Five Quick Takes

1. Today at MOPS the speaker was Jennifer Wilson from Touching Up My Roots. She and her husband and their two kids moved to Croatia for a year. They returned a couple months ago. The whole family kept a blog during the trip (including the kids). I haven't checked it out yet, but she said there are tons of pictures and some videos, too. I'm really excited to read it. She also has a book coming out in May 2011 about the whole experience. It was fascinating to hear her talk about it. Its so fun to have discovered a fascinating blogger who lives in Des Moines!

2. This was my last week of commuting for work and I am SO EXCITED. I'm an auditor, so we often have to go to a client’s office to work. Most of our clients are in my area, but obviously some aren’t. If your auditee is over an hour away, you go for the week and the office puts you up in a hotel. If its an hour or less, you drive every day. On your own time. Which means my long days (7 am to 6 pm) have been longer (6 am to 7 pm). For eight weeks. Starting next week, I’m in town until I have to travel (overnight) in December. I’m so excited I feel like throwing a party!!! No more commuting! YAY! August and September are the months I commute the most, so I’m pretty much home-free until next year. There’ll be weeks here and there, but hopefully not eight in a row.

3.  My sister works at a Christian camp.  This weekend they're having a mother-daughter camp and my sister said my mom, my aunt, my sister, and I could come for free.  My mom is going for the whole weekend (Friday-Sunday).  My aunt is going for a little bit, I think.  I have to work in the nursery on Sunday, so I'm going Friday evening through Saturday.  I have to decide whether to bring Meg.  I'm leaning toward yes.  There are several stations you could sign up to participate in, including sports, which my sister was in charge of.  Not enough people signed up for sports so they cancelled it and my sister now has a lot of free time.  So between me, my mom, and my sister, I think we could keep Meg happy and still have some downtime.  My sister said she'd take care of Meg during all of the devotional/chapel times and go out with her, if needed.  I think Meg would really enjoy the days, but we're all concerned with whether she would sleep.  I am SO sick of worrying about sleep!

4.  Humor me for a bit if you don't like Friends.  You know the episode when Ross is trying to adjust to being laid-off and having nothing to do all day?  One thing he does is rearranges Joey's fridge:

I reorganized the fridge. See? (Points to empty bottom shelf) Bottom shelf, meats and dairy. (Points to middle shelf that only has one item) Middle shelf, fruits and vegetables. (Points to top shelf which is full of food) And top shelf, expired "products."

I feel like thats what my lunch was like today.  We had very little food, so I made Meg macaroni and cheese.  For my lunch I had the rest of the mac and cheese (there wasn't much), some expired yogurt, and a glass of expired pineapple juice.  Very expired.  I was going to write the exact dates so I went upstairs to check the packages and discovered the juice expired a YEAR ago.  The yogurt expired September 27th (2010), and when I looked at the juice I thought it was "best by" September 28th.  It was.  September 28th, 2009.  Oops!

5.  I wore maternity pants to MOPS today because when I attempted to get dressed today I discovered I had no clean pants.  So I had to go to the basement and dig out the maternity bin.  After we got home, I fed Meg lunch and went downstairs to start some laundry.  Meg started wailing and trying to launch herself out of the high chair to come after me.  I was worried all of her food would end up on the floor (a lot of it did) and she'd be so upset about me leaving she wouldn't finish eating.  So I stopped sorting laundry and went upstairs.  She takes a nap right after lunch and it took awhile to get her to sleep.  I didn't remember the laundry for three hours.  Now there's no way I'll have clean pants in time to leave for camp.  And Meg has no clean pajamas.  I just started the laundry.  We have to leave in an hour.  I haven't packed anything.  We were going to follow my mom there because I don't remember how to get to the camp.  I don't think she'll want to leave late, because then we'll miss dinner.  Which means I have to either pack maternity clothes (NOT pregnant) and have Meg sleep in just a diaper (or non-pajama clothes) or try to figure out how to not get lost driving to a camp in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road.

So I guess you only get five quick takes.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I've Been Busy!

I haven’t written a new post in awhile, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ignored my blog! On Friday, instead of doing Seven Quick Takes, I made myself a gorgeous new blog banner. If you’re reading this in a feeder, click over and check it out. I love it and am so excited I made it myself! For free! Because reading archives really DOES pay off. A month or two ago while reading blathering-goer Sara’s archives, I came across this post where she wrote how she made herself a new banner using the tutorial here (on Clover Lane). I bookmarked the tutorial and hoped it wouldn’t be too hard. It wasn’t! If you want a new banner you should really check it out, because it was super easy. It took a couple hours, but only because it was the first time I’d ever used Picasa. I could probably make another one in MUCH less time than it took me to make the first one.

I also got a twitter account for my blog. If you’d like to follow me, search for @JesabesBlog I have a personal twitter account I use to follow people (and tweet rarely), but I didn’t feel comfortable using it for blog stuff. I decided to get a new one since I finally came up with a permanent (or at least long-term) name for the blog. Now I'm trying to figure out if there is any way I can set up two twitter accounts on my phone.

My office upgraded to Office 2010 this week, so now I'm figuring THAT out.  I think it will take me awhile to get all of the toolbars set up like I want them in word and excel.  But I'm doing it during naptime while watching Law & Order, so its not all bad!

I’m excited I finally got some things done I’ve been meaning to do for awhile...

You'd better get out your winter coats, because HELL JUST FROZE OVER

In May, we decided to shut off our cable. It costs a hundred dollars a month and is SO not worth it. Since we try not to let Meg watch TV, we were barely watching it. Plus, between Hulu and Netflix, we can watch almost all of our shows. So Thomas called to shut off the cable and was informed we had signed a 24-month contract and had 5 months left. They wouldn’t cancel our cable, but they did say they could shut it off for as long as we want. The guy said a lot of people shut off their cable for the summer. We could turn it back on whenever we wanted (and then use our remaining 5 months). We chose to have it shut off after all the season finales were over.

Yesterday, Thomas texted me to tell me he’d called and had the cable turned back on. I couldn’t believe how excited I was! We’d done just fine without cable. I thought I didn’t really miss it. My new boyfriend, Hulu Plus, and I were doing great. But Tuesday we had a nasty incident after I’d spent all day looking forward to watching the season premiere of House (that aired Monday night), and Hulu informed me I was not allowed to watch episodes of House until 8 days after they air. So when I heard the cable was back, I told Hulu “we were on a break” and went running back to by beloved Tivo.

Last night we watched the season premiere of Modern Family, without commercials, after putting Meg to bed. It was so amazing to watch it right after it aired. Also, Tivo remembers ALL of my shows and recorded the two hour season premiere of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit without even being asked!! I didn’t even know it was premiering last night. Even better, it had 15 episodes of Law and Order waiting for me. I haven’t seen Law and Order for MONTHS, which I don’t think has ever happened before. Its not on Netflix on Demand or Hulu Plus or anywhere else. Only cable. I’m so happy.  I know my days with Tivo are numbered, but I’m going to enjoy them as much as I can. Hulu says he’ll wait for me.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why hell froze over, I guess I’ll tell you as a reward for reading this far. After watching Modern Family, despite the fact the season premiere of SVU was sitting on the Tivo all ready to watch, I turned the TV off AND WENT FOR A RUN. I wish you all knew me better, because if you did, you’d be blown away. I don’t run. I sit on my butt and watch Law and Order. But Thomas finally talked me into trying the Couch to 5K. I’m almost done with week 3 and I actually like it! I cannot believe I actually chose running over TV.  Who knows what'll happen next.

To clarify

I almost didn't publish the last post.  When I re-read the sentence "She was in a dirty diaper every time we picked her up - Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday. Who knows for how long" the picture I get in my head is some third-world orphanage where the kids sit in dirty diapers all day.  I pictured you all thinking "I can't believe she's rationalizing this - my kid would never go there again."  And then I threw in the fact that our car seat had been stolen from the center, so that makes me think you're wondering if we're sending our kid to a daycare in a bad part of town just to save some money.  I assure you that's not the case.  The center is next door to Andrew's office and just down the street from the apartment we lived in for 2 years.  Its in West Des Moines, for goodness sake.  There isn't much of a 'bad part of town' to begin with and where we lived wasn't it.  Also, we visited a LOT of daycares in and around West Des Moines and this one was #2 on our list.  (#1 is at a very inconvenient location for us and they require a minimum of 3 days a week.)

I just don't know how to explain why we are going to continue to send her.  For one thing, this is the first time she's gotten a rash that bad while at daycare.  She does come home almost every week with a lot of redness in the diaper area, and we don't like that, but its pretty easy to get rid of.  Also, we've never complained about it, so I want to give them a chance to improve.  Plus, there have been several weeks in the past where she's gone to the daycare for the whole week and nothing like this has happened.  And, as I said in yesterday's post, the biggest problem is the teenage staff, who are only there for an hour of the time Meg is there.

I do have to say that, as happy as I am with the toddler room staff, they're not quite as good as the infant room ladies.  THOSE women are awesome and took wonderful care of Meg.  I miss them.  She never had any diaper redness while in their room.  If/when we have another child, I definitely want to send him/her to this daycare, as least for as long as they're in the infant room.

I guess, to us, a rash this severe seems like an isolated incident and since we haven't had any other problems in the year Meg has gone there we'd like to believe it won't happen again.  If we think things aren't getting better, Andrew can always start popping in at various times throughout the day to keep them on their toes:)  I'll keep you updated.

Daycare, part 2

Background info is here.

This week my mom went out of town Tuesday, which meant Meg had to go to daycare Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Tuesday, Meg came home with a diaper rash, like usual. Which didn't bode well for Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, when Thomas arrived to pick her up at 5 she was stinky.  The sheet said the last time she'd had a diaper change was 2:30.  They go outside around 4 every afternoon and the girl told Thomas Meg "must not like being outside" because she fussed the whole time they were out there.  To that, I would like to say, HA HA HA.  I don't know anyone who likes to be outside more than Meg.  She constantly begs to go outside.  She bangs on the door and whines and gets very excited if I we go out.  She was whining because she had a dirty diaper.

Plus, her diaper rash had gotten much worse.  Painful enough, apparently, for her to whine about it while playing outside.  She never whines about dirty diapers.  Thomas was furious.  This rash was so bad we thought about taking her to the doctor (though we decided it wasn't necessary) and we really didn't want to take her to daycare Thursday.  Especially because I was making up some time from last week, so I was working more than a half day.

I decided to take her, but brought a TON of diapers and asked them to change her diaper every hour and apply cream every time.  I talked to them and wrote it on her sheet.  I figured they couldn't screw that up.  I also talked to them about Meg's habit of dirtying her diaper right after a change.  Unfortunately, they've apparently cut back on the hours of the full-time staff.  When Meg gets dropped off at 6:30, they have staff in one room and all the kids go in that room.  As more kids come, so do more staff and they separate out to each room.  So I didn't get to talk to the ladies who take care of her during the day.  Apparently the message didn't get communicated and no one read the sheet, because her diaper was changed every two hours as usual.   Are you kidding me??  They can't even manage to change her diaper often enough when I specifically ask?  Grr!  (They did apply cream every time and must have paid more attention to her, because they changed a dirty diaper half an hour after another diaper change.)

I came to pick her up at 3.  They'd just started snack time, so I hung out while Meg ate her snack.  I talked to the full-time staff in her room.  One of them said her kids had had similar rashes and it looked like it might be a yeast infection.  She recommended using an anti-fungal.  I do like the people who are in her room for most of the day.  Actually, the one who recommended the medicine is the one who loaned me a car seat to take Meg home when ours was stolen (from the daycare) last fall. (That's an entirely different long story.  I should tell you about it sometime.)

So, anyway, I hung out for awhile.  Thomas had called the director to talk about how she had gone so long with a dirty diaper the day before, so she talked to me about the situation.  She assured me she'd spoken to the girl who'd been there (after school is out, the full-time people leave and high school girls take care of the kids).  I was probably there for over half an hour.  When Meg and I got to the car, I noticed she had a dirty diaper.  She'd probably been dirty since before snack time, which by now had started 45 minutes earlier.  I marched right back in and changed her diaper.  I made sure the director and the staff in her room knew she'd been dirty for too long.  I didn't really say anything else, because I'm a wimp.  Who knows?  Maybe Meg dirtied her diaper while I was talking to the director right before we left.  Why should I accuse the staff in her room?  If she had been dirty the whole time, I hadn't noticed either.  But I'm still furious.

She comes home with a diaper rash every Tuesday.  When I asked them to change her diaper every hour, due to the severity of the rash, they didn't.  She was in a dirty diaper every time we picked her up - Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday.  Who knows for how long.  Once, or maybe twice, she'd probably just done it.  But all 3 times?  I don't think so.

But we do like almost everything else about this daycare.  Plus, as I emphasized yesterday, she generally only attends one day a week and we only have to pay for that one day.  This is the only daycare we found that will do that.  AND she can come extra days any time we want, even without notice.  We were lucky its the most convenient daycare location-wise and we like it.  I don't want to switch.  I really don't.

I also am not sure it would be different somewhere else.  She only goes to daycare one day a week, so I suppose the workers don't know her as well as the other kids.  Plus, we actually think her daytime teachers do a fairly good job.  Its the after-school teenagers who are terrible about changing diapers - 2:30 is often the last time she had her diaper changed and Thomas picks her up at 5.

For now, we're going to be very clear about our dissatisfaction with diaper changes.  Every time we pick her up and she has a dirty diaper we'll complain.  I am requesting they use diaper rash cream every change no matter what, so maybe she can make it through a day without getting a rash.  I do think this is a teensy bit my fault.  Maybe the situation wouldn't have gotten so bad if we'd started complaining about it months ago.  Hopefully I'll have enough courage to continue complaining if it doesn't improve (I'm terrible with confrontation).  If things still don't get better I don't know what we'll do.

Daycare...

Meg goes to daycare one day a week (Tuesdays).  I work 3.5 days a week and we're very blessed that my mom watches Meg on 2.5 of those days (mom also works part-time - 3 days a week, which are sometimes weekends).  Before I went back to work we found a daycare that we like, that charges by the half day, and is next door to Thomas' office (he can look out his window and see them on the playground!)  Its wonderful.  We pay for 1 day a week, whether she goes or not, and can send her for additional days if my mom is out of town.  Its especially nice if my mom can't watch Meg on a Thursday morning, because I only have to pay for half of the day.  It would be annoying to pick her up at 12 and still pay for the whole day (although I never dreamed we'd find a daycare who would let us pay by the half day). 

One of the reasons we like the daycare is because its high enough quality we feel comfortable with it (we saw some really sketchy daycares when we were looking), but not so ritzy it costs more to send her there than I'd be making at work.  And, not to belabor the point, they accept kids part-time (you could even sign up for a half day a week) and are flexible enough to let a one-day-a-week kid come full time for a week or two here and there.  I honestly don't think we could find this setup anywhere else.

But.  Nothing is ever perfect, is it?  They're not the best at timely diaper changes.  Or, I guess I should say, they change her diaper every 2-2.5 hours, but almost never sooner.  They tend to not notice if Meg dirties her diaper.  She prefers to poop in a dry diaper.  She waits until you've changed her to do her business.  At home we often have to change her diaper, wait 10 minutes, then change it again.  They don't do that at daycare, so she ends up sitting in a dirty diaper for two hours.  She has sensitive skin - if you leave a dirty diaper on her for even a short period of time (its even happened at home occasionally) she gets a rash.  She comes home with a diaper rash EVERY TUESDAY.

I understand it must be hard in a room of 8 kids (2 teachers).  Maybe you smell something, but how do you tell which kid its coming from?  How do you know if its one of the kids or just the diaper pail?  Meg can be sneaky and she doesn't tell you she has a dirty diaper. I understand how they could miss it.  Ideally, they wouldn't, but I guess it happens (almost every time).  However, she only attends one day a week.  Its not the best, but we can deal with it.  A&D ointment works great on it, so the rash is usually gone by Wednesday morning.  Thursday morning if it was especially bad.  It kind of makes us feel like terrible parents for sending her off to get a diaper rash once a week, but we do like other aspects of the daycare and we don't think its a big enough of a problem to think about switching.

To be continued...

Seven Quick Takes

1.  I have strong memories associated with songs. The song “So What” by Pink came out when I was pregnant and had terrible morning sickness. I don’t know if you listen to pop radio, but they played that song constantly. I was working on a local audit and we had a radio on all day. Most days we heard the song 4-5 times. One day they had a contest where every time you heard the song, you could call in for a prize. They played this game EVERY HOUR. We work 10 hour days on local audits, so that day we heard “So What” 10 times. Amazingly, I didn’t really get sick of it. Its one of those really rare songs I still like despite its overplayed-ness. (Usually, no matter how much I like a song, I have my limit of how many times I can hear it. If I get past the limit, I start to hate the song. I hate many songs I used to love. Stupid radio.) Anyway, despite the fact I still like the song, when I hear it, it really takes me back to early pregnancy and I get the strongest urge to throw up. I’ll be sitting at work, not really paying attention to the radio and all the sudden I feel quite nauseous and can’t figure out why until I realize the radio is playing “So What.”

2. We’ve been pretty upset with our daycare this week. Although I hate the situation, I thought “at least it gives me a topic for a blog post!” I’ve been meaning to write it for two days now, but I just never get around to it. I usually do computer stuff while watching TV in the evenings, but the computer has become our TV (Hulu Plus). It really cuts down on computer free time, and when I finally get some I do other things instead of writing…like check my email and buy 10 kinds of diaper rash cream on Amazon. (well, maybe not 10)

3. Meg and I have to leave soon for the first day of MOPS! I’m excited. I have pretty much no social life. So I’m looking forward to mom time. It might be a bit overwhelming, though. I like getting to know people on more of a one-on-one basis. Last year the there-every-meeting group (which included me) was pretty small. 8 people? 10? There were several others but they were hit and miss about attendance. So by the end of the year, I knew those 8 women fairly well. And we did some park playdates and moms nights out over the summer (annoyingly I missed the last two, which is part of the reason I feel like I haven’t done any socializing in forever). However, there was another MOPS group nearby that disbanded at the end of last year and our group invited those moms to join us. I’m worried there will be 30 people or more there today and I don’t like that. Its too loud and chaotic and you don’t really talk to any one person for longer than a few minutes. But I’m excited to go, anyway!

4.  Right before going to sleep every night I think about whether I have to set an alarm for the next day.  It was kind of depressing to realize I didn't have to set my alarm make it to MOPS on time.  Last year we'd often be late because Meg would sometimes sleep until 8:30 or 9 (usually she got up at 8).  This year there is no chance we'll be late, as she now gets up between 5:30 and 6:30 almost every day:(

5. Monday morning I woke up and was so excited about getting a massage this weekend. I looked through the spa brochure (its been saved to my computer in pdf format for months) and picked out what I wanted (massage, pedicure, manicure). I authorized the amount I wanted to spend with Thomas (who is paying for all of this as a gift for my birthday) and got ready to call. Then I got an email reminding me the church women’s retreat was this weekend. I’ve been on the fence about it for awhile. Should I go, should I not… As I said, I don’t like crowds. At all. There’s going to be a ton of people there (we go to a big church). And, honestly, I’m just not in the retreat mood. I’m not really a retreat person. They’re usually too long. Too “this should be incredibly moving” and too “where are you in YOUR spiritual journey?” No thank you. (I’m at the point where I don’t want to talk about it. I have never wanted to talk about it!  I'm not a talk-about-it kind of person.) I was 90 percent sure I didn’t want to go. But I didn’t want to schedule a spa day and then decide I wanted to go to the retreat. So I dithered. And ignored the fact I had to make a decision. And waited another day. And then realized the deadline to sign up for the retreat had passed. So I called the spa. They didn’t have any appointments on Saturday. I am REALLY, REALLY bummed.

6. Thomas ordered Season 6 of The Office.  It came yesterday.  I like The Office, but Thomas is in love with it.  So much so I sometimes find it annoying to watch with him.  I usually dread watching the DVDs, but once we start I remember how funny the show is and enjoy it.  Now we're both excited to watch all the shows PLUS deleted scenes.  And hey!  It's the season where Pam and Jim get married and have a baby!

7. For the last quick take, I'm cheating and using someone else's blog post.  A few months ago I said Erin Zammet Ruddy's Parenting blog "is freakishly often about exactly what I’m thinking."  On this week's topic we could not be more different.  She says she's not really a baby person - more of a toddler person.  I am TOTALLY a baby person and she described exactly what its like:

"...can’t be in the room with a baby without wanting to hold it...could sit for hours holding a baby, any baby. And they don’t panic when they start to cry. If you’re a new mom at a party and want to relax, they’re your girls. And a friend at Glamour was such a baby freak that she could sense if someone was stepping off the elevator with one—she’d beeline to hold the baby and coo at the baby and love, love, love the baby"

I couldn't have described it better.  I loooove babies, which is kind of hard for family planning purposes.  I want tons of babies.  The more babies the better.  I love babies!!  But older kids?  I definitely don't want tons of them.  A few, maybe.  WHY do babies have to turn into older kids?