Confession of a Work-At-Home-Mom

I am guilty. I let the TV babysit my 3 year old son. Now don't get me wrong; I know what he's watching, and it's all educational, good stuff. Mostly PBS, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer. But the poor kid is literally transfixed by the magic box.

I used to be able to leave the TV on while he played and he'd glance up at it once in a while, but mostly he'd play with toys. But lately he's grouchy and wants nothing but TV. He doesn't even want to get dressed in the morning in case he'll "miss something."

I'm worried. But I don't know what to do. Luke is a high-maintenance kid. He doesn't play on his own very well or for very long. Even the baby (1 year old) plays on his own for longer and is much easier to take care of. And I have to work. So what's a mom/employee to do?

Don't Hold Your Breath

I love my refrigerator. It's actually not as nice as the one in this picture here, but I'm not picky. I like my refrigerator so much that we brought it to Alabama when we moved from Georgia. And that's when we broke it.

Fortunately, we only broke my favorite-but-pretty-much-unnecessary feature, the in-door water & ice dispenser. For some reason, after we installed the refrigerator in our new home, getting a glass of water also necessitated wiping up a puddle of water from behind the fridge. So, we stopped using the water part. Goodbye, cold, filtered water. You will be missed.

So eventually I decided we should take a look at the leaky plastic tube to see how bad the damage was. We took off the front grill, wiggled the tube a bit, and lo-and-behold, it was simply loose from its fitting. Yay! We have cold filtered water again!

So now we get to the ice part of the equation. It works, to be totally honest. Always has. But it's not completely reliable. See, I have this quirk. Well, I have a lot of quirks, but let's stay focused here. I hold my breath while I'm waiting for that first kerplunk of ice into my glass. And this has become a problem, because sometimes that fridge just won't give up any ice. None. It does its grindy-groany thing, and even teases me with a little falling ice chip sound occasionally, but leaves me with an empty cup and unhappy lungs for great stretches of seconds at a time. I eventually give up and breathe. And then I really humble myself by opening the freezer door, reaching in, and actually physically gathering the ice myself! The humanity!

Well, at least I've thought of a new function for my fancy in-door ice maker. As often as it actually gives out ice, I'm thinking it would make a great slot machine.

Dr Katz does radio

Jonathon Katz does a podcast you can download here for free:

http://www.jonathankatz.com/wkatz/



The first bit is about a word dominatrix... it will give a giggle to you English majors...


It should be a monthly thing. It is well worth a listen for us who love dry, dry, dry, dry, dry humor.

eBay reminds me why i won't have 6 kids...

Here is a link to a real eBay item. The description is super entertaining. I think the price went so high just because she got so many hits. LOT OF POKEMON CARDS THAT MY KIDS TRIED TO SNEAK BY ME

Not the best post ever in teh blog, but good for a little laugh...

Sipper Speaks

For all who might care to listen, here is a link to the Dalraida coC Website which contains a lesson I delivered on a recent Wednesday evening for the Summer Series. It's titled "The Gift of Song".

Everything Old Is New Again

I think all of you have been to our house at sometime or other. Recently, we added some space onto our kitchen and knocked out some walls to make a nice, open layout between the family room and the kitchen. Here are some pics to show how the progress went, how much work was done, and how much space was added. My Dad was instrumental in most of the work. However, Rachel did quite a bit of the work, too, especially with installing the floors. We did this ALL ourselves, in other words.

Me playing a trick on my son...

I was bored, work was slow, and he was awake and in a good mood... you would have done the same...

Crossing over

The wife, myself, and the boy went to Chattanooga this weekend. No problems that would be considered unusual for travels with a 6 week old occurred. In fact, the drive up took only 30 minutes more than usual. The drive back, however, took a good 3 hours longer.

Being that we were so close to Knoxville, I would have considered it a crime to not at least invite the Mullins family to have dinner with my wife and I Saturday night. Being that we had grandparents to babysit our son, we figured we would go on a date.

I won't lie that at first, I was hoping the Mullins' would find a sitter for their boys. I wanted a little adult time. However, plans didn't pan out like I had hoped. Thankfully!

They came to my folks' home and took a look at Tyler. But only after Issac had peed in my parents front yard. The boys were with them and on their best male-Mullins-behavior. Afterwards, we all went to the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Not much to do there but look at real life trains that are no longer in use. Some fun restaurants there, including one that had singing waiters. But entertainment aside, the menu looked like any Ryans Steakhouse menu and wasn't anything special.

So I asked a gift store employee of some local favorites and he pointed me towards the Aquarium where there was a fine assortment of restaurants, including the one we ate at; Easy Seafood (Chefs nick name is Easy). The wait was 15 minutes, so we walked a block to the aquarium where there is a wide assortment of fountains, pools, and waterfalls that kids typically play in. One look at this from the Mullins boys and that's all she wrote. With their mother saying "don't get your shorts wet!" it seemed to only dare each of them to see how close they could get without getting water on their shorts to the point where Caleb was simply running straight through the fountain.

10 or 15 minutes later we go back to Easy and are seated. The food was great. Not a place I will make a bee-line to go to each time I go to Chattanooga, but if I have kids with me, i will. VERY kid friendly. Chalkboards, goldfish snacks for the kids, etc...

Afterwards, we found this huge waterfall of steps that loads of kids and families were cooling themselves off in. My brother takes his daughter here often. The kids loved it, to the point where my wife was telling me to take off my shoes and run down the stair of water to get Caleb before he hurts himself as he ran down these stairs without fear.

The night ended appropriately... as Larissa and I were leaving the parking deck, we passed the Mullins only to see their youngest completely naked by the car and loving every minute of it.

All in all I was very happy to have had their boys with us. Caleb is a hoot. He purposely will not look at a camera when you take his photo, which had me laughing alot. I have crossed over I think... from a childless guy who prefers to be with my friends without their kids around, to a parent who doesn't mind it so much anymore.

The Shanghai Cafe

I created a new blog for my China adventures. After much deliberation I finally decided on the fairly lame name of The Shanghai Cafe. It seemed fitting as it is both where I am living and a nod to the old cafe.

It is a little sparse right no, obviously and won't be updated to much until we get internet in our home. But feel free to read and comment.

PS if the link doesn't work properly just click on my name and you'll find the blog. I'm working on a barely working connection and the site isn't pulling up for me at all.

Is it just me?

Something hit me the other day and it kind of made me sad...

This whole parent thing has turned my world upside down. More so than I expected. But one thing I didn't expect would be that my social life would plummet to a near-zero level.

I mean, I expected the first few weeks to not go hang with folks, but he is 6 weeks old now and still a part of me just wants to stick close to home base.

I mean, after the Sips had Noah (If I remember correctly) they were happy to have us over to their home! I keep thinking in my mind all the peoples homes I want to go to and take Tyler along, or to invite people over, but when Friday or Saturday come, and I see that dishes need washing, clothes need washing, the house is a wreck, and not to mention the baby needs feeding in a few hours, I give up the thought, slip into my pajama pants, and roll up my sleeves (Assuming I am wearing a shirt) to get to work. And if we get to eat our meal along the way, that's just a plus.

Believe me Sip, we want to come to yalls home. We want to go to several folk's home and we want to have people over. But when does the fear of leaving home base end? Am I a freak for feeling this way? I mean, I have never been Mr. Socialite, but I do like to hang with my closest friends from time to time and it frankly feels like ages since I have done so!

Gross

Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing for a woman to share with her infant. This, however, is just wrong.

Travels abroad

With Brew leaving for a first-time traveling experience in literally hours, I thought I would post a blog being that I am in a somewhat similar "First time travel experience" situation as well...

My wife, child, and myself will all be going to my parents home in Tennessee this weekend. The idea is so that, of course, my mom and dad can spend time with thier grand son, and that my wife and I can go out that night.

Those without kids do not realize what a task this will be. Even as my wife and I decided yesterday that we would go take our son to visit them, the fullness of the situation didn't hit us immediately. And before I had this child, I would have just thought "Toss some diapers in a bag, a bottle, a jug of 1% milk and go". After having some dinner at home, we began to think it over. Thoughts turned to paper and pen, paper and pen turned into hands on head eyes widening.

Eventually my wife spoke up and said "Do you remember how Josh and Rachel had an entire suitcase for Luke when we went to Disney World and how we couldn't understand how a baby could need so much?" I agreed, and we both began to feel like the Sips actually packed light for their child on that trip...

So, rather than go in alone on this, I would take suggestions from the panel of experts at my disposal. I know there are a great many men my age with kids reading this. Those who frequent this blog, I expect nothing less than advice. Those lurkers out there, feel free to comment. Women, of course, are welcome to comment just as much as the men.

It is becoming all too clear in my mind that it will be alot more convenient for my parents to visit us for the next year or so than for us to visit them, though, the drive must be made, and often... adults can turn insane when they are turned into grand parents.

Research and Development gone lazy...

If you have seen any commercials for cleaning products these days, you know the buzz word is "Disposable". Everything is disposable and everything makes cleaning "Easier". Which is all well and good for me. However, we still live in the dark ages in my home. We have an up-right vacuum, a broom, and a dust pan. We took a huge leap and recently bought a dust mop.

Waste and environmental concerns aside, this is fine and good with me, but I saw one product on TV today that absolutely blew my mind...

Endust disposable dust cloths. Or, as I like to call them "Paper towels". I could understand if there was, like, Endust built into it, but there isn't. The commercial instructs you to "Spray on Endust, wipe with the disposable cloth, then, just throw it away!"... just like I do with paper towels.

Here is the claim:

For $5 you get 10 12x12 cloths that the company doesn't even pretend to claim are reusable... How many rolls of paper towels can you buy for $5? The marketing campaign is to "Hold on to your favorite tee shirt" assuming people dust with a tee shirt. I can;t tell you how many times I was found curled in the fetal position of my closet by my wife, hugging my favorite shirt, hoping that there would be someone to invent a way that I could dust without this shirt. And God forbid that we had to (gasp) throw the shirt in the washing machine after we were done! "Endust Dust Cloths eliminate the need to store and wash dirty rags for dusting" And we all know how much room a dust rag takes up, what with how contractors are making homes SO much smaller.

I mean, am I missing something? Do they do something that I am not aware of? Are paper towels damaging my bed side table? Is it no longer fashionable to dust with a washable rag, much less keep washable rags in the house at all?

I mean, how dumb can we get, people? If anyone has bought these, they must make themselves known.

Four Days

Four days from this moment I will be flying over some part of Canada heading north and west. We leave Tulsa in the wee hours of the morning to Chicago. From there it is all the way to Shanghai. Twenty odd hours of travel, 14 from Chicago to Shanghai.

That's a long time no matter how you shake it. I've loaded my carry on with books and magazines. I've checked the airline for what movies will be showing. The iPod contains some 18,000 songs, several audio books, two movies and a television program. I'm going to carry some Tylenol PM with me so that I might sleep a few hours, and heavier prescription sleep medicine in case I decide to knock myself out.

We are mostly ready to go. The bags have been packed and repacked and repacked. We have a box of winter clothes to mail. And some reserve books in boxes in case we need to mail those. We have scanned a million articles and books to help Amy with her research. We have loaded every song we've ever heard on to the hard drives. We have chosen books and movies to take. We have had long debates over which clothes to pack, what toiletries we'll need, etc.

We already have an apartment there. Brian and Bethany took a gander at it and said it was ok, it even has an American toilet and a real bathtub. They have bought us a bed, couch, comfy chair, kitchen table and other things. We will stay in a hotel for a few days while all of this is moved in, but soon should be settled.

The school pays for the hotel, will reimburse us 80% of our flight and give us a grand to help settle in.

I'm nervous. Nervous as crap. And yet I am so ready to go and get it done. This waiting around is killing me. I know we will have a good time. I know it will be a meaningful experience. I have no idea what to expect.

I plan to create a new blog just for my daily ramblings about china. I'll keep my regular blog up for the pop culture explorations, and the occasional long form essay about life, but I figure it's better to have a separate one for the normal day-to-day activities.

Any suggestions on what cool, quirky, ironic name I should give this blog?

Of course I'll keep you guys up to date here as well, even if it is just a link over to my place.

Also I don't know when I'll get an internet connection over there, so I may be intermittent for awhile.

HP7: Spoiler Warning!!!

OK, Jamison gave us the go-ahead to discuss HP stuff within the comments. On your mark, get set, Expeliarmus!!!

Love Note: A Rock

On our trip (mentioned in my last post) we picked up a couple of souvenirs for family members. One of the gifts we bought was a small bag of colorful rocks from the Native America store in downtown Athens. Luke, as most three-year-olds do, loves rocks, so we thought he’d love them. We were not disappointed.

When we brought them home to him, he immediately pulled out his treasure box and began placing them into it. Then he started picking out his favorite rocks and pretending they were different food items. One looked like a plate and one was red like spaghetti sauce. One of his favorites was a beautiful chartreuse color and was shaped like a glass. He held it and played with it and pretended to drink from it.Yesterday at work, I was sitting at my desk, eagerly anticipating time to leave and go to the zoo with my family when I felt something poking me in my left butt cheek. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out the rock Luke had placed in there, unbeknownst to me. I immediately began to laugh/cry with joy at the beautiful little way my son said, “I love you, Daddy,” with his favorite rock.

My First Massage

My wife and I took a trip last weekend. We had been planning a getaway for practically since Luke was born and finally got our chance. My wonderful wife booked the nicest room in a new hotel for us with a hot tub, king-sized bed, right next to the pool, etc. She also, after asking me my opinion, scheduled a couple’s massage for us at a nice spa just a mile up the road from our hotel.

Before I go any further, I need to make it known that I have never had a professional massage before. I am the sort of person who doesn’t particularly care to be touched by someone I don’t know. So, I felt a little weird about going in for something like this, even though my wife would be receiving the same treatment in the same room. Another item of note is the fact that I have an extremely high tolerance for pain, so I don’t feel things the way most people do and I have to be careful about how I do things since I will hurt myself and not realize it.

So, Friday morning we wake up refreshed, hit the free breakfast bar, and head out for our massages. We arrive, fill out forms explaining any ailments, medications, or recent surgeries (I noted my vasectomy on the sheet) and then waited a couple of minutes while the therapists prepared to work on us. We were almost immediately greeted by our therapists and taken back to a small, dimly-lit room with two massage tables. They looked comfy and soft. My therapist was a slightly overweight woman named Amber. Rachel was to have her muscles smooshed around by a bearded fellow by the name of Jim. They both smiled warmly and reassured us of their desire to make us feel comfortable. Then they told us to take off our clothes and left the room.

Rachel and I disrobed quickly and slid into the smooth warmth of the massage tables, face down. We both commented on how nice it was to use the face cradles and lie flat. It was very nice. Then, the therapists entered the room. New Age music was immediately audible at their entrance. It partly annoyed me at first, then relaxed me once I decided this was not the time to be anal about music.

Amber began. She squirted an odorless oily substance into her hands and began work on my back. The first touch was fine, but my initial reaction was to laugh because it tickled so much. Rachel had signed us up for a deep tissue massage instead of the more, circulation/relaxation driven Swedish massage. But, I wasn’t feeling the deep-tissue feeling I expected. However, being it was my first massage, I waited and let her continue.

Unfortunately, I found myself under a type of tickle torture I had never before experienced. Every touch was like a feather being dragged along my sensitive spine. At first, I tried to hold in the laughter. My body tensed and skook. Amber stopped, “Are you alright, Josh?” “Oh, sure. Fine. Feels great! I just feel like I want to make sounds.” “Oh, um, ok.” For the entire back portion of the massage, I held back my laughter: something I am not used to doing, ever.
Finally, she moved to my legs. My right leg was bared. She oiled her hands. The moment she made the first rub, I cackled, jerked, rolled. I couldn’t control myself. Laughter cascaded from me as urine from an ACPO member. Amber and Jim initially seemed confused, but Rachel’s laughter seemed to give them confidence that I was just like that. Finally, I told Amber that she needed to press harder and that she had been tickling me mercilessly the whole time. She apologized to the inadvertent torture and proceeded to press harder. She pressed as hard as she could for the rest of the massage. And I laughed as hard and long as I have laughed in a long time.

Afterward, we went to the front of the parlor to pay for the relaxation. The receptionist was smiling and asking what exactly we were doing back there. Everyone in the lobby had heard my laughter from the back of the place. I doubt I will get another massage for a long time. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think it was worth the money. I expected the therapeutic effects to last at least a week, but alas they lasted only the rest of that day. Not good enough for what we paid. But, the effects of the laughter on my spirit and the relaxation and buoyancy I felt may have been.

My night with Hydrocodone

A few months ago, I had an ingrown toenail removed. The surgeon did not give the medicine enough time to fully numb my toe so I was screaming in pain through most of the surgery.

As a result, the doctor felt sorry for me and gave me a perscription for Hydrocodone; a stong pain killer that blocks the pain feeling from the brain. It turned out that my toe healed nicely and I never used any of the pills. It was interesting that at the pharmacy, they asked for my social security number because of the highly addictive nature of the pill.

I have kept the pills, since you never know when you may really hurt yourself, but have never used them. I gave some to some friends suffering from neck and back pain that their chiropractor was not able to fix, but mostly they have sat unused.

Saturday night, i decided to take half of one. They are easy to break in half. My justification was that we had driven to Birmingham that afternoon for someones baby shower. The drivers seat in my wifes car kills my back after an hour of sitting in it. In addition, holding a baby can stress ones muscles out more than you would think. I took hald of one at about 10pm and laid down to sleep. Here are some things I noticed about it...

Dreams; I remember NONE of my dreams that night. This is HIGHLY unusual for me. That is no sign of deep sleep for me. In fact, I woke up often hearing the baby cry. And when I got out of bed to walk, I was not dizzy or confusded or 'drunk' like I get with a muscle relaxer.

Thirst; I would wake up with the DRIEST mouth I have ever had. I could have drank a gallon of water if it was near me. My skin also felt very dry.

Dizziness: I wasn't dizzy at all. Nor did I feel "drugged" throughout this period.

Numbness; The interesting thing is that my body did NOT feel numb and it did NOT feel relaxed. As I woke up to pee around 2 or 3 am, I tested its effectiveness. I have a fever blister in my mouth. Always hurts to touch it with my tounge since it formed a few days ago. I touched it with my tounge as I walked to the potty and an immediate 'numb' feeling took the place of the normal pain. When I stopped pressing the sore, the numb feeling went away. I tried to pinch myself with my long index fingernail that I had yet to cut off. No pain, just a quick numb feeling.

It was kind of scary. Got up, went to church, and in church, I tried a few pain tricks again and the numbing thing still happened. This went on till about 10 or 11am Sunday.

So for about 12 hours, half a hydrocodone kept me from feeling any pain. I mean, I KNEW I was hurting myself (relatively) but the pain wasn't there.

So in case you care to take any Hydrocodone for pleasure, I am here to tell you that it really isn;t that fun. And not as relaxing as a muscle relaxer is. Or even an anti-inflamatory for that matter. And no, I don't have any left to give you. All trashed.

The Long And Dirty Tale Of The 35" Televison

Shortly after my brief affair with graduate school I landed myself a well paying job. I was young. I was single. I was making a lot more money than I had ever made in my life.

I bought a large, bulky 35" Sanyo television. This was long before flat screens and wide screens and easily lift able televisions. The thing was massive, weighed a ton and because of the shape of the tube it was incredibly difficult to hold onto.

But it showed a wonderful picture and it was nice and big to look at. I loved it.

Well I loved it, until I had to move anyways, and then I cursed at its weighty bulkiness. My poor father in law has helped me move it half a dozen times and every time he threatens to drop it accidentally-on-purpose.

With the China move I decided to sell it. I was tired of moving it, we had no room to store it and I figured with the money we'd make over seas I could afford a new one when we got back.

I posted it on local boards and a few national internet places as well. I put the price low and promised I could go lower for the right story. As I am forgetful and lazy and a procrastinator, none of this happened until about three weeks before we had to move.

Desperate is the word.

About a week into it I got an odd phone call. The call was from a third party operator who told me he had someone on the other line who was making the call, but who was on a keyboard. This person would type something, and then the operator would read it to me. I then responded and the operator typed out what I said.

At the end of each statement I made I had to say "go ahead" as the signal that I was done talking.

Sounds easy enough, and it was, except I kept forgetting to say "go ahead" and there would be these long pauses interrupted by the operator asking if I was done. Or sometimes there would be a long pause where the other guy had expected more out of me and he would ask me if I was still there.

At the time I thought he was just using some internet dealie instead of calling, perhaps to save on long distance, but now I guess he was hearing impaired.

Still we agreed on a price, and we arranged to set up details via the e-mail.

I sent the pricing and instructions on how to deliver. And waited.

And waited.

Just as I was getting perturbed, he e-mailed back. It sounded like all things were go, but to be honest the e-mail was so full of spelling and grammar mistakes, I wasn't sure what he was really saying. There was something about him needing to locate his shipper and something else about Western Union. To be honest again, it started to sound like a scam, but again it was so horribly written I couldn't be sure. I wound up replying that it was all ok and to simply let me know when he was ready.

More days passed and I sent another e-mail explaining I was leaving very soon and needed to get the sale completed by the next week. He e-mailed me saying he was sorry and that I would have the payment early the upcoming week. Again all the e-mails were poorly written and didn't make a lot of sense, but again I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I got a few other responses but ignored them as I hoped this original one would come through.

About Wednesday I gave up and offered it to the church. After much discussion they arranged to have some stout fellas pick it up. We hobbled it down the stairway, nearly dropping it twice and I was finally done with the TV.

On Saturday, after we were already in Indiana I received an e-mail from dude asking me if I had received his payment. Suddenly his words were very clear and the deal he had tried to make with me was that I would cash his check and contact his shippers. For some reason he said he was unable to get his payment to the shippers in time so he sent "extra" to me. I was supposed to then go to Western Union and make the shippers payment via that service out of my own money - the payback was already in his check to me you see.

Scam city. I'm certain his check would have later bounced and he'd be walking away with my good payment to the shippers. I even suspect he would be the shipper and the whole weird phone call is so that I would not recognize his voice when he arrived for pick up.

I decided to not respond to his e-mail. The only things I could think of to say were rude, rude and socially unacceptable. As I had already given him information about me I didn't want to piss him off and make him do something harsh or illegal to my personage. There was also a small nagging part of me that thought maybe he was hard off and on the up and up and I didn't want to crush the poor guy.

He e-mailed me again the next day and I decided to write a polite letter explaining he was too late, that I had given it away, and that I would never pay his shippers as it sounded like a scam. Then I said don't contact me again.

He hasn't, but I still feel mad and dirty.

Let them eat cake

For my birthday, my wife surprised me with a strawberry cake... but not just any strawberry cake...

Back when my Granny was still alive and when I was much younger, she would bake me a homemade strawberry cake. Everything was homemade, right down to the strawberries that she grew herself (I fear memories like this will belong to fewer and fewer people as the years move on, but that's an entirely different blog.)

Granny never had a recipe for this cake. She never had a recipe for anything, but they always turned out wonderfully.

An aunt of mine managed to recreate Grannys strawberry cake and commit the recipe to paper. When I found this out, I asked for the recipe and we have had it for many years.
Larissa made said cake for me for my birthday. Sure, she didn't grow the strawberries, and the actual CAKE was from a box, but she did make the divinity icing from scratch.

Thought I would share the wonderful beauty of this cake!