My baby sis

I'm an oldest child. I think probably anybody who knows me would guess that pretty quickly! My little sister is five years younger than me and I find it really hard to think of her as an adult. A big part of me still feels like I need to take care of her, that she can't handle life on her own. And yet over the last several years, I've been proven wrong on that many, many times.

Sarah is married. Married to a Marine. Married to a Marine helicopter pilot who is currently in Iraq. Together she and her husband have moved across the country three times. Together they weathered a hurricane together in Florida. By herself she's managed a house and two dogs for six months alone. Sarah is a teacher. A middle school teacher. An awesome middle school teacher. And now, Sarah and her dogs and her home have survived major fires in Southern California.

I'm so totally impressed with her. I don't know if I could manage without my husband--knowing he's serving in Iraq no less--for 7 months. I don't know how I would have handled evacuating from my home and going several days with no idea if it would still be standing when I returned.

I know my sister can handle it, did handle it, is handling it. But, I still hope she needs me to be her big sister sometimes.


P.S. Check out Sarah and her friend Andrea on NPR this weekend: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15713254

Just wanna' be somebody's baby

For the last few months, the best way to get Lucas to do anything was to refer to the thing or him as a "big boy". We called his cough medicine his "big boy medicine". His highchair was his "big boy highchair". He loved the "big boy slide" and "big boy swing" at the park.

Then a few nights ago I was having a particularly hard time getting him to take his "big boy medicine"--he kept running away from me. Eventually he pointed at his chest and said "baby". I thought, is he saying he wants to be a baby? So, I put on my best over-the-top baby-talk voice and said, "oh come here baby and take your baby medicine". What do you know, he crawled right over into my lap and drank it all down.

Over the last few days we've had a lot of fun playing Lucas baby, Mama baby and Dada baby. He loves to crawl up the stairs next to Dada with them both as babies.

I think Lucas is in an in-between stage right now. On one hand he is a big boy who runs and climbs and can drink from regular cups and feed himself. On the other hand, he still is a little baby who wants to be held and kissed. As somebody who was always in a hurry to grow up, I think I can understand his struggle between wanting to be a "big boy" and a "baby". And I certainly don't mind if he wants to stay a baby a little bit longer!

Aimee and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Sunday was a doosey. At the last minute, Abel got a ticket to his Homecoming Football Game. That's a big deal when your team is ranked #1 in the country. So he hopped in the car Friday afternoon and got home Sunday night. My parents came to visit Saturday afternoon thru Sunday late morning. Thank goodness or Abel may have come home to me hiding under the covers.

So anyway, back to Sunday. I woke up a leak in our living room ceiling. Apparently the humidifier in Lucas's room had been slowly dripping for who knows how long making its way down through the ceiling. Lovely.

Then we all went to Mass. Mom never believed me when I told her how bad Lucas is in church these days. Now she does. It really isn't him being intentionally bad. It's just that those pews demand to be walked on. Those quiet times and amazing acoustics demand a toddler to test the strength of his voice. No nursery at this church. Nosiree.

After Mass my parents left. I put Lucas down for a nap (which of course he didn't actually take) and proceeded to cut my palm massively. Probably a cut that qualified for stitches. Only can you imagine taking a toddler to the emergency room? No thanks, I'll take the pain and the gushing blood and the eventual scar instead.

So that takes us to 1pm.

The rest of the day wasn't anything specific. Just an active toddler. Who alternately melts down and gives you the best hug in the world. Only a Mama whose left hand (btw I'm left-handed) was non-functioning making regular necessities like, oh say diaper changes, very challenging.

I think we both had cheese and ice cream for lunch. I think we both took a late afternoon nap (I know I did, he was at least not crying in his crib). I think I was never so happy to see Abel walk in the door at 5:30pm. I think I am in awe of single parents.

Q & A with Lucas

Q: Lucas, what does a cow say?
A: Mooooooo

Q: Lucas, what does a woof-woof say?
A: Woof-woof!

Q: Lucas, what does a horsey say?
A: Pppffffftttttt

Q: Lucas, what does a kitty say?
A: Eouw

Q: Lucas, what does a baby say?
A: Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

8 NOT 0

Dear Health Right,

Please advise your members, doctors and pharmacies to stop calling me. Yes, I realize that my cell phone number is one measly digit away from your phone number. Could you possibly start putting that "8" in bold or something? How is it possible that so many people misdial your number and call me instead? I have gotten an average of 5 calls per day every weekday for the last FOUR years.

Four years people. Five calls a day. Five days a week.

That is THIRTEEN HUNDRED calls.

Why, you ask, don't I simply change my phone number? It is the only number I haven't changed approximately every year. And, I don't wanna'.

Yeah, and most of your members are rude. That's why I have simply stopped answering phone numbers I don't recognize. When I do answer and kindly tell people they misdialed guess what they do? They hang up on me. No "thanks". No "sorry". RUDE.

That's why my voicemail now says, "Hi this is Aimee, please leave me a message. If you are trying to reach Health Right you have dialed the wrong number." (By the way, thanks very much to my brother Eric for his message for Health Right. NO I will not call you back to give you the correct number!) Still, people call me several times in a row. Hello people, didn't you just hear my message? You dialed the WRONG NUMBER!

And yet, there have been some heartbreaking stories as well. Like the three voicemails I got from a doctor's office letting "Jerry" know that his surgery had to be rescheduled. Um, people, I'm not Jerry. Why did you leave a message for him on AIMEE's voicemail? For that one, I called the doctor's office to let them know that Jerry never got the message. Yeah, that was a fun conversation. They put me on hold for ten minutes then the nurse asked me for Jerry's last name. LIKE I KNOW JERRY'S LAST NAME. I hope Jerry eventually got the message. And I hope I got some good karma for that one.

Another time I had a Spanish speaking woman call me every morning for a week. I kept saying "No habla espanol" but she just got more and more upset. I'm sure she was told that someone at Health Right could speak Spanish. Eventually I got Abel to teach me to say that she had dialed the wrong number. I don't think she's called back.

Here are some other answers that may be helpful to your members, doctors and pharmacies:

1) No I can not authorize that perscription.

2) No I can not arrange a ride to your doctor's appointment.

Okay. I'm done. I think I got it all out. JUST PLEASE STOP CALLING.

Sincerely,
Aimee

Whispers and Cuddles

As I have eluded to before, Lucas is a crazy man these days. One of his favorite new activities is to run as fast as he can from the living room through the kitchen and then stop himself by slamming into the kitchen side door. Then running back and doing it all over again. And again. And again. Every single time he laughs like crazy when he hits the door. The boy doesn't sit down except when watching Elmo and recently, when reading his new books.

We recently picked out two new books for Lucas--both have flaps. One is his choo-choo book (Thomas the Train) the other is just full of pictures of trucks, motorcycles, airplanes, etc. He loves these books and will snuggle with me for 10 or 15 minutes reading them over and over again, flipping the pages, opening the flaps, pointing out the smallest details. I didn't even notice that a kitty was peaking out of the barn that Thomas rides by--but Lucas did!

Last night we had an especially nice cuddly reading session.

It had been a crazy evening--it always is on the days that I have to work and pick him up from the babysitter. We get home and Lucas doesn't want to come inside. But, it is already about 6pm and I know he's hungry and tired. So I have to drag him inside and quickly throw something together for him to eat. It is always hard (but luckily doesn't happen too often because usually when I work Abel can pick Lucas up a little early and get started on all this).

Last night after he ate some dinner we cuddled on the couch and read the books. Then we just sat there and whispered to each other. It was so much fun. I really savored the moment--they are so rare these days. Don't get me wrong, I love my crazy boy and all his new abilities. I love to run with him. I love to push him high in the swing and stand behind him as he climbs the steps to the big kid slide at the park. But, I really miss my baby snuggles. It was nice to have those back for a few moments last night.

I HEART SIGG

Thanks to this post by Mom 101, I officially freaked out about plastic. I'd heard the rumors. I'd casually looked at the bottom of my water bottle for the number inside the triangle. But, basically, I ignored it all. Most of our plastic was from reputable brands so it had to be okay, right? Then I read the post and HELLO?--how can the plastic Avent bottles we'd been using (and microwaving--apparently the worst thing you can do) be the BAD plastic. OMG. Mom 101 directed us to this post at Z Recommends and I immediately, without passing Go, ordered two SIGG water bottles.

When I got home, I promptly recycled all of Lucas's bottles. (Hey, he'd been taking only a morning bottle for like a year and we'd been wanting to move to 100% sippy cups anyway.) (Oh yeah, several sippy cups had to be recycled, too.)

The SIGG bottles arrived a few weeks later and Lucas and I, well, we both fell in love, immediately. Lucas got this one. It has a "woof woof" and "fwours" on it. How much better does life get? He literally would not put it down for the first hour he had it--I didn't even get a chance to actuall fill it with liquid! He just loved carrying it around. Later when I put water in it--whoa--life did get better!

As for me, I got the black circles one and feel so totally cool toting it around. Oh yeah, baby.

Not only do Lucas and I feel cool with our new SIGG bottles, we are both drinking more water. I swear, our tap water tastes better in our SIGG bottles. And I feel a lot better about the content of that water. Plus, we've already made up the cost of at least my bottle because we haven't needed to buy our usual case of bottled water so that I can have a full bottle with me at all times.
Thanks SIGG! You've made me and my water better people. Or, um, at least me.

Letter to Myself

Letter to myself as a high school senior courtesy of the

CafeMom Secret Awesome Group of Awesome Blogging power:

Dear Aimee,
High School is almost over then you'll be outta' there for good. And, I mean that. This will be your last summer at home, the last time you'll "live" there for more than a few months. Don't worry, your relationship with Mom and Dad is awesome and will continue to grow. So will you.

As you already suspect, attending Girls State and then Girls Nation last summer truly changed you as a person and altered the course of your life. Remember who you became during those two weeks and continue to be that person. Have confidence in yourself!

It is okay to decide to go to a women's college. Even though that is a drastically different choice than all of your classmates, it is the right choice for you. It will be one of the best decisions you make in your entire life. You'll continue to learn and grow. You'll make the best friends of your life. You'll have amazing internship experiences. And, eventually, you'll be able to tell people you went to the same college as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi!

You will not have many boyfriends. There will be one that you fall in love with. He will come along at the right time, but you will keep him in your life for too long. It will be fine when you are over.

It will be fine because later you will meet the love of your life. He will move into your group house and turn your world upside down. You will have more fun in the first six months with this man than you had in years previously. He will love you like no other. He will mess up a few times, but stick with him. He's good stuff. And, he'll give you the most beautiful amazing son in the whole world. He'll also be the best Dada ever and you'll fall even more in love with him when he holds your son.

I can't tell you what happens next but I can tell you to look forward to the next 12 years. They'll be great!

Love,
30 year old Aimee