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OCD, Junior
 I'm not going to lie. I have a few little quirks that might be viewed as slightly obsessive-compulsive. The only one that's stuck with me over the years (or the only one I'm aware of, at least) is my compulsion about the microwave.
Here's an example: I drink a cup of chai tea every morning. First, I fill a mug with either water or milk and heat it up in the microwave. Next, I get out a spoon and the tea powder. If I notice that the timer is close to zero, I have to run around like crazy to finish before the timer goes off.
Why, you ask? What will happen if I don't do that, you ask? I shudder to imagine.
I also have a weird thing about using repeating numbers when setting the cooking time. I almost always use 1:11 for my tea water.
Yeah. It's weird. I get it. But it doesn't seem to affect my life much, and it doesn't bother others though I do get a strange look from Frank occasionally (though he has his own rituals).
When I was a kid and noticed something off-kilter or out of place, like if someone accidentally skipped a belt loop or left a long strand out of their ponytail, it would irk me and I could feel my imaginary hands reaching out to fix it. I seem to have gotten over this type of thing (unlike my mom who I can gaslight by walking a few steps ahead of her in a store and surreptitiously arranging display items somewhat off-balance and then laugh as she unconsciously fixes them as she walks by. good times).
All this to say that I hope Christopher outgrows his own tendencies as well. He's had some strange ones:
For a very long time, he was afraid of the credits on tv shoes or movies. He would run to the TV to turn it off. In the movie theatre, once he could tell that the final conflict had been resolved and that things were starting to wrap up, he'd get all twitchy until he couldn't stand it anymore and demanded to be taken out of the theatre.
He also obsesses over whether the power is actually turned off on his portable DVD player before he closes it, lest the DVD player "watch itself."
Sometimes he shakes his hands strangely when he's excited, but thank GOODNESS that one is disappearing.
One of his cutest ones is more of a comfort motion than OCD; he has this puppy (below) that he's worn smooth over the years because he rubs it on his lips when falling asleep. Just the other day he told us that Puppy "doesn't quite feel the same anymore" on his lips now that the fur is pretty much gone. It's very, very sweet.
The most recent OCD behavior happened when I was flossing his teeth. I flossed them all except between his front teeth, which have a slight gap and don't need flossing. When I took the floss out to throw it away, he grabbed my arm and said urgently, "floss the front!" When I told him I didn't need to, he looked a little desperate and said "floss the front!" again. A little light bulb went on in my brain and I asked, "Is it because I started and now I have to finish?" and he sort of frowned and said, "I just need to feel it."
Poor kid. In so many ways, he's so laid back, adaptable and agreeable. I hope he's able to outgrow these little quirks like I (mostly) have.Labels: OCD
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American Airlines, again!
 Frank has to travel a lot for work, mostly to San Jose and mostly on American Airlines. And when I say a lot, I mean that he has almost 900,000 lifetime miles (acquired mostly over the past 4 years) and that in early January, American actually called us to ask if everything was ok with him because he hadn't flown for a few weeks.
He flies American in large part because they offer an early-morning nonstop flight to San Jose (dubbed the Nerd Bird because of all the IT-type people on the flight each day). Leaving at 7am here gets you in at San Jose around 8am, in plenty of time to make the day's meetings. It's a nice way for Frank to minimize his time away from home, when it works right.
Lately, though, American has been pulling some shenanigans with that early morning flight. A couple of weeks ago we got a 3am call from American telling Frank that his 7am flight had been canceled and that he would need to take a later flight. It caused him to be late for some important meetings .
Then this week, we were informed the evening before that his flight would be canceled, and they tried to book him on a much later flight. After a heated discussion, they booked him on another airline so he could make his meetings.
And then the final kick in the teeth: American called yesterday afternoon to tell us that Frank's flight home that night was also canceled. They had to rebook him on an earlier flight which, because it had a stop, got him home later than the original flight would have.
That's right. 2 cancellations in 1 day. When I gave the agent Frank's cell phone number and told her it was the second problem that day and to brace herself for a fun phone call, she sort of sucked in her breath and said, "Oh my. Twice in one day?!"
Yes, lady. Twice in one fricking day (and I can only imagine the colorful phrasing Frank had for you). This, plus the ridiculous inspection-related grounding of their fleet which caused me to reschedule an entire trip to DC, PLUS their ridiculous new luggage policy, means we'll be giving Continental Airlines a nice long look for our next flights.Labels: American Airlines, flight cancellation
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Bring on summer!
 Christopher has 3 days of school left before summer. Beyond trying frantically to get some work done before he's home full-time, I'm really pretty excited about summer.
I'm looking forward to having my little buddy to hang out with. I'm looking forward to having less of a schedule to keep up with. I'm *really* looking forward to a break from hollering "Hurry! Hurry!" every morning. I'm looking forward to us traveling with Frank. And I'm looking forward to lots of lake and pool time.
We'll be going to San Diego, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and Anchorage, Alaska - so far. I'm sure something else will come up along the way. I'm hoping we can also take a weekend trip to San Antonio for a little Sea World/Six Flags action.
What are your summer plans? Anything exciting in the works?Labels: summer plans
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Ok, now I *have* to clean it
If you come over to our house you might think it's neat & tidy. You might also notice that the door to my bedroom is closed. This is why:
Also pictured, in the mirror: a small stack of clean, ironed clothes languishing on the back of a chair, waiting for me to put away.
I'm highly embarrassed of my dresser even if I'm one of only 3 people that sees it. I'm filled with self-loathing when I rush around, throwing crap on the dresser so the common areas will be clutter-free. I always tell myself, well, I'll put everything where it really goes later, when I "have time".
Well, today I'm coming out of the closet (dubious pun alert) and posting my secret shame for the world to see. Why? Well, I was inspired by Bossy, one of my top 3 most visited bloggers, and also I figured that if I showed the dresser to the public, I'd be forced to clean it.
I hope to be posting beautiful AFTER pictures later today. And if not, I'm considering a dresser with a top that's at a 45-degree angle so I won't be able to keep stuff on it. Or spikes. Spikes might work.
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The Beginning of the End
Subtitle: Do I hear any nominations for parenting awards?
 Christopher has had a pretty successful Kindergarten year. He's gotten high marks in reading, reasonably high marks in everything else, and most importantly, he really likes school.
One thing we've been told throughout the year is that he needs some work on his fine motor skills. For a while it was affecting his ability to finish his work on time because he had a little trouble cutting with scissors and doing other small physical manipulations. We joked that we were just paying the price for not introducing him to video games, since almost all of his friends are already playing up a storm.
So, we actually tried to engage him in games like Lego Star Wars and the Wii sports games, but he wasn't too interested. The strangeness of this scenario - that we, the "responsible" parents were pushing video games like his junior high friends will push cigarettes and wine coolers - was not lost on us, but we still tried. It didn't work until Boys' Weekend, when Frank finally got him to play Lego Star Wars with him.
Then, this weekend, I showed him Mario Kart on my Nintendo DS. He was quickly enamored and then asked me all afternoon if I'd let him play it again. When I finally relented, he carefully carried it while sprinting into my room to lay on Jax and play for a good 30 minutes.
When I told him that Mario Kart for the Wii would soon be out, his eyes took on a cult-memberesque shine and he danced for joy. I'm pretty sure I'll soon live to regret this move - especially 3 weeks before summer. Oh well, anything for the boys education, right?Labels: fine motor skills, parenting award, video games
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2-week roundup
Here's the latest with us:
Weekend One
I went to DC to visit Aly during the first weekend in May, and had a lovely time. Aly was a great tour guide and I got to meet some really cool friends of hers. Here we are in front of the FDR Memorial:
The weekend also held foot blisters, arm wrestling, leg wrestling, unsolicited beauty advice from strangers, dancing, shopping and haircuts. It was quite a physically demanding weekend. We muddled through:
But seriously: thank you, Aly, for spending your last weekend in DC with me! I had a great time!
More pictures can be found here, soon.
While I was gone, Christopher and Frank had a Boys' Weekend, which involved video games and football games, and resulted in pictures (and videos!) like this:
I'm sensing a pattern, here.
Weekend Two,
Then, on Mother's Day weekend we flew into Omaha (First Class, baby!), drove to Brookings, South Dakota for a marathon, drove to Ames, Iowa for another marathon, and then drove back to Omaha for the trip home. Frank describes the race portion of the trip on his blog here.
Christopher thought he could pull his usual shenanigans and scare me right before takeoff by showing me all of the possible survivable but harrowing emergencies we might face on the journey:
But I foiled his plans by taking advantage of a well-known perk of First Class: free beverages of all sorts. So I sipped my white wine, smiled, and had some of the most pleasant flights of my adult life.
Despite the constant rain, the threat of snow in South Dakota, and the hours of driving, we had a pretty good time!
Now we're back in town, counting down the "wakeups" until school is out and our reportedly very laid-back swim team season begins. I'm looking forward to the Christopher time and that we'll be able to travel without the pesky constraints of school. Yay!
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