Passports to....?

On New Year's Eve day, we took a little family field trip to apply for passports. For Kiddo, it was her first one ever, and Hubby's and mine had both expired earlier in the year, so we needed to renew ours. I must commend the local post office branch we visited - it is one of the smaller ones, out of the way and staffed by just 2 clerks - on their assistance and efficiency with the entire process. We were expecting the whole thing to be much more of a hassle, frankly, and it turned out to be a delight. The post office clerk took our pictures and got everything sorted in no time once we arrived, and was equally helpful on the phone when I called earlier in the week to ask ninety million questions about the process. So, off the applications went, to two separate locations (different if you're getting your first than if you are renewing) in three separate envelopes. I was surprised when the clerk told us they ought to arrive within 3 weeks, after hearing all the news stories about the terribly long back-ups at the passport agency over the past year. We were just doing the "regular" passport applications, not expediting, as we have no urgent need for them.

Kiddo's arrived yesterday, and Hubby's and mine arrived today. That is less than two weeks after we submitted our applications, and that is with a national holiday thrown in to the mix. Well done, US Passport Agency people!! Serious kudos for the speed at which everything was done and mailed back!!

So, now I've got these three, brand-spankin'-new passports sitting here next to me, and I find myself wondering.... in the next ten years, where will they take us? My last passport had stamps from several countries, from the UK to the Caribbean. Will this one take me back to Europe? To Australia? Africa? I know we'll be bringing it with us on our next trip to (or more precisely, through) Canada in the spring, as we now need them to get across the border for Canada and Mexico. (With our relative proximity to Canada and the fact that they have the better side of Niagara Falls, this made getting a passport for Kiddo more of a priority. I was 15 when I got my first passport, not 5!)

One of the things I've always used as a consolation measure when I start feeling sad about Kiddo being an only child is the fact that this means it will be that much easier to travel with her. I'll envision trips abroad, the three of us climbing the towers at Warwick Castle and gazing up at Stonehenge in England, or hopping in a gondola in Venice, or being awestruck by the Sydney Opera House, or going on a safari and seeing Kiddo's beloved African animals in their natural habitat in person. In my imaginings, Kiddo is always a bit older than five, so perhaps this isn't the passport that will see those stamps. I mean, children's passports are only good for five years, instead of the decade for which our adult passports are valid. I really do hope that schedules and finances permit us to fill at least some of the pages with stamps before these expire, though. Maybe not Africa, but at least Canada and Mexico, perhaps Europe.

I think there is a lot of value in visiting other places, seeing history firsthand, experiencing other cultures in person. I've always appreciated the opportunities I had growing up to travel abroad, and I want to instill that appreciation in Kiddo, too. So here I sit, gazing at our crisp, new, untouched passports, and I'm overcome with wanderlust....


So tell me, dear bloggy friends, what is your number one Passport-Required dream destination? How old were you when you got your first passport? What was the best place you've been so far? Do you enjoy traveling (especially great distances) with your child(ren) or do you think I'm nuts to be excited that Kiddo now has the necessary paperwork to go abroad?

Mmmmmmeme!

There's this alphabet meme that's been making the rounds of the blogosphere, and the always delightful Georgie gave me a letter so I could play, too! Thanks, Georgie!! She gave me the letter M, and now I have to come up with ten things I like that start with M... As many other meme-attempters have said, this is harder than it looks, as it turns out! Here goes:

1. Motherhood.


Best thing ever. 'Nuff said.

2. Movies.


Love 'em, and don't get to see enough of 'em these days, either in the theater (especially in the theater!) or even on DVD. I can't wait until Kiddo is old enough that Hubby and I can resume our moviegoing habits without having to worry about being able to make that month's mortgage payment so we can hire a sitter AND see a movie.

3. Music.


Just about any kind, except heavy/death metal, opera and most rap or hip-hop. Otherwise, I'm your girl! From showtunes to classical to 80s pop to country to gospel to rock to folk, oh yeah, it's all good. (My love of music and relative talent in the area does not, however, mean I can dance. I can't. I'm hopeless on a dance floor.)

4. Macaroni and cheese.

Preferably with bacon. Hey, these chins didn't grow themselves, you know. It took help. Help and laziness in the kitchen come dinnertime.

5. Uh-oh, I'm not even halfway through yet and I'm drawing a blank. I'm strongly tempted to say Meorge Mlooney, but I'll save that for if I get really desperate round about number 9 or 10. How about, instead, I'll go with Musicals.


Different than music, I think, as a "musical" is a type of theatrical production. I love musicals. LOVE them. I'm a Broadway Baby. What's that? You want to know my top ten, all time favorite musicals? Well, since you asked and in alphabetical, not favorites order....

• A Chorus Line
• Anything Goes
• Cabaret
• Cats
• Chicago
• Guys and Dolls
• Hello, Dolly!
• La Cage Aux Folles
• Les Miserables
• The Lion King

6. Magicians.
Well, not *all* magicians - that Criss Angel dude freaks me out and David Blaine annoys the heck out of me. (I'm thinking they probably consider themselves "illusionists" or something instead of straight-out magicians, anyhow.) Penn and Teller, though? They rock! I used to make a point out of going to see their show at least once whenever Hubby and I went to Vegas, often on my own as Hubby preferred playing poker to seeing a show he'd seen before. Another great magician who works in Vegas is Mac King. When we saw him, I laughed hard enough to give myself a severe side cramp. Funny and amazing at the close-up magic, who could ask for anything more? Heck, I even am a Siegfried and Roy fan - we saw their show, too. (I even saw their 3-D IMAX movie - in the theater - back in the day.) It's not just Vegas magicians, though - any magician who is halfway decent, better if they're funny as well.

7. Merriment and Mirth (wow, a twofer!). I love to be happy, I love to laugh. (Who doesn't?) My default mode is to always look for the sunny side of life. Unless I've got PMS, in which case all I want to look for is a bag of Cheez Doodles, a bar or six of chocolate, and a comfy spot to curl up upon and moan. But other than those few days, I'm all about sunshine and happiness and humor and smiles and joy, and those things that bring them, like

7.5. Muppets!



8. Mignon, filet.


(Yeah, I'm cheating a bit - still it's better than busting out Meorge Mlooney!) Medium rare, preferably with Bearnaise sauce and/or wrapped in bacon. I have it at most once a year if I'm lucky, but I love it.

9. Milk.
Well, actually, any and all milk products, aka dairy. Again, these chins (and thigh rolls, hip rolls, belly rolls and back rolls) didn't grow themselves, and you can't put that much pressure on a poor, little box of macaroni and cheese. See, cheese. Mmmm, cheese. Sour cream. Ice cream. Whipped cream. Butter. Yogurt. Cottage cheese. If it is made from something that came out of a cow's udder, I am a fan. I even like milk, straight up (or, of course, with chocolate sauce or Ovaltine. Mmmmmm, Ovaltine....)

10. Okay, for my tenth and final Favorite Thing that Starts with the Letter M, I've got a good one, especially given my recent wedding anniversary (and thanks for all the good wishes, y'all! You're all so sweet!): Matrimony. Marriage. There's nothing like it, and hopefully the day isn't too far off when everyone can get married, regardless of with whom it is they fall in love...



All right, there are my 10, and I didn't even have to use Meorge (or Malan Mickman or Meddie Mizzard, either) to get there. Whew. Anyone else want to play? Let me know and I'll happily give you a letter!

Fourteen years ago today...

... I married my best friend.

Yes, I chose a burgundy velvet dress for my four bridesmaids. I still swear to this day that the dress could be worn again. You could *totally* wear it to a holiday party. My own dress was "candlelight ivory" as true white made me appear quite corpselike - not exactly the look one strives for on one's wedding day...


We opted to have birdseed thrown instead of rice as we left the church, because of the birds and their exploding stomachs and all. My family helpfully made up approximately one zillion little bags of birdseed, which were then most enthusiastically thrown at us - many people had multiple bags for ammo - as you can see in the above picture. I wound up using my bouquet as a shield as we made a dash for the limo. If you look carefully, you'll notice my father hurling birdseed from the church's doorway to ensure that we were bombarded from all directions. When I changed out of my dress, there was birdseed in my underthings and embedded in my skin as well, and still more came out in the shower the next morning from where it had become one with my bridal coif. (I felt a wee bit Sally Field-in-Steel Magnolias-ish with the amount of products the hair stylist used to create my bridal 'do - my hair was hard enough that one could knock upon it. I think that was more stuff in my hair on that one day than the entire rest of my life combined, which is saying something when you consider I'm from Jersey and I grew up in the 80s...) My siblings learned from our experience, and opted to have much safer "celebration" type things done for their respective wedding church-exits, like having tiny bells rung or bubbles blown. Thus, Hubby and I never had our revenge upon them for the pelting we endured.

Our first dance, to "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" as sung by Harry Connick, Jr. Great song but not really that danceable, as it turns out. It is "our" song though, one that Hubby used to play for me when he deejayed at the jazz station back when we were in college, despite it not being on the approved playlist.

Cutting the cake! We went with a chocolate cake with raspberry filling, quite delicious but rather a pain to frost with white icing. We also had plain, yellow cake with raspberry filling available for those attendees who didn't like chocolate. We didn't smash it either - we made a pact that we wouldn't, and we fed each other that momentous first bite simultaneously and with decorum to the strains of the Beatles' "When I'm 64" (you know: "will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?").

Seeing as how we got married waaaay back in the early days of the interwebz and before digital photography and/or personal scanners were common, I didn't have any of our wedding photographs on my computer. I dug out our wedding album, which was redone for us by a friend who scrapbooks a few years back, and scanned the above pictures in from that. This is why some have borders or rounded edges or what-have-you, and also why they're not the greatest quality - I didn't want to try removing either the pictures from the album or the protective cover off the page, so I just slapped the album onto the scanner bed as best I could to scan them in. At least now I have some form of them on the computer!

We plan to celebrate not tonight, as Hubby is working late and it is the middle of the week and all, but rather this weekend, when we're going out to eat at Macaroni Grill, with Kiddo, who is fascinated by our wedding album now that she is old enough to sort of understand what a wedding is and also able to remember being a flower girl in her uncle's wedding back in 2007. She is a little upset that we didn't have her as our flower girl, so she's not quite getting the whole concept of "back before you were born" too well right now. At least she gets to go out to celebrate with us this weekend - she loved eating there for my birthday last month!

Anyhow... to get all mushy and sentimental for a moment (hey, it is my blog!), here is one of my favorite poems of all time. I wanted to have the first line - or at the very least, the first phrase - inscribed on the inside of our wedding bands, but both Hubby and the jeweler laughed their heads off at me. We settled for our initials and the date instead. As there are no such space limitations on my blog, I will share the poem in its entirety with you now:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

~ e.e. cummings

Happy anniversary, honey! Thank you for putting up with me and my craziness for these past 14 years!

Need a little favor...

Hey gang, while I've been navel-gazing over here on my blog, my dear friend Coco has been having Serious, Bad Things happening in her life, which she just blogged about here. So, if you can do me a little favor, please pop over to her blog, leave her an encouraging word or three and say a prayer for her and her mom if you are of the praying sort? I'd appreciate it - she could use all the support and prayers she can get right now.

Thank you! And please remember to give your loved ones a big hug and tell them that you love them, or pick up the phone and tell them you love them if they're not close enough to hug. Life is too short...

Weighty matters

I've tried to resist blogging about this, but I've decided I shall. It may make me more accountable if I'm discussing it publicly.

I'm fat.

Yep.

No point in prettying it up with any euphemisms. I'm not "big boned" or "plump" or "chubby" or anything else. I am F-A-T.

And I've resolved, once again, to do something about it.

I'm a serial exerciser. I get myself all pumped up that *this* is going to be the time that I do it. I'm going to get into the habit of going to the gym every day. I'm going to become one of those people who feels icky if they *don't* work out daily. I'm going to become one of those folks who is addicted to exercise. I start out all positive and hyped up. I go to the gym once, then the next day, then a third. Possibly even a fourth or a fifth. I don't like it any more than I did on Day 1, but at least I'm going. I feel good about what a conscientious caretaker of my body I'm finally being. Then, something happens. Kiddo is sick so I have to stay home with her for a day or two. I'm sick so I skip a day or two. Aunt Flo makes me absolutely NOT want to go to the gym for a day or five. I have an appointment or alternate plans that I can't avoid so I can't go to the gym. And then, before I know it, I'm out of the habit. Once I start skipping, it all goes downhill. Fast. The next thing I know, it's been weeks since I've gone. I start feeling worse and worse about my fat self. Eventually, I summon up the motivation to go back to the gym and the cycle begins again.

I wind up losing a few pounds, which always come back. I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life. And to think, back in high school when I weighed 132lbs, I thought I was fat. HAH. I'd love to be 132lbs again. Not that this is an actual goal. I've tried that before - the "I'll lose X number of pounds" goal, and that is just setting myself up for failure. My goal now is simply to get into better shape. I don't want to be winded after climbing a few flights of stairs. I want to be able to run after Kiddo at the park and not run out of steam, or follow her when she's on her bike and not spend every second hoping she'll slow down because I'm panting and red in the face. I don't want to have to hold my breath and hope that the shirt I see on the rack comes in extra-extra large. I want to be able to walk into ANY store and know they're going to have something in my size. It's embarrassing. Regardless of what I'm wearing - how much I think it is hiding my body, who am I fooling? Take one look at me and it is pretty obvious, I'm fat.

Why am I fat? Simple. I'm lazy. No better reason, unfortunately. Sure, I could probably eat better, but I don't eat that badly, either. I don't eat a lot of junk food (well, besides those darn Christmas tree nougats, and thank heavens they're gone for another year). I don't drink lots of soda. It all boils down to one thing: I don't like to exercise. I'd rather sit at my computer, or sit on the couch with a book, or just about anything that doesn't involve working out. The only thing missing from my regular, daily life is a concerted effort to exercise.

Sigh.

So, as I sit here waiting for Kiddo to get ready for school, I am in my workout clothes. My plan (once again) is to put her on the bus and go directly to the gym. I've got my 20th high school reunion coming up in May, and I'd like to be better looking than I am now. I mean, I've never been a hottie, but I'd rather not walk in and have everyone think my greatest accomplishment in the past 20 years has been turning myself into the Michelin Man.

Hopefully, this time, it'll become a habit. Hopefully, this time, I'll be in better shape in a few months, instead of exactly where I am now. Hopefully, this time, when I go shopping for an outfit to wear to the reunion, I'll need to look for a smaller size and won't have to worry about if the top is loose enough to cover my stomach, hips and rear, if it is clinging to my thighs. (Again: who am I fooling?) Hopefully, this time it will be different. Hopefully I'll get my weight down and my stamina up. I'm not going to think "I'll get down to 132." I'd just like to see something well below 200. If Oprah can admit it, so can I.



And away I go................ wish me luck!

When urban legends are true

As any of you who have read my blog in the past week are aware, Kiddo has RSV. With the RSV has come thick-n-plentiful congestion and a frequent cough. I'd posted about this on my Facebook status the day before yesterday (because if one is going to whinge on about something, one might as well whinge on in any available forum, eh? I Twittered about it too...). Within an hour, I had no less than three of my friends reply to my FB status update to suggest that I rub Vicks on the soles of Kiddo's feet at bedtime.

Now, I'd heard of this practice before and dismissed it pretty much out of hand. I mean, when I was a kid, sure, Mom would slather my throat and chest with Vicks (then wrap a dishtowel around my neck, safety-pinned at the back, under my jammies) whenever I had a bad chest cold/cough. But that makes some amount of sense, what with the vapors having good proximity to the breathing and all. How on earth could having Vicks on the bottom of one's feet be beneficial, if one sleeps like a normal human (or even like Kiddo, with her various contortions and shiftings about in her sleep) and not pretzeled up like some master yoga practitioner?? Plus, the instructions include covering the Vicks-slathered feet with socks (for bed linens-protection purposes) which adds a further layer of vapor-blocking to the enterprise.

But still, THREE people. Three mothers who I find to be not only quite sane, but utterly trustworthy, no less. All three of them were telling me of their first-hand experience doing this and swearing to me that this Vicks-on-feet thing worked. I told Hubby about it, and he scoffed. I told him I thought I might try it, and he rolled his eyes and scoffed further, then remarked that it would "ruin the bedding" before considering the matter closed. I googled it and proceeded to read the Snopes article (oh Snopes, how I adore thee and thy debunking ways) which didn't give a solid confirmation or denial. I clicked back to my google search results and proceeded to read blog after blog after message board after message board post about how mom after mom tried this with much success. (Of course no one hopped onto the interwebz to announce they'd tried this method and found it to be full of hooey....) It sure seemed like a lot of anecdotal evidence... I considered the idea some more.

When I announced my intention to Vicksify her feet at Kiddo's bedtime, Hubby threw his hands up and shook his head, as Hubby is wont to do when I'm on to one of my "crazy schemes", but I persisted. I slathered the bottoms of Kiddo's feet with Vicks (well, actually, with Generic Mentholated Rub Goo) and double-socked them, just to be sure that the linens and vast horde of stuffed animals that share Kiddo's bed wouldn't be too camphortastic come morning. We also ran the cool mist humidifier (set to "tropical rainforest") with the Vicks scented pad thingy in the holder for additional mentholated effect. Hubby was rather skeptical, and to be honest, so was I, but I figured it wasn't going to hurt anything, except maybe a stuffed animal or twelve who might need a bath come morning.

Kiddo fell asleep. Time ticked by. Nary a cough sounded from her room. I was up until almost midnight (thanks to an afternoon nap that threw my schedule totally off) and still, not a cough. Kiddo is an impressive cougher, too - it rings out through the house, reverberating off the walls in such a manner as to make our house seem like one of those sanitarium tuberculosis wards of old. All I heard was silence. I checked on her before turning in at twelve. Sleeping soundly and breathing pretty well (she was snoring, as she does whenever she's congested). Hmmmm.

This morning, Kiddo woke us up shortly after seven. Not by coughing up a lung, mind you, but by scampering into our room, relatively bright eyed and bushy tailed. Well, bushy haired at any rate - the kid does an awesome "bed head" look, even with her hair secured in a pony tail or braids before sleep. No coughing. None. Her nasal congestion also was markedly improved - I did the "squirt squirt" routine (nasal saline spray and much nose blowing) with her this morning and there was hardly anything produced compared to the floods of ick that scoffed at the Puffs Plus and exploded over my hand of yesterday.

Now, it is entirely possible that this is all coincidental, that Kiddo would've been this much improved without any wacky old wives'-urban legend remedy. Hubby thinks it was just the added presence of vapors in the room and posited that had I done as my mother did and rubbed it onto Kiddo's chest/throat instead, it would've worked as well if not better than the feet. Hmmmm. All I know is that 24 hours ago I was thinking there was no way Kiddo was going to be healthy enough to go back to school tomorrow, and now today? I totally think she could. She has no fever, hardly any congestion, and has only coughed once since she woke up. We're staying home again today and having one more day of "taking it easy" just to be safe, but all signs point to YES on the return to school, and you'd better believe I'm rejoicing over that.

Either way, you can be darn sure I'm going to Vicks her feet again tonight!

Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades...

I almost made it this year. I summoned my willpower and cloaked myself in it before entering any establishment where they might lurk from mid-November on. I studiously avoided the bulk food aisles, especially: I'd make a beeline for the chocolate melty wafers (used in our annual Christmas treat making) with a laser beam focus, then get the heck out. I made it until Christmas without succumbing. I finally had done it! I was soooo proud of myself.

Then, it happened. December 28th, about 5:30pm. We'd just returned home from our annual Christmas trip to the motherland. We needed milk. I popped over to the closest grocery store to our home. I was *just* going for milk. I wasn't even near the bulk foods section. And then, BLAMMO. I was hit. Directly in front of me, all out on its lonesome, a solitary bulk foods bin. Marked down astronomically. Clearance sale leftover Christmas candy. For a mere 59 cents a pound, they could be mine. I do not know what about them is so darn appealing. Obviously, they are not universally beloved, or they wouldn't be overflowing the clearance bin. They must be the candy equivalent of the leaden fruitcake no one ever wants or eats. No one, that is, besides me.

Did I resist? Of course not. I completely succumbed. For a measly 37 cents, I brought home a bag full. Two days later, I found myself making an excuse to go back to that grocery store (one at which I do not regularly shop because it is truly lousy) and found myself drifting over..... would that bin still be there? It was. I succumbed again. Another 42 cents' worth*.

I. Cannot. Resist. Them.


Damn you, Brach's Christmas Tree Nougats. You got me again.



*Please do not point out what $.37 + $.42 worth of nougats at $.59 a pound equals. I am all too well aware of how much nougaty goodness I've consumed in the past week. No one else in the family eats them, so I *know* they've all been eaten by me. Well, not all - there are a handful left down in the fruit bowl, next to the bananas. At least until my next trip through the kitchen, anyhow...............

Step right up, spin the wheel...

I swear sometimes it feels like taking a kid to the doctor's office is like spinning the Great, Big Wheel o' Diseases.......


This time around, the wheel landed on RSV. Yee-ha. The good news is that as of today, Kiddo's lungs are clear, so there's no sign of pneumonia or bronchial infection. We have to keep an eye - or more accurately, an ear - on her and if we think her breathing is getting worse, wheezy or if the cough worsens, we have to bring her back. Otherwise, treatment doesn't include any wonder drugs, since it is a virus and all, but rather the good old Mentholated Rainforest. Hubby is scrubbing out the humidifier and I bought more of the Vicks pads for the vaporizer, and Kiddo is steaming in the shower even as I type...

Oh, so the weird doctors' office closing thing? I had made an appointment at the Urgent Care center, but the only one of the centers that was seeing peds patients was the one across town in a rather rough neighborhood. I wasn't thrilled about that but wanted Kiddo to be seen, so I was going to suck it up and take her. Just as we were leaving the house, the phone rang. I almost didn't answer but thank goodness I did, because it was Kiddo's pediatrician's office saying they'd reopened and could see her in half an hour. Woo! When we got there, I asked the receptionist why they had closed. "Mercury spill" was her answer. Before I could ask for further details, another woman behind the counter shot the receptionist a warning look, as if they weren't supposed to be spilling the details about the spill. So, who knows? Perhaps a sphygmonometer burst or something (don't those still have mercury in them?)... At any rate, we wound up getting to see Kiddo's actual pediatrician so that was all good. I think I survived the brainwashing effects of the various hold musics at the various medical offices - I was on hold for aeons both to make and then cancel the Urgent Care appointment and I swear there are subliminal messages broadcast in the Muzak...

Anyhow, we've spun the wheel and gotten our diagnoses o' the day. As long as it doesn't evolve into any chest infection, Kiddo should be back to 100% in short order. Of course, with RSV being as crazy contagious as it is, Kiddo could very easily pick it up again at school next week... The doctor said that as long as she is fever free and feeling all right, she can go as early as Monday. We shall see (is it wrong that my fingers are a little bit crossed in the hope that she'll be fine by then?)...!

And that's the update from the Mentholated Rainforest here in the snowy, frozen expanse of upstate New York! We may be stuck here in our patheticicity (thanks Texan Mama!) but at least we have a George Clooney DVD courtesy of the local Redbox machine to watch tonight! (Burn After Reading - totally wanted to see it in the theater, of course never had the chance, and way excited to be watching it tonight. I'm even caffeinating just in case so I can stay awake!)

Wake me when it is 2010, part deux

So, apparently when we were down in NJ visiting my family (along with that day trip into NYC using many forms of public transportation and bumping through crowds of tens upon thousands of people), we all picked up a germ or three. First it was me sneezing and sneezing and aching and aching and having *no* energy pretty much from Sunday on until this morning. Kiddo started earlier this week with some impressive but not terribly frequent nasal emissions. Yesterday, Hubby started with the sneezing and the runny nose and overnight, added a headache to the mix, while Kiddo started running a low grade fever and added a cough to the repertoire. Not to be outdone, my germs opted to zero in on the throat region, setting my entire throat from tonsils back on fire and making swallowing uncomfortable at best, fairly agonizing at worst. This morning, Kiddo further upped the ante by having her cough evolve from a dry, occasional thing into a horribly tubercular, wet, breath-stealing, nonstop hacking fiesta. Given our combined state of utter patheticalness (yes I just made that word up), we felt it wisest to cancel our plans for yesterday and lay low. Given our worsening state of utter pathetictude (yep, another one) this morning, I canceled our plans for today and just called the pediatrician's office.

Now, our pediatrician's office opens at 8:30am. I began dialing my way through the automated menu system at 8:29 so that I could be one of the first calls answered by a real, live person. (This works better some days than others - I have been stuck in the auto-hold chain for over 10 minutes in the past.) This morning, I was talking to a real, live person by 8:31. That was the good news. The not-quite-so-good news is that the first appointment Kiddo's doc had available isn't until 11:45 this morning. Guess we aren't the only germy folks in town (even if our germs are of a more exotic, imported, New Jerseyan/New York Cityean variety).

Kiddo is now tucked into my bed, where she is hacking and coughing germs all over my pillows and linens. (Note to self: change bedding before climbing back into bed tonight.) She's running a fever so she is pretty low energy, which she appears to be trying to conserve for the aforementioned coughing bouts. Hubby sniffled and sneezed his way off to work today, returning who knows how late tonight as it is his first day back in the office since before Christmas. (He worked from home over the holidays, including while we were in NJ, but that doesn't help with all the mail etc that accumulates when one isn't physically in the office...) I hopped in the shower as soon as I pulled the thermometer out of Kiddo's mouth in anticipation of being asked "Can you bring her in right now?" which actually only ever happens if I *haven't* anticipated that. Hmmm, maybe I should've just stayed in my jammies in order to ensure a first-thing-come-right-away opening. My bad.

To sum up, we are a generally pathetic bunch here in my family today. I just hope that Kiddo doesn't have anything serious (various relatives with whom we broke bread and shared air over the holidays are now on various antibiotics for their various ills, any combo of which we may be brewing up here right now) and that whatever she has is sufficiently in hand before school starts on Monday. Because (guilty, bad Mommy confession coming up here) I was rather looking forward to Monday, with normal life resuming and Kiddo going back to school and such. Not that I don't love playing Sorry, Trouble or Connect 4 for hours, really. Nor do I mind letting Kiddo pretend she is a dog and feeding her as she sits under the table, barking and pawing at my leg. I enjoy having everyone home and together, really. I truly do. I just was looking forward, just the tiniest little bit, to getting back to Life As Usual. In the meantime, I just hope that, along with Kiddo - and Hubby! - getting better quickly, that I don't get worse myself, because we all know, mommies can't get sick....

In other virus-related-esque news, after reading blog post after blog post about folks having horrendous computer crashes and losing all their files, I am very relieved that Hubby just signed us up for an online back-up service, which will automatically back up everything for us, including my (literally tens of thousands of) pictures and videos and everything - even my iTunes collection. Whew. It's doing the initial back up now, which is slowing both of our computers down, but once the initial back up is done, it should be an invisible and painless process.

Time to brew myself a cup of tea and make something for Kiddo for breakfast. Hoping everyone else is less germy and blah than our patheticocity here! (Woo, the made up word trifecta!)

RANDOM AND WEIRD UPDATE: Okay, just as I was spellchecking (go made up words!) and getting ready to hit publish on this, the phone rang. Twas the doctors' office calling, so as I answered, I was totally thinking "Woo-hoo, they had a cancellation and can see us earlier!" as this has happened in the past. Nope. Totally, completely NOPE. Instead of getting to go in earlier, the receptionist said "I need to cancel Kiddo's appointment. We've been told we need to close the office and leave the building immediately." Whaaaa?!?!?! I asked her why that was and she didn't know. All she knew was that they were closing immediately for an unknown period of time. She said my options were either to wait and see if they are able to open tomorrow morning or take Kiddo to an Urgent Care center instead. So, so weird. I wonder what the heck is going on that they have to close the building.....? The doctors' office is in a complex of medical buildings, so it seems like it could be any number of things. Hubby guessed it was some sort of landlord-tenant issue to which I said "Huh?" because that seemed like a much more farfetched guess than my immediate thoughts about some sort of plague outbreak (Ebola, anyone? I mean, who's to say that someone didn't visit some much more exotic location than NJ over the holidays, bringing back much more exotic germs than ours?) or more likely, a water main break or heating issue or something that requires power to be shut off to the building...

At any rate, I now have to wait until 11 and call the UC clinic to see if I can get Kiddo in there instead. Whee.

Wake me when it is 2010!

I honestly had *no* intentions of staying up until midnight last night. We wound up not having company due to the rather inclement weather of yesterday, though Hubby did make the run out to our favorite Chinese restaurant for our traditional New Year's Eve dinner. We couldn't manage to play Wii Mario Kart while eating, so we flipped around and settled on the 70s classic That's Entertainment, which is the first of a documentary trilogy I adored as a child (and even rented many, many times from our local video store back when my family first acquired a VCR in the 80s. Yes, I was so hip as a preteen, I rented movie musical documentary videotapes) and which Hubby had never seen. We watched until the first movie ended (they were running all three in succession, followed by one I'd never seen called That's Dancing, which I totally would have recorded to watch today except for the fact that 90% of our DVR space is presently taken up with episodes of Bindi the Jungle Girl, aka Kiddo's latest obsession, and there wasn't room). Hubby then, quite sensibly, went to bed around 10pm. I shut off the TV and headed upstairs when he did, but sat down at my computer "to turn it off" ...and the next thing I knew, it was 11:46 and at that point, I figured if I was still up it would be silly not to stay up the extra 14 minutes. Kind of like getting within eyesight of the peak of Mt. Everest and then saying "Eh, I'm heading back to base camp." (Note: I never in my entire life have or will ever climb Mt. Everest, so this is possibly the most farfetched comparison I could make... I haven't even attempted to scale Mt. Clean Laundry that has reached rather towering heights atop my dresser in ages!) So, I shut off my computer, congratulating myself heartily on my fortitude so that I wouldn't get sucked back into the blogosphere (and/or my 23 current Wordscraper matches on Facebook) again at 12:03am. I curled up on the couch with the cat to watch the ball drop. I was happy to see Dick Clark seemed better this year than last. I didn't have the New Year's show on long enough to be terrifically annoyed by Ryan Seacrest or Kellie Pickler (though whatever genius hired her to speak extemporaneously on live TV must be worried about his/her job this morning) and before I knew it, the ball had dropped. Mission accomplished - 2009 it was!

Why I didn't immediately turn off the television and go straight up to bed at that point, I cannot say. Why I chose instead to peruse the channel guide and notice that Chicago was just starting on IFC and decide to flip over to catch the opening number is beyond me. I told myself "I'll just watch All That Jazz and then go to bed." Then All That Jazz ended and I remembered that McNulty from The Wire played Fred Casely in Chicago and I told myself "I'll just watch 'til the first commercial break and then go to bed." Yeah, one slight flaw with that brilliant plan: IFC doesn't have commercials. The crazy cat and I wound up watching the entire movie, which I will admit I haven't seen in its entirety in quite some time, and the next thing I knew, it was a quarter to two. This is the point at which any sensible, extremely tired, usual-bedtime-is-no-later-than-10pm kind of mature and responsible adult would've shut the TV off and headed up to bed straightaway, but some possessed part of me insisted upon surfing the channel guide one last time before convincing myself it was utterly ridiculous to think I could start watching That's Entertainment III which was starting in five minutes, because then I'd be up past 4am. I haven't done an all-nighter in decades, not counting those nights when Kiddo was ill and I *had* to be up with her over the past five and a half years. Seriously, I am the woman who goes to bed well before midnight even when on vacation in Vegas. I need my sleep.

So, I hefted the cat off of my lap and staggered upstairs to brush my teeth and collapse in bed at a most impressive 2:16 in the morning. Why is it, then, that my body decided it needed to be wide awake at its usual time of 6am?? By all rights, I shouldn't have cracked an eye open before noon, at least... Oh, right - my bladder. Darn thing insists on being emptied like clockwork at 6am. I fought it until 7, but then it became a necessity to get up. I attempted to go back to bed, but the smell of bacon wafting up from downstairs where Hubby was cooking breakfast and Kiddo was playing Diego Animal Rescue something-or-other on the Wii became too irresistible. So, here I am, awake but exhausted, and wishing I could spend the start of this new year snoozing away instead of taking down the tree and doing some serious tidying up. Thank heavens I have a decent supply of Mountain Dew Code Red left over from our drive to NJ last week. I may need to inhale some enormous quantities of peppermint bark as well, for purely medicinal purposes, of course - must get ample sugar in the blood to stay upright!

And thus concludes the cautionary tale I will remind myself of next New Year's Eve: I am TOO DANG OLD to stay up until midnight anymore.

Oh, while surfing the interwebz last night - erm, I mean last year (hee hee, sorry, I love those kinds of corny jokes on January 1st), I came across a video that I swear is exactly how I spent my post-midnight TV watching. I must share it with you now; the only difference is that I was watching a musical, not sports:



Hee hee! So, tell me, blogosphere friends, how many of you made it up 'til midnight? Were you partying or at home in your jammies like me? Anyone have any ambitious resolutions? If you are a Wii owner, are you as utterly pathetic at every Wii game imaginable as I appear to be? (Seriously, the only thing I have aced thus far is the Handbell Harmony game on Wii Music, and this comes after ringing handbells in real life for several years... but by that method, I ought to be much better at Mario Kart, tennis and bowling too...) Anyhow, Happy New Year!