Why didn't I just drive him to school? I don't know?

1. I had to wake Lucy up to get her dressed so we could take Henry to the bus stop.
2. She was fighting me about everything. Kicking while I was putting on the diaper, moving her arms like a windmill while I tried to get her t-shirt on. Plus I wasted precious minutes contemplating the location of a pair of tights before realizing we had no time for tights.
3. I got shoes on both children and Henry had put his coat on and was fussing with his zipper when I pushed him out the door, while I dragged Lucy without her coat into the driveway.
   
4. At this point the bus is cruising up the street, so I did the only thing I could. I left Lucy screaming in the driveway while I ran Henry across the street where my neighbor came and said, "I'll get him on. Don't forget his back pack!" (I was wearing it).
   
5. It was so horrible and harried and I don't know why I didn't just say screw it, I'll drop you off today. His school is only five minutes away. Maybe if we were really late and it was hopeless I would do that but when we are soooo close I can't resist trying to get him on the bus. I hope I didn't traumatize either of my kids. Lucy looked at me about ten minutes after the incident, once we were inside and said, "Where Henry?" So I think she's OK.
   

Small Losses, Big Wins

1. Lucy and I were headed to the gym. I was sitting in the driver's seat and went to put the key in the ignition when I realized I had no keys. 40 minutes later, after calling Cary's office and interrupting his session, suspecting that Henry snuck them off to school in his backpack, and debating whether it was bad karma to use the valet key to drive us to the gym, I finally found them on the closet floor where they had fallen out of the pocket of my rain coat the night before.
2. A neighbor and I joined Henry and her son at lunch in the school cafeteria today. The school has a policy that you can show up and eat lunch with your child whenever you like. It was mostly enjoyable, but I learned that Henry is the only child who has an assigned seat because of his behavior on the second day of school (like two months ago?!) when he didn't like his classmate's grammar. I think it is a little bit extreme, but he doesn't seem to care. He told me that his "brain tells him to sit there."
   
3. I know this is supposed to be a happy day for East Coast Liberals like myself, but instead of feeling hopeful I just feel like the task ahead is insurmountable, the damage done is so dramatic, and I am incredibly depressed that Dennis Hastert was re-elected. Rumsfeld resigning helped a little. I could almost hear a parental voice in my head saying, "but Rumsfeld resigned, doesn't that make you a little bit happy?" OK, yeah. I can't be completely grumpy.
   

Primary Care taketh and Primary Care finally giveth back

1. Last week I got a call from my new primary care doctor's office to remind me of my appointment. It was the 6th, but I had written it down for the 16th. I had set up the appointment in July and would have been really upset to miss it since the doctor I was leaving behind had made me cry on 3 out of 5 visits.
2. I went to double check the office location, although I was sure I had driven by it on the way to get my hair cut many, many times.
   
3. Oddly both google and mapquest had a different location.
   
4. And the office wasn't picking up its phone.
5. I had to leave or I was going to be late...
6. I get to where the office should be, but yeah, there's no office in sight, at least not for my doctor.
7. I had the presence of mind to bring the other address with me, and am happy to report I made it there about 5 minutes late. The new doctor was very nice, they even set up the referrals for me, and nobody made me cry.

Things my old doctor said to me, just for laughs:
"Having kids should be like having a second childhood. It should be fun."
"Relax and go rent a movie like Baby Boom. You know, with Diane Keaton"
I don't work on Wednesdays.
"You had your chance with Physical Therapy, and I am sorry your back still hurts, but you can't have any more visits."
"You have to stop carrying your children. You need to be the pampered pooch. Can't you just go get a massage?"

And yes, she chose not to start a family of her own.

Look out for Lucy

1. I went to dress Lucy this morning in a shirt that used to be Henry's. It was a suitably unisex red and white striped long-sleeved, hooded t-shirt.
   
2. She took one look at it and said, "No! Henry's" And then pointed towards his room and said, "Go!" As if I should return the offensive article from whence it came immediately.
   
3. What 2 1/2 year old refuses to wear hand-me-downs?
   
4. And how does she even know it was his? She wasn't even born when he wore it!
5. So I did what any good mother would do. I broke out a super cute t-shirt from mini Boden that I had been saving for her and we were all happy.
   

After practically ten years of marriage

Cary surprised the hell out of my by fixing the shower light all by himself. And they say marriage gets predictible? No way!

Time out of mind, and out of my usual format

In order to maintain full truthiness, I should specify that these events did not all take place within one 24 hour period, but because of event #1 below I have had difficulty accessing my computer

1. Lucy has not only learned how to use the computer, but gotten pretty good at it, and she doesn't like to share. When I ask for a turn she says, "No. My 'puter! Play Game!." And then she contines her work. She has now found another excuse to skip meals too, so I can see we are going to have a continual problem.
2. Henry spilled a good portion of the contents of a bag of red lentils inside my pantry and on my kitchen floor and then didn't tell me about it. I didn't know about it for awhile because I was too busy reading somebody elses damn blog! When I discovered the mess I was pretty annoyed because my barefoot children had tracked those tiny little red circles all over the house, (I am still finding them!) and Lucy had to assist in the clean up with her broom. Really this is all my fault because I wanted her to have her own broom for just this reason and I wasn't watching my kids, but I was still pissed.
3. The light in our bathroom shower is out. I mention this because it will probably remain out until we go to sell the house. The lightbulb is covered with a fixture that has no obvious means to remove it. Plus I can't reach it without standing on something. So in our house, it really does take more than two over-educated adults to change a light bulb. We may have to call my dad. How embarrassing!
4. My parents got a new TV. In order to keep them from kicking the old one to the curb I asked if we could have it. My dad and Cary brought it over, but they couldn't get it upstairs because it weighs about 150 pounds. So now it is beached on my living room floor, a Trinitron whale, until I can figure out an environmentally sound way to get rid of it.
   

Can squirrels talk to raccoons?

1. Earlier today a squirrel figured out how to open my birdseed container. No big deal.
2. Then tonight I heard a loud crash while I was putting Lucy to bed. There was a raccoon on the deck and it was determined to get into the metal container full of bird seed that is out there.
   
3. Sufi and I tried to scare it away to no avail, and within minutes it had tipped over about ten pounds of seed. Apparently raccoons are not afraid of cats hissing and women waving their arms saying, "please go away, please, please!"
   
4. All I can say is I hope it has a big appetite or it cleans up after itself (and doesn't invite friends) because our yard is already a huge mess. Now in addition to cleaning up the branches I have to clean up the seed and find a new way to store it.

Back to normal things going wrong... yay!?

1. Lucy did not nap.
2. Henry was so excited to get a brownie for dessert that he failed to notice that his dinner plate was resting at the edge of the table. It fell, and shattered into lots of tiny, tiny pieces.
3. A few days ago I got a pill stuck in my throat. We were still supposed to be boiling our water and I didn't have quite enough with me but I tried to take it anyway because I didn't want to go downstairs for and haul up more. So it got caught in my throat and now for two days it hurts every time I eat. (I feel like David Cross in Mr. Show: "Hurts to swallow fizzy liquids.") Since the pill can't still be there I have no choice but to conclude that it must be a tumor or other unnatural growth.
   

The Aftermath

1. The Power. Soon after I posted my update the snow really started to pick up. We lost our electricity around dinner time. I didn't know where my matches were, or the candles we keep on hand for these occasions.
   
2. The Trees. About an hour later we heard a loud crack, like a gun shot. It was the trunk of one of our pear trees snapping in half. The other one snapped later that night. The photo on the right shows the two trunks. One fell across our deck, and all of our patio furniture (see left photo), and the other fell towards the dining room window missing the house by a foot or so.
3. The Sump Pump. After Cary and I got the kids put to bed in the dark (we only had one flashlight, and it moos like a cow every time you turn it on) we sat in the darkness listening to the radio. It dawned on us that we had better start bailing out the sump pump in the basement. We started Thursday night at 10 pm and bailed about 40 gallons of water out of the sump pump and dumped it into the back yard. I scooped it out using an empty gallon milk jug and Cary hauled it upstairs by the bucket load. We took the nights off to sleep, but otherwise we did this every two hours for a day and a half while we were awake. If Lucy was awake she usually screamed the whole time, but we had gotten 19 inches of snow and we were sure it was going to flood the basement.
   
4. The Sewage. On Friday night we realized maybe we could dump the sump pump water down the utility sink and not haul it upstairs. Cary said, the sink already had some water in it. I noticed the water smelled bad. Yep. Our sewer line was backing up into our sink. Now we couldn't safely flush our toilets or run water at all. The kids were already asleep and we just went to bed after setting the alarm for 3 am just to make sure that the neither the sewage or the sump pump were going to overflow the basement.
   
5. Our luck begins to change. Just before we went to bed the plow company came and removed all that heavy wet snow from our driveway. I just stood there and watched. I was so happy to see them. On Saturday morning Cary went next door to have our neighbor help him open the garage door since the opener didn't work and we didn't know how to bypass it. Our neighbor offered to plug our sump pump into his brand new generator! No more bailing! Then he came into the house, looked at the sink full of rising sewage and said, why don't you turn off the valve and the problem should go away on its own! Then he opened our garage door and we were off. We spent the day with my mom and dad who fed us. They also had no power. Then we were planning to spend the night at my brother-in-law's, whose power had returned. Just as we were struggling to get Lucy to sleep a friend called and said he had power, and so did we. 230,000 other Western New Yorkers still didn't and needless to say I felt incredibly lucky for so many reasons. The sink did go back to normal all by itself.
6. The last few pictures are just a few more shots from the yard. It is amazing how much damage snow can do in less than 12 hours with the leaves still on the trees. There was no wind blowing or things would have been much worse. I have no idea how much this is going to cost to clean up, or when it is going to get done. I think there are plenty of other people who have it much worse than us. Some people lost every tree in their yard. I will have to rethink my shady backyard garden, but otherwise we are fine. I will miss the pear trees, but I will always remember them in bloom, and the time I saw the Horned Larks land in their branches.

The date: October 12

The weather in Buffalo: currently snowing! Need I say more?

Lots of other things have gone wrong recently but I have been too busy basking in the afterglow of the Jenny Lewis concert to care.

This won't be turning into a music blog because there are certainly plenty of those, but maybe I have found the magic formula: attending x number of excellent concerts builds stamina to withstand y number of irksome life incidents. Hooray! With Fiery Furnaces and The Hold Steady on tap who knows, I may not be posting much the rest of 2006...

Update:
I think this qualifies as what went wrong: When I wrote about the snow there were just a few flurries, like haha, it's snowing in Buffalo before Halloween. But now the stuff is sticking to the ground. My poor garden! The photo doesn't do it justice, but the gaura (front, center) is completely snow covered while still in bloom. My Clematis (previously thought to be dead) is blooming so beautifully, but not for long! My plants aren't silvery, they are covered in snow, and now they are going to be gone until next spring.

Libations: Tales of the Untrained

1. A Starbucks with a drive thru just opened around the corner from me. While Buffalo is not new to Starbucks, it is new to the phenomenon of having one on every corner (or in our case in every strip mall). While this could easily be the subject of a post in itself, it is not. I have a love hate relationship with Starbucks, and I am addicted to coffee. No, this is just about my own drive thru experience today. I had my very own travel mug (thanks, Allie) and I thought, "I am leaving the house today, that counts as traveling, right?"
   
1. I waited behind one car for seven minutes. I think they had to redo a drink.
   
2. I watched through the window the guy fill my travel mug, then spilled the coffee all over himself and the outside of the mug. Appetizing.
   
3. At the same time another "Barista" was having trouble steaming milk and steam was spewing out all over her and the woman trying to train her.
4. When they guy handed me my cup it was barely sealed and there was coffee running down the outside of the mug. I asked him for some napkins and didn't tip him. At least not today. The whole thing was more funny than annoying, but if they don't catch on quick I think the coffee consuming public at large is going to be pretty impatient.
2. I also had a trainee at the grocery store and she forgot to charge me for a 12 pack of beer. So yes, I do believe in karma.

This is for the heroes

Cary and I are huge fans of Stephen Colbert, and when he got his own show we were so excited. I was even more excited to learn that I could have a bit of Stephen for my very own.

Where are the migraines, you ask? Migraines are dead to me.

No Soup for You!

1. Cary had almost nobody scheduled today, which is a problem all on its own. But he has lots of free time to spend with me and the kids which is nice ... until he stops getting paid. I feel terrible waiting for all the kids to get their quarterly reports (i.e. warnings) but then he will have a waiting list until Christmas!
2. So we decided to go out to lunch. We went to a new place that I think may be based on the Seinfeld Soup Nazi character. When we arrived we found that a bowl of soup cost $8.69 and there were no high chairs. So although no one yelled at us, we did actually walk in and leave without soup, just like on the show.
3. Henry has a mosquito bite on his right ear that is very swollen. He looks a bit like Rowan Atkinson at the moment, and tomorrow is school picture day.

Counting and Barking...

1. I am still tired from Monday's night out with my Mom. We went to see Elf Power at Sound Lab. Unfortunately there were only about 15 people there, but we both knew someone! Anyway when I am tired, I do things wrong:
1. I forgot to pack Henry's snack in his backpack. In my defense both kids were making noise while I was trying to make 2 lunches and the snack, and Lucy was hanging onto my knees yelling, "up up" the whole time.
2. I tried to put on lip gloss and I sank my whole front tooth into the tube.
3. I put the junk mail on the kitchen table and Cary's mail in the recycling.
4. I completely forgot that I had planned on stripping the beds and washing all of the sheets and towels, which I usually do on Wednesday.
   
2. Lucy continues to punctuate her sentences with barks and pants, like a dog. For example, the store clerk might say, "Do you need anything else?" I answer, "No thanks." And Lucy says, "Arf." and then pants like a dog. This worries Cary considerably but I just think it is kind of funny. I stopped at Marshalls to look for a cheap pair of sneakers for Henry for the next time decides to play in the mud. I didn't find any, but I did find I did find a book by Sandra Boynton called Doggies, A counting and barking book. I had to buy it.

1. I took Henry and Lucy to the playground to meet some of our friends. Instead of playing with the other children Henry decided to run around the perimeter of the playground equipment.
2. He stepped intentionally in a mudfilled gash that was about a foot away from the edge of the play area. I couldn't see it, but I actually heard squishing. Then he got mud all over me as well. He was still wearing his new sneakers because I wasn't expecting him to go all commando on me.
3. They went through the wash OK and are currently drying. We all had to come home and change clothes and both children required baths. I still haven't figured out how Lucy got so muddy.
   

What Went Right... Again?

Oh, Brave New World... Another post that features cheers not jeers!

1. My Other Blog is a Cadillac. My pal Jen14221 started a blog called I bought it on eBay, and I had no choice but to participate. And lo, it got a shout out from Amalah, an actual real blogger that people read not just because they are related to or friends with her.
   
2. I am just about finished with my review of the new The Hold Steady CD for Amp Camp. It is the first time I've gotten my grubby little paws on a CD with a groundswell of anticipation preceeding its arrival, and it is infinitely more fun than reviewing something I suspect no one but me is ever going to listen to. Hooray!
   
3. Speaking of Amp Camp, Danny, the original Amp Camper, has a new venture that may eventually lead him to post about What Went Wrong, but I hope not. He and his girlfriend Nina have turned their lives into living performance art. They have started a blog where you can vote to send them to live in one of 250 towns or cities in the US for one year. They promise to write and tell us all about it. Last time I checked, towns in Arkansas and Alabama were the early vote getters, so go to DannyandNina.com and vote to send them somewhere, anywhere else!
   

What Went Right

1. Babies! I have heard from several friends in the last week and learned that either their babies (or nephews) have arrived healthy and safe into the world.
   
2. Because the Dalai Lama was visiting UB today, all classes were called off for a "day of learning." As a result my Dad called off his day of work and decided to babysit Lucy so my mom could take me to lunch. Thanks Dad and thanks Buddha!
   
3. Henry finished his massive Kindergarten project with minimal disagreement and actually put forth a reasonable amount of effort, plus it's done!
4. There was an article in yesterday's New York Times that Buffalo is ready to make a come back after 50 years of decline. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/nyregion/18buffalo.html?ex=1159243200&en=d051f29c920ca5aa&ei=5070&emc=eta1
   

Who's Afraid of the PTA?

1. Our morning began with Henry eating a banana for breakfast at the kitchen table. This was his second attempt at eating something for breakfast. The bus was coming soon. We were rushing. Or, I was rushing him. He dropped a piece on the floor (no big deal), went to pick it up, then stepped in it -- no! -- then took a couple of steps --no!--oh no! I was able to gently persuade him to sit back down so I could clean mushed banana out of the extra deep lugs of his brand new sneakers during our last few minutes before we went out to wait for the school bus in the pouring rain.
2. Everyday now when he gets off the bus I treat his backpack like it's a live grenade. I gingerly unzip it and carefully examine the contents. Today I learned two things:
1. I signed him up for the "wrong" swimming class. The UB swimming class I chose is all the way down at the Main Street campus (inconvenient) on Saturday (really inconvenient). Today he got a flyer announcing the "right" UB swim class which meets at the local high school (huh, not at UB?) up the street from us on weeknights (super convenient). I think I will just sign him up for both classes since they only overlap for a few weeks. I was not happy. This was the same class that I mentioned where my dad had to bail me out because I forgot to sign the check. We are afflicted with some sort of spooky swimming curse!
2. I also learned that next week is Henry's week to be "highlighted." So he has to bring in the Kindergarten version of a PowerPoint presentation by Monday and the teacher who is currently my least favorite person in the world for a variety of reasons decided let us know about it TODAY. She knew this was coming all along, but thought that we only needed three days for what she describes as a "fun" project. I can tell you that it isn't fun to try and get my son to sign his own name so it is sure as hell not going to be "fun" to get him to write a paragraph about himself. It isn't that I would have spent any more time on it if she had sent it home Monday but I would have had time to mentally prepare myself for the amount of manipulation that it is going to take to get Henry to comply with this amount of "fun" work. I guess this is what people meant whent they kept talking about "high expectations in Kindergarten." And sadly this was a pretty good day for the backpack.
3. Tomorrow is the deadline for joining a PTA committee at his school. Whose afraid of the PTA? Me. I saw the Stepford Wives. At least three times, and assuming I am Katharine Ross, I don't think I'm going to show up and meet anyone even closely resembling the Paula Prentiss character. I have drafted many scenarios that would make it tolerable for me. I could pretend I am a character on the Morgan Spurlock documentary 30 Days, for example. I could pretend that it is a good place to meet other moms who like indie rock. I might just wear my Arcade Fire t-shirt and see if anyone notices. I just can't get the image of double knit polyester pants out of my head. I doubt the other mothers wear pants like that. I don't even know where one would buy pants like that but everytime I think about joining the PTA, I see artificial fibers and I stop dead in my tracks. Maybe I can wait until next year...

I caved and signed up for the yearbook committee, but I will cut and run if I detect the presence of Orlon, Dacron or any other double knit, manmade fiber ...

Kindergarten!

1. We put Henry on the bus without his backpack. I only realized this because my neighbor who had followed her daughter to school at the daughter's insistence had been informed by said daughter, and my and Henry's new favorite person that "Henry doesn't have his backpack and he is really sad. Can't you do something about it?" Moments after she informed me the school called and inquired if I "had my son's backpack." So Lucy and I sped over to the school, where we were informed that "these things happen all the time" and actually not made to feel like we were the worst mom/sister combo in existence.
   
2. Henry got off the bus wearing a different shirt than he wore to school. And it wasn't his either. Apparently he had yet another nosebleed and this shirt was salvaged from the lost and found. *This was all on the first day!*
3. On the second day he hit a kid over the head with his lunch bag because the kid said, "my lunch is gooder than yours." Henry is NOT a fan of poor grammar. So the school sent a note home and we discussed it with him. He understands to use words instead of fists when someone mangles the English language. He did much better today, the third day, when he came home with his shirt covered merely with jelly. He reported being a good listener, that other kids were throwing rocks, and that he met a girl named Lexi in the cafeteria.
   
4. This has nothing to do with Kindergarten, it's just funny. I got a call from the UB Swimming program (Thanks to Karen for the suggestion, if you are reading this!) I had mailed them a check for Henry's swim lessons and filled out the payee section and the amount but not the date, the written amount, or um, oh yeah, I didn't sign it either. My Dad works at the University, so he offered to go over and pay the debt for me and pick up the check.
   

With Henry starting school I have been so preoccupied that I have been barely able to accomplish simple tasks like posting to this blog, or paying bills. It's so hard to function without him around because not only am I worried about how is day is going, and feeling sad about this big change in our lives, but I keep expecting him to be here, needing some juice or his lunch or something. It is so difficult to accept that he is actually old enough to be gone from the house for half a day and ride the bus and come home merely covered in his own blood on a hard day, or on a good day, its just jelly.

Why we only take two-day long vacations

1. I forgot to pack a sippy cup for Lucy. She does OK with straws, but I also forgot that they aren't allowed at Zoos, and we were at the Toronto Zoo on Friday. We were managing pretty well with a plastic cup of milk until Cary said, "Hey, Lucy" and tried to snap a picture. Then the milk was all over both of us. Fortunately it was her last allotment, and there wasn't much in the cup at the time. I was just trying to avoid her having to wear smelly clothes the rest of the day since we weren't going to the hotel until later.
2. We managed to locate an Indian restaurant where Cary had fond memories of eating Chicken Curry when he was about Henry's age. About halfway through dinner Lucy began the familiar shriek of: "diaper, diaper!" We were in the middle of Toronto's Indian neighborhood, and the restaurant we were in was very casual. Not the kind of place with fold down changing tables in the restrooms. So Lucy and I wandered out and decided to try the Public library we had seen on our way in. It was closed, but its side yard was secluded. Lucy marched over, said, "grass, lay down." And I changed her right there. Hooray for the peaceful haven of the public library!
3. Then there was the sleeping. Or the not sleeping. Lucy has never slept in a bed before this trip. She wouldn't even look at the Pack-N-Play. She slept in one bed with Cary, and Henry and I slept in the other. I am sure every family sharing a hotel room works it a bit differently but in our family lights out was at 8:30. Which totally sucked for me. I don't think anyone slept much. Henry was too wound up. Lucy was too weirded out. Cary and I were both dealing with the uncomfortable surroundings and the constant interruptions. The second night of sleeping for Lucy was much better than the first, so maybe we are making slow gains in that direction.
4. Then there was the rain. Everything we had planned to do was supposed to be outside. I was not about to go lugging a two year old around a bunch of museums, so when it rained we went the only place we could go that was inside, free, and offered a second stroller to put Henry into: the Mall. It was the Eaton Centre, but it is just a big mall. We spent Saturday walking around inside after particularly terrible hotel breakfast. We didn't even really shop. Although I did find fun size Coffee Crisp at Shoppers drugmart. (For the non-WNY audience, Coffee Crisp is the candy Holy Grail) Thanks for the heads up, Jen14221! Then we took the kids to the hotel pool, play room, had an abysmal pizza dinner, then it was back to the Eaton Centre food court in search of ice cream.
5. Today was our last day and since it was still raining we abandoned all of our plans and came straight home. Straight is a bit of misnomer since we waited about one and a half hours to cross the border. The kids were very patient, and generally well-behaved. But I can't help feeling like we just bought the world's longest and most expensive Toronto zoo passes.

In all seriousness I would love to know how other people with kids do it? How do you travel? How do you actually get on a plane? When do you have fun? How do you sleep? This was only two days, and was planned deliberately to be "easy," and it still really stressed me and Cary out. I know it wasn't a complete waste because it was fun for the kids, particularly for Henry who knows what a hotel is, and was aware we were away etc.