Planned vs. Reality April 22, 2007

Planned weekend:

Friday night: Put C to bed. Clean house for party Sat. Read and/or scrap with leftover time.

Saturday: Run at 6 am. Out to brunch and Little Mermaid play with C and G. Home for lunch, divide and conquer with G: one of us goes to grocery store, the other cleans house. Make guacamole. Have 35 people over for party at 4 pm. Cleanup. Watch movie.

Sunday: Go to gym with C, then Borders (our usual Sunday routine). If weather is nice, drive to Tulip Festival with C in the afternoon, take lots of pictures.

Reality:

Friday night: Home late. Cheese and turkey sandwiches for dinner. C throws it all up at bedtime. Kind of hope it was something in the food, except that I had same food. Clean, hoping that weekend is not falling apart. 10:30, crying alerts me to more throwing up in C’s room. Start first of many loads of laundry. Decide to sleep in C’s room. Get up every 2 hours to hold her while she throws up, start new load of laundry.

Saturday morning: Call friends at 8:30 to see if they can–surprise!–host party for 35 people at their house in 5.5 hours. Start tracking down 35 people to inform them of change. In between, laundry + crying, throwing up kid. When she falls asleep at the table while eating ice chips, wash hands very thoroughly and make guacamole. Send G to grocery store/party at 2. Hold C all afternoon. By 5, has not held down liquids at all, is only awake for 30 minutes at a time, listless, weak. Call 24 hour nurses line. At 5:40, leave for hospital. Wait for one hour for doctor, who prescribes anti-nausea medication + 20 minutes + juice. Wait for one hour. Doctor returns, asks how juice went. Point out that we have yet to get the anti-nausea medicine. Doctor leaves quickly, nurse soon arrives. Anti-nausea medicine goes down fast, stays down for weepy 20 minutes as C begs for juice. Juice stays down! Yippee! Home at 9:30.

Sunday: "Sleep in" (well deserved after previous night!) C in our bed after 7 am. Up for good at 9 am. Grocery store for more juice. Head to work.

Latest Obsession April 12, 2007

G and I don’t watch TV on principle. But we will pick a show and get it from Netflix. There is a distinction here, no time to explain though. The point is, after a lot of resisting (I love the British Office) we are currently working our way through season 2 of the US Office. And to celebrate, with the song everyone loves to hate (hates to love?) I present:

Bonnie Needs….

Saw this as a blogging challenge on the Poppy Ink MB. Type "[your name] + needs" into Google and see what comes out:

1. Bonnie needs something that can show up as an external hard drive so that she can occasionally work at home by dragging and dropping handheld review… [Bonnie says: I just use on of our other five computers as my "external hard drive". The joys of a software industry marriage.]  

2. But the help that Bonnie needs is far from over. Our final bill at Tufts for Bonnie’s care, with our rescue group discount, came to approx. [Bonnie says: Somewhat surprised how many of the results clearly referred to DOGS named Bonnie.]

3. Bonnie needs to do some soul-searching about the sacrifices she’s willing to … The bottom line, however, is that Bonnie needs to talk to both her boss and … [Bonnie says: This one is weirdly resonant as we ponder our childcare options now that C's preschool is closing.]

4. Bonnie needs to back off from Mimi [Bonnie says: Mimi had better watch her back, that's all I'm sayin']

5. Bonnie needs a Photojournalist”. [Bonnie says: That would be one sad, bored photojournalist!]

6. Bonnie needs the following information:. Your name A credit card number and type of card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) [Bonnie says: Yes. Yes I do.]

7. Bonnie needs to be with calm, gentle, non-aggressive people otherwise she may… [Bonnie says: Another dog one. Sheesh. Although I guess this doesn't sound too bad.]

8. Bonnie needs to perform certain tasks while she is working with them that [Bonnie says: This one is boring.]

9. Bonnie needs to have her baby soon [Bonnie says: This is how rumors get started.]

10. Bonnie needs an arthroplasty on her left wrist due to arthritis. [Bonnie says: Lies. All lies.]

A recent favorite April 5, 2007

How great is it to watch G and C together? Very great.

One year

We are coming up on our one year anniversary of moving to the Pacific Northwest. In this year, we had record high heat, record wind, record rain, and record ice. Hmmm. At least we can be pretty sure that our house is solid and we know what we are up against (as opposed to our house in Somerville that lost heat several times or our condo in Boston that lost AC several times–including during the 100+ heat wave of 2002).

I think the biggest change has been living in the suburbs rather than the city. Not having convenient public transportation, not being able to walk to the grocery store, library, restaurants, etc. The first few months, when we would get ready to go somewhere, C would complain about getting into the car and beg to walk. Now, she claims to prefer the car. This is not something that pleases me. I would estimate that there are at least 10 hours a week that we would have spent walking in Boston that we spend in the car now. Ugh.

On the other hand, I was able to run all this year, even in the ice (see this post) and there was only one time that I couldn’t take the jogging stroller with me. Much better than the weeks of snow covered bike path back in Boston.

I have also been pleased with the kid-friendliness of this area. Lots of preschool options, huge gorgeous playgrounds, community center classes for the tot set, great childcare at the gym, kid-oriented plays and concerts, etc. etc. Even Seattle seems to have a lot more kids than I recall in Boston–rarely are we the only ones at a restaurant with a preschooler.

Many more Priuses and even more esoteric eco friendly cars, especially in the Microsoft parking lot!

So do I miss living in Boston? I do miss the walking and the restaurants. Friends that are still there. Living in the same time zone as the rest of my family. Not too bad.