Archives for February 2006

After reading Wood’s post at Sweet Juniper, I was inspired to create a log of one day’s events. Here is an idea of a typical day for Cordelia and I on my days off. This was yesterday:

6:45 am – Aaron gets up, I barely notice as I roll over.

7:15 am – Cordy wakes up, starts talking in her crib. I fall back asleep.

7:40 am – Aaron fetches Cordy from her crib once she reaches the complaining stage. I again fall back asleep.

8:25 am – I wake up to a toddler in my face saying “Hi!” in her most cheery voice, as her daddy holds her over me. Get up, get dressed, go downstairs.

8:45am – Aaron leaves for work, as Cordy ignores his pleas for her to say “bye” to him. As soon as he closes the door and is gone, she turns to the door and says “Die die!” and waves.

9:00 am – I eat my morning bagel while sharing a quarter of it with Cordy, who already ate breakfast. Apparently it’s in the baby contract that the child is entitled to one quarter of all of my food. Wiggles are on TV, all is good with the world.

9:15 am – Finish eating, jump up and dance to Wiggle Groove, sending Cordy into waves of laughter.

9:30-10:30 am – Play with Cordy, attempt to pick up the disaster she leaves behind in each area of the living room.

10:30-11:15 am – Cordy plays by herself, I get some internet time. I am amused watching her attempt to jump, and blog about what I’m watching. Call friend Lisa and make plans for later in the day, if her son takes an early nap.

11:15 am – Cordy falls backwards and hits her head. Spend 10 minutes comforting her on her nth head injury of the week. Offer a banana – food serves as the perfect distraction.

11:30 am – Hear a loud chainsaw out back, followed by a loud noise out front. Look out back door and see that a tree is being cut down behind our next door neighbors. Look out front door to see giant chipper machine out front, turning branches into mulch. Say a little prayer that they aren’t here too long.

11:45-11:50 am – Chase the child around the downstairs (it’s a circular floor plan) for 4 laps before catching her to wipe her snotty nose. Decide to go ahead and change diaper while I have her pinned down.

12:00 pm – Pull up information on the internet for the vet to make an appt. for our kitten. Find number, but forget to call because I must jump up to prevent Cordy from grabbing my mostly full can of Diet Coke.

12:30 pm – First nap attempt. 6oz. of warm milk used to entice Cordy to fall asleep. Routine goes off without a hitch. Lay her down, close door, head back downstairs. As I hit the bottom step, I hear her give a big “Aiiii!” over the monitor. She then proceeds to talk happily to herself.

12:45 pm – Happy talk turning to whining. Chipper machine still loud and annoying. Secretly cursing the tree cutters.

12:50 pm – Nap aborted. Bring her back downstairs, make lunch. Play peek-a-boo with dishtowels.

1:10 pm – Cordy eats a PB&J sandwich while watching Wiggles. I eat the crusts of the bread.

1:25 pm – Do another 3 laps around the downstairs before tackling the child for another nose wipe. Tickle match ensues.

1:45 pm – Nap attempt #2. Crying begins right away when placed in crib. Chipper and chainsaws still going strong.

2:00 pm – Nap aborted. Bring her back downstairs.

2:00-2:30 pm – Watch Dora and laugh at the dumb king in the episode. Wonder who writes this stuff.

2:30 pm – After some serious eye-rubbing, put Cordy down for nap attempt #3. Chipper and chainsaw still going. Thoughts of throwing the workers into the chipper go through my mind. Cordy talks in her crib.

2:45 pm – All is quiet in Cordy’s room. Check e-mail, make PB&J for myself and eat it. Look forward to an hour or so relaxing.

3:15 pm – Just as I’m planning a trip to the bathroom, Cordy awakes with loud screaming. I’m certain the chipper woke her up. Now contemplate asking my senator to pass a law preventing loud noise during nap times. Bring Cordy downstairs.

3:20 pm – Use the bathroom with a grumpy toddler audience.

3:30 pm – Call friend Lisa to find out if her son is awake so we can go out together. Find out he took a late nap and just went to sleep. Damn. Guess I’m on my own.

3:40 pm – Change Cordy’s diaper. Begin chase around downstairs to put Cordy’s shoes and coat on. Pack diaper bag.

3:50 pm – Wrestle unwilling toddler into car seat. Leave for north end of Columbus.

4:20-4:45 pm – Stop at my office to take care of an issue for a student. Find out once there that it’s already taken care of. Cordy shows off for coworkers. Attempt to talk to one coworker about a complaint she made against me (to my supervisor without coming to me first), but Cordy melts down before I can begin the conversation. I decide it’ll have to wait for another day and leave.

4:45 pm – Drive to mall to get new shoes for Cordy.

5:00-5:30 pm – Chase Cordy around Stride Rite to try shoes on her. I discover that she is now wearing a size 5.5 double wide. Try not to think of the jokes that could be made of having double wide feet. Out of 8 pairs of shoes, only one pair fits her. (she has tall feet as well)

5:30 pm – Dash to the door to prevent Cordy from going outside with other people. Purchase only pair of shoes that fits her.

5:35-6:00 pm – Drive home, and get KFC on the way home.

6:00 pm – Get home, feed Cordy.

6:15 pm – Aaron arrives home.

6:15-6:45 pm – Aaron and I play with Cordy.

6:45 pm – Dress Cordy for bed, Aaron does nighttime ritual, Cordy goes to sleep with no problems. Chipper is gone, finally.

7:00-8:30 pm – Internet time for both of us. I eat some chocolate from Valentine’s Day.

8:30-11:00 pm – Knit. Aaron plays his online game with friends. Relax. Gather up trash

11:00pm-12:00 am – Watch Smallville.

12:00 am – Aaron and I go to bed, exhausted. We consider having sex, but decide that sleep sounds more appealing at the moment. There’s a storm coming through, and I cross my fingers and hope Cordy doesn’t wake up in the night.

There is nothing quite so funny as watching a toddler learn to jump. Cordelia wants to jump. Really, really, wants to jump. She sees other kids jumping up and down at play areas, on TV, everywhere. Several times a day she puts all of her energy and concentration into practicing this skill.

Here’s the show I get each day (this entire sequence is only a few seconds):

Cordy stands, feet slightly apart. The look of pure concentration is visible.

Crouches down in preparation.

Pops up quickly, with all the power she can muster in her little legs.

Doesn’t get air, but her heels come off the floor.

Now on her toes only, she tips forward.

Loses balance, overcompensates the other way, falls backwards on her butt.

Stands up.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

You’ve got to appreciate her determination. She doesn’t understand why she can’t get off the floor, but that doesn’t stop her from trying.

Who needs TV? I’ve got all the entertainment I can handle.

Driving to work today, I noticed an unusually high number of police cars on the road. Every mile I covered, more and more were showing up, until there was a police car parked about every quarter mile on the highway. Then I noticed all of the overpasses were also being guarded by police officers, and small creeks by the side of the road were being guarded by the watercraft safety division of the police.

What the hell is going on?, I thought. Was there a bomb? Did prisoners escape from jail? Was Congress finally abolished and we were now in a police state?

Then a low-flying plane passed over the highway and over my head (I work very close to the airport). Air Force One. As in, the plane used by the President. Of the United States. Ahhhhh, it makes sense now. The president is in town. Great. So I can blame him for making me late to work.

Around 1:30pm, I had to travel back downtown for a department meeting. I made an offhand joke to a coworker about how the president better not make me late again. Damn karma.

The road to the highway was partially blocked off by the police, and they were forcing everyone to keep moving and travel northbound on the highway only. I, of course, needed to travel southbound. As I merge onto the highway, I see a large group of police cars driving past me in the southbound lanes, followed by the president’s parade of limousines. Bastard. Now I’m late again, and it’s all his fault.

Not that I ever liked the president to begin with, but now I really dislike him. I was late twice today because of his need to lock down half of the city just to travel a few miles.

I found it somewhat amusing, though, that no one stopped on the road to wave at him or honk their horns. Not. one. single. person. No fanfare, no cheering, no waving of flags. Even the police looked pissed off to be watching him drive by.

Back during the election, he came to town a few times, and whenever they would block off part of the road for him to travel, people would stop their cars in the opposite lanes to wave and cheer and witness a political celebrity driving past them as they waved their American flags. Even people who didn’t like him would at least slow down on the road to nod their heads or pay some respect to the office of the president. This is Ohio – people here are patriotic, much to my annoyance sometimes.

Now? No one cared to stop and see him. It was even a beautiful, warm, sunny day, unusual for February in Ohio, but people went on their daily business without a care. The president’s in town? So what.

You know you’re an unpopular president when you come to a Midwestern state that you won during the election, and people don’t give a damn at seeing you drive by.

So Mr. President, do yourself a favor and don’t bother coming back to Columbus. We aren’t that interested in you and frankly? You just make us late for work.

Aaron and I are both procrastinators. So it didn’t surprise either of us that we both planned on doing our Valentine’s Day shopping after we got off work. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?

How did we spend our Valentine’s Day evening? Well, we had a lovely dinner of McDonald’s by the light of the TV, which was showing American Idol. We exchanged gifts. For me, the Kingdom of Heaven DVD and chocolate truffles. For him, Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses DVD and the book Son of a Witch, the sequel to Wicked.

After American Idol, it was House and then the remainder of the Westminster Dog Show as we ate some of the chocolates. Yeah, we’re true romantics.

Truthfully, we both considered calling off the whole gift-giving thing. Our anniversary is next month, and Valentine’s Day has really never been that important to us. I don’t need a special day of the year to demonstrate how much I love Aaron.

He’s my best friend, my lover, my husband, and the father of our precious daughter. He’s my partner and my support. He keeps me sane, makes me laugh when I’m down, and wipes away my tears. We don’t always agree (who does?), but we care enough about each other to work through any problems we may encounter. And I’m so grateful that I have him with me on this journey of life.

I love you, dear. Happy Valentine’s Day.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I’ve gone back to school to try my hand at another career switch (which will make at least three since I graduated with my BA in History). This time it’s nursing. To test my abilities, I decided to enroll myself in the ultimate weed-out class: Human Anatomy. To make it even more difficult, it’s an online hybrid class – the lecture portion is online and I come in for a lab period once a week. I made a deal with myself that if I didn’t make it through this class, I’d give up any ideas at continuing on.

Well, now that I’m 1/2 of the way through the class, I think it’s time for an update. Turns out, I’m not too shabby with anatomy. My first two exams I scored an A on, and my first lab practical was also an A. I just took exam 3 on Sunday, and I don’t think I did quite as well. It covered muscles and joints, and well, who knew there were so many damn muscles in the body, each with weird, unpronounceable names?

We also got our first introduction to the human cadavers in the back of the room last week. As expected, the sight of these preserved and prosected bodies didn’t bother me in the slightest bit. In fact, I find them rather fascinating. They had been stripped of their skin and fat, leaving muscles, tendons, nerves and some bone on display, as well as organ structures.

Luckily, no one in my class reacted too strongly either. I heard that one student passed out in another section of the class. The only thing that bothered me was the smell. Oh god, the smell was awful. The preservative used for the cadavers is probably the strongest smelling stuff a person could ever encounter. Breathing it in, I could feel it trying to invade my lungs and preserve them. There is a large fan in the room to ventilate the area, but it doesn’t help when you’re standing right over the body to examine a particular muscle.

I now must shower first thing when coming home from class, also. The smell works its way into anything porous. My clothing, my satchel, and even my hair smells like a cadaver after class.

Still, I’m really enjoying the class, and being able to examine how everything works together on a real human body is a great experience. I’m fully expecting to pass the class at this point and continue on with my studies in nursing. And I now know that smelly dead people don’t bother me, so smelly living ones can’t be that much more difficult to work with, right?