Anna, Speaking to Me in the Kitchen Tuesday Morning


Anna: "I'm sorry Mama, I won't say God damn it anymore."

Me: "That's nice. I appreciate that, sweetie."

I'm Overly Excited About ...

Getting into the Microsoft Excel class at work.

The eBay auctions I've just won.

My new watch from Eddie Bauer.

The heatwave which is on its way for the weekend (temps in the 30s!)

My hair appointment next week.

Anna's singing "Close to You" to her baby dolls.

Cleaning out six bags of outgrown clothes and items when the Lupus Foundation came to pick them up.

Part 3 of Pride and Prejudice on PBS Sunday night.

Joining Netflix, finally. First and second on my que are Little Children and Letters from Iwo Jima.

Deciding on a school for Anna (Step By Step, we'll sign her up on March 1)

Going to three different story times in the last two weeks at local libraries, with Anna of course.

The new Putamayo cd I just bought (Latin dance music).

My latest wine find (Paringa shiraz, 2005, from Australia).

The cute pink and white tulips I bought at Lunds tonight, and all the buy-one-get-one-free offers they had going on.

Lunch with a friend tomorrow, and plans with another friend on Saturday night.

Tomorrow's Friday!!

Another Favorite Picture of Me and Miss Boo


















Anna's blog hasn't been updated in ages. We haven't taken many pictures lately. Sigh! This picture was taken at my employer's kids holiday party, back in December. I had just gotten my hair cut and colored at the time. Today I made a new appointment for a cut and color, so I'll look like this again really soon.

My hair gets somewhat neglected, I have a few factors working against me in this regard. First--lack of free time. However, now that I've found a stylist I really, really like in Eagan, I've decided to make appointments during work hours if I have to and just make up the time. Second--red hair dye fades the fastest. Figures, doesn't it? Generally I get an all-over color, a dark red. I do try to wash my hair with cooler water, use shampoo/conditioner for colored hair, etc., but those tricks only go so far. Third--my hair grows really fast. If I want to wear it shorter, I have to be even more vigilant about getting my hair cut.

My obsession this week is getting a jump on Anna's spring and summer clothes by shoppping on eBay. So addicting. This is what I won in an auction today, the bottoms are shorts.


















I'm also bidding on this lot of clothes from Gymboree. The item in the upper left hand corner is a dress which Anna had last spring and summer in a smaller size. Wish me luck!

First Aid Kits, The Kite Runner, and Cost Plus World Market

I went to see The Kite Runner a couple nights ago. It's a good movie, but the ending isn't quite as dramatic as in the book so I went away disappointed. There were some things left out, for the sake of time I suppose, but in the movie you didn't get the sense that there was a fight to the death, a struggle to get to the ending that you got in the book. All the scenes with the two main characters as young boys were incredibly well done, the rest of the movie just didn't hold up to that same quality. Knowing that I wanted to see the movie, I also reread the book last week. This reading was my third or fourth time through, funny how after the first time reading a book one is able to catch so many more of the writer's hints and how so many things mentioned for seemingly no reason come back to explain things later. A mark of great storytelling ... just enough details to describe the sounds, smells, landscape of Afghanistan as it existed prior to the Russian invasion, all the details necessary to continue the story. I've been torn over whether to lend this book to anyone or keep it safely on my shelf, but I've just decided to bring it to work and share it with my neighbor. I think.

Saturday evening was very dramatic at our house as Anna suffered scary cuts to two of her fingers. The three of us were hanging out in the kitchen while Edwin was making dinner, and Anna was playing with the utensils in the drawer when she grabbed part of a vegetable slicer and got her fingers caught in it. I gasped and rushed over to her, got her fingers free as quickly as I could and held them under running water at the kitchen sink. At first, Edwin just got a band aid (!!!) but then I yelled to him to get the first aid kit we keep in the upstairs bathroom as I could see with all the blood a band aid wasn't going to be enough. Anna stayed pretty calm until the worst had passed, I stayed calm until I turned her fingers over and saw all the blood running down her hand and then it was a struggle to hold it together. Once I could tell she hadn't cut a finger off, or cut the tips of her fingers off that helped immensely. Eventually I wound gauze around her fingers and secured it into place with lots of surgical tape. The amount of blood was unbelievable to be coming from such little fingers.

Anna left the gauze and tape alone, so I didn't feel a strong need to change it until tonight. I figured once we got home, I could take the old stuff off and get a better look, give her wounded fingers some air. After her bath I would get out the gauze again if I needed to, which I did. Anna was hysterical at the thought and unfortunately I couldn't get her to calm down and cooperate so I basically got everything ready to go, pinned her down, and while Anna did her best to kick and scream herself out of my arms I rebandaged her fingers. Hopefully she will leave these new bandages alone so they can stay put until the next bath. Poor girl. I told her when she's all healed we'll go out for ice cream to celebrate.

Needless to say, the first aid kit really came through for us. I always insist that Edwin and Saskia take it with them when they go camping, and this incident has reminded me that I've always intended to get a new one to keep in my car. Years ago when I first bought it, I got a typical response from Edwin: "when would we ever use that?" as in "what a waste of money because we'll never use it". Well, you just never know what could happen, why not have one around? Target has them pretty cheap, as does Walgreens. What would we have done without one?

Anyway, so I went to Cost Plus World Market yesterday. As with a grocery store, I must say I recommend not going to this store hungry. I picked up a big bag of Swedish fish (all red), a bag of chips (I never buy chips), a jar of Nutella-like goodness, a salty sweet snack mix, chocolate for Easter (I got most of my Christmas chocolate here) and a bag of little wafer-like cookies which I think is Dutch. Oh my. No, I didn't eat everything but I've gotten a great start on the Swedish fish and the snack mix. So much so I wasn't really hungry for dinner tonight. Not good. I was hoping I'd get lucky and find a wall hanging for our downstairs bathroom. The two pictures of shells that are in our upstairs bathroom I found at World Market. No luck.

I just picked up a new book at the library, a book that I think will be very interesting called The Sociopath Next Door. I'm hoping this book will lead me to other books about personality disorders, I'm not sure if I've come across many sociopaths (the book claims 1 in 25 people are sociopaths, so I probably have) but I feel pretty confident that I've come across narcissists and histrionics. Of course I'm the last person to figure those things out, that I've befriended the person who everyone else, with good reason, avoids like the plague. So we'll see what I learn from this book and apply to my everyday life.

A Week Of Juggling

So I am home for most of this week, we have no daycare for Anna. I will do my best to make up enough time for work so that in the end it'll just be two days of vacation that I use. It helps that next Monday is a holiday at work and I plan to go in.

I just tried reading Nanny Diaries, a book I've owned for a long time but have never picked up. It's a waste of time, don't bother. I read until the midway point, then started skipping, and then just skipped to read the last chapter to find out how she finally left her employment. I recall that the book caused quite a stir when it first came out, but I wasn't too shocked or surprised by anything in it.

I nannied for two summers while in college, which was a great experience for me to travel to the east coast and get a sense for how others live. I will always appreciate that the families gave me the opportunity of working for them. I do have some regrets, but then again I know that I did the best I could and that I was young and naive at the time as well. I can't help but wonder what those kids are up to today, how their lives are turning out now that they are young adults. I also wonder if they ever gave me a second thought once I left, or if I was just one in a long line of people who cared for their children.

My time as a nanny was nothing like the woman's in Nanny Diaries, thankfully. Her experience seemed a bit extreme, though I guess I wouldn't be surprised if there were families which took advantage of their hired help, or underpaid them despite all their hard work. That is not surprising at all, that happens in all kinds of employment.

My big project at home lately continues to be the basement. It's incredibly dirty work, and it has occured to me that I should probably wear some kind of mask on my face to protect me from the dust. So I've decided not to do any more until I've bought some masks.

My life seems so very boring right now, I'm just trying to hang in there and not get too far behind on anything.

How Old Am I, Anyway??

Before my birthday, Edwin, Saskia, and I were talking during dinner one night and I shared that I sometimes forget how old I am. For some reason, I have to pause for a moment and quickly do some math in my head before I can respond. This hasn't always been true, it's something that's seemed to have started in the last year or so. Saskia thought that was pretty funny, which makes sense because as a kid your age is so important, and you're always being asked about it because you're still growing, so I'm sure it was hard for her to imagine not just knowing it.

I ran into a friend at the work cafeteria today, and she mentioned the same thing in our conversation. Funny. Maybe it's something that happens for the first time when you turn 36. Hopefully I'll just forget all about when I turn 40, then.

Tomorrow's my last day of work before taking a few days off next week. We don't have daycare the entire week. I should be able to go in for two days, and I expect to go in on President's Day, which would otherwise be a holiday. I just don't feel comfortable using a lot of vacation this early in the year, knowing that we'll want to take a vacation at some point and not knowing what the rest of the year might bring.

A couple weeks ago I started calling around to different preschools and Montessori schools in our area, to get a sense of what their programs are like and when they might have openings for Anna. So far, the vast majority of them are either full until fall, or Anna is required to be 3 before she could start. Only two schools have possible earlier openings and don't require her to be 3. One is Saskia's former school, Step by Step Montessori which is near Southdale. We went for a visit on MLK day, which was nice for me as I hadn't ever really taken a good look around. The other school is Sunshine Montessori, on the other side of Lake Harriet, which we plan to visit on Monday. So, hopefully after Monday we'll know where we want Anna to take her next step, as she's definitely ready for a more structured environment.

Next week our daycare provider wanted the week off to celebrate her and her husband's 50th wedding anniversary. It's as good of an excuse as any. She mentioned that they've made plans, I hope they're able to get away and truly enjoy their anniversary.

Some New Favorites

These are pictures from my brother's wedding in October. Recently I had both of these shots cropped and printed in black and white. I can't quite say why I like this first picture, it's not very flattering of me (look at that flabby arm!) and Anna's hair is all messed up, but I still really like it.














A little girl all dressed up and enjoying bubbles, it was very sweet to see.

Hoping She's Musical, Shunning the Kidsy Stuff, and What If?

So, I'm really hoping Anna is musical someday and will play a musical instrument. I should do some research, find out what more I can do to encourage her in this way. She enjoys watching musicals on video to an extent (Annie of course, and most recently Hairspray, Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast) and she enjoys playing with her pretend musical instruments--a saxophone, guitar, and keyboard. At the party we went to Christmas night, she was mesmorized by the guitar-playing of a young man who was there--maybe I should buy a CD of mostly guitar music she might like?

We haven't listened to the Sugar Beats in a long time, and I haven't tried very hard to find other kidsy music. While she's in my car, Anna asks to listen to the purple CD (Stevie Wonder--Greatest Hits) or the pink CD, which is Joan Osborne doing covers and a CD I've loved since the first time I played it (I'm eternally grateful to Daniel B. for this recommendation). We're to the point that Anna sings along to the songs, and we talk about what song we like or is a favorite. Maybe I can skip the annoying kids songs and take out the Beatles next?

While there are lots of other memories not so great, I have only fond memories of band and playing clarinet through high school. I sometimes wish I would have continued into college, how fun the marching band or the concert band would have been, what a great way to get out and meet people while at SDSU. But I didn't play my instrument any more, instead writing for the college newspaper ... certainly (in hindsight) a major decision in my life and where it has led me.

Sometimes I think of the decisions I've made in my life, and how things might be different if, let's say, I'd gone to the U of M and not SDSU. Or, if I'd gone to law school in Nebraska and not at Hamline. If my friend Mary hadn't told me about the West Publishing jobs posting on the wall at the registrar's office, or what if I hadn't run into Marge and John while leaving the Science Museum, who'd told me I should consider volunteering at the Fitzgerald Theater. On and on. How much of it was fate, how much did I determine the path? And ultimately--would life be better, or would it be worse?

Anna is napping now and I hope to make a quick trip to Target with her before the Super Bowl starts. I've been cleaning some more in the basement, and filling up the storage bins I've bought so I need more. One of more immediate goals is to organize and truly clean up the basement so I can set up Edwin's old table down there for scrapbooking. If I can get it set up in time for his trip, I'm sure I can get a lot done while he is out of town. Our new neighbors have a big dumpster in front of their house, I hope to throw a couple things in there tonight after dark (shh!). I've got several bags of items to donate, and a few small things to list on Craigslist and see if I can sell them. The truly daunting task will be cleaning and washing the floors, but it will all be worth the effort if I can use the space for my scrapbooking. We'll see!

Two More Mittens, Momma

I've heard this a lot lately from Anna. Actually, she is trying to repeat something I say to her frequently when she's impatient, or when we have to switch activities--

"Two more minutes." As in, you can play for two more minutes and then we have to go. Or, give me two more minutes and I'll get your milk. Etc.

So now Anna says to me "Two more mittens, Momma, two more mittens".

Funny girl.