Let's talk about moving

Moving. No one likes it. Sure going to a new place is fun, but getting there isn't. It's a giant headache for all involved. The purging, the packing, the moving of the boxes, the unpacking, more purging, etc. Not so much fun. Not to mention that you need to find a new place to move all your stuff to.

The fact that Itchy and I will be moving again in a few months has not escaped my attention. Once again, we don't know where we'll be moving but we know that we can't stay here. This time we'll be moving with a baby in tow. That makes things a bit more...exciting? No, that's not the right word. Hectic? Fun? No, I believe hellish is a more correct term. Babies have lots of stuff and they demand attention. And supervision. It's going to make the process take a lot longer.

When and where we move is going to depend on Itchy's ability to get a job. The three situations that come to mind are that:

1. Itchy finds a job and they let him start a couple of weeks after graduation
2. Itchy finds a job and they demand that he start immediately after graduation
3. Itchy finds no job and we are forced to live with FIL

Ideally we end up with situation number 1. I can deal with number 2. It means I'll be doing all the moving by myself (well, not entirely as my mom has offered to come and help out). Number 3 makes me cry. Literally cry. And want to run away. With the baby and the cats. Itchy can fend for himself.

FIL thinks that he is going to come here and help us move. I'm not sure what exactly he thinks he is going to help with. He won't come in our apartment because the cats trigger his fake allergies. I guess he could sit in the moving truck and watch? He could cheer us on as we carry box after box down the stairs. Not exactly helpful, but how else can he help if he won't come in the apartment?

I know exactly how he WANTS to help. He wants to come here, take the baby to the hotel, and let us pack/load up trucks/clean/etc. Won't it be sooo much easier to get this stuff done without having to look after the baby?

Nope. It won't be easier. I'll be having panic attacks. We won't get any packing done because I'll be freaking out about my kid. There is no way in hell that I am going to let that scenario happen. I don't trust FIL. He makes poor decisions. If that is how he wants to help, then he can just stay home.

Quick updates

Stowa is taking a nap so I want to update a few things really quickly.

1. Our dryer is still broken. Taking a baby to the laundromat isn't fun.

2. The bird that was living in my vent is gone. So is her nest. Sad, but kind of nice not waking up to that racket everyday.

3. Gluing the computer keys back on sort of worked. The F key is working great. The enter key not so much. You have to hit it a few times to get it to work. But at least we still have an enter key!

4. Totally kidding about raising Stowa as a Scientologist. She'll be a heathen just like her parents.

FIL Follies Part 3

We told FIL that Stowa and I would come out the hotel on Monday to say goodbye. This means we have to get up at 5:30 am to drive Itchy to work. Stowa and I are not morning people. We like to sleep in. Of course, after dropping him off we came home and went back to bed until 9 am, but still, we were up early.

I call and tell FIL we are on our way. He says he's ready and can't wait to see us. Great. We get there 20 minutes later and he is still only half dressed. He runs off to the bathroom. Stowa and I sat there for another 20 minutes waiting for him to actually be ready. Why did I hurry to get us out the door? Once he is finally dressed he wants to hold Stowa and take more pictures. Ok. I make sure to take the picture from far enough away that you can see their whole body, not just their faces. He wants to take more pictures outside too. I tell him it's too windy outside. Stowa hates the wind and we won't get good pictures. Unless he wants pictures of her crying while he holds her. Stowa is cranky (getting up too early and teething) so she just wants mama. FIL is telling me how much he's going to miss us, how he's going to come back next month, and then again when we move (more on that later). Great! Just let us know when you want to come and we'll see what Itchy's schedule is like.

FIL tells me to call Itchy to see if he can go out to lunch. I don't need to call to find that out. The answer is no. I pretend to text him. After 20 minutes FIL tells me to text him again. I tell FIL that he's probably really busy. FIL doesn't care and starts to call him from his phone. I tell him I'll just text him again. So I send a real text. Surprise! Itchy is too busy to go to lunch. I tell FIL this and ask him where he wants to go for lunch. FIL wants to go to Perkins. We don't have Perkins. We have an IHOP. It's just like Perkins. Nope, FIL wants Perkins. Well, we don't have one. After a 15 minute discussion about how we don't have a freaking Perkins, he settles on IHOP. We wait until exactly noon to check out of the hotel and then FIL wants to take the pictures outside. It's way too windy. Stowa is already fussing about the wind in her face. I tell FIL that we'll have to do it next time. He pouts the whole way to IHOP. Does he really want pictures of Stowa crying while he is holding her? Not to mention that the wind would have totally messed up his comb-over!

Because of construction it is difficult to get into IHOP's parking lot. I decide to park at place next door to IHOP and we can just walk. It's a 2 minute walk. FIL is annoyed by this. Oh well. Walking is good for you and you're not the one lugging around the carseat and diaper bag. Suck it.

FIL again is trying to feed the baby. Why can't she just have a little maple syrup? Can she have omelet? I had to use my angry voice. She couldn't have it yesterday and she can't have it today. FIL tells her that next time he comes he'll give her anything to eat that she wants.

Then FIL changes the subject. He wants to know exactly what day Itchy is done with school. I do not think that FIL needs to know the exact details. I like to keep it a little vague. So I play dumb. I'm not sure when he gets done, it's sometime in early August. Then FIL tells me that we have to be at his house by August 5th. One of his friends is throwing a birthday party for their granddaughter and FIL wants to take Stowa and show her off. Umm no. I explain that if we have free time before Itchy gets a job, we'd both like to go see my family. FIL tells me that the birthday party is important. I tell him that MY FAMILY is important. FIL says "Well, this is more important. I'll take the Stowa to the party and then you can take her to see whoever". Seriously? I think my family is a little more important that going to a birthday party for a kid I've never met. I just told him we'd see.

We once again ate in silence. Fun times. Then FIL made a scene while trying to get the bill. Instead of just waving at the waitress or you know waiting for a few minutes, he yells at her from across the room. I swear everyone in the place was looking at us. Yeah, he's a fun one. He wants to go right now. I start getting the baby ready to go and he just gets up and walks away. He can't possibly wait for 2 minutes while I buckle her in the carseat.

Not much happened after that. I drove him back to his rental car and we said our goodbyes. He did call that night once he got home and then twice on Tuesday. And then again on Friday.

Here are some other things that didn't really fit in but are funny/annoying:
-He says turn over instead of roll over (in reference to Stowa rolling over)

-He calls pushups body lifts

-Squats are knee bends

-When he asks for a Coke, he really wants a Diet Pepsi

-When he says that he is going to say his prayers, it sounds like he is saying that he is going to do Lamaze (you know the thing pregnant women do to prepare for labor). I know he's speaking in Urdu, but I just keep picturing him breathing. Makes me laugh.

-He is afraid of baby drool. All weekend he kept trying to wipe drool off of Stowa. And he was disgusted that I let her chew on my hands. You should have seen his face when she spit up on my shirt!

-He kept telling Stowa to say her prayers and trying to get her to cross her hands. It gets old. I really don't want him spewing his stupid religious crap at her. I'll wait a while but if he keeps it up Itchy is going to have to tell him the truth. We're raising Stowa as a Scientologist.

I'll talk about the moving/graduating/etc stuff later. Stowa is up and demanding my attention. I guess I can't neglect her AND the laundry forever.

FIL Follies Part 2

Sunday morning we all get up freaking early to drop Itchy off at the hospital. Stowa and I get home and I work on my fitness while she goes back to bed. I had to wake her up at 9:30 to get her ready to go out to the hotel. She's grumpy.

We get out there and FIL is blow drying his hair. At least he has pants on this time. He's annoyed that Itchy isn't with us. He wanted him to just call in and say that he wasn't going in. Umm, Itchy doesn't get sick days. If they tell you to come in, you go in. FIL doesn't want to do anything until we talk to Itchy. Ok. So we sat around and played with the baby. He wanted to take some pictures with Stowa. Sure. I'm not the greatest photographer but I do alright. I get Stowa all smiley and snap a picture. It's cute. They are both looking at the camera, smiling, etc. FIL doesn't like it because it's only from the waist up. Seriously, why do you want a picture that is mostly background instead of a picture where you can actually see faces? Oh and FIL insisted on wearing his sunglasses in the picture. Why? Weirdo.

Itchy was finally able to meet up with us for lunch so we all get in the truck and go pick him up. On the way there FIL starts saying that it's too bad that this happened this weekend. I tell FIL that this kind of stuff happens ALL THE TIME. It's not just this weekend. We rarely make plans because we know that shit will come up. Stowa and I either do things on our own or we don't do them at all. Itchy works really, really hard. FIL doesn't get it. He says that Itchy should have just gone to med school and become a real doctor. I kind of lost my patience with that one. I told him that Itchy IS indeed a real doctor. He isn't busting his ass to become a fake doctor. He isn't going to pretend he is a doctor. They won't pay him in monopoly money. He is a real doctor. Stop insinuating that he isn't. Please don't say stuff like that to him. Have a little respect for your son.

We picked up Itchy and then FIL decides that he wants to eat Indian food. Sure, we'll find the place on campus. We eat and again, FIL just sits there and eats. Can't participate in the conversation. So it's like Itchy, Stowa, and I are having lunch and then some stranger comes and sits at our table. I just don't get it. Maybe I am just use to people talking too much?

We all go back to the hotel for a bit. Stowa takes a nap. Itchy takes a nap. FIL pretends to fall asleep so that he doesn't have to talk to me. Whatever. I watch TV. Itchy has to get back to his patient so he leaves. FIL wants to go back to the mall. He needs underwear. First of all, I do not want to go back to the mall with him. Second, I really don't want to shop for underwear with him. Third, it brings back all sorts of bad memories from when we were staying with him a few months ago and I had to do his laundry. Finally, why didn't he say something about this yesterday when we were at the freaking mall.

I wake the baby up and we go to the mall. Because you know, he has so much money he can't buy underwear at Target. He has to buy them from Macy's. Oh you're not impressed with that? Me either. I tried not to get involved. Just pick a pair and let's go. Oh no. He has to tell me what he doesn't like about his old pair, what color he wants, what size he needs, etc. There isn't enough brain bleach in the whole world to undo this. 45 minutes later he has found something that will suffice. It is not exactly what he wanted but it will do. We walk over to the register. He sees a pair of shoes. We looked at these shoes the day before but today he wants to try them on. He asks the sales lady if she has the shoes in his size, she asks which shoes, he gets all huffy that she doesn't know what he is talking about. I tell her and start walking over to show her. She has them in his size. The lady starts talking to Stowa and I. We're having a nice conversation. Stowa is all smiles with this lady. She just has a way about her. FIL gets pissed. Once he realizes that I'm talking to her, it suddenly becomes urgent that I watch him try on the shoes. Awesome. Stowa is getting antsy and is tired because she had a crappy nap. I make her try on the display shoes. I made a comment about how she's going to have big feet like her mommy. FIL tells me that I can't let her feet get bigger than a size 8. Sure ok, I'll just start binding her feet today! I wear a size 11. She might have big feet.

Anyway, he doesn't like how the size 8 feels. He asks if they have it a size smaller. She brings out a size 7. This makes sense to me. Size 7 is one size smaller than a size 8 right? Well not to FIL. He wanted a size 7 1/2. So he got all pissy with the lady. Seriously though, 7 1/2 is a half size smaller. She didn't have a 7 1/2 anyway. I tell him he should just try on the 7, since that is what he usually wears. For the next hour he went back and forth between the two sizes. One was too big, the other was too small. Good god, the shoes aren't going to change sizes just because you keep trying it on. If it doesn't fit the first time, it's not going to fit in 20 minutes. Let's move on! I ask him if he wants to go to one of the other stores. I saw the same shoes at two other stores, maybe they'll have your size. He doesn't want to though. He finally decides to give up. He goes to pay for his underwear. After all of that, he stops to look at a sport coat on the way out the door. He wants to know why it was $65 on Saturday but it is now $195. The lady explains it was because of the sale they were having. She offers to check the price for him. She grabs the brown jacket. He stops her and tells her to check the blue jacket. He is acting like he is actually interested in buying the jacket. She checks the price and it's no longer on sale. I thank her and tell her that we'll just watch for the next sale. Let's go. But oh no. FIL turns and tells her that "I wouldn't buy this anyway. It's junk". Why the hell did you just make her check the price then!? Seriously lets get the fuck out of here.

We go back to the hotel. I've had it with him. I want to go home but I know I can't. Once we get back to the hotel Stowa falls asleep. FIL and I are seriously just sitting there waiting for Itchy to call. It's awful. Itchy finally calls and is on his way out there. FIL wants to go to dinner. Great. I wake the baby up again and we go to dinner. FIL wants to give her pieces of food from his salad. I tell him no. I don't know why I have to explain to him 1,398 times that we aren't starting solid foods yet. Drives me crazy. Then he tells Stowa that next month (oh god no) when he comes back he's going to give her Coke, corn, and apple juice. NO, no, and no. I tell him that she'll have probably just have started getting food and it'll probably only be things like oatmeal, avocado, green beans, etc. Bland things. Nothing sweet. He tells me that she's not going to like those things and will just spit them out. I tell him that that is ok, if she spits them out it just means she wasn't ready to start solids yet and we'll just wait a bit before we try again. Itchy really doesn't even talk to him. He's so tired that he is spacing out.

He drive him back to the hotel and say goodnight. He wants Stowa and I to come back in the morning. Fine we'll see you then.

Stay tuned for part 3...

FIL Follies

FIL arrived very late on Friday night. He flew to an airport that is about 2 hours away (we don't have an airport here) and then rented a car and drove here. In order to save $50 he took one of the last flights of the day. He didn't get here until 1 am (so technically, Saturday morning). He wanted us to bring the baby out to the hotel to see him. Umm, HELL no. Itchy had to go out to the hotel to get him checked in because FIL is not capable of booking a hotel by himself and made us do it for him. Whatever.

Saturday morning we woke to this sound: BEEP BEEP BEEP. Yep, Itchy's pager was going off. There was an oncology emergency and he had to go in. Great. It was an intensive case and he knew he'd be there for a while. We got ready very quickly and got Itchy to school. Stowa and I came home got ourselves ready, called FIL to say we were on our way, and then went out to the hotel. FIL was just getting dressed when we got there and he answered the door in a t-shirt and underwear (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot- he knew we were on our way out there). Don't answer the door like that. Take a minute to throw some pants on. I'll gladly wait.

He was sad that Itchy wasn't with us and kept asking when he'd be done. Then FIL tried to sing happy birthday to Stowa (she turned 5 months on Friday). I don't know if he forgot the words or if it was some Indian version of the song but it made me laugh. He was SO SAD that he didn't get to see her on her "birthday". Hmm, if it really meant that much to you, you should have booked an earlier flight. You keep telling me that you have more money than you know what to do with. That $50 you saved is what prevented you from seeing her on her "birthday", not the fact that I wasn't bringing her out to the hotel at 1 am.

We sat around at the hotel letting the baby play. FIL was annoyed that Stowa was playing strange with him. He told me that I need to put her in daycare so that she gets use to having other people hold her. I'll get right on that.

FIL was telling me that arthritis is really bad and he isn't suppose to lift more than 10-15 lbs now. I jokingly said uh oh, that means you can't lift the baby! She weighs at least 16 pounds now. He argued with me and said that she only felt like she was 10 pounds. Umm, my kid was born at over 8 pounds. She hit 10 pounds by the time she was a month old. I have a scale at our house, and while it may not be all that accurate, I have a pretty good idea of how much she weighs. Yet he kept telling me that she couldn't weigh that much yet. This will come up again on Sunday.

Finally Itchy had a break. He patient was still very sick but he had a few hours to go get lunch. We go pick him up and go to eat lunch. FIL isn't the kind of guy that you invite to dinner parties. Aside from his gross eating habits, he does not talk in between bites. Most people can maintain some conversation while eating. You know, have a bite of food, swallow, participate in the conversation and so on. Not FIL. He doesn't say anything. It was awkward. Before long it was time to get Itchy back to the hospital.

FIL wanted to go look for new shoes. Ok. Itchy has told me over and over that "we don't take that kind of crazy to public places". I didn't want to do it, but I took him to the mall. We go to every shoe store in the mall and no one has his size (seriously, he can wear kid's shoes). It took hours and we left empty handed. FIL is like a 3 year old. He doesn't watch where he is walking. He touches everything. He thinks that everyone should get out of his way. He wouldn't ask the sales people to help him, he would only talk to them if they approached him first. We had to stop every 20 feet so that he could make faces at the baby. Flipping annoying.

The best part of this trip? When he called me fat. Yep. Thanks jackass. We were walking through a store and after he doused himself in women's perfume, he once again asked why I didn't bring the stroller. I told him that Stowa loves the carrier and she prefers it over the stroller. Then he says "Well maybe carrying her will help you lose weight. Are you exercising? You still look big." I was pissed. There was no mistaking the look on my face. So he added "It's ok though because you're still feeding the baby". As hard as it was, I just bit my tongue. He went on and on about how the baby will be done nursing soon and she can eat real, healthy food soon, and then I can lose the weight. I didn't say a single word. I was amazed by my self restraint. Anyone else would have gotten bitched out. And maybe punched.

After all that fun we went back to the hotel. The baby and I did our thing (reading books, counting, playing, etc). He sat in a chair and watched. He's too old to sit on the floor and play. He wants Stowa to be the little tiny newborn that is happy to be held in the rocking chair all day. She's not. She likes to play. She likes to roll around. She likes when people are silly and make her laugh. Every once and a while he would demand that she sit with him, but she wasn't having it. Finally at 9 pm, Itchy was done for the day. He came out to the hotel and we were going to get dinner, but FIL decided that he wanted us to go home and get rest so that we could all come out there early Sunday morning. Itchy told him that he had to go back to the hospital at 6 am since his patient was still there. I told FIL and the baby and I would come out there around 10 am.

Stayed tuned for FIL Follies part 2...

We survived

FIL is on his way back home. Alive. Itchy, Stowa, and I survived too. But let's just say that there isn't enough brain bleach in the entire world to make the new memories go away.

Stowa and I have a lot to get done today and tomorrow so the stories will have to wait for a day or two.

Maytag man!!!

I need the Maytag man to come to my house! Our dryer is broken. I need it fixed. Like yesterday.

I've already called the landlord. I guess we're on the list. No idea when they'll be around to fix it.

At first, it was kind of nice. I really hate laundry. It's like some kind of cruel joke. It's never, ever done. The bottom of the laundry basket is an oasis. You can see it and you really believe that it's there and you keep getting close, but damn it, you never quite get there! A broken dryer didn't seem so bad at first. I had a really good reason to not do laundry.

It's been 5 days. I have piles and piles of laundry to do. Which makes me hate laundry even more. I really just want my jeans to be clean. And dry. But not all stiff and air dried.

Adventures with FIL

Itchy's dad is coming to visit us this weekend. Should make the weekend more interesting!

I'm trying to think of things that we can do with him. So far I've got nothing. I really need to come up with something though. We can't just sit in the hotel all weekend. I really don't want to hear him ramble on and on about where we should move, what we should and shouldn't be doing with Stowa, etc.

Too *unny!

You know on movies/tv some dopey dad (because all daddies are portrayed as dopey) will hold up a baby over their heads and then the baby will spit up. The spit up goes in dopey dad's mouth and hilarity ensues!

This just happened at our house. To me. GAG!

Stupid Acer

So the "letter between E and G" key and the Enter key have *allen o** o* the computer. We were *ine until the little rubber dome thingies *ell o** too. It makes typing a little weird.

Even though the internet said not to do it, I'm totally going to try super gluing them back on.

Teething

This teething business is for the birds!

We were up until 2 am. Stowa was grumpy. Her mouth hurt. She was busy chewing on everything (she may or may not have chewed on the cat's ear the other day-poor Patches). Nothing was making it better. I was tired. She was tired. But too uncomfortable to fall asleep. I drugged her up and she slept for all of 2 hours before she was up SCREAMING. I think she woke the new neighbors. What a fun night!

She's not as cranky today. I hope we don't have a repeat performance tonight.

She also hit another milestone today. She can now roll over from her back to her belly! She figured out how to get that pesky arm out of the way!

Had to share

In my never ending quest for great sandals, I came across these:



Awesome! They come in other colors too if orange isn't your thing (it's not my thing).

I like wildlife and everything

but not so much when it's living in my ceiling. I'm waiting on a call back from the landlord.

ETA: It appears as though a Grackle (or Red Winged Blackbird) has taken up residence in the vent that runs in the space above our ceiling. I'm pretty sure we'll hear baby birds squawking soon.