. I am reminded of how this is the best. season. ever! for several reasons. Sure, you know, Rupert's on there, and who doesn't love the Rupe, and you've got the whole Johnny Fairplay debacle, and the whole Outcast tribe coming back into the game, but it also confirmed in my mind what I already knew, and that is Burton is definitely the biggest hottie ever to play the game.
• Anyone catch Scott Long (we Hamster Timers know him "fondly" as Peen) on "The Surreal Life"? He was trying out to become the 7th cast member (the spot ultimately went to Maven, a nicely chiseled wrestler from MTV's Tough Enough series). Big Brother enthusiasts will be happy to know that Peen embarrassed himself on television yet again when he showed his rear end, which revealed a HUGE brown stain. Contestants were asked to strip to their skivvies to show off their bods. Guess old Peen should have worn the CLEAN yellow tighties, and maybe he'd be hanging out with Sherman Helmsley and Tawny "I Stiletto'd Chuck Finley" Kitaen.
• Without Project Runway to watch anymore, I have latched on to "Top Chef." It's not quite as exciting but I see potential.
• I missed "Unanimous" the other night -- why did it look like they were in the Big Brother house?

The clap
Last night Doodle surprised us by performing what some would deem a "stupid baby trick." He clapped his hands on command. I would clap, Doodle would clap. I would clap again, Doodle would clap again. And so on. As you can imagine, there was much applause at our house last night.

Behold...
The chompers!

I guess it's better than Army vs. Pittsburgh
Was anyone else as amused as I was by this yesterday? My husband just happened to point it out to me while he was watching the NCAA basketball tourney.



Then again, I'm pretty easily amused.

Moo Goo WTF?
So I got the weirdest prank phone call EVER on Saturday. At least I think it was a prank phone call. It was a bizarre phone call, regardless.

It went a little something like this:
Me: Hello?
Dude (sounds caucasian, in his 20's or late teens): Uh, is this the Owen residence?
(Owen is my husband's name.)
Me: Sort of... Owen lives here...
Dude: Oh, because this is the Chinese market, and the party that you're having this afternoon in a couple hours? Everything is all set.
Me: Huh?
Dude: You know, the party? 100 egg rolls, 100 sushi...
Me: Nope, not a clue. You must have the wrong number.
Dude: No, no, I've got schezuan beef...
And he KEEPS naming stuff! So I cut him off again.
Me: Who is this again?
Dude: Uh... the Chinese... market... buffet?
Me: And where are you located?
Dude: *dial tone*

WTF? I was waiting for the punch line. How weird is that? I mean, at LEAST ask if my refrigerator is running. Something. Don't leave me hanging like that!

If I had been thinking on my feet (but it was early Saturday morning) I would have played along like, "Oh yeah! THAT party! I thought you were talking about another party at the chinese market buffet!" Or been like, "No, it's 200 egg rolls, dumbass!" But instead I was just stunned at how random this call was. And thinking to myself as it was happening, this is so going in my blog.

Full of piss and vinegar
Some of these things I have been thinking of posting, but haven't gotten around to until now, so they may not be timely as I'd like...

• Project Runway... CHLOE WON?!?!?! I still haven't seen the finale but I saw that she walked away with the top honor. WTF? I love Santino, by the way. Love him. And I love Daniel, too.
• Crash won best movie at the Oscars? When I saw that, I thought to myself, "Oh, it must be some other movie named Crash, not the crappy, depressing movie called Crash that I saw." But nope, it was the crappy, depressing one.

I am, however, very excited about the Sopranos premiere. I hope it's good -- they take long enough to produce.

Happy birthday, buddy
Yesterday was my favorite little guy's 4th birthday.
OK, my SECOND favorite little guy.

MySpace
Well, today I did like the hipsters do and I got my own MySpace page. Actually I was cyberstalking people, but that's another story that I won't get into. So I have a profile, here, which if you are on MySpace, feel free to add me as a friend. Right now my only friend is Morrissey (yes, THAT Morrissey), which is actually quite funny to me. If you were in my hotmail address book, and you already had a MySpace page, I added you.

Shoot me now, my life has been encapsulated in a Dilbert cartoon

And my boss was the one who e-mailed this to me.

Happy Fat Tuesday everyone!
Eat a paczki (pooooooonshkee) or two. And please, pinch the Doodle's cheeks before you go.

Words of wisdom
I was standing in our store room putting a bunch of packets together when Incompetent but Likeable came in.

"It's such a beautiful day today, Kath, the sun is shining," he said.
"It's a shame we're stuck in here," I said.
"Yep. It's a shame we're stuck in here, and I'm pressing the button on the copy machine."
"Yeah."
"Pressing the button on the copy machine of life."

Then, a few minutes later, he came in and said, "Life is good when the sun is out and there is a paper clip for me to hold my papers together."

What would I do without him to light up my day?

Back to reality
Hell week is over, at least for another year. How did it go? It went. It went as well as it could. Suffice to say, that when I no longer work for this company and write my tell-all book, this past week will have its own chapter.

Now I can stop stress eating and try and lose the weight I've gained back in the past couple of months, where my diet has consisted largely of pizza from the take-out place in my office building and Gobstoppers.

I got an award, just to brag a little bit about myself... for quality service. I was voted by my peers, which I guess is kind of cool.

Doodle did an amazing thing: he sat up, unsupported, on his changing table. I thought that his dad and I were going to spontaneously combust with pride. Doodle was oblivious to his milestone, as he had the larger goal of trying to reach the bottle of baby Tylenol that was on top of the changing table. Finally he teetered sideways and his dad caught him just in time and saved him from bashing into the wall.

This I know to be true: the house must be childproofed. Soon.

We have been watching entirely too much Olympics, and more specifically, curling. Why all of a sudden has curling gotten so much TV time? And why do we keep watching it?

When the Olympics aren't on (which is never -- although when I am able to commandeer the remote I usually switch it off), I've been catching up on Survivor: Exile Island, American Idol, Project Runway, etc.

Ah. Life is back to normal. Almost.

Everybody's workin' on the weekend! Oh— nope, that's just me.
So I'm sitting here at work. On Saturday.
We were supposed to get a script for our presentation #2 which is on Thursday, and which I came in today specifically to work on. It's coming from our sister office in Pittsburgh.
Yesterday, we were told we would have it at 9.
I arrived here at 9:30 this morning and when my boss (who is also here, at least) called Pitt to find out what the holdup was, the person sending the script was still in her car driving in.

It is nearly noon, still no script.

I have plenty to do, because our first presentation is Monday, so I'm doing a runthrough of that, but still. Talk about being disrespectful of other peoples' time.

Idle
Anyone else glad to see the audition portion of American Idol 5 over and done with? I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but if you've seen one bad audition, you've seen them all. If you've seen one good audition, you've seen them all. And no, I don't care if your daddy's in jail and your mommy left when you were a wee little thing. I'm sorry. Sing your Celine Dion song and get out of here.

And I have set my DVR to "record entire series" of Survivor Exile Island. Have I mentioned that I am still pissed that I missed it last week?

Hell week continues. If I leave the office tonight before 8 I will consider myself lucky. I'm trying to avoid having to come in on Saturday but at this point, I think it's a losing battle.

How was YOUR weekend?
Here's how mine was...

• I was sleeping soundly in my bed Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. after being up at 5 with Doodle. The phone rang... and it was my boss. I was so tired that I couldn't remember what the proper thing to say was when one answered the phone. I went with "Hello," hoping that it was the correct word. It was not the only work-related call I got at home on Saturday.
• Doodle is getting his first tooth and when he wasn't screaming yesterday, it was because he had a bottle in his mouth.
• The Steelers won the Super Bowl and I live in Cleveland. So, yeah. That about sums it up.

Exiled
I can't believe it.

For the first time ever, I missed the Survivor premiere. I had no idea it was even starting.

Usually I am right on top of this stuff, but I've been living in a daze for the past few weeks.

It's not the end of the world, but still... I'm pissed awf that I missed it.

Doodle mania!
As a six-month old, Doodle is really starting to develop a personality. He is a good sleeper most nights, and a very good eater, as he demonstrates here.



Last night, I was holding him on my lap, and I picked up a little jar of Burt's Bees lip balm and put some on my chapped lips. He held out his hand toward the jar. When I told him that it was mommy's jar, he started to cry. He had been a pain in the ass all evening, if I'm being honest. So I let him have the jar. Instantly, his mood improved, and he was so proud of himself with that damn jar of lip gloss. He held it up and looked at it, then transferred it from his right hand to his left. He banged it against his side. He dropped it and fumbled around for it until he found it again. Concept learned: crying will get you everywhere.

He's starting to go places, too. He hasn't discovered that rolling over = means of travel, but once he does, I'm sure he will be off to the races. In the meantime, we have purchased a baby walker for him. I've heard that they are dangerous, but we usually use it on the carpeted living room where his mobility is limited. He mostly stands still because I also put on his Baby Einstein video while he's in there, which causes a catatonic trance-like state with occasional giggles. (Who thought that bubbles had such comic value?)



According to the doctor, he is in the 75-90% for height and at the 25% for weight. Tall and skinny. Like his dad. I'm so glad he got those genes, rather than mine, which are the kind where I look at a donut and gain weight.

It's going so fast. Everyone who told me that? You were right.

Signs of growing old
I currently have two tubes of ointment that I am carrying around in my purse. One is a mouth sore ointment because I have a sore at the side of my mouth. The other is an eye ointment because I have some sort of lower eyelid infection thing going on. Walking train wreck, that's me.

I swear, since I've turned 30, I've had more ailments than my entire 20's put together. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously. TWO kinds of ointment? Next stop: Restful Acres.

Dom-o-rama

He used to be top banana in our household, and now he's just a bitter old sea salt with an ever-growing kitty gut. The Dom has taken his new role in the family with a dash of bitterness, but he's still my special guy.

And so now I present a sort of Year in Pictures 2005 for my black and white pal (with some special guest stars):

He's the epitome of laziness ...


Through the window screen.


The cat's out of the bag:




Sometimes, they exist side-by-side in peace. (Check out Doodle's socks in the third shot. Did I really dress him in those?)




A wild animal on the loose:


Road kill.

Comic gold
Doodle is quite the talkative chap. He has a few sounds in his repertoire, but the one he favors the most is what I call his Monster Noise. It's a growl and a scream at the same time, but he does it when he's excited.

The other night he was doing the Monster Noise on his changing table, and I looked down at him and gasped, "It's a monster!"

This hit pay dirt on the laughter scale. I had a zinger on my hands. He squealed with giggles. Naturally, this encouraged me to repeat this phrase about 55 more times. Eventually the laughter died down, until at the 54th repetition, it just garnered a half-smile from the Doodster.

"I'll never be this funny again in my life," I told my husband. So I'm relishing it.

In other news, Doodle ate baby food last night for the first time. Green beans. It looked and smelled like ass. But he ate half the jar, only cringing after the first spoonful, and then smooth sailing from there. He's such a good little guy.

24
Was anyone else upset that they killed off David Palmer in last night's 24 premiere? I couldn't believe it. I still can't.

That being said, it looks like another great season. Can't wait to see what happens next. Although, Derek could very well be this year's Kim.

Doodle's movie debut
Doodle just loves to play peek-a-boo. Here he is in his film debut, which you can view here.

Venting
I'm in charge of two large presentations at work. A lot of information is flowing in to me, and when I get it, I told Incompetent but Likeable that I would forward the relevant info along to him so that he can do P.R. stuff that is related to the presentation. The info was due to come in to me on January 9.

January 3: IBL comes to me. "Do you have anything yet?" he asks.
Me: Nope, it isn't due til the 9th. I'll let you know when it comes in.

January 4: "Kath, did you get anything today?"
Nope.

5th: "Anything on the presentation come in, Kath?"
Zilch.

6th: "Hey Kath!"
NO.

Then I was out on the 9th. Yesterday I checked my e-mail and had -- lo and behold -- SOME of the info had been sent to me, but not all. I forwarded it on to IBL, just like I said I would. But I was curious to see if maybe my boss had gotten some of the info, and he wasn't in. So I went over to IBL.

Me: [IBL], did anything come in yesterday while I was out?
IBL: [in irritated tone] I don't know, because I was too busy doing other stuff and didn't have time to look.

Later on in the day...
"Hey Kath! Did you get anything new?"
GAH!!!!!

Survivors, Ready!
The new Survivor cast is out. Yay!

Which reminds me of kind of an amusing little anecdote... so the other day, I was feeding Doodle and I turned on one of the episodes of Survivor that I had DVR'ed. I believe it was the premiere of Survivor:Amazon. Anyhoo, Jeff Probst begins to narrate, and Doodle whipped his head around to look at the TV. Poor little guy. He probably thinks Jiffy is his second daddy or at least an uncle or something, for as much as he's seen him in his six short months of life. I'm just sayin'.

A moment of silence...
For my 20's.
And here's to the next 20 years of being a thirtysomething. At least whenever anyone asks.

Kids these days
Maybe it's because I'm getting old. But I honestly don't know how I'm going to handle it when my son starts listening to songs with lyrics like:

My hump
My hump my hump my hump
My hump my hump my hump

And we ain't talkin' camels here.

I guess it will be no different than when my mom forbade me from listening to "The Humpty Dance" when I was in 8th grade. What she didn't know won't hurt her.

*sigh*

Eyes and ears
I just came to the realization that the biggest gossip monger in my office is not a woman. It's Incompetent but Likeable.

He knew that I knew something about my boss meeting with the big boss, and he pestered me and pestered me about it until I told him a little nugget of what I knew. (I didn't tell him everything... I know better than that.)

I'll ponder this while I eat my butter braid pretzels.

And I checked this morning to make sure my strip cheese was mold-free before I threw it in my bag o' food that I lug to the office each day.

Close encounter of the mold kind
My strip cheese had mold on it AND. I. ALMOST. ATE. IT.

Seriously, had it not been for the fact that the cheese didn't come off in one neat strip, I would have eaten that mold.

*hurls*

This goes along with the way my day has gone so far. I am wearing my new cute skirt that I got at Old Navy, my boots, and a black top, and I took my coat off this morning only to find that my new scarf had fuzzed all over my top. Luckily a co-worker has a lint roller so I was hooked up with the de-fuzzification.

I am really bummed now. I have strip cheese every day at 4 and now I have NOTHING. Nothing!!!!

When I get home, don't nobody better get between me and a bag o' chips.

See previous entry re: losing weight.

He had me at Super Mario
And now, I present to you,

the Video Game Pianist.

If you are a fan of video games, particularly the original Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo, you have to hear this guy. Outstanding.

P.S. He also does a pretty cool version of Maroon 5's "This Love". I am upset that a) I did not come up with this myself, and b) I quit taking piano lessons in sixth grade.

First post of '06
Happy New Year to everyone! I actually made it up until midnight this year (but at 12:01, the TV went off, and not a creature was stirring, not even a Doodle). We watched some of the Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve, but I gotta tell ya, seeing Dick Clark in his decrepit state was pretty hard to watch. I think it's great that he wanted to be there, since he's such an icon and New Year's Eve is his thing, but just stand there and wave, Dick. We all want to remember you when you were in your glory.

Over the weekend, I feel like Doodle changed so much. He's learning to grab objects and hold them, which is good news for his toys, bad news for my hair and glasses. He has gotten really good at eating cereal off a spoon, and he can roll over. When I played Peek-a-boo with him, he giggled and giggled. Of course, that led to him being wound up for the next hour or so, and it was at night, so I made a quick memo to self to only play Peek-a-boo in the morning.

I'm heading into my busiest month at work, so the posting may be sparse. Or it may be my only outlet of stress. We'll see.

Of course, we have a new TV season starting, so I'll have plenty to keep my mind occupied during prime time. I'm looking forward to American Idol, 24, Survivor, and whatever other mundane reality show comes along (Celebrity Fit Club 3? Not so much. Pathetic cast.)

I feel like I should mention some kind of goal for 2006, and it is this: not to gain back my weight that I lost when I was diabetic during my pregnancy. I'm starting to put it back on. I lost about 25 pounds total, and I have gained 10 of that back. I want to lose that 10 and another 10 after that. But somehow I don't think that making chocolate chip cookies every week is the way to do it. Unless there's some kind of new diet that I don't know about? No? OK then.

And here I thought I was all that and a bag of Fritos
I'm suffering a bit of a cold. It arrived Christmas Eve amidst the toilet catastrophe. But it's been almost a week now, and I think it's going away.

Apparently not.

Two people today have come to talk to me, stopped mid-sentence, and said, "Aw, you don't look too good!"

Nothing like a little blow to the self-confidence to start off the day. I have a cute outfit on and everything.

Separated at birth?
So, I was just trying out this cool face recognition software that I found on planetdan. It compares your face (or the face of any photo that you upload) to their celebrity database. It shows you whose faces are similar.

I uploaded this picture of myself:



And up came my closest celebrity match:



OK? Could be a lot worse.

Then I looked at who the other close matches were. Scarlett Johansson. Not bad! Julia Roberts. I don't see it, but allright.

But then it goes from bad:


To worse:


To... hunh?

Christmas Crisis 2005
It's becoming a bit of a tradition around my household for a major utility to wonk out and/or for someone to drink too much and make a spectacle, so this year, I was on the lookout for trouble early on.

While I'm happy to report that there were no drunken spectacles, we DID have the utility wonkage -- nice and early so we could enjoy it the whole weekend.

Friday afternoon, my mom came over and we were finished opening the presents, when suddenly, Dom got a wild look in his eyes and went running toward the bathroom. I heard the sound of running water and ran after him to see what the heck was going on.

The toilet was running and had completely overflowed. The bathroom floor was completely drenched. My mom and I went to work mopping up the water with every towel available in my linen closet and managed to stop the toilet from spilling more vile water. When I went down to the basement to put the towels in the washer, I found that the water was leaking down there, too. I set up some buckets and called my husband to warn him that he'd have some investigating to do when he got home.

He checked things out and figured that the toilet had just gotten blocked, but later that evening, it happened again. Once again we had to use a boatload of towels to mop up the flood, and threw it all in the washing machine. However, this time, as the washer was running, MORE water came through the toilet and it flooded for a third time!

Every plumber in town wanted double pay for the holiday weekend, and so we decided to tough it out the entire weekend. That meant we followed the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" philsophy in the bathroom, and if it was brown, one had better pinch one's buttcheeks together and high-tail it to my in-law's house. We couldn't do laundry, take a shower, run the dishwasher... the house has gone to hell. Luckily, Dave the plumber is at our house right now, hopefully snaking out the drain.

We're getting a bit superstitious about Christmas these days. When next year rolls around, I'm going to be bracing myself for the plague of the locusts. Or maybe, on even numbered years, Christmas will mean one too many PBR's or G & T's. Hell. I'll make it a self-fulfilling prophecy and make sure it's me.

My keyboard is covered in orange powder as I type this
Dear Vendor (or anyone really):

Want to know the way to my heart around the Christmas season? Bring me a tin of popcorn. Sure, the obligatory cookie tray is nice, but even I tire of sugar at some point. Popcorn, however, is always appealing to me. Especially when it has a cheese-ish substance on it. Caramel works, too. I am a fan of the three-way tin, myself. The menage-a-trois of popcorn: butter, cheeze, and caramel.

Mamacita.

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but my son? Is a genius.

He just turned five months old over the weekend. And during the past few days, he:

• Attended a wedding. He was perfectly behaved through the church ceremony (although he burped and farted in the church, so I'm sure someone is going to hell as a result, be it him or me for allowing him to be in a house of God -- unbaptized and all). He was also an angel at the reception and was a great excuse to not join the conga line. Sorry! Holding a sleeping baby! Can't dance!
• Rolled onto his stomach all by himself. Once onto his stomach, however, he flailed around like a carp on a beach.
• Ate cereal like a big boy. He opened his mouth like a baby bird for the spoon and then cried hysterically when it was "all gone."
• Maneuvered himself across the classroom at his daycare in one of those baby walker/activity station things.

I'm telling you, it's a baby Einstein we have on our hands.

/end brag

More musical selections
I had to use my Gilligan's Island method for the past two nights while I was trying to go to sleep. Sometimes, having a song stuck in my head will keep me awake.

Early Tuesday morning, probably around 4 a.m., it was

I got my first real six string
Oh, at the five and dime
Played it til my fingers bled
Was the summer of '69

And early this morning I was treated to Def Leppard's "Photograph" -- which I don't even know the words to but I have heard twice on the radio in the past week after not hearing it since God knows when.

I must have an entire library of 80's music on shuffle in my brain somewhere, because I have no idea why these songs come to me in the middle of the night.

Tip of the day
I heard some morning show DJ's say that if you ever get a song stuck in your head, that one proven way to get it out of your head was to sing the song "Amazing Grace" set to the Gilligan's Island theme song. Strangely, it works. However, then you have "Amazing Grace" set to the Gilligan's Island theme song stuck in your head.

So earlier today I could choose between the two songs to play in the little boombox in my brain:

Rockin' around
The Christmas tree
At the Christmas party hop
...

Or:

Amazing grace how sweet the sound (just sit right back and you'll hear a tale)
That saved a wretch like me (a tale of a fateful ship)
I once was lost, but now am found (that started on this [lyrics forgotten])
Was blind but now I see (aboard this tiny ship)

*sigh*
Oh. By the way. This whole wanting to be with mom all the time thing? Not so endearing at 2 a.m. Or at 3, after being up for an hour. Or at 4, after being up for two hours. Or at 5... well, you get the point.

It did, however, enable me to watch the Survivor reunion, which I had turned off after the winner was revealed (Yay Danni! Yay anyone but Steph!) And also some other things which I had DVR'ed, including the bizarre movie "I heart Huckabee's".

If I make it through the day without drooling on my keyboard I will consider it to be a win for my team.

Wake me up at 5.

Good God, when does the pain go away?
My son is going through a phase where he luvs his mamma like no other. Oh my stars. It kills me. Takes my heart and squeezes it until I don't think I can take it anymore. When I come home from work, he smiles a huge, toothless, open mouth grin at me over and over again like he can't believe it's me.

Last night I picked him up from day care and once he realized I was there, he smiled his usual smile at me, but when I didn't pick him up right away, began to cry.

This morning, as I was getting ready, I made the mistake of coming to talk to him while he was in his swing. As long as I don't make eye contact with him, he is usually OK in his swing while I run around. Today it launched a bout of hysterics like I've never seen.

When I dropped him at day care, I think he realized that I was about to abandon him and conjured a fresh batch of tears, so much so that both teachers in the room had to come distract him while I slipped away. It took all I had within me not to run back, scoop him up and hole up at home for the day. People have asked me if it's hard to leave him at day care every day. Only today.

I am going to stockpile days like this in my heart for years from now, where my teenaged son squirms away from a hug or is embarrassed to share the same genetic makeup as me. Right now, I rock his world.

And, he's not so bad himself.

Grant's Tomb
This weekend was much more pleasant than last. The Doodle went to bed at his scheduled bedtime and was very cheery during the day both Saturday and Sunday. I *may have* even bought him a couple (ahem, six) outfits that he can wear during the holiday season. Oh, and two pairs of shoes for me. What? I'll do my Christmas shopping... some other time.

The great hilarity of the weekend was at my in-law's last night when my brother in law, who is 19, asked, "Who wrote Pachabel's Canon?" Ah. Kids these days.

This is a big four-day week for me, as I'm taking Friday off as a "Me Day." That means, baby to day care, sleeping til noon, watching soaps... I can't wait.

Look out below
I just realized that this is my last month in my 20's.
Be forewarned.

Addition to weekend madness
I forgot to add the part on Sunday where I lost my mind, left the house and went to the grocery store down the street and purchased the following:

Chocolate chip cookie mix
Brownie mix
Chocolate chips
Chocolate ice cream
Golden Grahams

Guess what I do when I'm stressed out?

Glad it's Monday
How was your Thanksgiving weekend? Mine was shit-tastic. To recap:

Wednesday
Take the day off in order to get baby to his 4-month well visit. I end up getting a flu shot. Baby gets three shots in his thighs. Baby proceeds to wail for approximately 15 minutes, then passes out for remainder of afternoon. Baby wakes up with 102-degree fever. Fever lasts all of Wednesday and Thursday.

Thursday
We take still-feverish baby to in-law's for Thanksgiving dinner. His activity level is slightly above zombified the entire day, disappointing grandparents and great-grandparents alike. Overate.

Friday
Trapped at home all day long with baby, whose fever finally breaks. Go back into doctor with baby to make sure there's nothing else wrong with him (at their suggestion after I called). Baby proceeds to make up for his lack of activity Thursday by being extra crabby. Highlight is taking baby to in-law's again and leaving him there while hubby and I get Chinese and rent "Batman Begins." Considered leaving baby at in-laws and leaving town with no forwarding address. Reconsidered and brought him home, only to find out that the baby has now associated his crib with a bed of spikes, and any attempt to lay him in said crib results in screaming that can be heard throughout the tri-county area. After several unsuccessful attempts to lay him down, my breaking point was reached (approximately 3:30 a.m.) and it culminated in my chucking a Boppy pillow at the living room window to release some of my pent-up RAGE!!!!!! and frightening Dom to the point where he avoided me all day Saturday.

Saturday
More crabbiness. Took baby on errands to get out of the house. During this time he did not scream or cry once, but instead, saved up that entire hour and half's worth of screaming and then did it all as soon as we got home. Continued with the shunning of the crib. Husband slept on couch with baby for half the night, I took the other half of the night. Around 5:30 a.m. the baby finally realized the crib wasn't going to swallow him whole, and he allowed me to place him in it -- until he woke up screaming at 7 Sunday morning.

Sunday
The clouds began to lift. After bringing both parents to the edge of insanity, the baby allowed us to get just enough energy to take us through the day, and then stole every little bit of life left in us. Fortunately, he slept in his crib without too much fuss, although he did wake up three times.

Monday
Gleefully dropped the devil's spawn at day care and whistled the entire way to work.

*ack*
It's always very disturbing to hear the sounds of a cat yacking up a hairball somewhere just outside the bedroom in the middle of the night.

It's even more disturbing when you can't find any evidence of said hairball the next morning.

Seeing red
Ah, 'tis the time of year when, although I really could care less about football of any kind, my genetics kick in and I cannot deny my roots.

So for all of you who have been coming to my site via a search for anti-Michigan jokes, I can only say this to you:

GO BLUE!!!!!!!!!

Thought it was time for another baby picture. This was taken last week sometime. He'll be four months on Friday!

It's also known as the "idiot button"
This morning, a CD got stuck in my CD drive. I kept pressing the button and nothing would happen. I went into Windows explorer, right clicked and hit "eject CD" -- nada. I restarted the computer to see if that would help, pressed the button again... bupkus.

So I shot an e-mail off to the I.T. help desk. Over scurries the techie known as "Sprocket" due to his similarity to the Mike Myers SNL character, Dieter, with what looks to be a paper clip that he's stretched out into some sort of jimmying device. He scowls at my CD drive and announces that he is going to have to take it apart.

"Are you sure it won't come out?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say.
He presses the button, and voila! Out pops the CD.
D'oh. I hate giving the techies a reason to feel superior.

Precious, precious sleep
My stinking child didn't take one nap this weekend. Not one! Well, there was one time yesterday when he stayed in his crib for 20 minutes without screaming, but I think his eyes were open. Does that count? Then, he wouldn't go to sleep until 11 last night, whereas I was ready to cash out around 8.

Where did he inherit this anti-sleep gene from? Because his father and I are both huge proponents of sleep. Especially on the weekend.

I asked the day care lady this morning whether he takes naps for them, and she informed me that he only fusses for 5 minutes and then falls right asleep. Bastard. I smell a conspiracy.

An "I'm alive but my life is uninteresting and nothing is going on" post
So yeah. Here I am. Work is... weird. I'm getting along strangely well with Bad Lady, which disturbs me greatly but for the moment I guess it's OK. I think it's because we are both united in our dislike for the Shady Backstabbing Wench who Wants My Job, whom I confronted about two weeks ago. It went semi-well, but she did not deny that she wants my job. Nor did she deny that while I was on maternity leave, she asked my co-workers exactly what made me qualified to hold the position that I hold. Which makes me a mad Kat. Do not challenge my skillz. I will burn your ass before you know it's Tuesday.

It basically boils down to her, at age 24, thinking she knows everything because she got some fancy schmancy design degree, which, OK, I don't have. Snaps to her for having a degree in design. I have an absolutely worthless Journalism degree. Whatever. But I don't feel like I need to prove myself to some fresh-out-of-Kent-Freaking-State chick, thank you very much.

Anyhoo, we'll continue to keep an eye on that situation.

The baby is still not sleeping through the night, which enables me to watch "Survivor" reruns that I've DVR'ed at 3 a.m. The episode where Neleh offers everyone the mint that has been in her mouth already was just on last week. Good times.

(Tangent: do you think "Tivo" is going to become one of those words like "Xerox" -- or has it already? I don't have Tivo so I say "DVR", but I'm still resisting the urge to say "tape")

There have been no further incidents of Dom peeing on the baby's belongings, which is good. Or at least, as far as we know.

The Day Care Queen still says "uh oh" every time she sees me.

IBL just jumped in the air and snapped his fingers. My day is complete.

Candy ass
Every October, my boss fills a plastic jack-o-lantern with various types of candy and it resides on top of the file cabinet in my department. He also provides the accounting department, which is also housed on this floor, with a jack-o-lantern of their own.

Throughout the month, Mr. Pumpkin, as he's affectionately called, gets several refills. My boss sends us out on candy runs and we take requests. (By far the most popular in our department: Heath bars.)

By the time Halloween rolls around, everyone is so sugared up it's ridiculous. I hopped on the scale last night and in the month of October alone I have gained 5 pounds. I attribute every last ounce to Mr. Pumpkin.

So now that it's November, Mr. Pumpkin will no longer be refilled by my boss. As soon as he is empty, he goes back up on the high shelf in our store room to wait another eleven months. The sooner, the better, in my opinion.

My twisted logic dictates that if I eat a whole bunch of candy every day, Mr. Pumpkin will be empty sooner. The candy binge that I'm on is truly disgusting. I am sweating Skittle juice. The inside of my mouth has a perpetual coating of high fructose corn syrup.

However, it did motivate me to get on my treadmill last night for the first time since I gave birth to the Bankster Doodle Doo.

Happy Halloween everybody!
Candy eaten today (FINAL TALLY):
4 Heath bars
1 pack of Nerds
5 packages of Twizzlers (2 per pack)
2 pieces of Laffy Taffy
1 pack of Bottle Caps

Strike three
Add me to the list of people who think that something needs to change with regard to the time and duration of the World Series. Something is seriously wrong when I watch part of the game, go to bed and sleep for several hours, wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby, and the goddamn game is still on. Not to mention, after being up for about an hour and going back to bed, the game still wasn't over. I can't imagine how pissed I'd be if my team was in the Series. How can anyone stay up to watch those games?

Pissed
Houston, we have a problem.

So, the other night, we're getting the baby out of the tub, and I reach into the laundry basket of clean clothes which I brought up from the basement that morning. (Sidebar: I am not a good laundry folder. My idea of folding the laundry is making sure that nothing that can wrinkle gets left in the basket. Otherwise, I bring the basket upstairs and leave it where I can just go root through it and take out what I need.)

The sleeper that I grab out of the basket is a bit damp. I assume it didn't get fully dry in the dryer. So I reach back in and fish out something else. This time, I feel that there is something completely soaked in there. I pull out a burp cloth that is saturated... and yellow. And smells like pee.

Ew.

Yep, one of the cats took a leak into the baby's laundry. The question was, which one? Neither of them has ever done anything like this before, and both were often seen in the baby's room acting suspicious. I was kind of hoping it was Molly, though, just because she already has no redeeming qualities, so this would just be another one to add to the list.

So that entire load had to be washed again, although a couple of things that were really soaked in pee just went into the trash.

I was really upset about the whole thing and my husband tried to convince me that whoever it was probably just mistook the laundry for the litterbox (I wasn't buying that for a second.)

The next day, my husband was just home from work with the baby and in his room, changing his diaper. Dom was poking around in the baby's room. He got into the baby's plastic bathtub, scratched around in there, and then, right in front of Owen, squatted and took a leak in it.

The suspect has been apprehended. The question is, why is he doing it? Is he striking out against the baby? Or does he just have a bladder problem? Either way, I'm not pleased with my little black and white friend.

Party time
We were brave souls this weekend and ventured out to a party this weekend with Daniel in tow. It was about a 40 minute drive away, to boot.

He did fairly well for about two hours and then had a total meltdown, at which point we had to excuse ourselves. Our hostess is about 8 months pregnant, so our presence at the party was, more than anything, to give her a taste of what her life will be like in three months.

The best thing that happened at the party was when one of the guests' four year old son demanded that the lights be turned off, that a flashlight be shone upon him, as he performed a rap in front of everyone. He flawlessly executed a performance of the first half of the Beastie Boys' "Paul Revere" as his dad looked on proudly. It was truly awesome.

Oh, be-hive
My child right now is one giant hive. And I am FREAKING out about it! It started yesterday, the day care called and had noticed a red spot on his face after getting him up out of his crib, but it then spread all over his face while they were feeding him.

By the time I got there, the marks on his face were gone, but when I got him home I noticed huge hives with white bumps all over his chest and arms.

This morning he had a second outbreak that I noticed when I got him up this morning.

Then he had a third outbreak at daycare while getting his bottle.

My husband is taking him to the doctor right now but I am about to have a heart attack here... what could be causing it? It's probably not the formula, although most of the outbreaks have occurred while he was eating (not the one this morning though -- I nursed him from the time he got home last night until we left for daycare this morning!). We did laundry last night, and gave him a bath, so it's probably not detergent. And besides, it's the same stuff we've always used.

I'm seriously trying not to wig out here. Does anyone have any experience with hives and their causes to give me some ideas of what the hell might be going on?

I know I'm going to get some unintentional hits on my blog with this post, but...
So last night, my husband and I are watching one of the many episodes of Rome that we have backlogged on our DVR. At some point, I pass out on the couch due to sheer exhaustion because, oh, I don't know, I have a child who refuses to sleep through the night?

When I wake up, the episode is over, so I drag my weary butt off the couch. My husband is in the kitchen. "When did you pass out?" he asked. "The last thing I remember was when Marc Antony was going to Atia's house," I tell him.

"So you missed the sex slave?"

"Huh?"

"The sex slave," he tells me. "He had the biggest wang I've ever seen!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I missed that," I said.

"Yeah, you'd remember it."

Smurfed up
Did anyone see this Smurf video where the Smurf village gets bombed? Talk about disturbing. I learned about it on -- where else -- Best Week Ever.

You can see the video here, although it's a bit grainy.

Seriously, maybe I'm a little sensitive here, but I think this is borderline traumatizing.

Skillz that Killz
I know that I have skillz when people know to come to me when there's an important task to be performed, such as Photoshopping our Controller's head onto a Halloween costume ad that appeared in the newspaper, that said, "accountant by day... pimp daddy by night!"

P.S. Bonus points to anyone who can name what movie my title is in reference to. It's another movie I DVR'ed recently and watched in the wee hours of the night in small increments. And one I never thought I would think was funny, but was damn hilarious.

One of those days
So, last night, Daniel woke up at 2 a.m., which is his usual mid-night wake up time. I got up, groggy-eyed, and fed him while watching the beginning of Shaun of the Dead, a movie I put on the DVR last weekend sometime and that was taking up valuable space. Around 2:25, Daniel was sleeping in my arms, and I had become absorbed into the movie and was forced to turn it off and put us both back to bed.

Unfortunately I had an opportunity to continue watching at 3, when Daniel started crying softly in his crib again. And also unfortunately, I hadn't even fallen back asleep yet. So I popped back up was awake for another half hour or so getting the baby back to sleep.

At 4, he woke up AGAIN. So I was able to finish watching the movie (which was actually really amusing) before laying him back down, though he was still kind of half-awake, at almost 5.

When I went back to bed, now utterly exhausted, Dom decided that it was time to cuddle, so he crawled up between Owen and I and began chirping loudly and batting at my face with his paw until I petted him. I tried to pretend to be asleep but it didn't fool him.

About 5:15, guess who was awake again? And smiling brightly at me when I returned to retrieve him from his crib?

He went in his swing; I crashed on the couch. I think sometime after 6, I finally fell asleep. At 7, my husband came to say goodbye as he left for work and I remember thinking: must ... get ... up... the next thing I know, it's 8.

I mad a mad rush to get ready, feed the baby, change his diaper (whereupon he peed all over himself and needed a full change of clothes) and made it out of the house at 8:45.

I start work at 8:30. And work is about a 40 minute drive from my house. Luckily, I still made it here before my boss, so he was none the wiser.

Paranoia
Last night I had a dream that my boss handed me a tally sheet of exactly how much time I spent on the Internet and how many personal e-mails came into my work account.

It was a little too accurate.

Especially in the past couple of days since he has been away on business, I would barely classify the things I've done between the hours of 9(ish; it's hard to get to work on time these days!) to 5 as working.

And so it begins
My child is not even three months old and already he has his first fundraiser for school.
So, who wants to buy some frozen cookie dough?
*crickets chirp*

News ticker
There was an earthquake over the weekend?
Mudslides, too?

I swear, if it's not on Best Week Ever or The Soup, I don't know about it.

It sleeps two
The crib is all put together (with minimal four-letter words), the bedding is all in, and the Babe has spent two nights in it. Actually =since he was sick, he spent half the first night in the crib and then fussed every time he was put down, so he spent the second half of the night in his swing in the living room.

However, as with every new object that comes into the house, Domino seems to think that this crib belongs to him. Therefore, he has a very high, soft new bed. So the spray bottle has come out. And he's been sprayed several times.

So last night before going to bed, my husband decided to go in and check on the Bankster. Lo and behold, there were two sleeping babies in the crib...

Maybe my grandma was right about the whole "sucking the breath away" thing... I am going to keep this developement on the down low.

Chillin' in the crib
My crib came in!!! WOOOOOOT!

I ordered the crib back in the beginning of June, in what I thought was plenty of time to have PRIOR to the birth of my child. (July 18th for all keeping score at home).

Between now and then, the store has changed owners, and has also been sued by the state.

In fact, just yesterday, I filed a complaint with the state, as well, as I had reached my wit's end with the company. (Which shall remain nameless, but rhymes with USA Scabie.)

And so I was quite surprised when I came home yesterday and played the message on the answering machine saying that my crib had finally come in. They must have known that I was getting on the lawsuit bandwagon.

Now my son will have room to spread out, instead of being crammed into his bassinet. This will enable him to perfect the act of rolling onto his side, which he is slowly practicing. Once he gets the hang of it, WATCH OUT.

I'm so stoked that the baby's room isn't going to be a junk heap anymore. I'll post pics when it's done.

And now, presenting...


Wait for it, wait for it ...



Still waiting....




And waiting ...





And waiting...






Dum te dum...




La la la la ....








*whistles*








That's right, it's the cutest baby picture EVER!
Thank you and good night.

Off the heezy fosheezy
I am laughing because in my junk mail, there are TWO message from a sender by the name of "I Pizzle." And Mr. I Pizzle is trying to hawk -- what else -- an I-Pod. But not just any old IPod, oh no. An IPod...

NANO!

Am I the only one who thinks that "Nano" is a funny name? Nano-nano-boo-boo, my IPod is smaller than yours...