Walking Backwards

"Hello, Poison Control?"

Yes, I broke my poison control cherry this evening. Nicholas got into my treatment fluoride and decided that it would make a tasty, after-dinner snack. I can't explain it, but my son likes to eat toothpaste (adult, mint toothpaste) and other things that most people would find impalatable even in small quantities (think hand lotion). Most of the stuff I keep locked away, I even started keeping my toothpaste on top of the refrigerator last week, but my fluoride I kept in my toothbrush cup because he never seemed interested in it and it has a very difficult to get off twist cap. Not only that, but I thought that he couldn't reach it. So, it was with horror that I received the news from Joe tonight, while I was on the phone, that Nicholas had gotten into this tube of poison. Joe caught him hiding in our bathroom with a big glob of fluoride in his hand. I called poison control and explained that my baby had ingested an indeterminate amount of fluoride, somewhere between a lot and a little. The extremely nice and understanding poison control lady, Holly, said that 15 grams is toxic and that if he ingested that amount, he would need to be taken immediately to the emergency room. She really downplayed the likelihood that Nicholas would have eaten this amount. First, fluoride burns when you eat it, especially the cinnamon fluoride I have. Second, he wasn't displaying any symptoms of fluoride poisoning. I also told her that out of the 100 gram tube, only 40 grams could possibly be missing and he seemed to have spread a lot of it on the counter. She told me to give him four TUM*S and a glass of milk to counter-act the acidity that the fluoride causes and to watch him for an hour to make sure he isn't complaining of stomach pains or starts throwing up. Let me tell you, he didn't seem too thrilled at us for giving him the TUM*S, but he did eat them. We told him they were candy and I think that he ate them just because he didn't want to be accused of ever turning down candy. So now we wait and see if he grows a third eye. I'll update tomorrow about the results of our studying him and give you a rundown of our weekend.

Well, once again I have been screwed by both RoadRunner cable service and by Blogger itself. I wrote an entry on Tuesday afternoon, forsaking the homework I was supposed to be doing, and when I started to post it, Blogger went down. I thought it was just an admonition for shirking my work. So, on Wednesday I waited until after my philosophy class and the page wouldn't come up because my cable modem was down. It really is making me start to rethink my New Year's resolution to write three entries a week since the powers that be seem against it. I can only hope that this message will reach you (amazing how close losing the internet is to being stranded on a desert island.

Joe just got home from an overnight maintenance about thirty minutes ago and is fast asleep. As soon as he wakes up, we are going to be heading to Houston for a weekend away. My mom got Joe and I tickets to Cirque du Soliel and we are probably going to go to the Houston museum of art. I'm so excited. Nicholas is going to stay with his grandparents and hang out with his cousin. I have loads of homework and a ton of stuff to do around the house, but I just need some time off. I hope we leave early enough to go have kolaches at Hruska's. Last time we drove in to Houston, we got there right as they were closing and they had hardly any thing. Of course they had the kolaches Joe gets, but they didn't have mine and they didn't have the apricot pastries that Nicholas eats.

Well, I am going to leave this entry for now. I'll try to record another entry sometime today so that I can get in my three for the week (hope, hope), but Nicholas almost deleted this one when I got up to take his breakfast out of the oven. I don't think I should push my luck. It hasn't been that great lately.

This year, exercising more and eating better were not on the list of my new year's resolutions. I didn't put them on there because I am lazy and I like cake and with those two hurdles to overcome, I didn't want to set myself up for failure. So you can understand why it was upsetting to me when my doctor told me that I have to start exercising. It is a cruel trick played by doctors on all asthma patients, I think, that by telling them that they need to improve their lung capacity they can't use their asthma as an excuse to sit on the couch and eat potato chips all day. I mean, who would want to exercise when you can't breathe after a few minutes of it? So, following my doctor's advice, I bit the bullet and joined an exercise program. I, of course, chose what I thought was the easiest exercise program of them all, Curves. For those of you who don't know what Curves is, look here. Because most of the women were over fifty and overweight, I thought "hey, this is the way to go". Oh how wrong one person can be. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be out-done by a sixty-five year-old, two-hundred pound grandmother? Well, let's just say that I now do. By the time I was about half-way through the workout I was ready to go back to my couch and accept my early death. AND, I have to do this three times a week now. Dammit. At least I can still have cake.

Nicholas is riding to school with Cathy for the first time today. She has been driving him home and we decided that it was about time for the carpool to go into full swing. I don't know how he did yet, as they haven't returned to tell the tale, but I have to say that it is breaking my heart for him to be so independent all of the sudden. I know that I am going to garner a lot more of my own independence and freedom the more grown up he gets, but its just hard to no longer be the center of his universe. When you spend so long looking after and taking care of someone's every need, it becomes hard when they start trying to do things for themselves. Nicholas no longer feels like just an extension of myself, he feels like his own person.

Just got back from my philosophy class. I am feeling the need to breathe deeply and have my brain light on lesser topics, so tonight's entry is going to be a meme that I got over here. Yay mindless fluff!

Grooming Products:
Shampoo - Matrix Sleek Look
Moisturizer - Cetaphil (yuck, but it is all my sensitive skin can take)
Cologne - none
Razor - Gilette disposable something
Toothpaste - Colgate

Electronics:
Cell phone - Virgin Wireless, Kyocera phone
Computer - A Dell OptiPlex that is over six years old and about to be flung out the window
Television - 27 year old RCA colortrax (I need to include a picture of this monster in my journal one day. The thing is a piece of furniture)
Stereo - My computer right now.

Home
Sheets - Nobility (Dillard's brand that we got for our wedding)
Coffee-maker - Bodum French press
Car - Bottom of the line Saturn sedan
Stationary - Crane

Beverages
Bottled water - no preference
Coffee - Starbucks Cafe Verona
Vodka - Grey Goose
Beer - Spaten Premium

Clothes
Jeans - Levis
T-shirt - Banana Republic (I only own one, but its sooooo soft)
Briefcase or tote - Generic backpack
Sneakers - Converse or Pumas
Watch - Don't own one

Favorite Places
My front room couch with a book when the baby is asleep, South Congress in Austin, Vancouver, Chicago, Port Aransas beach in the fall, hotels with a good complementary breakfast

Necessary Extravagance
occasional moments of silence, Cafe Verona coffee (although I feel so dirty going to Starbucks), comfy (yet stylish) socks, very expensive shampoo because my hair does not like Texas weather and I only get it cut once a year, Writing in this journal

Back to the weekly grind it would seem. I am always so unmotivated on Mondays to do anything, but always have so much to do. My house looks as if a small explosion took place originating in the baby's playroom, my homework is stacked to the rafters, and I have left out several projects from this weekend. I think some time sitting outside with Nico or some sandbox play is going to be a better use of my time. After this entry I am really going to have to get my act together because we are having company for dinner and I don't want people to know how much chaos I have in my life now. I know I shouldn't care what people think of my mess, but sometimes I do. I really don't know how some women do it, but they have my applause. I always seem to have other things I would rather do with my time.

Mentioning how I spend my time, my weekend was pretty uneventful. Friday night Joe and I went out to eat at one of our favorite pre-baby restaurants while the baby stayed with friends. I got a little tipsy on one very small martini and fell asleep at ten. I wrote two papers and read all of my philosophy texts for the week. We did the typical suburbanite family outing of the weekend grocery store trip. Amazing how long that actually takes when the store is packed. Joe and I stayed in bed late on Sunday with Nico watching infomercials. We were quite swayed by a special ladder they were selling, but decided against it when we discovered it was $360. We did have quite a shock on Saturday morning when the event that all parents dread occurred. Nicholas walked in on us in a compromising situation. We hadn't thought to lock the door in our utter stupidity because the boy was asleep (in his own room by himself for a change). He didn't seem at all phased, though, so I can only hope that we have not caused him any lasting damage. That was it. Not very thrilling, I know.

Nicholas has still been having problems sleeping this week and I keep having to either sleep in his room with him or bring him in our room to sleep on a nest of pillows on the floor (he no longer fits in our bed because he insists on sleeping sideways). I had taken him to the doctor last week, but she said she couldn't find anything wrong with him. The only thing she suggested was that he might be having some sort of anxiety problem. This would not surprise me as he is my child (Joe actually told me that I might look into anxiety medication for myself). She said it might have been something he has seen on television and I would agree with her, but (a) we don't have cable, (b) Joe and I don't watch anything at all on tv when the baby is awake, and (c) while Shrek has some scary moments, I don't think it features anything that would give him nightmares. I just hope that he stops this regular nighttime freak-out so that I can get some rest. I do not miss that part of his baby days.

Nicholas is now plugged into his new Baby*Einstein video, so I have a few precious moments to let you in on how my class was last night before I feed him his beloved cream cheese and jam sandwiches. First, I realized quickly that I was going to have to learn how to parallel park or face the prospect of walking ten blocks (downtown on streets with no streetlights) for the rest of the semester. I got there early enough to allow me to circle the area a few times, but the only spot I came to required more parking abilities than I possess. Well, I had to attempt it because I'm very stubborn and secretly think I must have some innate ability in all that I do, how else have I gotten some of things done that I have. I was also running a little late. I pulled into the spot and did the whole back-in-turn-wheel-pull-forward-turn-wheel-back-in thing about five times. Finally satisfied with my success, I got out and checked my margins. I was about three feet from the curb, I was crooked, three inches from the car in front of me and six feet from the car behind me. Yeah, I got skills.

The class itself does not seem like it is going to be fun. The teacher is a rambling talker who kept going off onto unrelated tangents the whole time we were in class. Normally I wouldn't worry too much about it, but the class is almost three hours, leaving lots of room for rambling. The assignments and his descriptions of the tests and daily quizzes also seem like they are going to require him to stay focused on the discussion. He told us that we were going to have to identify direct quotes from the writings we were going to be studying. Blech. Who knows, though, the class might be great and I was reading to much into things at the first meeting. Tonight my philosophy class begins and I am hoping for better. We'll see.

I started work on my spring garden yesterday. I started turning the soil and am about to mix the compost and fertilizers in and cover it until March. Amazingly, this little activity turned out to be the most eventful of the day. I ended up turning over a snake. Who knew snakes could move so fast? Good thing it was going in the other direction or I would have has a fit. I'm not afraid of snakes normally, I can hold them, pet them, and look at them at the zoo, but this was an unexpected and unknown snake. That is an entirely different story. The shock of my backyard visitor just showing up sitting on the end of my pitchfork wasn't good for my heart. I dropped the fork and bounded back several feet. The entire time this was going on, Nico was laughing at me declaring that my actions had garnered me the title "silly mommy". Later on, when I had regained my composure, I went to go see where our little friend had wandered off to, but he was no where to be found. At least I know what I am in for when I go to work to finish this little project.

*yawn* I should be asleep. Yes, that's right, I should be asleep at almost 9 am on a Tuesday. Last night Nicholas decided to torture me by waking me up every twenty minutes from midnight until 4:30 when he decided to get up for good. I did get him to lie down again at about 6:30, but no rest for weary me because Joe then woke up. When he finally left I laid down only to be called twenty minutes later by Joe telling me that he hadn't called the people in our carpool and Nico's preschool. Damn him. So up I am. I had gotten so used to Nicholas sleeping through the night that it is so difficult to go back to no sleep. We have a doctor's appointment a little later today just to make sure the little guy doesn't have an ear infection or some other thing keeping him up, you know, other than spite.

Last night Joe was out until about 11 so I took Nicholas on some night-time errand running before dinner. It was actually pretty neat. We stopped by my school to buy my textbooks for next semester and just check out the campus. The campus is in the middle of downtown, so there were still a lot of people out even though it was dark. Nicholas really enjoyed walking up and down the night-sidewalks and waiting at the crosswalk (something that is really lacking in the suburbs). After picking up my three very heavy textbooks, we played in the school's courtyard for a bit and then went to visit my brother at work. Whole Foods now has its own line of Indian-inspired frozen dinners that rock my world. I am so in love with the mattar paneer. I loaded up our cart with those and some other natural food goodies, too eager to get them home to wait for my brother to use his discount. All in all, Nicholas and I really had a good time even though mister task-master normally doesn't abide by any break in the routine. It just reminded me of how much fun Nicholas and I can have when you throw plans out the window.

More later, I have a doctor's appointment to get ready for.

Let's hope that this entry will actually make its way to being published. I have written two entries since the last one my site was published and both met an untimely end. First, I wrote about my night in San Antonio on New Year's Eve and my resolutions for 2005. I made the mistake of taking a short break in the middle to find myself a snack and beverage and just putter around for a bit. While I was gone, Joe thought it was a good time to run some updates for my *WinAmp* program. He just can't keep his hands on his own machine. Needless to say, my computer decided to have a seizure and I had to pull the plug and start over again. A few days later, after my seething computer hatred had begun to subside, I started another entry only to have the internet go down. That displeasure was compounded by the Time*Warner help desk putting me on hold for 18 minutes only to give the announcement that customers in the South Austin region would be without service for an indeterminate amount of time and that they were working on it. Pfft. Sometimes I want to just give the whole thing up. Which brings me to my to-do list for next year (you'll see):

1. Update my journal at least 3 times a week.

I am not doing a bang up job of this so far, but I do have a good excuse (kind of). Since I start school this week, I am going to have to really make this an issue or the whole thing is just going to fall away. I really like to have a record of my thoughts and all of the interesting stuff that has or has not been going on.

2. Waste less time on other things on the internet.

I did not really need to spend an hour looking up stuff on Jennifer*Aniston and Brad*Pitt and their break-up. I wasn't even interested or enjoying it. I have a bunch of stuff I would like to get done this year and I could use a little less distraction.

3. Read a book a month outside of class work.

I joined a book club that keeps me on this, but there isn't much that we've been reading lately that I've been into. Two books out of the last five have held my attention and not felt like work by the final few chapters. If I am going to give up my diminishing free-time, it better be for something good.

4. Finish my damn home improvement projects.

If one more thing goes wrong in my bathroom remodel, I am going to plaster over the door and pretend it doesn't exist. I am also not starting anything else, as much as I want to, until that cursed light fixture is up.

5. Go outside more.

I am an indoor kid. I do not like being outside because I have really, really bad allergies and horrible asthma and I live in Texas. It looks like Nicholas is not following in my footsteps, though, and he loves being outside. I really want to make the sacrifice of coziness for a happy baby this year.

I know there is more, but I'm drawing a blank. I also have got to get to the school bookstore before they close because school starts tomorrow, yelp! I also have some major housework to do considering I am probably not going to be able to do any of it for four months.