Something Wrong With This Picture!

Yesterday, my brother-in-law noticed that there was something wrong with our driver's side rear tire. Yeah, I'd say 3 completely missing lug nuts, two sheared off studs, and a seriously messed up drum and wheel count as "something wrong."

-----

I was hoping that a review of the Jiffy Lube security footage of them inspecting my car last week would show that they did in fact pull the left rear tire (as our paperwork shows), and they would be taking care of this problem for us.

-----

Unfortunately, I just got off the phone with Jiffy Lube, and they apparently did not pull a tire. Which means this little predicament is the fault of my husband and father-in-law, who must not have tightened the lug nuts when they replaced the brake shoes in early September.

-----

So that's the bad news. The good news is that Tony noticed our little problem before any more of the studs came completely off, before we managed to lose a tire on the freeway, and before any of us were injured. In light of all that could have happened, I really just find myself grateful.

-----

I'll just have to remember that gratitude while we take the time and money to get the truck fixed and while we have to rely on the charity of others who lend us their vehicles because the truck is our sole source of transportation.

-----

Gratitude... gratitude... gratitude...

Field Trip

It's been a long 2 weeks waiting for the "Fire Fighter Station" field trip day to finally arrive. Hallelujah, the day finally came, and it was every bit as exciting as promised. As soon as we got there, the fire fighters were called off to an accident, but they promised that if we'd wait a few minutes, they'd come back and do the tour. So we hung out at the fire station for a while. It was well worth the wait. "Grandpa John," the station chief, obviously has some grandkids of his own and was great with the kids. He talked to them about having a fire safety plan at home, about smoke detectors, and about keeping their rooms clean so the fire fighters won't trip if they have to come and rescue them. The kids also got to practice crawling under the "smoke" to get out of the house.

Although Grandpa John was pretty entertaining, he was nothing compared to a real ride in a fire engine. Grandpa John split the kids into two groups, loaded them in the truck, and took them for a spin around the parking lot. Pretty cool. The last thing the kids got to do was my favorite. Each kid got to put on a fireman jacket and hat and spray the hose.

I'm already looking forward to Alex's turn at Jacque's Preschool!

Babies on the Brain

We spent today at the Hogle Zoo, in part to distract me from the fact that I haven't had the baby yet. Turns out there were so many baby animals at the zoo that it really wasn't much of a distraction! Here's the little giraffe, baby elephant, baby tigers, and little snow leopard.

We had a really great time, and it was a great way to spend a Saturday. Thanks, Mom & Dad Fife for being willing to hang out with us all day.

Oh, and a for an update on the actual baby, for now Oct 7th will be induction day. I was really bummed (and in my hormonal state actually cried about it because I was hoping for the 2nd) but I have since come to appreciate my doctor's decision knowing that he is the expert. Unfortunately, I don't seem to dilate at all until really close to my due date, and even at that it is minimal and slow. My doctor says I have to do my homework (manage to dilate to a 1) before he can induce. We've set the Oct 7th date, but he says if I can complete my homework early, we can move the date up.

To help me not go crazy in the meantime, Kirk and I have booked a hotel for Oct 2nd & 3rd (with points Kirk has earned with all his business travel). My parents are going to take the kids, and I am looking forward to a quiet, relaxing weekend where I can catch up on sleep and spend my miserable time in the pool.

So 2 weeks & 3 days.... I can do it!

This One's For the Girls

I don't think a lot of guys read my blog, but if you're a guy and you're still reading, this post isn't really for you. Also, unless you're a mom, this post probably really isn't for you. So stop reading. :)

If you're still reading, here's the current source of my anxiety. I didn't breastfeed either Adam or Alex (Adam wasn't into it, and my schedule with Alex wouldn't have permitted it), but I really want to try breastfeeding this time around. I wish I could say it was for the right reasons, like supposedly being better for the baby, but I'll be honest - it's not. My somewhat selfish reasons for wanting to breastfeed are:

1. It's cheaper.
2. I feel like I have something to prove to myself - that I can breastfeed.
3. I have no good excuses not to.

I really want to succeed, but I'm already starting to have anxiety about it, and I know that the more uptight I am about it, the harder it's going to be. So to help easy my anxiety, I need tips from moms who've been there. I'm mostly worried about the emotional aspects of breastfeeding: feeling so needed all the time, having to sit still long enough to actually feed the baby, etc.

Here's what I've done so far:

1. Set up a glider in the nursery, facing into the room with the back to the door. I'm hoping this will help me focus on what I'm doing and not on everything else going on in the house. (But I can keep the door open so I'm still approachable if a kid needs me.)
2. Used credit card reward points to order a new iPod Nano. The plan is to make a playlist of songs that either calm me or put me in a happy mood. I'm hoping this will take the focus off how much time I've spent feeding the baby. (I have serious issues with feeling like I'm doing nothing for any length of time.)
3. Signed up for a breastfeeding class which was supposed to be tonight but got postponed to the 28th. (I now get to spend my birthday in a breastfeeding class. Yay.)

Now I just need tips, tricks, and encouragement from those of you who've been through it, and then we'll see how this goes.

Something to be Proud Of

I wish I'd taken a before picture to help illustrate how truly amazing this is. Kirk and I took a nothing-special-about-it bay window in our bedroom and turned it into this awesome little reading nook. The most amazing part, though, is that we did it ourselves!

I married an accountant. Translation: my husband is not trained for construction projects. And he married a whatever I am. Translation: I am not trained for "domestic" projects like sewing. But he and I have both been slowly increasing our skills with each project we try to do, and this time, neither of our fathers had to come to our rescue. (Although we did use them for a bit of advice, some tools, and a bit of lumber. Thanks, dads.)

The biggest challenge was definately trying to figure out the hinges (because the two center sections of the window seat open for storage). Other than that, the project went surprising according to plan.

The easiest part was making the slipcovers for the pillows. I expected it to be more of a project than it turned out to be. Maybe I'm just finally getting decent at sewing. I can almost even sew in a straight line these days!

I still hope that someday we can afford to just pay people to complete my crazy ideas, but I do have to say that finishing this project by ourselves is definately something to be proud of.

Starting School on 09-09-09

If Adam was old enough to realize it, he'd have loved that today is 09-09-09, because he's always possessed a little more than the average need to have organization and order. Sadly, this need doesn't seem to apply to his bedroom, but rather to the little things in life, like how I arrange the candles in my decorating. (I've learned that I just can't split up sets; he will rearrange them on a daily basis to make sure the candles that should go together do go together.)


Today was his first day of school, which I had decided not to blog about. But I quickly changed my mind when I picked him up today. At his preschool, the whole class walks in a line to the front doors where they are then handed over to the appropriate adults. Since Adam's name is so early in the alphabet, he gets to be at the head of the line on the first day of school (2 years running). Right away, I noticed the beaded necklace he'd made. I thought it was a really cute project, and that the teachers probably instructed the kids to group them by color, and maybe even to count out a certain number of beads. Then I noticed the normal 4 year old's necklaces. They were not grouped by color. The charms were not evenly spaced. They looked as if they had a great time just stringing things on in whatever order they happened to pick them up. I reiterate that I consider this behavior normal.


Kirk and I are collecting a file of evidence to hand over to Adam when someday he realizes his weird need for order is precisely that: weird. We want to make sure he knows that we did not do this to him. He came to us this way. So far we have pictures of a gingerbread house with the candies separated by type and placed in straight lines. We have pictures of Christmas ornaments which had to be grouped by color so they'd have friends. Today, we'll add this:

Oh, and one thing I didn't notice until Adam pointed it out. "Mom, the apple is next to the red beads because it is red. The pencil is next to the yellow beads because it is yellow. I had to put the chalkboard next to the green beads because there were no black beads."

It Won't Be Like This for Long

The other day as Alex was napping, I was curled up on the love seat with a book while Adam and his Leapster occupied the couch. I glanced over at him, and I was overwhelmed. By what, I'm still not sure, but I felt like I just had to have a picture of that moment.

He looks so big to me here, but I started to think that when I look back at this picture in 2, 5, or 10 years, he will look so small. With each child, time seems to pass so much more quickly, and I just felt like I needed to stop and enjoy this moment. I stared at him for a minute or two, then got the camera. He looked up at me as if to say, "What are you doing? I'm just playing my leapster!" Then he smiled at me and went back to his game. I love this kid so much, and I loved this moment so much that I just had to share. In the words of the Darius Rucker song, "It won't be like this for long."

Change is Coming

A few months ago, I was having a really rotten day, and I just couldn't seem to pull myself out of the bad mood. Kirk randomly suggested that I go to the grocery store, buy some hair color, and dye my hair. I know it would have cheered me up, but I listed off several reasons why I wasn't going to go through with it right then. I jokingly told him that he could go to the store for me, though, and that I'd dye my hair whatever color he got for me. He didn't go that day, but we've kind of joked about him picking a hair color for me since that day.

---

Well, Monday night we headed out to Walmart for a few odds and ends, and ended up in the hair color aisle. After seeing my reaction to the idea of blonde, Kirk just HAD to pick blonde for me. No offense whatsoever to blondes, but I come from a family of brunettes, and we just kind of like it that way. So besides the fact that I think my eyebrows are going to look awfully silly, I'm just not prepared to be a blonde. But a deal is a deal, and I told Kirk I'd try whatever color he picked. It only cost $2.97, and if I look completely ridiculous, it will only cost another $2.97 to change it back to brown.

---

I did think really carefully about the timing, though, so I still have approximately 33 days until I go blonde. I want the pictures at the hospital with the baby to actually look like me, so I'm waiting until I get home from having the baby. Then I'll go blonde during the period of time when I'm really not going to be leaving my house much anyway. And I'll probably be back to brunette by the time we bless Dylan.

---

And so it begins... the countdown to one of the most random decisions of my life. Can I handle this kind of planned spontaneity? Let's wait and see.