Austin-isms

My mom keeps telling me to write the funny and cute things that Austin does down, but where will I ever do that? It's the age of technology, so this my "baby book" for him, I think! Plus this way, I get to share the stories I have about him, so here are some of the latest cute things!

• He really likes to talk about and touch the letters on his wall that spell out his name. Often, after a diaper change, I stand him up on the changing table and we spell out his name, touching the letters. Now he has started to learn the order of the letters and will say them at other times. For example, when we're coloring, sometimes I will write out his name. Sometimes after I say, "A...." he chimes in with "U....S...." It usually stops there but occassionally he keeps going with more levels. The cutest part is that he ALWAYS finishes with "AU-TIN!!!"
  
• He applies this same theory to counting these days. If I start with "1..." he'll say "2...3...AU-TIN!!!!" I love how "Austin" is the finale for all lists, apparently!
• He is really starting to say so many phrases now. He seems to be really comfortable saying 4-word phrases these days! Recently, I've heard "I want blue, Daddy!" (referring to crayons), "I want more milk!", and, just today, "I want an apple, Mommy!" I know these are all "I want..." phrases, but wow! Impressive!

I know there are more, but I'll have to post them later. I think I hear him waking up from a nap!

All About Me!

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Career Specialist -- I was one of the student workers at the Career Center at Millikin University for 3 years. That job was great, especially because my boss Ray was hilarious! Isn't it interesting that I now work in the career area at Heartland? A little foreshadowing!
2. Detassler -- Oh boy. I did this for 3 summers and it was HARD work! I made good money (for a 13-15 year old!) but I hated it!
3. Sales Associate at The Limited -- I think I actually ended up paying them to work there because I bought so many clothes during my seasonal employment.
4. Line Worker at Schlotsky's Deli -- I could really whip out those sandwiches!

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Selena
2. The Wedding Singer
3. Elf
4. Any of the Hugh Grant movies -- Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones, etc.

Four places I have lived:

1. Elwin, IL -- Hugest town ever. Okay, really it's like one street big. Many an hour was spent riding my bike up and down the street, playing in the park, and hanging out at the underpass. Good times in the 80s! Just watch out for that hole by the side in the road...you just might get your foot stuck in it!
2. Decatur, IL -- Technically, I did live in Decatur while attending college. I lived in a dorm the first two years and then in the Alpha Chi Omega house for the last two years. Ahh, the sweet smell of soy!
3. Normal, IL -- My first apartment on my own during graduate school. I didn't know that I was moving in the "ghetto" of Normal, but after Decatur, it didn't seem too bad!
4. Bloomington, IL -- I've owned two houses in Bloomington (not at the same time or anything! Don't get crazy!) and I really do enjoy living here! I know it's not as happenin' as like Chicago, but it's a great sized town for me!

Four TV shows I love: This was a hard decision after the first three, because I am a TV addict! I do love way more shows than this!
1. Lost -- I cannot wait for it to come back in January!
2. The Office
3. Gilmore Girls
4. The Closer

Four places I’ve vacationed:

1. Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (hurricane honeymoon!)
2. South Padre Island, TX (Spring Break #1)
3. Panama City Beach, FL (Spring Break #2)
4. Orlando, FL

Wow, my answers for that one are waaay more boring than Cecilia's!

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. My dad's lasagna -- always so delicious!
2. Taco Pie
3. Quiche
4. Desserts! :)

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Babyzone
2. Google Reader
3. Facebook
4. RefundCents

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Hanging out with my friends laughing about something
2. On a warm, tropical vacation with NO hurricanes present
3. Shopping with a huge gift card at a store where things actually fit!
4. On a date with my husband having a great meal

Four people I am tagging:

1. Erin
2. Um....
3. Cecilia's already done it...
4. Uh.....well....

Okay, only Erin, really! Sorry, I have very few blogging friends!

Way. More. Tired.

Well, Heartland and my son conspired to make yesterday's tiredness seem like a cake walk! Austin woke up at 11:45 p.m. crying last night and just was inconsolable for about a half an hour! Luckily, Nick came home from his bowling league soon after the crying began and was instrumental in helping calm the boy down. We still don't know what happened or what was upsetting him! We decided to let him sleep with us, but that's always a challenge. I typically don't sleep very soundly when Austin is in bed with me or both of us because I'm always subconsciously "monitoring" him to make sure he's not falling off the bed (we've been there...twice!) or something. It took Austin a long while to settle into a comfy place on the bed, apparently, so I'm going to guess that we all got to sleep around 1 a.m.-ish or so. That's pretty dang late, even for me! Then, to keep the fun rolling, Austin decided it would be fun to wake up at 5:30 a.m. and continue on his upset jag from the previous night! Buddy!! What is the deal? From 5:30 until we left for daycare around 7:30 a.m., he oscillated between happy and terribly sad/distressed. The only thing that seemed to consistently cheer him up was playing with the "Moov", a.k.a. the Smooth, which is what we call the lotion. He really liked it and wanted to rub handfuls of it into my sheets. Awesome, but not really the activity I wanted to partake in this morning!

I dropped him off at daycare and he was pretty crabby, but I know he's in good hands over there. I'm really, REALLY hoping that the change of scenery helped and that he's back to his normal happy-go-lucky self tonight! I'll even settle for quietly crabby, as long as we can all get some sleep!

I say that Heartland also is in this conspiracy to make me even more tired because we had an orientation today and it was hell. Pure and simple hell. We are down one advisor (because someone chooses to take vacation time to go to HEALING SCHOOL during one of the busiest times of the semester -- thanks for that!), and Lindsay is still feeling like death warmed over, so really we're down 1.5 advisors. Plus, they haven't yet hired another half-time replacement for Jenn, so TECHNICALLY, we're down 2 full advisors right now. The students weren't the worst I've seen at all, but there were just so many of them and they kept coming. We probably saw all 37ish of them in a short 2 hour period, in addition to the students who just came in and weren't a part of the orientation. All of this makes for a VERY LONG DAY, and I get to teach the Zumba class tonight! I had fun doing it on Monday night, but I'm just not feeling it tonight with all the tiredness. I hope it goes well!

Sorry for the whiny, complaint-filled post, but this is my day! Hopefully I will be able to post more cheerful things tomorrow (maybe I'm following Erin's rough day pattern?)...

So. Very. Tired.

As I'm writing this, there are people waiting in our waiting area to be seen by one of the advisors here at Heartland Community College. Which, basically, for the last week has been me and Cecilia. Okay, okay, Gayle is here now and The Farbs has been here all day, but it feels like just me and Cecilia.

It's suddenly become a madhouse around here today, and it was a lot of the time last week. Everyone is in the mad rush to register for the spring semester...hey, students, we started this enrollment period on OCTOBER 7!! Next time, plan ahead! Lindsay, who is the third of our group, has been out with the barfs since last week! She did attempt to come in today, and we love her for that, but we want her to feel better! I told her this morning, though, that it just goes to show how much work she does around here because we definitely feel the difference without her!

I would make this post longer, but I don't have time!

Austin's new great love...

Now I get to share with you the new love of Austin's life...the Shark VX3 vacuum cleaner! Nick bought this for me for Christmas at my request and gave it to me early (yay!). I really have to a plug in for the Shark here. It's great! I like it because it is much quieter than the regular vacuum, works really well, and it so light and easy to move around. It's really handy for cleaning up after a meal or something, and because it's so easy, I get it out more often than the big vacuum.

Anyway, Austin is completely in awe of this thing. After most meals (and sometimes just at random times), he runs up to where the Shark is plugged in and excitedly shouts, "Bac-oom! Bac-oom!" He doesn't stop until I help him get the Shark out. Then he pushes the button to start the vacuum, and we're off! Mostly he likes to help me push the Shark around, but sometimes he gets crazy and takes off on his own with it! When we're done, the only way I can get Austin to separate from the Shark is to say, "Okay, it's time to put the vacuum to bed! Night night, vacuum!" Then he helps me put the vacuum back in its spot and gives it a big hug and a kiss on the handle! I'm telling you, the Shark is his true love!

Thank you, makers of the Shark VX3, for making a product that my son loves so much, because now I have a little helper who has found his cleaning soul mate!

My child's archenemy...

My child has an archenemy. Now, you might be thinking, "What?? He's only (almost) 20 months old! Who or what could be his archenemy??"

Well, I'll tell you. It's toe-sock-fuzz. Yes. My son absolutely HATES toe-sock-fuzz (TSF) with a passion. There is a catch, though...he only hates it when it is IN HIS BATHWATER!!! It terrifies him!

I have to admit, I don't really want to sit in a tub of water surrounded by a lot of fuzzy bits of sock, but it's not so much scary to me. Austin won't even get INTO the tub if he sees any type of fuzz floating in the water. This has happened a couple of times now. Once, I don't know if it was specifically TSF, but it was small, it was something that used to be fuzzy, and it was floating by him in the bathwater. Yikes.

Two nights ago, we staged a war against TSF, and we were victorious! On this day, Austin had been wearing black socks from The Children's Place. These are particularly known for creating excessive amounts of TSF, which I failed to remember. I got his bath ready, stripped him down, and put him in the water. At the exact moment that his feet hit the water, the TSF was released from the toes and started floating everywhere! Austin immediately started making the whiny/cry-type noise that means, "MOM!!!! I'm scared of the fuzzy black things in the water!!! Don't let them TOUCH ME!!!!!!!!" My reaction was, "Oh great! How am I ever going to scoop ALL of these fuzzy things out of the water? This is going to take forever!" I contemplated emptying the tub and starting again, but I really didn't want to waste all that water. I tried to explain to Austin that the TSF is nothing to fear, and that it's just small pieces of cotton. He wasn't buying. I tried showing him that it didn't hurt me when it was touching my hand, but no dice. Finally, I resorted to attempting to catch all the TINY pieces of TSF floating in the water and toss them out while Austin sat naked on the side of the tub, cowering in fear.

I eventually wised up and started scooping the TSF out of the tub with the shampoo rinse cup. This did waste some water, but was much more efficient for ridding our lives of the dreaded TSF!! Everytime I scooped, I said, "Look! All gone!" However, Austin would not be fooled. He would scan the water and spot the one MICROSCOPIC piece of TSF that still remained in the water (or something else that wasn't actually TSF but just some piece of something floating in the water) and point and make that whine/cry noise, so I would go back in with my trusty cup and attempt to scoop it out!

We finally beat the TSF and reclaimed the bathtub as our own and the bath was taken! We were victorious!! However, don't come near my child with any TSF...it is his kryptonite!

Cookies for...the elderly?

Today is my late night at work, which means I don't have to go in to work until 10 a.m. This is also Cecilia's late night, so lately, we've been doing some errands together in the morning. It's AWESOME to be able to do some shopping without our children with us! Don't get me wrong...we love our kids to death! However, shopping with kids is very, VERY different from shopping without kids! An example:

Without kids:
You can spend 20 minutes agonizing over which ones are the PERFECT Christmas ornaments for your tree, and how many should you get, and what about this color, and do I like the sparkles or the plain, and why don't these reds match, and let's just get the ones we first picked up anyway! Sometimes you need the time to process and weigh the pros and cons of each type of ornament!

With kids:
OHMYGOSH if this child doesn't SIT IN THE CART I'm going to LOSE my mind! Austin, sit down! No, sit! Please sit...here's a cookie! Did you drop your cup? Where's your cup? Do you want to sit with Grayson? Okay, hold on! No, don't LAY on Grayson! Don't pull his hair! Please don't scream in Target! Okay, how about another cookie? Do you want to sit with Cece? Can you sit back in our cart? ALRIGHT, THAT'S IT! I'm belting you in the seat and we're leaving! Oh...what? Ornaments? Whatever, I'm just grabbing these...

So we were at Target. Right when we got in there, we immediately felt out of place because we were there with all the stay at home moms and their kids! It was like we had a bright neon sign flashing above our heads screaming out, "WORKING MOMS!!! Our kids are in daycare right now...and we don't even work until 10!!" I have to add in here that I totally respect and completely admire stay at home moms. I couldn't do what they do...it's harder in its own way than being a working mom! This is just a joke that we have at work about how we're working moms who are bad mommies because we don't have the time to bake cookies, do craft projects, and prepare a homemade fresh fruit tray for our child's parent-teacher conference day!

Back to Target. We walk in and, once we make our jokes about being working moms, notice that there is a table set up with a sign that says, "Free Refreshments" with coffee and cookies being handed out. Okay, I know it was like 8:45 a.m., but I didn't have any breakfast and was starving. I thought, "I'll get one cookie and that will be my 'breakfast'." (Please hold all comments about poor choices -- we've ALL had a cookie for breakfast now and again!). I stood in the little line behind several older ladies and another lady in a wheelchair. Finally, it was my turn. A man started to come up and try to get his refreshment, but the lady behind the table said, "Hold on," to him and turned to me. I said I just would like one of the cookies please. She handed it to me and said something like, "This is Holiday Helpers, serving our elderly and disabled guests..."

What?

Was I not supposed to be partaking of the refreshments?

I kind of said, "Okay..." and turned to go back to Cecilia. We both tried to figure out her comment (which was said in a tone...not mean...but there was a definite tone). I started kind of getting irritated because if the cookies and coffee were ONLY for the elderly and disable Target patrons, can we get a more clear sign or something? Or could she have just said, "I'm sorry, these are just for the old/rollin' peeps in Target today." I mean, would that have been so hard?

As we continued through the store, I kept feeling embarrassed/irritated. Then, as we walked on, we both started to notice that there were an awful lot of elderly and disabled people in the store. We began to wonder if this was a special "Elderly/Disabled Day Out" kind of day at Target.

That would be just my luck. To be the one non-elderly, non-disable ass standing in line for a cookie when they're supposed to be for people NOT like me!! I can hear the crowd murmuring, "Who's that ass in line taking the elderly/disable people's cookie? That's really nice!"

But, Holiday Helpers, can we put up a more explanatory sign???