Month: June 2011

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I.was.run-ning

Said in true Forrest Gump fashion.

Dudes, I killed my run last night. And I mean killed it – whipped it, spanked it, made it call me mama. This was a really long one for me right now, and I had been mentally preparing for it for a couple days. I had originally planned on trying it this weekend sometime, but, well, we all know how this weekend turned out…

So I sucked it up and went out last night after I got home from work and picking up D. R might have to work some nights this week which means I will be playing with Miss Thang and not running or seeing my trainer, plus the weather these next couple days looks pretty crappy (something new and different). So I had to seize the opportunity while I could. And I knew I’d need a good chunk of time to complete this run, so I had to make sure R wasn’t busy so he could watch D for a while. I was figuring it would take me around an hour, so I told R my route and said if I’m not back in an hour and a half come get me, because I’ll probably be lying in a gutter somewhere along the way with broken ankles and collapsed lungs.

Now, are you ready for this? I ran 5.24 miles in 48:07 – that’s a 9:11 pace! Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not breaking any land speed records with that by any means, but this was the first time I’d done this route in 3 years. And that time from last night is only 2 minutes off my fastest time ever for it! I was blown away. I couldn’t believe I 1) ran it that quickly, 2) didn’t die along the way, 3) didn’t walk at all along the way, and 4) actually felt good and was able to kick it into a higher gear in the home stretch.

Maybe I am finally getting back into shape after all. My trainer has said she sees a lot more muscle mass coming back now too, which is good. I said I need to be in even better shape before I get pregnant whenever the next time comes than when I got pregnant with D, because she said everyone says stretch marks come with the second child. Whether or not she’s right, I have no idea. But I fortunately didn’t get any with D, and I don’t want to get any with any other Raulings. So I will continue to blast this booty.

I will, however, admit that my notion of attempting a half marathon later this summer was inane. After running 5 miles last night, I really can’t fathom trying to tack 8 more onto the end. That’s just silly.

 

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Relief

Ahh, D slept last night. Thank the lord and all things holy – finally! With all the pleading and praying I did for her to sleep these past couple days, I should probably start going to church.

It seems like she is finally on the right medicine, so hopefully her ears will clear up soon as well. The itching stopped (although no thanks to the Benadryl. little did i know excitability in children is also a side effect. so it either knocks them out or winds them up, and D was spinning like a top. wish i’d known that before i kept pumping it in her to make her stop scratching), the rash is gone, the fever is down, and the sweet sweet sleep came back. I did stay home with her yesterday after the sleepless weekend and since her rash wasn’t completely gone at that point (it’s not contagious or anything, but i knew she was very low on sleep and eating so didn’t want to throw her back into daycare quite yet), and she still didn’t nap well – maybe an hour or so total all day. But other than that we actually had a great day together – no more Fs. The day went so well, in fact, that I even walked D up to the grocery store, made dinner, and had it all ready by the time R got home. That NEVER happens.

It was still a bit of a struggle to get her to go to bed last night, though, so I was afraid we were going to have another round of nighttime war. But maybe she just really did want to keep playing until 9pm – had to get that last round of walking around the coffee table in and rolling that last ball under the couch, apparently. She did wake up once, about 2 hours after I put her to bed, but fortunately went right back to sleep after just a few minutes of rocking. And I heard her cry out once more later on in the middle of the night and again thought we were done for, but magically she put herself right back to sleep with no waking. I put some blankets under one end of her mattress on Sunday night, since I’ve heard that the incline helps their ears hurt less when there’s an infection in there, but who knows if that’s doing any good or not. Sunday night it was pointless, then last night she did ok. I have a feeling it’s more the medicine finally taking hold instead of the incline, but I may leave it like that for another night or two just to make sure. This new antibiotic is only a 5 day duration, so tomorrow is the last dose anyway. I just can’t even express how relieved I am that her little body finally cooperated with her and gave her the rest she so desperately needed.

R went to bed really early last night because he was exhausted too and never sleeps well even on a good night, and even he got a full, sound night’s sleep for the first time in, oh, I don’t know, ever? So you see – it’s amazing the power of those dark hours they call sleep. Not to scare all of you soon-to-be new or thinking-about-being-soon-to-be new parents out there or anything, but GET THEM IN WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

 

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Another F

I had to give myself another F for Mommy for Saturday. The story goes a little something like this…

D’s torso and head were covered with a red, slightly raised rash Saturday morning, so I called her doctor’s after hours care line. Fortunately her doctor was at their clinic taking patients that morning, so we got her last appointment and headed in. Turns out D’s allergic to the antibiotic that was prescribed for her double ear infection last week. Awesome. Her doctor said it was either that or roseola (very similar symptoms – spiking fever followed by a rash in the shape of rose petals once the fever subsides, and apparently D’s just the right age for it), except roseola doesn’t itch. And as R put it, D was itching like a motherfucker. I’ve never seen her rub and scratch at her head like she did all day and night Saturday. Ok, allergic reaction it is, says the doc. And her ears of course weren’t better, so the doctor prescribed a different antibiotic for those and recommended children’s Benadryl to help get rid of the itch. Okey dokey, back to Walmart we went to get the medicine. My favorite place on Earth. (please sense the dripping sarcasm)

Why did we have to put her right away on another antibiotic instead of letting the allergy-causing one get fully out of her system before trying something new, you may ask? Well you see, we’re heading on vacation in less than 2 weeks’ time for a week, wherein we will have no cell phone or internet service, so if we need D to be on medicine to clear all this shit up we have to get her on it with time to spare to see the doctor again before we leave to make sure all the nastiness is finally gone. Whew.

They gave her the first dose of Benadryl at the doctor’s office to help her stop scratching, and by the time we got home from Walmart D was exhausted. So I gave her a bottle (she didn’t want any lunch) and put her down for a nap pretty much right away. R left for the afternoon to go to a WI craft beer festival, so it was just me and D. Little did I know what was in store for us. I thought great, she’s down for a nice long nap, I’ll sit out in the sun for a little bit to catch some rays, then get the house cleaned before R gets home. No sweat. HA! Damn, SM, why do you keep thinking your luck is so good? Let’s just say things didn’t go exactly as I had planned or hoped.

D napped for maybe half an hour the entire rest of the day. And that was from about 5 combined attempts, minimum, before R even got home. I knew from my days on maternity leave that accomplishing stuff around the house is a carefully choreographed art involving a combination of stealth and acute time management during the precious minutes of baby’s slumber. An art, I may add, that I mastered. I could get every chore and all the laundry done while D napped, no problem. So I thought yesterday was going to be a breeze. However, the doctor and pharmacist only mentioned that Benadryl may make D drowsy, not turn her into a demon spawn. I have never seen her so upset and miserable. This rash itched her so badly she clawed at her head constantly, and every time I tried to put her down it was like her crib was a bed of pins and broken glass. So she didn’t want to sleep, she didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to take her medicine, she didn’t want to be put down, and then she’d decide she didn’t want to be held either. Well what the hell?? I couldn’t win – I couldn’t make her stop hurting, I couldn’t make her happy, I couldn’t get anything done, I just felt like a total failure. By the end of the afternoon I had reached my breaking point. I couldn’t take it any longer. She kept screaming harder and harder and nothing I did was working or seemed to be right, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I put her in her crib and walked away. If I couldn’t just have 5 minutes to get 1 thing done, I was afraid I was going to scream at the top of my lungs, and then what would the neighbors think?

I felt horrible. I was so mad, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wasn’t mad at her, I was mad at it, the sickness that was torturing her. I was so frustrated that I could neither placate her nor get anything accomplished, and it just took me to my boiling point. Of course R came home not 5 minutes after I’d left her crying in her crib, and when I said, “Welcome to hell,” he said, “Oh please, come on.” In case you were wondering, that was not the correct response. Yeah, you’ve been drinking beer out in the beautiful weather for 6 hours while I’ve been battling an inconsolable infant who’s sicker than she’s ever been. Come on? I’ll come on you with a swift kick to the nuts if you’re serious.

And so the evening continued. D alternating screaming with brief interludes of play and seeming relief, yet not going to bed, while R and I took turns trying to comfort her. What happened to the drowsiness of the Benadryl? Was that supposed to be a joke, or were they just flat out lying to me? For it seemed that drowsiness was the last side effect it caused for D. Finally at 11:00, hours after her normal bedtime, I was able to get her to sleep after a bottle. Ahh, fingers crossed. Holy hell! 1 hour later and she was back up crying. It was during this round of trying to get her back to sleep that Ryan said we were going to have to take shifts, I told him to just go back to bed, and he told me not to get mad, as I was holding the sleepless, writhing, monster that had possessed our child. “I CAN’T HELP IT!” I shouted. Seriously! I couldn’t. After that day and that night and my feeling completely inadequate, all I could do was get mad. But again, I wasn’t mad at him, I wasn’t mad at her, I was just mad. Because what else could I do? I had no more nice, patient Mommy left. It ran out hours ago. I know that wasn’t the right answer, but it was the only one I had at that point. And then an hour later, she was back in bed. Only to wake up at 3:50, when R had to take her out to the couch again, like we did earlier in the week.

And I had planned on being the one up early with D yesterday so R could sleep in on Father’s Day, then here he was the one dealing with her in the wee hours of the morning. Plus I didn’t wake up until 8, when he stomped into the bedroom to get his cup of water. Shit. Another F. When I saw what time it was I felt terrible, I’d ruined his Father’s Day morning. So I quickly got up, took over the D patrol, and he instantly climbed into bed. I thought maybe just not being around was what he wanted, so I took D to the store to get milk and diapers, since we’d run out of both during the night in her maelstrom of sickness and itch. I ended up driving around with her for a couple hours since she fell asleep and I knew he would be too, then I stopped at McDonald’s for his favorite breakfast items just before they switched over to lunch, to try to do something right.

I hate those days. Those days where all forces combine to create the perfect storm of my parenting failure, and I just can’t take it. I did what I could and it just wasn’t good enough. What else am I supposed to do?

 

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Happy Father’s Day!

To R, a more amazing dad than I ever expected. D is one very lucky girl to have you as her father.

I love you, Daddy!

 

To my dad. A great man who is now on a good path.

I love you, Dad

 

To my stepdad. Thank you for everything you’ve done and continue to do for us.

Thank you, JCG!

 

To all the dads out there – none of us would be here without you.

 

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Unimaginable

I just read an article on the Casey Anthony trial, and my heart absolutely breaks for little Caylee. I mean I’m sure everyone’s does – who in their right mind would be happy about the death of a toddler? But now instead of just wanting justice to be done against Casey, I want to do the impossible and scoop up little Caylee and make everything ok – just one more instance of how having D really has changed my perspective on most everything.

When this story first made news in the summer of 2008 I was all oh my god, that Casey chick is a bitch, why is she lying about her daughter, why is she treating everyone around her like garbage, who does she think she is, how can she not care that her baby is missing? All the focus was on her. And then, of course, the terrible (yet not surprising) discovery of Caylee’s body came and this shitstorm ensued. I honestly haven’t paid any attention to the case until just now, but reading the most recent update and again seeing that angel picture of Caylee shifted all my focus to her and almost made me cry. That little girl was so beautiful and innocent, and here her own monster of a mother decided that she didn’t deserve to live.

Yes, Casey Anthony is still obviously the main lightning rod in this trial, but now the only reason I want to know the outcome is for Caylee. I cannot help but think how irreparably devastated I would be if something like that happened to D (granted, not at my hand). If my baby was taken away before she even had the chance to turn 3. I would want the culprit strung up, tortured, set on fire, and left to burn to death in agony, and I still wouldn’t be satisfied because my child would forever be GONE. Yet here’s Casey, stone-faced and completely devoid of emotion or remorse, her child gone forever, and SHE did it! I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Sure, there’s supposedly all this information that will blow the Anthony family’s skeletons out of the closet and maybe try to explain why Casey has acted like she has and done what she’s done, but I don’t give a good goddamn. You murdered your child! Caylee loved you. Caylee trusted you. Caylee was at no fault whatsoever for your miserable existence. Caylee was probably the best thing that ever happened to you. And you killed her.

I no longer care about the piece of human trash that is Casey Anthony. Her soul will have plenty of rotting in hell to do no matter what the outcome of this trial is. I now care solely about Caylee – may her amazing child spirit be avenged and may she be in peace as a little angel eternally as beautiful as her picture.

 

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FF

One word: sous-vide (or 2 words, depending on if you use the hyphen or not)

Say what? Sous-vide – it’s R’s new culinary experiment, and it was a screaming success. He’s been wanting to test out this cooking method for weeks now, and last night was the debut. Basically you vacuum seal food in plastic bags then cook it in a water bath to your desired temperature. I’ve mainly heard him talk about it for steaks, but I’m pretty sure you can cook other foods this way too. (for reference: sous-vide)

He’s spent a lot of time buying parts to make the temperature control for the water, figuring out which vessel would work best to maintain the water temperature once reached with little variation, and finding the right heating element. I was so happy that this worked, because I know how much effort he’s put into it and would have hated to see it fail and ruin the steaks. Yesterday he got a ribeye and NY strip for himself and 2 filets for me, and last night was our first round of steak sous-vide (part 2 coming on Sunday). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the setup to show you what this process looks like, but here you can see the amazeballs final result:

 

Sous-vide = perfection

 

The steaks turned out spectacularly! Every single millimeter of meat was done to exactly medium rare – how often does that happen? It was tender, it was juicy, it was like tasting rainbows bite-by-bite. Apparently the magic of this system is that you can cook the steaks hours and hours ahead of time, and the water bath will keep them exactly at the doneness that you want. Then when it’s time to eat, you take them out of their bags, flash sear them on each side, and voila! Soup’s on! For a side he made twice baked potatoes with more of his homemade lardons on top. Yes please, and thank you very much.

And don’t forget the wine. We paired one of our old go-to favorites with this meal, Bogle Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

Bogle Cab

I have totally dumbed-down the explanation of this fine art, mainly because I’m dumb and need simple explanations to figure most things out, especially in the kitchen. But that’s the jist of it, and the final products are outstanding. I’m sure R could expound on the intricacies and whys and hows of it for you, but alas, you’re stuck with me. Keep an eye on TinySausage, though – I’m sure this one will make for a new post soon.

And of course, TGIF!!! We’re meeting up with friends for happy hour today at a new bar downtown, and I, for one, am stoked! This has been a week, and mama needs a cocktail. Have a great weekend, and a very Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!

 

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Your turn

So D is still sick, her fever reaching 104.5 last night. Which sucks, since I thought she was getting better after a decent day at daycare yesterday with no high fever. Maybe the medicine just hasn’t had enough time to kick in all the way. But last night was wretched for her. She wouldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, and whenever we tried to put her in her crib she would wake right back up and start crying. So we had to take turns sleeping with her on our chests on the couch. R took her until about 1, then I went out and slept with her on me the rest of the night until 6:30 this morning. Her fever was still 101.5 by that time, so she had to stay home from daycare. Fortunately R was able to stay with her, because I had a busy day at work ahead.

In light of the fact that she’s about all I’ve been concentrating on these past couple days, hoping her brain isn’t frying, I thought I’d try something different here today. You guys run the show. Ask me something. Anything about me you’re curious about? My past, my present, being a mom, being a wife, my likes/dislikes, anything? I promise to answer all questions honestly, assuming they’re not too incriminating, anyway. 😉 Or suggest a post topic you’d like to see. I’m always open to suggestions for the site – what you like on here, what you don’t like, what posts you’d like to see more of, what posts you don’t like.

A lot of you already know me irl so this may be totally boring for you, but is there anyone new out there? Anyone, anyone?

If you want to ask/say something but don’t want to leave a comment, please feel free to email me. My email address is up there in the Contact tab.

Thanks!

SM