Can I cross "Save Madeline" off my to-do list yet?

I have not been productive today at all. Sometimes, when this happens, I can convince myself that this is a bad thing and be productive the last few hours before Jessie comes home and clean and cook and organize and look like I'm a cool housewife who's on top of things. Actually, most of the time I get at least something done, because guilt starts to get to me if it's noon and all I've accomplished is getting a shower and putting a cup in the dishwasher. Today, however, I have no motivation. It's 4:00, and instead of going downstairs to fold the laundry or packing a box full of old textbooks, I'm writing in my blog and reading about perfect strangers' lives. Don't judge me though. You know this could be you next Friday. Or two years from Friday, depending on your marital/parental/career/health status. Besides, it's very hard to do anything productive when you have to rescue a six-month-old every two minutes who loves to pull herself into a standing position on the couch, the walls, the safety gate, her crib, dining room chairs, televisions, kiddie activity centers, etc., but has not yet grasped the concept of how to get down without falling. Although she has grasped the concept that falling hurts. So there's a lot of standing and screaming, "Help me mom! I've exceeded my own expectations and I'm going to die of a concussion if you don't come bend my legs for me and show me how to sit down by myself! Because I didn't quite catch it the last two hundred times we did it. SAVE ME NOW!!" Which actually sounds like "AHHHHHHH! AHHHH!", but I've become a pretty good interpreter.

I got drugs. Hooray!

Today is a singular day. Today, I finally got my insurance company to pay for a prescription after over a month of hard battling. Despite Jessie's urging to vilify our insurance company online and damage their good name, I will not write the name here. Mostly because last time I complained about a company (which started with The Insurance and ended with Store), one of their VPs ended up calling me in order to apologize for their incessant calling, and I suspect, attempt to get me to remove my rant from the internet. It's amazing what happens when you defame someone online. You can yell at their salespeople all you want, and threaten to write letters and sue and ask to be put on the DO NOT CALL list every two days, but you write a blog about their poor customer service and they straighten right up. You'd think I'd write about my insurance company, to get them to apologize too, but I've already talked to them on the phone about twenty times more than I ever wanted to, and I detest phone calls from people I don't know more than I desire an apology. It seriously had become part of my daily routine. Do the dishes, take a shower, feed the baby, call my insurance company and get put on hold for twenty minutes only to be told everything was hunky dory when I knew it wasn't, because they wouldn't pay for any prescriptions. There's a problem when it takes a company three weeks to even admit there's a problem. And another two weeks to fix it. Alas, thus is life. I doubt there's any insurance company out there that doesn't make it like pulling teeth to get a payout. So, I will end there, and not divulge that this company I hate starts with "Al". And ends with "tius". Don't go with them. Ever. Thank you.

The end of innocence

So there I was...

(That one's for you, Jessie.)

Anyway, I was in the kitchen doing dishes, when I paused for a moment to go find Madeline and make sure she wasn't making a battering ram to bring down the gate, or spider-climbing up the walls, or spitting up into the vent. And this is what I find:


Madeline had climbed up into her bouncer, and then used it to climb up the entertainment center to get things off of the second and third shelves, to which I had moved forbidden items like cards and the like after discovering she could reach the first shelf from the floor. I didn't know whether to be proud or horrified. I knew she was too smart for her own good. And mine. Now that we're into climbing days, nothing is safe.

There is no good way to tell people you know everything about them.

I have a confession. I don't really feel too bad confessing this, though, because I have a sneaking suspicion I am one of many who do it and that it's actually pretty socially acceptable. I stalk people via the internet. People I don't know, and some I do, and sometimes fake people. Mostly I do this by reading their blogs, because hey, when Madeline lets me, it's my guilty pleasure. I like to find out that that girl I knew in high school got married to some guy I once was in the same ward as, and the dude from from my freshman ward now has twins, and my old bishop moved to Hawaii and got taped doing the hula wearing coconuts and a grass skirt and it's now all over facebook. (By the way. None of that is true. As far as I know. Except that everyone and their dog got married and had kids. But thus is life.) I know every little detail about people I have barely spoken to. That sounds creepy, but like I said, I think there are a lot of other people who are also this creepy. Maybe you are. Admit it. Or maybe you're somebody I'm stalking. Or both. Anyway, if you have a blog, there's a good chance I've visited it, because I read just about everyone's blog if I know them even remotely. And if they happen to have interesting lives and/or have witty writing skills, I probably read every little thing they've ever written. I am taking a great risk admitting this. Because now, if I run into you, you might start telling me about your life. But not all of it, because you'll say, "But of course you already know that from my blog." And I will get a guilty/confused look on my face, and start making up stuff about not knowing you had a blog (even though it's linked on mine), or that the baby keeps me so busy nowadays, I have no time to read blogs, or my computer crashed six months ago and isn't that sad, and it must have been someone else who updated my status on facebook yesterday. And you'll know that I'm lying and that I think you lead a dull life and have boring writing skills. That will be very awkward. Maybe, if we meet, we can just pretend we don't know about the internet. That would probably be better.

Spidergirl, Spidergirl

Madeline is climbing up the walls. Literally. She crawls up to a wall, the couch, my leg, the garbage can, and gets and her knees and tries to crawl up. This is often followed by a sudden loss of grip, a swift fall forward, and hard bumps to the head. I am afraid she is going to die. I have done all the good parent stuff. I have lowered her crib, bought a gate, put plastic things in the electrical outlets, went without my fan, relocated the laundry hamper, swept and mopped the floors so she doesn't eat crumbs and get food poisoning, and I dutifully undo the cords from the DVD player from the television whenever we aren't watching a movies so she can't grab them and get electrocuted or break the TV or do something else horribly dangerous, like swing like a trapeze artist. But I can't move the stupid walls. Or wrap them in fluffy blankets. Or make her wear a helmet. (Wait. Maybe I could try that one. Is that a cruel thing to do?) She just wants to be too big too fast, and she's got just enough motor skills to be a hazard to herself. I can just hear parents everywhere, mine included, out there laughing at me and shaking their heads knowingly. Maybe someday I'll be cool like them and laugh at my children when they're discovering the joys of parenthood.

On a brighter note, she's also starting to jabber more instead of always squealing, which is fun, because Jessie and I can lie to ourselves and pretend she's saying meaningful things like "hi" and "dad" and "buy more chocolate for mama". (I can't ever quite get Jessie to believe that last one. What a skeptic.) Jessie thinks that because she started crawling earlier than the average baby, she'll start talking earlier too. I think she'll have no need for coherent speech because she'll be off getting everything herself and going wherever she wants and learning to be quiet when she's doing mischievous things so I won't figure it out and stop her. Unfortunately for her, I've already learned that kids are most dangerous when you can't hear them, so I'll be on the lookout. Bryce taught me that one when he painted the table green while I was supposed to be watching him. Thanks Bryce, for initiating me into the ways of terrible toddlers and preparing me for many of the possible hijinks my own kids will likely get into. I'll get you back when I let you babysit my wayward children. Ah, sweet revenge.

America shouldn't be a democracy.

Jessie thinks I'm crazy. Which isn't a new thing. But he mostly thinks I'm crazy today because I am in mourning. Over a TV show. More specifically, America's Got Talent. Jessie and I got addicted, and we were guessing every week who would go on and who wouldn't make it. For the most part, I was a pretty good guesser. I usually got all the acts right, or just missed one. SO I was pretty confident going into the finale on the final pecking order. My guesses were as follows: Winner, Nuttin But Stringz; second place, Eli Mattson; third place, Queen Emily; fourth place, Donald Braswell; fifth place, Neal E. Boyd. Since Neal won the competion, you can tell that my guesses were a little bit off. And he did NOT deserve it. Eli did. I'd buy his album in a heartbeat. I told Jessie I was putting up Eli Mattson posters all over our bedroom walls in protest. This didn't phase him. Then I told him I'd put up Donald Braswell posters, which did get his attention, because he hates the man for some incomprehensible reason. I'd go watch him in Phantom of the Opera, but hey, I have no taste apparently. I was also disappointed at Nuttin But Stringz low finish, since they were the most original and unique of the bunch. The upshot of it all is that I have no faith in America's voting ability. Things look bad for the presidential election.

It's the busy season, and so I think we'll move again to make it even more fun.

It's suddenly October, and all of a sudden I feel like I have a lot to do. Maybe because Halloween is right around the corner, which I love, even if Jessie doesn't. Silly man. And then you've got Thanksgiving, and Christmas shopping, and trying to find a new place to live, and all the birthdays in both of our families these next few months. Seriously, why everyone had to be born in September, October and November is beyond me. Cool people like our little family are born in the February and April. It spreads out the festivities more. Plus you can ask for all the stuff you forgot at Christmas. So anyway, Jessie and I are looking for a new place to live next year, which is awesome, because I love house hunting. (Not really.) With Jessie going back for his MBA, we decided to be cool and live like poor college students again. Which also means packing up all the junk we've managed to accumulate in two years of marriage, which is a pretty impressive amount, to which Madeline has contributed the most outrageous amount. Maybe I'll give all my goods to charity and we can live in a tent on the mountain. That would be really affordable. I'm a genius.