Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Busy Busy Busy

Whew…what a weekend! First I took off work early to run down to Indy to watch my cousins play in the Class A state championship baseball game. (On the way there, I had thought that I would pump, as I am still breastfeeding. And then I realize that I don’t have batteries, so we stop and get some. And then I realize I don’t have the battery pack. Thanks to my sis for having an adapter in her car…I made it into the game just as some girl was singing the national anthem-whew!) (I also have a picture of me and my 3 sisters taken as the tornado sirens were going off at the stadium, but I'll have to upload it this weekend, Ieft the cord for my camera at the lake)

Check out the Lafayette news clip on the game and my cousin Emily here. And here is the Sun Commercial account of the game. Unfortunately, my alma mater was just too much for my family’s team, but it was an incredible, inspiring run. It was hot as hell, I am very thankful to my mom for keeping Samantha while I went to the game. My plan to wait until the thunderstorms got east of I-65 FAILED MISERABLY and we drove straight into a good one on the way back to Lafayette. Oh well…thank goodness for good windshield wiper blades and the lines on the road. Good thing the guy who drew them wasn’t drunk!

Saturday I headed to the lake…and drove through 4 construction zones to get there. That is just ridiculous. It was hot and humid and I drank too much draft beer at our friend’s wedding reception. Good times, Sam was a good partier. We are training her well.

After going to bed at 2 in the morning, I was awakened a couple hours later to hear my in-law’s chocolate lab Buster having a seizure. All I have to say is that it is a damn good thing that people and dogs have no memory when they have seizures. Because they would be traumatized ten times more than the people who have to watch it. The horrible thing about Buster’s seizures (you mean besides the violent shaking?) is that they last so. damn. long. I would guess that this one was about 20 minutes. Usually anything over 5 minutes is BAD. So this was very bad. Unfortunately he loses all bodily functions when this happens too.

So Buster gets all stiff and shaky, and Workaholic has no idea what is going on. He actually got up and went to the bathroom before realizing what I meant when I said, “Buster is having a seizure.” And then he sits there trying to calm him, as if that is possible, by putting his head right next to Buster’s wide open mouth with pointy, thrashing teeth. Yeah…that didn’t make me nervous or anything. Poor guy takes a few hours to get back any sort of semblance of himself after one of these episodes. Fortunately, he only has 2 or 3 a year. Also fortunately, my MIL was kind enough to take Samantha in the morning so I could get a few more hours of sleep. I just cannot function on 3 hours.

Sunday was a bit more relaxing; I slept in and lay out on the pier for most of the late afternoon. Samantha took a good long nap and I chilled in the water with the dogs. Everyone else went for a boat ride, but I am happy with my decision to avoid the rocking boat in favor of the stable pier. Because a hangover and a rocky boat do not make for a happy Gail.


Any-hoo...moral of the story is...I am exhausted, proud of the family, and looking forward to next weekend!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Oh Jon and Kate...

All I have to say is...I am sad. Jon and Kate have made me sad.

Yes, she is a bitch.

Yes, he let himself get walked all over.

But you walk away from 10 years of marriage after 7-8 rough months...when you realize that you never got to play in your 20s?? Please. Grow up.

I am sure it feels like they've been going through this forever, the way the media has been hounding them. But in a lifetime, even a year isn't very long. I just wish they would've really tried...and I really hope that their kids are OK. That they are the success story that Kate wants them to be.

Good luck Gosselins.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Karma's Going to be a Bitch (in about 13 years)

It’s no secret to anyone who has ever slept in the same building as me that I am not a morning person. I never have been…I remember as a kid one day waking up to see my sister’s friend who was our neighbor standing in our bedroom. I couldn’t understand why she was there, until she was like, “The bus is going to be here in 15 minutes!” I think I spent 5 of those minutes bargaining with my mother, trying to either get out of school or have her take us. I don’t remember how we got there, but we DEFINITELY went to school.

Workaholic is somewhat of a morning person. He rarely gets enough sleep, so waking up for him is extremely difficult. But once he is up, he is all happy, chatty, and generally really quite annoying. I would prefer if no one spoke to me before noon, and sometimes actually get angry when people say good morning to me. He has learned this…sort of.

For example, this morning I hit snooze for about an hour. When I finally did get out of bed, it was to go downstairs to get a bottle so I could pump. I climbed the stairs (slowly, because I wakeboarded for about 90 seconds on Sunday and am severely paying for it) back up to my bedroom and lay down on the bed to do my motherly duty. I didn’t turn on the TV, because I just didn’t feel like hearing any noise. Workaholic comes out of the bathroom (where he has the TV and fan on) and is like, “Hey Sweetie!! Good morning!! Why don’t you turn on the TV?!” I have learned over the years to not react violently (as is my natural reaction) to his happiness, as that usually just causes a fight. Instead I just close my eyes and say, “Good morning, because I don’t want to hear any loudness.” He gets the hint and leaves me alone.

Samantha is, oddly enough, quite the morning person. I have actually seen her wake up with a smile on her face. We are, however, being the responsible parents that we are, teaching her the value of the snooze button, in the form of a pacifier. I have this fear that she will not get enough sleep, and be one of “those children” that cries all the time. It is a somewhat irrational fear, as she LOVES to sleep. Generally, she gets at least 9 hours of sleep at night, and then at least 4 hours during the day. I prefer for her to get at least 10-12 at night, and then 3-4 during the day…she seems to be in a better mood. So this morning, when she woke at 7am, I popped the pacifier back in her mouth. She went to bed at 9, but I was running late, and if she’ll go back to sleep, then she needs more sleep, right? Around 7:45, Workaholic heard her crying and went to get her up. She full on smiled at him, accepted the pacifier, and then closed her eyes and went back to sleep. This happens on the weekends too, where she’ll wake up and we “convince” her to sleep for a few more hours. (which…last Friday night, wound up being 15 hours total….she’s already acting like a teenager!!) A girl after my own heart…which means she will HATE waking up to go to school.

Monday, June 8, 2009

OK, here you are folks, my first blog in what…3 weeks? I’ve been creatively stifled by my job, and I was all excited to write about this past weekend, and I got to work and was immediately CRUSHED by my boss…but I am going to try anyway. (and no, I wasn’t originally going to do this at work, but…well, I’m broken, so what the hell)

I had my big family reunion last weekend. It required approximately 3 days of preparation, from buying snacks and drinks to supplement us in the hotel, to making sure we had money and gas in the car, and packing up Sam’s stuff to make sure she didn’t die of not having cute enough clothes to wear while meeting the Crazies. (that would be my extended family…although I’ve realized that my immediate family contributes more than their fair share to the insanity of the much larger extended family)

After a relatively quick 3 ½ hour drive to Southern Indiana, we arrive at the cousin’s party. I am the youngest of my grandparent's 27 grandkids, and I found out when I got there that the oldest of the grandkids are now 50. FIFTY!!! YEARS OLD. Geez, where did the time go? There was grey hair aplenty around the pool, but that didn’t stop anyone from enjoying ourselves. Everyone flocked to see my adorable child, who promptly cried at the beer breath and loud voices. Poor thing had just woken up, and we thrust her into a social situation. Get used to it, kid. (We may have decided, in the future, that the first cousins party may just have to be extended to include second cousins who are of drinking age. My aunt crashes the party every time because she is closer in age to my oldest cousins than some of her siblings. Exceptions will have to be made.)

Discussion quickly turned to the amazing baseball team that disrupted the weekend. Most of my cousins that live in town send their kids to the small Catholic high school. Population around 20. (Or 80, whatever.) Earlier in the spring, there weren’t enough kids to have a baseball team, so my cousin Cory convinced his sister Emily to join. (This is the same girl who went to state in basketball a couple of months ago. Lost in overtime.) Then…they started winning. A couple more kids joined, and of the 11 kids on the team, 5 are my cousin’s kids. And those 5 have 4 different sets of grandparents. So of my mom’s 6 siblings, 4 had kids on the team. So the reunion was on Saturday, and the first regional game was on Saturday. Expectations weren’t real high, they weren’t supposed to win sectionals, going much further would be asking too much. And then they won the first game.

Everyone came back to the reunion for dinner and an auction and a “queen contest”. (everyone was disqualified) Once the auction was over, approximately 95% of the family left to go to the ballgame…the rest of us stuck around to listen to it on the radio. Brady (a freshman!!) was pitching a kickass game, Emily made an awesome catch to end an attempted rally, (not bad...for a girl) and Cory got an RBI. Jordan had a marathon at bat that wound up with 2 wild pitches to give Rivet an insurance run. I am sure there were more, but I wasn’t paying much attention. As soon as Brady struck out the LAST THREE BATTERS, we celebrated, trying to not wake Samantha, and my aunt got on the phone to someone at the game, and she said that the crowd was just going nuts. My cousin (who is a cop and was sitting right next to me) got a call from his sister (who is the principal) to see they could get a police and fire escort though town. REGIONAL CHAMPIONS!! That only took about 5 minutes to arrange. Had I not had a 5 month old to put to bed I’d totally have ridden in the cop car with my aunt and cousin…but alas, the joys of being a new mother.

Moral of the story?? Sometimes, small towns are just awesome.