The rejuvenating power of cuddles

Simon and I are both wearing our crankypants today.  Simon because he’s been prodded and messed with all afternoon, me because I’ve spent all day in happyfun smiley nurturing mode (y’all know how I mean), and all I really want is to just be left the fuck alone for 5 minutes.  I think this blogging counts towards those 5 minutes (Simon is conked out upstairs for the moment) so I should probably quit my bitching and get on with it.

 

 

So anyway.  We had a pretty mellow weekend.  Sarah came over and watched Simon while I went to a happy hour with Jeff and his co-workers on Friday night.  It’s always so nice to get out for an hour or two, even if it’s just to drink Diet Coke and eat pub popcorn shrimp.  Sarah actually came early enough that I could sneak upstairs and sew for a bit, which was nice.  Who would have thought it’s easier to be productive when one isn’t constantly being interrupted to play baby fetch or applaud another round of shape-sorting?

 

Saturday was pretty low-key.  We had the Olympics on in the background all day, of course, and Jeff had a work brunch at an amazing cafe up in Cuyahoga Falls (spoiler: I’m about to make him take me there next weekend :-D), then we ran a couple errands.  Since Simon is all about being my sous chef lately, I decided he needed an apron to match his new role.  So I got some medium-weight denim and this pattern at JoAnn:

(The one on the far right for him; I may make the second from left for myself sometime)  It’s got an adjustable neck (where the neck and waist straps are one long piece of fabric threaded through channels on the sides of the chest) so should grow with him for a few years.

 

Yesterday we got some surprise! snow, about 5-6″ worth, so we stayed in all day.  Our Elantra just does NOT handle snow well (apparently a known issue for new Elantras), and literally every time we go on an unplowed road we’re guaranteed to get stuck.  If we end up in a wintry city then I’m sure we’ll invest in some snow tires, but for this year we just play weenie and don’t venture out until everything’s plowed.   And it only took me half a dozen times getting stuck on our own street to reach that conclusion.

 

I mentioned that Simon has had a bit of a rough day today.  We had to go to  the outpatient lab at Children’s to get some bloodwork done (our ped wants a routine hemoglobin and iron check).  When I had my hcg checks at the General hospital’s lab, both times I just walked in, waited a few minutes and was taken care of.  Easy peasy.  But when we showed up at the Children’s lab, the place was hoppin’.  We waited almost an hour just to get signed in.  By the time they actually called us back, Simon had just about used up his reserves of “good”.  Then of course there was the whole issue of stabbing his widdwe finger and extracting two tiny vials of blood.  He was NOT a happy chicken.  Even the Hot Wheels that a nurse gave us was no good.  Poor Simes.  When the nurses (it took two to get the job done, plus me holding him on my lap) were done, we retreated to the waiting room for some booby and calm-down time before heading home.   Where, of course, he conked out almost immediately: But sadly it didn’t last (so much for my 5 minutes), so here’s our present configuration:

And snuggles and human-pacifier-ing are A-OK with me right now.  It’s 5:30 and I can’t bear to wake him, which I’m sure I’ll regret at bedtime, but for now it’s great 🙂

 

Time to wake him for real, though, and go get Daddy!  That should cheer us both up. 🙂

Happy Wednesday!

I don’t have a whole heckuva lot to share today.  Simon never ended up letting me get much alone time yesterday, so I mostly just sat and watched documentaries on Netflix while he napped  on me.  He ended up sleeping for 3 hours, off and on, yesterday afternoon!  At one point he was even so soundly asleep that I could put him vertically on my shoulder rather than draped across my lap.  Which was a nice change of pace (my days are so exciting).

Here, I took a picture of the miracle:

Astounding!

 

When he wasn’t asleep, I was busy trolling Craigslist and emailing back and forth with our realtor person and Jeff about all the stuff for the move.  I made all of Dad’s and  Jeff’s hotel reservations (they’re doing the exact opposite of last year’s trip: LA to Kingman AZ, then Kingman to Albuquerque, then Albuquerque to OKC, then (this part is new, of course) OKC to Indianapolis and Indianapolis to Akron.  It’s more-or-less evenly spaced that way.

 

Dad is flying in to LAX about two hours before Simon and I leave for KC, so Jeff is going to drop us off and pick Dad up in the same trip (sooooo convenient, assuming his plane isn’t late or anything).  Then Simon and I are going to kick around Kansas City while the guys are doing their drive.  I think I’ll try to see Aunt Judy and Grandmother & Granddad, and at least get coffee or something with Stef and Mandi.  Then Linda arrives on the afternoon of 9/3, and she’s going to accompany us on Simon’s haircut and maybe a grocery run for car snacks.  Then the three of us set out early on 9/4.  We’re going to have lunch in St. Louis with some of Jeff’s family, and hopefully make it to Indianapolis at about the same time as Dad and Jeff.  Then the next day we’ll all head for Akron together.

 

So much logistics!  I will be so glad when I never have another cross-country move.  Every “in town” move for the rest of my life is going to seem like the easiest thing ever, lol.

 

Our realtor has found about half a dozen places for Jeff to look at on Saturday.  A couple of them are just “meh, OK maybe”: apartments in big buildings, etc.  A few are houses, which I vastly prefer the idea of.  I just would rather not be stuck out in the suburbs where there’s no place to go and nothing to do.  But I’m sure they’ll be able to find something that’ll meet our needs well enough.  It’s just a year, after all.

 

Anyway.  Enough about the damn move.

 

The PLAN last night was that Jeff would come home from work and play with Simes so I could get my housework done.  I felt bad because I’d spent almost all of yesterday afternoon working on Akron stuff and stuck under Mr. Sleepiness, so he hadn’t really gotten much lovey-playtime.  Which makes me feel like a pretty crappy mother (maybe that dumbass lady who rear-ended me was right after all :-P).

 

Instead, of course Jeff ended up getting home later than he’d planned, and Simon didn’t want much to do with his dinner, and then next thing I knew it was 9:00 and I hadn’t been able to accomplish a darn thing.  So frustrating.  And when the floors are dusty and the sink is full of dishes it just makes me twitchy.  So this morning I threw him on my back and ran the vacuum until he conked out, then finished my mopping and dishes and now I can finally stop twitching 😀

 

I love all the expressions this kid makes.  He is just SO much fun to interact with.  All his little faces crack me up, and I love how he latches onto one particular sound, then we have whole conversations in it.  He does the cutest little wordless whisper, and a mean fart noise.  And a dinosaur noise!  Anybody looking in our windows would think we’re a bunch of lunatics, the way we’ll all sit around and “talk” to each other like we’re all dinosaurs.  Seriously, ever new age/stage is more fun than the last.

 

Time to go switch the laundry.  I will NOT miss having to feed quarters to a machine down the hallway!