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Getting Older
01.29.10 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Getting OlderBack when I was a teenager my mom would marvel that at 11:00 at night I could grab a Pepsi, drink it, then go to bed soon thereafter without any problem. I would crash, just like any other night. I just thought that caffeine didn’t affect me that way. A few years ago when we started the Big Diet I started drinking soda again.  I would notice that now and then I would have a tough time falling asleep, even though just a few hours ago I was dog tired. I finally made the connection: I was drinking a diet coke with dinner.
The same thing goes for alcohol. When I was a newly minted 21 year old I was sent to the liquor store to buy margarita makings. Being that I never drank before I was 21, I had NO idea of how much liquor it takes to get 10 or so people margarita’d. I bought two of the big big jugs of tequila plus the spiked mixer. Needless to say we had more than enough and I went home with a lot of extra tequila that night. That summer I spent many many nights draining the bottles with no ill effects. I was hangover free every morning and was even able to head off to work on the strawberry farm at 4:30 in the morning feeling just fine! In fact, I never had a hangover once while in my twenties and really couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I took a long vacation from drinking anything alcoholic while we were trying to conceive our kids. It took a total of eight years to conceive, carry and nurse the babies, and when the day finally came that I was not the life or food source for our kids I decided to have a drink.  I woke up the next morning feeling tired. Hmmm… The next time I drank, two vodka cokes was all it took to make me feel the effects for not one, not two, but three days!
I assumed that with time I would feel the affects of getting older and aging, but every once in a while it catches me off guard. It seems like 36 is not so far from 26, but my body’s chemistry has changed enough that I avoid both alcohol and caffeine now, which really, is a lot healthier of a choice. Initially I thought I’d avoid drinking when my kids were little just because I didn’t want them to think that Mommy is a lush and because drinking and late nights go hand in hand, while small children wake up with the chickens for some reason. Now I don’t like to drink because I feel like warm death the next day and, not to sound like an old lady or anything, but it wreaks havoc on my acid reflux issues. Who woulda thought?
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So Frustrating!
01.24.10 | Permalink | | Comments Off on So Frustrating!Tonight was bath night. I ignored the massive amount of splashing happening in the bathtub to claim a little moment for myself – to read the monitor in Entertainment Weekly, you know, which celebrity married who, which ones had a kid etc. when I hear Jude start calling, “Dow? Dow? (Translated: towel).” And I grudgingly rolled off the bed to go assist the little prince out of the tub and into his jams.
Jude has a little ceremony while I diaper and dress him: he kicks the living hell out of my stomach and chest. I tell him, “That hurts Mommy, Jude.” He laughs and thinks it is so funny, even when I start to cry. Tonight my approach was to tickle him into complacency, and when that didn’t work, I tried speaking in soothing tones, telling him about the day he was born, how we felt when he was brought to us the first time, how we all cried, and kissed him and held him tight. I told him all about how I carried him inside of me for nine months and how small he was – just 8 pounds then as compared to his hearty 36 pounds today, just a fourth of what he weighs now! I think that perhaps I was trying to keep myself calm as Jude continued to laugh and pummel me with his feet. I cried again, as I left the room in defeat, job done, Boy dressed, so frustrated that I wanted to scream.
Moments later Bradley stormed from the room, frustrated because Jude managed to press enough buttons on the computer to lock it down and freeze it up. He had to turn it off and reboot it, not a big deal, but still, so annoying! We both stormed around the kitchen, cleaning out the dishwasher, needing some kind of activity that would release the tension we were feeling on something besides Jude. Lucky that some of our glasses are plastic…
Then I got on my laptop and started thinking about how I needed to post something. I started looking through my photos for inspiration, and found this little cheeseball. Yeah, he is crazy and SO FRUSTRATING at times, but he is also so cute, so funny, and such a little ham. You just have to laugh sometimes and realize that this is temporary and someday we’ll be wishing for our little troublemaker back again… I think.
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Toothbrush Tip #1
01.23.10 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Toothbrush Tip #1So I decided it was time to put my toothbrush out to pasture and came up with the terrific idea of converting the toothbrush into a ‘scrub brush’ for cleaning the rails in the window frames of our windows. I scrubbed out bug parts and muck and unidentifiable grime with it… it works great! I highly recommend it!
This morning I was reminded of my cleverness by the peculiarly GRITTY feeling my toothbrush had in my mouth. Somehow, Old faithful, the retired toothbrush trotted its way back into the cup by my sink. Out of habit I grabbed the green toothbrush and away I went.
No amount of gargling can now take away the memory of this new-found texture. I can only hope that with time, and a new toothbrush, I can put this all behind me.
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Making a Snowman
01.17.10 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Making a SnowmanYou can’t go to a snowy place without trying to build a snowman. When we arrived in snowy Leavenworth, the snow icy and crusty. That, however, did not deter our girl from doing her best to roll out the best snowman she could make.
She pushed along an icy chunk for quite some time in an attempt to make it grow. It didn’t.
Eventually she resorted to just packing snow and ice chunks into a heap.
With patience, perseverance, and a lot of effort, Gigi put together a very cute, very real, authentic Leavenworth snowman! She was quite happy with her final product.
…Â Well, in the end, she was happy to call it a snow elephant, anyhow!
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Snow Fight!
01.16.10 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Snow Fight!In Leavenworth for a Hansen Family Break, Jude had his first real opportunity to play in the snow. What was the first thing he did once he got his little hands on the snow? Throw it! And we threw it right back… He loved it! Snow Fight!
