Monday, January 31, 2011

Because I Wasn't Really A Good Driver To Start With.....

So, yesterday I go to return a saddle I borrowed from a perfect stranger. In a perfectly strange house with a perfectly strange driveway. (Might I add: a perfectly long, rocky, new driveway with edges that dropped steeply into soggy, muddy pits of despair...). I was, as instructed, to leave the saddle on the back porch because said perfect stranger would not be home. Sounds easy enough?

Oh, but you underestimate my ability to turn perfectly normal driving conditions into something from Legally Blond. Seriously.

So, I pull up the long, narrow, winding driveway with no turn-around and steep edges (can I make this sound any more like it's NOT my fault?) and put the saddle on the back porch as directed. I then decide that this particular area has a smaller ledge and because the frozen ground looks a little more stable, would be an excellent spot to pull off the driveway and turn around. And we all see where this is going, right? I'm sure I don't even need to say it, but I will anyway because ALL great stories start with..."And there I was: baby in the car seat..."

In order to see what I was doing I chose to back off the driveway into the, again, very stable-looking area to turn around. Three inches of clearance beneath my car coupled with low-profile tires and rear-wheel drive left me sunk to the rims and peeling out in a complete stranger's yard. Right on. There's nothing cooler than coming home and finding some half-wit with her car buried in your yard and a toddler screaming in the back seat, right? So, my initial panic set in and I called Todd at home (who was being amazing and cooking dinner while I had "just left for a minute" to drop this frickin' saddle off.) I couldn't bare admitting to him that I had, YET AGAIN, gotten myself into a sticky situation requiring chains, snatch blocks, a tractor and many, many more people, so I hung up before he answered. (Also, I would have called my dad, but only as a last resort, since the last time he pulled me out it did take chains, snatch blocks, a tractor and many, many more people.) Anyway, determined to get out of this by myself, I rocked back and forth in the car until I got enough traction and speed to launch me back on to the driveway. Not a HUGE whole, but certainly not unnoticeable...
In my infinite wisdom I attempt to pull off the other side of the driveway, putting my front tires in the pit of despair, leaving my back tires (since it is rear-wheel drive) on the gravel to heave me out. Well, that didn't work and I just started burning out on their driveway. I managed to get all four tires back up on the driveway and backed the entire way down the driveway and got away from there as fast as I could. I haven't gotten any calls regarding my insurance covering damages I did to their property, so I think it'll be OK. We'll see.

And to think, I didn't even like the saddle!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Sorry About the Delay! Back in Business.

So sorry for the lapse between posts. Kids are just, well, so time consuming! So much has happened that must be addressed:

FIRST HAIRCUT! I love it when they're too little to have a say. Daddy performed the first haircut to match his: Mohawk!! Totally the hit at daycare. He's so badass.


 He loved the clippers! Not a wet eye in the place.


Now, I'm not exactly sure where he learned this trick (Grandma? Grandpa? I'm not pointing fingers...) but I like to call it "Mommy didn't rinse the dishes before they went in here. Mmmm I'm still hungry." Enough said.



And this - a personal favorite. I visited Amy and her sister Abby over New Years and this is what happens when you let a boy toddler (unaccustomed to girl's toys) free in a very girly room:

No clothes and a fairy wand. That's SO going in the baby book.


I have to say, some of the highlights of my trip south to visit Amy and Abby include: 1.) First thing Saturday morning, Jan 1st, locking my only set of keys in my running car. Thank God for Amy's quick thinking and superior knowledge of Pop-A-Lock. I'm just impressed I hadn't put Colt in there yet. That could have been bad (although he said they do it for free if your kid is inside. FYI) 2.) Colt's first (and still only) identification of someone by their proper name: Abby, his new girlfriend. You'll wait for him, won't you Abby? ;) 3.) Chilling out. Seriously. For the first time in a long time. I didn't even get out of my pajamas until 9am. I call it ADHD on vacation!


And, below is a pic of our field (AKA pond) during the last heavy rain. Gotta love NW Washington in the winter!


Who are the cutest two boys in the world? Colt's going to be the best reader ever if Taylor keeps this up! As you can see, Taylor is reading him one of his favorites: Seasame Street's Nighty Night. He can identify Elmo, but calls him "Bell-Bo." Too cute.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Are We Asleep Yet?

I'm just going to say that for the last year we've been pretty fortunate with the whole sleeping baby thing. From the day he turned five months old he's slept about 11 hours every night. Straight. Uninterupted. 10 or 11 hours of glorious, silent sleep.
Until last week.
While we were on vacation and didn't really care about having to function during the day, my tendancy was to let it slide. The 2:00 am bottles and cuddling on the couch didn't really effect the following day because we were, afterall, on vacation. But now I'm back to work and have to actually focus, function and interact. (I've also taken up showering again for the benefit of my coworkers. FYI.) So, either Colt has grown accustomed to the midnight delights, he's teething again, or he's sick. We've eliminated a potential ear infection (which I thought might be the problem) and I'm unwilling to accept that he might actually like seeing me in the middle of the night, so teething? Maybe.
Either way I'm on to him.
Last night's bedtime: Dinner, bath, playtime, 1.875mL of infant Motrin, bottle and bedtime! And, how did it go you ask? Lovely!!!
11 hours of glorious sleep. (And 10 for me after the disasterous night before last.)
So, just when I think I'm on to something here, I realize the baby monitor was shut off last night - so who's really to say he didn't spend 1/2 the night awake anyway?

Anyway. I feel well rested. Which is good, right?

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Blah Blah. Back to Work.

And so comes the end of our glorious, fun-filled, all-things-accomplished two week holiday vacation. I can't say my attitude here at work has been even close to tolerable this week. And, really? How could it? Todd and I have been on vacation since mid-December. And just when I was settling in to the retired lifestyle, here I am again at work. Ugh.
It took a little over a week for me to settle down. My self diagnosed adult onset ADD coupled with my somewhat irritating need to organize my tasks on a daily list really was not conducive to a layed back vacation.
We started out with a bang. The Friday afternoon before the "official" vacation Todd layed 200 feet of landscaping fabric and had a dump truck full of gravel delivered to complete a driveway to the barn for the concrete truck scheduled to arrive first thing Monday morning to pour a slab in the barn.
So, aside from the driveway installation, concrete form building, concrete pouring, limb chainsawing, the building of the hot water heater cover, various hose repair, the completion of a 3 rail fence between our property and the road and various menial tasks, we managed to slip in some relaxation time!
I finally chilled out the Wednesday before I had to go back to work and have been pretty angry at the world this entire week for even having to be back here. 
Oh well, so is life. I did spend $10 on Mega Millions tickets this go 'round in hopes of never having to come back, but I think we all know how that worked out. Another 30 years and I'm outta this place. But, until then, I'm switching to the Washington State Lotto - fewer people ya know.