The House

I guess I haven't reported all that much on our digs. I'm rather happy with our additional space and the location and I was pretty much able to move my Moroccan souk decor right in with nary a coat of paint. Our kitchen is fab, built-in bookshelves even faber. Basement play and rec room space is great and I don't even find it creepy to be down there alone at night watching the night before's Daily Show on the DVR (YES, I finally have DVR!) Our yard/patio is flowering, though the mosquitoes have pretty much kept me out of it. I can see myself taking more pleasure in it in the fall. But....

.... It wouldn't be Lisa's house w/o some little disturbances starting to make themselves evident. I'm home today waiting out the plumber's 4 hour window. Also took the opportunity to go to the Dr. to get some drugs to alleviate my sinus infection's pressure. We have a leaky bathtub faucet. Leaky to the point that a bucket is full in an hour and the entire tub full in 8. Didn't want to wait until the water started pouring through the lovely recessed lighting in the kitchen. Let me back up to critters for a second b/c this all sort of ties in. Last year at this time we were dealing with mouse genocide and water bugs at our rental. Part of what geared me up to move and enter the housing market. Which is sort of counter intuitive I guess, because now the pests are all my own to deal with w/o a property manager in between. Anyway... We have German cockroaches in this house, which I haven't been too freaked out about b/c I've tended to find them dead or dying from commercial bait discs. The former owners treated for them last summer and we'll do the same if necessary, but still, I've been kind of OK with them b/c they're itty bitty compared to the big narsty water bugs I'm used to - the kind I'd spray half a bottle of raid on, then if I had to, crush with my swiffer b/c I can't stand any closer contact. So, I'm handling the occasional bug, but not nearly ready to face mice again. Saturday night, after getting Leila to bed at 10:00, I'm walking downstairs, look back up towards her room for a sec and spy a mouse dropping at my eye level on the landing under the stair rail. Ok, mouse dropping in a utilities closet in the basement... wouldn't be happy with it, but might be able to put it out of mind for a bit. Mouse dropping on the 2nd floor where we sleep at night across from my daughter's doorway, pest control will be getting a call sooner rather than later. Even still, the occasional dropping I might be able to push back and convince myself that the critter/s have since slunked away into a neighbors unit if I don't see them again. It's when the bodies start showing up in traps that I get more than a little freaked. So, back to the plumbing. When we got home last night Cesar went up to fiddle with the tub to see if there was any self remedy before I scheduled the plumber. He opened up the square board outside the bathroom that conceals the pipes and started fiddling about - in the course of which he reversed the hot and cold water - a repair the former owners made before we moved in - and in shining his flashlight around discovered... that's right, a dead mouse on a trap. Now that victim could have been there for a while, who knows, but the fact that there was a trap in there that we did not set only verifies that there have been vermin problems here in the past. While all this is going on, Leila is dancing around me chirping read me Angelina Ballerina and thankfully not making the association b/t the rigid little thing in the trap she'd asked to see and the little dancing mousies in her book.

And in closing, just for that icing on the cake effect, I was out on the front stoop with Leila while she ate her freezer ice at 7:30 - I'm about to go get one of those myself as I don't think the sinus pressure on my jaw will allow me to bite much - when Cesar comes out, looks down into the grass and says oh my god, look, a baby snake! By the time we looked and he looked back down, whatever he saw was gone, but he's beyond observant so if he claims to have seen a baby snake, he probably saw a baby snake. Yay, Lisa's animal farm begins anew!

Understatement of the Year

The kid looks up at me from the bath the other night and says: "I say a lot of good words" - pause - "I talk a lot." Bwah ha ha ha... Yes, sweetie, you do. And that contributes to 99.9% of mom's exhaustion at the end of the day.

You know the part in Tom Perotta's Little Children...

... book or movie adaptation - when the Kate Winslet character, Sarah, I believe her name was though it's been some years since I've read the book, is caught on the playground unprepared with a snack for her little moppet and one of those playground mom's makes a big overproduction of having her child share her goldfish? If you're a mom, you probably get the general scenario if not the direct reference. I had one of those Kate Winslet/Sarah moments last night. Took Leila to the library for our weekly book and DVD exchange just before 7. Noted a dad bringing his daughter in wearing her PJs and thought, wow, what's their secret for getting the kid all ready for bed before a library dash at 7:00. Then we hit the kids' section and lo and behold, more kids in PJs - indeed, about a dozen of them - gearing up for story night. Didn't get the memo! Will my kid be scarred for being the only one of her peers remaining in her day clothes?? I did encourage her to go into the reading room to participate and after some hesitation and looking around every 30 seconds to be sure I was planted in my spot outside the glass door, she seemed to have a blast. Though I did get a firm, "NEXT time! I'm going to wear my pea-jamas (as she pronounces it)" as we left. At 7:30. At which point she had yet to be fed dinner. Oh, bad mom I am. So she got spaghettios as soon as we got home. Again, bad mom of processed food products on emergency reserve in the pantry!!

3 is the new 2

Please. I beg of you. Believe any parent of a 3 year old when they tell you the above. The "terrible twos" is such a crock. Firstly, because they begin at 18 months (kind of like that pregnancy is 9 months misnomer thing - 40 weeks, does not 9 months make my friends - it's a lot closer ten!) And secondly, if our case is any reflection of the norm, the calendar 2 year was not so bad. Maybe it's just because each new challenge just builds on the last and we're due to be adapting to them until the kid is at least 21, but 3... is tiring. Don't get me wrong. The kid is still a great kid and provides us endless (its that endless thing that's so exhausting) entertainment and surprises day in and out, but as soon as she hit 3, she just became THAT much more sure of of herself, THAT much more a daredevil, THAT much more demanding, THAT much more vocal, THAT much more cognizant of what buttons she could push, THAT much more able to turn on the crocodile tears in a split second with very little prompting, etc... etc...

We've been faced with huge bedtime challenges since we moved (as in the kind of challenges that don't allow mom to sit down w/ her nightly glass/es of wine until well after 10 many nights - OK, not even sit down with a glass, but start the dishes, lunches etc...over a glass, which does NOT a happy Lisa make) mostly of our own making, yes! I was so focused on getting her to sleep in her new room, in her big-girl bed, that I was willing to lay down with her for "just two more" Princess ballads, which translated to I'm going to keep a death lock on your finger and if you try to slip out before I've fallen and been asleep for a minimum of 20 minutes I will throw the tantrum to end all tantrums. I'm proud to report, however, that bribery does seem to work. We established a sticker calendar and each morning after she's fallen asleep by herself (after those 2 and only 2 Princess ballads with mom) she gets to pick a sticker to put on the calendar. Once we hit 10, she gets to pick out a new small toy, book or DVD. I have no qualms about this bribery thing if it gets me to my vino in the 9:00 hour! We're at 8 stickers as of today. The next round will be to get 10 CONSECUTIVE stickers. We had a few slips, but we're getting back on track!

I'm about to order these stickers...

... and some in 4x6 version. Just for your information.

Blah...

I've had so little of blogworthiness going on. Right, there was a vacation a week ago, but now that it's over, I'm just trying to deny that we have no more fun travel planned. South Padre was fun. Probably not a place that would have been on my radar screen for a destination had we not been meeting my siblings-in-law, but the weather was great and all that our days required of us was getting the kids to the beach and pool. And that mandatory midday margarita or two as well. We mostly ate and drank in (who wants the hassle and expense of schlepping a crew of 10 out daily), but did sunset drinks at a huge bar with a bad Jimmy Buffet cover band one night (I pictured it with the Spring Break masses and cringed - my how mature I've grown), went to see WALL-e with the kids one night - Leila slept through 2/3rds of it and I enjoyed it more than I probably should admit too - I mean it's no Kung Fu Panda (about that mature comment...), but the message puts it above the average kid flick, and had mediocre overpriced seafood out the last night. Now I need to get on the ball and plan some weekenders before the rest of summer escapes me. Anyone want to meet up at Dutch Wonderland? I'm contemplating staying at the Red Caboose Motel, though thinking it could be too much kitsch even for me.