oh boy. oh boy oh boy oh boy.

What a weekend. Let’s do it in list form, shall we?

Saturday

• 6:45am woke to the sounds of ethan and jocelyn frolicing on the main level. Could not go back to sleep.
• 7:15am ethan & jocelyn walked into the bedroom while i was laying there reading my book. managed to sneak it under the covers and pretend to be asleep and they went back to the play room. SHEW.
• 7:45am finally got up and, you know, parented my children.
• 8:30 woke up james.
• 9:45am jocelyn soccer game in the FREEZING FREEZING COLD EARLY MORNING COLDNESS.
• 1pm ethan soccer game which jocelyn and I skipped and james took him to because THE COLD ALREADY IT FREEZES.
• 1pm amy costco trip with jocelyn
• 3pm amy ikea trip with jocelyn and ethan. (did you see that? I went with the kids A-LONE. NO BACK UP. THIS IS HUGE.)
  managed to get everything PURCHASED and put into the car before the pager buzzed to get teh kids out of smaland. (oh how they love smaland.)

  For the record, we went last weekend too, except that was with james.

• 4pm had ikea ice cream (the main reason the kids love to go to ikea. the ICE CREAM payoff at the end.)
• 8pm kids in bed.
• 8:15pm Jocelyn wandered down the stairs in search of mommy and daddy in order to inform them that she is thirsty.
• 8:17pm Jocelyn pottied (again) and drinked (again) put back into bed, where she thankfully stayed the remainder of the night.

Sunday

• 6:45am woke to the sounds of ethan and jocelyn frolicing on the main level. drowsed until…
• 7:30 .. somebody hit somebody else because somebody took toy a away from somebody else and everyone involved came to bedroom to tattle.
• 7:32 told everyone that i didn’t want to hear it, they need to work it out, and hey, hop up here you, you look chilly!
  7:33 cold feet on warm skin is better than any coffee. sleep gone baby gone.
• 7:45 BED PARTY!
• 9:30am amy put together several trofast toy storage units. Ethan helps and accidently breaks a cross piece. wood glue and clamps come to the rescue. mommy does not raise her voice even once! PARENTING MOTHER OF THE YEAR award somehow does NOT magically fly through the window in recognition of this feat. Go figure!
• 11am carrying of tall trofast units downstairs, general running around in the basement by small people, scrubbing of paint spots on floor by grown ups, entirely too much playing with the glass doors on the new tv console for grownups to stomach before finally abandoning the basement for the upstairs again.
• 12pm lunch and then an attempt at quiet time. grownups discuss the need for another ikea trip.
• 1pm lots of cleaning ensues, with promises of a ikea trip as the carrot at the end of a stick
• 3pm amy, jocelyn and ethan off to ikea! (ALONE! AGAIN! WILL THE SAME LUCK STRIKE TWICE? OR WILL OUR CONTESTANT BE RIGHT IN THE CHECK OUT LINE WHEN THE PAGER BUZZES? TUNE IN BELOW TO FIND OUT!)
• 3:30pm amy checks her children into smaland, and the timer is set. She has 30 minutes to get all her stuff before she is required to get her children again! Can she do it!
• 4:00 BZZZZT! She can’t. She is still picking out bins when the pager buzzes. She is in the warehouse, finishes picking her bins, stashes the cart near the checkout lines, and dashes to retrieve said children.
• 4:10 amy is in the checkout line, PUTTING HER ITEMS ON THE BELT.. when she notices that a piece is missing from one of the kitchen items she wants to buy. Kitchen item. Kitchen department. one floor up and in the MIDDLE of the floor. SHE WAS ALMOST HOME FREE, but now she must RETURN, with TWO KIDS IN TOW, to get the item with all pieces intact.
• 4:25 one would think that by now she’d have that item and be back in the checkout line, but no. she’s not.
• 4:35 letting the kids play in the kids section before heading downstairs.
• 4:45 nope not yet. She has however, started using that hissing mom voice every time a kid clings to the side of the cart and then jumps off, which sends the cart careening to the side into other shoppers.
• 4:55 HAHA – not even close. Every “kid-house” in ikea must be played in, you see.
• 5:05 there are approximately 247 “kid houses” on teh bottom level, even taking the short-cuts (and i know them all, baby).
• 5:15 we’re in the rugs. the end is in site, but mommy is about to lose it and her feet are killing her and she sits both kids on the rugs to give them the rules that will ensure mommy’s brain doesn’t ooze out of her right ear (probably due to the fact that she is shoving something sharp in the left ear). #1: no jumping on the cart. #2: no jumping off the cart. #3 no running ahead. #4 no lagging behind, and #5 no, we can’t buy that. Any infractions will be counted, and if mommy gets to 3, then no ice cream.
• 5:25: finally in the check out line. So many bins to dig through. Gates to swing on. And of course, there’s the cart to jump on and off of. Mommy curses the designers of those damn ikea carts where the back wheels which swivel in all directions instead of staying forward like any normal cart for fuck’s sake
• 5:35 check out completed, but now no one is allowed to even TOUCH THE CART OR AS GOD IS MY WITNESS WILL BE NO ICE CREAM. EVER. IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
• 5:40 nearby man nearly jumps out of his skin from the mommy bark of the above order at both children.
• 5:45 ice cream obtained.
• 6:00 safely in the car. oh my lord the relief. SWEET RELIEF. MOMMY IS NO LONGER IN IKEA WITH THOSE DAMN CARTS AND 2 SMALL CHILDREN THANK GOD!
• 6:30 home sweet home! and look, james has laundered and put away every single dirty item in the house. amy knew there was a reason she married him.

The rest of the evening is a blur, but you get the jist. Will I attempt Ikea alone in the future? Probably. That smaland russian pager roulette is just to scary good to not try again. I will probably wear better shoes though.

The basement is shaping up nicely. Hopefully if i get the camera on a tripod the lack of good lighting will be ok and I’ll have some pictures to show. All major pieces have been purchased, and now I’ll be getting into the smaller details. The only problem is now I have no budget left for any smaller details 🙂 Ah well.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

long time no write! I thought I’d at least pop in and say “yup, sure enough, i don’t feel like writing anything.”

Something is going on with me this week, I don’t know what it is. Just overall mopey feeling. You know, the generic, “What’s the point? Why bother? We’re all going to die anyway!” sort of ennui. It’s lifting a bit, and halloween was great fun. Blurry pictures will be posted later, I’m sure.

Here’s hoping for a better weekend than it has been a week. Now to hang on until then..

-amy

I feel like I have come a long way in the last year in figuring out what I like and don’t like. Or rather, what I like the BEST, and other stuff, just a little less than that.

I think my style is a comfortable, mid-century modern. When I thumb through design magazines, I find myself REALLY attracted to those minimal, all white rooms with white furniture, white walls, and the room itself studded with bright, breathtaking, accent colors. I love those, but I know I coudl never pull it off. We have too much clutter in our lives. Maybe I could do a white kitchen in our next house, whenever that is.

Ariana’s kitchen at Becoming Home

However, my newfound island of style (Can you just see me, sitting on an island with a lone palm tree and a flag planted firmly in it stating, “MODERN, BUT COMFY”) gets rocked from time to time when I see other styles that I just think are SO CUTE AND ADORABLE. Usually I can admire it and move on, knowing that it isn’t really for me. I don’t particularly like cute and cottagy, when you get right down to it. I rather, I DO like it… just not in my home.

This foundation is always rocked, ALWAYS, whenever Alicia from Posie Gets Cozy posts pictures of her home. I just melt into the beautiful, but not too frilly loveliness of it all and I think, “I love that. I WANT THAT.”

Alicia’s new buffet, at Posie Gets Cozy

And honestly, don’t you too? (I do totally want that cuckoo clock. In turquoise.)

My blog list is long, long, long, but you know how you glance over the feed reader list and click on your favorite feeds to read first? Posie is at the top of my mental “read first!” list. Reading Posie always makes me feel better about myself, happier about my day, skippier in my step, smoochier with my family.. and more thoughtful in my thoughts. She’s in my “craft” folder in Google Reader, but she’s just so much more than that. I can’t recommend her enough.

And honestly, I know that just because I am more of a modern style doesn’t mean I have to hold exclusively to it, I mean, free love baby, mix the styles around! It’s just that every time I see her photos, it’s like I jump in, nay, DIVE in to the romantic chic cottage feel and swim around until I get all pruney.

Oh well. A dip is always most refreshing 🙂 I am planning out dining room furniture in my head, for future (next year) reference.

Birthday cake for a co-worker, which reads, “One Step Closer to Death”.

First of all, let me clarify my earlier soccer mom remarks. (earlier = weeks? months? ago)

I was not saying being a stereotypical soccer mom is bad. I was having a hard time with the idea of ME being a stereotypical soccer mom, because you know, I have issues with being “grown up.” Soccer moms have to be organized with jersey colors, and game times, and fields and all that sort of stuff and as you know, we can drop the ball on that kind of stuff around here in the Panders household. Trying to be a “together” soccer mom was scary to me. And hello! I then had to embark on being a Team Manager! Those guys HAVE to be “together”!

However, I’m happy to report that I got over it all pretty early on – actually probably because of your comments, Ann & Anna. Soccer moms and dads ARE great, dad gummit! And I’m great too, warts and untogetherness and all!

I stopped trying to be something I wasn’t, and got into the Team Manager role. I write reminder emails every friday to let everyone know where/when/colors etc., and I’ve kind of let myself go in writing them. I worry every time I hit send, that I’m just cracking myself up, and everyone else just rolls their eyes, but oh well!

So I thought today, I’d favor you with this week’s soccer email, for both picture day, and game day tomorrow. I crack myself up, and you can feel free to roll your eyes 🙂 (times, places and names deleted.)

OK people, huddle up, we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow. Let me give you the run-down. FOCUS!

* Why blue? Because I’m the team manager, and I am making an executive decision here. OH THE POWER! I’M SO GIDDY!
** Anyone else notice that I always send these things out as if if WE are the ones wearing the jersey/playing the soccer/getting our pictures taken? Psychologically, this probably says something about me. I bet it’s not good.
*** What? No one said I couldn’t give myself fancy titles.

-amy knows you wish YOU were on her soccer team…

Than seeing your newly hair cut 5 year old son dressed up in a coat and tie for picture day.

I have to admit, I cried a little bit.

I think all the “DISGUSTING! YUCK!” business kind of wore off, because even though I told him he could put his coat and tie on at school, right before pictures, he had them on when he left for school.

James took them in today.

I only wish I could have seen his whole class running around all dressed up.

Tomorrow: Jocelyn!

The question: Should I put her in pig tails? She’ll only be 3 once!

The next question: If yes, then how do I get her to let me?

-amy will have to be a tricksy mumsy, yes she will.

updates:

Fred has ALMOST left the building. It feels like there’s a tiny bump under the skin now. Smaller than a BB, but still there.

Jocelyn has finished her 2nd round of antibiotics, but 2 days into it, suddenly took a turn for the worse in snottiness. Since she was on antibiotics, I think it’s safe to assume that this is viral. The coughing and hacking at night, however, is MUCH improved. Her lips have been chapped a lot lately, and so now she’s in this bad habit of reaching up her lip with her bottom teeth and vice versa on the bottom lip, and so now even when we get all the chappiness cleared up, she manages to chap herself again with all the saliva/biting habit. Grrr. School pictures are on Wednesday. We may have pictures of our little girl looking like a clown.

Ethan ran a temperature off and on all weekend, a trip to urgent care pronounced him with “viral tonsilitis”. I stayed home with him MOnday just to be on the safe side, and since there was a dentist appointment in the afternoon, kept Jocelyn home too. The dentist’s appointment went fine, except for the part where Ethan threw up. It was truly disgusting. I was (and still am) amazed at the blase attitude of the dental assistant. I guess lots of kids throw up at the dentist.

Everyone’s teeth are good, and the dentist even said she was perfectly fine with Jocelyn sucking her thumb only at night. Yay. Due to the vomit encrusting Ethan’s hair, they took baths when we got back home and I let them wear jammies the rest of the day until bedtime. Boy do those kids love their jammies!

As you saw from yesterday’s post, I made some progress on my chairs, though I’ve run into a bit of a roadblock. The back supports (the top part) had double piping running around the entire thing, and I think in my mind I just kind of assumed I’d be able to sew that.. somehow.. but now.. that I think about it, and investigate the old piping, well, I don’t think I can. It’s not a matter of ability, it’s a matter of equipment. So I may take a swatch of cloth to an upholstery and beg them to cover some double piping for me. If anyone has any better ideas, I’m all ears.

I’m hoping to be done with the chairs by the weekend, which I hope will be spent in painting the basement. If not, then piecing a quilt for Jocelyn.

Today it was back to work and it was very hum-drum-y.

And now, I have to run find Ethan a blue blazer and dress shoes for picture day tomorrow. I got one for him that turned out to be too big, and the only words out of his mouth the entire time from when his eyes lit on the jacket, white shirt, and tie til when I put the jacket back in the bag (too big), was “I HATE it. Yuck. DISGUSTING.” I told him that Daddy felt the same way whenever HE wore a tie, and then on a whim, loaded up our wedding pictures to show them. Ethan was not impressed with the guy’s outfits, but was quite impressed with my wedding dress, and told me I was the most beautiful lady in the world. And then turned back to the bag his jacket was in, and said, “I do NOT LIKE THAT.” Fun fun. I promised him he could take a change of shirt to school and change right after pictures.

Jocelyn is enamored with the cute “picture day” dress I got her, which was a 4T, and was WAY TOO SHORT when she put it on !! My girl is only THREE YEARS OLD, and it looks like I am going to have to start looking in the GIRLS DEPARTMENT FOR HER!!! She loves the “dress” so much, I told her she could wear it for pictures with a pair of pants underneath. It is a awesome retro pattern of red, pink & white daisies on a black background which although I love now, will probably cause her to turn to me when she’s 18 and say, “Mom, HOW could you PUT me in that thing??” and I’ll shrug and say, “It’s just what they wore back then” and then I’ll add, “and YOU LOVED THAT SHIRT.”

No real ending to this post, except to say,

THE END.

Friday night, the right side of my chin became red, very splotchy, and VERY painful. In … about a 1 inch diameter. Now, don’t hate me (because I’m beautiful), but I don’t get zits. Not really. I am blessed with my mother’s gorgeous skin. Once in a blue moon a small delicate zit may make an appearance along my forehead, and once in like, every 5 blue moons I may get a real doozy on my nose, but generally speaking, zits stay away from me.

So this eruption broiling and festering DEEP DEEP DEEP below the surface caused me great anguish.

Zit cream was purchased. Squishing commenced. I know! I know! You have to WAIT to squeeze a zit! There is a proper time and place, and while it is still broiling deep under the surface, that’s not the time! You have to wait until the lava of pus and goo make an appearance on the surface, in the appearance of that little white head. But in the evening, as I sat on my bed peering into my 3x magnification face mirror (lighted! every woman needs a mirror like this), I could NOT HELP MYSELF. I poked. and I squished. Just a little bit. Then I faithfully dabbed on my zit cream and went to bed.

As I said, I don’t get zits. And the size and magnitude of this… this…. well, I just have to come out and say it, I am forced to believe that this was an alien life form that had somehow gotten under my skin and was incubating there until the mother ship gave it the signal to erupt and take over the planet earth, … this THING that was happening to my face, I was convinced was not a zit. I told James approximately 1,376 times over the weekend that I was going to have to see a doctor about this, where I was positive they would have open it up, excavate, and then re-terraform my face back to it’s normal appearance.

James scoffed, laughed and said, “It’ll be ready to pop in a day or two.”

Monday dawned. Columbus day. We were awful parents brilliant people and took the kids in to school while taking the day off for ourselves and wandered around museums in DC. The pain had faded a bit, I’m sure because I finally was firm with myself to STOP SQUEEZING IT ALREADY! and the full 1 inch diameter had shrunk down. The THING was now hard and concise, like a dried pea under the skin. I felt vindicated. This is NOT A ZIT. NO ZITS BEHAVE THIS WAY. I called my mom and of course, explained to her in great detail my facial disfiguration, and she immediately said, “Go to the dermatologist.”

I immediately turned to James and said, “HA! SHE AGREES WITH ME!”

By the end of the day, he finally admitted that he agreed with me too. This was no run of the mill zit we were talking about.

I was pretty sure it was something caused by an ingrown hair.

So long story short (TOO LATE!) I went to a dermatologist during my lunch hour today. They gave me an injection (can’t remember what it was. steroids? cortizone?) right into the little incubating alien (they called it a cyst caused by either a pimple or an ingrown hair, too similar to tell) and prescribed an oral antibiotic.

I can’t wait until the little guy is aborted already and gone off my face.

I also wish I had taken a picture of my face every day since it started. I thought of doing that, but then dismissed it as being too gross. I should have just done it, because now I want PROOF OF MY DISFIGUREMENT. It’s a little red now, but ever since Monday, doesn’t actually LOOK that scary (not like it did Saturday, oh MY). Also, just looking at me, you can’t tell there’s a hard little pea under the skin. That kind of grossness is a tactile experience.

anyway.

I just thought I’d fill you in on the first dermatological visit of my life. I have to go back in 3 weeks to make sure the alien is gone.

I’ve named it Fred. Please join me in wishing Fred to evacuate the chin area… permanently.

.. At the very least, let’s hope he leaves before the mother ship gives him the signal and planet earth is dhoomed.

My good friend Linda was trying to help me remember when exactly my blogiversary is, by pointing out that SHE started her blog 2 years ago on October 12th, right when she went to Korea to teach English and starve herself between visits to Subway and Seoul (she’s allergic to seaweed and is a vegetarian and therefore couldn’t eat 90% of the food there. Just between you and me, she could have picked a better country, don’t you think?).

That totally jogged my memory. I had just recently gotten addicted to reading blogs (dooce and loobylu were my first love at first blogs), and then Linda started hers, and I think James had installed wordpress on our server, and I got Linda’s email announcing her blog, turned to James and said, “I want a blog too!” Thank you Linda — so that definitely puts me a few weeks early for last weeks’ announcement that it was my blogiversary, but that’s ok. I’m still going to claim it, because I already did, and I can’t go through all that bother of claiming a different date, I mean, I have important things to do like sitting on my ass and watching Cash Cab figuring out how to make Jocelyn’s Belle costume.

It’s nice to say that I’m looking at a normal weekend ahead of me, and not one that is full of freelance work. “Normal” means a soccer game at 9am and then another one at 11am, but I guess that means we’ll get all that out of the way in the morning and have our afternoon free. Monday is Columbus day, which I have off, but James does not, and the kid’s school is still open. Not sure what I’m going to do with that, but I guess we’ll see. It might be nice to just head into DC by myself and wander through some museums.

Anyway, without further ado, the link for Recycle Friday is one of the first Cute Kids Stories on this site. There are several stories in this post, so sit back for more of an “awwww” than a laugh, really.

And if you have the day off on Monday, and feel like telling me how you plan on spending it, I’d love any suggestions!

So who’s surprised to hear that after I post the post about which color couch to buy (“I’m definitely going with the brown!”) That I changed my mind about 50 bajillion more times?

But now, my mind is made up, not only made up – couch purchased.

As much as I like the dark brown couch, I think the green one would look better in the basement. Plus, when I piled heavy things on James, he finally admitted to liking the green one better.

It will be arriving in 5-10 business days.

Wahoo!