Mood: Thankful for a beautiful day
Listening to: My kiddos bugging me to go to a park.
It has happened in our house. A big, huge, scary thing that threatens our very way of life. Well, at least our way of eating. Was it a monster growing in the fridge? Or possibly a gas leak? An especially militant vegetarian? It’s, it’s, it’s, a peanut allergy. Duh Duh Dun! (that was supposed to be dramatic music.)
I know, peanut allergies aren’t anything to write movies about, but this really threw me for a loop. I never thought we would have to deal with this problem. My eldest daughter doesn’t have any health problems at all (knock on wood!). My youngest has had a particularly nasty battle with eczema (another allergy related issue) since she was a very wee babe. I don’t know anyone in our immediate family that is allergic to any foods. My brother and mom are allergic to sulfa drugs, but it’s not quite the same thing. We found out when the wee one had a reaction a few months back. To be honest, I had no idea what she ate. We had just come back from the park and the girls were getting ready for dinner. We were eating some yummy cheese and broccoli rice (which both girls have had before) when the little one started getting REALLY cranky. My elder daughter had been eating cashews earlier in the day and had neglected to put away her bowl after she was done. Little one’s eyes puffed up unbelievably and she broke out in hives around her head, neck and chest. Scary to say the least! After a trip to the pediatricians and a blood sample, we have found out that she is allergic to all tree nuts, peanuts, and sesame seeds. Um, Sesame seeds? Yeah, never heard of that one before! So now I have to be a peanut detective, carry around an epipen and all that fun stuff. We have to see an allergist too.
I also heard that eating nuts during pregnancy can cause peanut allergies too. Guess who spent her pregnancy eating almonds after hearing that they were a great protein snack to keep away the munchies? Yep, that’s right folks, huge dose of parental guilt right here on my plate. I’m hoping that she outgrows it.
Becky
Thursday, July 9, 2009
*Blink Blink*
Mood: Calm – for the moment
Listening to: Endless chatter
Well then. I have once again surfaced on this endless vapor we call the internets. Hooray for me. A brief up-to-date. I now have an 18 month old and a 5 ½ year old. It’s summer vacation. Insert a “send help and margaritas” message here. So yes. We are in the throes of summer. I’m just trying to maintain my grasp on sanity with my teeth. It’s been a beautiful year in southern New York this summer. We may have hit 85 one or two days. For the Hudson Valley in July, this is a true miracle.
The latest news on the kids is that the eldest has an attitude to match an angry chimpanzee most of the time. Talk about 5 going on 15! Whew! We have our good and bad days, and transitions have never been easy for my eldest. The past two weeks home from school have been difficult to say the least. The youngest is officially a naughty 18 month old orangutan/octopus. She is into EVERYTHING. She doesn’t shoot back “no” to everything she’s told like her sister did, she just moves on to something else naughty while I’m cleaning up. I’ll cover more of her antics later. She definitely has the “naughty look” and laugh just like her elder sister did. It makes you feel a cross of uncontrollable laughter and exasperation every time she does it.
So I’m trying to start writing on a regular basis again, but we all know how well that works out, so, well, yeah. Cross your fingers!
Becky
Listening to: Endless chatter
Well then. I have once again surfaced on this endless vapor we call the internets. Hooray for me. A brief up-to-date. I now have an 18 month old and a 5 ½ year old. It’s summer vacation. Insert a “send help and margaritas” message here. So yes. We are in the throes of summer. I’m just trying to maintain my grasp on sanity with my teeth. It’s been a beautiful year in southern New York this summer. We may have hit 85 one or two days. For the Hudson Valley in July, this is a true miracle.
The latest news on the kids is that the eldest has an attitude to match an angry chimpanzee most of the time. Talk about 5 going on 15! Whew! We have our good and bad days, and transitions have never been easy for my eldest. The past two weeks home from school have been difficult to say the least. The youngest is officially a naughty 18 month old orangutan/octopus. She is into EVERYTHING. She doesn’t shoot back “no” to everything she’s told like her sister did, she just moves on to something else naughty while I’m cleaning up. I’ll cover more of her antics later. She definitely has the “naughty look” and laugh just like her elder sister did. It makes you feel a cross of uncontrollable laughter and exasperation every time she does it.
So I’m trying to start writing on a regular basis again, but we all know how well that works out, so, well, yeah. Cross your fingers!
Becky
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tinkerbell the bitch and the politically incorrect world of Neverland
I have done the usual thing of introducing my daughters to Disney movies, mostly in the name of parental nostalgia. After all, I grew up on them and loved them. This has resulted in no small amount of slapping my head and muttering, “Doh!”
Peter Pan is one of the Disney movies that I haven’t seen in some 15 – 20 years. I was surprised about a few things that I don’t remember.
Number 1: Tinkerbell is a real bitch. How did I not remember this? My daughters idolize this little green flying rat to a ridiculous degree. I don’t want my daughter looking to a bitchy little fairy as something to be admired! If you look at the subsequent Disney bids for more money off the Tinkerbell craze (read Tinkerbell 2, 3 4, etc.) Tinkerbell is a very nice, sweet, innocent little girl who bears no resemblance to her nasty, scheming, conniving fairy Grandmother.
Number 2: American Indian country in Neverland. What the hell? Really. WTF. My brain is exploding right this second. Alright Walt. We need to have a little sit down. This is a what, 1950’s movie? How in the world was this ok? I cannot imagine a more stereotyped, negative depiction of American Indians. We censor the WORD “tits” and this goes without an uproar? I don’t remember this being a big deal when I was growing up. In fact, I honestly forgot all about the American Indian angle altogether. Perhaps it was because when I was growing up in the 80’s, cowboys and Indians was an acceptable game. You know, before we sanitized everything with a thick layer of PC righteousness. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with the way Disney made the move, I’m just a little surprised that the PC/religious right Nazis didn’t get all up in arms. I’ve seen quite a few less offensive things get people all hot under the collar.
As a side note, does anyone else notice the dissonance of British children having dreams of cowboys and Indians?
Becky
Peter Pan is one of the Disney movies that I haven’t seen in some 15 – 20 years. I was surprised about a few things that I don’t remember.
Number 1: Tinkerbell is a real bitch. How did I not remember this? My daughters idolize this little green flying rat to a ridiculous degree. I don’t want my daughter looking to a bitchy little fairy as something to be admired! If you look at the subsequent Disney bids for more money off the Tinkerbell craze (read Tinkerbell 2, 3 4, etc.) Tinkerbell is a very nice, sweet, innocent little girl who bears no resemblance to her nasty, scheming, conniving fairy Grandmother.
Number 2: American Indian country in Neverland. What the hell? Really. WTF. My brain is exploding right this second. Alright Walt. We need to have a little sit down. This is a what, 1950’s movie? How in the world was this ok? I cannot imagine a more stereotyped, negative depiction of American Indians. We censor the WORD “tits” and this goes without an uproar? I don’t remember this being a big deal when I was growing up. In fact, I honestly forgot all about the American Indian angle altogether. Perhaps it was because when I was growing up in the 80’s, cowboys and Indians was an acceptable game. You know, before we sanitized everything with a thick layer of PC righteousness. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with the way Disney made the move, I’m just a little surprised that the PC/religious right Nazis didn’t get all up in arms. I’ve seen quite a few less offensive things get people all hot under the collar.
As a side note, does anyone else notice the dissonance of British children having dreams of cowboys and Indians?
Becky
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Yet Another World’s Worst Mother Award for Me
Listening to: Aerosmith - Sing With Me
Mood: Crack head type awake
Hope you like the design changes that I just did. I thought it was about time to play around with blogger’s features a bit. The couch image is a bit self explanatory. My couches are this brick red color, so I thought it fit.
It’s a bit more than a little ironic that I posted yesterday about magnet hands. As I was doing laundry in the evening, I noticed that our laundry card had gone missing. Our washers and driers use a credit card type card that you re-monetize at a machine and then insert into the machine to use. I was sure that I put it on our craft table along with the detergent, as I usually do. When I went to get it, it was missing and because my eldest daughter was using that table, I assumed that she had moved it. Now keeping my previous post in mind, this wasn’t an idiotic assumption. Well, I got after her about it quite a bit. She didn’t deny it, but she didn’t admit it either. I couldn’t find it for anything and just got more annoyed as time went on.
After the kids went to bed, our house got cold and I threw on my favorite black Dickies sweatshirt. I had it on earlier, but gave it no thought when I took it off. I reached my hands into my pocket, and guess what I found. Yep. So I basically felt like an asshat jerk for getting after my daughter when it was completely my fault. You should have seen her face this morning when I apologized to her and explained what happened. It was that “I told you I didn’t do it you silly heffer!” look. Sigh.
I know every parent wins one of these awards at some point in time, but it doesn’t help you feel less like a prick.
Becky
Mood: Crack head type awake
Hope you like the design changes that I just did. I thought it was about time to play around with blogger’s features a bit. The couch image is a bit self explanatory. My couches are this brick red color, so I thought it fit.
It’s a bit more than a little ironic that I posted yesterday about magnet hands. As I was doing laundry in the evening, I noticed that our laundry card had gone missing. Our washers and driers use a credit card type card that you re-monetize at a machine and then insert into the machine to use. I was sure that I put it on our craft table along with the detergent, as I usually do. When I went to get it, it was missing and because my eldest daughter was using that table, I assumed that she had moved it. Now keeping my previous post in mind, this wasn’t an idiotic assumption. Well, I got after her about it quite a bit. She didn’t deny it, but she didn’t admit it either. I couldn’t find it for anything and just got more annoyed as time went on.
After the kids went to bed, our house got cold and I threw on my favorite black Dickies sweatshirt. I had it on earlier, but gave it no thought when I took it off. I reached my hands into my pocket, and guess what I found. Yep. So I basically felt like an asshat jerk for getting after my daughter when it was completely my fault. You should have seen her face this morning when I apologized to her and explained what happened. It was that “I told you I didn’t do it you silly heffer!” look. Sigh.
I know every parent wins one of these awards at some point in time, but it doesn’t help you feel less like a prick.
Becky
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Amazing Magnet Hands
Mood: awake, for the first time in 2 weeks
Listening to: Buck Cherry – Sorry
Hi. You’re still around. Wow. I’ve been out in the middle of earth somewhere all this time, most of the time not connected to my blog, to my dismay. Life has just been like that lately. Real life is sort of sucking out any and all time I used to have to do adult type stuff. I got a job last month. A real-adult-type-paying job. One that doesn’t require plastic gloves or asking if someone wants fries with that. Whoo hoo!!! Unfortunately, this means that I am a little busier than before. My kids are now 5 ½ and 17 months. Just the right ages for insanity.
My elder daughter has always had magnets for hands. She absolutely cannot help herself but touch everything and anything within imagining distance. It’s nice in a way that she learns through tactile means, but good lord almighty, it keeps me on the razor’s edge. I can never relax, because if I do, then she will find something such as aforementioned razor, or a hot iron, or a glass vase, (all of which are never supposed to be reachable by her in our house) and find creative uses for it. The younger one is at an age where it’s fun to pick everything up. I’m sure you can imagine why taking them both to a store is a special type of hell that I’m not willing to endure more than, say, once a year. It’s almost like they both have magnets on their hands. They don’t even need to get that close to an object, but it will mysteriously appear in their hands anyhow. I’m sure it’s quite amusing to sit back and watch as my brain explodes trying to find out how the baby ended up holding a comb that was on the top shelf of a medicine cabinet that she hasn’t been in.
Becky
Listening to: Buck Cherry – Sorry
Hi. You’re still around. Wow. I’ve been out in the middle of earth somewhere all this time, most of the time not connected to my blog, to my dismay. Life has just been like that lately. Real life is sort of sucking out any and all time I used to have to do adult type stuff. I got a job last month. A real-adult-type-paying job. One that doesn’t require plastic gloves or asking if someone wants fries with that. Whoo hoo!!! Unfortunately, this means that I am a little busier than before. My kids are now 5 ½ and 17 months. Just the right ages for insanity.
My elder daughter has always had magnets for hands. She absolutely cannot help herself but touch everything and anything within imagining distance. It’s nice in a way that she learns through tactile means, but good lord almighty, it keeps me on the razor’s edge. I can never relax, because if I do, then she will find something such as aforementioned razor, or a hot iron, or a glass vase, (all of which are never supposed to be reachable by her in our house) and find creative uses for it. The younger one is at an age where it’s fun to pick everything up. I’m sure you can imagine why taking them both to a store is a special type of hell that I’m not willing to endure more than, say, once a year. It’s almost like they both have magnets on their hands. They don’t even need to get that close to an object, but it will mysteriously appear in their hands anyhow. I’m sure it’s quite amusing to sit back and watch as my brain explodes trying to find out how the baby ended up holding a comb that was on the top shelf of a medicine cabinet that she hasn’t been in.
Becky
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Root of All Evil
So I’ve found the root of all evil and as I mentioned, it has nothing to do with the green stuff. Wanna know what it is? Of course you do. Its cupcakes. Particularly the birthday variety of cupcakes. Well, it’s probably more like the refined white sugar that comprises a huge portion of the ingredients in cupcakes, but still. Hear me out. My daughter goes to the public school in White Plains NY. Yes, we do live in Westchester County New York where there are WAY too many moms who have too much money and time on their hands. Unfortunately, they seem to swarm to the PTA like flies on honey. This leads them to spend their time totally annoying normal moms with mandates like only bringing healthy food in to share for birthdays. At the beginning of the school year, we were actually given a list of healthy alternatives. Like granola bars. Or cut up veggies. WTF??!!! If my mom tried to send in granola bars to share for my birthday, I think I would have just told her to forget it. Cut up veggies? For a birthday snack? Don’t I force feed my kid enough of those every day? You have to go and screw with her birthday too?
I know that the motivations behind not encouraging parents to send in junk are well intended. But seriously. It is not a few random cupcakes that are ruining the health of our kids. It’s all the junk they eat after school and on the weekends that really hurts their weight and diet. Encouraging moms to send in healthy lunches is one thing. Not selling soda in the cafeteria for every day consumption, I can totally get behind that. Trying to be overly proactive about this stuff, not so much.
Another thing that bothers me is the holier than thou attitude of these moms. Frankly, I’m a pretty intelligent person. I think I can weigh out whether or not my daughter should have cupcakes. I don’t judge you for being a type A uber crazy helicopter mom, don’t judge me for being a more laid back mom. Both our kids will turn out fine.
I know that the motivations behind not encouraging parents to send in junk are well intended. But seriously. It is not a few random cupcakes that are ruining the health of our kids. It’s all the junk they eat after school and on the weekends that really hurts their weight and diet. Encouraging moms to send in healthy lunches is one thing. Not selling soda in the cafeteria for every day consumption, I can totally get behind that. Trying to be overly proactive about this stuff, not so much.
Another thing that bothers me is the holier than thou attitude of these moms. Frankly, I’m a pretty intelligent person. I think I can weigh out whether or not my daughter should have cupcakes. I don’t judge you for being a type A uber crazy helicopter mom, don’t judge me for being a more laid back mom. Both our kids will turn out fine.
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