Love for Pixar -- which do you love?

In previous posts and comments on other people's blogs, I proclaimed not only my love for Pixar but my son's love for it as well. I try not expose him too much to it as it IS viewed either on television or via my computer and as I've been told so many times, children his age are not supposed to watch television. Although, I just recently read something on BabyCenter about how 15 minute increments (controlled watching of selected material) for children under 2 shouldn't hurt them (and other mommy guilt laden topics). But that's not what this post is about, so I digress.

Since moving the "office" to our basement, I've found it lonely and boring for some reason. Maybe it's because the window in our previous "office" location overlooked our street and I could watch the comings and goings of the world. Now I just have a sliding glass door that looks onto our fenced in yard. So to give myself some "company" and if I need some background noise to make working easier, I've been putting on movies. This is better than daytime television because A) most daytime television is boring or just plain stupid, B) I've already watched all of the movies we own so I can block it out should I need to put more concentration into something. I know some people find this concept baffling -- when I worked in an ACTUAL office, I listened to my iPod often. That was to BLOCK out certain individuals in the office though. So I suppose I got used to background noise and when there is none, I can't work. (BTW, Monsters, Inc. is on in the background now because DH is gaming and I'm, well, I'm writing this!)

Okay, back on topic!

I've been watching a LOT of Pixar movies lately. I simply LOVE Finding Nemo and could watch it over and over again. It has so much to offer besides a cute story and amazing graphics. Many palatable lessons for young and old alike exist in its storyline. Most of Pixar's movies have this quality. Maybe all? I'll need to rewatch Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2 to verify this as I haven't rewatched them in a while.

For instance, in Finding Nemo, there are two obvious lessons. One, parents should not overprotect their kids because it could just drive them into danger. Two, kids should listen to their parents and not stray to far from them because the world IS a dangerous place. In The Incredibles, there are a few good lessons but the one that always strikes me is the one about the "bad guys" and how they don't show restraint like the cartoon bad guys. In Monsters, Inc. there are some sutble statements about our society (e.g. use of energy, assumed views of those we don't know much about). But there are so many others. I'm not going to state them all here -- today anyway.

I do want to catalogue these lessons somewhere so when Monkey is old enough to comprehend we can talk about them after viewing the movie.

Enough of my extolling the virtues of Pixar movies. Which one is your favorite and why?

P.S. I've had some posts in queue. Sorry for the onslaught.

Certain times of year

There are certain times of year when you think of things. Memories. Fond ones. Sometimes not so fond ones.

Being Memorial Day weekend, I think of DH's father and how he would go the Rolling Thunder ride in D.C. each year. That is until he passed away in 2004. It's hard to believe it's been 4 years now.

While traveling to the National Zoo for the D.C. Mommy blogger meet-up, I saw a group of motorcylists headed to the Rolling Thunder event. I started to feel very sad and forced myself not to become overwhelmed by the feeling. Each year, I know this weekend brings up painful memories for my DH and my in-laws. I try to "check in" on him by asking how he's doing. I "pseudo" check-in on my MIL by asking DH if he's spoken to her and how she is doing. I never know whether I should bring the subject up though. If he doesn't, then I suppose it's not worth mentioning and unnecessarily bring up painful memories.

I guess why I'm writing this is to ask, how do you handle similar situations? Where you have a loved one who has suffered a loss and you want to make sure they're okay without making it worse?

Listening to DH giving Monkey a bath ...

"Ahha! We've found GOLD! You've got a lot of gold in there!"

Monkey's been a little snotty lately. :)

Politics Wed: Campaign Money

Usually, I do not interject opinion with these posts. However, something has been on my mind regarding the presidential race and I wanted to share it with everyone and get your opinions as well.

On the occassions when I get to commute to the office in the morningtime for a meeting, I try to listen to NPR so I can familiarize myself with what is going on in the world. Recently, as I listen to the reports about the campaigns, I find myself astounded at the amount of money collected and spent by the presidential candidates. Especially when the television news stations always show Clinton asking, practically begging, for more money after each primary she wins.

Does anyone else find the amount of money spent just mind-blowing and downright wasteful?

I found a good site which breaks it all down in a nice, concise, easy to read format (crucial for someone like me with a small attention span and little tolerance for long, tediously detailed reports). It details how much money was collected by each candidate (even those not in the race any longer), how much was spent and a general pie graph of how most candidates spend that money.

Another simply baffling aspect of this campaign financing is that they have DEBT as well! Can you believe this?!

Here are some examples for each of the remaining candidates:

TOTAL RAISED
Clinton -- $214,883,437
McCain -- $96,654,783
Obama -- $265,439,277

TOTAL SPENT
Clinton -- $185,216,984
McCain -- $72,666,309
Obama -- $218,884,220

DEBTS
Clinton -- $19,480,893
McCain -- $968,301
Obama -- $2,037,801

After looking at the expenditures, it appears most of the money goes toward employees and their benefits (okay, that's fair I guess unless there's an overly paid CEO scenario happening) and broadcast media. I don't know about you, but I don't really need any candidate spending that much money on those ads. They usually disgust me and I drown them out from my senses when they come on the television.

The one area I think they get their money's worth are those signs outside of the polls, especially the local candidates running for town or county offices -- most people don't know anything about these people so those signs might actually sway someone just because the name would then be familiar.

I really wanted to go into this with more detail and if I have time, I might delve into it more next Wednesday. But I want to know, what are your thoughts on the matter?

Muddled

Did you ever have one of those days where you kept flubbing up little things along the way and each one built up under your skin making you just feel awkward or "off"? And the whole day was just muddled?

Lil' Monkey was a little cranky when he got up. Still half-asleep, I decided to breastfeed him. This wasn't right. I should have taken him downstairs and given him his breakfast (cereal, fruit or something). So that fouled up our morning routine. He didn't want to eat, even after I waited a half-hour to try. After trying in vein to get him to eat some pears and Cheerios, we went upstairs and I put on Baby Einstein (he likes it now) while I took a shower. This wasn't right either. Normally, he plays for a bit in the kitchen while I make his bottles for daycare. Because I was just not in our routine, we ended up running late. I hurried up to make the bottles 5 minutes before we needed to leave. Then I remembered I needed a new backup outfit for his bag. Then Monkey decided that he didn't want his shoes on but wanted to "pet the tree" instead (we have a small evergreen on our dining room buffet that he likes to touch) -- I normally enjoy letting him do this but the pressure of being late and just feeling out of sorts started to make me not such the nice mommy.

Irritable, I rushed to get him into his carseat and as I'm sure any parent knows, when you are in a hurry, they fight you about EVERYTHING. He was grabbing for the car keys, grabbing at the backseat mirror, leaning over the carseat so I couldn't get his arm into the strap.

Exasperated, I said, "UGH! Please just sit still so we can get going!"

Once we were in the car and moving, I realized that my reaction wasn't one I felt comfortable with -- not since I'd be dropping him off within a matter of minutes. I wanted to leave on a good note. Just before I took him out of his carseat to give him over to the sitter, I made sure to give him a couple kisses and tell him that I love him.

And that just was the way the rest of the day went as well. Little things just being slightly off.

I opened the letter from the specialist we're seeing tomorrow only to realize that I was supposed to fill out the forms and send them by mail PRIOR to the appointment. I've had the letter for a week or more. I kept telling myself, "You need to open that." But of course, I waited until the last minute. Hopefully, they'll still take us.

While working, I kept messing up the query I was working on to get data from one database to another. Starting over at least 3 times.

When I went to pick up lil' Monkey, his sitter said that he must be getting a cold. And indeed as I looked down at him, I could see the tell-tale running nose, watery eyes and those red circles under his eyes he's been getting when sick. "I'll have to stop by the store and get some Motrin on the way home," I said to her. Did I? Nooooooo. Went on auto-pilot and drove straight home. Luckily, we still have some Tylenol in the house.

Anyway, it's just been an off day. So I apologize if this post is a little muddled.

P.S. Tonight is the FINAL for DWTS! Be sure to watch!

New Sleeping Quarters

I tried out the new guest room after its move from our basement to the top level of our home. DH actually STOPPED playing WoW at 9:00 (very rare) and went to bed with me. We watched The Office season finale and as he has no issues with falling asleep, he was OUT within 2 minutes of it ending.

So I decided to watch my recording of Lost. He was snoring SO LOUDLY that I couldn't hear the show! I kept nudging him, saying "Be quiet! I can't hear!", but he must have been really tired because he barely even moved each time. I was afraid to turn it up anymore for fear of waking lil' Monkey up in the room down the hall.

Once I struggled through Lost, I laid in bed contemplating whether or not I should move to the next room. Afterall, that's what the whole Big Move was for, right? After struggling to hear both the Daily Show and Colbert Report, I decided it was time to move.

It was a little difficult getting to sleep in the strange "new" room but eventually I did and I'm thankful I made the decision. I ended up having a pretty good night's sleep.

DWTS: Semi-finals!

I know I've been lagging on the posts about this. But given that most of my readers don't watch, I didn't feel it was very pressing. If you HAVE been watching and haven't watched your recording for this week, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

So since I last posted about DWTS, these individuals have been voted off:

Adam Carolla
Priscilla Presley
Marlee Matlin
Shannon Elizabeth
Mario
And last night, Marissa Jaret Winokur (again, apologies to anyone who hasn't watched their recording).

This season I was really hoping a woman would win since it's only been men winning except for the first season. However, as I've stated before, I think Kristi, the only woman left, had an unfair advantage going into this. I mean, if anyone saw her tango last week, I mean ... C'MON! She might as well have been wearing ice skates during that spin! (DH keeps teasing, pretending to be her, saying "Um, could we like put some water on the floor and then like make the room really cold?" I don't think I've ever heard her use "like" in this manner but he puts a lot of "likes" into sentences when trying to imitate a woman. Not sure what that says ... hmmm.)

So my new favorite, since Shannon was voted off, has been Jason. He's fantastic! Very smooth and deliberate with all of the dances. Plus, he's definitely a looker. :)

However, my second choice would definitely be Kristi. The woman does work her butt off and it shows (in her dances and her actual butt). Maybe the producers chose her because they knew people would be rooting for a woman this time (or at least the women probably would be). And they knew, she'd kick everyone's ass. I dunno.

Who is your favorite to win and why?

P.S. I know today is Wednesday and I owe everyone a Politics Wednesday post (for about two months now!). However, I have an idea I'd really like to devote some time to so it might have to wait until next week. Sorry!

BTW, DH doesn't watch regularly. Only when I have it on. I'm sure he'd like me to make that clear. ;)

First Mother's Day

Technically, last year was my first Mother's Day since I was pregnant with Monkey then. But for me, this year was the one that counted. I wondered for most of last week if DH would remember and what Monkey would "get" me.

DH did a fantastic job (as usual with occasions). While I was in the shower Saturday, after huffing furniture quickly from our basement to the middle level, flowers were delivered to the house. I walked downstairs and started talking about the "plan" for the rest of the day when I saw them. I was definitely shocked --flowers and EARLY at that.

They're beautiful and the card was very touching. I was verclemp after reading it.

Thanks babe. And thank you, lil' Monkey, for making my first Mother's Day a very special one.

BIG MOVE: Update

Today we disassembled the guest bed and tore apart the basement in preparation for the carpet cleaners to come. Oddly enough, they showed up EARLY (first for us -- they always seem to show up at the very end of that time slot they give us usually). We still weren't finished taking everything apart and moving furniture out of the way. We rushed as fast as we could and decided that some things would just have to be moved by them to get to the carpet.

It looks pretty good. We'll still need to vacuum ONCE it's dry. And this is where things went a little off track. DH and I thought it would only take 2-3 hours for it to dry with windows open and a fan on in the rooms. Turns out, it takes an entire 24 HOURS to dry. That messed up our original plan majorly. So tomorrow, without anyone to watch lil' Monkey, we'll be doing shifts of putting things back together and watching Monkey. In other words, I watch him, while DH runs the networking stuff for the computers; he watches him, while I put books back on shelves, and so on.

The "girls", our 4 cats, are in their "new home" even though the carpet in that room is still damp (it dried quicker with the fan since it's a smaller area). We've made a nice little nook in there for them, each with their own place to lay and a blanket on the ledge near the window for them to use. It's not ideal but it's all we can do at this point. We need the extra space in our house and we can't have Monkey crawling on carpet that's been peed on or has cat vomit on it. The dilemma for the past year has been either deal with geriatric cats or euthanize them. We just can't bring ourselves to euthanize them at this point because their health isn't that bad yet.

This new arrangement with our computers downstairs and the guest room back upstairs will also make it easier for us to convert from guest room to second child's room should we decide to have another baby prior to being capable of leaving this house. And after checking the flyers for the house down the street and what they're selling their house for ... well, we're going to be here for A LONG TIME.

After this move is done, I'm thinking about some minor improvement for the house to make it just feel more likable at this point. Maybe more storage for our master bath ... hmmmm.

I Will Survive

As this week's earlier post demonstrated, we dealt with yet another round of stomach virus in our household. After my previous post, my own stomach issues increased and only today am I starting to feel a bit better. LUCKILY.

You see, lil' Monkey decided this week that we're actually farmers and has been getting up and hour and a half earlier than usual (5 a.m. instead of 6:30 a.m.). I keep telling him, "We're NOT farmers! You need to sleep in longer!" But apparently he thinks owning two pairs of overalls equates to living on a farm. This morning, he actually awoke at 4:55 a.m. but I laid in bed listening and desperately hoping for him to go back to sleep. I gave up at 5:17.

So as I mustered up the energy to get up and start our day, I thought of Mario's farewell dance song this week from DWTS -- I Will Survive, by Gloria Gaynor. And that was my mantra for the day.

I needed this mantra because I also had a demo for my client today which I only found out about late Wednesday afternoon. Since I was terribly sick Wednesday, I opted for bedrest instead of work that day and that night. Which meant that I was up until 1:30 a.m. this morning working on the demo for this morning's meeting (and of course, couldn't fall asleep right away so I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep).

The meeting, which was supposed to be from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m., lasted until 2:45 p.m. because of attendee who, well, let's just say he feels the need to flush out details which have been decided on ages ago. Not just once or twice, but sometimes up to five times. Gotta love consulting!

Anyway, this left me just enough time to drive from the meeting to go pick lil' Monkey up from daycare at 4:00 and pick up some lunch on the way. I was really hoping to fit even a half hour nap in prior to picking him up but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

P.S. I realize that I haven't posted a DWTS update in about 3 weeks and a Politics Wednesday post since March. I have thoughts and ideas for both and I promise I will be bringing something soon. However, seeing how I survived the day until this point, I will be treating myself to some recorded Lost and an early bedtime. Plus, my parents are coming down tomorrow to help with the BIG MOVE, so I need rest up for that as well.

Also, lil' Monkey's diarrhea issue seems to be fading a bit since going off of the amoxicillin so I guess the sitter was correct about this one. Perhaps the three of us DID truly have different stomach things going on! Who knows at this point!

WANTED: Family-sized disease-free bubble

UPDATED BELOW

Seriously. Could we please have ONE more sickness this year? 5 months of on again, off again, runny noses, coughing, diarrhea, vomiting and general malaise just doesn't seem like enough. DO NOT read on if you are uncomfortable talking about bodily functions!

Monkey has been dealing with diarrhea since Friday evening. I thought it was "drool stool" at first because he's only had a maximum of 3 per day since that evening and has been drooling like a Saint Bernard. He's had one slight fever (again, in line with teething) and has been in pretty good spirits but not eating too well (per his usual).

However, the stools are just aweful and starting to turn colors (brown to orange, now yellow-orange) and DH is now sick (vomiting, diarrhea) as well. I, myself, had a looser bowel movement earlier today. So my hopes of Monkey's issue being drool stool are slowly fading away. I'm just hoping that the antibiotics he and I have been on for the severe sinus infection we shared two weeks ago is keeping the worst of this thing, whatever IT is, at bay. All I pray is that we don't have a repeat of our New Year's hospitalization party.

DH pondered if our HOUSE is making us sick. Not sure I even want to think about that or what that would mean in getting it diagnosed or resolved. I'm positive that if there's a company out there that specializes in this type of thing, they'd probably convince us of SOMETHING being wrong with our house, regardless of the truth. Our sitter says that this is just life with a kid but that they eventually get immune and YOU eventually get immune to most of the stuff floating around out there.

Anyone else feel like they've lived through one sickness after another since having a kid and is our sitter right? Does it slow down or go away eventually?

UPDATE: DH seems to think that lunch at Chicken Out yesterday was the cause of his woes (which is a shame because I really like that place). He actually filed a complain with the county health department! I was surprised it upset him that much. Anyway, Monkey has only had ONE and a half messy diapers today (I say "half" because it happened immediately after the first and I think it was all supposed to be ONE). Fingers crossed this is as far as it will go!

Snoring, lack of sleep and the BIG MOVE

In a previous post, I've mentioned DH's snoring and how it is causing a major lack of sleep for me. One night it got so bad that I decided to sleep in the hallway between our bedroom and our son's bedroom. As I laid on the floor trying to get comfortable, I could STILL hear his snoring even with our door shut. I thought about how to rearrange our furniture in the upper floor of our home so we'd have two completely separate living quarters. That's how angry I was at the time.

The plan was to move his computer into our bedroom and my dresser into the office. Get a daybed or probably one of those bunk beds where you could put my desk underneath since the room we're calling "our office" is small. The next morning, I told DH of my plan. Only then did he realize how serious I was about this snoring thing.

He suggested we try alternative methods first. We tried the Breathe Right strips. Nope. We tried the Snore Relief spray. Lasted about 45 minutes. We're now down to ear plugs for me and the monitor turned up sitting on my night stand so I can hear our lil' Monkey should he cry.

I don't like this solution. I hate wearing ear plugs to bed. It's a strange feeling and I worry that I might not hear lil' Monkey or something else (tornadoes, fire, any catastrophic disaster my paranoid brain can come up with at 3 a.m. in the morning as I lay awake).

So we've decided that the "office" is going BACK to basement where we had it prior to Monkey's birth. Well, not quite. It used to be in the room in our basement we now call the "guest room" but we've decided that room is now going to be the cats new home. PERMANENTLY. Our desks will go in various areas in the rest of the basement and we'll figure out the wiring, networking, ecetera somehow.

The guest bed and associated furniture, however, will be going back to their original spots in the room next to Monkey's which is now our "office". The "cat room" as it will now be called will have miscellaneous furniture in it that we can't fit elsewhere in our house and we're planning on buying one of those really nice cat trees for them.

This is a lot of work. We started this weekend by cleaning up the various Christmas storage boxes and baby items meant for storage since I neglected to put any of this stuff in our crawl space after the holidays. So we're about one-fifth of the way there. But sleep is on the horizon and hopefully, I'll be a less cranky La Folle as a result.

On a side note: Anyone's toddler eaten a bee before? We had a dead one in the track of our sliding glass door and Monkey ate it about an hour ago. We're keeping an eye on him but darn! The kid refused TOAST this morning but will eat BEES?!