Archive for June, 2008

Jun 30

Rescue Etiquette

Umm, hi… **nervously popping in…**

This would be my first attempt at guest blogging, so please be kind. I feel like I’m hosting a party at someone else’s house, so please, keep the food and beverages in the kitchen.

My name is RC and I am a work-outside-the-home mom.?Ǭ†(Gosh that sounded kind-of like a confession…)

My home, where I will allow all the adults to eat and drink in the living room, is my blog at Hill Smith Family Update. It is totally a mommy blog, with some small bits of me thrown into it (that sounds a bit disgusting, doesn’t it…). And I totally refuse to apologize that it is another mommy blog.

I brag about, and share pictures and videos of my toddler, Little Dude.

RC's Little Dude

And if you want to get a laugh, check out his laughter here (I tried to bring the video over, but it didn’t work – so sorry!).

I try not to complain about the Hubby, too much, even when I’m questioning how I can possibly be married to him. I praise the cuteness that is my cat, who I refer to as Supercat, in the blogging world.

Honestly, it is pretty tame. In other words, my family and in-laws know the blog exists and they read it. Not to mention my coworkers…

However, if you catch me in one of my non-family moods, I’m usually going off about crappy customer service or getting excited over one of my electronic gadgets.

I’m a bit of a tech-geek, but I’ll be honest and tell you that I’ve killed off my laptop computer, my PDA, and my work cell phone since January. And dare I mention the need for a new camera – mine was awful, the virus that attacked the Hubby’s computer, or the fact that our house was recently the victim of a nearby lightning strike. I’ve blown my five-year electronic gadget budget in the period of five months.

Occasionally I’ll share fun facts about my life, write corny poems, hang my worries and depression out for the world to see, do a little photo journalism on the floods in my area, or mention how I’m also a firefighter (second career).

This last part of my life leads me to a recent post I wrote. And let’s just pretend it is a hypothetical situation, okay? ;-) Thanks!

p.s. Feel free to come over and visit at any time! I’m usually a family-friendly visit, if you have kids coming with you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Let?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s pretend you live the midwest. For this scenario, you live in a trailer park near a river.

Just for fun, let?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s pretend that this area of the midwest has been hit by a lot of rain. So much rain, in fact, that the river is way above flood stage, and that little trailer park you live in is now, for the most part, surrounded by water – including the road in and out of the trailer park, which has more than a foot of water covering it.

Because of the flood, you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve been advised that you might want to evacuate your home, but as you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve seen many floods and figure it won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be that bad, you decide to stay – you just park your car on dry land, and hike through the water to get to it whenever you want to go out, or you keep your car near you and figure you shouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have an issue driving through the water to get out.

Now picture this area being threatened by tornadoes, and no way for the residents of this?Ǭ†trailer park?Ǭ†to safely get to shelter. On top of the tornadoes, more rain is pouring down, too, causing the flood to increase, bringing with it currents from the swollen river.

Enter the local fire department. Picture them bringing out two of their heavy-duty trucks to get through the water to the residents, stuck in an almost island-like trailer park. Men and women who would like to be home, and possibly in their own basements, but at least with their families, especially with Little Dude their toddler, perhaps, are here to help those residents stuck with no way out or no rides. They are willing to take them to local government buildings for shelter.

Rescue etiquette: Please go with the nice firefighters. They aren?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t out to evacuate anyone for no reason, and yes, they know this is your home. These firefighters just want everyone to be safe and sound, and are risking their own lives?Ǭ†to help you. Thank you.

Edited to add: And please hurry a bit?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ The nice firefighters don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t like to be sitting ducks for possible tornadoes entering the area. Little Dude Their families might miss one of them.

Last edit, I promise: In the end, the hypothetical firefighters all made it home okay, and that trailer court is still heavily surrounded by water. Several of the hypothetical residents have chosen to wait it out in there little island.

This was originally published on Thursday, June 12, 2008, at Hill Smith Family Update. Thanks for allowing me to visit…

**carefully slinking back to my blog**

(And to RC – thank you! – loves ya – Dawn)

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Jun 29

Why air travel sucks

1. Southwest airlines. Used to love ‘em now they are crackerfied.

2. Inconsistent verification. Took birth certificate with us to Houston – no one wanted to see it. So we didn’t bring it this time. Got lectured that we need to have it. Too bad, it’s 70 miles away from us.

3. TSA. Apparently I can be stripped of all metal and the concern is my kid’s faux crocs. Must pull off the foam shoes and send them through scanner as well.

4. Fellow passengers. Like the two teens across from me. kid in an orange and white hat – positioned sideways, white tshirt wih gold and silver writing on it, camo shorts, flip flops, apparently intellect of mouth breather and hasn’t received the memo that only Eminem can get away with that outfit. Moving on to his travel companion in a bright yellow cleave showing, undetermined shorts/skirt (hiding under shirt/dress), blinging faux rhinestone heart jewelry and bracelet and rings. Huge earrings, and a hot pink and black hat proclaiming “faith” (it is Sunday after all.)

5. Mother behind me stating to her kids, “I almost pissed my pants.” Nice.

6. 50 pound weight limit on luggage. If two people travelling together can fit everything in one suitcase for 54 and a half pounds, why charge them? We could have packed two bags at 50 pounds and had more weight and more stuff for them to keep track of, but nooooo. So I now have random shoes and toiletries in my carry on to get us under the weight limit.

The one thing I love. Wireless and the ability to bitch and blog and talk to VDog.

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Jun 27

Haiku Tshirt

Haiku Friday

(clickin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ the logo may take you to more haikus)

Remember these BEWBS?

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That brought me this cool tshirt

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It’s off to VDog!

 

 

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Jun 25

From the Archives – Routine

Originally posted June 25, 2007.?Ǭ†

Here we go. We spent three days travelling to the land of vices. Two days looking for a house. Tonight we bid on an awesome house too expensive but we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll figure it out. Tomorrow Scout starts at the office so we are now beginning the new normal. Alex still wakes up if not held/kept close while he sleeps. We keep trying to help this change, we just haven?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t been able to yet – and the last week of course has a pantload of reasons why.

Anyway. Last night we went to Culvers and my custard came with a straw and Scout?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s came with a spoon. Now this is some seriously thick stuff. I said ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIf I can suck this custard through a straw then you are a seriously lucky man?¢‚Ǩ¬ù.

So tonight Scout seemed stressed and I asked him if was okay. He asked me to define okay. I said ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIs there something I should be doing besides this (putting food away in the freezer) to help you??¢‚Ǩ¬ù

As soon as I asked?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ I just knew?¢‚Ǩ¬¶.

?¢‚Ǩ?ìWell how?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s your peanut butter custard through a straw coming along??¢‚Ǩ¬ù

to which I responded with how pervy it would be to do that while trading off on who was in charge of holding the baby.

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Jun 24

From the Archives – The New Normal – Day One

Originally posted June 25, 2007.

Scout is up and at the office. This is the longest since Alex ws born that I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve been in charge of him – all but 30 minutes since last night at 1030. We?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re doing okay. I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t get much done bc of the whol ?¢‚Ǩ?ìI won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t sleep if you aren?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t with me?¢‚Ǩ¬ù thing. But I got decent sleep, got breakfast, went on walk to grocery store, still need lunch, have updated my budget, approved offer on house purchase, and been taking notes on alex?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s sleeping today. So not all bad.

Oh, decided to give him water in his bottle part of the time. My milk supply is way low and I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t afford to have him nipping little ounces here and there only to run out at 4am (like this morning). My plan was to pump a lot today to get my supply bck up. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve done okay but I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m still behind.

Later:
Oh it got ugly today. I wasn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t able to pump because the Kaiser found new exciting ways to scream his guts out when not held. He wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t nurse. I didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t want to use formula. It was ugly. I didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t like the images in my head of flying baby across the room into a wall.

Tonight I knew I was setting myself up for getting him too comfy against me and I wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be able to pump w/out waking him and setting off the chain of events again. So I was moving away from him to pump when I thought wtf, might as well try nursing one more time.

I literally pulled the boob out, handed it to him, I swear he said ?¢‚Ǩ?ìhm, don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t mind if I do?¢‚Ǩ¬ù and he opened his mouth and nursed for 10 mins till he was completely passed out asleep.

On his back.

His BACK people.

Alone. On his back.

Happy two month birthday bud. I love you, but I also love that I can sit four feet away from you and we are both okay with that.

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Jun 23

From the Archives – On Love

Originally posted June 22, 2007.

Last night my brother bought us dinner from Heaven on Seven. Generally known as the place Scout and I could eat every day until we die – and only available in Chicago. We planned dinner a week in advance.

I had left overs, which is a joy of HoS because you get the love twice.

So we got on the road today, leftovers sitting beside me, fresh from the fridge. Because of the spice you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really have to heat them up, and I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m pretty sure it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s impossible for a serving of food to go bad because the spice would cauterize any bacteria that would try to harm you. That and getting ptomaine from the food of the Gods just seems impossible.

Day two of traveling with Tiny Kaiser was better – still took pretty much as long even though we went half the distance of the day before, we just took longer breaks when he needed a break, rather than waiting for him to completely lose his shit like we did yesterday (live and learn).

We got the hotel and rather than being able to plop face down on the bed and do nothing, we had to be all ?¢‚Ǩ?ìgood baby!?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ?¢‚Ǩ?ìgood kitty!?¢‚Ǩ¬ù to the baby and kitty respectively. This made them happy, which in turn made them less angrily vocal, which in the end made us happy, even though we only saw results on the back end rather than the immediate gratification of total silence that we would have had 8 weeks and a couple of days ago.

Scout crashed on the bed with Baby Kaiser (b/c Baby Kaiser still will wake up if left to sleep ?¢‚Ǩ?ìalone?¢‚Ǩ¬ù (ie not being within TK arms length of a parent)) I set about eating my leftovers.

Now with our new time zone (We?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re Eastern now) it was past ten pm and our food of the day consisted of breakfast/lunch at Cracker Barrel south of Gary, Indiana and shakes at a Steak and Shake somewhere in Indiana (both stops were for the Kaiser?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s benefit – see above statement re: ?¢‚Ǩ?ìshit losing, prevention?¢‚Ǩ¬ù. Dinner never happened.

Neither did silverware. Now etouffe isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t exactly finger food. But desperate times, measures etc. So I sat on the bed and ate every other bite off of my fingers – the bites I didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t eat went to Scout – straight from my fingers to his mouth. Yes yes, we realize this is normally more of a strawberries and chocolate kind of vision – but this worked for us.

Our strange little family in a Marriott Courtyard, Kaiser sleeping on Scout, Scout and I eating cold left over cajun food from my fingers (with one mini fudge stripe cookie each for us for dessert), Kitty curled up in her kennel for the pretty much 23rd hour of today b/c when we try to put her in the bathroom so she can stretch out, she just cries for us – apparently being in the kennel near her people is better than lots of room all alone.

Love?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a funny little thing.

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Jun 22

Weekly Winners

Click the link to see more participants!

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?Ǭ†Apparently the boy child was beautiful this week.

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and you remember these?

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They won, you know.

So we celebrated with a toga party and a bottled beverage.

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Wanna know what’s up with the t-shirt? Lemme tell ya.

This t-shirt is from www.lighteningonline.com. That’s Lightening Online for short.

The Travelling T-Shirt has come from Lightening Online and is making it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s way around the world until December 1st when one lucky participant will be voted a winner and Lightening will gift that person a cash amount (determined by the total number of participants). For more information please visit the Travelling T-Shirt page.

(Did I mention this is from Lightening Online?)

(Yes I’m feeling guilty that I messed up and you can’t read the tshirt as clearly as you should. I’m a bad rule follower. But I have a good heart.)

Would you like the tshirt next? Share something funny in the comments, I’ll use the random number generator to pick the next contestant. Post by Midnight Monday EDT. :)

 

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Jun 18

From the Archives – And again

Originally posted June 18, 2007

I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m so sick of typing one handed that all my compter correspondence is just going to hell.

I did want to post that I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve developed my first non curse word that seems to fulfill my needs as a curse word that I can say in public.

I bring you :

Clustersmack.

Clearly public friendly replacement for ClusterFUCK. But the substitutions in Clustersmack seem to give my mouth enough things to do that I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t acutely miss the F in the middle of the word.

usage:

Movers showing up to pack up my house that isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t ready for them pack up while my husband and I are short of sleep because we have a 7 1/2 week old cute boy AND my mother in law is still here AND we have no home (old or otherwise) in the land of vices ?¢‚Ǩ¬¶. is a clustersmack.

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Jun 15

Protected: At the end of my first fatherless Fathers Day

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Jun 13

Melancholy Part Two

Joke on me:

Scout and Alex and I went walking with a friend tonight.

That walk? Oh. The Relay for Life.

For the Cancer.

On Fathers Day weekend.

The hits just keep on comin’

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Jun 12

Protected: Melancholy

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Jun 11

From the Archives – The Good Body

Originally posted June 11, 2007

During our final teacher meeting on Friday, we were told that our school psych (who is rather tiring) was going to introduce two speech/debate students to do a dramatic interp (I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t remember which category it was, but this is close) that she and several others had found quite moving and thought we should all see.

Now I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m not really one to drag out a meeting so I was unthrilled about listening to more stuff. I also assumed it was going to be on diversity or respect or whatev – a common theme in a suburban school that is changing from white upper middle class to a definite mix of lifestyles.

The girls came in – one thin and blonde the other round and black.

It was called ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe Good Body?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

They started:

“When I was a little girl, people used to ask me, What do you want to be when you grow up? Good, I would say. I want to be good.”

They parsed a lot of the opening – but here it is in entirety.

It was all about how we perceive ourselves. How every woman has at least one part of their body that they hate, that if it were different they would be different etc. How we are whittling away at ourselves trying to be good. How women around the world are doing the same. How one woman in Africa, however, made the comment when asked ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdo you like your body??¢‚Ǩ¬ù was like, sure, My arms are strong, they carry things, my body is strong, it houses my soul etc. She said ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIn Africa, we live in our bodies.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

I have to say, I was happy to spend 10 minutes of my life listening and watching this. Especially considering that these are teenagers. And I daily watch the naughty that they do, and don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t always get to see this remarkable talent that they walk around with.

Last night Alex was sleeping frog style on me. His little legs frogged under him in my lap, with his head resting on my tummy.

I spent 36 weeks dreading the stretch marks, the inevitable stretch marks. The ones that within 3 days shot across my stomach like cracks in a windshield on a subzero winter day. Now, I will say that post pregnancy, my body is better than I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d expected. However, my stomach will now always be imperfect. The flat, tight, unmarked, crop top worthy stomach is way out of reach now.

And I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve looked at it often in the porno mirror in the bathroom. The marks are already fading from that ghastly purple to pink, and one has already retreated to white. My stretch marks are kind of freeing me. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll never be ?¢‚Ǩ?ìperfect?¢‚Ǩ¬ù. Not by my former rules of perfect. And I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m almost completely okay with that. I can be perfectly me.

*This is not to say that yesterday when I looked in the same porno mirror while I was wearing pants and could see the muffin top expanding around the sides of my pants that I didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t just cringe. At the same time I was inwardly cringing, Scout looked at me and called me beautiful.*

So while Alex was sleeping like bear in winter on me last night I said, Maybe this is why my tummy is soft now – He spent 10.5 months punching it into the shape of the perfect pillow for himself.

I googled ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe Good Body?¢‚Ǩ¬ù when I got home. I didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t realize it was by the same woman who did ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe Vagina Monologues?¢‚Ǩ¬ù (Eve Ensler). I was amused to see her haircut and realize that ?¢‚Ǩ?ìFriends?¢‚Ǩ¬ù poked fun at her during one of the Season 8 episodes. I found more of the book here.

This all ties back around to my drug free birth – but that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s thoughts for another day.

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Jun 10

Was this wrong of me?

He was innocently napping.

And then . . .

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