The Shoe Problem

Madeline has a shoe problem. She changes her shoes every five minutes. There are a few rules: She can only wear matching shoes when we are leaving the house. Shoes on the wrong feet are better than shoes on the right feet. Shoes that are too small are best. Anytime she cannot get a shoe onto her foot in less than half a second, because said shoe is too small or on the wrong foot, she screams loudly. The death screams she usually saves for when she is stuck in a small place or has pinched her finger in a door. (I guess she figured out that these get my attention a lot faster.) Yesterday we had three full fledged meltdowns over shoes, where Madeline was sobbing like I'd cancelled Christmas and then torn apart her doll. I've decided that one more day of this may force me to gather all of Madeline's shoes in a garbage bag and leave them on my sister's porch, returning them to whence they came.

Jessie's big news.

So I've been not mentioning this for the past two weeks, so as not to jinx it, but prepare yourselves for awesome news: Jessie is getting a new job! Today is his last day at his current job, and on Monday he starts at a company called @task (pronounced at task. Confusing, eh?). His last job was pretty good to him, and he did good work, but it was time for a change. His official title at the new job will be Corporate Marketing Specialist. Which sounds cooler than Stay At Home Mom, but I still contend I have the more awesome job. Because I can take naps and my boss sings Mary Poppins to me and gives me hugs when I'm feeling sad. Take that, Jessie.

Anyway, we're pretty excited for the change and grateful there was an opportunity for Jessie to find a job with a little more room for growth, even though the job market isn't great. You can't complain when some people are struggling to find one decent job, so at the risk of sounding much too mushy and serious for this blog, we feel very blessed. And as a bonus, Jessie gets to come home early today and help Madeline and I get over our cabin fever (sickness having kept us from going anywhere or doing anything for a week, and we're itching to go cow-tipping or something.)Can you say family date night?

Sick Day

Yesterday was a sick day. It qualified as a full-fledged, official sick day because Madeline and I stayed home from church. Which is about our only real obligation in life, and the thus the only thing we can sluff. Madeline has been a snot factory all weekend, and I woke up with a sore throat, so we decided not to spread the joy to all the two year olds in the ward. Of which there are a trillion. Because then we would have a mob of moms calling for our heads.

Madeline wasn't cool with the whole sluffing thing. She saw Jessie get all dressed up and kept asking to go to nursery. She was so excited and cute I almost wanted to let her go. It reminded me of a time when I was in second or third grade. I got sick on Halloween, which we all know is a major bummer. I was supposed to be Pocahontas, and even though I'd been puking, I got all ready to go and begged my mom to let me go to school. She didn't. I was pretty upset. But now, fifteen years later, let me say this: Good call mom. Sorry I was a twerp. And thanks for letting me go trick or treating anyway, even though that mostly meant laying in the back of the van while my siblings picked up the candy.

Staying home sick wasn't as much fun as it was when I was a kid. Madeline was cranky, we were both bored, and I felt guilty I was watching Mary Poppins instead of dragging Madeline out of sacrament meeting. I guess you know you're old when you would rather be in sacrament meeting than singing I Love to Laugh. We did watch some church videos though. My mom recently gave us a couple of old tapes from my childhood, so Madeline could experience the joy of a Children's Songbook Sing Along, and a little nugget called Lorenzo's Songbook. If you have never watched Lorenzo's Songbook, you are cordially invited to my house for a life changing experience. I don't want to give anything away, but here are some teasers: 1990. Pioneer dog puppet. Banjo music. Over zealous and peppy young children. Old primary songs. Okay, that pretty much gives it all away. But it's great stuff. The movie even shut down on us after the television started eating the tape. Seriously. I was totally feeding old video film back into a case yesterday. I am so old school and awesome. Madeline loved it. She watched it with her stuffed dog, which she named Joey, after my parents dog.

Anyway. I think we're on the mend now, which is great news. But in our sickness-induced boredom, we started another puzzle, so you probably won't see us for two weeks while we finish it. (We're not extremely slow. I just gave us extra time for the inevitable eventuality in which Madeline smashes all of our work.)

A happy story. If by happy you mean not.

It's been one of those days. Where I tell you about how naughty Madeline has been, rather than wasting brain cells coming up with a creative and original topic to blog about. Don't worry, it's a pretty good one. I kept Madeline in this morning instead of going for a walk because she was starting a runny nose, and I think she wanted to punish me. I was sitting on the couch reading a book, when I reflected on how quiet Madeline was being. I hadn't heard chairs scraping across the floor, or bowls being pulled from the cupboard, or cereal being dumped. Naturally this was worrisome. So I hightailed it into the kitchen. And lo and behold: Madeline had poured out three quarters a gallon of milk onto the floor. And was laying on her stomach trying to lap it up like a dog. Because apparently, "Please Mom, I want a drink" is so outdated.

Oh, but wait, it gets better. It went under the refrigerator, so I had to strain and push and move that monster so I could mop up milk. Turns out we haven't done that since we moved in, and it's pretty disgusting under there. So glad I got tackle that project today. And when I was pushing the refrigerator back into place, a really nice decorative plate given to us as a gift fell off the top. And broke. At that point I pretty much wanted to sit down and cry and call a mother's strike. But then Madeline would get to run amok through spilled milk and glass shards. And a trip to the emergency room would be icing on the cake. So now, despite my efforts, I have sticky floors, half a plate, and super glue all over my hands. You just know bedtime is going to be early today. (For me. Madeline and Jessie can stay up as late as they want.)

Cami's Super Amazing Olympics Wrap-up

So. The Olympics are over, which is sad. Sad for me anyway. Madeline is pretty grateful, because she's not a big fan of skiing. Or Pretty much any winter sport except figure skating. I know you're all dying to know what I thought. Wait no longer. Here are my thoughts on a few things from the Olympics. Since I have pretty much failed to blog about them ever. Because I was busy watching them.

Canada: Seems like a pretty cool place. It made me want to watch polar bears and whales. Although I think they did themselves no favors with the closing ceremonies. If I was judging Canada based solely on the closing ceremonies, I would conclude they are a bunch of very unfunny people obsessed with hockey, maple leaves, and reindeer. Also that their women mounties moonlight as hookers. So I'm going to just remember the opening ceremonies, which made Canada seem much cooler.

Ice Dancing: Is not as wacky and irrelevant as I might have supposed before watching it. turns out it's pretty cool. Except for the weird Russians that like to make everybody mad about their costumes. Really, I thought the ones where they used ropes to swing each other around were worse than the aboriginal hooplah. I don't know much about ice dancing, but it seemed like cheating. Also, I love Davis and White, but Meryl didn't seem to be an ice dancing name to me. So I refer to them as Team Betty.

Speed Skating: Francois Hamelin is the evil brother who likes to take out Americans and gets rewarded for his evil machinations. I fully supported Ohno whacking him out of the race. He deserved it. Granted, this does mean Ohno deserved to be disqualified. But he wasn't getting a medal anyway, so might as well take out the Bad Evil Canadian. No offense to the other good Canadians. But to assure you I am an equal opportunity hater, Ohno was really driving me nuts as well. Never blame your loss on the judges. You just look pathetic.

Figure Skating: Plushenko is an egotistical dirtbag, albeit a talented one. I agree with Dick Button that his crazy arms are distinctly ugly to watch, and he is a villian. Hope he enjoys his platinum medal and the it gives him lots of frequent flyer miles. Kim Yu Na is great. South Korea should beat up Russia.

Skiing: Lindsey Vonn is good at crashing. And Julia Mancuso got screwed on the Super G. Still, Julia, no reason to start a cat fight. Also, Bode Miller vaguely reminds me of someone and it drives me nuts that I can't figure out who it is. I thought it might be Jessie's old roommate but Jessie doesn't think they look alike at all. So maybe I'm crazy.

Bobsled, Skeleton, and Luge: I couldn't watch these too much, because it terrifed the heck out of me.

Snowboarding: I learned that the key to winning a snowboard competition, whether it is snow board cross or half-pipe, is not falling down. This is why I would never win a snowboard competition. I also learned the having long shiny hair will help you win snowboarding medals.

Curling: I admit, I only saw one curling match. And promptly stopped watching it after the announcer called it a 'labor of love'.

Hockey: I didn't watch a single hockey game. I am not Canadian. I don't understand it. I don't know why people love it. I can't really get behind any sport where they only score every two weeks.

I know there are some other events I'm missing. Don't hate me because I'm forgetful. They were all very impressive, I'm sure.I'll miss you, Olympics. Here's to London.

Amended

Question.

If Madeline spilled an entire box of cereal from the pantry on the table, but didn't actually use a chair to procure it, does this mean she's violated the truce and I am free to declare war?

Madeline and I reach a truce.

So we've had this problem in our kitchen. It can pretty much be summed up by these two words: moveable chairs. Well, and maybe throw in one more word to make the problem absolutely clear: Madeline. Ever since she figured out how to push chairs around, our kitchen has been a disaster zone. She climbs onto counters to get at the bubbles in the highest cupboard. She tries to get down her own food. She hid the food coloring from me. I only knew she hid it because she came to me with bright blue lips. It took several hours before she would show me where she hid the bottle. She gives her doll baths in the sink and tries to make phone calls on my digital thermometer. She bunches up the rug and goes through the mail on the counter.

I thought about screwing the chairs into the floor. The cost, the damage to the floor, and the obvious inconvenience and impracticality of not being able to move our chairs won out. But I was sorely tempted. I thought about getting an Asian style table and sitting on mats. But I'm pretty sure that would get old pretty fast.

So. We have been dealing with it. But today I am hopeful. I think all the timeouts might be having an effect. Madeline seems ready to make a compromise. This is our deal: If she keeps the chair out of the pantry, doesn't wash things in the sink, and doesn't climb on the counters, everything else is fair game. Unlimited digital thermometer minutes. All the bowls she can drum on. Free bananas. And limited access to harmless projects on the counter while Mom is cooking dinner. People told me marriage was all about compromise. They didn't mention that husbands are much easier to trick into favorable compromises than toddlers.