Good-time Charlie

Is in full effect. To such an extent that my son has now decided that good-time Charlie is all he needs. Hmmm-mmm, that's right. Good-time Charlie saunters into the house after being gone for 4 days and Miles clammers, yells and reaches out for him. Then good-time Charlie stays for a day or two and is off again - mommy takes care of wee boy, day in and day out. Good-time Charlie returns 5 days later and the same scene unfolds - clammer-clammer, yell-yell, reach-reach. What the fuck? How did this happen? Do I not get up in the middle of the night and change your stinky-poopy diapers? Did I not walk you around endlessly until you learned to walk? Do I not feed you, hold you until you fall asleep, bring you fun toys and play with you? Yes, the answer to those questions is YES. I do all of those things - but does that matter? No. It doesn't. You only have eyes for good-time Charlie. Hmmmph. This should and could be a good thing for me right? Not having to be the go-to girl all the time for every little boo-boo. But you know what? I liked being the go-to girl with my daughter (I'm sure I'm filling one of the many voids left by my parents). So this thing with Miles and Papa? Not working for me so well.
So what's the secret formula? Who knows - probably something only my husband-who-comes-from-disgustingly-well-adjusted-family-life can produce. Whatever.

Typical . . .I will never change. . .

So my big thing in the morning is to get out the door in time to make it to the beloved commuter lane before it goes away. Ohhhh no, I do not like missing this opportunity to happily fly by all the sorry suckers who aren't cruel enough to stick their sweet baby in the backseat for an hour-plus so they can head off to their unpaid job with gleeful ease. Hel-looo, that's like throwing away a coupon for free diapers for a year! That said, I am constantly rushing around my house in the morning trying to get Miles and I ready (by myself, of course b/c hubby is travelling yet again) and debating whether or not to make myself that coffee that I can't live without (which takes 5 frickin' minutes because it's just GOT to be a latte). . .especially when I've stayed up late working for said unpaid job. On this harried morning I decided to go for it - roll the dice, play with fire - make. the. coffee. water. the. new. plants. before. they. die. pusssshhhhhhing it . . .the minutes tick, tick, ticking away . . .Miles happily playing with his walker just taunting me to do yet more things before I leave for the next 12 hours . . .whirl, hiss, spatter and voila! my beloved caffe latte is finito! - hmmmm, can't find my favorite commuter mug . . .ohhhhh yeah - I torched it in the microwave yesterday and almost started a fire - oooops. Who knew that you couldn't boil water in a metal/rubbery commuter mug from my husband's company??? Oh well, I'll have to use this other one - some hideously huge Starbuck's thing that will also serve the purpose of building my biceps while I drink . . .Another look at the clock reveals that it's already 8:29 - oh no! I'm in dangerous territory - must. get. in. the. car. Okay little guy, saddle up! Off we go, frothy, fabulous latte riding shotgun in the drink holder . . .cooling to a perfect blissful temp while I drive poll position over the windy highway that seperates us from the bustling Silicon Valley.
And here's the point of this long-winded blog entry - I pick up the coffee mug THINKING that I've put the lid on corrrectly . . .ah, no babe. That would be a mistaken thought. Lid NOT on right, coffee now ALL over my shirt - shit! still hot!! ouchy-ouch!
What to do now?? Ah-ha, brilliant - I have a bottle of water in the car! I'll just squirt a little dab on the stain to keep it from setting and that will dry by the time I get to my destination. . . dab being the operative word - you can guess what happened next . . .Ack! I spill water ALL over myself. I am now TOTALLY drenched with coffee and water. Fabulous. I am so talented - how did I get so talented?! I know you're wondering, how could you not? If my family reads this they will nod in agreement - this is standard behavior for me - as I said - typical.
An-nee-way - that commuter lane that I worked so hard to get to? Missed it. Gone. Nada, nada. The on-ramp to the freeway with the metering lights took soooo long that by the time I merged, it was parking lot city, and I was just another one of the sorry suckers sitting there - except that unlike those now lucky people I had my poor sweet baby in the back seat squirming to get out of bondage and, a completely wet shirt, nice.

My all-star daughter

Get. out.! Our little Emmers busted a move and went from "progressing slowly" to "knowing more than the other kids in class"!!! (okay, so the fact that her teacher told her that is just slightly disfunctional, but that's another post).
I am SO proud of my little girl! Wow, she was really not in the mood to learn her numbers up to 100 and her sight words and the alphabet backwards - but you know what? She did it. She has now experienced what it's like to do something you don't want to do and then reap the rewards of a job well done. I bought her a Juice Box that I've been saving for when she was finished with her test and I just gave it to her last night as a reward - she deserved it, she worked really hard. I hope this is a harbinger of things to come, although I'm sure they'll be plenty of challenges ahead. At least we've got our victory, I'm going to revel in it for a good while.

More adventures of the working mom . . .

I never quite feel like I have enough time to get any work done when I'm home with my kids - I always have grand plans of getting a bunch done and it just doesn't seem to happen. So, the other day when they were miraculously simultaneously occupied - one watching Sesame Street, the other coloring - I snuck off to my office for a look see at my emails. Of course they had been piling up and I was remiss on getting back to my co-workers on several action items .. .so I got sucked in and the next thing I know a 1/2 hour or more had passed . . .I would have gone blithely on if it weren't for the yells of my 5 year old - "mommy! mommy! Miles ate something! Miles ate something!" I rushed to find out what all the ruckus was about - oh. dear. Miles had somewhere found a Hershey's Kiss or two and managed to pop them into his mouth - wrappers and all - and then managed to mash them around and smear the saliva-gooey mess all over himself, the light yellow couch (I know, what AM I doing with a light yellow couch with two kids?!) and the carpet. Holy crap - what a mess. Mom gets to work a bit?? I think not. Pay the price lady.
Miles had a huge grin on his face - total delight - almost worth the mess . . .

My little Dracula . . .

Just love those teeth!

The Pinnacles

This past Saturday I woke up and had the hankering for a road trip. So we decided to head out to the Pinnacles - despite the fact that we found out it would be an almost 2 hour drive from our house. What the hell, we went for it.
So we packed up the kids, some food, the backpack carrier and hit the road. On the way we realized that we hadn't really brought enough food for all of us for the whole day - since we would be gone for the whole day - so we decided to stop in Soledad to pick up something - the last town on the map before we headed out to the middle of no-where. Okay, so Soledad didn't seem to have your average everyday market that you may find in, oh, say any other town in the Bay Area .. .nope, this town is mainly hispanic so the market we found didn't have the usual fare. But we did manage to find something in between the weird rainbow colored, custardy looking things in the fridge and the large slabs of meat readily available ...some peanuts that didn't end up tasting like typical peanuts, some milk for Miles, some bananas and ahhh, our lucky find - churros. Yummy.
Off we went, Churros in hand, ready to face the elements. Another 17 miles and we arrived at the visitor center. Despite the fact that it was cold and foggy at the coast that day, it. was. hot. at the Pinnacles. Whew - what a difference. We loaded up Miles in the backpack carrier, got Emma's shoes on and headed up the steep trail to the top of the high peaks trail. I was so impressed with Emma who hiked quite a distance to make it there. She did, of course, have to get carried by Pappi for a while - who btw, was already carrying Miles as well. Pappi gets his work out. But overall, she did a great job - and she was very cute to point out all of the flowers along the way and even tell me the name of some of them. Very impressive!
Near the top there were stairs carved into the rock and a rail you had to hold on to for stability - Emma charged on up and did a great job - go girl! I'm so glad she's at the stage now where she can start to hold her own, it's fun to see.
When we finally got back down the mountain we were pooped, pooped. I think before kids we would have probably gone a lot further and been a lot less tired - but where's the fun there?!
We had the perfect family day and were all warm and fuzzy on the long ride home.

Happy Cinqo de Mayo!

It's Friday, it's Friday, it's Friday! Yippee . . .isn't it fun to love Friday's again? Only something I love when I have a job - otherwise, it's just another day .. .it's nice to love a particular day again.
Today we're having a little office par-tay .. .oh yeah. Celebrating Cinqo de Mayo .. .cuz we're all from Mexico, not. But what the hell, an excuse to have a party. Got the music going and the beer chillin' . . .too bad I have to drive the hill and can't have any. Oh well, wouldn't be so good for the post-barf-session-belly anyway. . ..tra-la-la-la-la-la . . .it's Friday, who cares?!
Miles is on his way here to join in the festivities, can't wait to see the little bugger!

My fabulous and not so fabulous week . . .

This past Sunday my husband and I took his brother and wife to see David Sedaris - and that. was. fabulous. That man is funny! I love his books and he was equally hilarious in person. He read a few pieces of his writing and it was amazing - the way that man thinks is so odd, and yet, he hits the nail on the head every time. I was thinking back to when I first picked up one of his books (Me Talk Pretty One Day) and started reading it - I had no background information about him - didn't know the extent of his freakish personality, or that the completely fucked up nature of his thought patterns and opinions would someday seem somehow normal to me. When I started to read Me Talk Pretty One Day I was taken aback by his writing - how could anyone possibly be so fucked up?? But once you get a little numb to it, it becomes so funny, and as I said - strangely normal - for him, that is. I really came to love his writing - and I'm sure that fact that it took me a while to warm up to it shows my lack of literary acuumen - whatever, bygones - I'm on board now!

So, the not so fabulous part of this week?? Getting Miles' stomach flu on Monday night . ..eee-gads, it's been a longgggg week full of nastiness. Mamas try not to let your babies puke on you multiple times .. . like my little lamb did. Oi-vey. On Friday night while we were having dinner Miles was squirming to get out of his high chair. So I lifted him out and the next thing I know he's unloading said dinner all over my face, chest, lap . ..etc. Poor wee fellow - poor mommy. Bummer dude. So, big surprise, come Monday I was in the same boat - except worse. Miles just puked a couple of times - me, I was up from 2 am until sometime the next afternoon praying to the porcelein god. It's now Thursday and I'm back at work, feeling a little hollow, a little lighter in my step and a little wafflely. ..still haven't had any coffee yet . . .deprived of my favorite vice - another blow. When will the injustice stop, I ask you? Here's to hoping for my iron gut back . . .