30 Days #1

A few of my LJ friends did this a while back. I'd like to do some more blogging, but I don't want to have to think of anything original, so this seems like a good fit for me right now. :) It's 30 days of prompts. Ready, set, go!

Day 01 - Your current relationship

I have so many relationships, but I suppose this is asking about my significant other. Erich and I have been married for three and a half wonderful, eventful years. We've been a couple for almost six years and we've known each other for eight years. That's over a quarter of my life. (What? No... really? Um, yep.) We are extremely compatible, and, for the record, I would say compatibility is the one thing anyone should want most in a relationship. It's a boring word, but it encompasses so much. We have the same religious and political views. We want the same things in our family and complement each other well in the parenting department. We make each other laugh every day. We communicate easily and don't get bored with each other. We challenge each other. I couldn't imagine being with anyone else; he's my favorite person in the whole world. I really don't know how much more there is to say!  My current relationship is awesome.


Day 02 - Where you'd like to be in 10 years
Day 03 - Your views on drugs and alcohol
Day 04 - Your views on religion
Day 05 - A time you thought about ending your own life
Day 06 - Write 30 interesting facts about yourself.
Day 07 - Your zodiac sign and if you think it fits your personality
Day 08 - A moment you felt the most satisfied with your life
Day 09 - How you hope your future will be like
Day 10 - Discuss your first love and first kiss.
Day 11 - Put your ipod on shuffle and write 10 songs that pop up.
Day 12 - Bullet your whole day.
Day 13 - Somewhere you'd like to move or visit
Day 14 - Your earliest memory
Day 15 - Your favorite blogs
Day 16 - Your views on mainstream music
Day 17 - Your highs and lows of this past year
Day 18 - Your beliefs
Day 19 - Disrespecting your parents
Day 20 - How important you think education is
Day 21 - One of your favorite shows
Day 22 - How have you changed in the past 2 years?
Day 23 - Give pictures of 5 guys who are famous and who you find attractive.
Day 24 - Your favorite movie and what it's about
Day 25 - Someone who fascinates you and why
Day 26 - What kind of person attracts you?
Day 27 - A problem that you have had
Day 28 - Something that you miss
Day 29 - Goals for the next 30 days
Day 30 - Your highs and lows this month

Heh

This made me chortle.

Erich: "Do we have any more Kleenex?"

Susan: "I dunno."

Erich: sighing "I put you in charge of ONE THING--

Susan: sharp intake of breath, ready to protest

Erich: ". . .the house. . .and you don't even know if we have any Kleenex!"


I guess this is one of those "had to be there" things, but I lol'd. :)

Erichisms

Since Lily's still too young to say the darnedest things, I will share one of my favorite Erichisms:

It's tired in here.

It's too tired in here for a substantive blog post tonight. One of these days I'm going to tell you all about laundry (REJOICE!), but I keep waiting till it's too late to do the topic justice.

I kind of like laundry. Be forewarned.

Correctnesses

Don't listen to my husband.

When your baby's tummy is exposed, and you place your mouth on the soft expanse and proceed to blow air so as to create the sound of flatulence, that is known as a poost. If you do the same, on a smaller scale, perhaps to someone's cheek, with lips puckered (not wide open), such an act is termed zerbet.

Poost and zerbet can coexist, and, indeed, they are related. There is an important distinction, however, and we must never call a zerbet what is most clearly a poost.

The cardboard tube found giving shape to your paper towels or wrapping paper is known as a do-do. That is "do" pronounced "doe." For when one places one's mouth in one end of the tube and makes sounds like a trumpet, one says "do-do."

One most certainly does NOT say "doo-doo," for such a scatological reference is loathsome and most undesirable.

Do not listen to my husband.

Why Kids Need Dads:

Because I would not and could not do this with any regularity:

But I suspect it's really good for building character.

And a whole host of other things as well. Because this kid gets thrown around and inverted by her daddy, she's used to a little bit of roughness. She belly laughs. She bonds with her daddy.

A mother's gentle, loving touch is one thing, but nothing can replace a good daddy.

Hair

Lily has a very interesting relationship with hair. Not the hair on her head, which is an exciting mess in itself, but hair on other people's heads.

She has always loved feeling different textures with her fingers, but I believe she finds hair hair to be the ultimate supreme texture. I know it's a thing with babies that they like silky textures and will stroke them to soothe themselves. Lily? Give her some grit and she's happy as a drug addict getting her fix. You can see it in the way her eyes slacken and her head drops as soon as she has her hair.

Having long hair is key. My hair comes just past my shoulders in the front and whenever I hold my sleepy baby close to nurse or rock her to sleep, her free hand goes straight for my neck area. She gropes around until she can find a handful, a strand or clump to clutch in her fist. With the ends toward her thumb, she presses her thumb against the fistful of hair as if she's clicking a button.

Besides the fact that I'm the only lactating human in the household, this is another reason I'm usually the only one who can help get Lily to sleep. Erich, for all his luxurious curls, does not have grabbable strands of hair which hang around his neck. And if I should happen to have my hair tied back on a given day? Well, that situation needs to be remedied quickly because this strong little kid's grasp can and will start pulling apart my 'do to get the precious combination of silky and gritty textures between her tiny fingertips.

Lily's need for hair is right up there with her need to suck. She will usually only hang onto a pacifier if she's going to sleep or is particularly tired. If we happen to be out when she's getting ready for naptime, she will absent-mindedly grab for hair. When hair is not available, she will press her thumb print rhythmically against the edge of a fingernail. If she doesn't have someone else's fingernail available, she will sweep her thumb against the fingers of the same hand.

And so we now understand one of Lily's idiosyncrasies. Just one of those things that make her unique. But! Would you have guessed that this manner of fidgeting is somehow genetic? Indeed! Her father has the exact same fidgeting mannerisms. He used to absent-mindedly scrape his thumb print against my fingernails until I made him stop because it felt creepy. He gravitates toward gently feeling textures, especially textiles, with his fingertips.

Isn't that weird? I mean, Lily's habit is mildly weird enough without the genetic component making it slightly weirder than mildly weird. That's JMVVHO (just my very, very humble opinion). The end!

ETA: Erich reminds me that his brother, Lily's youngest uncle had a hair fetish for years and years. He mainly liked to stroke it. Erich feels textures. Marry those two traits and you get Liy, feeling the texture of hair. Alles klar? Too bad, I'm really done now.

And the Winner is...

Erich. He got off to a slow start this morning by being absent (I guess he likes to catch up on Saturdays too???), but he made up for it later by:

1. Doing a bunch of laundry (Be still my heart. I mean, I'm actually starting to really like laundry. But there was more to do than I had time to do before it needed to be done. As in, Baby was going to have to go naked or something.)

2. Making brinner. Including fresh green onions from the garden. It was sooooo good, especially since I forgot to eat for about seven hours in there and I got HONGRY.

3. Helping deal with the crazy baby.

Crazy baby. Seriously, what's gotten in to her?

Sadly, I don't ever get much of a break, since she won't ever stop crying till I swoop in for the (always temporary) save. Having a nine-month-old is hard. :(

Anyway, thanks, Mr. Man. You win.

Addenda

1. I left one item off the nickname list: Chica Girl. Also, Erich prefers the spelling "Lilo-zeen," à la Strong Bad.

2. Tonight, we are not Cheap and Boring. We went to a Japanese steakhouse, didn't worry about prices, ate till we were only semi-uncomfortably full, had good beer, sashimi and maki, hibachi, and generally had a very nice time. And Lily even ate salad, stir-fried veggies and rice! Then Erich made a Meijer run and got Lily a Halloween costume on clearance. Yay!

3. I have to step it up for NaBloPoMo, as I'm not going to get this posted before midnight. I'm going to cheat so it looks like I did, though, and I won't feel bad about it NEETHER. (The beer was good, remember.)

4. Sleep is much better during the day now, but Lilla-Miss Teeny Tiny Loysel Toysel Chica Girl takes FOREVER to go to bed for the night. I don't like letting her cry, but I'd read/listen to any wisdom or advice anyone can offer on that one.

5. Just saw a commercial for an SNL special. WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO CHERI OTERI'S FACE??????

It was horrifying. ...Happy Halloween?

Nicknames

Erich is a champion nicknamer. And by "champion" I mean he comes up with really weird nicknames that stick for whatever reason. We're odd.

For example, the many nicknames of Lily:

Lilz
Lilith
Liliana
Leusel Teusel
Kiddo Kid
Little Tiny
Lili-tiny
Lee-lee

And the latest... Lilosine. (Rhymes with "limosine.")

Odd, I tell you.

Lesson Learned, or Capsaicin is Evil

I really should have known. But I really did not expect the horror!

Rewind: we have a vegetable garden. Erich has really done a fantastic job with it. He grows several types of peppers, including jalapenos. Erich's dad, a chile aficionado, and his brother were visiting last night en route to moving bro into the dorm for his second year of college.

Erich was making homemade pizza for dinner. He also had a hankering for fresh salsa, so I volunteered to chop and assemble said salsa. I particularly enjoy dicing onions. I started with those, then moved on to the six fresh jalapenos the recipe called for. Erich offered me gloves, but I declined as I thought I would just get it done quickly, wash my hands, and that would be that. I halved them, seeded them and chopped them up. I used the same knife and cutting board and chopped up tomatoes and other ingredients and mixed it all together.

I started to feel a tingle under my ring. I felt a little burning here and there on my knuckles. I used soap and water to wash off the chile juices. Rinse and repeat.... "Wow, my hands are like, on fire," I said, extremely wittily and eloquently. The men of the house all agreed that was weird. Erich asked FIL what he does to get the capsaicin off his hands. Soap and water was the prescribed remedy. "Okay, I'll try that...for the fifth time!" I started to whimper.

And I could no longer use warm water. The burning started to get pretty intense, spreading to all ten fingers, especially concentrated on my knuckles and nail beds. This was pain. Then I couldn't carry anything moderately heavy because the pressure intensified the burning. It truly felt like I had started up a gas burner on the stove and lightly seared my fingers.

Well, I was really feeling bad for myself. I hadn't held Lily in well over an hour and I knew she was going to need to eat eventually, but I was afraid to touch anything. So I did what any Millenial would do in this situation: I asked Dr. Google for help. I was not alone among internet users who had carelessly burned their fingers slicing hot peppers without gloves. What to do, though?

I found a remedy: make a solution, one part bleach, five parts water. Occasionally dip fingers in the solution, which will neutralize the non-water-soluble capsaicin into a salt, which is water-soluble. It didn't seem to help at first, so I poured a bowl of milk to soak my hands. That felt good, I think mainly due to the cool temperature. After a while, I think the bleach solution did work because I could start to function without terrible pain as long as I wasn't gripping anything too tightly.

After testing my still-burning hands on Erich's skin (and determining that my burning was not contagious), I collected my baby, who was ready for bed. I was relieved that my hands weren't going to burn her skin. The worst part of this ordeal was being barred from even holding her until we knew I wouldn't hurt her. (And I won't even get into the issue of an unexpected poop, more solid than it used to be, the pain and yuck-factor in swishing it in the toilet and I'm definitely going to get one of those diaper sprayers... oh, looks like I got into it, sorry.)

The rest of the evening, I was distracted from my pain. As long as my fingers still smelled like the lobby of a hotel with a pool, I could function. They were STILL throbbing when I went to sleep as the bleach faded. I woke up and they seemed okay, except when any significant pressure was placed on them. After my warm shower today, it was as though they were freshly burned for at least half an hour. Even now, about 30 hours later, a slight tingle remains.

I will never, ever, ever even think about handling any combination of knife and hot pepper without gloves on ever again. EVER.

At Last

Things are changing. Despite the running around I have to do in the next few days for Christmas and the preparations I have to do in the next few weeks for Baby, I feel free!

I just taught my last four piano lessons of the year. I will not resume lessons until March. This past weekend, I played organ for the last time in church and directed the bell choir for the last time. I will not resume either of these activities until March. My time is now my own until Baby arrives.

And, even more exciting, Erich finally finished the semester from H-E-double-hockey-sticks last week. Not only that, but he has maintained his 4.0 GPA. I'm so proud of him, yet I'm even more delighted at the fact that I finally have him back! He's already been able to put much more energy toward household projects than he has in months. His office is closed between Christmas Eve and New Years Day, so he effectively gets to enjoy a bit of a staycation to finally (maybe?) finish the shower he started rebuilding several months ago. He can help me put together baby furniture--finally! We can relax and enjoy our final holiday season together as a family of two. I'm so very excited.

On Wednesday, I will be 37 weeks pregnant. Though this is technically considered "full term," my brain knows better than to expect a birth before the official due date on January 13. But the more ungainly and uncomfortable I become, the more I'm hoping for that tax break 2009 baby. I don't have fear, I'm not nervous, I'm just ready. Emotionally ready, anyway. My patience is greatly helped by the freedom of the next few weeks. I need this time to really ready the nest, but I still need to work on that ever-so-important virtue: PATIENCE!

Silly

Erich just got home from work.

Me: I kind of feel like taking a walk.

Erich: I kind of do too! All in favor say "aye."

Pause as we each look at each other, waiting for the inevitable punchline.

Both in unison: YOU!



Seriously, we crack ourselves up.

I Should Travel

So, Erich and I are having one of those conversations where we talk about everything, and he suddenly comes up with this idea that sometime, I should leave town for a night or two. See, he leaves for a night or two all the time for work. Each of us is used to sleeping alone now and then, but Erich is never home without me. It would be a good exercise for him to be home alone once and see what it's like for me. Anything to stave off me becoming just another piece of furniture, right?

After he mentioned this, I took the idea and ran with it. "Maybe over spring break week I could go to Galena!" I said. His face fell into a pitiful pout and he whined, "Don't leave me!" I proceeded to LOL. It was his idea, but the more he thought about it, the less he liked contemplating spending a night at home alone. And the more he accepted the reality of that thought, the more I LOVED the idea.

So there you have it: I need a short trip away from home on my own or with girlfriends. I am officially taking ideas!

My V-Day

Have I ever told you about how great my husband is? Well, he's great.

I really wasn't expecting anything for Valentine's Day. We haven't done much beyond a nice dinner out (not on the actual day, of course) in the past. And last year, V-Day was ruined by our first miscarriage. Furthermore, we had discussed going to see a local production of Miss Saigon, but Erich was totally leaving it up to me to figure out when and get tickets. I thought that if Valentine's Day was going to be a thing, it was going to be up to me. And I really don't want to be the one demanding that Valentine's Day be assigned some special love meaning when it's really just a made-up greeting card holiday. Oh, the inner conflict!

My husband is a manly man, by which I mean he is too practical to buy me flowers (which are pretty and nice to have around) or jewelry, which doesn't have to be expensive at all--I would just like to wear something meaningful from my husband. Like, besides my rings.... :)

I'm reeeeally not complaining. He's perfect in every other way, so it's only natural that it's taken me this long to find something I would tweak ever so slightly if I could. That is, I would have until today.

Late last night, after getting home from a night out, Erich dragged me upstairs to his closet to have me open something. It was a small box in a paper bag. Jewelry! What kind?? Diamond earrings! I was beyond shocked...in a good way.

Then this afternoon, after we had been at church all day, I had to stay even longer to play organ for the evening service. Erich thought he might like to go out to eat, so he decided to see if we could possibly get into a restaurant, even without reservations. Since I never got a text message, I had to wait and see when I got home if we were going out.

When I walked in the door, I was greeted by a wonderful smell. Pot roast! Butternut squash soup! Asparagus! Rioja Reserve red wine! Fresh bread! Dark chocolate for desert! Fresh flowers in a vase!

An impromptu home-cooked fancy yet simple meal. And I was so glad we weren't going out anyway because I'm totally beat.

Okay, I'll stop before you all break your monitors out of jealousy. This was, quite possibly, the best Valentimes ever!