Nervous about Days in the Life...

Allright you ladies that are documenting your lives this week... I'm nervous. That's commitment! That's dedication! That's having a computer that actually reliably allows you to download pictures (hence the picture-less blog you currently know and love)... so, I don't know if I can do it.

I just don't know.

I'm thinking about it.

But, I do wish you could have seen a picture of me yesterday morning when I learned that the volcano in Iceland has grounded my boss in Veldhoven for an extra week. That was the best Monday news EVER.

So, I'm continuing to think.

Welcome, Pepper the Pig.

Over the course of this Winter, we have learned in this household that being parents of two children means that you have 2 of EVERYTHING. Two baths (unless Brynn acquiesces to bathing with the wildman), two dinners (we have not quite yet learned to eat in 1 shift yet), two bedtimes (currently works in Brynn's favor as wildman goes to sleep before her...usually), and most lovely of all TWO COLDS! Yes!! And lately, the newest doubling up -- two different trips to the doctor.

Today was Brynn's turn. (Wildman was in yesterday for some viral gunk and teething issues.) Let me preface this by saying I totally love our pediatrician. Like a lot. He enjoys when I ask questions so he can use big words -- which I find humorous -- so I always show up to all appointments with a very long list of random things that I have been thinking about since our last check-up. It's a total win-win for both of us.

(insert wavy "dudledoop" lines a la Wayne's World)

I was out for lunch today with some co-workers and my phone rang. "UH-OH" it was daycare. I knew this wasn't going to be good. It was dc's husband. "HI, uh, Kim? This is ____ _____, and Brynn fell and hurt her chin. There's a band-aid on it now, thought you should know, and uh, she might have to have a stitch put in it." Oh my. This was not Brynn's first bout with stitches, but I was not eager to have more put in.... (OMG I'm getting long-winded.) (Fast-forward).

The pediatrician was able to squeeze us in if we could get there in 45 minutes. We totally could.

I picked up Brynn. Her collar was full of blood, she had a band-aid on her chin, and she was getting her hair braided. Had there not been blood on the dress, I prolly would have cancelled the appt. She didn't look bad at all!

Oh well... dc husband said the cut was bad. The dc helper said the cut was bad. I didn't remove the bandaid.

We got to the pediatrician's office and the nurse had me remove Brynn's bandaid. I hoped for the worst as I didn't want my copay to go to waste (is this bad? I know it is. I'm sorry). I got the band-aid partly off, and we had a total winner. That was a HUGE gash. (my husband was slightly perturbed that I didn't get a picture of the pre-sutured gash).

My secret boyfriend, er my child's doctor, entered the room. Our options were this: She could have 2 stitches or he could superglue it shut. He had a very in-depth conversation with Brynn about her options (totally cute) and she decided that she wanted stitches. I called a time-out at this point and asked Dr. McDreamy what he would do if this were his daughter. "Well, my daughter is extremely hystrionic, so if this were her, we'd be at the ER so she could be administered general anesthesia because she wouldn't let anybody near her face." I laughed and then said "Okay, let's glue her, kay?" We again weighed the pros and cons of stitches vs. glue and went with the glue. Brynn shall thank me some day.

Dr. Smarty has a student doctor following him around like a puppy, so she (and I) got the play-by-play of everything he was doing. Here is a helpful hint for all of you: "When gluing a patient, it's helpful to put on a smaller size glove so that it fits very snugly. It will help prevent you from getting glued to your patient." I chimed in "Hey Brynn! That would be silly, wouldn't it? We'd have to take Dr. G home with us because he'd be stuck to you!" McSmarty promptly corrected me "Well, actually only 3-4 days." (sigh.. okay. Only 3-4 days.)

I told my husband about this (he is not "in the know" of my feelings for the Love Doctor) and he had to go and additionally correct me "Kim, only the glove would have been stuck to her face, and I'm sure they could just cut that off."

WHATEVS. Got it. He won't be coming home with us.

As we were leaving, the nurses in the hallway pulled Brynn over to the sticker wall and asked her which one she wanted. "Oh, I don't like stickers anymore." she said. The nurse then said "Oh, well ---- Do you like stuffed animals then? What would you like? A giraffe or a pig?" Um seriously?? The girl grabbed the pink pig and immediately named her Pepper. Pepper the Pig.

We came home and Pepper the Pig played with Pookie the Poodle and then they did some dancing to Bon Jovi. I made sure it was the tame, no-running kind of dancing. :)

She soon informed me that the only thing she could eat with her injured chin was "Meat and Mashed Potatoes." Mmmmhmmmm. "Brynn, do you mean meat and mashed potatoes, in addition to the licorice and oreos you just polished off?" "What momma?"

Baby Name Generator

So, no. I'm not pregnant, but I have a former classmate that is. She will not tell anybody the baby's name, for well-thought out, logical reasons. This makes me play guessing games. The guessing games led me to http://www.babynamegenie.com/baby-name-generator. At this site, you are able to put in your last name and it will tell you the "perfect" name for your offspring. To show you how stoooopid it is, here are my "perfect" names:

Israel Tobias
Hayden Trace
Patrick Dante
Kerry Jayden
Daniel Randall
Xavier Emmett
Presley Shayla
Gabriel Drew
Moriah Lucy
Isaiah Dennis
Dayton Darren
Dayton Wyatt
Victoria Lucia
Tucker Timothy
Diamond Antonia

Once it churned out "Diamond" I quit. What are your "perfect" names?

North Dakotan Sensibilities...

I am not a fashion guru or icon by any means, but I do occasionally watch “What Not to Wear” and I also enjoy flipping through People magazine and offering my opinion on “Who Wore it Best?” So, since I have now established my credibility, here are the things that need to be rethought you silly citizens of Fargo-Moorhead:

1) If your children are wearing winter coats and boots, you should not be wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts. Your children’s sensibilities should also translate to you.

2) If you are wearing a winter coat, it is not seasonally appropriate to be wearing flip-flops. Every appendage should be free from frost-bite.

3) If there is still snow on the ground, do not wear summer gladiator sandals to church (or ever, if you ask me). You look silly and you will get cold.

4) 50 degrees DOES feel like a heat-wave, I understand. However, your 3 year old child might be a bit chilly in a short-sleeve shirt on the playground. And no, your cigarette smoke will not warm him up…it actually makes my child cough.

5) Not necessarily related to fashion, but to common politeness – Please pick up your Starbucks AFTER church and not BEFORE.

Professionalism

So, I’ve had a bad day.

I got a lecture from my supervisor (whom I think very little of) about my unprofessional posture at an internal team meeting. Dear Blogreaders, it is true. When I was in a closed meeting room, with 2 coworkers and my supervisor, and as the meeting rounded into its second hour, I did indeed slouch in my chair for a period of approximately 2 minutes as my back was cramping up.

I sincerely apologize for how deeply this must have offended you. This was indeed quite unprofessional of me. I should know better.

This is what I wanted to say: “Oh, thanks for bringing up the topic of professionalism. There are a couple things that I wanted to mention to you as well. Here, let me outline them so your feeble mind can follow along:

1) When I have to wake you up at home to remind you that you are already late for meetings, that is generally frowned upon.

2) Spending the morning harvesting your crops on FarmVille, I fear, is typically a ‘no-no’ as well.

3) Showing up late to every single meeting because you are outside smoking, and then reeking of stale smoke, could also be considered unprofessional in some people’s eyes.

4) Having to fudge purchase order numbers so as to not alert your supervisor of your excessive company spending, can reflect poorly on your organizational and fiscal skills.

I hope that this brief outline will also help you to learn what is and isn’t professional when determining what choices to make while you are at work as well.”

I'm BA--AACK!

I’ve been staying away from the blog for quite awhile now. I’ve been cranky, irritable, and quite depressing to be around. I feel like I’ve been white knuckling it for awhile – but NOW I’m doing better. I also have the following to report:

I have made affirmative steps to “take” my life back. (very dramatic, eh?). Come hell or high water, I will be either starting or joining a law office mid-late summer. I have spoken to my previous supervising attorney and it definitely sounds like we can work something out. This would be GREAT and less scary than starting out from scratch… but still risky. My husband is choosing to keep his head in the sand, so he continues to cheer me on – which I appreciate to no end. More details will follow as soon as I know them.

On a completely different note, I am trying out a new antiperspirant called "Certain-Dri" - ever heard of it?? You need to use it at bedtime and it supposedly lasts for 72 hours. Yippee!!

Seven Pseudo-Interesting Facts About Moi.

So, silly Laura has tasked me with providing you three with 7 interesting facts about myself. Hmmm.... I do not know what is interesting about myself necessarily, so I have in turn tasked my family and friends with providing me with interesting facts. Oddly... only a couple of them had anything to say. I'm trying to not take this personally. Here's what they had to say:

My mother said:

(1): Intelligent, nurturing, sense of humor, impatient, loving, caring,
dominant, assertive, good speller, endearing …. Should I go on???

(Nope, that's good. Thanks, mom.)

My co-worker and new friend said

(2): You went to law school for 3 years and now spend your time arguing
with Indians all day long. Also you are VERY quick witted!

(This is true. My job does mean that I need to argue with actual Indians all day
long. At any given time I can tell you what time it is in India.)

(And for the record, she was my friend before she wrote these comments)

My bestest friend in the world that I have neglected since Brandon was born said this about me

(3): i think most things i know about you are probably more personal
than what others know and you probably don't want me to share... ;)
(Yes, that is true.) A rated G one, though, is: the tip of your noes
moves downward when you say "M" words. (Again, very true.)

My latin buddy (the language, not the heritage), HS friend, and re-discovered adult friend said this:

(4) Hmm.
I find your intense and long-lasting love of all things Bon Jovi
pretty interesting. Lots of people have fleeting loves, but yours is a
constant.

(I do love this man forever and always as long as we both
shall live.

Oh wait.. that's for something else.)

And --

(5) This may or may not be interesting, but I remember how you always
used to intentionally button up your sweaters the wrong way so that the buttons
were off by one. Like, the top button would go in the second button
hole.

(This I have no recollection of, and since I didn't have a drop of
alcohol until I was 20 2/3 years old, I know I wasn't drunk. I must have thought this was funny? Oh wait.. knowing myself in my high school days, I was probably trying to make a "statement" about nonconformity and doing what was expected of me...)

She goes on --
(6) In fact, that might be a pretty interesting thing after
all--the fact that many, many of my adolescent memories involve you. (insert: "Awwww that's sweet" here) Here's a brief rundown: Mexican Village salsa with a hint of onion, Junior Mint fiasco, "Hello, boys!" (again... I don't remember this one but I'm having a 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon with this one.), wool mittens from Herbergers (no real story, other than I always think of you when I think of mittens, which is fairly infrequent out here in the desert), and chicken
delivery.

(I would like to clarify that it was NOT Mexican Village salsa -- it was
either the closely packaged "Village" salsa or "Paradiso" salsa, and we found an entire damn onion in there. If you know the consistency of Mexican Village's salsa, you understand how shocking this was; the Junior Mint fiasco occurred during a screening of 'The Age of Innocence' -- when the lights came up, I had melted mints all over my sweater; I have a love of mittens; and the chicken delivery reference is a story worthy of several blog posts, but I'll leave it as "Yes, I have inadvertently and unknowingly participated in delivering frozen chickens across state lines, in a dilapitated van, in order to see a Cure concert.")

(7) I'm having a hell of a time formatting this post and it is infuriating me to no end. (Please reference my mother's description of me... she's right. I'm impatient. I'm done for tonight.)