Cabin Fever

How is winter not over yet, guys? (Actually, I feel a bit disingenuous writing this post today, since it is sunny and 40-something and you can actually see patches of grass through the snow in the backyard, but! While I'm enjoying this temporary reprieve, I know that we're not done with winter yet. Yet. Ugh. Anyway.) The novelty of playing in the snow & hot chocolate & soup in the crockpot & cuddling under electric blankets has worn off. I want to have playdates at parks again. I want to be able to run outside instead of doing eight million v-steps to workout videos in my living room.

...but since winter, much like my toddler, doesn't listen to a thing I say, we've been doing our best to stay active and combat cabin fever. This weekend's activity was a trip to the Impression 5 Science Center in Lansing. Museums for kids seem to be a kind of hit or miss (I've been to some awesome ones ((COSI)) and some . . . less awesome ones that I won't bother naming here.) At any rate, this was our first trip to Impression 5, and it was a hit!

Our first stop was at the big water table, where K explained . . . something very important to Bob. (Actually, that's another lie. Our first stop was the Bubble Room, which K loved! Alas, I hadn't broken out the camera yet.)


Then we moved on to the First Impressions room, which is aimed at babies up to 4 year olds. While K had a ton of fun playing around with the "big kid" exhibits in the rest of the museum, she could have happily stayed in this room the whole time. There was a shorter water table, a slide (good lord, that girl loves slides and they're hard to come by in the winter), and several other areas for creative play that we didn't have time to explore. The center provided raincoats and Crocs, so clothes/shoes/socks didn't end up soaked.

We made a stop in a giant heart (stay with me) where K ran through it the wrong way (there's a picture of that, too, but blogger is giving me a heck of a time with the picture arrangement in this post, so -- just imagine a crazed toddler zooming through the right atrium in the wrong direction. You can picture that, right?)


She listened intently to something!

Next up was the Simple Machines room. Time for a mom picture! This was where you hoisted yourself up via pulleys. I am strong. Like Bull.

There were more amazing feats of strength as Bob pulled a 500 pound block o' cement. Feats of strength!
Gears, gears. Bob and K found this part of the museum much more interesting than I did. (Because I'm a girl and just want to look at rainbows and ride unicorns all day.) ((KIDDING, Kidding.)) (((But seriously, this part didn't do a lot for me because as many times as Bob tried to get me excited about the gyroscope, I just... I can't.))) Side note: it's free-form punctuation day here on the blog, folks.


The music room, on the other hand, was more my speed. (And at this point in the adventure, "my speed" was "something that will keep K busy while I sit on this bench.") She loved the xylophone!

This was in the simple machines room, too. She's cute though, right?


Oh, heck. I'm officially throwing in the towel on the "get the pictures in order" front. Here is K inside a giant mouth, which she was a little terrified of, to be honest, but I wanted a picture and goaded her into standing in it because I put my needs in front of those of my child. Or, um, I mean I didn't want to deprive her of what was surely a character-building experience.

There was a special model train exhibit in the basement of the museum, which was another hit with both of the kids ;-) While this was one part of the museum with a no-touching rule, they did have a nice little area set up with a set of tracks the kids could play with, and a coloring area (though they were out of the train coloring sheets by the time we got there, I think). K is quite the little engineer!

It was a fun something-to-do and it got us out of the house, and K was exposed to some new things (both scientific concepts and germs, probably, because despite my desperate "don't put your mouth on that!" cries, you know she did). They actually offer a series of science classes for toddlers (neat!) and I think we're going to give that a try (you know how I feel about hauling K all over the state for "enrichment activities"!)

What adventures have you gone on lately to combat cabin fever?

Edit: There is actually a great deal on a "Family Four Pack" admission to Impression 5 through Groupon going on today! Check the Lansing deal if you're interested.

Happy Valentines Day!

from the Unlikely Origins crew! (Who are not dead, just really busy!)

Hope your day was wonderful and full of the folks you love!

I Hate the Smell of Resolve

*Resolve brand carpet and upholstery cleaner. (I'm cool with the word itself.)

I only bust out that red spray bottle of doom when something awful has happened. That something awful usually includes bodily fluids in places bodily fluids should not be.

Today it got a workout.

I feel absurd complaining about standard issue Mom-of-Toddler duties. I know lots of folks who are dealing with much bigger issues right now, whether in terms of overall severity or scope (I only have one sick little one, a friend is currently dealing with four children passing germs around!)

But I'm tired and grumpy, and this is my blog, and maybe if I internet grumble loudly enough the universe will take notice and say, "Yeah, we really have piled enough on her. Let's reward the way she bravely struggled by blessing her crew with eternal good health and a winning lottery ticket!"

K has had a little bug since sometime between Christmas and New Years. A sniffle here, a cough there. Pretty standard whatever-the-kids-are-passing-around-at-daycare cold stuff. I'm not a mom who rushes her special little snowflake to the hospital every time she sneezes. K is a strong kid with no underlying health issues and, for the most part, I trust her immune system to fight its own battles and get stronger as a result.

But then sometimes that little cold turns into a Big Scary Cold. A (relatively high) fever pops up where there was no fever before. The cough that was merely annoying before starts triggering the gag/vomit reflex. The lively little kid becomes a glassy-eyed zombie. Mom gets real worried real quick.

Sometimes it happens on a day when a major winter storm system is making its way across your area. Sometimes your doctor's office is an hour away because you haven't found a new pediatrician since relocating.

I'll spare you the play-by-play, but the highlight was driving home very slowly through the snow when K woke up from her nap (poor kid, she was exhausted!) to throwup three times in a row. In the carseat. In the middle of nowhere. I was like, look, K: I'm really sorry, but there is literally nowhere to stop other than someone's snowy driveway, and there's not much I can do for you now anyway, so -- here's a tissue. (Compassion, thy name is Karinya!) We were going to stop at the pharmacy before actually going home-home to grab the (sort of random) cocktail of drugs her doc prescribed, but I wasn't going to drag the poor girl around Target like that. I tried to call Bob to arrange a plan B.

My phone service had been "temporarily deactivated." You're killing me, Centennial Wireless. You know that, right?

Bitch, moan, whine, repeat.

Tonight it took both of us to hold K down so we could get the medicine into her. (She kicked the doctor earlier!) Even with a fever of 102.5, she will beat you up.

And now Bob doesn't feel good. (I seem to still be enjoying that temporary Mom Immunity. I usually *do* end up getting whatever K gets, to some degree, but it almost always holds off long enough that by the time I'm getting sick myself, she's feeling better and doesn't require as much care. I'd prefer to, you know, skip getting sick completely, but I suppose this way is preferable to playing nurse and patient at the same time.)

Tonight I'm camping out with K in her room. She's bouncing all over the place right now (though I don't know what is fueling this rally since she hasn't held much down today) and seems to be on the upswing, but the way this. . . whatever it is has morphed so quickly has me spooked, and I want to be there in case she spontaneously combusts or (more likely) just needs someone to quickly hand her a bucket. (Plus, you know, she's my baby and I like her and yadda yadda.) This will either prove to be a sweet bonding experience or a horrible, horrible idea ;-)

Good healthy thoughts this way, please, if you've got some to spare?

On Making Adjustments with a New Family

(This post is the latest installment in Bob's "The Geek Speaks" series.)

One of the things that I've had to get used to in sharing my home with a writer and a sometimes crazed toddler is that all of the things I used to do in my bachelorhood are now tossed out the window. I am a creature of habit and ritual; I have a way of doing things that requires time to hone the process and shape it into a lean and efficient system. In the before-time -- before K squared -- I got up at 4:44 am and got to the shower. I was done with the shower and back to my room by 5:05. I was out the door to the car by 5:30. I hit the freeway at 5:37, and knew that I would be at the parking lot at work by 6:15. I had these things down to a science.

Now, I get out of bed at 4:40 and stumble to the shower and try to wash up without falling and breaking my neck. (I have a huge somewhat irrational fear of falling in the shower.) I hopefully get out of the shower and go cuddle with Karinya for a little bit before getting ready for work. Unless toddler K has decided to join us at some point during the night and then she usually takes her half of the bed out of the middle. I'm still working on what time I need to be on the road to hit the freeway at that magical 5:37 point and in the month we've lived here, I think I've managed it twice. Still working on it but I have confidence.

Another of the adjustments that I've had to undergo is eating healthy. Karinya has this habit of wanting to make delicious dinners for me to eat, with foods that aren't filled with chemicals and other additives. I've been used to going to a variety of restaurants and plunking down my money and having someone put food of unknown origin in front of me. She insists on taking care of me!

I've been pretty self-reliant over these last many years. I mean, I know how to do my own laundry and (sort of) clean for myself and pay my own bills mostly on time. But I find myself having someone caring for me in ways that I had forgotten were possible. In that same manner, I find myself wanting to care for someone else -- two someone elses, even -- because it makes me feel good to do so. It takes time to adjust to these things that I'd forgotten existed.

Finally, instead of coming home to a basement apartment and watching TV until it was time to go to bed, I now come home to a family who looks forward to me being there and is happy to see me. When I come in, K rushes to hug daddy with a big smile on her face and Karinya smiles at me and gives me a kiss and a hug. It's like something that comes straight out of Leave it to Beaver, I know.

How will I ever adjust to all of these things happening to me? How will I figure out how many minutes it takes me to go from shower to the car? How will I ever get used to eating all of these healthy foods?

Dear readers, I cannot answer these difficult questions. But I can promise you this: I will, to the best of my ability, enjoy trying to find out the answers to these and a thousand others over the next 40 plus years of being with my family.

Between Noon and Four

Oof, it's been a week since our last blog post. A week! I've barely had time to breathe recently, let alone blog. (I like to have tea at night as my little "mom break" in an effort to restore sanity, right? I had to re-heat my tea THREE TIMES the other night before I actually got to drink it. One of those times I didn't even get to take it out of the microwave before it went cold. Tangent: yeah, I microwave tea.)

But we've made it through a full week of cohabitation, and so far neither of us is having "Oh, God, what have I done?" thoughts. . . or at least none that have been vocalized ;-)

We've survived:
-a night when K woke up four times between 3 and 7am
-six days with no kitchen appliances. (I wanted to kiss the delivery guy when he finally brought our shiny new refrigerator and range on Saturday.)
-so many trips through the McDonalds drive-through that K now, as a regular part of her goofy backseat chattering, spontaneously orders "kids meal, chicken nunnets, fries, choca-milk..."
-More trips back and forth with loads of boxes, furniture, etc. than I can count.
-Lots of cursing about how early it gets dark these days. If there's anything more fun than unloading truckloads of boxes in the freezing cold with a toddler in tow, it's unloading truckloads of boxes in the freezing cold with a toddler in tow in the dark.
-The realization that the electrician I'd just called and given my phone number and address and an invitation to come to my house to shares a name with a high-profile murderer.
-So. Many. Phone calls. (I'm not a phone fan, as anyone who has ever tried to get me to return a call knows ;-)
-The soul-crushing discovery that the new TV we'd ordered for the house would not, in fact, be delivered before Thanksgiving (thanks for nothing, Amazon!) Do you know how much fun it is to live in a house with a little toddler who only wants to watch Dora/Elmo and a big toddler (hi honey!) who only wants to watch football/whatever is on SyFy when there is only one television and a long holiday weekend? *I know it's kind of absurd to complain about this, since it's not like I'm bubbling over with time to watch TV.
-Thanksgiving dinner at Old Country Buffet because, man, I was tired (and applianceless) and they were open. I love to cook, but --

We made it to (some of) K's extracurricular activities, too! She got to go to yoga. She got to play with friends. We visited one grandma, and called another one. I even fit in a (freezing cold) run (where I was rewarded with multiple snakes on the trail. Isn't it about time for you to check out for the winter, snakes?)

I didn't get everything on the list done. I still have two manuscripts I need to read for work (sometimes I almost forget that I have a job-job amidst everything else) in boxes next to my bed. I still have unpacking to do. I would, at some point, like to feed my family a dinner that isn't ordered by number. I --

am as happy as I can remember ever being.

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone.

(Kind of) Wordless Wednesday

(I know the whole point of "Wordless Wednesday" is to post a picture that speaks for itself, but I'm going to riff a bit here anyway. I'm invoking my "I'm the mom/I make the rules" privilege.)

This was our first "official" family photo together. K was -- as she is wont to be -- a bit of a pill that day. There was an early-morning meltdown. There was a tumultuous car ride. There was the realization in the parking lot that I had totally forgotten to bring the shoes that matched her outfit. There was her refusal to be carried, even though she will normally go to great lengths to avoid having to support her own body weight.

So there we are, walking into Sears with a barefoot baby with a snotty nose and tear-streaked face. I'm feeling harried because we're running late (aren't we always?) and, well, I had just let my temper get the better of me and I'd given K a little swat when she tried to scratch my face in the midst of the walking vs. carrying debacle, so I was feeling less than awesome about my parenting skills. I had become that really classy mom who smacks her poor just-being-a-toddler toddler in the Sears parking lot, for God's sake. Bob was -- I don't really remember what Bob was doing. Probably carrying bags and opening doors and clearing innocent bystanders out of the way before we brought the crazy storm through and just generally trying to keep us all together. I suspect at this point he was also wondering just what he had gotten himself into when he decided to become a member of this family. . .

The photo session itself wasn't exactly smooth sailing either -- it took two photographers, lots of pleading, a twenty-minute detox/time-out/play period in the middle of the session, a bribe of gum (. . . she loves gum), and a threat or two, but then we finally got pictures like this one.

Which I love.

I was going to write that I hope in twenty years, when all-grow'd-up K comes across this in a photo album, that she won't remember the backstory -- that she'll just see the happy end product -- but I'm not sure I mean that. What good is a picture without a story to back it up and round it out, anyway?

Green Beans

Lately we’ve been working on the concept of making decisions with our just-turned-two year old, K. She’s not shy about voicing her opinion (hence her billing as the “opinionated toddler” in this blog’s subtitle), but when faced with a choice to make, she’ll often just scrunch her nose and repeat both choices back to you, rapid-fire style.

Me: K, would you like to wear the green shirt or the purple shirt today?

K: PurpleGreen!

Bob: K, would you like to play with your crayons or your cars?

K: CrayonCars!

. . . you get the idea.

Last night when we went out to dinner, K had the choice of two vegetables as her side dish: corn or green beans. After the waitress listed the options and I repeated them back to K, I fully expected – you know what’s coming now, right? – an enthusiastic but entirely unhelpful “CornGreenBeans!” I waited for it, but it didn’t come.

Instead she thought about it for a second, then calmly responded, “green beans.” Just like that. Like she’d been making smart, thoughtful decisions her entire life.

Bob and I shared a cautiously optimistic look – had we finally made a major breakthrough in K’s cognitive development regarding conscious choice? Well, maybe. Or maybe we’ll revert back to “ElmoDora” the next time we ask her what DVD she wants to watch. At any rate, it was one of those special little family moments that made us both beam with pride over our brilliant, perfect daughter.

Then she borrowed my lip gloss and used it to pick her nose.

K’s impressive display of decision making prowess inspired us to make a decision of our own. We’d been kicking around the idea of starting a family blog since. . . well, almost since we began to form a family. We could never settle on a name, though, or an angle, or a hosting platform, or, or, or.

Today we did. Welcome to our blog, Unlikely Origins: How a Computer Geek, a Writer, and an Opinionated Toddler Together Formed a Family. We're not promising that we won't switch things up a little as time goes by (we may someday opt for the corn over the green beans), but for now: we are here. We hope you'll follow along as we document our journey of becoming a family. We can't promise that it will always be pretty (in fact, we can guarantee that it won't -- see lip gloss-in-nose example above) but it'll never be boring.