2 states down, 2 to go

I don't want to jinx myself, but so far the trip is going pretty well. We have about 4 more hours to go, and I can't wait to get there. I'm having fun with Twitter and Words with Friends and Gabbie is watching a movie on the iPad.





Riding with my parents was definitely the way to go - two adults to entertain a toddler as needed while the third drives.

We're in for a three day party when we reach our destination, with Gabbie being the only one there from her generation (there are only two total) so she's in for some hard core spoiling. I can't wait to get there and for the fun to begin!

On Thursday morning at about 7 a.m., Gabbie and I are setting of on a road trip with my parents. I am equally excited, anxious, and terrified because while the trip ends up at my grsndfather's 90th birthday party which should be a blast (no, really) the at least 13 hours in a car with my toddler is, at this point, a giant crap shoot. Will she be her fairly normal angelic self? Or will this newer, testing out boundaries, independent minded toddler rule the day? I am if course hoping for the former rather than the latter, but it truly is a wait wnd see sort of thing.

We're loading up on snacks and items to keep here enteretained. So far we have the iPad loaded with three of her favorite movies, a travel-sized magnadoodle, crayons, a coloring book, stickers, and plenty of other books to read, and, of course, a couple of binkies to shove in her mouth to keep her quiet if needed. I've also loaded up my old iPod nano with some kids' songs and bought her a pair of adorable toddler-sized headphones. This may sound like a lot, but I'm reslly kind of just hoping it will be enough. I feel like I can't be too prepared for any possible contingency. I also have to admit that I'm pretty happy we're riding down in my dad's truck. With all I'm bringing I'm pretty sure we'll be sble to use the extra space.

So, wish me luck, and if you don't hear from me, at least you'll know what caused my head to explode.

I love moments like this

So, while Gabbie is not starting with potty training yet (no way I'm doing that right before we take her on two big trips) she is somewhat enamored with her potty chair. We keep it in our first floor half bath, which is usually kept closed because nobody needs a repeat of the toilet hands episode. Really the only time she gets to sit in the potty chair is when she comes in the room with her dad or me.

Today after work I had to hit the restroom, so she csme in with me. She pulled out the potty, opened the lid, sat down and then twisted around to look at me with her hand held out.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Book!"

They sure do learn fast don't they?

So glad I finally convinced him babysitters other than my mom are fine

Last Friday Aaron and I headed out as planned, leaving Gabbie with a babysitter. The babysitter was one of her favorite teachers from school, so it's not like we were leaving her with someone who doesn't know her. It has taken Aaron some time to be comfortable with the idea of leaving Gabbie with someone other than my mom, but he finally relented and we are both glad he did. (Although, I was the one feeling trepidation as we left that night - go figure.)

We got out of the house and saw Hot Tub Time Machine, which was as awesome as expected. It was great to get out of the house, just the two of us, and have fun together. It's something we don't do nearly often enough, that's for sure. We've been quoting movie lines back and forth ever since, which of course means we have something in common other than the Gabbster for once in a long while. 

Gabbie and her sitter had a great time and reports are that Gabbie was perfectly behaved and they had a great time. Unfortunately, babysitters are also pretty expensive, so we'll save doing that again until we have something specific to do or attend. It's nice, though, to have that in our parenting arsenal so that if we ever just really need to escape for an evening, we can. 

Unrelated paragraphs of semi-awesomeness

Well, I've mostly calmed down about the customer service thing from yesterday - it turns out they didn't send a rebate because we didn't send in a signed contract, but - in ANOTHER flawed logic circle - we didn't send in a signed contract because they didn't send us a contract to sign. Anyway...yeah. I need to step away from that situation for a day or two.

It is finally green around here. Green and yellow (forsythia and daffodils) and other flower-blooming colors. The rain the past few days may have bummed me out a little bit, but the plants are sure seeming to love it. The trees are even starting to sprout leaves. It means spring (and then, soon, summer!) is actually happening! We'll just ignore that there's the possibility of snow today and tomorrow. Plus, it always snows once in April. I just need to accept that fact no matter how hard I wish that this year would be different.

Back at the beginning of the year, I set forth a monthly date night as one of my goals for 2010. We have gotten in a couple of dates, but usually only when we head up to my hometown and my parents are around to watch the Gabbster. Last week, though, Aaron said that he would probably be okay with one of Gabbie's teachers babysitting her so we could have a night out. Well, you better believe I jumped on that opportunity. Tomorrow night Gabbie's favorite teacher is coming to our house and Aaron and I are going out. I can't wait! Now we just have to decide what to do with ourselves for the 2 - 3 hours we have free.

I used to babysit a lot in highschool, and one of my favorite parts about babysitting was raiding the snack cabinet after the kids went to bed. I plan to allow full access to food to our babysitters (goodness knows we have more than enough and can spare some), but here's the problem. Aaron and I are tall people. We can easily reach even the highest cabinets in our kitchen and store all the good stuff in the liquor/candy/junk food cupboard which is one of the highest cabinets we have so the kiddo won't be able to get it until she's at least 13 (which is when I hit my full height). So, even if I tell the babysitter we have coming this weekend that she can help herself to anything, she's short and won't be able to reach the stuff in the cabinet. Do I put some things in the lower cabinet? Or tell her to feel free to drag over a stool? I never foresaw this problem when I arranged our things in our kitchen.

Venting needed to prevent imminent head explosion

Today? Oh today. Today can suck it. I'm currently in the customer service logic circle of hell with a company I'll call Fomfast. Fomfast was supposed to send me a giftcard for signing up with them. I signed up with them when we moved into our house about 10 months ago, so common sense would indicate that I should have received the giftcard by now. So I called them. They forwarded my information on to someone else who let me know that Fomfast hadn't provided them with correct information and that I needed to call them to tell them this.

So I did. And they told me something else, which is basically that I need to talk to the people who need me to talk to Fomfast, and on, and on, and on.

My favorite part about the whole thing is when the woman from Fomfast told me she had a different email address for me to try and started, "www." CLEARLY not an EMAIL ADDRESS. So I went to that website (NOT EMAIL) and put in my information and, of course, the system doesn't have any information on me because they haven't received it from Fomfast, WHO TOLD ME TO CALL THIS OTHER COMPANY ABOUT MY PROBLEM.

I also liked it when the customer service person told me I went to fast and could I slow down and explain my problem again? This was after my first spin round the logic circle from hell. So I slowed it down and used idiot-level words and she started to seem like she got it and then went into the email address debacle above.

I had to call Aaron to let him now the ball was now in his court because in my current hormonal state if I have to take another spin around this problem my head is going to seriously, nearly quite literally, explode.

SERIOUSLY SO NOT HARD TO UNDERSTAND!

They're supposed to call me back with an automated customer service satisfaction survey. This should be fun!

(Also, I SO deserve a HUGE glass of wine tonight. SO DESERVE!)

This is what you get when I've basically been awake since 3 AM

One hell of a thunder storm blew through our area in the middle of last night. At one point lightning and thunder were happening more or less simultaneously (as in, the lightning and resulting thunder were happening at the same time) on both sides of our house. It was CRAZY!

You should know, at this point, that since having a child I have, for some reason, become completely paranoid about tornados. It does not help that in the year prior to Gabbie's birth there were several tornados that touched down around where we live and that during the summer when Gabbie was an infant the tornado sirens went off on a regular basis.

(I need to stop here and avoid crying about the fact that this will be Gabbie's third summer. Time! Where does it go and why does it go so fast?)

Needless to say when the storm woke me up and subsequently freaked me the hell out, I made a break for Gabbie's room and woke my poor baby out of a nice, sound sleep. She sleeps most soundly during storms thanks to genius parents who play a white-noise-esque thunder storm CD in her room as she is falling asleep. We headed downstairs to the first floor - that much closer to the basement - to weather out the rest of the storm. Which, of course, ended approximately two minutes after we got comfortable. Still, since I had already scared her awake once, I wasn't anxious to wake Gabbie up again, so she and I stayed down there for the rest of the night, she sleeping soundly and me wired from the adrenaline burst I had experienced mere moments before when an extra-loud-and-scary thunderclap about made me jump out of my skin.

I weathered out the rest of the night on the couch, reading tweets and watching some horrible Lifetime movie starring Yasmine Bleeth that according to Comcast came out in 2010, but kept referencing 1997, and I'm pretty sure that Yasmine doesn't quite look like she did in the movies these days (not to say she looks bad these days, she just probably looks older than 22). I dozed off between 5 and 6, at which point Gabbie woke up and demanded 'ca-too' and a 'bah' (cartoons and a breakfast bar). Then she asked for a mommy-cuddle, and if that cuteness doesn't make up for so little sleep I don't know what does.