Stephieface

For the longest time after TJ was born, we made fun of his little acorn head because….. well….. he has an acorn head…..

And lest you think I’m being exaggerative…. take a serious gander….

See?

Anyway, a long time ago the boys’ doctor was a little fearful about his head shape. Me, I’m not so worried about the shape (provided his brain can still grow in there) and don’t really think the head shaping helmets are really needed (we’ll just have to avoid certain haircuts in the future).

Flash forward a couple of years and boys’ doctor has once again sent me off to the neurosurgeon, this time for Danny. While he looks like a mild mannered baby from the front…. from the top his head is all kinds of odd shaped…. there’s not even a shape I can compare it to (maybe eggy with a side order of lumpy). Again, as long as their brains have room to grow in there I don’t really care what shape their heads conform to…. I’ve never heard of anyone getting dumped because they have an acorn head or are getting divorced because their head is decidedly lump shaped.

So I went into the appointment thinking it would go as before…. we wait in the lobby, then wait in the exam room, then the doctor comes in and pokes and knocks on his head like he was a canteloupe and was being checked for ripeness and then I would be told that all was fine and I could leave. I half expected to be in there for 45 minutes….. tops.

Firstly, I was trapped right outside the hospital in my van due to the new Children’s Hospital Valet parking thing they’ve got going on now. The minute I committed the turn into the drive I was trapped there for the next hour and a half waiting for enough people to leave the hospital so that parking spots would open up (I of course had to wait until all 20 or so people in front of me got their spots first). This made me an hour late for Danny’s appointment…. this also subsequently made me very very mad.

So, now late to the appointment, I rush inside when it becomes my turn to get my car… parked?… valeted?….. stolen?

I then wait in the lobby for about an hour. I talk to all manner of new parents out there… I’m old hat at this now… a pro.

I get called in (finally!) and we are seen by the nurse practioner lady… who, if nothing is all that serious, is the only person you’ll end up seeing. She leaves, then comes back with the surgeon…. I gulp slightly, but this happened before with TJ… so again… old hat. We go through the motions and I make the haircut joke… the doctor chuckles and smiles… I’m thinking we’re good and I’ll soon be out of there…………

Then, talk of an appointment for an MRI begins and I snap out of delusions of coffee and breakfast. They start asking questions about something I had no idea was brain pan related…. his little red nose. From birth, Danny has had these little strawberryish birth marks on his nose (he basically has a Santa nose) between his eyes, and on the nape of his neck. I explain that I thought at first it was heat rash, and when I checked with my doc she thought it was just eczema or whatever… nothing outrageously serious provided you have lotion handy. The neurosurgeon begins to explain that the marks could be a sign of fluid build up and wah wah wah wah wah (he started turning into a Charlie Brown adult right about here… I need things explained to me like on Numb3rs and not in scientific terms).

So, sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll have to go back with Danny so that they can MRI him. This scares me a little (okay …. alot) because they’ll have to sedate him, and well… I’ve watched a little too much House MD for my own good and I’m afraid something bad will happen…….. because, it is inevitable on House that a perfectly fine baby, once under sedation, will have something go horribly wrong usually during the MRI. Rational? Of course not! Can I not think this way? Puhlease…..Of course not!

So I stand in wierd sort of place where I’m not all that worried (because I’m actively telling myself I shouldn’t be)…. and I’m scared as hell (because my self is telling my rational self to f*** off that’s my little baby [nevermind that "little" is a comparitively relative term as Danny is 23lbs heavy and his head is 9cm smaller than mine])…. so because of this, the knitting stuff was freed from the packed boxes of doom and the Tums were fetched and secured away in my hoodie pocket.

On a happier note, here’s some birthday wishes for my Niece Kaya………..

-a pony

-a car

-a pony driving a car

- a car driving a pony

-candy

-balloons

-and Candy ballons driving a car named Pony

Happy Birthday little girl!

There are times when I look at the Mister and I am certain that some sort of bug has crawled up his ass, and hangs out there making him cranky and bitter.

Apparently a new bug has crawled up his ass, and I have to say I like this bug a whole lot more. Aside from all the spoilage I got from Valentines, I received a nice little package this weekend.

The Mister and I have toyed for awhile with the idea of doing something together, whether it was a novel, or a comic. I just waited for the Mister to decide on whatever it was going to be since I was open to anything really. every once in a while I would break out my sketch book (which is about 12 years old now) and draw preliminary sketches of characters if it was a comic he was aiming towards. However, my sketch being as old as it is I had long run out of usable pages, which brings me to the Mister’s spoilage…..

The other night he comes in the door and hands me a bag from Michael’s, inside there is a set of sketching pencils, pencil sharpeners, a kneaded eraser and a brand new hard bound sketchbook. A smile on his face… a comic it is then.

We still have alot of work to do before we get anywhere close to putting it out on the internets or whatever, but at least its something we can do together that’s creative. Something I missed doing with him for awhile now.

So lately I’ve been working on the main female character’s look, and coming up with something I’ll be able to draw and redraw over and over and have it be reasonably the same.

In other news, we still haven’t moved yet…. I’m really starting to miss my packed up stuff.

When we were kids, it wasn’t uncommon for my sister to threaten her neighborhood peers with me since I was a year older than most of the kids we played with … if not more. For the most part these threats went unanswered, only having to be fulfilled once or twice… once with (I know) Troy the Troll, but I can’t recall if the fight started with Marcius was because of my sister or not.  Usually when my sister threatened to sic me on people I didn’t do anything. With Troy the Troll she didn’t have to say anything, that kid had it coming… you know, the old “I can do horrible stuff to my sister, but YOU can’t” sort of thing.

Old habits die hard I guess, since after a phone conversation with my sister yesterday had me chomping at the bit all day. The snotty little brat who did something this time?….

…. her doctor.

My sister had her baby boy a month after I had Danny,  so six months later she’s still working on getting rid of the baby belly (and baby butt, and baby thighs, and oh the baby under arm waddle….. oh how do I know of these things… ahem) because…. well things just don’t fall off of us in our family. There is no “Gee… I wonder where my ass went…. it was here a second ago” kind of things that women we know seem to be afflicted by.

Her doctor said something akin to (as I receive it) “Since you’re lazy and such, I see that you aren’t losing weight” (this isn’t what he said, this is my paraphrase of course). He said this to my sister who has been working out at the gym and watching what she eats and all that happy stuff. I started getting riled the moment the words came out of the receiver.

Maybe its because my Mister doesn’t put up with crap like that and will say something back (like ‘look who’s talking fatty’ or ’so, since my exercise regimen isn’t working… how about you pay for one that does cause I’m not paying for anymore gym memberships’…. or like the other day when he was looking for a particular piece of software and was told that no one had it, when he did find it and buy it he drove back to the first store to specifically whip it out in front of the clerks’s face with a grunty “Ba-dow! No one, huh?”), or maybe its my own insecurity about being overweight after having my kids (3 kids in five years, I’m just happy that I can find pants that don’t require elastic in the waistband)- whatever the cause though I was in an annoyed tizzy for the rest of the day.

So listen up docs, just because you have all that fancy pants learning… it doesn’t mean that you know everything… I watch House, Mister, and I can plainly see that the first diagnosis and theories you come up with are wrong and after a few misses, some jokes at Foreman’s expense, and a close up of Hugh Laurie’s awesomely blue eyes later then you’ll be right. So, keep the insulting assumptions to yourself buddy or so help me… my sister will sic me on you.

I had a dream the other night that on Mother’s Day there was a contest here in Pittsburgh run at a Mall where kids signed their moms up to play Rock Band, the winner of the contest winning awesome cash prizes and the notarity of being a Rockin Mama (tagline of the contest…. “Rock ‘n Roll is a mother……..”).

Of course, in my dream, I was entered in to the contest by the eldest and made it to the final round where you are instructed to play your favorite song…. then you were judged on:

Your score (points wise)

How many stars you earned (1-5)

What difficulty you play the song on (easy, medium, hard, expert)

And the difficulty of the song itself (Rock Band’s difficulties range from tiers 1-9)

Back to the dream, after hearing alot of “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”(the Clash [tier1]) and “Blitzkrieg Bop” (Ramones [tier2]), I decided to go with my favoritest song to play in the game (no lie, it really is)……

“Welcome Home” by Coheed & Cambria (a tier 8 song) on medium… there was a gasp at my choice to play on medium as all the other moms were playing on easy… obviously I meant business (it makes me laugh at myself that in my dreams medium on a video game means business…lol). So I played said choice of song, scoring 5 stars and 98% … which in the end all tallied up meant I won.

Ha…. so there.*

Obviously, my subconcious is trying to tell me to cut back on the Rock Band I think.

Here is the song I’m talking about:

While watching the video, myself, I think that the lead singer looks like a lion man of Ron Perlmanian Beauty and the Beast proportions- mostly because of his hair.

Have you had any recent crazy dreams?

* The score of 98% and 5 stars on medium is not that unbelievable for me… I scored it a couple times on both bass and guitar with the song. Woot! Go me!

In middle school I had a big thing for the Monkees. Like alot of girls my age at the time, we all got to watch the reruns on MTV… in fact, my family taped them- I believe there were 3 or 4 tapes filled with the 24 hour Monkees Marathon alone. When I heard this, it filled me with happiness…………………

I would sit and watch them over and over. My mom and dad tried valiently to collect the Monkees albums for my sister and I, then make copies so we could listen to them on our walkmans (walkmen?).

By the time I was 14 (and entering highschool) I knew the words to every Monkee song, as well I had watched the movie (which was really trippy). Odd fact, my mom would play Beatles movies and Monkees episodes for us before school….. my sister and I just sound like little hellions don’t we?

If you ever wondered what I may look like when playing Rock Band on guitar… I look very much like Mike Nesmith (the guy in the white shirt)…. I take the same stance and everything. Meanwhile Zach looks very much like Davy Jones in the video above (the little guy with the bass).As a youngster I had a crush on both Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones… Mike because he just falls into the archeotype that I often fall for (dark haired, broody) and Davy because he’s English ( I could listen to him read the phonebook, a take out menu, bus ads…).

The lady in the video above is Julie Newmar… otherwise known as Cat Woman from the 60’s Batman show.

Every now and again when I need a pick-me-up, like a very grey grey February for instance, the Monkees playing starts.On another note, I think perhaps it was Mike Nesmith’s wooly cap that made me want to learn to knit.

What’s your grey sky pick-me-up?

Sometimes I wonder what goes on inside the head of the Mister. He’s not really the tell you his feelings sort, and he’s really not the spoiling sort. Its not really a complaint, its just how he is and how he always was.

Then he went and did it.

Yesterday he gave me my Valentines’ day gift………

A brand new camera. A Fuji FinePix Z10fd to be exact. And you know what?…….. It’s green.

I feel like a monster holding it because it’s so wee, my older camera being in the “beefier” department (It still kicked ass, it just makes this camera look like a camera phone). Though now I can take pictures outside, take some during the daytime, and everyone won’t have a weird 60’s red tinge to them…

Stephieface: Awwwwww, thank you!

Mister: See, I listen.

S: Yes, I see.

M: Well it may not seem like I’m listening, and I may in fact be ignoring you, but I do occasioanlly pay attention.

The sweetness is unbearable right?

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We’re in application status with a place right now, and we’re waiting to hear back about it. If they aren’t tired already, keep your fingers crossed!

The Mister works a swing shift, where two weeks he works mad freaking early then two weeks he works very stinking late. This schedule is for the whole family since when he goes to work effects pretty much everything we do. If he works late, then I drive the Flying Diaperini Brothers to school, after school my MIL picks them up and brings them here. If he works early, the entire family wakes up at 5am and gets ready, then he drives the FDs over to the MIL’s who will walk them to school (since the school is about 2 or 3 blocks from her house) and then pick them up afterwards…. to which the FDs will stay at her house until the Mister picks them up and brings them home after work. If ever the FDs have an appointment its always made for a late week, since most things that require an appointment close at 4.

The issue that complicates our scheduled out lives is……….. snow.

Now, generally it’s not the precipitation so much that’s the issue- it’s what happens during it.

Yesterday the FDs had a 2 hour delay, and since this is an early week its not so much my problem as the MIL’s. Though waking up at 5am for a 2 hour delay day is my problem, and by the way… its eeew. Last night there were reports of a projected 4 inches of snow headed my way so I kept that in mind when I woke this morning. I wearily checked the TV to see what their school was doing, and it said 2 hour delay. I looked outside at the fresh untouched 3 inch blanket of snow on my street and I started to get suspicious. I dragged ass getting the kids ready because the more and more I looked outside (where it was still snowing) the more and more uneasy I felt about the FDs going to school. I ultimately decided that although it was a delay day that I would just keep them home, and that would be easiest on everyone. I called and woke the MIL up to tell her she could sleep in… love that, right?

Not two minutes after I called her, it was announced that the Pittsburgh City Schools had opted to just close instead of delay… and then the closing deluge began. It appears that most of the other schools were waiting to see if the city schools were going to fold…. sort of like attendance chicken. As of 9am there were 495 closings, including the FDs non city preschool.

However, the thing about snow days is this… my kids stay home because its too dangerous for them to go to school- but the Mister still has to go to work. The roads weren’t even plowed as the news played non stop live footage of accidents happening left and right on the highway (even at the exit!) that the Mister has to take to work. This is not even accounting for the business park where the Mister works that doesn’t like to plow its roads. I pretty much have spent the whole morning praying that the Mister got to work okay and will get home just as equally okay.

Come on business people, forget the almighty dollar for just one day and give your employees a snow day- you might be out of whatever for today but you’ll still have employees tomorrow… jeez. What especially burns me is that the Bosses That Be will stay home on snow days but punish their workers for doing the same…. shame shame.

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I remember once when I worked at CompUSA (RIP Parkway Center CompUSA) and I lived in Bridgeville (which was about 10 miles away from the store) that it snowed so bad that no plow could get to my little side street. So my crappy car was trapped (I had a K car station wagon… I couldn’t trust that thing on sunny days in 65* weather with no clouds and a favorable wind at my back). I called in to work where I was promptly told that it wasn’t their problem and to get to work.

So I humped it to the main street where a bus should have been able to pick me up, however most of the bus’ route had not been plowed so the bus wasn’t running. Becoming slightly frantic I called my work again, to which the reply was that I had used my 3 sick days already (I had been out for 2 of those with kidney stones and 1 was stomach flu) and that if I missed work I would be seriously out of a job.

Starting to panic, I decide to walk to the shopping plaza that I know the bus to the mall turns around at which was about 3 miles away from my house. The snow by that time is almost to my knees and walking with my short little legs has become a workout of Jane Fondian proportions (I bet my glutes were kickin’ after that hike). 2 hours later I make it to the plaza… my eyes squinted from the snow, my pants soaked and cold, my boots filled with snow and my feet frozen. I see the bus I need to catch and get on. I sit down in the heat and relish the warmth as the only thing I can hear is my heartbeat and my head is beating time to it.

I finally make it work, 3 hours late. My body aches, I’m tired and thirsty, I want to go to sleep, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. My boss says, “Oh I see you finally made it, maybe you do want to keep your job afterall”. In my head I’m hoping there’s suddenly a rain of anvils or maybe one of the lighting fixtures will fall on him. I trudge back to the break room to clock in, removing the extra pants, socks, and shoes from my backpack that I initially thought was stupid of me to bring if nothing else because it added extra weight to my already exhausted back. As I head back to change clothes I run into my boss’s boss. He tells me that I look terrible and asks, what did I do… walk there? I tried to chuckle and reply “pretty much” telling him of what I had to do to get there.

Boss’s Boss: Good Lord! Why didn’t you just stay home and call off?

Me: I tried.

BB: What do you mean you ‘tried’?

M: I called in and told _____ that my car was snowed in and he told me to come in anyway. Then I called him when the first bus wasn’t running and he said if I didn’t come in that I would lose my job. Because I need this job and I need money to pay rent I hoofed it to where the transfer bus could take me and here I am. [it was at this point that I puked on the floor, completely by accident] Oh Jesus…. I’m sorry. [I started to cry right about here, my eyes having finally thawed enough to do so]

BB: Just… just stay right there.

So I stood there feeling like the I was back in Kindergarten and I just puked my cookies and juice on the storytime mat and the teacher had run off to call the custoidian to bring the puke saw dust. I started feeling guilty so I put my stuff down and proceded to clean up the mess. I can hear my Boss calling for me angrily over the PA system, followed by my Boss’s Boss calling for him angrily over the PA system. One of the Head Cashiers comes and tells me to change into my dry stuff, then asks me if I cleaned up the mess (I mumble yes and apologize for not mopping… the mop is locked up [if you haven't figured yet, I'm one of those 'I'm sorry' sickies]) … she then poopoos me into the ladies room where I change into my dry clothes. I feel light as air at that point, my wet clothes feeling as though they weighed 2olbs. I come out, and am told by the Boss’ Boss to go home, that my ride will be by in a second to get me.

I have no idea who drove me home, save that the roads were plowed enough for them to get me close (like at the end of the street right before my own… my own which was like a little driveway street) and I was walked to my door. My ride almost got stuck trying to turn around. I trudged to my bed and sat down… waking up 16 hours later.

That would reason #32 of why I hated that job so much…. no snow days (reason #1 is terrible managers… but that’s for another day).

From the onset of February I’ve been spoiling the Mister in small amounts in celebration of Valentines Day. Its been little things here and there, like a few days ago it was a small bag of pistachio nuts (his favoritest of all times munchable) and on the 1st he got a pint of his now most favorite ice cream… Ben &Jerry’s “Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream”.

Usually I get him stuff he can use, because I really like useful gifts (the kind of gifts that wouldn’t be put up on “the block” at the yard sale were my house ever to appear on ‘Clean Sweep’ [not that it would, but just to give you the idea]). Or, I will do things so he won’t have to- for example, our van just died… well not really “died” it still works provided you can refill the antifreeze everyday after driving it around [we're actually lucky that the antifreeze suddenly just blew and started to leak really bad, when we went to get it fixed it was discovered that there is a ginormous hole in the van's frame that could have broke and crashed us all at any moment... so not driving it because of the leak meant we avoided crashing doom]… back on topic…. dead van… while he was at work I went and found a new van, tried it out, got it looked over, bought it, did all the legal stuff, and got the insurance all hashed out- then went and picked him up in the newer van. Right now I’m deciding if we’re going to donate the old van to Goodwill or sell it to a junk yard to divy out as parts.

Anyway, today’s wee spoilage was not quite as awesome as a new van, but still nice in any case. I made the Mister a patch for his jacket. He has this jacket that he loves to wear (its a navy blue Dickies work jacket) that he got from a job he had a while ago. I removed the logo patch from the old place of employ so that he could wear it at this one. However, where the old patch was is slightly faded from washing so I made a new patch to cover where the old patch went. I embroidered his nickname (which he uses in online games and pretty much everything) ‘McMeanie’ and added a little skull and crossbones….

The A is kinda huge, the N is a little too small- Oh well, its way past do over and its already sewn on his jacket (they all looked to be the same size before I added the black)- in any case he said he loved it.

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So, I was mushing over an idea for something to do after Chez Stephieface actually moves. What are your opinions on a Pixie Along (a PAL)? The doll itself can be made in about a day or less, and the fun would be customizing it and dressing it up… thoughts?

Because of our family budget I have to shop at Walmart alot, even with the fuel perks given by local grocery stores, I still end up saving more money by just shopping at Wally World. A few months ago, Walmart and I broke up before because he decided that Crafters just aren’t the sort of people he wants to cater to anymore… but as long as I visted him in a certain non Super location we could still have our occasional crafty booty call, and eventually we sort of just got back together.

Today, while running errands, I had to pick up some pants for the FDs. Only Heaven knows what the FDs are doing with their pants that I can’t find them, in any case they needed more. So off I went to visit the old boyfriend and see if I could get my hands on some of his pants. While there, I decided to pick up some more embroidery floss because I’ve used up a good many colors that I’d like to use again.

That is when I discovered the badness… Walmart discontinued carrying embroidery floss… and this was at the Walmart that still has a craft section! Its kind of like finding out your highschool boyfriend is flirting with that girl in his math class- by now you’re used to his flirtations, but they still piss you off. (Add to this that you can’t buy “muslin” there either…nothing there is called “muslin”)

So after finishing the Wrangler wrangling, I had to set forth for JoAnn Fabrics- which was the closest craft store to my then current location. They do still have embroidery floss, and they do carry it in a 36 skein variety pack- its a dollar more than what Walmart carried. Well, the Primary colors pack is anyway, at $4.99. I believe the pastel colors are the same price, but other color packs cost more.  You can buy “muslin” from JoAnn, and you have a good bit of selection to choose from… I got 1 and 1/8 yards of unbleached for $1.68. I also picked up some Heat’n'Bond in a special 1 yard package for $1.99. An awesome haul of supplies for a little under $10 that should last me awhile… especially since I need some of it now for part of a Valentines thing for the Mister.

By the by, JoAnn’s is having a Presidents’ Day Sale from the 15-18th. You can get 5 Simplicity Patterns for $5 (I do like that deal) and 5 skeins of DMC embroidery floss for $1 (with a limit of 30 skeins… personally I’d buy the variety pack [36 skeins] and use the deal to get colors I like that aren’t in the package. With the deal 30 skeins is $6). Plus there’s a coupon you can wrangle that gets you 10% off your whole purchase for that time.

I guess I’m going to have to leave my boyfriend and become a crafting lesbian now with JoAnn. JoAnn is much more giving and tries to satisfy my needs… and we talk more too… and she never leaves the toilet seat up.

Danny is now 7 months old. It seriously doesn’t feel like 7 months have passed, but that could just be my brain playing tricks on me. It does that when it wants me to have another baby, it makes me forget tons of stuff… stuff like midnight feedings, midnight cryings, after midnight early morning pooping and crying, how much labor actually hurts, and how much I really hate the last few weeks. It leads me to believe that UPS delivers babies from some beautiful baby making factory far far away.

My brain is, by far, the evilest part of my body.

in any case, when my brain is not hatching diabolical plans to get me knocked up again (apparently my tubes and brain are not on speaking terms), we play with Danny.

He’s very very good at playing peekaboo…..

and he likes to be tickled… where if you really get him going you can see our newest additions….

brand new Danny approved Teefies… ready for biting!

And bite he does!

I have the marks to prove it.